THE SCREAMS WE SCRUMPT

THERE THEY ARE. THERE IT IS. THE LEGEND THAT FORETOLD IT ALL. IT'S BEAUTIFUL

blocking someone isn't killing them or inherently evil, esp depending on the space you're navigating + the needs you're trying to juggle there. but fuck, i feel like it's maybe a bad thing--now, of all times--to never question the urge to erase people who make you feel Uncomfy from your environment?

but it really truly DEEPLY fucking unsettles me that the *only* method of navigating that, the only tool in the social toolbox, that people want is 'what most closely replicates the experience, from my pov, of killing someone with the press of a button so that they will never inconvenience me again'

and like. will there be people who you get along terribly with, not necessarily bc they're *dangerous* but just bc you don't vibe, and will it be better for you to have minimal contact with each other? absolutely.

i've spent my whole life on socmed but man the last few years have really put it front and center for me how it has encouraged the mindset where existing in the same space as someone, even being *reminded* that they exist, is something you have to Consent To with the same weight as consenting to sex

i have repeatedly, with my honest to god own eyeballs over the last few years, seen people respond to someone going 'yea i cut off my friend because they came out as trans and i didn't wike it :/' with 'okay well NTA for choosing not to associate with someone for any reason BUT' and like. hi. What

like i have been in social circles where pushing out or creating meaningful distance from ANYONE for any reason, no matter how horrific their behavior and no matter how many people they hurt, was Off the Table and that was a horrendously traumatic experience. but the other extreme is Not Good Either

which is not true, and trying to make people solve that issue by Just Never Being Silent When I Talk would be a nightmare for everyone involved + a completely unsustainable asshole thing for me to expect! i want to live in social circles where people go quiet or forget to reply and that's Okay!

that's always been an issue to some degree in online spaces, of course it has. but 'tee hee just block every single person who so much as mildly annoys you, erase them from existence, ~yay boundaries~' culture has made it so that i interpret silence not as inactivity but as 'people wish i was dead'

yes the failure mode to 'people duking it out in direct confrontation' online is Bad. but i cannot overstate that, while it may feel like the Mature Thing in the Moment, a culture that solves all conflict with Silent Ostracization is one where you are conditioned to interpret inactivity as rejection

unfortunately it's like. an Uncritical Attitude that has taken over online spaces in waves over the last few years, so i can't really avoid it by just going somewhere else. but on bsky it is Concentrated, and no one seems to have any interest in debugging its absolutely ruinous fucking failure modes

like. i know that i am currently in one of the single most stressful, traumatizing situations irl that i have ever lived through. but i've been online since i was 5yo, and the level of visceral 'everyone who's ever talked to me wishes i'd kill myself' a slow day on my bsky tl inspires in me is *new*

i don't just mean toxic as in 'shitty,' either, i mean it as in 'being exposed to this framing in a social environment gets into your head and warps your relationship with the people around you and how you interpret social interaction. just by being there, the specter of it taints everything else'

#ffxivtag

me, with the kind of family that adopts pets for funsies and then dumps them outside to die when they don't feel like dealing with them anymore, especially if they've developed behavioral issues from neglect: gee i wonder why amaurot makes me want to shoot laser death beams out of my eyes

brought to you by 'my family are so goddamn stupid, careless, impulsive, and callous about the responsibilities they opt to take on that it is a real fucking struggle not to internalize ruinous paralysis and guilt over the idea of starting *anything* my disabled ass might not follow through on'

alt: that's an undiagnosed anxiety condition. you're describing an anxiety condition