Personal Woes and Advice 5

[Bartmanhomer]

I was hit by a car coming at 80km/h (~50mph), and started dissociating pretty heavily. Last night was basically just nightmares. I keep on blaming myself.

OMG! Are you ok?

[factotum]

I was hit by a car coming at 80km/h (~50mph), and started dissociating pretty heavily. Last night was basically just nightmares. I keep on blaming myself.

Jeez, hope you weren't too badly hurt? Why are you blaming yourself for getting hit by a car, though?

[JNAProductions]

I was hit by a car coming at 80km/h (~50mph), and started dissociating pretty heavily. Last night was basically just nightmares. I keep on blaming myself.

I'm gonna second the other people here and be confused as to why you're blaming yourself for this.

However, fell better! We all hope you're not too badly hurt, and if we can do anything to speed your recovery, let us know!

[2D8HP]

I was hit by a car coming at 80km/h (~50mph), and started dissociating pretty heavily. Last night was basically just nightmares. I keep on blaming myself.

That's horrible!

So glad you survived, hope you heal well.

[FinnLassie]

I turned left and didn't notice the vehicle.

Edit: I was driving, which probably didn't come clear in my intiial message

[HalfTangible]

It's natural to blame yourself for something that happened while you were in charge/control of the situation. That does not mean that you should, nor that it was your fault.

I wish you a good and speedy recovery

[Comrade]

So... I didn't get accepted into the university I applied to. This was not an unexpected outcome-- if anything, I was well aware it was probable. I'm paying for the failures of my early academic career. The first couple of years I was in a mathematics-heavy major (and had very little aptitude for mathematics) and was also dealing with some serious depression at the time, so my GPA emerged from that period pretty beat up. Between that and the fact that I'd only just switched to the major I was applying to transfer for and begun taking classes in it, I figured I probably wasn't going to make the cut. And I told myself that'd be okay. I made mistakes, I learned from them, now is the time I make up for them.

But I guess a part of me just thought I'd be persuasive enough in the essay portion of the application to overcome the other factors, and the fact that I wasn't is a blow to the ol' ego. Not to mention the fact that since I started going to school again I've gotten straight As every quarter and it still hasn't been enough to raise my GPA meaningfully, which makes it feel like my past failures have three times as much weight as my current successes. Like the ten As and A+s I've gotten since I returned to school aren't enough to offset a couple of Fs I got three years ago.

I don't know. It's a weird feeling. I'm not even that bummed out, because like I said, I went into it knowing I was still working off past failures, knowing I probably wasn't going to make the cut. And there's some consolation in looking at the grades I've gotten since I went back, even if they don't seem to make much of a dent. But it does kind of feel like there's not much point even bothering, and I hate that feeling.

[Jay R]

But I guess a part of me just thought I'd be persuasive enough in the essay portion of the application to overcome the other factors, and the fact that I wasn't is a blow to the ol' ego.

Never count on the essay. The essay matters only in a few marginal cases.

To be fair, I only know about the admissions policies of two universities. In both of them, if the GPA and/or test scores are high enough, admission is automatic. If they are low enough, then non-acceptance is automatic.

In both cases, nothing else is even looked at. And this covers the majority of the applicants.

They look at all the other things only in the cases that are unsure.

In one application, I just threw together a quick, meaningless, hand-written essay, because I knew nobody would read it. But until it was submitted, the application would never be considered.

[AuthorGirl]

Right, here goes.

Up until today, I was an interviewer on a Discord server. The server is, explicitly and purely, a safe space for lesbian and bi women to talk to one another and make friends.

My responsibility was to filter out the trolls by interviewing new members and evaluating them.

I messed up.

About five or six people joined the server (I interviewed most of them myself), acted perfectly normal for a day and a half, then posted a lot of absolutely disgusting, pornographic, gory and awful images. At least three of our members had PTSD flashbacks.

I didn't have the required permissions to delete messages; the mods had to take care of my screwup, and they had to look at the things to do it.

I apologized to everyone, quit as an interviewer (don't worry, we have others), and I won't be active on that server (or anyplace on Discord) for a while.

I just . . . so much guilt. I know those girls, I care about them, and furthermore I was supposed to protect them from this exact thing. It was my screwup that hurt them and I couldn't even fix it. I don't think I can even make it up to them.

I think I'll be hiding under blankets for the next few days.

Just . . . needed to vent, I suppose. And if anyone has advice (though I don't think there's much I can really do here), that would be appreciated too.

[HalfTangible]

Right, here goes.

Up until today, I was an interviewer on a Discord server. The server is, explicitly and purely, a safe space for lesbian and bi women to talk to one another and make friends.

My responsibility was to filter out the trolls by interviewing new members and evaluating them.

I messed up.

About five or six people joined the server (I interviewed most of them myself), acted perfectly normal for a day and a half, then posted a lot of absolutely disgusting, pornographic, gory and awful images. At least three of our members had PTSD flashbacks.

I didn't have the required permissions to delete messages; the mods had to take care of my screwup, and they had to look at the things to do it.

I apologized to everyone, quit as an interviewer (don't worry, we have others), and I won't be active on that server (or anyplace on Discord) for a while.

I just . . . so much guilt. I know those girls, I care about them, and furthermore I was supposed to protect them from this exact thing. It was my screwup that hurt them and I couldn't even fix it. I don't think I can even make it up to them.

I think I'll be hiding under blankets for the next few days.

Just . . . needed to vent, I suppose. And if anyone has advice (though I don't think there's much I can really do here), that would be appreciated too.

...

Well, I would personally put the guilt on the people who actually, ya know, did something wrong!!

I'm not a fan of the idea of "safe spaces" in general, but that aside, you're not the one who posted the pictures. Your only exposure to these people was a single interview, and if they were prepared to throw the images out after pretending to be friendly, they planned this in advance. This kinda troll s@$# is gonna happen regardless of what precautions get taken and the fact it did does not mean it's your fault.

[AuthorGirl]

...

Well, I would personally put the guilt on the people who actually, ya know, did something wrong!!

I'm not a fan of the idea of "safe spaces" in general, but that aside, you're not the one who posted the pictures. Your only exposure to these people was a single interview, and if they were prepared to throw the images out after pretending to be friendly, they planned this in advance. This kinda troll s@$# is gonna happen regardless of what precautions get taken and the fact it did does not mean it's your fault.

That . . . yes, thank you for the common sense.

As for the "safe spaces" thing: I don't like "'safe' from disagreement" spaces, but I do like "safe from gory awful PTSD triggers" spaces. The server I'm talking about is of the latter type.

[2D8HP]

AuthorGirl,

No advice, just sad to learn of your suffering 'cause some are jerks.

Hope you're spared the like in the future.

[Anymage]

Professional psychologists, trying to figure out if someone is indeed mentally competent to stand trial, are only able to weed out fakers through complex "gotcha" questions. You need extensive training and to come from an antagonistic place in order to have a good chance of spotting a determined liar setting things up.

So take a deep breath, and look at it this way. There is no 100% effective way to guarantee that everybody who belongs gets to stay, while all the bad guys are blocked. Would you rather err on the side of the occasional bad apple slipping through, or would you rather err on the side of turning away people who really could use the support? Admitting that everybody makes mistakes, and that sometimes it's a question of what sort of mistake you'd rather end up making, can help you figure out how you'd do it later if you could.

[dehro]

The entire reason for interviews to exist in the first place is because there are people out there who are determined to do harm and cause suffering.
Nobody is perfect and we all mess up occasionally. The onus of not having prevented something bad from happening lies clearly on those who explicitly and intentionally set out to make it happen in the first place

[Florian]

@AuthorGirl:

It´s not really your fault, so come down from your guilt trip. Gatekeeping by interview only works when you have the in-depth knowledge to actually cause one or more "gotcha!" moments, something that is harder than generally imagined. Look up the track record secret services or spy agencies have when it comes to this and they have very good people doing the screening, still they fail.

That also means that beyond totally closed circles, the idea of a "safe space" will never fly.

[Lettuce]

Thanks for the responses, all.

My mother-in-law has recently had her meeting with Dr. Z, and she has advised her to have the operation, but since it's "not hurting her right now", she should "wait a few months" until she is "less stressed out" on the grounds that her body will naturally heal better. But effectively her response might as well have been "never", as she is almost always finding something to be stressed about-- like, for example, her declining health!

I've also since learned that the reptilian thing is actually a known conspiricy theory that someone else made up. This whole time, I thought it was just her being imaginative! I'm slightly disappointed. But mostly it scares and sickens me to think just how many people out there have been brainwashed into believing something like that. What kind of a sick person comes up with-- and popularizes and monetizes-- such ridiculous things?

Individual responses, with quotes spoilered for tidiness since this post is long enough as it is:

Spoiler: Cozzer

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I wish I had better advice to offer you, but I can at least assure you that this is exactly and utterly as nuts as it seems. Your mother-in-law is in a toxic or abusive relationship, depending on how much "Doctor" Z has to gain from it (there are lots of non-romantic varieties of these, sadly). It's not that different from the stereotypical wife who defends her husband's reasons while he's beating her. Attacking directly from the outside will probably only reinforce her "other people don't understand my special specialness" defense mechanism.

Considering you're on a tight schedule, it's a really screwed up situation... the only thing that comes to mind is to somehow get your mother-in-law declared as "unable to make decisions for herself" or something similar (sorry, I'm from Italy and I don't know the technical English terms...). Then you could force her to undergo actual psychological treatment. But even in the case where that worked in the short term, it would create all sorts of problems in the long term... The cure might be worse than the disease, so to speak.

Sorry. As I said, I wish I had better advice to offer. But I want to reinforce at least that you, your husband and your mother-in-law are the victims here, of someone who (consciously or not) is preying on a weak person's insecureties. Either your mother-in-law makes the decision to get out of that toxic relationship, or you're probably gonna need a lot of force to break her out of it.

EDIT: Oh God, I had missed parts of the background. I'm gonna be cruel, here. In my opinion, your mother-in-law firmly falls into the "cannot be saved" camp. She will never let herself be saved, because what she's actually trying to do is to get you two (well, mostly her son) to drown with her. Don't fall for that, please. I mean, everything I said before about the situation is still valid, but despite being a victim, she's freaking dangerous. Do not start feeling responsible for her actions, or for "not having done enough to help her". I repeat, do not. Do whatever you need to do to avoid that. And I mean whatever you need. I have been involved in similar situations, and the only way to win them is to not have been involved with them in the first place. At least, not emotionally involved. If you can keep being involved in the situation while not feeling any kind of responsibility towards it, then it's ok, but it's harder than it seems.

Ironically, because of our rough past relationship creating some distance between us, I feel like I'm actually doing okay with keeping myself from becoming too emotionally invested. My husband is struggling a bit more (understandably), which is why I'm trying to be the one out front attempting to do something, anything about the situation. My own family (particularly my own mother) was extremely abusive to me, and I've had to learn how to let go and distance myself from people I was once very attached to, so I think I'll be all right in interfacing with this madness without letting it tear me apart. But my husband is struggling more with it all, so I'm still pretty motivated to try and fix things-- for his sake as well as my mother-in-law's.

We've looked into British Law for acting on the behalf of another, and sadly it does not seem promising-- she seems to be, by law, lucid enough to understand and consent to her own medical decisions (as opposed to being comatose, or suffering from something like dementia, etc). So I'm not sure we'll have much recourse there.

Spoiler: dehro

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I would suggest that you at least mention what country this "doctor" happens to be practicing/living in.
depending on the country, there could be a number of legal ways to approach this. Not being in this country yourself, you might not be aware of legal actions or maybe other victims starting to come together against the quack.
If this were the case, maybe you can find a way to reach out to them, to authorities or to whomever is actually dealing with this locally.. and find an ally that can either force the "doctor" to actively encourage your mother in law to take matters in her own hands and talk to actual doctors.. or otherwise neutralise the damaging impact this person has (even your mother in law would have to concede that she's being stubborn, if she learns that the "doctor" is in jail for being a con, a fraud and delusional).
Mind you, she will probably take it as a confirmation that the world is run by little green men and the poor doctor is a martyr of the good fight... but it's not like you have anything to lose in that respect.. at worst, you'll have at least put the quack beyond her reach for good.
If it should happen that this is in a country where one of us lives, maybe we can help with translating or reaching out to the proper channels of authority?
Alternatively, or included in this strategy, your husband (and any other family member who is interested/involved) should try and persuade your mother in law to have that famous skype consultation in the presence of family.. under the guise of "you're seriously ill, we are worried and want to hear/learn what the good doctor has to say, so that we can all take this on board and help you do what the doctor suggests".. if this is spinned correctly, the fraud will only be too happy to catch more fish in her net.
It goes without saying that you should do this both to monitor what exactly is being said, to possibly question the suggestions this person gives and, most importantly, to record the conversation so that it can be used as evidence, should this ever turn into a legal matter.
If things go badly your husband should consider to apply to some form of legal disqualification that takes the matter out of his mother's hands and forces her to undergo treatments she badly needs. If she turns out to not be of sound mind, this could help you help her.

Dr. Z lives in Belgium. As I don't speak almost any Dutch at all, and my husband hasn't used it in some 15 years, we have very little idea about how to network with anyone else having trouble. We did google searches with the doctor's name and the dutch words for "fraud" and similar, but that didn't turn up anything useful.

Unfortunately being there in person for the skypechat wasn't possible-- I've understood that the consolations are meant to be private, and I'd already expressed my skepticism. I did manage to do a slightly evil thing and covertly make a (very poor) recording of the skype conversation, though. I felt both like a cool spy and like an evil villain who's doing some kind of 'ends justify the means' thing. So that's awkward.

Spoiler: ve4grm

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Wow... uh... I might have to agree with Cozzer here. These sorts of people can't really be reasoned with effectively.

To be blunt, the only people who believe things like "reptilian conspiracy" theories are people who've already decided nothing in this world is trustworthy, and to reject all logic that defies their beliefs. (The spirituality and alternative medicines aren't the same thing at all, and can have benefits (even if they're mostly psychological), but the same force that fuels the "reptilian" beliefs can make it near-impossible to talk to them about their other beliefs. As you found out when you doubted Dr. Z.)

I see two potential ways to get through to her.

1) Through a source that she's decided she trusts. Is her husband still around? Perhaps he can have some impact if you voice your concerns to him? Alternately, your husband (or another of her children if she has any) might be the best bet. She seems to think of you as an outsider, even if you mostly get along. As someone with the sort of distrustful personality that she seems to have, that will bring her to reject your doubts out of hand. She won't even consider them. Her own son, however, might be a more trusted source. And if one of her trusted people (son) disagrees with another (Dr. Z) she might be forced to consider it. But it has to come from him, preferably without you around (sorry), so she can't justify it as him being influenced by an outside force.

This isn't a guarantee, however. If she's decided that Dr. Z is her MOST TRUSTED source, then your husband (or her husband) might get rejected in favour of the doctor.

So we get to:

2) Dr. Z has to be proven to not be worthy of her trust. You probably can't force this (by convincing her that Dr. Z is a reptilian for example). She will reject all attempts. The only thing I can think of that might do this (unfortunately) is for Dr. Z to tell her to refuse the surgery, and her health to deteriorate as the cause. If a direct line can be drawn between the doctor's suggestion, and a bad result, she may be able to question things.

She also may not. She may decide that declining health is the universe's message to her, like winning the lottery would be. She may be willing to die before giving up her belief in this doctor, and her distrust of medicine.

.

I wish you the best of luck with all of this. In the end, she is not incompetent, or lacking the mental capacity to decide her own treatment (UK law is here, of you want to decide for yourself).

As Cozzer said, the most important thing is to not let her drag you down with her. Stay sane, stay safe, and remember that you cannot take responsibility for her decisions. You can express your opinion, and try to convince her, but her actions are her own, and you should not feel like you didn't "do enough".

.

On a "lighter?" note, all I think of whenever I typed "Dr. Z" is the game Borderlands:

Spoiler: Dr Z

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Yeah, it's pretty obvious that we aren't going to be able to get through to her with mere "logic". I'm not sure how much help her husband-- my father-in-law-- will be; he ALSO listens to Dr. Z, but I'm not sure to what extent he's a true believer and to what extent he's simply humouring his wife. I vaguely get the impression that he's of the opinion of "well I don't know, but it couldn't HURT" to take the five million herbal supplements she's prescribed for them, but I'm not at all sure how invested he is, and I'm not sure about how to inquire without potentially accidentally hitting nerves. Any suggestions to that end would be greatly appreciated.

My own husband is like me: science-minded and logic-based, and very certain Dr. Z is a con artist. He DOES have his mother's trust-- she's likely to rant about how wonderful and pure he is, and that he's somewhat of a 'higher being' than her (and no, my husband doesn't really have any idea what she means, either). However, his telling his mother that he's extremely alarmed and distressed by her not having her operation has seemingly done nothing to move her from her position.

And thanks for the Borderlands reference; that legitimately made me smile. Better Zed than dead!

= = =

So I've been thinking. If logic won't get through to her, perhaps something more on her wavelength will.

I've begun looking into aura-soma and reiki and as many of the things she believes in that I can. Trying to gather information on images, symbols-- anything I can, to attempt to learn to "speak her language". If we can figure out how to craft a spiritual message, in ways that she understands, using colours and symbols and whatnot that have meaning to her... maybe we can get her to change her mind and have her surgery before it's too late.

The current vague plan is to craft a message that says, in no uncertain terms: things have changed (or are about to change?) since you talked to Dr. Z, and it's important that you have the surgery ASAP. (I'm a bit scared to make a message that says "Dr. Z is wrong", for fear she won't listen to it. But things simply changing with time? That might work.) And for my husband to deliver it to her, telling her that he "had a dream" or a vision or somesuch-- that the universe somehow "told him this". And let HER interpret the symbols and everything involved... see if we can't lead her to choose having the surgery for this "spiritual reason".

I feel like on the one hand, doing something like that-- lying to her about 'seeing visions' and such-- sounds pretty insane, and like an evil thing to do, besides. But on the other hand, it's the only thing I can think of for how to even attempt to reach her at this point, and if someone MUST be manipulating her, it should be the people who care about her most, and just want her to live.

I'm open to other ideas and discussion, up to and including why the above is a bad idea and why I'm a terrible person for even considering it.

[sktarq]

Right, here goes.

Up until today, I was an interviewer on a Discord server. The server is, explicitly and purely, a safe space for lesbian and bi women to talk to one another and make friends.....
About five or six people joined the server (I interviewed most of them myself), acted perfectly normal for a day and a half, then posted a lot of absolutely disgusting, pornographic, gory and awful images. At least three of our members had PTSD flashbacks.....
I just . . . so much guilt. I know those girls, I care about them, and furthermore I was supposed to protect them from this exact thing. It was my screwup that hurt them and I couldn't even fix it. I don't think I can even make it up to them....I think I'll be hiding under blankets for the next few days.
Just . . . needed to vent, I suppose. And if anyone has advice (though I don't think there's much I can really do here), that would be appreciated too.

2 parts here
1st part. Old engineering adage. Ability is directly proportional to the amount of equipment ruined.
Which is to say that you'll never get all these types and really you only get better at it by messing up learning from that and continuing to do the job. Those interviews you had with these people (some of whom may have been using multiple accounts (if attacks seem to come from a larger group of people they can be more emotionally effective so trolls will use a few accounts each). are something you can learn from. They are examples of a very rare sample group....fakers looking to worm their way in. That group is hard to see and exposure is the best way to find them next time. Also this pain and this guilt will probably help keep you sharp i future interviews, and probably sharper than whoever they find to do the interviews instead of you.

2nd So some people feel the need to hurt others in order to feel better/okay about themselves and will often team up in rather elaborate fakeouts for just such an emotional payoff. And sadly there is not much that you can do about it. You'll never catch all these types. You are not there to fix them. You were just trying to keep as many out as possible. Keeping out ALL the problem people means keeping out a lot of deserving people. They hop from group to group just hoping to get lucky and get in. Troll collectives are a thing. Also one may have gotten in earlier to see what it was like, and passed ideas of what would be seen as a "good fit" to help the others (what kind of language used etc) so the others would know how to talk to you in a way that made them seem like a good fit ... and to take screenshots of people reactions after the trolls got booted...

I wish I didn't know so much about this but I watched my GF (now ex) turn into one of these monsters as a degenerative genetic diseases (EDS) stole her health, pain free personality, and hope. I didn't know how bad it got until we broke up and found out that plenty of others knew and just assumed I did. As much as I want to say it is her disease causing it it isn't. She can/will not handle her condition (won't do treatments to ameliorate some of the symptoms etc) and takes all her pain and frustrations out on other human beings....some of her "friends" are just horrible people who like causing others emotional pain for the feeling of power and control it gives them. *wince*
...(*sigh*-people can be horrible creatures)

[AuthorGirl]

*snip*

Jeepers, that's a lot more dedicated awfulness than I knew about

Anyway, thank you and everyone else for your words. Love you guys

[Sermil]

Right, here goes.

Up until today, I was an interviewer on a Discord server. The server is, explicitly and purely, a safe space for lesbian and bi women to talk to one another and make friends.

My responsibility was to filter out the trolls by interviewing new members and evaluating them.

I messed up.

About five or six people joined the server (I interviewed most of them myself), acted perfectly normal for a day and a half, then posted a lot of absolutely disgusting, pornographic, gory and awful images. At least three of our members had PTSD flashbacks.

I didn't have the required permissions to delete messages; the mods had to take care of my screwup, and they had to look at the things to do it.

I apologized to everyone, quit as an interviewer (don't worry, we have others), and I won't be active on that server (or anyplace on Discord) for a while.

I just . . . so much guilt. I know those girls, I care about them, and furthermore I was supposed to protect them from this exact thing. It was my screwup that hurt them and I couldn't even fix it. I don't think I can even make it up to them.

I think I'll be hiding under blankets for the next few days.

Just . . . needed to vent, I suppose. And if anyone has advice (though I don't think there's much I can really do here), that would be appreciated too.

My advice would be: Don't be so hard on yourself. And please don't quit (permanently).

I work for a company that does a lot of machine learning, and one thing they teach us early is that there is a tradeoff between false positives (Saying yes when you should say no) and false negatives (Saying no when you should say yes). There is ALWAYS a tradeoff. If you want a low false positive rate, you have to accept a high false negative rate, and vice versa. For any real-world problems, you're never going to get to 0% false positives and 0% false negatives.

What I'm trying to say is: Short of slamming the door on everyone, you are going to occasionally let a bad actor slip though. There is no way to avoid it. No one (and nothing) is perfect, and you have to take some chances to let the people who belong on the forum on.

Of course, take the time you need to recover from being used and having your trust violated. But you'll be a better interviewer now that you've seen what the bad actors look like. If you leave, you're depriving the Discord server from gaining the value of your experience. You've paid the price, and it was a high price, but don't leave that experience at the side of road because you wouldn't have gained it if you'd had the choice.

And remember you were a victim too. Be angry at the people who did this, not yourself.

Sorry it happened and wish you (and the others on that server) quick healing.

[Grytorm]

Why do my flaws not make me a bad person?

[dehro]

Why do my flaws not make me a bad person?

A flaw is just a flaw. It's what you do with or about it or despite it, that defines whether you're a bad person.
Also, there is no universal qualifier for bad.

[factotum]

If everybody who has flaws is a bad person then there isn't a single good person in the world.

[WarKitty]

I kind of want to curl up and hide from mother's day.

A lot of it is what I mentioned earlier. I get the feeling that it is weird and bad to avoid the topic of family altogether, even in casual conversation, in pretty much every environment I've been in. But it's also not ok to not have lots of gushy positive feelings about your mother. And mother's day really brings all that to the fore. And since I work on mother's day and I had to stop to get lunch I can't avoid it.

[Florian]

I kind of want to curl up and hide from mother's day.

A lot of it is what I mentioned earlier. I get the feeling that it is weird and bad to avoid the topic of family altogether, even in casual conversation, in pretty much every environment I've been in. But it's also not ok to not have lots of gushy positive feelings about your mother. And mother's day really brings all that to the fore. And since I work on mother's day and I had to stop to get lunch I can't avoid it.

Oh, come on! A few days back was "Father´s day", or more or less "Men´s day", as we tend to call it totally politically correct (!), and that was more about self-celebration, partying and getting drunk. Mother´s day is equally nothing special and a thing you can entirely skip without breaking a sweat.

[WarKitty]

Oh, come on! A few days back was "Father´s day", or more or less "Men´s day", as we tend to call it totally politically correct (!), and that was more about self-celebration, partying and getting drunk. Mother´s day is equally nothing special and a thing you can entirely skip without breaking a sweat.

Around here father's day is next month and it's definitely not a thing that's ok to skip. It's more of a family holiday.

From what I'm reading German father's/men's day is very different from the one in the U.S.

[AMFV]

Around here father's day is next month and it's definitely not a thing that's ok to skip. It's more of a family holiday.

From what I'm reading German father's/men's day is very different from the one in the U.S.

I wouldn't say it's a really big deal though. I mean you don't even really have to get your dad anything as an adult, or at least it's generally not expected. You normally just call him. It's not like mother's day where dinner or flowers is kind of the expectation.

[Algeh]

I wouldn't say it's a really big deal though. I mean you don't even really have to get your dad anything as an adult, or at least it's generally not expected. You normally just call him. It's not like mother's day where dinner or flowers is kind of the expectation.

Huh. In my family the expectation is definitely a card, a gift of some kind, and a meal out for each of them. This could partially be because my parents share a birthday (and it's the week before Christmas), so Mother's Day and Father's Day are the best days to focus on one of them "alone" without also needing to celebrate the other one.

For me, the hardest part is always getting a card for my dad, because the "stock" Father's Day messages don't fit our narrative well at all. My dad was pretty much emotionally absent for my childhood, following that up with physical absence when he divorced my mother and left when I was 13. We've spent more time together as adults, and our relationship isn't terrible now, but I can't exactly get him a card celebrating all of those great childhood fishing trips or the "teaching your kid how to play a sport" moments the card industry seems to think are the thing to put on cards. (He took me to one of those commercial teach-your-kid-to-fish trout ponds once when I was very small, and then never took me fishing, hunting, or camping again because when he took me hiking in elementary school I "couldn't keep up" with his pace and so he found including me aggravating. He'd been an avid mountain backpack hiker/camper/climber before I was born (he is still absurdly proud of his low REI membership number and points it out to the cashier every single time), but I never got to go camping as a kid until my math teacher took a group of us in 8th grade.)

Anyway, WarKitty, it's hard when your personal family narrative doesn't fit the default script like that. I'm sorry you had to go to work and deal with explaining that to people all day.

[Grytorm]

Hello. Just wanting some form of aknowledgmemt I guess. Things are of course not going to well. I have to write a fairly lengthy paper which I have at least kind of started. I think I can do it. I mean I havent been able to write a paper for like 7 months but maybe I will really try this time. Its significant enough I cant just pretend everything is fine if I dont get it done.

After this term I will have my degree, so I guess I will be looking for a job which will give me something to do going forward.

Im thinking to myself a lot about how lonely I am. Trying to convice myself to get over it somehow... If I can just resolve myself to a bitter and lonely existence maybe I can just stop feeling bad about it. I do not think I can change in any meaningful way and it would be better to accept this fact than to fight against it and develop a harmful personlity.

Thinking about blocking out my only friend again. But that might pass.

[Tvtyrant]

Hello. Just wanting some form of aknowledgmemt I guess. Things are of course not going to well. I have to write a fairly lengthy paper which I have at least kind of started. I think I can do it. I mean I havent been able to write a paper for like 7 months but maybe I will really try this time. Its significant enough I cant just pretend everything is fine if I dont get it done.

After this term I will have my degree, so I guess I will be looking for a job which will give me something to do going forward.

Im thinking to myself a lot about how lonely I am. Trying to convice myself to get over it somehow... If I can just resolve myself to a bitter and lonely existence maybe I can just stop feeling bad about it. I do not think I can change in any meaningful way and it would be better to accept this fact than to fight against it and develop a harmful personlity.

Thinking about blocking out my only friend again. But that might pass.

After this term you should do something fun and engaging. Americore/Peacecore/Eurocore/farm collective/whatever. There are lots of organizations that will feed and house you, give you something to do and people to do it with without 6 months of unemployment (that happened to me after college).

Resolving your depression is the most important thing you can do. Forging ahead through it will just keep you lonely and miserable, and long term goals other then your physical and emotional health are worthless without those.

Take it from someone who has been in grad school for 5 years due to sacrificing their body to ambition and collapsing in the middle.

Edit: If you live in Oregon I would be more then happy to drive out to you. Standing offer.

[Comrade]

Hello. Just wanting some form of aknowledgmemt I guess. Things are of course not going to well. I have to write a fairly lengthy paper which I have at least kind of started. I think I can do it. I mean I havent been able to write a paper for like 7 months but maybe I will really try this time. Its significant enough I cant just pretend everything is fine if I dont get it done.

After this term I will have my degree, so I guess I will be looking for a job which will give me something to do going forward.

Im thinking to myself a lot about how lonely I am. Trying to convice myself to get over it somehow... If I can just resolve myself to a bitter and lonely existence maybe I can just stop feeling bad about it. I do not think I can change in any meaningful way and it would be better to accept this fact than to fight against it and develop a harmful personlity.

Thinking about blocking out my only friend again. But that might pass.

You can always change, you're not locked into the person you are (or think you are). You don't have to consign yourself to loneliness. First step, ignore that little voice telling you to cut ties with your friends. I guarantee nobody has ever listened to that voice, isolated themselves and burned bridges with their friends, and ended up feeling better for it. It's depression/anxiety talking; it will make you feel lonelier and worse, not more content and better.

What social activities or events are accessible to you? I'm talking anything from school clubs and get-togethers to Meetup.com-style hobby meetings. If there are any, even if they're of merely passing interest to you, I really think you should go to them-- make yourself do it, if you have to. Resist the temptation to get used to loneliness. If all your school has (somehow) is a chess club that's open to beginners and you've never so much as looked at a chessboard in your life, try it. If your local hobby shop hosts a D&D group that's willing to show newbies the ropes and all you know about D&D is that it has elves and orcs, go for it. Even if you end up not falling in love with the subject of the event/activity, you'll meet and talk to new people and put yourself out there-- and you may indeed end up finding new hobbies, which will just create more opportunities to meet people and make connections.

I get that it might be super intimidating to go out on a limb like that sometimes, but that's what it takes-- and in my experience people, especially in college/university, are very willing to open their social circles or their hobby groups to new folks. You don't need to just accept that you'll be lonely for the rest of your life, you just need to put yourself out there and meet new people without cutting ties with the ones who are already in your life.

Also, if you want somebody to proofread or check over that paper, I'd be happy to help.