I think this might be the best time to start having these conversations: when things are getting bad for almost everyone, and there is so much governmental upheaval that changing the economic system becomes a lot less disruptive than it would be during good times. It’s only going to become more and more clear that capitalism is failing.

My favorite economic system so far is a land value tax with UBI. I still don’t know exactly how businesses would operate, but this system would eliminate the parasitic generational wealth siphoned from hoarding property and housing. It would also allow for people to not work if they’re unable to.

I’m sure it’s probably just delusional hopium that we could ever get through the threat of fascism and come out of it with a better system than what we had, but that’s about all I got left right now. The rest is just doom.

OP did say that in this particular instance, and I may have missed that on first read. But this advice is all over the place generally, and I’ve frequently received this advice IRL, with no caveats or context, so it’s not always a matter of “keep scrolling.”

I’m not doing what that article is talking about. I guess instead of reminding people that there are a lot of neurodivergent people not working remotely, I should have just silenced myself. I mean, why even have a thread like this at all if the advice works for some people?

That one is pretty useless if you have an hourly job. Oh, I’ll just leave the store whenever I want and won’t get fired, hmm? And the infuriating thing will still be there when I get back.

You just reminded me that I knew a boomer who would constantly say how important it was to be in touch with your feelings. He was really proud of himself for painting his bedroom pink (for his wife, I guess, who didn’t actually care what color it was). Dude was still abusive AF. It was very confusing.

If this is real, please get help before you hurt someone. This is not normal behavior. Your perceptions are not matching up with reality, and it sounds like you have a hard time controlling yourself in these situations.

Look, communicating awkwardly doesn’t make you a horrible person. I think part of it is you have a confidence problem. It sounds like you always cowtow to your coworkers’ reactions, even going so far as apologizing when you haven’t objectively done anything wrong (your responses don’t seem that weird, but maybe it is the way you say things). It seems odd to me that anyone would be offended by an offer to go home early, unless you’re making it seem like you specifically don’t want them to be around.

At the end of the day, your coworkers are just people with their own issues and imperfections. They are probably not experts at communication either, so don’t treat them as such. I would not take any social cues from coworker 1.

You may not be able to change the dynamic at work, so my advice is to find a way to socialize outside of work (with people who actually like & respect you!). That way you won’t have to rely on your workplace for those needs.

How is that post borderline insane? It’s a lot of unnecessary detail, but outgrowing your high school mates is a pretty common thing that people sometimes don’t know how to handle.

Well the first thing you gotta do is quit listening to society! Seriously, cut that out. Who cares if you don’t conform? There are at least dozens of us who don’t, and I’m at the point where I’m ready to take a stand and tell them I’m just as valid as they are. And so are you. Don’t let everyone else tell you who you are. Live the way you want to live. And find the other weirdos. Just one friend could make a huge difference.

Yeah I feel like volunteering and community action is a few steps down the line. As for how to find people who can hear you out - they do exist. To be honest I answered a local reddit post looking for friends. I think her post mentioned she was struggling with mental health issues. It’s important to be open about that from the start. Maybe I got lucky, but we turned out to have so much in common. We started taking long walks once a week. Not too much of a commitment, but I had something to look forward to every week. And yeah, there was some trauma dumping from both of us at times. It’s far less embarrassing when there’s a back and forth, and we found we could relate to a lot of each other’s experiences.

It may seem counterintuitive that you need to find someone who is also struggling. It’s much easier for us to have compassion for someone else, even if our situations are the same. But eventually you’ll realize that if your depressed friend deserves your compassion then so do you.

And so what if you have to try this a few times to find the right person or it doesn’t pan out? At least you tried something and got some fresh air.

Eh, this is something you can probably change. In the last few years I’ve done a lot of processing work and am trying to make more intentional choices for myself rather than living the way other people want me to. Now when I meet new people it reminds me that I actually quite like my life and wouldn’t want to trade it for theirs.

Hmm, I’m not sure paper towels are compostable where I am. I’ve been trying to use as little as possible because I was told the volume of them builds up in the landfills. Is it really that wasteful to wash a plate?

No, those are different things. Intrusive thoughts are your brain telling you terrible things like you suck at your work or your hobbies, you’re worthless, your friends don’t actually like you, and hey remember that time you did a cringey thing in front of people? They’re not true, and you’re not intentionally having these thoughts, but your brain can’t easily rationalize them away. It’s usually something that builds up over a lifetime so that you don’t even realize it’s happening. Thats how so many people get stuck believing the intrusive thoughts.

Don’t go to Facebook first! We need to start normalizing ways to organize outside of those giant corpo-fascist sites.

Especially at work, where you can’t leave and should probably be focusing on the work.

When you post that much on a small, not-very-popular-yet site, people are going to get tired of seeing you. I’m pretty sure I’ve blocked you at least once just because you were the ONLY content I was seeing on my front page. Why would I or anyone else come to a place like this and be ok with only seeing content from one user, or the same meme over and over with slightly varying formats?

One time it snowed a foot or two in Seattle. I had a set of studded tires on a little Toyota Tercel and I swear I was the only fucker driving around. Uphill, downhill, cruising down the lumpy hard-packed freeway, didn’t have any problems. Besides, if you get stuck in a Tercel you can just lift the whole rear of the car out of the snow with a second person. I really miss that car.

That’s odd. I read most of The Myth of Normal and did not get anything like what you’re saying from it. In fact, Mate mostly blamed “the system” for keeping people traumatized. I would have stopped reading immediately if he’d said anything like “children are too sensitive.” Are you sure this Barkley isn’t mischaracterizing Mate? Did Mate later change his stance about everything? Based on his book, I can’t imagine why he would ever say the things you describe.

Before you give up entirely, check out some of the areas surrounding Seattle. The capital is a bit more affordable and there are a lot of state jobs.

Conventional therapy wasn’t working for me either. Most of them just let you free talk, but what I really needed was information–useful information, not just a list of disorders with discombobulated symptoms. I started getting into bibliotherapy with The Body Keeps the Score by Bessel van der Kolk. It’s a good place to start even though it’s written a bit clinically. Other good ones are The Myth of Normal by Gabor Mate, and Children of Emotionally Immature Parents by Lindsay Gibson.

The books gave me things I didn’t know I needed: examples of healthy and unhealthy behaviors and relationships, examples of healthy boundaries and how to make them, and types of trauma or neglect that may have happened in childhood. I also learned about the four F responses (freeze, flight, fight, and fawn) which helped me to interpret my own confusing emotions and behaviors in a new light.

It sounds like maybe the first step is to cut yourself some slack for being stuck. Most of us don’t choose to go into the hole, we just find ourselves there. It’s ok. With the right tools, you can get yourself out.

Some just gave up entirely and made fun of the kids who could read. What a shitty exercise all around.