Nobody Can Take a Joke Anymore
 

The Atlantic Magazine has an article titled, "The Coddling of the American Mind". I think although they are specifically talking about colleges, it's a much more widespread problem.
Yes, it's a much broader problem than just campuses.
[opinion] It's an article well worth reading. [/opinion] But you don't have to if you think it might offend you, cupcake. :p:

Lil Griff saw Jay Pharoh at her very liberal school last year. He was commenting on how white the campus was when a girl jumped in with, "I'm Latina!" to which he replied, "Nobody fucking cares."

Comedians are an important breath of fresh air on these campuses. What I like about Lil Griff's is that people do get their hearing, they talk shit to death, and they try for respect. Dumb ideas may get too much love but there is always someone willing to call them out. It is a small enough campus that College Republican will see Rainbow Flagian on campus every day so it's tempered. It is as liberal as her high school was conservative so it's good for her perspective. She knows when to laugh when people bullshit themselves.

In an odd twist she saw some high school friends who moved down South this summer. One family were exactly the same progressive Catholics they were while the other has let their racist bullshit loose. It is interesting that even a conservative Catholic High School tamped down the overt racism back then. Maybe its more a NY versus NC thing...

I did read the article, but I'm still having trouble with the OP title here.

"Nobody can take a joke" - "I was joking" - "It's a joke, asshole"

All too often these are what you hear after someone gets called out on making a racial slur.
Ironically, such are a reverse-PC way a bigot uses to get a social pass on their derogatory remarks.

OTOH the article makes it seem all too silly.
But my college experience was one of the best periods of my life,
because, in large part, it was a time filled with dormitory-arguments
over all kinds of issues: religious - social - political - military - sex ...

I actually glad to see that such back-and-forth vogues are still happening on the campuses.

.

I would guess that as always the best conversations are within dorms not on the public soapbox.

Waaaaay TL;DR...Maybe later.

Joke them if they can't take a fuckin'. Or something.

Clarification: The article title is, "The Coddling of the American Mind".
The OP (my) title is, "Nobody Can Take a Joke Anymore".
The text I highlighted in the quote are your words, not the article's author or mine.
Define racial slur. The point is, too many people are way too sensitive. I think, "Hey nigger", is a racial slur, but, "you're the only black guy in class", is not. However as the article points out, some people would think both are.
That was how long ago? I feel the same about mine, but that's ancient history, campuses have changed. It's not just anecdotal, either. Laws and campus rules, plus having official systems in place for reporting serious complaints, which allows whining about petty bullshit.Yes, it should be, but it seems there is less of it for fear of exposure to ideas that might offend our Little Precious.
Damn few kids come from griftopia where they've been exposed to the possibility ideas and positions not held by the parents, may be valid.

To be fair other people have smader parents.

You mean one's who spell better? ;)

I'm reading a book right now called "So You've Been Publicly Shamed"...this is part of what plays into public shaming in social media, I think. "You have offended me and so I'm going to make an example out of you." And when you get a bunch of like-minded folks...chaos.

The Jon Ronson book?

I love him. He's awesome.

This, unfortunately, is very true. 'It's just banter - grow a sense of humour' is the ultimate get out card for everything. Deeply misogynistic, homophobic, or racist slurs are expected to get a free pass as long as it's humour. That's fine - as long as nobody is getting bullied. Unfortunately bullying is pretty rife in many schools, colleges and workplaces and the way those bullies often work is through 'jokes' and 'banter'. When the focus of that negative attention objects they can simply be dismissed as humourless.

There are times and places for jokes and there are particular audiences and levels of permission that make a difference as to when a joke is harmless and when not. I'd be a lot more relaxed about rape and/or domestic violence jokes, for example, if rape and domestic violence were not massive issues in our society. It also matters who or what the joke is aimed at. What's the power differential?

When I was a kid, jokes about 'pakis' and 'coons' were common currency, on tv and in the playground. That was not harmless. It was the product of a culture of racism and the asian and black kids had to listen to that shit day in and day out and then get called out for not having a sense of humour about it, if they didn't laugh along to jokes about how unwanted and disposable their skin colour made them.

It is a shame that some people aren't able to make the jokes they want to make for fear of upsetting people. But it was also a shame that many people felt quite comfortable making those jokes.

Has it swung too far in some ways? Yeah, maybe it has. But I sure as hell wouldn't want to return to the days when jokes like that were acceptable in the mainstream. And I really wish the 'banter' culture in colleges and universities would die a quiet fucking death - because it is in the way and is not harmless.

One of the biggest issues in 'banter culture' is the idea of rape jokes. What's the harm? Here it is beautifully articulated:

http://www.liberateyourself.co.uk/su...are-a-problem/

Changing humor and communication won't move that peg IMO.

I don't think rapists listen carefully to language and set their behavior and beliefs according to society's expectations. Sociopaths are sociopaths!

Don't change anything because of sociopaths' reactions to it. That's true madness.

I have to state my disagreement more firmly and clearly

I think things improve, and then we stop joking, rather than the other way around. For example I am certain that humor about homosexuality has forced people to confront the idea in their head in a different way.

Humor is where the conversation begins. When the scolds say "don't joke about that!" they are forbidding topics of conversation. That's not healthy and discourages change.

In order for humor to work there must be a vein of common beliefs, and if those belief are bogus, here is where they first get examined and corrected. This is where the scolds legitimately come in. If it's not funny because it's false, point that out. If it's funny, but supposed to not be funny because the subject is verboten, it's suddenly even MORE funny.

That's actually how this works! Comics mine our discomfort! The edge of our discomfort creates a point in our head where we recognize a little irony, and we laugh at the new common understanding that we have figured out.

Do you notice, when there's comedy about gays, blacks, jews etc today, it's much different comedy than it was 50 years ago. It's more sophisticated and requires a different level of understanding.

People are different. This is funny! Comedy is how we address differences. This is productive! And that's why, the only criterion that matters is, IS IT FUNNY?

I agree - I certainly don't think particular subject matter should be banned. But - when the root of humour is based on patently wrong, yet massively accepted steretypes (cartoons in the Weimar Republic about grotesque, animalistic, money-grabbing jews, films and cartoons in the late 19th/early 20th Century American South about animalistic, white-woman craving, libidinous blacks, and 1980s British comedy about the stupidity of Irishmem, or the subservience of Indian men) then it needs to be challenged by those who recognise what those jokes are actually doing.

But that's not about banning - it's about applying social pressure for change. It's a chicken and egg situation - society begins to change, so more people become aware - more people become aware so society changes.

Personally, I don't think any topic should ever be considered in and of itself to be beyond the remit of humour. But there is a really big difference between a joke that makes someone think about race/gender/sexual orientation and a joke that simply weighs in with confirmation of commonly held stereotypes. I have heard comedians make rape jokes that made me laugh and made me think and confront my own preconceptions. I have also heard comedians (and just mates) make rape jokes that made me wonder about their attitude to rape victims. The big differences between them were first off who was the butt of the humour and for what reason, and also whether the person making the joke was punching up or punching down.

There are legitimate complaints to be made about the way Twitter and social media, along with campus organisations, respond to jokes that oculd potentially be considered offensiove by someone, for whatever reason. Very occasionally, the outrage is warranted - on the whole it far surpasses anything like a proportionate response. But there are also legitimate complaints to be made about the way some sub-cultures, and this goes for social media and university campuses, create an unpleasant and emotionally damaging space out of somewhere that should be inclusive and then put the onus on the victims of social bullying to see the humour in what is a thinly veiled and dehumanising assault on what and who they are at their core.

As soon as I hear something like , "all men are rapists", or any other generalizations of that tone, I immediately dismiss the speaker as a twit.

One of the funnier jokes I've heard is:

"How do you stop black kids from jumping on the bed?"
"Put Velcro on the ceiling."

I would never tell this joke to anyone out of fear of being labeled racist. Is that progress? Am I more tolerant and that's a good thing, or am I a coward who is giving in to political correctness? The joke doesn't imply that blacks are inferior, just that they tend to have curly hair. And they do. But I feel like the joke must be racist because it's about race.

If a black comedian told the joke I would laugh without reservation.
Their kids, or their family's kids.

If a white comedian/ person told the joke, you wonder why they are worried about black kids jumping on their bed. What, you think all black kids gonna break in your house and jump on your clean white sheets? You saying black kids got no bed of their own to jump on?? (not really the way I speak or even think, but you know)

So again, it's down to perception.
IF there is a social imbalance, it makes things more tricky. It's not innocent humour any more.

Unless you want to go for the balls-out [Frankie Boyle-style] joke with "How do you stop black kids jumping on the bed? Shoot the house-robbing little MFs as soon as they're over your property line."

*runs for shelter*

That was my first thought but discarded it, as I'm too old and fat to run. :haha:

Simply take race out of the joke.

"How do you stop kids with curly hair from jumping up and down on the bed?"

"Put Velcro on the ceiling."

Not quite as funny, but, there ya go. It's a slippery slope.

Is there a ready equivalent, in terms of tone and type of humour, about a white kid?

Genuine question. My first thought was that the reason it is a bit dodgy is that the focus is on the kid's blackness. Bear in mind there are two or three centuries in our history of cultural focus on the features of black faces and bodies as signifiers of both otherness and inferiority. One of the features that tended to be focused on and exaggerated in cartoons was big lips - another was the afro hair. We are used, as a culture, to viewing black bodies in a particular way and often that way is humorously.

At an individual level, the joke is not founded on any kind of racism and there is nothing inherently negative about it. It isn't hateful - it doesn't rely on any sense of cruelty or superiority. Our brains just go there - and we find it funny. But - it is a place we are culturally primed to go to. We notice the afro hair as a thing to focus on, because we are culturally primed to notice those features in a particular way.

Ummmm.... I think it depends on your POV.

I'm white, and so I don't have a direct connection with people telling me
my hair is funny or nappy or in some other sense "bad".

But over the years "hair" inside the American Black community has become a very important issue
... a "family value" to a point of being a source of embarrassment.

Hair straighteners, hair lighteners, special hair "do's" may be out of sight of the white community,
but from a very early age children are judged by Blacks on the texture of their hair.
Children, especially girls, with soft curls are often told they have "good" hair.
Others are told their hair is "hard"

As a Black child grows up with such comments, such remarks
can have an effect on how "jokes" about Black hair are perceived.
At each incidence then, that person must decide how to respond
...with laughter, silence, or anger.

.

Sorry - I should have been clearer. I meant at an individual level the joke teller is not coming from a place of racism or negativity.

Sometimes culture makes a joke un-tellable for awhile, and it's just timing and there's nothing you can do about it. You know my story about my mom and the confederate soldier cemetery? Can't tell that one on stage anymore, I'm guessing for at least three years. That's just how it is. There really is such a thing as "too soon," and that timeframe doesn't get to be determined by the individual, only the group as a whole.

On the subject of borderline racist jokes, here's one from my daughter's joke book for kids:

What do you call a mariachi band in quicksand?

Quatro Sinko.

Is it funnier if you say "four Mexicans" instead? Is it more racist?

Not for the Velcro joke. White kids can't jump.

:jig:

Heheheh. Nice.

:D - well played

Here's one.

:p:

I think the line is crossed when it becomes a matter of policy - a ban.

Otherwise, freedom of speech goes both ways - people can joke about anything, and other people can comment protest or whine about how those jokes are offensive. Who is right? Probably orange, but that doesn't matter. The conversation goes both ways, and freedom of speech means neither get a right to have the last say. The freedom of people to be assholes is going to be intertwined with the freedom of people to call each other assholes.

Oh, well put.

WOW, she's made quite a turn!

Cos she wasn't saying that five years ago, when her TED talk got yanked and repeatedly apologized for! Then it was a whole different story!!

“Kudos to @TEDChris for making TED an unsafe haven for all! You’re a barnacle of mediocrity on Bill Gates’ asshole.” - SS on Twitter, facing a political correctness battle in 2010

Indeed

Oh dear, I still remember that moment where you started seen her crack:

What would Obama say? I love that he acknowledges the problem.

http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefi...llege-students

You know what terrifies me? That she's somehow right.

That in 30 years from now the idea that people need to be challenged by conflicting or disturbing points of view will be antiquated an unenlightened, thrown in the same bucket we've thrown racism and chauvinism and colonialism etc, overshadowed by new ideals and ethical interpretations that justify it all together in their own way, and yet we are missing on them in much the same way older generations missed on what we now take for granted. That in some way, this is just part of of society marching on.

I have seen people who are able to justify various stances that would be applicable here, and those justifications are not without merit.

One version of this is viewing the right to choose who is and isn't in your life as a rudimentary element of personal sovereignty. When pushed to extreme in the modern urban and online environments, means everyone is disposable, and if you have a conflicting view or narrative or understanding with someone, just find someone else instead. And yet it can still be justified - for disallowing or going against the ability to cut people off can be said to be supporting abuse. And yet when dynamics have one side and one narrative in one's mind, there also isn't much resistance for personal fairytales of good guys and bad guys... If so, how far of a leap it from that to a right to control the information you chose to expose yourself too?

Many people are now raised with that ability at the tip of their hands...

I think for me, it is always a tonal thing. There's a big difference, for example, between an academic who has what many people would consider a racist interpretation or outlook - such as that black people are genetically less intelligent than white people, or that slavery as an institution was kinder than it was cruel, or that the holocaust has been grossly exaggerated - coming to a campus and expressing that view, and someone advocating racism as a social response.

Same with sexism, and any isms really. I think the people who make up a campus community have the right to contribute to the ethos and atmosphere of their institution. There is a very fine line, though, between protecting the intellectual safe space in which difficult and controversial things can be discussed and expressed and protecting away that space.

What the hell is an "intellectual safe" space? Isn't intellectual and safe diametrically opposed? I would think someone who is intellectual would be welcoming for examination any and all ideas, opinions, points of view.

Three cheers for Obama, he nailed it. :thumb:

Someone who is promoting ideas that have been examined thoroughly and discarded, and who has shown no sign of having a new take on them, doesn't add anything. If the only result of having a particular debate would be to pad the resume of the person in question, and give them a veneer of legitimacy, then it may actually subtract.

That's not to say that every person who was invited to speak, and then uninvited due to student protest falls into that category, but that category exists.

But how do they know what the speaker will say until they say it? Track record? How do you know they haven't modified, or have more compelling evidence, for their position.
"Examined thoroughly and discarded" by whom, your teacher, your mentor, your friend, some "committee", or you? If it's not you, you're not receptive to outside ideas, and would seem to be a semi-intellectual.
Even if you think they're a one trick pony, you might be surprised you can learn something from them. If you are sure of what they will say, any disagree with them, that's fine, but does that give you the right to deny others the opportunity to hear and make their own judgment? That's McCarthyism.

Not to mention that ignoring someone is almost always more effective. If they're really so universally disagreed with, no one will come to hear them speak anyway. And if lots of people will go, you just happen to think those people are all idiots, that's not remotely the same thing.

University campuses were once not safe spaces for african americans - indeed they were not welcome there at all. A speaker whose sole purpose for appearing at a campus is to promote a return to a time where african americans are not welcome in campuses (and other places) threatens the safe space that the campus has (hopefully) become.

Now - you as a hypothetical black person do not have to attend that person's event. But there are other people there hearing, specifically, about how you as a black person should not be allowed to study with white people. It would be promoting racism and making the campus less welcoming of you.

Similarly - if the science department invited someone to speak on why women should not be welcomed into STEM fields - why they are fundamentally unsuited to such study - that plays into an existing struggle for legitimacy and acceptance into the intellectual space. You as a hypothetical female student, do not have to attend that event. But others are there hearing about how you should not really be welcome at all.

In both cases there are a number of people out there who believe that black people and women have no place in the campus community. They are fewer nowadays - but they were once the majority view in both cases.

There is a difference between people saying potentially offensive things and people advocating a closing down of the intellectual space to those they consider inferior. Which is why I was supportive of university students boycotting and expressing anger at a group who invited the leader of a nationalist party to speak to students - but wholly unsupportive of the furore that surrounded a professor of genetics who made waves a few years ago when speaking about his belief that each race is genetically geared to different intelligence levels.

One is a fringe view that is no doubt offensive to a lot of people, the others are using the campus to spread a damaging ideology that makes the intellectual debate unwelcoming of particular groups within it.


[eta] a more modern example might be if someone was invited to come and speak about LGBT issues and was advocating that gay people should be cured, and that transgender people are an abomination in the eyes of God. That is free speech that threatens the safety and intellectual freedom of a contingent of the campus community - a vulnerable contingent whose acceptance is still at times a battle and who face physical and psychological danger from people who espouse or adhere to those views.

A psychologist coming to a conference or debate to argue that homosexuality is a choice because of X research that he did is putting forward an unpleasant and out of touch argument - but they should be allowed to make that argument and others put the counter argument.

You know I have to ask Dana.... How do you feel about the following:

- The student's fight against allowing the Warren Farrel lecture.
- The effort for boycutting Israel in itself and the administration's response to it.
Both in the university of Toronto, both from 2012

Also, an interesting talk:

This is not what they mean. It actually means infantilist avoidance of any ideas or words or concepts or presentations they feel "scared" by. Here's what it actually is, via a NYT OpEd:

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/22/op...ary-ideas.html


*I actually organized a dinner once where McElroy spoke about some of the strange turns of feminism. She's a marvelous intellectual and none of the women in my audience felt threatened.

Your kidding right? You've had a dinner party with Wendy McElroy? I love her work! I've binged-read half of her articles.

Her version of individualist feminism is what feminism was supposed to become... Before it mutated into the current form of a one eyed hunchback with the 3 wise monkey tramp stamp.

edit: Oh and just to clarify how ridicules it is - What Wendy does in her treaties about the political use of rape - telling rape victims that their rape is a trauma that can heal, that it doesn't make them into life long victims, doesn't define them, and even that it's probably not going to be the worst thing that will happen in their lives... It is probably the most important & empowering thing they are going to hear, especially with so many voices telling them otherwise, and that such voices respond by considering it "invalidating"....

I will bet you one million dollars that Ms. Byron attended regular therapy sessions as a child and teen. This is bad therapy at its finest. Consoling anxiety only reinforces the positive feedback loop.

It gets worst:

Check the source...

Check the winky face.

Tr, yah, in a previous life I coordinated dinner speaker events with not only McElroy but (WSJ politico) John Fund and (occasional Limbaugh substitute) Walter Williams. I was part of an overall freedom movement until I decided large parts of it were nonsense and I walked away.

They're both interesting cases, I think. They are also very distinct.

The case for boycotting Israel and therefore Israeli speakers from participating in campus and other events is something that crops up a lot in the UK. The point there is rarely about wanting to block what is being said, so much as it is making a political statement about the wider culture the speaker nominally represents. It's a little like people boycotting South African sports during the Apartheid era. There are arguments for and against but they are not really arguments of free speech and acceptance of alternative views.

The Farrell lecture is a difficult one. I can totally understand why some people at that campus would not to host someone with such extreme views, and one supported by others of even more extreme views. I know I wouldn't want him or his ilk anywhere near me :P But - that kind of response is a double-edged sword. Without the protest, and without the likelihood of such protest, I suspect his event would have had fairly low attendance and be fairly low impact.

And if you're going down that route, then you really need to make sure your own house in order. Would those same people have objected to someone from the more extreme edge of the women's movement giving a lecture about how all men are inherently violent rapists and oppressors?


I think sometimes it is a mistake to make a noise about it. The same argument that says we shouldn't give, to go back to racism for example, fascistic political parties the oxygen of publicity and the legitimacy of debate by including them in the political debate scene, also really makes the case for not boycotting them in the first place.

I have very conflicted feelings on both of the examples you cite. I can see the arguments for and against boycotting them. Overall, I am in favour of college and university students shaping the ethos and contours of the intellectual space they inhabit. The downside of that is that most of those students are in their teens and early 20s and kids of that age who engage in politics tend to be very fierce about it. That's natural - it's a big part of becoming politically engaged and learning where you stand on things and what really matters to you. But it does mean that the responses to this sort of thing often lack nuance.

Ah. Yeah, no, that's bullshit. If you have a problem with the word rape - or are likely to be traumatised by someone arguing against the term 'rape culture' then that is a lecture or debate you should avoid.

There is a point at which attempts to validate experience and outweigh the social and legal paradigm of victim-blaming becomes in itself victim-making. Noone who has been raped should be made to feel like they are to blame, and anybody who has been raped has the right to feel about that however the fuck they do feel about that - but this kind of stuff encourages someone in that position to take it deep and make it a part of themselves at an identity level. If anything this kind of approach, to me, seems potentially damaging to people who are vulnerable and young.

I also have a real problem with the way people get offended or hurt by the use of a particular word, regardless of the context in which it is used. It's a bit like that whole furore with Benedict Cumberbatch when he refered to 'coloured' actors. The comment he was making was a progressive and inclusive one - but he thoughtlessly used a word which is outdated and to many people offensive. Everyone focused on his use of that word, instead of what he was saying. Similarly, the word nigger was once in common currency and is naturally present in the literature from that time. If you're going to study that literature, you're going to encounter it. I hate the use of 'the n word'.

I have a similar issue with feminists who get really upset if a guy refers to women as 'birds' or calls them 'love'. If the content of what someone is saying is inoffensive then why take deliberate offence at a clumsy or unconscious use of a particular word? Why get offended if someone is a little behind the times - or just didn't get that memo. I routinely have to think about what is the currently acceptable term for people with disabilities, for example. And I'm conscious about this stuff and take a reasonably high degree of responsibility for my use of terminology and the impact it could have on others. The reality is that on this the goal posts are ever-changing. Each generation reinvents the lexicon. That's ok - but we shouldn't be crucifying people for just for employing the wrong word, nor should we be cultivating a sense that we are all just bouncing around from one PTSD inducing trauma to the next in which a word alone can trigger a psychological breakdown.

Words can be weapons. I do believe that. They can cause great harm. They are the foundation of some of the worst acts of cruelty we as humans engage in. They shore up hatred and inequality and they sow the seeds of violence against those who are different from us. But only if that's what they are used for. The people who fought against racism and oppression in America's civil rights movement used language and terminology that would make us deeply uncomfortable today.

I habitually use the word retarded, not as a factual description but in the same way that Sarah Silverman used the word "gay." I don't actually feel bad about it, but I know I have to stop, so I've been trying. It's the only other word that has been elevated to "R-word" levels of anagrammatical euphemism. But I haven't figured out what to replace it with.

That's probably does happen and was probably part of it, since the demands did include cutting ties with Israeli universities and that's part of how they bring Israeli speakers, but it's not what I meant. The demand was a demand that the university of toronto itself boycott israeli product or Canadian and american companies that trade with israeli companies. The relevance to this is that in that case, in contrast with many other cases, the administration intervened and disbanded the group that was petitioning and relying for the boycott.


An interesting thing about extremes, they very much depend on where your own opinions and those of the people around you stand in order to define a relative norm.

I had my own experience with that regarding the first topic, where opinions that would be considered extreme left wing or extreme right wing here within Israel appear equally right wing to those with the political beliefs regarding the middle east in places like the UK/France/Sweden, while from an Israeli perspective the opinions about the middle east and their implications are only distinguishable from Nazism by the lack of sexy uniforms

Which brings me to the next and best example: Godwin's law. The reason it exists as a phenomena in the first place is because almost any stance is extreme and fanatic relatively to someone else's further down the spectrum, and there's no agreed upon zero.

Likewise, in the interview I linked above, one of the dominant complaint made by the one representing "radical feminism" was the attribution of radicalism and extremism to her stance to began with - from her perspective it's not an extreme, it's something she is used to getting school credits for.

The point been, where the norm is will generally be relative to the bubble of information and perspectives you are used to consider and encounter, very much dependent on your own subjective norm.

You have many options - idiot and moron are probably the most common, dumb & dummy are better for a softer more joking blow.

Personally my favorite is "batshit crazy", I adopted it off of pen & teller. When something seems so delusional it seems insane, and you don't have to feel bad for making fun of someone or something for been stupid without their control, since batshit crazy kind of suggests more of willful ignorance IMO.

Also it's really fun to say when you are pissed off. Try calling someone or something batshit crazy without wanting to throw your hands at the air dramatically, I dare yea.

I.E. The PC censorship in colleges has gone batshit crazy

(It might be offensive to batman, IDK).

Oh I'm good for names/nouns, my favorite is "shitwit."

But saying, "Well THAT'S batshit crazy," doesn't have the same dismissiveness. It's that great frowning throaty Southern "arr" syllable in retarded that just can't be replicated. "Moronic" comes closest, I guess. I should re-watch some Ron White, I bet there's something useful there.

A really interesting comment I found on a relevant PBS idea channel discussion:

...Personally, I am finding myself at odds with a lot of that conversation, and a difficult time to not find the idea of PTSD as a disability to be repulsive and offensive in itself (yet - should be allowed to be said). I've have been diagnosed with PTSD, with a first and second opinion annoyingly agreeing, but have never actually thought of it as a disability, and can't even bring myself to think of it as such. Unlike physical disabilities, panic attacks and flashbacks don't prevent me from doing anything I want, they just means there's a bit more shit to go through while your on the way.

I openly seek and sometimes create discussions where I know I might be triggered into panic attacks, not because I find feeling like I can breath exhausting and want to take occasional breaks, but precisely because these are topics that have a lot of weight and personal involvement for me. My own nerves - however raw - are my own responsibility.