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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.
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!
Absolutely. I hate that anyone feels forced to mask.
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.
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?
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.
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.
Why did you not mention racism?
You got me there, oof. I seriously overlooked that.
No worries, just wondering about the reason if it was intentional
I think there’s still a lot of dirtbag mentality on this site that people don’t seem to want to shed.
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.
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.
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.
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.
There are things outside of our control, and what we can control is how we react to things.
key
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
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.
If you hate something, how can you not hate those responsible?
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.
“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.”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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Drink exactly 2 beers
The painful part is that i found it to be true. It almost works like my ADHD meds for social interactions. Finally able to sit still for more than 5 minutes, finally able to listen to something that is not 100% engaging, finalky my brain just shuts for a bit and lets me be - and likewise, everyone else who drinks gets a little more antsy, excitable and accepting of unusual behavior.
Gimme a two-beer-pill without the side effects of consuming addictive poison please.
Gimme a two-beer-pill without the side effects of consuming addictive poison please.
Pretty sure this was the idea of synthehol in Star Trek TNG. I read an article on “what would that entail, pharmacologically?”.
Takes a sip of beer #3 uh-oh
“i drank my second beer ten minutes ago, so that means I’m probably about 1.9 beers, I’ll open this one to top up back to 2.0”
“Guess what? I’m on top of the liquor. I am the monkey in charge of the bananas.”
Watch sports, the office, breaking bad, and severance via paid streaming services. Never pirate
fuck… this is harder than I thought
Even if I did pirate all that type of stuff it’d be painful trying to force myself to pay attention to all of that.
I’ll sit on my bed watching videos of people filming old flashlights. (Literally took a pause to ask wtf I was doing with myself.) Hollywood has no mechanism for baiting my autistic ass.
At least Breaking bad shows that normies in 2000s are very different from normies from previous millenium. Normies on 50s used to get terrorized by comrade Elvis shaking while singing
Watch sports, the office, breaking bad, and severance…
Okay 3 out of 4? pog? I am I normal?
…via paid streaming services.
noooooo how could you do this to me
Can’t be using bearsite anymore.
This is probably biased by my ADHD bullshit, but I think a huge part of it is trying to keep your outward expressions of energy at no higher than 7/10. People like a “That’s amazing.” a lot more than a “THATS AMAZING!”
Another part is learning to socialize beyond reciting facts at a person. Gotta ask follow up questions, use body language and eye contact and learn to read the ever-shifting social vibe. A joke that would have worked five minutes ago might not work now.
This is actually gold!
Also keep outward expressions of energy no lower than 3/10, lest you be accused of acting “robotic” or having “flat affect”.
Have you tried having a special interest in Sonic and then infodumping about it to everyone around you?
It’d be dope to have a coworker try to tell me about the intricacies of Sonic CD or whatever instead of the typical shit lol
Honestly I’d rather a fellow autist infodump about something I don’t care for as opposed to some allist talking about some cultural zeitgeist for the billionth time.
But seriously, I’d take that any day of the week.
I can tell you what not to do, when two ladies in your union start talking about DnD, don’t start bouncing up and down in excitement as you wait for your turn to enter the conversation. That’s really not normal. It went fine for me though because we’re all notedly neuro nonconforming, but even for us it was commented on
Detroit: Become Normal
You don’t have to be normal to be liked by those around you. I’ve had lots of neurodivergent coworkers who are well liked by their colleagues they’re people who care about others and are helpful. Many of them still talk about special interests at work to people, but they know when to stop. Many of them can read other’s body language, but if you absolutely can’t the most important thing you do is plan lulls in the conversation so they have the opportunity to interject. Let them respond, and ask for their response. Even if they aren’t interested they appreciate that you are asking their opinion, allowing them to contribute, and let them leave the conversation if they want to.
I don’t consider these coworkers “normal”, but they have a “normal” relationship with their coworkers meaning they have friends and are invited out lunches and even events outside of work. These people have what many are seeking without having to “mask”, just moderate. Also contribute to conversations started by others. Everyone appreciates being able to speak, even if it’s the same boring conversation about the weather or whatever. Also if someone wants to talk about sports and you don’t know anything, just tell them that. People appreciate that kind of honesty vs faking trying to contribute.
You won’t win everyone over, some people just won’t like you because you’re different. Just make friends with the ones you can and it’ll help you feel a lot more relaxed at work.
Don’t be like Trotsky Don’t do things like this: https://hexbear.net/pictrs/image/58f0dc79-85ca-4c64-9939-50282d7744b4.png?format=webp
That’s a better way of phrasing the idea than just “normal”
Common Trotsky L.
I can be like that about communism and Soviet symbols, but I’d never do anything like that to a child.
ⓘ This user is suspected of being a bear. Please report any suspawcious behaviour.
What even is normal? Like amerikkkan “normal” of being a bigot and wanting to legally murder people?
Yeah I got you: don’t
Pickleball
Crochet
Watching The Office
Professional Sports
Why are y’all pickling balls? I think I’m gonna stay a weirdo and only pickle vegetables
Being normal is overrated.
Have lots of opinions on the weather
