The Internet Is Feeling Schizophrenic Right Now

CONTENT WARNING: discussing ableism and stigma.

I wrote this after being condescended to by multiple people, including the mod, at imood for simply wondering why they removed ‘suicidal’ as a mood, and then the next day having THIS greet me when I went to update my mood (what are the chances…I almost want to believe it was done on purpose). At which point I said fuck it, changed my mood to “done“, and am never using the site again.

I’m very emotional here, because…obviously. But I do not apologise for that. This is what staring ableism in the face does to people.

I’m getting tired of trying to convince people I’m not a monster. I am fucking tired.

I’m not scared of the word. I’m scared of how other people use it, and continue to use it. How their eyes still shutter and they look away skittishly when I admit to it, like they’re going to catch it or something by being in my presence. How I drown in an ocean of shame when someone refers to “…you know…”, like it’s something that can’t be said on television before the watershed. They don’t know the first thing about it, about how it works, what it does, what it makes someone think and feel, and how it hurts…but they’re judging. Immediately.

They saw a CSI episode once!

Those who haven’t known the word as intimately as I have insist: it’s just a word. You can’t own words. You can’t tell people not to say words…you schizo bitch.

To you, it’s just a word.
But before you open your mouth and tell me I’m overreacting, here’s what it is to me:

Firstly, it was a diagnosis that I hid for literal decades because of the stigma attached to it. Trust me: when you’re high-functioning schizophrenic, you know exactly what’s happening, and you can keep things dead secret. I would go ice-cold whenever anyone mentioned the ‘s’ word and would do everything within my power — to the point of absolutely destroying myself — to make sure nobody thought for one instant that I had it. I didn’t want to admit it.

Then it was used. There were people in the distant and not so distant past with toxic and ridiculous beliefs. The ‘s’ word is insidious; it takes rubbish like that and just runs with it. It makes you a perfect target for Snapewives and Jenovas, because just the slightest push, and suddenly, you’re believing wholeheartedly that this is real. You’re the human incarnation of Archangel Raphael, the Goddess of the element Earth (despite never being overly drawn to earth), or a secret magical girl, or an evil witch that betrayed a kingdom. And when it all crumbles, and sanity creeps back in? There is a definite mourning period for something that never was. That you never were. But the Snapewives of the world go on blithely to find another weakling to chew on, like you.

Then it became a forced admission of fault that could be moulded into what anyone wanted it to be, a universal blemish. I must have done something to cause it. There’s no possible way I was born with it, it doesn’t work that way. What did I smoke? Eat? Drink? Who did I hang out with? What did I believe in, spiritually speaking? Don’t I know how to cope with adulthood? Laughable child. Stuck in her coffin.

Then it was a judgement. Oh, she’s…you know. Medicated. Compromised. Irrational. Unbelievable. Mendacious. Insensible. Unrealistic. Hysterical. Stupid. Unwilling. Uncooperative. Oversensitive. Intense. Careless. Flaky. Precious. Broken. Foolish. Naïve. Pathetic. Wilful. Disobedient. Obnoxious. A monster. Pick one, I’ve heard them all, over and over.

Then it was denied outright. I can’t be. I’m so normal! I don’t seem “…you know…” at all!

You have no idea how fucking exhausting it is to pull off looking this normal, just so ignorant tremblers don’t get frightened when I say the dread word. The truth of the matter is this: I am in far, far more danger from you than you will ever be in from me.

Imagine having to live with that fact.
Is the next person I meet going to inflict damage on me?
Will I be able to know they’re doing it?

It’s exhausting. It’s so, so exhausting.

And then the blustering arseholes both on and off the Wired have the temerity to tell me I’m overreacting when I’m begging them on my knees with tears in my eyes, feeling like something they wouldn’t spit on if I was on fire, feeling like my brain is physically caving in and my very soul is rotting as I grasp desperately to something that can pass as normal, fine, good, to please. please. stop using my horrendous life-ruining soul-destroying happiness-burning relationship-hurting motherfucking mental illness as a mood descriptor—

I need to get over myself. It’s no big deal. The internet is feeling terribly schizophrenic today.

Is it now.

In which case, I hope the internet enjoys it the way I do.