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matt1993
Dear every company that has been forced to make ANY sort of change AT ALL because of the coronavirus:
Once the coronavirus pandemic ends*, PLEASE, PLEASE, DO WHATEVER YOU CAN TO RETURN EXACTLY TO THE WAY YOU WERE BEFORE. When it's no longer necessary to hold events without audiences or host shows from your own home or do anything that you weren't having to do before the pandemic, PLEASE GO BACK TO THE WAY YOU WERE. MY SANITY DEPENDS ON IT. IF I'M GOING TO BE CONSTANTLY REMINDED THAT THE WORLD ENDED IN MARCH 2020, IT'S NOT GOOD ENOUGH.
*Because I know some of you are probably going to misinterpret this as saying I want everything un-cancelled now and hate** me for it: I'M TALKING ABOUT AFTER THE PANDEMIC IS OVER.
**I know assuming that people will HATE me for things is a bad habit I need to get out of, but I'm too stressed out to be concerned about THAT bad habit at the moment.
Once the coronavirus pandemic ends*, PLEASE, PLEASE, DO WHATEVER YOU CAN TO RETURN EXACTLY TO THE WAY YOU WERE BEFORE. When it's no longer necessary to hold events without audiences or host shows from your own home or do anything that you weren't having to do before the pandemic, PLEASE GO BACK TO THE WAY YOU WERE. MY SANITY DEPENDS ON IT. IF I'M GOING TO BE CONSTANTLY REMINDED THAT THE WORLD ENDED IN MARCH 2020, IT'S NOT GOOD ENOUGH.
*Because I know some of you are probably going to misinterpret this as saying I want everything un-cancelled now and hate** me for it: I'M TALKING ABOUT AFTER THE PANDEMIC IS OVER.
**I know assuming that people will HATE me for things is a bad habit I need to get out of, but I'm too stressed out to be concerned about THAT bad habit at the moment.
no subject
Date: Thu, Mar. 26th, 2020 00:57 (UTC)Us 'unskilled workers' are not going back into the darkness after shouldering the weight of the world. A living wage for retail workers. Sick pay for all. Amazon workers have already wrestled concessions out of their idiot of a boss. A benefits system that actually works. A health care system that gets invested in. Stop putting profits over people.
Now, I am not angry and I do not hate you for your comments. I think maybe you didn't think of these things I mentioned before. A lot of good can come from this disaster if we choose to make that happen. Going back to exactly the way things were before shows we learned nothing.
This pandemic is as bad as it is because world leaders failed to shut borders, close shops, end public gatherings over MONEY. We owe it to those who won't come out of this to do better.
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Date: Thu, Mar. 26th, 2020 02:11 (UTC)Us 'unskilled workers' are not going back into the darkness after shouldering the weight of the world. A living wage for retail workers. Sick pay for all. Amazon workers have already wrestled concessions out of their idiot of a boss. A benefits system that actually works. A health care system that gets invested in. Stop putting profits over people.
Now, I am not angry and I do not hate you for your comments. I think maybe you didn't think of these things I mentioned before. A lot of good can come from this disaster if we choose to make that happen. Going back to exactly the way things were before shows we learned nothing.
I definitely didn't think of any of those things. In fact, I'm pretty sure the only thing I actually meant is that this social distancing thing is a trigger for me - even the WORDS "social distancing" are a trigger for me - because of how difficult it is for everyone, even introverts such as myself, to follow correctly. Therefore I don't want us to get into a situation where social distancing becomes the new norm and continues to be required even after there's no longer a need to flatten the curve (another phrase that is a trigger for me right now...).
FYI: I have been feeling VERY stressed out over the past two weeks, now that I'm facing the possibility that I may NEVER be happy again, at least not for very long. It has been even harder than usual for me to think rationally or word ANYTHING well. I've found myself losing control and saying things I don't really mean much more than usual. (Doesn't help that these were all difficult enough for me to do to begin with...) So try to take everything I say with a grain of salt for now - sometimes I just have to vent. I recommend you read this entry for more on what I mean by certain things I've said during the pandemic.
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Date: Fri, Mar. 27th, 2020 21:48 (UTC)I did read that entry and appreciate it but must point out...all our posts are 'the world is ending because x y or x' whether it is a literal pandemic or a nintendo character. You never track back and post a new post saying 'thinking on it no....and now...X is what I think'.
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Date: Fri, Mar. 27th, 2020 23:01 (UTC)I KNOW. I KNOW. Just because I don't like hearing the words "social distancing" doesn't mean I don't know why it's necessary. YES, I know why it's necessary. YES, I know ending it too early would have dire consequences. But I ALSO know that it's too difficult (maybe not impossible, but difficult) for me to be happy while I know that the world is completely different from the world I knew and there's not much indication that things will get better. Not EVERYTHING needs to go back to the way it was, but it'd be great if we knew that grocery stores wouldn't keep having shortages forever, for instance.
SD just means staying 2 meters apart unless you know everyone is safe. Similar to safe sex until you know everyone is safe.
It also means that only ten people are allowed to be in one place at a time, almost every business in the entire world is closed, it's really difficult to buy what we need from grocery stores, people are losing all of their coping mechanisms at a time when we need ways to cope the most... I get that social distancing is necessary NOW, but as soon as we've finished dealing with the coronavirus pandemic, I don't want social distancing to go on forever.
For once in my life, I'd like to be able to vent my frustrations - about the coronavirus or changes that are happening because of the coronavirus - without being lectured about how my feelings are wrong and I'm a bad person for it. It's my journal and I should be allowed to vent my feelings, including the ones I know are irrational (and the ones I don't know are irrational at the time but later realize are irrational). I feel like every time I make a post venting about anything, you criticize the way in which I am doing it (whether it's criticism or not, it's been coming across as criticism)... which only adds to my stress level, making me even LESS careful about how I word things, and so on. I'm now afraid to make any posts at all about anything that isn't the coronavirus because I know I'm going to be seen as a bad person for being concerned about it.
I did read that entry and appreciate it but must point out...all our posts are 'the world is ending because x y or x' whether it is a literal pandemic or a nintendo character.
That's because
A) This is the only literal pandemic I've ever been around for in my history with LJ/DW. So, up until now, I didn't actually KNOW what the end of the world will look like. (Or if the actual end of the world ends up being even worse than this, well, the coronavirus is still the closest I've come so far to knowing what the actual end of the world will look like.) And so up until now, it was hard for me to know that certain things WEREN'T the end of the world (or at least the end of the world as *I* know it, which is better, but still not good for me because I don't cope well with change).
B) Whenever I'm stressed out (regardless of whether I have a good reason to or not), I tend to get in the mood to exaggerate. I don't know why, but it's a habit I've been in for who knows how long and have tried to break but been unsuccessful at it. You seem to be expecting me to break that habit instantly, which... doesn't seem possible.
C) Whenever I'm stressed or worried or anxious, I'm likely to post about it because I know I have to vent my feelings somewhere and get people's opinion on it. By contrast, whenever I'm in a GOOD mood, I'm less likely to post an entry because there's nothing I need to vent about. As a result, if you only know me from my journal, it may LOOK like I get as stressed out about video game controversies and such as I am about a literal pandemic, but that's not actually the case.
You never track back and post a new post saying 'thinking on it no....and now...X is what I think'.
If you really want me to do that for EVERY entry I've EVER written where I said something I don't think anymore, then... that's almost all of my entries. (I'm pretty sure I don't actually say the world is ending in almost all my entries, but I say stupid things in almost all of them, regardless.) I think that's asking too much.
For some entries, I do go back and do something like what you said, or otherwise acknowledge that I no longer think what I did by adding the "cringeworthy entries" or "hyperbole" tag to it or retroactively LJ-cut it with a notice saying "this entry was stupid" or something to that effect. But I save things like that for what I believe to be my worst entries. And even then, there's a few I still need to get around to doing that to.
And now that you've pointed that out, I feel even worse about myself because now I feel like not only am I a bad person for overreacting about things other than the coronavirus in the past, I can't even be FORGIVEN for it - possibly even if I went back and edited or locked or deleted all the posts you want me to.
I feel like no matter what I post about or how I say it, you don't like the way I said it. At least over the past few months.
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Date: Sat, Mar. 28th, 2020 18:32 (UTC)No one thinks you're a bad person. We keep telling you that.
All I meant by locking posts if you feel you are just ranting and it is not engaging you could choose to lock those posts for yourself. It is totally your choice. Your journal, your choice.
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Date: Sat, Mar. 28th, 2020 19:06 (UTC)Well, it's not all I post about. Maybe it is these days now that the coronavirus is all anyone can talk about no matter how much they wish they didn't have to, but it's not ALL I post about.
And as disappointed as I've gotten that websites shut down or make drastic changes or might shut down, (which, I have the right to be disappointed out it if I enjoyed those websites or wanted to check them out) I've never thought that that was the end of the world. Except maybe when LJ changed their TOS, because that had to do with political stuff in Russia that seemed like it could escalate into a huge war at any moment - but even then, the TOS change itself didn't seem like the end of the world, just an indicator that it could be near.
No one thinks you're a bad person. We keep telling you that.
Thanks :)
All I meant by locking posts if you feel you are just ranting and it is not engaging you could choose to lock those posts for yourself. It is totally your choice. Your journal, your choice.
I see now. I thought you meant that I HAD to.
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Date: Sat, Mar. 28th, 2020 04:25 (UTC)Something else just occurred to me regarding this:
You may not have seen me say such things as often as I actually have.
Because whenever my LJ and DW friends do successfully convince me that I don't need to worry about a given thing, I tend to reply to their comment to say that I feel better about it now and don't believe ____ anymore and believe ____ instead.
But usually my LJ entries have more comments in general than their DW counterparts. You only use DW, so you probably haven't seen the times when my LJ friends reassured me about something and I felt better about it.
Does that (and my other comments) make sense?
I really, really hope you don't think I'm a bad person for the way I cope with stress. I know you say I'm not, but...
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Date: Sun, Apr. 26th, 2020 20:33 (UTC)I know you've told me I'm not a bad person. But you've nevertheless implied, on many occasions, that I am one for feeling the way I feel (WHICH I HAVE NO CONTROL OVER). :(
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Date: Sun, Apr. 26th, 2020 21:04 (UTC)no subject
Date: Sun, Apr. 26th, 2020 21:32 (UTC)I hope I'm not coming across as angry at you. Because I'm not. I want to be friends with you. :)
I just worry a lot about people being angry at me. Sometimes I feel like there are people (not talking about you here) who would think that I should just die if they knew I want social distancing to end, even if that's only because my mental health cannot recover if it goes on for too much longer. Not only that, sometimes I think those people would be right in wanting me to die.
I feel a little better right now, at least. Not much, but a little bit.
And if I came across as being rude (here or in any other coronavirus-era thread), then... well, that's a reason I personally need social distancing to be over. If I wasn't so frustrated about it, I would be able to keep my emotions and check and not come across as rude so easily.
no subject
Date: Sun, Apr. 26th, 2020 21:38 (UTC)It sounds like Trump is going to end your lockdown soon despite... a lot. I don't want to get into it and upset you again. But yeah, it seems you will be able to go out soon either way.
So, do what is right for you. I'd advise against going out but if you are allowed then that is your choice to make.