Dalton555
Dalton555's JournalRepublicans have hated Portland for decades
I lived in Portland through the '80s and '90s, and we were very proud of our Little Beirut image.
Some really good street theater occurred during those years. For me, the highlight was always when protesters vomited red white and blue paint on the street where Quayle was speaking.
https://www.wweek.com/news/2018/12/06/rip-george-bush-heres-how-portland-protested-him-in-the-1990s-and-earned-the-name-little-beirut/
The pandemic and social anxiety
I have a vulnerability to social anxiety. At one point, I stayed home for several months years ago and could barely be in public at all. Therapy and creating a functional life got me to the point where I can handle being in public and can handle social pressures as long as I know that I have an out.
A few months ago, after Walmart had started their mask requirement, I went to a Walmart store and I parked by the garden center. I use this strategy so that I can check out in the garden center where there are fewer people and fewer triggers. I went in through the garden center, walked around the store and got things, picked up some ambient nervousness from all of the people around me, as they looked terribly frightened, and then I started making my way to the garden center to check out.
They had chained the doors shut. Apparently, that was the day that they decided to start limiting the number of people they allowed inside. They only had one door in, and one door out.
Thank goodness I was able to do my deep breathing and refocusing, but for a few seconds, it was a really ghastly trigger. Huge heavy chains wrapped around the door and held in place by a giant padlock!
The long and short of it is, I worry about people who deal with anxiety in public. I worry about the pandemic trigger of shopping for people who have agoraphobic or social anxiety triggers like I do.
Yesterday, as I left a store in Idaho, I saw an elderly couple drive up with masks on. They sat in their car for a moment, looking terrified.
This pandemic and the terrifying hateful rhetoric that is flying around and the horrific mismanagement from the White House are combining to really harm America. This is a terrible period of our history.
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Member since: Sun May 1, 2016, 11:18 PMNumber of posts: 1,474
