u/Alexs1897

So, I might lose my health insurance unless I work, study, and/or volunteer for 80 hours per month starting in January… problem is, I do NOT feel like I can even do that. It’s so hard for me to hold down a job, I have a hard time walking and standing for extended periods (I’ll probably have to go to physical therapy for that), and I also have depression, GAD, and IIH along with ADHD.

If you’re wondering what IIH is (because I didn’t know what it was until I got diagnosed with it), it’s a rare condition where you have too much cerebral spinal fluid in your skull and it can make you go blind, and the symptoms can mimic a brain tumor. Oh my GOD the headaches are brutal when I have them 😭 I always wonder, “Is this a migraine or caused by my IIH?!” and I barely can even move because of the pain.

Ugh. I hate how strict it is to get put on disability, but I’m so scared for my insurance situation at the same time.

I’ve found some socialist/communist YouTubers (Spooky Scary Socialist, Hakim, Red Pen, Second Thought) and I was wondering if BadEmpanada and The Kavernacle also fit among them?

I’ve been wondering this for a while. I have ADHD so I can become hyperfocused on things, and I accidentally spammed a subreddit on the thing I was hyperfocused on at the time (I thought they allowed one post per day, but I guess it was one post per week 😅)

And even now, years later, all I can do is comment on posts in that subreddit and any posts I’ve tried to make get removed automatically. I have no idea what my status is. I’ve tried reaching out to the mod team… but they’re silent.

It honestly doesn’t bother me as much now since it’s been so long and it’s not like Reddit is the only place to talk about things and ask questions, but I’m still curious.

So, sometimes I post and say things without thinking about how other people will interpret it (I’m definitely better at it than I used to be, but it’s a work in progress) and this absolutely haunts me. I genuinely am trying to be a better person and be anti-racist, but I realized I don’t actually know how to address this specific micro-aggression I accidentally did. Obviously I should apologize… but how?

So, here’s what happened: I made a post about how people should be kind when educating people and left it at that. I thought it would’ve been obvious what I meant, like if someone asks a question like “Why is the ocean blue?” for example, I think instead of being rude and snarky as you answer (or calling the person an idiot without helping them), you should be kind and patient with them… but the group I posted it in thought I was saying how Black people should respond to racism and bigotry (ever since that happened, I tend to over explain my posts now. I’m scared people will misinterpret my posts).

There was a particular woman who seemed to be going after me more than anyone else, and I told her I wasn’t responding to her because I thought she was being aggressive (she was wondering why I was responding to this one guy more than her)… only for her to tell me she’s mixed race (half white/half Black) and I’m being racist towards her by calling her aggressive. I legitimately thought she was white. She was completely white passing to me. I tried to explain that to her (which I know now is the wrong course of action) and… yep. Needless to say that didn’t work, but I seriously had no idea how to respond. I had no experience with that before. 😬

I’m following quite a few Black people on Facebook because I’m trying to be more anti-racist and be a better ally, and one of them shared his response to a white woman saying…

“I’m so sick of people overusing the word ‘racist’ to describe behavior that is simply mean, but has nothing to do with race-centered aggression. The word is losing all of its meaning. People are acting like they want to be oppressed so badly that it’s setting society backwards.”

And the Black guy I’ve been following responded with,

“And what makes you qualified to tell anyone what is and isn’t racist?”

I read all that out loud to my mom, and she was actually on the white woman’s side. I tried to explain things to her, “Well, imagine if a guy said something sexist to you and when you tried to tell him it was sexist, he didn’t listen to you and didn’t believe you.” but evidently that wasn’t a good enough example for her 😅 then I tried to tell her that we might not see certain things that are racist as racist because it’s been so normalized by society… again, she didn’t get it.

I would’ve Googled this, but I have no idea what I’d even type into Google.