Don't...
I came across the following poem recently on http://ballastexistenz.autistics.org/?p=205#comment-4803:
"They told me:
Don’t be ugly,
Don’t be pretty.
Don’t be stupid,
Don’t be smart.
Don’t be loud,
Don’t be shy.
Don’t be here,
Don’t be there.
Don’t be wrong,
Don’t be right.
Don’t be sad,
Don’t be glad.
Don’t be sick,
Don’t be well.
Don’t be."
By S. Marie - a pseudonym, she wrote a book called "CAPTÏV", about her experiences with child abuse and family violence.
http://www.captivpoetry.com/index.htm
It describes even better than I ever could how it was for me growing up, how it was for so many of us. That was, quite literally, not at all metaphorically, what I was told every single day of my life. I couldn't win, no matter what I did. And even the good things about me were wrong.
It wasn't just that the adults in my life, in my family, and `friends' and others I know today couldn't deal with my disability and my depression and family problems, it's that they simply didn't care enough about me to get past their fears and prejudices.
I didn't matter enough to them. They could have dealt with all of this if they had wanted to, but they didn't want to.
That's my fun, new insight for the month. :-( I told the TMHP about this realisation, desperately hoping I was wrong, that he would tell me, "No, that's not it." No such luck. I'm right. I hate it when I'm right about these sorts of things.
My hay-fevered-mucous-filled head is now going to bed. The hay fever tablets are not working, damn them.