If you haven't been familiar with the antiwork saga: The mod in question had an obscure post leaked where they confess to rape.

Now, I don't have any rape confessions. But this whole drama is fairly niche (no normal person on the street knows wtf this is about) and someone still had dirt on them.

When I was young and stupid, I may have uploaded some nudes of myself because I liked people calling me pretty. I know that some real-life people also may still have digital copies of them somewhere. Every time someone is ridiculed or cancelled for something that is leaked, it freaks me out because if I ever gained attention for whatever reason, I too have things I'm totally embarrassed about.

  • MerryChristmas [any]
    ·
    3 years ago

    I'm terrified of being exposed, too. I don't even have anything serious in my past, but the idea that something I thought was innocuous as a young person could bubble up to the surface still makes me nervous.

    In reality, the fear isn't about receipts... it's just a symptom of shame. You have difficulty with self-acceptance and so you believe that if anyone else got to know you, your private self, then they would reject you, too. It comes from the idea that deep down at your core you are a bad person. This isn't true, though. You have to accept yourself without judgment - not excusing antisocial behaviors, but removing yourself from them and examining them, allowing yourself to understand why the behaviors occurred rather than jumping straight to "because I'm bad" - and then commit to doing better. Ground your self-image in materialism.

    I'm definitely projecting here, but I think our situations might be pretty similar? The liberal brainworms tell you that people are either good or bad and should be treated accordingly. You know that's not true and you've long stopped judging others by this ideology, but it's a lot harder to stop thinking of yourself through this lens. It can take years to internalize the message that you deserve acceptance by nature of being a person, just like everybody else.