Crap.
An open thread for personal stuff, continuing from here.
As usual for these threads: no trolls, no MRAs, no arguments.
Posted on August 10, 2014, in open thread. Bookmark the permalink. 714 Comments.
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That sounds lovely, kitteh.
Nothing to add but that :p
Ciprodex actually sounds wonderful. Any time I can get the antibiotic to the site of infection without making my liver do any work I’m down and cipro is my favourite one.
Last night we found out that a friendly aquaintance of ours who had been a local fixture and close friend to one of our besties had taken his own life on the birthday of another friendly aqauintance we thought highly of who took his own life last year. They were part of the crowd we jokingly called the Lowertown Mafia or the Lowertown Cool Kids. They helped keep this town weird and thus, far more fun to live in. He was a Roller Derby ref. We weren’t close, but any time we saw eachother we’d stop and talk. He biked everywhere and because of him alot of our friends started biking. He knew everything about bikes and started a bike enthusiasts club in town that went on midnight rides every full moon. I’d known him ever since I worked in the mall and he was a young emo kid in a black trenchcoat who hung out around where I worked. He’d been a couch suffer for years and so had gotten close to many people. He used to live in my neighborhood and we frequently saw eachother at the park or on the street. He had moved away to the big city and by all previous accounts, was doing well. I didn’t know that he and my bestie had long talks over Facebook about depression. I didn’t even know that was something he wrestled with. We keep trying to call another mutual friend to check on her, but her phone has been disconnected. This sucks so much. He always seemed so happy and to be living his life his way.
So many people don’t make it and the world is worse off for it. Both of these guys were smart and though a little rough around the edges, good people. They had so many friends. I’m going to miss him and we were not tight. I don’t even know his real name. For 10 years we ran in the same circles and I only ever knew him by his nickname. Everyone called him Spork, except hubby. He called him Mr. Runcible.
Here’s a big post of resources for depression and crisis, including links to kit tie pics and cheer-me-up sites:
http://blueeyed0.tumblr.com/post/94508515400/oneoftheguiltyones-an-important-list-of-us
Found via shakesville koolaid, where I’ve been semi-lurking since the great meltdown.
Really, autocorrect? You don’t recognize kittie?
I love when autocorrect either fixes or recommends people’s nyms for me when I’m commenting. I’m always like “does that mean I spend too much time of WHTM?” And then I’m like “nah, it means I spend just enough time on WHTM.”
Shakesville koolaid? Great meltdown?
@fibi, there are a few sites where people who’ve had bad experiences at Shakesville gather and commiserate. A couple of weeks ago, Melissa McEwan called them out as hate sites, bullies, and claimed that they (especially the most active one, Drink the Shakesville Kool Aid) are harassing her and her co-bloggers.
http://shakesville.tumblr.com/post/93256511314/re-pushback
http://shakesvillekoolaid.tumblr.com/post/93183257884/submission-this-is-what-has-actually-been-happening
@Marinerachel: I had a Kiwi internet boyfriend when I was seventeen
Wait – Liss?
Alys? Monica? Gertrude?
Roger?
Ehnnngh.
So, not only have I had nightmares five times this week, I’ve also noticed there’s a big gap in our memory concerning my predecessor’s death, somewhere between December 2002 and March 2004. Also, I’ve had one of my unkillable headaches since I woke up yesterday morning.
I really don’t like the direction this is headed. Looks like it’s time for me to go another round with repressed trauma! And if it axed my predecessor (one of the toughest in the system at the time) that means it’s probably going to be a humdinger.
I swear to fucking god, if it is more rape, I will fucking eat a kitten. I am so sick of my brain going, “Guess what? MORE RAPE! Hooray, rape!”
RE: blahlistic
O.o Really? I mean, I’m not accusing you of lying or something.
It was apparently a new test drug. Roomie swears by it, though!
I’m Rachel, Phoenician. He’s Hayden. I’m sure you’ve had his delicious kumara pie. He is such a nice man.
LBT, I’m really sorry you’re discovering more shitty memories. I wish that wouldn’t happen to you.
RE: katz
It’s okay, just… just frustrating. Having an over-the-top tragic backstory is not NEARLY as cool as strangers on the Internet led me to believe.
Also, WHY didn’t twelve-year-old Tiny Us date fucking everything they ever touched. It’d make my life SO MUCH EAISER.
Internet hugs and hot chocolate if you’d like them, LBT.
I’m sorry you’re going through this, and bad memories and repression sounds absolutely awful…
allRIGHT!
Happy shiny new pharma! WOOT! :D
…Sympathies extended.
Words can’t express the level of suckage involved in the “Guess what happened to YOU!” thing. One of my alters has 2 years worth of Bad Stuff to show us, and she isn’t…I sort of wish she’d get on with it. Anticipation isn’t fun.
LBT, I’m so sorry this crap is coming up for you. I can’t even begin to imagine the toll it takes.
I’m a big chicken about emotional confrontation. I’ve made a few attempts at therapy, but I always get to the point where you have to actually deal with the shit, and I always chicken out and distract myself instead. So what if nothing changes? So what if I continue to hate my life and punish myself for things I have no control over? At least I don’t have to look at scarybadstuff from the past. <..> Yeah, that’s the ticket. Oooh! Squirrel!
So, yeah. I’m amazed that you’ve survived, and continue to deal with ever more crap, and that you choose to deal with it in a manner that helps others deal with their own trauma. You’re amazing.
Damn. That little bull thing is supposed to be shifty eyes. I guess WordPress thought I used too many angle brackets.
All the internet hugs, LBT. Let us know if there’s anything we can do.
@ unimaginative…pardon if I come off as an arrogant asshole for handing out unsolicited advice, I’m not *trying* to be one.
But punishing myself for stuff that’s not my fault is a struggle I have as well.
The thing is, digging out trauma ( which I’m fairly good at, because I can’t not be, if that makes sense ) didn’t stop that much….I mean, I can clearly look back and see that my nutty-ass parents were taking their crap marriage out on me, so that’s where I got the original programming that everything was my fault. But when I mess up, I STILL feel like I need to be punished.
However, I found a couple of other things that did help me to stop self punishing…
One, “Opposite action” from DBT-that is, being nice to myself when I feel like hating on myself. ( http://www.dbtselfhelp.com/html/opposite_action.html )
The other is to reply to my self hating inner thoughts with opposite and positive internal statements, by rote, and even though I do not believe the opposite and positive statements. This quieted the thoughts.
Don’t know if those two tools will be ones to put in your own skill toolbox, but I pass them on in the hopes that they will be of some help.
Brain bleach, and more evidence for my “horses are like really big dogs with hooves” theory:
Does anyone have any suggestions on learning the knit stitch? I’ve got casting on down (I think), but the instructions I’ve found for the knit stitch so far are baffling me. Presumably, learning the purl afterwards will be less of a pain.
If it helps at all, I think it involves ‘making a loop’ and then somehow pulling this ‘loop’ through a ‘stitch’. Not sure what these terms mean in context, though.
Ugh, LBT, I’m sorry to hear that there’s trauma coming back up for you guys. Is there anything we can do to support you?
Robert, whenever I’m learning new stitches, I find YouTube is a better choice than written instructions because you can see what the instructor is doing. I found this one, but there are others out there:
I’m sorry LBT. There are hugs here if you want them. ——>HUGS
Thanks, Viscaria!
Thanks for the kind words, guys. Unfortunately, right now, it’s still the waiting game. Repressed material tends to come up in stages:
1. The memory block is moving into conscious awareness. Nightmares, sleeping a lot, general rundown feelings.
2. The memory block is in conscious awareness, but it’s not doing down. Horrible itchy brain feelings, climbing walls, mental constipation, suppressed screaming and weird creepy thoughts playing on loop for no apparent reason. (Last time, it was “Eden burned down.”)
3. The block finally breaks. Much crying, rocking, and reliving of the memory, and complete mental exhaustion for at least a couple weeks.
Right now, I’m still at stage 1, just barely edging into stage 2. I give it at least a week or two before stage 3 takes place. So I still have a lot of irritating time ahead of me.
On the plus side, after this, it might really actually promise for reals be over this time? Maybe?
…please?
@ LBT…did y’all find it easier to get the memories back over time? Just wondering. I got two memories back in my early 20’s-the reason they came back so easily?
Not so much what was done, who was doing it. The betrayal level was much less, you see.
In 2011, for whatever reason, the really bad stuff began arriving, has stopped again now.
(Also was allowed to notice the other people in my head…)
(I mean, really, if the rest of the committee decide it’s a bad idea for me to know something, I’ll forget it. I am not entirely in charge of my own thought process. Derp )
At any rate…It’d be damn nice if this is the last of the crap. *crosses fingers*
RE: blahlistic
Hmmm. Depends on the memories. The thing is, we very rarely have any memory blanks. There are more… distortions. Censorings. Enough to get by. It was only with the most recent memory coming up (back in early July) that it became clear that our brain COULD withhold information, and not just emotions.
The general rule for memories coming up is, we have to be stable enough to handle them. This meant that a lot of memories came up within a couple years, but others take a lot longer. The early July memory was something that had taken place over nine years prior; the one that will eventually come will likely be about eleven years old. As we’ve grown more and more safe and stable, more and more dangerous material has come up.
Often, there’s a lot of intermediate steps we have to take before going around dragging up memories. A lot of memories have been getting jogged by us trying to figure out our history. It’s a lot of weird factors at work!
Blahlistic, thanks! Those kind of exercises are right up my alley.
@Cloudiah, according to the many, many, many western novels I read as a ‘tween, plains *Indians called horses “God Dogs”.
*When I was a ‘tween, native north americans were all called Indians. If there was already a movement afoot to correct that, I hadn’t heard about it then.
Lea: I’m so sorry. That sucks.
I think one of the wort lies that depression tells people is that they are worthless and that their friends, family and loved ones would be better off without them. This is a damned lie. Fuck depression, it sucks so bad.
LBT: :(. I hope these are the last bad memories, too. Hugs, if you want them.
For anyone who needs some cute:
Here’s a teeny-tiny baby chihuahua
And another one.
Unimaginative, given the alteration in Plains Indians* way of life that horses brought, that is an entirely reasonable thing to call them. Having dogs drag your travois is all right, but a god dog would clearly be an upgrade. And riding a dog is rarely an option.
*Native Americans of the Great Plains region.
*high-pitched squealing* TINY PUPPIES.
(Also, can I just say thank you to all the Mammoths who helped teach me that squealing over cute animals is perfectly acceptable regardless of gender? It helped.)
I just looked at the start of that video, and it’s so clear, even without sound. That seems a good sign.
I learned knit stitch backwards, literally. I did what’s called knitting into the back of the stitch, and only found out that’s what it was when I came upon that term and wondered what it meant. :P
I don’t remember who recommended The Knick in a thread here, but thank you! I am horrified and fascinated by it.
Knitting? When we were little we were taught to knit at school starting about year 1 or 2. What we knitted for a starter, practice piece was a cotton dishcloth. My 6 year old sister enthusiastically embarked on this new very grown-up endeavour – but her knitting looked super weird, off, strange. Anyone who watched her couldn’t see what on earth she was doing wrong, every movement of needle, yarn and fingers looked exactly right. As it turned out, it was.
It wasn’t long before our grandmother watched her in a different environment. Being so keen, she was knitting once she was in bed for the night. Leaning on one elbow. And then she finished the row she had been knitting – and promptly knitted back the next row without lifting her elbow or turning the work.
She was ambidextrous. Without even noticing it she was, sometimes, knitting one row right-handed and the next one left-handed.
mildlymagnificent, that is So. Cool.
What did her knitting look like?
I have no idea. I was only 7 at the time myself.
Curses!
Well, ambidextrous knitting is definitely a thing. There are even tutorials for it.
One key thing to remember with knitting and crochet is handedness. If you’re left handed, watching a right-handed tutorial won’t make any sense to you. :)
I have a GP appointment for tomorrow afternoon to address the side effects of treatment. My axilla is now a mess, as the top layer of my skin has come off. While I was out today, I bought some cheap batwing tops – why can’t more tops be batwing? I’m trying to avoid seams. :(
The pinetarsol soap replacement is working well, it even lathers like soap.
I’m using this for the itching on areas where I still have an epidermis: http://www.healthy.co.nz/product/1157-anti-itch-ointment.html The chemist said that the sesame extract has been used successfully in the treatment of burns victims in hospitals with its regenerative effects. I haven’t looked up any studies but it is giving me relief from the itching and means I can lay off the hydrocortisone cream – which has its own side effects /sigh
Re: therapeutic use of what are generally considered “recreational” drugs
My understanding of drug-related issues changed completely after I got prescribed Adderall and when I picked up the prescription saw that the bottled was labeled “amphetamine salts”.
I immediately felt like I had somehow “gotten away” with something.
http://www.robot-hugs.com/signs/
I love Robot Hugs.
Just heard about the Hugo awards. Vox Day had a short story nominated, and it got ranked below No Award. Could have happened to a nicer guy*. John Scalzi has a good account of it on his Whatever blog; it’s SFF insider baseball, but still entertaining.
*That is, almost all of them.
Or “couldn’t have happened to a nicer guy,” as in “if he had been a nicer guy, it wouldn’t have happened.”
Fuck you, Chase, for literally giving me overdraft fees after I transferred money via PayPal to correct a negative balance. Fuck you.
That sucks. Fuck Chase. And fuck PayPal while we’re at it.
There are mentors on Twitter right now fighting over my manuscript! This is a thing that is happening!
Yay for Katz!
Yay Kaaaaatzzzz! Ten thousand clapping sounds!
Yay Katz!
Yay for Katz!
*throws confetti for katz, dog offers congratulatory barking*
Congratulations!
I shall celebrate with a new military people with adorable kitties picture. (Plus bonus falcon!)
Yeah, Katz! That’s the good kind of fighting, I’d say.
Update: my husband was able to clear up some of my confusion regarding the knit stitch. The instructions kept saying “from front to back” when the needles are round. He explained what was meant by that. Also counter clockwise. I’ll keep working at it; I tell myself that if I can bake sourdough bread from scratch without a recipe, this will not defeat me. Invictus!
Oh fuck I totally forgot about Pitch Wars.
Fuck. I am in the EXACT wrong mindframe to be able to do something like Pitch Wars. I’m prepping for trauma shit, gearing up for a writeathon in a couple weeks, I haven’t touched Princess and Monster in years…
D8 I AM NOT PREPARED WHAT DO.
LBT, it’s not the right time. They do this every 6 months. You’ve been working on P&M for years; it won’t hurt to wait for the next one.
@LBT, don’t do it. Another Pitch Wars will come along, and it will be MUCH BETTER if you don’t collapse in the middle of everything. Trauma is coming. Don’t add extra stress.
This message has been brought to you by burn out and many tears.
Yeah, I think I totally misunderstood Pitch Wars, not realizing it’d require more research, and dammit brain, why NOW? *sigh*
Trying to clear my head here, but honestly, maybe using the old P&M draft isn’t a terrible idea. I’ve been really failing at the restructuring, and I’m still not sure if it’s the right idea.
Just… goddammit. I was looking forward to this for WEEKS, and it looks like I’ve totally bollocksed it up. *headdesk*
(also it’s a little embarrassing that I can sell giant monstercock porn directly to my fanbase and be totally fine, but throw in one agent or editor and I go deer-in-headlights)
Everyone does. It’s terrifying.
Well, even if I don’t do it now, I can at least learn query letters and get to work on gearing up for next time! Can you recommend a resource on that, katz? It’s the only thing I’m totally ignorant about.
For writing queries? Hmm. I will think.
@katz: a little late to the party, but nthing congratulations! What happens next?
Now I bite my fingernails until September 3, when the mentors announce their choices.
Oh lord, yeah, if that shit goes down in early September, it’d be a terrible idea for me to do it. I’ll be in the depths of writeathon then. I won’t have time for ANYTHING else, creative-wise.
September 3! Why do they make you wait so long? 0_o (I know it’s not that long in the grand scheme of things but still.)
Crossing fingers and toes for you!