"From the moment that we're born, we are basically taught to conform. We are categorized by gender and race. We are sorted by socioeconomic status. And our fate is already sealed from before we even take our first breath. This life is based mostly on luck and fate. And if you are unable to conform to the system, if you are unable to compromise your soul to fit into this capitalistic hellscape, then you will be severely punished.

Refusing to conform in school will turn everyone against you. It will make you a target.

But imagine that conforming conforming to this level of oppression is not normal, but everyone sees it as normal. Imagine like it's almost like the slaves defending the master. It's almost like the crabs in the bucket. They're they're they're screwing themselves over by not letting one person out. And unfortunately, we are groomed to be employees by for rich people's businesses. It's a factory. School is a factory for low wage employees. School is just a conveyor belt for employees.

That's what it is. And if you're not very good at being an employee, then you're discarded. You're nothing.

And not all of us are able to work this insane schedule under these certain under these kinds of conditions. It's impossible for a lot of us. And how can you not be depressed in the system yet we are stigmatized for not being able to take it? We are blamed for not being able to conform. Punished for not bleeding our lives into the life force into capitalism.

I don't know how to sacrifice myself in a way where I'm useful in the system. I've tried everything that I can to succeed in this system and I can't do it. So that does make me a failure. Um I guess in at least in the eyes of society, I have not succeeded in any any capacity and it hurts.

Um, from from a very early age, we're pitted against our classmates and blamed when we can't compete, and we're told not to be so hard on ourselves when our entire environment um convinces us to do so. I can't tell you how many times I've been told not to be so hard on myself while receiving absolutely no positive feedback from my environment whatsoever. They want us to just not they want us to be very convenient and not take up space and not have feelings and not be human beings.

We are hated for appearances. We're hated for being too ugly or too pretty or ignored for being average. And the average person who has to do everything right, who does everything right, cannot survive in this society.

The average wage, the median wage in this society is actually below what the average minimum, the average living wages. To be middle class, it's impossible to be middle class. There is no middle class anymore. There is no incentive to work in this system. It's pointless.

I don't see why I would want to slave my life away for just having a roof. It is so much easier to just live under someone else's roof or even probably just run into the woods and live there if I have to.

If you are neuro divergent coded, society cannot use you. And because you're useless to society, they convince you that you are useless completely. So they push you to the margins and leave you there to rot.

They basically make it so that your only option is to stay behind closed doors. and they blame you for not being able to change yourself. It's insane how working your life away is seen as a virtue when you get nothing to show for it. Then we are ashamed for wanting and expecting more. Hard work is a poverty indicator. If you're slaving your life away and you're working hard and you think this is a virtue, you're wrong.

Rich people do not work this hard. It's ridiculous.

We are then shamed for wanting and expecting more and called selfish and greedy for wanting a life that's just manageable.

It shouldn't be this hard just to survive with like just I mean it's it's impossible. I don't understand how we're supposed to do it. There is nothing I can do for 8 hours a day, including playing video games. Yet, our only life is meant to be thrown away doing work that is pointless. Certain cultures thrust reproduction on you as an obligation. And we are one of the first families, we're one of the first generations to have easy access to contraception. If our grandmothers had had this as a choice, so many of us wouldn't exist and we the world would be better off for it.

This is a slave system disguised as democracy, marketed as democracy. It is basically gilded [expletive] It is dog [expletive] with gold on top. That is all it is. There is no such thing as freedom in this system. Not for me, not for you, not for anyone that doesn't conform or fit in. And we have to pay the system to cure the damage and illness that the system caused in the first place.

I have been told so many times that my only purpose as a woman is to be a breeder. I'm not nurturing. I don't want to have kids. I have basically been told I have no purpose by society.

And whether or not this is true, it still hurts.

I have felt useless pretty much my entire life.

I tried to do what I was supposed to do and it did not work.

And um basically I was shuffled through the psychiatry system at that point because they thought I was broken and they wanted to fix me so that I would be able to perform in society again. So psychiatry has a level of arrogance that is unfitting for how primitive mental health care actually is.

The patient is seen as less than or blamed for being not or blamed for being not able to cope with a toxic environment. We're expected to take responsibility for a toxic environment and be the bigger person when we're being abused.

Mental illness is a natural response to a [bad] up system. In the same way that birds will pluck their feathers out of their bodies when they're in a high stress or abusive situation, this is what happens when you are in a sub-optimal environment. In sub-optimal environments, animals eat their own young. They stop reproducing and they start plucking and self harming themselves because no living being can live in a self-optimal environment without self-destructing from the stress.

Therapy only serves to force us back into line and shape us into compliance. It serves to make us functioning under capitalism. All we actually need is true freedom and rest.

I've never fit into this into any rigid system. Unfortunately, I've tried and I have always had a shoulder to shoulder the blame and the shame. It's all some sort of sick theater that I was never given the script to. I am expected to perform on a stage play where I don't know my lines. That's what life feels like. It seems like every interaction is this huge calculus problem that I have to solve while everybody else is doing basic math. I have to solve a calculus problem while everyone else the problem is 2 plus two for them. For me it's so complex I can't even do it. So it's not even worth participating actually. So I don't

we're cut down to nubs until we go down the path chosen for us. Every fake nod and fake smile is just a veneer of compliance.

If we are unable to comply we are discarded like trash and blamed for being awake and not noticing that this is $\text{[bad]}$ up in the first place.

When you try to hold on to personal identity, you are the tall poppy that gets cut down. To survive, you must lose your essence to the system. If we actually understand just how rigged and designed for harm the system actually was, most people would stop participating.

But the system is very good at disguising itself. There's a game of smoke and mirrors at play that cannot be denied. And most people are not interested in looking that deep. Um, I want to escape the system so badly, but I don't know how.

And at this point, living in the woods is probably what I'm probably going to end up doing. I don't really know or just spending more time in nature in general because there's really no point in being around people at this point. The the net the the ROI on being around humans is so low for me. It's crazy.

Especially regular humans, it just doesn't it doesn't it doesn't help. There's always something that happens. There's always an issue. So, it's better to just opt out.

And people say you're coping out for giving up on relationships. Like, it's not their [expletive] business. You know what I'm saying? It's not their [expletive] business that I want to opt out of relationships in general. And yes, there are times where I get lonely. But like, I would rather deal with the loneliness most days than deal with the drama and the and the [expletive] [expletive] of dealing with human beings. It's just not worth it. I don't have the skills to solve these problems. I don't see it as something that matters.

Our actions and performance are where others assign value to us. Being beautiful intelligence makes you valuable by default. As someone that lost my beauty and ability to work temporarily due to disability, it was like entering into a different reality, a completely different world.

And because um I've told you guys before that I went through chronic illness and basically became absolutely invisible to everyone. Um the way I was treated was horrible. I was treated like absolute [expletive] by by strangers and customer service professionals compared to the way it is now. now that I'm, you know, back to being conventionally attractive, I guess. And it's really [bad] up. Um, it shouldn't be that way, but that's the way it is. We care about appearances, and that's how it is. I don't like the way things are. I don't like participating in this life".

Shelby