#I haven't spent a ton of time on editing this so it might read weirdly at parts idk

[zyxyz-xyzzy]

You know what really hurts me these days? What really makes this whole SJ thing crush my self-worth and motivation to improve so utterly? The feeling that I’m not valid, that I don’t belong anywhere and never will, that I’m like an outsider to my own identity. I feel like even though I’m technically part of a few Oppressed Groups™, for various reasons they Don’t Count or I’m Just As Bad as the privileged ones—I guess because I’ve internalized so much of the rhetoric about people like me being Wrong and Bad that some part of me sees “evil problematic oppressor” as my identity in and of itself, that it’s more central to my self-image now than my actual identities, so if something could be construed as me being a victim/oppressed person there must be something wrong with it. More specific stuff under the cut, fwiw.

So a large part of what makes me feel that I’m worthless, don’t matter, etc. is that I’m too privileged, but theoretically someone who knows me could try and counter that with “But you’re not male, or straight, or neurotypical! That’s pretty oppressed!” And I wish it could be that simple, really, but I just can’t make myself see it that way. So looking at these one by one:

To start off with an example, seeing all the posts here lately about International Women’s Day just made me feel worse instead of better, because I knew that that day and those sentiments aren’t about me, aren’t for me. As a cis white woman specifically, I feel like I’m not really in a marginalized group at all, that I’m not the one who really matters here, that it’s not my place to speak up or have an opinion that people care about. Even if I did, a lot of the historical issues that are involved in that (reproductive rights, the wage gap, etc.) are things that have never affected me personally because of my other privileges as well as how sheltered and withdrawn from the world I am in general, so I don’t really have the right to complain to begin with. And even though I am Not Straight (I’m shying away from using the l-word here b/c I kind of feel like I haven’t earned the right to call myself that, if that makes any sense), it’s not like it’s actually affected my life any outside of, like, my preferences in fictional ships and meaningless stuff like that. I’ve never been in any sort of relationship, and prob never will b/c I’m just too much of a mental and social trainwreck for it to work out (plus the combination of me being self-centered, bad at dealing with other people, and having Literally Zero experience would prob make me a pretty terrible gf anyway, so anyone worth dating would deserve better than someone like me tbh). The combination of that and not really feeling like part of the ~LGBT community~ has given me zero reason to come out IRL, so I haven’t, even though I feel privileged and selfish for staying in the closet despite it not being a safety requirement for me (I know my parents would be supportive, and since I don’t really have an IRL social life I don’t have any friends there to worry about their reactions). And ofc, while online I don’t deny it I don’t exactly go shouting it from the rooftops either, and I only admit to it in spaces that are reasonably supportive to begin with. So as someone who’s never really experienced misogyny/homophobia personally, do I really have a right to act like I’m part of the group, like I deserve to be heard?

Now, on the mental side of things, I try to avoid admitting this online usually because I know I’ll just be pitied or made fun of (and I can’t really blame them for that, as much as it upsets me), but yeah, I have an actual professional diagnosis (from when I was like... 3, don’t remember the exact timing) of what was known at the time as Asperger’s. (Yes, I know that’s not a real thing anymore, but I’m not really comfortable calling myself autistic/on the autism spectrum for various reasons, so I prefer to keep using that label despite its unofficial nature.) And sure, if you asked me whether that’s affected my life, whether I’ve suffered from the effects of ableism and the like in the past, the honest answer would be yes. But that isn’t enough. For one thing, it’s not really seen as a Big Deal in the way race/gender/sexuality issues are, so I feel like my cis/white privilege outweighs it completely. And it also seems like it can’t really be compared directly to other types of oppression—I wasn’t treated badly just for existing as part of [X group] like in other cases, I was treated badly because I fucked up. Because I couldn’t function normally, because I caused problems for everyone around me. Can I really blame them for that? Can I really act like I was a victim just because of that? I’m not so sure. And to look at things from a more recent angle, getting back to the whole “aspergers vs. autism” thing, I see a good bit of autism-related posts on my dash and tbh they usually aren’t all that relatable? It feels like it’s always focused on the physical side of things, the stimming and sensory issues and whatnot, which just haven’t been as big of a factor for me, especially now that I’m older. In my case the more obvious effects are the mental ones, the special interests, difficulties with social cues, etc., and those aren’t really given much attention (in a positive/supportive light, at least). Sometimes I even wonder if I was never really autistic to begin with, if I’m just some antisocial weirdo who can’t deal with people, and I don’t have any good excuse for it. Ofc, even if that were the case I wouldn’t necessarily be Completely Normal mentally, since there’s still the overwhelming depression and anxiety to deal with (though I know learning disabilities and mental illness aren’t really the same thing, so that’s kind of a bad comparison anyway, but they are something that even I can’t deny I have). And lately I’ve been suspecting I might also have BPD, but I haven’t brought it up with my therapist or anything since I’m afraid I’d look like an ass if I said it and turned out to be wrong, plus with the stereotypes of people with it being “toxic”, “manipulative”, etc. it would really just end up being just one more reason to hate myself and for other people to dislike and distrust me in the end.