This is another fairly personal one.
Anyone following anything I've posted on here in the past will likely have worked out by now that I'm in Australia - in a fairly left-wing part of it, no less.
You'll also probably have noticed that I'm fairly... Fucked up. Depression, anxiety, probably ADHD and OCD, plus abuse and a fairly horrific childhood and adolescence - these things have fucked me up no end, and, contrary to the "happy shit" you see in, say, Pedowood - I can assure you from experience that a lot of people like me DON'T fucking recover, and we never come back from the pits. Some do. Most don't. Which do you really think is the likely end result, for a fuck-up like me..?
Anyway, I think you all know by now that things in Australia are completely fucked. They're getting worse. Continuously. Every fucking day, we lose another "human right", and the totalitarian screws get tighter. I've just learned, today, that thanks to a pronouncement from our state "premier", the equivalent of a US Governor, if I LEAVE this state, say, to go back to my university, I won't be allowed back in, until I'm doubly vaccinated AND test negative to coof. This means that if my grandfather's health declines, which is... Likely, I may not even be able to get back to see him in time, because of the fucking government. I cannot TELL YOU how blackpilling that is, amongst everything else.
Shit here is fucked, and I am so fucking sick of it! Never mind the fact that, without going into too many details, my family pets keep dying, and I keep fucking having to bury them. I spent the last three days burying one. I only adopted him earlier this year. Last I saw, he was healthy and fine. This happens... Every couple of years. And then family members just up and die, too, or someone I know kills themselves. It's... I don't know why the fuck I'm so unlucky, but fuck, death just seems to follow me. If you haven't experienced this yourself, let me tell you - digging a grave for your animals on a regular basis is... Pretty devastating.
Moving on: For the last... While, anger has been what has sustained me. Anger, resentment and hatred. I'm a bitter, jaded person (you would be, too, if you had seen what I have, and experienced what I have), and I fucking detest what my society has become. Clearly, at least "anonymously", I'm very active online, in trying to fight back, and to use that anger... "Constructively". I also use it to motivate exercise, which... Works, but the exercise doesn't... Make the anger go away, at all.
After a while, though, you begin to realise this is a losing battle. Australia is completely fucked. I'm genuinely not sure there is any coming back from this, and I do not think, if I lived much longer, that I would want to do so in this country. It is becoming unrecognisable, and I genuinely fear for the future, here. My own future is gone. That does not matter. But for the country itself... The best outcome is probably Argentina or Chile at their lowest points. Or what, Portugal under Salazar? I seriously don't see an outcome under which Australia stays a democracy, with basic rights for citizens, which is... Scary. And while I have fought back and fought back, pretty hard... I've now realised how futile it is.
My efforts aren't really changing anything. Shit here is sliding, and nothing I do will really change that. But it's more than that. Anger can only sustain you for so long. While my rage can be pretty... Intimidating, I think sadness and loneliness are generally stronger, longer-lasting emotions than anger, and nothing I have done takes that away. So...
I dunno if this is it. I hope the rest of you are able to better "maintain the rage", and fight back in the culture wars in your respective countries. But even if the fight for Australia isn't over; even if there is some hope left for this place - I'm not sure I'll be around to keep on fighting.
I'm pretty done. I've tried. I've fought. I've failed. I just want... Peace, now, and I really... I'm not sure I know of many other ways to find it, unfortunately.
Cheers.
To me anger is not a good long-term motivation, it's meant to be a potentially very intense motivation that fades quickly. Trying to sustain it longer than it naturally sticks around feels like a bad idea with potentially harmful unintended consequences. Like lifting with bad form, just because it gets the job done right now doesn't mean it won't bite you in the ass later, even if it might take you a year or two to notice. If you want to fight, fight cold and calculated until shit gets clutch and use a burst of anger to get through it.
I agree with you that going through serious shit can leave permanent negative effects. Small traumas can be good for your body, large traumas will generally leave your body forever weaker or more prone to further injury than if it hadn't happened. I believe the same applies to on the mental side. People who've gone through a shitty enough childhood for external reasons are more likely to become less capable people for internal reasons later. But that isn't the foregone conclusion. Nobody stays a blank slate for long, everyone builds up their own tallies of injuries and strengths, and the only number that really matters is the final sum. Some people come out ahead in the sum of those parts despite a big list of old injuries by cultivating more internal strength than others, deliberately mitigating those old wounds and using that experience to avoid circumstances that could further debilitate them. Fewer people find success from inside the pit than those who never experienced it, but knowing what it took for you to reach the same level as someone who wasn't fucked over, well it can either go to resentment of others or acceptance of yourself and pride, probably a bit of both. A modest home and a small circle of good relationships can be a bigger testament to your personal resilience than a luxury car and executive job are for the guy who didn't have a shit start. Sometimes it's a case of knowing when to put off enjoyment and gamble for more and when to bank what you've got and take some time to appreciate what that much offers until a better opportunity to claw a little higher appears.
As for the loneliness and sadness, I'm not sure I can offer a good yardstick, for me a 2 or 3 good, reliable friends is plenty. I could probably be a pretty happy mountain hermit tbh. But to me some relationships can do more harm than good, if you think your parents are psychos, reduce the influence they have on your life. I won't say the same as those people who're forever telling you to completely cut anyone toxic off because there's always practical reasons that's not possible, especially with family. But build up some walls, create a buffer so their bullshit doesn't bleed through into your other relationships. With the small circle of friends I want, I can be pretty brutal with what kind of baggage puts me off wanting to spend the effort on someone. Sometimes the biggest obstacle to getting a better set of relationships going is the bad ones you're already bringing with you.