An open thread for personal stuff. As usual, this thread is a NO TROLLS/NO MRAS zone.
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Open Thread for Personal Stuff: January 2016 Prairie Dog Hug Edition
We Hunted The MammothBucking the Backlash
We Hunted The MammothAn open thread for personal stuff. As usual, this thread is a NO TROLLS/NO MRAS zone.
Hugs appreciated here, too.
@ThatHobbitGuy:
Let me speak as one over-cerebral, overintellectualising man to another. This is going to come out quite direct because I take you at your word that you like to view things in a problem-solving manner. If this causes hurt feelings then I apologise for taking this approach.
The problem is that you are approaching the issue in the wrong light. The problem is not:
A) “Why don’t women like logical, rational men?”
B) “How can I find a woman to long-term partner bond with?”
C) “Am I worthless because I’m single?”
These are the wrong questions to ask – they will never get you answers because the assumptions behind the questions are wrong. It’s sort of like someone asking how infectuous diseases survived on Noah’s Ark, or how the moon rockets managed not to collide with Nut, Goddess of the Sky. The question itself is broken.
You’re a rational man. Think rationally. Take pride in approaching the problem from a direction which will get an answer. Remember what Hanlon said: “We must be cautious in referring to anyone as rational except the person whose approach leads to them sitting on a giant pile of utility.”
Here are those questions rewritten to lead to the correct answers:
A) “Which actions do I recurrently take which alienate people?”
B) “How does the law of large numbers work?”
C) “How is my current mindset leading me to despise myself?”
Now that we formulate these correctly, we can begin to answer them.
A) “Which actions do I recurrently take which alienate people?”
You wrote:
What you should have written is:
I imagine that you’re now angry at me and are composing a screed to justify to me why I’m missing the point. Be calm. Delete that screed. I’m not missing the point at all, because I used to be just like you and it’s taken me a long journey to recover.
The pain you’re feeling isn’t humiliation, not directly: it’s that you’re realising that your paradigm is wrong, and so your paradigm is trying to defend itself. Be calm. There is no Nut, the Sky Goddess. The world is round, and shouting at Galileo won’t make it flat again.
You are not under attack personally, just your mindset; and as a rationalist you should walk away from any paradigm once it proves to no longer be useful.
Once again: delete that self-justifying screed. Read what I wrote, then read what you wrote, then meditate on them until you reach enlightenment.
B) “How does the law of large numbers work?”
I have slept with a lot of people. I say this less as boasting than in thankfulness. I’m very fortunate to be conventionally attractive, and I do my best to be kind and thoughtful to people, and to understand their feelings. Sometimes I succeed.
Some people that I’ve slept with no longer want to talk to me. A few have badmouthed me behind my back. A number of them have become friends, for which I’m extremely grateful. One of them is currently dating me, which is awesome. The vast majority of people that I’ve met, however, I have not slept with. The point here isn’t that I’m a slut, it’s that there is always going to be a statistical distribution of how people react to me once they get to know me, and that it’s impossible to know what this reaction will be ahead of time.
I’ve had probably a dozen people confess love to me, sometimes at the first date. Of these, only a few lasted more than a few months. This isn’t because I’m a terrible person once you get to know me: it’s because nobody can foresee how they’re going to react in the future, and because often the most intense emotions are also over the soonest. Once again, though, it’s hard to tell which ones those would be.
I’ve also met a lot of people to whom I was attracted, or who were attracted to me, which weren’t reciprocated and therefore didn’t go beyond some flirting. Once again, I couldn’t tell ahead of time which people would stop at this stage and which would go further
This is called the law of large numbers: any short-term success will be accompanied by several immediate failures, and every long-term success will be accompanied by several which were only successes in the short term. We can’t tell which is which beforehand: humans do not have the gift of soothsaying.
You can’t swoop down like Tarzan and grab up a single woman from the crowd to be your love forever. That isn’t how it works. You are not blessed with the ability to see a person and know that you and she will be happy decades from now, because nobody is. This belief in a single perfect partner is like a belief in Nut, the Sky Goddess: it causes you to ask the wrong questions and therefore not get the right answer.
C) “How is my current mindset leading me to despise myself?”
You believe in Nux, the Sky Goddess, and therefore your moon rockets will never succeed. In order to break out of this mindset you must embrace certain truths. Let’s do this as a series of mantras.
Repeat after me:
“No human being is worthless. Every life is priceless and important. I love myself, as I love all humans. If nobody chooses to date me for the rest of my life, that’s their choice and not mine; and I am not harmed by it. The only way I can be unloved is if I choose not to love myself.”
Now repeat after me:
“A life partner is not the human default. It’s an upgrade that some achieve and some don’t. If I don’t have one then that doesn’t make me incomplete.”
Good. Now, just three more statements. Repeat after me:
“If I’m not happy single, I won’t be happy in a couple, and I certainly won’t be able to make my partner happy.”
Just two more statements to repeat:
“The only thing more pathetic than self-pity is entitled self-pity.”
And finally:
“There is no such thing as Nux, the Sky Goddess.”
Want to bitch- I was in a taxi the other night (late) with a guy Iām seeing who happens to be Indian. He got out at his condo and I proceeded to take the taxi to mine. As soon as he got out, the taxi driver began making comments about how beautiful he thought I was and asking really personal questions about the status of my relationship with the Indian guy. At one point he asked why someone like me would be with someone so dark skinned. I live in a city where mixed race relationships are common so I was very taken aback and offended but because it was late and I was alone I was polite and distant. Got out of the taxi furious. Iām furious that another human being would feel the need to get so personal with a stranger and Iām also furious at the male entitlement of making a woman so (visibly!) uncomfortable by making multiple comments about my looks. I told him to stop at one point and it persisted. Now Iām beating myself up for not sticking up for what was right more. I should have told him to go straight to hell but I (like many women!!) was worried about a nasty response. Iām sure his defense would be that you just canāt compliment a woman these days. No- you just shouldnāt be a creepy fucking racist asshole!
What an asshole that driver was, Beth.
@HobbitGuy,
Encouragement:
I’ve had a lot of those feelings in the past. I hope you continue to take care of clinical depression or anything else that encourages your brain to let your thoughts spiral out of control. The good news is, if you haven’t had good treatment until now, then by definition you haven’t yet used your abilities to the fullest. You’re capable of more than you know. Whatever rejection you’ve faced thus far, remember that if you weren’t living as your best self, then your best self hasn’t been rejected.
“Tough Love”
–If people frequently misunderstand you, your communication is not as “direct and logical” as you think it is.
–Re: logic, it’s likely that you’re not “showing your work.” Look at each step of your argument: does it depend on specialized knowledge only I have? Is it an idiosyncratic jump based on a connection most people wouldn’t see?
–Re: directness, are you signposting what’s important? The idea you spend the most time explaining is the one your audience will remember, even if it was just a instrumental thought meant to get you to something else.
–What if other people’s problems are complicated than they look? How certain are you that the simple solutions you see would actually work? Next time someone describes a problem, try this: instead of asking yourself, “how could they fix this?”, ask yourself, “what is preventing them from fixing this? what are the possible obstacles?”
–If you’re certain you’ve solved the puzzle but your friend won’t use you solution, you’ve got a new puzzle: ask yourself “why is my friend reluctant to take my advice?” or “why don’t they see what I see?” There’s probably a more interesting answer than “because they’re not logical.”
Do you understand everyone else’s point of view? Or do you decide their behavior can only be explained by “intuition” that you lack? Do you understand that point of view different from yours are just as valid, or do you get frustrated when people don’t see things your way?
It sucks to be misunderstood, believe me, but it’s not a conspiracy. Most people misunderstand most people most of the time unless they work very hard at it. If you think about it you may realize that you give as good as you get on that front. Your problems might not be caused by injustice so much as the inherent loneliness of the human condition.
EJ beat me to the punch again.
Yeah, this.
If there’s an “easy solution” that you can immediately see, then it’s likely that the other person has also thought of this. Other people aren’t all idiots. I get this a lot when I discuss my mental issues with people. If someone is sad, you can’t tell them: “just don’t be sad! do things that will make you happy!”. This also goes for when the solutions seems more obvious and non-complicated. I have this thing where I avoid doing the most basic and easy chores until they become a huge problem.
For example, I once let mold take over my entire fridge because I didn’t remove the first moldy item when it first got moldy. Then I kept looking at this problem every day, seeing it get worse and worse, and I always thought “can’t deal with this right now…”. Even though it was an EASY problem to fix. It would’ve taken a few minutes to just toss all the moldy stuff and wipe the shelf down.
Yet, when I tell this story to some people, their immediate response is “just throw out the moldy stuff and clean your fridge!”. As if this never occurred to me.
I don’t know if this is remotely analogous to what THG is talking about, but it shows how some people fail to take into account that a problem might be more complicated than it seems at first glance. You can’t see what’s going on inside other people’s heads. If they keep discussing a problem “ad nauseum” even though there’s a seemingly easy solution, then that solution has probably already been considered and discarded, or it might not be accessible at this moment because of some invisible obstacle.
EDIT: Btw, the mold story is not true. It’s analogous to a real problem I had, but I still don’t wanna think of that problem. It’s too stressful. :p
I have nothing to share but hugs for anyone who needs them.
This thread needs some good news (hugs for all), so: MY BROTHER’S WIFE IS PREGNANT. =D
@SFCH
Woo hoo! š
My little brother is really ill. He’ll turn 20 soon and I’m 21 in a couple weeks. In my teens, I went through hell with depression, anxiety and undiagnosed autism. I tried to kill myself countless times, developed psychotic features and used self-harm and risky sex as my only coping mechanisms. My dad was psychologically abusive and physically threatening to myself, my mum and my brother but he kept the extent of each of our treatment secret from the rest of us. Both my parents are mentally ill and functioning alcoholics, and their respective mental illnesses (especially when combined with the fallout from dad’s abuse) have had a significant impact on our upbringing. So this is the back story.
My brother has been secretly struggling with mental illness for at least a couple of years. More, I think. It began with depression and him becoming increasingly isolated and rapidly losing motivation and executive function. He was always a fan of his own company and he never had a normal sleeping pattern so this all slipped past us. Then he started to hallucinate, and he quickly started to self-medicate. He pretty rapidly worked his way through all the drugs that he could buy online, and settled on heroin. He became dependent and decided to give it up, and kicked it on his own, in secret. And this slipped past us.
He was still using other drugs and drinking to self-medicate when he finally told us that he was ill, about six months ago. By this time he had secretly dropped out of college (he had been leaving the house to go to the library at first, then eventually would just walk round the block and return when my mum had left for work – I had my own place by then so I didn’t know). He couldn’t leave the house for more than a few minutes any more. He couldn’t focus on any of his hobbies, he wasn’t sleeping, he basically stopped eating. The hallucinations were getting worse and worse, and while he knew they weren’t “real” that didn’t make them tolerable. He went to doctors and psychiatrists and got assigned a talking therapist but everyone was just shrugging off the psychosis, saying words like “low priority,” shying away from the idea of medication because of his age, etc. etc.
It was no surprise to me when I was staying over there one night and I heard rhythmic smashing sounds. I went and knocked on his door and he came over covered in blood and wild eyed, I recognised the look. I’ve been there. He hugged me (he doesn’t hug) and sobbed for a while and when he was a fraction calmer I let him go and sat him down. I woke mum, I picked up the glass and cleaned the blood off his carpet while she cleaned up his hands. We sat up and talked and he cried and we watched movies through the early hours and I only got a couple of hours of sleep. I stayed there for a few days and there were several more incidents. Basically the hallucinations would reach a fever pitch and he would do anything to try to drag his mind into some semblance of reality. Setting fires, breaking objects, etc.
I made him a DBT booklet because I thought some of the techniques might help him. I included some destructive but less chaotic things he could do, ways to self-harm that minimise the risk, mindfulness techniques, etc. etc. For the first time in his life he sat and listened eagerly while I told him something, and then thanked me sincerely (he doesn’t do sincerity) and hugged me again. He took my advice, mainly about burning items in a contained way and self-harming by heating objects and burning himself with them…well, that wasn’t exactly my advice but it had several steps so by the time he had selected a suitable object, heated it/let it cool to try to control the level of the burn, then he had already sort of began to focus and would not inflict the same level of harm on himself, you know? Better than smashing glass with his fists and face.
He was still really struggling and the lack of sleep was a big factor. The doctors didn’t seem to believe that he would regularly go three days with no sleep, and what sleep he was getting was not long or good quality. They still kept shrugging about the psychosis. They put him on an SSRI that he could not feel the effects of and they were reluctant even to do that. They kept talking about ‘the underlying cause.’ Saying they couldn’t just treat the psychosis or the sleep problems and they needed to look for ‘the underlying cause.’ They didn’t mean what particular diagnosis he has, they mean like…repressed trauma? I think there is a very strong possibility that in combination with his predisposition to addiction and mental illness, the awful shit he witnessed and went through as a child and teenager have influenced this. But I don’t see how he can process any of that when he is in the state he is in. I always learned that when someone’s mental health and physical health is so severely unstable like this, talking therapy will have to wait.
I wasn’t surprised when he tried to kill himself for the first time, though I was devastated. I fell apart for a couple of minutes and then had to hastily pull myself back together. Mainly I was angry, because when mum heard him sobbing in the early hours and found out what had happened, she called the emergency number they had been given. The woman said she couldn’t send a crisis team out because he had been drinking. (How is that policy?) Mum and my brother stayed up all night in a horrible state and in the morning when he had sobered up they tried again to get her to send a team out. She said that mum’s only options were to tough it out or call the police and have him put in a cell on suicide watch. Because the police love mentally ill people. They were all acting as if my brother was dangerous, I guess because of his psychosis. He isn’t dangerous to anyone but himself.
Mum phoned NHS24 and they put her through to a different team who were willing to come out but only as far as the local hospital (again, they were acting like they were scared to come to the house). When they got to the hospital, which was hell on earth for my hypersensitive agoraphobic brother, the team were two unusually burly men. What were they expecting from my brother? He is angry and sarcastic but the worst he is capable of to another person is a cutting remark. The team were pretty horrible and they trotted out the usual disgusting cliches that I have heard so many times before, namely “you want a magic pill to fix this but there isn’t one.” How dare you! He is suffering, all he wants is to be able to live. My brother doesn’t want to die. Not at all. He wants to live a full life and achieve a lot of things, but right now he is in INTOLERABLE pain. All he wants is help. How dare they treat him like this?
Thankfully this team referred him to two other teams, both of which are better than what he’s been dealing with before, and he has been transferred from his previous team and psychiatrist. Finally he has been given a regular prescription for his sleep, finally they are talking about how talking therapy won’t help until he is sleeping and the hallucinations are ideally more controlled, finally they are doing physical tests to make sure there is no brain issue causing the hallucinations and to establish a baseline before they start experimenting with meds. Finally treatment is going somewhere.
After this, my brother started gaining in leaps and bounds. He was eating again, eating my mum out of house and home. He was sleeping through the night. He had a shower after probably over a month without one. He shaved his head and beard and went from looking like Sebastian Tellier fallen on hard times to looking like himself. It was hard to believe how much better he looked. We went to see Star Wars, the three of us and it was an incredibly draining and stressful trip but he loved the movie and he was so proud of himself for doing a big trip like that. He started going shopping with mum, going for walks, going to the pet shop to look at the snakes. He was still struggling with his symptoms, still hypersensitive, it was still a big task every time he left the house, but that was the difference that a bit of hope made compared to the hopelessness he felt about his previous team.
Another blow came this week. But it is a sign of progress too, I think. When things were at their worst with his previous psychiatrist, and he was feeling the most angry and hopeless and lost, he relapsed. He had started secretly using heroin again, regularly, becoming immediately dependent on it again. I probably should have realised how suspicious it was that he kept kind of, protesting too much about how strong he was to have come off it. I wasn’t asking! He just kept volunteering, “I’m not on heroin!” “I gave up heroin!” “I don’t want to give up all drugs but I wouldn’t do heroin again!” Well, he was on heroin.
He told mum on Sunday and said that he had decided to kick it again, he was already in withdrawal then. He said he had ordered tramadol to try to take that to take the edge off the withdrawal and then stop the tramadol, but he had changed his mind so he told her when the package would arrive and that he wanted to watch her flush it. He had also ordered one last package of heroin and he told her to flush that too. He did watch, and he cried. He gave her all his ‘drug paraphernalia’ as they say and she threw them out too.
I think he is serious about coming off it, and he is also stopping all other drugs and not drinking. Mum is giving up drinking too. It’s just that he seems to think one day it will be safe to use other drugs again, but I wish he wouldn’t. He is over the worst of the withdrawal now. I had to go keep him company on Wednesday and he was no longer as jittery and sick as mum reported, but still very miserable and unable to eat solid food. As of yesterday he was having less trouble with food, and I haven’t been requested to keep him company today so hopefully that means he is feeling a little better. Mum said he woke her up in the early hours yesterday (he does that a lot) and told her he thought he was going to make it.
So that’s the vent. It’s a very unique sort of hell to be in, and I just can’t really allow myself to feel it otherwise I won’t be able to be there for him. I’m very calm and my feelings have only broken the surface maybe twice since we found out about all this. I am looking after myself too, I am ramping up my self-care and checking in with myself regularly and if I have been up at night with him and my sleep is suffering I have been allowing myself to pass the baton back to mum while I catch up. Between the two of us we have been managing as well as might be expected, and I’ve been ok at work and so has she – our workplaces have both been very understanding thankfully.
Mum feels hopeful that he will continue to make progress and that we are seeing the real picture now, and her instincts are usually good.
Hugs to everyone! And brofists to EJ XD.
@mildlymagnificent
Definitely laziness. Nobody really picked up on the inattentive thing, though, because I managed to just breeze through everything (at least school anyway) until I hit the unstructured world of University. But I will ask my doctor about the thyroid possibility, thank you for bringing that to my attention. I’m lucky enough to live in a place where doctor’s visits are free.
@Lagoon, good luck! I hope you find the answers you’re looking for.
@Noadi
I read this and literally said “ugh, WHY” out loud and put my finger to my temple. I’m so sorry that you had to deal with a jerk who lied to you and cheated without even any motivation to do so. What a toolshed.
@EJ (The Other One)
Thanks. I see your point but I’m confused. First you typed “Nut, the sky goddess” the “Nux, The sky Goddess” The first I know personally because she still kinda owes me money. š
Seriously. Yeah, that one of my many problems. I’m always afraid I sound like some know it all a**hole. The first part you quoted,”For me problems ONLY exist to be solved. . . . ” isn’t something I say to anyone. I often think it & write about in my personal journal, but I never actually SAY it. People often remark how nice or polite or gentlemanly I am in person. Actually something that is so on point to this website is that I’m one of those men who’s a gentleman because it’s the right thing to do, NOT because it will attract women. So I don’t think I’m the cold, insensitive a**hole that you make it sound like I am. At least I don’t think so. let me ask someone who would really know, my ex-wife. I’ll post later what she thinks. I do have massive amounts of private thoughts I never share with anyone, I may write them in private but I never say it out loud. Bugger, I don’t know maybe I AM an insensitive a**hole, how would I know?
I don’t despise myself. I despise being lonely & un-boinked. Oddly, I seek alone time often. I do get kinda grumpy when I’m not left alone to write regularly. Why is it whenever I write something, people often assume that I mean the extreme version of that? My life & myself are complex. This is often why I get so upset, EVERYONE misunderstands what I write or express. It’s why I don’t write as much. If EVERYONE misunderstands everything I post than how the f#ck are they going to understand my fiction. I’m not LONELY all the time, just a few times a week. Sorry, it’s just people reply to what I post & say and it leads my to deduce they have completely misunderstood me because their reply was wrong. There can only be one correct reply if they understand me. NO ONE has ever replied correctly. Therefore no one understands my posting. So I rarely post because I’m tired of being told I’m wrong all the time. And that’s exactly what every reply to everything I post feels like, everyone telling me that my thoughts & feeling & existence is wrong. anyways that’s what I think. I’m sure people on here will tell me I’m wrong to. Everyone does. The same people who say I’m so smart also constantly tell me I’m wrong about everything. If I am so damn smart then how come I’m wrong all the time? How come no one agrees with me when I know for a f#cking fact I am right?
I’m not mad. I guess I’m just used to the fact that no one understands me as their response to what I post is never the only correct reply there can be if they understand me.
I Like being alone, it’s being lonely I hate. It’s having no woman to cuddle as I fall asleep I hate.
But thanks for the help.
That’s not really what I meant, but it’s ok. No really ever understands me. Thier replies are never the correct one. This is why I am doomed to be lonely & miserable for the rest of my life. I don’t mind being unique, it’s the no sex , no romantic love part I don’t like. But then everything has it’s price. The price I pay for being me is never being understood & have no romantic love or sex life.
@SFHC
That’s fabulous!
@dhag85
Me too. Sigh. I’ve been working on this for some time now.
@ThatHobbitGuy
Nut the Sky Goddess owes everybody money. It’s what she does. It’s who she is.
You’d think a goddess would know better.
@Orion & dhag85 & EJ (The Other One)
Thanks. That’s not quite what I meant, but at least I have something to think about. Good news is that normally this kind of posting only leads to me become angry as f#ck. This time, not so much.
I know it’s a problem that can never be solved. i just wish I accepted it & could live with better.
I know the meds are working because before them, I could only write a couple of pages. Now I can write anywhere between one to twenty pages at a single sitting. The only thing that limits my writing now is when I get sleepy after I write so much.
Seriously, thanks everyone. You’ve given me something to think about. Of course I was misunderstood, but at least I’ve walked away with an all you can eat banquet of food for thought.
I don’t despise me. I think I’m an ok guy. I’m NOT the best or smartest or greatest at anything, nor will I ever be. My daughters think I’m the best dad in the world & my ex-wife thinks I’m the best ex-husband in the world. So I’ve got that going for me. I just think I could make some woman really happy & I wish I was married to one that did that for. I know it won’t ever happen. I know no one will ever understand what I post. Maybe I am an insensitive, know-it-all a**hole I should just learn to keep my mouth shut & never post again. Bugger, who knows. I certainly don’t.
My kids love me & my ex-wife forgives me. maybe that’s all anyone can ask or hope for. maybe that’s all I ever get in this life.
HobbitGuy,
We assume you mean the “extreme version” because you use extreme language. You’re still doing it.
That’s true. No one will ever reply correctly, and no one ever really understands you. That’s an old philosophical problem (I think most radically expressed in Leibniz’s idea of the monad). A reductionist version can be seen in Claude Shannon’s concept of communication:
http://communicationtheory.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/shannon_weaver_model.jpg
There’s always going to be noise in communication. There’s a difference between what you feel and what you think about it, there’s a difference between what you think and what you say, and there’s a difference between what you say and what others hear. That’s a basic fact of communication. Thus, my advice to you would be: Don’t look for the things you think people didn’t understand, rather look for the parts of what they said that can help you.
I think EJ and Orion have experienced a similar feeling. I certainly have, and sometimes still do. I’m in a relationship and still feel lonely often (and yeah, not alone, lonely), I feel pressured by my professional and social circles, and I can’t always relate to other people (and other people’s problems seem to me like petty stuff that has an easy solution). I have, however, realized a long time ago that I’m not the only one who feels that way, that actually most people feel that way, and if you just sit down with them and listen (even if what they first tell you seems like petty crap), say yes, you’re right a lot and empathize, you’ll find out you’re not that different. It’s just that many others have accepted this and live with it.
I’ve been MIA this past week because I got to have an emergency gallbladder removal. It went as well as could be hoped for, I’m recovering well, but I am emotionally shot and I just want to be done with all of this. Although the whole not-dying thing is a pretty good deal.
I’m not in the comments section much even though I love this blog. I fear talking to strangers on the internet because so much can be misunderstood and it’s so public.
I too, like some have stated feel tired and upset by this new hatred towards women we are seeing now. I mean, I was raped by my own mother and a female friend of hers and I don’t think ALL women are evil. Some of these MRAs seem to have mother/ex-wife/girlfriend issues that they then use to apply to ALL women. They couch it in the language of disagreeing with the ideology of Feminism but scratch the surface and it’s really just about hating women, really hating women and wanting to actually be the supreme victim they say women want to be!!
I decided not to be a victim of rape. I decided to work on the abuse I faced as a kid by my mother and my dad who took off and left us with an abuser. I don’t hate them. That is not the same as condoning, it is rather about me not letting that RUIN the life I have now. I have a good, happy life with a wonderful partner. I don’t look to blame my parents anymore. I have to work with what happened. Feeding one’s hate is like drinking poison yourself and thinking it will harm the person you hate when actually, they don’t feel a thing.
P.S. Hugs to all!! š Meant to put that in my post.
@Kat:
Nut, the Sky Goddess (also spelled Nux, the Sky Goddess) is kind of a deadbeat. Fortunately her elder sister Katie still loves her.
@ThatHobbitGuy:
Upon rereading, I think that this is the most important sentence you wrote:
The purpose of life is not to get laid, or to achieve high office, or even to be rich. The purpose of life is to increase the sum of human happiness, and by that metric you seem to be doing well.
@Kootiepatra:
Thanks for not dying, we would all have been the worse for your absence. I’m glad you’re recovering and hope you feel better soon. The world needs more adorable uruk-hai in it.
Haven’t posted in an open thread for a while. Good news first: I’m on holiday (as in, 12 day break from work) going back on Tuesday. I took a trip on the weekend to Bilbao, Spain, to visit my brother and had a whale of a time. What a great city. Finances are very much in the clear, I’m well out of debt and now looking to open a savings account.
The bad news is I’ve come down with quite a bad cold, but at least I have a few more days ’til I return to work, plus I’m kind of enjoying being curled up in bed all day. š
http://38.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_mb0kneiAKu1r0v9xzo1_500.gif
When I DO return to the old grind though, Head Office has decided to try out some new work rotas that are fucking terrible. Like, really really bad ideas that will cost them staff if they decide to keep them. 1) Everyone gets a significant cut in hours, an unsustainable one at that and 2) There are new 3 hour rotas where basically you could be set to work 11-2pm then 5-8pm. That would be your day. It’s the worst for the people like me who live out of town and need to bus to work, because I’d be stuck in that place for 9 hours but only getting paid for 6. There’s only so much time I can tolerate being sat on my ass playing on my phone!
*deep breath* Howeverrrrrrr, most of us predict that we’ll only have to put up with this nonsense for 2-4 weeks, which is the length of the trial. Not only will we complain loudly when it comes to feedback, but we predict there will be large variances due to the repeated switch of staff on departments (which is what the new rotas will entail).
Hi folks, I’ve been lurking for quite awhile so this is my first post.
Viscaria,
I’m right there with you on the new ADD diagnosis. Though I am male, my diagnosis follows yours almost exactly. I’ve been seeing my doctor and a therapist for about a year now for anxiety and depression. Just last week during an anti-depressant checkup with my doctor we were discussing some of things I’ve been working on in therapy and some of my hangups. Listening to some of the things I said she is almost certain that I have ADD.
I talked with my therapist about this and she said that she too has thought I might have ADD, but didn’t bring it up because when discussing my history in school (were I was pretty successful and didn’t have much trouble academically) I seemed to be on the ball and organized. The stereotypical kid bouncing off the walls is not only mostly incorrect but is more of an ADHD diagnosis. In the past kids with “just” ADD who were disorganized or inattentive would be overlooked and thought of as lazy or unmotivated.
In my case it seems like one of my major anxieties, Fear of Failure, has been able to override the ADD impulses and I’ve been able to manage though life so far (early 30’s). But thriving off of anxiety is draining and can only go on so long which caused the crash into depression for me. At this point, the depression has gone on so long that I’m well into the “fuckits”, my anxiety cannot override my ADD any longer and so my ADD impulses finally showed itself and could be diagnosed.
I am also just starting out on some new medication and I am hopeful that things start to turn around and I can reverse some of what I’ve put myself through for the past few years.
I hope the medication is successful for you as well and that you will see some positive changes soon.