It’s goodbye from me

[solongandthxforthefish]

I’ve been on mumsnet since the early days, it’s seen my family grow up and become adults, seen me become a grandparent.

its been a happy place, a supportive place through thick and thin and I’ve made lots of contacts who I will miss.

the supportive threads are being lost amongst ones of hatred and intolerance for difference, for the others and by threads about high incomes not being enough, of how disabled people are increasingly hated, how children with SEND are an inconvenience. Boomers, of which I am not one, are hated.

is there anybody mumsnet members actually like?

im taking a break, however long is needed until the hatred is less.

I'm not going to keep repeating myself, but you have been ableist. There's no special category of disabled that means you can say whatever you like to whomever you like.

Also, you have no idea what's wrong with me or what I can and can't do. Even if there was some implied competitive element, which there isn't.

I appreciate you may struggle with your illness and maybe that's what gives you this binary thinking, but what you have said today isn't acceptable.

Actually, it’s totally possible for a disabled person to be ableist. How on earth do you know that @ThePurpleBuffalois less disabled than you?

In any case, I have noticed that some of the nastiest posts aimed at the disabled community in the last week come from people who say they have a condition.

Internalised ableism is as much of a problem as internalised misogyny.

And...

Nope, this just shows you don’t understand ableism. It doesn’t map onto misogyny in the way you seem to think.

In the autistic community it’s still a massive problem. I, along with many others left a group for autistic women about 5 years ago because of ‘Aspie Supremacy’ from the group owner. She said some vile things about non-verbal autistic people.

You may disagree with me, but I haven’t actually said anything that’s so awful to you. I apologise for using a sharp tone, but not for my opinions. Nevertheless, no matter how many times you claim I’ve been ableist, that simply isn’t true and it just shows you don’t understand what ableism actually is.

You’re just going to double down but if you don’t want to go around upsetting and angering a lot of people then you need to accept that you are wrong on this occasion.

That’s completely irrelevant to how ableism works. Again, you just fundamentally do not get it, and I’m not going to explain an entire system of oppression to you. Everyone who is claiming it maps onto misogyny is simply incorrect.

Internalised misogyny and internalised ableism are both a result of societal conditioning.

I’m not wrong, and everyone who knows about disability and ableism agrees with me on this. The arguments to the contrary are absolutely painful in their crudeness.

It’s not even internalised ableism that’s being talked about! That’s something altogether different. I agree, I do experience that. But it’s not what people are accusing me of here.

How could I be targeting you because of your disability when I’m even more disabled and unwell than you?

You have no idea about anyone else's experience of disability and how it impacts them @verysmellyjelly. Not the OP's, not mine, not PP's, not anyone's. Hasn't stopped you judging them as self pitying liars and ableists.

I agree with @ThePurpleBuffalo you seem to have some sort of weird competition with strangers on the internet, going on in your head. You're doing your best. You are deserving. Others are lazy, stupid, lying and self pitying.

Either way. Nobody has the right to judge anonymous people on an internet forum as more or less disabled than them.

In all seriousness, I would encourage people interested in ableism as a concept to do some reading about it. It isn’t just about “does someone disagree with a disabled person? Do I think someone was mean to a disabled person?” There is a whole fascinating area of study out there about disabled people, our lives, history and experiences. I know that you probably mean well when you think you’re “calling out” ableism even though actually your behaviour is harmful (since you’re attacking me, a real severely disabled person, and distorting the meaning of “ableism” as you do so). But you have all the info available to learn more and stop doing this, and since you are implicitly claiming to care about disabled people, you should take that opportunity.

That’s a lot of weird stuff to invent based on things I haven’t said! I guess you missed the post where I apologised for coming off as competitive and said that wasn’t my intention, and also the one where I said I didn’t think “lying” was the correct term. Or, you didn’t miss them but they don’t fit your narrative of demonisation…?

Im sure you’d never demonise an autistic woman you’ve decided you want to attack online… /s

Yes, it’s so deeply morally wrong of me to comment based on someone’s own description of their ability, relative to my own. Material reality exists, sorry you don’t like that! Would it be equally wrong if someone said they are disabled but go for a mile walk every day (which is totally possible) and I wrote “my mobility is more limited”, as a paraplegic? Sometimes facts are facts. It genuinely stuns me to see people on MN which is normally a site that is pro material reality taking this “everything is relative and there are no real differences” stance.

Haha, sure you are. Whatever you say! /s

You really hate having the status quo challenged, don’t you? I am actually allowed to have a different opinion.

That’s ludicrous. Of course there are degrees of disability.

I joined just as the Mouldies flounced. Everybody called everybody a cunt back then.🤣🤣🤣

Jeeze,

If the OP was reconsidering, she is defo off now.

Yes and you are not a position to know them!

It can do, and has in this case. You have internalised negative attitudes about disability, stereotypes that's suggest people speaking about their difficulties are looking for sympathy, are exaggerating, not trying hard enough, are lying about their medication and symptoms. As a disabled person yourself, there will be people saying these things about you. Instead of rejecting these attitudes, you are projecting them on to other disabled people. Your comments on here suggest you are distancing from other disabled people in the same way the woman who has internalised misogyny claims to be not like the other girls.

Nothing I’ve said is trolling. It’s stunning to me that you’re actually this intolerant of a divergent viewpoint.