The Insidious Ways We Sabotage Each Other
Can we not?
It creeps into your life slowly: a private message, urgent phone call, maybe a vague comment, sometimes a sigh. Someone reaching out with faux-concern, whispering suggestions like, "I just want you to be taken seriously" or "You should post less, people are talking." Maybe they frame it as help: "I'm just….[insert vague excuse for criticizing you ‘for your own good’]." “You could choose to be happy, you know.”
Or that time a local group told me I needed to be disavowed by them because a meme I’d used on my personal Twitter had the word “fuck” in it. They were quick to reassure me I wasn’t being asked to leave & could still provide them with full time free labor, quietly. Then they had the audacity act like the injured party when I dipped & said “moving on, bye”
But what they really mean is: "You're making me uncomfortable by refusing to hide the hard parts of your life."
We’re left feeling like we’re only allowed to reference a crisis a single time - and then never again. So we ‘save up’ our troubles. We parse who knows what. If I write again now about how we don’t have a working car, washing machine or oven anymore, will someone chide me for it in case they happened to have seen another time it was mentioned? Will we be seen as “always complaining” simply by being authentic about what isn’t necessarily apparent to others?
It’s why you’re ‘allowed’ to use a disabled spot if you’re completely wheelchair bound - but when you’re a young single mother relearning how to walk, again & need it? Your car is boxed in by others. People key your mini van. Store managers demand to see your surgical scars as if they’re medical professionals. My scar is at L5-S1, which means I now wear higher waisted pants so they don’t rub against it & would mean not just pulling up my shirt, but also pulling down my pants to show the scar. And some college kid who you just know is MAGA now tried to force me, at the register, to prove why I needed help out with my groceries.
We’re told to ask for accommodations & then attacked, gossiped about and resented, usually without any meaningful accommodations being the result, so why bother?
These messages never come from people who are actively supporting you. They come from the sidelines—from the lurkers, the voyeurs, the ones who read everything but never like, never comment, never share. They just watch. And judge. And then, sometimes, reach out to shame you for being too much.
It's a very specific kind of cruelty that thrives in digital shadows. It's rooted in respectability politics, ableism, classism, and generational trauma. It's the voice of bootstraps culture saying, "Why can’t you suffer quietly like we did?"
It’s family, old classmates, new networking contacts, co-workers, cousins and absolute strangers who know nothing about the fact that you were sitting in the ICU with your suicidal child when that complaint came in about how you didn’t post the same number of posts about one candidate vs another, as if we’re being graded on our advocacy.
That group I mentioned who got bent out of shape over the use of the word ‘fuck’ (fair warning, if you’re a new reader, go ahead and unsubscribe now, I am a grown ass woman who swears - exit stage alt-right if that’s going to be an issue) were also mad because when they were discussing a yearly month long retreat to Mexico to reward themselves for a stressful year of donning a pink hat twice & holding a postcarding party I had the audacity to make clear that living on $914 a month in Social Security meant that it wasn’t an option for me.
I was formally reprimanded by a national org for “refusing” to go on a camping trip. I cannot walk on uneven ground. At all. I WILL fall and I will need emergency responders & pain mitigation after, it’s not uncommon to suffer yet another concussion when it happens. But they wanted to do some mandatory training & huffed that we’d all be sleeping in Yurts & I was ungrateful for the $16k the group was going to spend on a 3 days glamping adventure with pearl clutching virtue signalers.
And then we wonder why finding volunteers & job applicants is so hard. Society has obliterated privacy & the freedom to simply be who you are in. I’m not talking about Karen’s losing their jobs for harassing birdwatchers in the park. I’m talking about being excluded from tables because you have a tattoo or purple hair. About being told that you’re requited to MASK AT ALL TIMES AT ALL COSTS as if we’re not baking generational trauma into our culture like it’s an HGTV competition.
The Real Numbers, Not Just The Vibes
Here's the truth:
1 in 4 adults in the U.S. live with a disability.
Let’s be clear. Disability creates challenges in even the most mundane ways. Overcoming them is demanded, anything short of blending in is held against you. I remember the way everyone in the Child Welfare office talked about the employee who had a disabled parking placard & need an ergonomic accommodations for her desk job. She was shunned, excluded, gossiped about & accused of laziness when she couldn’t help re-arrange the warehouse on a whim. It was working in those conditions, in that office, that led to my on-the-job injury resulting in permanent nerve damage, paralysis & life long pain and mobility issues. I was 24. I became her.
1 in 2 will experience a mental health issue in their lifetime.
Which, statistically means, even if *you* escape unharmed, someone you love, a parent, a sibling, a partner, a child, will not.
And those numbers are underreported because people still fear losing jobs, losing friends, being seen as a burden. We’re encouraged to reject the medical & legal terms for our obstacles. Told to put mind over matter & wish ourselves back to health.
Disability isn't rare. Neither is chronic illness. Nor is poverty. But we’ve been conditioned to treat all of them like a moral failure. That if you're struggling, it's because you didn't try hard enough. That if you need, you must be a drain. A leech. A welfare queen.
Most of us aren't struggling with just one thing. It’s a cascade:
Chronic illness + medical debt. Cratered credit ratings. Spotty job history.
Neurodivergence + housing insecurity. Flare ups that destroy your safe havens.
Disability + domestic violence. Trapping you in a cycle of dependence on those who actively harm you.
Burnout + caregiving. No time or $ for self-care. You can’t afford to have food delivered when you’re the sole caregiver & fall ill. I fought doctors to stay home when I had pneumonia (which happened a couple times a year before COVID when I stopped exposing my shoddy immunity system to contagions). I managed to arrange for food for the kids. I went 3 days without food & drank water from the bathtub when I could crawl to the bathroom a couple times a day. Because when you’re disabled, the crises never stop and you’ve been so shamed for asking for help that you’ve given up.
And for those of us born poor, born disabled, born into systems that never wanted to support our survival? The idea that our existence needs to be made palatable to deserve respect is exhausting. It’s ingrained. We’re shown inspiration p0rn of others ‘overcoming’ their disabilities as if this means they’re now cured & will never experience strife again.
3 hour long in-person meetings in folding chairs to take part in local party politics left me unable to walk for days at a time. Racheting up my back pain from the lowest it’s been since 1998, a 6.5. All day. Every day. Unremitted. I’ve given birth. I’ve had back labor. I have period cramps. It broke my brain when it was explained to me at age 24 that I was never going to be pain free again. Ever. That the damage done to my spine at an office job in Child Welfare was so severe I’d need surgery every decade or so & would be wheelchair bound eventually because that injury revealed such severe degenerative disk disease that I was forbidden to lift above 5 lbs ever again.
Guess what? A single mom pouring milk into their child’s bowl from a gallon jug? She’s lifting 8lbs. A sleeping toddler who needs to be carried in after grocery bags far exceeding the safe lifting? Them too.
For the last 27 years I have consciously tried to ONLY impart SOME information about being disabled, the poverty it condemns you to. The constant battles & fires you can’t put out. When I do reveal it to someone new, I mark it in my mind, “Okay, they know now, don’t bring it up again. Ever. And if you do, couch it in some sort of self-deprecating woe-is-me joke to make it more comfortable for others.”
I’ve tried lightly offering in high level meetings about benefits that are abstract to everyone else at the table: “Hey, uh, so, I get SNAP benefits & live on under $10k a year, so maybe I can speak for this demographic you’re claiming to want to help? I’m right here. These are my people, I am ‘one of the poors’”
Do you know the most common response? My invitation to that table is revoked. I’m reproached. I’ve gotten phone calls from democratic party officials chastising me for ‘over sharing’ in Zoom chats because I literally answered the question they asked. So I shrunk. I kept my statements to 280 characters or less. I was frugal with details.
A sister of mine once lost her ever loving mind because I’d said something in a comment on a meme on Facebook about how hard it is to have family who’s not interested in learning what’s actually going on with your disabled child but sure has opinions about how you should be spanking them for being sick. We haven’t spoken in over a decade. Life got exponentially better too! No more racist comments about my Black kids. No more ‘jokes’ about how I have such bad taste in men. Because that’s what a domestic violence survivor should have to hear come out of their young nephews mouth, how his mom said I wasn’t allowed to date anymore because she was tired of hearing about being abused. No more being shamed in public for being poor.
And all families have these situations. The cutting comments. The chiding, the mocking, the downplaying of each others feelings. Real life isn’t like sitcom TV, there’s no laugh track that grates harder than your loved ones laughing at your expense & then dismissing you when try to speak up for yourself.
”Oh, relax, Christine, you know Melissa didn’t MEAN to throw her cup of tea at you, don’t make such a big deal out of it.” From hurtful nicknames & blood feuds.
Generational Gaslighting
Boomers and Gen X were raised to ignore pain, to push through, to dismiss mental illness as weakness. Many of us went undiagnosed for ADHD, autism, PTSD, bipolar, endometriosis, and a thousand other conditions that shaped lives that we couldn’t figure out why they didn’t fit neatly into the boxes we were assigned to.
We were taught that stoicism is strength. Stuffing down those feelings play a key role in domestic violence. Repressed pain when the only emotion you’re rewarded for is ‘alpha male’? Men incapable of processing their own mental illnesses & trauma and take it out on those they’ve vowed to love, honor & cherish?
Outrage abounds around “Gentle Parenting” as if teaching an entire generation to ignore their bodies has worked out so well?
But that stoicism? It was trauma survival. And when they see us talk openly about our struggles, when we dare to name what they were never allowed to name, many of them respond with disdain instead of curiosity.
But let’s make no mistake: we’re also dealing with substantially mentally ill folks whose brains make them enjoy bullying others. They get joy from making someone cry. Cruelty is their high. They reject kindness, mock empathy yet somehow are forever the victims. Those online trolls are displaying text book mental illness while calling everyone “crazy”.
This Isn't About Likes. It's About Witness.
When someone talks about their grief, their illness, their poverty, their pain—they aren’t doing it for attention. They’re doing it because they’ve been made invisible everywhere else. Rich folk who mean well? Don’t say, “Can I send you $” - because, no, you can’t. Yes. I need $, yes, more $ would help. BUT THAT’S NOT MY MOTIVE. I want to shatter the glass on keeping these things bottled up.
I reconnected recently with my favorite Aunt. She’d had no idea I’d even been paralyzed. No idea my 25 year old is severely disabled. No idea that I’d had a stroke or that I’d been in a healthy relationship for 19 years. Because there’s this weird societal suppression of our voices to such a degree that even those closest to us only see what we curate for them.
So? Yes, it matters when you like or comment. Not (just) because of the algorithm, but because it reminds us we’re not alone. That someone saw us. That we matter outside of our usefulness.
And when you DM someone to say they’re "embarrassing" or "cringe" or "posting too much" about their disability, what you’re really saying is:
"I want you to suffer in silence so I can keep pretending the system isn’t broken."
What To Do Instead
If you see someone being authentic:
Like the post. It takes a second. You’re not committing to go to therapy with them or solve their problems. Bonus points for the ‘Hug’ reaction on Facebook.
Leave a comment. "I see you." "You're not alone." "Thank you for sharing."
Share the resources they offer. If you didn’t know they needed the local food bank calendar, odds are someone else you know does too. Help them find help.
Validate their experience, even if it’s different from yours.
And if you find yourself wanting to message someone to tell them to tone it down?
Pause. Ask yourself why. Ask what part of your own discomfort you're trying to outsource onto them. Then? Don’t. Let the website’s moderation decide what’s allowed or not. You are not in charge of other people’s thoughts. Ever.
And when you spend your time & energy berating others rather than uplifting? We all drown. Leave it to the next person to post their disbelief about what Marjory Taylor Greene said today. Go like the posts of your nieces new baby instead, it might be the only way you find out the answer to why your niece’s baby with her Black husband is so pale. Another thing some family has asked me, decades after said baby was born. They’re albino, not illegitimate, I cannot believe I still have to say that…
Think outside your bubble, make someone’s day. Tag them. Go thank an author for the book you just finished & enjoyed. Have you noticed all of this can be done digitally, at any time of day, with or without shoes? Yeah. Internet & accessibility are interwoven.
We aren't here to be inspiring background characters in someone else's highlight reel. We aren't here to be sanitized versions of ourselves so that others can stay comfortable in denial.
We’re here. Loud. Messy. Real. And refusing to disappear.
Because visibility isn't vanity.
It’s survival. And it’s #Resistance
Today’s Assignment: 3 comments. Doesn’t have to be on this (but I sure like it when you do! Public affirmations help mitigate the trolling we’re all adrift in) - just uplift someone today.
~AK