gafpromise
26d ago
I appreciate this post as it aligns with some of my own experience. I grew up in a Christian household so I also adopted a Christian-ese framing regarding some of my mental health issues. I had crippling depression and anxiety and low self esteem. I constantly had this voice in my head saying I wasn't worthy, I was a failure, everything I did was wrong, everyone was secretly laughing at me, yadda-yadda. I mean it was nonstop. I was mired in this sticky fog of self-hate and doubt that I couldn't see past and it was making me suicidal.
Looking back on it now, I have some thoughts about where all that stuff came from. But at the time, the way that I got out of it was when I started thinking of it as the Devil's voice or a demon's voice. Well, from what I read in the Bible I should be able to have power over demons. There's this old movie Labyrinth I watched as a kid, and the protagonist gives her speech against the goblin king at the end and she says "You have no power over me." A lot of people think it's cheesy, I guess, but it was exactly like that for me. Giving that voice a name, an identity that was NOT myself, and calling it out and saying, "you are not welcome here" - that was a real turning point for me. I developed my "real" internal voice, someone who could argue against the demon voice, mock it even, provide a counterpoint to the hateful things it said. And eventually I was able to banish it. I mean, of course I still have self-doubt and low points but it's never crippling or oppressive the way it used to be.
I don't think honestly that my experience is all that uncommon either. I've heard other reports from people who give that "evil" voice a name and personify it. Not necessarily with the demon framing, but I think it's just a way to split off that stuff from your core identity, give you a way to grapple with it while building an intact self apart from it.
That's quite the assumption to just throw in there, just saying. You have presented zero proof that illegal immigrants make up a large number of hazardous DoorDashers on ebikes.
Honestly it sounds like the problem is that from a regulatory standpoint, ebikes and motorized two-wheeled vehicles are being lumped in with bicycles rather than being regulated as a separate thing.
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