Comradeship // Freechat

this happens all the time and life has taught me to only give a fuck if it happens in the workplace because each time it's happened, it ended up being the most obvious warning sign that my manager/supervisor/team-lead were trying to drive separation between my colleagues and I to make sure that my departure wouldn't have a social impact.

they last time it was employed against me it ended up backfiring fantastically because my colleagues were either experienced enough to realize what was happening (after they reached to me directly to find out why i wasn't attending) and/or my team lead was too inexperienced to pull it off successfully. i ended up with a gift card and suddenly showered with verbal praise for 5 minutes by entire c-level suite broadcasted to the entire company at its last meeting. lol

my colleagues' threats to quit because of this manipulation was the first time i experience work place collectivism and those colleagues ended up being the ones who introduced me to socialism.

I've always been a weird duck as we say in Dutch. Always had my own interests, my own way of doing things and never really got into the popular or mainstream crowds in school and outside of that. As a result high school was kinda tough. I was bullied for some time just for being different. Never got accepted by my football teams either for that matter. I was quite lonely for some years in my teens and it caused me to become quite insecure about who I was and why I was treated this way. I was not your typical manly guy because besides sports I also had other interests like music and dressing up in colors that are not black or blue. In my hometown, a rough working class town, this was frowned upon by most of my peers.

Being isolated drove me to some less than ideal relationship and even made me turn to criminal behavior. I struggled a lot with myself and found my coping strategies in drugs, alcohol and partying. Tried to end myself at one point too.

When I was around twenty, I think, I was told that when I was a kid I was diagnosed with autism and things started to make some more sense. My parents never really did anything with this diagnosis as they considered it a bit of bullshit so for my entire life up until that point I always felt so different and like I not belonged anywhere.

It wasn't until my early twenties when I found myself breaking free from my old surroundings. I moved to a bigger city with a lot more open minded people and slowly but surely I found my interests and started developing my own being. And this went on for a few years and only recently started to manifest into a more serious happiness and feeling content with myself because I was able to get therapy, which tackled my struggles from the past.

What I learned at therapy was that I am worth being myself and that I should not have to apologise for being myself or having different interests. Better yet, having my own interests and finding ways to express them helped me getting in contact with like minded people. My entire life I spent feeling ashamed of who I was but being your own quirky or weird self is not something to be ashamed about. Rather, it should be celebrated. Sadly not everyone will understand this and some people might even choose to not hang around with you for this but ultimately that's their decision and, also, their right. It sucks because it can cause periods of loneliness or even exclusion but I feel more happy embracing who I am than trying to mask and fitting in with people I don't get along with anyway.

Uhm... I have been excluded from all kinds of activities since a very young age.

It has caused harsh loneliness and a lack of self esteem.

Then I gave up on people and decided to join the dark side. I used my considerable brain power to enrich myself and those who worked with and for me.

Two things I learned from that:

• no matter your abilities, one moment of inattentiveness and you are dead (at least financially)
• money does not make you happy

From that I searched for a new meaning in life and ultimately arrived at marxism which helped me understand why I was excluded in school and kindergarden, why i turned to the oppressor class and why that isnt even smart for the person oppressing others.

This helped me deal with being lonely. Dont get me wrong, i still face loneliness sometimes but i cope with it a lot better because i can always help people understand shit and learn from them too. Being in peer groups over extended periods is just not my destiny, materially speaking.

Many times even among comrades. I always go against the popular beliefs of a group or community only because I smell bullshit and won't shut up about it. People hate me with a passion for example like predicting events that eventually it will happen despite the status quo claims that shit the opposite. People called me disruptive, disrespectful, infighting, fed, etc, only because I voiced my concerns on shit. Then I'll be correct about it and nobody apologize for their harassment on me lmao.

Yes. I learned to just sit with them and feel them. I thought about being lonely vs fitting in with people who didn't think like me, hold the same core values, and thrived on opportunism, one-upsmanship, alcohol, drugs, and promiscuity that denigrates women in general and equates a woman's love to putting up with struggle love, non-consensual non-monogamy, passing around side chicks (among other people I won't get into), STIs (and taking the blame for them when they are blameless), financial and physical abuse, parents who rear boys to be abusers and girls to be abused, because that's the natural order of things.

I may or not be asd. But I think differently. I quit abandoning myself to show up for people who couldn't give me the time of day unless I was useful to their messed up agendas and started showing up for myself. I quit drinking, doping (including prescriptions), and smoking cigarettes and reefer. I occasionally now indulge in a drink and nicotine vape is the last daily but it's less and less, especially when I'm getting work. Substances are another way of abandoning myself, the self that was shamed for empathy and compassion. I started eating as healthily as I can according to time and budget. I cut out added sugars and sweeteners except for morning coffee, and add very little raw honey or molasses. I lie down early even if not sleeping or waking up during the night. I'm walking when time and weather permit. I don't eat chips or candy anymore, occasionally a cookie, two at the most. I enjoy silence. I got to know the me I was running from, and I genuinely like that person. I forgave others and myself. I understood. But that doesn't mean ~~not~~ letting abuse and exploitation continue. And I have comrades who are infinitely patient, seek to include and understand, and failing understanding, accept. Better these friends online than fake friends and family in 3D.

And I started being grateful. For my slum home, my hood, the sun on my face, my uncomfortable bed, the painted buntings, flutterbys, ladybugs, potable water, hot shower, and decent neighbors.