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Men bargaining with whether or not they should sexualize or respect neurodivergent women. Anyone else noticed they do this?
I don't like talking about the fact that I have autism. Partly because it may not even be true or relevant, I personally think that we diagnose people too much (especially women since we use stereotypes as a baseline, e.i mostly women have BPD and mostly men have ADHD.) And as we've just discussed men's and women's "depression" is different.
On the general topic of mental illness.
I'm normal af irl. I'm super smart, resourceful and charismatic. I've recovered from severe trauma and escaped from my primary abusers. Things are good in the hood. I get anxious sometimes but I suck it up because some things just need to be done.
In the past I've gone on dates or made friends with males and they treat me wayyy differently once I tell them I have autism.
They go from sexualizing me and crushing on me to then treating me awkwardly. Or they'll try even harder to manipulate me to which I just ghost them all together.
I don't tell anyone I have aspergers anymore except maybe women I trust, but even then I'll provide a logical answer to something really f******* obvious and they pretend there's a layer of something that I've missed and that what I'm saying isn't true. Or they pretend that I'm "different" when I literally wasn't a few months ago lmao.
I'm straight chillin, I look like a fuckin American girl doll. I look so put together to the point where junkies flirt with me the moment I interact with them because they think my responsible personality will fix their lives for them (e.i my new creepy junky roommate downstairs who won't stop trying to talk to me even though we live on different floors.)
I get my shit done, I pay my rent and I'm generally very normal.
I've resorted to not telling men anything I have at all, if I say the anxiety they'll purposely try scaring me. If I say the depression they think I'm unqualified to be their free therapist and I won't help them enter la-la land after a "hard day's work". If I make it evident that I'm generally distrustful they think it's a turn off because they can't manipulate me. Once I say the autism they try deciding between whether they want to see me as a weird alien or a gullible fuck toy.
Oh but if he has an illness all hell breaks loose and he can't help but play the same video game for a week. Meanwhile I'm out here keeping my job , showering once/twice a day and making myself look fucking perfect, if I cry once or set a boundary "I'm broken."
Then they go on Twitter and talk about ableism.
I'm starting to question if patriarchal values influence the diagnosis of women with certain disorders. Like why am I all of a sudden even less human now than I was a minute ago? I'm more likely to be abused than I am to be coddled like the special needs men eternally living with their mothers.
Every time I try to have a "deep" conversation about mental illness with men they freak out because not only is it their ultimate excuse to perform weaponized incompetence but it's also their perfect outlet to be even more sexist and dehumanizing towards women who are clearly better than them in every conceivable way for being labeled as technically mentally ill.
My female friends totally get this perspective and they don't get defensive about it, but oh men fuckin get tilted thinking about mental illness as primarily socially constructed or culturally influenced. They can't comprehend actually taking responsibility for their actions and they need illnesses as their oppression tool especially in higher income areas where it's easier to bully an anxious girl about not being absolutely perfect. Or blaming a woman defending herself on her BPD and not on the fact that she was being abused for months by some scrote.
Calling women crazy any time they're being held accountable "and I can prove it because she didn't take her meds!" To shield the fact that he had been abusing her.
I've been increasingly anti-psyche meds lately too because honestly it's like "take this pill and the emotional abuse will melt away!" Like fuck that lmao, live alone, eat healthy and exercise. Fuck all that capitalist bullshit.
I'm so tired of men and pick-mes perpetually pretending like we're broken.
I'd rather my daughter be into zodiacs and crystals than have her take 10 pills a day to cope with constant misogyny from "inclusive" spaces, while men very conveniently denounce things like eating healthy and exercising because it actually helps women and they don't care because they don't actually have the problems we do and they're more than happy to sit on a couch for 3 months and eat the same meal for all eternity without having mind shattering anxiety or depression because of the privilege and security that they've always had.
You've written a lot of truth here but I want to pull out just one nugget, because you're so right.
There is a long history of the use of psychiatry to abuse and control women, to make us numb to our own oppression, to blame us for our perfectly rational responses to the way men treat us. From the diagnosis of "hysteria" to pushing Valium as "mother's little helper" to the diagnosis of BPD (which is just modern-day hysteria) to, IMO, the current drastic rise in ADHD diagnoses in adult women which is just a way to individualize and blind us to the massive inequalities in labor between men and women.
I know that last one is a bit of a hot take, but those diagnoses have increased a LOT. And it feels like the psychiatric institution is saying, "Oh, you have a hard time balancing a full-time job plus full-time housework plus managing a household all by yourself plus raising kids plus having to babysit an adult man? You feel scatterbrained and you forget stuff sometimes? Obviously you have a mental disorder that needs to be treated with high doses of amphetamines. And as a bonus, it'll keep you trim!" But anyway.
I'm actually fully on the anti-psychiatry train so I won't rant about this too much farther. But I wanted to point out that your instict here is not wrong, not by a long shot.
TL;DR.
Men on redpill forums (and everywhere else.) casually mention women are more neurotic than men and use it as a basis to not only use mental health terminology but also as a means to never see us as human. It becomes a systemic tool to gaslight us. Regardless of how successful and normal we are.
Not being neurotic is pretty fuckin hard when you're treated like you produce Colombian cocaine from your pores.
I am so sorry I don't know how to word this idea without writing a fucking bible.
Men and women have very different problems and pretending they all have the same universal solution will ultimately benefit men one way or the other. I honestly think we need women only therapy clinics, I mean fuck it right?
I'm obviously not saying everyone should stop taking their meds but
I've also met so many women my age once they stop hanging out with men and dating men. They start taking care of themselves more and they eventually start questioning if they even needed meds. Then they start questioning if they even had a problem to begin with.
They distance themselves from misogynistic relatives (e.i parents and siblings.) and they learn to respect themselves, set boundaries and live a healthy lifestyle.
I've seen this with friends, coworkers and different family members.
I think mental health talk among men is just another tool to oppress us and our problems are so different that pills aren't going to magically fix childhood trauma followed by systemic abuse after growing up and now needing to put up with men's shit. And if we can't take the abuse "we need therapy and meds".
Lmao I remember an old coworker (M) that got another coworker (F) hooked on drugs, she stabbed him in self defense and he went into work to spread rumors about her doing drugs and how "she wasn't taking her meds." , Hit on every woman at the office, vetted us to see which ones do his type of drug, two months later "he's trying to get back with her.". Like you can't tell me this shit ain't a weapon.
To prove my point even further I've been meeting more men who want to self diagnose autism, their reason is: "I can be dumb sometimes, and I'm awkward haha I'm so quirky."
It's a classic oppression tool if ever I've seen one lmao. Also it's mostly the rapey men that have been like that, the ones that have a new identity each week, the white non-binaries with whole ass beards and names like "John".
I'm just saying I think we need a more critical eye and open mind before telling every single teenage girl that she needs pills and therapy.
Companies even came up with a new word: "pill shaming." Like wtf?
Companies always do this, they always create mini oppressed classes to smoke screen a bigger issue.
I'm on the spectrum too (officially diagnosed when I was a child), and it still baffles me that my social skills are far superior to those of most neurotypical men 🙄
Your posts and comments are always something I look forward to. The messiness is refreshing and I like how u just lay out all your thoughts no matter what anyone may say. ✨️ The discussions you open are always interesting
This post reminds me of am unrelated but sort of related discussion with my therapist. Racism. Just like we are told what the normal is based on what men experience and want, we are also told--as immigrants or children of immigrants--what the normal is based on the majority race in a country. I think gender is a massive influencing factor that must be explored in therapy, just like racial dynamics, but everything is so geared towards focusing on the average white man. There are millions of us in a mere city that have shared experiences that must be acknowledged and validated to ever get anywhere. The biggest breakthrough I made in therapy was finally bringing to light these experiences and how they are real, how they are beyond my control AND how I may not be able to change everything, but removing damaging factors out of my life will aid my recovery better than any pill would. Antidepressants are only really used to level the playing field for your average user.