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Cake day: August 24th, 2023

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  • It doesn’t take enthusiasm to make an active move toward harm reduction if and when you see the opportunity, especially when the consequences are this serious. I would love to see ranked choice voting and a diverse and motivated number of parties to challenge the dichotomy we have now, but I live in the reality of the viable options in front of me in this moment.

    This isn’t about an acceptance or endorsement of the system we have now. Unfortunately for all of us, however, this is the system we currently live in. If my choices are between bad and catastrophic, I’m going with bad. Doubly so in cases like these. The choice is either the people who are suffering may or will continue to do so, versus these same people suffering even worse while making multiple new groups of people suffer, too.

    If Trump wins and things get as bad, or worse, than the scenarios that have been proposed on record, more people will continue to lose their homes, autonomy, and lives in the United States. Many people who are suffering from atrocities actively going on in places other than the Middle East will likely also be worse off under these policies.

    I hope those people who feel as if they own the moral high ground will remember they had an opportunity to stop it and chose to do nothing if we suddenly all find ourselves living in that world.



  • I appreciate and agree with most of your post, but I disagree that we are all so disconnected from each other’s feelings. Perhaps it’s a regional thing, but many of us have relatives, if not friends, who deeply disagree with our politics. We not only get exposed to the others’ views through social interactions, but we also absorb any political media they have on in the background on holidays and other get-togethers. Some of us also want to understand what the other end of the spectrum is exposed to and seek out some content from these sources for a variety of different reasons.

    I don’t understand the mindset and thinking of people in my life that are so far on the other side when it comes to these issues, but I don’t write them off or feel disgusted by them as people unless and until they start promoting hate speech in most cases.

    I’m also not experiencing any delusions about inevitable outcomes on election day. I’m preparing for either reality, but I’m more actively preparing myself for the opposite outcome of what I’m hoping for. Lemmy does a great job of reminding me how possible this is in comment sections every day.

    I’m doing what I can by helping and encouraging friends, coworkers, and my partner to vote. He even requested an absentee ballot after months of telling me he wasn’t going to vote. I didn’t push, and I don’t consume most news media when we’re together. He has just had a harder time ignoring the evidence of his eyes and ears lately.

    Nothing is decided. If we care at all about not feeling the gut punch that was November 9th of 2016, if not worse, then we should do what we can to prevent that from happening again.












  • Facing the day can look like whatever you need it to to get to Tuesday. Getting up, taking care of your body by feeding it, drinking water, and practicing good hygiene can be enough. Caring for your mental health with compassion and understanding is also very important.

    Doing what you need to do to keep yourself safe and comfortable is the top priority right now. Having a medical condition is not your fault, and it’s nothing you should feel any shame about. You’re not feeling well, and that means you need to give yourself the space and grace to heal and feel better. However you need to achieve this, as long as you aren’t harming yourself or others, is perfectly valid.

    Please try to be kind to yourself and focus on healthy coping mechanisms. You have an appointment coming soon, and help is just a few days away. If you need emergency care in the meantime, that’s okay, too. You’ve got this. It takes strength to get this far, and you can do this, too. Please take care.


  • GiantChickDicks@lemmy.mltoLemmy Shitpost@lemmy.worldobesity
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    3 months ago

    Absolutely. I moved from urban Southeastern Wisconsin to the upper peninsula of Michigan in a rural area. I love visiting that spot, and I got a job offer five years ago while on vacation. I snatched the opportunity to move to my favorite place and uprooted my life in under two months. I didn’t last two years before coming back.

    The amount of times I got into verbal altercations with strangers and acquaintances over their use of racial slurs, most often the N-word, made me become a homebody. I was a bartender, though, so you can’t exactly hide.

    That’s not to say I haven’t heard it in public all throughout Wisconsin. The difference was how comfortable people felt using these words and sharing openly racist views and stories like they were bragging about it. It felt like an area where people breathed a sigh of relief and took their hoods off. I couldn’t stomach staying in a place where certain friends of mine couldn’t comfortably visit.

    Still, all that is nothing compared to what I saw and heard living in Tennessee. It’s sad and frightening how many communities are like this.