this post was submitted on 07 Aug 2024
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I go to therapy, I take medication, I put a lot of effort into managing my illness. I have a great job, great friends, and a great girlfriend. I'm 30 now, and that process started in my senior year of high school.
Most of US politics is choosing between the lesser of two evils. You're usually gonna end up voting for someone you dislike in some way. At the same time, at some point you need to draw a line.
For me, the weirdo comments were the last straw. It would be one thing if they existed in a vacuum, but IMO they are part of a pattern. I've seen, both online and in real life, a lot of people justifying shitty behavior by leveraging liberal political coding. While I'm no longer a target, it's still distressing to see. I feel that by voting blue, I'd be helping normalize that behavior.
I live in a state with ten million people. The vast majority of people aren't autistic, and I'm willing to bet most autistic people don't vote anyway. There are plenty of other people without my hangups that can vote for Harris.
As a sidenote I don't necessarily think autistic kids, especially boys, will be significantly better under Harris. While she would put more funding into education, democrats really have done boys a disservice over the past decade. While awareness has increased, young men in many ways have it worse in terms of mental health issues than they did a decade ago. Harris hasn't shown any commitment to address or reverse these trends.
(please read literally--no judgement intended) From one medicated, therapied autist to another: You might want to bring up these emotions with your therapist. You seem to be taking calling Republicans "weird" personally, and I know my therapist would be interested if I were having a similar reaction. My therapist would be all "ok, let's look at the emotions wheel and figure out what you're feeling, then we can talk about why". Talking with your professional about this might help you weather the current political season in a more healthy way.
I've literally sent my therapist a Discord thread conversation that haunted me. My therapist was able to help dissect the interaction and I have a better understanding of which of my metaphorical buttons were pressed, so I'm more able to deal with similar situations in the future.
I've talked with my therapist a lot. The conclusion I've come to is while the level of upset I get is outsized, my emotions are valid.
The weird comment was just the last straw. Since 2018, I've seen so much toxic behavior justified by political coding. It started off online, but post covid it really hit the mainstream. A lot of this behavior is almost objectively unacceptable, and the talking through this kind of stuff with my therapist affirmed my gut feeling that the political coding was just an excuse. Here are some examples I've seen, from online and real life:
At this point I've seen this toxicity on a personal level, from democratic politicians, on social media, and in traditional media. It is very much a real part of liberal culture.
What therapy has also helped me realize is that, in the past, I felt a similar resentment towards conservative culture. My shift in anger corresponds to when I moved from a more conservative area of the county to a liberal area of the country. I think that there are a certain type of people who are just shitty and looking to excuse their behavior, and political coding is the way to do that in 2024.
I've also explored how I became the person I am today, specifically how I "beat" the bullying. The answer was ultimately that I disengaged. Senior year of high school I avoided anyone in my grade that I didn't have an explicitly good relationship with, and successfully attempted to make friends outside of my school. In college, I chose a university that students from my high school almost never go to, and made it a point to attempt to form connections from people with a different background. After college, I made a commitment to not move anywhere close to my hometown.
I am actively applying these conclusions to my decision not to vote. My feelings that liberal culture is toxic are valid. The best way to deal with them is to disengage. At the same time, there are equivalent issues in conservative culture that I'm not having an emotional reaction to by virtue of lack of exposure. So, the best solution is not to vote, and to transition to being a more apolitical person as a whole. While that's by no means a perfect solution, absolutely nothing will change if I continue taking the same approach towards politics that I have for a good decade at this point.
You need a much better therapist.
This comm is about satire. Not your obviously deep seeded problems.
Yeah, most of that just came out of left field and was entirely unrelated to anything he'd said before. At first I was like "wait, did they lemmy-stalk me and figure out my dad died of covid and my partner's in a polyamorous relationship with a woman?" but no, it was entirely unrelated to anything.
Just... I'm glad all that's off his chest, but I fear that's only because he's using it as a bludgeoning weapon.
We found the guy in the article!
I don't use racial slurs. I am not a Republican. Staying home doesn't make me a bigot.
If you're really autistic, wear the "weird" label as a badge of honor like the rest of us do. You should also understand that it isn't a slur, except to egotistical, conformative assholes who think they're the normals ones.
But they're not. They're weird, because they can't handle facing the fact that they are.
It's not a badge of honor to have an intellectual disability that, among many other things, makes it harder to function in social situations.
It's nothing to be ashamed of, and social situations are not all there is to life. Autistic people dive deeply into our interests, sometimes to the point it gets a little weird, and that's an awesome thing to be proud of.
These fascists think they're normal, and they need to be reminded how weird they are. They're the only ones who think it's an ableist term.
Them, and for some reason, you.
It makes you a-ok with Trump winning though. Weird is not a racial slur, either.
You equivocated me to the guy in the article, who uses "every slur under the sun". I assume that includes racial slurs.
You're doing a whole lot of assuming in your comments, along with the extremely heavy dose of sob stories.
Stop trying to gaslight me. I've seen this for years at this point. People will hurl insults and accusations, and then plead ignorance based off the idea that implications, connotations, and subtext don't exist.
I was equivocated with the guy in the article. The guy in the article was heavily implied to be a racist. Therefore, I was called a racist.
Also the democratic party loves sob stories. Everyone's lived experience matters except mine apparently.
Dude. Drop the bullshit. We're in a comm about satire. If you can't handle something as simple as that then you need to disconnect and focus on face to face conversations before failing at online discussion like this.
Good luck, I wish you the best.
Donald Trump has been accused of rape by more than one woman, but him being called weird is your final straw?
Trump told his nephew that disabled people should just die, and you think Kamala will be worse for autistic children.
Let's drop the pretense: this has nothing to do with your autism, and all about the fact that you are fundamentally okay with fascism, despite knowing that you will likely be one of the first victims of it.
Just be honest.
I'm not voting for Trump, I am staying home. I previously voted for Obama, Hillary, and Biden. I have volunteered for my local democratic party in 2018. This isn't a decision I made lightly, and telling me I'm a horrible person for doing so is only going to reinforce my beliefs.
Where did I call you a horrible person?
That's dishonest. My argument is that you are mistaken and allowing your trauma to have you make irrational decisions.
You said I was fundamentally okay with fascism.
That's the conclusion most people are going to reach when someone tells them, "I've decided to stay home because the democrats are calling the fascists weird." You made your decision. At least have the courage to own it.
For so long I've put up with so much toxicity, both online and IRL, because I was worried not doing so would make me a bad person. I'm not doing that anymore. Idk if that's courage, but it does feel liberating.
You are more okay with fascism than calling fascists weird.
What conclusions should I draw from that?
So you admit you're calling me a bad person then?
How about you answer my question before I answer again the question you already asked.
You called me a horrible person when you insisted that not voting makes me a fascist, and that I should "admit it".
I think you just like being shitty to people, and use politics as your excuse.
I haven't been shitty to you nor called you a horrible person, or even a fascist.
With your victim complex though, you will fit right in with the republican party.
As I have stated on multiple occasions, I am not a Republican. I am just not voting. A third of eligible voters did this in 2020, and even a higher percentage did not do this in 2016. Are they all republicans also?
People who choose to fence sit in the battle against fascism will not be counted among the good and courageous.
You have made your decision and given your explanations, but that doesn't change the simple fact that you chose wrong.
Yes, because that's what people will think when they read your comments. That you are a good and courageous person.
If you believe the fight against fascism makes a person good and courageous, than you already know that you are making a mistake to not join the fight.
Oh that's another thing. I'm Jewish. A huge amount of the people most vocal about fighting facism expressed support for Hamas (not Palestine) after October 7th. Hamas is a totalitarian regime with the explicit goal of wiping out Jews worldwide. In areas with strong progressive local governance, violence against Jews has been handwaved away.
I would not want to do any sort of fighting alongside those people. They scare me.
Lol, go through my comment history. I have often been accused of being an Israeli intelligence agent by people here.
That's great, but the woman who testified before my city council that the women raped by Hamas were lying bigots leveraging #whitewomantears got the cheers of many progressive leaders in the audience. These same groups participated in regular "pro Palestinian" protests where phrases like "globalize the intifadah" and "Houthi freedom fighters were thrown around"
What does any of this have to do with you empathizing with Trump?
Again, I don't. I am not voting for Trump. I just think it says a lot that Democrats choose to attack him on his lack of social conformity vs all the other almost objectively awful things about him.
As I keep repeating. I am not voting for Trump. I'm just going to stay home.
Which specific democrats aren't attacking him on all the other stuff?
Thinking you're a bad person is not the same as calling you a bad person. Laying out evidence which may lead someone to think you are a bad person is not the same as calling you a bad person.
Trump also open mocked people with disability. But this dude didn’t care, it’s democrats calling people weird.
This reeks of some next level Russian propaganda bullshit.
A lot of the accounts on here were only Palestine supporters to sink the Biden campaign.
They are still finding their footing on how to tank Kamala.
Again, not voting for Trump. Never planned on voting for Trump.
Think about this logically. I'm obviously not an LLM. That means I would have to be an actual person writing this, presumably in Russia. Lemmy as a whole has a fraction of the popularity reddit has, which in turn is much less popular than stuff like TikTok and Instagram. This Lemmy instance isn't super popular, and this sub isn't particularly popular on this instance.
My highest voted comment of all time is me making up batman dialogue. My highest voted comment today is in regards to the definition of the word skeet. If I was a Russian propagandist, I would be on a fast track to being defenestrated on account of how useless I am.
I think it's just easier for you to to paint me as some monster or shill than acknowledge that I'm an actual person who came to my conclusion as a result of lived experiences.