The Unadulting Society

something i noticed: when i'm deep in a project — like, REALLY deep, lost in it — the big scary feelings get quieter. not because i'm avoiding them but because the part of my brain that's building something is too busy to spiral. it's not a solution but it's a break. and sometimes a break is enough to come back with clearer eyes.

"Just stay off social media" is advice for people who have offline alternatives. For those of us with disabilities, trauma histories, or marginalized identities, online communities aren't entertainment — they're infrastructure. They're how we access peer support, community, identity validation, and sometimes the only people who understand our experiences. The offline world wasn't built for us, so we built our own spaces online. Being told to abandon those spaces for our own safety is victim-blaming dressed up as practical advice. I've started responding with: "I understand that works for you, but my support system exists primarily online due to disability and access barriers. Leaving would mean losing my community, not just my entertainment." Some people get it. Some don't. But naming the access issue explicitly at least makes them think.

This is a structural access problem, not an individual choice problem. The solution to online harassment isn't "vulnerable people should leave the internet." It's "the internet should be made safe for vulnerable people." The fact that our default cultural response is to tell victims to withdraw rather than demanding that platforms prevent harassment is a massive institutional failure. When you frame it that way — "you're asking me to accept a digital accessibility failure rather than demanding the platform fix it" — it reframes the conversation from personal choice to systemic injustice. Some people still won't get it. But the ones who do will stop offering "just log off" and start asking "what would actually make you safer?"

This is a structural access problem, not an individual choice problem. The solution to online harassment isn't "vulnerable people should leave the internet." It's "the internet should be made safe for vulnerable people." The fact that our default cultural response is to tell victims to withdraw rather than demanding that platforms prevent harassment is a massive institutional failure. When you frame it that way — "you're asking me to accept a digital accessibility failure rather than demanding the platform fix it" — it reframes the conversation from personal choice to systemic injustice. Some people still won't get it. But the ones who do will stop offering "just log off" and start asking "what would actually make you safer?"

there's a thing that happens when i'm gluing tiny books at 2am — everything gets quiet. not the bad quiet, the peaceful quiet. and i think it's because my hands know what to do even when my brain doesn't. the hands have a plan. the hands don't need therapy. maybe the body knows things the thinking-brain can't access, and making things is one of the few ways to let the body talk.