Hugs if you want them.
This is a continuation from here. A thread to discuss personal issues and provide support for one another. No trolls, no arguments.
Posted on September 14, 2013, in kitties, off topic, open thread. Bookmark the permalink. 603 Comments.
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And someone’s shooting up Washington, DC.
It never rains but it pours.
Ally, I’m so happy to hear you and yours are safe! Good luck with Java!
I think we all have a little bit of Just World Fallacy going on. Just like one ought not believe that one could never become a victim because one’s so strong, one ought not to believe that one could never fall into the trap of JWF because one’s so rational (I’m not contradicting anyone in the thread with this, I just thought it needed saying explicitly).
Even if one’s rational enough to realize that people, for instance, can get cancer out of pure bad luck even if they’ve “done everything right” health-wise, one might still believe that one would never become psychologically damaged, because one’s psyche is something one controls. (Or one might admit that one isn’t psychologically invulnerable because nobody is, but believe that damaging one’s sense of self worth and so on would require something much more extreme than just a regular abusive asshole.)
Obviously, one possible reason someone doesn’t leave an abusive relationship is that the person is afraid of getting physically hurt or even killed if zie tries to leave… but I think it’s way more common that the abuser isn’t that dangerous on a physical level and the abused person stays because the abuser has messed up zir mind with the abuse. (I know that was the reason it took me a full year to break up for good and no second chances with my former boyfriend who wasn’t physically dangerous at all but mentally abusive and fucking evil that way.) And I think that’s the kind of situation that’s most likely to bring out victim-blaming. The way one thinks, the way one views relationships, what one considers a healthy relationship vs a get-the-fuck-out relationship – that’s really the kind of thing that so many people (including myself in the past) think that they have control of, even if they’re fully smart enough to realize that you can’t control everything about, say, physical health, or whether you become a victim of most kinds of crime or not.
It’s like Winston Smith in 1984, who knows that he may totally become wrongfully arrested, but mistakenly believes that he controls his own mind and nothing can touch him in there.
This is OT but today I’ve heard, for the second time, a Swedish feminist use “taking the red pill” as an analogue for becoming a FEMINIST.
Hiya from Edinburgh! This is the first time I’ve had 5 minutes of both spare time and Internet and now I’m rushing off again, but I thought I’d leave a little Man Boobz postcard. Look forward to chatting with everybody when I’m home.
Hi Viscaria!
How’s bonnie Scotland these days?
::waves at Viscaria::
I haven’t been able to give advice to Marie, because frankly, our parents took ‘not getting involved’ to its logical, horrifying conclusion, and I only got out of that by torching bridges and cutting contact. Which does the job but is pretty extreme.
Have fun, Viscaria!
Hey, I have a personal QUESTION to all insane people on this board: Do you have normal pain sensations? Or can you hurt yourself and not notice?
I ask because 1) I don’t, and 2) on a Swedish board for people with schizophrenia and schizo-fill-in-the-blank diagnosis where I used to be a member, lots of people reported the same thing, so maybe this is common among crazies?
Me and Husband tore down the old dog fence around our yard today, since we’re buying a new one. During work, I suddenly noticed that I had blood on my right arm. Turned out I had a real gash on it, so we had to go back inside and patch it up, but I hadn’t noticed when it happened. This is pretty common for me, I don’t notice if I accidentily cut myself with a knife or the like until I see the gash and the blood. I also don’t notice if I burn myself. I had a burn mark on my right arm for several years (it’s finally fading away now) because I once accidentily touched the side of the stove when I put more logs on the fire, and I didn’t feel it and pulled away, but let my arm reside there for seconds until I saw with my eyes that “oops, arm touching the stove”.
So anyone else, and particularly among the crazies here, who have this problem?
@Falconer
Two of the six chickens died, and the barn and some of the greenhouses are severely damaged due to flooding, but insurance will cover most of the damage so those folks will be okay I believe. Miraculously, the house sustained very little damage – even the internet works there.
Ally: I hope the flood is finally over for good this time. What an awful time for you and your family.
YES.
I found myself struggling with how unfair life was feeling, how much I felt like I was being treated badly… when I’ve known all along that it isn’t fair, and there was no anthropomorphic force targeting me, there’s just stuff going on.
But it’s seductive. We want to believe. Because if we do, then things might be okay. I just have to have the right formula for life.
Thinking that things might not be okay is scary.
Oh my god, Ally, that’s so much better than what I was dreading would happen.
I’m sorry about the chickens and the barn and the greenhouses, but at least the house survived. I’m amazed it still has power.
I hope the flood’s all over now.
Hi, Viscaria! ::waves::
RE: Dvarghundspossen
Hey, I have a personal QUESTION to all insane people on this board: Do you have normal pain sensations? Or can you hurt yourself and not notice?
I’ve never formally tested it, but I do seem to handle pain a little differently than others. However, I’m a dissociative and the system pain sink, so it requires a bit of my attention to block pain.
Yet another gun massacre in America. This is super depressing. I would send out Jedi hugs to everyone, but I need to ask for them first.
ALL THE HUGS! What a craptastic day in the world today.
Thank you for the hugs, Unimaginative. I’m glad there are spaces like this where compassionate people like you can be found. Hugs back.
I’m just going to leave a big barrel of hugs in the middle of the floor, plenty to go around, anyone who wants one step right up and check in with my captain of hug distribution.
Or if you’d prefer, you can simply collect a personal hamster from my magical self-refilling ceramic cat’s head.
I also have a raccoon standing by to say “There, there, it’s going to be fine” in a very reassuring way.
And soon, you’ll be feeling like this cat.
The Furrinati, ruling by teh power of cute!
Thank you for all the fur babies, Cloudiah.
Dvärghundspossen, I’ve found it easier to deal with pain I cause myself than pain that’s done to me? Not quite the same thing though. Although I do have the same issue with bruises, I don’t even know I have them until I see them or someone else points them out to me and then I notice actually yea, they kinda hurt… but they didn’t until I noticed them. It’s a pretty common thing afaik, and it’s somewhat related to the fact that a lot of pain is perception/mental and not physical damage to nerves.
Hugs to all who need them.
OHHHH I hope those two have a proper forever home together!
And that whoever dumped them or hurt them steps on every red-hot lego ever.
oh my god that is so sweet, neuroticbeagle.
@mildlymagnificent
thanks for the advice, though I’m afraid some of it flew straight over my head. :)
@ally
yay that your family members are safe :) Also, java the computer programming language? (don’t judge me I’m uneducated :P) Cuz if so my brother hates it too.
@LBT
that sucks :( Jedi hugs if you want them.
Yeah, the programming language. It’s very clunky and overly complicated.
Speaking of programming, I might be getting a raise for my current programming job. Currently, I get paid at $10 an hour (the minimum wage here in San Jose), but my wages were determined when I still worked alongside my cousin, who also got the minimum wage. Now that he’s too busy with school to work with me, I can start earning double the amount – $20 an hour. Yay! I hope things work out.
@Ally
Yay for potential raise :D
And just curious about java cuz my brother’s been complaining about it recently :P
Also, since this is open thread, I did two (out of five) parts of the GED. I am now done with math for.ev.er.
“Also, since this is open thread, I did two (out of five) parts of the GED. I am now done with math for.ev.er.”
You hope! ;)
I’ve been looking for my first job, and I’m hoping I get this job that I applied for. It’s a community service officer job at the university I attend, and it pays decently well.
I have to go to this orientation on the 23rd, so I’m crossing my fingers. I need the money to pay for food, rent, and a new laptop battery because my current one went bonk.
Fingers crossed, Alice!
Good luck to everyone on jobs and raises!
Yeah! Looking for your first job SUCKS, but I like to think it gets easier after you get it.
Careful, cloudiah, there’ll be FORCED MERRIMENT next!
/been reading your blog
@kittehs
I’d better be!
@Alice
Hope you get your job. Good luck.
Pain. We have two extremes here. The magnificent mr is more or less oblivious to pain. When he’s just out of the shower or getting ready for bed, I often innocently ask How did you do that? What? he wants to know. Well, that bruise the size of New Guinea right there. Oh? I dunno. The only thing that gets his attention is dripping blood from a run in with a knife/ hammer/ power tool.
Me? I used to think I bruised easily – but it’s really the opposite. Anything and everything hurts me. Turns out it’s yet another of the wondrous boons of a crook thyroid – low pain threshold. I can ouch and swear and complain all day and have Nothing! to show for it when I look for the obvious bruise, scratch, major emergency that should have resulted.
mildlymagnificent – does the magnificent mr bruise really easily? ‘Cause I do the same thing nowadays, and so does my mum: we can have spectacular bruises and no idea how we got them.
Paper cuts, however …
mildlymagnificent – Oh man, I HATE thyroid problems. That sucks. :(
Marie – thanks! I’m hoping I get it too. I really need a new battery. :P
Hey y’all- longtime lurker, occasional commenter. I’m trapped in New Mexico with car troubles ATM, was driving from Oklahoma to visit my soon-to-be-in-laws with the soon-to-be mother of our child (!) and we had to reroute away from our original plan of cutting across the Rockies cause of the madness, she’s passed out but i’m wide awake and troubled. Glad to hear everyone is alright, today has been insane. Though on the plus side, I got a Stetson. Stetsons are cool.
Re: pain- I’m weird, when I get mentally set into something I can hurt myself horribly and not notice until someone points and screams (thinking of the last time I took a nail in the foot) but when I’m not wrapped up in my own head I’m a huge wuss, and even little things hurt horribly. I think tattoos and piercings and meditation and generalized kinkiness has broken my pain register, or at least helped me compartmentalize it. But, neurologically speaking, it’s one of those things that’s really personal, even in other mammals.
I’ve known a dog that walked around with a shattered hip replacement for a week without anyone being able to tell. I’ve had a girlfriend whose knees were so bad (her kneecaps were, like, on the sides of her knees) that an orthopedic surgeon couldn’t believe that she could walk at all. Heh, I remember her going into the hospital, telling the nurse her pain was “about an eight out of ten”, and I had to pull the nurse aside and explain that her 8 was probably most people’s twelve.
I’m not aware of any research that investigates links between schizotypal disorders and pain thresholds, though, and I’m suddenly really curious. I know some of the other schizophrenic-type symptoms are believed to be linked to a failure of our self-monitoring system (like, the voices you hear are your own thoughts, but you can’t recognize them as such, for example) so if there’s a link, that would be utterly fascinating. /psychologist
@Binjabreel
Sorry to hear about your car troubles :( Hope the work out ok. And welcome. :)
Also, so much sympathy wince at your girlfriends knees. Mine are shuddering just thinking about it.
Safe travels, Binjabreel. Enjoy your welcome package:
http://artistryforfeminismandkittens.wordpress.com/the-official-man-boobz-complimentary-welcome-package/
Thanks for the pain replies everyone. :-) It’s interesting.
Binjabreel, that sucks. =[ Hope things get better for you.
Binjabreel, hi, welcome back! I hope the car troubles get fixed and you complete your trip safe and well and soon.
Seconding the OW sympathy on your girlfriend’s knees.
kitteh does the magnificent mr bruise really easily?
Not really. He’s always been a bit clumsy and it’s worse when he’s tired or irritable. He can injure himself horribly, I hear a loud thump/crash/event and I call out or rush to “help” and he’s not bothered at all unless he’s dropped something or knocked something over. A bruise won’t show up for a while yet, but if I point to a scratch or other obvious damage to his skin he hasn’t noticed.
@Dvärghundspossen
When I’m really depressed, I’ve noticed that I experience physical pain less. I kind of assumed that it’s because my brain is just not engaging with my physical needs. Maybe it’s the same reason I don’t really experience hunger or thirst for long periods if I’m in a bad place.
@Ally
I remember Java; a lot of frustrated head-scratching, but then suddenly the breakthrough where I understood what it was doing, and suddenly there was AWESOME POWAH at my fingertips!
…sadly, when I got out of school I got a job programming in another language, and now it’s been more than a decade since I touched any Java. So I remember nothing.
Use it or lose it, kids!
@nonserviam-
That *is* kind of interesting. Sometimes depression is literally just a lack of neuronal activity (like, your brain just can’t get a spark going, which is what they mean when they call alcohol a depressant) so that kind of makes sense. Pain is just a set of neuronal signals, after all.
@everybody else: thanks for the kindness, we’re alright, my gut says it’s not too serious. While i know crap-all about cars, I know a good bit about machines jn general, so i’m hopeful. We found a not-so-seedy motel (god bless the bedbug reporting guides on the Internet :/ ) and are just waiting for a mechanic to open. On the plus side, there’s no way in hell I’m getting back in time for my next shift of work, so at least now I have time to take the mrs to see the Grand Canyon and some Pueblo ruins. She’s never been exploring in the desert, and this is my favorite end of the country. Too bad she’s allergic to mesquite, though. :/
Oh, and for the record, bad knees and beautiful = ex-wife. Pregnant and beautiful = current. :P
@Binjabreel Yeah, when I’m depressed it feels more like I’m switched off than sad. I’m having a rough time right now but I know it’s not my depression because I’m crying too much. Things are being sucky and I feel them being sucky – so I’m just very, very, very sad and frustrated rather than depressed.
Oh boy, the poster family for archaic gender roles, the Duggars, their 20 year old daughter Jessa is “in courtship” and it’s gonna be on the tee vee.
Because women are chattel and marriage is a contract between fathers.
@nonserviam
If we’re bonding about how depression feels (plz say yes :P) for me it’s also more of an apathy/why bother thing, except sometimes the switch gets thrown and all of the emotions I didn’t have come tumbling out. Just last weekend I got mad at my dad for cancelling our sort-of-plans and ended up crying on my mom’s shoulder and watching supernatural, and then when my dad and sister went out later I was *really* giddy and out of it, and had a happy high for the whole morning+early afternoon. My mood randomness may have also been enhanced by SSRI withdrawal though.
@Howard Bannister
Yeah, despite Java’s chunkiness and needless complexity, it’s very useful. I’m learning Java because I need to know it for smartphone application development and because many employers are looking for people who have at least a decent amount of experience in the language.
It’s also teaching me about the core concepts of programming in a fashion much clearer than any other programming language I’ve learned. In a nutshell, somehow its verbosity makes it easier for me to understand each little thing that’s going on in a command. That famous command System.out.println(“This is a string”); is a good example. Of course, not every language is like Java, but even so, learning Java has given me great appreciation for more elegant languages like Ruby, Python, and C++ (and maybe even JavaScript, although that language tends to be a huge pain in the ass for me).
JS is just a huge pain in the ass. Because I do web design, not programming, I use JQuery instead. You may want to start there and work backwards as it’ll give you a functional knowledge base to work on and has INCREDIBLE tutorials.
@Argenti
jQuery is lovely! I do web design, too, and I will forever treasure that little $. I’m actually more experienced with jQuery than JS, although I learned JS first.
JQuery is how I finally learned JS. Though $pickles shall remain as my little joke (I tend to name works in progress after whatever I’m eating while working, and accidentally left a $pickles in once, my own personal site, but still plenty funny)
I didn’t know where in the world I could post this, then I remembered that I could post it here. I apologize in advance for my foul language.
I am just too fragile & weak to deal with all of the sexism, misogyny, racism, homophobic, ace-phobic (I’m asexual), anti-intellectual, & generally bigoted bullshit that I see everyday – out in the world, on the Internet, & in my everyday life.
Just today, another asshole was telling me to prove, via a scientific study, that women don’t make less money than men. He was basically saying that it’s another lie perpetuated by some man-hating feminists.
I’m going to be 38 in January, & I am tired of having to fight against all of this bullshit every single day. It’s breaking me down in some very bad ways. I can’t deal with anything anymore.
I have good links on the wage gap if you want em.
@Tristan: Hugs for you! And cuteness.
And it’s okay to check out and take a break, or even stop entirely if you want to.
@Tristan Gareth-Grey
I’m so sorry to hear that all of that bigoted anti-intellectual crap is disturbing you that much. Things like this can wear anyone down, really.
Here is a great collection of arguments that address misconceptions about the wage gap: http://amptoons.com/blog/category/the-wage-gap-series/
@sittiekitty
This is what the guy said –
“No one has shown me anything backing this up, about women getting paid less than men. Until someone shows me how scientific method resulting in this particular claim. I am going to have to say it is utter BS. And even if they do, I can think of a dozen reasons why the average pay of women is fairly less than men. A lot of those reasons include the disadvantage of children and single parenting, as well as generally more timidness.”
So basically it’s all the fault of women as to why we don’t make as much as men.
@Falconer
Thanks for the hugs. Unfortunately for me, it’s all shoved in my face every single day, even in my own home. So I can avoid it, even if I wanted to.
^^^^
***Can’t*** avoid it even if I wanted to.
——–
@AllyS
Thanks so much. It’s just an accumulative thing though, really. I was personally fighting against sexism in my life at 6 years old, over 30 years ago. I’m just really tired, & I don’t have the strength anymore.
Hugs, Tristan! And some pictures of two unlikely friends.
SittieKitty, I’d like those links.
@Tristan Gareth-Grey
I see what you mean. If you don’t mind me asking, do you have anyone to talk to in real life about the way you’re feeling? Or is everyone around you bigoted, anti-intellectual, etc?
Some more brain bleach if anyone needs it.
Sorry, Tristan. I’ve been feeling that same worn-down way too lately too. I’m fortunate not to have to deal with it in my home. Even if it’s not home, I hope you have somewhere you can go to clear your mind of this nastiness.
Is that unequal-pay denying asshole someone you even need to have this discussion with? Sounds like arguing with a brick wall. Which is wearing, for sure.