Yes. There are reasons that the issue with Keith is effecting me more than it should. Issues like abuse in the past causing me to have a very low level of offensive bullshit that I’m willing, or able, to tolerate because I’ve had so many problems with manipulators treating me like I don’t even deserve to lick the sole of their boots, refusing to bend while demanding that I break my back to do their bidding or making me feel bad for standing my ground while chiseling away at my right to decide what to do with my life. I’m sick of it and more sensitive to it because it’s stabbing half-healed wounds and rubbing salt into them. And that’s not an excuse for why my feelings are invalid, but people will leap on it if they want to justify Keith’s behavior. I’m still human, I still deserve to be treated with respect- and part of treating people with respect is respecting their triggers and that their past may not be all rainbows and gumdrops.
And it’s not like this could have happened if he weren’t being a jackass- I don’t get triggered by people treating me like a human being. I get triggered when people treat me like shit, attempt to manipulate me, and/or demand that I’m grateful to them for it. The only thing this effects is how strongly I react to it and how well I can deal with it. Once again, this wouldn’t be an issue if he were being a decent person. That I can deal with just fine.
I also have issues with trust that have been ingrained for years. When I was 6 I had a girl pretend to be my friend and use personal information to tease me on a deeper, more personal level. My longest-lasting “friendship” was a girl who turned everyone in my neighborhood against me so she was the only one who would talk to me.
So it really doesn’t help that I let myself trust this person only to have this be thrown in my face. I kept trusting him- “okay, maybe he really does want to help and just doesn’t understand…” only to find out that’s completely untrue. I now sincerely don’t trust him to the degree that I don’t feel safe on my hall because of how much time he spends here. What do I think he’ll do? I don’t know. But there’s a long list of things I didn’t think he would do- until he did them. Assholes like this are why I have such a hard time getting over my trust issues- every time I make some progress, someone comes along to show me why I really shouldn’t have bothered.
Having to deal with this from someone who practically lives 3 doors down, who I see daily in campus or in the cafeteria, etc? It’s difficult. It’s unnerving to know that there’s a real risk that I could end up with the same class as him, forced to do group work with him. And that if I go to the teacher with this, I have to justify my feelings. I have to risk the teacher saying that they don’t care and I have to work with him anyways or fail. He isn’t worth it, but it’s not just him- it’s everything. It’s yet another person who reminds me of a lifetime of betrayal and manipulation that I’m having a bit of trouble getting past. It’s only recently that I’ve reached the point of truly believing that I didn’t deserve a lot of what I got and that life just sucks and it’s very likely that a giant chunk of it is because I’m trans and asexual and I make people uncomfortable because I don’t act quite right, which made me a prime target in elementary school (another reason why I found being told I was lucky to be SO offensive- I probably WAS teased for being trans, even if they didn’t have the words)
I like this school. I like a lot of the people here and I like the way the academics work, even if there are problems with it. We’ve found accepting teachers here. But this is seriously upsetting me to the point where I can’t concentrate on anything and I’m not sure how to handle it, I certainly don’t expect cis people to see transphobia for as damaging as it is.
