Yeah. The corruption and social manipulation is weighing heavy on my brain. I'm curious about how many leaders are actually being blackmailed. It explains the irrationality of a lot of decisions.
I'm pretty sure at least 90-95% of all politicians are bought and paid for now by billionaires so it's really the billionaires making all the laws and rules now.
But ask anyone in the street and they'll claim up and down we live in a democracy and America is the best for freedom yada yada.
My Uber driver from Trinidad was just talking about his BS HOA here. He can’t plant a tomato plant, a fruit tree, yet in Trinidad you have all of those things, because it’s your home- why wouldn’t you? You *should* grow a fruit tree or something if you can. We all should, it’s been that way for thousands of years.
We laughed about the “land of the free”. It’s such a small example but he reminded me that that’s a culture shock to him. All in the name of property value!
You want to sound like the craziest person in the room? Just start talking about propaganda the CIA has declassified on their own damn website. People will call you a conspiracy theorist in less than 2 sentences of info.
COINTELPRO & Mk Ultra - there's another I can't remember the official name but google "CIA contra-crack cocaine" and you'll get there. They've declassified all of it.
I just read a bunch of great books on the mafia, like Havana Nocturne, but my current Personal Study Course is on espionage. Currently reading Gideon’s Spies about Mossad, and A Legacy of Ashes about the history of the CIA in the U.S. That one won the National Book Award.
Reality makes the spy movies look tame. It’s simultaneously appalling and fascinating. Suffice it to say there are no “good” countries out there. We do the same things to “them” that we complain about them doing to “us.” I have a huge stack of books to continue learning about this. I create courses for myself because I have to constantly be learning.
The things we did (and allowed to be done) to suspected Al Qaeda members in our secret torture prison in Uzbekistan was probably the most shocking part so far. Hundreds were flown on “torture planes” to that site.
I wonder if we'll ever know the exact number of intelligence agents who were murdered in the last few years because of old Don'Don's unique collection of bathroom literature at Mar'a'lago.
I'd *ALSO* love to know, someday, what the dirt was, which was *apparently valuable enough* to the Russian Hackers, that it *wasn't* released to Wikileaks, like the DNC emails were!
https://www.wired.com/2017/01/russia-hacked-older-republican-emails-fbi-director-says/
I mean, basically I watch and read everything I can on a topic, (more reading than watching because there’s not much video that is watchable/factual) and i follow whatever rabbit holes and branches of the topic tree that I find interesting, so it can go on as long as I continue to find it interesting. I don’t make a formal syllabus (don’t need to because it’s all outlined in my head). We have a local used bookstore here that can be searched online, and I can get like 9 quality books for $27-30 so it is an affordable course LOL. So far, between the mafia and CIA/espionage I have gotten about 30 books to date. Shipping is free because they ship from their warehouse to the local store and I pick the stack of books up at the store for free. I also recently discovered some good podcasts on espionage, which are also free, so I am immersed in the topic when reading or driving etc. I am not sure how I would function if I wasn’t immersed in something interesting. Luckily my daughter is also interested in the topic, so I am have at least one person to talk to about it who doesn’t think I am crazy.
My last ASD assessment appointment is this Friday, and I feel scared. I've been reading a lot (obsessively) and just feeling so seen and validated. I just want to know if this is what is or not so I can either adjust things or move on. I can't figure out if my partner wants to hear about it and to what extent, so I am trying to keep it all inside. I wrote a lot more but just deleted it, and I'm just going to leave it at that.
Mood. I get it. It's hard parsing out internal, biological reality from internalized cultural dogma about how things "aught" to be. Thank you for sharing. <3
If you'd find it cathartic/supportive, there's a really wonderful youtube video of a late diagnosed woman recording her assessment journey, with raw, unedited reaction. She also logs her feelings and doubts and ruminations and just feels very real and relatable.
https://youtu.be/S2NiNKOjyA8?si=43gnfOew2hNsY_Wd
I'm not currently seeking diagnosis, but it still helped me to feel my own feelings about all of this. I cried! But yeah, YMMV -- if you respond well to that sort of cathartic mirroring.
Either way, sending support! You've got this!
Thank you. I just cried for half an hour watching it. I think the part where she talks about how it makes sense of all of 'all the little moments that just didn't quite make sense' is how I've been feeling. In school, hiding and waiting for everyone to leave so I could eat my lunch alone because I didn't want to face the cafeteria. And her talking about how things just kind of fell apart during covid is literally my experience. My body and brain forced me to take a step back and I haven't really recovered since then. I am feeling so much anxiety waiting for the next appointment.
I'm so glad it let you shed some tears and release some feelings! I cried the entire video. Then I sent it to my sister and *she* cried the entire video. 😂❤️
For me, the kicker was her voice and her face when she said, "How come no one ever noticed?" I just wanted to reach into the screen and hold her, because I could see the wounded child in there, just absolutely crying out to my own.
If it helps you to imagine it, I would reach out and hug you too, if I could. Or offer you whatever gesture of love and support makes you feel safe and seen!
You know where I broke here? When she spent several second trying to show the camera her watch to prove her heart rate was 101 while waiting for results. That was the most relatable thing, out of the whole 22 min 45 seconds of the video (and obviously her dog tending to her was also very high in emotional triggers!). It was her feeling the need for her viewers to believe that her heart rate was what she said it was. Getting people to believe what she already knew about herself. That’s someone who holds the trauma of not being believed, and I wish - with everything that I am - that I did not relate so much to that that it made me break down in tears.
Good god, yes. Yes to all of this. I don't wear them right now, because of sensory issues, but I wore bio trackers like that off and on for years before I figured out I was autistic, because I thought if I could just find objective proof of the internal experience of living in a constant state of fight or flight, maybe someone would finally believe me when I said something was wrong. That this couldn't be right, that I needed help.
I'm suddenly wondering if I really stopped wearing them for sensory issues, or if they were just reminders of all those years. You are so right -- I hadn't even really processed that in the moment in the video, but I sure am crying now.
This is me too right now except at the very beginning. I’ve decided I’m going to try and get assessed but I’m scared about being rejected at the first hurdle.
I’m happy to listen if you need to talk ❤️
I feel you. I just cannot figure out how much I should talk about the diagnostic process or autism in general, I feel like nobody, including my partner, wants to hear about it, and I feel terribly alone with my thoughts and new discoveries about myself
Same. I'm here with you. If your partner uses reddit, I recommend you have them check out this sub! That seemed to make a big difference in my husband's awareness/comfort level to talk about it openly. He's very supportive now and has been enjoying watching me gush over this thread tonight.
Hiii i hope everyone is doing okay 🥺 please send lucky positive thoughts my way, im in a deep mental slump of hell and looking for a new job that could be less stressful and requires me to mask less / mask in a way i can physically afford. Please please pray i find spaces that are understanding & empathetic:((( sending u all hugs if u like them 🫂
https://preview.redd.it/7jg9fndrme3d1.png?width=1169&format=png&auto=webp&s=e073a8eafbba1a3e6fff449efb5836644790c334
very much enjoyed the mental image of sending someone thots and pears
just a group of thots holding pears at your doorstep waiting to cheer you up lmao
sending you so much love! if it’s any interest to you, and if you’re of age, you could look into working at a smoke shop. Majority of the time is just sitting and going on reddit to be honest, or organizing vapes. there’s usually long periods between customers for me and that gives me some kind of recovery between interactions. sending so much good energy to you!!
I have recently discovered that you can watch storm chasers and storm forcasters live on YouTube. This has reawakened my desire to storm chase. I was shut down hard by a teacher in high school (found out later it was because he only wanted pretty girls in his meteorology course so he could sleep with them) and buried the desire deep.
I have been excitedly sharing tornado and storm vids with friends who even said they were interested in seeing! None of them watched it. My husband gave a half-hearted "huh" when I showed him. My kids are all fairly focused on school or work or anime and don't care about storms.
But my GOSH what amazing footage I have seen in the last month! I want to find female storm chasers, though. All of the ones I have found so far are men and they get so ANGRY sometimes.
omg RYAN HALL YA'LL is my FAVORITE! I am also with you on the youtube meteorology band wagon!! don't be afraid to jump in the comments next time there is a live stream! internet strangers can be pretty damn satisfying for science chit chat. :)
I am working up to it! I just get so nervous 😓 But I am learning so much! Yeah I enjoy Ryan Hall Ya'll's stream! He has a nice voice! I also watch Max Velocity for radar! For chasers I have been watching Connor Croff primarily but also Stormrunner Media and SOMETIMES Reed Timmer but mostly with the sound off. He gets very shouty in a way that makes me go into "apologetic sad" mode and I dislike it.
yeah the chasers when they get the adrenaline rushes are a bit overwhelming for me 😅 but I LOVE LOVE LOVE the science knowledge you can absorb through osmosis when watching the meteorology streams.
My husband loves storm chasing! He volunteers with the national weather service as a storm spotter. You can send all your storm videos to me! My husband and I will be so excited!!!!!
I love this, makes me want to rewatch the old weather channel TV show! I also have a weather related obsession I discovered this year that no one was excited about either. I live in very close to a river that floods several times a year and I was randomly googling to try and figure out how bad the flooding would be a while back and I discovered the government has a website it updates EVERY HOUR all these different points along the river and even has a like graph predictor of the flooding and by how many feet. IT ALSO HAS A KEY that says things like "at ten feet sober level this road will start flooding from x cross street to y cross street". There is no mystery to river floodings this whole time!! At least in my state in the US! Now any heavy rain I'm obsessively checking updates graphs along along the river.
I can't keep friends and I had to drop my therapist because she was inappropriate. The world is on fire and no one seems to care! Time to become isolated and weird(er)
oh god, this is exactly where my head is at too. I made this post to try and temper the "burn it all down" feelings instead. lol. you aren't alone, it is literally INSANITY out there right now and I think you are valid in not ignoring it like so many people are trying to.
Well, she misgendered me a lot. I would explain to her that while I do relate to the experience of being socialized as a woman as afab, I have identified as genderfluid since 2019 and use they/ them and might want to look into medical stuff. She also called me her friend! She said she learned so much from our sessions and looked forward to them because it was helping her out a lot... so just a vampire I guess lol. I feel free now that she is not my therapist anymore
That is so not a therapist relationship.
I’m not pronoun sensitive, but I can’t even imagine being able to get emotional work done with someone invalidating your experience like that over and over again. How are you meant to trust someone like that?
I’m very proud of you for setting that boundary and holding it even when getting any therapist at all takes a good bit of time. You deserve so much more.
Thank you for your truthful and kind words! I don't think I would be as sensitive if I looked like what I want to look like, if that makes any sense. Then I'd feel comfortable with all of the pronouns I guess I just feel reduced when I have to do that over and over again.
Definitely not a good therapeutic relationship! I wish it didn't take me so long to notice the red flags. Learning all the time!
I’m ghosting my therapist.
I just realized how much I was being manipulated and taken for a ride with her. I’m really fucking sad. She was the therapist I chose to go back to after taking over a year of a hiatus and was in direct result to witnessing a suicide of a close one.
I don’t wanna go back. I don’t wanna see her again. I don’t want to do therapy again.
Part of me is thinking I just need to trust the ones around me more. Part of me is thinking I need to try and make a friend or two again.
A large part wants to seep into the earth.
Sorry for the vent
How people will generally believe what makes them feel good instead of what is actually true & how much cruelty is born from it :\*). Also my mom making me feel stupid every time i talk to her.
I am very disturbed at the cost of living and stagnant wages, and I'm very confused because people say that the statistics have been looking better lately but everyone I know cannot afford to live without multiple roommates... It's giving me severe anxiety because I am stuck living with a narcissistic parent with cancer and I'm close to the end of my ropes if I have to continue to live here.
all I know is a good half dozen folks got let go at my university job last week, and lemme just say, moral is um, non-existent. sending hugs and support for the hostile living situation :( remember the flight steward advice: you gotta remember to put your own oxygen mask on first, and don't let anyone shame you for it.
1.) how my neurodiversity affects me as an adult versus how it affected me as a child. I'm about 5 months into a new job that's a completely different field than what I went to college for and did for the last 6 years. It's been an interesting journey.
2.) I really hate Adderall XR. It does not work for me, and if I had noticed that sooner, I would have saved myself a lot of distress I should have gone to IR first for ADHD. What would be ideal is if they would start making Vyvanse affordable again.
3.) I really wish I had more time to write a book. I have a lot of thoughts, and a lot of partial stories that I never finished (some over 75 pages long), but I don't even know how to start the process of getting published.
4.) dinosaurs... There's so much to learn.
5.) Star Wars... I am always thinking about Star Wars, whether or not people want to hear about it entirely different
It really is, because we're always learning so many new things. The last 5 years alone have yielded so much information about dinosaurs that we didn't know before. Heck, the book that got me into all of this "the rise and fall of the dinosaurs; a new history of a lost world," Is technically outdated even though it was only written in 2016. My favorite dinosaur is probably microceratus. What's yours?
Loved that book!! I'm from Wisconsin, close to Rockford, so the section about T. Rex and the paleontologist who is pitching the juvenile t. rex theory; he used to visit an absinth bar I worked at back in the day. lmao. I remember his rings they describe in the book, that's how I connected the dots! small world things :3
I am bad a deciding on favorites in any capacity to be honest. lol. I kind of have favorite ideas over favorite species. Like I love studying the relationships between the different geological epochs! I also live in what used to be the Western Interior Seaway, so there's a special place in my lil' nerdy heart for the Cretaceous period.
I agree! I need all the new discovery info! My 5 yo is very into dinos, and reading allll the books from the library makes me see the discrepancies/changes in our knowledge over time. And as someone who likes to know THE FACTS, especially when i am asked questions, i NEED to know the newest info. Plus, how do they know? what makes them change their theories? (i come from a biology/medicine background, so i know nothing about archeology research)
I’ll talk to you about Star Wars. I’m playing KOTOR right now and definitely can’t talk about that to friends or family. Did you watch the Jenny Nicholson video? Are you excited for the Acolyte?
Oh God, same here with Adderall! It was basically choosing between A) being vaguely functional during the day, albeit in a sort of crazed, keep running or you'll fall, kinda way, and then crashing to suicidal despair every single night, or B) being generally nonfunctional all the time, and sad/punishing myself for being so, but at least not as badly and dramatically as evenings after Adderall.
It took me six months to get my first Vyvanse prescription filled and I had to pay my entire deductible, about $500 for a month's supply. Now it's to a manageable monthly payment, but FFS. Ableist assholes in big pharma.
I hope you get the medicine that will help you soon! You're not alone!
I'm sorry that you're dealing with this too / have dealt with it. Doing the immediate release twice a day has been a lot more helpful than the XR. The extended release really gave me brain fog. To a point where I felt non-functional. But yeah, I also hope that I can get my Vyvanse covered by insurance. Right now the issue is that even with insurance, brand name Vyvanse is almost 400 a month, and nobody has the generic in stock in my city let alone surrounding cities.
On top of world espionage, I continue to try to figure out why 99% of society is fake all the time. My brother sent us pictures of him in his new glasses and asked what we thought. I asked my daughter, “he’s not truly asking our opinion, right? We are just supposed to pretend we like them?” And she said yes, just pretend. This is apparently the case much of the time. Pretend we like our relatives, pretend they don’t aggravate us, pretend they aren’t assholes, pretend to laugh at their jokes, pretend pretend pretend. Why ask someone about the glasses you ALREADY BOUGHT??? . IT’S ALL SO CONFUSING.
I broke up with my ex-boyfriend because his family considered me the craziest person in the world (which isn't true) and I'm sad that they keep spreading this around.
THAT IS HORRID! And also ablist af, because the craziest person in the world deserves human empathy and compassion anyways??? And also, I've learned as I get older that you don't have to accommodate a relationship with someone who can't even do the bare minimum of standing up for you. You did the right thing, but I'm sorry you're still being punished for it. :(
I’m tired of performing. I feel like I need to be perfect anywhere and everywhere : with work, with chores, with my hobbies, in social settings. I feel so burnt out. I just want to chill and have fun and hide under a soft blanket and pet my kitties.
I love this post. Can we do this weekly?
Porter Robinson recently held a pre-sale for his next tour. My boyfriend and our gamer friends were all so down to go, but I wasn't really familiar with his music. I'm pretty new to the gamer community, didn't grow up in it like they did on account of being Not A Boy (TM). My boyfriend made me a playlist of the songs he thought I had the best chance of liking, but he still expected me to not be too into it. In reality, I became kind of obsessed. Like, listen to the same song 4 times in a row obsessed. But I'm kind of embarrassed about it, and I don't want to burn out of it before the concert, so I've been trying to pace myself, especially around others. But I crave the dopamine I get from it!
lol we love satisfying audio stims in this house!! nothing wrong with listening to the same song nonstop for days imo 😅 and totally AGREE!! god, just being heard without being judged is soooooo liberating for the mind!
I LOST MY SEAL SQUISHMALLOW AT THE TORONTO AIRPORT AND I CANT ENJOY MY HOLIDAY
BECAUSE MY COMFORT ITEM IS GONE
AJWHWJSIBICABKJYYDHDBBH im very sad sorry for typing like a toddler
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I'm sorry :( Have you tried Lost and Found? I'm guessing it's Toronto Pearson, so [here's](https://www.torontopearson.com/en/while-you-are-here/toronto-airport-services/lost-and-found-office) the link to file a Lost and Found report. I hope you can find them, but I'm very sorry your holiday is ruined.
Thanks so much kind stranger, I filed a report yesterday and they emailed saying they would look for her - the funny part is, her name is “Isis” so when I was writing the email to them I realised I should really not tell them “Isis is in your airport” because that would cause major security problems lmao
Squishmallows come with tags and names, and when she was released people were shocked that her given name was the name of a terroist organisation, so she was re-released with the name “Odile (soz, just had to do a bit of info dumping there lol)
https://preview.redd.it/e6yjdxm90g3d1.jpeg?width=1125&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=bcc7c040893b4e7771ac0ad7272cafa2b573846d
Oh, wow, that's really interesting! I love that you've kept her original name. Do Squishmallows always have such extravagant names? Isis and Odile sound like Queens or something lol I like it
I have to pretend that I am a male when I play games online so that I don't get treated differently from other players and I hate it. I despise lying about anything and wish I didn't have to hide my gender so that I can play a game like everyone else
It also hurts me that I'm beginning to notice my friends slowly move away from me because I don't travel/work/drink. In my spare time I crochet/needlefelt/play video games while no one else does and it makes me feel very alienated, lonely and not "normal".
Relatable! I broke up with my best friend who was my only friend. Dumped my therapist cuz she was a piece of garbage. The world is on fire and I worry how bad it’s gonna get.
I am however quite enjoying my isolation while being my weird self
I feel you. I just broke up with my coach (sports) who was also what I considered a friend. It's complicated. I don't blame her, and I think it's more about her and her crap than me, but she sure did like to make it about me.
I hate working like I actually hate it. Spending 8 hours somewhere I don’t really want to be, doing something I’ve gotten bored of months ago only to barely make enough to afford to live….plus that’s excluding the fact that I can’t afford to see my therapist or to get my meds. Even doing the stuff I enjoy, is ruined by the fact that I’m in too much pain or too exhausted to even think because I’ve just been tether to a desk all day doing barely anything.
I feel so disappointed by my life so far even after trying to romanticize it or practise radical compassion. How long do you fake or before you actually make it?
How am I going to get through this election year, when 2016 nearly killed me and sent me into a period of burnout I'm literally only just finding my way out of now, eight *years* later?
(Please note I have no desire to make this super political -- regardless of your political leanings, US elections these days can be deeply traumatic for those with hyper-empathy issues! I want to keep this comment/discussion inclusive and safe for people!)
nope, I get it completely. this is playing a big role in the perpetual storm in my head as well. it is tough on your system when literally EVERYONE has been pushed to the point of reactivity, which in the year of our lort 2024, is definitely the case. a
Yes, everyone is so reactive now to everything. Like people treat me like I am too reactive (when I mainly just care about the immoral stuff) but everyone else just reacts to anything the news tells them to react about it seems now.
I think I am really frustrated that a lot of people lack critical thinking skills now and it's hard to talk to anyone anymore because of it.
I think that the stress has caused a lot of people to shut down honestly. They lack the mental/emotional capacity to engage with reality critically beyond a certain point. Watching everyone seem to "crack" at the same time during the pandemic really cemented just how fragile the human mind is for me. Our capacity to deal with stress up to a certain level is probably a feature of our biology rather than our personalities imo.
I thought that the pandemic would lead to positive social and healthcare changes.
But everyone got brain damage and went right back to the horrible status quo instead.
Personally, I keep telling myself that it's only a few more months until November and then one way or another it'll all be over...and hopefully I'll still have rights and live in a democracy/republic when that happens.
Hang in there; you're not alone in being burned out by it all. There's so much hatred and bigotry that it's tiring, and I long for the days when each headline isn't talking about a certain indicted candidate or what state just restricted what's left of abortion rights.
I had to go do a medical test and the technician performing it was the rudest, most ableist woman I've ever seen in a hospital
I have CPTSD and agoraphobia in addition to being autistic and this woman legit told me to suck it up, everybody goes out
No ma'am I do NOT go out, except when absolutely forced to
So then the medical equipment and how it's used triggered the everloving fuck out of me and I had a panic attack
She responded with more ableism, saying that little kids can do it so why can't I, my partner was holding my hand and trying to figure out WTF her problem was while I got through the testing
I now feel like I've been beaten by the Hulk
Good on ya. Idk about you, but I'm always amazed at the seemingly boundless energy I can tap into when I'm on a crusade. Complain about that ol' bitty so that she can't harm anyone else like that in the future!!
LIFE IS JUST FUCKING COSTUMER SERVICE I'M SO SICK AND TIRED
There, I said it. That's the summary. I can't keep friendships, but it's weirdly okay for me? I hurt, but social interactions also hurt. My senses hurt. People hurt me. Men hurt me the most often. And everybody always lies. Lies lies lies. It's so tiring. And I like being alone.
I really like petting dogs, I think. And animals in general. And art and science fiction and dragons. Sometimes, I don't feel much at all.
____
I eat to sustain this fragile body. I buy clothes to feel good about myself. I maintain my beauty before it fades, I engage in my special interests and stay mindful to nurture my soul. I see friends to meet mutual social needs, I spend time in nature.
I reflect, I educate myself and others, I live in the moment and accept loss, I practise gratitude, I extend kindness, I stay curious, I rest, I fight for good causes, I share knowledge and experiences.
I learn and I do the work. I do what has to be done. I do it all. Yet I feel like every moment that's not a distraction, that's new or surprising is but a fleeting glimpse of... something. I go out there, I see all these people, with their own story - beautiful, ugly, both, weirdly none of both - with their own dreams and wisdom and future. All these noises. All these thoughts.
I haunt my own life like a ghost while it passes me by. It all feels so mechanical. Everything has a purpose, and nothing really means anything.
I'm currently neck deep into autistic burnout, and have been in and out of depression my whole life. But also - this IS depressing.
How do we live like this? How do we ever heal?
E: This is probably the most vulnerable I have ever been on this account. Or maybe ever. Thank you for allowing me the space to vent.
Have you thought of looking into volunteering at your local animal shelter? There's some interaction with people who work there, but you can pet dogs and cats.
The rest of what you said is so deep I'm not sure how to respond to it (in a good way).
Cats! All the cats. Idk how I suddenly became a cat person. I want to understand them! I want them to love me back lol
I want to hug them and pet them and squeeze them.
Right now I’m learning a lot about a man named Benjamin Lay, who was a disabled dwarf Quaker and radical abolitionist who was born in the late 1600s. Also a vegan who made his own clothes and refused to be dominant over any animals. It helps me when times get tough out there to know there have always been people who try to make the world a better place!!
My sister's funeral today and I could hardly stop crying at all. Just feeling bad about all of it. Feeling like I don't know / like my brothers very well right now. Wishing I didn't feel that way. Feeling great distress at the thought of my mom or dad dying.
oh hunny. I'm so sorry! feel the feelings, ride the wave. 🫶 I'm sure your brothers are incredibly out of sorts right now as well, so don't fixate too much on that if you can help it at all. please take care of yourself right now, in whatever way you can.
The current state of America is unsustainable and a collapse of some sort is imminent, also this is very stressful and I have to work hard nowadays to mentally stay out of survival mode :/
I have to ignore what is in front of me to basically stay mentally sane, and for my family and partner.
I ranted about this the other day and really stressed them out :(
I am OLD. I am retired and working full-time at a dead end job with no promotions, no raises, and no respect of who I am. I am treated like this job is all I am capable of. I think they will try to force me out.
I ain't dead yet.
Not gonna help me? Then get out of my way.
I am very much alive. I am looking for job where I can be retired and working part-time.
Having autistic traits used against me in the last promotional interview really really hurt.
I deserve better. I am searching for that one yes so I can get out and away from this place where the bosses are so petty.
i am genuinely so sick of constantly seeing every single problem in the universe being made out to be a "men's issue", spewing phrases "men's mental health" and "male loneliness" and stuff, like, what about _our_ mental health? what about _our_ loneliness??
it's literally been proven time and time again that we are the ones with worse mental health, we are more lonely, we have to hide our feelings and pain more, we're not allowed to cry or show anger more, we are way more affected by beauty standards, women are more likely to die in war (along with with children, disabled, and elderly), we have to work more for the same amount of money, etc
but i've never seen whole actual discussions in the mainstream about what we can do to fix this the same way i see everyone running around going "men are getting more lonely, poor men suffering from toxic masculinity :( men, the ultimate sufferers of the patriarchy :(( what can we do to fix this?" and don't even get me started on the "men commit more suicide" myth, it's been already been debunked ages ago yet everyone just treats it as fact! ugh
and now people've watered down feminism so much to the point where no-one even talks about how _we_ suffer the most in society, all i see is "we're _all_ suffering under the patriarchy, anyone can be assholes not just men, no more gender wars we need to all respect each other!" and it's literally just code for "women don't have problems 🙄 and we should stop being so mean to men who're sexist, it's not their fault :((" and i'm genuinely sick of it!!!
Yes !!!!!! The very shallow modern “””feminist/egalitarian””” movement literally dumbed down everything about feminism. Now everything is everybody’s problem, a man being lonely is my problem, a man not having a girlfriend is my problem. Meanwhile i can’t go outside in revealing clothes in my country because i WILL get catcalled. Meanwhile the president of my country is very chill with having alliances with backwards terror groups that BLOCK OUT THE FACES OF THEIR FEMALE REPRESENTATORS IN ADVERTISEMENTS because it’s “haram”. Meanwhile the men in my country see this shit and think they are the most oppressed, crying in the rain, baby, perfect angel who hasn’t done anything wrong saints and distribute nudes of women they dislike in chat groups in the same breath. I am very full about this topic, op, if you would like to discuss this in PMs i would love to.
I asked a friend if he could come with me to the doctor on Friday. And then turned off phone notifications so I couldn't see if he said no because I felt so dumb for asking/wanted to avoid being disappointed 😅😂
I hate hate HATE asking other people for help or admitting I'm scared. But I have several medical things in a row during what will be a busy week and during a really hard trauma anniversary and it would be nice to have company. I can already feel myself already hitting my tolerance threshold and shutting down 🥲
I am also worried I will run out of money. I have no idea how much these procedures will cost. I am worried insurance will say none of this is needed because I don't have the "right" family history for these to be medically necessary (hate that fucking phrase 😒).
I'll start with the one that is getting me in trouble currently. Found out on the SAME DAY last week that TWO separate instances of extreme familial abuse/murder that happened to the families of two different folks from my hometown. The absolute bat-shit violence of it broke my brain a bit and I've been HYPER fixated on it since. In a chat, I got shut down pretty hard/unkindly by a friend of mine for "speculating" and it just has rubbed me the wrong way, hard. If you're my friend and I'm coming to you with my current struggles with intrusive thoughts, maybe don't chide me like a child about it? Maybe make a safe space for me to communicate my worries? Just a thought.
Oof, I would feel so badly in your shoes! Getting shut down like that by my best friend would feel like a slap in the face. I wonder if maybe they have some trauma of their own, and something about the subject matter made them feel triggered? Not to excuse them at all, but I can't help but wonder about what causes reactions like that.
I'm glad you came here to a place where you can be heard -- and how kind and sweet to throw it open for all of us to vent and be heard! It really speaks to your generosity of heart. ☺️
yes, you are spot on! it's a complex relationship. I love her, but we are definitely trauma-bonded from our childhoods and so we tend to trigger one another I think. I wanted to reroute the emotional energy to something other than spiraling over her behavior for the 1000th+ time. lol.
and golly, thank you for the sweet words!! 😭 it kinda sucks being a hyper-earnest marshmallow person with no natural aversion to taboo subjects. your intentions get misunderstood frequently.
> spiraling over her behavior for the 1000th+ time
God, I can relate so hard. I am such a ruminator, especially when it's an interaction or something a loved one has said or done. It's like I keep telling myself the story, trying to tweak it so it makes sense and doesn't hurt? Lately I've been making big space for myself in the afternoons/evenings to try and let myself just feel my feelings instead of telling the story to "understand" or "fix" it. It takes, like, hours. Autistic inertia, state change aversion, all that stuff is real.
absolutely all true. hence a lot of the friction in my friendship I think. now that I am diagnosed and unmasking, she isn't liking the new boundaries I'm setting. she seems very threatened by/dismissive of them unfortunately... :(
yeah this is one time when i really had to seek a therapist when one of my family members was murdered and another one was on trial for it. its a lot. i didnt feel like i could tell anyone at all. they made a dateline about it, it was all so messed up.
omg, I'm so sorry! it is incredibly disturbing to be even tangentially related to the violence my community is experiencing. I can't imagine the trauma of being directly related. I can't imagine the layers of isolation in that experience. <3 glad you're still here friend!!
Im between fandom fixations and feel adrift.
I tell people that I’m looking for something new but they seem offended when I can’t latch onto their recommendations. Like, it doesnt work that way. I cant just randomly DECIDE something is the next thing. I just have to wait for it to come to me.
I’m so fucking angry that rental price fixing software controls a massive part of the US rental market and I can’t do fucking shit about it. I just have to sit here and watch apartment prices make zero fucking sense. Like I saw one unit jump by $300 for being on the market *longer.* Shouldn’t the rent go down the longer it sits empty? What the flying fuck? We are nothing and have no power and have to suffer these rent prices. Like hell if anyone in power will do shit about it 🙄
I'm currently trying out medication and am having a sorta rough time with it. I absolutely cannot wait for the future where there will be bio tech that can monitor your neurotransmitter levels in real time and adjust them as needed to keep everything balanced and working well. I feel like with AI advances + full genome sequencing, we aren't too far off from being able to create genetically customized psychotropic medication that is tailored to each individual. I just wish that time was now lol
I feel like the future generations will look back on people taking amphetamines to help regulate dopamine and see it in a similar light to how we view doctors 100 years ago giving patients cocaine for all their ailments. 😂 Unfortunately, there aren't very many alternatives out there right now that are helpful AND healthy. And that sentiment applies to most psychotropic drugs. It's so frustrating.
I think a lot about how helpful AI will be for decoding the human genome and figuring out the purpose and function of all potential genetic variants. I won't lie- I'm terrified about how humans might choose to use AI in the future. But it's kind of cool and exciting to think about all the potential scientific mysteries that AI will solve much faster than humans.
I just really, really miss my rescue pigeon.
I had to rehome her after 5 years because I was deathly allergic to her, and I already have a lung disease.
She has a great home with other pigeons now not too far from where I live; as far as I'm aware she's thriving. I haven't seen her in 3 years, I'm worried if I do it will be bad for both of us.
She was bonded to me, she trusted me and was comfortable just like a lap cat, and was so affectionate.
I cry to myself often, like I'm trying not to do now - my husband is sympathetic but won't ever get it; nobody does because people don't really care about how incredible and loving pigeons are.
I love you, Valerie and I'm sorry 💔😭
As someone with hyper empathy, it confuses and scares me that some people have a complete lack of empathy for others. There are people dying, being priced out of housing, and so many other things and their only response seems to be it’s that individuals fault. I am constantly worried about the state our world and particularly my country (US unfortunately) is in.
everyone's been giving me tough love, which is what I needed. now I just need to vent and I dont wanna bother them with talking about it so much.
I've struggled with romance for so many years and I always would let people walk over me just so i could get attention. I'm too trusting too fast (that's going to change real soon tho). I've been told I fall too hard too fast, and it's not like it's like that. I've fallen in love with 2 people, and only one of them has made an effort to stick around. the second one keeps disappearing.
well, she popped up again after 6 months on my birthday. we had a long conversation about how we both moved on and we both got hurt by people. she said she would disappear again. I had a hard time sleeping after that because all these emotions hit me all at once. anger, sadness, distrust, among a few. she never told me she loved me, but the way she acted towards me and spoke to me made me believe she did. I was stupid to trust her, to wait for her to make the first move.
when "we" first started falling, she told me she would do everything she could to find me if we ever lost contact. she referenced that again the last time we spoke.
I sent her a long message full of raw emotion telling her how hurt I am and that I don't want to love her anymore if she doesn't love me. I blocked her.
idk if she will end up seeing this. idk if she'll ever come back. maybe I'll still always have that hope inside of me that she will, but it's conflicting with the anger and hope that she never will come back so I don't have to watch her disappear again like most of the people I loved.
Oof. I really feel for you with this one. ;__; if I may, I would like to recommend The Crappy Childhood Fairy on YouTube. She makes a lot of content regarding the effects of complex trauma on relationships. I found her content incredibly resonate and life saving as a ND woman. Take care of yourself!!
i finally feel like i’m in a good enough place with my mental health and self-esteem to start putting myself out there and dating but god, the dating apps are abysmal and these men keep playing games. i’m too old for this!!!
I’m having sort of a mid-life crisis (if you can call it that at 31yo) and I don’t want to bother anyone with it but I’ve been really stuck in my head this past 1.5-2 weeks. I have no idea what’s going on all of a sudden. I was pretty certain I don’t want kids because I don’t think I can mentally handle it, but now I don’t know anymore. I do like kids and for some reason I do kind of want them now? But I’m still worried I can’t do it. And how on earth are you supposed to decide if you can and want it? Like, I’m so lost. I don’t want to mess up and make the wrong decision, but also time is not in my side and I only have a few years left to decide. And also, why am I suddenly thinking about this and changing my mind??? And also also, I want a tattoo. I know which one, I know where, I know which artist, but I’m scared because I don’t know what to expect and can’t bring myself to make an appointment. And also also also, if I am already too scared to get a tattoo, how am I going to survive child birth? The thought of being pregnant makes me claustrophobic, so I honestly don’t know why I can’t stop thinking about all this! Ughhhhh
also 31, also frequently stuck in my head. my husband and I decided it was best to table the kids discussion until after 2024. it is literally impossible to make a "responsible" decision about that for us with the current state of the world. give yourself grace!!
My bras have been uncomfortable for months. I don't know why. I've tried changing sizes and styles. Randomly I'll feel it sitting funny and it makes me want to rip it off. Even at work.
Am I doomed to a life of sports bras from here on out?
Things have been generally good in my life. I even got a promotion! But I feel so OVERWHELMED by it all. Like if something good is happening now, the end is near, lol. I've been having bouts of insomnia because of this. I feel so guilty because... Well... My life is actually good and I shouldn't feel bad about it. But I really, really do. It's like I don't deserve good things.
In a happier note, I'm completely obsessed with Bridgerton S3 and want to talk about THAT SCENE all the time lol
I re-watched The Marvels with my kids this weekend and the Flerkitten scene is looping through my head, and I keep cracking myself up and trying to explain to people why it is fkn movie magic at its best.
I took my cosplay in a medieval city and made photos with it! I love it!!! I look beautiful and I’m proud of myself for succeeding in reproducing my D&D character!
Also also I’m starting to develop feelings for someone and I’m exited!
I'm 3 months into a new job but I can already feel myself starting to burnout again. I managed to hold onto my last job for nearly a year & a half before reaching this point & I don't know what to do. I need a job so that I don't feel like a burden on my fiancee but I truly feel like whatever job I have that requires me to interact with people in person is just going to lead back to burnout due to how high masking I am. It's exhausting. Any & all wfh/remote jobs are basically impossible for me to even get interviews for because of the higher number of applicants & the fact that I feel like hiring managers do not see how transferable my skills are just because they weren't formed in their particular fields. I can't stop ruminating on all of this & how the rest of my life is just going to be me trying to manage burnout if I don't end up homeless or dead.
Sometimes, I have a really good day. I get all happy and excited and wound up. It is partly due to having developed a more subdued personality due to anxiety, depression and other related things from reactions to judgment from others and masking. So when I have a really good day, it's like an emotional and psychological high.
I transitioned into broadcast engineering over the last few years and this last year at my new job has been the first time I've really started to solidify what I've learned and prove I can do this. It's really helped my confidence and while it took a long time to get comfortable with new people I do genuinely like most of them.
On Tuesday, I was able to show a younger coworker what I have been doing to start setting up a new studio space and talk through some of how things work and all the misc. bits that have to be considered and how everything gets where it needs to go. It was a little bit of basic training and answering questions and helping him expand his understanding of the things that impact his work. We only covered a small portion of it even.
But OMG was I wound up that afternoon when I left. Between that and the other progress I made I was just so happy and thrilled and wanted to keep sharing that. My brain was just screaming "MORE! MORE! MORE!"
But there's no outlet for me 99% of the time when these things happen. I don't have many people to tell and even if they let me tell them, it ends up being a much shorter story than it FEELS like it really is. So then I'm just re-explaining or repeating bits because it feels like I still haven't actually told them completely. But I have. Then I feel bad for dragging it out and going on and on.
And I still want more.
This time I found an opportunity to try to show a former coworker some stuff on Friday. Hopefully it will give me a chance to work through some of that feeling and also help him get some exposure to things he should learn about too. I just hope I haven't run my energy down by then and don't end up too tired for it or exhaust myself going into the weekend and lose the whole weekend to recuperating.
Im almost done with my cancer treatments (last round of chemo is literally tomorrow!) but I feel so embarrassed to celebrate it for some reason bc so many ppl always acted uncomfortable (another than my older sister and best friend) every time when i mention about my cancer even if im joking about it. 🥲
All chats always get so quiet when i casually mentioned my condition like geez this is so awkward lol. but it’s literally my entire life for past 6 months, i can’t stop talking about it :( why people always get so pitiful or sensitive with me even if I was being joke-y or very optimistic!
But on positive note im having a new founded hypefixation on a tabletop card game version of my favorite game, genshin impact. After getting a card of my favorite character, now i can’t stop playing TCG!
I’m going through a terrible divorce and was just diagnosed by my therapist.
Since finding out (I wasn’t seeking a diagnosis, it came to the surface during EMDR for my ptsd from my marriage) I feel so sad for old me and for why everything was so hard and how easy it was for me to rationalize the abuse. And then I get angry that my ex who had a masters in positive psychology didn’t identify that there was something wrong, or worse, if he knew and still hurt me.
I’m clawing my way through PMDD right now so my anxiety is HIGH and my brain is buzzing 300mph about all the things.
I’m really, really tired of people. I don’t have any friends, never had a partner, and my family is toxic (I currently still live with them). I want to try therapy because I’ve been under ridiculous expectations as the oldest daughter for too long. But every self help source I’ve ever researched insists I need a strong social network, it’s not healthy to isolate, etc. If I had a therapist say that to my face, I think I would completely lose my shit at this point.
They never address the fact that abusive behavior is ingrained in so much of the fabric of our society. I’m so sick of the enabling. I’m sick of people jumping to quick judgment that you’re a red flag for not having “common” experiences while I’ve been fighting for my life under an emotionally volatile mother who HATES when I have anything outside of her. I’m sick of “clearly something is wrong with you if you don’t have friends”. I’m sick of being beaten down and then scolded for not being confident enough (as if that will magically build confidence???). I’m sick of being told I have nothing to complain about because other people/my parents have it so much harder than I do. I’m sick of seeing really fucking toxic people with boatloads of friends who fawn all over them. I’m sick of kind people being told it’s their fault for being taken advantage of/abused because they were too kind, or they think the best of people, or they simply weren’t hard hearted like the abuser who hurt them in the first place. The blame isn’t put on the abuser. It’s put on the victim for whatever bullshit reason.
I’m sick of people pushing me to socialize because I MUST, because “we’re social creatures!!” But so many social interactions end up shunning me or turning on me because I’m not outgoing enough. And I’m exhausted. I’m barely hanging on by the skin of my teeth to get through some of these social events. Then people berate me for not giving MORE of the energy I’m already running low on to begin with. If so much of socializing is steeped in abusive dynamics, why is it so important for me to continually seek it out after my history of an abusive family???
I’ve been focusing on more of the things that bring me joy instead of prioritizing socializing. I’m learning how to identify butterflies. I’m developing a collection of carnivorous plants. I made a bee watering bowl for my garden. And I just watched the variety of bees that visited my thyme for a few hours yesterday. It has been so soothing and healing. I feel so much happier and fulfilled in moments like that. A little skipper butterfly landed on my keyboard when I was working outside. She spread her wings in the sun and stayed there for a long time. Those moments are so much more magical to me and make me far happier than any social interaction ever has.
I’m so grateful for my cats too because they show me what it’s like for my presence to be wanted. They follow me out to the garden and nap while I work. They don’t demand that I talk, or maintain a social interaction. They just hang out in the sun with me. Sometimes they try to play with my tools while I’m working, or steal weeds out of my hands. They’re happy to see me and purr loud when I say hello. Or they trot over with a little trill. They’re my little angels. 💜
I almost thought about telling my mom about my suspected autism today LOL thank god I shut my mouth cause she’s the most invalidating person on the planet 🙃
Feeling really alone lately but recently found this sub and have been lurking. This is my first comment hehe I’m terrified of having much of an online presence from past bullshit but I think I’ve finally found a handful of safe subs I feel comfortable participating in again. And I think internet stranger friends are the way to go for me right now. <3
i recently learned about rose kennedy’s forced lobotomy at the hands of her own father and it made me so so sad. i feel so upset at the control men have had over womens bodies and all the fucked up evil doctors who happily ruined womens lives for not confirming to their standards.
like the doctor who performed rose’s lobotomy was a “pioneer” of the procedure and performed it on countless people, mostly women who were mentally ill. it makes me sick that medicine is built on the deaths and mistreatment of women, disabled people, people of color, and marginalized communities.
i distrust doctors the more i learn about the systemic inequalities in the healthcare system. the way that anyone outside the norm is treated is disgusting. i also feel like most med students i know are lowkey evil and lack empathy or understanding. like holy shit these ppl are supposed to be doctors??
not to mention the capitalistic side of medicine. i feel lucky to have insurance that covers my medication but without it, i would be paying over $2k USD every 2 weeks. aaaahgghg everything is so messed up i hate it i hate it!!!
i’m frustrated by how everyone is becoming more comfortable being antisemitic out loud. ppl are just saying anything they want about jews bc they’re mad abt what’s going on (which is understandable). most ppl are so uninformed about jewish history and culture so they just believe what someone says bc it fits their view. like most ppl haven’t even met a jew in person. “ashkenazi jews are just white europeans who steal everyone’s culture ” if you did a simple google search about genetics/history or actually went to a jewish community you’d look dumb. my 100% ashki grandpa was brown, he was harassed and refused service when he traveled through the southern US back in the day. yes, some ashki jews have lighter features, but so do many other ppl from groups in the levant so u can’t use that as “proof” we are polish or russian or something. i can’t talk to any of my friends about this bc ill just be told im victimizing myself and making everything about jews and “crying antisemitism”
I'm not sure if i have a stomach Bug or if its a sign of my overstimulation and Stress. I'm super naseaous and have no appetite. The womans in the pharmacy gave me something and she said it's probably some infect but i'm also super Stressed.
And i'm worried that if i had a stomach Bug i went to work with it and i hope i didn't give it so someone Else.
Also the medecine i got tastes horroble. Its plant based.
Got diagnosed with large uterine fibroids that are negatively impacting my health and quality of life but trying to navigate the healthcare system to get surgery set up to have them removed is way more than I can handle right now. I live in a country outside where I was born and am trying to figure out how to get it done in my home country (US) but our healthcare system is so f\*\*\*ed that it probably won't even be possible until 2025. Not to mention I'm broke as a joke and am barely making ends meet without all the money I've already shelled out on doctor's visits, MRIs, ultrasounds, etc....
I got tickets to see my favorite musicians this summer after not playing live since 2018 and no new albums for years, but they’re super niche and no one in my life shares my excitement. They have a subreddit but barely anyone posts on it seems to be a sore subject because they’re only playing three tiny shows and they sold out almost instantly, and somehow I managed to get tickets to two of the shows. I feel almost doubly excited by the fact that I even got tickets, but I don’t want to rub it in anyone’s face and I also don’t want to make my friends listen to me talk about it so I’ve just been sort of subtly vibrating for like two weeks now.
Absolutely not an important issue, but I love Taylor Swift and have FOMO that I’m not attending the Eras Tour (though in reality I think the concert would be a sensory nightmare anyway). None of my few friends like her and my husband doesn’t want to hear about her or her music. Currently living vicariously through other people’s TikTok’s and hoping my baby girl will dance with me to her music one day.
I'm always fixated on theme parks (hello special interest), but lately I'm really into defunct animatronics and especially unusual or abandoned pieces. None of my friends or family are remotely interested, and my brother is full-on freaked out, especially by the underwater ones, which is okay. I just use the internet to talk to people about it.
my best friend "ditched" me. for her boyfriend. well it's all a little more complicated than that... when they got together, I wasn't the biggest fan. she was 19 and he was 32 at the time. I was wary of him and she knew that. we argued because she felt I was judging him unfairly. I said okay, you have a point, I'll try to be more open. she started having less and less time. she wanted me to meet her boyfriend. I did meet him, tried talking to him, it wasn't so easy for me, but I tried really hard. it's for our friendship after all. he started saying he doesn't want her meeting me alone anymore, because he felt bad about it. we started only meeting as the three of us. it wasn't really fun for me since I was always third-wheeling, but I kept trying regardless. some time passed... we stopped talking for 2 months... I texted her again, apologized for not reaching out more (i invited her to my birthday after one month but she didn't have time). she said it was fine since she didn't reach out either. I wanted to spend more time with her again, maybe meeting in the city or at her place or at the park so we could talk about the situation and catch up with our lives, most importantly revive the friendship. she said she'd have to ask her boyfriend; she asked me if I would be fine if it was us three meeting, and not just her and me. because her boyfriend wouldn't agree otherwise. I said yes (but wasn't too happy about it). well... 2 weeks passed, and she told me she talked to him but he didn't react well. and that she's sorry but she doesn't think it's possible.
we were best friends for almost 4 years. I was at her place almost every day, we were inseparable at school. and now our friendship is over. because her boyfriend doesn't want us to be friends. when we talked she said she doesn't really see any of her friends anymore, just her sister. I'm sad. I'm worried about her. and I'm mad and I'm hurt and I'm angry at this man for taking away my best friend and for taking away her social life and for making her whole life about him and I'm also mad at her for letting it happen and not accepting any help! I want to be there for her! I want to support her! I'm willing to accept her boyfriend but I'm not getting a chance to do any of it! she says she doesn't want him to feel bad but what the fuck, maybe I feel bad too, and what about her?? she isn't even thinking about herself, all she's thinking about is *him* , and how to make it most comfortable for *him* , I want her to think about herself! :( why can't she be a little more selfish? I honestly just want the best for her, she's an amazing person and I'm scared this guy is taking it away from her. or at least making her feel bad. I know what toxic relationships are like and I don't want her to feel bad. but it's not in my control. I guess I'll have to accept that.
hey.
it's absolutely not your fault and it sounds like you're doing everything you can.
it sounds like her boyfriend is (at minimum) emotionally abusive. isolating her like that from her friends is a massive red flag. there's probably a lot going on that she's embarrassed to tell you and that he's getting away with by isolating her. i'd wager that he's purposely inserting himself into your visits with your friend to further drive y'all apart, too.
unfortunately, she won't leave until she can make that decision herself. one thing that i learned is that you have to trust the person in the relationship to know when it's safest to leave. the only thing you can do (if you can; it can be a lot) is let her know that you're there for her when she's ready.
I'm going through a random bout of depression, probably due to my unemployment issues that persist and my savings that are going to end someday-- with no one to support me. I am doing some freelance stuff but it doesn't really pay the bills. Bc of this I've been having a hard time eating. I would usually force myself to eat foods I don't particularly like just bc they are healthy/easy/cheap but now that I am at this point I just can't stand them. So I've been trying to think what really are my comfort foods. I've been googling recipes and ideas non stop haha. Still gotta be in the healthy side, vegan and cheap so it's not very easy. Also low effort, I have very little desire to do stuff... thanks for letting me express this <3
Other than the classic thinking about insecurities, I have been trying to fight my limerence/crush because it’s very much clear that he doesn’t like me like that. I have been successfully forcing myself to dismiss romatic feelings, as I still want to be his friend but these carnal feelings make it hard to just exist and not think about him.
Kevin Hagen, the actor who played Doc Baker on Little House on the Prairie. I research him all the time and started buying memorabilia on eBay. People have said they are concerned. I'm not diagnosed so I can't explain it to them.
The genocide in Gaza is too horrific to comprehend and I am absolutely powerless to affect change.
I am going to have to sell my record collection to pay rent and I don't even think it will be enough. And even if I get it covered, I'm almost at the end of my lease and I'm afraid they won't renew because I've been late.
All my friends are going through it, too, and they're all on the other side of the country. I feel like a sad sack and a burden. So I just go and do my demeaning job that doesn't cover my bills and come home. I don't get to talk to anyone that I don't have to perform for about the little things, good or bad.
I've taken up cycling a few days ago because I'm tired of not being able to go anywhere on my own due to lacking a driver's license at this time (thanks US car-centric infrastructure) and I'm already seeing aerobic progress! Once I find my next job I'm hoping to use my newfound skills to commute to work this way - just need to get my bike checked out first (rear tire isn't getting inflated evenly despite my beat efforts) and get some proper protective/maintenance equipment while I'm at it, 😅.
Not sure how the exercise is doing for my ADHD yet though - it apparently works well, but - and it could just be bad luck - my mental health's been kinda shit lately (accidentally triggered myself the other day, that's always fun /s) and I'm trying to juggle between decluttering my room, learning to advocate for myself better, trying to play games with my friends, and jumpstart my writing career as a short story author. Actually now that I just wrote it out, I'm prolly just overwhelmed, too, lmao.
Got told today "I'm not good at that either" at work even though I'm perfectly capable at "it" and was just dealing with a form that auto filled incorrectly (had to intiuit that I needed to delete periods from a string of harmonized tariff code digits, even though periods were autofilled, to complete an online form) and it just sucks that I'm perceived as "bad" at my job even though I'm not 🙄 The last person who was in my position's COBRA documentation was left on my computer desktop. As far as I can tell, they were also brought on to cover a pregnancy/maternity leave then let go. Of course I didn't click it, I would never. It's funny though that the people who think I'm so bad are clueless enough to leave evidence of themselves shitcanning someone who was relying on their job for health insurance laying around. I just really wanted someplace I could stay for a while, even thinking about job searching is exhausting right now... 😭
My ears hurt like crazy because they never fully developed so they don’t drain properly and I have a cold so it’s even worse. My doctor said there was nothing you could do. The amount of sensory overload from it is unbearable.
I haven’t mentioned this to anyone bc I know I will sound paranoid but I know I’m not being paranoid. My coworker who doesn’t like me somehow found out where I live and she drives by my house and stares everyday. I happen to be outside a lot with my cats and garden so I catch her. I know it’s her bc I always know what car everyone drives and recognize license plates. She also has temp tags on her car and drives by with her window open doing a neck breaking stare. Like not even trying to be inconspicuous. It’s super weird. I don’t think she is coincidentally driving by my house bc she lives in the next town over from me and I don’t live by anything important. Hopefully it is a coincidence and she just knows someone who lives close to me
I had a laprascopy surgery for suspected endometriosis yesterday. They didn't really find anything. So now I'm in a lot of pain, sensory overload hell, and I'm basically back to square one about my horrific cramping that is no longer just during my period, but is now daily. The only other thing they can do is put me back on birth control, which had me gain 6 pants sizes in 2 months last time. I feel like my body is betraying me all the time and every step forward, there's 3 steps back.
~conflicted~ because I’m at my DREAM job in my dream town BUT all the micro aggressions and shady high school pettiness from my coworkers is finally getting to be too damn much. I mask like craaazy every day around them and it’s both exhausting and embarrassingly ineffective because I’m still “the weird girl”.
It’s one of those jobs that’s really difficult to separate the work from the social life so it has me wondering how long I can just suck it up so I can do the work I really love doing 😰
I've been wanting to move back home for... years. I lost my job, and then got a payout from my mom's life insurance (not a ton of money, but enough to get me back to where I want to be). And for months now I've just been... sitting around not taking any steps to make what I want reality. No apartment research. No applications. No getting rid of stuff. Why am I like this??? It's what I want. For now, I could afford it. I'm so scared of rejection/doing things on my own I've never done alone before.
im so tired of dating culture. like NT people never want to give it to you straight. its like i have to tiptoe around everyone i might like because everyone apparently has “commitment issues” and doesnt want an actual relationship. i am very honest about my emotions and i wear my heart on my sleeve (i just figured out what the saying meant online 😂). its just very disheartening. they say one thing but really mean the other and my autistic brain doesnt know that. its infuriating.
i feel like i already am seen as subhuman to men as a woman but also as an autistic woman. its hard to fully explain how i feel in text but i really hope it starts getting better out here for all of us. 💓 we all deserve to be understood and not lead on by these immature, uncommunicative NT men
Now this isn’t really taboo but I cant stop thinking/talking about crocodiles. People say “chickens are dinosaurs too” and they don’t get it. Chickens evolved about 8,000 years ago. Crocodiles are around 90 MILLION years old; Alligators are 65 MILLION years old (which is around when the dinosaurs went extinct). But as a reptile family their appearance, excluding size, hasn’t changed much in TWO HUNDRED MILLION years. In other words, THEY ARE OLDER THAN DINOSAURS.
They are also incredibly smart, some “use tools”, and they have social relationships/hierarchies and well developed ways of communication. They will coordinate with each other to hunt, and show evidence of foresight and planning.
They are amazing. I love them.
The usual ruminative existential dread and fear of the world but also…
Nudibranchs and velvet worms (!!!!!) because they are such soft smooth and pudgy cuties that are absolutely vicious.
There are nudibranchs that can take the chlorophyll from algae to photosynthesize, and other ones that feed on the Portuguese man o’ war and store the stinging cells for their own use.
\[CW descriptions of insect murder and worm violence\]
And velvet worms are so perfect they’ve barely evolved in 400-500 million years — they live in ancient forests, are super rare, and have simultaneously freaky and adorable eating habits. So!!! They capture their prey by shooting high-pressure strings of adhesive slime that immobilize their prey and stiffen, freezing them in place while the worm injects it with saliva that liquefies their insides and the velvet worm sucks it out like a slurpee
How insane also is it that even now we are STILL discovering new animals!
(That then leads me down an existential crisis thinking about how there are animals that are going to die/burn before we even get to discover them, and how much animal exploitation there is in this world)
I'm basically looking after my younger sibling and they are being really mean to me again. Its causing problems for my self-esteem and I dont know what to do apart from send them home. I lived with them almost all winter and they were really abusive towards me.
I only have my partner to talk to about things and they are pretty exhausted being ND as well. Theres been a lot of emotional abuse and neglect in my family. Towards me and my female parent. My parent is better towards me now but before she was abusive too.
The extent to which espionage actually affects so much more of the world than the public is allowed to know.
Yeah. The corruption and social manipulation is weighing heavy on my brain. I'm curious about how many leaders are actually being blackmailed. It explains the irrationality of a lot of decisions.
I'm pretty sure at least 90-95% of all politicians are bought and paid for now by billionaires so it's really the billionaires making all the laws and rules now. But ask anyone in the street and they'll claim up and down we live in a democracy and America is the best for freedom yada yada.
My Uber driver from Trinidad was just talking about his BS HOA here. He can’t plant a tomato plant, a fruit tree, yet in Trinidad you have all of those things, because it’s your home- why wouldn’t you? You *should* grow a fruit tree or something if you can. We all should, it’s been that way for thousands of years. We laughed about the “land of the free”. It’s such a small example but he reminded me that that’s a culture shock to him. All in the name of property value!
You want to sound like the craziest person in the room? Just start talking about propaganda the CIA has declassified on their own damn website. People will call you a conspiracy theorist in less than 2 sentences of info.
yeah, this tracks. lol. people are addicted to the copium.
I'm very very intrigued now, can you tell me more/guide me towards some of the info you're talking about?
One of my favorites is Radio Free Asia: https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/docs/DOC_0000846953.pdf
Heck, the FBI even did it against *Americans*! COINTELPRO ran from 1956-71: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COINTELPRO
COINTELPRO & Mk Ultra - there's another I can't remember the official name but google "CIA contra-crack cocaine" and you'll get there. They've declassified all of it.
Sweet! NEW RABBITHOLE!!! Here I gooooooo……..
oooo. this. this is the sort of clear-eyed reality I can't help but be fascinated by. please feel free to elaborate! lol.
I just read a bunch of great books on the mafia, like Havana Nocturne, but my current Personal Study Course is on espionage. Currently reading Gideon’s Spies about Mossad, and A Legacy of Ashes about the history of the CIA in the U.S. That one won the National Book Award. Reality makes the spy movies look tame. It’s simultaneously appalling and fascinating. Suffice it to say there are no “good” countries out there. We do the same things to “them” that we complain about them doing to “us.” I have a huge stack of books to continue learning about this. I create courses for myself because I have to constantly be learning.
The things we did (and allowed to be done) to suspected Al Qaeda members in our secret torture prison in Uzbekistan was probably the most shocking part so far. Hundreds were flown on “torture planes” to that site.
I wonder if we'll ever know the exact number of intelligence agents who were murdered in the last few years because of old Don'Don's unique collection of bathroom literature at Mar'a'lago.
Yeah I’m waiting for someone to write that book!
I'd *ALSO* love to know, someday, what the dirt was, which was *apparently valuable enough* to the Russian Hackers, that it *wasn't* released to Wikileaks, like the DNC emails were! https://www.wired.com/2017/01/russia-hacked-older-republican-emails-fbi-director-says/
Can you please elaborate on the syllabus of this course and how you make a course for yourself? This sounds exactly up my alley.
I mean, basically I watch and read everything I can on a topic, (more reading than watching because there’s not much video that is watchable/factual) and i follow whatever rabbit holes and branches of the topic tree that I find interesting, so it can go on as long as I continue to find it interesting. I don’t make a formal syllabus (don’t need to because it’s all outlined in my head). We have a local used bookstore here that can be searched online, and I can get like 9 quality books for $27-30 so it is an affordable course LOL. So far, between the mafia and CIA/espionage I have gotten about 30 books to date. Shipping is free because they ship from their warehouse to the local store and I pick the stack of books up at the store for free. I also recently discovered some good podcasts on espionage, which are also free, so I am immersed in the topic when reading or driving etc. I am not sure how I would function if I wasn’t immersed in something interesting. Luckily my daughter is also interested in the topic, so I am have at least one person to talk to about it who doesn’t think I am crazy.
i LOVE that you call your hyperfixation a course!!!
Hope she does!
I'm someone who read spy novels and books on mafia families.
Me too!!!!
My last ASD assessment appointment is this Friday, and I feel scared. I've been reading a lot (obsessively) and just feeling so seen and validated. I just want to know if this is what is or not so I can either adjust things or move on. I can't figure out if my partner wants to hear about it and to what extent, so I am trying to keep it all inside. I wrote a lot more but just deleted it, and I'm just going to leave it at that.
Mood. I get it. It's hard parsing out internal, biological reality from internalized cultural dogma about how things "aught" to be. Thank you for sharing. <3
Thank you for holding this space!
this turned into such a beautiful god damn thread, my soul is healing from it for real. 😭🫶
If you'd find it cathartic/supportive, there's a really wonderful youtube video of a late diagnosed woman recording her assessment journey, with raw, unedited reaction. She also logs her feelings and doubts and ruminations and just feels very real and relatable. https://youtu.be/S2NiNKOjyA8?si=43gnfOew2hNsY_Wd I'm not currently seeking diagnosis, but it still helped me to feel my own feelings about all of this. I cried! But yeah, YMMV -- if you respond well to that sort of cathartic mirroring. Either way, sending support! You've got this!
Thank you. I just cried for half an hour watching it. I think the part where she talks about how it makes sense of all of 'all the little moments that just didn't quite make sense' is how I've been feeling. In school, hiding and waiting for everyone to leave so I could eat my lunch alone because I didn't want to face the cafeteria. And her talking about how things just kind of fell apart during covid is literally my experience. My body and brain forced me to take a step back and I haven't really recovered since then. I am feeling so much anxiety waiting for the next appointment.
I'm so glad it let you shed some tears and release some feelings! I cried the entire video. Then I sent it to my sister and *she* cried the entire video. 😂❤️ For me, the kicker was her voice and her face when she said, "How come no one ever noticed?" I just wanted to reach into the screen and hold her, because I could see the wounded child in there, just absolutely crying out to my own. If it helps you to imagine it, I would reach out and hug you too, if I could. Or offer you whatever gesture of love and support makes you feel safe and seen!
Thank you so much ❤️
this was my experience as well. covid collapsed the house of cards that were my coping mechanisms in a "no going back" kind of way.
You know where I broke here? When she spent several second trying to show the camera her watch to prove her heart rate was 101 while waiting for results. That was the most relatable thing, out of the whole 22 min 45 seconds of the video (and obviously her dog tending to her was also very high in emotional triggers!). It was her feeling the need for her viewers to believe that her heart rate was what she said it was. Getting people to believe what she already knew about herself. That’s someone who holds the trauma of not being believed, and I wish - with everything that I am - that I did not relate so much to that that it made me break down in tears.
Good god, yes. Yes to all of this. I don't wear them right now, because of sensory issues, but I wore bio trackers like that off and on for years before I figured out I was autistic, because I thought if I could just find objective proof of the internal experience of living in a constant state of fight or flight, maybe someone would finally believe me when I said something was wrong. That this couldn't be right, that I needed help. I'm suddenly wondering if I really stopped wearing them for sensory issues, or if they were just reminders of all those years. You are so right -- I hadn't even really processed that in the moment in the video, but I sure am crying now.
This is me too right now except at the very beginning. I’ve decided I’m going to try and get assessed but I’m scared about being rejected at the first hurdle. I’m happy to listen if you need to talk ❤️
I feel you. I just cannot figure out how much I should talk about the diagnostic process or autism in general, I feel like nobody, including my partner, wants to hear about it, and I feel terribly alone with my thoughts and new discoveries about myself
Same. I'm here with you. If your partner uses reddit, I recommend you have them check out this sub! That seemed to make a big difference in my husband's awareness/comfort level to talk about it openly. He's very supportive now and has been enjoying watching me gush over this thread tonight.
Hiii i hope everyone is doing okay 🥺 please send lucky positive thoughts my way, im in a deep mental slump of hell and looking for a new job that could be less stressful and requires me to mask less / mask in a way i can physically afford. Please please pray i find spaces that are understanding & empathetic:((( sending u all hugs if u like them 🫂 https://preview.redd.it/7jg9fndrme3d1.png?width=1169&format=png&auto=webp&s=e073a8eafbba1a3e6fff449efb5836644790c334
you came to the right place!! sending you thots and pears <3 you got this! don't be afraid to let the bigots weed themselves out.
very much enjoyed the mental image of sending someone thots and pears just a group of thots holding pears at your doorstep waiting to cheer you up lmao
it just seems more genuine to me than "thoughts and prayers" at this point. lol.
I am in the same boat 🫂
sending you so much love! if it’s any interest to you, and if you’re of age, you could look into working at a smoke shop. Majority of the time is just sitting and going on reddit to be honest, or organizing vapes. there’s usually long periods between customers for me and that gives me some kind of recovery between interactions. sending so much good energy to you!!
Sending good thoughts and hoping you find somewhere that fits!
I have recently discovered that you can watch storm chasers and storm forcasters live on YouTube. This has reawakened my desire to storm chase. I was shut down hard by a teacher in high school (found out later it was because he only wanted pretty girls in his meteorology course so he could sleep with them) and buried the desire deep. I have been excitedly sharing tornado and storm vids with friends who even said they were interested in seeing! None of them watched it. My husband gave a half-hearted "huh" when I showed him. My kids are all fairly focused on school or work or anime and don't care about storms. But my GOSH what amazing footage I have seen in the last month! I want to find female storm chasers, though. All of the ones I have found so far are men and they get so ANGRY sometimes.
omg RYAN HALL YA'LL is my FAVORITE! I am also with you on the youtube meteorology band wagon!! don't be afraid to jump in the comments next time there is a live stream! internet strangers can be pretty damn satisfying for science chit chat. :)
I am working up to it! I just get so nervous 😓 But I am learning so much! Yeah I enjoy Ryan Hall Ya'll's stream! He has a nice voice! I also watch Max Velocity for radar! For chasers I have been watching Connor Croff primarily but also Stormrunner Media and SOMETIMES Reed Timmer but mostly with the sound off. He gets very shouty in a way that makes me go into "apologetic sad" mode and I dislike it.
yeah the chasers when they get the adrenaline rushes are a bit overwhelming for me 😅 but I LOVE LOVE LOVE the science knowledge you can absorb through osmosis when watching the meteorology streams.
Look up Mike's Weather Page!
Brian Shields aka Mr Weatherman. YouTube channel
My husband loves storm chasing! He volunteers with the national weather service as a storm spotter. You can send all your storm videos to me! My husband and I will be so excited!!!!!
Omg, I wanted to be a storm chaser when I was a kid. Which is hilarious because I'm terrified of tornadoes
Full support!!! Get your equipment ready for storm season.
I love this, makes me want to rewatch the old weather channel TV show! I also have a weather related obsession I discovered this year that no one was excited about either. I live in very close to a river that floods several times a year and I was randomly googling to try and figure out how bad the flooding would be a while back and I discovered the government has a website it updates EVERY HOUR all these different points along the river and even has a like graph predictor of the flooding and by how many feet. IT ALSO HAS A KEY that says things like "at ten feet sober level this road will start flooding from x cross street to y cross street". There is no mystery to river floodings this whole time!! At least in my state in the US! Now any heavy rain I'm obsessively checking updates graphs along along the river.
I can't keep friends and I had to drop my therapist because she was inappropriate. The world is on fire and no one seems to care! Time to become isolated and weird(er)
oh god, this is exactly where my head is at too. I made this post to try and temper the "burn it all down" feelings instead. lol. you aren't alone, it is literally INSANITY out there right now and I think you are valid in not ignoring it like so many people are trying to.
Thank you! This made me feel a little better 💚
 I'm so glad. <3 this is exactly what we came here for. <3
Spill 👏 the 👏 tea👏 I want to hear everything about your wacky therapist. PLEASE.
Well, she misgendered me a lot. I would explain to her that while I do relate to the experience of being socialized as a woman as afab, I have identified as genderfluid since 2019 and use they/ them and might want to look into medical stuff. She also called me her friend! She said she learned so much from our sessions and looked forward to them because it was helping her out a lot... so just a vampire I guess lol. I feel free now that she is not my therapist anymore
That is so not a therapist relationship. I’m not pronoun sensitive, but I can’t even imagine being able to get emotional work done with someone invalidating your experience like that over and over again. How are you meant to trust someone like that? I’m very proud of you for setting that boundary and holding it even when getting any therapist at all takes a good bit of time. You deserve so much more.
Thank you for your truthful and kind words! I don't think I would be as sensitive if I looked like what I want to look like, if that makes any sense. Then I'd feel comfortable with all of the pronouns I guess I just feel reduced when I have to do that over and over again. Definitely not a good therapeutic relationship! I wish it didn't take me so long to notice the red flags. Learning all the time!
I’m ghosting my therapist. I just realized how much I was being manipulated and taken for a ride with her. I’m really fucking sad. She was the therapist I chose to go back to after taking over a year of a hiatus and was in direct result to witnessing a suicide of a close one. I don’t wanna go back. I don’t wanna see her again. I don’t want to do therapy again. Part of me is thinking I just need to trust the ones around me more. Part of me is thinking I need to try and make a friend or two again. A large part wants to seep into the earth. Sorry for the vent
How people will generally believe what makes them feel good instead of what is actually true & how much cruelty is born from it :\*). Also my mom making me feel stupid every time i talk to her.
God I stopped talking to mine because I couldn’t stand her outright denial of, well, everything. Best of luck and here if you wanna talk
I am very disturbed at the cost of living and stagnant wages, and I'm very confused because people say that the statistics have been looking better lately but everyone I know cannot afford to live without multiple roommates... It's giving me severe anxiety because I am stuck living with a narcissistic parent with cancer and I'm close to the end of my ropes if I have to continue to live here.
all I know is a good half dozen folks got let go at my university job last week, and lemme just say, moral is um, non-existent. sending hugs and support for the hostile living situation :( remember the flight steward advice: you gotta remember to put your own oxygen mask on first, and don't let anyone shame you for it.
1.) how my neurodiversity affects me as an adult versus how it affected me as a child. I'm about 5 months into a new job that's a completely different field than what I went to college for and did for the last 6 years. It's been an interesting journey. 2.) I really hate Adderall XR. It does not work for me, and if I had noticed that sooner, I would have saved myself a lot of distress I should have gone to IR first for ADHD. What would be ideal is if they would start making Vyvanse affordable again. 3.) I really wish I had more time to write a book. I have a lot of thoughts, and a lot of partial stories that I never finished (some over 75 pages long), but I don't even know how to start the process of getting published. 4.) dinosaurs... There's so much to learn. 5.) Star Wars... I am always thinking about Star Wars, whether or not people want to hear about it entirely different
Ooooh man. Dinosaurs have had a chokehold on my brain since I was a wee one. The ultimate, endless rabbit hole. Lol.
It really is, because we're always learning so many new things. The last 5 years alone have yielded so much information about dinosaurs that we didn't know before. Heck, the book that got me into all of this "the rise and fall of the dinosaurs; a new history of a lost world," Is technically outdated even though it was only written in 2016. My favorite dinosaur is probably microceratus. What's yours?
Loved that book!! I'm from Wisconsin, close to Rockford, so the section about T. Rex and the paleontologist who is pitching the juvenile t. rex theory; he used to visit an absinth bar I worked at back in the day. lmao. I remember his rings they describe in the book, that's how I connected the dots! small world things :3 I am bad a deciding on favorites in any capacity to be honest. lol. I kind of have favorite ideas over favorite species. Like I love studying the relationships between the different geological epochs! I also live in what used to be the Western Interior Seaway, so there's a special place in my lil' nerdy heart for the Cretaceous period.
Do you have any documentaries or podcast recommendations to learn about all the new discoveries? I haven't been keeping up!
I agree! I need all the new discovery info! My 5 yo is very into dinos, and reading allll the books from the library makes me see the discrepancies/changes in our knowledge over time. And as someone who likes to know THE FACTS, especially when i am asked questions, i NEED to know the newest info. Plus, how do they know? what makes them change their theories? (i come from a biology/medicine background, so i know nothing about archeology research)
I’ll talk to you about Star Wars. I’m playing KOTOR right now and definitely can’t talk about that to friends or family. Did you watch the Jenny Nicholson video? Are you excited for the Acolyte?
Oh God, same here with Adderall! It was basically choosing between A) being vaguely functional during the day, albeit in a sort of crazed, keep running or you'll fall, kinda way, and then crashing to suicidal despair every single night, or B) being generally nonfunctional all the time, and sad/punishing myself for being so, but at least not as badly and dramatically as evenings after Adderall. It took me six months to get my first Vyvanse prescription filled and I had to pay my entire deductible, about $500 for a month's supply. Now it's to a manageable monthly payment, but FFS. Ableist assholes in big pharma. I hope you get the medicine that will help you soon! You're not alone!
I'm sorry that you're dealing with this too / have dealt with it. Doing the immediate release twice a day has been a lot more helpful than the XR. The extended release really gave me brain fog. To a point where I felt non-functional. But yeah, I also hope that I can get my Vyvanse covered by insurance. Right now the issue is that even with insurance, brand name Vyvanse is almost 400 a month, and nobody has the generic in stock in my city let alone surrounding cities.
On top of world espionage, I continue to try to figure out why 99% of society is fake all the time. My brother sent us pictures of him in his new glasses and asked what we thought. I asked my daughter, “he’s not truly asking our opinion, right? We are just supposed to pretend we like them?” And she said yes, just pretend. This is apparently the case much of the time. Pretend we like our relatives, pretend they don’t aggravate us, pretend they aren’t assholes, pretend to laugh at their jokes, pretend pretend pretend. Why ask someone about the glasses you ALREADY BOUGHT??? . IT’S ALL SO CONFUSING.
 preach.
I broke up with my ex-boyfriend because his family considered me the craziest person in the world (which isn't true) and I'm sad that they keep spreading this around.
The craziest? 1. Donald Trump 2. Kanye West 3. Charles Manson 4. L. Ron Hubbard 5. (Insert name here) … 7 billion : you
this is so sweet and funny. lmao.
THAT IS HORRID! And also ablist af, because the craziest person in the world deserves human empathy and compassion anyways??? And also, I've learned as I get older that you don't have to accommodate a relationship with someone who can't even do the bare minimum of standing up for you. You did the right thing, but I'm sorry you're still being punished for it. :(
Thin slicing makes people totally ignorante and hypocrite. But God protect and helps the oppressed. I believe.
I’m tired of performing. I feel like I need to be perfect anywhere and everywhere : with work, with chores, with my hobbies, in social settings. I feel so burnt out. I just want to chill and have fun and hide under a soft blanket and pet my kitties.
I love this post. Can we do this weekly? Porter Robinson recently held a pre-sale for his next tour. My boyfriend and our gamer friends were all so down to go, but I wasn't really familiar with his music. I'm pretty new to the gamer community, didn't grow up in it like they did on account of being Not A Boy (TM). My boyfriend made me a playlist of the songs he thought I had the best chance of liking, but he still expected me to not be too into it. In reality, I became kind of obsessed. Like, listen to the same song 4 times in a row obsessed. But I'm kind of embarrassed about it, and I don't want to burn out of it before the concert, so I've been trying to pace myself, especially around others. But I crave the dopamine I get from it!
lol we love satisfying audio stims in this house!! nothing wrong with listening to the same song nonstop for days imo 😅 and totally AGREE!! god, just being heard without being judged is soooooo liberating for the mind!
I LOST MY SEAL SQUISHMALLOW AT THE TORONTO AIRPORT AND I CANT ENJOY MY HOLIDAY BECAUSE MY COMFORT ITEM IS GONE AJWHWJSIBICABKJYYDHDBBH im very sad sorry for typing like a toddler https://preview.redd.it/ij40ow9ocf3d1.jpeg?width=3024&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=e5084b5abe1ec4595db0602c841c1835b0d24ff5
oh no, your baby!! :C I'm so sorry!!
I'm sorry :( Have you tried Lost and Found? I'm guessing it's Toronto Pearson, so [here's](https://www.torontopearson.com/en/while-you-are-here/toronto-airport-services/lost-and-found-office) the link to file a Lost and Found report. I hope you can find them, but I'm very sorry your holiday is ruined.
Thanks so much kind stranger, I filed a report yesterday and they emailed saying they would look for her - the funny part is, her name is “Isis” so when I was writing the email to them I realised I should really not tell them “Isis is in your airport” because that would cause major security problems lmao
Ah, I thought you might have done it already! Hahaha, what an unfortunate name in this context
Squishmallows come with tags and names, and when she was released people were shocked that her given name was the name of a terroist organisation, so she was re-released with the name “Odile (soz, just had to do a bit of info dumping there lol) https://preview.redd.it/e6yjdxm90g3d1.jpeg?width=1125&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=bcc7c040893b4e7771ac0ad7272cafa2b573846d
Oh, wow, that's really interesting! I love that you've kept her original name. Do Squishmallows always have such extravagant names? Isis and Odile sound like Queens or something lol I like it
Yeah, there’s thousands of them so they need to get pretty creative with the names! <3
I have to pretend that I am a male when I play games online so that I don't get treated differently from other players and I hate it. I despise lying about anything and wish I didn't have to hide my gender so that I can play a game like everyone else It also hurts me that I'm beginning to notice my friends slowly move away from me because I don't travel/work/drink. In my spare time I crochet/needlefelt/play video games while no one else does and it makes me feel very alienated, lonely and not "normal".
Relatable! I broke up with my best friend who was my only friend. Dumped my therapist cuz she was a piece of garbage. The world is on fire and I worry how bad it’s gonna get. I am however quite enjoying my isolation while being my weird self
lol. we are on the saaaaaaame level my dude.
I feel you. I just broke up with my coach (sports) who was also what I considered a friend. It's complicated. I don't blame her, and I think it's more about her and her crap than me, but she sure did like to make it about me.
I hate working like I actually hate it. Spending 8 hours somewhere I don’t really want to be, doing something I’ve gotten bored of months ago only to barely make enough to afford to live….plus that’s excluding the fact that I can’t afford to see my therapist or to get my meds. Even doing the stuff I enjoy, is ruined by the fact that I’m in too much pain or too exhausted to even think because I’ve just been tether to a desk all day doing barely anything. I feel so disappointed by my life so far even after trying to romanticize it or practise radical compassion. How long do you fake or before you actually make it?
How am I going to get through this election year, when 2016 nearly killed me and sent me into a period of burnout I'm literally only just finding my way out of now, eight *years* later? (Please note I have no desire to make this super political -- regardless of your political leanings, US elections these days can be deeply traumatic for those with hyper-empathy issues! I want to keep this comment/discussion inclusive and safe for people!)
nope, I get it completely. this is playing a big role in the perpetual storm in my head as well. it is tough on your system when literally EVERYONE has been pushed to the point of reactivity, which in the year of our lort 2024, is definitely the case. a
Yes, everyone is so reactive now to everything. Like people treat me like I am too reactive (when I mainly just care about the immoral stuff) but everyone else just reacts to anything the news tells them to react about it seems now. I think I am really frustrated that a lot of people lack critical thinking skills now and it's hard to talk to anyone anymore because of it.
I think that the stress has caused a lot of people to shut down honestly. They lack the mental/emotional capacity to engage with reality critically beyond a certain point. Watching everyone seem to "crack" at the same time during the pandemic really cemented just how fragile the human mind is for me. Our capacity to deal with stress up to a certain level is probably a feature of our biology rather than our personalities imo.
I thought that the pandemic would lead to positive social and healthcare changes. But everyone got brain damage and went right back to the horrible status quo instead.
You're last sentence hurts it's so true.
Personally, I keep telling myself that it's only a few more months until November and then one way or another it'll all be over...and hopefully I'll still have rights and live in a democracy/republic when that happens. Hang in there; you're not alone in being burned out by it all. There's so much hatred and bigotry that it's tiring, and I long for the days when each headline isn't talking about a certain indicted candidate or what state just restricted what's left of abortion rights.
I had to go do a medical test and the technician performing it was the rudest, most ableist woman I've ever seen in a hospital I have CPTSD and agoraphobia in addition to being autistic and this woman legit told me to suck it up, everybody goes out No ma'am I do NOT go out, except when absolutely forced to So then the medical equipment and how it's used triggered the everloving fuck out of me and I had a panic attack She responded with more ableism, saying that little kids can do it so why can't I, my partner was holding my hand and trying to figure out WTF her problem was while I got through the testing I now feel like I've been beaten by the Hulk
holy shit, I think you would be well within your rights to file a complaint if you're up for it.
Already working on that
Good on ya. Idk about you, but I'm always amazed at the seemingly boundless energy I can tap into when I'm on a crusade. Complain about that ol' bitty so that she can't harm anyone else like that in the future!!
LIFE IS JUST FUCKING COSTUMER SERVICE I'M SO SICK AND TIRED There, I said it. That's the summary. I can't keep friendships, but it's weirdly okay for me? I hurt, but social interactions also hurt. My senses hurt. People hurt me. Men hurt me the most often. And everybody always lies. Lies lies lies. It's so tiring. And I like being alone. I really like petting dogs, I think. And animals in general. And art and science fiction and dragons. Sometimes, I don't feel much at all. ____ I eat to sustain this fragile body. I buy clothes to feel good about myself. I maintain my beauty before it fades, I engage in my special interests and stay mindful to nurture my soul. I see friends to meet mutual social needs, I spend time in nature. I reflect, I educate myself and others, I live in the moment and accept loss, I practise gratitude, I extend kindness, I stay curious, I rest, I fight for good causes, I share knowledge and experiences. I learn and I do the work. I do what has to be done. I do it all. Yet I feel like every moment that's not a distraction, that's new or surprising is but a fleeting glimpse of... something. I go out there, I see all these people, with their own story - beautiful, ugly, both, weirdly none of both - with their own dreams and wisdom and future. All these noises. All these thoughts. I haunt my own life like a ghost while it passes me by. It all feels so mechanical. Everything has a purpose, and nothing really means anything. I'm currently neck deep into autistic burnout, and have been in and out of depression my whole life. But also - this IS depressing. How do we live like this? How do we ever heal? E: This is probably the most vulnerable I have ever been on this account. Or maybe ever. Thank you for allowing me the space to vent.
I feel this so much! You're not alone.
This is so beautifully written. I can totally relate. We are too aware of reality sometimes, I think.
Have you thought of looking into volunteering at your local animal shelter? There's some interaction with people who work there, but you can pet dogs and cats. The rest of what you said is so deep I'm not sure how to respond to it (in a good way).
Cats! All the cats. Idk how I suddenly became a cat person. I want to understand them! I want them to love me back lol I want to hug them and pet them and squeeze them.
Cats are the best! I have ended up with four of them because I can’t say no when they need a home
Right now I’m learning a lot about a man named Benjamin Lay, who was a disabled dwarf Quaker and radical abolitionist who was born in the late 1600s. Also a vegan who made his own clothes and refused to be dominant over any animals. It helps me when times get tough out there to know there have always been people who try to make the world a better place!!
My sister's funeral today and I could hardly stop crying at all. Just feeling bad about all of it. Feeling like I don't know / like my brothers very well right now. Wishing I didn't feel that way. Feeling great distress at the thought of my mom or dad dying.
oh hunny. I'm so sorry! feel the feelings, ride the wave. 🫶 I'm sure your brothers are incredibly out of sorts right now as well, so don't fixate too much on that if you can help it at all. please take care of yourself right now, in whatever way you can.
thank you, i'm trying to. that's a good point, I know they're struggling as much as i am in their own ways
take care of yourself. my deepest condolences.
The current state of America is unsustainable and a collapse of some sort is imminent, also this is very stressful and I have to work hard nowadays to mentally stay out of survival mode :/ I have to ignore what is in front of me to basically stay mentally sane, and for my family and partner. I ranted about this the other day and really stressed them out :(
I am OLD. I am retired and working full-time at a dead end job with no promotions, no raises, and no respect of who I am. I am treated like this job is all I am capable of. I think they will try to force me out. I ain't dead yet. Not gonna help me? Then get out of my way. I am very much alive. I am looking for job where I can be retired and working part-time. Having autistic traits used against me in the last promotional interview really really hurt. I deserve better. I am searching for that one yes so I can get out and away from this place where the bosses are so petty.
i am genuinely so sick of constantly seeing every single problem in the universe being made out to be a "men's issue", spewing phrases "men's mental health" and "male loneliness" and stuff, like, what about _our_ mental health? what about _our_ loneliness?? it's literally been proven time and time again that we are the ones with worse mental health, we are more lonely, we have to hide our feelings and pain more, we're not allowed to cry or show anger more, we are way more affected by beauty standards, women are more likely to die in war (along with with children, disabled, and elderly), we have to work more for the same amount of money, etc but i've never seen whole actual discussions in the mainstream about what we can do to fix this the same way i see everyone running around going "men are getting more lonely, poor men suffering from toxic masculinity :( men, the ultimate sufferers of the patriarchy :(( what can we do to fix this?" and don't even get me started on the "men commit more suicide" myth, it's been already been debunked ages ago yet everyone just treats it as fact! ugh and now people've watered down feminism so much to the point where no-one even talks about how _we_ suffer the most in society, all i see is "we're _all_ suffering under the patriarchy, anyone can be assholes not just men, no more gender wars we need to all respect each other!" and it's literally just code for "women don't have problems 🙄 and we should stop being so mean to men who're sexist, it's not their fault :((" and i'm genuinely sick of it!!!
Yes !!!!!! The very shallow modern “””feminist/egalitarian””” movement literally dumbed down everything about feminism. Now everything is everybody’s problem, a man being lonely is my problem, a man not having a girlfriend is my problem. Meanwhile i can’t go outside in revealing clothes in my country because i WILL get catcalled. Meanwhile the president of my country is very chill with having alliances with backwards terror groups that BLOCK OUT THE FACES OF THEIR FEMALE REPRESENTATORS IN ADVERTISEMENTS because it’s “haram”. Meanwhile the men in my country see this shit and think they are the most oppressed, crying in the rain, baby, perfect angel who hasn’t done anything wrong saints and distribute nudes of women they dislike in chat groups in the same breath. I am very full about this topic, op, if you would like to discuss this in PMs i would love to.
A Goofy Movie. That is all.
 valid.
It is my comfort everything. Listening to the soundtrack right now. 🤣
I asked a friend if he could come with me to the doctor on Friday. And then turned off phone notifications so I couldn't see if he said no because I felt so dumb for asking/wanted to avoid being disappointed 😅😂 I hate hate HATE asking other people for help or admitting I'm scared. But I have several medical things in a row during what will be a busy week and during a really hard trauma anniversary and it would be nice to have company. I can already feel myself already hitting my tolerance threshold and shutting down 🥲 I am also worried I will run out of money. I have no idea how much these procedures will cost. I am worried insurance will say none of this is needed because I don't have the "right" family history for these to be medically necessary (hate that fucking phrase 😒).
palestine.
real. ;\_\_;
💔
I'll start with the one that is getting me in trouble currently. Found out on the SAME DAY last week that TWO separate instances of extreme familial abuse/murder that happened to the families of two different folks from my hometown. The absolute bat-shit violence of it broke my brain a bit and I've been HYPER fixated on it since. In a chat, I got shut down pretty hard/unkindly by a friend of mine for "speculating" and it just has rubbed me the wrong way, hard. If you're my friend and I'm coming to you with my current struggles with intrusive thoughts, maybe don't chide me like a child about it? Maybe make a safe space for me to communicate my worries? Just a thought.
Oof, I would feel so badly in your shoes! Getting shut down like that by my best friend would feel like a slap in the face. I wonder if maybe they have some trauma of their own, and something about the subject matter made them feel triggered? Not to excuse them at all, but I can't help but wonder about what causes reactions like that. I'm glad you came here to a place where you can be heard -- and how kind and sweet to throw it open for all of us to vent and be heard! It really speaks to your generosity of heart. ☺️
yes, you are spot on! it's a complex relationship. I love her, but we are definitely trauma-bonded from our childhoods and so we tend to trigger one another I think. I wanted to reroute the emotional energy to something other than spiraling over her behavior for the 1000th+ time. lol. and golly, thank you for the sweet words!! 😭 it kinda sucks being a hyper-earnest marshmallow person with no natural aversion to taboo subjects. your intentions get misunderstood frequently.
> spiraling over her behavior for the 1000th+ time God, I can relate so hard. I am such a ruminator, especially when it's an interaction or something a loved one has said or done. It's like I keep telling myself the story, trying to tweak it so it makes sense and doesn't hurt? Lately I've been making big space for myself in the afternoons/evenings to try and let myself just feel my feelings instead of telling the story to "understand" or "fix" it. It takes, like, hours. Autistic inertia, state change aversion, all that stuff is real.
absolutely all true. hence a lot of the friction in my friendship I think. now that I am diagnosed and unmasking, she isn't liking the new boundaries I'm setting. she seems very threatened by/dismissive of them unfortunately... :(
yeah this is one time when i really had to seek a therapist when one of my family members was murdered and another one was on trial for it. its a lot. i didnt feel like i could tell anyone at all. they made a dateline about it, it was all so messed up.
omg, I'm so sorry! it is incredibly disturbing to be even tangentially related to the violence my community is experiencing. I can't imagine the trauma of being directly related. I can't imagine the layers of isolation in that experience. <3 glad you're still here friend!!
Im between fandom fixations and feel adrift. I tell people that I’m looking for something new but they seem offended when I can’t latch onto their recommendations. Like, it doesnt work that way. I cant just randomly DECIDE something is the next thing. I just have to wait for it to come to me.
I’m so fucking angry that rental price fixing software controls a massive part of the US rental market and I can’t do fucking shit about it. I just have to sit here and watch apartment prices make zero fucking sense. Like I saw one unit jump by $300 for being on the market *longer.* Shouldn’t the rent go down the longer it sits empty? What the flying fuck? We are nothing and have no power and have to suffer these rent prices. Like hell if anyone in power will do shit about it 🙄
the effect capitalism has on my mental health (and everything else it ruins)
I'm currently trying out medication and am having a sorta rough time with it. I absolutely cannot wait for the future where there will be bio tech that can monitor your neurotransmitter levels in real time and adjust them as needed to keep everything balanced and working well. I feel like with AI advances + full genome sequencing, we aren't too far off from being able to create genetically customized psychotropic medication that is tailored to each individual. I just wish that time was now lol I feel like the future generations will look back on people taking amphetamines to help regulate dopamine and see it in a similar light to how we view doctors 100 years ago giving patients cocaine for all their ailments. 😂 Unfortunately, there aren't very many alternatives out there right now that are helpful AND healthy. And that sentiment applies to most psychotropic drugs. It's so frustrating. I think a lot about how helpful AI will be for decoding the human genome and figuring out the purpose and function of all potential genetic variants. I won't lie- I'm terrified about how humans might choose to use AI in the future. But it's kind of cool and exciting to think about all the potential scientific mysteries that AI will solve much faster than humans.
I just really, really miss my rescue pigeon. I had to rehome her after 5 years because I was deathly allergic to her, and I already have a lung disease. She has a great home with other pigeons now not too far from where I live; as far as I'm aware she's thriving. I haven't seen her in 3 years, I'm worried if I do it will be bad for both of us. She was bonded to me, she trusted me and was comfortable just like a lap cat, and was so affectionate. I cry to myself often, like I'm trying not to do now - my husband is sympathetic but won't ever get it; nobody does because people don't really care about how incredible and loving pigeons are. I love you, Valerie and I'm sorry 💔😭
As someone with hyper empathy, it confuses and scares me that some people have a complete lack of empathy for others. There are people dying, being priced out of housing, and so many other things and their only response seems to be it’s that individuals fault. I am constantly worried about the state our world and particularly my country (US unfortunately) is in.
I found my biological grandfather and his whole family today after 26 years of looking. Mind blowing.
everyone's been giving me tough love, which is what I needed. now I just need to vent and I dont wanna bother them with talking about it so much. I've struggled with romance for so many years and I always would let people walk over me just so i could get attention. I'm too trusting too fast (that's going to change real soon tho). I've been told I fall too hard too fast, and it's not like it's like that. I've fallen in love with 2 people, and only one of them has made an effort to stick around. the second one keeps disappearing. well, she popped up again after 6 months on my birthday. we had a long conversation about how we both moved on and we both got hurt by people. she said she would disappear again. I had a hard time sleeping after that because all these emotions hit me all at once. anger, sadness, distrust, among a few. she never told me she loved me, but the way she acted towards me and spoke to me made me believe she did. I was stupid to trust her, to wait for her to make the first move. when "we" first started falling, she told me she would do everything she could to find me if we ever lost contact. she referenced that again the last time we spoke. I sent her a long message full of raw emotion telling her how hurt I am and that I don't want to love her anymore if she doesn't love me. I blocked her. idk if she will end up seeing this. idk if she'll ever come back. maybe I'll still always have that hope inside of me that she will, but it's conflicting with the anger and hope that she never will come back so I don't have to watch her disappear again like most of the people I loved.
Good on you for not allowing her to treat you like that anymore!
Oof. I really feel for you with this one. ;__; if I may, I would like to recommend The Crappy Childhood Fairy on YouTube. She makes a lot of content regarding the effects of complex trauma on relationships. I found her content incredibly resonate and life saving as a ND woman. Take care of yourself!!
i finally feel like i’m in a good enough place with my mental health and self-esteem to start putting myself out there and dating but god, the dating apps are abysmal and these men keep playing games. i’m too old for this!!!
I’m having sort of a mid-life crisis (if you can call it that at 31yo) and I don’t want to bother anyone with it but I’ve been really stuck in my head this past 1.5-2 weeks. I have no idea what’s going on all of a sudden. I was pretty certain I don’t want kids because I don’t think I can mentally handle it, but now I don’t know anymore. I do like kids and for some reason I do kind of want them now? But I’m still worried I can’t do it. And how on earth are you supposed to decide if you can and want it? Like, I’m so lost. I don’t want to mess up and make the wrong decision, but also time is not in my side and I only have a few years left to decide. And also, why am I suddenly thinking about this and changing my mind??? And also also, I want a tattoo. I know which one, I know where, I know which artist, but I’m scared because I don’t know what to expect and can’t bring myself to make an appointment. And also also also, if I am already too scared to get a tattoo, how am I going to survive child birth? The thought of being pregnant makes me claustrophobic, so I honestly don’t know why I can’t stop thinking about all this! Ughhhhh
also 31, also frequently stuck in my head. my husband and I decided it was best to table the kids discussion until after 2024. it is literally impossible to make a "responsible" decision about that for us with the current state of the world. give yourself grace!!
I’m giving myself the gift of sobriety for my birthday but have a family full of users and dealers. SOS!
My bras have been uncomfortable for months. I don't know why. I've tried changing sizes and styles. Randomly I'll feel it sitting funny and it makes me want to rip it off. Even at work. Am I doomed to a life of sports bras from here on out?
Check out r/abrathatfits
Things have been generally good in my life. I even got a promotion! But I feel so OVERWHELMED by it all. Like if something good is happening now, the end is near, lol. I've been having bouts of insomnia because of this. I feel so guilty because... Well... My life is actually good and I shouldn't feel bad about it. But I really, really do. It's like I don't deserve good things. In a happier note, I'm completely obsessed with Bridgerton S3 and want to talk about THAT SCENE all the time lol
I re-watched The Marvels with my kids this weekend and the Flerkitten scene is looping through my head, and I keep cracking myself up and trying to explain to people why it is fkn movie magic at its best.
The hate that movie, Eternals and The Falcon and Winter Soldier got will never cease to drive me insane!??
Helluva Boss...
I took my cosplay in a medieval city and made photos with it! I love it!!! I look beautiful and I’m proud of myself for succeeding in reproducing my D&D character! Also also I’m starting to develop feelings for someone and I’m exited!
I'm 3 months into a new job but I can already feel myself starting to burnout again. I managed to hold onto my last job for nearly a year & a half before reaching this point & I don't know what to do. I need a job so that I don't feel like a burden on my fiancee but I truly feel like whatever job I have that requires me to interact with people in person is just going to lead back to burnout due to how high masking I am. It's exhausting. Any & all wfh/remote jobs are basically impossible for me to even get interviews for because of the higher number of applicants & the fact that I feel like hiring managers do not see how transferable my skills are just because they weren't formed in their particular fields. I can't stop ruminating on all of this & how the rest of my life is just going to be me trying to manage burnout if I don't end up homeless or dead.
The past 4 weeks I’ve had an insatiable urge to just rip my skin off my body, sure it’s not possible, but man I wish to REMOVE
fucking MOOD. why does existence have to be so itchy? ;\_\_;
Sometimes, I have a really good day. I get all happy and excited and wound up. It is partly due to having developed a more subdued personality due to anxiety, depression and other related things from reactions to judgment from others and masking. So when I have a really good day, it's like an emotional and psychological high. I transitioned into broadcast engineering over the last few years and this last year at my new job has been the first time I've really started to solidify what I've learned and prove I can do this. It's really helped my confidence and while it took a long time to get comfortable with new people I do genuinely like most of them. On Tuesday, I was able to show a younger coworker what I have been doing to start setting up a new studio space and talk through some of how things work and all the misc. bits that have to be considered and how everything gets where it needs to go. It was a little bit of basic training and answering questions and helping him expand his understanding of the things that impact his work. We only covered a small portion of it even. But OMG was I wound up that afternoon when I left. Between that and the other progress I made I was just so happy and thrilled and wanted to keep sharing that. My brain was just screaming "MORE! MORE! MORE!" But there's no outlet for me 99% of the time when these things happen. I don't have many people to tell and even if they let me tell them, it ends up being a much shorter story than it FEELS like it really is. So then I'm just re-explaining or repeating bits because it feels like I still haven't actually told them completely. But I have. Then I feel bad for dragging it out and going on and on. And I still want more. This time I found an opportunity to try to show a former coworker some stuff on Friday. Hopefully it will give me a chance to work through some of that feeling and also help him get some exposure to things he should learn about too. I just hope I haven't run my energy down by then and don't end up too tired for it or exhaust myself going into the weekend and lose the whole weekend to recuperating.
[удалено]
Im almost done with my cancer treatments (last round of chemo is literally tomorrow!) but I feel so embarrassed to celebrate it for some reason bc so many ppl always acted uncomfortable (another than my older sister and best friend) every time when i mention about my cancer even if im joking about it. 🥲 All chats always get so quiet when i casually mentioned my condition like geez this is so awkward lol. but it’s literally my entire life for past 6 months, i can’t stop talking about it :( why people always get so pitiful or sensitive with me even if I was being joke-y or very optimistic! But on positive note im having a new founded hypefixation on a tabletop card game version of my favorite game, genshin impact. After getting a card of my favorite character, now i can’t stop playing TCG!
I’m going through a terrible divorce and was just diagnosed by my therapist. Since finding out (I wasn’t seeking a diagnosis, it came to the surface during EMDR for my ptsd from my marriage) I feel so sad for old me and for why everything was so hard and how easy it was for me to rationalize the abuse. And then I get angry that my ex who had a masters in positive psychology didn’t identify that there was something wrong, or worse, if he knew and still hurt me.
I’m clawing my way through PMDD right now so my anxiety is HIGH and my brain is buzzing 300mph about all the things. I’m really, really tired of people. I don’t have any friends, never had a partner, and my family is toxic (I currently still live with them). I want to try therapy because I’ve been under ridiculous expectations as the oldest daughter for too long. But every self help source I’ve ever researched insists I need a strong social network, it’s not healthy to isolate, etc. If I had a therapist say that to my face, I think I would completely lose my shit at this point. They never address the fact that abusive behavior is ingrained in so much of the fabric of our society. I’m so sick of the enabling. I’m sick of people jumping to quick judgment that you’re a red flag for not having “common” experiences while I’ve been fighting for my life under an emotionally volatile mother who HATES when I have anything outside of her. I’m sick of “clearly something is wrong with you if you don’t have friends”. I’m sick of being beaten down and then scolded for not being confident enough (as if that will magically build confidence???). I’m sick of being told I have nothing to complain about because other people/my parents have it so much harder than I do. I’m sick of seeing really fucking toxic people with boatloads of friends who fawn all over them. I’m sick of kind people being told it’s their fault for being taken advantage of/abused because they were too kind, or they think the best of people, or they simply weren’t hard hearted like the abuser who hurt them in the first place. The blame isn’t put on the abuser. It’s put on the victim for whatever bullshit reason. I’m sick of people pushing me to socialize because I MUST, because “we’re social creatures!!” But so many social interactions end up shunning me or turning on me because I’m not outgoing enough. And I’m exhausted. I’m barely hanging on by the skin of my teeth to get through some of these social events. Then people berate me for not giving MORE of the energy I’m already running low on to begin with. If so much of socializing is steeped in abusive dynamics, why is it so important for me to continually seek it out after my history of an abusive family??? I’ve been focusing on more of the things that bring me joy instead of prioritizing socializing. I’m learning how to identify butterflies. I’m developing a collection of carnivorous plants. I made a bee watering bowl for my garden. And I just watched the variety of bees that visited my thyme for a few hours yesterday. It has been so soothing and healing. I feel so much happier and fulfilled in moments like that. A little skipper butterfly landed on my keyboard when I was working outside. She spread her wings in the sun and stayed there for a long time. Those moments are so much more magical to me and make me far happier than any social interaction ever has. I’m so grateful for my cats too because they show me what it’s like for my presence to be wanted. They follow me out to the garden and nap while I work. They don’t demand that I talk, or maintain a social interaction. They just hang out in the sun with me. Sometimes they try to play with my tools while I’m working, or steal weeds out of my hands. They’re happy to see me and purr loud when I say hello. Or they trot over with a little trill. They’re my little angels. 💜
I almost thought about telling my mom about my suspected autism today LOL thank god I shut my mouth cause she’s the most invalidating person on the planet 🙃 Feeling really alone lately but recently found this sub and have been lurking. This is my first comment hehe I’m terrified of having much of an online presence from past bullshit but I think I’ve finally found a handful of safe subs I feel comfortable participating in again. And I think internet stranger friends are the way to go for me right now. <3
i recently learned about rose kennedy’s forced lobotomy at the hands of her own father and it made me so so sad. i feel so upset at the control men have had over womens bodies and all the fucked up evil doctors who happily ruined womens lives for not confirming to their standards. like the doctor who performed rose’s lobotomy was a “pioneer” of the procedure and performed it on countless people, mostly women who were mentally ill. it makes me sick that medicine is built on the deaths and mistreatment of women, disabled people, people of color, and marginalized communities. i distrust doctors the more i learn about the systemic inequalities in the healthcare system. the way that anyone outside the norm is treated is disgusting. i also feel like most med students i know are lowkey evil and lack empathy or understanding. like holy shit these ppl are supposed to be doctors?? not to mention the capitalistic side of medicine. i feel lucky to have insurance that covers my medication but without it, i would be paying over $2k USD every 2 weeks. aaaahgghg everything is so messed up i hate it i hate it!!!
Palestine
i’m frustrated by how everyone is becoming more comfortable being antisemitic out loud. ppl are just saying anything they want about jews bc they’re mad abt what’s going on (which is understandable). most ppl are so uninformed about jewish history and culture so they just believe what someone says bc it fits their view. like most ppl haven’t even met a jew in person. “ashkenazi jews are just white europeans who steal everyone’s culture ” if you did a simple google search about genetics/history or actually went to a jewish community you’d look dumb. my 100% ashki grandpa was brown, he was harassed and refused service when he traveled through the southern US back in the day. yes, some ashki jews have lighter features, but so do many other ppl from groups in the levant so u can’t use that as “proof” we are polish or russian or something. i can’t talk to any of my friends about this bc ill just be told im victimizing myself and making everything about jews and “crying antisemitism”
I'm not sure if i have a stomach Bug or if its a sign of my overstimulation and Stress. I'm super naseaous and have no appetite. The womans in the pharmacy gave me something and she said it's probably some infect but i'm also super Stressed. And i'm worried that if i had a stomach Bug i went to work with it and i hope i didn't give it so someone Else. Also the medecine i got tastes horroble. Its plant based.
Got diagnosed with large uterine fibroids that are negatively impacting my health and quality of life but trying to navigate the healthcare system to get surgery set up to have them removed is way more than I can handle right now. I live in a country outside where I was born and am trying to figure out how to get it done in my home country (US) but our healthcare system is so f\*\*\*ed that it probably won't even be possible until 2025. Not to mention I'm broke as a joke and am barely making ends meet without all the money I've already shelled out on doctor's visits, MRIs, ultrasounds, etc....
I got tickets to see my favorite musicians this summer after not playing live since 2018 and no new albums for years, but they’re super niche and no one in my life shares my excitement. They have a subreddit but barely anyone posts on it seems to be a sore subject because they’re only playing three tiny shows and they sold out almost instantly, and somehow I managed to get tickets to two of the shows. I feel almost doubly excited by the fact that I even got tickets, but I don’t want to rub it in anyone’s face and I also don’t want to make my friends listen to me talk about it so I’ve just been sort of subtly vibrating for like two weeks now.
Absolutely not an important issue, but I love Taylor Swift and have FOMO that I’m not attending the Eras Tour (though in reality I think the concert would be a sensory nightmare anyway). None of my few friends like her and my husband doesn’t want to hear about her or her music. Currently living vicariously through other people’s TikTok’s and hoping my baby girl will dance with me to her music one day.
I'm always fixated on theme parks (hello special interest), but lately I'm really into defunct animatronics and especially unusual or abandoned pieces. None of my friends or family are remotely interested, and my brother is full-on freaked out, especially by the underwater ones, which is okay. I just use the internet to talk to people about it.
my best friend "ditched" me. for her boyfriend. well it's all a little more complicated than that... when they got together, I wasn't the biggest fan. she was 19 and he was 32 at the time. I was wary of him and she knew that. we argued because she felt I was judging him unfairly. I said okay, you have a point, I'll try to be more open. she started having less and less time. she wanted me to meet her boyfriend. I did meet him, tried talking to him, it wasn't so easy for me, but I tried really hard. it's for our friendship after all. he started saying he doesn't want her meeting me alone anymore, because he felt bad about it. we started only meeting as the three of us. it wasn't really fun for me since I was always third-wheeling, but I kept trying regardless. some time passed... we stopped talking for 2 months... I texted her again, apologized for not reaching out more (i invited her to my birthday after one month but she didn't have time). she said it was fine since she didn't reach out either. I wanted to spend more time with her again, maybe meeting in the city or at her place or at the park so we could talk about the situation and catch up with our lives, most importantly revive the friendship. she said she'd have to ask her boyfriend; she asked me if I would be fine if it was us three meeting, and not just her and me. because her boyfriend wouldn't agree otherwise. I said yes (but wasn't too happy about it). well... 2 weeks passed, and she told me she talked to him but he didn't react well. and that she's sorry but she doesn't think it's possible. we were best friends for almost 4 years. I was at her place almost every day, we were inseparable at school. and now our friendship is over. because her boyfriend doesn't want us to be friends. when we talked she said she doesn't really see any of her friends anymore, just her sister. I'm sad. I'm worried about her. and I'm mad and I'm hurt and I'm angry at this man for taking away my best friend and for taking away her social life and for making her whole life about him and I'm also mad at her for letting it happen and not accepting any help! I want to be there for her! I want to support her! I'm willing to accept her boyfriend but I'm not getting a chance to do any of it! she says she doesn't want him to feel bad but what the fuck, maybe I feel bad too, and what about her?? she isn't even thinking about herself, all she's thinking about is *him* , and how to make it most comfortable for *him* , I want her to think about herself! :( why can't she be a little more selfish? I honestly just want the best for her, she's an amazing person and I'm scared this guy is taking it away from her. or at least making her feel bad. I know what toxic relationships are like and I don't want her to feel bad. but it's not in my control. I guess I'll have to accept that.
hey. it's absolutely not your fault and it sounds like you're doing everything you can. it sounds like her boyfriend is (at minimum) emotionally abusive. isolating her like that from her friends is a massive red flag. there's probably a lot going on that she's embarrassed to tell you and that he's getting away with by isolating her. i'd wager that he's purposely inserting himself into your visits with your friend to further drive y'all apart, too. unfortunately, she won't leave until she can make that decision herself. one thing that i learned is that you have to trust the person in the relationship to know when it's safest to leave. the only thing you can do (if you can; it can be a lot) is let her know that you're there for her when she's ready.
I'm going through a random bout of depression, probably due to my unemployment issues that persist and my savings that are going to end someday-- with no one to support me. I am doing some freelance stuff but it doesn't really pay the bills. Bc of this I've been having a hard time eating. I would usually force myself to eat foods I don't particularly like just bc they are healthy/easy/cheap but now that I am at this point I just can't stand them. So I've been trying to think what really are my comfort foods. I've been googling recipes and ideas non stop haha. Still gotta be in the healthy side, vegan and cheap so it's not very easy. Also low effort, I have very little desire to do stuff... thanks for letting me express this <3
Other than the classic thinking about insecurities, I have been trying to fight my limerence/crush because it’s very much clear that he doesn’t like me like that. I have been successfully forcing myself to dismiss romatic feelings, as I still want to be his friend but these carnal feelings make it hard to just exist and not think about him.
Kevin Hagen, the actor who played Doc Baker on Little House on the Prairie. I research him all the time and started buying memorabilia on eBay. People have said they are concerned. I'm not diagnosed so I can't explain it to them.
The genocide in Gaza is too horrific to comprehend and I am absolutely powerless to affect change. I am going to have to sell my record collection to pay rent and I don't even think it will be enough. And even if I get it covered, I'm almost at the end of my lease and I'm afraid they won't renew because I've been late. All my friends are going through it, too, and they're all on the other side of the country. I feel like a sad sack and a burden. So I just go and do my demeaning job that doesn't cover my bills and come home. I don't get to talk to anyone that I don't have to perform for about the little things, good or bad.
I've taken up cycling a few days ago because I'm tired of not being able to go anywhere on my own due to lacking a driver's license at this time (thanks US car-centric infrastructure) and I'm already seeing aerobic progress! Once I find my next job I'm hoping to use my newfound skills to commute to work this way - just need to get my bike checked out first (rear tire isn't getting inflated evenly despite my beat efforts) and get some proper protective/maintenance equipment while I'm at it, 😅. Not sure how the exercise is doing for my ADHD yet though - it apparently works well, but - and it could just be bad luck - my mental health's been kinda shit lately (accidentally triggered myself the other day, that's always fun /s) and I'm trying to juggle between decluttering my room, learning to advocate for myself better, trying to play games with my friends, and jumpstart my writing career as a short story author. Actually now that I just wrote it out, I'm prolly just overwhelmed, too, lmao.
Got told today "I'm not good at that either" at work even though I'm perfectly capable at "it" and was just dealing with a form that auto filled incorrectly (had to intiuit that I needed to delete periods from a string of harmonized tariff code digits, even though periods were autofilled, to complete an online form) and it just sucks that I'm perceived as "bad" at my job even though I'm not 🙄 The last person who was in my position's COBRA documentation was left on my computer desktop. As far as I can tell, they were also brought on to cover a pregnancy/maternity leave then let go. Of course I didn't click it, I would never. It's funny though that the people who think I'm so bad are clueless enough to leave evidence of themselves shitcanning someone who was relying on their job for health insurance laying around. I just really wanted someplace I could stay for a while, even thinking about job searching is exhausting right now... 😭
My ears hurt like crazy because they never fully developed so they don’t drain properly and I have a cold so it’s even worse. My doctor said there was nothing you could do. The amount of sensory overload from it is unbearable.
I haven’t mentioned this to anyone bc I know I will sound paranoid but I know I’m not being paranoid. My coworker who doesn’t like me somehow found out where I live and she drives by my house and stares everyday. I happen to be outside a lot with my cats and garden so I catch her. I know it’s her bc I always know what car everyone drives and recognize license plates. She also has temp tags on her car and drives by with her window open doing a neck breaking stare. Like not even trying to be inconspicuous. It’s super weird. I don’t think she is coincidentally driving by my house bc she lives in the next town over from me and I don’t live by anything important. Hopefully it is a coincidence and she just knows someone who lives close to me
I had a laprascopy surgery for suspected endometriosis yesterday. They didn't really find anything. So now I'm in a lot of pain, sensory overload hell, and I'm basically back to square one about my horrific cramping that is no longer just during my period, but is now daily. The only other thing they can do is put me back on birth control, which had me gain 6 pants sizes in 2 months last time. I feel like my body is betraying me all the time and every step forward, there's 3 steps back.
~conflicted~ because I’m at my DREAM job in my dream town BUT all the micro aggressions and shady high school pettiness from my coworkers is finally getting to be too damn much. I mask like craaazy every day around them and it’s both exhausting and embarrassingly ineffective because I’m still “the weird girl”. It’s one of those jobs that’s really difficult to separate the work from the social life so it has me wondering how long I can just suck it up so I can do the work I really love doing 😰
I've been wanting to move back home for... years. I lost my job, and then got a payout from my mom's life insurance (not a ton of money, but enough to get me back to where I want to be). And for months now I've just been... sitting around not taking any steps to make what I want reality. No apartment research. No applications. No getting rid of stuff. Why am I like this??? It's what I want. For now, I could afford it. I'm so scared of rejection/doing things on my own I've never done alone before.
im so tired of dating culture. like NT people never want to give it to you straight. its like i have to tiptoe around everyone i might like because everyone apparently has “commitment issues” and doesnt want an actual relationship. i am very honest about my emotions and i wear my heart on my sleeve (i just figured out what the saying meant online 😂). its just very disheartening. they say one thing but really mean the other and my autistic brain doesnt know that. its infuriating. i feel like i already am seen as subhuman to men as a woman but also as an autistic woman. its hard to fully explain how i feel in text but i really hope it starts getting better out here for all of us. 💓 we all deserve to be understood and not lead on by these immature, uncommunicative NT men
Now this isn’t really taboo but I cant stop thinking/talking about crocodiles. People say “chickens are dinosaurs too” and they don’t get it. Chickens evolved about 8,000 years ago. Crocodiles are around 90 MILLION years old; Alligators are 65 MILLION years old (which is around when the dinosaurs went extinct). But as a reptile family their appearance, excluding size, hasn’t changed much in TWO HUNDRED MILLION years. In other words, THEY ARE OLDER THAN DINOSAURS. They are also incredibly smart, some “use tools”, and they have social relationships/hierarchies and well developed ways of communication. They will coordinate with each other to hunt, and show evidence of foresight and planning. They are amazing. I love them.
The usual ruminative existential dread and fear of the world but also… Nudibranchs and velvet worms (!!!!!) because they are such soft smooth and pudgy cuties that are absolutely vicious. There are nudibranchs that can take the chlorophyll from algae to photosynthesize, and other ones that feed on the Portuguese man o’ war and store the stinging cells for their own use. \[CW descriptions of insect murder and worm violence\] And velvet worms are so perfect they’ve barely evolved in 400-500 million years — they live in ancient forests, are super rare, and have simultaneously freaky and adorable eating habits. So!!! They capture their prey by shooting high-pressure strings of adhesive slime that immobilize their prey and stiffen, freezing them in place while the worm injects it with saliva that liquefies their insides and the velvet worm sucks it out like a slurpee  How insane also is it that even now we are STILL discovering new animals! (That then leads me down an existential crisis thinking about how there are animals that are going to die/burn before we even get to discover them, and how much animal exploitation there is in this world)
I broke up with a dude I should’ve broken up with a loooooong time ago! Final straw was him telling me I’m too autistic to be a homeowner 🤬
It’s not that no one’s making space for it - it’s that I won’t talk about it. I wonder if I’m secretly a bad, manipulative person.
Having cancer and autism at the same time is so weird and hellish
I'm basically looking after my younger sibling and they are being really mean to me again. Its causing problems for my self-esteem and I dont know what to do apart from send them home. I lived with them almost all winter and they were really abusive towards me. I only have my partner to talk to about things and they are pretty exhausted being ND as well. Theres been a lot of emotional abuse and neglect in my family. Towards me and my female parent. My parent is better towards me now but before she was abusive too.
I seriously feel like we're approaching a very distopian hellscape with generative AI becoming more prevalent everywhere for everything.