An open thread for personal stuff, continuing from here.
As usual for these threads: no trolls, no MRAs, no I’m-not-really-an-MRA-buts, don’t be mean.
Categories
We Hunted The MammothBucking the Backlash
We Hunted The Mammoth
Okay. I I did the writing thing. ANd it was bad. There were nine pages. It was a lot. One of the system dead screamed for eight of them. Finally calmed down. Said I’d be getting answers soon and they’d be ugly. Said she was sorry about the flaming eyeballs thing. Has been contained the memories after her death. It will be very bad.
I think I am going to lay down now. Soon. Yes.
I am very very tired. And this was just intro. I still haven’t gotten any memories yet. I don’t like the way she was implying. Not gonna talk details just yet. Still not sure I believe it. If even thhe slightes aprt whhat she said was true it was very very good we left our family.
Yeah.
*squishes katz’s hippocampus*
RE: contrapangloss
LBT, the flaming eyeballs sounds terrifying.
It was not the most fun I’ve ever had in headspace. It is true. But I know what it is now! Headspace ghost. All full of rage and crazy. Good times. Yes. I thhink I’ve calmed it down some though. It’s less screamy and on fire now.
Sorry. I am very crazy right now. Thi ss is hwhy I leave hte people salone.
Non-contact hugs, LBT!
LBT, have a huge hug.
Oh, god. LBT, my feeling right now is to send you psychic antibiotic juice to sluice out your about-to-be-lanced headspace boil, and help to wash out all the scunge. “Good luck” doesn’t really feel appropriate, but still. Good luck.
I am leaving hugs for everyone who wants one. And I wanted to make sure to thank Unimaginative for the insight and advice about interviews.
The job is exactly what I want to do and it’s exactly where I want to do it, so they needn’t worry about me bailing on them. I’m very passionate about being there. I just need to get that across right.
Also, LBT, it’s good to see you again.
@grumpycatisagirl: 🙂 Good luck with your interview.
Thanks for all the advice and support, guys. Feeling a bit overwhelmed after receiving so much sympathy for babbling on about my stupid family. You are the greatest! I’ll just have to see what happens, and hope for the best. Thanks for sharing your experiences with bigoted family members as well.
@blahlistic: Thank you. My mom does have a lot of compassion to go around, but it’s all tainted by her narrow view of societal issues. She’s a very warm and caring person to friends and family, but can be cold and even cruel to people she considers morally corrupt for some reason. Family matters more to her than anything else, so I have hopes that it would never actually come to any serious falling out even if I threw a total tantrum. She’s a judgemental and intolerant person because of what she’s been taught about the Bible by other bigoted and intolerant people, and she’s grown more outspoken about her bigotry because of what she sees as attacks on her beliefs by legal and social changes. Sometimes, I just want to hug her and tell her that everything’s going to be all right, the world is not going to end, the devil will not one day rise from the earth and laugh evilly at the scourge of fire and brimstone he’s brought upon the world by letting people who love each other get married.
The guilt-tripping is, thankfully, only a sometimes thing, and being politely courteous around her rarely invokes it. She’ only made a few real-life bigoted slips in my presence, and I’ll deal with them when the time is right.
@LBT: Gah, sucks. I’ve spent the summer in a pretty confused state of brain chemistry, but I don’t have any advice since I’m still figuring out my own head, which sounds like a less scary place than yours at the moment. Jedi hugs if you want them.
I just want to say, and sorry if I’m being presumptuous or something, that I’ve read about your experiences, and for what it’s worth, I think you’re a very courageous and strong person who deserves all the happiness in the world. Your husband sounds like a great guy, and I hope you, him and the rest of you guys keep being awesome.
@Alex: Yay! I hope your sister comes around.
@grumpycatisagirl: Best of luck with the interview!
@Everyone: Hugs for everyone who needs them. Come one, come all! No cause too great or small!
@ Anarchronist
:: grabs a hug, squeezes the stuffing out of it, runs off ::
:: runs back, dragging a bushel of hugs ::
Hugs for everyone!!
http://grapefruits.files.wordpress.com/2010/12/dog-and-cat-hug.jpg
Poor Headspace Ghost, I want to calm it down and give it a hug. It sounds pretty lost.
So, housemate woke me up before 9am, banging around in the kitchen. Not at all cool.
Thanks everyone. I went to bed, had a good sleep (hubby, unfortunately, I don’t think slept barely at all; I need to give him all the cuddles and support today) and I am feeling much saner now. Just having all that rage out of my system feels SO MUCH BETTER, as does having at least some sort of answer as to what the fuck is going on.
From what I understand at this time, it went something like this. Me and Sneak’s predecessor, M.D., was the system damage soaker before me. She was the first of our system members to die, and we never knew what it was that killed her; at first, we assumed it didn’t matter.
We were wrong. Something (or possibly multiple somethings) apparently happened that was severe enough that she continued containing the memories even after her demise. And whatever it was, she died FURIOUS. Of course, being dead and used as trauma containment for ten years didn’t exactly improve her temper.
Cue Flaming Eyeballs, a personification of all of that rage. Last night was all of that anger finally getting relieved after a decade of containment.
With that fury out of the way, it’s looking like I might start getting those memories that offed her in the first place. I’ll probably get a bit of a break before that, since our brain at least has a sense of pacing.
So yeah. Much saner, much more relieved, probably going to be on the roller coaster again in a couple days. But who cares, I’m fucking getting somewhere!
Totally random but I just found a really cool thing that doesn’t belong anywhere else.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Green_Wall
Some people in Africa came up with this awesome idea about how to stop the encroachment of the Sahara further and further south into areas that are still fertile. It’s going to be a 9 mile wide wall of trees. Having lived in the Sahara, it’s awesome in its own way, but also incredibly challenging to live in, and having it spread further south would be a very bad thing for the people currently living there, so this is awesome. Doing environmentalism right FTW.
Glad you’re doing better, LBT.
I dunno about that tree line. From what I understand, the dunes just move right over everything in their way. The Athabasca sand dunes are shifting on top of forest that’s comprised of considerably more than a line of trees.
http://www.parklandpublishing.com/skphotos/athabasca_sand_dunes/slides/A8-41_dune_slope.html
Plus, trees need water to grow. In the prairies, you only see trees along creeks.
I mean, I’m totally for preservation of fertile lands, but I just don’t see how you can stop that amount of sand from encroaching. Maybe I’m misunderstanding their approach.
It has to be acacia trees specifically, because they’re drought resistant and because of what they do to the soil they’re planted in. Using those trees to do that was a traditional farming method for a long time that was abandoned largely as a result of colonialism, so this project is also about bringing that practice back and thus improving food security (crops planted under acacia trees grow better).
Ah. That makes more sense. It’s funny how often those old-fashioned, discarded farming practices that fell away to make room for more efficient, modern techniques actually work better and are more sustainable.
Yep. A lot of the time those practices are also discarded due to aggressive marketing from the companies that make the fertilizers/new GMO seeds, so it’s not just colonialism in a “we know better” sense, there’s also a clear profit motive at work.
Wow, the Great Green Wall project is amazing. Hope to goodness it succeeds.
LBT, I’m so glad you’re making some progress, roller-coaster or not, and feeling better today, at least. Poor M.D.
OT there’s a little jumping spider been parading up and down the curtain in front of my computer the last day or so. Hope it has the sense to stay there and not come exploring on my desk.
Been really busy, not caught up on comment threads. Hugs to any who need them and a “that is so cool! Must hunt down papers talking about acacia trees now! But… No databases availible til tuesday! Nooooo!”
Purple seal of approval is adorable, and I might need to get it on a sticker!
Orientation for job #3 (paid job #2) tomorrow! Followed by revisiting some garages and asking for a receipt that says my alternator checked out fine when they checked it out Saturday (or recheck it out Monday if it’s different folks on duty) just in case I need them while telling mechanic mcfraudipants that I caught him, and would like a refund.
This will either be fun, or really annoying. 🙂
I’mma be a giant buzzkill in a moment, you guys. Just wanted to give you a heads up.
So, an old friend found himself in his first real relationship last year at twenty-eight and there were immediate challenges. There was some sexual incompatibility and dreadful communication at play. Within the first six months though they decided to try living together because that solves all your problems.
Relevant background information about him: he’s a giant pushover, real compassionate but tolerant to an excess and has no boundaries. He’s got no self-esteem.
Shortly after shacking up she lost her job, became dependent on him and decided to stay that way for the better part of the next year. He informed her a couple times that he couldn’t afford her living costs, particularly after his parents stopped sending him money (I have no idea why a twenty-nine-year-old man was receiving continual financial support from his parents anyways but whatever) and he began digging himself into a hole of debt. This did not motivate her to seek work or even sign up for unemployment.
The relationship degraded to the point he was no longer interested in sex with her and finally to where he can’t get an erection around her. He decided to end it, saying he’d wanted to love her (and I know he did and he thought he did for a while there too and maybe if she’d been an active participant in the relationship he could have but she wasn’t) but he didn’t and that on top of it all she killed his boners, quite literally. He was nice about it but clear.
Anyways, she refused to take no for an answer and literally would not leave the home, physically. He wouldn’t push back because his self-esteem is low and she’s over-bearing. Within a couple weeks she was telling everyone they were together and he just needed a psych eval and treatment and he’d be wanting sex with her again in no time. She didn’t do anything wrong! He just needs to see a doctor.
Anyways, I kind of blew my lid tonight. It’s very hard to see friends being abused and refusing to help themselves when you’re trying to help them.
Basically, what set me off is something he described like this:
He doesn’t want to have sex with her. He can’t get erections around her so it’s physically impossible for him to have intercourse with her. He told me he still masturbates her though and I asked why, wondering why on earth anyone would perform any sex act on someone they don’t want to have sex with. His answer: “because I’m afraid of her!” Basically, she plays on the fact they’re in a relationship, and then if he says no reacts negatively to the extent he is afraid of what will happen if he doesn’t.
It’s textbook sexual coercion and hearing it was happening made me want to vomit.
BUT he won’t do anything to help himself and won’t let me help him.
I am so fucking angry this is happening right now and there’s nothing I can do.
And it was compounded in the years after the britsfrenchgermansbelgians left by really weird laws about trees in a few countries. Basically, if you had a “tree” (and most of us would find it very difficult to classify these scrawny plants even as a shrub) the authorities could come on to your land and either take your property as a tax or rip out your growing crops as a penalty. There was some strange notion that trees were the exclusive property of the state. The inevitable consequence was that everyone in these countries learned quickly and thoroughly that they should never plant trees. Even worse, one new practice became very quickly established – ripping out any shrubs or trees that self-seeded. These trees, had they survived, were obviously the ones best suited to grow in those conditions. Of course, once the laws changed, these agricultural practices continued because that’s what people had learnt and it was also done on the big commercial properties.
With any luck, they’ll include edible acacias in the planting mix in the great green wall. http://wvfoodandclimate.com/home/regions/africa/sub-saharan-africa/#.VA1y3cKSxDQ
There are other projects elsewhere.
http://www.theguardian.com/global-development/gallery/2013/sep/06/trees-zambia-deforestation-reforestation-in-pictures#/?picture=416186584&index=10
This is good too, especially for on farm use. http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/08/090824182535.htm
marinerachel
Am I right in getting the impression that the place they’re living in is his – either by name-on-the-lease or ownership? That gets in the way of my first thought. He should literally leave her to it.
Does he have any friends who could offer him a bed for a while? Maybe even if the house is his alone. (He doesn’t have to tell anyone else about the specifics of their relationship problems, just that there are some serious ones. The money would probably be enough for most people to get the picture that this Is Not Working.)
The rest of it has broken several parts of my brain. When it’s reassembled I might get it working again.
Is there any way he could move out to a friends and drop the rent on the place so that she has to move out? Is there any way he could do a protective order that would evict her?
I’m not familiar with Canadian laws, but if he’s the one paying for rent, she could easily be considered trespassing, right?
Is there any chance of getting him to accept help in evicting this lady from his life?
You’ve probably had all these thoughts already, so I’m probably not half useful…
I’ll cross my fingers and send good thoughts towards you and your friend, and I hope he can manage to extract himself. You’re awesome for giving him support, but also take care of yourself, alright?
It can be really, really hard to remember to self care when nasty crud is going down for friends, but it’s still critical. Take good care of you, so you can keep helping him and not hose yourself.
Hugs, if you’d like.
To bed, again, with me now.
Regarding grueling librarian interviews: strangely, my government interviews have all been much lower-key than my interviews at private/academic/etc. libraries. Part of that is the nature of the positions I’ve interviewed for (working with incunabula vs. public services stuff, etc.) but in my experience private institutions really go overboard when it comes to interviews. My current position had a relatively normal interview but the paperwork and all of the hoops I had to jump through between being offered the position and actually starting it were elaborate to the extreme.
[note: weight issues follow]
So, it looks like I’ve lost weight again, which is A Problem. Weight loss is one of the less common but still significant side effects of my meds (occurs in about 1/3 of users) and I’m now in 2nd percentile, weight-wise. My BMI is just barely over the criteria for anorexia nervosa.
The problem is that my meds have worked really well so far (when I take them like I’m supposed to) so I don’t really want to change meds. My pdoc told me the last time I saw them that if I lost any more weight I would have to go on appetite stimulants. I’m hoping that won’t mean a change in my regular med to one with a weight-gain side effect since the one I’m on now works pretty well. Part of my concern is that the medication I’m on has a lot of adverse interactions with appetite stimulant meds, so I have a feeling I’d have to switch up my meds.
So I guess my question is, anybody have any suggestions for how I can gain some weight back over the next month?