So I'd been mulling about bringing up this subject because I am absolutely not the person to really be able to express myself easily, but I think we really need to have a center focused discussion about this.
We most recently just had an issue that occurred in the Trans Awareness Week and the LGBT Issues Moderation threads, which covered aspects of the issue that I'm going to be discussing in this thread, because I feel it's incredibly important. And I absolutely think there are more significant problems on this board that need to be addressed further that both relate to those issues, as well as outside of them as well.
Before I start, I need to explain something:
I am an individual who has a number of disabilities that relate to a combination of mental health, as well as mental developmental problems. Some of these include:
- Inability to quickly process thoughts and understanding said information and communication given to me.
- Inability to properly articulate what I want to say both in a text and vocal conversation. The latter is significantly worse than the former, but I absolutely do struggle to be able to communicate easily. As a result, I cannot easily and properly explain things as a result, especially in instances of heavy and emotional distress.
- I do not understand and cannot properly process spacial relation issues, which creates problems when I'm given directions on how to get to a place or what I do (I often end up going left instead of right, for instance). It also affected my ability to properly delve into aspect of Geometry, which I at the time, didn't understand why these particular things were giving me issues.
- Emotionally, I'm underdeveloped from the rest of my peers and as a result, it does make things more difficult for me to handle.
- I have anxiety, panic attack disorders, constant heart palpitations, and I both shut down and break down easily under stress. Because of this, I am disabled, on disability, and attempts to try to put me in the work force have not been successful. I am 30 years old, have practically no college experience, and never worked properly either.
- For many of my issues, I am attending and seeing multiple people at a local mental health clinic, but it's a life long issue for me and I do not see myself improving. It's more just trying to cope with what I do have at this point and trying to deal with it the best I can.
And there's more issues I can get into.
As to why this relates to what I'm about to discuss, awhile back after I had a bad experience on Grindr, I opened a thread to vent. The result? Immediately an automatic assumptions, misunderstanding what I was saying, and it got to the point that I do not believe that the topic warranted further discussion. The topic can be read here.
What happened is I did not properly explain what happened, I was under distress, and I was not able to communicate properly. What ultimately happened was during the beginning of the conversation, I apologized to the user I had not updated my profile image in a bit, I sent him what I had at the start of the conversation, we communicated and made sure everything was okay from the get go, and somehow the user not long after that made some of those comments. Ultimately, it's no big deal in the end and I just learn from it and move on.
The topic was another matter. I was called out for "Cat fishing", and it resulted in a user bumping the thread in another topic which suggested it heavily implied to be me given the wording. To add onto this, there were comments intentionally fat shaming me, and among other issues in the said thread.
Another thread that I had opened up, regarding a trending topic on Twitter and I asked users how their High School experience was, a individual posted the following text:
I literally responded to the user to clarify, but they ignored my post and I can only imagine from that they were automatically assuming the worst about me and making said comment.
In another thread, after I brought up my experience on Tinder as a whole (which was a mixture, positive and negative, I think we all had that), individuals proceeded to try and "Call me out", including saying the reason they stopped talking to me was because I got caught "cat fishing", and then when I tried to explain my situation how I struggle to communicate, individual proceeded to say that I should google communication guides and stuff like that and practice and it didn't seem to matter at that point what I had to say.
For reference: Once I became aware of my communication issues, I had to learn how to communicate (took me over a year and I was still practicing since about 2003 or so), but I feel that as if I've hit a brick wall on this and I think I'm at my limit. Even my doctor told me not to over think it as this point and it's okay if I can't easily say what I have to.
These are issues that I personally experience and I feel are minor probably compared to some users, but I feel this is still worth mentioning. This is not okay and it makes me, a person with a number of issues as is, uncomfortable here.
However, we have had issues with some other topics, which I had minimal participation in, such as some of the Gym topics, in how they can be incredibly toxic in nature, and honestly: overly condescending.
Most recent topic comes to mind is this one, both in the OPs title, text, and the poll options. I often people see them post this in threads and it really bugs me as a user that I at first thought was a joke, but this topic seems to serve otherwise, including the responses feel kinda unwelcoming. There was also a topic I participated that also felt incredibly toxic and judgmental, and as a person who struggles to deal with self-esteem issues on top of what I detailed, this only made me feel worse seeing comments like this. Users did call some of this out, but doesn't feel it made an impact.
Now, this isn't intended to be a call out to individual users (and I realize it's hard not to discuss this without bringing up specific topics or posts, so I apologize for this), because I don't think it's specifically one or two people, but the fact many users are not being held accountable by some of the behavior replicated.
I do believe my personal issues, arguably are probably minor, but as someone who has to deal with miscommunications on a day-to-day basis, difficulty explaining myself, and then I feel people automatically assuming the worst, only makes these topics more difficult to post in these.
I've heard from users how uncomfortable they feel posting in Dating, Gym/Fitness threads, and among other ones, as well as some of the comments I've seen with people dealing with mental health issues and disabilities, is frustrating.
Not to mention, we've had threads asking for simple accessibility options, threads about possible issues with strobing/flashing that could cause seizures, many of these are ignored and buried quickly, or the topics become incredibly toxic that there is no conversation to be had.
We really need to talk about all these issues. I'm trying my best on this forum, and I realize a lot of times, I mess up, I try to explain myself better, and now I feel as if I ever want to post in a dating or relationship related thread, users will be quick to point out the thread above, without adding context, or I'll also be handwaved about my communication issues.
I should NOT feel this way about a forum that prides itself is making users feel safe. And I'm sure more users feel this way.
So really, we need to talk about this. How can we change this? How can this be addressed? How can the Admin/Mods make this safer? Because as it stands, I just simply do not feel safe on this forum in a majority of topics. I try and I keep posting, but I always feel I'm this close to somehow making a mistake and it just following me wherever I post.
This needs to be addressed.
We most recently just had an issue that occurred in the Trans Awareness Week and the LGBT Issues Moderation threads, which covered aspects of the issue that I'm going to be discussing in this thread, because I feel it's incredibly important. And I absolutely think there are more significant problems on this board that need to be addressed further that both relate to those issues, as well as outside of them as well.
Before I start, I need to explain something:
I am an individual who has a number of disabilities that relate to a combination of mental health, as well as mental developmental problems. Some of these include:
- Inability to quickly process thoughts and understanding said information and communication given to me.
- Inability to properly articulate what I want to say both in a text and vocal conversation. The latter is significantly worse than the former, but I absolutely do struggle to be able to communicate easily. As a result, I cannot easily and properly explain things as a result, especially in instances of heavy and emotional distress.
- I do not understand and cannot properly process spacial relation issues, which creates problems when I'm given directions on how to get to a place or what I do (I often end up going left instead of right, for instance). It also affected my ability to properly delve into aspect of Geometry, which I at the time, didn't understand why these particular things were giving me issues.
- Emotionally, I'm underdeveloped from the rest of my peers and as a result, it does make things more difficult for me to handle.
- I have anxiety, panic attack disorders, constant heart palpitations, and I both shut down and break down easily under stress. Because of this, I am disabled, on disability, and attempts to try to put me in the work force have not been successful. I am 30 years old, have practically no college experience, and never worked properly either.
- For many of my issues, I am attending and seeing multiple people at a local mental health clinic, but it's a life long issue for me and I do not see myself improving. It's more just trying to cope with what I do have at this point and trying to deal with it the best I can.
And there's more issues I can get into.
As to why this relates to what I'm about to discuss, awhile back after I had a bad experience on Grindr, I opened a thread to vent. The result? Immediately an automatic assumptions, misunderstanding what I was saying, and it got to the point that I do not believe that the topic warranted further discussion. The topic can be read here.
What happened is I did not properly explain what happened, I was under distress, and I was not able to communicate properly. What ultimately happened was during the beginning of the conversation, I apologized to the user I had not updated my profile image in a bit, I sent him what I had at the start of the conversation, we communicated and made sure everything was okay from the get go, and somehow the user not long after that made some of those comments. Ultimately, it's no big deal in the end and I just learn from it and move on.
The topic was another matter. I was called out for "Cat fishing", and it resulted in a user bumping the thread in another topic which suggested it heavily implied to be me given the wording. To add onto this, there were comments intentionally fat shaming me, and among other issues in the said thread.
Another thread that I had opened up, regarding a trending topic on Twitter and I asked users how their High School experience was, a individual posted the following text:
I literally responded to the user to clarify, but they ignored my post and I can only imagine from that they were automatically assuming the worst about me and making said comment.
In another thread, after I brought up my experience on Tinder as a whole (which was a mixture, positive and negative, I think we all had that), individuals proceeded to try and "Call me out", including saying the reason they stopped talking to me was because I got caught "cat fishing", and then when I tried to explain my situation how I struggle to communicate, individual proceeded to say that I should google communication guides and stuff like that and practice and it didn't seem to matter at that point what I had to say.
For reference: Once I became aware of my communication issues, I had to learn how to communicate (took me over a year and I was still practicing since about 2003 or so), but I feel that as if I've hit a brick wall on this and I think I'm at my limit. Even my doctor told me not to over think it as this point and it's okay if I can't easily say what I have to.
These are issues that I personally experience and I feel are minor probably compared to some users, but I feel this is still worth mentioning. This is not okay and it makes me, a person with a number of issues as is, uncomfortable here.
However, we have had issues with some other topics, which I had minimal participation in, such as some of the Gym topics, in how they can be incredibly toxic in nature, and honestly: overly condescending.
Most recent topic comes to mind is this one, both in the OPs title, text, and the poll options. I often people see them post this in threads and it really bugs me as a user that I at first thought was a joke, but this topic seems to serve otherwise, including the responses feel kinda unwelcoming. There was also a topic I participated that also felt incredibly toxic and judgmental, and as a person who struggles to deal with self-esteem issues on top of what I detailed, this only made me feel worse seeing comments like this. Users did call some of this out, but doesn't feel it made an impact.
Now, this isn't intended to be a call out to individual users (and I realize it's hard not to discuss this without bringing up specific topics or posts, so I apologize for this), because I don't think it's specifically one or two people, but the fact many users are not being held accountable by some of the behavior replicated.
I do believe my personal issues, arguably are probably minor, but as someone who has to deal with miscommunications on a day-to-day basis, difficulty explaining myself, and then I feel people automatically assuming the worst, only makes these topics more difficult to post in these.
I've heard from users how uncomfortable they feel posting in Dating, Gym/Fitness threads, and among other ones, as well as some of the comments I've seen with people dealing with mental health issues and disabilities, is frustrating.
Not to mention, we've had threads asking for simple accessibility options, threads about possible issues with strobing/flashing that could cause seizures, many of these are ignored and buried quickly, or the topics become incredibly toxic that there is no conversation to be had.
We really need to talk about all these issues. I'm trying my best on this forum, and I realize a lot of times, I mess up, I try to explain myself better, and now I feel as if I ever want to post in a dating or relationship related thread, users will be quick to point out the thread above, without adding context, or I'll also be handwaved about my communication issues.
I should NOT feel this way about a forum that prides itself is making users feel safe. And I'm sure more users feel this way.
So really, we need to talk about this. How can we change this? How can this be addressed? How can the Admin/Mods make this safer? Because as it stands, I just simply do not feel safe on this forum in a majority of topics. I try and I keep posting, but I always feel I'm this close to somehow making a mistake and it just following me wherever I post.
This needs to be addressed.
