#and the term high-functioning itself is iNHERENTLY ableist

[jasonsbones]

SOCIOPATHY IS NOT A FUCKING DIAGNOSIS

[actuallyverynormalbtw]

[ID: a screenshot of two tumblr replies. the first, posted by actuallyverynormalbtw, reads "just wanna come out and say im a diagnosed autistic AND i am a Bad Person (i dont believe bad people exist, but i AM the general concept of a "bad person"). i have sadistic/homocidal thoughts. ive cheated on most of my past partners. i have cheated with multiple ex "best friends'" partners. im pedophilic (and ofc yall are gonna assume so i gotta defend that i have never/would never abuse a child). i have a lot of fatphobic biases. ive hurt people on purpose and i dont feel guilty for it!". the second is a reply posted by gothglam which reads "@actuallyverynormalbtw holy shit dude..... die maybe". end ID]

@gothglam

the amount of self awareness you must lack to think that telling somebody to die puts you on a moral high ground is unfathomable. functionally, i was throwing myself under the bus to argue against an ableist princible. i expected judgement, as that was an essential part of the point i was making, but i did not expect the self-proclaimed "good people" to feel SO morally superior that they can feel justified in telling another person they do not deserve to live.

interpreting this situation by your dualist structure of good vs bad: i would think the person willing to both recognize their flaws/biases, and lay them out with the intention of defending a marginalized group's right to fully complex humanity, despite the judgement they know they will recieve, would be the "good person". while the person who believes they hold the moral highground and therefore feels justified in verbally wishing death upon another would be the "bad person".

i am not calling you a bad person. i am trying to demonstrate how ridiculous the concept is. both of us value morality. im sure you care about treating people well just as much as i do. but it seems as if one of us is using this value as a tool to elevate their ethical understandings and change harmful behaviors while the other seems to be using this value to elevate their ego and maintain the status of innocence. i think the latter is a bastardization of morality as a personal value. which is often a problem that solves itself upon awareness, so i encourage you to take a deeper look at the root and function of this value.

i dont care how progressive you think you are. if you can categorize people into either good or bad and use these categories to justify who is deserving of life or any basic rights, you are concerningly susceptible to fascist ideology. this is the same logic used to justify so much oppression and violence. if you allow these simplistic categories to determine how deserving somebody is of basic respect and rights, it will be very easy to convince you to be complacent in genocide. i wish i meant this as some sort of far-off apocolyptic consequence, but believe me, this is a serious issue Right Now (and has been for as long as people have have been oppressed).

i do not identify myself as a bad person because i truly think that i am one. i strongly do not believe that a human person (or any animals or plants for that matter) can be categorized into or described reasonably by the concept of good vs bad in good faith. and quite honestly, it was not until i deconstructed this concept that i was able to genuinely realize, admit to, and reconcile with with my own moral and pathological shortcomings. apparently, when materially doing wrong and/or having stigmatized mental health issues doesnt inherently mean you are irrevocably evil and unworthy of kindness, respect, and basic rights you're much more likely to come to terms with these things in a productive way.

an attempt to add nuance and challenge perceptions under the cut:

i could tell you that i am a leftist, that activism is very important to me, that i am anti-racist and that i love and support other queer people. i could tell you about my various ethical and moral philosophies, often based in causing the least harm and choosing kindness first and foremost if you have the resources. i could tell you that i always ask my friends how i can best accomodate them. i could tell you about how i risked my life to save my step-sister without a second thought. i could tell you i will do whatever i can to spare somebody even momentary or mild distress. i could tell you that my biggest dream since i was ~11 and ultimate life goal is to help rehabilitate the homeless (possibly/hopefully starting a nonprofit). and all of these things would be true.

i could tell you that i dont believe violence solves anything and that i would never act on my sadistic/homicidal thoughts outside of emergency self defense. i could tell you that i cheated on most of my past partners because (pre-diagnosis) a certain subsystem did not feel as if they were ever her relationships at all and our host literally could not remember it, and of course i could also tell you that we as a system/individual still did take full responsibility for the harm done and take steps to ensure it would not happen again. i could tell you that i never initiated it when cheating with my friend's partners and that this subsystem has many alters who fawn when triggered and are literally verbally incapable of saying no to sexual advances, and of course i could remind you that we as a system/individual did take full responsibility for the harm done and take steps to ensure it would not happen again. i could tell you we have had multiple auto-pedophilic subsystems (littles holding sexual trauma) since childhood and split a pedophilic subsystem in direct reaction to the stress of those subsystems existing/paraphilic guilt. and of course i Have To remind you that we have never and know for a fact we would never touch or abuse a child. i could tell you that i grew up fat and am traumatized by fatphobia and pretend that the awareness of my fatphobic biases means that i dont have them. i could tell you i that very consistently check my fatphobia because i dont want these internal biases to hurt anybody the way they hurt me. i could tell you that i have only ever hurt people unintentionally or in retaliation and pretend that decreases any material harm. most* of these things would be true as well.

(*aside from where it says pretend)

i could use these details to frame myself as a "good person" and ignore anyone who tells me otherwise. as a narcissist, im sure this would make my life a lot easier. but, i continue to align myself with "bad people". because i know moral liberation, as opposed to moral superiority, is required on the path to true liberation.

i use these details instead to personally acknowledge that i dont need to feel guilty for responding to my circumstances. i dont need to hate myself for my mental illnesses. i dont deserve to die for harm caused when i was a young teenager under active abuse. i am deeply traumatized and unwell. of course i am responsible for my actions reguardless of how out-of-control they felt, and of course everyone i have hurt has every right to their feeling/perceptions of me no matter how brutal. but i dont need to wallow in guilt and self loathing forever. that isnt sustainable, that isnt how you get better. interestingly enough, this mindset (moral liberation, personal nuance, and whatnot) makes it easier to be genuinely kind and make better choices.

i understand this is a ridiculously long and politicized response to simply being told to die on tumblr dot com, but i stand by my points.

you ever see a take so bad that

[transenbyhollis]

a while back i saw this post that proposed the terms “low/high/medium support person” as an alternative to functioning labels. a lot of people were commenting that these terms could still be used in ableist ways. while thats true, the ableism isnt inherent in the language itself. the terms dont inherently label someones ability to function, have the potential to be used in ways that are fairly accurate, and actually convey useful information.

functioning labels, on the other hand, are not actually about describing things that people really even need to know. a persons ability to “function” honestly isnt really anyone elses business. what kind of support they need is useful information for the people who they regularly interact with. how well they function is information of a more personal nature. the standard for how functioning labels are used arent even about how someone actually functions, they are essentially about what kind of support they need. so replacing them with a term that describes need for support makes perfect sense.

if support level terminology was used to refer to the same stereotypes as functioning labels often refer to, that would be pretty bad. but its hard to work on that issue within the constraints of terminology that inherently misrepresents the information being communicated. once we have language which accurately describes what we are trying to communicate, then we can work on getting people to stop using that terminology in ways that are nearly dehumanizing. its kinda difficult to express “the way you are using this language is damaging” when there isnt a way of using that language that is not, at best deeply inaccurate, or if not inaccurate somewhat weirdly invasive.