Dealing with Neofascists
I am gonna need to find a new praxis for when I am in chud territory. I am letting myself get taken advantage of too often, when I reach out, hoping to steer people out of the alt-right pipeline.
My empathy is for those who are lost and have fallen in with a bad crowd because they had nowhere else to go. My empathy is not for narcissists who would use my kindness as an invitation to try to gaslight me again.
Dealing with Neofascists
@FreyaManibrandr feel instinctively like the only force capable of starting the process is traumatic. and, well, that takes both skill to apply, and a certain...willingness to stay completely detached. and maybe it always has to come from somewhere else
re: Dealing with Neofascists
@Alyx This is why I put shutting out toxic people out of my life at a low priority, a last resort when reaching out didn't work.
Because the people who loved me reached out and helped me heal, I feel like I should pass that empathy on for those lost and still stuck in toxic environments.
re: Dealing with Neofascists
@Alyx It took my girlfriend finding out, and dragging me into a call with tears in her eyes to start the process. I felt the pain in her voice, and knew then and there that I cannot continue down the path I was on anymore, my conscience won't let me.
It took almost a year to deprogram from the fascist indoctrination the AltFurs have inflicted on me, and all this time, I had been fighting a battle with myself. I thought a lot of dark thoughts, a part of me wanted to lash out at the very people reaching out to me, and I worked REALLY hard to suppress those angry impulses, because the truth is, that part of me was my hurt pride, trying to externalize and project my failings outward when the rest of me was, and still is trying to take responsibility.
Internal conflict is both very powerful and scary.