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So Sick of Politics

HexapodContributor29 Nov 2025, 1:18 am AEDT

So Sick of Politics

I’m sorry if this sounds similar to a previous thread of mine, but I just want to get this out there. As the title suggests I don't particularly care for politics. I hate talking about them, I hate thinking about them, yet for some reason I force myself to hyper fixate on them. For the last few years, it feels like not a week has gone by where I haven't worried about something political. In a lot of ways, it's starting to feel like politics are designed to trap people like me in this never ending cycle of fear and anxiety, where they constantly guilt me for forming opinions against them.

For example, I kept looking up these articles about the difference between liberals and conservatives, looking up which was smarter, happier, more compassionate, more successful, etc. I don't know why I started, maybe I hyper fixated on the idea of myself or people with my political views being horrible people, so I'll find articles saying that they're is inherently miserable, unintelligent, have less empathy for people on the other side, and that any expression of empathy they express at all is purely performative. Sometimes they just speak from their personal experiences, which aren't attributable to everyone, but are spoken with such venom that it's like I have to think like them.

Recently I came across this website, apparently written by a therapist, who said that using pronouns was now akin to narcissism. Apparently asking someone to refer to you as he, she, or they is akin to some kind of narcissistic level of control where people force others to cater to their beliefs about themselves and or face retribution, apparently using others as a mirror to affirm their sense of self worth and build up their self image by referring to them by preferred pronouns. The guy also insinuated that having problems with the whole “Sticks and Stones” saying, like thinking that words can in fact hurt you, is part of some culture of victimhood where people now lack resilience.

Sometimes they use legitimate scientific sources to back up what they say, for example, liberals are less likely to befriend or show empathy to conservatives and are more openly hostile towards them, but are seemingly contradicted by other sources saying that conservatives hate liberals more or that they view them as more morally bankrupt.

Am I going crazy? Am I allowed to think that all of this is stupid? I don't know which sources are more accurate, but sometimes I believe that the ones that cause me more anxiety are the ones closer to the truth. I'm always hyper critical of sources that don't cause me anxiety, but then when one does it feels like I have to believe it immediately. I also get worried when a source is like 70+ pages in length, guilting myself if I choose to not read it and saying I’m just trying to deny reality, when really, I just don’t want to waste hours looking through something I don’t even know is true.

I even worry that I'm stupid for being so anxious or worrying a lot, since a large number of studies apparently demonstrate a link between lower IQ and unhappiness or anxiety, albeit quite a small one. It feels like I can't have any opinion about any specific topic without worrying that whatever I think of is wrong or immoral. I don't know how many of these studies and sources are accurate or well constructed, I just want it all to stop. I'm sick of constantly debating my political positions to myself, I'm sick of searching up my opinions on google to check whether or not some study says they're accurate or not or some Schrödinger’s douchebag says they’re dumb and immoral, I'm sick of being talked down to by smug assholes who act like they're so sane, rational, and compassionate fighting back against the evil guys on the other side when to me everything they say and do just feels so fake and calculated despite them telling me that the guys over on the other side are just that. I can’t even write this out without worrying that I’m misrepresenting or misunderstanding them no matter how hard I try.

I know I haven't specifically stated what my political beliefs are but I really don't want to start a flame war in the comments.

2 replies

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In response to: So Sick of Politics

chibamSenior Contributor29 Nov 2025, 4:02 am AEDT

Re: So Sick of Politics

Hi, @Hexapod . 🙂

I too wrestle with a lot of political/ideological anxiety, often stemming from material I read or view.

One of the things that annoys me is that, as you say, people often frame our society into just two columns: your either liberal, or conservative. There's rarely any acknowledgement for people, like myself, who don't fit well into either category (although sometimes there's a bit of acknowledgement of "centerists", who are a little bit of both.)

In many ways, politics really does feel like an evil game, because it seems like pretty much everybody has a totalitarian mindset. "My way is right, and everybody in the country/world should be made to obey my rules!" Nobody seems interested in working towards a world where everybody can live in a community/nation rooted in a set of values that mirror their own. Nobody out there is saying: "Well, I have very conservative values, so I'm gonna fight hard for the existance of a conservative-standard country. But I also realize that there are a great many people who don't share my values, so we also need to insure that there's a country where they can go to, and live amongst their peers, according to their own values."

No, all anybody is interested in is siezing a majority of the electorate, and talking strangers into abandoning their own innate cherished values and adopting the activist's. So basically, the aim is to convert everybody you can, and to oppress everyone you can't into obediance by winning the election. Nobody seems to be fighting for a world where they and their kindred spirits have an ideological home, and so do their ideological polar opposites. Everybody holds to this strange presumption that an irreconcilably divided population has to be forced to live all together in one country, under a single set of rules.

Where has that left us? In an ideological war that seems to have been going on forever, and which shows no sign of ever ending.

I only need to look to my own family to see how hopeless that approach is. I know that my father would be utterly miserable living in my ideal country; just as I would be miserable living in his. The two of us need two separate countries to live in, complete with separate ideologies, values, agendas and laws. That's the only way we'll both be able to find contentment in life. Otherwise, it will be a case of one of us thriving at the expense of the other's misery. Even if I was on the "winning" side of that equation, it would certainly not feel like a victory to me.

I want a world where pretty much everybody gets to live in a country that genuinely feels like a home to them.

In response to: So Sick of Politics

SugarshackSenior Contributor01 Dec 2025, 10:57 am AEDT

Re: So Sick of Politics

Hey there I feel the same way, as an "old school aussie" all of this BS was kept to oneself once upon a time now it's in our face 24/7. Personally I just unplug from the lot of it, I have enough problems of my own to deal with and I want to see the world united in problem solving not divided by unsolvable problems.

I used to make demands on other people which reinforced my own self loathing and isolation. When I dropped the ego, I found a better life outside of it so there's no going back and no enabling from me. [edited by moderator]

Speaking of ENABLING these days everyone is trying to be perfect in their own mind and that does NOT extend to modelling perfection in their own reality. I call them glass-people, they are behind glass - talking to me but living on the computer/to their therapist/to their ego. Go to buggery! I demand quality interactions from other people, they exist in my life - I want to exist in theirs so I just have nothing to do with one sided "glass people".

So yah I thoroughly recommend spending more time OFFLINE and doing things that bring you personal satisfaction, if you can't find anyone decent to hang out with just unlplug anyway and let those things of personal satisfaction fill the lonely void.

Gardening, cleaning up outside, crosswords, books, whatever it is AVOID the constant stream of politics. Also, look for friendships in the most unusual places - two good friends of mine are an elderly man with a brain injury and a homeless man who has a meth habit. They each have wonderful personalities, and I don't judge what's gone wrong in their life - when we meet up we enjoy a meal or a coffee, we talk about our respective lives and problems and we listen to and care for each other as friends. Once upon a time I would have thought they were each beneath me but with maturity I just see them as nice people who I genuinely enjoy, and each of them is fairly similar we are fundamentally NICE people, we care about others, we do community stuff but we do not give a singular f--- about politics, trying to be rich, judging other people etc. If one of our OTHER friends is in trouble we go give them a hand, otherwise we catch up once a week and eat food together and have a chat.

Thereby just unplug from the internet and the politics, i believe it's a mind virus they want you to think about bs that has no end so that you are addicted to the drama watching the screen and consuming advertising. In my opinion, live music is dead, theatre is dead, the world at large has drunk the koolaid but, it's left a horrible society behind - unplug and yes it's fairly lonely but at least you won't be bored and frustrated by BS rhetoric pipelined into your brain. [edited by moderator]

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