Your ability to make frank assessments about your situation becomes compromised, because, well, when you're under attack who's going to stay still and go "Let me think this through?" Of course you're going to panic. The phone call isn't just unpleasant, it's potentially life-ruining. Someone is going to think you're dumb and that's going to be TRUE and then I guess you die or something except dying would be better. The book isn't just gross, it's actively coming for you, tainting your mind with the memory of its contents, it has RUINED you.

Obviously, you want to try avoiding danger whenever possible. So you create a world in which you avoid all dangerous things. Traveling? Well that's scary, what if you get robbed or lost? Better to avoid it (plus there are so many things to read, rules to remember, forms to fill out... it's just too much, it makes you uncomfortable, which means YOU'RE IN DANGER, what if you FORGET SOMETHING CRITICAL? Better to avoid). A new job? Well what if it's worse than your current one? You at least know the rules here. The unknown is so much more uncomfortable, which is DANGEROUS, so better to stay where you are. A dark-skinned foreigner? Do they even speak English? You don't know how you'd communicate. They don't know the laws here, surely? Plus what if other people think you're racist? It's so uncomfortable which means THEY ARE A DANGER. Best to avoid at all costs, keeping your bag clutched tightly to your chest. Vaccines? You don't really know what's in them. The explanations have a lot of words you don't understand,you said something that was kind of rude? UNCOMFORTABLE. THIS PERSON IS ATTACKING YOU. FIGHT OR FLIGHT. Someone says you were incorrect about something? DANGER. Someone says you reacted impulsively and seem to have misconstrued someone's words as a personal attack? YET ANOTHER ATTACK.

Eventually you lose yourself and become this. I don't even know. This totally reactive thing, unable to think analytically about anything (which is uncomfortable and a danger), unable to assess harms, unable to encounter anything new without having a meltdown. And none of it is a real escape because, well, you've created a life defined entirely by aversion to discomfort, which is the most uncomfortable life you can possibly imagine. Of course such people end up falling into fascist ideas about Why Your Life Sucks. When you build a life around trying to maintain as comfortable an equilibrium as possible, you cauterize the parts of you capable of growth, expansion, creativity, learning; at the same time, the knowledge of your own stuntedness is haunting so best not to think about that either. The world becomes this horrifying mirror maze where the only way to survive without offing yourself is by projecting your flaws onto others, bitterly externalizing your self-hatred (who could live like this and NOT hate themselves) just to avoid turning it inward. You end up living like a hollowed-out sea urchin

A lot of people I've met seem to think that mental healthiness is characterized by a lack of discomfort whatsoever, and are therefore justified in building a life where all discomforts can be avoided. On the one hand, I completely understand the impulse. Lord knows I have had colossally shitty times and wished I could just retreat into bed and fall asleep for as long as needed for everything to blow over. But like. You also have to understand that that's a fantasy, not a solution. When you have grown up living a crap life with nothing but discomfort, the ability to avoid it feels like exercising autonomy. But you really do have to be careful about making this your life ethos. I know so many people who have lapsed into total learned helplessness, so consumed by discomfort (mentally catastrophized into dangers) re: looking dumb, looking rude, looking X, looking Y that they just. Idk. Don't do anything except be bitter. You don't have to be that way. The solution isn't "tough it out" because that's also just a manifestation of your inability to handle discomfort. I also hesitate to say the solution is to focus on how much better your life will be when you do X and Y, because the entire point of the inability to handle discomfort is that it constantly manifests in precluding the possibility of even wanting X and Y in the first place since to want it and not be able to do it IS in itself another source of discomfort.

I think at least an element of the solution, on a personal level, is to never give up learning as an active process.

I don't mean in an academic sense (though that's an option for some of course), but in a direct experience sense.

Because learning means not knowing things & facing the reality that we can be wrong about things, or just have a skewed understanding of things (all can be uncomfortable), but you constantly reinforce that that isn't the end state, instead you learn to see it as a necessary part of becoming.

And that also helps draw the distinction between 'I'm uncomfortable because I'm learning' and 'this is uncomfortable because something/someone is trying to harm me', and that makes it easier to have a proportionate nervous system response to different sorts of discomfort.

you've seen the jokes. india is "dirty", indians are "everywhere", why don't they fix their own country. ok. let me tell you why, and what's happening right now while nobody's watching.

first, the history you skipped: britain ruled india for two centuries and drained it. economist utsa patnaik's research estimates around $45 trillion in today's money was taken. the india that got independence in 1947 was one of the poorest countries on earth. every "why is india like this" question starts there. you don't get to profit off a robbery and then mock the crime scene.

now, what's happening RIGHT NOW:

in may the question paper for NEET leaked. that's the national medical entrance exam. over 2.2 million students took it. cancelled. years of studying, families' savings poured into coaching, gone overnight because someone sold the paper. students died by suicide after. these were kids who wanted to be doctors.

and out of that came a protest movement. a gen z group called the cockroach janta party, started by a 30 year old named abhijeet dipke, got 22 million instagram followers within DAYS. they've been doing a sit-in at jantar mantar in delhi demanding education minister dharmendra pradhan resign.

and then there's sonam wangchuk. if you've watched 3 idiots, he's the real engineer the character was based on. built solar schools in ladakh. invented ice stupas so himalayan villages have water. spent his whole life on education. he's 59 and he's been on hunger strike for 17+ days now. reporters went to see him this week and he was too weak to talk. and the troll armies are calling him "anti national" and "foreign funded". a man starving himself for other people's children. that's the thing here, anyone who asks a question is suddenly a traitor.

it's not one incident, it's everywhere you look:

• infrastructure worth thousands of crores failing within months of the ribbon cutting. tunnels collapsing in regions where heavy rain is a guarantee, not a surprise.

• youth unemployment near 10% for ages 15 to 29, 13.6% in cities. in a country of 1.42 billion where more than half the population is young.

• only about the top 3% of indians earn above 10 lakh a year. meanwhile billionaire wealth keeps ballooning and the headlines celebrate it.

• manipur burned for over two years. an ethnic conflict, tens of thousands displaced, and the prime minister barely said the word manipur while it happened.

• journalists raided. critics' houses bulldozed. activists sitting in jail for years without trial under laws like UAPA. our press freedom ranking has cratered.

• even the petrol is a fight now, ethanol blending pushed through while drivers complain about their engines and get no straight answers.

and through all of it, the PM, who came to power on religious polarisation (americans, sound familiar?), travels abroad for photo ops and has not held one single open press conference in over a decade. not one.

what i'm asking:

if you're not indian: share this. our media mostly won't cover any of it because the big outlets are owned by the same billionaires the government serves. the only reason wangchuk's fast is getting any coverage is people refusing to look away.

if you ARE indian: speak up even if you're comfortable. especially if you're comfortable. join the protests. add to this, correct me, translate it. staying quiet is a choice when nothing in this post touches your life.

india is not "dirty". india was robbed, and it's being robbed again, from the inside this time. but it's also the country where a 59 year old will starve for strangers' kids and 22 million young people will rally behind a party literally named after cockroaches, because cockroaches survive everything.

we can still save her. but only loudly.

Shira is in the emergency room with a very bad infection after being forced to live on the street after surgery.

We are approaching the beginning of the month, and she urgently needs the €600 for the house rent before the 1st. Please, we kindly ask for your help and support. We are truly in desperate need of assistance at this difficult time.

We have raised €234 out of the €600 needed for the house rent. Please, please share this with others. We only have a small amount left to reach our goal.

Come on folks, every little bit helps. Lets not put her back out on the streets!

Unfortunately, because of her medical condition—which is very difficult to treat and continues to show noticeable deterioration—there is a constant fear that she may lose her housing. She already lost her first place to live, and now she is staying in a shared house, renting a room with someone else. The rent is €600 per month. Please, we urgently need to raise the €600 before the first of the month. So far, we have only managed to collect €14. Please share her story and support if you can. She genuinely needs help.

"Please help me. I am honestly terrified. I feel constant panic, my stomach is in knots, and I keep vomiting from fear and stress. I barely have any food to eat, but what scares me the most is losing the place where I am staying. No one seems to have mercy anymore. If I cannot pay the €600 rent, I will lose the only place I have. This is the only place where I keep my clothes, my medication, and where I can sleep temporarily while I try to recover and get my health back on track. Please, I have to pay the rent at the beginning of the month. I am begging for your help. Please share this message and help me reach anyone who might be able to assist. Thank you from the bottom of my heart

"Something I've learned while in law school is about the social construction of crime. I work in a legal clinic on wage theft cases, where employers have "improperly paid" workers by not paying, paying below min wage, withholding overtime, paid sick time, etc.

Most theft is wage theft. Meaning, the dollar value of stolen wages is greater than the value, each year, of all burglaries + robberies, shoplifting, auto theft, combined. Yet, wage theft is not a crime."

Below this tweet is an image comparing the cost of robbery, auto theft, burglary, larceny and wage theft in billions. Robbery only hits 0.34 billion, auto theft 3.8 billion, burglary 4.1 billion, larceny 5.3 billion, and wage theft accounts for greater than 19 billion dollars. The data is sourced from the FBI and EPF.

"If you steal $100 from your employer, you will get arrested. If you call the police because your paycheck is $100 light, the police will tell you to file a complaint with the AG, and the AG will settle the case for between $50 and $200.

(That's actually not true, because AG's only take on big cases where thousands of dollars are at stake, but they will settle big cases by typically requiring the employer to properly pay what is owed. No jail, no criminal record.)

If the AG doesn't want to take the case, it will give you a Private Right of Action to sue the employer in civil court for what you are owed, plus damages. It can take a 6 to 18 months to win at trial, and months or years to collect on the judgement if you win.

This is what we mean when we say crime is socially constructed. Not all social harms are criminalized. Not all actors committing social harm are criminalized.

I settled a case for $27k for three clients last year. We spent a MONTH negotiating the non-disclosure agreement because the employer stated if all his employees sued him and settled like this, he would go BANKRUPT. His business model DEPENDED on wage theft.

These employers go on to hold elected office. 45 famously used wage theft to improve his finances on construction projects, leaving a trail of victims in his wake. Some sued and he had to pay them. Others didn't have resources to pursue multi-year litigation + got nothing."

Then the user responds to someone else asking a question.

The question:

"Can you explain this reasoning? Why expanding criminal liability is a bad idea? For whom?"

The user replies:

"What should we do about it? Criminalize employers or decriminalize theft or something else?

Wage theft shows that we believe restitution is important. Giving the money back is important. Currently, AG keeps track of bad actors and will increase future penalties for bad actors.

It also shows when harm is committed, we don't have to lock someone in a cage or label them a felon, both of which destroy years of life even after the sentence is over. We can demand restitution instead of punishment.

It also shows how ridiculous the label "high crime neighborhood" is. And the arbitrary and racist response of police surveillance in HCN. Because we defined it that way.

Consider the social construction of murder:

The people committing the most harm aren't in jail, don't live in high crime neighborhoods. And "black people commit more crime" is true only because of how we have defined crimes, and how we then surveil their community in response to find more crimes.

There are so many orgs trying to address harm and create accountability within community + without incarceration. We call ourselves prison abolitionists.

Just a few: @ byp100, @ survivepunishNY, @ justicehealing, @ DeeperThanWater, @ BlackAndPinkBos and @ BlmBoston"

I have flashlights that are borderline unusable because, while the hardware is fine, the company that made them (hello OLight!) demands that you install and login to the storefront before you can access the configuration software.

But they don’t actively maintain the software or provide any of the new utilities that they promise. They are mostly using it as a way to turn off functional hardware to try and force you to upgrade.

We are living in a society where you can pay for something and the manufacturer can turn it off because they’ve decided that you’ve owned it too long .

I’ve just had to warn my family not to buy electronic door locks because the chances are, if they are Internet connected they will be disabled once the company that owns them has decided that they’re not making enough money charging you a monthly fee to open your own front door.

This is part of an ongoing trend to turn money into something that is no longer usable by everybody .

The eventual aim is to be able to pay people company scrip: If you lose your job, or badmouth the company, or disagree with the dictator, they severely curtail what you are allowed to buy, and from who.

And at that point, you have to pick sides – do you want to be able to have drinking water from Coca-Cola, or Pepsi, and whose package allows you to buy Doritos, and use your smart oven to cook food? Because it won’t turn on unless you use the app to scan the appropriate barcode from the company who now owns your ability to eat drink, heat your home, and wear clothes from brands that they approve.

Also! Stress tolerance is such an important skill that having a learning disability in that area is a major symptom of a whole lot of other disabilities/mental illnesses! Struggling with it is a huge part of life! It sucks!

Am I saying everyone with misophonia needs to listen to chewing noises all day? No. But you need to find ways to tolerate it enough that you don't treat others like shit if they make a mouth noise near you.

No, you don't have to read the fic with your trigger tags. But you do need to be able to handle scrolling past the tags without being upset.

It is hard! But not having it also makes you so so so easy to manipulate. That grandma is racist AF because her mom raised her to be uncomfortable around black people and she never fought that discomfort. Trans people make so many cis people uncomfortable and that discomfort turns into bigotry real fast.