Triggered by politics.

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Few things these days get me triggered into an emotional meltdown more efficiently like the state of American politics these days. Let's not get into that here, but instead, I need to figure out how to respond in better ways than getting emotional and then insulting random targets online. I would rather not have a third incident at this point.

Having spent 35 years in politics, I believe that it is easiest to avoid by reminding oneself that there are multitudes of political camp followers with their own sense of identity coming from their minimal involvement. To them, they are the leaders of their own movements even though they merely "attend" the events, rallies and protests instead of doing the groundwork to accomplish change. In other words, it is like the fans of certain movies who convince themselves that they created the movies they enjoy, not a bunch of bankers who expect coldly to be paid a lot of cash.

Secondly, it is good to realize that politics usually causes failure. It isn't a kind mistress. People will lose their battles frequently. The one human emotion that can't be sustained is anger. So, if an individual's driving force is anger about their opponents, it is a mathematical certainty that they will burn out quickly.

Finally, understand that politics worldwide has been turned into a comical version of professional sports. The financiers of politics like it this way because they can "brand" their ideas in ways (logos, colors, flags, T-shirts and symbols) that followers will accept. Too much of politics is marketing. All the people in the world will lose their campaigns if they don't stoop to marketing their ideas.

So, the political lifespan your average campaign follower is short and riddled with disappointment. When one sees this in action, it becomes very easy to walk away from the carnival and never look back.

If political followers want to have real power, they should learn to lobby elected officials of all parties, not campaign for them.

Try to see all sides of an issue.

Try not to "extend things" too much.

Realize that for every emotional outburst the less people listen to what you have to say: meaning the next time you feel yourself melting down, take a break, because engaging under those circumstances only makes people tune out and that's counter-productive.

if you get triggered, take ten deep breaths.

That helps me.

And remember: there are many apathetic people in America. The vast, vast, majority of these people aren't Nazis......

Get off Facebook. Or figure out how to install an App that blocks all the political garbage.

All of you are correct, of course. Impulsive words have gotten me into trouble before. Now most of my impulsive sperging happens online, but I really need to learn how to be more disciplined before I let my hands touch any keyboard.

I feel like I did during my freshman stint playing high school football, a requirement. We were the C team, and got pummeled by the least skilled and athletic teams of other schools. I feel somewhat more capable of debating politics in PPR, but the sheer numbers of logical fallacies and level of anti-science bias boggle my mind.

The conservatism I find here consists mainly of not letting facts interfere with their enjoyment of a juicy obsessive fear.

Yeah, I probably should stick to areas where I can make myself useful, such as my volunteer shifts and my 12 step work. If I start reading and posting on PPR, a spergy verbal meltdown coming out of me will be inevitable. There are ways for me to be a part of the solution that avoid my spergy tendencies, so I should persue those instead.

I'm starting to like the word spergy. It sounds cute.

tend to write posts in a word processing document to avoid giving threads numerous views while editing. some have been open about disappointment for their threads getting few responses after so many views, so it’s done in not knowing who feels that way.

anyhow, in doing it that way, there are times where a post feels off but what is wrong cannot be percieved through weariness, so it’s not submitted, and is picked back up after resting. usually upon doing so, the fault is glaringly obvious, and a feeling of relief is had that it wasn’t submitted before being corrected. this is no different from real life conversations, as if something is uncertain if it should be said, it isn’t at all.

maybe you could do that for your political posts. ask yourself if you’re in the best state of mind for handling upsetting conversations, or if what you’ve written should even be said, and then sleep on it before making the decision.

Are you by chance talking about on facebook at all?

I'd say best to try to just get away from it sometimes...and I am not even the best person to give advice, its hard for me not to engage in political debate on there like some stuff I see just irks me and then I start responding but then sometimes I realize I am getting to be a little toxic to. So yeah I just try to distract myself with other things...like switch to playing league of legends when I am getting all irked about garbage on facebook.

Meh IDK when I don't have work and am home all day I always spend a lot of time on my computer, so hard not to get sucked into online drama.

Yeah, you are correct.

I am taking a vacation from Facebook. And I probably should be avoiding all online political talk. Especially when I am intoxicated. My internet connection probably should have a Breathalyzer attached to it.