• ZEDtheRED@lemmygrad.ml
    4·
    3 days ago

    I can tell you this, as a lifelong USian who has only been out of the country 2x (Scotland, and Canada)-- every time I see someone suffering on the news-- someone like, in Palestine, or the like-- I feel very bad for them but I also notice how they have family and friends surrounding them weeping with them. I am jealous of them for that. That’s how isolated I am here as a leftist; no friends/family that I can even talk to here in the deep south. Not a single person I have met in this entire city I can talk to except on discord; and they can’t even come to town to meet (too poor to afford a car). Talk about isolation, it’s horrible. I am too poor to just move somewhere where I might find like minds and make community. I keep thinking about going backpacking across the US but I haven’t got the courage up yet. I’m building up my fitness and saving up for camping gear, it’s my last chance at finding someone somewhere I feel. Even when I lived in San Fran, Chicago, NYC etc the story was the same. Nothing but Liberals in the spaces I frequented. During the BLM protests I was participating in my ex (this is why she’s my ex) said “I dont mind you going to those protests but DON’T BRING ANY OF THOSE PEOPLE HOME WITH YOU” – this from a polish Jew from Argentina whose mom (a holocaust survivor) we’d just buried. Fuck me but it’s lonely out here as an anarcho-communist

    • amemorablename@lemmygrad.ml
      3·
      3 days ago

      I’m sorry you deal with that. Personally, I don’t have it quite that bad in terms of isolation, but ideologically, it is similar. I’m the odd one out in people I’m closest to, having the views I do. And though I’m with some family, it doesn’t feel how I expect it would in a culture that intrinsically values family and community. I don’t want to get into too much personal detail about it here, but I’m sure you are familiar with the nuclear family standard of how things are in the US. To the point that ones who stick around family more and longer are probably the odd ones, compared to most other cultures. So instead of feeling comforted by it, at this point in my life I more just feel like there’s something wrong with me.

      But yeah, I think the impact of loneliness is underestimated sometimes and emotional pain is a real kind of pain. Not that it’s a competition who is suffering more or less and in what ways, but just that it is something to recognize as a real harm that’s being done.

      Oh and best of luck with your backpacking goal.

      • ZEDtheRED@lemmygrad.ml
        1·
        3 days ago

        Yeah. I was abused by my nuclear family my entire life with the exception of the times I got away for a few years (college, army)-- but they always drew me back in again. My mentors all died; I suppose they’d had enough of life and gave up the fight. My nice brother and nice sister both died (Aids/brain tumor respectively) from capitalism. It’s just… you know, frustrating to live under capitalism knowing exactly what is going on. Truly harsh. best of luck to you as well.