I live, I die, I live again!
I've abandoned this blog for personal reasons in august a year ago, and now I decided to return. My Twitter account was banned, and I'm not reactivating there yet. Twitter was an overwhelming place, very likely not the perfect one for my quest. This year I gained a lot spiritually. I came out to my family and friends (more details a little bit later), I won more control over my health and body, I learned new things about the world around me, and my vision of the world is more and more alike a defined structure. This is why I'm bringing my voice back.
It wasn't easy for me to accept who I am. I don't bother if I'm feared by people who don't like me, my life and my love are not for them, but I don't want to be pitied by people who like me. My existence is not diseased, this is something I'm certain of, I may be a little weird, but I don't need to be protected from others, and others don't need to be protected from me. It's hard to establish yourself as a thinking, vocal person, when you're a map. We're so much more than threats or resources in a fight against CSA. The society is laced with ableism, they see our condition as an illness, and that's why they believe we're out of control and need heavy regulation, and even those, who claim to support us, often express this support in a form of gently pushing us towards therapy and rejection of our attractions. But we don't need this condescending sort of support, because we are already in control, and we are good the way we are. These thoughts were in my head when I was considering talking to my mother about my feelings.
The first sentence was already formed in my head. “I think I can be attracted to younger ages than I believed”. It doesn't sound categorical or dramatic, and I can recommend it to everyone. I prepared a set of statements from the research summary page of B4U-ACT (https://www.b4uact.org/know-the-facts/), it holds a lot of important citations, although it should be updated more often. But I didn't even need it, because she didn't treat what I told her seriously. She asked me how it affects my relationship, I answered that it doesn't, and that made her dismiss my mapness as something that won't affect my life. We had to have this conversation again. It took her a couple of months to understand that I'm still hurt by the stigma and the hate against the map community, even though I can successfully pretend to be a normal person. It's curious that I heard the same thing from antis before: if you don't plan on anything illegal, what are you afraid of? I'm disturbed that people treat me like a taboo thing, like something that needs to be hidden and only discussed with professionally trained adults, I want to be able to say who I am and not hear “think of the children” screamed in my face, because my existence is not about children, and I am not contagious and don't spread pedo bacilli. But, well, eventually she understood. I also came out to my real life best friend, and he listened to me attentively, but he too struggled understanding what's the purpose of the map movement, and my participation there, if we're not seeking to legalize relationships with children.
So, if you can act like you're normal, why are you here? But do I have to? I don't want to. I want to be at peace with myself and honor all parts of myself, not hide them like a guilty secret, and this is why I want to continue writing and speaking as a map. Coming out made me feel better and brought me a sense of peace, so this is worth it, and I'm writing for myself and for those who don't feel safe enough to follow my steps.
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