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Culture War Roundup for the week of September 26, 2022

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What I got was a series of bad friends who were outsiders for a reason: they were toxic.

This can be true, but I do not like to push it all onto them. The people who are freaks and outcasts of society are that way partly because of their own choices and partly because society did it to them.

Some are genuine social retards in the sense that they simply cannot comprehend that their own behavior is bad -- while others use that excuse to continue their shitty behavior. Without seeing in their heads I cannot tell.

One was a lapsed Catholic with bipolar paranoia who evaluated literally every bad, unpleasant, or unfortunate event in his life, no matter how small, as if God were trying to judge him on something he should already have figured out.

One had Borderline Personality Disorder because he was a victim of childhood emotional and physical abuse by a Vietnam vet alcoholic father.

One was a person with autism and an iq of 86 whose perseverative interest is tirelessly manipulating and wheedling other people into giving her everything she wants.

One was a person with autism and an IQ of 145 who had been instrumental in hardening satellite microchips against cosmic rays, but whose wife had left him because of his biological anxiety attacks, which gave him psychological anxiety attacks too.

When I realized my only role in their lives was to be “the good friend,” the Linus to their Charlie Brown, I left each one in turn. I’m now in a recovery group for codependency, and doing much better, but they cost me the two decades I could have spent raising a family.

Public school failed me by not having a friendmaking curriculum. I aim to change that.

When I realized my only role in their lives was to be “the good friend,” the Linus to their Charlie Brown, I left each one in turn. I’m now in a recovery group for codependency, and doing much better, but they cost me the two decades I could have spent raising a family.

My life followed a remarkably similar trajectory, down to the amount of time lost and the conclusion that family was absolutely not going to happen. I wasn't even interested in trying. I have a family now anyway.

Where there is life, there is hope.