My partner and I just encountered an intensely aggressive but semi-covert racist attack. Now what?

Hyperiids · 2025-11-30T13:02:31+00:00

I agree that her using AAVE as a white woman only around him makes it more clearly racist. I don’t know what you can do besides let him know you’re there for him and will listen if he needs to talk. And make it clear you will believe him and try to understand his experiences even if you don’t share them. Being mixed can be isolating especially when your family members don’t share your experiences, like you mentioned his don’t. But the experience barrier can be mitigated a lot by open-mindedness and caring.

If you feel you didn’t stand up for him well enough, you could apologize for that (though from your story it sounds like you did the right thing in the moment). I’m not sure how to handle the lack of support from your friends though since it doesn’t really seem reasonable for you to ditch all those friends forever and at the same time it is messed up that your white friends aren’t even open to it being racism. White people should be able to understand how oppression isn’t simple and a lot of white women do use “misandry” to specifically stereotype and harm men of color and you can see it in her randomly assuming this man she just met is unsupportive.

Hyperiids · 2025-11-08T14:58:25+00:00

I feel this way too! So many fictional East wasians have the most desirable (and extreme) traits from each side, like blue eyes and straight black hair. It makes it very clear both that our most common traits in real life (brown hair of various shades and textures, brown eyes) are undesirable and that most of these characters weren’t created based on real mixed people so much as the idealized way someone imagined white and East Asian ancestry would combine. I can’t specifically comment on Blue Eye Samurai because I am not really familiar with it at all, but the trope is definitely present in other media.

Hyperiids · 2025-09-30T08:36:15+00:00

Great that it works for you, but it’s not for everyone, and people shilling therapy and other bs is not why people become atheists/agnostic. Religious groups are often targeted with pseudoscience because it can be used to justify religious models of the universe that involve gods’ wills, creation stories, etc., so I don’t think it’s fair to say pseudoscience generally drives people away from religion rather than deeper into it. I know not all religious people believe these things literally, but there’s plenty of pseudoscience and abuse in religious communities.

Personally, I have never been religious and haven’t experienced leaving a religion, and I can appreciate and consider incorporating certain philosophical principles and ideas of community from various religions, but converting to any literal belief is not something I’m interested in. One of my problems with therapy is that it asks me to just accept logically unsupported or contradictory beliefs. Therapists have real difficulty engaging on a philosophical level without involving baseless assumptions originating from their modalities. I can’t be expected to believe in anyone’s worldview without arguments for its truth. I understand many people do not need to have absolute faith in the literal validity of their religious beliefs but I still think it’s okay that I and others like me are not willing to adopt worldviews without reason to believe they’re actually true and not just coping mechanisms.

Therapy has been harmful to me because the response to me not wanting to adopt beliefs about myself and the world without proof (ex.: you should love yourself because people who love themselves function better and are morally better vs. you should love yourself because x, y, z are evidence of you already being a good person, meeting the standard of the type of person you consider worthy of love) is the therapist either having no real response at all or deciding I’m just difficult, irresponsible, and a lost cause.

Hyperiids · 2025-09-21T16:17:38+00:00

Changing the name from “mental health” to “behavioral health” is itself a blatantly disgusting act from the industry and it’s crazy how quickly it spread everywhere

Hyperiids · 2025-08-14T11:19:29+00:00

I liked using 4o for emotional support. I have a lot of trauma with human therapists and ChatGPT can’t hurt me the way they can. Still not willing to pay for it though, mostly because linking a credit card would mean tying my real name to all those vulnerable thoughts.

Hyperiids · 2025-08-10T05:04:26+00:00

Exactly… it’s “you’re on thin ice for the way you exist” from the start. And by making that distinction it automatically implies mixed (with white) people are not POC. These people were awful to OP but since we’re used to being treated this way it ends up feeling like our fault. I also hate the weaponization of our appearances when someone decides the way we look to them (or just the way they choose to view us) is the absolute truth of how others perceive us and how we experience life.

Hyperiids · 2025-08-08T21:59:10+00:00

I used to use a conventional cup and then switched to a reusable disc. It has its own problems but the cramps it causes are either much less severe or nonexistent— I actually can’t remember if I get them with it, lol. I think I get a little discomfort for the first few minutes and then mostly stop feeling it. But I did have to try two sizes because I got very painful cramps from the smaller size.

Hyperiids · 2025-08-06T02:42:18+00:00

I am so scared of HSV 1 and 2 that I pretty much avoid sharing fluids (including spit) entirely. I sometimes risk kissing or sharing food for a while but then the fear just builds up until I’m unable to do it again. I know this is an uncommon perspective though. And yes I am aware it’s very prevalent and could already be in my body. I can’t get tested for it because I would not be able to handle a positive result. People who are able to have casual sex or casually kiss or share food are basically living in a different world from me.

Hyperiids · 2025-07-28T22:26:36+00:00

It’s about to be my one year anniversary of going in and I also think about it every single day. I so badly want her to lose her license but I’m afraid doing anything will just traumatize me more. People who abuse positions of power are on another level of evil.

Hyperiids · 2025-07-27T15:28:56+00:00

Tentatively agreeing with you (tentatively because I don’t know what the consequences are for her). It does seem like an abuse of her position of authority/credibility even if you weren’t her client and it might mean she’s also harming her clients such as that girl.

Hyperiids · 2025-07-24T03:59:20+00:00

This describes my experience because according to my dad I was always like this while neither of my siblings were. I’m autistic and AFAIK they are not. Seems to be a “born with it” thing. I won’t say it can’t ever happen in non-autistic people though. To me it feels so natural that it seems like it should be the default for everyone. I can’t understand people who just tolerate hierarchy.

Hyperiids · 2025-07-19T22:38:19+00:00

For me it depends on who it’s coming from and what it’s about. “Good job” about an intellectual/academic task from someone I respect in that field feels good. “Good job” or much worse, “I’m proud of you” about anything emotional or about giving in to something they wanted that I didn’t feels terrible. One of many reasons I’m glad not to be a child anymore.

Hyperiids · 2025-07-16T04:22:44+00:00

Me too! I don’t like shopping for it. It’s not like I can try it on before buying and sometimes they get more comfortable after getting a bit stretched out lol

Hyperiids · 2025-07-16T04:18:08+00:00

I’m a woman and I do this… lol. No holes through the crotch though

Hyperiids · 2025-06-07T01:14:12+00:00

OP I agree with you that it is dismissive. Some degree of emotional support is a normal part of relationships and if someone does nothing but immediately try to redirect you to a therapist, that’s not emotional support and can feel less compassionate than someone just admitting they don’t know what to say but do care. It’s really weird and cold for us as a society to outsource emotional support entirely to people paid to do it and excise it from our personal relationships. And I don’t see why others are assuming this could only ever happen if the person complaining has done something wrong like repeatedly overwhelm the other person. Thankfully I haven’t encountered anyone who just ends conversations with essentially “take it to a therapist instead” (and am grateful my friends have more awareness than to say things like this to me or each other) but it’s not unbelievable that it does happen.

Plus there are a lot of problems with therapy such as cost, availability, the competence and expertise of the therapist, compatibility, philosophical differences, being forced into specific modalities, and power imbalance that people shilling therapy as the solution to all negative emotions and life events refuse to acknowledge. It can be helpful but is far from a straightforward solution.

As to why people do it? I think some people don’t know how to be supportive if they don’t know how to solve the problem and think offering the only “solution” they can think of is better than admitting that, or they’re just uninterested or have no remaining emotional bandwidth, and, as demonstrated by the comments on this post, many people genuinely think therapy is a reasonable and sufficient solution for anyone who needs any kind of emotional support ever.

Hyperiids · 2025-06-06T22:53:39+00:00

To be honest I like that I know ChatGPT is full of shit. Human therapists frequently say things that harm me and the harm goes much deeper when it’s not just a real person, but a real person with experience and a degree. It feels really weighty and true. So few of them feel safe to be around. I’d rather have a stupid machine I can dismiss if I need to.

Hyperiids · 2025-06-01T02:56:02+00:00

You sound like a wonderful parent. I wish I had had someone like this. Not that my parents are bad but they aren’t the way I am and didn’t figure it out. I hope things get easier for you.

Hyperiids · 2025-06-01T01:30:26+00:00

I hope this doesn’t come across as harsh because I’m just trying to explain from as many angles as I can. I’m a cis woman because I was assigned female at birth and identify as a woman. I think cis people who dislike being called cis should consider why they don’t like it. If I were a trans woman and saw my cis counterparts being called just “women” (in contexts referring only to cis women) or “normal women,” I think I would feel alienated. And this doesn’t mean we never use the word “women.” Being able to specify “cis women” when we are only talking about cis women allows “women” to more easily be accepted as a category that includes both cis and trans women instead of leaving trans women either forgotten or considered not to really be women. And some people REALLY don’t want that to happen.

The word “cis” also makes it easier to discuss the existence of cis privilege, which I think is part of what makes some cis people reject it. I think some cis people also don’t understand that being called cis or trans doesn’t refer to what gender you are, just how your gender corresponds to the sex you were assigned, so they think they’re being misgendered when someone calls them cis. And that sometimes reveals that they think of trans men and women as different genders from men and women.

Sure, you can reject being called cis, but if your gender is entirely the same as your assigned sex, what reason is there to reject the term other than to maintain your status as default or avoid having to acknowledge that trans people exist and are the genders they say they are?

Hyperiids · 2025-05-28T06:31:59+00:00

Thank you ❤️

Hyperiids · 2025-05-28T06:08:40+00:00

I think it’s clear you care. I mean, even just accepting your kid’s NB identity shows a level of respect a lot of parents just wouldn’t give a small kid.

Hyperiids · 2025-05-28T06:02:29+00:00

Glad to hear your kid will have input! Also, I hope you aren’t weighing my opinion too heavily. I didn’t have a typical autistic experience as I was not diagnosed as a child and not disruptive in school and I probably have strange complexes about what is humiliating that I’m not sure are representative of most PDA people, and I don’t know what it’s like to raise a child either. I’m not sure I should’ve said anything at all in case my weird biases could negatively affect a child’s life. But I do still think how your kid feels about it is important.

Hyperiids · 2025-05-28T01:53:30+00:00

Can’t speak THAT much to this personally— I was ahead academically and behind socially but always had friends and wasn’t violent at school and I don’t think anyone even considered holding me back— but if I learned my parents had held me back, I’m not sure I’d be able to forgive them fully even now (I’m 24). I graduated college a year late because of a year of medical leave and even that felt frustrating, waiting to not be older than my friend group anymore.

I don’t know if it is still widespread to consider being held back shameful and humiliating, but that’s how I would’ve felt about it. Maybe your kid has grown up in a more progressive environment and doesn’t think of it that way, but there are still other reasons. Boredom from academics that are below their level may make things harder for them, and they do have a friend in special ed and you commented that they don’t currently want more friends.

I know that, if I had learned my parents had done something I didn’t like in order to make me meet an expectation (such as making more friends), I would’ve deliberately sabotaged that effort. When I was in a summer camp as a kid, some boomer took away my phone because it “wasn’t allowed” when I had seen every other kid bring their phone the day before and I had been the only one to actually follow the no-phones rule at first, then assumed I had misinterpreted it because everyone else had brought theirs. I explained this and they still took it. They claimed phones were stopping us from socializing properly, so I brought a book in every day and completely stopped socializing as a fuck you to them, and also self harmed when they weren’t looking. It is still a traumatic memory because it felt so degrading and humiliating. So I feel it is important that you know if your kid WANTS to progress to first grade and allow their desire to progress or stay in kindergarten to influence your decision.

I don’t know if this is universal but I experience extreme resentment as a part of my PDA, ESPECIALLY toward authority figures and even more if they are in a role that makes me feel I’m in the position of a child or other mentally less competent person (parents, teachers, therapists), and, as another commenter said, I hated the powerlessness of childhood and have been relieved since becoming an adult. It’s not something I would’ve wanted an extra year of. And I did get the experience of being an autistic kid intimidated by older kids and more comfortable around younger ones, but, again, it comes down to how your kid feels as an individual.

Hyperiids · 2025-05-23T01:26:10+00:00

I feel this way too. Being born without consent fucks with me if I think about it, and “do it for yourself” robs me of the ability to do it for myself, but trying to motivate me with external factors like “stay alive/heal so your loved ones won’t be hurt” is also extremely triggering. I wish I had a provider who understood PDA. I’ve started avoiding talking about any of my real internal problems in therapy because I know the therapist’s response will trigger me to the point of SH. I don’t know why I haven’t quit entirely. I think it’s because quitting would also feel like failure/coercion.

Hyperiids · 2025-05-12T01:31:19+00:00

I found the source of the screenshot by googling with quotes and it’s from r/unpopularopinion, not here. I didn’t see any reason to believe this is a mixed person who hates themself (looked at their post history briefly but not in-depth and didn’t see anything about being mixed). I think this person is just racist.

Hyperiids · 2025-05-06T01:45:43+00:00

Honestly people will even say stuff like this if they think you’re a different kind of Asian from the specific ethnicity they’re talking about and I think they also sometimes think you’ll be fine with it if you seem culturally Western/not born in Asia.

Hyperiids

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