American Politics Across Social Media and the Effect It’s Having on Our System

TW: politics, BPD, anxiety, paranoia, depression, S/A, S/H

Desi speaking. I have been concerned for us as of late, with the turmoil going on in our home country of the United States, and the fact that it seems to be everywhere we turn. Reddit, friends who follow the news, scattered across movies and television shows… It is inescapable. For those in our system who do bother with the news, we fall dead center of the tug-o-war that is American politics currently.

While we absolutely do not condone treating anyone at all with less than fair civil rights, regardless of age, gender, sexual orientation, race, nationality, or even economic background, we also abhor cancel culture and what it smacks of (book burnings, witch hunts), and firmly believe JKR, while a massive dunderhead and game grabber, seems to genuinely care, but just goes about it incorrectly. Her talks on transgender youth and the effects it has on society has led us to some troubling rabbit holes on detransitioners, which has me at least firmly believing there should be much more information and discernment given to those wanting to transition.

This all being said, the political game puts us between a rock and a hard place so to speak. We fall neither liberal nor conservative, and therefore mostly have to keep our mouths shut about anything political lest we manage to offend just about everyone Jess knows. Already, we lost a friend five or so years ago for not supporting Trump, and have managed to gain an uneasy truce with her grandmother, who has managed to acknowledge she does not want Jess’ youngest sibling to die for being who they are but also believes transgender in general to be an abomination of thought. ~Sigh~

Alana came out yesterday morning, and proceeded to have an ongoing anxiety attack for most of the time she was conscious. First because Jess sleeps in the buff, and Alana holds most of the trauma, which includes S.A., and was none too pleased at waking naked in the bed, regardless of the house being empty. Then the anxiety continued when she picked up the phone and saw a notification to a Reddit post about Kristi Noemi, the Republican puppy killer. She interacted a small amount in Discord, which was nice, but mostly she rocked, stared at her hallucinations, and cried over the puppy that awful woman killed.

This brings me to my next major problem. Once Alana tired herself out and went to sleep, Jess was back, but it felt as if she had Andi riding co-con with her, and Jess struggled against anxiety and S/H until her fiance came back home. After that, mostly she just struggled to even leave the bed. We haven’t showered in maybe four days. Jess, I have noticed, has been struggling with terrible nightmares, and waking intrusive thoughts, mostly of apocalypse, war, terrified just going into the bathroom that a nuke is going to land without warning, or some equally outrageous disaster.

So, I am here, just pouring out my thoughts on all of this. It is no secret Jess and I feel little more than disdain for our government. Jess got entangled in a project a few years back, researching American surveillance and monitoring, and was horrified at all she learned. This, of course, does little good for her in her day to day routine, as she tries to avoid the bathroom, where she is certain a camera could be placed, and Alana is convinced that the birth control implant in our arm holds a tracking chip that also somehow emits brain control technology. Andi once offered to dig it out for her and I just barely managed to keep that from happening.

All this being said, I am growing convinced more and more that being aware of politics, and even having any voice on our thoughts on politics, is becoming a dangerous gamble for our health. I simply do not know what to do over it. We already only use Facebook in order to speak with Jess’ daughter and nothing else. Reddit is for Jess to keep in touch with her fanfiction groups, although she has unconsciously and obsessively joined a few that show almost nothing but political BS lately. Turning her phone off entirely would be more damaging than not, as she would then have no outside contact and succumb to the intrusive thoughts. A therapist would be fantastic right about now, but there’s barely enough money for groceries, let alone therapy.

I digress. As a final point, however, I just would like to add, for any who might read; do not believe the extremes shown in the news are the only leanings the average American has: that we are only rabidly racist bigots, or insane die-hard cancel culture. Some are even rational, hard working people caught up in this mess, our voices being drowned out by those screaming themselves hoarse over gun rights, LGBT rights, birth rights, etc etc. America is now a land where the voice of reason is dead and buried by the rich, greedy, and corrupt. And this is causing ridiculous amounts of stress on those of us trapped here who simply want everyone to have the right to exist and live, so long as it does not harm others.