#because shocker - I'm just traumatized. my issues are because of trauma | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

circulars-reasoning · 8 months

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Kindness and Anger

Look.

There is a major issue right now, in syscourse, about being too kind.

It's funny for me to say that -- after all, I'm the "respectability politics" syscourser, am I not? (And no, I have literally never forgotten that label being shoved on me). And the thing is, I really try not to be an asshole in syscourse, or overly pedantic, or just flat out mean -- because I'm a nice person, for fucks sake.

But that still doesn't negate that anger -- and yes, the occasional unkindness -- is needed. This constant shoving down of anger, this constant ridicule of passion and heat, is leading to a lot of incredibly traumatized people being incredibly hurt. Case in point: Me.

What follows is sort of half trauma dump, half vent, and all parts frustration that I'm trying to let out healthily. If you'd like the short version:

TL;DR: While syscourse can be harmful, it can also lead to a lot of joy. It can lead to new understandings. People telling me to back off, to not take it so seriously, are undermining a lot of that and echoing a lot of my past trauma. We should all be more willing to understand the impact these discussions have in real life.

I shoved down a lot of feelings these past few months. Shocker of all shockers, seeing lies being spread about myself and the people I love and the places I've worked to curate sort of pisses me off! But the message from everyone around me was "ignore the trolls, don't pay attention, don't engage--" And it promptly became translated into, "You aren't allowed to openly feel bad, and anyone being upset is a bad thing that needs to be fixed." I don't think this was intentional for many people. They were worried about me hurting.

But the issue was, these people -- traumatized people who have repeatedly been taught that their emotions are harmful -- were telling me that my emotions were harmful. Unsurprisingly, I suddenly was shoved back into this role of looking at and moderating every emotion.

I unmuted every vent room in every server I moderated for (and those I don't). I obsessively stalked many blocks I had blocked, simply to ensure I could brace myself for whatever thing might potentially upset someone else (not even myself -- I didn't care about those emotions). I even forced many of my friends -- the people who were watching me get hit and harassed and battered down every single goddamn day, who were worried about me, who wanted desperately to speak out against the heinous goddamn shit I was experiencing, who they themselves were experiencing -- to stay silent and bottle up their own emotions too.

You know what that all reminds me of?

Being available for those venting reminds me of that time I made sure notifications were on the night a friend sent me a suicide note -- one they later admitted was completely false, that they just were bored and wanted someone to talk to, and that would get me the most engaged. I was stressed by finals but instead of studying or taking care of myself, I stayed on the phone, texting with them for 3 straight hours, bawling my eyes out in fear. I was 18, and I never really grew out of this. I still sacrifice time and energy for people that not only don't deserve it, but who manipulate me into being there for them, no matter what. I don't know if I'll ever heal from that mentality.

Stalking the blogs I had blocked to make sure I knew everything, all of the time, no matter what? What a shocker for someone who memorized the squeaky spots on the floor, made sure to eavesdrop while walking silently through the house, learned to hide in the bathroom where they thought I couldn't hear them, made sure to open the window just a crack so I could hear them outside. To this day, I try to know everything, try to have google on hand, just in case someone asks me for more of my "somehow encyclopedic knowledge" on everything. People rely on me for that. I'm connected to everything, so nobody else has to be.

Making everyone else step back? How inventive, a traumatized person isolating themselves. I forced every single person around me (just like I always do) to pretend it was all fine, because if it wasn't all fine, then things would be bad, and if things were bad, I would melt down, and it would clearly be my fault, because wasn't it always, somehow, in the past?

(I'm still the most sorry about this one. I'm still trying to swallow that guilt and shame I have for letting it get that far, for hurting the people I love so much, just because I convinced myself I was just being stupid for being hurt, like I was always taught in my abuse. I'm so sorry to those of you who I forced to stay silent, just to keep the peace. You deserved so much better.)

Suffice to say -- it took removing myself from a lot of spaces for a cold shock to my system, splitting and not being able to be myself for a straight month, for me to even recognize this is what happened. It was so normalized for me, all my life. I had to emotionally regulate my parents, so it made sense that I had to emotionally regulate everyone else -- particularly when I was one of the people who was hurting.

All because "We can't let ourselves appear too angry -- that's not healthy for us."

As if how I became was healthy. As if the ball of anxiety and health problems I became, as if the nightmares and triggers I was experiencing were healthy. As if losing months at a time was fucking healthy for me. It took me until recently (and until today, writing this post, editing it, and reviewing it while panicking that I'm going to ruin everything if I ever post this) to even realize just how badly this hurt me.

I'm still flinching when I express a negative emotion to my partner. I had gotten over this. I had gotten better. Stabilized. But these past few months, forcing myself to be silent about my pain, forcing myself to not talk about anything negative... I slipped back. I let myself buy into the idea that my anger was ridiculous. That being so passionate was harmful. And look, Lord knows I've been vocal about how syscourse has hurt me. There were so, so many times where my anger took over, where I let myself become a person I look back on and cringe at, because that's just not who I want to be. But there's something called a window of tolerance -- or, as my queer ass therapist calls it, the rainbow of tolerance -- where you find a middle ground. You don't go to either extreme.

And I see a lot of major syscoursers lately (whether they consider themselves major or not) going to one extreme or the other, in their own ways.

In one camp, we have the polite overlords of kindness, hiding every shitty awful thing they say in a veneer of positivity and rainbows. Remarkably, no matter how nice something sounds, or how passionate someone is while being polite, it doesn't make it true, or somehow less harmful.

In another camp, we have the most obsessed goddamn people alive, raging about every little thing and making a post every 5 seconds about every little thing. The rage could be quiet or loud, but it's always just constant stirring of drama. (Looking at you, anti-endos posting incessantly recently about how much they hate endos...)

In yet another camp, and possibly the thing I want to address the most with this post, is those who are brushing syscourse off entirely. It's gaining more and more popularity nowadays. "How are you all caring so much about online discourse" types. "This isn't changing anything" types. The ones who insist that REAL activism happens in real life, and that this is so niche and small that it doesn't have any real impact to "just go and scream on tumblr about your feelings."

This is the one that's hurting me the most, right now, as I look back at a few years of being in syscourse. Because I managed to buy into it wholeheartedly these past few months. I managed to convince myself that this thing -- this place I love, the people I love -- were all wrong, and not only that, but were somehow self harming via this. That I was hurting myself by caring so deeply about misinformation, that I was actively self harming and encouraging others to do so, simply by engaging.

First and foremost: yes. Syscourse can absolutely be harmful. I am not trying to suggest it isn't. I have literally never suggested it isn't, and have vocally said it is harmful, multiple times, across several blogs.

Secondly, and far, far more importantly for this discussion: Syscourse can be beautiful.

I'm reminded of how I met a very, very dear friend -- @justanothersyscourse was the actual blog I'd talked to at the time -- and what I learned in that moment. I was sitting in a Covid testing line, terrified out of my wits, as a part who could barely comprehend anything he was reading online about disorders and dysfunction. He was trying desperately to understand, mostly because he had always been strong before, and now he felt so weak, being the way we were.

And he reached out to this major syscourser -- someone who seemed so angry about "something that's only online," about such a "niche topic that doesn't relate to the real world" -- and asked him, plainly, what was wrong with him. What was making him the way he was? Was everyone right about dysfunction and distress? Did he have to hate who he was just to be real?

And the overwhelming answer was, "No, and you are loved, because you exist, and you deserve it for that reason alone."

SAS didn't say as much in so many words -- actually there were a lot more words and sources thrown about, as well as olive branches all around. It burned me inside to reach out to him (he was anti-endo, after all, and I was not), but he still reached out to me with respect and kindness -- even if he sometimes acts immature, or rudely, or with language that would make a sailor blush.

I came out that day somehow feeling better than I had in years (despite, yes, having Covid). Because finally, a part of me understood... I wasn't broken. I didn't need to hate who I was, this fragmented self I was, because that's not what the criteria meant.

I want to ask each and every person who looks at syscourse with a disdain and dismissal, or who feels the need to post some swarmy holier-than-thou post about how above it they all are, or to remark on how everyone is too passionate and needs to take a step back, regardless of where they're actually at...

How in the 9 hells can I agree with you when I've had these experiences?

Again. I've been hurt by syscourse -- I feel the need to keep mentioning that, just because I know some of you fuckers are going to take this all to mean that I love syscourse too much, and that I'm too supportive of it, or god forbid that I'm fucking self harming by finally opening up about all of this. But the fact is, syscourse has helped me understand so much more about who I am, about the disorder I live with, and has led me to other avenues of research I never would've looked at otherwise. I've started studying Jung -- someone I had ZERO interest in before recently, I had to research far too much about him for my English degree as it is -- all because of the "Studies Proving Endogenic Systems" list I've been working through. I've started buying up self-help textbooks, because syscourse caused me to understand that my experience with therapists was NOT the norm, and most people DO need to work on self-help, and i wanted to understand their perspectives.

How is this not impacting people's lives?!

Of course I'm going to take this seriously. I take it as seriously as I take my teaching. I might not be changing the world, or changing laws. I might be working within a flawed system. But at the very least, if I can make one kid's life better -- give them someone like them to look up to, to relate to, who can give them the ability to make their own choices and learn more while advocating for myself -- then it's worth it.

And that's what I aim for in syscourse. If I can make one person -- singlet, system, plural, collective, whatever have you -- understand themselves or others a little bit better... Is that not, in it's own way, activism? Is that not, in it's own way, changing the world?

And if the answer is "no" then... what the fuck is the point of communication, or socializing, or trying to debate anything, anywhere?

Ugh. Lord, I've rambled so long, I can barely think about everything I've written. Bullet points time.

Syscourse can be harmful, and I won't say it isn't. As someone who has been obsessed with it in the past, who has used it to harm myself, and sometimes still does -- that harm doesn't go away on its own.

Syscourse is also beautiful. We CAN have good conversations, make close friends, and learn more about ourselves through these discussions.

If we don't try to combat that misinformation that's in this space, if we don't try our best to heal this space, then how is it ever going to recover?

I am a person that exists in real life. Syscourse isn't just a chronically online thing -- IT DOES have an impact in the real world! Stop devaluing passion and heat and anger just because you feel like you're so much more above it because you are clearly the person who knows better than everyone else, simply because you "Cracked the code" and somehow figured out how to syscourse unharmfully (newsflash, asshole, so did a lot of people -- it's just not in the way you agree with).

Let yourself be mad. Let yourself be impolite. Don't let it completely overtake every moment of your day, every second of your life, but fucking let yourself be mad. It's okay to be upset!

I don't know how so many of us managed to forget that along the way.

#syscourse #long post #I have a LOT of thoughts on this matter #And a lot that's been bottled up for months #I'm doing my best to not molitov cocktail it at you all #But I'm also trying not to explode myself #I'm so fucking terrified to post this #Because of how far back all of this has set me #But I know ripping off the bandaid might be the best way to start healing #So here we go

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