Pandemanium

If this is real, please get help before you hurt someone. This is not normal behavior. Your perceptions are not matching up with reality, and it sounds like you have a hard time controlling yourself in these situations.

What gets me is the people so concerned about vaccines seem to completely ignore PFAS, pesticides, and the spoonfuls of microplastic we're finding in people's brains, cells, everywhere. Like, sure, something could be causing more autism, but why single out vaccines when there are so many other things it could be?

There's really no way we could invade half of those places and still fight the unrest that will be happening inside the US. I bet you'd find plenty of Americans willing to defect and fight for Canada.

Look, communicating awkwardly doesn't make you a horrible person. I think part of it is you have a confidence problem. It sounds like you always cowtow to your coworkers' reactions, even going so far as apologizing when you haven't objectively done anything wrong (your responses don't seem that weird, but maybe it is the way you say things). It seems odd to me that anyone would be offended by an offer to go home early, unless you're making it seem like you specifically don't want them to be around.

At the end of the day, your coworkers are just people with their own issues and imperfections. They are probably not experts at communication either, so don't treat them as such. I would not take any social cues from coworker 1.

You may not be able to change the dynamic at work, so my advice is to find a way to socialize outside of work (with people who actually like & respect you!). That way you won't have to rely on your workplace for those needs.

How is that post borderline insane? It's a lot of unnecessary detail, but outgrowing your high school mates is a pretty common thing that people sometimes don't know how to handle.

Well the first thing you gotta do is quit listening to society! Seriously, cut that out. Who cares if you don't conform? There are at least dozens of us who don't, and I'm at the point where I'm ready to take a stand and tell them I'm just as valid as they are. And so are you. Don't let everyone else tell you who you are. Live the way you want to live. And find the other weirdos. Just one friend could make a huge difference.

What even is this "news source"? It's just a couple of quotes with no context, and the other posts they list sound like absolute conspiracies.

Yeah I feel like volunteering and community action is a few steps down the line. As for how to find people who can hear you out - they do exist. To be honest I answered a local reddit post looking for friends. I think her post mentioned she was struggling with mental health issues. It's important to be open about that from the start. Maybe I got lucky, but we turned out to have so much in common. We started taking long walks once a week. Not too much of a commitment, but I had something to look forward to every week. And yeah, there was some trauma dumping from both of us at times. It's far less embarrassing when there's a back and forth, and we found we could relate to a lot of each other's experiences.

It may seem counterintuitive that you need to find someone who is also struggling. It's much easier for us to have compassion for someone else, even if our situations are the same. But eventually you'll realize that if your depressed friend deserves your compassion then so do you.

And so what if you have to try this a few times to find the right person or it doesn't pan out? At least you tried something and got some fresh air.

Eh, this is something you can probably change. In the last few years I've done a lot of processing work and am trying to make more intentional choices for myself rather than living the way other people want me to. Now when I meet new people it reminds me that I actually quite like my life and wouldn't want to trade it for theirs.

It's not that uncommon for smaller or private planes to crash, I think partially due to private pilots not having as much training and experience as commercial pilots, and the fact that smaller planes probably aren't as stable in turbulent weather. Pretty sure the one in Alaska had more to do with the weather than traffic controllers. We tend to only hear about the small crashes when they have famous people on board.

Hmm, I'm not sure paper towels are compostable where I am. I've been trying to use as little as possible because I was told the volume of them builds up in the landfills. Is it really that wasteful to wash a plate?

I understand where you're coming from, completely. It definitely feels like being silenced (again, because let's face it, this shit is mentally throwing us right back into childhood when our needs and feelings were ignored). I understand that desperate feeling of needing to be heard. But we're adults now, and the people at work aren't your parents. There's nothing obligating them to listen. Even my spouse needs time where I'm not ranting about politics. An hour a day is all he can do right now, and this is someone who cares about how I feel. But this isn't a rejection of my feelings.

One thing I've personally had to realize is that the stuff about politics isn't actually you. You have to find a way to have a degree of separation between the political and your actual core. I know it looks like they're the same thing right now. But think about what you really want to accomplish, think about what kind of culture you want to create at work. Do you want everyone to be as upset as you are? Would that make a good working environment? If you want others to be more compassionate, I think coming from a place of compassion yourself might work better. Right now it sounds like you're treating people in ways you probably wouldn't want others treating you. You can still be true to yourself, your ideals, and values without being quite so forceful. For some reason beyond my immediate comprehension, demonstrating the intensity of your feelings doesn't translate into people caring - it's rather the opposite.

This was a really hard lesson for me and took a few weeks to fully understand and think through. I hope you have someone likeminded in your life you can talk to outside of work. If you don't, please consider trying to find a new friend. You need someone who already understands, who you don't need to convince, to blow off steam with. Good luck.