Yk maybe mentally ill people are tired of seeing people like you look at good, accurate portrayals of mental illness and brand them as abusers. Maybe they’re tired of people like you thinking their symptoms mean they’re abusive. Maybe they’re tired of believing they’re a burden, a “fuckup”, a “douchebag”, a “patient”, and all the other lovely words you’ve used.
Maybe they’re tired of being hidden away in dark corners because people like you think so lowly of mental illness. Maybe they’re tired of being ashamed to talk about how they feel in case someone like you calls them a “fuckup” or an “abuser”.
Maybe the only person here with a problem is you, anon. Maybe the person being abusive here is you, anon. Just a thought.
I’ve said all I need to say on this matter, now. I’ve explained in depth Thorin’s mental state, I’ve explained my take on Bagginshield. I’ve had to defend things I never thought I’ve had to defend, because I assumed most people had basically decency in their hearts
You’ve been exposed, anon, as a disgusting example of ableist nonsense.
You’ve lost. Beyond Thorin, beyond Bagginshield, beyond fandom, you’ve lost. You’ve shown your true, horrible colours. You’ve come across as a monster. You should be ashamed.
Give up. Go away.
I have no time for abusive, ableist creatures like you.
Gamve Over.
You lost.
I am so fucking angry right now. Sophie, you are a stellar human, and have responded to this vile little toad with grace and patience. I have to add my own fucking 2 cents, because this whole steaming mass of bullshit has cut me very close to the bone.
I write Thorin as a person living with mental illness. You know why?
Because I do. Because my father does. My little sister. My best friend. My uncle had schizophrenia, as it was then called. My grandfather had PTSD. There are so many more members of my family, so many more of my friends, who also live with mental illness. We’re fucking everywhere.
Anon, stop talking for people with mental illness. STOP IT. STOP. IT.
You do not speak for me. Or them. We can speak FOR OURSELVES. I don’t remember voting for you as spokesasshole for the mentally ill.
I am a good singer, and a decent dancer, and I bake fabulous cakes and pies, and I am a good mum. I am tidy, I am a great organiser, I am a good teacher. I hate glace cherries, I love liquorice, I make my own pasta and shortcrust pastry. The fact that I cannot always deal with shit – or that I sometimes deal in a way that isn’t ‘nice’ – has never mattered to my husband. He loves me. I love him. We do not need to be the same in every respect in order to love each other. I am perceptive and cautious and loyal and retiring. He is discerning and analytical and confident and funny. I make risotto. He makes sushi. I vacuum. He mows the lawn. I wash the towels and bedsheets. He does the ironing. I empty the kitty litter. He takes out the bins. We have been together for a hell of a long time. Sometimes I carry him. Sometimes he carries me. Sometimes we prop each other up.
WTF, anon – how can you say that illness is the measure of a whole person, let alone of a relationship? Because I have depression and my husband does not, to you we are unequal? That he is my minder? That I am abusing him? You are insulting and infantilising me, you arrogant monster. And fuck you very much, you jerk. I am 33, I have lived a hell of a life already, and I am no infant. My husband is my partner in all things. There is no decision we do not make mutually. And you know something? He has always said that I have sacrificed waaaaay too much of my own life to facilitate his. I support him wholeheartedly, in everything, with everything that I am. And he does the same for me.
Do I not have the right to express my story in a way that I see fit, using characters I love, in a world that has captivated me since I was 8? Or is that only for NT folks, and not for the likes of dirty, ‘broken’ lil me?
Am I not permitted to see similarities between my illness and Thorin’s character – AND Bilbo’s, to be perfectly frank – and to explore that? To say, ‘yes, I am never going to be “ all better, all fixed now!!!” – and that’s okay, I am loved and I am enough.’ That when I withdraw or can’t cope or hide (or worse), it doesn’t mean that the good things that I am, the good things that I have done and still do and still may achieve, are suddenly wiped away?
Fuck you, anon.
My own little sister is one of the most compassionate and gentle and wise and good people in this whole entire world. In the past she has mutilated her face and has tried to throw herself out of the window. She travelled India and Nepal by herself, volunteering in orphanages as a childminder, despite her chronic pain. My dad is ridiculously creative and passionate and clever and full of life and ridiculous snort-worthy jokes, and he is also generous. beyond. belief. Not kidding. I mean it: my Dad will give you the shirt off his back. He would shower you in tiny puppies if he thought it would make you happy. I have lost count of the times he has said, ‘so what can I do to help?’
He also has angry rants in which he verbally attacks the people he loves, and is too ashamed to even speak afterwards. But he always ALWAYS takes responsibility for them, and for the damage his words can do.
I love my dad. Love my dad. My dad is a wonderful, amazing, incredible dad. I would never, EVER wish for another. He is not. Fucking. Abusive. He is my darlin’ ole dad, and he is doing the very best he can. On all days; on every day. He is a flawed and perfect and wonderful human. Sound in any way familiar?
Do these very real flesh-and-blood-and-bone people not deserve love? Are they nothing but ‘patients’?
My uncle introduced me to Lord of the Rings. I was 8. I called him ‘Uncle Puss’ and he used to read it to me and tell me what the long words meant, and encouraged me when I expressed a thought aloud. He was kind, and quiet, and shy, and sweet. His intelligence was literally OFF THE FUCKING CHARTS. He encouraged me in everything, he supported me when I had no sense of self-worth and would literally let myself be walked all over if it made things ‘easier’. He recognised when I was being bullied before anybody else did. He comforted and bolstered me when I thought that I wasn’t allowed to be smart, because I thought it made me a bigger target. His illness made him lethargic and withdrawn, and his medications for a time made him physically violent. Did that make him a terrible person? Did it make this tall, awkward, skinny, sweet, shy, brilliant man a leech? An ABUSER?
Fuck you, anon.
Many people thought the same way as this asshole anon. Thanks in part to their influence, my brilliant, gentle Uncle Puss has been missing for 15 years. He was legally presumed dead two years ago.
My grandfather fought in Papua New Guinea in WWII. He came home. He raised three children – it would have been four, but my youngest uncle died when he was only 9. My grandfather never spoke about what he’d seen, or done. The medals went into the cupboard, and my grandfather made things grow. He planted trees all over Australia: taught people to care for them. Whole magnificent avenues of trees still stand, taller than buildings, and I can point to them and say ‘my Poppy did that.’ He called me silly pet names, he would dismantle the whole sun-room to build blanket forts for us that never collapsed, and taught me how to garden. He fed the whole street with the vegetables from his garden. He would distance himself, he would hide, and he would snap and snarl: he would accuse us of snooping when we went climbing and playing in the shed. He was a WIZARD at Uno. He was so strong. He was so amazing. He developed bowel cancer and took his own life on the 29th of February, so that we could only mark that one day every four years. I miss him so much.
I loved them. They deserved love. I deserve love.
Anon, your goddamned awful views hurt real living people like these. You simplify them. You reduce them – and me – to a couple of hurtful, spiteful, vicious words.
This anon seems to think that we ‘fuckups’ are rare. That we are somehow aberrant. That the love we have to give, the people we are, are not worth the time and affection of any neurotypical person. That we bring nothing good to a relationship.
That we do not deserve to see ourselves in the fan-media that
we
ourselves
create.
That we are nothing but ‘draining leeches’. Nothing but ‘fuckups’. Unworthy.
This anon acts as though we can’t speak for ourselves, and then tells us that we are ‘fetishising’ our illness when we do.
God, I haven’t even touched on the matter of being instructed as to which characters are ‘acceptable’ for me, as a person with MI, to identify with. The absolutely breath-taking arrogance of that. The sheer level of autocratic, imperious obliviousness.
Despite all this rantage and evidence and soul-baring, I don’t think I have articulated the ways in which I am angry about this poisonous and STUPID viewpoint, and the fact that this jerk anon is using me and people like me as mouthless and voiceless ‘validation’ to bolster their very obvious bigotry.
But I think it can be concluded in three short words: Fuck. You. Anon.
Red flag: “No one but me is allowed to touch you.”
Totally cool: “It makes me feel weird when you flirt with other people, can we talk about that?”
Red flag: “If you loved me, you would stop being friends with them. You KNOW it makes me jealous.”
Totally cool: “I hope we’re together forever. I’m so in this for the long haul.”
Red flag: “If you ever left me, I would kill myself.”
Totally cool: “Your mom is really unkind to me, can we try to minimize how often you bring me when you visit her?”
Red flag: “Your mom hates me, you need to stop talking to her. She’s trying to ruin our relationship.”
Totally cool: “I love you so much, oh my god.”
Red flag: “It’s a good thing I love you so much, because no one else would. You’d be alone forever without me.”
Other important red flags to keep in mind: someone who wants to jump into emotional/financial co-dependence very fast (like moving in together right away, or becoming each other’s only confidantes right away) and won’t take no for an answer; someone who tries to minimize how often you leave the house or interact with other people; someone who threatens you or themselves or your family or pets or possessions or financial future; someone who uses guilt to keep you from leaving a relationship.
Very important reminder: You do not need a reason to leave a relationship. Neither does the other person (or people). A relationship is over when one of the people in it says it’s over, period. Obviously it’s kind to take the end of a long relationship seriously, but abusers and manipulators have lost the right to that conversation. Lie if you need to–your safety is much more important than their feelings.
i have not seen anything at all about what’s actually happening down here in australia at the moment despite general sly digs at our government (n while thats all cool n appreciated) im gonna take 5 min of yr time to tell yu about whats really happening right now in 2015 in australia
the UN just released a report saying that the Australian Government has actually breached an international anti-torture convention through the way they are treating australia’s asylum seekers (source),
– tony abbott responded to this by belittling the credibility of the UN
and glorifying the government that is responsible for subjecting up to 800 children to sexual abuse (source)
asylum seekers are now being kept in detention with VIOLENT CRIMINALS (rapists, killers, etc) – this INCLUDES children (source)
the department of immigration has been aware of sexual abuse of children in detention centers for 17 months and have not done a thing – reports show that children as young as 2 have been exposed to this (source, source)
TO THESE EVENTS, TONY ABBOTT HAS RESPONDED WITH THE STATEMENT OF ‘THINGS HAPPEN’ (source)
families that have been granted asylum have been prevented from leaving detention centers (source)
TONY ABBOTT HAS MADE IT ILLEGAL FOR HEALTH WORKERS TO REPORT CASES OF SEXUAL ABUSE, ETC THAT OCCUR INSIDE DETENTION CENTERS – PUNISHABLE BY SENTENCING (SOURCE)
tony abbott claims to feel ‘no guilt’ about what is happening (source)
get angry. share this with everyone you know. just bc its happening in that land that is so comically far away with weird animals doesnt make it any less real. this is happening, these are people we are talking about. speak up, this is not okay.
In my little headspace, it would be the grossest abuse to force a child to give you their dark-name. The most appalling, the most horrible abuse of trust. To do so makes you everything a Dwarf should not be. An un-Dwarf, basically. Exile would be the kindest thing to happen to you.
(sorta-kinda-maybe related: the Petty-Dwarves, a smaller variant of Dwarven people, were said to use their secret names openly (Silmarillion). The Petty-Dwarves were suggested to be normal Dwarves who were exiled from Dwarf society, possibly for some nameless crime. We don’t know. They all died out in the First Age. We do know that the Elves hunted the Petty-Dwarves for sport until they finally realised that they were sentient, though jeez seriously Elves ‘wisest beings’ yeah right wtf)
In Sansukh’s universe, it’s very common for a parent or parents to be the first one/s to hear their child’s Dark-Name. It’s about trust and openness and vulnerability. Their child feels safe and loved. And so, in a moment of sheer tender magic, the child tells their parents what is written into their bones, what words surge in their blood. It’s a moment that new parents long for and dream about: the highest and most sacred loving honour they can receive.
However, that’s not true of all Dwarves. There are (thankfully very rare) crappy Dwarven parents whose children cannot ever feel that perfect safety and trust needed. They would never want to give their parent such a huge part of them. These Dwarves would keep their Kherumel to themselves.
I also think that some of the higher beings can see what is written into each Dwarf with such love in Mahal’s handwriting. So: Gandalf, Sauron, Saruman. Gandalf has better manners than to blurt it out, though. Saruman would probably use it to manipulate.
Sauron uses it to attack. It is obscene that he attacks each Dwarf (through the Ring) using that special, sacred name, the very heart of them. That is the most disgusting and profane and horrible thing he could possibly do.
Oh sorry. I made another, more accurate graphic. In case anyone was still confused.
Are you gonna draw another Venn diagram showing the overlap of abusers in BDSM?
made a better one
But abusive BDSM isn’t legit BDSM…?
yall gotta understand that abuse is a huge problem in the bdsm community it happens, and the abusers use the defense of ‘it was bdsm’ and it’s unacceptable theres an overlap there that needs to be acknowledged within the community before we can move on and work on helping victims
Arguments like the one above are examples of the No True Scotsman fallacy—the idea that a member of a certain group or movement who does something reprehensible obviously wasn’t a real member of that group or movement.
It’s a common argument on tumblr—“racist/transphobic/ableist/etc feminists aren’t real feminists,” “Bigoted Christians aren’t real Christians,” etc, as well as in this context.
It’s an understandable move to want to dissociate the ideals of a group from those who do the opposite of what the group is supposed to stand for, but in the end, this argument deflects the responsibility of acknowledging and dealing with this kind of problem.
Recognizing that there can be bigoted, judgmental Christians, narrow-minded exclusionary feminists, abusive practitioners of BDSM—even if these people don’t live up to what those groups are supposed to represent—is pretty crucial in dealing with these kinds of situations.
Aw Yiss 