some examples and general sharings from personal experiences of people who chose to come here and share. you're welcome to use these for additional inspiration or clarifying examples or anything else that might come in handy, or to ignore them completely, or whatever works for you.
caution, these include:
uncensored use of ableist slurs in a reclaimed fashion by individuals the slurs target; frank and sometimes slightly detailed discussions of mental and emotional variances including OCD, psychosis, sociopathy and hallucinations; fairly vague talk of experiences of abuse and ableism; some internalised ableism brainweasels; someone talking in another english vernacular from their own universe that may be difficult for some to understand (translation available on request).
please feel free to skip this whole comment if you can and would rather avoid any of those things.
~~~
Ray says:
As a person with severe OCD, i find i no longer feel any need to snap at anyone if people take my OCD-related boundaries seriously and respect them just like any other boundaries. I don't need to panic and scramble to defend myself if people are willing to listen. I can just say "would you mind doing one of these three options just now?" and "please don't put my X anywhere that's Y."
If the people around me treat me decently and respect all my boundaries regardless of why i have them, i find my OCD-related boundaries softening and receding dramatically over time due to lowered stress and being able to tackle them on my own terms and in my own time. The results of having others respect my OCD and honour my boundaries include things like no longer needing things a certain way when out in public, or the ability for me to choose to have a visitor be exempt from OCD 'rules' without me having any problems.
I find that my compulsions are also much easier to handle and they reduce dramatically too when i have space to perform them in a respectful, supportive and welcoming atmosphere when i need to (so long as they're not harming anyone). Like if instead of getting mad at me for counting or repeating a rhyme to myself, my friends join in with me or just leave me to it in an easygoing manner - that makes it SO much easier to stop sooner. Or if it's upsetting or frustrating someone, then one of us can leave the room instead of anyone getting angry or me being expected to deal with the awful emotional and psychological fallout of forcing myself to stop just so they can be comfortable.
And if there's a case where my compulsive action is harmful, i've found that i'm much more capable of recognising this myself and of redirecting or otherwise fixing what i'm doing so that it's safe, healthy and consensual. Purely because i'm not devoting huge chunks of brainpower and energy to surviving in a hostile environment and coping with people's abuse, or trying to act 'sane'. I'm better able to be self-aware and aware of others and the effects of my actions when i can have brain-juice to spare for it, and i have SO much more self control available and room to manoeuvre within my OCD when it's relaxed and i've been feeling safe and not having to deal with OCD-horrifying things unnecessarily.
~~~
an anonymous beastie says:
as a person who experiences psychosis with megalomania and paranoia, i am still perfectly capable of respecting other people's boundaries regardless of what my version of reality looks like or how big and/or paranoid i'm feeling at the time. all i needed was to be around people who also respected my boundaries and who didn't treat me like my psychosis was some shameful or horrifying or disgusting thing, but instead met me where i was and actually welcomed me no matter what version of me they were getting at the time.
it helps me hugely that i have a sociopath friend who i can trust, who is able to see through all the weirdness and nonsense and confusing social interactions, and tell me how to respect others' boundaries within the reality i'm inhabiting at the time. and remind me i should when i get too large or everything gets too confusing or distressing or overwhelming.
personally, computer games with supportive friends are a great outlet for me. so long as my friends understand and are okay with it, i can express my megalomania or paranoia or anything else in a fantasy world with virtual characters who'll play along like a story, and not have it spill out into the real world. having that outlet is a huge help in making those kinds of things more manageable for me, and having real friends who'll see every side of me and still accept me is... too much for words. i still don't quite believe i deserve it, sometimes. ...they tell me it makes for great story and gameplay experiences. i think that's about the most awesome thing ever, personally. they like my crazy. nobody hates me or yells at me or tries to lock me up. they let me be me and let me have the breathing room and energy and support i need to be able to control myself instead. i may never get over how amazing that is to me.
but a lot of that last paragraph is my skewed perspective from years of abuse and internalized ableism. objectively speaking, it's more a case that others treating me like crap and abusing me or expecting me to act neurotypical and 'sane' all the time is a big part of why everything was so difficult for me. you know, western earth psychiatry is all based on this idea that you have to make someone stop being crazy in order for them to be okay. but the problem for me was always that people wanted me to stop being crazy - they wanted to medicate me or 'train' me or otherwise control and change me, they wanted me to stop being me. but i can be insane and not hurting anyone and living a good life with my friends, and that's what real health and recovery looks like. at least to my understanding.
i needed permission to be mad, a safe place to be crazy in, and a little bit of help recognizing how to keep myself and others safe and healthy from wherever i'm mentally at, and knowing that i should.
~~~
an anonymous friend says:
i am a sociopath with a meticulously constructed set of personal morals that involve my and others' health being the main value to be upheld, and consent being the standard for how to proceed. i have studied healthy relationships versus abusive ones, and learned how to avoid harming or coercing neurotypical folk. my main goal in friendships (along with experiencing fulfilling social contact) is to support people i care about in being the healthiest and most empowered version of themself that they can be.
i don't experience all the same range of emotions as neurotypical (NT) people do, for example i don't get genuinely angry at people i know personally, it's just not an available emotion for me. i don't naturally emote in the same ways as NT folks either, it was something i had to learn how to do, and takes effort. it's a huge relief not to have to pretend about any of that sort of thing among friends, and just be my genuine self. but i also do experience many of the same emotions and needs as neurotypicals, i just have to make an effort if i want to express those in a way the people around me can recognize.
this was something that an ableist, abusive society would not allow me to do. when an NT person expresses their emotional need, that is considered healthy and appropriate, but when i do it, it is considered 'manipulation' because i can't communicate my needs without either mimicking NT folks' ways of expressing or talking about it explicitly. it's not my fault it's an effort for me to emote in an NT way, and it doesn't mean i don't have the same needs. so long as i make sure people have plenty of room to make their own decisions and have everything they need in order to feel comfortable saying no to me, it's just another type of person's way of reaching out for things they need. i deserve to have my needs met just as much as neurotypical people.
fortunately i now live with a big family of awesome people. so i get to be myself and not be putting on a front all the time, i get to reach out for my needs to be met, i get to live my life unharrassed and have the energy and concentration spare that i need in order to pay attention to others and my actions, and re-learn things that i need to do differently. and being treated well myself helps me to feel like i want to treat others well and put energy into ensuring i don't accidentally step on a boundary or eclipse someone's choices.
people listen when i tell them i feel something regardless of whether i look or sound like a neurotypical person feeling that thing or not. people take me at my word about myself and my needs and experiences. people don't blink when i say matter-of-factly that i am hallucinating or that what i'm feeling is paranoia rather than fact, they don't freak out over the fact i'm more aware of this sort of thing than neurotypicals. and they don't freak out that i have social and other insights most neurotypicals don't either, or any of that stuff. people don't push me to socialize when i'm too tired of being near people or just not social that day. people don't expect me to be capable of all the same things neurotypicals are, and not capable of the things they're not. people don't try and judge my life by neurotypical measures of what someone is expected to need, want, and do.
and in turn, i put effort into making sure i'm treating them right, too.
~~~
jackie says:
jackie do see, hear, and otherways sense many things as most don't, or be not there. jackie also has feelins and ways of actin as are different to what be mostly expected. where jackie come from, this all earns jackie the honorific "crazy" in jack's name, which is ter tell others that this person has things of worth to share, treasures of wisdom and new eyes, and is to be heeded, treated with respect. just like the titles "old" and "mother" say where jackie comes from. such a title also tells ye that this one be not expected ter engage about affairs and seein' a the world the same as most, and ye be not expected ter share their perspectives - only to honour them. somethin jackie thinks folks a this world may call "agree to disagree."
jackie gets along best when others willst to hear about how the world be fer jackie, share how their world be without sayin jack's wrong, and travel beside jackie in their different world. jackie's full willin ter help them around obstacles as be in their world and not jack's, if they be willin to help jackie around the ones as be in jackie's world and not their own.
jackie be a gentle creature, and likes ter know others be well and at peace with the goins-on. jackie likes ter hear of any troubles others have, and see if jackie can be supportin them. jackie's crazy, and jackie knows how ter listen, and ter treat others rightly. jackie just ask them treat jack rightly turnabouts.
~~~
Edit:
Ray adds:
On the subjects of interdependence and having useful skills because of being crazy.... My OCD includes a large portion all about keeping tabs on consensus reality. This means i'm often able to help out my friends who have difficulties with reality moving around or wiggling about or escaping them, if they want help to find consensus reality and get back there. Often if someone's having a hallucination that's upsetting them, i can help them find a way back to a safer area, or if someone's struggling with paranoia and wants not to be, i can help them figure out how to get away from it a bit.
It's also been helpful to some of my friends who are abuse survivors or struggling with internalised oppression or similar, because when the brainweasels tell them lies i can remind them of what's real and why and how it works. And if they want i can usually even explain how the abuse and/or oppression ended up making them feel that way and why exactly it's not their fault and all that sort of thing. Having an obsessive compulsion to track consensus reality can really give you an edge in refuting harmful lies and such, and it's a skill i only have access to at such a highly detailed level because i have OCD.
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dancing_serpent
optional personal examples and/or testimonies to assist with prompt 2
Date: 2017-06-06 10:55 pm (UTC)caution, these include:
uncensored use of ableist slurs in a reclaimed fashion by individuals the slurs target; frank and sometimes slightly detailed discussions of mental and emotional variances including OCD, psychosis, sociopathy and hallucinations; fairly vague talk of experiences of abuse and ableism; some internalised ableism brainweasels; someone talking in another english vernacular from their own universe that may be difficult for some to understand (translation available on request).
please feel free to skip this whole comment if you can and would rather avoid any of those things.
~~~
Ray says:
As a person with severe OCD, i find i no longer feel any need to snap at anyone if people take my OCD-related boundaries seriously and respect them just like any other boundaries. I don't need to panic and scramble to defend myself if people are willing to listen. I can just say "would you mind doing one of these three options just now?" and "please don't put my X anywhere that's Y."
If the people around me treat me decently and respect all my boundaries regardless of why i have them, i find my OCD-related boundaries softening and receding dramatically over time due to lowered stress and being able to tackle them on my own terms and in my own time. The results of having others respect my OCD and honour my boundaries include things like no longer needing things a certain way when out in public, or the ability for me to choose to have a visitor be exempt from OCD 'rules' without me having any problems.
I find that my compulsions are also much easier to handle and they reduce dramatically too when i have space to perform them in a respectful, supportive and welcoming atmosphere when i need to (so long as they're not harming anyone). Like if instead of getting mad at me for counting or repeating a rhyme to myself, my friends join in with me or just leave me to it in an easygoing manner - that makes it SO much easier to stop sooner. Or if it's upsetting or frustrating someone, then one of us can leave the room instead of anyone getting angry or me being expected to deal with the awful emotional and psychological fallout of forcing myself to stop just so they can be comfortable.
And if there's a case where my compulsive action is harmful, i've found that i'm much more capable of recognising this myself and of redirecting or otherwise fixing what i'm doing so that it's safe, healthy and consensual. Purely because i'm not devoting huge chunks of brainpower and energy to surviving in a hostile environment and coping with people's abuse, or trying to act 'sane'. I'm better able to be self-aware and aware of others and the effects of my actions when i can have brain-juice to spare for it, and i have SO much more self control available and room to manoeuvre within my OCD when it's relaxed and i've been feeling safe and not having to deal with OCD-horrifying things unnecessarily.
~~~
an anonymous beastie says:
as a person who experiences psychosis with megalomania and paranoia, i am still perfectly capable of respecting other people's boundaries regardless of what my version of reality looks like or how big and/or paranoid i'm feeling at the time. all i needed was to be around people who also respected my boundaries and who didn't treat me like my psychosis was some shameful or horrifying or disgusting thing, but instead met me where i was and actually welcomed me no matter what version of me they were getting at the time.
it helps me hugely that i have a sociopath friend who i can trust, who is able to see through all the weirdness and nonsense and confusing social interactions, and tell me how to respect others' boundaries within the reality i'm inhabiting at the time. and remind me i should when i get too large or everything gets too confusing or distressing or overwhelming.
personally, computer games with supportive friends are a great outlet for me. so long as my friends understand and are okay with it, i can express my megalomania or paranoia or anything else in a fantasy world with virtual characters who'll play along like a story, and not have it spill out into the real world. having that outlet is a huge help in making those kinds of things more manageable for me, and having real friends who'll see every side of me and still accept me is... too much for words. i still don't quite believe i deserve it, sometimes. ...they tell me it makes for great story and gameplay experiences. i think that's about the most awesome thing ever, personally. they like my crazy. nobody hates me or yells at me or tries to lock me up. they let me be me and let me have the breathing room and energy and support i need to be able to control myself instead. i may never get over how amazing that is to me.
but a lot of that last paragraph is my skewed perspective from years of abuse and internalized ableism. objectively speaking, it's more a case that others treating me like crap and abusing me or expecting me to act neurotypical and 'sane' all the time is a big part of why everything was so difficult for me. you know, western earth psychiatry is all based on this idea that you have to make someone stop being crazy in order for them to be okay. but the problem for me was always that people wanted me to stop being crazy - they wanted to medicate me or 'train' me or otherwise control and change me, they wanted me to stop being me. but i can be insane and not hurting anyone and living a good life with my friends, and that's what real health and recovery looks like. at least to my understanding.
i needed permission to be mad, a safe place to be crazy in, and a little bit of help recognizing how to keep myself and others safe and healthy from wherever i'm mentally at, and knowing that i should.
~~~
an anonymous friend says:
i am a sociopath with a meticulously constructed set of personal morals that involve my and others' health being the main value to be upheld, and consent being the standard for how to proceed. i have studied healthy relationships versus abusive ones, and learned how to avoid harming or coercing neurotypical folk. my main goal in friendships (along with experiencing fulfilling social contact) is to support people i care about in being the healthiest and most empowered version of themself that they can be.
i don't experience all the same range of emotions as neurotypical (NT) people do, for example i don't get genuinely angry at people i know personally, it's just not an available emotion for me. i don't naturally emote in the same ways as NT folks either, it was something i had to learn how to do, and takes effort. it's a huge relief not to have to pretend about any of that sort of thing among friends, and just be my genuine self. but i also do experience many of the same emotions and needs as neurotypicals, i just have to make an effort if i want to express those in a way the people around me can recognize.
this was something that an ableist, abusive society would not allow me to do. when an NT person expresses their emotional need, that is considered healthy and appropriate, but when i do it, it is considered 'manipulation' because i can't communicate my needs without either mimicking NT folks' ways of expressing or talking about it explicitly. it's not my fault it's an effort for me to emote in an NT way, and it doesn't mean i don't have the same needs. so long as i make sure people have plenty of room to make their own decisions and have everything they need in order to feel comfortable saying no to me, it's just another type of person's way of reaching out for things they need. i deserve to have my needs met just as much as neurotypical people.
fortunately i now live with a big family of awesome people. so i get to be myself and not be putting on a front all the time, i get to reach out for my needs to be met, i get to live my life unharrassed and have the energy and concentration spare that i need in order to pay attention to others and my actions, and re-learn things that i need to do differently. and being treated well myself helps me to feel like i want to treat others well and put energy into ensuring i don't accidentally step on a boundary or eclipse someone's choices.
people listen when i tell them i feel something regardless of whether i look or sound like a neurotypical person feeling that thing or not. people take me at my word about myself and my needs and experiences. people don't blink when i say matter-of-factly that i am hallucinating or that what i'm feeling is paranoia rather than fact, they don't freak out over the fact i'm more aware of this sort of thing than neurotypicals. and they don't freak out that i have social and other insights most neurotypicals don't either, or any of that stuff. people don't push me to socialize when i'm too tired of being near people or just not social that day. people don't expect me to be capable of all the same things neurotypicals are, and not capable of the things they're not. people don't try and judge my life by neurotypical measures of what someone is expected to need, want, and do.
and in turn, i put effort into making sure i'm treating them right, too.
~~~
jackie says:
jackie do see, hear, and otherways sense many things as most don't, or be not there. jackie also has feelins and ways of actin as are different to what be mostly expected. where jackie come from, this all earns jackie the honorific "crazy" in jack's name, which is ter tell others that this person has things of worth to share, treasures of wisdom and new eyes, and is to be heeded, treated with respect. just like the titles "old" and "mother" say where jackie comes from. such a title also tells ye that this one be not expected ter engage about affairs and seein' a the world the same as most, and ye be not expected ter share their perspectives - only to honour them. somethin jackie thinks folks a this world may call "agree to disagree."
jackie gets along best when others willst to hear about how the world be fer jackie, share how their world be without sayin jack's wrong, and travel beside jackie in their different world. jackie's full willin ter help them around obstacles as be in their world and not jack's, if they be willin to help jackie around the ones as be in jackie's world and not their own.
jackie be a gentle creature, and likes ter know others be well and at peace with the goins-on. jackie likes ter hear of any troubles others have, and see if jackie can be supportin them. jackie's crazy, and jackie knows how ter listen, and ter treat others rightly. jackie just ask them treat jack rightly turnabouts.
~~~
Edit:
Ray adds:
On the subjects of interdependence and having useful skills because of being crazy.... My OCD includes a large portion all about keeping tabs on consensus reality. This means i'm often able to help out my friends who have difficulties with reality moving around or wiggling about or escaping them, if they want help to find consensus reality and get back there. Often if someone's having a hallucination that's upsetting them, i can help them find a way back to a safer area, or if someone's struggling with paranoia and wants not to be, i can help them figure out how to get away from it a bit.
It's also been helpful to some of my friends who are abuse survivors or struggling with internalised oppression or similar, because when the brainweasels tell them lies i can remind them of what's real and why and how it works. And if they want i can usually even explain how the abuse and/or oppression ended up making them feel that way and why exactly it's not their fault and all that sort of thing. Having an obsessive compulsion to track consensus reality can really give you an edge in refuting harmful lies and such, and it's a skill i only have access to at such a highly detailed level because i have OCD.