#i know i am a horrible diplomat and my behavior reflects i am simply evil and exclusionist

[visible-schizo-spectrum]

i do not think u understand how the medical world views functional and somatic symptoms bcs they r literally not the same thing but i digress.

my point here has never been ab singlets and that’s what makes this argument so frustrating. there r systems, endo or trauma, disordered or not, who r their entire body unable to speak ever.

i don’t think traumagenic DID systems should use the word nonverbal for their parts either. it’s not some radical anti endo exclusion campaign

and don’t fucking use the term wheelchair-bound and think ur some expert on disability advocacy lmfao. wheelchair user is baby’s first stop using ableist language.

the problem here is that a queer framework cannot be used for every single issue. everything in the world is not the same as being queer. maybe it is hard to imagine how not every oppression system works the same as queerness when ur white and abled and ur system is tulpagenic, but i have lived this life. i have lived the difference between queerness and color and when i was crippled at the age of 7 years old. i have been told my whole life that one day i’m going to be “mentally [r word]ed” and that’s just life.

u talk ab personhood quite a bit in these debates. ur upset that ur afforded only one personhood status, but in the life of a b/id and/or lvl 3 autistic person, ur not even afforded one. ur not able to live as much as ur authentic self legally speaking, i can see why this makes u think similarly to a queer framework, but u have rights.

have u ever been told in ur adult life by a doctor that u cannot ever consent to having a relationship? do they say ur comprehension is less than ur age? does ur mother own ur medical care for the rest of ur life? r u allowed to work a job, sophie? r u allowed to drive a car? r u allowed to buy alcohol and cigarettes? does someone monitor ur diet? have u ever been bedbound? have u ever had someone else clean ur genitals? do u cut urself every time u try to shave on ur own? r u even allowed to shave on ur own or has that been locked in a cabinet from u? does someone administer ur meds u have been taking ur whole life to u? did u used to be put on a leash so u wouldn’t run into traffic or get lost? ur an adult but what if u still might wander off so u have an aid or two always looking out for u? do u have a bed time? does ur mom wake u up? when ppl talk to u, do they talk to u, or do they talk to whoever is w u?

truly have u ever thought ab what life is like to lack rights beyond right to a name and gender expression? do u have any fucking idea what it is actually like to not have autonomy? u think someone telling u to use a different name for the experience i am validating u have is oppression? u make me sick. i wish u would live ur life as a nonverbal person and see how much time u spend arguing whether or not u should be allowed to culturally appropriate. i think ur idea of activism would look v different if u knew any axis of oppression to reference other than queerness.

u have a v distinct way of doing things and i am v aware of it so i play by ur methods. i will take this excessively diplomatically so no one can possibly misconstrue my words

i made the original post ab this whole thing. in spite of having been labeled as anti endo (and a singlet for some reason) i’m not rly. i have been involved in the plural community long before my DID dx and my last bf was a veritbonder. i have seen the endo community from the inside and don’t have issues w it.

my problem is the disingenuous nature of many syscoursers, and you are not excluded from this. i could do the same thing as you have done and explain why i think PNES should just be called regular seizures and they’re exactly the same now. there are many sources where they have been called seizures for years and years. but language changes, and i know you know this. it is one of your whole arguments as to why you are for the use of tulpa. to you, that word means something different than its origins.

to me, as a bodily semiverbal person, these terms mean something different. these words have evolved within the community that they were applied to. the system community, both endogenic and traumagenic, is dissociated (ha) from the semi/nonverbal community at large. you don’t know how we use these words because you literally do not participate in our community or culture. just like someone who commented on one of your other posts said, this is exactly like when verbal autistics who lose speech insist that saying “go nonverbal” doesn’t hurt nonverbal people.

as i said in my original post, and yet people somehow become unable to read for one sentence, if one headmate fronts for a significant amount of time that you could be considered semiverbal as one body, then you can do that. you are very disingenuous with your “bodily experiences” post, even though i am very sure you understand what people mean by that. my entire body regardless of any headmate fronting will always be semiverbal or nonverbal as my brain damage progresses. i use these words to tell people that as a body i cannot speak how you speak. if i had some headmates that couldn’t talk i would just say that. those specific ones can’t talk. my body is verbal overall.

if you go into our communities, we will hear you say “i am nonverbal” and will assume that your body does not and cannot speak. we will defer to you and seek to uplift your voice as one of the most disabled members of our society. our community is based around intersectionality and understanding that there are people more disabled than you. it is the job of verbal people to listen to me, and it is my job to listen to nonverbal people.

if you use these terms just for yourself. just between you and your therapist. between you and your friends. then no, it doesn’t matter. it was never about that. it is about the community and community implications of people who are objectively less disabled taking a word for people who are more so.

headmates can be people, they can do that, but a single body exists. you can’t just ignore that. i don’t become white when my white headmate fronts. i don’t gain the ability to walk unaided when abled headmates front. i don’t become less disabled in any way. i don’t become verbal.

and if you want to counter with abled systems can have alters that can’t walk, because i know you just want to, we don’t call it paralysis. we call it functional, somatic, or psychogenic paralysis. it works differently in the body just the same. you can’t insert yourself into semi/nonverbal spaces any more than you can insert yourself into a SCI support group.

i could do the same thing as you have done and explain why i think PNES should just be called regular seizures and they’re exactly the same now. there are many sources where they have been called seizures for years and years. but language changes, and i know you know this.

I'm already lost...

Is there some sort of discourse claiming that you can't call psychogenic non-epileptic seizures... seizures?

and if you want to counter with abled systems can have alters that can’t walk, because i know you just want to, we don’t call it paralysis. we call it functional, somatic, or psychogenic paralysis.

Or that psychogenic paralysis isn't a valid type of paralysis?

The cause may be different, but there are a ton of different causes for various conditions.

Someone blinded by an eye disease is blind. Someone blinded by their eyes being physically damaged is blind. Someone who experiences psychogenic blindness is blind.

Likewise, psychogenic paralysis IS paralysis. And a psychogenic non-epileptic seizure IS a seizure. You can add a qualifier to that... but it's not necessary.

if you go into our communities, we will hear you say “i am nonverbal” and will assume that your body does not and cannot speak.

That could be a fair assumption with no context. Although I... frankly doubt this happens often, or is a mistake that lasts long without being corrected.

If someone hears me say "I'm a cis woman" without context, I'm sure they would wrongfully assume I mean that the body is AFAB.

Obviously, it's important to try to mitigate miscommunications like these. But I assume that if you're dealing with a system with nonverbal headmates, you'll realize shortly the error. Unless that nonverbal headmate is the host or is otherwise fronting all or most of the time, in which case... maybe the miscommunication isn't as important as you think it is. 🤷‍♀️

our community is based around intersectionality and understanding that there are people more disabled than you. it is the job of verbal people to listen to me, and it is my job to listen to nonverbal people.

And this, I think is a mistake. At least when taken to the extremes I see here.

First... I'm really not comfortable with the idea of "more disabled" here. Sure, you can kind of apply this in specific contexts to try to say recurrent symptoms aren't as bad because they don't happen as often... but having your legs randomly give out while crossing the street might be more harmful than being a fulltime wheelchair user who wouldn't have been in that situation.

I'm also not comfortable with this thought in this specific case as it suggests that the nonverbal singlet is "more disabled" than the traumagenic DID system with severe memory loss and c-PTSD who has nonverbal headmates, and therefore gets a right to police their terms.

But let's say for the sake of argument this has merit and DID systems with nonverbal headmates are "less disabled" than nonverbal singlets:

Yes, you should absolutely listen to people with disabilities. Especially severe ones. But...

Dysphoric transgender people are technically more disabled (in that specific context) than non-dysphoric ones.

The same logic you're using could just as easily be used to support transmedicalists over non-dysphoric transgender people. Actually, the same logic HAS been used this way. Repeatedly. It's one of the main talking points employed by transmeds to garner sympathy.

There HAS to be more critical thought put into these issues than just "listen to the most disabled people in the room," which in this context really feels more like "accept what the most vocal members of a group say on a given platform without question."

This is also the logic sysmeds use against endogenic and non-disordered systems.

"We're disabled trauma survivors, so therefore you're supposed to listen to us when we claim this other marginalized group of people aren't real and their experiences aren't valid, and they aren't allowed to use terms we claim are ours regardless of whether those terms originally were or not. If you disagree with us then you're ableist."

We cannot afford to normalize this sort of exclusionism and gatekeeping.