Ask Lemmy

That I'm a man and that must mean I want solutions to my problems instead of my feelings being validated.

The amount of time I spend trying to get people to simply validate my feelings is maddening.

I've heard it said "women don't want solutions, they want their feelings validated." Such a stupid unnecessarily gendered thing. Everyone wants their feelings validated.

But no, everyone proffers solutions or excuses as to why I shouldn't feel that way. Makes me feel like I'm going crazy.

I'm chronically ill. My ability waxes and wanes. When folks see me out doing something challenging, they tend to assume I'm just fine and must be some shiftless malingerer. Rather than understanding I've sunk a lot of time and preparation into trying to be ok for that occasion.

Something that I believe a lot of people around me misunderstand, is the fact that I hate "people," but also want to be connected, share moments, create moments, create things with them, and outlive the biggest assholes of the world.

I hate people who have made life for those they will never meet, worse than ever. I hate those who can't seem to wrap their heads around the idea that no one wants to be owned in any way. I hate those who didn't pause to put themselves in someone else's circumstances and realize the negative effects they can have on them; and ultimately, change their course of action accordingly. I hate those who live their lives for the sake of obtaining more and more money, commodities, wealth, or power over others. The list of reasons goes on, but my time to extend it does not.

I have the male equivalent of "resting bitch face". Yet, I'm normally content and happy. And definitely willing to help people out. I mean, I've been taking care of people at the worst moments for my entire adult life.

I am fanatically polite, helpful, and very friendly in person and go out of my way to make people feel welcome and helped. My church friends and my patients absolutely love me, and I genuinely would give a kidney to most of them (well not every patient because some of them aren't nice no matter what you do but I try to be very patient and hold space for what troubles them). I go out of my way to be generous in other ways despite the fact I have extremely little money, I'll babysit your kids so you can go on a date, for example, and would never think of being paid. The kids at church adore me and I'm always sitting with a pig pile of them on top of me. People say I'm like a light in their lives. I genuinely want to do everything I can to make their day good, and I'm very funny and genuinely interested in other people.

But life at home is simply awful. My spouse is a violent manipulative narcissistic sociopath who I am only living with because he's wrecked my finances and my ability to cope alone, and I cannot afford to leave, and I think he'd hurt me if I tried. My ability to cope comes out of amber bottles, if I didn't have meds I'd be hospitalized and ripping the hair out of my head. My spouse only speaks to me about bare necessities. I have no control over money at all, I work two jobs, usually 12 hours a day save for Sundays but that's still 8 hours, have almost no time to myself and he judges me for what I do to relax (which is reading, television, and church). Underneath it all I feel like a black hole because of what he has done to me, I'm not even scratching the surface here. I feel like five different people sometimes even though I have a very good sense of self, but I feel like I have to keep these parts of my life separated so I don't emotionally bleed on anyone. I really don't know what will happen to me.

I have been called fascist and I have been called communist in online discussions.

In reality, I believe that social democracy is the best ideiology.

You need high taxation to finance a good safety net for the citizens of a country, and you need the free market to capitalize on human ambition.

This means that you need a strong government to enforce the rules and provide public services.

Water and power should be government run, internet is more tricky these days, a hybrid model where the local government build the infrastructure but you need to buy internet access from an ISP.

Healthcare should be government run, but with some private alternatives, government would provide good solid care, private alternatives would provide the came medical care but with improved service during your stay.

Trains should be run by the government, large industries should be able to pay to get a spur connected to their facility if they need it, all tracks should be electrified.

Public transport should be run by the local government, and can be run at a direct loss, the increased ability for jobs and shops will make up for the shortfall of cheap tickets. Gadget bahns would be banned.

My dialect is confusing to some people. I was speaking to a Californian friend over Discord and I pronounce the word "Southern" in a way that she didn't realize what word I was saying until I clarified that to her, and she was like "yeah, that's definitely a different way of saying it". Another word that trips some people up is "decals"!

I'm an open book. So the thing people misunderstand most often is that I mean everything I say.

My neighbours are Nazis.

Im not having a bad time just because I dont talk all the time. So many people directly associate silence with sadness or loneliness.

I suspect that people who don't know me can't guess my political bent. No one ever throws so much as a quip at me, yet I hear people comment to other strangers.

Middle-aged white guy, dresses redneck when I'm working or playing outside, yet kinda "hip", long hair.

Why I hate Fallout: New Vegas.

People assume I'm making my conditions up, despite going through medical procedures at various times in my life.

One aspect of my autism is I don't react to pain in the same way as other people, so when I am going through considerable pain I'd push on whilst maybe making a casual comment that my back hurts a fair bit due to my discs, however I'd say this without pain being expressed in my speech.

There's also the situation where for extreme pains, the only reason I can get out of bed on some days is due to cannabis (for which I'm legally prescribed it). However due to my lack of reaction, people find it hard to believe I have a fair number of health issues when they see me just getting on with things.
Once it took an ex an hour of convincing before she took me for an x ray, for a broken toe, because I was just walking around with a limp, saying I'm sure I broke it (all casually).

When I spend time with left-leaning people (like on Lemmy), they assume I’m much more right-wing than I actually am. Conversely, when I’m with my right-leaning friends, they think I’m much more left-wing than I really am. Even my closest friends and my SO frequently make assumptions about my views on certain topics, and more often than not, they’re completely wrong. My political views are such a mixed bag that they don’t fit neatly anywhere on the spectrum. However, the further you move in either direction from the center, the more I find myself disagreeing with the people there. Yet, many - often trapped in binary thinking - assume that if I’m not on their side, I must belong to the other.

I also enjoy playing Devil’s advocate, so even when I agree with someone 90% of the time, I might still bring up points that - at least to some - make it sound like I disagree. It’s just that there are very few positions I’m absolutely certain about, so even when there’s little actual disagreement, I like exploring the perspectives that highlight my own uncertainties.

I have a cluster C personality disorder. People tend to think it is similar in behaviour and motivation to Cluster B PDs.

What it means to be autistic. What makes this more fun is how much learning about autism has essentially become a special interest of mine. The amount of responses in this thread that scream unrealized autistic is very high. :D

Drug use (cannabis), chronic illness, what people think is my ego.