How One Impulsive Reddit Post Proved I Was Useful
Being social media free was all well and good until I landed myself on bedrest with internal bleeding right before January 6th.
Reddit was supposed to be a distraction.
I hadn’t seen a reddit post since leaving the facebook phase of my life. Facebook and twitter had both done a number on me. So, I had zero desire to enter into a new social media relationship.
The stalkers and co-workers were reason enough to stay away, but honestly my biggest aversion was the possibility of subjecting myself to one more “hey girl!” MSM invite from some random friend of some pseudo-acquaintance. No, thank you.
Life was good being social media free—until I landed myself on bedrest with internal bleeding. That little leading click bait is a story for another time, but the TL;DR version can be summed up as: when endometriosis goes undiagnosed for too long it causes major medical problems. Shocking, I know.
So, what is a Mom of two with two 2E kids who has just moved states into a three story townhouse with no yard and a dog to do? Particularly when she is stuck in bed trying to not freak out every time something crashes downstairs while she is on the top floor, her husband tries to work from home on the bottom floor, and the kids and dog are floating somewhere in between?
Well, seeing as how there were no Poké stops within range of my bed to exploit and satisfy my boys’ newly formed PokémonGo! obsession, I decided I’d try and be social for my own sanity. I searched the interwebs for fellow endo-peeps with whom I could vent my bedrest frustrations and glean some survival tips.
Enter the glorious reddit post.
It was a new world for me. Reddit looked nothing like “normal” social media and it was saturated with people who loved sarcasm, openly obsessed about their passions, and gave snarky heartfelt advice (for the most part). It was beautiful for those first few days. All until January 6.
Yes, that January 6.
Maybe it was the screenshots from all the Trumpers on facebook. Or maybe it was the fact that Trump was a massive trigger for my cPTSD. Perhaps it was the internal hemorrhaging. Who knows.
Whatever it was (It was the cPTSD. But we can discuss that later), it kicked a visceral hornets’ nest in me that night. I rage-researched and wrote like the world depended on me.
It didn’t. But nothing can convince you of ridiculous things quicker than a trauma response and a low blood count can.
Everything I learned from therapy over the last decade surrounding the mechanisms at play between me and every narcissist and borderline personality scattered through my history came barreling into my consciousness. How in gawd’s name had we so ignorantly allowed an orange megalomaniac to love-bomb an entire demographic of our country into following along with his gaslit fever dream.
The news reports were infuriating. Everywhere you turned there was someone calling the rioters sheep — too stupid to think for themselves and too willing to believe his lies. As a survivor of narcissistic abuse I knew better. This wasn’t a result of stupidity or ignorance. (Well, it wasn’t only that.) This was a result of pervasive, long-term, and sociopathic level manipulation being afflicted upon people who, for various reasons, were completely oblivious to their own vulnerability. Specifically oblivious to the ease with which a con artist could sneak into their world and exploit the ingrained messages they received throughout their life about legendary American bootstraps.
I was angry, but more than anything I wanted to help them.
I couldn’t shake the instinct to feel pity for the storming people. So many had bought into the blowhards system of outrage, and done so with incredible conviction. The impulse to save them from themselves was intense. My rising panic drove me into a deeper hyperfocus.
I collected as many varied and approachable sources as I could and started placing links methodically. Used a calculated name drop of one of the ideologs often quoted by the mob in an effort to get more views. I selected a subreddit with formatting and rules gave the post a leg up. I double-checked that (most of) my snark and bias were apparent but not blatant. And last but not least, I crafted as clickbaity a title as I could stomach.
At 12:45am, January 7th, I clicked post. I tossed my phone to the floor, fully aware that if I didn’t it would be too easy to second guess myself. If I wanted to chicken out, I’d have to wake my husband or suffer the painful consequences of trying to sit up on my own. Between that and my pain meds I managed to sleep through the majority of the internet doing what it does best – extrapolate.
My LPT reddit post is still the most read piece I’ve ever posted.
To be honest, that is a fairly embarrassing fact to admit, considering that 90% of the post is a just list of links to other writer’s work. But I’ll take a win where I can get one.
I gained a significant number of followers that first week, but the throng didn’t stick around. They culled themselves down to the low double digits after a few weeks, but some have still stuck around. This was passively intentional on my part. I knew they would lose interest if I continued to only pounce around in the parenting, writing, and crochet subreddits. But their brief interest in what I might post next gave me confidence and an ego boost big enough to start me back down a path I had all but abandoned in 2018. It gave me the push I needed to dust off my blogs, and start coming up with a game plan for my writing dream.
I intended for Reddit to be a distraction from my inner and outer world.
No one will ever be as surprised as I am that what Reddit actually became for me was a catalyst. The popularity of my post provided tangible evidence to counter the judgemental voices in my head. I could finally shut up all the ways in which I was a burden on everyone from echoing in my head. The continued conversation happening in the posts comments proved that I could still produce something of value despite the mess behind the scenes. My diagnoses had me waking up every day feeling useless and defeated. But I had created something engaging, something of value. That experience gave me the distraction I truly needed.
LPT - Learn about manipulative tactics and logical fallacies so that you can identify when someone is attempting to use them on you.
To get you started:
Logical Fallacies in Argumentative Writing
20 Diversion Tactics of the Highly Manipulative
3 Manipulation Tactics You Should Know About
How to Debate Like a Manipulative Bully — It is worth pointing out that once you understand these tactics those who use them start to sound like whiny, illogical, and unjustifiably confident asshats.
10 Popular Manipulative Techniques & How to Fight Them
EthicalRealism’s Take on Manipulative Tactics
Any time you feel yourself start to get regularly dumbstruck during any and every argument with a particular person, remind yourself of these unethical and pathetically desperate tactics to avoid manipulation via asshat.
Also, as someone commented, a related concept you should know about to have the above knowledge be even more effective is Cognitive Bias and the associated concept of Cognitive Dissonance:
Cognitive Dissonance in Marketing
Cognitive Dissonance in Real Life
EDIT: Forgot a link.
EDIT: Added Cognitive Bias, Cognitive Dissonance, and Cognitive Distortion.
EDIT: Due to the number of comments that posed questions that relate to perception bias, I am adding these basic links to help everyone understand fundamental attribution error and other social perception biases. I will make a new post with studies listed in this area another time, but this one that relates to narcissism is highly relevant to my original train of thought when writing this post.
Bonus:
There were only a handful of comments I actually engaged with. These are some of my favorites.
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