Struggling with experiences of anger/hate, social justice

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It’s hard to put in exact words, but I recently realized I never experienced “proper” feelings of anger and hatredin my life, or I experience them in a very different way than most.

I could be wrong, but I’ve heard that autistic people could have different ways to experience emotions, and I wonder had anyone else felt the same. So I decided to ask about it here.

I first discovered this when talking with an online friend, who says righteous anger is her main drive of creativity. She said anger feels exciting and motivating, like an adrenaline rush fills her with energy. I was completely baffled by that——don’t get me wrong, I’m a very emotionally volatile person. It’s just I encountered the type of scenarios when I feel offended/unjust, what caused me to protest and scream and cry is more like a visceral call of pain akin to being stabbed by the flesh rather than something thrilling. When I look back, I will categorize this feeling as “hurtful” instead of “anger”.

It seemed like I either feel happy or sad, or scared, but the closest thing to anger is frustration, which is not directed at a specific source. You could say I’m more frustrated with myself that anything externally.

And later I found that despite being deeply affected with injustices in the world, encountered quite a few bullies throughout my life, I never really hated anyone. Instead, I feel deeply saddened for what the harm they done to me and other people.

Thus, the concept of revenge sounds completely alien to me. Once my mom asked me whether I will want to kill a person who just killed my best friend or family, I said no. I will sink into deep depression because of loss of the victims, and will use all my might to stop the perpetrator to do any harm again. If this means I must kill that killer, I will do it for practical reason, but not because “killing them will make me feel good”.

In my real life, after being collectively trolled and death-threatened by a former fandom group(for calling out their bullying behaviors to others, which I done radically), many are fazed by why I still willing to appreciate the art they did, and hoping they could have a good life after whatever trauma or misunderstanding that caused their destructive behaviors are gone. I’m always aware what they did was horrendous, needing to to be exposed, condemned and stopped, but the feelings I associated with them are trauma and sadness, that they’ve hurt me, and are still hurting other people, but not hate.

I’ve been called a saint because of this hateless mindset , I don’t like being called this way: not just because I don’t like to be elevated on a pedestal in general(though being considered kind definitely boost my poor self-esteem), but also because this mindset is more troubling than most realized: I face injustices in the world in the same way.

My empathetic level towards other people are painfully overwhelming, whenever I see news reports of atrocities(murdering/discriminative policies.etc.) happening, I immediately imagine myself in the victim’s place, freeze in place having daymares to the point of dissociation, this goes double if I experienced similar type of trauma before.

I want to tear myself out to help these people, but are despaired by cannot reach any of them. Other people will say they are furious at whoever causing these problems, thus the reason to retweet, curse and protest, but I don’t feel these at all.

Irrationally, all the angers surrounding will seem like directed towards me——I will never feel the same anger as other people, and will never feel joy condemning anyone or anything. Unless there’s a certain way I could help those who are harmed(which 99% times are not) the sadness I felt is immobilizing, and at the same time I blamed myself for being a coward for not willing to fight. Whenever someone says “you should be shamed if you are not angry at [insert social issue]” I feel deeply excluded.

Being a Chinese citizen studying abroad in the US, I feel the same pressure in both countries. After experienced multiple meltdowns by consuming news and protesting during Covid, I just blocked anyone who retweet these social issues, because I will not be able to function at all if this keeps going.

Because of this lack of righteous anger and hatred, I often feel social justice and protests are not for me, despite deeply care about making the society a better place.

As an aspiring illustration and animation artist, I always think my art is responsible to expose and tear down unjust systems, to push for better. Yet, I’m struggling to use my work as an “attack” on anything. I prefer stories where villains are being redeemed rather than beaten, or with no villains at all, where mutual understanding could save the day. I love writing mundane underdog characters in marginalized communities, but all I want is to give them a happy ending after some personal struggles.

But such visions seem too fluffy in the cold reality we lived in——the atrocities are just too great that any soft-heartedness feels like a denial of gravity of the situation. The victims will never be liberated if my characters never get angry, thus the only option is despair——but after seeing so many despair in the real world, the last thing I want is giving my characters the same.

This is the reason I always create narratives in fantastic realms, focus on conflicts that are largely personal instead of political. I never felt someone like me is deserved to tell “realistic” stories, but at the same time I feel an overwhelming guilt for being so escapist. When I don’t have the gut to retweet real social problems, I can’t even use my art as a weapon——I’m not a weapon-wielding person at all.

Please help. This may look trivial, but all these makes me feel like a horrible person, it’s taking a massive toll on my mental health and no one around me seemed to understand at all.

When looking at the world honestly, one can be overwhelmed by the evil we inflict on each other. To make sense of this people make use of various "lenses". Some may see the need to take political control of others and use force to set things "right". Others may take a long view and try to use education to get the next generation to think more kindly.

I see avenues of information designed to focus on the tragic because this tends to increase viewership but distorts what is actually happening.

Most subscribe to a secular view that humanity is in the process of evolving and a social utopia is just around the corner. I see a Christian answer in that humans are basically flawed with selfishness. While most learn to suppress their selfishness sufficiently to carve out a manageable life, many make use of their selfishness to exploit and harm others.

The Stoics in history attempted to live lives of virtue through force of will. Christianity presents an opportunity to transcend selfishness through an act of God.

2Co 5:15  And that he died for all, that they which live should not henceforth live unto themselves, but unto him which died for them, and rose again. 

Most Christians do not understand the core of their faith and can present it in many strange ways. However, I have found a useful "lens" in Christianity that helps explain the tragedy observable in the world, why it occurred, and what can be done about it. Others have other answers, but for me, this makes more sense.

http://christianpioneer.com/

http://christianpioneer.com/blogarchieve/blog145.htm

I know how this feels. You're doing the right thing blocking all those people. I won't participate at all; I don't use social media full stop. I know that's easier for old people like me, though.

How I see it:

- We are powerless over the behaviour of other people
- We have the personal choice whether or not to leave this world a better place than we found it

I happen to believe in God, like timf, but it's not compulsory. Some of the most spiritual people I have known have been card-carrying atheists who believe that when we die, we 'just stop thinking'.

Do people learn anything? I don't think so. For example, nation after nation is blundering into the same chasm that they did in the 1930's. Rather than thinking a social utopia is just around the corner, I think of it from the opposite direction - that we're all f***ed if we don't sort ourselves out quick.

But I'm not responsible for other people. All I can be is the best person I can be - and because I'm human I am also going to get that wrong from time to time.

Re. art and expression - in my opinion you're getting it absolutely right. If art or literature is too obviously didactic, it loses its appeal. People want to be entertained; if they perceive that they are being lectured, the appeal wears off. And happy endings are important - who wants the good guys to lose? Would 'Alien' have endured if the aliens had won? Even 'Downfall', for all its absolute horror, has a happy ending.

Keep doing what you're doing. Don't lose faith.