Like the trash you ball up and toss next to the trash can,
You leave me as though it wasn’t so easy to have just put the trash inside the can
You leave me on the ground.
Hold on to these words above, and let me hold your hand while you read the words below.
That’s you, with your hand on the trash, crumpling it up while you recite your morning affirmations to avoid responsibility.
“I am worthy. I am enough. I am needed”
Some people really relied on those affirmations, but you’ve turned them into the therapy-speak that you use to evade allegations of ableism.
“I am an empath”- says everyone who spends the most time vomiting too many details about their trauma to strangers whose history they don’t know and have decided isn’t as important to theirs.
The empath consumes conversations. The space they demand is like food; it fuels them. The person on the other end of their words could be begging for room to speak, and they would never know. They don’t sit in silence long enough to become aware of the needs that surround them. They spend so much energy defending their titles that they have no energy left to defend taking half of a minute to give a granola bar to a man whose life depends on it.
They affirm their behavior just like how they leave their trash so close, but so far, from the trash can.
“BUT IM AN EMPATH, I literally FEEL the trash’s pain! You’re already on the ground, why are you making me do it? No one understands how hard my life is!”
Yes, I am already on the ground.
I’m on the ground because you always find a reason to leave me here.
“I’m one hard day away from being on the ground with you, so I can TOTALLY feel your pain.”
You can feel my pain, which is why you can’t do the right thing?
“I have to protect my peace.”
That is not an excuse.
“I’m disabled too”
Disabled people don’t leave eachother on the ground.
There is an overlap of white people who identify as queer and/or disabled with those who identify as empaths.
Over the last three years, I have been on the receiving end of a massive spike in the “I have EDS and POTS, I assume you do too?” statement/question that every white queer has become so uncomfortably confident in asking/telling me. When I put them in their place about assuming disabilities, I am met with more labels. “Oh, I’m autistic and don’t know social ques”. That’s not a reason to be ignorant. “I’m just so excited to have a diagnoses and have disabled friends”. Bold of you to assume I want to be your friend just because I am also ill.
I have learned through existing as a minority that people feel entitled to my time while they prove their connection to me. They want to be familiar to me so badly. They want to BE me.
No, I am not flattered and I am not sorry, because when it comes time to throw out their garbage, I am the only one who tends to the litter, and they run away from my reality while my cheeks kiss the pavement.
To them, I am also trash.
They will leave me on the ground just the same when the time comes to acknowledge the disparities that separate us from being even remotely similar.
They aren’t met with remorse because they abandone the harm they’ve done before they are ever asked to feel remorseful. They have so much support and ultimately only have to tend to their labels. They want to be a minority SO BADLY, until the time comes to actually experience minority status. They get to walk away from the consequences of their ignorance. Heaven forbid you try to tell an empath that they hurt you… They will step into the role of the victim and turn you into the perpetrator. You will end up their therapist.
What is taking place now is gaslighting on a large scale.
These self-proclaimed “empaths” seem to have far less empathy than the common man.
If it really does make you so sad to see me on the ground, you are not AN empath, you just HAVE empathy. Congrats, you’re a human. Maybe give me a hand?
When it’s no longer cute to be disabled, and when the trends fade,
I will still be picking up your trash.
This is honestly so frustrating to experience, especially when you’re part of several minorities and so have seen this sentiment from several angles. Having to watch self-proclaimed “allies” being outright disgusted with my lesbianism, casting me as a pariah on the same level as predatory men, or having my sexuality only “accepted” because “hahaha, two girls kissing is hot.” Congrats, you’ve become so left you ended up on the right. When you’re acceptance only extends to only what benefits you, you might be an “empath” but you damn well do not have empathy for others. It would honestly be better if they just were true to their prejudice rather than keep marginalized people around them just to cause harm.
I loved reading this. I have a lot of thoughts about your post swimming in my head, but there are a few that stand out. One of them is the fact that the US is much more an individualistic country than a community-based one. In this country, it feels like it’s a lot more normalized for people to be selfish, and hurt others, and claim self defense and self-advocacy to be a good reason to put others down. This is a thought of mine that overlaps with the “proximity to minorities” thing. People get assigned labels and disadvantages, then those people become a community, a joined minority in a majority. Then its members deem their labels and disadvantages as more valuable than those of others, hurting and disadvantaging their own community members the same way the majority group hurts them. That shared pain doesn’t prevent people from hurting others. Sometimes it just creates more justification for it.