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[–] 60 points 5 days ago (6 children)

A lot of the time "normal" is an ableist concept, and the solutions provided are basically just to "mask harder".

I think a more actionable thing people can work on to be "normal" is to seek emotional regulation. Anyone can work to get their emotions, especially anger, under control. Very few people are actually normal by this definition, of course. People are angry as fuck, and my solution to this has just been to care less and be more patient.

People get mad when driving for example, especially because the person in front of them isn't speeding as much as they'd like. Care less about how quickly you arrive at your destination. Care less about the mistakes other drivers make. We will all get there when we get there, and that's okay.

There are things outside of our control, and what we can control is how we react to things. To some degree, a big solution to stress is to just not stress about things. That seems unhelpful, but the point is to change one's mindset and to avoid dwelling on inconveniences.

Of course, people also get angry in the face of injustice. That's a whole other thing, and I think people should actually focus all of their anger on this.

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  • [–] 29 points 5 days ago (1 child)

    I've actually been researching masking today and it literally made me burst into tears. I've been realising how much damage I've done to myself in my childhood by trying to appear "normal". I don't blame "that kid" because he was just trying to protect himself but I still have a bunch of permanent tics from that attempted "normal" arc. Fuck normal!

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  • [–] 20 points 5 days ago* (1 child)

    A lot of the time "normal" is an ableist concept, and the solutions provided are basically just to "mask harder".

    The last time I pointed this out, two people responded to me with "You're doing the thing again." It vindicated everyy suspicion I had of TrueAnon fans. As far as I'm concerned, anyone who likes that podcast is ableist until proven otherwise.

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  • [–] 26 points 5 days ago (2 children)

    Starting to think this whole dirtbag leftism thing was a mistake. How do we get them to shed the dirtbag, read theory, and actually become leftists?

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  • [–] 20 points 5 days ago* (2 children)

    Dirtbag to me always just meant adopt the same sort of behaviors that fash adjacent people find funny and effective, the whole bullying, demeaning behavior against people you don’t like ie don’t self censor or pay too much attention to verbalized ableism, racism, misogyny, homophobia etc.

    But you can’t really be a ‘dirtbag’ and a leftist. Someone can write it out better than I can but, like, they want to evoke images of ‘real communism’, what the hard nosed Soviet Union supposedly represented. But lost in all their bravado was strength and power. Not verbal bullying and that’s all that dirtbag is, calling someone an ugly hard r and essentially running in the same spaces as most right wingers.

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  • [–] 14 points 4 days ago (1 child)

    The idea was to ditch civility politics and tone policing, but in a society built on stomping on marginalized people that frequently lets people slip into the systemic violence mode they have unpacked and unlearned the least. Which one that is varies from person to person, but for redditors it's usually misogyny, transphobia or national chauvinism topped off with obligatory and copious amounts of ableism and body shaming.

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  • [–] 18 points 5 days ago* (1 child)

    I think there's still a lot of dirtbag mentality on this site that people don't seem to want to shed.

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  • [–] 14 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago)

    To be fair, a lot of us grew up in this same Western/American milieu. We all grew up with it in High School, much of the media we consume values it, this is the only sort of projection of power and strength we know.

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  • I'm legit scared this whole "woke 1 " discourse will have the opposite effect and make them more openly chauvinist. In an ideal world, it would exclusively call out the liberalism and lack of class consciousness in the last decade's identity politics, but it will predictably turn into stabbing trans people in the back, disavowing BLM and saying that "abolish ICE" is too radical and we should instead focus on getting ICE agents into cop unions.

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  • [–] 21 points 5 days ago (1 child)

    Anger is a good thing to work on especially since most people shut down and stonewall you if you get visibly angry/loud (for both justified and unjustified reasons).

    It especially sucks because getting angry for me triggers dysphoria which only makes me more angry.

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  • [–] 20 points 5 days ago

    Yeah, people absolutely shut down if you demonstrate visible anger, regardless of how justified that anger may be.

    I was raised Vulcan (/hj), so my parents would become completely impossible to talk to if I ever showed any visible emotion of any sort.

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  • [–] 18 points 5 days ago (1 child)

    Of course, people also get angry in the face of injustice. That's a whole other thing, and I think people should actually focus all of their anger on this.

    I did this too hard and now I hate everyone

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  • [–] 19 points 5 days ago (1 child)

    You're angry at people, which means necessarily that you are not focusing all of your anger on the injustice.

    As Alexander Cockburn would put it, your hate is not pure.

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  • [–] 6 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago) (1 child)

    If you hate something, how can you not hate those responsible?

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  • [–] 27 points 5 days ago* (2 children)

    This is like the core separation between being a leftist who read theory vs a leftist who read memes.

    Dirtbag leftists will say, sure, hate the perpetrators. Principled leftist scholars have written hundreds of pages about why we critique systemic issues instead of condemning random individuals.

    The following is an excerpt from Eugene V. Debs' Canton, Ohio speech. Emphasis mine.

    debs "Some years ago I was to speak at Warren in this state. It happened to be at the time that President McKinley was assassinated. In common with all others I deplored that tragic event. There is not a Socialist who would have been guilty of that crime. We do not attack individuals. We do not seek to avenge ourselves upon those opposed to our faith. We have no fight with individuals as such. We are capable of pitying those who hate us. We do not hate them; we know better; we would freely give them a cup of water if they needed it. There is no room in our hearts for hate, except for the system, the social system in which it is possible for one man to amass a stupendous fortune doing nothing, while millions of others suffer and struggle and agonize and die for the bare necessities of existence."

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  • [–] 15 points 5 days ago*

    I'm happy to see someone here articulate this because it's actually something I've thought about a lot, and I've considered withdrawing from hexbear because of how my own mindset can be influenced by exposure to so much anger towards individuals. Unfortunately at the moment I'm functionally disabled with a hard time leaving the house, which makes logging off from social media a lot more of a sacrifice.

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  • [–] 6 points 5 days ago (1 child)

    Thank you for your, and his, perspective. I don't agree. Perhaps I am too hateful. But, no matter, I'm probably not going to change. I feel too strongly about this.

    Seems like a very political answer too. Which is good, much better for optics then I would be.

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  • [–] 17 points 5 days ago (1 child)

    The first step to overcoming something like misanthropy is acknowledging its presence in your mindset. If you don't want to change your mindset, then it is what it is. Nobody's a perfect communist, and we don't have to be.

    If hate or anger ever feels like it's weighing on you too heavily in the future, you can always think about it more then.

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  • [–] 7 points 5 days ago* (1 child)

    well, thank you for accepting me where I am.

    It definitely weighs on me, but what is to be done? I hate abusers. I hate bigots. I don't think any amount of thinking about it is going to make me not hate someone who inflicts such pain and suffering on someone else. I've had a few thoughts to, make it less, or justify their thoughts and behavior somehow but they clearly were not enough. I used to give people more credit.

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  • [–] 7 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago) (1 child)

    Most people aren't good people, but they're still people. They're an animal in a fucked up society. I think again it's sort of about meeting people where they are. Having no expectations for other people kind of means they can't disappoint you.

    Maybe they'll come around someday and that's great or maybe they'll just die bitter some day. It is what it is.

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  • [–] 5 points 5 days ago (2 children)

    It just feels really strange, because the system is the people enforcing it. It is the people profiting from it, upholding it. This isn't the matrix, they system cants be defined and left, it is people with motive to maintain it.

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  • [–] 4 points 4 days ago

    This isn't the matrix, they system cants be defined and left, it is people with motive to maintain it.

    To be fair, that is also true of the Matrix:

    The Matrix is a system, Neo. That system is our enemy. But when you're inside, you look around, what do you see? Business men, teachers, lawyers, carpenters. The very minds of the people we are trying to save. But until we do, these people are still a part of that system, and that makes them our enemy. You have to understand, most of these people are not ready to be unplugged. And many of them are so inured, so hopelessly dependent on the system, that they will fight to protect it.

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  • [–] [S] 11 points 5 days ago (1 child)

    I think I have the opposite issue. I'm deceptively calm. I think I can count two times in my life when I've shown anger, and they involved extreme circumstances. I don't know if that's a good or bad thing because sometimes I just let things eat me up on the inside instead of expressing them in an outburst to get it over with.

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  • [–] 24 points 5 days ago*

    This is called repression, and it's a type of masking that even neurotypicals do frequently. You're not actually calm and you're not actually getting rid of the anger, you're just bottling it up.

    You might not be aware that you're expressing that anger, but you absolutely are. A lot of angry, angry people don't even realize they're constantly putting their aggression onto others. Everyone repressing their anger is constantly radiating particles of Big Mad.

    If it's eating you up inside, it did actually bother you. You need to process your emotions instead of pushing them down.

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