A somewhat overdue open thread for personal stuff. (The open thread for everything else is over here.)
As is always the case, NO TROLLS, NO MRAS, etc., be nice.
Categories
We Hunted The MammothBucking the Backlash
We Hunted The Mammoth
Yep! Simple habit forming mindgames, I always find trying to count a count, to be as real headfuck (I can only monotask), which is why I use beads as a counter for the count, something like Kolomboi or Tasbeh are the best ones, which I then alter.
David, of course it is your decision, but I really need to apologise to @andiexist, so even though you asked everyone not to bring stuff over from the ‘New Comments’ thread, I hope you will let my next comment through.
Hi, @andiexist, I’ve only just checked back in, so I’ve only just seen your comment to me on the ‘New Comments Policy’ thread, which is now closed for new comments, but I’m hoping David will let this through, because I need to apologise to you.
@andiexist, you said:
I am so sorry! I apologise for making you feel uncomfortable, and for any hurt I have caused you.
What I was trying to communicate, and obviously failing, was that I didn’t think anybody existed just to make me feel better about my life, and I wished everyone could live their best life, if that makes any more sense than my original wording. Of course I don’t wish to eliminate anyone from society or the world and I am so sorry that my poorly chosen words implied that. I will endeavour to be more clear in future.
Indeed.
Again, andiexist, I am so sorry. 🙁
(And thank you, David, if you let this through).
Also, I know some lovely people replied to me on the ‘new Comments Policy’ thread, and I apologise for not getting back to you; as I say, I’ve only just checked back in, and that thread is closed for the moment, and David has asked everyone not to bring stuff over from there to here, so I am sorry for not replying and hopefully will be able to do so in the future.
I am not up to engaging any more than that at the moment, so I’m not reading any further comments here, but I don’t want anyone to think I am purposefully ignoring them or anything (not that I think anyone is hanging on my every word or anything, LOL). Sometimes stuff just happens, y’know?
Anyway, cheerio all, hope life is treating you kindly. 🙂
I have a problem with my thinking that I’d like help with. So, if you haven’t heard, Shia Labeouf is a rape survivor. He’s not concealing it and came forward.
My problem is that I can’t, I don’t know, unthink it? I can’t see anything with him in it and not think about the fact that he’s a survivor and the trauma he’s had to go through. And my thinking disgusts me because I’m labeling him a victim in my mind and that’s not fair. I mean, if someone thought about me that way (they have no reason to, fyi), I would punch them in the face. It worries me that I would think of a survivor this way, and I want to stop.
@Quiet Wolf
In my opinion, being compassionate and feeling affected by the violence someone else received is perfectly ok.
That’s how Rape Culture works: it does not affect exclusively the victims of sexual violence, it makes every incident of sexual violence (usually followed by impunity) a sort of violent warning for us all, as in You could be next.
I do get, and share, the desire to see people as people instead of mere victims. I think you can try to not be so hard on yourself and just experience all those feelings, it sounds like it was a big shock for you and it will take time to settle down a bit.
If you think this is related not only to Shia but to your own personal experience, I would strongly recommend you find someone to talk about it -that will probably make you feel less anxiety about what you’re going through.
I hope it gets better for you!
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… wait, I’m posting here again right? Damn! Must work! Can’t read! Must close Chrome window!
So I went to the dentist yesterday for the first time in about ten years, because I have insurance now. It’s going to cost as much as our three-year-old car to fix my teeth. Which is not even what I make in a year. And just like that, all of my carefully constructed arguments about how I should absolutely press on with my life because I’m currently more useful alive than dead have gone out the window.
Hello, all. 🙂
I think I posted an introductory somewhere else here a few months ago; maybe it got removed for whatever reason? Anyway, another longtime lurker saying hi. 🙂 There’s really not a lot about me worth going into detail over. I’m 43, married, two teenaged kids, working in retail. The city where I live (in NE Ohio) isn’t exactly the most progressive place in the world, for all it’s reputation of being “the blue area in a red state”. Although I can’t blame the people here for being apathetic about social justice issues-rampant poverty’ll do that- it makes it hard for me to find folks I have anything in common with. This blog has been a small corner of empathy and compassion for me. 🙂
@andiexist:
Good news about the psychologist! I hope it’s effective.
I think I might prefer a terrarium to the tadpole tank we’ve got. The water pump is noisy and we have to turn it off to watch TV, and then it also kinda smells like a dirty diaper. Beloved changes the water daily, which helps a bit. On the plus side, we think they’re finally growing legs.
@FGAS: Everybody’s pretty much said what I want to say. Hold on, fight the shamers where you can, and eventually they’ll get distracted.
@smidgette: Welcome! I wish I had made the opportunity to get to Denmark when I was studying in France. It sounds like you’re having a great time!
@GhostBird: Good luck with the exam. I don’t have any stories to relate; all the “your-prescription-drugs-are-dependent-on-exams” stories I have got are about other things than birth control.
@sanitybroke: Congratulations on your ACT score! I did pretty well in reading comprehension, myself. I hope you have fun in college!
@Sarah: Welcome! I don’t have a Twitter or a Tumblr, but I’ll go check your site out.
@Morrizaurus: I’d be happy to take a look at your work. However — this goes for Sarah too — I’m slow in the thoughtbits when thinking about texts, so please bear with me.
@ryeash:
Internet hugs for you.
You have value beyond how much money your health care costs, or your utility.
@Dhag85
I’m not exactly sure there are options for helping your SiL, unfortunately. You haven’t said whether you’re married to her brother or sister (or whomever the relationship is with that makes her your SiL) and also that you’re not on the same continent, but maybe your partner/significant other can reach out and express the concerns about her relationship situation with this guy who is holding the red flags behind his back. (metaphorically.)
I need to quit watching so many real crime shows because I remember one where a girl was raped and murdered by her bible-college training to be a pastor-fiancee shortly before the wedding because she expressed concerns about his strange stalkerish controlling behavior, she may have also tried to convince him they should postpone but not call off the wedding and because he’d basically been disowned by his own family around when they started dating so all he had was the relationship at that point and he snapped. Not to say that your SiL is going to be murdered, but it is definitely likely that if they do take that step she will be stuck with him and saddled with the expectation of showing nothing but adoring submission as his wife. At least she’s college educated so she is employable, many young women in the CPM culture haven’t gotten much in the way of high school education because the homeschooling environment they’ve been in has them spending more time on keeping the house and other domestic chores than academics, not to mention their parents want them to be stay-at-home-daughters instead of going to college, much like what we see happening with the Duggar girls – they live at home until an approved suitor comes along for a brief courtship followed by marriage so they can immediately get to work on having babies.
@dhag85,
re: your sister-in-law, that does sound really difficult. From my experience I’d probably say that there’s nothing you can do for now except to lay the groundwork for your sister-in-law to disclose to you in the future should things escalate (reassure her you’re there for her, acknowledge with her that certain behaviours are unacceptable, show concern for her wellbeing but respect for her decisions etc. and so on). There do seem to be a lot of red flags, so building on that sense of trust, in the sense of her feeling like she can be open with you about aspects of the relationship, may help her not feel too isolated in the future or too ashamed to tell anybody.
If she has nobody nearby she would be able to confide in, maybe keep the number for a local support group or drop-in centre handy so that you can give it to her if it seems appropriate?
But yeah, often at this stage there’s not a great deal friends and family can do except be there (emotionally if not geographically) and offer a nonjudgemental* listening ear so the person knows they have someone they can lean on in difficult times, or who will support them should they decide to leave the relationship (or stay).
Sorry I can’t be much more help, or if that was very ‘splainey. I’m sure you’re doing all those things anyway, so hopefully it’s more reassurance that you’re already doing a great deal just by being concerned.
*Might be particularly important if surrounding friends and family are conservative christians? Just in terms of fear of being judged and unsupported potentially becoming a factor in her not voicing her concerns in future or seeking help.
@Quiet Wolf, in one of my lines of work (supporting victims/survivors of domestic violence, sexual violence etc.) there’s a lot of mindfulness around people experiencing vicarious trauma (being traumatised by hearing about/reading/seeing the trauma of another). Although that’s in the context of frontline work, it can happen to anybody, and one thing it can involve is associating the survivor with their experiences to a degree that feels inappropriate, leading to distress and shame. There’s a lot of self-help stuff for vicarious trauma, it might be helpful?
@ryeash:
Even a human being with shitty teeth, or a human being with no cash, can love their family and make their family’s life better. The love you generate in others makes your life immensely valuable and meaningful to us all.
Oh good, I was kind of waiting for a Personal Thread so I could ask some selfish questions…
You might notice from my username that I’m a bit of a nerd for 4chan. I have literally been using 4chan and and its spinoffs (not to mention spinoffs inspired directly by 2ch) since high school. I’ve been using anonymous message boards for so long that I’ve come to outright resent forums that require you to create an account and memorize a password to use them. I probably wouldn’t even be posting here if Futrelle didn’t put the amount of effort he does into moderating posts from new and anonymous users.
You might also have noticed that cretins who are paranoid about women have successfully pissed in our ocean of piss, creating an environment of misogyny and racism comparable to Reddit. The sort of shit lampooned here is taken for granted on many boards. But I’ve become reliant on the anonymous model for message boards, I’m nostalgic for the harmless pranks and the actual good 4chan has accomplished, and I believe in the ideal of discussing ideas without identity entering the mix. How can I be the change I want to see in 4chan? Replying to the worst of things with “reddit pls go…” is obviously not going to be enough.
Hello everyone!
I missed out on yesterday because I was hella sick (still kind of am), and decided that a day away from the computer would be nice. I played XBox demos and caught up on wrestling. (I’m so stoked for Summerslam, gotta admit. And the Diva’s division is looking really good now that it has some new talent!)
Also, N*Sync and the Backstreet Boys are teaming up to make a zombie movie, and this just made my fucking week. It’s like my childhood pre-teen love of boy bands coming together with my adulthood love of zombies.
I also applied for a job and didn’t get it, but this was the first job that actually emailed me back and told me that I didn’t get it, so that’s a plus, I suppose?
@winter_sky
I understand completely. Don’t worry, I’m no stranger to communicating the wrong thing. *hugs*
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…HOLY SHIT.
@banned — I have absolutely no experience with any of the chans, so I doubt I’d be any help beyond mouthing general platitudes. Maybe someone else would have something specific to say, but for the moment probably pushing back where you can is all that you can do.
@ryeash
This hits really close to home for me. I was in almost the exact same position a couple of years ago. They were able to split my issues into multiple procedures, which my insurance was supposed to cover, but after having them done the insurance company decided they weren’t necessary. What resulted was months of frustration that I probably ended up taking out on the dentist (blaming them for the insurance company’s failure to pay anything) – after the appeals ran out and I started getting huge bills from the dentist I basically gave up. The dentist’s office being incredibly high-pressure about making appointments didn’t help (they wouldn’t let me leave the office without making another appointment first). I wasn’t working full-time so the cost just for the preliminary stuff was close to 50% of my income for that year.
I ended up in a really similar place and decided that dealing with the mental health stuff was way more important than the dental stuff. That helped considerably, and although it’s been two years since I’ve been back to the dentist and that’s probably the #1 cause of stress and anxiety in my life right now Concentrating on the mental health issues was far and away more important.
I’ve reframed it as re-prioritizing things. Mental health is more important than dental health, eating something at mealtimes is more important than eating the “right” foods, etc. Only trying to deal with one major issue at a time has helped make things more managable.
I don’t know if any of this is in any way helpful, but know that you’re not alone and hearing your story certainly made me feel less so.
@msexceptiontotherule & Misha
Sorry, I should’ve been more clear in previous posts: I am married to her older sister. My wife and I have discussed this, and if it did come to a point where we would feel the need to do something, my wife would probably be the one doing the actual thing since she obviously knows her sister much better than I do.
One of the reasons why this is so difficult is that it’s difficult to determine what’s ‘inexperienced insecure boy’ and what’s ‘dangerous controlling dude’. Like I said before, my SiL is also very conservative and she also prefers him to not watch naked women on TV. The difference is she’s not making any ‘rules’ for him to follow, and I’d guess she would’ve never brought this up unless he had created that rule first.
Having said that, it is starting to cause problems in her everyday life. When I visited over the summer, he didn’t want her to go in the pool when other people were around, because he doesn’t want other guys seeing her in swimwear. He himself also didn’t initially want other to see him without a shirt on, but she did eventually convince him that it wouldn’t be a big deal. (Which makes me think maybe this part is more about him being shy and weird about his body, and projecting it onto her?)
Bigger problem that I just heard of today: She’s applying for a job that would force her to travel a lot, and he’s freaking out about it. He literally said he does not want her to take this job, and if she did he would have to take off work and travel with her whenever she’s on a work trip. Uh oh.
@smidget
I too was raised in a conservative family, in an Italian-Catholic kind of way. It’s most of the reasons I’m looking for a therapist at the moment.
http://media.giphy.com/media/J1Pxgh8d7TOM0/giphy.gif
@maistrechat
Though I’m not having the dental health problem right now, though I did a few years ago.
And I wanted to tell you that what you said has helped me with what I’m going through right now
I hope it’s helpful to you too ryeash and extra internet hugs for you, if you want them:
@dhag85
Ugh, that does sound like a red flag.
All my best wishes to your wive’s family, I hope they are able to support her sister and mostly hope she will be alright.
@PI
OMGWTFROFLWOW!!!!
I find the idea hilarious, but on the other hand my family used to pick on me real bad for liking the Backstreet Boys when I was 10, to the point I still weep if they bring it up today.
I hope this movie helps me exorcise some of that abuse.
Damn. Only recently I told my older brother to stop fucking doing it, even though it was on rare occasions. He actually reacted well and hasn’t brought it up since.
http://media.tumblr.com/tumblr_l87i3tDLKX1qavso0.gif
Oops I see I dropped the ending of smidgette’s nick, and it looks oddly like misgendering.
I had your full name in mind when typing it, I promise!
I’m gonna have to agree with @banned the whole linear, branch model for forums, is archaic, plus the whole notion of logging in is… O can’t find words to describe it. Nothing over the wire/less is truly anonymous. All traffic has been captured since the idea of creating a resilient fault tolerant network in the late 1950’s.
The moment I hit send from my nexus, my WiFi router logs it, Sky logs it, Sky passes on to BT who log it, then the exchange makes a decision which undersea cable to pass the traffic on to, it gets logged, all the way to the server, through many, many switches, hubs, routers, devices which each one logs. Even if I’ve encrypted it it gets logged. Every device that this little message travels through knows where it came from.
In the mid 90’s a minor scandal hit the news where it was discovered that GCHQ and ASIS were capturing all electronic data in the Pacific particularly telex and fax from a Fijian earth station. This was due to the original spec allowing a backdoor into the device storage, which it needed because if the forward failed the data packet would have to be re-forwarded.
Everything sent can be traced and decrypted, do you really think that an original military technology would be licences for non military purposes if the intelligence services couldn’t monitor it. Frankly, no one gives a stuff about tracking nasty fucker trolls because its down to money, time and political interest.
Ho-hum! Rant over and done with. I still think the model for forums, chatrooms, bulletin boards is wrong, manky because how can anyone follow the fact that @banned has given me a reason to spawn a new thread as and how does it relate to anything.
Hey everyone, thanks for your comments. I’m trying to keep calm and I called my clinic and got to speak with a nurse and express my concerns which she took seriously and either addressed or made note of for my doctor, and I do feel better. Not perfect, but better. I have a real issue with always assuming people in positions of power will act like Dickensian villains if given even an inch, however, which goes double for doctors/dentists, so that’s still chewing on my brain.
On a more positive, note, however – I’m going to be moving! And I have a new, better paying job! With people who respect my being a sommelier! And I’ll be closer to Mr. GhostBird, so hopefully we’ll get to move in together soon. That’ll help my stress a lot – he’s such a calm, type B personality.
As for the SIL situation…yeah, that’s a bit…..off.
PI:
Me too! Who’d have thought that HE would come back? :O
Yeah, I’m keeping my fingers crossed that the recent changes will really bring a breath of fresh air.
Do you by any chance also watch TNA? I read in some forum that it is awesome too and a bit less problematic on the whole gender stereotypes front than WWE.