whispers of the night

Do you remember? We were a child and we knew what we needed though we did not know the words we were already aware of our patterns we needed mental health days or maybe mental health weeks we knew that when we were home sick from school we would recover to feel better than before we fell ill for weeks afterward

We didn't know about the concept of a mental health day it probably would not have been available if we'd asked and maybe we wouldn't have rested properly if we weren't sick but we knew on some level that if we stopped falling physically ill we would slowly start struggling more and more

now we are an adult and we stopped falling ill somewhere in our teens

we stopped falling ill and started losing steam on and on we pushed for a decade and more getting a little less done every successive year

The way you phrased this

nonsuicidal people wield power/privilege over suicidal people

And I found that interesting because they're absolutely right, it seems really self-flattering! That's honestly why I resisted it and why it took so long for me to get there, I'm naturally skeptical of explanations that seem to be too good to me!

But here's the thing you have to realize that bridges that gap and makes you realize that, as horrifying as it is to us, it's true: we may think that explanation is flattering to us, but they don't.

You have to understand that we may think it's morally correct to care about other people, but MAGA people foundationally reject the concept. Don't take my word for it, you just have to listen to all of the influential people in the MAGA movement, up to and including the Vice-President, argue that empathy is not just unnecessary, but actively sinful.

If we don't reckon with the fact that MAGA is not just doing bad things in the search for some greater good, but is actively doing things that are bad for most people because they do not care about anything beyond themselves and maybe those close to them, it's going to be very difficult for us to actually confront it.

And fat liberation says "It's okay to be fat!" and fat people say "I'm happy being fat and I don't try to become skinny!"

And it scares people that that is an option. It scares people to think that they have sunk so much time, so much effort, so much misery into avoiding being fat. And this person in front of them is just... not even trying. Rejecting the game. Saying You Don't Have To Do That.

If they accept that they didn't have to do that... then they made themselves so unhappy, for so long, for no reason.

They want their effort, their unhappiness, to have been worth it. To have meant something.

what does it feel like to do heroin

A reply from [deleted]

Actually this is an obvious question but it’s not what you might think. Let me explain it to you, I’ve been an opiate addict for a long time and tried many drugs. Drugs that are ‘uppers’ have the most ‘obvious’ euphoria. For example if you take adderall/coke/meth/speed/MDMA you will get this shining bright euphoria, self confidence, energy, and other drug-specific feelings (for meth like you are king or for MDMA like you love everyone). However, you owe these drugs back what they delivered to you. After a meth binge, or lots of MDMA use, or staying up all night on coke you will feel like shit. To an extent this aspect is similar to an alcoholic hangover.

On the other hand, for many people who experiment with heroin they are underwhelmed (not including IV usage, but most experimenters rarely ever IV first time). They just feel good, chill, happy, but they feel like this spooky drug ‘heroin’ hasn’t delivered. They are just mellow. Oh obviously it has all been a lie they will think. Heroin isn’t spooky, it’s chill. It’s not addictive like everyone else thinks. It doesn’t make you do stupid shit or stay up all day and hallucinate like amphetamines or coke. It doesn’t empty your serotonin like MDMA or give you a hangover like alcohol. People tend to just think oh, what a nice drug.

So the next day they wake up and everything is normal. No headache or shitty feeling–just a slight afterglow of that nice feeling. Oh it was cheap as well! It only cost $10 for a whole night of being high! I thought people said heroin was expensive? And then next weekend comes… There are all these drugs I could do but I liked heroin. It didn’t fuck me up,‘I could still think clearly. No hangover. No feeling like shit later. I still was awake. It just made me happy and content with life. Oh and it’s only $10! Well, I should get some more for the whole weekend. This is great! I will use Heroin on the weekends now!

Now let’s say this person works and has responsibilities. He knows he can’t go into work drunk, or on MDMA, or high. So he doesn’t. It’s actually simple. But heroin… Well the user might actually find they do better work on heroin. Instead of being sad or grumpy or depressed with his job… he is just… happy. Mellow. Content. Everything is fine and the world is beautiful. It’s raining, it’s dark, I woke up at 5:30AM, I’m commuting in traffic. I would have had a headache, I would have been miserable, I would have wondered how my life took me to this point. This point I’m at right now. But no, no, everything is fine. Life is beautiful. The rain drops are just falling and in each one I see the reflection of every persons life around me. Humanity is beautiful. In this still frame shot of traffic on this crowded bus I just found love and peace. Heroin is a wonder drug. Heroin is better than everything else. Heroin makes me who I wish I was. Heroin makes life worth living. Heroin is better than everything else. Heroin builds up a tolerance fast. Heroin starts to cost more money. I need heroin to feel normal. I don’t love anymore. Now I’m sick. I can’t afford the heroin that I need. How did $10 used to get me high? Now I need $100. That guy that let me try a few lines the first time doesn’t actually deal. Oh I need to find a real dealer? This guy is a felon and carries a gun–he can sell me the drug that lets me find love in the world. No this isn’t working, I need to quit.

To answer your question, heroin feels nice. That’s all, it just feels very nice. You can make the rest up for yourself. Attach your own half-truths to this drug that will show you the world and for a moment you will feel as clever as Faust.

Edit: Thank you for the kind words. I received help and I’m doing well now. Luckily I was able to pull up and get help right before I entered the deadly downward spiral. Some of my friends have not done as well. Sorry to steal the limelight from OP

A reply to this from Ifuxdalion

Reading that was more haunting than any anti-drug campaign that I’ve been exposed to. Thanks. A lot.

End of reddit post.

The third image are tags on tumblr. They read #anti-drug campaigns should be run by recovering addicts #cause like #how are you gonna talk honestly about how a drug affects your life if youve never done it #how can you really communicate what it does to your life if you ignore the reasons people do drugs in the first place? #i dont think anyone’s gonna believe you when you say a drug is bad if you never acknowledge the way the drug makes you feel good #tags

Reagan put the US on a path to destruction and every time anyone that isn't a far-right lunatic tries to course-correct, the conservative dark money made sure they never succeeded.

I think we've turned incrementalism into some great evil that must be destroyed because passing imperfect solutions isn't as sexy and fun as total reform. And I'm sick to my teeth about it.

Obamacare, the ACA, is an imperfect solution. It was not a universal option, and allowing the individual states to choose whether to take federal subsidies that were set aside for them regardless to expand Medicare created an enormous ironic hell. In red states, which refused the subsidies obvsly, you could be too poor for ACA coverage. I know because I lived in three such states. After Obamacare passed, I still was without insurance for years because I was too poor to be covered.

That, all of that? Is about as imperfect and fucked as a "solution" can be.

But then Obamacare literally saved my life. I would be dead without it. A few years ago, in Florida, I made barely enough money to qualify for ACA coverage. And then something went extremely wrong with my esophagus, and I had to get a magnetic ring surgically inserted around my throat or, y'all, I would have been dead in another month.

I'm sitting here alive because imperfect solutions. And when virtue-signaling cowards talk about how the Dems and GOP are the same, I want to scream, "The GOP would have let me fucking die! They have let so many others die! What the fuck is WRONG with you?"

You, all of you, are surrounded by people who are only here because imperfect Democratic solutions. And I think it's hideously disrespectful to the people who aren't here, who didn't survive, who didn't get the SNAP benefits they needed or didn't get the insurance they needed or didn't get the housing subsidy they needed, to pretend otherwise.

Why does everyone think children like that received "gentle parenting"? Children don't learn violence and rage out of nowhere. And I highly doubt it was only in response to her phone being taken away. When children are abused constantly and reminded that everyone sides with their abusers and they have zero proper channels for holding their abusers accountable, they have to pick something to do about it. They're going to get a beating anyway just for using the wrong tone, so they might as well do something to deserve it.

Also, remember when that piece of shit Tommy Jordan shot his daughter's laptop with a gun because he was angry about a Facebook post she made? He was met with praise. Everyone wonders where children learn their violent outbursts from, while adults are praised for theirs.