Gaslighting

I have laid awake at night thinking what a horrible person I must be not to understand the logic by which bad things happen to me and how I can avoid them next time. I felt like my possible actions spread out like many branches on a decision tree, with every branch inevitably ending in "bad."

I'm going to stay vague in publically airing my old pain. But let's say I know what it's like to keep trying to reason with someone in good faith and feeling crazier and crazier with every failed attempt. It broke my heart and frankly it broke my mind a little bit too. 

On the bright side, it prepared me to process state propaganda. When the lockdowns came, I again heard messages like "it's bad if you leave the apartment," "it's bad if you see your friends," "you're a bad person if you question this," and "this is all for your own good." I remembered. 

Think about inflation. First you're told it isn't happening, then you're told it's a good thing. If you question it, you're a selfish person who wants foreigners to suffer. 

Think about rayceeesm. If you move into a poor black neighborhood, it's gentrification. If you leave the city for the suburbs, it's white flight. If you point this out, you're a bad person. Whatever you do is rooted in rayceeesm because you're a bad person. 

Think about how weak and dependent the state wants you to be. Think about the joy its agents take in making themselves think you need them. Think about their rage when you refuse to partake, think of how they call you selfish when you say you'd prefer to fend for yourself. I have felt these things in a personal dynamic before I recognized them on a large scale. Maybe it helped inch me along from an on-paper libertarian to "do you hate the state" libertarian. Maybe I would've arrived at my present ideological stance without it. But, I don't know, I wanted to share.