Searching for a Safe Space

Content: personal

At least one person has wanted me to go more into detail about why I've left a simple, mainly left-leaning Mastodon instance, and gone over to a free-for-all free speech instance, where I've actually seen a pedophilia status. I hope it was a joke. Good thing there's a block functions. So, here, I'll explain it, as best I can.

I am not always a happy person. Sometimes, I'm a very depressed person. Sometimes, I even dance around thoughts of suicide. It doesn't last forever. But one thing that always helps is human interaction, like that on Mastodon. All the wonderful people I've met there and interacted with, all those wonderful, beautiful people. The people I felt safe with. The people that made me smile and laugh. And now...

A few months ago

Mayana (@mayana@dragonscave.space) is the instance moderator (one of them at least) who runs dragonscave.space, the instance I was on. (just setting things up) and a few months ago, work became a lot more hectic than usual. I've gotten more used to it now, so things are better, slightly. I was quite depressed during this time, so posted about it. I didn't care really if anyone replied or opened the content warning or not. All I cared about was that I was reading things from people I cared about, and communicating. Getting myself out of my head for once.

Mayana, seriously thinking she was helping, told me to see a therapist, privately. This made me feel as though I shouldn't talk about my feelings, coming from an instance moderator especially. I still did, sometimes, kinda forgetting what happened because lovely people and safe feelings. Mayana did apologize for this yesterday, but by that time, it barely meant anything. I still accept it, though.

Yesterday (the breaking point)

Now, we come to yesterday, when I woke up to a message from Mayana stating that I shouldn't publically talk about my sexual kinks. I won't list them here, because I plan on posting this to my old instance to settle things and move on. But they're pretty out there as far as Southern United States standards are concerned. And, aparently, for others too. I don't know if my kink posts were actually seen as disturbing for others on the instance, or if that was a worry of the moderators. But that's the reason they gave. It wasn't in their rules, because they thought they wouldn't need it. I'm glad at least that no future occupant of the instance will come in expecting to be able to show their complete self.

And this is where the cold, empty void of displaced feeling and betrayal and hurt happens. Imagine a place where you felt like you've finally found home. Imagine somewhere that, for the first time in your life, you may have found people who could stomach the sight of you; actually enjoying your company. Imagine settling in and getting familiar with the place. Then, well, some one gently lets you know that you cannot show your entire self here anymore. To enter this place again, you'll have to leave parts of yourself at the door.

Because only the clean or interesting parts of me are worthy, I suppose. The blind person, the accessibility advocate, maybe even the food lover. But the darkness and the sexuality, well, no. That must stay out in the wild, in the untamed parts of the federation where the undesirables to.

Extreme free speech

So, that morning, a friend recommended a free speech instance. I had reservations at first, because I'm sure few instances federate with it. By the afternoon, though, I was wondering "why not? If the 'civilized' world doesn't want me, why not go there. After all, if I don't go to a free speech instance, if I just switch to another one, what else will people have a problem with? My 'radical' accessibility advocacy? My kinks? The fact that I don't have a profile picture?" So, I decided to go with it. Who knows, though. Maybe I'll just quit the federation altogether and just post here every once in a while. It would probably result in the same amount of human interaction anyway. Thankfully, I'm on a few Telegram groups with other blind people that actually enjoy talking about just about anything, so maybe my human interaction can come from there. But all the people I've met on the feddiverse... I'll miss them deeply. All the wonderful people. But I must move on. If I am not wanted in all of myself, why should I stay and be hurt further?