That’s what fixed the rest of what was left of my toxic worldview. I started working in healthcare. I’ve treated people from all over the world. I’ve treated people who speak so many different languages. I’ve treated people of all religions. I’ve treated different gender identities and sexual preferences. I’ve treated people I knew were rapists or murderers (fucking worst, but you grit your teeth and treat them like human beings who need healthcare). I’ve treated so many refugees from various places (love the refugees, keep them in the US!)

All of them are just people. I’ve met a lot of really shitty people and a lot of really good people. It’s hard to hate a group of people when you meet individuals from a particular subset and realize they have the same hopes and fears as you. At the end of the day, we all just want to go to our respective homes and be safe and loved and alive and there shouldn’t be anything political about that.

Thanks, it’s good to be heard. I am medicated, but that only gets me from completely nonfunctional to nail biting my way through life. Unfortunately I’m not able to use caffeine either, low amounts are ok, but anything more than a cup of tea leaves me extremely depressed, tired, and physically ill. After a lot of research (actually reading academic papers, not YouTube, lol) I’ve just started cautiously experimenting with micro dosing and it could very well be the placebo effect, but it seems to be working a little better than my meds. Of course it’s illegal as all hell where I am and if I get caught I can kiss my job goodbye forever.

Talking to him and being a good person can do more than you realize.

I was raised white Christian nationalist, although we didn’t call it that and I wouldn’t have realized that’s what I was. I was taught all the conservative bullshit, both politically and socially. Thankfully there was always a part of me that was like “something isn’t right here” and I kept my mouth shut and was never the bully going around mouthing off to gay kids or minorities, but I definitely thought things like “being gay is a choice” and “poor people should just work harder” and “abortion is something welfare queens do” but also “welfare queens have lots of babies for more money”.

Being around people like you who were nonjudgmental and just talked about their point of view and occasionally gently challenged my beliefs without being confrontational opened my worldview and helped give me the courage to listen to the voice in my head that was saying something felt wrong with the belief system I was raised in. I’d always been taught things like liberals were stupid and lacked critical thinking skills and acted solely on emotions and I was young and kept in a bubble and was dumb enough to believe it until I started meeting people who proved otherwise. That was enough to start the cracks forming that eventually shattered the entire wall of lies. I’m now a raging socialist and I don’t care how people live their lives as long as they aren’t harming anyone else. I don’t think I would have ended up that way if I wasn’t someone who is willing to think for myself and who isn’t afraid to be the “black sheep”, because leaving that mindset lost me my family, but I definitely wouldn’t have ever been able to start down the path I’m on if I was never exposed to people like you who started showing me the lies in the first place.

Yes. I didn’t get diagnosed with ADHD until I was in my 30s. By then I had already spent my entire life hating myself for being an utter failure because I couldn’t figure out why just having a simple existence felt like trying to climb Mount fucking Everest every goddamn day and why my brain always feels like scrambled eggs. I’ve been passively suicidal most of my life because even as a kid the adults in my life openly compared me to my peers and found me sorely lacking, and as an adult I mourn the life I want and can’t seem to achieve. I feel like my entire existence has been me throwing myself at the bars of a giant cage labelled ADHD and I can’t get myself out or find the key and people come stand outside the door and watch me and say things like “everyone has focus issues” and “you just need to try harder” and my personal fucking favorite “nothing in your brain is impossible to fix if you’re willing to put in the effort, you just are unwilling to change”.

My ADHD has taken everything from me. I have no friends, not even online, I’ve dropped out of school multiple times, I struggle at work, I struggle to emotionally regulate, I’ve only ever had two relationships and I was dumped by text from the person I was married to and ghosted from the other.

I actually have an okay paying job now, but I fully expect I will die alone and broke because the chances of me ever being able to keep a career that pays well enough to stay ahead in this economy are slim to none. I have no idea how to make or keep friends, and I can’t bear the thought of getting attached to someone else only to get ghosted again.

I’d do anything to not have ADHD. Sure I’ll laugh and make ADHD jokes with everyone else, but my life would be so different if my brain would fucking work (or if I would have been diagnosed sooner and learned coping mechanisms and self love sooner).

I work night shift. I got to watch the time on my phone reset and then relive the hour again while stuck on shift.