4:37pm October 19, 2013

Okay the other reason that comment bothered me was just because I was sleep-deprived and therefore emotionally vulnerable.

I recognized the guy’s name finally. He’s, among other things, called an teenage autistic trans girl horrible transphobic names for no apparent reason, and he’s harassed, berated, and belittled another autistic woman for not allowing him to get away with that behavior. He’s been cyberbullying me for years, although he claimed he would stop once he learned that I don’t, actually, call myself low functioning. But even a cursory look at my writing could’ve told anyone interested that I don’t believe in functioning levels and therefore don’t believe I’m low functioning (or high functioning, or any functioning). So I don’t have any reason to believe that his promise was genuine. And given the awful things he’s done to people I care about, I have no real wish to stick around and find out.

So his comment is deleted from my blog.

I was so ready to give him the benefit of the doubt, to assume maybe he, like me actually, had once been burned badly by someone who wasn’t what they claim to be. Some people who’ve been burned become hyper-critical of any deviance from rigid disability stereotypes, and unfortunately in their desire to not be burned again they sometimes hurt people. But he’s not a victim of anyone, he’s a pretty despicable repeat cyberbully and I don’t have to give him the time of day much less try to understand what makes him tick. I should have known the moment I saw the comment about my “considerable weight” that the whole point of his comment was to make little cruel digs at me, not to convey information or enlighten anyone on any topic at all.

What I’d really want to say to people like him is the following:

I’ve been through hell in the past year or so. I’ve gone without food for extended periods until I dropped large amounts of weight fast enough to be dangerous, despite a metabolism determined to hang onto every pound. I’ve gotten aspiration pneumonia roughly six times. I’ve had to go on home oxygen. I’ve tried to come up with the number of days I’ve experienced some degree of delirium and come up with somewhere above 100. I’ve been in really severe delirium and wondered, in brief moments of lucidity, if I was going to die in one of my less lucid periods and never have another memory of anything ever again. I’ve fought off doctors who wanted me to die rather than get a feeding tube. I’ve gone through a period of grief as I totally lost the ability to eat solids, and again with the ability to eat at all. I’ve gotten onto a feeding tube, which although I welcomed it, was not an easy thing to learn how to take care of, and I secretly wondered if I’d screw it up just by rolling over on it. I’ve gotten treated by others as if I’m incompetent to take care of the tube just because I have a developmental disability.

But I did get through it all and I’m still here and I’m stronger than ever in the ways that count.

And I didn’t go through all that to waste my time on petty cyberbullies. I honestly barely give a shit what you believe about me, but don’t hijack important posts about what I’ve been through to further an agenda of bullying and silencing me. I won’t be silenced and I don’t have time for your games. Life’s too short. So leave me alone.

I’d say go pick on someone else, but really that’s the problem. You pick on people. You’ve picked on me. You’ve picked on my friends, acquaintances, and for lack of a better term colleagues. You’ve done and said horrible things – truly horrible things, including offline harassment and threats – to a lot of people, and you’ve made it your job to be cruel and nasty to people. Why don’t you grow up and stop picking on people at all? You would probably be a lot happier.