My Parents: What Trauma?

I can't believe I'm 31 and still putting pieces together.

Shortly after reporting my stepfather to the police for rape, his father, the man I had called grandpa for a fucking decade, started coming to the burger joint I worked at. I couldn't get a restraining order because he didn't do anything but order a burger and sit at a table directly across from the register and stare at me. He'd leave when he finished his food.

When I told people, their reaction was always "why would he do that? That's so weird." But knowing what I know now, knowing he'd been paying my mother thousands of dollars over the years to keep both of us quiet, knowing he had effectively been paying my mother to let his son use me-

It was just intimidation. Money wasn't keeping me quiet so he wanted to scare me into silence. Wanted me to know he had more power, more resources, more time.

And they did win the court case. And he did scare the shit out of me. So much so that I nearly quit my job.

I was just faulty merchandise to him. God.

I'm very lucky that I am privileged enough to access paratransit where I live but hear me out:

It sucks that this bus is 85°F because another rider (older than me by several decades, maybe more than twice my age) asked for the AC to be turned down, and it's triggering a migraine, but it sucks more that I'm too much of a people pleaser to ask if she could put on her sweater so I don't pass tf out.

After a year of trialing other injectable migraine treatments that barely worked because our insurance company changed the formulary- my appeal was FINALLY approved & I get to go back on the medication that actually helped!!! Never in my life have I been more excited to stab myself in the stomach, lol.

Y'all I went to an Al Anon meeting for the first time tonight, since my therapist has been mentioning it for like 6 months, and it actually wasn't as awful as I expected

i understand that this is the "disabled people know our own limitations" website, but ime, if you are the kind of disabled where everyone around you knows about it and has known you as a weak, incompetent, subhuman creature your entire life: it is important to learn how to make the distinction between "i can't" and "i'm not allowed to."

"i can't hold fragile things without breaking them" vs "my housemates won't let me do dishes anymore."

"i can't manage my own finances" vs "my family won't let me make my own financial decisions"

"i can't ever learn how to drive" vs "the state has decided that people with my disability cannot be allowed to drive."

also "what would need to happen for it to be possible for me to be able to do dishes?" or "what would i need if i were to ever move out?" or "what kinds of supports would i need if i did try volunteering?"

even if the answer to these you come away with is "i actually cannot do the thing, no matter what supports or accommodations i'm given" that's fine! they're still useful questions to ask!

can we like…get rid of the so-called leather and rubber “pride flags” ? it’s honestly ridiculous and offensive to the lgbtq community. those aren’t pride flags. 

The deep ache in my chest when I hear that family members who claim to love me are traveling to visit my trafficker (mom).

The degree to which I wish she would just fucking die already.

This was my 4th Christmas without my mother. Every year, I am struck by how much of a fucking relief it is. I was told by so many people that I would regret my decision, that I would miss her, that "she's your mom and you only get one."

I don't miss her. My life has been objectively better without her.

I miss believing I had a mom who loved me, but that started a long time before I cut her out.

I don't miss the panic I felt seeing her name on my caller id. I don't miss her manipulation. I don't miss her parentifying me. I don't miss the burden of caring for her in her old age looming over my head like a fucking guillotine. I don't miss her guilt or her lies or her abuse.

I don't miss her. I don't miss her. I don't miss her. I feel free.

i can get to my desk IF someone moves a chair out of the way is not accessibility

i can get in the building IF i’m having a really good day and can open the door myself is not accessibility

i can get in the building IF i go through loopholes to be allowed to use the accessible entrance is not accessibility

i can get to one desk BUT i don’t have a choice in where i sit and everyone else does is not accessibility

there is an accessible entrance BUT it is farther away and more inconveniently placed than any inaccessible entrance is not accessibility

accessibility should not have conditions. all of these are still good, compared to absolutely no access. but disabled people should not have to settle for “just barely good enough”

this speaks to me on a molecular level