Great article. Having once called myself a progressive liberal, just hearing the word now makes me break out in hives. You couldn't pay me to live in NYC again, but I live in a California town that is infected with the angry activist pronoun-wearing social justice Trump-deranged hysterical intolerantly tolerant mindset. For example: When the orange man won, the community center set up a safe space, serving milk and cookies, so adults could talk about their feelings. I mostly just keep my mouth shut and head down waiting for the pendulum to swing back to a reasonable place on the continuum.
I feel you. You'll find cringe and deranged behavior around all political stripes. I don't let the worst excesses of left-liberalism influence my beliefs. And if we let the worst of all politics define each other, then it will be impossible to have any kind of discussion. Maybe with the exception of MAGA, because that's pretty solidified with what it stands for by now.
I identify as a non-practicing-but-still-licensed therapist and in order to not lose my mind over a lot of this stuff I've decided a lot of it can be seen as youths finding new ways to discuss pretty basic life stuff. "neurospicy" isn't all that far off quirky, in my experience, and the degree to which a neurospicy person expects different treatment than a quirky person would matters mostly in areas of employment and dating, neither of which I do with any of these weirdos. I also don't intentionally consume any of it, don't tiktok, etc, so it's possible I'm vastly under-selling how much of a problem this is or is going to be. either way, nice essay!
Great article. Having once called myself a progressive liberal, just hearing the word now makes me break out in hives. You couldn't pay me to live in NYC again, but I live in a California town that is infected with the angry activist pronoun-wearing social justice Trump-deranged hysterical intolerantly tolerant mindset. For example: When the orange man won, the community center set up a safe space, serving milk and cookies, so adults could talk about their feelings. I mostly just keep my mouth shut and head down waiting for the pendulum to swing back to a reasonable place on the continuum.
I feel you. You'll find cringe and deranged behavior around all political stripes. I don't let the worst excesses of left-liberalism influence my beliefs. And if we let the worst of all politics define each other, then it will be impossible to have any kind of discussion. Maybe with the exception of MAGA, because that's pretty solidified with what it stands for by now.
I identify as a non-practicing-but-still-licensed therapist and in order to not lose my mind over a lot of this stuff I've decided a lot of it can be seen as youths finding new ways to discuss pretty basic life stuff. "neurospicy" isn't all that far off quirky, in my experience, and the degree to which a neurospicy person expects different treatment than a quirky person would matters mostly in areas of employment and dating, neither of which I do with any of these weirdos. I also don't intentionally consume any of it, don't tiktok, etc, so it's possible I'm vastly under-selling how much of a problem this is or is going to be. either way, nice essay!
I go back and forth on it, mostly on whether this is helping destigmatize mental health or if it makes it look like a joke.