before i had gotten close with ex-catholics i was under the assumption that “catholic guilt” was mostly about sex, or serious topics.
but i was naïve. it’s apparently about every positive experience. enjoying a meal? you’re so lucky, children are starving. spending your day off cosy in bed? wow, so selfish, homeless people are freezing to death.
every former or present catholic i’ve met has a very obvious anxiety disorder and it’s so painfully not a coincidence.
I know that somehow I’m entirely lacking in Catholic Guilt (probably just… inherited the lack of it from my Dad) and my Mum just somehow managed to grow her own variety (she became Catholic as an adult) but more and more I continue to learn that my experience of growing up (and continuing to exist) as a Catholic is wayyyy not what other people have had.
But you are responsible for your own safe spaces. You can block tags, block words, block people.
“But i thought fandom was supposed to be a safe space” —yeah you have to curate it.
Unfortunately one persons’s safe space may be another persons’ trigger. That’s ok. Simply block them, block the tag, block the word etc. They can do the same for you.
Maybe I’m just out of touch, but I’ve been around since the days of “don’t like, don’t read” and that’s a good philosophy. If it squicks you, scroll past. If it causes you anxiety or upset, block! Plenty of people are responsive if you ask them to tag an upsetting trigger. And if they’re dicks about it, block em.
Since different people have different needs, one person’s safe space will be another’s Trauma Central.
I don’t know who said it first, but “I need to be able to express my anger without shame” and “I need to be away from yelling and loud noises” are both valid needs people can have for a safe space that really aren’t compatible with each other.
So are “I need to process my trauma” and “I need to not meet any trauma.”
Or “I want a safe space to tell/read the stories that speak to me” and “those stories are distressing to me.”
Insisting that your needs are the only needs anyone should have is not a safe space, it’s its own act of violence.
You don’t get to make others homeless to make the universe your personal safe space.
Read this bit again:
“Insisting that your needs are the only needs anyone should have is … its own act of violence.”
Here’s a nice story I learned in the Norwegian ski museum:
In 1895, polar explorers Fridtjof Nansen and Hjalmar Johansen were having a bad time. Their expedition had faced some hardships and they were forced to stay on Franz Josef Land in a little hut they built out of mud and stones. In their hut, they slept for circa 20 hours a day, and spent the remaining four hours watching the northern lights or reminiscing about the comforts of home and the books they had read.
After several months of this, and nine months of sleeping in the same sleeping bag to stay warm, on New Year’s Eve, Nansen finally gathered his courage and asked Johansen if they should start adressing each other with the informal you.
This is where the story ended in the museum, so unfortunately, I can’t tell you whether Johansen answered yes or no.
