A rather belated Open Thread for Personal Stuff. As always, no trolls, MRAs etc in these threads. Email me if someone starts acting obnoxious.
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Open Thread for Personal Stuff, 12/16 Edition
We Hunted The MammothBucking the Backlash
As a new follower and someone who just can’t stand mras, thank you for the site. Love your writing.
Heh, I kinda glurged on the funding thread already. Sorry about that.
But yeah, I just started therapy this week. It was good. Got some of the stories off my chest that I haven’t really shared with anyone. Made one interesting connection I hadn’t considered regarding my social anxiety. Despite pointedly not bringing up depression in my discussion, it became pretty obvious that it’s part of my current issues. We booked a second appointment next week, so We’ll see how things go from here.
I am in the process of dissecting troll Yor from the Open Letter to Cassie Jay post. I’ll link it when it’s finished. The last full troll dissection I did was 6000+ words. I’m going to talk about how people try to redirect attention in a fight.
@ LeftWingFox: I hope your therapy helps. *hugs, if you want them*
@ Brony: that sounds interesting. I’ve never heard of anyone dissecting trolling before. Do you plan on posting it–or a link to it–here?
Got my annual review at work, about a month and a half late–but still. My pay went up by nearly forty cents, and (in spite of some anger issues I’ve had this year) the managers said in writing that I was “a pleasure to work with”. They even put the quality of my work in the “exceeds expectations” category.
I’ve also been looking at going back to my local community college. I took a few lower-level courses there, but it turned out I wasn’t passionate about the possible major I’d have been working towards (through the transfer-degree program). I also had personal problems at the time. Now it looks like a global-studies thing could lead to a job I’d rather have, one that better matches my interests, so…yeah. One step at a time, though.
I had a gum graft last week, and it seems (knock wood) to be healing properly.
I also (finally) have an appointment to turn in my cheating VW.
Shortly after I wrote about how everything sucked in the last thread, I hit bottom and now I feel better. Such is the way of bipolar. I still don’t feel great and I don’t enjoy having emotions, but I’m not crying at every stupid little thing anymore and I no longer feel like my life is over.
I passed a milestone at work today and leveled up, which genuinely made me happy for like an hour. Progress!
I don’t talk on WHTM often, mostly because I feel like a doofus. I want to join discussions more, though. The community here is so kind to one another, supportive, and overall mature… I don’t see that often, honestly.
Well, I’d like to say that I got an acceptance letter from my dream college today. I’m a bit apprehensive, but overall excited and happy and even a little proud of myself. Now I’m just hoping I’ll be able to attend. Money is an issue. Father figure is an issue. Ugh.
Kept fighting thoughts that the only way to achieve peace on earth would be to kill off about 90% of the human population. :/
More… well, I said “trivially” but I should have said “pleasingly”, the holiday cards (Christmas-themed in their way, but I have friends and family who are pagan/Jewish/nonreligious) that I sent out last week were well-received, which is something. (Short description of cards: I set this poem in this font. Who knew Baudelaire and Christmas could work together so well?)
Last open thread I said that my seasonal depression wasn’t acting up yet and that it usually occurs a bit later in the season. Then we had a couple weeks of unrelenting gloom and now we’re in a deep freeze and that shit hit me hard. I’ve been so exhausted all week that I think I’m going to have to call in sick tomorrow although I’ll play that my ear. I already feel crappy because of my cold and my mood and pretty much cannot bear the thought of trudging out to the bus stop in -30f windchill.
@rogue angel
That’s what I call my attempts to analyze social conflict in internet comments. I like to argue and it’s creatively cathartic for someone with social language pattern sensitivities. It’s also technically a move in a fight as criticism since Yor basically had it coming to them. They were, all feeling and no object. All insulting characterization and nothing one could connect name-calling to. A morally satisfying mock for me.
I hope you get to work with things you love in global studies.
*Hugs back to everyone*
(Todays hugs brought to you by Thornbury Sauvignon Blanc from New Zealand.)
We celebrated Christmas last night in the family because I’m taking off to see my sweetheart in the frozen north on Friday.
(A) Oh my god I’m going to end up an icicle like in two lovers and a bear!
(B) My parents gave my sister and I the best Christmas gifts EVAH. Bureaucratic proof I dropped out of kindergarten in Edmonton. An unopened birthday card from my grade one crush (I don’t recall even having this crush!) — popout Care Bears! My sister got her Gingerbread pony. I got lots of multi-sided dice. And the best of the best: we each got a USB key with pictures of our artwork.
Seriously parents, send your 30-something kids pictures of their childhood artwork.
numerobis: Aww! That’s adorable. 🙂 (Wait if you went to school in Edmonton, where if your sweetheart located that you consider it the Frozen North?!)
My 2nd most beloved artist (David Bowie is first) is J.G. Thirlwell. I love him so much I think I’m going to send him a Christmas card and tell him that I adore his work.
His music from the 80’s is intense. On his album NAIL there’s a piece that literally spells out the worst of the misogyny that’s pouring out of the woodwork now called D.E.S.T.R.O.Y. (all girls). It is hair-raising, in the voice of PIGSWILL (I’m using upper case as it appears on the lyric sheet that came with the record).
The chorus goes:
There’ll be a HOT TIME in the old town tonight
BLOODY SKIRTS A-FLAPPIN ON THE FLAG POLE TONIGHT
DESTROY…DESTROY…
He called his style “negative positivism” but it was his own definition, I think, nothing to do with the legal version.
I’ve been sheltered and only recently started reading about MRA’s, MGTOW’s, PUA’s, ALT-RIGHT etc. When I first encountered some of the astonishing rage on one of the Reddit forums I thought Oh God, it’s like PIGSWILL has come to life and is riding into town.
Thanks so much for your blog! I enjoy your writing very much. I’ll donate for sure at the next telethon.
Iqaluit! Technically not above the arctic circle.
I mentioned the high in montreal might not pass -15 tomorrow; she replied that -15 sounds outright warm. And it’s been a record warm autumn so far up there.
I didn’t go to school in Edmonton: I dropped out before school even started. But in day care, reportedly they’d keep us indoors if it was below -35. Which by implication means they’d bundle us up and pitch us into the yard if it was a balmy -30. So I’ve been exposed to that weather, but not much in recent years.
Hey, all. NiOg reporting in.
I have some good news to share: after being out of work for more than a year, I got hired today! First day is tomorrow and it’s not the mostest wonderfullest paying job in the world, but I am cautiously optimistic. It’s in my industry! I know a lot of people there! It’s an easy commute! It’s work I can do! The hours are good!
(tw: suicide mention further down)
Being unemployed has been terrifying. I was already struggling with depression, and watching my savings slowly dwindle to nothing, being supported by my surviving parent until I exhausted her savings and she said she couldn’t help anymore, selling my things and taking odd jobs and day labor to scrape by has not… been… great. For a while I was pretty certain I wasn’t going to live out the winter. Suicide was looking like a better option, because at least then I wouldn’t be taking anyone down with me, you know?
I know a lot of people were tweeting it as a joke, but I really did hang on through the election entirely out of spite. I was very lucky in that I had some friends who let me sort of cling to them even through my low spots and have someone to talk to. I was surely miserable company, but they kept me from giving up.
And then there was you guys: a tiny island of good in a sea of endless awfulness. I rarely post, but I read WHTM’s comment section almost every day, just to remind myself that there are good peeps in the world. So, thanks for being here you guys. I persist, in part, because of this website.
So, new job. Less financial anxiety. Life up at a very exciting 40% non-terrible quotient. Hurray!
@NiOg
Good to hear you’re doing better.
More generally, thanks to everyone here for expanding my knowledge of the topics covered in this blog. I don’t think I would be nearly as invested in these issues if I hadn’t found this place.
Hello all!
I am still going to vocational school and I am kind of terrible at the thing that I am learning to do, but I’m also glad that I’m sticking with it and slowly improving, instead of following one of my usual two courses of 1) immediately excelling at something or 2) quitting the moment it gets hard. I’m also unmedicated, which I feel like is probably not helping.
Boyfriend and I brought home a ring the first week of October and he has yet to give it to me and I wannnnnnts it. Mine. Gimme.
numerobis: Yep, that’ll do it. Hope you two manage to keep each other warm. 🙂
I grew up in Edmonton, 1980-1997. I joked that the city schools wouldn’t close for anything less than a direct nuclear strike*. It was the height of irony that the movie “Snow Day” was shot in Edmonton, a city that doesn’t do “Snow Days”.
*rural kids were often excused during extremely cold days, since standing in an exposed field for any length of time waiting for the school bus was inhumane. City kids went to school no matter what.
@NiOG: Hugs to you too. Been there. Glad to hear you got a new job. 🙂
@The Last Unicorn
Congratulations! I won’t say good luck, I’ll say be persistent because that will get you a lot further than luck.
As for myself, I finally got my professional counselors license. Woo hoo! Now I can hang out my own shingle.
I could definitely use some bucking up. I’ve been leaving bits of my gloom ‘n’ doom in other recent threads, but I don’t expect anyone to go hunting for it.
Basically, The Problem facing us as liberals in America (and all over the world, really) seems insurmountable to me. It’s not just that Hate is making strides; it’s that the strides they are making can potentially cripple Love forever. Any strategy we could use against Der Pumpkinfuhrer (except one, about which more in a bit) requires the machinery of a functioning democracy, and I have a hard time believing the Republicans will allow us to keep one. Why should they? They have everything, starting with an incoming administration that just gives one middle finger after another to the Constitution, the standards of our national government, and basic human decency. They have proven time and time again that all they really care about is their own power. If they can fix it so that they don’t need votes to stay in control, they will.
As for that one exception – physical violence – as soon as we resort to it, we become no better than Team Hate… and I’m not sure I care anymore. As I put it to an Australian friend, if the only way we can fight back is by becoming as evil as they are, at least it will be our evil, and not theirs, that wins.
I can feel myself turning into something twisted and ugly as a result of all this, and I hate hate hate it, but it seems like the only alternative is to lie down and die.
I don’t normally comment in these, because I’m not around that much, but:
I finally finished my degree this week.
I may have to save up for a few years to do another one before saving up for further study,depending on which grading system is used and if they take my (many) extenuating circumstances into account. And knowing the University, they may pull what they pulled last time, move the goalposts again and find more hoops for me to jump through. But for now, I have done everything I possibly can think of, handed in my last exam, and hopefully in a few months I’ll have the undergrad I’ve been fighting for for the past 6 and a half years.
So I guess the moral of the story is you can defeat bureaucracy, incompetence and money-grabbing boards of directors; you just have to send a lot of angry emails and be prepared to do a couple years extra work XP
And I fucking did it.
Congrats, Headologist! (Love your ‘nym!)
@Hippodameia
Kate McKinnon played German chancellor Angela Merkel on SNL last weekend:
“It’s been a real Volkswagen of a year.”
*********
I’m happy to hear about Mammotheers’ successes.
To those Mammotheers experiencing significant challenges, hang in there!
We’re gonna Take on Trump and win! ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥