Comradeship // Freechat

Practice.

It's a cognitive behavior. Like any behavior, it may be too difficult for you to do the behavior right now, but you have to start somewhere. Think of it like a training montage in a movie.

Pick a trope that resonates with you: recovering the ability to walk after a major car accident or stroke, or losing a huge amount of weight, or whatever.

You have to get up every day and make an attempt to not care what other people think of you. And you will fail sometimes. Some days you'll barely be out of bed before you are overcome with emotion about it.

But commit yourself to the goal, practice it, and eventually you'll start to notice you can stop caring about what some people think of you sometimes.

And by that point, you're already well along in your journey.

What you're going through cannot possibly be easy. When I was in recovery, it was a young child so I didn't have to function out in the world, so I can't even imagine how much harder it must be for you. But I trust you and your ability to learn this skill. The fact that you're up and doing things, that you're actively recovering, is evidence that you have the strength, the will, and the tenacity to move past this pain and create the boundaries you need to thrive.

I wish for you health, recovery, strength, comfort, and all of the growth and wisdom that you can find on the way there.

for people yelling at you like this and strangers comments? you might not like it but the optimal way to deal with it is to beat people up. unfortunately this is the best method…

i’m happy u’ve been going outside because u said u struggle with it before

Respect and admiration, contempt and disdain.

As humans, we're hard-wired to care what other people think. It's how we survive, it's how we navigate community.

But we ascribe different amounts of importance to different people's opinions. You're going to give more credence to the opinions of people you respect, admire or recognise as leaders or role models. You'll care much less about the opinions of people that you think are stupid and/or inconsequential.

You can mind hack yourself with this awareness. And also just guide yourself into better community.

With people who are kind to you, like them more: give gifts (no matter how small), compliments, time. Show your brain that that person's opinion of you matters more. It's win-win. Good people have their day brightened, you start or develop a community bond with them, and you steadily train your brain to be more responsive to their (positive) opinion of you.

With people who are assholes, frame them in your mind as people to feel contempt towards. That old couple who made fun of your footwwear probably vote Reform and hate foreigners. Foment feelings of contempt or disdain towards them and what they think of you starts to matter less. People like the shop attendant who aren't malicious but just ignorant, it's a little harder but you can still frame them as people who are inconsequential to mute the effect of their opinions.

It works parasocially as well, even with fictional characters (sometimes better with fictional characters, because they won't let you down). Some asshole makes an ignorant or uninformed observation about you, what would say about the situation if they were observing? I think many religious people do this without thinking (so many religions have that 'only God can judge me' trope and it's powerfully comforting for exactly this reason).

I just plot their denise in my head and be contempt with it. (Prob too autistic to give social advice; nice to hear you finally went out tho!)