I understand where you’re coming from, honestly. But I think this is a sort of trauma response on our end (myself included) at this point. I’m not trying to pin mental illnesses on you, I’m nowhere near a licensed head doctor of any kind, I’m saying that we’ve been kicked and abused so much by the rich, that it’s only natural for those of us who broke free of the brainwashing to be on high alert, at least for a while. The continued unfolding of things surely can’t help this situation, either.

That being said, as long as he acts in good faith and is sincere and logical in his approach, which so far seems to be true, I’d say we should embrace his participation! As I see it, we need all the voices we can get. We’re already arguing semantics amongst ourselves all day long, I think it’d be a shame to let mistrust shatter “our side” without concrete proof of malicious intent.

At the end of the day, the greatest weapon the Right has is the fact that they yell united at everyone else. Let our chorus rival theirs!

I 100% share your sentiment, I’d give my life just to know that my kid would have the freedom of self-determination…

Thank you! That’s not a bad idea, although I honestly don’t hold much hope for it ending up being successful in any way. This really does feel like a stalemate…

I have been told I’m too composed and, believe me, I have no idea, either… It’s beyond difficult to deal with this, it’s downright devastating…

I truly hope you’ll manage to find some peace, whichever way that may be…

Wanna know something ironic? It was his wife who gave me the push to actually embrace my empathy.

My mental health was like String Theory for a while: “we’re pretty sure something is there, but we’ll get back to you in a decade or three.” It got so bad, that I started spiraling down the I Don’t Care route just to detach from my feelings. His wife told me “why do you say you don’t care when you obviously do?” That stuck with me and it brought me back from nihilism, motivating me to pour all of the energy I could into caring, into facing and understanding the discomfort, hell, even starting to study politics!

And now, when I’m fully dedicated to my caring about everything I find valuable, they both tell me I care too much…

I honestly fail to find any merit in what he’s shared so far. All I see is gratuitous hatred and a refusal to actually investigate and understand. He seems very comfortable in his beliefs and, I dare say, quite aggressive toward anything which threatens said comfort…

As far as if I’ve budged or not, I’m getting closer and closer to being a radical Leftist (I hold nothing but disdain for Authoritarianism, to be clear) based on my own principles and understanding. I’m downright galloping, but directly away from the beliefs he holds.

Thank you for the encouragement and for the sound advice!

I was actually planning on spreading out as of next year (2024 broke me, I am letting myself float somewhere outside of time and space until the year’s officially over), focusing mostly on as much volunteer work as I can find. Maybe I’ll get lucky and find a job in a related field, or something, that would definitely make my day.

As for conventions and social events, that’s a bit… tricky for me. So far, I’ve pretty much been the embodiment of the “adopted introvert” meme (for lots of reasons, most beyond my introversion), so it’ll be baby steps for a while. But you are right, I have to do some exposure therapy.

Those are very kind words and I can only hope that I deserve them!

I know exactly what you mean… I used to be very naïve and wanted to believe that people are essentially good, but may lose track of that through being misguided and confused. But after seeing how much things have degenerated around those moronic tropes, it’s like the gods themselves slapped me out of my joyous dreams…

Jesus, losing a 20-year friendship really sounds like losing family, I’m so very sorry…

I’ve been heavily codependent for most of my life, but I’ve worked for years to fix it. Believe me when I say I care too much for my hard earned nugget of mental health to give up on it for someone who spreads hatred, even if that person is my friend.

You’ve hit the nail on the head, I did notice that my opinions seemed to push him even further into his…

I just wish he’d drop this fearful hate… I’ve come to know him as a decent guy over the years, and this shift took me completely by surprise. Hell, maybe the seed’s always been there, I don’t know anymore…

Oh, wow, thank you so much! I’ll do a deep dive into this, but I stopped holding out hope for any form of change about a year ago…

I won’t make this my primary focus, though, I’ve wasted enough of my mental health on people I believed I could “fix.”

You’re 100% right, it never is, even when it’s painfully obvious that it is the only solution left.

I’ve tried to avoid clashes, but they’re increasingly inevitable, both because he seems to be settling into his closed off state, and because I’m opening myself up to the world and its problems more and more. And it’s slowly becoming emotionally draining to have to dance around this particular flavour of disagreement because I cannot help but be intensely aware of the fact that these are the ideas which will make or break everything…

This is… heartbreakingly fitting… God damn it, I hate this situation so fucking much…

It’s so weird… I mean, we both used to go on /b/ back in Uni, but I always went there as a sort of… horror tourist, if that makes sense - to simultaneously laugh at the absurd closed-mindedness and hate and to study what people can become when under the protection of anonymity. I never actually thought he took anything seriously, and it’s been such a long time since then.

He’s not horrible, he’s… I don’t know how to put this, like an aggressive defensiveness of sorts. And, I mean, I get it, he had a kid just as the world was shown to be sinking and people started going nuts, they’re having financial issues like most of us. Add to that the “standard” fatigue which comes with having to care for a very smart kid, and I get why he’d close himself off to the world and to his empathy. But instead of looking at the actual problems, it’s like he’d rather blame the easiest targets for it. Which is why I frequently got contradicting ideas from him, and which is why I’m so confused about our friendship… It frequently feels like I’m talking to my granddad, who was one of the staunchest, most aggressive Conservatives I’ve ever met…

Truth is, I don’t even know what is and what isn’t getting through to him. For instance, one day we can concur that Late Stage Capitalism is the cause of, let’s say, 85% of contemporary problems, the next it’s “people are suffering because they don’t man up and deal with it” (not the “let’s rise up and change things” kind, the “swallow it down then BAU” kind)…

Edit after watching: exactly as I was thinking that maybe I should stick by him and try to pull him away from the danger, the video punched me right in the gut with pure truth… I fucking hate living in this country, it feels like it’s taking everything truly important away from me…

Ah, sorry, must’ve expressed it wrong.

No, that was a decision I’d been mulling over for several years and several reasons. Our friendship was one of the big reasons, yes, but I mainly needed to get out of my old context, needed a change.

As far as expanding my friend pool, it’s… in the works. But I really can’t deal with extreme differences in views, not in the here and now. My mental health’s been heavily dented for several years now (fixed some problems, then the world exploded), I genuinely can’t deal with casually interacting with people with whom I fundamentally disagree…

I’d rather be alone than surrounded by people I know I can’t trust.

That’s the thing, I’ve been trying to do just that for basically the last year and a bit. Even decided to pull the trigger on moving to the same city as them (I attended Uni here, but then moved to a different region), thinking that maybe if we met up face-to-face more than we used to it’d help alleviate things a bit. But this was just the latest disagreement to happen between us.

And don’t get me wrong, I don’t expect any sort of relationship to happen smoothly and effortlessly, we’re human and pretty much irrational at the worst of times (myself included). And with things going the way they’re going in general, I can tell I’ve not been at my best for a good while, either. I don’t know if I can deal with any future occurrences, as I can feel that I’m not getting any more cheerful or optimistic as time passes.

I’ll give it some more time, was planning on doing so anyway, and I’ll consider things from your perspective as well. I have too much respect for him to rush this…

Thank you, yeah… I barely have the energy to take care of myself, let alone deal with this bullcrap, I swear…

As for restarting my social life… that one’s really going to be a challenge… I can feel myself closing off, and living in a country where the grand majority of the population is made up of god-bothering regressives really doesn’t bring out the social animal in me…

Jesus Christ, this sounds uncannily familiar… It’s like they’re all cut from the same cloth, I swear…

I’m genuinely sorry you’re going through this, had to cut my family off, too (racists and casual eugenics enjoyers, in addition to just being overall shitty and abusive people). I stopped expecting people to change a long time ago, which is why I know what I have to do. It’s just… so fucking hard to lose yet another familial relationship.

I hope things will work out with your brother, though, it sounds like he’s relatively open, although still reticent to take the plunge, so to speak.

Eventually, yes. I can tell he’s “tuned into” the state of things, ironically, even though he’d rather close his eyes to it (not judging or blaming him, not that hard to understand why), and politics, whether he realises it or not, come into play pretty frequently.

Thing is, this isn’t just about politics, this is a clear divergence of core values. It also reflects throughout his general behaviour, though in lesser quantities, so to speak. Like the instant it started becoming obvious that the world isn’t ok, he balled up and… I dunno, started coping through these opinions, I guess…