dfasgiles (dfasgiles) wrote in fandom_love, @ 2007-08-17 17:23:00 |
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Current mood: | tired |
Bless you.
I tried to start something similar to this in LJ, but only one person joined. I really didn't have the time to pull it off, anyway. Thank you SO MUCH for bringing something positive into fandom again. When I was first introduced to fandom, I was told it was all about people who shared a common love coming together as a family and escaping the crap of the outside world.
Ever since August 2005, I have been experiencing almost more crap in fandom than there is outside fandom. I find that very sad, as I know there are a lot of fans who have a lot of crap in their lives they desperately need to escape, myself included.
There are people with severe physical and emotional pain, people with terminal illness, people who are more or less shut-ins.... Fandom is the only joy they have in their lives. To have some hateful person take it upon himself or herself to make another fan's experience unpleasant is just really, really shameful.
I have also noticed that there is absolutely no room in fandom for those of us who have mental disabilities and/or illnesses. We are considered to be the people to ban, rather than the people to put on moderation (even if we ask to be). We are considered to be "making excuses for bad behavior," even though we provide links to online documents that state quite clearly that our behaviors are normal and that there is no cure. (I have Asperger syndrome complicated by severe depression, and whenever it causes a problem, I apologize and explain what has happened, but all I get in return is anger and insults--occasionally even refusal to believe my diagnosis and counter diagnoses, if you can believe that!--and the intolerance hurts.)
We might be very compassionate, good-hearted people with extremely open minds. We might be the most loyal friends people could ask for. But because we sometimes misinterpret things or take negative connotations if there are any to take, we get attacked instead of people stopping to think there might be something deeper going on--something neuropsychiatric--and then when they get the explanation, they aren't willing to listen or, worse yet, they make a big scene about it.
Is finding out someone has a mental disability/illness call to publicly humiliate him/her and/or to exploit that disorder/illness by knowingly pushing that person's buttons until he/she explodes and then cry foul?
It's happened to me twice, now, in as many years.
If this post is too personal and/or negative, please let me know. I tried to keep it general and edited it several times to keep it that way.