also this counts as today’s Vibethread! How’s your day going comrade? 8/17/2020

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I can honestly say I owe this community a lot. I was involved in the Bernie campaign when I found the sub, and looking back now… yikes I don’t like thinking about where I was probably headed. But now I’m organizing and agitating locally (fuckin covid) and I’m without a doubt a better and happier person than I was.

I found this community the night of the Iowa Caucus. I took a bus to Iowa twice to canvass door to door, the second time was on the day of the caucus so I had a several hour long bus ride home that evening, when results should have started to trickle out, but everything was strange. Bus full of 40 very motivated bernie supporters all scouring the internet to figure out what was happening and we couldn’t find anything.

So when I got home around 11 or midnight I kept looking until I happened across chapo (having never heard of it) while searching, and what I saw was posts on posts explaining what was happening, why it was happening, examples of past events I’d never been taught about where similar things happened, and clearly this was no surprise to anyone. It was eye opening. It was all right there, the pieces necessary to build the conclusion I was being presented with, and I’d never been told about any of this. So when everything checked out, so my only option was to accept that as a valid interpretation, and then as I kept looking I just saw more and more of them.

I also saw some fun memes, people genuinely supporting each other, posts talking about helping people not punishing others, and the line “To each according to their need, from each according to their ability.” I cried after seeing that quote and reading the comments of people discussing it. And then made my first post, something like “Hey I’m new here but I think I like this place!” Within the first couple days I realized that I’d been brainwashed all my life and that the ‘evils’ of socialism/ communism were at the very least overblown. By the end of the first week I knew I was at very least some form of communist, and since then I’ve decided to just sit back and enjoy the ride, not try too hard to do stuff like label my politics or work out an opinion on china or any of that shit, doesn’t matter to the actual good I can accomplish with what I have learned y’know?

For some context, I’m neurodivergent. I have Autism and ADHD, and pretty much until I found this place and leftism in general hated myself and was crushed under my own ableism and brain worms, so this was pretty much the first time I felt like I was allowed to exist, that it was okay there were things I sucked at. That it’s not that I am bad, but that the expectations of hellworld are. That I didn’t have to punish myself for this ‘failure.’ It’s one of the most pivotal moments of my short life, without a doubt. So yeah, I can get pretty sappy about it haha.

At first when I found this place it was the phrase “to each according to their need, from each according to their ability” and the support for each other in general that drew me in. But then as time passed I saw how we supported comrades in need, and even if it turned out to be a grift everyone was okay with it! Preferring to risk getting grifted in order to help others rather than to risk not helping someone who needed it in order to not get grifted. We care about each other because hellworld doesn’t, and we all need help sometimes.

If you’ve ever wondered why I wholesome post so much and my posts are usually so up-beat and supportive, all of the above is why. Y’all helped me give myself permission to live, in a way, and whenever I think about it I just burst with love and wholesome enthusiasm, I can’t help it.

I owe so much to this community and to all of you, so posts like these are my way of attempting to give back and pay it forwards.

Love you comrades, Solidarity Forever <3

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TL;DR- because I found this community I was able to become better, both personally and politically. To become more comfortable with myself, more confident and involved, to start doing praxis, and to overcome some pretty intense ableist self-hatred, and I’ll forever be grateful :)

p.s. I’m sure this is disjointed and flows terribly/ is kind of rambly as I’m high and wrote it non-linearly, but I hope it’s not too grating haha <3