I think what you don't/refuse to understand is that it's like this:

You go to a bar. Someone insults you mildly. You fly into a rage and act like you're going to pummel the shit out of that someone, except your friends are holding you back. You feel better, your honor is restored, you stood up for yourself, hooray for you. Except your friends are suddenly apologizing for you, they're having to get physically violent with you, they're involved in a scene, and their whole night has just been given over to caretaking because their friend is too fucking weak to solve his own problems.

I'm good though! Tone of my voice would be illuminating,

If you were good you wouldn't spew this up where other people have the option of responding to it. You're looking for an audience, which means you're trying out your ideas. Maybe you're good now? 'cuz the thing is, people howl onto the Internet for affirmation or reassurance and once they have it, they get their dopamine. BlueSky? that's a place for affirmation. I noped out of that place the day after Trump was shot because it's a bunch of '00s bloggers and former gifted kids wittily describing the end of the world to each other and god help you if you have an even vaguely dissenting opinion. Here?

I'ma level with you. It's fucking exhausting.

It fucking killed my whole day having to write that. I couldn't fucking eat until about 20 minutes ago. I worry about this shit. But I wrote it, because you needed to hear it. I write it to Ben, because he needs to hear it. I wrote it to Spence, because he needed to hear it - until he chose the drugs. Until he chose "well actually an insurance executive is allllllllllllllmost as bad as Osama bin Laden" because he spends all day hanging out with his junkie friends who roll around in the crack shack blowing smoke up each other's asses about the virtue of shooting a bitch rather than the pragmatic impacts of shooting a bitch.

And the real problem is you think that leaning on friends and family for your strength doesn't cost them anything.

I bailed on this place for what, four months? Because you guys lean on me so reliably to put a positive spin on things that you think it's my job. You think I can put a positive spin on everything. When Ben decided to snark about the positive spin I'd put on the collapse of the liberal court it was too fucking much, dude. Because I - and those of us who pay attention all the time, rather than when we've read something in The Atlantic - have long been warning about Mitch McConnell's ultimate mission to deliver a conservative supermajority to the Supreme Court.

Because I - and those of us who pay attention all the time - actually assess the threat.

You read "hurricane coming." I read "hurricane coming." I go "well, it looks like it's coming close, we need to board up the windows, we definitely need to leave, is the car gassed up, do we have somewhere to stay, what is it going to look like when we come back, what are our options." You go "WEEEEEEERALLLGONNNADYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEwhargarbl" until someone slaps you because you want the slap. You need the slap. You're too lazy to find your own center so you make someone else find it for you. And you don't realize how much energy you're taking away from people who are trying to find a path forward.

And the worse part is if you don't get the slap, you have no way to switch from useless, inchoate panic to problem solving. Your internal support has atrophied so much that if you can't find your external support, you collapse.

If you were good? You wouldn't do this shit in the middle of the night. If you weren't leaning into it? You'd react to the news, rather than the reaction to the reaction to the news. If you were even-keeled about it? You wouldn't go from zero to Air Pinochet at the slightest story prompt.

And I'll keep doing it because I know you need it. But fuckin' hell man it takes it out of me.