If you can’t wash it off, paint over it, replace the item, or buff it out, turn a message of hate into one of love!
I would never condone someone to do this discreetly and in mere seconds with a quickly concealed permanent marker, for example on a public bench or bus stop. Certainly not anything like whipping out a tat machine and adding to an unconscious white supremacist’s existing tattoo. That would be illegal! :) And, dear followers, I would never encourage you to do something that’s illegal.
So, please only use this when someone has defaced your personal property to avoid breaking the law! Because that would be illegal, and following in the law is always in everyone’s best interest. :)
During a writing workshop I took this past year, I was reading a submission from someone in the group, and the following passage hit me like a brick:
“I learned the things most people don’t have to know, too, how to shut down my brain and just perform the motions when needed. I made myself into the perfect parallel, not a mirror but foam. Folding in when he needed to push down, anticipating his next move, and absorbing it in kind. I became resigned to his every need, trying to never let him get ahead of my mental preparation.” — Lizzie McCord
I unpacked this with my partner, and then with my therapist, and the concept of social memory-foaming formed. Here’s my attempt at a formal definition:
Memory-foaming is the process of losing, giving up, or having trouble forming a sense of self-identity, self-advocacy and self-determination in social situations, and molding oneself to someone else or to a situation.
It often involves excessively conceding, bending, conforming and acquiescing to someone, either actively or passively, either as a reaction to specific feedback, or in anticipation of a certain response. It often involves making yourself as small, as accommodating, and/or as agreeable as possible, to the point of self-neglect and self-alienation.
Memory-foaming is different from people-pleasing in its process of self-unknowing, and in its process of identity-anchoring to someone or something else. It involves actually taking the shape of whatever or whoever you come into contact with, and being an adaptable, soft, malleable cast, often in order to fit in, gain acceptance or maintain connection.
In relationships, memory-foaming is different from compromise, generosity, accommodation, and balanced self-sacrifice mainly because of its characteristic ignorance or un-awareness of self, and the resulting extreme deference to someone else by default.
It often involves the actual adoption and internalization of someone else’s perceptions and desires, and therefore often involves not knowing the difference between “mine” and “theirs.” As a result, just like real memory foam, it takes a long time afterwards to understand what was “me” and what was “them.” Sometimes, that understanding never comes.
Wow. This was a fantastic read. I think Lizzie McCord & Attlee Hall’s “memory foaming” metaphor describes a psychological experience common to Autistics far better than “people pleasing”, “codependency” or even “fawning” ever did.
used to be for an OC, but now I just shitpost... ADHD-PI. Biromantic asexual, Agender/non binary (she/her and they/them). My interests are: stories (whatever shape or form: books, tv-series, movies, etc.), animals.
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