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
As do we all! 😀
Speaking of Furrinati, here are a couple of new pics of Mads and Fribs.
(This is why I frequently have to interrupt my time online to go and say Awwwwww.)
Hello, everyone! I had no read the other comments on this thread yet… I have been, as usual, following the blog but not really participating as I wish to. But I have to say you all make me laugh and think many times, so thank you for that.
On the personal note… I was recovering from a very depressive state, but it seems I am back to the usual. I even think it might be taking a worst turn. I can go to work, school and even social gatherings wearing many “masks” not showing how I really feel. It is been exhausting, but also important so I can overcome the will to stay in bed all day with unhealthy thoughts.
One thing that made me feel really terrible recently was that I was victim of an internet scam. They got hold of my bank stuff and stole money from me. They just didn’t steal more because I had an insight and realised that I had been scammed and managed to stop them from withdrawing more. You have no idea how stupid I felt. I couldn’t believe that I had fallen for that, I really did let my guard down. The bank said that, sadly, there is no way to get my money back. I spent many days crying and crying and feeling like the world’s biggest idiot…. and I am really in no economical situation to lose any money.
I haven’t told many people about this, but I really felt like talking about it here. I am feeling very impotent and unhappy with this situation.
There are others things going on, but that one is the one that is bringing me down the most. Everything else just keeps adding up, you know?… I don’t know what to do in order to feel better.
Aw, Fribs is sleeping with stuffed animals!
pineapplecookies, ALL the hugs! I wish I had some advice or something to say except … hugs. And that it’s good to see you posting again.
katz, yup, Fribs is curled up with All The Teddies (and kitties) – there are more behind her. They’ve had their own chair all winter and of course she and Mads think it’s a bed for them.
The teddy partly obscured by her ear is my one and only Ted. I’ve had him fifty years. 🙂
Pineapplecookies: In some ways the worst misfortunes are the ones that make you feel like you were taken in. You feel like you can’t tell anyone about them or expect sympathy because people will think you’re stupid.
But that isn’t so. First, anyone can get taken in by a scam. People do them because they work. And they work, in part, because scammers count on their victims feeling stupid and not wanting to talk about them and thus the scam not getting exposed.
And second, no matter what you did or didn’t do or whether you should have known better, you were robbed, which is a crime, and the person who is at fault is 100% the person who robbed you. You have a right to feel sucky about it, because it is sucky. And whether you did something “wrong” doesn’t change that.
I’ve been reading WHTM forever, and have commented sporadically, so would like to take this opportunity to say HI EVERYBODY! And thanks. Thanks for being funny, for beating away othering language and other slurs, basically for being a beacon of reasonableness on the internets. I have hundreds of blogs on my Feedly, but this is one of the few where I read all the posts (and most of the comments). And I want to be part of the gang!
Me: Cis white queer asexual. Only 1 cat master, but a long term goal to be cat-lady in retirement. Only 20 odd years to go! Unless the Aust govt ends up making me work til I drop.
I am officially convinced not a single person criticising Anita Sarkeesian’s work “gets it”.
No shit men are primary victims are stranger violence. Committed by men.
Yeah, women are portrayed as both helpless victims and trashy targets of violence in video games. Both are bad.
So? How does that invalidate her thesis (unless you think her thesis is men aren’t victimised by violence and women shouldn’t be referred to as victims because the damsel in distress a lousy stereotype so when women are victimised we shouldn’t talk about it because that would reinforce women as helpless and these two things can’t coexist because….. wtf were we talking about?)
pineapplecookies: I second katz and would add that a lot of people you know have probably been scammed (I have), but there is this embarrassment that means we all keep quiet. So we all think it’s only me and I’m so dumb. Almost everybody I have ever shared my experience with has had their own story of themselves, or their partner/kids/parents. People take advantage all the time, financially and other ways. Trusting people is a good trait (in my opinion), and I have tried hard not to lose that while protecting myself.
It’s obviously worse that it has hit you hard financially, but try to chalk it up as a learning experience. And pat yourself on the back that you realised and put a stop to it.
…I think I need to learn to knit!
Here’s what I think is my biggest problem with the Sarkeesian opposition:
Assuming they’re right and everything she does and says is an intentional fabrication with the exclusive purpose of making money. Let’s assume for the time being that’s exactly the case.
Why are these bros so much more concerned and busy discussing that THAN THE ABUSE SHE’S RECEIVING?
If this is the case, both sides are wrong but one is much more wronger than the other and it’s the side depicting the person they don’t like being rape and murdered. That’s what I would have thought!
Being a disagreeable woman really is the most inexcusable thing ever, judging by how people are responding to her, and it’s a much bigger deal that we criticise her than the people talking about raping and killing her. They’re just jerks. She’s the fucking antichrist for provoking them though!
There is nothing a man can say about a woman that will ever be held to the same standard as anything a woman says on her own behalf.
There’s also the fact that ALL the Sarkeesian opposition is just abuse. If she really was actually wrong then surely someone could actually, you know, refute her arguments.
Personally, I’m convinced most of her haters don’t even watch her videos.
Completely with you on Sarkeesian, marinerachel. Oh, and have you seen Thunderf00t’s recent meme on rape? What a jerk.
http://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2014/09/04/anti-feminist-logic/
NaNoWriMo people, I have tried for the past three or four years but have never finished a “novel.” Gonna try again, though! It seems like every November, something awful happens and i end up spending a lot of time at the hospital (visiting) or at funerals. Then too I’m the one in the family who always does Thanksgiving, which for me means two or three nights of visitors staying over. But I want to try again! Maybe we can have a WHTM nano support group.
Totally random fact for the day that I hope more than Brits will get –
The Milton Keynes Roller Derby team is called the ‘Concrete Cows’!
kage, hi and welcome! Good to see another Downunder Furrinati minion on the site. I recognise your name – don’t know if from here, or do you comment on Pharyngula at all?
Anyways, have a Welcome Package. 🙂
I saw a name for Abbott I liked the other day – One Term Tony. In the words of Captain Picard …
http://youtu.be/-ZxHAZChcYU
Milton Keynes is a fairly awful modern cement city, isn’t it? ::strains memory::
Ah – and now I see the actual reference: genuine concrete cows! 😀
I think I may have something going on.
The only thing I’ve noticed different since my SA is I’ve passed retained menses at the beginning of my last three periods. Totally healthy and normal says doctor. It just never happened before. Whatever though. I’ve always had really normal if a little bit long periods with mild symptoms. Bit of gross abdominal and painful back cramping and breast hardening and pain but oh we’ll. I’m not debilitated, just inconvenienced. I’ve had about 18 hours of profuse bleeding during my periods since having an IUD inserted 3 years ago. That’s normal though and not as bad as what a lot of people with IUDs deal with. Aside from those 18 hours, my flow is normal.
I’m on my third day of discharge/spotting and my period will begin tonight or tomorrow morn. The thing is I’m also on my third day of being bloated to the extent I can zip up my jeans. I have never experienced this before. I’ve also never had an appetite like this. It’s almost like I become anxious when I’m not shovelling food in my face. I have a constant urge to eat and keep eating. The worst symptom is my nipples. They’re swollen and they’re horribly tender. The skin feels….. raw, I guess? If I brush my hand across them it hurts terribly. They’re swollen and rubbery to the touch and they hurt so badly I swear Id cry if I blew on them. I’m used to breast pain around my period and I’ve got that in spades right now but these nipple changes suck. Ow.
I need to go to my doc tomorrow for a prescription anyways so maybe if he’s got a sec he can tell me whether it’s something to come in and discuss at length. If this is just what the rest of periods are going to be like, I would Iike a referral for a hysterectomy!
Good luck on your interview grumpycatisagirl. I really loathe interviews. I have no skill at selling myself in a corporate environment.
I applied for a job opening on the team I’ve been contracting with since February and just found out I didn’t get the position. Usually this stuff isn’t a huge deal to me, but my self esteem has been so abysmal lately that it’s kind of taking its toll. The fact is that this manager and this team know my work – so it sort of feels a lot worse that they picked someone from another department. Ugh.
Aaaand now I’ve entered the manic phase of adjusting to this medication. I sort of enjoy it because it’s so foreign to me. Having energy and focus – so weird. But it’s a bit much. It’s only 8:25 am and I’ve already moved a lot if furniture. Dresser moved bedrooms, console table moved from bedroom to kitchen, rearranged some more shit and now taking a break because I feel like I’m acting manic and it’s freaking me out. Also not sleeping. And I can ALWAYS sleep. Ok thanks for the vent venue (ventue? Har har.
I have practice at this, because I am too unstable myself to be giving any kind of usefull support to other people. I’m long over the point where this feels selfish to me, but when I first started to do it, I felt incredibly selfish and mean.
The first thing to remember is that you’re not being selfish! Taking care of yourself is not selfish. You have to put on your own oxygen mask before you assist others.
Essentially the secret is to encourage the person to talk to a professional. Next time this person tries to lean on you, interject early in the conversation that you’re very concerned about how this problem isn’t clearing up. Just talking with you about it obviously isn’t helping to resolve it, so your friend really needs to discuss it with someone whose job it is to help solve these emotional/relational/etc. problems.
Sometimes I’ve had to actually tell someone, “I can’t help you. I can’t help you with this.” I’ve done a car analogy – if you’re having car problems, I can’t fix them. I’m not a mechanic. I’m not a psychologist either. This problem is too big to be susceptible to my Healing Rays of Friendship.
There is a nonzero possibility that your friend will not want to hear this and will be angry and resentful at you, and the friendship may suffer or end. There’s nothing you can do about that. Just let go of any responsibility for that. A good friend, one who wants to be friends with you and not just use you for free counseling services, will survive this.
@blahlistic,
Hugs if you want them and I’m glad you got out of that situation. 🙂
Thankfully, after all this time the only creatures the mess has added to my apartment has been fruitflies and probably more than one species of fungi. My spider friends came to help me with the fruitfly problem and now that the dishes are clean and the garbage is out, they seem to have mostly disappeared.
@leftwingfox,
I am not an animator, unfortunately, but I do live in Ontario, and I am a graphic designer. I can make vector graphics of pretty much anything, if that helps.
@marinerachel,
That sounds really awful and kind of scary. I hope you get it sorted out soon. :s
Bunnybunny, sorry to hear you didn’t get the job. I totally hear you about interviews and selling yourself. It’s like anathema to me. I love doing my job and the skills it takes to do it, but it feels like the interview process requires a whole different set of skills that I suck at. Blech. But anyway, I’m trying to adjust my attitude until I make it through this next one, because I really want the job. I LOVE INTERVIEWS. Yeah!!!
Not that convincing yet, I know. But I have until Monday. 😉
pineappecookies, sorry about your scam experience. That sucks. I second Katz – anyone can get taken in by one. I got taken in by a “psychic” once and I don’t even believe in psychics. But . . . I know I’m not stupid, and I know you’re not stupid either.