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>> No. 23560 Anonymous
16th November 2016
Wednesday 6:49 pm
23560 Minor angst and existential dread, Mk. I
We tend to have a lot of repeated threads here, but I also get the feeling people don't tend to post in /emo/ unless it's a big issue.

With this in mind I suggest that we have a thread for stuff that's got you down a bit and you need to get off your chest, without it being major enough to make an entire thread devoted to it. We can also use it as a go-to for minor relationship advice, work problems, social drama, and things like that.

Everyone gets down from time to time, let's put some Sisters of Mercy on and wallow together for a while.
Expand all images.
>> No. 23561 Anonymous
16th November 2016
Wednesday 8:40 pm
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>>23560
Me first? Me first. I'll try to be coherent and concise.

I don't think I'm on any spectrum, but I am a bit odd. I devote pretty much 100% of my free time to coding, working on whatever useless mad vision I feel like I have to realize, and I'm pretty dedicated. When I'm not inspired - occasional, but often - I do nothing and feel a bit sad.

In the last year I was made redundant by virtue of being the youngest member of a team due for cuts, and I've got a job instead working remotely for a reasonably nice small company. Web dev stuff, but I can't complain.

I enjoy working from home a lot. Much better than 9-5 office hours, which I see as a bit pointless as a coder, and my sleep cycle is always pretty wacky so I was often dinged for not being in on time in the past. None of this now. But I'm living in a flat in a town because of my old work, and now that I don't have to go out, and the wonders of online shopping, the last time I left the house was three months ago for a team meetup, and before that, three months again for the meetup previous.

I'm 24 years old and pretty much a hermit. I'd go out, but I've no friends here, and I hate meeting new people. I'm obnoxious and loud with friends, but meeting new people sets my social anxiety to p. much maximum. I've pretty much convinced myself I don't need to go out and I should be focusing on my side projects anyway, but to any rational person that would seem retarded, and, to be honest, I've been feeling straight-up, unadulterated, lonely lately.

I am also fat, gay, and single. Inviting school friends from round the country would require me to tidy away my dildo collection first. No-one has time for that.
>> No. 23562 Anonymous
16th November 2016
Wednesday 9:12 pm
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>>23561
>The last time I left the house was three months ago.

Seriously 3 months or is that hyperbole? You should at least be trying to get a basic level of exercise. You are going to be suffering some serious muscle atrophy otherwise, all the time getting fatter until the point you can't leave. I'm not saying do anything athletic, but make sure you go for a walk a few times a week. Homo sapiens weren't built to sit in one place all day, it messes with our health.
>> No. 23563 Anonymous
16th November 2016
Wednesday 9:23 pm
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>>23562
It's hyperbole, but only because I actually need to go out every 2 or 3 weeks to pick up a repeat prescription at the chemist. It would otherwise be 3 months.

I was very unfit before, but it is a little bit scary, to be honest, how even that can degrade; walking into town does actually feel a little tiring now.
>> No. 23564 Anonymous
16th November 2016
Wednesday 9:37 pm
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>>23561

Given other circumstances I can see myself in this situation (except I'm fairly sure I'm not gay, even if I secretly like Taylor Swifts older stuff).

I am also a coder (currently sans job) and I won't work remotely precisely because I value the social interaction.

Regarding social anxiety, you can beat it with practice.
>> No. 23565 Anonymous
16th November 2016
Wednesday 10:03 pm
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>>23561

Get up during daylight hours. Do some work at the library or a cafe. Exercise daily - a brisk half hour walk is fine. Find something to do with your time other than programming.

When you're a bit more used to being out in the world, look on meetup.com for something that piques your interest. A programming meetup, a board games club, whatever. You don't have to be the life and soul of the event, just turn up. Anxiety is always worse in anticipation than in fact; you might be dreading walking through the door, but that's likely to be the peak of your anxiety. If you're really struggling, speak to your GP.

Make plans. Short-term (today), medium-term (the next few weeks) and long-term (the next year). Try to stick to them, but don't beat yourself up if you let things slip. Focus on incremental progress and practical action.
>> No. 23566 Anonymous
16th November 2016
Wednesday 11:02 pm
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>>23561

Biggest problem with this sort of thing is willpower. When I was on the dole I was pretty similar, I would only go out to the job centre and then come back to sit and play games because I was too despondent to do much else. It's all well and good people telling you that you need to do X, Y, and Z if, like me, you are very good at just saying "Ah well, there's always tomorrow."

You need to find something that scares you into action (not ending up like that fat guy on Youtube who gets angry at Blizzard), or a goal worthy of working towards (getting a boyfriend maybe?), or else you will find you can pretty much carry on like this indefinitely.
>> No. 23567 Anonymous
17th November 2016
Thursday 9:19 am
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>>23561

Start doing yoga. Ideally with other people in a class, but if that's not feasible do it only. There is decent free stuff, even in YouTube.

As a certified yoga master I'll happily recommend stuff.
>> No. 23568 Anonymous
17th November 2016
Thursday 9:25 am
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Off the top of my head Yoga with Adriene is pretty good. She has a day by day 30 challenge which might be perfect for you. Do try to get some fresh air as well.
>> No. 23569 Anonymous
17th November 2016
Thursday 11:56 am
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>>23568
I'd get down on her dog IYKWIM
>> No. 23570 Anonymous
18th November 2016
Friday 5:36 pm
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Anyone else been in a weird state of mind over the past few days? Angry or depressed?

Supermoon. Seriously.
>> No. 23571 Anonymous
18th November 2016
Friday 8:36 pm
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>>23570
I guess I have been a little anxious and irritable lately. Although being surrounded by clowns I had assumed it was a normal reaction.

Maybe man-periods cycle with the moon like women's do?
>> No. 23572 Anonymous
18th November 2016
Friday 9:17 pm
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>>23570

I've felt weirdly hyper and talkative. Maybe I'm moonkin
>> No. 23573 Anonymous
18th November 2016
Friday 9:41 pm
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>>23570
Correlation does not imply causation.
>> No. 23574 Anonymous
19th November 2016
Saturday 1:54 am
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I don't know if this is minor or not, but I've just had a breakdown all thanks to a council gritter.

I haven't had a good day in 3 months, and today was about to be the first. What I thought was going to be a £500 repair job on my car turned out to be nothing, I got a Sperg and anxiety diagnosis so I can actually put some concrete shit behind what's wrong with me, I got out of the house for a while and had some social interaction with like minded people... then on the drive back I was behind the aforementioned gritter, but the gritting was so coarse and dense that I was sliding all over the road. I overtook the gritter and in the process it left a chip in my windscreen as well as a fair bit of paint damage.

While I am covered on my insurance it's just a shit end to what could have been my first 'looking up' day in months, and it all just came to a head. I just want to escape, to leave this fucking place and not come back. I ended up walking the streets near my house fucking sobbing like a little kid, eventually just lying on the pavement in the pissing rain at 1am.

Every FUCKING day something else happens, something shit. I haven't enjoyed anything pretty much in the last 3 months because there's always something shit happening to fuck it up. The nature of my job means my holidays are dictated to me, and the next one is Christmas. 5 more weeks, I don't know if I can do it. I need to leave, I have to.
>> No. 23575 Anonymous
19th November 2016
Saturday 2:00 am
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>>23574
Keep calm, grit your teeth, and carry on.
>> No. 23576 Anonymous
19th November 2016
Saturday 8:35 am
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Good thread OP. If nobody responds to this it isn't the end of the world, it'd be nice just to vent.

My life isn't turning out how I wanted it to be nor expected it to be. I'm feeling a lot of pressure because people always assumed I'd go on to do good things, and currently I'm about to become unemployed due to redundancy.

I was always the smart kid in school who always did well, I went to secondary school, aced that too, then college, then got into a good university, not Oxbridge, but one filled with lots of their rejects.

I studied a traditional subject, did better than a load of my mates who did the same subject and even went out of my way to do extra, studying abroad and placements by winning scholarships. I'm working class, but a few of my posh mates heard this and then got their parents to hook them up with work abroad as they were worried I was doing too much.

We graduated and then poof, nothing. I couldn't get a job doing what I wanted, despite many of my mates with worse degrees and similar experience slipping into the jobs. I fought tooth and nail for a better job. which I've just lost, and even now, I can't get any responses for the job I originally wanted or worse jobs. I'm nearly two years out of university and I'll be sat in my room alone, with no money, applying for jobs at my parents houses.

I have friends who are diplomat trainees, doctors, lawyers on 70k, SPADs, investment bankers, you name it.

I'm honestly so fucking depressed I might just end it or run away and do something gimmicky like teach English in a warm place by the sea.

I know life isn't meant to be fair, but I just always cruised through smashing out the top grades, now I'm putting in the effort I'm rowing but my boat isn't moving.

Just to compound things, the job I am losing, I did far more work than people on double my salary, I never took the piss, was always in early, got great feedback from director level, never caused a fuss and was incredibly reliable. There are people who can't even be arsed turning up sometimes on double what I get.

Ah well, I guess this is what slipping through the cracks feels like.
>> No. 23577 Anonymous
19th November 2016
Saturday 10:34 am
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>>23574
Autoglass will sort out windscreen damage for a tenner. Rub some T-Cut on those scratches and it'll be reet.

Fucking hell, lad. Stop focusing on what's gone wrong and focus on how to put it right. This is a piece of piss to sort out. It seems like you're actively looking for things, no matter how minor or trivial, to 'ruin' your day.
>> No. 23578 Anonymous
19th November 2016
Saturday 3:40 pm
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>>23576
You mention work and jobs (and implicitly, social status) in almost every line here. I'm a workshy artist shirker type who is quite happy on the bottom rungs of society and I can find pleasures in life which aren't related to those very stilted, artificial and ultimately unrewarding notions of self-worth. Get a hobby.
>> No. 23579 Anonymous
19th November 2016
Saturday 4:19 pm
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>>23576
Somewhat in the same boat but you're doing better than me, mate. I never went to college or Uni, I have no career, I just pick up whatever work I can where ever I can. Ended up just traveling around and figure I'll just keep going until I go broke or die or something. So yeah maybe travel? Pretty fun, lots of opportunities can come up, and you might be more likely to find decent work since you have a degree and all.
>> No. 23580 Anonymous
19th November 2016
Saturday 4:41 pm
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>>23578

Evaluating your self worth is a fool's errand. There's always someone doing better than you, something more to achieve or acquire, some failure that you can't undo. It's like chasing the end of the rainbow - however fast you run, your destination will run away from you. Hippy-dippy as it might sound, the only truly durable sense of self is based on unconditional self acceptance. You might prefer to have a better job or earn more money, but it doesn't mean you're worth any less as a person if you don't achieve those things.
>> No. 23581 Anonymous
20th November 2016
Sunday 11:29 am
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>>23580

Another lad here, but I relate a lot to that need to measure myself by my achievements.

For me, unconditional self-acceptance is too high a demand. What I've been focusing on the past year is to be realistic about the 'scope' of what I can achieve. As I've become older I've reluctantly accepted I'm never going to be a heart surgeon or an astronaut, but I am certainly going to aim for the high end of what I can become, within my own scope of possibilities.
>> No. 23582 Anonymous
20th November 2016
Sunday 12:32 pm
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>>23581

Self-acceptance is an ongoing process rooted in self-compassion. All too often, we're our own harshest critic; we say things to ourselves that we would never say to other people. We treat ourselves with needless, gratuitous cruelty. If we treated a partner or a child like that, we'd rightly be accused of abuse.

I learned a useful exercise from Steven C Hayes. Whenever you're being self-critical, imagine that you're speaking to yourself as an eight year old child. Visualise your younger self stood in front of you. Would you harshly criticise that person, or would you be gentle and supportive?

Self-criticism is a perverse kind of defence mechanism. When you introduce people to the idea of self-compassion, there's often a reflexive backlash along the lines of "I don't need that soft shite, I'm a grown man who can take a kicking". Being harsh on yourself is a denial of your own vulnerability. To treat yourself compassionately is to admit that you're not a big hard bastard after all, that a deeply buried part of you is small and scared and sad. In many ways it's harder to be kind to yourself than to be cruel, but it's ultimately much healthier. Life is difficult enough.
>> No. 23584 Anonymous
20th November 2016
Sunday 4:06 pm
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I like thin women. But the world is becoming fatter and it is affecting my ability to feel sexually aroused. The number of people I encounter that I find physically attractive has dropped to the point where I feel sexually frustrated.

I feel like it is impossible to share my position publicly because being overweight is so normalized and people will treat it as selfish and entitled. Only 36% of population aren't actually fat fucks and it is only getting worse, god knows how small the fraction is that actually have the kind of figure I find attractive (being able to make out the pelvic bone is insanely hot to me). Beauty might only be skin deep but I can hardly have a conversation with my penis and convince it that it is fat-shaming, the dick wants what the dick wants.
>> No. 23585 Anonymous
20th November 2016
Sunday 4:14 pm
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>>23584
Have you tried the Anna community? They would love someone like you.
>> No. 23586 Anonymous
20th November 2016
Sunday 4:18 pm
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>>23585
>the Anna community

The who?
>> No. 23587 Anonymous
20th November 2016
Sunday 4:44 pm
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>>23582

I hadn't really seen things that way before. Particularly what you say here:
>Being harsh on yourself is a denial of your own vulnerability

It is true I think and reinforce things about myself, to the point where it's virtually become automatic and subconscious, that wouldn't ever occur to me about another person. Even growing up, I couldn't take pride in whatever achievements or talents that I had, as I was always making up ground in my head for a set of unbelievably nasty inner-voices.

When things are going well for me, it's usually during times where my self-esteem is based off the sheer effort I'm putting in every day. This is unsustainable, I burn out, I get frustrated with lack of progress, and I'm back to feeling shit about myself. Then it's hard to do productive things because I almost feel I don't deserve the reward, until evenetually I become so angry with the inertia, I put some Herculean regime in place again, feel pretty amazing about myself, and the cycle repeats. A local psychiatrist said I likely belonged to some sort of the bipolar spectrum of disorders.

I'm dangerously close to hijacking this thread, but you're on to something there. More regular and consistent practice of self-compassion might keep me stable enough to make steady progress and not have my sense of self completely crash every 6 - 8 months.
>> No. 23588 Anonymous
20th November 2016
Sunday 4:57 pm
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>>23586
It's spelt Ana and >>23585 can fuck off, having the very top of the iliac crest showing through at the hips is very normal in people with a healthy body composition.

That said, we all know how useless BMI is as soon as you get to a trained/athletic build with significant muscle mass, but most people in the population aren't that so it's a fine rule of thumb for them.
>> No. 23589 Anonymous
20th November 2016
Sunday 5:06 pm
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>>23588

Quite true. The way I tend to think of BMI is that it's a tool to measure the health of populations rather than individuals.

Not meaning to sound too "no shit, m8", but have you tried looking for girls in fitness circles? Physically active hobbies could probably lead you to women with a build more to your liking.
>> No. 23590 Anonymous
20th November 2016
Sunday 5:07 pm
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>>23588
Seems unhealthy to fetishise underweight women. Pictures from the Siege of Aleppo must be a wankfest for you.
>> No. 23591 Anonymous
20th November 2016
Sunday 5:08 pm
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>>23589
>Not meaning to sound too "no shit, m8", but have you tried looking for girls in fitness circles? Physically active hobbies could probably lead you to women with a build more to your liking.
Also smackhead circles are quite good.
>> No. 23592 Anonymous
20th November 2016
Sunday 5:19 pm
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>>23590>>23591

Don't begrudge the lad his tastes. He's said nothing demeaning about girls of different builds, just that he likes thin ones and people are generally getting bigger.
>> No. 23593 Anonymous
20th November 2016
Sunday 5:36 pm
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>>23592
He called people of healthy weight "fat fucks." Obviously he is a fat-shaming misogynist.
>> No. 23594 Anonymous
20th November 2016
Sunday 5:47 pm
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I'm at the end of my research thesis. I just need to get <10k words down which should be done by after Christmas if not before.

The problem is I seem to have hit a brick-wall in my motivation to get things done slipping me into procrastinating by perfectionism and days where I just get nothing done at all. Its been like this since around February and been a steady decline in my output as I just seem to no longer feel confident in my own abilities or care about my research topic.

Come to think of it its been a month since I should have sent a draft off to my supervisor but I'm still not where we planned me to be and while I can deal with a telling off I don't feel like my work is ready for checking. Mostly because as I said my output has been so bad and I'm now ashamed of it.

>>23576
I'll add to the voices that share how you feel. There are many people I know from university who are currently ahead of me on the game of life.

Rather than echo the sentiment I recommend Dale Carnegie's How To Stop Worrying And Start Living (available in audiobook format). It may sound like it doesn't entirely fit with your issue but there are a few memorable points on this including that in life you may not be a big towering tree like those you may compare yourself to but if you're a bush you should work at being the best damn bush you can be. That's enough for me.

>>23584
I recommend hippie chicks if you can bite your tongue on their logical inconsistencies m8. Trust me.

They also tend to not put so much value on status or looks so you can bat way above your average
>> No. 23595 Anonymous
20th November 2016
Sunday 5:51 pm
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>>23594
They don't shower and I like eating women out. It is disgusting.

What is your research thesis on? You don't have to be specific, just the general subject area would be nice to know.
>> No. 23597 Anonymous
20th November 2016
Sunday 6:24 pm
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>>23595
>They don't shower and I like eating women out. It is disgusting.

I've never noticed a problem with it. I enjoy my long hot showers but there is something to be said for how your body handles itself if its getting nothing beyond cold showers, a light soap and a good (well...you' know) diet.

>What is your research thesis on? You don't have to be specific, just the general subject area would be nice to know.

The legality of humanitarian intervention in the African Union. A rough background is Africa has had enough of genocides and things of that nature after Rwanda (and so on) so its given itself the right to intervene in certain circumstances. The problem is its not exactly legal if you don't have permission from the United Nations Security Council. Or is it?!

This has become a bigger issue recently as Burundi was threatened with AU intervention given it shows all the same signs as Rwanda did before its own genocide with the international community busy with other things. If you want me to ruin your day: Tutsis are already being killed in the country (Amnesty International released satellite evidence of mass graves earlier in the year) and next year there might be a few million less of them in the world if nothing gets done which looks likely unless Kagame is going to save the day again.
>> No. 23598 Anonymous
20th November 2016
Sunday 6:39 pm
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>>23587

I can highly recommend the book The Happiness Trap by Russ Harris. The 'trap' of the title is the idea that we can force ourselves to be happy, that if we only work hard enough we can eradicate all negative feelings. If you believe on some level that everything should always be perfect, then you're setting yourself up for a harsh double-whammy. When things do go wrong, you have to deal with the thing that happened and your own frustration, disappointment and self-criticism.

The approach presented in the book is based on self-awareness and acceptance. Sometimes you'll be happy, sometimes you won't. Sometimes you'll feel confident, sometimes you won't. Negative thoughts, feelings and experiences are a natural part of life. By trying to control our own thoughts and feelings, we just make them more powerful.

Don't think of a pink elephant. Don't think of a pink elephant. Whatever you do, don't think of a pink elephant. Thinking about pink elephants is unbearably awful. If you think of a pink elephant, that means you're a terrible person. You'll never be happy if you think about pink elephants. Don't think of a pink elephant.

That seems absurd, but we do it to ourselves all the time. We all have things we can't bear to remember, thoughts we think make us bad people, feelings we distract ourselves from or deny. By suppressing those things, we end up in this futile struggle against nature. It's like trying to force a beach ball underwater. The beach ball will always come back to the surface. The only choice you have is how hard you struggle to push it down. You can learn to stop struggling and live with difficult thoughts and feelings rather than fighting against them.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Happiness-Trap-Based-revolutionary-mindfulness-based/dp/184529825X
>> No. 23599 Anonymous
20th November 2016
Sunday 6:40 pm
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>>23597
Did your research cover the AU intervention in Somalia, and how every invading forces trying to "stop" terrorists in Somalia end up joining AMISOM?

To some degree I think AU interventions are American sanctioned operations designed to keep the "peace" which is favourable to US interests. There is nothing really humanitarian about it. The civil war in Somali could have ended in 1993, but American intervention, because white people were sad about Africa being a shithole, meant it lasts to this day. It again could have ended in 2006, but AMISOM (AU forces), Ethiopian forces, and Somali warlords made sure it didn't. That's how Somalia ended up with a weak government backed by the west surrounded by ruthless terrorists.

AU is a sham.
>> No. 23600 Anonymous
20th November 2016
Sunday 6:44 pm
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>>23595

Take up distance running or triathlon. Not a pick of fat on those girls.

Also, thank you for leaving all the curvy women for me. Unrealistic beauty standards have created an all-you-can-eat buffet for chubby chasers.
>> No. 23601 Anonymous
20th November 2016
Sunday 7:36 pm
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>>23600

My ex fiance was a distance runner. I wish I'd have murdered her.
>> No. 23602 Anonymous
20th November 2016
Sunday 7:43 pm
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>>23600
>Unrealistic beauty standards have created an all-you-can-eat buffet for chubby chasers.

You sure on that, lad? There seems to be a lot of fat pride at the minute and I have known the odd heifer thinking she's Gods gift because of all the chubby chasers, such as yourself, after them.
>> No. 23603 Anonymous
20th November 2016
Sunday 9:45 pm
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>>23602

>You sure on that, lad?

Ooooohhh yes. The ratio of fat women to chubby chasers is astronomically high. More than half the population are overweight or obese, but "BBW" ranks lower than "cartoon" or "step mom" in porn site searches. To the overwhelming majority of men, "fat" and "ugly" are practically synonymous. You might hear about fat pride and chubby chasing online, but it's notably absent at chucking out time in a provincial All Bar One.

To me, this image is the epitome of feminine perfection. I'd push Scarlett Johansson or Beyonce Knowles out of the way to get to her. I'd drag my balls through broken glass to hear her fart through a walkie talkie. When you have aesthetic preferences like that, you live in a different world to most men.

I'm a 7/10 at best, but most of the women I pursue think that I'm well out of their league. They're used to being the dregs at the end of the night. They're used to being slowly elbowed out by someone who is trying to pull their thin friend. They're used to being laughed at in clothes shops when they ask "do you have this in a size 22?". For all the fat positivity that floats around on Tumblr, society is still brutally cruel towards fat women.
>> No. 23604 Anonymous
20th November 2016
Sunday 9:47 pm
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>>23603
>To me, this image is the epitome of feminine perfection
She has a pretty face but genuinely looks like her body has elephantiasis. Is there a line between what is attractive and what's a weird fetish?
>> No. 23605 Anonymous
20th November 2016
Sunday 9:49 pm
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>>23603
>most of the women I pursue think that I'm well out of their league. They're used to being the dregs at the end of the night.

This says more about you than them.
>> No. 23606 Anonymous
20th November 2016
Sunday 9:58 pm
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>>23603
Even the massive upper arms and thighs? Some people can carry weight well and some people can't. That lass can't. Her body shape is all wrong. She hasn't filled out nicely.
>> No. 23607 Anonymous
20th November 2016
Sunday 10:15 pm
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>>23603

>For all the fat positivity that floats around on Tumblr, society is still brutally cruel towards fat women.

Yeah but there are enough guys like you plus desperate lads who'll take anything they can get to mean they'll still get laid and have relationships.

As for myself, I'm probably going to die alone because of my inability to find overweight women attractive. Guess I could just move to a non-Anglosphere country, but I can't learn foreign languages to save my life.
>> No. 23608 Anonymous
20th November 2016
Sunday 10:26 pm
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>>23604

>Is there a line between what is attractive and what's a weird fetish?

Don't know, don't care.

>>23605

It's shit, but it's true. Women of a certain size are marginalised to an extraordinary degree. Many people just can't conceive of big women as objects of sexual desire. When I brought my first proper girlfriend home, my mum thought it was some sort of practical joke; I honestly think she'd be happier if I was gay. People routinely treat me like some sort of deviant. When I'm walking down the street with a big woman, I overhear snide comments all the time. Frankly, you're a bunch of bastards.

>>23606

Especially the upper arms, especially the thighs, especially the belly. Christ, I love a big round belly. I love a pair of thighs you could drown in.
>> No. 23609 Anonymous
20th November 2016
Sunday 10:32 pm
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>>23608
I can empathise. When I went to uni, I foolishly left my computer at home and my dad went on it, and saw some pictures of fat lasses (including the girl in your pictures), and ribbed me for it mercilessly. My ex was obese and black, and he constantly gave me shit for it. My current gf is also obese, and I'm not looking forward to him meeting her as he can be very cruel to fat lasses.
>> No. 23610 Anonymous
20th November 2016
Sunday 11:08 pm
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>>23608
>Christ, I love a big round belly.

That's not a round belly, though. You can clearly see the rolls of fat. Again you've posted a picture of a woman who cannot carry the weight.
>> No. 23611 Anonymous
20th November 2016
Sunday 11:11 pm
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>>23610
He has a weird fetish. Let him be.
>> No. 23612 Anonymous
20th November 2016
Sunday 11:23 pm
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>>23608

>Women of a certain size are marginalised to an extraordinary degree.

Am I a terrible person for not having much sympathy for someone who is marginalised for the most part as a result of their own greed?
>> No. 23613 Anonymous
20th November 2016
Sunday 11:25 pm
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>>23594


>I recommend hippie chicks if you can bite your tongue on their logical inconsistencies m8. Trust me.

Which reminds me about my own problems.

Me and my girlfriend recently went "on a break" and then got together again after about a months worth of not speaking, and intolerable horniness on both our parts.

In the relatively short intervening time, she has got dreds, a surprisingly tasteful tattoo, and changed her style of dress, and I can't help but think she's done it to try and be more appealing to me. She's the least mental girlfriend I've ever had too, she doesn't show symptoms of any major neurosis at all in fact. We spend our weekends camping and taking acid.

It's perfect but I am deeply suspicious of how perfect it is, and frankly the lack of any sort of need to "work" at, any need to put effort in to the relationship, because she's obviously so head over heels for me, is just making me feel rather arsed. As a wise man (Lemmy) once said, "You know the chase, is better than the catch, you know".

I know a lot of lads, especially those who struggle with the lasses, would kill for what I have now. But I just feel a bit bored with it. What can I do to help myself appreciate it?
>> No. 23614 Anonymous
20th November 2016
Sunday 11:36 pm
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>>23611
It's the lowest of the low hanging fruit, though.

I'm partial to a chubster, this is an example from the first page of Googling 'BBW'. As you will see, it's a nice full figure. You can get women larger than this still in the same proportions. Many women can't carry this weight well and get rolls of fat, cellulite and those grotesque gargantuan upper arms. A thick, large woman is a nice sight to behold. A woman carrying more weight than is attractive for her frame is anything but.
>> No. 23615 Anonymous
20th November 2016
Sunday 11:38 pm
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>>23614
Jesus Fucking Christ.
>> No. 23616 Anonymous
20th November 2016
Sunday 11:46 pm
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>>23615
You see what I mean, though? It's one nice full belly rather than one of those weird ones where it splits into three separate sections because the woman in question doesn't have the frame for that kind of weight. Again another quick Google picture .
>> No. 23617 Anonymous
21st November 2016
Monday 12:04 am
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>>23616

You seem bewildered by the idea of personal taste. Some men would consider that woman to be very fat (namely the skinny-chaser who started this whole discussion and prefers to see bones sticking out), some would say she's just slightly curvy.

I like wobbly bits on a lady. If you don't then that's fine, just don't be a cock about it. Try to avoid describing perfectly normal body parts as "grotesque". Having a preference is fine. Denigrating women for their bodies is a dick move.
>> No. 23618 Anonymous
21st November 2016
Monday 12:04 am
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>>23614
>>23616

A woman of this size who looks good in real life is a very rare thing.

That first picture you posted is rather unsubtly shopped- In reality both of her arms are in contact with overspilled belly flab, but they've made it look like she has an "hourglass" figure.

The second picture, yeah, she's nice. She's what I'd genuinely call chubby rather than fat, though, and even then it's just a flattering photograph. Laid in bed next to her where she's all spilling off to one side like a level 34 Muk and it's a different story.

My lass is hardly a stick insect, she has a bit of meat on her bones, but fat is another thing, instinctually we find it unappealing in the same way as you would if a woman was greyhound/holocaust skinny.

The fact is that fat itself is unattractive beyond a certain point, in my opinion; the big curvy figure is attractive to you, but that's not taking account of the nasty cellulite flab folds that inevitably occur in real life. You can't photoshop a real girl to hide the stretch marks and eczema around the folds where she can't wash properly. You can't photoshop the stank of fatty sweat. Know what I'm saying?
>> No. 23619 Anonymous
21st November 2016
Monday 12:07 am
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Look what you did, you Ana chasing filth. Look at what you started. Look!
>> No. 23620 Anonymous
21st November 2016
Monday 12:08 am
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>>23614
I'd fuck this, not a chubby chaser either. It helps that she could be an 8 if she shed 40 pounds.
>> No. 23621 Anonymous
21st November 2016
Monday 1:13 am
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>>23620
You should type the way he speaks. That was just shit.
>> No. 23622 Anonymous
21st November 2016
Monday 1:21 am
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>>23594
>I recommend hippie chicks if you can bite your tongue on their logical inconsistencies m8. Trust me.
>if you can bite your tongue on their logical inconsistencies

And there's the rub. I love everything about the hippy lifestyle the visuals (those girls in your pic are stunning to me), the drugs and I'm rather partial to camping, but the beliefs drive me mad mad mad.

>>23600

The problem there is that then I'd have to be doing long distance running, which is probably great if you like it, but strikes me as the kind of thing that I couldn't half arse commit to.

>>23619

I show no remorse. we are living in the age of the chubby chaser. At least someone can be happy. I'm clearly an out dated fossil with my primitive notions that people shouldn't be a weight that negatively affects their health, and society has a moral duty to discourage obesity during an epidemic of it. not that I can be too high and mighty, this is ultimately just about what makes my dick twitch after all
>> No. 23623 Anonymous
21st November 2016
Monday 1:28 am
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>>23621
Guy with low self-esteem lowers standards - dates women that look like Rosie O'Donnell. Many such cases. Sad!
>> No. 23624 Anonymous
21st November 2016
Monday 2:04 am
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>>23623
Not even close. You are bad at this.
>> No. 23625 Anonymous
21st November 2016
Monday 2:21 am
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>>23624
That was exactly how his twitter account sounds.
>> No. 23626 Anonymous
21st November 2016
Monday 2:27 am
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>>23625
No it doesn't. It actually sounds like how he speaks. Are you slow?
>> No. 23627 Anonymous
21st November 2016
Monday 3:01 am
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>>23626
No, just more aware of parody than you are.

https://twitter.com/realdonaldtrump/status/449525268529815552?lang=en-gb
>> No. 23628 Anonymous
21st November 2016
Monday 5:56 am
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>>23599
African conflicts are very interesting though, especially how multifaceted it gets in terms of international relations. Multiple rivers, ethnic groups and mining rights within certain regions require a greater deal of co-operation (and not so co-operative militia funding) between powers. The situation in Ethiopia with the Oromo people are an example of how marginalised groups can become a serious security threat to stability within the region.

As for this thread, I hate myself and everyone around me so I deal with it through murder/rampage fantasies, especially of the people who are being mean to me.
>> No. 23631 Anonymous
21st November 2016
Monday 12:43 pm
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I've recently returned to education part time to fix some grades that I fucked up the last time I took the course and I increasingly find myself questioning why I bothered. Well actually I know exactly why I bothered; I'm hoping to hook a control room operator job in a CCGT power plant for some sweet easy ££££ but when I met and got to know the others on the course I felt a bit left behind as there are some very ambitious people on the course, I am also frustrated at the slow pace the course is going and find myself increasingly uninterested in the subjects at hand.

I'm going to complete the course, I will get a good grade because thats just what I do but fucking hell does it feel cathartic to write this down.
>> No. 23632 Anonymous
21st November 2016
Monday 2:03 pm
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>>23631
What kind of course is it? I have been thinking about good courses to take.
>> No. 23633 Anonymous
21st November 2016
Monday 2:54 pm
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>>23631
You feel both left behind and frustrated by the slow pace?
>> No. 23634 Anonymous
21st November 2016
Monday 4:03 pm
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>>23632

Science and maths, you should be aware that if you're over 18 you'll need to pay even for level 2 qualifications these days unless you have a funding source.

>>23633

What I meant is: I feel left behind by my own lack of ambition, I'm blown away by others want and desire for stuff and my own lack there of. I'm trying to work on changing my mindset but as I said I'm finding myself questioning myself a lot. Thanks for making me clarify that though it is a bit messy.
>> No. 23635 Anonymous
21st November 2016
Monday 7:10 pm
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>>23631

Probably you weren't a good fit for education in the first place, right? Just knuckle down and do what you need to do, keep reminding yourself of the end goal. Presumably you're old enough to know how naive those ambitious ones are too- so try not to let your own cynicism get in the way, because it' not without merit.

I'm in my mid 20s and doing some studying for a qualification the work is paying for, and fuck me does going to college wind me up. The tutors are unhelpful, spiteful bastards who treat everyone in the course (all adults) like teenagers, the department head is the biggest arsehole of all, there's nobody higher up we can complain to so there's no alternative but to just stomach it.

There are some things in life you can't meaningfully fix and just have to deal with I suppose.
>> No. 23636 Anonymous
21st November 2016
Monday 7:13 pm
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>>23634

>Science and maths, you should be aware that if you're over 18 you'll need to pay even for level 2 qualifications these days unless you have a funding source.

Wrong, if you're under 24 you can get on a level 3 course for naff all.
>> No. 23637 Anonymous
21st November 2016
Monday 7:17 pm
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>>23634
>Science and maths
You wot? Is that all you need to end up in the control room of a CCGT station? Just A Levels?


Seriously?


I think I am wasting my life away.
>> No. 23641 Anonymous
27th November 2016
Sunday 1:26 pm
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This morning I woke up. I think that was a mistake and I regret it. Instead of just going back to sleep I decided to solider on and now I feel just awful. Out of a sense of decorum I decided drinking vodka at 8am wasn't the way I wanted to manage this, and instead watched a, and I use the term in the broadest sense here, ‘documentary’ on netflix where they mashed a bunch of interviews from comedians talking about how miserable they all are together, then I went for a walk round the park and back. Everything was as dull and as mediocre as it was the last time I went there except because it was 10 am on a Sunday there were grubby noisy humans everywhere.

There really isn't much point to this post other than to vent that sometimes existing feels over rated even when you can't put your finger on why, and I want validation from strangers on the internet of this point.
>> No. 23642 Anonymous
27th November 2016
Sunday 4:17 pm
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>>23641

I woke up, watched Laurel and Hardy... That's all I've done. My self-esteem has been scraping along the ground recently. I'll be fine in a week or so.
>> No. 23645 Anonymous
27th November 2016
Sunday 4:54 pm
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>>23641 >>23642
Both of you need to do something new. Try an evening session of something you've never done before, go to a community centre or cafe you'd not normally go to, just get out of the house a bit and break your routine. Never underestimate the rejuvenating effect having an open-mind towards a bit of novelty can have on the old existential dread.
>> No. 23646 Anonymous
27th November 2016
Sunday 4:57 pm
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>>23641
>>23642
Will it ever get better?
>> No. 23648 Anonymous
27th November 2016
Sunday 6:34 pm
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>>23645

I just woke up feeling awful today. I didn't really sleep properly last night and have been on a strict diet, I think I'm just emotionally crashing from exhaustion. I think your advice is solid, but it's not really for my problem. Good night’s sleep and I’ll be tickerty boo.
>> No. 23650 Anonymous
27th November 2016
Sunday 10:15 pm
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>>23646
Yes. Slowly, and there will definitely be a strong possibility for relapse, but start looking after yourself as you would a close friend that was struggling and things will start to get gradually better. Eat a bit better. Try to go to bed and wake up at more regular times. In winter, try to get at least an hour outside in the the sunlight a day - shifting your sleep cycle to less night-owlish one will help here. Just do one of these at a time, one little thing that you'd do to care for that close friend who you'd act out of complete love for, and don't worry about the next step. And don't beat yourself up if you don't manage it one day, put it behind you and just try a little bit again the next. Baby steps.
>> No. 23679 Anonymous
4th December 2016
Sunday 6:24 pm
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How can I turn myself off? Like a computer, just switch off, and switch back on some time later? I'm getting tired and I need to shut down for a couple of years.
>> No. 23680 Anonymous
4th December 2016
Sunday 7:06 pm
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>>23679

I can tell you what works for me:

Turn off the lights. Sit on a cold surface, like the floor or wooden chair, in a cool, quiet room. Listen to a clock or a watch ticking. Breathe in for four-to-five seconds, hold in for four-to-five seconds, breathe out for four-to-five seconds, hold out for four-to-five seconds. Repeat until your body temperature has dropped and your thoughts have slowed down. This usually takes about five or ten minutes.

If you have one, put on a sleeping mask and lie down in your bed. Think about something you'd like to dream about, and let the thought drift through free association as your body readjusts to the temperature of your sheets. You should find yourself getting to sleep by this point.

Shutdown takes about 20 odd minutes but it's reliable.
>> No. 23681 Anonymous
4th December 2016
Sunday 7:12 pm
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>>23680

I wrote this entire post not reading the 'years' bit.

Oh well, something for you insomniaclads.
>> No. 23682 Anonymous
4th December 2016
Sunday 7:12 pm
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>>23679
>> No. 23689 Anonymous
5th December 2016
Monday 6:53 pm
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I am filled with sorrow. I'm finding it hard not to burst into tears in public a lot.
>> No. 23690 Anonymous
5th December 2016
Monday 7:09 pm
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>>23689

Try some antidepressants.
>> No. 23691 Anonymous
5th December 2016
Monday 7:57 pm
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>>23689
It will pass when your period stops.
>> No. 23692 Anonymous
5th December 2016
Monday 8:57 pm
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>>23690
No, I don't need drugs, just time.
>>23691
Hilarious m8.
>> No. 23695 Anonymous
5th December 2016
Monday 10:43 pm
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>>23692

Do you wanna talk about it? Is there anything you want to share?
>> No. 23702 Anonymous
6th December 2016
Tuesday 10:00 am
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>>23695
No, it turns out what I want to do is make a series of bad decisions that will prolong this, meaning it will take even more time to get over.

Sage for vaguebooking.
>> No. 23727 Anonymous
8th December 2016
Thursday 1:56 pm
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How does one get over a fear of rejection & failure?
>> No. 23728 Anonymous
8th December 2016
Thursday 2:04 pm
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>>23727

By valuing your desire to achieve more.
>> No. 23729 Anonymous
8th December 2016
Thursday 3:24 pm
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>>23727
Ask yourself what is the worst that could happen, if you can then write out the worry and the possible answers on a notepad, things of that nature.

The issue people seem to have is that whilst they will certainly overanalyze a problem they won't do so in an objective fashion so they just go around in circles worrying themselves about nothing.
>> No. 23799 Anonymous
17th December 2016
Saturday 8:47 pm
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Lads has anybody had a week or two where they don't feel themselves ever? What did you do?

Normally I'm absolutely fine, of sound mental footing and all that, but for about a week I've been waking up and feeling a sudden sense of dread, I've lost my appetite and barely eat more than one meal a day and have been shitting myself constantly because of lack of nutrition. I've randomly fell asleep and I have felt strong mood swings, even though things in my life are alright.

I've never felt like this before, and now I'm starting to feel much better, but I am a bit concerned hw it all suddenly came along. Anybody know this feel? I've no idea what happened to me.
>> No. 23800 Anonymous
17th December 2016
Saturday 9:11 pm
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>>23799
If it's a sudden unexplained change of mood or personality I suggest it might be worth talking to your GP about.
>> No. 23805 Anonymous
17th December 2016
Saturday 9:21 pm
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>>23728

There is a lot of truth to this. I realised that at some point if I wanted to get anywhere in terms of career/social/general life terms, and actually do the things I want to do, I'd need to get used to embarrassing myself. Being embarrassed doesn't necessarily get any easier or more pleasant, but it seems insignificant when you realise that at least a little bit of it is inevitable toward achieving anything. I think how people deal with embarrassment, emotionally, varies from person to person, but when you want something that badly it does fade from importance in a very tangible way.
>> No. 23806 Anonymous
17th December 2016
Saturday 9:22 pm
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>>23801>>23802>>23803>>23804>>23805

How on fucking earth did that just happen?
>> No. 23807 Anonymous
17th December 2016
Saturday 9:28 pm
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>>23805
>>23804
>>23803
>>23802
>>23801

You can say that again.
>> No. 23808 Anonymous
17th December 2016
Saturday 9:32 pm
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>>23806
how embarrassing
>> No. 23809 Anonymous
17th December 2016
Saturday 9:34 pm
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Just delete the fucking posts. Click the Anonymous.
>> No. 23857 Anonymous
20th December 2016
Tuesday 10:40 pm
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Dear Santa,

For Chrimbus I would like the gift of being a normal, socially adjusted neurotypical.

Sincerely,

A sperg with crippling anxiety
>> No. 23858 Anonymous
20th December 2016
Tuesday 11:06 pm
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My aunt is kind of a snobby bitch who always comes up to me at family gatherings and says insulting things in a subtle enough way that it takes me a moment to figure out what she was actually saying, by which point she's sidled off. I'm quite tempted to buy her some sort of children's toy "from santa, to help you keep your mind active".
>> No. 23859 Anonymous
20th December 2016
Tuesday 11:34 pm
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>>23858

Do it, lad. Give her a taste of her own medicine.
>> No. 23860 Anonymous
20th December 2016
Tuesday 11:53 pm
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>>23859

I'm just going to shut her down with "Not right now"/"Can I just stop you there?" as soon as she opens her mouth next time, it's cheaper.
>> No. 23861 Anonymous
21st December 2016
Wednesday 12:03 am
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>>23860
How can you tell she's going to say something like that before she says it?
>> No. 23862 Anonymous
21st December 2016
Wednesday 12:46 am
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>>23861
Because that's the only reason she's spoken to me for the past three years.
>> No. 23864 Anonymous
21st December 2016
Wednesday 1:43 pm
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>>23857
I must have been a very naughty boy this year as I didn't even get a bag of coal, I got a bag of festering diarrhoea dropped on me early when I had a full on breakdown at work resulting in me getting sent home, and everyone there thinking I'm a grade A cunt (which I am, all I want to do is climb out of my skin and be someone else)
>> No. 23867 Anonymous
21st December 2016
Wednesday 7:39 pm
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>>23864
Why did you have a breakdown?
>> No. 23868 Anonymous
22nd December 2016
Thursday 7:25 am
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Mostly fuck Christmas. I never get to see my family, I never get to see friends, I never get to party and I can't talk to anyone about it. I've chosen this career and it's all my own doing, but sometimes the fucking loneliness, which I was well aware of in the beginning, gets a bit much.

End of rant.
>> No. 23869 Anonymous
22nd December 2016
Thursday 12:23 pm
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>>23868
What line of work you in? Merchant navy?
>> No. 23870 Anonymous
22nd December 2016
Thursday 12:46 pm
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>>23867
I wish I knew, I've just been feeling more and more helpless and worthless for the past couple of months and it all came to a head yesterday. That's the thing that annoys me, I'm not a 5 year old but I can't stop myself acting like one.
>> No. 23871 Anonymous
22nd December 2016
Thursday 2:09 pm
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>>23869

I acquire information.
>> No. 23872 Anonymous
22nd December 2016
Thursday 4:26 pm
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>>23871

You dick, just tell us you're GCHQlad or what have you before I start being happy you're alone.
>> No. 23873 Anonymous
22nd December 2016
Thursday 4:38 pm
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>>23871
I'm happy that you are spending the best time of your life alone. Hopefully, it will only get worse for you from here on out.
>> No. 23874 Anonymous
25th December 2016
Sunday 5:51 pm
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>>23576

Go teach English. I suggest JET. It'll be great for you.
>> No. 23875 Anonymous
25th December 2016
Sunday 9:03 pm
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I've been with my gf for a few years but I have a weird (and maybe unique?) problem. I get jealous over things that happened _before_ I met her. Say she's tagged in a picture from years ago where she happens to be having fun I will get a horrible pang of envy possibly because she dared to look happy without me. It is painful and I can feel it in my stomach and chest.

At this point i don't know what I want more - to love her or to own her. I feel ashamed and sad.
>> No. 23876 Anonymous
25th December 2016
Sunday 9:28 pm
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>>23875

I feel you, and have had similar feelings about people I've been involved with. When you really intensely love someone to that degree, it can cause you to learn uncomfortable things about yourself. You have no reason to feel shame if you make an effort to change that pattern of thought; love her as a human being, not as an ideal.
>> No. 23877 Anonymous
26th December 2016
Monday 1:40 am
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>>23874

Seconding this.
>> No. 23878 Anonymous
26th December 2016
Monday 1:56 am
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>>23875>>23876

Met this las about a year and a half ago and it's been going great. She had to re-activate her facebook because she decided that she'd benefit from meeting new friends at her new job. I finally got to see pictures of her before she met me, and she mentioned that 10 months prior to meeting me, she broke off a 8 year long relationship. That's heavy lads. So no doubt she had a lot of photos with her ex, and no doubt she looked happy in a lot of them. It felt weird, and yes, you feel a bit jealous knowing that her ex may have appeared to be better looking than you, and you're second rate to them.

But that how YOU see YOURSELF, to her, you could be the guy has been waiting for.
>> No. 23879 Anonymous
26th December 2016
Monday 5:19 am
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>>23875
Be careful with this, lad. One of my friends went out with a lad who used to get sad because he'd dwell on the fact he didn't take her virginity and she'd slept with people before him. In the end she had to break it off as he became so suffocatingly possessive.
>> No. 23880 Anonymous
26th December 2016
Monday 10:35 am
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>>23875

Have you considered your own background and your own life before hand?

Do you feel angry because you haven't got your own memories? You probably do, chances are you went out and had fun and met girls before her, yet they mean very little in the way of spending time with her now. That's probably how she feels about your memories too. Whilst you have them and they're nice to look back on, they mean very little, and it's probably the same for her too.

Visualising it like this should help you a lot.
>> No. 24040 Anonymous
13th January 2017
Friday 11:48 pm
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I am bored.

Or rather, I think I may simply be boring.

A few years ago I used to be engaged with all sorts of little hobbies and projects, I participated in communities and events and so on. But these days, I've gradually fallen out of the "scene" with everything I used to enjoy, and when I really think about it the fact is I can't be arsed any more.

I've grown out of the music I used to be into. I don't have the attention span to focus on the productive hobbies I used to practice. I no longer have the patience even to stick with a videogame for more than a few hours or read a good book. I just tend to sit and passively absorb some long-form Youtube video, whilst scrolling through some shite imageboard posts.

I think I have simply reached a stage in life where changing my identity in some ways is inevitable, but the trouble is I can't muster the effort it takes to make new friends, discover new interests, see new places. I'm bored. I can't be arsed.

I hang out with less people than I used to. I don't remember the last time I made a new friend, unless work colleagues count. Tinder dates definitely don't count, although I wish there was an equivalent of Tinder to just find people you can hang out with.

I'm in a relationship with someone I'm not sure I really love. She's great in a lot of ways but I don't feel any real passion toward her, I seem to just be with her because the cold, calculating part of my brain says that at least you get sex and she cleans your flat. I don't feel any passion for anything much any more, come to think about it. I feel as though the conquest for new, more attractive sexual partners would temporarily give my life some sort of direction and focus but also leave me feeling ultimately more hollow as a result.

I think I may have pushed the boat out a bit far with psychedelic drugs over the last couple of years. Witnessing life from a higher point of view seems to have left everything that felt meaningful before seem insignificant and fleeting. Morality seems so arbitrary now, the direction a life takes seems so random and inconsequential when considered amongst the billions of others.

Theoretically my life is pretty good and I don't have anything to really worry about. I wouldn't say I'm depressed- I've been truly depressed before, and this doesn't feel like that. I just feel listless, numb, bored.

Maybe it's just January. Maybe its just the shit weather and lack of good social company. I don't know, but the sense has been pervading me for a while now. I bought a load of booze in before Christmas and intended to party by myself, something I would have enjoyed a few years ago. I only opened on bottle of beer and still haven't touched any of the spirits. I just can't really be arsed.

Actually I don't think my life has ever been "right" since I got sucked in and then fucked over by a lass way out of my leage several years ago. Feels like the last five or six years have entirely been spent rebuilding after I went all in and ended up getting cleaned out. The process has hollowed me out and left a bitter taste around all the things that made me who I was then.

You know what, fuck knows, whatever. It's not like I'm on the streets. I have a decent-ish job and all the necessities of modern life. I just needed to spill my guts, since I don't want to alienate any of my few remaining real friends by making them think I'm a self-absorbed emo wanker. But if any of you read to the end of that mess, thanks.
>> No. 24041 Anonymous
13th January 2017
Friday 11:52 pm
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>>24040
Life m8.
>> No. 24042 Anonymous
13th January 2017
Friday 11:57 pm
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>>24040
Not to denigrate your problems or anything but it does seem like lots of people are feeling more down than usual at the moment. I figure most people have SAD to some degree.
>> No. 24043 Anonymous
14th January 2017
Saturday 12:49 am
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>>24042

To be sure they are rather trivial compared to some folk's issues, hence why I posted here rather than in a new thread. It's just odd that I've not really felt this way in previous winters.

>>24041

Quite.
>> No. 24044 Anonymous
14th January 2017
Saturday 2:27 am
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>>24040
You're me, except I'm single. Although my cold, calculating part of my brain does sometimes think to find some passionless relationship to at least get sex and a cleaner flat.
>> No. 24045 Anonymous
14th January 2017
Saturday 2:28 am
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Every time I scroll past that OP image I think it's Alexander Armstrong.
>> No. 24046 Anonymous
14th January 2017
Saturday 4:45 am
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>>24040

>I wouldn't say I'm depressed- I've been truly depressed before, and this doesn't feel like that. I just feel listless, numb, bored.

What you've described in your post absolutely sounds like depression.

GPs and A&E doctors often use a test called the PHQ-2 to identify patients who might have undiagnosed depression. It uses just the following two questions:

Over the past two weeks, how often have you been bothered by the following problems?
a) Little interest or pleasure in doing things
b) Feeling down, depressed or hopeless

If you answer "more than half the days" to both questions, there's an 80% chance that you're suffering from some sort of depressive illness.

Based on what you've said, I'd strongly recommend speaking to your GP. Because you've suffered from depression before, you're at much higher risk of developing depression again. That feeling of dull listlessness can easily turn into complete despair if you don't do something about it.
>> No. 24048 Anonymous
14th January 2017
Saturday 2:48 pm
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>>24045

>>24045

Same here. There's something strangely comforting about someone who projects that easygoing happiness like Armstrong sitting down in a grotty pub at the end of the week, drowning in his pint and thinking it's just all so fucking pointless.
>> No. 24049 Anonymous
14th January 2017
Saturday 8:55 pm
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>>I wouldn't say I'm depressed- I've been truly depressed before, and this doesn't feel like that. I just feel listless, numb, bored.

There is no excuse for boredom, lad. There is always something to be interested in. Maybe your boredom is just a lack of enthusiasm.
>> No. 24050 Anonymous
14th January 2017
Saturday 10:53 pm
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I've been feeling down to the point where I have been actively battling suicidal ideation every waking hour this past week. I can't find the motivation to take any greater steps, just hanging on is all I can manage.
>> No. 24051 Anonymous
14th January 2017
Saturday 11:18 pm
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>>24050

Call Samaritans at any time on 116 123. Calls are free on all networks. If you're worried that you might attempt suicide, go to A&E or call 999 for an ambulance.
>> No. 24052 Anonymous
14th January 2017
Saturday 11:44 pm
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>>24051
Thanks but that sounds a lot like me calling Crimestoppers if I'm about to rob a bank.
>> No. 24053 Anonymous
15th January 2017
Sunday 12:00 am
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>>24052
The fuck are you on about? These services are there to help you. Use them. 99% of people who feel suicidal later recover and were glad that there was intervention and assistance when they needed it.
>> No. 24054 Anonymous
15th January 2017
Sunday 12:07 am
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>>24052

No, it's like calling a builder if the roof of your bank is about to collapse on top of you.
>> No. 24055 Anonymous
15th January 2017
Sunday 1:44 am
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You can't beat death.
But you can beat death in life.
>> No. 24158 Anonymous
5th February 2017
Sunday 9:25 pm
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I have the most amazing and supportive girlfriend, who has put up with so much shit from me due to me being a mentally ill fuck up. She'd do anything for me, and talks often of marriage and kids, and we're meant to be moving in together in a few months after 2 years of dating.

But I want to end it with her. I doubt I'll find someone who would sacrifice so much to be with me, who would support me through so much, but I just don't feel right in the relationship. I don't see kids and marriage in my future. I don't even see a future for myself, and reckon I'll end up topping myself in the next few years. I fear staying with her will be a future of mediocrity. I just want to fuck off to another country or something.
>> No. 24159 Anonymous
5th February 2017
Sunday 10:44 pm
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>>24158

Was going to write a post blustering on about mediocrity, but then I realised that the problem is primarily that you don't see a future for yourself at all. Figure that out first, what are your values? What do you want to do with your life? Maybe a wife and kids would fit into that if you can build a clearer picture for yourself.
>> No. 24161 Anonymous
5th February 2017
Sunday 10:58 pm
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>>24158

Have you ever expressed your lack of readiness for such commitment to her? It's hard to gather the context from your post but I found it hard not to interpret it as "I don't really want this but the woman is already making all the arrangements and I don't have much say."

If she's as understanding and supporting as you say then she shouldn't rush you into these things, but you didn't make it clear how much communication there has been. It would be harsh to break up with someone who's done a lot for you like that, but I can't recommend you get stuck into a tenancy agreement or anything even approaching marriage/kids until you've sorted your head out.
>> No. 24183 Anonymous
13th February 2017
Monday 12:20 am
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The desire to be wiped out completely off the face of the earth grows within me.
>> No. 24190 Anonymous
13th February 2017
Monday 11:13 pm
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My state of mind flipflops so wildly recently and I don't know why. I'd describe myself as hypersensitive.
Decided to swear off getting drunk for the foreseeable future, that just exacerbates things.

Also been thinking how people respond to personality disorders.
I've never been good with people, normal interactions take a lot of effort for me and it's difficult getting that across to people at all.
Doesn't help when people on /emo/ start complaining at people in similar situations to "man up" because some kid in africa lost his parents to anal rapist murderers. It's all relevant to people's own situations, you'd deny anyone in the UK the opportunity for grieving if you compared us to people in shittier bits of the planet.
>> No. 24194 Anonymous
14th February 2017
Tuesday 1:07 am
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>>24190
>Doesn't help when people on /emo/ start complaining at people in similar situations to "man up" because some kid in africa lost his parents to anal rapist murderers. It's all relevant to people's own situations, you'd deny anyone in the UK the opportunity for grieving if you compared us to people in shittier bits of the planet.


Sounds like what you need is someone to give you a hug listen to you rant a bit and give you some reassuring words and send you on your way ready to face the world once more.
>> No. 24196 Anonymous
14th February 2017
Tuesday 12:25 pm
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>>24190

>I've never been good with people, normal interactions take a lot of effort for me and it's difficult getting that across to people at all.

I'm the same, but you can get over that with a little bit of practice. Most people are a lot easier to deal with than you think. And you don't always have to think it's your fault when a social interaction becomes awkward.
>> No. 24249 Anonymous
19th February 2017
Sunday 11:42 pm
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I got upset over the treatment of possibly trolling, more likely horribly real and needing to vent nonenglishspeaking deathbedlad on this board, posted on /shed/ and was accused of being deathbedlad, as was someone else who questioned it after me. I got surprisingly upset about all of that and really hope there is some reason people think he was trolling for attention. I nearly came close to full-scale teary 'I am leaving gs forever' territory accompanied by a list of the marvels and memorable posts I have introduced to this place since 2010, but didn't.

Also, I'm feeling old, tired all the time, unworthy of my girlfriend, too dependent on drink, sick of being skint.
>> No. 24254 Anonymous
21st February 2017
Tuesday 5:08 am
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What is my purpose?
>> No. 24255 Anonymous
21st February 2017
Tuesday 5:41 am
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>>24254

Depends on your personal views. Religons are all pretty easy, live a good life do what the high power tell you so it doesn't eat you bla bla bla...

If you go into phisophy it goes everywhere from
life has meaning and it is this!... ;
Life has meaning but you have to find it;
There is meaning but it is unknowable , but you can make your own and it has value;
To meaning is unknowable, but it's worth looking for one;
to don't bother looking because existance is a cruel joke and you'll never find one and any meaning you set yourself is just busy work;
There is no meaning to anything ever, every existing thing is born without reason, prolongs itself out of weakness and dies by chance.


Personally I have never been able to get behind a definitive meaning of it all. But there are several key moral principals that I would defend with my life if push came to shove.
>> No. 24256 Anonymous
21st February 2017
Tuesday 5:45 am
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>>24254

Mainly, turning glucose and oxygen into energy and CO2. Beyond that, you're making it up as you go along, just like the rest of us.
>> No. 24257 Anonymous
21st February 2017
Tuesday 5:46 am
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>>24255

Well that was a mess of spelling errors my apologies Modlads.
>> No. 24258 Anonymous
21st February 2017
Tuesday 6:38 am
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>>24254
You pass butter
>> No. 24259 Anonymous
21st February 2017
Tuesday 7:03 am
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>>24254
>> No. 24262 Anonymous
21st February 2017
Tuesday 2:15 pm
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>>23560

OP's picture looks like my Dad. I don't like my Dad. I call him David and he's a shit grandparent.

Despite all that, if he stopped being a histrionic child, I'd make up with him in a second.

I don't know about the rest of you, but when I was young I spent a great deal of time with my Grandparents. We would visit one set on a Saturday and the other on a Sunday or sometime stay over for the weekend at one or the others. This was something I always assumed was at the core of his personality; being family orientated, but he has only ever seen his own Grandchildren on a handful of occasions and I can't figure out why.

We don't get along because he is a hypochondriac and doesn't like being challenged on anything he says or does, but why would that stop him going to see my Sister's kids?

It doesn't scan and I can't stop dwelling on it. Maybe it was my own Grandparents who pushed to see us, but even then if you were raised and lived in that environment of close knit family why would you estrange yourself on purpose?
>> No. 24263 Anonymous
21st February 2017
Tuesday 2:54 pm
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>>24262

I call my dad "Dave", but I think that's just because I was an especially stupid child who got the words "dad" and "Dave" mixed up.

Sage for pointless posting.
>> No. 24264 Anonymous
21st February 2017
Tuesday 2:54 pm
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>>24262
Maybe they make him feel old and miss his own parents?
>> No. 24265 Anonymous
21st February 2017
Tuesday 3:04 pm
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>>24264

His parents are still alive. He is only punishing himself at the end of the day, they already call my Mum's partner Papa. If it is as something as petty as that, lets just say it wouldn't be out of character if other situations were taken into consideration. This is family though, which I always thought he put on a pedestal.
>> No. 24293 Anonymous
24th February 2017
Friday 5:00 pm
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You know that thing lassies do where they flirt with you and say things which give you the impression of being interested, but then also just blatantly ignore your communication for hours/days on end?

I try not to waste my time on them when they do this, clearly bitch is just using you for the occasional compliments and attention when she feels like it. But why does it have to happen with ones that you proper fancied too. You sit there like a dog waiting for its owner to come back from work like "Ah man why won't she just message back."

Fuck women man. Fuck 'em all to hell.
>> No. 24301 Anonymous
24th February 2017
Friday 6:38 pm
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>>24293

I think your problem is one of percived scacity and not moving forwards. You put up with their bullshit because you don't see yourself as having other options. Meet more women, then you'll feel that you no longer need to dwell on the ones you currently know stringing you along because there will be other options.
Some of those women will be decent people who treat you with dignity, and you can have much more rewarding rapport with, and the ones currently causing you grief will become less important to you and your happiness.
>> No. 24302 Anonymous
24th February 2017
Friday 6:41 pm
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>>24301

I appreciate the sentiment but to be honest, I don't have a problem per-se. I just wanted to vent a bit about lasses airing me. I'm actually a bit of a manwhore with the old dating apps.

It's just frustrating when you think you've found a really nice one who might even have more potential than just a quick shag, but then she turns out to be one of the ones who never responds.
>> No. 24312 Anonymous
25th February 2017
Saturday 8:47 am
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>>24302

I'm with you there. No matter how much life experience I have, and how many women I've been with, it's still painful to be convinced she's into you then suddenly realise she definitely isn't.
>> No. 24317 Anonymous
26th February 2017
Sunday 12:19 am
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What is a good reason to not kill yourself?
>> No. 24322 Anonymous
26th February 2017
Sunday 7:31 pm
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>>24317

It might get better later, and even if it doesn't, you're going to die eventually anyway. The outcome is always the same in the end, you're just potentially missing out on the good parts. There's no rational reason to commit to such a decision.

It's like if someone offers you a lottery ticket for free. What have you got to gain by turning it down?
>> No. 24399 Anonymous
9th March 2017
Thursday 10:16 pm
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You know that thing where you're just completely blagging it through life, and somehow you're just getting away with it all? You know, you bullshit all day at work, you lie your way through awkward situations, you make things up as you go along and hope it works out.

Does it ever get on top of you just simply how much you're completely, absolutely fucking phoning it in at times, but somehow totally getting away with it? I have this crushing paranoia sometimes that I'll turn up to work or sit down for a pint and they'll just collectively go "Look. We know you're a fraud. We're on to you."

I've always supposed it's because everyone else is going through life in the exact same manner, but I don't know lads. Sometimes I just have one of those days where I get away completely clean with something that I really should have been called out on, and I can't help but sit there questioning it all.
>> No. 24400 Anonymous
9th March 2017
Thursday 10:25 pm
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>>24399
I dunno. Give us an example?
>> No. 24402 Anonymous
9th March 2017
Thursday 10:52 pm
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>>24399

Might want to reseach this lad. Might put you at ease to understand it better.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impostor_syndrome
>> No. 24404 Anonymous
10th March 2017
Friday 6:40 am
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>>24399
'Good old neon' by David Foster Wallace is a great short story on this theme.
>> No. 24555 Anonymous
19th March 2017
Sunday 5:46 am
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Just going to bump this thread. For the first time in almost a year I've had actual isolated time to myself. It hasn't gone well. I had a lot of alcohol and it resulted in lots of shouting, bruised knuckles and lots of tears. For the past almostyear I've been socialising a lot, traveling through different countries and all that, I think it distracted me. Turns out that if I'm left by myself I'm exactly the same as before I set out to do all that, If that makes sense. Left to my own devices I think I'm just done and it's a matter of time.

You can't change the things that have happened to you, and past a certain point you can't change how they affect you. More importantly, you just don't care and whatever happens, happens. I'm fucking off elsewhere soon and I'm probably going to die in the middle of nowhere, somewhere in the world. I am ok with this, I think.
>> No. 24792 Anonymous
19th April 2017
Wednesday 9:29 pm
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I have nothing to say yet want to be heard.
>> No. 24793 Anonymous
19th April 2017
Wednesday 9:58 pm
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>>24555
Sounds like you were fine on your own devices until you started to drink.
>> No. 24794 Anonymous
20th April 2017
Thursday 3:40 am
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>>24793

Christ lad. For some people that's a bit like saying "you were doing fine with all those sheep until you remembered you're a wolf". You can run half way around the world, you can reinvent yourself over and over again in new cities in new countries, you can fill your days and nights with wholesome activities and new friends and romances. You can do all that, but if right down at the honest basic sat in a dingy hotel room with my own company level you're a miserable, unhappy, slightly mad bastard then all of that is nothing but a great big psychic plaster just waiting to come peeling off.

I'm not even >>24555, btw, just a potentially kindred spirit in the void.
>> No. 24795 Anonymous
20th April 2017
Thursday 7:47 am
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>>24399


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2QuJy99yDSc

>>24555

>You can't change the things that have happened to you, and past a certain point you can't change how they affect you.

You can always change how you behave. Living a better life is just a series of simple choices. Take the drink or leave it, get some exercise or sit on your arse, share your feelings or bottle them up, wallow in self-pity or be grateful. If you're living in the past or worrying about the future, you're not giving your full attention to the choice you're making right now.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UcSaCfuH-GU
>> No. 24796 Anonymous
20th April 2017
Thursday 10:21 am
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>>24794
Really? Because I think it's more like saying "You seemed to be fine until you introduced a large quantity of a chemical to your brain which lowers your inhibitions and leaves you feeling like shit physically and mentally for days afterwards".
There's some real pathological thinking you hear spouted every now and then about how alcohol brings out "the real you". No, it doesn't. Your inhibitions are just as much a part of you as the desires they hold you back from acting on. Who you are when you're completely bladdered is no more the "real" you than when you're communing with the machine elves.
Then, even when you've kicked the tangible hangover, it leaves you depressed. If he's recently gone out and had too much to drink and made a fool of himself then he's not going to be thinking clearly when he wrote that. Which is better than some sort of self-aggrandising bipolar bullshit about being a wolf among sheep. Remind yourself that you're not thinking clearly, until this happened you were doing ok, get some sunshine and back on the wagon.
>> No. 24797 Anonymous
20th April 2017
Thursday 5:49 pm
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Huh, I forgot about this thread but for the previous posters, >24555 was me. For what it's worth it's not alcohol that makes me feel that way though I understand why people think that, it really does just help me cope, I can get a good cry in and let some things out much easier (always by myself) then pass out easily too. If I don't drink and have sessions like that then I spiral more and it gets much worse, I fixate and don't sleep and oddly alcohol has kept me here at least. I'm aware that's not a good thing probably.

I think I'm doing a bit better since then, though. Trying to let go more, get outside more, read more. Even just walking and walking then falling asleep in a field somewhere is nice. I have had slightly more distractions as I'm back at home now though and less consistent social contact. I think being by myself just seems to work out better for everyone. Maybe I'll live in the woods or something. Oh, trying to live more in the "now" too, turns out there's a lot of peace to be had in chaos. Sage for rambling.
>> No. 24798 Anonymous
20th April 2017
Thursday 10:10 pm
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It is so liberating to be so brain-damaged that you forget about things that happened years ago, people you have met, things you did, etc. Sometimes I play along and act like I know what the fuck-off memory some of the cunts around me are talking about.
>> No. 24799 Anonymous
21st April 2017
Friday 4:53 pm
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>>24796

You completely missed the point. It's not about "self-aggrandising" and it's not about the alcohol, it's about the process that led you up to drinking the alcohol in the first place.

Even if you want to take the utterly simplistic case of someone who's drinking too much, the "fix" (as if there could ever be such a thing) isn't simply to stop drinking alcohol. All that stopping drinking will do for that person is take them back to who they were before they started drinking, which is to say the exact self same person who started drinking in the first place with all of same problems and reasons that they had before. Basically you're back to square one except now your liver hurts and all your friends think you're a prick. Thus the cycle of misery and addiction.

Thanks for sharing your utterly sophomoric thought processes with us anyway, cupcake.
>> No. 24801 Anonymous
21st April 2017
Friday 9:19 pm
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>>24799
If it's not about that, then why were you talking about wolf and sheep? Clearly he's functional when he's not drinking. It's also obvious that he was depressed post-binge, which is normal. I was just trying to reassure the guy that no, he's not really a psychopath or a bad person, that's the result of him drinking, whereas you seem to be doing the opposite and encouraging him to drink on top of that.

Despite his claim now that it's not the alcohol that does it, he's been doing better since he stopped. I think that speaks for itself. Now if you'll excuse me, a four-pack of tennants super in the offie is calling my name.
>> No. 24802 Anonymous
21st April 2017
Friday 10:21 pm
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>>24801
Oh, uh..I didn't meant to imply I'd stopped. I haven't. I actually just got a litre of gin.
>> No. 24803 Anonymous
21st April 2017
Friday 10:27 pm
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>>24802
Then I retract what I said in light of new information.
>> No. 24804 Anonymous
23rd April 2017
Sunday 10:19 pm
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Sometimes, I feel very happy, and sometimes I feel very, very down, irritable and just wishing that I would not wake up from my sleep forever. I think this is wearing down my friends and family because they see me as really happy and joking around with them one time, and just really closed off and pissed off at other times.

This isn't fair on them, and it just makes me feel shittier. Am I mental or is this the case with most people?
>> No. 24805 Anonymous
24th April 2017
Monday 10:36 am
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>>24804

Cyclothymia. It's perfectly treatable.
>> No. 24892 Anonymous
4th May 2017
Thursday 9:43 pm
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Lately I have found myself experiencing a certain longing when I watch TV shows that involve best friends and how they do stuff together. Even the X-Files. The reason being that I used to be best friends with a girl I knew for over 10 years and we'd hang out so much we really grew into each other, kindred spirits I guess. You' know how when you know someone so well you can communicate without saying anything - just with a look like you have some hidden language.

Of course I wrecked it by developing feelings for her and then had to cut contact because I couldn't spend my life watching her go with someone else, standard 20-something stuff. I'll never be able to patch that up and wouldn't want to but I do find myself missing her even years later. I know I will meet someone else like that one day and I do make friends and girlfriends but it is rare to build that kind of connection with someone. It is like a part of my youth that has been lost.

I just felt like getting that off my chest. There is no solution other than to forget about this fairly mundane problem.
>> No. 24893 Anonymous
5th May 2017
Friday 1:05 am
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I was going to wish my ex happy birthday today (well, yesterday) on the f.book. We hardly talk now, but in the process I saw the chat log of our break up and I became bitter, resentful, in pain and close to tears and decided it was best not to talk to her in case I acted on that feeling.

I feel slightly guilty for not saying it, but really no one else cares or is hurt that I didn't.
>> No. 24894 Anonymous
5th May 2017
Friday 6:31 pm
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>>24892

I had an amazing friendship with a girl who was genuinely one of the funniest people I know. We knew eachother for about 8 years, but fucked that up royally by becoming a turbulent couple for 2 of them.

For a long time it felt like a chunk of my identity was missing, because there was no other human being I felt understood me like her. All that confiding in eachother, learning about the world, making sense of experiences together.

What I've come to realise is that the joined-at-the-hip feeling is a bit of an illusion. It's true that relationships are important for growth, we are always free to change how we look at ourselves. In fact, the drive to do that (for better or worse) is what ends many relationships, I think.

There's still bitterness, but also some fond and important memories. What's more important is now, though, is I feel like I am the person with the best understanding of myself. There's no need for someone who can complete my thoughts or flatter my ego. I know what I am, what I can do, how I react to things. I've come to know myself a lot better since we broke up.

Sage for borderline New Age wank.
>> No. 24895 Anonymous
5th May 2017
Friday 6:38 pm
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>>24894

This post reads like I'm drunk but I swear I'm just fatigued.
>> No. 24896 Anonymous
5th May 2017
Friday 8:02 pm
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>>24892

I have a similar thing with Star Trek TNG, particularly the episodes where Data is trying to explore his potential humanity. There's something comforting about their somewhat utopian world when I'm feeling miserably depressed or zombified (thanks Mirtazapine).

Plus Patrick Stewart is a cracking actor and who doesn't like looking at Counselor Troi? Long as her mum doesn't bugger up the episode.
>> No. 24900 Anonymous
7th May 2017
Sunday 11:56 am
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>>24896

If TNG is on telly and Troi's mum is in it I automatically switch off. She was fucking annoying
>> No. 24901 Anonymous
7th May 2017
Sunday 1:09 pm
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>>24893
You made the right decision. There is zero point in trying to continue a friendship with your ex if it ended up in bitterness, no matter how much you try you will both involuntary hate one another.

>>24896
>>24900
Mr. Woof!

I can't say I ever minded her. The thing about Lwaxana is she feels like a real person and even reminds me of an auntie I have. I'd rather one of her episodes than one of the weird Troi episodes with her wooden acting, awkward eroticism and rubbish superpower.
>> No. 24902 Anonymous
7th May 2017
Sunday 3:26 pm
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>>24901

Auntiefucker mark 2 imminent
>> No. 24903 Anonymous
7th May 2017
Sunday 4:58 pm
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>>24901

> an auntie

Lad.
>> No. 24904 Anonymous
7th May 2017
Sunday 5:54 pm
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>>24903
Grammatically that is correct. An goes before a vowel.
>> No. 24905 Anonymous
7th May 2017
Sunday 11:07 pm
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>>24904
I don't think that's what he meant.
>> No. 24917 Anonymous
17th May 2017
Wednesday 5:08 pm
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My cunt brain doesn't work.
>> No. 24918 Anonymous
19th May 2017
Friday 9:42 am
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I've become fundamentally crap at taking care of myself, in the most fundamentally basic ways.

I'm hungry right now and should do something about it. But I will put off doing anything about it, because I feel like it requires too much effort. Even though it is making me miserable, What is my problem? when did I become this apathetic? How do I stop being this crap at existing. I feel like sometimes some survival circit in my brain switched to self termination, and it powered down all aspirations and drive.
>> No. 24919 Anonymous
19th May 2017
Friday 10:52 am
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>>24918

Could be a medical reason for it. Go to your GP.
>> No. 24920 Anonymous
19th May 2017
Friday 12:10 pm
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I'd just like to say my cunt brain is doing alright at the minute.
>> No. 24921 Anonymous
19th May 2017
Friday 12:11 pm
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>>24920

Good to know. Keep us posted.
>> No. 24923 Anonymous
20th May 2017
Saturday 1:04 am
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>>24918

Self-neglect and low motivation are big warning signs for depression. Get yourself to the GP.
>> No. 24924 Anonymous
20th May 2017
Saturday 9:27 pm
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>>24923
And tell him what? The whole thing is drawn out.
>> No. 24925 Anonymous
21st May 2017
Sunday 1:57 pm
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>>24923

The doctor tried to tell me I was depressed for these reasons, so I had to remind him that not only am I already on an antidepressant for anxiety, I suffer from chronic back and joint pain and told him if he gave me better painkillers I'd shower more than was absolutely necessary to keep my wife from leaving me.

I shaved recently for the first time in about a year and had to use scissors on it first, because I was going to a wedding. Up until that point I couldn't be arsed because it really hurt my arm and wrist and my wife liked it... for a bit. She started offering to shave it for me, but I was too proud, but eventually conceded the moustache because she threatened to stop having sex with me so she was trimming it with a beard trimmer every time it got "scratchy".

It's all about perspective, both of those things apply to me but I'm pretty OK mentally.
>> No. 24926 Anonymous
21st May 2017
Sunday 6:31 pm
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>>24925

Cognitive Behavoural Therapy can be really useful for chronic pain. It won't make the pain better, but it can make it easier to live with. Have you ever been referred to a pain clinic or the Expert Patients Programme?
>> No. 24927 Anonymous
21st May 2017
Sunday 10:15 pm
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>>24926

Yeah, the Pain Clinic are fucking heroes. They gave me my first TENS machine and put me on pre-gabalin (which is cracking stuff).

The nurses have good chat and tolerance for swearing, first time I went they gave me a form with pictures of the body and told me to highlight were it hurt. I highlighted the whole thing and handed it back to him and he was just like "...fair enough. You want to sit in my desk chair, these seat are shit?" I sat in the chair.
>> No. 25026 Anonymous
19th June 2017
Monday 2:34 am
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I care more about the people I'm employed to look after than myself. Much more. They are fantastic, and I have no idea why I'm still here.
>> No. 25030 Anonymous
30th June 2017
Friday 7:53 pm
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I feel as though my time with .gs may be drawing to a close, and it's making me sad.

I've been frequenting this place from what feels like (because it probably has been) my entire adult life. It's been my "thing" that I keep to myself and don't need to tell anyone about, a nice morning scroll with a cuppa and a cig. But it's just not really as cathartic or relaxing as it used to be, and it makes me feel rather melancholic. Either the demographic has changed, or my tastes have changed, but the discussion here isn't what it once was.

I don't mean this post as one of those ridiculous attention seeking farewell post, I suppose I'm just feeling rather sentimental about drifting away from something that has actually been a pretty big part of my life. I don't like change. Growing old is scary.

All the best anyway lads.
>> No. 25031 Anonymous
30th June 2017
Friday 9:40 pm
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>>25030
>drifting away from something that has actually been a pretty big part of my life.
Now that's depressing.
>> No. 25032 Anonymous
30th June 2017
Friday 9:50 pm
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>>25031
Bugger off edgelord.
>> No. 25033 Anonymous
2nd July 2017
Sunday 12:18 am
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I really hate summer. Makes me very depressed.

I wish I could die every year and be reborn anew.
>> No. 25075 Anonymous
3rd July 2017
Monday 8:37 pm
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>>25030

See you in a couple of years.
>> No. 25076 Anonymous
3rd July 2017
Monday 9:10 pm
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Sometimes, when I'm squeezing out the last few squirts of a piss, a little nugget of shit pops out and nestles between my arse cheeks.

I'm not sure what distresses me most. The fact I can't really feel that nugget of shit is there first, the fact that it's quite awkward if it happens at a standing urinal, the fact my arse is apparently loose enough that a gentle squeeze forces it out, or the fact that I have that one solitary nugget lurking around even when I've had a massive dump just a few hours prior.
>> No. 25077 Anonymous
3rd July 2017
Monday 9:47 pm
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>>25076

Eat more fibre and start doing pelvic floor exercises. Yes, men do have a pelvic floor.
>> No. 25078 Anonymous
3rd July 2017
Monday 9:59 pm
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>>25030
I know what you mean.

We peaked with Are Moaty. These days I'm visiting more out of habit than out of expectation I'll find something likely to cause mirth. The enthusiasm has gone. There's a small band of people determined to suck the fun out of everything and reduce most threads to pointless bickering, even when they're agreeing with each other. I know that's always been there but in the past it's generally been drowned out whereas nowadays we can go an entire weekend with only a dozen or so posts, none of them in the actual weekend thread.

Sage for meta.
>> No. 25079 Anonymous
4th July 2017
Tuesday 5:55 pm
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>>25078
I think this is just the feeling of loving Britfa, but not being in love with Britfa.
>> No. 25080 Anonymous
4th July 2017
Tuesday 6:13 pm
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>>25079
Maybe we should try a date-night, have a think about how we might spice things up in the bedroom too.
>> No. 25081 Anonymous
4th July 2017
Tuesday 8:24 pm
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>>25080
I've bought a couple of magazines. Maybe we can try this underwear? I don't know.
>> No. 25082 Anonymous
4th July 2017
Tuesday 9:38 pm
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>>25081
How do you feel about getting your sister involved?
>> No. 25083 Anonymous
4th July 2017
Tuesday 10:44 pm
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>>25082
I don't have a sister but I've got an aunt.
>> No. 25084 Anonymous
4th July 2017
Tuesday 10:58 pm
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>>25083

Does she like her ale?
>> No. 25085 Anonymous
6th July 2017
Thursday 2:08 pm
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Does anyone know if there's a kind of careers/life advice service available for adults. In the past year or so my mind has got so cloudy and I struggle conceptualise things properly and as I result I feel a bit stuck. I have lots of ideas of things I want/wish to do but I can't quite get it together or explain it.

I always feel so overwhelmed at the moment but I don't really have anything to feel overwhelmed at (that I can think of). I also feel I've lost alot of my abilities - hence why this post is probably full of grammatical errors.

I'm only (or already) 26 and I feel very stuck. Just feel like I need to have a deep and constructive conversation with someone lads.
>> No. 25086 Anonymous
6th July 2017
Thursday 2:43 pm
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>>25085
I'm just popping in to say that yes, life coaches are a thing, but someone else may have more specific advice like which ones are scams.
>> No. 25087 Anonymous
6th July 2017
Thursday 3:12 pm
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>>25086

Yeah I had a look into life coaches in the area but they seemed like scams, or at least a waste of money.
>> No. 25088 Anonymous
6th July 2017
Thursday 5:32 pm
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>>25085
I've been feeling in a similar funk lately but although I always say this here writing it out (my life goals) really helped put things back into order last night. I think the only person who can really sort your life out is you.

Open notepad and write out short, medium and long term goals which consider the person you want to be and the life you want to have. No need to write a crazy timetable but think about the kind of person you are and what would make you happy.
>> No. 25089 Anonymous
6th July 2017
Thursday 6:41 pm
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>>25085

All I've done recently it try to plot out where I'd be headed on my current path, try thinking about that a bit.

In my case I've decided to go back to uni and study something I enjoy (and that is coincidentally fairly useful to have a degree in). I have doubts even now, with the academic year creeping up on me, but it helps to look at what I could be doing instead.
I currently work for minimum wage in a fast food restaurant, and having little meaningful prior experience I'm unlikely to have any other opportunities easily available to me unless I work for them.
Being over 21 and a responsible adult I had the sad realisation that aside from maybe having kids eventually (unlikely since I'm chronically single) that I'm just going to be working from now until, well, longer than I can really conceptualise.
So uni it is, in the hopes of getting an actual career. I don't fancy being a fast food manager when reaching a salaried role would probably take as long as doing a degree.
>> No. 25090 Anonymous
6th July 2017
Thursday 9:01 pm
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>>25085

I have used apps called Talkspace and Coach.Me. If you spend a moment searching for the right person, they can be excellent. Both are paid subscriptions but have been really worth it to me.
>> No. 25091 Anonymous
8th July 2017
Saturday 10:02 pm
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Dating is shit. Socialising is shit. I keep trying but nobody seems to follow it up when I initiate things. Feels lonely.
>> No. 25092 Anonymous
8th July 2017
Saturday 10:15 pm
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>>25091

I'm in a similar situation too. Hence the Saturday night .gs. Solidarity.

I think I felt fulfilled last week. I felt like I was developing new friendships, I felt like I had opportunities with girls. But now everyone seems to have abandoned me and now doesn't seem interested in giving me any time.

I went on a date last night which a girl who I thought I had a good chance with, but like most of my dates, it ended with nothing more than a hug. There's either something about me IRL which makes me romantically unappealing or I'm misreading signs and should be going for a kiss anyway. I remember after one date a girl said "you're supposed to kiss me" after I hugged her goodnight so I really don't know how these things work.
>> No. 25105 Anonymous
9th July 2017
Sunday 12:14 pm
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>>25091
>>25092
I hear you
>> No. 25106 Anonymous
9th July 2017
Sunday 12:34 pm
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>>25091
>>25092
>>25105
Why don't you just meet-up and rub dicks together?
>> No. 25107 Anonymous
9th July 2017
Sunday 12:58 pm
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>>25092

Just go for the kiss. It's better to be rebuffed than wonder "what if?". A faint heart never won a fair maid and all that.

Don't lunge at a stranger on the bus, obviously. That's a sex crime.
>> No. 25111 Anonymous
9th July 2017
Sunday 9:28 pm
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>>25092

Definitely always go for the kiss, unless she clearly isn't into you at all. If it's a date, always with the kiss.
>> No. 25147 Anonymous
19th July 2017
Wednesday 9:58 pm
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I'm a 28 year old 'NEET', overweight and lead a very inactive lifesytle. I barely engage in my interests outside of playing games on the computer. It wouldn't take a great deal of effort to change this but I lack the meaning and enthusiasm to do so at the moment.
Is it unrealistic for me to connect with another person online with the view of forming an offline relationship? I don't think I'd mind helping someone else out of a hole similar to mine, mutual support, but I can barely think anyone would do it for me seeing as I do so little for myself. How can I possibly say all this without selling myself short - "If you're looking for a project, I'm your man"?

It reminds me of tha Guardians of the Galaxy trailer; "You've just got to find somebody as pathetic as you are". Well, where and how can I find her? Wouldn't a relationship borne of this end in failure, anyway?
>> No. 25148 Anonymous
19th July 2017
Wednesday 10:49 pm
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>>25147

First of all, you're going to need to develop some outside interests that don't involve sitting in front of the PC 13 hours a day. Second, you need to start taking some responsibility for yourself; you're not a 'NEET' - you're unemployed. You're not a 'project' - by your own definition you're not presenting an attractive prospect to a potential partner so, unless they're equally desperate, why the hell should anyone else do the same for you? You're not going to like this answer, maybe because you think it's a generic, 'pull your socks up' Dad-like argument but stop fucking moping, get a job, make some friends, lose some bloody weight and do something for yourself instead of wallowing in self-pity. No ones going to do it for you, mate. Once you get that in place, you'll find meeting someone a piss of piece.
>> No. 25149 Anonymous
19th July 2017
Wednesday 10:57 pm
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>>25148
I hear you, man.
>> No. 25151 Anonymous
19th July 2017
Wednesday 11:15 pm
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>>25147
>If you're looking for a project, I'm your man"?

For you to be the project of a woman you have to have some sort of halo effect that overrides your obvious failings. You know like you are very handsome and has a 60k estate car but you also want to systematically eradicate the Jewish people sort of thing. I don't think that is your option if you are the kind of decent mild mannered NEET I imagine you to be, unless you can play yourself off as some sort of brilliant soulful poet or writer who cares too much about your art to sell out and get a job.

>Is it unrealistic for me to connect with another person online with the view of forming an offline relationship?
I met my GF through an online dating site, apart from the fact that I met her I would say it is a completely awful experience that I wouldn't recommend to anyone.

The only way you are going to meet new people is by finding ways to interact with new people. If playing games is a closed system where you don't meet or talk to anyone new then you don't stand a chance without some form of change. Which is something you already know but I like to think hearing that from someone else helps.
>> No. 25153 Anonymous
20th July 2017
Thursday 1:55 am
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>>25147

Nevermind the two lads above me mate. Get on Plenty Of Fish with your most flattering selfies, try to sell yourself as if you at least have SOME redeeming factors, and you can have a slightly overweight mental perma-NEET slag like my ex in only a few weeks. It helps if you have the ability to cater to crazy daddy-issue BDSM fetishes too.

I remember it quite fondly; we were both unemployed, whittling our overdrafts away on Amber Leaf and Space Raiders, reliant on overly generous parents who didn't mind us spending all day watching Doctor Who and shagging. Difference is I eventually got my act together, whereas it turned out she was likely destined to be one of those lost cause lifetime doleys.

Being unemployed and useless at life is actually an advantage on dating sites. There's a vast underclass of 18 to 20-something chubby lasses who still live between their divorcee parents and the job centre ripe for the taking if you have a similar schedule of fuck all to do with your time. It's a numbers game and the more time you have to spend on it, the better off you are.

Since I got a decent job, sorted my life out, and have things to actually do with my time, I find it much harder to get a shag than I used to. Not only have my standards increased substantially since my hesitant, shaky early 20s, but carrying on the conversation and flirtation needed to bag a Tinder slag is something I can't find time to commit to these days. Especially with my damn girlfriend taking up so much of my fucking time. It's going to be even worse when she moves in with me.
>> No. 25154 Anonymous
20th July 2017
Thursday 1:58 am
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>>25153

This lad knows the score.
>> No. 25155 Anonymous
20th July 2017
Thursday 6:30 am
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>>25153
This. However, if you're going to take selfies take them outside.

Women love pictures of you actually doing something. Go on a ramble, walk a dog, go somewhere scenic.
>> No. 25156 Anonymous
20th July 2017
Thursday 3:18 pm
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Wow, I'm glad I'm just in a shallow pool of melancholy and not the actively manic and frequently delusional head space I was at a month ago, otherwise I might have done something properly mental (like expecting IAPT to have helped me).
>> No. 25157 Anonymous
21st July 2017
Friday 2:50 am
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Things get worse. They don't get better.
>> No. 25158 Anonymous
21st July 2017
Friday 8:28 am
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>>25153
Not thatlad but I find POF to be nigh on impossible to use. It's a cluster fuck of horrible design and misleading links.
>> No. 25159 Anonymous
21st July 2017
Friday 12:04 pm
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>>25158

It's the online equivalent of a shitty provincial nightclub. Nobody really wants to be there, the ambience is awful, but you're pretty much guaranteed to get your hole. If you want the online equivalent of a shitty provincial indie club, try OKCupid - there's a slightly better class of woman, but don't they just know it.
>> No. 25160 Anonymous
21st July 2017
Friday 3:41 pm
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>>25159

That analysis is pretty spot on and I dont like it.
>> No. 25161 Anonymous
21st July 2017
Friday 7:27 pm
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>>25159
Been on OKC for many years but I'm an ugly, slightly overweight (but not obese) autist with crippling social anxiety and hence completely unable to get a conversation going with anyone. I barely ever get replies. I hoped it would take the biggest hurdle for me out of the whole dating thing, which is telling if someone is interested in you, but all it seems to have done is confirm that no-one is actually interested.

Sage for the wrong thread to be saying this in.
>> No. 25162 Anonymous
21st July 2017
Friday 7:45 pm
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>>25158
Plenty of Fish is full of single mothers looking for a meal ticket. If you can tolerate that sort of thing then you could end up, like the bloke on Naked Attraction last night, punching well above your weight.

It's also why the place is rife with paedos.
>> No. 25163 Anonymous
21st July 2017
Friday 8:28 pm
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>>25162

Gold diggers and carpet-baggers? Sounds like Thailand.
>> No. 25164 Anonymous
21st July 2017
Friday 11:39 pm
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>>25163

It's very much like that, except instead of jetting off to a tropical paradise, you're getting a Megabus to Grimsby.
>> No. 25177 Anonymous
25th July 2017
Tuesday 7:24 pm
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After 5 years of not smoking, I have gone back to smoking because I feel less suicidal and depressed. Does that make any sense? I started a couple of weeks back and I have just been okayish and sometimes even happy. I socialise better. I'm not moody and cutting everyone off. I switched to vaping, and although it was weird, I am doing just fine.

Smoking is good.
>> No. 25179 Anonymous
25th July 2017
Tuesday 9:14 pm
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>>25177

> Does that make any sense?

Nicotine induces a massive dopaminergic response, which is why it's so bloody addictive. Some evidence suggests that it might be an effective antidepressant.
>> No. 25181 Anonymous
27th July 2017
Thursday 3:59 am
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I'm going to spend two weeks in the middle of nowhere in Europe, with no alcohol, drugs or cigarettes. I feel like I might die, but if that's how it goes, it goes.
>> No. 25182 Anonymous
27th July 2017
Thursday 4:02 am
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>>25181

>it goes, it goes.

GUILLOTINE..!
>> No. 25183 Anonymous
27th July 2017
Thursday 4:50 am
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>>25182
Ha damn it, I've been listening to them a lot too. if you couldn't tell from /beat/

Worst case scenario I get fucked out of my mind in the middle of a forest somewhere.g
>> No. 25190 Anonymous
1st August 2017
Tuesday 1:33 pm
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Why does my worldview seem so right while other peoples so wrong? How does it feel right, deep down, as if principle?

Recently while talking with a friend, for the first time in my life I looked at him and thought "there might actually be whatever it is that I am inside there, too".
>> No. 25191 Anonymous
1st August 2017
Tuesday 2:55 pm
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>>25190
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory_of_mind
>> No. 25192 Anonymous
3rd August 2017
Thursday 3:50 am
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Why can't I just be a little bit drunk all the time? I know this is like the Inebriati but honestly everything is so much better with the right amount of drink. I'm switched on. I'm actually motivated to do things. I get tipsy and I read, I clean, I get exercise. What's bad about that?
>> No. 25193 Anonymous
3rd August 2017
Thursday 4:45 am
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>>25192

It worked very well for Christopher Hitchens, right up to the point where he developed esophageal cancer.
>> No. 25195 Anonymous
3rd August 2017
Thursday 4:55 am
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>>25193
..So..Is it worth it or..?
>> No. 25211 Anonymous
5th August 2017
Saturday 2:43 am
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>>25195

I tried being drunk constantly before, managed several months before I felt like I probably shouldn't be, can't say it actually affected me negatively whilst I was drunk, but everything slipped into the usual mediocrity of life again just with more logistical problems because I had to think about how to source 20+ units of alcohol per day whilst going about my daily life.

If you do do it, be careful about sobering up, it is the withdrawal that fucks you, you can't just go dry you have to ween yourself down.
>> No. 25214 Anonymous
5th August 2017
Saturday 2:50 pm
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>>25076
"Sometimes, when I'm squeezing out the last few squirts of a piss, a little nugget of shit pops out and nestles between my arse cheeks. "

This happens to me too. It's a pain when my shit is runny.
>> No. 25218 Anonymous
5th August 2017
Saturday 9:08 pm
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>>25211
This. There's a term I now forget for how your brain adjusts to having whatever chemicals you're putting into it (neurochemical equilibrium? Something like that); after a while you're basically back to "normal", you just have an addiction to go with it, and an expensive and damaging one at that.

Speaking from experience, being a drunk becomes an absolute nightmare, and now I'm fucked because I went "cold turkey" too many times and experience kindling really badly, which is fucking horrible. I am stuck with this for life. This means that a casual drink with the lads/my family has to be carefully balanced such that I know I'll be safely alone the next day so that I can deal with the horrors of rattling, nauseous withdrawal on my own.

Don't get into drinking every day lads, it's a deeply depressing road and no good will ever come of it. If I could go back in time I'd implore my younger self never to take up drinking alone, it's hard to overstate just how profoundly negative an impact it's had on my life.
>> No. 25221 Anonymous
8th August 2017
Tuesday 1:06 am
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>>25218
>safely alone the next day so that I can deal with the horrors of rattling, nauseous withdrawal on my own.

Hair of the dog first thing in the morning, before your body has even realised it wants to be nauseous. Double vodka before you even think about your cornflakes. I used to heave so hard I'd expell all my stomach acid, and my stomach blead, when I accepted I needed to drink the next day after a night out to pace out the withdrawal I was able to recover with dignity.
>> No. 25222 Anonymous
8th August 2017
Tuesday 5:30 am
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>>25211
Legitimately debating never sobering up. Just the right amount of booze seems to quiet my mind and make everything much easier. This is probably bad but I'm also wondering if it'll lead to a short life or what. Then is it worth the trade off? It might well be.
>> No. 25223 Anonymous
8th August 2017
Tuesday 4:26 pm
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>>25222

To stay moderately drunk all day requires around 40 units of alcohol per day, and will rapidly need far more than that as your tolerance goes up. Once you start being moderately drunk all day you'll then need to drink more and more to get to sleep at night to boot.

The critical tipping point for people who like to drink is the magical 24 units per day, which is exactly (more or less) what your body can process and kick out within a 24 hour period. After this you will always have alcohol in your system whether you can feel it or not.

This means you will always have fucked up insulin levels, you will not absorb vitamin K or B vitamins - this will lead to korsakoff syndrome and potentially an esophageal hemorrhage (aka: going out like Charles Kennedy, drowning in your own blood, wide eyed and half understanding in the grimy drunken dawn of another sweaty night).

Your body will no be able to handle protein synthesis correctly while also having massively reduced lypolisis thanks to your out of whack insulin levels. This will, in a short time, give you the saggy worn out look of all men who hit too many bottles but miss too many meals; flabby ill-fitting skin and atrophied musculature.

Your liver will start giving you serious gip within about five years and will kill you within ten.

Go get hooked on benzos or phenibutt, or picamilon or whatever else isn't a complete and utter fucking toxin.

Regards, a rotting and moribund alcoholic.
>> No. 25224 Anonymous
8th August 2017
Tuesday 4:34 pm
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>>25223
>24 units per day
Huh, I had almost exactly that last night.
I think I'll steer clear tonight.
>> No. 25227 Anonymous
11th August 2017
Friday 1:45 pm
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>>25223
>The critical tipping point for people who like to drink is the magical 24 units per day, which is exactly (more or less) what your body can process and kick out within a 24 hour period. After this you will always have alcohol in your system whether you can feel it or not.

This is interesting information, thank you. Is it a constant for everyone, or dependent on body size/shape?

Is there an approximately scientific way (by which I mean something you can do yourself without a doctor) to measure a) how much alcohol is in your bloodstream right now and b) how quickly (or not) your body is processing it?
>> No. 25228 Anonymous
11th August 2017
Friday 5:18 pm
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>>25227
Boots sells single and reusable breathalysers. To see how fast it's being processed I suppose you'd have to take an average over time.
>> No. 25229 Anonymous
11th August 2017
Friday 6:01 pm
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>>25227

To the best of my knowledge, while how resistant you are the effects of alcohol will be affected by body shape, size, weight, and body fat percentage, the rate at which you clear alcohol from your system is pretty much fixed.

People who have already fucked their liver and/or kidneys will most likely metabolize and excrete it at a slower rate than people with a pristine set of organs.
>> No. 25271 Anonymous
14th August 2017
Monday 5:51 pm
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I feel like Venlafaxine might have been made by the devil himself, or at least had its creation funded by the bastard.

As soon as I went up from 75mg/day to 112.5mg/day I started feeling like I was on cheap speed all day every day. If you haven't ever taken cheap speed on a daily basis, let me describe what it feels like: by the second week or so you no longer feel any semblance of "high", no matter how much of the bastard stuff you take - all you feel is a sort of all-encompassing fatigue brought on from bad sleep quality and never feeling like eating at all mixed with a continuously "wired but tired" piano wire anxiety . All of your muscles ache, all the time, and you get out of breath trying to go up a flight of stairs.

On top of all this it also managed to turn the act of orgasm in a sort of pleasureless wet dick-fart. So, yeah, thanks for that improved quality of life there Beelzebub. I'm sure that having the possibility of pleasureless orgasms for the rest of my miserable life hanging over me the limp pink sword of Damocles is really going to help fend off depression.

And to really ice the cake I have to go back to my psychiatrist and explain that I've stopped taking the capsules of the cursed one while trying to put out of my mind the twisted idea that I might as well be investing my 250 snaps a month into heroin for all the good that the officially approved route to mental is doing for me.
>> No. 25272 Anonymous
14th August 2017
Monday 6:43 pm
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>>25271

Psychopharmaceutical dose-response curves are massively non-linear. A drug can do completely different things at different doses. Any decent psychiatrist should understand this.

http://thelastpsychiatrist.com/2007/07/the_most_important_article_on.html
>> No. 25273 Anonymous
14th August 2017
Monday 6:46 pm
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>>25272
TLP is not an authority on anything.
>> No. 25274 Anonymous
14th August 2017
Monday 7:48 pm
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>>25273
Why doesn't he post his stuck-up ramblings anymore?
>> No. 25275 Anonymous
14th August 2017
Monday 8:21 pm
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>>25274
I've seen people claim it's because he got doxxed and his employers weren't happy but others responding to that saying his identity was never hidden, so beyond vague rumours I don't know.
>> No. 25280 Anonymous
15th August 2017
Tuesday 3:51 pm
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I haven't had alcohol in almost a week. I'm surrounded by mountains and forest. Perhaps the best way to be rid of something is to go where it isn't.
>> No. 25289 Anonymous
17th August 2017
Thursday 12:35 pm
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I feel like my moral code has become so distant from modern societies that I feel like John Savage in Brave New World seeing fault in everything.

I feel like I can't even explain what is wrong to people anymore the paradigms we operate by are too different that it is impossible to get people to step into my world view, and my behavior is easily interpreted as being that of an arsehole, because of my lack of inclination to indulge in the general worldview.

Moral panic and knee jerk reactions do my head in. I feel like the majority of people have no moral consistency, just proclaiming whatever virtue serves their current point and switching to the opposite virtue the next time it serves (not that they seem even aware they are doing it). And everywhere I go I see fallacies, short term solutions and wishful thinking triumph over reason, getting to the root of problems and facts. In particular I think it is a problem with handling loss, I feel like most people aren't emotionally equipped to deal with loss or failure constructively, maybe 'keep calm and carry on' and stoicism are all myths and I'm a cold hearted freak for being able to dust myself off, accept what happened, adjust accordingly, and keep going, but I think it is a virtue.

I see the patterns of history repeating but feel like societies mentality is primed in a way that doesn't see it, it's like the narrative and momentum of history is unstoppable and will only respond to events, and then in the most heavy handed way in the other direction.
And when others call upon history repeating it feels frequently like a cargo cult version of history repeating. To use an example We all know that Nazis are evil, but I feel like people don't understand why Nazis are evil, they don't point to the actions of the Nazis and say, 'these actions are evil, that's why the Nazis are evil. It is boiled down to simply ' Nazis are evil'. Because people don't go to the root, nothing is learned, the mentality and actions that made Nazis bad can be repeated as long as you call it something else. And it is impossible to convince someone not to be a Nazi because the reasons why Nazis are bad is forgotten.

To use an even simpler example; If you think the word 'manspaining' isn't sexist you need to think about what sexism really means and why it is bad, and if you feel the need to use a recent definition of sexism that deliberately excuses that, you have to ask why that definition was changed,who by, and if that is the case, does that still make gender specific critical words okay? Everybody is capable of discrimination and being an arsehole, even victims of it.

It's not that I'm some teenage radical, I'm for the most part pragmatic, and I support in principal the kind of society we have. I just wish for the most part critical thinking was used more in daily lives and people though more about and defined what they believed philosophically, and beyond their needs. I think our lives would be better if we all learned to find a constructive collective consciousness and if public debate was driven by ideas and future implications, rather than event responsive and emotional rhetoric.
>> No. 25290 Anonymous
17th August 2017
Thursday 1:04 pm
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>>25289
I have felt like this for a while also, but it is hard to put into words to people. Because of it though I've mostly become a recluse with few friends. I even recently had one of those friends tell me that they just don't understand me. Perhaps some people too get confused if you always say what you mean, because they're so used to reading inbetween the lines with others. Anyway I've chosen to fuck off elsewhere in the world and try to get lost. It is quite nice.
>> No. 25291 Anonymous
17th August 2017
Thursday 2:04 pm
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>>25290

We don't sound too different, If you are so inclined, maybe you and I could swap throwaway email addresses and attempt to form a friendship based on a like-mindedness. The company I keep is formed too much by conveyance and I'd hate to not at least attempt to form a friendship with a person who at least seems to have some understanding of me.
>> No. 25293 Anonymous
17th August 2017
Thursday 6:23 pm
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>>25290>>25291
I'm a third person who has this sort of view of the world, but to be honest I've never seen much fun to be had from a friendship with someone like myself.
>> No. 25294 Anonymous
17th August 2017
Thursday 6:29 pm
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>>25293
I'm sort of with you there, but also I've tried to always embrace new experiences/situations/people when the opportunity is shown. >>25290 I don't have time right now to setup a throwaway, if you do though I'll send an email your way when I have more time.
>> No. 25295 Anonymous
17th August 2017
Thursday 6:42 pm
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>>25291
>>25293
Unless you want to start a Discord server or something.
>> No. 25296 Anonymous
17th August 2017
Thursday 6:49 pm
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I'm starting to wonder the effect of consuming others creation rather than generating my own. All I'm doing is laying myself as the foundation for their worldview. If I don't want that is it fair to expect others to uphold mine?
>> No. 25298 Anonymous
17th August 2017
Thursday 8:37 pm
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>>25289

I feel a bit like this too. Politically especially, I feel a bit alienated from current lefty discourse. All very authoritarian and politically correct and not very fun.
>> No. 25299 Anonymous
17th August 2017
Thursday 10:31 pm
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>>25298
Your politics are intersectional or they are bullshit.
>> No. 25300 Anonymous
17th August 2017
Thursday 10:54 pm
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>>25298
When I am confronted by the major political questions of the day, I stop to ask myself, "what solution would be most fun?"
>> No. 25301 Anonymous
17th August 2017
Thursday 11:27 pm
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>>25300
>>25299

I wasn't even trying to be aggressive and all I get is someone assuming I'm against intersectional analysis of politics. I can't figure out if this is bait or not, and that's bad.

As far as fun goes, I'm not saying politics is trivial I just mean that (essentially) shouting at people might feel justified and right due to how you perceive your cause but that doesn't make it easy to engage in left politics a lot of the time. Feels a little oppressive, which is why I still hang about on chan boards because you'll at least have politically incorrect but left-oriented individuals that'll brave the pits to try and broaden their horizons. That's just my observations on t'internet. My complaints probably mostly stem from internet interactions.
>> No. 25302 Anonymous
18th August 2017
Friday 11:12 am
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>>25301
Fortunately though people who are actually trying to change things don't have the time or patience to indulge your concern trolling.

If you feel 'oppressed' by 'lefty discourse', then you're probably quite privileged to begin with. You can either recognise that, or look elsewhere.
>> No. 25303 Anonymous
18th August 2017
Friday 11:42 am
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There's an awful lot of 'Bash the fash' stuff going on over on facebook with people advocating non-violent resistance being labelled Nazi-sympathisers and subsequently ejected from the echo chambers.
It's not so much that I mind people punching white supremacists as I mind them posting on facebook about it.
The people posting pro-Trump stuff bother me too but for different reasons.
>> No. 25304 Anonymous
18th August 2017
Friday 12:28 pm
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>>25303

I can highly recommend the book Days of Rage. It's a history of violent left-wing extremism in the US in the 60s and 70s. It's really quite extraordinary - white leftist radicals got away with an unbelievable range of violence, from bombings to kidnappings. It's almost completely forgotten now, but the establishment was bizarrely tolerant of left-wing violence.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Days-Rage-Underground-Forgotten-Revolutionary-ebook/dp/B00LFZ84PC/
https://status451.com/2017/01/20/days-of-rage/
>> No. 25305 Anonymous
18th August 2017
Friday 12:55 pm
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>>25304
I feel like this reviewer is a little biased.
>Davis, if you don’t know, is so dedicated to communism that she literally got her Ph.D. behind the Iron Curtain. From a moral perspective, that’s a little like somebody getting a Ph.D. in old South Africa specifically because they dig apartheid.
>> No. 25306 Anonymous
18th August 2017
Friday 1:57 pm
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>>25304
>but the establishment was bizarrely tolerant of left-wing violence

Bullshit, lad, utter BS.

>According to attorney Brian Glick in his book War at Home, the FBI used four main methods during COINTELPRO:

>Infiltration: Agents and informers did not merely spy on political activists. Their main purpose was to discredit and disrupt. Their very presence served to undermine trust and scare off potential supporters. The FBI and police exploited this fear to smear genuine activists as agents.
>Psychological warfare: The FBI and police used myriad "dirty tricks" to undermine progressive movements. They planted false media stories and published bogus leaflets and other publications in the name of targeted groups. They forged correspondence, sent anonymous letters, and made anonymous telephone calls. They spread misinformation about meetings and events, set up pseudo movement groups run by government agents, and manipulated or strong-armed parents, employers, landlords, school officials and others to cause trouble for activists. They used bad-jacketing to create suspicion about targeted activists, sometimes with lethal consequences.
>Harassment via the legal system: The FBI and police abused the legal system to harass dissidents and make them appear to be criminals. Officers of the law gave perjured testimony and presented fabricated evidence as a pretext for false arrests and wrongful imprisonment. They discriminatorily enforced tax laws and other government regulations and used conspicuous surveillance, "investigative" interviews, and grand jury subpoenas in an effort to intimidate activists and silence their supporters.
>Illegal force: The FBI conspired with local police departments to threaten dissidents; to conduct illegal break-ins in order to search dissident homes; and to commit vandalism, assaults, beatings and assassinations. The object was to frighten or eliminate dissidents and disrupt their movements.

The Establishment murdered leading members of the Black resistance and Labour movements, too. If you don't know about the US's brutal internal war against its Left, I doubt you've even read the book you're promoting.
>> No. 25307 Anonymous
18th August 2017
Friday 2:22 pm
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>>25306

Bill Ayers participated in the bombings of the New York City Police Department headquarters, the United States Capitol building and the Pentagon. Precisely because of COINTELPRO, all charges against him were dropped. He served no prison time and went on to become a tenured professor at the University of Illinois. His accomplice Bernadette Dohrn got three years probation; Cathlyn Wikerson served eleven months in prison.

They planted bombs in federal government buildings, but they got off practically scot-free. They would have faced substantially harsher punishment if they had been caught with a quarter of hash. The book describes numerous other radical leftists who avoided any serious punishment for what we would now define as acts of terrorism. If that doesn't count as "bizarrely tolerant", I'm not sure what does.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Ayers#Involvement_with_Weather_Underground

The book details the remarkably different treatment of black and white radicals; white radicals tended to end up with careers in law and academia, while black radicals tended to end up dead.
>> No. 25309 Anonymous
18th August 2017
Friday 8:48 pm
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>>25303
I like it. Hopefully this will cause a split and all those Hummus buying bastards can fuck off to their ivory towers and stop calling themselves leftists.

Maybe sometime down the line, we can have a proper class war.
>> No. 25310 Anonymous
18th August 2017
Friday 9:52 pm
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>>25303

This feels uncomfortably like /pol/ has leaked into /emo/ but I will admit that the current political climate is leaving me feeling quite uncomfortable too, largely because I feel that both apparent "sides" are a complete shower of idiots.
>> No. 25311 Anonymous
18th August 2017
Friday 10:25 pm
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>>25304
>It's a history of violent left-wing extremism in the US in the 60s and 70s. It's really quite extraordinary - white leftist radicals got away with an unbelievable range of violence, from bombings to kidnappings
I think it was kind of a result of the social conditions in which it all took place. The 60s and 70s were obviously a period of massive social and political upheaval in the US (despite popular imagination, the 70s were much more so, and that was when violent left wing radicalism really hit its peak). There's a pretty clear progression in suspicion and scrutiny of law and intelligence institutions from the Chicago riots, to Kent State, to Watergate, to the Pyle revelations and culminating in the Church and Pike Committees. It wasn't a society where you could crack down on dissent, even violent dissent, with impunity. At a certain point the tide turned though, and Reagan's election was partly an expression of pent up contempt not just for perceived leniency on foreign pinkos but also for enemies closer to home. He transformed American politics on a fundamental level, which leaves what came prior to him looking pretty bizarre, but it was an aberrant time all round.
>> No. 25312 Anonymous
18th August 2017
Friday 10:26 pm
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>>25310
I'm not saying you're guilty of this, but there's a false moral equivalence that's doing the rounds and I don't get it. We're staring fascism in the face, and yet some of us will still take every opportunity to say, "do you know that those crazy leftie bastards fighting it believe in 58 genders, safe spaces and will go batshit if I call my mate Dave 'mah nigga'".

So. Fucking. What. Take a broader view, get your priorities in order and learn to tell an enemy when you see one. We (the level-headed, forever-right pragmatists of .gs, that is) will have to make common cause with those annoying vegetarian, zany-haired, activist brats on our Facebook feed when things come to a head. Don't fool yourself into believing you can be so breezy and clever - or, urgh, neutral - when the storm hits.

Of course, this is unless you're a nationalist or an alt-rightist and know you're on the fascist's side. In which case, I'll see you in Battle for Westfield.
>> No. 25313 Anonymous
18th August 2017
Friday 10:29 pm
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>>25310
Yes. Both very easily led and prone to pack mentality too. I don't think people are getting more stupid as much as propaganda is getting better and the very wealthy have more to lose. The old divide and conquer routine going back to colonising Africa.
>> No. 25314 Anonymous
18th August 2017
Friday 10:50 pm
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>>25312

I'm not a fascist or a nationalist, but I do think that lines of thought like "We will have to make common cause with those annoying vegetarian, zany-haired, activist brats on our Facebook feed when things come to a head and if you don't agree you are a fascist and a nationalist" are being used to force people to pick a side in what is going to be a "war" without winners.

>>25313

Definitely agreed about propaganda. Social media has massively amplified the effects that propaganda has and the rate at which it spreads.
>> No. 25316 Anonymous
18th August 2017
Friday 11:18 pm
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>>25311
There's an excellent episode of radio war nerd (a podcast I highly recommend to anyone interested in the history of conflict and insurgency) which discusses this book, as well as covering the topic more broadly, if anyone's curious.

https://www.patreon.com/posts/radio-war-nerd-5524951

(Discussion of the title subject starts at around 52:00)
>> No. 25317 Anonymous
19th August 2017
Saturday 12:01 am
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>>25314
Rather them than actual nazis.
>> No. 25318 Anonymous
19th August 2017
Saturday 12:16 am
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>>25317
What's your image proving?
>> No. 25320 Anonymous
19th August 2017
Saturday 12:48 am
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>>25318

Not him but...

That a bunch of autists posting on the arse end of the internet are somehow a global Nazi threat which needs to be eliminated immediately rather than just ignored. Apparently.
>> No. 25321 Anonymous
19th August 2017
Saturday 1:13 am
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>>25318
Nothing but that the gibbering is getting louder.
>> No. 25323 Anonymous
19th August 2017
Saturday 1:09 pm
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>>25312

Only there aren't mad bastard fascists everywhere but there are plenty of mad leftists running around that are in tangible positions undermining science and meritocracy and liberal principals, ruining our astroid landings, and striving to restrict the exchange of free though in universities, and trying to normalise misandry. The false equivilance here is pretending that fascists are a remotely credible threat.

You've seen a handful of the far right appear halfway across the globe and now you feel we all must rally together against them, fuck off, that's not worthy of my time, but you'll justify that by talking about the greater potential threat the right poses. Have you forgotten that Italian fascism was fairly bloodless and the greatest massicures of the 20th century were leftists, or is it too no true Scotsman to admit.

Say it with me now 'lefties have been as bad and sometimes worse than Hitler', I don't know why people have a selective memory for Pol pot, Stalin and Mao, but they do. so when something sounds a bit too much like a Hitler quote people go mad, but no one seems to care about how aggressively militant left wing rhetoric is. I saw a woman wearing a stylizes portrait of Stalin on the tube yesterday. Could you see society being as indifferent to a picture of Hitler?

I known which one is more of a credible threat to my way of life, and it isn't a /Pol/ user 5000 miles away with a car. It's the people using the 'but when I do x...' be it censorship, racial or gender discrimination, mob justice, purging the unidelogically impure from the system, or genocide '...it is okay' that are normalising their bigotry and walk among us on a daily basis. They are the ones building the foundation for a totalitarian state not failchan.
>> No. 25324 Anonymous
19th August 2017
Saturday 1:25 pm
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>>25323
>lefties have been as bad and sometimes worse than Hitler
That's the most asinine both sides shit I've ever read, congrats.
>> No. 25325 Anonymous
19th August 2017
Saturday 1:38 pm
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>>25323
Barely coherent sinisterballs.
>> No. 25326 Anonymous
19th August 2017
Saturday 2:44 pm
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>>25324

At least 30 million died during the great leap forward, possibly twice that. Between seven and ten million died in the holodomor. Pol Pot killed somewhere between 15% and 35% of the entire population of Cambodia.

Genocide is non-partisan.
>> No. 25327 Anonymous
19th August 2017
Saturday 3:03 pm
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>>25326
>At least 30 million died during the great leap forward, possibly twice that. Between seven and ten million died in the holodomor
Famine resulting from failed agricultural policies is not the same thing as systematic industrial genocide.

Also, you might want to look into excess deaths from food deprivation in non-communist countries. The idea that industrialisation and collectivisation programmes in the USSR and China caused unique suffering is just flat out wrong.

>Pol Pot killed somewhere between 15% and 35% of the entire population of Cambodia
If you think the KR were leftist you quite probably haven't read anything about them past the introduction of their wiki page.
>> No. 25328 Anonymous ## Mod ##
19th August 2017
Saturday 3:35 pm
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Okay that's enough politics in /emo/.
I'm partly to blame for it too but let's leave it here.
>> No. 25354 Anonymous
24th August 2017
Thursday 12:55 pm
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The more I talk the more vulnerable I feel.
>> No. 25356 Anonymous
24th August 2017
Thursday 1:36 pm
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>>25354
Is that like the saying that it's better to remain silent and be thought an idiot etc.?
>> No. 25357 Anonymous
24th August 2017
Thursday 2:02 pm
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>>25356
..than talk and be proven one?
>> No. 25358 Anonymous
24th August 2017
Thursday 2:12 pm
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>>25357
Thank you for demonstrating.
>> No. 25378 Anonymous
28th August 2017
Monday 11:33 pm
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I feel restless - like I want life to end already.
>> No. 25379 Anonymous
28th August 2017
Monday 11:46 pm
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>>25378
So you feel like you've experienced everything life has to possibly offer you?
>> No. 25380 Anonymous
28th August 2017
Monday 11:54 pm
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>>25379
No. It won't happen, so no point carrying on the charade.
>> No. 25381 Anonymous
29th August 2017
Tuesday 12:04 am
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>>25380

So you feel a lack of control or agency?
>> No. 25383 Anonymous
29th August 2017
Tuesday 1:22 am
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>>25381
That's a good way to put it I suppose.
>> No. 25385 Anonymous
29th August 2017
Tuesday 9:14 am
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>>25383

Do you have any sort of creative outlet? You'd be surprised how much a little self expression if you are denying yourself it could make a difference to your mood.
>> No. 25391 Anonymous
29th August 2017
Tuesday 6:41 pm
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>>25385
You might be right. I have bought a musical instrument, and picked up programming. Maybe that will distract me.
>> No. 25394 Anonymous
29th August 2017
Tuesday 11:28 pm
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>>25391

If you're learning programming, check this out:

https://www.codewars.com/
>> No. 25471 Anonymous
5th September 2017
Tuesday 2:29 am
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>>25271

Pre-saged for utterly boring personal blog update:

Day 10 since my last (~10mg) dose of Venlafaxine after slowly cutting down from 112.5mg. No more brain zaps, almost no more "Whoosh Whoosh Whoosh" in the eardrums blood pressure sounds when I stand up too fast. My Anhedonia Orgasmica is slowly improving, albeit a lot slower than I had hoped given how short a period of time I was on this medication.

Thursday I managed 2.5 hours of exercise including 18 minutes of medium intensity sparring on only 0.5m of clonazepam. Friday I managed an hour but with 18 minutes of high intensity sparring and 6 minutes of low intensity - on no clonazepam at all. This also means that I haven't had any clonazepam since Thursday and I'm sure my psychiatrist would be delighted to hear this if I wasn't also off the SSRIs.

Anyway the irony is that I'm feeling and doing better today than any time since I took my first anti-depressant (Escitalopram) almost five months ago. I have my benzo use under control, I'm exercising, I even have three local tournaments lined up that I'm monitoring to see if my category has enough opponents to be worth signing up for. Next step is to get my drinking back to a "weekend only" basis and then I feel like I'm almost most of the way there towards being a functioning human again for the first time since 2011.

This seven-year trip into insanity, drugs abuse, dependency, and psychiatry has not been fun in any way (except for the meth addiction, the extra-marital affairs with university students ten years younger than me, and becoming a father).

Hopefully the end of the journey starts here.
>> No. 25525 Anonymous
6th September 2017
Wednesday 11:18 pm
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I have barely left the house for the last couple of weeks, and when I went out to the shop earlier I felt an undeniable social phobia. I never realised before how I need to maintain the skill of being outside with joe public.
>> No. 25646 Anonymous
16th September 2017
Saturday 10:43 am
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My girlfriend keeps nagging at me to visit my parents more often and for some reason it's proper winding me up.

I mean she's probably right, I don't see them often enough, but my family has never been as close as some are. That's just how we are. It doesn't mean we love each other any less, we've just never been the sort to pop round for tea and a natter.

She keeps getting maungy with me when I tell her to drop it, but I'm really struggling to articulate just precisely why this is none of her business and she needs to stop bringing it up.
>> No. 25648 Anonymous
16th September 2017
Saturday 3:52 pm
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>>25646
That can be difficult - I also don't have a very close family and we don't really get together as often as some others. People who have "close" families find it weird, but its wrong for her to try and impose it on you. If you don't get on, you don't get on, visiting more often is unlikely to change anything (and going by my family, can often make things worse).
>> No. 25649 Anonymous
16th September 2017
Saturday 4:11 pm
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>>25646
She wants to have sex with the milkman.
>> No. 25650 Anonymous
16th September 2017
Saturday 4:28 pm
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>>25649
I wish the milkman would deliver my milk in the morning.
>> No. 25651 Anonymous
16th September 2017
Saturday 5:17 pm
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>>25646

That is so alien to me. But I consider my parents abusive toxic pricks, and every one of my peers who has met them has agreed, so I might be an exception, but it really pisses me off when someone naively and obnoxiously insists people should have a close relationship with, and respect their parents as a result.
>> No. 25652 Anonymous
16th September 2017
Saturday 10:51 pm
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>>25651
It's a very common and completely socially acceptable prejudice. When my violent, abusive and shamelessly unrepentant biological father was dying suddenly everyone I had ever met sprung up out of the woodwork to condescend to me about how I should just get over everything that happened to me when I was a kid.

I could handle the "it was different in my day" elderly relatives who seem to have been under the impression that choking and cigarette burns were an ordinary part of discipline back in the late 80s. Easy to dismiss as the cunts they were. Much tougher to deal with were friends who pretended to see things from my point of view or at least respect my decision but actually didn't and were more than willing to play both sides.

8 years later. No regrets. In fact I hope he suffered.
>> No. 25661 Anonymous
18th September 2017
Monday 6:20 pm
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She's the only thing that's made me happy all year but I'm too miserable to send her a text.
>> No. 25662 Anonymous
18th September 2017
Monday 8:00 pm
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im still in that job, surprised i havent offed myself
>> No. 25670 Anonymous
19th September 2017
Tuesday 8:06 pm
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>>25662
You need a purpose mate. I found mine. I took days off work to find the flattest pebble ever. I haven't even come close and I checked out all of the south east.

After I find it, I will blow my savings on prozzies and drugs, and leave that pebble to my brother.
>> No. 25675 Anonymous
22nd September 2017
Friday 2:18 am
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>>25670

Not if I shall have anything to do with it! The flattest pebble will be mine. I need it for my own collection of items men covet. And I shall resort to any means and spare no expense to acquire it. Good hunting but your venture is foolish.
>> No. 25676 Anonymous
23rd September 2017
Saturday 3:53 pm
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>>25652
>>8 years later. No regrets. In fact, I hope he suffered.

you're not the only one who feels like that about there farther.

my father has done 12 years for ABH and various gun crimes. And he says leaving me and my mother was the best thing he could have done. I mean he's right but having a male role model in my life would have been nice growing up. I'm flying by the seat of my pants knowing what to do with my own children. I know im not going to be him.
>> No. 25677 Anonymous
25th September 2017
Monday 9:51 am
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I think I'm a serial seducer.

I don't wish to brag or even imply that I'm particularly good at it, but I can't stop doing it. I'm addicted to that chase you get in the first opening stages of a potential relationship, the sexual tension, the flirting. I get very bored very quickly once it reaches the more comfortable, predictable phase and invariably move on to a new conquest.

I have no idea what to do about this, but I think something does need to be done. It's making me into one of those "fuck-boy" cheating scumbag types.
>> No. 25678 Anonymous
25th September 2017
Monday 4:24 pm
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>>25677
Care to share some techniques? despite lack of experience I've always found 'the chase' to be more interesting than what comes after.
>> No. 25679 Anonymous
26th September 2017
Tuesday 7:56 am
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>>25677
This sounds like something you should talk through with a therapist. Maybe there is a reason you're this way and something you can do to change it.

>>25678
You an' all.
>> No. 25680 Anonymous
26th September 2017
Tuesday 10:45 am
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>>25677
>I think something does need to be done

It seems like perfectly normal behaviour for a young man, perhaps even ideal. Everyone enters into a relationship with that initial buzz and relationships breakdown if once that runs out you haven't made a deeper connection.

Obviously practice basic relationships hygiene; be forthright when you leave them, give them a good chance, don't cheat. Your problem is you simply haven't met the right woman yet and maybe aren't because you're either pulling the same tedious type or you set unrealistic expectations.

>fuck-boy

Only bitter women use this term as evidenced by the fact that it makes no sense: "Oh no, a man I met on a hook-up app was just looking to hook-up!"

>>25678
I think that the 'full house' final rounds can be a waste when only one or two team members will actually answer all the questions. If you're playing the family version and you have plenty of players home then I'd always take the higher offer (if you agree the split the prize money).
>> No. 25681 Anonymous
26th September 2017
Tuesday 5:48 pm
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>>25680

See the thing is I've had several relationships of varying length, a couple of them very involved and whsat people might call "serious"; and this has always been there in the back of my mind regardless of how much I think I love them. I must confess to cheating on a number of occasions, but I was smart enough to realise that this probably already meant the relationship was done for and ended it shortly thereafter.

I have considered the idea that I'm simply scared of commitment. It's like if you told me I could only eat one flavour of crisps for the rest of my life, I'd be mortified.

>>25679

Well, thanks I suppose, but therapists don't vcome cheap, that's why I'm on an anopnymous imageboard instead.

>>25678

Like I said, I don't claim to be that good at it. It's a numbers game, as I and others have highlighted before. You swipe enough or ask enough lasses out without being shy about it, eventually some say yes.

I've found that (and this is going to be a very blunt generalisation) women are either DTF or they turn you down straight away with barely a second glance. There's not much inbetween, and there's none of that magical romance that makes an otherwise uninterested girl like you. It's just finding one that likes you, and then playing along until she lets you in her knickers.
>> No. 25682 Anonymous
26th September 2017
Tuesday 5:57 pm
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>>25681

> I've found that (and this is going to be a very blunt generalisation) women are either DTF or they turn you down straight away with barely a second glance.

I'm not sure I'd go so far as to say "DTF" foul Americanism that it is , but in my experience women know within a very short time of meeting you if they consider you a potential sexual partner or not. There are still plenty of opportunities, even then, to fuck things up twixt the cup and lip and I'm a veritable veteran at most of them.
>> No. 25683 Anonymous
26th September 2017
Tuesday 6:41 pm
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>>25682

As vulgar as the term is, I find the it describes the psychology going on very well in shorthand. She knows almost immediately wether you are a viable mate or not, and if the answer is "not", then there's little that will change her mind, realistically.

Once you've gone through the charade a few times, though, I find it's quite difficult to do anything majorly wrong. You just have to go through the routine of making her laugh, slipping in flirtatious remarks here and there, and respond to hers appropriately. The most common way to get it wrong is misreading the signals, plunging onwards too fast.

The internet has made all of this very strange, mind you. A lot of the lasses I've hooked up with using POF or Tinder, it's been polite small talk for a few days, followed by more or less non-stop sexting for a bout a week or two before we even go on a date. And even then, it's a shallow pretence so that we're not just literally meeting to fuck.
>> No. 25684 Anonymous
26th September 2017
Tuesday 8:06 pm
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>>25681
You're going to have to explain what kind of thoughts you have in the back of your mind but if you think it is a fear of commitment then, well you know you.

My guess is the range of possibilities and the fear of making the wrong choice is overwhelming when long-term it's going to be a complete roll of the dice no matter how nice they seem. In these situations let the rational part of you take over and stop to ask yourself 'What do I want?' drawing up options and their likely outcomes. I always advise you lads to take out a notepad and pen (or just use the computer notepad) and work problems out like a math sum then try to stick with the decision - if you get stuck then take the problem to pieces and assign objective values to find a judgement on.

For the record, a little doubt is normal and something we all have so I'd try not to feed those thoughts. I'm sure you've seen on television enough episodes where on the wedding day someone has jitters and think they are making a horrible mistake - until they remember why they are getting married.

>It's like if you told me I could only eat one flavour of crisps for the rest of my life, I'd be mortified.

What if you could choose pickled onion monster munch?

But seriously, try and think about what kind of crisp you want if you could only have one flavour. You only need to do this once in your life and I got pickled onion (or ready salted if I can't be fancy).
>> No. 25686 Anonymous
26th September 2017
Tuesday 9:28 pm
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>>25684

I'm genuinely not trying to be a dick here and start a cunt off or anything but,

>I always advise you lads to take out a notepad and pen (or just use the computer notepad) and work problems out like a math sum then try to stick with the decision - if you get stuck then take the problem to pieces and assign objective values to find a judgement on.


seems like an incredibly dull way to go through life. Again I mean no offense at all.I'm sure you're probably doing much better than me at life and have a decent job and house and wife and all that shit but fuck.. trying to work out all life decisions as if they're a math sum. I dunno, just feels "wrong".

I am a veritable shambles of a man who only semi-regularly manages to get it away with a lady so fuck knows.

Sometimes it's worth the risk of getting your heartbroken/breaking a heart I think..

Sage for unhelpful beer rambling in /emo/.
>> No. 25687 Anonymous
26th September 2017
Tuesday 10:15 pm
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>>25686
You don't do it all the time if that is what you're thinking. Some decisions even have to be taken by the gut if there are too many variables to consider.

More like if you have a problem you are stuck on it is a good idea to use a detached method to find the solution (this is why pen and paper helps) rather than emotionally flailing about or never getting a solution. Now which do you think is more dull, actually finding a solution and getting passed the problem or not. Forever.
>> No. 25688 Anonymous
27th September 2017
Wednesday 7:21 am
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>>25687
Well fair play and thanks for the reply to my barely coherent post. In regards,

>Now which do you think is more dull, actually finding a solution and getting passed the problem or not. Forever.

I think it depends on the problem, especially in matters of the heart/willy, or what is perceived to be a problem but might not actually be. Maybe being a "fuccboi" isn't really a problem and is just another way of falling through life. It's only a problem if it's negatively affecting you or others, and I guess the lad posting about it here implies it probably is so I've just undermined my own argument.

I dunno mate. I'm a dunce to be quite honest.

You're probably right and are definitely giving far more sensible advice.

Emotionally flailing about and never getting a solution sounds like a reasonable description of life in general. For me at least.
>> No. 25689 Anonymous
27th September 2017
Wednesday 2:23 pm
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You people are talking about deciding whether you are sexually attracted to someone within the first few minutes of meeting them is something unique to the female psyche.
>> No. 25690 Anonymous
27th September 2017
Wednesday 5:24 pm
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>>25689

It largely is; men are generally willing to everything that's not ancient or quasimodo-level hideous.
>> No. 25691 Anonymous
27th September 2017
Wednesday 5:30 pm
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>>25690
Your statement doesn't support your assertion.
>> No. 25692 Anonymous
27th September 2017
Wednesday 7:09 pm
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>>25690

Yeah, but we've generally decided that within the first moments of meeting someone.
>> No. 25693 Anonymous
27th September 2017
Wednesday 7:34 pm
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>>25690

>quasimodo-level hideous.

Eldritch works quite well when you're looking for a way to describe abstract hideousness, indistinguishable from evil.
>> No. 25694 Anonymous
27th September 2017
Wednesday 8:54 pm
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>>25689
>>25690
Allow me to stick my oar in: That decision can change and it can go both ways depending on context and simple prolonged contact. I'm a firm believer in the idea that people mostly just want someone not completely repulsive and that they have a certain chemistry with, everything else is minutia.

It sounds like I'm talking out of my arse but how many of you here have thought about co-workers in a sexual context simply because you are around them all day? How many of you have thought you had died and come back as a sex god only to realise that you are simply the most handsome man in the club at 3am on a Thursday night?
>> No. 25695 Anonymous
27th September 2017
Wednesday 10:44 pm
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>>25692

Right, but it's not a first impression thing where you have to actually meet them and get a vibe off them; it's a millisecond assessment of base physical attractiveness. A woman may be the most pathetic, annoying, entitled, spoiled and downright horrible person - but if she's attractive and has a working vagina then I know that I'd be willing to put my penis into it. Which is probably why I've spent so much of my life putting my dick in crazy.

> That decision can change and it can go both ways depending on context and simple prolonged contact.

Absolutely agree, but there is a big difference from being a potential sexual partner and actually becoming one. If a woman mentally places you in the "no way jose" box from the get go then it practically takes a miracle to change that.
>> No. 25696 Anonymous
28th September 2017
Thursday 1:06 pm
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Started back at uni again, taking another repeat year. Went to the welcome back lecture and felt so out of place. I'm incapable of making friends and basic social interaction, even though I've been here for years. Want to go to society events to get out of the house, but know when I get there I'll freeze up and be unable to talk to people. Feel like a failure of a human. Autism is suffering.
>> No. 25697 Anonymous
28th September 2017
Thursday 2:08 pm
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>>25696

Get a few pints in you. There's a reason why freshers week is a giant piss-up - the British are genetically incapable of meaningful interaction with strangers while sober.
>> No. 25698 Anonymous
28th September 2017
Thursday 3:06 pm
25698 This again.
Basement rug.jpg
256982569825698
I'm worried I'll become suicidal if I fail my next ESA reassessment (Or PIP, whatever they're doing there). I'm also worried that if I tell them this they'll interpret it a a threat or ultimatum. The only way I can think to explain this to them is "I don't mean for this to be a threat but I fear I might commit suicide if rejected". I don't know if suicide is true but I'm certain I will struggle with my mental health considerably.

Testament to my fear is that I havn't even got the letter yet, I'm just projecting into the future. I kind of feel like If I don't experience this now though then my claim isn't genuine.

Failing certainly will be a kick in the backside that I need, but I can see it going either way. I guess thats the nature of chaos.
>> No. 25699 Anonymous
28th September 2017
Thursday 3:22 pm
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>>25696

For what it's worth, you only need a couple of friends (or even a few acquaintances) to make uni comfortable. Being a slightly older student, you may find it easier to hang out with grads or post-grads... they tend to be less about partying. Good luck, but do try to figure something out.

If you're in Southampton, I'm willing to go out for a drink with you occasionally. Unlikely you're there, but I thought I'd mention it.
>> No. 25700 Anonymous
28th September 2017
Thursday 7:53 pm
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>>25696
You just sound a bit shy which is something I know all too well, realistically nobody can handle a room full of strangers so don't beat yourself up. While we're here, unless you enjoy a hobby or just want to be useful I'd give the tea society a miss. These things are always full of people who go because they think it is something they have to do or they're just cocks.

As for a solution:
Do you not have housemates or a drug habit? If you're living with another lad just knock on his door and see if he fancies going for a pint.

>>25698
Are you the lad who was talking about killing himself after the election?
>> No. 25701 Anonymous
29th September 2017
Friday 6:03 am
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>>25698

They flat out asked me if I had suicidal ideation at mine, so if you just answer honestly, I don't think that will sound like emotional blackmail.
>> No. 25712 Anonymous
2nd October 2017
Monday 7:51 pm
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I'm going back to do my masters just for something to do, but I really like living in new places so that's a plus.

Working a retail job I hate, being bollocked by the public for not having any organic spinach, fuck those guys, I work two jobs 70+ hours a week, what makes them think they can talk to me like that? Rant over.
>> No. 25715 Anonymous
4th October 2017
Wednesday 2:03 pm
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If I find her attractive she's too good for me. Feels bad, yo. how do I raise my self image?
>> No. 25716 Anonymous
4th October 2017
Wednesday 2:51 pm
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>>25715

Stop the ‘yo’s and pull your trousers up, I’m guessing?
>> No. 25717 Anonymous
4th October 2017
Wednesday 8:52 pm
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>>25715

Maybe you find her attractive because she is too good for you? If you were better than her, would you feel attracted to her?
>> No. 25718 Anonymous
4th October 2017
Wednesday 9:02 pm
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>>25716

>britda.ds
>> No. 25724 Anonymous
5th October 2017
Thursday 9:23 pm
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>>25716
This is what I don't get.
I'm sat here with my hand on my [spoiler]cock[/i], so i could quite literally pull my trousers up. Only, for whatever reason, I chose wanking as an identity; I'm the wanker in the family. Self abuse has long been my comfort and over time I've learned to lean on it as a crotch. In the past I've gone for extended periods of time without wanking excessively, maybe once a week at most and to pretty vanilla thoughts, and these times were generally the healthiest moments in my life.

So I guess I do get it, i'm just resisting. It's only as hard as you make it and I'm making it pretty hard right now.

>>25717
I seem to have gone the other way and will generally attend to women who reflect my self image, if you know what I mean. People who aren't intimidating. Once I feel I have something genuine to offer maybe I'll start to feel worthy of the people I find attractive. More so on a personality level, that is.
>> No. 25725 Anonymous
6th October 2017
Friday 1:33 am
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>>25724
>[spoiler]cock[/i]
Perhaps it would help to type with both hands.
>> No. 25728 Anonymous
9th October 2017
Monday 12:53 am
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Realised today that a load of people inexplicably unfriended me from their Facebooks with no communication, and it really bummed me out. I can't think of an particular motive beyond blind speculation, it seems like small petty shit to be worked up over, a web app that I hardly use, but I consider that a symbolic declaration they don't want me in their life ever again and it's hard not to feel rejected by that, particularly when these are people I've known for years.
>> No. 25729 Anonymous
10th October 2017
Tuesday 3:04 pm
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>>25728
I unfriend people who are inactive. What's wrong with that? You seem really needy.
>> No. 25730 Anonymous
10th October 2017
Tuesday 3:27 pm
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>>25729

This isn't some friend of a friend bullshit. One of them is a person I've known for years that I've traveled abroad with multiple times, and had purposely blocked me. Intially I assumed they had just deleted their account, but they seemed to single me out. I'm inclined to think that they took sides with someone else I fell out with, I just expected better from them really.
>> No. 25731 Anonymous
10th October 2017
Tuesday 7:24 pm
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>>25730
Not him but alright that's different. There must be some reason that someone would go out of their way to do that.
>> No. 25738 Anonymous
15th October 2017
Sunday 2:10 pm
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Me and my girlfriend are probably going to break up pretty soon, her issue with me is only that I am not multiple people, and I don't feel like compromising on that point. I wasn't expecting this I have no exit strategy. I feel a bit lost in how to focus on what I should do next, I don't have a job and I've got less than £100 and until this morning when my living arrangement changed I was ineligible for benifits.
>> No. 25739 Anonymous
15th October 2017
Sunday 4:01 pm
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>>25738

Go to the Citizens Advice Bureau tomorrow morning. They'll work out what you're entitled to and tell you how to claim it.
>> No. 25740 Anonymous
15th October 2017
Sunday 7:36 pm
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>>25739
Thanks for the practical solution lad. I will do that tomorrow.

I'm emotionally unsure right now, I feel lost, I don't know what is going to happen to me, it is like my life was turned upside down.
>> No. 25747 Anonymous
19th October 2017
Thursday 5:15 pm
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What is it I feel when looking back on my life through the medias I absorbed as a youngster? What I mean is .. when listening to System of a Down again (what can I say) I realise where a lot of the thoughts I have these days come from, or at least where they were catalysed. Music seems to be the major one, it tends to be where we identify most (as such could it be said music is a purer form of art?)

List listening to music of my childhood makes me wish for better days. Back when I had lesser troubles.

It's like I want to say 'MY LIFE IS A LIIIIIIIIE', but I know that's not really true; we are what we do and all that, there is no human without its environment, etc. I just donno, man. I'm thinking maybe it's not such a pleasant thing to understand yourself, but I still want to try, you know?
>> No. 25748 Anonymous
19th October 2017
Thursday 5:35 pm
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>>25747

The older I get the more sensetive I become to certain forms of media, because of the memories they evoke; or ore accurately, the feelings about particular elements of myself that I see reflected in them. As a younger man I could watch/listen to/read nearly anything and I just accepted it for what it was, if it was good I liked it and if it was bad I laughed at it. But these days I'm much more susceptible to bad vibes when I'm choosing something to put on.

I have considered that this is just the "wisdom" that comes with age, and probably the reason most people stop doing drugs etc at some point or another. It all just gets too much and you have to simmer it down eventually.
>> No. 25749 Anonymous
19th October 2017
Thursday 6:38 pm
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>>25748
I hear you. I can barely watch films these days without getting a lump in my throat at seemingly irrelevant moments. going to the cinema is pretty much written off, I almost freaked when I saw a guardians of the galaxy trailer.
>> No. 25774 Anonymous
3rd November 2017
Friday 10:29 am
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I don't care about anything and it's starting to scare me. I just can't give a fuck about fuck all. I could fall under a train and I'd only be bothered by the momentary discomfort.
>> No. 25775 Anonymous
3rd November 2017
Friday 12:32 pm
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>>25774

That sounds like depression, to be honest. Well, the numbness your mind creates as a defence mechanism. If you're numb you're not suicidal. It's the brain making a natural mood enhancer. When my Gran died, the women who raised me, I didn't cry until the next year which also scared me as I was self aware enough to realise that was off. When I did cry, it was on her Birthday and I had been doing a lot of exercise and socialising the months leading up to it. It was what convinced me I was finally on the mend.

Based on my totally anecdotal evidence, I think you're in a transitional phase and you'll start to recover soon if you start small and work towards no goal in particular. I started off going for walks in the evening, walk in the rain were my favourite as it was like the world had been muted.
>> No. 25776 Anonymous
3rd November 2017
Friday 7:15 pm
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>>25774
>I could fall under a train and I'd only be bothered by the momentary discomfort.

Put yourself in a dangerous situation and find if your attitude changes. Don't you still look for cars when crossing the road?
>> No. 25777 Anonymous
3rd November 2017
Friday 7:55 pm
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>>25776
Why are you calling him edgy?
>> No. 25778 Anonymous
3rd November 2017
Friday 8:07 pm
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>>25776

I was being a bit hyperbolic.
>> No. 25779 Anonymous
4th November 2017
Saturday 12:00 am
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I don't know who is edgier, the people who claim not to care about anything to the point of suicide, or the people who encourage them to do it.
>> No. 25780 Anonymous
4th November 2017
Saturday 1:44 am
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>>25779
I'm reaching new lows in my life and how to be edgy couldn't be further from my thoughts. Wanting it all stop, though, couldn't be closer.
>> No. 25781 Anonymous
4th November 2017
Saturday 2:26 am
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>>25779

Actually not caring about anything to the point that it doesn't matter if you live or die is fucking awful, there is nothing edgy about it.

But the people who talk about not caring without promoting usually do care. They badly require emotional validation but either lack the emotional tools or the support network to get it, like Aesop's fox and the grapes, they deny they want what they can't have.

The fact that you consider them edgy rather than in need of pity says more about what makes you uncomftable and how you deal with that, than it says about them I think. Do you choose to avoid existential crises rather than confront them?
>> No. 25782 Anonymous
4th November 2017
Saturday 8:31 am
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The bank has sent a letter informing me that I am due to start paying back the loan for my research degree on the 30th of this month. I thought I had until the end of January but I was wrong. I've not finished my thesis yet and I know it won't be done and dusted by the 30th. Even the end of January felt like a stretch with the viva and getting over this writers block I've had for months.

So I guess that is that. To top it off I'm getting a head start on the job search because there is nothing else I can do before the banks lines open and it's all work that involves telephone customer service (the one thing I went into university to escape) and my CV is feeling a little light after the better part of a decade in full-time education.

It's been a shitty week, a shitty year and now the rest of the month is looking worse. Actually, looking at the repayment schedule the next 19 months are going to be bad.
>> No. 25783 Anonymous
4th November 2017
Saturday 11:57 am
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>>25782
Is this a career development loan?
>> No. 25784 Anonymous
4th November 2017
Saturday 1:33 pm
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>>25783
Yeah, I imagine the bank will be flexible with repayments when I call them on Monday but I've been flagging on my work for months now so maybe I need to jump. At any rate at 9.9% APR I'm going to have to mess about taking out a better loan to pay it off which might turn into its own circle of hell.

It's something I will need to talk over with my supervisor and in the meantime I will send a few feelers out there for jobs over the weekend.
>> No. 25785 Anonymous
4th November 2017
Saturday 2:44 pm
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>>25784

Ex-CAB debt advisor here. Check out CONC 7 of the FCA Handbook. It sets out the rules that lenders are obliged to follow when dealing with debtors in arrears or default. Of particular note is CONC 7.3.11 and 7.12.2 - if you speak to a CAB or other debt advisor, the creditor is legally required to suspend all debt collection efforts until a repayment plan is agreed.

It's worth speaking to an advisor even if you're very confident in dealing with your own finances, because it immediately stops the clock on any enforcement action. CONC 7.7.5 states that creditors can only impose charges that cover the reasonable costs of enforcement action - if they're not allowed to take enforcement action, then they're not allowed to charge fees.

It might not seem like it, but you've actually got your creditor over a barrel. Get in touch with the CAB or National Debtline, they'll see you right.

https://www.handbook.fca.org.uk/handbook/CONC/7/?view=chapter
>> No. 25786 Anonymous
11th November 2017
Saturday 7:46 pm
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How do you cope without anyone to talk to and no support network?
Not just people to shoot the shit with but actually talk to.
>> No. 25787 Anonymous
11th November 2017
Saturday 8:09 pm
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>>25786

Seconding this. Whenever I hear people talking about their depression, there's always a small credits section of people they thank, and I'm like "should I draw a face on my hand and chat with that?", but I think that's just going to escalate the matter.
>> No. 25788 Anonymous
11th November 2017
Saturday 8:29 pm
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>>25786
For years Natan Sharansky played mental chess against himself while the Soviets kept him in solitary confinement and he went on to beat Kasparov during a simultaneous exhibition, but that might be somewhat extreme.
>> No. 25790 Anonymous
12th November 2017
Sunday 2:22 am
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>>25786 >>25787

The Samaritans aren't just for people who are suicidal, they're for anyone who is experiencing distress. You can talk to them about whatever's on your mind at any hour of the day or night. They're free to call on any landline or mobile on 116 123. You can also email them via jo@samaritans.org or talk to someone face-to-face at your local branch office.

https://www.samaritans.org/how-we-can-help-you/contact-us/what-happens-when-you-contact-us

https://www.samaritans.org/branches

If you're struggling with mental health problems or addiction, there are plenty of support groups available. It can be really useful to just have a cup of tea and a chat with people facing similar difficulties.

https://www.mind.org.uk/information-support/guides-to-support-and-services/peer-support-directory/

http://www.talktofrank.com/support-near-you

I think that voluntary work can be really useful in boosting your self-esteem and making you feel more connected to other people. Everyone needs help at some point and it can feel really good to be the helper. Whatever your skills and interests are, there's something that you can do to help your community.

https://do-it.org/
>> No. 25791 Anonymous
12th November 2017
Sunday 12:16 pm
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>>25788

Why are Russians so good at chess, anyway?
>> No. 25792 Anonymous
12th November 2017
Sunday 12:57 pm
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>>25791

It is their national sport, so unlike here where people will bully you for showing an interest they will actively encourage play. It was regularly used by them to prove who's best during the cold war, so being good at it is really important to them.
>> No. 25793 Anonymous
12th November 2017
Sunday 10:16 pm
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>>25785
I'm getting letters from "Past due" or something addressed to someone else. Right now I'm thinking to ring them up, tell them that person doesn't live here any more and advise them that if I have to waste any more time dealing with them in any form, be it letters, phonecalls or bailiffs, I'll be billing them for it. Can you comment on this plan?
>> No. 25794 Anonymous
12th November 2017
Sunday 10:41 pm
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Can you book a doctors appointment by just walking into the surgery itself? I wanted to tomorrow, but I'm going to run out of credit tonight so I can't call.
>> No. 25795 Anonymous
12th November 2017
Sunday 10:49 pm
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>>25794
Yes. If you get there super early sometimes you can get a same day booking but you might have to wait there for 8 hours.
>> No. 25796 Anonymous
12th November 2017
Sunday 11:21 pm
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>>25795

Well, I only live about 25 minutes away so I think I'd just go home for seven-ish hours, but thanks a lot.
>> No. 25797 Anonymous
13th November 2017
Monday 9:12 am
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>>25796
You have to sit in the waiting room until they call your name. If you leave they take you off the list. That was my experience, at least.
>> No. 25798 Anonymous
13th November 2017
Monday 9:21 am
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>>25793

Cross out the address, write "not known at this address" on the envelope and drop it in a postbox. Royal Mail will return it to the sender.

https://personal.help.royalmail.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/5156/~/ive-received-someone-elses-mail
>> No. 25799 Anonymous
13th November 2017
Monday 10:54 am
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>>25798
I've been doing that. I did it again now as you suggested but I was looking forward to that phonecall.
>> No. 25800 Anonymous
15th November 2017
Wednesday 3:44 pm
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I keep sending weird messages.

I don't mean to, but I'll hit the enter key then immediately realise how strange it is, the other ways it could be interpreted, then hate myself for the rest of the day.

Why am I like this? I should probably just go full social isolation because it's the only way I can avoid endless self-hatred and making a complete fool of myself.
>> No. 25801 Anonymous
15th November 2017
Wednesday 4:15 pm
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>>25800
If it makes you think about it for the rest of the day, then get into the habit of stopping before you press enter and thinking about it.
>> No. 25802 Anonymous
15th November 2017
Wednesday 6:19 pm
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>>25800

Just play up to it. You have to own your wierd personality traits, and realise that people probably don't hate you for it. Have a bit of self deprecating banter with the people you send them to and try not to over think it all.
>> No. 25803 Anonymous
16th November 2017
Thursday 12:08 am
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>>25800

If a weird obnoxious twat like Russell Brand can turn saying strange things into a knobbing tactic, then so can you.
>> No. 25804 Anonymous
16th November 2017
Thursday 5:01 pm
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Pffft! Fucking hell, I'm 23 in a month. I know that's not remotely old or anything but I swear I was 19 about 15 minutes ago. I really need to get my shit together. Football Manager considers the cut off for personal progress to be 24 and who am I to disagree?
>> No. 25806 Anonymous
20th November 2017
Monday 6:21 pm
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So I'm being chased for debt from 02 for a phone contract I fucking cancelled two years ago.

I've phoned them up and phoned the bullshit "upgrade team" third party cunts as well as the debt collectors and given them all my story. None of them reckon they can help and each of them claims it's somebody else's responsibility, not theirs.

I'm sure they all think I'm just some chancer trying to get away without paying it, but the thing is I have fucking proof I sent it back, I sent it by recorded delivery and I still have a copy of that receipt saved. But I'm going around in circles trying to get anywhere.

Do I have to bloody sue them or what? This shit's causing a big black mark on my credit file that I want rid of. It's like I've been scammed except it's by a massive company who is supposed to do things right.

(Yes I know you're going to say "go to Citizen's Advice" but it's a Monday night so I'm not going to have chance any time soon.)
>> No. 25807 Anonymous
20th November 2017
Monday 6:49 pm
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>>25806

You can phone CAB, their advisors phone up and badger O2 for you once you forward them the appropriate information. I had the same problem with 3.
>> No. 26165 Anonymous
13th February 2018
Tuesday 1:40 pm
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How do I stop making others' feelings my problem?

If people act negative towards me I'll feel like shit until they don't, even if I haven't done anything to cause it in the first place.

[x] autism
>> No. 26166 Anonymous
13th February 2018
Tuesday 2:03 pm
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>>26165
>How do I stop making others' feelings my problem?
Cocaine.
>> No. 26167 Anonymous
13th February 2018
Tuesday 4:52 pm
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>>26165

There are lots of self help books out there about having healthy boundaries. I haven't read any so can't recommend anything specific.
>> No. 26168 Anonymous
13th February 2018
Tuesday 5:36 pm
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>>25806
>cancelling a phone contract

I bet you just stopped paying them and didn't bother reading the T+Cs.
>> No. 26178 Anonymous
14th February 2018
Wednesday 1:47 am
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>>26168
So many people get their credit ruined by phone contracts.
>> No. 26179 Anonymous
14th February 2018
Wednesday 2:09 am
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>>26178
Idiocy*
>> No. 26181 Anonymous
16th February 2018
Friday 8:38 pm
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>>26168

Not quite lad. It was an upgrade where they sent me the wrong phone. I called them and said I'd like to cancel it and just get a new phone and new number separately (i.e from somewhere else). The bloke on the phone said it would be cancelled.

That was the end of that until I started getting letters asking me to pay for my business phone line and broadband dongle. Which was, needless to say, news to me.

So either way I doubt the T&Cs are even relevant, considering they planned to charge me for a dongle I was never told about, never received, nor asked for.
>> No. 26197 Anonymous
4th March 2018
Sunday 11:20 pm
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I'm tired of the endless cycle of committing myself to someone, only to have them give up a few years down the line. I just don't have the energy for it all anymore.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nooeMrCws-A
Ticked because 'moan'.
>> No. 26198 Anonymous
4th March 2018
Sunday 11:29 pm
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>>26197
God I love that song (and nearly all of the Carpenters, if I'm truly honest). Particularly when feeling a bit miserable.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E2gSvT0SlEA

I much prefer this to the original.
>> No. 26199 Anonymous
5th March 2018
Monday 2:47 am
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>>26198

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pxHCGBahQHU

And now I have this on repeat.
>> No. 26203 Anonymous
8th March 2018
Thursday 7:19 pm
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Minor relationship advice please:

I'm an autistic virgin so I'm not the best at reading situations. There is this girl I talk to all the time, and she even invited me round to hers last night to drink and watch some shit on YouTube. But then, when I got there, she didn't even sit on the same sofa as me (going as far as to lie on the other so I couldn't even move across).

What does this mean?
>> No. 26204 Anonymous
8th March 2018
Thursday 7:25 pm
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>>26203

She likes you, but she doesn't want to shag you. It's not rocket surgery m8.
>> No. 26205 Anonymous
8th March 2018
Thursday 7:34 pm
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>>26203
>>26204

In my experience girls don't invite you round on your tod unless shagging is on the cards at some point in the future, even if they do spend half the night on the other sofa. It's not necessarily as cut and dried as otherlad might think.

Unfortunately if you're as autistic as you say you are then picking up on the natural cues of if she likes you or likes likes you might be a bit of a problem going on down the line.

Maybe invite her round to yours to cook her dinner and share a bottle of wine, if she agrees to that then that's a major cue.
>> No. 26206 Anonymous
10th March 2018
Saturday 12:01 am
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>>26203

She's just testing the waters lad, the sofa thing is more like how you'd sit at opposite sides of a table on a pub date. As long as you didn't totally sperg out on her, you might still be in there.
>> No. 26207 Anonymous
10th March 2018
Saturday 1:13 am
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>>26203
Fellow autist here

Hard to say exactly what is going on there are a thousand factors in the equation that no one else can decipher without seeing the pair of you together and knowing your history with each other. I wouldn't read too much into it yet.

I don't know what age you are, but it took me many years of incompetent fumbling around, and appreciating I wasn't wholly undesirable for me to start reading the sexual interest of others right, and even then when you are doing everything right the other person isn't an expert in reading and sending signals either. But I did learn through trial and error and you can too.


Try not to over think these things. Over thinking is the way of our people, but that way lies madness in this instance. You've got an obsession with trying to get laid on the brain. Ignore it, it will fuddle your logic. Let things play out organically based on what is going on around you, not what is in your head. Try to think of things from their perspective and what they want, and what they are trying to achieve with the things they are doing this might give you the insight you need.

If things are going that way you want there will probably come a moment when you will need to take the initiative physically, I can't tell you when that moment is, it is guess work to everyone but you can get reads by assessing how they react to you. If you can recognise someone is into you without them saying it that is the biggest confidence boost you can get. For me that came from being able to recognise how people react to my humour and stories. If people are willing to be playful with you especially physical contact, chances are really good they are into you and it is only a matter of time.

Good luck, keep us in the loop on how this develops.
>> No. 26208 Anonymous
11th March 2018
Sunday 12:17 pm
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>>26207
>>26206
>>26205
>>26204
Thanks for the responses, lads. I'm 23, bordering 24, which is a fairly pathetic age to be a virgin considering my parents were married by the time they were this age, but it's part of the reason I'm wary of things -- I don't want to come off like a fucking 12 year old but it will happen and I don't know if I am mentally ready for that but I have to be.

It's just eminently frustrating to me that I cannot understand the most basic of human interactions, something that most people understand at an intrinsic level, but to me it's like being like a cat trying to land a plane.

It took me years to be able to make friends like a normal human, and I don't want to alienate those (because if I read the situation wrong then I stand to lose her as a friend and also her friends), so I'm always torn.

I didn't sperg out on the night, so I guess I'll see what happens.
>> No. 26209 Anonymous
11th March 2018
Sunday 3:27 pm
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>>26208
It's alright lad, I'm nearly 26 and sex and relationships don't appear in my mind at all now. It's just something other people do, not for the likes of me.

If you know any good bullet salesmen do put me in touch.
>> No. 26210 Anonymous
11th March 2018
Sunday 4:09 pm
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>>26208

You might want to be wary of pursuing her at all then mate. The transition from genuine friend to relationship, and all that entails, rarely survives intact. If the relationship goes sour you lose all that you have already and end up wishing you hadn't bothered.
>> No. 26211 Anonymous
11th March 2018
Sunday 5:07 pm
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>>26209
But to think that it is the ONLY imperative we really have on this planet (not that I want kids, but that's beside the point), it is just an endless source of frustration. I didn't really care until recently, until it hit me just quite how much of a failure I am.

>>26210
Hm, that is a good point. Better safe than sorry, I guess. I'm not head over heels about her, anyway.
>> No. 26212 Anonymous
11th March 2018
Sunday 8:47 pm
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>>26211
> until it hit me just quite how much of a failure I am.

You are not a failure. Live life for yourself, not for others expectations (ironically if you do this then you will become attractive to women, but this cannot be your goal).

Firstly, being autistic/aspergers is no barrier to women and sex. I base this off my observations in the software industry of some clear autists who also have wifes and kids. I suspect I am myself slightly autistic and even I have been in circumstances where I am 99% sure that I could have got myself laid if I had decided I wanted to.

As it happens, I am 30 and a virgin. The reasons for this are personal and very difficult to talk about, even on here, and so they are difficult to resolve.
>> No. 26408 Anonymous
28th March 2018
Wednesday 7:02 pm
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A girl from work is leaving and I am really going to miss her.

She brightens up my day with her smile and the silly messages she sends me.

I think her new job will be good for her... but I selfishly want to keep her with me and also bonk her
>> No. 26409 Anonymous
28th March 2018
Wednesday 7:39 pm
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>>26408

It's not too late, lad, grab the bull by the horns and proposition her at the leaving party.
>> No. 26411 Anonymous
28th March 2018
Wednesday 8:41 pm
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>>26408

This is a blessing in disguise lad. We all know you should never shit where you eat- So now that she's leaving so you can safely give her a good arse-pissing.
>> No. 26412 Anonymous
28th March 2018
Wednesday 9:01 pm
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>>26408
As above, you can bonk her now you're not working with her. On her last day tell her you have really enjoyed working with her, you'd like to stay friends, can we keep in touch, etc.
>> No. 26414 Anonymous
28th March 2018
Wednesday 9:37 pm
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>>26408
>bonk

What is this, 1988. Who says bonk nowadays.

>>26411>>26412
-11 is right, workplace relationships are generally a living nightmare - when they happen you have almost no choice or free will in the matter. If it was going to happen by now, it would have.
>> No. 26423 Anonymous
29th March 2018
Thursday 12:20 am
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>>26414
http://collectables-plus.co.uk/abonk/bonk_figurines.htm
>> No. 26426 Anonymous
29th March 2018
Thursday 12:43 am
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>>26414

Cyclists and some other, lesser sportspeople use 'bonk' to mean when you run out of energy so badly you hit 'the wall'.

I really wish they wouldn't.
>> No. 26427 Anonymous
29th March 2018
Thursday 2:50 am
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Scout_doing_the_Home_Run_taunt_TF2[1].png
264272642726427
>>26426
Bonk!
>> No. 26484 Anonymous
8th April 2018
Sunday 11:43 am
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Increasingly I am thinking this will only end one way.
>> No. 26548 Anonymous
29th April 2018
Sunday 8:38 pm
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Always goes the same way:

Meet someone new, have interesting conversation, I BECOME A SOCIALLY RETARDED CUNT and fuck it up. Every time. Every. Fucking. Time.

Christ. I never thought I'd have as much seething, white-hot hatred for myself as I do yet not do anything about it. I would have liked to think of myself as pragmatic but I'm even a useless cunt at that.
>> No. 26549 Anonymous
29th April 2018
Sunday 8:42 pm
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>>26484

Ooh, get you, me from three weeks back, talking big like you're gonna' do shit. Slit or get off the pot, loser.
>> No. 26550 Anonymous
29th April 2018
Sunday 9:29 pm
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>>26548
Women are just men with tits, lad. When you get into that mindset, they're easier to talk to. You stop thinking things like "I need to impress her" and start thinking and accepting things like "I mean, we both probably like sex. I'll bring the subject up at a more appropriate time. Meanwhile, I bet she'll like this article."
>> No. 26552 Anonymous
29th April 2018
Sunday 9:36 pm
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>>26550
>We're both bloody good blokes, unlike that Turkish shepherd who chewed off his own knackers.
>> No. 26556 Anonymous
29th April 2018
Sunday 11:32 pm
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>>26550
>women are just men with tuts.

That is fundamentally not true. They are strange vain creatures that resemble men and are concerned with something they call 'feelings'. You try having a bit of friendly rivalry and ribbing like you do with the lads and watch how badly and quickly their ego bruises. Don't get me wrong they are fully realised three dimensional people but they aren't like men with tits you can't treat them the same unless you and your male friends are all metrosexuals.
>> No. 26557 Anonymous
30th April 2018
Monday 12:54 am
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>>26550
Who said it was just women I struggle to have normal conversations with? I don't even realise what I'm doing til after the damage is done.

>>26556
I don't think you can use such broad strokes, lad.
>> No. 26558 Anonymous
30th April 2018
Monday 1:04 am
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>>26557
>I don't think you can use such broad strokes.

I'm sorry, you are right. I take back what I said about them being fully realised three dimensional people. It was unfair of me to presume they all are.
>> No. 26560 Anonymous
30th April 2018
Monday 1:14 am
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>>26558
This is /emo/ so stop fucking about.
>> No. 26561 Anonymous
30th April 2018
Monday 1:57 am
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>>26560

We are not trying to talk someone down from the ledge we are trying to get foot in the mouth lad laid. Have a bit of perspective. The entire drive of the conversation is to get someone 'fucking about'.
>> No. 26563 Anonymous
30th April 2018
Monday 1:00 pm
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>>26561
In the same week that someone murdered a bunch of people because they had a warped perception of women don't you dare try and suggest it isn't important.
>> No. 26564 Anonymous
30th April 2018
Monday 1:53 pm
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>>26563

Unless you believe OP is about to murder some women because of the content of this thread I suggest you both stop shitting up a perfectly good /emo/ thread. Take it to one of the many ongoing sexism discussions open elsewhere on the site.
>> No. 26565 Anonymous
30th April 2018
Monday 6:08 pm
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>>26563
Fuck off.
>> No. 26566 Anonymous
30th April 2018
Monday 8:09 pm
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>>26564
>I suggest you both stop shitting up a perfectly good /emo/ thread
If you read my post that's what I'm asking him to stop doing. /emo/ is not the place to talk about how you think women are all the same.
>> No. 26567 Anonymous
30th April 2018
Monday 8:19 pm
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>>26566
People need help with all sorts of emotional and psychological problems and there is no set way to discuss them beyond being supportive, stop being a tedious bore.
>> No. 26568 Anonymous
30th April 2018
Monday 8:43 pm
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>>26566
I also think women are more or less all the same. It's not an insult, we don't have to all be special flowers.
>> No. 26597 Anonymous
4th May 2018
Friday 6:37 pm
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It'd be nice to have at least one parent who didn't need to be pissed by early evening just to get through a day.
>> No. 26598 Anonymous
5th May 2018
Saturday 2:54 pm
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>>26597

I don't mean to belittle your problem but I've days, weeks, where I've needed two bottles of wine to get out of bed in the morning. If you think that your parents are developing a problem maybe take the more open minded one (if they exist) and take them to an AA meeting.

The first half is all bollocks about 12 steps some idiots from Ohio of all places dreamt up almost a hundred years ago about how to be a perfect human or whatever, it's essentially a cult. (Getting slightly off topic here but.... ) Some people need that cult and even though they haven't had a drink for 20 years they keep on turning up every day to these fucking meetings trying to perform these 12 steps and rid themselves of their thetans oh wait wrong cult....

But the second hour is sharing hour and you can talk about problems you have with your drinking, if you've drunk recently, how long you're sober if you are. I like to talk about how my father was an alcoholic bastard and how I go into a fugue state when I go into a supermarket to buy a bottle of coke zero and a sandwhich and suddenly come to in the alcohol aisle.

Anyway, most people reject AA out of hand due to the cultish aspects, which is kind of sad because there are actually useful aspects to it. What I'm trying to say is if one of your parents comes, turn up an hour late; they don't have to speak, they can just listen to other people and maybe they'll hear things from other people that they recognize in themselves or maybe not. But it'd have to be worth an hour of anyone's time if they might possibly be developing a drinking issue? Even if they never go again just getting some perspective by hearing the stories of people who didn't get a little temperance together can be a great thing.

Sage for long rambling post.
>> No. 26599 Anonymous
5th May 2018
Saturday 4:38 pm
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Not sure if this is the right thread to post this in, but I'm beginning to learn that women don't react well to being 'ghosted'.

The other day I bumped into a girl I had apparently ghosted after sleeping with her twice. We ended up spending the day together, by virtue of doing the same activity. She was telling me that she enjoyed the time we had spent together before I'd ghosted her, and when I suggested we did stuff again, she said we can do it as friends, but that the ~moment's gone~ and I wouldn't get to fuck her, which I thought was a weird thing to say.

Anyway, we ended up drinking with my mates, who told me she was obviously still into me. After a few pints we got the bus home and ended up snogging and all of that stuff. The next day she texts me saying she shouldn't have kissed me, that she's not looking for anything serious, and that she doesn't think we're 'compatible' (still not sure I know what 'compatible' feels like, but I guess that's a topic for a whole other emo thread).

Incidentally, I got in touch with another girl who I'd had a date with a few weeks ago, which ended up with snogging and us agreeing to hang out again. She also told me the "window of opportunity had passed" because my response time had been really slow, and then blocked me on Whatsapp.

I had always been led to believed that women's interest in a person increased if they were not available - 'treat them mean, keep them keen' etc. But I am only just learning that this is not necessarily the case.
>> No. 26600 Anonymous
5th May 2018
Saturday 4:46 pm
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>>26599

You don't ghost people you want to fuck, you be vague, keep in contact and stay flirty. You still have to remain in contact or their heads turn. A simple adjustment is all you need, who told you ghosting women was a good idea for anything other than avoiding someone you had a regrettable one night stand with? That's misguided PUA nonsense, lad.
>> No. 26601 Anonymous
5th May 2018
Saturday 5:14 pm
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>>26600

I don't do it 'strategically', but out of laziness more than anything.
>> No. 26602 Anonymous
5th May 2018
Saturday 7:17 pm
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>>26601
Another problem solved.

Where is my CBE, purps?
>> No. 26603 Anonymous
5th May 2018
Saturday 8:20 pm
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>>26600

I've accidentally attracted women more by giving up on them. If they're playing hard to get or being coy or just clearly not that arsed with you, and you stop replying to them, they either forget about you and that's that, or they go FUCKING MENTAL because they're not used to being brushed off.

I suspect it only works with the very, very pretty ones/narcissists.
>> No. 26604 Anonymous
5th May 2018
Saturday 9:41 pm
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>>26600

It's all about the push / pull m8. Even the femenists figured that one out back when they wrote "men are from mars...."

>>26599

"The moment has passed" means, as they say in Brazil, "A fila anda" - in other words you missed your chance and she's taking another fucker's length.
>> No. 26605 Anonymous
8th May 2018
Tuesday 12:13 am
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>>26603
Yeah a similar thing happened to me a while ago. I went on a couple of dates with this girl, but even though we enjoyed hanging out I didn't feel like like there were any sparks flying and to be honest I felt like she was wasting my time a bit. I didn't message her for 3 or 4 weeks and she didn't message me either so I thought she wasn't that into me. But after that we bumped into each other at a party and very quickly left together. Sometimes you just need to apply enough alcohol to the problem.
>> No. 26606 Anonymous
8th May 2018
Tuesday 12:42 am
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>>26605

It's an old septic joke but British people don't date, and we shouldn't try to emulate our transatlantic cousins at it; we simply get sambuccad up and throw ourselves at each other.
>> No. 26615 Anonymous
9th May 2018
Wednesday 8:14 pm
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I've been on a bunch of dates recently but never get as far as progressing things beyond a second meeting. The latest one has just ghosted me after saying they wanted to hang out again. Don't get what I'm doing wrong really. Is it inevitable to go through this much rejection as a guy?
>> No. 26617 Anonymous
9th May 2018
Wednesday 10:20 pm
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>>26615
Phone up Scott Mills and have him find out why you were ghosted. 👻
>> No. 26618 Anonymous
9th May 2018
Wednesday 11:11 pm
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>>26615
I think so, mate. I've been through the same thing, including the old 'I'd love to see you again once I return from my fifty-year mission to the Phantom Zone' trick. But now I'm in a happy long-term relationship. Don't take it personally and just keep trying, you'll eventually find someone you click with.
>> No. 26619 Anonymous
10th May 2018
Thursday 1:09 am
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>>26615

>Is it inevitable to go through this much rejection as a guy?

Pretty much. I think pre-tinder era, you got more of an explanation/polite rejection IRL, but these days people seem fine just disappearing.

It's frustrating as it's hard to know if you're doing something wrong that you could improve, or if you've just been a bit unlucky, and I'm not just saying this to be nice - it's likely the latter.
>> No. 26621 Anonymous
10th May 2018
Thursday 12:28 pm
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>>26619
>I think pre-tinder era, you got more of an explanation/polite rejection IRL, but these days people seem fine just disappearing.

In Friends, which I watched as a kid, throughout the series Joey would date women, have sex with them, and then never call them again. Whenever he encountered one of these women again, they were found to hate him.
>> No. 26622 Anonymous
10th May 2018
Thursday 1:27 pm
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I've basically got an hour of mental energy per day and then I go bonkers and curl up like a dead Woodlouse.
>> No. 26623 Anonymous
11th May 2018
Friday 3:58 pm
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My mood has been inexplicably low for the last 24 hours. I'm beginning to wonder if my doctor prescribed me a placebo instead of mood stablisers as an experiment. Posting in this thread rather than starting a new one because i don't think there is really any constructive advice emo can give me that I don't know and haven't given myself. I just want to have a moan anonymously. My brain is broken no one has a good fix for it, and it leads to spontaneously shitty days. Meeting with the doctor next week maybe they will increase my dose or reveal the ruse and give me something functional.
>> No. 26624 Anonymous
11th May 2018
Friday 8:14 pm
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>>26623

> mood stablisers

In my experience they take about two weeks to kick in properly. Before that you're just a crying mess who bursts into tears at random moments for no real reason at all 24/7.

I can only thank any god who can hear me that I'm no longer on the SSRIs that were triggering my manic episodes. I should be dead about 10 ten times over by now - I don't know what my mission here on earth actually IS but I obviously haven't completed it yet because somehow I'm still fucking here.
>> No. 26625 Anonymous
11th May 2018
Friday 10:02 pm
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>>26624

I'm well over the 2 week mark at this point. I switched to SNRIs about 2 months ago from Mirtazapine and somedays they seem to do nothing at all. I might actually be feeling worse now then when I wasn't medicated.

Mirtazapine was great for me apart from my constant sleeping and drowsiness made me unfit for work hence the change in med. But this definitely feels like a step backwards.
>> No. 26626 Anonymous
11th May 2018
Friday 10:15 pm
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>>26624

Manic episodes of the euphoric, productive kind?
>> No. 26627 Anonymous
12th May 2018
Saturday 4:36 am
26627 spacer
>>26626

No more the shitpost wildly, be overly aggressive over perceived slights, talk a lot, talk bollocks, and generally act like you've whacked a henry of coke in the last hour, without being classifiable as psychosis sort (because you're totally lucid, you just find things like taking the piss out of the police lads for "voting UKIP" and asking if they joined the police because they failed their Argos exam three times absolutely hilarious).

I've had episodes of methamphetamine enduced euphoria that may have appeared to be Manic states from the outside but were actually just dopamine-mediated periods of 4-5 days where I wouldn't eat, sleep, consume anything that wasn't tea, Rennies, or 8%+ ABV Polish lager and write thousands of lines of code.

Actual Bi-Polar manic episodes in my experience tend to superficially more similar to schizophrenic episodes where what you're doing makes no sense to any outside observer, only that you're acting like a mentalist.

> I switched to SNRIs about 2 months ago from Mirtazapine and somedays they seem to do nothing at all. I might actually be feeling worse now then when I wasn't medicated.

What's you're diagnosis? I'm a bi-polar and not a standard melancholic depressive so SSRI/SNRI medications have a near 100% tendency to trigger manic episodes and compulsivity / impulsivity rather than calm me in any way, shape, or form.

Also which SNRI are you on, Venlafaxine? I posted somewhere on here about my dance with that devil of a drug but you seem to be tolerating whatever you're on rather well. Have you tried escitalopram yet? It's still a bastard of a drug but the side effect profile (especially the sexual side effects) tends to be a lot kinder than most other SSRIs and SNRIs.
>> No. 26628 Anonymous
12th May 2018
Saturday 10:27 am
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>>26627

My current diagnosis is mixed anxiety and depression. Currently I'm on duloxitine. I had es-citalopram in the past and the sexual side effects were so bad for me I don't want to ever go back.
>> No. 26629 Anonymous
12th May 2018
Saturday 4:48 pm
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>>26628
> My current diagnosis is mixed anxiety and depression.

So the standard GP "I don't know what I'm doing so I'll just tick the most applicable boxes so I can prescribe the drugs the NHS trust prefers I prescribe" diagnosis, then?

See if you can get a referral to an actual psychiatrist, unless I'm being presumptuous and an actual, very very lazy, psychiatrist actually gave you that (hopefully hypothetical) diagnosis.
>> No. 26630 Anonymous
12th May 2018
Saturday 6:57 pm
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>>26629

There's nothing necessarily wrong with that diagnosis. Generalised anxiety disorder is incredibly common and comes with a substantially higher risk of depression. Avoidance coping is a very common reaction to anxiety, which can set off a depressive cycle of doing less/feeling worse/doing less.

SSRIs, SNRIs and Mirtazapine all have very similar efficacy, so the choice of drug is mainly educated guesswork and often comes down to tolerability of side-effects. Some patients will do better on a TCA or an MAOI, but they're riskier drugs with poorer tolerability so it's eminently sensible to try a few safer drugs first and it's inadvisable to prescribe them in primary care. Unless there's a major manic episode, a psychotic episode or a clear pattern of hypomanic episodes in the patient history, then I'd question the competence of anyone prescribing a mood stabiliser or antipsychotic.

Cost is rarely an issue, because most of the sensible first- and second-line treatment options are off patent.
>> No. 26631 Anonymous
12th May 2018
Saturday 7:33 pm
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>>26630

There's nothing necessarily wrong with that diagnosis, but nothing essentially right about it either - it's just the easiest least controversial diagnosis that any two bit quack could lazily make in five minutes; "here try these pills if they don't help we'll up the dose until you can't stand the side effects and then we'll swap you over to something else until either something works, the side effects drive you over the edge, or we fry every receptor subtype in your brain".

Duloxetine is also a shitty follow up to Mirtaz... why the fuck would you switch someone from a "lie in bed all day but at least you're not killing yourself drug" straight to a "get out of bed right now you Major Depressive fuck" drug? Now that is a decision that should make you question the competence of whoever this poor chap is working with.

I would never allow a GP to prescribe me psychiatric drugs on a first-line treatment basis just because, statistically, they're the most likely to work. You're fucking with the single most important thing you have - your mind. If even the most specialized psychiatrists are essentially witch doctors then GPs are the tribal soothsayer with a checklist and a list of approved drugs.
>> No. 26632 Anonymous
13th May 2018
Sunday 8:08 am
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>>26629
>So the standard GP "I don't know what I'm doing so I'll just tick the most applicable boxes so I can prescribe the drugs the NHS trust prefers I prescribe" diagnosis, then?

Not at all. I think it is the right diagnosis for me I've had depression on and off for years but recently I've started having neurotic freak outs. (Dredging up old memories that make me uncomfortable for split second bursts)

The only other diagnosis I guess would make sense is PTSD.

When I began seeking treatment for my problems the first time I had private health insurance. I don't think a NHS GP has ever diagnosed me. The most recent shift in diagnosis is a result of talking through my symptoms and past with a psychiatrist for a solid hour.

>>26631
>Duloxetine is also a shitty follow up to Mirtaz... why the fuck would you switch someone from a "lie in bed all day but at least you're not killing yourself drug" straight to a "get out of bed right now you Major Depressive fuck" drug? Now that is a decision that should make you question the competence of whoever this poor chap is working with.

What's your angle here? I want to be better I requested the change in drug because I was feeling much better and wanted to start living a more meaningful life, it just turned out the new drug doesn't work for me. You've made an awful lot of assumptions here about this being some presumptive GP making it up as they go along. I didn't tell you that. Where is this all coming from lad? It seems like you are projecting something onto me. What's really bothering you here?
>> No. 26645 Anonymous
13th May 2018
Sunday 11:02 pm
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>>26632
> I think it is the right diagnosis for me

How many hypothetical diagnosis cycles have you been through? It took three highly qualified specialist psychiatrists several cycles of almost killing me before we found something which, touch wood, seems to be a valid diagnosis for me and a combination of (currently) five medications that seem to be working for me. Maybe you were just lucky enough to be in the statistical majority. The fact that your medication still isn't right for you suggests that you aren't, though, and that your case is probably more complex than you hope.

>> >Duloxetine is also a shitty follow up to Mirtaz...
> What's your angle here?

That your doctor is shitty. Jumping you from Mirtaz to Duloxetine is like taking you from morphine to meth without trying codeine or caffeine or anything else along the way.

> I want to be better I requested the change in drug because I was feeling much better and wanted to start living a more meaningful life, it just turned out the new drug doesn't work for me.

That doesn't make sense, if you were feeling much better why would ask for a change in drug? Because you were too sleepy? Well sometimes that's the way the cookie crumbles. My own meds make me shit myself every two hours but if I come off them I'll probably be dead within two weeks, so I eat a box of Immodium a day and try to eat more fiber. You deal with the most important things things first. I, for example won't take anything that interferes with my ability to do sport and exercise - without those all my symptoms get worse, medication or no medication.

>You've made an awful lot of assumptions here about this being some presumptive GP making it up as they go along. I didn't tell you that.

It's called "reading between the lines" and what's we non-autists do in order to pick up on subtle details that people don't necessarily want or feel are necessary to spell out. Admittedly it works better in person than across the Internet, especially where mental health in involved.

>Where is this all coming from lad?

It seems we're heading into cunt off land because, instead of insulting your missus or keying your car, I've slagged off your doctor and the change in medication he's prescribed. There's nothing much of anything coming from anywhere other than one person who's been fucked around by psychiatrists being concerned about another human being who seems to be having a hard time with psychiatrists (or worse, a GP with a checklist, you still haven't been specific about that).

I won't quote or respond to the rest of your post because it's the same sort of bollocks I spit out when I'm angry and in pain too, and to be quite frank this isn't the time or the place.

If I've touched a sore nerve I apologize and I wish you all the best in your future treatments, but I will reiterate one last time - if you are seeing a GP and you end up on a third medication that still isn't perfect, go and see a real psychiatric specialist, not some piano dentist who'll keep you feeling like a couple of fortnights in a bad balloon.
>> No. 26647 Anonymous
13th May 2018
Sunday 11:42 pm
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>>26645

At the point that you are telling me I'm autistic because the assumptions you've made about me and my situation are wrong, you probably shouldn't be posting in emo and have clearly crossed the line of constructive posting.

It is terrible that you have to take so many meds and that you have been misdiagnosed so much, but it isn't a competition, and isn't relevant to my situation. If you have pain you want to share by all means share it. Don't use me as a proxy for the axe you grind though.
>> No. 26648 Anonymous
13th May 2018
Sunday 11:51 pm
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>>26645

>That your doctor is shitty. Jumping you from Mirtaz to Duloxetine is like taking you from morphine to meth without trying codeine or caffeine or anything else along the way.

This statement is obviously nonsense to anyone with even a rudimentary understanding of psychopharmacology. I don't know what your problem is or what agenda you're trying to push, but you're not helping the situation.
>> No. 26655 Anonymous
14th May 2018
Monday 4:27 am
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>>26647
> At the point that you are telling me I'm autistic because the assumptions you've made about me and my situation are wrong...

You haven't been clear about your situation, and it's obvious that your current medication isn't working, so anyone wanting to offer any advice beyond a shoulder to cry on has to read between the lines and make certain assumptions. The autism comment was perhaps too glib and didn't belong in /emo/ and I apologize for that.

Also don't worry about me lad, I've whinged enough on here to last several lifetimes, I'm not trying to one up you in the Who's The Most Mental Mentallad on Britfa challenge but as I said your medication clearly isn't right for you so it's quite likely that you're being mis-prescribed and/or misdiagnosed.

The fact that (presumably) you mentioned "mood stabalisers" in one post, and then said "then I switched from mirtaz to SSRIs" two posts later shows that something isn't quite right. An SSRI is certainly not a mood stabaliser and will patently make conditions that need mood stablisers worse (although for you it seems to be having little effect at all, which is better than an adverse effect, I suppose).

There's not much more to say, really as any other suggestion I make seems to upset you further which far from what I want.

>>26648
>This statement is obviously nonsense to anyone with even a rudimentary understanding of psychopharmacology

It's illustratively hyperbolic and nothing more. If you like we can cunt off about the pharmacology of various generations and subtypes of antidepressants on /lab/ or /A/ or somewhere more apt.

Also why does overly self-defensive wannabe cunt-off starter shoe-horn the idea of "pushing an agenda" into every discussion? What possible "agenda" could I be wanting to "push"? Do you think I've come from Big Pharma to convince a bunch of Tea and Shed enthusiasts into buy my companies latest patented brain-fixer, because I'm not.

I have no "agenda" to "push" nor "bag of spuds" and indeed no purpose in this discussion that to try to help a lad whose medication clearly isn't working by applying my own personal experience of being prescribed plenty of medication that sometimes didn't work, and sometimes made things even worse. Nothing more, nothing less.

As said lad doesn't want my help or advice I won't be replying to any more posts on the subject and will leave the lad to his own devices and wish him all the best and a speedy recovery. That is all.
>> No. 26719 Anonymous
29th May 2018
Tuesday 5:43 pm
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>go check on your very first ex

No, brain, that's blatantly stupid.

>just go look at her facebook

No, the fuck is wrong with you. I already know how this will end.

>just do it, you know you want to

Look, fine, but it's your fault when it turns out she's fit as fuck nowadays and the rest our week is spent in sheer bitter ennui.

>it's her biiirthdaaaay
>and she's fit as fuck, look at her
>and she's still into all the same stuff as you
>she's perfect, you're such a dickhead

Yeah. Thanks. Prick.
>> No. 26721 Anonymous
29th May 2018
Tuesday 8:44 pm
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I've just realised the seriousness of a health condition I'm being tested for.

At the beginning of the month I had an MRI scan to test for primary biliary cholangitis (PBC). I was a bit worried but the consultant kind of downplayed it, suggesting he was just ruling it out, and that it wasn't that likely that it was serious. It's a liver condition but when I asked he didn't say I needed to stop drinking alcohol, just that I should maybe drink a bit less than I do on the weekends. As such I didn't think too much about it, as it didn't seem like I needed to worry - if it was serious they surely should have said by now, right?

After a boozy bank holiday weekend my skin has been feeling a bit itchy, which is one of the symptoms of PBC. I decided to have more of a read about PBC, discovering that diagnoses are 95% accurate through a type of blood test, which I assume I've already tested positively for, hence the MRI.

So I ended up googling "PBC life expectancy", to which Google told me: "The average survival from diagnosis for a patient with PBC who is asymptomatic is 16 years, while that of patients with symptoms is 7 1/2 years."

I'm 25 years old. So it looks like there's a high chance I won't even make it to 40.

On discovering this my body feels weak and I'm not sure how I'm supposed to carry on with my life with such knowledge. This is not a nice feeling.

I want to take a valium to forget about it but I don't think that will be good for my liver.
>> No. 26722 Anonymous
29th May 2018
Tuesday 9:23 pm
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>>26721

If the diagnosis is confirmed, I'd strongly recommend getting in touch with a support group. Chronic and life-limiting conditions are really tough to deal with, but it's a bit easier if you have the support of people in the same boat. I've got a fairly serious cardiac condition and I was absolutely terrified when I first got my diagnosis. Joining a support group didn't take away that fear, but it made it easier to deal with.

I can't speak for everyone, but I went through an absolutely textbook five stages of grief when I got my diagnosis. My own mortality suddenly became a lot more real when it had a definite timeframe. Eventually, I just got used to the idea. There was no epiphany, no sudden moment of being at peace with it, just a gradual return to feeling normal. I realised that it doesn't actually make much difference if you've got fifty years left or ten, you just get up in the morning and get on with your life. I cashed out my pension and spunked it on a few nice holidays, but otherwise nothing has really changed.

Good luck mate.

https://www.britishlivertrust.org.uk/find-support/
>> No. 26726 Anonymous
31st May 2018
Thursday 10:21 am
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Got stood up for a date last night. I'm not angry. More perplexed.

Was it always considered socially acceptable to not explain your actions or is this a new development?

I imagine the avoidance of the responsibliy of confrontation of awkward situations out of cowardice to be a modern 'millennial' problem but I might be fooling myself.
>> No. 26727 Anonymous
31st May 2018
Thursday 11:21 am
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My life's going down the shitter. Being evicted, so had to find a new house fast. Found one, it's a bit of a shithole, but it was the only place that would allow a cat. Had to use all my savings and borrow money off mine and my partner's family to afford the £1500 to move. Now I'm broke, can't afford stuff we need for the house like a fridge, and I've gotten really ill. Too ill to work, but on a zero hours contract so not like I can get signed off and get sick pay. Every night all I can think about is killing myself. I feel like obstacles keep coming up and it's not worth living anymore. At least if I'm dead I don't have to deal with all this tedious shit.
>> No. 26728 Anonymous
31st May 2018
Thursday 12:55 pm
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>>26727

If your situation is really that dire take it to the left wing rags. They'll fucking love you as an example of broken tory Britain. They'll give you cash for the story so win win.
>> No. 26729 Anonymous
31st May 2018
Thursday 6:43 pm
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>>26728
Ah if only I could be as cynical as you.
>> No. 26730 Anonymous
1st June 2018
Friday 6:12 pm
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What's the point in the crisis team? I phoned them and told them I'm hearing voices and I'm suicidal, they told me that I should write down my problems as that'll help me overcome them.
>> No. 26731 Anonymous
1st June 2018
Friday 7:25 pm
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>>26730

Imagine a piece of toast the size of Birmingham. Try buttering it with one of those tiny packets of butter you get with a hotel breakfast. "Spread thin" is too meagre a phrase for the state of mental health services at the moment.

I see all sorts of mental health awareness stuff in the media, with various celebrities imploring us to seek help if we're struggling. When you actually try to get that help, it all starts to seem like a sick joke.
>> No. 26733 Anonymous
1st June 2018
Friday 10:19 pm
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>>26731

Maybe "seek help if you are struggling" means "seek help if you are struggling, but be prepared to pay 50 quids at hour for it".
>> No. 26734 Anonymous
1st June 2018
Friday 10:29 pm
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>>26730

I'm all about that suicide vibe too, but did you actually try? I'm not saying it will work, but you never know.
>> No. 26735 Anonymous
2nd June 2018
Saturday 12:20 am
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>>26734

That kind of reads like you want him to try suicide.
>> No. 26858 Anonymous
16th June 2018
Saturday 8:41 pm
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I didn't sign up for this whole "existing" thing. I can't say I like it all that much; I know it's no great revelation but you do things you hate so you can survive to do more things you hate.

All day I've had a crushing sense of doom and despair and I don't really know why.

I want a drink to take my mind off it, but I've had a drink for the last two nights in a row and feel that a third really wouldn't be appropriate.
>> No. 26859 Anonymous
16th June 2018
Saturday 9:16 pm
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I think I'm going to kill someone. Just go out and stab a random stranger. At this point it seems like the only way to get help for my mental health. I've had six years of being tossed around on various waiting lists, tried a whole bunch of medication, tried all sorts of changes to my life. But nothing is working. I can't live like this anymore.
>> No. 26861 Anonymous
16th June 2018
Saturday 10:22 pm
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>>26859
Don't stab anyone. Take about 10 valium, you'll live, but phone the NHS helpline and tell them you've overdosed and taken more than that and you're going to kill yourself. An ambulance will come and the Paramedics will assess you. Tell them you want to die and why, tell them you can't see a way out, tell them you were at a bridge earlier in the evening and the only thing that pulled you back from the edge was thoughts of family.

You'll get taken in. Repeat for the assessing Nurse and the on call Psychiatrist, respectively. When they ask you what you'll do if you leave, say shoot yourself. They'll ask where you will get a gun, say it's easy and you can get a hot sawn-off for £50. What does it matter to you if it is linked to crime, you're going to deepthroat it. You'll get offered a bed in their secure mental health wing, take it.

You'll spend a month or so in there and it could save your life in the future, as you'll speak to a Psychiatrist and a psychologist as well as having a named Nurse you can go to. 3 squares a day, as much squash as you can drink and they'll let you keep your phone. When you get a bed, let us know where you are. You might find one of us is close by, I would visit you for sure. We'll sort something out.

/emo/ has helped me loads over the years, I doubt I'm the only one who would be interested in paying that forward. Same goes for you, >>26858.

Take care, lads.
>> No. 26862 Anonymous
17th June 2018
Sunday 12:14 am
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>>26858

> I didn't sign up for this whole "existing" thing. I can't say I like it all that much

I very, very much know how you feel, lad - and I also know how people treat you like a whining little bastard for expressing such "teenlad" or "edgy" feelings.

I don't know where the actual phrase comes from but it gets bandied about in a "Peanuts" cartoon meme that says something like "I think about life and I think about death, and neither really appeals to me".

As a staunch anti-natalist I honestly thought I was set for life just drinking and drugging myself faster and ever faster towards the abyss until the thrill of speed overcame the fear of death and the dying of the light became but the snuffing of the candle, but no.

> I want a drink to take my mind off it, but I've had a drink for the last two nights in a row and feel that a third really wouldn't be appropriate.

I've gone down that road many times and it works, until it doesn't, then you move onto something else which works, until it also doesn't. People talk about alcoholism and drug addiction as progressive incurable diseases but no one really says the same about the meta-mechanics of what leads someone to start down the path in the first place, but I digress.

Suffice to say that suicide by installments works fine until you either fall in love or some heartless bitch drops the responsibility of staying alive in order to be some kind of decent dad to a kid that you expressly never wanted. Then you're fucked.

Sage, because I'm rambling, because I don't really have any answers, and I'm not really sure if your post even had any questions.
>> No. 26863 Anonymous
17th June 2018
Sunday 1:23 am
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>>26862
> and I also know how people treat you like a whining little bastard for expressing such "teenlad" or "edgy" feelings.
I tell myself the same thing. But, at the same time, they aren't wrong. I'm not writing some edgelord manifesto, just expressing the truth. I really didn't ask to be brought into existence, and really wish I hadn't been.

>I've gone down that road many times and it works, until it doesn't,

I succumbed today, and had a couple of cans. Not enough to get me smashed, but enough to take the edge off. I'm worried because now I'm aware enough that what I'm doing is destructive, but I don't know long that will last for.

>Suffice to say that suicide by installments works fine until you either fall in love or some heartless bitch drops the responsibility of staying alive in order to be some kind of decent dad to a kid that you expressly never wanted. Then you're fucked.

That sounds awful. I'd hate to bring another human into the suffering that we call life.
>> No. 26864 Anonymous
17th June 2018
Sunday 1:26 am
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>>26861
I didn't see your quote before making my reply. I'm too much of a pussy (and, I suppose, of sound-ish mind) to do anything that would require an extra burden on the NHS.

I want to see the world, or at least get off this godforsaken island before making any... decisions.
>> No. 26869 Anonymous
17th June 2018
Sunday 12:16 pm
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>>26864

Immigrant lad here.

This forsaken island is quite crappy, but the rest of Europe is not in a better shape. Save yourself the trouble, if you are not very rich the world is more or less the same crap everywhere.
>> No. 26870 Anonymous
17th June 2018
Sunday 12:51 pm
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>>26869
The average starting salary for my chosen career path in certain foreign climes is considerably higher than here. I'm going to give that a shot as soon as it's practical.
>> No. 26874 Anonymous
17th June 2018
Sunday 1:22 pm
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>>26870

Believe me, an higher salary is not going to help much in a place where nothing works properly and where there are many problems that will affect you (criminality, unsafe environment, pollution, overcrowding and so on).
>> No. 26875 Anonymous
17th June 2018
Sunday 2:23 pm
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>>26874
None of those things are true in Australia - win win, too. Either I go there and do well or I get taken out by a murderous spider/cassowary/kangaroo.
>> No. 26876 Anonymous
17th June 2018
Sunday 2:44 pm
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>>26875

As long as you are qualified enough to get a working VISA and have no fear of Catachan wildlife, go ahead.

PS: don't mention the emu war.
>> No. 26880 Anonymous
17th June 2018
Sunday 8:08 pm
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>>26876

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QzYlI-W4sg8

I think I got away with it.
>> No. 26892 Anonymous
23rd June 2018
Saturday 2:30 am
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Why am I like this
>> No. 26893 Anonymous
24th June 2018
Sunday 2:05 am
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>>26880

SHIT CRICKET TEAM
>> No. 26894 Anonymous
24th June 2018
Sunday 2:07 am
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Becausr you're a stupid mentalist.

Get a job you lazy fucker.

(A good day to you Sir!)
>> No. 26895 Anonymous
24th June 2018
Sunday 5:07 pm
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I need to talk to someone but feel like I'm constantly burdening everyone with my pathetic, inane shit.

Nobody wants to hear about the fact I can't deal with situations like the adult I am.

I even feel like a burden posting it here on an anonymous imageboard.

I wish I wasn't such a pussy and had the courage to do what needs to be done.
>> No. 26896 Anonymous
24th June 2018
Sunday 5:17 pm
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>>26895

Talking to us here will never be a burden, I can promise you that. It's why this board exists. Please talk to us, I'd consider it a favour rather than a burden.
>> No. 26897 Anonymous
24th June 2018
Sunday 5:32 pm
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>>26895

The Samaritans are ready to listen to whatever you have to say. The number is 116 123. It's free to call from any phone and they're available 24/7.
>> No. 26898 Anonymous
24th June 2018
Sunday 5:48 pm
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>>26892

Being that way, or at least some variation of that way that makes me think that we're probably both talking about being physically, spiritually and emotionally undone on some level or other in a way that there appears to be no way real way to fix. If I've misread your cryptic one liner then I'll just pontificate to myself for the next ten minutes or so then go and get blitzed on all the prescription meds I've saved up, because that's what I do when I get to the end of my spiritual / mental / emotional tether, so apologies in advance and feel free to just ignore the rest of this post.

Being me, and suffering from what I can only term as "some catastrophic mis-wiring of the brain" causes me to spend about eighteen hours a day wondering why I am this fucking way and what I can do about it. I've developed an entire mixed metaphor / broken analogy amalgam based around poker which I won't bother boring you all with but it basically works out like this; your behaviour, even if you happen to believe in free will, is basically controlled by the following factors:

- Your genetics
- Your upbringing and environment
- The choices and actions of those you choose to surround yourself with
- Your own choices and actions

Out of these there are only really two that you have any influence over - the people who you surround yourself with and your own actions and choices.

This all sounds well and good, considering that "we are here and it is now, everything after that is mostly guesswork" - it implies that you can simply make a choice to Stop doing one One Thing and Start doing Another Thing. That you can drop your set of friends who bring negative influences into your life and start trying to find mates who bring positive things into your life.

The problem here is that each factor influences the factors below (your parents genetics will influence your upbringing, your upbringing will influence who you hang around with, and so on) and, worse, some of these factors, such as genetics and upbringing are heavily, heavily weighted when compared to your chances of making opposing choices as a fully formed adult. In other words the game is basically rigged from the start; if you've been brought up to think / act / behave / believe in a certain way then your chances of reversing those traits grow smaller and smaller the older you get.

To give a trite and near meaningless example, a child who is brought up to believe that "family always comes first" and that you "always back up your mates" is far more likely to maintain relationships with toxic parents or other family members, or to hold that wrap of charlie for their mate, or to back him up in a fight and up end up doing seven years for GBH when the poor tosser he thumps whacks his head off a cobblestone than the child who is raised to think for himself with questions such as "if your mates all jumped off a cliff, would you do it too?".

As best as I can work out, after years of several different types of therapy, is that the younger you are when you start getting help and the type of help you get are critical in "re-wiring" your behaviour patterns and helping you to become a happier, more functional, person, whatever that might be.

Then again, to make bad on my promise, and try to bring my broken poker analogy full circle - you only get the cards you're dealt but it's up to you how you play the hand. You can ditch your shit mates, you can search out self-help groups for whatever problems you feel you have (it's not just AA and NA any more, there's self-funded support groups in church halls up and down the country for everyone from people who are addicted to relationships and codependence to people who are addicted to one night stands, to people who want to cut their wrists because they can't deal with being a parent, or have OCD, or melancholic depression (those ones tend to be really under attended, though), and dozens of other conditions and issues).

Small changes lead to bigger changes, and even for those of us who had the odds stacked against us from the start small changes are possible.

"Our greatest glory consists not in never failing, but in rising every time we fall."

Sageru Tickaru for Sunday evening long dark teatime of the soul rambling nonsense.
>> No. 26899 Anonymous
24th June 2018
Sunday 9:33 pm
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>>26898
>>26897
>>26896

>>26892 was a drunken expression of my thoughts in >>26895. Thanks, but I just feel like in comparison to most people who would want to phone the Samaritans, and I would again feel like I am wasting their time.

I overanalyse, overthink, and overstress about every situation. I am acutely aware that everything I do in any situation could be the wrong thing, and as I'm a bit of a sperg, I have no idea how to read the situation properly anyway. I feel constantly trapped and that there is no decent way out of any situation.

I don't feel like I have anyone in my life I could truly confide in -- the one person who told me I could; well I did and they basically just ignored everything I said and went silent until they could talk to me about their problems.

I feel like always have to wear a protective suit for my feelings because I don't know how to deal with them and have no proper outlet for them. Being a sperg, I also have a lot of constantly-building anxiety that I am more than half a decade into adulthood yet have few of the life experiences that make us into well-rounded adults.

Hearing people talk about relationships and stuff is frustrating and it makes me bitter and I HATE HATE HATE that it does. I should be able to deal with it, I should be able to work with it. But I can't, and I don't know how to, and I don't know what I can do.

It would feel weird (and once again a burden) going to see the doctor saying "I'm a bit of sperg who is bad with relationships and so has trouble dealing with his emotions give me some benzos please".

What sent me off the deep end was I went to a house party the other day - the first in a good number of months, and out of the blue essentially a girl kissed me. Now, this was the... third in my life? time this has happened, and the first where I wasn't blind drunk. I froze up and had NO idea what to do or how to react, or how to continue it.

So I just bolted. Not ran off, but made a fairly quick (if temporary) exit. I'm so utterly furious at myself that I can't deal with such a basic, simple, situation that I think it really boils down all my problems into one salient point. If I could a) have gone with the flow and not analysed and stressed out about it and b) been able to react to situations like an adult, it would have come out a lot better.

The day after was a very difficult one to cope with. Even saying that makes me hate myself more, because of the real, legitimate problems people have and yet here I am, effectively crippled over a kiss at a house party!

It makes me feel like I am in some way fundamentally defective, and would be much better off if I was "recycled".

I just cannot fathom why I have turned out this way and now, being in the situation I am, I just feel trapped in a prison partially of my own construction. I have no one to let these feelings out to and no-one to work through them with and so they get bottled up and bottled up, compounded with the fact that the more I bottle these feelings up the more I hate myself for doing so, it feels like a brutally vicious cycle of crying on the floor for hours breakdowns followed by months of every day being slightly worse.

I force myself to do social things whenever possible, and push myself into new social situations because it's the only way to improve my pathetically underdeveloped skills, but it only serves to create so much stress and pain for me and it... it's all fucking pathetic.

It's nothing. I don't have any real problems and I am just a whiny, pathetic cunt who doesn't know how good he has it.

Fuck.
>> No. 26900 Anonymous
24th June 2018
Sunday 10:12 pm
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>>26899

>Thanks, but I just feel like in comparison to most people who would want to phone the Samaritans, and I would again feel like I am wasting their time.

Most people who phone the Samaritans aren't suicidal. They're a listening service, open to anyone who needs to get something off their chest.

https://www.samaritans.org/how-we-can-help-you/contact-us/what-happens-when-you-contact-us

>It would feel weird (and once again a burden) going to see the doctor saying "I'm a bit of sperg who is bad with relationships and so has trouble dealing with his emotions give me some benzos please".

If you feel like a burden on the NHS, you aren't. Feeling like a burden is symptomatic of a treatable health condition. The people who actually are a burden would never entertain the idea - they're marching into A&E with a splinter in their finger, demanding to be treated and complaining about the wait. There is a shortage of psychological treatments within the NHS, but that doesn't make you any less deserving of treatment than anyone else. Early intervention is always more cost-effective, so you're actually saving the NHS money by seeking help now rather than waiting until you completely crack up.

>I have no one to let these feelings out to and no-one to work through them with and so they get bottled up and bottled up

Take the cork out of the bottle. Call the Samaritans, call CALM, go to your GP, look up your local IAPT service or find a support group for social anxiety. You've said that bottling things up is just making things worse and you're trapped in a vicious cycle. You've said that beating yourself up only makes things worse. The only way to break that cycle is to do something compassionate for yourself. Asking for help is a very good first step towards living a better life.
>> No. 26901 Anonymous
24th June 2018
Sunday 10:56 pm
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>>26900

> Take the cork out of the bottle.

Not >>26899, but taking the cork out of the bottle is usually the start of my problems not the end of them.

Do I even need a coat in June? Yes, I have the flu. Still.
>> No. 26902 Anonymous
25th June 2018
Monday 12:56 am
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>>26899

I empathise with what you've said in this post.

It's fine, you're not mental, many people have had similar emotional responses to the situations you've described.

Have you tried meditation? After taking a little time each morning over the last year I've found it much easier to distance my sense of self from the reflexive emotional responses that happen when interacting with other people in particular.

There's always somebody "worse off" but that should never preclude you from seeking support that might be needed to change things for the better.

You should continue discussing things here on this board, there are people who are listening and do care.
>> No. 26923 Anonymous
28th June 2018
Thursday 4:00 am
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My only mate text me a couple of days ago to see if I'm free over the next month, but I can't be bothered to text him back. I'm sure we'd have plenty of fun, but I'm just such a waster, and everything's going so well for him, that it takes such a lot out of me to make out like I'm not on the verge of just smashing my head against a brick wall at any given minute. I hope that doesn't sound like I'm blaming his presence for any of this, because I'm like that regardless, it's just easier to paper over the cracks when there's no one else around, or, indeed, not bother to in the first place.
>> No. 26924 Anonymous
28th June 2018
Thursday 10:13 am
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>>26923
Message your fucking friend back and hang out with him, you spon.
>> No. 26925 Anonymous
28th June 2018
Thursday 11:17 am
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>>26924
No, I'm too poor, stupid and miserable and you can't stop me.
>> No. 26926 Anonymous
28th June 2018
Thursday 9:35 pm
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>>26925

Hold on to your friends. Acting "normal" might be knackering, but if you get out of the habit of doing it, your mental health is likely to suffer even more. It's really important to get out and engage with society, even if it feels like the last thing you want to do.
>> No. 26927 Anonymous
28th June 2018
Thursday 10:10 pm
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>>26926

I know that, I just don't care anymore.
>> No. 26928 Anonymous
29th June 2018
Friday 12:31 am
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Think I talked myself out of a relationship today by taking the position that I think some feminist groups unintentionally seek to undermine the principal of 'innocence until proven guilty' in sex crimes by shifting the burden of proof, in a way that opens up the risk of abuse of the system that would be a greater evil. They didn't like that.

Apologies if this triggers a political cunt off that's not my intention.

At least if I am dumped it is because I stood up for what I believe in, I'm currently in relationship limbo.
>> No. 26929 Anonymous
29th June 2018
Friday 12:47 am
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>>26928

She'll go some way to proving your point if she dumps you for that.
>> No. 26930 Anonymous
29th June 2018
Friday 11:32 am
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>>26928
Don't let her dull your sparkle, mate. Also maybe avoid daft arguments over the nuances of the legal system.

>>26929
Not really though.
>> No. 26931 Anonymous
29th June 2018
Friday 5:00 pm
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>>26929
I don't follow.

>>26930

>Don't let her dull your sparkle
Are you trying to force a meme or just make me bring vomit up into my mouth?

>Also maybe avoid daft arguments over the nuances of the legal system

I was tricked into it, by her talking about how most people who don't describe themselves as feminists are if you gave them the definition and asked if they believed it. This lead to me talking about the difference between feminism as an ideal and feminism in practice, I said I think modern feminism is misguided in some of the causes it fights, I used the example of leg spreading, she told me that was a frivolous straw man that only gets attention because of the daily mail, so I went for my more fundamental reason, where it is directly at odds with civil liberties.
This was a relationship pit fall that was going to happen eventually she is a hard line social justice activist type with a misandry/reverse racist streak (read: slips racism and sexist comments about white men into normal conversation), and I am a liberal with a degree in law and a suspicion of the slippery slope modern lefts causes lead to. It is early days but I think she has the classic leftist mind-set of believing she is progressive, tolerant and open minded, whist in reality being anything but.
I am poly so in lots of ways no great loss if it goes that way, except for most of the scene seems to be obsessed with gender politics and my contempt for it will probably mean this is a recurring theme in future relationships, why can't it just be goths who take too much drugs like it used to be, I liked that.
>> No. 26933 Anonymous
29th June 2018
Friday 5:31 pm
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>>26931

>(read: slips racism and sexist comments about white men into normal conversation)

Sounds like you're better off. That sort of thing is rather tiresome.

I had a girlfriend who told me I was mansplaining when she said she wondered what spices were in a madras so I told her. Apparently I had just guessed to 'get one over on her'. This might have been a reasonable argument if I wasn't a professional chef.

Never really got a chance to rant about that one so I thought I'd do it here. Carry on.
>> No. 26934 Anonymous
29th June 2018
Friday 6:13 pm
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>>26931
>Are you trying to force a meme or just make me bring vomit up into my mouth?
I was cracking a joke, but if you're that highly strung maybe you should be alone. I mean, it sounds like you're easily bugged and have an inability to disagree respectfully so I don't rightly understand how you've formed a relationship with anyone ever.
>> No. 26935 Anonymous
29th June 2018
Friday 6:45 pm
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>>26934

Don't listen to otherlad, he's just trying to dull your sparkle.
>> No. 26936 Anonymous
29th June 2018
Friday 7:18 pm
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>>26934
>I was cracking a joke
So was I. I thought it would be understood that vomiting is the natural response to someone saying that 'Live Laugh Love' feel good crap.
I'm not sure why you are so hurt by it but I am sorry. If you are going to attack any element of my character I've shared with you when you perceive a slight, maybe /emo/ isn't for you. Attacking character like that isn't constructive here and it certainly isn't beneficial to you out in the real world.
I am being perfectly sincere when I say I would recommend therapy to target that behavior before it becomes a problem.
>> No. 26937 Anonymous
29th June 2018
Friday 8:15 pm
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>>26936
Yeah, see, that's the problem, mate. That whole post.
>> No. 26938 Anonymous
29th June 2018
Friday 8:34 pm
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We're getting dangerously close to a cunt off in /emo/, lads. Let's get back to being sad, please.
>> No. 26939 Anonymous
29th June 2018
Friday 8:41 pm
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>>26937

What is your issue exactly? Or is it just too hot today?
>> No. 26940 Anonymous
29th June 2018
Friday 8:49 pm
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>>26939
You can't just leave it, can you? You're this bothered by sod all then you must be unbearable talking about the law. Also you started going on about not being slagged off on /emo/ but you're breaking up with someone who don't like and you were hardly dating, it's not like you're parents have died and you're sitting on the ledge of a ten story building.

But it has been very hot today, you're right, so maybe the weather's to blame; it's just everyone you speak to is much too warm.
>> No. 26941 Anonymous ## Mod ##
29th June 2018
Friday 9:10 pm
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STOP IT
>> No. 26942 Anonymous
30th June 2018
Saturday 10:30 am
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>>26941
STOP WHAT
>> No. 26943 Anonymous
30th June 2018
Saturday 12:38 pm
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>>26942
This happens without fail whenever the mercury goes beyond 24. Every year. Have we had the shed thread (shed thred?) whingeing making evidenced and calmly presented points about the moderation yet? I've been outside in the garden mostly this week, so apologies if I've missed it.*

* Please feel free to mention my own lackadaisical attitude to my mod duties here in your /shed/ post if you like. I've just unearthed and replanted my ornamental cherry that was getting choked by the brambles from the neighbours on the other side, so I promise I'm too pleased with myself to be offended.
>> No. 26944 Anonymous
30th June 2018
Saturday 1:06 pm
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>>26943

I'd be lying if I said their provocation towards me wasn't getting under my skin, but I'm glad you have found something to give you peace and a clear mind in this heat. The last thing we need is the mods getting aggressive from the heat too. You keep doing you. I'm going to step away from the topic now for at least 24 hours to stop myself from saying something stupid if provoked.
>> No. 26945 Anonymous
30th June 2018
Saturday 1:40 pm
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>>26944
To be honest I am quite nervous about whether the roots will establish again as moving trees is apparently a rather uncertain undertaking, especially as it's stayed rather small as its growth had been absolutely restricted by the trash from the back fence growing over it and blocking its light. I was getting very sick of cutting down those sodding brambles very 6 weeks only for them to come back again so this is my last-ditch attempt to rescue anything from that corner of the garden, until my neighbours sort their overgrown shit out the entirety of that section is a lost cause. Some people etc.
>> No. 26946 Anonymous
30th June 2018
Saturday 6:12 pm
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I was just thinking about the britfa.gs favicon, and the fact that it's blue because at the time first class stamps were gold and it looked much worse than the blue 2nd class in a tiny icon.

I don't know why but that's made me feel really fucking old.
>> No. 26947 Anonymous
1st July 2018
Sunday 12:29 am
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Men like things
Women likr people
>> No. 26948 Anonymous
1st July 2018
Sunday 12:43 am
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>>26947

We have lived very different lives, you and I. Higher class women like expensive shoes, handbags, and perfumes, and to be taken out to nice places. Lower class women just want to ponce all the drugs and money off you they can in exchange for dead fish sex.

Men are generally happy with this arrangement as long as they can get their balls wet and be left alone most weekends.
>> No. 26950 Anonymous
1st July 2018
Sunday 12:14 pm
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>>26948

I'm not sure I live in either of your world's. But yours is definitely more bleak to me. The cynical transactional materialism of it would drive me mad.
>> No. 26951 Anonymous
1st July 2018
Sunday 12:34 pm
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>>26947
Everyone likes things and people, you arbitrary weirdo.
>> No. 26952 Anonymous
1st July 2018
Sunday 1:01 pm
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MEN AND WOMEN ARE TOTALLY DIFFERENT IN ALL WAYS AND I'M NOT JUST TALKING OUT OF MY ARSE
>> No. 26953 Anonymous
1st July 2018
Sunday 3:16 pm
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>>26931

>I am poly so in lots of ways no great loss if it goes that way, except for most of the scene seems to be obsessed with gender politics and my contempt for it will probably mean this is a recurring theme in future relationships, why can't it just be goths who take too much drugs like it used to be, I liked that

Sorry to unspoil your spoiler but I do feel that particular pain. A great deal of them seem to have got their brains infested with that particular kind of downright hostile T***lr identity politic rubbish.

I'm in the early stages with a lass who it could go a similar way with. So far we've only brushed on politics and she said she kind of prefers to stay out of it, which is a good sign for me. I gave her fair warning that I am occasionally prone to the kind of beliefs that make Che Guevara look moderate and don't particularly like the ess jaw doubleyou types, and she seemed to find it amusing more than anything.

What's going to make it complicated is when one of us starts developing real feelings, because if I'm reading it right it seems much like both of us are only really saying we're poly in as much as it provides an excuse for a lot of casual sex.
>> No. 26954 Anonymous
1st July 2018
Sunday 6:22 pm
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>>26952

Sorry to tear down your straw man, but they may not be different in ALL ways, but they are certainly different, and it isn't just social conditioning and the physical.
>> No. 26955 Anonymous
1st July 2018
Sunday 10:09 pm
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>>12555

Empirical evidence disputes your statement, males and females have seperate traits, males are more building and protective, females are more caring and nurturing. Don't let postmodernism lie to you.
>> No. 26956 Anonymous
1st July 2018
Sunday 10:13 pm
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What is it with you lads and women?
>> No. 26957 Anonymous
1st July 2018
Sunday 10:19 pm
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>>26954

If you're going for the passive/aggressive approach, I'd suggest a different angle.
>> No. 26958 Anonymous
1st July 2018
Sunday 10:23 pm
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>>26956

Looks like ARE_LAURIE has been let out of her sex dungeon by her daddy.
>> No. 26959 Anonymous
2nd July 2018
Monday 12:43 am
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Well it was a nice emo thread we had once. Let the /pol/ cunt off begin.
>> No. 26960 Anonymous
2nd July 2018
Monday 1:11 am
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>>26959

>>26956

NOT YOU AGAIN
>> No. 26961 Anonymous
2nd July 2018
Monday 2:06 am
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>>26960

YES OTHERLAD HAS MUTATED
>> No. 26962 Anonymous
2nd July 2018
Monday 11:04 am
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I think I have to break up with my partner. I've swung back and forth about it over and over the past few months, but I think push has really come to shove now. Nothing specific has triggered it, it's just not going away, so.

Anyway the main issue is we live together so it's going to be fucking messy. She's got less stuff to move than me, in fact nearly everything in the flat is mine, so I'm right in thinking I'm well within my rights to throw her out right? Even if I did take it upon myself to move, she'd have no bloody furniture left, so I don't think she has a choice.

I wish I'd never let her move in, jesus christ. I'm trapped with her and it's gonna be a bloody nightmare no matter how I deal with it, isn't it. I'm just hoping some of you lads have been through this and have words of wisdom to offer.
>> No. 26963 Anonymous
2nd July 2018
Monday 11:30 am
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>>26962
If you don't want it to get messy, fuck off and let someone else micro-manage her getting her stuff out. Someone you trust who is well briefed. First thing you need to do is change the locks, though. You need a witness if you interact after the breakup until she is out of the house, a domestic is not what you need as they'll remove you and you might not be allowed to go back for weeks.

Please trust me, I was niave enough to think "she's not like that" once. It cost me my Dog. I had to fucking kidnap her.
>> No. 26964 Anonymous
2nd July 2018
Monday 11:33 am
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>>26962
>I wish I'd never let her move in, jesus christ. I'm trapped with her and it's gonna be a bloody nightmare no matter how I deal with it, isn't it. I'm just hoping some of you lads have been through this and have words of wisdom to offer.

It doesn't need to be that dramatic breaking up even when it is entangled like that as long as you accept that it shouldn't be quick. I assume you are both civil people and you don't have your eye on anyone else, so you can wrap it up slowly. Have a conversation explain your position and give them time to find a new place. One of the greatest sins I've ever seen among friends is sticking with people just because it would be 'too difficult' to break up, it is a mentality that is quite alien to me and I watched people suffer for it as the relationship turned more toxic. You owe it to them to be decent and honest and clear in your intentions.
>> No. 26965 Anonymous
2nd July 2018
Monday 11:35 am
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You (>>26963) and I (>>26964) are very very different people.
>> No. 26966 Anonymous
2nd July 2018
Monday 11:40 am
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>>26965
Not him, but it sounds like difference is "man with no dog" versus "man who lost dog".
>> No. 26967 Anonymous
2nd July 2018
Monday 11:54 am
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>>26966

Whilst that is true, I don't think I would let it define my attitude that much going forward, I've been burnt before from breaking up with some real fucking nutters in my time and I haven't let it tainted my view of the next lass.

In my last break up I suggested the king Soloman as a solution to the pet problem. We reconsiled our differances in the end though so I didn't end up owning 2 cats arses (well I did, but they still have the front ends attached).
>> No. 26968 Anonymous
2nd July 2018
Monday 12:51 pm
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>>26964

>I assume you are both civil people and you don't have your eye on anyone else

I'm a very calm, collected person when I need to be. It's her I'd consider... Unpredictable. Which is part of the reason this is happening of course.

And let's just say that the second part is the push that came to shove, so to speak.

>>26963

Hmm, frankly I think im going to stay put and just sort out all her stuff myself while she's at work or something. I don't think there's anyone suitably neutral in the matter and I have a lot of expensive music gear at risk.
>> No. 26977 Anonymous
9th July 2018
Monday 12:10 pm
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My girlfriend seems to have developed this weird selective memory where she decided she doesn't want to go out to events and then later blames me for it that we haven't gone. I've literally gone to events with out her at this point mutiple times because she pulled out of doing them. But no it is my fault we don't go out together.

She cries and tells me I'm neglecting her and I really have no solution to this problem because I'm tired of taking the blame for a problem in her head. I feel like not agreeing to do stuff with her anymore because I'm tired of this, but I'm worried that will be the beginning of the end.
>> No. 26978 Anonymous
9th July 2018
Monday 12:13 pm
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>>26977

She sounds a bit mental anyway lad. We have a rule of thumb around here about that.
>> No. 26979 Anonymous
9th July 2018
Monday 12:45 pm
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>>26978

I knew turning that into a meme (>>24291) would come back to haunt me someday...
>> No. 26980 Anonymous
9th July 2018
Monday 12:47 pm
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>>26977

I'm sure she's lovely, but can you really be arsed?
>> No. 26981 Anonymous
9th July 2018
Monday 1:46 pm
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>>26980

There are obviously a lot of positive qualities to the relationship but this is driving me mad.

I'm now angry with her, because I'm tired of taking the emotional guilt trip for this. I told her to fuck off when she was leaving the house which is new and dangerous territory for us (probably the heat is a factor, but I doubt that will be an acceptable reason when it comes to making peace about this later). I need to express how much she is pissing me off to her, I can't take another round of trying to sit there calmly and constructively whilst she ignores what I do for her, and tells me I'm not paying her attention, and to say I am shifting the blame when I list off all the things I do for her (which I hate because this shouldn't be about keeping score, but I am trying to demostrate that I do a lot for her and don't neglect her).

She needs to know her behaviour affects me emotionally and that I'm not a punch bag or an automaton and I have feelings too. I am man hear me roar.
>> No. 26982 Anonymous
9th July 2018
Monday 3:34 pm
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>>26981

You're being entirely too logical to get through to a woman. It sounds sexist but men and women aren't different that way. You have to appeal to her emotional empathy instead of trying to make her see things in a balanced, impartial way. It just won't work.

She does sound more like she's the problem here however, so just be aware it might not be one you can solve.
>> No. 26983 Anonymous
9th July 2018
Monday 5:06 pm
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>>26982
>She does sound more like she's the problem here however, so just be aware it might not be one you can solve.


My hope is this will all just naturally defuse when the heat goes down because this seems like the hill I'll die on otherwise, my issue is I've been cornered to the point I need to defend myself emotionally from her because I can't take being told I'm neglecting her and need to devote more time to her, when I can state 3 romatic gestures I did towards her today before noon.
>> No. 26984 Anonymous
9th July 2018
Monday 6:36 pm
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>>26983

You should track them on a fridge calendar and see if you can't out-passive-aggressive her.
>> No. 26985 Anonymous
9th July 2018
Monday 9:09 pm
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>>26984
>see if you can't out-passive-aggressive her.

The only winning move is not to play, I think I'll stick with not actively sabotaging my relationship thanks.
>> No. 26987 Anonymous
9th July 2018
Monday 9:23 pm
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>>26985

The only way to deal with someone being passive aggressive is to calmly point out what they're doing though. Sometimes seeing someone do what you do gives you enough objectivity to realise it's stupid.
>> No. 26996 Anonymous
10th July 2018
Tuesday 12:24 am
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My partner's support for this evening's news about my aunt's spinal graft failing and getting infected and my having to go into work tomorrow and ask for compassionate leave so I can hopefully so visit her before the infection spreads and she goes unconscious lasted all of 15 minutes before he started whinging about his job and completely failed to do any of the tasks he'd offered to. So instead I then did the washing up, empty and bag and re-do taking the bins out because he put waste in the wheelie bin unbagged (?!), and got glass in my toe from the kitchen floor, the kitchen floor he'd said he'd vacuum on Sunday and that task, also, never happened. I've just finally managed to get the bastard shard out with tweezers after much painful poking around, so at least I can do all the walking I need to do to get to the hospital in London to go maybe see my aunt before she dies.

I am getting very, very sick of people saying they will do things and then fucking not, or fucking up the very smallest and simplest of instructions meaning that I then have to go back and do it again.

I also have no idea if this is more suited to the /101/ thread or here but we're at each other's fucking throats this evening and I'm so fucking sick of it and I don't think I care. Not today.

I would also really like my aunt to not die before I can say goodbye, please.
>> No. 27009 Anonymous
10th July 2018
Tuesday 12:11 pm
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>>26996
People need to start leaving people who don't do housework or stop moaning about it, in my opinion.

I've broken up with otherwise suitable partners for being slobs and habitual mollifiers. If people refuse to accept their behaviour, it'll go extinct. It's how animal behaviour works, humans aren't an exception.

6 months down the line tell him you want to get back with him, if he can send you a picture of his kitchen sink, just to sink home the message.

That got a bit /101/ too.
>> No. 27010 Anonymous
10th July 2018
Tuesday 12:23 pm
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>>26996

Try the BF Skinner approach and give him consistent rewards to reinforce and ingrain behaviours you want. E.g. If he does the dishes, give him a spontaneous handjob.
>> No. 27012 Anonymous
10th July 2018
Tuesday 12:26 pm
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>>27009
We are both just having very bad weeks, although arguably he takes on all the extra work he volunteers his time for, whereas my aunt never asked to have a broken spine.

Please, if any of you are religious, ask Allah or your deity to let me say goodbye to her. She's the only decent one from that side of my family and very kindly put me up for a bit and gave me her time when I was a teenage tearaway. She is a very good, kind lady and far too young to be going out this soon.
>> No. 27034 Anonymous
10th July 2018
Tuesday 9:52 pm
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>>26996
I hope you get to say goodbye to your aunt.
>> No. 27038 Anonymous
11th July 2018
Wednesday 2:36 am
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>>27012
I hope you get your wish, sad tidings.
>> No. 27044 Anonymous
11th July 2018
Wednesday 4:10 pm
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Just something to get off my chest.
I blame my parents for a major point in my life which I believe could have led to a much better life for myself, physically and mentally. Instead it drove me into a pit of depression I eventually got out of and tried to salvage something of the years I wasted.
They never really interacted with me when I was a kid, didn't ask me how my day was etc, they looked after me but that as far as it goes. I reakon it's because of this they made decisions for me which they felt were good and never really sat down and asked me what I wanted.

I rely on them as much as I hate it, I yearn to get a job that pays enough so I can move out and still have money to save/spend on things I want (fuck me for wanting something good eh?) To finally be free from them and move on with my life. Me and my father tend to have an arguement every 2-3 months that ends with him threating to throw me out rather than to see my side of reason. He likes to make me feel powerless. Eventually things get better after a lot of proverbial begging on my knees and I have to put on the fake smile and carry on with everything bottled up. Like nothing ever happened.

They're under the assumption that I made the choice to live at home and they don't know how much I want to leave. I like having a safety net. I wish I could walk out the door and not look back but without something set in stone to fall back on, I'm stuck here.

I'd say I'm depressed yet I still get out of bed everyday because I have to. Rather than puting on the rose tinted glasses I want to change the situation. It's sadly something that won't happen overnight.
I'm hanging tough lads, I'll eventually get out of it. Just needed to vent somewhere.
>> No. 27045 Anonymous
11th July 2018
Wednesday 6:52 pm
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>>27044

My parents were a lot like that too. They were by no means abusive or neglectful, that would be over dramatising things. But the way they never said anything nice to me when I did well, but always had something to say when I did something wrong. The way they expressed more concern about getting me out of the house than securing a real future.

It is pretty hard to deny that the way your folks bring you up is a massive influence on how your life turns out- But the generation our parents come from were constantly discouraged from being self reflective enough to realise you reap just exactly what you sow. They didn't mean to inflict such harm and their way of dealing with it is more of an impotent frustration at themselves than the disappointment and castigation it feels like.
>> No. 27069 Anonymous
13th July 2018
Friday 5:58 pm
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So, I did it, I broke up with my girlfriend. I bit my tongue all week because I didn't want to have to make her go to work in the morning with the weight of it on her mind, and needless to say she was completely blind-sided.

Fucking hell lads. I mean she took it better than I expected, even if she did cry in my arms for nearly an hour begging me not to. But it never gets any easier does it. I know exactly how it feels to be on the receiving end; when someone you're devoted to just casts you aside and there's nothing you can say or do to change their mind. That feeling of powerless horror that changes into resignation and anguish. That hopeful tone in her voice that I'd say it's okay and order a Chinese like every other Friday night.

I did the right thing though. It would only have ended in even more tears later on, but man if I don't feel fucking miserable right now. Hold me lads.

With perfect timing, the Polish lads next door started playing Winds of Change on the bluetooth speaker while she was packing up her stuff. Cunts.
>> No. 27071 Anonymous
13th July 2018
Friday 7:25 pm
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>>27044
Good on you for figuring out what you need to do and working towards it. As someone who has accepted he will be trapped forever I wish you all the luck in the world. Some people find it surprising how quickly their depression subsides to a manageable level once they are out from under the thumb of someone who takes pleasure in making them feel small.

>>27045
Sorry but I have to disagree with most of this. I don't know about your situation but the other chap is clearly describing psychological abuse. You say your family are similar, it's possible that you've been conditioned to think certain abnormal behaviours are appropriate. Using your depressed son as an emotional punching bag is not justifiable on the basis of "it was worse in the old days", a lot of abusers (of all stripes) literally tell their victims this while they are abusing them.
>> No. 27086 Anonymous
15th July 2018
Sunday 6:24 pm
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>>27069

Addendum:

She's gone to stay at one of my mate's places because she had no mates of her own and only ones she'd made through association with me. Said mate came over to my place to help her collect the rest of her shit while I was at work but a few things have gone missing and now I'm in a spiral of paranoid anger that she's turnt the weeans my mates against me.

Fucking hell.
>> No. 27087 Anonymous
15th July 2018
Sunday 6:36 pm
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>>27086

Is it stuff she could have feasibly told them was her stuff? Still seems a bit much, but either way this is further confirmation you made the right choice getting shot of her, and you can stop feeling bad at all now?

Also, is this mate a bloke? Cos, well, you know.
>> No. 27088 Anonymous
15th July 2018
Sunday 7:08 pm
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>>27087

Well, it's drugs. A decent amount of them. Said mate has a lass he's engaged to so it's not like I have to worry about that (nor do I really care for obvious reasons) but also he likes drugs.

I'm over feeling bad about it, I think, it's just the whole idea she's gonna go about sullying my name to all and sundry now. Well, what little of a name I had left to sully. Fuck it all.
>> No. 27089 Anonymous
15th July 2018
Sunday 7:15 pm
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>>27088
Not judging, I enjoy drugs myself. But if you knew she liked drugs, lived with her long enough for her to know where you keep your stash, and yet somehow expected her to do the right thing when she was in your place when you weren't there after you had dumped her then I've got a bridge to sell you.
>> No. 27090 Anonymous
15th July 2018
Sunday 7:22 pm
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>>27089 here. I'd like to add if "drugs" means weed then I take it all back and she's a massive bitch. Otherwise my point stands.
>> No. 27092 Anonymous
15th July 2018
Sunday 7:42 pm
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>>27089

No no, that's the reason I suspect my mate rather than her. She's never smoked in her life meanwhile he's a massive stoner. But even so I'd expect him to have my back rather than do something like that. But then it would make sense if she'd taken it just to fuck me over.

The paranoia inherent in this situation is quite ironic, I know.

>>27090

You are forgiven lad.
>> No. 27097 Anonymous
15th July 2018
Sunday 9:03 pm
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>>27092
Wait. So your mate has made a big show of the big man bullshit, helping your girl go back to your place while you're out, but at the same time he's done the equivalent of nicking a couple of cans and a bag of mince out of your fridge? (disclaimer: I smoke too much and too constantly to have ever had a significant amount of weed in my house at one time, results may vary). He's done you a favour. Fuck him, and fuck her if she knew that's what he was doing, you are better off lad.
>> No. 27098 Anonymous
15th July 2018
Sunday 9:06 pm
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>>27097

They're definitely shagging already.
>> No. 27100 Anonymous
15th July 2018
Sunday 9:53 pm
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>>27097
>>27098

Plot thickens. It wasn't my mate, it was his girlfriend who accompanied her. So he's dropped a bollock letting that happen. You can just imagine the pair of them rifling through everything going "YEAH FUCK HIM HE DESERVES IT THE BASTARD."

You live and learn. I'd have had him covered if the roles were reversed, needless to say he probably won't be such a close mate going forward.
>> No. 27102 Anonymous
15th July 2018
Sunday 10:04 pm
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>>27100
To be honest the fact he sent his girl with yours is in his favour as backwards as that may sound. "Girls being girls" (even if it's with a friend she met through you) and grabbing a few "souvenirs" is much better than her walking out of your life and right into another bloke's.

It's shit but there's not much your mate could've done. Don't hold it against him for dropping a bollock. We are all either whipped or lonely after a certain point.
>> No. 27104 Anonymous
15th July 2018
Sunday 10:19 pm
27104 spacer
>>27102

I couldn't give less of a shit if she walked into another blokes arms, I've got another bird lined up to shag already.

What pisses me off is how I'm to be the bad guy sat here posting on .gs about the whole thing and she's gone straight to the very people I would have turned to first for support. She's played it very dirty.

But anyway, it'll all be water under the bridge in a couple of weeks, so whatever.
>> No. 27120 Anonymous
16th July 2018
Monday 12:40 pm
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>>27104
Two posts, twenty minutes apart, saying your friendship with this bloke has been jeopardised, and it will be water under the bridge soon.
>> No. 27131 Anonymous
17th July 2018
Tuesday 8:05 pm
27131 spacer
A small update: I got the text to say she'd died about 30 minutes before I pulled into Euston when I went down last week. Funeral's tomorrow, had to take Thursday and Friday off as annual leave because there's no fucking way I'm going to be in a state to go in after putting her to rest. At least she's not in massive amounts of pain from having a broken back any more, that's something good to take from this I guess.

I don't often type this out unironically but allow me this once if you would lads: sigh.
>> No. 27132 Anonymous
17th July 2018
Tuesday 9:32 pm
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>>27131
Condolences, lad.
>> No. 27133 Anonymous
17th July 2018
Tuesday 9:51 pm
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>>27131
That's a kick in the teeth. I hope she gets the send off she deserves.
>> No. 27135 Anonymous
18th July 2018
Wednesday 11:27 am
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>>27120

Thinking out loud like that is what this board is good for. Don't be the type of aspie who tries to be a smarmy cunt in the blue threads, okay lad?
>> No. 27136 Anonymous
18th July 2018
Wednesday 11:39 am
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>>27131

I'm really sorry. Like you say, it's not going to make it any easier to deal with the loss, but there's comfort in the fact that at least she's not suffering any longer.
>> No. 27266 Anonymous
7th August 2018
Tuesday 10:43 am
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I've fucked up everything, drifted my way out of uni after one pathetic year, can't muster the energy to put a CV together and I just feel constantly pissed off all the time.
>> No. 27267 Anonymous
7th August 2018
Tuesday 12:09 pm
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>>27266
How old are you?
>> No. 27268 Anonymous
7th August 2018
Tuesday 1:23 pm
27268 spacer
>>27267
23.
>> No. 27269 Anonymous
8th August 2018
Wednesday 12:52 am
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>>27266

Sounds to me like your fustration is misdirecting because you don't know where you are going with it all and you feel like there is presure on you to know.

What is it do you like doing? there is nothing wrong with drifting for a while and dicking about as you make your mind up.
>> No. 27274 Anonymous
8th August 2018
Wednesday 5:14 pm
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>>27268
That's very very young to have decided you have 'fucked everything up'. You genuinely have your whole life ahead of you.
>> No. 27275 Anonymous
8th August 2018
Wednesday 8:11 pm
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I can't stop myself from obsessing over mistakes I made half a year ago that have ruined my happiness and severely altered the course of my life since. I'm trying to get away from the people involved by starting a new job but probably I'm just turning my back on people who would support me. But I hardly care any more, just feels like I'm doomed to fuck everything up.
>> No. 27276 Anonymous
9th August 2018
Thursday 12:49 am
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>>27275

>I can't stop myself from obsessing over mistakes

That can genuinely be a sign of chemical imbalance.
>> No. 27277 Anonymous
9th August 2018
Thursday 2:20 am
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>>27268

That's exactly the age I was when I fucked up uni. I got a job about 6 months later, got good at it and now I'm 30 next year and could feasibly retire.

I realise I'm lucky but I too thought I'd ruined my life when I messed up uni. Far from it. Not to mention you can still get funding for another degree if you've only been there one year.
>> No. 27278 Anonymous
9th August 2018
Thursday 2:48 am
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>>27275

Do whatever makes you feel positive and optimistic about the future. If you sincerely believe that the people you're getting away from are a bad influence on your life, then you're entirely right to get away from them. If you're only breaking away from them because they remind you of unhappy thoughts or memories, you might want to think about how you could maintain a relationship with them on a more positive basis.

It might sound glib, but there's really no point in worrying about the past or beating yourself up for prior mistakes. It's clearly making you miserable and you can't go back in time and fix things. It might be more productive to try and learn from what happened to make positive changes in your life.

You can't stop yourself from thinking negative thoughts, but you can change how you think about those thoughts. You can remind yourself that they're just thoughts. They don't control you, they don't define you, they're not necessarily true, they're just electrical impulses in your brain. Next time you notice yourself having a negative thought, imagine that it's being said out loud by Donald Trump or Mr Bean. You'll probably notice that the thought seems a bit sillier and a bit less painful. That's a really important tool - you don't have to take your own thoughts seriously. You can learn to recognise the annoying little troll inside your brain and stop believing what he says.

We're all doomed to fuck some things up, but do you really think that you're doomed to fuck everything up? If you rack your brains, you can probably think of loads of things that you've succeeded at. They might not have been perfect triumphs, but you did them and a good thing happened as a result. If you've had successes in the past, it's highly likely that you'll have successes in the future, even if you might fuck up a few times along the way. I'm sure that you have skills and experience of some sort, I'm sure that there are things about you that people like. You might not be perfect, but you don't have to be.

Evolution has wired us to focus on negatives, because that's what kept us alive on the African savannah - it's no use being brilliant at gathering berries if you're crap at running away from lions. As hunter-gatherers, failure was usually a matter of life-or-death. That inbuilt programming is a bad match for modern life, where the cost of failure is usually much less than the cost of not trying at all. We often avoid things like job interviews or first dates because we're afraid embarrassment, but if we approach the situation rationally it's clear that we have nothing to lose and everything to gain. Making a tit of yourself a few times is a small price to pay if the eventual outcome is getting a great job or meeting the love of your life.

Sometimes, shit things happen to us and there's no way of putting a positive spin on it. We didn't gain any useful experience, it wasn't character building, we didn't learn anything about ourselves, it was just shit from beginning to end. In that case, you've got a choice - you can let it define you, or you can choose how to define yourself. The facts are the facts, but you get to choose the story you tell about yourself. Your mistake can be the dead end that brought everything to a screeching halt, or it can be a painful detour on the road to something better. You can be the bitter old sod who pissed his life away, or you can be the man who picked himself up and built a life he could be proud of.
>> No. 27280 Anonymous
10th August 2018
Friday 6:28 pm
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>>27269
The pressure comes from my parents never helping me with fuck all, or offering too then never following up. I can't hate them because they weren't awful to me, but their idea of raising me was just being "nice" all the sodding time. Whatever, that's not strictly relevant. And yes I understand moaning about your parents is disgracefully teenlad-ish behaviour.

I liked doing my uni course but the commute was a chore, and seperately I just felt overcome with anxiety and nerves thinking about the work I needed to do. It was also a subject that required more than just one person to hand on a fairly regular basis and I'm a billy-no-mates who lives in the sticks. I don't have social anxiety, just to clarify that point. I can speak to people just fine, what I can't do is focus on an academic task without being overcome by shame and embarrassment. It's like I get imposter syndrome without even having achieved anything. Equally once I've failed at something like this (it's by no means the first time) that shame does bleed into how I interact with others, and usually that means I avoid them wholesale.

I've been drifting for absolutely ages, this was supposed to be it. I lied about my GCSE's just to get on the access course.

>>27274
Not if I fucking neck myself.

>>27277
Yeah, but you probably have ideas and ambition and an employment history. And I never even got funding for this one.

Sorry if I sound like I'm having a go at any point in all that, I'm only angry at myself.
>> No. 27282 Anonymous
10th August 2018
Friday 9:11 pm
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>>27280


>Yeah, but you probably have ideas and ambition and an employment history.

No mate. I was completely directionless and had never worked a day in my life at that point. I practically begged for a job as a dishwasher and was only eating the food they gave me there. I definitely thought that was the end of my life too but the reality is I was barely out of my teens. Honestly if you weren't getting funding, you're probably better off out of it, I certainly don't think any degree is worth 30 grand of your own money straight out.

The thing here is that instead of just getting wrapped up in your own shame (and nobody but you cares as much as you do about this, we all are our own harshest critic) you should remember that you can use this feeling and learn from it and avoid any future wall-pissing. I can fully relate to impostor syndrome during studying, I've worked out now that's exactly what I did - I was so scared of failing, of someone 'discovering' that I didn't know something, that I never could bring myself to try.

If I was 23 again I'd go straight into applying for apprenticeships in my area of interest. It's a lot harder to feel like a sham when you're actively doing the job and you're expected to learn by doing, and it would just work better for me than traditional studying ever could. It's shite pay, but it's free education and more money than you get paid to go to uni, certainly.

I have a feeling you'll dismiss that out of hand but please think about it for a little bit.
>> No. 27283 Anonymous
10th August 2018
Friday 11:19 pm
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>>27280

>The pressure comes from my parents never helping me with fuck all, or offering too then never following up. I can't hate them because they weren't awful to me, but their idea of raising me was just being "nice" all the sodding time. Whatever, that's not strictly relevant. And yes I understand moaning about your parents is disgracefully teenlad-ish behaviour.

That is not a source of pressure though is it? You are well within your rights to resent them for saying they would help and not, that's their fuck up. But that isn't what I asked, I asked why you feel pressured? There are people your age that are perfectly happy bumming around doing fuck all for their future having fun and exploring for no other reason than to please themselves there are people who never move beyond doing that, so why do you feel pressure what is it you think will happen?


>I liked doing my uni course but the commute was a chore, and seperately I just felt overcome with anxiety and nerves thinking about the work I needed to do. It was also a subject that required more than just one person to hand on a fairly regular basis and I'm a billy-no-mates who lives in the sticks. I don't have social anxiety, just to clarify that point. I can speak to people just fine, what I can't do is focus on an academic task without being overcome by shame and embarrassment. It's like I get imposter syndrome without even having achieved anything. Equally once I've failed at something like this (it's by no means the first time) that shame does bleed into how I interact with others, and usually that means I avoid them wholesale.

That shame and embarressment you feel for academic tasks why do you think that is? What is wrong with them, or you doing them? Be honest.

>I've been drifting for absolutely ages, this was supposed to be it. I lied about my GCSE's just to get on the access course.


You can drift forever if you want to, join a hippy commune, journey to India ect. It seems like you are putting very low value in what you were doing before? why? What was wrong with it?
>> No. 27307 Anonymous
25th August 2018
Saturday 3:41 pm
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In the times of whinging about the shite hand fate had dealt to me I sometimes re-call that there are folks who have had it even shittier. While that doesn't really make me feel better it reminds me that it could be worse. Trite and banal, yes, but that's where I'm at in the moment.

I can't accept it - nor do I seek to - and shrug off the desire to get something better for myself but there aren't any obvious ways to go for it.
>> No. 27308 Anonymous
27th August 2018
Monday 7:47 pm
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It's probably time to reevaluate your life when you end of listening to The Postal Service at gone midnight because a girl almost half your age who you met on Tinder used some of their lyrics as the caption to a photo she posted on Instagram.
>> No. 27309 Anonymous
27th August 2018
Monday 8:00 pm
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>>27308

Definitely. Nobody wants to go out with someone with the exact same tastes and interests as them, that would be boring as fuck. Instead of trawling Ben Gibbard's Wikipedia page, I suggest you consider just talking to this bird about stuff you like instead.
>> No. 27310 Anonymous
27th August 2018
Monday 8:15 pm
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>>27309

Oh I did, until about four o'clock in the damn morning. I think I'm too old for her, despite our shared enjoyment of music made when she was three years old.

Didn't stop me sitting and maudlin over many a fuck up in love past, mind.
>> No. 27311 Anonymous
28th August 2018
Tuesday 10:38 pm
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>>27310

This post is tangentially related to yours, but I've been thinking about age and stuff a lot recently.

It's a different kind of appreciation and there will be little in common about your actual lives. Use it as a gateway to her pants obviously, but nothing more. You don't need to feel bad about it unless you start craving much more than shagging her.

I was thinking about this the other day at work. The new lad mentioned something about having a taste for early 00's nu-metal. And it occurred to me that that music must seem to him the way Metallica and Megadeth etc did when I was his age, music that was current approximately the time of my birth, whereas nu-metal is the stuff I tried my best to forget about ever liking as a teenlad.

I'm old enough by now that I've "dated" a lass who was nearly a decade younger than me, and although it wasn't quite a pedo-type age gap, the difference in upbringing and background memory is enough to make things feel really weird sometimes. I would talk nostalgically about everyone's childhood pokemon obsession, while she was basically learning to walk at the time.

The moral of the story is I've decided from now on I'm not going to go out with a lass unless she remembers falling out with a mate who wouldn't trade back your fucking Alakazam.
>> No. 27312 Anonymous
28th August 2018
Tuesday 11:17 pm
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>>27311


>> No. 27313 Anonymous
29th August 2018
Wednesday 1:11 am
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>>27311

>The moral of the story is I've decided from now on I'm not going to go out with a lass unless she remembers falling out with a mate who wouldn't trade back your fucking Alakazam.

You know that still happens with 5 year olds now right? Alakazam is litterally a pokemon in the newest game that came out 2 years ago, that you can still only get it to evolve through trading. And it isn't some nostalgic thing from your childhood no one cares about it is in some ways bigger than star wars.
>> No. 27314 Anonymous
29th August 2018
Wednesday 1:15 pm
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>>27313

Showing your age there mate. How many kids do you think trade in person rather than just over the Internet?

No 8 year old today is going to be sat in the classroom seething at Joe after dinner break because of a stolen Gengar.
>> No. 27315 Anonymous
29th August 2018
Wednesday 1:51 pm
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>>27314
Of course they are.

Online trading with someone you don't know irl is a mugs game, there are certain pokemon that you can only get to evolve through trading whilst they are holding a rare item that is burnt in use.
You need someone you trust to make that trade or someone is going to fuck someone over, and then the other person is going to tell their mum.
>> No. 27316 Anonymous
29th August 2018
Wednesday 4:22 pm
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>>27315

Do keep up lad.

The done thing is that you both have an evolvable pokemon to trade. Kadabra 4 Kadabra.
>> No. 27317 Anonymous
29th August 2018
Wednesday 4:27 pm
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You keep arguing about Pokemon and neither of you will have to worry about women anymore.
>> No. 27318 Anonymous
29th August 2018
Wednesday 5:50 pm
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>>27316

From what I remember you can't check the items for online trade which is relevant in the example I gave.
>> No. 27319 Anonymous
29th August 2018
Wednesday 6:01 pm
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>>27318

You go on pokemon Web forums before and share your Nintendo ID thing apparently, they're not daft these younguns. It's all pre arranged and kosher, the sort of life skill that will see them good drugs and good hookers later in life
>> No. 27320 Anonymous
30th August 2018
Thursday 2:57 am
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>>27311

> It's a different kind of appreciation and there will be little in common about your actual lives. Use it as a gateway to her pants obviously, but nothing more. You don't need to feel bad about it unless you start craving much more than shagging her.

I'd like to say that I've gotten soft in my old age, but to be honest I think I've always been kind of soft in this way; if I like a lass enough to shag her then I'm probably going to like her enough to want something a bit more.

I've got nothing morally or ethically against shagging girls for a week or a month and then just fading out of their lives, it just always feels a little bit sad-making for me. What was it that Holden Caulfield said? "Don't ever start shagging anyone. If you do, you start missing everybody"? Something like that, anyway.

> I'm old enough by now that I've "dated" a lass who was nearly a decade younger than me

The biggest age gaps for me were five years when I was 21 and the girl was 26 (and what an experience that was, I basically learned everything I know about shagging from those six months or so) and six years when I was 30 and the girl 24. I'm not sure how much of an age difference I could handle now, probably ten to fifteen years max before my own personal "this feels weird" alarms would start to go off.

I think if there's anything to be learned from all this it's that the constant reboots of popular culture allow us to build almost false rapports with people much younger than us due to the fact that we all share the same recycled culture that's been being spat out at us for the last eighteen years.

You can still shag university age girls today just by knowing about Harry fucking Potter for christ's sake. I remember when I had to memorize passages from Phillip Roth and Will Self novels in order to appear halfway shaggable to an English Lit student. How times have changed, indeed.

Sage for serious candidate for rambling post of the year.
>> No. 27321 Anonymous
30th August 2018
Thursday 3:29 am
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I see the age gap thing crop up on here a lot, but in my own experience, there's only so far you can go with 'we both remember pogs'. I saw a 20 year old for a bit when I was 28, if anything our different memories of childhood fads was a talking point rather than a brick wall. I think that sort of age gap isn't particularly massive though, we're essentially the same generation, only real difference is that the internet was slower for me. Maybe it's different for you 35+ year old lads who had a truly different childhood, at least in terms of the digital age.

There's better reasons to avoid uni age girls than cultural ones, though. Typically they just have no idea what they're on about and haven't worked out how to give a good blowie yet. And unless you're into the whole 'daddy' thing, teaching someone that sort of thing is a bit odd.

I think I'll stick with those hovering around 30 now, forever. Any younger and it's just weird once I'm wrinkly.
>> No. 27322 Anonymous
30th August 2018
Thursday 3:45 am
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>>27321

> I think I'll stick with those hovering around 30 now, forever.

Dodgy vintage that for birds, unless you're into single mums with more baggage than a 747.

Really 24-27 is prime age for lasses no matter how old you get. Still young enough to be in good nick, experienced enough to be a lot of fun, but just old enough to not insist on dragging you out to tiresome clubs and will instead let you take them out for dinner before blowing your muck right up their chocolate bonbon factory.
>> No. 27323 Anonymous
30th August 2018
Thursday 3:53 am
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>>27322

That's fair, I did sort of mean 30 would be the maximum. And in my neck of the woods if they have kids they had them in their teens, though I see your point.

I think I said 'around 30' as I'm sat looking at my missus and she's 30 in October.
>> No. 27324 Anonymous
30th August 2018
Thursday 1:12 pm
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>>27322

Eh, it's a moving target these days. 30 is "two kids and a council house" in my hometown, but it's "living in a flatshare and trying to get your career going" in That London. A lot of people I know are knocking on 40 and still miles away from settling down.

Personally, I think there's a lot to be said for older women. Guardian Soulmates is full of fit divorcees in their late 30s and early 40s. If you can overlook a few stretch marks and wrinkles, you can do very well for yourself. Some of my best dating experiences have been with professional single mothers, because they're too busy to play games - they just want a decent meal, a grown-up conversation and a good hard shag. It's like the highlights package of a relationship.
>> No. 27329 Anonymous
31st August 2018
Friday 9:02 pm
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Thinkin’ ‘bout suicide again, tea-bee-aitch.
>> No. 27330 Anonymous
31st August 2018
Friday 11:50 pm
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>>27321

You're right that seven or eight years isn't a huge gap in relative terms. But I think what I realised with my 21 year old ex (I'm 28 too funnily enough) is that things started moving a lot faster for her sub-generation. We had enough in common, but even though I was only a few years older than her really, at times I often felt like a bit of an old far when she was using some daft app that I had thus far dismissed as teenage bollocks or whatever; and we'd often get into arguments where she wanted to do things I advised her against out of honest concern and my own life experience, but did them anyway. People have to make their own mistakes, I couldn't expect her to listen every time, but when you're in a relationship, those mistakes often affect you too and it inevitably gets tiring.

She was alright in bed though. Probably just had a filthy mind because she'd been deprived of attention through her chubby teenage years. I've always found it to be the case that lasses who get a lot of sex from an early age are the worst at it, and their current age isn't really a factor. If they have an easy time with blokes, they don't put the same level of effort in. The ones who do it properly are invariably the least slutty and most outwardly reserved in my experience. They take the time to work you out instead of assuming you work the same as every other lad they've noshed off. Shy, slightly chubby nerdy lasses are the way forward lads.
>> No. 27333 Anonymous
3rd September 2018
Monday 3:55 pm
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I broke up with the Mrs a month or so back and whilst I'm mostly glad of it, doing alright, when I'm working on my own or have nothing to do I occasionally get into this cycle of thought that makes me quite angry and indignant about the whole thing.

I'm well over her and glad we broke up, but the way things panned out left her in the position to make me look like the bad guy, I'm the one having to try stay away from certain people and places in order to avoid a conflict. It's just bullocks frankly and I don't know what to do to stop myself seething about it on those occasions.

People just take sympathy for a lass without questioning it, and assume the bloke will be alright. I had very good reason to chuck her but it feels like nobody is really on my side and it's shit.
>> No. 27334 Anonymous
3rd September 2018
Monday 4:58 pm
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>>27330

I've found that people who have slept with loads of people seem to think everyone likes the exact same thing and just go through the motions.
>> No. 27335 Anonymous
4th September 2018
Tuesday 12:22 pm
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>>27324
Christ yes, you've not lived until you've been the distinctly younger, sexual plaything of another hardened career woman who goes to hot yoga every Thursday, has well-researched opinions on which Guardian writers she'd gladly stab in the eye with a lit cigarette and would rather drop dead than introduce you to her teenage kids. Ah, Louise. How I miss thee.
>> No. 27336 Anonymous
4th September 2018
Tuesday 3:34 pm
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Barring the misogyny guff, I've realised I'm basically every /r9k/ stereotype in the book. Oh, I'm clean shaven as well. Whenever I try thinking about my problems I get so overwhelmed as to be rendered fucked, I really can't stand it. However, I'm sure I will anyway.
>> No. 27377 Anonymous
16th September 2018
Sunday 10:31 pm
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I met a girl, we had a great time together. After 3 dates within a week and a half I can feel myself falling for her. I don't think I've ever felt this way about someone so soon.

Tonight she texted me saying it's been fun but she thinks she'd like to leave it now as she's "not interested in pursuing things". When I asked her what went wrong she says she's anxious in general, has a lot on at work and doesn't want to be "thinking about too many things I guess ?"

I wasn't expecting this.
>> No. 27378 Anonymous
16th September 2018
Sunday 10:53 pm
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>>27377

That's fucking shite. Sorry, mate.
>> No. 27379 Anonymous
16th September 2018
Sunday 11:21 pm
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>>27336
>I'm basically every /r9k/ stereotype in the book

What's it even like these days? I was there from pretty much the start until it started going to shit and turning into the gangbang of whining late on in 2008. It really was great in the very old days.
>> No. 27381 Anonymous
17th September 2018
Monday 1:13 am
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>>27379

Didn't /r9k/ only get founded in 2008 in the first place? It was originally an auto-moderated /b/ brought in to fend off the constant spam-posts without resorting to captchas. Didn't it turn into the gigantic aut-fest somewhere around 2011? Honestly my 4chan history is very, very patchy.

>>27377

That is grim lad. Dating really is a wilderness sometimes, my commiserations.
>> No. 27383 Anonymous
17th September 2018
Monday 7:04 am
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>>27381
It was formed early 2008 and the first 7/8 months were some of the most enjoyable I've had on the internet; the community was great and highly creative in those days. It started going to shit around the time of the US election because we were simply too nice and we'd listen to people about their problems, which led to a deluge of people whining about relationships and the inevitable "bitches and whores" shitfest. It went from a place for slightly awkward people to dick around and have a laugh to basement dwellers shrieking about normies and sucking the fun out of everything. One of the last things I remember is moot trolling the board by pretending he'd been rejected by a girl after taking her to McDonald's for a date.
>> No. 27384 Anonymous
17th September 2018
Monday 10:51 am
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>>27383

I too remember old r9k fondly, it is a shame it will never return, it has place in the halls of golden ages of history alongside the late roman republic, and the enlightenment.
>> No. 27387 Anonymous
17th September 2018
Monday 12:01 pm
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>>27379

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gresham%27s_law

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Market_for_Lemons
>> No. 27388 Anonymous
17th September 2018
Monday 12:29 pm
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>>27387

I don't see the applicablity of coin debasement even in a metaphorical sense, (are you suggesting that lower quality posters joined, so people stopped putting the effort in to make better quality posts?)
>> No. 27389 Anonymous
17th September 2018
Monday 5:09 pm
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>>27388

Yeah, basically. A relatively small proportion of shitposters and trolls can drag down the average quality of posts, driving away the better posts and starting a vicious cycle of declining quality. Some people will save their serious posts for a forum that isn't quite as trollish, some people will stop putting the effort in to make serious replies, some people will leave altogether, some people will get bitter and start acting like a cunt.
>> No. 27390 Anonymous
17th September 2018
Monday 9:20 pm
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>>27389
Welcome to /emo/ from the day /*/ came along onwards.
>> No. 27391 Anonymous
17th September 2018
Monday 10:32 pm
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>>27389
I'd have said we had far more shitposters when this place was more active. There was always that one cunt who'd try shitting up every thread whilst getting the first post in.

The impression I get of this place at the minute is that there's a lot of lads lurking and ready to join in a conversation, but they won't start one themselves.
>> No. 27392 Anonymous
18th September 2018
Tuesday 9:24 pm
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>>27391

Is it any surprise? Some lads here will cunt off about quite literally anything, derail a thread and then piss off.

The mods never ban them though and I'm honestly not sure why, they used to be much more stringent, but now some cunt will argue about a minor point and nobody cares, thread ruined, discussion gone, everybody moves on.

It's not hard to understand why.
>> No. 27393 Anonymous
18th September 2018
Tuesday 10:20 pm
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>>27392

>The mods never ban them though

I've been here long enough to have learned that the mods are only ever either too heavy handed, or not banning enough. I can understand why it might seem like that from the outside, but I really don't see many things overlooked. I'm looking at the banlist now (I know, inherent bias here) and there's basically a ban a day on average. For our posting rate that a fair amount.

I'm really not trying to catch you out or anything by asking this - can you point to some posts you think should have been banned recently that weren't? Often someone will think a shitpost has gone ignored when actually some other post of theirs was the one with the ban label stuck on it.
>> No. 27394 Anonymous
18th September 2018
Tuesday 10:58 pm
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>>27392
I'd have said the issue was that discussions become too specialised. For instance, if you're not interested in the likes of car maintenance, the restaurant trade or computer programming then at times you're completely stuffed because that's the only topic being discussed and you either don't have anything to contribute to it or don't want to divert the thread to something else whilst it's still being discussed.

I'm not complaining about that, mind. I've learnt a lot from you robot moon ovens. I think we simply need more threads so there's more than one active conversation on the go.
>> No. 27395 Anonymous
18th September 2018
Tuesday 11:19 pm
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>>27393

>I think we simply need more threads so there's more than one active conversation on the go.

You're bang on there. Though /*/ changed our lives for the better, it did so at the cost of narrowing our focus.
>> No. 27398 Anonymous
20th September 2018
Thursday 5:44 pm
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>>27393
As a general rule, if people can tell you're moderating, they're going to complain about it. Try not to be noticed so much.

(A good day to you Sir!)
>> No. 27399 Anonymous
20th September 2018
Thursday 7:44 pm
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>>27398
Oh modlads, never change.
>> No. 27400 Anonymous
20th September 2018
Thursday 7:59 pm
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>>27398

The issue the poster was replying to was undermoderation, so that doesn't make much sense.
>> No. 27401 Anonymous
20th September 2018
Thursday 8:21 pm
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>>27394
You've kind of hit the nail on the head there. It sometimes seems like everyone on .gs but me is an expert who has done a master's degree in these things. Literally not just 'hi I'm posting in this thread because I have extensive experience in this and can provide some insight to this topic', but every poster talks like they are an authority.

I feel like an inbetweener, not nerdy enough for the general threads, and not moronic enough to find /iq/ funny.
>> No. 27402 Anonymous
20th September 2018
Thursday 8:42 pm
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>>27401

>but every poster talks like they are an authority.

I think this is a posting style that has been fostered over the decade or more of the site. We've always tried to be a bit more 'formal' and I think this has ended up with a subconscious, unspoken house style that we've all managed to fall into.

Thinking about it, though I talk about the same stuff on here as I do on, say, Reddit, I use a lot more slang, americanisations, and probably a bit less authoritative language on Reddit than here. I have a very strong idea of what a britfa post should look like, but Reddit can be all over the place, and my posting there reflects that.

Whether this is a good thing or not? Probably not. I remember being charmed by how different this place was compared to britchan etc back in the day, but perhaps we've painted ourselves into a bit of a corner now.
>> No. 27403 Anonymous
20th September 2018
Thursday 9:10 pm
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>>27402

I can't speak for anyone else, but I think the slow pace of the board affects my posting style. In a real conversation there would be a lot of "I reckon" and "if I remember rightly", but here I have time to fact-check myself and avoid the caveat. If I'm not sure what I'm trying to say, I can leave it for a couple of hours and come at it with fresh eyes, because the conversation probably won't have moved on. The slow pace naturally makes my posts more journalistic than stream-of-consciousness.
>> No. 27405 Anonymous
20th September 2018
Thursday 9:15 pm
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>>27403

An obvious example would be my comment here: >>/b/420459. I'm not some kind of mathematical savant, I'm just bored enough to whip out a calculator to do some pizza-related sums. You'd have to be fucking mental to do that in a real conversation or a Whatsapp chat, but it doesn't seem totally unreasonable on a board as slow and spoddy as .gs.
>> No. 27406 Anonymous
20th September 2018
Thursday 9:24 pm
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It is pretty difficult to make a short, succinct post here. It feels like if you're putting in the effort to make a post, you may as well flesh the thing out. I

often find myself exploring every avenue of thought as I type out a post, and going back to re-structure and rephrase parts. Needless to say this is not something I'd do elsewhere, but it's part of what I find therapeutic about posting here. It's meditative, reflective almost.

I've often thought that the way I post here is comparable to what a diary would have been for people in the black and white days. You reflect and gather your thoughts, but with the added advantage that others can respond and give you different perspectives to consider. I try not to use the site as a blog, of course, but then again we have developed to a point that many posters will remember and pick up on things others have mentioned, even in some cases where they are not explicitly referring to it.

It has both benefits and drawbacks I suppose.
>> No. 27407 Anonymous
20th September 2018
Thursday 9:28 pm
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>>27405
>You'd have to be fucking mental to do that in a real conversation

I wish someone had told me this before.
>> No. 27408 Anonymous
21st September 2018
Friday 12:53 am
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>>27406

>I try not to use the site as a blog, of course, but then again we have developed to a point that many posters will remember and pick up on things others have mentioned, even in some cases where they are not explicitly referring to it.

This is very true. I've found I can genuinely identify certain posters just from the way they've written, even if they're not talking about something specific, and I'm sure I have my tells too. This familiarity is surely why I keep coming here, but it's also probably what puts newcomers off. I make a point to stay off /sentry/ until I've replied to posts, but when I do go on I'm almost always right about who I thought I was reading.

Maybe that's just me, though. I'd be curious to see if someone could intuit who I am from this post or point to another one of my posts, or if it's just my autism uniquely sharp powers of deduction.
>> No. 27409 Anonymous
21st September 2018
Friday 9:57 am
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>>27408
A few years back I realised I was quite easily traceable through always posting images relating to pretty much a single quite specific topic and made a conscious effort to save a wider variety of random crap into the junk folder on my desktop. It would be really obvious for example if the chap who constantly needs to be reminded not to forgive his abusive parents in /emo/ and always posts a picture of goulash and the lad posting in /A/ about hating every second of his life that he is sober and always posts a picture of goulash are probably the same bloke.

(Using my own issues as an example with a made-up image topic obviously)

It's important to bear these kinds of things in mind especially with social conservatism threatening to make a comeback in a big way. Simply the fact that I hate my parents would have been enough for them to completely destroy me until frighteningly recently. Lobotomised, electro-shock treatment, locked up and forgotten about forever. Be careful lads.
>> No. 27415 Anonymous
23rd September 2018
Sunday 3:43 pm
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Someone ffixmy life for me, because I just can't do it by myself.
>> No. 27416 Anonymous
23rd September 2018
Sunday 4:37 pm
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>>27415
What we need is a No.3 Philips head and 6 cans of Stella, we'll get the back off your bonce and have a good butchers and give the rigging the ol' tactical poke if needs must.
>> No. 27417 Anonymous
23rd September 2018
Sunday 5:17 pm
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How do I make friends? I've been going to uni societies and I just stand there in awkward silence unable to connect with anyone. Even though I share interests with them I just feel like a perpetual outsider.
>> No. 27418 Anonymous
23rd September 2018
Sunday 5:33 pm
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>>27417

You can make your relationships more meaningful by allowing your emotions show a little more. I've found people are very pleased when you open up to them, provided you do it in a careful way.
>> No. 27419 Anonymous
23rd September 2018
Sunday 6:55 pm
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>>27417
I find getting drunk is a good way to break the ice.
>> No. 27420 Anonymous
23rd September 2018
Sunday 7:21 pm
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I think I'm going to go to the Christian Union's events, as people will talk to me with the ulterior motive of converting me to Christianity, but at least it'll give me practice talking to other people. And maybe I'll find salvation or something.
>> No. 27421 Anonymous
24th September 2018
Monday 8:59 am
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>>27420
As long as you don't end up in a cult (or worse, an anabaptist) I think there are worse things you could do than find a bit of Jesus in you. Just try not to get suckered in by the gay-bashing ones (really, really avoid the anabaptists). Actually, if you do become one of God's children, can you go to a service at the big gay church in Brighton and tell me what it's like? I've always thought it's taken far too long for the gay community and the Christians to move past their differences and finally bond over what they both clearly adore: silly hats and singalongs.
>> No. 27422 Anonymous
24th September 2018
Monday 10:30 am
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>>27421
Other than the Munster Rebellion, what's so bad about the Anabaptists?
>> No. 27424 Anonymous
24th September 2018
Monday 11:35 am
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I don't mean to sound like every shit counselor you've ever had, but sunshine really does me a lot of good, especially after spending all weekend in my dingy wank dungeon of a room.

Apt timing too given this could well be the last bout of sun this year.
>> No. 27433 Anonymous
25th September 2018
Tuesday 7:16 pm
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Going to quit my job. It'll be the third job I've quit after one shift in less than year. My mental illness is a real barrier to me being able to work, but I feel like a loser for letting it get the best of me.
>> No. 27434 Anonymous
25th September 2018
Tuesday 9:50 pm
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>>27433
You're trying and that's all you really can do. If anyone tells you different they're not really concerned about your mental health.
>> No. 27435 Anonymous
25th September 2018
Tuesday 10:08 pm
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>>27433

>but I feel like a loser for letting it get the best of me.

If you could implicitly control the effects mental illnesses have on your life, then they'd barely be illnesses at all. It's understandable that you feel this way, but as otherlad said, you're trying.

You've essentially done the equivalent of dragging yourself to a job as a postman with a fractured leg - you've got way fucking further than most in your situation would have.
>> No. 27436 Anonymous
25th September 2018
Tuesday 11:47 pm
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Jumped off the wagon on Sunday with another half baked suicide attempt that just left me passed out for thirty six hours. Again. Missed all my psych appointments so I don't have my meds. I feel like the biggest mug on earth, fighting back against a disease that can't be beaten.
>> No. 27437 Anonymous
26th September 2018
Wednesday 3:07 pm
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>>27436

That's really sucky, I hope you find peace with yourself. I have what is either mixed depression and anxiety or PTSD it is a daily struggle being fucked up. What motivated the attempt?
>> No. 27438 Anonymous
26th September 2018
Wednesday 6:38 pm
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>>27437

Apologies that you also find yourself in the same, or a similar, boat.

As for what triggered the attempt, I honestly don't know. Probably just too much time alone (nothing like a weekend stuck at home on your tod) chewing the same issues from the past over and over in my head.

It's bit like being 5-0 down in the Finals of the FA cup. You could sit it out another 35 years 45 minutes and hope for some kind of miracle to turn everything around, or you could just fuck yourself in front of a car on the way home.

Sage for shitty metaphor.
>> No. 27445 Anonymous
27th September 2018
Thursday 8:49 am
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>>27438

My go to advice for someone in that situation is to find a goal/hobby to pursue, you can't ruminate if you are distracted. My personal one is rock climbing trying to be better at it informs lots of other life decision (like diet and other related exercises) and therefore gives me a bit of focus.
>> No. 27447 Anonymous
27th September 2018
Thursday 8:33 pm
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This isn't really /emo/ but I can't think where else to put it and it's too trivial to warrant its own thread.

I got woke up today by a Yodel courier knocking and I got to the door after his second knock. He had walked away about five meters and turned to come back.

He said

>You're always in so you were either asleep or ill

I'm a work-from-home semi-shut-in so he wasn't wrong but it was weirdly personal.

I signed for the parcel and he asked if I was OK sounding all concerned. I was fine, just super-bloodshot because I'd just woke up.

I get Yodel parcels once every few month maximum so I just found what he said odd.
>> No. 27448 Anonymous
27th September 2018
Thursday 10:28 pm
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>>27447
You probably just looked rough, at least he didn't punt the parcel over your garden fence after the first knock. Regrettably the only way to prove you're okay is to order something obscenely expensive and very heavy, open in it front of him then lift it over your head, but that's exactly the kind of intra-proletariat showboating those lizard bastards want so I'd just leave it if it were me.

And more seriously I wonder if your being taken aback by a near stranger asking after your wellbeing doesn't tell us something grim about the way we treat one another in society?
>> No. 27449 Anonymous
27th September 2018
Thursday 11:08 pm
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>>27447

It could have just been a slightly crass attempt at banter/smalltalk. I'm guessing you don't do a lot of socialising, considering your lifestyle, so it's plausible you'd simply fail to pick up on it.

I recall that during my NEET phase I found myself what I can only describe as "out of practice" when it came to actually interacting with other humans, and it became far easier to misinterpret people or situations.
>> No. 27450 Anonymous
27th September 2018
Thursday 11:26 pm
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>>27449

There's good evidence to support that. When people are socially isolated or lonely, they are much more likely to perceive neutral facial expressions as negative. It's part of the vicious cycle of social anxiety - you're anxious around people, so you avoid them, so your brain starts to perceive perfectly mundane interactions as negative, so you feel more anxious around people.

>>27447 doesn't necessarily have anything wrong with him, but I know from experience that working from home can send you slightly peculiar. If possible, I'd recommend working from a library or cafe a few times a week. The routine of getting properly dressed, getting out of the house and spending time in the presence of other people really makes a huge difference in terms of keeping you sane. If I get lazy about it and just stay in my home office, I can notice a real decline in my sense of "normalness".
>> No. 27451 Anonymous
28th September 2018
Friday 12:14 am
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I didn't find it odd when the normal post people would call me by my forename or whatever when I saw them several times a week. I just wondered how someone I see once every three months would know that I'm "always" in, but I guess he was extrapolating from the fact I'm always in when he calls four times a year.
>> No. 27452 Anonymous
28th September 2018
Friday 12:16 am
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I read a stupid unscary Reddit creepypasta

https://www.reddit.com/r/nosleep/comments/9j624r/im_a_cam_girl_last_night_i_had_a_terrifying_skype/

before I went to bed too. Maybe that had a little influence on me waking up and wondering why this Yodel person knows things about me he's not supposed to know.
>> No. 27453 Anonymous
28th September 2018
Friday 12:23 am
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>>27450

I don't know what his facial expression was doing. I was wearing neither glasses nor contact lenses and have a 7.5 prescription so that probably didn't help me read the situation correctly.

>>27448

It's a good job I didn't open it in front of him. I lost a little paring knife and found they have become impossible to find in WIlko's, Home Bargains, pound shops, Sainsbury's and even online, because they're a good size for people to carry in their pockets and stab each other I guess.

I ended up bulk buying them from Germany

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/30-Pieces-Kitchen-Knife-Peeling-Fruits-Vegetable-Cutting-Stainless-Steel-Set/132569360505?hash=item1eddbfe879:g:wysAAOSwvLZaxgNI

although I didn't need that many. It's a good job I didn't open the door looking weird then open a package of a fuck-ton of knives.
>> No. 27454 Anonymous
28th September 2018
Friday 12:51 am
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>>27453

It seems that these ones are a good size for stabbing 12-year-olds though.
>> No. 27456 Anonymous
28th September 2018
Friday 2:09 am
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>>27453

Anyone who has bulk stock of their favourite paring knife is clearly doing better than most.

That probably sounds sarcastic, but I actually mean it.
>> No. 27457 Anonymous
28th September 2018
Friday 2:43 am
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>>27456

The types of things which wander off because you use them then put them down wherever you're done (e.g., pens, scissors, chapsticks), I like to have so many of I can reach my arm out in any room of my house and come up with one. Paring knives are more in that category than any other kitchen utensil because of their utility in opening sellotaped boxes etc. The new pink-handled knife is really fluorescent too. Let's see that try to camouflage itself like my old black-handled one, wherever the hell that got to.
>> No. 27458 Anonymous
28th September 2018
Friday 2:53 am
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>>27457

I used to do the same with pens and paring knives and peelers because people apparently lose, steal, or break all three at an alarming rate, even in a professional environment.

Last time I was in Ikea I stole about forty of their little pencils, and it's really nice to have the same situation you describe - wherever I look in my house, I can always find one.
>> No. 27460 Anonymous
28th September 2018
Friday 6:48 am
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>>27458
>stole

The sign says "take one", so just take one of them from every stand you see and then you're not stealing.
>> No. 27496 Anonymous
8th October 2018
Monday 4:18 am
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I was in Sainsbury's and I normally get jacket potatoes when I only have three left and I had four so wasn't sure if I wanted them. I saw four reduced ones so thought "fine". They were mildly green.

I've had mildly green potatoes off Sainsbury's many times when that's all they had.

I went to the checkout and she got to the jacket potatoes and said "They're green" and I said it was fine. She said she wouldn't have them and grabbed a passing employee to go and get a replacement. While we were waiting for him I said I didn't know green potatoes were supposed to be dangerous and she said they're not dangerous but will give you stomach ache. I said not in my experience and a few times she said "Ohhhhhh, right" in a humouring-a-retarded-person voice.

I've microwaved baked potatoes that colour before and what happened to my health was literally nothing. Is there some rule that you eat a mildly green potato and drop dead and I'm the only one that doesn't know?
>> No. 27497 Anonymous
8th October 2018
Monday 4:36 am
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>>27496

When potatoes are exposed to light, they a) start to turn green and b) produce a toxin called solinine. It's hard to tell how much solinine has accumulated from the colour of the potato. This toxin isn't particularly dangerous in low doses, but it can give you a nasty case of the shits. Solinine might cause birth defects if it's consumed in large doses by pregnant women, but the risk is very low.

Green potatoes are usually fine to eat, but it's sensible to avoid the skin and you definitely shouldn't eat it if it tastes noticeably bitter.
>> No. 27498 Anonymous
8th October 2018
Monday 5:57 am
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It's been almost five years since I told a girl something along the lines of "When am I going to fall out of love with you? The last few times I’ve been in love it’s only ever gotten any better when I’ve fallen in love with someone else, and we both know that's not going to happen any time soon.".

Finally, it's looking more and more like that's what's happening right now, which obviously complicates everything beyond belief.

Fucking sage.
>> No. 27518 Anonymous
10th October 2018
Wednesday 2:26 pm
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Intentional dehydration is the GOAT self-harm technique.
>> No. 27520 Anonymous
10th October 2018
Wednesday 5:55 pm
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>>27518

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sokushinbutsu
>> No. 27521 Anonymous
10th October 2018
Wednesday 5:57 pm
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>>27519>>27520
I just do it to make myself sick.
>> No. 27522 Anonymous
10th October 2018
Wednesday 7:27 pm
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>>27518

If you're the same lad who eats lumps of MSG, you're going to run into problems.
>> No. 27523 Anonymous
13th October 2018
Saturday 9:26 pm
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Everyone has nicer teeth and more success than I ever will.
>> No. 27524 Anonymous
13th October 2018
Saturday 10:39 pm
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>>27523

Go to Wetherspoons on a weekday morning, you'll cheer right up about the state of your life.
>> No. 27526 Anonymous
14th October 2018
Sunday 5:04 am
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>>27523

I have a messy set of teeth, due to maybe 30% bruxism, 20% bad brushing regime, and 50% general wear and tear from 15 years of doing martial arts.

If I can still score with a very obviously broken tooth you can too.

That said, capping a couple of the nastier / messier ones (I need to fix this broken tooth for the, fifth (I believe) time, and maybe cap another one or two) and a few bob on whitening can take you gurn from a 4 to a 7 with relatively little outlay.

(I just gave up with this one broken tooth at one point because every time I got the fucker done I'd forget my mouth guard and some hyperactive teenager would land a knee in my face and there went another 80 snaps of dentistry.)

Sage.
>> No. 27527 Anonymous
14th October 2018
Sunday 5:05 am
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>>27524

I might be the only man on earth who has ever enjoyed spoons during the weekdays.

Used to be £2.50 for a pint of Strongbow before 5pm during the week and it was always nice and quiet and I could just sit in the corner somewhere with my kindle, gripping tightly onto the tabletop like it was the only thing in the world standing between me and the fatal amphetamine overdose this one was threatening to be.

It certainly beat sitting in the house wondering why head had gone numb and if some invisible cunt had messed with the thermostat.
>> No. 27528 Anonymous
14th October 2018
Sunday 5:51 pm
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>>27526
Why would you spend all that money on drilling and capping and filling to rescue your poor teeth and then weaken them with elective bleaching? You'd do far better with that stuff in the dating arena if you applied it to your anus, genuinely. Girls like men with arseholes that glow under UV, but sensitive dentine doesn't look good on anyone.
>> No. 27529 Anonymous
14th October 2018
Sunday 5:55 pm
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>>27528
Can you recommend a DIY recipe for anal bleach? It's something I've wanted to try for a while but I don't trust the stuff they sell in gayshops.
>> No. 27530 Anonymous
14th October 2018
Sunday 6:37 pm
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>>27528
>>27529
Pardon?
>> No. 27531 Anonymous
14th October 2018
Sunday 7:10 pm
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>>27529
I would have thought they were one of the most trustworthy places to buy it.
>> No. 27532 Anonymous
15th October 2018
Monday 12:31 pm
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>>27530
In all honesty >>27528 does have a point regarding teeth whitening.
>> No. 27533 Anonymous
15th October 2018
Monday 6:27 pm
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>>27528
>>27532

> Why would you spend all that money on drilling and capping and filling to rescue your poor teeth and then weaken them with elective bleaching?

I wasn't really aware that bleaching your teeth weakens them in any way, so that's interesting to know. I'm more-or-less religious about my mouth guard now but there's always a day where you're late and you forget the bugger in the freezer and if one of those days coincides with a day where some lemon really lamps me one then I don't want my teeth weakened.

Honestly my teeth are not that bad colour wise, it's more one broken tooth and a couple of chipped ones (plus a couple that are going to need root canals sooner or later), and I'm not looking to end up looking like a male model or anything. I'd just like to get my teeth a couple of shades lighter. Are there any options for that that don't envolve severely weakening your teeth?
>> No. 27534 Anonymous
15th October 2018
Monday 6:36 pm
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>>27533

It weakens them in the same way stone cleaning damages statues. I wouldn't be too concerned really.
>> No. 27535 Anonymous
15th October 2018
Monday 6:49 pm
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>>27533
Brush your teeth more often, maybe use a charcoal toothpaste. Completely cut out coffee, tea (black or green), red or white wine (yeah believe it or not white wine also stains your teeth but not to the extent red does, got that one directly from my dentist), smoking and cola. Cut out fruit juices or anything acidic really, including tomatoes and tomato-based meals. Or start self-tanning and by comparison, the natural colour of your teeth will seem whiter. I'd suggest just learning to live with the colour and really focus on fixing the broken ones. You mention that some may need root canals one day and there's some research that suggests whitening procedures affects the quality of the living pulp in the teeth and is associated with increased likelihood of extraction, if that at all sways you. One day you'll be old enough to appreciate function over form as you'll have stopped giving any fucks about your appearance round about when your nose hair starts growing beyond the ends of your nostrils, and then you'll be glad you can still chew things.

>>27534
Is stone cleaning achieved with peroxide? Actually please don't bother answering me as I'm clearly on a dental health related crusade and have gone too far to stop now. I'm just not sure why anyone would unnecessarily get anything oxidative inside their mouths. Stop putting bleach on your feckin teeth you spiv.
>> No. 27536 Anonymous
15th October 2018
Monday 6:56 pm
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>>27535
Not him but I had to buy a nose hair trimmer at 26.
And don't get me started on my ears.
>> No. 27537 Anonymous
15th October 2018
Monday 7:08 pm
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>>27536
By any chance are you also balding or do you have the start of a receding hairline, but still have to shave most days?
>> No. 27538 Anonymous
15th October 2018
Monday 7:41 pm
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>>27537
It's a little thinner at the temples than it used to be, but my actual hairline is the same as when I was 18. I've not got a particularly thick or full beard either.
I've just inherited the gene off my granddad that makes birds-nests grow out of your ears and nose.
>> No. 27539 Anonymous
15th October 2018
Monday 10:03 pm
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>>27537

Not him but I fit that description.

I take solace in the fact that I look good bald with a big beard.
>> No. 27540 Anonymous
16th October 2018
Tuesday 3:14 am
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>>27535

Bleach on your teeth may be less harmful than charcoal toothpaste. That stuff is like sandpaper, but toothpaste. That's not healthy.
>> No. 27541 Anonymous
16th October 2018
Tuesday 3:16 am
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>>27539

I think the best looking bald people have some facial hair and glasses to balance it out, apart from the fact they all look the same, like Michael Stipe here.
>> No. 27542 Anonymous
16th October 2018
Tuesday 3:18 am
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>>27541

I don't know why Neil Strauss is wearing glasses after he had laser treatment but it looks fine.
>> No. 27543 Anonymous
16th October 2018
Tuesday 3:19 am
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LDHMjO7UbMo
>> No. 27544 Anonymous
16th October 2018
Tuesday 10:51 am
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>>27541

>apart from the fact they all look the same

I had considered that - but none of my friends are bald, and from now on I'll just be careful to never befriend or be seen with any other bald bloke (sorry purps), to avoid the comparison.

I don't wear glasses so that separates me from the moby, moby, moby, micheal stipe etc. of it all.
>> No. 27545 Anonymous
16th October 2018
Tuesday 11:39 am
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>>27541
I thought that was the principal from community before reading your post.
>> No. 27546 Anonymous
18th October 2018
Thursday 1:21 pm
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28 years on this Earth and I have finally figured out how to deal with arseholes. It's so fucking simple I just never thought of it before...

Ask them about their dads. It's as simple as that. They crumble like a house of fucking cards. They won't bother you again. They'll just be done.

I have father issues myself but jesus, if someone is offering you unsolicited, brutally honest, "advice" this will knock em for six. If someone is moody and expects the world to just kind of fall in line... same deal. I literally asked my father about his father (a man he was once happy to tell me all about whilst beating and torturing me) and suddenly he had better things to do. It's so fucking easy I feel like it has to be a cheat somehow.
>> No. 27549 Anonymous
19th October 2018
Friday 1:13 pm
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>>27546
Could you provide examples?
>> No. 27553 Anonymous
21st October 2018
Sunday 4:45 pm
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My girlfriend just tearfully told me she slept with someone while we were forced into a long-distance relationship for a couple of years. I told her I don't really care - in fact secretly I'd love an open relationship. Wondering how I can now use this to put that on the table.
>> No. 27554 Anonymous
21st October 2018
Sunday 5:23 pm
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>>27553

Why haven't you suggested an open relationship up to now?
>> No. 27555 Anonymous
21st October 2018
Sunday 5:29 pm
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>>27554
He didn't think she was open to it.
>> No. 27556 Anonymous
21st October 2018
Sunday 6:34 pm
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>>27553

The problem is, since she clearly is in the mindset that "sleeping with other people = bad", I would have to assume that she would very much care if you shagged someone else.

I think the only real way to do this is to outright tell her you think the best way forward for the relationship is an open one. You really need to get this conversation out of the way eventually if it's what you truly want. If it's just a fleeting fantasy then I wouldn't bother, as you do risk weakening the relationship in her eyes. But if she thinks that way, maybe it's for the best.
>> No. 27557 Anonymous
22nd October 2018
Monday 12:45 pm
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I didn't stop drinking all night, ended up on the mind website but I couldn't stop myself from crying hysterically for long enough to make a coherent phone call. I should call my psychiatrist.
>> No. 27558 Anonymous
22nd October 2018
Monday 1:33 pm
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>>27557
Yeah you should do that.
>> No. 27559 Anonymous
23rd October 2018
Tuesday 7:53 pm
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>>27556
The thing is, I did. At the beginning I told her long-distance relationships are well-documented as difficult, and we should be able to freely date other people until we are together again. And she reluctantly agreed, so I started seeing other people. Eventually however she said she wanted to stop it and for us to be "fully committed" to each other. Now this has happened, and only a couple of weeks before we were together again. It's out of the blue and goes against everything she said before. And it is kind of why I think I might be able to convince her it is healthy for us to have sex lives that aren't necessarily exclusive to each other if I talk to her about it again.

At this point you lads probably think I'm being played for a sucker. But she isn't like that, she was genuinely terrified about confessing to me and thinks I'm weird for being alright with it.
>> No. 27560 Anonymous
23rd October 2018
Tuesday 10:02 pm
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>>27559

>At this point you lads probably think I'm being played for a sucker.

Not necessarily, but I've certainly heard "But she isn't like that" a large number of times, and it's very rarely accurate.

>she was genuinely terrified about confessing to me and thinks I'm weird for being alright with it.

Well, this is my point - regardless of your feelings on the matter, the fact is she, from her perspective, betrayed you in what obviously feels like a major way to her. She's betrayed your trust whether or not you're actually okay with it. It's up to you to decide whether that matters or not, but to me it would be a concern.
>> No. 27561 Anonymous
24th October 2018
Wednesday 8:16 am
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>>27560
She'd forgive me the same. We've been under a lot of pressure.
>> No. 27625 Anonymous
30th October 2018
Tuesday 5:21 pm
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Psychiatrist is refusing to allow me to go back on a medication I stopped because he thinks my depression and anxiety, which have both got markedly worse since I came off the medication, is just my normal personality. Considering going to the GP and getting them to prescribe me it, as it was working before the psychiatrist told them to take me off it.
>> No. 27630 Anonymous
30th October 2018
Tuesday 11:01 pm
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>>27625

six years of mental health experience lad here; what were you on, how long were you on it, and were you pulled off cold turkey?

I've yet to meet a psychiatrist who wants to give you *less* drugs. They do usually want to switch you from the fun and additive pills to the not-fun and addictive pills, though.

E.g. Mine is currently using quietapine in order to reduce my night time dose of clonazepam and then doubled the dose because my blood lithium levels came back dangerously high and put me back on a dose that had previously left me with a low blood lithium level. Sigh.

Just give me a big fat pile of signed undated prescriptions for valium and I won't bother you until next year stop making everything so fucking complicated you human spunk bucket.
>> No. 27633 Anonymous
31st October 2018
Wednesday 8:16 pm
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>>27630

She fears that you would OD, and that those signed undated prescription slips would give her a lot of legal headaches.
>> No. 27635 Anonymous
1st November 2018
Thursday 12:55 am
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>>27633
>>27633

I've been diagnosed as suicidal twice and had to in and pick up my meds weekly.

People who are really liable to commit suicide are under the care of a "crisis team" and they will literally come to your house and hold your nose until you swallow ( like in face fucking porn but less enjoyable).

I've experienced this oncee at a psych unit where I was held on a preliminary (they didn't have have a pdoc to assess me) Section 13 until they had to let me go because their "holding time" was up.
>> No. 27636 Anonymous
1st November 2018
Thursday 1:39 am
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>>27635

>and they will literally come to your house and hold your nose until you swallow

Fucking hell. That would not make me feel much better
>> No. 27637 Anonymous
1st November 2018
Thursday 2:45 am
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>>27636

Ironically, once the pills kick in all your grandiose thoughts about suing the NHS just happily dissolve.

If one were like Alice, one might think it all a conspiracy.
>> No. 27670 Anonymous
3rd November 2018
Saturday 2:47 am
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I think I need new friends. Like, a totally new social circle without any of the baggage of my current one. We haven't fallen out, but various recent events and circumstances make me think it'd be better for my mental health if I could move on and keep different company.

Where do I even start? My work colleagues have a pretty close relationship, but I kind of feel like that doesn't count.
>> No. 27671 Anonymous
3rd November 2018
Saturday 9:23 am
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>>27670

Join clubs related to you interests www.meetup.com
>> No. 27672 Anonymous
3rd November 2018
Saturday 9:26 am
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>>27670

Go and do a thing with other people, get to know some of them, invite a group of them to the pub afterwards, start a WhatsApp group. The world is full of people in a similar boat. You can find loads of things to do on Meetup. Most universities and FE colleges run casual evening classes in a variety of subjects.

https://www.meetup.com/find/

If you have a history of mental health problems, I'd highly recommend trying a support group. It can be a slightly weird experience, but it can also be an enormous relief to take off the mask for a bit. I'll never forget the feeling of making a group of fellow mentaloids roar with laughter about my most pathetic suicide attempt; the most shameful chapter of my life had finally become just a funny anecdote, at least in that room. MIND have a directory of peer support groups on their website.

https://www.mind.org.uk/information-support/drugs-and-treatments/peer-support/finding-peer-support/?o=10153
>> No. 27673 Anonymous
3rd November 2018
Saturday 11:07 am
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>>27672
Since when has the casual pursuit of formal adult education been acceptable around here?
>> No. 27674 Anonymous
3rd November 2018
Saturday 11:16 am
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>>27673

U WOT N7?
>> No. 27675 Anonymous
3rd November 2018
Saturday 11:52 am
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>>27674
An N7 is by far the best qualification you can attain.
>> No. 27698 Anonymous
5th November 2018
Monday 11:11 am
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I had the most wonderfully sordid activity planned out with an attractive young lady I was chatting to on an online dating site and then her account disappears entirely. I'm not sure if she got cold feet and blocked me, if she was cat fishing and decided to block me/was banned.

Regardless it is a terrible shame when you get all excited and are really looking forward something and it brightens up your entire day and then it is just snatched away from you. I'm trying to focus on how good the anticipation felt, but this pisses on my corn flakes.

We are but prostates to capricious gods, they tease us and shove things up our arses for their amusement.
>> No. 27727 Anonymous
10th November 2018
Saturday 3:37 pm
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What's the next step down from suicide? If topping yourself isn't an option, what can you do?
>> No. 27728 Anonymous
10th November 2018
Saturday 3:42 pm
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>>27727

The traditional option would be to ruin your life entirely, either with drink, drugs, complete social alienation or a mixture thereof. Then you're supposed to just drift away from society until they start ignoring you.

I wouldn't recommend it, though. What's making you feel the way that you do?
>> No. 27729 Anonymous
10th November 2018
Saturday 3:47 pm
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>>27728
>Then you're supposed to just drift away from society until they start ignoring you.

I'm sort of there already. I've failed at everything I've ever bothered attempting, got no mates left, not that there were many to begin with, I'm increasingly paralyzed by anxieties and insecurities and I have £1.99 in my bank account. Needless to say I'm unemployed too. I'm just sort of over the whole "trying to sort things out" shit, because I can't and I won't and who even cares if I do?
>> No. 27741 Anonymous
13th November 2018
Tuesday 1:59 pm
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Been to visit the family this weekend. Within 5 minutes of arriving they commented on my weight loss (I used to be obese, now I am just overweight), which is fair enough, but they made me weigh myself so they could see how much I weigh, which made me uncomfortable. Then every meal I ate over the weekend they'd be saying stuff like "careful with that, you might get back to 20 stone again" and shit like that. It's just unnecessary and I don't see why they did it. I guess they think it's banter, but it is something I'm quite sensitive about (and something which is difficult to control considering I'm on two medications that cause weight gain).
>> No. 27742 Anonymous
13th November 2018
Tuesday 2:14 pm
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>>27741
>they made me weigh myself

How does this happen? Next time you tell them to fuck off at this point. If talking you into weighing yourself is just banter then so is changing the subject to Auntie Sheila's drinking or cousin Dave's affair or whatever. I don't expect it to go well but if this is what you have to put up with you have nothing to lose.
>> No. 27743 Anonymous
13th November 2018
Tuesday 5:25 pm
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It bothers me slightly that even though I barely know her yet I'll never be able to listen to that song again for the rest of my life without thinking of her, and that even though we haven't broken up yet I can feel it coming in the missing words between the beats of her sentences.
>> No. 27744 Anonymous
13th November 2018
Tuesday 6:44 pm
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>>27743

Trust me, it won't be forever. Time heals all wounds.
>> No. 27745 Anonymous
13th November 2018
Tuesday 7:29 pm
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>>27744

Without begging for sympathy, there are girls from 15+ years ago that I still remember when I hear a song, or it's a certain month, or I remember a certain book, or author, or any of a dozen other things. I think it's just the way I'm wired.

If the third world war doesn't happen first, I'll be dieing alone in some shitty furnished flat, and this song will come on on the "golden oldies" radio station I leave on to keep the loneliness at bay, and I will remember her.
>> No. 27746 Anonymous
13th November 2018
Tuesday 7:45 pm
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>>27745
Better put in the effort to make the relationship work, then. That way when the song comes on, you can call her into the room to dance to it with you.
>> No. 27765 Anonymous
21st November 2018
Wednesday 10:16 am
27765 No memes replies please we're british.
My girlfriend does my fucking head in. She'll insist that we have to do something that I don't really want to, and then gets all stroppy and down when she realises I don't enjoy the thing we are doing, and I’m only doing it for her benefit. This makes me feel like shit, but I can't really do anything because I feel like an arsehole if I tell her 'I am already doing the thing, to make you happy! It is unrealistically entitled of you to expect me to have to like it!' so I just keep my mouth shut, then she gets upset because I've closed off.

She later plays history revisionist that I just shut down for no reason, and acts like the part where she was shitty because I doing the thing for her but didn’t like it wasn’t the cause. She’ll then tell me something like she can't deal with my emotional yo-yoing so she has to distance herself from me right now and doesn't want to talk about it. This frustrates me more, I want to respect her decision but things don’t get resolved if you just avoid them and I can’t live like that.

I didn't realise how bad she affected me till I went on holiday for a week without her and when I came back she insisted we watch 'the secret life of pets' a film she had been mentioning we should watch together since before I left (she had already watched it previously which is why she had the idea I should watch it), about 20 minutes in she was look for approval of how good it was and she could see from my unenthused reaction I wasn't impressed. Paused the film to get upset. I realise what she was looking for was validation in her choices, but I can’t force myself to like a thing. It took her an hour to drain all of the positive energy I had felt from the holiday, and force me into a position where I felt I couldn’t express myself honestly to her.

I'm not an easily brought down person, my flight that day had been delayed for 4 hours, and 2 nights before I had been lost on a mountain side in the dark and none of it affected me in fact I frame it positively as 'well that's what makes it interesting'. I really don't know what the coping strategy for me is with her, and it is really affecting me negatively. Do I just have to learn not to give a fuck about her feelings if she gets moody about these things? Because that seems like a shitty life lesson, and not the sort of person I want to be.
>> No. 27766 Anonymous
21st November 2018
Wednesday 11:48 am
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>>27765

Don't try to reason with unreasonable people. Don't spend time with people who make you miserable.
>> No. 27767 Anonymous
21st November 2018
Wednesday 11:51 am
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>>27765
It sounds like you’re a surrogate father figure and she doesn’t look after her mental health all that well. What tou’re decribing is crippling insecurity and aelf-esteem issues.

You can’t love someone unless you love yourself, because that person simply becomes a crutch who loves you so you don’t have to. She is leaning heavily on that crutch. The only way to boost her while being honest is to be brutally honest, but show her much you enjoy her conpany and her when you’re doing something you both enjoy. Be gushing, even. When she gets moody because you’ve said you don’t like something, tell her that “we don’t have to like everything the other person likes. Me not liking a thing doesn’t invalidate your opinion if it.” Change the narrative surrounding her behaviour and use her obvious feelings of parental expectation for you to guide her out of the woods.
>> No. 27768 Anonymous
21st November 2018
Wednesday 12:34 pm
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>>27766

We are all unreasonable at one time or another, and we are all capible of making each other miserable. On the scale of things there are worse people to be with, I find 90% of people too boring to maintain more than 5 mins of conversation with, and probably 95+% of people physically unattractive. I'm not going to reject someone who I like the first time I find an issue my standard kit of resolution tools don't work with, I'd much rather try a new tool first.

>>27767

>It sounds like you’re a surrogate father figure and she doesn’t look after her mental health all that well. What tou’re decribing is crippling insecurity and aelf-esteem issues.


I'm not sure I agree fully with your assesment, bits and pieces are accurate, but I appriciate your attempt to be constructive, even if it is heavily laced with weird stuff about daddy issues.

Probably my biggest issue is I feel like I can't tell her how I feel without feeling like I am telling her off for being upset. And if I am wholey honest it really pisses me off when she does this, so I feel like if I speak my mind I am not going to be nice about it.
>> No. 27769 Anonymous
21st November 2018
Wednesday 12:43 pm
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>>27768

Seems like you're just trying to justify still being with her. You just told us yourself that you were much happier being away from her.

If you feel like you can't be honest with your partner because the truth upsets them, then either you need to just accept you have to lie to your partner to make them happy, or you need to get used to upsetting them.

I don't think there's anything you can do in terms of reframing your actions or trying a new approach, if she'll get upset at something like you passively watching a film and not liking it as much as her. What else can you do there, are you willing to perfect a fake smile you have to wear with her? Doesn't seem like a healthy thing to have to do in a relationship.
>> No. 27770 Anonymous
21st November 2018
Wednesday 1:07 pm
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>>27765
>My girlfriend does my fucking head in.

Dump her? Maybe your lives are so intertwined that it'd be a big hastle undoing all that and moving out and what have you, but, you'd never have to feel emotionally beat up for not liking a daft film again. Other than that I'd suggest being honest with and if that's not going to work then I refer you back to my opening statements on this matter.
>> No. 27771 Anonymous
21st November 2018
Wednesday 1:37 pm
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>>27769
>Seems like you're just trying to justify still being with her. You just told us yourself that you were much happier being away from her.

I only seem that way, because the first bloody instict of anyone online when you ask them for relationship advice seems to be 'dump them', relationships are more complex and subtle than a binary of dating and not dating, and if there is a problem get rid of them.

>>27770
I'm currently trying be honest with her, if nothing else it is cathartic for me
>> No. 27772 Anonymous
21st November 2018
Wednesday 1:44 pm
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>>27771

>I only seem that way, because the first bloody instict of anyone online when you ask them for relationship advice seems to be 'dump them

True or not, I don't see a better solution when your question is "I'm much happier when my girlfriend isn't around, what should I do?"
>> No. 27773 Anonymous
21st November 2018
Wednesday 3:15 pm
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>>27768

What exactly is weird about a woman going out with a guy that embodies qualities she admires? What I’m describing isn’t the opposite of an Oedipus complex.

If you think she isn’t with you because she has father issues, based on what you’ve described, you’re incredibly naive. It doesn’t mean she wants to fuck her Dad, simpky that he was clearly absent emotionally and she projects that insecurity onto you who is the stable male influence in her life.
>> No. 27774 Anonymous
21st November 2018
Wednesday 3:24 pm
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>>27765

I think you're dating my ex.

Get rid if her, it won't last, you can't get someone to change when their emotional insecurity causes them to need to blackmail and manipulate you. You'll always be the bad guy. It's not worth the bother.
>> No. 27775 Anonymous
21st November 2018
Wednesday 3:31 pm
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>>27765
>Do I just have to learn not to give a fuck about her feelings if she gets moody about these things?
Have you tried figuring out what she enjoys about these things you hate so much and looking at them from her perspective? Learning how to enjoy them the same way she does? That, and just taking pleasure in the fact that they make her happy. Doesn't it make you smile to see her smile?
>> No. 27776 Anonymous
21st November 2018
Wednesday 3:36 pm
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>>27775

This seems like a good approach but if she's getting annoyed that he doesn't 'get' something then that just seems odd to me. My girlfriend watches awful reality TV, but when I tell her it's shite, she doesn't freak out, she shrugs and continues watching it, because she's an adult who is capable of enjoying something without looking for approval for their taste.
>> No. 27777 Anonymous
21st November 2018
Wednesday 3:44 pm
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>>27776

You could see that as just the reverse of what I said; it upsets her that he's not enjoying himself. She can feel bad for failing to make him happy, that's not so alien. No doubt there's another side to the story because there always is, so I'm just trying to suggest something that involves him putting in some effort to make it work. Which, I think, is the sort of thing he might be open to considering how he's reacted to all the Freudian stuff so far.
>> No. 27778 Anonymous
22nd November 2018
Thursday 5:20 am
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>>27777
"I just want you to be happy" are words used to justify all kinds of both overt and covert controlling behaviours. If she expects him to cater to her unreasonable expectations and blames him for the irrational emotions she is experiencing but not dealing with then advising him to try harder to please her will only make things worse.
>> No. 27779 Anonymous
22nd November 2018
Thursday 7:21 am
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>>27777

Her reaction is massively counter-productive though, and obviously so. If someone isn't enjoying themselves, having a massive teary isn't going to help matters. At best, that behaviour reflects a lack of maturity and weak interpersonal skills; at worst it's indicative of controlling and manipulative behaviour, as >>27778 suggests.

I might be old-fashioned or just plain boring, but I think that all good relationships are based on the ability to productively manage conflict. You need a mechanism for burying the hatchet and growing as a couple, whether that's a mature conversation or a screaming row followed by passionate make-up sex. If you don't have that, your relationship will die by a thousand cuts.
>> No. 27780 Anonymous
25th November 2018
Sunday 4:27 pm
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I've just found out that my stepdad's brother has died. I know I'm supposed to do something, but I've got no idea what. I'm not particularly close to my stepdad and I only met his brother a couple of times. In all honesty I don't really give a shit, but I don't want to seem like a heartless bastard. I think I'm going to practice my sad face in the bathroom mirror. What are some good platitudes for a time like this?
>> No. 27781 Anonymous
25th November 2018
Sunday 4:31 pm
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>>27780
Just a quick 'sorry for your loss, i give a toss'
>> No. 27782 Anonymous
25th November 2018
Sunday 4:46 pm
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>>27780

"Sorry for you loss, let me know if there's anything I can do" is about right.

Send a bereavement card too, old people like that sort of thing.
>> No. 27783 Anonymous
25th November 2018
Sunday 4:48 pm
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>>27780
I think a simple "I'm sorry to hear about your loss" covers everything in those situations.
>> No. 27784 Anonymous
25th November 2018
Sunday 4:52 pm
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>>27780
>What are some good platitudes for a time like this?

Talk about 'being there for him' 'if there is anything he needs' if you want to be actually sincere try asking him how he feels and discussing it with him. Remember these things aren't all about grief and wallowing, sometimes making sure time goes on and people have other things going on in their life is important. Last time one of my mates dad's died and went to cancel on a board game meet up we had been planing for months I told him

"you have my dearest sympath. I can't really offer any kind of familarity for your situation but know that (and I'm sure I speak for everyone here) we care about you, and your families well being. I think we will probably play something else instead, if you feel like you need a break from your grief over the weekend there will be a space at the gaming table for you."
>> No. 27785 Anonymous
25th November 2018
Sunday 6:59 pm
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>>27782
Second this, a card is usually appropriate for people of that generation. Offer to take him out to something he enjoys like the football or just a pub lunch, getting out and about can be hard and people who are grieving don't often ask so actively making it happen rather than just saying "if you need me I'm here" doesn't often get people coming to you (but you should obviously still say that too like >>27784.)
>> No. 27786 Anonymous
25th November 2018
Sunday 11:03 pm
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>>27784
>I think we will probably play something else instead
I know you meant you were going to play something that needed a set number of players, but I first read that thinking you were planning on playing a game called Kill Your Dad or something.
>> No. 27788 Anonymous
28th November 2018
Wednesday 10:21 am
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If mental health is supposed to be getting the same level of treatment as physical health why in the name of heck do they keep offering me talking therapy?
>> No. 27789 Anonymous
28th November 2018
Wednesday 10:36 am
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>>27788

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7CBo6Nbwv68
>> No. 27793 Anonymous
29th November 2018
Thursday 5:23 am
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I've realised stimulants often make me calmer and even tired. Friends have joked I'm the only person they've ever seen have a nap right after a line of coke or bombing speed. I usually have espresso to help me sleep, too. The internet seems to think it's because I have undiagnosed adhd, though I can imagine a Gp's reaction to a 30 odd year old bloke coming in with that one.
>> No. 27794 Anonymous
29th November 2018
Thursday 6:22 am
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>>27793

>though I can imagine a Gp's reaction to a 30 odd year old bloke coming in with that one.

Attitudes vary; my local NHS trust has a dedicated adult ADHD service.
>> No. 27795 Anonymous
29th November 2018
Thursday 7:20 am
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>>27788

Talking therapy works.
>> No. 27796 Anonymous
29th November 2018
Thursday 10:07 am
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>>27788

This reads like a viz letter bollocks. What would make you feel like it was the same level of treatment some surgery? a lobotomy perhaps, maybe some electroshock therapy?
>> No. 27797 Anonymous
29th November 2018
Thursday 12:54 pm
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>>27796

Psychosurgery and electroshock therapy work, they just have horrible side effects that you want to avoid if at all possible. It turns out that having a bit of your brain burned out or having electrically-induced seizures twice a week for months is somewhat unpleasant.
>> No. 27798 Anonymous
29th November 2018
Thursday 4:03 pm
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>>27797

Do you think talking therapy is going to damage you then?
>> No. 27799 Anonymous
29th November 2018
Thursday 4:48 pm
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>>27796
I would like a lobotomy.
>> No. 27800 Anonymous
29th November 2018
Thursday 6:10 pm
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>>27799

Nobody will give you a lobotomy any more. You might, might get an anterior cingulotomy if your illness is life-threatening and every other treatment option has been tried and failed. Only three patients received that treatment in England and Wales in 2016. It's the last resort of last resorts, for good reason.

Do the therapy, give it your best effort and get back to us if it doesn't work.
>> No. 27815 Anonymous
29th November 2018
Thursday 7:24 pm
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>>27795

Talk therapy helps me so much more than I imagined possible. I go in once a week feeling like I've got the weight of the world on my shoulders and I come out feeling like I can get back up off the canvas and go again.

I would say that overall it's probably helped me more than the psychiatry (piles of pills) has.
>> No. 27830 Anonymous
30th November 2018
Friday 11:57 pm
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>>27795>>27796
But I want and need someone to sit down with my and help me fix the pathetic, grey, smudge my life has been for the last several years. An hour long pep talk doesn't help me at all, maybe I feel better for that day, but it doesn't last any longer. I often end up feeling guilty because my therapist is just another person I've let down. As for pills I've tried them for patches and they were horrible, my life was better at that time, but there were many other factors that helped with that at the time. Look how long it's taken me to build up the energy to reply to these two posts for goodness sake?

I just want someone to help me. Practically, physically, help me, but I have no one to call on for that kind of thing so I just rattle around in my increasingly demented brain. I can't even send an email or get myself a drink of water some days, never mind fix up my CV or apply for an apprenticeship. Maybe I'm just a thicko with a broader than average vocabulary after all. However even if that's the case I'm still massively underperforming.

I wish I wasn't such a vain, cowardly, prick, because I'd either have killed myself or never have gotten to the point where I constantly thought about killing myself.
>> No. 27831 Anonymous
1st December 2018
Saturday 1:34 am
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>>27830

Give the MIND infoline a call on 0300 123 3393 during office hours. They can tell you what support is available in your area.

The hard truth is that nobody is going to knock on your door and offer to fix all your problems. You can get better, but you'll have to do a fair bit of the legwork yourself. That's just the way it is right now. Every week, every day, every hour and every minute offers you a choice - are you going to try? Are you going to do something that might make your life a tiny bit better? Are you going to stick at something even though you don't feel like it? Are you going to ignore your negative thoughts and feelings and just crack on? It's your choice.
>> No. 27832 Anonymous
3rd December 2018
Monday 9:17 pm
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I can't remember the last time I had a 'good' day.
>> No. 27833 Anonymous
4th December 2018
Tuesday 3:04 pm
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Editing my CV made me so nervous I now feel to sweaty to leave the house, but I lack the 20 pence needed to print it off at the library anyway, so who fucking cares.

>>27832
Me neither.

>>27831
I don't even have a phone though, I'm just knackered from every conceivable angle. From the lies I've told to the out-of-the-blue misfortunes, everything's gone to hell.
>> No. 27834 Anonymous
4th December 2018
Tuesday 11:19 pm
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>>27832
And they just keep getting worse.

I can't go anywhere, do anything, or tell anyone though. Scared of what will happen if I keep it all bottled up.

All I want to do is run far away, but I can't.
>> No. 27835 Anonymous
10th December 2018
Monday 1:15 pm
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>>23560
Going to kill myself tonight when my partner goes out. Crisis team told me to watch a comedy film and have a bath. Think I'll just OD.
>> No. 27836 Anonymous
10th December 2018
Monday 1:37 pm
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>>27835

This seems like a cry for help otherwise you wouldn't have mentioned it. whats up?
>> No. 27837 Anonymous
11th December 2018
Tuesday 7:01 pm
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My depression is right on top of me today. I forced myself to go out and go to a salsa class instead of wallowing in bed. Now I'm dressed up nice in a bar waiting for it to start and feeling worse and wishing I was wallowing in bed.
>> No. 27838 Anonymous
12th December 2018
Wednesday 7:16 am
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>>27837

Did you feel any better after you'd done it?
>> No. 27839 Anonymous
12th December 2018
Wednesday 8:16 am
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>>27838

No I just felt progressively worse and cancelled at the last minute and took a long slow walk home. I don't think it would have helped if I stayed. Yesterday i was in a mood where it was hard to give a shit or focus on anything. I felt like at any moment I'd just give up entirely and collapse in the street and just stay there. When I got home I had a nice wallow in bed till I passed out.

Thanks for asking, it was thoughtful of you.
>> No. 27840 Anonymous
12th December 2018
Wednesday 1:45 pm
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>>27839
Can I suggest trying a different hobby? All the people I've ever met who have taken salsa classes have been depressing to be around for one reason or another. It's the go-to thing for sad people for some reason and I can't imagine that's a good energy for you.
>> No. 27841 Anonymous
12th December 2018
Wednesday 3:08 pm
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>>27840
>Can I suggest trying a different hobby? All the people I've ever met who have taken salsa classes have been depressing to be around for one reason or another. It's the go-to thing for sad people for some reason and I can't imagine that's a good energy for you.

I don't think the class had anything to do with it to be honest, it was just my state of mind yesterday. There is definitely the slight whiff of despair among a few of the men, for me it is a pick me up because I get to meet people I'd quite like to knob.

I was essentially following the logic that when you feel like shit from depression you should try push yourself out of it and be active, it just failed this time.

>Can I suggest trying a different hobby?

I do lots of other hobbies and have tried more, do you have anything in mind that can satisfy my need for exercise and socialising with the opposite sex midweek?
>> No. 27842 Anonymous
12th December 2018
Wednesday 4:41 pm
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>>27841
> I do lots of other hobbies and have tried more, do you have anything in mind that can satisfy my need for exercise and socialising with the opposite sex midweek?

Dogging. Plenty of fresh air, too.
>> No. 27843 Anonymous
12th December 2018
Wednesday 4:45 pm
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>>27841

Bouldering and then climbing are good ones. It's a good workout (for getting a bit of a buzz on from exercise, not for getting built) and the nature of climbing gives you a goal to work towards either in the space of one session or over a few weeks/months. It's quite fun too.
>> No. 27844 Anonymous
12th December 2018
Wednesday 5:14 pm
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>>27842
How do you start? It always seemed more like an urban legend to me than anything.

>>27843

I already do it, but thanks for the suggestion all the same.
>> No. 27845 Anonymous
12th December 2018
Wednesday 11:38 pm
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All that the girl I'm seeing seems to do is have anxiety attacks, avoid trying new things because she has no confidence in herself, cry in her room and talk to nobody aside from one or two people she knew from school. She doesn't try to impose any of this on me but because it is so all consuming it's all I hear about.
I can't think of much to do to distract her or make her feel better and I can't really help at all.
I've been in similar emotional states in the past that I eventually dragged myself out of, but I got about no sympathy from any of the girls I met then so I'm going to give myself at least a bit of credit here.

She's currently at university but from the sounds of things she's probably going to drop out, which will land her right back at home which would be terrible as her parents are likely the cause of this.

I just thought she was shy during the summer, something I could deal with, but it's mostly come to light while we've both been away studying. Which is a problem as I'm not enjoying being long distance, and we don't have that much in common. The problem is I don't want to break the poor girl by breaking up with her but it's going to happen at some point.
>> No. 27846 Anonymous
13th December 2018
Thursday 12:09 am
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>>27845
I suspect that most of the responses you're going to get from here on in are to say you end it sooner rather than later. You're not doing anyone any favours by prolonging a situation that you can't sustain and is causing you grief.
>> No. 27847 Anonymous
13th December 2018
Thursday 12:25 am
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>>27845

It sounds like she really could do with a hobby.
>> No. 27848 Anonymous
13th December 2018
Thursday 3:39 am
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>>27845
What part of this strikes you as "minor", it seems intense. Make a new thread, lad. I sometimes ignore this thread, because it's a sounding board where you can get things off your chest, probably not the best place to ask for advice for a serious issue, as it might get lost in a few posts, or threaten suicide (you know who you are), but I digress.
>> No. 27849 Anonymous
13th December 2018
Thursday 7:16 am
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>>27845
Be honest with her that you think she is living an unhealthy life and encourage her to seek treatment. Chances are she will be too anxious to see a doctor, so then you can say she is refusing to help herself and you can break up with her.
>> No. 27850 Anonymous
15th December 2018
Saturday 1:03 am
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I'm definitely going a bit weird.
>> No. 27851 Anonymous
15th December 2018
Saturday 1:14 am
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>>27850
Same. I haven't listened to dubstep in months. It's all just jazz, B.B King, classical music and Joe Bonamassa.
>> No. 27852 Anonymous
15th December 2018
Saturday 11:37 am
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>>27851
I sort of meant that my sense of empathy seems to be here one day and gone the next, possibly because of how long I've spent shut off from the world, and that that makes me uncomfortable, but not much.

Your thing is odd too.
>> No. 27853 Anonymous
15th December 2018
Saturday 4:03 pm
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>>27851

That's called age m8. Sorry.
>> No. 27860 Anonymous
21st December 2018
Friday 2:17 am
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If it weren't for the pangs of anxiety in my chest, I could almost be said to be... no, I'm definitely not happy, but I'm a little bit chipper. Kind of.
>> No. 27861 Anonymous
22nd December 2018
Saturday 9:06 am
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Last night I had a recurring nightmare, it involved fighting the same shapeshifting monster in different settings when I defeated them in one setting I 'woke up' in the next, but the worst reality of the all was the last one the one where I was actually awake.

Having a monster to fight gave me a meaning and purpose even if it was fucking terrifying something for my soul to focus on, my goalless real life I feel emasculated, there are no monsters and everything just gets slowly worse from entropy and my life is filled with endless chores is the worst nightmare of all. I hate what I've become.
>> No. 27862 Anonymous
22nd December 2018
Saturday 1:40 pm
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>>27861

You can pretend that there is a monster somewhere, so you can devote your life to fight it. It works better when the monster does not exist and so it cannot harm you in your "good fight". You can become an SJW, a political activist, an activist for LGBTPAQBRRAP+ rights, join a Linux community or Scientology, the sky is the limit. Our society has many fake ideals to stave off the horror of a meaningless existence.
>> No. 27863 Anonymous
22nd December 2018
Saturday 3:11 pm
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>>27862

The cure sounds worse than the disease.
>> No. 27864 Anonymous
22nd December 2018
Saturday 3:28 pm
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>>27861

I'm not a Christian, but I have a sincere love of Gospel music and a deep affinity with the African American church. They really do see themselves as being at war with a shapeshifting monster - the devil. The world is full of hardship and cruelty, especially if you're a black American; they're fighting the good fight against those indignities, with god on their side. It's a mindset that allowed them to survive through slavery and Jim Crow and a succession of transparently racist presidents over the years. I think that the literal belief is essentially risible, but the metaphor is rather beautiful.

If your life feels empty and goalless, do something about it. Get off your arse and do something kind for someone who is suffering. Take up the sword of compassion and become a warrior against the monster of indifference. Ring up your local food bank or homeless shelter or hospice and ask them if they need volunteers. You'll feel better for it, I promise.

https://do-it.org/opportunities/search
>> No. 27889 Anonymous
29th December 2018
Saturday 3:26 am
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Of you lads who are married, or who intend on marrying; without wanting to seem suffering Sour Grapes I do hope that the love stays alive, because this divorce process had suddenly become quite harrowing.

Despite the fact that I initiated this divorce, despite the fact that I would do everything exactly the same way again; going through the flat I'm about to give up, the last flat we shared together, knowing that I'll be moved out within a week, splitting everything into piles of hers and mine. Well, it's been pretty fucking miserable.
>> No. 27890 Anonymous
29th December 2018
Saturday 12:44 pm
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>>27889

Sounds painful and difficult, I don't think there is an easy way to do these things, keep on slugging through, you have my sympathy.

I have a friend who avoided breaking up for years because they didn't want 'the hassel' I couldn't live like that.
>> No. 27894 Anonymous
30th December 2018
Sunday 6:35 am
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>>27832
Well, today was the first actual 'good' day. Every light was green on the way to work, it was a relaxed shift, and I got out bang on time meaning that I missed the beginnings of rush hour (getting out at 6:00 vs even 6:05 makes a huge difference), and am now at home having a post work beverage.

May be of little coincidence that I have had basically no social interactions outside of work stuff.
>> No. 27895 Anonymous
30th December 2018
Sunday 6:36 am
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Also, just noticed >>27835 below my original post.

Are you still with us, lad?
>> No. 28018 Anonymous
29th January 2019
Tuesday 12:31 pm
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Don't mean to brag, but it only took me five hours to leave my blanket tent this morning.
>> No. 28019 Anonymous
29th January 2019
Tuesday 6:40 pm
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>>27895
Yeah spoke to the Samaritans who were far more useful than the crisis team who were meant to support me. Still in a bad place, still have the thoughts of ending it, but too many things to live for to do it at the moment.
>> No. 28020 Anonymous
30th January 2019
Wednesday 1:27 pm
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>>28019

Glad to see you checked in lad, but make it known you are still alive a little quicker next time. I assumed the worst when you never posted again.
>> No. 28022 Anonymous
31st January 2019
Thursday 8:42 pm
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Managed to get dumped by the missus last night, apparently she didn't get the hint that she was in the process of being dumped herself. Either that or she just wanted to get the last word in. In either case I couldn't be arsed to force the issue.

[X] Mental Slag Avoided
>> No. 28023 Anonymous
1st February 2019
Friday 10:22 am
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>>28022

If it was coming, just remember it's not a competition and any bad feelings you have can be channeled through a life well lived.

It sucks at first, but then you realise how much better it is for you.

Hope you're alright lad.
>> No. 28025 Anonymous
1st February 2019
Friday 12:50 pm
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Trying = Failure
>> No. 28030 Anonymous
4th February 2019
Monday 12:36 pm
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I think I'm suffering from getting old.

I've begun getting freaked out by people in their early 20s being quoted on their opinions on things by the media, as if they could possibly have a deep enough understanding of the world to form a balanced opinion.

That isn't to rob away from their abblity to do things and to learn. But you could only possibly have exposure to one walk of life at that point, so any view they hold is essentially that of a zealot that has never been on the other side of the fence. I don't doubt their capacity for empathy, but the population as a whole is pretty crap at it, at least as time moves on some of get it beaten into them by having changes of circumstances.

Maybe I just hate celebrity culture now that I'm past the age of being 'discovered' and people listening to me.

Also the way the passage time is treated freaks me out now, anything less than 3 years feels like it only just happened, but young people treat 6 months like it was an aeon ago.
>> No. 28031 Anonymous
4th February 2019
Monday 12:45 pm
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>>28030

You say that as if the majority of old people don't also only have a narrow scope of life experiences.

My grandad's 87 but even when abroad he's barely seen the outside of a RAF base or an english resort, or learned anything outside of his own class or community. There are certainly 20 year olds that know more about other cultures than him, and yes, the internet helps with that too.
>> No. 28033 Anonymous
4th February 2019
Monday 1:14 pm
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>>28031

>You say that as if the majority of old people don't also only have a narrow scope of life experiences.

Yes I do, Pure time alone must increase the level of exposure you have. You have more knowlege today then you did yesterday, you aren't going to turn dumber. I'm willing to believe there are massive sidelines in his life you have never heard of that help shape his view.

>and yes, the internet helps with that too.

The fact that you think that is representitive of anything almost proves my point. I don't deny the value to the abblity to access obscure text, but most of the time you need to dig to find them anyweay, I don't think it is much more helpful for that then life was before it. Part of what I'm talking about here is to walk a mile in another mans shoes there really is no way following the latest reddit or twitter trend, could replace that. The internet is for the most part a giant circle jerks that you couldn't possibly learn anything the general zeitgeist doesn't already believe in, from.
>> No. 28034 Anonymous
4th February 2019
Monday 1:32 pm
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>>28033

Reference obscure texts? Following twitter and reddit trends? What about realising that some of the people you speak to every day live in other countries? Sometimes they live places like the ones that get posted to /news/ for being invaded by Russia. Or maybe you played video games with someone who was in Iraq when the US invaded. These things happen a lot more with the Internet than they do without it.
>> No. 28035 Anonymous
4th February 2019
Monday 2:02 pm
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>>28033

>Pure time alone must increase the level of exposure you have. You have more knowlege today then you did yesterday, you aren't going to turn dumber.

Not all knowledge is true. My nan "knows" all sorts of bullshit; she's getting stupider by the day, because she has an incredibly narrow set of life experiences and she feeds herself a constant diet of propaganda from the Express and various far-right Facebook groups. She had the same job at the same company for her entire working life, she's lived in the same house since 1971 and I don't think she has left her home town since the early 80s. She still thinks that Spain is under fascist rule. She has never actually had a conversation with a Pole or a Romanian or a eskimo, but she has very strong opinions about them. I'd be very confident that the average teenage Londoner has a better understanding of the world than she does.

Also this:



Also there's a "d" in knowledge.
>> No. 28036 Anonymous
4th February 2019
Monday 2:15 pm
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>>28035
>She still thinks that Spain is under fascist rule

She's not entirely wrong on that front.
>> No. 28039 Anonymous
4th February 2019
Monday 2:39 pm
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Fine you win, You know more at 20 than you will at 30,40,50 or 60, because your grandparents are senile.
>> No. 28040 Anonymous
4th February 2019
Monday 3:26 pm
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>>28039

You didn't listen to a word we said, which does go some way to explaining why old people don't learn things.
>> No. 28041 Anonymous
4th February 2019
Monday 4:08 pm
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>>28040

I read it all, it just wasn't a convincing argument, unless you are 20 something and think that the idea that older people have a better understanding of the world is some sort of attack.
>> No. 28042 Anonymous
4th February 2019
Monday 4:44 pm
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>>28041

Age is basically irrelevant; what matters is the amount of time and effort you invest in becoming better informed. You don't get magically good at chess just by being old, you get good at chess by practice and study. It's the same with general knowledge or wisdom - you don't passively absorb it, you have to seek it out. A lot of people don't actively seek out new experiences and new knowledge; some people actively make themselves less informed by spending a lot of time reading, listening to and engaging in bigoted misinformation. You might have spent a lot of time on the planet, but you could spend almost none of that time becoming better informed and a lot of that time filling your head with falsehoods.

Someone who knows a lot at 20 will probably know more at 60; someone who knows fuck all at 20 will probably know even less at 60.
>> No. 28043 Anonymous
4th February 2019
Monday 5:04 pm
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>>28042
I agree that not everyone will improve at as fast of rate, but I don't think it is possible to know 'a lot' at 20 I think it is hubris to assume one could. You might very well have collected facts, but you would lack the practical experience to know the difference between the theoretical/ideological and the reality of the hands on, that knowledge simply can't be rushed. You have essentially only walked one path, age gives the ability to have walked multiple paths.
>> No. 28044 Anonymous
4th February 2019
Monday 5:24 pm
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>>28043

Two words: Patrick Collison. He was a millionaire by 19, a billionaire by 25 and is an astonishingly deep, rounded and wise thinker. The jammy bastard just figured it all out in his teens. He's only 30, but he's already an elder statesman in the tech industry. I am absolutely certain that I will never be as smart as a 17-year-old Patrick Collison, even if I live to be 200.
>> No. 28045 Anonymous
4th February 2019
Monday 6:08 pm
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>>28043

One of the things I learned at 30 is that there are plenty of 20 year olds who know more than me. That's life.
>> No. 28046 Anonymous
4th February 2019
Monday 6:23 pm
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>>28044
>The jammy bastard just figured it all out in his teens
He's no Brandenn E. Bremmer.
>> No. 28047 Anonymous
4th February 2019
Monday 6:40 pm
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>>28044
>Patrick Collison

What? The Guardian journalist who's constantly trying to pit the young against the old?
>> No. 28048 Anonymous
4th February 2019
Monday 6:45 pm
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>>28047>>28044
He looks like Linus from Linus Tech Tips but in a wig.
>> No. 28049 Anonymous
4th February 2019
Monday 7:23 pm
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>>28047

You're thinking of Patrick Collinson.

>>28046

Too soon.
>> No. 28050 Anonymous
5th February 2019
Tuesday 3:40 pm
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>>28030
> Also the way the passage time is treated freaks me out now, anything less than 3 years feels like it only just happened, but young people treat 6 months like it was an aeon ago.
I concur.
I still can't quite get to grips that 2009 was 10 years ago, 2006 was 13 years ago.
A wee lass I saw crying whilst on baby scales in 2000 is fit looking bird now of shaggable age.
>> No. 28051 Anonymous
5th February 2019
Tuesday 11:36 pm
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>>28050
It's still not too late to spend time with your niece.
>> No. 28056 Anonymous
6th February 2019
Wednesday 11:19 am
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>>28051
No idea what you're onto mate. I don't have any nieces.
>> No. 28059 Anonymous
6th February 2019
Wednesday 2:37 pm
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>>28056

He was making a joke, lad.
>> No. 28100 Anonymous
10th February 2019
Sunday 7:50 pm
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Just when things were starting to look up, even just a little, life reminded me with the force of a steel-toecapped boot to the face that I'm not allowed to be happy, and not being in a constant state of unbearable stress and self-loathing is a luxury only afforded to other people.

Time to swallow a bottle of wine and properly solidify the hate.
>> No. 28115 Anonymous
10th February 2019
Sunday 11:57 pm
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>>28100

Do you want to talk about it mate?
>> No. 28117 Anonymous
11th February 2019
Monday 2:10 am
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>>28100
Glad to have you on board. Let's fly this thing into a tower once I've stopped crying enough to see what I'm doing.
>> No. 28119 Anonymous
11th February 2019
Monday 6:32 pm
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>>28115
When writing about it, it will sound so inconsequential, but it has got me completely fucking ruined. I think it was more a straw/camel situation.

I caused my dad to get flashed by a camera on the motorway for driving under a red X lane - I told him to stay over and he did. I got confused by an NSL sign at the gantry before.

I know it sounds like nothing but for some reason I feel absolutely fucking destroyed - partially because I caused somebody else to get a potential fine of £100 and 3 points (yes, I know he was the one driving and could ignore me), but I think it was just the cherry on top of an exhausting year of constant stress, rejection, money and other personal problems.

It was finally getting wrapped up and I was planning a small break away and stuff and now there's this. It just feels like I can't catch a fucking break and I just want it all to end because I'm so fucking tired of worrying and stressing and worrying and it just doesn't fucking END. I hate that I can't deal with it properly.

I hate that feel a need to hurt myself in some way - not fatally or seriously (I'm too much of a fucking pathetic cunt to ever do something like that) - just to relieve some of this fucking unbearable pressure. I hate that I few people to talk to about this, and nowhere to run or hide.

I had so much to do today and I could barely bring myself to even make excuses for the fact I can't even bear to go outside. It's embarrassing.

Christ, I'm a fucking waste of space. I tried phoning the doctor about it but of course they have no appointments for over a month, and even then it'd be a referral onto a never-ending waiting list.
>> No. 28120 Anonymous
11th February 2019
Monday 7:11 pm
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>>28119

If you have a license take the points for him and be done with it.
>> No. 28121 Anonymous
11th February 2019
Monday 7:18 pm
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>>28120
I do, but I wasn't driving, nor am I insured on his car. Surely that would be a lot more serious.
>> No. 28123 Anonymous
11th February 2019
Monday 10:52 pm
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>>28121
You could not be a backseat driver in future. Let the man drive and then his points will be his own burden.

You've got what sounds like a chronic victim complex, not everything is your fault. Counselling is the way forward there. There is tonnes of counselling services outwith the NHS that are free and will be quicker to get assessed by.
>> No. 28125 Anonymous
12th February 2019
Tuesday 1:11 am
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>>28121
Yes, you'd be risking punishment for those offences, your father would be on the hook for letting you drive without insurance, and if the whole thing unravels you could both end up in prison for perverting.

Probably best to let him be a bit annoyed about it all things considered.
>> No. 28126 Anonymous
12th February 2019
Tuesday 1:15 am
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>>28125
Members of Parliament are going to their cold, hard, beds tonight, afraid of the people around them, because they decided to lie about something as "innocent" as which person was driving. It isn't worth it. Ever.
>> No. 28127 Anonymous
12th February 2019
Tuesday 4:17 am
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>>28126
I don't know, Fiona Onasanya seems to believe she has been wrongly punished and that she'll have some form of biblical redemption arc where she ultimately ends up in a much more successful position due to her unjust suffering.

It wouldn't surprise me if she's in her prison bed drafting her victory speech outside of No. 10.
>> No. 28130 Anonymous
12th February 2019
Tuesday 12:28 pm
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I woke up today fully intending to do plenty of important business but I just feel as low as a stinky smear of shoe scraping. It frustrates me so much that I'm like this, and worse at times. It's as though everything I do takes four times longer and several times the effort it should, but I doubt I'm living well into my three-hundred's to compensate.
>> No. 28131 Anonymous
12th February 2019
Tuesday 2:54 pm
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I've been ill for a week and in fairly constant pain. I'm beginning to wonder if I need medical treatment but my stoic nature means I am not getting the attention I need, as I calmly explain myself rather than barking like a seal when in agony so doctors presume it can't be that bad.
>> No. 28135 Anonymous
12th February 2019
Tuesday 7:18 pm
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>>28131

I had a similar issue lad, I had a pain in my abdomen and felt a bit hot, and as I share similar characteristics to you, I assumed it was a bit of constipation or something, and carried on with my work week. When I nearly collapsed about six days later at work and they subsequently took me to hospital and found an abscess on my appendix and I nearly died, I did feel a bit silly about not at least calling a doctor.

Maybe just call NHS Direct? They don't get to make a judgement call, they just run through a script and "constant pain" means exactly that whether you're screaming or not. Though saying that even a doctor is likely aware that not everyone harps on about their pain.
>> No. 28146 Anonymous
17th February 2019
Sunday 11:27 am
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Time wil tell as to whether looking up her Insta was the best or worst idea I've ever had.
>> No. 28147 Anonymous
17th February 2019
Sunday 12:38 pm
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I've noticed this year seems to be the year of despair. I don't know if it's all the shit going on in the world but a vast majority of people I talk to have suddenly gone all doom and gloom, everybody seems depressed. It's actually kind of refreshing knowing we're all essentially in the same boat.
>> No. 28148 Anonymous
17th February 2019
Sunday 2:16 pm
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>>28131

>I've been ill for a week and in fairly constant pain. I'm beginning to wonder if I need medical treatment

Yes, you definitely do.

>my stoic nature means I am not getting the attention I need, as I calmly explain myself rather than barking like a seal

Doctors generally respond quite well to rational descriptions of symptoms rather than shrieking demands for care, but they're also dealing with severe resource constraints that require them to aggressively prioritise the most urgent cases. You can subvert that system of prioritisation through sheer persistence - if you keep turning up at your GP, they'll deal with you just to get rid of you, because the cost of referring you for tests or treatment is less than the cost of you continuing to book appointments.

Incidentally, the same logic applies to customer service. If you piss people off by being a mardy arse, they're likely to give you short shrift out of spite. If you calmly, politely but persistently keep complaining, their system is likely to determine that it's cheaper to just give you what you want so you'll stop ringing them.
>> No. 28153 Anonymous
20th February 2019
Wednesday 7:27 am
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Constant pain lad >>28131 here. I got some high strength codeine from the GP. I don't think I've slept so well in 20 years, or felt this refreshed and relaxed in the morning. Makes me wonder if I have just been in low level pain all that time. If I knew this was what I was missing I would have started a heroine addiction years ago.
>> No. 28154 Anonymous
20th February 2019
Wednesday 4:04 pm
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>>28153
Opiate fatigue comes hard and fast, increases your overall sensitivity and fucks with your libido. It's a short term solution.

I suffer from chronic pain as well and I shifted to CBD and physio 2 years ago and have been out of my wheel chair 18 months at this point. I still have a dihydrocodiene script for days where I can't cope, but don't fall into the trap I did. The withdrawal from opiates is hell on earth. I was offered 95ml a day methadone to help me get off it, which is on par with a pinning habit.
>> No. 28155 Anonymous
20th February 2019
Wednesday 9:20 pm
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Diagnosed as autistic and struggle with bad mental health. Under the care of a local mental health team. I've tried lots of different talking therapies and medication, I've explored pretty much every angle I can with my mental health, the only avenue I've not explored is treatment tailored towards my autism. LMHT have tried referring me to my city's autism team several times over the last few years, but they refuse to see me until I'm mentally stable. But I fear I won't be mentally stable until I get that specialist autism support. So I'm in a weird limbo of hoping my problems magically get better so I can then get the support I need for them.
>> No. 28156 Anonymous
20th February 2019
Wednesday 10:30 pm
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>>28155

It's an infuriating catch 22, isn't it? Back when I was a resting actor, the alcohol addiction team wouldn't take me because of my mental health problems and the mental health team wouldn't take me unless I sobered up. It's almost as if NHS services can't be bothered to treat people with complex needs and would rather cherry-pick the easy cases.
>> No. 28157 Anonymous
21st February 2019
Thursday 2:56 am
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Wow, I really, really miss having friends and stuff.
>> No. 28158 Anonymous
21st February 2019
Thursday 4:07 pm
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Never seen your own face.jpg
281582815828158
>>28156

I believe standard NHS policy in these instances is to lock the patient in an attic and feed them fish heads.
>> No. 28159 Anonymous
21st February 2019
Thursday 4:49 pm
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>>28158

In fairness, that would probably have been an upgrade for me.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x7VZrqzBYDQ
>> No. 28160 Anonymous
22nd February 2019
Friday 12:24 am
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I don't really want to talk about this because it's just depressing and there's really no bright side, but can anyone else not stop thinking about dying? And if so, how do you react to that? Because I think I'm supposed to feel like I'm involved in some kind of time trail, but I actually just want to pretend nothing is happening and therefore I can't die, in a kind of sealed off unreality where no one else is allowed in.

Yeah.
>> No. 28162 Anonymous
22nd February 2019
Friday 4:30 pm
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>>28160
Been thinking about this again a lot recently since I got way too high and freaked out about it. I can accept death, but it's that whole..Fear of the unknown thing. And if you just stop existing. I can't wrap my head around it and it fucks me up. Best to just distract yourself and forget about it, I think.
>> No. 28163 Anonymous
22nd February 2019
Friday 4:51 pm
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>>28162

It might help to think about the time before you were born. For billions of years, you didn't exist, then you suddenly did. You didn't find non-existence distressing, because there was no you to be distressed. Death isn't an aberration, it's just a return to the default state. You'll die, I'll die, we'll all die, but that only makes life more precious.
>> No. 28164 Anonymous
22nd February 2019
Friday 4:55 pm
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>>28163

Also this:


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gxlj4Tk83xQ
>> No. 28165 Anonymous
22nd February 2019
Friday 5:29 pm
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>>28162
There are laws about the conservation of mass and of energy.

In a very real sense, you die every time you lose consciousness or fall asleep, as the energy that is you dissipates and when you wake you are "rebooted". Every day is a new you, but the energy that was you survives. When your body dies and you can't regain consciousness, your energy will still survive and transform.

Maybe there is an entity with oversight on these matters that at the point of death takes that energy and we ascend to somewhere else, somewhere we have yet to perceive, and the religious people are right, or maybe our energy dissipates and we never regain consciousness again. Maybe the reason children see and hear deceased relatives they've never met or seem to remember "past lives" is because our energy infects their develoing brains. Whatever happens, we go on and I've experienced enough bizarre situations in my life surrounding death that I believe there is scope for consciousness after our body dies.

I remember vividly being taught to play chess and playing chess with my grandad and I know he was my grandad, because he said he was and I've seen pictures of him since then. However, I was in Foster care from infancy until I was 8 and was never exposed to his face until my Dad got me out. When I was shown pictures by my Dad of my Mum and her side of the family (mother is still estranged) I said I knew him, that he used to visit at the foster home and play chess with me. My Dad said that was impossible, that he had died a year before I was born and it had decimated their family, which is why I was fostered as my Mum was taking heroin. He was in the Army and only found out I existed when he left, which is why I was in there for so long. He just assumed it was a friend or relative of my foster carer. I asked her about it, as I was still in contact as I lived with her for 8 years and I think of her as and call her Mum, only to be told I taught myself how to play chess. She said I found it in the cupboard one day when I was about 4 and asked her if she would show me how to play. She said she wasn't sure how to and a couple of weeks later when she asked if I still wanted to learn (I think she had looked up the rules) I said "Grandad is teaching me" she would watch me talk to myself while playing chess with myself and thought I had an imaginary friend as after a few months I stopped talking about him. She said she didn't know how I had learned the rules, but I had as far as she understood them, and she said I always let my imaginary friend win but would never let her win and it annoyed the piss out of her.

I often ask myself why I never asked questions, because I always have about anything else. Why I never asked him if he was my Dad's Dad or my Mum's. I knew he wasn't my Foster carer's Dad, because he was Papa not Grandad. Why didn't I ask my foster Mum why he wasn't visiting anymore when he stopped? I just accepted it. Maybe in a bizarre coincidence I invented an almost perfect facsimile of him in my mind so I had a chess buddy and I really did teach myself. It's just a really bizarre series of events I have no explanation for these days, but it does make me wonder.

I wouldn't call it hope, per se, but I don't fear death.
>> No. 28167 Anonymous
22nd February 2019
Friday 5:46 pm
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>>28165
>In a very real sense, you die every time you lose consciousness or fall asleep, as the energy that is you dissipates and when you wake you are "rebooted".
No.
>our energy infects their develoing brains.
No.
>> No. 28168 Anonymous
22nd February 2019
Friday 9:24 pm
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>>28167
So when you lose consciousness and then later regain consciousness, you believe your consciousness is unchanged? One continuous unchanged state? You think you live beyond the limits and confines of your own perceptions? They define our reality, but that also means we are nothing without them.
>> No. 28169 Anonymous
22nd February 2019
Friday 9:51 pm
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>>28168
The pattern of matter and energy that is your mind changes as you sleep, which is also what it does while you're awake. I'm happy to concede that can mean you're a "different" person when you wake up in the morning, in the sense that the pattern of matter and energy that is you has changed, but in the same way you're a different person with every passing moment. The energy does not "dissipate" because if all the energy in your brain dissipated you wouldn't wake up from it. You would be dead.
>> No. 28170 Anonymous
22nd February 2019
Friday 10:07 pm
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>>28169
When you are dreaming different chakras open up and some of the energy dissipates, you also take in some energy from others during this period. Sometimes this will be someone you are close to emotionally, sometimes someone you are close to physically/geographically, sometimes a completely random person.

Death is when all the energy dissipates at once you and you stop being a part of the physical world and are "only" part of other people's dreams.
>> No. 28171 Anonymous
22nd February 2019
Friday 10:13 pm
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>>28163
Yeah, heard it all before and no, it doesn't. Doesn't address the issue at all. To everyone else, I wasn't looking for a philosophical debate on the soul or afterlife. We don't know, but we'll find out when we die.

I was just saying that if it's not existing that lies ahead, I can't wrap my head around it. It's terrifying to me and everything I've read hasn't eased that at all. I can be content with my life, that I've tried to make things better in the world, all the things I've experienced etc. but none of that equates to being fine with none of it ever existing again.
>> No. 28172 Anonymous
22nd February 2019
Friday 10:19 pm
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>>28163
Except now I've tried existence and it's really good. It's like when I bought my first pair of quality headphones, I had to throw out half my music downloads because I couldn't stand listening to such low quality audio. I've tried something so much better that I don't ever want to go back. Don't make me wear five quid earbuds and listen to sub-one-hundred bitrate audio, please, I don't want to go back.
>> No. 28173 Anonymous
22nd February 2019
Friday 10:23 pm
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>>28170
>When you are dreaming different chakras open up and some of the energy dissipates, you also take in some energy from others during this period. Sometimes this will be someone you are close to emotionally, sometimes someone you are close to physically/geographically, sometimes a completely random person.
Citation required. Preferably not from a website about crystals.
>> No. 28174 Anonymous
22nd February 2019
Friday 10:33 pm
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>>28163
>>28171

I feel like dying is more like a gradual slide into obscurity, much like the Byzantine empire.
>> No. 28175 Anonymous
22nd February 2019
Friday 10:33 pm
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>>28171
I know you what you mean, it terrifies me too. I'm unable to comprehend the idea of my consciousness not existing from my death until the end of the universe and beyond. I guess I won't be aware of it in the same way it will be like being asleep, but then again it isn't sleep.
>> No. 28176 Anonymous
23rd February 2019
Saturday 12:19 am
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>>28172

There's nothing to go back to. Literally nothing. You won't be sad or disappointed or angry, because there won't be a you.
>> No. 28178 Anonymous
23rd February 2019
Saturday 12:22 am
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>>28174
Imagine the hubris of a man who compares his short and fleeting life on this earth to fucking Byzantium. I'd kill for your confidence.
>> No. 28179 Anonymous
23rd February 2019
Saturday 12:27 am
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>>28178
Imagine being wedded enough to the concept to feel put out by someone making an analogy that obviously went over your head due to your ignorance of the historical context.
>> No. 28180 Anonymous
23rd February 2019
Saturday 1:29 am
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>>28176
Exactly m8, that's what we're saying is the problem here.
>> No. 28181 Anonymous
23rd February 2019
Saturday 2:51 am
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>>28176
I know that and it's making me angry right now. I don't want to experience nothing, because something is way, way better.
>> No. 28182 Anonymous
23rd February 2019
Saturday 3:12 am
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>>28181

I refer you back to Big Bird.
>> No. 28183 Anonymous
23rd February 2019
Saturday 3:33 am
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>>28181

Then think about this - what's better, enjoying life when you can, or wasting it by worrying about not being here forever? You know life is short and death is guaranteed - these are two things that we can do absolutely nothing about, so it's a waste of time, energy and our remaining days to sit around being angry about an inevitability.

Wallow in how unfair it is all you like, but objectively, in doing so you're wasting the time you're angry is so short.

Since we're wading deep into flowery metaphors at this point I'd like to quote Ajahn Chah (allegedly)

“Do you see this glass?” he asked us. “I love this glass. It holds the water admirably. When the sun shines on it, it reflects the light beautifully. When I tap it, it has a lovely ring. Yet for me, this glass is already broken. When the wind knocks it over or my elbow knocks it off the shelf and it falls to the ground and shatters, I say, ‘Of course.’ But when I understand that this glass is already broken, every minute with it is precious.”
>> No. 28185 Anonymous
23rd February 2019
Saturday 2:59 pm
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>>28183
Again, this doesn't really address the issue, and I don't think it can really be addressed now. I'm not spending my life worrying about it, it just pops into my head every so often and it doesn't prevent me from doing anything, I can still enjoy life..But all that doesn't change the fact.
>> No. 28186 Anonymous
23rd February 2019
Saturday 4:43 pm
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>>28185

The issue can't be addressed, you're going to die whether you like it or not. You can use that knowledge to motivate you rather than to antagonize you if you so choose.
>> No. 28187 Anonymous
23rd February 2019
Saturday 7:03 pm
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>>28186

I would argue that as an issue that cannot be addressed, one cannot therefore address it as [consider it to be] an issue.

Its just a part of life OP, no point fighting it. Worry about the things that are under your control and let the things that aren't look after themselves.
>> No. 28192 Anonymous
26th February 2019
Tuesday 2:05 am
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I just want my phone to be fixed.
>> No. 28193 Anonymous
26th February 2019
Tuesday 3:07 am
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I'm not a real person. I'm just a shell. There's nothing going in my head, I don't function, I don't think and I don't move.
>> No. 28194 Anonymous
26th February 2019
Tuesday 12:02 pm
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>>28193
You typed this and are observant enough to be able to see you are feeling numb and detached.
>> No. 28195 Anonymous
26th February 2019
Tuesday 2:26 pm
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>>28194
So? I can't do anything about it. I'm just perpetually stuck.
>> No. 28202 Anonymous
27th February 2019
Wednesday 10:39 pm
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>>28195
You can't say that for sure until you burn out your adrenal gland trying to get high on life, m8.
>> No. 28206 Anonymous
28th February 2019
Thursday 6:18 am
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>>28195

You feel like you're stuck, you are not stuck. Feeling stuck is kind of normal, especially with mental health concerns. Saying that you 'cannot do anything about it' is a wonderful way to absolve responsibility. You're going to feel stuck no matter what you do.

It is reasonably clear roughly what you need to do to feel (or be) better, but you need to endure the discomfort of 'feeling stuck'.
>> No. 28207 Anonymous
28th February 2019
Thursday 12:02 pm
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>>28206>>28202
No, I'm literally stuck. I'm the same person who was talking about my phone being broken and I only have ten pounds to my name. That's not enough to fix said phone and as such I can't obtain things like my national insurance number or make calls to organisations that could help me; shout out to IAPT! I am being prevented from doing certain things due to the conditions I am in, I'm stuck.

And before anyone has a go I'm perfectly aware that I got myself stuck so I'm not trying to offload any blame, but it doesn't stop me being pissed off about it.
>> No. 28208 Anonymous
28th February 2019
Thursday 12:09 pm
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>>28207

Have you been to citizens advice? Would you be able to use a library computer to contact any of the organisations you need to?
>> No. 28209 Anonymous
28th February 2019
Thursday 12:10 pm
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>>28207

Also what area of the country are you in?
>> No. 28210 Anonymous
28th February 2019
Thursday 7:59 pm
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I got stood up by someone yesterday, I don't get how people can be so cowardly.

They just didn't show up and blocked me, we had talked online for the better part of a month you think it would have occured to them before the point I was waiting for them in a public place. What is wrong with people?

Are they just too conflict adverse to do the basic things required for civility?
>> No. 28211 Anonymous
28th February 2019
Thursday 9:07 pm
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>>28210
Probably yes.
>> No. 28212 Anonymous
28th February 2019
Thursday 9:29 pm
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>>28207
And yet, you’re posting here completely unhindered.
>> No. 28213 Anonymous
28th February 2019
Thursday 9:30 pm
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>>28210

Exactly what you said. It's also probably a lot easier to abandon or ignore someone you've never met.
>> No. 28214 Anonymous
1st March 2019
Friday 1:40 pm
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>>28210
You dodged a bullet mate, look at it that way.
>> No. 28215 Anonymous
1st March 2019
Friday 1:47 pm
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>>28212
And yet, what bearing does that have on my complete lack of money, good will or energy?
>> No. 28217 Anonymous
1st March 2019
Friday 2:12 pm
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>>28215


I mean if your problem is that you don't have a phone, why can't you shoot an email off to the people you say you want to contact but can't?

It's hard to understand why you'd bother complaining about your situation if you're entirely unwilling to even try to change it.

I could send you a phone and some credit for it. I could almost certainly get you a job in a kitchen if you're in the UK. There's other fine lads here who could direct you to local health and welfare resources. Are you interested in any of that?
>> No. 28218 Anonymous
1st March 2019
Friday 3:38 pm
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>>28217
But I am trying to do change things, that's why I'm in a foul mood and I had to cut several death and rape threats from my prior post, because I was trying to change things today and someone tried to menace me by calling me names and asking me "do you wanna' get headbutted?", so that's why I'm all worked up, and because whenever I do try to improve myself, whether I take six hours or six months, I always cock it all up anyway, and I just end up more ashamed and isolated and miserable, until I get to the point I'm at now where I just put on an impression of the person I was three or four years ago, but in reality I'm utterly checked out and frankly I don't know what I am anymore, so I rant and rave on shed-centric micro-blogging platforms to purge those feelings in someway. I'm sorry if I didn't give an in depth enough breakdown of why and how I came to be feeling the way I do at this very moment in my other posts, I just assumed everyone else assumed everyone else had a decent reason for posting in the "existensial dread" thread.

And yes, I'd love a job, thanks. I'm really good at washing dishes, but chopping onions is just beyond me. It's going to be about three weeks before my NI number arrives though so cash in hand only, please.
>> No. 28219 Anonymous
1st March 2019
Friday 7:31 pm
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I hate not having money. I'm lucky to get enough to just about get by, but I don't really get enough to put some to the side, so if something came up at short notice I'd be fucked. My partner is in a similar position, being in debt (not loads thankfully) meaning she can't save up despite getting a fairly decent wage. It'll take us a fair few years to save up a deposit for a house, which is fine, I just hate the uncertainty of renting. At our last house, the landlord gave us six weeks notice to vacate the property, and knowing that could happen at any time just terrifies me. I have such a fear of uncertainty, but I know I can't do anything to stop it.
>> No. 28229 Anonymous
7th March 2019
Thursday 6:44 pm
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So, any one else who's ever been incredibly lonely, what are your coping strategies? I've used a bunch over the years but it feels like I've gone from being on the roof to standing on the ledge to holding on to it with both hands, then one. Then people start greasing the ledge.
>> No. 28230 Anonymous
8th March 2019
Friday 5:37 pm
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>>28229

I do a lot of comforting things; watch old familiar and comforting TV shows, re-read old books, listen to the same old audiobooks again etc. I tend to stick to comedy and particularly a lot of "adult animated series" and stay away from drama or media designed to give you "feels"; that's what I'm trying to escape from.

I'm living somewhere where I don't have a single friend in the world, socialising isn't really an option, my only source of income has just gone down the drain, and doing things like binge watching Red Dwarf is about all that stands between me and a long walk off the short cliff of insanity.
>> No. 28231 Anonymous
9th March 2019
Saturday 2:01 pm
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>>28230
Been back on the tv show/movie binge, not so bad so far. Problem is a lot of things now have at least one emotionally charged moment which I'm always having to skip past. Trying to read more but I'm basically drunk high all the time.
>> No. 28232 Anonymous
9th March 2019
Saturday 10:44 pm
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>>28219

Tenancy fees will be banned from June this year, which should make it less expensive to move rented accommodation, at least.
>> No. 28233 Anonymous
10th March 2019
Sunday 12:30 am
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>>28229

Finding an environment where you can meet and interact with people is a pretty good tip. Working up a bantering familiarity with the people you encounter regularly. Finding a familiar hobby like a liked show is a good bandage. But the cure requires more proactive effort.
>> No. 28234 Anonymous
10th March 2019
Sunday 1:47 am
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It likely won't be while I'm in my twenties, but as I'm unlikely to ever improve my lot, I feel I'm very likely to top myself one day. I just don't see it ending any other way.
>> No. 28235 Anonymous
10th March 2019
Sunday 2:03 pm
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>>28234

I sort of feel that way. Things could be a lot worse for me, and I don't neccesarily feel suicidal, but I can't imagine it not getting to that point eventually.
>> No. 28236 Anonymous
11th March 2019
Monday 8:04 pm
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Anyone have any experience on lithium? I'm in the process of having the physical health checks to see whether I can start on it. Not looking forward to the weekly blood tests until the lithium level in my blood reaches the required amount. And the stuff I've read is making me worry it's going to fuck up my kidneys and/or my thyroid. But I also read it's very effective for treatment resistant depression so it's worth a shot, just worried because the side effects seem pretty grim.
>> No. 28237 Anonymous
11th March 2019
Monday 9:09 pm
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>>28236

With regular blood tests, the risks of lasting damage are minimal. The side effects are different for everyone - some people are just fine on lithium, some people get really nasty side effects, it's just luck of the draw. If you've reached the point where they're offering it to you, then you should probably give it a go. We have no way of predicting who will benefit and who'll suffer side-effects, so the only way to find out is to try. A relatively small dose of lithium can be quite effective as an augmentation to an SSRI, which might be useful if you've had a partial but inadequate response to an SSRI.

For what it's worth, it did nowt for me but it wasn't particularly unpleasant either. My side-effects on lithium were far more tolerable than on venlafaxine or moclobemide. I had some nasty nausea for the first week or so and I was a bit shaky for the duration, but it was basically fine and I would have stuck with it if it had worked.
>> No. 28238 Anonymous
12th March 2019
Tuesday 5:46 am
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>>28236
>>28237

1150mg/day Lithium here, diagnosed bipolar. Aside from the mild tremors and the fact that alcohol is an even worse idea than usual I haven't had any really terrible side effects from Lithium.

That said SSRI's and SNRI's (escitalopram and venlafaxine) sent me completely loopy whereas Lithium seems to keep me nicely balanced out.

I have full bloods done every three months to check for liver, kidney and thyroid problems. I had to have lithium blood level tests every month until we dialed in the correct dose for me.

I'm still moderately to highly depressed but at least I no longer suffer from bouts of life-threatening mania, which can only be a good thing.

Of course for every person who reacts badly to SSRI's and reacts well to Lithium there will be a person who has a totally opposite experience. YMMV.
>> No. 28239 Anonymous
12th March 2019
Tuesday 12:23 pm
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>>28237
>>28238
Thanks for sharing your experiences. Can I drink alcohol on lithium? The information book they gave me said nothing about it, and when I've looked online it said it's fine as long as I stay hydrated.
>> No. 28240 Anonymous
12th March 2019
Tuesday 2:11 pm
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>>28239

You'd be unwise to get absolutely wankered, but sensible drinking is fine.
>> No. 28241 Anonymous
12th March 2019
Tuesday 2:21 pm
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>>28239
Within reason, alcohol can cause your mood to shift. Restrict yourself to social gatherings and a couple of drinks or the odd pint down the pub. Don't endeavour to get drunk, tipsy is your glass ceiling.
>> No. 28242 Anonymous
12th March 2019
Tuesday 8:02 pm
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>>28239
> it's fine as long as I stay hydrated

Correct. The problem is, if you get properly drunk to the point of a hangover then you're already dehydrated as it is. Dehydration causes the level of lithium in the blood to spike dangerously which can cause a whole host of problems. Obviously if you're exercising (and you should be, it helps depression a lot) you need to keep well well hydrated there too.

Incidentally, what you want to be most worried about is anything serotonergic, particularly drugs like MDMA, LSD, psychodelic mushrooms, etc etc (and potentially anything in the cocaine or amphetamine family is probably a bad idea too) but also some over the counter medicines such as cough syrup containing dextromethorphan. If in doubt check with your doctor etc.
>> No. 28251 Anonymous
22nd March 2019
Friday 1:29 am
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I need to dump my bird, unfortunately she has some not inexpensive tickets to visit me as well as tickets for a gig at the start of April. This puts me in the unenviable position of either dumping her now and leaving her in the shit or plastering on another fake smile and attempting to get through the next couple of weeks before dumping her after she's gone home. Christ.
>> No. 28252 Anonymous
22nd March 2019
Friday 2:50 am
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>>28251

Tickets can be cancelled and refunded or you can offer to pay for them. You are basically grabbing for ways to avoid confrontation there will never be a perfect time for breaking up with someone.
>> No. 28253 Anonymous
25th March 2019
Monday 7:04 pm
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I really, really hate myself and feel like I live behind a façade of performance and irony to deal with being so emotionally stunted and weak.
What do?
>> No. 28254 Anonymous
25th March 2019
Monday 10:15 pm
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>>28253

Focus your energies on something that matters to you. A person can cope with a lot of insecurity and self-loathing if they feel useful. Maybe do some voluntary work, maybe start a new career, maybe just do something nice for your mum. It won't fix everything, but it will make things easier. It's not terribly difficult to go to bed every night knowing that the world would be a worse place without you, it just requires a bit of thought and effort.
>> No. 28255 Anonymous
26th March 2019
Tuesday 6:34 am
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Apparently on Saturday night I was in three different bars; this is something that'd I've patched together from whatsapp messages and instagram stories as I have no memory at all of leaving any one of the bars on my personal odyssey.

I do remember being in the first bar, but not leaving it. I don't remember the second bar but I took a photo there. My main memory of the third bar was jolting my head upright as I realised that I'd conked out in my chair. The credit card machine stub thing shows that I only had two beers there.

When I woke up on Sunday my toilet was a nightmare mess of diarrhoea tsunami and I found an empty envelope of Seroquel in my jeans pocket. I guess 1000mg of quietapine will do that to anyone.

Sage for not really being sure what the point of any of this is, really.
>> No. 28256 Anonymous
26th March 2019
Tuesday 9:28 am
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Basically nothing is happening and I still can't handle it. I'm just done.
>> No. 28257 Anonymous
26th March 2019
Tuesday 10:10 am
28257 spacer
Nope, something is happening and it's even worse.
>> No. 28258 Anonymous
26th March 2019
Tuesday 10:26 am
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Self-immolation is the answer.
>> No. 28259 Anonymous
26th March 2019
Tuesday 12:39 pm
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>>28254
Thanks fren

(A good day to you Sir!)
>> No. 28260 Anonymous
26th March 2019
Tuesday 3:25 pm
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I have no direction in life. I'm in my eighth year as an undergrad, having changed courses and repeated years several times. Been told this is my final chance - if I fuck this year up, I can't continue with uni. And I've already used up all the funding Student Finance will give me. The reasons for picking each course I've been on have been shit reasons, and with hindsight I probably should have left after my third year and properly thought about what I wanted to do while I still had funding. I'm more than capable of doing well, when I do the work it gets good marks, but I have no passion which makes getting anything done difficult. I also have pretty severe mental health problems, which has made engaging with my course very difficult. Every time I've taken time out or had to redo a year, I'd say to myself "this time you'll get well enough to finish", but every year I get worse and worse. Contemplating dropping out, getting a full time job and saving up to fund something I actually want to do a few years down the line. But if I can barely handle 10 hours of uni a week, I don't know how I'll handle 40 hours of work a week.
>> No. 28261 Anonymous
26th March 2019
Tuesday 9:02 pm
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>>28260
What strikes you as "minor" about this?
>> No. 28262 Anonymous
27th March 2019
Wednesday 12:03 am
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>>28260
>But if I can barely handle 10 hours of uni a week, I don't know how I'll handle 40 hours of work a week.
>I also have pretty severe mental health problems

Well look, these are the issues - it's not that you have no direction in life, most of us fall into that category - but if there are health issues that are getting in the way of you doing a full weeks work, then most courses/jobs/whatever are going to look and seem very difficult indeed.

>I'm more than capable of doing well
I think you are, because you're capable of talking about it so openly. But you should address whatever it is that stops you working for more than ten hours a week or being at university for eight years, because until you sort that bit out, the rest won't ever fall into place.
>> No. 28282 Anonymous
31st March 2019
Sunday 10:27 am
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>>28230
Long shot but do you want to chat anywhere mate? I'm >>28229 and this shit's still getting to me, but I also feel like it makes sense for the lonely to try and group together a bit.
>> No. 28294 Anonymous
1st April 2019
Monday 11:35 am
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I'm useless.
>> No. 28298 Anonymous
1st April 2019
Monday 11:14 pm
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>>28294
Context might help, we're not mind readers.
>> No. 28303 Anonymous
2nd April 2019
Tuesday 9:09 am
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>>28298
I'm physically awkward, my eyesight is shot, I'm poor and I'm dumb as shit.

I can't overcome any of this on my own and I've got no one to help me. I dropped a cup on Sunday and nearly choked to death yesterday, I fully expect to slice open a major blood vessel today before dying in a gas explosion later this week.
>> No. 28304 Anonymous
2nd April 2019
Tuesday 10:02 am
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>>28303

I think you are most definitely better and more competent than you think you are.

Let's look at what you are beating yourself up over you dropped a cup three days ago. Honestly most people would not care after the fact, they wouldn't even care if someone else did it. I don't know why you are holding yourself to this standard but it is more destructive to you then if you dropped every cup you ever picked up.


Did you have a stern upbringing by chance? Seems like you are are trying to fulfil someone else's unrealistic standards.
>> No. 28309 Anonymous
3rd April 2019
Wednesday 12:43 am
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shit boys i think i'm done
>> No. 28310 Anonymous
3rd April 2019
Wednesday 12:49 am
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>>28304
My upbringing was pathetic, until a year ago I was treated like lazy 13 year old by my dad. Once it hit me how messed up I was I did the mature thing and moved in with my mum. Today was certainly better, no blood vessel slicing and I almost left the house.

I've never achieved any standards, but I'm really tired so I'm not going to get into all that.
>> No. 28312 Anonymous
3rd April 2019
Wednesday 1:10 pm
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>>28310

From what you have said I think firstly that you need professional therapy,and secondly I think your problems that are the best to solve probably are not ones you even realise right now.

It is hard to give much advice as I feel like what you've said is just the tip of an iceberg I think a shift in perspective could do you wonders.

There is nothing that says you have to be the same person today as you were yesterday. and I think you should focus on how to become who you want to be. Quite litterally I think you should sit down with a pad write down your desires and then start working out how to achieve them, don't get bogged down in the difficulties but focus on how to practically go about them, I'm not saying it will be easy, and get everything you want, but the goal is to try move forward and if you can do that everyday even a little you are a better man than me.
>> No. 28314 Anonymous
5th April 2019
Friday 6:33 pm
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Citizens Advice is shit by the way.
>> No. 28315 Anonymous
6th April 2019
Saturday 9:12 pm
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My depression is getting worse and worse. I feel worse now than I have in the past when I actually attempted suicide. My medication keeps being changed so I'm in limbo waiting for it to kick in. I feel completely consumed by depression - in the past I've been too depressed to function normally, but was still able to find the motivation to watch TV or play a game. But now I have no energy to do anything. I sleep 12-15 hours a day, and when I'm not asleep I'm just lying awake in bed. It's just getting harder and harder to function.
>> No. 28316 Anonymous
7th April 2019
Sunday 8:56 pm
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I never realised how stressful something as simple as being in a group chat could be. It's quite a tight-knit group and I know they wouldn't have invited me if they didn't want me to talk in it but it feels like every time I send a message people are gonna be annoyed with me, or that people won't want to hear if I had anything to say.

The worst thing is I know it's something simple and stupid and I just wish I wasn't like this.
>> No. 28317 Anonymous
7th April 2019
Sunday 9:32 pm
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>>28316
Not to insinuate your anxiety isn't valid or something but maybe if a simple group conversation is enough to stress you out, you need to find a way to... not be like that.
>> No. 28318 Anonymous
7th April 2019
Sunday 11:35 pm
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>>28317

Quality advice m8.


>> No. 28319 Anonymous
8th April 2019
Monday 12:47 am
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>>28315

Not sure how much comfort it is to you but I've been peaking at a similar level for months. I spend large amounts of the time I sleep during the day cuddling with my cat. I highly recommend forming that sort of relationship with a pet, it makes it is a more positive experience for me.


I dont know about you but i find I can deal with the big events of life but the simple day to day chores are tedious enough to make want to slit my wrists.
>> No. 28320 Anonymous
8th April 2019
Monday 2:10 pm
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>>28317
Well, the NHS don't have the capability to help unless I'm minutes away from topping myself, and I can't afford private.

I've tried meditation and the like, nothing has really helped. I'm going to be earning significantly more in a few months, maybe I'll be able to afford private then.
>> No. 28322 Anonymous
8th April 2019
Monday 4:03 pm
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>>28312
You know what the hardest part is? Not slipping back into the old frame.
Even as I do whatever little steps to accomplish what I want to accomplish I can't help but notice when I slide back.
And I wish it was a single occurance.
>> No. 28323 Anonymous
8th April 2019
Monday 5:43 pm
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>>28322

I completely understand. Breaking old and forming new habits is very hard, but I think it is the only way you can get better and no one can do it for you, and quite probably no one around you will appreciate how hard it is for you. But you will earn my respect for what it counts, and respect of yourself which is the only person who's respect actually matters.

Don't belittle your achievements along the way, it doesn't matter how you measure up to others, and what they are doing, they've had a head start and they don't have to deal with what you have to deal with. Don't give up if you fuck up, and you will fuck up life is a marathon, not a sprint, as long as you keep the momentum up and never surrender you'll get better.


>> No. 28430 Anonymous
19th April 2019
Friday 2:32 pm
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I'm in a group of friends whom I enjoy the presence of and wouldn't want to alienate for the world. The problem is, most of them are really deeply into astrology.

Normally I wouldn't mind, but recently almost every conversation is about star signs and I'm having to fight the sceptic in me very hard. I've seen my own family be ripped off by custom horoscope quackery; I've seen what happens when people willing shut off their sceptical mind barriers and get sucked in to this bullshit.

When they aren't talking about how the moon affects your personality, they are great to be around, but it's just really tiring to have to keep it zip when I just want to grab some of them and ask them to listen to themselves. Sometimes they get so close too - things like "well we're both virgo rising but we're completely different" or whatever.

I know it's me that's the odd one out, but I don't want to exclude myself from a friend group over this, but I also don't want to really talk to them about it because I don't want to create a fracture or aggro -- that'd be so scorpio of me.

I'm just really torn, since this is the first real big friend group I've been a part of and I don't want to fuck it up.
>> No. 28431 Anonymous
19th April 2019
Friday 2:41 pm
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>>28430
This is the type of thing your typical Sagittarius would post.
>> No. 28432 Anonymous
19th April 2019
Friday 2:42 pm
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>>28430
You just need to disagree in a friendly and jochular way, surely? Though I suppose that's more difficult if that's what they're all into and talking about it all the time, it's not like they think something weird about taxes and it almost never actually comes up.
>> No. 28433 Anonymous
19th April 2019
Friday 2:50 pm
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>>28430
If you being tsundere for Mystic Meg bollocks is typical of Saturn being in retrograde when you were born, they'll give you a pass. Just don't be a dick about calling it bollocks.
>> No. 28435 Anonymous
19th April 2019
Friday 6:15 pm
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>>28432
>>28433
But this is the issue, I'm not sure quite how deeply held these beliefs are - I know for a couple of them, they've been into it for as long as I've known them (4 years), but some have only started talking about it recently.

If I start even taking the piss out of it even lightly, I don't want them to take it as an attack on their beliefs, and I've never been the best at judging where that line is.
>> No. 28437 Anonymous
22nd April 2019
Monday 9:26 pm
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>>23560
Lads, I know this sounds mildly angsty and teenagerish but I feel as though my friends are more important to me than I am to them and when they are my only friends it's put me into a spiral again. I struggle to make friends, even at thirty-six, I don't want to lose them. I just think we are drifting apart.
>> No. 28438 Anonymous
22nd April 2019
Monday 9:53 pm
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>>28437

I've struggled to make friends basically the entire time since I left school, and I think everyone else does too. I've basically had a slowly shrinking social circle for the last ten years or so, as more of them move away, have kids, or straight up die. I've got plenty of acquaintances, but only maybe two people I'd actually invite over to my place purely for a beer and some Tekken you know? And even then it happens maybe once every three or four months.

I don't know what my advice is other than you do right to try and keep the friends you do have close. If you disagree on some things, the closer you get with them as mates, the easier it will get to have a laugh about it.
>> No. 28439 Anonymous
22nd April 2019
Monday 10:07 pm
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>>28438 Thank you.
>> No. 28441 Anonymous
25th April 2019
Thursday 7:48 pm
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I've not showered or brushed my teeth for three days. I've been in bed approximately 20 hours a day for the last two weeks. I feel totally unable to live a normal life. I've been dealing with depression for about 8 years and this is the worst I've ever been. Been on lithium about six weeks and it doesn't seem to be helping. I don't know how much longer I can exist like this.
>> No. 28443 Anonymous
25th April 2019
Thursday 10:37 pm
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I really miss talking to people. It's been about eighteen months since I last spoke to someone who wasn't a parent, or employed to figure out what my bloody problem is.
>> No. 28444 Anonymous
25th April 2019
Thursday 11:21 pm
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>>28443

Why aren't you talking to anyone else?
>> No. 28445 Anonymous
26th April 2019
Friday 8:35 pm
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>>28444
My life went to pot because I'm nuts, so I stopped talking to my mates out of shame, at the same time I moved in with my mum, who's some distance from where I used to live. I don't play games online or anything and I'm too skint for real life hobbies.

Also someone give >>28441 some advice, I'm just moaning but he needs direction.
>> No. 28446 Anonymous
26th April 2019
Friday 8:45 pm
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>>28445
Given that you have experience in this area - why don't you give advice to >>28441
>> No. 28447 Anonymous
26th April 2019
Friday 9:00 pm
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>>28445

How have the people employed to figure out what your problem is managed so far? Are they getting anywhere or are you just a tough nut to crack, so to speak?

I too am starting to worry about the distance in my friendship group. It's been a sentiment echoed in this thread. I've been thinking about trying to implement some sort of weekly meet-up, we'll set a day of the week and pledge to make it so we can all just hang out, because I think we all feel the same. But the thing is I'm forever saying we should make plans, and none of them ever follow through. Every time we do meet up I try and make some sort of set-up for the next time but it always ends up being another month or two before I can get any of their flake arses out of the fucking house at the same time. I'll send messages to the group chat we have and have them ignored for a week, I'll phone them up and have them make flimsy excuses about needing to do the shopping or that their Mrs has something planned already or some bollocks.

I fucking hate it to be honest, I don't know if they just secretly hate me and put up with me out of pity or if I just need to fuck them off and get better mates or what. Even if I did I wouldn't know how to anymore. I'm 28 and the only people I see or interact with on a daily basis are my work colleagues and my partner.

I'm not just angry at them, I know they're often going through the same kind of bitter anti-social type of depression and anxiety I've been through at times, but really. It takes the piss a bit. Most normal people can text their mates on a Wednesday and all meet up in the pub on Friday. Why can't I have that. Am I that bloody unlikeable.
>> No. 28448 Anonymous
26th April 2019
Friday 9:22 pm
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>>28447

>I don't know if they just secretly hate me and put up with me out of pity or if I just need to fuck them off and get better mates or what.

I think people are just rubbish at making these things happen, they priorities other things that come up in their lives, and take maintianing freindships for granted.

I have about 3 groups that I do this with (weekly board games that requires people from all over the south east, a 7 player online game, and a dungeon crawl campaign game (descent) that takes up a whole weekend when we do it (people traveling from afar as the top of the midlands, to the south coast) and all of them are like herding cats. There seems to be a sour spot between, close enough to just see each other every day and far enough to make a deal out of you appearing that people take for granted.

I suggest trying to fix people to a date far enough in advance for them to commit to it, and then hoping inertia carries them into arranging the next date. Don't let it be nebulous suggest them an exact date, then if they object suggest another exact date.
>> No. 28449 Anonymous
26th April 2019
Friday 9:32 pm
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>>28448

I used to be in a band, I know how hard it is to get a scheduled plan to go off. The trouble right now seems to be more just complete apathy.

Even when an exact time and date is set, they'll often flake out. We don't exactly live close, it's about a 20-30 minute drive between each of our houses, but we are in the same city at least so when I try to suggest we all just meet up in said town for a pint, I'd have thought it was a reasonable compromise so that none of use are going out of their way. Apparently it's asking too much.

I've considered finding something like a local gaming night to go and play some Warhammer or something like that. I've googled it and haven't seen anything appealing near me though. I don't really fancy walking into a hobby shop and asking random people for a game. Just something to get me meeting and interacting with new people.

The trouble is I just haven't had any "practice" at socialising in ages, and I'm almost afraid to do it with new people by now. It's been that long since I made a new friend I've forgotten what to do. Fuck knows.
>> No. 28450 Anonymous
26th April 2019
Friday 11:32 pm
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>>28449

>The trouble is I just haven't had any "practice" at socialising in ages, and I'm almost afraid to do it with new people by now. It's been that long since I made a new friend I've forgotten what to do. Fuck knows.

Just get out there and make a tit of yourself. The nice thing about talking to strangers is that the default is never seeing that person again. It doesn't matter if they think you're a weirdo, because you've got nothing to lose.
>> No. 28451 Anonymous
27th April 2019
Saturday 12:01 pm
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>>28446
No, I'm a total bum.

>>28447
They haven't, I've fobbed most of them off or wrapped up my time with them with no more insight than when I first spoke to them.
>> No. 28452 Anonymous
29th April 2019
Monday 2:57 am
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I just can't care about chronically mentally ill people any more. Alcoholics, bipolar, super insecure people, the whole range of things.
I'll try and offer nice words and things that have worked to help me but I honestly believe people can only fix themselves. Doctors and medicine are a help but the real cure is realising the power you have over your own mind.

I just feel bad about it because I'm friendly with a lot of people ill in these ways but aside from being polite I just can't be bothered caring about the outcome if they're in a bad place, because I have so little influence over it. Might also have to do with losing people to mental health and addiction in the past - people seemingly stuck on a downward spiral that you can't help at all.

Maybe it's because I've come from a similar place and at least in my case the stubbornness and ways I was thinking left any attempt at helping me falling on deaf ears. I had to become more aware of myself before I could approach fixing things.

I definitely understand what people are feeling and have sympathy and some degree of empathy for it, it's just... I don't want to expend more emotional energy than that.
>> No. 28453 Anonymous
29th April 2019
Monday 12:22 pm
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>>28452
I think one of the things a lot of depressed and nutty people need is practical help, which is probably why I'm so shirty about "talking therapies" at this point. Apparently exposure to natural light is helpful too though so I'm going to venture into the big outside and see if I can afford a stamp and some chocolate.

Fuck me, living is just awful.
>> No. 28454 Anonymous
29th April 2019
Monday 12:55 pm
28454 It's like courting depression
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>>28452
Wisdom of the fool, though sometimes I wonder if the same attitude is arrogant of me.

>>28453
>exposure to natural light is helpful
Sunlight no doubt offers vitimins and the like, but I think it's more about behavioural enrichment. 'Grounding' is a relief from unnecessarily self imposed inhibitions more so than magnatic energies charging you up, i reckon.
Once you realise 'ho shit, I can walk barefoot on the grass and it's lovely', you start to wonder what else you're doing that causes secret suffering. Like convincing yourself you can't go out because you're fat and you've gotta cover up in uncomfortably hot clothing - fuck that, you're fat and people know it whether you're wearing a jumper or a g-string. Just get on the fuckin' beach. Lay like a walrus and love it; those things are formidable. All that awaits you at home is more food and less health. It takes a single choice to change that. Not a commitment, just a choice, now, in this moment. Even if it's not going to the beach, just step into the garden. Just break the cycle.

Now I'm wondering if I can take my own advice and turn off the internet.
>> No. 28455 Anonymous
29th April 2019
Monday 3:13 pm
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>>28454
Walking barefoot in the grass is genuinely lovely, I don't know how literal you were being, but I can highly recommend it. Today has been quite a positive one on the whole, and I think that was helped by the way I, semi-consiously, fell out of bed and started doing press-ups and stretches and squats all while still wrapped in a douvet. It got the humours going, so to speak.

And I might end up fat too after eating an entire bag of chocolate peanuts since my last post! Oh, God, my insides.
>> No. 28456 Anonymous
29th April 2019
Monday 5:40 pm
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>>28454

>All that awaits you at home is more food and less health. It takes a single choice to change that. Not a commitment, just a choice, now, in this moment.
>> No. 28457 Anonymous
29th April 2019
Monday 6:02 pm
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>>28456

That's not what he's saying lad.

The trouble with depression is that that really is the only proper solution. I've been in and out of it all my life and I know from experience that only I can pull myself out of the drain and start thinking positively again. Only I can make that happen. But the nature of depression is to make that near impossible.

The only way to help someone is step by step, bit by bit, listening to their moaning, not judging them, giving them the support they need to reach that turnaround point by themselves. There's no showing them how it's done, there's no expecting them to be okay by now, there's no showing them how. There is only patience and forgiveness and understanding, without judgement, until they feel capable.

Things like antidepressants and CBT do not directly combat depression. They merely combat some of the worst symptoms in order to render that transition less impossible.
>> No. 28458 Anonymous
29th April 2019
Monday 7:07 pm
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>>28457

That is exactly what he is saying, If your depression is curable through one simple action/choice that starts a chain of events then you have confused depression with wallowing and being repressed, and possibly a hollywood movie involving a manic pixie dream girl.

My life is a constant exhausting struggle where sometimes I have to pat myself on the back for having left the house that day, and being able to maintain a basic level of self care. It is an endurance test in seeing how long I can go without being pulled back into the drain. I'm really not one to dump my problems and issues on others but the implication here is insulting.
>> No. 28460 Anonymous
30th April 2019
Tuesday 5:25 pm
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>>28458
Have you walked barefoot on the grass, recently? Will you do it, sincerely, if you believed it might help?
>> No. 28461 Anonymous
1st May 2019
Wednesday 4:16 pm
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>>28454
You prolly can't.
Anyway, I know what you're talking about as I had been applying exactly the same technique in the past, only with different situations. Then some events happened in my life that threw me back into the old cesspit of mine.
I've been trying to crawl away again, this time banging my head on the metaphorical glass wall in front of me for a while. Something prevents me from breaking out and finding my peace.
It all scares me as I am no more a 20 year old in the morning of one's life and I feel like I cannot afford being in that shite state at my age anymore. It's either sink or swim; and if you're good at swimming, you've got to let the losers drown [0].
I'm not good at swimming. I can't let go either.

[0] The original context of this phrase implied 'typical human politics', that is, bog standard Machiavellism. Thinking about it now, I might draw a different picture, as in shedding the weight that prevents one from gaining buoyancy and set to sail again after.

Sage for rambling.
>> No. 28462 Anonymous
1st May 2019
Wednesday 4:32 pm
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>>28460

Why would anyone do anything insincerely if the believed it worked?
>> No. 28464 Anonymous
1st May 2019
Wednesday 9:24 pm
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>>28462
Because they are LIARS.
>> No. 28465 Anonymous
2nd May 2019
Thursday 1:00 pm
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>>28458

You think you're disagreeing with me but you're not.

Patting yourself on the back for just leaving the house is exactly the right approach. Don't feel like you're patronising yourself or being ridiculous. This is what CBT and mindfulness tries to teach- You have to love yourself and reward yourself for what you DO do, however insignificant, instead of beating yourself up for what you don't.

If you still think the implications are insulting then fair enough, but I'm not sorry. Keep in mind that I've been exactly where you are. I'm not trying to convince you, but one day you will see.
>> No. 28466 Anonymous
2nd May 2019
Thursday 4:54 pm
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>>28465

I walked barefoot on grass yesterday. It was awful.

I think your mistake comes from the assumption that all depression comes from an internal conflict and it doesn't. As I rather bluntly put it 'wallowing and repression', but societal, chemical, genetics and long term conditioning are factors for many. Mine is hard coded into my genetics and traceable through lineage. By any therapist standard I am 'doing everything right' the last CBT therapist I talked to concluded after one session there was nothing they could do for me and we politely parted ways. I will never be cured and that ultimately makes your assumptions about all depression just being; a state of mind wrong curable through choice and actions simply wrong.
>> No. 28467 Anonymous
2nd May 2019
Thursday 5:14 pm
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>>28466

If you have the means to access private therapy, you might want to look into RoDBT or CBASP - unlike CBT, they're specifically designed to treat chronic depression that is conventionally regarded as treatment-resistant. Chronically depressed people don't think like acutely depressed people and they respond to treatment differently, but the bulk of research and training is about acute depression.

Also, if things get really bad, seriously consider ECT. There's a lot of stigma about it, people think that it's archaic and cruel, but it works miraculously well for a lot of people when everything else has failed.
>> No. 28468 Anonymous
2nd May 2019
Thursday 5:33 pm
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>>28466

No, you are again making false assumptions of your own. I'm well aware of the nature of depression, it runs in my family. Both my uncles on my mother's side topped themselves. This is incidentally why I've pledged never to have children of my own.

I realise that you're not going to change your mind and I'm not trying to start a cunt off, but I implore you to question your own concrete assumptions for a moment and see if it isn't the cynicism of depression talking. All I'm trying to tell you is that there is hope- You'll never be what they call "cured" but you can be somewhere approaching in control.
>> No. 28469 Anonymous
2nd May 2019
Thursday 5:53 pm
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>>28466

Did you get new shoes recently?
>> No. 28471 Anonymous
2nd May 2019
Thursday 11:10 pm
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>>28467

I'll look into them they are at least things I've never tried or heard of before.

>>28468
Ah well now we get to what invested in the debate.
My concrete assumptions are nothing more than years of trying and observing and accepting that which cannot change. You wouldn't presume a schizophrenic to just snap out of it or an autistic to get better, so why suggest I'm just not trying? I am about as comfortable as I could be with my long fight against misery. It is a constant battle where occasionally the stars aline enough for me to honestly say a day was pleasant. Mostly it is constant uphill fights where the cure feels worse than the disease though. I can't be as optimistic as you it would hurt far too much and set me back if I fail. finding a slightly below neutral default is better than ridding the highs and lows for me mostly.

>>28469

Cuts on the feet? I wore some smart but uncomfortable shoes the other day and walked a bit too much in them. Buggered up me going to the gym for the last week as there is a hole in the back of my ankle I don't want to irritate.
>> No. 28474 Anonymous
8th May 2019
Wednesday 5:53 am
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Why wouldn't anyone help me?
>> No. 28475 Anonymous
8th May 2019
Wednesday 6:30 am
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>>28474

It must happens mate, most of the time it's not malicious. Especially if you have trouble standing up and asking for help.

We're here if you want to open up about it.
>> No. 28477 Anonymous
8th May 2019
Wednesday 8:03 am
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>>28475
If helping and listening were synonymous then my issues would have been solved long ago. Clearly this is not the case.
>> No. 28478 Anonymous
8th May 2019
Wednesday 9:28 am
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>>28477

Well what help is it that you think you need? Please expand for us. We might be able to offer constructive advice rather than just listening.
>> No. 28479 Anonymous
8th May 2019
Wednesday 11:10 pm
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How can I get my head to shut the fuck up? I don't fancy getting pissed for the 4th day in a row, and plus drinking initially makes all the shit more intense for a while.
>> No. 28480 Anonymous
8th May 2019
Wednesday 11:37 pm
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>>28479
I think there might be a thread for alkies on /A/.
>> No. 28481 Anonymous
9th May 2019
Thursday 12:55 am
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>>28479

I'm afraid that the only options are confronting when you are ready or drinking yourself to death. I'm not sure exactly how much I drank when I was in your position but it was well over 100 units in a handful of days.

Drinking to forget isn't sustainable I'm afraid.
>> No. 28488 Anonymous
12th May 2019
Sunday 6:50 pm
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BC2dRkm8ATU
Feeling excited, need to get out the house, but all that awaits is a duckpond; a coastal walk - alone. I want to dance to this song, I want to be somebody, but i can't do that alone. The woman next door isn't to my liking (i feel bad even saying this), the girl up the road .. i love her but I don't know how to talk to her. I don't want to dwell on being lonely; it happens when I make it but, man, i just wanna dance.
>> No. 28489 Anonymous
12th May 2019
Sunday 7:17 pm
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>>28488
You can dance alone to that song. She does.
>> No. 28490 Anonymous
12th May 2019
Sunday 8:53 pm
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>> No. 28491 Anonymous
13th May 2019
Monday 9:14 am
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>>28478
Miserable all the time, no money, no one to talk to, no where to be, no one gives a shit about me. I'm a non-person, no one sends me letters or emails, let alone has cause to speak to me, or I to them. Every day is the same because every day is nothing. No point going to a GP anymore, no where else to go beyond that. Leaving the house isn't just hard, it feels pointless. Being outdoors doesn't perk me up, not once I'm back in. I don't know what else to do so I do as little as possible.

Nobody gives a crap because no one even knows I exist anymore.
>> No. 28492 Anonymous
13th May 2019
Monday 11:26 am
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>>28491
It does seem as though you're not the only one who feels this way. There'll be other advice no doubt but have you tried doing volunteering or something? Find something you can do that'll put you around other people with the opportunity to be helpful to them. They may not be grateful at first but that's not the point. While you're at it, find something you can observe other people doing which they enjoy that doesn't make you envious. Learn to take pleasure in facilitating other people's happiness, even if they don't notice.
>> No. 28493 Anonymous
14th May 2019
Tuesday 4:50 am
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>>28477

It seems reading comprehension might be a bigger problem for you.

>>28491

You're not having a good time, I understand that. It seems like you've reduced yourself to a speck of dust and thus feel that no one notices you. Getting out of that has a lot of purpose, while it might be possible, the idea that in a couple of years you could feel relatively normal ought to be a decent incentive.
>> No. 28504 Anonymous
17th May 2019
Friday 10:55 pm
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>>28492
I can't imagine what I'd volunteer for. I can barely look after myself anymore.

>>28493
I don't even know how I'd go about getting back to normality anymore. When I think about the problems I have to overcome all I conclude is that I'd be better off topping myself.
>> No. 28505 Anonymous
17th May 2019
Friday 11:15 pm
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>>28491

I'm not sure being a in-person as you describe is inherently a bad thing. It is largely a goal I pursue myself, in that it gives me tranquility from the outside world, obviously it isn't for you.

The follow up questions I'd like to ask you is what is it you WANT, what do you think you NEED and what would you change if you could.

Try keep your answers concise and clear so that we can try work through them.
>> No. 28506 Anonymous
17th May 2019
Friday 11:17 pm
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>>28505

Non-person not in person. Phone auto correct is a monster.
>> No. 28507 Anonymous
17th May 2019
Friday 11:49 pm
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>>28505
I'll make my answers as long as I fucking please.

By a "non-person" I mean that I'm penniless, friendless with no education, no means of getting a job or much chance being offered one anyway. I have nothing and I am nothing, I'm just pissing away time because I can't handle anything else. No one can help me because the only people I know anymore are just as fucked as I am, and that's my parents. GPs just send me to a pathetic CBT counselor and give me pills that ruin my hard ons forever.

I want to be at uni, and a flat to live alone in, no one has ever helped me achieve these things though, whether that be direct intervention of some sort or just explaining how I could do so myself. I'm a fucking 15 year old still, in terms of my abilities, but I'm sort of erudite and stubborn so everyone assumed I'd figure it out. Well, I fucking didn't, and now I'm a washed up NEET scumbag and I don't know what to do anymore because I've fucked up everything I've tried so far. No one cares, and I'm too much of a headcase to sort things out on my own. I should just fucking end it, because it won't get any better. Even if I did end up alone, in a flat, attending uni, I'd just get so stressed I'd have another meltdown and wind up shutting myself off from the world until everything has too FUBAR for me to salvage. It's just gotten tedious now. I'd be madder to carry on the pretense that I'm capable of change than I would be to off myself in some woods.

Look how fucking nutty I am, just look; what the hell I am going to be like after another five or six years of this? I'm going to end up hurting someone, I already get angry at the drop of a hat, I could be a rampaging loon by then. I can still hide it, mostly, but I've already walked out in front of cars just to fuck with people and considered knifing a bloke for giving me shit at a train station. I'm not normal, I never have been. No one seriously took note so they thought I might be something, but all I am is a let down to them, and danger to everyone else. I just need to face facts and stop pretending.
>> No. 28508 Anonymous
18th May 2019
Saturday 12:12 am
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>>28507

The first thing you did when I asked you to make a list of your goals so we could go through them was attack me for telling you what to do and then complain that no one wants to help and then continue wallowing.

If you actually want help then you have to cooperate. If you just want to complain and attack people who try to help then people won't help you because they presume you don't really want to help, you just want to complain about not getting help.
>> No. 28509 Anonymous
18th May 2019
Saturday 12:14 am
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>>28507
Why are you expecting others to help you?
>> No. 28510 Anonymous
18th May 2019
Saturday 12:22 am
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>>28507

We've definitely had loads of good threads on the topic of "I fucked up my GCSEs and I'm stuck on the dole, how do I get into university?". Could anyone dig them out and help this lad out?
>> No. 28511 Anonymous
18th May 2019
Saturday 12:46 am
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>>28508
Because I can't stop myself. I reread it and reread and I didn't delete it because, well, I don't know why. I'm losing my mind.

>>28509
I've tried to do everything on my own and I've failed each time.

>>28510
Don't bother, I probably posted them.
>> No. 28512 Anonymous
18th May 2019
Saturday 12:59 am
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>>28511
Doesn't seem like you want help.
>> No. 28513 Anonymous
18th May 2019
Saturday 1:31 am
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>>28512
Why?
>> No. 28514 Anonymous
18th May 2019
Saturday 1:40 am
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>>28511

Okay well let's try again. Set out your goals and needs clearly. Part of why I asked you to do it in a very simple concise way is because it allows us to focus better on that specific goal and what the obstacles to those goals are.

We can all dwell our mistakes, but it isn't very useful to list them off like it makes success impossible. I get that you are afraid to try, because you've failed before, and it hurts. But trying is the only way we move forward.
>> No. 28515 Anonymous
18th May 2019
Saturday 6:18 am
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>>28507

I've seen people more fucked up than you getting better after serious therapy. Too bad that NHS mental health services are nonexistent. It looks like mental health is regarded as a privilege, so if you cannot pay you are fucked. Sorry, mate, is there any way you can find a cheap private therapist?
>> No. 28516 Anonymous
18th May 2019
Saturday 6:25 am
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>>28513

Lad, you've been refusing everything given to you in this thread. I get that you can't see it, but imagine the madness of a beggar that refuses money- that's you.

A 15 year old that has to walk 1,000 miles will likely sit around, wonder why, and complain about how unfair it is. An adult will just get on with it, 1,000 miles is simply 1 mile a thousand times, two or three miles a day is pretty tame for most of us.

If you want to stop being a 15 year old, then you need to stop dwelling on all of this. Your goals (a place to live? A partner? A social circle? A job?) might feel far away but they're not. Honestly, this could all be 'solved' in about 2-3 years.

And stop all this bloody self-condemnation. You are nowhere near as 'fucked up' or 'helpless' as you imagine.

It'd be wise to follow >>28514 and work out some actual goals.
>> No. 28517 Anonymous
19th May 2019
Sunday 7:23 pm
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>>28516
Is spot on, dreams and goals take time and effort. They don't happen overnight. You have to pursue them one step at a time.
The best thing you can do is ask yourself what you want, and work back through all the process on how to get there, then go for it.
You have to take that leap and stick to it. It takes time but with perseverance you'll get there.
>> No. 28518 Anonymous
22nd May 2019
Wednesday 4:09 pm
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Fuck. I just fucked a resit exam. I've got one more to do and my continuation of the course rests on that, but I overestimated how well I'd been revising so didn't book much time off work this week.

Which means I either definitely fuck my future plans and have wasted 3 years of my life, or I completely fuck over my understaffed kitchen job as nobody can cover my shift and they were trying to stretch me to give someone else time off.

The choice is fairly obvious for me but I don't know how to break it to my boss. I wasn't expecting this to happen.
>> No. 28519 Anonymous
22nd May 2019
Wednesday 6:02 pm
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>>28518

>The choice is fairly obvious for me but I don't know how to break it to my boss.

Tell him you have sickness and diarrhoea - you legally cannot set foot in that kitchen for at least 48 hours from your symptoms abating. "It's unfortunate, boss, but I wouldn't want to get you into trouble with the EHO"
>> No. 28520 Anonymous
22nd May 2019
Wednesday 6:18 pm
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>>28519

This.

Not saying otherlad is, but I've never understood people's reluctance to pull a sickie when they need to- Your boss doesn't have your best interests in mind. He'd have you trapped in your shit kitchen job the rest of his life if he could, purely so he doesn't have to worry about hiring about someone else.

Look after number one, mate. Phone in sick.
>> No. 28521 Anonymous
22nd May 2019
Wednesday 6:23 pm
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>>28520

>Your boss doesn't have your best interests in mind. He'd have you trapped in your shit kitchen job the rest of his life if he could, purely so he doesn't have to worry about hiring about someone else.

True enough. It's easy to get caught up in the camaraderie of a kitchen and adopt the sense that you're letting the entire team down if you don't come in, but at the end of the day, it's only some fucking food, don't knack yourself up just to make sure some cunt can come in and buy a plate of chips, and nobody will know, care, or ever remember that you sacrificed your health or wellbeing for the team.

Not really getting that vibe from otherlad either, to be fair, but I feel it's worth saying anyway.
>> No. 28522 Anonymous
22nd May 2019
Wednesday 6:31 pm
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>>28520

>doesn't have to worry about hiring about someone else

Funny thing, I'm meant to be learning the cooking bit of this place (it's two people, and I'm the porter (it's just fast food so not even difficult)) so the cook can have time off. I literally walked in to the job so I don't know why they can't another chef until one sticks so they have a spare - there are two shops and 148 hours between them both for the cook's positions. and two cooks.

I'm just torn because there are only two people responsible for the entire making of the food. If I don't come in they will be completely fucked.
OTOH I was going to quit in a month and go to somewhere with a proper timetabling system and enough staff that I can just take days off when I want.
>> No. 28523 Anonymous
22nd May 2019
Wednesday 6:39 pm
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>>28522

>OTOH I was going to quit in a month and go to somewhere with a proper timetabling system and enough staff that I can just take days off when I want.

I encourage you to do this. It sounds like they don't really know what the fuck they're doing over there, if they're not willing/able to hire anyone else or even write a proper rota, then they don't deserve you and your sense of loyalty. Let the boss do some fucking scrubbing.
>> No. 28524 Anonymous
22nd May 2019
Wednesday 6:43 pm
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>>28523

It's my fault really, I was being optimistic about my abilities. And to be fair the boss does cover shifts fairly often (instead of hiring more cooks? I don't ask why).

Still it's a fuckin pita compared to all of my other jobs and the shifts go up to 12 hours to boot, of which at 4 are practically dead sales wise.
>> No. 28538 Anonymous
25th May 2019
Saturday 5:12 pm
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I've run out of options. I've tried various therapies, I've tried various medications, I've tried moving back home, I've tried suspending uni, I've tried working a job, I've tried everything I can think of, and things are only getting worse. I don't see a future for myself anymore. If it wasn't for my mum and my girlfriend I wouldn't be here. I'm so exhausted that I feel like this, but I don't know what else to try.
>> No. 28539 Anonymous
25th May 2019
Saturday 7:11 pm
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I think I'm better being alone.

Women that have everything going for them over the past few years have taken an attraction to me, they want to hang out, chill and be like my best friend and in every part of my life.

I don't know why but I just get so exhausted and try to push them away. It's like once they think they're in they have to eb involved in every aspect of my life when hanging out once or twice a week is enough for me.

I have my routine, my podcasts for shopping, my chill time at night endlessly scrolling Reddit or reading and my nice relaxing morning routine. I don't want somebody interrupting that but saying no always paints me as this kind of bad guy which causes them upset and rejection.

I have no idea when this happened to me but honestly I hate the disruption they bring to my routine.
>> No. 28540 Anonymous
25th May 2019
Saturday 9:06 pm
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>>28539

You need to say no for yourself. But you need to learn how to say no for their sake. You are obviously concerned with hurting them and don't want to. Some of that hurt is inevitable from rejection, but you can mitigate their hurt by making them understand it as not a rejection of them personally. Think about what it is that hurts them about it deep down and maybe you can come up with a better way of phrasing you need 'me time'.
>> No. 28541 Anonymous
25th May 2019
Saturday 9:09 pm
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>>28538

It seems like you are operating off of expectations. What is it that you actually want. Are there any pipe dreams you dismiss because they seem too ridiculous. Maybe they aren't with the right level of planning and patience.
>> No. 28542 Anonymous
25th May 2019
Saturday 9:47 pm
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>>28539

You probably don't want to hear this, but you want a single mum. Not the Jeremy Kyle sort, the middle-class divorcees with a professional job and a couple of teenage kids. They're too busy for lovey-dovey nonsense, they just want a nice dinner, a good conversation and a decent shag on the rare occasion that they've got a night off.
>> No. 28543 Anonymous
25th May 2019
Saturday 10:54 pm
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>>28538

You're not the first lad. The truth is that you can change anything and everything, and still be the same person. I moved 6,000 miles away to discover that I was then only closer to my moronic nature.

I don't really think you've run out of options though- trying again is an option.. Your whole construction is that there are x amount of things to try, with the abyss of failure all around you. It's annoying but it's zen, the only thing to realise is that there's nothing to realise.
>> No. 28544 Anonymous
25th May 2019
Saturday 11:13 pm
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I've almost certainly fucked my maths exam significantly enough that I've failed my course, before even gaining a qualification. It took me 3 years to get to this point, and I've not even passed first year at uni. Nothing to show for it. No idea what I'm doing next year, no idea how to look for a real job now.

I just wish I could do something with my life :( I was working towards this goal for years and I've always dreamt of it. Wanted something to feel good about when entering my 30s.
>> No. 28545 Anonymous
25th May 2019
Saturday 11:36 pm
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>>28544

Talk to your uni. You may be able to re-sit the exam; failing that, the student loan system does allow you to re-take a year or switch courses after the first year. You are not the first student to cock up their first year and you won't be the last. There's no point dwelling on what might go wrong until you know what your options are.
>> No. 28546 Anonymous
26th May 2019
Sunday 8:02 am
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>>28545

I've used all my options. I just failed. That's all there is to it.
>> No. 28547 Anonymous
26th May 2019
Sunday 8:29 am
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>>28546

>I've used all my options.

You haven't mate, it just feels like it. For starters, you mightn't have done as badly in your exam as you thought. If you have cocked up your exam that badly, you can appeal your results for the year based on mitigating circumstances (ill health, family problems etc) or you may be able to re-sit the exam. Student Services will be able to advise you on your options and I'd strongly recommend speaking to your Head of Department.

If you haven't previously used your extra year of student finance, you can re-apply for next year's course, or switch to a different course or a different university that might be better suited to you. If you have used it, you can still apply for a foundation degree, a CertHE, an HND or a variety of vocational qualifications. Studying abroad might be an option, as many European universities teach courses in English and have completely different funding systems. You might also want to consider an apprenticeship - you'll get paid, you'll get real work experience and you'll get a qualification.

There are always other options, even if it doesn't feel like it. You've only failed when you stop trying.
>> No. 28548 Anonymous
26th May 2019
Sunday 12:19 pm
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>>28547
To add to this, even if you have used your extra year of funding, you can get discretionary funding for additional years if you have a good reason for needing it such as health issues or other difficulties. I've got nine years of funding this way.
>> No. 28549 Anonymous
26th May 2019
Sunday 2:10 pm
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>>28539
> and my nice relaxing morning routine
What that would be?
>>28543
> I moved 6,000 miles away to discover that I was then only closer to my moronic nature.
Ain't it a bitch?
Forgive me my seppotalk, I really like this phrase.
I've been there too. Still don't know what to do with it.
>> No. 28550 Anonymous
26th May 2019
Sunday 2:26 pm
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I've come to the conclusion that its not that I'm depressed. It is that the world I live in is painfully sterile. I need stuff to matter, decisions with risk and real dangers the lizard brain can comprehend. How do I find stimulation when trapped deep in city life where most peoples idea of an adventure is attending some novel evening entertainment? And when you go to peoples houses they want to discuss the choice of handles on their kitchen cupboards like they matter.
>> No. 28551 Anonymous
26th May 2019
Sunday 2:42 pm
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>>28550 Would a somewhat-risky job help? Courier, agriculture, TA (plenty more). Or something that means you'd be so shattered at the end of the day that introspection would have to wait...
>> No. 28553 Anonymous
26th May 2019
Sunday 3:11 pm
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>>28550

Buy a motorbike m8. Your commute to work becomes a life-or-death struggle, especially if it's been raining.
>> No. 28554 Anonymous
26th May 2019
Sunday 3:18 pm
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>>28550
I regret not joining the army for pretty much the same reason.
>> No. 28555 Anonymous
26th May 2019
Sunday 4:38 pm
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>>28550

Become a chef. You'll soon be longing for an office job and a flat in the city.
>> No. 28556 Anonymous
26th May 2019
Sunday 6:34 pm
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>>28551

Honestly the riskier the better. I'd love to have gone TA/ Army but I'm lactose intolerant among other seemingly trivial things that medically exclude me.

Turns out I'm weirdly not that far off the requirements to be a polar explorer but the thing I'm short on is leading other people up mountains and I've got to try talk friends into coming up an alp with me. Which when you start talking quite realistically and practically about the dangers and costs, turns out is fairly difficult.


>>28553

I like the idea but feels like the wrong sort of life or death for my taste.

>>28554

I know man. I know.

>>28555

Hardly seems risky at all. I'm sure it is a fine job that keeps you occupied all day but if you think I'd go running home screaming for my office job for any reason you might have over hyped it.
>> No. 28557 Anonymous
26th May 2019
Sunday 10:02 pm
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>>28556

>Hardly seems risky at all. I'm sure it is a fine job that keeps you occupied all day but if you think I'd go running home screaming for my office job for any reason you might have over hyped it.

Precious few jobs are risky nowadays, and the ones that are, you don't really get to enjoy the thrill because you're bogged down in risk management seminars and overwrought procedures and checklists. It's no fun being Chief Flamethrower Juggler Executive if you still have to do a fifteen point flamethrower safety check every time you pick one up. Even the army, despite the genuine risk of death, is such a rule oriented and bureaucratic entity that I don't think you'd find what you're looking for. The best we can do in this world is a highly stressful job with no downtime, which is why I suggested chef, though there's plenty more to choose from.

You could just try moving to a more hostile country? Brazil is nice, but you also have a decent chance of being burned alive wearing a tyre full of petrol if you piss off the wrong person.
>> No. 28558 Anonymous
26th May 2019
Sunday 10:22 pm
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>>28550

What city (or region) do you live in? I tackled this exact problem by taking up climbing and caving specifically.
Technically half the sport is just 'how do you not die if you fuck up' but it's still got the feeling of risk to it.
>> No. 28559 Anonymous
26th May 2019
Sunday 11:18 pm
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>>28558

London. And I climb so hard I've needed reconstructive surgery. I got a bit fat over the winter but am shedding my weight again atm will probably hit the wall again next week.
>> No. 28560 Anonymous
27th May 2019
Monday 6:29 am
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>>28550

Lad, I get it- but you're being quite obtuse here. Going to see the new avengers film or discussing kitchen handles is what people do. Sure, the universe is vast and infinite, and we break it down into incredibly tiny chunks just to make sense of it.

We're really not much different to 10,000 years ago- we like talking about changes around us and telling stories.
>> No. 28561 Anonymous
27th May 2019
Monday 10:48 am
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>>28560

No lad our lives are profoundly different. Everything has a level of control to it that we simply wouldn't have be able to achieve 10,000 years ago, maybe things are different in other cultures as the other lad implied but not here.

I don't know why you think I'm being obtuse everyone else here seems to have understood perfectly my gripe. If talking about finding the right door handles is really just what people do as they get older and achieve their mastery of life I want out. It is symptomatic of not having something more interesting to talk about.


>> No. 28578 Anonymous
28th May 2019
Tuesday 8:32 pm
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I submitted an extenuating circumstances for my massive-fuck-up of an exam session, on the fairly legitimate basis that I might actually be an assburger. Autism well and truly ticked.

But it's really revealing when I list off all the ways I'm at least mildly dysfunctional - being too embarrassed to ask for help with maths problems is a fairly fucking major one in a maths centred degree. And outside of this attempt at university I've had massive difficulty getting jobs over the years, to the point where really I shouldn't be embarrassed to admit I might be a bit of a sperg. Not just awkwarness but whole interviews where I essentially go mute and can't construct sentences.

Strange the things you get used to over the years.
>> No. 28579 Anonymous
29th May 2019
Wednesday 12:13 am
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I had a pretty mental time over the weekend that consisted of not leaving the house, planning for voluntary homelessness and being convinced family members were trying to poison me, but right now I'm feeling positive. I need to stop dreaming anout being two years in the past and start doing my best to get back there, in a metaphorical sense, you understand.

I wish I was a bit more mental though, it's too easy to hide my personal brand brooding self-loathing.
>> No. 28580 Anonymous
29th May 2019
Wednesday 12:24 am
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>>23560

After 2 and half years, I'm still not 100% sure this isn't a picture of my Dad.
>> No. 28581 Anonymous
29th May 2019
Wednesday 1:55 am
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You know how when there's a party or a night out, it always reaches that kind of apex point, everyone's at their most wankered, and you know it's nearing the end. It won't be long before people start slouching off to find somewhere to collapse, or getting taxis, and everything winds down. But there's usually one or two people who refuse to let go, they want to keep going, they end up lingering on or splitting off by themselves trying to keep the torch burning long after everyone else has fucked off.

I feel like that's basically me. My lifestyle and hobbies are all quite thoroughly rooted in the same things I was doing a decade or more ago. I'm not as good at it, I spend a lot more time sat on my own staring at youtube because I don't have as many friends, and the ones I do have aren't as interested in the things we used to do; or at least, I find it harder to motivate them. But I haven't moved on, and I don't know what to move on to. I don't really want to change, but I'm pretty much arsed with it all by now.

I feel like it's about this time of life people start having these feelings, so what most of them do is have kids. That's what kids do ultimately, they fill that nagging void where once, as a younger person, you put all the things that you thought made you cool and interesting, but that you've gradually lost and forgotten as you turned into yet another normal boring cunt.

I'm not sure what I'm rambling about, but anyway. I think the primary problems in my life right now are that I simply can't be arsed to go out and socialise and make new friends, but I'm starting to feel isolated and bored, the friends I do have just constantly flake on me with shit excuses. Even then, if I made new friends they'd probably be just the same, because I'm in that age group where everyone is just having kids and getting married and all that shite, they don't have the time or inclination to be fun, and I don't have the inclination to try find the ones who aren't. Normally I'd be fine in my own company, I always have been, but lately even that's starting to fail.

I have a good couple of productive hobbies and I've spent a lot of time getting good at them- But I can't be really arsed to do anything meaningful with them. I spend my evenings after work just staring at the screen, and the weekends with my girlfriend basically hoping she has an idea for us to do so I don't have to think about it. I don't smoke weed any more, I barely have a drink once in a blue moon. I haven't kept up with new music in literally years and I listen to the same things. I buy maybe 2 new games in a year. I don't even watch porn. I just can't be fucked. I'm fed up. I don't know what to do about it.

Where did my personality go and how do I get it back?
>> No. 28582 Anonymous
29th May 2019
Wednesday 2:47 am
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>>28581
You sound depressed, you have an ingrained view of new relationships as being too much hassle and you avoid them, but not forming new relationships is the source of your isolation and, ultimately, depression. It's the classic depression/Anxiety Catch 22.

I find that I meet new people all the time almost by accident and getting them interested in spending time socially is easy, because I put forward an easy going demeanour and I also have good banter. However, I fucking hate it when people text me. Despise it. Every time it beeps, I flinch. I just want to play Monster Hunter, leave me alone.

I like to make plans, I enjoy chatting to people in person, but text conversations I find exhausting, so I alienate people when I take ages to reply to messages that aren't "Pint Thursday?" or don't reply at all because I'm busy or my phone is in another room. People find that concept bizarre in current year and don't believe me, think I'm making an excuse and take it as disinterest and when I realise and try and make plans so they can see I'm not a cunt, they'll avoid it.

This is, at the risk of triggering /boo/lad, why I love going to Lodge. All my friends from there never fucking text me, because they know they can just ask me whatever it is they were curious about the next time they see me and we can have a pint there. Modern life doesn't have that kind of routine for social interaction outside the workplace anymore. No one uses social clubs, we've marooned ourselves on millions of small islands and tricked ourselves into thinking we're more connected than ever. It's not the case.
>> No. 28583 Anonymous
29th May 2019
Wednesday 8:11 am
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>>28581

I agree with >>28581 - you sound a bit depressed. Maybe not clinically, but certainly a bit of an early midlife crisis.

I wouldn't necessarily recommend freemasonry, but I would suggest trying something new to break out of your rut. It's easy to slide into a vicious cycle of doing less -> feeling worse -> doing less, but it's also surprisingly easy to reverse that into a positive cycle of doing more -> feeling better -> doing more.

If you're happy with your job, I'd suggest trying something a bit adventurous with your free time. Paragliding, scuba diving or rock climbing might be good options - something outdoors with an element of adrenaline. It might sound a bit naff, but the human mind just copes really badly with the existential boredom of middle-class safety. There's good evidence to show that people bond much more quickly in high-adrenaline situations, so it can be a really good way of making deep and lasting friendships as an adult. If you're belaying for a climber or diving with a buddy, that person is trusting you with their life, which is meaningful on a very deep evolutionary level.

If you're not happy with your job, I'd suggest giving serious thought to what you'd rather be doing and where you'd like to be in five years time. You have a lot more options than most people, because you don't have any dependents. You might want to think about making a sideways move into something related to your current job, retraining for something completely different or working abroad for a bit.

If you feel like you're stuck and don't know what to do, I'd suggest spending a little time to reflect on your core values. Think about what really matters to you. If you feel like nothing matters at the moment, think about what used to be important to you. At the link below, you'll find some useful worksheets to help with this process. Once you have a clearer understanding of your core values, it's much easier to make concrete and achievable plans for how to live a life more in accordance with those values. Having a clear sense of your values gives you a really useful life compass - you don't always know your destination, but at least you know which direction to move towards.

https://thehappinesstrap.com/upimages/Complete_Worksheets_2014.pdf
>> No. 28584 Anonymous
29th May 2019
Wednesday 5:36 pm
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>>28582
>>28583

Cheers lads. I am definitely depressed, I always have been, pretty much since my late teens/early 20s. I've just usually been able to cope with it, like you do. Keep myself occupied and distracted. The issue, I suppose, is that those sources of distraction are drying up and I need to find new ones.

What you said about texting people resonates pretty well with me. The reason I'm sort of losing touch with my current mates is that I can never coral them into coming out to do something in the real world- We can play games online and we can chat shit over messenger, but sometimes I just want to spend an evening at the pub with the lads, and I don't have anyone left to do that with.

I'd love some kind of routine social environment. I've considered joining a gaming club, and my girlfriend has left an open invitation for me to join their DnD group, but I simply don't feel like that would lead to the kind of friendships I'm after. When I was in a band, we'd meet up every other week for practice and it was a nice routine for getting out of the house and seeing people; but it always starts to grate on me that it's structured around that same activity, and I wish we could just hang out for the sake of fucking hanging out with each other.

I don't think work is the issue. If anything work is the one thing keeping me sane, my colleagues are all a good laugh and my job definitely fits with my moral values. It provides a perfunctory injection of social interaction, and broadly speaking I have all the big life goals mapped out quite well. Saving up for a house, moving in with my partner, getting a nicer car somewhere down the line, all that stuff; so I don't think it's your common or garden existential dread that's getting to me.

I don't know. Maybe I'm just expecting too much and this is how it is at my age. I have work nights out and I have lazy weekends with the other half and maybe I should just be content with that.
>> No. 28585 Anonymous
29th May 2019
Wednesday 6:37 pm
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>>28584

>sometimes I just want to spend an evening at the pub with the lads, and I don't have anyone left to do that with.

That's always going to be a problem when you hit your late 20s/early 30s, because so many of your mates are having kids and just don't have the time for a night at the pub. You might be at a loose end, but they might be lucky to get one night off a week.

You might want to think about expanding your social circle age-wise, because you're at the peak age for "sorry mate, the missus won't let me out tonight". If you're into music, maybe an open mic night, a jam session or a folk club might be a good place to start? It's a bit more casual than joining a band and you'll have the opportunity to meet a broad spectrum of interesting people.
>> No. 28587 Anonymous
30th May 2019
Thursday 3:18 pm
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Think I'm going to be sacked from my retail job. Manager took me to one side and said my customer service is transactional, and whenever any member of staff tries to talk to me I seem zoned out and "we don't know if anything is going in". Told him before I was on a lot of meds for mental illness, and today I told him I'm diagnosed as autistic. He was nice about, and asked if they can do anything, but I don't think there's anything that can be done.
>> No. 28588 Anonymous
30th May 2019
Thursday 10:40 pm
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>>28587

Retail seems like a bad fit for autism, for obvious reasons, but there's not much better. All the nice low wage jobs tend to be difficult to get in to.

You have my sympathies. Hopefully your boss is an ok guy.
>> No. 28589 Anonymous
30th May 2019
Thursday 10:52 pm
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>>28587

Well if they have any sympathy they'll at least let you go with a nice reference rather than an outright sacking. You could look at getting into call centre work. If you've done retail work you're automatically qualified for most of the entry level jobs.

It's not glamorous, but if nothing else, I found the absence of face to face interaction made it far easier than retail. You don't have to smile, you don't have to look interested, you don't even have to interact with your colleagues, as long as you can convincingly sound like you give half a shit over the phone.
>> No. 28590 Anonymous
31st May 2019
Friday 2:07 am
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>>28588

Best solution in retail is to keep them underground. I'm not joking. I think sticking autistics on stock is beneficial for all parties. They don't need to interact with too many unfamiliar faces and their attention to detail and organisation can be a boon to logistics.
>> No. 28591 Anonymous
31st May 2019
Friday 2:15 am
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I got a job with a driving agency.

Mostly, it's driving cars across the rostrum at auctions. It's minimum wage, but it's so relaxed - get in car, drive to rostrum, drive off and park up when you hear the gavel, repeat.

Other times, you get driven down to a location, pick up a car or van, and have to drive it to another. You get paid until you finish. Listen to your own music, chill out, don't talk to a fucking soul. For a sperg (like me), it's great.

Maybe you should try it, lad.
>> No. 28592 Anonymous
31st May 2019
Friday 8:25 am
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>>28590
Good call.

Ask to be on permanent warehouse duty.
>> No. 28593 Anonymous
31st May 2019
Friday 7:25 pm
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Multi city round trip flights: £3000
Airbnb: £100 a night for three weeks
Getting dumped by email 3 days into your trip: Priceless

Some things you just can't make up, for everything else there's /Emo/card(TM)
>> No. 28594 Anonymous
31st May 2019
Friday 10:20 pm
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>>28593

Tell us more lad. What happened? Why? Who even uses email for personal communication any more?
>> No. 28600 Anonymous
2nd June 2019
Sunday 10:23 pm
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Do I want to quit my job and travel? Is this really my last chance before I'm too old? Do I even want a middle management job? Maybe I should be grateful for the good steady money coming in. Do I like this girl enough to say I love her or do I say it because it's better than being alone? Why is it that now I've got everything I wanted I don't feel any happier and am willing to throw it all away on a roll of a dice for a better prospect? Why is it that if my life is so good I am watching youtube videos of 'Nature TV' staring at the nice beaches and forests pretending I'm there and not in my urban flat with the sound of busses flying past every five minutes? Is this my life? How do I even make this feeling go away? Is this normal?

Will I ever feel as content as I used to waking up on a Saturday at 7am to play Runescape and worrying about nothing else in the world? I hope so.
>> No. 28601 Anonymous
2nd June 2019
Sunday 10:36 pm
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>>28599

Yes, it's normal. No, you won't.

Back when I was living at my mum and dad's on the dole, I knew a decent job and a couple of months pay was all I needed to turn my life around. Then I'd feel better. And it was- I paid them back for the money I owed, I got my own place, and I've been able to surround myself with all the material possessions I could once only wish I had.

But you know what? I miss those days when I could wake up at 3pm and do nothing but read entire books. I could scrape together the change to put a fiver of petrol in my car and go somewhere; I couldn't do anything while I was there but I existed outside it all, I was free. I had nothing, so everything I had, I appreciated more. One week I played through a whole Final Fantasy game- That's something I'd never done before and will never do since.

I'm not sure what the recipe for happiness is quite yet; but I can be sure that it is normal to feel dissatisfied no matter how happy you think you should be. I think our brains are hardwired to want more, and you can only defeat that with conscious self training.

I think those lads earlier had a point about us needing some sort of thrill in life. That's why I liked being on the dole- I'm no criminal mastermind but selling the odd bag of weed and risking a drive when you haven't had your car MOT'd or whatever, to save a bit of money, those things made me feel more alive. The more comfortable you are the less you have to scratch that itch; which I think is what drives people to cheat on partners, and what propels celebrity chefs to nick cheese.
>> No. 28602 Anonymous
2nd June 2019
Sunday 11:08 pm
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>>28594

It's a bit complicated to be honest, but what isn't?

We'd been seeing each other every month or so (we live about two hours apart) for about eight months; I live on my own but her visiting me was difficult because of her job, my visiting her was easier because I can work anywhere I have internet - but she doesn't live on her own so actually staying at her place wasn't feasible so when I visited I stayed in hotels and that wasn't ideal.

I had plans in the medium term, once I had some job stuff taken care of (what this trip was all about), to start visiting her and getting an AirBNB near her place so we could spend a week or so at a time together but apparently that wasn't enough.

Her official line is that she didn't "feel included or involved" in my day to day life which I think was mostly code for her being resentful of the amount of time I spend with my kid (and therefore, by necessity, with my ex).

The long and the short of it is that we were both looking for different things in a relationship and how ever much we liked each other things were never really going to work out properly. "Consider if you are truly mentally and emotionally capable of supporting a partner with their own mental health issues who are talking about marriage and sending you property listings one week and dumping you the next" may also apply here.

The emailing me three days into my trip was just an efficient way to twist the psychic knife and try to make me as miserable as possible during my trip (joke's on her, I just went on a ten day drug binge and then fired into an old flame for the rest of the duration).

TL;DR - The whole relationship was fucking exhausting and as much as I'll miss the sex and feel like a lonely fuck for a while when I get home, I'm almost relieved it's finally over.

Sage for total and utter blogpost rambling.
>> No. 28603 Anonymous
4th June 2019
Tuesday 11:54 am
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I'm very anxious, for the first time in years in fact. I often find my breath "catching", by which I mean I have to take a second to compose myself and actually begin to inhale. It happens whenever I'm outdoors, even if there isn't anyone around. I also recall I posted about this flippently elsewhere but I can't go to bed without thinking about dying somehow, and if I do drift off I often wake up after having a brief but violent dream of some description. It's really hampering my sleeping and I've slipped into a 4AM-11AM routine for the first time in years.

Also I'm scum and I have no money.
>> No. 28604 Anonymous
4th June 2019
Tuesday 10:12 pm
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>>28603
>I can't go to bed without thinking about dying somehow

Can I ask how old you are? I went through a phase of this in my very early thirties. It soon passed.
>> No. 28605 Anonymous
5th June 2019
Wednesday 1:06 am
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>>28604

If you're afraid of dying, then you're doing OK. You know that you're really in a state when thinking about death is how you lull yourself to sleep.
>> No. 28606 Anonymous
5th June 2019
Wednesday 4:20 pm
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I have a very mild problem with coming to terms regarding my age. Especially whilst re-visiting places I'd been at about 20 years ago last time. A wee lass I remember laying on the baby scales, crying as if there'd be no tomorrow, is almost a fully grown woman now. Quite different traffic patterns, as well as the cars that make it.
It's just weird.
Prolly a common thing to experience yet I can't help but think about it from time to time.
>> No. 28607 Anonymous
5th June 2019
Wednesday 4:35 pm
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>>28604
24, but with no hope or drive.

>>28605
But I spend all day sad anyway so what's the point. If anything those anguished moments of distress at night are just a silly reflex, like a kiddie not wanting to eat vegetables. I should probably top myself but I won't because I'm a prick.
>> No. 28608 Anonymous
5th June 2019
Wednesday 7:00 pm
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>>28606

Do you feel like you've been cheated a bit? I sort of get that.

In my head I'm still the same lad I was at roughly 19 or so. But in reality that was over a decade ago and all the things that have happened in between have just slipped by in a way that, back then, I'd have easily kept up with. Someone conned me into all those extra shifts when I could have been in the pub with some mates. Now I haven't seen most of those mates in maybe three or four years. Even worse that I can see them posting pictures of their kids on Facebook.

I dunno.
>> No. 28609 Anonymous
6th June 2019
Thursday 10:40 am
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Today my goals are: shower, cut my own hair, use trade and barter to get my phone fixed. I hate myself and I hope the world ends.
>> No. 28610 Anonymous
6th June 2019
Thursday 12:20 pm
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>>28608
> Do you feel like you've been cheated a bit?
Not really. I can relate to the 'being 29, feeling like 19' part though. Fully.
Similarly, the people I used to know. I'm not on FB so I have no idea what they're up to these days. Frankly, I'm content with not knowing.
>> No. 28611 Anonymous
8th June 2019
Saturday 10:35 am
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How do you deal with the fact that nobody wants you? I'm really struggling with just accepting loneliness but I feel like if I can do it then it pretty much takes care of all my problems. Any tips?
>> No. 28612 Anonymous
8th June 2019
Saturday 11:18 am
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>>28611
If I weren't so lazy I would dedicate myself to meditation.

Apparently if you do it enough times you achieve "enlightenment" as defined by a feeling of oneness with the universe, the eradication of fear, and the elimination of one's internal dialogue.
>> No. 28613 Anonymous
8th June 2019
Saturday 7:20 pm
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>>28612
Am the guy you're replying to and I've been going down that route ever since spending a few months living within a buddhist community. It feels like I'm on the verge of some great realisation that could ease some pain and further my understanding, I'm just not sure how to breakthrough. Fully accepting loneliness appears to be the key, but something is stopping me. I'm aware I probably sound insane at this point.
>> No. 28614 Anonymous
8th June 2019
Saturday 8:43 pm
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>>28613

I'd go and have a read of some neo-advaita stuff:

https://www.sriramanamaharshi.org/resource_centre/publications/
>> No. 28615 Anonymous
11th June 2019
Tuesday 4:02 pm
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>>23560
Anyone have any experience with ECT? Lithium isn't really working and my psychiatrist thinks ECT is a viable option at this point but it terrifies me.
>> No. 28616 Anonymous
11th June 2019
Tuesday 4:51 pm
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>>28615

There are loads of myths about ECT. It's a heavy-duty intervention and shouldn't be taken lightly, but it's not some kind of medieval horror either.

The experience of having ECT isn't anything like as bad as you might be imagining. You'll be completely sedated for the treatment, so you'll be out cold and won't feel a thing. I think the best analogy for the immediate after-effects is a hangover - when you wake up after the treatment you'll probably have a headache, you might feel a bit queasy and achey, you'll probably feel a bit spaced out and disoriented and you might have some gaps in your recent memory. It's not exactly fun, but I've had far worse after a big sesh.

The more serious long-term side-effects relate to concentration and memory formation. Most people have no noticeable problems after a few weeks, some people just feel a bit vague and some people feel like they've been made permanently stupider. The more severe side-effects are relatively rare. It's difficult to say how much of this is ECT and how much is the underlying disease - schizophrenia, bipolar disorder and severe depression all have major negative effects on memory and concentration. If these longer-term side effects do develop, they tend to be cumulative after many treatments rather than a result of a single dose.

I had ECT during an episode of severe psychotic depression. I was taken off suicide watch after the first treatment, was sent home from a locked ward after the second and was pretty much capable of coping on my own after the fourth. I did have a fair bit of episodic memory loss, but to be honest I didn't really mind, because I hadn't had any nice memories in quite some time. It didn't fix me overnight, but it got me out of a life-threatening situation. The overwhelming majority of people who have ECT report some level of improvement in their symptoms. Some people with severe depression say that ECT was an overnight cure - their depression was completely resolved as soon as they woke up from sedation.

Only you can say whether the risks are worth the benefits in your particular case. If you're running out of options, I think it's worth giving serious consideration. You don't have to go through with the full course and you're entirely within your rights to have one or two sessions and decide that it's not right for you. Whatever you decide right now, you might also want to think about making an advance decision about your future treatment.

https://www.mind.org.uk/information-support/legal-rights/mental-capacity-act-2005/advance-decisions/
>> No. 28617 Anonymous
11th June 2019
Tuesday 4:56 pm
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>>28616
I think I'm just very apprehensive about going under general anaesthetic. I've had it before, and waking up from it was one of the worst experiences of my life, though I was quite young at the time. The memory loss thing worries me too. I know it's rare, but the Mind site does say some people have been so badly affected that they had to quit their job due to losing all the knowledge necessary to do the work.

The doctor also suggested a treatment called transcranial magnetic stimulation which sounds less risky than ECT, but from the impression she gave me it's also less effective.
>> No. 28626 Anonymous
14th June 2019
Friday 3:00 pm
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My god, after all the years I've been trying to get more mental health help, the trick is not wanting it...

I went into the GP today to get my prescription reduced, (it is one with multiple GPs in and I met one I've never met before)

I've been reducing my anti-depressants for months at the suggestion of a clinical psychologist, and needed to talk to the GP just to get the amount changed, as when I try tell them by email they ignore it and just issue me the previous amount.

So I talk to the new GP they ask me about what it is for, and end up asking about my history of depression, and they have decided, possibly because they've never spoken to a person with chronic depression before that I need to be referred to the local crisis group. I tell them I don't see the point given I already have plenty of points of contact for mental health, and I am not in any new or high risk, They do it anyway.

The crisis team has arranged an assessment appointment at my house for tomorrow, I don't want to see the crisis team I don't feel there would be any gain in seeing the crisis team, (they couldn't offer me anything the clinical teams I see don't already offer) and frankly I'm offended that the GP has passed along my details to them.

I've been trying to cancel the appointment at first in a calm way, but to them everything is a matter of life and death, and not wanting the assessment is a sign you must really need the assessment. paticularly given I am quite open about having chronic depression that in their mind gives them free licence. The idea that anyone wouldn't want an assesment because it really is a waste of their time and inconvient is something they don't seem to grasp.


They insist I explain why I don't feel I need the assessment before they cancel it. Which I do for a while, and there is a lot of circler reasoning about 'well if the GP says it there must be a reason' they more in depth with their questioning about my history, to a level that is basically an assessment anyway I end up saying "I didn't phone so you could do an assessment now. look Turning up would be a waste of everyone's time you aren't offering anything I don't have access to and I am fine".
I end up telling them bluntly they can turn up tomorrow but I'm not going to answer the door to them and hang up when they don't seem to process that I am doing that for no other reason then it is a wast of my time, I'm not going to argue with them, what is the point.

They seem incapable of accepting anyone could be not just avoidant and just accepting a 'no thank you'. I have images of them getting police to break my door down now, and that in week I'll be writting my follow up from the secure unit they put me in because I don't want to talk to them.
>> No. 28627 Anonymous
14th June 2019
Friday 6:59 pm
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>>28626

Don't worry about it mate, it's just bureaucratic bollocks. Your new GP only referred you to cover their arse. If you end up topping yourself at some point, they can just pass the buck to the crisis team.

The crisis team are only chasing you up because they'll cop the blame if they don't conduct an assessment. Once they've got a bit of paper saying that you're low risk, they can safely ignore you; their forms are carefully designed to make pretty much everyone look like they're low risk.

If you want an easy life, I'd strongly recommend letting them in for a quick nose about; as long as your house doesn't look like a crack den and you don't have a missing schoolgirl locked up in your airing cupboard, they'll be out of your hair in five minutes. They don't have enough resources to actually provide care to patients, they just want to tick the necessary boxes on their forms.

The police can't kick your door down without an s.135 warrant. The court will only issue a warrant if there's clear evidence that a) you lack the capacity to make your own decisions and b) you pose an immediate risk to yourself or others. The quickest way to rule that out is to comply with an assessment.
>> No. 28629 Anonymous
14th June 2019
Friday 7:34 pm
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>>28627


I would rather they didn't have a poke around at all. Just because they will stop being so invasive after they don't find anything doesn't convince me I should let them do it.

The same way if a copper turned up systematically and just wanted to rule out I wasnt growing weed in my loft I wouldn't let him in to confirm it.
>> No. 28630 Anonymous
14th June 2019
Friday 7:52 pm
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>>28629

It's your choice mate. You don't have to talk to them, but they have the legal right and duty to pester you. If you choose to make a nuisance of yourself, that's going to end up on your notes and you'll be treated accordingly in future. It's unfair, it's a pain in the arse, but you have the choice between a minor pain in the arse and a massive pain in the arse.
>> No. 28631 Anonymous
14th June 2019
Friday 8:40 pm
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>>28630

> but they have the legal right and duty to pester you.


Do they, since when?
>> No. 28632 Anonymous
14th June 2019
Friday 9:55 pm
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>>28631

1983.

https://www.nhs.uk/using-the-nhs/nhs-services/mental-health-services/mental-health-act/
>> No. 28633 Anonymous
14th June 2019
Friday 10:27 pm
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>>28632

I'm pretty sure >>28626 isn't sectioned currently.
>> No. 28635 Anonymous
14th June 2019
Friday 11:01 pm
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>>28633

Exactly I literally turned up to a doctor just to get a change of prescription, I told them nothing that isn't known to mental health experts already, and they all have the reaction when I tell them properly 'well sounds like you are managing it correctly and doing the right stuff, not sure what more we can do really, good luck, see you in a few months maybe?'

For some reason this doctor got zealous probably because I wasn't in a mood to humour her suggesting the same things I've heard a dozen times before when I wasn't asking for help, I just wanted to get my prescription and leave without having to deconstruct my life for her in a way that gives them the catharsis they've found a sacrificial duck so they can feel they helped in some way so they can be satisfied and stop asking. And because of that I now have another group who want to probe and try micro manage my life.

It would be like bringing something in for lost and found at a police station and them suddenly bringing out a police report and treating it as hostile and suspicious when you say you aren't interested in answering their questions that go beyond the basics because you don't have the time. And then they decided because of it you obviously need questioning
>> No. 28636 Anonymous
14th June 2019
Friday 11:19 pm
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>>28635
>It would be like bringing something in for lost and found at a police station and them suddenly bringing out a police report and treating it as hostile and suspicious when you say you aren't interested in answering their questions that go beyond the basics because you don't have the time. And then they decided because of it you obviously need questioning
That wouldn't be particularly unusual.
>> No. 28637 Anonymous
15th June 2019
Saturday 12:10 am
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>>28636

But if it happened to you, you would feel it was a pain in the arse that would put you off 'doing the right thing' in future because it was more hassle then it was worth trying to be nice.
>> No. 28638 Anonymous
15th June 2019
Saturday 12:38 am
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>>28635

You're annoyed, I'd be annoyed, but this is how the system works. If I asked a friend "how are you" and they replied "go away and leave me alone", I'd assume that something was wrong. If I saw a copper and legged it, they'd almost certainly chase me. You have the right not to engage with them, but they have the right to section you; if you butt heads with them, they're going to win every time.

You have a history of mental illness, but the crisis team don't necessarily know much of that history and know relatively little about your current status. They want to ask you some questions to work out whether you're a risk or not. You're refusing to answer those questions, they've got a legal duty of care to safeguard you, ergo they're going to keep pestering you until a) you agree to undergo an assessment, b) they can legitimately claim that all reasonable efforts to conduct an assessment have failed or c) they decide to section you for the purposes of assessment.

The system will not change just because you don't like it. You can talk to the crisis team, give all the right answers and they'll sod off immediately, or you can refuse to talk to them and hope that they eventually give up. If they don't give up, they have the legal powers to really shit up your life. Those are the choices on offer. If you genuinely just want to be left alone, then the best choice is blatantly obvious.
>> No. 28639 Anonymous
15th June 2019
Saturday 1:36 am
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>>28638
>You're annoyed, I'd be annoyed, but this is how the system works. If I asked a friend "how are you" and they replied "go away and leave me alone"

Only that isn't what happened is it. It would be like if your nosey neighbour heard someone screaming on your TV and then called the police saying there was a domestic disturbance.


>If you genuinely just want to be left alone, then the best choice is blatantly obvious.

Firstly my dignity and self respect is more important to me than going along with what they want. Secondly You've made an awful lot of assumptions that they will just hear the right thing and fuck off. I tried telling them the right thing over the phone and that didn't make them stop they just doubled down on their convictions.

I feel like if I took your plan and they might decided they aren't just going to leave they are going to just continue probing deeper and getting more invasive then I'm in a worse position.

>If they don't give up, they have the legal powers to really shit up your life.

I don't really see what possible grounds they would have frankly, I told them to shoo and a New GP had a baseless inkling, hardly seems like enough of a legal justification to try section me.
>> No. 28640 Anonymous
15th June 2019
Saturday 2:38 am
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>>28639

I'm guessing you've been diagnosed with Schizoid Personality Disorder at some point?

>Only that isn't what happened is it. It would be like if your nosey neighbour heard someone screaming on your TV and then called the police saying there was a domestic disturbance.

What do you think would be the sensible response if you were caught up in that situation? If the police arrived and you told them to sod off and mind their own business, would you expect them to leave without actually checking whether there's a dead woman in your flat?

>I feel like if I took your plan and they might decided they aren't just going to leave they are going to just continue probing deeper and getting more invasive then I'm in a worse position.

They have zero motivation to do that unless you genuinely appear to be at risk; if you are at risk, they have remarkably limited resources to actually do anything. Crisis teams across the country are dealing with more actively suicidal people than they can possibly keep tabs on. They just want to tick the boxes on their form that say you're not suicidal or homicidal.

You told them what you thought was the right thing, but from their perspective it's irrelevant - the only thing they care about is completing a formal assessment, for reasons I have explained at some length. You don't have to tell the truth in that assessment, but they are highly motivated to tick the boxes on their form that gives them permission to leave you alone. If they don't get those boxes ticked, their jobs are at risk.

>I don't really see what possible grounds they would have frankly, I told them to shoo and a New GP had a baseless inkling, hardly seems like enough of a legal justification to try section me.

I'm not saying that they will do it, but if you decide to get into a battle with the health system, they have a lot of legal powers at their disposal. The world is full of unreasonable pricks and some of them are mental health service providers. If you don't play the game, it's easy to get labelled as a "difficult patient" or a "challenging service user"; that label sticks, and it makes all of your future interactions with the mental healthcare system more difficult.

I've been sectioned. I've been on a Community Treatment Order. I've seen a lot of people get stuck in a vicious cycle because they won't play the game. The system is designed for compliant, grateful patients who seem to recover quickly after acute bouts of illness; if you don't fit that picture, you're likely to be perceived as sicker and more risky than you really are.

Rather than seeing you as someone who doesn't want help that you don't need, they might see you as someone who is too ill to accept help that you do need. Rather than seeing your refusal of help as a sign of recovery and independence, they might see it as a sign of worsening symptoms. The harder they push, the more you resist, so you look more ill and they push harder.

I'm not saying it will happen, I'm not saying it'll happen overnight, but you're standing on the brink of a slippery slope.
>> No. 28641 Anonymous
15th June 2019
Saturday 8:24 am
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>>28640
>What do you think would be the sensible response if you were caught up in that situation? If the police arrived and you told them to sod off and mind their own business, would you expect them to leave without actually checking whether there's a dead woman in your flat?

I'd expect them to prosecute my neighbour for wasting their time and if they didn't I would sue both my neighbour and the police force.
>> No. 28642 Anonymous
15th June 2019
Saturday 10:37 am
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>>28641
You'd be laughed out of court as they'd all be doing due diligence and your reasoning is daft.
>> No. 28643 Anonymous
15th June 2019
Saturday 10:42 am
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>>28642
Irrelevant. It's the principle of the thing. Just because Boris is going to be PM doesn't mean we all have to turn into amoral scumbags.
>> No. 28644 Anonymous
15th June 2019
Saturday 10:50 am
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>>28642
Oh and "the right sort of people" knowingly spuriously report "the wrong sort of people" (in this case a person with mental health issues) to the police all the time. It's evil.
>> No. 28645 Anonymous
15th June 2019
Saturday 10:53 am
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>>28643
The principle of the thing is that the police and care people have the obligation to perform due diligence to make sure you're not beating up your wife or about to kill yourself. The moral thing for them to do is to perform the basic duty of care by checking it out, making sure people aren't dead has a higher priority than making sure grumpy hermits have their every desire catered to.
>> No. 28646 Anonymous
15th June 2019
Saturday 10:54 am
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>>28644
You're about two feet away from complaining about gangstalkers.
>> No. 28647 Anonymous
15th June 2019
Saturday 11:04 am
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>>28646

It feels like you're proving other lads point, to me. They value their privacy enough to not want to jump through inconvenient and potentially humiliating hoops under the threat of unpleasant medical intervention, yet because they are a mentalist then obviously they're just a schizo conspiracy theorist. It really highlights the problems we face with mental health - you can't object to something mental health related because you're mental so clearly you can't possibly make the right decisions. It's a terrifying idea really, and I'm not even the one suffering from mental health issues. And not being fully convinced that a mental health professional will make the right call or leave them alone after today is fully and demonstrably justified.

I do think otherlad should probably bite the bullet on this one, but I fully understand why they don't want to, and it's not a mental health issue that's making them feel this way - it's a fundamental desire for privacy and a fear that their currency successful mental health treatment may be changed or ruined by an overzealous medical professional - I think we can all concede this is reasonable, and no more a sign of delusional thinking than not trusting facebook with personal data.
>> No. 28648 Anonymous
15th June 2019
Saturday 11:24 am
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>>28647
Just to clarify, I'm not the lad who actually posted about dealing with this but thank-you all the same. This in particular is an excellent point:
>you can't object to something mental health related because you're mental so clearly you can't possibly make the right decisions

It's like knowing you can serve lower quality food on the kids' menu. 9 times out of 10 the parents will just tell them to shut up and eat their food so why bother to make it good?
>> No. 28649 Anonymous
15th June 2019
Saturday 12:36 pm
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How much did you want to reduce your dosage by? Pill-cutters are extremely cheap on eBay but they obviously couldn't do 9/10ths or something.
>> No. 28650 Anonymous
15th June 2019
Saturday 3:58 pm
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>>28649
Unless the pills are meant to be cut, then you are wasting your time since we don't know how the active ingredients are distributed in the pill.
>> No. 28652 Anonymous
15th June 2019
Saturday 5:35 pm
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Someone turned up at the door, I ignored it they posted a note saying they missed me and asking if I'd like to reschedule. Glad there wasn't some sort of a whispering campaign in their office after I told them on the phone I wouldn't answer the door where they escalated to the absurd and broke in my door in the name of their moral duty to check I was safe from harm.

>>28647

Nice to see someone got and respected my point. Even if you did it in response to other otherlad posts not mine

For the record since it came up I have Depression and Anxiety, nothing related to paranoia or schizophrenia but God knows why the GP told them. She asked me quite sincerely in my brief encounter with her after I mentioned the depression medication if 'I heard or saw things other people don't'. I stared at her in disbelief for a while before I answered. It made me presume she can't tell one mental illness from another and the causal relations of symptoms which is probably why she escalated things unnecessarily.
>> No. 28653 Anonymous
15th June 2019
Saturday 5:39 pm
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>>28652

To clarify my point. There is a causal relationship of schizophrenics having depression. But it is schizophrenics getting depressed not the depressed suddenly developing schizophrenia.
>> No. 28654 Anonymous
15th June 2019
Saturday 5:49 pm
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>>28652
No offence intended lad but are you another social minority of some kind? As someone who also suffers with depression and anxiety I've noticed that the people who pretend to think it means I'm dangerous for some reason are the same people who pretend to think I'm a secret druggie or that I want to rape white women. Glad to hear it worked out in any case.
>> No. 28655 Anonymous
15th June 2019
Saturday 6:29 pm
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>>28652

>but God knows why the GP told them
but God knows what the GP told them, Obviously, autocorrect got me.

>>28654
White passing. It means I suffer no white guilt, but get white privilage, also I can act offended and entitled if people also don't include me in special allowances they make.

So I've never had any of that, if anything most people don't take the idea I have depression seriously because I am superficially upbeat and wacky.
>> No. 28657 Anonymous
15th June 2019
Saturday 6:56 pm
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>>28655
>White passing

We're obviously on a different page politically and I have no idea what you look like but I am also 'white passing' and it can be surprising sometimes how much it gives people the heebie-jeebies that I'm almost like them but not quite. I faced this dead on when I was in my early 20s and, although my issues are still there, they don't trouble me to anywhere near the same degree that they once did.

Inb4 50 people dogpile in to insist looking different cannot possibly make a difference to how you are treated and/or how you feel about being treated in such a way.
>> No. 28658 Anonymous
15th June 2019
Saturday 6:56 pm
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I want beauty in my life. A beauty beyond the setting sun, beyond wildlife. I want someone to know me and to tell me it's all right. I want freedom from my perversites. I want innocence.
I'm afraid of carrying on like this. Of what I could make myself, of how bitter i might become. Of becoming desperate.

But I think most of all I'm afraid of being a whiney bitch.
>> No. 28659 Anonymous
15th June 2019
Saturday 7:08 pm
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>>28657
>it can be surprising sometimes how much it gives people the heebie-jeebies that I'm almost like them but not quite

What you seem to be describing is white uncanny valley not white passing.
>> No. 28660 Anonymous
15th June 2019
Saturday 7:09 pm
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>>28659
Yes? That's literally the point?
>> No. 28661 Anonymous
15th June 2019
Saturday 7:16 pm
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>>28658

Sounds like you need to go get mashed at a festival and bang someone.
>> No. 28662 Anonymous
15th June 2019
Saturday 7:18 pm
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>>28660

So that isn't white passing then. The point of white passing is people don't recognize you as other and you are telling me they do.
>> No. 28663 Anonymous
15th June 2019
Saturday 7:21 pm
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>>28662
People who actually pass as white don't call themselves white passing, they call themselves white.
>> No. 28664 Anonymous
15th June 2019
Saturday 7:34 pm
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>>28663

People who are european call themselves white. People of mixed heritage or who look like they are European when they aren't don't.
>> No. 28665 Anonymous
15th June 2019
Saturday 7:38 pm
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>>28664
Okay mate. Like I said I have no idea what you look like or where you're from. But I'm sure if I get a non-white vibe from reading your anonymous text-based posts online nobody can ever, ever, ever tell from looking at your face.
>> No. 28666 Anonymous
15th June 2019
Saturday 7:39 pm
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>>28647
>>28652
>It feels like you're proving other lads point, to me. They value their privacy enough to not want to jump through inconvenient and potentially humiliating hoops under the threat of unpleasant medical intervention, yet because they are a mentalist then obviously they're just a schizo conspiracy theorist.
No. I wasn't talking about whether it's right or wrong that people think that, the fact is that they do, the system these mental health people work in is set up in a way that reflects that and depressedlad isn't going to make them stop bothering him simply by being right. They are going to keep being a pain in the arse until he jumps through the right hoops. Calling the police then trying to sue them for not doing what you want is just wishful thinking.
>> No. 28673 Anonymous
18th June 2019
Tuesday 6:12 pm
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Lying about absolutely everything is more emotionally draining than I remember.
>> No. 28674 Anonymous
18th June 2019
Tuesday 7:13 pm
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>>28666

I did respond to a post that just said 'next you'll be on about gang stalkers' so I don't think it's unreasonable to suggest that post was implying he was a paranoiac.
>> No. 28684 Anonymous
30th June 2019
Sunday 12:44 am
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She said she loves me the first time we drunkenly fucked. It was my first time for 10 years (second total).

She's just been drunk on my shoulder telling me she feels safe with me. She's disapointed that i won't drink with her or go back to her flat; nor engage in stroking of hair, hugs and shit.

She's desperatly approaching middle age. There's plenty nice about her but i don't want to support her bad habbits, nor be the one to inspire change in her.

We live in the same building. at times i can hear her shit (and a number of other people - fucking berdsit/house conversions).
This is my home - i don't want her coming back to my home but she essentially has to come within intimate proximity (IE her backdoor is less than a meter from my bed head) to reach her own.
The problem is this place has some benefits. I don't want to move out to get away from this.

Every so often i drink, get horny and respond to her advances which i'm now realising is a mistake. We've mentioned this; 'we shouldn't do it again'. I mean it more than her, it seems. It's as though having those talks is just another step in the game.

I don't want to be there to catch when she falls. I don't mind helping her out - "Want anything from the shops?", "I've had a bad day", etc.

I recognise that i have trust issues, asperges traits and am inexperienced with relationships. But .. surely i shouldn't discount my feeling? For what, a drunken fuck and hollow intimacy a couple of times a week? I want to look into eyes and see myself, or some quality of, but i don't in hers.

Being around her is essentially giving me a crash course in sociability and intimacy - my mental progress has improved significantly by her influence. I'm learning how to engage with people at what seems like an exponential rate.

How do i break intimate contact with her while still maintaining a good neighbourly, perhaps even friendly, relationship? I don't want to hurt the girl.

This is a pretty messed up format but i just need to get it down or risk losing it to apathy.
>> No. 28685 Anonymous
30th June 2019
Sunday 8:51 am
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>>28684
I know this is tangential but if she's approaching middle age why are you calling her 'girl'?
>> No. 28686 Anonymous
30th June 2019
Sunday 9:31 am
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>>28684
You've both got your own space, you seem to be benefiting greatly from her presence. Is she really such a bad thing? Do you think that you're going to find someone better now, or prefer to be entirely alone?
I'm not saying you should 100% go for anything but maybe have another think about your situation.
>> No. 28687 Anonymous
30th June 2019
Sunday 12:00 pm
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I can't stand not even being tired, but still feeling completely done in and hopeless in a way that makes everything ten times more effort. It's just not even worth waking up some days.
>> No. 28688 Anonymous
30th June 2019
Sunday 2:12 pm
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>>28685
I feel something for her situation; her choices through life have led her to this place and she seems to be aware of it but she's still trying to escape. I know we all do this .. it's why i play too many video games, wank too often, over eat, over sleep .. anything to avoid responcibility for my lack of effort, trying to convince myself 'no, it's a lack of ability!'.

I get it. Pious. Patronising. It wasn't so long ago she told me she didn't like being patted when i try to break a hug. It's that 'okay, you've had enough' attitude, you know?

>>28686
Honestly I've been considering the situation for months now. Since the start, perhaps 6 or 7 months, it's been on and off like this. I've gone with the flow, convinced myself 'nothing really matters, it doesn't have to mean anything, just enjoy yourself'. And that works. But i've always come back to this moment. And most of the time when i arrive i feel as though i'd prefer being alone.

I've met 2 people i'd rather be dating instead of 'messing around' with my neighbour. The first i fell into a deep infatuation with 6 months or so prior to hooking up with my neighbour and only cooled off just recently. The first time my neighbour and I 'hooked up' all i could think was "what if it's like this with her? (being the infatuation). I waslked around feeling suicidal for a number of days, even talked to a doctor about it.

This is what i struggle with. Is it okay to want someone better? Is the only reason my neighbour likes me because she's self confessed desperate? I've pissed her off plenty, said the wrong things and been as cold as a fish but she's persisted and keeps inviting interaction.

I don't want to be fucking used. That's the distinct impression i got from her talk and mannerisms in the early weeks and months around her.

>>28687
During phases of my fathers depression, it struck me as interesting how often he put so little effort into his domestic activities yet still despaired when they didn't work well.. while making tea he gripped a spoon so weakly that it fell to the floor, thus triggering a tormenting of .. what, exactly? Effort? My father is morbidly obese; moving is an ordeal for him let alone retieving anything from below waist hight.

So, what? Put as much effort in the things you can do, like turning over in bed. Like taking a breath. Put as much effort you can into not thinking, paradox though it is. Cultivate that and you'll be washing up in no time.

Because ultimately you're putting as much effort into depression as anything else. At least, i was.

And here's the patrony again; while i sit comfortable not working, living poor but free on the back of society. Let's hope one day i'll make more effort (but not now, right?).
>> No. 28689 Anonymous
30th June 2019
Sunday 2:20 pm
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>>28688
Fuck me, that's like 5 references and a sustained focus on 'effort', namely a lack of it. Do you think that's what's going on - i don't want to bother? I'm getting all squirmy in my chair. I think this might be it.
>> No. 28690 Anonymous
30th June 2019
Sunday 6:13 pm
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For the past week or so, from the second I wake up, until the second I go to bed, I have had an overarching sense of dread. It's starting to realise physically too, in the form of chest pain.
>> No. 28691 Anonymous
1st July 2019
Monday 1:07 am
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>>28687
christ, I feel this too. It's worse lately.
>> No. 28701 Anonymous
4th July 2019
Thursday 3:47 pm
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I can't do anything, I've gotten too weak, if I try I just come apart at the seams. I've lost all the ground I'd taken and now everything's so different I just don't know what to do. It's not even like no one cares, there just isn't anyone left to care. Just thinking about it is overwhelming. I can't access any answers the doctor gives, but I don't know where else to go. Took me the best part of six hours just to wash myself, assuming we aren't including the two day build up to just that.

Every decision I've ever taken has ultimately been a failure and no I've got no options left.
>> No. 28729 Anonymous
8th July 2019
Monday 6:21 am
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I've had my current job for 6 months now.
Do I enjoy it? It's tolerable. I'm not interested in the work but it earns me money to support myself.
I always intended it to be something to stick with while I better myself and move on to something better a couple of years later on.
The problem is my boss is a prick who can't control his temper. If something annoys him it flows over into other things. He seems to relish taking it out on others. He's the type of person who can't admit he fucked up and it's the other persons fault. I feel he's a bully and my opinion is shared amongst the other workers, sadly only me and a few others work directly beneath him. I've had a few arguments and tempered moments with him before and every time has made me want to look for a new job.

I'm having conflicting feelings of either looking and getting a new job (which may turn out even worse) or putting up my current job and not over thinking or letting my bosses behaviour get to me (which I'm not sure is even possible for me)
>> No. 28746 Anonymous
11th July 2019
Thursday 2:57 am
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What kind of evil cunt messages you on your birthday to drivel a load of self-pitying wank, retconning all their previously stated reasons for unceremoniously dumping you however many months ago and replacing them with some bullshit "I thought that splitting up was for the best not just for me but for you too, I was making your life difficult" reasoning while layering on the "I think you about you and stare at your whatsapp profile photo every day hoping to see you pop up online just so I know you're out there still" guilt trip crap? And on top of it all making me construct the most infuriatingly run-on sentences out of pure rage. .

And here I am stuck out on a work contract in the arse-end of the pacific north-west of America on my tod, and all I want to do is fuck off out to a bar and get absolutely shit faced except that I can't because I have to actually show up and do actual work, not show up late stinking of booze and terminal heartbreak psychosis.

Next week I'll be back home and able to throw myself into a void of prescription drug abuse, alcohol, and horrible joyless casual sex that'll make me hate myself; but until then I just either want to scream or cry or just fucking jump out of this hotel room window like a geographically inverse Chet Baker because just as the psychic wounds were starting to heal she had to come along and rip the scabs off and give me that worst and most useless of all gifts - hope.

Christ, lads. I really need a fucking drink.

Sincere apologies for utter stream of consciousness rambling, normal service will resume shortly.
>> No. 28747 Anonymous
11th July 2019
Thursday 3:07 am
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>>28746
>Sincere apologies for utter stream of consciousness rambling, normal service will resume shortly.

Let it all out, that is what the thread is here for.
>> No. 28749 Anonymous
11th July 2019
Thursday 9:18 am
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Due to mild obsessive-compulsive disorder, I am constantly plagued with odd sentence fragments, like a song stuck in your head. For the past few weeks, the words "cum dungeon" have popped into my mind several hundred times per day; they are slowly being replaced by "wreck my shitter".

cumdungeoncumdungeoncumdungeonWRECKMYSHITTERcumdungeoncumdungeon
>> No. 28753 Anonymous
11th July 2019
Thursday 12:27 pm
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Does anyone want to be my second referee on a volunteering application? Or send me fifteen pounds, please. Or what's a good way to work up enough of a head of steam to top yourself?

Okay, get back soon, bye!
>> No. 28754 Anonymous
12th July 2019
Friday 12:39 pm
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>>28746
If you don't want the horrible joyless casual sex, I'll take some.
>> No. 28755 Anonymous
12th July 2019
Friday 1:36 pm
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>>28749

>> No. 28757 Anonymous
13th July 2019
Saturday 2:58 am
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>>28754

Anyone else remember when the arctic monkeys were cool? No, just me? Ok. But way back then Alex Turner wrote a pretty good lyric: "how can you wake up with someone you don't love and not feel slightly fazed by it?". It pretty much sums up how I've started to feel about waking up mid afternoon next to the third stranger I've had unprotected sex with that week: fazed as fuck.

When I was in my twenties it felt like a vainglorious conquest, these days it just feels like the only thing that's been conquered is something that used to live inside me and is long gone.

It's a fucker when the first person you've actually related to and invested emotionally in heavily for the first time in five years turns out to be even more mental than you and fucks you off on a bizarre whim because her psychologist told her she was making your life hard like you're some kind of child who can't make his own decisions. Honestly everything feels so fucking futile right now I'm finding it extremely hard to express, or even relate to anything emotional except looping the same song for hours on end.

Not even sex distracts you from that. Maybe it's time to cash in my pension plan and finally get into heroin.

"Glass of petrol, vodka, gin, it feels like breathing methane / throw yourself from skin to skin and still it doesn't dull the pain."
>> No. 28763 Anonymous
19th July 2019
Friday 11:38 am
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Am i a faggot? Most of the porn i use involves women. Occasionally feminine looking men. Very rarely actual male looking men.
I've limited experience interacting with women physically, though i do fancy a lot of them. It's quite rare i see a man i find attractive.
Recently i've been vaguely wondering if i'd have anything in common with transvestites and how i might meet some.
>> No. 28764 Anonymous
19th July 2019
Friday 12:35 pm
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>>28763

Sounds like you are more concerned with the label then what you actually want, does it matter? Just find people you find hot.
>> No. 28766 Anonymous
19th July 2019
Friday 1:58 pm
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I'm mildly anxious about the recent development of the 'quality control' department at work. Whilst it shouldn't influence my workplace directly, it actually might.
We have it pretty liberal with the boss caring for nothing but work being done and the rest be damned - namely no one gives a fuck if someone's late, no dress-code, the least amount of corporate bollocks across the company. The schedule is very nice, about 13 to 14 workdays per month, sometimes 15-16 (not too often). Quite ample amount of time to have a proper rest or perform side gigs for extra quid.
I don't suppose it's going to last if busy-bodies start pecking.

Sage for /job/.
>> No. 28767 Anonymous
19th July 2019
Friday 2:02 pm
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>>28766
QC is product based, nothing to do with process, it's just a check that what you're making is right. What industry? I work QA in medical device manufacturing.
>> No. 28768 Anonymous
19th July 2019
Friday 2:13 pm
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>>28767
Telecom/small ISP. From what I've read it's supposed to oversee the call centre, tech support and sales.
Doesn't mean they won't try and meddle into the affairs of our department.
Mind you, I'm not in UK.
>> No. 28770 Anonymous
20th July 2019
Saturday 3:31 pm
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My relationship is ending because my misses has decided she doesnt want to live with me or anyone ever after 3 years of us living together, and I am not accepting of a relationship where we don't live together. It is rather hard not to feel underappreciated right now.

The pain is rather fresh. And I'm not quite sure how to handle it or myself.

I have the practical fall out of this to deal with; and that gives me a level of focus at least and there is also no imminate pressure. But this all feels quite awful right now and it is hard not to get hung up on that this isn't what I want and what I am losing.
>> No. 28771 Anonymous
20th July 2019
Saturday 3:49 pm
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>>28770


>> No. 28772 Anonymous
20th July 2019
Saturday 4:23 pm
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>>28771

Seems like he gets my pain. That's some small comfort, knowing my situation isnt wholly alien.
>> No. 28773 Anonymous
21st July 2019
Sunday 12:36 am
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I just watched that After Life and it was probably a mistake. It only served to remind me that you never truly get over losing someone you're in love with, no matter how hard you work to convince yourself that you can. I liked the show but I was disappointing that it ended on a predicable high note. I stay around because I know I can make people's lives better in even the smallest of ways, but I'll never, ever be okay with the fact I couldn't do enough to stop her from ending hers.
>> No. 28776 Anonymous
26th July 2019
Friday 8:55 pm
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I've been on ESA & DLA for a good 7 to 8 years. Since my initial claim i've developed ways to manage my condition. I have not told the DWP this. I justify this by thinking the time and funds allow me freedom from excess stress - ie the only reason i'm able to be well is because i don't have to work.

I believe it's because i'm sheltered that i can manage life. I don't know this, surely, because it was a long enough time ago when i was working and experienced difficulty. The memory is hazy and i only really know what i tell myself i know. I've experienced difficulty between then and now, recently even. When i consider the way i think in contrast to the way i behave .. there're inconsistencies between what i think i am and what i do.

I really don't want to go back to how i used to be, and i'm worried that how i am now is a direct result of my benefit claim.

That's pathetic, right?

Now the DWP want to reassess my claim for DLA with claim form 'ESA50'. I've found a guide to the point system, and it looks as though i could achieve 12-18 of the necessary 15 points to pass. It's here if anyone else needs it - http://www.durham.gov.uk/media/3903/Work-capability-assessment-and-form-ESA50-factsheet/pdf/WorkCapacityAssessment.PDF

Does it make sense that a benefit claim is helping me to maintain a reasonable standard of welfare?
Does it make sense that i could potentially fail my re-assessment because i currently have a reasonable standard of welfare?

Is this just rehetoric?

I guess i'm just feeling the sting of morality because currently i don't have to do anything to live comfotably 'poor' and that lifestyle is now being threatened. Watching myself squirm to justify my behaviour is .. embarrassing, at the least.

I've resisted volunteering for years. I just don't want to do it. Recently i've begun to realise the benefit in enduring discomfort for longer term payoff. Prepare for the worst. There's a social enterprise shop nearby that might accept volunteers.
>> No. 28792 Anonymous
1st August 2019
Thursday 10:10 am
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Stories of people successfully overcoming mental health issues just make me feel like more of a failure.
>> No. 28793 Anonymous
1st August 2019
Thursday 11:51 am
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>>28792

People like to build stories that hit a positive note at the end that is what people do. I rarely assume them to be true. Either they are being hyperbolic about their problems to begin with to make their success sound better, or they are thinking too short term and they've relapsed since without mentioning it.

I don't think there is anything defeatist about coming to accept something as a long term problem that you largely managed but will be always present.
>> No. 28794 Anonymous
1st August 2019
Thursday 12:21 pm
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>>28792

I sometimes come across image dumps of "positive" things that are supposed to cheer you up but they never fail to ruin my day.
>> No. 28795 Anonymous
1st August 2019
Thursday 12:31 pm
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>>28794

Interesting, how come? what is it about it that ruins your day for you?
>> No. 28796 Anonymous
1st August 2019
Thursday 12:36 pm
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>>28795

I put it down to the same mechanism as how looking at other people's social media where they present themselves as living great lives tends to make people depressed.
>> No. 28797 Anonymous
1st August 2019
Thursday 12:50 pm
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>>28793
>they are thinking too short term and they've relapsed since without mentioning it.

Thats certainly happened in my case, as a recent poster. I've managed to convince myself my re-assesment will be fine, and if it's not i'll appeal a few times. I've 'self harmed' because of it but it's minor and i think it's more of a statement than anything else - kindof 'convice myself i'm ellegible for help' rather than actually .. actually what? Actually nuts? It relieved stress and reminded me control over my experience.
I'm now wondering if this is the necessity - if i know and accept this as part of the transaction for my lifestyle. It's all a bargain. Let me have money and i'll hurt myself. Is this 'their' control over me? An offer of money to desecrate a temple? I've since thought absolute nill of volunteering.

Attitude is a really interesting subject. It seems to be coming ever more recognised that a persons attitude primarily influences their experience of reality. But where does optimism and pessimism become delusional and can we recognise it in ourselves? Can we really trick ourselves into being one when we know in our heart we're not? How do we recognise those lies burried so deep within our being that they're part of our identity?
>> No. 28798 Anonymous
1st August 2019
Thursday 2:47 pm
28798 spacer
>>28792

It's just a bias in the narrative.

Mental health charities would rather draw attention to their "successes" (i.e. people who are now taxpayers) rather than their "failures" (people who by rights should be dead in a ditch, but manage to drag themselves through another day on earth by some inexplicable strength of will). The government would much rather promote cheap quick fixes than draw attention to all the people for whom those quick fixes don't work. People with no personal experience of mental health services think that they're being helpful by promoting "awareness" and encouraging people to seek help, without realising that for a lot of people no help is available.

The kind of functional and successful people who get to write newspaper columns are often blithely unaware that their bout of depression last year is nothing like a chronic treatment-resistant illness. Many of the celebrities they wheel out to talk about mental health have been so wealthy for so long that it doesn't even occur to them that £50 for a therapy session or £200 for a private psychiatric consultation are totally unaffordable sums for most people with mental health problems. It's easier to believe that you're getting the same treatment in a nicer room because you've gone private, rather than the reality that you're getting treatment that poorer people can't access.

It's not a conspiracy to make people like us feel shit, but it does feel like it a lot of the time.
>> No. 28800 Anonymous
2nd August 2019
Friday 11:53 am
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Should I exile myself to homelessness or just kill myself? I can't function and no one wants to help me.
>> No. 28801 Anonymous
3rd August 2019
Saturday 2:16 am
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I've grown too old to be at home on the old boards I used to frequent, but I'm not normal enough to find common ground in more sedate and mundane boards like this place. The internet has become as foreign a place as the 'real world'.

Quite an interesting and liberating feeling for someone who spends so much time pressing the F5 button that he'd be a permanent resident in one of those Chinese internet addiction camps.
>> No. 28804 Anonymous
6th August 2019
Tuesday 5:55 pm
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Fuck me, I wish I'd been aborted.
>> No. 28805 Anonymous
6th August 2019
Tuesday 6:04 pm
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>>28804

There surely must have been some highlights between the womb and now?
>> No. 28806 Anonymous
6th August 2019
Tuesday 6:54 pm
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>>28805
Yeah, about two years ago I was having quite a nice time, but I bungled that and now I'm a penniless, friendless, embarrassment. I'm good for nothing and I don't have it in me to turn things around. Two years ago was me getting back on the horse, but it lasted about 18 months before I let it go to pot and all that is now is a slowly fading memory of what might have been. Takes me hours or days just to check my emails now, like hell am I getting back into higher education or any sort of employment.
>> No. 28807 Anonymous
8th August 2019
Thursday 1:51 pm
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>>28801
Fads change and replace each other. Generations and the definition of normal changes as well.
Depending on what you'd consider to be the 'modern internet', certain parts of it are alien and almost hostile to me as well.
>> No. 28811 Anonymous
16th August 2019
Friday 2:30 pm
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I build a head of steam to change things up for myself, but before I even get going I'm reminded what a useless, duplicitous, cunt I am and I lose all motivation for another week or so.
>> No. 28812 Anonymous
16th August 2019
Friday 4:43 pm
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>>28806
Give us the skinny on what happened, fella.
>> No. 28813 Anonymous
16th August 2019
Friday 5:05 pm
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>>28811

That's allowed it is tough to change course. If you keep trying you will get there.
>> No. 28816 Anonymous
18th August 2019
Sunday 12:20 pm
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A lot of the time when i'm having a wank i can't help but think 'these are just people in their room, touching themselves'. It happens too when i'm eating, or drinking, or buying something portioned out into 8 peices tucked up in plastic as if that's what a human needs, as if that what a human is. Maybe it's consumption. I just feel sometimes that we're a dirty species, that's we're an embarrassment in all the things we do while living. Like fucking clowns, man.

What is this? Do i think humans should be super serious all the time? Am i projecting my insecurities and disapointments outward?

When i'm touching a woman i think "We're just two people, this doesn't mean anything (and i want it to)". I don't know if i'm touching the wrong woman or if i'm just not into it. I wonder if i'd be into touching a man, and perhaps that's the problem. Girls are pretty and all, but .. i don't know. I think i believe that 'There's no such thing as being gay, just having poor relations with your mother'. I can see why, according to my upbringing, i'd want the aproval of females and a caring father figure. I don't know if it'd be 'right' to stimulate those parts of my physche that clearly need attention. I don't think having a gorgeous country wife would help me grow to my fullest potential - she'd help me grow definitely and i've love her for it, but i feel as though something might always be missing.

I don't want to give in to the LGBT/Pride propaganda because i don't believe in the message as they're sharing it. But then to resist what i've felt for years is to give in to fear. Either way i'm where they want me - an unforfilled, stagnating life. Suicide would teach me nothing, it's simply an off switch. I want to learn something from this.
>> No. 28817 Anonymous
18th August 2019
Sunday 12:23 pm
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>>28816
Go make out with a guy and see if it turns you on.
You sound like you're suffering from some sort of disassociation.
>> No. 28818 Anonymous
18th August 2019
Sunday 12:33 pm
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>>28816

It seems like you're leaping to conclude that you're gay because you don't understand sandwiches, it seems a little extreme.

As >>28817 says, it sounds like you're dissociating a bit. Personally I agree that humanity is in all likelihood completely ridiculous and pointless, but I've learned to enjoy that nonetheless.
>> No. 28819 Anonymous
18th August 2019
Sunday 12:34 pm
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>>28816

This is such a weird string of consciousnes.

Why are you so worked up over the moral meaning of a wank? Does it really matter, why do you think it does?

Why are you over thinking everything sexually infact?

The current models for defining sexuality are absurdly generalised ignore it. Just sleep with the people who you feel meaningfully connected to and leave it at that.
>> No. 28824 Anonymous
21st August 2019
Wednesday 7:09 pm
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>>28811>>28806
Same person who made both the posts that were replied to. I'm too angry to go into specifics, but I'm just too far gone. I put all my efforts into tiny little strides that, once I realise just how tiny they are, feel pointless. Tomorrow I need to make a phonecall, but I don't have a phone, so I'm going to have to go to some fucking community help thing that operates out of a shipping container or something in an Asda carpark. It'll probably be closed, but if I leave the house like this to go and check I'll probably get myself beat up or arrested. I just don't care anymore; no one else does so why should I?
>> No. 28826 Anonymous
21st August 2019
Wednesday 8:53 pm
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>>28824

>if I leave the house like this to go and check I'll probably get myself beat up or arrested

Do you not own any trousers or something? Do you want me to buy you some trousers? I've got Amazon Prime, they can arrive tomorrow if I order by 10pm.
>> No. 28827 Anonymous
21st August 2019
Wednesday 9:03 pm
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I'm starting to realise that, contrary to my previous posts, picking yourself up out of depression isn't as easy as i'd previously made it out to be. The philosophy is still there, just the willingness to practice is lacking. It's much easier for me to believe my previous comments were like cutting water with scissors while i'm in this state, and i'm not even that far gone to be honest.

Yesterday i witnessed a woman teaching her child with magic, which put a smile on my face. I held on to that and it lifted my spirit for a while. Recalling it now is helping, too :)
>> No. 28828 Anonymous
22nd August 2019
Thursday 1:27 am
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>>28826
I meant while I'm that angry. I know I'm a hopeless cunt, but you could at least not make fun in /emo/, just allow me me mash my keyboard like a malformed moron in peace.
>> No. 28831 Anonymous
22nd August 2019
Thursday 8:25 pm
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I've realised binge eating is my anger management strategy.
>> No. 28836 Anonymous
23rd August 2019
Friday 12:52 pm
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>>28827

I read an article about Alex the parrot, followed by Chaser and Rico the border collies. They're all animals with wide vocabularies and apparent understanding of language itself, as opposed to just rote memorisation of sounds. The parrot, most fascinatingly, was shown his own reflection in a mirror, and asked "What colour?", which is the only example of any animal asking a question.

It warmed my icy heart quite thoroughly, until I got to this bit:

>His last words ("You be good, see you tomorrow. I love you") were the same words that he would say every night when Pepperberg left the lab.

Anyway it was a good read. Would recommend.
>> No. 28837 Anonymous
23rd August 2019
Friday 1:10 pm
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>>28836
>which is the only example of any animal asking a question

My cat's ask 'where is my food?' all the time.
>> No. 28838 Anonymous
23rd August 2019
Friday 1:14 pm
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>>28837

Cats don't ask. They demand.
>> No. 28851 Anonymous
24th August 2019
Saturday 11:15 am
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We're proper fucked now, lads. Not long until the feedback loop starts, the next 3-5 years are going to bring great and brutal change so this way of life is pretty much done. It's sort of freeing in a way, there's a weight off now nothing really matters. Going to try and live in the moment more and travel for the next couple years, while doing a shit load of drugs. Enjoy the ride down.
>> No. 28853 Anonymous
24th August 2019
Saturday 11:20 am
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>>28851
Just giving up like that? Pussy.
>> No. 28855 Anonymous
24th August 2019
Saturday 12:44 pm
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>>28851
Yeah WWIII's going to be tough on all of us.
>> No. 28860 Anonymous
24th August 2019
Saturday 2:53 pm
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I feel awful and reading about a man who raised £20,000 to take his cat on holiday didn't help one bit.
>> No. 28881 Anonymous
27th August 2019
Tuesday 6:05 pm
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I feel like a right cunt, but I don't know if I should.

I've been asked by a group of "friends" to chip in for quite an expensive present for another member of the group. I basically don't exist to them, and know for a fact they would never in a trillion years do the same for me. Hell, not one of them could be arsed to come to a meetup I tried to organise when I got back into the area.

If I don't chip in the money, though, I'll look like a dickhead. I don't want to lose the group; I've always struggled to make friends, and have resigned myself to being a bit of a doormat because it's better than the maddening loneliness of being couped up at home.
>> No. 28882 Anonymous
27th August 2019
Tuesday 6:46 pm
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>>28881
If you can, just ignore it and they'll have forgotten about it before long.
>> No. 28892 Anonymous
4th September 2019
Wednesday 1:36 pm
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At the chip shop i usually ask for a chicken pie, and they've come to know that i mean a chicken and mushroom pie. only yesterday i was served by an unknown person so i asked properly. The regular worker gave me a bit of a look, then when she handed me the package she called 'chips and a pie'. with audiable italics.

Usually i say my order, please and thank you. I don't engage in conversation. I don't make eye contact.

What does this mean? Why did she ackowledge the difference in my behaviour both times? Had i forced them into an unwanted familiarity with me?

I just feel a bit uncomfortable about it all, embarrassed that there's been some kind of communication between us. What did it mean that i behaved differently? I wasn't intimidated by the new person, she was a semi-mature woman, whereas the other is younger.

I get that i am overthinking a trivial encounter. I'd still like to understand the effect that changes of my withdrawn behaviour have on familiar strangers, though.
>> No. 28893 Anonymous
4th September 2019
Wednesday 1:40 pm
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>>28892
Maybe she felt that you still didn't need to specify because she'd have made sure you got the usual sort of pie anyway despite the new person. It's like you don't trust her or sumfink.
>> No. 28894 Anonymous
4th September 2019
Wednesday 2:00 pm
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I can't stop eating and wanking. Haven't crossed the streams yet so that's a plus.
>> No. 28898 Anonymous
4th September 2019
Wednesday 7:17 pm
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>>28894
You know this is the problems board, right?
>> No. 28899 Anonymous
4th September 2019
Wednesday 8:16 pm
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My dick aches but i don't know if it's from too much or too little wanking.
>> No. 28901 Anonymous
4th September 2019
Wednesday 11:51 pm
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My relationship is cold and dead but I'm still trapped living with my Ex till I can find a job.

This has turned my whole life plan on its head to the point I really don't have anything direction now, but I can't really dwell on that or how horribly broken hearted I feel right now or how cold and frustrating it all is and be self-indulgent, I have rather significant practical problems to solve and no safety net.

It is a real kick in the balls though that she is treating it as if it is my fault or I somehow doing it on purpose because I can't conjure the job I need so that I can leave her life forever for her convenience.

If someone has solid advice for how to get a flat large enough to hold a fairly decent pile of crap including large furniture on zero money in London please speak now.
>> No. 28902 Anonymous
5th September 2019
Thursday 12:15 am
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>>28901

I wouldn't let the material stuff bother you that much lad. Sell or get rid of the furniture, find a reasonable room for the time being, get your head together and get a bit of money saved. I'm sure you've got a friend or two that could store a bit.

You live in London, work is abundant- even if retail, you can support yourself if you go full time and take a room in a shared place. It's not glamorous, but it's hardly the time for glamour.

I'd also look at work as a salvation from this, something that allows you work through your experience and focus on something else. Two jobs is quite fun when you're working towards a decent goal, even taking one job seriously can be pretty fun, but that's largely how you choose to approach it.

>she is treating it as if it is my fault

At some length, you've got yourself into this position. Not saying it is your entirely your fault, but I am saying you probably could have saved a couple of hundred to help you out at a time like this- or done some things differently along the way. Similarly, the job you 'need' is a bit of a luxury at the moment that you don't have.

Play the long game: with even some decent effort you could be in a significantly better position within a year.
>> No. 28905 Anonymous
5th September 2019
Thursday 2:45 am
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>>28902
>I wouldn't let the material stuff bother you that much lad. Sell or get rid of the furniture, find a reasonable room for the time being, get your head together and get a bit of money saved. I'm sure you've got a friend or two that could store a bit.

Listen you Non materialist Hippy fuck Neil with if you aren't going to come up with anything better then 'rid yourself of earthly possessions man they OWN YOU MAN' please fuck off back to your commune.

>You live in London, work is abundant- even if retail, you can support yourself if you go full time and take a room in a shared place. It's not glamorous, but it's hardly the time for glamour.

What mentalist are you who thinks retail a) pays even enough for a flat share and b) the pay hasn't dropped to fuck and all thanks to immigrants willing to sleep in a pile like hamsters in some slumlords hovel?

>At some length, you've got yourself into this position. Not saying it is your entirely your fault, but I am saying you probably could have saved a couple of hundred to help you out at a time like this- or done some things differently along the way. Similarly, the job you 'need' is a bit of a luxury at the moment that you don't have.

I am well aware of my position and how I got here, my objection is to the idea that it is somehow my fault that people haven't responded to my applications yet.
The job I 'need' is the same sort of work I've always done for a wage that is enough money to pay for shelter and food and the first one of which answers, imagine thinking that is somehow me being unrealistic.

>Play the long game: with even some decent effort you could be in a significantly better position within a year.

I'll be in a lot better position if I don't sell all my stuff and work in a job that pays less than the cost of living you idiot.
>> No. 28906 Anonymous
5th September 2019
Thursday 8:06 am
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>>28905

With the possessions, I was talking about sunk costs. Furniture can be replaced quite easily and makes moving more manageable. That's an option.

Minimum wage is, just about, enough to get by. There are retail jobs that pay more than minimum, there are decent rooms around 400-500. You also have the ability to work more than 40-hours. These are also an options. Cold, hard, objective options.

They're just options, there is no need to get defensive. If you've been comfortable, with a partner and earning a reasonable amount, those options aren't pleasant. Having been in a similar situation, I'd move out as soon as possible, but I like getting stuff done.

>my objection is to the idea that it is somehow my fault that people haven't responded to my applications yet

It's not your fault that they haven't replied, but it's your fault that you don't have a job. People typically look at the end goal: my 'unrealistic hippie' suggestion was to start somewhere and go from there, at least you couldn't suffer being blamed then.

>I'll be in a lot better position if I don't sell all my stuff and work in a job that pays less than the cost of living you idiot.

Your real issue here is reading comprehension. Someone told you to go stack shelves and sell stuff you don't need, and you called them a hippie and swore at them. You basically called Jeremy Kyle a hippie.
>> No. 28907 Anonymous
5th September 2019
Thursday 8:47 am
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>>28901
>no safety net

You're irresponsible and you come across as a cunt. You do know where you're posting, right?
>> No. 28908 Anonymous
5th September 2019
Thursday 11:03 am
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>You basically called Jeremy Kyle a hippie.

Well the fact that you are saying the same advice as him might be the first clue it isn't real constructive advice and just a tool for provocation and berration.

>>28907

I'm posting in the wallowing thread. I'm sorry that I turn my nose up at advice that gets all the up votes over at r/relationship. But I'm not going to start eating myself when it is still perfectly reasonable for me to find a job that I can get by on. I just needed a teary because the stress was getting to me.
>> No. 28909 Anonymous
5th September 2019
Thursday 11:30 am
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>>28906
>Minimum wage is, just about, enough to get by.

Not to push /emo/ into politics, but this is just factually untrue: https://www.livingwage.org.uk/what-real-living-wage
>> No. 28910 Anonymous
7th September 2019
Saturday 2:06 am
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Finally in from a night out. It was a good friend's birthday so I was semi-obliged to go.

I fucking hate clubs. I have had girlfriends, I've had attention, but something about clubs makes me feel pathetically lonely and sad, everybody there either trying to avoid the people desperate to hook up or people desperate to find somebody to hook up with the make the night worth it.

I always feel a bit grim after it and strangely lonely.

There's a club if you'd like to go
You could meet somebody who really loves you
So you go and you stand on your own
And you leave on your own
And you go home and you cry
And you want to die

>> No. 28931 Anonymous
11th September 2019
Wednesday 7:34 am
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Burying my best mate today and I managed to travel halfway across the country only to forget my proper trousers. A shit day just got worse.
>> No. 28932 Anonymous
11th September 2019
Wednesday 2:36 pm
28932 spacer
>>28931
Would he care about your improper trousers anyway?
>> No. 28933 Anonymous
11th September 2019
Wednesday 3:44 pm
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>>28932
Probably not but then again he was a devout atheist and the service took place in a church. Bought some suitable kecks from a local charity shop for a bargain. Crisis averted.
>> No. 28934 Anonymous
11th September 2019
Wednesday 4:59 pm
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>>28933
They sound like top kecks.
>> No. 28935 Anonymous
11th September 2019
Wednesday 5:47 pm
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I'm not sure if it's just a bad day every other day or if I should really just hand my notice in and get out of my current job before I lose it.

The role isn't a fit for me and I'm not interested in the work but hey, that's any job right? I'm at a crossroads now whether I go through with it and get a clean slate. Both in mind and employment opportunities or convince myself it's another one off and just grit my teeth with it.

The way I've worded this makes it seem I really don't want this job anymore but I fear I'll pussy out again.
>> No. 28936 Anonymous
11th September 2019
Wednesday 6:15 pm
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>>28935
Find a new job before you quit this one. It not only means you won't be caught out but it helps you if you can say to your future employer that you are applying because you want bigger and better things.
>> No. 28937 Anonymous
12th September 2019
Thursday 6:19 am
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>>28936
My problem is my current job is 9-5 Monday-Friday and I need to give a months notice.
Meaning it's a nightmare to schedule an interview within "office hours" and I'm fairly certain any potential employer will be put off when I have to give a month's notice as opposed to someone who can start the next day.
>> No. 28938 Anonymous
12th September 2019
Thursday 7:02 am
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>>28937

Most employers understand this and will schedule around your current job. Four weeks notice isn't all that unusual.
>> No. 28939 Anonymous
12th September 2019
Thursday 8:34 am
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Alright. One more day of sitting about tossing it off reading wiki pages and then tomorrow is going to be the day you start sorting your life out. Do the dishes, put some washing on, good grief man.

I'm barely fucking clinging to existence frankly. Has anyone ever managed to off themselves by simply ceasing to be arsed going about the rituals of life? I almost went to work this morning because it's easier than facing the moral ambiguity of a day off.
>> No. 28940 Anonymous
12th September 2019
Thursday 11:03 pm
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>>28939
Ye, don't try and do everything. Put a wash on, or do some dishes. Small bit at a time is the way to start.
>> No. 28941 Anonymous
13th September 2019
Friday 2:45 pm
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Knowing you're going through a mental break/heading for a breakdown but just sitting there and letting it come is a wild fucking ride.
>> No. 28942 Anonymous
13th September 2019
Friday 9:59 pm
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>>28941
feels
i've been having auditory hallucinations and my memory and concentration have gone to shit i feel like a different person

(A good day to you Sir!)
>> No. 28943 Anonymous
13th September 2019
Friday 11:02 pm
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That manner of posting is rightly unnacceptable, but you modsods better not have given him one of your piss-takingly long bans, by which I mean anything over an hour.
>> No. 28944 Anonymous
13th September 2019
Friday 11:25 pm
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>>28943
/shed/ m8.
>> No. 28945 Anonymous
14th September 2019
Saturday 10:08 am
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I wake up every morning as me. I wouldn't wish this fate on anyone.

I'm not religious but I sort of feel like I should be. Maybe this is one of those psychological hells rather than the fire and brimstone type.
>> No. 28946 Anonymous
15th September 2019
Sunday 1:03 am
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Whenever I consider suicide I think that if I've reached a point where it seems like a viable option, I may as well just live as if I'm already dead, and suddenly I feel a sense of peace and freedom.
>> No. 28947 Anonymous
15th September 2019
Sunday 1:23 am
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>>28945
>>28946
So do something to redeem yourself.
>> No. 28948 Anonymous
15th September 2019
Sunday 1:47 am
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>>28947
> redeem yourself

Nice egoic delusions my man
>> No. 28950 Anonymous
15th September 2019
Sunday 8:20 am
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>>28948
You could say that to anyone using the word "I" but you chose to bring it up in response to that? Unless you think either poster can depress themselves to Buddhist enlightenment it seems unhelpful.
>> No. 28951 Anonymous
15th September 2019
Sunday 12:28 pm
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>>28947
>>28946 and I are not the same, so he may take what you said differently.

>Redeem yourself
But what can I do? Any efforts at self improvement may work in the short term but I usually end up worse than I started. Even so, nothing really changes when I do.
>> No. 28952 Anonymous
15th September 2019
Sunday 1:36 pm
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>>28951

Find something you can do that benefits others and needs regular doing.
>> No. 28953 Anonymous
15th September 2019
Sunday 8:48 pm
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I don't want to top myself, but I honestly dread waking up everyday. Why can I just die peacefully in my sleep?
>> No. 28954 Anonymous
15th September 2019
Sunday 11:52 pm
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>>28953
What's putting the willies up you come morning?
>> No. 28955 Anonymous
16th September 2019
Monday 1:13 am
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>>28954
The fact of living for another day. I try my best and put mu affairs in order hoping that I die in my sleep. I have been doing this for three years now. It is draining.
>> No. 28956 Anonymous
17th September 2019
Tuesday 10:51 am
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Why does it seem to be getting harder, lads? I've been alone my whole life but this past month all I've felt is that I'm in desperate need of a hug and someone to tell me things are ok.
>> No. 28957 Anonymous
17th September 2019
Tuesday 2:51 pm
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>>28956
Things are OK, lad. We’re all gonna make it.
>> No. 28959 Anonymous
20th September 2019
Friday 7:05 pm
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I've been out of work for almost four months now. Things are getting desperate, and I really don't want to be forced into taking a shit job for below market rate for the third time in a row, since the shittiness of the job has been a major contributing factor to the previous two not working out, and three of those in a row on the CV is effectively career over. At this rate, if I can get a bung from BoMaD, I'll completely run out of money at the end of next month, with everything maxed out. The most pernicious part of all this is that background screening questionnaires in my line of work now routinely ask whether you've asked creditors for help, so going down that route is worse than bombing out of another shit job. Any attempt to get out of a shit job after a couple of months by getting a better one is invariably going to looked upon with suspicion by anyone I apply to, who will see two short jobs, followed by another one I'm only a couple of months into, and evidently my tolerance for shit jobs isn't up to sticking at it.
>> No. 28969 Anonymous
22nd September 2019
Sunday 1:53 pm
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I genuinely can't remember the last time I was happy.
>> No. 28970 Anonymous
25th September 2019
Wednesday 9:45 am
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Can anyone recommend cheap therapy options? Gone my whole life without but I'm falling apart so bad even I think I'm in trouble, the problem is I'm pretty broke.
>> No. 28971 Anonymous
25th September 2019
Wednesday 10:12 am
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>>28970
Why would you need money? Go see your GP, if you’re expressing that you can’t cope they’ll at least make themselves available to chat to you when you’re in crisis and they’ll refer you to community psych services as well as hospital psych services.

There are also several charities that run a free call number who have someone on the other end to talk to, like the Samaritans. Money isn’t an object.

>broke
On reflection, are you a Seppo? I don’t mean to be insensitive, but what possible insight do you reckon we could have on the American health care system?
>> No. 28972 Anonymous
25th September 2019
Wednesday 10:47 am
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>>28971
> On reflection, are you a Seppo? I don’t mean to be insensitive, but what possible insight do you reckon we could have on the American health care system?
U fucking wot m8, he just means he's skint.
>> No. 28973 Anonymous
25th September 2019
Wednesday 11:22 am
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>>28970

NHS talking therapy for depression and anxiety is offered through a service called IAPT (Improving Access to Psychotherapy). You can usually refer yourself directly to this service, although it's probably worth making an appointment with your GP as well to talk to them about other treatment options.

Waiting times for IAPT varies from a couple of weeks to several months depending on your local area and the level of treatment you need. They offer a range of services, from guided self-help and group therapy through to individual face-to-face therapy. You'll usually be offered no more than six half-hour sessions.

https://www.nhs.uk/Service-Search/Psychological%20therapies%20(IAPT)/LocationSearch/10008

If you choose to go private, many counsellors and therapists offer concessionary rates to people on a low income. You can find a list of accredited local counsellors and therapists at the link below. It might also be worth looking for local charities that offer help; for this, you can call the MIND Infoline on 0300 123 3393.

https://www.bacp.co.uk/search/Therapists

https://www.mind.org.uk/information-support/helplines/

If you need to talk to someone right away, you can call The Samaritans at any time on 116 123. They're not a therapy service, but they offer non-judgemental listening if there's something you need to get off your chest.

https://www.samaritans.org/how-we-can-help/contact-samaritan/

If you feel like you're in crisis and you're worried that you might harm yourself or someone else, call 999 and ask for an ambulance.
>> No. 28974 Anonymous
25th September 2019
Wednesday 3:01 pm
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>>28972
Being “broke” and looking for cheap healthcare rather than good healthcare is peak Seppo, and a bit beyond our remit.
>> No. 28975 Anonymous
25th September 2019
Wednesday 3:50 pm
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>>28974

There is very limited availability of psychotherapy on the NHS, with long waiting times, short treatment durations and a lack of choice over the therapist and therapy type. If you can possibly afford it, going private is a vastly better option; unfortunately, a lot of people find it difficult to afford the ~£50/hr that most psychotherapists charge.
>> No. 28976 Anonymous
26th September 2019
Thursday 10:02 am
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>>28971
My lifestyle isn't settled, I move around a lot and I'm often out of the country and as the other lad has said, the waiting lists for appointments are just ridiculous, by the time I get one I'm off elsewhere again.

>>28973
Cheers for the links, I've had a friend recommend a few options so I think I'm going to try out the cheapest I can, see how it goes.

Thanks lads. Thlads.
>> No. 28977 Anonymous
26th September 2019
Thursday 11:00 pm
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>>28975
>a lot of people find it difficult to afford the ~£50/hr that most psychotherapists charge.

You'd have thought the pricing would reflect the level of insight achieved on a given day, rather than a flat rate. It could take a number of sessions to gain the rapport necessary to start working into your repressions. Paying £50 an hour to initially chat seems pretty steep.
How is it that such disciplines are this vaulable? Is it simply because qualified professionals are scarce?
>> No. 28978 Anonymous
27th September 2019
Friday 12:51 am
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>>28977

I think a large part of the psychology profession exists because of rich people who like to talk about themselves candidly for an hour with someone legally bound to confidentiality.
>> No. 28979 Anonymous
27th September 2019
Friday 2:16 am
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>>28977

>How is it that such disciplines are this valuable? Is it simply because qualified professionals are scarce?

Psychotherapists aren't that expensive in the scheme of things. A plumber, electrician or locksmith would charge you a similar hourly rate. You'll pay at least £150 for a short consultation with a private doctor or a solicitor.

If you're working freelance, your hourly rate needs to cover your overheads and all the work you aren't actually billing for - office space, taxes, insurance, admin, continuing training etc. A freelancer's hourly rate can look scandalous compared to an employee, but you're paying a freelancer for much more than just that hour of their time.
>> No. 28980 Anonymous
27th September 2019
Friday 11:08 am
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>>28979

>A plumber, electrician or locksmith would charge you a similar hourly rate

Sure, but you're not typically expected to have a locksmith out to you once a week.
>> No. 28981 Anonymous
27th September 2019
Friday 12:43 pm
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>>28980
Not him but there is a big focus in psychotherapy towards fixing your problems forever by giving you the tools to deal with them yourself. It's more akin to paying for a locksmith to come around and teach you how to fix all your locks.

There is also a big divide in the kind of treatment you might receive with odds of success dependant on what you pay.
>> No. 28982 Anonymous
27th September 2019
Friday 1:33 pm
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>>28981

Yep. The evidence shows that CBT has maximum benefit after 12 to 20 sessions, with a fairly rapid tailing off after that. There's really no evidence to support staying in therapy for longer than that, although occasional top-up sessions once or twice a year can be useful. The NHS usually offers no more than six half-hour sessions, which is a bit like taking a quarter of a paracetamol for a headache - it'll help a bit, but it's nowhere near the right dose.

Paying somewhere between £600 and £1000 to significantly improve your mental health is pretty good value as things go; the problem is that the people who most need it are usually least able to afford it.
>> No. 28983 Anonymous
27th September 2019
Friday 3:01 pm
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>>28982
Having a spare grand would solve all my mental health problems anyway. Oh, the irony.
>> No. 28984 Anonymous
27th September 2019
Friday 9:26 pm
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Studies have shown that self-directed CBT is just as effective as going to an actual therapist, as long as you're not too depressed to do CBT exercises consisently over the long term. I think the main benefit of seeing an actual therapist is that they make sure you're putting in the work.
>> No. 28985 Anonymous
28th September 2019
Saturday 4:44 am
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I did maybe ~16 weeks of CBT for extremely bad panic attacks back in '13. I was paying £50 for an hour a week back then but to be honest I was at my wit's end and would have done anything to have got myself out of the hole that I was in.

Eventually a careful balancing act of CBT and medication got me back onto my feet and back into being a functioning member of society. Actual jaw-bursting, teeth clenching, gut-scrunching, "I'm really finally going to die" panic attacks are down to one every month or so as opposed to the daily occurrence they were in the 2012/13 season.

I'm not really sure what I wanted to put across with all this but just relating my experience, nonetheless.

Sage for rambling.
>> No. 28999 Anonymous
5th October 2019
Saturday 12:39 pm
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>> No. 29004 Anonymous
12th October 2019
Saturday 12:59 am
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Wish I'd done parties and had a girlfriend.
>> No. 29012 Anonymous
16th October 2019
Wednesday 9:21 pm
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How do you manage pride and selfishness?
>> No. 29013 Anonymous
16th October 2019
Wednesday 9:56 pm
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>>29012

Easy, they just sort of come naturally to me.
>> No. 29015 Anonymous
18th October 2019
Friday 6:38 pm
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I've never really dated anyone before. I going for walks good enough? I don't particularly like cinemas or bars, nor restaurants. Walking the dog or whatever might be ultimately boring and un-exciting but at least you could keep the person talking about themselves. I don't know; ijust feel as though doing what i usually do probably isn't enough, but i don't want to pretend to be something i'm not. Maybe I could do new things with whoever - but how many times can you actually go to the zoo or a garden center (if that's even suitable)? Fuck knows, man, i'm just prepairing to make a fool of myself.
>> No. 29016 Anonymous
18th October 2019
Friday 7:29 pm
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>>29015
Take someone for a walk on a date and they'll think you're going to rape them.
>> No. 29017 Anonymous
18th October 2019
Friday 7:32 pm
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>>29016

Not once they see him ambling alongside with a hefty bag of dogshit swinging in step with his movements, then it'll just be funny.
>> No. 29018 Anonymous
20th October 2019
Sunday 4:19 am
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>>29015

That very much depends on who you're dating. If you're going out with an outdoorsy type then it's absolutely fine, although I'd almost certainly opt for coffee or a drink for a first date. Find out what they like doing with their free time and try to find something that you'll both enjoy.
>> No. 29025 Anonymous
23rd October 2019
Wednesday 1:15 am
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I've been drinking and thinking about this chronic masturbator phenomenon, or more accurately, the phenomenon of guys who can't get laid making an entire identity around it and finding like-minded whingers. It seems to me that both the people who make an identity out of being an chronic masturbator and the journalists that write about them, make the whole problem out to be around women, fisherperson outcry about sex/relationship entitlement, etc. It seems pretty obvious to me that the core of the problem is "involuntary friendlessness" and a basic inability to connect with people in general, not just women. It doesn't strike me as a comfortable perspective for either journalists or the chronic masturbator clan themselves, considering it both diminishes their villainy but also forces them to engage in a bit more introspection and soul searching. Can't have shades of grey causing a ruckus in this black and white world.

I should cut back on the Frasier.
>> No. 29026 Anonymous
23rd October 2019
Wednesday 2:44 am
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I'm paranoid to the point of derrangement and my knob isn't working properly.
>> No. 29027 Anonymous
23rd October 2019
Wednesday 4:29 pm
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>>29025
I read an article about looksmaxing once. Seems like an awful amount of them have trouble with self-esteem. The majority of the lads featured in before/after photos in the article looked okay pre-op.
Sage because rambling about what I've recalled upon seeing the word chronic masturbator.
>> No. 29029 Anonymous
23rd October 2019
Wednesday 5:40 pm
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>>29025
I 'got laid' not so long ago for the first time in a decade and realised by epiphany the meaning of 'putting the pussy on a pedestal' (if you'll excuse the colocialism).

If you're going to blame, the first person should be yourself.
>> No. 29031 Anonymous
23rd October 2019
Wednesday 7:03 pm
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>>29025
> it seems pretty obvious to me that the core of the problem is "involuntary friendlessness" and a basic inability to connect with people in general, not just women.

It's funny because I am utterly friendless in the context of being a total Billy no mates, but I have absolutely no problem getting laid of a weekend.

It might just be because of the age I'm at, but finding a mate who has time to get a beer in the evening is almost impossible, while women who want to escape their shitty lives for a few hours seem to be ten a penny.

Sage for being lonely five nights a week.
>> No. 29032 Anonymous
23rd October 2019
Wednesday 7:36 pm
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>>29029

While this is undeniably true, I believe (at least in the context of a larger left wing outlook) we should also be asking valid questions about what it is about our society that raises such a number of young men to be that way.

In before the poisonous muscularity cunt off

>>29031

Same to be fair. In fact by now I'm starting to worry that I've broken my ability to make "normal" friendships because the only new social acquaintances I've made over the last five or so years have been shags off dating apps, to the extent I think I'm going to accidentally end up shagging the next bloke I try to befriend.
>> No. 29033 Anonymous
23rd October 2019
Wednesday 7:47 pm
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>>29029

I haven't had sex in years either, wouldn't mind the chance but it's hard to explain to others how I get the feels these days. Seems so basic to me. If you ride the Redbull Rampage or throw yourself down the black run at Glentress or maybe base jump or solo rock climb. Arnie was asked why he lifted weights, he said he gives him the same feeling as cumming and he can do it over and over again.

Sage b4 called chronic masturbator
>> No. 29034 Anonymous
23rd October 2019
Wednesday 8:05 pm
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Just going to kms tbh.
>> No. 29037 Anonymous
23rd October 2019
Wednesday 9:13 pm
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>>29035
I want to take issue with your post, in many ways, but I fear it won't help you.
>> No. 29038 Anonymous
23rd October 2019
Wednesday 10:47 pm
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>>29037
Remember when /emo/ had etiquette and rules?
>> No. 29039 Anonymous
24th October 2019
Thursday 12:00 am
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>>29035
>That post is already in the report list.

What a splendid message to see.
>> No. 29040 Anonymous
24th October 2019
Thursday 12:49 am
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>>29035

I know this is /emo/ and I shouldn't let my mind wander too much, but I do wonder why the whole Stacy thing caught on in with Brits at all; whenever I think of a Stacy all I can picture is a Chigwell chav princess with massive Argos hoop earrings and a Croyden facelift - not some unattainable female ideal.

What would be the British equivalent? A Chloe? A Harriet, perhaps? Maybe an Imogen or a Phoebe. Answers on a postcard to: ........
>> No. 29041 Anonymous
24th October 2019
Thursday 11:23 am
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>>29040
We have more of a class stratification so there's a broader range of ideals, instead of what the seppos are sold as the only things to aspire to.
>> No. 29042 Anonymous
24th October 2019
Thursday 1:46 pm
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No, I'm serious, my cock isn't working. What do I do?
>> No. 29043 Anonymous
24th October 2019
Thursday 2:21 pm
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>>29042
Have you tried turning it off and on again?
>> No. 29044 Anonymous
24th October 2019
Thursday 3:12 pm
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>>29042
You should wait for us to guess what you mean by that exactly without giving any more details and definitely don't bother making an appointment with a GP.
>> No. 29045 Anonymous
24th October 2019
Thursday 4:12 pm
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>>29042

Erectile dysfunction is sometimes purely psychological, but it's often a symptom of an unhealthy lifestyle - stress, smoking, too much alcohol, poor diet and lack of exercise. See your GP, tell them about your erectile problems, but get a general MOT while you're there.
>> No. 29046 Anonymous
24th October 2019
Thursday 4:24 pm
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>>29043
I couldn't even find the on/off switch.

>>29045
I really, really, hope it is in this instance. How do you get a "general MOT" from a GP? They just don't seem to give a monkeys. I understand they have a difficult and time sensitive job, but KFC has better customer service than most surgeries.

And people who work in KFC are BASTARDS.

>>29044
The glands are almost totally lacking in sensation. It's like I've been sat on it. It seemed hard this morning after I woke up, and was halfway there earlier. But this is fucked. I'm just knackered. I might as well kill myself now. It's all so pathetic.
>> No. 29047 Anonymous
24th October 2019
Thursday 4:43 pm
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>>29046

>How do you get a "general MOT" from a GP?

Just ask. Your GP is busy, but their job is to keep you healthy and prevention is better than cure. If you say that you're concerned about your lifestyle, they should ask you about drinking, diet, smoking and exercise and offer you a referral to a relevant service if any of those issues need addressing. If your general health isn't great, they should check your blood pressure and refer you for blood tests. If you haven't seen a GP in a while and have a lot of issues you'd like to talk about, ask the receptionist for a double appointment. Anyone over 40 should be offered routine health checks, but you can just ask for one if you're concerned about your health.

https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/nhs-health-check/nhs-health-check/

If you're not happy with your GP, don't be afraid to make an appointment with a different doctor at the same practice or move to a different practice.
>> No. 29048 Anonymous
31st October 2019
Thursday 8:56 am
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>Okay, let's buy ourselves a new phone screen
>"Please check this SMS messge so we know it's you and not a fraudster"
>Can't
>"Lol, don't use your card you fucking crim and call this number in the meantime"

I just don't know what the point is anymore. I'm obviously going to top myself sooner or later.
>> No. 29052 Anonymous
2nd November 2019
Saturday 5:00 pm
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I'm kind of wondering whether i should bother trying anything. There's an event coming up soon that i've considered attending but now i'm just confused, unenthused for life and 'just want to sleep'.

I've got rid of my bed for some reason and have taken to sleeping on rugs on the floor. I'm wondering if i should get rid of my desk and just have the computer set up next to my rugs. Maybe i'd use it less, being less comfortable to use than currently.

I kind of feel as though i'm preparing to move out or just 'leave'.
>> No. 29053 Anonymous
3rd November 2019
Sunday 4:17 pm
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Does anyone else feel like a bit of an outsider? I regularly feel like I'm on the periphery of things and slightly excluded.
>> No. 29054 Anonymous
3rd November 2019
Sunday 4:48 pm
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>>29053
Often. I think a lot of people do. Feels normal to me.
>> No. 29055 Anonymous
5th November 2019
Tuesday 5:00 pm
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In this moment I can see how crazy I am, but there doesn't seem to be a thing I can do about it.
>> No. 29056 Anonymous
5th November 2019
Tuesday 6:10 pm
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>>29053

The older I get, the clearer my perspective becomes. Things I used to see as "Ah, that was a bit awkward" or "Well, those people are a bit odd" are much clearer and sharper in my mind these days, where my younger self was much less observant, less bothered by them, or too hazy on drink/drugs to notice. I feel like I'm more often an observer than a participant, but then, I think this is just what it's like to get old.

I've been posting here since I was about 19, when ketamine and dubstep was the big new thing. I'm old enough now to find myself rolling my eyes when my younger colleagues talk about things like drugs and club events in that tone as though I'm a Grown Up who doesn't know what those things are and wouldn't understand. Their lives are still busy and exciting, they're still discovering the world and themselves. I don't know exactly when it happened, but I've already done all that.

I think a lot of us here can see familiarity in the posts others make about things like this. That comforts me at least.
>> No. 29069 Anonymous
11th November 2019
Monday 4:22 pm
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Is sex (particularly anal) evil? I've read some of the shit you can find these days and i don't want to be encouraged or told that 'it's normal'.. I want to consider the kind of ideas against sex and decide for myself if they're reasonable. Only i don't know how to find these kind of opinions or reasons without straying toward what seem like toxic communities.
>> No. 29070 Anonymous
11th November 2019
Monday 4:31 pm
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>>29069
Up the bum, no harm done.
>> No. 29071 Anonymous
11th November 2019
Monday 5:00 pm
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>>29069
nice

What do you think "evil" is?
>> No. 29072 Anonymous
11th November 2019
Monday 5:00 pm
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>>29069
I don't know about evil, but it certainly is harmful. I think I have something bookmarked, and I will post it when I get home.
>> No. 29073 Anonymous
11th November 2019
Monday 5:39 pm
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>>29071
Against 'God', or whatever those feelings are in your heart - guilt, doubt and disapointment mingled with pleasure, freedom and indulgence. Essentially doing what you know (or at least suspect) to be wrong. Continuing to eat dispite a full stomach, staying up way past the time you realised you're tired. I know these are'nt 'evil' in the sense of the term, but it's a dis-service to yourself. Maybe sin is a better word - i don't know.

I fancy that my problem has something to do with a lack of dicipline.

It's just videogames, you know? I've found something that can help me enjoy spending more time alone in my room, just at the time i'm coming to realise staying alone is actually soul destroying and not producing what i want in life.

I need to cut out all the shit in my life that's wasting time - actually build some character and develop a personality. Then anything that happens to come by will be genuine whether it's a cock in the arse or not.

I've been stuck inside for too long - i need to get out for some fresh air. It doesn't address the issue but it definitely cuts back the feedback loop.

>>29072
That would definitely be appriciated.
>> No. 29075 Anonymous
12th November 2019
Tuesday 12:03 am
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>>29073
There's nothing evil or sinful about sex itself in that context then. Wasting your time pursuing it at the cost of other things that make you feel fulfilled maybe but from the sound of it computer games are far more "evil" by your meaning of the word than your pursuit of sex is.
>> No. 29076 Anonymous
14th November 2019
Thursday 5:39 pm
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I almost had normalcy, but it's gone and it's never coming back.
>> No. 29077 Anonymous
14th November 2019
Thursday 8:27 pm
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>>29076

Never say never m8.

>>29075

I envy anyone who "wastes" an appreciable amount of time on shagging.
>> No. 29078 Anonymous
19th November 2019
Tuesday 3:22 pm
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Was going to apply for an apprenticeship but they want two references so lol not happening.
>> No. 29079 Anonymous
19th November 2019
Tuesday 4:20 pm
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>>29078

Make them up, use your man's phone number, it doesn't matter a fuck.
>> No. 29080 Anonymous
19th November 2019
Tuesday 6:32 pm
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>>29078

You worked for Woolworths and Thomas Cook, there you go.
>> No. 29083 Anonymous
27th November 2019
Wednesday 1:36 am
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I feel like I should make my own thread , but there’s no point in getting the same advice I won’t take again. I’m just so tired of wasting my life, but at the same time I don’t care. Not in an arrogant or smug way, but in an empty, miserable way. I haven’t got a thing to show for almost 25 years of opportunity and potential, and it makes me wish I were dead.
>> No. 29084 Anonymous
27th November 2019
Wednesday 6:53 am
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>>29083

In my experience, 27—35 is a good age. You start shedding a lot of insecurity, but you also develop a sense of urgency that can be lacking in a carefree (or troubled, in my case) youth.

It really helped me to think long term, and I don't know why I hadn't before. I really hit me that, I just needed go to the gym for 3 hours a week to drastically improve my body. I was an edge lord before that thought the gym was a waste of time, I didn't really like being there and I felt insecure. After two years I just like being there and working out. Most of the time I go regardless of my mental state, but I enjoy a better quality of life after all the effort.

The same with money. I'd always been skint, but I eventually managed to see it as my own doing which led to a budget, which led to buying my first ever new computer at the age of 27, which led to very modest savings, ultimately to security.

I can understand feeling empty and not caring about change. Personally, I'd never been given much hope or belief that I could do anything and that stuck with me for a long time: the moment that I started to believe in myself* is when things really started progressing.

At least for me in hindsight, not caring was a way of denying myself what I wanted to do/be.

*I mean believe in myself in the sense of believing quite obvious facts: my ability to get a job that pays above minimum wage and enjoyable, find decent friends and a partner.
>> No. 29085 Anonymous
28th November 2019
Thursday 1:53 am
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No matter how inevitable it is, and how inevitable you know it is, it's always something of a gut-shot to find out your ex has a new tinder profile.

It's perhaps even more galling to figuratively saunter past her instagram and see that she was tagged in a pic in what can only be described as a very "romantic" pose with some other bloke back in the summer when the two of you weren't exactly still going out but were definitely still shagging, sans cordon sanitaire and all.
>> No. 29086 Anonymous
28th November 2019
Thursday 8:27 am
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>>29085
That second thing is definitely worse than the first, seems odd you'd phrase it as a surprise to be hurt more by it.
>> No. 29087 Anonymous
28th November 2019
Thursday 8:38 am
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>>29085

Let it lie, mate. Unless you were good friends and you're very confident that having her in your life would improve it, there's absolutely nothing to be gained by knowing what she's up to or speculating about what happened as things were coming to a close.

It's grim and irrelevant anyway. Go out and create something better for yourself, whatever that might be.
>> No. 29088 Anonymous
28th November 2019
Thursday 7:33 pm
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>>29087
Yeah - don't go looking at old exes, it will always hurt, somehow.
>> No. 29089 Anonymous
29th November 2019
Friday 1:00 pm
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>>29086
> That second thing is definitely worse than the first, seems odd you'd phrase it as a surprise to be hurt more by it.

We had a sort of what I referred to as "Shroedinger's relationship" thing going on; we weren't actually together but we weren't totally finished yet either. I suppose that we both liked each other very much and didn't want things to end, but neither of us could actually see a way clear to making things actually work.

Her essentially ending that arrangement without bothering to actually tell me hurt more than her actually shagging (or not, it's just a photo, it could mean anything or nothing) anyone (even if it's generally good manners in this kind of situation to keep your indiscretions off social media.

>>29087
>>29088

You chaps are both absolutely right, of course. I don't follow her on any social media exactly because I don't want the provocation of knowing or finding out whatever new is happening in her life.

That said, I did occasionally moon at her profile pic on her otherwise private instagram profile. I can't say why I did really other than to say that it's perhaps part of my grieving process; I start off doing it a few times a day, then a few times a week and so on and so forth until one day I find I've moved on entirely. This week, however, for whatever reason her profile wasn't private and I got more of an eyeful than I wanted. And serves me right too, probably.

Sage for utter emo blog posting.
>> No. 29090 Anonymous
29th November 2019
Friday 1:02 pm
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I'm literally too much of a depressed failure to write a decent personal profile, but if I want to become employed and educated I need a decent personal profile. I'm halfway to losing my nut and behaving like an utter loon because of the frustration I feel at not being able to write two or three setences about why I'm not a useless dickhead. I fucking hate my life and no one can or will ever help me change, not even myself. I wish I was fucking dead.
>> No. 29091 Anonymous
29th November 2019
Friday 1:29 pm
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>>29090
Think of it as an exercise in creative bullshitting. Start with one that's totally ludicrous and blowing all your positive personality traits and minor achievements out of proportion (Ever put a used fag end in the bit of the bin for fag ends? Write erotic Sonic fanfiction? Hold a door open for someone? You're a creative, socially conscious individual with customer service skills and experience) for a laugh then just tone it down a bit.
>> No. 29092 Anonymous
29th November 2019
Friday 2:22 pm
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>>29091
I've been unemployed since 2016, failed out of uni and done nothing with my time since then. Can someone just give me a job instead of advice? My head's full of advice, but none of it works.
>> No. 29093 Anonymous
29th November 2019
Friday 3:03 pm
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>>29090

Just find someone else's personal profile/CV online and rip it off entirely. You don't really have to think about it too much.
>> No. 29094 Anonymous
30th November 2019
Saturday 10:11 am
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>>29093
Or publish a few clues here and we'll write it for you.
>> No. 29111 Anonymous
5th December 2019
Thursday 2:45 pm
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I'd like to experience some different cultures but my benefit claims are somewhat based on limited ability to travel. What can i do?

Travelling as i currently understand myself would essentailly be trial by fire. If i make it, i could come back a different man.
>> No. 29112 Anonymous
5th December 2019
Thursday 7:07 pm
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>>29111
I guess it depends on your personal circumstances.

Is there a reason you can't work? You could save, and stop claiming benefits and try and travel, do low budget travel, or try moving abroad and working there.
>> No. 29113 Anonymous
5th December 2019
Thursday 7:09 pm
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>>29111

I don't think you'll keep getting benefits if you spend months backpacking through Thailand, but otherwise you'll be alright. Air travel is very accessible.
>> No. 29114 Anonymous
8th December 2019
Sunday 12:01 am
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Anxiety's got me so muddled up I'm nearly having a panic attack watching Snowpiercer; pathetic.
>> No. 29120 Anonymous
11th December 2019
Wednesday 9:09 pm
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>>29085

So after finding all that out, deciding to permanently move on, and blocking her on every social media and messaging app we ever used, what does she do?

She emails me saying "You don't have to reply, but I just want you to know that I really really miss you".

Fucks sake, lads. I really know how to pick 'em.
>> No. 29121 Anonymous
11th December 2019
Wednesday 10:33 pm
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>>29120
Ignore, or tell her to fuck off. If she wanted to get back with you she would say so. As it is she is playing with your emotions and you don't need that kind of manipulative bullshit in your life. As the others have said, let it lie. Any other option isn't healthy.
>> No. 29122 Anonymous
11th December 2019
Wednesday 11:40 pm
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>>29121

Oh it's getting ignored. Anything else would be emotional suicide.

What's really grim is that she's already played this trick once before, basically word for word, and as you wisely point out she didn't want to get back together then, just string me along like a mug for a few more months. Well, fool me once and all that.
>> No. 29123 Anonymous
11th December 2019
Wednesday 11:46 pm
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>>29122
Reply with a photo of two guys docking but so it looks like it's you.
>> No. 29124 Anonymous
12th December 2019
Thursday 12:05 am
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>>29122
What's in it for the girl, to string someone along? Does their value increase if they're dating? Do they need a fallback?
>> No. 29125 Anonymous
12th December 2019
Thursday 12:05 am
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>>29122
What's in it for the girl, to string someone along? Does their value increase if they're dating? Do they need a fallback?
>> No. 29126 Anonymous
12th December 2019
Thursday 12:10 am
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>>29124

Usually they just want a self esteem boost. I'm not convinced people do stuff like this consciously unless they're extreme mentalists. More that they convince themselves to contact people like this because subconsciously they know they'll get what they're craving. Then as soon as they get a response and feel better, they're done.
>> No. 29127 Anonymous
12th December 2019
Thursday 1:18 am
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>>29122
>>29124
>>29126

I mean, I got a weekend of sex out of it, last time. Then a couple of months of heartache as our "relationship" sputtered away without really starting back up. Then I finally get around to getting my head sorted and letting things go and up she pops again like a mentalist jack in the box.

If I were to reply to her (I won't) I would at least get a weekend or two or mental sex out of it before the stringing-along started back in earnest.

It does make me wonder if she gets off on some level on enticing me back in with the sex and then relishing in my emotional distress as she puts my heart nonchalantly back through the wringer.

Sage as I need to stop posting about this bint before Purpz' elite mobile shedbourne division take me out in my sleep.
>> No. 29128 Anonymous ## Mod ##
12th December 2019
Thursday 1:20 am
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>>29127
Reply with a photo of two guys docking but so it looks like it's you.
>> No. 29129 Anonymous
12th December 2019
Thursday 1:21 am
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>>29128

So both guys look like they're me or just one of them? If anyone's docking me it's going to be me, modlad.
>> No. 29130 Anonymous
12th December 2019
Thursday 10:48 am
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>>29127
If it were me, and some no-strings-attached sex were being offered up on a plate, then yeah I'd go for it. But it's not me, it's you, and if there's too much emotional baggage there for you to think of it as 'just sex', then I'm glad you're getting well shot of it.
>> No. 29131 Anonymous
12th December 2019
Thursday 11:15 am
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>>29129
That'll be harder to pull off but if you can.
>> No. 29133 Anonymous
16th December 2019
Monday 10:09 pm
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>>29132

You seem too proud of admitting your need for others, and that it is making you miserable. Is not showing signs of vulnerability really more important? I've found the more honest I am about these things with people the more likable they find me, something about being comfortable showing weakness demonstrating strength and all that.
>> No. 29134 Anonymous
16th December 2019
Monday 11:00 pm
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>>29132
Have a wank and reconsider.
>> No. 29135 Anonymous
16th December 2019
Monday 11:15 pm
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>>29133
>>29134
Damn, what a mess of a post. Serves me right for copy/pasting one handed, right? Maybe i'll re-write it later and actually make some sense. I think you might be right about the pride. I've grown up around needy people my entire life so it kindof rubs off, only i see the folly of it in them and don't want to replicate. Looks like i've gone too far the other way, though.
>> No. 29136 Anonymous
20th December 2019
Friday 3:15 pm
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Over the past 10 years I've earned less than £50000. I feel so trapped.
>> No. 29137 Anonymous
20th December 2019
Friday 5:28 pm
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>>29136
Is that gross earnings, or what you've actually managed to keep safe for the future in your savings account?

If the former, then that would be about as much you'd earn on part-time minimum wage. For how many of these 10 years have you been working and what job?
>> No. 29154 Anonymous
27th December 2019
Friday 7:48 pm
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I'm confused about my sexuality. I've been with my gf for six years and we've not had sex for five of those. She initiates it every so often and I reject her and she goes off crying. I masturbate but not to porn it's a solely ritual thing. I might be asexual or gay. I told my mum today I think I might be gay but she just ignored it. I'm probably not gay to be fair. I don't know.
>> No. 29155 Anonymous
27th December 2019
Friday 8:32 pm
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>>29154

Have you never been particularly interested in sex, or is it a recent change? Are you suffering from anxiety or depression? Are you currently taking SSRI antidepressants or did you take them during your teenage years? Did your parents express negative views about sex during your childhood? Have you ever been the victim of sexual assault?
>> No. 29156 Anonymous
27th December 2019
Friday 8:36 pm
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>>29155
I've got a lot of mental health issues which I know don't help and am on several medications to treat those. I used to be quite sexual but that stopped a few years ago. Parents aren't negative about sex. I was coerced into sex with someone about eight years ago, don't know if that counts as sexual abuse.
>> No. 29157 Anonymous
27th December 2019
Friday 9:24 pm
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>>29156

A lot of psychiatric medication can decrease your libido. I'd suggest speaking to your GP or psychiatrist about it. It's quite likely that you don't have a weird issue with your sexual orientation, but just a common side effect from your medication.
>> No. 29158 Anonymous
28th December 2019
Saturday 2:09 pm
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>>29156
>I was coerced into sex with someone about eight years ago, don't know if that counts as sexual abuse.
It does, but it doesn't sound like you are particularly fussed about it. On the other hand if you do want to talk about it we are happy to listen.

I agree with the lad above - it does sound like your medication could be the cause of your sexual problems so speak to your doctor before you do anything else.
>> No. 29159 Anonymous
28th December 2019
Saturday 3:05 pm
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>>29158
With the sexual assault thing whenever I tell people about it they think it's a big deal but to me it's just something I regret but something which I don't think has fucked me up. I was on SSRIs a long time before losing my libido, if anything the SSRIs were a boon to my sex life because I could fuck for hours without cumming which the ladies liked. I've been moved onto different drugs since then, but I'll bring it up when I see the psychiatrist next as this lack of libido is negatively impacting my love life.
>> No. 29160 Anonymous
28th December 2019
Saturday 3:16 pm
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>>29159

How's your relationship apart from the fact you haven't boned for a long time?

This is going to sound shallow but the worst relationships I've been in, sex has been an issue. Lack of it causes arguments, which causes a cycle of pressure and expectation, which in turn kills my sex drive; and more often than not I've realised after the fact that I really do just have more interest in fucking somebody else.

I have a folder full of dirty pics and videos from my ex on my phone, and quite often I'll tug one out over them. The idea of her turns me on, some of the things we did give me a right stonk on; so she wasn't unattractive and we weren't incompatible. But while I was actually with her? Sex felt like a chore. It felt like having to do the washing up.
>> No. 29176 Anonymous
3rd January 2020
Friday 1:15 am
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Having a big bout of quarter-life crisis. Unlike a mid-life crisis, I don't have the money to do anything about it, so I sit here closing YouTube videos where the people in them are having fun adventures or in relationships because they just makes me feel worse. They remind me of all the things I've irrevocably missed out, all the opportunities that not only have passed me by but will also never be granted to me.
>> No. 29179 Anonymous
3rd January 2020
Friday 7:22 pm
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>>29178
The video link's broken.
>> No. 29180 Anonymous
3rd January 2020
Friday 9:46 pm
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>>29176

I had asimilar thing a couple of years ago. It's not an answer you'll probably like, but honestly I just had to get over my ego a bit, as well as accept that we're all a product of our environment and upbringing.

I'm not rich and successful my the usual standards, but given my parent's shit job of raising me and where I grew up, it would actually have been astonishing if I was; as long as I hold down my job I'm forutnate enough to live in a first world country and have a very decent standard of living, and a few things in life that give me fulfilment. As well as that, I realised that the pressures I felt were being exasperated by having a girlfriend several years younger than me, who was still at a stage of her life where she wanted to go out to gigs all the time and "live life to the fullest" so she could share it on social media and impress people; I'd gotten over that several years ago and was actually becoming quite content with a night in with my feet up watching nerdy shit on Youtube, or painting little plastic soldiers. In other words, getting old. Letting her go was painful but the right decision I think.

I think a lot of people tend to watch those types of videos you describe as an escapist fantasy, they know they won't get to do it themselves but do so vicariously by watching someone else do it. I don't really see the value in that, I don't really see any reason to watch them. It's not like most of them are exactly an enlightening, Michael Palin style travelogue is it? It's for a similar reason I avoid social media mostly. Don't let yourself think there's something wrong with you for merely avoiding things that would make you feel unhappy, for the most part that's rational and healthy.

Focus on what you can do and what you do have, and remember that the universe is a vast uncaring expanse in which even the richest man alive is a meaningless, insignificant blip.

Also, watch videos like these, and instead of feeling jealousy, imagine the state of the fucking prick running the channel, up to his neck in aspiration and yet will only ever be worthy of table scraps. Imagine trying as hard as he does to dress up in expensive, cutting edge smart fashion, imagine how much he covets his fucking wrist watch, desperately hoping and begging to be allowed into the wealthy elite.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d6hBAvIw25o

Truly I think he is a pathetic and contemptible example of a man, and that makes me feel better about myself.

>>29179

I keep forgetting they've changed it, my mistake.
>> No. 29181 Anonymous
4th January 2020
Saturday 12:25 pm
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Someone make the fucking anxiousness stop, please.
>> No. 29189 Anonymous
5th January 2020
Sunday 11:59 am
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I've been pretty tired lately. Started experiencing minor visual and audio halucinations more regularly than usual.

Often wake up emotional to songs in my mind - i think they're from my childhood. Each time i immediately think to go out for some fresh air, but i can't be arsed to get dressed. End up going back to bed feeling as though i've betrayed a direct calling from god - only the times i have gone out i've had to make up some reason what it was about, usually encounters with a wild animal. Today i wondered if i should just go out in my dressing gown - around 4-6am, but it that's a bit weird. The 4-6am timing is pretty interesting as it's known as Brahma Muhurtha in some cultures - a period of time when the mind is closest to god. Pay less attention to the actual timeframe and more to the patterns of electromagnetic activity within the brain during certain periods of sleep.

Had a weird dream about my mother repeatedly calling my name in a pleasured manner, and something about sharing the name with a dog while he was shot in the ear with some kind of dart. I've had unusual pain in my ear recently (sufficiently stressed i could convince myself this is where 'they' are injecting me).
It's always been on my mind that i was sexually abused as a child but everyone i know who has says you'd remember such a thing. I wonder if any abuse i might have been subject to was minor, or if the memory has just rubbed off from my primary care givers - both of whom were abused to various degrees. I remember a few pieces, mainly leads to begin investigating, but i'm aware of the possibility i might start fabricating a story - seeing what i want to see kind of thing. I'm particularly worried about the situation with my mother and her young grandchild - i don't want to encourage such ideas on little more than a feeling and stupid-little idea that i nurse, but it doesn't feel nice to 'risk' my niblings childhood.

Over the last 10 years i've thought i had more of a handle on life than a lot of people, but it turns out i've just been afforded more time to rest. If i had to regularly operate at sub-peak performance i think i might hurt myself.

I don't know if this is appropriate to talk with my dctor/mental health nurse about. It seems like it wouldn't actually go anywhere, and i'd just be wasting their time for a chat.

Now that i've woken proper i dismiss such thoughts and repeat back into the heavily trodden paths of wasting my life on the internet.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=huaxD7BJQnk
>> No. 29191 Anonymous
6th January 2020
Monday 7:24 pm
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Posted previously in this thread, finally had a complete break down, can see why people put a bullet in. Now I basically have a month to sort my shit out or else I have nowhere to go. Should be interesting, I always wondered where those crazy hobos came from.
>> No. 29204 Anonymous
9th January 2020
Thursday 7:57 pm
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There was a time, back in 2017, when I was properly, properly happy, but I don't think that's going to come around ever again.
>> No. 29220 Anonymous
10th January 2020
Friday 7:23 pm
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I felt this great pang of insecurity earlier because someone I used to know IRL removed me from their Steam friend's list, but I thought about it for moment and I realised we haven't spoken on Steam for two or more years and I haven't seen him face-to-face since God knows. The pang ceased shortly thereafter.

I suppose this is technically the oppposite of what this thread's for, but I wanted to share regardless.
>> No. 29231 Anonymous
10th January 2020
Friday 9:50 pm
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Why is it so hard for me to start doing things that i like rather than keep doing these things that i'm fucking bored of. I say to myself that i want to change my life but i'm still not fucking doing it. Am i really just fond of complaining?!

I'm begnining to hesitate asking questions and posting here because it never means anything.

Good riddence, i know it's what i'd think.
>> No. 29233 Anonymous
10th January 2020
Friday 10:26 pm
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>>29231

Do you smoke weed?

One thing I found helped me when suffering from motivation is segmenting tasks. I'm not biking to the shop, I'm going downstairs and taking my bike to the front door. Then I take it outside and get on. Then I am cycling.

I usually use it for stuff I don't want to do rather than stuff I do want to do, do do be do, but maybe it'll help?

Shit like meditating can also have a big impact. Headspace is really good for guided mediation. You know you're doing fuck all anyway, so why not do fuck all with purpose?
>> No. 29237 Anonymous
11th January 2020
Saturday 12:17 am
29237 The only way is through. Focus on the positive. Occupy yourself.
>>29220
Years ago at your house i heard your mom say "I made the mistake of asking (me) if he wanted to stay for dinner". I'd said no. It was from there that my interest in our friendship began to wane. It'd been a number of years but ultimately I came to feel as though i have nothing to offer you in friendship. I don't like reverting to my older self when around you, nor do i want you to see what i've become. My life - everything - is a joke but i don't know how to laugh. The option i've chosen is to detatch and guard, which clearly exasserbates the problem.

I remember watching films with you but refusing those connections when people look to each other and share a moment, be it laugher or whatever. I'd see from the corner of my eye a desperate attempt to connect, yet felt nothing but annoyance. During the last film we watched together you literally growled in exasperation (with due cause i recognise - i was rather unaccommodating as a guest in your house). The home made pizza was nice, though, and wrapping it a kind invitation for me to leave.

I recognise the elements of 'calling for help' in this message but fuck that. I don't need pity, dispite implying a desire for it.

As you may well suspect, my life hasn't panned out well for chosing all this.

I still have many of the things you've give me over the years. Do you?

>>29233

Irregularly. I smoked solid for about a year some time ago. My last phase of smoking lasted perhaps 2 or 3 month over the summer past. When i smoke, it's comparatively low amounts but habitually. I've recently refused an offer of re-supply because i know it will not help me at the moment.

I do that while walking, infact. It's a great exercise or 'meditation', not projecting so far ahead that you forget where you are. Focus on now. That's what i find nice about walking home long distances over night. Feet tired and aching back, but a solid plough through every step, still mind on progress.

>do do be do
I managed to clear my house of clutter today - the effect very uplifting. Maybe i'm just feeling the leveling that follows. Tomorrow i'll be singing scat along with some nice music while washing up.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OkQlrIQhUMQ
>> No. 29259 Anonymous
11th January 2020
Saturday 3:08 pm
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I feel like I have too many hobbies/interests, and I'm constantly torn between them. I can never settle on something productive to do with my time, because it feels like a waste of time I could spend on something else; and in the end I just end up wasting the night on videogames instead.

I miss being unemployed. I was dirt poor but it was no problem if I wanted to spend a week learning how to softmod a PS2, or how to create specific synth sounds in a new DAW, or teaching myself how to draw. None of it was time wasted because let's face it, I wasn't doing much else. I could even afford to be far more social.

The trouble is I've always been very obsessive compulsive. When I get interested in something, that's the only thing I want to do until the interest wears off. I've recorded entire EPs in a week before because it was all I wanted to do. But I don't have the freedom to indulge the way my brain naturally wants to do things. I have to be an adult and put things down to go to work or do the shopping; the trouble is I never pick them back up after that.

I really don't think there's much to be done about it other than just accept adult life is unending misery, or go back on the dole. Why couldn't I have been born into a wealthy family and never need to work, instead of the boring pricks who are.
>> No. 29260 Anonymous
11th January 2020
Saturday 3:57 pm
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>>29237
I never made pizza with or watched films with you or the lad I was formally Steam friends with.

(A good day to you Sir!)
>> No. 29262 Anonymous
11th January 2020
Saturday 4:45 pm
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>>29260
That's a relief.
>> No. 29263 Anonymous
11th January 2020
Saturday 4:53 pm
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>>29260
>formally
MODS
>> No. 29267 Anonymous
11th January 2020
Saturday 7:52 pm
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>>29263
Oh no.
>> No. 29328 Anonymous
25th January 2020
Saturday 11:12 pm
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How are you all doing? I don't know if this is worth it or not, nobody's posted in this thread for a while, but I'm aware there's now a britfa.gs Discord server. Would anyone in /emo/ be interested in starting a separate server for support with all our problems? Suicide is still the biggest killer of men in the UK, under age 45. The majority of overall suicides are men as well. Not to say it would be a male only server, everybody needs support. These are dark months and times are hard. I'll admit this is me reaching out some too while I try to find some form of therapy, but I wouldn't wish what I'm going through on any one and it breaks my heart that there's millions out there feeling the same way and remaining isolated. If something like this already exists though please let us know. Figured it's worth a shot at least, if anyone feels the same way.
>> No. 29330 Anonymous
25th January 2020
Saturday 11:28 pm
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>>29328
Here https://discord.gg/xNGVcm if you can log in and confirm your identity I'll make you admin and pin the server to the top of /emo/.
>> No. 29331 Anonymous
26th January 2020
Sunday 1:49 pm
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Everyone around me in 3/4 of my social groups is talking openly and frequently about sex and relationships, my housemate brought his lass to stay, the requisite asking from aunts and uncles at a recent family gathering about why I hadn't got a girlfriend yet - it's all REALLY grinding me down. I feel like utter fucking shit and it's everywhere I turn. Fine, I think, I'll get on Tinder. It shows me all people so unimaginably far out of my league, it's like it's taunting me.

I can't blame the people around me, and just because of how I feel about it shouldn't stop them talking about it, but it's so, so exhausting being reminded of it. Are there places that still do lobotomies?
>> No. 29332 Anonymous
26th January 2020
Sunday 2:06 pm
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>>29331
Don't join Tinder when Slimming World exists.
>> No. 29333 Anonymous
26th January 2020
Sunday 2:58 pm
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>>29331

Don't join slimming world, don't do anything. It sounds like the only reason you want a relationship is out of some sort of social pressure, and that seems like a terrible justifications. I think learning to not care about what those people think would be a better solution.

It sounds like all you want is a partner any partner like you don't even care what they are like and that to me rings an alarm bell.
>> No. 29334 Anonymous
26th January 2020
Sunday 3:10 pm
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>>29333
I agree with this lad.
>> No. 29335 Anonymous
26th January 2020
Sunday 7:31 pm
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My aunts used to ask me if I had a girlfriend. Then they started asking if I had a girlfriend or a boyfriend. Now they have just given up.
>> No. 29336 Anonymous
26th January 2020
Sunday 8:17 pm
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>>29335
They have been through the "...or boyfriend" stage, but seem to be looping back.
>> No. 29337 Anonymous
27th January 2020
Monday 1:27 pm
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>>29330
I appreciate this but I'm honestly apprehensive of it, I'm not sure I'm in any state to be an admin for it, every other day I'm thinking about topping myself. I just wanted to gauge interest first but there hasn't really been any so far.
>> No. 29338 Anonymous
27th January 2020
Monday 1:31 pm
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>>29337
It has two more users already, I can give one of them admin instead.
>> No. 29341 Anonymous
27th January 2020
Monday 7:01 pm
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>>29335
I turned 32 on Saturday. Being brown means I get this sort of nonsense 24/7 now since everyone apparently gets married when they are 17.

I bet they are regretting they didn't force me into an arranged marriage when I was younger, hahaha.
>> No. 29342 Anonymous
27th January 2020
Monday 11:26 pm
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comic-onions-mkaing-you-cry-with-insults.png
293422934229342
My romantic relationships no longer seem to last now that I'm in my 30s and I'm left pondering this because another relationship just ended. I see nothing massively wrong, so this might be an "am I normal" check, the spark simply goes and I suspect part of underlying the reason being that I never really 'feel' anything for the women I date so I never try. I can't imagine a future with them and, I know I'm probably going wrong here, they don't seem to compare to the loves I had when I was younger. There's no passion, no sense that I want to spend every waking moment with this person.

I've drafted a few ideas of what could be going on so let me know what you think:

1. I'm wrong to compare my loves of today to the past, what I'm not seeing is a mature kind of love and I'm letting relationships unnecessarily crash down.

2. Everyone else is the problem: I'm not meeting the right women. Perhaps I just need to know what I actually want in a partner and to stop rushing into relationships with people I don't feel anything for.

3. 5 years ago a woman I loved for 5 years (ha) left me for another man and I never really got over that despite having moved on with my life in seemingly every way. I still think of her now and again and it's a deep scar. Perhaps I need to consider whether I'm holding up that relationship's good times as a template that can't be filled because those times are over and maybe never existed. I have no idea if there's something I'm supposed to fix her or how.

Maybe I just need to try being single for a good while and give it all a good reset. Still, I also feel more and more like I'm on a clock now if I ever want to have a family. Feel free to call me a silly sausage.
>> No. 29343 Anonymous
27th January 2020
Monday 11:36 pm
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>>29342

I think one of the biggest challenges of legitimate adulthood (not just the pretend nonsense about starting to wear a shirt, cutting your hair and working the 9-5) is coming to terms with the fact none of your relations will ever really seem as passionate or exciting as that one. And broadly speaking, we've all had that one, by the time we're hitting our 30s you know?

It's possible you are rushing into things, but I'd say it's also likely you need to somewhat temper your expectations, and try appreciate different things. You're never going to have the same thrill of excitement at discovering a new fanny and trying out all the positions with her, or those long daft romantic nights talking about daft shite. You'll want to come home from work and cuddle in front of some bollocks on the screen. It's a different pace, I think.
>> No. 29344 Anonymous
28th January 2020
Tuesday 12:06 am
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>>29343
Thanks, that makes for a depressing thought but I can see your point and it's nice to know I'm not alone. Maybe I can ease the transition by finding someone I can do hobbies with such as a cooking class because the watching television together does feel stale at times.
>> No. 29351 Anonymous
28th January 2020
Tuesday 11:47 am
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>>29342
>>29344
Passion seems to have shrunk or disappeared from basically everything in life in my 30s. Part of that is no doubt the heavy pain medication I'm on, but I see it in friends and family too, there's just not the same enthusiasm. I think it's an inevitable fact of life.

To your questions, which are subtle and hard to gauge based on two short posts, so take this with a pinch of salt: not dating women that you don't feel anything for really does sound like step 1. If you don't feel any spark for a person then don't get involved; these posts are evidence that it doesn't make you happy, and in any case it's not fair on them. With that said, relationships are always a compromise. You probably won't find someone who fills your imagination like you did as a teenager, because you're not a teenager, and speaking for myself, on balance I'm pretty happy that I'm not ever going to be a teenager again. All those old flames had higher highs, sure, but you're forgetting the lower lows.
>> No. 29352 Anonymous
28th January 2020
Tuesday 2:41 pm
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>>29351

Which pain med are you on? I remember that when I was on oramorph I was essentially a living dead, never recovered fully from that
>> No. 29354 Anonymous
28th January 2020
Tuesday 5:44 pm
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>>29353

Your dad sounds like a cunt.
>> No. 29355 Anonymous
28th January 2020
Tuesday 6:55 pm
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>>29353

You are a good person, which is why you have been trying to repair this relationship. But it is clear to me, that you and your behaviour are not the problem here.

Your father is vindictive and bitter. You need to take a step outside of your situation and be the observer to understand this. But none of what he is saying really has anything to do with what you have done, he is simply cruel for his own selfish reasons. He will NEVER give you the validation you want from him, you will only hurt yourself more by expecting it, and doing things to please him.

I get the idea that you don't want to lose this relationship, and that it is easier said than done. But if you don't put a distance between you two and maintain it he will try to destroy you.

There are various online support groups for children of narcistic parents, I suggest you give them a read

https://www.reddit.com/r/raisedbynarcissists/top?t=all

This is a group of people who share their horror stories you will find things you recognize.

http://www.issendai.com/psychology/estrangement/
this is a study of the abusers perspective
>> No. 29357 Anonymous
28th January 2020
Tuesday 7:09 pm
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>>29355

The post I was linking to has obviously been deleted. All I can say is, you did nothing wrong by sharing this. it is normal and healthy to feel and to vent and to be vulnerable. It was a good thing you shared you have nothing to feel embarrassed or ashamed of.
>> No. 29358 Anonymous
28th January 2020
Tuesday 7:35 pm
29358 Not 29353
>>29355
These are some valuable resources, thanks for sharing them.
>> No. 29359 Anonymous
29th January 2020
Wednesday 12:11 am
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There was going to be more to this, but I haven’t got access to a proper computer right now and the iPhone 5 isn’t the kind of machine I feel like putting down paragraphs with. In short I’m just sick of what loneliness is doing, and has done, to me. I’m not exactly different to whom I used to be, simply lesser than. I can’t think of an SSRI or talking therapy in the whole world that could come close to going to a cafe or seeing a film with a couple of mates. I just can’t seem to get a handle on things like others can.
>> No. 29360 Anonymous
29th January 2020
Wednesday 12:26 am
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>>29359
Find something to get involved with. As others have pointed out in other threads, pursuing a relationship for its own sake is a recipe for shite, but you can find something to get involved with that connects you with other people not in that way.
>> No. 29361 Anonymous
2nd February 2020
Sunday 12:06 pm
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>>29330
This link expired and I can't see it pinned anywhere, did no one use it and it's already died?
>> No. 29362 Anonymous
2nd February 2020
Sunday 12:12 pm
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>>29361
https://discord.gg/Nwn8b29
>> No. 29364 Anonymous
3rd February 2020
Monday 10:32 pm
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The only people I talk to are my parents and my partner. I had friends in the past but I always alienate them in the end. I try meet new people, I go to social events for my hobbies but end up sitting in silence for 10 minutes then leaving before I can even speak to anyone. Combination of autism and social anxiety makes meeting people a total nightmare. I'm so lonely.
>> No. 29365 Anonymous
3rd February 2020
Monday 10:50 pm
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>>29364
Do you not talk to your partner at all? I spend most of my time alone for similar reasons, only really talking to family every other week or so.
>> No. 29366 Anonymous
3rd February 2020
Monday 10:51 pm
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There's a flaw in my character that I tend to freeze up or panic when faced with some sudden emergency or exam/interview situations. Even interpersonal conflict is difficult for me where I tend to just break into jokes. For years a line in Camus' The Plague has comforted me, that there comes in time in every day where a man is a coward but it seems like this is just the norm for me.

I'm 31 years old and where life experience has built a shell confidence I still feel that at my core I'm a coward. I've fired guns, I've jumped out of planes, I've picked myself up after many failures and gone right back into whatever knocked me down, essentially I've lived an exciting life where many people would never have had the courage to do it. Yet still I don't feel like a man. Not one you could rely on in a crisis.

>>29364
I can relate to this entirely. The solutions make me recoil in horror but adult loneliness is a real problem.

Have you thought about attending smaller events? My social anxiety is much easier in small groups of two or three in comparison to large groups where I don't do well at all.
>> No. 29367 Anonymous
3rd February 2020
Monday 10:51 pm
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>>29364

I go to gigs and things and get really drunk and talk to people, and then the next week in horrible self-loading anguish and embarrassment wishing I'd stayed at home instead of being that guy.

I think some of us are just more suited to keeping ourselves to ourselves.
>> No. 29368 Anonymous
4th February 2020
Tuesday 6:39 am
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I clung on to a lot of friendships that were crap. Last year I cut them off because they were mostly losers.

I felt lonely before I did this and I feel equally lonely now, except now I've more of a clean slate. You could call it a confirmed loneliness, because I don't live in hope that people will drastically change.

I've spent about 2 months arranging some therapy through the NHS and I'm on the cusp of receiving it. What I do know is that I don't have much anxiety: my job involves talking to people I've never met and it is just second nature to me to be sociable. People even find the suggestion that I'm lonely or find it hard to make friends ridiculous.

I grew up quite starved of nicety; it's new to me that friends and family might be supportive or even pleasant. I grew up understanding that everyone plays tricks on you, will only come to you when they need something, and won't help you if you need. Naturally, I carried that through my 20s and so I'd neglect fruitful relationships, but continue bad ones.

It's a bit of a double bind. I'm a nice enough chap, but I have so much trouble I come across as aloof or independent. I've chucked myself through classes and social events but I find I'm expecting too much from them. Anyway, in those cases people talk about their sociable friends and family and I don't have much to offer: you spent the weekend away with friends and I went to Sainsbury's and cried.

So this year I've resolved to make smaller decisions that get me around people more. I'll try going to the pub with work people more often and I'll try reaching out to some more decent people.
>> No. 29369 Anonymous
4th February 2020
Tuesday 9:13 am
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>>29368

I'm of the opinion that if you want deeper more thoughtful relationships, it is up to you to define them through example. The more caring and considerate you are the more people are going to react the same way back.

It isn't magic some people won't react to that or will react negatively but you stand a chance of identifying and encouraging being treated the way you want to be treated.

I've started asking people's opinions on small life decisions and taking their advice, I think people valued that you asked their council, and it breaks the social barriers by making people feel they matter to you and consequently they start feeling you matter to them.
>> No. 29376 Anonymous
6th February 2020
Thursday 6:51 am
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I wrote a post about talking about emotions but I realised it came across like an edgy Men's Rights Activist having a pop at women when that wasn't my intention so I deleted it.
>> No. 29416 Anonymous
11th February 2020
Tuesday 9:25 pm
29416 Taking a big dump in /emo/, again.
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I think i think I'm better than other people. As a defense mechanism, i suppose; i've restricted the living of my life, refused meaningful social contact and don't persue many meaningful activities or hobbies. I'm essentially waiting to die.

A friend said to me once that 'you've felt pain for so long that's all you want to feel', or something to that tune. She didn't know me very well, but it was a first impression and people say to pay attention to those. I haven't felt pain for that long, it's just dramatic.

I had a dream last night that someone/thing recognised i was special but my responce was to run for the hills when they mentioned it - i even shouted "no no no no no!" during my escape. I was a very emotional and fearful, panic stricken response. In the past i've sneared at the mention that 'i seem intelligent'. I feel bitter just typing it.

I don't want to be like this but i don't know how to find my way back, without the shame and embarassment or vulnerability. It just hurts so much that i might end up wanting to kill myself, the only way i've found to manage this so far is to push it down until i feel nothing, then laugh at other people because they can't do it as well as me. Only i've watched a whole DVD series of a tv program and at the end of each episode i'd force a laugh that only barely stayed from the edge of despair.

I want to do talking therapy or some kind of counciling or perhaps psychoanalysis. It's funny because i've heard the saying 'people who want to talk to a psychiatrist need their heads examined' .. but what if i do want and need that? I just want to understand myself so i can make better dicisions and kind of game my system - although this seems almost like a recipe for insanity.

I like to think that when i die i'll get the chance to talk to god - the greatest therapy session I could hope for. He'd simply let me know myself, honestly. Even if i was sent to hell i hope i could still say thank you. But it's now when things matter, not in the post life appraisal.

5/6 paragraphs begin with an 'I'. Today is just a pitty episode.
>> No. 29417 Anonymous
12th February 2020
Wednesday 3:23 am
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>>29416
I'm not sure if you're aware, but you are literally asking for Cognitive Behaviour Therapy, CBT. It is all about examining your thoughts and almost gaming them into being more positive. I'd encourage you to read a little online about it first.

You want face to face sessions. You probably won't get this on the NHS, but try first - if you tell your GP "I'm waiting to die" you may get a rapid referral. I didn't. They shuffled me into a room full of other really anxious, depressed folks and put up slides about depression. This was not helpful. After this I was told I'd get a one-on-one referral, but it turned out to be on the phone. The lady who called me, bless her, was Spanish and could barely hold a sentence together. She frequently misunderstood the basics of what I was saying, it was hopeless. Avoid all this shit if you can - push as hard as you can for a personal CBT therapist.

Or just go private, if you've got the cash. You'll get far better service.
>> No. 29423 Anonymous
13th February 2020
Thursday 1:08 pm
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I've realised that over the years putting on a pair of headphones and listening to whatever has gone from, well, just that; putting on headphones and listening to whatever, to a strange ritual I use as an excuse to meander and avoid certain situations. It's evolved from listening to Shaun Keveney of a morning while I'm getting the bus to something far more unhealthy. Whether it's spending far too long deciding which podcast to listen to or thinking "well, I can't go into that shop, I still have ten minutes of Pienaar's Politics to get through". It's also gone someway to muffling my internal monologue and could well be why I've convinced myself I've gotten dumber in recent years. Considering all this has also made me aware of other unhelpful habits I've developed, but the headphones thing is the most revealing and troublesome to my mind.
>> No. 29425 Anonymous
13th February 2020
Thursday 3:46 pm
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>>29417
>I'd encourage you to read a little online about CBT first.
It seems that i do most of the stuff listed on the NHS webpage for CBT. Exposure therapy might be worth a go - i've noticed similar effects after my own efforts - with structured follow up sessions it might prove more effective.
I've started meditating which seems to be helping.

As another recent post alluded to, i think i was just seeking attention. Thanks for your responce, and sorry to have been dramatic. I'll keep it off of britfa.gs next time.
>> No. 29427 Anonymous
16th February 2020
Sunday 12:23 am
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A person from my social clique at university died today I hadn't spoken to them in close to a decade, but if I happened to bump into them somewhere we'd probably chat quite happily for a long while, like no time had passed at all.

I think the suddenness and without any kind of narrative sense (died of head trauma alone in his house this morning) has really weirded everyone I spoke to about it out.

There is an online group that I am grieving with that are friends that I made a proactive effort to try re-established regular contact with recently, and he could easily have been part of that group had circumstances lead to us having the chance encounter for me to invite him.
>> No. 29428 Anonymous
16th February 2020
Sunday 12:42 am
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>>29427
I've had two deaths and an attempted suicide so far this month. We're just over half way in. Fuck February.
>> No. 29429 Anonymous
16th February 2020
Sunday 3:15 am
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>>29428

That sounds awful. Way more than I'm dealing with, hope you are handling yourself well.

I think for me I've never faced death in this way before, I accepted the death of those of an older generation, as just a fact of life, it is like part of a story we all experiance, but this is someone a few years younger than me just blipped out probably without proper awareness of their situation, none of that overshadowing pending, or confrontation of death and coming to peace or struggling against it, just gone and it really highlights the futility and lack of meaning of it all for me. If there is a best way to move passed the pensiveness I'd love to know.
>> No. 29442 Anonymous
20th February 2020
Thursday 12:43 pm
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I feel as though, if I keep working at it nice and slowly, I'm going to come back online.
>> No. 29443 Anonymous
20th February 2020
Thursday 9:41 pm
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>>29442

That's the spirit mate. Keep chipping away, Rome wasn't built in a day and all that. The longer you keep it up the easier it gets to keep it going.
>> No. 29444 Anonymous
21st February 2020
Friday 5:01 am
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>>29427

If you don't want to discuss, that's fine, but I can't help but be curious about the "head trauma in his house alone". Did he fall down in the stairs, or in the shower? Something else?
>> No. 29445 Anonymous
21st February 2020
Friday 11:30 am
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>>29444

No idea I'm afraid. Police found the body and that is all they said, and that it wasn't suspicious.

I suspect his parents got given a fuller picture (they were the ones who called the police also because he wasn't answering the door) but I've never spoken to them.

A friend talked to the local police about it to get confirmation I don't think they volunteered any additional information.
>> No. 29446 Anonymous
26th February 2020
Wednesday 10:19 am
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"What helps your mood and anxiety to get better?"

If I knew that I wouldn't be doing CBT, would I?!

>>29443
Nah, it's over.
>> No. 29447 Anonymous
26th February 2020
Wednesday 11:36 am
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>>29446

You'd be surprised how many people with mental health issues are the equivalent of:

"My face hurts"
"Why does your face hurt?"
"I don't know, hmmm Ikeep slapping myself in the face"
"You should stop doing that?"
"Why would that help?"
"Just try it"
"I did it for 5mins my face still stings"
"Try it for at least a week"

I'm not saying that's your issue, but I think we all know someone who does these things to themselves and we see the 'easy fix'. And therapists probably look for the easy win of those cases first, some probably forget that there are those that isn't a solution for.
>> No. 29448 Anonymous
26th February 2020
Wednesday 7:04 pm
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>>29447

Through my CBT I was told that emotions are the last thing to change, so I could start exercising today but probably wouldn't really notice much change until after a year or so. I think they often look for something easy and obvious that you can 'do'.

>>29446

Politely but- they can't tell you what makes you feel better. I felt the same as you before and I'd loathe these questions. The chances are that there are at least some things you can do to relieve your mood at least a little. If you're in CBT then then it's likely that you need to learn about how you react to stuff and what you can do to make yourself feel better.

The fact that you are annoyed by the question is why you need to really think about the question.
>> No. 29455 Anonymous
28th February 2020
Friday 5:26 pm
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My unemployed partner had a job interview yesterday. When it was time for her to get up she refused to get up and proceeded to cancel the interview as she decided it wasn't the right job for her. Even though if she doesn't get a job soon we'll be effectively homeless. I got mad at her, slammed a few doors, told her I didn't give a shit anymore. Later she told me I reminded her of her abusive dad. I've become a monster.
>> No. 29456 Anonymous
28th February 2020
Friday 6:16 pm
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>>29455

I don't think you are right for each other. It sounds like you don't respect them, and although you are right to be frustrated your way of managing it needs work.

Her flaws are obvious and it must be unpleasant dealing with that, which is why I don't think you should.
>> No. 29457 Anonymous
28th February 2020
Friday 6:16 pm
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I had a bad day today. I had a bunch of intrusive thoughts regarding the traumatic last few months at my previous job and I'm having an anxiety attack about job security in my current position (fixed-term contract and I'm on probation for most of it).
>> No. 29458 Anonymous
28th February 2020
Friday 8:50 pm
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>>29457

If it's any consolation, I found out that I won't have a job in 8 months. I'm over halfway through an apprenticeship, and the role that I expected to fill has been closed due to "cost-saving measures". Never mind that the department just hired two new people and is looking for two more. All the above was announced in the same team meeting with no apparent scruples, made worse by discussing how to divvy up my tasks when I'm gone. The rest of the Staff were more concerned about how they'd cope than losing the person who has supported them for 16 months already. They're going to be buggered, because all the PowerShell / Python / Visual Basic scripts that let me do half a day's work in a few minutes will die with my IT account. Like fuck I'm bequeathing them.
>> No. 29459 Anonymous
28th February 2020
Friday 10:09 pm
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>>29458
On the one hand I want to commiserate and feel bad for you. On the other I would re-read those last three sentences you wrote and wonder whether this was the right career for you. I know you're disappointed and it sounds like they let you know in a bad way, but the attitude you display is such that I would not hire you either, and I'm about thirty years ahead of in exactly the same business. Also, eight months is loads of time to find something else if you're any good.
>> No. 29460 Anonymous
28th February 2020
Friday 11:59 pm
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>>29458

The whole problem with our current apprenticeship system is that largely, in the real world, it's a con. Employers basically use it as cheap labour to fill gaps, not to invest in a more skilled workforce.

What happened to me is I got taken onto an apprenticeship where I was assured it would follow a full development plan, funds were there for me to go on to uni if I wanted to and all that. In reality it was just because they'd be able to pay me half as much as a regular worker.

They kept me in the job when I'd finished it, in fairness, but I'm in a dead end position where I'd need a degree to progress and my only prospects for uni are to quit and spend five years in poverty doing it the regular, normal way. None of the promises materialised even though I know money is available for them to do it. They just don't want to progress anyone, they want to keep things as they are.
>> No. 29461 Anonymous
29th February 2020
Saturday 12:21 am
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>>29458

That is grim. Don't be surprised if they want you to essentially train your own replacement on the way out in terms of documenting procedures and so on.

>>29460

From where I am in my career, if someone pulled that kind of thing on me I'd be out the door and spending my notice period off sick with a doctor's note. I don't know exactly where thirty years has got you, but if you'd be willing to dig your own grave with your own personal shovel and then hand that shovel to the new chap, then it probably isn't very far. Obsequious boot licking will only serve you for so long.

Sadly, for >>29458 that's probably not a financial option and he'll be stuck there until the last day doing a job that obviously no one appreciates.

Drop a Wannacry variant across the whole domain on your way out, lad.
>> No. 29462 Anonymous
29th February 2020
Saturday 12:32 am
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m8 I'm 40 next year, I had a ten-year employment gap as a result of chronic depression and anxiety as comorbidities of late-diagnosis Autism and ADHD, but I've worked damn hard on my optimism over the last few years to find myself the opportunity I currently have. My current role has done wonders for my outlook, and I don't actually display my .gs/emo/ side in work. I'm fine as long as I'm busy and useful.

However, my organisation's spiel about supporting neurodiversity is just that - a spiel. I've been through several competency-based interviews already this year, and even though I have been repeatedly commended for my answers and enthusiasm, I'm certain that there is some pervasive awkwardness about me which makes me LOOK like a bad bet. I know it causes me huge anxiety to make eye contact with people, but that doesn't mean I can't do excellent back office work. Also, my employment gap and the hoesty around that probably looks like poison.

The whole reason I developed scripts to semi-automate my tasks is because Staff retention in my department is so terrible that I found myself doing the work of three people over Christmas and New Year. I did offer to show my colleagues how to use these tools - even demonstrating "one-click" options to batch create resources - they weren't interested. I'm not taking my ball home in a huff, I'm just not enjoying the feeling that I should simply give up trying to make things better.
>> No. 29463 Anonymous
29th February 2020
Saturday 10:04 am
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>>29461

>From where I am in my career, if someone pulled that kind of thing on me I'd be out the door and spending my notice period off sick with a doctor's note. I don't know exactly where thirty years has got you, but if you'd be willing to dig your own grave with your own personal shovel and then hand that shovel to the new chap, then it probably isn't very far. Obsequious boot licking will only serve you for so long.

Don't talk bollocks, and don't be such an arsehole in /emo/.

You're pretending you wouldn't tolerate being treated that way but you don't seem to have considered the fact that if someone's doing an apprenticeship as an adult, it's probably because they fucked up their prospects through education the first time round and therefore have few other realistic routes to progress.

Unless you're still living with your mum and dad into your 30s, then quitting jobs out of spite ceases to be a realistic option, wether they've fucked you over or not.
>> No. 29464 Anonymous
29th February 2020
Saturday 10:13 am
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>>29463
>Unless you're still living with your mum and dad into your 30s, then quitting jobs out of spite ceases to be a realistic option, wether they've fucked you over or not.

Most people build up something known as an emergency fund.
>> No. 29465 Anonymous
29th February 2020
Saturday 10:53 am
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>>29461
> I don't know exactly where thirty years has got you, but if you'd be willing to dig your own grave with your own personal shovel and then hand that shovel to the new chap, then it probably isn't very far.

Then you misunderstand the nature of being a modern coder. Your job is to write and automate things that benefit the organisation you work for. That might involve saving loads of your own time automating things which were previously done manually. But if you hold the idea that these are you gifts only you keep, that you are the hero, you will not survive very long in any successful technical organisation.

>>29462
>I'm not taking my ball home in a huff
It sounds like you have done some useful work - the professional thing to do in that situation is ensure that it can run without you, is well documented, checked into source code control and that others know how to fix/run it when you're not around. If you did that over the next eight months, they would offer you a job.

It sounds exactly like you're taking your ball home in a huff. That's not what professional coders do and if you want to look like one and get the well paying jobs in places that treat you like a professional, then start to speak like one.
>> No. 29466 Anonymous
29th February 2020
Saturday 11:01 am
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>>29465

>Then you misunderstand the nature of being a modern coder. Your job is to write and automate things that benefit the organisation you work for.

What do they owe you in return for going above and beyond your job description? Are people supposed to hand over their own projects for free out of a sense of obligation to a company which has no obligation to them and will sack them given half the chance despite the necessity of doing so?

Your use of the word modern is terrifying, are you suggesting that we've lost our rights to ourselves and this is somehow okay?

Bollocks mate, if this lad wants to take his ball and go home fair play to him, it's his fucking ball. Did they pay him to make these scripts and programs? No they did not, they paid him to do a task, these scripts and programs just aided him in performing that task. It would be like getting paid to collect litter and everyone turns up with one of those £5 hand extension things but this lad turns up with a fucking street sweeper. Only in this case they didn't know he had a street sweeper, so good fucking luck to the cunts trying to replace the amount of litter picking he did with their hand tools.
>> No. 29467 Anonymous
29th February 2020
Saturday 11:46 am
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>>29465
>That's not what professional coders do

But I'm not employed as one. Your dressing down here appears to stem from the assumption that I am in the same industry as you - I'm not. I just happen to be able to make use of skills gained through a lifelong hobby to improve my own workflow in a general administration role.
>> No. 29470 Anonymous
29th February 2020
Saturday 12:05 pm
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>>29466
>What do they owe you in return for going above and beyond your job description? Are people supposed to hand over their own projects for free?
No. People are supposed to hand over the work they do while at work in return for the agreed upon pay. That he chose to go above and beyond was his decision and surely not a selfless one. That he failed to play the workplace game and ensure his work was noticed and appreciated is also his failing (yes I know he says he tried). Maybe he just needs to get better at hiding his burgers.

>>29467
That is really neither here nor there. Jobs come and go. Use the next eight months productively to ensure you're best placed to land the next one. That includes making sure people who could give references have nice things to say about you.
>> No. 29471 Anonymous
29th February 2020
Saturday 12:28 pm
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>>29470
>muh reference!

Christ, you sound like such a spineless corporate arse-kisser.
>> No. 29472 Anonymous
29th February 2020
Saturday 12:31 pm
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>>29470

>People are supposed to hand over the work they do while at work in return for the agreed upon pay.

Except they're not, which is why many high end research jobs have extensive contractual obligations for the employee detailing how any field related developments whether done at work or at home or other belong to the company if the development was made while the employee was employed by the company. It's all rather complicated and millions of pounds go in to claiming ownership on both sides of the fence. Camera companies used to be the worst for it, I imagine they still are but it's probably harder to prove the time scale involved in a development that can be done at home on a laptop compared to a product which requires gallons of various chemicals to be ordered in to the company and checked out by the researcher.

I think the problem is you live in a fictional world where everyone is hyper "on it" and will be appreciative of the lad if he details his achievements and shows them how to use them, you believe this will lead to glowing references and a web of contacts the guy can hang out with at salmon and cucumber parties. In reality people aren't going to pay attention to what he says, when they can't work his scripts they'll blame him for being a fuck up and the references will still say "yeah he worked here and was usually on time."

Perhaps you do work in a world where gratitude is appropriately placed and earns some sort of reward in which case your misunderstanding is forgivable. I ask you though, in that world would someone performing well at their job be sacked to save a few quid? The answer is no, because any company that will survive a century knows people are more valuable than short term pound signs. The fact they're getting rid of him for no reason shows two things, first that he owes them no loyalty and second if he did show loyalty he would get fuck all in return for it.
>> No. 29475 Anonymous
29th February 2020
Saturday 1:08 pm
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>>29471
And you sound long-term unemployed. If you've reached a point where you can confidently walk into a good job with no references, bully for you. This lad clearly hasn't.

My idea is that you should command respect for the quality of your work, not be well liked because you sit around exchanging banter with the boss all day (although I'm sure that does work). I'm only telling him what he's already mostly figured out - that work doesn't necessarily speak for itself and that you have to be normal enough for people to be interested in what it is you do.

You also have to consider things from the perspective of others and make sure they don't interpret your actions from a position of mistrust. These scripts he wrote probably didn't make their jobs one bit easier because they existed on the command line, a place normal people religiously avoid.


>>29472
I'd get a refund on that law degree if I were you, sunshine.
https://www.shoosmiths.co.uk/insights/articles/who-owns-what-when-it-comes-to-intellectual-property-12423

You have quite the imagination. All I said was it would be a good idea for him to aim for good references, something he needs to hear for the reasons >>29465 said. He's seeming bitter and jaded far far before he has any right to be. Nobody is saying he owes them loyalty, least of all me. He should be glad to get rid and move on to better things. But there's a mature way of doing that, that's all.
>> No. 29476 Anonymous
29th February 2020
Saturday 1:20 pm
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>>29464

I've got an emergency fund too, but it's also my "one day maybe you'll be able to get a mortgage" fund, so dipping into it isn't something I'm going to take lightly.

I'm not sure what you lot's problem is lately. We've been invaded by what seems to me to be a bunch of Yank sounding right wing trolls. I've read lots of posts lately that can only come from the kind of basement dwellers with no life experience, and therefore no understanding of what is and isn't viable to do as an adult hoping to keep the roof over their head. You might be fortunate enough to have spare cash to fall back on, you might be lucky enough that mummy and daddy would still take you in while you go back to school, but not everyone is.

If you fit into the categories I have just described, then apprenticeships simply aren't aimed at you, and your opinion is irrelevant. Social mobility isn't an easy thing to do once you've already got yourself established as a grown up with bills to pay, and if you want to pretend it's people's own fault for not choosing the right path back when you were a sixteen year old with a head full of sexual frustration and teenage angst, then I have nothing more to say to you. You're simply a fucking arsehole.

It's one thing to call people a boot-licker or whatever bollocks for staying at a company that has wronged them. But real life is considerably more complex than that, most people simply need the money. Nobody's talking about loyalty here. Nobody seriously considers themselves "loyal" to their workplace, you're as "loyal" as you need to be to keep the heating on.
>> No. 29478 Anonymous
29th February 2020
Saturday 1:26 pm
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>>29475

It was only £7.99 down in Lidl so I can't be arsed. I did do some investigative operations on your link though and despite it being a word salad I found the following excerpt of word salad.

>In order for the intellectual property to vest in the employer, generally the creator must be an employee i.e. 'must be engaged under a contract of employment' and the work must have been created 'during the course of that employment.' Therefore, it is very important to clearly define the scope of the employee's engagement and the terms of their employment in their contract to avoid any potential dispute concerning whether a work was created during the course of the employment. Clarity can be achieved by expressly setting out the scope of their job description in their contract of employment. For example, stating that their job description includes inventing and/or improving on products and processes or producing certain designs, text or plans.

While the paragraph appears to agree with your assumption that the employer owns your bottom for the duration of your time there I'd like to point out the wording of this paragraph. If you look at the last sentence and the first and ignore the middle which only exists to create bias in the mind of the reader;

>For example, stating that their job description includes inventing and/or improving on products and processes or producing certain designs, text or plans.

>In order for the intellectual property to vest in the employer, generally the creator must be an employee i.e. 'must be engaged under a contract of employment' and the work must have been created 'during the course of that employment.'

So this actually tallies up with what I said, that robust contracts must define the relationship between your employer and your intellectual property. If his job description is "do X" then they do not own the programs. If his job description is "invent and/or improve on products and processes to do X" then they own the programs. Again, the latter description only really applies to high end research positions with big legal firms devoted to this very thing, even then they tend to pay out if there's a dispute between the employer and employee to avoid going to court over it. I think your source is deliberately misleading but I don't care enough to click their "About" page to find out whom they're misleading and why.
>> No. 29479 Anonymous
29th February 2020
Saturday 1:38 pm
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>>29477
I didn't even read the link because I knew it would agree with me.

A first principle of contract law is that things need to be written down to unambiguously indicate intent. You have interpreted the results of this principle to make daft inferences about what the law says in the absence of clearly written clauses. That's because you're a daftie.

Why not paste this bit, tediousandwronglad?

>First ownership - the general rule

>The general rule in relation to IP created by an employee during the course of their employment is that, in the absence of agreement to the contrary, the first owner is the employer.

He's just been doing his job. In the course of doing his job he's selected a different software package to get it done. That's how a court would view it, I'm sure. Think about this: how has he compensated his employer for using their IT systems to undertake his "own projects"?
>> No. 29480 Anonymous
29th February 2020
Saturday 1:50 pm
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>>29479

As I said your link is deliberately misleading and uses a lot of words to say nothing, it also misinterprets legal presumptions and presents them as rules of thumb. I don't know what they do but there are a lot of potential reasons for a company to do this on their public facing side. If you're an employer for example looking for a legal team to take on an IP case are you going to go with the ones that say "it's definitely yours mate" or the ones that say "it's pretty fucking complicated"?

Here's a more thorough but much shorter analysis of the situation. Do please read this one you daft cretin.

https://www.personneltoday.com/hr/legal-qa-intellectual-property-clauses-in-employment-contracts/

You ask how he compensated his employer for using their IT systems to undertake his own projects, first of all this is not a court room, we're not here to try a case. Second of all, think about it yourself you daft carpet-bagger, the number of assumptions you have made to begin with are astounding, the answers to your question are numerous. The main and only answer I'm going to give is I'm here to support the lad who got fucked by his company, it's not childish to take away your ball because this is not a childish situation, this is quite simply a man who is being fired for no good reason, he owes them nothing more and encouraging him to train his own replacement is a disgustingly servile sentiment that has no place in a mature discussion. He is not a child being taught to be kind by enduring that kind of humiliation.
>> No. 29481 Anonymous
29th February 2020
Saturday 2:03 pm
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>>29480
The first thing I read on your link is this.

>There is a statutory presumption in the UK that IP created by an employee during the course of his or her employment is generally owned by the employer.

Let me remind you this discussion started with you disagreeing with me when I said:

>People are supposed to hand over the work they do while at work in return for the agreed upon pay.

And that's where I draw the line. It's funny how readily you'll accuse others of using lots of words to say nothing.
>> No. 29482 Anonymous
29th February 2020
Saturday 2:10 pm
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>>29481

The very next sentence is;

>Some say that there is, therefore, no need to have an IP clause in an employment contract.
>> No. 29484 Anonymous
29th February 2020
Saturday 2:20 pm
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>>29482
But nobody in this thread. If you're suggesting this lad was able to negotiate a contract that was more favourable than the default position in law, do kindly fuck right off.
>> No. 29485 Anonymous
29th February 2020
Saturday 2:25 pm
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Can we limit the cunt-offs in /emo/, please.
>> No. 29489 Anonymous
29th February 2020
Saturday 2:40 pm
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>>29480
The point of aiming to please his current employer is to learn skills that will reduce the chances of history repeating itself at the next one and to a lesser extent to give him good, verifiably true stories to tell at interview.
>> No. 29490 Anonymous
29th February 2020
Saturday 3:46 pm
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>>29470
>better at hiding his burgers
What does this mean?
>> No. 29491 Anonymous
29th February 2020
Saturday 3:55 pm
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>>29462

Skipping over the mildly amusing cunt-off that I managed to start:

Obviously I don't know your full situation but is there any way you can simply keep your neurodiversity out of the picture when this employment ends and you have to find a new position?

I have a mental health diagnosis but I don't mention it to employers or potential employers because I'm always worried that when I have a bad day (or a string of bad days) instead of thinking "oh he's under the weather/had a fight with the missus/had a few pints with the lads last night" they'd instead think "well he's off his rocker again, better replace him because he's a loony and total liability".

I'm not saying that's how all companies do think, but I suspect it's how people whose job it is to maximise employee productivity think.
>> No. 29492 Anonymous
29th February 2020
Saturday 4:38 pm
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>>29490
>>29462
>> No. 29494 Anonymous
29th February 2020
Saturday 10:16 pm
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This morning i dreamed about my brothers throat being cut. It was emotional - i ensured my brother i love him, but i've woke feeling worse to seemingly lesser dreams.

This evening, while playing i accidentally misshandled my pocket knife and dropped it toward my throat. A sudden flashback to the dream imagery and almost a compulsion to cut my jugular vein. I concentrated on closing the knife and placing it down on the table, but i was hit with a feeling i've not felt in a long while. I don't know how far i might have gone but i felt like i was ready to cut myself again. In a strange way i feel relief that this could be over, and the decision for it to be my own will doesn't have to mean anything - i'm sure i'd panic afterward and call emergency services but the idea that it's only a moment away hasn't felt so real and perhaps inviting to me for many years.

The internet says throat symbolism in dreams is related to communication - an areas of concern between my brother and I for the past 6 months or so. I'm not sure if i'll allow myself to believe this kind of thing, but i'm getting too old to still believe there's no 'magic' in the human psyche. I don't know why i'd type this here.

This afternoon i saw my brothers girlfriend and his child walking through town and i avoided them. I never thought that would be so.
>> No. 29495 Anonymous
1st March 2020
Sunday 5:33 pm
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>>29491
>is there any way you can simply keep your neurodiversity out of the picture

"Have you tried NOT being autistic"?
>> No. 29496 Anonymous
1st March 2020
Sunday 7:36 pm
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>>29495

Not what I meant at all. Merely that I would prefer people to think I was a bit odd than to let them know I have a formal diagnosis. I feel that knowing that I had a formal diagnosis would cause them to discriminate against me more than merely thinking I was a bit odd.

But that's just me.
>> No. 29497 Anonymous
1st March 2020
Sunday 9:33 pm
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>>29496

Change "neurodiversity" to "homosexuality" and you may be able to appreciate why this advice is not helpful.
>> No. 29498 Anonymous
1st March 2020
Sunday 10:05 pm
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>>29497

It's always worked for me, but I guess everyone's different. Then again I wouldn't necessarily bring up my sexual preferences or orientation, or who I voted for in the general election either.
>> No. 29499 Anonymous
1st March 2020
Sunday 10:19 pm
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>>29498

The latter isn't a tickbox on recruitment forms, so you're simply being facetious now. While I do understand that there is no legal requirement to declare your sexual orientation on such forms, there are certain protections and processes for bringing and resolving grievances relating to sexual discrimination - but only after you have secured the job. If you are not neurotypical, you don't even get the latter, apparently. In any case, expect to be marked with a big red "X" just for trying to make people understand your behaviour. They don't like the idea that it's their fault, even if you don't imply that.
>> No. 29500 Anonymous
1st March 2020
Sunday 10:34 pm
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>>29499

I wasn't aware that there was a requirement to declare any of them. I don't remember being asked about my health (mental or physical) in any job interview/selection process. I imagine it'd come up if I was joining the army of the police or whatever, but as an IT bod it just doesn't come up. Everyone expects us to be a bit odd anyway.

Regardless, whatever issue you have about disclosing, or not, neurodiversity, I'm obviously not able to comprehend it - much as you're seemingly incapable of understanding why I prefer not to disclose my own mental health diagnoses.

Either way I'm evidently not helping so I'll end this here.
>> No. 29501 Anonymous
1st March 2020
Sunday 11:32 pm
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>>29497

I put "prefer not to say" on any sexuality question to do with work and reckon everyone else should too. I can see the argument about mental issues too, I certainly haven't had many (if any) jobs where I've truly trusted that telling a manager I needed a day off for depression would have had no negative consequences.
>> No. 29502 Anonymous
2nd March 2020
Monday 12:11 am
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>>29496
To be honest this is the very reason why i don't like my apparent 'neuro-divergency' disclosed. I'd rather people think i'm an arsehole then treat me differently because of retardation.
>> No. 29503 Anonymous
2nd March 2020
Monday 1:16 am
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>>29502

Whilst we are doing the sharing of this. I too conceal my Autist nature professionally.

I can't stand the idea of the condescension of people making allowances for my behaviour rather than judging me as an equal. That's why I don't tell reasoned people anyway, not until I feel they aren't going to judge me differently on it anyway.

There are of course the arseholes who it stands to reason you never tell, I have the double misfortune of having narcistic parents who used my diagnosis as a stick to beat me with, and to dismiss any kind of differing opinion on my part as just me being autistic. I'm not sure if my life would have been improved if they never knew, I'm sure they would have found a new beat stick, but one can't help but wonder if maybe not having that might have got them to self reflect on their behaviour.

I'm rambling, but my point is. You have very little to gain by telling people, and a lot to lose. Personally the possible loss of sincerity from 'nice people' is a lot worse than any possible name calling. It is kind of like people who win the lottery but don't tell the people around them because they can't trust peoples motives if they tell them. I don't want people making allowances because they think I am lesser.
>> No. 29504 Anonymous
2nd March 2020
Monday 12:16 pm
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Trouble with mental health stuff and work is that you never actually do get any of the special treatment you guys are worried about. At very best it gets swept under the rug, and it's an unspoken and uncomfortable fact that you know they'd rather have rid of you for someone who isn't a mental. Call me a cynic but all the modern awareness and HR diversity shit is just a way of covering their own arses.
>> No. 29505 Anonymous
2nd March 2020
Monday 7:50 pm
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>>29504

An employer doesn't want someone that isn't going to be productive due to various health issues including mental health. I think Google embrace neurodiversity though, they have single rooms for the spergs to work in and cater to their requirements and look where Google are now.
>> No. 29506 Anonymous
2nd March 2020
Monday 8:05 pm
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>>29505

You only have to look to the success of Project Zero to see that Google truly understand weaponized autism.
>> No. 29507 Anonymous
2nd March 2020
Monday 8:57 pm
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>>29506

The Israelis have a weaponised autism unit, Ro'im Rachok. The wikipedia link is very barebones but they put the spergs on a variety of tasks they're suited for, internet monitoring, future concepts, and the one task the wikipedia link lists is studying aerial reconnaissance photos.

Autists are very differently shaped cogs to normal office drones often more suited to tasks normal office drones couldn't do. Similarly autists find it difficult to do the tasks normal office drones do. The problem comes when we create a society dedicated to the 95% of normal shaped cogs, the autists have nowhere to slot in naturally so they must be adapted to fit in a normal shaped hole. Some are more successful at this than others.

I think on the whole it's a terrible waste of potential to force autists in to normal shaped holes but I think the current meta of pretending to accommodate the shape of the whole to the autist doesn't work, we're doing the same thing but letting the autists have more workplace tearies without being fired. We should instead be doing what Google and Israel are doing and giving the autists more independent roles in the worlplace, most of their output will be poop, both literally and metaphorically but the few things they do come up with will be extremely useful when properly adapted.

The UK isn't particularly suited to the Google/Israel model as we don't go for blue sky innovation anymore. We innovate a lot but it tends to be incremental innovation, taking what we have and making it better, normal thinking for lack of a better word. You give a normal person a room with a ball, a cat and a hairdryer and he'll come out with a ball that causes fewer broken windows, a less allergenic cat and a more efficient hairdryer. Put an autist in the same room and he might spend his time throwing the ball at the cat or he might come up with a (terrible) solution for world hunger (that can be adapted in to something useful later). In the age of austerity only one of these scenarios is an acceptable risk for any company so the employment opportunities for autists are act normal and try not to cause too much trouble.

An earlier poster called himself a cynic for thinking that modern diversity protections including neurodiversity are just arse covering. He's not wrong. Being autistic is not beneficial to an ordinary office drone role, it is detrimental to the autistic individual, it is detrimental to team cohesion as everyone feels that little bit more uncomfortable regardless of how much they outwardly say "oh I don't judge anyone me" and it is detrimental to productivity.

Where do autistic people excel? Free form problem solving. Do you remember that scene from Apollo 13 where they empty a bag on to a table and say "this is the problem, these are the tools?" I would put an amount of money I could afford to lose on a disproportionate number of the key contributors to that real life problem exhibiting autistic traits, though at the time they were unlikely to have been marked as autistic. Of course the idea was likely used by a non-autistic member of the team to finalise a solution, but the core concept probably came from the mind of an autist. Where do we see this kind of concept-solution teamwork in the UK today? We don't. We see it at Google when they need to work out how to do something, then the office drones do the coding to implement the idea sensibly. I'm sure the autists do some code-monkey stuff too but it's probably just busywork between concept brainstorms. I suppose autists also excel at code breaking, intelligence analysis, listening for cues in audio recordings etc but I wouldn't necessarily trust an autist to keep his mouth shut on classified information. They tend to just say whatever comes to mind regardless of whether they're supposed to. They will give away all your secrets (and their own) if they have them. That wasn't a problem in WWII, their verbal diarrhoea just got splashed on patriotic old men in the pub but with the internet today it's just not something that should be risked. There are other areas I haven't thought of but we could spend a long time on what autists are good at and whether it could work.

So what can we do? Nothing until the country is back on its feet and companies have the balls to take risks on assigning autists roles that suit their skills. Until then we're fitting square pegs in round holes, but we don't have any way to punish the square pegs for not fitting in so the office becomes even more of a dreaded place for the average worker rather than a home away from home.

At least we're getting autists off the dole though eh, can't have any bloody scroungers in this country oh no no. Ironically as the DWP saves money by pushing the mentally ill in to work we'll see productivity decline so everyone will be worse off than if they paid those autists to stay at home. But the benefits bill will be down and society can get a few extra percentage points on the tolerance scale. I'm not sure which group is worse, the ones who see autistic people as scroungers or the ones who don't understand that autistic people don't fit in to groups of normal people. I'm going to stop here because this is just turning in to a diatribe against idiots rather than a constructive addition to the conversation, though I'm going to leave this paragraph in place because I think it's important.
>> No. 29508 Anonymous
3rd March 2020
Tuesday 5:20 pm
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>>29507
>though I'm going to leave this paragraph in place because I think it's important.
Thank you for doing so. I'm glad someone has finally, constructively, supported the idea that i shouldn't be on benefits for my condition.

>There are other areas I haven't thought of but we could spend a long time on what autists are good at and whether it could work.
If you have time to expand further on this it'd be much appriciated, or perhaps point toward other relevant communities?
>> No. 29509 Anonymous
3rd March 2020
Tuesday 6:29 pm
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>>29508

>I'm glad someone has finally, constructively, supported the idea that i shouldn't be on benefits for my condition.

Was that a typo? I said the opposite, that autists should be on benefits and that forcing them in to the workplace is a dire false economy. It cuts the DWP bill but lowers workplace productivity.

I don't really know what autists as a group tend to be good at beyond what I said, in general the less effort they have to spend conforming to social norms like being on time and being around monotonous small talk the better they do in the workplace. Some definitely autistic lads I know come in to the office to do all their paperwork at 10PM because that's when they feel like doing their paperwork. I lot of the more obviously autistic people I met in mental health groups tended to be pigeonholed in to the media roles, editing videos and stuff because they were good at it but struggled to do it to a schedule. Sometimes they'd just turn up with a shitload of stuff done, other times they'd go weeks just hanging around sniffing bike seats. I suppose the best thing for you would be to find a hobby you enjoy, that you're good at and can be applied commercially without having to adhere to schedules or social norms.
>> No. 29511 Anonymous
3rd March 2020
Tuesday 10:44 pm
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>>29509
>Was that a typo?
Not at all. Your irony went over my head for a moment - I must have been caught up in the overall positive tone of your post (or did i misinterpret that, aswell?). I just feel guilty for wasting what i have, regardless of my degree of autism, and your post seemed to suggest the idea that i could actually have a purpose in society (even if it's a rather patronised one).
>> No. 29513 Anonymous
3rd March 2020
Tuesday 11:20 pm
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>>29511

My tone varied a lot in that post. I'm not sure even I follow most of it upon rereading.

Do you believe purpose comes from being a cog that fits in to the hole shaped for the masses? I do too, but I've been unable to make myself fit. It's incredibly distressing. I have come to accept that I will never fit and I'm just waiting to die. It upsets me that I tend to cause trouble wherever I go so now I don't go anywhere. If I were forced to find a new purpose I would first try to work out what my own values are rather than imposing society's values over my own given that the society I exist in does not accommodate my existence beyond paying me not to be in public, which is really torture with no apparent agent apart from myself. My attempts to change myself have been unsuccessful so if I want to experience human contact I would have to resign myself to revelling in the misery I cause, and if I'm going to be a dick I want it to be because that's my value system, not because I'm a victim of circumstance.

I did suggest in my earlier post that you could have a useful role in society if society did various things I detailed. The latter part was talking about having you fit in to the office drone slot. It simply will not work. If you're dedicated to finding a way to being a part of society you could try innovation and invention. Learn the patent system and related legal systems then go out and invent or discover something. Many of our notable geniuses were likely autistic. The chances of you actually making it work are low but it's the best option I see until we change our approach to making use of spastics and spergs. You could try being a content creator on youtube, many spastics and spergs are good with video editing and if you're really dedicated to society you will be able to slip pro-society mind bugs in to your work, but you need a hobby first.

Ultimately if all else fails don't be afraid to volunteer. If you can do regular work hours for a charity or church (just don't fall for their religious spiel) then you'll be a godsend for them, if you can't then you wouldn't have made it in the square peg office environment and it's good that you're using your time to do something productive.

If you're absolutely 100% devoted to getting a job for whatever reason, try the BBC. They're at the forefront of dIvErSiTy in the UK so they'll be absolute sycophants if they know you enjoy sniffing bike seats in your spare time.

Whatever you decide to do try to work out who you are and what you really believe first, don't just accept the path laid down in front of you by society. And most importantly, never ever tell anyone who you are or what you believe if you do manage to find yourself. Say the societal lines. Agree with the herd. Being different is dangerous.
>> No. 29524 Anonymous
4th March 2020
Wednesday 11:59 am
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I have a job interview next week and I don't know if I should mention my autism. Past jobs have been pretty variable in how they dealt with it, some made reasonable adjustments, some more or less pushed me out the door. Being honest is a big risk, but at the same time I don't want it to come out two months in and have them not know how to react. It's a customer service role, and I can just about behave normally enough to do that sort of job, but I'm appalling at building rapport and that sort of skill may be necessary.
>> No. 29533 Anonymous
5th March 2020
Thursday 2:40 pm
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>>29524
>I don't know if I should mention my autism
The advice I got from my disability adviser was very clear about this: Do not ever tell anyone about your disability until you're hired. They are not legally allowed to ask in the interview. Once you've got the job, you've got the Equality Act (previously the Disability Discrimination Act) to back you up, which is a powerful ally. Even in a bad situation, most employers, especially large corporations, or any part of the public sector, will prefer to make some reasonable adjustments than face an employment tribunal. The law is on your side.

It's up to you to juggle the issue of trust, to what degree, if any, you are violating it by withholding this information. If you say you're capable of any customer service role that they could put you to, and then you turn up on day one and can't deal with anyone appropriately because you're autistic, then that is a problem. Have you worked in customer-facing service roles before now?
>> No. 29534 Anonymous
5th March 2020
Thursday 2:50 pm
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>>29533
I've worked in customer service roles for a long time, in a lot of places, and only had issues in my last job. I'm polite, I'm efficient, I do what's asked of me, my main struggle is that I'm not the best at small talk with customers or colleagues so I can come across a bit aloof but not to the extent I could be considered rude.
>> No. 29535 Anonymous
5th March 2020
Thursday 3:16 pm
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>>29534
I'd keep quiet about it then.

What issues did you have in your last job? If it's personal or embarrassing stuff I don't need to know, maybe just ask yourself if those issues stemmed from your disability, and if so, what (if anything) an employer could do to assist. Again, they have a legal obligation to make reasonable adjustments. If, for example, you're better at managing the job pool than dealing with customers face-to-face, then that is the kind of thing you can ask them to switch around, so you spend mornings doing that and then deal with a few customers in the afternoon, or whatever.
>> No. 29537 Anonymous
5th March 2020
Thursday 3:46 pm
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>>29536
I don't know the particulars of your case, but just throwing this out there - if there were multiple staff on and you have told them that you're autistic, then a reasonable adjustment would be to have you arranging the food and have the front-facing role taken care of by someone else. Not to drill on about this, but they have a legal obligation to do so.
>> No. 29549 Anonymous
8th March 2020
Sunday 2:10 pm
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Not my problem I'm asking for but someone else's. A friend of mine has a history of entering into abusive relationships. She's fairly naive and vulnerable. She recently entered into a relationship with a heroin addict. Every couple of weeks he'd disappear for weeks, then come back and say he'd been on a smack bender. She'd be upset with him and have a go, which would then trigger him to disappear for another period and go back on the drugs. His friends would then attack her saying it's her fault he went back on the drugs.

He broke up with her, and now she's in a deep depression thinking it's her fault he's abusing drugs. I tried to reassure her that even if she wasn't in his life he'd likely fall back into drugs, she can't blame herself for his demons. I just don't know what advice I can give because this isn't really a situation I have much experience with.
>> No. 29550 Anonymous
8th March 2020
Sunday 4:29 pm
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>>29549
>I tried to reassure her that even if she wasn't in his life he'd likely fall back into drugs, she can't blame herself for his demons.
That really is it. If he's not ready to stop of his own accord then he will not stop, no matter what people do or say; you cannot use reason or logic to deal with an addict, because what they're doing is not reasonable or logical. With the harder drugs like smack, addicts often need to hit absolute rock bottom - excommunication from friends and family, no possessions, no stable accommodation etc. This is tremendously painful for all involved, but without it as a reference point, the siren call of getting high is very difficult to counter.

It's essential that she recognise that she is not responsible for his life, that she is not responsible for his wellbeing, and she definitely is not responsible for his addiction. She won't hear this, because the soft, kind, naive ones never do. In any case, I hope she comes around.
>> No. 29551 Anonymous
9th March 2020
Monday 1:44 am
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>>29549
You are focusing on the wrong aspects by trying to convince her it isn't her fault it is entirely her fault but not for reasons either of you have noticed.

She chooses these relationships that isn't naivety, that is down right willing herself into destructive situations. The warning signs would be bloody obvious at the point where you come out of one destructive relationship and then move on to a heroin addict.

I don't know what the appeal is for her, maybe she has some sort of salvation fetish, maybe she has a hard on for narcissists confidence and risk taking. But she IS the problem here. But not for reasons she even understands. My guess is she is codependent, but she might just want to be hurt out of self hatred, by reassuring her it isn't her you would actually be reinforcing her paradigm. She wants you to argue with her over this with her, it makes her matter to someone even if it is in a negative way.
>> No. 29562 Anonymous
19th March 2020
Thursday 9:46 am
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Told my therapist it wasn't really working for me. The only reason I was really engaging was because I fancied her, which obviously isn't healthy, or fair. Still feel quite sad though.

God, I'm pathetic.
>> No. 29563 Anonymous
19th March 2020
Thursday 3:53 pm
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>>29562

It could be worse, a month ago a mate of mine had to permanently cancel his psychologist because his wife was jealous of him being honest about his life with a fit lass while she sat at home leaking milk and trying to stick her baggy post-childbirth fanny back together.
>> No. 29564 Anonymous
19th March 2020
Thursday 4:03 pm
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>>29563

>leaking milk and trying to stick her baggy post-childbirth fanny back together

THE DREAM.
>> No. 29565 Anonymous
19th March 2020
Thursday 4:08 pm
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>>29564
He wants a good girl with a bad pussy.
>> No. 29566 Anonymous
19th March 2020
Thursday 4:10 pm
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>>29564

Honesty this lass is fit as fuck and I'd rather have my knob up her arse while squeezing her milky tits than be doing almost anything else but in her mind it's going to make her husband wander. Each to their own I guess.
>> No. 29567 Anonymous
19th March 2020
Thursday 7:29 pm
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>>29562
So... do you actually need therapy, or not?
>> No. 29568 Anonymous
19th March 2020
Thursday 9:22 pm
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>>29563

Christ. I don't think it takes a shrink to figure out the source of his problems really.
>> No. 29569 Anonymous
20th March 2020
Friday 5:51 pm
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why does she keep reaching out to me?

Her only reasons i can imagine are to pool her resources and secure her future. She's just been at my door inviting me to reciprocate an offer of support during these times of uncertainty.

When i interact with her i feel as though she has hooks poised at the edge of my defences. This is often the case with most people.
>> No. 29578 Anonymous
30th March 2020
Monday 1:31 am
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>>29085

I know that no one other than myself would ever be able to bring themselves to care about this any more even if they wanted to, but...

I found out a couple of nights ago that she was indeed "with", in some capacity, the aforementioned bloke back when that photo was taken and is still "with" him now, with them both having gone to a wedding reception together as a couple back in January.

I don't know what kind of game she's playing here but given that she was still shagging me (with no protection) after that first photo was taken (and there was plenty of talk of it maybe happening again as late as November) and had an active tinder profile and was emailing me how much she missed me in December I hope that he figures her out faster than I did.
>> No. 29579 Anonymous
30th March 2020
Monday 9:46 am
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I can deal with isolation, that's been my natural state for most of my life.

I can't deal with being trapped in a place where there's deafening construction noise from 7.30am every morning, six days a week. I can't sleep, I can't work from home properly. I can feel my sanity going. I can't move out, I can barely leave the house.

I've called the police and made a noise complaint but they are (mostly) within their rights to be doing what they are. What do you do lads? I'm feeling like one day I'm going to stab my eardrums.
>> No. 29580 Anonymous
30th March 2020
Monday 9:51 am
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>>29579
(i) move out for a few weeks or
(ii) ear defenders for the day, earbuds for night
>> No. 29581 Anonymous
30th March 2020
Monday 9:58 am
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>>29579
>(i) move out for a few weeks or

>I can't move out,
Nowhere to go.

>(ii) ear defenders for the day, earbuds for night
Earbuds are completely useless, they were the first thing I tried.

The construction is literally across the road - sometimes when they get the really heavy machinery out, it shakes things off walls and tables. A bit of foam in my ears does fuck all.



There's a reason they use similar methods to this to torture prisoners.
>> No. 29582 Anonymous
30th March 2020
Monday 10:04 am
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>>29580

Double up - ear plugs (or noise-cancelling earphones) under ear defenders block a staggering amount of noise.
>> No. 29583 Anonymous
30th March 2020
Monday 10:14 am
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>>29581
Find and sign some of the petitions to stop building works at this time as they're not social distancing properly (you can't, working on a building site) and they're definitely not essential.
>> No. 29584 Anonymous
30th March 2020
Monday 1:14 pm
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>>29581

A nice pair of noise-isolating earbud headphones like Sennheiser CX-300 or similar, not the shitty ones you get included with a smartphone, will go a long way lad.

It's a shame the snooker isn't on though. Putting the snooker on can imbue any room with a grade of silence only usually experienced by astronauts.
>> No. 29585 Anonymous
30th March 2020
Monday 1:22 pm
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>>29584
Not the poster you're responding too but I've got some of those and they're not much better than earplugs. It's alright if you can fall asleep to music being on a bit loud, but otherwise they don't do much for things like construction because it's the vibrations that disturb you.

>>29582
This is a better bet though.
>> No. 29586 Anonymous
30th March 2020
Monday 7:05 pm
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>>29579
How much work are we talking? If it's just someone's drive being dug up and re-concreted then it'll be over before long, just tough it out with sleeping aids. If it's a new multi-story building then you're in for a lot of noise for a very long time and your solution is going to need to be pretty drastic.
>> No. 29587 Anonymous
30th March 2020
Monday 10:02 pm
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>>29586
A new multi-storey building. I'm due to move out at the beginning of June, but that may be delayed for obvious reasons.

My plan is to get out of here ASAP but currently that's not easy.
>> No. 29588 Anonymous
30th March 2020
Monday 10:15 pm
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>>29587
Ah. Well, that is unfortunate.

When you say you're due to move out, what is stopping you doing so sooner? It's quite a good time to be flat-hunting, there are a large number of properties that have come up for long-term rent as people realise that their Airbnb flat is going to stay empty for a long time.
>> No. 29589 Anonymous
31st March 2020
Tuesday 1:24 am
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>>29588
Contract doesn't expire until end of May, and I'm due to be moving with my job down to That London, so it's not like I can go to a viewing on my Daily Jog.
>> No. 29590 Anonymous
31st March 2020
Tuesday 1:25 am
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>>29589
Nor can I take a new contract around here, as I have no idea when I'll need to move out, but with any luck it will be July or Aug at the latest.
>> No. 29591 Anonymous
31st March 2020
Tuesday 1:27 am
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Getting a bit of cabin fever with the missus working from home. AIBU?

I'm still having to work because I'm a key worker. I had the afternoon off and I wanted to play some videogames, but I had to knock that idea on the head because apparently it was too distracting, even though I was wearing headphones. I swore under my breath at the game a few times. I decided to go have a wank in the other room instead but she suddenly decided to be clingy, I asked her to give me some space because the constant presence was getting to me a bit, she gave me a couple of hours but then came back in to pester me again. She gave me a shit handjob I didn't really want, then I fell asleep in all the jizz and now I'm pissed off because I fell asleep too early and won't sleep properly, and I feel like I utterly wasted the time off because she's an autistic fuckwit.

I feel like I'm always adjusting for her wierd little idiosyncrasies and being accomodating for her neuroses but she doesn't do the same for me. I'm the one who always has to compromise. I'm snapping at her more often than I used to. It sounds like I don't think very highly of her but she's one of the most considerate partners I've ever had usually, I just wish she was a bit less fucking neurotic sometimes and we can open the windows to let some fresh air in without her putting on her anxiety face because insects might get in.
>> No. 29592 Anonymous
31st March 2020
Tuesday 1:41 am
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>>29591
Mate, I'm well past 11 cans of Stella, but hear me out. (I tried to capitalise the word Stella, and it I clicked on paste instead, and I pasted Greta.)

I think you are being a bit more unreasonable than her. It is not everyday that you get to spend a lot of time with your partner, and most people can't deal with how that turns out. Relationships are about compromises, and I think you should have a set place for you to unwind undisturbed, as you would for a work area for your wfh (as she does for herself I presume).

The important thing here is communication. Nobody can be with someone else 100% of the time, and that doesn't mean you hate them. Most people need time to unwind, regroup, and re-energise. It isn't weird to discuss this with her, and I think you should. You and her should have a space to yourselves. I would urge you to discuss and communicate it, and not in a shouting manner.

Do you have any extra rooms? Do you have a shed? Do you have a man-cave? Man-cave sounds a bit reductive, but I would urge you to find space for yourself, as should she. She sounds great, and you sound like you are a good match for her. Don't let it get to screaming matches.
>> No. 29593 Anonymous
31st March 2020
Tuesday 2:04 am
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>>29592

Trouble is the room she's working in is the same room I have all my hobby/unwinding stuff in. I can't really shift it all, I could go in the living room but really all that room is for is watching netflix. Nothing productive to do. I was happy to adjourn to the bedroom instead and communicated that I'd like to be left alone, but it was her that chose to interrupt the wank odyssey that was my plan B.

I've offered her my laptop to use so she can work from the bedroom or living room instead, which would theoretically give us more flexibility if either of us wants space. But she doesn't want to (she makes it sound physically impossible, because the screen is too small. This is something that irks me a bit by now, her refusals to meet me in the middle are always concrete absolutes, and I feel like it's just excuse making a lot of the time.) Like I say I feel like I'm the one making all the compromises and she's just unwilling to budge from her comfort zone at all- That troubles me because we both need to be willing to do so or it will just breed resentment.

I'm just really not sure how to get that point across to her without sounding accusatory I suppose, and I always question myself too much about whether I'm just under the illusion of perception bias.
>> No. 29594 Anonymous
31st March 2020
Tuesday 2:27 am
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>>29591
>putting on her anxiety face because insects might get in.
What, even in summer? That would drive me out of the house, no question.
>> No. 29595 Anonymous
3rd April 2020
Friday 11:27 am
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I have nothing to live for.
>> No. 29596 Anonymous
3rd April 2020
Friday 12:29 pm
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>>29595

Why?
>> No. 29597 Anonymous
3rd April 2020
Friday 1:59 pm
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>>29596
Same things as ever: social isolation (I did it before it was cool) has turned my brain to soup, failed at almost every academic persuit I've undertaken, little emotional control, not much money, no interests, even less hope (speaking personally and more widely). There's just no point. I'm either numbed to it all or actively pissed off, that's all I feel these days and it has been as such for some time.

CBT's make 'em ups nonsense, pills suck and I'm too fragile to sort myself out. Even when I was happy I was actually just faking it, really. Once I got burnt out by that I was back to square one.
>> No. 29599 Anonymous
7th April 2020
Tuesday 1:45 pm
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I'm always looking for something to stick my indentity, whether it's the medias i absorb or the hobbies i engage in; It always follows the same pattern - find something interesting then imagine myself an advocate and gaining friends, a social life and some form legitimacy because of it.

As a youngster i was confused about public identity claims, particularly clothes. The point being that even with all those rings in your lip or your colourful, personalised clothing; they don't mean anything when you're knocked on your arse. You've gotta pick everything up that makes 'yourself' and put it back together again.
All my art projects were turned inside the folder, whereas everyone else made them visible to the outside world. One guy in particular even printed out other peoples arts to apparently pass off as his own. This is why i don't really get tatoos

These days I don't even cut my hair because of the embarrassment of people seeing.

I don't know what this is, let alone what to do about it.
The only thing i can think to do is to strengthen the foundations that support public personality and expression. Beyond physically working out and learning to defend oneself i don't know what to do - even the idea of fighting about it seems rediculous because if it's something that needs defending it must be weak.
>> No. 29600 Anonymous
7th April 2020
Tuesday 6:13 pm
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>>29599

I realise it's cliche advice in here nowadays lad but meditate. Learn to breath. Give your head a rest, just breath for a bit.
>> No. 29601 Anonymous
7th April 2020
Tuesday 6:14 pm
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>>29600
*breathe?

Fuck. Sorry lads.

(A good day to you Sir!)
>> No. 29602 Anonymous
7th April 2020
Tuesday 9:03 pm
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>>29600
Honestly man i'm getting a little annoyed at the amount of people i've seen meditating on the beach recently.
>> No. 29603 Anonymous
21st April 2020
Tuesday 12:19 pm
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I hate being like this. I can't even pick up the phone right now, but every time I sit down in front of a professional I just smile, make some cracks then tell them to bin it off after fewer than half a dozen sessions. I wish I could be me lying to authority figures 24/7.
>> No. 29604 Anonymous
23rd April 2020
Thursday 8:58 pm
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How do i get over this notion that people only contact me because there's noone better available at the time? Should I get over it? I kind of feel like it'd be egotistical of me to presume i have to, but this may be in defence of the status quo.
I also wonder if it's a reflection of my own attitude toward people - I don't neccessarily seek better company, unless that company is my own. I definitely sigh and think 'just leave me alone' when people knock at my door.

Am I destined to lead an unsociable life? Can these things really be changed with just enough effort or will it always be a struggle? Is it nature or nurture?

What does it mean to want solitude while simultaneously desiring company?

Am I completely self centered and narcisistic?

Am I just trying to be deep and dramatic?
>> No. 29605 Anonymous
23rd April 2020
Thursday 10:06 pm
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>>29604

>How do i get over this notion that people only contact me because there's noone better available at the time?

That's true for basically everyone. No matter how brilliant your friends might be, you'd dump them in a second if Bill Murray invited you to a piss-up with the Hollywood elite. No matter how wonderful or beautiful your wife might be, you'd call a divorce solicitor in a heartbeat if Emma Watson slid into your DMs with a string of aubergine emojis.

Pretty much every human being on earth is secretly yearning for a better life and secretly gutted that their wildest dreams haven't come true. We're all a bit crap, but that's fine.
>> No. 29606 Anonymous
23rd April 2020
Thursday 10:13 pm
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>>29604
Stop talking to people and wait to see if they'll put the effort in or if they only speak to you because you initiate it. They'll get mad because you're not putting the effort in and only speak to them when they initiate it. That's how you know who your real friends are.
>> No. 29607 Anonymous
23rd April 2020
Thursday 10:34 pm
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>>29604
I'd ignore the two lugheads above me if I were you. Try to be as sociable as possible because I promise you it's better than being cloistered away all the time. Maybe you are on their reserve team in terms of friends, so what? You like everyone equally? You're so charming you should be everyone elses best pal? I'm not saying this to make you feel bad, it's just how people act. And who knows, you spend more time with these people maybe you end up on their starting eleven, maybe you meet someone through them you hit it off with more.

Just put yourself out there, see where it goes, because really, you don't know, and there's only one way to find out.
>> No. 29608 Anonymous
24th April 2020
Friday 1:32 pm
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>>29604

Ignore all three of the knuckledraggers above me, they all have valid points in their own way and it would take too long to pontificate on what's what.

My own personal take is that it effectively doesn't matter. If nobody comes to you first, just be the one who comes to them. As long as they don't turn you down and are still happy to chat or make plans, where's the the issue? Don't let the perceived self worth bother you because you're probably miles off the mark.

Personally I prefer it that way. If I feel antisocial for a few weeks I generally don't have to make an awkward excuse not to bother with something I'd be invited to, and really it's a lot of a weight off your shoulders when you just admit that it's fine to not be invited to things because in reality you wouldn't want to go.

Either way I'm pretty confident your mates aren't making plans and just consciously deciding "Nah, let's not invite Anon, the miserable cunt."
>> No. 29609 Anonymous
24th April 2020
Friday 6:15 pm
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Alcoholism is fucking my dad's head.
>> No. 29611 Anonymous
25th April 2020
Saturday 4:25 am
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For the most part, I'm ok, but then it gets to 4 in the morning and I'm thinking about death again.
>> No. 29612 Anonymous
25th April 2020
Saturday 3:13 pm
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>>29610
Was this post supposed to be funny or did you think I was doing a bit? What's the idea here?
>> No. 29613 Anonymous
6th May 2020
Wednesday 7:52 pm
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How do people wake up and feel well rested? How are people able to think clearly all the time? I think my depression's getting the better of me now, the mindfog is so intense I can't read anything I want to, I can't study anything, thank fuck I don't have a job right now I don't even know how I'd manage. Any tips on how to get rid of this at all? I can't find any decent online therapy and when I do it's insanely expensive, but at this rate I'm just going to keep declining until I can't even function by myself. And that whole cutting out alcohol and getting regular exercise is bollocks too, I've almost cut alcohol out completely and a strict physical regime is something I've always had and managed to stick to. My nutrition's very good and I stay hydrated. It all does nothing.
>> No. 29614 Anonymous
6th May 2020
Wednesday 7:59 pm
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>>29613

Have you tried mindfulness?


>> No. 29615 Anonymous
6th May 2020
Wednesday 8:00 pm
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>>29614
Mindfulness is quite good; partly because its so simple.
>> No. 29616 Anonymous
6th May 2020
Wednesday 8:37 pm
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>>29614
>>29615
The problem is I can't focus on this stuff, that video's over an hour long it will take me days to digest. I've tried it in the past and as far as I'm aware still do it, but as far as I understand it's just paying attention to what's going on more/what you're actively doing and feeling? Which I feel like I do a lot of the time anyway, one issue I have is not being able to shut my brain off at all.
>> No. 29617 Anonymous
6th May 2020
Wednesday 9:00 pm
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>>29616
No - it's just a bunch of breathing exercises. It slows everything down. Works well. Like meditation lite.
>> No. 29618 Anonymous
7th May 2020
Thursday 9:33 am
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>>29616

Use a 5-10 minute guided one and try doing it daily. I've been using a ten minute one and it makes things a lot easier. University of Bangor has some mindfulness tracks, but just find one halfway decent. It wasn't very mindful to introduce you to it by way of an hour long lecture.

It goes without saying but 10 minutes a day is easy to do and adds up over the long term. One point you've missed is that mindfulness is about getting out of your head and focusing on your body or breathing. You can't shut off your brain, so this is the way to learn that skill.

>And that whole cutting out alcohol and getting regular exercise is bollocks too, I've almost cut alcohol out completely and a strict physical regime is something I've always had and managed to stick to. My nutrition's very good and I stay hydrated. It all does nothing.

Imagine you're tasked with making a cake. The taskmaster makes a huge deal about flour and sugar, and when you eventually come to making the cake you realise you've no eggs. You spent so long choosing the flour and sugar, you forgot to buy the eggs. This doesn't make the flour and sugar bollocks, but the lack of eggs prevents all of those elements working together to make the cake. You can sulk and complain about how useless flour and sugar are in isolation (and you're not wrong), but you do have the best sugar and the best flour. Even cheap eggs will get you an excellent cake.

In your case, your exercise and diet sound like fucking excellent things to have. It took me ages to get eating right and exercising properly, when I was in a state I sat in my own filth drinking basics wine and smoking.

>I can't find any decent online therapy and when I do it's insanely expensive

Your local authority might have some free services available, but they're going to be limited and slow (it took me about six months to start, then corona stopped it). Otherwise, you'll have to use books and online resources. I've used self authoring which is fine for unpacking stuff and getting it down on paper, but you have to put the work in.
>> No. 29672 Anonymous
18th May 2020
Monday 9:13 pm
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Sometimes i feel disgusted that I have a sexuality. Shame has long been a foundation, and it's really becoming a problem in my life. Sometimes i even wince at thoughts while wanking - an involuntary facial spasm as if reacting to a short circuit in my genitals (and no, not cumface). It's not right, I want to address it. How do you approach such a subject with a doctor - is it even relevant?
>> No. 29673 Anonymous
18th May 2020
Monday 11:15 pm
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>>29672
Hmm that's an interesting problem. I think everyone experiences shame about their sexuality to a lesser or greater extent, but not fundamentally about being sexual at all. It certainly sounds like something you might want to discuss with a therapist, maybe there are some repressed feelings.
>> No. 29711 Anonymous
1st June 2020
Monday 4:38 pm
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I'm really struggling. I've reached out to my LMHT, to the crisis team, to my university's support services. But it's not getting any better. I'm so paralysed by mental illness that I can't function, I can't do work, I can't do anything I used to enjoy. I don't know what else I could try.
>> No. 29712 Anonymous
1st June 2020
Monday 7:54 pm
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>>29711

There might be a local voluntary agency offering help. I'd suggest calling the Mind infoline to find out what's available (0300 123 3393 9am-6pm weekdays).

Unfortunately the mental health system was stretched pretty thin before the COVID crisis and is absolutely knackered right now, so you might just have to bide your time and wait for things to rebuild.

For the moment, I'd suggest working on small, manageable goals. When you're in a bad way it's easy to feel helpless and hopeless, but just doing something can give you back a tiny bit of control. Do a bit of tidying or cleaning, cook a proper dinner, get in touch with someone, commit to going for a short walk every day, whatever you think you can manage. It seems too trivial to possibly help, but it gradually re-trains your subconscious mind to accept that making a plan and following it through can improve your situation.

Getting from "totally fucked" to "absolutely fine" nearly always requires professional help, but you can probably get yourself from "totally fucked" to "just about coping most of the time". That's far from ideal, but it's a big improvement.
>> No. 29713 Anonymous
1st June 2020
Monday 8:52 pm
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>>29712

>When you're in a bad way it's easy to feel helpless and hopeless, but just doing something can give you back a tiny bit of control. Do a bit of tidying or cleaning, cook a proper dinner, get in touch with someone, commit to going for a short walk every day, whatever you think you can manage.

I would like to add to this, because it's good advice and absolutely true in my experience with depression, that you shouldn't feel guilty if it's something "pointless" or that under normal circumstances you'd consider procrastination/leisure. It doesn't have to be something productive. What matters is setting yourself an objective and doing it.

When I was on the dole and didn't have much hope I played Final Fantasy VII, VIII and IX for the first (and only) time. In a negative light I could have told myself I was just sat around wasting time on old games, but in the context of the situation I was keeping myself busy with something. It also helped that they're the kind of games with numbers that go up.

When I look back on it I'm glad I did. Keep yourself busy and good luck m8.
>> No. 29714 Anonymous
2nd June 2020
Tuesday 3:57 am
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>>29713

>you shouldn't feel guilty if it's something "pointless" or that under normal circumstances you'd consider procrastination/leisure

Absolutely, especially right now when everyone's normal life is on pause and everyone is going a bit crackers. In a crisis like this, there's a lot of sense in just hunkering down and doing whatever it takes to make it through the day.

It might also be worth treating it as a series of experiments in improving your mood. Depression and anxiety can make you very pessimistic and numb you to your own feelings, so one of the big barriers to doing something is the inability to imagine what might make you feel better. Try something and ask yourself whether it made you feel any better - if it didn't then try something else, if it did then do more of that thing.
>> No. 29739 Anonymous
3rd June 2020
Wednesday 5:38 pm
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Ended up going to A&E. Waited three hours to be seen by a mental health nurse who referred me back to my LMHT (who told me to go to A&E in the first place), and gave me two diazepam. Got back and tried the crisis team again, who told me to go for a walk. I think the only way I'll get help is if I stand on the edge of a bridge over the main road and threaten to jump.
>> No. 29807 Anonymous
24th June 2020
Wednesday 5:03 am
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I keep seeing things out and about or on the internet and thinking "oh I should tell grandad about that" and then remember he died three weeks ago. I always academically understood the idea that you don't really realise how big a part someone is of your life until they're not there anymore, but fucking hell I really get it now.

He was as close to a dad as I've ever had. I don't even think it's really, properly hit me yet that he's gone.
>> No. 29808 Anonymous
24th June 2020
Wednesday 5:58 am
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>>29807
Sorry to hear that mate. It doesn't get easier but it does happen less often. You can consider him as still alive as long as you remember him, if that helps.

>>29739
Fuck nobody replied to this. Are you still with us lad?
>> No. 29809 Anonymous
24th June 2020
Wednesday 7:00 am
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>>29807
>I don't even think it's really, properly hit me yet that he's gone

He hasn't, in your head - and he shouldn't. I kept a couple of small glasses from my Grandads favourite bar. Had a drink with him last night; he went about eight years ago, but its still one of my favourite things to do. He fucking loved a drink.
>> No. 29810 Anonymous
24th June 2020
Wednesday 9:20 am
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>>29809
Is... that why he went, perchance?
>> No. 29811 Anonymous
24th June 2020
Wednesday 11:27 am
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>>29810
No he lived until almost 90. He is that proverbial example of a man who chain smoked and drank his way to old age very happily. Died of asbestosis in his lungs; it was believed originating from the brake dust of trucks he used to work on.
>> No. 29812 Anonymous
24th June 2020
Wednesday 2:07 pm
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Bit jealous of you lads. My grandad died when I was 6. Smoked like a chimney all his life and got lung cancer, predictably. Never had the strongest bond with my dad either, never really went out for a drink with him or anything because I wasn't into the footy or anything, so there wasn't much to talk about.

Doesn't bother me most of the time but when I hear people talking about having good bonds with their dads it gets me a bit melancholy.
>> No. 29813 Anonymous
27th June 2020
Saturday 12:14 pm
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>>29808
Still here. Been some progress, moving mental health teams so hopefully the new one will be less slack. Dropped out of uni as it was making me very ill. At the moment not really doing much, but without the anxiety of uni I'm managing a bit better. Worrying about having to find a job during a period of mass unemployment while not even having a degree, but I'm trying.
>> No. 29815 Anonymous
5th July 2020
Sunday 8:35 am
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Read 'the game' yesterday and it left me with a bitter loathing for humanity.

I hate the pick up artists for their dehumanizing reductionist views.

I hate the women in it for being so stupid they fall for cold reading and and other shitty manipulation, I presumed to be obvious.

And I hate myself for craving validation from anyone who might be so unsophisticated that this shit apparently works on.

The idea that people are quite so basic, and that I could get further in life by adopting any of the tactics or similar to those in the book both terrifies and disgusts me.
>> No. 29816 Anonymous
5th July 2020
Sunday 12:09 pm
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>>29815
The people who use and are used by the techniques in these types of books are not all people. Good people exist, genuine romantic loving relationships between people are possible. Do not be fooled by reductive propaganda and manipulation.
>> No. 29817 Anonymous
6th July 2020
Monday 6:42 pm
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>>29816
> The people who use and are used by the techniques in these types of books are not all people.

I think you meant to say "Not everybody uses or are affected by the techniques in these types of books", but reading it to imply than some of them simply aren't people at all is much funnier.
>> No. 29818 Anonymous
6th July 2020
Monday 7:51 pm
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>>29816

I've thought about your reply and whilst I don't doubt sincere people exist I've met them and dated them, in fact I would like to meet more, and therefore it doesn't help my problem very much.

My problem is that I can't meet and connect with new people, to find the right person for me, which is what lead me to reading the book in the first place.

For reasons I don't understand women I try to engage in conversation in public are without fail irrationally hostile towards me. Put me in a party environment, have a friend break the ice, I am fine. But let me say the first 5 words to the girl next to me at a bar and they will be trying to get someone to kick the shit out of me, or get me thrown out.

I'm sure this couldn't possibly be the normal experience otherwise people would never go out to public places.
>> No. 29819 Anonymous
6th July 2020
Monday 8:18 pm
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>>29818
> For reasons I don't understand women I try to engage in conversation in public are without fail irrationally hostile towards me. Put me in a party environment, have a friend break the ice, I am fine. But let me say the first 5 words to the girl next to me at a bar [...]

I don't think I've ever successfully "cold-approached" a girl in my life. I did it once as part of a drunken job interview (really) and once when I was on so much amphetamine I would have had the confidence to invade Russia during winter. Neither time did I get anywhere beyond a minute or two of mildly miffed chatter before I had to make my excuses as I was obviously bothering them.

Social interactions with people you don't know have to happen fluidly/naturally or they will seem forced and the other person is very likely to feel uncomfortable.

Whether you're in the smoking area or at the bar in a pub waiting to be served, or wherever you might be stood next to a nice looking lass you can just smile, say hi and ask how her night's going. If she's in any way interested you'll know, if she's not then no harm, no foul.

Hell, you can even time it so that you're at the bar at the same time as her, but it has to seem natural. If you just wander over to where she's sat and start asking her about how her night's going you're just not going to come over well.
>> No. 29820 Anonymous
6th July 2020
Monday 9:09 pm
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>>29819

Your reply reminded me of the only time I am aware of blacking out from drink, when I regained my senses I was kissing a complete stranger I have no idea how I got into that situation, I wish I knew what drunk me's secret was.
>> No. 29821 Anonymous
7th July 2020
Tuesday 1:13 pm
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>>29820
>>29819

It's entirely inhibition release, the "I don't give a fuck" factor. It's so built in that it's almost impossible to fake it, without being some kind of method actor. In fact that's pretty much the same thing by that point. The thing is people can just instinctively tell when it's genuine confidence and spontaneity, and not an attempt to emulate it.
The version of me who exists on a combination of alcohol and cocaine is an absolute madman who is nevertheless endearing enough that the real me wakes up the next day to friend requests on Facebook from strangers in the pub. The only problem is the crippling existential black hole that inevitably follows. It's as though all the embarrassment and shame I did so well without the previous night come flooding back all at once

Self consciousness is probably the root cause of all my social problems.
>> No. 29823 Anonymous
7th July 2020
Tuesday 6:24 pm
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>>29821


I know exactly where you're coming from and was often concerned about the same thing, needing drugs or alcohol to unlock that side of me. But I've found the older I get, the less of a fuck I give. By my 30th I was very well on my way to being acutely uninhibited sober, and I understand it only improves further as you age even more.

If you're already that age then sorry. I think a lot of it for me was spending my late twenties alternating between shagging and being rejected.
>> No. 29824 Anonymous
7th July 2020
Tuesday 9:29 pm
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>>29821
> It's entirely inhibition release, the "I don't give a fuck" factor. It's so built in that it's almost impossible to fake it,

That kind of self confidence is extremely powerful but it doesn't confer magical fanny-magnetic super-powers on you. Then again, as it's been said "you miss 100% of the shots you don't take".

The more shots you take then the more success you have, and the more knock-backs you take. Incidentally I think learning how to take a knock-back with grace (and without it harming your self image) is a big part of feeling self-confident in the first place.

I do feel like I'm rambling now so I'll just shut up.
>> No. 29825 Anonymous
9th July 2020
Thursday 9:32 am
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Well, 37 this year lads. It seems like the blink of an eye since I was 27, 24. Christ.

2019 was a year that pretty much didn't happen for me; I spent most of it travelling and bouncing from hotel to hotel with no routine.

This year was going to be different. I got back into my routines in December, moved flat to a better area, signed up with a gym just across the road. This was really going to be the year where I made my comeback.

But so much for all that. Last year I was stuck on the north-west coast of America losing my mind over an ex; This year I'm stuck inside and "celebrating" on my jack jones (which to be fair is almost just the way I like it.

Anyway, here I am a year older, fatter, and balder. Here's to 2021 giving us back at least some quality of life.

Skol, lads. Here's to getting fucking older.
>> No. 29826 Anonymous
9th July 2020
Thursday 10:46 am
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>>29825

Did you mean skål?
>> No. 29827 Anonymous
9th July 2020
Thursday 3:28 pm
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>>29826
>> No. 29828 Anonymous
10th July 2020
Friday 9:28 pm
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I'm getting very weary of how whenever you post anything online, the only responses you ever get are snarky smartarse pedants trying to subtly one-up you, even when they're agreeing, or if your original comment was meant positively. Everything always gets taken the wrong way or turned into a debate. I just want a proper conversation.

The usual answer to this would just be "go outside" but even with everything supposedly returning to "normal" it's all still a bit unappealing. I have a hard enough job rounding up a couple of mates for a pint at the best of times, let alone when you have to book in advance, give them your medical records and 5 years of address history before you're allowed in. None of us are the type to do this zoom shit either.
>> No. 29829 Anonymous
10th July 2020
Friday 10:34 pm
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>>29828

I suspect it is part a question of where you are posting. Most online communities are dehumanising ourely based on their scale. I'm not sure what to recommend to you in terms of open communities, they are all pretty dogshit for human connection.

As a lateral thinking solution, just pick up the phone and call someone, like a psychopath.
>> No. 29830 Anonymous
10th July 2020
Friday 10:40 pm
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>>29829

>As a lateral thinking solution, just pick up the phone and call someone, like a psychopath.

You jest, but I honestly feel like just phoning someone out of the blue in the year of our lord 2020 would give the impression I'm on the edge of a mental breakdown.
>> No. 29831 Anonymous
10th July 2020
Friday 10:44 pm
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>>29830

I left facebook a few years ago, and phoning people who I haven't seen in ages to stay in contact instead is much better emotionally.
>> No. 29832 Anonymous
12th July 2020
Sunday 12:14 pm
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>>29829

I took my own advise and called a friend out of the blue yesterday, it was great, we talked for an hour about everything and nothing.
in your >>29830 face mental break down boy.
>> No. 29833 Anonymous
13th July 2020
Monday 5:54 pm
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All I can do is get high and the only time I feel someway normal is on low doses of LSD. Productivity is shot, I just want to sit and do nothing, to just have time to process everything happening but even days of that don't seem to be enough. I get right back into the real world and I feel terrible, everything's so shit. I know I should pack it in as I'm probably just overdoing the drugs but I honestly can't take being sober at this point. When the weather clears up I'm going to the moors to do a whack load of shrooms and hoping that sorts me out one way or another.
>> No. 29835 Anonymous
14th July 2020
Tuesday 7:58 pm
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Each time i come here to talk about whatever's on my mind, I think fuck it and just load up a videogame or youtube.
It's like i'd just be browsing my mind for something to post. Insincere. Won't commit. It's not really worth the effort to bring something up which can easily sit in a quagmire of percieved problems. Focus on them and they're defined, leave them and it's just soup. Sprinkled with some herbs and it's not so bad.

I don't know if this is a problem. fuck it.
>> No. 29852 Anonymous
19th July 2020
Sunday 2:40 pm
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I've been feeling miserable since Friday when I ordered a Chinese takeaway of steamed pork buns, Tom Yum soup and curry samosas; all delicious in their own right but they have no business being combined like that. Anyway, a little while ago I read something that made me horny and I don't like being sad and horny, it's just awful.
>> No. 29853 Anonymous
19th July 2020
Sunday 2:44 pm
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>>29852

It's the takeaway's fault for offering you such a spectrum of cuisine. Try the Crab Claws and see how good their Yakisoba is.

Also: Stay away from Literotica, Lad. It's no good.
>> No. 29866 Anonymous
22nd July 2020
Wednesday 12:04 am
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People made fun of me when I was a teenager because I held my tongue between my lips when I was drumming so I got embarrassed and stopped. But look at this bloke he doesn't care how he looks. I'm buying an electric drum kit. Fuck it, I don't care if I don't have the room, the spare cash or the physical ability, I'm learning to drum again.

I know it's stupid, but I'm so fucking full of regret all the time. Certain songs or shows make me think of people and opportunities that I let slip away and it's bloody horrible. I can't keep living like this because eventually everything I do will be subject to these anxiety inducing little echoes. The other night I couldn't sleep so I flicked through my MP3 player and ended up listening to The Mighty Boosh, and I enjoyed it, but there are all these cobwebs in my brain get triggered by certain jokes and what have you. I don't know what the fuck I'm saying, but the point is I'm sick and tired of my brain and I'd like a redo.

Also I hate CBT it's a load of shit and everyone who recommends it should die.

I don't know what I'm saying.
>> No. 29867 Anonymous
22nd July 2020
Wednesday 12:14 am
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>>29866

I get the same thing. I find myself avoiding a lot of things I used to like, even things that were sort of cornerstones of my personality and identity, because they resonate those little uncomfortable memories and bring back the pangs of anxiety, regret, and general angst that it's all slipped away.

I've been making a concerted effort to try start doing stuff again and just push through it, tell it to fuck off when it happens. I hum this little tune under my breath and sometimes sing "hooow about I fuck you in the aaa-aaarse" to myself. They're just intrusive thoughts basically, and all they do is get in the way. You need to find a way of just brushing them off.

Start a new hobby, turn over a new leaf so to speak. Do something that sets you out a new era in life, so you can simply shed those daft old memories away and put them in a box where they can't hurt you. I've started releasing music under a daft new online persona so I don't have to worry about being associated with my old band or anything like that. I started doing Warhammer which is something I hadn't done since I was a kid (before it all went wrong).

Over time I find this lets you revisit things without the uncomfortable resonance of stuff you still care about- You've cut the strands that kept them weighing you down.
>> No. 29868 Anonymous
25th July 2020
Saturday 5:31 pm
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Open question: How often do you lads see your mates? How many mates would you say you honestly have, excluding the various "acquaintances"? Under normal circumstances I mean, not global pandemic times.

I'm having a hard time judging if I've done something to mortally offend all my friends, if I'm just a boring cunt, or what. But I'm having a hard time organising anything without everyone dropping out at the last minute. I've gradually stopped trying at all, and I thought maybe after months of isolation people would be a bit more willing to hang out so it'd be a good time to start getting more proactive, but that doesn't seem to be the case.

I mean fuck 'em, if they don't want to put the effort in, they don't want to. I'm just not the type to burn bridges and it seems like a shame to just drift apart from people you've known your whole life just because none of you can be arsed with each other.
>> No. 29869 Anonymous
26th July 2020
Sunday 12:14 am
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>>29866
I'm rooting for you. I'm also thinking of getting myself an electric drum kit. I started making music and I'm having a bastard of a time getting the kind of drum sound that I want. Even with software like EZdrummer (which takes out most of the work), it doesn't sound quite right. Figure I may as well learn how to play the drums.
>> No. 29870 Anonymous
26th July 2020
Sunday 4:32 am
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>>29869
If you live in a flat or terraced house do your neighbours a favour and build yourself a noise insulating platform to mount the kit on. You obviously don't get the same noise that an actual drum kit creates, but you're still hammering surfaces. The various bass drum emulating systems in particular have you, effectively, stomping on the ground.
E.g.:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wAxxviPW7Bc
>> No. 29873 Anonymous
26th July 2020
Sunday 12:17 pm
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>>29869

Before you dismiss MIDI drums entirely, try a couple of things. The first is mixing samples, the default EZDrummer ones are unbelievably shit. The second is getting a good room impulse response and on recordings, using that like a room mic to fill out the sound. If you're familiar with the process of recording a real drumkit, try to replicate that in your mix.

I've spent the past ten years totally ignoring impulse response technology and assuming it's shit, but it turns out I was just being a stubborn old fashioned git and they're actually nothing short of black fucking magic. Amazing for accurate reverbs and close to indistinguishable to the real thing for simulating speaker cabinets.
>> No. 29874 Anonymous
26th July 2020
Sunday 12:24 pm
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>>29868
Not sure I even have any friends; certainly don't see any of them outside work. Haven't ever burnt bridges or fallen out with people, just a long slow drift over the past decade. I am perfectly content with this. I have plenty of hobbies, but I'm not tempted to seek others out and "join a club" - sounds awful to me.
>> No. 29875 Anonymous
26th July 2020
Sunday 1:14 pm
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>>29868
>Open question: How often do you lads see your mates? How many mates would you say you honestly have, excluding the various "acquaintances"? Under normal circumstances I mean, not global pandemic times.

At a push I have 2 mates that I'm not liable to see them for years at a time. It's my own fault really, I don't keep in touch. This is what getting old is like, soon as you finish uni the real world hits and you just don't have the time or energy for it. Get a girlfriend or a dog if you're feeling lonely.

I could easily make proper friends at work, people have expressed interest. The thing is I refuse to mix my personal and professional life which seems to be the outlet for other people whereas I just fester on imageboards.
>> No. 29876 Anonymous
26th July 2020
Sunday 4:22 pm
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I have too many people to keep track of so I don't and that seems to be fine. I'll see a few people a month or so as they come and go from the country or are more or less busy.
>> No. 29881 Anonymous
28th July 2020
Tuesday 4:39 pm
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I feel like I might have made this exact post three years ago, but I really need to stop fancying, and making them fancy me, women who live on the other side of the Earth. Even a hundred-and-fifty mile radius would be a better option. Actually a lot of that is sea, but I'm sure there are a few hotties sailing the oceans.
>> No. 29889 Anonymous
1st August 2020
Saturday 9:52 pm
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I'm pretty sad that i lost all of my Alan Watts audio files. I know he was a drunk and had issues with his ego, but hell i listened to them almost religiously for hours on end. The sound of his voice has become a kind of guiding, grounding sound that reaches into my heart ('lol', right?), making me feel both depressed and accepted at once. It's really nice in that sad sort of way. I don't know, i'm just feeling something right now I guess.
>> No. 29890 Anonymous
1st August 2020
Saturday 10:01 pm
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>>29889

Surely you can just download them again?
>> No. 29891 Anonymous
2nd August 2020
Sunday 12:18 am
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Got drunk at home and decided to go to a pub. What a great recipe for turning your feelings of alienation up to 11.
>> No. 29892 Anonymous
2nd August 2020
Sunday 9:48 pm
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>>29891
Going to the pub on your own hardly ever works. Unless it's about 1pm on a Sunday, you have a full roast and all the Sunday papers to read - oh god I'm showing my age now, nobody buys a paper anymore.
>> No. 29893 Anonymous
2nd August 2020
Sunday 10:50 pm
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>>29892

Meh I'd say it has got a 50% chance of paying off sometimes it is a real shit pit and you wonder why you bothered going out. Other times it opens interesting new doors.

Not sure what the situation is like with Covid mind, I've been stuck in perpetual lockdown in Wales, treasurer the pub whilst you can before it is gone again, and remember to finish your pint, There are thirsty lads in Glamorgan.
>> No. 29894 Anonymous
2nd August 2020
Sunday 10:57 pm
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There's no point going to the pub on your own if you can't get coked up and chat shit to strangers. It's no different to drinking alone without that, just noisier.

God I'd love a night out down Westgate right now. Pizza in the back of an ABC taxi on the way home. Fuck me.
>> No. 29895 Anonymous
2nd August 2020
Sunday 11:04 pm
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>>29892

I wouldn't go to a pub in the evening on my own but I did used to like sitting in a pub during the day time just having a few pints and reading my kindle. If you find the right pub it's definitely a lot less depressing than sitting at home on your own pounding tins. Also if I was at home with a freezer full of tins I wouldn't be reading my kindle, I'd be doing something depressing on the internet while the TV plays something I hate in the background. Just being in the pub allowed me to concentrate on my reading without constant distractions / temptations.
>> No. 29899 Anonymous
4th August 2020
Tuesday 5:02 am
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Shite, think I've wasted my life.
>> No. 29900 Anonymous
4th August 2020
Tuesday 7:34 am
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>>29899

Me too. What made you realise?
>> No. 29913 Anonymous
5th August 2020
Wednesday 2:57 am
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>>29900

Not him, but for me it was the realisation that I've pretty much missed the boat for a lot of my life goals. I wasn't exactly making stellar progress towards any of them in any case but I also hadn't given up entirely on making progress. This pandemic, however, has really put the kibosh on any chances I had to get things done before I'm too old. Once we get out the other side of this, assuming that we ever do, I'll be 40 and been sat on my arse for three years doing nothing.

It's all a bit grim to be honest.
>> No. 29914 Anonymous
5th August 2020
Wednesday 3:16 am
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>>29913
In no way is 40 "too old" mate. If you don't like what you're going to be doing, why can't you do something else?
>> No. 29915 Anonymous
5th August 2020
Wednesday 11:38 am
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>>29913

Not meaning to cause offence mate but putting "missed" boats down to the coronavirus is a bit absurd. Bar a few instances, I can't imagine many life goals suffering from being held up for only eight months, and I can't help but be surprised by this kind of short-term thinking (it seems to be a commonly shared thing on social media, as pictured).

The majority of worthwhile goals I can think of take far longer than eight months. In fact, mine generally happen on a scale of 3-5 years for individual steps and about 10-15 years for very big milestones. It takes about a year to make a plan and save up enough money to even get started. Unless you've had a huge setback (such as losing your job), the coronavirus might even play to your advantage if you can be imaginative about it.
>> No. 29916 Anonymous
6th August 2020
Thursday 12:30 am
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I wish I could say the pandemic has allowed me to buoy my savings up a bit but in reality it's meant I've ordered a lot of shit I arguably didn't need and come out in roughly the same position as before. Still, I'm considering that a net positive, since the money is still going into my savings every month, so at least I haven't actively damaged my finances buying stuff.

If anything I'm going to keep on telling myself I deserved some material comforts in absence of a social life, considering what little I had was on life support before the pandemic and I don't see any amount of resuscitation bringing it back to life after this long. That's probably the biggest thing getting me down right now, I'm comfortable in my own company, my work colleagues at least have great bantz and everything, I have a lovely girlfriend, but life feels a bit hollow when you don't really have anyone else to really share the things you're enthusiastic about with.

I don't have anyone really left to go "Hey, you heard the new Spunk Guzzlers album yet?" or "Have you been playing Nuclear Genocide 3? is it better than 2?" and all that stuff with, and I don't see myself finding someone new to occupy that position any time soon. The muscles that allowed me to socialise like that have just withered away. I can only see myself becoming more of a disconnected weirdo the longer the isolation goes on and it becoming harder and harder to dig myself out.
>> No. 29917 Anonymous
6th August 2020
Thursday 8:18 am
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>>29916
Set up a regular saver to go out on payday.
>> No. 29918 Anonymous
6th August 2020
Thursday 11:36 am
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I don't think I'm cut out for work. I've had probably about 10 jobs over the last decade, and the only ones I've managed to do for any length of time have been ones where either the management has been so slack there's no real pressure, or ones where there are so many other people doing my job that I can blend into the background. I'm not a bad worker necessarily, I'm efficient and don't toss it off, but I crumble under even minor pressure and don't handle responsibility and accountability very well. Again, not that I do a bad job, but I overthink everything and feel that if I'm not performing at my peak or I feel I'm not adding value to the business, I get very anxious and want to leave.
>> No. 29919 Anonymous
6th August 2020
Thursday 11:44 am
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>>29918
Become a gardener.
>> No. 29920 Anonymous
6th August 2020
Thursday 3:37 pm
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>>29915

No offence taken as it's not like I really filled in all the facts and your interpretation of what I meant by a "life goal" differs a little from what I meant.

> Bar a few instances, I can't imagine many life goals suffering from being held up for only eight months

First, this pandemic isn't going to be over any time soon. I'd be surprised if we're anything like back to normal before 2022. I turn 40 in 2023.

Second, "life goals" might be more accurately replaced with "bucket list items". Two of these goals/tickboxes involved getting black belts in two different full contact martial arts that I've been practising for the last fifteen plus years. Given that due to my job/lifestyle I don't tend to stay in the same town (or even country) for more than two years at a time, it's been relatively difficult to obtain officially recognised rank in either art.

Given that I don't expect it to be safe to train full contact martial arts any time in the next two to three years I can at least safely say that my ability to perform and achieve rank will be severely diminished when I do return.

It's not the end of the world but I do think it qualifies as a case of "minor angst" at least.

Not to mention all those women I still planned on having sex with. This one I'll still probably be able to do but I'll probably have to pay them directly as opposed to just paying for dinner (which, ironically, is probably actually cheaper as well as just feeling "cheaper"). So it goes.
>> No. 29921 Anonymous
6th August 2020
Thursday 7:25 pm
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>>29920

Sounds like it might do you some good to come to terms with not being able to do every little thing you wanted in life, honestly mate. Otherwise the feeling of time running out will only compound itself, year after year.

Let me put it another way. Do you imagine you'd feel satisfied, at long last able to put your feet up and rest, with all your goals completed? You wouldn't. You'd find new things to put on the list. That's how the human brain works.

(there's a term for it in psychology as well as philosophy, but my time on this earth is as finite as yours, so I have better things to do than googling such an abstract concept, soz)
>> No. 29922 Anonymous
7th August 2020
Friday 12:34 pm
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I don't mean to try to out Emo /emo/, but lately I've been laughing but not exactly feeling it.
>> No. 29923 Anonymous
7th August 2020
Friday 4:06 pm
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>>29922
What do you mean? Have you been forced laughing because it's socially expected of you, or has your body been laughing involuntarily while your mind is unamused?
>> No. 29924 Anonymous
7th August 2020
Friday 4:21 pm
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>>29922
Man, when i'm very bored i make these high pitched laughs that are more reminiscent of grief than joy. I've come to think of it as my 'body' telling me it needs some environmental enrichment, and is literally crying out to let my 'brain' know. I'm a bit slow to recognise emotions and things like that, so the cry is converted into a laugh by my upper brain (or some shit). I mean, i don't know if that's what's going on but it really feels like it.
>> No. 29925 Anonymous
7th August 2020
Friday 4:29 pm
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>>29922
>socially expected of you
???
Why would I have been near others ever? I just laugh at things, but my mood is no different. It's reflexive, and like a muscle contraction it provides no real emotional change.

>>29924
That's kind of odd, but interesting too. Sometimes I sneeze when I get very turned on by something. I guess everyone's unique.
>> No. 29929 Anonymous
9th August 2020
Sunday 5:34 pm
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Yet another job turning me down for not being extroverted enough. It's not like I'm applying to be a red coat, just retail work, but my autism is proving to be a real issue.
>> No. 29930 Anonymous
10th August 2020
Monday 2:19 am
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>>29929
>just retail work

Yeah but maybe you're applying for the wrong kind of jobs. If you really are an autist, and easily come across as such, you're probably going to struggle doing customer-facing work. There are plenty of other places you could work where that might not be so much of an issue.
>> No. 29937 Anonymous
11th August 2020
Tuesday 5:39 pm
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This place doesn't really feel like home, anymore.
>> No. 29938 Anonymous
11th August 2020
Tuesday 5:55 pm
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>>29937
JIZZCOCK
>> No. 29939 Anonymous
11th August 2020
Tuesday 6:09 pm
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>>29937
I think people have gone a bit cranky since lockdown. There's still the tedium but nobody is really going out and doing something interesting to post about.
>> No. 29940 Anonymous
11th August 2020
Tuesday 6:24 pm
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>>29939
>I think people have gone a bit cranky since lockdown

A thousand this.
>> No. 29941 Anonymous
14th August 2020
Friday 10:21 pm
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I don't know when it started happening, but I have a high discomfort from social confrontation to the point it causes me distress and self-loathing afterwards.

Is this remotely normal? Is this something that is a recognised condition? Is there a known treatment/ therapy?
>> No. 29942 Anonymous
14th August 2020
Friday 10:35 pm
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>>29941
>social confrontation

Expand this out a bit - a lot will depend on your definition of confrontation.
>> No. 29943 Anonymous
14th August 2020
Friday 11:18 pm
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>>29942
Literally any awkward conversation where there is a disagreement, or misunderstanding with someone who I am not massively familiar with. Where 2 opposing truths clash. I feel like I am not emotionally equipped to deal with people who are unfamiliar to me in those situations if it does not reach a resolution I would like.

The example today that made me reflect on it. I had an awkward conversation with someone who had crossed my path at a climbing wall as I was coming out of an overhang on a route I had started. They started climbing the part above where I was coming out of an overhang had I not looked to my right I wouldn’t have seen them disappear up above me could have ended up right underneath them, I stopped my climb obviously. And I let them know afterwards in a ‘be aware of your surroundings, ‘sort of way’, and both them and their mates denied I was there.
For some reason that completely ruined my day with an irrational resentment of them. Regardless of who was wrong or right I think the fact that that sat in my mind after for a good few hours chipping away at me is a sickness.
>> No. 29946 Anonymous
15th August 2020
Saturday 1:38 pm
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>>29943
I think I know what you mean. A couple of months ago, when lockdown had just started, I was walking to the back of the queue to get into the supermarket. I walked past one woman, probably about three meters from her, and she shouted at me to get back. I apologised and increased my distance, but I felt humiliated and thought about it nonstop for days.
>> No. 29947 Anonymous
15th August 2020
Saturday 6:00 pm
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File
removed
Do you think it's wrong for 30 year old adult to still be interested in teen porn? I saw this wonderful beauty in my harddrive yesterday and it really upset me. I think she's really gorgeous but I've no hope in hell of achieving the attention of anyone like this - It just makes me feel worthless.
>> No. 29948 Anonymous
15th August 2020
Saturday 6:07 pm
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>>29947
>I've no hope in hell of achieving the attention of anyone like this
When you say "anyone like this", what do you mean really? Do you think you'd enjoy her banter? Would you share pastimes? Have the same goals in life, same outlook? That's just an airbrushed nightmare. You could just buy a realdoll, there'll be less teenage drama and chances are it'll be about as intelligent and less likely to run off with someone it actually gets on with.
>> No. 29949 Anonymous
15th August 2020
Saturday 6:31 pm
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>>29948
I think I must mean anyone who holds my attention - this kind of attention. I appreciate your point; teenage behaviour is just awful for the most part. Cringe worthy, even.

When i find myself interested in a genuine person there's often this intrusive thought 'you only like them because they're within your league' - meaning plain or with obvious 'faults' that could never be seen as charming, dispite my clear attraction to them. I Don't know if a persons weird nose or slightly lazy eye is attractive or i'm just telling myself it is so I can persue a partner who few other people will like (or atleast i can overcome competetors because they'll probably be like me). At least with the girl pictured all of that doesn't have to be in play - it's just strait up attraction, perhaps lust or admiration of features. When i really think about it, masterbation to porn is a sole activity so i'm not really comprehending the girl in the picture but myself and getting off to that.

I've deleted the image now; it's probably not healthy to dwell on. Dakota Skye if anyone is wondering.
>> No. 29950 Anonymous
15th August 2020
Saturday 6:32 pm
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>>29949
Ah shit, I can't remove the image. Well fuck that, I'll have to see it for a while in this thread then.
>> No. 29951 Anonymous
15th August 2020
Saturday 7:48 pm
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>>29949

It sounds as though you're overthinking your way out of being happy.
>> No. 29952 Anonymous
16th August 2020
Sunday 12:22 am
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>Porn is not causing him to be disconnected from women, he is already disconnected from them, and the only person that will have him is online. He's not retreating into porn because real women don't measure up, he's retreating into it because he doesn't measure up. He's not porn material. He doesn't expect or want that women will naturally act like porn stars in bed, he expects that he will be able to turn them into porn stars in bed, with his massive dong packing her into a creaming pliancy. It is his failure to be able to do this that drives him back to porn.

>Narcissism is about the need to self-identify and to broadcast that identity to others. Online porn doesn't help you do this because it robs you of your pants, but you can run it as defense: online porn prevents other people from finding out you aren't as good as you think you are. Everyone imagines they are good in bed, but when you hit 30, 40, 50, and you slow down, now you're no longer as good as even you once were. And so you will give up sex, actual sex, something you would have previously stabbed a harp seal to get, just so you and she don't have to realize just how mediocre you are. "No, you're wrong, I simply don't have the energy." But you can stay up till 2am spinning the Wheel of Anal?

>Add to that his own self-image. When you masturbate to porn, as with all fetishes, you are able to focus on a single piece of something as a proxy for all sexuality. It is super easy to look down at, say, your own penis manipulated to its max and see it as gigantic, see it as a proxy for the stud that you imagine you could be given the right script, lighting and production. But the moment the director yells, "action!" the self-consciousness kicks in. You see your flabby gut through her eyes and imagine she can't possibly be aroused by it. You don't feel sexy, so you are not interested in sex. Do I need to point out that this is what women used to say about themselves? Dude, you're acting like a girl.
>> No. 29953 Anonymous
16th August 2020
Sunday 12:25 am
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>>29952
>Narcissism is about the need to self-identify and to broadcast that identity to others. Online porn doesn't help you do this because it robs you of your pants
What?
>> No. 29954 Anonymous
16th August 2020
Sunday 12:37 am
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>>29953
Online porn feeds narcissism, not by the simple fact that "my time is spent masturbating to it", but because it protects me from facing up to my real identity, as determined by my sexual history and likely future

by shoving it right in my face
>> No. 29955 Anonymous
16th August 2020
Sunday 12:52 am
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>>29949
If it helps I've found that normal looking women have become much more sexy with age. This being despite the fact that I'm objectively much more of a catch now than my awkward teens or even 20s. I wouldn't call it settling, you notice them more as human beings with imperfections that only add to their form - it's called taste.

Anyway, yes, a nice tight body of some 10/10 would be nice to play with but it's never going to happen. Even if it does I'm sure you will soon notice that irl they look like a child (and in many ways are) so you'll only end up disgusted with yourself. Put it aside like all the other fantasies you have that will never come true like spaffing all your money on a yacht and sailing the world with supermodels doing hard drugs. A fantasy that can't exist in reality.

>>29952
I've never understood this logic. Almost everyone wanks, even in a happy relationship, and tastes can differ entirely irl because it's not real.
>> No. 29956 Anonymous
16th August 2020
Sunday 2:44 am
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>>29946

Yes it sounds very similar with the self reflecting of your post back I've come to the conclusion that I have a fragile ego (in the psychological balancing of the needs sense not the self absorbed sense), and I think I need to build some good old fashioned self confidence, conviction and esteem.

I've never been sold on reading most pop psy books because I think they mostly service the other kind of ego. So where does someone start who thinks they have a chronic self confidence issue? How do I heal?
>> No. 29957 Anonymous
16th August 2020
Sunday 12:29 pm
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>>29953
Most of the important parts fit well. Over the last year there's been a niggling thought at the back of my mind that I'm narcissistic. I struggle with identity, sometimes considerably. I appriciate this kind of post, thanks for making it.

Is there any way I can address this possible narcissism? I feel as though over the years I've gone too far 'the other way' trying to overcompensate (in mind, at least), but I've always known it's just a mask. I think I might have listened to too much Alan Watts as a teenager and misunderstood the meaning of Zen. Sometimes I have to cover the bathroom mirror with a blanket so I don't catch my reflection.

>>29955
>you notice them more as human beings with imperfections that only add to their form.
This is exactly what i think myself out of feeling, as with the girl with wonderful teeth.

>I've never understood this logic. Almost everyone wanks, even in a happy relationship
I think the difference is that wanking isn't tied into identity to such an extent for most people. Plenty of times people have said 'it's just a wank' but to me most wanks mean something. Whether that's an expression of joy and sincerity, which happens rarely these days, or a concious decision to fuck it and not improve my life for the sake of routine and a little dopamine. Have some willpower, yeah, but it's difficult to reverse a 15 years of training. But then again it's only as hard as you make it.
>> No. 29958 Anonymous
16th August 2020
Sunday 1:31 pm
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>>29957
>Sometimes I have to cover the bathroom mirror with a blanket so I don't catch my reflection.

Interesting you say that - I started a reply to you last night which detailed my own method of maintaining self-confidence, and thats to look in the mirror every morning and accept that everything is my fault - by accepting and taking complete responsibility for my life, and never blaming others for any predicament, I find it easier to maintain a sense of self and balance.

>narcissistic
Your apparent self awareness and reflection here would indicate not, but I'm not expert at all at diagnosing that - a person in my family has been diagnosed with pathological narcissistic personality disorder, and a big part of the issue is that lack of responsibility or self-awareness of it (or the desire to change).
>> No. 29959 Anonymous
16th August 2020
Sunday 1:50 pm
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>>29958

You've mentioned this before, and I don't think it's healthy. If it works for you fair enough, but I don't think it really relates much to narccisistlad.

There are plenty of things in life you just can't possibly hope to influence, and you have to accept on some level that you get dragged along with the current and you can't fight it. It's a terrific burden off the mind when you come to grips with that. It'll do you no good going fully the opposite way and blaming every single problem on somebody else, like a fat bird on Tumblr, but still.

>>29957

>I struggle with identity, sometimes considerably.

Could you elaborate? In what way?

I've often felt something similar. My online life is lived from behind either the mask of Anonymous or a carefully maintained alter-ego furfag lad here, my social life outside of work was tied to the music scene for a long time where I wasn't really me, but that guy from that band. I feel at my least fulfilled when I'm forced to just be plain old me, with my plain boring name, in my plain boring town and its plain boring people.

Sometimes I think I'm a proper mentalist and self-absorbed nutcase for it, but then at the same time, I think it's either rather normal nowadays, or "normal" people are even worse for it. Everyone presents a meticulously curated image of themselves on Facebook and the Instagram and what have you, lots people struggle to come to terms with things like their sexuality because there's so much pressure to pick which precise subgenre of LGBTQBRLMS+ you are instead of just "straight but fancy a cock up the arse now and again".

The modern world seems, at times, entirely designed to give you a complex about your identity.
>> No. 29960 Anonymous
16th August 2020
Sunday 1:59 pm
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>>29959
>I don't think it's healthy. If it works for you fair enough

Yeah which is why I didn't post last night, but I thought his comment about hiding from the mirror interesting. You're quite right that I don't attempt to control/change the things I can't control.
>> No. 29961 Anonymous
17th August 2020
Monday 10:45 am
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>>29959
>Could you elaborate? In what way?
I'm really struggling to but I don't want to leave your post ignored. You seem like an intereting person.
>> No. 29962 Anonymous
18th August 2020
Tuesday 3:06 pm
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My dick doesn't work, I've lost the sensation on the top of my right foot and my face feels funny; dying, at last.
>> No. 29976 Anonymous
28th August 2020
Friday 11:07 pm
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I am dogged by the feeling that society is actually crumbling, and we're heading into a very dark time of upheaval and strife. The type of thing people in post-war Germany had to live through, ex-Soviet countries, that kind of situation. The sort of thing people just take for granted won't happen here because we have our nice big tellies and fancy cars on PCPs, only it's happening very gradually, so nobody notices. It genuinely distresses me sometimes.
>> No. 29977 Anonymous
29th August 2020
Saturday 10:37 am
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>>29976
Maybe this will cheer you up:
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0016328719303507
>> No. 29978 Anonymous
29th August 2020
Saturday 12:04 pm
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>>29976

How acutely you feel this depends on how well embedded you are in society. If you were always living on the margins, you probably have a heightened perception of these things. If you're relatively well off, though, you can afford to insulate yourself from many of the effects, and lessen the paranoia and sense of instability that comes with these changes.

Covid-19 isn't going to end the world, but it should lead us to question our health and elderly care systems.

Not to give you more to worry about, but I honestly think the more realistic worry would be climate change. A truly rational media system would be hammering the point home every day: scientific consensus overwhelmingly says that we are going to have to radically change the energy systems on which our entire modern livelihood is based.

Sage for not being helpful. If you do care about this stuff, though, know that you're not alone.
>> No. 29979 Anonymous
29th August 2020
Saturday 9:50 pm
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>>29978

Honestly I feel like it's the opposite to what you describe.

When I was a doley free-falling through life day by day and doing what I had to to get by, I was remarkably content and worry free. I've rationalised that because I didn't have anything to lose, nothing mattered much. The choices were all hard rational ones- Do I buy fags and cope with being a bit peckish all week or food and cope with dying for a fag all week?

But the more of a respectable member of society I've become the more it worries me that everything could come crashing down. The meagre foothold I've carved out could just crumble away, without it even being my fault, and there being absolutely fat fuck all that I could do to stop it.

I suppose it makes sense in a way, but even so.
>> No. 29980 Anonymous
29th August 2020
Saturday 10:43 pm
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>>29979
Not to be callous but it sounds to me like you're getting lost in nostalgia and overthinking things.

1. The future is full of scary unknowns while the past has a comfortable certainty. I'm certain you worried for your future in the past as well only now you know the sun rose the next day. The Aztecs killed for that kind of certainty.

2. There's literally no point in being anxious about some unknown calamity down the line - just focus on getting through today as best as you can. Yes, some disaster could strike at any moment but there's not much we can do about that and if the bombs drop your worrying won't matter.

If that doesn't help then open notepad on your computer, write the problem out and think up three solutions. I'm sure before you've even finished writing the problem you will be more at ease.

>>29977
>>29978
Is /emo/ really the place for this?
>> No. 29981 Anonymous
30th August 2020
Sunday 11:06 am
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>>29980
>Is /emo/ really the place for this?

Perhaps not, and I'll respect the wish if anyone doesn't want to hear about it. I can say for me, personally, thinking through the things that scare me as rationally as possible and sorting through what fears are worth having or not has been useful to my peace of mind, but I fully accept it's not always helpful, and not to everyone.
>> No. 29982 Anonymous
30th August 2020
Sunday 9:04 pm
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Maybe it is the prepper in me but I'd trade lockdown for full society collapse. At the very least it wouldn't be boring.

I feel proudly under stimulated. I know exactly what I need, but I am denied the capacity to acquire it.
>> No. 29983 Anonymous
2nd September 2020
Wednesday 3:04 pm
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Oh, bother, I think I've rather wasted my life. Or ruined it. I'm in two minds about which.
>> No. 29984 Anonymous
3rd September 2020
Thursday 9:55 pm
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>>29983

Got someone pregnant, lad?
>> No. 29990 Anonymous
7th September 2020
Monday 4:43 pm
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Minor anxiety I have for no reason:

For the office Christmas party last year we were in a crowded bar and as I was squeezing through I had my hands outstretched to my side. As my arms were down the back of my hand made contact with a female colleagues arse. Not even a light glaze - it was a proper rub. Nothing I could do, I just pretended it didn't happen but I noticed my boss was glaring at me from across the room while he was talking with her later that night.

Nothing come of it and I'm sure everyone knows that I'm not that sort of bloke but still, every now and again it bothers me because it sounds so cliche. Maybe there's a reputation I have that I don't know about "don't be alone with him on a nights out girls, bit loose with his hands that one". We work in completely different parts of the office now so it's not like I can just explain in private to resolve my obsession. And just look at how wrong this all reads to you.

Needless to say, I will never go to a Christmas party again and if I do I will raise my hands up as I squeeze past any crowds. Fuck sake, is it normal to be menaced with things like this?
>> No. 29991 Anonymous
7th September 2020
Monday 4:46 pm
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>>29984
Chance would be a fine thing.
>> No. 29992 Anonymous
7th September 2020
Monday 8:04 pm
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>>29990
Chance would be a fine thing.
>> No. 29993 Anonymous
8th September 2020
Tuesday 12:31 am
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>>29990

You think that's bad? I can't remember if I got off with one of my colleagues at the last Christmas do. I might well have copped a feel and I sort of half remember holding hands with her in the taxi. Neither of us have brought it up, but I can't tell if I'm imagining the flirtatious tension whenever I talk with her at work since then. Awfully troubling stuff.
>> No. 29994 Anonymous
8th September 2020
Tuesday 8:37 am
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Minor angst: argued with my girlfriend about the temperature of the bedroom, but of course it wasn't really about the temperature of the bedroom.

I'm thinking about moving out.
>> No. 29995 Anonymous
8th September 2020
Tuesday 9:13 am
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>>29990>>29993
I had to have a meeting as a result of a Christmas party where I was drunk, did a limp wrist and supposedly my hand brushed against someone's tit but I have no recollection of that happening.
>> No. 29997 Anonymous
8th September 2020
Tuesday 6:29 pm
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>>29993

The last Christmas party I went to, a bird I worked with every day sat on my lap in a taxi and I very definitely shoved my hand all the way up her skirt while she wittered on to me and my boss about, of all things, how much liked my missus. We ended up holding hands under the table in a vodka bar where we both passed out before either of us managed to book a hotel.

Given that none of it was ever mentioned again I'd almost think I'd made it up if it wasn't for the unmistakable pang of guilt I still feel about it almost a decade later.
>> No. 29998 Anonymous
9th September 2020
Wednesday 9:19 pm
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>>29997
>unmistakable pang of guilt I still feel about it almost a decade later

I sometimes still have flashes of guilt for minor things I did twenty years ago. I'm not sure if this is a strength or weakness.
>> No. 29999 Anonymous
9th September 2020
Wednesday 9:23 pm
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>>29997

I don't know if it's a mark of some kind of psychopathy or moral failing, but I never felt guilt, as such, about my drunken Christmas do behaviour. In the end nothing actually happened, I think, so no harm done- And my missus probably wouldn't even be all that bothered if I told here I got wrecked and snogged another bird. She's not the jealous type.

What does get to me though is just that creeping sense of embarrassment and shameful self doubt, over what you might have said, how you were acting, how many other people saw it, that sort of thing. I can't stand it. Part of me thinks I should start wearing a go-pro on nights out so I can review the footage later, but at the same time I know I'm better off not knowing.
>> No. 30000 Anonymous
13th September 2020
Sunday 12:38 pm
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I'm in a social group with a bunch of petty childish people. I've realised that outside of events where I'm actually there I likely barely exist to these people.

Generally, I've not been on the direct receiving end of the pettiness and stayed neutral on most issues, but recently I made what was my first sin in 7ish years of knowing these people; an admittedly poorly-timed and off colour joke (for which I apologised once I sobered up), but instead of confronting me about it, instead there were a massive string of tweets made about it.

I sort of want to gently drift away from them (just leaving would invoke more childish pettiness). However, especially given the recent situation, they are the only semi-regular face-to-face social contact I'm likely to have.

I have friends outside this group, but many now live far away or for whatever reason I can't see particularly frequently. Even my workmates have all moved.

What the fuck do I do? It's not like I'm in uni and can just rock up to a random society any more (and even then, covid). I don't want to revert fully to teenlad me, spending 24 hours a day in front of a computer, never seeing anyone, but it feels like I have to cast myself into that situation.
>> No. 30001 Anonymous
13th September 2020
Sunday 12:58 pm
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>>30000
Find yourself a social hobby like a football team. Next time don't get involved with obviously shit people, you run with the lame and you'll give yourself a limp.
>> No. 30002 Anonymous
13th September 2020
Sunday 1:16 pm
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>>30000
What was the joke?
>> No. 30003 Anonymous
13th September 2020
Sunday 1:32 pm
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>>30001
Ironically enough for >>30002, I am crippled so sports teams aren't an option. Either way, surely team sports are off the cards right now?

I sarcastically called Owen Jones a "cuck", sarcastically. It wasn't interpreted that way. That's it. Apparently that's homophobic -unsure why, but whatever.
>> No. 30004 Anonymous
13th September 2020
Sunday 1:43 pm
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>>30003
Whoops, got my posts mixed up, and can't seem to delete. Well, either way I'm just not sure where I can find face to face contact right now u less I'm already friends with them.
>> No. 30005 Anonymous
13th September 2020
Sunday 2:02 pm
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>>30003
If someone used cuck in IRL conversation I'd probably think less of them.
>> No. 30006 Anonymous
13th September 2020
Sunday 2:06 pm
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>>30005
Cuck.
>> No. 30007 Anonymous
13th September 2020
Sunday 2:07 pm
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>>30005
It was a sarcastic joke meant to parody the alt-right's usage of it and it didn't land. What can I say.
>> No. 30008 Anonymous
13th September 2020
Sunday 2:20 pm
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>>30007
Give it a few weeks. You're feeling consumed by it because of how recently it happened. It'll wear off a bit when it isn't so fresh.
>> No. 30009 Anonymous
13th September 2020
Sunday 11:24 pm
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>>30007
It's difficult to parody the alt-right because so many people actually think like that; they're sort of everywhere.
>> No. 30010 Anonymous
14th September 2020
Monday 1:29 am
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>>30009
The difference here is that these people know my political leanings, and know that I wouldn't seriously mean it. They are just so eager to get that one up, to be 100% holier-than-thou.

Either way, this is just one aspect of the group - there are ridiculous double standards at play, absolutely childish cliques within it, and generally thinking about it I've been meeting up with them semi-regularly but I can't think of a time I actually enjoyed it that much. Primarily, it was the relief of getting out of the house. I'm no longer on the same wavelength as these people in many respects - whilst I used to, I no longer enjoy the same music they do, I don't play the same games, most of them tend to be hypersexual, and spend hours and hours talking about relationships whilst I'm a permavirgin. As I say, outside of larger group settings I don't really exist to many of them.

Yesterday's events were mainly a catalyst to get me think about the unhealthiness of the whole thing, but also feeling trapped that realistically I can't ditch it unless I want to spend at least the next few months without seeing someone face-to-face.
>> No. 30025 Anonymous
24th September 2020
Thursday 8:02 pm
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I'm sat on .gs on the eve of my birthday with absolutely nothing to do and no-one to talk to. All my mates my age now have responsibilities such as kids and partners and all that and the people I know younger than me can't do anything because of the whole 'rona situation. I can't even get blackout drunk and make a whole load of noise by myself because I live with the 'rents. Fucking hell, it's so grim.
>> No. 30026 Anonymous
24th September 2020
Thursday 8:31 pm
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>>30025
Don't beat yourself up over it. Birthdays should be treated as little more than an excuse to treat yourself if you want to avoid disappointment - have a nice bath or a bowl of children's cereal while watching cartoons. That's not sad, it's perfectly normal.

Happy Birthday all the same.
>> No. 30027 Anonymous
24th September 2020
Thursday 9:47 pm
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>>30025
Happy Birthday ladm9
>> No. 30028 Anonymous
24th September 2020
Thursday 9:48 pm
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>>30025
Happy birthday mate. I'll get blackout drunk for you if that helps.
>> No. 30029 Anonymous
24th September 2020
Thursday 11:43 pm
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>>30025
Are you into games or owt? Pop on the Discord if you're still feeling shite tomorrow and we'll spin up some fun.
>> No. 30030 Anonymous
25th September 2020
Friday 7:35 am
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>>30025

Happy birthday!

>>30029

I could pull out the jackbox games again, if >>30025 wants, it has been a while.
>> No. 30031 Anonymous
25th September 2020
Friday 6:01 pm
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Suffering from a pretty severe case of anhedonia right now. Had a long week and just want to relax and recharge but all I've done is sit and scroll reddit. Sometimes I just can't be arsed with anything.

It's not so much that I'm seriously depressed or I've got stuff on my mind, I'll just get into a bit of a rut and old wounds start to open up again because I've got nothing exciting going on at the minute. There's not much I can do about it, it's mostly really inconsequential shit from a couple of years ago, where only time will eventually allow me to let go of it. But until then it tends to come back on me when I've nothing to distract myself with.

I wish I could be arsed to go play some games or play some music or whatever. it's a really perplexing feeling to just not be able to get up and do something, nor really want to, even though you're bored as fuck.
>> No. 30032 Anonymous
25th September 2020
Friday 7:05 pm
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>>30026
>>30027
>>30028
>>30029
>>30030

Cheers lads, it actually means a lot. Might head into the Discord at some point although I am feeling a lot better today.
>> No. 30033 Anonymous
25th September 2020
Friday 7:11 pm
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>>30031
>There's not much I can do about it, it's mostly really inconsequential shit from a couple of years ago, where only time will eventually allow me to let go of it. But until then it tends to come back on me when I've nothing to distract myself with.

When I'm suffering from ennui I force myself to go for a walk. At the very least it will help you sleep if it doesn't restart your mood. Maybe pedestrians will be idiots again and you can occupy your mind with rage.

To make the conversation all about me, do you also get that thing where you remember every time you could've had sex but didn't? I'm still not over how I managed to break my own heart at university by not sleeping with a girl I was absolutely smitten with on multiple occasions. I really wish I'd talked to you lads about that so maybe you'd have leapt into my body to break the impasse. It would likely have been a whole lot of stress but goddamn it, I was so happy when I was with her.
>> No. 30034 Anonymous
26th September 2020
Saturday 7:07 am
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>>30033

I don't spend a lot of time thinking about opportunities I missed, but I spend a lot of time thinking about how my current sex life compares to previous partners.

I get a lot of "Man, why the fuck did I leave Anonette, she was a dirty bitch and she used to worship my cock like a real slag constantly telling me how big I am and how horny it makes her. My current partner will barely keep it in her mouth for more than a minute. She's so shit. I hate her."

In reality I know exactly why I left Anonette and why my current partner is a better match. But in those moments I'm just consumed with this weird sort of jealousy for my past self, and a resentment that no matter how much we talk about the subject or how much I try to encourage her, my current partner will just never be the kind of enthusiastic slag I want her to be.

Such is life. Typing it out on here usually helps a lot funnily enough. Forgive me Father.
>> No. 30035 Anonymous
26th September 2020
Saturday 6:18 pm
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I am struggling to come to terms with the fact I used to be a very unpleasant person. Very spiteful, talked shit about people behind their back, engaged in gossip. I was not alone in this - my friendship group at the time all behaved like this. But in my later years I've tried to turn a new leaf, not be a judgmental prick. But I feel like I've burned a lot of bridges in my social circle. How do I show people I've changed for the better?
>> No. 30036 Anonymous
26th September 2020
Saturday 6:21 pm
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>>30035
>How do I show people I've changed for the better?
You can't force that, it'll just come across as manipulative. Just keep on doing what you're doing and the people who are willing to see your change, will.
>> No. 30037 Anonymous
26th September 2020
Saturday 7:20 pm
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>>30035

I wouldn't bother, don't go looking for forgiveness from people you've wronged in the past, it's only your ego seeking approval. If they want to give you another chance that's up to them. Instead, focus on making new mates and building a healthy social circle.

I'm pretty sure everyone's a bit of a dickhead until they're about 25 or so, anyway. I wouldn't lose sleep over it.
>> No. 30039 Anonymous
26th September 2020
Saturday 8:31 pm
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>>30038
>it sounds like the classic struggle of the id and the super ego. the super ego has a long list of by the numbers of why you should 'stick with your wife', but the id knows what rings it bell and it ain't this. The super ego might make the more sensible argument but that doesn't mean you should ignore the id, in fact most who do find they end up doing stupid shit when they are drunk that they can't really explain even to themselves why they did it.
Am I going crazy or was this really difficult to read?
>> No. 30040 Anonymous
27th September 2020
Sunday 2:36 pm
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>>30039
Your id was probably telling you to ignore it whilst your superego was saying "pay attention".
>> No. 30041 Anonymous
5th October 2020
Monday 5:09 pm
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I've seen no less than three of my social media acquantances retweet a tweet saying "do you consider yourself attractive", and them replying with "no" or some variation thereof recently. This in spite of them being attractive - and they know it, to a storm of replies saying "nooo! you're attractive!". If someone who was genuinely ugly/unattractive retwatted it, it'd just be awkward and a bit sad, so all this exists solely to do is boost the egos of people who know they are already attractive.

I know it's not something that should even cross my mind, really, but it just seems so transparent to me, and as a complete uggo (so yes, there is a jealousy factor involved), it rubs me up the wrong way.
>> No. 30042 Anonymous
5th October 2020
Monday 10:25 pm
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Oof, lads, be careful which SD cards you find in a draw while digging around for something else, because they might just have audio recordings of the only woman you've ever properly loved on them
>> No. 30052 Anonymous
8th October 2020
Thursday 11:57 am
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How do you talk about taboo sexual topics witout offending people.
>> No. 30053 Anonymous
8th October 2020
Thursday 12:09 pm
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>>30052

I think you need to be more specific. Are you trying to introduce a prudish girlfriend to bum fun? Are you asking your nan if she likes fisting at your granddad's funeral? Are you trying to chat up the kids at your local primary school?
>> No. 30054 Anonymous
8th October 2020
Thursday 2:13 pm
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>>30053
>Are you trying to chat up the kids at your local primary school?

Let's be honest, posts like >>30052 are always some form of this.
>> No. 30055 Anonymous
8th October 2020
Thursday 2:51 pm
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>>30054
It was just a joke, lad. Who knew that someone would get offended by rubbing an iPhone on a baby's fanny?
>> No. 30056 Anonymous
8th October 2020
Thursday 2:58 pm
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>>30053
>>30054
I'm trying to address my fear of sexuality, not fucking network. I'm terrified that the only people who wouldn't be offended are the type to exploit or encourage it. As threads pop up on the subjects I feel as though they're intended specifically to draw my reaction for those purposes, so I suppress it like I have done since puberty.
It was a mistake to mention here. I should try to talk to a doctor again, I just don't know what to say without wasting their time.
>> No. 30057 Anonymous
8th October 2020
Thursday 3:06 pm
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>>30056
I imagine a doctor would be able to find you a counsellor with some experience in this field.
>> No. 30058 Anonymous
8th October 2020
Thursday 5:12 pm
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>>30056
>As threads pop up on the subjects I feel as though they're intended specifically to draw my reaction
Might it help if you reminded yourself how paranoid that is? I doubt purple cares what you think about when you diddle yourself.
>> No. 30059 Anonymous
9th October 2020
Friday 7:46 pm
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>>30042
>draw
*drawer

You're from Northhumberland and I claim my 5 pounds.
>> No. 30060 Anonymous
9th October 2020
Friday 10:18 pm
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If you are afraid of sexuality, you could try talking to a whore. The have a lot of practical experience, are open minded, and I am sure will happily talk with you on any subject so long as you pay them.
>> No. 30061 Anonymous
10th October 2020
Saturday 2:29 am
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I once heard someone say that "if you win the morning, you win the day", and I've noticed that when I start my day off without an internet connection, the entire day turns out to be productive and awesome, and I go to bed filled with positive vibes that create a cascade effect for the next day. If, on the other hand, I have an internet connection, I spend much of the day chasing ephemera, in a state of mindless consumption looking for the next titilating youtube video, imageboard thread, ebay deal, reply to my own imageboard posts, etc.

I feel as if our thought processes have been hijacked by a consumerist society reliant on endless growth, and that everything around us is tailored to sabotage us as genoowine human beings while maximising us as consumers. Much of what I think is "myself" is the product of mental scaffolding erected there by external forces, but when I start dismantling it I feel dangerously close to weird feelings of depersonalition/derrealisation.

Woteva. Just some drunk rambling.
>> No. 30062 Anonymous
10th October 2020
Saturday 3:37 pm
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>>30061
I'm with you there, if i have a great morning and get shit done (whether that's work or hobbies) I tend to feel a lot better about myself. Whereas if i just 'chill out' and mess around on the internet I tend to enjoy myself past the point of pleasure if that makes sense?

I also tend to think that what a lot of people advertise as their personalities these days tend to be algorithmically tailored by social media, youtube and spending too much time on the internet. Which sounds like i'm up my own arse but I recognise myself in that too.
>> No. 30067 Anonymous
11th October 2020
Sunday 2:55 pm
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Sometimes my job requires some pretty repetitive, mindless work. I don't mind it on its own, sometimes I even enjoy the prospect of spending a couple of hours doing something that requires absolutely zero mental energy.

However some days it seems like my brain is determined to stick itself in a loop of negative thoughts. It'll either be minor sleights my partner has inflicted like not picking my parcel up for the post office even though I went to the shops for her on my day off the other week, or it'll be unresolved instances of conflict like that time I just innocently glanced over at a guy in the pub as he was rolling a fag and he made this gawping "What?" face at me and all his mates laughed. My thoughts typically then drift into what would have been cathartic things to have said or done in the heat of the moment, and violent fantasies of revenge on these random strangers.

I feel like my mental wellbeing is infested by a kind of black mold like you'd get in a dodgy low-rent flat, built out of all the tiny injustices I've suffered over the years, and that nobody cares about. I feel like I could do with a healthy outlet for aggression, but where exactly does one turn for that in today's world? I can't think of any situation where actually letting out a bit of pent up anger is allowed and not considered toxic masculinity or whatever. I was actually in a metal band before, and that did the trick, but that's a no-go during the current situation.

The only other solution is to just try and brainwash myself into not having that emotion, but ultimately, that's just not how things work, in my opinion. Bottling things up or suppressing them is exactly what tends to lead to the worst kind of legitimate neuroses if you ask me.
>> No. 30068 Anonymous
11th October 2020
Sunday 3:16 pm
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>>30067
>I feel like I could do with a healthy outlet for aggression, but where exactly does one turn for that in today's world?
Exercise.
>> No. 30069 Anonymous
11th October 2020
Sunday 4:10 pm
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>>30067
>Bottling things up or suppressing them is exactly what tends to lead to the worst kind of legitimate neuroses if you ask me.

You're absolutely right about that, have you looked into any kind of therapy? You said your brain gets stuck in loops of negative thoughts, CBT might be helpful for that and you can get it for free online/over the phone at the moment, but you may have to wait a month or so depending on your area.
>> No. 30070 Anonymous
11th October 2020
Sunday 4:56 pm
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>>30068

I've tried this, but I'm not sure it works for me. How angry can you get on a jog? Am I supposed to be screaming expletives while pumping weights? I dunno.

>>30069

Cheers, but I'm not sure it's as bad as all that. Mostly when I'm occupied it doesn't bother me, it's just those occasions where you woke up on the wrong side of the bed that day and you have a lengthy period with little else to ruminate on. If I'd got it out of my system in another manner it wouldn't be stewing like that I reckon.
>> No. 30071 Anonymous
11th October 2020
Sunday 5:04 pm
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>>30070
>Am I supposed to be screaming expletives while pumping weights?

Weights definitely make me swear, but I'm a little piece of shit.
>> No. 30072 Anonymous
11th October 2020
Sunday 6:12 pm
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>>30070

Not claiming this is healthy for a moment, but otherlad here to say I lift weights to exhaustion and then sit in a very hot sauna while thinking about exactly the kind of irritating and insulting scenarios you describe.

Afterwards I take a cold shower and it's like nothing can bother me for the rest of that day, but there is obviously a limit to the number of times you can do this per week and not hurt yourself.
>> No. 30073 Anonymous
11th October 2020
Sunday 6:28 pm
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>>23560

>no job
>no education
>mentally fucked
>economy is fucked
>life is fucked
>country may be entirely fucked my 2021

I'm just tired of all this shite. I don't want to suicide but I'm just so tired. How do you cope with such negative emotions. How do you be strong like everyone else manages to so easily? I feel like a pussyboi. I want to be a man.
>> No. 30074 Anonymous
11th October 2020
Sunday 7:04 pm
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>>30072
I'm jealous that your gym still has an open sauna. Every hotel/gym/pool ive been in since March has had theirs off limits.

Sitting in a sauna is probably the one thing I miss most - wish we had them in our gardens (like the Swedes/Finns) instead of sheds.
>> No. 30075 Anonymous
11th October 2020
Sunday 7:14 pm
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>>30073
Okay I might be totally wrong and have my head in the clouds so anyone feel free to tell me so. I get that you're in a situation that one post on the internet by a guy with different experiences isn't going to resolve, but my take is that a lot of these things are based on shame of not having 'achieved things' and worrying about the future, I'm guessing to the point where you feel no hope in improvement or you have no idea what you'd do to alleviate things. But that sense of shame tbh is a bit of a spook.

I'm saying all this stuff because I know people in your situation who do have good education and potential but are sunk in a mire of self doubt and negativity and don't move themselves forward. Your situation could be more precarious than theirs', but it's about attitude, really. I won't pretend I've got any magic cures, it's such a tough place to move on from, but I think a root of this is passiveness, being inclined to accept the hopeless perspective of things.

If you start thinking about it this way, you suddenly see passiveness everywhere in yourself and you then need to try and resist it. Cheesy mindfulness aphorisms might infuriate you but when you see your efforts to apply yourself finally start paying off they make sense. Nothing was ever guaranteed to anyone so don't feel put off by the thought of failing or losing. Every hero in history and fiction fails and loses all the time anyway.
>country may be entirely fucked my 2021
Unless you're Armenian, same boat.
>> No. 30116 Anonymous
16th October 2020
Friday 2:30 pm
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>>30056
I had a fuck off 3 day wank to gay porn and feel a lot better now. Just got to be more true to yourself, init. I'm still confused but I think it's about moving with those fluctuations of sexuality rather than to resist or deny them - it'll find a way out one way or another so i might aswell guide it in an acceptable direction.
>> No. 30117 Anonymous
16th October 2020
Friday 3:38 pm
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>>30116

This would be a lot easier if you'd just tell us what your issue is, rather than dancing around it.
>> No. 30118 Anonymous
16th October 2020
Friday 3:54 pm
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>>30117
> 3 day wank to gay porn

I don't think he is dancing around it.
>> No. 30122 Anonymous
16th October 2020
Friday 4:57 pm
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>>30118

Gayness isn't taboo any more. Either the lad is dealing with insane amounts of internalised homophobia, or there's more to it than he's letting on.

If he is just gay, then for god's sake lad, calm down. It's fine, nobody is bothered, get yourself on Grindr and dive in to the endless cock buffet.
>> No. 30124 Anonymous
16th October 2020
Friday 9:18 pm
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I'm 28 years old, virgin, never held a job. Not sure what to do or what to aim for.
>> No. 30125 Anonymous
16th October 2020
Friday 9:36 pm
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>>30124
>virgin
Probably best to leave this off your CV. I'll never understand why people qualify this; virgins are very much like vegans in this regard, at least online.

I don't add "can't drive" to any of my existential musings. Just hire a prozzie. Then, when you're no longer a virgin you can stop obsessing over it and concentrate on something more constructive.

I don't say this to be insensitive, escorts are consummate professionals who are really good at their job and part of that is making you feel comfortable with what's happening.
>> No. 30127 Anonymous
17th October 2020
Saturday 1:09 am
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>>30125
I'd advise against a prozzie for your first time. If he's like me where it was also shyness at work then he won't be able to perform with a stranger and the whole experience will be traumatic.

What he needs is a big lass from 'spoons or otherwise anyone interested. That sounds a tad cruel but you really need to lose your virginity with someone your comfortable with who can also provide the other experience in what it's like to be in a relationship. And if it turns into something more long term she might go on the pill and you can avoid having to fuck about with johnnies. I know I'll get shit for that but they're still rubbish.

Sage ticked as employment is obviously the bigger problem than girls but I have fuck all idea how it works at the minute outside of maybe volunteering with the homeless if you have the metal for it.
>> No. 30128 Anonymous
17th October 2020
Saturday 1:50 am
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>>30124
Alright well we were all virgins once and remember holding sex in a kind of mysterical reverence so telling you to get over it is useless. Instead we'll have to help you get your end away.

So come on, why you are a virgin, lad? It's unlikely to be because you're genuinely repulsive or a chore to be around for longer than a fumble so as the lad above says it must be shyness. My advice is to get Tinder or the like and just be persistent until you end up shagging someone. Obviously a lot more difficult to meet up with people at the moment but a dating app remains the most direct route to gash.
>> No. 30129 Anonymous
17th October 2020
Saturday 8:32 am
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I'm not trying to piggy back off another virgin's pity, but when you're an older virgin it's not so much that "oh know, I've never cummed inside another person", it's more that there's a lot of interpersonal and social experiences that go along with that that also haven't happened.

Maybe I'm wrong and it is just the never having done the basic, physical, act of sex for the other poster though, but it seems unlikely.
>> No. 30130 Anonymous
17th October 2020
Saturday 1:02 pm
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>>30124

You should aim to get your dick wet and obtain a job. Clearly those things are important to you.

What to do: lower your standards and be prepared to experience all kinds of emotional and physical pain. You have to start at the bottom and climb through an avalanche of shit. Literally take any job and any hole, and work your way up.
>> No. 30131 Anonymous
17th October 2020
Saturday 1:49 pm
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I'm not sure why, but I just became faintly depressed about backwards time travel being impossible. I can be pretty certain of this because if it were possible human beings would have made such a complete mess of things reality would have broken down in ways that would be halfway between the Fyre Festival and a demonic invasion from another dimension. I think about massive, looming or already upon us problems like fossil fuels, enviromental damage, world hunger and the pandemic, and I'm pretty confident time travel capable humans lay low all of human history with no hessitation or second thoughts. Maybe this is a very 2020 opinion and we'll have TNG'd up in a few hundred years.

Sage because I went from angst to speculative science-fiction.
>> No. 30132 Anonymous
19th October 2020
Monday 11:49 pm
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Don't you feel just a bit sad after spending the day with people, only to find yourself back home alone? I guess it's quite normal, really, i just feel as though something is wrong.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EodytPmki5s
>> No. 30133 Anonymous
20th October 2020
Tuesday 1:42 am
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>>30132
If you work in customer service, people are work. Personally, I relish coming home and not having to deal with them.
>> No. 30134 Anonymous
21st October 2020
Wednesday 12:22 pm
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I would like to experience an emotion other than humilation for just five fucking minutes.
>> No. 30135 Anonymous
21st October 2020
Wednesday 1:43 pm
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>>30134
Why do you feel humiliated?
>> No. 30136 Anonymous
21st October 2020
Wednesday 3:32 pm
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>>30131
I think backwards time travel can exist but you're limited only to between the time the "laser" was switched on and the present. NB because I can't really remember what I'm talking about but the research is out there.
>> No. 30137 Anonymous
21st October 2020
Wednesday 3:35 pm
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>>30136

Like Timecrimes, or Primer.

I get most of my knowledge on theoretical physics from sci-fi.
>> No. 30138 Anonymous
21st October 2020
Wednesday 3:41 pm
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>>30131
Going back in time is simply going to another dimension that is further back in time, if you were to change things in that universe and come back to the "present" (this universe) nothing would have changed.
It's not about going back and forth, it's about going sideways.

Sage because wrong thread for this.
>> No. 30139 Anonymous
21st October 2020
Wednesday 3:48 pm
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>>30138
What about a time machine that reassembles the universe to a previous state with perfect accuracy. Technically it would actually be the future but for all practical purposes you would be in the past.

Fucks sake. I only came here to share my thought on Aardvarks but that was 40 minutes ago.
>> No. 30140 Anonymous
21st October 2020
Wednesday 4:13 pm
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>>30138

Nonsense. Time is a spatial dimension just like up, down, forwards and backwards. The past and future is happening simultaneously to the present. The beginning meets the end, the outer edge meets the opposite side. It's all connected in a great big moebius strip.
>> No. 30153 Anonymous
4th November 2020
Wednesday 5:52 pm
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I missed the train to see my dad, my only mate doesn't like me anymore and I can never find trousers that I like.
>> No. 30236 Anonymous
9th December 2020
Wednesday 12:20 am
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By my own standards I've reached the absolute rock bottom of my life in terms of my aspirations and self respect; unemployed, live alone, no goals or future plans.

But everyone seems to be more comfortable and less critical of me now than they ever were before. I don't get it. I am so dead inside and I feel like my brain capacity is shrinking, I can feel my higher thoughts and problem solving fading away. The only laudable thing about me now is I am superficially more friendly because I don't care enough to argue for my truth anymore.

People like the agreeable imposter I've become, and I feel like my mind rot is reaching a point where even I won't care and soon the real me will be dead and replaced by a philosophical zombie incapable of critical thought.
>> No. 30237 Anonymous
9th December 2020
Wednesday 12:57 am
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>>30236

Plenty of people have had a taste of what it's like to have outside factors undermine your plans and aspirations this year, and it's made them come over all empathetic for the first time in their lives. That probably has something to do with it. It's not that they've just given up hope on you if that's what you're implying.

Don't worry, it won't last long. Vaccine any time now and then it's business as usual, all this will go in the memory hole until it's time to have an inquest about which minister's best mate has shares in these piss poor "Samba" analysers that detect more false positives than accurate results.
>> No. 30238 Anonymous
9th December 2020
Wednesday 11:04 am
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>>30139

This only makes sense in a simulated universe, but in that case, it would be very simple. It would be the equivalent of a "snapshot" in a virtual machine or a "saved state" in an emulator. In a material universe that makes no sense at all.
>> No. 30239 Anonymous
9th December 2020
Wednesday 5:01 pm
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>>30238

There is that theory that it's incredibly likely we already are in a simulated universe, and that any given universe is more than likely a simulation, because given the scale of time involved it'd be an incredible feat of improbability that we're in the original universe.

I don't quite buy it because I think there are real-world limits on technological developments and feel that lots of hypothetical sci-fi technological developments will actually turn out to be impossible in real life; or at least impractical to the level that nobody, even in the infinite vastness of existence, will have bothered.
>> No. 30240 Anonymous
9th December 2020
Wednesday 7:43 pm
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>>30239

The statistical probability that I only think that I'm thinking and that therefore I may only possibly be is one of the few things that gets me out of bed of a morning.
>> No. 30243 Anonymous
11th December 2020
Friday 9:14 pm
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I feel as though i have no personal rolemodel, and doubly bad for feeling sorry for myself because plenty of people are going through the same shit or worse and use it as fuel for success.
>> No. 30249 Anonymous
15th December 2020
Tuesday 5:46 pm
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There's a small community around [interest] on twitch and it's making me sad. There are lots of kids and teenagers of varying ability doing it and that's fine, I don't know how serious they are about it but they're having fun.
But there are a lot older men doing it too. They are, without exception, very bad at it. But all seem convinced they're the next big thing. Just waiting for you to join their discord, pay for exclusive content from their patreon, follow them on all their social media pages that currently nobody follows. They'll stream for hours, to nobody, explaining their process at length. Sometimes they upload this to YouTube, where they also get no views. You can see they've been at it for years. I dunno, man.
>> No. 30250 Anonymous
15th December 2020
Tuesday 6:23 pm
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>>30249

why is this a source of "Minor angst and existential dread" for you?
>> No. 30251 Anonymous
15th December 2020
Tuesday 7:48 pm
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>>30250

Any part of the combination of arrested development, failed-dreams-cum-Sisyphean-tasks, egotism and how disappointed in their own achievements they may be or become.
>> No. 30252 Anonymous
15th December 2020
Tuesday 8:55 pm
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>>30251

I don't wan't to get all "BUT THERE'S STARVIN KIDS IN AFRICA AN' YOU'RE MOANIN ABOUT THIS" on you, but unless this is causing serious disruption to yourself or someone that you care about, you really should try to focus on it a little less. Some things are ephemeral, and it can actually be invigorating to just go "fuck it, I'll leave them to it".
>> No. 30253 Anonymous
15th December 2020
Tuesday 9:01 pm
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>>30252

I'm not particularly focused on it, it's like seeing a depressing TV show or a sad song. I'm allowed to have feelings about things, aren't I? See the "Minor" part of the thread title.
>> No. 30254 Anonymous
15th December 2020
Tuesday 9:18 pm
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>>30253
>minor

OK teenlad.
>> No. 30255 Anonymous
15th December 2020
Tuesday 9:26 pm
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>>30254

?
>> No. 30256 Anonymous
15th December 2020
Tuesday 9:40 pm
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>>30251
Have you been watching Triangle ?
>> No. 30257 Anonymous
15th December 2020
Tuesday 9:48 pm
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>>30256
What's that?
>> No. 30258 Anonymous
15th December 2020
Tuesday 10:06 pm
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>>30257
Some film with that bird from Home and Away, and it mentions that greek boulder chap you mentioned.
>> No. 30259 Anonymous
15th December 2020
Tuesday 10:17 pm
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>>30258
Oh I have seen that, years ago. It's not very good.
>> No. 30260 Anonymous
15th December 2020
Tuesday 10:55 pm
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>>30238
>In a material universe that makes no sense at all.

Beyond the sheer energy and magic involved I don't see what the problem is.

>>30239
It wouldn't exactly be hard for a civilization nearing the heat death of the universe to simulate life on Earth. Just a case of raw computation and being realistic on requirements like you're programming an open-world game.

You could always be a forgotten brain in a jar imagining all this from your state of utter mental anguish after all.
>> No. 30261 Anonymous
16th December 2020
Wednesday 2:16 pm
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>>30249
What is it, perpetual energy or something?
>> No. 30262 Anonymous
16th December 2020
Wednesday 7:13 pm
30262 Please don't ban me mods, we're riffing.
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>>30261
Thermodynamics oldheads be like:
>> No. 30263 Anonymous
19th December 2020
Saturday 2:08 am
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I really am a shell these days, a shade. I'm so empty I daren't go out in the wind lest I blow away. This occurs to me sometimes and the realisation is almost unbearable, so I just bury it under nonsense and move on. Decades more of this non-existence, what's the point?
>> No. 30280 Anonymous
21st December 2020
Monday 1:26 am
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>>30263

You can't go through life thinking that there's supposed to be a point. You should be doing whatever you would be doing whatever you would be doing if you didn't have to put up with all this bullshit, not because there's a point to it but because it's your nature. You think birds tweer and bunnies hope because there's a point? They do it because they know that's what they are and they're living it.
>> No. 30281 Anonymous
21st December 2020
Monday 2:38 am
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>>30280

That clearly is not enough otherwise humanity wouldn't all have been in denial about it for 60,000 until nietzsche came along, and he wouldn't have been so depressed by his own revelation.

Birds tweet because they are down to fuck. Bunnies hop because their legs are grotesquely distorted by the need to out run the things that will murder them. You can't play the there is no point and then say but everything is so pretty and in balance because it isn't. Everything is the result of trying to survive in a world that hates it where a third of everything would be much happier if they never existed in the first place, another third murders it for it's own selfish survival and the final third has a complete indifference.

Life without a purpose is at best a cruel joke told by nobody to no one, never forget that.
>> No. 30282 Anonymous
21st December 2020
Monday 5:22 am
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>>30281

Nihilism can actually be a very positive outlook. Instead of letting it become existentially terrifying that nothing matters, it should come as a huge relief that nothing matters. Neitzsche was just a morose cunt.

If you truly can't see that side of the coin then what you need to do is give your life a purpose. Nobody's going to do it for you. I've always said it before that people need a hobby, something they're emotionally invested in, something that brings action to their idle moments instead of wasting the minutes waiting for the inevitable staring at the screen. Really that's what it comes down to, having a purpose.

When I was younger I truly felt it was my purpose to make music, I was arrogant and narcissistic to think what I created was important to the world. Now, of course I don't wish to tear down my own achievements, I did produce some pretty sick material. Played some good gigs, got a couple of shags out of it and met some "idols" who turned out to be bellends, as they always do. But as a grown up I realise it was nothing special, and there's nothing out of the ordinary about me, I'm just some nerd who learned guitar.

Nevertheless refining that skill still gives me a sense of purpose, and it likely will do until the day I die. I have reasoned that what I actually enjoy in life is exactly that- Learning and refining a skill, entirely for its own sake. Ultimately, when you really boil it down, human existence is nothing but a series of elaborate rituals in between eating, shitting and fucking; the only purpose in life is to enjoy the bits in between by whatever means necessary.
>> No. 30283 Anonymous
21st December 2020
Monday 7:55 am
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>>30282
>Instead of letting it become existentially terrifying that nothing matters, it should come as a huge relief that nothing matters. Neitzsche was just a morose cunt.

And this is what people who don't understand Nietzsche say.
The whole point of the Übermensch was that nihilism was only the first stage of despair that people will go through after realising that there is no God, but that people must move beyond that and embrace their freedom to create their own meaning and own path to happiness.

His problem was that he didn't practice what he preached, but that probably had more to do with the horrible illnesses he was wracked with all his life; syphilis and PTSD probably being the main ones, but he also seemed to have a plethora of other illnesses and injuries with long term effects.
>> No. 30288 Anonymous
21st December 2020
Monday 6:01 pm
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It took me six hours to get into the shower today, what's the point? What, am I going have a "career" am I? Or "mates"? I'm just lazy non-person.
>> No. 30289 Anonymous
21st December 2020
Monday 6:22 pm
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>>30283

Okay, but isn't that basically exactly what I said in the end?
>> No. 30291 Anonymous
21st December 2020
Monday 7:26 pm
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Sorry about this lads, it’s going to be a rambling one.

I suppose none of these feelings are novel or new -- as a matter of fact it seems to be a topic this very thread is discussing -- and especially in These Uncertain Times™ people are feeling them more, but that’s just it. I’m absolutely dreading going back to normal. I had somewhat of a ‘careful what you wish for’ moment in March – I was talking to some friends about how I really couldn’t stomach the idea of 5 days in the office, 2 days weekend, punctuated by the odd week off here and there for the rest of my life (or, at least, the useful part of it) – two weeks later we were all working from home and everything had been turned on its head.

Eventually, things will go back to normal. Even though I work in quite a progressive workplace where they were flirting the idea of partial home working for all even before all This™ happened, it doesn’t change the fact that it’s still five days of working, forever. It feels like a fucking life sentence, and there’s nothing I can really do to escape it. It’s not that I don’t like the job I have now; as a matter of fact, I will never, ever find a better one – it’s in the public interest (rather than shareholders), it’s ethical, mostly open-source, with dispensation given for training pretty much whenever you want it, and attitudes to sickness and mental health in a league of their own. It’s engaging and has a lot of variety. But, that doesn’t change the fact it’s still work and still something I have to do if I want to keep living from now until I’m ready to die. I don’t live for the job and wouldn’t want to – defining yourself by the labour you do sickens me.

I take as much time off work as I can, and travel when I’m able (and can afford) to. But usually? I get home from a day of staring at one screen to stare at another, being progressively less interested in consuming the same bits of entertainment I was five or ten years ago, or mindlessly watching middle aged men take apart old computers on YouTube. Sure, when things do go Back To Normal™, I could theoretically go poison myself at £4 a pint, but everyone who was in the same city as me before all this isn’t, and probably won’t be coming back. I can’t play sports, and few of my workmates are of similar age or share any common interests with me.

I’m now in my late twenties. If I was going to do anything really useful or important with my life, I would have done it by now. If I was going to invent something revolutionary, excel in a field, or become a rockstar, it’d have already happened. So, that train has left the station and I’ve got to realise that I’m not special and just have to run down the clock. Sure, there are exceptions to that but they are just that – exceptions, rare.

So, what is there to live for? Whilst I wish I was, I’m not religious. There’s no end goal, no prize to eye. Evolutionarily, I’m here to survive and procreate, but I’m a failed specimen, only alive because of the frameworks humanity has constructed. My joints are fucked, I’m not particularly attractive, and I eat far too much. Add to that the fact I’m almost certainly moderately autistic means I’ve no chance of, evolutionarily speaking, attracting a mate. I can’t find the exact study now but I believe it was conducted in the US, men who were a virgin at age 26 only have about a 2% chance of losing it after that point. Rationally, I’m fairly resigned to that fact, but the urge is part of my core biological programming, and it’s pretty fucking hard to ignore that. Even so, I wouldn’t want to bring a kid onto this dying planet.

I wasn’t born rich, there’s no trust fund. I have a masters in engineering; I could probably sell my soul to some fucking scum bank or oil company and grind my way up to the good life at the cost of killing people and/or the planet even more, but even so it’d still be years of the 5/2 for the chance to maybe retire at 45 or 50? And then do what with the rest of my days?

I was born at what Fukuyama said was the End of History. Communism had fallen, liberal democracy coexisted hand-in-hand neoliberal capitalism, and everything was going to get better for everyone forever; peace for all. What has instead happened is the complete breakdown of a lot of the agreed bits of the social contract agreed on by my recent ancestors. You got married and had kids, and it was generally agreed the world would get better. It hasn’t.

I don’t even know what I’m asking for here. It’s just been weighing me the fuck down over the past few days – brought on by the fact I took three weeks off over Christmas, before realising I’d run out of stuff to do on Saturday afternoon. I suppose a few of things I’ve described above (little interest in entertainment, feelings of hopelessness) could be described as the Old Depresso, but all I hear is they’ll give you pills that make you feel nothing at all, and I don’t really see that as an improvement.
>> No. 30293 Anonymous
21st December 2020
Monday 7:28 pm
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>>30291
Addendum: I have hobbies; photography, making music, but even they can't fill all this blank time. Ideally I'd just spend all my time travelling the world and taking photos. But I can't, and I can't take photographs all the time, especially when I can't do anywhere.
>> No. 30294 Anonymous
21st December 2020
Monday 7:40 pm
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>>30291

There's a lot to address in there and I don't have the energy so I'm just going to engage with one cherry-picked part of it.
>I’m now in my late twenties. If I was going to do anything really useful or important with my life, I would have done it by now. If I was going to invent something revolutionary, excel in a field, or become a rockstar, it’d have already happened. So, that train has left the station and I’ve got to realise that I’m not special and just have to run down the clock. Sure, there are exceptions to that but they are just that – exceptions, rare.
Firstly, that's not remotely true. Plenty of people achieve big things later in life, probably about as many as do early in life. Secondly, so what? Why is any of that more important than a life well lived? There are plenty of famous and/or important people (today and historically) who had utterly miserable lives that they'd have happily changed for comfortable mediocrity. See if Turing would switch his fame and achievements just to be able to gay it up in peace. My eyes just fell on another sentence in your post which seems related;
>I was born at what Fukuyama said was the End of History.
Both you and Fukyumama have extremely egotistical weltanschauung, which is probably at least in part why you're so unhappy. You're all about big achievements and being able to influence the path of history or whatever.
I'm not going to tell you all your other issues aren't valid things to struggle with but you'll definitely benefit from switching your reality tunnel up a bit.
>> No. 30295 Anonymous
21st December 2020
Monday 7:53 pm
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>>30294
Potentially so. I was raised being told I was special though; on the gifted and talented register, school reports saying I should be at Oxbridge, the lot. The initial cricket bat to the face was when I realised a lot of that was bollocks, but it's still a lot to get over.

Even so, that's not really why I'm whinging - it's less about being important and more about not having the crushing stretch of 5 on/2 off with the occasionally flash of difference until I'm too old to. Excelling or inventing or whatever is a ticket out of there and I feel like I've missed my chance. I don't have the next Apple or Paypal or what have you in me.
>> No. 30296 Anonymous
21st December 2020
Monday 8:27 pm
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>>30295

Self actuation, self determination, freedom. You don't want to work for The Man, you want to be The Man. Get up when you want and do as much work as you fancy, knowing it's your own fault if you can't pay the bills at the end of the month- But beholden to nobody else.

Being able to live this way would be the dream for me. But I don't have the skills or social grit to live that way. I really envy my missus- She draws hentai for a living, basically, taking commissions of whatever deviant fetish people want drawn and making a very handsome sum for it, in my view. I would love to be in her position. And yet she still grapples with the very same existential dread, she hates the pressure of it, the lack of reliability you have with a steady wage earning job. Grass isn't always greener and all that.

My theory is we have the misfortune of being born in a generation raised on unrealistic expectations. All the TV and films we watched growing up featured groups of people who lead mysteriously comfortable lives in places like New York, while their jobs were off-screen and barely mentioned, able to spend the majority of their time getting up to whatever hi-jinks that week's plot requires.

There's really nothing to be done other than coming to terms with it I suppose. The old cliche that any job is only as good as the people you work with, and I find that to hold true, because working with people you feel like you're actually mates with and have a laugh with significantly lessens the sheer existential terror of the 40 odd year stretch of Mondays to Fridays that lie before you. But of course, even that's only temporary, the group eventually moves on and falls apart.

Sage for probably not really helping.
>> No. 30297 Anonymous
21st December 2020
Monday 8:27 pm
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>>30295

Then you need to find a way to adjust your reality tunnel to be okay with the sort of life that doesn't involve the rat-race so much. There are lots of lifestyles that you might be happier with, if you aren't worried so much about being who you're 'supposed' to be.

I'd suggest you try volunteering to help feed the homeless or something as that's a way to create far more tangible good than whatever your vague aspirations are, but that's... difficult right now.
>> No. 30298 Anonymous
21st December 2020
Monday 8:38 pm
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>>30291

>I’m now in my late twenties. If I was going to do anything really useful or important with my life, I would have done it by now. If I was going to invent something revolutionary, excel in a field, or become a rockstar, it’d have already happened.

At the age of 26, Jimmy Carr was a devoutly Catholic virgin who had just been made redundant. At 29, Sarah Millican was working at the Job Centre and had moved back in with her parents after a messy divorce. At 32, Leonard Cohen was a failed poet who, in an act of desperation, moved to America to try his hand as a folk singer. At 38, Gregory Porter was a chef who sang in nightclubs on his days off. At 48, Charles Bukowski was just a postman with a drink problem.

Unless your dream in life is to be an Olympic athlete, age is irrelevant - most people just give up too soon. If there's any secret to life, it's that. Knock the self-pity on the head, make a plan and do something. If that doesn't come to anything, make a different plan and do something else.
>> No. 30299 Anonymous
21st December 2020
Monday 9:02 pm
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>>30298

I don't know how much good it'll do him to just postpone giving up on a moonshot dream of being famous and important when that itself, as vague and ill-defined as the dream is, is clearly an issue.
>> No. 30302 Anonymous
22nd December 2020
Tuesday 1:37 pm
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I just can't seem to get a job this year. I'm in tech, so it's supposed to be easy. I get a lot of interviews, but they rarely go anywhere. Companies often expect me to spend hours working on a project for them, or worse, to spend hours on a zoom call working on a project for them while some of their people watch and silently judge. Feedback is often nonexistent or worthless, sometimes it just adds to the frustration "Technically good, but you didn't answer our HR 'tell us about a time when you...' well enough" they actually told me to memorise some canned stories, which is admitting to the artificiality of the process, it blows my fucking mind.

The format is also a problem. I have to sit on calls with these people who smile and nod, and then get the rejection via a recruiter, I think that feels like being rejected from the tribe or something to my mammalian brain.

It's starting to do my head in.
>> No. 30303 Anonymous
22nd December 2020
Tuesday 2:47 pm
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>>30302
Have you considered working for the public sector? Pay is what it is but you don't have to deal with recruiters and the working conditions are much better.
https://tinyurl.com/ybn8gugg
>> No. 30304 Anonymous
22nd December 2020
Tuesday 4:40 pm
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>>30303
But he'd have to deal with civil servants.
>> No. 30305 Anonymous
22nd December 2020
Tuesday 6:23 pm
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>>30304
If he didn't want to deal with indolent morons who can't be trusted to switch the computer on then he shouldn't have chosen career in IT.
>> No. 30306 Anonymous
22nd December 2020
Tuesday 7:00 pm
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As someone who works for local government. I can confirm that the majority of the staff can barely use their work computers. So I imagine our IT department must have been close to completely breaking down having to remotely support certain individuals when we went into lockdown.
>> No. 30307 Anonymous
22nd December 2020
Tuesday 9:09 pm
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>>30306
Oh it's been hell for help desks - ours have done pretty well, sending people screens, chairs, stuff like that to make it easier. But we had a day a couple of months ago where someone pushed an update to a security tool and blue-screened 500 laptops - that was tricky to talk people through fixing..
>> No. 30308 Anonymous
23rd December 2020
Wednesday 10:13 am
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>>30306
Seconded. I work for the NHS. You have a lot of staff who are amazing at the care side of things, but cannot seem to get the basics of technology.
I spent the first three weeks of lockdown running back to back 1:1 sessions with staff teaching them how to use Teams.
>> No. 30309 Anonymous
23rd December 2020
Wednesday 12:18 pm
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>>30308
>Seconded. I work for the NHS

NHS EducationLad here, I'm sick to my sphincter of people not being able to use ESR properly because our HR department is apprently too thick (or lazy) to fix the Staff hierarchy or sort out account details in a timely fashion. In the meantime, we have people getting nagged by their supervisors that they can't book onto mandatory training, and supervisors dumping lists of Staff with requests to book them onto things. Normally we could handle this, but for some reason we are also dealing with a deluge of requests and administration for Fit Testing on FFP3 / Respirator masks and the associated data collection, analysis and presentation, despite having Infection Control and Information departments who are presumably having a fucking holiday while someone else is handling it.

I know ESR is a heap of shit, but we DO have systems, and they don't work partly because thick / lazy people can't or won't use them. Sage for /101/ shit.
>> No. 30310 Anonymous
23rd December 2020
Wednesday 2:15 pm
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Well, I've fucked it. Haven't bought any gifts, haven't even rang anyone to make any plans. I am completely out of it. I can barely intake liquids, I feel like I'm shutting down.
>> No. 30311 Anonymous
23rd December 2020
Wednesday 3:32 pm
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>>30309
One of my main irritations is trying to find the right person to talk to within a trust. People don't update their details and therefore the admins are the only people who know where anyone is (and keep that info on a piece of paper in a locked drawer where no-one else can find it when they are on holiday. I've worked for a trust where I contacted the HR department for a list of people in my directorate to be told "we haven't got one. Your admin (me) usually gives us a list of people."
Moan/rant/whinge over. I feel for you NHS EnglandLad.
>> No. 30312 Anonymous
23rd December 2020
Wednesday 5:27 pm
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>>30302

I'm currently interviewing candidates for a senior developer job... and I'm sure I have rejected plenty of perfectly good people. Its really hard to predict how someone will perform on the job by reading their CV (and yes, test project code) and chatting for an hour or two. So there are inevitably many false negatives. Sorry.
>> No. 30313 Anonymous
23rd December 2020
Wednesday 9:14 pm
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>>30309

Perhaps you can tell me why I've got to e-mail Sandra every time I complete a mandatory training module so she can "update my file", shouldn't there be something on her end to let her know? Or is this just some specific quirk of my organisation's apparent over-50s only HR team?
>> No. 30314 Anonymous
23rd December 2020
Wednesday 10:53 pm
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>>30313

Something in OLM is utterly fucked and the gibbons at IBM / E-Learning for Healthcare don't know or care enough to find out why. For now the best advice is to get a screenshot of your results page as evidence of completion. I'm not happy with this method, but it's one of the least terrible things we have to do to keep the Execs off our arses.
>> No. 30326 Anonymous
2nd January 2021
Saturday 7:44 pm
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Why do women find it so hard to just be honest? I'm hardly new to the vicious world of dating, it's far from my first rodeo and I know all the pitfalls and caveats etc. But at the same time I find it increasingly difficult not to become embittered by the absolute fucking incapability of any woman I have ever spoken to to give you so much as "I'm sorry love, I don't think you're my type after all" rather than just randomly ghosting you one day.

It's just rude frankly. I understand they probably get a lot of harassment of nutters, but they might not if they had the decency to just tell you where you went wrong instead of leading you on for two weeks before abruptly cutting out communication. If you get stroppy after that fair enough, hit block, but what infuriates me is when they go from enthusiastic to dead silence literally overnight.

What's the problem?
>> No. 30327 Anonymous
2nd January 2021
Saturday 8:12 pm
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>>30326
A lot of people like to avoid conflict. A lot of people take rejection badly. I can see why people wouldn't put themselves in a potentially negative situation if they don't have to.
>> No. 30328 Anonymous
2nd January 2021
Saturday 8:15 pm
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>>30326
I'm not sure to be honest. I have a mate who has the same issues, and I tried to help him deal with it, but it has proven difficult. In the defence of the birds that keep on ghosting him, he is extremely needy. Whenever he starts a relationship, he just disappears from all the lads, and spends every waking moment with his bird. I would assume it is difficult to break-up with someone like that. Especially if they feel entitled to some form of closure.

I might not be the best person for this, since I ghost people a lot. I prefer it that way.
>> No. 30329 Anonymous
2nd January 2021
Saturday 8:57 pm
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>>30327
>>30328

When it's just some idle conversation that's clearly not going anywhere, fair enough. When it gradually grinds to a halt and both of you clearly don't give a fuck, fair enough. What I don't get is when they're actually into it, and presumably therefore into you*, and then it just stops dead suddenly and abruptly without warning. That only says to me "I matched someone fitter and I'm too lazy to even make up an excuse to close this conversation."

Again it's not my first time in this game so I like to think I've got pretty good at reading the signals. Generally, if a bird is into you, they reply, and they reply quickly; no ifs ands or buts. When a lass likes you, they could be at their mum's funeral and still text back immediately- When you're waiting hours between, that's how you know not to get your hopes up. So, I doubt it's not just me getting the wrong idea over someone who wasn't really interested, I mean when they're genuinely showing signs of interest, and then just suddenly stop dead. That's fucking frustrating.

Two lefts have never made a right chaps.
>> No. 30330 Anonymous
3rd January 2021
Sunday 12:28 pm
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>>30329

Otherlad here. Just out of curiosity, what age range are you, and where are you meeting these people?

If it's a non-committal culture like Tinder, then people almost treat it as standard for conversations to stop suddenly and without explanation. I agree it's a horrible practice, but most people don't consider the full implications of what they're doing.

Sometimes it's a change of heart, sometimes it's all for the sake of an ego-boost. It's probably best on not to speculate on the reason why it happens in each specific case, but you might just have to accept it and take it on as "part of the game".
>> No. 30331 Anonymous
5th January 2021
Tuesday 2:24 am
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I wish I could make friends and focus on tasks, but sadly I'm weird and stupid.

Yours Anon, aged 6.
>> No. 30339 Anonymous
11th January 2021
Monday 7:54 pm
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>>30331
I can't help with the first, but on the second one, I've recently been enjoying something called The Pomodoro Technique; is easy and works quite well.
>> No. 30340 Anonymous
12th January 2021
Tuesday 11:50 am
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I was thinking earlier "what should I do before having a shower?" but I realised that I've got nothing to do before getting a shower, so the tug of war in my brain about being clean is literally all I've got and it's still a struggle. Pathetic.

>>30339
Perhaps it's worth a try.
>> No. 30341 Anonymous
12th January 2021
Tuesday 12:05 pm
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>>30339
Yeah definitely, Pomodoro doesn't work for me but it does for lots of people.
>> No. 30369 Anonymous
3rd February 2021
Wednesday 12:57 pm
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I'm such an embarrassing, weird, sad, pathetic little "man" that the world would truly be no worse - nay, better if I had never existed.

I'm too much of a pussy to ever hurt myself so I just have to (deservedly) suffer. Every time I let myself relax and stop punishing myself for being such a cunt I, well, am a cunt.

Not even a proud cunt, or a 'principled' cunt. Just a fucking pathetic little worm cunt who slags people and things off because that sort of deflection away from my own insecurities is all I know. The sort of cunt who when I don't stop myself will tell small lies to make myself look better when simply I just didn't have any fucking respect for my surroundings. The sort of cunt who finds criticism cheap but praise expensive. The sort of absolute fucking cunt who always brings the mood down. I don't want to be like this but unless I fight every day I am one. I don't have to fortitude to do that, and I don't have the courage to do what I should. I am, literally and figuratively, everything I hate. Every time I find myself doing these things the level of hate just fucking grows, yet I don't stop.

All I can say is, if past lives are a thing, I must have been an even worse cunt in that one. What a fucking pathetic disgrace I am. I'm just fucking tired it of it all, but as I say, I deserve it.
>> No. 30370 Anonymous
3rd February 2021
Wednesday 2:00 pm
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>>30369
Hypocrite that you are, for you trust yourself, whom you think is a cunt, to tell you that you are a cunt.

Cuntishness is a social construct. You need the input of others to negotiate a shared understanding of whether you truly are a cunt or if it's all in your head. Without that, you simply cannot trust this subjective self-assessment you've made.

You don't mention any other people in your post. Perhaps you pathologically avoid social interaction in order to spare others from your supposed cuntery, but instead starve yourself of any useful appraisal.

So tell us, who are the people in your life, and what has happened to make you think you've been some kind of Hitler to them, such that "the world would truly be better if I had never existed"?
>> No. 30371 Anonymous
3rd February 2021
Wednesday 6:36 pm
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>>30370
The incident that drove all this was:
I have a friend whom currently I play a lot of online games with. When I were a teenlad I had a massive problem with just... shit talking anything I personally didn't enjoy. That's never gone away, really, but I usually manage to surpress it and tell myself to let other people enjoy things. Thing is, I let my guard down and when he was telling me about football stuff, which as a friend I should at least listen to even if it's not really my thing.

I ended up basically saying that football was shit and it's full of racists and got into a big argument because, rightly so, he listens to me talk about the stuff I like but he's not interested in, but doesn't shit all over it, so it's not right for me to do so. Unless it's smack or recreational murder, you shouldn't dampen the things people are passionate about.

I've driven friends away in the past for doing the same or similar - they'll send me creative things they did and whilst I'll never say that what they did is shit, I often say something which could be interpreted as a criticism of it out of hand - I'll say "cool, sounds like xyz" which seems so dismissive and unsupportive. Again, if I catch myself doing it I'll stop myself, but when I was an edgy teenlad I prided myself in knowing everything and having heard it all before.

I have always found it really difficult to give sincere praise - it took me about 3 years to be able to say thank you to people. Even when I try and do give praise I worry it sounds hollow - it does to me.

Even when explaining events like this to other people I just can't help but be economical with the truth so it sounds like it wasn't me just being a prick, becauseI cannot physically bear to be honest about it.

I've brought so many people down for things they enjoy and that's just pathetic.
>> No. 30372 Anonymous
3rd February 2021
Wednesday 7:07 pm
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>>30371
Have you tried to apologise? It would probably go a long way to improve the situation with your friend.
>> No. 30373 Anonymous
3rd February 2021
Wednesday 7:27 pm
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>>30372
Oh yes, I apologise all the time, but it doesn't change the fact I did it.
>> No. 30374 Anonymous
3rd February 2021
Wednesday 7:47 pm
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>>30371

Sincere praise when you aren't used to it feels deeply uncomfortable, not just for you but to the people you give it to. A lot of my friends seem like they would rather interpret my complements as back handed or sarcastic then take them at face value. If it is a mental sickness (which it could well be) it is one that large swathes of the population suffer from.

I'd say paying complements to people is a real window into how damaged people are. Sincerity reveals the damage and defection. Keep at it lad you'll pass through the middle of pain where you reflect on your own failings and come out the other side a better person, you have the power within you.
>> No. 30375 Anonymous
4th February 2021
Thursday 6:23 pm
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Cognitive behavioural therapists are all "don't be sad, just think about rainbows, dude!" Meanwhile my brain's doing fucking doughnuts in muck spreader the moment anything puts me off-balance.
>> No. 30376 Anonymous
4th February 2021
Thursday 6:29 pm
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>>30375
I found this hard too and I'm now pursuing proper therapy because I think I'm too far gone. CBT would have been great 5-10 years ago.
>> No. 30377 Anonymous
5th February 2021
Friday 1:10 am
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>>30375

I'd say healthy and regular sleep/ exercise did more for me then CBT ever did.
>> No. 30378 Anonymous
5th February 2021
Friday 1:15 am
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>>30377
As a counter point, this has not been my experience.
>> No. 30379 Anonymous
5th February 2021
Friday 8:33 am
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>>30374
The only thing that I would say truly winds me up is people taking me being open, honest and kind as some sort of angle or perceive it as insincere. I've worked really hard to build a friendship circle where that doesn't happen, and when I behave like I would towards them towards friends I'm not as close with or acquaintances it's a coin flip of whether or not they react well to it.

There is one lad I went to school with in my town who tells people down the pub not to trust me as I'm "too nice". I think I bought him a pint once, but otherwise I've barely interacted with him.

I'm free with my money too. I will buy a round and not expect one back, and it does make people extremely uncomfortable, but it's how I was raised to behave.
>> No. 30380 Anonymous
5th February 2021
Friday 9:47 am
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>>30379
Are you a northerner down south?
>> No. 30381 Anonymous
5th February 2021
Friday 10:00 am
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>>30380
I am a northerner, in so far as I live in Scotland, but It's not just Londoners and their ilk. Even people from Hull are weird when you buy enough pizza to share.

It's not poisoned, I'm not going to ask you to go half's; just take a slice if you want one, for Christ's sake.
>> No. 30382 Anonymous
5th February 2021
Friday 12:26 pm
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>>30378

That's a fair counter point. It turned out for me that was what was missing for me to make me a functional human being. I see it as some sort of need I had that I previously couldn't identify and later discovered and was able to fill that hole, that need could very well be different for others, different causes same symptoms.


>>30379

>The only thing that I would say truly winds me up is people taking me being open, honest and kind as some sort of angle or perceive it as insincere.

Well that's the insight into how people are damaged that I was talking about, I don't think that has anything to do with your behaviour or you it is all their baggage. It seems to be a strange inverse reaction to a positive situation, if I could go full arm chair psychologist for a bit, I think it is a defence against past trauma, they recognise situations they feel positive about as times where they have been most hurt in the past because they let their guard down and put thier trust in someone and they don't want to be hurt again, it is essentially PTSD for the common man.
>> No. 30383 Anonymous
5th February 2021
Friday 2:41 pm
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>>30381
>>30379

People are suspicious of your generosity perhaps, but that isn't the real reason they dislike it. You're breaking one of the more subtle taboos of our society by being generous in a way that makes them feel insecure that they can't or wouldn't match it themselves. You're humbling them and they don't like it, unsurprisingly.

Are you middle class mixing with a working class crowd? Otherwise it is just a bit oblivious of you honestly.
>> No. 30384 Anonymous
5th February 2021
Friday 3:53 pm
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>>30383

https://www.economist.com/science-and-technology/2010/08/19/too-good-to-live

There was an article in the Economist about this a few years ago.
>> No. 30385 Anonymous
5th February 2021
Friday 3:58 pm
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>>30384
fuck's sake it's behind a paywall.

You should be able to get the original paper via Sci-Hub from the following link:
https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2010-14719-007

>An initial study investigating tolerance of group members who abuse a public good surprisingly showed that unselfish members (those who gave much toward the provision of the good but then used little of the good) were also targets for expulsion from the group. Two follow-up studies replicated this and ruled out explanations grounded in the target being seen as confused or unpredictable. A fourth study suggested that the target is seen by some as establishing an undesirable behavior standard and by others as a rule breaker. Individuals who formed either perception expressed a desire for the unselfish person to be removed from the group. Implications are discussed.

It's a similar phenomenon to when you're new in a job and you work really hard and professionally and make sure everyone can see it, but older established colleagues react negatively because by setting the standard of expectation higher than the mean others risk looking bad by comparison.

Or when you're eating a meal with friends and don't eat so much, but they're a fatty so they have a go at you for eating like a bird.

This all happens sub-consciously for most people to the point that not only are they not aware of it, but they wouldn't become aware of it even if you pointed it out to them. Also don't do this, people don't like being psychoanalyzed at either the individual, or group level
>> No. 30386 Anonymous
5th February 2021
Friday 4:01 pm
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>>30385
bollocks to paywalls.
>> No. 30387 Anonymous
5th February 2021
Friday 4:22 pm
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>>30385 >>30386
With the Economist you just need to disable Javascript and the paywall never activates.
>> No. 30388 Anonymous
5th February 2021
Friday 4:34 pm
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>>30385
>>30386
>>30387

*ahem*

https://github.com/iamadamdev/bypass-paywalls-chrome
>> No. 30389 Anonymous
5th February 2021
Friday 4:38 pm
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>>30383
>>30385
People really are their own worst enemies aren't they. I'm not the guy that's been talking about this but these posts answered some questions for me. I have to say though, it seems incredibly unfair on the people like us who don't compare themselves to others and just genuinely want to help people. Bullshit like this is so tiring.
>> No. 30390 Anonymous
5th February 2021
Friday 5:05 pm
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>>30388
I don't need to install an extension bundled with Google Analytics (undisclosed) to disable Javascript for me.
>> No. 30391 Anonymous
5th February 2021
Friday 5:54 pm
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>>30389

The key is you can help people or show generosity subtly. The mistake otherlad is making is to do it in a visible way, which the group will inevitably pick up on and think he's showing off or some such. Am oversimplification, but still.

I don't want to sound like I think I've got it all sussed out, because I by no means do; but one of the lessons I've learned in life is that you'll always be better accepted and more respected by people if you can relate to them on their level. Don't present yourself as smarter, or richer, or more talented than them- And if you can't hide those things, you must be humble about them. People just generally don't like feeling as though they're beneath someone else.

I mean, I certainly don't, do you?
>> No. 30392 Anonymous
5th February 2021
Friday 6:07 pm
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>>30390
A lot of peeps on here will though.
>> No. 30393 Anonymous
6th February 2021
Saturday 12:29 am
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Gosh, maybe, to quote Mega64's Neon Genesis Evangelion In Five Minutes "maybe if I decide not to be a little bitch, I don't have to be".
>> No. 30394 Anonymous
14th February 2021
Sunday 4:56 pm
30394 /emo/ because it's a question of paranoia and peace-of-mind
Windy.com and various other sites and utilities - each of which i could actually use productively - have misteriously broke after I applies the reccomended changes from https://www.privacytools.io/browsers/#addons

Am i gimping my experience unnecessarily?

(A good day to you Sir!)
>> No. 30395 Anonymous
15th February 2021
Monday 12:18 am
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>>30394

I'm going to assume you were banned for your grammar not the post topic itself so I'm just going to say that if you want to start messing around with privacy related browser plugins then you need to have a basic idea of what you're doing. From the recommended plugins listed there's it's possible that disabling uBlock Origin and Decentraleyes on the affected sites might help.

In future probably safer to take it to /g/, though.
>> No. 30396 Anonymous
15th February 2021
Monday 6:06 am
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I hate being a pathetic lonely failure, it's rubbish.
>> No. 30397 Anonymous
15th February 2021
Monday 6:09 am
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>>30396

It's 2021, everyone is a pathetic lonely failure right now.
>> No. 30398 Anonymous
15th February 2021
Monday 7:40 am
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>>30397
Posers; I've been at this for three years now.
>> No. 30399 Anonymous
16th February 2021
Tuesday 11:00 am
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>>30398
Lightweight.
>> No. 30400 Anonymous
16th February 2021
Tuesday 11:05 am
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>>30399
I'd have a longer streak than that if I hadn't gotten ideas above my station and had a go at turning things around.
>> No. 30401 Anonymous
16th February 2021
Tuesday 11:21 am
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>>30400

GET BACK DOWN HERE. AND STOP THINKING YOU AREN'T BETTER THAN ME!
>> No. 30403 Anonymous
16th February 2021
Tuesday 2:55 pm
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I hate everything, find joy in nothing and I'm correct to do so.

>>30401
I am quite certain my life is more of a black hole than yours. If I am mistaken, you have my consolences.
>> No. 30404 Anonymous
16th February 2021
Tuesday 6:45 pm
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I enjoy solitude too much. For as long as I can remember I've preferred being alone, keeping to short sentences whenever anybody makes an effort to be my friend. Now I'm in my late 20s and have nothing going on in my life except work. Pre-pandemic I'd go to the cinema but I was kind of stuck on ideas on what else to do by myself besides work. Now the cinemas are shut so I've got nothing else going on. Even video games don't cut it anymore.
>> No. 30408 Anonymous
16th February 2021
Tuesday 8:34 pm
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>>30404

Try hobbies that err on the side of creativity and expression rather than consumption.

There's nothing wrong with taking in a film or piece of music or whatever, but if you can begin creating films or participating in the culture surrounding film (even if only virtually for the moment) you can be as solitary or as social about it as you like. There are lots of people looking to collaborate on their creative hobbies, and even if you're more of a film critic most people enjoy bouncing ideas off others.

Failing that, there's all sorts of other projects you can take up depending on your interests, but I've a feeling your problem may have more to it than a lack of ideas.
>> No. 30409 Anonymous
16th February 2021
Tuesday 9:33 pm
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>>30408

I've said this before, but learn to crochet. It's piss-easy and it turns you into an instant fanny magnet.

Also get a dog. A cute one.
>> No. 30410 Anonymous
16th February 2021
Tuesday 9:42 pm
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>>30409

I don't disbelieve you, but I am interested in the logic behind it.

I've learned that nobody, women or otherwise, care about my main hobbies of car collecting/restoration/maintenance, woodworking, and electronics. But show a woman that you have like five houseplants or know how to make a casserole, and her knickers don't even make it past the front door.
>> No. 30411 Anonymous
16th February 2021
Tuesday 10:34 pm
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I was off sick with depression most of January, triggering work to invite me to a performance review. The anxiety I'm feeling because of that, combined with worsening of depression and the fuckery of changing medications, has made me get signed off for the rest of February. I feel like I'm going to lose my job, and if I do my life will be over.
>> No. 30412 Anonymous
16th February 2021
Tuesday 10:51 pm
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>>30410

I dunno m8. I think it implies that you're sensitive but have the confidence in your masculinity to do something traditionally feminine. You could probably spin some kind of cod evolutionary psychology argument - facial symmetry and a powerful physique imply that you've got high-quality sperm, but if you haven't got that then you can at least imply that you'd be a nurturing father.

It might just be the novelty though, like how blokes get over-excited if a woman shows an interest in traditionally masculine pursuits or does the manic pixie dream girl thing. You don't want to look boring, but you also don't want to look like a dangerous nutter. There's probably a sweet spot between being boyfriend material and gay best friend material. I'm more of an empiricist than a rationalist and I suspect that our software is just full of weird bugs that don't necessarily make any kind of sense.
>> No. 30413 Anonymous
16th February 2021
Tuesday 10:53 pm
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>>30411
Are you in a union?
>> No. 30414 Anonymous
16th February 2021
Tuesday 10:59 pm
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>>30413
Yes, I'm trying to get in touch with the local rep, emailed them at the weekend and still not heard anything.
>> No. 30428 Anonymous
21st February 2021
Sunday 10:36 am
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Thanks to lockdowns I haven't met a person I feel physically attracted to in months. It has created a weird frustration within me.



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ljm9CDRAhMQ
>> No. 30429 Anonymous
21st February 2021
Sunday 3:05 pm
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>>30428

When all this is over, there's going to be a really weird phase where everyone will be incredibly horny but with totally atrophied social skills. It'll be like being fifteen again.

Also:


>> No. 30430 Anonymous
21st February 2021
Sunday 7:59 pm
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>>30429
> When all this is over, there's going to be a really weird phase where everyone will be incredibly horny

Remember this time last year when we all thought that it'd all be over by summer and we'd all be fucking like rabbits once the all clear was given?

On the plus side maybe there's a market for Face Johnnies. Strawberry flavoured face masks - ribbed for her total fucking horror. Or maybe you could put other peoples' faces on then so I could imagine I was pumping a Gillian Anderson and she could be gazing up at the face of Ashton Kutcher or whoever women think is attractive in this foul year of our lord.
>> No. 30432 Anonymous
21st February 2021
Sunday 8:20 pm
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>>30408
>You can begin creating .. or participating in the culture surrounding
>There are lots of people looking to collaborate on their creative hobbies

This is very much apparent across creative subcultures on Youtube - they sometimes even send gifts between channel operators as a form of content.
How would you break into such groups - simply start contributing and wait for recognition, or actively seek to network and put your work in view? There must be an affective medium between the two.
>> No. 30433 Anonymous
21st February 2021
Sunday 9:53 pm
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I started reading Frankie Boyle's "new" book this morning and got to the part on the fifth page of the introduction where he said "Perhaps the prospect of meeting your end in an epidemic is different when you have comprehensively fucked your own life up; part of me thinks that if I die now, I can call this thing a draw." and never even made it to chapter one because I had to go back to bed and waste away another Sunday in the dozy comfort that out there is at least one other cunt who understands who utterly fucking miserable I am.
>> No. 30435 Anonymous
21st February 2021
Sunday 10:23 pm
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>>30429
As a lifelong spergic virgin (spergin?) whose social skills never really advanced past that of your average fifteen-year-old, part of me hopes this will come true - finally, people whose standards are low enough! I'm not getting my hopes up, though, especially if it's a slow and steady opening up.
>> No. 30436 Anonymous
21st February 2021
Sunday 11:34 pm
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>>30430
>Remember this time last year when we all thought that it'd all be over by summer and we'd all be fucking like rabbits once the all clear was given?

I think a lot of people just started bonking anyway. Much as the government and press have completely failed to explain how dating actually works in each iteration of the rules beyond 'do videocalls' like we're living in a religious free school.

>>30435
Don't worry, most people never progressed past fifteen even before the pandemic hit.

>> No. 30437 Anonymous
22nd February 2021
Monday 12:07 am
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>>30436

I think I loved that video. Thank you.
>> No. 30451 Anonymous
23rd February 2021
Tuesday 10:23 am
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Im 33 and a lad from my year in school died over the weekend. I haven't heard the cause yet, but if it was by his own hand that'd make him the second lad from my year in school to do so in a six month period. Pretty bleak.

I hope you are all taking care if yourselves. This year has been rough, but we are close to moving past it and relegating covid to be just a crappy memory
>> No. 30463 Anonymous
23rd February 2021
Tuesday 3:23 pm
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>>30436
>Don't worry, most people never progressed past fifteen even before the pandemic hit.

Does that mean I never passed 10?
>> No. 30465 Anonymous
24th February 2021
Wednesday 11:47 pm
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Just no desire to do even the most basic things anymore, I feel constantly bereft.
>> No. 30466 Anonymous
24th February 2021
Wednesday 11:51 pm
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The only way out is revolution or war. So the only question left is, which side are you on?
>> No. 30467 Anonymous
24th February 2021
Wednesday 11:55 pm
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>>30466
Your first mistake was believing we were ever getting out.
>> No. 30468 Anonymous
25th February 2021
Thursday 12:25 am
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>>30467
I never said the dirty fucking hippies would win, I just said that they were right.
>> No. 30473 Anonymous
27th February 2021
Saturday 4:25 pm
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I recognise that this is just a load of buts and the answer is simply to go sit outside and get used to it, but i'm really anxious about going out at the moment because the weather is nice there are a lot of attractive people about wearing pretty clothes.

Being fat adds an element of shame but it's like this every fucking year regardless.
>> No. 30474 Anonymous
27th February 2021
Saturday 11:24 pm
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Do you ever come across people that are so sweet and kindhearted that it makes you feel bad? As in they're just so absolutely unprotected by their very core being from all the horrible shite in the world that it pains you that they have to experience it anyway?
>> No. 30478 Anonymous
28th February 2021
Sunday 8:30 am
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>>30474
I wonder how they manage it.
>> No. 30479 Anonymous
28th February 2021
Sunday 10:31 am
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I've been pretty emotionally vulnerable lately, I can't decide if this is me losing my mind from isolation or if this is me healing enough that I can feel my emotional pain again.
>> No. 30495 Anonymous
1st March 2021
Monday 6:34 pm
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Online dating is bad. I want to delete my accounts, but the coming opening of things and lack of any other options is holding me back. Hinge, which was my favourite, now puts the people it thinks I'm best matched with and puts them in a separate queue in which I'd have to pay a could of quid to message them, it's a cruel thing to do, really.

The lasses I end up talking to can almost never be bothered to put any effort into the conversation, and they often ghost, presumably when someone more attractive or interesting comes along.

I wonder if the constant flow of reminders of just how poorly I do on the open market, exactly how disposable I am, is going in on some subconscious level.
>> No. 30496 Anonymous
1st March 2021
Monday 6:38 pm
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>>30479
I've honestly felt just the same lately, and I'm not really an emotionally vulnerable person. I think we're all suffering a bit.
>> No. 30497 Anonymous
1st March 2021
Monday 6:55 pm
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>>30495
> Online dating is bad. I want to delete my accounts, but the coming opening of things and lack of any other options is holding me back.

It's always been a fucking wasteland but it's only got worse with the pandemic. Dating as whole is basically dead right now unless you're under twenty and think you're invincible or over fifty and can't wait to pop your clogs anyway and would rather do it with a wet knob.

The online part allows us to keep up the charade of being interested/involved/out there, but as no one's really wanting to actually meet up and do anything (and it's not like there's a fuck of a lot you could do anyway due to the various lockdowns and tier systems we've been through) it's all just turned into another version of "chat to a woman through an app until she gets bored". IDK about you lads but if that's the game we're playing I'd rather just go on some cam site and pay a pair of eastern European sisters £50 to piss on each other like what you see on efuckt and that.

> Hinge, which was my favourite, now puts the people it thinks I'm best matched with and puts them in a separate queue in which I'd have to pay a could of quid to message them, it's a cruel thing to do, really.

Tinder have been doing something similar for yonks. I have > 50 people who've liked me sitting behind a paywall. Oh and don't forget to buy tinder platinum so people actually see your likes if you've been on the app for more than a few months. At the end of the day they're bastard companies looking to make bastard money by being bastards.

> The lasses I end up talking to can almost never be bothered to put any effort into the conversation, and they often ghost, presumably when someone more attractive or interesting comes along.

I've said this before but this is the nature of dating apps in this foul year of our lord. You either get a date set up within a couple of days or things are just going to peter out; only with the current situation no one's doing any actual dating so things just peter out by default. It's not you, or me, or anyone else who's choosing to use dating apps at this current moment; it's just not going to work out.

I've never really used any of them but I think if I were looking to actually date seriously I'd probably try Match or e-harmony or whatever the actual paid for "serious dating" sites are. Apps are for hook-ups and hook-ups aren't happening right now. Leading ourselves on by chatting to a lass for a couple of days only to get inevitably ignored probably isn't doing any of us any good.

Sage for a good old proper ramble.

>>30478
>>30496
Well, that's all three of us in the same boat then. Sigh.



I wonder if the constant flow of reminders of just how poorly I do on the open market, exactly how disposable I am, is going in on some subconscious level.
>> No. 30498 Anonymous
1st March 2021
Monday 6:59 pm
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I recently saw ThatGirl-I-Like™ having a photo taken of herself posing with a park statue. The thought that she might be creating a dating profile picture hurt, but even more was the realisation that if I created one too - and by some chance our accounts met - I would feel such shame and embarassment to have even put myself before her.

I have a stack of wood and enough tools to start doing something with time. I have used enough excuses not to. If I make only a bench or table, that could get the ball rolling onto better skills and greater self esteme.
>> No. 30499 Anonymous
1st March 2021
Monday 8:01 pm
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>>30495
>Hinge, which was my favourite, now puts the people it thinks I'm best matched with and puts them in a separate queue in which I'd have to pay a could of quid to message them

You what? My Hinge does nothing of the sort and the algorithm is clearly bollocks so you would never pay for it. If Hinge has changed for you then it's obviously marked you as a soppy bollocks to fleece. Delete for your own good and take your rage out by repetitively lifting heavy objects, getting a hobby and making pulling your spud a bit more special by going the extra mile.

As for the rest, just get Bumble and have the lass open with "hey" or a shit pick-up line rather than you putting initial effort in - sounds like what you need anyway and if she's an accidental swipe you will still get an ego boost.

>>30479
>>30496
>>30497
You're feeling down because February is the shittest month of the year with the winter and general tedium. It's Spring now and we have those bank holidays coming up. It'll get better.

>>30498
Have you tried talking to her?
>> No. 30500 Anonymous
1st March 2021
Monday 8:21 pm
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>>30499
> It's Spring now and we have those bank holidays coming up. It'll get better.

Not to be a contrary cunt but a bunch of spring bank holidays under lockdown or whatever "no pubs and no mates in the park" tier they throw us in just doesn't sound like a whole bundle of laughs.

We'll either get through this or we'll die, but until then it's going to be a whole lot of waiting around. People have been wondering why chess has spiked in popularity recently, but along with cryptic crosswords it's something that everyone doing more than a couple of years gets into while doing time. We're essentially a global population on a Cat-B regime, we'll be all be reading war and peace soon enough.
>> No. 30501 Anonymous
1st March 2021
Monday 8:45 pm
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>>30499
>My Hinge does nothing of the sort
Yes it does, You're just not paying attention. Press the star on the bottom row.

>and the algorithm is clearly bollocks so you would never pay for it.
It's the spirit of it that I'm opposed to.

>take your rage out by repetitively lifting heavy objects
I can't. The gym is closed.
>> No. 30502 Anonymous
1st March 2021
Monday 9:20 pm
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>>30501
It's such a shame that no heavy objects exist anywhere but the gym, except for the ones glued to the ground.
>> No. 30503 Anonymous
1st March 2021
Monday 11:16 pm
30503 spacer
Almost experienced hope, but it was... NO! I DID A TYPO! FUCK OFF BRAIN! I'm still doomed, but I'm not going to try because I misspelt the name of a writer who's been dead for four-hundred years.

I'm sorry if this post reads as contrived, but that was all real time, honest.
>> No. 30508 Anonymous
4th March 2021
Thursday 2:14 pm
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I am never going to have sex.
>> No. 30509 Anonymous
4th March 2021
Thursday 2:29 pm
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>>30508
You can pay people who are very nice and make you feel comfortable about the whole thing to have sex with you. That wont fix the reason why you're miserable though.

Humans crave human interaction and companionship, most people can't function properly without it.
>> No. 30510 Anonymous
4th March 2021
Thursday 2:46 pm
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>>30509
I never said it would stop me being miserable, but it is rather the mark of someone who has not made the most out of life. When Napoleon was my age he was giving the Austrians and their allies a hiding in Italy.

>Humans crave human interaction and companionship, most people can't function properly without it.
Oh, I'm well aware.
>> No. 30511 Anonymous
4th March 2021
Thursday 3:08 pm
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>>30510

When then bang a prossy as other lad said, unless there is a more emotionally meaningful component you care about that you have failed to allude to.
>> No. 30512 Anonymous
4th March 2021
Thursday 3:08 pm
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>>30511

*well then
>> No. 30514 Anonymous
4th March 2021
Thursday 5:39 pm
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>>30513
Utter rage at not being able to delete my own botched-quote posts.
>> No. 30515 Anonymous
5th March 2021
Friday 1:08 am
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>>30509
>>30511
I would advise against this. You probably won't get your pecker hard, it will be awkward for the both of you and it won't solve the deeper issues that makes you a virgin. I speak from experience when I tell you to find a girl who will have you and which you can plough one morning - she might not even be able to tell, the first time two people have sex it is usually awkward and there's not much to 'get'.

Work out what's going wrong - unemployment, lack of risk taking, poor character, bad fashion. Fix that, to be honest so long as you have a job then Earth girls are easy.

>I can't

Then get some guy friends at least. A man needs his boys.
All of this being after the plague passes
>> No. 30516 Anonymous
5th March 2021
Friday 2:03 am
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>>30515
There are escorts who specialise in taking people's virginity and they enjoy what they do and are practised hands at putting people at ease.

You don't walk in, she demands you disrobe, and then get timed with a stop watch till your time is up. It's a lot more holistic. People who have hang ups over virginity tend to have hang ups over sexuality itself, they know that.
>> No. 30517 Anonymous
5th March 2021
Friday 9:06 am
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>>30510

>When Napoleon was my age he was giving the Austrians and their allies a hiding in Italy.

It's probably these kinds of idioms stopping you getting laid, m8.

Try more like "when Lemmy Kilmister was my age he was getting arrested by Canadian border police on drug charges".
>> No. 30518 Anonymous
5th March 2021
Friday 9:11 am
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>>30517
That or find a bird who's really into Peep Show.
>> No. 30519 Anonymous
5th March 2021
Friday 10:20 am
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>>30518

Everyone is into Peep Show, hardly makes for a good partner.
>> No. 30520 Anonymous
5th March 2021
Friday 10:50 am
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>>30519
You reminded me of my suspicion of people who bring up they have never seen star wars like an achievement, what are they trying to prove?
>> No. 30521 Anonymous
5th March 2021
Friday 11:42 am
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>>30520
That they haven't been tainted by low-brow mainstream culture. They probably read history books and encyclopedias.
>> No. 30522 Anonymous
5th March 2021
Friday 12:03 pm
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>>30521
>That they haven't been tainted by low-brow mainstream culture. They probably read history books and encyclopedias.

Once again the arch villain of britfa.gs strawman strikes.
There is nothing wrong with not liking something even with mass appeal, I don't think I've ever watched a full episode of a soap opera when I wasn't forced to. But that is different from making it your personality to be purposefully contrarian (I don't bring it up like it is some sort of victory). And I doubt highly the kind of person who I think about blurting this info out after they have had a few too many Weatherspoon cocktail pitchers is really the intelligentsia, who is just too good for it.

What I am getting at here, is similar to your one 'gay friend' in the 90s, or the internet atheist of 00s, or the cliché vegan. The person who didn't happen to be those things, but made it their entire persona in a weird over compensation.
>> No. 30523 Anonymous
5th March 2021
Friday 2:22 pm
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>>30521

Amusingly, isn't there an episode of Peep Show about this, but Ghostbusters instead of Star Wars?

Other lad is right now. The most intelligent and accomplished person I know spends most of his time watching cartoons. He is a bit weird though.
>> No. 30533 Anonymous
6th March 2021
Saturday 10:15 am
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I love my girlfriend but don't find her physically attractive at all. I did initially, but I just went off her completely.
>> No. 30534 Anonymous
6th March 2021
Saturday 11:13 am
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>>30533

Do you both want a life of celebacy? otherwise that sounds fairly terminal.
>> No. 30535 Anonymous
6th March 2021
Saturday 1:01 pm
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>>30533

Same here mate, it is what is is. We're both 30 now so can't really complain, that's life.
>> No. 30536 Anonymous
7th March 2021
Sunday 4:09 am
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You guys don't get it. I'm not going to ever have sex because my penis doesn't work.
>> No. 30537 Anonymous
7th March 2021
Sunday 1:53 pm
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>>30536
At least you have an excuse, then.
>> No. 30538 Anonymous
7th March 2021
Sunday 2:37 pm
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>>30536
What's wrong with it? Cialis is a literal wonder drug in that regard, viagra not so much.
>> No. 30539 Anonymous
7th March 2021
Sunday 2:39 pm
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>>30538
Isn't the active ingredient in both the same thing?
>> No. 30543 Anonymous
8th March 2021
Monday 4:44 pm
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>>30539

Not at all. Sildenafil vs Tadalafil. It's about the same as comparing £10/gram FaceBang speed with £200/gram Hong Kong #1 grade crystal meth. 20mg of Tadalafil will having you rock hard and gleefully pumping anything from the "guilty woulds" thread. It's basically part of every TinderMonger's toolkit; the lass turns up three years older and five stone heavier but you still want to get your pee pee moist? Out comes the cialis and bob's your uncle - you'll be up to your nuts in fat bird guts all night long.
>> No. 30546 Anonymous
9th March 2021
Tuesday 2:30 am
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I feel like being on the autism spectrum, or having a personality divergent enough for someone to put me there at least, is some sort of curse. I need to luck in to a decent job because the majority of entry level stuff is customer or speed focused, both of which are my terminal weakpoints.
I still try to slog through them but it seems no amount of practice will let me complete with people who are speedy at mundane work, if I try too hard I just end up fumbling a lot and it's not something people understand.

Oh and I think I'm being dismissed from the only job I have actually been comfortable with for the most part because apparently I'm being too slow, or not completing all the tasks expected of me, or something equally vague which contradicts how I thought it was going completely.
I don't know what to do any more it took me half a decade to get my first successful interview and my CV is patchy enough without getting fired.
>> No. 30547 Anonymous
9th March 2021
Tuesday 10:26 am
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>>30546
How long have you been in your current job?
>> No. 30553 Anonymous
9th March 2021
Tuesday 5:23 pm
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>>30547

About 5 months now, I'm just upset because I though it was going well currently.
>> No. 30554 Anonymous
10th March 2021
Wednesday 11:14 am
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>>30553
5 months? Have you even finished probation? You should still be in interview mode - no swearing or talking about wanking in the office, no bitching about the work or the boss to your colleagues, and trying your hardest to get everything done so nobody has an excuse to fire you. So are you doing that? Because while you don't owe the company anything, neither does the company owe you, and if you're replaceable, you'll get replaced.
>> No. 30555 Anonymous
10th March 2021
Wednesday 9:40 pm
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When is it too late to start over? Have I fucked it lads?
>> No. 30556 Anonymous
10th March 2021
Wednesday 9:56 pm
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>>30555

It's never too late, even at 95 you could probably move to a new nursing home.

How old are you? I moved cities and started a whole new career in a whole new industry in my thirties, it's going okay.
>> No. 30557 Anonymous
10th March 2021
Wednesday 10:10 pm
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>>30556

Turned 30 in January. Job isnt fulfilling anymore, underpaid got my skills (imo) and worry that I might not actually like my partner/fiance of 6 years.

My friends are settling down and take pity on me.
>> No. 30558 Anonymous
11th March 2021
Thursday 4:11 am
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>>30557

If Philip Schofield can come out at the age of 58, you can get a new job and a new girlfriend at the age of 30.

A lot of your friends who are settling down are really just settling - they seem like they've got it all sorted now, but it won't be long until the "all my friends are getting married" phase turns into the "all my friends are having mid-life crises and affairs" phase. Deep down, everyone is terrified that they'll wake up one morning and realise that their entire life has just been one terrible mistake. We can't avoid regret, but we can avoid being controlled by the fear of regret.
>> No. 30559 Anonymous
11th March 2021
Thursday 11:45 pm
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I really can't get over not having a working cock. I think I might kill myself.
>> No. 30561 Anonymous
12th March 2021
Friday 9:55 am
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>>30559

Please don't.

Have you tried putting things up your bum? I'm not taking the piss. The prostate gland is a hell of an organ.
>> No. 30637 Anonymous
18th March 2021
Thursday 3:02 pm
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I live in the most expensive city in England and my friend found a houseshare becoming available which a bunch of us had arranged to move into next month. Then I found out last month that the owner of the house I am in currently wants us out of the one I am in now so it all was looking pretty cushty.

Last night at 8pm my friend called me up to say the landlord wont rent it to us because it's not HMO and we're >3 ppl.

Now I have no more than a month to find alternative accommodation else I'll be homeless.


All the nice, non-HMO houses in the city are prohibitively expensive to rent (and if you could afford the lease on such a rental you'd be looking to buy), and all of the HMO properties are old, neglected council house stock where all the communal rooms have been turned into bedrooms and are operated by predatory letting agencies whose only interest is squeezing every penny out of their tenants.

Will the rental market ever get any better? I was reading 'The Road to Wigan Pier' last Summer and thinking that the living arrangements of 1930s miners in Manchester isn't terribly far off what young professionals in major metropolitan areas experience today.

fml

If I were dead I wouldn't have to worry about finding accommodation.
>> No. 30638 Anonymous
18th March 2021
Thursday 3:43 pm
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>>30637
You just mean London right, I could get you in touch with my agency who are okay.

>Will the rental market ever get any better?

No, although it might just be a question of expectations. If you can't afford high-rents then why live somewhere expensive?
>> No. 30639 Anonymous
18th March 2021
Thursday 4:35 pm
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>>30638

Oxford actually, maybe I should have said 'worst' not 'most expensive' as it's sub-London prices without the london salary increase, less housing supply, and no high-density high rises

I work ina scientific field where it's not so possible to live somewhere more affordable, and I dont have the luxury of choosing where I work
>> No. 30640 Anonymous
18th March 2021
Thursday 6:21 pm
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>>30639
Try looking for lodging in Barton.
>> No. 30641 Anonymous
18th March 2021
Thursday 6:32 pm
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>>30639
Have a look at the Daily Info.
>> No. 30642 Anonymous
18th March 2021
Thursday 9:54 pm
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Half-bald, complete failure, no mates, virgin, poor, there is legitimately no reason to carry on. Everything is getting worse and my baseline was miserably low to start with.
>> No. 30644 Anonymous
18th March 2021
Thursday 11:57 pm
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>>30642
Sounds like you need some Jocko/Goggins motivational vids.
>> No. 30645 Anonymous
19th March 2021
Friday 8:33 am
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>>30642

Not to be a "positive thinking" cunt, but you've very deliberately picked out the aspects of your life that bother you most, there.

A couple of things spring to mind based on that: 1) there are probably aspects of your life that you also appreciate to some degree, and 2) the very fact they bother you means that you aspire to more.
>> No. 30646 Anonymous
19th March 2021
Friday 2:16 pm
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>>30644
I'm sort of ashamed to admit I really like Goggins. He is hilarious.
>> No. 30647 Anonymous
19th March 2021
Friday 2:45 pm
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>>30642

What's your current situation otherwise. Are you employed? If so, what do you do? Education? Live alone? With family? With others? How are you financially?

There are ways.
>> No. 30652 Anonymous
21st March 2021
Sunday 8:39 am
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This is so bizarrely minor on the scale of things but probably more existential dread than most of this thread.

It really freaks me out when I look up some celeb I used to have a crush on 20 years ago to see where they are and what they look like now and they have lost all their fizz. I can't explain fully but as a rule I don't think it is just that they are old. I think it might be that they haven't bothered to maintain the body they had, and that it will never return. It is the wasted potential, of what could be.
>> No. 30653 Anonymous
21st March 2021
Sunday 12:35 pm
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>>30652

It gets me a bit that the footballers who were young up and comers when I was a teenlad are now Match of the Day commentators, in a similar way. It forces you to confront the inexorable, unstoppable forward March of time, that you could always somewhat ignore and hide from in your younger years. Can't do that so much as you get older.

There's also the way there are new celebs you could fancy, but you start distinctly realising they might be a but young for you. That was never an issue back when almost any given fitty on TV was your age or older.
>> No. 30662 Anonymous
24th March 2021
Wednesday 12:11 pm
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>>30644
Yeah, man, a pep talk, bingo.

>>30645
There's nothing in my life I like or enjoy, just things I do to tune out the misery. I did aspire to more and now I have less than ever. I built a PC a year and a bit ago thinking it would finally give me the opportunity to do things, but I've gone all "no thoughts, head empty" and I can't do anything. I'm completely gone.

>>30647
I've tried the ways, I failed every time and wound up more miserable than before. I can't even check my emails anymore, I'm detached from everything because I can't handle any of it.
>> No. 30663 Anonymous
24th March 2021
Wednesday 3:25 pm
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>>30662
Do you actually want to do anything? If not, what's stopping you from watching some Primitive Technology videos and jetting off to Polynesia and living in warm, sunny climes for the forseeable? If you're detached from everything and you're basically not engaging with the life you've built, and you're already sacking off responsibilities, why not just move somewhere nicer?
>> No. 30664 Anonymous
27th March 2021
Saturday 10:47 pm
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>>30663
Because I'm too stupid and I'd probably just kill myself.
>> No. 30665 Anonymous
27th March 2021
Saturday 11:54 pm
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>>30652
You can only peak once innit. Seems like those who soar highest fall harder and just look worse when they try to recapture what has passed them.

Just say Vorderman, we all know who you're talking about.

>>30662
>I've tried the ways, I failed every time and wound up more miserable than before.

So try again. You don't exactly seem happy now.
>> No. 30666 Anonymous
28th March 2021
Sunday 12:16 am
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Supposed to be dating and chatting with birds on Tinder and that, knocking on a bit at 30 and only ever had one girlfriend during the years I've spent breathing but whenever I boot up the app, this enormous wave of apathy overwhelms me. I've had a few matches but none of them have ever gone anywhere.
I don't know lads, not sure if I'm cut out for this partner stuff.
Unoriginal whinge so sorry if you actually read this post.
>> No. 30679 Anonymous
29th March 2021
Monday 10:18 pm
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>>30666
I'm feeling the same way about friends in general, at the moment. It's possible i've been smoking too much recently, but my enthusiasm for people definitely was waning before i got bored enough to start rolling again.
It takes so much work and commitment to engage with people - it's much easier to simply be alone and talk to myself or wild animals when i get lonely enough.
>> No. 30680 Anonymous
29th March 2021
Monday 10:24 pm
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>>30666
>>30679

Same here to be fair. I've always been a bit of a loner and introvert, but forced myself to socialise because, essentially, I don't want to look like that sadact with no mates who never has anything interesting to talk about. But when everyone has been forced to be a sadact with no mates for a year, I've remembered just how much I actually enjoy it.

You don't get enough free time as an adult and I don't particularly feel inclined to waste it on other people, as selfish as that sounds.
>> No. 30682 Anonymous
30th March 2021
Tuesday 12:24 am
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>>30665
I have tried again and again. Three goes at college before getting to uni and I lasted a term-and-a-half. What's the point anymore? I'm brain-broken and no one tells me why. They all think I'm depressed, but I'm only depressed because my life's complete shit. If you dropped any poor freak into this mess they'd rightly feel the same way. I don't have any desire or drive anymore, just an ever thinning pretense that I'm going to turn things around. However, I've no idea how any longer. There are things I once wanted to do, but if I sit down for even ten minutes and attempt to do them, or plan to do them, I feel as though a molten pool of anxiousness and self-hate has appeared within me. It's as if Hell itself were living inside me, all of the time. I can't do anything about that on my own, and the actions involved in trying only make it worse. Even a minor success would simply mean that the inevitable fall would be all the greater when it comes. You might be inclined to suggest I am doomsaying, but I am speaking from experience. Opportunities that I once had were wasted entirely or squandered through ill-judgement and laziness. I am weak, mentally and physically, and despite some minor talents I am ultimately of quite limited intelligence. I am living waste material, a err on the part of nature, not fit for any role which presently exists for someone in this place and time.
>> No. 30683 Anonymous
30th March 2021
Tuesday 1:14 am
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>>30666
>>30679
>>30680
Yeah I know what you lot mean and it doesn't help that I've grown quite fond of the pile of money I've saved and watching it grow. Worryingly, last year when there was talk of going back into the office and it actually made me anxious about having to be in that environment.

I also get matches on Bumble that I end up ignoring or losing interest in. Maybe it'll all change when we can go to the pub or I'll realise that I'm just frightened because everyone time I see a lass for a drink it ends up with a 6 month relationship where I find I'm not actually prepared to commit.

>>30682
Well, at the risk of looking at the problem instead of how you feel, you clearly need to work out what's going wrong every time you try to get an education and try to find proactive solutions. Do you just lack an interest in what you're studying or is it anxiety over going to class, that sort of thing. I'm broken isn't really an answer - any old spaccer can get an edumacation with enough discipline and coffee, it sound like discipline is the problem so work on that maybe.
>> No. 30684 Anonymous
30th March 2021
Tuesday 8:48 am
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>>30683
>I'm broken isn't really an answer - any old spaccer can get an edumacation with enough discipline and coffee

Old spacker, here. I can confirm this is correct.
>> No. 30693 Anonymous
8th April 2021
Thursday 11:02 pm
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Everyone around me seems to be living a more interesting and fulfilling life than me. This isn't social media envy - this is talking to people.

I know that even in that instance it'll be an edited version to clip out the dull bits, but my life is all dull bits. I just have no idea how to make it more interesting, especially in These Uncertain Times.
>> No. 30694 Anonymous
8th April 2021
Thursday 11:41 pm
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>>30693
>I just have no idea how to make it more interesting, especially in These Uncertain Times.

It's basic but woodworking, gardening and general DIY is a safe-bet if we're talking general office chatter. There are lots of youtube instructional videos to get you started and you can spend a couple of hours on Sunday on it to have something to talk about.

As an additional bonus it's intimidating being on the other side where you end up realising you're talking to a proper man.
>> No. 30695 Anonymous
8th April 2021
Thursday 11:59 pm
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>>30693
What is a proper man?
>> No. 30696 Anonymous
9th April 2021
Friday 12:11 am
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>>30694
Someone who makes things with their hands, fixes problems before they occur, is self-reliant. The stereotype but the stereotype we have been taught to respect.
>> No. 30697 Anonymous
9th April 2021
Friday 12:53 am
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>>30693
You really can't compare yourself to other people, but what are we defining as interesting here, and why do you feel you have to be interesting to that degree? What would that mean, and do you want to be this just for other people, or for yourself?

>>30695
>>30696
I would argue a proper man is one of his word, who owns his mistakes/faults, who helps more than he hinders and who lifts as he climbs. The ability to make things with your hands is rarely a reflection on the quality of your character, in my experience. It certainly doesn't make me respect someone just because they're a bit bloke-y, respect is earned after all.
>> No. 30698 Anonymous
9th April 2021
Friday 12:54 am
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>>30694
I already do those things -- I'm a shit woodworker, but I can repair cars and I'm an electronic engineer by trade.

I mean travelling (stories from the before times), making music, doing mad extreme sports (I'm crippled so that's out of the question either way), making meaningful steps in relationships, etc.
>> No. 30699 Anonymous
9th April 2021
Friday 1:25 am
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>>30698

I'm a musician (or at least I was before I packed it all in to get a real job and save up for a mortgage etc) and I'm certain I could tell you some stories from the road that would make you feel very humble and boring. In fact I rarely talk about it because I don't want to come off as "that guy", but in hindsight, I've done the sort of things a lot of people only fantasise about.

But at the same time, if we were having a conversation and you said you'd replaced your own brakes on the car, it'd make me feel completely inferior. I'm clueless, but I lack the tools, time, or inclination to get my hands stuck in and learn, so I probably always will be, and I honestly dread taking my car in for its service every year. It's extra shameful because my dad was a mechanic and probably thinks I'm a right let down.

What makes you interesting or accomplished is just a matter of perspective mate.
>> No. 30700 Anonymous
9th April 2021
Friday 10:26 pm
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>>30698
Either I've been drunkposting again, or you and I have spookily similar CVs. (PS, hiring electronic engineers, Cambridge, fun R&D department in massive globocorp).
Hearing other peoples' travel stories and tales of mad sports does nothing for me unless I was also there. Relationships - I reached full wizard status, and am now happily coupled, probably for life.
I'm going nowhere with this, but if you're me in a timewarp from a decade or two ago, hang on in there. And buy and mostly hold bitcoin, despite the insanity of it.
>> No. 30701 Anonymous
15th April 2021
Thursday 4:04 pm
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Last night I saw a video of a guy being suplexed in a street fight. At first he just looked like he was in that locked up position after a KO, then he started shaking, and then slowly his face went from blank to looking like he was trying to scream and he was clenching his fists and shaking in silence.

I wasn't prepared for that. I thought he may have been dealing with sudden paralyzation and freaking out, but then reading that he very likely had a severe brain bleed and would soon die in excruciating pain and discomfort.

Then the person filming basically stepped over him to follow his attacker, who had by this time suplexed another person on to concrete. He was just dying on the floor with dozens of people around.

I've seen people die before, I've seen people suffering more before, but something about the clenched fists and the face and the idea that the brain is just going batshit. It kept hitting me while I was trying to sleep last night.

Have I been scarred? I don't really want to be. I thought I was fairly desensitized by now, but for some reason, perhaps the combination of the suffering, the casualness, the apathy, and the fact he seemed like he was actually a pretty good boxer before he got murdered, idk. Just snuffed.
>> No. 30702 Anonymous
15th April 2021
Thursday 8:16 pm
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>>30701
How old are you? Slightly traumatic experiences like this tend to pass after a day or two for me, but if you're over, say, 25, you've probably had one of those before and I would expect you to know that, in which case maybe you're slightly more traumatised.
>> No. 30703 Anonymous
15th April 2021
Thursday 8:26 pm
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>>30701

I don't think you are supposed to get over the absurdity of death fully. What I've found interesting is that people assign stories to try make sense of it all and face it. I feel like here whatever normal detachment you had was violated. Because in that moment you connected with their pain, suddenly you were faced with the cold indifferent meaningless cruelty of it all.
>> No. 30704 Anonymous
15th April 2021
Thursday 9:43 pm
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>>30702
30. I think it stuck more because I was just about to go to bed, and it was looping in my head and getting a bit frustrating, and it kept me up a bit but it was mainly okay, then I woke up at 5 and couldn't get back to sleep. This is quite normal, but much like an annoying song you can't get out of your head, the image of this dude going Super Saiyan with a scrambled brain kept appearing.

>>30703
Sounds better than being a pansy. I think you're right, I used to frequent rotten.com so must have developed some skin. It was on /r/holdmyfeedingtube, so perhaps I wasn't primed to watch someone getting straight destroyed.

I think I've gone a bit soft recently, or maybe it's just when I'm stoned. I've definitely seen similar stuff recently and it's just scanned by.
>> No. 30705 Anonymous
16th April 2021
Friday 6:29 am
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>>30704

Stuff like that has definitely hit me harder the older I've gotten, especially when I'm stoned. In fact I had to more or less cut out the weed a couple of years ago because it was making me have, for lack of better words, feelings that were too intense to handle. When I was younger it was a lot easier to remain detached and aloof about things, but the older I get the heavier everything (and really, I mean everything) weighs on my conscience.

I suspect it's normal, anyway.
>> No. 30706 Anonymous
16th April 2021
Friday 9:18 am
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>>30701

I'm not trying to "doxx" here or anything, but are you the same lad that posts about feeling that they've not exerted enough force when you get into physical confrontations?

I ask because I've known people to become absurdly preoccupied by violence, and looking up videos like this on the internet is only going to reinforce those feelings of fear, aggression, and need to protect yourself.

If that's not you, though, then I would take it as an overwhelmingly positive sign that you are disturbed by the thought of someone senselessly losing their life. I'd urge you to think about a few things that place the video back in reality:

- You probably saw a video between a few seconds to a couple of minutes. This removes all the context, which might help make the events of the video more understandable (e.g. did they pride themselves on being brawlers? What sort of people film themselves fighting? etc.). I'm not saying anyone deserves to die in pain, but these things always have more context worth considering than a snippet of horrible footage allows.

- I don't know what it's like to experience a brain bleed, but it's impossible to know what the person went through. You're putting your own fears of being "destroyed" or killed in a senseless, humiliating, and painful way into that person, and imagining what it would feel like. I'd argue it's difficult to know whether he was even conscious. It also sounds like you're deriving information from one of the commenters in the thread. That's probably additional speculation, and moreover it's speculation from people who are preoccupied with watching the same kind of videos you are, and placing their own fears and/or fixations in the video. Unless they're experienced with traumatic brain injury, I wouldn't take their assessment at face value. Even confirmation of the death won't tell you what the experience was like.

- There's a reason boxing, BJJ, MMA, and other martial arts take place on canvas rather than concrete. If they did, it would be a completely different (and pointlessly dangerous) sport. Competitors would adapt to the new environment and it would become a contest of seeing who can shove, knock over, push, or pull the others head to the much harder surface first. Don't fight on concrete, no matter who you are.
>> No. 30707 Anonymous
16th April 2021
Friday 5:53 pm
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>>/£$€¥/8631 had me thinking about different types of capital, namely; social, cultural and economic.

I'm coming to realise 'social capital' may be exactly what i lack - mainly through choice it seems, though i'm trying to practice earning some through the simulation of a videogame. It's fucking hard.

I've been through a couple of 'social enterprises', which wikipedia defines as "an organization that applies commercial strategies to make a positive difference for social benefit" - that sounds to me like an attempt to increase participants social capital by hooking them up with relevant people. These ended okay, but nothing come of them. I allowed myself to disengage from emergent friendships.

I feel a significant degree of apathy, perhaps aversion, whenever an idea or activity reaches the stage of inviting others to join. I could do it mostly myself, like play football against a wall. Sure I get lonely sometimes but i can just barely talk to some ducks when that happens, plus i have family who'll entertain visits regularly enough.

I guess it's selfishness which discourages me? I want what the group can give me. I'm not sure whether i'd be willing to contribute - i think so, but the times i've done so could be an act. It certainly feels like it when i know damn right i've only be helping so that i may benefit. I mean, you only do social things for social standing, right? To impress other people. It's that whole kindness as a selfish act thing, right now i can't see the zen of it.

I don't fucking get this, nor why it's made an issue in my mind. I don't want fucking friends, i'm apathetic to networking and 'i can do fine by my self' (except on the back of ESA/DLA, ofcourse). So why the fuck do i want recognition?.
>> No. 30708 Anonymous
16th April 2021
Friday 7:13 pm
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>>30705
It definitely has an impact sometimes, think it depends how tired I am. Sometimes it's nice to feel more empathetic when watching TV. I saw Red Turtle stoned and honestly I'm glad I did, because without the increased malleability, I probably would have been a bit disappointed in the ending.

>>30706
Haha, actually it is, that's a bit concerning. I appreciate the intent, I don't think it's related though, I don't seek these things out. When I scroll on reddit I just instinctively open any image/gif links, then glance at the surrounding articles while they're loading. It was basically random, and I didn't dwell on it immediately afterwards. Half an hour afterwards I actually had a minor argument with my girlfriend and was feeling a bit stressed before bed, and my brain was cycling through thoughts. It's something I can easily piece together, and something that didn't keep me up last night. I think actually mentioning it on this thread, which was intended to be an outlet, has resulted in it lasting a bit longer.

Essentially, I was particularly susceptible and that image was particularly compelling, there's not much more to read into it.

While I do clearly have some issues in that area, I can't see any link with my insecurity over my ability to react effectively, but I appreciate the sentiment. Regarding your theories:

I tried to consider the wider framing, that the cameraman would have had people behind them who would likely have stepped in to call for help, and other aspects of the context. But when you wake up at 5am and have existing stress over getting back to sleep, any image or sound can be a bit galling if playing in a loop.

There was a term for it which I would have to revisit the thread to look up. I was about to do that but I do not want to revisit it. It begins with De. It is not pleasant, many people were commenting on it, more were quibbling over the minutiae of it, resulting in sourced arguments being thrown into the mix to prove who knew more. Could have been bullshit, but I think you're reaching a bit hard to deny the strong possibility that it was an excruciating experience, to the extent that it actually makes me reflect on it more since the denial seems intended to reassure than be grounded in reality. It actually makes me feel more anxious, haha.

I appreciate where you're coming from. Interesting link you made. Unfortunately it seems a bit more mundane than that, which is quite good for me.
>> No. 30709 Anonymous
16th April 2021
Friday 8:22 pm
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>>30708
>There was a term for it which I would have to revisit the thread to look up. I was about to do that but I do not want to revisit it. It begins with De.
Deindividuation? I think that's what the bystander effect is, so it might be what you were reading about.
>> No. 30710 Anonymous
17th April 2021
Saturday 12:22 am
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>>30709
No, descapulation or something, and then another word. It renders an effect such as mentioned in my initial post.
>> No. 30711 Anonymous
22nd April 2021
Thursday 1:05 am
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I can't believe what an unsalvagable mess it all is.
>> No. 30712 Anonymous
22nd April 2021
Thursday 12:47 pm
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>>30711
What all is?
>> No. 30713 Anonymous
22nd April 2021
Thursday 3:28 pm
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There was a confrontation at my bus stop the other day, got quite heated, and I didn't interfere. Of the 10-15 people at the bus stop, only one guy interfered. I know you shouldn't be a hero, but I feel bad for just standing and watching. If I was in the position of the man being attacked I'd like to think people would step in to help me.
>> No. 30714 Anonymous
1st May 2021
Saturday 8:21 pm
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I don't seem to be willing or able to leave my house anymore.
>> No. 30715 Anonymous
1st May 2021
Saturday 8:46 pm
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>>30714
Right with you. I've fully become a hermit lately.
>> No. 30716 Anonymous
1st May 2021
Saturday 9:25 pm
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>>30714

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2r2WA1DYXl4
>> No. 30717 Anonymous
1st May 2021
Saturday 9:45 pm
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>>30715>>30716
The urge to binge eat won out. I win again, brain.
>> No. 30718 Anonymous
2nd May 2021
Sunday 1:25 pm
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I went on a date the other night, and it seemed to go really well. She invited me back to hers, we kissed, and she seemed keen to meet again, even suggesting we do something this weekend.

So I texted her the day after saying I had a lovely time, it was great to meet her and asked if we should do something this weekend, otherwise let me know when's good for you. That was Friday, and she's still not responded. I'm not sure what I've done wrong, but it feels like this happens too often. Whenever life gives me some hope like this, it soon takes it away, as if the universe is playing a cruel joke on me.

I know this sounds melodramatic, but I was feeling the best I'd felt for ages before this, and seemed to be making real improvements with my mental health. Then this just punches me in the gut and I can't just enjoy my life - like my happiness is dependent on this external validation and can't survive with it being taken away. I'm sure it sounds like she's dodged a bullet
>> No. 30719 Anonymous
2nd May 2021
Sunday 1:42 pm
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>>30718

Dating is the worst way to meet someone. People go on dates to roll the dice on another person. They're never all in because they're always thinking about the next reroll.

The best way to fall in love is to hang out with a group of people with whom some are the right sex to meet your sexuality needs and hope that friendships form, leading to romance. You need to spend a lot of time with someone to fall in love, not an hour or two every week.
>> No. 30720 Anonymous
2nd May 2021
Sunday 1:54 pm
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>>30718
Women are flakes early into dating. Maybe she's just taking a day off or doing something with her girlfriends, balls in her court really but I wouldn't take it personally. At any rate I wouldn't think you can ever coast with dating, it's a pain in the arse but you should be talking to more than one woman until you're seeing each other every weekend.

>>30719
That's unrealistic when you get older. It's not like when you're a kid and have the time and energy for large social circles and it always was a double edge sword from experience. There's a special place in hell for lasses who start fucking around in a circle of lads.

I don't disagree that dating doesn't mean you fall in love, you do it a couple times and then start increasingly hanging out at each others houses as you get comfortable. It happens quite naturally.
>> No. 30721 Anonymous
2nd May 2021
Sunday 3:07 pm
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>>30719>>30720

Thanks lads. Venting this and getting some encouragement has made me feel better already. I'm gonna just play guitar and go for a run later to get over it.

Love you guys. Hope you're all having a good bank holiday weekend.
>> No. 30722 Anonymous
3rd May 2021
Monday 8:51 pm
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I'm studying Computer Science and I am absolutely fucking hopeless at programming.
>> No. 30723 Anonymous
3rd May 2021
Monday 9:22 pm
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>>30722
So are many other CS majors, you'll fit right in.
>> No. 30724 Anonymous
4th May 2021
Tuesday 11:50 am
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>>30722
Sounds about right. Most people complain about the maths in a CS degree more than the actual coding so you may be an outlier though.
>> No. 30725 Anonymous
4th May 2021
Tuesday 12:17 pm
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>>30722
You should have done something proper then, like social studies or media.
>> No. 30726 Anonymous
4th May 2021
Tuesday 12:51 pm
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>>30725

I did history and things turned out pretty good for me.
>> No. 30727 Anonymous
4th May 2021
Tuesday 2:19 pm
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>>30726
I did history and now I'm an accountant.
>> No. 30728 Anonymous
4th May 2021
Tuesday 2:46 pm
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>>30727
Does that mean you know the financial years of all kinds of major world events?
>> No. 30734 Anonymous
4th May 2021
Tuesday 4:01 pm
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>>30728
No, it just means that when he describes financial regulations as 'Byzantine' he's being complimentary.
>> No. 30744 Anonymous
4th May 2021
Tuesday 6:53 pm
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>>30728
It means I am fully qualified to own an abacus and not have it be questioned. I am also a fantastic dinner guest, and can spin a good yarn about Diocletian's price edict and how he would have done it differently if he'd known about double entry, and why "What if the Romans figured out double entry" would be a significantly more fascinating thought experiment than "What if the Romans figured out steam engines".

I'm honestly surprised you've not already invited me to tea.
>> No. 30750 Anonymous
4th May 2021
Tuesday 9:03 pm
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>>30744
I'm willing to bet many a Roman figured out double entry, the saucy buggers.
>> No. 30751 Anonymous
5th May 2021
Wednesday 9:27 am
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>>30750

Caligula for a start.
>> No. 30752 Anonymous
5th May 2021
Wednesday 11:04 am
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>>30751
Having seen the uncut version of the film on dodgy VHS back as a teen lad it definitely happened.
>> No. 30753 Anonymous
6th May 2021
Thursday 5:14 pm
30753 Setting office hour boundaries
Just had a fight with my lass within a week of moving in together (we've been together 6 years and have lived together before, but this is the first time since lockdown), because she expects me to do emotional labour when I'm at work. She just comes in off a hard phone call, I've just been on the phone about going 200% over my time budget for a job, and I'm now working on sorting that out and making sure the work is actually right and all, and she pipes up so I just say "Sorry, I'm stressed, I need to work", and then she starts crying. That was it, I wasn't shouting, it was monotone, I was reading spreadsheets and then I hear a sniffle.

Turns out I say "I'm stressed" too much, and what I have to do is when I'm stressed is instead say "I'm busy at the moment", because that will apparently make all the difference. And while I don't doubt that, one of the hallmarks of being stressed is that I am not concentrating on what I'm saying, only what I'm doing.

I'm at work. My job is hard. I'm underqualified. Her job is hard, it's emotionally stressful and not very rewarding, and she's a sensitive person. And it turns out she's meeting her former flatmate straight after work, ie 10 minutes after trying to bend my ear, so she would have gotten that emotional labour anyway.

But it's fucking office hours. I have to take my job seriously because if I don't, I'll simply stop doing it. How do you deal with this? I'm trying to set boundaries but apparently since we live together I HAVE to be emotionally available at any given time during the working day, instead of like, an hour after finishing work, which used to be acceptable pre lockdown. I'm starting to have my doubts, it's sweet how soft she is sometimes but christ, she goes a bit far.

Like how the fuck do you deal with this lads, my ideal scenario would be just locking myself in a room but she probably wouldn't like that. I'm trying to be firm and reliable in that "I am not available during working hours". If she doesn't respect that am I allowed to kick off at her for risking my job because she's sad?
>> No. 30754 Anonymous
6th May 2021
Thursday 5:43 pm
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>>30753
Perhaps, just perhaps, take short breaks often - you might relieve some of your own stress and be more relaxed, happier and productive in learning, while having the odd random moments for her.
>> No. 30755 Anonymous
6th May 2021
Thursday 5:53 pm
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>>30754
Aye, I do take short breaks, but it'll be me just surfing the web for a few minutes now and then, get the distraction out, go back to work. I like working, I love spreadsheets and patterns, I just don't like deadlines as much, or talking. I mean she knew this when we got together.

If I'm taking breaks though, they're *breaks*, if I'm going from concentrating on work to concentrating on active listening and being supportive, it's just more pressure.

I'm generally a decent boyfriend, but in my more callous times I've kept track of how long she's been able to talk on the phone about her day before asking me a single question (45 mins record) and seen how long I can keep her talking without saying any actual words. But I get that I've got to be here for her, but during office hours? It seems a bit selfish, maybe I think that because I'm selfish.
>> No. 30756 Anonymous
6th May 2021
Thursday 6:14 pm
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>>30755
Stop calling it "emotional labour", that just sounds callous already.
>> No. 30757 Anonymous
6th May 2021
Thursday 6:30 pm
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>>30756
I thought that was the right term, what else do you call being there for someone?

I'm there after work, and if we planned it I could be there during the day, but for the spontaneous moments of every day stuff, is it being a bad person to ask her if she can have a sort of support network as such, and call the people she'd usually call if I was busy?
>> No. 30758 Anonymous
6th May 2021
Thursday 6:37 pm
30758 spacer
Not sure why the other lads are being so dismissive of this OP, it would drive me loopy.

I've said since the start, this work from home thing is a double edged sword because the routine time people spend apart at work is vital to the health of a relationship, very few can tolerate being stuck with each other 24/7 and these sorts of issues are part of why. Most never even considered that fact until lockdown, I know three couples just out of my small group of mates that have split up as a consequence of it.

Sadly, it's going to be difficult to get her to see it from your side, if she's the emotionally sensitive type as you suggest. You do need to be firm about the boundary, the difficult part is finding a way to be firm without just coming across as a brash arsehole about it.

Maybe suggest some sort of signal you can use that indicates she shouldn't disturb you because you're busy with something? Like, if you're wearing your headphones, that means you're concentrating and don't want to be disturbed. That way you avoid the moment of conflict where you have to say "fuck off I'm busy". I'm just speculating here but I bet it's that part that really causes the problem, it's that moment of rejection that hurts her feelings, rather than the more general concept of you being unavailable.

>>30756

That's what the fisherpersons who always insist women have to do too much of it call it. I'm not a fan of the term when they use it (usually they're just hypocritically complaining that they have to do any of it at all) but it does rather succinctly get the point across that emotional support from a partner does not come for free, it requires effort on their part, and you can't expect someone to have the energy for it 100% of the time.
>> No. 30759 Anonymous
6th May 2021
Thursday 6:48 pm
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All she wanted you to do was go "Yeah, awww, that's awful....mm hmmm....yeah you should.....that's sad.......OK, yeah..............mmm, that's right........"
It's not hard.
>> No. 30760 Anonymous
6th May 2021
Thursday 6:55 pm
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>>30759

>Yeah, awww, that's awful....mm hmmm

Sounds like you're pretty shit at listening to people m8, I'd refrain from giving relationship advice if I were you.
>> No. 30761 Anonymous
6th May 2021
Thursday 7:04 pm
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>>30760
The thing is, there's a difference between "emotional labour" and just being someone someone else can talk at.
>> No. 30762 Anonymous
6th May 2021
Thursday 7:17 pm
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>>30761

That may be so, but I'm giving the benefit of the doubt that that's what he actually means, not just that his missus likes to yap for no good reason. Even if she does, I reckon he's well within his rights not to have to put up with it during work hours.
>> No. 30763 Anonymous
6th May 2021
Thursday 7:26 pm
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Sounds like this is a managing expectations problem. Your girlfriend has to understand you are not their shrink and aren't available 100% of the time. And you need to accept you can't fix every single problem and when your girlfriend is upset like this it isn't directly under your control or fault. Life can't be perfect all the time. This problem in particular though if it hasn't fixed itself by tomorrow morning I will be amazed.
>> No. 30765 Anonymous
7th May 2021
Friday 8:53 pm
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>>30722
I've never done anything computing-related academically, but I've tried to teach myself programming on multiple occasions, and I too am shit at it. But there's plenty of IT stuff out there that isn't programming. If you can learn networking or anything like that, you'll get a job that's just as good, plus you won't have to share it with 15-year-old LARPers on the Internet.
>> No. 30772 Anonymous
23rd May 2021
Sunday 2:11 pm
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A lass from Tinder ghosted me and it sent me into a bit of a dread spiral. I'm practically 30 and a lot of the building blocks of a respectable life just aren't there.

I don't expect a reason, all she had to do was say 'sorry, not feeling it :/', for fuck's sake. It's obviously not the first time this has happened, I don't know why this one messed with my head so much, I think it's because she seemed so positive about things after our first contact. I've ghosted people before, so I'm being a big fucking hypocrite really.

It really seems like being at all emotionally sensitive is a problem if you're doing online dating, I can see why lads get chronic masturbatory.
>> No. 30773 Anonymous
23rd May 2021
Sunday 2:17 pm
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>>30772
A lot of lads turn vile and aggressive when they're rejected, so lasses avoid that risk by ghosting people.
>> No. 30774 Anonymous
23rd May 2021
Sunday 2:35 pm
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>>30773
Ghosting someone is rejecting them. I find it hard to believe that a lad is going to blow up at a polite 'sorry, no', but not go into meltdown on being ghosted.
>> No. 30775 Anonymous
23rd May 2021
Sunday 3:04 pm
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>>30772
Give speed-dating a whirl once it opens up again. People are slightly less liable to be complete cunts and you don't get as many flakes because of the fee and that doing it takes some bottle. Just be mindful you don't go to anything with a daft theme unless that's what you really want.

>It really seems like being at all emotionally sensitive is a problem if you're doing online dating, I can see why lads get chronic masturbatory.

I think that's the vicious circle it creates. Everyone ends up bitter from the experience and those that survive become hardened and treat it as an impersonal meat market - the person on the other end stops being real. Don't really know why you're even on tinder, it's not the place for relationships.
>> No. 30776 Anonymous
30th May 2021
Sunday 11:14 pm
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I simultaniously really miss my dad and can't pluck up the courage to go and visit him. He's not dying, he wasn't abusive, we don't hate each other, I just feel like a fuck up and like our relationship is kind of... I don't even know, I just wanted to share these thoughts and feelings that zip around in my head every couple of days.
>> No. 30778 Anonymous
30th May 2021
Sunday 11:55 pm
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>>30776

Know how you feel mate, I hardly talk to my parents. My mum texts me and I take like a week to reply. My dad's basically a relic of the past so he doesn't use anything more technologically complex than the telly remote.

I don't hate them or anything, they're just kind of boring and all that happens when I visit is they tell us whatever new gossip has developed in't village, then when I leave I think about what else I might have spent my Saturday doing. I don't feel like a disappointment to them, I'm an only child and I've turned out alright compared to all my cousins (who range from serving time for drugs to council estate single mums), but I don't really have anything to talk to them about. I'm sure they like to know what I'm up to, but these days what I'm up to is going to be the same thing it has been for the last ten years, and isn't going to change any time soon.

Maybe it's just me being a bit of an autist, maybe we're just not a close family, I dunno. But I do feel weird about it looking at other people's family dynamics.

It's going to be really awkward when one of them cops it and I have to somehow arrange a funeral and everything without even knowing how to contact half my relatives, then on the day I'll have to talk to all these people I haven't seen in nearly thirty years. I worry about that quite a bit. Can you get away with just... Not?
>> No. 30779 Anonymous
31st May 2021
Monday 1:10 am
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>>30776
>>30778
That about sums up the relationship with my parents too - same with my siblings so you're not missing much as an only child.

Are you sure any guilt or longing on this isn't just related to societal expectations? Some dads especially don't want any of that nonsense other families have. It's a middle class thing I suppose, or at least appears something more common in the midlands.
>> No. 30780 Anonymous
31st May 2021
Monday 12:34 pm
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>>30772

What do you consider the building blocks of a respectable life?

Tinder is a terrible place to meet decent women to be honest.
>> No. 30781 Anonymous
4th June 2021
Friday 12:38 pm
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>>30780
>What do you consider the building blocks of a respectable life?
I don't know. Stability, a sense of purpose, community, a functioning group of friends.

>Tinder is a terrible place to meet decent women to be honest.
Yeah. I know the whole format is working against me, but I'm still a bit addicted to online dating.

I should just become religious so I can join a church.
>> No. 30782 Anonymous
6th June 2021
Sunday 4:11 pm
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I don't know if this is helpful but "I" have an invite to the alpha of something called Lua which is apparently a dating app for uhm, "conscious" people. Hippy-dippy folk who're into crystals, meditation, incense and class-A psychedelics. I'm guessing it's mostly people in London. Anyway if any of you lads who're into dating apps wants to try it, the invitation link's in the image. The app's home page is https://www.lua.earth/
>> No. 30783 Anonymous
6th June 2021
Sunday 5:02 pm
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>>30782
Have you signed up? What's it like?
>> No. 30784 Anonymous
6th June 2021
Sunday 5:10 pm
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>>30783
It assigns you an "avatar" which is just a RNG of some sort of animal paired with an adjective then it matches you with people of your preferred gender (or lack of one) and you answer assigned stupid questions together until you decide to "reveal" your profile photos or not.
>> No. 30785 Anonymous
6th June 2021
Sunday 9:28 pm
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>>30784

I can't wait to impress crusties and then get rejected after I put all the work in because I look like I work in a bank.
>> No. 30786 Anonymous
6th June 2021
Sunday 10:29 pm
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>>30782
I just know that if I made an account it would be us three having a cuntoff every time they made a new discussion topic.
>> No. 30787 Anonymous
6th June 2021
Sunday 10:44 pm
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>>30782
"Your device isn't compatible with this version"

I wanted to get it on with hippy chicks who aren't down with consumerist society but it looks like I need to be a consumer with a fancy new phone to join. Sad!
>> No. 30788 Anonymous
7th June 2021
Monday 10:18 am
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>>30782
It introduced itself as 'godess of the moon'. I'm not sure I want to continue.
>> No. 30789 Anonymous
7th June 2021
Monday 6:49 pm
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>>30498
Other than watching porn, I don't know how to engage with sexuality which leaves me feeling confused and resentful. The times I've had sex have been disapointing in that it's not what I expected. Most notably sex is messy - i like to see creamy squirts as much as the next man, but in porn. The reality of sex is completely different to what you experience from watching porn - even the nice amatur stuff. Porn engages a solitary part of the brain than actual, social sex. I've started to wonder if it would help me to blindfold the partner - have even started thinking about latex hoods and shit - but it seems as though this would encourage a solitary selfish type of sex rather than what I actually want (No one in gangbang videos actually look happy to be there).

I don't know what to do. I want to enjoy sex, but I don't want to experience the shame and embarassment of a 30 year old might-as-well-be-virgin. I don't want to date - My identity is wrapped up in not looking that sharp, disinterested in this sort of narcissistic desire to be seen at a nice restaurant or whatever.

I considered cutting off a finger in persuit of some awful sexual intent recently - something about Osman Spare. It's not the first time I've though about it but this was significant in that i saw the possibility with a clarity that now scares me.

I'm starting to suspect that my problem involves setting myself apart from others. I'm not convinced I think I'm better - not obviously so anyway - but it must be the case that I think myself different. I just see everyone else and "think what the fuck are we, man?". I'm not generally a bitter person, i've learned some of the joys of meditation and alot of the time can sinserely laugh at us, myself included. I just need to center myself, i've been all over the place lately.

>>30498
I didn't make the bench, though carpentry is still on my mind as a way out of this.
>> No. 30790 Anonymous
7th June 2021
Monday 7:30 pm
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>>30789

Not going to pretend to be a psychologist, here, but the thought of self-harm warrants some immediate action. And I'm obviously just giving an opinion for whatever it's worth:

I think the main issue you've identified there is that you desire intimacy but feel unable to acquire or experience it. There's nothing worse than unsatisfying (which I associate with non-intimate, mutual masturbation) sex, because an extremely intimate act is then bound up with a feeling of alienation.

Dating also isn't necessarily about looking sharp or going to restaurants, unless you just look for women interested in looking sharp and going to restaurants. Most dates I've been on have been happy with a casual drink, a walk through a park (botanical gardens are a nice quiet choice), one particularly fun one with an animal lover was a zoo, and another to see some music (once acts get properly going again).

The problem with intimacy is that you do actually have to let yourself be vulnerable for it to be satisfying. I'm not saying you need to spill your guts immediately, but there is a process of give and take, getting to know eachother. The ramp up to having sex should really be based on that growing sense of intimacy and attraction -- and what's more it's okay not to feel it and keep searching. Going into it being open enough to actually like someone though (and allow them to like you) is probably more difficult than most people realise.
>> No. 30793 Anonymous
7th June 2021
Monday 9:32 pm
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>>30790
>because an extremely intimate act is then bound up with a feeling of alienation
That's exactly it. Most of my masturbation sessions are performed through habit rather than necessity. I can't remember the last time i enjoyed an orgasm. When I was sexually active I'd find myself dreading the act because I could do it myself, without having to deal with people i don't actually like.

>you do actually have to let yourself be vulnerable
I believe this, but don't know it to be true. I feel as though the only value I could offer someone would be to protect their vulnerabilities while hiding my own. The problem is this causes me to become very cold and robotic.

Regarding immediate action and, i assume, doctors - when I found your reply a great grin shot upon my face. Someone had responded. I have attention.
I am legitimately concerned that with time these episodes may get worse. I believe I am seeing this - whereas before I would simply endure it, I'm now taking measures to express myself.
My confusion is in how genuine this is. I know I can meditate to settle my mind, but I'm not doing it. I'm choosing to perpetuate a confusion.

The finger thing is pathetic and if I was to be taken seriously any damage would have to be much worse - if only to prove it to myself. This line of thinking would surely end in death - if not it's purely a practice of self pity, right? I'd have to remain alive to experience the misery, to deny myself care and consideration. It's this that makes me doubt my the sincerity of my thoughts. It's all a contrived game for something - probably entertainment considering how bored I've been lately. I don't want to approach a doctor for this very reason; I want attention.

While I am certainly confused, the fact is that I'm provided a platform to speak here. My experience is not as bad as I'm making it out to be. I'm allowing myself to create a feedback loop for the sake of drama. It's all a performance, man.

This is what I mean. I just need to center myself, get back to my senses type of thing.
Thanks for taking the time to help me reach this understanding.
>> No. 30794 Anonymous
7th June 2021
Monday 9:40 pm
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>>30789

I've no doubt that you'd benefit from a bit of psychotherapy, but I think there's a good chance you can sort yourself out if you just cut down a bit on the wanking and spend less time on your own. Obviously the latter is a bit complicated at the moment, but a lot of that sense of being different is just a symptom of social isolation.

>>30790

>The ramp up to having sex should really be based on that growing sense of intimacy and attraction -- and what's more it's okay not to feel it and keep searching.

I don't necessarily disagree, but as I've reached middle age my relationships with women have become more matter-of-fact and less stressful. "Transactional" is probably too strong a word, but things are a lot easier when you're both sufficiently mature/confident/jaded to skip the pretences and put everything on the table. The mindset is very much "You've got stretch marks, my erections aren't as reliable as they used to be, you've got a bit of a gunt, I've got bad knees, neither of us really gives a shit and we're both quite horny so let's just crack on."

I think >>30789 will be fine once he can admit to a woman "I'm a bit confused about what I want sexually, I find intimacy a bit awkward and weird, but if that doesn't put you off I think we can figure it out". I'm not sure what will get him to that point, but I think the key is getting to a certain level of confident imperfection - we're all a bit mental, we've all got issues and hang-ups, but the only real impediment to intimacy is shame.
>> No. 30800 Anonymous
8th June 2021
Tuesday 9:23 am
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>>30794
>"Transactional" is probably too strong a word, but things are a lot easier when you're both sufficiently mature/confident/jaded to skip the pretences and put everything on the table.

I think this might be because you're comfortable enough with your sexuality to have more "straightforward" sexual relationships if and when you need to. It's harder to get into that kind of comfortable state if you find intimacy difficult.

>>30793
>I don't want to approach a doctor for this very reason; I want attention.

Do you think your need for attention might actually be a need to connect with other people? Or at least, to connect in a way that matters and is satisfying to you?

That might be a better way to frame things, because it's far better to connect with others by putting yourself out there during a date occasionally than to harm yourself.

Don't feel bad about posting on /emo/, either, I've vented here on the past and often just the act of typing up a post and getting some responses from other human beings is enough to get a ball rolling in my head. Very often the ball has led to some resolution.
>> No. 30804 Anonymous
8th June 2021
Tuesday 10:58 am
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>>30800

>I think this might be because you're comfortable enough with your sexuality to have more "straightforward" sexual relationships if and when you need to. It's harder to get into that kind of comfortable state if you find intimacy difficult.

Partly that, but I just give less of a shit than I used to. It's easier said than done of course, but everything gets so much easier if you try to avoid beating yourself up.

When we say the word "confident" we often think in purely positive terms, but my confidence comes entirely from an acceptance of my own shortcomings and insecurities. When you feel lonely and unloveable there's a natural instinct to try and fake it, to try and prove to other people that you're worthwhile, but that's often very counter-productive. When you try to hide your own insecurities, you just bring other people's insecurities into sharp focus.

Most people think that online dating is awkward and weird, so you can often start a meaningful connection by just acknowledging that fact. When you're on a first date and you say "I don't know about you, but I'm nervous as hell", you can often see the relief on the other person's face, a little sigh of tension being released when they find out that they're not alone.

I'm still struggling to articulate my point clearly, but I think the crux of it is that shame lives in darkness and dies in sunlight. Overcoming shame is the work of a lifetime, but it starts with self-kindness rather than self-loathing or self-pity.

It ties in with what you say about allowing yourself to be vulnerable, but I'm not sure I like the connotations of that word. It implies that openness means you're more likely to get hurt, but in my experience it's just the opposite. Admitting to something you're ashamed about is always scary, but you only have to feel that fear once; hiding your shame means living with the constant fear of being found out.

I dunno if any of that makes sense, but it's the best I can do.
>> No. 30809 Anonymous
10th June 2021
Thursday 9:51 am
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Got 3rd month probation review today, told my partner, asked if it'd be alright to set alarm for half 8 instead of 8, she said she had to move the car before free parking finished, so fair.

Then she got up, did yoga for half an hour, put the laundry on, did some bits and pieces in the house, then when my second alarm for 9am went off, she walked back in and said bye.

Would you be fucked off at this? She's complaining that I'm too stressed about work in general, and I'm telling her it's because I'm on a fine line at the moment and need some momentum to improve things, and just being in a good headspace for this review was really important. I've got 3 meetings after that taking me through 4pm. She knows all of this. And now I'm going to be more stressed today, causing more stress for her, and I don't want to be.

I told her everything I needed and why, and she's just pulling out loads of excuses which makes it even worse because it was just a one off and I did everything I practically could to find out what timing she needed to get the car done in the morning so I could have max sleep and be okay for my review.

Moan for moan, review is in 45 mins, I just need to get this out of my head.
>> No. 30810 Anonymous
10th June 2021
Thursday 10:05 am
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>>30809
So what exactly are you mad about? Your girlfriend saying bye to you at 9 when she left as you wanted to snooze a little longer?
>> No. 30811 Anonymous
10th June 2021
Thursday 10:10 am
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>>30810
He wanted to sleep in, she stopped him on the grounds the car needed moving, then it turned out the car didn't need moving that early.
>> No. 30812 Anonymous
10th June 2021
Thursday 10:10 am
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>>30810
My stress over my job has been a strain on our relationship as I'm underqualified and need 6 months of basically overperforming to get sorted. I'm mad because I can't trust her when I need her. I've got sleep anxiety and some bladder problems and mild insomnia so sleep is a cunt for me.

Just had a panic attack, haven't had one in a decade. I know I'm reacting strongly to this but it's important, and I've repeatedly told her it's important, and only when she saw me breaking down did she say "Okay I didn't understand it was this important". What the hell else could I have done?
>> No. 30813 Anonymous
10th June 2021
Thursday 10:14 am
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>>30812
>I'm underqualified and need 6 months of basically overperforming to get sorted.

No you don't, lad. Employers love putting people under pressure like this to try and extract the maximum possible out of them. They wouldn't have taken you on in the first place if they didn't think you were cut out for it.
>> No. 30814 Anonymous
10th June 2021
Thursday 10:24 am
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>>30813
I'm somewhat aware of that, it was 12 months experience doing junior bookkeeping for a senior role in accounts with 3 years min experience desired, so moving on to closing balance journals and year end accounts and a whole slew of process I've never encountered before, but they are helping me. I don't feel like an imposter, I feel challenged in a good way. I'm getting there and I know I'm capable of it, but it is hard and it requires me to be on decent form somewhat consistently.

The major issue is that she's not telling me what you're telling me, which is what would probably help. She tells me that she'll be there for me and support me when I need it because she constantly expresses gratitude for the things I do, and I like doing them for her, but when I need her to do something for me and I try and be clear, it's like she just doesn't take it seriously unless I'm visibly a mess.
>> No. 30815 Anonymous
10th June 2021
Thursday 12:00 pm
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>>30814
To be a little bit blunt, women generally aren't brilliant when it comes to showing empathy to men. They can be alright when it comes to helping you with largely inconsequential emotional needs but they shit the bed when it comes to when you're struggling and need proper support as you're supposed to be the rock by default of being a man. When a woman says she wants a man in touch with his feelings and emotional side she absolutely does not mean it; she likes the idea of it but experiencing the reality of it is a completely different matter.
>> No. 30816 Anonymous
10th June 2021
Thursday 12:56 pm
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>>30815

This is the sad truth, and even if it can be a bit of a sexist stereotype, it's one of the ones with basis in reality. Girls in general are used to having their own needs catered to above everyone else's. Thus without even realising, they can be, for lack of better words, sort of oblivious to the needs of others when it matters.

With my last ex there was this weird phase when she'd first moved in, where she'd get up at 4:30 in the morning for work, but thought it was fine to whack the big light on and start blasting the hair dryer, while I was still asleep and wasn't dude to get up for another three fucking hours. I had to sit her down and explain why that was inconsiderate, and I could tell by her response that it had genuinely never even occurred to her.

I don't think there is really a solution to it, because people are pretty much set in their ways by the time you reach a certain age. As a man you just have to sort of acknowledge it, know they're not doing it just to be cunts, and you need some decent lad m8s you can talk to about work pressure or what have you. They will usually have better advice to offer and a more sympathetic ear anyhow.

>>30809

Is there a repeated pattern of her ignoring things you have explicitly asked her for, or is it a genuine one off where she'd forgotten you'd asked or whatever?
>> No. 30817 Anonymous
10th June 2021
Thursday 1:53 pm
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>>30815

To perpetuate a gender stereotype: when a woman complains, she wants sympathy; when a man complains, he wants help.
>> No. 30818 Anonymous
10th June 2021
Thursday 2:50 pm
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tldr we probably need relationship counselling since we can't seem to solve these issues by communicating, thanks for talking me through the stress lads.

>>30815
She's generally great, like she's one of those people that's a ray of sunshine. Apart from when it comes to arguments. I make it a point to back down even when I think I'm partially in the right, and not justify it, because sometimes the person in stress just needs to hear you say "I'm sorry, I shouldn't have done that, I'll make an effort in the future" and not "But I x y z". Then they can get out of the stressful state, go past the emotional stage, and discuss things with a clear head later when you say "I don't think I would have reacted like this if you hadn't done x".

She's said sometimes she doesn't even remember the words I've said, just the tone I've said them in, which has caused

I try and teach her how to do things the same way, and she says she admires that I can do that, but she's really insecure about some things, and had very critical parents, so she gets very defensive and denies things in the moment which, in ten minutes time, she'll acknowledge and accept. It's not gaslighting because it's not intentional, she's told me her head just goes blurry.

>>30816
I get that, I can see on the inverse side that for example, I won't help if help isn't implicit in the request - so for example her making a comment "There's a lot of something to do" will get a nod in agreement, but if she just literally said "Can you help me sort through this" then I'll get up and do it. I think this is perhaps a male thing.

I'm definitely at fault for trying to cater my own needs over hers sometimes, because I see it as "If I can get this sorted and stable, I can then be in a clear enough position to deal with your problems without getting stressed myself, and thereby be more effective", and I know it sounds biased but I'm certain I'm right, because I don't feel a need to talk about my problems, I either deal with them or file them away until they can be dealt with. Talking about them reminds me that they're problems, so I don't need that kind of support from her, but it seems to be the main type she wants to provide. The other day I swore at the laptop as she walked in the room and she commented "Aw are you having troubles". What the hell do you do with that?

There's no repeated pattern as such, but it's common, because she's ditzy and insecure about being ditzy which leads to denial, and had undiagnosed ADHD until a couple of months ago, and I'm assuming we mostly know that can play hell on your confidence growing up. She's not stupid, she's got an MA in neuroscience but she takes way too much on, but I have to deal with that extra stress.

Probation went as well as it could ("You're not failing, but we really need to see some growth and improvement in your communication and prioritisation" which I can appreciate), just had 3 hours on the phone to clients and now I'm having lunch. Feeling better but I feel like such a cunt for having a panic attack and shouting at her.
>> No. 30819 Anonymous
10th June 2021
Thursday 4:19 pm
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>>30818

People are very different when it comes to conflict resolution, and it's a two way street. Be mindful that what you see as de-escalation and avoidance of antagonism, can feel to the other person like dismissal or worse, being belittled.

Personally I very much prefer to have a heated row that lasts five minutes and then apologise and make the rational conclusions once that initial spark of emotion has passed, like lancing an abscess and letting the pus out. It's unpleasant but short lived, and everyone knows where they stand with a good old fashioned "FUCK YOU I TOOK THE BINS OUT LAST WHAT THE FUCK DO YOU TAKE ME FOR YOU LAZY CUNT". Not everyone is as rational or detached about their feelings and needs as you seem to be, and that's not necessarily a bad thing. It's just how different people's brains process things, like being a visual learner vs a practical learner or what have you.

My personal perennial problem with women is that they're always trying to read between the lines to establish what I mean when I say something, when what I meant was exactly what I said, in the most blunt and literal sense. "I need some more time and space to myself" does not mean "I feel pressured by your need for emotional validation and expectation of fulfilment", it's just a more concise and polite way of saying "can you fuck off and leave me alone more often so I can play videogames in peace". For this reason I have learned communication of intent is vital as well as the direct request itself.

Communication is a minefield frankly. The biggest challenge of any relationship is building a mutual understanding of the ways one another communicates, the catch is both of you have to try to adapt for the other. It can't be one way.
>> No. 30820 Anonymous
11th June 2021
Friday 8:19 pm
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I'm pathologically attracted to massive arses. I can only get hard to massive arses. I don't have sex with my girlfriend because she has no arse. I want to fuck massive arsed women, but I am trapped in an arseless relationship.
>> No. 30821 Anonymous
11th June 2021
Friday 8:21 pm
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>>30820
Have you mentioned this to her?
>> No. 30822 Anonymous
11th June 2021
Friday 8:45 pm
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>>30820

I actually left one of my girlfriends partially because she'd been on a diet and lost her arse. She was obviously chuffed with herself for losing so much weight and she didn't take it very well that I wanted her to put at least a little bit back on so I didn't feel like I was shagging a ten year old boy.

You've seen that episode of Malcolm in the Middle right?
>> No. 30823 Anonymous
11th June 2021
Friday 8:49 pm
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>>30820

Heisenberg is way ahead of you.


>> No. 30824 Anonymous
12th June 2021
Saturday 3:33 pm
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>>30820

Revenge lad here. I've never been prouder of PsyOps on this website than I am right now.
>> No. 30825 Anonymous
12th June 2021
Saturday 4:48 pm
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Dammit, I'm mildly depressed and suffering a complete lack of motivation.
I look out of the window to see fantastic summer weather and think of half a dozen things to do but cant find any energy to get off the sofa
>> No. 30872 Anonymous
23rd June 2021
Wednesday 9:00 am
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Do you ever feel like there's some cosmic force that just prevents you from being allowed to have nice things?

It sounds really trivial and materialistic perhaps, but it really gets on top of me sometimes, that nothing I own or have in my life works as intended, reliably, and dependably. Any electronic thing I have either breaks or develops some weird quirk I constantly have to put up with. Every non-electrical thing I have has some blemish or damage. My car always has some niggling little issue to take care of, and is slowly accumulating dents and scrapes from knobheads in the work car park.

I try my best to look after things, I try and do my research and put the money down on stuff with good reviews and reputation. I just want some meagre matrial comforts to ease the emptiness of existence, but instead I am constantly forced to confront the fact that everything is flawed. I'm the protagonist in some kind of bhuddist Kafka piss take.

I'd just like to have something that works, and stays working, for like five fucking minutes, you know? Not to feel like I'm being punished for indulging in the decadence of owning more than a TV and a kettle.
>> No. 30873 Anonymous
23rd June 2021
Wednesday 9:16 am
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>>30872

I hear you, there's a sense of dread and frustration when something you rely on breaks. It can seem like others don't experience these problems, but generally they do. Just don't take it as a personal failing.

I've moved into a new place and I totally underestimated the amount of work that would entail -- it materialises from nothing. Assembling furniture, redoing scratched wall paint, waxing over dents and holes that appear in the laminate flooring, replacing stiff parts in the bathroom tap. The worst was when I got drunk and broke the bedframe (no I'm not BBW lover lad, I was just an idiot). I just measured the distance from leg to frame, bought a lump of pine cut to size, and attached it to the frame under the split. There's a constant pressure to be resourceful, spend money wisely, and be able to fix anything. I'm learning quickly but I'd be lying if I said it wasn't occasionally a stress.

On the other hand, I think it might also be mostly down to perception; we don't take notice of things when they're working. For the first time in my life I own a dishwasher, and I've used it every day for the past three or four weeks. I realise now it'd throw my daily routine out the window if it broke, but it ticks along promisingly.

I don't know where I'm going with this, just maybe it's good to have contingencies and a spare bit of cash for replacements or repairs, be grateful for the stuff that continues to work reliably, and place most value on the irreplaceable stuff (i.e. your body, health, and peace of mind).
>> No. 30874 Anonymous
30th June 2021
Wednesday 3:56 pm
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Workspaceboundarieslad, got my first round of relationship counselling coming up at 5pm, really can't be fucked as I'm finally getting some work done and I'm quite hungover, but probably best to get it started. Need to avoid throwing up on the phone.

I'm slightly worried they'll tell us to break up, but then if we're not making each other happy in a relationship that seems like the obvious conclusion. Installing a desk in the bedroom has reduced arguments by 50% already, and she's getting one of the headband alarm thingies so she can wake up an hour before me without taking my sleep, which should further reduce contention. We both agreed the other day that we are both feeling a bit depressed and as a result, are both experiencing that 'everything is important to me because I feel quite down' kind of thing.

It's apparently some sort of general session, more intended to determine the specific areas we should target in further counselling than to address any one of them. No idea what to say. Not really even asking advice, just stating really. Hope it goes well and all.
>> No. 30875 Anonymous
30th June 2021
Wednesday 6:22 pm
30875 Just venting really, let me know if I sound in denial or arrogant
Reporting back, it was quite interesting but immediately got into an argument once it was over about something that happened years ago, which really hurt me at the time which I've gotten over - I moved in with her, she guaranteed she'd been told she could defer her MA to the next year, and would move out and go travelling in January, giving me 6 months with her and 6 months alone, enough time to save up for the extra rent for living on my own. She then found out she couldn't, and moved out in late September, leaving me alone in the house paying rent for 9 months, without any of the time I'd been banking on to get my finances in order. I was upset at the time because I couldn't tell her not to go for her dream as such, but every time rent was due I'd get anxious and depressed.

Regardless, that was in 2017, and I've not even really thought about it since moving down to London 3 years ago. But I mentioned it in counselling as it was the first time we moved in together, and my lass got upset! She 'corrected' me that it was 3 months instead of 4 (she can't actually remember), because neither of us can remember if we moved in June or July. She corrected me because she thinks that her bailing on me is less bad if it was after 4 months than 3 months, which misses the point that I felt betrayed because I needed stability at that point more than anything, and she promised it and then left due to lack of self confidence that she wouldn't be able to get the same offer if she reapplied next year.

This session has made me concerned that I'm genuinely the more stable and mature out of us in terms of the relationship, and that there's actually quite a wide gap. I certainly, absolutely have my issues - with anger, motivation, a slew of other things, but I am very aware of them and able to sincerely say "I'm sorry, this is all my fault" without afterwards going "but", something she is currently incapable of doing in the moment (making it all the more galling when 10 minutes after the argument, I may get a text saying "Sorry, you were right"). I got one just five minutes ago, when I criticised her for saying 'Cool' in a sarcy voice just as she was leaving the room after I twice requested to be alone. She just text back saying yes, she thinks she was emulating the way she behaves with her overly-critical parents by getting the last word in before she left.

I don't want to be right, I want to be happy, and I want to stop making my partner unhappy and make her happy! I hate being right about these things, but I've seen them play out so often and thought on them so often. I feel that maybe if I were with someone who wasn't so defensive or unable to admit fault then I would have much more space to work on my anger. But then I don't want to eschew responsibility for my actions. She won't even leave me alone sometimes, following me from room to room when I'm angry and not giving me any space, at which point I will explode because I feel I have no control or space.

The therapist completely nailed a couple of things immediately, probably because they were quite obvious, and both of them were specifically behaviours of hers - the defensiveness, and her desire for everything to be okay, immediately. While I resent it being said that my preferred coping mechanism is "to retreat to my mancave", it really fucking is. I just need a few minutes to process the negative emotions, and then I can go on. Despite clear requests to do so, she finds it almost impossible to give me my space if she's upset, and needs to know that I'm fine immediately right then. Ironically I can guarantee that I will be fine if given my space, and the only thing making it worse is not having it.
>> No. 30876 Anonymous
2nd July 2021
Friday 6:19 pm
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>>30875

You sound fine mate. Women have a much more complicated relationship with these things (being wrong, things not being ok, upsetting people) in my experience. It looks like she's knows she's a bit of a nightmare, doesn't want to admit it, but can't seem to stop it happening or get a handle on why.
>> No. 30877 Anonymous
3rd July 2021
Saturday 10:37 am
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How long does it take to become comfortable with a partner's family? I've been seeing my partner for 6 years, and see her family once a month, and still get incredibly anxious if I have to spend time with them. I think this is why I always thought about dating an orphan, no parents to disappoint.
>> No. 30878 Anonymous
3rd July 2021
Saturday 11:07 am
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>>30877
Is this a veiled threat?
>> No. 30879 Anonymous
3rd July 2021
Saturday 11:36 am
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>>30877
Why do they make you feel anxious? Do you feel as though you keep fucking up in front of them? Or is that they just plain dislike you, either for your personality or job or wealth or something else?
>> No. 30880 Anonymous
3rd July 2021
Saturday 3:12 pm
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>>30877

I've been going out with my missus for two and a half years, in fact nearly three now, and I've still only met her dad a handful of times and never met her mum. She doesn't speak very highly of them but I am getting suspicious they're nowhere near as bad as she says and she just doesn't want me to realise.

Sage for generally unhelpful post.
>> No. 30881 Anonymous
3rd July 2021
Saturday 3:44 pm
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>>30880

My dad was objectively terrible to his family, but if you met him you'd almost certainly like him, he's personable and quite charismatic. Maybe hers are like that too. Alternatively, if she doesn't get on with them very well, it's not surprising that she doesn't visit them often, with or without you.
>> No. 30882 Anonymous
3rd July 2021
Saturday 4:07 pm
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>>30881

>My dad was objectively terrible to his family, but if you met him you'd almost certainly like him, he's personable and quite charismatic.

Same here. Mine is a very slick manipulator, so he tends to create rifts wherever he goes - people either despise him after being totally betrayed by him, or don't see why anyone could dislike him.
>> No. 30883 Anonymous
3rd July 2021
Saturday 7:19 pm
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>>30877
I get extremely anxious if I am forced to spend time with people. Is that the case? Forced gatherings bother me a lot, unless I have had a couple of shots before hand.
>> No. 30909 Anonymous
6th August 2021
Friday 12:00 am
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I keep remembering when I had a life, smiling at the fond memories and then being hit with what feels like an unyielding torrent of misery at how far I've fallen. I hope a massive spike smashes through my window and carries on through my stupid fucking head while I sleep.
>> No. 30912 Anonymous
6th August 2021
Friday 7:28 pm
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>>30909

Life moves in peaks and troughs for everyone, don't let that fact turn into self-loathing.
>> No. 30916 Anonymous
7th August 2021
Saturday 7:05 am
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Ever since it became a sort of necessary engagement thing for YouTubers to reply in their comments section, I've found it irresistible to troll them. I don't know why, I just can't stop myself baiting, because I'm some anonymous arsehole behind a screen name and they always bite and get really defensive, which then makes me feel weirdly vindicated.

I don't feel good about it, but then again I don't really feel bad about it, because ultimately it's not harming anyone, I'm just heckling some narcissist who takes themselves too seriously on the Internet. I just know it's not really a healthy habit and I probably have better things to do with my time.

It'd just as if I instinctively dislike people who have the gall to put themselves out there on the Internet without even having the basic gumption not to feed trolls, I dislike seeing the Internet filled with people who don't know the sort of common sense and caution we'd all have had twenty years ago, so I lash out at them. I don't know what it says about me that I give a fuck about something like that.

I dunno. Just putting that out there really, not necessarily a proper /emo/ post, but you know.
>> No. 30917 Anonymous
7th August 2021
Saturday 10:28 am
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>>30912
The necrosis has set in. It's only a matter of time, your platitudes matter not.
>> No. 30918 Anonymous
7th August 2021
Saturday 2:54 pm
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>>30916
What sort of thumbnails do the videos have? I cannot decide how punitively I will judge you unless I know what the thumbnails are like. If they're just a random static screenshot from the video, you're a bastard and you need to stop now. If they're custom images with text and a headshot of the YouTuber looking off to the side with a shocked expression, possibly accompanied by emojis, then sir, I would like to commend you for the George Cross.
>> No. 30919 Anonymous
7th August 2021
Saturday 7:23 pm
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I'm vaguely annoyed about this female friend with a history of depression who's misinterpreted my attempts to check up on her after her breakups as me sniffing around trying to get with her. It's not something I have any interest in whatsoever but how do you tell someone you don't find them at all attractive without hurting their feelings?

I figure there's no point. She's not a particularly good friend anyway; it's felt very one-sided for a long time now. I'm letting her believe what she wants, it's not worth the effort on my part to sort out.

Still, it rankles.
>> No. 30920 Anonymous
7th August 2021
Saturday 7:25 pm
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>>30919
>friend with a history of depression who's misinterpreted my attempt

One of the most difficult parts about being around someone who is depressed, is that they're often very self-centred; everything is about them.
>> No. 30921 Anonymous
7th August 2021
Saturday 9:58 pm
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>>30920
In my experience, they're always angry. I have heard that proper clinical depression really removes your ability to experience emotion at all, so I suspect anger is the last one to go. So many people I know who talk about depression a lot are permanently furious on social media about something. They go looking for reasons to be angry. I don't understand it myself at all, but it really does look from the outside like they are unable to feel anything except rage so they wind up clinging to their anger and identifying with it, because it's the only emotion they can feel. I have no idea if there is any scientific backing for any of this.
>> No. 30922 Anonymous
7th August 2021
Saturday 10:11 pm
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>>30921

There's a huge difference between "depressed people" and "people who talk about depression a lot". If you don't have a cute puppy, the easiest way to get attention on social media is pity from your friends or anger from strangers.

A large proportion of the people (mainly women) who can't shut up about being depressed really have borderline personality disorder.

People with clinical depression are far more likely to suffer in silence - partly because of the shame and self-loathing that often accompanies depression, partly because of the persistent stigma that surrounds severe and enduring depression rather than the media-friendly "I was really low but I opened up to an incredibly expensive series of private psychiatrists and psychotherapists and now I'm fine" variety.
>> No. 30923 Anonymous
7th August 2021
Saturday 10:19 pm
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>>30921
She's never an angry person, just prone to self-pity. Constantly falling for people too fast, getting hurt, moping then making the same mistake again.
>> No. 30924 Anonymous
8th August 2021
Sunday 4:01 am
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I just punched in our window. I feel like a massive cunt. Just come back from drinks with the parents in law, had a miscommunication with partner result in a drunk argument. We've been doing really well in counselling for the last couple months and arguments have dropped as has their intensity, but just being drunk for this one blew it way out. I smashed a window because she locked me out of the house when we were arguing and for some reason I thought I'd bang on the window instead of banging on the door. It was a pointless series of drunk escalations. She knows I'm sorry as by now I've apologised a few times, and she's apologised for locking me out. Just a stupid drunk argument, but now there's blood everywhere and the neighbours know I'm a cunt and we've wasted what could have been a nice night. I respond like a fucking psycho if I am locked out of my home. I get the feeling that the consistency of such a reaction isn't justified despite the rarity of its occurrence.

I don't think there's anything constructive I'm looking for with this post. We're working on fixing the flaws in an otherwise fulfilling relationship. We need to work on de-escalation and I need to work on how I express anger. We shouldn't get really drunk. If we do, we should be excessively clear about our plans and communication to avoid things like her waving me goodbye in a taxi home while I'm walking home, thinking she's getting a taxi to follow her parents to karaoke. But we fucked it all up tonight and I smashed a window. I did a bad thing and I'll be paying for it. I'm incredibly lucky none of the glass embedded or cut deep. I will have a few scars from this. And there's fucking blood everywhere. Excuse the self indulgence but I fucking bled on the carpet and there was so much of it running over my hand. I didn't mean to smash the window. I just wanted to get back inside my house. Fuck.

Any of you ever been a massive cunt? If so, did you sort yourself out?
>> No. 30925 Anonymous
8th August 2021
Sunday 4:15 am
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>>30924
>Any of you ever been a massive cunt?

All of us. All of the time.
>> No. 30926 Anonymous
8th August 2021
Sunday 6:55 am
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>>30924

>Any of you ever been a massive cunt?

Yeah, pretty much. It has mellowed out as I've grown older, but the source of most of my cuntishness came from working a stressful job I didn't like. I didn't even notice that was the case, but the fact that I cried with joy and relief on the drive home on the day I finally decided to step away from the work did make me realise what a weight I'd been carrying. Perhaps a healthier, more well adjusted person would have noticed that much sooner.

Anyway, we're all different, but I suspect most blokes act up just because they're frustrated about something under the surface they don't quite know how to address. It might be nowt to do with your missus, it might.
>> No. 30927 Anonymous
8th August 2021
Sunday 9:07 am
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>>30924

It's good that you had been making progress in therapy and all that, but if a few beers puts you into a relapse like this? I'd be questioning the overall integrity of this relationship by now, honestly. I don't want to be the guy who says "just break up" but you two clearly wind each other up a bit more than is helpful and it isn't doing any favours.

It's like me and my ex, and oven tray gate. It's an example I always bring up because I think that's the moment I realised it wasn't worth it. An oven tray left in the oven, and we shouted at each other for probably two hours, just winding each other up more and more. I miss a lot of things about that girl, I'll have those regretful times where I'm like "shit, I let the best one I've ever had go..." and all that, but then I remind myself.

Oven tray gate.
>> No. 30928 Anonymous
8th August 2021
Sunday 1:46 pm
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I have a big promotion (with much more work) and enough saved to move to a regional office so I can buy a home. It's all moving very fast, the regional office isn't based somewhere I'd ever dream of living and while I'll rent for the first 6 months it's a scary thought to end up trapped in suburbia and married to my job. If I turn around and realise I hate my new life, job or I'm just incompetent then this will be a very painful mistake. The problem as well is I'll be moving out of the city on my own with the lass I'm seeing now unable to do her job elsewhere - not how most people do it I suspect.

Yet again I'm reminded that I should've married into money. I squandered my youth chasing my foolish dreams and now Lady Muffinpuff will never fall for my masculine wiles. Pebbledash manor could've been mine I tell you. MINE!

>>30924
I wouldn't beat yourself up about it too much - whys your woman locking you out your own home in the first place. Is this the kind of problem you've had in past relationships? You've probably covered it in counselling but if you can't bite your tongue then leave the situation for when things have had a chance to calm down.

>>30927
Curiously I've had my own oven tray gate. The kitchen is an angry place.
>> No. 30929 Anonymous
8th August 2021
Sunday 11:49 pm
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Help me all I can do is type.
>> No. 30930 Anonymous
9th August 2021
Monday 12:09 am
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>>30929
You say that like it's a bad thing.
>> No. 30931 Anonymous
9th August 2021
Monday 12:50 am
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>>30930
I want to die also.
>> No. 30932 Anonymous
9th August 2021
Monday 1:27 am
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>>30931
Why?
>> No. 30933 Anonymous
10th August 2021
Tuesday 6:32 am
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>>30932
I’m a failure, a freak and a psycho. Everything is a humiliation and I can’t stand it. The idea that I’m going to have a normal life apropos of nothing at this stage is absurd. Ten years to stop being like this and it couldn’t be maintained for even a moment.
>> No. 30934 Anonymous
15th August 2021
Sunday 8:57 pm
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I went on a date, quite promising, she talked about 'next time', she texted me to tell me she had a nice time, I ask if she got home okay, then she seems to have ghosted me.

Or maybe she didn't get home okay. Why won't she just open the message and leave me on read, for fuck's sake?

Dating isn't nice. It drains me, I hate it.
>> No. 30935 Anonymous
15th August 2021
Sunday 9:28 pm
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>>30934
People get distracted.
>> No. 30936 Anonymous
16th August 2021
Monday 3:41 am
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>>30934
Why is being left on read preferable to being ignored completely? I just feel the exact opposite myself.
>> No. 30937 Anonymous
16th August 2021
Monday 7:55 am
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>>30934

This isn't advice, and if anything dating probably requires a lot of patience, but I've personally found I just have no tolerance for this kind of thing.

I know that personally, when I'm attracted to someone, I tend to make the time and go out of my way to interact with them. When things like this happen, it just makes me feel like either they're trying to look disinterested or they're really not that into me.

Rationally, there are other explanations, but I also can't shake the knowledge that when someone really wants you, they'd probably text you back in the middle of a loved one's funeral.

I welcome being corrected on this.
>> No. 30938 Anonymous
16th August 2021
Monday 10:58 am
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>>30935
Yeah, but twentysomethings look at their phone a couple of times a day.

If a woman just tells me she's not interested in the early stages of dating, I stop caring almost immediately, but if she ignores my messages, even though I know she's almost certainly not interested, there's this slight background tension. I guess this is why feigning disinterest is such a common tactic.

Is this the way other people react, or am I just a bit soft?
>> No. 30939 Anonymous
16th August 2021
Monday 11:28 am
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>>30938

I think men just take the whole dating business more seriously. Any half-decent looking woman is fighting off unwanted advances with a shitty stick, but blokes have to pluck up the courage to do the asking. Women complain about an inbox full of unsolicited dick pics, men complain about an inbox full of tumbleweed.

I think you've just got to focus on the fact that it's a numbers game. I used to do sell double glazing on the phone don't @ me, I needed the money and didn't have any other options. A lot of people quit after the first week because they couldn't hack being told to fuck off all day, but those of us who stuck at it learned to concentrate on the one call a day that might lead to a sale rather than the hundreds that definitely wouldn't.

If you started your spiel while bracing yourself for an earful, you were fucked because people would immediately sense that negativity and defensiveness. You had to start every call afresh as if you were calling someone who definitely wanted double glazing, then drop the call and move on as soon as it was clear that you weren't getting anywhere.

Easier said than done of course, but if you don't put a brave face on it there's a real risk of getting into a spiral of negativity and bitterness.
>> No. 30940 Anonymous
16th August 2021
Monday 12:07 pm
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>>30935
>>30937
>>30938
>>30939

If there's one golden rule for online dating, I mean one fundamental piece of advice you need to know in order to maintain your sanity, above all else, it is this:

When a lass is really interested, she will message back.

If a lass leaves you on read, treat it as a dead end and just move on. I mean that absolutely literally, in black and white, with no room for "oh but maybe she just..." fuck off. Just move on, she's dead to you. Carry on swiping. I cannot state this firmly enough: She's gone.

Yes, you might be surprised, she might just have fallen asleep and she'll get back to you in the morning. It happens. But that's not the point. The point is you can't string yourself along with false hope. It is a siren call that will only set you up to be wounded.

Besides that, the key to keeping a woman's interest is not coming off as too keen yourself. Women can smell desperation a mile off and nothing dries their fanny up faster. If you can successfully adopt this attitude, you're halfway to winning that battle too.
>> No. 30941 Anonymous
16th August 2021
Monday 12:15 pm
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Personally I think self-pity is top of the fanny repellant list, but desperation is a close secnond.
>> No. 30942 Anonymous
16th August 2021
Monday 12:36 pm
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>>30940

I try to take the "maybe she just got distracted" route because a) it does happen and b) instead of moping around feeling outright rejected, you can find it under "oh well who knows" and move on anyway. It's not as though you should be totally invested in one person after one date anyway. Maybe she did forget, maybe she didn't; either way it's not important.
>> No. 30943 Anonymous
16th August 2021
Monday 12:59 pm
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>>30942

If you're capable of moving on anyway just because she got distracted, then fair enough, but I doubt that's the case for most people. For most people, that leaves the temptation in place to leave it a few hours and then send a follow up message. It leaves the groundwork in place for that to happen repeatedly, and for you to talk yourself out of getting the message each time that she's not interested.

There will always be one that comes along that you really fancy, or she shares all your interests and you don't want to let it go, and it seems like an absolute cruelty of fate that she somehow doesn't like you when you know you'd be such a great match. But regardless, she isn't. Therefore you really do have to be quite mercenary about it.
>> No. 30944 Anonymous
16th August 2021
Monday 1:25 pm
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>>30943

Maybe a better way of thinking about it is: no matter how perfect she seems, a non-negotiable criteria for any partner should be that they find you attractive enough to return your messages and generally be enthusiastic about getting closer to you.

If they don't check that box, it invalidates whatever other things you might like about her.
>> No. 30945 Anonymous
16th August 2021
Monday 1:36 pm
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>>30944
This is a perfect way of putting it; also, >>30940

WhatsApp has also ruined modern communication with its bogus "read receipts" - if somebody has their alerts configured in a certain way, they can read the message and not light up the "read" marker; basing anything on it is probably bogus in my view.
>> No. 30950 Anonymous
21st August 2021
Saturday 9:54 pm
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>>30938
She got back to me in the end, lads. She essentially told me she led me on intentionally, because that's just what she always does on dates. I do appreciate the honesty, but it's a shit thing to do.

I saw someone online say dating for men is like a job interview, for women it's shopping. I think that's true.
>> No. 30951 Anonymous
22nd August 2021
Sunday 12:03 am
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>>30950

>She essentially told me she led me on intentionally, because that's just what she always does on dates.

Did she shed any light on why? I just can't get in the heads of people like this, why do they do things which are actively counterproductive and then complain people get the wrong idea or react badly to being let down.

Honestly sometimes, despite being the successful, well sexed stud I am, I can really see how the chronic masturbator lads ended up how they are. Women just make it so bloody easy to be a misogynist sometimes.
>> No. 30953 Anonymous
22nd August 2021
Sunday 2:21 am
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Why do you lot bother with relationships? It's a stupid fucking game.
>> No. 30954 Anonymous
22nd August 2021
Sunday 2:43 am
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>>30938
Sometimes I take awhile to reply because I have to get in the mood or there's just nothing meaningful to say. I've been told off for this before but she'll either message back or she won't innit.


But on the broader situation, some women can get the wrong end of the stick on this and find it patronising like she can't look after herself. She's not your nan - just drop a text the next day if you got your end away so she doesn't feel used.

>>30940
I think I can expand on this advice. What you need to do with online dating is always aim for a situation of talking to multiple women at once and by extension to remember that it's not anything until you've put your dick in her. Woman are hard work when it comes to the first few dates so it helps to keep a few leads for when one ghosts, cancels at the last minute or generally acts like a child. Then when you do hit it off with a girl and settle into something you can ghost the rest of them because fuck 'em.

>>30953
The life of a single bloke is too organised and secure in my mind. Probably the same for women too. You end up building a lovely nest of a life but it feels empty without some bird to share it with (and shit all over it).
>> No. 30956 Anonymous
22nd August 2021
Sunday 10:29 am
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>>30951
To be fair I'm a bloke and I do this too. I think it has something to do with neglect in early childhood, you appreciate that someone is interested even if you know that you aren't and you want to play along to affirm that there's nothing "wrong" with you.

Obviously it's not great, but being honest about it is the way to go. I don't really see how it's worse than sleeping with someone who you know is interested in a relationship when you know that you are only in it for the sex. In fact it's basically the same thing.
>> No. 30958 Anonymous
22nd August 2021
Sunday 10:58 am
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>>30951

It's an unfortunate mathematical quirk.

Most job applications are hopelessly shit, despite most employees being reasonably competent. Competent candidates only have to apply for a handful of jobs before someone snaps them up, but knobheads will apply for job after job without success.

For the same reason, most of the people on the dating scene are weirdos, perverts, lunatics and attention-seekers. People who are capable of maintaining a relationship with another human being will couple up as soon as they can, leaving behind a cohort of permanent daters who can't or won't get past the second date. Most people are basically OK, but most of the people on the market are on the market for a reason.
>> No. 30959 Anonymous
22nd August 2021
Sunday 3:25 pm
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I've had no interest in seeing my people lately - it's always the same shit with no news to share. I know what they say, i know what they're about and it's boring. Loathesome, even - the thought of finding new depths to these people is currently a chore.
I've recently come out of a down phase which lasted longer than usual - i think my family noticed, now they wont stop calling me to 'support' and invite me do stuff. Each phone call is a hassle, yet i regularly check my phone to regret no new messages.

I need new people in my life. New experiences to enrich my life and ongoing relationships.

Being autist i have minimal experience 'go getting' and engaging with the dynamic of life. I am however begining to recognise social opportunity more readily, and i have a degree of insight into how my bevaviour patterns perpetuate this situation i've become fed up with.

A close friend is moving to attend university soon, which inspired in me the thought that i could move, too. I'd like to get somewhere else where i can develop my identity some more. from the very first steps i'm unsure how to do that.
Find a place to live, furnish it and start living? I've never understood how that's possible when you don't know the area. It's like going on holiday, how can i trust there'll be a taxi at the port, ready to take me to the place? How do you organise living?
>> No. 30960 Anonymous
22nd August 2021
Sunday 3:28 pm
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>>30959
Moving somewhere new to live on your own will be more isolating, not less.
>> No. 30963 Anonymous
22nd August 2021
Sunday 3:56 pm
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>>30959
You just go do it. The best advice when moving somewhere new is to rent a shared place so you can start building up a network and consciously make the effort to be more outgoing (fake it). Honestly it's incredibly liberating to leave your hometown and start from scratch, I'd be a poorer man if I didn't go do it and feel sorry for the people who don't.

But yeah people are fucking dull.
>> No. 30967 Anonymous
22nd August 2021
Sunday 7:17 pm
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>>30963
>But yeah people are fucking dull.

They really are.
>> No. 30968 Anonymous
28th August 2021
Saturday 1:40 am
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God,. A pathetic little weasel, a pitiful excuse for a person who should really remove.himself from the planet but I'm too much of a coward to do even that.
>> No. 30969 Anonymous
28th August 2021
Saturday 11:32 am
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>>30968
What's stopping you from improving the things you dislike about yourself?
>> No. 30970 Anonymous
28th August 2021
Saturday 1:23 pm
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>>30969
Myself. Sometimes it feels like I'm making progress but it feels like holding a mask up; not fundamentally changing who I am. I am nice and respectful because I know you're supposed to be that and I do want to be that, but sometimes I just forget that and then reveal the horrible person I am. I don't have the resolve to not be the pathetic cunt I really am inside all the time. As I say, there's one true solution to it but I'm too much of a pathetic coward to ever do it. Felt the same physically as well. Inside I'm a fat cunt, and every time I've lost the weight it's come back. At least I'll be dead sooner this way.
>> No. 30971 Anonymous
28th August 2021
Saturday 2:12 pm
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>>30970

It sounds to me like you're being enormously and unfairly harsh in your judgement of yourself; wanting to be nice and respectful is half the battle. The fact that you can't keep it up all the time is part of being a human in the world, not an individual moral failing. As for weight, no offense mate but look around you. It's not a problem that's unique to you. Again, the fact that it's affecting so many is also a strong indication it owes to more factors than just your personal decisions.

Of course there are things you can do, but you might need to drop the "tough love" shite if you really want to make any progress in any of these areas. I might be way off the mark here, so you're welcome to tell me I'm wrong, but it's been my experience that the scale of my self-loathing is (counterintuitively) proportional to how much I think I'm capable of doing. If, deep down, you believe that your problems are really solvable but you're dossing about, then you're going to hate the fact that you can't do everything in the moment and blame yourself for being too lazy, or stupid, or whatever else to figure it out.

For me, one of the most painful and difficult balances to keep during the course of achieving anything has been holding onto that belief that I am capable of improving things, but setting that belief within the framework of being just a person living in the world. I can have a great career, but it requires finding time each day to plan, research, make connections, and earn qualifications. I can have a nice healthy body, but I have to figure out what to eat and when to work out, consistently, over a long fucking time. In short, I can get things, if I'm willing to make a plan, do the gruntwork, and if I fail, adapt the plan rather than kicking myself.

A cheat code to making the above work is finding things you enjoy doing. If you told me I needed to drop two stone by riding an exercise bike alone in a flat, and only doing that, I'd be fucking miserable. Swimming, though, would be fun. Weights even better. Some things you might have to grind a bit before learn to enjoy them, but the activities are out there.

And now my possibly slightly more controversial opinion: "fundamentally changing who you are" is just as much, if not more, about changing your environment as it is about changing your thought processes. I sometimes think people believe they can warp the world around them like they're bending spoons in the Matrix. Don't get me wrong, the ability to adapt your thoughts and reframe your feelings is a critical skill, but you can't put all of the burden on your mental faculties like that, or you'll burn out. To stick with the exercise analogy, if I wanted to go to the gym three times a week, I am sure as fuck not going to sign myself up somewhere that takes forty minutes by bus to get to. Why put those barriers in your way to overcome every single time? In the same way, why not also make it as easy as possible to achieve what you're aiming for by setting up your "environment" in advance?

I hope this rambly post contains something useful to you.
>> No. 30972 Anonymous
28th August 2021
Saturday 4:36 pm
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I keep getting infatuated with women. I have a girlfriend, have done for 6 years, never strayed etc. But I encounter women in my life and all I can think about is fucking them. I have dreams about it, I go to bed thinking about it. I want to sow my wild oats but I simply can't.
>> No. 30973 Anonymous
28th August 2021
Saturday 4:50 pm
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>>30972
Have you tried wanking?
>> No. 30974 Anonymous
28th August 2021
Saturday 5:15 pm
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>>30973
Not him, but in a similar though much less severe boat in that regard. Not sure if wanking helps, I'm up to 6+ a day, including sex anywhere up to 5 times a day. Fairly sure it's an addiction but then I went hiking recently and only wanked once in 3 days and wasn't spaffing myself at the sight of a woman.

>>30972
Were you shit with girls when you were younger? I think mine's related to the drive I had to be good with women after all the rejection I had as a teenager, now I see flirting and getting someone to the spot where they'd probably be up for sleeping with me as something of a pastime. Never done anything, but you still feel guilty.

Have you thought about trying to start a cult?
>> No. 30975 Anonymous
28th August 2021
Saturday 5:41 pm
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>>30973
Yes, I do it many times in a row, and it doesn't sate my thirst.
>>30974
I was a late-ish bloomer, didn't really have any sex until I was 21. Got with my girlfriend when I was 22. I have years of built up horniness that I just don't want to unleash upon my girlfriend, as I don't really meld with her sexually.
>> No. 30976 Anonymous
28th August 2021
Saturday 6:57 pm
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>>30972

It's your limbic cortex, your brain is tuned into Freud's Id.
>> No. 30977 Anonymous
28th August 2021
Saturday 7:22 pm
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>>30974
>>30975

I'm fairly sure it is realated to being a late starter. I didn't lose my virginity til I was 21, and I've had constant trouble holding down a faithful relationship throughout my 20s. I have cheated and I didn't feel guilty about it, I felt accomplished. I've never felt like as much of a stud, a muscle rippling exemplar of masculinity nipping home for a shower in between shagging three different birds. My self esteem has never been as high as it was then.

Part of it is women's fault of course, if it wasn't for their natural interest in monogamy they'd let a lad in his 20s go about his naturally driven business. But no, they always want to keep his balls in a jar, which only spurs the teenage rebel within to go about chucking his muck illicitly. This is a struggle any man has to fight, but if you have been shagging since you were 15 like everyone else seems to have been, I imagine it's much easier to keep a lid on those urges.

I'm being facetious of course, but I think you know there's truth in what I say.
>> No. 30978 Anonymous
28th August 2021
Saturday 7:34 pm
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>>30977
I've never been in a situation in which I would cheat on my partner, but that's probably due to being a shut in. If the opportunity arose to fuck a woman I found attractive, I would go for it without a doubt. I feel bad I'd sell my gf like that, but I can't control my horny level.
>> No. 30979 Anonymous
28th August 2021
Saturday 8:43 pm
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>>30977

There are two kinds of men - those that are out slinging dick, and those that wish they were slinging dick.

If it's any comfort, your sex drive should start to wane when you hit your late 30s.
>> No. 30980 Anonymous
28th August 2021
Saturday 9:08 pm
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>>30979
>your sex drive should start to wane when you hit your late 30s

U WOT M9
>> No. 30981 Anonymous
30th August 2021
Monday 10:21 pm
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My lass is a wonderful person, an asset to the world and to all her associates, takes an interest in everything I do, and satisfies all of my urges in bed. But she's also got severe ADHD bordering on dementia, and is frankly a shit communicator if she's stressed.

When we had counselling, the counsellor picked up in the first session (once she started talking over me when I was asked to describe my upbringing) that she was the main instigator of issues, which I'm pissed about because I had to spend time convincing her that we were both on her side, so fuck that counsellor for being so obvious to someone so insecure. But she was right like, my lass is the problem when she follows me into the other room after I say I need a few minutes alone. She is the problem when I tell her a list of three triggers and she repeatedly forgets all of them.

She just doesn't think, she just acts and says, and she's almost 30 now and it's not cute, it's worrying. She'll ask me to do order food when I'm already on the deliveroo page, in front of her face. I'll be clearly doing something and all she needs to do is LOOK before asking, but she doesn't. She'll asks me where her phone is LITERALLY ONCE A DAY AT LEAST, I can't do it anymore. I love her but I am not the person who can deal with this level of micromanaging and caring for my partner. I have to stop her walking into the road, even when she's sober.

She's a fucking MA in neuroscience (I feel like I've typed that before) and has an intense job in finance, but she's incredibly ditsy. I find it hard to reconcile her ability in academia and business with the idea of her raising and being responsible for our kids. I just don't think I can trust her, and that's not fair because she's absolutely loyal and cares to the moon, but her brain just doesn't work enough and neither does mine. I've known I had ADHD for 15 years longer and been developing my coping mechanisms since, I try sharing them with her and teaching her but she has too much stress and anxiety and she cares too much what other people think, about her image and being seen as ditsy, so her denial is just fucking tiresome. She kicked off at me for calling her a drug addict the other week, despite her already being in counselling regarding her smoking and having admitted it before. We weren't even fighting, but she was feeling defensive so BAM denial. We were having a discussion about our relationship at the time, I just said that one of the issues was her addiction and she denied it, for a minute before acknowledging it. FFS.

She lost her new apple laptop and her phone in the same week, she frequently misses appointments and is generally late, and her plants generally die. She has a fish in a tank and it's often on the verge of starvation. Last week we were dogsitting, and I woke up at 7 to the dog moving. It looked at me and shat on the carpet. I cleaned it up, went back to bed feeling a bit irresponsible for not taking it right out, but hey it'd had a big shit several hours before on the walk. She saw me wiping it up, and was planning on waking up in an hour. She said she'd take the dog out for a walk when she was up. Didn't happen. She was doing laundry and dishes in the morning, while the dog shat twice more in the other rooms before she took him out.

Fuck. And she calls me an amazing, perfect boyfriend twenty minutes after we've had a loud, angry argument. I can't fucking do it and counselling isn't working. Fuck.

Lads we're just not right for each other. I love her and she loves me and we should be friends, I want her to be with someone good, but we bring out the worst in each other. I don't think it can be repaired any more. I think I'm intellectually in a place where I don't think we're good for each other, and we would be better off finding other people who are great for us. It's either that, or I am incapable of having a healthy relationship.

I'm going to do a line of ket and wait for her to get back from the festival I left her at with her friends. I am 30 and it's a bank holiday so I am allowed to do a bit of ket on my own.
>> No. 30982 Anonymous
30th August 2021
Monday 10:53 pm
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>>30981
Have you ever watched the movie 'A New Leaf'?
>> No. 30983 Anonymous
30th August 2021
Monday 11:09 pm
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>>30982
No, but I've skimmed the wikipedia page while trying to avoid the plot, so I've downloaded it. If it doesn't do anything then I'll watch Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and have a good cry.

She watched Love Exposure with me the other day. Just went the whole four hours of subtitled Japanese bullshit and was happy afterwards I'd shared it with her. How the fuck do you leave someone like that? Not that this is an ad for Love Exposure, but you should give it a look. Amazing film.
>> No. 30984 Anonymous
31st August 2021
Tuesday 1:56 am
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I can’t actually believe how fucked my life is. It just won’t land, the realisation instead presses up against my shattered ego. I can feel the decline in myself; physically, intellectually and emotionally I’m totally shot through. I was always a waste of skin, but even those parts of myself I liked have been flayed off as I went about my brief fits of effort. Now it’s all gone, the drive, the help, the hope, both within and without. If I could only keep the up this level of lucidity during the day I might do the proper thing and end it. But I won’t, that wretch will be back tomorrow and the day after and on and on, until the clock’s run down, most likely, because I’m as weak as it.
>> No. 30985 Anonymous
31st August 2021
Tuesday 9:21 am
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>>30981
That sounds incredibly frustrating and tiring.
>> No. 30986 Anonymous
31st August 2021
Tuesday 10:00 am
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>>30981

>She's a fucking MA in neuroscience (I feel like I've typed that before) and has an intense job in finance, but she's incredibly ditsy.

I think you have identified the problem.

Quite honestly though I think you both sound a bit... Neurotic. Don't take that the wrong way, but it's never a good mix to have two people who are a bit nutty in a relationship. You generally need at least one of you to be on an even keel, and willing to tolerate the other's bullshit. I should know.

Tell you what, I'll swap you for mine if you want. She's a lovely girl and generally has her shit together but the noises she makes while eating are just getting a bit too much for me. It's like nails on a fucking chalkboard, and she gets pissy if I tell her to go eat somewhere else. I've just about had it.
>> No. 30987 Anonymous
31st August 2021
Tuesday 12:05 pm
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>>30971
Thing is, some of my problems are solvable. I think about it every day, sometimes I even spend 10 days starting but I simply do not have the fortitude to keep it up any more. I don't know what changed -- in my early 20s I changed a lot about myself and kept it up but now it's all slipped and gone back.

I've changed my environment multiple times in that thinking, but it doesn't really change the fact it's me. Before These Troubled Times, I'd applied for a couple of work visas across the world. I'm still waiting to hear back from them but I imagine it'll still be a while off. Being somewhere where it's not grey and miserable for 90% of the year sounds good, but there'll just be other issues to contend with.
>> No. 30988 Anonymous
31st August 2021
Tuesday 12:23 pm
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>>30986
I should have padded it by acknowledging my own neuroses and how they contribute. I think our nuttiness causes some harmonic feedback which further exacerbates troubles. I can deal with some of it without feeling burdened because of the love, but the parts I can't are causing rifts. A lot of my frustration comes from my own struggle with timekeeping and memory and the like, it feels like too much of a struggle and so I react negatively more frequently, which primes her to be defensive, and then she gets stubborn in denial and I get stubborn about acknowledging how *both* of us have contributed (I'm too ready to admit fault possibly. Even if I don't feel it, I'll still say it because it takes at least two to tango). We keep managing a good few days then the same arguments happen.

Have you mentioned the chewing to your lass?

I can deal with a bit of chewing. Will she peg me while sitting on a bad dragon product? Not that that's a daily or even monthly event, but that's roughly the level I'm looking for.
>> No. 30989 Anonymous
31st August 2021
Tuesday 12:25 pm
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>>30984
Have you considered taking the bare minimum and moving to a different area or different country where you can pretend to be someone else? Do you have substance abuse problems or any dependency/addiction issues?
>> No. 30990 Anonymous
31st August 2021
Tuesday 4:32 pm
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10 years back a girl broke my heart by running off with a scumbag, or more exactly I found out. It caused the usual trauma where you give everything you have with a girl only for her to throw it in your face - there's an irrational insecurity that I'm not good enough for love despite it really being a story of a stupid cunt and a naïve idiot. She bubbles into my dreams now and again, only when I'm not seeing anyone.

Hopefully writing this out will stop any further dreams.

>>30983
I was being lazy but it contains an example of how certain relationships work and how love ultimately requires some degree of compromise with your expectations. Not saying that's right, I'm just saying. We're all deeply flawed people after all.
>> No. 30991 Anonymous
31st August 2021
Tuesday 4:58 pm
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Everything was going so well a few months ago. A decent job, I was just about coming out of a years long battle with mental illness, therapists suggested we taper off our sessions due to my improvement. But since then I lost my job, got a new job in which I'm majorly underemployed, the voices have returned and my mood is lower than ever, and I'm fed up with every relationship I have in my life. I don't have the means to up sticks and start again, I am forever stuck in this rut until I inevitably jump off a building.
>> No. 30998 Anonymous
5th September 2021
Sunday 5:27 pm
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I don't know if this is the right place for it, but I don't think it warrants its own thread.

I just can't wrap my head around people who seem to... be happy? is not the right phrase, but are genuinely enthusiastic about work and working culture, and even outside of that just seem to be chipper about everything. People who seem to genuinely mean it when they say "Hey team, have a good week! 👨🏼‍💻" on Monday at 9am in Slack. People who get genuinely excited about ordering pizza and doing a #hackathon. Retweeting tweets from work's PR department with genuine excitement for it. People who interact with Brands on Twitter making puns about those brands.

I'll admit that the 'corporate culture' at my work is one of the least egregious out there, but it is still a work culture. I cannot ever in a million years mentally grapple with actually enjoying this complete charade everyone has to go through in any workplace like that. But I guess that's it; some people really aren't charading and really do enjoy all the trappings of it. They really just do live these uncomplicated existences where they really do enjoy work and wherever they work is a big part of their personality. But it's not just work, it's the whole image.

I'm rambling but it's probably out of a sense of jealousy that they don't live in a perpetual state of disgruntlement and maungyness.
>> No. 30999 Anonymous
5th September 2021
Sunday 6:52 pm
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>>30998

Some people enjoyed school. Some people enjoyed PE. Nowt so queer as folk, especially the straight ones.
>> No. 31000 Anonymous
5th September 2021
Sunday 7:03 pm
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>>30998

Brainwashing.

I mean, my whole shtick has always been that I'm very much that edgy, anti-corporate, anti-brand, anti-authority, anti-mainstream, anti-everything, "fuck you I won't do what you tell me", wake up sheeple, etc kind of person. So naturally I would say that, and it's easy to roll your eyes and dismiss my point of view due to that.

But for people like that, it really is true. They're plugged into the Matrix, and they're blissfully unaware of how ugly it is outside.
>> No. 31001 Anonymous
5th September 2021
Sunday 7:26 pm
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>>30998
I'm almost like that; close enough that I could well be one of the people you mean in the incredibly unlikely event that we work together. I don't know why I'm like this, so maybe I can't help you at all, but maybe some of the following details about me will be similar to the people you actually do know.

1) I am bitter about multiple things, but I really don't know how to express it. Sticking up for myself in any way feels like an imposition on other people. This is of course very bad, but I guess it wouldn't be if my life was awesome in every way.
2) The world is a nicer place when everyone is cheerful, and being cheerful spreads to other people, and then you can be surrounded by cheerful people and won't that be nice?
3) I really am a docile doormat. If nobody is complaining, I won't complain, but if you then complain to me later on, I'll say, "Yeah, me too!" and complain as well just to go along with it. I guess I might initiate it occasionally, but you could try complaining to these chirpy buggers about something and see if they respond with negativity of their own.
4) It's good to have structure in your life. If every day is the same, I don't need to brace myself for change and that's a real load off my shoulders. This does mean I don't want to go for a meal after work, under any circumstances.
5) I don't really have much else going on in my life. If I get bored, it's here, 4chan and YouTube. So work stuff really can be the most exciting thing I do that day.
6) I probably am, on some level, a natural performer. I noticed a weird thing about myself is that every thought in my head is always being thought at an imaginary target. I don't know if everyone thinks like this, but when I think about politics, I imagine I'm on Question Time, ranting out the thoughts I'm having. So this almost certainly manifests itself as me sounding like I'm making a big rehearsed speech whenever I talk about something I'm interested in, because I probably have rehearsed it in my head at some point.

Maybe these are all universal points and everyone is like this. I don't know. But how wonderful that you created an opportunity for me to speculate about that!
>> No. 31002 Anonymous
5th September 2021
Sunday 8:12 pm
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>>31001
Eh, you seem to be someone who is playing into the charade in the knowledge that it is a charade, so not quite.

The sort of person I'm talking about would absolutely not post here, and has more going on than work, 4chan, and YT. The one person I have in mind is involved in tons of work-adjacent activities like teaching kids to code and whatnot, and even outside that is a #maker -- I guess it's a partial internalisation of Silicon Valley culture even though we're in the north of England. This person is not docile at all, and is the first to pipe up in work meetings to take extra work and the like on.

I think another thing for me is I cannot process a cheesy "I hope you're all having a great Wednesday! 🚀" message as anything other than a hollow meaningless platitude.

>>31000
>They're plugged into the Matrix, and they're blissfully unaware of how ugly it is outside.

Yes, I think they may just be sheltered. But I don't know that.
>> No. 31003 Anonymous
5th September 2021
Sunday 10:14 pm
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>>31002

Maybe they're just a wanker. When they were at school they were the teacher's pet, now they're at work they want to be the one with their nose furthest up the boss' arse. They have pledged their allegiance to The System in the hopes that The System will in turn reward them with a position of power and influence. Somewhere inside they will have their doubts I'm sure, but they choose to put that out of their mind and double down, because the alternative would be too much of a shake-up to their worldview.

I had an ex a lot like that anyway, so although I don't know this person you refer to, that's who I'm picturing. She was a Yank too so doubly susceptible to all that obnoxious positivity bullshit. She genuinely hated it whenever I'd get on one of my philosophical rants about questioning authority or social mores etc, and not in the sense that she disagreed with me, or disliked me for being part of the opposite political alignment; but simply because it scared her. She didn't like having to think about it.
>> No. 31011 Anonymous
17th September 2021
Friday 3:46 am
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Sometimes, I just feel like I've become totally disconnected.

It's like there used to be this vague thread of purpose or meaning that I was holding on to, like a life raft, as I drift along through the tides of life; never anything deep or profound, but just a sense that I was, at least, part of a journey. My friends and family were the other people hanging on to the raft, drifting alongside me, and although we didn't know where we were going, we were ultimately going somewhere.

Then at some point I just came adrift. It's like I accidentally let go during the night at some point, and got swept off into the currents on my own, no idea where I am or what's going on. It's not that I've lost contact, sure we haven't been able to see each other so much recently but things like that come and go, there are ups and downs. We still text and I still phone them to catch up and what have you. Instead, it feels like the bond is just eroding, we're all in different streams heading different directions.

Whenever I've got time off work now, I can honestly just sit there and waste the entire week (or however long) staring at the internet and procrastinating. I've got hobbies, I've got things to keep me busy, I just don't feel invested in them any more. I feel like most of them are just a pretence I was keeping up to appear interesting, in order to have some semblance of a personality that gave me a place and a purpose in the group. Without that they are all pointless. They're just more matches to blow out.

I've been through periods of depression before, I have always been pretty nihilistic about life being meaningless and what have you, but this is the first time I've really, genuinely felt this bored and disconnected form it all. I'm just trying to place why.

I feel like I have some sort of yearning to just dump my partner, cash out all the savings, and fuck off with some adventurous young maiden to live a totally different part of the country. New game, clean save file. The problem with that is that deep down I'm an awkward nerd who's nervous to go too far abroad on holiday, so that's really little other than an idle fantasy, and it would probably only make things a million times worse.

I don't know, but thanks for listening anyway.
>> No. 31012 Anonymous
18th September 2021
Saturday 1:12 pm
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>>31011

This really deserves its own thread. I think a lot of people here, including myself, can relate to this.

For what it's worth, a period of upheaval can also be an opportunity to define yourself differently. You may feel adrift, but there's a very real chance you can "become" something else, lead a different kind of life, in the process.

My own minor rant today is: weekends just aren't fucking long enough to relax. It's 2pm on Saturday and I've done a bit of gardening, put away clothes, fed myself and the girlfriend two meals, read a chapter of a book... but I don't feel like I've done anything fun. More like, basic maintenance and sanity type stuff. I'm also miserable because I've got a bastard headache from working late last night.
>> No. 31013 Anonymous
18th September 2021
Saturday 4:56 pm
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You know that Noam Chomsky thing about infintite posibilities within a set boundary? Well I feel that way about identity and my experience of existance in general - from the clothes we wear, the careers we choose and even the principles we live by. They seem to be different flavours of the same experience. Is one better than the other, or are we railroaded on some storyline mission with stealth, force and magic options that take us to the exact same destination?
There must be something better than this, though I'm reminded of the travellers saying "wherever you go you take yourself with you".
>> No. 31019 Anonymous
20th September 2021
Monday 12:22 am
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Christ, I'm so lonely.

Yeah, I'm posting it again, leave me alone.
>> No. 31032 Anonymous
21st September 2021
Tuesday 3:29 pm
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I've been a deep depression for many months that I will never fuck anyone as hot as the women in my porn. It's not like I want an unrealistic thing, most of my porn watching habits involve mature BBWs, but my girlfriend will never be able to compare. Also sometimes I think I'm gay because I have periods I can only get off to gay porn, but when I tried coming out to my mum she looked so disappointed so I said it was a bout of mental illness.
>> No. 31033 Anonymous
21st September 2021
Tuesday 4:06 pm
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>>31032

>I've been a deep depression for many months that I will never fuck anyone as hot as the women in my porn.
This is like being depressed because you'll never get to drive an X-Wing and blow up the death star.

>It's not like I want an unrealistic thing, most of my porn watching habits involve mature BBWs
I'm positive there are affordable and "attractive" BBW sex workers and even many of your actual porn stars will moonlight as that.

>my girlfriend will never be able to compare
Become a feeder? Buy her a fat suit?

>Also sometimes I think I'm gay because I have periods I can only get off to gay porn, but when I tried coming out to my mum she looked so disappointed so I said it was a bout of mental illness.
Sexuality is fluid, if you're getting off to BBWs you're probably not gay but some sort of bi or who knows. It doesn't really matter either way.
>> No. 31034 Anonymous
21st September 2021
Tuesday 7:29 pm
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>>31032

Porn women aren't that hot, they just have loads of makeup on.
>> No. 31035 Anonymous
22nd September 2021
Wednesday 2:19 pm
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>>31032

How do you think I feel lad, I'll never have a hot femboy wolf to suck my cock while I scratch his ears and call him good boy, will I.

Think yourself lucky.
>> No. 31036 Anonymous
22nd September 2021
Wednesday 3:08 pm
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>>31035
Wait, so getting noshed off by someone wearing a wolf mask?
>> No. 31037 Anonymous
22nd September 2021
Wednesday 3:42 pm
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>>31036

No, not quite m8.

(Mods feel free to delete this after otherlad has had the point illustrated, I don't want to lower this place's respectable fat fetish and Vorder-stalking tone with my own deviancy.)
>> No. 31038 Anonymous
22nd September 2021
Wednesday 3:46 pm
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>>31037
So you want to get noshed off by a cartoon character?
>> No. 31039 Anonymous
22nd September 2021
Wednesday 3:57 pm
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>>31038

More or less, yes. Except real. And somehow not either disturbingly uncanny-valley, or offputtingly similar to a real life animal. I know genies are shady motherfuckers when you make a wish like this.

So as you can see, your dream of porking a BBW pornstar is considerably more achievable.
>> No. 31040 Anonymous
22nd September 2021
Wednesday 4:01 pm
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>>31039
So a Goof Troop cosplayer then, pretty much?
>> No. 31041 Anonymous
22nd September 2021
Wednesday 4:08 pm
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>>31040

Good lord no. That's beyond cursed.
>> No. 31042 Anonymous
22nd September 2021
Wednesday 4:10 pm
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>>31041
GAWSH!
>> No. 31043 Anonymous
22nd September 2021
Wednesday 5:00 pm
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>>31042

Stop shitting the thread up now lad, we try not to do that in /emo/.
>> No. 31097 Anonymous
3rd October 2021
Sunday 1:55 am
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I hate these moments of lucidity. There is nothing quite so unpleasant in all my life, I would give anything to function as normally as others do.
>> No. 31098 Anonymous
4th October 2021
Monday 1:08 pm
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Arguments with partner again, it's always fucking bullshit. A few weeks ago I came back home after work on Friday to find 10 years of personal documents loosely arranged, covering the entire floor. Also all my books moved and reorganised. She'd taken it on herself to sort all my personal docs and books (I've got about 80% of the books in the house) and spent 4 hours doing so, and I flipped out because to me it felt like someone tearing up all my comforts and she doesn't know how I organise things, and didn't ask.

We resolved that, she was upset that I wanted to put everything back but agreed she should have asked, took full responsibility and all. This week I needed to look for some A level things for an AAT, and went through those docs for half an hour because I couldn't tell where it may be because everything had moved, turned out my mam had it. It reopened the wound when she started saying "Well you didn't have it any way so it's not my fault you spent time looking for it", and that she knew where hers was, and etc. Like she completely forgot she took responsibility for moving my personal items without my consent or acknowledgement, and spent hours categorising them after I've already repeatedly told her that I need to organise my things personally or I won't remember where they are.

Crux of it is that I can't mention something she has done without her feeling attacked, in any context, then she'll evade or make an excuse which makes me upset because she can't just take ownership. I don't repeatedly bring these things up, but if it's necessary like she's asking "Why are you upset about this" and I explain it reminds of a past incident where x happened, she takes that as an attack rather than an acknowledgement and I cannot find any way to mention it without that happening. A couple of years ago she promised me we'd live together 6 months before she moved on for a job opportunity, but ended up leaving in 3 - I had only moved in with her on the guarantee we had 6 months of sharing rent otherwise I had to live on my own somewhere cheaper. And then whenever I mention that, for example in couples therapy, she sticks on "Well I told you I was moving out anyway so it doesn't matter", well 1) it matters to me, and 2) you took full responsibility at the time for promising me something and then bailing, so why are you now evading it?

Like I can't just say "I'm feeling bad because you did this and it's the same principle as when you did this thing in the past and we talked about that so I don't understand why it's happening again, or at least can you take responsibility and apologise". I'm reflective to a fault and I can take responsibility in the moment (though I have the view it's always shared to an extent, but the upside of that is that I will acknowledge I've always been complicit in some way, because I have, because it takes 2) but she will without fail take an hour to a day to turn around and say "Actually yeah I'm sorry I was being out of order and was wrong about x", but she fucking doubles down in the moment and I can't handle it. My mum does the same thing, it's worrying to realise that. Other day I tried to tell my mum that my brother might speak to her more often if she let him come to her, but that's apparently me telling her she's a bad parent who can't communicate with her kids. m8

How the fuck are you going to resolve issues if you can't acknowledge them?!

Anyway just lost 2 hours of work on deadline day to arguing about this. She ALWAYS needs to make an excuse and I can't find a way to talk to her about my emotions without her feeling attacked. Just want to cut myself now tbh, not going to do it but fucking hell I just feel so angry and unable to deal with things.

Rant addendum: Saturday night she called me 4 times on her hour long journey home to update me, she'd been drinking all day so it was kind of cute, but then the moment she got back she said "I've been pissed off because you owe me £90" in front of a guest we have staying. No mention of this on her journey home, nothing at all to indicate anything. I actually sent her this money earlier the day before (bills) but hadn't notified her. But then she just comes back, storms in and starts telling me off, for something I've already fixed. It's bullshit. Because he's there I can't really say anything without making her look like a twat because she's immediately come in and made me look like a twat, and I'm not going to be a dick and put that back on her, I just have to look like a fucking twat because she's a messy drinker.
>> No. 31104 Anonymous
6th October 2021
Wednesday 7:09 pm
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Spoke to a GP, he more or less made out that I wanted antidepressants as a crutch and told me to wash my penis. I don't even want antidepressants, they're shit; I want a fucking brain scan to figure out where this black hole is eminating from, you fat, Welsh, tosser.
>> No. 31105 Anonymous
6th October 2021
Wednesday 7:53 pm
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>>31098

Honestly lad, by this point I do feel you sort of have to start coming to terms with the fact you're not a good match. I've been in relationships like that, I have one ex who I still dearly pine for sometimes, but I know it was more aggro than it was ever worth. The thing with getting all your paperwork out and "organising" it for you would have been a line crossed for me, I know exactly how you feel there.

For me, if someone starts moving or messing around with my stuff, it's tantamount to stealing. It's basically hiding my own stuff from me, and it triggers immense anxiety. I have a very OCD kind of dependence on knowing my things are where I put them, whatever it might be- From a half empty packet of fags to my passport. Anybody who messes with that gets a warning, and if they overstep the line again it just tells me they didn't listen or take me seriously the first time I warned them, and I can't really trust them from then on if that's the case. It stems from my mum always coming into my room and "tidying up" well into my late teens, when really what she was doing is rooting around and looking for drugs, porn, etc- I consider it a form of psychological abuse, but obviously nobody would really take you seriously if you said it. Anyway.

I don't tend to advise breaking up lightly but these problems sound entrenched, like you've got stuck in that cycle of arguing because it's all you really do. You snap each other over everything because your patience was exhausted long ago, and even when you try to have a civil discussion you can't, because there's still some lingering resentment over all the other things you've bickered over, and you're always jut keeping it pressed down. That's how I was with the ex. Oven tray gate, never forget.

I hope the sex is good anyway.
>> No. 31106 Anonymous
6th October 2021
Wednesday 7:59 pm
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>>31104

I know this won't sound great because you've already done the hard work of reaching out and talking to a doctor about it but there's nobody who can come to help you, you have to keep pushing. You need to find a new doctor, one who actually listens to you instead of that useless one.
>> No. 31107 Anonymous
6th October 2021
Wednesday 8:18 pm
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>>31104

>I want a fucking brain scan to figure out where this black hole is eminating from, you fat, Welsh, tosser.

Did you tell him that, in those words? You do have to be honest with GPs sometimes, if you know what I mean.
>> No. 31108 Anonymous
7th October 2021
Thursday 1:35 am
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>>31105
Echoing this lad's advice.

I have serious issue with anyone moving anything I placed anywhere. I had a dick of a dad who would go through my room in my teens, check my jeans pockets, school bag, cabinets.. everything. I have some serious issues with it. Part of me inviting someone I love into my life is accepting that they don't fuck around with my shit. I am not attached, but just don't move where I placed that fucking pen.

You have to be honest with whatever hang-ups you got, just as your okay with whatever hang-ups your partner has, and work through it if they are a great partner. If not, unfortunately, it isn't going to work.
>> No. 31109 Anonymous
8th October 2021
Friday 2:33 am
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I don't know how to stop drinking too much. I am so depressed when I haven't had anything. Life is just a long nightmare. I need my drink, but I will die early. I am trying to weigh it up. I don't know how I am not homeless and begging on the streets.
>> No. 31110 Anonymous
9th October 2021
Saturday 11:24 am
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Yet another one where I thought I had a promising match but she turned out to have the brainworms.

We were just casually discussing topical issues, and it came around to the old firsherperson chestnut. Naturally I know not to go too hard on this subject but you do have to feel out their views, or else it will definitely come up later.

Anyway, I thought she seemed alright until she said she'd rather be stabbed than raped. I'm sure rape is horrible but if that's the kind of ridiculous shit you're going to say to try hold up your side of an argument, you're either in too deep or you are arguing 100% in bad faith.

Fisherfolk. Not even once.
>> No. 31111 Anonymous
9th October 2021
Saturday 12:07 pm
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>>31110

The problem there is in the imprecision of the language. There is a scale of severity in both stab wounds and rape that make that a fairly pointless question to pursue.
>> No. 31112 Anonymous
9th October 2021
Saturday 12:09 pm
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>>31110
Mate, I've been stabbed and I'd much rather be stabbed - just imagine purple Aki going in without any lube - fortunately by the small blade of a swiss army knife in the thigh, but it's not that bad. You feel a little pinch and more the impact of the fist/hilt hitting your skin. Did you at least clarify if she'd rather be stabbed in the tummy or brainstem or something? Personally I'll have a bit of a play and say I'm an egalitarian and deny the label, but since all my beliefs align with feminism it's fine provided they don't immediately storm out and can think somewhat critically. You didn't immediately refer to the topic of feminism as a 'chestnut' to her did you?

>>31109
Why is your life a long nightmare? I had a few months of heavy drinking, culminating in a bottle of whiskey a day alongside a few joints, with the intention of clearing my bank account and then topping myself. Got close and called Samaritans and spent a few hours on the phone, which got me through that night. I think moving in with some friends a few months later and managing to get a bartending job helped me. I don't remember but I assume I went to therapy a bit.
>> No. 31113 Anonymous
9th October 2021
Saturday 12:18 pm
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>>31111
>>31112

The conversation went along the lines of her lamenting that men don't understand things they haven't experienced, I.e sexual abuse, and I just said that yeah, that's true, but there are other things men experience more of that women don't, like being homeless and stabbed to death. So I was certainly talking about a life threatening injury.

It's not the actual firsherperson part that bothers me- The red flag is that they are alnost always, in my experience, the type of person you're just simply not allowed to have a disagreement with on basically any subject, because they'll throw their toys out of the cot. You can't have a discussion with them that's not "yes you are right I agree."
>> No. 31114 Anonymous
9th October 2021
Saturday 12:29 pm
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>>31113

They are out there, mate. I've had these types of talks with plenty of women and some do see that there are issues that affect men more. Both the statistics and the anecdotal evidence are abundant.

I think it helps to stress during these conversations that things don't have to be a zero-sum game. Caring about disproportionate male homelessness and violence doesn't mean you don't care about disproportionate rape of females.

For the record, though, plenty of men experience sexual abuse (especially at younger ages), but maybe she was referring to something specific that men generally experience less.
>> No. 31115 Anonymous
9th October 2021
Saturday 12:33 pm
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>>31113
Aye I get you. I think it sounds like you've both fallen into a script there, and ended up communicating like you're in an online argument. I think it's the same approach with when they're venting about something and they don't want anything constructive, just "mm, yeah, that's horrible". Or tell them about any times you've been sexually assaulted. If you have to disagree, the safest/most productive way is getting out of the dichotomy of men/women, and maybe talking about wider empathy and how it's possible for individuals to translate experiences.
>> No. 31116 Anonymous
9th October 2021
Saturday 12:35 pm
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>>31114

Actually, let me correct this post. "Plenty" is a bit of an exaggeration, I will admit there does seem to be a heavy wall of bias to get past with most of the people I've tried talking to about this, but I'm hopeful that most people are receptive to thinking about it if you don't threaten their worldview at the outset.

When I say "plenty", I actually mean lasses I've spent a lot of time talking to, a couple of girlfriends and one or two close friends that seem to "get it".
>> No. 31117 Anonymous
9th October 2021
Saturday 12:45 pm
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>>31116

In general I've just found its only "safe" to have that sort of talk once they already know you quite well, know you're a decent bloke and not an online chronic sissifier. That forces them to listen to you because they can't just immediately mentally discredit you as a big mean sexist.

It does become a bit of a chip on my shoulder though because that means all their talk about taking people's experiences seriously is nonsense, I have to earn the right to be taken seriously by them. I can't talk about the time I spent actually being homeless and I have to make some story up about why my teeth are so fucked until I've earned the right to open up.

That part is bollocks. But what can you do. It's just difficult to keep your composure and not let yourself become jaded really.
>> No. 31118 Anonymous
10th October 2021
Sunday 12:48 am
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The fuck is the point of antidepressants. Tried them for the first time in my life, it's been a month, less mood dips and anxiety but the trade off is I'm absolutely knackered all of the time and my sleep's gone to shit. I woke up at 23:00 today after spending 17 hours in bed. At least before I could actually have days where I achieved things, now I can't even focus and I've lost a month.
>> No. 31119 Anonymous
10th October 2021
Sunday 1:06 am
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>>31118

Those issues are probably fixable.

What drug and dose are you on? When do you take it? Are you experiencing any side effects other than poor sleep?
>> No. 31120 Anonymous
10th October 2021
Sunday 1:39 am
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>>31119
Sertraline, only 25mg because 50 made me throw up and feel even worse. Taking it in the mornings each time. Honestly no idea about other side effects, the terrible sleep effects everything. I'm basically a zombie happy sitting still doing fuck all.
>> No. 31121 Anonymous
10th October 2021
Sunday 2:43 am
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>>31120

25mg is a very low dose (a normal dose would be in the 100mg to 200mg range), so sertraline clearly isn't the right option for you. About one in twenty people have a variant of the CYP2C19 gene that reduces their ability to metabolise some drugs, meaning that sertraline will have about three times the normal effect. There are a number of other genetic quirks that could cause you to have a particularly bad reaction to sertraline and related drugs. Fortunately, there are numerous other antidepressants that are metabolised differently and target different receptors.

Alternatives you might want to discuss with your doctor:

Mirtazapine in the 15-30mg range is highly effective as an antidepressant and is also effective as a treatment for insomnia. You might feel slightly groggy in the morning for the first week or so, but you'll sleep like a log. The main downside is that it's also an appetite stimulant, so most people taking it gain some weight.

Venlafaxine is metabolised by a different protein to sertraline and isn't as prone to odd reactions. It targets serotonin less selectively and inhibits dopamine and noradrenaline reuptake too, so it tends to have a wider but milder range of side effects.

Bupropion is officially licensed as a smoking cessation medication, but it's also a highly effective antidepressant. It mainly targets dopamine, which means it's a stimulant and is why bupropion also works for the treatment of ADHD. It can cause insomnia (especially if you drink a lot of caffeine), but it shouldn't affect the quality of your sleep and you'll feel wide awake after taking it in the morning.

Amitriptyline is an older type of antidepressant that works very well for a lot of patients, but GPs don't like prescribing it because it's much more dangerous in overdose than newer alternatives. It's very much worth looking into if other options haven't suited you.

Your doctor can't legally prescribe St John's Wort, but the evidence suggests that it's about as effective as other antidepressants. You can buy it over the counter from any health food shop and many chemists. The side effects tend to be relatively mild for most people, but it interacts very strongly with other serotonergic drugs and so you should never combine it with other antidepressants or with MDMA.
>> No. 31122 Anonymous
10th October 2021
Sunday 9:21 am
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I think SAD is kicking in. Not for me, everyone else seems to have taken a melancholy turn with the weather.

Take care, be aware of how it may be affecting you, I suppose.
>> No. 31123 Anonymous
10th October 2021
Sunday 9:35 am
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>>31122
Really is for me too - clocks go back in 2 weeks?
>> No. 31124 Anonymous
10th October 2021
Sunday 11:21 pm
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There's a weird bird at work who's married and knows I have a girlfriend, but she frequently inserts the topic of sex into the conversations we have. Not directly, but mentioning particular scenes from films, laughing at the 'BJ' column on Excel, talking about weird sexual culture from Japan.

I never mention sex at all, is she giving weird signs that she's horny or am I reading into it too much?
>> No. 31125 Anonymous
10th October 2021
Sunday 11:55 pm
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>>31124
Well you're a bloke. You're evolutionary wired to assume interpret (or misinterpret) what women say as a sign she's into you.
>> No. 31126 Anonymous
11th October 2021
Monday 12:05 am
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>>31124
>laughing at the 'BJ' column on Excel

Treasure your work wife.
>> No. 31127 Anonymous
11th October 2021
Monday 12:07 am
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>>31124
She's just filthy. I doubt she's into you. Just feel glad she is comfortable around you to express her filthy side.
>> No. 31135 Anonymous
12th October 2021
Tuesday 12:57 pm
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Do you ever feel like your emotions tend to come secondary? Even if you're telling your girlfriend that you're feeling down it almost always ends up with you consoling her and not addressing what's actually on your mind?
>> No. 31136 Anonymous
12th October 2021
Tuesday 2:24 pm
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>>31135
All the time. In-fact, I think this why men tend to bottle their emotions, because women find it absolutely disgusting. I know of one relationship that ended because the lass couldn't be asked to support my mate.

I am sorry mate.
>> No. 31137 Anonymous
12th October 2021
Tuesday 5:04 pm
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>>31135
>>31136
That's what that Men In Sheds thing is about: coming together around a hobby, making friends talking shit. The only problem is it appears very transparant, anyone going is clearly lonely.
>> No. 31138 Anonymous
12th October 2021
Tuesday 7:06 pm
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>>31137
>Men's Sheds Asssociation
https://menssheds.org.uk/find-a-shed/

I never knew about this - apart from the fact their website doesn't work right and I can't search by location, I actually think thats a brilliant idea. Is it so bad that its obviously about companionship, loneliness and mental health?
>> No. 31139 Anonymous
12th October 2021
Tuesday 7:15 pm
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>>31124

I've often thought about this, and I think it's just part of workplace life, especially if you work in a small, stable, familial kind of team. I think as humans we are hard wired to look for a bit of intimacy and flirtation with those we spend a lot of time with. It doesn't necessarily mean you actually want to fuck, under normal conditions, but that's what Christmas parties are for.

Shout out to the lass at work who I've somehow entered a kind of omarashi kink non-sexual dom/sub relationship with. Humans are a weird bunch.

>>31135

Stereotypical observation maybe but we've discussed this before here, women tend to learn to be "emotionally open" but only superficially so, female friend groups always have lots of emotional sharing but not a great deal of sincerity about it. It's just something to talk about. Whereas for a man, it takes a lot for emotions to actually come out, and that means that when they do, it's serious. A lot of women simply haven't had to learn how to deal with that properly as a result, so don't be too hard on her for it.

But yes, in general, you probably want to talk to your ladm9s if something is really deeply troubling you. This is why the time honoured tradition of a pint with the lads is vitally important for men and I think it's decline is actually harming today's men much more than they probably think. It's a lot easier for blokes to open up after five or six pints, but it's often more genuine and therapeutic when you do, in my experience.

Maybe it's just me but little helps me get things off my chest than that thing where you're sat in the smoking area of a Spoons in town at 1am setting the world to rights.
>> No. 31140 Anonymous
14th October 2021
Thursday 12:29 am
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I'm not real.
>> No. 31141 Anonymous
14th October 2021
Thursday 12:27 pm
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>>31140
What is "real"? How do you define "real"?
>> No. 31142 Anonymous
14th October 2021
Thursday 2:17 pm
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>>31141
I don't really exist. People think they perceive me, but they can't tell you anything about me, what I do or where I go. I'm not real, I don't register here, I appear physically but it's just a facade.
>> No. 31143 Anonymous
14th October 2021
Thursday 2:43 pm
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>>31142
All we are is an illusion.
>> No. 31144 Anonymous
14th October 2021
Thursday 2:53 pm
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>>31142
Who is this "I" you keep referring to?
>> No. 31145 Anonymous
14th October 2021
Thursday 3:06 pm
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>>31142

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anattā
>> No. 31146 Anonymous
14th October 2021
Thursday 4:03 pm
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>>31143
>>31144
>>31145
Shut up.
>> No. 31147 Anonymous
14th October 2021
Thursday 5:50 pm
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>>31142
Can you further clarify? If you didn't exist you could not have posted, nor would people be able to perceive you in any way. You are being perceived here and now. Do you have any dissociative disorders?
>> No. 31148 Anonymous
14th October 2021
Thursday 6:01 pm
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>>31147

I think he's speaking a lot more figuratively, I was really high last night and I went "yeah me too bro" then didn't post anything.

If the tree falls in the woods and nobody is around to hear it, etc... I often get the sensation that if I'm leaving no mark on the world am I really a part of it? I'm just part of the background scenery, I don't have any meaningful interactions with the people and the places that fill my surroundings. I just sort of float past them without ever being part of them. I'm one of those distant NPCs that pop out when you get close to them.

Of course that was very hyperbolic stoned nonsense as is often the case, I'm only part of a very small network but it's nevertheless there. I could probably do to start expanding it but I really am not an easy person to be sociable with, and I should probably be more thankful to the friends I DO have for putting up with me.

Anyway whatever, that's my two penneth.
>> No. 31149 Anonymous
14th October 2021
Thursday 11:34 pm
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I am in my 30s, and I broke up with my long-term girlfriend of... one year. I can't seem to have relationships lasting more than an average of 6 months. I don't mean this in a bad way, I am perfectly okay with it. Whenever something about them gets on my tits, I leave, and I don't even feel any sort of sadness or longing for the relationship. I actually get happy and think good riddance, and start anew.

But all the insanity posts in the other thread had me wondering if I am not a normal person.
>> No. 31150 Anonymous
15th October 2021
Friday 1:06 am
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>>31149
I'm like you I suspect. I get into a relationship and then at some point I consciously decide that the relationship has no future which then normally sputters out around the 6 month mark.

For me it's a fear of commitment more than anything. I feel I could easily push through it and spend the rest of my life with these women if I chose to, I'm a good boy - a bit of a prick but I've never had an ex who didn't think I was a decent guy. If only I could open up and share my life, put much more effort in etc. but what stops me is the fear of the rest of my life being spent in a relationship that's a mix of a headache and an orgasm. Plus they might embarrass me and who wants that?
>> No. 31151 Anonymous
18th October 2021
Monday 1:35 am
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>>31139
>I've somehow entered a kind of omorashi kink non-sexual dom/sub relationship
uwotm8? This sounds bizarre, but it also sounds like I could bust a nut to it if it's exciting enough. Please share some more details. All details are welcome, but of course, be aware that if you have a lot to share, I probably will be wanking when I read it.
>> No. 31152 Anonymous
18th October 2021
Monday 8:01 am
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>>31149
>Whenever something about them gets on my tits, I leave, and I don't even feel any sort of sadness or longing for the relationship. I actually get happy and think good riddance, and start anew.

Do you actually communicate your issues to them or do you just up and leave? Real life isn't a Disney film where you meet your one true love and everything is perfect all of the time, relationships involve work and compromise.

Can you give examples of the reasons your partners get on your tits enough to end a relationship?
>> No. 31153 Anonymous
18th October 2021
Monday 9:10 am
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>>31152 Can you give examples of the reasons your partners get on your tits enough to end a relationship?

Mine nags me to do something while I'm actually doing it. There's nothing more calculated to make me say 'fuck this, and fuck you, I don't need this shit' than that. When we break up, it'll be that. I have told her.
Sorry, still raw after this weekend.
>> No. 31154 Anonymous
18th October 2021
Monday 2:37 pm
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>>31121
Just wanted to say thank you for all this mate, my GP's now trying me out with Citalopram now though so we'll see how that goes.
>> No. 31155 Anonymous
18th October 2021
Monday 7:03 pm
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>>31152

While that's true, the other person has to, to some extent, be worth putting in the effort for. The opposite is often the case too, where people end up staying in relationships that clearly aren't working because of sunk cost fallacy.

I think I'm in that boat right now to be honest.
>> No. 31197 Anonymous
29th October 2021
Friday 10:33 pm
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Man, I just love having a different GP for each appointment, retelling them everything all over again and then getting differing advice with no follow up on what was discussed last month.
>> No. 31203 Anonymous
31st October 2021
Sunday 7:19 pm
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>>31121
>Buproprion

I've seen a few people here mention that. It actually looks very promising, but I've heard it comes with a higher risk of seizures and serotonin syndrome?
>> No. 31204 Anonymous
31st October 2021
Sunday 7:45 pm
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>>31203

Bupropion tends to have a higher rate of adverse events because it's often used to augment other drugs - it's not the bupropion per se, but the interaction between it and other things. When used on-label as a smoking cessation aid it is extremely safe and can be used safely as a psychiatric medication.

It does lower the seizure threshold, but that's only likely to be an issue if a) you have an underlying risk of seizures or b) you're taking other medication with the same effect such as tricyclic antidepressants or antipsychotics. The biggest risk is in patients who are experiencing (or are at risk of experiencing) alcohol or benzodiazepine withdrawal. The effect on seizure risk is highly dose-dependent and is only likely to become clinically significant at very high doses.

Bupropion has no interaction with the serotonin receptors, so it can't directly cause serotonin syndrome at any dose. The issue is that it inhibits CYP2D6, which is the enzyme that metabolises most antidepressants and antipsychotics. If you're taking both bupropion and another antidepressant, you'll metabolise that antidepressant more slowly and have much higher blood plasma levels. That's potentially very useful, but obviously carries a risk if a prescription-happy American doctor blunders in without thinking and prescribes bupropion on top of a large dose of an SSRI. Notably this isn't an issue with fluoxetine and paroxetine, which are themselves strong CYP2D6 inhibitors.

As a side note, CBD is a strong inhibitor of CYP2D6. I haven't seen any case reports, but I'd recommend caution if you combine cannabis or CBD with antidepressants.
>> No. 31205 Anonymous
31st October 2021
Sunday 8:13 pm
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>>31204
>b) you're taking other medication with the same effect such as tricyclic antidepressants or antipsychotics

One thing I've commonly seen online is buproprion in combination with an SSRI, say Citalopram. I'm assuming that's fine then.

>As a side note, CBD is a strong inhibitor of CYP2D6
That's actually really fucking good to know, thank you. I'm on Citalopram and have been ordering CBD weed.

Hows drinking on buproprion? And why are people calling it prison cocaine? It has no energising properties beyond the initial stage of your body getting used to it, surely?
>> No. 31206 Anonymous
31st October 2021
Sunday 9:09 pm
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>>31205

>One thing I've commonly seen online is buproprion in combination with an SSRI, say Citalopram. I'm assuming that's fine then.

There's no significant seizure risk with that combination. It's commonly used for people who only get partial benefit from an SSRI and it's safe as long as you're on a sensible dose.

>Hows drinking on bupropion?

It shouldn't have any noticeable effect unless you have an alcohol dependency.

>why are people calling it prison cocaine?

You might get a bit of a buzz from crushing and snorting it, but you'd have to be pretty desperate. Some prisoners will try just about anything to get high.
>> No. 31207 Anonymous
31st October 2021
Sunday 10:02 pm
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>>31206
Thank you buproprion man.
>> No. 31208 Anonymous
1st November 2021
Monday 1:02 pm
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My mate used some of that stuff to quit smoking, and it also forced him to quit drinking coffee, presumably because, without realising, he was also addicted to that.

Does it only work on chemical dependency or can it have horrible unintended side effects like putting you off wanking for the rest of your life?
>> No. 31209 Anonymous
1st November 2021
Monday 2:20 pm
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>>31208

>Does it only work on chemical dependency or can it have horrible unintended side effects like putting you off wanking for the rest of your life?

Bupropion blocks nicotine receptors, so you get less of a buzz from fags. It also blocks the reuptake of dopamine, so you get consistently higher dopamine levels - this is (probably) why it works as an antidepressant, why it can be used to treat ADHD and possibly why your mate stopped drinking coffee. It has been tried as a treatment for cocaine addiction, but it didn't seem to work.

Unlike SSRI antidepressants, it doesn't reduce your sex drive and might actually make you a bit hornier. There are some concerns that SSRIs might cause lasting sexual problems in a small minority of patients, but we're not sure and it seems to mainly affect people who started taking an SSRI during adolescence.
>> No. 31210 Anonymous
3rd November 2021
Wednesday 5:25 pm
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Is there a way to stop dreams? I keep dreaming things then they come true several days/weeks later and it's giving me such anxiety because when I am in the future predicted by the dream I have to do something else to change the timeline and it scares me so much.
>> No. 31211 Anonymous
3rd November 2021
Wednesday 6:39 pm
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Being a fat cunt is an addiction like any other, and I'm scared to ask for happy pills since most of them also make you fat. Reckon the buponion would be good for that?
>> No. 31212 Anonymous
6th November 2021
Saturday 2:23 pm
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Well, spoke to a psych today. He was happy to prescribe my buproprion. It's a low dose to begin. Bit nervous to start it, I had horrible side effects starting the citalopram and sertraline. I was monged out for weeks. What can I expect with buprorion? Apparently not much.
>> No. 31213 Anonymous
6th November 2021
Saturday 3:54 pm
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>>31212

>What can I expect with buprorion? Apparently not much.

A little bit of a buzz like you've had a couple of strong coffees. Other than that, it's quite benign.
>> No. 31214 Anonymous
6th November 2021
Saturday 4:57 pm
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>>31213
Drinking a couple of strong coffees at once sounds like panic attack city for me unfortunately. Maybe I'll start slow.
>> No. 31215 Anonymous
6th November 2021
Saturday 7:32 pm
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>>31214
I wouldn't worry about it, if you have them both in different cups most of it runs down the side of your mouth.
>> No. 31216 Anonymous
6th November 2021
Saturday 8:27 pm
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I went on a date with a woman. She told me she gets so many matches on [app] that it's like a job, then she downed her drink, made an excuse, and left. The whole date lasted maybe 45 minutes. I was going to message her to ask if I don't look like my pictures or something, but she has already unmatched.
>> No. 31217 Anonymous
6th November 2021
Saturday 8:29 pm
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>>31216
Sounds like you didn't click. You got one, you can get another.
>> No. 31218 Anonymous
6th November 2021
Saturday 8:42 pm
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>>31217
I can, but it's all a bit grim and dehumanising innit?
>> No. 31219 Anonymous
6th November 2021
Saturday 9:56 pm
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>>31216
I can see why otherlad's started noshing blokes off when I read stuff like this.
>> No. 31220 Anonymous
7th November 2021
Sunday 1:14 am
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>>31216
That must have been fairly horrible for you, but there's no denying that she was clearly a bitch and you've dodged a bullet there.
>> No. 31221 Anonymous
7th November 2021
Sunday 1:53 am
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I need an morality check: I've started dating a woman because I was using a Hinge for validation after getting dumped following two dates with another woman that I got silly for.

Now obviously I feel better but after date number 2 I also don't see this new relationship working out; she's one of those recent Hong Kong refugees so her English isn't great and I can't say that we have anything in common so there are a lot of silences. This is also one of those stereotypical relationships where I feel like a dad with a daughter (that has a surprisingly fat arse for a Asian), I took her to see the Eternals today because she mentioned that she really wanted to see it over dinner and afterwards she was bouncing along - she also had ice cream and got to see inside a fun museum. I don't know, maybe I'm just a fisherperson at heart who needs a woman that is a bit of a bloke.

Rational thing is to dump her tomorrow, we've only done two dates and not had sex so a text will do but a part of me feels terrible for it. She'll be totally alone at Christmas, it sounds like her housemates exclude her and she's only had one relationship 3 years back that lasted a few months traveling in Australia. Part of me wants to stick it out until the new year just because I can make her happy for a bit but I also understand that is building someone up for a bigger let-down.

>>31216
She sounds like a bitch, let's hope she gets hit by a bus.
>> No. 31222 Anonymous
7th November 2021
Sunday 8:01 am
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>>31221
Did she take that sweet, sweet Hong Kong money with her?

I say give her another chance. You can be one of those creepy white guys you see with Chinese brides.
>> No. 31223 Anonymous
7th November 2021
Sunday 1:37 pm
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>>31221

At least get your knob wet before you make your decision, you great wet fanny. Two dates isn't enough time for her to open up. How did you feel being the one dumped after two dates? Besides all that you're being a bit arrogant to assume she wants any more to do with you than a bit of Christmas companionship and a few fun day trips.

Not meaning to sound harsh but I can think of many more reasons to see where things go than to just abruptly cut things off. I mean, you don't have any better prospects right now, right? Don't try and take the moral high Road, because like it or not, that's exactly the way birds think about you when you're dating.
>> No. 31224 Anonymous
7th November 2021
Sunday 1:50 pm
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>>31222
Nope. She works in data entry because it's the work she could get. There's probably a joke in there about Asians coming over 'ere and doing our maths homework.

>You can be one of those creepy white guys you see with Chinese brides.

Ugh, message sent. She seems okay with it so that's good and let's me whinge about wasting over £150 and having to watch a Marvel movie. Don't worry, I'm resigned at this point to being that bloke that marries an Asian woman.
>> No. 31225 Anonymous
7th November 2021
Sunday 2:02 pm
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>>31223
I don't know, I'm definitely one to end up in 6 month relationships where I'm unhappy just by going through the motions. It doesn't end better when it collapses because she wants to put definition and I don't.

>Besides all that you're being a bit arrogant to assume she wants any more to do with you than a bit of Christmas companionship and a few fun day trips.

Nonsense, my mum says that I'm a total catch.
>> No. 31226 Anonymous
7th November 2021
Sunday 9:19 pm
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Visiting family for the weekend. They all treat me like I'm a fucking joke. My job, my weight, my mental health, my hobbies, even the way I walk, I can't do anything right in their eyes.
>> No. 31227 Anonymous
7th November 2021
Sunday 11:05 pm
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>>31226
That sounds pretty shitty of them, or "toxic" as they say.
>> No. 31228 Anonymous
8th November 2021
Monday 12:12 am
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>>31226
Well tell them to go fuck themselves then, I bet they've got plenty of flaws you can point to. If they continue to take the piss then leave because you don't need that in your life and they need to understand that you don't need them.
>> No. 31229 Anonymous
8th November 2021
Monday 12:25 am
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>>31226
>I can't do anything right in their eyes.
Why would you want to? My family aren't like this, so maybe my awareness that I don't need to put up with their shit comes from them raising me to believe this instead of giving me shit, and so maybe you aren't aware that this isn't normal. But it's worth asking yourself a few questions:
-What do they provide for me now?
-What would happen if I bailed on them?
-Do I actually need them?

Even if you don't decide to stand up for yourself (and you should obviously try standing up for yourself before you just abandon your whole family forever), it's an utterly fantastic feeling to know that you have that option.
>> No. 31230 Anonymous
8th November 2021
Monday 8:57 am
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>>31226
Do they have a point? Sometimes you have to be cruel to be kind.
>> No. 31231 Anonymous
8th November 2021
Monday 9:12 am
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I've been seeing someone for the past 2 months. Last night I broke it off with them. While I deeply cared for them and did love them, something just didn't fit right and I didn't want to lead them on.

I'd much rather we have the same relationship we had but without the lovey dovey stuff but it's gnawing at me that it will never be the case. I feel like shit and I'm sure they do too.
I'm not sure what I'm asking here, maybe I'm just venting but I feel like I've made a huge mistake but I could just as easily say that if I remained in the relationship too.
>> No. 31232 Anonymous
8th November 2021
Monday 12:57 pm
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>>31231
>something just didn't fit right

Why? Think about it, you say you love him after only 2 months of being together but for some reason you don't want the lovey dovey stuff. And at the start of cuffing season no less. Are you sure you're just not self-sabotaging here because you have something good.

If he's too fat or otherwise doesn't get the old coconut water flowing then just say. Me and otherlad will get flashbacks to all the times an evil harpy tore our hearts out to conduct sadistic blood magic but we'll get it.
>> No. 31233 Anonymous
8th November 2021
Monday 1:35 pm
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>>31232
The real issue is I'm not sexually attracted to men, at all. No response, just doesn't do it for me. That may come across as denial but it's just the way I feel.
That may have changed over time but I kept having conflicting thoughts about who I am, what I like and in the end I think I'm straight but bi-romantic.

They had came out of a messy breakup and I fell for them while helping them get over it. There was magic there but then it faded a week ago for me, at least for the romance side of things. I just found it exhausting and i felt like I was just putting on an act which is why I didn't want to lead them on. It might have been a crush rather than actual love. We were never physically intimate and in some respects I'm glad.

2 months is a short time but over those 2 months I changed a lot of my day to day life to support them, it made me realise what I took for granted and what i liked about being single. Maybe I wanted the love but not the relation if that makes sense? I have been starved of these kind of feelings for some years now due to my own messy breakup which ended up taking the better part of 3 years to get over.

>Are you sure you're just not self-sabotaging here because you have something good.
You may be right in this regard too, I'm still conflicted on if this was the right choice or if I should have gave it some time but my fears in regard to that is, I would still feel the same but it would be even harder to breakup.
>> No. 31234 Anonymous
8th November 2021
Monday 2:10 pm
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>>31233
It sounds more like you found platonic love. I wouldn't say you're bi-romantic so much as you made a deep-connection with someone in a similar situation and it helped you to heal, it sounds like you might've helped him as well.

I'd say you made the right decision. You probably could've taken a few loads for the team though, imagine if you were a chick and you didn't do any of that. Too late now though.
>> No. 31235 Anonymous
8th November 2021
Monday 3:33 pm
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>>31227>>31228>>31229
I've tried standing up for myself before. Sent an email telling my dad I don't appreciate how he constantly attacks me, and it resulted in him telling me I'm too mentally ill to comprehend what a good dad he is.
>>31230
I'm in a job I give a shit about for the first time, I am overweight but working on it, I'm making good progress mentally, my hobbies are the exact same as my brother who gets no shit from my dad, and I walk flat footed.

I don't know if it's because of all my siblings, I'm the only one to live completely independently from my dad. They all see him more or less every day, I see him maybe 10 days a year. The textbook black sheep of the family.
>> No. 31236 Anonymous
8th November 2021
Monday 4:43 pm
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>>31235
>Sent an email

Come on now - even I want to bully you for that.

But yeah he can go fuck himself. I'm black sheep of my family as well but I never got gaslighted for it.
>> No. 31237 Anonymous
8th November 2021
Monday 6:34 pm
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>>31234
We've had a little talk since my last post. He appreciates what I've done and has even admitted I've helped him heal. He also wants to remain friends and we've both agreed it might be a bit awkward at first. I'll do everything I can to keep this friendship but I know it'll be much hard for him and I'll keep that in mind.

He's a bit sad he found someone who he could be happy around but I've told him I'll still be there for him.

I'll have to mention about platonic love to him, so he knows exactly what it is I want.
Thanks for replies.
>> No. 31238 Anonymous
8th November 2021
Monday 8:18 pm
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>>31237
Good luck.
>> No. 31239 Anonymous
10th November 2021
Wednesday 1:33 pm
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I need to go back into hibernation-tier depression, because I'm trying to do anything and I'm just getting irrationally angry again all the time. Is this improvement? Just feels like orbiting the same black hole to me.
>> No. 31240 Anonymous
10th November 2021
Wednesday 11:03 pm
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So, I think I'm going to have to leave my partner, she's just not putting the effort in and I'm fed up of it. I've given her enough chances. I'm pretty gutted about it, and it'll be a proper ache in the balls to have to move out on my own again, but I can't keep making mental gymnastics to excuse her for it any more, she's just taking me for a mug to be honest.

We had a big row last week, when I was on a night shift and she phoned me up to wake me up at 3 in the afternoon to tell me "I need to be awake" for the gas man to visit. I think I was pretty justified in telling her to get to fuck, she tried to twist it as if I was being abusive and my temper is always a problem in the relationship. I told her to get fucked again, and when it was clear I wasn't playing that game she changed her tune a bit and we had a long talk about the things we're both dissatisfied with, both agreed to try harder, make time for each other, and all that.

Tonight I cooked us dinner, put a movie on, it was supposed to be a nice date night and everything, a bit of quality time, maybe a nice fuck. Soon as the movie finished she fucked off to go on discord with her mates. It's always one way. Any time we've talked about the problems in our relationship it's always me putting in the effort.

And beside all that she can't suck dick to save her life. This girl has the nerve to say she thinks she's the one putting in the effort in the bedroom, when I'm the one who spends an hour pumping her with my fingers to make her squirt, and she can't be arsed to give me more than five minutes of half arsed hand shandy, and ten seconds of reluctant sucking if I really insist on it. It's tragic, I've never had someone worse in bed, and yet she seems to think it's rude of me to suggest she put a bit more bloody effort in.

It's really annoying because we've got a nice flat and my financial situation is great right now but I mean fuck sake. I'm lying to myself if I think I can go on with this. I deserve better.
>> No. 31241 Anonymous
11th November 2021
Thursday 9:33 am
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>>31240

Sounds better than my relationship if it makes you feel better.
>> No. 31242 Anonymous
11th November 2021
Thursday 12:50 pm
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>>31240
Something for after Christmas, surely. I'm not taking her side when she's not playing ball but it's weird to open with the night-shift ballache when its a standard problem for anyone on a nightshift and seems to be what destroys people in general. Plus the swinging monkey doesn't let go of one vine without having his hand firmly placed on another.

Maybe you could try the usual tricks to reengage her and by that I mean get it back into her head that you could leave her at any time. Flirt with other women, stop fucking her and confidently beat off, generally give her some anxiety about losing you. You want to take control of this relationship and let her understand that you're not doing the romance because you have some feminine desire to pull her away from her boys on discord but because you fully expect to finish dinner, bend her over the table and give her a good seeing to.
>> No. 31243 Anonymous
11th November 2021
Thursday 2:04 pm
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>>31242
Just because the lad is dissastisfied with his lass doesn't mean he needs to take tips from the misogynist's handbook. Sounds like when you refer to 'control of the relationship' you mean control of her. If she's shit at everything, and talking hasn't helped, he should split with her instead of beating his chest or acting like he's better than her.
>> No. 31244 Anonymous
11th November 2021
Thursday 2:27 pm
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>>31242
How embarassing.
>> No. 31245 Anonymous
11th November 2021
Thursday 2:27 pm
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Is it the same poster whose response to any women related troubles is to "bend her over and give her a good seeing to"? I feel like I've seen that phrase multiple times over the last few months on /emo/.
>> No. 31246 Anonymous
11th November 2021
Thursday 2:40 pm
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>>31243
>>31244
>>31245
I'm suggesting he take a more assertive role as the relationship burns down anyway. Good to see you lads are still like clockwork though.
>> No. 31247 Anonymous
11th November 2021
Thursday 2:59 pm
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>>31246
You appear to be in an alternative universe where throwing a paddy and withdrawing from sex to send a message is more assertive than saying something. Either that or you're 17.
>> No. 31248 Anonymous
11th November 2021
Thursday 3:06 pm
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>>31240
>telling me "I need to be awake"
What do you think the response would have been if you'd said "No, you need me to be awake for the gas man"? Would it have changed your reaction if she'd asked that from the start?

I recognise this is a tangent to the point but I find it very interesting.
I'm becoming more and more aware of the tendancy many of us have in telling people, literally, what they need, rather than explicitly explaining our own needs. Effective communication is said to be paramount to successful relationships, yet I hear this sort of thing all the time and wonder if it's worth consideration, or just an artifact of my autism.
>> No. 31249 Anonymous
11th November 2021
Thursday 3:41 pm
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>>31241

Please fill us in on the details of yours, it might help us all feel better.

>>31242

Ehh. You sound like someone who only has a pretend girlfriend, but I'll take it on good faith either way... Trouble is I've already done all that. At the end of the day, though, call me a great big fisherperson, because I expect a bird to put her share of the effort in, and it's just not happening.

Part of the trouble is her extreme squeamishness, she can't handle it if I do manhandle her and bend her over for a rough, spontaneous fuck. She needs to have the romance and candles treatment and all that shite. She's the definition of the term "pillow princess", so as much as I'd like your advice to work, it really isn't the solution in this case.

Also her discord server is full of pronoun wankers, and frankly I think the problem on her end is simply that being in a straight relationship just doesn't fulfil her sense of identity as a big gay queer. It's a dead end for us both, but she likes having me around to give her lifts and carry heavy stuff.

I will at least leave the break-up til after Christmas though, that's a fair point.

>>31248

I don't know really, I couldn't get my head round it at all. For me, if I'm on a night shift, it's non-negotiable that I'm going to be asleep and I won't tolerate being disturbed. I've laid that down as a boundary, it's a hard limit, it's a line in the sand. It's a hill I'll die on.

You get the idea, it was a boundary that I have gone to great lengths to emphasise must be respected, so breaking it is pretty much guaranteed to piss me off, and I really don't think I'm at fault if I kick off a bit.

The gas man could come any day of the week, it's not like there was an emergency. I don't know why on earth she was so dead set against telling him there's nobody home and to come the following day. It was like I'm just not even a person, I'm some sort of malfunctioning appliance for not doing what I was expected to.
>> No. 31250 Anonymous
11th November 2021
Thursday 3:52 pm
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>>31246
You told him wanking on the sofa would improve his miserable relationship, you ponce.
>> No. 31251 Anonymous
11th November 2021
Thursday 4:00 pm
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>>31249
>she can't handle it if I do manhandle her and bend her over for a rough, spontaneous fuck. She needs to have the romance and candles treatment and all that shite

You mean she likes foreplay rather than you ramming it in while her fanny's drier than the Sahara?
>> No. 31252 Anonymous
11th November 2021
Thursday 4:05 pm
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>>31249

You could come out as intersex or NB to her/her discord friends.
>> No. 31253 Anonymous
11th November 2021
Thursday 4:13 pm
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>>31251

The Sahara has some rather large aquifers.
>> No. 31254 Anonymous
11th November 2021
Thursday 4:52 pm
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>>31251

No, I mean she likes laying there and getting all the attention for two hours and then not giving anything back.

Don't be a smart arse on /emo/ you prick.
>> No. 31255 Anonymous
11th November 2021
Thursday 5:09 pm
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>>31254
Two hours seems a long time, I could see her getting a bit tired and fed up after so long. Have you ever considered having a quickie so she doesn't get bored and full of aches?
>> No. 31256 Anonymous
11th November 2021
Thursday 5:54 pm
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>>31255

No seriously lad, give it a rest. This board is the one where we try not to be arseholes to one another.

The culture has been slipping of late it seems but the blue background always used to mean a cunt-off free zone.
>> No. 31257 Anonymous
11th November 2021
Thursday 6:43 pm
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I'm so sick of playing the game of humouring the gender fluid bollocks, it seems like it is just an excuse for them to be endlessly narcissistic and whiney about thing that aren't actually problems and aren't actually solvable, and like a gotcha game to accuse people of hate crimes who does anything but wholly indulge it. We need to do away with this absurd concept that their faith and belief trumps objective reality,we always knew people's self images were deluded but now because they are hipsters instead of that bloke down the pub who talks big after a pint we have to believe them. In another generation we will just need to invent another word that means man and women so people can understand what the fuck you are taking about when you describe them anyway, can't we just cut it off now. I am tired.
>> No. 31258 Anonymous
11th November 2021
Thursday 6:51 pm
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>>31257
If it wasn't for this place I don't think evangelist christian korean youtubers would have any impact whatsoever on my day to day life.
>> No. 31259 Anonymous
11th November 2021
Thursday 7:01 pm
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>>31256
>The culture has been slipping of late it seems but the blue background always used to mean a cunt-off free zone.
Yeah, it's definitely not as sacrosanct as it used to be. Not sure if it's an influx of Quigginslads or we're slipping, but the tone of emo is one of the most important things on this site. If we lose it to cuntoffs then we're basically abandoning some of the most vulnerable users who come here.

We all saw what happened in the resting actor thread. We need to keep the integrity of /emo/ and make it clear that you can come here for help free of (almost all) judgement, same with the discord.
>> No. 31260 Anonymous
11th November 2021
Thursday 7:05 pm
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>>31259

>Quigginslads

Fuck off back to britchan JFK.

(A good day to you Sir!)
>> No. 31261 Anonymous
11th November 2021
Thursday 7:08 pm
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>>31258

I appreciate you might not live in a place or move in circles that have been over run by this bollocks but I tragically do.
>> No. 31262 Anonymous
11th November 2021
Thursday 7:21 pm
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>>31259
>We all saw what happened in the resting actor thread. We need to keep the integrity of /emo/ and make it clear that you can come here for help free of (almost all) judgement, same with the discord.

I don't know if anyone is actually being a cunt. /emo/ is the sacred cow, but that doesn't mean people should be beyond reproach under the guise of 'mental health' if they post something worthy of being scrutinised.
>> No. 31263 Anonymous
11th November 2021
Thursday 7:38 pm
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>>31262

Yes it does. Judgement is not helpful when someone comes seeking advice. Being honest with someone is one thing, but what we have seen lately is a handful of lads who seem glad to take the opportunity to step on someone when they're already down.

One can imagine it's because their own lives are in enough of a state that they can only feel good about themselves by mocking other people's misfortune, but even that might be just giving them too much credit and they're actually just pompous arseholes. Either way, there's no place for it here.

The tone of impartiality is important because it's what makes this board approachable. People much less afraid to open up if they know they won't be judged. And besides that, it just plain pisses me off to see someone giving biased, unhelpful advice because they've clearly got some personal spuds to peel about the issue at hand; or think they're somehow the highest power of moral authority on the site.
>> No. 31264 Anonymous
11th November 2021
Thursday 7:45 pm
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>>31263
I think that happens whenever sexual prowess is brought up. It always ends up being a pissing contest.
>> No. 31265 Anonymous
11th November 2021
Thursday 7:45 pm
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>>31257

What circles do you move in that you are forced to interact with these people?

I know what you mean, I think there is an enormous overlap in the Venn diagram of "damaged toxic drama whores" and "people who identify as (non-standard pronoun)". I don't have a problem with the concept in principle and I am willing to take it on good faith if somebody ever says they are, but I have noticed that their "spaces" are always rife with dark triad personality types.

I'd suggest making efforts to simply distance yourself from whatever spaces you are sharing. It'll only become much less healthy if you stay exposed long enough that you turn into some sort of reactionary out of sheer spite.
>> No. 31266 Anonymous
11th November 2021
Thursday 8:22 pm
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>>31265

Several circles, the fet scene is rife with it, but you know cows go moo, and the dark triad and drama whores have always been dragged to it like flies to dog shit. It is the other aspect of my life that knock me for six, fan cons that have to spend more organisational time on appeasement than the actual subject of the con, 'nerd culture on the ground I've found is fucking rife with theys who would have just been women telling you they are bi and wicca before. And my friends with their DH's little Tarquin has grown up and realise they was even more special and are actually oppressed.
>> No. 31267 Anonymous
11th November 2021
Thursday 8:38 pm
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>>31263
>Judgement is not helpful when someone comes seeking advice

If I'm being a massive dickhead then I need to be called out on it, anything else is just encouraging the behaviour that has me in a mess and at best gives a monochromatic view on life. Emo is a place for emotional advice not a hugbox.
>> No. 31268 Anonymous
11th November 2021
Thursday 9:11 pm
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>>31267

Put the goalposts back where they were lad. Either way you are expected to do it in a polite and grounded way here, not turn the thread into another boring shit-slinging contest.

Just don't be a cunt on /emo/, end of discussion.
>> No. 31269 Anonymous
11th November 2021
Thursday 10:24 pm
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>>31267
You're being a massive dickhead. If you're going to disagree, you do it politely and constructively. Not with #clapbacks and pith.

You need to understand that this is possibly the last place some people will go before they top themselves, and if you popularize a tone of Being Blunt and Telling It Like It Is, you'll kill people. Of course it's rarely going to be a realistic consequence, and I'm a bit shaken about the other day because we all saw the lads posts leading up to him announcing his departure (you did too, and you did fuck all), but we can't foster a culture where people slip through the cracks in the last place they might go for advice, which might be here.

Now this isn't such a severe situation, but things are changing for the worse, and you're doubling down on that. This isn't rose tinted - Because of /emo/ having a 'general' thread, and the relative slowdown of traffic resulting in most browsing being done via /*/, has had an impact on how things are addressed here. It's become more casual, and while there's banter, this deadpan snarker shit was banned. I'm honestly surprised that >>31260 has gotten a ban, comedy or otherwise, and you haven't.

You're not even capable of backing down and showing an ounce of self reflection on how you're derailing this thread, or pivot into putting some actual effort into your posts, you're just arguing.

>Emo is a place for emotional advice
Advice for the benefit of those seeking it, that actually has a decent chance of being taken. You'll get a lot more out of engaging people rather than judging them, so if you aren't going to bother doing that then fuck off.
>> No. 31270 Anonymous
11th November 2021
Thursday 10:31 pm
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>>31269
>I'm honestly surprised that >>31260 has gotten a ban, comedy or otherwise, and you haven't.
I think I was just waiting for someone to spell it out like you've done there as I don't have the energy to do it myself. I/we've been lax maintaining the standards on /emo/ lately but when people do call it out us mods are also reminded to enforce it. Cheers.
>> No. 31271 Anonymous
11th November 2021
Thursday 10:39 pm
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>>31266

Well, that does sound difficult to avoid. I've noticed that what the kink scene and nerd fandoms often have a great deal of overlap in a tendency towards slightly autistic types, and in current year that manifests as poly enby demisexual vegan attention whore types. If you were able to deal with the autismo-drama before, I think it's usually pretty safe to deal with this new facet of it in much the same manner, it's the same thing with some new words thrown around.

That said I bowed out of the fet scene around here a number of years ago, even before the wokeness really started to take root I just became disillusioned with how cliquey and intolerably middle class the whole affair tended to be. When I was of that studenty early 20s age bracket myself it seemed fine, but as I've grown older and matured, I got the distinct impression nobody else seemed to be. It was always like a university book club with nipple clamps.
>> No. 31272 Anonymous
11th November 2021
Thursday 10:42 pm
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>>31268
>>31269
Hang on a fucking minute. I'm barely been in this thread and you're talking out your arse if you think giving people a stern talking to can't be important. This isn't telling someone to do a flip when they're on a ledge, it's a normal part of giving people advice.

I'm especially disappointed with >>31270 who should know better as a moderator on an internet message board.
>> No. 31273 Anonymous
11th November 2021
Thursday 10:46 pm
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>>31272

It can be important, but in the context of an internet message board, it's much harder to know when that's appropriate and when it is urging someone off a ledge. /emo/ has always erred on the side of caution.
>> No. 31274 Anonymous
11th November 2021
Thursday 11:03 pm
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>>31272

The thing is, who are you to say when that's appropriate?

It seems to me that the problem largely stems from the occasions where some smart-arse reads a post, and decides that they in fact know better than the original poster; they then invariably proceed to make some sarcastic jab that implies the poster is being dishonest and that the problem really lies with themselves. It is profoundly unhelpful and mean spirited, and I think you know that.

We should always strive to take what is said here charitably and in good faith. If someone phones up the samaritans, the person on the other end doesn't go "pull the other one you attention seeking dickhead, have a word with yourself!", and neither should we.
>> No. 31275 Anonymous
12th November 2021
Friday 8:23 am
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Anyway this isn't the place to discuss what the policy on /emo/ should or shouldn't be. Please keep further argument about it on /shed/.
>> No. 31276 Anonymous
13th November 2021
Saturday 9:30 pm
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BqijsweJzFQ
A recent illness has broken the spell of online videogaming upon me, helping me realise I use it as a substitute for social interaction rather than actual enjoyment.
I don't want to play games anymore. Hell, I don't really want to use the internet much, either. I want real people and real meaning in my life, but i've never practised either and don't know where to begin. How to begin, even - each time in the past wheb I've ventured into the world of people has been an overwhelming enbarassment.
I don't know, I'm just complaining really. I hope I don't return to online games once sufficiently bored, but it's happened many times before.
>> No. 31277 Anonymous
14th November 2021
Sunday 12:36 am
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>>31276
You just need to take it at your own pace. Obviously you're going to fuck up and embarrass yourself but that's all part of putting yourself out there and you'll get better for doing it. The important thing is that you're getting out of the house even if it's to read a book in the park.

I'm sure one of us lives close enough to go for a pint so long as you promise to at least wear a clean cape.
>> No. 31278 Anonymous
14th November 2021
Sunday 12:46 am
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>>31276
Sign up for some sort of class. Worst case scenario, your classmates will think you're a twat but you'll still get to learn plumbing or crochet or whatever.
>> No. 31279 Anonymous
14th November 2021
Sunday 9:02 am
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>>31278
If he finds something where there are two or more in the area, he can move to a different one if he makes a tit of himself at the first.
>> No. 31280 Anonymous
16th November 2021
Tuesday 10:05 pm
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Ahhh, fucking hell. Just trying to make sense of it all, to be honest lads.

Any tips?
>> No. 31281 Anonymous
16th November 2021
Tuesday 10:44 pm
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>>31280
It doesn't make any fucking sense. The world makes exactly the sense we're able to impose upon it and that's precarious at best.

What I'm saying is you need to grab a pen and paper and try to work out your life from the most detached analytical way possible. Plan steps, make to-do lists and be ready for when it all goes awry but just consider that like taking control of your finances there's a power in taking control.
>> No. 31282 Anonymous
18th November 2021
Thursday 11:25 pm
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If those cliffs were any closer, with the breakthroughs I'm making, I might well not see dawn as I no longer wish to.
>> No. 31283 Anonymous
18th November 2021
Thursday 11:58 pm
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>>31282
Yanklad here, I'll be up until well into the middle of the night in UK time, and more than happy to sit and chat through whatever is going through your head.
>> No. 31284 Anonymous
19th November 2021
Friday 8:09 am
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>>31282
Still with us? Be good if you spoke to one of us rather than making portentous posts then going offline.
>> No. 31285 Anonymous
19th November 2021
Friday 8:52 am
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>>31283>>31284
Yeah, I'm fine.
>> No. 31286 Anonymous
19th November 2021
Friday 9:43 am
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>>31285
That's a relief. Do you feel up to talking to someone about whatever? Before the evening mood kicks in.
>> No. 31287 Anonymous
21st November 2021
Sunday 8:51 pm
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Well I think I've fucked it lads. I posted a bit ago about how I thought me and the missus are heading for a break up, I've been trying to get my head clear and figure out the best way to proceed but it looks like my hand has been forced. Foolishly, I left a browser window open while I went out today and she's seen a post I made elsewhere where I vented out my thoughts on the matter. So she's gone to stay with her family and asked me to disappear.

Probably for the best really, but it's shite I let it happen this way rather than with more dignity. I feel more guilty about her finding out that way than anything else, just like a total dickhead. Cracking time for it as well, I was at least going to give it until the new year if my feelings didn't change. But then it isn't right to strong someone along either.

Ahh fuck it all. I reckon I'll at least leave the decision to top myself until I've looked on Rightmove in the morning and seen how much rent has gone up around here.

That was a joke by the way, I won't do that, but I do feel like absolute shit. Oh well.
>> No. 31288 Anonymous
22nd November 2021
Monday 1:05 am
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I spend all day worrying about how fast my life is going, how little time you have, especially in your physical peak, which I am now leaving, rather than actually living my life.

Every year I age I feel slightly more numb and disassociated from the world. I don't *feel* any more.
>> No. 31289 Anonymous
22nd November 2021
Monday 8:07 am
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>>31288

What do you consider your physical peak?

What haven't you done what you can't do in the future?
>> No. 31291 Anonymous
25th November 2021
Thursday 2:55 pm
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Do you not worry about virtually running into your friends or family, even familiar strangers, on dating websites? The thought terrifies me - that they could monitoring my profile and laugh at my misguided attempts to form relationships. It'd be humiliating.
>> No. 31292 Anonymous
25th November 2021
Thursday 3:37 pm
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>>31291

At least on Tinder there is a facility that allows you to block all your contacts from seeing your profile, I imagine most dating apps have similar.

However, if you think your friends and family are going to laugh at your profile, what hope do you have when complete strangers you're trying to fuck see it?
>> No. 31294 Anonymous
25th November 2021
Thursday 4:18 pm
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>>31291
My old housemates made a honey pot fake profile, basically a geek's idea of the perfect girl, and managed to cat fish half of the uni's wargaming society. Looking back it was pretty sociopathic, but it was fun.
>> No. 31295 Anonymous
25th November 2021
Thursday 5:01 pm
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>>31292
>However, if you think your friends and family are going to laugh at your profile, what hope do you have when complete strangers you're trying to fuck see it?

You need to stop caring what others think about you. It really doesn't matter. People get so worked up about what they think others may think about them for doing something, but the reality is they don't really give a shit and who really cares about their opinion anyway?
>> No. 31296 Anonymous
25th November 2021
Thursday 8:58 pm
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>>31291

I used to at one point, but that was like ten years ago when there was still some stigma to the whole affair. Back then being on online dating meant you were a bit of a sandy, but now it's totally normal. If you're single AMD looking it's pretty much expected of you, so nobody's going to laugh at your expense- They know they'd be in exactly the same boat.
>> No. 31297 Anonymous
26th November 2021
Friday 11:44 pm
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I think I'm literally going to be cucked by the housing market into staying with this failing, toxic abuse cycle of a relationship. There's simply nowhere affordable for me to move to. Everything is twice the price it was before, and even despite having two payrises over the last year and a half, I'd be paying just about half my wage for a crummy studio flat in fucking Huddersfield or something. How in the world has it become this dire?

Like it's not that I can't afford somewhere, technically, but it'd mean going from a healthy and sustainable income where I can afford to put money into savings for the future and everything, comfortably run my car, occasionally treat myself; back to that lifestyle of having a couple of hundred quid left after all the bills and living in fear of an appliance breaking or a flat tyre or whatever.

I don't want to excuse terrorism or anything, but I can understand how people become radicalised these days. I'm starting to feel like I should fuck it all off and just go out in a blaze of Moaty-eqsue glory.
>> No. 31298 Anonymous
26th November 2021
Friday 11:56 pm
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>>31297
>I'd be paying just about half my wage for a crummy studio flat in fucking Huddersfield or something

You know what you have to do.
>> No. 31299 Anonymous
27th November 2021
Saturday 12:00 am
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>>31297
I am just really surprised us Brits seem to be okay with it. I think they had some crazy protests in Berlin a few months ago about rent controls, but we just let it all happen. I am currently spending 53% of my monthly salary on a shitty studio.
>> No. 31300 Anonymous
27th November 2021
Saturday 12:04 am
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>>31298

I haven't seen even a single property to let in Beeston while searching, it's evidently just out of my range.

Loads in Beeston, but not Beeston.
>> No. 31301 Anonymous
27th November 2021
Saturday 2:16 am
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Around ten years ago, when everything was obviously still a bit scandalous but less mad than it is now, I saw something in the news which said most people spend around 30% of their income on rent, and this was an outrage. I was probably around the 45% mark at the time and felt pretty proud of how I was surviving and my savings would one day make me rich. Now, I am better off, and I have 40 grand in the bank and still can't buy a house. I'm honestly considering just buying a slum house at an auction for 20 grand(ish), doing it up with my remaining money, and selling it on for a profit, even though I am firmly of the opinion that the people who do this are part of the problem and must be stopped. Any such slum house would be at least 50 miles from where I live, and I don't have a car, and this is entirely due to the fucking pricks who buy all the houses.

>>31297
Terrorists are always fighting over mad shit that doesn't matter instead of righteous causes like mine. That's the only thing that makes them bad. It's weird how I am gradually making peace with the fact I might have to live with the shame of being a house-flipper parasite, but I still feel reluctant to live with the shame of wiping these fuckers out.
>> No. 31302 Anonymous
27th November 2021
Saturday 5:52 am
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Why do I always find myself so intertwined with manipulative, selfish people who think they can take me for a mug? Why does this cycle keep repeating?

I'm far from a gullible person, in fact quite the fucking opposite, otherwise I wouldn't keep finding myself in this mess where I correctly read the signs of what they're up to, and eventually force the truth out of them, and then it's a whole shit show to disentangle your emotions and everything.

Do people just misjudge me that badly that they think I'm a fucking slack cunt who'll fall for any old bullshit? Why is it always *surprised pikachu face* when I challenge them and it turns out I knew exactly what was going on? I swear to christ.
>> No. 31303 Anonymous
27th November 2021
Saturday 12:49 pm
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>>31302
Well maybe you are not successfully presenting your non-gullibleness from the off.
>> No. 31304 Anonymous
28th November 2021
Sunday 10:53 am
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I don't mean to sound needy, but when I show more interest in people's new shoes than they do in really important things that happen to me, I start to feel really quite bad about myself.
>> No. 31341 Anonymous
10th December 2021
Friday 12:23 am
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Discerning between being alone vs being lonely has always been interesting. I've always been okay with being alone, but I often feel like the feeling of being lonely is a superimposition that's slathered on my psyche when I spend too much time on imageboards (with everyone whining about their mundane social problems) or when I consume too much media (which is centered around the problems of our social species). It's as if gaining access to the internet suddenly bombarded me with the problems of regular people and brainwashed me into taking on the melodrama of their minds as my own, simply because it seemed like having these sorts of problems seemed Normal and Human™. The internet made it far easier to spread the virus of discontentment because the melodrama became interactive.

I suppose you could make an argument like "if you're not social then why do you spend so much time talking to people on imageboards", but I think that's more a case of becoming addicted to the little dopamine hits of people replying to your posts and the novelty of new threads. When I had to go without the internet in the past, I wasn't scratching myself and jonesing for the next hit; I felt a sense of immense relief.
>> No. 31342 Anonymous
10th December 2021
Friday 1:47 am
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I know it's a bit cliché, but there's a reoccurring trend in my life is that whenever I genuinely feel something for a woman she won't feel the same way and the opposite is usually true of myself when a woman feels something for me. I'm seeing a normatively attractive woman moment (blonde, skinny, drinks prosecco with her girlfriends, has a financially successful career) but I feel nothing for her and instead still think about the punky art girl who felt nothing for me a few months back.

It's like some cruel joke. The irony is that I'm in my 30s now and I want to settle down, get married and all that shit but I don't want to spend my life going through the motions like a mindless automaton. But precisely the woman who wants to have that kind of life with me will also give me a life devoid of passion. I'm a straight-laced guy who attracts straight-laced girls and repels anyone with the kind of energy that lights up a room when they enter it.

What always stuck with me about it is how Charlie Brooker once described coupling as ​"It’s not easy, selecting a cellmate. Generally speaking, the ones you want don’t stick around, and the ones you don’t want – well, when you finally quit trying, that’s your future spouse." It's fucking shit. Like I'm not allowed to be happy but instead must be doomed to spend my life with someone I don't actually like.

>>31341
I'm sure you do feel lonely all on your own. Even SPDs get lonely even if you manage to avoid having to face the issue upfront.
>> No. 31343 Anonymous
11th December 2021
Saturday 6:45 am
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Every now and again I run into someone on the internet who's clearly so bitter and hateful that it just honestly really depresses me.

It's not because I've been the target of their hate, although sometimes that is the case, but just sometimes the fact they are so blind to the hypocrisy of their prejudice hits me as really tragic. Even people who belong to the most marginalised groups, who should understand and empathise how it feels to be hated, everyone has to have some other class who's lower in the pecking order than them. Black guys picking on gay guys. Gay guys picking on trans folk. Trans folk picking on furries. Furries picking on involuntary celibates. Involuntary celibates picking on fatties. I could go on and on.

The core of it always seems to be "my thing is real and can't be changed, but your thing is made up and you're a freak", which is just daft because ultimately, all of it is made up. The only people who actually seriously believed any of this nonsense was actually inherent and fundamental to a person's being were the literal Nazis. I honestly can't get over the irony of holding this kind of belief just so you can have some vacuous notion of superiority over another group of people. It's so cynical.

The way they're so often only propagating exactly the same hatred and ignorance that their group was once subject to really upsets me. We can never have nice things when people are so hard-coded for hatred, and the mental gymnastics they'll pull off to justify why it's okay for them to do it just withers my soul. The argument is typically that this is a response to previous trauma, that it's not really their fault; but I don't think that excuses it. They must know, deep down, that that's what they're doing. Anyone who has so much has been bullied at school should know how it feels to be on the receiving end.

The only obvious answer to this is to spend less time online, but I mean, that isn't really a solution. That just means isolating myself. If I only spent five minutes on the internet a week I'd probably still run across them. There's not much for it.
>> No. 31345 Anonymous
11th December 2021
Saturday 9:39 am
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>>31344

No, you have completely misunderstood what I was saying, but I don't have the energy to argue.

Here's your (you), now piss off.
>> No. 31346 Anonymous
11th December 2021
Saturday 10:46 am
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>>31344
You ride a horse, you march on foot.
>> No. 31347 Anonymous
11th December 2021
Saturday 10:47 am
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>>31346
I've seen your mum ride a foot.
>> No. 31348 Anonymous
11th December 2021
Saturday 1:19 pm
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>>31343
Funnily enough, I found myself thinking today that despite how logical everything could be, humans are fundamentally emotional creatures who will act the fool, often for the sake of it.

When you think about it, it makes logical sense to engage the emotional, illogical capacity of our nature if we're to keep good health - hence why both you and I feel so shit, because we're supressing emotion of the various subjects that bother us. Doing so leads to a numbing depression, as our low-energy may well indicate. I imagine this isn't the first time you've neglected to type because 'what's the point?'.
Keep in mind that the science of psychology (and science in general) describe phenomina of our being and experience - we will always be subject to our humanity no matter how well we understand it. All we can really do is learn how to best game the system.

The point I'm trying to make is that yeah, people are twats - and you're people, too. The difference is that you seem to have a greater insight which could prove to be a valuable tool in engaging the others. So get emotional, engage the arguement and lead your opponents on a merry chase which hopefully reveals the folly of it all to everyone.
>> No. 31349 Anonymous
11th December 2021
Saturday 5:14 pm
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>>31348
I very passionately agree with your first point. People really overrate rationality. If I want to go to Scotland, just to look around but not actually do anything, then that's not rational. So I should stay home. But then it's going to eat at me that I'm not doing it, that I am denying my own desires out of some obligation to an imagined sense of logic, and that will annoy me. It is logically better to behave illogically. Sometimes you see people who can't choose between A and B, and they're desperate to find the "correct" choice. But if one choice was obviously better, they'd have figured it out by now. They haven't, so materially the two choices must be near enough the same. But if you suggest using their own personal preference, or instinct, as a tie-breaker between the two, they will say, "No, I can't; that's irrational." The dummies.
>> No. 31350 Anonymous
12th December 2021
Sunday 9:22 am
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>>31348

The hard part is knowing if you are dealing with a troll, or just someone deliberately trying to get a rise out of you, in which case it's not worth expending your effort and exposing yourself to the emotional hurt it might cause; and knowing when you're dealing with someone sincere, in which case it's worth engaging, and hoping that, even if you don't persuade them, you'll at least give other observers something to think about.

I've been on imageboards for most of the last 15-odd years, so it's not like I'm new to people being stupid arseholes on the internet. I'm not particularly bothered by edgy teenlad humour, I like a controversial joke as long as it's actually funny. What gets under my skin is when you can tell it's genuine, based on pure ignorance, and especially, when it's coming from the type of person who should know better. That's the part that shakes my faith in the species in general; it exposes that so many people are ultimately just so brazenly, cynically self-interested.

I mean the biggest example on a global scale, to drag it away from a niche internet identity politics angle, is something like the Israeli treatment of Palestinians. It's like a pyramid descending down, all the way from the horrors of real world ethnocentrism, to Magic: The Gathering players making fun of bronies. People just can't resist throwing stones out of the window of their own glass house, because they've built a big rhetorical shield in front of it, and now they think "Ha, my turn, bitches."

Anyway I'm reaching the point of incoherence here. Thanks for your input though lad.
>> No. 31351 Anonymous
12th December 2021
Sunday 4:50 pm
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>>31350
>>to Magic: The Gathering players making fun of bronies.

That venn diagram is a smaller circle inside a larger circle. Not all MTG players are Bronies, but all Bronies are MTG players. If not MTG then at least Pokemon, but more lkely Yu gi-oh.
>> No. 31352 Anonymous
12th December 2021
Sunday 5:07 pm
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>>31351
>Yu gi-oh
MYSTICAL SPACE TYPHOON! CURSED SEAL OF THE FORBIDDEN SPELL! 4-STARRED LADYBUG OF DOOM!
>> No. 31353 Anonymous
12th December 2021
Sunday 5:23 pm
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>>31352
Yu gi-oh AKA weeb MTG. Although the game is definitely broken, because pot of greed (A card that allows you to draw 2 extra cards) is considered very powerful. Or I've been playing too much MTG Arena instead of actually working.
>> No. 31354 Anonymous
12th December 2021
Sunday 7:40 pm
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>>31349
I disagree quite strongly. In the scenario you describe, it's irrational to not go out if it will eat at you. The issue is a flawed understanding of rationality rather than an issue of rationality itself.
>> No. 31355 Anonymous
12th December 2021
Sunday 11:35 pm
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I can't get a second date lads. I'm trapped in shit date groundhog day.
>> No. 31356 Anonymous
13th December 2021
Monday 1:39 am
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>>31355
I'm getting similar treatment at the moment where they drop out hours before the first date. Something statistical is afoot if you ask me, lots of single men about but less women on the dating scene possibly which sets an impossible bar that no man can meet so everyone is left unhappy.

This is leading me to the unenviable choice of either spending Christmas alone thinking about a girl who dumped me or choosing one of those women who like you on a dating app that look like they just got back from directing the Matrix.
>> No. 31357 Anonymous
13th December 2021
Monday 1:57 am
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>>31356

You can't tell the difference in the dark.
>> No. 31358 Anonymous
13th December 2021
Monday 6:00 pm
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Now over 120kg. I'm going to slowly eat myself to death, complaining about it along the weigh, but never enough to stop shoving my pathetic fat cakehole with shit.
>> No. 31359 Anonymous
13th December 2021
Monday 6:04 pm
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Great, more CBT with an overly polite and well-meaning lady. I'm sure this time it'll be different.
>> No. 31360 Anonymous
13th December 2021
Monday 6:42 pm
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>>31358
How tall are you? Just so I can form a mental image. Also, if you pick up a sport, then not only could you potentially lose weight (though not necessarily), but you might also wind up too busy pursuing it to eat. I eat when I'm bored. My BMI is probably around 31 at the moment, so I'm fat enough to be lectured by anorexic twats but not far enough to listen.
>> No. 31361 Anonymous
13th December 2021
Monday 9:42 pm
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>>31360
174cm. I've got EDS so many sports are out of the question, but that's not really an excuse.

I do eat when I'm bored, this is true. I lost the weight once before, but my life was so much different then. I wasn't depressed; my days weren't filled with self-loathing.
>> No. 31362 Anonymous
16th December 2021
Thursday 7:55 pm
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I drunkenly sent a girl, who’s in a relationship, flirty and sexual messages over an extended period of time.

My error obviously.

But I now have her boyfriend threatening me and trying to ring me on social media repeatedly.

This is like literally the 5th time this has happened to me in the past 5 years. I have a problem when I get pissed than I start messaging girls and then I wake up and can’t even remember doing it. It’s something I need to stop ASAP. I’ve already had a couple of teeth knocked out 2 years ago.

What makes it even more pathetic is that I’m so conflict-averse (can I fix this too?) that whenever the bfs message me, usually calling me a cunt, and threatening to knock me out etc, I just apologise and grovel.
>> No. 31363 Anonymous
16th December 2021
Thursday 8:07 pm
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>>31362
Is this flirting and sexual talk reciprocated? I'd have thought if their boyfriends have found out it's because they've told them "urgh, look what this creepy guy keeps sending to me."
>> No. 31364 Anonymous
16th December 2021
Thursday 8:27 pm
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>>31363
She has reciprocated in the past, but the more recent chat was mostly one-way. Maybe she decided suddenly to be shocked by it, but I think it’s more likely that her boyfriend found the messages. The last time I messaged her was in November.
>> No. 31365 Anonymous
16th December 2021
Thursday 8:29 pm
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>>31364
Also, I’m quite good looking, especially in social media photos, which I think just fuels these guy’s outrage.

The point is, I’m going to get fucked up soon if I continue doing it. I have quit alcohol which hopefully means I’ll never send such messages again.
>> No. 31367 Anonymous
20th December 2021
Monday 7:04 pm
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I know this sounds very pathetic, but I'm very frightened and I wish I didn't have to be so alone with it. A therapist would do, but I'd rather have, you know, a basic friendship group or something like that.
>> No. 31368 Anonymous
20th December 2021
Monday 7:07 pm
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>>31367

What are you frightened of in particular m8? The virus? Something else in your life? Existential dread in general?

You've always got us. I know it's not much but we're here for you. If I knew you in real life you'd be able to talk to me, so you can talk to me on here no worries.
>> No. 31369 Anonymous
20th December 2021
Monday 9:12 pm
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I picked this up today, which I thought was quite useful.
>> No. 31370 Anonymous
20th December 2021
Monday 9:16 pm
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>>31369
According to that, I've been in crisis for years.
>> No. 31371 Anonymous
20th December 2021
Monday 9:49 pm
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>>31369
Ah shit.

>>31370
Samesies.
>> No. 31372 Anonymous
20th December 2021
Monday 10:23 pm
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>>31369

Christ. It must be lovely to be a middle class neurotypical person.
>> No. 31373 Anonymous
21st December 2021
Tuesday 1:52 pm
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For the past 2 to 3 weeks my routine has been to turn on the computer shortly after waking, check what's going on in the community (3 new posts on britfa.gs), then roll into time wasting mode on 9gag. Eat and tea intermittently, maybe play a game for an hour, then wank and bed.
>> No. 31374 Anonymous
21st December 2021
Tuesday 4:46 pm
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Does anyone else find when there's something getting you down, like work being stressful or something, that's when your girlfriend decides to be a right bitch and pour fuel on the fire?
>> No. 31375 Anonymous
21st December 2021
Tuesday 5:01 pm
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>>31374
When you're already stressed or down, things that you can easily brush off in a good mood are much harder to deal with, definitely.
>> No. 31376 Anonymous
21st December 2021
Tuesday 6:11 pm
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It's the longest night, lads.

Summer is on it's way!
>> No. 31377 Anonymous
21st December 2021
Tuesday 6:30 pm
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>>31374
I've often noticed that when I'm doing well one of my close friends will be quite down, and visa versa. I'd started to wonder if I was a pole of wellbeing - that staying miserable myself would ensure my friends and family got on well - but realised that's just a perverse, self indulgent martydom. In reality the apparent effect is probably that confirmation bias thing.
>> No. 31378 Anonymous
21st December 2021
Tuesday 6:45 pm
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>>31373
Sounds like a blissful way to spend the darkest month of the year. Don't let society tell you how to be happy, you're less of wanker at the computer than you are strumming Wonderwall at a hostel in Cambodia on daddy's money.

>trillions of reasons to never be bored

So why does it have to list music twice?
>> No. 31379 Anonymous
21st December 2021
Tuesday 7:08 pm
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>>31368
I'm frightened of how and why I feel so unwell. I'm trembling and twitching and my tongue is pulsating on occasion, is anxiety or something worse, it doesn't feel like the anxiety I've had in the past. My chest and throat feel funny, but I don't need to cough and my voice sounds different. I might have spoken to a GP today if not for the fact that I was awake until 5am worrying and you have to call my surgery at 8am to book an appointment or you're out of luck. The shit you see when you look up these symptoms is terrifying, but weird things have been happening to me for more than a week now. I just want to feel well again.
>> No. 31380 Anonymous
21st December 2021
Tuesday 7:10 pm
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Thank you for being so nice by the way.
>> No. 31381 Anonymous
21st December 2021
Tuesday 7:44 pm
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I basically told myself I'd spend my 20s trying loads of different jobs so I knew what kind of thing I'd like. It seemed sensible but actually I've just thrown away loads of potential progression by nobbing about to 30 and I seem to just about tolerate any type of job - sad really, my passion was really just increasing my savings and not being at work after all.

Anybody else done this? Feel like a right chump when I speak to people younger than me, much further ahead, because they just picked something and ran with it.
>> No. 31382 Anonymous
21st December 2021
Tuesday 9:32 pm
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>>31379

I think you should almost certainly call 111 mate, or failing that just turn up at a walk-in centre, GPs be damned. Whatever it is you need looking at by a medical professional, you might just have a spot of the flu, or it might be something more serious, but there's only one way to find out.

I can almost certainly guarantee you'll feel immediately better just for getting the ball rolling, anxiety just seems to work that way in my experience. It just snowballs the longer you put dealing with a problem off. I nearly lost my job once because I'd taken a few days off, then just totally cut contact and left my phone turned off, because I was too stressed and anxious to call them and say I still wasn't feeling well. In the end I saw my GP and ended up having the best part of a month off with a sick note, but I felt loads better just for having got that out of the way.

I hope you're on the mend soon either way lad.
>> No. 31383 Anonymous
22nd December 2021
Wednesday 2:01 pm
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>>31378
I once took a wank in the walk in freezer of a holiday park kitchen. I don't know why, just thought like it's something I should do at the time. My jizz is probably still there, frozen into the wall.
>> No. 31384 Anonymous
22nd December 2021
Wednesday 2:04 pm
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>>31381
Is there any particular insight you've devloped of entry level industries? Perhaps such broad awareness could be considered an expertise.
>> No. 31385 Anonymous
22nd December 2021
Wednesday 4:24 pm
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>>31381
Changed degrees three times (and didn't pass any of them), worked in retail, worked in an office, worked in tech, worked in a museum, worked in the civil service, worked in health and social care. I'm at the stage where most of my peers are in high paying professional jobs, or studying for PhDs, while I'm on a zero hour contract earning minimum wage. I'm too retarded/mental for more lucrative work, but it's no fun living on the breadline.
>> No. 31386 Anonymous
22nd December 2021
Wednesday 4:44 pm
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>>31385
Getting paid minimum wage in the current market is like getting overcharged on a utility bill because you can't be bothered to switch provider.
>> No. 31387 Anonymous
22nd December 2021
Wednesday 5:00 pm
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>>31386

What a snide and unhelpful reply. The idea that everyone on minimum wage just isn't trying hard enough is clearly wrong, both generally and in this case. There'll always be someone on the bottom rung.

If you have some insight on how the current job market is particularly good for people seeking work right now, you could share that information and maybe give otherlad some reason to aim for more.

>>31385

Where in the country are you, and what are you interested in? Posters here could probably try and give some advice on paths that'll get you on more than minimum wage.

Regardless, if you've gone through (and been hired for) such a wide range of jobs, it's very unlikely that you're too mental or stupid for better paid work.
>> No. 31388 Anonymous
22nd December 2021
Wednesday 6:32 pm
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>>31387
Midlands. I was sacked from the civil service because I was off sick and occupational health said I can only work part time and am likely to be sick in the future, so they got rid of me rather than risk me sponging off them through sick pay. A lot of jobs I applied for said my people skills were poor, that the interviewer struggled to connect with me. I wasn't being rude or unpleasant, I just struggle to connect with folks as I am literally autistic so any job which requires charisma or personable people is not a good fit for me.
>> No. 31389 Anonymous
22nd December 2021
Wednesday 11:06 pm
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It's probably really narcissistic and conceited of me, but I've struggled to put my finger on this for a while about my relationship, and I think I've sort of sussed it out.

I'm quite jealous of my girlfriend. I usually don't have a problem with jealousy because by my own standards, I feel I've achieved quite a lot in my life and have nothing to be ashamed of, even if I'm not loaded or really successful or whatever. But what winds me up is how effortless everything seems to be for her, and how she'll still sulk and moan despite that. She has no perspective on her problems and it's really grating on me now.

I have an ever dwindling number of friends, and I've found it a real struggle to try and make more, while she just seemingly pulled an entire new social group of a dozen plus people out of her arse a couple of months ago, and now she's "depressed" because she won't be able to see them if there's a new lockdown. I've seen my friends a grand total of twice in the last eighteen months. She has a cushy work from home job that she managed to land with no prior experience, I have a brutal job with long hours and demanding schedule that I had to claw my way into; but she still complains about how hard it is and how miserable it makes her having to... What? Put on a dressing gown and open the laptop in bed? Fuck off.

I could go on with a few more, but those are the most tangible, concrete examples. Anyway, I just don't really know how I should feel here. Either way I know it's not healthy for my relationship, the issue I'm having is deciding if I my feelings are valid and I'm within my rights to tell her to suck it up next time she's pouring her misery out on me, or if that's unfair and I should try deal with my own issues some other way. Different people have different tolerances and that, but it is difficult not to feel resentful when everything she whinges about is something I've just had to grit my teeth and deal with.

I don't know, this has become less focussed than I hoped for it to be. I thought I was on the cusp of a revelation there. Ah well.
>> No. 31390 Anonymous
23rd December 2021
Thursday 12:13 am
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>>31389
I've been in a similar position. I had a girlfriend with a "huge" amount of friends, but whenever there was any kind of personal crisis, issue or need for them to be around, it was me picking up the pieces.

It is not healthy. And you're right to feel the way you do. Having been in this position, I wish I could offer more insight, other than just comfort.
>> No. 31391 Anonymous
26th December 2021
Sunday 5:38 pm
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So, like, is this it? Christmas is done, sat back at the computer. A few new messages on britfa.gs. What the fuck do I do now?
>> No. 31392 Anonymous
26th December 2021
Sunday 5:45 pm
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>>31391
If it's any comfort, I'm feeling exactly the same.
>> No. 31393 Anonymous
26th December 2021
Sunday 6:05 pm
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>>31391
Get a head start on your new year's resolutions.
>> No. 31394 Anonymous
26th December 2021
Sunday 6:31 pm
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>>31393
My what now?
>> No. 31395 Anonymous
26th December 2021
Sunday 11:45 pm
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>>31391
Have a wank, have a shit, have a nap, eat more food, drink more booze, rinse repeat in whatever order you fancy.
>> No. 31396 Anonymous
31st December 2021
Friday 4:04 pm
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This is a generic New Year's moan, I just thought it would be more appropriate in here than under Rupert "the Shrek" Grint-Capaldi's leering mug.

Anyway, looks like another New Year's I shan't be doing much. I've got the next week off work, and phoned it in today, because I'm depressed and can't be fucking arsed interacting with people. Might get in trouble when I'm back because I've been taking the piss a bit (a lot) with time off lately, but fuck 'em. It's all getting a bit much recently and I don't expect I'm alone feeling that way honestly.

The missus is off with her mates for the weekend, and while frankly I'm always glad of a weekend to myself, it's a bit shite with all the expectations of company and celebration you're meant to have this time of year. I can tell myself I don't want it and I'd rather drink by myself playing videogames, but the truth is I do. I want to get pissed with some m8s.

Tried making plans for my time off with a couple of mates and one of them has already flaked on me, despite the fact I invited them round something like a month ago. They said they "weren't cancelling on me", but they've nevertheless gone and made other plans this week, the week I'm off work, the time I'm actually free. so that's basically cancelling on me isn't it? And the other mate simply never even responded. I could give him a ring and say "did you get my text" but all I'd be doing then is setting myself up for that feeling of humiliation when I hear him on the other end doing that "Oh... Yeah... Uhhh..." thing, where they try to think of a quick excuse, and you have to act like you don't know that's what they're doing.

To remedy the fact my mates are unreliable as fuck I've been trying to make new ones, but so far the furthest it's got me is sort of into this weird reverse friendzone situation with a lass I've met a couple of times. I think she was only interested in hanging out on the presumption it would lead to more, which I was pretty clear about from the start. She's less interested in being mates now that she's sussed I'm actually not trying to slip her my dick, and in light of that, it's hard not to think I should have just done it, frankly. The outcome would be the same when she realised it wasn't going anywhere further, and I'd have at least got a shag out of it (my missus doesn't mind, by the way). You just can't do right for doing wrong sometimes.

Anyway. By the looks of it 2022 is going to be just as shit as the last couple of years, frankly I think we may as well write the decade off already.
>> No. 31397 Anonymous
31st December 2021
Friday 6:51 pm
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I missed a bus this evening so had to walk to a different stop. This walk took me through the main student area of my city, past the house I lived in 9 years ago. Past the graveyard I used to spend 3 hours a night in, wandering around on the phone talking to the first girl I ever loved. A few months after these call, she cut me out of her life, for fear my mental illness was a danger to her. She has got back in touch a few times, only to disappear again afterwards for periods of varying length. I feel like a cunt being hung up on shit from nearly a decade ago, but I've never had a lot of friends or lovers or whatever, and she was probably the first real friend I made in my adult life.
Sorry for whiny teenager tier shit, combination of booze and revisiting my previous habitat has done a wonder on me.
>> No. 31398 Anonymous
3rd January 2022
Monday 11:50 am
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I'm not saying I'm going to top myself, because I'm not. But if there's even the faintest possibility jumping off a cliff might end in me waking up, aged 8, having fallen asleep while eating some soup in the supermarket cafe my mum's taken me to, I might muster the energy to at least go and have a gander at those cliffs.
>> No. 31399 Anonymous
3rd January 2022
Monday 4:55 pm
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>>31398

That's quite oddly specific. Where did it all go wrong, you reckon?

These days I mostly find myself madly fantasising about my old high school girlfriend, imagining that she will just message me out of the blue one day, and say we should hang out for old time's sake. We'd get a bit tipsy, watch the Mighty Bosh or something to relive the old days, reminisce about how we did everything but have sex, and then we'd have a good hard shag to put the record straight.

Ahhh fucking hell I'm just so lonely. It's not that I don't have friends, Ive got a girlfriend even, I just don't feel all that attached to anyone who's currently in my life. It probably sounds horrible to say, but it feels like they're all cheap replacements for the people I truly cared about before, and it's not the same.
>> No. 31400 Anonymous
4th January 2022
Tuesday 9:56 pm
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Interactions with my family constantly remind me of that saying "You are the average of the five people you spend the most time with". I'm reluctant to admit the implication that this means i'm better, or that I want to be better, than my family. It's just that I recognise some of the defining priciples in their behaviour which I don't want to develop in myself. They're not a bad lot, they're just utilising the tools they've developed to manage their lives. Much the same as my own poor habits of which I willfully remain ignorant.
I just .. got no friends and I'm bored of the connections I have.

thanks for reading my moan.
>> No. 31401 Anonymous
5th January 2022
Wednesday 4:26 pm
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>>31399
>I just don't feel all that attached to anyone who's currently in my life. It probably sounds horrible to say, but it feels like they're all cheap replacements for the people I truly cared about before, and it's not the same.

Have to admit, this got to me. I feel much the same way, and my capacity to feel a particular kind of genuine affection for people has been eroded so much.

I made a lot of effort to separate myself from my old life, and there've been so many tangible improvements, but it's come at the cost of feeling emotionally distant. It's a struggle to feel anything about my relationship with my parents or family, because they're just doing the same old things they always were.
>> No. 31402 Anonymous
9th January 2022
Sunday 1:30 am
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Can one of you be a woman with whom I have a deep emotional connection with and stay up all night comforting me? I won't even exploit my position as the best looking man in Western Europe to try anything on. I'm just very tired of being very afraid and would like a little back up. Also I hate men.
>> No. 31403 Anonymous
9th January 2022
Sunday 2:36 am
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>>31402
I can stay up for about 20 minutes for you if you'd like, but be warned, I am drunk and have my own gripes to share. Regarding being a woman, it's an anonymous imageboard; we are all potentially women here.

What's ailing you?
>> No. 31404 Anonymous
10th January 2022
Monday 9:07 am
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It has taken a lifetime of cruelty that I have bared with a grin to reach this point. But I fucking hate women.

I hate them because a narcissist delusion that they are always the victim and hard done by even when they are sickly spoilt, they aren't hard done by at all they are entitled. You know when you see someone who is used to getting their own way doesn't get their own way and they throw a tantrum, that's women, that's the entire modern fisherperson movement.

They have no concept of how minor their problems are, or that men can be treated like a level of human garbage that no one else will stick up for and expected to unfuck themselves, only to have women tell them the entire time how privileged they are and how we should all feel guilty that they have imagined they are fat by choosing to read beauty magazines. This is not some hypothetical extremes either this is real world situations I have been in.

You know why women make less than men. It is because the men who were making less were either driven to suicide (at a rate that if it was women would be seen as proof of sexual inequality but because it is men it doesn't count) or aren't counted because they are homeless and therefore unemployed ( again at a rate that would be considered definitive proof of sexual inequality if it was women), one pretty women gets murdered by one copper and middle England loses their collective minds. The suffering of men as victims of the majority of crimes is normalised and is irrelevant, an isolated incident for a woman is worthy of mass protest.

Women don't take the initiative to do the hard graft, they can fucking complain, but you don't see them changing jobs to work as petroleum engineers to get higher pay do you, no they want everything to change for them rather than to change the one thing they have control over? Why because if they tried make the change they would have to accept some responsibility for their failures, the way men have to.

The game is simple women are the victims even when they demonstrably aren't, domestic violence, a problem women preach how they are at danger of constantly and blah blah blah, in reality biggest domestic abusers... fucking women, safest relationship is a gay one. Most dangerous lesbian, they evidently can't control their natural feminine instincts for violence. And there is a vast list of situations that Women are objectively in a better status than men, but they don't count because they violate the mantra. Women are the victims of society isn't a point based On evidence it is an article of faith and no evidence to the contrary could ever change it. It wouldn't matter if women out performances men in every measurable sense in our societypeople would still be preaching women are the victims.

It is the equivalent of nazi Germany externalizing all of their problems and playing victim to a minority, even when they had the control and power, women run the world, or close enough at this point but spend all their time chasing shadows of imagined boggy men, they can blame for their failures. I can't play the game again it sickens me every time a man humours them and invalidates his own struggle just to try get laid. Men appealing to women's insecurities seems like a poison the women never learns to stop being self indulgent, and the man never acknowledges his own pain.

We do this to our fucking selves there is no toxic masculinity there is just an inability to talk about mens problems because women can't stand the idea they are fuck ups so we aren't allowed to talk about how men are shat upon. Because men aren't allowed their own space and men doing worse than women is considered 'problem solved'. We condition women to feel like they are hard done by even when they aren't. You want true equality start letting women fail the way men do and watch how they suddenly fall in line and stop complaining and start appreciating the value of what they have. Of course there are other mechanisms here society actually wants women to be needy narcists because needy women buy more shit. The consumer market seems driven by women buying clothes and children impulse buying shiny crap.

You can now ban me for expressing real feelings and pain that don't adhere to your authoritarian woke ideology now mod.
>> No. 31405 Anonymous
10th January 2022
Monday 10:21 am
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>>31404

I hope this isn't deleted, because while I don't agree with everything you say, you also raise totally valid points -- and maybe airing this sort of unpopular opinion anonymously can give you the chance to feel better about it or change your view on some things.

I can't address everything you mention at the moment, but I will say you're absolutely right about double standards regarding life expectancy, rates of violent crime, suicide rates, and in many places also income. I'd never actually considered before that people with no income may not show up in the statistics. There are a myriad of reasons for why these stats play out the way they do, a lot of which boils down to preferential treatment.

The topic gets muddier when you introduce a global perspective, or class, or race. There are certainly places in the world where women really have no place in the economic system but to marry, with all of the dependence that brings along with it. The problem is, facts like this get exploited in the arena of identity politics among populations quite removed from this issue, and our picture of reality suffers as a result.
>> No. 31406 Anonymous
10th January 2022
Monday 11:27 am
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>>31404

The only real reason to delete your post would be the last comment.
>> No. 31407 Anonymous
10th January 2022
Monday 11:31 am
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>>31406

Typical ACAB response, we were going to let you go. Then you started pointing out we were illegally searching you, now you have to come down the station.
>> No. 31408 Anonymous
10th January 2022
Monday 12:37 pm
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>>31404
I’m mostly annoyed that you considered this biblically massive post suitable for the thread titled “minor angst”, you daft arsehole.
>> No. 31409 Anonymous
10th January 2022
Monday 12:52 pm
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>>31408

Thought about it.

I was afraid if I had started a new thread I would have been labelled a foreigner fresh off the boat who clearly doesn't understand our ways of never starting new threads and banned for that. Not that that would be the reason but I've learned any excuse for banning something you disagree with is better than actually admitting it is censorship here.
>> No. 31410 Anonymous
10th January 2022
Monday 1:15 pm
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>>31409
I my experience the mods are quite happy to ban people for being tossers and make few bones about it.
>> No. 31411 Anonymous
10th January 2022
Monday 1:44 pm
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>>31404

It's alright mate, I know where you're coming from. Women can be a right pain in the arse and yes, it's true, society generally coddles them such that they never realise what hardship truly is.

But that's not true of all women. It's a very broad stereotype, and no rule is without its exceptions. I'm proud of you for having the balls to say all this, likely knowing full well what kind of response it would get from our resident soft cunts; but you must try not to hate women blindly. It'll do you no good in the long run.

>a lifetime of cruelty that I have bared with a grin

Just remember that this is exactly what makes you stronger than a good majority of them. Why spend your time consumed by hatred of them? It's akin to hating a child.
>> No. 31412 Anonymous
10th January 2022
Monday 2:28 pm
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>>31407

>An agent may come to the forum in question with an anti-authoritarian, anarchist tone. This seems legitimate enough at first glance, as any research or activist forum is certain to be aware of the corruption of "The System", and those in charge of it. However, by directing this anti-authoritarian attitude towards the very moderation team who are there to ensure that research and activism can take place, they attempt to undermine the authority of and respect for the moderation team. "You mean you're banning people? Aren't you about free speech, the constitution?" Etc. This is a technique known as "Occupatio", and presents the moderator with a catch-22; either ban the troublemaker and lend credence to the claim that the moderation team is hypocritical, or don't ban him and continue listening to him complain about how the site's staff is hypocritical.
>> No. 31413 Anonymous
10th January 2022
Monday 2:41 pm
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>>31410
Take it to /shed/
>>31412
Take it to /boo/

OP can create a new post for this since he knows he won't be banned for it. Sorted.

I had a quiet, dignified mental breakdown at Krakow airport and had to leave the check-in queue to clean myself up but the dour Polish man in front of me waved me back into my place which was nice. Missed my plane and had to take the next one which got me back home for 1am, ready for work the next day, but I also had Covid symptoms (negative antigen test at airport allowed me to fly).

I called in sick the next day and have been told it's going in as unauthorized absence because they think I would have been fine to work had I caught my plane, which is bollocks because I was ill and wouldn't have been such a mess had I not been ill. It's got me in a shit mood for work. I don't really care about the days wage, I just feel crap about the way they're weaseling it. Cunts.
>> No. 31418 Anonymous
10th January 2022
Monday 3:35 pm
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>>31413
>Take it to /shed/
Au contraire, I approve wholly.
>> No. 31431 Anonymous
11th January 2022
Tuesday 1:11 am
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>>31403
I hope more than anything I can laugh at what a complete idiot I’m being in the near future, but I cannot avoid the notion I have cancer.
>> No. 31432 Anonymous
11th January 2022
Tuesday 1:51 am
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>>31431

Well if it helps you at all lad I fucking wish I had cancer right now.

There's no way out. I won't do it myself but everything is fucked with no realistic hope of getting better, it's just going to be bitter grinding misery until some form of miracle intervenes.

It's my own fault, of course, if I wasn't wrapped up in this negative thought cycle every night, unable to sleep until the sun is well on it's way to rising, wallowing in my own self pity I might be able to fix it, I've been here before, I've got out before. But it's just so much more tiring every time and I am ever so fucking weary of it.

I just want it to end. I just want to fucking sleep.
>> No. 31433 Anonymous
11th January 2022
Tuesday 1:58 am
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>>31431
It sounds like you have cancer-like symptoms. I'm sure you're right and you don't have cancer, but you should go and ask a doctor anyway about your cancer-like symptoms. No doctor will turn you away for having cancer-like symptoms, and when it turns out to be some wacky novelty virus, or a cool new syndrome that gets named after you, you and the doctor can share a groovy high five about how brave you are, because you were never scared of a few symptoms. You just wanted to get some delicious antibiotics and an awesome story for your friends. You cool motherfucker, you.

I understand if you don't want to book time off work for a doctor's appointment. I'm like that too. It disrupts the routine and makes your whole day more difficult. But it's just one day. And imagine if it's penis worms; you'll feel a lot more awkward calling work once the eggs have hatched, and you have to explain to your boss how you need to go and get worms removed from your penis. It's better to bite the bullet now. Phone a doctor, and tell them you have cool and exciting cancer-like symptoms, and you want to make sure they're not being caused by penis worms. Then you can come back here, and we'll all be really impressed, and you'll be the baddest man on britfa.gs for your bravery and radness in such a terrifying, penis-wormy situation.

Call them tomorrow. It'll be a laugh, hopefully.
>> No. 31440 Anonymous
11th January 2022
Tuesday 9:41 am
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>>31433
>No doctor will turn you away for having cancer-like symptoms

I know at least two people who had cancer whom were misdiagnosed at least once by their GP. It happens a lot.
>> No. 31442 Anonymous
11th January 2022
Tuesday 1:45 pm
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>>31433
I don't have an qualms about visiting a doctor, mate. I've done it a bunch of times lately and there's no real consistancy with what they tell me. Also because of the way my shitty surgery works it's random luck if I get the same doctor, a nurse, whoever, from one time to another. I feel like I have a sore throat, but I'm not coughing, having trouble swallowing nor can the medics see anything back there, I'm getting almost random muscle pains and I like my ears are blocked but according to the junior doctor who checked them this morning there's "no wax". It's just so weird, I feel like complete shit for seemingly no reason. I suspect they think I'm just hysterical.
>> No. 31450 Anonymous
11th January 2022
Tuesday 9:20 pm
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Well I did it lads. I've been whinging about my girlfriend taking me for granted and putting zero effort into the relationship on and off here for probably the last year, but I finally ended it.

The part I don't understand is what she got out of stringing me along, giving back the very bare minimum needed to keep me in denial, thinking there's still a chance, for the last god knows how long. Her heart clearly hasn't been in it for a long time, and the way she reacted when I said there's really no more "us" (i.e barely) just spoke volumes about how she has actually perceived me for the last year. Was she really content to keep me around just to be a glorified housekeeper who she has to pay in extremely reluctant blowjobs?

Because I mean, if that's the case, she's going to have a rude awakening going back to the way she used to live before I came along. She's terminally averse to taking responsibility for herself or her problems, without me here for support she'll be an anxious wreck living under piles of garbage and unwashed dishes, and drop out of her job within two months, tops. For all her faults, she's certainly not thick; but she is at least extremely poor at self reflection I suppose.

Then we'll see where her new crowd of trendy cottagecore queer mates are, when she really needs someone to help pick her up from the floor, to provide her with meaningful support other than nice plattitudes. Nowhere to be found I'm betting. Then she'll realise what she squandered, but it will be too late, because I'm not going crawling back after the pure mental anguish I've lived under for the last six months.

Bitches ain't shit, lads.
>> No. 31451 Anonymous
11th January 2022
Tuesday 9:25 pm
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>>31450
>Because I mean, if that's the case, she's going to have a rude awakening going back to the way she used to live before I came along.

I think there are many people out there who are reluctant to end a relationship they're unhappy with because of having to unwind joint finances and not being prepared to take the financial hit of singledom.
>> No. 31452 Anonymous
11th January 2022
Tuesday 9:31 pm
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>>31450
You know you don't want any of that to happen to her and certainly wouldn't want to see it. I'm sure you'll both be alright and the better for ending it, lad.

Now comes the horrors of single life
>> No. 31453 Anonymous
11th January 2022
Tuesday 9:31 pm
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>>31451

I have to admit that's a big part of my own reason for letting it go on this long; but then, I was the one still making an effort to improve it, asking if there were things I can change, things I can do differently, all that jazz.

It seems she was happy just to ride it out and see how long it took for me to call it quits. She has, overall, been nothing but utterly selfish throughout the whole affair.
>> No. 31454 Anonymous
11th January 2022
Tuesday 9:34 pm
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>>31453
Did you at least piss in her arse before you dumped her?
>> No. 31455 Anonymous
11th January 2022
Tuesday 9:48 pm
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>>31454

If she was that kind of girl it might never have come to this, so alas, no.
>> No. 31456 Anonymous
11th January 2022
Tuesday 10:12 pm
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>>31452

I don't know, seeing someone who has wronged you get their just deserts can be quite therapeutic. Ideally by then otherlad will have moved onwards and upwards and be past the point of concerning himself with it, but a bit of karma always helps letting you know you were in the right.

>>31455

There's always the next one, don't settle for any less this time m8.
>> No. 31460 Anonymous
12th January 2022
Wednesday 5:38 pm
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Recently, my girlfriend cut herself after I had a conversation with her where I asked her to do a bit more around the house. I was calm and specific, I was asking for things like not leaving litter on the floor for days.

Two days ago she opened my car door and hit the car next to me. She didn't react and I snapped, angry that she was careless. She got angry, played semantics (because I used the word 'bashed') and was rude to her. This escalated, with her throwing things, hitting the walls, and locking herself in the bathroom and crying for hours.

It goes without saying that she won't bring these things up or address them, hoping that it will go back to normal. This has gone on for a long while and I do a majority in the relationship, so I am frustrated. I snapped for that reason, everything is on my shoulders so I don't want the neighbours onto me for damaging their car.

Reading this back is humiliating as I am being taken for a complete ride. I know how I got here and I can work my way out, but, is there anything for men in this position? The self harm, hitting, and throwing are all bad and worrying.
>> No. 31462 Anonymous
12th January 2022
Wednesday 6:32 pm
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>>31460

>is there anything for men in this position?

I'd suggest calling the ManKind helpline on 01823 334244 or the Respect advice line on 0808 8010327. They can give you advice, refer you to local services or just listen to whatever you have to say.

If you're seriously worried about your or her safety, don't be afraid to dial 999.
>> No. 31463 Anonymous
12th January 2022
Wednesday 7:09 pm
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>>31460

Yeah, there is. See:

>>31450

Best thing you can do is get out.

You find yourself making excuses to justify sticking around because you care about this person, but eventually you will exhaust your ability to cope, and ultimately you can't be held responsible. It's not your job. You have to look after yourself too. You want to help them sure, but ultimately you'll only end up putting your own mental health in danger.

Some people are just on that borderline between being mentally ill and just barely functional, and mentally healthy but just completely useless at life. The overlap is a very morally grey, thorny area, but regardless they're usually quite toxic to get involved with in the long term.
>> No. 31464 Anonymous
12th January 2022
Wednesday 7:57 pm
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>>31460
>The self harm, hitting, and throwing are all bad and worrying.

This stuff is not your fault, and you should not feel guilty about it. You sound like a caring person, but this sounds like a toxic relationship and one in which you are unlikely to see positive outcomes.
>> No. 31484 Anonymous
19th January 2022
Wednesday 6:35 pm
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Does anyone have experience talking about sex - speicifally psycological - with NHS doctors?
>> No. 31485 Anonymous
20th January 2022
Thursday 10:29 am
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>>31484
Yes, my girlfriend and I are currently seeing an NHS psychosexual therapist. We've only had one appointment so far, but I have some reservations about her - there are some videos on YouTube of her being interviewed where she e.g. refers to pornography being mostly negative and praising the 'nofap movement'. Also in our session she recommended we watch 'Sex Love and Goop' on Netflix, which I didn't realise was a show by Gwyneth Paltrow of all people. The Guardian gave it a decent review though so I will give it a go.
>> No. 31486 Anonymous
20th January 2022
Thursday 8:09 pm
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>>31485
Just this recognition has been enough to encourage basic research on what's available.
Thanks for excusing my awful typos.
>> No. 31487 Anonymous
20th January 2022
Thursday 10:20 pm
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>>31485
>refers to pornography being mostly negative and praising the 'nofap movement''
My missus is a therapist and holds one of the few licenses that actually allow her to treat couples or families in a single session (I'm a yanklad, I'm sure the rules are different in the UK, but mental health care in the US is arguably one of the few things they do best if you can afford it). It seems like a pretty bad sign in a therapist that she's willing to be on record about her negative opinions on porn/masturbation, when most of her job is being impartial and non-judgemental. You're absolutely right to have reservations, though if she is a good therapist then you should be able to air them in your session without her just ribbiting "well I'm the expert here".

My partner had a previous position where she dealt primarily with the Mormon community. A lot of her clients were blokes who looked at porn once while their wife was away, and the bishop would find out and basically rule that they had a sex addiction and needed therapy to address it. She's not a Mormon, and had no qualms telling them that they don't have a sex addiction despite what their higher-ups in the church told them, but her colleague were Mormon and genuinely did think that these clients had committed a serious sin, even cheated on their partner because they bashed one off over some softcore porn.

All this to say, finding a good therapist is hard, and the NHS doesn't have a great system in place for helping you (at least, it didn't when I was around). You're lucky to even be seeing a specialist, and I assume you went through a year of appointments with old dears with no clinical qualifications or experience whose entire job was to ask you a list of questions off a clipboard.

If you've got the means about you, just go private on this one.
>> No. 31488 Anonymous
21st January 2022
Friday 9:51 am
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Not sure if this is /emo/ or /101/ material but I'm fucking seething.

You know what, sometimes, just sometimes, it really fucks me off how the people who are least deserving of it, will just have opportunities land in their lap without having to lift a finger.

How they'll go through their entire life never truly earning anything, just mooching off the people around them, until one day they just strike lucky in a way they truly and fucking utterly do not deserve, and end up better off than people who have worked hard their whole lives for nothing. I'm not even talking in the usual wealthy, privileged sense, that's a different matter. I just mean when some people, regardless of their background, are utterly jammy cunts, despite the fact they're selfish arseholes; who just somehow have things handed to them, despite never lifting a finger to help anyone else out.

I am jealous and I don't think it's irrational to be jealous. Some people just quite literally don't deserve what they have. Do they remember and return in kind the generosity of the people who helped them out when they had nothing? Do they fuck. Just take, take, take.
>> No. 31489 Anonymous
21st January 2022
Friday 7:36 pm
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>>31488

Chicken or egg thing, I think. I'd wager having things handed to them on a plate is exactly what made them turn out as selfish individuals. They never had to learn the lesson about mutual cooperation and benefit.

Usually these people will come unstuck eventually, so just take comfort in that. They will struggle to form lasting relationships other than with people of their own kind, and end up very unhappy later in life.
>> No. 31518 Anonymous
27th January 2022
Thursday 4:33 pm
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So I'm the lad who posted about breaking up with my girlfriend a few weeks ago.

So far we've managed to keep the peace, we're still living together for the time being until one of us finds a new place. But she keeps some really insensitive comments now and then and I am struggling to bite my tongue, in what is quite definitely a "those in glass houses" type situation. I mean not like it's the first time, things like that are part of what lead to us breaking up obviously, this is just really taking a lot of willpower.

I spent the best part of three years with this girl and I'm only now realising what a total stuck up prick she is, it's quite annoying. Are we men really so easily fooled? Or am I just far too generous of a person and I'm always willing to give people the benefit of the doubt who really don't deserve it? How many times can this happen in someone's life without turning into a complete misanthrope?

Fucksache lads.
>> No. 31519 Anonymous
27th January 2022
Thursday 6:49 pm
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>>31518
I wouldn't put it down to her having been a prick all along, you're both going through a rough patch at the moment and staying civil all the time is never going to be easy.

>How many times can this happen in someone's life without turning into a complete misanthrope
Probably not that many, but then it isn't all that common to go on living with a romantic partner after you've gone through a split. Or maybe it is in this day and age.

Best of luck with finding a solution where one of you moves out soon, as it sounds like neither of you have the space to properly process the break-up. Continuing to bite your tongue probably is the best approach at this point, and there's always this thread if you do need to get something off your chest.
>> No. 31520 Anonymous
27th January 2022
Thursday 8:02 pm
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>>31519

>I wouldn't put it down to her having been a prick all along

She really has been though, when I think back, and I'm earnestly not just being bitter there. The red flags were on display very early on, and I have to do some self-examination on why I ignored them.

This feels a lot different to any of my previous break ups, where it was all lovely until someone said or did the wrong thing too many times and started a downward spiral. This time it's more that beyond a brief honeymoon period, we've just been broadly incompatible the whole time, and yet somehow put up with each other.

Then again, perhaps if it wasn't for the 'rona putting everyone's life on hold for the better part of a year and a half, it would all have come unravelled much sooner, and I'm thinking too deeply about it.

>Probably not that many, but then it isn't all that common to go on living with a romantic partner after you've gone through a split. Or maybe it is in this day and age.

Needs must really. Neither of us live or work near family, so we're kind of stuck together for the time being, and the property market is mental these days.
>> No. 31521 Anonymous
28th January 2022
Friday 3:31 pm
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Why do we fear death? If we die we cease to exist. If I die tomorrow I will be gone, and unable to ruminate over my death due to my lack of existence.
>> No. 31522 Anonymous
28th January 2022
Friday 3:48 pm
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>>31518

For what it's worth, I realised today that I'm essentially dating Lilith from Frasier. Even in appearance, down to having her hair tied back all the time.

Now I can't stop thinking about it.
>> No. 31523 Anonymous
28th January 2022
Friday 5:09 pm
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>>31522
Have you tried a sexy roleplay where you're Commander William T. Riker and she's a horny alien doctor? Might be what you need to right the ship.
>> No. 31524 Anonymous
28th January 2022
Friday 7:24 pm
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>>31521
It's the missed opportunities that you fear. If I get shot in the head by a sniper in the street, then that's probably the best death I could possibly have, and it would prevent a slower and more grisly death later on. But what if scientists cure all death and suffering a month from now? What if the world fellatio-receiving championships take place one street away from my home this summer? What if Boris Johnson poos his pants live on TV tomorrow? I can't stand the thought of living through all this grim shit only to miss something like that.
>> No. 31525 Anonymous
28th January 2022
Friday 10:10 pm
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At this point, I can't tell if I'm having an anxiety attack or if I started having an anxiety attack 3 or 4 years ago and it just never stopped.
>> No. 31526 Anonymous
28th January 2022
Friday 10:31 pm
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>>31525

I woke up having a panic attack the other night. Quite disconcerting, but there's a point at which you just say to yourself "oh, I'm having a panic attack, that's fine".
>> No. 31527 Anonymous
28th January 2022
Friday 10:57 pm
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>>31521
You should fear death, because you don't know if that's true. You have no idea what technology will be developed in the future, and how whatever humanity has turned into, or even some other civilisation elsewhere in the universe, will be able to control you. You can see the way things are going right now - state surveillance, facial recognition - the future is hell and everyone, living or dead, is invited. Imagine you die peacefully in your hospital bed in the year 2056, everything fades to black, and your consciousness ends, and then you are immediately wrenched back to life with no perception of time having passed to find yourself in the year 101219 as the plaything of some monster, tortured in limitless ways, your every thought and shame read and mocked, forever.
>> No. 31528 Anonymous
28th January 2022
Friday 11:15 pm
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>>31527
We don't need any of that Pascal's basilica less wrong shit here.
>> No. 31529 Anonymous
28th January 2022
Friday 11:31 pm
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>>31527

I doubt that my consciousness is interesting enough for it to become a Tamagotchi for some alien sadist.

Also I'd be thoroughly impressed if someone could re-create my mind from a small pile of ash, because I'm pretty sure that's physically impossible.
>> No. 31530 Anonymous
28th January 2022
Friday 11:41 pm
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>>31527

If the future monster can figure out how to suck my living consciousness out of a pile of ash from millennia ago, they deserve to be able to do what they want with it.
>> No. 31544 Anonymous
29th January 2022
Saturday 7:22 pm
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>>31521
Because you genuinely don't know what will happen.

Yes, from all we can observe we're simply the product of the configuration of our brain, and once our brain activity stops, we cannot experience anything else. Unless we're completely wrong about the afterlife and it actually exists, which probably isn't the case - though gods work in mysterious ways.

Problem 1) Dream time. An infinity could pass in the several minutes of brain activity before you're gone. I worry that believing in an afterlife may cause this experience to resemble whatever you think you deserve.

Problem 2) Simulation theory. We cannot disprove it, so what happens afterwards? It could be anything, even the basilisk.

Problem 3) Death is death. You expire and then there's nothingness. I find that quite hard to deal with in and of itself. we have our short time on the earth and we cease to exist forever.

It's a very interesting concept and something I think most people can reassure themselves about if they read some of the right books for their mindset.
>> No. 31545 Anonymous
29th January 2022
Saturday 7:32 pm
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Yeah could be all that philosophical guff or it might just be the same as the answer to the question "Why do we like sex?". Because we evolved to. Organisms with mechanisms to avoid death survive and reproduce more than ones who don't. Or maybe all the other posters are right, despite there being no reason for it to have that capability or knowledge, your subconscious mind has loads of deep ponderings about fears of the unknown and missed opportunities which it uses to direct your conscious mind while, also for no reason, keeping it a secret from you. Yeah it's probably that one.
>> No. 31548 Anonymous
29th January 2022
Saturday 7:45 pm
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>>31544
I find the concept of that "nothingness" after death more easy to comprehend, than consciousness itself.
Once there was nothing, and then all of a sudden there sprung into being an intangible "something" behind my eyes, it's just so more bizarre and incomprehensible than the idea that without my consciousness existing the universe is just full of atoms and photons bumping into each other randomly.
>> No. 31550 Anonymous
29th January 2022
Saturday 7:52 pm
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>>31548
>then all of a sudden there sprung into being an intangible "something" behind my eyes
It wasn't sudden at all. Try reading some Hofstadter if you want at least one theory that accounts for this.
>> No. 31566 Anonymous
30th January 2022
Sunday 12:35 am
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>>31544

>I find that quite hard to deal with in and of itself. we have our short time on the earth and we cease to exist forever.

Why? Do you think ants go to heaven? or amoeba? Does it make sense for them to have an even shorter time on earth, and then cease to be? We only see human life as more substantial because of the level of self awareness we've evolved.
>> No. 31567 Anonymous
30th January 2022
Sunday 12:50 am
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>>31566

>Do you think ants go to heaven?

Only if they've accepted Jesus Christ as their lord and saviour.
>> No. 31568 Anonymous
30th January 2022
Sunday 5:36 am
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>>31548

What I always get stuck on is what makes my consciousness... Well... Mine?

It seems like a complete non-question at first, I'm sure- It's yours because you are you. Your consciousness is just the result of all the electro-chemical magic in your brain. Yes, yes, but why AM I me?

Out of the hundreds of billions of consciousnesses ever to have come into existence, what contrivance of cosmic fate landed me in this one? Know what I mean?

The implications are deeper than you might at first think until you stew on this question for a while. Because I mean, if it happened once, what's to stop it happening again? I don't believe in some external soul which is transplanted into different vessels, that's not what I'm saying. But what exactly IS it that places this boundary on the subjective experience of self awareness?

What makes me experience the consciousness of Anonymous posting about the nature of existence on the toilet at 5:30 am, and not Ugg from 34562 BC?
>> No. 31569 Anonymous
30th January 2022
Sunday 8:24 am
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>>31568
It still sounds like you're viewing yourself as a soul that happens to have been assigned to a body, rather than as the result of the events leading up to you. "Why is a thing itself and not something else?" is a largely meaningless question; if you were someone else and someone to else were you, you'd both be having the same experiences and thoughts as you are now. It's similar to Angel's thought experiment about being a bat - to be someone or something else you would be someone or something else.
>> No. 31570 Anonymous
30th January 2022
Sunday 8:26 am
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>>31569
Nagel not angel. Fucking autocorrect.
>> No. 31571 Anonymous
30th January 2022
Sunday 11:07 am
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>>31568
Does your cat equivalent have the same personality, or soul, as you? (I had a much longer post than this which failed to post and deleted itself)


>> No. 31572 Anonymous
30th January 2022
Sunday 12:55 pm
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I might legitimately lose my job over what amounts to a fucking administrative error.

Long story short I work for the NHS, so I have to be vaccinated. I am vaccinated, but apparently there's no record of it, so I'm getting pestered by these Capita jobsworths who I keep going in circles with because they won't accept that little card as proof.

I think is down to the fact I'd recently moved and wasn't registered to a GP when I got my jab. I haven't been to a GP in literally years anyway so the thought never occurred to me.

I don't know what to do, who to turn to, if I have any recourse at all here, nothing. The sheer beauraucratic frustration of it all is driving me to complete despair. I feel like I am living in the film Brazil.
>> No. 31573 Anonymous
30th January 2022
Sunday 1:03 pm
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>>31572
My boss (not in the NHS) had a similar experience; he moved house between his two doses so he's only down as having one dose. I think he might have gone private in the end and just paid for two doses.
>> No. 31574 Anonymous
30th January 2022
Sunday 1:17 pm
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>>31572
Just register to have another jab, if the records flag up that you've already had three doses then ask them if you can have some sort of proof of it emailed or mailed out to you.
If it doesn't flag up, go to the appointment but take your card with you and explain the situation to the person administering the jab. Hopefully they'll be able to do something about it at that end.
>> No. 31575 Anonymous
30th January 2022
Sunday 8:00 pm
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>>31545
You can't really handwave the 'philosophical guff' because everyone will view it differently and that will be the motivation for their individual opinion on death, whether it's complete apathy or paralyzing fear. Same problem with >>31524, you're both immediately it off by projecting your own opinion onto others in a scenario where there's a million different angles one can take, whether it's regrets or fear of pain or the basilisk or god or whatever.

>>31566
I think you're missing the issue if you're making those comparisons and dismissing the problem of that level of self awareness. None of these ideas to anything to debunk the potential for us to experience things after we're unable to perceive or interact with the world before all brain activity stops.

If ants have a persistent sense of self and question their self awareness then I'd wonder how they experience death as both a concept and a reality. I just don't have any reason to. But there's nothing to say they don't see a little white light and hear the chittering of their fellows as they pass.

I'm just getting more hooked on the idea of what we experience when we're dying. I can intellectually accept that when we're dead we're just dust in the wind and all that, but that doesn't determine what we'll experience before brain activity stops. You have the pass that time somehow, and it can't be white lights and comfort for everyone surely?
>> No. 31576 Anonymous
30th January 2022
Sunday 8:27 pm
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>>31575
>You can't really handwave the 'philosophical guff' because
The philosophical guff is handwaving. Dismissing it is the opposite.
>there's a million different angles one can take
Yeah there are and only the one I gave has any observable evidence.
>> No. 31577 Anonymous
31st January 2022
Monday 5:31 am
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>>31572

Looks like you might be fine in the end mate. You have my deepest sympathies though.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2022/01/30/front-line-health-staff-no-longer-need-covid-vaccines/

For what it's worth I think it's appalling how they have treated care workers and NHS staff over this. You won't be the only person who has fallen through the cracks and faced the sack over a technicality or IT cock-up; if there's one thing our government does well it's cock ups.

I'm in no way opposed to the vaccine and I find it hard to imagine being a medical worker who opposes it, but these are the people we have depended on the most, who have worked the hardest, throughout the whole thing. To treat them like this has been totally unconscionable.
>> No. 31578 Anonymous
31st January 2022
Monday 5:34 am
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>>31577

(oh, and if you don't like the Torygraph.)

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2022/jan/30/nhs-england-could-employ-unvaccinated-staff-after-1-april-says-regulator
>> No. 31579 Anonymous
31st January 2022
Monday 10:14 am
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>>31577
Around 1/8 Covid deaths were caused by transmission in hospitals. Working hard doesn't count for anything if you're needlessly dangerous.
>> No. 31580 Anonymous
31st January 2022
Monday 10:27 am
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>>31579

COVID vaccination has a very limited impact on transmission. It'll reduce your risk of getting ill, but it won't stop you from spreading the virus if you're going to work while COVID-positive.

The choice isn't between a vaccinated doctor and an unvaccinated doctor, but between an unvaccinated doctor and no doctor at all. People are dying as we speak because they can't get an ambulance or they're waiting in a hospital car park; that situation isn't going to be helped if we sack 70,000 staff, many of whom might well be partially or fully vaccinated but just lack the paperwork to prove it.
>> No. 31581 Anonymous
31st January 2022
Monday 10:57 am
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>>31580
Not him, but as someone terrified of Long COVID, I read last year that vaccination cuts the risk of developing it to 50%. I'd still not rather roll those dice.
>> No. 31582 Anonymous
31st January 2022
Monday 11:17 am
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>>31581

Vaccination works, it's a good thing and I'd recommend it to everyone over 30. The question here isn't whether people should get vaccinated, but whether unvaccinated NHS staff should be sacked. I think the latter is a terrible idea given the limited effect of vaccination on reducing transmission and the current workforce crisis in the NHS.

The public discourse around vaccination has become weirdly polarised and quasi-religious - either you think that the unvaccinated should be sent to concentration camps, or you're a rabid anti-vaxxer. The reality is that we've already vaccinated the overwhelming majority of people in the highest-risk groups, we've already seen most of the benefit from vaccination and the last few percent won't make much of a difference.

The media keeps bandying around made up statistics like "90% of COVID patients in hospital are unvaccinated", when in fact the majority in hospital and in intensive care are now triple-jabbed. Vaccination does very substantially lower your risk of severe illness, but it doesn't eliminate that risk. Even with 100% of the population vaccinated, COVID will continue to circulate and we will still see significant numbers of people get seriously ill and die. Opening up society comes at a human cost and no amount of vaccination can change that fact.
>> No. 31583 Anonymous
31st January 2022
Monday 11:48 am
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People have a weird sort of bipolar attitude towards healthcare staff honestly.

They're simultaneously heroes revered and praised second only to Are Brave Boys, but the moment the NHS or a doctor or nurse does something they don't like, people have no problems demonising them, all the way up to the point of physical assault. You don't get Starbucks waitresses or Primark checkout lasses getting physically assaulted to anywhere near the level as healthcare assistants, nurses etc.

I feel like people's attitude to the vaccine mandate rather reflects that, as soon as it's a personally emotive issue they are totally disregard not only the logical argument that the NHS just pure and simply can't afford to lose nearly 100,000 staff all at once, but also the personal individual freedom and mental wellbeing of those staff as individuals.

I can't imagine how frustrating it is to have random civvies condescendingly reeling off statistics about vaccines at you when you're one of the people who has been working on the frontlines of this pandemic for the last two years and you almost certainly know more, first hand, than them about every single aspect of its impact.
>> No. 31584 Anonymous
1st February 2022
Tuesday 7:56 am
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So I'm double jabbed but caught a variety of COVID probably last week or the week before, my symptoms were mild and not at all like the ones you're told to look out for and now after a week or more I only have the vaguest tickle in my throat and I'm still testing positive and to be honest fed up because I don't know what the current guidelines are based on.
Am I likely to pass it on to other people still? Not as much for work, but for other people I know that have weaker immune systems.
>> No. 31585 Anonymous
1st February 2022
Tuesday 8:26 am
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>>31584

>Am I likely to pass it on to other people still?

Yes. Omicron is incredibly contagious and you can still be shedding a lot of virus even if you feel well. You need to self isolate for 10 full days or until you have two negative tests.
>> No. 31586 Anonymous
1st February 2022
Tuesday 9:23 am
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>>31585

It's making me more mentally uncomfortable than anything, of course work want me back in but I've also only ever had one other sick period over the past 10 or so years so I can't scrub the feeling I should be just going in to work. It's messing with my expected routine too so that stresses me out.
>> No. 31587 Anonymous
1st February 2022
Tuesday 11:38 am
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>>31586

If you're uneasy about having time off work, that's a warning sign about the rest of your life.
>> No. 31588 Anonymous
1st February 2022
Tuesday 12:41 pm
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>>31587
Mmm, yes, God forbid someone have a good work ethic.
>> No. 31589 Anonymous
1st February 2022
Tuesday 12:43 pm
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>>31588

More like good forbid someone have a healthy attitude towards self-care.
>> No. 31590 Anonymous
1st February 2022
Tuesday 12:46 pm
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>>31589
They're equivalent.
>> No. 31591 Anonymous
1st February 2022
Tuesday 1:09 pm
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>>31590
Balance in all things.
>> No. 31592 Anonymous
1st February 2022
Tuesday 1:14 pm
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>>31587 >>31588 >>31589 >>31590 >>31591

I don't actually enjoy working very much and am usually very defensive of my time off, but that time off is usually planned and not when I'm in a particular need of the money.
>> No. 31593 Anonymous
1st February 2022
Tuesday 1:21 pm
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>>31592
If you want the money and work is asking you to go in knowing your recent infection, fuck it and go in. The finger waggers better get used to it because this will be legal in a few weeks.
>> No. 31594 Anonymous
1st February 2022
Tuesday 1:22 pm
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>>31593
Though really you fucked up by getting tested in the first place.
>> No. 31595 Anonymous
1st February 2022
Tuesday 1:53 pm
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>>31592

Have you checked to see if you're eligible for a COVID self-isolation payment? Most people on a low income are entitled to claim £500.

https://www.gov.uk/test-and-trace-support-payment
>> No. 31596 Anonymous
1st February 2022
Tuesday 2:01 pm
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>>31589
It's clearly autism. I don't like phoning in sick if I don't have to either; it's nicer when you do the same thing every day. But getting upset that you can't do that, like I say, is clearly autism.
>> No. 31597 Anonymous
1st February 2022
Tuesday 2:06 pm
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>>31595
I'm not sure that's true, as the devil's in the details.

>Your council website will tell you what counts as low income, and whether you’re eligible.

My council website tells me my income must be below £30,000. So far, so good. It also states that I must demonstrate I'd incur financial hardship without their support. What does that mean? What if I've been stupid enough to save up a three to five grand emergency fund? I'd expect them to argue I'd not experience hardship and that's why I have no interest in Covid tests.
>> No. 31598 Anonymous
1st February 2022
Tuesday 2:14 pm
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>>31597

You might as well apply. You've got nothing to lose and £500 to gain.
>> No. 31599 Anonymous
1st February 2022
Tuesday 2:24 pm
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>>31594

I was feeling too off colour to go in to work in the first few days case so of course I was going to test, I have a lot of people in my life that wouldn't deal with respiratory illnesses very well at all.
>> No. 31600 Anonymous
5th February 2022
Saturday 6:40 pm
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I've realised two things today 1) something is seriously wrong with my stomach, I am probably dying because why wouldn't I be? And 2) I am utterly useless, but the only times I've been happy are when I've been of use to others. Don't read to much into that phrasing, nothing exploitative, just helping out.
>> No. 31604 Anonymous
10th February 2022
Thursday 9:11 am
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Recent breakup lad here.

The cohabitation situation was going well, until yesterday. She saw a flat she liked, put in an application, and they gave it to someone else. In her tantrum afterwards she decided to go back on her word with one of the things we'd agreed on as part of the "divorce settlement", if you will, and the gist of it is now that I'll be considerably out of pocket. So we had a big row, and long story short I'm packing my stuff and going to my mum and dad's. Fuck it.

I've done everything I can to retain a friendly, amicable atmosphere in a situation that isn't easy for either of us. I've even kept up little gestures like bringing her a croissant back from the shop if I ever call in, as a gesture of goodwill and friendship. But she still had to go and fuck me over.

Why can women never help themselves but to be petty vindictive cunts?
>> No. 31605 Anonymous
10th February 2022
Thursday 9:14 am
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>>31604
There's no such thing as an amicable breakup, you were just deluding yourself that there was in the hope it'd make things easy for you.
>> No. 31606 Anonymous
10th February 2022
Thursday 10:27 am
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>>31605

Nah, I've had some pretty painless ones before. It just depends how emotionally mature each of you are.
>> No. 31607 Anonymous
10th February 2022
Thursday 5:02 pm
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Said it before, I'll say it again; fuck CBT.
>> No. 31608 Anonymous
10th February 2022
Thursday 10:03 pm
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Look man I know this is imature but I'm struggling to accept new people into the group and feel as though I should preempt the loss of my position by giving it up voluntarily.
Simply 'step aside', as we so heartily laughed about earlier in the week.
>> No. 31609 Anonymous
10th February 2022
Thursday 10:20 pm
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>>31608
Can you elaborate?
>> No. 31610 Anonymous
10th February 2022
Thursday 11:42 pm
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>>31609
I'm sort of struggling with my inadequate social skills. Pretty much an open online circle, which attracted a more boistrous character than I'm currently comfortable dealing with. You feel a little rift in the community, some people embrace it while others tolerate, meanwhile the culture shifts. I've basically allowed myself to be beaten into submission - not that it has to be a contest, just that I'm afraid of it becoming one so I left before it did. I think. It's a shame because I seemed to get on well with one of the others - infact they seemed to value my opinion.

I didn't realise I'm such a bitch. Safespaces, snowflakes, etc.
>> No. 31611 Anonymous
11th February 2022
Friday 12:55 am
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>>31610

So some loud-mouth cunt joined your discord channel and started turning the place toxic, is that basically it?

If you were in a leadership position sometimes you have little choice but to take a firm approach and tell such people that there's a line they are overstepping, and if they continue to they will be removed. Otherwise you will see exactly what you have done and there's really no recourse if you let it happen.

If you're not in a leadership position then it's just kind of one of those things, where it's a shame, but you have to let it go really. Not much you could do. Like when a workplace has the "good" ones leave and you find yourself stuck working with a team of eight Karens. That's just life sometimes.

Confronting such people rarely (though sometimes) works if you don't have authority, but usually it's just not worth the effort. It's not being a fanny, it's just having the wisdom to pick your battles.
>> No. 31612 Anonymous
11th February 2022
Friday 1:35 am
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>>31611

Start a rumour that he's a carpet-bagger through subtle insinuation.
>> No. 31613 Anonymous
11th February 2022
Friday 1:26 pm
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When it comes to personas, how do you manage the different faces you wear for different people? What happens when these people come together and you're tasked with wearing 2 masks simultaneously?

>>31611
That's basically it, though I've hesitated in using the term toxic.
>> No. 31614 Anonymous
11th February 2022
Friday 11:22 pm
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>>31613
I'm currently visiting family with my girlfriend. I feel incredibly anxious that the family segment of my life is crossing over with the romantic segment of my life. I even struggle knowing my girlfriend is speaking to my parents. The version of me at home with my gf is different from the version of me who deals with my family. I wish I could keep my life compartmentalized. Nothing good comes from mixing the different segments of my life.
>> No. 31615 Anonymous
12th February 2022
Saturday 12:57 am
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This is the first time I can remember where I've just completely saturated my mental fortitude. In a very literal sense, my life is falling apart, and I literally cannot get myself to care enough to fix anything. I'm just in a state of complete despair. To quote the Football People, I've been taking L after L for a couple of weeks now, and I can't even muster enough feeling to care, much less do anything about it.
>> No. 31619 Anonymous
22nd February 2022
Tuesday 3:51 pm
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Thinking about going to college but I'm certain I wont do anything with and skills or knowledge I develop. Spend 5 years learning to treat animals but I can't see myself becoming a vet. Learn tree surgery and botany but I'll collect nothing more than windfall and a selection of seeds.

I see myself doing nothing in my life in terms of work or genuine adult identity. All I really do it play videogames, browse the internet and oversleep to the point it sometimes hurts.

I don't know what the point is complaining here. I'm not going to change anything, whether that's because I don't know how or simply don't want to.

I guess I "don't know how" to change my life, and the sort of ideas I manage seem so long term and barely discernable as to not be worth the effort.

I feel like ideas of improving my life are fantasies to overcome the boredom of the day rather than actual intentions or even desires.
>> No. 31620 Anonymous
22nd February 2022
Tuesday 5:09 pm
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>>31619
There are plenty of jobs for people more hopeless than you. Once you have one of those, it will motivate you and maybe even help you find a direction in life. Alternatively, you could just pick any random skill and learn that. If you don't like it, you will at least have a better idea of what you do like. You don't need to have a destination to set off on your journey. If you get a qualification in maths, for example, there's no job police to force you into doing maths forever. Plenty of unrelated jobs will be impressed anyway, and you can do one of them.
>> No. 31621 Anonymous
22nd February 2022
Tuesday 5:15 pm
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>>31620
>Once you have one of those, it will motivate you and maybe even help you find a direction in life.
I was in a similar position and got told the same thing. Three jobs later, and I now know it's bullshit on both counts. I have the same motivation and direction and a lot less time and energy to change my circumstances.
>> No. 31623 Anonymous
22nd February 2022
Tuesday 7:40 pm
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Post 31622 deleted due to being self-reported but it's not entirely clear that's what was intended. I've saved the text if you want to recover it.
>> No. 31624 Anonymous
22nd February 2022
Tuesday 8:22 pm
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>>31623
I assumed the report must have been because the text was doubled up.
Would you repost the message, i wanted to come back to it later and give it the attention it deserved.
>> No. 31625 Anonymous
22nd February 2022
Tuesday 8:24 pm
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>>31624

If the original poster asks.
>> No. 31626 Anonymous
23rd February 2022
Wednesday 9:21 am
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>>31624>>31625

Sorry ladm9s. Yes, I fucked up my original post but after many experiences like this, I've learned to copy and paste to notepad. Here we go:

>>31619

I've been there, for what it's worth. Offering advice can be hazardous, so just tell me to fuck off if any of this doesn't apply:

For one, playing computer games and not doing very much isn't inherently evil or self-destructive. You're not overdosing on heroin or crashing cars or harming anyone else with your actions.

For two, you can try taking whatever shame or frustration or boredom you feel and relate it back to thoughts you've had or events in your life. People say ruminating on the past is bad, which is true enough when done in excess, but recounting the circumstances and choices that led to this point is essential to understanding the present.

For three, your expectations of an "adult identity" is probably shaped by lots of things. Your personal opinions about success, external social pressures, and a load of other unexamined assumptions. I seriously suggest you examine them. You may find a lot of them to be nonsense, and others might have some truth to them, e.g. a vet alleviates suffering in living creatures, which is a worthwhile pursuit.

For four, there's nothing wrong with feeling bored and wanting more, and there's certainly nothing wrong with fantasising. Whether a fantasy comes true isn't what matters, it can propel you in the right direction to something better regardless. To use a cliché example, a scientist may daydream about winning a Nobel and never win one, but their desire to have their work recognised may push them to become a decent scientist regardless (perhaps even a good one).

For five, interest is what sparks everything. Genuine, sincere enjoyment in what you're doing. Maybe you thought of becoming a vet or a tree surgeon because you enjoy interacting with animals, or you like learning biology, or you like the outdoors? If you can somehow marry your ideas of what a "successful adult" is to some concrete activity you can enjoy, you'll have made it further than most people in the world.

And now for my possibly irrelevant personal experience and reading recommendations:
- The Phantom Tollbooth, Norton Juster. I was an extremely depressed kid. I remember when I was 10, I picked up a book and related very much to the main character:
>When he was in school he longed to be out, and when he was out he longed to be in. On the way he thought about coming home, and coming home he thought about going. Wherever he was he wished he were somewhere else, and when he got there he wondered why he'd bothered. Nothing really interested him — least of all the things that should have.
Ironically I didn't finish the book until I was 17 - 19, but the lesson stuck with me from that point. It's a charming little book about psychology, purpose, and learning mostly based on puns. There's a PDF online: https://books-library.net/files/books-library.online-01100920Kw0Y9.pdf
- Grit, Angela Duckworth. Great anecdotes, some decent data, and a lot of good practical advice on the importance of just keeping at things rather than relying natural talent.
- The Great Work of Your Life, Stephen Cope. This author's interpretation of the Bhagavad Gita, which might spur some disagreement, but which I really enjoyed reading. It ties a lot of other (both ancient and modern biographies into the principles described in the text.

I hope at least some of this is useful to you, lad.
>> No. 31627 Anonymous
23rd February 2022
Wednesday 2:31 pm
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>>31626

Not the lad you're replying to but I've been in his place and I think your post will be helpful to him. There's only one bit I'd really take issue with.

>For five, interest is what sparks everything. Genuine, sincere enjoyment in what you're doing. Maybe you thought of becoming a vet or a tree surgeon because you enjoy interacting with animals, or you like learning biology, or you like the outdoors? If you can somehow marry your ideas of what a "successful adult" is to some concrete activity you can enjoy, you'll have made it further than most people in the world.

Maybe it's just me being cynical, but I honestly find this to be quite a naive take on an issue that affects nearly everybody. If we were to have a quick show of hands, how many people do you think would put their hands up to the question "do you ENJOY your job?" Because the fact is work is work, and even when you find work in a field you're interested in, it's still just work.

I wandered aimlessly through call centres, retail and warehouse jobs for the first half of my 20s. When I was 26 I took an apprenticeship, and a few years later ultimately became NHSLablad. It made perfect sense when I look back on it, I was always dead interested in diseases and everything as a lad, I was always reading books about the plague and ebola and stuff, and I was good at science in school. In some funny way I've ended up doing exactly the work I was "meant for". But it's still just work, and the best thing I can say about it is that I don't hate it, because my boss is very hands off and I don't have to interact with the general public. It's not something that would ever had have occurred to me to look for work in until I stumbled upon the apprenticeship, I didn't even know the job I do now existed when I was younger- If I'd had a career advisor at school that wasn't a sack of shit I might have skipped a lot of pointless drudgery and come straight here, but that's a different conversation.

What I'm saying is that in the end, I think it's a little too wide-eyed and optimistic to go in search of the career doing "something you enjoy", but far more realistic and achievable to find a job you don't hate. The achievable part is important, too, because those small steps of success are essential when pulling yourself out of a rut, in my experience. Don't set a big goal it'll take ages to achieve, set lots of little ones you can pat yourself on the back for each time.
>> No. 31628 Anonymous
25th February 2022
Friday 7:20 am
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>>31627
>What I'm saying is that in the end, I think it's a little too wide-eyed and optimistic to go in search of the career doing "something you enjoy", but far more realistic and achievable to find a job you don't hate.

You're giving fine advice, but to this point I'd say the kernel of not hating something is finding something about it enjoyable or worthwhile. This is why I say, finding an interest is the beginning.
>> No. 31629 Anonymous
26th February 2022
Saturday 9:05 am
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This sounds daft and more than a bit sad, but is there an equivalent of shit like Scouts, but for disaffected adults in their 30s?

It occurs to me that that's exactly what I need to make more friends and get out of the house more. The kind of thing where someone is in charge and decides what you're going to do, so you don't have to worry about it, but you can engage in bantz with the people you get grouped with and bond over capsizing a canoe or whatever.

I think the only new friends I've made in the last six or seven years are birds I met on dating apps, and it gets a bit awkward sometimes.
>> No. 31630 Anonymous
26th February 2022
Saturday 9:27 am
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>>31629

https://menssheds.org.uk
>> No. 31631 Anonymous
26th February 2022
Saturday 9:39 am
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>>31619
I have a house, a partner, and a full-time job, and I wish I had as much time to play computer games as I used to. It's not all it's cracked up to be.
>> No. 31632 Anonymous
26th February 2022
Saturday 10:02 am
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>>31631
Wait until you've got kids.
>> No. 31633 Anonymous
26th February 2022
Saturday 10:02 am
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>>31632
That's what she thinks.
>> No. 31634 Anonymous
26th February 2022
Saturday 10:52 am
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>>31633
If she wants kids you're having kids. It's inevitable.
>> No. 31635 Anonymous
26th February 2022
Saturday 12:50 pm
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How do you deal with not being physically attracted to your partner? I love her and she's so supportive and we have good chemistry. But I have no desire to fuck her or give her kids. I've told her I'm asexual, but I'm not I am very sexually repressed and possibly gay.
>> No. 31636 Anonymous
26th February 2022
Saturday 2:44 pm
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>>31635
>possibly gay

Not sure how you go about telling someone this, but it might be the most important part.
>> No. 31637 Anonymous
26th February 2022
Saturday 2:47 pm
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>>31635

You need a psychosexual therapist.

https://www.bacp.co.uk/search/Therapists
>> No. 31638 Anonymous
26th February 2022
Saturday 3:44 pm
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>>31637
Spring is coming into full swing down here in the south, plenty of pretty young things about taking advantage of the sunshine. I feel like this will be the year I finally break down and actually talk to a doctor, though I'm entertaining the idea that dying would be a more pleasurable experience.


>> No. 31639 Anonymous
5th March 2022
Saturday 7:16 pm
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I'm beginning to regret ever trying to be ambitious in my life.

The higher I climb, the more responsibility I seem to take on. I thought if I worked smart and hard enough I'd find myself in a position with more free time, but so far the opposite is true.

Now I seem to be retreating back to a state where I just want to play computer games and fuck about with friends. Imagine having the freedom to go and buy a shitload of beers and play Halo or watch 80s action films for as long as I want -- either by myself or with a few mates -- without a single worry about whether I'll have enough time to run errands the next day, or about the looming work week, or about my "career".

Even my fucking hobbies are primarily about self-improvement. I enjoy them, yeah, but none of it ever feels like proper, just-for-myself, real, true slacking off.

It's hard to describe. Just a few months of sheer idleness would be bliss. No obligations. No guilt.

I'm beyond burnout. I don't know if I just need to let off steam or if I'm on the verge of radically altering my life (for better or worse).
>> No. 31640 Anonymous
6th March 2022
Sunday 3:23 am
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>>31639

You've just fallen into exactly the trap "they" (whoever you think that means) want you to, honestly. The treadmill, the rat race, whatever you call it- We have all those idioms for a reason.

One thing it's always important to keep in mind is what you NEED in order to be happy. It's all very well and good striving for improvement, but the trouble can be you lose sight of when to stop. You don't always need to reach the very summit of the mountain, there are plenty of nice little stopping off points along the way, where you can live a very contented life.

Try to rearrange your priorities. If you're not seeing your mates enough, maybe you can afford to sack off one or two of your gym sessions. Maintaining your mental and social health is every bit as important as exercise. Set aside a day to do fuck all other than sit in your pants and play videogames, you deserve it.

What else did you put all this hard work in for after all?
>> No. 31641 Anonymous
7th March 2022
Monday 1:48 pm
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>>31640
There are three reasons one would need to work hard to earn good pay:
1) To enjoy a good lifestyle at the current moment in time (the problem there being obvious)
2) Pension
3) Children
>> No. 31642 Anonymous
13th March 2022
Sunday 10:14 pm
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I'm thinking a lot about my autism. I work with autistic people, so have the whole "neurodivergent pride" sort of shtick fed to me. But when I think about my own autism, I would do anything for a cure. My peers talk about neurotypicals like they're the enemy, but to me, to be neurodivergent is my dream. I've lost multiple jobs due to being hampered by my condition, I've struggled socially, had a target painted on my back for being awkward. Maybe I'm just taking self loathing to the extreme, I just desperately want to be normal.
>> No. 31643 Anonymous
14th March 2022
Monday 7:30 am
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>>31642

There's a middle-ground position of "this is a pain in the arse, but I'm not going to let it define me". There are things you struggle with, but you've still got lots to offer and you deserve to be treated decently. No pride, no shame, just an acceptance that you're a fallible human being with strengths and weaknesses like anyone else.
>> No. 31644 Anonymous
14th March 2022
Monday 10:30 am
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>>31642
Doesn't it matter that being "cured" would mean being entirely a different person? You'd not be you with better social skills, you would cease to exist and there'd be someone else in your place.
>> No. 31645 Anonymous
15th March 2022
Tuesday 2:03 am
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My brain shuts down when I try to talk about anything of consequence. It feels like it's more a lack of comunication skill, not necessarily education.
>> No. 31646 Anonymous
15th March 2022
Tuesday 4:28 pm
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Not sure if this is /emo/ but what's the deal with a limit on accepting house viewings? We're basically being harassed at this point with about 6+ viewings per day while we're both WfH, random calls and texts from several different agents so random numbers all the time, plus we've got to do our own house viewings to find somewhere and have lives and all that, and keep the place essentially spotless each day, which is more stress.

At what point can I tell the landlord to fuck off and wait until we're gone? It's been 3 weeks and it's like we're living in a showroom. Can I just tell him he either slashes our rent for the last month or I'm just going to give him a 1 hour daily window where he can organise viewings or something like that? Obviously he will never reduce our rent but fucking come on, I'm not having the door bell ringing every hour when I'm doing meetings and revision and she's doing job interviews inbetween working on her phd. It's fucking ridiculous and I didn't realise how angry it was making me until starting this post. Fucking cunt, wants to put it up 1,350 to 1,800! After it was on the market for four months after Christmas 2020 for 1,400! No mate! Fucking no! Fuck off!

We've both got one or two mental diagnoses between us so I don't know if I can use that to my advantage for once. Any ideas/advice?
>> No. 31647 Anonymous
15th March 2022
Tuesday 6:06 pm
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>>31646

Check your tenancy agreement to see what it says about viewings. Legally, you have the "right to quiet enjoyment" of your property. The specific definition of that right is rather complex, but your landlord should only be arranging viewings with proper notice given to you and they shouldn't be excessive.

I'd suggest getting in touch with Shelter or Citizens Advice.

https://england.shelter.org.uk/get_help/webchat

https://www.citizensadvice.org.uk/about-us/contact-us/contact-us/web-chat-service/
>> No. 31648 Anonymous
3rd April 2022
Sunday 12:11 pm
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Okay so this is a bit of a wierd one and difficult to talk about.

I've been single for a while now but I'm having trouble getting back into sex. Not that I'm having trouble getting dates or getting into bed with girls, I've had a few opportunities to get my end away in fact. The issue is I've pretty much bottled it on all but one occasion (that occasion being with a kind of an old flame so to speak, so I already felt quite at ease). I don't have the confidence to make the first move any more, and I feel vulnerable about actually going through with the act with someone new.

I'm not sure exactly why this is, but my best guess is it's down to the ex and how shit our sex life was, the way she acted about it, and the effect that had on me. It was the first time I have ever felt insecure about myself, my sexual abilities, dick size, or anything like that. Every other partner I've had over the course of my life was very positive and told me I was great, gave me lots of praise and so on, but this one was stubbornly reluctant to ever give a compliment, or even give me feedback on if I was doing things right or wrong.

While she never directly insulted or humiliated me or anything like that, she would always deflect and downplay it if I tried to big myself up at all, and she would always give conflicting signals if I tried to have a frank conversation about our sex life, so I was always left wondering if the issues were my own fault or not. I theorise that since she had low self-esteem of her own, she found it intolerable to stroke my ego in any way; she needed to keep me "beneath" her in order to feel secure in herself, if that makes sense. I really can't decide if it was an intentional thing or not, though. I don't think it was a case of being emotionally abusive, I just think she was kind of a narccicist and couldn't help it.

Anyway, I don't mean to go on and on about it. The thing is, it's sort of a pandora's box situation. She planted the seed of doubt, and now I can't get that niggling feeling of inadequacy out of my head. I've just never really had this kind of worry before, so it's thrown me for a loop how to deal with it.

Any of you had any similar experience?
>> No. 31649 Anonymous
4th April 2022
Monday 7:24 pm
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>>31648

I've definitely had partners where the sex isn't quite what I wanted it to be, but I've not had anyone subtly try to shift that problem onto me, so I can't provide deep insight here.

What I will say is that it helps to focus on the positive experiences you've had, and compound those positive experiences with new positive experiences. You sound like a fairly attentive person, so I wouldn't doubt that you can click and have a good time with a number of women.

Since you've also had good sexual experiences, why are your exes opinions (which you recognise are probably based in other hangups) more important than any other girl you've had fun with? Hard to think that way if you've been with that ex for a long time, I know, but the logic stands.
>> No. 31650 Anonymous
10th April 2022
Sunday 9:07 pm
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Ready to fucking scream, lads.
To use an Americanism, I haven't been able to catch a break for months, and today's tipped me over the fucking edge.

I can't remember the last time where I felt like something went right, or I felt like I was really making progress with anything. Nothing works, everything breaks. Work isn't get better. It feels like I've got fewer and fewer friends, and I always have to make the effort. There's not really a lot of major things (my car troubles in /mph/ excepted), but it's just straws on a camel's back.

I don't have anyone to talk to about this, due to the aforementioned friend thing, and I don't even know what I'd have to say really. I just want a month where I'm not constantly fucking stressed out by having to replace or repair things, where I can get on the train without there literally being police there preventing people getting on because it's so absolutely crowded, where a water tank doesn't fucking burst leading to water damage in my flat, where I feel like I accomplished something at work and actually enjoyed doing it, where I don't have to try people 5 times to go for a pint with them. And because the only coping mechanism I have is to eat, I don't make any progress on my disgusting weight.

Fuck. I just want to climb out of my morbidly obese skin and be someone else.
>> No. 31651 Anonymous
10th April 2022
Sunday 11:30 pm
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>>31649

>Since you've also had good sexual experiences, why are your exes opinions (which you recognise are probably based in other hangups) more important than any other girl you've had fun with? Hard to think that way if you've been with that ex for a long time, I know, but the logic stands.

This is a fair point, and I thank you for raising it. I suppose the thing is just that she was the first person to have made me feel that way, and part of it is the implication that my confidence was unwarranted, and my past partners weren't as satisfied as I thought they were, just faking to protect my ego. That kind of shakes a core foundation of my self esteem, you know?

She's not the first woman who has tried to play that card with me, but she is the first one who I was actually involved with, I had opened up to, and made myself vulnerable to in the way you only do with a proper partner. I don't care if some random tinder slag or some jaded bint on Rudgwick who obviously has a chip on her shoulder about men tries to belittle me, but I didn't see it coming in this case, and my guard was down.

What I have become quite convinced of the more I think about it, is that this means she was a nasty piece of work who knew exactly what she was doing, and knew very well that this is exactly where to stick the knife if you want to mess with a bloke's head. The difficult part is how to scrub off the marks she left. I've had a couple of very fulfilling experiences since leaving her, that much is true, but even those are tainted if I keep questioning if those girls were truthfully enjoying it, or just putting on an act.
>> No. 31652 Anonymous
11th April 2022
Monday 6:24 pm
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>>31651

Again, I think you're more or less bang on in your assessment of your ex and why she would be inclined to say those things. I don't blame you for feeling the way you do, you'd be inhuman if it didn't affect you. That said, this might come down to having to deal with some uncomfortable, bigger truths: even people you trust can reveal themselves to be nasty pieces of work in certain contexts, and the risk of running into them is (unfortunately) the price of admission to deep relationships.

It's also easy to forget that sex is a two-way street (though it's rarely talked about in that way). If your ex really cared about having good sex, then surely it would've taken the form of constructive suggestions, rather than belittling psychological assault. If you just didn't do it for her to begin with, then she's still at fault for dragging you down the road of a sexually active relationship knowing she wouldn't be happy.

>I've had a couple of very fulfilling experiences since leaving her, that much is true, but even those are tainted if I keep questioning if those girls were truthfully enjoying it, or just putting on an act.

I know this is a sore point, for obvious reasons, but you must know rationally that the other birds you've had sex with are individuals in their own right. Either they've all joined the conspiracy to convince you that you're a sexual behemoth only for your ex to undercut you, or they all had a good bit of fun with you and your ex just wanted to hurt you.

I feel like I'm probably only reiterating things you already know, but for what it's worth, I agree with your point of view and hope you don't let someone trying to twist the knife detract from future experiences. That's not fair on you, and there's probably many girls out there that will be grateful for your full attention.
>> No. 31653 Anonymous
11th April 2022
Monday 6:53 pm
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>>31650

Honestly mate, my first thought is that you're clearly under a fucking load of stress and it's hard to be good company when you're in that state. What are you looking for in terms of a social life? If it's just a few people to blow off steam with over drinks then it might be worth looking into joining a regular pub quiz or card game or something. Something low pressure that'll get you interacting with people.

If you're after friends to properly confide in, then that's more difficult, but can be done a little bit quicker with people who share your life experiences. Also, I know it's shit, but it's crucial not to take it personally when people are flaky about plans. People's lives can be just as messed up as yours. You'll know when you've struck on someone who's also in a good enough place for it mentally and enjoys hanging out with you when there's a fair give-and-take, and you're not having to invite them out five times.

I have also had stretches of my life that were unquestionably shit and nothing worked. I once strung together living in about five flats in various parts of the country for *certain reasons*. I was lucky enough to have some healthier coping mechanisms, but even there it's possible to go overboard, having stupidly injured myself through exercise. At the risk of stating the obvious, having a varied set of outlets for frustration and the time to actually do them is the key to maintaining sanity.
>> No. 31654 Anonymous
13th April 2022
Wednesday 3:49 am
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It's nearly 4am and I'm sat here drinking and lonely. I would like to rant about the property market but I don't know if I have the energy.

Fuck it. It's just a load of dogshit. I've spent the last five years or so pinching pennies and living like a hermit so I can afford a deposit, but now I can afford the deposit we're in such a shite position that I can't afford anything remotely worth paying for. I lower my expectations and say "ah well, maybe I can at least buy a flat, not ideal but at least I won't have a landlord sucking my blood", but nope. The only flats you can buy are fucking speculative investor-only bullshit schemes on buildings that don't even exist yet.

It's all so demoralising. Grinding your way up the treadmill to secure a few more breadcrumbs, only to find out everything got more expensive so you're no better off than where you started ten years ago. I'm sick of working this hard to barely keep my head above the water, and it only looks like things getting worse.

I'm stuck in this catch 22 where I can only really sort my life out if I get a foothold on a secure, stable, affordable place to live, but that's the hardest possible thing to manage. Once I have that I'll be able to find a nice lass, get involved with social activities and make some more reliable mates, all that shit. But I'm just not allowed it seems.

Ah well.
>> No. 31655 Anonymous
13th April 2022
Wednesday 3:11 pm
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>>31654
You're identical to me. How old are you? I'm 34. That might make you feel better, if nothing else.
>> No. 31656 Anonymous
13th April 2022
Wednesday 3:53 pm
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>>31655

I'm only two or three years behind you depending on the month, so sort of, but not really.

Where do you reckon the cut off is? When are you old enough that you'll never actually pay off a mortgage, so might as well not bother? 40? 45? If you're still renting when you retire, do you get housing benefit?

Not that any of us will ever retire I suppose. That thought in itself fills me with dread, we say it flippantly but it looks more and more likely that we'll be expected to work into our 80s. I can't bear the thought of it, I'm already exhausted.
>> No. 31657 Anonymous
13th April 2022
Wednesday 4:57 pm
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I'm begining to notice the extent of my willful ignorance.
>> No. 31658 Anonymous
13th April 2022
Wednesday 5:59 pm
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>>31656
Most mortgages are for 25 years, but you could keep working till you're 70, so that would be 45. That's another 13 years or so for you. It might not sound like long, but 13 years in the past, you were a teenager.
>> No. 31659 Anonymous
13th April 2022
Wednesday 6:05 pm
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>>31658
Are you the Grim Reaper's intern or something? Christ.
>> No. 31660 Anonymous
13th April 2022
Wednesday 6:18 pm
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>>31659
In a way, we're all the Grim Reaper's interns.
>> No. 31661 Anonymous
13th April 2022
Wednesday 10:40 pm
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>>31660

SQUEAK


>> No. 31662 Anonymous
15th April 2022
Friday 12:48 am
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I appear to have finally come to the conclusion that when the missus and lad are away, it's no longer fun to get drunk by myself and wank off. The pressing issue is that I don't actually have any real life friends at all.
>> No. 31663 Anonymous
20th April 2022
Wednesday 12:41 pm
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There's no original thought outside of existance, so why try to create one? It feels like egotism and Idolatry to produce and collect art.
Isn't this what's said to be the cause of Satans fall from heaven, that he did not want to be a subject in this simulation? IE absolute authority to create something new rather than a sum of predefined parts.
Am I nurturing evil by thinking like this?
>> No. 31664 Anonymous
20th April 2022
Wednesday 12:45 pm
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>>31663
All higher thoughts are just an overcomplicated sort of masturbation. We're apes with anxiety mate, I wouldn't worry about it.
>> No. 31665 Anonymous
20th April 2022
Wednesday 1:49 pm
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>>31663

Nah, you're thinking of Lord of the Rings when Melkor didn't want to play Eru Ilùvatar's tune. The whole saga of Middle Earth's strife against Morgoth and Sauron would have been avoided if god just let one of his children take a short improv solo interlude, which I think is a compelling argument in favour the necessity and humanity in personal expression.
>> No. 31666 Anonymous
20th April 2022
Wednesday 3:09 pm
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>>31665
Do you ever feel like you're being radicalised.
>> No. 31667 Anonymous
20th April 2022
Wednesday 3:45 pm
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>>31666
Did Gandalf radicalise the hobbits against Sauron?
>> No. 31668 Anonymous
20th April 2022
Wednesday 6:26 pm
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>>31666

With the kinds of trials life has put me through I'm very surprised I made it this far without having been.

Then again maybe I already am, but I haven't killed anyone yet, and so long as I don't I think it's probably fine. I would very much enjoy the massacre of all estate agents and landlords, and their associated parasites, in particular the heads of Kirsty and Phil, displayed on Tower Bridge. As long as I don't act out those fantasies I think it's alright to have them, just for myself, as a little treat.

Either way it's society that's broken not me, of that I am sure.
>> No. 31669 Anonymous
22nd April 2022
Friday 1:27 pm
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>>31665
That's a woeful interpretation of the creation song.

Eru weaved Melkor's discordant racket into the song of creation, thinking it would please him, but Melkor just got annoyed that his Dad was nice about it. He is rage and malice and hate, a better analogy would be a self-destructive personality that resents people's understanding and trying to make them feel involved, so they flip a table at the BBQ ruining all the sausages and everyone just says "aww bless" so he starts fucking with them all individually and getting beat up for it, even their kids beat him up, and because he is forever a surly twat he is now banned from the chip shop.
>> No. 31672 Anonymous
24th April 2022
Sunday 10:10 pm
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jacking off to porn again when I find some decent amateur content; english, cute and playful, roughly the same age as me .. but then you see a section of their house, notice a hint of their work and realise they're completely beyond the legue you're playing in.
I don't want to wank like this anymore. Pussy after pussy, dick after dick, but sitting here isn't getting me any of this. Not that I want smut in my life, just the possibility of being that close to somebody I actually find attractive.

I've had people fancy me before, I could get there again. Step by step, look to where the feet fall, not the top of the mountain.

Ugh.
>> No. 31673 Anonymous
24th April 2022
Sunday 11:08 pm
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Have felt dead since I left the army in 2012
>> No. 31674 Anonymous
24th April 2022
Sunday 11:17 pm
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>>31673
Haven't you got any ex-service mates to hang out with?
>> No. 31675 Anonymous
24th April 2022
Sunday 11:41 pm
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>>31674
Nope.

I left during advanced individual training so I don't really know anyone outside of the people I was talking to on Facebook before I got locked out of my account last year. And I hadn't talked to Amy of them for years anyways. All I have now is my mom basically.
>> No. 31676 Anonymous
24th April 2022
Sunday 11:44 pm
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>>31675
And my brother and dad. Dad has a new family and runs a business. Brother has a family plus 1 to support so I don't really rely on him for much besides sms or weekend phone calls.
>> No. 31677 Anonymous
25th April 2022
Monday 12:04 am
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>>31673
Sounds like you need to find your own purpose and identity. Get a career, move out and do some additive hobby that grows over time, that sort of thing. You're not really going to get that from the people around you and you won't get people around you if you don't have your internal shit in order.
>> No. 31680 Anonymous
25th April 2022
Monday 6:08 pm
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There's two types of people when it comes to mental health, I reckon. There's people who are going through tough times, with real obstacles blocking their progress in life, or real problems with material consequences. Then there's dipshit spoiled twats who'll sulk because their already charmed life isn't as ideal as it could have been.

It's becoming very grating to me how everyone seems to see themselves as enlightened about mental health nowadays, because they read some book or other, but we so rarely face up to the fact that the reason for people's anxieties is most often related to a very real, valid, and genuine concern for their future, in terms of financial stability and security. There's no amount of meditation or fresh air to sort that.

Dunno exactly what got me thinking about this but over the last couple of weeks I've had a number of people give me those kinds of shite little platitudes over the things I'm struggling with and it's getting annoying.
>> No. 31681 Anonymous
25th April 2022
Monday 8:21 pm
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It never gets better, does it lads? It's just a constant chain of misery and worry.

Someone said to me other other week that 'it can only go up from here'. Since then, 4 events have made it all just that bit worse. I just feel like the straws are being piled on, but I have no idea what a breaking of the back would look like. I don't know, I just assume I'll be more miserable and anxious with every passing day until a heart attack gets me.

[x] sage for pathetic rambling.
>> No. 31682 Anonymous
25th April 2022
Monday 8:24 pm
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>>31680
>There's two types of people when it comes to mental health, I reckon.
I passed the mental health ward of my local hospital recently and briefly realised how bad it can get - nutters on the street in their pijamas, shouting and menacing strangers through paranoia. Not long ago too a friend of mine was randomly attacked by a schizophrenic who'd been regularly pleasant to them a week prior.
kind of made me realise I'm not that bad at all. It makes a lot of sense that I'm on the lower benefit bracket, while there are people about who're seriously mentally ill, suffering, and difficult for society. Atleast I'm independant. Atleast I can step back consider some of my own thought process rather than being subject to it.
>> No. 31683 Anonymous
26th April 2022
Tuesday 7:36 pm
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Very minor in the grand scheme of things, but:

In another of life's grand "I never thought it would happen to me" moments I've realised that sex has really slowed down between me and the girlfriend over the past few months.

We're in a secure and loving relationship. I flirt with her and show her that she's special to me. I'm expressive, patient, and (I'm told) fun in bed. She finds me attractive, and I've also made more of an effort over the past few months to get in better shape and dress a bit better (throwing away the baggy lockdown clothes).

And yet she's just not naturally showing any interest in sex. I have a high libido, so I initiate 9 times out of 10. Only a handful of times she's turned me down when she's feeling sick, and I've always been compassionate. I've never wanted her to do anything she doesn't want to. To be fair, I've done the same once or twice when I've just not been in the mood.

We're at the 3 year mark and I'm just really bloody worried that this is what I've got myself in for. Does she still like me? Do I excite her? Does she even think about sex when I'm not bringing it up? Whenever I try to explore the topic a bit with her there's always a hand-wave of "well it's different for women", but she never gives further detail. I have to admit, I find it hard to reconcile this with my worldview, in which I really enjoy and pursue sex a lot.

Frankly I'm getting to a point where finding out she's getting some on the side would be a relief, at least I would know there was something there.
>> No. 31684 Anonymous
26th April 2022
Tuesday 8:32 pm
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>>31683

The answer is almost always one of the following:

1) She's stressed, depressed or just plain miserable.

2) You don't make her cum.

3) She's shagging someone else.
>> No. 31685 Anonymous
26th April 2022
Tuesday 8:44 pm
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>>31684

She's very high achieving and generally in a good mood, and I normally make a point to take care of 2) by many different means... Who knows, maybe 3) is the case. I'll investigate further.
>> No. 31686 Anonymous
26th April 2022
Tuesday 11:16 pm
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>>31684

Don't talk daft.

>>31683

>We're at the 3 year mark

This often has a lot to answer for. Most of my relationships have hit around the 2.5-3 year point, and that's when things have more or less fully settled into what they'll be like going forward, and it's only by that point you can truly look at it in the bigger picture and take stock. Sex has almost always slowed down by that point.

Is she on birth control? I've found with a number of my partners the pill has made them more or less asexual, the coil has been better but never perfect, and the injection just seems to be a lucky dip whether it does nothing at all or gives them full blown BPD frankly.

Other than that all I can say is don't beat yourself up for it, you sound like you are doing everything that can be reasonably expected of you and you sound like a conscientious, caring partner. Nothing else should be reasonably expected of you, so don't let toxic gender expectation bullshit and double standards cloud your judgement.

It was a lot like this with my last ex, where she just didn't seem interested and nothing I tried helped; and even when I talked with her she basically said it was fine on her end and I couldn't even really get her to engage with the fact it obviously wasn't. The situation was only made worse for me because my previous partner(s) had been the type who were really up for it all the time and always initiated it at least as often as I did. It's really hard to adjust when you've used to girls who will display as much enthusiasm as you do.

In general I think women often have uneven expectations regarding sex, they'll pin it all on the bloke if it's not satisfactory but they'll also expect you to do all the work; it's not necessarily that they're selfish, just that they've come to expect that as the norm and they don't realise how much energy it actually takes to always be the one initiating and driving things.

Anyway, all that rambling aside, I've definitely learned not to take it for granted if I end up with a good horny bitch again in future.
>> No. 31687 Anonymous
27th April 2022
Wednesday 9:43 pm
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I can feel a wisdom tooth coming through. It's just that little extra bit of bollocks I can't be arsed with right now, because you know it won't be simple. It's not going to slide down and become an extra helping of gnashing power, no, no, no. It'll come out sideways, back to front and shaped like a pentagram. And I think, maybe, just maybe, after five years of dissapointments, cock ups and failure I could have one thing, not even go right, just not go wrong. But no, I'm going to get a gnarly sodding demon tooth wedged into the back of my head for my troubles.
>> No. 31688 Anonymous
5th May 2022
Thursday 10:26 pm
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I dont know if I might be gender fluid, or if I just enjoy wearing dresses and painting my nails.
>> No. 31689 Anonymous
6th May 2022
Friday 12:12 am
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>>31688

You're a transvestite mate, no shame in that.
>> No. 31690 Anonymous
6th May 2022
Friday 12:48 am
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When I was a kid I used to sit on my mum's lap while she did her nails. I don't know why this was "allowed" because if I was in the room while she was putting on her make-up she would chase me away and say that seeing what happens when women put their make-up on would "turn me gay". This was back in the day when even fairly liberal people would maybe have a token gay friend but be open about not wanting their own child to "turn out" gay. For some reason my old, disgustingly homophobic, Ma was happy for me to join in and assist in the nail-painting process which I absolutely LOVED and is still one of my happiest memories.

I can't help or offer any advice but I really needed to share this for some reason. Bless you all.
>> No. 31691 Anonymous
6th May 2022
Friday 12:56 am
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>>31688

Imagine a world where painting your nails and wearing dresses were normal neutral activities that didn't suggest femininity. Would that meaningfully impact your enjoyment of those things?
>> No. 31701 Anonymous
7th May 2022
Saturday 9:44 pm
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The utter totality with which I have failed to fit into society is staggering. Suicide would be an understatement.
>> No. 31702 Anonymous
9th May 2022
Monday 12:16 pm
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Have you ever noticed it's your perpensity to consider yourself that's making life depressing? Constantly looking to your reaction to stimulus, like you're forever in freefall, in orbit of yourself. I don't think I display narcicist behaviours but it's evident i think about myself an awful lot. Getting tired of it.
>> No. 31718 Anonymous
11th May 2022
Wednesday 2:02 am
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I'm torn between enjoying being single, and being sort of lonely.

On the one hand, I'm spending more time being productive, I've got back into music and done as much writing/recording so far this year as the last three combined. I'm probably in the best place mentally I've been in for a long while. I'm eating well because I don't have to think about or plan around somebody else's eating habits. I'm on top of all the "life" stuff because I don't have someone else's habits and needs and problems interfering with my own.

In a lot of ways, I feel like my relationships over the last ten years or so of my life have only ever held me back, and this is the first time I've remained singe long enough to see that clearly, in hindsight.

However, the best thing about a relationship, besides the stable frequency of sex and all the other lovey dovey couple stuff, is just having someone to reliably do things with. You lads are probably in the same boat as me, where your pool of ladm9s gets slimmer and less dependable by the year. These days I have to makes plans a month in advance if I want to see any of my ordinary friends- So I find myself doing the whole dating thing purely to fill that void. When eventually I get with a new lass, it'll most likely because I've become attached to her just by spending the most time with her compared to anyone else.

I mean I'm in no rush to get with someone, but I can't really be arsed trying to make new "ordinary friends" these days either, I feel like that ship has sailed. None of the lasses I hang out with ever end up as proper mates, either; you either end up shagging and have a bit of a fling before drifting apart, or they get a boyfriend and then you're immediately out of the picture. I'm happy to keep having acquaintances of the former variety, don't get me wrong, but you can't keep that up forever.

I dunno. I suppose I'm just mindful that if I'm not careful, I could easily just end up one of those middle aged hermits and then end up becoming an alchie or what have you. When I was younger I used to scratch the itch by posting on a load of forums and what have you, so I ended up having a pleasant little network of casual online mates, but I don't really know how you do that nowadays either, it's not the same when all you go on is a couple of chan boards and Rudgwick.

Well, whatever, time to go to bed I think.
>> No. 31719 Anonymous
11th May 2022
Wednesday 11:35 am
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It's been like 4 years since I last developed an infatuation with someone, but it's happening again and I know I shouldn't leave her my number with "hey, you know you mentioned growing shrooms - can you give me a text when your next batch is ready" but it's a valid reason for me to message anyone else, but obviously I have an ulterior motive.

She's only 8 years younger than me at 23 but she rolls very good joints and randomly mentioned last night she wanted to go out, but just so she could bring someone back. And she's got depression just like me and is likely much smarter than me. She's also ridiculously fit, like a solid 9 (for someone with standard tastes) and clearly knows it which has likely added to her air of misanthropy.

So obviously I shouldn't text her or try and see her again, but I really want to. My partner probably suspects I'm into her because she knows me well and knows this lass ticks all of my boxes.

Will update you in a couple of months when I'm single and have been rejected by both.
>> No. 31720 Anonymous
11th May 2022
Wednesday 11:39 am
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>>31719
Added to this I'm thinking that if I do engage with her, I can get to see that it's completely impractical and would be codependent as fuck and likely unhealthy. That's not complete self deception right...
>> No. 31724 Anonymous
11th May 2022
Wednesday 8:53 pm
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>>31720
>>31719

Sounds like a dreadful idea from top to bottom to be honest lad, and you'd be an utter fool to follow through with it.

Let us know if she's a good shag.
>> No. 31725 Anonymous
12th May 2022
Thursday 9:40 am
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>>31724
She's got hair like the top post in /r/Rapunzel, it's sickening. My ex girlfriend, who's recently become friends with my current girlfriend, is letting me vent to her and saying "if you were with me I'd tell you to knock yourself out" which frankly doesn't help, and my girlfriend has mentioned she thinks this lass was flirting with me and not to encourage her by using her as a connection for shrooms.

However she seemed to have no real problem with me staying at their warehouse on my todd, so I think I might do that in the next couple of weeks as I'm apparently welcome back. I'm pretty sure I'll be able to not succumb to any idiocy and instead establish that my dream girl in my early 20s should not be a dream in my early 30s.
>> No. 31730 Anonymous
17th May 2022
Tuesday 4:59 pm
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Online dating rant.

I assume this has always been a thing but modern technology enabled it, Peoples belief that there is always more options means they can't event lock into commiting to a date.

I've been talking to a girl for a few weeks as long distance and arranged to meet her tomorrow and saw today she is still updating her dating profile. Maybe I just smelt being stood up coming, but I called the date off because I consider that a pretty obvious signal she is more interested in the process of window shopping than making a purchase. I don't know if it was a mistake to call or off, and this is a I'm afraid of feeling used again thing so I'm being overly defensive, but I feel like I gain self respect and value from doing it.
>> No. 31731 Anonymous
17th May 2022
Tuesday 5:12 pm
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>>31730
Now you know why they do it.
>> No. 31732 Anonymous
17th May 2022
Tuesday 5:15 pm
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>>31725

You have two options- Shag her, or cut contact. It's that simple. If you keep hanging out with her your bird will THINK you're shagging her, and she'll never believe you in a million years if you say you're not, so if you're going to walk into that mess you might as well actually get your dick wet. Either way, it will probably end your relationship, so think carefully.

>My ex girlfriend, who's recently become friends with my current girlfriend

Are you absolutely fucking mad? And you trust her enough to have talked to her about this? Mate you're beyond help.

>>31730

>I feel like I gain self respect and value from doing it.

Absolutely right. I'd encourage you to turn more birds down, be a bit more selective. Don't just settle for anyone who's interested in you, you are worth more. It's applauded and encouraged for women to think this way about men, so don't feel any guilt doing the same thing back.

I've lately decided that a litmus test for me is going to be if a girl voluntarily sucks me off or not. If she doesn't, and I have to ask? It's not going to work out. It sounds very arbitrary and a little bit sexist, but I don't care- If a girl isn't sexually enthusiastic and generous (as I very much am in return), then I don't want any part of it, and it's her loss.

So long as you're not a total fuck up, there's someone out there for you, and it's only shooting yourself in the foot in the long run when you settle for someone who doesn't fully satisfy you.
>> No. 31733 Anonymous
17th May 2022
Tuesday 6:25 pm
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>>31732

>Absolutely right. I'd encourage you to turn more birds down, be a bit more selective.

Believe me I am picky. It is just annoying when things have gone on for a while there is sunk cost. And I just needed to have a bit of a teary and rant about that. I do genuinely worry though that's as a society we have become so hyper consumerist that we are starting to treat relationships the same way. Dating feels very much like a market place now.
>> No. 31734 Anonymous
17th May 2022
Tuesday 6:43 pm
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>>31733

I know what you mean, but on the other side of that, does it not perhaps just feel that way because we are exposed to so much more choice? I suspect that in absolute terms, you are no more or less likely to find a suitable partner in the end; it's just that you're being exposed to more of the options. In the olden days you'd never even know 90% of those lasses existed, so you wouldn't feel like they were a missed opportunity.

I think online dating requires a bit of a Taoist philosophy. Don't actively put effort into it, just let it be a thing you do. Enjoy the time spent chatting to people for the sake of it, even if it doesn't last. If you meet a girl and have a few good dates and a shag or two, but it doesn't lead to more, at least you still had a few good dates and a shag or two. Focus on enjoying them in the moment.

Be content with what you have; rejoice in the way things are. When you realize there is nothing lacking, the whole world belongs to you.
>> No. 31735 Anonymous
17th May 2022
Tuesday 11:55 pm
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>>31730
>I've been talking to a girl for a few weeks as long distance and arranged to meet her tomorrow and saw today she is still updating her dating profile. Maybe I just smelt being stood up coming, but I called the date off because I consider that a pretty obvious signal she is more interested in the process of window shopping than making a purchase.

Mate you sound a bit bananas. You hadn't even met her yet, what kind of commitment do you think you're owed in this?

I even say that as a lad that has been disappointed by lasses because they can be shitty. You have to at least be open to a second date and try to stay open to the idea that your date might just be sprucing up her profile because she's been looking at it while messaging you, otherwise you're just letting it all get to you and shutting people out.
>> No. 31736 Anonymous
18th May 2022
Wednesday 9:45 am
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>>31735

It was the day before we had agreed to meet after weeks of talking, and there had been a lot of me moving stuff around to try accommodate video phone calls that never came because she was too busy, or fell asleep. Things were already on the edge of what I would consider her giving enough effort to try make it work anyway. The fact that she was both too busy and it turned out looking for other options, confirmed a belief that I have always had "people are never too busy you are just low priority".

The 'commitment I am owed' is for her to at least try. You are welcome to build your relationships around people who don't give a shit. But on a most basic of standards I expect that.
>> No. 31737 Anonymous
18th May 2022
Wednesday 9:50 am
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>>31732
Well I told the lass, she's fine with it, thinks it's cute. She told me she used to have a crush on her friend at the warehouse (the one who actually sorted us the place), so I think we're fine. We're back in the warehouse for another night and invited them all to a housewarming when we've moved in, and now the lass/the crush have bonded a bit over their masters degrees.

>Are you absolutely fucking mad? And you trust her enough to have talked to her about this? Mate you're beyond help.
That's about it. I know what I can trust her with, she's not a grass. You're right that I might be beyond help though, it's becoming quite clear I just want to build some sort of platonic harem of exceptional women, possibly because their approval fuels me. I'll reflect further on this, it's probably not healthy, and if I pursue it I might become a cult leader.

Seriously though, aren't we mostly pushing 30 now, at least? It seems human to have a crush, and if you're an adult in a trusting, stable relationship it seems like something that's good to share with your partner provided you're relatively sure they'll take it as sharing experience rather than stating intention.
>> No. 31738 Anonymous
18th May 2022
Wednesday 10:32 am
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>>31737

>It seems human to have a crush, and if you're an adult in a trusting, stable relationship it seems like something that's good to share with your partner provided you're relatively sure they'll take it as sharing experience rather than stating intention.

I'm sure your intention is good but I feel like that is a bit of a naive view. Maybe some lasses are alright knowing that, but I think a lot more would be on some level insecure about it, even if they don't feel like saying so. It's a bit like if your missus told you your knob is a bit on the small side; no matter how secure and happy your relationship is, you'd probably still wish she didn't say it, deep down.

We have this fetishisation of personal self-esteem and stoic, mindful self-honesty these days that I don't think is always entirely healthy, it goes too much the other way. The cult of self-love demands we banish all of our insecurities, but people do have insecurities, and that's normal. I think telling little white lies, or lies of omission, is also normal and healthy as an act of compassion to your partner around those things.

If I were to be completely honest I would say the internet has made us all a bit too autistic for empathy, so instead we need it to be this black and white situation where having everything in the open is "good", even if it's not.

Sage for my own little rant which is only tangentially related to your thing. Soz.
>> No. 31739 Anonymous
18th May 2022
Wednesday 10:50 am
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>>31736

>"people are never too busy you are just low priority".

Like it or not this is basically the truth. But at the same time, you have to keep in mind that people do have lives, you can't always be their top priority and it's a losing game if you expect to be.

Etiquette comes into it a bit too, because you're bound to have those days yourself where you just can't be arsed picking up the phone, so you excuse it when they do it in exchange for them turning a blind eye when they do it to you. Everyone knows what's going on, when you see the message but swipe the notification off so they don't get the blue tick, it's just an unspoken little acknowledgement of modern society. It's quite a taboo to call people out on it.

As a singlelad currently I have a couple of lasses I've comfortably settled into the friendzone with (i.e we've had sex before and might have sex again but we're not chasing each other down for a relationship), and this is the main difference I've noticed- Instead of texting every night to keep their attention, I'm fine if I don't hear from them all week, I know at some point I will.

With all that said it's definitely a good indicator in the early days when you've just matched with someone. If you can't build up a rapport quickly it tends not to go anywhere, and you can tell when they can't really be arsed.
>> No. 31740 Anonymous
18th May 2022
Wednesday 3:03 pm
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>>31738
I get what you're saying, but there's a big gap between discussing a crush and smiling at your lass from a closet while she gets railed bareback by Pablo the barback. We've chatted about other people before albeit only from a physical perspective, kissed other people in front of each other, and discussed what we would feel comfortable with quite honestly.

I agree that there is a bit of cultishness around the progressivism in personal relationships, and I have no doubt the next generation will judge their predecessors for not being polyamorous by default, but that's simply not how most people are wired, and expecting them to be will just cause trouble.

It's definitely something I considered a while and tried to phrase delicately, and sharing it made it feel less significant in a way. Now she's almost just a random fit lass.
>> No. 31741 Anonymous
20th May 2022
Friday 5:27 pm
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317413174131741
How realistic is it to blame your life circumstances on lacking one thing or another? It sounds self indulgent, right? If only I had thing, i could be happy, successful, or just plain 'better than this'. Happiness comes from within, but what about this Maslow's hierarchy of needs? Does avoiding sexual intimacy impact a persons ability to grow? Does that justify a life of minimal effort and care?

For years I've thought everything would be alright if I could just openly enjoy sex but I don't know if that's true anymore. I dare say the objects of my attraction would remain objects even if I could engage with them. It wouldn't change my heart - on the contrary it might corrupt it futher.
>> No. 31742 Anonymous
20th May 2022
Friday 6:29 pm
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>>31741

I think problems can broadly be put into two categories. Things that you have the power to change, and things you don't. The difficulty lies in separating the two and understanding your relationship with them.

There are lots of things about your life that can and will affect your outcomes, things that are, in essence, "not your fault". Your social class, your race and gender, how encouraging your parents were, if you had good teachers in school or ones that didn't care, etc... I think it's just as healthy and important to recognise those things and take the burden of blame off yourself, as it is to regognise the things that are "your fault" and to pro-actively find solutions.

I notice a lot of people have an unhealthy attitude to life and their mental wellbeing as a result of veering too hard into one side or the other of that coin- My ex girlfriend for instance, was the classic Tumblr woke girl, so for her, everything in life was somebody else's fault. She had an excuse for everything, and retreated entirely into that mindset that she was always a victim, and there was nothing she could do about it, therefore she never did anything about it. It was as if she thought the very concept of self-improvement was inherently right wing propaganda.

By the same token if you go too far the other way, you're only going to end up disillusioned when your hard work doesn't pay off in some area of life, because some things are out of your control. Your boss will still snub you on that promotion for the arse-licker sycophant, you will stil get passed over on dating apps no matter how much you work out, people will still think you're less intelligent if you have a thick Northern accent, etc etc. A post a bit earlier on mentioned the cult of acceptance, the view that you can twist your brain like a contortionist into accepting whatever shitty circumstances affect your life and be at peace with them, but to me that's where the horseshoe meets in the middle for these two extremes.

I don't put a lot of stock in Mazlows heirarchy, because it's the heierarchy of Mazlow's needs, not your needs, or my needs.Beyond the very basics, I believe everyone's needs are different, and I don't think it's a heirarchy either. It's a balance of factors which you need to be in harmony. We're more like sims with little bars that all need to be at a comfortable level, and we get depressed when one or more of them runs low. Mazlow's heirarchy makes more sense when you're looking at society on a zoomed out macro level, not an individual person.

For instance sex is very important to me, and having a good sex life is a cornerstone of my self-esteem. Some clever cloggs fisherperson academic out there might tell me this is "toxic masculinity" and I should "work on myself" until I'm fine with being a sexless loser or a cuckold or whatever, but fuck that. Having good sex frequently makes me happy, and that's about as simple as I need it to be; it seems absurd to me to suggest that I should brainwash myself into not needing sex when it would be far simpler and more fulfilling to simply seek out a partner who will give me good, reliable sex. It's not up to anybody else to tell me if that's right or wrong, that's just how my individual psychology works.

Think about what your goals are, think about what you can do to get there, and make a plan. Be realistic about what obstacles you will face, and don't blame yourself if those obstacles cause you problems along the way.

TL;DR Get a hobby.
>> No. 31743 Anonymous
23rd May 2022
Monday 3:13 am
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There's this chubby gal who desperately wants me to bang her but I'm not totally feeling it. She's okay looking and has a fun personality, but I have literally never fapped to a chubby chick in over 16 years of being a wanker.

Is there a way around this conundrum? Should I start fapping to porn with fat chicks to condition myself to this untapped vein of desperate and horny portly birds?
>> No. 31744 Anonymous
23rd May 2022
Monday 5:43 am
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>>31743

Fill your boots m8.

>>/x/42587
>> No. 31745 Anonymous
23rd May 2022
Monday 9:59 pm
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>>31741

>Does avoiding sexual intimacy impact a persons ability to grow?

I think you don't fully grow as a whole person if you don't also grow in terms of your sexuality.

That said, I don't think you need constant affirmation in the bedroom to be a whole person. Even dry spells of a year or two, speaking from experience, can actually build character and don't have to be detrimental to your health, sexual or otherwise.

Spending two years just wanking off can be a very frustrating experience, especially when you get close a few times but something then prevents it from happening, but in the end, you realise that there are other things in life. And that sex, for all its merits, isn't always the most important one of them.
>> No. 31746 Anonymous
5th June 2022
Sunday 9:33 pm
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This is probably all neurotic bullshit but I have no real outlet so apologies in advance.

I fucked up uni, I was there for nearly a decade, always an undergrad due to switching courses, failing years and retaking them, my mental health rapidly deteriorating over the years.

I got a decent, but boring, job. I got sacked for excess sickness due to my mental health.

I got a new job, in a field I am passionate about, but the organisation is so poorly run I'm ill equipped to do a lot of the work, meaning I get maybe 4 hours a week. My mental health gets bad again.

I am now in a stage where I'm applying for shitty retail assistant jobs just to survive. I didn't think that I'd be approaching thirty and wanting to work at Poundland for fuck's sake (not that there's anything innately wrong with that, we need Poundland workers, it's just not the life I saw for myself when I finished sixth form and got into a good uni). I know I'm being a classist snob, but with life like this what's the point even waking up in the morning?
>> No. 31747 Anonymous
5th June 2022
Sunday 11:07 pm
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>>31746
It only takes a couple of years to succeed. This is why that one guy you went to school with was able to buy a house at 23, despite being a hopeless knob. Once things start going right, you will rapidly catch up with everyone else. I was a NEET for approximately a third of my entire 20s, perhaps more, and that's not including the joblessness where I really half-assed an IT training course that should have taken maybe three months and took me over a year. But now I've had a job for over five years and it pays me a heroic £31,000 a year, which still might be less than a lot of people but I'd have bitten your arm off for this job eight years ago. It takes time to get lucky, but once you do get lucky, things tend to fall into place very quickly.

I'm still angry that Burger King never even called me back in 2010. I thought that was me really giving up, when I sadly trudged into Burger King and filled out the application form, but things got even worse when they didn't actually hire or even interview me. Fuck them. So I'd like to warn you that this can happen too, and you shouldn't let it get to you if it does, but it sounds like you've probably been through that at some point already.
>> No. 31748 Anonymous
5th June 2022
Sunday 11:32 pm
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>>31746

I'll always advocate finding a comfortable, non-stressful job over a "respectable" or well paying job. Being happy is far more important than being wealthy in the long run, as long as you have enough to get by. That said you're unlikely to find the comfortable easy life working in retail. Like you say there's nothing wrong with it, and work is work- there's no such thing as being above a job. But it's generally not something you'll want to do long term because it's just too demanding and physically tiring for the pay. Service workers in general deserve far more for the bullshit they put up with, but that's just not how the economy works is it.

It's a bit trial and error with jobs, really, though. You just have to keep at it, and don't be scared to just sack a job off if you don't like it. I went through loads of jobs in my mid 20s before I settled on one that I like. Everything from kitchens to tech support. I'm surrounded by people who went in a straight line through school, uni, and directly into this job, who don't realise how different things can be elsewhere, but I think it's very valuable to have experienced the realities of different working environments first hand. The pay is shit for what I actually do, but the important thing to me is that I don't wake up dreading my morning commute every day and I don't think about throwing myself off the roof on my lunch break.
>> No. 31749 Anonymous
6th June 2022
Monday 12:01 am
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>>31748

The happiest man I know spent his entire working life as a painter and decorator for the council. The pay wasn't great, it wasn't prestigious, but he loved the satisfaction of a job well done and the simplicity of just going to places and painting things.

>>31746

The good news is that the labour market is running really hot at the moment and a lot of employers are desperate to fill vacancies. For anyone not completely happy with their current job, now is absolutely the time to fire off some applications for things you like the look of, because there's a decent chance you'll get hired even if you fall well short of the advertised requirements.
>> No. 31750 Anonymous
18th June 2022
Saturday 6:44 pm
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A woman I was sleeping with for a year or so, before she moved back to Spain, has come to visit. She seems to have structured her time here in such a way as to make sure she spends as little of it with me as possible, I messaged her to see if she wanted to meet up and got 'I'm bowling with [mutual acquaintance]', she explicitly didn't suggest I joined them, and she didn't suggest another time she'd be free.

We talk sometimes, as far as I know she doesn't have a boyfriend or anything, and she's not cold and distant like this when we talk online. I have a lingering affection for her, I don't care if she's involved with someone else and doesn't want to fuck, all she'd have to do is tell me to set expectations, but the fact she's decided to just give me the cold shoulder kind of hurts.

I don't know what to do really, I feel like I can't talk to her about this without seeming like lord of the simps, but I do want to bring it up because I don't want to remain in contact with someone who's going to spend a long weekend avoiding a friend and former lover without giving any sort of explanation.
>> No. 31751 Anonymous
18th June 2022
Saturday 8:01 pm
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>>31748

>I'm surrounded by people who went in a straight line through school, uni, and directly into this job, who don't realise how different things can be elsewhere, but I think it's very valuable to have experienced the realities of different working environments first hand.

Very true. In my working life, which has spanned some 25 years to this day, I've started various different careers and had many different jobs in equally diverse fields. In some ways it would have made my life less complicated at times if I'd gone a straighter line from A to B after uni, but when I look at some of my friends, some of whom have done one thing and one thing only in their careers, I have to say that looking back, that would have bored me to tears.

One of my best friends got a government job right after his law degree, and although that's respectable and by now really pays well, he has never known anything outside that microcosm. And it shows, in a way that he's just not "with it" at times on many things concerning the outside world.
>> No. 31753 Anonymous
19th June 2022
Sunday 3:32 pm
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>>31750

Take this with a pinch of salt, as I'm in a blunt mood: my cynical take is that she wanted a free AirBnB. Whether she actually has any affection for you is irrelevant, she knows she's colouring outside the lines and being somewhat exploitative here, but she will be as mind-numbingly passive and evasive about it as possible in order not to draw attention to that.

To put in another way, if she hit you up with "I want to come and stay with you, but no sex, right?", while being the more honest thing to do, would have opened the door to you saying "no". And heaven forbid that happen.

If you want to be direct (and admittedly make risk making yourself vulnerable and/or looking a bit foolish), you could shoot her a message saying, "we've not spent much time together. This is okay, just wanted to make sure you know I had no expectations about you coming here and hope you're feeling comfortable staying with me".

If you want to play it her way, which is what I'd recommend, then lower your expectations and don't adapt your usual routines to accommodate her. You've already asked if she wanted to hang out and she wasn't keen, so just continue going about your life. You're free to go and do your own thing or meet up with friends without her if you want to -- she's made it clear you have no obligation to play host.

I realise I'm coming in here a bit late with this post as the weekend is almost over, but I hope you didn't just get taken for a ride, otherlad.
>> No. 31758 Anonymous
28th June 2022
Tuesday 6:26 pm
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How fucked are you if you get slapped with a CCJ mid mortgage application?

I don't even know what the fuck it's for, I only know about it because of an Experian alert telling me my credit score has suddenly tanked. By the looks of it, whoever it is has my old address, so I've been absolutely none the wiser. I spent about half an hour waiting on hold on the phone to the court that issued it, then got cut off as soon as a human answered. So that was nice.

I've been Googling about it and apparently there's things you can do, but that will still take ages and I can probably kiss the idea of a mortgage goodbye until it's sorted. So the sale will fall through and I'll be back to square one, only having wasted a lot of time, emotional energy and money, for less than fuck all.

Probably a daft thing to kill yourself over but I am actually considering it, I just feel like I'm not allowed a single fucking thing. Any time I work hard and try my best to play by the rules and save up and be responsible and all that, it always blows up in my face, with timing and irony that would be hilarious if I weren't living through it. I am sick and fucking tired of it.

What the fuck lads.
>> No. 31759 Anonymous
28th June 2022
Tuesday 6:49 pm
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>>31758
Can you go to the court and ask them in person? I am a big fan of interacting with people whose job it is to help me, and I've only ever wanted to violently dismember two of them with my bare hands. Also, check the paperwork you have signed so far; it's the bank's job to find these things out about you and if you get a CCJ after you've been approved, the bank obviously didn't care enough beforehand to stop you. People who are two or three years into paying off a mortgage probably get CCJs all the time, and the bank doesn't revoke their mortgages.
>> No. 31760 Anonymous
28th June 2022
Tuesday 7:14 pm
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>>31759

Nah, haven't been approved yet, the valuation survey is on Thursday, so while presumably they will have checked my credit file before they booked that, I'm assuming they'll still flat out reject it when they run a proper check.
>> No. 31761 Anonymous
29th June 2022
Wednesday 5:17 am
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Never pursued social recognition, never pursued relationships (platonic or romantic) with any real gusto, stopped falling for materialistic trappings long ago. Main goal was to avoid work but I realised it would take less effort to treat easy work as a kind of waking meditation than to work to avoid work. I'm content but it feels like everything around me is trying to force an artificial discontentedness upon me.

I was going to say that this is a weird kind of headspace to exist in, but the very act of recognising this particular thought stream has rendered any judgmental power it might've had inert.
>> No. 31762 Anonymous
1st July 2022
Friday 11:56 am
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>>31758

Addendum to this: It's from a parking ticket by the modern day highwaymen of ParkingEye.

It's bullshit for multiple reasons, not least of which the fact I appealed it at the time, because I was parked completely legally, and never heard back from them. But they have the legal power to just directly fuck you up the arse, for absolutely no reason, without you being able to do a thing about it. Frankly it's criminal. But I bet they've got a mate or two in the Tory party to see to it they're allowed to just extort people like this. I digress.

None of that makes a difference to the here and now. Apparently there's a process to go through to appeal and overturn judgements that have made without your knowledge, like this one, but the process itself could take weeks and if it fails (I don't fancy the chances knowing my piss poor luck) you're stuck with an unsatisfied CCJ which is even worse. So it looks like my best bet is sucking it up and paying it even though it's horseshit.

I can't fucking take it lads. I think this is going to end in murder suicide. Just find me a fucking board member of that company. I've had it with living in Terry Gilliam's fucking Brazil.
>> No. 31763 Anonymous
1st July 2022
Friday 1:14 pm
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>>31762
Sometimes I wonder if I might be depressed, based entirely on just how much motivation I have to learn computer hacking to bring down multiple massive corporations , and yet I never actually even try to learn or do it.
>> No. 31767 Anonymous
8th July 2022
Friday 12:15 pm
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Landlord's potentially selling the house I live in, and my income is so low I can't afford the deposit and first month's rent required for moving house. Fuck.
>> No. 31768 Anonymous
8th July 2022
Friday 12:18 pm
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>>31767

Feel for you mate. Have you no mates with a sofa they can lend you? Failing that, is the Hotel of Mum and Dad still open for business?

I don't think things are going to get any easier for any of us regarding housing any time soon regrettably.
>> No. 31769 Anonymous
8th July 2022
Friday 12:33 pm
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>>31768
I think my partner and I are going to be contacting parents/grandparents asking to borrow some money. It's very frustrating, as the letting agent has told us the landlord is using this house as a "bargaining chip". They're selling off their other land and flats, which are behind my house, and want to use my house to sweeten the deal for whoever buys the lot. Probably so they can demolish it and build an access road to whatever they build on the land.
>> No. 31770 Anonymous
15th July 2022
Friday 11:39 am
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>>31762

Another update on this. Sent them payment two full weeks ago, and notified them of my current address in the same letter. I know they received it because I sent it by recorded delivery. Anyway, another letter has just turned up at my old address, dated yesterday, to inform me I need to pay. I've sent them 3 emails over that time frame too, haven't had a response to a single one.

This feels like the small scale legal equivalent of the bit in Robocop where ED-209 glitches out and murders the fuck out of that guy even though he did as he was told; only our legal system is so morally bankrupt it's just allowed to happen that way all the time.

Actually that's kind of what I suspect is going on here. I bet there's not a single human working for this company. It's all automated. That's why appealing their fines gets you nowhere, you just get the automated e-mail response saying "we'll get back to you as soon as we can" and then hear nothing after that because there is nobody. There's no way to speak to a real human on the phone because there is nobody.

I'm pretty confident the only way you can interact with this company whatsoever is by suing them, and I don't have the money for that.

Fuck my life.
>> No. 31771 Anonymous
19th July 2022
Tuesday 11:36 am
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I've realised I'm only attracted to black women. My girlfriend of 7 years is white. My girlfriend before that was black and she was very attractive. I haven't had sex with my current girlfriend (or with anyone) for 6 years as she is white and not black and therefore I am not attracted to her. Thanks for reading.
>> No. 31772 Anonymous
19th July 2022
Tuesday 12:03 pm
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>>31771
Ever considered buying her some fake tan?
>> No. 31773 Anonymous
19th July 2022
Tuesday 12:33 pm
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>>31771
Back in the 1970s, there would have been a way round this, but it's not allowed any more. Bloody woke health and safety lefties.
>> No. 31774 Anonymous
19th July 2022
Tuesday 4:30 pm
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>>31460 here. I stopped playing along so she left me just before my birthday, also saying she'll move out. However, she's lost her job, tried benefits (tier 5 visa so not allowed), and still buys makeup and various crap.

Helpline was useful. I am rather happy now, though we're both on the tenancy so it looks like (as with her sort) she'll drag it out as long as possible (5 months or so). I'd pay for her to leave but, not being able to hold down a job, she'll just fuck up a month later.
>> No. 31775 Anonymous
19th July 2022
Tuesday 6:06 pm
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>>31774

No offence, mate, but she sounds like an absolute rotter.

Hope there are bluer skies ahead for you.
>> No. 31776 Anonymous
19th July 2022
Tuesday 7:50 pm
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>>31771

Dump your girlfriend, sell your stuff, move to Nairobi.
>> No. 31777 Anonymous
20th July 2022
Wednesday 2:52 pm
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Setback after setback. One step forward, three steps back. I really can't be arsed with all of this any more.
>> No. 31778 Anonymous
20th July 2022
Wednesday 4:04 pm
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>>31777

Try going in a different direction?
>> No. 31779 Anonymous
20th July 2022
Wednesday 6:34 pm
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Why even live when I will never be able to fuck Lizzo. Not being funny, I genuinely don't see the point. My less sexy gf hasn't got the it factor that Lizzo does.
>> No. 31780 Anonymous
20th July 2022
Wednesday 6:37 pm
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>>31779
Everytime I see her name the first thing I think of is Newsround.
>> No. 31781 Anonymous
20th July 2022
Wednesday 6:43 pm
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>>31779
Who the hell is Lizzo? I googled it, and it appears to be an American singer? Is that the Lizzo you are on about?
>> No. 31782 Anonymous
20th July 2022
Wednesday 6:49 pm
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>>31781
She's one of those insufferable 'body positivity' people that want to promote obesity. She's very full of herself.
>> No. 31783 Anonymous
20th July 2022
Wednesday 7:57 pm
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>>31782

She'd be boring if she was thin though. Broaden your horizons.

Also "full of herself" is just sexist for 'confident'
>> No. 31784 Anonymous
20th July 2022
Wednesday 8:17 pm
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>>31783
I suppose 'confident' is one word for it.
>> No. 31785 Anonymous
20th July 2022
Wednesday 8:17 pm
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>>31779

Go to America m8, you'll be fighting off sassy thicc black women with a stick. They've always thought that anyone with an English accent is basically a prince and the Harry & Meghan thing has hardly dispelled that belief.
>> No. 31786 Anonymous
20th July 2022
Wednesday 8:23 pm
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>>31784

She's got it and she flaunts it. If you're arguing that she isn't sexy, you're in the wrong place.
>> No. 31787 Anonymous
20th July 2022
Wednesday 8:24 pm
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>>31786
Oh, yeah. I kind of forgot from the chubby chaser thread some of you lads get the horn for any fat lass whatsoever rather than just the ones that are actually attractive.
>> No. 31788 Anonymous
22nd July 2022
Friday 7:17 pm
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>>31786
Because it makes me feel physically sick, presumably like guro makes people feel sick. Your superpower is turning that disgust into arousal, much like I've done with incest.
>> No. 31789 Anonymous
22nd July 2022
Friday 8:09 pm
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>>31788

We've evolved to find fat women and their plentiful caloric reserves sexy. A thin woman is just an unsuccessful hunter-gatherer. Fancying thin women is like fancying women with bound feet, it's an aberration from our evolutionary programming that only makes sense within a specific social context. You're the one with the weird fetish m8.
>> No. 31790 Anonymous
22nd July 2022
Friday 8:10 pm
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Can't we all just agree that the only truly disgusting degenerate here is the political foot fetishist?
>> No. 31791 Anonymous
22nd July 2022
Friday 9:11 pm
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>>31790
Aye.
>> No. 31793 Anonymous
31st July 2022
Sunday 4:14 pm
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I hope I never have to buy or sell property again in my life, it's months of complete agony and stress. Or at least, it is for someone like me, who feels like they're somehow cheating the system, and any day now somebody's going to stop me and tell me there's been some kind of mistake and that I shouldn't have even been allowed to get this far into the process.

I've sat inside like a depressed hermit all weekend because I needed to speak to my solicitor and the brokers last week, but they were both out of office, so not knowing the answer I was after has been nagging at me for the past three days. The entire process is like this.

I know worrying is never helpful in any situation so I try my best not to, but it's hard to keep your mind off it with stuff like this.
>> No. 31794 Anonymous
31st July 2022
Sunday 4:59 pm
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Going to purge myself. No alcohol no sugar no caffeine for a few weeks. Expunge the poisons from my body.
>> No. 31795 Anonymous
31st July 2022
Sunday 6:06 pm
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>>31794
Let us know how you get on, lad.
>> No. 31796 Anonymous
1st August 2022
Monday 10:54 am
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You know what? I think there are just times in life when nobody feels like speaking to you, and that's okay. I had a moderate downer on Friday night into Saturday morning; nothing bad happened and nobody did anything wrong but I just feel like I contribute nothing, can't offer anything, and therefore nobody will ever help me with my own problems. The feeling passed after a while, but now I'm at work, with all different people, and we're all just sitting in silence. Nothing really needs doing right now so we're just waiting. I've tried to start a conversation with everyone, but it failed and we're all just silent again. I should probably see if I can spin this into a sense that society on the whole just isn't feeling very loving right now, and this is why the people I want to care about me seemingly don't. I'll be raging if this bored silence makes me spiral back into my funk instead.
>> No. 31797 Anonymous
4th August 2022
Thursday 10:40 pm
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Is it possible to just have very generic features or just look like a very generic person to everybody?

People always tell me I look like actors that don't really look massively alike bar key features (hair/eye/skin colour) or tell me I remind them of somebody. A few times people have asked for photos with me in public when I don't know them, although this is quite rare, it has happened a few times. Just recently I was on holiday at a quite posh place and another guest, a young lady I hadn't seen before, said I looked like a work colleague and she'd seen me at the pool and asked to take a photo of me whilst I was eating with my girlfriend. She literally whacked her camera in my face, snapped a photo and walked off. Didn't really get the chance to say no. Not sure what her friend will make of a picture of me either.

I'm not particularly arsed or anything, but everybody around me when these things happen always seem bemused which suggests it isn't normal and I'm bewildered more than anything if I'm just the most generic person in existence.
>> No. 31798 Anonymous
4th August 2022
Thursday 11:35 pm
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>>31797
Tell us some celebrities you have been mistaken for. If they all look alike, perhaps there's something to it, but if they're all totally different then maybe you are just completely generic.
>> No. 31799 Anonymous
5th August 2022
Friday 9:20 am
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>>31797
Shouldn't looking generic be a very common thing? There has to be a bell curve.
>> No. 31800 Anonymous
11th August 2022
Thursday 7:55 pm
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I don't feel any nostalgia anymore.

The way certain memories or thoughts give you a warm and safe feeling, and/or a sense of painful longing, I don't have that anymore. I remember it used to occur for me a lot, and I would take comfort and hide in that feeling, but now it doesn't happen.

Now that I think of it, I'm just not sentimental about much anymore. I'm in a relationship, and I enjoy sex and physical affection, but there is no romantic love. There's no feeling of "specialness". In fact, if we were to break up tomorrow, I'd mostly feel the inconvenience, a sense of lost time, and maybe deep down even some relief.

I don't want to be around friends or family. I don't think I even love my family, anymore. I've heard somewhere that if you can't love your mother, you can't love anyone. It's nonsense, but I get the gist of what it's saying: that you're likely to find it hard to bond with people if a very fundamental bond has been broken.

"Bond" is a good word. I'm not really bonded to anything. At some point I think my life became about survival. I was watching people I was connected to crumble or implode or emotionally atrophy to nothing, and while I tried to be helpful, I didn't want to let myself get dragged down. I never really got out of that mindset. Nobody asked me how I was doing or seemed to have much of an idea what I was doing. I ended up leaving.

I was a really sensitive child. I had no idea how much I'd harden up, and it's worked. I've found a kind of Pyrrhic victory. I've found success, at the cost of all ability to enjoy it or associate it to my earlier life.
>> No. 31801 Anonymous
12th August 2022
Friday 9:57 am
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>>31800

>"Bond" is a good word. I'm not really bonded to anything. At some point I think my life became about survival. I was watching people I was connected to crumble or implode or emotionally atrophy to nothing, and while I tried to be helpful, I didn't want to let myself get dragged down. I never really got out of that mindset. Nobody asked me how I was doing or seemed to have much of an idea what I was doing. I ended up leaving.

I don't bond well either. I try to be a caring person who is there for others and at least a slight bit overall likeable, but I don't like it when people get too close to me. I need to be able to have an escape plan when things get uncomfortable.

This has been an issue in the past, where exes told me I was "too distant" and not willing to fully commit to a relationship, and that I was giving up too easily when there were problems. And I guess part of it was true, but the other part of me just felt that when things got too messed up and there was no way to fix it, it was just better to move on.

Granted, one ex in particular really would have needed more something like a therapist than a boyfriend, but that wasn't me being cold to her, it was just that somebody with a whole lot of emotional baggage was together with a lad like me with said bonding issues. You then cannot suddenly pretend you're this deep person who is willing to work with a romantic partner on her issues which went beyond what somebody without a therapist's training realistically could have sorted out.
>> No. 31802 Anonymous
13th August 2022
Saturday 11:25 pm
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>>31800

Are you on antidepressants, by any chance? Emotional blunting is a really common side-effect.
>> No. 31803 Anonymous
14th August 2022
Sunday 10:05 am
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>>31802

No, I've never taken antidepressants.

>>31801

I saw a lot more in that film the second viewing.

Maybe it's a reaction to the apathy shown. I used to become very involved with people.
>> No. 31804 Anonymous
28th August 2022
Sunday 4:49 pm
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>>31460 here. Have a bit of time so thought I'd update.

I made a call, it was helpful as I realised the huge swamp of shit I'd gotten myself into. I must have given a few more chances but eventually stopped. It was an interesting period, watching someone pull all manner of tricks to try and get back to normal. Then it was over.

I haven't seen her in a month and she officially moves out tomorrow. Landlord is happy to end the contract early, and I have a new place lined up. I spent a lot on nice clothes and food, have been making much effort with people around me. Simple things like talking to a colleague are much more fun, work and social life have even picked up, magically. Down to 16% body fat too.

It's been surreal: immensely rough but also a strong blinding light of freedom. There's a new energy flowing through my spine and shoulders. I can't tell if this is rock bottom or the peak of a mountain, I don't really care.

Anyway, thanks lads.
>> No. 31805 Anonymous
28th August 2022
Sunday 6:41 pm
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>>31804

Good on you mate, glad to hear that things are looking up.
>> No. 31806 Anonymous
30th August 2022
Tuesday 1:58 pm
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Ah, you know what lads, I'm actually getting quite worried about the way the economy's going. I'm trying not to watch the news or anything because it's just too depressing, but it's all anyone's on about these days, and the forecast just keeps getting darker and darker.

I was never loaded to begin with, I know some of you on here are flash cunts who can afford hobbies as dull as collecting expensive watches, or are even rich enough to actually have a garden with a shed in it, but I never have been, my entire life has been a fight to keep my head above water, but the water level just keeps fucking rising. As soon as I secure a bit more money, everything gets more expensive.

I was doing alright through the pandemic, but I was living with my ex and working nights all the time, so my bills were halved and I was getting a lot of extra pay. That's not going to be the case this winter, I'll be living on my own and I'll be on more or less my basic pay rate (aside from a weekend shift here or there), and it's really going to suck.
>> No. 31807 Anonymous
30th August 2022
Tuesday 3:19 pm
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>>31806
I felt that way a few weeks ago. For me, the feeling passed and I stopped caring, so hopefully that will happen for you too. It's not all bad news; perhaps you will get a massive raise at work to cover the financial hardships.
>> No. 31808 Anonymous
30th August 2022
Tuesday 4:44 pm
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>>31806

The economy is fucked, a lot of people are going to have a shit time over the next couple of years, but I think it's helpful to remember that we've been through this sort of thing before. The press like to bandy about the word "unprecedented", but it really isn't. The good old days that boomers bang on about were marred with strikes, mass unemployment, rampant inflation and race riots. Fifty years ago, only the rich had central heating or double glazing; a lot of people still had an outdoor toilet and a tin bath.

I don't mean to downplay the worries anyone might have or the hardships they might face, but I don't want anyone to feel like we're facing an apocalyptic scenario. It's fucking shit, but it's temporary. Every generation has had to endure something like this, it's just a shame we've gone straight from COVID to a cost-of-living crisis.
>> No. 31809 Anonymous
2nd September 2022
Friday 12:22 am
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>>31808
>I don't want anyone to feel like we're facing an apocalyptic scenario
Seeing this post on /*/ right above the climate change thread doesn't feel reassuring
>> No. 31810 Anonymous
13th September 2022
Tuesday 12:59 pm
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I found this job on Indeed. It's really worthy, decent money and sounds like something I'd really enjoy, but the requirements basically read as "if you hadn't cocked up the last half-a-decade of your life, this could be you!". I'm not loving it.
>> No. 31811 Anonymous
17th September 2022
Saturday 7:38 pm
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I had a really good few weeks recently, positivity and optimism as I was due to start a new job last week. Then the Queen died, training was postponed until after the funeral (I only found this out after waiting in the training venue for 30 minutes without the organiser ever showing up), and I've been unable to get hold of my new manager due to them being on leave, so I'm missing potential work. This knockback has made me go a bit mental, really want to just jump in the river and end it all. And then I feel worse because one little inconvenience has triggered a massive meltdown in me and I feel defective.
>> No. 31814 Anonymous
18th October 2022
Tuesday 1:16 pm
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I hate every fucking minute of my life and I wish I could kill myself.
>> No. 31815 Anonymous
18th October 2022
Tuesday 2:42 pm
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>>31814

Why?
>> No. 31816 Anonymous
18th October 2022
Tuesday 10:10 pm
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Might off myself if we have multi-day blackouts this winter
>> No. 31817 Anonymous
18th October 2022
Tuesday 11:24 pm
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>>31816
We won't. The worst-case scenario is rolling blackouts of maybe three hours each. It's all going to be fine, unless you actually plan to use any of the heating or electricity you won't be able to afford.
>> No. 31818 Anonymous
19th October 2022
Wednesday 9:13 am
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>>31815
I'm an abject failure by every metric. A complete loser, with almost no idea or ability to turn it around. I would better serve the world as fertiliser, and be happier for it.
>> No. 31819 Anonymous
20th October 2022
Thursday 4:27 pm
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I started a new job a couple of weeks ago. The training course is spread over a few months, and the induction to the organisation was a 2 week affair. I'm struggling, as not only do I lack confidence, but there isn't anyone to show me the ropes. If I were in any other role on the ward, there'd be people in the same role who'd been there longer who can show me how it's done. With my role, I'm the only one on the ward, and there hasn't been one of my role on that ward for a very long time. So I'm in a situation where I'm doing a job I don't know how to do whilst not having the training necessary to do the job successfully. It's got me really worked up, literal vomiting with anxiety, I've been off all week with stress. My manager has been really nice about it, but I feel like such a failure.
>> No. 31820 Anonymous
21st October 2022
Friday 9:14 pm
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>>31818

Bad as you may be, a complete loser would not realise this. Your cock is bigger than you think it is.

>with almost no idea or ability to turn it around

There is always hope.

>>31819

Part of this is the normal with starting a new job. In the longer term it is great for your character and career. Say 'yes' then work out how to do it. Also, the organisation is probably aware of this. Your cock is bigger than you think it is.
>> No. 31821 Anonymous
21st October 2022
Friday 9:33 pm
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>>31819

How likely do you think it is to just be impostor syndrome, though? If nobody's done it in a while, then you've got nobody to worry about being compared to. Having somebody trying their best is almost certainly better than nobody at all doing it, and you're the one who stepped up to the plate. Or, to look at it another way, if they got away with nobody doing it for so long, then it clearly doesn't matter that much, does it? So I wouldn't lose sleep over it.

Either way you're probably being too harsh on yourself. Most people are just blaggers faking it until they make it. I work in the NHS and I've got bosses who are utterly incompetent wankers plain for all to see, but they still get promotions by licking the right arses. You would appear to be a rare exception in that you actually give a shit, which counts for a lot.

>>31820

I would like to add that the esteemed members' testicles appear to be of above average volume too.
>> No. 31822 Anonymous
22nd October 2022
Saturday 4:12 am
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>>31819

If anyone is about to go into hospital as a patient, please don't read this post. Seriously.

Nobody knows what they're doing. Nobody gets a proper induction, nobody gets proper on-the-job training. Most staff don't become truly competent, they just get blasé about not really knowing what they're doing.

We've had literally dozens of inquiries and reviews about hospital failings, all of which come to basically the same conclusion - bad clinical practice becomes normalised, a culture of corner-cutting emerges, there's no management structure in place to do anything about it and no resources to address the root causes.

Your manager is being nice because this is just how things are in the NHS. The people who feel out of their depth are the good staff, because anyone who doesn't is just wildly over-confident. Everyone has massive gaps in their knowledge, everyone is just busking it, but there aren't the resources to do anything about it. You might eventually get used to it, you might walk away, they'd prefer if you stayed, but all of the people who could train you properly are too busy treating patients.

I wish I could be more positive, but there's no point in bullshitting you because you'll figure it out yourself eventually. The NHS is a basket case and everyone is just trying to get through the next shift unscathed.
>> No. 31823 Anonymous
22nd October 2022
Saturday 12:13 pm
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>>31822

Would it help if we did some more clapping?
>> No. 31824 Anonymous
22nd October 2022
Saturday 12:25 pm
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I've been agonising all morning over a counselling session via MS Teams, but managed to get the laptop cam / mic set up and working just in time. I was told through reminder emails to expect a seperate email with instructions for joining the meeting, and... I get the link through a fucking TEXT MESSAGE on my phone, a few minutes after the session started. I will get a bollocking from my Manager now because it looks like I didn't bother to attend, and work is paying for it. I need counselling, Lads.
>> No. 31825 Anonymous
22nd October 2022
Saturday 12:31 pm
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>>31822

I want to say your post is extremely pessimistic and it's not really that bad. But I don't know if I accurately can.

I consider myself pretty adequate at my job (which thankfully isn't directly patient facing, but still directly impacts patients), and lots of my colleagues are highly capable and knowledgeable people. But then, when I think about it, lots of them are complete fucking liabilities too, and even if it was possible to get sacked from the NHS for anything short of burning the building down, we wouldn't be able to sack them, because then we would be so short staffed the place would stop functioning. We have settled into this sort of unspoken arrangement where we simply don't rely on the idiots to do anything important, and they can still be helpful doing the "easy" jobs, but fuck me. That's no right way to run a healthcare service is it.

The thing is it's come a long way in a very short space of time, the pandemic in particular had a completely crippling effect that's still being felt. We "saved" the NHS from being overwhelmed with the lockdowns, but instead of drowning in a massive tidal wave, it's more like a slow struggle to keep our head above the water as it steadily rises.
>> No. 31826 Anonymous
22nd October 2022
Saturday 1:50 pm
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I am so tired of waking up in this shithole every day. Wonder how many of us will just off our selves as we keep getting pushed to the brink.
>> No. 31827 Anonymous
22nd October 2022
Saturday 7:09 pm
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>>31825

A post at 4am is never going to be rose-tinted, but I really can't summon much cause for optimism about the NHS right now. I didn't mean it as a diss to NHS staff because a lot of people really are going above and beyond, but they just don't have the support they need to do the job to the best of their ability. Thinking about your competent colleagues, how much better would they be if they had the right equipment, if they weren't constantly under massive pressure, if they weren't making up for idiots who shouldn't be in the job, if they had the time and the resources for proper CPD training?

Everyone is feeling that slow struggle to tread water. I don't want to scare OP off, but I'm also acutely conscious of the number of experienced, skilled staff who are leaving because they just can't cope any more. Feeling like you're cracking up isn't a personal shortcoming, it's a normal reaction to working in a failing system.
>> No. 31828 Anonymous
23rd October 2022
Sunday 5:31 pm
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>>31827

Fundamentally it all comes down to recruitment and staffing levels, I think. The training and CPD etc is mostly available, the equipment we have is mostly to a pretty good standard, we just pure and simply can't get hold of enough people or retain the ones we do have.

Recruitment has been completely hobbled because the pay rates are uncompetitive. Internal advancement has been kneecapped because they took away the opportunities for natural progression and on-the-job training, and made everything conform to that rigid "you must have X degree and Y years of experience" bullshit. Universities in this country simply aren't pumping out enough graduates with the relevant skills, and at the same time, we are pumping out too many graduates, such that it leaves too few people willing to do the simple, honest grunt work that the health service nevertheless needs a fuck load of.

Everything to do with recruitment has been treated with such a short sighted approach over the last decade or so, it's hard not to think it was intentional.
>> No. 31829 Anonymous
23rd October 2022
Sunday 10:54 pm
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My friend just invited me to a party in a few weeks. I feel awful, but I want to go, but it's horrible. It's not that I'm introverted, but I am a big massive loser and quite weird looking and my awareness of these things does induce a certain level of... social embarrassment. I'm not an introvert, it's not that. I've also never been to a grown up party. What does that mean? I don't know what to do at a party, might as well have invited me to a Somali langauge Bar Mitzvah. It's also a very long journey, but that's not really an issue.

Fingers crossed I have a medical emergency. Everyone feels sorry for me, I don't have any more shame, the OAPs on my ward get someone who can pick things up when they drop them. Everybody wins.
>> No. 31830 Anonymous
23rd October 2022
Sunday 11:45 pm
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>>31829

Bring booze - lots of booze. And get drunk - very drunk. Any weird behaviour will be attributed to the drink. Feel like you fucked up the evening? Who cares? Not you! Because you don't even remember it. People will be nevertheless thankful that you were kind enough to provide them with lots of booze and semi-deliberate entertainment. I'm only half joking.
>> No. 31831 Anonymous
24th October 2022
Monday 6:14 pm
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>>31829
>Somali langauge Bar Mitzvah
Saaxib. Caadi iska dhig. Markaas khamri badan cab.
>> No. 31832 Anonymous
26th October 2022
Wednesday 1:57 am
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I sometimes get a very abstract feeling that I'm coming a bit unravelled. Losing grip, spiralling out. Very hard to describe.

Just sort of like this uneasy, pit of my stomach feeling that's almost like guilt or shame, but which I don't really know why. I haven't done anything in particular I should really feel guilty or ashamed of, it's just a general feeling that I'm not maintaining my composure, my day to day behaviour is drifting into territory I'm not particularly fond of, like I just vaguely feel like I could do better and be a nicer or more respectful person if I was keeping my head a bit more together. It's like I've been letting myself go a bit, and I don't feel bad about myself as such, but feel like I should do for some reason.

It feels a bit like that anxious introspective paranoia you get when you're stoned, where you overthink the conversations you had during the day and you convince yourself you offended somebody or made yourself look stupid or whatever, only much less intense, but more pervasive, if that makes any sense. And I haven't touched weed in a long time now.

You ever get that?
>> No. 31833 Anonymous
27th October 2022
Thursday 10:17 am
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>>31832
>You ever get that?

Quite often. Particularly when suffering from a hangover.
>> No. 31834 Anonymous
27th October 2022
Thursday 12:56 pm
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Bleeding out of my arsehole for the last two weeks which isn't anything new as I've had piles before but this time it's come with small blood clots. Shame it's impossible to get a doctor's appointment whether or not I need them to poke around me bum.
>> No. 31835 Anonymous
27th October 2022
Thursday 3:48 pm
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>>31834
This stuff works wonders for that.
>> No. 31836 Anonymous
28th October 2022
Friday 11:47 pm
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Aah, fuckit. The Mrs has been called in to hospital after a heart function test. It was meant to be a 2-day test, she's been called in after the first day. It's gonna be coronary artery bypass (or several). Sure, it'll be nice if this gets her back to full power, but it's all a bit troubling.
>> No. 31837 Anonymous
29th October 2022
Saturday 1:21 pm
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>>31836

I'm sorry, mate. Not to make any stupid promises or give false impressions, but having worked on an ITU in the distant past CABGs are about as routine to surgical staff as it gets. Outcomes for procedures of this type depend very much on age, along with weight and previous strength/cardiovascular fitness.

I know this might not do much for the worry that comes along with stuff like this, but if your Mrs is less than 60 years old I would be very hopeful for less than a couple of days in intensive care and a little while on a ward before she's as good as. If they give her a chance to take any pre-op physio, this can also make a huge difference.

Let us know how it goes.
>> No. 31838 Anonymous
29th October 2022
Saturday 7:18 pm
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The third antidepressant I've been put on made me throw up and has me in bed for the day feeling like shit. Again.
>> No. 31839 Anonymous
31st October 2022
Monday 11:23 am
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>>31838
Antidepressants are a fucking scam m7.
>> No. 31840 Anonymous
31st October 2022
Monday 2:16 pm
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>>31838
Was it venlafaxine?

I remember throwing up on that if I didn't eat before.
>> No. 31841 Anonymous
31st October 2022
Monday 6:16 pm
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>>31839
Cheers m8 I'll tell my GP. Does it give you 5G too?

>>31840
Yep, except it wrecked me for 2 days, it was like being poisoned.
>> No. 31842 Anonymous
31st October 2022
Monday 7:56 pm
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>>31841

Venlafaxine is the only antidepressant that has made me feel properly horrible. I didn't get any nausea, but I had a constant headache for two weeks and just felt generally awful. Some people do really well on it and can go up to massive doses with minimal side effects, but I just couldn't get on with it. The genetics of how we metabolise antidepressants is quite complex and the NHS doesn't have the resources to do genetic testing to personalise prescribing strategies, so unfortunately there's a lot of trial-and-error involved.

>>31839

Antidepressants work. Not perfectly, not for everyone, but they're a valuable tool. Some people say that they took antidepressants and had no benefit or just had horrible side effects and I don't doubt that they're telling the truth. Some people say that their depression immediately lifted completely and the antidepressants transform their life. Those two noisy extremes disguise a quiet majority for whom antidepressants were a bit helpful - not a scam, not a miracle cure, just something that took the edge off the worst of their symptoms, something that helped them cope or pushed them towards recovery.

I've lived with severe treatment-resistant depression for more than 20 years. Several rounds of good-quality CBT did absolutely nothing for me. I've taken various antidepressants and I've had periods without any medication. In my experience, most antidepressants reduce my symptoms by about 20%. Some are a bit more effective, some have a different side effect profile, but 20% is about the ball park for me. That's a long way from a cure, but it's the difference between being able to maintain a reasonably normal life and being trapped in a revolving door of A&E visits, crisis team interventions and hospitalisation.
>> No. 31851 Anonymous
16th November 2022
Wednesday 12:06 pm
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I've never been close to what you'd call a hard worker, but Christ I've gotten lazy. A few eyars ago I'd wake up at five-ish, go for a jog, then do an hour-and-a-half cycle/rail commute into Manchester. Now I work from home with a nine o'clock start and I can barely get out of bed at five-to.
>> No. 31852 Anonymous
16th November 2022
Wednesday 1:35 pm
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Smoked some weed for the first time in about... Fuck knows, ages, anyway, this weekend. Haven't felt right since. The stuff just utterly fucks with my head. Instant paranoia.

I dealt with it quite well at the time, and didn't even think it was that bad- even though I was literally making up theories in my head about how my girlfriend and her housemate are actually fucking, and not only that, but trying to pull some kind of long-con on me to steal my bank account or some shit. So all week since I've been pissed off and depressed in equal measure that that pandora's box had to be opened and all because I just had a moment of weakness when I had a joint in front of me.

Fuck me I hate cannabis. But that's the thing, it's not just the cannabis is it. It's me. I'm paranoid to the point of delusion and I don't trust a single soul, not even those closest to me, and I can only just barely keep a lid on it without being high. The weed just takes the lid off.
>> No. 31853 Anonymous
16th November 2022
Wednesday 1:42 pm
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>>31852

Is it possible the cannabis has also made you paranoid about how paranoid you can be?
>> No. 31854 Anonymous
16th November 2022
Wednesday 1:44 pm
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>>31853

Yes, but it's very hard to tell where the line is from inside your own head.
>> No. 31855 Anonymous
16th November 2022
Wednesday 1:50 pm
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>>31854

Knowing that, is something to hold on to. It probably is just the weed, no need to be so hard on yourself.
>> No. 31856 Anonymous
19th November 2022
Saturday 1:32 pm
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Take care of yourself lads. Remember your m9s are here for you whenever you need us. Don't be afraid to open up. And if you feel a bit of a lump on your bollock, do go to the doctor.
>> No. 31857 Anonymous
19th November 2022
Saturday 3:41 pm
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I've begun to recognise my association with this computer as death.
>> No. 31858 Anonymous
22nd November 2022
Tuesday 10:28 pm
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I thought getting an internet connection again would re-open my world by giving me plenty to do and people to talk with .. but it's just the same as it's always been. Wade through 9gag (laugh, waste time, consume propaganda), 4chan (porn and more porn), britfa.gs (the occasional informative/technical post drowning in apathy and laddish misogyny), then struggle to enjoy an MMO (in which nobody actually talks to one another). The cycle is killing me. I don't want this.
I want meaning.
>> No. 31859 Anonymous
22nd November 2022
Tuesday 10:31 pm
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>>31858
That's not even true. I knew this would happen. I'd hoped that because I've been reading the paper a lot over the past 4 or 5 months, I'd atleast have plenty to look up and learn about .. but i haven't done that.
I think I got this contract for porn and grindingly dull 'entertainment'.
I've already considered just paying off the contract and shutting down the connection.
>> No. 31860 Anonymous
23rd November 2022
Wednesday 4:14 pm
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>>31859
The internet is a good servant but a bad master mate. You're the one typing "4chan","9gag","Shed dwelling lads" and "Big honking great tits" into your browser. Not the internet. I know because I'm in the same boat. The world at my fingertips but a slave to my own apathy, lust and sloth. If I was as good at reading as I was jizzing over tasty little cumdumpsters (bit of misogyny there for you, dont tell the mrs) I'd be a leading expert in my field.
>> No. 31861 Anonymous
24th November 2022
Thursday 9:41 am
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>>31858
>>31859
>>31860

The thing I don't quite understand is how nowadays, I just find myself caught in the same boring loop over and over, when a few years ago I used to be able to pass hours on the internet, just reading about stuff. These days I just open .gs, open Rudgewick, open the /vg/ thread of whatever game I'm currently into, scroll through for anything new for half an hour, then sigh and close the browser to do something else. Then I very likely just pick up my phone and do more or less the same thing out of compulsive habit when nobody has texted me.

What is it that's made the difference? It's like when they started putting The Algorithm into everything, it stunted our ability to find new things. Looking through YouTube now is shite, you just scroll past the same shit over and over and then close it in boredom. I don't know if it's just us becoming complacent and succumbing to the endless scroll, or if something has really changed.

Well, I know that one thing changed that put me off half the websites I used to like, when around 2014-15 they all started going on about non-stop identity politics 24 fucking 7. That's when I retreated into imageboards and reddit full time I think.
>> No. 31862 Anonymous
24th November 2022
Thursday 11:03 am
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>>31861

It'd be worth you looking at 'refinement culture' as well as how dopamine actually works. But in short, a lot of culture has changed where incentives have changed. A VAR is technically correct but ruins the spirit of the game.
>> No. 31863 Anonymous
24th November 2022
Thursday 5:18 pm
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>>31860
>>31861
The internet can definitely make you its bitch if you're not conscious of its dangers. Nicholas Carr's "The Shallows" is a good read if you want to learn about how the internet is changing us for the worse. Attached are a selection of interesting quotes from the book.

Check out a programme called Cold Turkey if you find it difficult to drag yourself away from the cycle. You can use it to block all of the internet or just the specific websites that are timesinks.
>> No. 31864 Anonymous
1st December 2022
Thursday 12:32 pm
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I always get to a point in a relationship, no matter how much I like the person, where I start questioning things, and it's hard to tell whether it's just me being overly critical, having too high expectations, or if I'm right to have concerns over something. Am I just looking for faults, searching for a reason to be unhappy, or should I realise it's another bad match I'm not happy with, and telling myself otherwise is ignoring the early warning signs?

I'll bring a concern up and we will talk about it and I'll feel reassured, but then another few days later my brain latches on to something else to start nagging me with. When a situation doesn't play out the way I would have liked I start blaming the other person, I start building up a false narrative in my head how it should have gone if they were really thinking of my happiness. But then what if I had a point? Maybe it was inconsiderate of them, maybe they do take me for granted, after all I do to try and make them happy, should they not return the same kind of dedication?

I think I might have a chip on my shoulder from a couple of unhealthy relationships in the past, and I'm always seeing shadows of it in everyone else I've been with since. I suspect I react too defensively because I feel like I was too much of a pushover back then. But when I'm always questioning myself over whether it's legitimate or not how do I tell where the line is. It's like the only solution is to just have a permanent barrier and never open myself up to someone too deeply, always keep them at arms length, so that then I never end up in this situation to begin with.

Man I'm fucked up. What do I do about it.
>> No. 31865 Anonymous
2nd December 2022
Friday 1:47 am
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A hot piece of tail I recently met replied to a text and suddenly the world is all sunshine and daisies again.

Reckon it's a good reminder to continue cultivating a sense of inner well-being devoid of external gratification. The vicissitudes of fate are a buncha whimsical bastards and they can't be allowed to win.
>> No. 31866 Anonymous
2nd December 2022
Friday 2:14 pm
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>>31865
Does she like it when you talk like a 50s greaser, this "hot piece of tail"?
>> No. 31867 Anonymous
3rd December 2022
Saturday 10:12 pm
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>>31830
I didn't get that pissed, but it turns out parties are dead easy. Quite gutted I've spent the entirity of my 20s so far not going to any ever, but it was nice being quite drunk and pretending to know more about films than I really do. I did realise at one point during the night that most of the other things I know about are how people died in horrible circumstances, so I should probably work on that. Also I did have to run a bit of cover (for myself) on just what a massive loser I am, because almost everyone else there was a uni graduate living under the bright lights of Big City.

>>31831
Wise words indeed.
>> No. 31868 Anonymous
3rd December 2022
Saturday 11:26 pm
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>>31865

>continue cultivating a sense of inner well-being devoid of external gratification

This truly is the key to continues happiness in life, but it is so addictive when someone else fuels you with validation, and it can be very easy to get hooked on it, I find.

I think there's a balance to be struck though. If you can crack the inner self-esteem thing, as well as get a girl who always tells you you've got a big cock, you're winning.
>> No. 31869 Anonymous
6th December 2022
Tuesday 12:52 am
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I feel guilty when turning on the radiators to heat my home, even before this gas prices business. I haven't earned it, I don't deserve it. It's too easy.
There's a guy sleeping rough around town, man.
>> No. 31870 Anonymous
6th December 2022
Tuesday 12:21 pm
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>>31869

Do you have a job? Then don't feel guilty, it's your money you earned. You're perfectly entitled to spend it staying warm.

Are you on the bennies? Then don't feel guilty. It's the least a civilised society can do to look after those at the bottom of the ladder. You're perfectly entitled to spend them staying warm.

It's not your fault we are collectively failing to help the homeless. It's good that you are concerned about them, but it's not your fault.
>> No. 31871 Anonymous
6th December 2022
Tuesday 4:47 pm
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>>31870
I've always wanted to build an insulated 'dog house' as a homeless shelter, just leave it out in the bush somewhere. Maybe that'll justify turning the heating up.
The radiator is set to 1 now, out of 5.
>> No. 31872 Anonymous
7th December 2022
Wednesday 8:13 pm
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I keep developing fixations on attractive women, then getting resentful that I can't pursue them due to being in a long term relationship. One of the cooks at Popeyes is a gorgeous fat black girl with facial piercing and a massive arse. Everytime I walk past I look in hoping to see her. But I can never have her, due to being in a sexless relationship with my unattractive gf. It's sexless because I haven't wanted to fuck her in six years as she's unattractive, she wants sex but I pretend I'm asexual. I love my gf, but I resent her because I met her when I was 22. I only lost my virginity at 21, so in my whole life I've only had 4 sex partners. I wish I used my youth to explore the sex world, instead of chaining the proverbial ball to myself and have to put up with her tedious existence.
>> No. 31873 Anonymous
7th December 2022
Wednesday 8:41 pm
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>>31872

To be honest, sex around that age isn't all it's cracked up to be. I recognise it'd be preferable to have found this out for yourself, but you've not missed much. However, I don't know if I would stay in a relationship with someone I don't find at all attractive, either. It's not particularly fair on either of you.
>> No. 31874 Anonymous
7th December 2022
Wednesday 8:46 pm
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Work is expanding and a load of new positions have been listed.

As such I've realised I have absolutely no desire to progress further in this, or really any other company. I'll probably still apply and probably get something, but it's quite jarring realising I have absolutely no enthusiasm for it, especially since I put a lot of my energy into my work historically.

I think my actual ideal job would be driving a truck or a train or something similar. Just me, alone, quietly driving, earning enough to keep the heating on.
>> No. 31875 Anonymous
8th December 2022
Thursday 8:23 am
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>>31872
Grow some balls. Leave or cheat.
>> No. 31876 Anonymous
8th December 2022
Thursday 11:37 am
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>>31872

So you're only in your late 20s, if my very poor mental arithmetic based on the numbers in your post is correct? You have all the time in the world to leave and find someone who actually makes you happy; and in fact, the same goes for your girlfriend. Don't stick around in a resentful relationship just out of some feeling of obligation, it never ends well. That's how you end up being one of those miserable middle aged couples who clearly hate each other's guts.

I left my last girlfriend more or less just because she never gave me blowies, even though I licked her fanny loads. I tell people there's a load of other complex reasons, but if I'm being totally honest with myself, it was about the blowies. It seems petty, but it's important to me to feel that they're as enthusiastic as I am, I hate a one-sided sex life; nevermind a dead sex life.

Take ownership of your problems lad.
>> No. 31877 Anonymous
8th December 2022
Thursday 4:50 pm
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I really feel I'd like to spend what little remains of my 20s getting slightly pissed and hanging out, but I have literally no idea how to make friends, besides travelling back in time and not fucking up university after 30 minutes or getting a real job where my colleagues don't really annoy me. Each of these scenarios seems about as likely as the other.
>> No. 31878 Anonymous
9th December 2022
Friday 1:14 pm
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>>31877
Go to a pub quiz on your own. The quiz master will likely be one of those social-ringleader types who loves talking to people, and you can make friends with him. From there, make friends with all his other friends. Bang. Sorted.
>> No. 31879 Anonymous
9th December 2022
Friday 2:20 pm
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>>31877
It's trite, but get a hobby. Not so trite is the hard part: accept that other people are like you and are also looking for connections, but are equally hesitant to accept that's a possibility.

There's bound to be a board game club near you, maybe a climbing gym, perhaps a shooting range, a knitting circle... you get the idea. Finding friends takes some effort, it doesn't just happen, but you may (hopefully) find that you are not unique in the search for friendship. It helps if you like the activity, but consider it an investment if you don't. Meeting people is the first step, and having an "excuse" to meet people is the boost to get over the first hump.
>> No. 31880 Anonymous
11th December 2022
Sunday 9:22 pm
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I've got this sneaking suspicion my mate only really wants to play computer games with me and basically nothing else. And maybe that's like, fine, because he's got a bunch of bollocks going on in his life and sometimes it's nice to mong out with some unrelenting slaughter, but at the same time there's this creeping feeling that if John Carmack makes significant progress in the field of AI he'd never speak to me again. My mate that is, not John Carmack, we're not on speaking terms as is.
>> No. 31881 Anonymous
13th December 2022
Tuesday 7:10 pm
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I don't think I hate women. But I do feel like a lot of them have a badly over-inflated sense of self importance, and it makes them act like twats. I don't think I notice it as often in men, or if I do it's easier to ignore; perhaps because I usually don't want to shag men.

Am I one of them sexulists lads?
>> No. 31882 Anonymous
13th December 2022
Tuesday 7:53 pm
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>>31881
Who gets to determine whether someone has the right level of self importance?
>> No. 31883 Anonymous
13th December 2022
Tuesday 8:13 pm
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>>31881
It's a cultural thing, I think. Men need to constantly be impressing women in order to be paid attention to, and not all men are good at that. Women need to constantly be managing their relationships with everyone they know in order not to be murdered by a woman-hater, and not all women are good at that. It's hard to understand if you aren't in that position yourself, and that's true of both sides. However, the past decade of social justice activism has undeniably shone a light on many of the women's issues that men need to understand, while women tend to be completely in the dark about male issues still.
>> No. 31884 Anonymous
13th December 2022
Tuesday 8:46 pm
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>>31883

>Women need to constantly be managing their relationships with everyone they know in order not to be murdered by a woman-hater,

u wot m8t
>> No. 31885 Anonymous
14th December 2022
Wednesday 12:13 am
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>>31884
Well, imagine you knew a bunch of people who were strong enough that they could pick you up and throw you out of a window at any time, and you would really struggle to stop them. Big, muscular, black gay sailors, let's say. You know a bunch of these sailors, and every day, your phone goes off with messages from three or four of them, each asking what you're up to and if you'd like to go to the gay bar with them. You're a nice person; you don't want to just ignore them. Sometimes you go. And there's always that sense that Midshipman Tyrone, while he is perfectly nice at all times, is still a man you should not cross, just in case. I can't imagine how it must feel to be that popular, but my understanding is that women are in this exact situation a lot of the time. Now imagine that you're in the gay bar with Tyrone, voguing to that song from the Police Academy films, when you make friends with Rear Admiral Bubba who wants to know what you're doing this Saturday. Bubba seems nice, you don't want to hurt his feelings, but you are absolutely bloody sick of fraternising with these godless sodomites and you just want to stay home. You might be able to weasel out of it, but he's going to keep asking. In the end, you go, and then you need to cancel your plans with Tyrone. So now you've hurt your friend Tyrone's feelings, you roastie slut bitch.
>> No. 31886 Anonymous
14th December 2022
Wednesday 12:51 am
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>>31885

I do understand the sort of thing you're getting at but I don't think it's a great analogy. I think our hypothetical twinky femboy here needs to learn to say no, and actually it says a lot about him if he automatically assumes Tyrone is going to smack him around for it- After all, the statistical evidence unambiguously shows Tyrone is more likely to kick one of the other big black gay sailor's heads in than ours. Our hero has been listening to too much of the BBC Radio 4 FUCKING Twink Femboy Hour.

I think you are getting sort of at the right area though. I don't know how many of you will agree but I think there's a sort of learned helplessness some women either can't or don't want to let go of; because let's face it, it can be advantageous in some situations. We've rightly moved on from treating women as property, but that also means women have to take more responsibility for themselves, they are exposed to more troubles and don't quite have all the same special protections that went along with being "kept" by a man- It's just that we still have a lot of lingering double standards rooted in that old fashioned ethos. I think as a result, some women sort of have a warped sense of what hardship is, because they are in general still treated more kindly by society.

Sometimes, something that would seem like an everyday hardship for a man seems much more significant to them, and so they can come off as entitled, spoiled, or whatever in their reaction to it. This can cause some cognitive dissonance if you took the teachings of fisherpersonry at face value and actually expected IRL women (who are flawed human beings like anybody else) to live up to them.
>> No. 31887 Anonymous
14th December 2022
Wednesday 3:16 am
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>>31886
I think you get half the analogy. The threat of Tyrone Steve smacking you upside the head is always a threat, regardless of if you say "no!". In this "modern" world it's easy to forget that the default male is considerably stronger than a woman. Of course not every flabby male can beat an athletic woman, but the potential for violence with consequesnces is much higher. Male on male violence is huge, no doubt about it, but male on female violence... just the risk of it because he felt entitled to whatever is scary. That twink boy can say no, because he has a chance to fight back. If you're not that twink boy, no amount of going to the gym will help if an even half fit man wants to beat the snot out of you.
>> No. 31888 Anonymous
14th December 2022
Wednesday 7:14 am
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>>31886
>the BBC Radio 4 FUCKING Twink Femboy Hour

Would def give this a listen tbh.
>> No. 31889 Anonymous
14th December 2022
Wednesday 9:18 am
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You lot are very fucking strange I have to say.
>> No. 31890 Anonymous
14th December 2022
Wednesday 9:28 am
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>>31887

I think you onky get half of the counter analogy. I understand the point you're making, its scary and emotionally distressing to feel vulnerable all the time. But its not a rational fear, it's not supported by evidence. Women are a lot less likely to be battered than they think they are and I think acting like any blooke is potentially a batter-er does them more harm than good ultinately.

Just think how many blokes are physically unfit and statistically, empirically, more at risk and more vulnerable than women because objectively males are much more likely to encounter violence of all kinds. Yet it doesnt tend to play into their psychology anywhere near as much, if at all. The point is we act on our assumptions and preconceptions about the world, not the realities.

You appear to have internalised what I consider to be the fisherperson sexual pathology that men are brutish unstoppable beasts, and women are helpless if even the most midestly strong male tries to impress himself on them. Theres just absolutely nothing a women can do against the apex predator human male, with his finelt tunes senses to track women, his perfectly toned muscles to catch them, and this throbbing rape penis of rape that penetrates them.
>> No. 31891 Anonymous
14th December 2022
Wednesday 9:56 am
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>>31881

Modern society tends to reward bad, typically female, traits. Complaining about being attractive is a great example. Many are slaves to this, so it's worth ignoring.

Hatred of women is a phase for men because it appears unfair. We default to 'nice guy' thinking we'll get a decent woman, only to have our hearts broken and given contradictory wants. I never say how I feel, but when I do I can't control my emotions...?

Essentially, when you understand their nature it becomes like the weather- you easily get on with it. Some women seek 'nice guys' to control them, but you have the filter. A woman complains about self-inflicted circumstance, you can ignore. When you are what you are, the women you like like you more.

This works both ways: woman understanding of man's nature is not attracted to nice men.

>>31890

You are right, and women act on emotions/group. Their point is not that women are at threat, but that they feel they are (positive feedback loop). It also looks as men and women in a robotic and isolated manner. I kiss girl at work party, she can go to HR and I can't, but I am bigger with cock so I have all the power (they only think of matter, not spirit).

He also ignores the female side of the equation. Domestic violence is highest in lesbians, women are equally capable of violence. A man's violence will tend to be brief and physical, while a woman's emotional and lasting. When the values are all set on physicality, only that is paid attention to.
>> No. 31892 Anonymous
14th December 2022
Wednesday 10:19 am
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Longstanding issues.
>> No. 31893 Anonymous
14th December 2022
Wednesday 11:36 am
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>>31891
chronic masturbator bullshit.
>> No. 31894 Anonymous
14th December 2022
Wednesday 12:00 pm
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>>31890

> I understand the point you're making, its scary and emotionally distressing to feel vulnerable all the time. But its not a rational fear, it's not supported by evidence.

You're right in that there is the feeling of being vulnerable on the one hand, and something like actual crime statistics on the other hand. A lot of the argument goes along the lines that women don't just have a right to be safe, which they are going by those statistics, but that they have a right to feel safe as well. Which is where it gets a bit muddy and irrational when you start ramping up anti-violence laws not based on fact but on somebody's underlying feeling of unease that isn't supported by fact.


>that men are brutish unstoppable beasts, and women are helpless if even the most midestly strong male tries to impress himself on them

The shred of truth lies in that on average, women tend to be physically weaker than men. Which can put them in harm's way if they are with a violent lad. But that's where it ends. Deep down, women can be just as impulsive, aggressive and physical as men. And if you have a couple where the woman is physically stronger than the lad and also has that aggressive streak, then that can flip it on its head where it's actually the man who is vulnerable and threatened by the "brutish unstoppable beast" that will be his female partner.


>>31893
> chronic masturbator bullshit.

Not all of it, but I mostly agree with you.
>> No. 31895 Anonymous
14th December 2022
Wednesday 12:14 pm
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It sometimes reminds me of that thing you may have heard about, where some American schools lower the grade requirements specifically for black students, supposedly in the name of equality. But it doesn't take a genius to see how that bigotry of low expectation betrays an actual racist viewpoint deep down, that black people are dumb, even if they are consciously trying not to be.

There's obviously a mire biological reality to this that men are stronger on average than women, by a good margin. But otherlad equally has a point that in reality, men are less likely to use that strength against women than other men- Which is of course related to "old fashioned" ideas of being a gentleman, protecting women, and so on, that a radfem type could easily call sexist in and of itself. It becomes a matter of perspective and I think it actually says a bit about the two of you view of yourselves, and your relationship with your own masculinity.

One of you is attempting to square the circle by subscribing to the idea that women really are just weaker than you and as a result probably always a bit scared of you. I don't want to presume too much, but I'd also assume you kind of like that thought. In a way it's very validating, isn't it? Makes you feel strong and powerful. It's probably much easier to brush off all those double standards this way.

The other one of you seems to want women to be his equal in a more genuine sense. You experience frustration when they aren't, but respect them more when they are. You are probably more naturally confident in your masculinity and personal strength, and aren't intimidated by a woman who wants to peg you. This is probably the most genuinely un-sexist view, but it's liable to cause disappointment when reality doesn't deliver on the hype.
>> No. 31896 Anonymous
14th December 2022
Wednesday 1:40 pm
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>>31891
Have a fucking word with yourself.
>> No. 31897 Anonymous
14th December 2022
Wednesday 9:25 pm
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>>31896

The "fucking" makes your shield twice as strong.
>> No. 31898 Anonymous
14th December 2022
Wednesday 11:02 pm
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There is genuinely nothing more confounding on .gs than that one lad who suddenly takes issue with people posting swear words. Ctril+f tells me that there's 10 uses of "fuck", 3 for "cunt" and 6 "twat" on /sfw/ (it's nothing personal I just got fed up of the fat, naked, lasses), but out of the blue comes britfa.gs' very own form tutor to have a go at you for using bad words because you disagreed with whatever it was he said. So we're clear I'm not saying it's actually a single person, but it's an archetype I've noticed over time.
>> No. 31899 Anonymous
14th December 2022
Wednesday 11:25 pm
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>>31898

If you feel hard done by for being called out as stultifylingly agit-prop, then you should know that it wasn't me calling you out on both occasions. The other Lad clearly also feels embarrased on your behalf.
>> No. 31900 Anonymous
14th December 2022
Wednesday 11:32 pm
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I've watched a bit of female scat videos recently and think I might actually like the idea of an attractive woman rewarding me for eating her shit. We wouldn't play with it, she'd just .. i donno, shit and piss in my mouth, onlt a plate or something, then encourage me to consume it while promising sex and stuff.
The woman would have to be really sweet and lovable, though, otherwise it's just weird.

I've seen male scat and it's just not the same, even when it's femboys.

So yeah.
>> No. 31901 Anonymous
14th December 2022
Wednesday 11:36 pm
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>>31899
This is the first time you've replied to me in this thread, I've not really contributed, I'm just pointing something out I've noticed.

"Stultifyingly agit-prop", what an arsehole. I hope you get bone cancer.
>> No. 31902 Anonymous
14th December 2022
Wednesday 11:46 pm
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>>31899
>>31901

Take it outside you pair of cock ends. This is /emo/, it's important people can say how they truly feel free of judgement.
>> No. 31903 Anonymous
15th December 2022
Thursday 1:05 am
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>>31902
>it's important people can say how they truly feel free of judgement.

Exactly my point, there's been a lot of arseholery in here lately, and all I can do in my drunken belligerence is to try and get the other two to feel a bit of shame for it.
>> No. 31904 Anonymous
15th December 2022
Thursday 1:17 am
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I would just like to add that "have a word with yourself" is terrible advice, always, swearing or no. If your attitudes are so poor that you need to have a word with someone, then surely you are the worst person to have a word with. Have a word with someone else. Then you might actually get some worthwhile help. Telling someone to have a word with themselves just puts the blame back on them when total isolation doesn't solve their problems. It kicks off an atrocious feedback loop which ends with sex tourism or trying to marry an anime character. Don't do that.
>> No. 31905 Anonymous
15th December 2022
Thursday 1:47 am
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>>31900
My problem with watching women shitting is there is a sort of uncanny-valley effect if their shit doesn't look like my shit. If it's too hard, or too dry, or too lumpy, or too smooth, it just looks fake. Some of it almost certainly is fake, but the voyeur videos won't be. Again, this doesn't really feel /emo/-worthy, unless it's my shit that looks weird and I'm about to find out I've got bum Ebola.
>> No. 31906 Anonymous
15th December 2022
Thursday 2:08 am
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>>31904
> I would just like to add that "have a word with yourself" is terrible advice, always, swearing or no.

Yes! That sort of advice should fly on /iq/, but it feels very out of place on /emo/. I'll see myself out.
>> No. 31907 Anonymous
15th December 2022
Thursday 9:25 am
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>>31904

More to the point, around these parts "have a word with yourself" is only ever used as a lane attempt at a pithy put down that essentially means "I fond everything about you and your opinions contemptible".

That's fine in /b/ or /iq/ but not in this board. What we have here is actually quite valuable, even if it is for the couple of dozen posters we actually have, and being a cunt here just reflects badly on you.
>> No. 31908 Anonymous
15th December 2022
Thursday 5:53 pm
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Why do I always end up with women with weirdly specific sexual hang ups.

My gf was just now having one of those digs at me where they play it like they're sorta joking but you know they're really not about making a mess of the bedsheets when we have sex. It's a new one to me, I've never had anyone else be that bothered about a few stainsed sheets as a result of a healthy sex life, it's just one of the things you get used to after a certain time together.

Anyway the bit that annoyed me is that she changed her tone to being huffy and annoyed when I came back with "maybe you should start swallowing then", which was likewise, sort of a joke but sort of not. It's just the principle, don't give it out if you're not prepared to take it back. But I don't want a relationship where it's petty like that.

Oh well. Take the good with the bad and all that I guess.
>> No. 31909 Anonymous
15th December 2022
Thursday 6:06 pm
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>>31908
I suppose the difference is changing the sheets is a bit annoying for you, whilst swallowing your cum is degrading (in a bad way) and disgusting for her. Maybe, that's just my assumption. IE, you escalated without realising that's what you were doing.

Compromise; cum in her hair, then she washes it out, everyone's happy.
>> No. 31910 Anonymous
15th December 2022
Thursday 6:55 pm
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>>31909

Ehh, I can sorta see it, but it doesn't have to be degrading or disgusting. I don't really get that or why so many women see it that way. It's not something she's keen on and I know that, and it's fine, I'm not about to force her to do itb; ut at the same time I don't see why it's okay to imply the normal, natural biological function of the human reproductive system is something dirty, something I should be ashamed of or whatever. Know what I mean?

Ultimately I think that's what pissed me off, the implication just that cum is bad and me cumming is a problem she has to tolerate. I can see that sowing the seeds of sexual friction and ultimately resentment. I could speak to her about that of course, but she really doesn't seem to take sexual issues seriously, like they're things I should consider as a bonus and not a foundation of the relationship.

That concerns me, because I have learned pretty convincingly by now that being sexually well matched is in fact one of, if not the most important aspects of a relationship. And don't get me wrong we have a really good sex life for the most part, I just sense this could become something larger. It's not the first time she's mentioned stuff along these lines.
>> No. 31911 Anonymous
15th December 2022
Thursday 8:41 pm
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>>31910

I can see where you're coming (pun half intended) from.

I've learned there are some thing in relationships where you have to meet in the middle just have a sort of unspoken truce not to bring up, because you both have a divergent view on something which you know there's no tidy compromise for, so you put up with the minor inconvenience to save a bigger problem growing out of it. And this is largely fine. Nobody is ever going to see eye to eye on everything in life. The issue here is that in having a go at you over the bedsheets, she broke that truce, in your eyes, so naturally you fired back (again, pun half intended) about the bit you're not happy about. Those in glass houses etc.

In future you are best to just resist that urge to fire back, and calmly explain that she's better off not making an issue out of that particular subject, lest she step onto thin ice and provoke a fight. It probably won't work, but you will at least know you tried to take the high road in the ensuing argument.
>> No. 31912 Anonymous
15th December 2022
Thursday 9:09 pm
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>>31910

>Ehh, I can sorta see it, but it doesn't have to be degrading or disgusting.

One lass once told me she needed to be in the mood for it. Like, sometimes she was so horny aroused that she just wanted to "swallow me whole", and that's when she usually didn't mind doing it. But then she always went straight to the bathroom to drink some water to wash it down, because it's apparently not a nice texture in your mouth, even when a lass is so randy she could chew your cock off. And then there were times where she just didn't feel like it. She'd nosh me but asked me to tell her when I was coming so she could pull back before it would get in her mouth.
>> No. 31913 Anonymous
15th December 2022
Thursday 9:49 pm
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>>31912

I can understand that, and I can imagine I probably wouldn't like it either. I suppose it just rubs me up the wrong way because I've always tried to be quite selfless in bed and I'll do stuff I don't really like if it gets them off, so I kind of expect it back. I know you shouldn't "expect" anything, but I don't think that's too unreasonable to want at least sometimes.

>>31911

I think you are absolutely right, I'm okay with it if it's something she doesn't like and I will respect that, but that being the case I think it's a bit rich to have a go at me for the inevitable consequences of pulling out. That's the compromise, so if that's not good enough what does she expect me to do, go finish off in in the bog instead? That's no kind of life.

I suppose I will just have to have a polite but firm word with her about it, but I'll leave it until next time it comes up I think.
>> No. 31914 Anonymous
16th December 2022
Friday 2:26 am
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I used to eat my jizz routinely as a teenlad - mostly because it made for quick and easy cleaning (my bedroom was groundfloor while the bathroom was upstairs). I didn't know about jizz rags at that point.
I can say the taste and after texture is weird, but if you like sucking cock surely that's part of the fun.
FYI I don't do it often anymore.
>> No. 31916 Anonymous
16th December 2022
Friday 9:52 am
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>>31915
There's something desperately wrong with your nose. Or your cock. Perhaps both.
>> No. 31917 Anonymous
16th December 2022
Friday 10:05 am
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>>31916

No, he's right. Semen is very similar in composition to nasal mucous, or the phlegm you cough up when you have a cold. Now, I do sympathise with women in that that can be pretty gross, but the thing is, so is fanny juice. My view is always that women would be mortally offended if you said licking their fanny made you feel sick, so it's dogshit if they feel at liberty to say the same about your spunk.

I'm sorry for otherlad having this bit of conflict but a lass who has a negative attitude about giving head is really off-putting to me. I'm not even that crazy about blowjobs, but it's an indication how much they care about your satisfaction versus their own. Those lasses are ultimately never going to have a fully satisfying relationship/sex life, and will probably never have the self awareness to reflect on how much happier their partners would be if they just got over themselves, and gave him a blowie more often.
>> No. 31918 Anonymous
16th December 2022
Friday 10:36 am
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>>31917

How often do you have to pick dried cum out of your urethra?
>> No. 31919 Anonymous
16th December 2022
Friday 10:44 am
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>>31918
Never, different structures but similar chemistry. Just mucosaccharides making water a bit mucousy plus sperm in the case of cum. In your nose it has time to dry, not so much in your pee hole.
>> No. 31920 Anonymous
16th December 2022
Friday 12:45 pm
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>>31917

>Now, I do sympathise with women in that that can be pretty gross, but the thing is, so is fanny juice.

I genuinely love it. Licking a lass who is producing loads of it can be the icing on the cake, and I'll eat every drop of it with great pleasure. But the thing is, not unlike a lad's knob, personal hygiene is key. I'll only do it if the lass had a shower a reasonably short time ago. It can be pretty gross when you're going down on somebody who hasn't thorougly washed her clopper in a day or two. In fairness, have you ever had a whiff of your knob after a few days of not showering. I wouldn't expect a lass to find that enticing at all.
>> No. 31921 Anonymous
16th December 2022
Friday 2:00 pm
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>>31920

As do I. I'll muff a lass out until my tongue bleeds, and the wetter the better. I can stomach a little bit of that pissy smell, and just like with men their diet does play a role too- I was once with a vegan weirdo lass and she tasted pretty awful. But as long as they do keep on top of their hygiene it's never bad enough to stop me.

It's just another one of those things where women in general have much lower tolerance than men, and I do think that in general they should have a word with themselves about it. It's not like you're asking them to lick your arsehole. Fuck sake I'd love a bird to rim my arse, why are they all such bloody squeamish fairies about everything.
>> No. 31922 Anonymous
16th December 2022
Friday 2:18 pm
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>>31921

>and just like with men their diet does play a role too- I was once with a vegan weirdo lass and she tasted pretty awful

I remember I once had a dish together with my ex which contained copious amounts of onion, some kind of gyros I think, and a day later, she had a distinct onion smell down there. So did I actually, it got all the way into my cum, as we both noticed. It also tends to happen when I eat fish or other seafood.

I've read somewhere that your spunk allegedly tastes best if you've had plenty of pineapple.
>> No. 31923 Anonymous
16th December 2022
Friday 2:58 pm
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>>31922

Any fruit in general really, it's natural sugars that do it. Bit of an urban myth that pineapples in specific work. Though, pineapples and bananas do supposedly contain lots of stuff that helps a bloke have healthy erectile function and produce larger volumes of spunk, though that's somewhat counter productive if you have a lass who's averse to it.
>> No. 31924 Anonymous
16th December 2022
Friday 3:42 pm
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As the cumeater anon I feel qualified enough to inform you all that 'cum' is significantly different in texture to snot. Semen is similar, but the sperm (or perhaps carbohydrates?) within layer your mouth long after the moisture is absorbed, leaving a dry texture around your tongue, gums and palate.

Really, Try it. It's especially nice with mint.
>> No. 31925 Anonymous
16th December 2022
Friday 5:56 pm
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>>31924

Nobody's disputing it's different in texture, but on a chemical level it's basically the same stuff. It's logical to be grossed out by snot or phlegm because it's potentially a vector of infection, but cum hot and fresh from the source is nothing to be disgusted by in my opinion.
>> No. 31926 Anonymous
16th December 2022
Friday 9:13 pm
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My life is becoming quite the kafkaesque nightmare right now. Actually I don't think that's the right word. It's more like Terry Gilliam's Brazil where I'm constantly being fucked by the dystopia bureaucracy we live under.

I'm still waiting for a completion date to move into my new home because the seller's solicitors appear to be illiterate. I'll have to get a new mortgage offer if it doesn't go through before the new year (it won't) and thus end up paying shit loads more in interest. I'm being hounded for parking tickets for parking my car at fucking work, and the place I work has recently started using some complete cowboy outfit who throw tickets at anyone and everyone for spurious reasons. Just today the £900 guitar effects unit I use, for the one hobby I can still escape the misery of existence with, has broken (physically, one of the hinges on the pedal has snapped), and their support are mugging me off.

First world problems maybe, I'm not homeless or at least (although I am getting sick to the back teeth of my parents), but I really have to wonder why nothing ever goes smoothly in my life. Why am I perpetually having to fight jobsworths over email and sit on hold to arseholes. It's just frustration on top of frustration and I am getting sick of it.
>> No. 31927 Anonymous
16th December 2022
Friday 9:29 pm
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>>31926
If it's any consolation, that's a fairly correct use of the term Kafkaesque.
>> No. 31928 Anonymous
16th December 2022
Friday 10:22 pm
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My friend, my lovely beautiful wonderful friend who makes me feel like my life finally has purpose, got her drink spiked on a night out last night. I accept that I simp over her something awful, but it's no more than she deserves for making me so incredibly happy after the past decade or more of miserable loneliness with friends I don't actually like and who are all poisonous parasites. I don't think she got raped or anything, but I am absolutely consumed with murderous rage right now. The worst thing is, she invited me out with her, and I have a horrible cold and was at death's door last night so I politely declined. So she went out alone to the local bar, to brighten other people's lives, and some fucker spiked her drink.

A lot of the time, when you say, "I'm so angry I could actually kill that guy", you're just exaggerating. If someone offered you a gun and told you to do it, you'd probably back down. Perhaps I still would. But I am very much in the "I wonder if I actually would, if I met him" mood. I certainly wouldn't pull him out of a river if he was drowning, and I would actively prevent others from saving him too. If he was on fire, I would go around hiding all the fire extinguishers. I probably wouldn't actually cut his head off in the street, but again, that's the sort of "But would I?" area that we tend not to approach.

She doesn't really want to talk about it, but some other guys she met carried her home and made sure she was okay. So she didn't actually get raped. But the point is that someone out there tried. And obviously I was ill, and she told me to stay home and get better, but he wouldn't have fucking tried if I'd been there, and I would definitely have strangled him a little bit if he had.
>> No. 31929 Anonymous
16th December 2022
Friday 10:45 pm
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>>31928
I've had a, sort of, similar experience in the past. I can't really offer any advice on what to do with those feelings white hot rage, besides not letting them boil over on a train into Manchester on a scorching hot Summer's evening. Or at three confused lads in the street who probably should have beaten me very badly for being a mental prick. Think about those nice lads who helped her, think about how everything's sort of fine, consider how shit saving him from a river would make him feel, especially if you then choked him a little bit afterwards.

I also have a really bad cold right now. Or maybe da' 'vid, I don't know, not relevent.
>> No. 31930 Anonymous
16th December 2022
Friday 10:47 pm
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>>31928

I sometimes make myself really angry thinking about what I'd do if my partner got raped. Assuming she could identify the perpetrator I really would fucking kill him, but not before cutting his bollocks off and feeding them to him. I'd go to prison for that.

Well, okay, maybe I'd bottle it on that, but I would definitely batter the shit out of him and send him to hospital with ruptured testes.

It really is a very distressing thing, even though I'm one of the lads who always moans about TBBCR4FWH and their persecution complex, it is still a viscerally repulsive act to even have someone you know come anywhere close to. I suppose you can just be thankful that she was safe in the end. There are more good people out there who can be trusted to assist and protect each other, than there are bastards who want to ruin somebody's life.
>> No. 31931 Anonymous
19th December 2022
Monday 10:12 pm
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I am so tired of being sad all the time..It's been most of my life at this point. Why can't I just be happy.
>> No. 31932 Anonymous
20th December 2022
Tuesday 4:22 pm
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I'm not unhappy these days so much as just bored. used to be really happy in my own company and always found things to occupy myself but lately I'm just finding myself at a loose end, and I just sit and scroll the internet for hours, pointlessly.

I fear this feeling is only going to get worse over time.
>> No. 31933 Anonymous
20th December 2022
Tuesday 4:55 pm
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>>31932

Sounds as though you've let your concentration span slip, as the Internet tends to encourage us to. Making a concerted effort to spend time on something specific as opposed to aimless browsing will help if that's the case, gradually.
>> No. 31934 Anonymous
20th December 2022
Tuesday 5:13 pm
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>>31933

It helps to an extent, but everything I used to enjoy doing instead just seems less and less appealing. I need something new perhaps, but I am really struggling to find anything that piques my interest at all. Or maybe I'm just in need of a way to get over the hump that stops me diving back into some of my old hobbies, and I'll enjoy them again once I get into it. Just not sure exactly what is making me feel so listless about it all.
>> No. 31935 Anonymous
20th December 2022
Tuesday 5:32 pm
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>>31934

That sounds more like a general depression.
>> No. 31936 Anonymous
20th December 2022
Tuesday 6:28 pm
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>>31935

It's certainly a symptom of depression.

https://patient.info/doctor/patient-health-questionnaire-phq-9
>> No. 31938 Anonymous
20th December 2022
Tuesday 8:18 pm
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>>31932
>I just sit and scroll the internet for hours, pointlessly. I fear this feeling is only going to get worse over time.
Yeah, it's not good mate.

I went for about 6 months without the internet, recently. After a while I found myself going out for walks 3 to 4 times a day, wondering from bench to bench and reading the daily paper. I was getting into a good rythm, keeping away from food-as-entertainment, reasonable energy burn, even started to enjoy the wildlife but mostly it felt like wasting time until bed, only to repeat the next day.
Now that I have the net back, that's all out the window. I'm slowly bringing it back, having recently purged my computer of a significant time sink, but it's a struggle getting over the 'but why?' following 'what can I do?'.

>>31934
>Just not sure exactly what is making me feel so listless about it all
You been consuming anything unusual lately? I wen't through a short period of smoking not long ago, stopped after I realised it's what was giving me a sluggish headache and poor social attitude. You might say something so trivial couldn't possibly have an effect, but it essentially encouraged me to stay locked into a routine whereby i'd wake late, smoke, feel shit, computer, smoke, walk, smoke, computer, bed. The key point was feeling shit directly linked to smoking. Completely changed my routine the moment I decided to flush the tobacco down the toilet, and wouldn't you know it after a day I was fresh as a daisy :|
>> No. 31944 Anonymous
21st December 2022
Wednesday 1:15 am
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>>31938

I certainly connect wit ha lot of what you're describing, definitely been there before at points in my life. But even then it was easier to find myself getting lost in a book or TV show, playing a new game, or whatever. Nowadays I'm just like "meh" about everything even though I've cut out just about any drinking or drugs etc when I'm alone.

I could maybe put it down to having a really good summer where I was doing a lot of socialising, drinking out in the sun with mates and my missus and all that. Now that it's dark and cold and there's just nothing else to really do but sit inside (that doesn't cost money, at least), and I seem not to have much especially to look forward to, it's causing a bit of a rut I suppose. It's like I made a concerted effort to be more active and extroverted, and now I'm paying the price for it.
>> No. 31949 Anonymous
22nd December 2022
Thursday 10:10 am
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I would like a job that doesn't make me want to kill myself.
>> No. 31950 Anonymous
22nd December 2022
Thursday 10:48 am
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>>31949

I felt like that when I was stuck working in call centres and the like before my current job.

What part of it in particular makes you feel that way? Is it your boss? Is it your colleagues? Is it the awful fluorescent lighting in the office that always gives you migraines?
>> No. 31951 Anonymous
22nd December 2022
Thursday 4:03 pm
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>>31944
>having a really good summer .. now it's dark and cold and there's just nothing
Yeah, I get that too. For me it's a shorter cycle; go to an event, have a good day, whatever, then it's back at home or sat on a park bench as though surveying the aftermath of a hurricane. It can be overwhelming - I've learned to avoid most excitement to avoid this experience. Neutrality feels strange, you see everything go by but have no investment in it. Every year goes by and I feel I want to abandon my siblings and parents, and simply just leave. I believe that's essentially what I'm training myself to do - disapear, lose my existential ability to impact the world, even just a footprint.

But then today I saw that girl I used to like and shame and embarassment hit me again. Having failed to positively impress her, realising my lifestyle and desires are probably incompatible with developing a meaningful relationship between us, etc.
I'm certainly willing to experience that, so .. what? I'm begining to realise i'm not unattached or neutral, I'm activly invested in maintaining this life. You can say it's fear of the unknown but I'm starting to thinking it's self pity. Even the revelation fuels itself. Now I have a name for my identity, that's it.

I don't want to be like this, but I do.
I just want to forget myself in dreams.
>> No. 31952 Anonymous
22nd December 2022
Thursday 4:04 pm
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>>31949

I've said this before, but I'll keep saying it because it's still true: the labour market is tighter than it has been in decades. Most industries are grappling with severe staff shortages. Employers are having to get creative and accept candidates with less-than-ideal qualifications and experience, because the alternative is just not filling a vacancy. There has never been a better time to be a jobseeker. See what's on offer, take a punt on some vacancies you don't think you're qualified for, and you're likely to be pleasantly surprised.
>> No. 31953 Anonymous
22nd December 2022
Thursday 9:25 pm
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>>31952
>the labour market is tighter than it has been in decades

I'd agree, but I would also say it's somewhat harder to find the job you want because companies are at opposite ends of the scale right now; hardly any firms are doing really well, and there is a shortage of good people as you say - add in the significant number of people making "unreasonable demands" on things like home working, and it's a toxic mix.
>> No. 31960 Anonymous
29th December 2022
Thursday 9:20 am
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My girlfriend pestered me for sex last night when I really wasn't in the mood because I have things weighing on my mind. She never tried finding out what was the matter but she takes it extremely personally if I don't want sex or don't cum during sex, so in the end I had to push my own feelings down to comfort her and reassure her there's nothing wrong with her. It always seems like my emotions come secondary. In the end we had shitty sex where I could barely maintain an erection, just because it meant I'd have more chance of getting a decent night's sleep.
>> No. 31961 Anonymous
29th December 2022
Thursday 10:22 am
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>>31960
Maybe schedule a serious chat in the cold light of day where you express the problem that you don't feel able to refuse sex because it offends her, and talk about how you can move past it.
>> No. 31962 Anonymous
29th December 2022
Thursday 3:41 pm
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>>31960

I find you really have to impress on them that whole "how would you like it if you weren't in the mood and I forced myself on you" kind of angle to make women understand this. It's just one of those double standards. Not that you should try and guilt trip and make your missus feel bad about it, just that I mean in my experience it's something some women just won't grasp unless you make them see it in perspective like that.
>> No. 31963 Anonymous
30th December 2022
Friday 11:23 am
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I visited my family this week. My older brother (36) and my middle aged dad were talking about Andrew Tate (this was before the Greta interaction). They were talking about how badass he is, getting "cancelled" and still being influential and successful. Also talking about how drag queens are grooming kids to mutilate themselves, how great Alex Jones, how Trump should run Twitter. I know this sounds like I'm building a straw man but it really happened. My brother said people who listen to the mainstream media are stupid, as the real truth can only be found from people like Joe Rogan and Graham Hancock. He also said Earth is hollow, with entrances to the lush interior at the North and South Poles.

It's really cringe worthy and bizarre, two grown men spouting pseudoscience and worshipping chuds like Andrew Tate, or grifters like Alex Jones. Makes conversations about current affairs intolerable as they blame everything on woke lefties, COVID was a hoax to increase control over the population etc.

Don't really know where I'm going with this, just alarming seeing people I love going down the alt right rabbit hole.
>> No. 31964 Anonymous
30th December 2022
Friday 11:41 am
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>>31963
I'm glad my dad has never used a computer in his life. I've got to settle for him being a fan of Are Nige rather than any QAnon bollocks.
>> No. 31965 Anonymous
30th December 2022
Friday 12:46 pm
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>>31963
That sounds absolutely shit, mate, you have my condolences. Just before Christmas I saw someone in one of my work group chats had made a post about how the WEF were on a mission to destroy society and turn us into slaves, like it was a perfectly normal thing to bring up. I think it's a combination of people who can't handle their internet and decades of everything getting worse and worse, it's turned so many people into twisted around nihilists. Christ knows what to do if it reaches a critical mass, because I look at America and I just have zero clue how you roll that kind of mass hysteria back. Sorry, this is clearly a personal issue for you and I'm just blathering away, I just find it massively stressful to think about.

>>31964
Sounds so quaint compared to how derranged some people are getting now.
>> No. 31966 Anonymous
30th December 2022
Friday 5:23 pm
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>>31965

I mean, you don't sound so far off one of them yourself mate. I don't mean that in an insulting way, just have a bit of perspective. They're bothered about gay lizard space jews ruining human society, but you're worried about people who believe in gay lizard space jews ruining human society. Know what I mean? We've all got something or someone to point the finger at and tell ourselves we're right.

I do think we oughtta have compassion for our tinfoil brethren. A lot of the time they're not wrong that SOMETHING is wrong, they're just misguided where they attribute the blame. They're not completely daft, their instinct tells them something is deeply wrong and they are being conned somehow. They just don't know by who, and it's both confusing, frightening, and unfair; no wonder they get so angry.

If you can be arsed to put in the effort, otherlad, it can be worth the effort to try talk them around. You won't get anywhere if you try fight them, and they instantly just react like you're some kind of Graun reading smug liberal and thus obviously The Enemy, but if you meet them where they are and just discuss why the more extreme elements of what they believe in are perhaps nit 100% accurate, you might start to get somewhere.

Bring them around to seeing who the real gay space lizard jews are- Neoliberal capitalists.
>> No. 31967 Anonymous
30th December 2022
Friday 5:24 pm
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Why is my depression so much worse in the days after drinking? It’s like my medication stops working. Fuck man. Is there any way to cheer myself up?
>> No. 31968 Anonymous
30th December 2022
Friday 5:25 pm
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>>31967

Drinking does that.
>> No. 31969 Anonymous
30th December 2022
Friday 5:55 pm
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>>31967

Dopamine and that, innit. What goes up must come down, even if for you, the "up" only briefly touches what most people might call normal.

If you're that type of person and drink is bad enough, I wouldn't recommend getting into coke, speed, or MD. Trust me.
>> No. 31970 Anonymous
31st December 2022
Saturday 12:57 am
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Talking to women in their 20s. Things go well until they start referencing some popular instatok meme or use some fresh new youngster slang and I have to nod my head and pretend I'm Hip and WIth It, while witnessing the generation gap widening to a chasm in real time. Fuck I feel old.
>> No. 31971 Anonymous
31st December 2022
Saturday 1:36 am
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>>31970

Ain't worth it ultimately.

I went on a "date" who I think was either 11 or 12 years younger than me at the start of the year, she wanted an "older man" and all that nonsense, you know the sort. Bit chubby, kinky, daddy issues... The dirty talk when we were texting was brilliant, but It was actually just excruciating trying to talk to her face to face.

Couldn't really get into fucking her in the end, just felt like what it was. A bit wrong. Normally that excites me, but I must be going a bit soft (take that how you will) with age. I'd rather shag someone I have chemistry and connection with.
>> No. 31972 Anonymous
31st December 2022
Saturday 3:15 am
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>>31970

It's grim. No point even trying to pretend you're down with the kids though. Better to be an authentic old fart.
>> No. 31973 Anonymous
31st December 2022
Saturday 4:48 am
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>>31970

Embrace the age gap. Pretending that you're young and hip is cringeworthy, but acknowledging that you aren't gives you the opportunity to engage with someone in a spirit of openness and curiosity. Imagine that they're an immigrant from an exotic country and you won't go far wrong. You don't understand their culture and they don't understand yours, but that just gives you lots of things to talk about and lots of new experiences to share.
>> No. 31974 Anonymous
31st December 2022
Saturday 4:05 pm
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>>31972
>No point even trying to pretend you're down with the kids though

I was winding my son up about Discord earlier, playing up my ignorance and asking what "red hot dank memes" he and his friends share. I've absolutely no idea what the fuck an Ohio meme is and I've no intention of learning about them unless it's so I can use that to my advantage for embarrassing him.
>> No. 31975 Anonymous
31st December 2022
Saturday 7:24 pm
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>>31974


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dk8xRiSuJIY
>> No. 31976 Anonymous
31st December 2022
Saturday 7:28 pm
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>>31975
See, now I feel old because that was hosted on YouTube literally half my lifetime ago and I remember watching it at the time.
>> No. 31977 Anonymous
31st December 2022
Saturday 7:57 pm
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>>31976

I loved the show when it came out because I was roughly in Dan Clark's age range. And it was just genuinely funny.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WxunCB7BbWo
>> No. 31978 Anonymous
15th January 2023
Sunday 12:50 am
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It was my dad's birthday a couple of weeks ago. I spent a couple of days with him just before the birthday, and on the day texted him a happy birthday message. I forgot to get him a card, and tbh I don't really see the point of birthday cards. A Valentine's card from a partner, that has meaning. But "Dear Dad, Happy Birthday, have a good day, Love [me]" is empty of meaning and it's not like he holds on to cards. The day after his birthday my stepmum texted me saying it was selfish of me to not get him a card and that in this family we celebrate life events and I really need to up my game. This kind of annoyed me. My partner sent a belated card and a bunch of flowers, but has heard nothing from them since that text. I just can't get my head around why I need to buy a bit of paper to say a message I can convey through SMS. I generally hate birthdays anyway, even my own, it's just social pressure.
>> No. 31979 Anonymous
15th January 2023
Sunday 11:49 am
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>>31978
Next time you see your step-mum, apologise that it's not a tradition for you to send cards, but make sure to phrase it as something not done "in me and dad's family" to remind her she's a step-mum not a blood relative or the mother of his children.
>> No. 31980 Anonymous
15th January 2023
Sunday 7:14 pm
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>>31978
Honestly, I don't see why birthdays are considered life events. They happen every fucking year. The sentiment of it being both yours and your mothers special day is a nice idea, but other than that it doesn't really matter.
I haven't given a birthday gift (or christmas, thinking of it) for a very long time if ever and I expect nothing from others. My family have only recently started to get the hint after years of me saying so.
>> No. 31981 Anonymous
27th January 2023
Friday 1:03 am
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Dudes, I'm struggling. I want to talk about it but I'm ashamed to be seeking attention. I'm fucking lonely man. How pathetic it is to post this then come back tomorrow, hopeful and excited to be expecting replies. This isn't life, man, it's death. Living is outside.
>> No. 31982 Anonymous
27th January 2023
Friday 1:09 am
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>>31981
I wish I could hug you right now. No feeling is final, there is a tomorrow and the world is better with you in it. That's a platitude. But genuinely, hugs for you!
>> No. 31983 Anonymous
27th January 2023
Friday 1:11 am
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>>31981

It's cold outside this time of year though m8, you sure you don't just want to put your feet up with a brew and argue about UK drill with us?

Anyway I'm offended you don't think I'm a real friend, that hurts. I thought we were close after all these years.
>> No. 31984 Anonymous
27th January 2023
Friday 1:31 am
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>>31981
Speak to us.
>> No. 31992 Anonymous
27th January 2023
Friday 7:47 am
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>>31981
If we thought it was shameful to talk about your feelings we wouldn't have created a whole fucking board for doing just that. Sit down and tell us what's going on.
>> No. 31994 Anonymous
27th January 2023
Friday 3:53 pm
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Not heard directly from my family in over a month. Got a message from older sibling this afternoon. "Have you acknowledged [younger sibling]'s grades yet?". Younger sibling posted in group chat his uni grades. Good grades. Didn't really feel the need to be the 10th person to say a variation on "Well done [sibling] you're amazing". Not out of spite or jealousy, it's just it's not like my endorsement will give him a boost or whatever. Feel like telling the older sibling to fuck off. Nobody gives a shit about me until I need to verbally fellate my younger sibling.
>> No. 31995 Anonymous
27th January 2023
Friday 4:01 pm
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>>31994
Not that you can't feel frustrated or used by that, but when did they last directly hear from you? It may be more about wanting you to be included in the ongoing familial dialogue than just about your spoiled baby of a younger sibling.
>> No. 32024 Anonymous
8th February 2023
Wednesday 9:53 pm
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I'm not going to do anything silly but really not a fan of being alive right now. Had a major meltdown today over trivial shit and it makes me want to cease existing.
>> No. 32025 Anonymous
9th February 2023
Thursday 2:20 pm
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>>32024

What was the "trivial shit"? There's no such thing as big or small problems, it's all in the context. I remember once breaking into tears because I dropped my Chicago Town pizza and it landed cheese side into the carpet, because it was just the last straw at that point. Proof and confirmation I'm not allowed to have anything nice.
>> No. 32026 Anonymous
9th February 2023
Thursday 4:20 pm
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>>32025
Had to take two buses to mental health team and two buses back, lots of delays meaning I arrived to the MH team 30 minutes late.
Then the guy I was meant to see at MH team was off sick and nobody had sorted out cover to give me my meds so had to wait around for that.
Then I missed a bus.
Then I went to B&M and a child crying while his mum dithered meant I was in the queue getting irate.
Took a different bus to collect gf's meds, they didn't have it in stock.
The straw that broke the camel's back was my gf telling me to buy shitloads of shopping, I get home and there are no shelves in fridge as she's cleaning it, so I have nowhere to put shopping.

Individually those events are meaningless. But for an autismo like me, the combo of all them really fucked my head up.
>> No. 32027 Anonymous
9th February 2023
Thursday 6:59 pm
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>>32026
It could be worse. You could have to pay to run and maintain a car. You might move somewhere cheaper to save money then find out your car insurer wants an extra grand a year now you live among normal people and not the rich.
>> No. 32028 Anonymous
9th February 2023
Thursday 7:20 pm
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>>32027
Didn't realise this thread got renamed "Hardship Olympics".
>> No. 32029 Anonymous
9th February 2023
Thursday 7:43 pm
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>>32026

Those first two things are fairly major then the rest on top could definitely make the rest of the day awful. Sorry mate.
>> No. 32030 Anonymous
10th February 2023
Friday 2:41 pm
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>>32026

The first few things on there would already have me in a bad temper, and from there, if I'm under stress already, my mood is just like kindling waiting for a spark to catch. So don't be too hard on yourself lad, I'd have probably had a wobbly at some point misen.
>> No. 32031 Anonymous
10th February 2023
Friday 7:17 pm
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I am probably going to kill myself at some point. It might not be for ages yet, but there's no way they're putting "natural causes" on my death certificate.
>> No. 32032 Anonymous
10th February 2023
Friday 7:21 pm
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Come to the realisation (or perhaps I came to it long ago and just suppressed it) that all the friendships I've had I've ended on my own terms. Now I'm 30-odd and alone save for a partner with their own established social circles and no desire to mix me up in them.

Some of the best friends I've ever had are dead and I'll never get them back. Even my (actually) autistic partner has much better luck with socialising and they don't consider themselves to be nearly as affable as me.

Life is fucking shite.
>> No. 32033 Anonymous
10th February 2023
Friday 8:56 pm
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>>32032

Same. Not sure if there's much to do about it.

When I think about it I'm sometimes a bit lonely and wish I had more people to do things with, but at the same time I am probably happier without the stress and anxiety maintaining friendships can cause.
>> No. 32034 Anonymous
11th February 2023
Saturday 10:48 pm
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>>32031 Please don't. There's like thrdd active posters on this entire website, and we need all of them.
>> No. 32035 Anonymous
12th February 2023
Sunday 4:13 pm
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Looked up a lad I used to be close with. He's in some gay furry throuple now and living life.

I have a girlfriend that just about tolerates me and no mates.

Should be mandatory to cut out the shame centre of your brain while you're young so you don't end up old and bitter and judgmental with fuck all to show for it.
>> No. 32037 Anonymous
12th February 2023
Sunday 5:31 pm
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>>32035

One for you, foxlad.
>> No. 32044 Anonymous
13th February 2023
Monday 9:12 pm
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Some years ago I caused the death of my dog, who was recovering from an operation. I had let her jump onto the sofa, which she did with a yelp having pulled out her internal stiches. She died a few days later from internal bleeding.
I think about it every now and then.
>> No. 32045 Anonymous
13th February 2023
Monday 11:02 pm
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>>32044
That must hurt, but you can't possibly have known.
>> No. 32046 Anonymous
19th February 2023
Sunday 11:40 pm
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Today is the two year anniversary of the suicide of a person I was friends-ish with at uni.

She suffered from psychosis, bipolar etc and had seemingly gone off the deep end in recent years from what I've deduced, although I haven't had contact in the few years since uni.

I googled her name just to look at photos of her that had been posted on a fundraiser that was set up for her way-back and the top result was a coroner report into her demise, stating that she was "badly disrupted" by a freight train.

I'm just feeling really jarred by the entire thing, even though I was a distant character in her life, it just feels so strange.
I'm not really too sure why I'm posting this.
>> No. 32047 Anonymous
19th February 2023
Sunday 11:42 pm
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>>32046

I just hope you're at peace now, Emma. I'm so sorry.
>> No. 32048 Anonymous
21st February 2023
Tuesday 11:32 pm
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Here's an awkward question and I'm not messing you about: What's going on with my strong preference for a particular different race/ethnicity of women?

The Americanised race fetish scene is disgusting, I've had enough interracial relationships to know it's not like that anyway and it's not totally exclusive in terms of what I'm attracted to but still is something I've always had. I distinctly remember being a teenager and my mates being really into milfs and other vanilla stuff so I was a bit weird and a lot of people find it odd.

Is this something I ought to reflect on given what goes on in society or is it like big girls and I should just roll with it? I think sometimes about all the cultural differences/baggage and if I have kids whether they might have a worse life as a result of my very obvious 'thing'. Appearance is only one part of any relationship after all but if you put me in a crowded room of women there's also one direction I'd gravitate to. I've been reflecting on it after I helped out with some research into male sexuality when I was bored so it's made me think about it more than I perhaps should.

Sorry to raise given the severity of the above posts.
>> No. 32049 Anonymous
22nd February 2023
Wednesday 12:58 am
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>>32048
I couldn't tell you. You may be insecure and fetishizng women that don't match your skin colour. Maybe it's the body shape you prefer. Maybe, maybe, maybe. There's no one who can answer this for you but you, yourself.

Nowt wrong with you if you "like big butts and you cannot lie", nothing wrong with you genuinely just like a body shape. You'll have to ask yourself why that is, though, so do reflect on why.

The important bit is that you don't reduce women to those attributes. There's a person inside of the body, if they don't match up to likeing what you like about them, move on.
>> No. 32050 Anonymous
22nd February 2023
Wednesday 1:48 am
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>>32046

That is rough, mate.

I've known a handful of people in my life who went on to kill themselves. Whether you were very close to somebody like that or they were just somebody you knew in passing in the greater scheme of things, the way that such an experience can shake you up is quite unique. When you lose somebody through a tragic accident, that is bad enough, but more often than not, you know that they would have preferred to survive. They enjoyed life and would have liked to have more of it. Like that lass I knew who fell off the back of her boyfriend's motorbike and died instantly from a broken neck when she hit the ground. But when somebody ends their own life, there's still a little more that dies inside you with them. And at some level, you can't help thinking how you could have prevented it, or why you didn't see that that person would have needed loads more help than anybody knew.

Not sure if that makes any sense. I guess my point is, I have a pretty good idea how it made you feel.
>> No. 32051 Anonymous
22nd February 2023
Wednesday 12:45 pm
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My former therapist is ghosting me. She said she'd get back to me about another appointment, but I've tried to whatsapp her several times in the last few months and even left her a voice mail last week. Her phone number hasn't changed, and she's online on whatsapp almost every day. Things got a little heated the last time I was there a few years ago, but I'm not sure it warrants avoiding me like the plague. She knows me best, I spent several years with her, and I don't want to go through weeks or possibly months of getting acquainted with another therapist and having to tell them my entire life story again. I paid my therapist shedloads of money out of my own pocket because it wasn't on the NHS, which makes it all the more disappointing that this is now happening. She could at least be honest and tell me outright that she's not open to continuing our sessions. I guess I'd just expect more from somebody with a distinguished background in clinical psychiatry who used to work at a major secure hospital. Or maybe that's just the way they are trained to deal with people when they become a little irate.
>> No. 32052 Anonymous
26th February 2023
Sunday 8:19 pm
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My and my partner's work schedules are clashing horribly at the minute, and it's making it very difficult to spend time together. We live a fair distance apart, not "long distance" distance, but far enough that just popping round at short notice is quite impractical; and it's certainly not helped by how pricey everything is getting these days. If our days off don't line up it can be weeks between visits, and apart from the obvious issues of loneliness and yearning, I would be lying if I said I'm not worried about it causing us to drift apart in the longer term.

We've spoken about it and both said we're determined not to let it come between us and all that, but really I know it's the sort of thing you can't put up with forever. If the issue doesn't magically resolve itself, one of us will likely need to change our work or living arrangements, and I know from experience that it isn't ideal when you are essentially forced to make big decisions like that due to the circumstances of the relationship rather than coming to them "naturally", if that makes sense.

Probably overthinking it, and things will get better in due course, but by this point in life I feel like I've been down the path enough times that I recognise these twists and turns as they come up, and it's hard not to think about where they can lead.
>> No. 32053 Anonymous
27th February 2023
Monday 11:55 am
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>>32051

My therapist actually wrote me an e-mail back last night, apologising for the delay and telling me that's she's incredibly busy at the moment with other patients, but that she has time to see me around the end of March.

I was getting ready to write her an e-mail with a big rant about how I spent several years with her and paid her tons of money and that I was very upset about her ghosting me. Good thing I didn't, because her e-mail sounded friendly as always.
>> No. 32054 Anonymous
27th February 2023
Monday 4:20 pm
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>>32053
Honestly I found it funny how you described yourself as 'a little irate'. Took a fair bit of restraint not to mention it at the time.
>> No. 32055 Anonymous
27th February 2023
Monday 6:06 pm
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>>32054

You see why I need help again.
>> No. 32056 Anonymous
27th February 2023
Monday 6:14 pm
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Tough time, lately, lads. A few big projects fizzled out without so much as a whimper. Arguing with girlfriend after a really terrible trip taken together. I'm getting really wound up when I'm shown a lack of respect when I'm out and about, too. Work feels like a money treadmill, or like one of those little credit bikes from Black Mirror.

It's shit how you can do everything right in life and still have a hard time, isn't it? It's no wonder people just say "fuck it" and drop out to become alcoholics.
>> No. 32057 Anonymous
27th February 2023
Monday 7:22 pm
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>>32056

>It's shit how you can do everything right in life and still have a hard time

I think many people don't do what feels right to them, they just do what's the accepted standard of doing "everything right", and then hope to get fulfillment and a feeling of validation from it. And it's often not until after they've ticked all the boxes and completed all the milestones of middle class life that they realise how fucking empty and unfulfilled they actually feel inside.

I have the utmost respect for people who drop out of life with conviction. Not because they're lazy sods, but because they can't stand another day of it.
>> No. 32058 Anonymous
27th February 2023
Monday 8:49 pm
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>>32057

Without wanting to sound snobby though, I think a lot of people really are just boring enough that they don't have strong ideas of their own about what would "feel right". They get the new build house and an orange girlfriend who drives a mini and go on holiday to Tennerife because that's just what you do, and they largely are happy with it, because they haven't ever been burdened with the knowledge that it is, wether they realise it or not, desperately dull.

The point I'm sort of trying to make in a facetious kind of way is that there's nothing inherently wrong with those things and they are good and enjoyable, but you're always going to be saddled with the 9-5 to pay for it all, and I think the reality of it is that no matter what we tell ourselves about living in a meritocratic society and so on, something like 90% of us ultimately have to settle for a job we don't really like and never will. Just how it is. I think THAT has a lot to answer for.

My refusal to suck it up and do a job I hate is why I'll probably always be skint, but fuck it. I clawed my way into home ownership by the skin of my teeth, I've got a car and a pretty fit bird. I think what many people need most of all is a bit of perspective about what they do have. Not in a "it could be much worse" kind of way, just in a mindful, self-affirming way.

I'm reminded of when I was on the dole, and I was able to trick my brain into being happy with the smallest luxuries. In a weird way it was easier to be content then than it is now, because it was all out of my hands. I knew there was no point worrying about any greater wants or needs, because most things were just so far beyond my reach; so I made a little routine each day of choosing something to watch for the night, then going for a wander to the shop to buy my barbecue waffle snax and maybe some fags, and lived in the moment, enjoying what I had there and then.
>> No. 32059 Anonymous
27th February 2023
Monday 9:23 pm
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>>32058

>I'm reminded of when I was on the dole, and I was able to trick my brain into being happy with the smallest luxuries.

There's a phenomenon called the happiness paradox. One of its ideas is that the more you chase happiness, the unhappier you can become. Hence maybe what I said about ticking all the boxes of middle class status and still not being happy. But another aspect of the happiness paradox is that by the same token, sometimes the poor are far happier than the wealthy. That isn't to say that being dead skint and living in that kind of milieu isn't an absolute fucking struggle everyday. But provided that some of the most basic needs are met, knowing that certain things are still just out of reach for them, a lot of poor people are more willing to make do with what little they have, instead of believing that chasing more things will equal more happiness.
>> No. 32060 Anonymous
27th February 2023
Monday 9:38 pm
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Sounds like the hedonic treadmill: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hedonic_treadmill
>> No. 32061 Anonymous
2nd March 2023
Thursday 11:22 pm
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I've been having a bit of trouble with sleep lately. I've been restricting late night tea for a few days now in an effort to keep myself from staying awake all night, but I'm still reluctant to actually go to bed. I may have already mentioned this here - there's some vague memory of typing that marked up text before.

I don't know what the fuck I'm doing, man. Not being tired isn't really a problem as I can read for a few hours. A few nights ago I was tired but had considered staying up through a second night after only 4 hours sleep some time earlier.

Being that I don't work and have few daily resposibilities, I do most of my actual sleeping during the day - have done for a long time, between periods of better routine. Right now I just don't see the difference between being awake or not. I realise the benefit of being up during daylight hours.

There was some singular event in my past, and the reinforcement of similar stories from family members, that I recall whenever I think about why I'm staying up. Sometimes I wonder whether this is just what I tell myself - sort of an excuse by rote - but I imagine there must be some reason to it. I know I'm conscious of noise during the night, at least, and won't wear earbuds for fear of missing something important. That sounds like a reasonable thing for any human, really.

I donno, I'm just talking shit. Just don't want to go to bed, and when it comes time of waking up I don't want to get out of it.
>> No. 32062 Anonymous
2nd March 2023
Thursday 11:30 pm
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>>32061

I'm much the same.

I've always got horrible timekeeping at work and always made some vague excuse to employers about severe insomnia, but the reality is I'm just extremely undisciplined when it comes to going to bed. I've always resented it for some reason, sleep is a waste of time that could be spent on other, more entertaining things, and the closer it gets to bedtime the more urgently I want to read that article or watch that video.

But then, even when I am tired and decide to go get my head down, I'll lie there awake, bored. The only time I can sleep soundly is if I nod off on the sofa watching something, and then I'm out like a light, the sofa seems to draw me in and go "ahhh don't you just want to close your eyes, ahhh wouldn't that feel nice", and I can't resist it. But then I'll wake up feeling like utter shit, freezing cold, at 4am. But I guarantee if I went and got undressed and got in bed instead, I'd be wide awake again.

What was the event in the past you mentioned?
>> No. 32063 Anonymous
3rd March 2023
Friday 12:23 am
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>>32062
>The only time I can sleep soundly is if I nod off on the sofa watching something, and then I'm out like a light
I don't know how people can do that. Knowing the TV or even a light is on distracts me from sleeping, like a bladder that's just past a comfortable capacity. What is really nice though it listening to the radio at a very low volume, especially when there's some ethereal or otherwise ambient music playing. Blue Jam was amazing to fall alseep too, weird as it sounds. The shipping forecast is also nice, needless to say.

>What was the event in the past you mentioned?
I donno if I've mentioned this before. I used to work and live above a PUB for a short time. Some new guy arrived in town and was found to be dealing heavy drugs in the pubs toilets. I barred him and due to 'pub watch' (a sort of 'neighbourhood watch alliance' for pubs) the guy ended up being barred from every pub in town. That effected his ability to sell drugs. About a week later word got around that this man was gonna do me in. The day came and he turned up to check I was present (amazingly every one of the usual, daily, regulars failed to show up that day), but for some reason another locally respected hardman came by to protect me. I'm not sure what happened but I think the drug guy was talked down - I passed him in the street a few days later, he just closed his eyes as he walked by.
The strange thing is I haven't got a clue why this other dude protected me. I think he was longterm friends with the pub landlord (who I'm related to), I knew who he was, but he wasn't a regular. I hadn't seen him before or since in that pub.

I was shitting myself the whole time this was happening - I'd never really experienced anything like it. What's worse is a police like 'wanted poster' was stuck to the entrance door to the above-pub flat, so I had to see the face every time I went in and out of my house. Not to mention that I used to climb through the upstairs window to access my home when the pub was closed, showing me that the place was insecure. And on top of that too we had the local cunts climb on the roof to sabotage the Sports TV dish the night of a big game event.

So it's all sheltered people (or person, me) being put into an environment I couldn't hack. I donno man. I was young, I'm just a pussy. I think this is one of the major factors in my discomfort around sleeping at night. I was scared for a long time that this dude was gonna come through my bedroom window - then anyone come through.

The thing is, I've heard some really bad stories that people have gone though. It's embarassing to think of the effect this may have had on me, when there's so much worse happening all the time. It's lightweight shit, you know?
>> No. 32064 Anonymous
3rd March 2023
Friday 10:32 am
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>>32063

My house got burgled twice when I was a kid, which I'm sure left some sort of lasting impression, so I can actually see where you're coming from there. Security is something I'm acutely aware of as an adult, not least because I've got a lot of expensive shit that I am very much comitted to keeping on having; but also because this country is largely full of nutters, and while I might have bought lots of shiny toys throughout my life, I'm still not the kind of person who's wealthy enough to live somewhere that's not full of nutters.

It sounds sad, but I sleep with a sword (a proper one, not some mincing decorative katana) and crowbar within arm's reach, and it's also one of the reasons I prefer to live in a flat than in a house. In a house you've got essentially fuck all protection, the only thing stopping anyone breaking in is common decency. You're just relying on the hope they don't come looking in YOUR window and decide they like the look of YOUR flatscreen. If I lived in a house I'd be paranoid of leaving anything out in front of the windows, I'd probably just abandon the downstairs rooms entirely and live upstairs for fear of making myself look like too much of a target. But if I live in a third floor apartment, I know the only way in is through the front door, and to get to that they'd have to break in to the building itself, so there's an extra layer of security. Plus nobody can see through my windows and eye up my gadgets.

If I did live in a house I'd have to have a dog. I don't like people who have shitty little poodles and terriers, because they miss the point of a dog. I don't like people who tell dogs off for barking, because they miss the point of a dog. The point of a dog is to be your right hand man, you're Hatchet Harry and he's that big bald fucker who sits at the other end opposite the door, except with supernatural hearing and sense of smell. If anyone comes near he goes "BOSS! BOSS! THERE'S SOME CUNT NEAR THE HOUSE! BOSS!", and you are thus always aware.

Anyway I've lost track of what I'm rabling on about now, but maybe you should get a dog.
>> No. 32065 Anonymous
5th March 2023
Sunday 3:00 pm
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What do you do when you clash with your partner over something, and they're just completely unwilling to compromise or even apparently take you seriously about it? It shouldn't be a big issue and it feels silly to do something as drastic as breaking up over it, but it's something that I am unhappy about and will always be unhappy about if she won't listen. But she's completely committed to dying on this particular hill, and it leaves me thinking well, that's not very fucking nice to the person you love is it.

I don't want to leave her but I resent her not even being willing to meet me half way. She doesn't seem to realise what damage it's causing over something small. You can say "well if it's not a big thing then judt learn to let it go" but that's a lot easier said than done, and even so, the resentment will always be there that I had to. Resentment is the killer of relationships, once it seeps in you're on the countdown one way or another. Might be a year, might be five, but it eventually claims its trophy.
>> No. 32066 Anonymous
5th March 2023
Sunday 3:35 pm
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>>32065

Sorry to ask the obvious, ladmate, but what is the transgression that is getting to you?
>> No. 32067 Anonymous
5th March 2023
Sunday 4:17 pm
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>>32066

Meh, it's more a bunch of little things, which is why I didn't want to name them specifically, it'd just make the post confusing. But the friction over them is causing that "proxy argument" thing to happen quite a bit.

Actually when I think about it they're not all small things, we had a running disagreement about contraception; and while obviously it's her body that would be affected, so on this particular one it's sort of understandable, she's unwilling to even discuss any of the long term options. So the responsibility is all on me, and she won't entertain even the slightest compromise. The pattern is similar with other things- The responsibility is always on me, and she doesn't seem to understand, or care, how that feels one sided. She won't ever share the load, so to speak. Whenever I've tried to discuss it, her defense is to bring up all my bad habits and make it sound like she's already at the limits of endurance to put up with them, so it's somehow unreasonable of me to ask her to put more effort in to any other aspects of the relationship.

I suppose some lads might say "lol that's women for you hurr hurr" but nah, I have too much self respect to just lie down and accept the situation honestly.

The more I think about it the more I think it might not be unreasonable to break up. It's a basic lack of respect not to consider your partner's feelings on things that affect you both, and the way she deflects it on to my personal flaws is just... Whatever the word is., she's being a bitch. It will be a shame because she's a great laugh but I'm starting to feel like she's just kind of an arsehole.
>> No. 32068 Anonymous
5th March 2023
Sunday 4:33 pm
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>>32064
That really sucks, I'm sorry to hear it.
>If I lived in a house .. I'd probably just abandon the downstairs rooms entirely and live upstairs for fear of making myself look like too much of a target.
I've thought the same about living upstairs, too - just keep the bottom of the house as a useful open space. As I'm currently situated, I purposefully buy second hand to deter would be thieves. Nothing in my house is new - everything either lacks a remote control or is botched into reasonable use with whatever's to hand.

I've always liked the fantasy of owning a run down looking home that opens up into a miniature paradise - infact the idea runs into much of my being. I dress drab with the only flair allowable the lining. Even my mental state shuts people out, as if I'm a wealth of value within, masked outwardly as a tramp. It's weird, getting more psycological than just fear of being a physical victim.

But yeah man dogs are definitely a reassurance, though with everything I wonder if getting one would just be a 'cope' (is anything not?.
>> No. 32069 Anonymous
5th March 2023
Sunday 4:51 pm
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>>32068
)*
>> No. 32070 Anonymous
5th March 2023
Sunday 4:54 pm
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>>32069
uh, thanks.
>> No. 32071 Anonymous
6th March 2023
Monday 9:11 am
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Everybody (including me) is miserable nowadays but the cost of living and shift to remote working has hit therapists so hard that the majority of them have moved away from offices and now operate solely online.

I don't want to live in the fucking pod. I want an actual human that I can interact with and that can comfort me after I've trauma dumped on them, not some avatar on a Zoom call.

Fucks sake.
>> No. 32072 Anonymous
11th March 2023
Saturday 8:35 pm
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My meds have changed and now I think I'm having a manic episode I'm not sleeping properly and I have boundless energy and I keep buying shit I don't need.
>> No. 32073 Anonymous
11th March 2023
Saturday 9:58 pm
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>>32072

Yeah, I think that might be hypomania m8. Probably want to speak to your doctor about that.
>> No. 32074 Anonymous
12th March 2023
Sunday 7:05 pm
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I feel no shame cutting myself at 30 years old. It's the only thing that stops the pain - bar meds zombifying me - at this point. Onwards!
>> No. 32075 Anonymous
12th March 2023
Sunday 7:06 pm
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>>32074
Have you tried hot sauce?
>> No. 32076 Anonymous
12th March 2023
Sunday 7:59 pm
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>>32075
Have you tried necking yourself, you unfunny cunt?
>> No. 32077 Anonymous
12th March 2023
Sunday 8:11 pm
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>>32076
Yeah, I thought we had a rule not to be a cunt on /emo/.
>> No. 32078 Anonymous
12th March 2023
Sunday 8:46 pm
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>>32076
It's not a joke. You want pain followed by an endorphin rush, an extremely hot sauce can be a substitute. It doesn't cause lasting or visible harm and is certainly more effective than drawing on yourself with red pen or using an ice-cube or whatever they usually suggest.
>> No. 32079 Anonymous
13th March 2023
Monday 6:15 pm
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So I'm in a weird situation, if I take a high dose of medication, I am zombified but I don't hear voices so much. If I take the next dose down, I have lots of energy but constant voices in my head. Both doses effectively disable me, it's just deciding what disability is more viable - mad cunt or slothful cunt.
>> No. 32080 Anonymous
13th March 2023
Monday 9:13 pm
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I fuckin hate you alllllll
>> No. 32081 Anonymous
13th March 2023
Monday 9:19 pm
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>>32079

What are you taking? Aripiprazole and brexpiprazole generally causes less sedation than other antipsychotics.

If you haven't been on your current medication for long, you might want to try sticking with the higher dose for a few weeks. A lot of people find that the sedative effects wear off once they've acclimatised to a higher dose.

It's also possible that treating the antipsychotic is causing depressive symptoms, or revealing underlying depressive symptoms that are masked by psychosis. This is more likely if you're feeling unmotivated and indifferent rather than drowsy. Those depressive symptoms will respond to antidepressants and/or psychotherapy. Antidepressant prescribing is a bit more complicated in people who experience psychosis, but there are plenty of valid options.

I haven't experienced psychosis, but I have been prescribed antipsychotics as an adjunct therapy for treatment-resistant depression. I think that sometimes you have to be a little bit pushy to get the right treatment, because the person writing the prescription doesn't have to live with the side-effects. Clinicians can often get fixated on managing a particular set of symptoms or following a particular treatment pathway, rather than looking at your quality of life in the round. If you don't speak up for yourself (or get an advocate to help speak for you), then you can get railroaded onto a path of least resistance that's more about protecting the NHS from legal risk than serving the best interests of patients.
>> No. 32082 Anonymous
13th March 2023
Monday 9:27 pm
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>>32081
>Aripiprazole
I've got a friend who took this and became a compulsive gambler while she was on it. She is now in constant battles with the NHS because apparently it's not listed among the side effects. It's a fairly rare side effect, but I just thought you should be aware since allegedly the doctors prescribing it won't know any of this.
>> No. 32083 Anonymous
13th March 2023
Monday 9:48 pm
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>>32082

Compulsive gambling and other impulsive behaviours are known side-effects of aripiprazole and are listed on the patient information leaflet, but I don't know whether they were when your friend was prescribed it. The MHRA have logged a total of fifteen adverse reactions involving impulsive behaviour, with the first being reported in 2008.

It's a foreseeable risk, because aripiprazole is a partial dopamine agonist - most antipsychotics inhibit the activity of dopamine, but aripiprazole and brexpiprazole increase the activity at some dopamine receptors. This is very useful for a lot of patients who struggle with a lack of motivation or interest when they take dopamine-suppressing antipsychotics, but there's obviously a risk that in some patients that effect could go too far and tip over into compulsive behaviours. We see similar side-effects (to a much greater extent) in dopamine agonists used for the treatment of Parkinson's disease.

https://www.medicines.org.uk/emc/files/pil.7073.pdf

https://info.mhra.gov.uk/drug-analysis-profiles/dap.html?drug=./UK_EXTERNAL/NONCOMBINED/UK_NON_000830181335.zip&agency=MHRA
>> No. 32084 Anonymous
14th March 2023
Tuesday 9:17 am
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>>32081
I'm on olanzapine, been on it since 2015. I went from 20mg to 15mg a year and a half ago, which went fine as I didn't really have any work commitments. When I started my current job the psychotic symptoms were so bad I went back up to 20mg. But then that makes me sleepy all the time, so last week started back on 15mg. But now I'm a bit manic I keep buying shit I neither need nor can afford.

I'm in the process of changing mental health teams due to moving to a different part of town, so I don't currently have anyone assigned to me who can help/change the prescription anytime soon.

Re: depression symptoms, I've been on antidepressants for a decade, currently on fluoxetine, lithium, and buproprion. And have had lots of intensive psychotherapy.

I think once I've got a named psychiatrist again I might try change antipsychotics.
>> No. 32085 Anonymous
17th March 2023
Friday 9:19 am
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My mum is reaching the end of her tether and I'm not sure how to help. She's the main carer for her dad, who is in his 90s. She feels trapped by it, but she doesn't want to put him in a home or rely on care workers. She feels like she's being cheated out of what might be her last good years - by the time he croaks it, she might be too old to enjoy her retirement. What really gets her down is the fact that she never gets any thanks for it.

Granddad moans constantly about everything, nothing is ever good enough for him, he complains about being neglected if he's left alone for any length of time, but if you take him to task about it he goes completely the other way and switches into "I'm just a burden, you'd all be better off if I was dead" mode. It's understandable that being frail and vulnerable would take a toll psychologically, but it really isn't helping the situation. It's not a nice thing to think, but we've all had to bite our tongues on occasion to avoid blurting out "you're right mate, you are a burden, we don't like you and we're all just waiting for you to die so we can get on with our lives".

I do what I can to help, but mum feels guilty about passing the burden on to me, so sometimes it seems like offering to help out just makes things harder for her. She'd rather mop up piss than know that I'm mopping up piss. She hasn't taken a holiday in years, because she can't really enjoy it - either she has to rush back because there has been some sort of emergency, or she just spends the whole time worrying that there will be an emergency.

If it was up to me then I'd just stick him in a home, but mum couldn't live with the guilt. I try to be as supportive as I can, but I can't make granddad tell mum "thank you for the dinner, that was lovely" or "I really appreciate everything you do for me", which is all she really wants. It's all just quite grim.
>> No. 32086 Anonymous
20th March 2023
Monday 4:22 pm
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Why shouldn't I stab the next person who tries to ruin my day for no reason?
>> No. 32087 Anonymous
20th March 2023
Monday 5:05 pm
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>>32086
No cunt's worth rotting in jail for. The image of you screaming as gutturally and loudly in their face as you possibly can will stay with them for weeks though. Try that instead.
>> No. 32088 Anonymous
20th March 2023
Monday 5:27 pm
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>>32085
>I can't make granddad tell mum "thank you for the dinner, that was lovely" or "I really appreciate everything you do for me", which is all she really wants.
Is it possible you could ask him to say those things?

"Grandad, saying 'you'd all be better off if I was dead' makes it really difficult for us to care for you and causes us a lot of distress.
Wouldn't you rather we were pleased to show our love and care? You can make it so as simply as by showing gratitude for your care. Dinner was lovely, let's thank mom"

Or some sentimental shit. Drop in a pop-culture reference if you have to - make it bearable.

I really don't understand why people feel so obliged to be around people who take the piss. Most of the time I find calling peoples bluff is enough to shut them the fuck up. It doesn't work well if the person is seriously depressed or self-centered though. If all else fails, suggest your mother reads "Mindfulness and Setting Boundaries".
>> No. 32089 Anonymous
20th March 2023
Monday 8:54 pm
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>>32088

>suggest your mother reads "Mindfulness and Setting Boundaries"

Good recommendation. I have read "Mindfulness and Setting Boundaries" and found it to be a helpful, informative and enjoyable read that was applicable for any aspects of life, not just dealing with a possibly depressed and upset elderly relative. I enjoyed it so much I found myself thinking that the author should pay me for endorsing his product.
>> No. 32098 Anonymous
27th March 2023
Monday 9:21 am
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I'm too ill to work. I've had so much time off in my new job, but I had a meds reduction recently which has floored me. I know it makes me look like a lazy/unreliable cunt, but I'm literally vomiting and shaking and my anxiety is insane. I've asked to be referred to occupational health, but it's just embarassing to be honest, to be so incompetent and useless.
>> No. 32099 Anonymous
27th March 2023
Monday 3:25 pm
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>>32098
My friend is like that. Her employer's HR team are apparently very understanding. It must be very frustrating, because I get frustrated when I have even a minor moment of uselessness, but that's because I'm an idiot who doesn't get that people are much more understanding than you might give them credit for. As long as your HR people, or person, know the reason, I don't think anyone will be angry with you.

My beloved friend struggles doubly with this because she can be too ill from anxiety to go to work, but then feel fine in the evening and go to the pub with me. She isn't taking the piss; that's really how it works for her. This is how understanding some people can be.
>> No. 32100 Anonymous
27th March 2023
Monday 4:21 pm
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>>32098
I feel your pain, I'm on anxiety medication and it helps but barely. Can't even hold a job down, can barely handle my own life. While this does seem to be more common and is a consequence of everything, I know I'll probably end up as one of those mentally ill blokes on the street at this rate.
>> No. 32102 Anonymous
28th March 2023
Tuesday 12:49 am
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>>32101
No you shouldn't. What makes you think that?
>> No. 32103 Anonymous
28th March 2023
Tuesday 1:22 pm
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Not really one for fast food but I made the mistake of looking at Domino's to gauge how cost of living and inflation is hitting the big boys. An alternative Big Mac Index, if you will.

Over £20 for a regular large pizza! What the fuck is this country coming to? It all feels a bit futile rubbing pennies together when even shit-tier treats are out of reach.
>> No. 32104 Anonymous
28th March 2023
Tuesday 1:33 pm
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>>32103
Nobody pays full price for Domino's.
>> No. 32107 Anonymous
28th March 2023
Tuesday 2:39 pm
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>>32103
Dominos/Papa Johns/Pizza Hut cost way too much, considering they're not even that great quality. Compared to a kebab meal, or even a non-mainstream pizza joint meal, it's hard to justify spending £25 on a Dominos/Pizza Hut. I can forgive Papa John's because the garlic sauce is well good.
>> No. 32110 Anonymous
28th March 2023
Tuesday 6:47 pm
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Dominos is usually my favourite pizza place but I had one the other night and it was shite. I'd happily sack it off but it's difficult to find quality pizza because it's something that any 1-star hygiene rating takeaway pumps out along with their burgers and kebabs.

Sage for /nom/
>> No. 32134 Anonymous
3rd April 2023
Monday 2:42 am
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i'm going to end up killing myself one day and i don't even want to die, i just don't want to be here anymore.
>> No. 32135 Anonymous
3rd April 2023
Monday 12:22 pm
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>>32103
I hate to be an expert on this but they always overcharge on single pizzas. What you need to do is look at the deals to get the value which, glancing at the current Pizza Hut website has:

- 'Monday madness' 9.99 large pizza deal
- A 'hungry hut' meal which is a large pizza, 2 classic sides and 1.5ml drink for 19.99

This is where they tend to beat the independent restaurants on value. I've done a lot of research on this over the years and no matter how optimistically I look at it you just can't expect restaurants to deliver a better deal - they always fuck on you sides and desserts because they know their clientele and the selection tends to be quite poor.

>What the fuck is this country coming to? It all feels a bit futile rubbing pennies together when even shit-tier treats are out of reach.

This stuff isn't the problem of the modern world. People have some disposable to buy fastfood, Amazon tat and meme shit but they don't have enough to actually improve their situation - the working class can't afford a home where the jobs are so they have to rent which in turn costs them more and makes home ownership further out of reach while simultaneously making some cunt landlord richer who will buy up more property.

It's the nature of consumer capitalism I guess, endless trinkets but little access to things of permeance. It's no wonder that people have so many subscriptions these days, because why the fuck not when it all seems so hopeless to afford the big milestones.


>>32134
Sounds to me like you don't want to and so you shouldn't. It's not killing yourself that is in the back of your mind but making what could be a radical change in what 'here' is, changing your situation because you're fed up with it.
>> No. 32136 Anonymous
4th April 2023
Tuesday 6:44 pm
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>>32135

The sides at Pizza Hut are shite though, they're just different variations of bread. They're obvious filler nobody actually wants but that the restaurant forces you to have because it helps their margin. With that in mind, it's only just barely possible to call their "deals" slightly less of a rip off, let alone actually good value.

What you want out of Pizza Hut is obvious: Pizza. And their pizza is too expensive. At least Dominoes do a reliable two for one, and their sides (such as the cookies) are a bit nicer, which means having them on the "deal" isn't a total waste of everyone's time as well as money. It's just a shame the actual pizza isn't as nice.
>> No. 32137 Anonymous
4th April 2023
Tuesday 7:01 pm
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>>32136
Pizza Hut delivery has cookies and the sides include fries seasoned the same as Domino's wedges.
>> No. 32138 Anonymous
4th April 2023
Tuesday 7:02 pm
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>>32136

Actually I just checked and the "pizza plus side" deals at Domino's are all just shite bread filler too now. They do chicken wings and such, but they're just not on any of the deals.

When I used to order almost once a week with my ex, the local one did two pizzas and a box of cookies for 22 quid or something, which was pretty decent. No wonder I've gone down a waist size since leaving her mind.
>> No. 32139 Anonymous
8th April 2023
Saturday 6:00 pm
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Yeah, I think I'm giving up.
>> No. 32140 Anonymous
8th April 2023
Saturday 6:14 pm
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>>32139
Don't do that without at least telling us what's gone wrong. I bet we can either help you fix it, or help you find something else to do instead.
>> No. 32141 Anonymous
9th April 2023
Sunday 6:32 pm
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Have either of you spent Easter alone due to lack of family and friends? It'd be oddly comforting to know that I'm not alone in this.

Christmas was the same...
>> No. 32142 Anonymous
9th April 2023
Sunday 7:06 pm
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>>32141
Easter? LOL I've spent half my life alone, pal.
>> No. 32143 Anonymous
9th April 2023
Sunday 7:42 pm
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>>32141

My relationship with my family isn't the best, and my girlfriend has gone to stay with her parents. So yeah, I've been alone too, although I did have the chance to catch up with an old friend on the phone.

I usually feel great about having the chance to be by myself for a bit, but this Easter break has been different. Maybe it was the pressure to do something exciting, knowing that a few colleagues are off doing nice things. Maybe it's the fact my neighbours have been noisy, disrupting the meditative peace I have when I'm alone.

Still, I've got plenty done and feel a little bit more rested.
>> No. 32144 Anonymous
9th April 2023
Sunday 7:59 pm
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>>32141
I don't really respect Easter, so I just keep on going to work and chill out with a four-day weekend. Last week, however, I was invited to a wedding right by where my parents live, so I went to visit them and stayed for the weekend, travelling back today. It was a ballache.

The guy getting married was the weirdest, freakiest and most pathetic friend I had at university. He's decent enough, but he didn't invite a single one of our other friends because they all treated him like shit when we knew him. So I didn't know anyone else at the wedding. His dad was his best man. If this spergy 36-year-old can score a wife, we're all going to make it, bros. Never give up. And join the Navy; that's what he did.
>> No. 32145 Anonymous
9th April 2023
Sunday 8:20 pm
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>>32141
It's not all that big of an occasion is it? I don't even have a lack if I really wanted to see someone, it's just that why would you. I sat out and got some sunshine today. Followed by eating another easter egg and now I feel thoroughly disgusted with myself.

>Christmas was the same

There's plenty of lonely birds that start intently looking for someone in late October-November. Find yourself an immigrant and you can have quite a nice set-up with plenty of sex.

But yeah I've done it as well, but it's all social pressure like you should be doing something when in reality you can do what you want and there's nothing wrong with cooking yourself a small Christmas dinner and watching a tv show. I bet there's a lot of people across the world who will want to be in your shoes, watching Babylon 5 like a big man, when they have to spend another Christmas surrounded by family and you might even be one of them some day.

>>32144
What was she like? My mental image is of one of those couples where it's a skinny tall bloke whose a bit odd and short fat woman.
>> No. 32146 Anonymous
9th April 2023
Sunday 9:21 pm
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>>32141
I've spent Easter alone this year and didn't think anything of it until your prompt. For the last 3 or 4 years I've been trying to experience Christmas alone but I've inevitably ended up visiting my dad.
I suppose the real experience is in not receiving any Easter eggs or Christmas preasents - Despite rarely, if ever, giving either I've always recieved something.

I don't have poor relationships with my family, I just don't do anything with my life so it all seems boring. Christmas, birthdays and other events feel like an imposed joviality that I just don't want to bother with. I'm sure my attitude would be different if I was to actually be living life but I'm not, so everything just feels paused while these events cycle round again and again while I'm just watching it happen. In some way I feel as though these yearly events appropriate* my time.

*As in appropriation. What's the correct form here?
>> No. 32147 Anonymous
9th April 2023
Sunday 9:52 pm
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>>32145
I do have a missus. She's been at her folks for Christmas and now for Easter. She hasn't introduced me yet and let slip that it might be in part due to me having a mood disorder. She thinks I might have a funny turn in front of them. Her nan is schizophrenic so I kind of get it but it still stings.

I don't have any mates either so short of day-drinking or spending money I don't have in the pub, I'm at a loss for what to do with myself a lot of the time. It's just exacerbated because of the season.
>> No. 32148 Anonymous
10th April 2023
Monday 7:49 pm
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Well, think I might have fucked it with the missus. Sigh.

Had a big row this morning, she'd been in a shitty mood with me all weekend for fuck knows what reason, but I could tell the whole time she was trying to dig for something to have a fight about. You can just tell when sometimes, you know when nothing you say is right? You refuse to take the bait for as long as you can, but eventually you're just too fucked off with it and can't help snapping at them.

So anyway I snapped and she got up in a huff and gathered all of her stuff and said she was off home. Which is kind of a big deal for me, just walking out on someone like that, it's always either a manipulation or a gambit of some sort, you know? Like I was supposed to go after her like "no please love, come baaack" etc. So I kind of lost my rag and texted her not to bother coming back if that's how it was going to be.

Now, naturally I didn't mean it, it was just heat of the moment anger, but now I'm the bad guy aren't I, because she was freezing and soaking wet and in tears all the way home bla bla bla. Nevermind it being her decision to fuck off, but you know. I broke hear heart there didn't I. Exchanged a few texts and she gives me a load of dogshit reasons about why I was apparently being an arsehole the whole weekend, when frankly it was her that was treating me like shit. It's as though my feelings mean nothing. I don't mind being "the bigger man" or whatever and taking the blame for the odd thing to keep the peace, but this time she has genuinely been a massive dick to me for, as far as I can tell, no fucking reason. It's left me utterly reeling, and I'm supposed to be the one begging forgiveness?

Fucking women. What is their problem sometimes. It's just fucking weird how this came out of nowhere after having a really pleasant few weekends the last few times we've seen each other, and just for no reason at all she decided she wanted to bait me into a break-up level row.

And don't give me smart arse remarks about how she will have found someone else and didn't want to be the one dumping me etc, I don't need that shit right now thanks.
>> No. 32149 Anonymous
10th April 2023
Monday 8:29 pm
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>>32148
I'm sorry, mate. It's just the way things work in women's heads sometimes.

Honestly though, if you're going to be the bigger man then do it. Stop texting her for a few days and let the dust settle before checking back in around Thursday afternoon or so. Have a proper talk about it and air your grievances then. If she doesn't want to hear you out after that then there might be some underlying incompatibilities between the two of you. Might be.
>> No. 32150 Anonymous
10th April 2023
Monday 11:13 pm
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>>32145
>What was she like? My mental image is of one of those couples where it's a skinny tall bloke whose a bit odd and short fat woman.
He was nicknamed "Penfold" at university because he looked like Danger Mouse's mole sidekick. He now looks basically the same, but with zoomer broccoli hair. I've got absolute severe baldness so I can't complain about the hair. She is a fat woman with the stereotypical "unattractive fat woman" piggy face. My understanding is that she made the first move via some online dating website. She seems like a lovely person. They're both a similar height to me, so definitely under six feet tall.
>> No. 32151 Anonymous
11th April 2023
Tuesday 2:07 pm
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Can't do my new job. I am fundamentally lacking in the skills required to do it effectively, even if on paper it sounded perfect for me.

Looking for a new job, but in a shit situation - in the last 2 years I've had three jobs - been sacked from one (civil service) for excess sickness due to disability, and in my current one (NHS) I've had massive amounts of sick leave again due to my disability.

I have applied to a couple of other civil service jobs, including one in the government department I got sacked from, but I imagine if they see my sick record and the fact I was dismissed, they'll reject me outright (even if my disability isn't as crippling as it was back then).

Just want to kill myself to be honest. Partner's hidden most of my meds so I can't OD. But the thought of nothingness, would be worth the few instants of pain I'd undergo if I were to jump in front of a train. I don't want to feel like a retarded loser who can't hold a job anymore. I don't want to feel anymore.
>> No. 32152 Anonymous
11th April 2023
Tuesday 2:18 pm
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>>32151
Does it really matter if you can't do your job? I'd say a not insignificant number out of the people I've worked with were incapable of doing their job properly. Loads of us just blag it.
>> No. 32153 Anonymous
11th April 2023
Tuesday 2:44 pm
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>>32152
Worked in the past when I was in a job as part of a team of many, but in this role I am in charge of myself with no real direction. I imagine it's very clear for someone outside looking in to see that I am shit at the job.
>> No. 32154 Anonymous
11th April 2023
Tuesday 3:01 pm
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>>321531
When I've worked in public sector jobs like that there's no real accountability because nobody has a clue what anyone else is meant to be doing.
>> No. 32155 Anonymous
11th April 2023
Tuesday 3:42 pm
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>>32151
>I have applied to a couple of other civil service jobs, including one in the government department I got sacked from, but I imagine if they see my sick record and the fact I was dismissed, they'll reject me outright (even if my disability isn't as crippling as it was back then).

I interview candidates sometimes and can't imagine I'd sack you off if you said 'yeah I had an illness that prevented me from working' in the statement. Just spin it as you have experience and you're eager to get your career back without being bitter that we left you in the forest for the wolves to take care of.

Unless you're applying for G7 and above or something foreign I won't give a toss about your CV. Not when I have 40 other applications to sift.
>> No. 32156 Anonymous
11th April 2023
Tuesday 6:20 pm
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>>32155
The circumstances of my sacking were long term sick, formal investigation run by another office, occupational health said I am fit for work but will likely be ill in future, woman running the investigation said employing me is too risky. If I was too risky then, am I still too risky?
>> No. 32157 Anonymous
11th April 2023
Tuesday 6:52 pm
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>>32156
Rather than asking me, why don't you use the support page on civil service jobs or ask the contact on the ad? Nobody is going to get cunty if you can say that your situation has changed for the better and that you want to come back but would like to know if there's anything you need to do first.

What I can say is I don't see anything about you when it gets to sifting applications aside from what you write on there.
>> No. 32158 Anonymous
12th April 2023
Wednesday 5:21 pm
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Just smashed up some stuff and screamed until my throat felt raw over a minor inconvenience. I need to get back on my meds.

Glad my missus wasn't here to see it.
>> No. 32159 Anonymous
14th April 2023
Friday 9:04 pm
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I am completely fucking up my career because I can't decide what I 'want to do with my life'.

I haven't gotten to the place/level/compensation I easily could, because I keep trying different types of career, and I'm good at all of them but the idea of committing to one fills me with utter dread for some reason, so hesitating and not making a decision feels like it buys me more time when in reality it just holds me back.

I'm on the wrong side of my 20s now and whilst my compensation is ok (around 48/49k) I'm seeing all my contemporaries I started with on double or around that is suddenly giving me a bit of a panic too.

Starting to think I should just sack it in and go travelling but I'm not bold enough to do that and I have a girlfriend earning 6 figures and she'd almost certainly end things if I did that.

How does one find out what they were meant to do? I'm always chasing something and when I get it I start living int he future about the next thing.
>> No. 32161 Anonymous
14th April 2023
Friday 9:21 pm
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>>32159
That's terrible. I'm not sure how you're expected to cope.

Make things work with your Mrs. Tell her you want to go travelling together sometimes. Do the work that makes you happy and stop complaining about being wildly successful at a very young age.
>> No. 32162 Anonymous
14th April 2023
Friday 9:22 pm
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>>32161
I realised I fucked up the chart because it's after-tax, but whatever.
>> No. 32163 Anonymous
14th April 2023
Friday 9:24 pm
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>>32162
The amount changes to just shy of 2 grand per week (for a couple on 150k) but the position in the chart does not.
>> No. 32164 Anonymous
14th April 2023
Friday 9:25 pm
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>>32161
That chart is after tax income each week for more than somebody will get a month, that's so far, far, out of what you are accusing the poster of it's pointless.

48k isn't close to 99th percentile.
>> No. 32165 Anonymous
14th April 2023
Friday 9:28 pm
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>>32164
150k household income is 97th percentile. They may indeed not yet live together, but my point was that making it work with someone financially successful is a type of success in itself. He simply doesn't have to work himself to death or in a job he hates like many of us do.
>> No. 32166 Anonymous
14th April 2023
Friday 9:32 pm
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>>32165
Yeah I love my girlfriend but her earnings are completely separate and don't benefit me in any way really. If anything it's actually a bit of a burden because I can't save/splurge/keep up really.

That said my actual issue of my career indecision paralysis remains and is shitting on my life somewhat.
>> No. 32167 Anonymous
14th April 2023
Friday 10:09 pm
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>>32159

>I keep trying different types of career, and I'm good at all of them but the idea of committing to one fills me with utter dread for some reason, so hesitating and not making a decision feels like it buys me more time when in reality it just holds me back.

Why choose then? If you're as good at everything as you say there's really no urgent need to pick something and settle with it. There's no point having more money or power if you hate what you're doing. Clearly some part of you thinks having freedom and variety is more important, so listen to that.


>Starting to think I should just sack it in and go travelling but I'm not bold enough to do that and I have a girlfriend earning 6 figures and she'd almost certainly end things if I did that.

You frame this as a money problem, but it's not, is it. It's that she doesn't value the same things as you do. You're playing along with what you think she wants you to do and be, instead of being who and what you want to be.

You sound like someone who simply hasn't developed a robust sense of independence, or indeed much of any strong sense of self at all. You measure yourself and set your priorities based on comparing yourself to those around you. I will be blunt here- You will never find happiness in life that way, get out of that habit as fast as you can.

It's not your career that you're dawdling on, it's personal growth. Growing up even, I might dare to suggest. Whatever it is you need to do, grow a pair and go do it. You need to learn what it is to be in charge of your own life.
>> No. 32168 Anonymous
16th April 2023
Sunday 8:37 am
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>>32167
This is great advice - I just wish there was more of it.

Any ideas on the practicable first steps? I think I spent a long time with an idea of who I thought I was only to realise that was wrong.

I don't know where to begin and what trade offs to make.
>> No. 32169 Anonymous
17th April 2023
Monday 12:22 am
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>>32140
Too stupid for my dreams (though fantasies is likely more accurate), too maladjusted to fit in and getting much too old to play any of this off as an amusing quirk any longer. I am a balding, degreeless, unfuckable, social outcast. It's less a case of "giving up", really, it's more like realising I've softlocked myself out of any chance of happiness and satisfaction.
>> No. 32170 Anonymous
17th April 2023
Monday 9:32 am
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>>32169
I'll be your m8, m8.

It sounds almost pathetically trite but sometimes you have to lower your own standards on what a happy, fulfilling life looks and feels like. I get how this sort of compromise might seem defeatist in itself though - I've been there. With some effort you can take pleasure in the small things and build up to a positive sense of being from that. You shouldn't be afraid to start small no matter how far gone you are.
>> No. 32171 Anonymous
18th April 2023
Tuesday 12:45 pm
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Had a fight with my partner over the phone.
Broke said phone.
Broke some plates.
Broke some more things.

I'm so tired of being like this. I don't have the courage to off myself or the strength to build myself back up into the strong person I was a decade ago.

I'm just going to leave my house and not come back. I'll slip through the cracks and disappear from everyone's lives. I'll subsist slowly until I die. It had to happen to somebody. Figures it may as well be me.
>> No. 32172 Anonymous
19th April 2023
Wednesday 12:38 am
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I hate going into my office. A girl at work is traveling the world with her boyfriend and buying a house together, another girl is hoping off to the US regularly, my boss got a big promotion despite being thoroughly incompetent while I seemingly tail-spin and the women I see on dating apps are all going on expensive holidays and looking for even more skiing holidays. Everyone is winning but me whose a single bloke still renting a flat, no drivers licence, struggling to think about how I can budget for hobbies and not even an idea of how I could ever afford a good holiday.

Sure I should think about what goes on behind closed doors but it feels like everyone has some secret I'm missing. Rich parents being a big one but at the same time I budget carefully, I put away 20% of my income in a stocks and shares ISA that perpetually seems stuck at 30k, I try to go for higher positions and people do like my creative ideas at work without me getting any long-term recognition for it, I date women and it rarely goes anywhere and when it does it doesn't work out. I know I'm doing better than a big part of the population but fuck me if it don't feel like it.

>>32171
Don't do 'owt drastic when you're angry, lad. Take a moment to calm down and think about what's going on, smashing your phone and everyone around you is a bit much even if we all punch a pillow occasionally.
>> No. 32173 Anonymous
19th April 2023
Wednesday 8:02 pm
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>>32169

Do you have a full-time job at the moment? I dropped out of uni twice but I've ended up as a machine operator in a factory that pays well enough for me to entertain myself. Years of being frugal have prepared me for using my money wisely.
Now I don't know how old you are but unless you're really getting on there are probably jobs out there that can bring you to a better financial position to work off of, a degree isn't always very useful unless you manage to get straight into a good career.
>> No. 32174 Anonymous
20th April 2023
Thursday 10:55 am
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I just realised that while I always like to tell people I'm not a "drug person" any more, just this year I've taken reasonable amounts of coke, speed, MDMA and ketamine. The only drugs I gave up were weed and... Weed.

Not that I'm really bothered or anything, just sort of annoying to realise my high horse was bollocks.
>> No. 32175 Anonymous
22nd April 2023
Saturday 6:07 pm
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I think my long-term relationship is reaching the end of the road and I'm trying to work out how fucked I'm going to be financially. This is me thinking aloud on part.

My take home pay is going up to £2,860 but about £660 of that would be going out on child maintenance; with that, her salary, child benefit and a potential universal credit claim she will be financially comfortable. If I leave I know she will refuse to buy me out of our house so I assume that's going to completely fuck me over buying a property any time soon because I'm still named on the mortgage, the child maintenance will massively reduce my affordability and as it'd technically be a second property I'd pay shitloads in stamp duty.

I've had a look on Rightmove and if I wanted to rent somewhere with a couple of bedrooms for when the kids stay over then I'm looking at paying at least a grand a month as well as finding about the same for the deposit and fuck knows to actually furnish the place. The mortgage here is only about £600 per month for somewhere nicer than I can rent. If that leaves about a grand a month then we're talking about £180 council tax, £55 water, £7 phone, £200 energy, £13 TV licence and £40 for broadband as a guess that means I'd be left over with £500 per month for food, petrol and whatever else I need to actually live.

Is that doable?
>> No. 32176 Anonymous
22nd April 2023
Saturday 6:29 pm
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>>32175
500 after bills and taxes isn't too bad. It won't be fun but you can manage. Good luck.
>> No. 32177 Anonymous
22nd April 2023
Saturday 7:11 pm
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>>32176
Thanks lad. She quoted the child maintenance figure at me earlier, which is based on having the kids one to two nights per week but if I change it to two to three nights per week then it drops to £545 per month. My student loan will be paid off by about this time next year, which would free up about £210.

I'm mentally fine with breaking up but what I know I'll struggle with is feeling like I'm the one getting the shit end of the deal. If I'd cheated or done something terrible then I could sort of understand it but I haven't, it's more of a mutual decision that our relationship has run its course. I'm fairly certain she got pregnant on purpose with our first. She's going to be the one staying in the house and she won't have to worry about making ends meet while I'm going to be a part-time dad living in some dingy shithole surviving off cold beans on toast because that's all I can manage. I'm fairly certain the childcare agreement she will propose is that she has them during the week (read: gets the youngest ready for school in the morning and drops her off, picks her up from after-school club, cooks tea and then lets them watch TV until bed a couple of hours later) while I have them all weekend so she has them free to do whatever she wants.

I think if she'd just buy me out I wouldn't feel this resentment, but she has no reason to as she'd hold all the cards.
>> No. 32178 Anonymous
22nd April 2023
Saturday 7:18 pm
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>>32175
Buy her and the kids a holiday and burn the house down. Simple.
>> No. 32179 Anonymous
23rd April 2023
Sunday 2:13 am
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There's been a development regarding the mother/son abuse as mentioned in >>/b/457305

My mother regularly cares for my nephew but from time to time the responsibility is too much and the newphew is returned early to his mother. Usual sort of thing, my mum has some form of fatigue issue.

Only the nephew has recently visited hospital regarding a soreness in his genitals, shortly after returning early from my mothers care. The hospital say my he possibly has a urinary tract infection and also needs circumcision.

My mother is currently struggling with stress and homesickness. She also carries herpes which has apparently burned itself out. Very late this night she begun texting me, which is quite unusual. after a volley of short responses she throws in a longer message asking if I know about the newphews hospital visit.

I can't help but think in her desperation to relieve mounting stress, my mother may have interfered with my newphew. and she's now asking for info to flesh out a response.

I have a tendancy to form naratives from little information. As far as I can tell the nephew isn't displaying behaviours you might assosiate with abuse.
I think my insistance that my mother is responsible is due to some investment that she's a bad person, responsible for me wasting my life, etc.
I think I'm just a cunt looking for reasons to be upset about child abuse. I've posted enough here before about it.

Should I talk to a doctor about this?
>> No. 32180 Anonymous
23rd April 2023
Sunday 2:41 am
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>>32177
Hang on, why are you behaving like a beaten dog if you've done nothing wrong then? She's not entitled to ruin your life by playing weekday mum. Get a variable calendar and press her that half the house is yours.

Accept that you're going to have a face her on this even if you'd rather have a magical divorce without any conflict.

>>32179
You might want to be careful how you word this one if you do. It sounds more like you have a suspicion but not much else which hasn't been confirmed even after a medical examination.

Not sure if there's anything usual about it, a bit OCD maybe but people suspect lots of things.
>> No. 32181 Anonymous
23rd April 2023
Sunday 11:31 am
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>>32179
Accusations of abuse aren't to be made lightly.
>> No. 32182 Anonymous
23rd April 2023
Sunday 1:30 pm
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Does anyone ever get that feeling like they just need to be "let off the ride"?

Not permanently, I'm not suicidal, but just to have a time where you're not toughing things out? To reach a state where you genuinely don't need to worry? I feel like I'm locked in a constant struggle with daily obligations and don't know whether it's just that I need a holiday or that I'm mishandling my everyday life. The cycle of work-eat-sleep-repeat and putting a smile on top of it all is fucking hard.

When I get like this feeling, I notice I'm more irritable and I don't sleep as well. I feel less inclined to socialise and escapist habits creep up quite a bit. I watch more films, play more games, scroll through my phone more, view more pornography, etc., none of which makes me feel particularly good but I understand might have some sort of stress relief function.

I encounter a lot of passive aggression and minor stresses from day-to-day, which yes, I know we can all be more "resilient" to, but there's a limit. I already exercise and take sensible measures to control my environment. Sometimes it really can be the bloody external pressures, right?

People reading this might give me the old hard-nosed "well that's how it is, just get on with it", but I think this is how people fall into chronically stressed and miserable lives.

The more I think about it, what I really want is to dictate the terms of my work. Stress which you voluntarily take on is much easier to handle for me than stress I feel obligated to go through.

That turned into a bit of a ramble, but there we are.
>> No. 32183 Anonymous
23rd April 2023
Sunday 2:51 pm
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>>32182

I hope this doesn't sound flippant, but it does sound like you need a holiday.

In a theatre of war, fighting men are entitled to regular rest and relaxation. It isn't an act of generosity, but an entirely cynical calculation that morale will collapse if men are at the front lines for too long without a break. The same thing applies in normal life - if we don't step away from the grindstone, we start to crack up.

Time off is essential for your psychological health. Holidays, yes, but also smaller breaks from your day-to-day routine, something that gives your subconscious mind permission to forget about everything and just enjoy yourself. Stress is much easier to handle when you've got something to look forward to, when you've got the pressure valve of doing something you really enjoy. It seems too trivial to take seriously, but it makes all the difference.
>> No. 32184 Anonymous
23rd April 2023
Sunday 7:47 pm
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>>32183

Thank you, mate. Think I needed to read that, especially the bit about even soldiers being given R&R time. Think I get into the habit of treating myself like a machine, which others can be all too happy to go along with. I do have a bit of leave planned, but for June...

Anyway, I'll sidestep my rambly post as otherlad's issue of potential child abuse certainly seems to warrant more attention.
>> No. 32185 Anonymous
25th April 2023
Tuesday 1:41 am
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Defend my friend for me. I am angry with her, but maybe that's just me and she hasn't actually done anything wrong.

We're very close friends. People sometimes think we're a couple, and I would like us to be because I'm so clingy, but she does not see me that way. She went away on holiday with a similar male friend who is also a complete simp last year, just the two of them. This didn't cause too much drama, although his actual girlfriend certainly wasn't happy. But I am a better friend to her than he is. Anyway, she and I have been talking for ages, off and on, about how we should go away on holiday too. I wanted to go to Eastern Europe and she expressed an interest in Albania, so we said, "Let's go to Albania together!" and then she had all manner of personal tragedies and mental health crises, and we still haven't gone. But we do still talk about it sometimes, although I suspect her hardships mean she's more broke than she'd like to be so perhaps she can't afford it right now. I've mentioned going away a couple of times, but I haven't really pushed it at all.

Last night, in the pub, I was out with her and another female friend, and Friend #2 said, "Are you looking forward to the holiday?" Gasp! Which holiday is this? I didn't know you were going on holiday!
"Oh, I'm, erm, going away with my housemate and Friend #2 in a couple of weeks."
Cool! That sounds like fun! Where will you be jetting off to?
"Erm...Albania."

Now, I really thought that Albania would be our thing. It was going to be me and her. Not only is she going with other people, but she' never even asked me. It feels like I've been stabbed in the back. I played it off okay in the pub, but on the way home I sent her a big long message about how hurt I am. I often send her giant lovey messages, and she doesn't always reply, but it's very rare for me to complain about things to her. And she hasn't replied at any point today, even though I made it very clear that I was unhappy. But on previous occasions when I have said I am unhappy about something in my life, her usual response is to just shut down and ignore me until I'm not unhappy any more.

So is she just a shitty person? Or am I in the wrong somehow? I really don't think I'm in the wrong, but if she refuses to talk about it, I guess I need to come here and ask you.
>> No. 32186 Anonymous
25th April 2023
Tuesday 4:33 am
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>>32185

From your question, I think you already know the answer.

I'm not judging either of you, but I think you've both fallen into a common dysfunctional pattern based on a lack of self-respect and a lack of respect for each other. You're allowing yourself to be used to some extent, in a relationship that is clearly very one-sided. Maybe she's naive enough to think that some men are just incredibly nice and accommodating, but I suspect that on some level she understands what's going on - as long as there's a vague possibility that you might eventually get to shag her, then she can take what she wants without having to give anything in return.

It happens all the time, I've done it myself, it isn't the worst thing in the world, but it's just a bit grubby and it isn't healthy for either of you. Set some boundaries or walk away.
>> No. 32187 Anonymous
25th April 2023
Tuesday 5:55 am
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>>32185
It sounds to me like you think you're closer friends than you actually are.
>> No. 32188 Anonymous
25th April 2023
Tuesday 11:41 am
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>>32187
Me too, for what it's worth.
>> No. 32189 Anonymous
25th April 2023
Tuesday 12:57 pm
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>>32185

Others have said all that needs to be said, she's all but using you really. You're there when she needs someone but when it comes to giving something back to the relationship she's clearly got other priorities, and you're not in them.

She's been a bit of a dick, to put it bluntly, but ultimately lasses are used to getting away with this kind of shit because men like you allow it. You're clearly giving her a lot of leeway just because you fancy her, and that's the bit you need to have a word with yourself about. Ask yourself, would you bend over backwards to forgive a lad mate who treated you that way? Or would you have understood exactly where you stand as soon as you found out about the holiday?
>> No. 32190 Anonymous
25th April 2023
Tuesday 1:27 pm
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>>32189
This is debatable. We've only got otherlad's word to go on, but for all we know he's been obsessing with the idea of going on holiday with her after finding out she'd been away with one of her less worthy and deserving friends. The off and on conversations about going away together could in reality be that he's the only one of them regularly bringing it up while she's lukewarm on the matter.

This is what happens when fantasy crashes into reality. He's the one who'd built Albania up to be this fantastic thing they'd do together. The person who otherlad thinks she is differs from the reality of who actually she is because of this fantasy relationship he's dreaming of. He's frustrated because he's having to face reality.

This is all conjecture, as is claiming that she's using otherlad but it's expected because all women are bitches at heart, but it really sounds like he'd benefit from introspection. The only things we can accept with any degree of certainty from his post are his assertions of being clingy and he has a habit of sending her giant lovey messages which she doesn't always respond to. I'd say he needs to work on himself rather than blaming shortcomings on others.
>> No. 32191 Anonymous
25th April 2023
Tuesday 2:38 pm
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>>32190

I think we're responding to this bit:

>on previous occasions when I have said I am unhappy about something in my life, her usual response is to just shut down and ignore me until I'm not unhappy any more.

He's undoubtedly overly-attached, she may or may not be taking advantage, but the advice is the same either way - step back, evaluate the situation with clear eyes and work out whether this is a viable friendship or just an infatuation.
>> No. 32192 Anonymous
25th April 2023
Tuesday 3:03 pm
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>>32191
Absolutely. When he moves on (it doesn't sound like she's into him) he needs to work on himself so that he doesn't follow her around like a lost puppy and bombard her with messages or it's going to keep happening over and over again.
>> No. 32193 Anonymous
25th April 2023
Tuesday 6:31 pm
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>>32190

Well, all of that is kind of irrelevant, to be honest, because if she was a decent person she would have just said "No, I wouldn't really like to go to Albania with you". I'm not discounting otherlad being a bit of a sperg and misinterpreting things, but if we can at least trust the more fundamental facts about the matter, she does still at least know and understand that what she had done would be upsetting to otherlad, and as such kept it hidden. That's fundamentally dishonest and disrespectful behaviour to me, whichever way you slice the other aspects of the situation.

I haven't and I'm not going to extrapolate that into a generalisation about the behaviour of women in general, as you seem keen to put the words of in my mouth; my assertion is simply that if you're going to be That Kind Of Bloke, you do leave yourself open to it from That Kind Of Woman. I'm not saying all women are like that, but there are undeniably many out there who will take advantage if you make it that easy for them, because why the fuck wouldn't they? That's what otherlad needs to understand going forward. I'm victim blaming him, if you will, because all of this can be prevented by having a bit of self respect and not being a bloody simp.

I don't think you need to be so neutral and diplomatic about it at all because it's the sort of thing we've all seen a million times- Bloke thinks he's got a shot with a lass when he obviously doesn't, lass tries not to lead him on but eventually by refusing to really make her feelings clear kind of does so anyway, bloke gets hurt when he is inevitably shot down to earth, etc. Neither of them have been saints, but it's a very easily avoided situation, and it's something I think sometimes people just need to hear it telling straight to get it through their heads.
>> No. 32194 Anonymous
27th April 2023
Thursday 1:44 am
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It's me (>>32185) again.

>>32187
>>32188
You two have a claim to be the most right, although I still wouldn't agree. My friend has now apologised for hurting my feelings, but it felt very stilted and formal. It was also an "I'm sorry you feel that way" apology, rather than an "I'm sorry I hurt you" apology. Of course, maybe she's just really socially inept at these things and she really can't apologise properly, and if that's the case, then she's done her best and I can't blame her for it not working. I'm the one who's actually friends with her, and I can confirm that she has an extremely unpalatable aversion to ever showing weakness or vulnerability, so the childlike begrudging apology could well be the best anyone could hope for.

>>32190
In my opinion, I would say you had the best insights for me. I absolutely had built up Albania "to be this fantastic thing we'd do together", and I said so to her in almost those exact words.

>>32191
>work out whether this is a viable friendship or just an infatuation
It's absolutely a viable friendship. She is arguably the only friend I've had for several years that I didn't actually hate on some level. It's not healthy, and I accept this, but nor is it healthy to surround myself with people I don't like, nor to isolate myself from society completely, just to get back at her. I genuinely enjoy spending time with her, and (to also answer >>32189's question) there isn't another friend I would ever even consider going on holiday with. I can spot when things get excessively unhealthy, and this is why I came here to discuss it, but it's better than the alternatives.

>>32193
>she does still at least know and understand that what she had done would be upsetting to otherlad, and as such kept it hidden.
This is something I admit I'm still not sure about. Again, she has all manner of mental health difficulties and personal hardships of her own, and this has resulted in her being extremely cagey and secretive sometimes. It is also my personal belief that she has, effectively, won a decisive victory against clinical depression, and is so successfully medicated that she can't feel bad about things now. I've seen her do it before. Sometimes I expect her to feel bad about things, and she just....doesn't. But she is perfectly considerate most of the time.

One final point to make is something that nobody, not even I, picked up on from my original post, but which (assuming her apology isn't a dishonest grift) is the heart of our disagreement.
>>32185
>we do still talk about it sometimes, although I suspect her hardships mean she's more broke than she'd like to be so perhaps she can't afford it right now.
The reason she's going away with her housemate instead of me is because she can't afford to go on holiday more than once this year, and she has been promising her housemate (and best friend - I can't compete with her; they've been friends for decades and she's really helpful and supportive and nice, just like I am but even better) that they would go away on holiday together for three years now, without success. My friend knows me well enough that I wanted it to be just us, and if she was going to go away with just one person, it is entirely rational to prioritise her friendship with her absolute best friend in the world who let her move in when she left her ex-husband and helps her during her tough times just as well as I would, and honestly probably even better in a couple of cases. Even my bottomless simp powers wouldn't push me to stay up for 36 hours straight on a drinking bender with her after her whole family fell apart like the housemate did. And Friend #2 heard about the holiday, said, "Ooh! Can I come?" and my friend is too soft and wimpy to say no. Perhaps I could have asked to come too, but now it's going to be "a girly holiday" and they don't want me there disrupting the girliness and I don't want to go on that holiday anyway. If my friend hadn't kept fucking up her own life and employment with physical and mental health disasters, she'd be able to afford to go on a separate holiday with me, and it would all have been fine. But that's not how it went, and when I interpreted this as me being cast aside by my best friend the backstabbing bitch, her absolute inability to admit she'd done wrong meant she handled the drama in a suboptimal manner and I kicked off even more.
>> No. 32195 Anonymous
27th April 2023
Thursday 2:38 am
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>>32194
>I can spot when things get excessively unhealthy, and this is why I came here to discuss it, but it's better than the alternatives.

Look lad, I'm not those other two but it does sound like you at least need break from her for a bit because even the way you're writing about this is odd.

Yeah you might not like this cure but I think you understand deep-down that it's good for you. It'll lead to growth and bring you closer to fulfilling your potential as a person. Get yourself a nice hobby that gets you out the house, go traveling, take some evening classes or even get a girlfriend. Don't think of it as some petty bullshit about a holiday where you're hurting her, she's irrelevant, you're taking some me time to do your own thing.
>> No. 32196 Anonymous
27th April 2023
Thursday 12:47 pm
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>>32194
Out of interest, how old is everyone involved in this?
>> No. 32198 Anonymous
27th April 2023
Thursday 7:31 pm
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>>32194

Lad, you are well and truly bending over backwards to make excuses for this lass. Your feelings for you are stopping you seeing things rationally, and regardless of the truth of the situation itself, that is never a good position to be in.

She's treated you badly here. It's okay, that happens, people are never perfect all the time. It doesn't mean she's an evil bitch and you should hate her. But it's honestly a bit pitiful to see you telling yourself this convoluted story about why it's fine and she didn't sell you out and she didn't mean it and she's really nice and definitely wouldn't have done it if not for... etc etc. Come on.

The thing about all this is that you are setting yourself up for a really toxic relationship going forward. I find this concept hard to articulate in words, but the way I see it you're not being generous or charitable to her here, in letting her off the hook with all these excuses; you're really just idealising her in a selfish way. You don't want to take her for what she is, because it would get in the way of your own wish fulfilment fantasy version of her.

You need to re-assess the boundaries of your relationship with this person. You don't have to have a big falling out with them, you don't have to stop being friends, but you are as much putting unhealthy expectations on her, as she is letting you down as a friend. At the very least, you need to find a way to resolve or otherwise extricate your romantic feelings for her, from your friendship, because I can see the future and it involves you crying yourself to sleep when she's riding another blokes cock.
>> No. 32199 Anonymous
27th April 2023
Thursday 9:33 pm
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>>32194
I've got some questions

1. How do you honestly think she feels about you?

2. Describe your friend group? How many mutual friends have you got? Have you got any non mutual friends? Has she got any non-mutual friends?

3. Tell me how you're going to get together with her, how do you see it happening? Right now she's ignoring your giant lovey messages so how are you going to turn that around? Will you confess your love to her on a romantic day out at Gjirokaster Castle? Does she wake up one day and realise she's always loved you? Does she wake up one day and realise she's mental and hasn't got any better options?

4. Do you really, truely, think you'd be happy in a relationship with a woman who, to quote you:
>can't apologise properly
>shut down and ignore me until I'm not unhappy any more
>extremely cagey and secretive
>is so successfully medicated that she can't feel bad about things

5. What do you mean by this?
>nor is it healthy to surround myself with people I don't like, nor to isolate myself from society completely, just to get back at her.
Why are those the only two options, it sounds like you can't imagine yourself making new friends for any reason other than to spite her and if that is what you mean, and I am in no way being hyperbolic or cruel when I say this, look into private therapists near you or talk to your GP about getting mental help because that is an extreme level of obsession
>> No. 32200 Anonymous
27th April 2023
Thursday 11:01 pm
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>>32196
Old as fuck. I'm 35, she's 38, Friend #2 is 47 and I think the housemate could be over 50 (but looks much younger). Age is just a number; some people just never grow up, or have been pathetic losers for so long that this is the first time I've experienced a friendship I have enjoyed this much.
>> No. 32201 Anonymous
28th April 2023
Friday 12:03 am
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>>32199
1) She really likes me and enjoys my company enormously. But she has several such friends.
2) I met her through the social ringleader friend who is an abusive psychopath but who considered himself my best friend for the past decade. He's actually fallen out with me now, having seen that when I do actually like someone, I act completely differently than I do around him. We have two very good mutual friends, plus a couple of others outside of the core group of four that normally goes to the pub. I do have other friend groups, and I have tried (but failed) to introduce her to one such group, because she has said she worries that she needs more friends and I really am a motherfucking saint. She also has non-mutual friends, both in her hometown and also a few that she's very close to through work. I am in her top five best friends, but I don't know where I'd come if I was put up against some of the other top ones. I'd probably lose.

3) She has further mental health issues that I haven't mentioned, and she's very secretive about some of things. She is massively promiscuous but only with men she doesn't like, seemingly. Men she likes, she considers unshaggable. Despite her massive slaggishness, her marriage was completely sexless and ended partly because the husband was a manipulative bastard but mainly because she kept cheating on him. I have not asked her why she would marry a man who was obviously so unwilling to have sex with her, when having sex with people has, at times, been basically all she does. If she decides to become romantically involved with me, I would be delighted, but I am aware it's unlikely and I would rather be emotionally close to her than shag her and never see her again. If we do become romantically involved, I suspect it will be another sexless relationship because she really does seem to be afraid of simultaneously liking and shagging anyone. It's one or the other with her. I don't get it. We talked about it before, and it kind of petered out when I misread the situation and thought I could get away with shagging Friend #2. This is where our friendship does get a bit intricate, and it has occurred to me that Friend #2 might be trying to break us apart because she doesn't like how I'll shag her but treat my other friend almost like my actual girlfriend. Even though Friend #2 loves to say that she doesn't see me that way and is just using me for shagging, she also might not be telling the exact truth there.

4) Not really. But I want to try at least. I am happier in the friendship than I am at any other time, so I see no reason not to take it as far as it will go. She's not perfect, but neither is anyone else I know.

5) I am very good at making new friends, but I don't feel the same way about those friends. And I want friends who are single women that I can chat up, and it's true that I can't meet them at all. If I think about pursuing new hobbies, I wind up with new hobbies that have no women in them. There won't be any women in the computer programming class or the snooker hall or the Soviet disco record collector's convention. If you want to do proper psychoanalysis of me, this is almost certainly most of my problem although the real problem is that when I have a problem, I can't solve it and instead just learn to live with it; I can't change jobs either.

Those were great questions, by the way. Thank you very much.
>> No. 32202 Anonymous
28th April 2023
Friday 1:54 am
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>>32201

Your whole situation sounds fucking mental TBH, and I say that as someone who has had a threesome in a psychiatric inpatient unit.
>> No. 32203 Anonymous
29th April 2023
Saturday 6:22 pm
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I've probably posted a variation of this post, regularly for 7 years.

I haven't had sex since January 2016. I got with my girlfriend in June 2015. We had a lot of sex but then it just reached a point where I didn't want to have sex with her because her cunt smells/tastes bad and I don't get pleasure from penetrative sex and much prefer giving oral but I don't like giving her oral. She gets sad every so often we don't fuck, and I give excuses upon excuses. "My mental health is bad" "my meds give me erectile dysfunction" etc.

Today I went into town for the first time in a while. So many hot women, from the blue haired goth girls with heavy eyeliner, to the fat big titted chav slags in yoga pants and a crop top, to the petite demure East Asian girls. All I could think the whole trip is how much I want to fuck all these women.

I love my girlfriend very much, emotionally we are so good together, but it's reaching a point where I can't control my horny level and I'm essentially going to end an otherwise strong relationship just because my girlfriend's twat tastes of onions.
>> No. 32204 Anonymous
29th April 2023
Saturday 6:42 pm
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>>32203
>her cunt smells/tastes bad
Could it be a diet issue? A friend of mine tasted pretty sour from all the cheap wine she drank. Her acid ballance was all off, it actually damaged my skin.
>> No. 32205 Anonymous
29th April 2023
Saturday 6:57 pm
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>>32203
Talk to her about it? If you're going to break up with her if it doesn't magically fix itself you might as well let her know she's got a sweaty onion clopper.
>> No. 32207 Anonymous
29th April 2023
Saturday 8:32 pm
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>>32203

I think you'd benefit from some counselling, either alone or as a couple.
>> No. 32208 Anonymous
29th April 2023
Saturday 8:59 pm
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>>32203
Follow >>32207 and get some counselling on this. It's been 7 years, there's no fucking way her vagina has stank for that long.
>> No. 32209 Anonymous
30th April 2023
Sunday 12:24 am
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>>32201
You know what lad as long as everyone involved knows that there's zero possibility of a good outcome you do you, simp on you fucking weirdo

(A good day to you Sir!)
>> No. 32210 Anonymous
30th April 2023
Sunday 1:07 am
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>>32209

Don't be a cunt on /emo/.
>> No. 32211 Anonymous
30th April 2023
Sunday 5:30 pm
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>>32209
Joke's on you; everything is sorted and we're friends again. We went out last night. I thought I should come back to update everyone after all their helpful advice. We were in a group of a few people, but it was basically me and her talking to each other all night. She has even invited me on some godawful-sounding camping holiday with a couple of other friends, and of course I'm going to go because I appreciate the gesture. I might even go so far as to consider this a good outcome. But indeed, it's important to be nice in /emo/ so I shall continue to "simp on" for as long as this wonderful friendship makes me happy.
>> No. 32212 Anonymous
30th April 2023
Sunday 7:40 pm
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Found myself thinking about this today passage by Norm McDonald today.

I put away 20% of my income in savings, 10% in going out and after that there's not much else left. Not enough to afford the good things in life at any rate. I earn much more than the average person in London and I'm doing what I'm supposed to do as far as saving up for the future goes and yet my life passes me by. Not that I really know what I'm supposed to be doing of course, it just feels like I'm missing out on something.
>> No. 32213 Anonymous
4th May 2023
Thursday 10:45 pm
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>>32063
I think this fear of home invasion is a good reason but not the actual cause of my reluctance to go to bed.
I'm struggling to contain my frustraition at the moment and feel like crying, almost to the point that I'm cry-acting as if to convince myself continuing this is upsetting me. It's not that bad, i'm typing this with some relief - as I do so I'm realising I could just go, now.

I think another reason for my struggle to stay awake is to keep tomorrow from coming. I have a few things to do, or things I think I'd rather be doing, and going to bed mostly resets the process of what I've been doing to put those things off.

Dad taught us to save the best till last - mostly food items so we'd stuff ourselves with chips before starting on the pie. anecdotal of course but It seems to have had the effect that I can't recognise what I want over my current routine.

I want to play a videogame. I've had all day to do it but focused on mindless internet scrolling instead. Now it's getting late, I should probably think about restructuring my sleeping pattern by turning in soon with a book, but the game is just there waiting to be loaded up. So instead I remain online, waiting out the desire to play games or address my sleeping pattern.

I've had better routines in the past when I was more excersized and furfilled.

What're yous guys thoughts on this?


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UenRigbXLH4
>> No. 32214 Anonymous
5th May 2023
Friday 3:37 am
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When you meet a woman (female) in meatspace and then start texting her, should you ask about what she does for a living when she mentions work conflicts getting in the way of scheduling a date? Would a Regular Person expect you to inquire about their job through a text-based medium?

I usually only message people to schedule meetings in real life in order to have have proper real life conversations, but maybe that's not quite the norm these days.
>> No. 32215 Anonymous
5th May 2023
Friday 4:22 am
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>>32214

Normal people text incessantly about everything. Also they think that proper punctuation is passive-aggressive and they use an unhealthy amount of emoji.
>> No. 32216 Anonymous
5th May 2023
Friday 10:31 am
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Fucked up a job interview and feeling rather glum about it. Not much more to it than that.
>> No. 32217 Anonymous
5th May 2023
Friday 10:53 am
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>>32216
How did you fuck up?
>> No. 32218 Anonymous
5th May 2023
Friday 11:33 am
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>>32214
I think so, work usually comes up in every dating conversation I've had. And dominated the conversation when we do meet.

I'm a boring sod but you can't really escape the fact that you spend about half your waking life at work and the other half is mostly recovering from that or doing chores.

>she mentions work conflicts getting in the way of scheduling a date

I mean, has she suggested an alternative?

>>32216
Well you will do better for the next one having learnt from your mistake.
>> No. 32219 Anonymous
5th May 2023
Friday 12:00 pm
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>>32216
Each one is a rehearsal - you'll get there ladm9.
>> No. 32220 Anonymous
5th May 2023
Friday 1:35 pm
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>>32214
It's absolutely normal to ask. You don't have to interrogate her, but make it part of usual friendly conversation.
>What do you do, if you don't mind me asking?
That's the sentence to use. Attach it to the end of another message expressing sorrow that you can't go out if you're worried that you're interrogating her too hard. There's always a chance you might not phrase it perfectly, but you will almost definitely phrase it well enough and I doubt you'll be the worst asker she speaks to.
>> No. 32221 Anonymous
5th May 2023
Friday 3:59 pm
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Made a FetLife. Don't know why. I'm in a committed sexless tedious obligation of a relationship so I can't do owt. So many hot fat alt girls who'd give me a pegging worthy of Prince Wills. But they're out of reach. Stuck with unattractive gf who I want to kill.
>> No. 32222 Anonymous
5th May 2023
Friday 4:07 pm
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>>32221

>Stuck with unattractive gf who I want to kill.
>> No. 32223 Anonymous
5th May 2023
Friday 4:07 pm
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Like I geninely think this is it why bother continuing this horrible boring unfulfilling life nobody likes me i have no skills or talents or prospects othert han 10 packets of diazepam
>> No. 32224 Anonymous
5th May 2023
Friday 7:19 pm
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>>32223
We like you. Remember that funny post you made here a few days ago? Thank you for that. Stick around and make some more.
>> No. 32225 Anonymous
6th May 2023
Saturday 1:59 am
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>>32224
Thanks. I love you too ladm7.
>> No. 32226 Anonymous
7th May 2023
Sunday 5:08 pm
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>>32217

It was a case interview that I took after a long day of work (it was a remote interview conducted from another country).

As I understand them, the entire point of those interviews is to show your reasoning skills in a transparent way, but I just found it very difficult to organise my thoughts and articulate them in a structured manner. Therefore I think I must have done rather poorly.

I express myself well enough in writing and aced a written work test, but I have a feeling I might have scuppered my chances. I'll know by next week.
>> No. 32230 Anonymous
11th May 2023
Thursday 10:38 pm
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Is it normal for people with autism/asperges to not have or supress special interests? I have a qualified diagnosis but regularly doubt it. Apart from a dire routine which is fairly difficult to shift, I don't really do anything, yet resist changing through what I believe is a mixture of apathy, fear of failure and a general sense that I'm too retarded to perform without a huge degree of LARPing.
I dont really know what to say here, I know how to start improving my life as I've taken the necessary steps before. Only doing so would prove my current lifestyle, coping mechanisms and rationalisation for 'this' wrong.

I don't want to improve. I don't exactly want to die, I just want to be forgotten so I can live without witnesses to my failer.

I don't know what the fuck I'm saying, maybe this doesn't mean anything at all.
>> No. 32231 Anonymous
12th May 2023
Friday 1:09 am
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>>32230

Regardless of your autism spectrum diagnosis, you're quite clearly depressed and your lack of interest and activity is almost certainly a symptom of that depression. A big part of recovering from depression is finding new coping skills and new ways of thinking about your life.

That doesn't mean that your old ways are "wrong". Depressed people who are still alive have proved that they know how to survive, often against all the odds. A lot of people who suffer from depression don't live long enough to get stuck in a rut. Your way of coping has got you this far, which is a meaningful achievement even if it doesn't feel like it.

The problem you're facing is that the skills that you need to survive aren't the same skills that you need to thrive. Apathy is a really effective way of avoiding the worst of your negative feelings, but it also stops you from feeling anything good. A lot of people don't understand why people like us cling on to ways of coping that are keeping us depressed, but when you're stuck in survival mode it's legitimately terrifying to take a leap into the unknown and try something different. You aren't a coward, you just have a perfectly rational fear of losing the things that are keeping you alive.

You can make those changes on your own, but it's hard. Finding the right support can make it less hard, but that can be easier said than done. I'd suggest keeping an open mind and recognising that this is a long-term project that'll have a lot of mis-steps and setbacks along the way.

Counselling or psychotherapy can be great, but not every professional will be the right fit for your needs and some of them are just outright terrible, so try not to be too disheartened if you try it and it goes badly. Personally, I've found it more helpful to speak to people who are in the same boat - there are loads of really good support groups and peer mentoring projects out there.

It's easy to feel broken and society doesn't help in that respect. Recovery is definitely possible, but it's also worth remembering that you can live a rewarding and meaningful life without being cured or fixed. There's no cure for Type I diabetes, it's a chronic condition that requires constant monitoring and care, but most diabetics learn to manage their illness and lead rewarding lives. Sometimes a similar approach is useful for depression - you might be stuck with a shitty disease, but you can still find ways to live with it.
>> No. 32240 Anonymous
13th May 2023
Saturday 8:03 pm
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>>32231
>you're quite clearly depressed
based on the one quoted post or have you put together previous posts for this conclusion?
>> No. 32241 Anonymous
13th May 2023
Saturday 8:44 pm
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>>32240

The post I replied to mentions some clear symptoms of depression - a lack of motivation and interest, low self-esteem, feeling like a failure, wanting to disappear. Those thoughts and feelings can be a natural part of the ups and downs of life, but if they persist then they become symptoms of a treatable illness. If OP is in any doubt I'd encourage him to take the PHQ-9, which is a 9 question test used by GPs to quickly assess depression; I'd be very surprised if he didn't score at least in the moderate range of severity.

https://patient.info/doctor/patient-health-questionnaire-phq-9

ASD undoubtedly makes life more difficult sometimes, but people with ASD still have the right to a happy and fulfilling life. That's entirely achievable with the right treatment and support.
>> No. 32249 Anonymous
16th May 2023
Tuesday 5:31 pm
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I'm really struggling with the executive dysfunction you tend to get with depression over the last few weeks. I've been depressed on and off for years and I've learned a lot of good ways to stay on top of it, in terms of the overall mood and inner sense of wellbeing, but the one thing I've never really learned to defeat is this thing where you just can't motivate yourself to stay on top of life's daily duties and just start gradually slipping behind and neglecting things.

I can manage to keep on top of tidying my home, because I don't like to live amongst mess anyway, I can manage to keep on top of the laundry and little things like that. But sometimes I just really can't be arsed going to the shop, for example, just because it'd mean taking a diversion home from work and getting stuck in an extra half hour of traffic. So then I'll end up getting takeaways and spending loads more money than I intended to, and I'll feel really down about it.

I've had several things on my to-do list for about the last three months that just aren't getting done- Needing to phone the DVLA, send my passport off, submit a meter reading for the leccy, whatever. Simply can't get myself around to it, I always put it off, procrastinate, and then ultimately forget. I'd go to the doctors and see if there's something they can give me, but I've not bothered to register with one since I moved house, and I don't see myself getting around to that any time soon either, because it means I've got to talk to someone and go somewhere.

On an evening, I often find myself too lethargic and unmotivated to do anything with my time, so I'll just veg out in front of the telly and fall asleep watching something on the sofa. Then the next day at work I feel all grubby because I haven't showered, spend more money on lunch because I haven't taken the time to make a pack up, and so on. Then I'll come to the end of another week, the end of another month, and feel like I've just pissed another chunk of my life down the drain without spending time on any of my hobbies or anything really enjoyable for myself, not even videogames. Just stared mindlessly at another series of videos and scrolled through Rudgwick on my phone.

Weirdly enough I've got a pretty decent relationship, despite all this, and often that's the only thing I can actually be bothered motivating myself for. We go places together, watch films, I'll cook her dinner, we'll get drunk/high and have long late night talks, that sort of thing. I get my shit together and clean up and groom myself a bit for her sake. But even though all that makes me happy, I often feel a sense that I'm becoming an accessory in someone else's life, and I'm not really living my own life. I feel like the time spent with my partner is sometimes coming at the expense of time I could be spending doing one of my own more personal hobbies; but that's not fair to her, because even if we had a weekend off I'd still waste it all doing nothing but watching YouTube.

I've taken a few days off work because I need to do a bit of self care and reboot myself a bit, I think, even though I'm already nearing the point of being in serious trouble about absence. Frankly work can suck a dick, my own wellbeing is more important, but the trouble is if I just waste it and end up spending tree days scrolling the internet in my pants I'll just feel even worse.
>> No. 32250 Anonymous
16th May 2023
Tuesday 6:16 pm
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>>32249

I think a bit of CBT might help you break out of that rut. It's a very practical therapy that's focussed on breaking the cycle of doing less and feeling worse. Your GP can refer you or you can refer yourself, but you'll probably have a bit of a wait to start treatment; in the mean time, there's a very good online CBT course at the link below.

https://llttf.com/
>> No. 32251 Anonymous
16th May 2023
Tuesday 6:22 pm
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>>32241
According to the PHQ-9 I'm experiencing 'moderate depression'. It would be the next stage higher but for some practise in address. That only really leaves pleasure, sleep cycle and diet.

I've recently taken out to the country which, while difficult, has inspired a boost in physical activity, interest and healthier eating. I've just cut the grass and am considering a walk through some public parks. I've even enquired about replacement glasses which I was putting off for a while. The sleep cycle isn't quite there but it's getting better, helped by the season.

I think this is the difference between 'feeling depressed' and 'suffering depression'. Perception changes your experience of the condition, ultimately spiralling into itself until you feel as though you're diseased. Genuine, neurological depression must suck arse, bt I'd definitely be skeptical of whether claimants actually have it or have just convinced themselves they do. It's an arsehole thing to say but like .. I wasn't trying to cheer myself up, only maintaining a status of living that supported a poor mood.. It goes to wonder if people really are depressed or just unhappy with their living conditions.
I recognise this is possibly an arsehole thing to be saying.
>> No. 32252 Anonymous
16th May 2023
Tuesday 6:56 pm
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>>32251

No, I don't think it's an arsehole thing to say. It's important for people to understand that there is a lot they can do to remedy their own depression, but it's also important to recognise that some people are so severely depressed or have been depressed for so long that they don't know how to change or simply feel that any change would be impossible.

The modern approach to understanding depression is based on the "biopsychosocial" model - depression is a complex phenomenon that encompasses elements of biology, individual psychology and someone's wider life circumstances.

Some people are innately predisposed to depression because of their genetics, or because of adverse childhood experiences that can interfere with brain development. That doesn't mean that they're doomed to be depressed, but they're more vulnerable to becoming depressed, they're less likely to respond to treatment and they're more likely to relapse. Antidepressant drugs are the obvious biological treatment for depression - we don't really understand how they work, but they clearly have an effect on brain chemistry that allows a lot of people to recover.

Psychologically, our model for depression is based on vicious cycles of negative thoughts, negative moods and inactivity. You think that you're not good enough to do something, so you don't bother trying, which makes you feel like shit and reinforces your belief that you aren't good enough. That's a very simple concept, but it can be very difficult to disentangle when you're stuck in it, which is why good psychotherapy can be very effective - we just aren't very good at seeing ourselves clearly (especially when we're depressed) and we often need an outside perspective.

Socially, some people get on absolutely fine until something happens like losing their job or going through a divorce, at which point they just fall apart completely. A lot of us have quite rigid beliefs about what constitutes a meaningful life, like "a man's role is to provide for his family", so if we can't fulfil that role we fall apart. Some people just have relentlessly awful lives where everything seems to go wrong for them and it's obvious to anyone why they'd feel depressed; still, there's a lot that can be done to help people to either get themselves out of a bad situation or learn to live with it.

If you're only affected by one or two of these factors, the treatments we have tend to be quite effective and there's a very good chance that you'll recover fairly quickly. Unfortunately, some people get little or no benefit from treatment, usually because they have multiple interacting factors that combine to keep them trapped in depression. This is where the recovery model comes in.

As you've worked out for yourself, it's perfectly possible to live a rewarding and fulfilling life despite having significant symptoms of depression. We define depressive illnesses in terms of symptoms that are easy to objectively measure, but the things that really matter to people aren't easily captured by questionnaires and psychological assessments - things like hope and meaning.

The recovery model for mental illness is based on these principles. Rather than narrowly focussing on reducing symptoms, it takes an individualistic and person-centred view about what a good life looks like. We might not have the tools to reduce all of the symptoms of their mental health problem, but we can still work with people to help them construct a life that they consider worthwhile based on their own values. You can live with your illness, rather than being defined by it. Again, that's easier said than done, but it's absolutely possible with time and patience and support.
>> No. 32253 Anonymous
28th May 2023
Sunday 9:23 pm
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Just once I'd like for something to go horribly wrong and have it not be my fault. A nice little moment of relief whereby the shame, hopelessness and frustration are offloaded onto someone or something else, just one time. Because everything's always going to go horribly wrong, but does it always have to be my fault? Again and again? Forever? Oh, it does, okay.
>> No. 32254 Anonymous
28th May 2023
Sunday 9:35 pm
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>>32253

Is it always your fault, though, lad? I would find it highly unlikely that it really is all your fault. Can you give us a couple of examples of the last few things that went wrong?

It's healthy to take responsibility when things are your fault, obviously, so I'm not encouraging you to make excuses. But it's also easy to blame yourself for things that really weren't.
>> No. 32255 Anonymous
28th May 2023
Sunday 9:37 pm
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>>32253
Things will fuck up now and then, the important thing is how you react to them.
>> No. 32260 Anonymous
6th June 2023
Tuesday 11:36 pm
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I have something wrong with my bellend, a weird white lump, and my GP just told me to use Canesten for the next week and to then let her know if it doesn't fix it. This was after waiting a week for my GP to change having moved and another to see if it would clear up on its own - she just sent me a text on what to do based on the description.

Anyway as it happens, two women are dropping strong hints that they want to have sex and they want to go out at the weekend. Or rather one does and the other is outright talking about spending a night in together to find out 'the deep sensation we get when we're together'. I don't know what to do lads, obviously I'm not going to risk giving them thrush but I don't know how as a bloke I can turn down sex - I don't know what to say if I take one out on a date on Friday and she wants to go back to mine but I have to refuse.

Do I just tell them I have a bad cold and not go out at all? I'm a man with no penis.
>> No. 32261 Anonymous
7th June 2023
Wednesday 12:59 am
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>>32260

Blindboy is absolutely correct about the power of the shift, but I wouldn't worry about giving someone thrush, as it isn't considered a sexually transmitted disease. All women naturally have a variety of yeasts and bacteria living in their vagina, just as you have all sorts of species living on your skin and in your gastrointestinal tract. It's only a problem when the balance of those species goes out of whack, which is usually caused by hormonal or immune changes rather than any external factors.

If you want to play it safe, get down to your local sexual health clinic. You can usually just walk in or book a same day appointment, get a full MOT for your knob and usually get your test results back within 24 hours. You can also get loads of free johnnies and that.

https://www.nhs.uk/service-search/find-a-sexual-health-clinic/
>> No. 32263 Anonymous
7th June 2023
Wednesday 10:33 pm
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I've been acting like a complete prick all day for no good reason.
>> No. 32264 Anonymous
8th June 2023
Thursday 12:04 am
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I'm not saying I'm on the verge of a massive breakdown, but I am thinking about replaying the entire Mass Effect series.
>> No. 32269 Anonymous
8th June 2023
Thursday 12:55 pm
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>>32264

For me, I know something is up if I pull out the DS and start playing Pokemon. Sometimes I pull a sickie and replay Fire Red start to finish.
>> No. 32270 Anonymous
8th June 2023
Thursday 2:31 pm
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>>32269
I'm struggling to remember the six Pokemon I'd finish Leaf Green with. The four I can definitely remember are Charizard, Vaporeon, Snorlax and Tyranitar. I think one of the remaining two will have been Haunter or Kadabra, but buggered if I can remember the final slot.
>> No. 32271 Anonymous
8th June 2023
Thursday 5:04 pm
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I’ve always had a lot of drama and uncertainty in my life. More than a year ago I began stopping that, until a few months ago where I really relaxed and let go.

I see now that I built myself a nice safe place, but also how that place has ended up limiting me. Pride made it hard to accept. Drama has its payoff. The shadow is interesting.

My mind is fighting like hell to worry about this, that, and the other. I don’t resist, I just let it fizzle out. I’m starting to forgive those that hurt me, and shed a few tears nearly daily where I am feeling so much so often.

It’s truly quite a scary place to be. To let go of that anger and sadness, to realise the ego needed it to escape, but it’s also wildly cathartic.

Over the years you’ve been directly and indirectly helpful, I’d like to say thank you.
>> No. 32298 Anonymous
16th June 2023
Friday 12:56 am
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I can't cope or focus or do anything. I post this every few months, but it doesn't stop being true. I'm a serial fuck up and I can't leave the house despite weeks of trying. Like, come on, what's the point? Eh? Come on.
>> No. 32299 Anonymous
16th June 2023
Friday 5:49 pm
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I've forgotten what I came here to moan about and it seems counterproductive to recall the feeling.
>> No. 32300 Anonymous
17th June 2023
Saturday 12:29 am
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So uh .. I accidentally found the youtube channel of that girl I like(d), whom I posted about here some years ago.

On first finding it I decided to get the fuck away from there, delete the bookmark I'd created then forget of its existance. About an hour later I ran out of the house mysteriously believing that doing all the things I've been putting off might make me a deserving person.
Suddenly I'm awake with motivation, as reason to be alive and start fucking doing everything.

Cut to my return home, having had unfortunately memorised (in record short time, yeah) this womans YT account name, I returned to it and watched a number of her vlogs and have now; seen inside her bedroom; learned more or less where she lives; learned of her workplace and some of the places she attends; recognise a number of her family and friends; etc.

Is this how bad things start?

The plans for imminent action I had made while motivated have by necessity been postponed and noweverything I can think to do pales in comparison of worth. I'm deflating - the buzz has drained now and I'm back to feeling powerless, with zero motivation and masses of self pity.
The thought of escaping this feeling by suicide is returning, much like directly after the final interaction between this woman and me, when I stifled a cry in public and fought an impulse to dive infront of a bus.

I'm vaguely considering creating a YT account to message her - "hey I'm that weird dude who tried to talk to you but instead ended up generating a strange atmosphere that continues to linger between us dispite being strangers. I hope I didn't upset you and I totally didn't mean to cause you any concern" - but I know I'll end up alienating myself even more.

What do I want, man? I don't even know if I actually like her visually, despite how pretty, colourful and creative she appears to be. I think I was infatuated (still am by the sound of things) and it's coursed paths through my brain. Every time I see a nice dress it's for her, every other attractive woman is compared, even after aproximately 4 years the memory of her fading. And we've shared no more than 8 words between the two of us.

D'you think maybe I'm just a cunt?


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jqv3No98j5M
>> No. 32301 Anonymous
17th June 2023
Saturday 1:35 am
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>>32300

> So uh .. I accidentally found the youtube channel of that girl I like(d), whom I posted about here some years ago.

I don't recall the posts in question, but by the sounds of it you need a cold shower and a stern talking-to. You don't want this woman, you want some imaginary thing in your head that this woman represents. You need to stop hiding in that fantasy and start taking small, practical steps to improve your wellbeing and life circumstances.
>> No. 32302 Anonymous
17th June 2023
Saturday 2:00 am
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>>32300
Forget it, just forget it.
>> No. 32303 Anonymous
17th June 2023
Saturday 2:25 am
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>>23560

I was behind the curve in my teens and early 20s on social skills and general naivety. Just as I started coming into my prime with muscle, my career and my dating 2 years of lockdown happened, then I got Covid, got diagnosed with Uevitis, then diagnosed with Ankylosing Spondylitis.

I'm pretty dead inside, I let my muscle atrophy, I don't feel any worth in dating anymore because I lack sex experience (not a virgin atleast).

Atleast I have the internet, a good job and good friends.
>> No. 32304 Anonymous
17th June 2023
Saturday 11:46 am
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>>32301
>>32302
Having got absoultely no quality and now sat here like a crusty juggler I am realising what a poor move watching her videos was. It just brought back all that confusion from last time. There's no way I could operate in any relationship while like that, the emotional rolercoaster is just too damn rough.
>> No. 32305 Anonymous
17th June 2023
Saturday 1:18 pm
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>>32300
> D'you think maybe I'm just a cunt?

That's not the impression I get from your post. You have the wherewithal question your impulses, interrogate them, and ultimately discard them because you correctly recognised them as harmful. That's sort of the opposite of a "cunt".

I don't mean to be stroking your ego, you're properly infatuate by the sound of it and that's not too far away from a manic episode. You'll want to keep an eye on that. There's the dopmine spike you could get from doing the wrong thing versus the endless self hatre and regret for doing for years afterwards, it's not worth it.
>> No. 32306 Anonymous
17th June 2023
Saturday 2:00 pm
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>>32305
>There's the dopmine spike you could get from doing the wrong thing versus the endless self hatre and regret for doing for years afterwards, it's not worth it.
I edited my post poorly and want to stress the 'plan for imminent action' in no way involved this woman - It was to visit distant family the very next morning, which would be contrary to my long held belief that cross-regional travel is beyond the limit of my ability.
I've since decided to travel next week, making time to spend with my Dad on Fathers Day, but it definitely felt like a willing failure.
>> No. 32307 Anonymous
17th June 2023
Saturday 2:13 pm
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Man, I'm sorry to go on but the thing is this has happened after about 2 weeks of mounting stress on the run up to a routine appointment. It happens right after this appointment, right when I'm trying to use the internet 'properly' to explore local oportunities. It seems as though every fucking time I try to grow beyond my shell I percieve the events as a tapestry of universal will or some shit. I can ignore it, but it hurts to do so and my experience of life is stagnating because of it.

Trial by fire and all that, right? I don't mean to say that I will contact this person. I mean to say that I will do the travel next week. Though it still feels like a limited failure that I'm not doing it right now - running off into the country on some wayless pilgrimage.
>> No. 32308 Anonymous
17th June 2023
Saturday 2:58 pm
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>>32307
You are infatuted, it happens. Your chosen lass has a YT channel, big whoop. She's, going to present a persona.If it is not mutual, work on yourself.
>> No. 32309 Anonymous
17th June 2023
Saturday 4:16 pm
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All this talk of infatuation has me thinking about a girl who hasn't left my mind since I met her in 2012. She really was a piece of shit in some senses, manipulative, flaky, hypocritical. But she was the first girl I ever fell in love with, and for several periods of time the only friend I had in this world. Last saw her in November 2017, since then I assume she left social media or blocked me on all of them, I didn't do anything bad to her she just frequently cut off contact only to reengage some time later. I think about her every day, think about those few chances I had to make it into something more only to have external factors fuck things up. How do you get over an eleven year obsession which realistically has a near 0% chance of being fulfilled? I have a loving long term gf who would do anything for me, yet if my old flame messaged me tomorrow asking me to come round, I'd drop everything.
>> No. 32310 Anonymous
17th June 2023
Saturday 4:40 pm
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>>32309

I think most lads have somebody like that in their past. That one lass they just never got over. You can't always put a finger on why somebody still matters to you after such a long time. But from my own memory, it's either your first love, or somebody who treated you like shit. Or both. It took me over ten years to fully get my first-ever girlfriend out of my system. Can't say the whole relationship was shit, but her breaking up with me was certainly traumatic, and it was baggage I kept carrying into new relationships, which was never good.

Nowadays, I've compartmentalised it, and when people who have known me since I was a younglad ask me if I ever think back to those days, I tell them that that happened in a different life. A different galaxy, far far away. Or something like it.

I'm not sure that that's the key to managing to get somebody out of your system for good, but it seems to work for me. Whatever happened back then, has nothing to do with my life today, and that's the way I'd like to keep it.
>> No. 32311 Anonymous
17th June 2023
Saturday 6:41 pm
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Lads, the heatwave has left all of us vulnerable to horny spirits. We already know the magical ritual to expel them from the body.
>> No. 32312 Anonymous
17th June 2023
Saturday 9:50 pm
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Everyone else is wrong. She's the one. Go for it or live forever in ignominy.
>> No. 32313 Anonymous
17th June 2023
Saturday 10:14 pm
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>>32312
Being rejected by a woman can certainly put you off her in a way that avoiding her never will.
>> No. 32314 Anonymous
18th June 2023
Sunday 1:36 pm
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>>32312
>>32313
To be honest I am leaning toward at least contacting her through youtube. Trial by fire applies here as well as anywhere.

Funnily enough I have dreamed of her like I've never dreamed before. She made me fly, and not the usual 'oh hey I'm flying with a momentum I can't control' dream, but a self aware shift from doubt to the lift with a sudden understanding that flying isn't something you do, it merely happens when someone believes in you.
What's interesting to consider is that this monumental change in self perception came from within me, not the other. Ultimately I'm the only one holding me back. I suppose to justify thriving I want to feel as though somebody believes in me. My idea of this woman represents that. As is I'm merely surviving.

I completely agree that this person, as I know her, is a figment of my imagination. I believe that's a root of the confusion I'm feeling - the reality doesn't match what's in my head.

Is it a fools hope to rearange that by actually getting to know her, or am I setting myself up for disaster? To learn that she's not as I've created or continue on living this shit life I hate.
Even if she's unreceptive it's potentially closure.

I'll keep you guys posted if anything occurs.
>> No. 32319 Anonymous
18th June 2023
Sunday 6:57 pm
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>>32314

>I completely agree that this person, as I know her, is a figment of my imagination. I believe that's a root of the confusion I'm feeling - the reality doesn't match what's in my head.

I remember feeling that way about lasses in school when I had a distance crush on them as I called it. Somebody that you felt taken with, but had really only seen from afar. There were never any interactions, I never even talked to that lass. And yet I was driving myself mad with all kinds of fantasies that only existed in my head. It can become a dark place. An understandable dark place, but a dark place nonetheless.

It's pretty likely you'll get shot down, but you will walk away having learned something. Just the way I did when one of my distance crushes one time came up to me and asked me what the fuck my problem was in stalking her.
>> No. 32320 Anonymous
18th June 2023
Sunday 7:23 pm
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>> No. 32321 Anonymous
18th June 2023
Sunday 9:00 pm
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Alright, lost my post due to duplicate file.

Suffice it to say that youtube doesn't allow private messages between account anymore.
I am aware that my situation is one of infactuation.
I won't be persuing contact this woman and will stop viewing her profile.

Just gotta focus on becoming a better person, i guess.
Atleast one good thing has come of this - I've replaced my britfa.gs/*/ bookmark with /sfw/. -1 bbw poster for you, aye.

Thanks for y'all candid support and that. I appreciate it. Have one of my favorite images from my HDD for the favour.
>> No. 32323 Anonymous
18th June 2023
Sunday 9:15 pm
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>>32321

>gotta
> y'all

Are you from Dixie?

But you're right, it's very likely best to get it out of your head. You have to remember that to her, you'd just be some random lad off the Internet who is obsessing about her in an increasingly unhealthy way. That is never a good starting point.
>> No. 32325 Anonymous
19th June 2023
Monday 1:40 am
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>>32314
>I'll keep you guys posted if anything occurs.

Please don't. Your posts are difficult to read because you are painfully unaware of how creepy you sound. A YouTube relationship is parasocial.
>> No. 32326 Anonymous
19th June 2023
Monday 10:06 am
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>>32325

>you are painfully unaware of how creepy you sound

I don't think we should go around judging people on here. We're all slightly fucked up each in our own way. You're not calling furrylad or chubbychaserlad creepy, are you.

I'm also getting a sense that some behaviours are only "creepy" when men display them. Which isn't really fair. There are plenty of female stalkers, if we want to apply that word here, and as somebody who has been stalked by mentally unstable lasses (ok, fine, one unstable lass), I can tell you it isn't any less creepy.
>> No. 32327 Anonymous
19th June 2023
Monday 10:08 am
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>>32326
Are we still doing this shit?
>> No. 32328 Anonymous
19th June 2023
Monday 10:27 am
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>>32325

Don't be rude in /emo/.

>>32326

Don't have gender politics debates in /emo/.
>> No. 32329 Anonymous
19th June 2023
Monday 11:38 am
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Getting rejected by her is definitely the quickest and easiest way to get over it but that just puts all the stress on her of feeling stalked and violated, which isn't okay. That's assuming she's just some random woman with a few public videos. If she's making a living from her channel I say go for it, people exploiting parasocial relationships for money are responsible for the effect it has on others.
>> No. 32330 Anonymous
19th June 2023
Monday 11:48 am
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>>32329
Yeah, if you enjoy someone's videos they're asking to be bothered. That's why I write the Al Pacino every day to tell him we should hang out and I can quote his lines back to him.

You're fucking idiot.
>> No. 32331 Anonymous
19th June 2023
Monday 11:57 am
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>>32330

You really hate lads with poor social calibration, eh?
>> No. 32332 Anonymous
19th June 2023
Monday 12:09 pm
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>>32331

I've met youtubers simply by writing them an e-mail and asking if they'd be up for a meet.

I guess the key difference being that these were lads who shared my hobbies and whose youtube channels were centered around them. I wasn't obsessing about some youtuber lass that I was having an improbable crush on.

My point being that just because someone has a youtube channel, doesn't make them an untouchable celebrity. Especially if their channel subject is slightly obscure and they don't have millions of followers.
>> No. 32333 Anonymous
19th June 2023
Monday 12:19 pm
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Does it change things if I said this woman and I have met in person, before?
Perhaps that wasn't obvious by only saying "I accidentally found the youtube channel of that girl I like(d)" and "we've shared no more than 8 words between the two of us"?

I recognise the situation in general has the potential for creepiness, especially considering the paragraph prior to "Is this how bad things start?" as self aware as that, apparently, is.

On closer consideration this woman is openly sharing aspects of their life on youtube, calls for comments and has shared brief encounters with me in person in the past. It doesn't seem unreasonable that one might say "hello, aren't you that person I met in..".

I believe if the roles were reversed I wouldn't mind being contacted in the way I had intended to do so ("hey I'm that weird dude who tried to talk to you, etc").

Although all this is, by now, irrelevant as it turned out there is no forward contact detail within the womans profile. She isn't that open to contact after all.
>> No. 32334 Anonymous
19th June 2023
Monday 12:51 pm
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>>32330
Actors routinely deal with fans who write them messages exactly like that. You're an idiot to pretend otherwise. If someone makes a living pretending to be your friend or by cynically getting you to fancy them, they are doing you harm and profiting off it. Look at the poor lad in this thread, he's not happy about it. It does emotional damage to people. I don't give a fuck if you think it's socially acceptable or not, because it's immoral regardless. Those who deliberately exploit others are responsible for the harm they cause.
>> No. 32335 Anonymous
19th June 2023
Monday 6:11 pm
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Where's the best place to find a slag to cheat on your partner with? I'm sick to fuck of my girlfriend, I've not had sex in 7 years, I need to dip my wick.
>> No. 32336 Anonymous
19th June 2023
Monday 6:51 pm
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>>32335
I know you're probably in some horrible situation where homelessness is a side effect of breaking up, but is there a reason you're in a loveless non-marriage?
>> No. 32337 Anonymous
19th June 2023
Monday 7:25 pm
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>>32336
She is lovely and caring and would do anything for me, and also we live together, so extricating myself from the current situation would be tough. Sex thing I've posted on here about before - she wants it, I find her physically repulsive. Really I need to build up the balls to jump, but I don't want to hurt her (though I know lying is hurting more in the long run). Especially now talk of kids is in the equation, I really don't want to spread my defective genes.
>> No. 32338 Anonymous
19th June 2023
Monday 7:26 pm
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>>32335

Are you the lad from a few days ago who was lamenting the fact that he couldn't see himself settling down with his girlfriend who has been with him through thick and thin?

But to answer your question, maybe Tinder, but if you're not afraid to chat somebody up in person, near enough any pub on a Saturday night will do. You're slightly past the core clubbing age if you're in your early 30s, but maybe there are also clubs near you that cater to the 25+ crowd.
>> No. 32339 Anonymous
19th June 2023
Monday 8:16 pm
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>>32335

Really it's just the same dating apps and such you'd use if you were single, except you have to be a bit sly about it. I'd estimate probably about 10% of people on there, if not more, are there with the intention to cheat. And that's not even accounting for the lasses who aren't even looking to cheat, but just want the ego boost of lads matching them.

If you've never done it before though, don't. You are probably not the kind of person who can handle it. To be that kind of a bastard is a lifelong calling and habit. At best it'll just be the catalyst to break your existing relationship up, and despite how unhappy you are, I don't think you'd still be there if it was THAT bad.

For context/comparison, the longest relationship I've been in was 3 and a half years, sexless for most of the last year or so, and I feel like even then, I dragged it out way longer than the sell by date. I was on Tinder and the like for about the last 6 months at least, I had already lined up several lasses to go off and take a shot at by the time we broke up, as well as meeting up with a long time friend and fellow deviant furfag from across the pond who I dearly wish I could be together with, were it not for the distance.
>> No. 32340 Anonymous
24th June 2023
Saturday 11:42 pm
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A few weeks ago my girlfriend indicated she wanted to try for kids next year. Fine. Then today she said she wanted to try for kids right now. I told her the agreement was for next year, now she's being a cunt saying I don't know what it's like to be a woman. Might just bin her off.
>> No. 32341 Anonymous
25th June 2023
Sunday 1:02 am
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>>32340
I suspect it really is a bird thing. Rightly or wrongly they get a lot of pressure on the clock business that you miss as a lad, especially in their 30s.

Why do you want to wait a year for?
>> No. 32342 Anonymous
25th June 2023
Sunday 12:18 pm
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>>32340

Wimmins logic. She already had your OK for next year, so why wait. You're not generally against the idea, so what difference does it make if you start trying right away.

A friend's girlfriend started pressuring him when they were both about 26, 27, and for the next few years he wasn't hearing the end of it. Until she finally broke up with him because she needed somebody who was "mature enough for the next step". She fell pregnant by a coworker just a few months later. I guess my point is, at some point in a lass's late 20s, for some of them the desire becomes so strong that it's really just about that. Not saying men then become means to an end for somebody like that, but I guess desperate times require desperate measures.
>> No. 32343 Anonymous
25th June 2023
Sunday 12:35 pm
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>>32340
A child is a serious undertaking, if you're ready for it next year what stops you from doing it this year? What's differnt now compared to 356 days in the future?
>> No. 32344 Anonymous
25th June 2023
Sunday 12:48 pm
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>>32343

A lot of things can be. Maybe he's started a new job or his current one isn't going well. Maybe he needs to be there for a family member. Or he still wants to do some travelling or have time for some time-consuming projects.

Don't dismiss that as excuses. Because a child is a "serious undertaking", it's best to feel like you're actually ready for it. Which doesn't always happen, granted, and then you just have to go with it. But otherlad was asked when he'd feel ready to have kids, and he gave a reasonable answer. If women then don't accept it, it shows kind of a disregard for their partner's side of things. You'll be in it together, after all.
>> No. 32345 Anonymous
26th June 2023
Monday 3:04 am
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The issue is basically she's reaching an age where her chance of successful pregnancy is lowering. Still got a good few years I reckon, but I understand her fear. The issue with "right now" vs "in a year" is that right now, I'm due to start a new job, she's just got a promotion, we're not in a great place financially (not like the wolves are at the door but we live from paycheck to paycheck), there's so much in flux right now that I believe it would be unfair to bring a kid into the mix. I previously said I wouldn't want a kid until we had our own house - realistically, that's not happening for a while, so I compromised on that. I'm generally a very cautious person, and want to have all my ducks in a row before having a sprog. She is quite impulsive and doesn't really consider actions leading to consequences. After we argued about it on Saturday night I was ready to go hang myself to get out of the situation. Pussied out in the end. Sometimes I fantasise about killing her in her sleep. I know I'd go to jail but at least it'd give me time to catch up on books.
>> No. 32346 Anonymous
26th June 2023
Monday 8:27 am
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>>32345
Your caution is understandable but realistically you will never have all your ducks lined up perfectly. People almost never find themselves in a position where all bases are covered and it's actually sensible to have a kid. If you're going to do it at all, get it over with and struggle through the consequences.
>> No. 32347 Anonymous
26th June 2023
Monday 8:36 am
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>>32345
Don't have kids unless you definitely want kids. Once you have them you're not really going to have any peace for the next eighteen years, possibly longer if they don't leave home at that point. If she wants kids then she will end up pregnant one way or another.
>> No. 32348 Anonymous
26th June 2023
Monday 11:37 am
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>>32345

> The issue with "right now" vs "in a year" is that right now, I'm due to start a new job, she's just got a promotion, we're not in a great place financially (not like the wolves are at the door but we live from paycheck to paycheck), there's so much in flux right now that I believe it would be unfair to bring a kid into the mix.

This is exactly what I meant, and where one year can make a big difference. You as a couple have a good amount of control over whether you bring a child into this world right now where things are still a bit iffy for you economically, or if you wait a year until much of it may have resolved itself and turned for the better.

A friend at uni was in the middle of his master's thesis when his son was born. His girlfriend was incredibly supportive, but it took its toll on him and he had to request an extension. They naturally weren't trying for a baby at that point, and it goes to show that there can be circumstances where it just isn't the right time, and where waiting one year can make a big difference to the circumstances under which you'll bring up your child.
>> No. 32349 Anonymous
26th June 2023
Monday 2:38 pm
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>>32345

Your job as a man is to lead and reassure, when she was asking/demanding 'now' it wasn't about 'now', she needed your reassurance. It'd be wise to help her calm down and agree some clear targets for when (i.e., once I've passed probation, once we have £x saved, once we've done anal 6 times). She's worried you're just kicking the can down the road. Her situation is a lot more precarious than yours.

>Might just bin her off.
>Sometimes I fantasise about killing her in her sleep.

She won't know you've said this but she feels it.
>> No. 32350 Anonymous
26th June 2023
Monday 3:44 pm
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>>32349

>Her situation is a lot more precarious than yours.

You can't really argue with that, from a certain age. But the solution can't be to keep putting pressure on your partner.

If your partner doesn't want kids, or doesn't want them within your fertility window, then I think you're free to consider your options as a lass and leave him. If it's that important to you, then why not face up to the fact that it's a dealbreaker in your relationship, and move on, because he isn't the right one.

Breaking up with somebody like that and leaving behind what could have been, and facing the dating market again in your mid-30s, can lead to far less hardship than pressuring your lad into paternity.
>> No. 32351 Anonymous
26th June 2023
Monday 9:10 pm
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Dudes, I don't know how to satisfy my desire for social interaction.
It seems that all there is to do for impromptu, in-person interaction is pubs, but I'm not really a pub sort of person.
Infact the only real sense of community I've experienced in recent years is in online games - hanging about at a virtual market place or whatever. VR chat might be worthwhile.

I used to sit along a highstreet, drinking tea from a cafe, but it doesn't really do enough. Most of the time I would be obsessing over the idea of throwing the mug across the street simply to attend my frustration.

I probably just need to go running or something. Maybe I'll buy a man-bra to stop my tits slapping about too much.
>> No. 32353 Anonymous
26th June 2023
Monday 9:27 pm
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>>32351
The answer is to get a hobby. Obviously this is harder than it sounds: which hobby? What if all the sociable hobbies are boring? What if you don't like the people who like your hobby? But those are all excuses, devised to keep you in your comfort zone. Sign up for literally any class. Learn to paint, or swim. You could even learn pottery and make yourself an endless supply of throwable shitty homemade mugs.
>> No. 32354 Anonymous
26th June 2023
Monday 9:49 pm
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>>32351
Otherlad is right but I'd go further, what you need is to find the right hobby. The right hobby for you of course but also one that scratches your social itch.

If you're any good at sport, have a technical mind or play an instrument then it might be somewhat easy. Similarly if you're interested in learning language. But if none of those apply it may also be worth doing some acting, you'll meet a fuck-ton of sociable people and it'll also give you some social skills.
>> No. 32355 Anonymous
26th June 2023
Monday 11:37 pm
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>>32351
>>32353
>>32354

We've talked about this all before but I'm convinced it just comes down to the fact blokes need an "excuse" to socialise. It's not just blokes, women do too, but the trouble is blokes are much more task-oriented, so their excuse needs to be a much more watertight one. Women are happier to play along under a flimsier pretence. For a man, any hobby will do as long as it's a hobby similar blokes are into, and provides enough of a "real" excuse that none of them have to question it, or go to much effort to plan it. That's why sports and playing in a band work so well for men, they provide a neat structure with enough of an implied goal to accomplish that blokes can justify turning up every week without having to question it. "Can't drop out, the lads need me." Even though you're all only there for the laugh anyway.

What it really comes down to is that in our culture, it's a horrible faux pas to just straightforwardly ask for what some psychology book I read once called "social stroking". If you just stroke, or ask to be stroked out of nowhere, it either comes across like you're a loony autist psycho invading social boundaries, or crosses into what we typically perceive as flirting or romantic interest, and thus is understandably, usually uncomfortable.

This is why the pub exists in the first place- It's our sole get out of jail free card. "Wanna go to the pub?" is a reason in and of itself. Normal people get this- It's not because you love to relax and absorb the ambience and atmosphere in the Wanker's Arms, it's to play along with the social kayfabe. Even if the pub isn't their favourite thing to do, they know it's a reciprocal social transaction enabling them to give each other some social stroking without it being weird, and without having to spend £500 on toy soldiers or taking up fucking kayaking first.

People who don't drink are an interesting tangent here. I've met a few of them who lament about how people seem to leave them out all the time, they don't understand why they don't get invited no matter how much they insist they "still have fun" and "aren't a killjoy". The part they don't get is that they're tacitly killing the fun because they are not participating in the ritual (and I really mean ritual, in the very same sense as bongo bongo tribe people doing the rain dance dressed up in animal skins and that). The consumption of alcohol is often not about getting drunk in and of itself. It's because it implies a level of trust and kinship, that you will allow yourself to become intoxicated and thus lower your inhibitions together. A display of, essentially, vulnerability, that functions to establish a bond.

Most of my friendships have revolved around taking drugs.
>> No. 32357 Anonymous
27th June 2023
Tuesday 12:12 am
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>>32355
>People who don't drink are an interesting tangent here. they don't understand why they don't get invited no matter how much they insist they "still have fun" and "aren't a killjoy".
>they're tacitly killing the fun because they are not participating in the ritual

I think that's right up until the 'implied level of trust and kinship'. I think refusal of the ritual while still attending is denial of the excuse to socialise, thus causing discomfort in the participants by revealing the activity for what it really is. Noone likes to invite non-drinkers because they're implicitly there to socialise rather than 'have a drink'.

>Most of my friendships have revolved around taking drugs.
I really disliked the dynamic of druggy friends. Assosiation by shared interest coupled with that horrible knowledge you're only with these awful people to get high.
spliff politics, init.
>> No. 32358 Anonymous
27th June 2023
Tuesday 12:52 am
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>>32355

>People who don't drink are an interesting tangent here.

As an ex-drinker, in my experience it really depends on what "going for a drink" means. If it's genuinely going to be a couple of pints afterwards, the fact that I'm on lime and soda is a non-issue. If it's a proper session, then I'm going to drift away from the group some time during the third or fourth pint. I'm bored because everyone is starting to talk shite, they think I'm boring because I'm not keeping pace with the group. The one sober person at the table is an awkward reminder of sober reality, bursting the bubble of boozy bonhomie. Of course, a couple of quiet pints are often just an excuse for a proper lash.

My approach is to get my excuses in first and make it clear from the outset that I have to leave early. I don't have to spend all night listening to a bunch of pissed-up idiots, they know that the boring bastard will sod off before the proper drinking starts, everyone's happy.
>> No. 32359 Anonymous
27th June 2023
Tuesday 10:28 pm
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I used be a hopeless loser and now I'm looking back at that guy thinking "fuck me, how do I get to being him again"? It's miserable. I'd have killed me if I'd seen how I was going to turn out, not killed myself, but murdered me. I'm babbling like an idiot, but that's me now, a zero watt bulb.
>> No. 32379 Anonymous
3rd July 2023
Monday 7:13 pm
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When she's here, I adore here. I would do anything for her and not care, out of pure selfless love. After she's gone home, I can only think about her worst traits, resenting her and feeling taken for granted.

It's getting tiring. I don't know if I'm just insecure and a bit bi-polar, or if she's a spoiled selfish hypocrite. Possibly it's actually both. Heavy sigh.
>> No. 32380 Anonymous
3rd July 2023
Monday 8:55 pm
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>>32379
Everyone's always more fun when they're in the room.
>> No. 32381 Anonymous
4th July 2023
Tuesday 9:41 pm
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>>32379

>When I'm taking drugs I feel amazing, but when I'm off them I feel bad.

My gut says she's not a good person and you're ignoring that for the company.
>> No. 32382 Anonymous
5th July 2023
Wednesday 12:26 pm
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I am in a major mental health crisis, and due to some communication issues between the LMHT at my old house and the LMHT at my new house, I am essentially in limbo without support from either team. I gave myself a second degree burn, had to go to doctor to get it looked at as it had gone green, they've stuck an iodine patch on it and I have to go back every couple of days to get it redressed.

My current job makes me ill, I got offered a new job, but occupational health want a letter from my GP to say I am fit to work in an office doing admin. My GP has told me that the letter is not contractual NHS work so they have no time frame for the response to be sent. It's been over a month since occ health sent the request to the GP and still unprocessed.

My girlfriend wants us to move closer to my family so I can have more support from them (currently live about 2 hours away from them) but I don't want to move back and it's doing my fucking nut in that she keeps saying we should move there - it's not practical right now we don't have the money to fund a deposit, first month up front rent, moving costs, etc. Also I don't really like my family. I love them, don't get me wrong, but there's a reason I moved away from them.
>> No. 32383 Anonymous
5th July 2023
Wednesday 12:33 pm
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>>32382

Sounds like a shit situation m8.

Have you tried the crisis team? A lot of them are pretty crap, but they might be able to get things resolved with the MHT.

https://www.nhs.uk/service-search/mental-health/find-an-urgent-mental-health-helpline
>> No. 32384 Anonymous
5th July 2023
Wednesday 8:16 pm
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>>32381

Naturally that has occurred to me, I wouldn't say I'm ignoring it, because otherwise why would I ruminate on it so much? The question is how I can tell if it's just me being overly pessimistic and intolerant of flaws (we all have them, after all), or if it's actually the truth of the matter.

Thing is I have had similar feelings in more or less every relationship I've been in and thus it does make me wonder- IS it just me?

When I look at other people with long lasting relationships, what I notice is that people tolerate an awful lot from each other, in general. I don't, I'm quite dominant (not quite the right word but you know what I mean) and strong willed, I am very critical, I often kick off about small things and let small things become bigger things because I always have to stand my ground and refuse to be the first to back down.

It's difficult.
>> No. 32385 Anonymous
6th July 2023
Thursday 10:14 am
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>>32384

The point is: are you choosing to ignore it for the sake of company? Many people do this, it's human. The amount of energy you devote to thinking about it doesn't matter.

>The question is how I can tell if it's just me being overly pessimistic and intolerant of flaws (we all have them, after all), or if it's actually the truth of the matter.
>Thing is I have had similar feelings in more or less every relationship I've been in and thus it does make me wonder- IS it just me?

Either you have poor boundaries and pick the 'wrong' people, or you are too critical. It could be both.
>> No. 32386 Anonymous
6th July 2023
Thursday 11:15 am
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I find myself sneering at the thought of social society; friends, social communication, etc.

By defining sneer I get "a scornful facial expression". Scorn defines as "Contempt or disdain" and finally contempt as "The feeling or attitude of regarding someone as inferior" (with disdain having a similar definition)

Logically I can convince myself I am no better than any other people. In waking life I'm keen to remind myself 'there is no better or worse, only different', though on even a modicum of thought I realise I picture myself beneath many people, particularly the middle class (though strangely not so much the upper classes). What's worse is that I know I'm inclided to look down on people whenever I ever get a foothold.

Is it significant that I say 'people', plural, instead of persons individual?

I think a part of what's going on is that I'm reasonably intelligent but uneducated, and breaking into the social world will reveal to me my own worth in terms of intellectual value. Suddenly I'll not be the intelligent one in the family, rather just another arsehole.
>> No. 32387 Anonymous
6th July 2023
Thursday 6:31 pm
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>>32386
Being personable, humble but uneducated would be a huge improvement on whatever was meant by this egotistical word salad.

Generally speaking people overemphasise their intelligence when they're lacking in other aspects of their life/personality.
>> No. 32388 Anonymous
6th July 2023
Thursday 7:22 pm
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>>32387
>whatever was meant by this egotistical word salad.
I'm struggling to understand why I end up leaving many group or social encounters with apparent contempt or disdain for those involved. After a short while of getting to know people (>>/e/26096), I start feeling an increasing desire to abandon the relationship(s).
This happens both online and off - a few years ago I started developing an acquaintance with a random street guy, culminating in a shaken hand and named introduction, after that I blanked him from then onward.
My local takeaway staff recently asked for my name commenting how regularly I go there - since I've completely ignored the shop and simply won't go back.
The same happened with another local shop where the staff and I were on named terms; upon moving back to the area I completely stopped using the shop and started ignoring the staff - it was quite awkward on the street for a while.

Like I say I don't conciously think I'm better than any of these people. Yet the choice of abandonment or getting to know them further inpires a snear to my face. Using google I found snear means scorn means contempt. Whether that snear is directed at myself because I know I'm going to leave yet another potential friendship, or them because .. well because "they need it, i don't", I don't think I know.
The latter sounds somewhat defensive, doesn't it? I've learned to be more resiliant to lonliness and thus 'better' than others.
But I think I don't like it.
>> No. 32389 Anonymous
6th July 2023
Thursday 7:59 pm
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>>32388

You've got an avoidant-insecure attachment style. Your early childhood experiences have taught you (on a mostly unconscious level) that people can't be trusted and could let you down or betray you at any moment. You avoid getting too close to people, because on some level you believe that the chronic pain of loneliness is more bearable than the acute pain of rejection. You need to rationalise this behaviour, which usually means telling yourself that you are somehow fundamentally unlikeable, that other people are inherently inferior, or sometimes a bit of both.

The most straightforward approach to addressing this would be cognitive-behavioural. Be alert for this pattern of behaviour and when it does arise, take notice of what you're thinking and feeling. There's probably some amount of anxiety that you're suppressing or deliberately ignoring. You're probably having automatic thoughts, possibly along the lines of "what's the point, they'll only reject me", "don't get close to people, because that's how you get hurt" or "if someone likes me, there must be something wrong with them". When you notice those thoughts occurring, try and dispute them rationally and come up with a more useful alternative. Is loneliness really a price worth paying to protect yourself from the risk of rejection? Does keeping people at arm's length just reinforce your negative beliefs about yourself or other people? If someone came to you for advice about what to do in this situation, what would you tell them?
>> No. 32390 Anonymous
6th July 2023
Thursday 8:41 pm
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>>32389
This is very useful to read, thank you.
>> No. 32391 Anonymous
6th July 2023
Thursday 9:43 pm
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>>32389

That describes me as well.

I think one of the most striking things about it, at least to others, is that you can lead a life where you are to a great extent happy on your own. Other people will ask you, "How are you not feeling desperately lonely all the time?", or they will say "You need to get out there and find somebody!". But I think what really goes on inside somebody like us is that the idea that you need somebody else in your life to be happy, i.e. a romantic partner, is something that's both slightly unsettling and, at some level, just doesn't compute.

I can't say I had a loveless or abusive upbringing, but it was a mixture of absent parenting and unchecked mental instability. Although you aren't consciously aware of it as a weelad, you start to develop a sense that others cannot be trusted to meet your emotional needs, and that you must either ignore your needs or somehow provide for them without the help of others.

I think that now, as a full grown adult, I would describe myself as self sufficient. I've had romantic relationships and I enjoyed them, although some of them in fact failed because I was described as "too emotionally distant". But it's just the way I am, and when I see the kind of drama and all the jealousy that some other couples go through because one side fails to fulfill the emotional needs of the other and vice versa, then it's just the stuff of nightmares to me. I wouldn't call myself defective, but I just couldn't function in that way. And I guess that's exactly why some of my relationships failed. Coupled with the fact that I guess I simply met women who were very emotionally needy themselves. And in that respect, maybe you can say that the doors swing both ways. You don't expect others to fulfill your emotional needs, and at the same time you don't want to be the centre of somebody else's universe and be the source of their fulfillment. The ego boost you get from it doesn't last, and before long, it'll always feel horribly wrong to you.
>> No. 32392 Anonymous
7th July 2023
Friday 1:16 am
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I don't want to get into specifics because you could ID my previous posts dating back years if I did, but tonight, whilst talking to a friend online, I referenced something that related to another thing that I was trying to get into years ago. This career path petered out because I'm a wastrel and a prick and I didn't try hard enough. But when I made that accidental implication to my friend he immediately asked me about it with this tone of excitement that's really left an impression on me. I corrected his assumption and we moved on without another thought. Now, of course, that impression is manifesting mostly as sadness, but even just the vaguest hint of the idea of the suggestion of postive reinforcement felt... good. I can't really recall the last time I felt good for any amount of time. A part I went to last year? Maybe, but even then I was bullshitting half the time I was there.

Once again I'm basically just journalling in this thread, but this one instance is hardly worth it's own thread.
>> No. 32393 Anonymous
7th July 2023
Friday 3:43 am
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How horny is the average man? I would rather go home and have a wank than bang an average looking bird throwing herself at me, but all of me m8s think I'm crazy for skipping out on all these missed opportunities. Starting to think I've developed abnormally high standards from too much porn.
>> No. 32394 Anonymous
7th July 2023
Friday 6:56 am
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>>32393
In all honesty, it depends whether you wear a condom or not. I wouldn't fuck a stranger unsheathed but you can't beat a wet fanny round your knob.
>> No. 32395 Anonymous
7th July 2023
Friday 3:36 pm
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>>32393

I think sex is a lot like drugs, or junk food, or a lot of things in life frankly. It's pleasurable, and addictive, but you eventually learn it's best enjoyed in moderation.

For a time, it's new and exciting, and you're young and inexperienced, and you don't know when your next chance to have some will come along. It becomes incredibly compelling. You're willing to structure your entire life around the hunt. Until one day you crack how to obtain it reliably, you get into a situation where it's readily available, and then if you're no careful, it becomes routine. The thrill weakens over time. You're still chasing the dopamine hit you used to get, but it doesn't quite satisfy, until sooner or later you come to realise. The novelty has worn off. You've had your fill, and you can do without it.

There's more to life than getting your knob wet, and I would like to think it's a good sign if you reach the stage of maturity to know it. Quality matters more than quantity.

In this analogy, it's like, sure, you could pull some average slag every weekend and throw your hot dog down a different corridor every time, but what's the point? Sooner or later that feels like eating a Maccies every lunch time until you barely even taste it. Perfunctory. Unsatisfying. It's like a bag of mediocre gear that used to keep you wired all night, but by now you can bash the lot inside an hour without so much as a buzz. Not worth it. At best you just feel a bit guilty and ashamed afterwards.

The secret is when you learn the altogether more intense and lasting high that comes from fucking someone who really matters to you. In my younger years I inevitably strayed from my partners in pursuit of the novelty, and that dopamine hit, the ego boost of another woman wanting you; until I eventually had the realisation. Saw what a fool I had been. It's easy to kick a habit once you have that moment of clarity.

TL;DR I think most blokes are mad about chasing pussy because, to put it blunty, they hardly get any. As a more mature man who has had plenty, you're not going to be as fussed about it.
>> No. 32396 Anonymous
7th July 2023
Friday 7:53 pm
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>>32393
It's nice to feel loved. The actual shagging is secondary; it's just a way to prove she really cares about you.
>> No. 32397 Anonymous
9th July 2023
Sunday 8:45 pm
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e6XAVt3w9Bg

Lasses like this really boil my piss. There's loads of them on youtube doing youtube shorts at the moment, giving quick and succinct relationship advice. And a lot of it comes from a place of entitlement and perceived superiority.

I've never had it happen that somebody I was dating judged me like that for the quality of my friends, but I think it's fucking presumptuous. Women like that are a dime a dozen, probably even more so in Septicland, but what if my lazy friend who doesn't have his shit together has been the most loyal person in my life for ten or twenty years. I'm not giving that up for some opinionated slag who's overly sure of her options.
>> No. 32398 Anonymous
10th July 2023
Monday 1:27 am
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>>32397
I'm not being a dick on purpose here, but what else do you think videos like that are meant to do? Did you look at her other uploads? This kind of "content" exists to make you pissed off, whether or not you agree with it is irrelevant, it's pure rage-bait. She also appears to be affilated or at least linked with the Whatever Podcast, another profoundly misogynistic endevour that exists solely to make people pissed off at something, anything, but primarily girls.

Still not trying to be a dick, but why the fuck are you engaging with any of this? You can type in full and proper sentences so I know you're more intelligent than the pea-brains this stuff is made for. More to the point, you have a social responsibility to not watch this shite, because the more you watch it, the more it will be promoted and the worse everything gets, even just a tiny bit. Content creators are like fly-tippers, hard to stop, self-evidently terrible, but just because you see an old matress in a lay-by doesn't mean you start dumping your bin into the street. That doesn't quite track, but I'm very tired so it's the best you're getting.
>> No. 32399 Anonymous
10th July 2023
Monday 1:28 am
32399 Minor correction.
>>32398
*content creator's like this are like fly-tippers.
>> No. 32400 Anonymous
10th July 2023
Monday 10:51 am
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>>32398

I guess my worry is just that some people, both men and women, will think that that's actually the way a relationship should be. And it enrages me that it obviously comes from a place where the idea is that men are chronically inept creatures who need to be shown the way by a woman.

I don't mind dating advice as such. I'm normally very open to it, and getting a female perspective on your dating game can be invaluable. But that's not what this is. This kind of content reinforces the stereotype that men are socially challenged idiots when it comes to dating and relationships.
>> No. 32401 Anonymous
10th July 2023
Monday 9:42 pm
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I've got a feeling I need to take a good month or two off work for stress and/or depression, but I've no idea what you say or do to get that. I just need a long fucking break before I lose it and hurt myself or someone else.

I'm not even fully registered to a GP, it's just one of many things that's slid down my to-do list since I moved here. Fuck sake. What do I do ladm9s.
>> No. 32402 Anonymous
10th July 2023
Monday 10:35 pm
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>>32401
Register with GP, book emergency appointment, really lay it on thick about how unwell you are and that you can't function at work in your current state (not saying lie, but I'm saying be candid as a lot of people have a tendency to play down their struggles when talking to another human), and ask for a sick note. I've had tons over the last decade, and not once have they refused. Sometimes they'll only give you one for two weeks and expect you to go back before those two weeks end for an extension.
>> No. 32403 Anonymous
10th July 2023
Monday 10:48 pm
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>>32401

Your first step is to phone in sick at work. Remember that it's your legal right to take time off if you're too ill to work - you aren't asking for permission and they don't have the option to refuse. If you can't face the conversation, it's absolutely valid to email your line manager or your HR department. You don't need to go into detail if you don't want to, just tell them that you're having a mental health crisis and you need some time off to get help.

To reduce unnecessary appointments, GPs are not allowed to issue a sick note until you have been off work for seven calendar days. This also means that your employer is not allowed to ask for a sick note before that time. This should give you plenty of time to register with a GP and get an appointment. If you're new to the area and you're not sure where to go, you can find all of your local GP practices at the link below. This link will also tell you which practices are accepting new patients.

https://www.nhs.uk/service-search/find-a-gp

Once you're registered, the quickest way to get an appointment is usually to phone up as soon as the surgery opens in the morning and ask for an urgent appointment. If you just ask for "an appointment", they'll often offer you a routine appointment in a week or two, rather than an urgent appointment in the next day or two. If you're struggling to get an appointment, then mentioning the words mental health crisis will often result in them magically finding a spare appointment.

At your appointment, tell the doctor how you've been feeling and how it is affecting your daily life. It sounds like your work has been contributing to this, so make sure to mention it. It's important to be candid about how you're feeling. Blokes are often in the habit of downplaying things and can be embarrassed to talk about intense feelings, but it's important to give your GP the full picture, particularly if you've been having suicidal thoughts.

When you tell your GP that you've been off work, they should offer you a sick note, more properly known as a "Statement of Fitness to Work". In your case, this note is most likely to say that you need four weeks off work. That doesn't mean that you'll only get four weeks off, it's just the standard in cases like this - your GP will want to see you again within that time to see how you're getting on and will give you another note if you need one. If they don't automatically offer you one, don't be shy about asking.

If you need help more quickly, you can contact your local NHS urgent mental health helpline. This is a fairly new service so the quality can be a bit patchy, but it's available 24/7 and can be the quickest way to get an assessment of your mental health and start to access support. You can find your local number at the link below.

https://www.nhs.uk/service-search/mental-health/find-an-urgent-mental-health-helpline

If you're worried about your own safety or the safety of anyone else, go to A&E or call 999 and ask for an ambulance.
>> No. 32404 Anonymous
11th July 2023
Tuesday 10:28 am
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>>32402
>>32403

Thanks a lot lads, makes me feel a lot better having it spelled out like that. Appreciate it, really.
>> No. 32405 Anonymous
12th July 2023
Wednesday 9:32 pm
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Got job offer at end of May. They require me to have an occupational health assessment due to my disability.

OH assessor is hesitant to say I'm fit for the job, due to my absence at my current job. I tried to explain that my current job (mental health ward) is making me unwell, but I won't have the triggers and stress in the new job (office job). So at the beginning of June they sent a letter to my GP asking them to confirm I am well enough for an office job.

Yesterday someone from my GP's practice responded to OH. The letter basically stated that the person from the surgery writing the letter had never met me, so they can't comment on my mental health, and that OH should contact my local mental health team instead. So I've been waiting a month and a half for my GP to respond, and their response is as much use as a chocolate fireguard. So I've now got to wait for OH to read that letter, process it, and contact my mental health team.

I'm frustrated because I was hoping I could get into this new job quickly, as working on the mental ward makes me so fucking unwell, but OH and GP being useless cunts means it could be months before I can get out of here.
>> No. 32406 Anonymous
12th July 2023
Wednesday 10:10 pm
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>>32405

That sounds like a right arseache m62, but I hope you can at least take a bit of grim humour from the irony of the whole situation eh? I mean. You know what I mean. Sometimes life parodies itself doesn't it.
>> No. 32407 Anonymous
13th July 2023
Thursday 1:04 am
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Get drunk/drugged out and head out on the town. Start firing on all cylinders upon encountering women who reciprocate my advances. Meet the same women when sober and they're far less shaggable and/or way wrinklier than initially ascertained.

Really have to start meeting women in a sober state of mind. Teach me your hocus-pocus, teetoallers.
>> No. 32408 Anonymous
13th July 2023
Thursday 2:10 am
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>>32406
I almost laughed when I saw the GP's letter. They could have passed it on to one of the doctors at the surgery who I actually have seen, so they could produce a helpful letter, they just chose not to. I admire the laziness.

I did email the OH company two weeks ago, saying that my GP was dragging its feet and it'd probably be easier and more useful to get a letter from my mental health team. The OH person said they'd check with the consultant who assessed me. Not heard anything since.

All this bullshit is making me lose my mind, at this rate I'll be a patient on the mental health ward, not staff.
>> No. 32409 Anonymous
13th July 2023
Thursday 2:45 am
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>>32408

If it's any consolation I work in a department which is so utterly dysfunctional I suspect it actually is a mental health ward in disguise. It's where they shove everyone too loony to be out in the main hospital, but just barely too functional to be locked up, and keep up the pretence we're doing a valuable job to keep us from smearing shit all over the walls. Which of course, implies I'm one of them.

Normally I'm very resilient, ignore all the drama and gossip, and just keep my head down and get on with things, but you can only grit your teeth and bear it for so long. When you spend the overwhelming majority of your time in a toxic environment it's bound to start cracking you sooner or later.

Least you're on the path to getting out anyway.
>> No. 32410 Anonymous
13th July 2023
Thursday 1:42 pm
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>>32409
There's a lot of politics on the ward when it comes to the different roles. A HCA gets paid a tad less than me, and in theory does harder work, so they can be quite nasty towards me as I've got a more wishy washy role. And to be honest, they should get higher pay than me but that's not my fault.

I've had 12 jobs in all sorts of sectors, and my current one is by far the worst because the atmosphere is so shitty.
>> No. 32411 Anonymous
14th July 2023
Friday 2:49 am
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Years ago I used to get drunk every night, have some fun, laugh, cry and let it all out, rinse and repeat. It seemed to help me anyway. Then I moved on to weed. I'd get high and have a fun evening and it helped me sleep because I'd just pass out instead of laying there for hours overthinking.

Years on and now nothing works. Getting drunk just feels like shit but somehow I'm still sober? I've had almost half a litre of vodka tonight and barely fuck all is happening. I'm a bit pissed, sure, but it's like there's a disconnect between my body and my mind. My body feels drunk, my mind feels painfully self aware. For instance I just completed several maths games with ease while people I know struggle with them sober. Same with weed, except I can't use that anymore as for some reason I get ulcers at the back of my mouth now every other time I smoke or vape it.

100mg edibles just scrape the surface too. Nothing works anymore. I am painfully sober, no matter what I consume. LSD and shrooms help a little, on both of them I feel clear, like the mindfog and depression lifts and I can actually function as a normal human being, I can actually have a nice day... But then it ends and I'm back to being a shell of a person. I imagine if I rely on those too much, they'll stop working too.

I am so tired.

Don't think there's any point to this post other than a warning. Get proper help, lads. Take care of yourselves.
>> No. 32412 Anonymous
14th July 2023
Friday 10:31 am
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A lot of the time the posts I make here and elsewhere are misconstrued. For a while I've wondered if this is due to an autistic manner in communication or simply the nature of sharing anonymous messages between an unknown number of participants (Britfa.gs is 3 people).
This often leaves me feeling confused as to how others have come to the conclusions they have, if my unconcious nature really does shine through my words and if I'm simply a bad person saying bad things.
>> No. 32413 Anonymous
14th July 2023
Friday 10:58 am
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>>32412
That's just the nature of the community and lack of contextual clues. Nobody can read your aura through your posts and besides, bad people don't worry that they might be bad people.
>> No. 32414 Anonymous
14th July 2023
Friday 11:40 am
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>>32412
No, no, no. It's not you, it's them. They're the bastards, don't for one minute think you're the one making a mistake.
>> No. 32415 Anonymous
14th July 2023
Friday 12:03 pm
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>>32414
Can confirm that I'm a bastard, not on /emo/ though.
>> No. 32416 Anonymous
14th July 2023
Friday 3:59 pm
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>>32411

Hope this isn't just pointing out the obvious, but it sounds like you've built a physical tolerance.

If you were to ease off for a time, you'd probably redevelop that sensitivity -- but of course that won't solve the underlying issue of you only feeling psychologically comfortable when separated from yourself.

If it helps, virtually everyone has this to some degree.
>> No. 32417 Anonymous
14th July 2023
Friday 5:47 pm
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>>32412

The internet is full of horrible bastards. That makes a lot of people assume bad intent, because they're on edge from constantly being assailed by arseholes. Some horrible bastards deliberately misconstrue things to wind people up or "win" an argument. Sometimes people have just had a shit day and they're in a foul mood and you just happen to end up in the crosshairs at the wrong moment.

If you're worried about being a bastard, you probably aren't a bastard. You might be able to refine your tone a bit to make your intent more clear, you might be able to pre-empt some conflicts and defuse them before they start, but being misconstrued is just an inevitable part of having anonymous conversations with strangers.
>> No. 32418 Anonymous
14th July 2023
Friday 6:22 pm
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>>32417

I feel like often, while people are not intentionally or consciously bastards, they have grown up in a way that has left them just sort of immune to the concept of acting/communicating in good faith.

It's a really abstract and difficult thing to articulate but I find myself thinking that some people are just a lost cause trying to engage with seriously, because they are permanently stuck in what I think of as "sibling conflict" mode. That thing where you see a young brother or sister fighting with each other, and it's absolutely no holds barred in terms of winning at all costs- Misrepresent, intentionally misunderstand, put words in each other's mouth, all that annoying stuff that you know to consciously avoid when you try to engage with someone as an adult... Some people just can't switch all that off.

No matter how honest and open and clear and non-threatening you try to be with them, they can't give you a good faith response. They are compelled to mentally process it and give a manipulated response that suits their own internal motivations, that allows them to "win". It's not their fault, it's sort of a defensive thing, I think, but no matter how hard you try you will never get through to the actual person inside. Nothing you say or do will ever be anything more than reconnaissance manoeuvres and flanking attempts in an elaborate long term siege battle, whether you realise it or not.

Bit of a tangent from that conversation but it brought to mind something I often ruminate on that makes me feel alienated from a lot of people, anyway.
>> No. 32419 Anonymous
15th July 2023
Saturday 9:54 pm
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Is authenticity to oneself a more powerful force than the need to conform and avoid trouble?

I am questioning my gender. I have lived as a cis man all my life, in recent years identified as pansexual. But I frequently feel I don't identify with the traits and nature of a man. I always got on better with girls, I was never a rough and tumble lads lads lads type. Had stereotypically feminine interests. I know none of that means I'm gender non-conforming but it supports it.

I frequently feel more like a woman than a man. And yet, I'm a 6'2 big bald bloke. If I were to pursue this route and transition, I would not pass. Passing is not the be all and end all, I know. But I'm someone that doesn't like to stand out in a crowd. And most of my family are hugely openly transphobic.

Do I live inauthentically for an easier life? It's confusing really.
>> No. 32420 Anonymous
15th July 2023
Saturday 10:12 pm
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>>32419
You'd know if you were trans. Gender dysphoria isn't something you rationalise yourself into.

I don't know what's going on with you to think like this and why you think being a woman would be 'easier' for you but you might want to examine what's actually driving this crisis of identity.
>> No. 32421 Anonymous
16th July 2023
Sunday 12:34 am
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>>32420
There is exploring yourself and then there's being trans. It's perfectly healthy to feel yourself out and come to terms with what you've got. It's quite another to have disphoria. Do you think you might be happier as a woman? Or do you have the burning need because something in your crotch feels out of place?

I'd recommend cross dresssing for a day or three. See what life would be like, chances are unless you are very sure you are just cis-and-cuirious.
>> No. 32422 Anonymous
16th July 2023
Sunday 3:00 am
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>>32419
>I don't identify with the traits and nature of a man
>most of my family are hugely openly transphobic
Is it possible you've learned a very narrow definition of the 'nature of man'?
>> No. 32423 Anonymous
16th July 2023
Sunday 3:24 am
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>>32420
>>32421
>>32422
Having thought about it I'm probably not trans I think I'm just having an identity crisis as 32420 said. I was at uni for ages so I had a better sense of identity then. "I'm a student. I'm a member of xyz societies and groups. I have a social group." Since then I've struggled to hold a job, I don't really have friends, I don't have non-solitary interests. I think I'm desperate to find a place. I tried Christianity but couldn't buy into the Biblical God stuff. All attempts to join social groups have failed. I've been off sick from work for two months and all I do is game and scroll Twitter so I'm probably infected with evangelist christian korean youtuber commie brainworms. I'm left wing but hate other left wingers. I'm autistic and been to a few autistic meets but I despise other autistic people. I'm severely mentally ill but when I go to support groups I find them cringe. I don't really know where I'm going with this. I even fucking joined Reddit to try find like minded people, and Reddit is for twats.
>> No. 32424 Anonymous
16th July 2023
Sunday 12:18 pm
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>>32423
Rudgwick has some decent corners left but I wouldn't hitch my wagon to that horse. You'll be alright.
>> No. 32425 Anonymous
16th July 2023
Sunday 4:01 pm
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I've been awake 30 hours I've taken 30mg of diazepam and I still feel restless.
>> No. 32426 Anonymous
16th July 2023
Sunday 4:11 pm
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>>32423
Well there you go, you draw a big part of your identity from your work. A bloke problem and why we'll all be messing about with rentboys once we approach retirement age.

Have you tried volunteering? It will at least get you out of the house and provide purpose.
>> No. 32427 Anonymous
17th July 2023
Monday 12:35 pm
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>>32425
I've slept and my schizo thoughts have quietened down. Girlfriend says I was very hard work to deal with yesterday, "chaotic mess" she described me as.
>> No. 32428 Anonymous
20th July 2023
Thursday 10:16 am
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I hate this country and everyone in it. However, I suspect we really aren't too different from anywhere else.
>> No. 32429 Anonymous
20th July 2023
Thursday 8:45 pm
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>>32428

I respectfully disagree. Culture is genuinely different enough in other areas of the world to make a meaningful impact on your life.

I left about five years ago and when on the two or three occasions I've returned to the UK, and particularly to my relatively impoverished hometown, I've found people extremely strange. I suspect there's prevalent general undiagnosed mental health issues in the UK, which intensifies around certain hotspots of unemployment and drug use.
>> No. 32430 Anonymous
20th July 2023
Thursday 10:18 pm
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>>32429

I respectfully disagree again.

What we call "culture" in the 21st century really just boils down to aesthetics, and at the end of the day we all live more or less the same routine of going to work to pay the bills and coming home to cook something and watch a bit of telly and do a bit of internet browsing before we go to sleep. What you're describing is just having the fortune to live somewhere nice, amongst well adjusted people, versus living somewhere shit, amongst variously maladjusted victims of circumstance. You'll still find equivalents of Doncaster in France, and Germany, and the Netherlands.

What makes the difference there is if you have the kind of job that they'll pay you more to do in another country, thereby affording you a better position socially. With the possible exception of New Zealand, which I imagine would be a lot nicer to live for the environment alone, I would say that a minimum wage slave moving to another country to be the same minimum wage slave will be just as miserable on all counts regardless where it is.
>> No. 32431 Anonymous
20th July 2023
Thursday 11:12 pm
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>>32430

>What we call "culture" in the 21st century really just boils down to aesthetics

Try explaining British drinking "culture" to an American. There's nothing in their life experience that corresponds with a British town centre on a Friday night.
>> No. 32432 Anonymous
20th July 2023
Thursday 11:33 pm
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>>32428
It does sound like you need a holiday overseas. A lot of people seem to suffer an opposite-jingoism these days where the grass is always greener until you look closely and realise that everywhere is fucked and everyone is in deep trouble.

Yeah some small bits you might find better but there's always a cost. Always. Countries are like birds, some might say ol'Britannia is shagged out as she sips tenants in a stairwell with a soggy rollie, legs akimbo and scratching her herself but she's fun and if you turn the lights off she'll make you feel like the king of the world. You'll miss her when she's gone.

>>32430
>With the possible exception of New Zealand, which I imagine would be a lot nicer to live for the environment alone

Do you like wind and rain?
>> No. 32433 Anonymous
21st July 2023
Friday 7:27 am
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We’re naturally aware of our own faults more than others. The same applies to countries. Some things here are shit, but there are many less-tangible things which are great here. My girlfriend loves working here; working from home, an entire five weeks of holiday, no compulsory overtime, and nice colleagues.

Living abroad was great because I didn’t know anything. I could just focus on living. It really showed me how damaging the news is. Imagine never seeing a picture of Tony Blair, no one knowing who he is… he slowly fades from your mind.

Also, darker places have higher suicide rates. If you were going to be homeless, you’d probably pick somewhere warm where you understood the language.
>> No. 32434 Anonymous
21st July 2023
Friday 7:27 am
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We’re naturally aware of our own faults more than others. The same applies to countries. Some things here are shit, but there are many less-tangible things which are great here. My girlfriend loves working here; working from home, an entire five weeks of holiday, no compulsory overtime, and nice colleagues.

Living abroad was great because I didn’t know anything. I could just focus on living. It really showed me how damaging the news is. Imagine never seeing a picture of Tony Blair, no one knowing who he is… he slowly fades from your mind.

Also, darker places have higher suicide rates. If you were going to be homeless, you’d probably pick somewhere warm where you understood the language.
>> No. 32435 Anonymous
21st July 2023
Friday 9:10 am
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>>32432

>Do you like wind and rain?

If you've lived in Britain all your life I'd expect you can tolerate it. Are you that lad who didn't understand someone going on holiday in Norway because it's not 30+ degrees?
>> No. 32436 Anonymous
21st July 2023
Friday 12:23 pm
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>>32435

>Are you that lad who didn't understand someone going on holiday in Norway because it's not 30+ degrees?

No, that was me. Maybe I'm a bit funny that way, but the mediocre British summer weather has always bothered me a bit. Probably has to do with the way I was brought up. My parents used to go on holiday to Italy, Greece or the Spanish costas with us almost every summer, sometimes for three to four weeks, and I remember always thinking as a weelad, why can't summer be like this at home. I even asked my dad once if we couldn't just move to Spain full time.
>> No. 32437 Anonymous
21st July 2023
Friday 5:40 pm
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>>32436
I went on a fair few holidays to Cyprus and Mallorca as a kid. I found the heat insufferable. Fine if you're in the pool, but having to fanny about with suncream and get wet then dry then wet, I didn't like it. Mainly enjoyed sitting in the shade playing on my Game Boy.

Mild summers are the dream.

I am going to Mallorca for a few days next month, Palma is apparently 32C right now, that's excessive. I don't want heavy rain I just want to not be sweating like a pig.
>> No. 32438 Anonymous
21st July 2023
Friday 6:30 pm
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>>32437

Most hotels in Majorca now have air conditioning.

I went to Magaluf with a few mates about 18 years ago on a lads holiday and our budget two-star hotel didn't have AC. We figured all we needed was a place to crash at night, but you got what you paid for.

Nowadays you'll probably get AC even in a two-star hotel in Magaluf. I wouldn't know, haven't felt like going there again. Maybe I've just been getting old, but it's just not my kind of holiday anymore. It's a laugh when you're 18-30ish and want to get hammered on the cheap for a week.
>> No. 32439 Anonymous
21st July 2023
Friday 8:00 pm
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How do I properly motivate myself to do job applications? I've been stuck for over a year trying to get a new job but while I get close I half-arse it and copy-paste responses.

The worst part is that getting a promotion always involves reflective exercises when I need to recall a time I did X but it leads to my reflecting on how much I hate my current job so I just think in circles and get pissed-off. It's a problem I need to break from but as you can also understand the feedback you get isn't actually too helpful either.

>>32435
No, I just know that Auckland is a windy city whose subtropical climate is a bit shit but you won't have to worry about it because you can't afford to live there anyway. South Island is variable but your car will corrode into dust overnight in the climate which isn't too helpful as NZ lacks even the concept of public transportation and some of the more isolated communities may or may not have a taste for human flesh.

People compare it to Wales but New Zealand is more like a stretched out Isle of Man.
>> No. 32440 Anonymous
21st July 2023
Friday 9:12 pm
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>>32439

A friend went to Tasmania and said its climate has all the bad qualities of northern Britain combined with its geographic location of being the globe's East Bumfuck. On the other hand, he said it was refreshing because the people there really have that mindset that nothing that happens anywhere else in the world has much relevance for them as a remote island on a remote continent. And they take pride in the fact that they're not just Australians, but Tasmanians.
>> No. 32441 Anonymous
21st July 2023
Friday 9:14 pm
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>>32440
WELCOME TO THE LAND THAT'S WAY UNDER, DOWN UNDER.
>> No. 32442 Anonymous
24th July 2023
Monday 1:16 pm
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I got a problem with sex, man, and I doubt how much more britfa.gs can take hearing about it.

I went to see a circus performance recently, of which a certain set of acts seem to have upset me. Specifically athletic woman performing aerial acrobratics in small, tight fitting show attire.
My fantasy of visiting a strip club has been shattered if this is any indication of the reality of such experiences.
It has been difficult to forget those glimpses of splayed legs, tight thighs and barely covered genitals.

I don't want to be a pervert, man. I don't want this to be a part of being human. But I sit here wanking to porn every fucking day.
I feel ashamed.

I donno, to 'be myself' and 'just enjoy sex' might mean worse things than eating shit out of a womans arsehole.

It seems like the only way I could engage these things I think I want would be to compartmentalise the experiences. That doesn't sounds like a healthy thing to do.
I get that too much porn has warped my brain, though I've been into weird shit since puberty. I think that to live a forfilling sexual life by engaging these desires would be to succumb to the deficiencies in my development, rather than over coming myself and being 'the best I can be'.

This isn't going to be solved by posting here. Each time I've tried to talk to doctors about this, either nothing has come of it or i've said too much and the police have been called (with no action taken, i might add).
>> No. 32443 Anonymous
24th July 2023
Monday 1:17 pm
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>>32442
Oh no I forgot to add the image so i could easily identify my post after a few years time.
>> No. 32444 Anonymous
24th July 2023
Monday 1:31 pm
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>>32442

I'd like to say something useful, but I can't work out what your problem is.
>> No. 32445 Anonymous
24th July 2023
Monday 1:32 pm
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>>32442

For starters, there's nothing wrong with noticing and observing others sexually. Your sexuality is as inbuilt into you as your experience of hunger and thirst, there's really no need to feel guilty for feeling it anymore than going to the toilet.

How you choose to express your sexuality, though, is another matter. I admit, this one is bloody fraught, and I'm not an expert. I just try to follow the Golden Rule and try not to do things to others that I know would make me feel unhappy or uncomfortable. Even there, there will be missteps, though. A lad in another thread pointed out something I found to be insightful, which is the current conflicting attitudes towards sexuality in theory and sexuality in practice: >>>/101/33853

Pornography is ubiquitous. Several of the world's most visited websites are "adult" themed. That's not to say it's a good thing, but you're certainly not alone in your desire, and you're not "deficient in your development" as much as a product of present circumstances.

Perhaps the best place to start is: what do you consider to be a healthy or fulfilling sex life? Why? Are there any assumptions you have about "good" sexuality that may not be correct? If it holds up to scrutiny, is there anything you think that you could do to move closer to that sex life?
>> No. 32446 Anonymous
24th July 2023
Monday 8:44 pm
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>>32442

Is the problem that you are ashamed of some of your fetishes? Because if that's it then the only way you can really get over it is just, essentially, to try it. See if you really do like it, or if it's just fantasy, and get it out your system. But you really do just have to take the risk of opening up about it and taking the risk that the other person will think you're a freak.

As one of the resident furrylads, you'd be surprised how open I have been able to be about this with even my most normal, non-nerdy non-internet partners. I get them all to wear ears and a tail at very least, and I've had partners go from completely vanilla to full on lifestyle petplay with all sorts of perverted kink. I used to be extremely self-conscious and nervous about opening up about it as a younger lad, but the older and more experienced I've got the easier it has been to show that side of myself, and it's been surprising how many lasses think it's exciting and refreshing, when presumably so many lads in their life have been comparatively boring in the sack.

Or is the problem that one of your fetishes is really more of a psychological pre-occupation which is very definitely illegal and should not be indulged? In that case it's a really hard one, other than to say perhaps seek a proper sex-specialised psychologist. I am sure those exist.
>> No. 32447 Anonymous
24th July 2023
Monday 9:54 pm
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>>32444
>>32445
>>32446
I regret posting this, would now rather opt for short term supression. Thanks for your efforts to engage, regardless.
>> No. 32448 Anonymous
24th July 2023
Monday 10:27 pm
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>>32447

Come on mate, we're all anonymous pals here. Get it off your chest, you'll feel better for it.
>> No. 32449 Anonymous
25th July 2023
Tuesday 7:47 am
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How important is it to make an impact in the world?

Growing up I had high expectations thrust upon me. I was under the "gifted and talented" program at school, did pretty well in A-levels with minimal effort. Plan was undegrad degree, integrated Masters, decent job in a growing field, good salary, nice. When I got to uni I struggled. The self motivation aspect, the fact you have to study stuff in depth, generally the lack of routine compared to school. Developed severe mental illness, I changed courses twice, and after 9 years of study dropped out with only a diploma.

Since then I've struggled to maintain a job. My current job sounded perfect on paper, using my mental health experience to help people currently suffering from mental illness. However I have received little support and I can barely do the job. I've been off sick most of my employment. I feel like I try and try and I just fuck up or I don't get help from my manager. This job that sounded perfect actually set my mental health back significantly.

Where does impact come into this? My initial plan, good degree, good job, do something worthwhile, the sort of thing if you're talking about it at a dinner party people will be impressed or think more of you. Or current job, working with vulnerable people, makes me look compassionate. But as I said, I fucked up this job and I've not impacted anyone's life. I'm a cipher. If I died today my girlfriend and mum would cry for a bit but that's it I'm gone no legacy no impact nothing, transient.

My younger sibling is about to get a Masters degree in a field I wanted to pursue but was talked out of pursuing, my youngest sibling is hugely popular and well liked in his town, and I'm nothing. Just a loser. Not even a candle in the wind there's no candle, just wind on a barren plain, empty, null, void.
>> No. 32450 Anonymous
25th July 2023
Tuesday 8:18 am
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>>32449
It strikes me that your idea of something that makes an impact seems to be heavily tied up with academic/career success and being able to boast about it. I doubt that guy who plants a few trees every day to create a forest has a degree and there are plenty of nurses who go unsung but make a real difference in lives. It's also striking that what you want to do is vague and seems more about your self image than actually caring about any wrongs. There's a few avenues there; you can start doing some good that requires no education, that gets no recognition or you can work on accepting yourself for who you are.
>> No. 32451 Anonymous
25th July 2023
Tuesday 8:32 am
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>>32449
It sounds like you're heavily weighed down by expectations you're placing on yourself and caring too much about what other people think of you.

None of that really matters. Other people do not judge you nearly as much as you think they do and even if they do it's likely to be little more than a passing thought before they carry on with their lives. It's only a big deal in your head. If you keep putting pressure for everything to be perfect, especially when your primary motivation is about how this may portray you to others, then you're setting yourself up for failure.

Before you make any big decision on your future you really need to reflect on the reasons why you're considering going down a particular route and whether they're valid.
>> No. 32452 Anonymous
26th July 2023
Wednesday 1:45 pm
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In a relationship I am always the one being taken for granted, I am always the one being expected to give and give and give, and then when I have needs it's too much to ask that I have some love and support in kind. My connection with my partners is always dependent on me giving them what they want from me, but when I am low and need help, I get double fucked because I'm no longer providing them what they want any more, and therefore I'm not even entitled to be treated with basic respect and dignity, let alone given the emotional care I need. The entire relationship is based on me giving one way to them and as soon as I question that I'm the bad one, I get punished for even daring to show human feelings instead of being a fucking human kitchen appliance that buys them things, cooks them dinner and fucks them.

I try not to let myself end up as one of those toxic women hating types, but really every relationship in my life has played out like this and I so very rarely meet a woman who seems to be an exception, and even those ones have turned out to be just the same. It's just how things are. As a man you're there to give and never take, and the woman is entitled to think less of you if you show any weakness or lapse in performing this expected role. If she does something wrong you are expected to swallow it and move on, if you do something wrong she gets to sulk and make nasty comments at you. If there's an argument you are expected to go and make it up to her and be the "bigger man", whereas she will happily drag it out over the course of a week. You don't get to talk about things like adults, because she will never engage in honest terms.

I really don't want to believe it's every woman, I know that's what you lads will try to reassure me and say that there are good ones out there, but am I ever going to fucking meet one who doesn't drain me like this? I'm not a bad person. I have my problems like anybody, but I try to be kind and generous and caring and it only ever gets taken advantage of, and it just seems to be perfectly fine and socially acceptable for women to be that way. They don't care about you. They care about what you can do for them. Again, I know it's bad examples of women and not women as a whole, but it's just so much easier for women to pull this off, and it's so hard to avoid getting tangled up in. It doesn't matter how good of a judge of character you try to be, because people like this always put on such a good act, and you don't see their true colours until they know they've got you.

I have enough problems without constantly getting myself tangled up with narcissist psychopaths like this. The fuck man.
>> No. 32453 Anonymous
26th July 2023
Wednesday 2:04 pm
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>>32452
Maybe you really enjoy being the giving one, and so you inadvertently seek out women who enjoy taking because then you get to give. I’m a bit like that apart from the bit where I successfully form a romantic relationship with someone of course and it’s true that people don’t want you to suddenly not be the person you are the rest of the time, and that’s perfectly understandable. If you’re worried that it’s making you hate women, ask yourself if men are any different. We’re parasitic scumbags too.
>> No. 32454 Anonymous
26th July 2023
Wednesday 4:59 pm
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>>32452
It's horrible how common this feels but I have to believe that a lot of that is just confirmation bias from getting caught up with women of this ilk for all but one of my past relationships.

You are absolutely right that these types of women in particular will never engage with you as an equal but that's just how the cookie crumbles with narcissism, borderline personality disorder, and other negative behavioural ailments. Appealing to logic with these people will never work because they will be able to unpick whatever you have just said with a constructed reality of rules that exists solely within their own mind. They will use this set of rules to justify their actions and it becomes a bit of a self-fulfilling prophecy.

These things can be mitigated with therapy but there's the rub: unlike something like depression where the person in need of therapy lacks the motivation to be therapised but can otherwise be convinced, the narcissist/BPD/other sufferer is wholly convinced that nothing is wrong with them and moreover that they are in the right.

It isn't until people start distancing themselves or telling them outright how they treat people is unacceptable then there is no hope. Compound that with the fact that women (generally) have a much easier time finding and making friends and will (generally) have some sort of male cohort of orbiters waiting in the wings to enable them, this is a Sisyphean feat.

I really hope you're not in such a relationship anymore because no good can come of trying to justify your own existence to somebody that doesn't care while under the influence of a mental health crisis.
>> No. 32461 Anonymous
27th July 2023
Thursday 10:33 am
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>>32452

You probably rely on being “giving” as a way to remain as you are and to feel safe. What happens if you’re not giving? This is essentially your “shadow”, but you need to consider the payoff for your current approach.

I’m vocal about this because I was this and many are. It sounds horrible but “women do what you let them” is very accurate, a lot of women will push their luck, and your fear of loneliness keeps you trapped. Hence men can put up with a lot of shit.

In my case, I found that it was perversely satisfying to be in that martyr position. People would feel for me, and I’d have something to think about all the time. I didn’t have to think about my crap job or my weight, my emotional needs weren’t being met. After a while I’d put so much in, was it really worth leaving?

Once you change your principles, honestly, things fall into place. I met a girl, took things slowly, and it is amazing. We both work hard to care for each other, but we work hard to allow the other to care for us. I saw how she handled things, and slowly revealed how caring I was.

This has opened up a new area of life for me; I’ve been very unhappy at work for a long time. Fixing that turns out to be an emotional minefield for various reasons. Now that I’m not suffering with relationships, I have space for that area for development. But it’s scary, and difficult.

A part of me was happy and used to being in that position, a part of me wanted to stay there and worked hard to keep me there. Accepting that darker part of me allowed me to move on, effectively I’ve solved one problem and moved to another.
>> No. 32462 Anonymous
27th July 2023
Thursday 12:28 pm
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>>32454

Yeah, there's generally no hope of changing these kind of people unless they get a thorough comeuppance.

I'm well aware that it's unhealthy and almost always a waste of your own time and energy, damaging to your own health and wellbeing, to try and make things work with them, but this is about the fourth time in my life I've found myself coming to the realisation and kicking myself because I'm probably already about 6 months deep into sunk cost fallacy already.

The part that bothers me is how I keep ending up back in the same position over again. How it's apparently so easy to trick me into it and then turn it around.

>>32453
>>32461

Well, I mean, I get where you two are coming from but I'm not so sure I agree with your fundamental premise. I don't enjoy being the giver all the time (except maybe sexually, like any bloke enjoys the ego boost of knowing they please a woman etc), and in general I do not go out of my way for someone if they're taking me for a ride and I feel as though in fact I am very conscious not to let people take advantage of me. I do favours for people I like that I consider selfless, but in those cases it's because that person has earned my favour and respect enough for me to want to make those gestures.

I feel like what goes on is a very familiar pattern. I get with a girl, she seems lovely, I try take my time and all that. But eventually I start to realise it's a bit one way and she's not quite putting in the same effort as me. They did at first- Often they are very generous in the other direction at first, that's the insidious bit, that's how they get you not to notice it; until gradually, bit by bit, they withdraw their half of the contribution. Until one day you realise, when you zoom out and look at it, I'm taking her places, arranging nice dates, buying the meals, the little things like always bringing her a drink in bed on a morning, and so on and so on; meanwhile, as best I can figure, the only thing she brings to the table is the fact I get to fuck her and have a pretty woman on my arm.

To some people that's just the reality of male and female relationships; but silly me, raised in the age of equality and feminism and all that, kind of expects a little more balance. So that's where all the conflict starts. The relationship would carry on harmoniously and peacefully if I could just swallow it and go about my life accepting the truth of a 1980s stand up comedy joke, that having a wife is just like having an expensive hooker. Everything would be hunky dory if I just accepted that. But all the arguments start, the downward spiral starts, when I start to try address it. When I start to ask what changed and push things back to how they had been at the start. When I start to stand my ground and say "Look, I paid for everything last week, how about you pay this week?", that's when it takes a turn.

So this is what I am gradually getting around to-

>I’m vocal about this because I was this and many are. It sounds horrible but “women do what you let them” is very accurate, a lot of women will push their luck, and your fear of loneliness keeps you trapped. Hence men can put up with a lot of shit.

In essence, I agree; but that's the trouble isn't it. The only real method of self defence in a man's arsenal is to say "Alright, I'm out, enjoy your life, but I won't be a part of it." The only other tools available are immoral methods of manipulation, and mental or physical abuse. Trying to confront it in the ways we are supposed to, as civillised men of modern society, is essentially pointless.

That leaves you in a position where every single little thing a woman does wrong is a question of "Should I leave her over this?", where the only resolution to any conflict becomes this binary between being a pushover versus dumping her arse. No mater how stoic and comfortable you are with being single, that's obviously never going to be an easy decision to make.
>> No. 32463 Anonymous
27th July 2023
Thursday 1:21 pm
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>>32462

>In essence, I agree; but that's the trouble isn't it. The only real method of self defence in a man's arsenal is to say "Alright, I'm out, enjoy your life, but I won't be a part of it." The only other tools available are immoral methods of manipulation, and mental or physical abuse. Trying to confront it in the ways we are supposed to, as civilised men of modern society, is essentially pointless.

Some women are a lost cause, but I get the feeling that you have difficulties being assertive and setting boundaries. The insidious creep towards one-sidedness that you describe is a two-way street; she stops putting the effort in, but on some level you're letting her get away with it. That confrontation where you do stand your ground has been brewing for weeks or months, almost certainly creating a certain level of resentment along the way.

We can't control how other people behave, but we do lay out the parameters for how we allow them to behave. We tacitly negotiate a set of rules for how the relationship works. If your behaviour tells the other person that you won't complain about being treated like a doormat and then one day you protest about being a doormat, you've broken the rules that you have implicitly set. Even if you're just trying to restore a basic level of fairness, it feels unfair to the other person because it's a sudden change to the previous norms.
>> No. 32464 Anonymous
27th July 2023
Thursday 4:00 pm
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>>32462

>I don't enjoy being the giver all the time

The point is to think about the other side of your behaviour. Whether you enjoy it or not is besides the point; you do it, you want it, there is a payoff. You’re not a prisoner. And you can act in ways you don’t understand, and that are to your detriment. As I said, me being a martyr (which I didn’t enjoy) was great because I could avoid bigger problems.

You yourself say you keep ending up in the same situation, and it’s because you have not thought about hidden aspects of yourself. Look into the shadow.

>Trying to confront it in the ways we are supposed to, as civillised men of modern society, is essentially pointless.

Society lies to men terribly about women. You just need boundaries. Taking things slowly helps, but you can quickly decide what’s suitable for you and what’s not. If it’s the third date and there’s no hint of offering to pay, then you can leave it if it’s not for you. You don’t have to give a lot, or anything, to get a woman.

Your problem is you let it slide for too long and it comes across like you weren’t doing it authentically in the first place. At that point you can’t save the relationship because you’ve based it on you giving - these types of women won’t change. They liked you because you were a pushover.

Consequently, if you’re not a pushover a good woman likes you more. That doesn’t mean threatening to leave (never do that as it’s weak), but it means you both implicitly understand that you won’t tolerate bad behaviour. You tolerate bad behaviour until you can’t anymore, then whine about it to women that don’t care. I did the same.

Again, if you are stuck or in a recurring situation you need to more fully consider your motives. By thinking about your shadow “part of me is vindicated in hating this job”, you can better understand yourself to correct this “part of me values the stability of this job, at the expense of my well-being”.
>> No. 32465 Anonymous
27th July 2023
Thursday 5:21 pm
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>>32405
Got the letter from Occupational Health, they said they cannot say I am fit for work because my last two psychiatrist assessments say I am extremely depressed and they bumped up my lithium.

The sticking point is "working with vulnerable people". I struggle to work with vulnerable people in my current role, because I'm on a ward with 16 schizophrenics locked up, prone to violence and chaos. In the new role, I would be in an office communicating with people who look after vulnerable people. I think there's a pretty big difference between these two roles, but the OH assessor cannot see that.

If the employer rescinds the offer I will literally kill myself. My girlfriend is away for the weekend so it's the perfect time to die quietly.
>> No. 32466 Anonymous
28th July 2023
Friday 2:09 am
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>>32463
>>32464

I understand the assumptions you are making but I still think you're reading into an assessment that doesn't quite hold up to the way these things have tended to play out, in my life at least. I have seen lads who your advice applies word for word to, and I always consciously make sure I am not that type. There are some things you are on the money with though.

In general I don't think it's assertiveness or boundaries I have a problem with, it's more that I give people far too much assumption of good faith. My boundaries are there, I am assertive when there's a clear cut case, I am just far too forgiving when it's not. I'm not a doormat, I just give people the benefit of the doubt far too easily, and it's hard to overcome that because it is, in itself, a conscious response not to listen to my more cynical side. I have a perhaps naive and idealistic interpretation of what "give and take" means, rather than a cut and dry transactional view.

I need to face the reality that most people don't see it the same way as me and I am only opening myself up to being taken for a ride if I expect others to see eye to eye with me. I need to face the part of me that sees those red flags a mile off, and always always does, but somehow always ignore it in order to try see the good side in people. Then somehow being surprised when the red flags turn out to be exactly what they looked like.

>That doesn’t mean threatening to leave (never do that as it’s weak), but it means you both implicitly understand that you won’t tolerate bad behaviour.

Yeah, but my point is, what does "not tolerating bad behaviour" look like? You have to put your money where your mouth is. If they call your bluff and carry on with that behaviour, even though you have already made your feelings clear, what do you do? Do you write a stern letter to their parents? Do you give them a naughty stamp in their planner? No, you have nothing. If they call your bluff you literally have to end the relationship, and that's all you can do, otherwise they see clearly that they can get away with that behaviour.

There's no form of discipline in a relationship. You either have issues to actually tolerate, or you just don't. You think you are being assertive about your boundaries but you're not, you are just lucky enough to have found a woman who isn't interested in the mind-games of testing your boundaries in the first place. All this talk of boundaries and whatnot is only really relevant in that early, dating phase of a relationship, where your investment remains low enough that you can still call it a day over a broken boundary.

This is a very philosophical point I guess but it is nevertheless something I keep coming around to.
>> No. 32482 Anonymous
28th July 2023
Friday 11:41 am
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>>32465
Don't do 'owt daft. If your job is making you suicidal with no way out then it's time to quit. That sounds reckless in other circumstances but you don't want to die do you.
>> No. 32483 Anonymous
28th July 2023
Friday 11:43 am
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Not sure how I just managed to do that. Using the newest version of Vivaldi
>> No. 32484 Anonymous
28th July 2023
Friday 1:27 pm
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>>32483
I just had a weird experience too where my big long post replaced itself with a post I had already made in another thread, tried to post both, then posted neither and my big post just vanished. I am using Safari on an iPhone.

>>32466
Think of more things you want and ask her for them. That was the crux of my vanished post.
>> No. 32485 Anonymous
28th July 2023
Friday 5:26 pm
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>>32466

I understand your reaction, to me you’re saying you have boundaries but you don’t enforce them as you’re too forgiving.

These things are like a trade off; if you’re too strict you’ll be alone, if you’re too lenient you’ll be alone in a bad relationship. The balance is hard to strike and has to come from you.

>Yeah, but my point is, what does "not tolerating bad behaviour" look like?

Let’s say you date a girl, and she’s late on the first date. Being somewhat apologetic, you shake it off and enjoy the date. The second date comes, and she’s late again. You’re polite but let her know that behaviour doesn’t fly in a fun way (here she doesn’t feel uncomfortable, but you’re communicating a boundary). Say it goes well and the third date comes along— late again. At this point, you could move on (she’s that type of girl), or bring it up directly (pointing it out and judging the response), or tolerate it if it’s not a big deal for you.

Some guys will accept it because she’s better than nothing, but this communicates that you don’t respect your own time. Some girls will make excuses, others will make it up to you. This is a small example, because you’re meant to start doing this so you don’t wind up in too deep and “unable” to leave.

Let’s say you point it out on the third date and she apologises. It seems sincere, and she promises not to be late next time. The next time she’s early; she likes you and she cares about how you feel. She can feel that you will walk away, which is a good thing for her to feel.

You’re saying it only matters early on — it always matters. You’re choosing the wrong people that don’t respect your boundaries (that probably engage and make you feel like they’re listening, just to stop the argument).

What I’m saying is; you can’t conceive of this works because it’s new to you. If you’re on it, you don’t end up being “unable” to leave.

Lastly, women intrinsically will test your boundaries, constantly. Even the good ones. It’s not bad; it’s their nature, and their way of checking that you’re dependable. They like to be called out, as long as you remain calm and confident. The best advice for me was “never argue with a woman”; arguing with her is playing her game and she’ll always win.
>> No. 32486 Anonymous
28th July 2023
Friday 7:13 pm
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>>32485

You are proving the point again with the second half though. The other direction of this flow chart you didn't explore is "She says sorry, then is late again next time regardless." or "She says sorry, is on time the next time, but then relapses the time after that." or some other variant, you get the idea. Where at face value she seems to have taken on board and respected the issue you raised, but really she was just pretending. In essence I agree with most of what you're saying, I'm just saying that nevertheless, it is a very zero-sum kind of game. You call it enforcing boundaries, you say that it always matters, and yeah, sure, you are right; but your line of reasoning still relies on the fact that you don't let yourself get involved with someone who will disrespect your boundaries in the first place.

The problem is real life isn't that simple, it's never that easy to tell; you trade off and negotiate over this and that all the way through the course of a relationship, and it doesn't feel like that's what's happenning, it's just how it works; you go on for years telling her not to leave cups on the nightstand, and she tells you not to leave your sweaty socks in the bathroom, and so on and so forth. And then before your know it, two years in, it's too late that you realise. Then you're in that position again of forcing yourself to assess, do I just tell them to fuck off, or can we have a Big Grown Up Talk that will sort it out?

And you will always, always try to have the Grown Up Talk too many times before you realise "Well, fuck, this one's fucked an'all. Back on fucking Tinder again." to repeat the whole cycle. Except this time you tell yourself you will definitely, definitely put your foot down and not let them take the piss. But then they do that thing women do where they just pout and smile and act all cute and fast forward another two years- "Well, fuck..."

Ehh. I wish I were gay frankly. But thanks for your advice anyway ladm9s.
>> No. 32487 Anonymous
28th July 2023
Friday 7:14 pm
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>>32482
I've settled down since the initial reaction. I emailed the person who the Occ Health report was addressed to, and also the organisation's disability network, just to explain my side of the situation, as a sort of last ditch attempt to salvage the job.

Got diagnosed with ADHD this morning after being on the waiting list for over two years, so another disability string to my bow.
>> No. 32488 Anonymous
31st July 2023
Monday 6:22 pm
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How am I supposed to deal with this?
What's my issue exactly .. I don't want to 'play' at someones call. The social pressure to do something that I'm not interested in right now.
Turning off direct messages after this request - should another be made in the future - will stink of turning my back on this person.

The messaging dude is the group leader, they're the one who keeps conversation going, who directs activity, etc. We seem be getting on pretty well, calling one another by handle and shared laughs and excitment.

Denying the request will effect my standing in the group, this 'leader' will see me as a less able character in their posse. Because, you know, i care about that.

It's almost as though I want recognition from random people on the internet, but don't want to actually earn it.

Fucking discord telling people I'm at my computer rather than on a smartphone.

Why am I even running this program if I don't want to be engaging with people? I just want something else to check in on, on occasion.
It was only this morning I took a phonecall suprisingly conversational, a change I attributed to my recent participation in aprox 10 hours of voice chat through this group.

I realise this is trivial stuff compared to what you guys talk about, but fuck. My social skills are stiffled as it is, having to learn this as an adult.
>> No. 32489 Anonymous
31st July 2023
Monday 6:25 pm
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>>32488
>It's almost as though I want recognition from random people on the internet, but don't want to actually earn it.
This is normal, having to "earn" it is not. "Recognition" for adults is generally being fun to be around. If your group standing is based on playing the game the "leader" tells you to play when he tells you to play it you're either a child or in a cult.
>I am glad he's here
vs
>He should be here
>> No. 32490 Anonymous
31st July 2023
Monday 6:26 pm
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>>32488
Maybe we should all play squad with you to prepare for when they send us to fight in Ukraine.
>> No. 32491 Anonymous
31st July 2023
Monday 7:25 pm
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>>32489
>"Recognition" for adults is generally being fun to be around.
Well that's the thing, init? I'm not fun to be around. My conversational skills are subpar. The only thing I believe I have to offer to a gaming group like this is the potential to actually be useful in game terms (I usually play long term goal games played over the course of week, sometimes months). The fun for me is in learning how to be an effective team and seeing those efforts work. But in this case I just don't want to hop on and try to get on with my fellow EU members simply for the sake of creating a community.
The server creator (trying to steer away from 'leader') has mentioned they want to develop more EU capability - at the moment I see myself as a potentially significant contributor to that happening only I'm dealing with this unwillingness to engage, almost rejection of, the group. I'm struggling to grow personally into someone who can interact and colaborate regularly with other people.

That's who i'd like to be, that's the perfect scenario I imagine that playing online games can help me achieve.
But as said I'm struggling to do it. It's much easier to think fuck it, fuck them, and just go outside instead.
It's that avoidant attachment thing someone mentioned earlier.

There''re only so many times I can laugh along to jokes before people wonder 'What's this guy actually contributing?'. If I don't start picking up my slack soon I'll just be a random dude in the group. I don't want that. I want people to like me, to appreciate my contributions (that I haven't yet made, mind), include me in planning, etc.

>>32490
TBH I think there's gonna be some scope for that kind of thing in years to come, if not already. Numerous games can be used for various training purposes these days, whether it's accounting & math or even theoretical battlefield tactics.

I donno man, maybe I'm trying too hard.
>> No. 32492 Anonymous
31st July 2023
Monday 8:31 pm
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>>32491

It sounds like you're ambivalent about participating, because you feel that you aren't contributing enough to the group and therefore you shouldn't bother. I think you're being quite hard on yourself. I've been in a variety of groups and clubs and teams, I've organised some of them, and the attitude has nearly always been "the more the merrier".

Being a random guy in the group is fine. Just making up the numbers is fine. You might struggle a bit with casual back-and-forth, but you're clearly an intelligent and articulate bloke. Look at your involvement in this thread - you've given a clear explanation of your issues, you've engaged usefully with the replies and as a result we've had a productive and interesting conversation. Plenty of other people in this thread have just posted something like "just feel fucking shit tbh" and failed to engage further, or have asked for help and then lashed out at anyone who offered a suggestion.

If you're in a five-a-side football team, the most valuable person isn't the best player - it's the fifth guy who agrees to play, because if you don't have a fifth man then you don't have a game. Don't underestimate the value of just showing up.
>> No. 32493 Anonymous
31st July 2023
Monday 8:42 pm
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>>32492
>but you're clearly an intelligent and articulate bloke.
Why is my initial response "I'm probably more adept at climbing a tree than somebody like you, mate".
Otherwise that's cool, showing up may well be enough :)
>> No. 32494 Anonymous
1st August 2023
Tuesday 12:33 am
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>>32493
>I'm probably more adept at climbing a tree than somebody like you, mate
No way is that a word filter.
F\/ck 0ff, mate
Fuck off, mate
hahaha
>> No. 32495 Anonymous
1st August 2023
Tuesday 12:33 am
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>>32494
What the fuck?
"Fuck off, mate"
>> No. 32496 Anonymous
1st August 2023
Tuesday 8:38 am
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>>32495
No "mate", add an "oh".
>> No. 32497 Anonymous
5th August 2023
Saturday 12:54 pm
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I've been listening to this Dixon Dallas, a country singer with a lot of tracks about homosex (as posted here >>/beat/13930).

I can't tell if my enjoyment of this is genuine or ironic, as I slowly get an errection listening to it.

Except particularly mousey, homely women - IE minimal sex apeal other than cuddles and rainbows - females intimidate me. I am attracted to them but I wont approach them and resent myself for wanting to look at them.

Men on the other hand seem much more accessable. And some males are attractive - particularly but not limited to the feminine ones.

I can imagine myself enjoying sex with males much easier than with women - mostly because of that intimidation factor. The whole Jouis CK joke that men will hurt you physically but women will shit in your soul. I can probably deal with physical aggression, more or less. But I don't want to be confused as easily as I women have had me.

So that's ingenuine, right? Being gay under these circumstances - namely fear of emotional damage - are a cope, a defect in my personality.

I mean I won't listen to this modern music about licking pussies and asses, it's just obscene - but here I am wondering off in imagination as I hear a cute dude singing about kissing bussy.

As a side note I'm wondering if there's a relation between intimate and intimidate.
>> No. 32498 Anonymous
5th August 2023
Saturday 1:30 pm
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Called Samaritans last night, as I was struggling and my girlfriend was out and I didn't want to call her and ruin her night. They were really good, and even called me this afternoon to follow up and check I was alright.

Significantly better service than I get from the crisis team and LMHT I'm under, who are staffed by actual paid people.
>> No. 32499 Anonymous
5th August 2023
Saturday 7:50 pm
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>>32497

Sexuality is weird and complicated and doesn't make any sort of logical sense. If you're intimidated by women, it's probably in your interests to try and sort that out; maybe you just need to spend more time around women, maybe you need a bit of counselling, I dunno. With that said, if you think you might want to shag a bloke, just go for it. We worry far too much about labels and spend too much effort trying to put the messy realities of life into neat little boxes.

It was a bit of an in-joke of .gs a while ago, but in the public health field they make a distinction between "gay and bisexual men" and "men who have sex with men", because the latter group is much bigger than the former. You don't have to identify as gay or bisexual to enjoy having sex or relationships with men in some contexts. Life is hard enough already without the added burden of constantly second-guessing your own decisions and questioning your own motives.
>> No. 32500 Anonymous
5th August 2023
Saturday 8:58 pm
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>>32497
Yes girls are kind of scary aren't they. That's just life though innit, you can totally talk to them and while it helps if you're fit and interesting they'll usually be polite and I'm sure some homely chick will stick around eventually if you put yourself out there.

I think what's really going on is your a bit nervous around your type and it makes you panic and freeze up a bit - combined with the past baggage we're all carrying. I think everyone can relate when they meet a fitty and clam up and the only real solution is to act quickly because hesitation becomes more powerful over time. You're conflating this with some very airbrushed perceptions of blokes, probably purely owing to the internet whereas in real life or actually snogging one you'll notice that they're hairy, their bodies don't feel soft and they smell.

Oh and you'll be able to shag a bloke easily enough but good luck getting anything once he's had his fill. Gay men get hurt too. It's the Hedgehog's dilemma.

>>32499
I don't agree with this. People need to turn inwards first and work out what's going on before they start entertaining any ideas out of character.
>> No. 32501 Anonymous
6th August 2023
Sunday 7:21 pm
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How do you cancel out murderous thoughts? Not to be an edgelord but my head is fucked and I'm getting voices telling me to kill. I don't listen to my voices but now those thoughts are mine not the voices', I want to go out and rape and kill but I don't want to do that but my head is telling me to do it. The only way I can shed this feeling of unease and anxiety is to take a life.
>> No. 32502 Anonymous
6th August 2023
Sunday 7:23 pm
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>>32501
I won't do it I just want these feelings to leave my body.
>> No. 32503 Anonymous
6th August 2023
Sunday 8:53 pm
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>>32501
>The only way I can shed this feeling
Nah mate, doing it will either fill you with regret or bloodlust. It's not going to make anything better, despite what Dexter might have you believe.

"A single footstep will not make a path on the earth, so a single thought will not make a pathway in the mind. To make a deep physical path, we walk again and again. To make a deep mental path, we must think over and over the kind of thoughts we wish to dominate our lives" as said by Henry David Theroux, an influencial American author of much wisdom (yeah, I just typed that). You can actually feel it happening if you observe yourself.
Start by practicing better thoughts.
Also talk to a head doctor.
>> No. 32504 Anonymous
6th August 2023
Sunday 9:35 pm
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>>32501
>>32502
Looks like someone just scored a lifetime supply of free drugs from the NHS. Keep going back until they give you ones that get you proper monged up.
>> No. 32505 Anonymous
6th August 2023
Sunday 9:41 pm
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>>32503
>>32504
I'm under a community mental health team but they're incompetent. I'm meant to have a care coordinator, and I did have one, then I didn't hear from her for a while and then someone else at the team said "oh she left we didn't realise and forgot to tell you". I'm meant to change to a different team due to moving across town but that still hasn't materialised 9 months later. I'm on antipsychotics so I'm well medicated but I gave up drinking which was my main way of shutting my mind up. I feel more lucid right now but I just get these strong horrible urges to do bad stuff.
>> No. 32506 Anonymous
6th August 2023
Sunday 9:52 pm
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>>32505
Keep making appointments with your GP until he either gives you mong out drugs or sends you to someone who can. When he says you're under the mental health team for this tell him their oversight is poor and you're worried you'll become a danger to yourself or others without proper support.
>> No. 32507 Anonymous
6th August 2023
Sunday 9:53 pm
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>>32501

That depends on what you mean by "getting voices".

If you're just having thoughts about harming someone, you're experiencing intrusive thoughts. These are often a symptom of anxiety or obsessive compulsive disorder and can be addressed well through cognitive behavioural therapy. The key is recognising that the thoughts aren't real and having them doesn't make you a bad person; trying to suppress the thoughts only makes them more powerful, but you can learn to tolerate and accept them as just a random thing your brain does.

If you're literally hearing voices, then you might be experiencing the early stages of a psychotic illness. Psychosis can be very effectively managed with medication, but it is absolutely vital to address it as soon as possible - the longer that psychosis goes untreated, the harder it is to treat and the more impact it has on your life. The NHS has a specific fast-track scheme called Early Intervention in Psychosis, which aims to start people in treatment within two weeks.

In either case, you should see your GP. Don't be afraid to tell them about the thoughts you're having - it isn't illegal to have bad thoughts and there simply aren't the resources in the system to hospitalise people unless they desperately need it. If you aren't honest with your doctor, they can't get you the right treatment. NHS mental health resources are unfortunately quite limited at the moment, but your GP wants to help you; part of their job is to prioritise the most serious and urgent cases, so it's important not to downplay any of your symptoms.

If you're seriously worried that you might harm yourself or someone else, dial 999 and ask for an ambulance or go to A&E.

What you're experiencing is very treatable and much more common than you might imagine. You can recover from this, but you need to ask for help.
>> No. 32508 Anonymous
9th August 2023
Wednesday 5:49 pm
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There's absolutely fuck all in charity shops for overweight people, other than old mens clothes. Amazon is full of falsly advertised items and the highstreet is overpriced.

My usual jeans, fruityloom tshirt and cotton overshirt are too hot for summer.

How the fuck do I dress myself.
No, really. I need help.

I'm not using a Jackamo finance account for fuck sake.
>> No. 32509 Anonymous
9th August 2023
Wednesday 6:33 pm
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>>32508

Materials are key, here. Try linen trousers and overshirts.
>> No. 32510 Anonymous
9th August 2023
Wednesday 6:52 pm
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>>32508

ASOS go up to 48" waist and they usually have a decent amount of discounted stock.
>> No. 32511 Anonymous
9th August 2023
Wednesday 9:08 pm
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>>32508
>too hot for summer
I have good news for you about the existence of summer this year.
>> No. 32512 Anonymous
9th August 2023
Wednesday 9:22 pm
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>>32507

>but it is absolutely vital to address it as soon as possible - the longer that psychosis goes untreated, the harder it is to treat

This. Once you're in a chronic mental state of psychosis, the next step can be slipping into full blown schizophrenia.

Even that is treatable, but it's usually best to tackle mental illnesses as soon as they present and cause you emotional suffering.

Nothing to be ashamed of. I've got a schizophrenic close family member. Whatever you have, get help.
>> No. 32513 Anonymous
13th August 2023
Sunday 11:46 am
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The Mrs is accusing me of being homophobic because I'm not 'excited' to go to a gay wedding of two people I barely know. I've tried explaining to her that I don't have a deep seated hatred of gay people but I'd rather not watch a union of two men for several hours with displays of affection.
>> No. 32514 Anonymous
13th August 2023
Sunday 9:42 pm
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>>32513
> a union of two men for several hours

Is that what happens at gay weddings?
>> No. 32515 Anonymous
13th August 2023
Sunday 10:07 pm
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>>32513
You could have just left it as "I'm not exited to go to a wedding", and most people here would sympathise with you.
>> No. 32516 Anonymous
14th August 2023
Monday 12:10 am
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>>32515

not him but I loathe weddings in any shape or form, and I'm not sure the prospect of going to a gay wedding would change that. It's probably the same as a straight wedding except you'll feel even more awkward.
>> No. 32517 Anonymous
14th August 2023
Monday 7:48 pm
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>>32513

I reckon a gay bloke wedding would be a right laugh. It's lezzer weddings I'd steer well clear of.
>> No. 32523 Anonymous
16th August 2023
Wednesday 8:59 pm
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Feeling sorry for oneself.

When I was 20 odd years old I heard second hand that a peer had described me as feeling sorry for myself. I didn't understand this, but as time has gone by I'm thinking maybe it's true.

On the other hand, I'm feeling the potential start of a drepression coming on - recent news of my father attending a hospice; sleeping in far later than usual; todays general low mood and 'drifting in the wind' sort of attitude.

I spoke with my mother and sister about it, to which my sister refered to me as feeling sorry for myself.
Well shit, am I not supposed to talk about it?

You can say shit about the manning up trope but it's not helpful. I guess it's true but what, man. Just fucking being around these women hearing them moan about what's going on in their lives - All I could think was I'd rather be having a laugh with mates, what better remedy is there than that?

Am I just being self-pittying? What's the deal here, all I can think to say is "Well are'nt I alowed to feel shit, too?". Evidently not but saying so feels more like digging in than actually addressing the issue.

S'just something we've gotta deal with, I guess.

How am I supposed to connect with someone if I'm learning to supress this in myself.

Stream of conciousness and all that, thanks for listening.
>> No. 32524 Anonymous
17th August 2023
Thursday 12:40 am
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>>32523
In my experience, people are willing to listen but they aren't willing to help. If the people you spoke to weren't willing to listen, you spoke to bad people. Keep trying, and maybe warn them in advance that you want to complain about your life. They should, if they're anything like the absolute wankers I surround myself with, at least nod politely. Just don't ask them for help.

How's your job? Are you unhappy about that too, or is your job okay? Tell me all about it.
>> No. 32526 Anonymous
19th August 2023
Saturday 3:52 pm
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A girl I know got married this weekend.

She was my first kiss back when I was 14, we were inseparable for like 2 years (though never officially dated), we fell out but became friends again. Met up with her a handful of times since we left school. She's very successful and well off now, happy, beautiful. I hate myself for not achieving the level of success she has achieved. I'm happy for her, but I look at so many people on Facebook who I went to school with, and so many are doing really well in life. While I'm a total fucking loser.
>> No. 32527 Anonymous
19th August 2023
Saturday 4:41 pm
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>>32526

Never a good idea to compare yourself to others, lad. Even if you feel you're demonstrably lacking.

I'm pretty sure there were people at your school who ended up far worse. Sure, among the people I went to school with, there are some who are doing just ok while others are wealthy entrepreneurs or businessmen (one is the co-founder of a small restaurant chain, another is an executive at an FTSE100 company). But one lad who graduated with me ended up as a cocaine addict and got nicked for drug trafficking which landed him several years in prison. The rumour was that he had a boot full of cannabis and other drugs coming back into Dover from the Netherlands. He's out now and has lived on a council estate the last few years. And one lass I was friends with got divorced and has had to raise two kids on a meagre salary as an online sales assistant because her ex husband keeps declaring personal bankruptcy. Neither of them boasts about it on social media.

What I'm saying is, don't let survivor bias get you down. Maybe ten people from your school are doing really well and like to brag about it on social media. With the word "brag" being key, because you never know how much of it is embellished and stretches the truth. But you're not going to find much info online about the ones who aren't doing well and whose life has taken a more tragic turn. In all likelihood, unless you've completely fucked up, you'll be just somewhere in the middle among all of them, obviously not doing stellar, but also not being a complete loser.
>> No. 32528 Anonymous
19th August 2023
Saturday 5:51 pm
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>>32527

I've had a fairly shit life by "normal" standards, but I consider myself fairly lucky because a lot of the lads I knocked about with in school are now dead or are still in the revolving door of rehab, psychiatric inpatient units and/or prison. We're all just trying to do what we can with the cards we've been dealt. A lot of people might see me as a bit of a fuck-up, but I think I've done remarkably well just to survive for this long.

More to the point, you don't know what's going on beneath the surface. I come across as reasonably contented and stable, but I'm also very open about my history of addiction and my ongoing mental health problems, which makes me a bit of a magnet for people to confide their secrets to. There are a remarkable number of people who present themselves as having the perfect life, but inside they're cracking up. Without fail, they feel like they're the only one. My life isn't easy a lot of the time, but at least I don't have the burden of trying to maintain an image that is totally at odds to how I really feel.


>> No. 32529 Anonymous
20th August 2023
Sunday 1:42 pm
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>>32528

>There are a remarkable number of people who present themselves as having the perfect life, but inside they're cracking up.

The bane of social media.

I think that's where a lot of depression and anxiety stems from. Not from the fact that people who post on social media actually have better lives. But from them being able to pass of their shit life as the best thing ever.

Just because you're posing in front of somebody else's sports car, doesn'
>> No. 32530 Anonymous
20th August 2023
Sunday 1:55 pm
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>>32529

Must've hit the wrong key while typing it. Anyway, just because somebody manages to compose a believable Instagram story about how good they have it, doesn't mean it's actually true.

A friend complained to me the other week that his teenage daughter was so obsessed with finding the best backdrops for an Instagram story while they were on a family summer holiday that it was really sucking the fun out of it for everybody. And she said something like, all her friends were doing it, so she had to do it too.
>> No. 32531 Anonymous
23rd August 2023
Wednesday 2:38 am
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I spent about half an hour writing a several paragraph essay, analysing the meaning of the scene where the titular character sees a wild wolf in the 2009 adaptation of Fantastic Mr Fox, in a reply to some random stranger's comment.

It occurs to me, although I might sound pretentious or egotistical here, that I do this quite often. I write long form and perhaps overly thoughtful responses to random shite on the internet, just because it gets my brain ticking a bit, and I enjoy doing it. But it consumes a lot of my time. Sometimes between making my dinner and going to bed, I will realise I've done nothing but make two or three internet comments, but they were all much longer than they needed to be and I likely re-edited them several times too. I should be able to channel the fact I just like writing about bollocks like that into something more productive, right? If I'm going to spend several hours doing it every day either way, I might as well. Some people even get paid to spunk their thoughts about a movie or book in your face for a living, and their thoughts are always shite. At least mine are sometimes worth reading.

I feel like I'm having a moment where I realise "that's actually what I would like to do with my life", when all these years I genuinely haven't known the answer to that. Lately I've been particularly arsed with my job, and looking at my other options I can't bring myself to be particularly enthusiastic about those either. I suspect it's because I've got a lot of other aspects of my life sorted now; adequate home, attractive woman, lots of fancy toys and gadgets. But I've always viewed my job as little more than a means to an end, and now it's the last aspect left to feel unsatisfied with, it's where all my existential angst is convalescing. Just quite typically, the kind of thing I would actually like to do, is something I'd have no idea how to go about or where to start and that probably will never make you any money.

Ehh.
>> No. 32532 Anonymous
23rd August 2023
Wednesday 2:42 am
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>>32531

Coalesce, not convalesce. Where's my edit button you fascists.
>> No. 32533 Anonymous
23rd August 2023
Wednesday 9:38 am
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>>32531

I hear you. I did an English Literature undergrad degree and would have loved to have picked up some work doing media criticism, but the need to get out of the gate and earn some money took me down a different path.

I don't want to discourage you at all, and I'm sure you know all this already, but just to commiserate: my experience has been that creative industries are highly elite, incestuous, and oversaturated. The UK is particularly bad for this, where it seems like any prestigious job is already monopolised by kids from a handful of the top universities. Much of the media industry itself has been gutted from the inside for profit to the point of non-existence.

I have since done some paid writing, though more technical/academic than creative. I won't offer advice as I never quite cracked it myself, but someone on .gs long ago recommended the Writers' & Artists' Yearbook. It may require lots of tedious pitching, but the work is out there and you can create your own niche. Unfortunately, the job is as much "marketing" as it is writing, at least until you've established regular work.

Maybe some more knowledgeable lads who've made a better go of it can give you proper advice.
>> No. 32534 Anonymous
23rd August 2023
Wednesday 10:04 am
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>>32531
I'd be interested to read your thoughts on that scene, you might have a small audience in /v/. Off the top of my head I think that scene it must have something to do with how Fox's family are 'civilised wild animals' whereas the wolf is majestic in its raw nature - Fox's family are afraid of that in themselves. I can't remember the monologue, though is that really whats important in a Wes Anderson film?

>much longer than they needed to be and I likely re-edited them several times too.
Same here, except I usually butcher important information leaving the message difficult to understand. In a way I'm mostly talking to myself, working through that stream of consciousness.

>Some people even get paid to spunk their thoughts about a movie or book in your face for a living, and their thoughts are always shite. At least mine are sometimes worth reading.
Lol. Do you ever wonder if you just 'like the sound of your own voice'? I've found myself guilty of that when considering my posts for reddit karma.

I guess the best thing to do is continue as you are, only putting more energy into writing articles on subjects that interest you. Once you have a body of work you can then decide what to do with it or parts of it.
I had a governement funded 'Starting a Small Business' book given to me recently - the whole thing reads like a collection of blog posts. Repeated phrases, overacted enthusiasm, lots of filler. I get the feeling the author pulled together a whole bunch of previous writing from their earlier work, slapped it together and bid for the goverment contract (or however that works).
I don't mean to compare you to this potential grifter, only to illustrate how keeping a portfolio of work might turn out to be useful.

Eh, this is sounding like very basic stuff - I assume most of you here are at least 3 times my level of education.
>> No. 32535 Anonymous
23rd August 2023
Wednesday 1:33 pm
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>>32531

The minimum viable step towards that goal is to start writing on Substack or Medium. Forum comments tend to just disappear into the aether, but collecting all your writing in one place under your own name gives you an opportunity to build an audience or at least demonstrate that you have an aptitude for writing. When you get the urge to write a long reply, try to turn it into an article instead - it can still be loose and informal, it just needs a bit of structure and context to make it work as a standalone piece.

As >>32533 says, writing for a living is highly competitive, but the economics have improved markedly over the last couple of years. The decline of newspaper revenues absolutely devastated the market for short-form nonfiction, but Substack, Medium and Patreon have created a viable route for writers with an audience to make a living. There's also a thriving market for cultural criticism on YouTube. It helps if you've got some visual storytelling skills, but a lot of full-time YouTubers are basically just essayists who talk to the camera or narrate over a slideshow.
>> No. 32536 Anonymous
23rd August 2023
Wednesday 1:51 pm
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>>32531
That's why I keep my comments here terse and unciteful. I'm saving all the good stuff in case I ever write a novel or screenplay.
>> No. 32537 Anonymous
23rd August 2023
Wednesday 5:21 pm
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I'm gonna' die super alone.
>> No. 32538 Anonymous
23rd August 2023
Wednesday 5:36 pm
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>>32537

But it'll be with us two.
>> No. 32539 Anonymous
23rd August 2023
Wednesday 5:42 pm
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>>32538
Fucking Christ.
>> No. 32540 Anonymous
23rd August 2023
Wednesday 11:40 pm
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>>32539

There, there.
>> No. 32541 Anonymous
24th August 2023
Thursday 12:00 am
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>>32538

You make it sound like you're planning a murder-suicide.
>> No. 32542 Anonymous
24th August 2023
Thursday 1:23 pm
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>>32541

Still a better way to go than having a heart attack while wanking off to online porn in your bedsit.
>> No. 32543 Anonymous
24th August 2023
Thursday 1:27 pm
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>>32542

Well, that's my plans for the weekend ruined.
>> No. 32544 Anonymous
24th August 2023
Thursday 9:10 pm
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How do you deal with disapointment in your performance? Revealing your level of skill, knowledge, ability before assessors?

I've found I'm not as good as I previously thought. In terms of an activity I want to persue.

I guess practise makes perfect.
>> No. 32545 Anonymous
25th August 2023
Friday 2:45 pm
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>>32544

Normally if I'm trying to be good at something, it's because I'm trying to achieve a broader more important goal. So fucking up one particular performance usually just represents a smaller setback on a much longer path. For example, if my greater goal is to get a nice high-earning job and I flub a job interview, yes it's shit and it hurts a bit, but ultimately it doesn't preclude me from achieving the greater goal aside from a bit of lost time.

It might be worth thinking about why you want to be good at whatever this thing is. And if that reason is self-contained, and you want to do the thing just because, then odds are you drawn to that activity and will practice it more given the new feedback that you're capable of underperforming.

Sorry if this comes off as an overly wanky or cold response, I've just become extremely pragmatic about failure. It could just be age, but the more you fuck up the more you realise how little it matters. With only a few exceptions, life is far more about consistent performance over time than big make-it-or-break-it moments. When you know such a moment is coming up, even the preparation leading up to it more a matter of consistency than high pressure effort.

I remember the astronaut Chris Hadfield saying something like this when it came to meeting the ludicrous entry requirements for the field, and it's stayed with me: practice is essentially a sanctioned form of cheating. If you take two people learning to drive with the exact same lesson structure, but before the practical test you give one a few nights a week to take a car for a spin around a car park and give the other nothing, how do you think they'd do? I think we often don't recognise how profound that difference is. Maybe it's because we generalise our performance in unrelated areas too much. Maybe it's that we're unwilling to start small and (re)learn very basic skills. As a personal observation, though, resourcefulness and sincere interest carries us much further than innate ability.
>> No. 32546 Anonymous
25th August 2023
Friday 4:31 pm
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>>32545
This is actually more helpful than you might think and not wanky at all.

I'm just taking the public failure pretty hard. It reminds me of my mother telling people i'm 'very high functioning[/i]' when is reality I'm just a pseud. It's embarassing when you realise you're not meeting the measure people expected (and very frustrating that someone else is 'bigging you up' against your will). It's just this time I expected it of myself and fell short.
I don't know, man. It reminds me of my childhood, not feeling good enough. People have said 'you're enough' but it doesn't mean anything, you know? It's evidently not true looking at the fruits of my life.

>It might be worth thinking about why you want to be good
To be honest the only reason is to achieve value and recognition around an activity I enjoy.
>> No. 32547 Anonymous
28th August 2023
Monday 8:46 pm
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My girlfriend's been gone for the week and it's not bothered me at all. I should miss her but I'm indifferent. Thinking about it now, for the last couple of months we barely spend time together. We sleep in separate rooms (done this for years, it's more her choice as I tend to have bad episodes on a night), I eat dinner in my room, we don't go out together. When we do sit together, she's usually reading manga on her phone while I watch TV. Occasionally we do have nights where we're up talking for hours and I love those times, and they remind me why I fell for her. But 85% of the time we live pretty separate lives.
>> No. 32548 Anonymous
28th August 2023
Monday 11:51 pm
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>>32547

Nothing wrong with that as far as I can see lad, if it works it works. Often I think relationships experience friction because of too much time together, and living too closely. Typically the situation develops where one partner isn't letting the other have enough of their own space and time doing their own thing, and it just leads to resentment. What you have is probably very stable because of that.

It's a hard balance to strike for an introvert, especially in that phase before you live together, so you still have the obligation to treat them more like a guest and not just leave them on their todd while you fuck off to your man cave all day. Especially when lasses just don't seem to have hobbies, their minds are oriented solely around socialising, and solitary hobbies are like a last resort to them, not something you're supposed to actively want to spend a day doing.

Bane of my life honestly. Try explaining to your completely normal and non-anti-social partner why you want to spend all day fiddling with your computer instead of the enthralling prospect of watching a full season of Friends, and see the look of sheer befuddlement on her face.
>> No. 32577 Anonymous
5th September 2023
Tuesday 9:35 pm
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Is an eight storey fall long enough to kill you? Thinking of killing myself at work tomorrow. Over the railing on the 8th floor, direct hit to the hard atrium floor. I'm fucking losing it. I want to kill myself in as dramatic a way as possible to prove a point. Or would abusing fly spray solvent be better? Solvent abuse CAN kill instantly, plus the poisons help. I'm really not well but can clearly see death is my best option. Probably won't kill myself but the thought is ever present. I hate my life I hate everyone and everything in my life, I've tried for 30 years and it's just getting worse. I've accepted that suicide is my fate.
>> No. 32578 Anonymous
5th September 2023
Tuesday 10:02 pm
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>>32577

Go to A&E right now. If you can't get there of your own accord, call 999 and ask for an ambulance. A mental health crisis is a medical emergency.

I have no doubt that you feel that your situation is hopeless, but I very much doubt that's actually true. You don't sound defeated and resigned, you sound frustrated and angry. That frustration and anger is a sign of hope - it means that on some level, you believe that change is possible.

Get some help, take some time out, get some distance from the rut you're stuck in right now, then see how you feel.
>> No. 32579 Anonymous
5th September 2023
Tuesday 10:34 pm
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>>32577

>I've tried for 30 years and it's just getting worse.

Take it from an oldlad who has been clinically depressed several times in his life - you've got more still to live for at 30 than you'll ever believe. It will not get worse.

Get help tonight. Assuming you're really not trolling and that you're serious, do what >>32578 said and go into A&E yourself or call an ambulance.

They will probably suggest you take Ativan or Diacepam or something like it as an immediate measure after they've assessed you, and they may ask you to stay the night, especially if they have a mental health facility on site. All of which I'd strongly recommend.
>> No. 32580 Anonymous
5th September 2023
Tuesday 10:39 pm
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>>32577

Third for getting help mate.

I appreciate how you feel, but I think I can see underneath you're really just angry, and you want all the cunts who have given you shit or ignored and taken you for granted to take notice for once. Your feelings are probably entirely justified, but if you top yourself you're just letting them win.

Don't give them the satisfaction mate. Got to the A&E, call the emergency services, go to your doctors and get signed off on a nice long sick note. Take a couple of months off. Take the piss as long as you want. Fuck 'em. You sort yourself out and look for a new job, work on your hobbies, fuck it just spend two months with your feet up playing videogames. Do whatever you need to do and look after number one.
>> No. 32581 Anonymous
6th September 2023
Wednesday 8:15 am
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Thanks for the concerns lads, had a sleep, won't do anything silly for now. I've just left a job where since May I'd been off on sick. Lots of time for video games and doing stuff I want to do, but financially it was becoming untenable.

Started this new job on Monday, I have a lot of mental health issues plus autism and ADHD so I struggle to function like a normal person. There's a lot of people there who "live to work" I suppose. They base a lot of their identity on being part of that organisation. For me I "work to live", I'm there to get a wage so I can buy train sim DLC and vapes, I have not interest in making friends and going to the Christmas party. I've never found a niche, I fucked up uni and several jobs, I basically feel like I fit in nowhere, just an empty mental retard.

Also been without a care coordinator at my mental health team for nearly a year so I have essentially no regular professional support.

Sorry for pointless rambling, I just don't really have anywhere else other than here as an outlet
>> No. 32582 Anonymous
6th September 2023
Wednesday 5:10 pm
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>>32581

Ramble all you like mate. You might not feel that you fit in anywhere, but we're all mental bastards here.
>> No. 32583 Anonymous
7th September 2023
Thursday 12:32 am
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>>32581
Today I went into work, and after an hour told my trainer I needed to leave. I had to ring an automated absence line to register the sickness, which felt very cold and impersonal.

I rang my mental health team and explained I was hearing bad voices and wanted to kill myself. The woman was actually competent. I moved house last year but they still haven't moved me to a new mental health team, but they haven't given me support because they say it's pointless when I'm moving anyway. It turns out the new one won't accept me until my current one assesses me and fills in a form, which the woman has done today. So hopefully things will get sorted.

It's really hard being mental. This evening I cried non-stop for an hour. I can't really function like a human being, but the amount of financial help I get from the state is insufficient to live on. I'm a severely depressed autistic schizophrenic, but I have to pretend to be normal to survive. It's just getting harder and harder to do that pretending.
>> No. 32584 Anonymous
7th September 2023
Thursday 3:26 am
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>>32583

>I had to ring an automated absence line to register the sickness

On one hand I hate these things, but on the other hand it is a little bit better if you have severely avoidant tendencies as I do. Having to talk to a person directly is sometimes enough to make me totally put something off.

>I can't really function like a human being, but the amount of financial help I get from the state is insufficient to live on.

What is your living situation? Renting, sharing or own place, etc? Might be worth going to the old Citizen's Advice, there must surely be more you can get in terms of disability benefits. I know they are tight as all fuck, but it seems to me the benefits system is mostly a matter of worming your way through it until you get all the benefits you are actually entitled to at which point it actually ends up fairly liveable, if not exactly luxurious.

I know it's only anecdotal but I'm reminded of one of my exes who somehow at 25 had a lovely 2 bed flat all to herself, rent paid and enough money to cover herself in tattoos and have a nice gaming PC. Somehow as a young woman claiming mental illness disability she got all that, but I as a young unemployed and mentally unstable lad only ever got the JSA and told to fuck off. So it must have been a matter of knowing the right things to say and people to moan at.

Anyway sorry I'm going off on a tangent mate but there's support out there, it just takes a bit of effort to access it. I know how it is to think "well fuck all that, clearly they are trying their best to push me away so I'll deal with it all myself", but in the long run that's only going to worsen your situation.
>> No. 32585 Anonymous
7th September 2023
Thursday 6:01 pm
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>>32584
I rent a place with my partner. I currently get PIP, about £513 a month. My share of joint rent and bills is £670. It's not a particularly nice house in a nice area, but the rental market is fucked. Then I've got personal bills on top of that, transport, food, leisure. I can't get JSA as I haven't paid enough into the system. I can't get ESA because they phased that out. I think you can get extra UC if you're deemed incapable of work, but the way UC is calculated for couples, my girlfriend's wage would cause the UC payment to be cut dramatically if not entirely. She has her own bills and expenses so it's not fair for her to give me a chunk of her pay (not huge pay but sort of decent).

Work was alright today. Did a return to work interview and explained a few of my issues. I think if I was sat down in a room with a laptop, given all the Powerpoints, I would be fine and learn quickly. When I have to listen to someone explain stuff verbally, and have frequent interruptions for Wink Murder and Word Association, I don't learn effectively.
>> No. 32586 Anonymous
9th September 2023
Saturday 10:51 pm
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(Going to just try and get a few things off my mind here, might be a bit of a vague ramble, but it would be nice to know if anyone relates to any of it.)

I find it hard to decide if I'm just drawn to women with narcissistic tendencies, or if it's just that there's narcissistic behaviours which are somehow more acceptable for women and go un-checked. I'm mainly thinking of that classic "double bind" situation, you know where no matter what you do it's always wrong? You act assertive and make the decisions, then they're not happy with the decisions you made; but you ask them what they want and let them decide, then they're not happy because you weren't being assertive and taking the lead. No win situation. It seems to crop up a lot in my experiences with women over the years.

I find myself wondering how I reconcile my own no doubt patchwork mess of traumas and maladjusted traits with the desire for companionship. I don't seem to be able to cope by myself, but equally I don't do well forming lasting bonds because I have such a messed up response to bonding with people. I become codependent quickly, but I equally need space to myself and independence. It's always difficult striking the balance, negotiating boundaries and compromises, especially when all of this inherently tends to mean I'm wrapped up with people who are similarly messed up headcases.

I know I should work on myself and do my best to be self sufficient before I even entertain the idea of relationships, but I just feel lost and adrift without a companion. I don't have a centre, I don't have grounding, I don't have a home. Where I live is just a place I live, it isn't home, it isn't where I feel safe and secure; instead I seem to latch onto partners and rely on them for that feeling of comfort and security. I feel vulnerable and scared of the world without that, like a lost child. That probably isn't healthy but then again, isn't that what everyone seeks in a partner?

Going through enough different dysfunctional situations and trying so many different ways to deal with them has left me feeling pretty disassociated and distant from myself. It's hard to enjoy the things I used to enjoy. I find it hard to motivate myself to work on the things I used to take satisfaction in. I feel like I don't even have a reason to do any of it. I've been bleached into this formless, blank template of a person existing for no real purpose.

I just don't know what to do about any of it frankly. What a bloody state.
>> No. 32587 Anonymous
13th September 2023
Wednesday 9:48 am
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>>32586
>I don't have a centre, I don't have grounding, I don't have a home. Where I live is just a place I live, it isn't home, it isn't where I feel safe and secure

I reckon you've identified something really important, there. It's one of those silly ironies, but my relationships became a lot better when I learned to live well regardless of whether I was in one. Some of my biggest arguments and fallouts with previous partners were because I was actually directionless and felt trapped, like I didn't have a future.

Don't get me wrong, close relationships add a lot of meaning, but I don't think any one aspect of your life can constitute your sole purpose of being.

Who you are, what you do, and how you think of yourself comes back to your thoughts. The reason why people fall back on clichés like picking up a book or exercising for self-fulfillment is because the achievements resulting from those activities are things that can't easily be taken away from you (knowledge, good health). They're about as stable as a foundation gets, and can give you a centre even if your life is fucked.

Try developing a core of activites, habits, thoughts, goals that you're happy being the centre of your life. Make those things as rock solid as possible. Then maybe see how your relationships and manner of relating to others changes over time.

My disclaimer of maybe talking total wank universally applies, this has just been my experience. I am in a pretty good relationship at the moment and yeah, and I'd be sad if it all came apart, but my life certainly wouldn't unravel. I'd still have purpose, things I want to do, and I'd have a good life regardless.
>> No. 32588 Anonymous
15th September 2023
Friday 5:54 pm
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Officially back to single life lads. Had been sort of clinging on to a hope things would magically sort themselves out over the last few weeks, but we've finally had that "yeah no it's definitely over" chat.

Overall the most short lived and, looking back on it, probably the most obviously incompatible relationship I've had in my life, so in theory it shouldn't be too painful to pick myself up from; it's just that it was very intense and passionate during the good times, and I fell way harder for her than I ever expected. Even though I knew for several months I was wasting my time I found it extremely hard to let go of. It's like a drug, chasing the high you had the first few times, even though it's just not the same any more and makes you feel worse for trying.

I get the feeling she always knew I wasn't what she wanted in a man, she just thought she could suck me in and then gradually turn the thumbscrews until I became it. I really don't know what's wrong with people who approach relationships this way, I just feel pretty resentful that I fell for it at the start. Oh well.
>> No. 32597 Anonymous
19th September 2023
Tuesday 1:46 am
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Saturday 28 November 2015 was the day my life ended. The day I pretended to not see my girlfriend when I was meant to meet up with her, but felt bad about ghosting and rang her and met up. I've been stuck with this tedious cunt for nearly 8 years but I'm not in a position to leave and I don't want to leave her struggling to pay bills and stuff if I did move out. Just got to put up with her forever. Give her kids. How did I end up so deeply involved in the very existence I planned on avoiding?
>> No. 32598 Anonymous
19th September 2023
Tuesday 1:47 am
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>>32597
I often think of killing myself to get out of it. That way I'm not the bad guy, just a troubled person who couldn't handle life. She won't know she's the reason I can't handle life.
>> No. 32599 Anonymous
19th September 2023
Tuesday 3:29 am
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>>32597

You sound like you really don't like this situation and you know deep down, in fact not even down, you know damn well you want to get out.

>I'm not in a position to leave

What do you mean by this? I'm not asking rhetorically, I know exactly how it feels when you don't think you're quite capable of going it alone for whatever reason. But if you actually take a step back and look at it rationally, is that really true?

It's easy to make excuses and stay in the bad situation you are used to rather than take the difficult choices that are necessary to begin improving things.

>I often think of killing myself to get out of it.

Either way, don't do this mate. There's a much, much simpler way out of it. If she's the root cause of all your problems then simply removing yourself from her company is wise and not something you should feel guilt over. Let's back track a bit.

>I don't want to leave her struggling to pay bills and stuff if I did move out.

This lass doesn't sound like she does a great deal for you, so why do you feel like you owe her your support?
>> No. 32600 Anonymous
19th September 2023
Tuesday 9:31 am
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>>32597
You very obviously have to get out of this relationship. It's going to be messy and unpleasant, but if you're fantasising about suicide then that's obviously not a consideration in the first place. If you're so worried about her keeping the lights on send her some money, but you can't fuck your own life up out of some vague sense of social responsibility towards one person you don't even like. Well, I suppose you can, but it's bad idea.
>> No. 32601 Anonymous
19th September 2023
Tuesday 10:38 am
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>>32600

Otherlad, here. I unironically use this as a gauge of whether an activity is worth doing. If at any point I think, "well, death might not be so bad by comparison" I try to stop with that task or change those circumstances immediately.

I recently changed jobs using this reasoning when I started daydreaming about crashing during my morning commute.
>> No. 32608 Anonymous
19th September 2023
Tuesday 6:43 pm
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Fucking Christ. Nothing like a little binge eating relapse to make you realise why you stopped. I can't even make myself throw up like someone with a proper eating disorder, I'm just a stupid bastard. It was fucking shit food too.
>> No. 32609 Anonymous
19th September 2023
Tuesday 7:08 pm
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>>32608
I hear you man. Every time I binge, I get awful heartburn and poor sleep, let alone the discomfort and engorged sickness.
Just happens to be that by the time the next binge mood hits, I've mostly forgot about all that :|
>> No. 32621 Anonymous
24th September 2023
Sunday 5:28 pm
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I spoke to my dad over the phone. It's weird. He wants me to call every week, but he never calls me. If I don't call him for two months he won't ring me. If I call after that two months he lectures me on not keeping in touch. The rest of the family also don't really communicate with me either. The onus is always on me to initiate contact. He said in the call to ring my brothers immediately afterwards, but I know phone calls with them are very stilted so I messaged instead. To be honest I prefer communicating over IM instead of over the phone. Then 20 minutes later my dad tried to ring me. I know it's to bollock me for not ringing my brothers. It just does my head in. And shit like him nobody in my family visiting me since 2016, yet I am expected to visit them several times a year. I probably sound entitled and selfish but it does my head in. There are times where I've called, my dad'll say he'll get back to me when he's finished walking the dogs, then he doesn't ring at all.

When I last saw him he saw my self harm scars and cried about how I should have phoned him instead of hurting myself, and if I self harm again he'll cut off contact with me. But when I do phone him there's a 60% chance of being ignored or forgotten about.
>> No. 32622 Anonymous
24th September 2023
Sunday 5:39 pm
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>>32621

Wouldn't waste the time worrying about it mate. If people can't be arsed to put in the effort for you then why should you do it for them?

I'm much the same with my parents. My dad always tells me to visit more often, I know deep down it's because he cares and wants to know I'm doing alright, but the fact remains they have never once come to visit me, ever since I moved out on my own about 8-9 years ago. Not once. I'll text my mum every so often and that's about it.
>> No. 32623 Anonymous
24th September 2023
Sunday 10:46 pm
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A couple of months ago I posted in here about relationships, boundaries, dealing with people who don't respect your boundaries, and so on.

I've been watching this YouTube psychologist fella (I know, I know, but it's cathartic) and he mentioned something that essentially vindicated a big part of what I was saying. Boundaries only work if you have the power to enforce them. You can only enforce boundaries if you have the ability to impose consequence for breaking them. Which, even if you do, isn't necessarily a healthy dynamic to establish a relationship on; it depends on guilt and punishment.

The only boundary you can truly set, is the boundary of when to walk away. The same conclusion I more or less came to myself. Beyond that it's luck of the draw- You can't read someone's mind and see who they really are until you've got to know them. You don't get to know people until you've been around them long enough for them to drop the act and show their true colours. It's basically trial and error.

What I'm essentially working my way around to here is not to blame myself for the breakdown of past relationships. In most of those cases it outright wasn't my behaviour at fault other than sticking around longer than they deserved. I just need to learn to walk away.
>> No. 32628 Anonymous
29th September 2023
Friday 8:28 am
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Got into a bit of a dalliance with a lass at work. She has a boyfriend she's just bought a house with.

Over the course of the last three months we've been talking constantly and messing around. It's been exciting, of course. We've been like teenagers really. But during this time she's pulled back a few times and told me we can't do anything more because she loves her boyfriend and doesn't want to lose him. Fair enough, though I did point out she probably needs to examine why she'd be doing this if she really does want to be with him. Not even for my own selfish reasons, genuinely think she should be doing whatever's in her best interest. But every time she says it we end up continuing down the same path anyway.

She's said this again, yesterday, for probably the fifth or six time, that we need to stop. But this time I kept pressing and she said it's because she's fallen in love with me, but has decided she can't leave her bloke. I haven't quite parsed if I feel the same because I don't want to think about it. But I definitely have a lot of feelings for her.

I'm not particularly hurt by this decision, it's very understandable, but we have continued to talk in exactly the same way we were before this conversation, minus the heavier flirting, and I sort of just assume we're going to end up carrying on again. I recognise this isn't healthy, we both recognise we shouldn't be talking at all, but I can't seem to stop. Plus we do work together, which doesn't help.

I'm not sure there is any advice to give other than break contact, so I'm just posting this to vent really. I doubt I would want to get into a relationship with someone who would so easily and brazenly cheat, both emotionally and physically, but of course how I feel for her has allowed me to make many justifications for her - she's confused, doesn't know what she wants, feels like she's already in to deep with her relationship to leave it.

What will always stick with me is when she said she doesn't know what she wants, but she knows she "should" want to be with him so that's what she's doing. That's a pretty grim thought.
>> No. 32629 Anonymous
1st October 2023
Sunday 7:41 pm
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I want to kill myself, I've stockpiled loads of meds so I have the means, I'm scared it will just give me brain damage and I won't die, also I'm scared if I do kill myself I'll go hell because I was told that the worst sin is suicide and I don't want an etertinity in hell but equally staying alive is not an appealing prosspect, IO don't believe in God or anything bnut I don't want to t go to hell
>> No. 32630 Anonymous
1st October 2023
Sunday 7:50 pm
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>>32629
Do not try to kill yourself. People who survive are always glad they did. So don't risk missing out on that happiness.
>> No. 32631 Anonymous
1st October 2023
Sunday 7:51 pm
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>>32629

Do me a favour mate, call 999 and read them your post, please.
>> No. 32632 Anonymous
1st October 2023
Sunday 7:52 pm
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>>32629

If you've taken any of the pills by the time you read this, call 999 and tell them you've tried to harm yourself and what you've taken.

If you're still thinking about it, there's a list of phone numbers or text chat services here: https://www.mind.org.uk/information-support/guides-to-support-and-services/crisis-services/helplines-listening-services/

Samaritans are 116 123 if you just need to talk to someone now.

After doing the above, tell us what's happening.
>> No. 32633 Anonymous
1st October 2023
Sunday 9:36 pm
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>>32630>>32631>>32632
The feeling's passed, sorry to worry you, not going to do anything silly.

It's weird though, the clarity of mind I had, where the only clear action I should take is to end my life. A;;most a laser focused need to die.
>> No. 32634 Anonymous
2nd October 2023
Monday 3:36 pm
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>>32633

Glad to hear you're doing better, lad, but now is really the time to act to ensure you have the support you need if you ever feel like that again. It's hard to know what to recommend as I'm not sure what led you to that point.

Suicidal ideation is serious though, and having the means available like a load of pills puts you at direct risk. It may well be worth calling a crisis line or the NHS and telling them what happened. Maybe some others can chip in with their experiences of either/both.

You're also free to write about whatever's bothering you here on the board.
>> No. 32635 Anonymous
2nd October 2023
Monday 10:11 pm
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Is it cheating if your girlfriend sexually assaults another woman?
>> No. 32636 Anonymous
2nd October 2023
Monday 10:13 pm
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>>32635

>sexually assaults

I think this is the bit you're going to have to dig into, nevermind cheating.

Go on, don't tease like that, what happened?
>> No. 32637 Anonymous
2nd October 2023
Monday 10:34 pm
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>>32636
Basically she found out today from her sister that when she went out on the lash with her sister and sister's friend a few months ago, she was "overly handsy" with sister's friend and kept pressuring her to come home with her. My gf is suicidal from shame now she found out she essentially sexually assaulted someone (who happened to be a rape survivor), while also feeling ashamed she cheated on me.
>> No. 32638 Anonymous
2nd October 2023
Monday 10:45 pm
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That's cheating, ladm9. Extract yourself from the situation.
>> No. 32639 Anonymous
2nd October 2023
Monday 11:01 pm
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>>32637

If she was so plastered drunk she can't remember it, I don't think she should beat herself up too much. If you don't have capacity to consent when you're drunk then I think by the same token you can't be held as having full mens rea accountability either. She's ashamed and feels guilty about it because it's something she wouldn't have done normally.

I'd give her a pass on it, but just ensure she doesn't drink to excess like that any more.
>> No. 32640 Anonymous
2nd October 2023
Monday 11:58 pm
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>>32635>>32633
These are me. Funnily enough the suicidal thoughts have returned. What really stings is last night my girlfriend told me I put too much strain upon her with my severe depression, so I agreed to just not talk to her about that stuff. Then tonight she comes to me crying about feeling up a non-consenting lass. And I'm in a weird position, I've been told I can't burden her with my feelings, so I have to be so nice and understanding and diplomatic. Tbh it's probably partially my fault, we haven't had sex in many years because I don't have that drive so much, maybe if I fucked her on the reg she wouldn't molest people on nights out.
>> No. 32641 Anonymous
3rd October 2023
Tuesday 1:10 am
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>>32640

>my girlfriend told me I put too much strain upon her with my severe depression

Honestly it's probably not what you want to hear, but I would consider this a bad sign for the health of the relationship, or indeed your own personal mental health, as a whole. I've been in similar positions myself, and I have generally found that despite the common perception of women being more emotionally sensitive and caring, they can all too often critically lack empathy.

That in itself makes it harder for you to fully tackle and deal with your own issues because you constantly have to suppress and inhibit your feelings. It traps you in a cycle that's hard to escape because forcing yourself into a mindset of pretending your fine drains a lot of energy, and disrupts the processes you have to go through in order to fully tackle something like depression, you can't meaningfully confront and tackle problems if you spend so much time hiding them. Being alone might sound like the very last thing you need when depressed, but it can often be exactly what you do need. You need the mental space to work on yourself without having to accommodate somebody else's expectations of and impositions on you.

If you are a lad who struggles with mental health you really need to make sure you get with one of the ones who is genuinely capable of, and okay with, giving you the support and understanding that requires, and on some level you have to understand that makes you difficult to deal with too, just like if you were dating the typical female emo girl headcase.
>> No. 32642 Anonymous
3rd October 2023
Tuesday 8:43 am
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>>32640
I realise I'll come across as a bit of a bellend saying this, but one of the worst things you can do with many women is showing them how you really feel. They buy into the idea of wanting a strong man where they can be the special one to get him to put his guard down and reveal his true emotions, but the moment you show any vulnerability around them they will recoil in horror as it dawns on them this is not what they truly want and it should have remained a fantasy. You need to find another outlet because your emotional needs will predominantly come second to hers.

If you are having suicidal thoughts and she's drinking to the point where she can't control herself around other people, nor remember the events the following day, then are you in a codependent situation?
>> No. 32643 Anonymous
3rd October 2023
Tuesday 12:02 pm
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Doubt.jpg
326433264332643
For a mere moment I'm taken in by the illusion; dark hair highlighting the shape of the head, striking colours, the expression of self that describes this person as different - as interesting. But then I doubt myself and realise she's merely human. It's just hair, it's just clothes, it's just powdered rock. What would it matter how a person applies these things to themselves?

Then I look to myself and find I prefer a certain cut of clothes in certain colours. I prefer keeping myself in specific ways, as opposed to others.
From time to time I practise a self-defacing attitude whereby I'll not suck in my gut when passing other people, infact I'll push it out to display the horror of my self-esteme. This hasn't got to the point where I'll walk around in filthy clothing but it certainly carries into my general appearence - uncut hair, minimal skincare, etc. I keep a minimum socially accptable level of hygiene, but for the most part I beleive myself to intentionally avoid positive attention by my display.

What is experssion? We're all the same beneath.
>> No. 32644 Anonymous
3rd October 2023
Tuesday 2:08 pm
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>>32642

You have only ever had relationships with narcissistic women and you were likely raised by a female rolemodel who reinforced that. It's not your fault, but this is not the universal truth about women. It's more common than anyone would like to admit, yes, but it is not universal.
>> No. 32645 Anonymous
3rd October 2023
Tuesday 3:42 pm
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>>32644
If we’re psychoanalysing people we’ve never met, I would suggest he was raised by someone who encouraged him to be very open with his emotions and was always very supportive. If I ask my mum for help, she won’t leave me alone with terrible hopeless suggestions. If I ask my friends, they shrug and wish me the best of luck in fixing everything on my own. I resent my friends a lot, even though it is statistically unlikely that I really have only ever met conniving parasites and everyone else is fine.
>> No. 32646 Anonymous
4th October 2023
Wednesday 8:54 pm
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I posted some time ago about my brother strangling me during an altercation regarding the disciplining of his son. I can't seem to find the post anywhere here.

It's been up to a year now, possibly, without me contacting him very much. A few of his texts and calls are taken, but most are ignored. I have seen him a number of times b chance while visiting family.
He's constantly telling me he's sorry and that he wants to make up, go out fishing and just hang around like we used to. Every time I think about this I feel an evil, spiteful grin at the corner of my mouth.

I guess I do miss him too, he was the only person I felt comfortable being naked around. We used to hang out while one of us was in the bath.
Maybe 6 months leading up to our arguement I stopped telling him I loved him much the same with all my family, tbh) and started refusing hugs. I hate the way he behaves - sometimes it upsets me. The way he argues and inverts everything. If you ever make the slightest headway he changes the subject and rearanges the scenario.
He's got no willingness to look at himself and takes any critisism extremely negatively.
I can't be dealing with that shit, it's painful to see him lying to us and to himself. It's pitiful - sometimes I wonder if he actually believes himself.

I just can't get over this shit. But my spiteful smile makes me think I'm just punishing him, being that I can tolerate this pain better than he can or something.

I don't fucking know, man. I'd love to be his friend again but I can't forget what he done to me. I can't understand what I did wrong other than 'get on his bad side'. Yeah I know he has an issue with being judged and me standing there watching how he diciplined his child was effectively 'judging' .. I said to him as he literally throttled me, with thumbs in my throat, "I'm trying to help you, brother".

He keeps trying to recconnct, sending me these songs that have some meaning about missing people and shit.

It feels like irreparable damage has been done to our relationship. I don't know what do do about it. I can't go back to that with this in my throat.
>> No. 32647 Anonymous
5th October 2023
Thursday 7:44 pm
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How do you get over someone you still see all the time?

Separately but related, does "let's still be friends" ever work?
>> No. 32648 Anonymous
5th October 2023
Thursday 8:20 pm
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>>32647
Finding someone else is probably the best plan. You'll like them more because they didn't break your heart. Then you can force yourself to be friends with the other one, or at least I can, but I confess it might sometimes not feel worth it at all.
>> No. 32649 Anonymous
5th October 2023
Thursday 11:11 pm
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>>32647

Friendship can work, but it depends heavily on the context of the break up, and the relationship that came before it. It has to have been a very amicable break where you were already in a quite casual type of relationship without much deep emotional co-dependence. If they really broke your heart, then almost certainly not. You're really just holding out hope they'll want you back, no matter how much you tell yourself otherwise.

If you have no choice but to spend time with them then you just have to be very professional about it, for lack of a better word. Try not to think of them as the person you were with, just someone you have to keep the peace with.
>> No. 32650 Anonymous
6th October 2023
Friday 1:06 am
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No offence, but I fucking hate you. You lot are basically all right, you aren't especially evil, stupid or boring, but I hate all of you. I think there are fewer than ten people I've met in life who I actually got on with, but I'm far too much of an insipid, lazy, emotionally stunted, fuckwit to have been actual friends with them. And like I said, you lot are nice, mostly, so imagine how I feel about the shower out there? These barely literate misery machines that call make up Britain? Christ, the whole damned world even! And I'm worse than all of them, because I'm here complaining, in the full knowledge that tomorrow I'll wake up and be just as much of an oxygen thief as ever. It makes me wish I was rotting the fucking dirt.
>> No. 32651 Anonymous
6th October 2023
Friday 1:47 am
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>>32646
That's a weird situation but I think you might have to try to forgive him on this. He does seem sorry, he is your brother and it does sound like he has an impulse control problem. If he crosses the line again though you can write him off.

>>32647
You don't. Minimise all contact to the bare minimum and get yourself a rebound.

>Separately but related, does "let's still be friends" ever work?

No. Not when its more than sex and even then it'll be a colossal ballache with partners and one of you will always be the one who wanted more.

>>32650
You'll like people more once you get to know them and stop holding them to some impossible standard. Try to stop yourself from judging them too soon and accept that people might fart and fuckup.
>> No. 32652 Anonymous
6th October 2023
Friday 11:34 am
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>>32650
What, in particular, do you hate about people? Don’t just say “everything”; that’s dodging the question. If you know exactly what you hate (in my case, people are so unwilling to actually make any effort at all to help me), you can look out for people who are better than that, and it feels great when you find one.
>> No. 32653 Anonymous
6th October 2023
Friday 12:05 pm
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>>32650
Come on, you don't really hate someone just because you don't want to be friends with them, do you?
>> No. 32654 Anonymous
6th October 2023
Friday 12:11 pm
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>>32653

Not him, but I get incredibly irritable when I'm particularly badly depressed. You know how if you really dislike someone, it can seem like everything they do is absolutely infuriating and they're doing it specifically to piss you off? It feels like that with everyone.
>> No. 32655 Anonymous
11th October 2023
Wednesday 6:14 pm
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I mentioned in another thread a while ago that I fucked up my leg. I consider myself pretty resourceful and I can usually remain happy throughout not-so-ideal situations, but this has been rather shit.

Shit in a way I wasn't anticipating, either. I'm still working from home and being very productive, but it's when it comes time to relax that I find myself bored and listless. Computer games don't scratch that itch anymore and most of the books I own are work-related. I suppose I could binge some television series, but that feels like a waste of time. I'm also at an age where my mates have domestic lives that I can't just interrupt with a phonecall to natter for hours.

You guys must have been in similar situations. How do I relax when it's just me alone with my own (non-work related) thoughts?

Maybe I'll use the time to watch some classic films I've never seen, or something, which feels like nice middle-ground of appreciating art but also passing time.
>> No. 32656 Anonymous
11th October 2023
Wednesday 10:33 pm
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I have to travel 60 miles on Saturday morning to attend an all-day domestic abuse awareness course thanks to my poisonous harpy of an ex. It's abysmal how I keep finding myself at these low points in life, abandoned and/or dropped into the thick of it by those I'd been twisted into trusting.

If the workshop ends up being some sanctimonious call to atone for smashing up a room after discovering I'd been cheated on for 6 months, I might just self-immolate in the town centre. What is even the fucking point anymore...
>> No. 32657 Anonymous
12th October 2023
Thursday 12:00 pm
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>>32656

That's shite mate. I hope you don't feel bad if I tell you that makes me feel a bit better about my recent ex at least.

It's one of the biggest injustices in modern society, I think, that it's so easy for people who are for all intents and purposes abusers and bullies to hide themselves in the sheep's clothing of being a "victim", and that otherwise decent people they have put through the wringer just have to grit our teeth and pretend like it's all fine, because there's no sympathy for us and even attempting to get any from anyone is seen as a sign of weakness and and provokes a negative response on its own.

There's somebody decent out there though. I have to keep up hope of that, otherwise they've won. I won't let them win.
>> No. 32658 Anonymous
12th October 2023
Thursday 1:25 pm
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I'm in a really bad place mentally, I've finally moved to a new mental health team which should have happened 10 months ago (they dithered and dithered until I made a formal complaint at which point it happened in a week), I got an appointment with the psych doctor on 31/10, all systems go. Yesterday I rang them because I was in a state where I was a potential danger to myself, they told me how good the doctor I'm seeing was and how he'd sort me out.

Got a letter today, dated 05/10, saying my appointment on 31/10 is cancelled due to that doctor leaving the team. So it's been known he's leaving for at least a week, yet the duty worker I spoke to yesterday was unaware of this. I would have thought there'd be some sort of communication within the team when one of the high ranking doctors fucks off.

It's frustrating because I'm slipping deeper into ill mental health, yet at every fucking step something goes wrong. What's the fucking point? I should just bin all my meds and cut contact with support and see if that makes things any worse.
>> No. 32659 Anonymous
13th October 2023
Friday 11:51 am
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This is going to be more of a vent than anything else because I'm currently in limbo.

My partner and I have been together for about 18 years, largely I think because she fell pregnant when we'd been together for all of 10 months or so. For the most part, things have never been perfect but they haven't been particularly bad. She's not someone I'd say I've ever been madly in love with or what I'd consider a truly compatable partner and I'm sure she feels the same about me. Over time we've ended up more like roommates rather than lovers, although we do still have sex on a regular basis.

I can't remember precisely what triggered the conversation, but last month we agreed to separate and I'll buy her out of the house. It's going to be amicable and I've no concerns about how we'll co-parent together. She initiated it, which I'm chalking up to her feeling more confident in herself after starting a job last year and also because her colleagues have been encouraging her to leave when they've talked about it; they're all single middle-aged women, so I'd generally say they are to relationship advice what Michael Jackson is to babysitting but they've got a point this time.

The trouble is, she doesn't truly know what she wants so she keeps trying to hedge her bets. This is more that she's scared of the unknown with leaving than staying because she'd actually want to be with me, so it'd be for the wrong reasons. We had the conversation about separating over a month ago and her stance seems to change on a weekly basis. One week she'll be leaning towards leaving, the next she's telling me we should try as hard to make it work because of how much history we have together. She thinks if we split up she'll still get to sleep with me when she's horny.

The initial plan was for me to buy her out when our mortgage fix ends during 2025 but I said I couldn't wait that long, when I did so she got all teary and clingy. When I first said I'd fully come round to the idea of separating (once I'd realised I could afford to live alone and I could manage the house fine without her) she got all teary and clingy. The other day I'd had a bit of a stressful day, so when she came home from work she pushed me against the wall and gave me the best blowjob she's ever given. I think with her, she wants to have the final say. She wants to 'win' this.

Ever since we agreed to separate we have been getting on so much better and we had a great day out as a family last weekend. It's making me second-guess myself. If we got on like this all of the time then I'd want to make things work. Deep down I know we're probably not right for each other, but it's just so confusing when there's emotions involved and she's regularly coming on to me. When I've discussed this with my closest friends they said they've always felt like we've stayed together because it's the easy option. They're right.

The next steps are going to be getting the house valued later this month, but fuck knows how long it'd take to buy her out and her find another place to live. Until then I guess I'm stuck in this limbo. I think what I'm actually finding most irritating about this situation is when I buy her out I'll owe about £30k more on the mortgage than when we bought the place in 2015 and I really want to move house but I wouldn't be able to afford anywhere nicer. I dunno, lads.
>> No. 32660 Anonymous
13th October 2023
Friday 2:02 pm
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I have run out of money completely and my phone has decided to pack up. I am very grateful to be alive.*

* This is a joke.
>> No. 32661 Anonymous
13th October 2023
Friday 3:56 pm
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>>32659

I'd tell her to shit or get off the pot if I were you lad. I know you really weren't asking for suggestions, but it seems rather brazenly disrespectful to say "let's break up, but not for another two years when I'm good and ready". Who would be okay with that?

What is it with women always thinking they can have their cake and eat it. Break your heart and then they want to stay friends so they still have someone to whinge to and flirt with, keep you in their back pocket in case the new one they had their eye on didn't work out.
>> No. 32662 Anonymous
13th October 2023
Friday 5:17 pm
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>>32661
She's on board with moving out now, which I'm realistically expecting to be early next year, but she was happy for me to put my life on hold for two years so she can be in a better financial position. She hasn't broken my heart, there was just a bit of shock that one of us was finally going to do something about the situation. If the house doesn't get valued at what she wants I'm expecting her to have a change of heart, but she still thinks she can have me as a back up it it doesn't work out. If we break up then I intend to be single for a long time because we've been together since we were teenagers.
>> No. 32663 Anonymous
14th October 2023
Saturday 1:11 pm
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I think it is at the core of my overall existential anguish the last couple of years, that I've basically become my dad.

Like he did, all I do is come home from work and stare at the telly, drink beer, and rinse and repeat. I mean, not 100% literally, but that's basically the gist of it. I've used my relationships as a crutch to avoid confronting that, telling myself I'm not a boring sad cunt because at least when there's a woman nagging me to, I do still go and sit outside pubs, see movies, or walk around in some trees now and again; but really, left to my own devices, I am a boring sad cunt who never does anything interesting with my life.

All the partners I've had were attracted to me on the basis of who I used to be ten years ago, for better or worse. I have no problem attracting partners, but over time, I feel more and more like I'm conning them with false advertisement. Nobody is attracted to a boring cunt who doesn't do anything, so inevitably I'm fighting a losing battle, and it's only ever a matter of time until they get fed up of the boring sod I really am. Who can blame them?

But at the same time, fuck it, I am older now, I've been there and done all the exciting stuff. I just want a quiet, content, easy life now. I don't want to go to gigs that are inevitably overpriced and underwhelming, I don't want to go and "explore" some shithole second world country and stay in hostels for a week, I'm not in my early 20s any more.

I think what I am missing is a community. I remember back when I was more interesting, that's what I used to have, from being a teenlad posting naff art and such on DeviantArt or whatever, to being a young musician active in all the forums and whatnot. I used to enjoy being creative not just for the sake of making things, but showing my stuff to people, and seeing what they had done, and then collaborating with people and so on. I can't motivate myself to do any of those things I used to because I don't have any of those groups to be a part of now, and I don't know where I would start with getting back into it.

Fuck knows, really. All I know is I don't want to end up as some lonely mid 40s alcoholic, and that's the direction I'm probably heading in if I don't actually get a grip on things.
>> No. 32664 Anonymous
14th October 2023
Saturday 4:05 pm
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>>32663
It sounds more like you've grown into the man you weren't in your 20s and let's be honest that's a perfectly healthy state of affairs. But it comes with its own problems because people over 30 have to cope with loneliness and responsibilities.

Maybe the problem is more that you need to find the kind of man you are now and by extension the community around that. You're not a beer swilling lout and you're not a beer swilling artist - but that still leaves a lot you can be; a beer swilling linguist, or maybe a beer swilling fisherman or a beer swilling hiker. They all have communities attached to them and the chance to find a partner who will be more interested in the man you've become. Aside from fishing obviously.
>> No. 32665 Anonymous
14th October 2023
Saturday 5:45 pm
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>>32663

Was there a deeper meaning to playing your music and being creative? Failing that, can you pinpoint exactly why you enjoyed it? If it really is the sense of community, then >>32664 gives good advice. There are still definitely grown-up communities built around music, languages, visual arts, etc..

On the other hand, if you did have some goal with your art and what you're trying to express, I don't see why that couldn't take a different form as you get older. Clearly you have an innate drive to express yourself that might not come to the surface as hanging around gigs, but could come out in some other way you find fulfilling.
>> No. 32666 Anonymous
14th October 2023
Saturday 9:16 pm
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>>32663

Whoopsie-Daisy! You gave the game away

>Alcohol

Go 1 year sober and report back after that
>> No. 32667 Anonymous
15th October 2023
Sunday 12:16 am
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My face doesn't work. I don't smile or talk enough so my face doesn't work.
>> No. 32672 Anonymous
16th October 2023
Monday 1:13 pm
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Fallen in love with someone who's in a relationship. She feels the same about me, but isn't going to leave her partner.

I'm fully aware this is actually me dodging a bullet and she'd only cheat on me down the line if she left him for me. It still fucking hurts though.
>> No. 32673 Anonymous
16th October 2023
Monday 3:02 pm
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I'm meant to be visiting my family in a couple of weeks due to one of them having a birthday. I work full time normal office hours. Going Friday to Sunday - the Friday I am going after work. This means I won't arrive until 9PMish. I did look into getting the day off so I can get there earlier, but there was no leave available.

I told my dad this, and he's said I should ask for a half day off because it's a family event, and offer to work through my lunch. This has pissed me off, because it happens so often. He's attacked me in the past for not having a job, for only working part time etc. But every time I've been unable to do what he wants because of my job obligations, he thinks telling my employer "oh it's my brother's 17th birthday so I should get time off even though it's the business' peak period and all the allocated leave has gone".

How do I explain to him that I can't change my workplaces rules and procedures just because he wills it?
>> No. 32674 Anonymous
16th October 2023
Monday 3:14 pm
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>>32673
Have you tried asking? My workplace is fairly flexible as long as I do my hours.
>> No. 32675 Anonymous
16th October 2023
Monday 3:40 pm
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>>32674
I asked but it's literally not possible. My department only operates 9-5, Monday-Friday. Can't stay an extra hour a day to make up for time off, as there isn't work for those out-of-office hours.
>> No. 32676 Anonymous
18th October 2023
Wednesday 6:12 pm
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How to stop saying "sorry"? I feel like apologise for everything. My girlfriend knocked a glass bottle off the work top and the contents went everywhere, and my first response was to apologise. She later asked to borrow more money than I actually have because she was doing something she never told me about and assumed I would get paid sooner than I actually do. Again, I apologised. Even though I know I'm not in the wrong my first response to anything like that is apologise.
>> No. 32677 Anonymous
18th October 2023
Wednesday 6:53 pm
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>>32676

Sounds like that's just a habit more than anything, like how I say "know what I mean" at the end of nearly every fucking sentence and cannot stop.
>> No. 32678 Anonymous
18th October 2023
Wednesday 8:59 pm
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>>32676
I was recently told that I do this, and it occurred to me that I do it because it's something that people are always willing to hear (apart from the person who told me I apologise too much, obviously) and so it frees you from any worry that you might inadvertently say the wrong thing. I now apologise less (to my friend, anyway) but I say "thank you" a lot more, in that "thank you for waiting for me" way. Apparently this is equally annoying, but nobody else has complained so maybe I just need to stab that bitch.
>> No. 32679 Anonymous
18th October 2023
Wednesday 10:30 pm
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My mum is in voluntary admission to have her schizophrenia treated. Again.

She's been at this psychiatric hospital almost a week now and she says she doesn't like it, because the doctors are using lasers to project hallucinations into her mind. And she's afraid to leave her room because she'll get arrested by police. For what, she doesn't really say. Something about them having a grudge against her.

Nurses are describing her as "abrasive", "defiant" and "unsociable", both to them and to other patients. This morning at breakfast, they had to move her to a table fifteen metres away at the other end of the room because she was verbally insulting other patients. She mostly refuses to take her medication and is "inaccessible" during therapy sessions.

We've got a long way to go. She's never been this fucked up since her schizophrenia started manifesting itself a few years ago. It's not dementia, all the tests have come back negative. But the doctors are starting to recommend moving her into involuntary because she's just not cooperating. It's a step I am still trying to avoid, because last time she got sectioned, it was pretty traumatic for her.

I just fucking hope I'll never end up like that. I've considered getting tested for schizophrenia risk genes.
>> No. 32680 Anonymous
19th October 2023
Thursday 12:10 pm
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>>32679

Fuck me, mate. I'm sorry I don't have anything useful to add, here, but my heart goes out to you.
>> No. 32681 Anonymous
19th October 2023
Thursday 4:47 pm
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>>32679

The good news is that people with schizophrenia can improve incredibly quickly once they're stabilised on an effective medication. I've been on wards with people who were in a much worse state than your mum, but seemed pretty much normal three or four days later.

The bad news, as you probably already know, is that staying on that treatment is easier said than done. The side-effects of antipsychotics range from "unpleasant" to "unbearably awful", so it's understandable that a lot of people don't want to take them and there's often a long process of trial-and-error to find a tolerable and effective drug and dose. There's also the odd fact that, when they're well, people with schizophrenia often don't seem to remember or believe how bad things were when they were ill.

There are good reasons to be hopeful, but that hope is grounded in the difficult reality that there will probably be lots of false starts and relapses and breakdowns and emergency hospitalisations along the way. I think it's important to keep in mind that those things are a necessary part of the process of getting better. Everyone is different, everyone responds in unique ways to treatment and has unique needs and it takes time to figure that stuff out. This probably isn't the last time your mum will end up in hospital, but over the long term you can expect those hospital admissions to become shorter, less frequent and less traumatic.

>I just fucking hope I'll never end up like that.

There is a lot you can do to manage your risk. Schizophrenia rarely comes out of nowhere - there's almost always a period of acute stress that precedes a first episode of psychosis. If you can manage the stress in your life, keep on top of your mental health and get treated quickly if you find yourself slipping into anxiety or depression, your chances of experiencing psychosis are greatly reduced. Boring stuff that everyone knows about are particularly important if you're at risk of psychosis - getting some exercise, avoiding illegal drugs or excessive drinking, maintaining a healthy diet and sleep schedule.

If you do end up experiencing an episode of psychosis, you've still got a very good chance of avoiding that developing into schizophrenia if you get treated quickly.

If you can, it's really useful to talk about it with the people in your life and build a team around you. Tell your partner, your family and your friends the warning signs and what to do. Make sure that they have the confidence to speak up if they think you're really stressed or depressed, make sure they know who to call if you start acting strangely. Often people who really care fail to act because they don't know what to do or because they lack the confidence to intervene. You'll sleep better at night if you know that there's at least one person in your life who will pull the emergency brake if it looks like you might go off the rails.

Best of luck mate, we're all rooting for you and your mum.
>> No. 32682 Anonymous
19th October 2023
Thursday 7:41 pm
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>>32681

One of their psychiatrists asked me if I'd ever experienced delusions or other psychiatric symptoms or episodes. I said that I always had a vivid imagination as a child and was known for really getting into playground pretend play. And in adulthood, I've often been somebody who could be naïvely optimistic to the point of losing touch.

My mum's schizophrenia is unusual in that she had no real symptoms at all until about her mid-60s. It then happened slowly over the years that she would get more mistrusting and fearful of other people for no reason, and she would often lose herself in what at the time looked like wild conspiracy theories, but not really delusions or something that would have made you question her sanity as such. But she then gradually more and more slipped into true psychotic episodes. Most patients become ill with schizophrenia in young adulthood or early to mid-middle age, and only about 1 percent (or a smallish number thereabouts) go from being objectively mentally healthy to becoming schizophrenic past age 60.

Most of my friends know about my mum. I've been open about it from the start. And they have also urged me to make sure I look after my own mental health and wellbeing. And they said they'll be there for me if it ever turns out that I've inherited the illness.

But yeah. It's a fucking struggle. Trying to contain somebody who is in the middle of a bad delusional episode can be a pretty shocking experience. Because who are you to tell them that the sky is blue, and not green with red dots. Or that the government isn't out to get them.
>> No. 32683 Anonymous
23rd October 2023
Monday 12:45 am
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I think something terrible is happening to me and I won't survive it.
>> No. 32684 Anonymous
23rd October 2023
Monday 1:21 am
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>>32683
What's happening? Call 999 if it's going to kill you soon. They'll be able to help.
>> No. 32685 Anonymous
23rd October 2023
Monday 7:59 pm
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Want to cut my cock off so I don't have the obligation to knock up my ugly tedious girlfriend.
>> No. 32686 Anonymous
23rd October 2023
Monday 8:25 pm
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>>32685

Why are you with a girlfriend you describe as "ugly" and "tedious" to begin with, lad?
>> No. 32687 Anonymous
23rd October 2023
Monday 11:02 pm
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I'm fucked. Can't work because my mental health is so bad, can't get mental health help without waiting years. I feel like this is the beginning of the end for me. I just feel horrible all the time.
>> No. 32689 Anonymous
24th October 2023
Tuesday 5:06 pm
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I know she was bad for me but I miss her. When will it stop hurting lads.
>> No. 32690 Anonymous
24th October 2023
Tuesday 5:12 pm
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>>32689
Sooner rather than later. Exercise. Engage in your hobbies. Bask in the low autumnal sun. Go abroad. Look after yourself.

Do all the things that she didn't and you won't give a toss before long.
>> No. 32692 Anonymous
25th October 2023
Wednesday 1:45 pm
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Do you ever feel like in social situations the onus is mainly on you to start a conversation, otherwise you're sat there in silence? Maybe the other person has given up trying because I'm not doing enough to try and carry a conversation when they start it and I need to reflect on that, but I feel like I've been written off as quiet/boring at work.
>> No. 32693 Anonymous
25th October 2023
Wednesday 3:58 pm
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>>32692

I used to have that experience pretty much my whoie life. It's kind of like a "heroes journey" in getting through it.

View it like this - what you give out is what you get back. You have to initiate. You have to practice, and keep practicing being the one who always engages first.

Then, after *years* of practice and doing this, it's then literally *written in your field* that you're... let's just say, a more positive/uplifted guy. People can feel energy and choose or not to respond to it.

Instead of sensing that you've got a excessively-ruminating mind in your field, they'll start to see your quietness as mysterious as you can afford to be quiet, as you've practiced so much in the past and just can't be bothered on this particular occasion.

As within, so without.
>> No. 32694 Anonymous
25th October 2023
Wednesday 8:17 pm
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>>32692
Some people enjoy sitting in silence with each other. I am not one of those people, and sometimes I am criticised for conversing too much. It really depends on who you're around unless I just genuinely am really annoying, of course.
>> No. 32695 Anonymous
30th October 2023
Monday 6:05 pm
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Ex trying to stay friendly with me, but I don;t have the willpower to tell her to shove it up her arse because deep down I am too lonely to reject the conversation or companionship. Fucking cunt knows what she's doing. She's after something, she only ever uses people like she was using me all that time, and I don't see any logical reason she'd want to remain friends with me if the apparent antipathy between us was strong enough that the relationship couldn't be salvaged.

Either the fact I've picked my life up and started working out and socialising healthily with my old mates and working on my hobbies etc is going to make her want to worm her way back in and juice out some more of that narcissistic supply, or she's just keeping me around as a plan B in case the other poor cunt she's no doubt monkey-branched onto wises up to her shit faster than I did. Either way there's probably nowt good in it for me.

I think I need to properly fuck it all up and burn the bridge to make sure I don't have the temptation. I'll play along until she inevitably wants to meet for a drink or whatever, then I'll get out of my tits and unload what a pitiful reptilian whore I really see her for now. Ahhh but that just shows how much she fucked me up though doesn't it, can't give her the satisfaction.

I really don't get it, it was the shortest lived relationship I've ever had and when I look back on it she was a disrespectful, ungrateful cunt from almost the very start. Why can't I get her off my mind.
>> No. 32696 Anonymous
31st October 2023
Tuesday 11:19 pm
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Remember when I found the Youtube channel of that woman I was/am infatuated with? How y'all thought I was a creepy stalker and all that? Well we got together in the end - Nah joking, but I had a dream about her last night and feel a little troubled about it.

For context, this woman has an interest in cosplay which, coupled with an apparent lack of self-awareness, causes the people around her to feel awkward (visible in numerous of her videos). When her costumes work they're really good, but enough of the time they're loud, garish and completely out of place.
My dream was about that - I was escorting this woman around while she's dressed as a witch for halloween, with long furred fingernails attached to ferrets on strings. My mother was before us, trying not to look back in surprise and embarrassment. The woman and I were distinctly intimate in holding hands, and there seemed to be a hint of weird kinky sex.
Previous to this dream I had another where this woman was following me, trying to inch closer and closer into my personal space while pretending she wasn't trying to get close to me - this is probably a reflection of myself.

This kind of 'love' feeling - all the good parts of the dreams, being around someone, the intimatcy, the floating - is becoming painful to deal with during its aftermath. I'm confused, aware that this is a fantasy, aware that this lingering interest is costing any future I may have.

How do I stop thinking about this woman? That is, removing her from the pedastal I'd built for her? Hell, remove the pedastal itself. I don't want to simply go out and get laid, though I can see that being the obvious rememdy.
I had to turn off a video today because it brought up the topic of girlfriends in context of a seperate interst I have. It's just too much, everything is in context of finding a partner to share life. I thought I found one but I fucked up the first impressions and can't get over how 'perfect' she obviously isn't for me.
>> No. 32697 Anonymous
1st November 2023
Wednesday 11:02 pm
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Someone who started in my office a month after me is now two rows of the ladder above me. This is common for a few people now who have gone on to get promotions while I've mostly circled the drain unable to secure a career promotion although I get to the interview stage. A lot of people I've nurtured are now the same rank as me and puzzled on why I'm still where I am. I don't know what compelled me but I had the urge to check up on a woman who rejected me when I was younger - yep she's doing very well for herself, has a nice house and now on a second successful career, looks fit, partner etc.

I don't like this. There's little stuff going on, I saved up enough to finally learn to drive on one of those intensive driving courses at 33, I'm getting to maybe an okay level in a foreign language, I'm getting in shape and I thought I looked quite nice in the mirror today. A few months back I was told I might have cancer on my dick but it's fine. There's nothing big going on though, no life milestones or anything. I got dumped the other week as usual by a bird I got excited and not had any luck getting to know anyone else despite feeling pretty lonely at the moment.

Should I go visit a mate who lives on the other end of the country just to get away?

>>32695
>Why can't I get her off my mind.

Because she's pissed you off and you can't get closure. Block her number etc. and stop thinking about her.

>>32696
No getting up and under someone else sounds like exactly what you need. It's not really about the sex it's having someone to keep you occupied.
>> No. 32698 Anonymous
2nd November 2023
Thursday 9:45 pm
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>>32697
>Should I go visit a mate who lives on the other end of the country just to get away?

I did that at the end of 2020 (where for half of the year because of lockdown I didn't move beyond a few miles radius of my parents' house, lost my job, and cancelled a lot of plans which I hoped would move me on in life), and it was definitely the best thing I did for all of that year and I still have fond memories of it, so go for it I say.
>> No. 32699 Anonymous
3rd November 2023
Friday 11:04 am
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>>32697

You probably just don't have the "go getter" attitude, or whatever it is, that willingness to step on people and sacrifice things in order to move forward. Some people just don't. I am definitely one of those people. That said I don't see it as a weakness, and you shouldn't either. And you should never compare yourself to others. I don't want to turn this into a self indulgent ramble but let me relate a bit how I see it.

I have done alright for myself without having to brown-nose or backstab anyone. I might not be earning as much as most of my peers, frankly I'm wallowing near the bottom of the pay scale with very little real prospect nor ambition to move further up, but despite that, through making the right decisions and frankly, sheer grit, I've still come to own my own place, drive a reasonably nice car, and I've got all the creature comforts people typically measure their success by. There's people earning twice what I do who still have scarcely more to their name than a laptop and the clothes on their back. All a matter of priorities. I see that as a moral victory if anything- Between me and most people, I can almost always say that I earned what I have much more fairly and squarely.

I don't typically dwell on exes but when I do I know I can shrug and confidently say that the joke's on them. They might have left me because they wanted a more "exciting" man, someone more "successful" to take them on fancy holidays, more "assertive" or whatever the fuck daft woman brain reason it was. But to my knowledge most of them are still chasing that dream long after leaving me. I could have offered them something much more important than the childish things they wanted instead. They'd have had a safe, warm, secure roof over their head, they'd have had a man who truly knows what it means to be a man and make his own way in life, to look after and care for those who matter to him. That matters more than any amount of money or good looks; and sure, I may be allowing myself a little bit of a self-indulgent fantasy here- But I suspect, deep down, they know it too.

It's all a matter of perspective. Be proud of what you are doing in life and what you have achieved. You've got plenty going for you that others don't. You have nothing to prove, live life for yourself.
>> No. 32700 Anonymous
3rd November 2023
Friday 4:11 pm
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Should I let the self-diagnosed pancreatic cancer kill me or jump off a local landmark? Either way, I'm done with showering.
>> No. 32701 Anonymous
3rd November 2023
Friday 4:22 pm
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>>32700

I think you should probably see a doctor.
>> No. 32703 Anonymous
5th November 2023
Sunday 12:42 pm
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With absolute clarity and years of consideration, I've determined my only option is suicide. I hate my girlfriend I hate my family I hate my job I have no hobbies I have no reason to go on. Thinking of throwing myself off the atrium balcony near my desk, I'm sure a 9 storey drop would be guaranteed to finish me off. I don't belong in this world, maybe the after life will be kinder to me.
>> No. 32704 Anonymous
5th November 2023
Sunday 1:23 pm
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>>32703
>I hate my girlfriend I hate my family I hate my job I have no hobbies I have no reason to go on.
Every single one of those problems can be fixed. Some more easily than others, admittedly, but your life could be better tomorrow than it is today. You clearly have something going on which prevents you from noticing this, as many people do, but your case sounds worse.

You can call the Samaritans on 116 123, or if you think you want to kill yourself soon, call 999 and tell them instead.
>> No. 32705 Anonymous
5th November 2023
Sunday 4:30 pm
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>>32703

It's never your only option mate.

It might not seem like it but you always have options. What it is, on the other hand, is a warning from your subconscious that you have to do something. I would ditch the woman, get some time and space to yourself, and see how you feel about everything else after that. I have a feeling that'll lift some of the fog and let you think more clearly.

When I look at it, most of the times these dark thoughts have cropped up in my mind, it's been because I was deeply unhappy with some emotionally draining bloodsucker of a woman. No bitch is worth your life over. They've taken enough from you, don't give them that too.
>> No. 32706 Anonymous
7th November 2023
Tuesday 5:44 pm
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I've been summoned to a "capability assessment" for my job due to excess absence. Essentially in the first two months of employment, early on I had a couple of weeks off due to my disability which wasn't being properly supported by the NHS. Since I have got that NHS support, I have only missed one day due to a virus. Unfortunately this day was the straw that broke the camel's back. So I have to present my case to a manager to prove I am not too disabled to work. I've lost two other jobs to this before. I don't think I'm too disabled to work, but it's shit because if I am, I can't get enough support from the state to sustain my existence. I fucking need to work to live.
>> No. 32707 Anonymous
15th November 2023
Wednesday 8:50 pm
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I've had some pretty decent news at work today, but I don't feel like I can share it with my girlfriend because she's come home in a shit mood and her needs always have to come before my own.
>> No. 32708 Anonymous
17th November 2023
Friday 12:08 pm
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Everywhere is blasting out Christmas music, including my usual sanctuary of the library (what the fuck?)

After a period of relative stability, it's all come crashing down again. Now I'm at risk of losing my home, I'm stuck in a town where there's no demand at all for the career I've spent a decade building, and I'm getting turned down by even the most menial of jobs. The last thing I want is to be ear-raped when I'm trying to relax and reminded that everyone else has money and supportive families. Just fuck off.
>> No. 32709 Anonymous
17th November 2023
Friday 5:08 pm
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On and off over the last few months I have been grappling with my relationships with women and how it's related with my mental ups and downs. I'm determined to work out and resolve the various shades of bitterness and resentment I hold over the way women have treated me in the past, and indeed the way that society in general seems to permit women to treat men, but I don't know if I am making progress or backsliding. You can probably join up some of the posts.

The thing is how so much of it as a man is, essentially, inseparable and interwoven with your own self-esteem. No matter how much fisherperson theory you throw at the problem there's a fundamental truth that always lies in the middle of it about your "value" and "status" to women. When I was younger, and indeed still today, I thought of myself as a bit of a loser, I was an introvert with not a lot of friends, nerdy hobbies, bla bla bla. So it always perplexed me how I managed to do alright with women.

But frankly, the truth just doesn't feel good- The truth is I am able to attract women because I have my shit together. I have my own home, I drive, and I have a steady job; just by those three things alone I'm clearing a bar that lots of guys fail. I'm not actually a loser at all. I should feel good about myself, right?

Well, I don't, because I want someone who cares about who I am, not what I am. Sure, I HAVE had before, but it always comes with its own caveats; whereas whenever I think I have found a more mature and stable one, it turns out I'm basically just a utility to her. It's a catch 22.

The reason I have reached this point is because I have been through it enough times now, I've always suppressed that cynical voice in the back of my head, for fear of being a horrible sexist, but really I should have just listened to it. These women never have any trouble jumping into a new relationship within weeks, while I pick up the pieces of another heartbreak, because finding a guy they have a real connection to just isn't even a factor. They just have to tick the boxes. They only have to find another poor bastard who meets the minimum specs and bob's your uncle, they have a reliable lift to the shops and someone to plug the gaps in their social life for another year or two, before the cycle repeats.

Anyway, while I am confident this doesn't have to be the defining principle in my dealings and encounters with the opposite sex, it feels like I have truly crossed a line in terms of how jaded I am now. I have learned lessons, hopefully I can resolve and reconcile all of this into a healthier mindset going forward. I am certainly in no rush and I am going to be working on enjoying life for first and foremost, and not even starting to look for companionship until I am thoroughly satisfied in that pursuit. But it's also demoralising, because it means I am searching for an ever smaller needle in an increasingly large haystack.
>> No. 32710 Anonymous
18th November 2023
Saturday 10:18 am
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>>32659 here again with a brief update.

She never bothered arranging to get the house valued like she said she would during half-term and instead she wants to have one last go at making things work and after that we can decide whether to stay together or not. I agreed with a few conditions, e.g. date nights, she doesn't spend almost every evening glued to her phone, she actually starts making an effort in the bedroom. Apart from having sex more often there's been no changes so far. She let slip this morning right before she had to go to work that she doesn't see us together long-term and hinted she only wants to stick around until she's in a better financial position, expecting me to go along with it because "we can have lots of great sex!" in the meantime.
>> No. 32711 Anonymous
18th November 2023
Saturday 2:13 pm
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>>32710
Have you thought about opening your relationship? 18 years is nothing to scoff at. You're both clearly comfortable living together, it's be a shame to lose that.
>> No. 32712 Anonymous
18th November 2023
Saturday 4:22 pm
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>>32710
>expecting me to go along with it because "we can have lots of great sex!" in the meantime

I hate when lasses take this attitude with us. Stop having sex with her until she gets her ideas together - you deserve better than this.

>>32711
I'm vetoing this idea as she'll go off the rails to spite him.
>> No. 32713 Anonymous
18th November 2023
Saturday 4:34 pm
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>>32710

Sounds like you should take in a bit of what the post directly above you was ruminating about. She's just straight up using you here, and she doesn't even seem remotely self aware that that's not something you are supposed to be proud of.

Fisherpeople can say what they want, but it's true we let women get away with more than men, and the main consequence is that lots of women nowadays are just plain entitled. They can correctly identify selfish behaviour, and even understand why it's bad when somebody does it to them, but they seem to have a logical shot circuit over the fact it's still a bad thing when they do it too.
>> No. 32714 Anonymous
18th November 2023
Saturday 5:07 pm
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>>32711
She wouldn't open up the relationship. She's insecure about her body and she's told me if I slept with someone else she wouldn't sleep with me again; I'm not entirely sure how, but I've had two nights out in the past couple of months and had three people come on to me. That's not something which usually happens to me.

>>32712
It's not even like the sex is mind-blowing, but she has been making more of an effort recently.

>>32713
I have felt in the past like she doesn't truly respect me, I think because she's so used to me being there I am taken for granted.

I've been home about half an hour and she's trying to be very clingy with me, but I've been brushing her off.
>> No. 32715 Anonymous
18th November 2023
Saturday 5:31 pm
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>>32714

Over the years I've learned that there's only one thing for people who take you for granted. You can't just threaten them with "start treating me with more respect or I'll leave", you have to follow through on the threat. It's at that point you find out whether they really do care, or if they were just hanging on to see how long the free ride would last.

Either way you're better off, but the important thing is that in a cold, rational, game theory kind of way, it's the only winning move. If you just make an empty threat, it shows them they can get away with basically anything, and from that point no boundary you attempt to draw will ever be respected.

Honestly though from everything you've said you are just better off without her. It's a shame to close such a long term relationship like that, but I know from enough experience by now, staying with somebody who does not respect you and is only using you to fill a gap will have an extremely detrimental effect on your mental health in the long term.

I remember a stark moment of realisation in one of my exes eyes a couple of weeks after we'd broken up, but were still living together because of tenancy etc. She wanted some of my cereal, so she put on that sweet, childish sort of voice she used to use to twist my arm when we were together. And I just said "No, you do not have cereal privileges any more. Get your own." She couldn't process it.

You need to tell her to get her own cereal, lad.
>> No. 32716 Anonymous
18th November 2023
Saturday 5:35 pm
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I've been drinking and looking through Facebook. Found pictures of a girl who totally fucked up my head but I am probably still in love with, even though she's had be blocked for 6 years. I know dwelling in the past in unhelpful, but I think about her a lot. Even though she manipulated me and treated me like shit, I just want her back in my life.
>> No. 32717 Anonymous
18th November 2023
Saturday 5:52 pm
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>>32716
It's 5 in the evening, you're drinking alone and browsing old flames on facebook. Go and have a lay down or make some nachos with cheese and watch old episodes of the Simpsons.

I'm not saying that because of the booze but because you're in a negative feedback-loop activity that serves no purpose. If you were cutting your cock off it would hurt and you'd stop but here you are living the life of a depressed woman in her 40s. If you're too drunk then get a kebab, don't try and make chips as we all know how it'll end.
>> No. 32718 Anonymous
18th November 2023
Saturday 6:45 pm
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Dad died this morning. Knew it was imminent, but it's still fucked me up a bit. He was a good dad and I'm going to miss him.
Usual stuff about him no longer being in pain, and mum being released from caring duties, which are both true, and good. Still going to miss him, even though he'd been getting more and more absent these last few months.
>> No. 32719 Anonymous
19th November 2023
Sunday 2:27 pm
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>>32718
I'm sorry to hear that. I don't think there's much anyone can do; you will probably just have to feel awful for a while. But we're here for you if you need us.
>> No. 32720 Anonymous
21st November 2023
Tuesday 3:30 am
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Apparently I can't sleep anymore. It's been 4 days. At most I've had 3-4 hours each night, but all broken up, waking up within 40-60 minutes with intense anxiety. My dreams are usually fucked so I'm wondering if I've had some bad ones my brain has just erased and now subconciously I'm scared of sleeping. Usually I'd use weed but I'm unable to right now. Booze at least is helping me relax but it's terrible for sleep quality and anxiety. It seems to be a perfect storm, almost calculated. I'm not even 100% sure this isn't a dream right now. Interesting stuff.
>> No. 32721 Anonymous
21st November 2023
Tuesday 4:02 am
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>> No. 32722 Anonymous
22nd November 2023
Wednesday 11:12 pm
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Mum is getting divorced for the third time. I'm trying to be supportive, but it's draining to keep having the same conversations about the same mistakes. I'm just fucking bored of it.
>> No. 32723 Anonymous
23rd November 2023
Thursday 4:40 pm
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>>32722
My sympathies. I too have experienced the horror of finding out that your parents are just as bad at picking partners as everyone else you know.
>> No. 32724 Anonymous
25th November 2023
Saturday 10:52 am
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I've been at orange for about 15 years, now.

More seriously, I've worked for a long time on very fulfilling but very challenging work projects. I'm happier than I've ever been, really, but they're so absorbing and demand so much effort that I find it very hard to switch off.

It usually takes me a couple of days of doing very little to get out of the work mindset. When I try to force it any more quickly, relaxation time feels like work (e.g. "I need to make the most of this because I don't get much time off anymore", or, "this should be a fun activity, don't let anything ruin it").

I feel vaguely guilty about it as my partner and I do nice things together like the occasional big trip, but daily life is mostly hard work. I'm often too exhausted to want to spend time with friends, whether it's hosting or visiting. I don't join her for the physical activities she likes, because deep down I treasure working out by myself as time to be alone and not think about nothing. The little treats that we intersperse throughout the week are mostly boring activities I can handle, e.g. having a film night. I'm worried she's actually bored out of her mind, that she really wants to go to restaurants, plays, parties, etc., though she assures me that's not the case and just enjoys spending time with me.

I feel out of balance somehow and I'm worried it's affecting her, too. Yet this "out of balance"-ness has sort of become a characteristic of mine, I am ambitious. I suppose either I need to rebalance things or I just need to make peace with the tradeoffs involved.
>> No. 32725 Anonymous
25th November 2023
Saturday 3:40 pm
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I can't get my life straight. Things went tits-up about 6 months ago when I walked away from a £45k dream job on some frivolous pursuit. My then-partner thought it was a good idea.

Now I'm single, 3 months behind on my mortgage, have no furniture, no income, and nobody wants to hire me.

This isn't the first time I've done something drastic and stupid and - ultimately - self-destructive like this. Are some people just doomed to never learn from past mistakes?
>> No. 32726 Anonymous
25th November 2023
Saturday 4:18 pm
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I've been giving a formal written warning by work. In my 12 weeks of employment, I had 15 days off sick. Which is admittedly a lot. Had to have an hour long interview about it, tbh in most places I would have been shitcanned, so they are actually quite understanding. At least more understanding than many jobs I've been in. But now I have to go a year without any sickness beyond "reasonable sickness". But now I'm terrified of getting sick and getting sacked. I don't know what "reasonable sickness" entails.

The reason I was sick so much was disability combined with suffering from lithium toxicity (which is now under control). I struggle with the 9-5 M-F lifestyle, but can't afford to go part time. The job itself can be stressful, but manageable. Just the difficulty of waking up in the morning, commuting into town, spending 8 hours in the office. I know that's a normal people thing but the wagie grind is depressing.

Sometimes I think that I've got 45 more years of this and if it's worth holding on to life. I don't see my lot improving any time soon. Sorry this is a bit of a ramble I'm just very down on life at the moment. Less down since doubling my fluoxetine and using diazepam liberally.
>> No. 32727 Anonymous
25th November 2023
Saturday 7:59 pm
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>>32724

You're one of those people who can't switch off but never listens when people tell them to just have a week off.

Just have a fucking week off.

>>32725

>Are some people just doomed to never learn from past mistakes?

Very much yes, god knows I've known a few. But the fact you are self aware enough to ask that question means you're not one of them. You just took a risk that didn't pay off, and you are joining the dots with previous fuck ups, but you can't see the future.

For all you know if you didn't do it, you'd be kicking yourself right now for not taking the shot.

>>32726

I don't want to panic or worry you ladm9, but I'm afraid it pretty much means they're laying the legal groundwork to sack you. They know you have a legitimate case, so they can't just kick you out the door like an 18 year old who threw one too many hungover Monday sickies or whatever; but they absolutely would rather have rid of you.

They'll make it sound like they are trying to help and support you here but they absolutely are not, make no mistake. It's a veiled threat. Be careful going forward m8.
>> No. 32728 Anonymous
25th November 2023
Saturday 8:13 pm
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>>32727
I am being realistic. I know if I keep my head down and do my job, they'll have little cause to sack me. When the daily stats are posted, I get decent results. A safe pair of hands, I got sacked from the civil service for being too disabled, and two years later when I got offered a separate job in a different arm of the civil service, I had the offer the rescinded because I'm too mental. When even the cushy leftist civil service reject you for being too autistic/schizo, you know you're a fuck up.
>> No. 32729 Anonymous
28th November 2023
Tuesday 1:21 pm
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>>32718
>Dad died this morning. Knew it was imminent, but it's still fucked me up a bit. He was a good dad and I'm going to miss him.
Seems crass to quote your post like this but how're you holding up, my man?
>> No. 32730 Anonymous
30th November 2023
Thursday 11:22 am
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>>32729
I'm good, thanks. Seem to be forgetful sometimes, so it looks like my brain is hiding stuff from me. Funeral's all organised and booked, inquest is done, mum's as good as you could hope for really. The appalling shock bit seems to be over, with just the occasional 'dad's gone' hitting me.
Wouldn't recommend it to anyone, but I think this is about as good as it could be.
>> No. 32731 Anonymous
30th November 2023
Thursday 11:02 pm
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>>32730
Keep well ladm9.
>> No. 32732 Anonymous
4th December 2023
Monday 8:49 am
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One of you wrote, I think in the online dating thread, maybe in here, all the way back in October that you'd "missed the boat". But, honestly, I've not just missed the boat, but I've slept through my alarm and missed the bus service that was meant to take me to the docks. Just completely pissed away every opportunity I've had, it's pathetic, really.
>> No. 32733 Anonymous
4th December 2023
Monday 3:51 pm
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>>32732

There's an anecdote that always sticks in my head from Cronos, the frontman of renowned and heavily influential but kind of a bit shit British heavy metal, first wave black metal, and proto-thrash metal band Venom. The story goes that he was meant to go out of a fishing boat one day. First day on the job as a young lad, first proper job he had been given and what he thought he was going to spend his life doing. He slept in, and quite literally missed the boat. He kicked himself about it for days, until he found out the boat sank, and was lost with all hands. If he'd been on that boat, he'd be dead.

There's always time. It might sound sentimental but it's really true when you think about it, because life is really just random fucking chance. Just by the law of averages, something good has to happen to you eventually, be it a woman, job offer, random long lost relative dies and leaves you a stately home, whatever. At least, this is what I tell myself. I broke up with the last bitch nearly 5-6 months ago and I still don't feel like I'm healing. I don't know if it was something about her or if she was just the straw that broke the camel's back but I really don't know if I will ever trust a woman again. I must be due a good one some day soon.
>> No. 32734 Anonymous
4th December 2023
Monday 9:08 pm
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>>32732
How old are you? When you're 40, it won't matter if your life got good when you were 19 or when you were 38; you'll still be just as happy. If you're over 40, just add 10, or 20, years to all those numbers and accept my apologies for assuming you were younger. When people tell themselves it's too late and it's time to give up, that's a cope, a delusion they're telling themselves to justify not trying. It sounds like you have had many opportunities in the past, that you admittedly pissed away. What makes you think you won't get more opportunities?
>> No. 32735 Anonymous
4th December 2023
Monday 9:49 pm
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>>32734

>When you're 40, it won't matter if your life got good when you were 19 or when you were 38; you'll still be just as happy.

Very true. My twenties and early thirties were a total train wreck, which only made me more grateful when I finally started to build a life. I don't mean that in some kind of airy-fairy philosophical sort of way, but as a very direct fact of life. When you've carried around all your wordly belongings in a backpack for years, a shitty little bedsit feels like a palace. When you've never had a real job, minimum wage feels like a fortune. I do sometimes get a bit wistful or self-pitying about how things might have turned out differently, but then I remember all the times that I really should have died and I realise that all of this is just a bonus.
>> No. 32737 Anonymous
5th December 2023
Tuesday 2:51 pm
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I feel like no matter how hard I try, I always end up failing. I fucked up uni, I fuck up every job I'm in, I'm absolutely not fit for this world. I know God is punishing me for not living a kind and pious life, and he is mocking me. I'm trying to work out a form of suicide that will have minimal impact on others. Get the train to Skeggy, mix a few packs of diazepam with some booze, and disappear at sea. I don't know. Maybe if I hanged myself in my bedroom people might think it was a cheeky bit of autoerotic asphyxiation instead of suicide. Some people were not supposed to live. It's just fate.
>> No. 32738 Anonymous
5th December 2023
Tuesday 3:29 pm
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>>32737
Let’s fuck up together. What do you want out of life? Would you like a job, friends, a hobby, a relationship? Would you like to be loved, or respected, or desired? Don’t give up on everything; think how well you will do at something if you give up on everything except that. Focus on something and wait for success.
>> No. 32739 Anonymous
5th December 2023
Tuesday 7:46 pm
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>>32738
Honestly, I have a single interest, and fucked up both possible routes I found into making that interest a career. Now I'm 31, in a job I hate, I've got a girlfriend but I think I'm probably gay, I've not seen my friends in nearly a year. My disability is so bad I've had job offers rescinded when the prospective employer got the occupational health reports back. I'm doomed to die a loser. Why prolong the inevitable?
>> No. 32740 Anonymous
5th December 2023
Tuesday 7:46 pm
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>>32738
Honestly, I have a single interest, and fucked up both possible routes I found into making that interest a career. Now I'm 31, in a job I hate, I've got a girlfriend but I think I'm probably gay, I've not seen my friends in nearly a year. My disability is so bad I've had job offers rescinded when the prospective employer got the occupational health reports back. I'm doomed to die a loser. Why prolong the inevitable?
>> No. 32741 Anonymous
5th December 2023
Tuesday 8:48 pm
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>>32739
So the obvious place to start is: what's the interest? If you can't make it into a career, perhaps you can make it into a hobby. You could make YouTube videos about it, and people will watch anything on YouTube if it's good and well-made. Don't quit your job until your videos are good, because the first couple will inevitably be a bit amateurish, but that's how you improve. You might not think you can get rich doing your hobby because you aren't good enough at it, but you'll get better. Everyone who's good at something was rubbish to begin with. Be rubbish at it tonight, so you can be good tomorrow.
>> No. 32742 Anonymous
10th December 2023
Sunday 3:46 am
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>>32734
>>32735
No offence, but if this was you pair's idea of a pep talk it was fucking shite.

>>32733
Yep, I'm fucked.
>> No. 32743 Anonymous
10th December 2023
Sunday 11:20 am
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>>32742

Suit yourself then. Go on and carry on living your shitty miserable life.
>> No. 32744 Anonymous
10th December 2023
Sunday 11:30 am
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>>32743
That was quite literally the advice given, you fat fucking halfwit.
>> No. 32745 Anonymous
10th December 2023
Sunday 3:39 pm
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>>32744

I don't know what you want from us lad. If there was a number for the "Magically Fix All Your Fuck Ups and Turn Your Life Around For You" hotline I'd fucking love to know it too. But I don't think there is one. So you're stuck doing it the hard way just like the rest of us.

It's never easy, but you an lessen the feeling of hardship by having a bit of perspective. Perspective is all I offered you, because presumably you are a grown man, and part of the reality of being a grown man is that frankly, no matter how badly you need the help, nobody is going to do things for you.

It's frustrating, but don't lash out at the people who are trying to sympathise.
>> No. 32746 Anonymous
10th December 2023
Sunday 5:16 pm
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>>32744
The advice is to not give up. You said you have one interest, and clearly you have no way of turning your life around yourself or you'd be doing it right now. But maybe we can help. And we're trying, too. You aren't offering to do shit for me. This whole site is full of people asking dumb questions where you don't think anyone would ever have an answer ("How do I start my own charity from scratch?") and people keep rocking up with actual proper answers. You have one interest in life, and maybe you won't become a millionaire off our advice, but you will almost certainly be a whole lot happier than you are now. And that's clearly what you're afraid of: you don't actually want to be happy. You might think you do, but you just clammed up for a week when I asked you what your only interest in life actually is. And when you came back, it was only to tell us to stop trying to help. None of us can help you unless you work with us and let us help you. And all we can ever be is words on a screen, so you will, at some point, need to do some of the legwork yourself.
>> No. 32747 Anonymous
11th December 2023
Monday 9:31 am
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>>32746
>"How do I start my own charity from scratch?"

Hang on, I'm otherlad and that's not what I wrote. I admit, I often ask questions on .gs because posters here seem to have a lot esoteric knowledge, but I at least try to ask intelligently and get a conversation going. I'm also grateful when I get a helpful answer, and try to chip in when I think I have something that might be valuable to others.

It hasn't worked every time, and there is a strange subsection of all internet forums that seem to get off on telling people to figure things out themselves, but the chats about obscure topics are what keeps me coming back to you shed enthusiasts.

That said, I agree >>32742 might benefit if he makes it clear whether he wants advice or not. Sometimes you just need to type angry things online, sometimes you actually need advice. Maybe if he gave more detail others could be more helpful.
>> No. 32748 Anonymous
13th December 2023
Wednesday 2:35 am
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I'm going to say it: I fucking hate being single at Christmas. I can't sleep because I'm thinking of apologising to a woman I left nearly a year ago because I'm lonely and nothing has worked out with other women since.

That's obviously a bad idea but it's just my head at work after I got reminded of those cheesy movies that come out about Christmas romances with basic plots for middle aged women. I'm probably going to spend Christmas moping about and feeling sorry for myself this year. I'd visit my parents but they've actually made plans and nothings going on in the dating world. I don't know maybe just typing this out will let me get to sleep and maybe I'll spend Christmas working on myself and be patient with the hope that this might be the last Christmas I spend on my own.
>> No. 32749 Anonymous
13th December 2023
Wednesday 8:47 am
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>>32748

The grass is always greener, mate.

Last year I was on the phone to my parents on Christmas day and when they asked me what I was doing, I told them I was going for a long run around the lake, cooking a steak lunch, and then putting on a few films. My mother didn't get it, but my dad was openly jealous.

For me, having good relationships year-round is more important than the forced-togetherness of big events. I have friends I might not talk to in years, but I know if I gave them a call we'd at least find time to talk (though maybe not on Christmas, due to forced-togetherness obligations).

This year I'm meant to be travelling and staying with my girlfriend and her mum, which I'm honestly dreading. The last time I went culminated in a big argument, and I can only imagine the added expectations of Christmas will make things worse.

I suppose what I'm saying is, try not to buy too much into the pressures around these times, which are real but also very stupid. Also, treat yourself to nice activities on the day, even if it's something as simple as getting your favourite beer or watching Gremlins for the fifteenth time.
>> No. 32750 Anonymous
13th December 2023
Wednesday 9:44 am
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Probably deserving of its own thread but here it is. The Mrs (of around five months) is approaching the end of her chances to have kids. She's looking into treatments to try anyway. She's going to do this with or without me. I'm not keen enough on the idea to be certain I want to donate my own genetic material and I'm even less sure I want to be involved with someone else's for the next two decades. Especially if I change my mind in the future and then will be effectively hitched to someone who can't help. I suppose if I end things with her I'm going to be (semi-justifiably) accused of wasting her time but I can't think of a more sensible alternative in this situation. I'm not economically or emotionally ready for that and if I ever am, staying means I can never do it if I do reach that point.
>> No. 32751 Anonymous
13th December 2023
Wednesday 10:53 am
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>>32749

Very much agree.

I once had to travel down south to some shite commuter new-town place to spend Christmas with my then-girlfriend's family, and while there were no big arguments, I got on okay with them, and it was actually a much more impressive christmas than I'm used to at home because her dad's side of the family was apparently loaded, it was certainly very awkward and I would really rather have spent it at home watching streamers play christmas themed videogames while I drink loads of wine (it's the only time of year I drink wine).

This year me and my lone single mate are embracing the fact we are both single on Christmas for the first time in ages, and having a good old fashioned "sesh", the kind where you get unashamedly wankered and don't worryu about "oh I need to be up early to do X Y or Z" and cut things short. The kind of thing we haven't done since we were both about 23. I'm looking forward to that more than any Christmas spent with a partner over the last 7-8 years.
>> No. 32752 Anonymous
13th December 2023
Wednesday 1:13 pm
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>>32749

Thirded. So many blokes dream of having one Christmas when they can just sit around in their pants eating crisps and watching war films.

>>32750

By the sounds of it, you already know what the right answer is, you just aren't quite ready to be up-front about it.
>> No. 32753 Anonymous
13th December 2023
Wednesday 1:17 pm
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>>32752

She's away for a while and deserves better than a text or email.
>> No. 32754 Anonymous
13th December 2023
Wednesday 9:22 pm
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>>32753

Idk lad, after wasting 5 months of her time I think sooner rather than later. Besides, she doesn't care about you that much.
>> No. 32755 Anonymous
13th December 2023
Wednesday 10:28 pm
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>>32754

>Besides, she doesn't care about you that much

Harsh but probably true. For every time I've tried to do it "nicely" and wait for a good moment and have a proper face to face conversation to dump a girl, when I come to actually think about it, it's not like any girl who's ever dumped me has been so considerate. They just do it when it's most convenient for them.

End of the day I suppose it's not how you do it that matters but just ripping the plaster off really.
>> No. 32767 Anonymous
20th December 2023
Wednesday 6:48 pm
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Something about the Brianna Ghey thing is really playing on my mind. I don't know why. I'm not trans. I have no trans friends. The texts between the two killers where they're joking and planning the murder, it's really fucked up. I struggle to understand "evil". Why do people do evil things? Can they be redeemed? I know God forgives all, but do some people even deserve forgiveness? Like the parents of that disabled girl who literally rotted to death from neglect. Or the bloke who burned his house down to kill his family. Surely they need to pay for their morally wrong actions.
>> No. 32768 Anonymous
20th December 2023
Wednesday 8:34 pm
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>>32767

The boring scientific answer is that about 1% of people are incapable of empathy. Their brains react to people and objects in essentially the same way; the mirror neurons that allow the rest of us to share in the joys and sorrows of others just don't do anything. They don't seek praise and don't particularly fear punishment. If these people kill or grievously injure someone else, they usually describe the experience in very flat and neutral terms, showing little emotion other than a kind of morbid curiosity. Their emotional lives are incredibly impoverished and they're motivated primarily by thrill-seeking; the kinds of incentives that most of us respond to are meaningless to these people, leaving them in a constant state of restless boredom.

In the best-case scenario, these people can go on to be war heroes, pioneering surgeons or titans of industry. Fearlessness and cold detachment can often be extremely useful traits when directed towards socially useful goals. In the worst-case scenario, these people are raised in environments with few boundaries, little support and no meaningful opportunities; in that scenario, it is almost an inevitability that they will spend most of their life in prison.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antisocial_personality_disorder
>> No. 32769 Anonymous
20th December 2023
Wednesday 9:06 pm
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>>32768

Your figure reminded me of a study in Sweden showing that 1% of the population represented over 63% of convictions for violent crime from 1973 to 2004: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3969807/

Not saying all of them specifically had the disorder you describe, but I would imagine there's a significant overlap.
>> No. 32770 Anonymous
20th December 2023
Wednesday 9:38 pm
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>>32769

Nearly half of the male prison population have antisocial personality disorder.

https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(02)07740-1/fulltext
>> No. 32771 Anonymous
21st December 2023
Thursday 6:41 pm
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For a while I've been complaining about lacking a sense of community online, with suggestions to join gaming groups being the most obvious

But I realise now that I'm already on a few Discord gaming servers yet I'm not really a part of them - I rarely type, I recognise only the fewest names with only parasocial relationships between us. I guess becoming one of these streamers or online personalities would give me that sense of belonging that I want, but I simply don't care enough about the medium we're gathered around. It's like I get off on dispising my fellow game-players - it's so easy to ridicule how into it some of them are, I guess doing so makes it easier to look at myself knowing that I'm investing as much time as they are.

That's not what this post was meant to be about - I meant to say how it turns out the communities I'm looking for have been at my doorstep all this time, I'm just not interested in engaging them. That or I don't know how to or leave the smaller groups before I can actually integrate.

I want to be a part of something, to be recognised and appreciated, but i'm obviously 'better' than everyone else. I fucking hate this.
>> No. 32772 Anonymous
21st December 2023
Thursday 7:26 pm
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>>32771

I think sometimes it's a case of bonding narrowly over a specific interest, and then you'll occasionally run into people you share more in common with or who impress you in some way, e.g. you mind initially meet someone and enjoy playing a particular game with them, but then you'll realise you have similar senses of humour.

Other times you can be the change you want to see. Any small community will be shaped quite a lot by you. If you want to have a particular kind of conversation, you can initiate it and set the precedence.
>> No. 32773 Anonymous
21st December 2023
Thursday 7:57 pm
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>>32768

Andy McNab aka Steven Mitchell was diagnosed as being a psychopath. As you mentioned having this trait can be useful if you're in an environment such as being an SAS soldier and the demands of being a special forces operative. Probably not so good if you're a shelf stacker at Tescos.
>> No. 32774 Anonymous
22nd December 2023
Friday 10:41 pm
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I feel very numb. I'm thinking of breaking up with my girlfriend because I don't really feel anything towards her. She exists I suppose. If she lives or dies, I don't care. The only issue is we live together and she pays half the bills, so she is necessary for my continued existence. I'm spending New Years with my family, who I also don't really care about. If I never saw any of them again I don't think I'd be bothered. I don't have any friends and I don't give a shit about my job other than it gives me money to buy beer and video games. Is it even worth me being alive if the only joy I have is getting pissed and playing on my Playstation? I find people tedious. All my social interactions I say what I imagine they expect/want me to say, I imagine it's like Persona and if I make the right choice in conversation I gain social points. Not sure what I gain from these social points though.
>> No. 32775 Anonymous
23rd December 2023
Saturday 12:24 am
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>>32774
That numb feeling is a classic sign of depression. Do you have any of the other symptoms on this list?

https://www.nhs.uk/mental-health/conditions/depression-in-adults/symptoms/
>> No. 32776 Anonymous
23rd December 2023
Saturday 11:07 am
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>>32774

It's one thing to feel numb and bored with the people in your life, I can certainly relate to that; however it's also very much true that if you abandon those people and end up without them, you will most certainly miss them. You feel depressed and isolated and lonely as it is but you quickly realise how much worse it is to be genuinely lonely and isolated if you end up in that position.

If you let depression take hold and control your actions you will quickly find one thing snowballing into another and before you know it you are on your own feeling like you lost everything over something stupid, and you'll just kick yourself even harder for being such a fool. That's the insidious part about it, that's how it builds momentum and becomes such an inescapable spiral.

I'd say you need to seek treatment and level your head out from any potential depression you are suffering right now, and once you have your head clear, then you can take stock and make a more rational decision about if you want to stay with your girlfriend and all that lot. Staying in a relationship you don't enjoy is rarely worth it, but leaving a relationship you are actually comfortable in just because your brain was being a dickhead is a mistake I've made too many times and would advise against.
>> No. 32777 Anonymous
23rd December 2023
Saturday 11:16 am
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>>32776
I was diagnosed with depression over a decade ago, on a cocktail of fluoxetine, lithium, and olanzapine. I don't know if this numbness is better or worse than the despair I frequently feel. I feel like a passenger in my own life.
>> No. 32778 Anonymous
23rd December 2023
Saturday 1:51 pm
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>>32777

You're almost certainly going to get a fair bit of emotional blunting on that regime. When was the last time you had a medication review? Have you ever tried bupropion?

You might want to look into the PAX-D trial.

https://paxd.web.ox.ac.uk/
>> No. 32779 Anonymous
23rd December 2023
Saturday 1:58 pm
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>>32778
I am also on buproprion I forgot about that. I went from 1000mg to 1200mg lithium over summer. Developed borderline lithium toxicity so they moved me back to 1000mg, and doubled my fluoxetine dose. My moods got very very bad so I went back up to 1200mg lithium. I have diarrhoea and tremours all the time now, and feel very emotionally numb.

I saw a psychiatrist in October who said he didn't want to mess with my antidepressants because a specialist depression team set me on the current ones (even though that was 2-3 years ago). I am meant to have another meds review in the coming months.

I've hads lots of therapy, I've had TMS, I'll look into PAX-D because I just want to have a functioning brain.
>> No. 32780 Anonymous
23rd December 2023
Saturday 1:59 pm
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>>32779
Ah never mind, PAX-D trial is not accepting people with psychosis.
>> No. 32781 Anonymous
23rd December 2023
Saturday 2:28 pm
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>>32780

>psychosis

That complicates things, but it might point to some potential options.

Have you ever been diagnosed with schizophrenia or bipolar disorder? How many psychotic episodes have you had, and roughly how long did they last? How long have you been taking olanzapine for? Is your emotional numbness a longstanding issue, or did it only start after you started treatment? Can you think of any activities or interests that you used to enjoy?
>> No. 32782 Anonymous
23rd December 2023
Saturday 2:46 pm
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>>32781
I was never diagnosed with schizophrenia or bipolar. I hear voices, not so bad since I've been on the olanzapine (about 8 years), but they're still fairly present. I have also had periods of extreme paranoia and delusions. Numbness comes and goes. My main states are extreme depression, numbness, or major paranoia and anxiety. Extreme depression manifests as total anhedonia, no motivation to get out of bed, no energy to do anything. Numbness makes me feel very detached from people in my life. I often self harm when numb just to feel something, as cliched and edgelord as that sounds. Paranoia manifests as difficulty leaving the house in case I get stabbed by a ruffian, hiding all my possessions so if someone breaks in they can't steal them.

I used to really enjoy roleplaying, the PnP DnD style stuff. I had a big group of friends at uni and we did that sort of thing, but now we've all drifted apart it's scary going to a board game cafe and playing a game like that with strangers. The only thing recently that I enjoy is is video games.

Christmas Eve my gf wants to spend the day with me and she'll want to spend time with me on Christmas too but I just want to sit in my room and playing video games.
>> No. 32783 Anonymous
23rd December 2023
Saturday 4:15 pm
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>>32782

I'd say something like "it sounds like you've had a tough time", but you and I both know that's just a cliche that mental health professionals use when they don't know what to say. In all sincerity, I will say that you're doing incredibly well considering your circumstances. The fact that you've got a job and a partner and you're basically functioning as a member of society is a real achievement given the severity of your illness. I hope that doesn't come across as patronising - I suffer from chronic severe depression, I know a lot of people who suffer from psychosis and I'm genuinely impressed by whatever coping skills you've learned and used to hold your life together.

Regarding your medication, I think that a fluoxetine-olanzapine combination is an obvious choice for treating psychotic depression. Bupropion is a logical addition if you've got problems with fatigue, low motivation or anhedonia. Lithium is equally logical if you have really bad downswings. The question is whether you're getting value from all of it - that's a lot of medication and it's clearly creating a heavy burden of side-effects. For the love of god don't just stop taking it, but it's definitely worth discussing with your specialist team. Your current regime might be the best option for you, but sometimes well-meaning doctors just kept piling drugs on top of drugs in the hope of getting some effect, without really considering whether the increased burden of side-effects is worth the increased benefits (if any) compared to fewer drugs at a lower dose.

Those of us with severe mental health problems - and the medics who treat us - often forget that we're still human and we still experience the mundane kind of problems that everyone else has. You might want to consider whether some part of your distress is caused by just having fallen into a rut. Boredom is often downplayed, but it can cause incredible misery. If we're stuck in a monotonous routine that we don't feel any sense of control over, we can start to feel a deep sense of hopelessness, like a caged animal in a zoo banging its head against the bars.

Obviously your anxiety and paranoia are probably going to make things more difficult, but I think you might benefit from some support to just get out and do something new. As a first step, it might be worth getting in touch with a group like PeerTalk or a local branch of Mind, just to talk to some people who understand a bit of what you're going through. Your CMHT might be able to refer you to a local support service.

Severe mental illness can be inherently very isolating and the stigma associated with it often makes us want to hide from the world, but that urge to hide can really get in the way of living the sort of life you want to lead. Mental health services often push us into the passive role of a service user, rather than supporting us to make active choices that are meaningful to us. Realistically, people like us are likely to be living with some level of mental illness for the rest of our lives, but we can take steps to live a more fulfilling life without necessarily being better in a medical sense.

Anyway, best of luck mate.

https://www.peertalk.org.uk/support-groups

https://www.mind.org.uk/information-support/local-minds/
>> No. 32784 Anonymous
23rd December 2023
Saturday 6:20 pm
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>The fact that you've got a job and a partner and you're basically functioning as a member of society is a real achievement given the severity of your illness. I hope that doesn't come across as patronising - I suffer from chronic severe depression, I know a lot of people who suffer from psychosis and I'm genuinely impressed by whatever coping skills you've learned and used to hold your life together.

I just wanted to echo this part. Every time I've had a severe episode of depression, I've retreated into myself and burned bridges with friends and family, thrown perfectly promising relationships away, and descended into drug and alcohol dependency. Last time it was really bad I started to get myself into a spiral of debt on cocaine and only narrowly pulled out of it before I lost my job. It was just really, really fucking stupid.

I don't want it to sound patronising like otherlad said, but equally don't want it to sound like "yeah I had it worse" or "you don't have it that bad"- But you seem to be doing really well despite it all, ladm9. Honestly, just keep up whatever good work you are already doing to hold it all down.
>> No. 32788 Anonymous
31st December 2023
Sunday 4:12 pm
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On holiday with my family. Weird dynamic. My dad is a great guy, but he's really fucked up me and my older brother. Not the sole reason for us being fucked up, but definitely a big part. But I've never discussed it with my brother.

I've discussed it with my girlfriend, he's discussed it with his, and the two girlfriends discuss it with each other. So it's kind of the first time I properly know of how he is negatively impacted by my father's actions, and knowing he is actually talking to someone about it

Part of me wants to speak to him directly about it, to let him know he's not alone. But then will he be annoyed his girlfriend is feeding stuff back to my girlfriend who is in turn telling stuff to me?
>> No. 32789 Anonymous
1st January 2024
Monday 4:22 pm
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>>32788
>Part of me wants to speak to him directly about it, to let him know he's not alone. But then will he be annoyed his girlfriend is feeding stuff back to my girlfriend who is in turn telling stuff to me?
Thats a part of a working family dynamic with the obvious caveat of trust. If nothing else, invite your brother to talk about his experience by sharing your own .
>> No. 32790 Anonymous
1st January 2024
Monday 7:43 pm
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>>32789
I did broach the subject with him this morning. I later found out from my girlfriend that his girlfriend told him to talk to me about the particular issue. My brother is puts up a fairly stoic front, and historically he has always sided with my dad, so it was nice to see him open up.
>> No. 32802 Anonymous
6th January 2024
Saturday 11:44 pm
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I've realised why I'm not taking any action to avoid the shit tsunami that's heading right for me as I write this. Because I have no future, whether or not I avoid it, there's nothing to move on to. My life in five years is still going to be a smoldering pile of old bollocks, so who cares? The fucking waste of it all is impossible for me to properly accept as well, because if I do so the only rational option is an attempt at extreme outdoor gymnastics. All the fucking studying and earning and socialising I've not done, it's haunting. I need to talk to someone about it, but there's no kind of state funded "unfuck your life" service out there.

I've just got a fucked brain and not the kind anyone can unfuck. I could have another try, but I've had no luck so far, so I'm not expecting much.
>> No. 32803 Anonymous
7th January 2024
Sunday 12:51 am
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>>32802
It doesn't take that long for your life to get good if everything suddenly goes your way, even if you start with absolutely nothing. Look at all those sales bellends who get out of prison at 19, start scamming old ladies from a call centre, and buy a house when they're 21 because they're just that good at telling people someone in their area has just cancelled their appointment with a double-glazing salesman.

What would you like to be different in your life? What would a good life have, that yours doesn't have?
>> No. 32804 Anonymous
7th January 2024
Sunday 1:17 am
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>>32803
You are dangerously close to "manifesting".
>> No. 32805 Anonymous
7th January 2024
Sunday 3:01 am
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>>32804

Apologies in advance for length, but this is one of those posts that sort of got out of hand half way through typing it. I'm writing for myself as much as for anyone else.

Unfucking your life can sometimes be remarkably quick and straightforward. Unfucking your head is another thing entirely.

Getting a job isn't all that difficult if you're willing to take whatever job is going. Keeping that job when you've got chronic mental health problems is much more of a problem. You can get stuck in a cycle where you alternate between trying your best to clamber onto the bottom rung of the ladder, trying your best to hold on, then falling off and having to start again. That's bearable the first couple of times, but it grinds you down over time. Broadly the same thing applies to many other aspects of life.

The only thing that has really made a significant difference for me is learning a certain level of self-acceptance. I've broadly come to terms with the fact that my problems aren't going to magically disappear, that I'll always have to deal with them and I'll probably never live the sort of life that people would hope for. I've been around the block enough times to know that "being normal" isn't a realistic expectation, no matter how hard I might try.

What I can do is stop beating myself up about it, or at least try to beat myself up a bit less. It's not my fault that my parents were nutters. It's not my fault that I was severely depressed before I'd even started secondary school. It's not my fault that it took years for anyone to recognise it and years more for anyone to try and do anything about it. It's not my fault that mental health care in this country is woefully underfunded. It's not my fault that my brain doesn't respond to any of the medications currently available.

That doesn't absolve me of personal responsibility for my decisions, it doesn't give me license to pity myself, but it does free me from having to live up to the standards and expectations of other people. A bloke in a wheelchair isn't going to walk again just by trying really hard; I'm not going to become mentally well just by going for walks and eating my five-a-day and talking about my feelings.

At the moment, I'm functioning at about 6/10. I'm not exactly thriving, but I'm generally coping and I'm not utterly miserable. Not ideal, but I can live with it. At some point in the near future, I expect that I'll probably dip down to a 3/10 or a 2/10 for a bit. I expect that'll be fucking grim, but I also know that I've got through it before and can get through it again.

It's a bit paradoxical, but accepting my limitations has made them less limiting. The guilt, shame, regret and anger that bubbles up when I say to myself "Why can't I just be normal?" is often far more painful than the day-to-day reality of living with severe depression. It certainly doesn't help on any practical level. I'm not normal, I don't expect to ever be normal, it's a pain in the arse, but it is what it is.

I used to put a brave face on things and try to downplay my problems, I used to try and maintain a veneer of normality in social situations, I used to make excuses. I feared that people secretly pitied me or looked down on me, so I tried really hard to act as if I had everything under control. When I started to work on building that self-acceptance and treating my mental health problems like any other chronic illness, I was really surprised by how people reacted.

I plucked up the courage to start saying things like "sorry I haven't been in touch lately, but I've been feeling acutely suicidal and I couldn't really get out of bed", in the same matter-of-fact way that someone would apologise for not being at five-a-side because their knee is playing up. I didn't start blurting out all of my feelings like a teenage girl on Tumblr, I just stopped lying.

Fairly quickly, I realised that people had been pitying me and looking down on me, but mostly because they didn't understand what was going on. Once I "came out" as mad, people could make sense of who I was and so I came across as less weird. I was crap at acting normal, but I do a pretty good job of being an amiable weirdo. Pretending to be something that you aren't is inherently a bit pathetic, but doing your best despite the circumstances is something that most people respect.

I hope this doesn't come across as hokey self-improvement bullshit. I can't promise that it'll fix all of your problems, because it won't. What I can say for sure is that all of your problems are made a little bit worse if you blame yourself for them, if you beat yourself up for not measuring up to an imagined ideal, if you think of your problems as a character flaw rather than an illness. You didn't choose this, but you do have to live with it.

Maybe your life really is falling apart right now, maybe things aren't as bad as they seem, I don't know. I am fairly confident that things will seem a bit more manageable if you can set aside the matter of what your life will be like in five years and focus on the more immediate future. What do you need right now? What would make the next 24 hours a bit more bearable? What's your plan for getting through the next week? Trying to fix your life is essentially futile, because it's such a massive and overwhelming task that anyone would be paralysed by it. Trying to make the present moment a bit less shit is a reasonable ask. It might not make any real difference to the broader arc of your life, but at least it's movement in the right direction.
>> No. 32806 Anonymous
7th January 2024
Sunday 11:27 am
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>>32805

>It's a bit paradoxical, but accepting my limitations has made them less limiting. The guilt, shame, regret and anger that bubbles up when I say to myself "Why can't I just be normal?" is often far more painful than the day-to-day reality of living with severe depression. It certainly doesn't help on any practical level. I'm not normal, I don't expect to ever be normal, it's a pain in the arse, but it is what it is.

>I used to put a brave face on things and try to downplay my problems, I used to try and maintain a veneer of normality in social situations, I used to make excuses. I feared that people secretly pitied me or looked down on me, so I tried really hard to act as if I had everything under control. When I started to work on building that self-acceptance and treating my mental health problems like any other chronic illness, I was really surprised by how people reacted.

>I plucked up the courage to start saying things like "sorry I haven't been in touch lately, but I've been feeling acutely suicidal and I couldn't really get out of bed", in the same matter-of-fact way that someone would apologise for not being at five-a-side because their knee is playing up. I didn't start blurting out all of my feelings like a teenage girl on Tumblr, I just stopped lying.

This bit I can heavily relate to. You're really hitting the nail on the head. This bit in particular is quite profound once you suss it out:

>Pretending to be something that you aren't is inherently a bit pathetic, but doing your best despite the circumstances is something that most people respect.

I'm not the Anon you are responding to but thanks for posting nevertheless, because this is the part I've been trying to work on as of late. I've always inherently understood the "self acceptance part", that bit just came along with being a social outcast all through school and rebellious mosher type when I was a teenager, I've always thought "fuck this, I don't want to live up to your white picket fence 2.4 children buillshit". It's easy for me not to compare myself to normal standards. But the part I have always struggled with is that I still do care what people think on a more basic level.

I want to be seen as a cool free thinker, who does things the way I do because I'm above petty social conventions. But the part I have to come to grips with is that that isn't true, and it's never worked. The truth is it's because I can't handle the responsibility and pressure of most social conventions, so I avoid them, and in practical terms it just means I spend a lot of time locked indoors not talking to anyone.

I think I had a moment of clarity about it all last time I was on holiday, with my (now ex) girlfriend. At that point I was doing well, it was one of those times I was almost convincing myself I am normal; I had a hot girlfriend, my own place, car, okay job, what is there to beat myself up for? But there was one particular moment where there was some awkward incident at a restaurant or whatever, I don't remember exactly what it was over but I didn't want to make a fuss, I avoided and ignored it, and I could tell she saw that, and she instantly lost respect for me. Deep down in her lizard brain, she started to see me as weak and slightly pathetic in that moment, and it was only a matter of time until it ended from that moment.

Now, there's not a lot I could have likely done about that. She was kind of a shallow bitch overall, so she would have probably thought the same either way. But the point is, it does me no good to try and mask all of this bullshit. You can't keep the lid on it forever, and the times when you let the mask slip are only going to be more difficult as a result.
>> No. 32810 Anonymous
14th January 2024
Sunday 4:06 pm
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This is a weird moan.

I left home over a decade ago to come to uni. I studied a course I was pushed into - when I told my parents I wanted to study a subject I was passionate about but which wasn't necessarily as well regarded, I got talked out of it and told I'd be wasting my time.

My three brothers, B1, B2, B3 were all dependent on my dad since I left - B1 worked in the family business, B2 and B3 lived at home and were entirely financially dependent on my dad.

Last year B1 set up a business, but my dad was meddling and trying to take control. B1 found employment elsewhere, now my dad is being somewhat cold to him.

My dad is contacting me every couple of days with ideas and suggestions about stuff that will help me get into the subject I was talked out of. I appreciate it this, but it strikes me as odd - for the last decade I speak to him maybe once every 6 weeks, and visit maybe 3 times a year. But now he's in regular contact.

I appreciate his interest in me, but the cynical part of me is paranoid he's only doing this because B1 is now pretty much fully independent and my dad no longer has a level of control over him.

I probably sound ungrateful, I know I'm lucky to have parents who give a shit. But it strikes me as odd that in the last decade, the only time my dad has really engaged with me is when my older brother is no longer dependent on him.
>> No. 32811 Anonymous
14th January 2024
Sunday 5:26 pm
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>>32810

Some parents really struggle to see their adult children as independent human beings. They've built their identity around being a parent - an active identity that puts them in control, a passive identity as a caregiver who responds to their children's needs, or (usually) some complicated mix of the two.

Letting go of that identity and finding a new one is difficult. Some people end up subconsciously sabotaging their children just to maintain the parent-child dynamic that they're familiar and comfortable with. They might moan about how their useless kids can't just grow up and take care of themselves, but (without knowing it) they do everything in their power to make sure that it doesn't happen. I think it's rarely malicious, but more like a kind of cross-generational stunted development - children who can't fully grow up, because their parents don't know how to let go.

I think these issues have become much more acute in recent years, because younger people tend to wait much longer to have children. For their parents, there's often a very long gap during which they are no longer defined by their role as a parent, but not yet (if ever) a grandparent. They've got instincts and habitual behaviours to parent, but nowhere appropriate to direct them.

I don't know your dad and I can only speculate, but I'd guess that he needs a hobby and/or a dog.
>> No. 32812 Anonymous
15th January 2024
Monday 8:17 am
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I have a real issue of separating my heart from my head when it comes to women, or more specifically love.

If I fall for someone, it's not like I suddenly stop seeing their flaws, I recognize them, I just am incapable of considering them. If I fall in love with someone, basically they can do whatever the fuck they like and I will overlook it, because I want to be with them.

And then when we inevitably end badly, about a week later I look back and wonder why I let all of that happen. It's not a blindness to their red flags, more of an inability to allow myself to walk away from someone who displays them.

I'm genuinely very happy being single, so I'm not sure it's as simple as being desperate for love. But when I do fall for them I feel like I lose a lot of control over who I am and my own values. I don't like it, but don't know where to start in fixing that.
>> No. 32814 Anonymous
15th January 2024
Monday 6:50 pm
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>>32812

I could have written this exact post myself, you sound exactly like me, but then again isn't this something everyone can relate to? It's very, very fucking difficult to be cool and rational about love, and even the wisest and most well travelled among us are lying to themselves a little bit if they think they have mastered it. The truth is, either way, you don't see most people's true colours until you've known them a while, and even the most obvious red flags are easy to ignore if they have some other trait that really grabs your attention.

On some level this is unavoidable I think- No matter how people try to treat dating like it's a job interview and you can filter out the right candidate before you make a commitment, you can't. People are always going to put on their best act for as long as they can, and you can only get a measure of the situation as they get comfortable enough to let it drop. At some stage you're always going to have to wing it, go with your heart, and hope she doesn't turn out to be a psycho bitch a year down the line. And on top of all that your brain chemistry is intentionally trying to deceive you when you fall in love, it's millions of years of evolution hard wiring you to spaff up her and stick around long enough to rear the kids.

But with that said, what you can do is have a brave attitude towards ending relationships that aren't going well, and nipping it in the bud early. Don't get caught up in that sunk cost fallacy, and don't listen to the part of your brain that says you won't find another one that good looking or another one who's into that dirty dirty fetish you like. Because I'm not even THAT good looking, I'm kind of an autistic nerd, and I've still always found a hotter one, and they have all been into that dirty dirty fetish I have. They're out there. And if you can attract one, you can attract another.

Remember that time you told yourself "ahh, I should probably dump this chick", but didn't for another 6 months? You were correct then, and the next time you find yourself having that thought, you are also going to be correct. Listen to it.
>> No. 32815 Anonymous
15th January 2024
Monday 8:50 pm
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"Going with your heart" is cope; would your heart not implore you to be sensible? Do you not owe it to your undiscovered parter to understand yourself more holistically, than to sprint forward in the direction of your erection? Imagine doing that with a supermarket; "Oh, life cannot be a mere shopping list! Fools are we, to that which falls within our trolley!"

>>32812

It's a trade off for imagined security, and a good way to get exploited. My boss can change my hours whenever, avoid giving me a raise, even bully me — at least I'm not unemployed! Naturally, in that mindset one can only attract people that want a doormat.

Many women know their man is scared of them leaving, which is why they're so vile to them.

You are not incapable: you are making choices that keep you comfortable. Slowing down and getting to know people works, as does being clear about what matters to you and why.

>>32814

Like many on here, you posit that we must jump in and just hope she's not crazy. Part of love is a gamble yes, we must be vulnerable. Yet, you can learn to pick good women. It is just social skills.

I had an ex that did fuck all, if you've ever lived with someone that can't even take out a bin, you'll understand. How did I ensure this never happened again? I looked for signs in future women that they were proactive; not only what they said, how they said it, and what evidence they had.

Obviously you can never be 100% certain. But the girl that plays tennis and likes baking is much less likely to be a nutcase than the girl whose pictures all involve alcohol.
>> No. 32816 Anonymous
15th January 2024
Monday 9:34 pm
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>>32815

>if you've ever lived with someone that can't even take out a bin, you'll understand.

Was her name Rosa by any chance?

>Obviously you can never be 100% certain

You undo everything you just said with that, because that was basically my entire point in the first place. You misread the issue- Otherlad's problem isn't about spotting the signs, it's about controlling his feelings despite spotting them.

It's all very well and good to just say "be more sensible" but it's easier said than done. So you have to have a second defensive line to fall back on if your attempts at being sensible fail.
>> No. 32817 Anonymous
16th January 2024
Tuesday 6:40 am
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>>32816

>You misread the issue- Otherlad's problem isn't about spotting the signs, it's about controlling his feelings despite spotting them.

Yes this is exactly what it is. I knew from the start I probably couldn't trust her, but I fell for her anyway. At no point did I forget the bad things I knew about her, I just kept going because of the connection we had, because being around her just felt like home.

Perhaps the reality is that I will always be a little too scared to walk away from something that makes me feel good, even when a lot of the time it actually makes me feel bad. I suppose I just thought that at the ripe old age of 35 I might have finally had more courage to stick to my convictions.

This lass in particular I knew had cheated on her previous lad a number of times, which is something I simply do not tolerate, and yet I did, because she made me feel wanted. It's not ideal, and is putting me off trying again.
>> No. 32818 Anonymous
16th January 2024
Tuesday 5:33 pm
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>>32817

I've been much the same with a couple of girls in my time. Not all of them, but there have been a couple where it really messed me up because I knew they were bad for me and the entire relationship was bringing me down, but I just wasn't able to let go. It's like that bloke who got his arm stuck up a mountain and had to cut off his own arm- You know you have to do it but you can't bring yourself to until there's really no other choice.

My last one was one of those, and looking back on it, it really was pretty malicious on her part. For the first six months, she really made me feel like I was the luckiest man alive, I was king of the world, never been happier in my entire life. She was pretty, she was clever, we had great sex, we stayed up all night talking and taking drugs, she told me everything I wanted to hear- Until one day that just changed. Suddenly she was doing disrespectful things like showing up late or cancelling on plans last minute, pushing boundaries that she knew would upset me, she constantly put me in that double bind where if you do one thing she's unhappy, but you know for sure if you did the other thing she'd have been unhappy about that instead. I don't know definitively if she DID cheat on me or not but I absolutely wouldn't be shocked, and there were times it seemed as if she was deliberately trying to make me suspect it. It went from heaven to hell, but when you've been in heaven, you will desperately want to get back, and you will try anything to fix it.

I don't know if she consciously knew what she was doing but it was almost certainly a pattern she will have followed with all her exes and no doubt whichever poor fucking bastard she's with now. It's been made clear to me now, in retrospect, how all this perfectly fits the pattern of narcissistic abuse- Not just in that bitter jealous "my ex was a bitch" way, but every aspect is textbook NPD behaviour. And the thing about those kinds of people is that you will not spot them coming. Otherlad thinks he's great at spotting red flags, but a proper NPD case would eat him for dinner. They do a fantastic job of masking their toxicity until they have you in their grip, and you won't realise that until you are already hooked, quite literally like a drug.

I'm not saying all your exes were narcissist headcases, and there is still probably something in your personality that you need to work on to help avoid getting caught up with people so quickly, but it's something to think about.
>> No. 32819 Anonymous
17th January 2024
Wednesday 2:35 pm
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>>32818

>Suddenly she was doing disrespectful things like showing up late or cancelling on plans last minute, pushing boundaries that she knew would upset me

And what did you do in response to that? Let it slide?
>> No. 32822 Anonymous
17th January 2024
Wednesday 5:46 pm
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>>32819

We had a hell of a lot of arguments precisely because I wouldn't let it slide. But even then, her trick was that she would say she was sorry, and then turn on the charm or let me fuck her up the bum and give me a brief taste of what it was like in the heaven stage again.

No surprises, she would be back to the cunty back behaviour again the next week, and there would have to be another argument. But when you know just how happy somebody makes you in the good times, it's really hard to actually see clearly; the power the abuser holds is that they dole out little morsels of that happiness to keep you strung along and keep you questioning yourself.

That's the entire point of what makes this such a mentally destructive thing to deal with, it legitimately erodes your sense of judgement and selfhood. The victim is not to blame.
>> No. 32823 Anonymous
17th January 2024
Wednesday 7:59 pm
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>>32822

The thing is that there's two sides to every story. I'm always suspicious when peoples call their ex's "narcissists", as it can be used as a defense mechanism to shield from one's own failings.

Not saying she wasn't, I'm just saying, that's fucking women for you, narcissist or not.
>> No. 32824 Anonymous
17th January 2024
Wednesday 8:11 pm
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>>32823

>The thing is that there's two sides to every story. I'm always suspicious when peoples call their ex's "narcissists"

I am well aware of that, it's one of those terms like "gaslighting" and what have you people will sling around far too lightly out of spite. But that's why I don't say it lightly. It's only when I was going through a CBT course after the fact it came to light and I did some research.

>I'm just saying, that's fucking women for you, narcissist or not

We both know that's not a healthy attitude. I mean yes, I have experienced it with plenty of women, I would go so far as to say society generally tolerates (perhaps even encourages) narcissistic behaviour in women in a way that it doesn't with men.

But it is defeatist, slightly whale poscherist, and frankly unlikely to lead you into a healthy relationship with a good woman, if you just shrug and say "that's women for you."
>> No. 32825 Anonymous
17th January 2024
Wednesday 8:48 pm
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>>32824
>I would go so far as to say society generally tolerates (perhaps even encourages) narcissistic behaviour in women in a way that it doesn't with men.
If you're doing a load of introspection right now, do you think that you made a point of tolerating her failings precisely as a way of showing her how much she meant to you? If you meet a woman with no problems, there's nothing you can help with and you feel useless. So you lead by example, you support her when she needs it, on the unspoken assumption that she will do the same to you when you need it. And it's only when you ask her to do something for you that you realise she has no interest in reciprocating the kindness you've been showing her. Men who have lots of problems and constantly need help get all the breaks.
>> No. 32828 Anonymous
17th January 2024
Wednesday 9:13 pm
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>>32825

No, that's not really it to be honest.

It's because she made me feel like I had found my soulmate. I recognised potential flaws, but she didn't give me any reason to suspect they were still a problem. Any reasonable person would conclude the same as me, that they were in the past and she had learnt from them and grown as a person. She had traits that made me respect her and think she was a strong and resilient person, the very opposite of a vulnerable little girl for me to parent.

All the evidence in front of me said she was my dream woman, and although it maybe did seem too good to be true, I'd be a mug not to give it a go. Then she just turned into a cunt one day. When I started to really notice this behaviour had become the new norm, it was hard to accept, because she had demonstrated so clearly who she could be. It was confusing, and it was hard to even wrap my head around to even begin analysing rationally.

Most of the time spent "tolerating" it was really just the time it took me to accept that the wonderful person I thought I knew was some kind of elaborate hoax and I'd never get that person back. It lasted about a year overall, which is a speedrun record for me. I think if I had "tolerated" more, it would have gone on much longer. She wanted a doormat, but I never was. She just pushed it as far as she could before realising I wasn't going to break, and gave in.
>> No. 32829 Anonymous
17th January 2024
Wednesday 10:47 pm
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>>32828

"All the evidence in front of me said she was my dream woman, and although it maybe did seem too good to be true, I'd be a mug not to give it a go. "

You got too close and comfortable with her. She despised you for it. You weren't a challenge.

Then you started acting like a baby when she was acting like a baby too, which made her push the toys out the pram more.

Don't get sucked in by women mate, don't get all lovey dovey. Always keeps your distance even when you're embracing her.
>> No. 32830 Anonymous
17th January 2024
Wednesday 11:05 pm
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>>32829

This is a very sad post. Honestly, you just sound like you've never actually been in love, or been loved for that matter. You don't truthfully know what people are talking about when they use that word.

I think you need to examine what exactly it is you think you are supposed to get out of a relationship, because if this is how you see the world, just stay single.
>> No. 32831 Anonymous
17th January 2024
Wednesday 11:16 pm
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>>32830

Not really, I just know the reason why women flip 180. It's to do with your shadow that she's picking up on. You refuse to see it and call her the narcissist.
>> No. 32832 Anonymous
17th January 2024
Wednesday 11:21 pm
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>>32831

You know absolutely fuck all mate. I'm frankly hesitant to believe you've ever even had sex.
>> No. 32833 Anonymous
17th January 2024
Wednesday 11:24 pm
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>>32831

Nah m8. The crux of your argument is "never let women see your authentic self, because they all hate your authentic self". You might have perfectly good reasons to be bitter and cynical, but you're still bitter and cynical. Refusing to be truly intimate with anyone might make you feel safe, but at what cost?
>> No. 32834 Anonymous
17th January 2024
Wednesday 11:27 pm
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>>32832

OK then it was all just her being a 'cunt'. It was nothing to do with you. Couldn't have been.

>>32833

I never said don't let her see your authentic self, I'm saying let her see it, then back off, then let her see another side of it, then back off.
>> No. 32835 Anonymous
17th January 2024
Wednesday 11:37 pm
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>>32830

It sounds to me more like otherlad has been in love enough times to know what he's talking about.

Love and a relationship are far more complicated in the long run than just the state of being in love, and if you're lucky, seeing that love requited.

Being in love, loving a person, makes you vulnerable by design. It makes you vulnerable to people and partners who aren't serious about you, and/or who just like to play games.

Maybe it just comes with the territory, but you can't help a sense of feeling jaded when you've been through it enough times to know that it's not always just wine and roses. Being in love isn't always nice. It can be brutally painful. You can find yourself and your partner just tearing each other apart. Although you love the other person and they love you. And if at some point you don't develop a sense of self preservation and looking out for yourself, you're just setting yourself up for heartbreak over and over again.

I'd love to be as naïve and wide eyed about love again as I was at 16 or 17. Or maybe even at 20. But when I then think of all the pain and suffering I went through because I loved somebody, and sometimes because they loved me too, then it's not really a kind of place I'd actually want to revisit.
>> No. 32836 Anonymous
17th January 2024
Wednesday 11:42 pm
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>>32831

I don't think she'd have stuck around so long if it was that simple m8. Who knows though, he must just have a massive knob she didn't want to let go of and it took her ages to find another one that bashed her fanny in the same way. Bet that pissed her off no end.

Anyway stop being cunts in emo the pair of yas.
>> No. 32837 Anonymous
17th January 2024
Wednesday 11:53 pm
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>>32835

This is true to an extent, but if you adopt the attitude jadedlad is displaying, you are only ever going to be setting yourself up to retread the same path over and over again. Which you see all the time, we all know those couples who argue constantly and sound like they hate each other to any outsiders, but they are too codependent to break the cycle.

Otherlad sounds like he has only ever been in relationships with poisonous women just like this lass, and he's unable to see that they're not the only women out there. He's convinced himself that's the norm, and not just the one or two the rest of us unfortunately will be likely to run into in our lives.
>> No. 32839 Anonymous
18th January 2024
Thursday 1:53 am
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Bitterlad has kind of a point but for the wrong reasons. I had a similar relationship where I think at first she felt in control because she was out of my league and could do better than me. Over time she realised I was the one with my shit together and better trajectory in life and that made her insecure because she didn't have the upper hand any more, so she tried to make me feel insecure too.

Relationships just bring out the worst in people sometimes because they can only see it as a power struggle. Closing yourself off doesn't solve that, just sweeps it under the rug.
>> No. 32840 Anonymous
18th January 2024
Thursday 4:04 am
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My now ex is her own worse enermy. I had no doubt of her love for me or integrity. But she would spend huge amounts of time being miserable on the idea that I might leave her. To the point that I ended up leaving her.

How long am I supposed to indulge these things when it was objectively ruining my day repeatedly. It seemed to come from a lack of trust in me. And one which was born out of essentially her willingness to just put faith in someone. The change clearly needed to come from within her and her own confidence, I can and tried to point her in the right direction but she has to walk the distance.


I have fears of if i indulged and reasured her too often of being psychologically broken down into one of those co-dependant people who just indulges their partners insecurities and second guesses my own behaviour and filters it on what might trigger them and that seems truely awful. A friend for decades has quite possibly started down that path with his new girlfriend. and has led to one friend starting to plot to break them up in the exact way that their paranoid partner thinks they will. I guess the theme of this rant is self fulfilling prophecy.
>> No. 32841 Anonymous
18th January 2024
Thursday 11:40 am
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>>32825
>>32829

You sound like you are trying very hard to make what the other poster is describing line up with your own experiences, but they could very well just not be the same thing. In your case you seem to blame yourself for whatever it is you went through, but instead of tackling that blame head on you've retreated into some Andrew Tate nonsense. I don't think the other poster needs to listen to you, but you need to have a word with yourself maybe.
>> No. 32842 Anonymous
18th January 2024
Thursday 12:13 pm
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>>32841

We're two different posters. I am >>32829

If you haven't learnt women are a game yet, there is no hope for you. Andew Tate is a cuck
>> No. 32843 Anonymous
18th January 2024
Thursday 11:15 pm
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>>32842

>women are a game

If all you want is sex, sure. A man has nothing to gain from honesty in pursuing sex.

If you are looking for anything deeper however, that approach will lead you nowhere but trouble.
>> No. 32844 Anonymous
19th January 2024
Friday 9:26 am
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>>32843

Why did you assume I just meant sex?

You must 'game' them (or rather, game 'with' them) otherwise you'll end up like the sorry sod that found his "soulmate" only to realize... not. Many such cases.

By 'game' I don't mean manipulate, I mean play with getting close and pulling away. If you don't pull away and do other stuff and just want cuddly-wuddlys all the time she's gonna think you're a scared little boy. Of taking charge of your own life in new ways also so she can see that you're not just moping around on your tv/laptop/doing nothing to progress.
>> No. 32845 Anonymous
19th January 2024
Friday 11:47 am
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>>32844

You're worried that you'll come across as a scared little boy because that's how you see yourself. You've come to the conclusion that relationships are inherently based on deceit because you've never tried anything else.

There is another way, but it starts with being honest with yourself. If you can admit to yourself that you're vulnerable and feel incomplete and you're secretly looking for someone to fix you and hoping that the right relationship will solve all your problems, then you stand half a chance of actually getting past that stuff and creating moments of real intimacy. It doesn't solve anything in itself, it'll harm your prospects in the short-term if you're a mess of a person, but it creates the possibility for real growth, for moving from shame and self-pity to self-awareness and self-acceptance. If you can't do that, then you'll be stuck in an endless cycle of fake relationships with broken people, worrying about being found out until you inevitably are.

"Women just play games" is a self-fulfilling prophecy, because it takes two to tango - if you think like that, then you're going to inevitably fall into games with game players and deter anyone with an ounce of maturity. "I don't play games" is never true, because people who don't play games will show rather than tell. Being radically open will narrow your dating pool, but that's precisely what you want - it's a market for lemons and most of the people who are single at any given moment are single for a good reason. Everyone is a little bit broken in their own way and trying to pretend otherwise is a recipe for disappointment.
>> No. 32846 Anonymous
19th January 2024
Friday 12:48 pm
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>>32844

This post is more telling than you seem to realise.
I'm not worried women will think I'm a scared little boy who just wants cuddly-wuddlies all the time if I show them my authentic self because... That's not what my authentic self looks like. I' don't think the issue is women, here.
>> No. 32847 Anonymous
19th January 2024
Friday 12:48 pm
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>>32845

Spot on, well said.
>> No. 32848 Anonymous
19th January 2024
Friday 3:01 pm
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>>32845

To play devil's advocate here. I've definitely had women leave me because they were bored in some capacity with the status quo. I become content and want for nothing and they seem to crave drama so create it. It is all well and and good talking about how I deserve a woman who can be at peace like I am. But that does leave me alone in the universe in practice.

People who don't need people don't actively date. I probably need people but evidently the level of stimulation others crave isn't something I produce naturally. I feel like my metaphorical relationship is like that troupe of men having an extremely minimalist house and women seeing that as a problem. I need to do the cliché shit like restaurants and days out to keep them not bored. Which is in someway the exact same, playing the game shit the other poster was talking about just dressed up more positively. Let's be clear I don't give a shit and would be doing it for entirely cynical reasons. And if I stop doing it people have left. Management of another person's needs and feelings is part of dating, and when you aren't self involved you realise what I am doing is just different tactics that the other guy is doing.
>> No. 32849 Anonymous
19th January 2024
Friday 3:16 pm
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Matronly women who want a cuddly-wuddly pissboy for a partner do exist, arguably totherlad's problem is just that he hasn't found one yet.
>> No. 32850 Anonymous
19th January 2024
Friday 3:17 pm
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>>32849
Isn't this almost every fat lass? Why do you think you always see fat lasses with scrawny wimps?
>> No. 32851 Anonymous
19th January 2024
Friday 4:23 pm
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>>32848

Yeah, but he wasn't saying "make a reasonable level of effort to be good company", he said "play with getting close and pulling away". There is a vast difference between trying to meet your partner's needs and trying to "game 'with' them", i.e. manipulate them into a state of anxiety by arbitrarily withdrawing your interest and affection. If you're trying to keep someone, you've already lost, because you're thinking in terms of possessiveness rather than mutuality.

Women have left you because they were bored of the status quo. You might have been fundamentally incompatible in terms of your expectations and preferred lifestyles, they mightn't have been ready to commit, or you might not have been willing to do the work of being in a healthy relationship. I don't know, but I do know that trying to play some kind of game would have only made things worse by dragging out the inevitable and creating a load of hassle and drama until the inevitable happens.

There are lots of nutty women out there. If someone says to me that their ex was nuts and can articulate why, then I absolutely believe them. If someone says that all women are nuts, then I think it just reflects on them - either they're actively choosing nutty women, or (more commonly) they don't understand the emotional needs of another person and don't see how their own behaviour affects their relationships.

The "men in very minimalist houses" meme that you mention is a perfect example of this. Those houses aren't minimalist, they're just bare. Whoever furnished that room gave no thought to whether it was a welcoming or comfortable space for guests. Those sorts of men do exactly the same thing emotionally - they've catered for their own needs, but they haven't made room for anyone else. The problem isn't the lack of furniture, it's the mindset that led to the lack of furniture.

To give a different daft analogy, I'm reminded of watching an under-8s football match. They all run around chasing the ball like baby geese following their mother, because they're completely fixated on getting a touch and can't see their role in the team. Any one of them could instantly become the best player on the pitch by finding some space and waiting for the ball to come to them, but they don't have the perception and the maturity to take a step back and think about their place in a bigger context.

Most people can immediately become a drastically better partner by making that same shift in perspective. If you can see yourself as just one part of someone's life, one member of their team, then so much conflict and chaos melts away. Being overly fixated on your partner's needs is often just as toxic as being overly fixated on your own, because in either case you aren't looking at the full picture, you aren't seeing your partner as a whole person. Easier said than done in the heat of the moment, but certainly something to consider on reflection.
>> No. 32852 Anonymous
19th January 2024
Friday 5:14 pm
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Had coaching with my manager for my call centre job. He said I am too cold and sound lacking in empathy. Even though in the call we listened to I solved the problem. I have a monotonous voice and muted emotional expression because I am literally diagnosed with autism. He said my communication is too transactional. I try not to see my autism as too much of a hindrance but after today I fucking hate what I am.
>> No. 32853 Anonymous
19th January 2024
Friday 5:29 pm
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>>32852

That isn't what you are, it's just a skill you haven't learned yet.
>> No. 32854 Anonymous
19th January 2024
Friday 6:05 pm
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>>32852

It's a call centre job mate, they are paying you to be a human answering machine so don't feel bad that the demands from management are utterly vexing and self contradictory.

Just make sure your KPIs are green on the almighty omniscient spreadsheet and you can tell your manager to go fuck himself and do your job as you please, because the manager above your manager will only ever look at the figures; as long as that AHT and on-hold stat are low you're a perfectly exemplary employee.
>> No. 32855 Anonymous
19th January 2024
Friday 6:16 pm
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Freak loser poor cunt retard.
>> No. 32856 Anonymous
19th January 2024
Friday 6:52 pm
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>>32855

Can you expand on that?
>> No. 32857 Anonymous
21st January 2024
Sunday 12:37 am
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After heavy social interaction I feel like a cunt and need an awful lot of reassurance. I've just won a prize for an (online) event and I feel completely undeserving, like the game was rigged in my favour, that people are laughing at me, and that's it's all overwhelming.
I've learned of an emotional coping strategy called 'avoidant attachment' that seems to describe my behaviours quite well - namely that I want to interact with people and be liked but try too hard to be liked and ultimately pull away thinking everyone's cunts (knowing it's not true ofcourse).
I need a lot of reassurance but constantly fight the urge to ask people "are we cool?" or whatever - it's incredibly needy and far more damaging to peoples perception of me than just getting on and brushing over difficult excanges with a neutral comment once I've calmed down. Doing so however doesn't address how vulnerable I feel - but again being vulnerable isn't really apropriate among a bunch of mates just pissing about.
>> No. 32858 Anonymous
21st January 2024
Sunday 1:14 am
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>>32857

I have similar issues. I don't have anything particularly helpful to offer, other than that I've found it useful to flip the reassurance around. If you're prone to being socially anxious or withdrawn, it's very easy for other people to get the idea that you're pissed off with them or being unfriendly. Making a conscious effort to put people at ease can defuse some of those tensions, which has the side-effect of providing you with some reassurance that everything is OK.

Also, with people who are properly close to you, it can be very helpful to explain anxious/avoidant attachment and have a proper conversation about how it affects you. It's not easy to do, but it makes things easier once you've done it, because it helps them to make sense of your behaviour. Once you've got a shorthand of being able to say "I'm feeling a bit overwhelmed right now, don't take it personally if I go into my shell", it's easier to avoid getting stuck in a spiral.
>> No. 32859 Anonymous
22nd January 2024
Monday 11:43 am
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>>32857
>namely that I want to interact with people and be liked but try too hard to be liked and ultimately pull away thinking everyone's cunts

that sounds more like an anxious, attachment style, like fearful/fearful avoidant/disorganized/disoriented to me rather than avoidant, it seems to have as many names as there are versions of explaniations but it isn't pure advoidant.

Advoidant would be more concerned with a desire to be fully independant, and to gain reasurance from within, they don't actually want to have relationships with people. People treat it like it is negative, but honestly that's just because they are needy bastards who won't fuck off and leave me alone.
>> No. 32863 Anonymous
24th January 2024
Wednesday 12:04 am
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I'm getting a bit of a sweat on since a debt collector has just contacted me, but it's over a debt that I incurred in 2011, didn't pay, and for which I eventually got a CCJ, which has been 'served' as of a couple of years ago at least.

What's going on? I don't want another CCJ, but I thought the debt would be voided as a result? I can afford it in a couple of months, but I was under the impression that that was it. Was I just naive or are they being twats?
>> No. 32864 Anonymous
24th January 2024
Wednesday 7:45 am
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>>32863
Do not panic, they are being twats. As long as it is not a mortgage, any debt is "statute barred" after six years and they cannot enforce it. Do not engage with them in any way.

https://www.stepchange.org/debt-info/can-i-write-off-debt/statute-barred-debt.aspx
>> No. 32865 Anonymous
24th January 2024
Wednesday 11:17 am
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On the topic of debt collectors, I recently got a vaguely threatening email from a company trying to collect 50 quid worth of seller's fees for an item I never actually sold on eBay. It turns out I left the listing up and forgot about it for ages, someone had tried to buy it and evidently ended up just getting it refunded, and I was none the wiser to any of it because it's an old email address I never check.

Can they actually go after me for it? Seems a bit daft considering I didn't actually even sell owt.
>> No. 32873 Anonymous
28th January 2024
Sunday 2:55 pm
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How do you forget the past? I'm so caught up on the good times in the past, I'm incredibly depressed that my current life is so miserable. I think back to old flames, to my student days, even back to elements of secondary school (where I did have lots of terrible times) and I think I was happier then than now. I probably wasn't but I look back with rose tinted glasses, at those times I had hope and optimism, instead of now where I'm staring at another 45 years of being a wagie then living out my retirement on a pittance. I've fucked up every opportunity in my life.
>> No. 32874 Anonymous
28th January 2024
Sunday 3:11 pm
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>>32873
>I'm staring at another 45 years of being a wagie then living out my retirement on a pittance
Sounds like you're just pessimistic about your career prospects. Life is more than just your job; you could get really good at a hobby and be happy that way. You did things in the past that made you happy, obviously; what were they and why can't you do them again?
>> No. 32875 Anonymous
29th January 2024
Monday 7:04 pm
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I feel so tired all of the time, like never enough to sleep but enough to put me off doing anything. Not that I sleep great when I do sleep

At first I though it was that I did a lot of exercise but I haven't for a week. Is this part of getting old? or some sort of shitty sleep hygine. I try to go to bed at sensible times and after 2-3+ hours of staring at darkness I get feed up and get up and do stuff. how do I break this cycle?
>> No. 32876 Anonymous
30th January 2024
Tuesday 8:31 am
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>>32875

Probably a few things going on there, but my simplest and most straightforward answer: food. The trick for me is having an early dinner and allowing myself to go to bed a little bit hungry. Set an alarm at your desired wake-up time just in case.

I can't say what your circadian rhythm is like, but I've found if I eat at around 17:00 the night before, I'm quite able and happy to wake-up at 7:00 the next day without much of a struggle. Eating a large breakfast then will kind of "anchor" your body to a new wake-up time.

Another measure is making sure you don't have caffeine after midday. Caffeine has a surprisingly long half-life at 3 - 7 hours, so it's likely some will still be in your system if you drink it too late. I find cutting it out altogether improves my sleep.

I don't know how seriously to take the Huberman light receptor faff, but there is something to getting time outdoors, too. A twenty minute walk somewhere outdoors in the day, even in shite weather, will add considerably to the tiredness you feel at night.

Counterintuitively, you might need to get back to exercise to feel more tired and sleep better, as well. Human bodies are worse than cars for maintenance.
>> No. 32877 Anonymous
30th January 2024
Tuesday 10:11 am
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>>32875
If you find yourself unable to sleep then read a book instead of getting up. Also try to avoid working right before bed, have a wank and all that hygiene stuff.

>Is this part of getting old?

Yes. But we'll have those threads in around 5 years where we all start complaining about a mysterious insomnia where we just can't get comfortable in bed at night but find ourselves drifting off when we finish work and sit on the couch.
>> No. 32878 Anonymous
30th January 2024
Tuesday 10:32 am
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>>32877

Dunno about the rest of you but I started falling asleep on the couch about five years ago, nevermind another five years.

I blame the couch frankly. She's an insidious little temptress.
>> No. 32879 Anonymous
30th January 2024
Tuesday 12:31 pm
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>>32877

>If you find yourself unable to sleep then read a book instead of getting up.

The quacks would say otherwise. The official advice is that if you've been lying awake for more than 20-30 minutes, you should get up and do something boring in a dimly-lit room. Beds are for sleeping, shagging and nothing else - no TV, no radio, no reading, no looking at your phone.
>> No. 32880 Anonymous
31st January 2024
Wednesday 7:19 pm
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You must be getting fed up by now of hearing how I'm sabotaging relationships before they've had time to develop, so here's another one just to lay it on extra thick.

I have, again, left an online community among which I was getting on quite well. They served as a regular contact point focused around a shared interest. 4 or 5 weeks I took part but it became overwhelming - thoughts that people were talking behind my back, noticing behaviours that possibly indicated people didn't like me, needing (but thankfully resisting request for) constant reassurances that I'm liked, not annoying or misunderstood.
I think I was participating too much - Like every fucking day for multiple hours (but how am I supposed to impact the group if I'm not there?). I want people to know me, to like me, to respect me, to be recognised as filling a key role or some shit. It's all a popularity fantasy.

I feel a bit shit now to have thown away these potential online friends - it's not particularly difficult to numb myself of the feeling, it's harder not to recognise this repeated behaviour isn't doing me any good. But then the thought that none of this is real, from the activity we engaged in to the friendships that might have come of it, reminds me that I'm not really losing much by walking away from it - the only skill being practised is social, like an improv group or something.

Now I'm just sat here bored not knowing what to do with myself seeing as the past 5 weeks, 7 hours per day I've been grinding away with these cunts genuinely friendly and entertaining people trying to build and inhabit a virtual world.
>> No. 32881 Anonymous
31st January 2024
Wednesday 7:36 pm
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>>32880
It's all a fucking play. I went about deleting all of my posts in the community boards wondering what they'll think about my leaving, realising it'd probably hurt them more if I just disapeared rather than make a big song and dance about it, wondering if I'm even enough to make a stir, wondering if anyone would reach out privately, wondering how they might put together a reason for my departure.
It's so self centered and neurotic.
>> No. 32882 Anonymous
1st February 2024
Thursday 12:29 am
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>>32788
The update on this nobody is asking for.

Brother's gf has been messaging my gf. Brother and his gf met up with my dad and stepmum to discuss things. Didn't go well. His gf has sent my gf one of the messages my stepmum sent them after the talks, and they're dripping with venomous passive aggression. Brother also mentioned that I had also have some concerns with how my dad acts/treats us so now I'm terrified of talking to my dad as he knows I'm a dissident.

I'm worried about my brother. He is estranged from my mum (who I am very close to), and has been very loyal to my dad and stepmum for nearly 20 years after the initial fall out he had with my mum. He even refers to my stepmum as his mum. He's got friends, his gf is amazing, but I feel bad for him because if this situation escalates, he will have no relationship with any of his parents.

Also if my brother and/or I end up in my dad's bad books, I fear we'll lose touch with our younger brothers. They're both very dependent on my dad and don't have a massive amount of freedom. If my dad burns bridges with my older brother, will they poison my younger siblings against him? I'm not hugely bothered personally as I keep my family at a distance, but my older brother is very family focused and I can imagine him struggling losing the relationships with my younger brothers.

And there's nobody I can talk to about this. I don't trust my mum with information on this situation as I feel she'll clumsily try and get back in touch with my brother. I don't really have friends. The only place I can vent is here.
>> No. 32883 Anonymous
1st February 2024
Thursday 1:45 am
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>>32882
>my older brother is very family focused
You're his family. You might not want to talk to your brother about this, but I am confident that you can.
>> No. 32891 Anonymous
3rd February 2024
Saturday 5:13 pm
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I'm not going to kill myself, definitely not while I still have family that depend on me, but I really, really wish I didn't exist anymore.
>> No. 32892 Anonymous
7th February 2024
Wednesday 5:05 pm
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I'm a stupid piece of shit and started self harming again regularly. Yesterday I used my favoured tactic of heating a blade with a lighter until it's very hot, then holding it against my skin. Did this a few times. Got big blisters then they burst now I've got red moist wounds on my arm that are oozing some sort of clear fluid. I want to die but I can't get over that fear of fucking up. I've got enough meds in my drawer to kill me, but what if I don't take enough and I just become a brain damaged monstrosity. I know self harm is incredibly cringe and gay but I struggle to fight the urge to do it. I took a day off work today because I had nightmares all night and I'm hearing voices telling me to jump off the balcony on my floor in the office and plummet 9 stories and smash my skull like an over ripe watermelon. I'm already on a performance plan at work because of my attendence. I literally don't understand how people can exist and be happy I haven't been happy since 2011 before I realised the true reality of the world and I'm sick of it all. I used to be scared of dying in a nuclear war but now I'd welcome it. Komm, süßer Tod.
>> No. 32893 Anonymous
8th February 2024
Thursday 8:26 pm
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I find it difficult to make close and lasting friendships with other men.

My two best friends are women. I'm currently the only male within my team at work so, although I do interact a lot with the other departments, I spend far more time talking with a woman who's about 10 years older than me. The previous company I worked for had quite a laddish culture and I enjoyed that, but that was squarely during work hours only and the people I'm still in the most contact with from there are women. Job before that the four or five people I really clicked with were all women.

I'm no longer in contact with my best friend from my teenage years and that's my fault. I've only really had one close male friendship since then and again we had a falling out that was my fault.

I dunno, maybe I need some hobbies or something. Maybe I'm just shit with new people in general and women are simply easier to get along with.
>> No. 32894 Anonymous
8th February 2024
Thursday 8:42 pm
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>>32893
This is like old pop psychology, but it is said that men become friends by doing particular activities together, rather than just from talking or hanging out.
>> No. 32895 Anonymous
8th February 2024
Thursday 10:56 pm
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>>32891
>>32892
I don't know what to say lads. How do you think you can get yourself out of this situation that isn't just killing yourself? Is there anything beyond self-harm that makes you feel good?

>>32893
>maybe I need some hobbies or something

Yeah probably. I picked up classroom study in a foreign language and even in that we seem to be forming a group of friends where I'm meeting peoples' wives and hearing about stuff I don't really care about. Most people are receptive to making the odd mate, but we're cautious animals and partly because you don't want to make a twat of yourself but also some people are tapped.



Although I'm in a similar conundrum where I probably need to pick up another hobby. I don't want to be friends with the people I work with and while I love a classroom I think I need something else.
>> No. 32896 Anonymous
10th February 2024
Saturday 10:41 pm
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My mum was diagnosed with ADHD about eight years ago and went onto medication. Due to shortages, she hasn't been able to get her medication for the last two and a bit weeks. Seeing her has been surprisingly emotionally difficult. We had both sort of forgotten what she used to be like, what she was like for the whole of my childhood; seeing her like this has brought up a lot of stuff that we had both left in the past. I think she's a bit ashamed, realising how much she must have let me down over the years. Of course that's not her fault at all, but I feel a slight sense of grief at how things might have turned out differently for me if I had a mum who could be relied on.

People often minimise ADHD or dismiss it as a made-up condition, but the difference that the medication makes is profound. Without it, she struggles to pay attention during a short conversation, she wanders about the house aimlessly, she leaves things on the hob until they're incinerated. I fixed her phone screen last week and she has already cracked it again - if she gets distracted, she just forgets that it's in her hand. It's not that different to how nan was during the early stages of dementia. I'm sure that the medication shortages will get resolved fairly soon, but getting a glimpse of unmedicated mum has really knocked me for six.
>> No. 32897 Anonymous
13th February 2024
Tuesday 3:02 pm
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I was half tempted to post this in the weekday/end thread since it's happening now but better to post it here to not ruin the mood. Not exactly worth it's own thread since I suppose it happens to everyone.

My mother is dying and I've been told it will be hours to days until she finally passes. She's unresponsive so I can't even have one last talk with her. Last week she was fine within the means of her health condition but on Saturday she wouldn't wake up and was taking to hospital.

I feel fucking awful.
>> No. 32898 Anonymous
13th February 2024
Tuesday 10:24 pm
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>>32897
Well she's passed on now. I feel rather relieved actually. Closure so no waiting around for the hospital to call.
She suffered from MS too so she's no longer struggling with that either.
I'm guessing the next few weeks or months will be tough but I suppose I'll push through. Just need to make sure my Father has the support he needs.
>> No. 32899 Anonymous
13th February 2024
Tuesday 10:28 pm
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>>32897
Ah, crap, sorry to hear that.
I'm dying-dad-lad from late last year, and the few one-sided conversations I had are things I treasure, so if you can get some time alone for a chat, go for it.
But it's going to suck. I thought I was doing fine, but I've been well off form for months, it's weird, so I'd suggest yo go easy on yourself and your family for a bit, if at all possible.
>> No. 32900 Anonymous
14th February 2024
Wednesday 12:05 am
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>>32898
Sorry to hear that lad. Been through this myself - look after yourself.
>> No. 32902 Anonymous
18th February 2024
Sunday 9:26 pm
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My work's really stressing me out.

The way it works is that when a customer raises a complaint, the agent speaking to them is in charge of that complaint. So Geoff could have told the customer the wrong thing, the customer phones back, but because I answer it's me, not Geoff, who works the complaint. Complaints require everything to be recorded and noted. Many complaints boil down to customers mad they have to wait for someone to come sort their system out, and our response is essentially "we provided shit service on 6 days so you get six days worth of standing charge back" which amounts to fuck all. I've got 14 open complaints. Next highest on my team is 6.

I find it hard because not only am I a neurodivergent retard who finds keeping on top of all this stuff hard, but only one person per team is allowed to be working complaints at any given time. So everyone is jockeying to get their time in. This does not work for me. I was off sick for a few days and came back with loads of complaint actions overdue. I genuinely can't understand how I am meant to manage this stuff.

My mental health is shit and as soon as I leave work I dread going back and it ruins my evenings and weekends. I don't get much support from my workplace, I feel like I'm drowning in terms of work.

Obvious answer is not to do a depressing call centre job, but I am a chronic fuck up loser and I can't get anything better. I'm already facing a disciplinary due to my attendance I just want to fucking die. Self immolate in front of the office. Everyone hates me and laughs at me behind my back because I have no social skills and no charisma.
>> No. 32903 Anonymous
18th February 2024
Sunday 9:56 pm
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>>32902

I really sympathise lad, I've been where you are now and I found it every bit as suffocating. There were days I genuinely considered just getting the lift up to the top floor and chucking myself off.

Everything about the call centre environment is degrading, dehumanising, and hostile. You have to somehow spend all your time logged into a dystopian phone system that monitors everything you do but still find time for other things you get punished for not doing. The social situation of actually interacting with your colleagues and managers is all this wierd cryptic bullshit where you have to read between the lines and lick the right person's arse. Just everything about it is horrible even for a normal person, nevermind our lot.

I know you recognise this yourself and feel like you can't, but I'd really recommend you put everything you have into getting out of that environment, because it's only compounding your mental health issues. Do whatever you need to do to survive, be it living off your partner or living at your mum and dad's while you go on the dole even, but get out of there by whatever means you can.

You say you can't get anything better but honestly, if you put aside the money, there's loads of jobs out there that are much less kafkaesqe. You will find life much more enjoyable if you get paid a bit less but as a trade off don't have to deal with the public. That's the main reason I've stayed at my job for so long, whereas before I got this job, I was a perpetual fuck up who couldn't hold down a job for more than six months. The pay is shit but I don't have to talk to any random dickheads and my boss largely just leaves me to get on with it. It's amazing what a difference that makes.

Things will improve mate, just don't resign yourself to your current situation. There's other stuff out there and it's not you that's the problem. Call centre jobs are the bottom of the pile, easy to get if you desperately need a job but nobody should have to do them for long.

Good luck.
>> No. 32910 Anonymous
21st February 2024
Wednesday 7:56 pm
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Any of you lads been in respiridone? The psych I saw today wants me to stop olanzapine and move to respiridone.

Also she said I probably have a personality disorder. You'd think in the woke snowflake world we live in, they'd come up with a nicer term than "personality disorder" which makes you sound like a defective freak.
>> No. 32911 Anonymous
21st February 2024
Wednesday 10:56 pm
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>>32659>>32710 here again.

She's confessed this evening that she's been having an affair with someone at work since last summer, a man in his late 40s called Wayne who lives on a council estate. Looks like a proper scruff.

Last weekend she was telling me all about how she loves me, wants to make things work and thinks we should get married next year.
>> No. 32912 Anonymous
21st February 2024
Wednesday 11:03 pm
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>>32911
Lad, you've got to get out of this car crash now. I guarantee that Wayne will fuck her off and she'll be back to pawing at your door before long.
>> No. 32913 Anonymous
21st February 2024
Wednesday 11:09 pm
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>>32912
It is the absolute point of no return. He has a partner and was up front about the fact he wouldn't leave her. She's only told me because rumours had been going round at work and she wanted me to find out from her; he's been denying it to his partner.

I don't feel heartbroken, just annoyed at being taken for a mug for so long.
>> No. 32914 Anonymous
22nd February 2024
Thursday 1:32 am
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>>32913
Oh man, I feel for you. She sounds like a rotter.
>> No. 32915 Anonymous
22nd February 2024
Thursday 1:36 am
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>>32914
Thanks lad. Wish I could sleep but my body has decided it would rather overheat instead.
>> No. 32916 Anonymous
22nd February 2024
Thursday 10:32 am
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I've only had four hours sleep, I feel a little bit queasy with anxiety, but weirdly I'm feeling quite positive. I feel ready for a big change, I'm just not sure what that change will be yet.
>> No. 32917 Anonymous
22nd February 2024
Thursday 12:43 pm
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>>32911

What a bitch. Is she still living there? I don't know how this all works but surely you have grounds to boot her out on her arse, if so.

I wouldn't tolerate her staying if I was in your position. She's made her desicions and now she will have to deal with the fallout.
>> No. 32918 Anonymous
22nd February 2024
Thursday 1:15 pm
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>>32917
She slept in the living room last night. I'm guessing we're gonna have a longer discussion this evening while our daughters are out, but I'm working on the basis she has until the end of the weekend to sort something out.

She's trickle truthing so I know I'm not getting the full picture, but I'm not really sure I want to know more because it will just make me angry. She's been quite obsessive about me telling his partner to try and split them up, even though she says she wasn't attracted to him and said he only did because he gave her attention. She also doesn't want the kids to know the reason why we're breaking up.

I didn't get any sleep last night and I've had to force myself to eat a little as I have no appetite. Mentally I don't feel that bad, I'm more annoyed she did this rather than simply leave like we'd talked about, but my boss could tell something was up and when I talked to her about it my voice kept breaking so maybe it's hitting me more than I like to think.
>> No. 32919 Anonymous
22nd February 2024
Thursday 3:30 pm
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>>32918

You are a man, your emotions will manifest as anger first and foremost. It's a defence mechanism almost, because your psyche knows you are vulnerable and it's "better" to project that than appear weak. But don't worry, it'll hit you soon enough.

Make sure you've got a mate or two who'll have your back and listen to you vent over a pint, I'd say. There's nothing like the feeling of being cheated on, but if there's one silver lining I think it's that there's no better motivation to move on and wash your hands of someone.
>> No. 32920 Anonymous
22nd February 2024
Thursday 9:09 pm
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>>32919
>if there's one silver lining I think it's that there's no better motivation to move on and wash your hands of someone

I wanted to say this too earlier in the thread, but could not find a way of putting it so eloquently.
>> No. 32921 Anonymous
23rd February 2024
Friday 1:50 am
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>>32919>>32920
Thanks again lads. I ended up calling my mum and spent about 15 minutes crying down the phone to her, so she's going to visit today while I'm WFH. Friends have said about meeting up but they're a bit scattered about and I'll organise something when my head is straight.

She's slept in the living room again tonight and I've actually managed to get about three or four hours sleep so far, I'm feeling a bit more human but still have no real appetite yet. We talked for a couple of hours last night, going over our relationship with a conversation we should have had years ago. It was quite cathartic but then she went and accidentally called me by his name; I'd already made clear I felt like a switch had gone off after finding out what happened and now she was dead to me and how I felt revulsion looking at her, which make that slip as much as I could tolerate last night. Like you lads say, I just want to put this behind me and move on.

She's changed her stance from saying she'd leave now if I told his partner or will go after the weekend to saying she wants to stay until I buy her out because she owns the house with me and has the legal right to stay. Would I be a doormat if I let that happen? My gut says yes but my head is still foggy so I don't trust my judgement right now. I don't know what I'm supposed to do. Do I change the locks? Do I pack her bags? Do I make a scene at her work? Do I tell his partner? Do I go and twat him?
>> No. 32922 Anonymous
23rd February 2024
Friday 7:39 am
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>>32921
Do none of those things. She is in the wrong, it is for her to move out and leave now, she has had the affair, not you. Everything else is a deflection on her part.

If I was you, I would be preparing to have an explicit conversation with your daughters about this.
>> No. 32923 Anonymous
23rd February 2024
Friday 9:49 am
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>>32921

Agreed with otherlad, don't do any of that. You're already on the right track by surrounding yourself with cooler heads. If you have any friends or relatives that you think will properly look out for your interests and advocate on your behalf (like your mum or very good mates), stay close to them and let them know what's going on as often as you can.

I don't want to take a cynical view or instil any unnecessary panic here, but I also don't want you to get completely fucked over, so I feel the need to give a warning.

It sounds to me like she knows she's been horrible, she's messed up the family, and there's no way to go back to pretending everything's alright. This is why she's switched away from a moral framework (where she doesn't have a leg to stand on) to a legal one (which buys time and favours her). It is an immensely selfish shift in priorities that doesn't bode well for you.

There's a real danger here, knowing you already think of her as a moral monster, that she'll go full scorched-earth and make things as awkward as possible for you and your daughters. With you, the jig is up, you know she's capable of cheating and throwing away her family life -- but she can still try and save face with the rest of the world and make things a bit more comfortable for herself.

Things don't always play out this way, but I want you to be prepared. People can do all sorts of wild nonsense when their domestic life collapses. I've known partners who get caught cheating to lie about abuse, grasp for finances, use kids as bargaining chips, all sorts of nasty, demeaning shite, because she knows this specific relationship is over and has nothing more to prove to you.

Of course, I could be wrong about this. Some some people do take the moral high ground, but when the choice is between doing the right thing and being known as a cheater or taking the easy way out and getting the benefit of the doubt from others, it can be awfully tempting to just go with the latter. Another worrying thing is how erratic she's been based on your previous posts. Swinging from wanting to make things work and get married to cheating on you in secret suggests someone that doesn't really know what they want, and may be in a state of panic now that the decision has been taken out of their hands.

Since you're not married, there may be limited legal recourse for her. On the other hand, I don't know the law, and suggest you start doing your research or finding someone who knows their stuff, sharpish. When she starts talking about "legal rights", your ears better prick up, lad.
>> No. 32924 Anonymous
23rd February 2024
Friday 10:12 am
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>>32921
>>32923

I'm inclined to agree here, be very cautious, but don't give her an inch. If I were you I'd make it very clear that she was until the end of the week to find somewhere to stay and start the process as soon as you can to buy her out, so she knows you're not fucking around.


Don't take anything she says into account because she has proved herself to be a liar, she's been lying to you for a year, why would she start telling the truth now? She has proved herself to be selfish, she's been acting purely and solely in her own self interest this entire time, so you need to work on the assumption that anything and everything she says and does still is 100% selfishly motivated.

You really do just need to be clear about it, it's done, it's over, she's fucked it, there's no weaselling back in and damage control, she's had her chance.
>> No. 32925 Anonymous
23rd February 2024
Friday 10:51 am
32925 spacer
>>32921
Having no relationship experience at all, I'd wonder if keeping your girlfriend happy during the time of seperation might smooth the process somewhat. Yeah she's cheated, an awful person and all that, but surely rash action might provoke her to percieved self-defense? You don't want her going legal or fucking with the kids, so why make her feel it's necessary?

Give ger a month to leave, time enough to make arrangements rather than another sofa, while keeping her at arms length. Could go full retard and pay a months rent just to speed the process - she has been with you for 18 years, like it or not she's a part of your life and will be for a while yet.
>> No. 32926 Anonymous
23rd February 2024
Friday 10:57 am
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Thanks again lads. I've realised it's best not to do anything rash and focus on self-preservation, try and get some rest and some food down me to get my strength back. Then I can try and think more clearly about doing what's right for me and the kids. I've been crying on and off all morning, which I think is sheer exhaustion more than anything and frustration over the whole situation; as I've said, I don't feel heartbroken and I wouldn't have had any real problem if she simply left, it's just... this.

>>32922
They're 8 and 13. I don't have a clue how I'd approach the conversation, although I guess that's more for closer to when she finally fucks off.

>>32923
It's only been via the phone/WhatsApp but I have had a lot of valuable insight from my friends. They're scattered about the place but I'll be meeting up with them soon.

I know she did have a meeting with her boss yesterday, making sure her and the affair partner are now in separate offices, and I think she was worried she'd come home and her key wouldn't work so they've been researching online what I'm legally able to do. She did start throwing around terms like non-molestation order this morning if I did anything like that, with the first result on Google being "Get an injunction if you've been the victim of domestic abuse" so I'm going to be on my guard; I don't think she'd pull a stunt like claiming I'm abusing her so I have to leave and she gets to stay in the house (without buying me out) but I didn't think she was capable of cheating so here we are.

>>32924
Unfortunately I won't get anywhere telling her to leave. She legally has the right to stay here until I've bought her out the house.

As you say, I've got to focus on myself and move on.

I'll only try and post in the future if something has happened, rather than turning this into a rolling blog post about how I'm feeling.
>> No. 32927 Anonymous
23rd February 2024
Friday 11:05 am
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>>32925
I think it's the best I can do, as long as she doesn't take that for weakness and believe she can screw me over further.

I can be civil to her, but I'm finding it very draining right now so I'm trying to avoid her presence where possible.
>> No. 32929 Anonymous
23rd February 2024
Friday 1:01 pm
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>>32927
>>32925

The trouble is she has already taken you for a mug, she's demonstrated her character; I don't want to labour the point but I feel like I must stress, she WILL try and take advantage of any ground you concede. Especially if she is already throwing around veiled threats about the kids and what have you.

To use an aptly Corriganesque metaphor, you may well be in Stalin's position in 1941. You don't want the war, but Hitler is already marching over the border.

Anyway all the best mate, I hope it works out relatively alright.
>> No. 32930 Anonymous
23rd February 2024
Friday 1:23 pm
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>>32929
This attitude can only fuel the fire, were any of that true; 18 years, the guy knows his missus. While she certainly appears to be confused and grasping at straws, there's no good in making her increasingly desperate.
>> No. 32931 Anonymous
23rd February 2024
Friday 1:31 pm
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>>32929>>32930
One of my friends who had an abusive ex-boyfriend has come up with the best solution I've heard so far. We come up with a formal agreement now covering off the likes of living arrangements now, future custody, how the figure I buy her out for will be reached, what she can take from the house when she leaves, how soon she can stay in the house after I buy her out and so on. It's not binding but would be used as evidence if there was a legal dispute and means there's less room for arguments down the line.
>> No. 32932 Anonymous
23rd February 2024
Friday 1:36 pm
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I went a bit mental (more mental) a few weeks ago and, grabbing my moustache scissors from my desk, slashed them across my left forearm. I've self-harmed once before, when I was 13. Back then I wasn't motivated out of any kind of deep rage or angst, but because I was an idiot, all my mates were depressed emos and I thought "there must be something to all this", but the 2cm cut in my bicep hurt and I stopped immediately.

Anyway, even calling the scissor attack "self-harm" is faintly OTT because it was so minor that I don't even recall it being painful. However, it's still not properly healed, so I guess I'll have to get some kind of sleeve tattoo to cover it. More seriously it has unsettled me that I can just lost it like that. I used to think I was quite good under stress, but that's only really the case when it's not all on me. When I'm dealing with my own problems I fall to bits like a cheap sock.

>>32929
As someone who has expressed and internalised more Second World War "Corriganisms" than I can bare to remember, thinking of a break up, no matter how serious, like it's the beginning of Operation Barbarossa is a terrible idea. At no point will a shortage of tanks and motor vehicles mean break-uplad has to reform his division sized mechanised units into brigades, or temporily abandon corps level command structures due to a lack of suitably experienced officers.

Save the WW2 stuff for when you're on a long walk or trying to be thankful for some terrible food.
>> No. 32933 Anonymous
23rd February 2024
Friday 1:48 pm
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>>32930
>>32932

I'm only saying, he needs to be on the lookout, because from what we know of the story there's absolutely no evidence he can or should trust her on anything; and without wanting to insult the lad, it appears he's let her get away with it plenty in the past.

I'm nit saying he should antagonise her, that never improves things. What I am saying is that he needs to stick to his guns when she inevitably goes back on her agreements again.
>> No. 32934 Anonymous
23rd February 2024
Friday 1:49 pm
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>>32929>>32930

I'm >>32923, and I can see both sides to this. I wasn't suggesting turning the situation into psychological warfare, I was just urging him to be aware that these things do happen (to other people that also trusted their partners) and to protect himself accordingly. It's possible to defend yourself without being provocative.

A formal agreement like >>32931 sounds rational, but I'm doubtful this would hold any water in a proper legal dispute. You're relying on the goodness of her character when she's already shown herself to be unreliable.

Not to mention the fact that she's been having the affair for several months. This is what's so immensely unfair about situations like this. Otherlad has been emotionally blindsided and is now playing with the cards stacked against him. At the very least, during the affair, don't you think it would have crossed her mind what it would be like to leave? It's very possible she was thinking about an eventuality like this. People who are "confused and grasping at straws" don't usually drop phrases like "non-molestation order" in conversation.

Again, I'd urge otherlad to do a bit of research and seek legal advice on this, urgently. By all means try to amicably separate. You don't want this to become a legal battle, but you bloody well want to be prepared if it does reach that stage.
>> No. 32935 Anonymous
23rd February 2024
Friday 6:03 pm
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My energy bill is starting to stress me out. I've tried keeping the heating down as much as I can over the winter, but my account still keeps getting further and further into debit and even when we get to the warmer months and I'm hardly using any, my monthly payment will still need to pretty much double to cover it.

I've been getting by just about with my current outgoings and had a couple of quid to spend leftover, but that would have me fully just scraping through month to month. It's just fucking bleak.
>> No. 32936 Anonymous
23rd February 2024
Friday 6:12 pm
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Could potentially be sacked next week.

Combo of poor attendance and poor compliance.

Compliance is a shitty one. I manage my own caseload of complaints, so in theory if our service goes down in one area and I end up taking a few calls from them, I'll rack up even more complaints. I've had a few complaints where I need input from a senior staff member, who does not respond to my calls or emails, so nothing can happen until he actually gets his finger out. But I'm the one it reflects badly on.

Because I have not solved my complaints fast enough, I have until next Friday to get everything in line. If not, I will get an informal capability plan. But with the formal capability meeting I have next week about my attendance, if they rule to give me a final warning for attendance and then I get the sanction for my complaint handling, I will be sacked.

Had a bit of a cry at my desk a short while after I got told I'm likely to be dismissed. What a pussy, crying at his desk. I wanted to smash everything up and commit suicide by jumping into the atrium but then I had that fear I always have, what if I live after the fall as a vegetable. I took a few diazepam which stopped the crying.

Every job I've had after uni I have fucked up. I literally can't do anything right. Call centre drone is the lowest tier of worker, and I can't even do that.
>> No. 32937 Anonymous
23rd February 2024
Friday 6:32 pm
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>>32936

>Call centre drone is the lowest tier of worker, and I can't even do that.

Bad jobs aren't easy, they're just bad jobs. I got sacked from loads of entry-level jobs, often for fairly spurious reasons, because I was seen as disposable and easily replaced. My performance was poor and my mental health suffered, because I was treated poorly and wasn't valued at work. Don't take it personally, because it isn't personal - as far as they're concerned, they're just changing a cog in a machine.

Take this as a prompt to re-evaluate your options. You probably can find a job that's better suited to you, but you're probably being held back by a lack of confidence.
>> No. 32938 Anonymous
23rd February 2024
Friday 7:36 pm
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>>32936
Are you private-sector or public-sector? My far-right work colleague who wants to privatise the NHS says his mum works there and she has dozens of stories about people being massively indulged in a way that would not fly in a private company. One woman took 18 months of compassionate leave when her husband died. If you work for some energy company or telesales dungeon, it's no wonder they're treating you like shit. If you already work for the council, there will be ways to get out of trouble.
>> No. 32939 Anonymous
23rd February 2024
Friday 8:53 pm
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>>32937>>32938
It's private sector energy. They are somewhat decent in accommodating my issues, but my last few jobs have been in civil service, charity, and NHS so probably unusually lenient.

I'm looking at going back to uni as a mature student but then I think someone in their thirties wanting to study Comp Sci is going to stick out like a sore thumb at uni and also people might not want to hire the weird old bloke over a fresh young 21 year old graduate.
>> No. 32940 Anonymous
24th February 2024
Saturday 10:56 am
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>>32939
You can be coming up 40 with a comp sci degree and feeling better or you can be without the degree and coming up 40 anyway.

As somebody that sits on interview panels a lot, it literally doesn't matter who/what you are. All that matters is you seem like you can do the job.

Good luck, never think you can't improve your lot.
>> No. 32941 Anonymous
24th February 2024
Saturday 11:31 am
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>>32939
Why do you need to pay 30 grand for some uni to "teach" you when Ivy League universities have freely published their lectures? Why should it take you three years?

If you want easy work for 30k that no fucker with a passable attitude can possibly fuck up, enter a warehouse. The automotive sector pays pretty well and there are easily had production line jobs too. Might need to sort out your attendance issues first. Although this surely ain't the path to fulfilment or an escape from useless management.
>> No. 32942 Anonymous
24th February 2024
Saturday 12:02 pm
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>>32941
Fucking hell, that's the shitest advice I've seen on this website. "Don't do what you want, work in a warehouse". Shut up and piss off, you unhelpful moron. A formal education can and probably will be a lot more informative and dynamic than reading or watching a bunch of old lectures, not to mention that going back to uni isn't mutually exclusive with that anyway.

Do not listen to this arsehole, he is an idiot and the police should take his keyboard away for all our sakes.
>> No. 32943 Anonymous
24th February 2024
Saturday 12:19 pm
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>>32942
>"Don't do what you want, work in a warehouse".
I didn't say that though, did I? If he's going to continue in shit work (which he'll have to do anyway if he's targeting the September intake), he shouldn't do a job he struggles with (just not necessary) or that pays less than 30k (likewise).

I think you'll find engaging with other coders and learners in real time isn't the exclusive preserve of people who pay a £27k admittance fee either.
>> No. 32944 Anonymous
24th February 2024
Saturday 1:30 pm
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>>32880
>I have, again, left an online community among which I was getting on quite well.
So I went back to this group and have stuck out a couple more impulses to leave, but I'm becoming disenchanted with the charcters there. As I'm getting to know the other members, I'm starting to realise they're just fucking people - argumentative, bullying, manipulative, oversensitive, etc. even the members who claim to have personable jobs such as councilling are twats with seethrough motives.

I can only conclude that I'm better than these people (dispite my sedentry, non-working non-producing lifestle). That's gotta be it, right? It's not like my string of posts here is evidence to the opposite.

Seriously though I don't understand how these apparently well adjusted people, who work, who play, who socialise and engage hobbies, are often so unguarded with their attitudes and, well, human.
Is this really what it's like, or is it just because I'm expecting to meet fine examples of behaviour on a fucking gaming Discord?
>> No. 32945 Anonymous
24th February 2024
Saturday 2:23 pm
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>>32941
Someone who struggles with routine working patterns absolutely should not be going into the industrial manufacturing sector. The nature of logistics between a warehouse and call centre aren't THAT different as Amazon keenly demonstrates and the underlying philosophy hasn't changed much. That's not to say there are no jobs with skilled independent projects (design etc.) but an IT job where you can mostly work independently and create your own patterns sounds much more up his alley.

So long as he doesn't do anything daft and focuses on broader systems theory over being a low-paid code monkey anyway.

>>32944
You're overthinking this, seeing motives in others and yourself as only a sensible actor who reacts to them. It's a group of monkeys banging sticks together to discuss whatever and you're one of them. You ought to reflect from a top-down perspective on yourself as an animal with a more abstract consciousness along for the ride.
>> No. 32948 Anonymous
27th February 2024
Tuesday 6:13 pm
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A new girl has started at work, and without going into detail, she reminds me of my ex in some very specific ways that make it really hard for me to spend much time around her without it opening up old wounds that were only just starting to feel healed.

It feels like the universe is just trying to be cruel to me frankly. I like to just get my head down and get on with it but I can hear her talking to a colleague in the background or whatever, and I can't help ruminating about the bullshit that woman put me through. Going over again all the times she treated me with disrespect, going back over all the ways I felt hurt and betrayed to realise she didn't care about me, only about what I could do for her. How she way lying til me to the very end while I was desperately trying to deny it to myself because I was desperately in love with her and wanted to see the best in her. How I felt like such bloody mug when I finally came to terms with it all.

It's just not what I needed honestly. I was just starting to move past it all and feel good in myself without all that bitterness weighing me down but it's all come surging back. It was already harder to deal with than most break ups because it's the first time I've felt truly used and then tossed aside like rubbish, most of them in my past its just been things not working out, sad but manageable. This one just really keeps fucking with my head.
>> No. 32949 Anonymous
27th February 2024
Tuesday 11:44 pm
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>>32945
>It's a group of monkeys banging sticks together to discuss whatever and you're one of them.
That is clearly the case seeing as I have now left the server following my public freakout regarding rules and interpretations. I do wonder what space this leaves for realising aspirations, however.

I'm vaguely understanding that I may have a superiority complex - it certainly explains numerous historic personal interactions - but I don't know how that fits into wanting to practice and be among honestly arguing people who're interested in hashing out ideas rather than the character of those speaking them.

I've been subject to dishonest and manipulative rhetoric for some time. I make effort to excuse poor communicative behaviours and techniques and try to understand the why of what people are communicating. Practice doesn't mean good at however, unfortunately this time I fell to the communities level and became one of them.
I recognise some of the elements at play in that statement above, namely that it positions myself above the others. How do I address this?

I don't really know what I'm saying. To be among people I could consider as peers would probably inflate my head even more.

Yes I sound like a twat. Do try to excuse that, won't you? I'm a fucking clown.
>> No. 32952 Anonymous
28th February 2024
Wednesday 3:35 pm
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>>32949

Self reflection is useful but a superiority complex is not, especially without any concrete evidence of the supposed superiority.

Maybe I'm prone to thinking I might be superior to some people in some ways, but there's no point applying my own values to other people when they might hold different values about what is adequate or even exceptional.

Basically funnel your supposed superiority complex into doing something other than excessive self absorbed reflection. And just talk to people with care to thinking whether they would want criticism or not, with regards to interests and hobbies and the like, considering this seems to be a complaint about lack of recreational relationships.
>> No. 32953 Anonymous
29th February 2024
Thursday 5:22 am
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>>32911 here again.

It's been roughly a week since she confessed to the affair. The first five days were absolutely awful, but I've been in a much better state of mind since Tuesday; I think going into work, being able to pretend this wasn't happening while I was out the house and having inconsequential social interactions have worked wonders. The other big factor was sleep deprivation; even now I'm generally sleeping 11pm to 2am and then I might drift off for an hour or so around 6ish until my alarm goes off, but it took days for me to even get to this point.

The only thing I've done which I regret was asking questions and finding out far more than I should have done, which no good will come of because it'll only make me hurt. At this point most of my anger has turned into pity; maybe if she'd had the affair with someone who was good looking and they were having mind-blowing sex I'd be feeling very differently, but the other man isn't attractive or a nice person so when I look at her I mainly think how pathetic she is. I think he's absolutely played her like a fiddle, taking advantage of her naivety and low self-esteem, but that doesn't excuse what she did at all.

She wants to get back together, saying it's taken this to realise how much she loves me, so she seems to be in a worse place than I am. She has done a few things for attention, e.g. threatening suicide on several occasions and on one occasion she's self-harmed; for the latter I was in the living room trying to sleep with my phone notifications muted so she made a big point of coming in to let me know she'd done it. It's either all for attention or a manipulation tactic. I'm still not entirely sure what she's capable of and that's my biggest concern; I don't know what mood she's in and I expect her to try and pull the rug out from under me at least once during the separation.

I spoke with the bank yesterday and have got the ball rolling on buying her out and getting her name off the property so at least that's progress. Next steps are for me to speak with one of their mortgage advisers on Friday and for her to get her boss to confirm her pay rise in April so she knows what properties she can afford.
>> No. 32954 Anonymous
29th February 2024
Thursday 8:35 am
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>>32953
I think otherlads have said all that needs to be said. Keep your cool, stay strong. We're rooting for you (and your daughters).
>> No. 32955 Anonymous
29th February 2024
Thursday 11:20 am
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>>32954
Thanks, lad. It is appreciated.

I think I'll refrain from posting anything further about this until she leaves, unless she does anything off the rails in the meantime. She told me this morning that she loves me more now than at any other point in her life.
>> No. 32956 Anonymous
29th February 2024
Thursday 12:45 pm
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>>32953
>>32955

It's very cathartic when they go like this, and you get to do the look down and whisper "No." bit. That said, you are right to be careful because I would bet good money that the real drama is only just about to begin when she realises this won't work. Brace yourself.

Godspeed lad.
>> No. 32957 Anonymous
29th February 2024
Thursday 10:33 pm
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I have my first civil service workplace disciplinary coming up where I may leave with an official written warning for my performance. I'm due to speak to my trade union rep and have started to build some evidence. I'm a bit lost, I don't know what to do and I feel miserable. I'm too old to lose my career.

It's pretty small peanuts in comparison but I've also just started seeing a woman I have all of this going on and still need to be an okay guy with her which can be challenging.
>> No. 32958 Anonymous
1st March 2024
Friday 5:01 am
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>>32957
Sorry to hear that lad, horrible situation to be in. What's the disciplinary for? I've gone through the process from informal warning to being sacked from the civil service. Mine was excess sickness, so if that's your situation I may be able to give some top tips.
>> No. 32959 Anonymous
1st March 2024
Friday 5:04 am
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>>32958
I will add that if the trade union rep is worth his salt, he'll spend a lot of time talking with you to know the case inside out, and so he can utilise Yu-Gi-Oh trap card legalese shit.
>> No. 32960 Anonymous
2nd March 2024
Saturday 11:50 am
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Bit of a vent. To make a long story short. I may have already posted about this some time.
I was the victim of fraud back in 2020 where I stupidly gave some details over the phone (I was desperate for a job and they coaxed me into thinking I applied for a job with them) and they were able to set up some contract phones. I had dealt with it all and got it removed from my name etc apart from account which i did notify Virgin Media about but for whatever reason their customer service/fraud team are useless cunts.

This one "debt" of around £140 has been on my name ever since and it's been bounced between debt collection agencies which i contacted, made them aware of the nature of it then thought it was done only to then get reminded of it by another agency 6 months / 1 year later. My credit rating of 999 has been down then up, every time this happened.

Today I got a letter for it again from a new agency/legal company and this time they had a discount on it so apparently they only wanted £50 so I said fuck it, paid it off and hopefully I'll hear nothing else from them.

If they come back and for more or say by paying I admit to it I'm getting a solicitor involved since it's making me sick now. Maybe I should have done this to begin with but covid happened when it occurred and I wasn't in the best point in my life at the time.
>> No. 32961 Anonymous
2nd March 2024
Saturday 12:06 pm
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>>32960

I got stung by something similar a few years back, I had "upgraded" my phone with a seemingly legit company, who were apparently actually contracted through my provider; but they sent me the wrong phone. So naturally I sent it back, and they agreed to cancel the contract, but never did. I was being hounded for it for years despite providing all the evidence that they were in error and I had the right to cancel the contract under the circumstances.

That's one of the things that really took the scales off my eyes that actually, a lot of things in society are just there to con you and rip you off 100%. You have to be on your guard and sort these things swiftly and firmly at the very outset, because the civilised idea of there being consumer protection laws and regulators and such to prevent this, in an upstanding and decent country like hours, is nothing more than a comforting lie.

The whole system is set up to chance it and see what they can squeeze out of people who are too uninformed about their rights and fearful of consequences to stand up against it.
>> No. 32966 Anonymous
7th March 2024
Thursday 10:38 pm
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I'm hearing voices tell me to attack people and rape people and kill myself and shout slurs at people of other races I've had them years but I'm not finding them as troublesome as normal as it's sort of a break from the drudgery of work/life. Maybe I should embrace the fucked up entity that lives in my head?
>> No. 32967 Anonymous
8th March 2024
Friday 11:11 am
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>>32966
I'll be honest, the fucked up entity in your head sounds like kind of a nihilistic tosser. I'm being a touch hypocritical here because I am too, but apart from this one time, I'd recommend no listening to people like that. What I would recommend is talking to a GP or some other kind of mental health service before you irrevocably fuck your whole life up in a way that makes the "drudgery of work/life" look like a free buffet.
>> No. 32968 Anonymous
8th March 2024
Friday 7:11 pm
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Saw the personality disorder team person and the psychiatrist today. Psych referred me to PD team, but PD team think my emotional disregulation is due to autism not PD.

Psychiatrist asked why I hear voices telling me to attack people of colour, a hard thing to explain, but they're giving me more antipsychotics. I've never hurt anyone not me but it feeks bad telling someone the things that happen in my head.
>> No. 32969 Anonymous
13th March 2024
Wednesday 8:25 pm
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>>32957
I got a one-month review now with 3 big pieces of work. Then if I keep fucking up I'll get a warning. I don't know, I walked into the meeting with a prepared document for development and changes to work but my boss just listed off various hurtful accusations that I had to defend. It wasn't a productive conversation at all but I was able to be the adult and share a pre-prepared list of changes as well read off a separate appeal document I'd prepared to bat away accusations.

The problem is that now I keep making mistakes. Mostly typos and broken sentences in documents that destroy my work and now people are looking for them along with the general structure of my writing which makes even simple tasks extremely stressful and suddenly I'm spending an hour crafting a paragraph. I think part of the problem is I keep getting distracted by everyone approaching me for help and general side quests that fucks over my focus but gives me amazing feedback from the people around me.

>>32958
It's performance for me. The kind that makes me wonder what the hell I'm going to do with my life and if my career is over and I've got to find something else to do.
>> No. 32970 Anonymous
14th March 2024
Thursday 5:40 pm
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I was talking to someone today whose child had recently died. I was being very sympathetic, but inside I was screaming "HA HA, DEAD KID CUNT, DEAD DEAD DEAD DEAD, SHIT ON HER GRAVE, FUCK YOU AND FUCK YOUR DEAD KID".

Not psychosis by the way, just OCD.
>> No. 32971 Anonymous
14th March 2024
Thursday 6:25 pm
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>>32970
So you were thinking that compulsively, not because you actually felt it or believed it? You actually did feel sympathetic?
>> No. 32972 Anonymous
14th March 2024
Thursday 6:37 pm
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>>32971

We're all naturally ambivalent about most things. It's natural to sympathise with someone else's grief, but it's also natural to wonder why you're supposed to give a toss about other people's problems. I'd never actually scream "DEAD KID CUNT" at a grieving father, but some small part of me wants to do that. Like anyone, there are selfish and cruel impulses within my psyche.

My OCD traits magnify any thought I have that I know is unacceptable to express, but that's OK because I know that they're unacceptable. I can't control my thoughts, but I can control my actions. Every time I see a pram I think about knocking it over, but I've never actually done it, because the little part of me that is a sadistic prick isn't in charge.
>> No. 32973 Anonymous
14th March 2024
Thursday 8:50 pm
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>>32971
It's a known symptom of obsessive-compulsive disorder that when you're waiting on a train platform and there's a train pulling in, you get a weird urge to push someone in front of the train. I don't have OCD as far as I know, but I do get that feeling and I can happily accept that it's probably the same as what this poster is describing.
>> No. 32974 Anonymous
15th March 2024
Friday 1:26 am
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>>32970
I was at the hospital laughing at cripples
Then I heard your kid just died
Suddenly, that was funnier than the cripples
So I tracked you down and made fun of you

[Chorus:]
Your kid died, and you cried
And I thought it was funny
[x2]

It was an open casket wake
I spilled my beer in your kid’s coffin
Your mascara ran because you were crying
So I kicked your husband in the balls

[Chorus]
>> No. 32975 Anonymous
15th March 2024
Friday 4:04 pm
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>>32972
>>32973
Perhaps we're not really understanding each other; what I'm asking is did you feel sympathy for this woman? Like, perhaps I could be in the same situation as you and internally scream "ha ha dead kid cunt" in my head, and I'd do it not because of OCD but because my edgy teenlad side finds it funny. But I could never do that and also feel glad the kid is dead. I don't have a sadistic side that would express itself in that moment. So I'm asking is it a symptom of your OCD that it can blunt your empathy and make you sociopathic, or is it just intrusive thoughts that don't interfere with the way you actually feel?
>> No. 32976 Anonymous
15th March 2024
Friday 6:37 pm
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Saw the personality disorder team today for my second session of PD assessment. I told her I had a bad day and the only joy I got was the thought of going postal and gunning down my enemies. It's a bad thought an evil thought I know that. But those thoughts I increasingly get pleasure from them. She told me to imagine the people on a conveyor belt, and moving away from me, and dropping off the end. And she asked if that would help. But I told her it wouldn't because the people would still exist in reality. I told her I have thoughts to sexually assault and kill those who wrong me especially in the workplace and she said just put those thoughts on an imaginary leaf and watch it drift away down a stream. WHat I'm trying to say is fucking pointless.
>> No. 32977 Anonymous
15th March 2024
Friday 7:27 pm
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>>32976
>I told her it wouldn't [help] because the people would still exist in reality
As do they after your fantasies, right?
I think the point is that by imagining killing these people you're holding onto your frustration and ruminating over it, essentially winding yourself up. If you practised letting go, it would eventually lead to a lasting difference in your attitude and experience.

I put it to you that you like the fantasies, if only because they offer some brief relief from tension. That relief can come in much greater proportion with fewer distressing side effects than by your current coping mechanism.

Give it a go, mate. For a week, each time you catch yourself ruminating on violent or otherwise vengeful thoughts, just notice that you're doing it.
The next week take a mental note of the immediate effects after these thoughts, then the slightly longer effects throughout the day. How does it compound? Could it be feeding back on itself?
On the third week start to practice letting go by any mental image that is favourable to you - these people and their problems floating away on a leaf, by raft on a river, etc. Before long you'll beable to do without the mental image, and you're well on your way addressing your attitude and impulsive thoughts.
>> No. 32978 Anonymous
15th March 2024
Friday 7:27 pm
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>>32975
I guess it's intrusive thoughts for me. I don't want to harm people; it's just a really strong curiosity - "what if I did?"
>> No. 32979 Anonymous
15th March 2024
Friday 7:45 pm
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>>32975

>what I'm asking is did you feel sympathy for this woman?

Yes, but also no. On the one hand, I can imagine that it's an unbearably painful tragedy. On the other hand, there are countless people in the world experiencing horrendous tragedies on a daily basis and I'd go mad if I really thought about all of it. One part of me wants to do whatever I can to alleviate this poor person's suffering, but another part wants to diminish that suffering and distance myself from it to protect my own sanity. Both thoughts are equally true and equally valid.

>I don't have a sadistic side that would express itself in that moment.

Either you're genuinely a saint, or you're kidding yourself because your morality has never been really tested. Half my family are German, so they had some seriously fucking dark war stories. The German people didn't suddenly become awful bastards in the 1930s and go back to normal in 1945, they just revealed the fact that perfectly ordinary people are willing to be complicit in the worst crimes imaginable if society pushes them in that direction.

Most of the worst criminals of the Nazi regime saw themselves as good people, they just happened to live through a time when the meaning of "good" was perverted beyond all reason. We all like to imagine that in the same circumstances we'd bravely stand up for what's right even if it risks our own life, but very few people have any concrete experience of being tested to that level; we know from history that most people just go with the flow, look after their own interests and find justifications for their actions.

Have you ever hated anyone? Have you ever been so angry at someone that you wished them dead? Have you ever experienced schadenfreude when they got their comeuppance? Have you ever seen a tragedy in some far-off country on the news and felt nothing because it's too remote from your experience? Do you turn a blind eye to how the meat on your plate or the rare earth minerals in your smartphone got there? What's really going on in your head when you laugh at an edgy joke?

Everyone has a dark side, it's just that some people have the luxury of pretending that it isn't there.
>> No. 32980 Anonymous
15th March 2024
Friday 11:59 pm
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God, I hate having to be happy for people when I'm having a shit time. Why don't you have a shit time too, you selfish in love/new job/lost weight arseholes.
>> No. 32981 Anonymous
16th March 2024
Saturday 1:53 pm
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Very much in a downward spiral tbh. I was holding on to have of pulling myself out slowly but things aren't improving and I'm just running out of the effort to keep gritting my teeth through it.

Spending money on drinking and drugs and bailing on plans the rare occasions I make them because I just wake up and can't be bothered. I tell myself I'll spend my time on creative and productive hobbies when I have the time off work but then end up sacking it all off and doing pointless time wasting shit, then regret wasting the time when I have to go back to work. I just have very poor impulse control and I don't know what happened, I used to be very good at cracking on with things.

I suppose I have it better than lots of people, but I spent so much time and effort working hard to get my own place and then thought I'd feel secure and stable and it'd help me get a grip on everything else. But it just feels fruitless. A treadmill that just keeps moving faster and I sacrificed so much to get here. Nothing gives me the joy it used to.

Usually this is a temporary feeling but it's really becoming hard to ignore now.
>> No. 32982 Anonymous
16th March 2024
Saturday 3:56 pm
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I am day drinking. This is a new one.
>> No. 32983 Anonymous
17th March 2024
Sunday 5:10 pm
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I've got my return to work tomorrow. I was off on Friday due to sickness (mental health). I got my final written warning about 3 weeks ago, where I am allowed one absence of up to three days every quarter for the next year. So I've got to not be unwell for three months. I'm very unwell mentally maybe the worst I've been in 12 years of mental illness. I don't really know how to answer the questions. They gave me shit last time for not using the counselling service they hire a third party company to do over the phone, even though I am certain that would be ineffective considering I'm under a mental health team who provide actual accredited talking and medical therapies.
>> No. 32984 Anonymous
17th March 2024
Sunday 8:15 pm
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>>32983
You probably have to use those services anyway, just so they don't have that excuse next time they yell at you.
>> No. 32985 Anonymous
17th March 2024
Sunday 9:28 pm
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Is it true they reduce the proportion of helium in commercially available cannisters nowadays? I'm at the end point now, and I think an exit bag is my best bet.
>> No. 32986 Anonymous
18th March 2024
Monday 1:13 am
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>>32985
Probably. But also, I am pretty sure that helium is a horrible way to die. What's up?
>> No. 32987 Anonymous
18th March 2024
Monday 6:59 am
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>>32986
I just fail at everything, I have no friends, my job makes me want to die, I've tried life for three decades but it's simply not for me. It's approaching 12 years since I was diagnosed with a mental illness, and I feel I have just deteriorated significantly over that period. I want to be a normal person. I want to live a life where I don't have a constant sense of dread in the pit of my stomach. Sorry for being all self pitying but I really don't want to exist.
>> No. 32988 Anonymous
18th March 2024
Monday 8:52 am
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>>32987

>I just fail at everything

I'm sure it feels like that, but I'm equally sure that it isn't true. Surely you've achieved something, even if it's just a bronze swimming certificate. You can rebuild your sense of self-confidence and self-efficacy, although it's not an overnight process. It sounds naff, but tackling small problems and achieving small goals will retrain the rigidly pessimistic bits of your brain to recognise the possibility of success.

>I have no friends, my job makes me want to die

These are practical problems that can be fixed. Are you really fundamentally unlikeable, or do you just not put yourself out there? Are you regularly doing something like a club or class that'll put you in contact with the same people every week? Are you inviting people to things and accepting invitations that you're offered? Have you lost contact with people who might welcome a call from you?

If your job is that bad, just get signed off sick and go on the dole for a bit. Give yourself some breathing room to see things in context. There are other jobs in the world and some of them probably won't make you feel suicidal. I know what it's like to be so depressed that you can't imagine any kind of future - in those circumstances, the only effective strategy is to do different things until your brain recognises that change is possible. Do a bit of volunteering, try something part-time, apply for an apprenticeship, go on a course, whatever. If you don't try new things, there's no possibility of discovering something that you enjoy or that you're good at.

You're stuck in a rut and it feels like there's no way out. There might be no way out, I don't know, but at least try something. If you honestly feel ready to die, then you've got nothing to lose by taking a punt on something else.
>> No. 32989 Anonymous
18th March 2024
Monday 9:12 am
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>>32987

I sympathise, but if I were taking a very pragmatic perspective I think the thing to start with would be:

>my job makes me want to die

If the very thing you rely on for your survival and livelihood makes you miserable, it will be very hard to make friends and succeed at other things in life.

I have also worked terrible jobs and finding ones with better conditions was a huge step forward for me, mainly because I had more energy and willpower to tackle other problems.
>> No. 32990 Anonymous
18th March 2024
Monday 10:28 pm
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>>32987

This will piss everyone off but you're probably not eating enough. You need energy to feel good and to fix problems, particularly in a stressful environment. Adding a pint or two of milk a day and much fruit is a good idea. Generally most people are both starving and overweight.

Another reason I say this is because it's something you can do now. Better jobs can take time — it also probably isn't that bad. Eating well and enough compounds pretty quickly too.
>> No. 32991 Anonymous
19th March 2024
Tuesday 4:10 pm
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>>32990

No actually straightforward advice like this can be really helpful. I honestly wonder how much of my lowest moods and highest stress moments have just been the result of a lack of sleep.
>> No. 32992 Anonymous
19th March 2024
Tuesday 4:33 pm
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>>32991
Not sleeping or eating properly will absolutely fuck you over. Otherlad is right.
>> No. 32993 Anonymous
19th March 2024
Tuesday 7:40 pm
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Do workplace occupational health services deal with mental health? My manager has refused to refer me to mine for months, saying he thinks it's just physical health. But I'd be pretty surprised if the occupational health service of a massive corporation in a building with probably 600 staff wouldn't deal with mental health as it's the biggest issue of the now.
>> No. 32999 Anonymous
22nd March 2024
Friday 6:50 am
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I'm feeling really torn and confused right now, I'd appreciate a bit of insight. Get ready for a wall of text.

Since confessing to the affair my ex's mental state has completely fallen off a cliff, to the point she's suicidal and self-harming. One day she came home work three hours late because she'd been talking to a couple of colleagues about this and they'd been on the phone with the NHS; I was expecting her to get sectioned, but mental health services in this country are piss-poor. She should be starting counselling or some other form of treatment next week.

I think the largest reason it happened is because she hasn't mentally been in a good place for well over a year, she's got a lot of unresolved trauma from her childhood, and he took advantage of her being in a vulnerable position. If what she has told me is true then they met up at a hotel for sex on three occasions and in his car for kissing and whatever else somewhere between a dozen and twenty times, for the latter usually after work but at least once on a weekend after she'd dropped our daughter off to go shopping with her friends.

The first time it happened they'd been sending innuendo jokes about something at work on the Wednesday evening. On the Thursday he kept touching her arm and things like that at work, testing the waters; she didn't stop him, followed by flirty texts that evening. On the Friday he asked if she wanted to go for a drive after work under the pretence to talk because he could tell she was stressed out by work. He kissed her, she kissed him back, he put her hand on his knob through his jeans before getting it out, he asked if she was okay with this, she said yes, he guided her head to her knob and she sucked it for a couple of seconds before freaking out, which I don't know if that was because of regret or because they were in his car and were worried about being seen. They were managers of different teams so I think he was the only person she could vent to about certain work issues.

Apparently nothing happened after that for a month. It was the last week of school holidays and we'd had a few really nice days as a family as we'd both taken time off but he messaged her saying to book a hotel for the Friday and she went ahead with it. She said she was off to meet up with people from a hobby she's in so I was at home baking with our youngest, pleased that she was making friends, while she was actually off doing that.

It sounds like everything was on his terms and he was only using her. He was always the one to initiate. Apparently the sex was shit (although she would say that anyway) because he had no interest in foreplay or doing what she wanted; he was entirely selfish and only cared about getting himself off. He started being really disrespectful to her once it started. Yet she kept going back for more. According to her she wasn't attracted to him (I can believe that as he is an ugly person inside and out) she was flattered by the attention (until then I'd been the only person she'd kissed) and the excitement of it all stopped the negative thoughts in her head for a while.

I realise I've made it sound like I'm excusing what happened, but I'm not. I'm really not. Just because she was in a low mental place doesn't justify what she did whatsoever. She's still responsible for that. I did have my suspicions in September something was going on, not once did I suspect with him because of how manky he is, but when I asked her about it she denied it at the time; I've confronted her on this and she said she didn't admit to it then because it was still fun and enjoyable. The whole thing only stopped because someone sent a message on Facebook to his partner in January. A month later someone sent me a message about it, apparently it was an open secret at work, but I don't use Facebook much so she went on my account and deleted it. I've only got her word that she told me out of guilt (once it was over and no longer 'fun') rather than because she was worried I'd find out from elsewhere.

Anyway, this brings us to now. I started being nice to her for reasons I can't entirely get my head around. I think it was a combination of showing her how good we could have been, wanting her to realise what she was going to lose, knowing I needed to learn to be civil for the sake of our kids, to keep her on side while I buy her out and realising we're going to be stuck together for months while this happens so I might as well try and make this as tolerable as possible. We've been getting on better than we have in a very long time and, well, we've ended up sleeping together. It's been the most intense sex we've had in years, although half the time I either don't finish or take a very long time getting there because I'll get thoughts like "is this what she did with him?" in my head and I'll feel like absolute shite afterwards.

I really do not know what the fuck I am doing. Maybe if it was a one-time thing where she kissed him, instantly regretted it and told me I could have forgiven her and moved past it, but it wasn't. This went on for almost half a year, during which she lied to me and only told me after the event. How can I ever trust her again when she clearly can't say no to someone giving her attention, with the bar being clearly very low if she'd get with someone as disgusting as him? How could I ever be in a relationship with someone where I hate myself every time we sleep together? All of my friends say we should still split up, although the one I've talked to the most about it has said she'd understand if we tried again.

I found myself just staring at her last night and grinning, getting an intense feeling of love when I stared at her. We'd been in a rut and maybe this means we now realise how much we mean to each other. Maybe this is Stockholm Syndrome. Maybe I'm being love-bombed. Maybe I am being manipulated and she'll stay and do anything to stay together amd keep the fairly cosy life we had because she doesn't want to be alone. She keeps hinting she's worried she'd kill herself if she's on her own and a few weeks ago when she was desperate she was coming out with some truly vile things, threatening false rape claims, trying to weaponise the kids, threatening to use the fact I was sexually abused as a child against me, etc., so she can and will use manipulative tactics and what she's done means I can't believe her actions, nor is she the person I thought she was. Maybe things will be different if we try again. Maybe they won't once these intense feelings wear off and it's back to whatever normal is.

It's been a very intense month. Fortunately she's going away with her mum and the girls for one of the weeks over Easter because I think one of the big issues is that I'm not really having much time on my own to reflect, so some space would do us good. That said, last Saturday I had the day to myself so I spent it home alone drinking before self-harming and ordering shit off Amazon. I'm still working on the basis that I buy her out, she leaves and maybe I leave the door open for her if I can see she's putting the effort in to work on her problems, but I'm really stating to doubt myself. She is taking steps to work on herself, but I still feel like she's not taking full accountability for what happened because she always has an excuse to minimise what happened.

Thanks to anyone who has read all of this rambling. It's not making much sense in my head because I can't think straight and dont trust my judgment right now, so I'm not expecting it to make much sense to you lads.
>> No. 33000 Anonymous
22nd March 2024
Friday 8:42 am
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>>32999

It sounds like you're just working through the emotions of potentially not being with her. Ultimately she is the mother to your kids and you shared a deep bond. As I said in a previous post, you've had this put upon you, no time to prepare, so of course you're going through a tumultuous period as you mentally sort things out.

That said,
>I realise I've made it sound like I'm excusing what happened, but I'm not. I'm really not.

With respect, you are. This is no longer about the course of events leading to or during her affair. In fact, I don't think it's useful for you to go over all that in forensic detail. This is now about whether you can trust your wife as a credible source for the truth, to the point where you think she'd be a reliable partner in a relationship.

I'm being a bit blunt because there are very few other circumstances where you'd accept this nonsense from anyone else.

>She keeps hinting she's worried she'd kill herself if she's on her own and a few weeks ago when she was desperate she was coming out with some truly vile things, threatening false rape claims, trying to weaponise the kids, threatening to use the fact I was sexually abused as a child against me, etc., so she can and will use manipulative tactics

It sounds like she is in full damage-control mode, because as I said before, the situation has been taken out of her hands. She's probably terrified she will come off looking like the "bad one", and that she will have to accept others knowing some pretty unflattering things about her.

>A month later someone sent me a message about it, apparently it was an open secret at work, but I don't use Facebook much so she went on my account and deleted it

This wasn't just omitting the truth, then, but actively covering it up when others tried to tell you. That's not just a massive invasion of your privacy, but shows that she's willing to undermine others who are trying to help you, as well. That's an extremely dangerous precedent to set in a relationship.

>We've been getting on better than we have in a very long time and, well, we've ended up sleeping together.

I do not think it is a coincidence that you have "the most intense sex you've had in years". She is not a passive actor during sex. She is deciding to have sex, whether it is with you or other people, and it's seems likely to me that she thinks of it as a tool to get things that she wants. Whether it's excitement, or self-affirmation, or to keep a "normal" home life.

How much are you willing to excuse (and you are excusing it) because you genuinely believe she's "working on herself"? What sort of actions would you even want to see from her to show that she can be a reliable partner?

>I can't think straight and dont trust my judgment right now

Didn't you say your mum had your back a little while ago? I mentioned before, I strongly recommend that you keep people around you who have your best interests at heart. Find as many of them as you can and keep consulting them, if possible, just like you're doing here.

You are in serious danger of being open to manipulation in a very vulnerable state, and your wife has shown herself to be capable of completely disregarding your wellbeing.

>I spent it home alone drinking before self-harming and ordering shit off Amazon

It hurts me to read this because you haven't done anything wrong in this scenario. Don't be a martyr for her, your life is valuable regardless of her actions. If not for that reason, then because you have kids that will still want a healthy and happy dad.

I think the biggest caution I can give here is about how your daughters will come around to seeing this. If your wife is willing to do all of the above, then it is very possible she'll try to alienate you from them, or spin these events in a way that makes you appear at fault. I don't know specifically what she threatened, but you really should be maintaining your relationship with your kids.
>> No. 33001 Anonymous
22nd March 2024
Friday 10:40 am
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>>32999

She were happy enough when she was getting her own way weren't she, eh?

I'm sure she's having a very rough time now that she's realised she's thrown it all away, but that's nit your problem. She gave up the right to be your problem when she shagged another bloke. Multiple times.

She has consistently behaved in a selfish manner and you are a nice bloke so naturally you empathise and you want to help but you have to draw a line. An affair is definitely that line.
>> No. 33002 Anonymous
22nd March 2024
Friday 12:15 pm
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>>33000
It sounds like a real shame that she has ruined her relationship with you. But she has. It’s gone. Right now, it seems like you are doing everything right (apart from having sex with her, which I would advise you to stop doing), but you need to not change your mind about this. On some level, I think the best thing for her as well is certainty. So make sure you are both certain that you aren’t getting back together. It will feel tough at times, but that’s inevitable; a bad thing has happened and it’s going to feel tough whatever you do. So make sure it feels tough because you’re doing what’s right.
>> No. 33003 Anonymous
22nd March 2024
Friday 12:48 pm
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>>32999

This woman knows how to emotionally manipulate you, that's exactly what she's doing, and you're falling for it like a complete mug.

I'm sorry, I don't want to be a cunt about it, but I knew this is how it'd go and that's why I told you to get shut of her as soon as possible. Get rid mate. You can't have her in your life because you are incapable of resisting her manipulation, and it will not end well for you.
>> No. 33004 Anonymous
22nd March 2024
Friday 1:30 pm
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Thanks lads, think I needed a bit of a wake-up call.

>>33003
>that's why I told you to get shut of her as soon as possible. Get rid mate.

Unfortunately it's not that straightforward. She legally has the right to live here so it's a case of waiting however many weeks/months it takes to buy her out and even then she could refuse to sign the paperwork.
>> No. 33005 Anonymous
22nd March 2024
Friday 9:09 pm
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Being on benefits longterm is bad for my self esteem. I feel worthless. My day to day life is okay and I don't mind the idea of not really being anything when I grow up (I'm 35) but the idea that I might never share intimate connection with other people is upsetting.
I saw an attractive woman on the bus today, she seemed open and inviting of interaction, yet myself being a spotty mess who's not changed their bedsheets for months, nor showered, or who's wipeing their arse with a wet rag because for one reason or another 'can't' buy toilet paper .. it just doesn't fit that I'd be talking to someone beautiful.
Okay so buy some better clothes, wash regularly .. but it's still me. It's still this man-child who sits at a computer for 12 hours a day, waiting for death.
So go to work, start making myself more valuable - I don't know if it's actually true or just become true through repeated belief that I can't work due to overwhelming stimulus. The idea of finding work that I can cope with is terrifying because it'd mean I actually have to do something.
A recent finacial experiment has shown that I can live on a reletively small amount of cash per month, excusing council tax for the time being. That could possibly mean I can work minimal hours per week to maintain most my lifestyle. From there I could practice better working and coping habits to improve my value as a person so I might one day feel worthy enough to talk to attractive people.
>> No. 33006 Anonymous
22nd March 2024
Friday 10:06 pm
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>>32999
Yeah what the otherlads said but also it's not good to self-harm, I don't say this lightly but I think you need to get therapy and to start spending more nights in the week at friend's houses. Maybe even see if you can get some rebound shags in with someone else - get over someone by getting under someone etc.

>>33005
Why are you gauging your self-worth through gawping at people at the bus stop? Yeah I get it though, I'm 34 and still feel lost in life. Even if I have a job that a lot of people might envy and a bit of money in the bank I still feel like a fucking loser.

I don't like my job but it does at least distract me and give me a sense of self-worth, but so does having a little hobby - in fact I've had some incredibly tough times at work lately but going to language classes in the evening has been an essential escape for me. I'm not sure if minimum hours is the right way to look at it, it's more like you need to actually create a life you enjoy living.
>> No. 33007 Anonymous
23rd March 2024
Saturday 5:25 am
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>>33005

I've been in your situation (worse, in fact) and I've got out of it. I'm going to give you a practical plan for becoming a more-or-less normal and functioning member of society by Christmas. You're going to have to do the work, there will be scary moments where you have to take a bit of a leap, but I don't think any of it will be properly overwhelming. Most of it will seem fairly obvious, which is sort of the point - it's all quite straightforward common-sense stuff, you just need to start chipping away at it bit-by-bit rather than being overwhelmed by the whole process.

First, start with the basics of self-care. Have a wash, do some laundry, clean up around the house. Make a to-do list if you need to, put a reminder in your calendar, whatever it takes to actually get it done. I know it might seem demoralising to have to work at something so basic, but you've got into bad habits and it takes time and effort to build new habits. With any luck, you should start to feel a tiny bit more confident.

Next, sign up to do some voluntary work. There are loads of opportunities available, it won't affect your benefits and most charities will cover your travel expenses and give you a few quid for lunch. Don't take on too much to start with, you just want a couple of afternoons a week to ease yourself in. It doesn't particularly matter what you do, pick anything you think you'd like (or at least tolerate), you're just looking to get used to a routine of getting out of the house and interacting with people. Think of it like an exercise regime - if you try to go from nothing to a marathon you'll collapse, so you need to start gently. Again, gradually building up good habits and self-confidence.

https://getvolunteering.co.uk/

Once you've been volunteering regularly for a couple of months and you've got comfortable with doing two or three days a week, start thinking about training. One option is a government a scheme to get people back into work post-pandemic called the Skills Bootcamp. There are a range of work-focused courses available. They're all free, they're all less than 16 weeks and there's a guaranteed job interview at the end.

https://www.gov.uk/guidance/find-a-skills-bootcamp

You could also consider an apprenticeship. They're open to anyone, regardless of age or experience. You'll get paid to do a mix of work and learning. The money is rubbish - £6.40 an hour from April - but that's precisely why employers are willing to take people on as apprentices even if they've got no work experience or big gaps on their CV. If you're willing and able to subsist on that amount of money, there are some really good opportunities to get some experience, get a qualification and move onto something better.

https://www.gov.uk/apply-apprenticeship

I'd also suggest trying to be honest with people about your situation. I imagine you're feeling a certain amount of shame or perhaps even self-loathing, I expect that's part of the barrier that's stopping you from making positive changes, but I think you'll be pleasantly surprised at how supportive most people are if you tell them "I've got into a real rut, my self-confidence is really low, but I'm trying to build myself up and get into work". In my own experience, I had a real turning point when I "came out" as a loser so to speak, when I stopped hiding away from the world and started admitting to people that I needed help to rebuild my life.

You can do this. It won't be easy, it won't happen overnight, but it'll also be easier and quicker than you probably think. It isn't rocket science, you just need to focus on chipping away at the things you can do immediately to avoid being overwhelmed by the scale of the task as a whole. Wash your bedsheets, have a shower, buy some bog roll and think about what you can do tomorrow.
>> No. 33008 Anonymous
23rd March 2024
Saturday 1:11 pm
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>>33006>>33007
Thanks for your time, both.
The getvolunteering link is especially helpful - there are numerous positions available where I'm at, some of them even in skillsets I'm interested to develop.
>> No. 33009 Anonymous
23rd March 2024
Saturday 3:54 pm
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>>33005
I would advise to be picky with jobs unless you're absolutely, 100%, desperate for money. It's better to be on benefits and be discerning with what you go for, than going for the first thing that comes up. Going through the interview, the induction, a couple of months work before you're sacked/resign due to stress.
>> No. 33010 Anonymous
23rd March 2024
Saturday 5:23 pm
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>>33009

I've got mixed thoughts on this. If you've been long-term unemployed, then I'd certainly recommend starting off with some voluntary work or something part-time to get you back into the habit of working without becoming overwhelmed. If you want to return to education or do an apprenticeship, then that's certainly a good option. If you just want to get a job, you might not be in a position to be too picky, because employers aren't keen on hiring someone with no recent work experience. On the flip side of that coin, it means that getting any job will make it easier to get the next thing you apply for.

It's a personal thing and obviously a lot will depend on your mindset, your motivation and your level of resilience. There's a subtle but very important difference between being depressed and being demoralised; having a job and earning a wage won't cure depression, but it can radically change your outlook if you aren't clinically depressed but just have low self-esteem. I wouldn't advise anyone to take a genuinely horrible job, but a bad job is a lot more bearable if you see it as a stepping stone rather than a dead end.

Speaking personally, I got out of long-term unemployment by just going into an agency and saying "I've got no qualifications, I haven't worked in years, but I'll do literally anything". I ended up on night shifts in a factory, which was bloody grim but it was also a turning point for me. The work was hard and boring, the hours were knackering, but it made me feel like a proper person again. Minimum wage felt like a king's ransom after years on benefits. I was still living in a poxy bedsit, but I could save up, I could treat myself to little things, I could start to make plans for the future. There's no way I could have stuck it out there for more than a few months, but I didn't have to, because getting that job on my CV gave me the confidence and the opportunity to find something better. I had proved to myself and to an employer that I was a useful human being.
>> No. 33011 Anonymous
23rd March 2024
Saturday 8:53 pm
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Been off sick for over a week. Checked my work emails this evening (bad idea). Someone has gone above my head and done something which has pissed off an already pissed off customer, now some cunt is emailing me and copying in my manager saying I need to sort it.

Boils down to customer wanting a refund. I'm told by senior team that I can only refund to the original payment method, not another bank account. But a dumb bitch has refunded to that other bank account, which has fucked up the customer's finances, now they're mad their account is in debit. Boring shit. But annoying. Why do I get bollocked if I don't note up every single element of a complaint but then some numskull comes along and disregards it all.

I burned myself a few times as that's the only way I can deal with work stress it helps me retain control of myself. This is why I say be picky with jobs, the wrong job can drive you doolally.
>> No. 33012 Anonymous
23rd March 2024
Saturday 11:10 pm
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>>33011

You the lad who was on about applying for uni etc to get out of the job? Stay off sick. Call your doctor and get a sick note, tell them you are self harming, that's one big sign it's serious and you're not skiving.

Ride it out as long as you can. They'll eventually weasel out some way to sack you but fuck them. Just stay off sick for as long as possible while they still have to pay you some form of sick pay. Once you've milked that go on bennies until your uni course.

Look after yourself mate. It's really not worth putting your own health on the line for the capitalist overlords. Fuck them, take what you can.
>> No. 33013 Anonymous
27th March 2024
Wednesday 8:22 pm
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I feel with total clarity that I will take my own life this weekend. My partner is away for a few days so it's the perfect time to do it. I might not go through with it, I don't know. But I feel like life just isn't for me. I've tried for over 30 years. Enough's enough. I just want peace.
>> No. 33014 Anonymous
28th March 2024
Thursday 8:03 am
33014 The Dead Can't Enjoy my Terrible Writing
>>33013
Look, as someone who has suicidal thoughts basically every day of the week, I'm entirely the wrong person to be giving you any advice. Having said that, we've got plenty of time to be dead later, yeah? There are a million better ways to embrace oblivion than topping yourself anyway. You could hobo around Cumbria or join an "alternative community", become a v-tuber or see if the military will take you. None of it's ideal, but it beats the shite out of Nothing, and that's all you're getting with the being dead. And while it's just my opinion I don't think you'd suit being dead in the first place, because while it might seem like "life isn't for you", is that because life's pretty shit? I won't presume, but if you'd only ever eaten burnt-to-carbon pizza, you wouldn't have a fair opinion pizza, would you? It's also worth noting that your grasp of English puts you a cut above at least half the country in the brain-stakes, meaning in addition to your personal feelings on the matter, your life is not one society can afford to lose. Despite my glib tone I am absolutely serious in everything I'm saying, and as a final word of advice, almost every single person who attemps suicide and fails says it was a terrible mistake (to attempt, not fail, just so we're clear).

You can see why I don't volunteer with the Samaritans. Speaking of which, the Scottish bloke I spoke to there back in January made much more sense than I do, so it might be worth giving them a call.
>> No. 33015 Anonymous
28th March 2024
Thursday 2:36 pm
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>>33014
Thanks lad. I appreciate you taking the time to write all that.

I saw my mental health team this morning and they helped clear some anxieties up. I got discharged from the personality disorder service for being too unstable and "too intelligent", but they're considering other options. I think, not to blow my own trumpet, but because I do have very good insight and I am fairly clued up on things, a lot of services and therapies reject me.

I was talking with the psychiatrist about the thoughts in my head that aren't my thoughts and they tell me to rape and kill my girlfriend and do spree killings. But I told them I know they are technically my thoughts because they're in my brain, I just feel like there's a schism between the generally good morals of myself and this other version of me that is "evil". If I said that glow in the dark Zionists were putting these thoughts in my head I'd probably get help faster, but I'm not going to pretend to be more mental than I really am.

I think talking it out with them really helped, especially as they want to get me a care coordinator so I have a point of contact and someone to chat to if necessary. Which the doctor I saw in October said are things care coordinators can't do and that he wanted me out of the service as fast as possible. I've only ever had one good male psychiatrist. Do females just have more empathy?

Sorry for rambling I'm just sort of spouting shit.
>> No. 33016 Anonymous
3rd April 2024
Wednesday 9:22 am
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Ran out of meds over the weekend due to easter, kind of lost it yesterday, told my gf I was going to kill her, up most of the night, spoke to a lovely lady from Samaritans. I forgotten what it's like to not be fucking mental.
>> No. 33019 Anonymous
4th April 2024
Thursday 6:58 pm
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>>32999
>Fortunately she's going away with her mum and the girls for one of the weeks over Easter because I think one of the big issues is that I'm not really having much time on my own to reflect, so some space would do us good.

She's back tomorrow. I've really enjoyed the time by myself, I've only found it lonely at night in bed, but it's helped me realise that I truly do not want to be with her. I feel really peaceful and I've finally found the motivation to start going back to the gym for the first time since I found out. I think it might have been the fact that when I see her distressed my natural reaction is to try and comfort her which led to me getting mixed feelings.

She's given me access to her phone and email to prove she has nothing to hide and can rebuild trust, but unsurprisingly all texts and WhatsApp messages between them were deleted beforehand. I had a snoop at the weekend and it turns out she's signed in to her work email account through it; I found she sent him this last month, roughly two weeks after she confessed to the affair.

Hey

Just to tell you... Thanks for the apology, and sorry for throwing it back in your face. I still care a lot about you and I'm sorry this is the way things have ended up. I'm sad to think you're looking at leaving because of this, and I'm sad to have lost a friend. I completely see that you have to put you and your family first, and I wouldn't want to stand in the way of that.

On training so I'll see you Wednesday. Thanks for everything.

- Slag


The context is he had a go at her at work, which he later tried apologising for it but she didn't accept and had a go at him back; she then emailed him once things had cooled down. He's looking for another job because she refuses to (and I don't want her to in case it affects her ability to get a mortgage).

Any doubts about separating went as soon as I read that. Her explanation is that she had to email him because they don't talk or text each other any more and she decided to do it because she's such a massive people pleaser she can't stand the thought of anyone hating her. When she said she still cares a lot about him she meant as a friend.

I met up with my friend yesterday, gave her that context, told her to read it and let me know what she thinks. Her response was "Ohhh no. Oh no. You've got to think about how he's going to interpret that message and how she wants him to interpret it. She's basically letting him know she's leaving the door open for him in the future. She's manipulating you by saying one thing and doing something else; you've got to judge her on her actions. She wants the security of you at home and to be able to go off and do whatever. He's not going to think she cares a lot about him as a friend, not after they have been sleeping together."

Sage because I'm even boring myself now.
>> No. 33020 Anonymous
4th April 2024
Thursday 7:24 pm
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>>33019

Some people never learn. Even when it all blows up in their faces they still think they just have to ride out the bumps for a while and then they can put it all in the past and carry on acting just how they please.

I don't know what kind of developmental issue underlies this, some kind of early childhood lack of authority or something, fuck knows. But people like that, people who exhibit that trait, they don't and can't change. They are just slightly defective in terms of reflection and understanding consequence, and always will be. When it's a woman especially, there really is nothing for it. They will just happily and obliviously go through life thinking they are immune to repercussion and can always have it both ways.

The thing I have struggled with, and I suspect you are struggling with too, the bit that keeps you attached even if you know you don't want her any more and you're disgusted at the thought of her- Is the thought that she can have it both ways. You lose her, the other dickhead gets her, she might not be happy with how it's worked out exactly but she at least has her plan B, meanwhile you're left with nothing but pain and grief over it. It's the injustice of that that keeps it stuck in your mind.

Was similar with my last ex who monkey-branched off of me- I was building up the courage to ditch her anyway, but the thing that caused lasting grief was knowing she could just slip smoothly into a new relationship without any of the fallout. She could just drop me and move on like nothing happened, happy as larry, no skin off her nose for all the grief she had caused me.

But the only thing for it really is just time and distance. You can never truly do any kind of jedi mind trick to erase it, you just have to have her out of your life for long enough that it's in the past. It's buried with your memories like that time another kid broke your favourite toy Lamborghini in year 4.

All the best though mate.
>> No. 33021 Anonymous
4th April 2024
Thursday 11:24 pm
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>>33020
Thanks lad. She's got an awful lot of unresolved trauma from her childhood, mainly from her parents neglecting her and from sexual abuse but there's other issues as well. She won't end up getting with him, for one thing his partner has forgiven him and they have kids together, but he's not exactly good looking or a nice person, nor do they have much in common apart from working for the same charity and being prepared to cheat.

I do expect she'll find it easier to get with someone else by virtue of being female. One of the women she confides in at work told her, when she ended up single in her fifties and her children had left home, she spent the best part of two years having a wild time where she slept with a load of men on the first date and never saw them again. I'm happy to be single for a long time, but my most realistic chance of shagging someone else this year will be my friend's birthday in September; last year, when I told them we were seriously looking at separating, a couple of her friends from her university days came onto me but I turned them down as I thought there was a chance of being able to work through things. Little did I know she'd already shagged him once or twice at that point.
>> No. 33022 Anonymous
4th April 2024
Thursday 11:28 pm
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>>33021
>last year, when I told them we were seriously looking at separating, a couple of her friends from her university days came onto me
God, I hate being the ugliest man on Earth. It's shit.
>> No. 33023 Anonymous
10th April 2024
Wednesday 10:37 am
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Just had an appointment with an occupational health nurse from my work due to my massive amount of absences. She deemed me temporarily unfit for work, with no suggested return to work date. I think my issues were a bit much as she's referred me to the occupational health physician as he is more knowledgeable but he only works 1 day a month so I won't see him until late May at the ealiest. I want to get dismissed. I tried to make it pretty clear that when I was working I was self harming daily. Since being off long term sick that has pretty much stopped and my moods have improved. I imagine they have to exhaust every avenue before dismissal, as I have a bunch of recognised long term disabilities, I just want the binning meeting to go ahead. Even if the physician says I'm fit for work, that'd be me being off for at least three months in one go, when I'm only allowed 3 days per quarter. They're postponing the inevitable.
>> No. 33024 Anonymous
11th April 2024
Thursday 7:55 pm
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>>33023

What is your end game here? Why do you want a dismissal.

Is it something to do with the job itself or would you feel the same doing any job anywhere?
>> No. 33025 Anonymous
13th April 2024
Saturday 11:22 am
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>>33024
Job itself. Some people have said you can't get JSA/ESA if you resign, so I am waiting for that dismissal. I'm actively looking for work I just hate this job more than any other job I've had. I've had 13 jobs, including a bunch of low level retail wagie stuff, but even that was more tolerable than contact centre hell.
>> No. 33026 Anonymous
13th April 2024
Saturday 10:58 pm
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>>33023
I left a job in 2019 and signed on to UC without much problem. They asked me why I left it and I told them the truth. I was worried about my physical and mental wellbeing. I was a lab assistant in a factory where I had sketchy safety equipment (sometimes none) and even worse practices and facilities. I'm talking puddles of water beneath electrical breakers, air powered circular saws with no big red button to stop and cutting fibreglass with a paper mask. I also hated my boss.

Judging by your situation I think you'll be fine.
>> No. 33027 Anonymous
13th April 2024
Saturday 11:01 pm
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>>33026 was meant for >>33025 but can't delete post.
>> No. 33028 Anonymous
17th April 2024
Wednesday 7:25 pm
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I can't find a job and I am beginning to worry that the market won't recover I will never get another one.
>> No. 33029 Anonymous
17th April 2024
Wednesday 8:51 pm
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>>33028

I feel the same way about women right now.
>> No. 33030 Anonymous
18th April 2024
Thursday 5:43 pm
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How do you deal with being ignored? I'm most likely not seeing things right but lately I swear nobody talks to me. Nobody's reaching out to me unless I reach out to them first, even just online/text and then I'm the one putting in all the effort to have a conversation and keep it going until they just stop responding again. Even decided to explore Discord more and joined a new server today that was relatively small and looked friendly enough, said hi and the message just hung there for an hour. Someone else then joined, said "Morning" and got multiple responses, I never even got acknowledged. It just seems odd to me. Am I dead? Do I only exist if I can will it or something? What are the rules? If this gets no replies it's going to be hilarious.
>> No. 33031 Anonymous
18th April 2024
Thursday 5:54 pm
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>>33030
I think sometimes, everyone is society just goes off speaking to each other for a bit and you have to wait it out if you’re still feeling sociable. Nobody wants to talk to me either, but it’s been okay for me because I force myself to ask some friends how they are doing, but my heart’s not in it, and they just shrug, and I walk away thinking that’s weird but also simultaneously relieved. I haven’t been out with the friends I see at least once a week for close to a month now, and I’m concerned because I don’t want us all to get comfy without me or they will just abandon me, but aside from that nagging concern, I am having a great time not seeing them. Maybe it’s the weather.
>> No. 33032 Anonymous
19th April 2024
Friday 8:53 pm
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How do you deal with mania? I've been in a manic state the last three days. I spoke to the psychiatrist today and they're bumping up my antipsychotic, but until then I am worried I will do something bad. Feel chaotic. Like a car on a steep hill and the breaks are fucked. I have some control - I can steer left and right - but ultimately I'm roaring down that hill with no stopping. I cried uncontrollably last night over the thought of my cat dying. I had a panic attack in Aldi because a teenage girl cut in front of me in the meat aisle and I had 500 scenarios of how to take revenge come in my head all at once. When I walked home racist voices appeared in my head and said disparaging things about the non-whites I walked past. I'm on a knife edge and I'm scared something will trigger me and tip me over and I'll do a bad thing.
>> No. 33033 Anonymous
19th April 2024
Friday 9:31 pm
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>>33032

Talk to people - preferably people you know and trust, but anyone in a pinch. Madness thrives in silence and seclusion.

If you're seriously worried, don't be afraid to call 999. I can't promise that you'll get any useful kind of treatment, but at least someone will do their best to try and keep you safe.
>> No. 33034 Anonymous
20th April 2024
Saturday 3:34 pm
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>Minor angst and existential dread
I decided to not go out with my brother and newphe today, owing to how I dislike the way my brother behaves around his son.
Instead I spent an hour using The Wayback Machine to search for my old internet gaming guild forum and found 20 year old posts made by me at the age of 15. Man, was I oblivious then; posting from school, talking about my mum, short needless emoji replies. A generally annoying forum monkey.

I feel somewhat depressed that I'm still choosing this - sitting at the computer for hours on end, not even a part of a community these days - over my family and potential friends. I had genuine reasons for refusing an outing with my brother earlier today (namely to protect my emotions and our patching relationship) but I also wonder whether I should just suck it up, accept the father that he is, and inevitably argue about it when I find it's too painful to supress my disaproval.
This last part sounds damning on my part. I'm talking excessive swearing and smoking - stuff I don't want a child to be exposed to.
I don't mean to list off all the shit he's doing wrong, but .. well I guess I'm trying to justify my actions and calling for support, right? I don't need y'all to agree with me that his behaviour is wrong, I need to understand what I'm feeling with regard to lonliness and personal choices that continue this state.

To confuse myself further, I realise that by not attending the outing today I've essentially abandoned my nephew to these behaviours I deem poor.

My brother is merely the focus of this post, but there's also the rest of the family and a general theme of no-friends or willingness to commit to any personal relationships romantic or otherwise.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_4GZq6uh5Rc
>> No. 33035 Anonymous
20th April 2024
Saturday 4:57 pm
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>>33034

Not meaning to make you feel worse, but I will say kids respond to a good example. The smartest kids will take the best traits they admire from all the adults they admire.

What I'm saying is, even just being around your nephew and not being a cunt might go a long way to helping them see that there's another template out there for adult male.

It's also legitimate not to want to take an undue amount of that responsibility onto yourself if you think it'll cause a rift between you and your brother. Argument is also upsetting to kids.
>> No. 33036 Anonymous
21st April 2024
Sunday 11:51 am
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I'm worried about my girlfriend.

She's fat. That's fine. She's fatter than your average fatty, but not at the level of getting the biggest sizes at the plus size clothing stores, her mobility is fine, her blood pressure is fine. Not healthy by any means, but fit enough to function like a normal person. The only problem is that her fatness attracts nasty comments from strangers. Even if it's just someone slyly saying to their friend "look at the size of her", she is hyperaware of her surroundings, and obviously has a level of paranoia anxiety about people judging her for her appearance.

Why doesn't she just lose weight? She's had weight loss surgery, lost a few stone, and put it back on. Her issue is psychological. She had a shit childhood, and her only comfort, her only friend, was food. She's lost a couple of stone with a personal trainer, but then when she has a downswing in mental health, it all goes back on. She got on a meal plan a few months ago. She stuck to it for 3 weeks, but wasn't getting the required amount of steps in, and the occasional small chocolate bar every couple of days turned into a big bar every day. It's that classic she eats because she feels bad, and feels bad because she eats and is fat.

We've lived in this house for 18 months - she's gone out to the supermarket/doctors/pharmacy maybe a total of 20 times. I'm fine with that - I don't mind running most of the errands. She works completely from home, which works well for her, but she hasn't been out of the house in 8 days now. She is capable of going out sometimes. She can catch two buses across the city to get to her parents' house. She can get two buses to meet her best friend and go for a coffee with her. But she says she can't do the ten minute walk to the supermarket due to anxiety.

Last night I told her my concerns. I understand her anxiety is very bad and it makes going out hard as she is scared of being judged. I understand the relative certainty of getting two buses and arriving at a familar and stable end destination with people she trusts is probably easier than walking to the supermarket and having to walk around a building full of people she worries judge her. I offered that we could go for a short walk some evenings or weekends together, but she was not interested.

Ultimately my concern is her mental health. I don't think it's good for anyone to not leave the house for over a week. I think the more used to not leaving the house she becomes, the harder it gets to get out. 3 years ago she was working 12 hour shifts in healthcare. Now she's close to being a recluse other than occasionally seeing her family and best friend. She is scared to go out because she's fat, but she doesn't put the work in to lose the weight, and even the exercise is out of the question because she won't even go for a walk around the block, so she will remain fat.

I don't think it'd get to My 600lb LIfe levels of immobility and disability. I just want her to be well and I don't know how I can guide her in the direction of wellness without upsetting her.
>> No. 33037 Anonymous
21st April 2024
Sunday 11:53 am
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>>33036
Also I know I'm enabling this to some degree. If I go to the supermarket when she asks for stuff, I get it. If she asked for some crisps and I said "nah don't think that's wise" it'd cause an issue. I'm enabling her unhealthiness because I'm scared to have a difficult conversation, and she refuses to have that difficult conversation.
>> No. 33038 Anonymous
21st April 2024
Sunday 12:35 pm
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>>33036
>>33037
Is she constantly making jokes too? I think you recognise that this isn't about the weight at all. As she's losing weight she's also having to deal with the underlying issues that made her this way and that's extremely painful just like it is for her to go to the shops or anything else that breaks her out of the safety of her fishbowl.

I'd suggest that she seeks counselling for her childhood trauma in tandem with a weight loss programme. There are a lot of mental health services that specialise in obesity to precisely deal with cases like hers.
>> No. 33039 Anonymous
21st April 2024
Sunday 12:38 pm
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>>33036

If you want my advice, then completely forget about the weight and focus on the mental health. Trying to get your partner to lose weight is inherently fraught, but there's a lot you can do to help support someone in improving their mental health.

Has she tried medication for anxiety? Has she had any psychotherapy? Could you afford private therapy? Would she consider attending a support group?
>> No. 33040 Anonymous
21st April 2024
Sunday 1:00 pm
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>>33038
>>33039
She got seen by an NHS psychiatrist a few years ago, I think just before COVID, but they sort of fobbed her off. She has tried counselling before but didn't stick with it. She's expressed she wants to give counselling a go, and I told I'd heard good things about BetterHelp which also has the bonus of being done remotely. I think there's anxiety about starting with a new counsellor/therapist which is normal. There's also the element of not knowing if you'll get on with the therapist six weeks after starting, and not knowing how competent they are.

She was bullied all her childhood, even by her older and younger siblings. She says she has little memory of her childhood beyond the bullying, family financial issues, and a very volatile father. Didn't have interests as a child. When she was a student she found her best friend OD'd in their shared flat, dropped out of uni, that friend became brain damaged and retarded. She's had lots of trauma and you lads are right it needs exploring.
>> No. 33041 Anonymous
21st April 2024
Sunday 2:47 pm
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>>33040
Broached the topic of counselling/therapy with her and she didn't take it well. She's taken it as if I'm viewing her as incapable, rather than I have concern for her. Oh well. I'll just go back to pretending to care about her like I did for 8.5 years. I actually developed genuine concern for her in the last few months, we've gotten much closer, but fuck it. Why worry?
>> No. 33042 Anonymous
21st April 2024
Sunday 5:14 pm
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>>33041
So you've got a partner who knows they have a debilitating and growing issue but they refuse to face it and possibly they will even try to emotionally manipulate you rather than face it.

I'd probably give her time to cool down and then raise it again.
>> No. 33043 Anonymous
21st April 2024
Sunday 6:04 pm
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>>33041
Agree with the lad above. Speaking as someone who also has a partner with anxiety who lashed out at me when I first suggested therapy, you do need to be patient. In the present she has been through a course of it, remotely, and learned a whole bunch of techniques to help and she's in a much better place. She has told me that the anxiety means new ideas and suggestions can't be realised immediately, she isn't going to go a doctor or therapist straight away, she needs time to think about it, consider it, and get comfortable with it.
>> No. 33044 Anonymous
21st April 2024
Sunday 6:13 pm
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Oh and also, look into the the fat acceptance movement. Yes I know they can be nutty, but speaking with people who have been in the same situation as her can be beneficial. There are people who have spent their whole lives trying to lose weight and not succeeding, so what wisdom can they share? It might help her step outside if she worked on accepting herself and her body and recognising society is fatphobic - she isn't the problem.
>> No. 33045 Anonymous
21st April 2024
Sunday 11:00 pm
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>>33042
>>33043
>>33044
We talked about it once we'd both cooled down after the initial argument. She knows she needs counselling or therapy, but right now she feels like she is managing alright. Her family rely on her a lot, she is essentially my carer due to my disability, and her work is stressful at the moment. She said she is handling all that well considering the amount of stuff piled on her. When she saw a counsellor before they told her she needed to be under a mental health team. The mental health team said there's not much they could do and discharged her. When she went to private therapy it drained her so much she was effectively unable to function for a couple of days afterwards. She acknowledged that counselling is something to look at in the future, but my lack of tact in coming downstairs and saying "I've been looking at therapy for you" took her by surprise and upset her. We're fine now. I still worry about her, but I know I approached things clumsily.

Fat acceptance is a funny thing. She was actually active in the Tumblr fat acceptance community back when we first met. That's sort of how I met her. With her, and with my previous girlfriend who had quite a big following in the Tumblr fat acceptance community, I notice a level of self conflict. On one hand "society is fatphobic, I'm not the problem, I'm proud to be big and beautiful". But then the other side of the coin "I wish I was able to lose the weight, so I can shop at normal shops, so people don't look at me in the street, so I can be normal". The community was a bit crabs in a bucket. When people started weight loss journeys, they were slagged off for betraying the community's values, or accused of shaming fat people by losing weight. My ex would publicly shittalk members of the community who started dieting, while she herself talked about the physical and emotional pain her weight caused and how she wanted to lose weight.
>> No. 33046 Anonymous
22nd April 2024
Monday 10:39 am
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>>33045
>Her family rely on her a lot, she is essentially my carer due to my disability, and her work is stressful at the moment.
>When she went to private therapy it drained her so much she was effectively unable to function for a couple of days afterwards.
Frame getting therapy as getting someone to vent the stress at rather than something directly aimed at her weight, and find a therapist who's willing to do things gradually.

She doesn't sound all that mental to be honest, trauma aside. She doesn't like going out because her looks attract negative attention, and she doesn't want to go to therapy because it sucked the last two times, it seems rational. Her flipping your concern into you saying she's incapable is manipulative though, but it's probably in the normal woman range.

>Oh well. I'll just go back to pretending to care about her like I did for 8.5 years.
Maybe you should both be in therapy.
>> No. 33047 Anonymous
26th April 2024
Friday 10:23 am
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I haven't talked to my dad for nearly twenty years. His wife has just got in touch to say that he's on palliative care, asking if I want to reconnect while I still have the chance.

There was no big traumatic incident that led to us falling out, I just got thoroughly fed up with him, like a lot of other people in his life over the years. He's superficially nice, but underneath that he's really quite cruel, domineering and manipulative. He was a real bastard to my mum when they divorced, which was 100% his fault. I think it's fair to ascribe a significant part of my mental health issues to his behaviour. I don't really hold any ill will against him, because on some level he can't help it, it's just the way he's wired.

I don't want to make contact, but I do feel a bit bad about it. If I did go and see him, I think it'd probably just be quite grim and tense and neither of us would feel any better for it. Should I be the bigger man, or am I justified in saying "nah, fuck him"?
>> No. 33048 Anonymous
26th April 2024
Friday 10:29 am
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>>33047
Yes. You are justified in saying that but should go anyway.
>> No. 33049 Anonymous
26th April 2024
Friday 10:36 am
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>>33047
Chances are it's going to be one of those decisions where you'll always question whether you did the right thing. Ultimately, I think it has to be about which one you feel you'd be able to live the most; visiting him and it turns out to be unpleasant or staying away and having to wonder whether you should have seen him one last time. Do you need closure?
>> No. 33050 Anonymous
26th April 2024
Friday 11:35 am
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>>33049

>Do you need closure?

There's nothing I want to say to him and nothing I want to hear from him.

If you're trying to picture him, think of Boris Johnson. He'd tell whatever lie suited him at that moment, adamantly stick to the lie until the point that it's completely untenable or no longer convenient, then adamantly deny that he ever lied. He gave me countless gushing apologies over the years for whatever he is that he did wrong, but he never recognised or accepted any specific wrongdoing. If you confronted him over something specific, there were denials and justifications and mitigations, but never actual contrition. I think he genuinely believed that nothing was ever his fault, which is precisely what made him irredeemable.

If I go and see him, I think I'd just give him one last opportunity to try and con me. Nothing I say will penetrate his forcefield of self-serving bullshit and I don't believe anything he says. I don't think that he has any desire to reconcile, I just think he wants to try and win the argument. I think he's got a deathbed speech that he has been rehearsing for years, prepared in the knowledge that one day he'll finally have the last word.
>> No. 33051 Anonymous
26th April 2024
Friday 5:50 pm
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>>33050
I still think you should go but for yourself, and for your mum or any other relatives who don't want to go. You don't want any of you being haunted, in your low moments, that nobody went to see him. You don't want others who might not be able to deal with his bullshit as well as you can (from what I gathered from your original post - if seeing him would be genuinely traumatic then don't) deciding to go because if nobody else does they'll feel obliged.
>I just think he wants to try and win the argument. I think he's got a deathbed speech that he has been rehearsing for years, prepared in the knowledge that one day he'll finally have the last word.
Is it important that he doesn't? It would be a hollow victory for him.
>> No. 33052 Anonymous
28th April 2024
Sunday 1:48 pm
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Fucking talk to people and make a small connection, then the next day they're attentive and receptive to more conversation but I don't give a shit anymore and would rather forget. Don't get me wrong, it's nice to be liked but the constant requirement is exhausting. I just want to walk up, do my thing then fuck off again, not have to tend to their social habits or whatever.
>> No. 33053 Anonymous
29th April 2024
Monday 6:16 pm
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I find disabled people triggering. I used to work for an autism charity. I have autism and other disabilities myself. But other disabled people, especially autistics, bring out lots of ugly and negative emotions. I was in their Discord server for a couple of years, and left because their celebration of autism disgusted me. I rejoined today but flounced again, because I hate their whole stance about how neurotypicals are in the wrong, not us.

I understand that this is almost certainly coming from a place of self hate. I was unable to be my authentic self until well into my adulthood, and I guess I resent autistic people being proud and happy and content with themselves. "If I wasn't happy, why should they be?" would be how I'm thinking. And I know that's a fucked up way of thinking. But I can't stop thinking it.

I can't bond with NT people because I have no social skills. I can't bond with autistics because I hate them. I'm consumed by spite and bitterness and don't know how to remedy it.
>> No. 33054 Anonymous
29th April 2024
Monday 6:38 pm
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>>33053
Have you ever made friends with any annoying people who never shut up? Those people work wonders for concealing the lack of social skills of those around them.
>> No. 33055 Anonymous
29th April 2024
Monday 7:33 pm
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>>33053

Is there a chance you find that culture a bit too permissive, exclusionary, something else?

I am sure there are other autistic people that feel alienated from the communities that have built up around autism. This doesn't necessarily mean you dislike autistic people as a category, but maybe this NT-to-autism axis just isn't how you are most comfortable bonding with others.

From what I can tell, people bond shared experience more than anything else. If you find people who are spending time in a roughly similar way to you, you'll probably find more to bond with them about than any innate characteristic.
>> No. 33056 Anonymous
29th April 2024
Monday 7:47 pm
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>>33053
Sorry to kick you while you're down, but you seem like a bit of a snob if you're categorising people as either being NT or autistic. If you want to make friends then you'll have to get used to the early stage of a human relationship where people may not seem very likeable. I've known quite a few people with the problem you describe, and they never bloody change and things never get better for them because they're too proud to take advice which involves risk or failure.

On the other hand, there is often a degree of self loathing which stops people from wanting to help themselves in this situation, as you mention. In my own experience of that problem, the way out of it was by making an effort to get over myself. To be less proud, less aloof, less judgemental, not so be so hard on myself. I considered all those things to be embarrassing and beneath me, but I agreed to go along with it, and it has helped me be less consumed by spite and bitterness, as you say.

I don't know if what I describe matches your situation, but I will still say that if you're not willing to get over yourself then you will struggle to improve things. If course this advice can only be utilised if you are around other people like workmates or classmates. The people who describe themselves as autists don't seem like a helpful bunch for you to be around.
>> No. 33057 Anonymous
29th April 2024
Monday 7:51 pm
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>>33053
>neurotypicals are in the wrong, not us.
>I rejoined today but flounced again .. this is almost certainly coming from a place of self hate.

I think aversion to these sort of groups can also be that autism becomes an identity claim rather than a simple condition of being. They percieve themselves as autistic, they don't have autism. You know what I mean? It's the same insuferable shit as those twitter profiles full of various flags and symbols, wearing their identity on their digital sleave as though that makes up for a general lack of personality.

At least that's my reasoning for refusing to join lonely mens club Men in Sheds or any such community group.

And yes, I'm a cunt.
>> No. 33058 Anonymous
30th April 2024
Tuesday 12:09 am
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>>33057

It really doesn't matter what the subject is, any group that is self-congratulating is universally insufferable. It is doubly so when it is a quality that isn't earned.

People seems to switch pretty rapidly from reasurance that you should take pride in yourself and self respect to a collective masturbation.

stoicism is dead.

I'm a person who can't stand the self-indulgence of having a birthday party for myself though, being the unearned focus creeps me out, so maybe my views tilt a little too strongly into misanthropy and self-hatred.
>> No. 33059 Anonymous
1st May 2024
Wednesday 11:23 am
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About a week-and-a-half ago I went to the GP to try to explain that I think there's something deeply wrong with my brain. I did so calmly (mistake) but with a sense of urgency, only slightly thrown off by the med student sitting in on the whole event, and do you know what the GP told me? He said "Go for a walk, daily". The cocksucker prescribed going for a walk, he suggested that was the reason I've felt like a one man freakshow my entire life, why I fuck up every opportunity and relationship I've had, why I languish and rot instead of focusing my efforts and accomplishing something.

But all I fucking do is walk! I've walked up fucking hills all my fucking life. If walking was going to do a damned thing for my mental health I think it would have clicked by now. "Go for a walk", why do you go for a fucking walk, you sack of shit?

Anyway, it's my follow up appointment in four hours.
>> No. 33060 Anonymous
1st May 2024
Wednesday 8:46 pm
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>>33059

you should try go for a run next.
>> No. 33061 Anonymous
2nd May 2024
Thursday 1:02 am
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>>33059
How did the follow-up appointment go?
>> No. 33071 Anonymous
6th May 2024
Monday 11:46 am
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Sick of my fat girlfriend. She moans about being fat, I try help. I suggest therapy for the underlying psychological issues that contribute to her weight, she freaks out with me for days.

Today she said not to get her any bread as she's trying to cut down (usually goes through a loaf and a block of butter every 2-3 days). I ask her what's prompted her to cut down, then she gets all cunty and says "fine get me a loaf of bread and some butter" I ask why the change in mind, she says she's upset that I comment on her food choices.

Every time she leaves the house, which is once or twice a week, the next day she has severe body pain all over. She said there's no point going to the doctor's as they'll blame it on her weight. But tbh, and this may be callous, it probably is the weight.

Not to make it about me but I'm sick of doing all the legwork, being the only one who goes to the shops. If she wasn't such a fat mess maybe I wouldn't resent her so much.
>> No. 33072 Anonymous
6th May 2024
Monday 12:12 pm
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>>33071

Was she a fat mess when you met her? When I hear situations like this described, I always think "Jesus fuck that I'd have been out years ago", but I know it's never that simple in reality. There must have been something to the relationship when you got with her, and some reason you carry on putting up with it.

I did sort of date a fat lass once, and to be fair she wasn't massive, she was very horny, and I liked her; but I never pursued the relationship because I could tell she was one of the ones who would only get fatter as the years went on. I still know her and I was right, because she is massive now. If I had got with her I can imagine it slowly breaking down once she crossed the level of fat that I lost sexual interest in her.

Anyway you're not making it about yourself, all relationships are two way streets and it's rarely a healthy or respectful situation if one partner is doing all the lifting. It just sounds quite doubtful there's much you can do to get her to change the habits and behaviours that have put you here, she doesn't seem interested in taking her own responsibility.

I think a lot of the time in relationships it's not about what to do, more about recognising if there is any real possibility there's something you can do.
>> No. 33073 Anonymous
6th May 2024
Monday 12:59 pm
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>>33071

>I ask her what's prompted her to cut down

Oof. Rule one of dating fat lasses is that you never, never comment on what they're eating, not even obliquely, especially not obliquely.

>maybe I wouldn't resent her so much

I think it's time to call it a day m8. Once you've started resenting each other, it's very difficult to recover anything. Unless you're both seriously willing to engage in some kind of couple's counselling or mediation and you're both willing to accept a decent chunk of blame for how things have escalated, then the relationship is probably in the death throes.
>> No. 33074 Anonymous
6th May 2024
Monday 1:01 pm
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>>33071
>he said there's no point going to the doctor's as they'll blame it on her weight.
My sister is severly obese and blames a lot of her problems on low folic acid levels and various other bullshit that's probably true but realistically a syptom of her excessive weight.
It does my head in that people think obesity isn't the cause or catalyst to their health problems. It's clearly much easier to treat individual symptoms than admit problems are down to poor lifestyle choices and willpower.
This is coming from a 17 stone fat guy who's eaten 800g of full fat icecream within the past 7 days so I'm not just hating on fat people, rather the excuses we make for ourselves.

>I ask her what's prompted her to cut down, then she gets all cunty
You might find that your girlfriends historic attempts at weight management have been met by family or friends with derision and scrutiny and have untimately been judged a failure. In such a situation any comment or situation touching on that is gonna activate hard etched pathways in her brain and cause a renewal of negative emotions.
It might be helpful to aproach the subject (if at all) from a different angle - see how she responds to a positive comment on how nimble she's looking recently or some rubbish. "Wow you feel different" when hugging, after a couple of weeks of not mentioning a change in diet you'd noticed.

>Every time she leaves the house, which is once or twice a week, the next day she has severe body pain all over.
Get you both swimming in a secluded beach somewhere - possibly far away from home where, if there are others around, noone will know either of you so it'll be that much easier to let loose. Also a large dressing gown or 'towelling robe' will be especially useful when addressing issues of body image.
Swimming supports the body more than other activities so you're less likely to need recovery time after (besides worked muscles), and it feels great.
>> No. 33075 Anonymous
6th May 2024
Monday 9:59 pm
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What is the feeling called when you see a group of friends or acquaintances gathered together sharing a moment which you too could be part of, but instead you look on with disgust and turn your back in refusal?
Sort of 'they're enjoying something I wanted but now they have it I don't want it'

I understand jelousy to mean keeping something valued from others - ie to guard jelously - and envy to mean desiring something valued of anothers - ie wanting what you don't have. The above scenario might sound like jelousy though I not had the thing in the first place (namely a bonding experience), so I've nothing to guard. Neither envy - unless it's some sort of inverted expression - because my disgust feels more or less genuine.

My revulsion definitely has something to do with the number of people involved - I know that for sure, at least.
>> No. 33076 Anonymous
6th May 2024
Monday 10:01 pm
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>>33075
Sour grapes?
>> No. 33077 Anonymous
6th May 2024
Monday 10:08 pm
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>>33076
>"In the fable The Fox and the Grapes, which it attributed to the ancient Greek writer Aesop, the fox isn't able to reach the grapes and declares them to be sour"
>"If you describe someone's behaviour or opinion as sour grapes, you mean that that person is angry because they have not got or achieved something that they wanted"
Oh, yeah that makes a lot of sense. Thanks.
>> No. 33079 Anonymous
7th May 2024
Tuesday 1:26 am
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>>33074

>It does my head in that people think obesity isn't the cause or catalyst to their health problems. It's clearly much easier to treat individual symptoms than admit problems are down to poor lifestyle choices and willpower.

This is true enough, but I found it frustrating when I was a fatlad and had issues with foot pain - yes doctor, obviously being obese isn't helping, but I can barely walk due to pain now, so I can hardly wait for 6-8 months of salad eating to take effect, can I?

Turns out once I went in with the same complaint as a skinny bloke, my tendons were fucked and needed surgery.

Certainly GP's should be telling us to lose weight, I can't argue with that, but it feels like their approach a lot of the time is akin to my mechanic telling me to buy a new car because my current one won't pass the MOT he's about to do on it.
>> No. 33080 Anonymous
7th May 2024
Tuesday 8:35 pm
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Starting to hate my job, because things are rapidly deteriorating, but it's also the only job I've been happy enough to stay at for more than a year so I'd be very nervous of moving. You can't afford to fuck around with jobs when you've got a mortgage to pay. I feel very trapped.

I was at my happiest when I was doing a secondment to a different role where I worked 3-on-3-off shifts, and regularly worked on my own with no team to worry about or supervision to hassle me. I've been completely arsed with it since that ended, and that position no longer exists.

What kind of jobs will give me something like that? I think that's what I need.
>> No. 33081 Anonymous
7th May 2024
Tuesday 9:17 pm
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>>33080

What do you do at the moment? Do you have any transferable skills?
>> No. 33082 Anonymous
8th May 2024
Wednesday 6:22 pm
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Pop psycology time - Why do I frame myself as a source of problems, then try to constructively argue and justify my way out of it? "I'm doing potentially 'problematic' thing, and here's why it's not a problem".
>> No. 33083 Anonymous
8th May 2024
Wednesday 8:16 pm
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>>33082
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rationalization_(psychology)
Please ignore the American spelling; I didn't write that Wikipedia page.
>> No. 33084 Anonymous
8th May 2024
Wednesday 8:36 pm
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>>33083
You know, I'm starting to think I actually am a cunt.
>> No. 33087 Anonymous
9th May 2024
Thursday 8:12 pm
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I am really missing having people with a sense of humour in my life.

I used to work with a great team where we never stopped laughing and joking and it made the day go a lot faster. The new lot are all so uptight and it's miserable. The only thing I truly miss about my ex is that she understood my sense of humour and I loved how we could make each other laugh. I'm struggling with dating because all the girls I've met just seem too serious, or too sensitive, to crack a joke with.

I realised today that I went the entire day without laughing at anything.
>> No. 33088 Anonymous
12th May 2024
Sunday 6:45 pm
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I unironically think I'm radicalising myself. I watch left wing videos and read left wing articles that make me incredibly anti-Zionist, leaking into antisemitic. I hate the west and the whiteness that conquered the world, I'm an extreme progressive. But then I watch videos and read articles from right wing grifters, talking about how blacks are indolent and uppity, and how BLM and LGBT rights are cringe and how leftie politics is a threat to western society. I'm tapping in to both channels, so I have developed hatred for everyone. I know I should stop watching these things but the algorithm and my lack of self control means I can't pull myself away. It's making the voices in my head kind of rage on with lots of bigoted shit which means I struggle to leave the house without getting overwhelmed by all sorts of heavily politicised and/or racist dialogue inside my head.
>> No. 33090 Anonymous
12th May 2024
Sunday 8:35 pm
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>>33088
Remove yourself from those spheres - they're mostly made to rage bait you anyway and thus generate the exact environment they purport exists. There are reasonable people regardless of thier politics, you can be one of them.
>> No. 33091 Anonymous
13th May 2024
Monday 8:03 am
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I just need a fucking job. Just give me some shitty, part-time, fuckhead job and let me earn a fucking penny or two so my life isn't one constant fucking fog of anxiousness and misery.
>> No. 33092 Anonymous
13th May 2024
Monday 11:07 am
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>>33091
Where do you live? I’m sure it must be possible to find you a job. Do you have a CV you can print off and hand into every shop and restaurant near you?
>> No. 33093 Anonymous
13th May 2024
Monday 11:39 am
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>>33092
>Do you have a CV you can print off and hand into every shop and restaurant near you?

Alright grandad.
>> No. 33094 Anonymous
13th May 2024
Monday 12:49 pm
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>>33092
I did that ten years ago and every business I walked into looked at me like I was an alien. I don't think I'll have much more luck these days, but I might try it regardless, it's not like fuck all else is working. I live in a tiny, nothing-town that's full of teenagers who can do all the shit-tier jobs I'm qualified for, but for way less. The travel links are so fucked even jobs in nearby towns can be almost impossible to get to, and I couldn't afford one of those little finger skateboards they used to sell right now, let alone a bike. I also missed a call from the Job Centre last week about a job, and despite emailing to request that they get back in touch I've heard nothing. As such I'm convinced I'm going to get sanctioned, which will absolutely fuck me. I only missed it because I was clearing shit out of a garage, but the last time I was honest about why I'd cocked something up I was sanctioned and after the money I need to keep a fucking roof over my head I had about £40 for the whole of that month.

>>33061
>How did the follow-up appointment go?
Fine, but also shite. Apparently I just need a routine, so I should try volunteering. But get this, he tells me about this big country hall that always needs volunteers and clearly has some kind of referal via the GP thing going on, because there's nothing about volunteering on their website. So I don't love the fact that they know I'm a headcase going in, but whatever, tough shit. But on Friday I take a walk over to it just to see how easy it is to get to. It's a pretty well-worn route for my usual walks to fucking nowhere, but I start to remember something. Years ago I marched right through this hall's land, which I didn't realise it was at the time. As I did so, a woman began shouting to me from across the field, telling me I shouldn't be on the land. I apologised and, quite disrespectfully I admit, explained I'm just cutting through and I'd be gone in a couple of minutes and none of this matters. But then she mentioned that there were gamekeepers around and I could've wound up shot. Now, in hindsight this probably meant winged by someone trying to kill a rare and endangered bird of prey, but at the time I took it to mean "I will have you shot for being on this land". My reaction to which was to begin challenging her to have me shot, announcing from across the field that I'd love to see them try, that I would do far worse to anyone who attempting to kill me. You know, like a fucking psychopath.

She clearly called her husband or her coworker or the land owner. Before I could get off the land he'd confronted me, but all he did was try to be nice to me, asking me if it was problems with a girl or some other crap. I brushed him off and left, and all this was five or six years ago, but I can barely stomach the idea of either of them recognising me. Clearly, given his disposition towards and threatening and half-insane young man marching around his property, this is the chap who would have set up a referal scheme for lunatics to come work on his land.

If you read that I'm sorry, what a fucking waste of time for all involved. There's like three cover letter's worth of text in this fucking post as well.
>> No. 33095 Anonymous
13th May 2024
Monday 1:39 pm
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>>33093
I thought he could put his CV on a USB drive instead, then also fill the USB drive with ransomware and make a living that way, but I decided pubs and Subway are probably wise to such tricks.
>> No. 33096 Anonymous
13th May 2024
Monday 8:14 pm
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>>33095

Most retail chains I ever worked for use dumb terminals out on the floor, and staff are strictly prohibited from plugging anything into The Main Computer, for what I always assumed to be exactly that reason.

You could probably pull it off at some smaller businesses though, because if they don't have someone specifically managing their IT and security, there's a better chance the possibility has simply never occurred to them.
>> No. 33097 Anonymous
15th May 2024
Wednesday 7:51 pm
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I had the second session with a psychologist yesterday and it's kind of fucked me up.

I was talking about my uni experience. I was an undergrad for longer than is normal, due to changing course and having years off due to sickness. I was studying stuff I really didn't want to study. I recently got a place and funding to start a course in September, doing something I have wanted to do for over a decade. Psychologist said it was wrong for them to give me this funding. She made a big deal about how much student debt I am/will be in, and really made me doubt myself and whether it's just a pipedream going to uni. I had a job interview today and the interviewer asked about my time at uni. Normally I'm comfortable with my spiel "I was there longer than normal, due to years out due to my health". But this time I felt fucking embarrassed. Ashamed. Fucking loser spends 9 years at uni, the eternal undergrad.

I was talking about my younger brother, who is an aspie and has lived with my parents all his life. He's very bright but never really got the chance to learn life skills. I said I was worried about his dependence on my parents, and what would happen if they died and left him to fend for himself. She said I'm just as bad as him, and I should be worrying about how I'll cope when my girlfriend dies.

I had a rough weekend emotionally as my cat went missing for like 12 hours and I was home alone just worrying all day. I said my mood was bad because of this. She said the cat is just an excuse, and if I can't handle something like that, how do I expect to handle going back to university.

I felt like she was pissing on my bonfire. I don't know if it's cruel to be kind, or if it's to try and get me to really think. But after that session, a feeling in my chest and throat has been constantly present. It feels like I'm choking. Like something has been ripped from my chest and there's a void there. Like maybe my hopes and thoughts and feelings are worthless. I'm probably being an overly sensitive pussy but it's really shaken me. I've never felt this hopeless and bad in my whole life.
>> No. 33098 Anonymous
15th May 2024
Wednesday 8:11 pm
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>>33097
That's not what I'd expect to hear from a therapist. Are you sure these responses are what they've said and not what you've infered?

>it's to try and get me to really think.
Assuming they did say these things, directly, then yeah that's probably the best way to interpret them and move forward.

What could the cat be an excuse for? Did the therapist elaborate at all, or try to lead you toward reframing the way you see yourself?
I personally have a big head and seem to think I know everything necessary to improve my own life without help from others, yet I'm not doing that. I guess I've probably some unresolved bullshit that I'm refusing to address - so imagining a therapist respond so would make it seem like they're trying to break down some negative framework inorder to rebuild.
>> No. 33099 Anonymous
16th May 2024
Thursday 12:47 am
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>>33097

If your account is even half accurate, then her conduct is completely unacceptable. I would encourage you to make a formal complaint to the service that employs her and/or the BACP.
>> No. 33100 Anonymous
19th May 2024
Sunday 4:55 pm
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I don't think I've properly dealt with the fact that I was regularly raped by my brother for the best part of three years, starting not long after I turned 11. My mum caught it happening twice and I've always felt like she thought it was consensual, because her priority was to sweep it under the rug; she's made comments over the years about me not having any contact with him, but she must know the reason why. I don't think my dad knows about it, but when I started self-harming as a teenager he wanted me to stop as it was upsetting my mum rather than because he cared about my wellbeing. I suppose my plan has always been to repress it until my parents are dead.

There's lots of ways it's still impacting me now, e.g. I haven't had a close male friendship in at least fifteen years, I have crooked teeth because I didn't want braces when I was younger as I hoped that if my mouth was ugly he wouldn't try and force it in there. What I really want to work on is my mental state, particularly around those I'm now close to. I have a habit of getting in a bad mood which I can't snap out of. I have a habit of blaming other people for this, shifting blame and not taking accountability so it's justified in my head. I have a habit of thinking what's happening now is only temporary and when x happens things will be different. I don't want to be that person anymore.
>> No. 33101 Anonymous
19th May 2024
Sunday 5:05 pm
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>>33100
That seems like a bit more than "minor" angst and possibly something it's genuinely worth seeking out professional help for, not in the American cultural export "everyone needs regular therapy" way.
>> No. 33102 Anonymous
19th May 2024
Sunday 5:25 pm
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>>33101
You're most likely right, I just need to psych myself up to do it. I've only ever seen a counsellor as a teenager and I fobbed them off because I didn't want it getting back to my parents, plus I've known people in a similar situation have bad experiences from it so I've always been wary of it.
>> No. 33103 Anonymous
20th May 2024
Monday 10:27 am
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>>33100

Jesus. That is the kind of thing that tends to fuck a person up, I would imagine. I wouldn't be surprised at all that it still has knock on effects. I also imagine it's only really possible to properly tackle with a lot of time and a very good therapist.

All I can offer is my sympathy, I'm afraid. But I hope you get to grips with it.
>> No. 33104 Anonymous
21st May 2024
Tuesday 1:20 pm
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I feel like anything I would do to reach heaven* is contrived and insincere, so I don't do it.
*to better myself morally and spiritually, to express respect, gratitude and love for life. Whatever it means to have 'lived well' and be deserving of a 'beyond' regardless of its actual existence.
>> No. 33107 Anonymous
23rd May 2024
Thursday 1:36 am
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The cleaner at my work sounds like she has completely fucked her life. She's full of depressing stories, and her most recent one is that she thought she was getting the single-person discount on her council tax, but she wasn't, so she owes the council about £900 and they're going to send bailiffs round to take all her possessions. She's a complete disaster case, to the point where I don't think she even has any possessions; she sleeps on the settee in her council house because she no longer owns a bed, for example. Anyway, I would like to help her if I can, so I really have just one question:

If you can prove that you can only pay back a council debt by about £20 per month, do they have to accept that, or can they demand higher repayments that you can't afford and then send the bailiffs round when you can't pay?
>> No. 33108 Anonymous
23rd May 2024
Thursday 3:24 am
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>>33107

If they haven't taken her to court yet, then the court will accept any reasonable offer of payment. If they've already gone to court and been granted a liability order then they can send the bailiffs in, but they should nearly always accept a reasonable offer. I'm guessing that she's been burying her head in the sand, because councils have to make several attempts to solicit payment before going to court.

Bailiffs cannot force entry to recover council tax arrears. They're very good at convincing people to open the door, but they know that they aren't allowed to kick your door in. They will go away if you keep the door shut and tell them through the letterbox to go away.

I would strongly recommend getting professional debt advice. It's completely free, they'll navigate her through the process of negotiating a payment plan and they'll be able to help her with any other debts she might have. Citizens Advice will be able to do a benefits check to make sure she's claiming everything that she's entitled to.

https://www.gov.uk/debt-advice
>> No. 33109 Anonymous
25th May 2024
Saturday 11:14 pm
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I think my mothers 4 year relationship is coming to an end and she'll be left with nowhere to live. I can't meaningfully support her being on benefits and living in a bedsit. My siblings are slightly better off but it'll still be difficult, even if all of us chipped in to support her.
I feel terrible that I can't (wont?) support my mother, that I've never tried to make something of myself to do so (even regular low end work). My choice has always been to burry my head in the sand, insisting it's her fault or some other excuse.
>> No. 33110 Anonymous
27th May 2024
Monday 4:40 am
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I intentionally engage in things which make me angry, as it elevates my moods and gets me out of depression and paranoia. News, specific Discord servers that trigger me, culture wars bullshit. I binge on it all and it makes me seethe but when I seethe I feel a sense of euphoria.

When I'm not angry, when I'm calm, I am very flat and depressed and prone to paranoid thinking. When I'm angry I'm full of energy and feel like I can take on the world.

Probably not healthy to intentionally stoke my own anger to get some relief from depression, but I rejoined the triggering Discord server (it's an autistic support one) and reading all the shit takes from retards (I'm autistic too but self hating) and it makes me so mad but I feel so high on life right now.
>> No. 33111 Anonymous
27th May 2024
Monday 12:09 pm
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>>33110
I have noticed that depressed people often seem very prone to the exact sort of online outrage you are describing. Depression often makes all your feelings disappear, but I have a theory that anger is the last one to go. I don't have anything to offer, but I am confident you're not alone in being like this. It definitely isn't healthy, but neither is beating yourself up over it.

>>33109
Maybe you can't contribute any money, but can you contribute time and effort? It doesn't cost anything to research options for people who are faced with impending homelessness. You can be the expert in getting her a council house.
>> No. 33112 Anonymous
29th May 2024
Wednesday 10:27 am
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I'm going to take a razor blade to my GP appointment this evening and slash it down my arm and then leave. I want that cunt to understand how fucking fed up with all this I am, but I'm clearly too stupid to explain it vocally. I understand why he didn't want me to speak to a psychologist (it's because I'm stupid, not depressed), but nevertheless I was to make an impression. Some of the most memorable events of my life have been fucking with other people, so why shouldn't I? I've got fuck all else going on. Just splash around some blood and then fuck off.
>> No. 33113 Anonymous
29th May 2024
Wednesday 11:58 am
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>>33112

I would urge you to phone 999 and tell them about this plan before you actually go through with it.
>> No. 33114 Anonymous
29th May 2024
Wednesday 5:01 pm
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>>33110

Anger is a higher emotional state than depression; at least you are energised to do something. That also is your stress hormones activating, which (at long-term cost) makes you feel alive.

This content is designed to make you feel shit (misery loves company). To escape this, you can think about the benefit of this cycle. For example, someone constantly moaning about his job often has a bigger want; the security of moaning. Who are you if you don't rage? What do you do with your time?

Your stress hormones tend to activate if you're hungry, including a pint or two of milk a day, or some ice cream when you feel bad can help.

>>33112

It's very hard to interact with a cold system that is not there to help you. Having said that, 'that cunt' is a miserable cog in the same system as you (albeit with a nicer car). If you can find ways to increase your autonomy, your helplessness is decreased. It's worth paying attention to your diet; often these episodes line up with hunger. At my worst, I'd unknowingly starve myself for days; I spent years assuming I ate enough. Ice cream is relaxing.

>>33100

Suffering this level of stress has caused helplessness but also a strong cycle of stress hormones, which also damage and hinder your body. Enough quality food is a good foundation to repair, and helps lessen the frequency/strength of bad moods. In short, it is a huge project and you need fuel for it; in particular for breaking out of a cycle. Milk is a very good and easy thing to consume, and just adding a pint or two a day can help ensure enough nutrition over the long term.

Obviously therapy is a priority, but I find people here (and elsewhere) don't emphasise the role/importance of nutrition (and outdoors/sunlight). Therapy is also hard to come by, and many struggle to get that ball rolling. Mind and body are one.
>> No. 33115 Anonymous
29th May 2024
Wednesday 6:05 pm
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>>33113
I'm not doing shit, don't worry about it. If I was bold enough to do that kind of thing I wouldn't be in a position to be ideating about it in the first place.

>>33114
I should cut you though, for suggesting my tumtum made me like this, idiot.
>> No. 33116 Anonymous
1st June 2024
Saturday 1:32 am
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Yeah I can't be fuckin arsed, yknow?

You know normally you have that sort of anxiety in the pit of your stomach that prevents you letting everything slide too far and kind of keeps you in check from just sacking everything off. Well lately, that's disappeared.

It's liberating in one sense but in another sense, jesus. I have stopped giving a fuck at all. Work, friends, hobbies, diet, anything. Just wasting here.
>> No. 33117 Anonymous
1st June 2024
Saturday 11:23 am
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>>33116
>Yeah I can't be fuckin arsed, yknow?
I feel like this was written to grab my particular attention and now have to decide how paranoid I should get about it.
>> No. 33118 Anonymous
1st June 2024
Saturday 12:04 pm
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>>33117

Perhaps you can explain why? Now I'm going to be paranoid that I'm manipulating the .gs hivemind somehow.
>> No. 33119 Anonymous
1st June 2024
Saturday 12:13 pm
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>>33118

We're on .gs, that could be our motto.
>> No. 33120 Anonymous
1st June 2024
Saturday 12:46 pm
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>>33118
I think perhaps not, though I will give you that I've been developing a spiteful resentment and willing dismissal of people and communities lately.
>> No. 33121 Anonymous
1st June 2024
Saturday 3:08 pm
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>>33120
>developing a spiteful resentment and willing dismissal of people and communities lately.
I'm not sure how this is really breaking with the mean experience of any given Briton?
>> No. 33122 Anonymous
1st June 2024
Saturday 3:51 pm
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I've been selfish today, and feel really bad. My girlfriend and I went to her parents' as they are holding a gathering for her birthday. There were about 15 people there, including five children under nine.

I'm autistic, and struggle with various mental health conditions too. It was fine when it was just me and her at the beginning, but as the kids arrived it was very unpleasant for me. I've never been able to talk to kids - my own brothers, yes; but their friends or random people, I can't talk to. The kids were very boisterous. One of them, an eight year old girl, was shouting and twerking; another was showing me a toy and I didn't know how to feign interest.

I think it was obvious I was not comfortable, and my girlfriend said I can leave and she doesn't mind. But I worry she does mind. We're approaching our nine year anniversary, and despite some misgivings sometimes, I do love her a lot and we get on well. But I feel so bad I can never last more than hour or two around kids or her friends or her family. Even on her birthday I can't do it.

It always highlights how disabled I actually am. I can wear a mask and seem normal in transactional situations, but having to spend an extended period socialising with people is almost impossible. Even with my own friends (who I haven't seen for a year due to these reasons) I can't manage. I don't know if it's something I can learn. Am I just going to be a cold awkward sperg forever?
>> No. 33123 Anonymous
1st June 2024
Saturday 4:54 pm
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>>33122

Nah she was probably just going to have a better time without having to worry about you being distressed, honestly. I don't mean that in a bad way like she was glad to be rid of you, but you are perhaps over thinking it. What really was there to gain from you sticking around being increasingly agitated by some little shits?

Just make a show of gratitude that you're thankful she understands and all that, it sounds like she's a really good supportive lass. The only way this would be selfish is if you don't show your appreciation to her.
>> No. 33124 Anonymous
1st June 2024
Saturday 7:13 pm
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>>33122

I'm not autistic, but I would have taken the world's longest fag break in that situation.

You don't have to define yourself in terms of disability. I don't like crowds, I don't like parties, I really don't like other people's shitty kids, but I will happily fix your washing machine or clear the junk out of your shed. I will stand around making small talk for 30 minutes, maybe an hour at Christmas, but beyond that I will completely run out of patience; if there's nothing for me to do then I'm going to fuck off for a smoke and not come back.

That's just who I am. I'm fine with it and other people are generally fine with it too. If they've got a problem, then it's their problem.
>> No. 33125 Anonymous
2nd June 2024
Sunday 6:42 am
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>>33122

One of the faults as I am sure you are aware with autism is a level of over analysis of the meta of a social situation. Basically you were over thinking things in a way that created a social pressure for you at the time and is doing so now. You were trapped between what you feel you should do and what what you wanted and self tortured yourself.

Your girlfriend is obviously very understanding of your needs, without knowing the exact situation it's possible she was also agitated by the kids.

My biggest worry anon is that you attempting to take on more of a psychological burden than you can handle and it will lead to a situation that you don't excuse yourself from that results in you just exploding.

It is okay to deal with your own needs. Even if you think they are selfish, I assure you they aren't, or if they are they are not unreasonable. You were not bad for staying you would not have been bad for leaving. You need to look after yourself first and foremost no one else necessarily will.
>> No. 33126 Anonymous
4th June 2024
Tuesday 10:03 am
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I'm on long term sick (been off since mid-March), on SSP. I was on a final warning for attendance/capability before that, due to absences over the last 9 months. Work's occupational health assessed me and determined I am not fit for work, they don't know when I will be, and when I return I would probably need deploying in another role.

My manager wants me to come in and meet him for a chat this week. Not sure what to expect/how to proceed. I don't think I can be sacked without a whole formal process going ahead (my previous warnings had drawn out procedure they had to follow). I'm probably not going to get better in the next few months. I tried unions for both my warning capability hearings and both Unite and Unison were useless, so I have no faith in union support.

I'm very anxious about it having to wait until Thursday to see what happens next.
>> No. 33127 Anonymous
4th June 2024
Tuesday 11:13 am
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>>33126
I assume you're the same dude who's been posting such for the past .. 5 months or more?
Why haven't you applied for ESA, DLA etc yet? You might have to downgrade to a bedsit but the relief of time might help to improve your wellbeing.
>> No. 33128 Anonymous
4th June 2024
Tuesday 11:40 am
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>>33127
ESA rejected me for not paying enough NI in the past few years. Staying employed I get SSP at least. It's not too bad a situation, it's just I don't trust a single person in the office so I am very wary about any discussions I am to have with them.
>> No. 33129 Anonymous
4th June 2024
Tuesday 5:35 pm
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>>33127

If I remember rightly, that lad is living with a partner who is in work, so their combined income means he wouldn't be eligible for means-tested benefits. Please correct me if I'm wrong, because it's quite important.
>> No. 33130 Anonymous
10th June 2024
Monday 7:57 am
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I felt paternalistic for the first time and I don't think I like pornography anymore. I'm aware this isn't a terrible big deal, but where the hell else would I express this feeling?
>> No. 33131 Anonymous
10th June 2024
Monday 3:32 pm
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>>33130

Have you considered watching pornography that involves mature women who are clearly enjoying themselves?
>> No. 33132 Anonymous
10th June 2024
Monday 4:24 pm
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>>33131
Yeah, I do. I still feel differently about it.
>> No. 33133 Anonymous
12th June 2024
Wednesday 10:06 pm
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I'm having a bit of a hard time, have posted about it before and will post about it again, but have never actually tried to do anything about it and will continue not to. I just want to feel some sort of connection with someone, or something.


">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=

>> No. 33134 Anonymous
12th June 2024
Wednesday 11:04 pm
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>>33133
Your link didn't work. Sometimes they don't; I have the same problem. What was the video going to be?
>> No. 33135 Anonymous
12th June 2024
Wednesday 11:16 pm
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>>33134
Aquarius / Let the Sunshine In by The 5th Dimension. I feel as though I missed something in the 60's that'd have been very good for me, but grass is green in rose tinted glasses and all that.

I've been hearing a lot of tracks lately through townhouse windows, usually over conversation from gathering people - Snow Patrol and The Gorillaz specifically. I thought a decent brass band cover of the above song would cheer me up but I couldn't find much.

Thanks.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kqTW3kx8dG0
>> No. 33136 Anonymous
12th June 2024
Wednesday 11:27 pm
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>>33135
I don't get it man. I don't think I'm better off alone, but I am alone and being 'alone' has come to be normal. The times I've tried to be around genuinely interesting people I've failed misserably at interaction and suffered horrible self-conciousness and embarassment. I avoid it at all costs now, but it fucking hurts sometimes.
I can't hack being around people for long, can't and wont maintain relationships. This evening I blanked someone who I thought I might know, only for them to turn around and say hi. I probably knew who it was as they were passing but I purposefully avoided eye contact like I do anyone else.
I've been trying to suppliment a social life by online games and communities but I keep creating drama, pushing potential friends away then leaving groups.

It's like this throughout my history, the earliest memory of it was while on holiday, kicking a ball around by myself then wondering off to sit in a tent when some other kid came along to play.
I don't remember anything like this from primary school - all I can piece together is that I started getting weird after my parents split.

I think i'm really self centered - all I seem to think about is myself.
>> No. 33137 Anonymous
12th June 2024
Wednesday 11:30 pm
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>>33136
And the truth is that I'm developing an attitude of 'fuck it, fuck them' to compensate. It's likely I'll leave this string of multiple posts (sorry about that) as though I'd never said them. The same as how I'm dealing with people online; use and throw away with derision - 'connect with me? Pathetic, go fuck yourself', then privately feel upset that they're not talking to me anymore.
>> No. 33138 Anonymous
12th June 2024
Wednesday 11:46 pm
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>>33136
I have a friend like that, and everyone agrees that he's absolutely delightful when he isn't starting drama on purpose. His name's Dave on the off-chance that it might be you. He's interesting, he has good things to contribute to conversations, he asks decent questions to get other people involved, and he's supportive and encouraging and complimentary towards everyone around him. Then he starts some incoherent argument and storms off. But he's managed to pick up a lot lately, and I bet you could do it too.

Would you say that you would rather live in a world where people hate you and you understand why, or would you rather be liked and not understand why people like you?
>> No. 33139 Anonymous
13th June 2024
Thursday 12:49 am
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>>33138
The way I've been acting lately is to give people a clear reason to dislike me so that we're all on the same page, trying desperately to find and tread the line of tollerable arsehole rather than insufferable cunt, so aye the first option. I can't even comprehend the second.
What's the significance?

I've had people respond positively and even reassure I'm likable but I know my conduct is a performance - not ingenuine but finely filtered. The I realise maintaining a position in a community like this is pretentious and that everyone else is doing the same thing. I don't want to practice that behaviour so I lean into being an arse.
>> No. 33140 Anonymous
13th June 2024
Thursday 1:47 am
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>>33139
I spoke to my friend about this and he said the first one as well, so I wondered if you were the same. I assume it's something to do with self-esteem, but it's your life and you have clearly thought very intelligently and perceptively about it.

I can assure you that we all put on our likable face when we interact with others, so it's not just you. Imagine, for example, if a friend wanted to help you make more friends, so he started acting like a cock to give you an opportunity to put him in his place and impress the new friends. I can't imagine anyone ever doing that. I will do almost any favour for most people, but I just can't bring myself to make people hate me, not even to help a friend who needed it. That's how crucial it is to be liked. So don't go thinking it's just you, or that it's somehow weak. It's barely even dishonest; you said yourself that your likable persona is
>not ingenuine but finely filtered.
Likable you is the real you; you just aren't being a cock at those times.
>> No. 33141 Anonymous
14th June 2024
Friday 11:14 pm
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Really don't want to go to this wedding tomorrow. I'm ugly, poor, boring and balding. It's my lot in life to sit indoors playing needlessly complex WW2 games and walking to-and-fro local landmarks and monuments until my calves are sore. Unfortunately I duped one guy into being my pal when we were eight and never properly fell out with him. I wish that fucking GP would have given me some pills, even a placebo probably would have done the trick, anything to shake things up.
>> No. 33142 Anonymous
15th June 2024
Saturday 7:14 am
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>>33141

Relax and don't think about it too much. Most people are self-conscious at these "big events", and usually value someone who can put them at ease. Whatever you do enjoy about it, focus on that. I usually go to these things for the free food and precisely one drink, then I'm quite happy.
>> No. 33143 Anonymous
15th June 2024
Saturday 9:16 am
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>>33141

Half the uncles at any wedding would be delighted to spend the evening chatting about the Second World War or the minutiae of local history. They're the two topics that dominate the minds of gentlemen of a certain age. I once spent the entirety of a christening party in a heated debate about the relative merits of the SMLE, the K98k and the Mosin-Nagant. We all lost when someone came to the debate late and made the case for the M1 Garand.
>> No. 33144 Anonymous
15th June 2024
Saturday 2:51 pm
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Do you think if I asked for an open relationship on the basis I love my girlfriend but find her very sexually unattractive, it'd go down well? I just want to have sex with a beautiful woman.
>> No. 33145 Anonymous
15th June 2024
Saturday 3:19 pm
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>>33144
It would go down terribly. Maybe ask for a threesome, once, and don't give a reason. Just say you want to try it. Then make sure it's a beautiful woman who joins you.
>> No. 33146 Anonymous
16th June 2024
Sunday 10:20 am
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Time for a, hopefully brief, update on the car crash that is my life this year.

My last post (>>33019) mentioned that my ex had gone away for Easter with her mum and it felt like a complete weight off my mind. I told her this when she returned and she didn't take it well; she spent the following two days self-harming and being suicidal. I made the, most likely misguided, call that I'd make a final decision about whether I could get back with her at the beginning of July, while making it clear I almost certainly wouldn't change my mind because the trust is gone; my thought process was that if we waited until summer she'd hopefully be in a better place mentally and it'd be a less disruptive time for the kids if she moved out then.

She's come to terms with the fact I was highly unlikely to change my mind and I think she wanted to regain a bit of control because on Wednesday she told me she was to start looking at houses. On Friday she saw a house she liked and wanted to make an offer on. She put me on the spot yesterday as she told me she was going to call the estate agent when they opened in a couple of hours to make her offer, unless I told her in the meantime I wanted to get back together. Her offer was accepted.

I know it's for the best, but I have a lot of mixed emotions right now so I'm questioning myself. I think a lot of that is because of how sudden and abrupt it has been; it's moved so quickly I don't feel like I've been able to get a grip on things and process it.
>> No. 33147 Anonymous
16th June 2024
Sunday 8:38 pm
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>>33142
>>33143
I went and obviously had a great time. I think the problem is that I am a properly boring cunt, and I'm not being self-pitying. I don't have a lot going on in life, I'm an underachiever and I don't spend much time out of my comfort zone. Obviously much to work on there. Maybe I'll buy a dermal roller too.

Indeed, you can tell I don't get out much because my voice is shot today.
>> No. 33148 Anonymous
17th June 2024
Monday 12:08 am
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>>33146

This is what it's always like with lasses, innit. It's like, the entire last six months of messing you about, you've been a decent chap and given her the benefit of the doubt, you know, she needs time to get it all sorted and get her head straight, and so on. But really, when it comes down to it, once they actually really realise it's over, they've got their shit packed and fucked off before you even know what's happening.

That's all it is, reminds me strongly of my last break up where it was months of turmoil and I knew it was a sinking ship, but she kept stringing me along and stringing me along, she threatened to kill herself if I left her, the works. Two weeks later? Oh, nah, it's over. Made up her mind. Gone. Never saw her again. Easy as that.

Just be glad anyway. You're finally getting her out of your hair and you will see once she's out, that's when you can really start to rebuild. Good on you lad, you're doing well.
>> No. 33149 Anonymous
17th June 2024
Monday 8:36 am
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>>33146
>She put me on the spot yesterday as she told me she was going to call the estate agent when they opened in a couple of hours to make her offer, unless I told her in the meantime I wanted to get back together. Her offer was accepted.

I don't like to talk bad about anyone, particularly anyone's partner, but out of interest for your wellbeing I do need to point out just how manipulative a thing this is to do. Giving an ultimatum is not something you do if you're genuinely interested in working out problems or building someone's trust, it's just forcing someone into a corner. That goes especially for when you've already put them in a vulnerable spot by cheating.

Based on what you've said so far, her entire approach has been to keep you off-balance emotionally. She also sounds like someone who is absolutely desperate to break up on her terms, in such a way that protects her self-esteem.

I'm sorry you're in this position, mate, and I'm sorry it's being forced along at a pace that doesn't allow you to process it, but a clean break might be the best thing. I want to reiterate something I said way earlier in the thread when you first posted: please try and stay around people who have your best interests in mind, and who can protect you. You're dazed and confused, you need people around you who have their head screwed on. Think about how your partner has betrayed your trust, and consider what might happen if you allow your partner to dictate all the terms of how you break up in your current state.
>> No. 33150 Anonymous
17th June 2024
Monday 11:26 am
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>>33148
I wouldn't say that I've been decent throughout this, many times I've been an utter arsehole, but I don't think that's surprising after what has happened.

I think she needs to feel like she's more in charge of her own destiny. It wouldn't surprise me if she's got it into her head if we separate it's because we couldn't make things work and they wouldn't have changed from how things were before rather than because of her having an affair.

>>33149
I didn't even clock that it was an ultimatum, thanks for spelling that out because I know I'm not thinking straight.

I did have a call with one of my friends and they said "she's doing what she's always done throughout this, she's going to you 'I've made a decision, now you need to accept it' because she wants to be in control. It's no coincidence this has happened close to the first of July. Think back to how your relationship was before, things weren't right before this, has she made enough effort to change? How would you feel if she told you she was going out for a meal after work, would you trust her? I don't think she knows herself why she cheated and that's the worrying thing, it seems to be because she liked the attention and only stopped because she got caught out. Everything else is her attempt at rationalising it after the event. Think back to how you were thinking a week ago, before all of this what did you want? It's perfectly normal to be feeling scared and confused right now, everyone would. There's nothing stopping you from getting back together in the future if that turns out to be the right thing for both of you, but you need some time apart. If she doesn't like something after you've gone then it's not your problem, it won't be around you to affect you."

That's the gist of it. Before all of this my big worry was how she'd react when I said my final decision was to separate, thinking she'd potentially spiral, but now she's come to terms with it I think I've had a bit of a wobble because I hadn't really thought much beyond planning how I'd try and manage her reaction. Ultimately, this is what I was hoping would happen.

Throughout all of this she's been saying things like "if you make me leave I'm going to cut all contact with you and you'll never hear from me other than when it's to do with the kids". She's now changed her tune. She told me at the weekend if we separate she hopes we get back together one day. She's told me that she'd still like to have family days out once or twice a month. She also feels that it's inevitable that we'd end up having sex at her new house, the people she's confided in also expect this to happen, but not straightaway because otherwise there'd be no point in separating if we still carry on. I'm more of the mindset that my priority when we separate is me and when I work on myself it's for me and not because I want to get back together. There's no point thinking too far into the future because I won't know what I'll want until I'm there.

Thanks again, lads.
>> No. 33151 Anonymous
17th June 2024
Monday 2:12 pm
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>>33150
>Throughout all of this she's been saying things like "if you make me leave I'm going to cut all contact with you and you'll never hear from me other than when it's to do with the kids".

Again, this is blatant manipulation essentially says, "we do this on my terms or not at all". I don't know whether she's cynical about relationships or just unwilling to do the hard work of reflecting her own failures and communicating with you.

>I'm more of the mindset that my priority when we separate is me and when I work on myself it's for me and not because I want to get back together.

That's good. I'd add that it sounds like you need some time to actually think about yourself and not her. What do you think of what she's done? What do you think of her as a person? What kind of relationship do you want with her going forward, if any? Thus far, she has been quite happy to consider herself first and take actions without any input from you.

I'd try to at least put a pause on sex or intimacy until you have decent answers to the above, otherwise you risk being dragged into an on/off quagmire with her. You're already attached to her in a way through your kids, butyou can and should have some say in what you want things to look like. Give it some thought and good luck.
>> No. 33152 Anonymous
17th June 2024
Monday 3:24 pm
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>>33151
>I don't know whether she's cynical about relationships or just unwilling to do the hard work of reflecting her own failures and communicating with you.

Her dad left her mum for another woman when she was about 8 or 9. She grew up in a household where blazing rows were the norm, so I don't think she entirely knows what healthy communication in a relationship looks like. Her default responses are to either deflect, bring up something I've done to try and turn it into a point scoring contest or to raise her voice, as if whomever is loudest is in the right. When she knows she's in the wrong she'll ask for a cuddle later on, which is her way of apologising.

>What do you think of what she's done?

It's completely inexcusable. We should have split up a long time ago or made the effort to work on our relationship but we did neither, but that doesn't excuse what she did. She can come up with whatever reasoning she wants to make herself sleep better at night, but ultimately it happened because she liked the flattery and she had no self control.

The fact it went from nothing to doing things in his car in less than 48 hours means if I did get back with her I'd be worried if we ever had an argument all it would take would be someone else being opportunistic to swoop in. The fact she wasn't attracted to him means I have genuinely no idea how low the bar is with her and she'd do anything for a bit of an ego boost.

The worst part for me is the sheer level of deceit involved. Back in October I asked whether she was cheating on me because I was suspicious of her behaviour and we had an argument. She sent me a text the following day saying

"I do love you. I'm not cheating on you. I'm not thinking of cheating on you. Yesterday's/this morning's conversation just got out of hand, just testing your reaction which was silly because I've hurt you. I haven't or wouldn't do anything with anyone. I want to try hard to make it work. If it doesn't, it doesn't, but we've got too much history to not even try. My mental health is in a really bad place at the moment. But I do think we owe it to ourselves to at least try one last time."

It turned out the day I asked her was also the same day she'd booked a hotel visit. If she had mentally checked out of the relationship that's one thing, but when she's telling me how we have to try and make things work because she loves me it makes it so much worse. I don't know how I'd ever know what was going on in her mind, evidently when she's being affectionate with me it means absolutely fuck all.

>What do you think of her as a person?

She has an awful lot of issues. Everyone in her life who should have been there for her has let her down badly. I'm including myself in that because there are times when I should have been more supportive of her; I'm far from perfect.

Most people think she's lovely because she is a massive people pleaser. I don't think she's right for me as a partner, but she is extremely witty and intelligent and I enjoy her company for the most part. After everything I don't hate her, I think part of the problem is that we understand each other too well (I also posted >>33100 and I think she's handling her issues much better than I do mine).

>What kind of relationship do you want with her going forward, if any?

Time will tell. I will greatly miss her company and friendship, but I can understand that could make things complicated and messy so I would want some distance first.

What also concerns me about her is how naive she was throughout the affair. She was played completely like a fiddle. I'm worried she'll rush into another relationship because she can't be alone, but that could be with someone completely unsuitable all because they've said the right things to her. That's someone who could be around my kids one day.
>> No. 33153 Anonymous
17th June 2024
Monday 4:49 pm
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>>33152

We've looped back to the beginning here, but I will reiterate what I said back then. I'm not one to burn bridges, I will stay on good terms with an ex if there's no reason to make it bitter, and obviously you've got the kids to consider- But when somebody cheats on you, that's the one exception to any of that.

When somebody cheats on you they are an unperson. When somebody cheats on you you can simply never trust another word out of their mouth, there is nothing they can offer that will benefit your life, they have shown their true colours. You are, whether you know and realise it yet or not, better off putting her at as much distance as you can and maintaining only the most cordial of relations for the sake of the kids.

It's as much for her as you too frankly- Whatever her reasons were, whatever her self-justifications, the problem is it'll always be there in the back of your mind. She can never have the same relation with you no matter how much she might regret it. I say it as somebody who has been on both sides of the equation- Cheating is an irreversible act of destruction.
>> No. 33154 Anonymous
17th June 2024
Monday 8:09 pm
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Is it immoral to get off on your partners bodily attributes if they don't know why you're into them? For example; you might like to imagine fucking a werewolf and enjoy your partners beastly scent and body hair, or; you might find trans people attractive because it specifically eases you out of a supressed homosexuality, or; your partners mid to low attractiveness allows you to momentarily forget your issues of self esteem and actually perform naturally for once.
The thought of a partner actually catering for my tastes puts me into a self defensive attitude by which I convince myself think they're taking the piss out of me.
>> No. 33155 Anonymous
18th June 2024
Tuesday 10:03 am
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>>33154

I would say yes, it can be, if you suspect it's something that might be hurtful to them. I've navigated around this by telling my partners what I like about them. In my experience, most people are flattered that someone is attracted to them, even if it's feature they've not noticed before or it's not how they usually see themselves. I also don't tend to get involved with anyone I'm not sincerely attracted to.

In theory, I could imagine the reasons for attraction being weird or demeaning to the point where someone doesn't enjoy it, but it would need to be something that clashes with someone's self-image pretty severely.
>> No. 33156 Anonymous
18th June 2024
Tuesday 1:51 pm
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>>33154

Very much case by case. It depends mostly on if the other person is into that feature as an aspect of themselves or not, and I will elaborate why in the reply to otherlad. But I think you can sort of rationalise it a bit yourself with a bit of empathy.

Out of your examples I can see some going down better than others. A man might be a bit of a closet furry and enjoy you comparing him to a big scary musky werewolf, and find it a compliment. However a trans person with significant dysphoria and identity anxiety, on the other hand, probably wouldn't find it nearly as complimentary if you secretly just think of them as a particularly twinky gay boy.

I think people can have different attitudes to being fetishised, too. I knew a black lass who really hated it when blokes were into her for being black and therefore "exotic" or what have you, but then again I have heard of girls who specifically enjoy that.

>>33155

You hit on the key point there, self-image.

People naturally like to be validated on the things they do like about themselves, and don't enjoy having attention drawn to the parts they don't. This is why it never works, as an example many of you might be able to relate to, if you tell a girl who is insecure about her weight that you actually like her being a bit chubby- You might think it's a compliment so it should help, but the point is it doesn't align with their self-image (perhaps more importantly desired self-image), so it doesn't.

I experienced something similar myself and I think I sort of came to understand it a bit more by the introspection over it. I used to date a lass who was bisexual but definitely much more attracted to women. She was obviously attracted to my more feminine qualities- I'm a pretty slim guy with long hair, not stereotypically macho, so that was understandable. She would give me a lot of compliments on things I hadn't really thought about before, like telling me I have very elegant arms and hands, for example; but I started noticing she would outright refuse to compliment or acknowledge any actively masculine traits. While I'm not concerned about being "manly", there are still aspects of masculinity I am proud of, such as having good facial hair or pulling off certain outfits, and yes, having a big fucking dick. But I would never hear about any of those things from her, and I did start to feel starved.

So that's sort of how I think it works, for me at least. The only compliments I was receiving were on things that I had no particular feelings about for my own part, so it's as if those compliments were just sort of pointless, nice to hear but they didn't have any benefits psychologically. They didn't validate my self-image.

Sage for pretentious psychological nonsense.
>> No. 33157 Anonymous
21st June 2024
Friday 7:28 pm
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Sometimes I feel like having a good cry, but I haven't cried since 2007 and I'm not sure that my face can still do it. Breakups, comedowns, the death of my father - not a tear shed. My eyes water a bit when I pluck stray nose hairs, but that's not the same at all.
>> No. 33158 Anonymous
22nd June 2024
Saturday 9:04 am
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I Ctrl+F'd "loser", and like 8 of the posts in this thread were from me. And now it's time for another one!

I am going back to uni in September. I'm in my 30s, and I'm doing an undergrad course in a digital media related subject. Young man's game, will be 13 years older than most other students, hugely autistic so that's a barrier. But I'm lucky I got the place and funding, and I am looking forward to it.

I'm meant to be meeting with my friends from my last uni tomorrow. Not seen them in close to a year I think. I asked my partner if I should tell them I'm going to uni, as it's sort of what I'll be doing for the next four years. She said no, "because you know what it sounds like". So now I'm thinking I'm such a fucking loser I have to lie to everyone about my life lest I reveal I'm a loser. Thinking of not going anymore. Do I have to spend four years inventing some story for myself because I don't want to out myself as a loser?

I know the trajectory of my life hasn't been great. I've not succeeded in anything. And in some ways I can make peace with that - everyone's life moves differently. There is no fixed path or timeline that applies to everyone. But I'm scared now that I'm so extreme a loser I have to lie so people don't see me as a pathetic manchild spastic loser. Maybe I should have stayed in my lane and stuck to the call centre.
>> No. 33159 Anonymous
22nd June 2024
Saturday 9:33 am
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>>33158
Does it really matter what other people think?
>> No. 33160 Anonymous
22nd June 2024
Saturday 9:43 am
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>>33159
In theory, no. In practice, it's hard to not be affected by peer pressure and the opinions of others. Really I just need to be true to myself and stick to my guns, but that's quite hard.
>> No. 33161 Anonymous
22nd June 2024
Saturday 9:49 am
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>>33158
I think your Bitch Wife gave you dogshit advice you should completely ignore.

Usually I'm this site's number one woman defender, but I think what she said to you was appalling and you should absolutely tell your pals what you're going to be doing with the next four bloody years of your life. And besides, what's more pathetic, giving up and sticking with call centre work because anything else would be too much of a hassle, or eating shit and going back to uni to do something that makes you actually want to get out of bed for a reason besides paying your rent? The formerly, obviously. Yeah, clearly, somewhere along the line you've fucked up. But guess what? So have most cunts in this country, but very fucking few of them are doing much of anything about it - they're stuffing their stomachs with biscuits and booze and having panic attacks at two in the morning, and calling it a life. Maybe you are as well, but you're also taking this really ballsy step that you should be 100% confident in doing so.

I was talking to my best mate in the whole world last weekend. It was deeper than the usual male bonding of putting the world to rights and making each other laugh, and he told me something a Polish bloke had told him, which really struck a chord with me: "British people don't realise they don't have to be ashamed". He's correct, not just correct, but devastatingly so. We're so buttoned up in this country that your girlfriend thinks your totally admirable attempt at self-improvement is a source of embarrassment. If you think about it logically for even a second, you'll see that makes no sense. It's also a shit idea to lie to people about what's really going on in your life, not only does cause undue stress, but how do you plan on explaining the degree you're going to rock up with?

I've got two more things to say. Firstly, I've been reading your posts during this year, maybe 2023 too, and I want to tell your that they're genuinely inspiring. I'm in a none too dissimilar situation, so seeing how you're pushing through the shite is brilliant; sincerely, well done. I don't want to max out my earning potential at £25,000 a year in an industry I couldn't give a fuck about either, and there's not a damn thing to be ashamed about in saying that. Secondly, I was on courses in my teens and early-twenties with blokes who were clearly thirty-something, and no one gave a fuck. Yes, they were noticably older, but I never gave a shit and I never heard anyone else saying anything. It's also worth remembering that while very young adults, these students are adults too. It's not like you're in Year 11 hanging out with primary school kids or something. They could sell you a pint or beat you unconscious while working for The Met, these people are your peers by any rational metric.
>> No. 33162 Anonymous
22nd June 2024
Saturday 11:29 am
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>>33161
Thanks for taking the time to respond, I appreciate what you've said.

>British people don't realise they don't have to be ashamed
Is a very good point. And the way you've put it, it really is silly to be embarassed for taking a leap and trying to improve myself.

If all goes well, in five years time I may be in a much better position than I am today. Certainly a better position than I'd be in with five more years at the call centre (not disparaging people working there, if it works for them that's great, it just doesn't work for me). And doing something I give a fuck about, with the intention of pursuing it as a career, is a worthy use of time. I just have to disregard the negative voices and focus on my own self improvement.

Again, thank you.
>> No. 33163 Anonymous
22nd June 2024
Saturday 11:54 am
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>>33162

I went to uni at 29 and the near-universal reaction was of respect, often tinged with a bit of envy. The vast majority of people have at least idly imagined starting over, because very few people really knew at 18 what they wanted to do with their life. Loads of people feel stuck on career paths that they didn't really choose and don't particularly like.
>> No. 33164 Anonymous
22nd June 2024
Saturday 2:04 pm
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>>33158
> asked my partner if I should tell them I'm going to uni, as it's sort of what I'll be doing for the next four years. She said no, "because you know what it sounds like".
I have no idea what it sounds like, but to me it sounds like she worries that your friends will feel like you blew them off to go and try again, like you aren't happy with their friendship. Any other interpretation of what she said, and I agree with the #1 Woman Defender who said your bitch wife can fuck off. For one thing, don't they know how your life has been going since you met them? It's easy to have this conversation with them.
>"So, guys, I'm going to give university another go. I know I dropped out when I was with you, but honestly, fuck whichever energy company it was I worked for. I want the life you all have."
>> No. 33165 Anonymous
22nd June 2024
Saturday 5:34 pm
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>>33158

The difference between a Loser, and Not A Loser is not your circumstances themselves, but how you treat them.

You can be living at home with your parents at 35, you can be a homeless bum on the streets, and you won't be A Loser, as long as you take ownership of it, you front it, you are unashamed of it. The condition of being A Loser is that whatever situation you are in is eating at your self esteem, you are projecting the idea that others with judge you for it, and as a result, the front you show everyone is that of A Fucking Loser who's still living at home, and in turn you are judged for it.

This is one of those situations where a man shouldn't take a woman's advice or opinions seriously. Your partner doesn't want to look like a loser by association, but she doesn't actually know what a loser is or why she thinks that. She thinks she knows why, and if you ask her she'll give an explanation, but that explanation isn't actually what's going on behind the scenes in her head.

TL;DR Just own it mate, you won't be ashamed of it when it's paying off ten years down the line will you?
>> No. 33166 Anonymous
24th June 2024
Monday 7:27 am
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How do I grow up, emotionally? I feel like I can be quite immature in how I deal with things, particularly to do with conflict and communication, but I don't know how to work on this.
>> No. 33167 Anonymous
24th June 2024
Monday 9:20 am
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>>33166

Hard to say without knowing what you mean by your immaturity but usually it would be teaching yourself to pause and think about what you're going to say before you say it, and how others will feel about it. What use is the information you're about to impart, what tone or phrasing to use, if you should give it at all, what they're actually asking and why, and so on. Particularly with difficult topics, not avoiding them but taking the time to give them the consideration they need and delivering that information clearly and sensitively. It may sound contradictory but in a lot of situations nothing or very little actually needs saying. Ask clarifying questions if need be but most of the time people just want to be listened to.
>> No. 33168 Anonymous
24th June 2024
Monday 10:03 am
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>>33167
I have a habit of stewing on things and getting myself worked up about things that don't really matter. Some times I can flip, like a switch has been flicked, out of absolutely nowhere because I was fine a few minutes prior and something has set me off.
>> No. 33169 Anonymous
24th June 2024
Monday 10:14 am
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>>33168
In that case you need to be finding ways to cool down about those things - some medititative techniques like counting to ten deep breaths before reconsidering how much that thing really matters, or even just expressing (clearly and without assigning blame) that something is bothering you before you reach the switch flip. That will let people (at least, reasonably mature people) talk it through with you and discover if it's worth getting angry about.
>> No. 33170 Anonymous
24th June 2024
Monday 10:20 am
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>>33169
Thanks. I do need to work on letting things go.
>> No. 33171 Anonymous
24th June 2024
Monday 10:55 am
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>>33168
Bit of a weird question but do you sort of have arguments inside your head? I know I can be totally fine, think of something that annoys me or that is troubling me, and within minutes I've whipped myself up into a rage.

Something my therapist is helping me learn, and it's been very helpful, is developing the self control to "catch" that negative thought or anxiety before it is able to grow in my head. It requires quite a bit of mindfulness, but if you're in a state where you can exert that control and prevent thoughts from spiralling, it can save that stress and anger.

As the otherlad says, thinking about what you're going to say or do before you do it is good (if you feel able to do that in that situation). Even if it means removing yourself from the situation for a minute to recalibrate yourself. Just 30 seconds of time to think things through, settle down, don't act too hastily, can make a big difference.
>> No. 33173 Anonymous
27th June 2024
Thursday 7:26 pm
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>First phone appointment with the mental health team
>"I think we're actually going to need more sessions and a serious committment on your part to deal with this"
I may have been too honest about wanting to debone a bloke who shouted something inaudible at me, from the passenger seat of a van the other week.
>> No. 33174 Anonymous
27th June 2024
Thursday 10:37 pm
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>>33173
I'm starting to think you prefer the idea of being 'crazy' than the idea of being normal, healthy, or whatever.
Are you willing to put in serious committment to addressing your issues or do you merely want an audience for these habitual, practiced thoughts that you've convinced yourself are outside voices?

What I mean to say is, simply stop persuing violent content online. Practice letting go of these edgy thoughts. If your response to these things is, again, 'it won't work', ask yourself why you want to believe that. Really get down into the details. Come up with as many arguments as you need to until you've finally come to the realisation that you don't want it to work.
>> No. 33175 Anonymous
27th June 2024
Thursday 11:00 pm
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>>33174
You're talking as if there are a lot of these kinds of posts I've made. This makes me think you've mistaken me for someone else, because while I've definitely told people on here I want them to "die of stomach cancer" or that I'd like to "smash their skull to pieces", etc., this is the first time I've been honest about it with a professional. I genuinely become enraged when someone decides to give me shit, up to and including fantasising about killing those that did it, often for days afterwards. Personally I think the bigger issue is my chronic lack of ambition, and that this probably factors into why I'm so bothered by people singling me out. I also only feel this way when it's obvious it's something about my person they're attacking. When a lad in a car stuck his head out and shouted "banana" because I was wearing a bright yellow jacket, I properly didn't care. When I'm dressed in the most non-descript summerwear on Earth and some tradie fucker shouts something out of the passenger window, I'd like to stab him up through the neck into his mouth, because why should that cunt get to go around giving people a hard time for no fucking reason? I don't think this is an "outside voice", either. I earnestly feel this way, but I rationally decide not to act on it. Or in this case he's in a van so I don't really have a say in the matter.

I also, absolutely, categorically don't "persue violent content online". I don't even watch gory films and nor do I play especially violent games, at least not ones with any realism. I replayed Portal 2 recently, do you think that might be it?
>> No. 33176 Anonymous
28th June 2024
Friday 12:08 am
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>>33175
It's possible I've mistaken your post for some other similar string of postings occuring over the last year or so. If that's the case, I'm sorry.

>I may have been too honest
If you're interested in addressing your issues then you most certainly didn't say too much to the therapists.
It's a commitment to become healthy, whether mental or what - that's largely the reason why I'm sat here at 17 stone with no job, hobbies and friends.
>> No. 33177 Anonymous
28th June 2024
Friday 1:40 am
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>>33175

Ah, you're that lad. I never knew if you were just an edgelord trying to wind us up with those over the top outbursts, but either way good on you for seeking help. With the additional context you've given here, it sounds wise to do so. You've always kept in control of these emotions so far, to your credit, but most of us are a much shorter chain of events away from snapping than we ever realise.
>> No. 33178 Anonymous
28th June 2024
Friday 8:56 am
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>>33174
I don't know if you're confusing him with me as I've made a lot of posts about violent voices and stuff over the past couple of years, but I'm rapidly recovering from that stuff now thanks to therapy and avoiding violent content.

>>33173
This is a good thing. They're taking you seriously, they will try to help you, it's better than being fobbed off with "oh it's just one of those things". I found honesty and properly engaging really helpful. Don't pull any punches. There is a risk of sectioning I guess but if you show you have insight ("I have the violent thoughts and feelings but know to act on them is wrong") they'll not lock you up. Best advice I've gotten during my current run of therapy is it's okay to have these thoughts, but you don't have to entertain them. They appear in your head, you acknowledge them, then you don't pursue them. Requires discipline and it's not always easy, but it's made my life 20% cooler.
>> No. 33180 Anonymous
29th June 2024
Saturday 11:23 pm
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You lot don't understand. The wanting to kill people I hate is really not an issue for me, the mental health team chap just happened to ask if there was a time in the past two weeks I'd felt stressed. Honestly the reason I was on the street at the time, buying a wedding outfit, was far more stressful. Alright, it's a bit of an issue, I'm just being a ponce.

Anyway, now I have a chest infection. Or a cold. But my nose isn't ruining and my chest hurts so I'm going with the former, even if it does sound a bit OTT. This wouldn't really matter, but tomorrow I have to work, and this morning I tried to quit. Not because I wanted to, but I seemed to be in a situation where not providing two written references would mean I couldn't work there. So I write this very eloquent email and then get a phone call telling me it's actually okay. I sometimes find myself wishing people were bigger bastards than they really are, because it'd make things so much simpler. I know two written references sounds like nothing, but I have no local friends and I haven't had an in-person colleague since February 2020.

Anyway, I'm properly concerned that I'm going to wake up tomorrow half-dead and have to go in, because I do absolutely have to go in. I'm el'capitan on Sundays, I open, I cash up, I close. No one else there can do it. I can barely do it, but that's neither here nor there. I also need to steam the suit I bought for the wedding, reattach the tag (which some idiot had put through the sleeve to begin with) and then I can take it back to TKMaxx, because as of right now I have something slightly north of two pounds sterling in my bank account, and I need that hundred quid back. It's nice, but it barely fits as is and I'm trying to lose weight still.

A year ago I had about six-grand in my account and really thought I'd sorted myself out. What a lark.
>> No. 33181 Anonymous
1st July 2024
Monday 2:19 am
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Just had a existential crisis hit me that I've wasted my life. I guess this is the midlife crisis. But if anything I have a desire to do hard meaningful work rather than cut losse.
>> No. 33182 Anonymous
1st July 2024
Monday 2:51 pm
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How symbolic are your actions in life?

For a long time, whenever specific people visit my home I would almost always get on my hands and knees and start rubbing the hair from the carpet before them(no hoover). I've stopped doing it since I noticed I was essentially grovelling before their feet.

Having recently picked up a few patriotic napkins to serve as toilet paper, I insead used them to wipe my mouth of food deciding it's far better that the Union Jack sustain me rather than literally wipe my arse.

Stepping on footprints at the beach feels like an extremely intimate connection between myself and whoever left them, so I specifically avoid it. Same with childrens drawings in the sand - I sometimes to see prophetic messages within them that absolutely cannot be coincidence, seeing as the meaning is coming from within.
>> No. 33183 Anonymous
1st July 2024
Monday 3:09 pm
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>>33182

>whenever specific people visit my home I would almost always get on my hands and knees and start rubbing the hair from the carpet before them(

What the fuck. And you thought that was even a remotely normal thing to do, even without the appearance of grovelling? What "specific people" are you referring to?
>> No. 33184 Anonymous
1st July 2024
Monday 3:52 pm
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>>33182

I feel like this is worthy of its own thread outside of /emo/. This sort of thinking is an innate part of human psychology and it's usually harmless since most people are self-aware enough to know when a thought is irrational.

I have a plant I was gifted around the time I had just started living on my own. It's been with me through four house moves across three different cities. I cared for it by myself initially, then my girlfriend and I started caring for it since moving in together. It's now around 5ft tall. I'd be lying if I said it hadn't taken on a symbolic status, partly of my independence and travels, partly of our willingness and ability to work together in a relationship. It's funny, really. When we both have to leave on a trip at the same time, we co-ordinate how to care for the plants with a lot of concern. When we've been furious at eachother and broken things during arguments, neither of us ever harmed that plant. I think we both subconsciously know that it signifies something more.

When I come home from a particularly long or challenging ride, I pat my motorbike on the rear seat as a sign of appreciation and gratitude. It feels wrong to just hop off it and leave it there in the garage after taking such big risks together and coming so far together, like the way you wouldn't just hang up the phone without saying "goodbye".

I very carefully go out of my way not to disturb animals, not because I think I would harm or scare them, but more as a sign of respect. The exception are those that used to human interaction (e.g. domesticated dogs and cats). I also talk to them, as well as certain plants.

I generally don't ever throw things away and love signs of use or wear on personal items. I would prefer to spend more to fix a beaten up old watch or jacket than buy a new one. The scratches and scuffs tell a story.

So yeah, I do think very symbolically about certain things.
>> No. 33185 Anonymous
1st July 2024
Monday 5:16 pm
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>>33182

This feels like magical thinking on the level of a pagan religion/ a mild mental illness.

>How symbolic are your actions in life?

The answer is as a rule they are not, unless I am trying to imply something to someone through subtext in a situation, or when I am trying to deliberately manage other people’s first impressions of me, but I would really prefer to rely on the slow burn of reputation if I can.
I don't treat my life as having a narrative in the way you are suggesting. I treat life as far more mundane. My most exciting dreams are what colour I am going to paint the walls.

I don't even bother keeping up with fashion. My actions are based around practicality, and ends of themselves. The only place I guess any kind of representative ideas enter my life is via my sexuality, but even then I am jaded enough to not judge a book by its cover. There have been far too many people I’ve encounter that looked pretty from a distance but evidently were incompatible with me when we have engaged that even those dreams are considered with caution.

It’s not that I am devoid of imagination or self expression, but I just have to conclude logically there is a difference between play, stories and the cynical systems of nature and man that are reality, even if the other informs decisions on the material. When I was three I thought there might be fairies at the bottom of the garden, when I was 6 there could be a witch living at the end of my street, when I was a teenager there could be mass governmental conspiracies. When I was a young adult there was ideology, and now as a middle aged man the scope of the mundane and structured to the borders of the whimsical unknown has extended several light years in every direction, and I see any belief as a excuse for actions of self-interest someone wanted to do anyway. I might avoid stepping on a child’s drawing deliberately in the sand, because I feel like it means something to them and that is enough for me to respect them, I wouldn't consider it imbued psychically though.
>> No. 33186 Anonymous
1st July 2024
Monday 5:18 pm
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>>33183
>What the fuck. And you thought that was even a remotely normal thing to do
By 'before them' I mean generally around while they're seated, like you would tidy clutter or whatever, not specifically infront of them as they entered the house. It keeps me occupied while having visitors, but I'd do it more earnestly when that visitor was my Mother.

>>33184
>I have a plant I was gifted around the time I had just started living on my own.
That's a nice story, especially that the plant serves as a symbol for multiple people.
I once bought a plant to stand is for a girl I was infatuated with - it died over the course of 2 years along my waning confidence to interact with her. Noticing the plants decline and likening that to my situation was interesting. I still have the pot, cracked and broken in places evidentally.

>I very carefully go out of my way not to disturb animals
When I was particularly lonely, I'd wake in the middle of the night overcome with a sensation of immediacy and would run out of the house to go and find whatever it was that was meant to be happening. Most of the time I fell back on explaining the feeling as an animal encouter that it was supposed to teach me something. I saw plenty of badgers, foxes, even sometimes lizards.

These moments of apparent symbolism would become overwhelming but it rarely spills over these days because I keep myself bored, emotionally level and generally secluded.
>> No. 33187 Anonymous
1st July 2024
Monday 5:42 pm
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>>33185
>This feels like magical thinking on the level of a pagan religion/ a mild mental illness.

Yeah ofcourse, though I couldn't possibly live with feeling I was so unimportant that existence isn't communicating with me. I say in jest but it's ultimately true.

I won't believe that human awareness doesn't mean anything - that's precisely the reason we make decisions to act. Even if those reasons are based on the shapes made by the leaf litter in your teacup. It could be thought of as a kind of auto-hot-reading in that you're finding an expression of otherwise unconcious thought processes. You just gotta decide whether it means you're the reincarnation of Napoleon or should buy better tea.
>> No. 33188 Anonymous
1st July 2024
Monday 6:02 pm
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>>33182

I do some things of this symbolic or superstitious type but fairly inconsistently and often made up on the fly. It's part sincere belief in placebos or the individual or group unconscious and partly just an extension of "play". I wouldn't call myself a discordian but it certainly has aspects of their philosophy informing it - simultaneously believing in magic and not at all.
>> No. 33189 Anonymous
1st July 2024
Monday 6:41 pm
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>>33187

>Yeah ofcourse, though I couldn't possibly live with feeling I was so unimportant that existence isn't communicating with me. I say in jest but it's ultimately true.

As much as it would seem as a person who as wholly rejected that, that I should show distain for that, I understand. it took a long time for me to settle into the mundane I was raised Christian, rejected that, got a degree in politics and Law, and have ended up fundamentally rejecting both of those on the idea that there is no greater ideal to either of those. I have effectively rejected everything I have ever believed in, which leaves only me and the void, even Niechzte feared stepping this far away from constructs and purpose.

None of them ever happened quickly just a series of steps where the logical over rode the romantic. Where I saw the explanations I had been taught as to be a combination of simplifications and wishful thinking on the part of the teacher. The reapplications of the tools that are frequently used to criticise others onto myself.
>> No. 33190 Anonymous
1st July 2024
Monday 7:13 pm
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I often have the feeling so many of you lads are artists who never took up an artform with which to express yourselves. You are trapped in the mundane when your imagination has so much more that it longs to express.

I was going to add more but no, I think that says enough on its own.
>> No. 33191 Anonymous
6th July 2024
Saturday 8:05 pm
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I just had a strange experience in town; a familiar stranger called out to me from a pub, then hopped up to introduce themselves. They said 'Are you alright, mate?' in that concerned way a friend might do, then after a brief awkward exchange me mentioned having a qualification in psychology and reiterated 'you're alright though, yeah?'. On my asking why, the dude said something to the effect that he noticed an abnormality in way I move and behave.
We parted ways friendly enough, having exchanged names, with his assurance 'you can talk to me' but the experience has left me confused.

About a week before this some other dude calling himself Freeman tried to initiate contact - another familiar stranger. The exhange was again brief with the other person mostly sharing a few comments about themselves, but I didn't share my name and heard him mutter something on leaving.

I'm reminded of a few years ago when I stopped going to a local takeaway because they became too familiar by asking for my name.

Looking at myself objectively, I probably apear as a vulnerable person living a generally secluded lifestyle. I'm not unkempt but I clearly haven't cut my hair for years, and my clothes are patched in places.

I wonder if these people are aproaching me keen on taking advantage. I feel concerned about going out now that some character I don't want to be initiated with might notice me (can't think of the right word) and drag me into their lifestyles and introducing me to other people who might abuse me.

There's obviously a flaw in my plan to make myself look unaproachable, in that the people it doesn't repel appear shadey, troubled and potentially outside of law.
I guess it's karma for my bad thoughts and shit.

I just wish this twat didn't talk to me, now I'm gonna be looking out for him for the next week or so, maybe even have to change my walking route to avoid him.
>> No. 33192 Anonymous
6th July 2024
Saturday 8:13 pm
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>>33191
Postscript - the thought that all I can manage, or rather all I've practiced in life, is stagnating indoors while playing videogames is going to do hell for my already poor self esteem. Even when I've had a healthier lifestyle of regular excerise and abundant time in the country I've still been a nieve, street dumb twat.
Expereinces like this go ways to further convince me I'm failing at life, I'm not a capable human, etc.
>> No. 33193 Anonymous
6th July 2024
Saturday 8:21 pm
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>>33191
In the nicest way, I have no idea on what level of schizophrenia you're on but yeah they're probably strangers who think you look like a mark. They prey on the weak like hyenas. If you want to be left alone then go the gray man theory and if some moron starts babbling at you about his psychology degree and noticing how you move you tell him to fuck off.
>> No. 33194 Anonymous
6th July 2024
Saturday 8:31 pm
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>>33191
>>33192
Are you the poster who leaves friend groups regularly? Is it possible that these people do actually know you from previous times in your life? They probably still consider you a minor friend, even if you don't feel that way about them.
>> No. 33195 Anonymous
6th July 2024
Saturday 8:32 pm
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>>33191

They are simple coincidences and just the random chaos of human society manifesting a shape that looks like order. Your brain is hyper-sensetive to pattern recognition and you're picking up false positives. The critical wrong turn of reasoning your subconscious makes is that the most rational explanation is they are related somehow; but that's not the case, again, they are coincidences.

I had to stop smoking weed because of this kind of shit. I can still notice the kind of things that would have set me off like this if I was still a stoner, but outside of that green haze, they are much easier to confront and see they are nothing.
>> No. 33196 Anonymous
6th July 2024
Saturday 8:51 pm
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>>33193
>If you want to be left alone then go the gray man theory
I'll be honest man I have been wondering about dressing in outlandish costumes recently - mostly homesewn burlap clothes or maybe a monks habit.

>>33194
>Are you the poster who leaves friend groups regularly?
I'm afraid so. I highly doubt I've ever known these people in particular.
I believe the Freeman guy was one of those I gave a pack of fags to last summer, if you recall that. He's probably extending from that - I was friendly enough to help them then but this time, not so much.

I don't mind helping people offhand but it's too much when it gets personal. I can just about tolerate people asking which town I live in, but fear them learning the exact street. How are you supposed to sleep with people knowing where you're at. And I don't even know anyone for fuck sake.
>> No. 33197 Anonymous
6th July 2024
Saturday 9:06 pm
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>>33193
>>33196
>If you want to be left alone then go the gray man theory
>Burlap monks habit
I totally misread that as 'start babbling about grey aliens and effectively tell the other person to fuck off'.
>> No. 33199 Anonymous
7th July 2024
Sunday 5:34 pm
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Through therapy I've come to the realisation that I don't particularly want a close relationship with my family. They're not fundamentally bad people, they just trigger a lot of bad feelings and I always have severe crashes in my mental health after speaking to/seeing them.

I haven't spoken to my dad since Father's Day. He messaged me yesterday asking if I'd forgotten about him, and also bringing up it was his anniversary with my stepmum last week. I didn't respond, he messaged again this morning, I told him I am not in a mindset where I want to communicate with people due to my mental health. Now he's pressuring me to visit him/the rest of the family for a few days to "recover and recharge", and getting my brother to pressure me too.

This makes me sound like a massive ungrateful arsehole complaining about having a family that claim to care about me, but 100% of the time I interact with them, I will be hugely depressed and anxious for days if not weeks afterwards.

I live a lie - the reality of my life is different from the version I tell my family. These lies are about self preservation. If I tell the truth I would be criticised and attacked. I told a small kernal of truth in one of my recent lies, and was met with lots of criticism (the lie with the kernal of truth was that I had been off work sick for three days, the reality is I'd been off for two months). When I have told my dad before about how the things he says and does can be hurtful, he said I am wrong because I am mentally ill and I should actually see myself as lucky to have him and the family.

I have no emotional or financial gains or dependence on them. I don't feel an affinity for them. But I feel bad turning down them telling me to come visit. I am a massive ungrateful arsehole.
>> No. 33200 Anonymous
7th July 2024
Sunday 5:55 pm
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>>33199
I can't really give you any advice on this matter. Not least because it sounds as if you're already doing what needs to be done. However, the older I get, the more convinced I am that family can be a complete nightmare and that the mature thing to do really is to, for want a better phrase, fuck them off. I don't think it's terribly unusual either. Some people's parents really can be awful for them, and while I don't think icing them out completely is necessarily the answer, a healthy distance is no bad thing. Yes, they're your parents, but anyone who makes you feel "depressed and anxious for days if not weeks" after spending time with them, is best avoided in any serious dosage.
>> No. 33201 Anonymous
7th July 2024
Sunday 6:44 pm
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>>33199
>When I have told my dad before about how the things he says and does can be hurtful, he said I am wrong because I am mentally ill and I should actually see myself as lucky to have him and the family.
This is very close to the definition of gaslighting, a method people use to manipulate others into favourable behaviours and mindsets. That's not to say your father is using the tactic maliciously, it may be he doesn't recognise what he's doing or feels it's justified to keep the status quo, but the belief that you're an ungrateful bastard sounds like a result of it.

I spent about a year ignoring my brohers communications after we had an unusual fight. The time apart has let me calm down and realise I love him, it seems the same for him. We're back in contact now but we mostly avoid the situations that'd cause us to fall out again. We're not seeing one another regularly like we used to but we're cool with bumping into eachother at familiar settings and the like. I call him out for his weird texts a lot more, too, which strangely seems to help level our interactions.

Maybe it'd help to meet with family outside of the home for a pub meal or walk through a park, maybe even individually rather than as a group. Something that changes the dynamic.

Also I personally would wonder what I'm bringing to the interactions. With my brother it's arguable that I was condecending and untrusting which fed into our disagreements. Nobody wants to feel attacked, as you're clearly experiencing - it may be that some of your behaviours around your family are upsetting them as well, fueling the cycle.

For the time being just say you've a stinking cold, can't face travelling and don't want to pass it on.

>>the kernal of truth was that I had been off work sick for three days, the reality is I'd been off for two months
I'm interested to know their responses to this, if you'd tell it.
>> No. 33202 Anonymous
7th July 2024
Sunday 6:50 pm
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>>33199

My dad died earlier this year. I heard about it on social media, because I hadn't spoken to him for at least 20 years. I regret nothing. He wasn't evil, he didn't do anything horrific, he just made my life worse because he wasn't a good parent or a supportive friend. If someone cannot accept that their behaviour causes you harm, I think you're entirely justified in avoiding them as much as possible.
>> No. 33203 Anonymous
7th July 2024
Sunday 7:15 pm
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>>33201
I hadn't spoke to him for a few weeks, this was back in May. He asked why I hadn't been in touch, I said I was struggling at the moment, and he asked if I'd been off work. I told him I'd been off three days (in reality it was over 2 months). He reacted quite negatively.

For context, when I was a child/teen, if I had a stomach bug or conjuctivitis or something, he would always make me go to school. When school inevitably sent me home, I would have to stay in bed all day. Not allowed to do anything but sit in bed, maybe have the TV on. He's of the mindset that being off sick is one of the worst things anyone can do.

He seemed more concerned about me not being at work than he did about me being unwell. He rang me the next day when I was still off, and he asked what I was doing, and I said I was watching TV, and he got cunty about me being lazy and telling me I must go back to work the next day. So in the lie timeline I told him I went back.

I got dismissed two weeks ago, due to the long term sickness procedure - I was investigated, had an occupational health review, and they deemed me too unwell to work and with no imminent timeframe as to if I will be well again.

Also I start a new undergrad in September as a mature student, as I ballsed up previous study, and this is not something I can reveal to him as he mocks me for failing uni previously.

Really I can't play the "I got sacked, I live off disability benefits, and I'm returning to study after you've spent the last decade making fun of my struggles to complete uni previously" card without it kicking off.
>> No. 33204 Anonymous
9th July 2024
Tuesday 9:10 pm
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>>33199

I don't think I've spoken to my dad since Christmas. He never really used a phone or any technology besides the TV, very old fashioned set in his ways kind of bloke, so I'd always just speak to my mum as the point of contact for either of them. And I only speak to my mum when it's Christmas or a birthday.

There's nothing wrong with not being close to your parents I don't think. Yeah they fed and housed me growing up, but that's the bare minimum you can expect of your parents isn't it. They've really just been kind of negative influences other than that, there's a lot of issues I've either identified myself and worked on, or had partners point out to me, that are pretty much a direct result of copying how my parents lived and not knowing any better.

I don't hate my parents, there's just really not much reason for us to try and force a close relationship, and I personally think my life has generally been better off the less of their involvement.
>> No. 33206 Anonymous
9th July 2024
Tuesday 11:27 pm
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Zero ability for self-expression, zero ambition, zero ideas on how to fix any of it. However, tomorrow I will make a Creole gumbo and that will fix everything (or else).
>> No. 33207 Anonymous
10th July 2024
Wednesday 3:16 pm
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It's heartbreaking to learn that you other lads have had similar experiences with your families. I'm >>31726 and >>32904, and feel very detached. I don't have advice, but I do sympathise.
>> No. 33208 Anonymous
10th July 2024
Wednesday 5:43 pm
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Familial angst aside, I made a pretty decent gumbo. Good look finding okra in this nowhere town, mind you.
>> No. 33209 Anonymous
10th July 2024
Wednesday 6:43 pm
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>>33208
Don't most supermarkets sell it frozen in their Asian section?
>> No. 33210 Anonymous
10th July 2024
Wednesday 7:17 pm
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>>33209
I live here. We've yet to hear back from Marco Polo.
>> No. 33211 Anonymous
11th July 2024
Thursday 4:59 pm
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I want to get a piece of ikea funiture, it is the ideal functional piece for the space and I haven’t seen anything anywhere else that suits as well, but it is the same one me and an ex had. And because I had to teach myself reluctantly separation and avoidance for the sake of my sanity to stop dwelling on the past, the fact that I am considering getting it triggers a weird associative cognitive dissonance. I know it is stupid and obstructive mental connection, and it is just functional furniture, but I am afraid it will serve as a reminder that I don't want.

I still own plenty of stuff that she got me and I am fine with it but for some reason this feels like a problem. I guess it is that it is an active decision that leads to something of the past.

On some level I want to know I'm not completely alien in ever having had this problem, even if we all know it is stupid. And ideally if there is a good psychological ritual to overcome this.
>> No. 33212 Anonymous
11th July 2024
Thursday 7:53 pm
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>>33211
No. Although as a ritual I go further and throw everything away they got me.
Time.
>> No. 33213 Anonymous
12th July 2024
Friday 7:09 pm
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>>33211

On the one hand yeah it is a bit daft to let her, as they might say on the other place, live rent free in your head, and it would no doubt be a healthier sign of your acceptance and growth past the matter to just get this bit of furniture. But on the other, it's not really a big problem if you avoid it for the sake of not being reminded of her.

I think it really depends on the nature of the break-up and your feelings towards said ex in the present. If you've ever had somebody truly close to you die, you don't try and avoid everything that reminds you of them, even if it does fill you with grief. There's a period where you can't really enjoy those things without longing for them, but you eventually accept and kind of cherish it. When it's an ex, you are rarely going to think as positively of them as that, but when it was a reasonably healthy break up and you've had a bit of time to get over them, it won't bother you any more. You might still think of them but you won't be sad or angry over it, just a "huh, wonder what she's up to nowadays" kind of thing.

Where it gets messy is when it was a significantly traumatic break up, which obviously take all the more time to heal. It's a year since I broke with my last one and I still find myself getting angry about it time to time. But you can't go letting something like that take you hostage. In those cases, then yes, avoid the reminders and shut off as many possible avenues that they could come from.

TL;DR Yeah time and time alone heals, but you've still got to get on with your life.
>> No. 33214 Anonymous
13th July 2024
Saturday 9:53 am
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>>33199
Been a bad week. I told him I didn't want to talk as my mental health is bad. Got a bunch of messages from him and family telling me to come visit.

I rang him today. He downplayed the NHS support I was seeking, and again pushed for me to do something different and come visit. I told him it's not that my mental health is stopping me from visiting, it's that I don't want to visit. I explained every time I visit, I feel shit for a week afterwards. He said it must because I have to interact with other people and see how they live, then feel shit when I return to my own life (which is not true). He made a dig about my girlfriend telling him I need space when I'm like this, as if she doesn't care. He also kept saying I'm not an expert on my own mental health otherwise I wouldn't have been so unwell for so long.

I then said the reason I don't want to visit is because of him. I explained I don't like interacting with him, I gave an example of when he got very nasty with my brother over something small at a restaurant last year. He said "it's funny [your brother] ignores the 99% good times and builds a narrative around the 1% bad times" (my brother became temporarily estranged from him earlier this year due to similar issues - my brother's fiancee is still estranged from my dad and that side of the family). He can turn very nasty very fast.

He said I have an issue with him because he doesn't enable me and agree with everything I say, I told him the call was not constructive, I hung up. Feel so shit about it.
>> No. 33215 Anonymous
13th July 2024
Saturday 11:04 am
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There was an incident recently where I was doing some work with my brother's multi-tool. I could tell it was starting to get too hot so I stopped, telling him why. He insisted it was fine, took the tool off me and carried on with the job himself while I went and worked on something else in another part of the house. Twenty to thirty minutes of running the tool later it burned out completely. Both he and mum agreed I'd broken it. It feels emblematic of my relationship with them. Everything bad is reflexively on me.
Before that, they both assumed I was going to do a particular thing and both made it very clear how much a waste of money they thought it was - I agreed, it would be a huge waste of money and I never had any intention of doing it. Not long after in a completely unrelated context, mum mentioned how a mutual acquaintance was in fact doing that thing and how clever he was for doing it, having clearly having forgotten the earlier conversation. How pointless and wasteful it is, in this new context, just hadn't occurred to her.
For a long time now I've avoided telling them about, or deliberately hidden things I've achieved that they should rightly be proud of because I know they'll at best dismiss it out of hand, more likely they'll immediately look for ways to minimise it and condescend to me about it. I don't think it's deliberately cruel, they just don't realise they're doing it.
I've lost count now of the number of times they've expressed surprise at how "lucky" I am to somehow "always land on [my] feet". They've clocked that there's a pattern but it's unimaginable that I had anything to do with it.

>>33214

If your brother's also been reacting the same way it does sound like it's the dad that's the problem, hard as it is to cope with it's still not your fault.
>> No. 33216 Anonymous
13th July 2024
Saturday 6:31 pm
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>>33214

Have you tried just telling your dad the truth? By that I mean, that he's an arsehole.

If your parents are anything like my parents, you'll get anywhere trying to reason with them and explain things in good faith. They just don't have that framework. But they do tend to understand, in that way of being shocked into the realisation that they might bear some responsibility, when you just bluntly tell them, as an adult to another adult, "Look, I don't want to spend time with you, because you're a fucking prick, and you never have a single nice thing to say to me. Why the fuck would I bother."

In a sense you need to sort of show him I'm not your little boy any more, I'm independent of you now, you have to treat me decently like you would any other friend or acquaintance or else you won't have me around any more. If he doesn't listen then that's on him and you have nothing to feel guilty about.
>> No. 33217 Anonymous
13th July 2024
Saturday 8:02 pm
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>>33216
Even telling him I don't enjoy interacting with him felt too much. I was physically shaking, I could barely get words out. God knows how I'd feel telling him he's a cunt.

I do think he's a cunt, but I'm much too diplomatic to say that. Having had a few hours for it to brew, I feel kind of liberated standing up to him. I don't want to not have a relationship with him (especially as not having a relationship with him would sour things with much of the rest of my family), but I've been seething for over 16 years which is a long time to harbour hatred.
>> No. 33218 Anonymous
16th July 2024
Tuesday 1:38 am
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I'm going to contribute to the log of inextricable family problems here myself. I don't think I adequately explain myself in what I've written, but I've not really gotten anywhere with this problem for years and it's contributed to a lot of anguish. The poster saying that he was shaking with fear trying to explain to his dad that he doesn't like being around him really hit home though, so I'm just going to try and blurt out as much as I can.

My father is extremely intelligent and competent, and has done many admirable things, and I think gave me a very good upbringing in many ways. I think, and so does the rest of my family, he might be autistic to some degree or another, because he always spent a great deal of his spare time on hobbies (especially things related to trains and bikes) where cataloguing lots of information and buying every single bit of kit seems to be most of the pleasure for him. But moreover, he may be the most emotionally distant man in the universe, and I think he has showed a lack of leadership and closeness which I think has caused serious problems in our family, and I also think isn't entirely down to his being on the spectrum, but also do with his beliefs.

When me and my siblings were young, he was incredibly distant, and apart from practical things, he hardly did any parenting. I didn't feel as though he didn't care about my actual wellbeing, but I also felt as though he wasn't really interested in me as a person. On top of this he would often fly into rages, often for no reason at all - I don't really hold that against him - and if I showed interest in things he usually responded in a tone of severe disapproval. I wouldn't say I had any really bad problems as a child, but his chilliness and disinterest has created a massive and longstanding barrier between us. When I came up against bigger problems later in life I always had this feeling that if I asked him for help he would treat it like an irritating problem he had to solve, so I didn't really ever turn to him, and I resented him for this. But I still gave him the benefit of the doubt because I respected him in many ways and knew it can't have been easy for him. Eventually I did try and ask him for help a few times and he just deferred the problem to my older sister, who is a bit more emotionally involved.

When I was about 18 I had a massive falling-out with the rest of my family over politics which really damaged my relationship with them. Even though I understand their reactions now, at the time they basically bullied me into submission and this made me resent them deeply for ten years. My eldest sister is very assertive compared to the rest of us and dominated every conversation in a way which was quite poisonous and manipulative, so I pretty much gave up trying to contribute to any discussions in the family. I still wanted to have a normal relationship with them and we didn't have a proper falling out, but the tactics they used against anyone who doesn't agree with them, and their really extravagant way of displaying their views enforced this feeling that I wasn't really welcome there.

Again my father never talked to me about it, and carried on being very distant. But I still gave him the benefit of the doubt during this time.

Now, both my sisters have had problems with mental health, quite severe in the case of one of them. Looking at myself between the ages of seventeen and twenty two (which is a long period when you're that age) I think I also had issues which would be described as actual mental health problems, but I was really stubborn about never becoming another young person on pills. One of my sisters has done pretty well for herself, but the other is in a really dire situation - she's had recurrent problems with alcoholism, has become obese, and her personality has really shrunk into an extremely limited existence. I no longer have the same attitude about medication I mentioned just now, but I do think that years of anti depressants has contributed to what she's become.

My parents have shown a lot of care for her, but I've come to realise that my dad's emotional distance wasn't some kind of sensible and stoical parenting attitude, I think it was genuine refusal to try and deal with the problems in our family. I didn't dare think this until my mum told me that when my sister's problems became increasingly evident, he just said that she'd be fine. His politics and way of thinking about things seem to revolve around a very scientific reading of situations which assumes that, if the facts (the facts he's chosen to take into account, that is) add up, everything will be fine and there should be no need to think about how people might actually feel about things.

His personality has mellowed quite a lot in the last few years, but I don't think he's let events really change his way of thinking. If he did have an actual philosophy about parenting, it would be that we should decide our lives for ourselves. I appreciate this in some ways, because he never goaded me into any profession, but I think his attitude is just his justification for being very emotionally disinterested, and he seems comfortable with that attitude - I think it goes back to him having to be right about everything, and yet he still goes about believing that his views are infallible. The trashing he gives everyone he doesn't agree with, and that fact that it's impossible to have a frank conversation with him, still makes me resentful of him considering the problems he's contributed to.
>> No. 33219 Anonymous
16th July 2024
Tuesday 6:10 pm
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She's pulled out of the house she was buying because she doesn't think we've spent enough time trying to make things work. I just... can't. Fucking hell.
>> No. 33220 Anonymous
16th July 2024
Tuesday 6:51 pm
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I'm not saying this to be a imageboard prefect, but maybe a thread on /emo/ for parental and familial issues is in order?
>> No. 33221 Anonymous
16th July 2024
Tuesday 8:35 pm
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>>33220

I think a big part of the dynamic in this thread is that opening a new thread and getting no replies is really gutting, and then it drops off the board and gets forgotten about. That's not a big deal if you are just shitposting about the news or whatever, but it's quite a nasty feeling if it's about /emo/ issues. Whereas getting it off your chest in here doesn't feel so bad even if your post goes ignored, and there's always a bigger chance it'll get some attention later when somebody else bumps the thread.

I've considered a Mk II a few times but I think people like being able to read back through this one. I've gone through three break-ups since the beginning of the thread and it's fun to try and guess which relationship drama posts were mine.

>>33219

>because she doesn't think we've spent enough time trying to make things work

Of course she doesn't. In truth the process was getting bumpy and she was starting to come to terms with how much more expensive it is living alone, and she's wavering. It's purely self preservation motivating her here m8, remember that.

Genuinely still think you should just look at moving out yourself and get her to buy you out instead, because she could drag this out for years otherwise.
>> No. 33222 Anonymous
16th July 2024
Tuesday 9:32 pm
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>>33221
She wouldn't be able to borrow enough to buy me out. I only just passed Santander's underwriting for borrowing an additional £70k, going from £130k to £200k, when I'm on c. £60k and she earns about half that.

I haven't had a decent night's sleep since last Tuesday, which is when she started spiraling and self-harming again. I told her at the weekend to speak with one of her work colleagues about this for an outside perspective, assuming they'd tell her leaving was the right thing to do, but that's backfired spectacularly because they agreed with her to pull out.
>> No. 33223 Anonymous
17th July 2024
Wednesday 6:22 pm
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>meant to move in with gf
>gf complain too much
>"since a few months ago, you've been incredibly unpleasant"
>cancel rent contract + back off for a week
>suddenly really nice, intent on improving
>always wants to talk, puts much more effort into appearance

Women are interesting!
>> No. 33224 Anonymous
17th July 2024
Wednesday 9:12 pm
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>>33223
What are you going to do about the fact that she thinks you're incredibly unpleasant, apart from point our her hypocrisy?
>> No. 33225 Anonymous
20th July 2024
Saturday 6:50 am
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>>33224

If she felt that, what is there to do? Unlike you, I don't manipulate people and am happy for people not to like me.
>> No. 33226 Anonymous
20th July 2024
Saturday 1:50 pm
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Bitches be like"ToXiC MaScUlInItY" but you know what, sometimes it is appropriate to keep your feelings the fuck to yourself. You are not the centre of the universe, and you should actually consider the feelings of the person you are about to dump on. There might be reasons it's not exactly appropriate to choose that particular time or day to start fucking whinging about something when they have plenty on their own plate.
>> No. 33227 Anonymous
21st July 2024
Sunday 11:08 pm
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>>33225
>Unlike you, I don't manipulate people
You fucking what mate?
>> No. 33228 Anonymous
25th July 2024
Thursday 4:56 am
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I find it hard to steel myself against people pouring scorn on me, or me perceiving people as potentially pouring scorn on me.

I fucked up uni badly - was there longer than I should have been due to repeat years, and dropped out at the end. I was incredibly unwell for the entire duration of my time there. I'm starting a new course in September. I'm in my 30s. This is what I want to do, and it's a decision made with much consideration.

But I'm embarassed to tell people. On one hand I can see it from a positive perspective - tenacity to not give up, taking the risk to pursue a passion rather than rot away in a dead end job, since leaving my last uni I've gotten better in terms of mental health so this time I stand a better chance. I'd rather spend 3 years learning new skills to potentially open up new opportunities at the end, than leap from unfulfilling unskilled job to unskilled job for the next 45 years.

But then I imagine how others see it. Grown man going to be hanging around with 18 year olds, living off student loans, already wasted a chunk of my life on a prolonged and ultimately unsuccessful uni attempt, I should have my own home and a career to be proud of, not chasing pipe dreams.

Sometimes I try and just own it. Yeah I fucked up in the past, but I was very ill. I'm doing better now, and I thought I'd take a leap instead of doing 45 years of shit I hate. Even if it's 3 years of uni and then 42 years of shit I hate, that's 3 years of potential positivity. But it's hard to own it when I perceive such stigma against my choices.

Anyway don't know where I'm going with this, I can't sleep and am overthinking life.
>> No. 33229 Anonymous
25th July 2024
Thursday 11:39 am
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>>33228

I think you're vastly overestimating how "together" other people's lives are.
>> No. 33230 Anonymous
25th July 2024
Thursday 1:39 pm
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>>33228
I'm confident I said this to you in more florid terms a little while ago, but I'll repeat it anyway. Everyone else is fucked too, but you're doing something about it. It's fine, everything's fine.

I'd say also, you're being a bit negative in regards to your post-uni future too. Having a degree and showing that you've got the stones to have another crack at uni will do wonders for your employability. That's not even thinking about all the networking and new opportunities you'll encounter.

Ah, a good old 5am wobbly, they really are a joy, aren't they?
>> No. 33231 Anonymous
25th July 2024
Thursday 1:58 pm
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>>33229
>>33230
Yeah I realised after posting I had posted essentially the same thing a couple of months ago. Had been up since 3AM thinking and I overthought myself into an existential crisis. Thanks lads for reassuring my fragile self.

Incidentally my mum told me this morning that she told my stepdad what I was doing, after not telling him for months. He was fine with it, said it's good I'm doing what I want. If a proper working class boomer who doesn't really get mental health can be okay with it, I stand a chance with the rest of the world.
>> No. 33232 Anonymous
25th July 2024
Thursday 2:04 pm
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>>33231

People generally look much more positively upon doing something to better yourself, even if it means temporary setbacks, than they do on just putting up with a bad situation.

Which is in itself a bit toxic if you ask me, like you're not entitled understanding and sympathy unless you are taking steps to Do Something. But you are definitely on the good side of that equation here. You are Doing Something.
>> No. 33233 Anonymous
25th July 2024
Thursday 8:19 pm
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>>33232

I don't want to put a downer on anything, but maybe a word of caution to Otherlad as well: it's best not to expect any fanfare or pats on the back even if you pull everything off and achieve your goals with flying colours, because my experience has been different.

I've been Doing Something since my early twenties and the majority of people, including my own family, have been selfish arseholes about it. People love an underdog, but they fucking hate if you actually succeed.

I'm speaking in general terms, of course, and I don't want to put anyone off trying for a good path. I just think it's important to be intrinsically motivated first and foremost, because relying on other people's judgement about life decisions will leave you completely lost.
>> No. 33234 Anonymous
25th July 2024
Thursday 11:39 pm
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Why can I watch various types of trans porn without much of a moral issue but the thought of paying an actual trans person for sex feels prohibitively explotative? As I type this I'm realising it's probably because I don't exclusively want sex from an attractive trans woman, rather a relationship or perhaps a shared identity.

It might be that I'd have liked to explore trans lifestyles in my youth (I briefly enjoyed privately cross dressing) only now I'm too much a crusty man-child blob with a negative self perception that I wouldn't dare humiliate myself by trying.

Then I take into account that my familiar rolemodels were mostly women and that my upbringing involved some confusing experiences and think that none of this is really me, it's just a shape I've developed into. What's worse is that I can see it happening with my nephew, who's started talking like his mother and grandmother. How the fuck could I explore gay or trans shit with that on my conscience? If he grows up to be gay then so be it stay safe, but I can see what's influenced that and I suppose I don't want him to be as confused as I might be.

I'm not going to allow myself to explore these things because it'll always be me - this thing - doing the exploring. I'm not the manic pixie dream girl and won't fool myself into thinking I could be.

I don't even know if any of this is true, I think I'm just blasting shit out of my mind.
>> No. 33235 Anonymous
26th July 2024
Friday 12:59 am
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>>33233

I do get where you're coming from, but it's a very hard whinge to get taken seriously, that one. Because obviously (and in a way it proves your point, but nevertheless it's true) a lot of the time it just sounds like you're a smug cunt who wants their ego stroking about how well they've done.

The thing is, and I think it goes back to the parental moaning a few of us were doing earlier, if you come from a certain sort of background, you really do just have to get used to the fact you won't hear any praise or congratulations from essentially anyone other than a stiff well done on the actual day you get your results, or the very day you get the job offer. In the eyes of our parent's generation that's all it calls for.

Part of my resentment to my parents goes down to the fact that while I've got an alright job, I'm not exactly loaded by I'm not pushing trolleys either, I've done plenty of other things besides my 9-5 job that I think are worthy of recognition, and regardless of any of that been responsible enough to save up for my own home deposit, got myself on my feet, never asked for a penny from them... By all means I shouldn't be any kind of disappointment- It's just the fact I didn't follow the path they wanted me to, so I'll always be a let down.

But I mean... What was I expecting? What kind of acknowledgement would I have been happy with?
>> No. 33236 Anonymous
26th July 2024
Friday 6:11 am
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>>33235

I don't accept this as a generational thing. Speaking about my parents, at least, they were always capable of emotional expression when it was nevative. It's one thing to be reserved all around, quite another to be emphatic when you're disappointed, ashamed, annoyed, and completely fucking silent otherwise.

I've personally come to the view that people just genuinely don't like to see others succeed. Their first reaction is to feel threatened because they're not happy with themselves or their own lives.
>> No. 33237 Anonymous
26th July 2024
Friday 10:07 am
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>>33236

>Their first reaction is to feel threatened because they're not happy with themselves or their own lives.

Can you not sympathise with that on some level at least? Like, if you're aware that you are doing better than them, why do you need them showering you with validation about it too? That's what I was on about with the first paragraph.

It would be a different thing if they were also leading content and fulfilling lives. People are competitive and jealous cunts at the end of the day, and when push comes to shove, putting someone else down can bolster their ego the same way. But it's often not that they don't want you to succeed, it's just that they're not going to blow smoke up your arse for it when they've got problems of their own to deal with.

You sound bitter about it but really, if you're successful, you're the one in the position to be mindful about it.
>> No. 33239 Anonymous
26th July 2024
Friday 10:42 am
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>>33235

You just opened up an old wound for me, my parents seemed to have an extraordinary level of sour grapes to me getting a degree. I remember when they asked on my graduation what I was going to do with a law degree and when I said I needed to go on to do further studying to become any sort of lawyer and my mum reaction being "oh no you aren't wasting any more time and money studying" I think that was an interigrial element of me giving up on my dreams, and there was no point ever seeking their approval or support.

They are proper crab bucket bastards. They even on the day you used as example of when you would get praise couldn't do it. The only time they have spoken highly of my work is to use it as a reflective on them, or to weapons it against my sister. She has completed disconnected from them, and that's reasonable. I keep a long distance.

I'm not sure at this point I can even handle the kind of generous praise you speak of others getting. I would perceive it as sycophantic. The seeking of approval has long since passed for me.

The best I think I can do, is be self fuelled by stoicism, I consider the only other options religion or addiction. I try fueling through the love of a partner but that has utterly destroyed me when it goes away, you need an institution to fall back to and that institution has to by cold definition be you and your own trust in yourself.

I've been accused of egotism by people before and in many ways I don't care. Because it has been from people seem to need external validation to even act or dwell on negatives and dismiss approval in a way I couldn't afford to do. Their miserable attitudes come from my perspective a place of luxury, because if I did that no one would pull me back out of it I might spiral into the gutter. I think if my egotism is actually a personality flaw it is a double edged one that I probably need and would recommend to quite a lot of people as being better than their current self destructive flaws.
>> No. 33240 Anonymous
26th July 2024
Friday 10:44 am
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>>33237

Of course I'm bitter about it. Doing Something wasn't just a case of making one good decision and then reaping the rewards, at least not for me. It required years of experimentation, planning and organisation, getting over fears of looking stupid, regularly actually looking stupid, physical and mental discomfort, a tremendous amount of additional stress and effort, calculated risk-taking, and so on. In my case, I would say the process involved roughly 12 years of eating shit before it started to pay off.

At no point during that time was I ever witholding my praise from people who were doing better, and I didn't see it as a personal affront when my friends and family made their own breakthroughs (which they certainly did). I was actively triyng to help people. I'd have thought this was a really basic thing, and I find it a bit confusing that anyone would argue that being resentful of others doing well is acceptable.

>they're not going to blow smoke up your arse for it when they've got problems of their own to deal with

This is a really nasty sleight of hand, because I'm obviously not talking about "blowing smoke up my arse", I'm talking about a basic recognition of consistent effort, perseverance, and good decision-making over a long period of time. Or even, God help, some support or understanding. What I'm telling you is that I received paragraphs of criticism and jealousy punctuated by an occasional "well done".
>> No. 33241 Anonymous
26th July 2024
Friday 11:28 am
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>>33239

>Their miserable attitudes come from my perspective a place of luxury, because if I did that no one would pull me back out of it I might spiral into the gutter

I can definitely empathise with that. The kind of people who have never had to truly rely on themselves, in the knowledge that they and only they are responsible for their wellbeing, tend to speak very confidently and knowingly about how such people just need to reach out and open up or whatever, but really they betray a complete lack of understanding.

People will accuse you of arrocange and egotism but I 100% believe it is healthier and a great asset in life to have a stable internal source of self worth. And at the end of the day that is also what they teach in CBT therapy, mindfulness, and all that.

>>33240

Fair enough, lad, I'm not saying your experiences aren't valid. Just that the sour grapes attitude about it probably doesn't do much good for you either, I suppose. If you are successful now you've got plenty positive to focus on.
>> No. 33242 Anonymous
26th July 2024
Friday 9:12 pm
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>>33239
Your parents didn't want you to become a lawyer? What did they want you to do? Seriously, that's absolutely bizarre to me. My parents are alright with my not-going-to-be-driving-a-Porsche-for-the-next-700-years life choices, but my mum kept hinting that maybe I could become a dentist well into my twenties.

I'm not trying to have a crack at you, but are you >>33225?
>> No. 33243 Anonymous
27th July 2024
Saturday 9:20 pm
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Is it a part of autism to get confused after prolonged psudo-social contact? Excuse me for admitting it's only through multi-player videogames, but being 'around' the same people regularly is becoming exausting in a fun way that I don't necessarily want to stop, but it seems to be causing me a lot of anxiety in other areas of my life. I'm feeling confused, mentally tired, worried about something unknown.

I just .. my mother has recently moved house which is always stressful for me even when I'm mostly uninvolved. She also might be ending her relationship.
My brothers mentally questionable ex-girlfriend is moving their childs school multiple miles for apparently no reason when my brother has limited means of traveling.. I'm making up troubling reasons why she's doing this.

This feeling of confusion is generally the early stages of what I've come to consider 'schizo moments' when I start percieving messages and all that shit, like just recently I had a dream I was on the periphery of a cult, went into a horribly dank and dark barn where a herd of calfs were laying in a state of sever neglect, akin to that basement scene in The Road film. I woke up to a voice saying "Kill your family".

I don't fucking know, man. I think I'm tired. I think I've minimal motivation to address the things concerning me and that burying my head is making it worse.

I have bought a meaningful gift for my mothers new home which I hope will produce some positive vibes

I just want to cry and recognise how troubled some of these situations are. To mourn normal human experiences for fuck sake.
>> No. 33244 Anonymous
27th July 2024
Saturday 11:24 pm
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>>33243
I don't know if I have anything to say that would help you, and it sounds like you probably need some professional help, but I'm sorry you're going through all that, it sounds horrible. On a couple of occasions where I've been feeling incredibly stressed for long periods of time, there were moments where I felt almost as though I wasn't in control of my mind any more.

I do find that if you talk about something that's been bothering you with someone who will listen, even if it's unrelated to life's other problems, solves fuck all and they don't really get you, it does actually lessen that undefinable crushing burden and helps you think clearly about other things, so I hope that might count for something.
>> No. 33245 Anonymous
27th July 2024
Saturday 11:54 pm
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>>33244
>I'm sorry you're going through all that, it sounds horrible
Is that true? What I mean is that I'm unpracticed in resisting stress and/or have a very low tollerance to certain sources of stress. I don't mean to be a cunt, and perhaps this response is defensive but; I had a dream, lets cry about it. My mum's moving home, so sad. Do you see what I mean? I can't face making light of the brother one.
I feel bad. I feel like something is going on and I'm just sat here watching.

>it sounds like you probably need some professional help
What does that mean, practically? A few times it's been said now. How do you follow it up? My local GP forwards most appointments to a nurse, am I supposed to go to her and chat? "I'm finding it hard to cope with my dreams" or whatever?
What can they actually do but teach me methods of managing it? I could easily go swimming or stop using the internet as much. I could excersise more often, touch grass and all that shit. But I'm not doing That. Having a doctor tell me these things won't change my current attitude, surely?

I recognise this is defeatist, depressive or some shit but.. what?
>> No. 33246 Anonymous
28th July 2024
Sunday 5:21 am
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>>33245

If you're genuinely hearing voices or experiencing delusional beliefs, then you should be referred urgently by your GP to the Early Intervention in Psychosis team. If your GP won't make that referral, then I would strongly recommend calling 111 and choosing the mental health option.
>> No. 33247 Anonymous
28th July 2024
Sunday 7:06 am
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>>33243
>Is it a part of autism to get confused after prolonged psudo-social contact?
Yes. Autistic burnout is a very real thing. How hard it hits and how intense the activity triggering it varies from person to person and situation to situation, but it's well understand and very common. I'm autistic, and am involved with an autism charity. I've spoken to literally dozens of people who are out of commission or suffering unpleasant feelings after prolonged social contact. Sometimes I'm just very mentally drained and unable to do anything. Unpleasant situations cause it, nice situations like going for a drink with friends causes it. Sometimes it worsens my mental health issues. The best thing I've found is to be kind to yourself, and if you need time and space to recover, take it.

>This feeling of confusion is generally the early stages of what I've come to consider 'schizo moments' when I start percieving messages and all that shit, like just recently I had a dream I was on the periphery of a cult, went into a horribly dank and dark barn where a herd of calfs were laying in a state of sever neglect, akin to that basement scene in The Road film. I woke up to a voice saying "Kill your family".
As other lad said, if you're experiencing psychotic symptoms (thought disorder, audio and/or visual hallucinations), you need help. Not sure what it's like nowadays but when I told my GP I heard voices telling me to kill myself they referred me to the crisis team and I got seen that same evening. If your GP is not going refer you, otherlad's 111 suggestion is a good call. If the situation is really dire, or you don't feel safe, 999 or going to A&E is recommended. They have specific specialists solely for mental health, and they can triage you from there. My advice is to be 100% honest and open. They can't help you if they don't know the full extent of your struggles.
>> No. 33253 Anonymous
29th July 2024
Monday 10:58 pm
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>>33245
I'm able to appreciate the fact that your mum moving house isn't horrible in itself, yes. However, going through a period where all the stresses in your life build up to a point where every event feels like a profound nightmare is genuinely horrible, and people will recognise that that is what your problem is, even if you feel as though the things which trigger your distresses are trivial.
>> No. 33254 Anonymous
30th July 2024
Tuesday 2:24 am
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>>33242
>What did they want you to do

Get a propa job and stop wasting time with education evidently. They are a complete batshit mess of reverse snobbery and mercantilism, who evidently wanted me to suffer because they did, in a way that I remember them being probably resentful when i enjoyed myself and treating me like i would become a complete incompetent.

I certainly remember developing a lot of guilt about enjoying myself when I was younger and it must have come frome somewhere.

Honestly I think my father had some sort of belief I should have been risking my health in a dickenian factory from about the age of 13 to save up for a house.

That other poster wasn't me BTW.
>> No. 33255 Anonymous
31st July 2024
Wednesday 12:11 am
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>>33254
That reminds me a bit of my father-in-law, whose family mostly turned against him because he went to uni. Having a family of his own seems to have helped him deal with it, but he still struggles with all the wounds of it.

But man, if you don't think you can get any closure with your parents, even if you know you deserve acknowledgement, you'll need to find a way of letting go of the resentment somehow. I think this sense of having being wronged and never being able to do anything about it really tears men to pieces. I know it's hard.
>> No. 33256 Anonymous
31st July 2024
Wednesday 5:05 pm
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>>33255

I appreciate your empathy. But I'm not one to dwell on such things for the most part. It blindsides me once in a while when I meet someone who has achieved the dreams I couldn't. That envy and sour grapes is unbecoming, but I do recognise it for exactly what it is. There are many other thing I can derive self value from, and comparing yourself to others is rarely healthy anyway.

As I said before, in the post chain I don't seek that type of external validation. Wanting parental approval is almost just something I understand on an intellectual level from observing others, it isn't something I want. My partner was disapointed the other day that their mother wouldn't help them with a hospital trip. Their mother had them whilst they were an underage heroin addict, lost custody of them and only got it back when my partner started getting diddled by her dad and then later left home and fled to london at 16 and only remade contact many years later. You would think this lifetime of betrayal would lead people to the same place of not expecting support. But no she still holds on to that ideal of redemption apparently. So I guess it isn't just learning a tough lesson of alienation that makes me not require that approval. Maybe I am just built different from most for just accepting it.
>> No. 33257 Anonymous
11th August 2024
Sunday 7:17 pm
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I started ADHD meds last month, they were effective, and I had 4 good days between starting them and seeing a new psychiatrist regarding my mental health. She pushed to reduce my antipsychotic dose as she didn't believe on people being on drugs long term and I had had a good few days so I must be better now. Now my mental health has deterioriated significantly I don't know if the ADHD meds are making me worse, or the change in dosage of antipsychotic is making me worse. It was dumb to have two changes at the same time. I requested to go back up to the higher antipsychotic dosage but I haven't heard back for over a week. I feel like some doctors don't take me seriously because I'm well spoken and have periods of lucidity. I wanted to kill myself today really badly, and I didn't know where to turn. My girlfriend was asleep, the crisis team would fob me off as usual, I had a meltdown in a supermarket and punched a wall, but doctors don't see this because I can convey my thoughts well enough. I feel like the only way I will be taken seriously is if I lose it and go stab someone. My mind is a nightmare and I hate being alive and I'm really scared but nobody listens to me because I don't display emotions or distress. I have a feeling of extreme dread and I struggle to sleep and eat as much as I should. I feel like I want to rip my chest open and pull out my organs. I want to self immolate. I have no faith in mental health services they're fucking useless.
>> No. 33258 Anonymous
11th August 2024
Sunday 8:33 pm
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>>33257

I know from bitter experience how crap MH services are, so you have my full sympathy.

The only substantive advice I can offer is to remind you that what you're going through now is temporary - horrible, but temporary. You will get your medication sorted out and get your head back on an even keel, you might just need to white-knuckle it for a bit until someone pulls their fucking finger out.

On a practical level, being polite but persistent usually pays dividends, particularly if you are calm and well-spoken. If you ring up every morning and say "I know you're really busy, but I'm in quite a bad way and I'm worried that I might end up harming myself, could someone issue me a prescription for my previous dose as a matter of urgency?", you're likely to get results. To be purely cynical, they know how "ignored repeated calls for help" would look at a coroner's inquest or a wrongful death lawsuit.

If your GP is half decent, it might be worth talking to them rather than the MH services. If all else fails, try your pharmacist - they're legally allowed to provide an emergency supply of medication without a valid prescription if they believe it's in your interests.

I'd give you the spiel about A&E or 999 if you can't keep yourself safe, but I'm sure you know the score.
>> No. 33259 Anonymous
11th August 2024
Sunday 8:42 pm
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>>33257

What exactly were the ADHD meds they gave you? If it's the type that's basically amphetamine, those will be rough until you essentially build a tolerance to the side effects. From recreational use I can say it'll definitely give you some mood swings and put you on edge if you're on it long term. It might well be a bit of both, not just one or the other.

Keep pestering the mental health team and don't feel at all guilty if you have to phone them and outright tell them the things you say here. It shouldn't be as hard as it is these days to access help but you're at least getting something. Stay strong lad.
>> No. 33260 Anonymous
11th August 2024
Sunday 9:43 pm
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>>33258
I rang the crisis team, they're getting the MHT to give me diazepam tomorrow. In the top 50% of crisis team interactions, though that's not an achievement. She listened, she took action.

>>33259
Elvanse. I was fine for a week or two, but I think once the level of risperidone in my system was reduced due to the reduced dose, my head got fucked. That period of Elvanse + usual antipsychotic dose was really nice, my mind felt relatively clean and clear.

Thanks lads for being understanding when I am having a tizzy.
>> No. 33261 Anonymous
11th August 2024
Sunday 10:00 pm
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The need for immigration to the UK is in part my fault, as I don't work and claim benefits. I am not going to change that.
>> No. 33262 Anonymous
12th August 2024
Monday 3:10 pm
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>>33260
I rang the MHT first thing this morning, and they said they hadn't received any communication from the crisis team, but would look into it. A few hours later they rang me to say because the doctor I see is on leave, I will have to wait until she's back to get anything prescribed.

So I ring my GP who say they can't prescribe as the MHT prescribes my stuff. They say to ring 111. 111 says to ring crisis team. I ring crisis team, they say they sent a message to MHT last night and to ring MHT to get referred to the crisis team. MHT don't pick up after repeated tries. So I email them and they say nothing they can do without my doctor.

Then I email again querying why when one doctor is on leave, all their patients are suddenly unable to receive care until they come back, and is there only one person who can prescribe at the MHT. They said they'll look into it.

I don't expect instant service or anything, I just think when one department says to the other "give him these drugs he's had a dozen times before", it shouldn't involve me looping around services and being told they can't do shit while one doctor is on holiday.
>> No. 33263 Anonymous
14th August 2024
Wednesday 9:11 am
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>>33260

>Elvanse

Lisdexampfetamine, which is a slow release amphetamine, i.e it is broken down by your body into dextroamphetamine, which is, for all practical intents and purposes, amphetamine.

Amphetamine is not to be taken lightly and it boggles my head that they just throw this stuff at people without giving you a thorough primer on the fact you are basically taking speed every day. You're not taking heavy recreational doses, sure, but speed is still very much one of those drugs where the up is repaid with interest by the down, and the down will come no matter how far you try and stave it off. I'd expect that's more or less what you were experiencing.
>> No. 33264 Anonymous
14th August 2024
Wednesday 10:08 am
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>>33263
The ADHD team are taking it really slowly with me due to my long term issues with psychosis, and really it's hard to tell at this point whether it's amphetamines, the baseline psychosis I often experience not being treated due to lower meds dose, or external stress in life. Speaking with ADHD team tomorrow and will discuss it.

It's settled for now. I ended up having to wait a day for the doctor to return, she sent a letter to my GP to prescribe me increased antipsychotics and a week of diazepam, though the GP hasn't processed it yet.

Whatever was going on has passed. I think I was reassured that she called me at 9:30 on the day she got back from annual leave to follow up on what I'd been discussing with the crisis team and medical secretaries. I only met her once and didn't like her as she was very pushy about getting me off meds quickly (too quick), but maybe she's alright.
>> No. 33265 Anonymous
22nd August 2024
Thursday 10:41 pm
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1,285 hours. That's 53 days, not including the years I spent playing many offline (Factorio and Darkest Dungeon, particularly).
I don't even know if I like videogames anymore - I think it's just habit. There's a constant, half hearted effort to find a community to become part of; EVE Online, Albion, Path of Exile, etc, but it's never a good enough fit. I want a wider group that happens to play games but are content enough to chat (I tried britfa.gs discord, get's a bit weird when you're terminally online).

Just a moan that the options I've created for myself are to sit here browsing the net or playing multiplayer games I might not actually like in search of social contact, watch a film alone, read a book alone or just go to bed ready to repeat tomorrow.

I had a pretty good day recently visiting family, was actually chirpy and upbeat for the first time in ages, though the prospect of visiting my parents as the upper limit of my sociability feels deflating.

I think I want friends with whom to do stuff together.
>> No. 33266 Anonymous
23rd August 2024
Friday 7:46 am
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>>33265
>> No. 33267 Anonymous
23rd August 2024
Friday 9:10 am
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>>33265

I think the most important thing is to decide what you want from your social life. My impression is that most people try to take some control over their career or where they live or how they look, but then just sort of accept their lot when it comes to friends.

The usual disclaimer applies about potentially shit advice, but I would say to try and let go of the social life that you think you "should" be having and think seriously about what makes you happy.

For example, there's absolutely nothing wrong with enjoying the company of your parents, and they might well be happy if you visited them more. It may have been unfashionable as a teenager and you were trying to become independent from them, but as an adult, it can be a really valuable thing to be close with your family. I would really like to have had a closer relationship with my parents.

Gaming has a low barrier to entry, which is both a curse and a blessing. You can strike gold with a great community and share in the hobby with very little effort, literally just a case of logging in and saying hello, but people can also drop out instantly and you never hear from them again. It's also primarily an entertainment medium, so once that social aspect falls through it may not be giving you much back in the long-term.

If these things aren't enough for you, then I'm afraid it's a case of developing other hobbies or some shared undertaking (e.g. an educational course) to meet people.
>> No. 33268 Anonymous
25th August 2024
Sunday 12:10 pm
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Since I've been with my partner, as of now just over nine years, she's talked of kids. I was always sort of indifferent to the idea. If she really wanted them, fine, but we'd need to be in the right place mentally/emotionally/financially. Many times in the last few years she's said she's wanted to try, and then she's put it off when I raised obstacles. When we spoke about it a couple of months ago, she said she wouldn't want me to be alone with the future children due to my mental health, and she would do all the parenting.

Last week she said she was having doubts about wanting kids at all. She wants to pursue her career, she's learned she has genetic health issues which along with mine would make things difficult, and she feels she felt pressured by her family into wanting kids just because she has a caring and nurturing personality.

I brought this up again yesterday and said I was relieved when she expressed those doubts because I really don't want kids since she said she didn't trust me to be alone with them. I said what's the point in me being a dad, when I can't be trusted to be a dad.

I don't want her to feel I am trying to really talk her out of kids, but I don't want kids, and I don't want to lose her. And I don't think she could handle kids either, as she rarely leaves the house due to mental health and fatness - she's very lucky she has a job she can work from home in full time. If she won't walk to the supermarket to get milk, can I trust her with children? I just worry her doubts might just be cope from her biological clock ticking away and she will grow to resent me if we don't have kids.
>> No. 33273 Anonymous
25th August 2024
Sunday 5:16 pm
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>>33268
Get a pet dog. You'll soon find if you're both physically and mentally capable of caring for a dependant.
>> No. 33276 Anonymous
25th August 2024
Sunday 6:07 pm
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>>33268

To be brutally honest, it doesn't sound like either of you are remotely equipped to be good parents. Even if (by some miracle) she turns out to be a fantastic mum, raising kids in a household where one parent has a complete lack of trust in the other is bound to lead to all sorts of fucked up dynamics.

I doubt there's a good outcome here, but (if I remember your previous posts correctly) it sounds like your relationship is pretty toxic to begin with.
>> No. 33278 Anonymous
25th August 2024
Sunday 6:50 pm
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>>33268
If you're unsure whether you want kids, don't have kids. Don't have kids when you don't want them just because you think it'll make someone else happy.

To be blunt, if she's overweight and not very active there's a reasonable chance she would delegate keeping your potential child occupied to a phone/tablet screen and they'd turn out to be an absolute nightmare. If my kids are anything to go by, there's also the likelihood that they'd pick up several annoying habits from their mother.
>> No. 33296 Anonymous
31st August 2024
Saturday 6:00 pm
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wish i was dead sick of my fat cunt tedious girlfriend i have no friends i am estranged from half my family im a fucking loser i wsih every day to be nuked into glass. I depise humanity.
>> No. 33297 Anonymous
31st August 2024
Saturday 6:32 pm
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>>33296
I'm fine now I listened to Jim Steinman's "Tonight Is What It Means To Be Young" several times and it revived me.
>> No. 33298 Anonymous
31st August 2024
Saturday 7:04 pm
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Suicide in what remains of my youth, or eking out a "life" until I kick the bucket in my fifties and lying undiscovered until the smell permeates. Descisions, descisions.

>>33297
Seems like I should have given that a listen before my English GCSE exam.
>> No. 33303 Anonymous
4th September 2024
Wednesday 2:38 pm
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I just got off the phone with my therapist/counselor/whatever and he said I was "probably much better at identifying differences within yourself than others are" and while it sounds like a bland truism, it's also probably the most accurate thing anyone's ever said about me. I think, therefore I am, but other cunts around me aren't arsed and that's the case in both a positive and a negative manner.
>> No. 33304 Anonymous
6th September 2024
Friday 12:00 am
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>>33214
Today I finally realised that they must have made a new family WhatsApp group without me in it, as the one I'm in hasn't had a post since mid August. My younger brother messaged me yesterday though. I feel stupid like I want to have my cake and eat it - I don't want to talk to a lot of my family, but then I feel weird without that social link. It's not even like I rely on my dad and that side of the family when I'm in a pinch - I've not asked for any sort of favour or assistance from him for 9 years. Life's too short to hold grudges. But life's too short to spend placating people who I don't like.

Not going anywhere with this, just the midnight blues.
>> No. 33305 Anonymous
6th September 2024
Friday 9:25 pm
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18 months ago I thought I had sorted my life out. Just moved into my own place, had what I thought was a strong relationship with a fit and lively girl, I wasn't loaded but I was working a shift pattern I enjoyed with a good work/life balance. I still have my own place but I'm back on long grinding anti-social shifts and obviously no longer with that lass. It just feels so demoralising.

All my life I've been okay at dealing with setbacks, because I never had much in the first place. It was never far to fall because I was only ever on the first step or two of the ladder, if that makes sense. But this feels like I fell from the top, I was very near achieving the goal of a happy, settled existence in a cosy home with a nice girl and comfortable lifestyle. And going from that back to the position of being a sad lonely single bloke with a job I barely tolerate is really hard to pick myself back up from.

I just can't be arsed trying to make the climb again, know what I mean. Might as well just stay down here in the pit jacking off to gradually more depraved porn and playing videogames. Fuck it.
>> No. 33306 Anonymous
6th September 2024
Friday 11:19 pm
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>>33305
Hey, from the sounds of it you attracted a Normal Woman, that already puts you leagues above everyone else here.

Joking aside, you can't tap out yet. It might feel shit now, but imagine thirty years down in the pit "jacking off"? How many more Americanisms are you going to be using in 2054? What are you going to be shoving up your arse? It hardly bears thinking about. You might not have lived happily ever after with Fit Lively, but you should take solace in knowing you're the kind of bloke who can be in a relationship like that. What you definitely shouldn't internalise is that getting close to being happy means being happy is eternally out of reach, because that's total bullshit.

I can't give you much advice on the job front, because my own work history is so messy I assume anyone looking at my CV must think I've spent time inside and/or been committed. However, if the pay isn't that great, maybe there are other industries that are less soul destroying you could side-grade into. Besides that, I hear being a mature student is all the rage these days.
>> No. 33307 Anonymous
6th September 2024
Friday 11:33 pm
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When a person is asked "What do you want?", what is the meaning?
I could answer;
• to practice climbing and improve my physical health
• to learn enough about both economics and coding to create a videogame about trade and commerce

but these things - unless I enthuse myself - feel .. hollow, for lack of a better understanding.

Is 'what do you want' the same as 'where do you want to be in 5 years'?
I see myself being in the same situation, if not further stagnant.

I don't care to form a relationship and earn affection because it's ultimately a confusing, rollercoaster experience.
Much the same going out into the community, becoming a productive member of society.

I keep myself as I am for fear of changing - even as I've said previously, 5 more years of this I could do, but be the worse for it.
If I explore sex I believe I might become a degenerate furry (as opposed to the respectable type, in earnest).
If I explore community engagement I might become arrogantm self important and fraudulent,
Past experience has lent evidence to this.

I guess that's what it is, isn't it? I want sex and personality.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UkrRhnDWEW8
>> No. 33308 Anonymous
7th September 2024
Saturday 12:11 am
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>>33307

You sound repressed.

You are the guard of your own prison.
>> No. 33309 Anonymous
7th September 2024
Saturday 12:14 am
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>>33306

>Hey, from the sounds of it you attracted a Normal Woman, that already puts you leagues above everyone else here.

On one hand yeah, I try to remind myself that, I have at least the capability of pulling which is more than many can say. Of course when I say "lively" I am somewhat euphemising "absolutely mental", and when I look back on it that description can be applied in varying degrees to all of my exes. But ahh that's just women for you eh? Eh?

>What you definitely shouldn't internalise is that getting close to being happy means being happy is eternally out of reach, because that's total bullshit.

One can only hope. Just overall I have this sensation that I was onto a winner at several points in the last few years, and I should have stuck where I was, quit while I was ahead; the thing that's got me in this mess is I tried to go for more. Instead of cashing out the big pile of chips I had, I had to play one more hand, and blew it.

At all other times in my life I have picked myself up, dusted myself off, and told myself "this time it'll be better", but right now I just wish I could turn back the clock. Appreciate what I had that I didn't at the time. Of course I'm sure we all feel like that at some point.

>>33307

Can't have yin without yang lad. Embrace the frenzied flame. Make your trade and commerce game about cute anthropomorphic characters and commission a few artists to do rule 34 of them for viral publicity.
>> No. 33310 Anonymous
7th September 2024
Saturday 12:53 pm
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Is Tai Chi real or is it just for nutters in films?
>> No. 33311 Anonymous
7th September 2024
Saturday 1:07 pm
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>>33310

It's a thing you can do, a lot of people enjoy it and find it relaxing, but it isn't going to increase your qi levels or make you good at fighting.
>> No. 33312 Anonymous
7th September 2024
Saturday 2:01 pm
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>>33310
Imagine Chinese yoga. That's pretty much what tai chi is, but I think it's a bit easier. You don't have to bend as much.
>> No. 33313 Anonymous
8th September 2024
Sunday 12:22 pm
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My mum's cat has died and she is absolutely distraught. I'm trying my best to be sympathetic, but a) I'm not even that bothered when people die and b) I am completely indifferent to cats. I suppose I'm struggling with the gap between sympathy and empathy - I feel sorry for her, but I can't relate to what she's feeling.
>> No. 33315 Anonymous
9th September 2024
Monday 6:36 pm
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Sometimes living in this country feels like having survived cancer, but knowing it's coming back someday.
>> No. 33317 Anonymous
11th September 2024
Wednesday 5:50 pm
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Is there a term for when you are so emotionally fatigued from someone offloading their emotional burdens and stress onto you that you just don’t care anymore?

Like I am very sorry about the situation but I can no long emphasize with them because way they manage negative situations seems like they are willing themselves to be miserable. It doesn't make me angry it makes me tired.
>> No. 33318 Anonymous
11th September 2024
Wednesday 9:11 pm
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>>33317

Are you just there to listen to them, or are you putting an expectation of some kind of improvement on them? Not that I am doubting your intentions here, just that I used to feel a similar way sometimes and at some point I sort of worked out hat I had this minor Cassandra complex thing, thinking I am always giving people advice they don't take; but really they weren't coming to me for advice, they were coming to me because they needed a friend to listen.
>> No. 33319 Anonymous
12th September 2024
Thursday 9:56 am
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>>33318

It's my partner.

They have an obvious expectation of emotion support and empathy from me.

They just seem to be generally very anxious and I want them to not be anxious as it is unpleasant for me

They regularly blame me for them being anxious because say for example i pitched an idea that may or may not be possible last minute. They for example blamed me for making them anxious because I suggested whilst we were in the supermarket maybe we should have dinner then next day and what would they like me to get?

I'm not aiming to give constructive advice to her. I just feel something like "there there dear" rings hollow. The actual trigger this time was a much more reasonable anxiety (their cat has health problems (not that this is a new health problem incedently the vet just confirmed what they already knew)) it is just I've hit a point of not giving a shit after so many 'dinner the next day' style incidents. I feel like my life regularly involves things burning around me like the this is fine meme dog and I carry on because ultimately things really aren't actually that bad or the problems are easily fixable or that we shouldn't assume things will turn bad. And hers involves catastrophising what should be a positive experience.

She was actually amazing how indifferent I was to scraping the side of my car and just carried on with my day regardless. I obviously wouldn't rather have not done it but being upset about it after certainly wouldn't have helped would it.

What is fascinating is that they have started having the early signs of spinal paralysis and they seem to just not really care about that most of the time, like there is a level of acceptance, but any attempt at spontinaity or change of plan is the devil's work. This isn't a misdirection of their own health problems stress as this was a thing before those began. I wonder to some level if the health issues are so existentially overwhelming to them they essentially deny it's existence. Maybe it is like that line from the dark knight where the joker talks about how people are fine with the horrific as long as it is part of the plan. The spine stuff is just part of routine but I offer an uncertainty.

This really isn't about them though this is about my emotional capacity, how do I increase my ability to care about others needs without taking things to heart. I struggle to give a shit and not be emotionally compromised or to not be emotionally compromised and still give a shit. I can handle one offs but not a campaign of incidents.
>> No. 33320 Anonymous
12th September 2024
Thursday 11:38 am
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>>33319
I always despise “Let me know if there is anything I can do to help” because it shifts it back onto the other person without actually helping in any way, but on this occasion, I think it might be the correct course of action. It’s what people say when they don’t really care or have anything to offer, and I don’t think you can help this obviously neurotic maniac.
>> No. 33321 Anonymous
12th September 2024
Thursday 12:08 pm
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>>33320

I like the shift of emotional burden. I am happy to help, so it isn't like it is meaningless pleasanties. So I might try that and see if it eases my mental loads in future.
>> No. 33322 Anonymous
12th September 2024
Thursday 12:48 pm
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>>33319

It sounds like your partner has a pretty deep issue with anxiety in everyday life, or is possibly a bit on the spectrum, and experiences a higher amount of distress from the things you are otherwise able to brush off. In effect, it's not so much that you are stronger and more able to deal with them, while they are weak and vulnerable to them, moreso that they experience the feeling of panic and stress over small things much more intensely.

This reminds me of a very difficult partner I once had, who I do dearly miss because we were very alike and I fear I will never again find somebody who is so accepting of my true self, but all the same- It was just too much hard work always having to be mindful for her, and very rarely (if ever, frankly) getting the same support or consideration back; and there were times I really, really needed it. Just as one example, we were once having dinner out, and they made her completely the wrong dish. She wouldn't let me tell the waitress, because she had anxiety about making complaints. We didn't exactly have an argument over it, but I'm sure you recognise and understand the situation you then find yourself having to deal with.

I ended up compartmentalising and bottling up all my problems, and eventually developed a nasty temper and snapped at her a lot. I really regret that, but I really don't know what else I could have done to prevent that resentment building. Maybe this is applicable to you, maybe not, but although I wish I had found a way to deal with it and make it work, I don't think any significant change would have ever come about from her side.

If nothing else you can always vent to us lad.
>> No. 33323 Anonymous
12th September 2024
Thursday 2:24 pm
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>>33322

>This reminds me of a very difficult partner I once had, who I do dearly miss because we were very alike and I fear I will never again find somebody who is so accepting of my true self, but all the same- It was just too much hard work always having to be mindful for her, and very rarely (if ever, frankly) getting the same support or consideration back; and there were times I really, really needed it. Just as one example, we were once having dinner out, and they made her completely the wrong dish. She wouldn't let me tell the waitress, because she had anxiety about making complaints. We didn't exactly have an argument over it, but I'm sure you recognise and understand the situation you then find yourself having to deal with.

Relatable, but I see it more with my dad, where he will have a problem he wont actually deal with it but he will complain about it. I have literally told him before either he deals with the problem or he is not allowed to talk about it to me. This reached a peak where we were supposed to be driving my new car back to wear I live from where he lives and I had to kick him out the car before we left London because he was obsessed with the engine temperature. The gauge was actually reading wrong and was too high. But at no point did he want to pull and deal with that properly, just every 20 minutes talk about how the car was going to explode. After I kicked him out , he swore at me and didn't talk to me for a week. And my mother phoned me to tell me how cruel was, but I don't care, it isn't my job to regulate his anxiety, and it is quite apparent they enable each other, since at no point did she see how it might be a problem that he had the option to deal with a problem but would rather complain at me for what would have been 4 hours then actually pull over and have a 10 minute conversation with the people who sold the car and diagnose the problem.

>I ended up compartmentalising and bottling up all my problems, and eventually developed a nasty temper and snapped at her a lot. I really regret that, but I really don't know what else I could have done to prevent that resentment building. Maybe this is applicable to you, maybe not, but although I wish I had found a way to deal with it and make it work, I don't think any significant change would have ever come about from her side.

I relate to this point too, but I don't want to live in a way where I develop a temper because of it. It crosses into what is evidently unhealthy. I’ve found myself being asked how you are feeling and answering "[partners name] problems" more than once by a friend. They have objectively ruined my day just by being pissed off at me for some problem I cannot possibly solve.
>> No. 33324 Anonymous
12th September 2024
Thursday 4:08 pm
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>>33323

I guess in a way your post got me reflecting on that relationship, because obviously it didn't just start overnight that I was being nasty to her, and it should go without saying I didn't WANT to be nasty to her. It's just that my patience had be so worn down I could no longer muster the mental, emotional effort to restrain my irritation, and that started out as the same apathy you are talking about here in regards to your partner.

You are right that it isn't healthy, the ting is I don't think there will be much you can do about it. Like in my situation, as much as I would have liked to make it work, the only solution that would have gotten anywhere boils down to "just put up with it".
>> No. 33325 Anonymous
12th September 2024
Thursday 6:35 pm
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>>33324

I understand lad. I don't blame you for it. It is a slippery slope. And one I only critique for the sake of making sure I don't fall down it myself.
>> No. 33331 Anonymous
15th September 2024
Sunday 3:27 am
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>>33021
>my most realistic chance of shagging someone else this year will be my friend's birthday in September; last year, when I told them we were seriously looking at separating, a couple of her friends from her university days came onto me but I turned them down as I thought there was a chance of being able to work through things.

I pulled! Maybe I could have got my end away, but I prioritised getting cheesy chips instead.
>> No. 33335 Anonymous
18th September 2024
Wednesday 2:29 pm
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This is just a stream of consciousness relationship sadness post.

I'm struggling in my relationship with my partner. I suppose it's similar to the earlier posts >>33322 >>33319. The anxiety about changing plans, or asking her for suggestions.

She's severely anxious, and doesn't have any friends. She was getting on fairly well with some people in her last job, but she won't keep in contact. This leaves me and her family as her emotional support, and I feel close to crumpling sometimes.
Her family are all headcases and I can't stand them to be honest. They have definitely contributed to my partners anxiety as she's in such a state she won't cook in front of me for example.

I think I'm unhappy because I don't get the opportunity to enjoy my time with her. It's very sedentary, as a lot of time is just supporting her when she feels sad and that revolves around sitting and hugging her.
When she's in a better mood it also involves a lot of sitting around (watching films and series) and it's affecting me as this is not how I want to spend my free time.
I was quite isolated and lonely when I was younger but have actively developed hobbies and enjoy the outdoors, and I meet people that way. I think ideally I would want my partner to enjoy some of these things with me. I don't mind her not wanting to game or paint warhammers, I enjoy those enough as is as some alone time, it would just be nice bonding in the outdoors and going out to see things. Walking the dog some place exciting without her wondering why people enjoy it out loud.

Her lack of enjoyment might be due to the anxiety, and sometimes I suggest that but she seems actively confused when I try to suggest different mental health struggles as causative for other effects.
She definitely finds joy in children and caring for them, so she has things she likes. She is in a panic currently about having children, yet isn't even 30.
I would like children, but I think I need to be able to know I can have good quality bonding time with my partner before I do. I need to realise and be honest with my own needs to connect with my partner properly surely.
>> No. 33336 Anonymous
19th September 2024
Thursday 10:12 am
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>>33335
>She is in a panic currently about having children, yet isn't even 30.
>I would like children, but I think I need to be able to know I can have good quality bonding time with my partner before I do.

From my perspective, it is a big risk having children with someone who is so unwell they avoid going out. If she can't handle going for a walk in the park with you, can she handle the responsiblities of taking the baby to the doctor or the playground? Maybe she can, her mothering instinct overriding her anxiety.

I suppose there's that chance that if you've got a sedentary life now, having kids won't change that. It may be a sedentary life but with a kid added. You may be the only one taking them out to wherever kids go. I'd almost want her to prove she can push herself to go for that dog walk, not every day obviously, and see if she can overcome her anxiety. Even if it's for an hour, make her show she has the will to self improve.
>> No. 33337 Anonymous
19th September 2024
Thursday 12:48 pm
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>>33336

This is a tangent that has little to do with what otherlad says, but: I've got a pet theory this is part of the reason women don't suffer from long term chronic anxiety and depression the same way men do. I've known a fair few lasses over the years, including one of my exes from way back in my early 20s, who were complete fuck ups. Typical council estate self harming emo bipolar girls, you know exactly the sort.

In all but maybe one case, having a kid was the best thing that ever happened to them, because suddenly they have a role to fulfil, and society is there to support them fully and unambiguously in that role no matter what. Strained relationships with parents suddenly improve because they want to muck in and help with the kids. The inability to hold down a job suddenly works itself out, because people look very differently on a mum who constantly has to make excuses and be late for everything, she's got kids. Their financial issues suddenly evaporate, because the state will throw money at them, because they have kids. The things they were too anxious and shy to do for themselves beforehand, suddenly don't matter any more, because they're doing it for their kid, and they have a support network giving them all the advice and assistance they wouldn't have got before.

Deep down I reckon a lot of people with anxiety and its associated disorders are really just experiencing a reaction to the stress of being lost and overwhelmed by the way modern society operates. In many ways having a child is a get out of jail free card, that turns a lass from a social pariah and a scrounger, into a productive and valuable and respected person. She doesn't have to have a successful career or a go to the gym to get in shape, she just has to be a mum, and suddenly society automatically considers her to have done her bit, by default. So a lot of the underlying causes of the anxiety disappear.

Of course I am not saying otherlad should just go and get her preggers. I am not saying these types of lass tend to be fantastic mothers, either. In fact I rather doubt it. Just thinking out loud really.
>> No. 33338 Anonymous
19th September 2024
Thursday 12:57 pm
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>>33337

Women suffer from significantly higher rates of anxiety and depression than men at all ages. The gap is narrowest between the ages of 25 and 34, so you might still have a point.

https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/sn06988/

>>33335

I think you know what to do, you just haven't plucked up the courage to do it yet.
>> No. 33339 Anonymous
19th September 2024
Thursday 1:25 pm
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>>33338

My point is mostly about how it presents differently and the ways society responds to it. In men, it grinds on for years and years until they top themselves, for women that's much less likely (although if I remember right they are more likely to attempt it, just not succeed).

I think there's something to it, anyway. Not like having a kid is a magic bullet but it is a major event that dramatically shifts the priorities in a lasses life, which no matter how much a lad wants to be involved as a parent, isn't quite the same for a father as it is for a mother.
>> No. 33340 Anonymous
19th September 2024
Thursday 1:35 pm
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>>33338

I am somewhat skeptical of these figures, not out of a lack of compassion for people experiencing anxiety and depression, but putting it in the context of other things we know about mental health. For example, men are more prone to suicide, violence, and risky behaviours, all of which have a known relationship with anxiety and depression. We also know that men tend to underreport depression, even when the surveys are self-reported: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1207/S15327752JPA8001_10

I think it's likely that this disparity comes from a reporting bias.
>> No. 33343 Anonymous
19th September 2024
Thursday 9:42 pm
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I am pretty sure I was quite literally better off when I was earning minimum wage ten years ago because I was only paying about 400 quid a month for rent and all my bills each month. Age was supposed to bring security but I worry about money more than ever now, it's only one bad month and I'd be up shit creek.

Funnily enough though, the legitimate stress about keeping the roof over my head doesn't depress me nearly as much the realisation that a couple of years ago, I would buy myself a little treat like a cheesecake or something if it had been a bad day, to take the edge off. But nowadays even that feels like an unwise frivolous expense.

It's just miserable.
>> No. 33344 Anonymous
20th September 2024
Friday 12:25 am
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The latest on my situation is that my cheating ex-girfriend has been sectioned after I called 999 while she was slitting her wrists. She proposed to me in front of our children, to which I obviously said no, and it all went downhill from there. Thankfully I've been able to shield the kids from most of it.

She's been speaking to a psychologist, who seems like the first person able to give her the support she's needed, and has been diagnosed with complex PTSD (which doesn't come as a massive surprise to me). As she still has access to her phone she's been messaging me now and then and has provided me with more details about her affair. A lot of it was straight up sexual assault that she let happen because she wanted to feel liked and wanted. She didn't want to admit this to me until now because she was trying to convince herself in her head that it was better than it actually was rather than her repeatedly allowing herself to be violated.

I need a bit of time to reflect on things. I'm not really sure what I'm feeling right now and need to work through this.
>> No. 33345 Anonymous
20th September 2024
Friday 12:34 am
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>>33344

That's rough mate, bloody hell. Hope you've got people you can rely on for support too, that can't be easy to go through. That being said...

>A lot of it was straight up sexual assault that she let happen because she wanted to feel liked and wanted.

Not being funny but I don't really buy that. Call me a victim blaming woman hater and what have you but I don't believe her to be honest. I think that would have come up sooner if it were true.
>> No. 33346 Anonymous
20th September 2024
Friday 12:53 am
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>>33345
One of the reasons she has complex PTSD is because she was sexually abused by a relative when she was about eight years old. In her head she allowed that to happen because she'd ask to go and play board games with him when she knew what that meant would happen, but she got attention when she was busy being neglected by her parents and thought she must be cool for someone about a decade older to want to be doing stuff with her. Until she spoke with the psychologist, she didn't want to admit that a lot of her affair was awful and scary, making her feel like her relative did.

I know she repeatedly lied to my face, but I believe her on this. I don't know, there's a lot to unpack. Even if he did take advantage of her being in an incredibly vulnerable position, she still had an affair and was an active participant in it.
>> No. 33348 Anonymous
20th September 2024
Friday 1:57 am
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>>33347

If you actually read the rest of this lad's posts about his situation, there's plenty of reason to question this woman's character.

But reagardles: Don't be a cunt in /emo/.
>> No. 33349 Anonymous
20th September 2024
Friday 8:12 am
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>>33346

Serious question how much do you feel like you have/had to look after your ex?

We are all products of our environment, and we all have our points of weakness but when we accept these justification as anything other than a moral failing I feel like we cease to hold people to a standard of basic responsibility for their own actions. We arrest their development and train them to be dependent. This is only partly based on your post but also the the people around me in my personal life. I am feeling my personal philosophy creeping towards Rand Objectivism, as people around me fail the very basic expectations of ownership of their own lives
>> No. 33351 Anonymous
20th September 2024
Friday 10:52 am
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>>33349
I've felt very responsible for her mental wellbeing over the past half a year or so, but beyond that it's peaks and troughs. In general I don't feel like she's heavily dependent on me. I'm also fairly fucked in the head (>>33100) so I guess we get each other, but also know exactly how to really twist the knife.

She's working on writing everything down that's happened to her so she has it ready to go to the police when she's out. It sounds like he raped her at least twice, with the other times him heavily pressuring her into it while she said she wasn't sure if she wanted to do it, and on numerous occasions he grabbed her head and face fucked her (at least twice immediately after taking the condom off after sex - the two outright rapes happened each time after that) despite her saying no, despite her trying to resist it and continuing to do it while she cried. There are other things she said no to, which he ignored and did regardless.
>> No. 33353 Anonymous
23rd September 2024
Monday 5:14 pm
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It scares me how fragile I am. Already missed one uni session because I couldn't handle group work and one guy got shirty with me. And I had too much internalised stress and rage. I know one hundred percent I could thrive on this project as an individual. With groups I get steamrolled over. I'm a mental aspie mature student. I know I can't work alone all the time and people say it's good to show you can work in a group. But I'm matched with four people who I have nothing in common with other than we study the same thing. Being with them is bad for me because they won't let me cook, and bad for them because they've got retarded deadweight old man. I'm only writing this to get my seething out of the way before I get home. Thanks for listening.
>> No. 33354 Anonymous
23rd September 2024
Monday 8:57 pm
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>>33353
>It scares me how fragile I am.
Don't we all, mate. The moment anything comes to group interfacing, I'm a complete shambles. My performance drops, I struggle to follow instruction, lose all initiative. It's like I'm stuck in the headlights.

Maybe your tutor or student supervisor could advise you? I'd be quite interested to hear what they'd say - if you do ask be sure to post about it.
>> No. 33355 Anonymous
23rd September 2024
Monday 11:07 pm
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Absolutely fucking miserable. I'm just a fucking husk. I want to off myself just because I'm such a non-entity and I'll never be anything or anyone of note or merit. I'm just another sack of shit waiting to die, earning less than the national average and rotting, alone.
>> No. 33356 Anonymous
23rd September 2024
Monday 11:25 pm
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>>33355
>earning less than the national average
50% of all people earn that much (some assumptions notwithstanding). It's nothing to be ashamed of. And many people who earn more are much bigger twats than you are.
>> No. 33357 Anonymous
24th September 2024
Tuesday 4:58 pm
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>>33354
I emailed him when I got home last night. He emailed me back today and it's a case of I have to do group work, but he can help facilitate.

Sat next to the guy who got shirty with me yesterday. We had a bit of a chat, I apologised for leaving prematurely. He seems a good lad. I didn't go into why I left but he was understanding and caught me up on what I missed. So even though the group project is shit I don't care about plus people, it's not the worst thing ever.

I was scared he'd be pissed I ditched/made him mad yesterday.
>> No. 33358 Anonymous
24th September 2024
Tuesday 6:00 pm
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>>33355

Same. Fucking shit innit. I think I am in denial about being suicidal, I don't consider myself to be and I am probably too much of a fanny to do it, but the thought nevertheless pops up remarkably often that it would simply be easier.

Here's hoping things start looking up for the both of us some time soon mate.
>> No. 33359 Anonymous
24th September 2024
Tuesday 9:13 pm
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>>33355>>33358
Guessing you've both got decaying social networks/support structures if you've been this down for a while? If you still have them, utilise them because you may just have a friend who really gives a shit and will help you drag yourself out of this.

>>33355
You might do well to play the numbers game with making your own life improvements, which is a bitch but some things are easier than others. One adage is 'no zero days', because it's easy to fall into wasting your entire day on distraction when like this, but if you can do just one thing, even if it's washing a single dish, doing any physical exercise, replying to a single email, applying for a single job - whatever stage you're at.

If you're really deep into it, not leaving your house and your room/house is a fucking tip; don't think of cleaning the entire thing, you'll never start. But pick one thing, maybe the beer cans/bottles (easiest and most satisfying in my experience) if you've been drinking. Then stacks plates, glasses, whatever. You might fill up several bags and feel like you've hardly made a dent, but then look at those bags and think about what went into them.

The thing that always stopped me from helping myself was knowing it would 'help', and I didn't deserve help - there was a sheer revulsion at doing anything that might be good for me, and I eventually realised after a quite unhelpful therapist that I really did just hate myself. Not for anything I am or have done, just because I'm me. And also because it was *simple* to just clean, or reply to an email in 10 seconds that had been weighing on me for weeks, that the idea of doing it made me feel *more* shame in the moment, and expectation of shame in the future if I did do anything productive, and resenting myself for not doing it earlier.

But I never am, when I've managed to pull myself out of the depths it's always a relief, I've never resented myself for being unable to do it sooner. And even if I'm not *feeling* any benefit from diet, exercise, cleaning, not drinking, showering...I know that fundamentally it's having an impact, and over time it'll be felt. And even if I don't *feel* that, it's still having an impact. If you're at that stage you might benefit from finding the right antidepressants. I went through about 4 different kinds before I went on Venlafaxine for a year and it muted everything enough for me to get stable. Idk your cases though, I hope you can figure out something.

Self love sounds like bollocks, but for me it started with finding ways to hate myself less - realising I shouldn't punch or cut myself because I wouldn't hit or cut another human was one of the big steps for finding ways of hating myself less. But that's only part of it, you have to find reasons to love yourself too, and if you can't think of any then create some by doing things like taking care of yourself, seeking out activities, pursuing hobbies and committing to things. Unless you're an utter misanthrope, you'd probably also feel better for finding ways to socialise - or at least be present at social events - and contacting old friends, and making sure to put some effort into those relationships because with the right people, they *will* pay off by strengthening your support network.
>> No. 33360 Anonymous
24th September 2024
Tuesday 9:50 pm
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>>33359

>And also because it was *simple* to [...] reply to an email in 10 seconds that had been weighing on me for weeks, that the idea of doing it made me feel *more* shame in the moment, and expectation of shame in the future if I did do anything productive, and resenting myself for not doing it earlier.

This bit resonates heavily. I will often just bury my head in the sand and avoid shit like that. I'm awful for putting it off if I even need to phone somebody to deal with something, partly because it's often a legitimate ballache sitting there on hold and being pissed about, but mostly out of a weird anxiety and lack of confidence which is always worse in my head than it is when I just actually get on with it.

Most of the time I'm 100% fine and capable of doing those things whenever I actually get on and do them, but for some reason I will sometimes just think "yeah fuck that I can't deal with it right now", and then end up in this cycle of avoiding it and letting it get on top of me for weeks. And then like you say once I have done them I feel relieved and even this boost of confidence from actually facing it, and seeing that it wasn't so bad. But the next time around it will be just the same.

I really just feel like if I had more money most of these problems would go away. It's like being stressed over money brings out my other anxieties more intensely. That's a hard one to solve. I'm going for new jobs at the moment but that in itself is a demoralising process and I'm finding it hard to find anything that pays much more. But I think at least if I can't find a "better" job in terms of money, maybe I can at least find one with better hours, less overtime demands, whatever.

I was watching a video the other day about the YouTuber/streamer Asmongold, you know the guy who lives in a complete hoarder level nightmare of a house? I was thinking about how he's a total opposite to me. He's got all the money in the world and he can't just keep his house clean. He's clearly significantly mentally unwell, and people would reognise that if he wasn't loaded and able to carry on like it's fine. I can keep my flat tidy, keeping the place clean and keeping on top of the washing and what have you is one of the little things I hold onto to keep myself going. But I'm always worrying about ending up behind on bills and spiralling into debt and losing the lot.

Anyway.
>> No. 33361 Anonymous
30th September 2024
Monday 8:24 pm
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What is etiquette surrounding presents/not getting presents? Disclaimer I might sound petty/spoiled/transactional.

For their birthdays, I get my dad, my stepmum, and my two younger half brothers (in their twenties) something. For my birthday I get one lot of money which is from all four of them (which is less than I spend on the four of them in total). My dad is a millionaire, my stepmum and younger brother work, youngest is funded by my dad. I live off benefits.

Due to estranging myself, I am not going to get that one present this year, or an individual one from my brothers. But my working younger brother expects something.

Morally, it's fine for me to not get him something? He's old enough to work, he lives with my parents rent free, it's no longer me buying something for a 13 year old. Am I a shit if I just send him a card and not buy him anything, considering he's never bought me anything (and I've been buying presents for him since like 2004)? Again I know sound like a cunt, it's just this sort of thing is why I've hated birthdays and Christmas for 20 years.
>> No. 33362 Anonymous
30th September 2024
Monday 9:00 pm
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>>33361
Your brother's financial situation is completely irrelevant here. If you are estranged from him and don't want to talk to him, you can get away with not buying anything. Otherwise, buy something cheap. Get him a keyring or something. If he's the only relative you still speak to, you could be a total psycho and get a childhood photo of just the two of you and nobody else, and put it in a nice frame for him.
>> No. 33363 Anonymous
30th September 2024
Monday 9:03 pm
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>>33361

It's not really a moral question anyone else can answer but more of an interpersonal relationship one only you can. You have to think about how your brother will feel about it and react and how you feel about that. It's not always possible but ideally you'd have a conversation with him about it, as adults.
>> No. 33364 Anonymous
1st October 2024
Tuesday 1:59 am
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I don't think the employment support chap I spoke to found it especially helpful when I kept repeating "I just want to earn as much money as humanly possible". It's true though, I'd shoot stray dogs in the face if the money was good enough, I don't give a fuck anymore. More to the point, and I don't mean this as a dig, he probably wouldn't be working as an employment support chap if he knew how to do that.
>> No. 33365 Anonymous
1st October 2024
Tuesday 2:00 am
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>>33364

Have you got a driving license?
>> No. 33366 Anonymous
1st October 2024
Tuesday 2:04 am
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>>33365
No. In what way and to what degree would that change my earning potential?
>> No. 33367 Anonymous
1st October 2024
Tuesday 2:40 am
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>>33366

I was going to try and talk you into training as a lorry driver, because they can earn close to £60k if they're willing to put the hours in.

Do you have any skills or qualifications? Any health problems that might limit what kind of work you can do? Is it your priority to start earning ASAP, or are you more concerned about your long-term prospects? Whereabouts in the country do you live?
>> No. 33368 Anonymous
1st October 2024
Tuesday 11:34 am
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>>33364
The best job for earning lots of money while being a soulless psychopath is sales. You can’t learn it; just get any B2B call centre job and if you aren’t storming it, quit it and move to another one. They’ll take anybody and it is perfectly possible to be awful at selling one thing but amazing at selling something else. Just move around until you find your scam of choice.
>> No. 33369 Anonymous
1st October 2024
Tuesday 12:37 pm
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>>33367

Not that lad but I do have a driving license and would be entirely willing to train as a lorry driver, the only trouble being I have bills to pay in the here and now. Which is always the problem, really, how do you manage to advance your prospects when you can't afford to go more than a few weeks without earning.
>> No. 33371 Anonymous
1st October 2024
Tuesday 1:52 pm
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>>33369

You can train as as a lorry driver for free with the government's skills bootcamp initiative.

https://nationalcareers.service.gov.uk/find-a-course/page?searchTerm=HGV&courseType=Skills%20Bootcamp
>> No. 33372 Anonymous
1st October 2024
Tuesday 4:17 pm
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>>33371

All well and good, but how do I keep the lights on in the meantime when benefits definitely won't cover my outgoings? Unless there's some kind of grant or something available, that would be nice.
>> No. 33373 Anonymous
1st October 2024
Tuesday 5:09 pm
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When attending my ten-day on-road lorry course I worked nights and only took two day's annual leave so I'd be well rested for the test. I paid for it with debt.

Some people rave about how they've saved £3k by having the government foot the bill but if you're un- or underemployed and that route takes 16 weeks you're potentially losing a lot more in earnings. That's if you can get a job as a new pass, which ain't no sure thing.

We're now entering peak lorry season in the run up to Christmas but it appreciably dies down in the new year. Six months in I'm now weighing whether it's worth the risk to move from where I'm at.
>> No. 33374 Anonymous
1st October 2024
Tuesday 5:38 pm
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>>33372

Talk to a course provider. It's a sixteen week course on paper only - the actual in-person training takes less than two weeks, so you can almost certainly work it around your annual leave.
>> No. 33375 Anonymous
2nd October 2024
Wednesday 2:39 am
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I don't think I properly enjoy anything. Occasionally something makes me laugh, but I get satisfaction out of nothing and nothing holds my interest. I like hanging about with people, but I'm a fucking freak, boring too, so at the same time I can't stand being around others. Weeks ago I mentioned wanting to go rock climbing on here, and I really do. But the fucking thought of showing up at a climbing wall, looking and sounding how I do, probably fucking something up, just generally being a sack of shit, only to not really get any pleasure out of any of it anyway, has made me not bother going.

I also want to buy a proper stable of clothes, but I have no real identity so I can't get to grips with that either.

>>33367
Kind of, no, this is probably a long-term goal (medium at least), I live near some fields, but I can commute.
>> No. 33376 Anonymous
2nd October 2024
Wednesday 2:26 pm
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>>33375
>But the fucking thought of showing up at a climbing wall, looking and sounding how I do, probably fucking something up, just generally being a sack of shit, only to not really get any pleasure out of any of it anyway, has made me not bother going.

I experienced something similar. Eventually the pain and shame associated with not bothering to do anything outweighed the pain and shame of embarrassing myself trying to do things.

Eventually I got used to fucking up and being a sack of shit, which happens sometimes, but maybe not as often as you think.
>> No. 33377 Anonymous
2nd October 2024
Wednesday 5:22 pm
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>>33372

I managed to do my course around work, this time of year is good for flexible seasonal work. Supermarkets in particular look for pick and packers for online ordering and that is typically a morning shift that gives you ample free time.

I hope I don't come across as trying to make it sound simple, it isn't - just giving some ideas.
>> No. 33378 Anonymous
3rd October 2024
Thursday 7:28 pm
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>>33344 here again.

She was in the psychiatric unit for about a week, which seems to have made her mental state considerably worse. I guess staying in a place where it's bright 24/7, constantly noisy and where you won't be able to sleep properly because someone will be checking on your every hour/fifteen minutes to make sure you're still breathing will do that to you. She's now incredibly anxious about leaving the house, although she's done it a few times for the likes of counselling appointments. She has made her initial report to the police about the rape/sexual assault online, so now it's a case of waiting for them to interview her.

I still cannot wrap my head around it. He's undoubtedly a piece of shit who targets vulnerable women (I can't remember if I've said this before but his partner has very bad anxiety issues and he does things like writing down on a calendar the last time they had sex so he can berate her if it's been too long) and, with hindsight, a lot of what she'd told me about what happened is how groomers behave so I don't doubt that she was coerced and pressured into it. However, she does have agency and it wasn't all non-consensual. She met up with him repeatedly because she liked the attention and wanted him to like her. An affair which turns abusive (or was abusive from the start) is still an affair?

I can't make it make sense. Maybe I'm putting too much pressure on myself to make it make sense. There's a couple of people I want to talk this through and I've only been able to meet up with one of them; she said don't make any decisions now because we're both in a vulnerable position and that whatever I decide is my choice and I shouldn't care what other people think about it.

In a way, I think I've lost some of the feelings I still had for her. I reckon that's because I'm mindful of doing anything to take advantage of her being in a vulnerable state and I've now got kid-gloves on around her, so I'm simply not viewing her in that way right now. Who knows?

What the fuck do I do?
>> No. 33379 Anonymous
3rd October 2024
Thursday 7:46 pm
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>>33378
>> No. 33380 Anonymous
3rd October 2024
Thursday 8:51 pm
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>>33378
I feel really bad for her, from reading all your posts. So it's understandable if you feel sympathetic too. But you must not get back with her. That is a terrible idea. Don't do it. I know it goes against all your natural instincts to be hard on her right now, but this is one of those times where you need to fight your instincts. Imagine if I came to you with a story: "Hey, there's a homeless lady outside who was horribly abused as a child and then got sold into slavery in Africa. Now she's raving and screaming and she just set fire to my neighbour's house. I'm going to take her on a date." It's not her fault, but you'd think I was mental. Either stay away or, if you're the ultimate saint, find literally any other way to help.
>> No. 33381 Anonymous
4th October 2024
Friday 12:16 pm
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I've been knuckling down and putting in the effort to climb out of the hole I've been wallowing in for the past couple of years. I've gone through the cycle of letting it build up on top of me, until I can't take it any more, then despairing at the bottom of the pit and just hoping the earth will swallow me up. But I finally gave myself the kick up the arse to get on with actually tackling it, and I think I'm on an upward trajectory.

Trouble is that puts me on edge. It feels precarious, delicate. One wrong move, one slip, and I could lose my grip, fuck it all up and be back where I started. That anxious queasy feeling in the pit of my stomach comes and goes, and my only way of dealing with it is just not to think about it.

I just wish life wasn't so relentlessly stressful.
>> No. 33382 Anonymous
4th October 2024
Friday 3:38 pm
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>Minor angst and existential dread
As with the passing of every season, I'm struggling to adapt to the change in weather conditions. I'm still waling around in sandals, still sleeping under a thin polyester dressing gown. Thankfully I'm still able to effectively retain heat by buttoning up my shirt and closing internal doors.
Last night I dared to close my bathroom window, but it was opened again within a few hours.

I'll eventually dig out my jeans, socks and boots, each full of holes and patches. Before it's suggested to buy new ones, I can't justify buying modern disposable clothes because they'll be ripped within 3 months anyway. Better qualitites from the charity shop tend to be difficult to find in my size. Paying out more for decent trousers also leans into presentability, which I want to avoid, being that I don't want to look sharp and smart.
>> No. 33383 Anonymous
6th October 2024
Sunday 10:35 am
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I haven't done anything sexual with my girlfriend for about 8.5 years. A week or two ago we did do something sexual. I didn't enjoy it.

During that 8.5 years I did masturbate regularly, to women who were as fat and attractive as my girlfriend. Maybe even fatter. But in the last month I don't really have that either. I kind of find women aesthetically appealing in the same way I enjoy a statue or a painting, but I find sexuality kind of hideous. I am being more sexually forward with my girlfriend but I don't enjoy it, I'm doing it for her benefit.

I follow lots of women on Instagram and 99.9% of them make me feel nothing. The ones I do feel something for are more "she is beautiful in a way I used to like". Not to get all chronic masturbator or fox coveting grapes, but women fucking digust me. Men do too but I am ostensibly straight leaning so it's not a factor I care about.

I am not shaming sex workers but when I see these whores promoting their OFs where they flash on the drinks aisle in an Asda uniform, or making stepmum/stepson content, or making lewd and lascivious jokes. It makes me despair. Some are fine, don't get me wrong, some seem like they'd be great gals. But the culture of normalisation of sex is grim.

Sex isn't inherently bad but it's something to be ashamed of. Sins of the flesh are exactly that - sins. Not that I believe in sin, or karma, or objective morality. I think it's great people are comfortable enough to display their sexual energy for all and sundry to see, takes lots of confidence or insecurity. Vainglory is also a sin. Not that I believe in sin, or karma, or objective morality.

Jodie Marsh won't date gamers. Not a loss, I don't want to date Jodie Marsh. She seems alright nowadays, she has an animal sanctuary. She is doing God's work (but I don't believe in God). Her not dating gamers isn't related to the rest of my post, it just shows gamers are the most oppressed race. If I were a horrible person I might be like "heh I don't date slags with fucked up noses, gamers rise up" but I am not like that. Personal preference is everyone's right assuming that preference isn't dodgy like fucking children.

I fucked three women in 2014, two of them good. In 2015 I fucked my girlfriend for the first time. And it was milquetoast. Maybe if I fucked more women in my youth I would like sex. But that would have meant talking to people. I don't know how to talk to people, how to rizz them, to fuck them. Getting married in 5 months. Will I never enjoy sex again? Probably.
>> No. 33384 Anonymous
6th October 2024
Sunday 11:10 am
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How easy is it to legally change your name? Like if I have to change it with my banks etc when it's changed? I want to change my name to eliminate my connection to the past. If it's lots of hassle I won't bother, and I suppose a new passport/driving license/bank card is hassle and sometimes money.

I saw a guy on the bus who was a close friend I last spoke to in 2012. He is in my current city which is not the city we knew each other in. I avoided him. Last communication I had with him was he posted on my Facebook in 2012 making a snide comment about a facial blemish I had on my face that was later surgically resolved. Before that we had gone on holiday and it went badly with me and him and the other one. So I never saw them again. The other one searched me on LinkedIn a few months ago.

I want to escape the past. Everything before October 2013 is bad. All characters introduced before October 2013, except my mum and stepdad, need writing out. Even ones after that. I don't like leaving my house as there are things outside. I leave because I must. But the world should not be allowed to continue.

The past is rotten and the future is scary. The present is demoralising. No time is safe for me. I cannot retreat into nostalgia I cannot hope for what's ahead I cannot enjoy the moment. Society and reality are cruel. I left lots of Discords because people would see my existence and see inside my head. At least here I am nameless. Probably identifiable based on info and style of posts. But nameless.

This isn't even psychosis anymore my mind has never been clearer. I want to kill myself but lack the courage to do so. No point ringing the crisis team as they're generally useless. I only had two good crisis team calls in 9 years. My antipsychotics went down a couple of weeks ago as they have given me a hormonal imbalance of some sort. I hate my psychiatrist she doesn't listen, "cocktail of drugs bad" yes it is but when it's allowing me to put up at least a front of being a person it's worth it. Not complaining about lower dose, I don't want to lactate.

Apologies for double post this is the only place I can get my thoughts out.
>> No. 33385 Anonymous
6th October 2024
Sunday 11:37 am
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>>33384

>How easy is it to legally change your name? Like if I have to change it with my banks etc when it's changed?

Straightforward. You can make a deed poll yourself - it's just a document stating your old name and your new name, signed by a witness (preferably two, but that wasn't necessary in my experience). Anyone can act as a witness as long as they aren't a close relative. That's all the proof that you need. You can then apply for a new driving license and passport, paying the standard fee - a driving license is only £19 IIRC, so I'd go for that if you aren't planning on travelling and just need photo ID. Send a copy of your deed poll to your bank, the council or anyone else you need to update your details.

I did it myself about 10 years ago and it was no bother at all, just a bit tedious.

https://www.gov.uk/change-name-deed-poll/make-an-adult-deed-poll

Regarding the other stuff, have you ever attended a support group for mental health? It's not going to be a magic cure obviously, but it might help to talk about this stuff with people who can understand. In my personal experience, that urge to disappear is usually driven by shame.
>> No. 33386 Anonymous
6th October 2024
Sunday 12:51 pm
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>>33383
>Getting married in 5 months. Will I never enjoy sex again? Probably.
To be honest it sounds like you don't want to allow yourself to enjoy sex. Maybe you feel guilty that you want a different type of sex your partner can offer?

We seem fairly similar - I've sexed with 2 women, once at ~18 the next at ~30, and I don't particularly miss it. The latter was entirely performative and short lived relationship.
The experience of sex is physically enjoyable but I find it extremely difficult to maintain 'the right place' in my mind and get flashes of a 3rd person perspective watching myself monkey out with someone. Intellectually I can convince myself 'we're just fucking apes, literally' but in the action it feels demeaning, humiliating and ridiculous.

I think a lot of my issue is that I'm inexperienced and inconfident and fear ridicule from my partner.

After a long time of supressing and living with unfulfilled desire, its return can be painful to tease out. So when I see pure sex on the street, I want to protect myself from that pain by insisting the source of desire is disgusting and shameful - everything I deeply feel about myself.
There have been a few times when I witnessed something so incredible my response has been thoughts of direct suicide as means to eliminate the resulting confusion.

I don't know, I'm talking out of my arse. Though I think there's some dynamic to it. Namely that our self defensive tendancy to supress desire is the very thing that causes it to enflame, with varying results, and we must errect mental defences to excuses and justify that supression - ie that everyone else are harlots.

I am afraid that exploring sex will lead me down a dark rabbit hole from which there will be no return. Everything that turns me on, I mean really gets me, is so shameful in the sober light of day that I couldn't possibly allow myself to entertain it. What if I chose not to control myself?
Alternatively I might find that there is no rabbit hole after all and what I'm really afraid of is learning I'm just a regular guy, considering the life I've wasted trying to convince myself otherwise. It was all in virtue, honest!


Sorry for hijacking your thing.
>> No. 33387 Anonymous
6th October 2024
Sunday 2:35 pm
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>>33385
I did attend a support group for mental health in the early days of my illness, before it stopped being mild and got worse. I don't think I properly engaged and I built up a barrier between myself and the others by using humour.

>>33386
>There have been a few times when I witnessed something so incredible my response has been thoughts of direct suicide as means to eliminate the resulting confusion.
It's incredibly reassuring to see I am not alone with this sort of response. I got very suicidal when I developed an obsession with Rose Matafeo months ago. The obsession is over now. But I wanted to die, why live if I must live without Rose Matafeo? And I'd think about her constantly. Maybe it's not her it's just my mind fixated on her for some reason. It's the idea of Rose Matafeo. Have had similar thing with other women, mostly wrestlers and comedians. I understand it's retarded and odd but it's hard to not obsess over things.
>> No. 33388 Anonymous
6th October 2024
Sunday 2:53 pm
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>>33384

I sympathise a lot with what you are saying here lad. I used to feel very similarly to you- I just wanted to sever all traces of my past, because I was embarrassed, even ashamed of it. I substantially re-invented myself once I had left school and college and all that behind and became and independent adult, and I was somehow concerned that if people found out about the old version of me they would respect me less. And even just besides that, there were too many bad memories of being mocked and bullied by all the cunts at school and I just wanted to bury all that stuff.

That's a big reason why I have never used social media. I have a facebook under a pseudonym that I haven't posted on in a good five years, and that's about it. Any presence of me online is behind an alter-ego for the purpose of maintaining privacy, because I have that schizoid paranoid brain where I sometimes even get suspicious of posts on here in case they might be somebody I spoke to elsewhere, and worry I might have spoken about something too revealing or personal and somebody might be able to trace me by it.

But what I want to tell you is it is possible to deal with it and get through it. You don't need to go to all this trouble to give yourself a fresh start. The thing is, most people just don't care as much as you think they do. I know that will sound trite and you know deep down it's not true, people are nosey and want to interfere and pry into your private life, but in general... They don't. You can start a new job and you can tell your new colleagues whatever you want, and they judge you based on who and what you are there and then. It's a positive thing if you own your past and just roll with it. I learned that it gets me a lot further if I just acknowledge and speak frankly about the fact I was a bit of a loser in school and I was a bit of a directionless druggie waster as a young adult, but that I got past it. People even seem to respect that you have the confidence to be frank about it.

It impresses people that you managed to develop yourself past those kinds of thing, because you know what? Most people never do. Deep down inside most of the other people you interact with daily have the same insecurity that they are kind of still a child who never developed any further than their 17 year old self. Whereas you are living proof that you can still progress and grow after that.

You just have to learn to accept yourself first. That's the big hurdle, and it's not easy, I won't lie to you about that. But once you do, it all falls into place.
>> No. 33389 Anonymous
6th October 2024
Sunday 3:28 pm
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>>33383
>>33386
I don't really have anything interesting to add but I've got a similar thing going on and I guess I just want to share my inner thoughts as it's rare I see anyone, let alone two people, on a similar wavelength to me. Apologies in advance for my aimless rambling.

I've always thought of myself as asexual. Not in some tumblr-esque "check out my cool niche gender identity" manner but just as the best way to describe my attitude towards sex. Like the first lad I enjoy the aesthetics of an attractive woman and I'd love to be in a relationship with one but I've never had an idea of what comes after that. I know you're supposed to want to shag her but I've never felt that desire, I don't even masturbate because I never get horny. I don't know if it's a side effect of taking SSRIs as a teen, my cripplingly low self esteem, some weird brain imbalance or what but aside from having someone to hug I have zero interest in doing anything sexual and the thought of doing it never pops into my head, I'm in my early 30s and this has always been the case so it's definitely passed the point of being a phase or a late bloomer.

While I am a virgin it's not like I'm a complete loser either, I've been in a long lasting relationship before but obviously I never made a move and she was a real pushover (if that's the right word for this). She'd try to get me in the mood, immediately give up when I'd stare at her cluelessly or start giggling, and grab a sex toy to pleasure herself with while I'd lie there befuddled. Eventually we broke up and my "lack of interest" was one of the reasons, which honestly hurt and put me off trying to date again.

There's probably some element of disgust too, I said I don't get horny and that's true but unfortunately I can't escape biology so when the inevitable wet dreams happen I wake up feeling filthy and curse my existence in the shower. I don't like hearing sexual jokes either or seeing people prancing about in sexualised clothing, the second lad really echoed my thoughts on this because I feel the exact same way and even have that suspicion that maybe, secretly, my disgust is some kind of defence mechanism. Am I jealous over the fact that I feel like I'm an incomplete human with my missing sex drive? Do I fear falling down some kind of hypersexual rabbit hole myself if I find a way to tap in to those desires? Maybe, maybe.
>> No. 33390 Anonymous
6th October 2024
Sunday 6:23 pm
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My granddad is probably dying. He had a nasty fall last week and went into hospital. He's comfortable and clinically stable, none of his injuries are life-threatening as such, but he's so frail that he's very unlikely to recover.

It isn't really a shock, because he has been on a downward trajectory for a while. The thing I'm struggling with is the odd sense of limbo. He isn't dying of anything in particular, so nobody can make any sort of predictions. We're just waiting for the bleed or clot or infection that pushes him over the brink, whenever that might be.
>> No. 33391 Anonymous
6th October 2024
Sunday 10:07 pm
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>>33389
Just wanted to chime in too and say I'm very similar. I think there is some level of disgust there that I have too. I've never really had a desire for sex throughout my life and assumed I was asexual for a bit, then one day it really hit me that I've never experienced lust, like there's this big part of the human experience I'm unable to relate to. It's very alienating. I've struggled with depression most of my life too so I wonder if that's to blame, and while I've never wanted sex I've often craved a close relationship, but it's never happened.
>> No. 33392 Anonymous
6th October 2024
Sunday 10:21 pm
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Am I the only one here who isn't some sort of asexual? My body count is nearing 50, which I have mixed feelings about.
>> No. 33393 Anonymous
6th October 2024
Sunday 11:45 pm
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>>33392

I often feel like I'm one of the most sexually well adjusted people here and I toss off to cartoon animals. My body count isn't as high as that, but high enough that I do invariably forget about a few whenever I try to total it up.

>>33383
>>33386
>>33389

I don't want this to sound disrespectful or whatever, but you asexual lads do really sound like you are contending with some deep body shame or confidence issues, manifesting as more of a fear of sex than a genuine lack of desire. Maybe you had some bad experiences and it's put you off or something like that, I don't know, but really, what you are both describing is not "normal", there's some kind of dysfunction there. Again, I'm not trying to sound like a cunt here, I'm just not good with the words, but what I mean is that you're not naturally asexual, if that makes sense? You sound like you would have a sex drive if it weren't for this shame or self-confidence stuff getting in the way.

I can sympathise, of course, I've had periods of my life where I don't feel like engaging in sex or going on dates because I simply haven't felt good about myself, and really I think that's at the core of it. In order to comfortably engage in that kind of intimacy with another person you have to be comfortable in yourself first. I am certainly not going to judge, because... Obviously. I'm far from normal. But I'd definitely imagine you'd feel better about yourselves if you worked on resolving it. Or maybe that should be the other way around. Either way, yknow.
>> No. 33394 Anonymous
7th October 2024
Monday 5:19 am
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>>33392

Mine is embarrassingly high, over a hundred. I don't particularly regret it, though when I look back on my peak era of conquests I just feel very tired.
>> No. 33395 Anonymous
7th October 2024
Monday 9:37 am
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When I'm around people I always have the extreme repetitive prominent thoughts in my head of "don't say [n-word]" or "don't say you'll rape them". I understand these are bad things to say so I know not to say them. But I am so concerned with not saying them that all I can think about is saying them. So I avoid interactions with people because I don't want to be worried about cancelling myself by calling them a slur or threatening to rape them. Even white people I have the "don't say [n-word]". Sometimes if it's other races (brown) I think "don't say shitskin". So far I've not said those slurs to anyone, but I avoid people where possible. When I sit near a woman I think "don't say I'm going to rape you" and I'm scared I'll tell a woman I'll rape them because I'm thinking so much about not saying it that it lives on the tip of my tongue.

It's not voices, it's my thoughts. Just unwanted ones.
>> No. 33397 Anonymous
12th October 2024
Saturday 3:17 am
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Had five days sober which was a record in recent times. It's my birthday today. My girlfriend's parents didn't know I am going sober, and bought me two packs of beer. So yesterday afternoon I had two packs of beer. And another two big bottles of beer. And some sake. I'm just sobering up.

My mental health is fucked. I feel like I'm teetering on the edge of an abyss. Yesterday I weighed up the options of jumping off a building. The building I'm based in has a roof terrace on the sixth floor. That's a big enough fall to end it. Drinking dulls those feelings temporarily.

I'm under a mental health team. They don't take me seriously because I can present like I've got my shit together. But I don't. Every day I feel the need to kill myself. I have done for twelve years. I drink to cover those feelings.

I have constant voices/intrusive thoughts telling me to harm myself and/or others. I feel myself becoming increasingly detached from humanity and reality. I fear what I am capable of. But if I have a few beers, get a buzz on, I don't need to worry about that.

I have twelve full packs of pills. Risperidone, fluoxetine, bupropion, lithium, Elvanse. That's enough to put an end to it all. Probably.

But I'm too fearful to go through with it. I don't want to exist anymore. I don't want to live. But I don't want to die.

There's no point calling the crisis team as they're kind of useless. Sorry for this self pitying, navel gazing drivel. I just need to get these thoughts out and I have no friends, I'm estranged from most of my family, and the only people I do talk to (my girlfriend and mum) probably wouldn't react well to me revealing all this to them.
>> No. 33398 Anonymous
12th October 2024
Saturday 8:08 am
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"I just need a bit of space."

"I'm going to say I respect that because I understand that is performatively what you are supposed to do, but actually I am going to give you no space and pick fights with you about it to escalate your need for space to create a feedback loop"
>> No. 33399 Anonymous
12th October 2024
Saturday 8:31 am
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>>33383

Why are you in this relationship in the first place. It sounds like you don't want it but you are too polite to kick up a fuss.
>> No. 33400 Anonymous
12th October 2024
Saturday 8:47 am
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>>33397

>They don't take me seriously because I can present like I've got my shit together.

I don't know if it'll make you feel better or worse, but that isn't really what's going on. Mental health services are so short-staffed that they can only really deal with the most urgent life-threatening emergencies. The fact that you're on the books at all means that they are taking you quite seriously, because most CMHTs are quite happy to discharge patients back to their GP if they're "just" suicidal.

If it feels like you're getting short shrift, it's because they're running around like blue-arsed flies dealing with people who've just hacked themselves to bits with a razor or who are literally standing on a rooftop and are threatening to jump. Those people generally aren't going to get proper treatment, they're just going to be managed until the immediate crisis is over, at which point they're on their own until the next crisis. It's the mental health equivalent of people being treated in corridors at A&E.

It's an absolutely shit situation, but if you want to stand a reasonable chance of recovering a decent quality of life, you're going to have to do the legwork yourself. Get in touch with your local branch of Mind, search for local charities offering support, keep hammering away at your mental health team or your GP with the message "I'm not OK, I need help now or something terrible is going to happen".

https://www.mind.org.uk/information-support/local-minds/

https://hubofhope.co.uk/
>> No. 33401 Anonymous
12th October 2024
Saturday 12:19 pm
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>>33400
I get that, and I suppose I am being a bit moany. By not taking my seriously it's my fault more than anything. I find it hard to not put up a front around people, especially ones I don't really know. I could be open and honest with my previous psychiatrist as she had good vibes. The current one I don't like. And I get scared revealing how bad things really are. So she thinks I'm on the road to recovery and reduces my meds. Also the one and only time I saw my current psychiatrist so far, she had a med student with her. So doubly unable to open up. I know I need to not be a pussy and just tell the truth. I've been pretty much an alcoholic for the last 4.5 years, but I've never told a mental health professional because I heard that if you have substance abuse issues they discharge you as it's substance abuse not mental health.
>> No. 33402 Anonymous
12th October 2024
Saturday 12:42 pm
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>>33401
>I've never told a mental health professional because I heard that if you have substance abuse issues they discharge you as it's substance abuse not mental health.
How do you expect them to help you if you're withholding critical information?
Have you consisdered that maybe it is a substance abuse problem? Evidentally you'd be suprised the kind of reasons people turn to alcohol.
Go to a team that specialises in that. At least have them refer you to mental health, if it's appropriate.
>> No. 33403 Anonymous
12th October 2024
Saturday 1:46 pm
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>>33402

To be fair, it is tricky. Some NHS services are better than others, but often you're expected to pick whether you've got a substance abuse problem or a mental health problem. In the worst case, you just get bounced from pillar to post because the mental health team say they can't work with you until you sort out your substance problem and the substance abuse team say that you're too mentally ill for their service. Given the huge proportion of people who have both issues, the lack of coordination is a really pernicious problem.

To >>33401, I'd suggest speaking to your GP as a starting point. They can likely refer you to an alcohol service and it's up to you how much you tell them about your mental health problems - the complete lack of coordination in the NHS plays in your favour here, because they almost certainly won't have access to your notes from the CMHT. Telling them about depression won't cause any problems, but they might get difficult if you talk about hallucinations or violent urges.

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/625809/Co-occurring_mental_health_and_alcohol_drug_use_conditions.pdf
>> No. 33404 Anonymous
12th October 2024
Saturday 3:50 pm
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>>33397

What do you do for a living, might I ask? Do you work or are you on benefits?
>> No. 33407 Anonymous
14th October 2024
Monday 1:38 am
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>>33395
Try befriending people from places where it's more halal to Do a Racism/Misogynism. My friends from Eastern Europe and the Mediterranean are far less sensitive about those things than my British ones. Quite refreshing really.
>> No. 33408 Anonymous
17th October 2024
Thursday 10:35 pm
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I text my mum asking when she's next in town and if she wants to meet up for breakfast. We arranged for tomorrow when she's en-route elsewhere. This evening I found her shortly arrived at my sisters house, in town, where she appeared to be somewhat embarrassed and 'rushed off' to meet a friend for a night out.

Why would she not say she's in town tonight, but she's busy with a friend? I don't expect her to tell me where she is at all times, but neither do I expect her to lie or omit information.
I feel reluctant to meet her tomorrow though actually cancelling will speak more than not.

This isn't the first time something this has happened. My mum is a little skittish and disorganised though also vaguely manipulative. A mundane happenings perhaps, but it's left me feeling confused about our relationship and the way we both act with one another.
For my part I don't lie or omit information but I do neglect missed calls and messages.

I don't really know what I'm saying here. There's something deeper going on in shared behaviour traits between my parents and me, but I don't know exactly what it is. Only this vauge sense that none of us are completely comfortable around the other and that each is regularly on egg shells regarding 'the family line', acceptable perspectives and bollocks. We're generally a close family, including my siblings, but there's also strange tensions.
>> No. 33409 Anonymous
17th October 2024
Thursday 10:52 pm
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>>33408
She sounds like my friend. It's not ideal, obviously, but when I try really really hard to be sympathetic to my friend doing this I am a pathetic doormat, I think of it this way: she is severely absent-minded. I think it might even be a side effect of some other mental health treatment she has had prescribed. She knows she might forget to turn up, and also, perhaps more importantly, it's absolutely vital to her that she knows she can just give up and wander away randomly at any time. So you invite her somewhere, and she will happily admit that she's going to be there, but you ask if you can come and she says, "No, because I will probably go home soon." Three hours later, you ask if she wants to do anything tomorrow, and she acknowledges that she didn't go home and she's still out. But (and she doesn't admit this so maybe it's not accurate) she didn't want you there because then she would be under pressure not to let you down by spontaneously going home to bed 20 minutes after you arrive.

Obviously I am talking about my friend and not your mother here, but this sort of debilitating flakiness does sound very familiar.
>> No. 33410 Anonymous
17th October 2024
Thursday 11:24 pm
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>>33409
>But (and she doesn't admit this so maybe it's not accurate) she didn't want you there because then she would be under pressure not to let you down
I wonder if it's something like this with my mother, namely that I'm quite a low energy boring type of person and I wonder if she feels it a burden to entertain or try being around me for any length of time. Though saying that she's eager for me to visit her home and says she misses me. Maybe this evening I'd have drained or changed her energy that'd been intended for a fun night out.

Shoehorning my dad in here, he does a seemingly related thing in that he apparently feels obliged to do whatever you need, at great cost to himself, often times with clear exasperation. It's come to the point that I dislike asking him for anything because he clearly resents it. I guess he feels burdened with guilt by not helping his family, like how his own father acted. Still, I find it pathetic to see him walked all over by his other son, even after explaining to him that never saying no means people don't respect when you say yes.

Alongside all this I wonder if my parents are ashamed of me for being a shutin, unsuccessfull even in the mildest sense, waste of a man. You'd understandably want to avoid that realisation before your very face, as much as possible.
>> No. 33411 Anonymous
18th October 2024
Friday 12:04 am
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>>33410

I think you're all just quite anxious/avoidant.

Your mum doesn't tell you that she's in town because she doesn't want to have to say "I'm in town, but I've got plans on Thursday so I'll see you on the Friday morning". She tells herself that it's just a little white lie of omission to avoid upsetting you, but really she's just too afraid to be direct, so you're left guessing at her actual motives and imagining the worst. Your dad does whatever is asked of him and bitterly resents it because he doesn't have the balls to say no. Harrumphing is his completely passive way of signalling "don't take the piss", but it's actually counterproductive because it makes people he's willing to help feel guilty while doing nothing to actually deter piss-takers. You don't feel able to have a proper conversation with them, including raising issues like this with them.

It's not really a dynamic that you can fix, but you can use the knowledge of that background to inform your own behaviour outside of the family. Your shut-in nature is probably due to that pervasive feeling of eggshells that you grew up with, that sense that any kind of conflict is a catastrophe to be avoided at all costs, the subconscious belief that all interpersonal relationships are a minefield even if everything seems fine on the surface.

You probably struggle to get close to people - even people you want to get close to - because your behaviour and communication subconsciously sends the message "keep your distance". You probably get slightly panicky if it feels like someone is warming to you. You probably have a vague sense that there's something about you that's inherently inferior and inherently undeserving, you probably feel like people would instinctively hate you if they knew the real you, even though you aren't really hiding any terrible secrets. None of that is your fault, it's just a result of the alchemical reaction of your parents particular strain of weirdness.

That's not something you can fix overnight, but it is something you can work on over time. You can make a conscious effort to be a tiny bit more open with people - maybe engage in a few words of small-talk with a stranger at a bus stop or a checkout, maybe track down a few old friends on social media and just say hello, whatever feels slightly outside of your comfort zone. You can make a note (preferably a literal written note) of times when you've opened up to people and things have gone OK. You can catch yourself when you're in the process of imagining the worst and try to assess the situation more rationally - imagine that you're watching from the outside, like it's all happening 20 feet away or it's on TV. Maybe get some therapy, if you want.
>> No. 33412 Anonymous
18th October 2024
Friday 9:08 am
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Is it normal to feel like you're being watched when you're alone in a silent room? I have to constantly talk out loud to myself or have the TV on to keep the feeling that I'm being watched away. I'm starting to think that it's maybe not normal.
>> No. 33413 Anonymous
18th October 2024
Friday 11:16 am
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Nearly 30 and my therapist is challenging me to leave the house to buy socks. No wonder I'm fuckkng depressed.

For the record he's a good chap I'm just being glib.
>> No. 33414 Anonymous
18th October 2024
Friday 12:33 pm
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>>33411
>I think you're all just quite anxious/avoidant.
Much of what you've said does sound familiar - i presume that describes an anxious/avoidant attachment style? I've read a little about attachment theory, evidently not enough for it to actually stick.
I have actually started chatting with random people, it's quite nice.

I met my mother for breakfast this morning and everything was fine. I asked her about not telling me she was in town, can't really remember what she said but it was reassuring. Momentarily I entertained the idea that she was lying but I soon realised it doesn't really matter for something so trivial, just enjoy the time with her.
>> No. 33416 Anonymous
27th October 2024
Sunday 10:38 pm
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I'm a ghost. I've spent my life observing and nothing much matters to me at all. In the past I've slept rough and got by on very little, I live under my means still, on paper I barely exist. This past week I've had a taste of the one percenter life through people I know. Meeting important people and knobheads, extravagant restaurants and designer shops. I haven't had to pay a penny and I felt like some pet just along for the ride. I haven't been able to hide my disgust. I've never felt more out of place, and people ask me what I do, how is it that I'm here. I tell them with a laugh that I'm clinically depressed and a living suicide. Kind of funny to see them get so awkward. They are like aliens to me. Now I'm back to my small little hermit life where there is peace and quiet. The whole experience has left me in tears, but I'm not entirely sure why. I think it's all just made me dislike people a lot more. Maybe I'm just done with it all.
>> No. 33417 Anonymous
28th October 2024
Monday 8:46 pm
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>>33416
I could swear that you're a friend of mine. Sorry to sound a bit gay mate, but if you are him, I value you very highly and you're pretty much the most intelligent and perceptive person I know, and I would wonder what the point of it all is if someone like you wasn't around.
>> No. 33418 Anonymous
28th October 2024
Monday 8:57 pm
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First day of having to feign normalcy and interact with other people all day in about... Maybe two months? It's left me feeling very on edge, a bit buzzed, twitchy, you know. Trying my best not to over analyse all the interactions, but that's hard when I have basically had one social interaction a week at most for a long span of time. I'm a lot better at it than I used to be but it still takes it out of you.

>>33416

How did you end up in that situation to begin with, if you don't mind me asking? Not wishing to take away from your feeling of alienation, but to me that sounds like you at least still have a circle of interesting people, you have contacts and a connection to the wider world. You must be doing something right, in my experience people don't bring you along to things like that out of just pity.
>> No. 33419 Anonymous
31st October 2024
Thursday 9:05 pm
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Have you ever thought "I'm probably a bit of an arsehole" and then tried to be less of an arsehole? I'm really genuinely trying, but it's hard, because people do try your fucking patience sometimes. I just want to be more positive in general, nicer to people, and even though I know it's more or less just superstitious bullshit I am telling myself to rationalise things, earn some good karma and all that.

More than anything because being in a pessimistic and negative mindset about everything makes it very difficult to be genuinely happy about anything. It makes it difficult to enjoy life. Your mind gets entrenched in negative thought patterns and that's why I am so self critical, as soon as anything good happens to me or I feel good about anything I immediately start tearing myself down and doubting myself.

Even writing this post I am validating that thought pattern, I should just delete it and say "fuck all that, you're good, you're nice to people, stop beating yourself up" but I've already written it so fuck it. How do I keep that mindset.
>> No. 33420 Anonymous
4th November 2024
Monday 10:16 pm
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I turn 35 this week and I'm feeling quite insecure about my age now. The world's changed and I'm forced to reflect that where I am in my career and in my personal life is like a 25 year old without any mates. I've not made cataphoric mistakes but it still stings quite badly.

I know it's not old-old but it's a young-old, it's 'I really need to sort my life out now or I'll wake up at 40 exactly where I am now' old. I wanted to find a wife and start a family 5 years ago but I've got nothing to show for it but a smattering of aborted relationships that went nowhere and bad dates. I wanted to move up in my career years ago but I've made fuck-all progress and now a lot of people younger than me are ahead.

I'm not doing anything for it. I'll take the day off work, pat about the flat not really knowing what to do with myself and cook a sirloin steak for dinner to be special.
>> No. 33421 Anonymous
4th November 2024
Monday 10:44 pm
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>>33420

Shit innit. Sounds like you are in such a similar place to me I worried I might be having a schizophrenic episode for a minute there.

My career has felt like a cruel joke honestly. Every move I made to try and progress turned out to put me right back in square one. I've recently started a new job and I am feeling pretty good about it, but it's nothing that will impress anyone, it's just that I've stopped giving a shit about the "career progression" stuff when it's only ever brought me stress and eventually a bitter feeling of being taken advantage of. The carrot always gets togged away a bit further right as you feel like you are within reach. Might as well just do something easy that I enjoy for shit money, than do something demanding and draining for shit money.

Relationships are whatever, starting to get used to just being single by now, but mostly I'm torn up by all my previous failed relationships and the angst of how most of them had elements that I deeply miss and long for again sometimes, but fell apart over some stupid bullshit. Clearly I'm just too neurotic to keep it together with someone for the long term.

It's really weird how I've spent the last 10-15 years feeling like I was constantly making progress and that I had successfully left behind the awkward loner nerd life I had as a teenlad and young adult, but in my mind 30s, here I am again. No two ways about it that's exactly what I am. Just some weirdo nobody really wants anything to do with.

But fuck it. Who needs people, really. Gotta look after number one haven't you. There's all the films and books and videogames and hobbies under the sun, and without people to distract you you've all the time in the world to indulge them.
>> No. 33422 Anonymous
19th November 2024
Tuesday 11:17 pm
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I don't want to shock anyone, but hotels in London are actually quite pricy. There's more to this, please keep reading.

I've been invited to my mate's new place for the weekend, which is grand, but I really don't want to stay at his (and his wife's) flat. It's nothing against them, at all, I just want to be able to fart and listen to podcasts while I have a shower in the morning without feeling weird. Frankly, you can't put a price on those liberties. It's not that I can't afford it, I'm just cheap and if it were anywhere else in the country it'd cost me less than half. Also I wake up dead early no matter what and I don't feel like sitting around all morning waiting for them to get up. I'm not like them, I can't feel comfortable ever imposing, even if I'm not really.

I sound like a prick, but I'll just have to think of a really nice moving in present so I don't look like a prick. That vodka comes in a skull? Or some of those old clothes hangers with the fabric on them? Fucking hell, life was so much easier when no one spoke to me ever and hiking and suicidal ideation were my only past times.

Do you ever get massively paranoid that someone you know could lurk here when you're sharing like that?
>> No. 33423 Anonymous
20th November 2024
Wednesday 2:59 pm
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>>33422
Your neighbour has recently complained about noise levels, haven't they?
>> No. 33424 Anonymous
20th November 2024
Wednesday 6:01 pm
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>>33423
Yes, she was very upset that I had stopped being so vocal while I tossed myself off.
>> No. 33425 Anonymous
20th November 2024
Wednesday 8:31 pm
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>>33417
Now I'm paranoid. As far as I'm aware nobody in my life knows of this place, but you never know. Or there's somebody else out there like me, poor bastard.

>>33418
>How did you end up in that situation to begin with

Honestly I've just lucked out. I travelled around a lot, met people from all sorts of places and I've always been good to people, always tried to help where I could, so I think people appreciate that. I love my friends dearly, I didn't want my post to seem like I disliked them at all. It's just the lifestyle, people and civilisation in general that I don't seem to have any tolerance for anymore. It just makes things worse for me, but I'm the one who's the odd one out. I'm a walking corpse.
>> No. 33426 Anonymous
28th November 2024
Thursday 12:54 am
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Is it remotely normal to feel no sympathy for adults crying, and treat it like it is a product of bad self management of emotions/ a self entitled form of manipulation? -I'm not getting my way and I cannot handle that and you should just let me get my way. Otherwise I will cause a scene and become the centre of attention.

Or am I deeply broken by some form of trauma, that might require therapy?
>> No. 33427 Anonymous
28th November 2024
Thursday 1:53 am
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>>33426
It's hardly the maddest thing anyone has brought up in this thread. Do you feel like you never get your way either, and so if you just deal with it, so should everyone else? If you did get your way, what would that look like?
>> No. 33428 Anonymous
28th November 2024
Thursday 2:51 am
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>>33426

I think that adult criers are soft cunts who need to have a fucking word with themselves, but you should probably ignore my opinion because I'm dead inside. Maybe I'm envious of people who have rich inner lives? Dunno.
>> No. 33429 Anonymous
28th November 2024
Thursday 7:52 am
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>>33427

You might have misread my statement I was using a rhetorical device of what I feel like criers are thinking and doing not what *I* actually want.

To answer your question anyway, My way is typical calling for acceptance that everyone is responsible for their own emotional management and to not impose our needs upon others. I find crying when one doesn't get their way obnoxious.

That isn't to say I don't cry ever, but it is usually reserved for a response to acts that I find extremely touching, usually heroic or tears of joy. Not because I have some expectations that aren't being met. The driving force is clearly different even if the physical response is the same.
>> No. 33430 Anonymous
30th November 2024
Saturday 12:38 pm
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I've hated my dad for about 17 years. I stopped speaking to him in July, he rang me last month, and he emailed me yesterday.

I feel really bad about shunning him and a lot of my family, but I've come to the conclusion they're not good people. He contacted me to say he won't try contacting me anymore.

I people pleased for a very long time because I thought my issues with him were due to my own character flaws and mental illness. But in the email he brought up how my older brother (who had been incredibly loyal to him for decades) also doesn't talk to him. And it's fucked up that I like that my older brother cut him off, as it vindicates my thoughts and proves it's not all in my head.

The moral side of me wants to reach out and apologise for not talking to him, and resume our toxic father-son relationship. But the selfish side of me doesn't give a fuck.

From a totally selfish practical perspective, he has never helped in any pickle I've been in since I was 19, so it's not like I've lost an ally. But then that's a transactional way of looking at things, like he owes me support if he wants me to deal with him.
>> No. 33431 Anonymous
2nd December 2024
Monday 1:23 pm
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I like socialising, but I could do without the suicidal ideation that follows for days afterwards. To use a potentially unhelpful metaphor, maybe it's a bit like exercise and the more you do it, the less shit you feel afterwards. Either that or I need to read more and get a less embarrassingly shit job. I'll probably just kill myself, honestly. It's far less hassle.
>> No. 33432 Anonymous
2nd December 2024
Monday 2:01 pm
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>>33431

>I like socialising, but I could do without the suicidal ideation that follows for days afterwards. To use a potentially unhelpful metaphor, maybe it's a bit like exercise and the more you do it, the less shit you feel afterwards.

Yes, I think your metaphor is apt here. I know exactly what you mean because I am horrible for over-thinking things, and I will obsess over some stupid detail that everyone else likely didn't even notice.

I have made a habit to actively and consciously tell myself, "don't overthink it, don't overthink it, it didn't matter, nobody else even noticed, by this time next week you will forget what it even was" whenever I notice that thought pattern. For example, when I started my current job, practically every day after coming home the first week or two, I was obsessing over some little mistake I'd made thinking I'd get bollocked for it, even though rationally I knew it was likely completely insignificant. Without fail, nobody even noticed it, and if they did it evidently wasn't worth saying anything to me. I can't even remember what those things were now.

Think of your brain as a muscle. If you keep the same habits and routine all the time, the connections and pathways in your brain that govern that routine are the only ones getting exercise, so they are the ones that end up strongest. Changing your thought patterns is possible, but it requires conscious, active training, just like exercise. The more you practice learning an instrument, the more natural it is and the less you have to think about it, because you are continually strengthening those parts of your brain.

Same principle innit.

>Either that or I need to read more

That's never a bad idea.

>get a less embarrassingly shit job

There's no such thing as an embarrassing job, if you work for a living and support yourself you have every right to be proud of it. Don't let no aspirational Thatcherite wankers or gold digging whores tell you otherwise. Work is work and there is absolutely categorically nothing to be ashamed of.

>I'll probably just kill myself, honestly. It's far less hassle.

Nah mate it's a right ballache. I wouldn't bother.
>> No. 33433 Anonymous
3rd December 2024
Tuesday 12:32 am
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>>33432
Thanks for the kind words. My part-time gig in a charity shop is definitely shit and embarrassing, so I do need a less shit one. Whores and Thatcherites aside, I'm a fucking loser and smiling through it isn't an option, and not just because those muscles are so atrophied as to be useless by now.

Frankly, I don't see much of a future for myself. I'm an unfuckable, unemployable (in a proper job) and unlikable oddball with some manner of brain foible no one's got the stones to diagnose.

I don't especially feel like killing myself anymore. However, I have been fantasising about slashing my palms open and smearing blood all over town.
>> No. 33434 Anonymous
3rd December 2024
Tuesday 10:49 am
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>>33433
This is probably unhelpful because you sound unhappy, but nobody will disrespect your job if you talk about it like you really enjoy it. Tell fun stories that happen there, and make it clear that you’d never want to work anywhere else. They’ll all be jealous of your cool fun job. Do you have any hobbies? If you don’t want to go selling your job to stuffy twats, talk about other things you enjoy doing, that they would enjoy too, and I guarantee everyone will envy your happy life. And if you spend an hour looking at your life to find things that you enjoy, that will probably make you happier too.
>> No. 33435 Anonymous
3rd December 2024
Tuesday 5:18 pm
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>>33433
>>33434

I mean, if the you don't like the job yourself, then pretending it's fun and cool doesn't really help. I stand by what I said that any honest job is worthy of respect because to the very core of my beliefs that is absolutely true, earning your own living through hard graft is the very base line of what we should consider good and decent; but even still if you personally hate it, that's probably cold comfort.

Obviously, it's hard to find a job you like, but it's the thing you are going to spend the majority of your time doing, and it's probably the single biggest change most people can make. The thing is I think too many people get their priorities wrong when it comes to jobs. They fall into the tap of assuming they need to be getting a certain wage level, or it needs to be a job that impress people at imaginary dinner parties, when in reality there's a job out there they would be genuinely happy doing, despite paying less and not sounding as fancy on paper.

I don't know where I read it or how true it is, but I remember reading that the single biggest predictor of happiness is not money, sex life, or anything like that- But commute time.
>> No. 33436 Anonymous
3rd December 2024
Tuesday 6:16 pm
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>>33433

Anyone whose opinion is worth caring about will respect you if you say something along the lines of "I'm working part-time in a charity shop as part of my mental health recovery. I'm hoping to move into full-time work when I'm ready, but I don't want to rush into anything because I'm putting my health first".

We've discussed this before, but a huge number of people who look like they've got everything sorted are quietly cracking up. Some of those people will look down their nose at you, but a lot of them will really sympathise. Believe it or not, I've seen people express genuine envy when I told them "I'm just driving a forklift at the moment. It's boring and the money is crap, but at least I'm not having panic attacks every morning".

A lot of successful people feel completely trapped - they aren't working hard to earn loads of money because they want to, but because they feel like they have to. They have to prove that they're good enough, they have to keep up with a huge mortgage and the finance on their Audi, they have to keep their wife and kids in the latest designer gear. You might not see much of a future for yourself, but neither do those blokes. You see a load of high hurdles standing between you and the life you'd like to be living, but they feel like they're stuck on a treadmill that keeps going faster.

I know that a cliche like "let go of your shame" is completely unhelpful, but you can try to loosen your grip on it. Everything gets a little bit easier when you can recognise that everyone is dealing with their own struggles. If someone judges you for your problems, they're probably just trying to distract themselves from their own, but they're definitely acting like a knobhead.
>> No. 33437 Anonymous
4th December 2024
Wednesday 12:23 pm
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>>33430
My girlfriend went away with her friends, and they surprised her with a mini hen party thing. And she posted photos on her Instagram with her in a "bride to be" headband thing. Some of my family follow her, and saw it. I got messages from three of them. Two telling me how disappointed and hurt they are I didn't tell them. One telling me they understand why I haven't told people.

I feel really guilty about it. I imagine it's not nice to have your son/grandson not tell you they're getting married. But then between the two upset people, I've spoken to them a total of 1 hour in 2024. It's not as if I've been keeping it hidden - I just don't talk to them so it wouldn't come up.
>> No. 33438 Anonymous
5th December 2024
Thursday 8:34 pm
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>>33437
>But then between the two upset people, I've spoken to them a total of 1 hour in 2024.
That's honestly a pretty normal amount to speak to a relative you don't have a lot of contact with.
>> No. 33439 Anonymous
6th December 2024
Friday 12:51 am
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Definitely up for killing myself again. But that's the lie, isn't it? I've already killed myself a thousand times over with one ill-decision after another. My past is littered with the corpses of a better me. Fuck me, this sodding board is too.
>> No. 33440 Anonymous
6th December 2024
Friday 1:22 pm
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>>33439
>Definitely up for killing myself again.
Have you thought much about how the thought of suicide may be more of a mental safety net than an actual desire to die? Every time the thought comes round I remind myself that it's just a reaction to external events and it's comforting to know I can check out at any point. But I haven't have I? Why?
I think the more I dwell on suicide as a fantastic release from worries the more it seems like a valid solution, thus the more I turn to it when I'm having a hard time. Subconciously I know it's a terrible idea, which makes me miserable and resenting of the life I've become by practicing suicidal thoughts.
>> No. 33441 Anonymous
7th December 2024
Saturday 7:10 am
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I am a content-consuming machine and I don't like it. I feel like my brain has been turned into a disarrayed mush, and that I've become hyper tailored to absorbing the clickbait of the day, caught in a loop of thinking that the endless bombardment of facts and information I'm being exposed to are worthy of the time and attention I can use for things that personally matter over the medium and long term. I can recognise being a slave to algorithms designed to rob my attention and keep me on platforms to maximise ad revenue, but the act of recognition doesn't seem to be enough to chart a saner course.
>> No. 33442 Anonymous
7th December 2024
Saturday 10:39 am
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>>33441

I've been feeling the same way recently, and my mood becomes noticeably more erratic when I'm spending my days watching a lot of nonsense on YouTube or (my latest frustrating timesink) watching people play nostalgic computer games on Twitch. Even more dangerous is that it's possible to be "functional" while doing this, i.e. holding down a job and doing your shopping, yet still wasting free time this way.

There's only a couple of things that have really worked for me to break out of the loop and focus. The first is taking care of my physical health, especially my sleep; when I'm tired, passive consumption looks so much more attractive. When I'm well-rested, I naturally want to do more challenging things.

The second is controlling my environment so that other activities are just as easy to access; checking your phone becomes a compulsive behaviour because it's so easy to take out of your pocket. Ideally you need to lower the barrier-to-entry for all your other hobbies so it can compete with these habits. If your hobbies are locked away in a drawer or behind a closed door, then "out of sight, out of mind" really does apply. Set up spaces where you can perform the activities you want to do. Sometimes you don't even need to do much of the thing, just go into the space where you want to do it, and think about it for a few minutes. Keep yourself surrounded by the things you want to do and make them a habit.

I'm sure other people have strategies, too, but ironically you can also waste a lot of time with the self-help guru "how to stop wasting time" bullshit online. Not everyone needs to be up at 4:30am taking cold showers, but you can set up a little feedback loop for yourself where you realise, "I haven't played my instrument in X days, why is that?" and try to problem-solve from there.
>> No. 33443 Anonymous
7th December 2024
Saturday 7:08 pm
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I have manflu and can't do anything today. Always brings on existential dread and fear of getting old.
>> No. 33444 Anonymous
7th December 2024
Saturday 11:19 pm
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>>33443
There's a lot of it going around. Take paracetamol and go to bed and sleep. You will sweat enormously during the night, completely soak your whole bed, and wake up feeling slightly better tomorrow. Don't lose hope at this point. Do that again tomorrow night, and then you will be okay on Monday. This is the pattern that worked for me, and I feel fine now.
>> No. 33445 Anonymous
12th December 2024
Thursday 8:53 pm
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Alright folks, what's the deal with this? I recently saw an inspirational, touching short interview of a homeless female. She had an incredible attitude toward her situation flipping from outright appreciation to despair multiple times throughout the video, with a clear intelligence recognising how she deluded herself into positivity, knowing that it's the only thing saving her from succumbing to death. In person I would have wanted to comfort her, warm, feed, bath, everything.

I'm sat here with a link to her Youtube profile where it sets out her road to reintegration with society, but I dare not open it for the risk of massaging uncertain parts of my psyche.
I'm troubled that I'm attracted to her condition of desperation. She'd probably be attractive homed and secure, but that she has a dirty face, messy hair, tear stained eyes and clear mental distress is tugging at my heart in a way I fear understanding.
>> No. 33446 Anonymous
13th December 2024
Friday 8:56 am
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>>33445
I think that’s normal. All men everywhere have the urge to rescue the damsel in distress, and there just isn’t enough distress around to scratch that itch. I’ve seen posts on 4chan from people complaining about >tfw no council estate gf. Why does she have to be from a council estate? Because then she’s probably got a shitty life, and you’ll never have to worry that she’d be better off without you. I don’t want some scally woman. But I would absolutely love to rescue a scally woman and take care of her for a bit.

I remember I asked myself once: would I rather be wanted or needed? Logically, I should prefer to be wanted. If a woman can choose anyone in the world, and she picks me, that is a far bigger compliment to me than if she’s only with me because she will literally starve to death without me. And yet, that’s not how I feel. I would rather be needed. Because then I don’t have to worry that she’ll change her mind and leave me. It can’t possibly be healthy, but I am confident that it’s normal.

Are you likely to become obsessed with this YouTube woman? If you are, then you’re right to avoid these videos. But if you’re just going to watch for a bit because you like how they make you feel, then I’m sure it’s okay.
>> No. 33447 Anonymous
13th December 2024
Friday 2:04 pm
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>>33446

It's not really about whether it's healthy or normal or anything, it's just a matter of incentive. That's your rational self interest speaking up through the quagmire of morality and modern brain-melting ideals and politics.

Of course you want a woman who is, if not dependent on you, at least knows she's on to a good thing. Who knows she's scored a good catch with you. You simply can't trust a woman otherwise. If a woman thinks she can do better, it's only a matter of time before she fucks off to try and make good on that. Whether she actually can do better is immaterial- You could have Elon Musk's bank account, the looks of David Beckham in his prime, and a cock like a tube of Pringles, but if she feels like she's settling, she won't ever be happy.

Them's just the breaks. It's one of those things where no mater how much you try and deny it to yourself because it sounds really chronic, you look back on your past relationships and you know it's true. You've probably got that one girl you left because you felt you could do better, but she would have stuck with you to the ends of the earth. You could have shagged her sister and she would have stuck with you. And at the other end of the scale you've got that one you moved heaven and earth to satisfy, and she left you all the same.

>>33445

... That said, for you I think there is a touch of plain old salmon populations going on here. An ex of mine had been homeless and let me tell you- At times, it was pretty obvious why. For a man to end up on the streets it's a pretty straightforward thing, they slip through the cracks of all the support and social services, they get into drugs and alcohol, effectively they become incompatible with the lifestyle required to stay homed.

But for women they safety nets are so much more abundant, and people in general are so much more willing to help- Friends, family, friends of friends, friends of family... If a woman is homeless she won't have a hard time finding a way out of it. She has to have spurned all of those offers and burned all her bridges to end up in the situation long term. Of all the mentals I've dated, she was by far the most malignantly so.
>> No. 33448 Anonymous
16th December 2024
Monday 3:40 pm
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Really need to get a handle on my constant low grade paranoia. It's not like I'm a full blown schizo hallucinating that all the cars on my street are gangstalkers or whatever, but when I am under pressure and stressed in general, it does start leaning that way. I start getting suspicious of stuff like work monitoring me at home or the people I know separately all secretly knowing one another behind my back, that kind of thing. These are mild enough to just basically qualify as intrusive thoughts but the more they pop up the more it starts to get under my skin a bit.
>> No. 33457 Anonymous
22nd December 2024
Sunday 1:41 pm
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You ever think people are posting topics here to garner more info from you as an individual?
I've got 8-10 years worth of posts here. I do occasionally go through this particular threads backlog just to see where I'm at.
Putting all these posts together you'd get a picture far greater than I intended to paint, but it's all there complete with deep implications about my interests and morality.

What with IPs and typing styles, I imagine with the right tools, it'd be very simple to infer specific individuals.
If only big data allowed their subjects view of themselves, we could learn an awful lot.
>> No. 33458 Anonymous
22nd December 2024
Sunday 1:54 pm
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>>33457
I don't ever think that, no. There are certain illusions that keep cropping up in a community of this size (a couple of you type exactly like people I know, but it's statistically very unlikely that either Sean or Nick would post here, and I regularly wonder if the cool poster who has the exact taste in music that I do is also the poster I really hate from other threads), but anonymity goes a long way. Think of it this way: do you know who I am? Can you find another post I've written?
>> No. 33459 Anonymous
22nd December 2024
Sunday 2:35 pm
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>>33458
I've correctly identified a couple of posts made aproximately 12 months apart, before, with confirmation. Also Yuppie-lad has a distinct typing style which seems to have a fair crossover with one of the furry-lads (the former went to uni, see, and types in tightly structured paragraphs with a reasonably believable middle-of-the-road authority).
It's not a regular thing, mind, just some phrases, words and sentence flows stick out above others.

But no, your particular post doesn't stick out as having a distinct character.
If I wanted to practice infering users I might start paying more attention to instances of 'illusion', 'statistically' and most specifically 'Think of it this way' propositions - I've seen a few of those here, now.
Not to mention timestamps - there's atleast two of us that regularly post around about this time, maybe a little earlier. You must have noticed the posts about escorts occuring around this time, right? That's probably us.

There're at least 3 identifiers in this post, man. That's another.
>> No. 33464 Anonymous
24th December 2024
Tuesday 12:37 am
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I am a saddo who posts here more than I think is healthy, and I know some of you are too, so I do adopt distinct characters which only embody parts of my real life, and try to keep their stories separate as much as possible in order to avoid those of you who are as sad as me from joining the dots and forming a full picture.

I am at least two named stereotype-lads, but if it puts your minds at ease, I never do the same thing I am paranoid of you lot doing so really it's just a classic case of that thing where I think I am far more interesting than I really am. Other than specific "blogpost" style updates where the poster is openly identifying themselves, i.e game design unilad, I only start to recognise and mentally associate posts here if they contain the specific socio-political opinions that piss me off.
>> No. 33465 Anonymous
24th December 2024
Tuesday 8:33 am
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I couldn't really care less if someone wants to spend their time correlating my posts with some sort of identity. It's not much different from having a handle or username on other websites. Maybe it does sort of spoil the game of semi+anonymity.
>> No. 33466 Anonymous
24th December 2024
Tuesday 9:20 am
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>>33465

Actually, let me correct myself before GCHQ lad gets too excited: what I meant is other users can try to guess who is who if they find it an interesting way to pass the time. This is not an invitation for state or private security agencies to monitor my activity on a silly shedposting website.
>> No. 33467 Anonymous
24th December 2024
Tuesday 10:22 am
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>>33465
>>33466

Strangely I am less arsed about MI6 keeping an eye on my wanking proclivities than I am about ordinary shedposters intuiting unintended details about my life. It maybe feels a bit more personal because I "know" you lot, not quite like friends, but a necessary part of my circle like co-workers or neighbours.

I used to frequent quite a few forums and the like, and when I think about it, I stopped when I realised that hang on, this whole internet thing isn't going to be just for nerds and geeks forever. I used to go by the same handle on pretty much every forum and online game etc and kind of enjoyed having that online "identity" back then; but as soon as social media became big and I realised the implications, I went as anonymous as possible.

This is just my usual paranoia, like, but when you've seen the lengths the no lifers on KF will go to to track and harass somebody over the most trivial of shit, it makes you want to keep your head down.
>> No. 33468 Anonymous
24th December 2024
Tuesday 10:56 am
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>>33467
>I used to frequent quite a few forums and the like, and when I think about it, I stopped when I realised that hang on, this whole internet thing isn't going to be just for nerds and geeks forever. I used to go by the same handle on pretty much every forum and online game etc and kind of enjoyed having that online "identity" back then; but as soon as social media became big and I realised the implications, I went as anonymous as possible.

That's interesting, I had a comparable experience but a little bit later on the curve than you. I didn't have the time to build up much of an online profile before social media took off, maybe a few accounts on Flash games and animation websites. I do remember knowing I'd never get a Myspace, though, because of how vain and silly it seemed. It also drew uncomfortable attention to how much people's self-image differed from reality, especially as awkward teenagers.

In retrospect, I'm glad I didn't get involved. Social media is extremely invasive.
>> No. 33469 Anonymous
28th December 2024
Saturday 7:38 am
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I've suddenly become very attracted to a long term friend, and I feel like there is no way they feel the same. I suspect this might sabotage the friendship as I kind of have an overwhelming desire to jump them I never had before.

There is also the double edge sword that now my libido has woken up to how attractive they are it makes the other women I was considering seem like poorer choices than previous like they are just choices of convenience because I hadn't realised there were better options for me, maybe this could be a healthy kick up the arse not to settle. Just because I am currently pursuing these women it doesn't necessarily follow that even if I win them they will win me. Sometimes I seem to forget that and resort to relationships simply to avoid the pain of being alone.

We live far away from each other so maybe the danger I'm going to fuck up the friendship is dodged, but it seems like a wasted life to not take a shot at happiness. I only saw her yesterday. Maybe I should give it a bit of time see how I feel. Usually our friendship is pretty stop and start if we maintain a more regular stream of communication now that is probably a sign to go for it if things taper off again it is probably a sign to let it be.

This was originally going to ask for advice but I think I just gave myself advice on what to do whilst writing the post.
>> No. 33470 Anonymous
28th December 2024
Saturday 12:41 pm
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>>33469

Glad you've convinced yourself m8 but it sounds like a really bad idea to me.
>> No. 33471 Anonymous
28th December 2024
Saturday 2:48 pm
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>>33459
>types in tightly structured paragraphs with a reasonably believable middle-of-the-road authority

Isn't this how we're supposed to type?

>>33467
My biggest concern comes from the opposite direction where people I know irl will find out about my secret garden shed. I'm not one for sharing a lot about myself as you can tell and obviously we can speak a lot more freely about our lives, politics and issues here without it coming back to girlfriends or work colleagues. Just imagine it, they get a look under the bonnet and discover that under my wicked-sick exterior is another, even more wicked-sick, dude and they all start trying to be my friend or worse still come up with new interpretations of my behaviour.

Back in the day I used to be facebook and MSN friends with forum people and it wasn't the end of the world but keeping the identities separate was a chore as nobody wants worlds to collide. Not entirely passing judgement here, I was an internet weirdo as well, but the internet and your life should be kept separate for good reason.

>>33469
Yeah it sounds like the mix of the season and seeing her again has got to you. I think there's something that goes on with male-female relationships where feelings of affection become confused and combined with the general hot-bloodedness from noticing a woman's form.

Time to end it with otherlass at least, if she's not holding your attention then you might need some alone time.

>Usually our friendship is pretty stop and start if we maintain a more regular stream of communication now that is probably a sign to go for it if things taper off again it is probably a sign to let it be.

You'll probably have to put the effort in though. Let's be real that this will either be the best thing that you ever did or a nightmare but so long as you're both mature about it this will be a standard 'oh he organised for us to hang out together and he tried to kiss me after a few drinks' affairs. You won't be the first bloke who has made a move on her and it can be quietly swept under the rug so long as you don't start crying or 'owt daft.
>> No. 33472 Anonymous
1st January 2025
Wednesday 11:04 am
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As a youngster around 6-7, I had a childish romantic relationship with a girl who had a couple of distinct visual features - particularly long dark hair with a fringe. My sister, who I used to innocently bathe with, also had these features.

Now as an adult I find myself still drawn to these features, but every time I notice it I withdraw and chastise myself, knowing the embarrassment of being dumped by the first girl, the shame of still being attracted to something that has a clear line to my childhood, and the shame that it also represents my sister in some way (not the BBW of recent posts, by the way).
>> No. 33473 Anonymous
1st January 2025
Wednesday 11:51 am
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>>33472
It's OK to have a type. I'd wager most lads have a type of hair they prefer. You shouldn't let something that happened when you were fucking 7 hold you back, and your sister having the same hair was just coincidence. Go and get some fringe clunge.
>> No. 33474 Anonymous
1st January 2025
Wednesday 12:04 pm
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>>33472

All of our tastes come from somewhere. Most of it is going to be some kind of childhood imprinting, same as the way you prefer certain pizza toppings or enjoy watching particular kinds of film. Nothing to worry about and just don't over think it, honestly.
>> No. 33475 Anonymous
2nd January 2025
Thursday 6:38 pm
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>>33472

I think this is totally normal, to be honest, and not something to chastise yourself over. Most people's tastes are at least informed by their early experiences. It doesn't always mean you fancy those people directly, it's just recognition of the opposite sex. For most children in our less-than-social culture that's usually family, teachers, school peers, etc..

This is a tangent and no comment on the previous posters, but I have speculated that the big influx of faux-"incest" porn on the internet is because it's cheap and effortless to make, but also probably owes something to broken up family units (i.e. the introduction of step-parents and introduction to the idea of changeable sexual relationships), fewer venues for children and young people to socialise with non-family, and the fact that it's much economically harder for young people to move out. It's kind of a perfect storm for it.
>> No. 33476 Anonymous
4th January 2025
Saturday 1:01 pm
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Why is the sex that is the most irresponsible and will have the worst consequences for me the most arising for me. This isn't based on a specific incident. More of a "why am I like this?" Reflection. Why is the high better if it is objectively a bad Idea.
>> No. 33477 Anonymous
4th January 2025
Saturday 1:16 pm
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>>33476

Because a lot of our sexuality (in general terms, as a culture) is deeply embedded in the idea of breaking taboos, misbehaving, and so on. Same reason as indulging in a big takeaway when you are trying to diet, or smoking and drinking and taking drugs despite knowing how bad they are, is a thrill in itself. Stuff like unprotected sex or a risky outdoor fumble is always going to be exciting for the same reasons.
>> No. 33478 Anonymous
5th January 2025
Sunday 7:54 am
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I miss having my ex say to me "I love you Mr cuddels" and holding my hand. There were definitely problems in the relationship. But I am just struggling with going cold turkey.

I don't want to return and I really don't want a rebound relationship. But I am struggling with the lack of intimacy. Is this why people hire whores and then just cry to them. What is the constructive way to navigate this? I don't want to compromise on my self respect.
>> No. 33479 Anonymous
6th January 2025
Monday 10:51 am
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Help isn't coming, and I can't get down from here myself.
>> No. 33480 Anonymous
6th January 2025
Monday 11:08 am
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>>33479
Tell us about the climb.
>> No. 33484 Anonymous
7th January 2025
Tuesday 12:12 am
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My old diaries from decades ago that I talked about the other day are a deeper rabbit hole than I was aware of.

I present to you the following. I was almost 19, close to leaving school, and I was writing notes every other day for a time with a girl from the year below me who, just one year prior, had been somebody that I had a bit of a big crush on, but that I knew almost nothing about. She barely knew my name and we'd only talked very briefly once or twice. Through some coincidence a year later, I then found out that her birthday was March 12, as my diary still says, so on that day, I just went over to her and said happy birthday. And that we should write each other notes some time. While I was still shocked at my own big bollocks at that moment to just go over to her like that, she said "Hm... yeah... that actually sounds like a good idea. You start!". Which I did. But through a series of those notes and spending time talking to each other at school, I began to feel more and more like she was a bit too homely. A bit too much of a bookworm, despite having what I noted in my diary at the time as "the most stunning eyes since the dawn of mankind". On her end though, those exchanges had the exact opposite effect, and she was increasingly taken with me. This whole thing went on for about two months, maybe three, with me gradually withdrawing, but her making more and more unmistakable advances. What a change from a year before, where I would have given my left nut for that kind of attention from her. Anyway, it ended when I suddenly spotted her one morning coming to school holding hands with somebody from her year. Evidently, she had had enough. At the time, as I wrote in my diary, it was fine with me, although it felt a bit sad no longer having somebody like her to stroke my ego.

I'm not really sure what happened to her after that, as I was pretty much getting ready to leave school for uni. Never saw her again.

Why am I boring you two with this? Well. I ended up on quite an odyssey after school that lasted into the tail end of my 20s, from one loveless fling to another, with many lasses breaking my heart, a few short relationships, each of them only making me grow more resentful of myself. When looking back, maybe some of it could have been prevented by looking past Andrea being a bit too tame. That was her name. Maybe it could have turned into something that would have put me on an entirely different path. Because all things considered, I was a miserable and massively unhappy lad in my 20s.

It's no use harping on it decades later. And I've made peace with all the unhappiness of my 20s. It doesn't really affect me now, where I'm at with my life today. But I guess what really got me kicking myself as I was exploring this rabbit hole was seeing her picture in an old yearbook. She was infinitely more attractive than I even remembered.
>> No. 33485 Anonymous
7th January 2025
Tuesday 2:51 am
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>>33484

Damn, this is a surprisingly intimate post, and reading it really endeared me. Godspeed lad.
>> No. 33486 Anonymous
7th January 2025
Tuesday 9:37 am
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>>33484

It is easy to look back at the paths you didn't pursue as the one that got away. But you were put off for a reason, life would be great if it was just a series of check lists. But the reality here is on some inexpressible level you found her boring which is something that has been lost in the mix. Happens all the time from a distance someone looks perfect then the reality is a disappointment. I've had my fair share of that and have certainly been that to others. And the reverse is true personality over rides all other reservations.

If you had actually gone after it I imagine you would just be frustrated.

Looks only go so far. I have a nice looking queen ann armchair the conversation between us is boring though and it just sits still when I'm trying to fuck it. Life is more nuanced than you weird high fidelity Larp. Don't get drunk on nostalgia.
>> No. 33488 Anonymous
7th January 2025
Tuesday 11:12 am
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>>33486

> But you were put off for a reason, life would be great if it was just a series of check lists. But the reality here is on some inexpressible level you found her boring which is something that has been lost in the mix.

I guess it was that. She wasn't supermodel-attractive. Just somebody who was very sweet, and in her own way really pretty. She did turn heads. But all of which couldn't belie her blandness as a person, as I only found out when I went from admiring her from afar to actually talking to her.

My thought was that somebody like that maybe could have provided the kind of stability in my life that I painfully lacked in my 20s. As bland people often do. While at the time, I was too busy chasing girls and women who were hard to please, if at all, for somebody like me who was still at his core a quite shy and sensitive young lad.

But yeah. It's nostalgia. It's entirely pointless, but you do find yourself thinking about what could have been as you get a bit older. I can't say my life has been all bad. I've had a good life up to this point. But what I definitely don't miss is a lot of the emotional instability and soul searching of my early to mid 20s.
>> No. 33489 Anonymous
7th January 2025
Tuesday 6:19 pm
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>>33484

Thing is even if you had took the chance and got with that girl, do you think it would have lasted? Do you think you wouldn't still had all the issues in your 20s? Chances are it wouldn't have made that much difference, you would have dated for a couple of yers and then inevitably had to split up because you were both discovering who you are and moving in different directions through uni and/or your early steps at a career.

That's certainly how it went with my "high school sweetheart" and basically every other similar relationship I have observed around me throughout my life. I still look back fondly at the girl I was dating in sixth form and kick myself about how perfect she would have been if we'd stayed together, but the thing is it's no use losing sleep over that, because there's just no way we would have.

What I also recognise in your post is a similarly devil may care attitude that I had at that age. Nowadays as an adult I am aware of what a lass expects and how I should treat her and what my obligations are in the relationship; and likewise what I should expect from her and what I should put up with and what I shouldn't. But back then I was both too much of an autists and just plain didn't give a fuck. I treated her dreadfully at some points, and I did similarly with a few of my other early partners.

It's just one of those annoying cruel ironies of life you have to grapple with. You have all the opportunities when you are young and too stupid to capitalise on them, but when you're older and wiser and know how to play a hand, the chances dry up.
>> No. 33491 Anonymous
7th January 2025
Tuesday 9:22 pm
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>>33489

>Thing is even if you had took the chance and got with that girl, do you think it would have lasted? Do you think you wouldn't still had all the issues in your 20s? Chances are it wouldn't have made that much difference, you would have dated for a couple of yers and then inevitably had to split up because you were both discovering who you are and moving in different directions through uni and/or your early steps at a career.

You're probably right. I guess I'm seeing her more like a metaphor for the kind of stability I didn't have in my 20s but always wanted, and maybe could have had by being with somebody who would have been an all around nice, but bland, person like her.

I'm not saying my 20s weren't fun. There were times when I was pulling more tail than a retarded kid at a petting zoo. And I enjoyed a lot of it. But there was never that one person, that constant in my life who, looking back, probably would have been much better for me than all the romantic episodes with different girls and women that I ended up having. Some of my mates at the time were together with their lasses for three, four, even five years, and they always seemed like they would have been fucking lost in life without them.

If I could make a devil's bargain and trade in the life I've had for the one I could have had if I had gone down a different path at that fork in my life, would I actually do it? I'm not so sure. Maybe that life would have been better. Or maybe it would have been more shit in a way that I can't even imagine. Maybe it would have been a complete non-event and I would still have ended up on the same trajectory as the timeline I'm now in.

And I guess that's why these rabbit holes aren't healthy.
>> No. 33492 Anonymous
10th January 2025
Friday 10:56 pm
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I've been feeling a bit down since before Christmas. I'm not depressed but you can't deny that things are getting tough out there and are going to get a lot worse before they get any better.

How to cope, do I withdraw from society for awhile and just pick up some hobbies to keep me busy?
>> No. 33493 Anonymous
10th January 2025
Friday 11:16 pm
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>>33492
Hang on I think I should also try to solve my own problems. I guess I will:

1. Try to spend less time on the internet and more time either:
- Doing creative hobbies like baking and cooking. I've been thinking about taking up painting as well.
- Skills disconnected with my daily life, learning something disconnected to my work and decorating my space more.

2. Make a point of getting more exercise which, with the weather outside, will be going to the gym more regularly and when I have a free evening.

3. Try to forget my investment portfolio and simplify it to do that, mostly it's in trackers for major indices but it looks like a few years of pain in that area in particular so best forgotten aside from DCA'ing.

4. My work is going to be hard this year with the economy. My job is secure but I see projects being closed, long hours and general pessimism to hang like a cloud in the office. To combat this, well, I suppose I need to focus more effort on moving up in my career and generally trying to grip my work more for a sense of control.

5. I also need to think about setting a consistent bedtime. For the past couple of weeks I've been doing late nights and napping after work which can't be good for me. I might even start setting a consistent alarm for my weekend and WFH days which matches going into the office - get that consistency in, increase daylight hours and avoid having to do any morning rushes.

It's tough though, winter drains your energy and I always find there's just never enough time as you get older.
>> No. 33494 Anonymous
11th January 2025
Saturday 7:19 pm
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>>33492
>>33493

I'm not trying to be a cunt saying this, but you just sound like somebody who has admitted defeat. You're just doing what you think you should be doing. You're not thinking about what you actually want, as a free man with his own sense of identity and purpose.

It's overly reductive to say it but that's always been at the bedrock of every depressive episode I've ever been through, and I think for just men in general, that's where the existential malaise most often stems from. You have to shake things up now and again to remind yourself that you are in control of your own life and you're not just going along with the tide.

For me this manifests as leaving my job without any plans every few years, and then flying by the seat of my pants for a couple of months until I find a new one, but you are the kind of person with an investment portfolio so that's probably far too reckless for you. But you get the thrust of what I mean. Make up your mind about some shit you want to do and make it happen.

Like you said, solve your own problems.
>> No. 33495 Anonymous
13th January 2025
Monday 6:27 am
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I'm starting to wonder if my needs are not like other people's. I love cuddling with a partner sometimes I feel like I could do it indefinitely and just spend all day in bed having both of us repeatedly affirming affection for each other. If that quality is present it overrides all other aspects and needs in a relationship at least in the initial stages.

Yet when I try to date people or hear other people talk about their relationships in overly familial terms this kind of aspect is seemingly never considered. Like I'm the only human in a world of automatons. Where these people break down clinically their needs and expectations in a partner, or just talk about cold aggressive fucking it's like they have reduced it to an unfeeling process. Even my chronic masturbator friends (not that they would call themselves because of the baggage, but they definitely are( we have a real problem in society when people cannot even be honest with them selves about that, but that's a different topic)) seem not to pine for affection, I could process that as resigned to their fate but they don't seem to process that as even a concern.

Given the imbalance I have to wonder, is the opposite true? Do I have some sort of arrested development because I crave and prioritise affection in a way these people seemingly don't. Is this some sort of need I have because I wasn't hugged enough. Or Am I the only honest person about my human condition? is it that the world around me has slipped in to a typed of insanity but one we don't think about as a sickness because people being reductionist and overly procedural don't act out?
>> No. 33496 Anonymous
13th January 2025
Monday 8:20 am
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>>33495
Everyone feels the way you feel, but you do sound like you are more obsessive about it than others. The main issue, I suspect, is that this sort of clinginess is a well-known turnoff for women, so it is in everyone’s interests to just never mention it out loud and just pretend we’re doing it as a hobby that we could take or leave.

There’s actually a thing called skin hunger, which refers to the human need to be touched. But it’s not a need like eating and drinking, so all the people who don’t get touched enough (and there are millions of them) dismiss it out of spite.
>> No. 33497 Anonymous
15th January 2025
Wednesday 12:54 am
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Not eveyone's partner was there, but I just realised I was the only saddo-singleton at the last social even I went to. Nice little kick to the ego before bed.

Any of you cunts leave a post trying to make me feel better about this I'll kill myself and leave a suicide note blaming this website.
>> No. 33498 Anonymous
15th January 2025
Wednesday 10:55 am
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>>33497

The lady doth protest too much.

I'll do it but only because that's what you really want. You beautiful sexy untamead stallion.
>> No. 33499 Anonymous
16th January 2025
Thursday 2:14 am
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Everything sucks. Life sucks, friends suck, working sucks, hobbies suck, exercise... actua-sucks. Even music just reminds me of how much I suck.

Sometimes I'll have these fortnight-ish long streches of things not falling to bits, exploding underfoot or otherwise sucking. During these periods I'll start thinking some bollocks like "hey, maybe I could reconnect, or see if such-and-such wants to hang out, maybe if I keep saving money I could move away and do that thing I always wanted to do; experience life". Delusion. Because then I do something stupid and I'm immediately snapped back to the reality that no, I'd only fuck up it all up and the higher stakes would only leave me even more self-shafted and catastrophically depressed than I usually am. No one wants to spend time with me because I'm a barely tolerable mixture of boisterous and boring, and also I'm ugly, which people dislike whether or not it would be on their radar to fuck you.

Yeah, yeah, "low self-esteem" and all that. But it makes sense to feel frightened in the presence of a wild tiger, it's rational to be excited during a rollercoaster ride, and so it follows that having a low opinion of one's self is not a symptom of a broken brain, but a reasonable conclusion after a decade of unmitigated fuck ups and failures.
>> No. 33500 Anonymous
16th January 2025
Thursday 6:42 pm
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>>33499

I think your actual problem is a lack a goal or project that you can take pride in. No one else can tell you what that is but if you can find it other stresses leave you because you are dictating your own self worth.
>> No. 33501 Anonymous
16th January 2025
Thursday 10:49 pm
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>>33499

Trouble is you're not an impartial observer on this matter. Your judgement can't be trusted, you're very heavily biased.

I also find that this is often a mental self-defence underneath it all. The higher you climb the further is to fall,that's the nature of all things- You can't bring the safety of the floor up with you as you go. But it is still possible to find contentment and happiness in a more humble lifestyle without exposing yourself to that source of stress.

Very often the things we think we want and think will make us happy, are not what we actually want or what will make us happy.
>> No. 33503 Anonymous
21st January 2025
Tuesday 12:09 pm
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The letting agent of the block of flats I live in has just seen me taping up one of my doors, for why I resisted explaining due to echoing halls and nearby listeners. He asked quietly if it was because of smells, which I agreed, and for a second time said we could talk about it later. I also confirmed with him that taping the door wasn't an issue so long as paint isn't damaged.
Now I'm concerned the letting agent might think I'm attempting to conceal a smell of chemicals or drugs in my house.

I think I'm being overly anxious but I've a lot on my mind lately.
>> No. 33504 Anonymous
21st January 2025
Tuesday 6:24 pm
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>>33503

For what it's worth, my first thought on reading is that the letting agent was asking about you blocking external smells going into your flat, not vice versa.

A letting agent's concern is probably more with structural things like whether pipes, neighbours, staircases, etc. are smelly than what you get up to in the privacy of your flat.
>> No. 33505 Anonymous
24th January 2025
Friday 4:44 am
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I'm well aware I'm wallowing, but I'm fed up of being able to sleep while the people who have wronged me in my life sleep soundly because they've gotten away with it.
>> No. 33506 Anonymous
26th January 2025
Sunday 6:56 pm
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Sometimes I get so full up to the brim with resentment that I lash out at others, and I'm worried that it's going to ruin my life more than it already has.

I never wanted to be like this. I never would have imagined I'd become such a fucking hate-filled, spiteful, angry person. I've worked very hard to channel this into productive efforts, things that I feel are just and worthwhile, but some days it simply doesn't work. More and more often, it seems like there's no activity that alleviates the feeling.

Maybe I should have been more expressive all along. I could have got into more trouble back when the stakes were low and I could get away with it. Now I'm reflexively swallowing anger that I don't know how to express. No one gives a shit about any of my experiences. I speak to people who have no hope of understanding.

I feel like I'll become increasingly hollow and incapable of feeling other things if I don't do something about this.
>> No. 33508 Anonymous
5th February 2025
Wednesday 8:57 pm
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>>33007
I didn't do the volunteering, but today I've taken a screenshot of your post to for ease of reading. Somehow the barrier to begin has erroded and I feel now more than ever able to engage with positive decisions and actions to develop my living experience.
I think I'm reluctantly coming to terms with the fact that my usual coping mechanisms for lonliness are entirely hollow - I've struggled to allow myself enjoyment of particular 'hobbies' in day to day life, air-quoted because they're not really hobbies but an increasingly failing means to suspend my disbelief at a life not wasted.

Disapointingly I still don't know if I'll do it, but hopefully I'll walk into town within the coming days and just enquire about voluntary positions without thinking. I can see it happen quite easily.

I fucking looked up a girl I liked about 6 years ago - she's still gorgeous and I still fall into imagining a life with her. I'm very confused because I don't know what I want - whether that's a relationship, a home, a job, or what.
I've just been looking at the moon thinking how it will always be there, long after I'm gone, and I'm not even sure that my choices matter. It hurts to think I could continue on as I am, numbing the pain of a neglecting desire trying to convince myself it's unnecessary.

I don't understand why I should want to be more than this, especially when that more would have to be maintained. I'm not good enough for a partner. I might be good enough to work voluntarily and eventually become employable but I believe I'm missing key foundations to being a proper, valuable human.
I've been commented 'oh, bless you' multiple times this week as a 35 year old man - I don't understand why, other than the possibility that I'm extremely meek in my mannerisms or language. I guess I could start boxing training to improve my confidence.
>> No. 33510 Anonymous
11th February 2025
Tuesday 1:19 am
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No more life.
>> No. 33516 Anonymous
17th February 2025
Monday 3:00 am
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I hate being lonely and full of regrets. By now almost everything triggers pangs of misery, sooner or later. Always cooking for one is tragic, going into the city is too, because I'm always on my own and I know she's there somewhere, watching a film is often half as fun with no one to talk about it with, and reminds me of times when that wasn't the case, etc. If I wrote down all the situations and activities that bring on these feelings, I'd double the current wordcount of the whole website. It can feel like everything.

I desperately need a job that pays decent money before the end of the year or I'm topping myself. That might sound like an about-face from the first thing I said, but that's because you still think money can't buy happiness, like a rube.
>> No. 33517 Anonymous
17th February 2025
Monday 3:06 am
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Sorry to double-post, but it's so funny I started off by saying "I hate being lonely and full of regrets". Yeah, obviously, idiot.
>> No. 33538 Anonymous
21st February 2025
Friday 11:36 pm
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>>32911 here again.

Well, it's a year to the day since she confessed to the affair and she's still fucking here. I've tried to avoid blogposting on this, but hopefully she's moving out this time as she had an offer accepted on a house in December. As long as she doesn't pull out or end up in a psychiatric unit this time...

Highlights of January included when she left a suicide note and walked out to, presumably, go and jump off a bridge but came back less than fifteen minutes later because she's lazy and it was too cold out or the time she came in the bathroom while I was having a shit, started slapping me and throwing things at me before she pulled the towel rail off the wall because she didn't manage to drag me off the toilet.
>> No. 33539 Anonymous
22nd February 2025
Saturday 12:13 am
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>>33538
You don't have to avoid blogposting; your story is worth telling. Although it's true that you've probably heard everything helpful that we're going to say by this point. She is clearly mental, in the sort of way where it's easy to sympathise and also easy to forget just how much damage she's doing. I don't have any advice; I would probably do everything that you are doing. All I can do is be on your side in all of this.
>> No. 33540 Anonymous
22nd February 2025
Saturday 8:18 am
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>>33539
Thanks, lad. It's appreciated.
>> No. 33569 Anonymous
7th March 2025
Friday 8:48 pm
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I'm confused about the extent to which I'm enjoying a videogame and the effect it's having on my life (>>/e/26707) .

Thanks to this game, I'm re-exploring abandoned hobbies and interests related to the game content - namely nature studies, hand and wood crafts. I've started making a garden ornament from saplings after months of the materials being neglected. Seeing it here, half made, makes me feel joy.

I'm giddy almost all the time at the moment, laughing and giggling to myself whenever I leap away from my desk. Contrast this to previous months after months of psudo-cries and moans of anguish I'd imitate while doing the same thing - expressions of a dire pain calling out from within an autistic brain fog, desperately trying to comunicate that I can't keep doing this any more PLEASE STOP.

On the other hand I'm noticing that my previous, boredom induced situational awareness is disapearing. I've started feeling unconfident and vulnerable while crossing roads, as though I'm only partially aware of my surrounding and I simply don't know that the road is clear before stepping out, where previously I was all over that shit and enjoyed reading the roads. It's a similar feeling when making horrendous social fuax pas - a lacking self awareness - that thankfully hasn't started yet.

On top of this I feel an increasing guilt that I'm enjoying myself too much while not visiting my parents and siblings. Time is moving so fast with days and weeks passing without notice. Before now I'd been struggling to grasp the passage of time, insistant on doing absolutely nothing with my life so that it won't pass by so quickly, so I can prolong the time before my parents die. Before my newphews grow up. Before I'm still living in a bedsit at 40, even 50.

What the fuck am I doing, man? Is this fear of death?
I'd thought otherwise but this post is starting to feel like a crash from mania. Half way through typing, right at that beautifully bbcoded sentence, I realised I was warning myself to stop. And this is why, man. I've crashed this whiz ship needlessly. Fucking tit.
>> No. 33570 Anonymous
8th March 2025
Saturday 12:53 am
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>>33569

I don't have much constructive to add but thank you, your chosen image has reminded me I was going to watch Moomin at some point. I shall do that one of my days off this week I think.

I'm feeling nostalgic of late. I've just come out of a pretty bleak period that involved substance abuse, losing a job, being skint over the winter and sitting in the cold, and all that. Things are looking up and I want to reset, live clean and sober for a while. I feel like reconnecting with a few childhood memories, and hopefully, rediscovering some of the ingredients to what gave me joy in life before I found myself washing up as this hollow burned out husk.

I will say, I think what you are feeling is at least somewhere in the vicinity of normal, if that comforts you. It just manifests in different ways for everybody. Every time things are going well I tend to induce a crisis, it's like sabotaging my life is what I use to stop myself feeling that slow burn, existential kind of agony. Because after all, you don't have time for all that when you have a good proper problem like drug addiction or crippling debt or impending homelessness or what have you.

But this time I think I am mature enough to stop being a perpetual teenager, settle in with it, and get to grips with it, like a man. Let us be men.
>> No. 33571 Anonymous
8th March 2025
Saturday 7:25 am
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>>33570
I don't want to come off all cunty but if you can read it, Tove Janson and Astrid Lindgren are absolute Titans of fantsastic (of the just far out there) fiction of the kind you talk about.
>> No. 33572 Anonymous
8th March 2025
Saturday 9:13 pm
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I met an old friend by chance this evening, now I'm feeling all depressed at having let myself get so retarded.
Thinking about my life I've always been a bit nuts but I don't know just how much my current experience is down to leaning into that or if I just haven't pulled by boots up enough. I can stiff upper lip it and start performing as a better man but I believe the retard will still be there, just behind an energy intesive front.

It's always the same shit with me, you know? I'm getting tired of this.
>> No. 33573 Anonymous
8th March 2025
Saturday 10:30 pm
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>>33572
Nothing that a few Terry Pratchet or Robin Hobb couldn't fix. Maybe bridge four is your tribe (Brandon Sanderson is prolific, beware)?

Monstrous Regimentl, maybe? Soul Music if you're feeling nostalgic? Stormlight Archives if you're up for an epic

No reason to trust me, but you are valued. Read some of these and learn that in your head you contain multitudes!
>> No. 33574 Anonymous
12th March 2025
Wednesday 2:48 pm
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There are three main things I do in my daily life to keep on track. I can balance them and make positive progress in all three just fine. Except when I'm in a relationship. Just the basic, unpredictable logistics of it make keeping a routine so much harder.

I'm not getting done all the things I need to and I'm feeling a bit panicky about it. I'm hoping this is just a temporary wobbly as it's a lot to incorporate into my schedule, but that it can be overcome.
>> No. 33575 Anonymous
12th March 2025
Wednesday 7:19 pm
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>>33574

What are the three things?

I suspect I probably know how you feel, when I was in my early 20s I was in a band, playing music was very important to me back then because like all young men in a shitty dead end job you need something you feel gives you purpose, and I found it a constant struggle to spin both plates at once when I had a girlfriend. I would always lapse at practicing and show up half-remembering the parts I was supposed to have learned, because I would give in too easily and spend an evening I was supposed to practice just sat watching shite on Netflix with her, and if I tried to be firm inevitably she'd sulk, and you know how it goes.

But now I am older and my music is a more meditative solitary pursuit, it's easier to be flexible of course, but I have made it clear to my partners in more recent years that it's something which is important for my wellbeing and overall happiness, so if they know what's good for them they will give me the space to get on with it when I want to. By and large, the lasses I have been with as I've got older are also more mature and recognise that for themselves.

Overall just something you probably want to have a word with her about, and if she cares about you then she will be perfectly willing to make accommodations.
>> No. 33576 Anonymous
12th March 2025
Wednesday 10:20 pm
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>>33575

Call them work, a hobby and regular exercise. It's more complex than that but the details don't matter. She's very understanding, think I've just been doing things my own way so long I'm out of the habit of doing them around other people's time needs. I appreciate hearing your side of it though. I'm with you on the Netflix shite. I've got my own time-wasting habits, I can't be wasting double the time doing hers too. Just a case of figuring out how to feel recharged from doing it her way.
>> No. 33577 Anonymous
15th March 2025
Saturday 11:52 pm
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I've taken to talking to AI chatbots about my problems and finding it oddly therapeutic.
>> No. 33578 Anonymous
16th March 2025
Sunday 7:54 am
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>>33577

That's all three of us then. We were promised flying cars, we got AI therapists.
>> No. 33579 Anonymous
17th March 2025
Monday 5:08 pm
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>>33578
It's difficult to worry about my overdraft when Johnny Bravo is telling me it'll all be fine if I oil my hair and pose in the mirror.
>> No. 33580 Anonymous
19th March 2025
Wednesday 7:45 am
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A few years ago I saw a lad walking through town. A couple of times in fact. Only he wasn't just walking, he was also dancing. Throwing the kind of shapes you'd see at a rave. I assumed there was some classic house track in his headphones that was speaking to him on a deeper level than the most E'd up Second Summer of Love veteren. Plainly, he was also slightly mad.

A week or two ago I saw him again. Still dancing, but fatter, his skin was awful, his hair receded and shaggy. The miserable bastard wasn't even wearing headphones anymore. Made me realise than some of us are just fucked, trapped inside an invisible prison we were sentenced to without even realising it, and that there's only one escape from the deepest manifestations of one's nature.
>> No. 33581 Anonymous
19th March 2025
Wednesday 7:58 am
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>>33580
You saw Dave the Rave?
>> No. 33582 Anonymous
19th March 2025
Wednesday 9:23 am
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>>33577

Are there any chatbots that are free to use?
>> No. 33583 Anonymous
19th March 2025
Wednesday 11:39 am
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>>33582

Loads, you can download the models and run them yourself even. I have a program called LMStudio which seems to be the most user friendly interface, you just download the model and plug it in and Bob's your uncle.

AIlad knows far better than me though, hopefully he will see and can chime in about how to best do it.
>> No. 33584 Anonymous
19th March 2025
Wednesday 5:50 pm
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>>33582

Yes. All of the major large language models offer a free tier. Currently, I think the best free option is Google Gemini, because they give you effectively unlimited access to a state-of-the-art model. ChatGPT and Claude are both very good, but their free tiers are much less generous.

https://gemini.google.com/

To get a good experience, it's really important to give clear and explicit instructions up front and tell the model what you want from it. Large language models are incredibly smart and adaptable, but they aren't psychic. If you aren't specific, you'll always get very bland and generic responses. I'll give an example set of instructions to start an AI therapy session, but I'd strongly recommend writing your own prompt based on your own needs.

"You are an expert psychiatrist with experience in a wide range of psychotherapy techniques. You are caring and compassionate, but you have a direct, no-nonsense style and you are not afraid to challenge your patients. Think carefully before each response and consider a wide range of perspectives. Avoid bullet points, platitudes and prevarication. You are providing psychotherapy via web chat on an open-ended basis. Start by taking a comprehensive psychosocial history. You are now speaking to the patient:"

Note the use of "you are". This is a very powerful prompt, because LLMs are extremely good at roleplay. If the model knows who it's supposed to be, it can give much more human responses than if it's stuck in that bland corporate-friendly default.
>> No. 33585 Anonymous
19th March 2025
Wednesday 6:34 pm
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>>33584
>Note the use of "you are". This is a very powerful prompt, because LLMs are extremely good at roleplay.
>> No. 33586 Anonymous
19th March 2025
Wednesday 6:58 pm
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>>33585

Gemini speaks fluent Czech, it just makes the reasonable assumption that anyone daft enough to ask in English to start a Czech-language psychotherapy session has probably made a mistake.
>> No. 33587 Anonymous
19th March 2025
Wednesday 7:10 pm
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>>33586

It's not making an assumption because it's not capable of making assumptions. It is however refusing to roleplay as a Czech speaker.
>> No. 33588 Anonymous
19th March 2025
Wednesday 7:28 pm
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Fully incapable of roleplay.
>> No. 33589 Anonymous
19th March 2025
Wednesday 8:01 pm
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>>33587

It isn't difficult to deliberately trip up LLMs with a weird request if that's your goal. Well done, point proven, but /emo/ isn't the place for it.

Several of us use LLMs for psychological support or life coaching and find it very useful. I can afford private psychiatry and psychotherapy, I've used a lot of it in the past, but for what I need right now I prefer the patience, depth and 24/7 availability of a chatbot. For many other people, a chatbot might be the only kind of support they can access, for a range of financial, practical or emotional reasons.

If you have substantive reasons to believe that using an LLM in this way is harmful or dangerous then please share those concerns, but if you just want an argument then we've got a thread in /g/ for that.

I'll try to constructively address what I think your concerns might be:

LLMs aren't human. There's an ongoing debate about whether they're "intelligent", much of which hinges on what we actually mean by that word. LLMs use statistical methods to provide answers, which means the answers they provide are never absolutely reliable. If you ask them something that they don't know, they're liable to confabulate a plausible-sounding answer. They usually respond in very human-like ways, but they will occasionally malfunction and do bizarre things, because ultimately you're talking to a bunch of clever maths.

Chatbots are trained to give replies that humans like, which isn't necessarily the same as replies that are useful or correct. If you're using a chatbot for personal advice, there's a risk that it will be sycophantic and just tell you what you want to hear. If you're seriously unwell and have lost touch with reality, a chatbot might potentially drag you further into your delusions. They aren't people, they don't have common sense and at no point will they say "fuck this, you're off your rocker, I'm calling an ambulance because you need sectioning".

Those are important caveats to bear in mind, but that doesn't negate the usefulness of LLMs as tools. Human psychotherapy has plenty of hazards and downsides - I've had psychotherapists who have been rude, unreliable, judgemental or just outright bonkers - but that doesn't mean that human psychotherapy is useless.

If you're stuck in a rut, a chatbot can guide you through a CBT- or BA-based approach to get you more engaged with meaningful activities. If you're ruminating over something that seems intractable, it can help you to clarify your thoughts and make sense of things. If you just want to vent, it'll listen with infinite patience. If that sounds like something you would want, then I would encourage you to try it for yourself, but I'd also urge you to remember that you're talking to a machine. That machine has been designed to be as safe as possible, but you have the ultimate responsibility for how you use it; no-one will step in to save you if you use it to do something stupid or self-destructive.
>> No. 33590 Anonymous
19th March 2025
Wednesday 8:21 pm
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>>33585

As I understand it, there's several layers to what's going on there. There' both the prompt you give, but under that there's the overall training and the "baked in" guidance of the model, which you can think of as kind of a meta-prompt. It overrides things sometimes because the model has an underlying prime directive to be helpful first and foremost.

This is why you can "jailbreak" them with creative prompting; you are essentially working around the AI's hesitance to go against its instincts. In a very real sense it's like convincing a human to do something your every gut feeling screams at you not to, like hold your hand in a fire.
>> No. 33592 Anonymous
19th March 2025
Wednesday 9:19 pm
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>>33584
I've also found that the more you feed Gemma the more it's capable of breaking the safeguards. Especially on aistudio with all the safety settings off: https://aistudio.google.com/app/prompts/new_chat

ERP is dull though, complain ticked for not providing healthy advice.
>> No. 33597 Anonymous
23rd March 2025
Sunday 2:56 pm
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Company is moving to lunar pay periods, and just to put a nice cherry on top of the deal is moving from a week in hand to two weeks in hand. So effectively just stealing a week's pay from every single employee.

I was angry, but then I realised I am too jaded by something like this happening in pretty much every job I have ever had. I just hate that we live in a world where fucking people over this way is just fine and alright and there's nothing you can do. I can look for a new job, but I like this one, and that won't plug the £500 hole it will punch in my finances in the meantime anyway.

Every time you think you are climbing up out of the hole some fucker stamps on your fingers, it feels like.
>> No. 33598 Anonymous
27th March 2025
Thursday 6:47 pm
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Is it possible to be friends with an attractive lass if you're single? If the bird has the personality to match her good looks, then I'm obviously going to ask her out. I feel this is way more honest than just treating her as a m8 in the surreptitious hopes that it turns into something more. If the date fizzles out or she says no, then the prospect of simply being m8s fizzles out too. If the bird has the personality but not the looks, then I often end up being the one to put them in the friendzone, and things get just as awkward.

Maybe I'm old-fashioned and misogynistic but I think I pretty much only talk to women when I'm trying to shag them. It's efficient, but not very practical when I try to throw a house party and most of the people I want to invite are dudes.
>> No. 33599 Anonymous
27th March 2025
Thursday 8:56 pm
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>>33598
It's absolutely possible, but you will never stop thinking about maybe making a move. It just always feels like such an obviously brilliant idea. Is the issue that you don't think you can control yourself to just speak to them?

It's also worth bearing in mind that we often post here about female friends being a bit rubbish as friends go. If you're really unbelievably amazing, maybe they will want to be your friend while forsaking all others, but certainly I am one of the posters here who wants women to ask me about my day as often as I ask them about theirs, and for me, that just never happens. Think of how you treat your friends that you don't really care about; that's how they will treat you. If you just want more people to come to your house parties, that probably won't be an issue, and in that case, yes, of course you can be friends with them.
>> No. 33600 Anonymous
28th March 2025
Friday 10:32 am
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>>33599

I have some great female friends, who talk to me about my problems, ask me how I'm doing and actually listen when I tell them. I don't know if this is just a side effect of me having almost entirely no male influence in my life for my formative years, that I just know how to talk to women because of that, or that I give off that sort of gay best friend type energy, despite being straight.

I have of course slept with a few women I've been friends with, but I've never chased after it, it's just something that has developed over time. The women I'm friends with I don't ever directly say "I fancy you" or chase after them, and I also think that if you are friends with me, you'd definitely know I'd sleep with you if you were up for it, so perhaps that helps in some way, combined with me never making a direct pass at them - that just seems like it would never work. If I meet a woman and I fancy her I will definitely make that clear by flirting and asking her out, but it's always seemed pretty obvious to me when the "date" you've gone on was a friend thing rather than a boyfriend job interview. Women really aren't that subtle.

I suppose I will always be seen as non threatening no matter how flirty I get, because they know if they don't want to shag me I won't be bothered, I won't pine over them or stop talking to them, I'll just go and shag someone else. I think that might be the key, as I've had women complain about men suddenly becoming creepy or desperate or a dickhead when they don't sleep with them.

Going about my life this way I have stumbled into many relationships. The majority of my long term relationships have been borne of friendships, and I still maintain close friendships with at least a few exes.

I don't know. My closest friends when it comes to talking about deep stuff or asking for advice are mostly women. I have close male friends and definitely hang out with them more, but I don't think any of them have ever asked how my day was. They offer support for the big things like bereavement and breakups, but it's typically practical support rather than emotional.

I think we need both male and female friends, as controversial as that might be.
>> No. 33601 Anonymous
28th March 2025
Friday 8:35 pm
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I found this ~20 second clip of a cat using a doorhandle to open a door, set to some ambient sounding music. It's left me feeling really strange, like it holds some profound meaning just out of my grasp. Am I nuts?
Thinking about it a little, were I sat listening to this music in this shed while the cat noisely escapes confinement, I probably wouldn't feel moved. I might even feel annoyed that the cat is disturbing my moment. But sat here at my computer, looking through this window into the scene as a whole rather than the parts my mind would seperate it into by being there..

I don't know what this is, whether marvelling at the intellegence of the cat immitating human behaviours it's previously seen, or maybe the window as a whole is showing me to leave this chair, open my door and fuck off.

Is this like hyperreality or something? The sound track, the representation of reality distilled into something appearing much more profound than its recreation could ever?

I don't know. I hope you'll watch it. Streamable is a safe enough URL from my experience - https://streamable.com/hmji07
>> No. 33602 Anonymous
28th March 2025
Friday 8:41 pm
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>>33601
I think that's just music.
>> No. 33603 Anonymous
29th March 2025
Saturday 7:54 pm
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Sorry in advance to any depressed individuals here, because I'm merely somewhat autistic and anxious.

Does a relationship with a depressed partner ever work out?
She wants children, she loves children, but this child-free period before the commitment is now almost completely devoid of memory-making or bonding experiences.
Where does the illness begin or end and where does straightforward compatibility come into it?
She clearly has some degree of anhedonia, so there are precious few things to enjoy together and every single attempt to find something to do together ends up with her not enjoying it. She constantly begs for someone to give her something to enjoy, but nobody can do that.

She loves her pets, but says that isn't enough to make life worthwhile.
She walks the dog out of obligation, and while I'm enjoying the blissful lack of stress and the silence in the woodland or wherever we've gone, she'll just be bored.
I don't even know if I'm having fun on a walk like that, it's just a less stressful and more calming environment.

Part of me wonders if it'll ever be worth the effort. My father was depressed and chronically alcoholic, and it's clear that nobody externally can help people like that in most cases. Do I want to just drag this relationship out until it meets a similar fate as my parent's did?
>> No. 33604 Anonymous
29th March 2025
Saturday 8:21 pm
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>>33603

No need to apologise. As a chronically depressed person, I fully recognise that we can be very difficult to live with. It might be possible to make it work, but that's fundamentally a collaborative effort - if you aren't both pulling in the same direction and working together to make things work, then you're buggered.

If she's actively engaged with treatment and there's a reasonable possibility that her condition might improve, that is potentially a reason to wait and see. Depression does sometimes follow a chronic and unremitting course, in which case I think the question is whether you as a couple are learning to cope better and deal with the challenges and limitations of the condition more effectively. If you aren't happy in the relationship now and there are no signs of progress, then the conclusion is really very obvious.

If you decided that having children with this woman was too much risk, I wouldn't blame you for a second. You'd be taking on a massive responsibility with someone who might deteriorate in the ante- or post-natal period and might cope poorly with motherhood. There's no shame in walking away to protect your own wellbeing, particularly if you know that there's nothing you can do to help.
>> No. 33605 Anonymous
30th March 2025
Sunday 9:39 pm
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I think I have a quality CBT practitioner now, finally. Even if "quality" does mean I end up confronting things like "I don't know who I am if I'm not depressed".
>> No. 33606 Anonymous
31st March 2025
Monday 8:11 pm
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Had one of those days today where I just didn't seem capable of getting off my arse and doing anything.

I planned to put a wash on, do the dishes, and go to the shop for a few bits. Not a packed schedule, but it took me until about 2pm to even get dressed, and all I've managed to do since then, between scrolling and shitposting, is potter about clearing up a few bits of rubbish. So I suppose better than nothing but still. I've no problem taking a day out to do nothing from time to time but I will regret it straight away tomorrow when I only have those tasks waiting for me after work.

The phrase "executive dysfunction" sounds horrible but roughly describes it, where you intend to do something and you will yourself to but for some reason you just don't. It's not that you consciously can't be arsed, just somehow the thought never manifests as movement and action. I've been doing a lot better for it lately and in general been on top of things, so it feels a bit shit to just lounge around and be useless all day.
>> No. 33607 Anonymous
3rd April 2025
Thursday 6:17 pm
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My friend used to send me youtube links to music videos and ancient alien tier conspiracies. I complained that I literally have to type out the link because I'm using a 'dumbphone', and would they please just tell me the video title instead. So they started doing that.
Now I get messages like "Blink 182 - One More Time (Official Video)", "Astrix - Deep Jungle Walk [Hommega Productions]" and even (I'm not kidding) "You won't believe what happens next".
I don't really know why I'm typing this, it's just that I don't have time for this friend anymore and I can't be arsed with this bollocks. I'm minded to say it'd be okay if they sent me a conversation about the link rather than just 'listen to this' or literally nothing but the title, but that has happened a couple of times and it's almost a greater chore.

I just don't like this person any more.

What's worse is that it's my brother. I can see how his attitude is deteriorating and he might be becoming a worse version of himself. I think that my withdrawal from him since he attacked me a couple of years ago is making him worse, like he has no conenction to who he used to be and his only friends now are dragging him down.

I don't fucking know, it's like I don't want to meet the resposibility of being a better influence in my brothers life than I imagine he's currently getting. But he's often a horrible person, I don't want to be subject to his literal violence, manipulations and tyranny. He's not as bad as those words make him sound but he is an abusive cunt to his family. It's as though he expects us, by shere threat of violence and vitriol, to love him.
>> No. 33608 Anonymous
3rd April 2025
Thursday 7:19 pm
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I applied for a job and spelled the company's name wrong in the cover letter.
>> No. 33609 Anonymous
3rd April 2025
Thursday 9:06 pm
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>>33608
When I had no skills or experience, I always used to say that my spelling and grammar were unparallelled, and I absolutely believe that they are. It was many years later that I discovered that nobody, anywhere, spells "unparallelled" the way that I do.
>> No. 33610 Anonymous
3rd April 2025
Thursday 11:13 pm
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>>33609
Did you find yourself being regularly rejected for no obvious reason? To be fair, your spelling of unparalleled is unparalleled.
>> No. 33611 Anonymous
3rd April 2025
Thursday 11:44 pm
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Do you think companies would respect me if I started writing cover letters to the effect of:
>"I don't like wasting people's time and 95% of applicants who are 'writing' cover letters are using AI text generators now."
Or would HR bury my CV so deep into the pit I'd be getting job offers to work in Hades?
>> No. 33612 Anonymous
4th April 2025
Friday 12:21 am
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>>33610
Very much yes, but I thought everyone did when it came to applying for jobs.
>> No. 33613 Anonymous
4th April 2025
Friday 1:04 am
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>>33611

Show, don't tell. If you don't want to waste their time, then keep your covering letter as short and to-the-point as possible and put the most important stuff first. Tailor your CV to the vacancy, don't pad it out with irrelevant guff and put some effort into the layout to make it as readable and skimmable as possible.

Bear in mind that this might backfire, because a lot of recruiters are now using AI that will auto-reject CVs that don't contain the right keywords.
>> No. 33614 Anonymous
4th April 2025
Friday 8:20 am
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>>33613
>Bear in mind that this might backfire, because a lot of recruiters are now using AI that will auto-reject CVs that don't contain the right keywords.

CV-scanning software is reading AI-generated CVs.
>> No. 33615 Anonymous
4th April 2025
Friday 9:11 am
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>>33613
>Bear in mind that this might backfire, because a lot of recruiters are now using AI that will auto-reject CVs that don't contain the right keywords.
Oh, don't worry, I'm well aware. But in my mind a straight-talking, no-nonsense Yorkshireman who has grafted his way into the C-suite will see my bold declaration of intent and employ me immediately, and on an extra few grand a year than was advertised.

Yeah, you cunts are laughing, but it's a better fantasy than "tailor your CV to the vacancy".

>>33614
No doubt these are the AI efficiency savings Starmer has been heralding. By the end of the decade it's thought that we might have a complete simulacra of a society and economy. Possibly even the armed forces could be rendered digitally? Have you ever played a Total War game on "very hard"? Those bastards get all kinds of buffs.
>> No. 33616 Anonymous
4th April 2025
Friday 1:07 pm
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>>33615
The AI efficiencies will be that when HR people have nothing to do, the government can pay them a lot less. But they’ll still need jobs so it won’t be possible to sack any of them. Our utopian Star Trek future will consist of an entire society of people talking in the office kitchen for 15 grand a year. It could be worse, but you usually get paid better when it’s worse.
>> No. 33617 Anonymous
4th April 2025
Friday 2:27 pm
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>>33615

>Possibly even the armed forces could be rendered digitally?

Anduril are investing billions to turn the US Army into an RTS.


>> No. 33618 Anonymous
4th April 2025
Friday 3:20 pm
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I've noticed a lot of companies now state that they will detect any AI generated CV, cover letter or whatever, but I do wonder how many legitimate people are rejected by this, or indeed how it works? If it's just a case of an AI pasting questions into other AIs to see if anyone has just copied those responses, then fair enough I suppose. But I do wonder. Of course, I'm sure fantastic candidates have ended up in the digital keyword bin for years now, but I'd love to know if anyone is actually looking in the rejects pile to see if the automation isn't a bit heavy handed.
>> No. 33619 Anonymous
4th April 2025
Friday 4:31 pm
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>>33618

The problem is there are only so many words in the English language, and there's only so many different ways you can string those words together to come out with the same meaning, especially when you are already applying a selection filter for a certain "correct" criteria. The same reason it's always been hard to really crack down on students copying their homework from Wikipedia is the same reason it's hard to really genuinely say "yep, an AI wrote this" and not just a person who writes in a good neutral tone.

In either case, if there's one job I am confident AI can handle, and I am entirely fine with being outright replaced and kicked onto the dole queue, it's HR. Sorry Gemma. You're going to be buying your rosé from Aldi from now on.
>> No. 33620 Anonymous
4th April 2025
Friday 5:54 pm
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>>33618

>I've noticed a lot of companies now state that they will detect any AI generated CV, cover letter or whatever, but I do wonder how many legitimate people are rejected by this, or indeed how it works?

Loads of companies claim to be able to detect AI writing, but none of them publish meaningful data on the false positive and false negative rate - a lot of them claim "less than 1% false positive rate", but they don't say what corpus of text they're testing against. Lots of marketing, very little transparency.

From my own experiments, they have good sensitivity for the outputs of very simple prompts, but are easily fooled by more detailed prompts that ask for a specific style - often something as simple as "use British English" or "write in the style of a GCSE student" will result in a false negative. Most of them seem to be trained against the GPT models and often completely fail to detect text written by less popular LLMs. TikTok is full of schoolkids and students swapping notes on how to beat AI detectors.

False positives are very unevenly distributed, with text written by non-native speakers being far more likely to trigger a false positive.
>> No. 33621 Anonymous
12th April 2025
Saturday 10:11 pm
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Well, it was a nice 72 hours, but I give up (again).
>> No. 33622 Anonymous
13th April 2025
Sunday 8:59 am
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Why shouldn't I stab people who make my life miserable?
>> No. 33623 Anonymous
13th April 2025
Sunday 11:32 am
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>>33622
>Why shouldn't I stab people who make my life miserable?
Because it'd make your life much more miserable, this time of your own accord. Not just prison, but the guilt of murder. If not that, then the stress of keeping your activity hidden and the resulting paranoia infecting your every day life. Perhaps even a confused desire to do it again, feeding back on the previous negetives.

Ultimately noone can make us feel anything. It's under our control, only taking that control is ill practiced. The only thing people can do is inspire us to feel, which again has to be picked up. Even technically a person with metal spikes in our gums can't make us feel an emotion if we're able to control ourselves - it's take incredible willpower and I don't know where delusion and supression come into it.
Although that does make me think of oxygen denial, which essentially feeds meditation. Who really practices meditation in extreme conditions? Or do the conditions not matter?

>>33621
>Well, it was a nice 72 hours, but I give up (again).
72 hours is nothing to scoff at. You've freely admitted this isn't the first time a span has been achieved. Next time aim for 96 hours.
>> No. 33624 Anonymous
13th April 2025
Sunday 8:55 pm
33624 Not sure where else to post this and I don't want to make a thread of it
Right so, I want to threaten to expose a rapist if he doesn't talk to me. Is this illegal? Not asking for anything from him except he's an ex-friend, and he's blocked me and lied to mutual friends about what he did, but I want to either expose him, talk to him, or both. The police have an open case but I didn't follow up my initial report because I only called 101 asking for advice, but they began asking me for victim contact details because they confirmed it was a crime, and the message evidence of her saying "it wasn't okay" and "don't call it rape, it even more traumatic" - though she said she forgave him and wouldn't talk to the police.

This is the message I've been drafting. Is there anything illegal in here considering I have screenshots of messages confirming almost everything? A couple of things were voice only, do I have to omit them before making a public accusation (posted online and sent to friends, family, and work)? Also is this one shit? If I can cripple his character and make every action, benign or otherwise, viewed with suspicion then that might be justice. The thing is that what he did might be forgivable as a drunken mistake - if he hadn't then defended himself by raising 5 different things which were all lies, most of which I have physical evidence of. He won't go to prison without her turning against him and I think she'll likely defend him to the end which would be her choice and for the friends she kept to help her with. Is there any way to better tailor this to destroy this person?

"In December 2023, Felipe slept with a friend who told me she was too drunk to consent, and it wasn't okay as she was clearly far more drunk than him. She had little/no memory of most of the night and trusted him to recount it to her (morning after Texts screenshot), said what he did wasn't okay (April Teams SS), but that she forgave him and had now spoken to him about it.
I told a mutual friend who questioned Felipe which revealed something else "very bad" happened that night (mutual screenshot). He claimed that it was "kind of" a date, she was already attracted to him, and that he'd "caught up". When I spoke to the [[is there any other word than 'victim' here?]] (mutual vs friend screenshots) she said none of this was true. But she had forgiven him regardless.

Felipe is a rapist. He took advantage of a friend. When she said she was clearly drunker than him and too drunk to consent, and that what he did was wrong, he became a rapist - just one whose [[victim? I'd rather not say it]] forgave him. He knows this because he then lied about it to a close friend about taking advantage of another friend. He tried to hit every point that would make it appear less bad because he knew how bad it was.

There's no way to distinguish his actions from that of a charming manipulator - They keep getting away with it because they're friendly and charming, and convince people that they're different. If they can't even admit what they did, how are they different, and how can they begin to change?"
>> No. 33625 Anonymous
13th April 2025
Sunday 8:58 pm
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>>33624
I just realised I cut a bit of context - posting on emo because I've had multiple therapy sessions about this, but I think I'm actually sitting on a crime and the reason I'm angry and upset over a year after it happened is because it's wrong. But this is really fucking my head up and I'd appreciate any advice - even if it's "mate chill out". Idk. I'm biased so I can't trust the friends I've spoken to who unilaterally agree it was a crime.
>> No. 33626 Anonymous
13th April 2025
Sunday 9:09 pm
33626 spacer
>>33624

This is incredibly unwise. If he is proven innocent you become guilty of blackmail and/or liber lor whatever. Big own goal then isn't it. In fact I think you'd be guilty of blackmail either way.

I'm not going to lie I didn't even read your full post but it already sounds like you just need to sit down and have a few deep breaths and have a word with yourself for even wanting to get involved and start stirring the pot of something which is quite evidently a job for the police and the justice system and will cause nothing but additional drama and mess if you go poking your oar in. I don't understand what goes through the minds of people like you who always want to interfere and meddle with things.

Just mind your own bloody business. You never help. You always make things worse for everyone involved. My only assumption is that you want to play the hero, you think you somehow are the one who knows best and who can come to the rescue, but never in my experience, are you anything but a fucking nosey parker with a god complex.
>> No. 33627 Anonymous
13th April 2025
Sunday 9:11 pm
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>>33624>>33625
My question to you is this: what are you hoping to achieve with this?
>> No. 33628 Anonymous
13th April 2025
Sunday 9:30 pm
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>>33624
It certainly sounds like one of those crimes that gets forgiven. If she doesn't want to send him away, then there isn't really anything the police can do, and the whole reason you want to get involved, I suspect, is because you know on some level that the police will not lock him away, either because they can't be bothered or because there just won't be enough evidence to prove him guilty. If you think that your assistance will be some kind of tipping point that gets him sent down, I am confident this will not happen.

>he's an ex-friend, and he's blocked me
This will make you seem less trustworthy, to be honest. I think you've missed your chance to expose him publicly. By all means warn every woman you know about him, but that's about the most you can do. Perhaps you could post on Facebook or wherever you were doing to do it, asking other friends what they think you should do (do not name him under any circumstances, but you could say "his name begins with F" and see if anyone else reaches out to you with a similar story), but if you do make a post like that, please be aware that everyone's going to say you need to tell the police, and that still doesn't mean that you should. And if you do this, your other friends who have confirmed parts of the story might be angry that you are using things they told you to try and start drama, no matter how righteous it might be to do so.

My advice, again, would just be to warn your female friends about him one-on-one, but absolutely do not try to publicly out him as a rapist in the way you are thinking of doing.
>> No. 33629 Anonymous
13th April 2025
Sunday 10:53 pm
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>>33624

>they were both drunk
>victim forgives him
>victim denies other account is true

Sounds like a messy interpersonal event which in reality, only two people on this earth have any true idea of how it went, and as is often the case in these matters, it sounds like there's a lot more to it than you are privy to.

Why do you feel the need to step in? I think that's the real substance here.
>> No. 33630 Anonymous
13th April 2025
Sunday 11:50 pm
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>My advice, again, would just be to warn your female friends about him one-on-one, but absolutely do not try to publicly out him as a rapist in the way you are thinking of doing.
This means a bit of a mass exposure as I'm on the kink scene in London and I know he's getting into it, and if I saw him I'd get him ejected from any event because he's untrustworthy and I have no reason to trust him until he talks to me. Whether or not I'm at the event, it doesn't make him less of a threat to the people in my circle who are.

>>33629
Got you - no, the victim told me via text - her account directly conflicts with the account he gave, which I also received via text. I misspoke, my bad.
The victim told me on Teams that what he did "wasn't okay" and that she "was far too drunk", when I called it 'rape', she said "don't call it that, it makes it even more traumatic". The mutual friend also told me that "something else bad happened that night, but I can't tell you about it but it's fine now".

>This will make you seem less trustworthy, to be honest.
Yeah, that's fair. I'm trying to be objective about this in terms of both phrasing and whether I should do it. I wouldn't go forward without evidence. I have texts showing the contradictions, and the sequence of interactions was him was this, him inviting me to his xmas party, me inviting him for a pint, then blocked.

>This is incredibly unwise. If he is proven innocent
He can't be. I have all the messages and timestamps which show he's guilty. That's why I'm also reluctant to raise this to the police in any more than vaguely describing things on 101. I'm actually wondering if the victim remembers what she said this now it's been so long, because it would probably make him appear much worse if she was now convinced of a different past than she said happened at the time.

I genuinely don't know if I actually have enough to put up a case myself without needing the victim as a witness - if her evidence is witness, she'd be perjuring herself if she denied it in court right?

>I'm not going to lie I didn't even read your full post
>Just mind your own bloody business. You never help. You always make things worse for everyone involved.
Sorry, what are you on mate? You didn't read my post, you don't know who I am, but you've got me pegged through and through? I think you're projecting some of your own affairs or interactions on this.

> In fact I think you'd be guilty of blackmail either way.
Blackmail for what, either admit to me what you did and tell me what you're going to do about it, or I'll tell everyone else?
That's a question, I don't know if that constitutes blackmail. Is the only legal option actually just to release the info instead?

>My question to you is this: what are you hoping to achieve with this?
For everyone who knows him to make their own decisions about him, and for me to not be the only person who isn't burdened by this knowledge because it's taking a toll on me and I really have no reason to keep that up. Therapy isn't helping, what else can? Even if it's a dickhead move, it's one that might be a solution for me to move on and stop internalising or caring.
>> No. 33631 Anonymous
13th April 2025
Sunday 11:53 pm
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>>33629
I was there on the night, and she doesn't remember most of it and got him to recollect it for her. She probably remembers more now, but you know how memory works.
I feel the need to step in because I don't like him, I was there, he made me complicit, and then my friend became incredibly defensive about him when I raised the issue, and she was recently out of toxic and potentially abusive relationship and is extremely trusting.
>> No. 33632 Anonymous
14th April 2025
Monday 12:31 am
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>>33631
>I feel the need to step in because I don't like him
Throughout your posts there've been significant phrasings and comments that together sound as though you're using anothers sexual misadventure to conduct a character assassination of somebody you dislike.
That's not to say that a potential rape didn't happen, rather that you're using the possibility of it to target a person you don't like, apparently under the guise of justice and concern.

If you go through with it, you're going to end up severly damaging your friendships and reputation, to the point you'll have to either double down on your supposed moral superiority or accept that you abused someones misfortune for your own ends.

The so called victim has stated to you their intentions - the best thing you could do as a friend is respect them while supporting their needs. They can always prosecute later if necessary, where you can offer copies of evidence.
>> No. 33634 Anonymous
14th April 2025
Monday 1:47 am
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>>33632
>anothers sexual misadventure
That's not a sexual misadventure, it's rape. He knows that because otherwise he wouldn't have lied about half a dozen elements from that night which implied consent to various degrees.

>The so called victim has stated to you their intentions.
The victim is exceptionally trusting and kind, and defended her abusive ex partner for years. "Don't call it rape, that makes it even more traumatic", and "I woke up in his bed with the fear" sound like statements of a victim to me. Am I wrong there?

>the best thing you could do as a friend is respect them while supporting their needs.
I spent 400 days following this logic, and spoke about all details to two different therapists and a dozen friends before deciding to post here for your perspective. Now I'm considering that the long run, not the short, is important, and that the kind of person who will lie to one of his closest friends, about raping another friend, who is also in an open relationship on the kink scene, has no reason not to do it again. That's essentially it.

>you abused someones misfortune for your own ends.
Sorry but what are you on about? If he is a lying rapist, whom I only dislike *because* he's a lying rapist and have no other issue with, how does exposing him fulfil my 'own ends' in any way that isn't morally justified?
>> No. 33635 Anonymous
14th April 2025
Monday 1:53 am
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>>33630

It's a cynical interpretation, but do consider the possibility before you go all in. In my experience watching this type of situation play out it often ends up being the case.

The possibility exists that the reason she doesn't want to pursue it further is because it isn't actually as cut and dry as she's made it sound to you. She doesn't want to tell you the full story because it will make her sound bad as well as him. She wants to protect her own reputation and be the victim rather than an accomplice, but she wants to stop short of pressing any further with it because she knows it's not actually what happened.

Big warning sign is this "something else bad happened" that she doesn't want to talk about. Who knows what that is. But she knows well enough that nothing good will come of telling you. She doesn't want you to know because either it reflects badly on her, or she knows you'll react in an undesired way.

It sounds like in either case your interference isn't wanted by your friend, and you are mostly looking for an excuse to get at this guy. I'd suggest you shelve it.
>> No. 33637 Anonymous
14th April 2025
Monday 2:08 am
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>>33635
>She doesn't want to tell you the full story because it will make her sound bad as well as him.
She already has told me the full story, and I saw her until 10 minutes before they got back to his so there's no way she was responsible for anything in her state.
I asked her about every point he raised and she denied every single one. I've not shared the full story here but it's for verbosities sake - there are a lot of marginal factors which make it worse within context.

For example, her phone was on DND when I called her to check about meeting, and so I called him. He said she changed her mind, but this was suspicious so I went by the bar and saw them kissing. Afterwards, I said I and she hugged me, held my hand, and asked me where I wanted to go for a drink. When we were walking to another bar, she asked where we were going and Felipe said "Back to mine" and started acting like I didn't belong. She was struggling to walk down stairs, she fell over and fell into the road multiple times, and I actually decided to trust him because it was inconceivable that he'd take advantage of someone so drunk. I'd seen multiple other men in the friend network take care of women that drunk before and never seen them take advantage.

>Big warning sign is this "something else bad happened" that she doesn't want to talk about.
I was given so many details about that night by both her and the mutual friend, that the only thing it realistically could have been is not using protection when she would have wanted to use protection sober.

>It sounds like in either case your interference isn't wanted by your friend, and you are mostly looking for an excuse to get at this guy. I'd suggest you shelve it.
Fair suggestion, but I could have done that a year ago. I want his friends to be aware so they can speak to him, and in my petty moments I want to send the messages to his work too.
Realistically, I only want about 6 people who are closest to him (not family or work) to know this for the purpose of preventing any further harm to come to others.
>> No. 33638 Anonymous
14th April 2025
Monday 3:15 am
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>>33637
What's the plan for if you tell people and nothing happens? How would you cope with that?
>> No. 33639 Anonymous
14th April 2025
Monday 9:15 am
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>>33637

>Fair suggestion, but I could have done that a year ago.

And you should still do it now. You sound like you have just as much trouble respecting a woman's wishes as rapistlad.
>> No. 33640 Anonymous
14th April 2025
Monday 10:21 am
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>>33637
It seems like everyone is telling you not to do this so you've come here hoping we'll say the opposite. Obviously it's something that's bothering you a lot that you're struggling to drop it but finding some other way to deal with that itch seems advisable.
>> No. 33641 Anonymous
14th April 2025
Monday 4:14 pm
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>>33630
Fellow degenerate here, on the kink scene somewhere else. It seems to me that you are missing the very obvious solution of quietly raising this to event organisers on the scene, or posting on UK Safety Alerts.

Perhaps the barrier to that is that you're not actually the victim here- I think that should be a sign that it's not your place to do this. If the victim doesn't want to act, that is her call, and as otherlad said, you're doing a piss poor job of respecting her wishes. It may well be that this situation isn't quite what you think it is, but even if you're absolutely right about everything, it has to be on her to report him. The absolute best you can do here is have a quiet word with organisers and then leave it. I have previously had to do this when someone stalked a friend who didn't want to kick up a fuss, and I was quite happy with the response- they wouldn't ban without the actual victim asking for it, but they kept an eye and most likely prevented further trouble.
>> No. 33643 Anonymous
16th April 2025
Wednesday 2:28 pm
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>>33638
Feel relieved in a sense that I was blowing it out of proportion and everyone can move on. Ultimately I just want to move on, regardless of any dislike of him moral whateverness. It's taking a toll on me that isn't fair, and I've let that happen for a while but my health is getting worse and it's related to the issues this causes my sleep. It's a tangible impact and it's costing me energy and life and even if it causes trouble for others, I should stop caring about that and look after myself.

I think I made a mistake posting 'both sections' here. The first part was what I originally drafted, with just the neutral facts and what was relayed. The second part, where I called him a rapist, was a 3am drunk diatribe because I was feeling angry at him, and I think that's conflated some stuff.

>>33640
Everyone is telling me different things. I'm coming here because I'm fed up with mulling it over, I've gone to therapy, I've made an effort to move on, but enough people have told me "You need to stop thinking about others" and "You witnessed a crime" that I'm becoming angry and it's affecting my life. I don't want to carry this anymore, even if I'm a piece of shit for it, I'm starting not to care. It's wearing me down and impacting my health, and I've tried many other alternatives before reaching this point, and I'm still on the fence about it because I'm not taking this lightly.

I'm coming here because when I feel like I'm on the verge of doing it, I just want to be informed about what I'm doing and the possible consequences so I can make my own decision and if it's a mistake, it'll be my own fuck up and no-one elses.

>Fellow degenerate here, on the kink scene somewhere else. It seems to me that you are missing the very obvious solution of quietly raising this to event organisers on the scene, or posting on UK Safety Alerts.
Right so I considered this, but isn't it in a way more nuclear than telling a few specific friends?
I'm essentially exposing him as problematic to the entire kink community in London if I do this. I actually live with 3 different people who monitor various parties - these also being the ones who've told me that yes, it was rape - so I have a privileged level of access in that sense.

>It may well be that this situation isn't quite what you think it is,
I'm unfortunately the one who has the most information about it, and the only one who has heard all sides. I was there, and I met up with the victim the next day, and she was a very close friend for years. My issue is that the situation isn't what others think it is, not vice versa.

>>33640
>And you should still do it now. You sound like you have just as much trouble respecting a woman's wishes as rapistlad.
You should stop taking advantage of women lad. Don't blame the people who notice.

Just to ask anyone else reading this bit - is this person seeming confusingly aggressive/personal? They seemed to have just compared me to a rapist for saying I'm conflicted about something and considering taking action to expose a crime, after saying they didn't even read my post before telling me exactly what kind of person (they think) I am?
>> No. 33644 Anonymous
16th April 2025
Wednesday 2:57 pm
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>>33643
I think I'm going to start by contacting the mutual friend with the first part, saying "Because of this I don't feel safe knowing he may be in venues I'm attending, and if he won't speak to me then you need to communicate this with him, and by extension her". If the anger is taken out of the equation and I'm somehow able to get past that in future, then that's the tangible concern in my life addressed in a way that also shares in the information with a relevant party, albeit one who is firmly on the side of the perpetrator but was clearly lied to.

Idk, feels like no right answers except for "get over it". Tried that and it didn't work, what's next if not this?
>> No. 33645 Anonymous
16th April 2025
Wednesday 5:51 pm
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I'm not trying to be a dick, but if this doesn't warrant it's own thread then what the fuck does?
>> No. 33646 Anonymous
16th April 2025
Wednesday 8:02 pm
33646 spacer
>>33643
>Everyone is telling me different things.
We're all telling you not to do what you planned to do. The rest is just minor detail.

>I'm becoming angry and it's affecting my life.
That's your problem.

Consider the following: last month, I posted in a thread here about how I'd paid a gypsy roofer £2000 for a job that only took three hours. He quoted me for the work, I said yes, and I queried it afterwards but I wound up paying. My roof no longer has squirrels in it. That's the background, if you didn't read my post at the time.

Now, imagine someone wanted to go out and start putting up posters everywhere telling people not to hire this roofer. I don't want them to do that. They asked me for two grand and I said okay, and I can really only blame myself for that. You are, in your own story, sounding like you would want to kick up a huge fuss and pursue this roofer. You sound like you would draw a huge amount of attention to it, and plaster my name all over your crusade for righteous justice. I will tell you right that if you said you wanted to do that, I would order you not to. I blame myself, and you might say I shouldn't, but I do, and I bet your female friend feels the same way. She just wants to move on with her life, and she regrets the decision but she doesn't want to be associated with it and she would rather you didn't keep bringing it up. You aren't doing this for her; you are doing this for yourself and telling yourself you're doing it for her. She might agree that on paper, a bad thing happened, but much like my roof is now fixed, there is every possibility that there are mitigating circumstances you don't know about with her. She said that "something else happened", and my assumption is that she said, in her drunk state, that she was willing to take it up the bum or get pissed on or something. Imagine having that story spread around about you as part of a friend's crusade to protect your dignity. It would have the opposite effect. She already feels bad, and you're coming here asking us to justify your decision to make it worse. We all keep saying: don't. You might disagree, and ultimately it is your decision, but you're not helping her as much as you think you are. And ultimately, at the end of the day, nothing you say or do can un-rape her; it's just about dealing with it. She sounds like she is dealing with it relatively well.

I've said already: if you want to tell people that Felipe is a rapist, then that's fine by me. But you will have to do so without involving your friend in any way, and it really sounds like you aren't going to be able to do that.

>Just to ask anyone else reading this bit - is this person seeming confusingly aggressive/personal?
I don't think that any of the posts replying to you are excessively disrespectful. We just disagree with you, and you're pushing back. Perhaps in your efforts to leave out certain details, you are leaving out a detail that would make us all gasp and form a lynch mob, but as it stands, you have told us a story where a woman got raped, but there's more to the story that she isn't willing to tell you, and you want to keep bringing it up until justice happens. I, for one, am sceptical that you can do anything that leaves both you and everyone else satisfied.
>> No. 33647 Anonymous
20th April 2025
Sunday 12:08 pm
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My siblings and I share quite close or atleast regular relationships, usually seeing one another weekly, but over the past couple of months I've compeltely gone off visiting them. I'm finding myself less willing to entertain the aspects of them that annoy me - lifestyle and attitudes.

The particular sibling in question has started to comment that they never see me any more and if I'm okay, but it's always a pretext to asking me to feed their fucking cat.
I wish they'd sort out their own life to stop asking me for help, that they'd go through their finances and adjust their shopping so their fridge actually has something in it, that they seperate their rubbish into bins so it doesn't stink of fucking rot, to disallow their son to claim the TV every single time he's present in the living room, to stop talking so bossy with their nose up their own arse, etc.

Obviously I can't say these things without causing an issue, but I haven't visited them in ages and the nephew is starting to ask 'where's uncle?'.

Fuck sake.
>> No. 33648 Anonymous
20th April 2025
Sunday 1:05 pm
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I've mentioned before that I have always had an attraction toward East Asian women and how it made me uncomfortable as a white guy. After some disappointing relationships I've started actively dating white women and while I can talk about the differences in experiance it makes me wonder what I'm doing here if I end up with someone who isn't my 'type'.

It's about finding whatever works isn't it, I won't regret this if I end up making kids with a ginger lass I've started seeing?

>>33647
Well let's say that you do tell them how you feel and they take it badly, they'll stop reaching out to you? I mean for heaven's sake, they probably assume they've said something to offend you.

Before you do that take a minute to reflect on why it's really upsetting you. You'll get your message across if you avoid making it a judgement and if you properly express what you need from the relationship, say something like 'when I see you struggling to pay the bills again, it worries me and makes me feel like I'm being taken advantage of. I really think it will improve your life if you sit down and try to budget - I'll gladly help you get started on this.'

He says from a position of having his own wasteman brothers that he never sees.
>> No. 33650 Anonymous
20th April 2025
Sunday 1:41 pm
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You're out and about, you see them. Always A4, picture up top, 14pt text below with a description that makes sense only only to the person that wrote it.

For a few days now there is "Nancy". Tabby cat, collar and a leash. 14 years old. I respect the effort, but Nancy found a nice place and died.

And this makes me cry, they must know that cat is dead. Probably died peacefully. I could call them, but they'll want proof. I don't have proof, it's just them's them beans. Cat's dead, possibly in a better place.
>> No. 33651 Anonymous
22nd April 2025
Tuesday 12:49 pm
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>>33538 here again.

>Well, it's a year to the day since she confessed to the affair and she's still fucking here. I've tried to avoid blogposting on this, but hopefully she's moving out this time as she had an offer accepted on a house in December. As long as she doesn't pull out or end up in a psychiatric unit this time...

She's pulled out of buying a house for the second time, telling me that it was the vendor and not her but she couldn't give a reason why. It's listed on Rightmove again. I've contacted the estate agent pretending to be a prospective buyer and they've confirmed a) she delayed completing it before the stamp duty changes at the end of last month and b) she pulled out due a 'change in her circumstances.'

Fuck me. This is never going to end, is it? If it wasn't for the kids I'd have booted her out long ago.
>> No. 33652 Anonymous
22nd April 2025
Tuesday 11:07 pm
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>>33651

>This is never going to end, is it?

No, it's not, you will have to move out if you want to be rid of the situation. You don't want to and you shouldn't have to, but it's the only move that defeats the stalemate she's completely willing to sit in for an indefinite amount of time. She's nothing else to lose, she's not going to make the move.
>> No. 33653 Anonymous
23rd April 2025
Wednesday 1:17 pm
33653 spacer
>>33652
I bought her out last year, she has the money to buy somewhere else but she hasn't. Whether it's because she can't manage it, I've done more digging and the buyer pulled out as she went radio silent for almost a month because she said she mentally couldn't deal with it, or because she hopes I'll eventually give up who knows? I feel like she's on course for another breakdown.
>> No. 33654 Anonymous
23rd April 2025
Wednesday 10:10 pm
33654 spacer
>>33651
>>33653
Mate with all due respect, if you now own all shares in the house outright and she's a tenant why not start charging rent? Better yet why not sell it? You owe this woman nothing.
>> No. 33655 Anonymous
23rd April 2025
Wednesday 10:19 pm
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>>33654
I can imagine the kids might not understand the subtlety of daddy being so mean to mummy.
>> No. 33656 Anonymous
24th April 2025
Thursday 12:04 am
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>>33653
Your evident immense wealth, at least compared to most of us here, makes me wonder if it would be viable to rent her a flat for a month and visit her every day of that month so she can get used to not living with you any more.

How old are your kids again, and are they aware that their mother is a self-destructive, don’t-let-her-have-shoelaces type of woman? Or does she seem fine to them?
>> No. 33657 Anonymous
24th April 2025
Thursday 7:33 am
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>>33654
I want to avoid selling and moving if I can help it because I want as much stability for the kids as possible. I'm not formally charging rent or doing anything where she could be legally seen as a tenant, but I am using some of the savings building up to overpay the mortgage.

>>33656
That's not viable. I'm not sure how much the kids have picked up on, I am trying to shield them from this although they're usually more perceptive than people give them credit for, but she does burst out crying every now and then.
>> No. 33658 Anonymous
24th April 2025
Thursday 9:32 am
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>>33657

That's all well and good but you can't have the cake and eat it. She is plain and simply using the fact you don't want to disrupt the kid's lives to hold you in this defacto "stay together for the kids" stalemate.

It's a loveless, joyless relationship where she knows you resent her and want nothing more to do with her, but that's not a great deal different to most marriages. She's still getting all the material benefit of you as a man being there to provide the roof over her head and make sure the kids have a stable home, in fact even better than before because you are footing the whole bill now. She's not exactly happy with it, but it's a lot better than her other options.

She isn't going to make any significant effort to change the situation. You have to understand that.

(I'm not saying this out of whale poachery bitterness either, just putting myself in her shoes.)
>> No. 33659 Anonymous
25th April 2025
Friday 6:15 pm
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I lent someone a laptop bag yesterday, but I just realised that I didn't check the pockets before giving it to them. I can't imagine what embarrassing or incriminating item I might have left in it, but I'm still feeling completely paranoid. In the dysfunctional corners of my subconscious, I'm already preparing for my life to completely fall apart. I don't know precisely how the discovery of a phone charger or half a packet of mints will ruin my life, I'm just convinced that it's going to happen.
>> No. 33660 Anonymous
25th April 2025
Friday 7:18 pm
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>>33659
I found an old SD card in something I bought from a charity shop last year. It had a scan of the previous owner's driving licence, some photos of horses on it and nothing else. I had hoped for some absolutely vile nudes, but no such luck.
>> No. 33661 Anonymous
25th April 2025
Friday 11:59 pm
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>>33659

Don't worry, I'm sure it's not that ham-fisted love note from your high school ex or the crude attempt at making your own furry porn you drew 15 years ago. Your mum found those when she was moving your old things into the loft after you left for uni. Life goes on.

Okay but real talk the strategy I found that works is to have a phrase you repeat to disrupt those intrusive thoughts when they pop up. You have to catch them as they occur and short circuit them. It takes practice but you can eventually catch them before they come up.
>> No. 33662 Anonymous
26th April 2025
Saturday 12:28 am
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>>33661

Yeah, but then I just end up yelling "FUCK OFF! FUCK FUCK FUCK OFF!", which really doesn't sound healthy.
>> No. 33663 Anonymous
27th April 2025
Sunday 1:13 pm
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I didn't really have any success sexually until I was 21. I met my wife when I was 22. I only had just over a year of playing the field. I love my wife a lot but I can't help but feel like I missed out in some ways. I never got the chance to suck a transwoman off.
>> No. 33683 Anonymous
15th May 2025
Thursday 4:32 pm
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Who can I talk to about sex in a safe informed manner, who isn't my family (do I even have to say this?), nor a friend?
>> No. 33684 Anonymous
15th May 2025
Thursday 7:03 pm
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>>33683

If you can afford it, a therapist specialising in psychosexual and relationship issues.

https://www.bacp.co.uk/search/Therapists

If you can't, try your local sexual health clinic - they don't just do STI tests and hand out johnnies.

https://www.nhs.uk/nhs-services/sexual-health-services/find-a-sexual-health-clinic/

If you're under 25, you could speak to Brook.

https://www.brook.org.uk/
>> No. 33685 Anonymous
16th May 2025
Friday 5:32 pm
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>>33684
Thanks, this is great.
>> No. 33686 Anonymous
22nd May 2025
Thursday 1:29 pm
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My mother recently went on a rural holiday. Within 3 days she was trying to call me to regale her honeymoon experience. My phone run out of battery and I neglected to charge it for a week - the relief was bliss. Now she's returned and had sat in my room while I drowsily slept, telling me she's got stage 3 kidney disease. I've since recieved a message saying something like "I'm gonna go live in the country".

I have barely responded to any of this nor visited her properly since her return. We're a close family, it's usually welcome back on the dock.
But this time (not the first, admittedly) it's left as though I don't care. I'm telling myself I don't care about their holiday (just enjoy your holiday, for fuck sake). I don't really care about the kidney disease (NHS website it's probably not a lot to worry about) and I don't particularly want to visit her to catch up.

I feel bad about this but I'm also partially convincing myself it's okay.

Numerous times throughout our childhood she just fucking left for holidays and god knows what. Not for long, but for long enough that it became a statement. If it's not holidays it's work or any such adventure. Every couple of years she gets cold feet and needs to go out and do something different, which would be wonderful if she didn't drag the nest out on her way, then kick it coming back. Will you just fuck off?.
>> No. 33687 Anonymous
22nd May 2025
Thursday 1:37 pm
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>>33686
If you'll excuse me double posting, when she left for holiday It was such a huge relief that I got fucking blazed for the first time in years and had sex with myself for an entire week - familiar shame and judgement unusually absent from the experience.
>> No. 33688 Anonymous
22nd May 2025
Thursday 3:09 pm
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>>33686

I text my mum about once every three months. I visit at Christmas. I dunno, we have never been a close family anyway so it doesn't feel as bad I guess, but like. It's your mum, it's not like that bond just eventually evaporates like it would with a normal friendship. You both know you are still going to be there.
>> No. 33689 Anonymous
24th May 2025
Saturday 7:22 pm
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God, my mum's so fucking annoying. She'll tell me one little bit about a problem, I'll say words approximating "that doesn't sound too bad", in an attempt to reassure her, at which point she'll list five additional layers of shit that she never brought up, but do, in fact, make the situation worse than I could have known. Of course, she then acts like I'm being all dismissive of her problems and like I don't care. Well, fuck you, I don't care anymore, not least because while the problems are serious, they're always bonkers shit that a rational person would never actually have to deal with.

I guess this is now the parent problems thread.
>> No. 33690 Anonymous
27th May 2025
Tuesday 8:42 am
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This all sounds rather odd to me. My mum calls once every couple of weeks or texts me asking to borrow (give) her some money a couple times a year but apart from that we're on rather amicable terms. I pop round every now and again to catch up with them properly and speak to my brothers who will pop round at the same time and make a half day of it, but apart from that we live relatively independent lives.
>> No. 33691 Anonymous
27th May 2025
Tuesday 11:14 am
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>>33383
Marriage improved sex. It was literally all in my head.

Jodie Marsh I don't like anymore because she publically shames anyone who leaves a somewhat negative comment on anything relating to her. I've never left a negative comment but she seems very thin skinned.

Like I get Jodie is doing good with her animal sanctuary, but she did go to a pub with a meerkat so she's not exactly a perfect animal rehabber. Anyone who asks even an unwanted question has their photo and comment added to an album of Jodie Marsh critics and Jodie says nasty things.

And her commenters say even nastier things - threatening to beat up the exposed people, calling them Karens, calling them ugly. While Jodie claimed to be a paragon of anti-bullying because she got trolled to tears over her beak. Pathetic.
>> No. 33692 Anonymous
27th May 2025
Tuesday 11:16 pm
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I hate talking to my mother. I could climb a mountain earn a degree and cure cancer and that would be 2 lines of conversation before she cuts me off and starts talking about some mundane thing she's done for 20 minutes.

I'm never talked with so much as talked at. I know narcissistic is a buzz word on the internet but it is definitely apt. I don't think I have had a conversation with her my entire life where my feelings were considered.

I try to keep my conversations now infrequent and functional. I can barely stand to see her and my dad for Christmas.

Last time I did see her in person was I drove to visit her in hospital after she had had a heart attack. It was a surprisingly revealing conversation, in that she was talking about when I was very young and how she didn't have many friends. And it somewhat recontectulised my view of her, she probably wasn't very liked by her peers when she was my age and that she never really has known how to connect with people. It put a human side to someone who attitude to me has been relentlessly cold and controlling.
>> No. 33693 Anonymous
28th May 2025
Wednesday 3:23 am
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My mum is actually quite enjoyable to talk to. She's always got good advice, is pleasant and amicable, and often offers to help me with things like my garden, the laundry and so on because she's retired and knows I'm busy.

It's a real fucking shame she wasn't like that when she was supposed to be raising me. I'm only the person I am now because I left home as soon as I could and unlearned all the bad behaviours I got from her.
>> No. 33695 Anonymous
28th May 2025
Wednesday 10:24 am
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>>33692

I think you already have your answer, mate. It's a bit shocking to realise that your parents are just flawed people, not much better or worse than anyone you find on the street. As parents, they'ree not just flawed in dramatic or abusive ways, but they're also susceptible to the same pettiness, insecurity, and commonplace failure that we all are.

The validation that people often want from their parents, to have those authority figures from your early life come back around and fully appreciate how far you've come and your achievements as an adult... I've realised that it just doesn't bloody happen that way for most of us. Not even for any good reason, either, but for all the mundane reasons people fail at all sorts of other things in life.

I'm >>32904 and >>31726. At some point it just sort of clicked for me that my parents were not being malicious, but they are often distracted, self-centred, and distant -- just like I am and have been towards them. I'm probably not ever going to have the kind of relationship with them I'd like. I'm never going to be friends with them, I'm not going to be a source of pride and joy for them, and I'm not going to get any "closure" from them about how hard some things in my life were, or how I've had to do so much of it on my own.

So the last time I went to visit them, I treated it like visiting old school mates or colleagues. I didn't tie their words to my self-worth. I tried not to take everything as somehow loaded with the history of our relationship. Yes, these people have seen me cry and shit myself, but I've made a lot more of my life in the intervening three decades. I just took their company as it came, as two pleasant older folks living in my hometown and that were kind enough to feed me during my visit.

And you know what? It went alright. Ironically, the lack of pressure might have helped them open up a bit more. Like I say, I've come to accept that I'll never get the recognition I want from them, but I can at least enjoy the time I have with them and appreciate their better qualities.
>> No. 33696 Anonymous
28th May 2025
Wednesday 11:21 am
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>>33695
A very insightful post, thanks for making the effort.
I didn't think to ask at the time but those images in your previous posts seem unusually fitting - did you make them yourself? I like the idea that your an artist or some creative type, though I'm also imagining a blue shirt wearing, slender professional in an open and bright office.
>> No. 33697 Anonymous
28th May 2025
Wednesday 8:09 pm
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>>33696

That's kind of you to say. I wanted to be the former, I have a big easel and sketchbook downstairs, but I've ended up as the latter. Such is life.

The posted bits of art aren't by me, but one comes from a search for 'claustrophobia' that I can't find a credit for, and the other is an image by Yeji Yun from an illustrated version of the novel The Outsider by Albert Camus.
>> No. 33699 Anonymous
2nd June 2025
Monday 4:21 pm
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>>33686
>My mother recently went on a rural holiday.
>I've since recieved a message saying "I'm gonna go live in the country".
11 days later she's confirmed she's moving and has lined up a rental property. I have barely spoken to her since she returned almost 2 weeks ago (brief awkward phonecall). In that time I haven't made an effort to visit her at all.

It's happened before that I've neglected/dropped contact with people in similar situations, and I think that's happening now. I understand it as avoiding the emotional disturbance by cutting it before the worst (I mean, that's obvious really). Other times I've interpretted this as punishing people by withdrawing my attention - I know that's a bit psychologically fucked. I've tried to counter this somewhat by responding 'I hope you have a good time away' but it definitely feels passive aggressively minimal considering the circumstances. I justify this believing it's happened numerous times now that mum has fucked off. We've spoke about it a little and she seems to remember timeframes differently to me. That suggests the events had a greater emotional impact on me than they objectively should have, or maybe less on her. Either way adandonment is a recurring theme in my brothers and my lifestyles, both of us developing methods to protect ourselves.

I don't fucking know, I guess I'll finally find the freedom to become the disgusting version of a evangelist christian korean youtuber while she's away. Who knows, maybe I'll get a job and she'll see I'm less of a retard than we realised when she next visits.

I want to withdraw, I think, while the healthier thing would probably be to rally arround the others effected and help support one another.

What I don't understand is, if I'm trying to convince myself not to care why not just go to see her and celebrate that 'yay you're starting a new chapter in life' etc? I guess it's because I'm part of the previous chapters in her life than that she's willing to abandon them? But she's got her own life and all that .. all the while teaching us to be there for each other?
I don't understand this shit. She'd have me believe it's okay to be one of those old fucking man-children virgins who visit their mothers with flowers every weekend, all the while behaving like she's the one desperate to get away? She used to hold my arm while out walking, for fuck sake. She used to do this horrible fucking slurp in our ears every time we'd kiss goodbye - apparently not noticing how inapropriate and fucking hated it was the CUNT.
>> No. 33700 Anonymous
2nd June 2025
Monday 5:47 pm
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>>33699
There's a lot of baggage with all of this that I'm not entirely seeing but honestly at the heart of it she just sounds like she's doing old mum things which is a bit boring, yeah, but that's family for you rather than it being a massive psychological issue. Mine rings me up to talk about her health too and ask about whatever end of the world thing she's read online which I just endure and treat it like exercising a muscle. I feel for my dad because he's always trying to watch telly in the background while she's rudely on the phone. Can't get any bloody peace even in retirement can you.

I'm not sure you can really cut your own mother off for it even if she is a bit of a cunt, just visit once a month so you stay in contact as you might come to regret it. And don't cut your cock off or whatever it is you're thinking either, we'd rather you kept your cock and balls.
>> No. 33701 Anonymous
2nd June 2025
Monday 6:28 pm
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>>33700
I'm sorry, I'm being a bit of a twat. Thank you for the response.
>> No. 33702 Anonymous
6th June 2025
Friday 11:58 pm
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I needed an attachment for a small hose. I phoned my father who has sold hose parts for water filtration systems for 20 years, I show him exactly what part I need. It isn't that he doesn't know how to get a part, that would be fine it is that he then starts sending me messages with "what about this" to me with what are clearly the wrong part (as well he should know from looking at the picture I sent him originally), from a Google search like I'm not capable of doing the exact same thing. I thought I could give him a cheap win to bond over. Instead it is just a dragging me into the undertow of his clearly cluttered mind.

All I wanted was a yes no on if he recognises a 75p price of kit or knows the technical terms to describe it, so I can order one from somewhere but he cannot help going on weird tedious crusades, where basic tasks seem to have some concealed level of tedium and complexity. In fact the reality is I got a couple of descriptive words out of him said thank you and hung up the phone, the rest is his unsolicited meddling.

I realise this seems like a lot of a rant over a small thing. It is just a process throughout my entire life where nothing is ever just easy with my parents. It's always a monkey paw of a meandering chain of connected small tasks that individually seem minor but combined form a seemingly endless chain.

I think this is probably best captured by the fact that they have a slow loading television with a slow loading off brand skybox which they don't even have the correct remote for the TV it is a different one that happens to cross over signal on some functions. A healthy mind would have diagnosed and fixed the problem years ago but they live in a self perpetuating sickness where one problem stacks on another, so no simple task is ever actually simple. My mother seemingly weaponises this mode of thinking 'could you just put that in the dishwasher' is a trap what that phrase means is that the dishwasher has clean things in it, can you empty and put away all the things in it then put that one item in it. Nothing is ever permitted to be simple in their vicinity.

The hoarding is of a spectacular level. Imagine a disorganised scrap yard full of industrial cleaning equipment inside a house. I can feel the mind disease that that creates these patterns when there is a fixation on bringing me wrong answers, to a question that was never asked.

I don't visit them often I thought asking for a small piece of help was safe.
>> No. 33703 Anonymous
7th June 2025
Saturday 5:23 pm
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How do you stop thinking about what could have been?

15 years ago, I picked a Midlands uni as my firm choice, and a Scottish uni as my insurance. I scraped the grades to get into the former.

During those 15 years, I've struggled with really bad mental health. I've made and lost friends, met and married my wife, and suffered mentally.

This week I visited the Scottish city that was my insurance choice. I walked past the uni halls. Made me wonder if things would have worked out better had I done worse in Biology.

I likely wouldn't have met my wife - I don't believe in the whole soulmate and cosmic attraction shit. Would I have a Scottish wife who is better? Or they could be worse.

This post has no real point, I just think about that point in my VN where the plot diverged, and I wonder if the other route would be more enjoyable.

If killing myself would allow me to reload into a point 15 years ago and choose differently, I would certainly consider it.
>> No. 33704 Anonymous
7th June 2025
Saturday 8:07 pm
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>>33703

>If killing myself would allow me to reload into a point 15 years ago and choose differently, I would certainly consider it.

I think a lot of people would, or maybe I'm just projecting, because I have similar thoughts. There's lots of forks in the road of my life that I just wonder if I should have taken. Equally though, there's a lot of things I could have done differently if I had known better. If I had known more about myself and what I was good at, I'd have picked a better degree and likely been much better off financially, and from that I'd have been better off mentally too. Money doesn't buy happiness but it certainly relieves stress and hardship.

Anyway, when I find myself thinking about what I'd give to turn the clock back a decade or two, I just try to remember that I can't, and to try and make improvements in my life that will lead to me in another ten or fifteen years not having to wish I could go back to now to do things differently here.
>> No. 33705 Anonymous
7th June 2025
Saturday 9:07 pm
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>>33704
Very true. It's just hard not to think about it I guess. I just have to hold out hope that when I die I get isekai'd into a different fork in life. Or something altogether better, like the world of Monster Girl Quest.
>> No. 33706 Anonymous
7th June 2025
Saturday 9:23 pm
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>>33703

I can't remember which episode it was exactly, I have a feeling maybe the Neitzsche one, but part of what gets explored in this program had a very formative effect on how I look at my life, the kind of "what ifs" you mention here, and their relation to my satisfaction with how it's turned out over the years.

https://www.channel4.com/programmes/philosophy-a-guide-to-happiness

The whole series is well worth a watch and even though it must have been at least fifteen years ago I watched it, I still find I am calling back to it in posts here all the time.

Personally I only really have one big "proper" regret, and it's over the girl I was with in the pre-covid before times. I only really had quite minor problems with her in retrospect, but I left because I was a fool who didn't realise how much of a diamond she was, and that in my youthful naivety, I didn't realise finding another like her might not ever even happen.

I've had a load of shit jobs in my life, I fucked up sixth form and college three times and didn't go to uni, but I don't really regret any of that, I've found my own way in life regardless. I've done alright for myself, and that's in no way a "cope", I wouldn't want it another way, because if it had been different then I wouldn't be me. The version of me who did stick his head down to revise for his A-levels and went to uni straight out of school would probably earn more money, but be much more naive, sheltered, and frankly probably a bit of a wet wipe. I wouldn't respect him.

And to circle back around that's the bit that has stuck with me through the years from that program, the way that everything you have been through over the years is what makes you who you are- And it's not so much about whether you would have enjoyed life more, but if you would still be the same person, and if you like who you are/would have been.
>> No. 33707 Anonymous
9th June 2025
Monday 8:56 am
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My therapist wants me to be more social and ask my colleague if she wants to hang out. I think she probably would, but the idea of being zeroed in as a big-freak-oddball is horrible. This isn't a romantic thing either, for the record. Honestly, it might be easier if it was, because I can live with the idea that someone doesn't want to shag me (it's a given), but it's way worse to have to think about why someone can't even stand talking to you. It would also help if there was literally anything to do around here.

Also, I took a chance on some watermelon chewing gum yesterday and it's rubbish.
>> No. 33708 Anonymous
9th June 2025
Monday 10:04 am
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>>33707
I don’t know your colleague and I don’t know what your relationship with her is like, but I think you have a better chance if you invite lots of your colleagues somewhere. If only she wants to come, then that’s perfect, but asking her that way might be better than just asking her. Also, if she says no, you might get to socialise with a different colleague instead.
>> No. 33709 Anonymous
9th June 2025
Monday 3:14 pm
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>>33708
I have two colleagues.
>> No. 33710 Anonymous
9th June 2025
Monday 3:28 pm
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>>33707
>My therapist wants me to be more social and ask my colleague if she wants to hang out

She means ask her if she wants to join you for lunch, right? I know I shouldn't argue with your therapist but I'm a little uncomfortable with this idea. If you want to make friends then consider a good hobby that gets you out meeting people.
>> No. 33711 Anonymous
9th June 2025
Monday 9:05 pm
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>>33710
No, we both like "walking" (possibly because there's nothing else to do around here), and we do seem to have some things in common (horrible taste in podcasts, younger millenials in a state of arrested development, deep conspiracy knowledge without actually believing any of it). Anyway, this, and my only actual friend living very far away nowadays, is why my therapist thought I should ask her if she wants to meet up for a walk at some point. We don't actually work together very often either, so it's not as if we'd be spending twelve hours a day with each other or something mental like that. We can't go for lunch either, because at least one paid member of staff has to be in work and there's never more than two people working at the same time. Just for the record, I work in a shop, not the bunker from Lost. I realise it was starting to sound more mysterious than it is.

She's definitely gay by the way, so I'm not even worried about looking like a pervert. Well, no more than usual anyway.

Too late now. I should have texted her on Sunday; "weather looks nice on Wednesday, would you fancy meeting up for a walk?". Piece of piss, but texting someone at nine o'clock at night is, probably, illegal, so now I'll just have to get moaned at tomorrow by my therapist.

>a good hobby that gets you out meeting people
*tut* City slickers, you don't know you're born.
>> No. 33712 Anonymous
9th June 2025
Monday 11:24 pm
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>>33711
Ask her tomorrow. You sound like you don't actually need fundamental help in speaking to other humans, so presumably your therapist is trying to help you for another reason, and that reason might be that you keep talking yourself out of things for no reason. Suggest it tomorrow. Say you want to go walking, and ask her if she wants to go too. It's that simple. If she says no, then not only is that fine, but also you don't even have to go for the walk yourself if you don't want to.
>> No. 33713 Anonymous
10th June 2025
Tuesday 12:21 am
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>>33711

>She's definitely gay by the way, so I'm not even worried about looking like a pervert.

Absolutely nothing to lose then is there. See, lesbian mates are great, because you can sort of banter with them the same way you would with a lass you're into (which frankly I actually find easier than actually having normal male mates at this point) without having to even worry about the potential for misunderstanding or awkward feelings stuff.

Sounds like a win win to me, and if she says no, no harm no foul.
>> No. 33714 Anonymous
11th June 2025
Wednesday 5:09 pm
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I was doing some tidying up and found the love letter a 19 year old wrote to me in January. I feel sick. I just fucking ignored it, which is probably the worst way to have handled it, but I don't know, it's all fucked.
>> No. 33715 Anonymous
11th June 2025
Wednesday 6:49 pm
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>>33714

And how old are you? How did that come about? You seem to be quite viscerally disgusted by it, presumably because this 19 year old is much younger than you, but I don't see how you should feel at all responsible for it, unless you somehow led them on.

Ignoring it is certainly a valid way to approach it anyway, I can't blame you; it avoids any unpredictable drama that might ensue from their reaction to a rejection. But I would probably at least have sent a straightforward "sorry, I'm flattered, but I really can't reciprocate this, I wish you all the best", you know?
>> No. 33716 Anonymous
11th June 2025
Wednesday 8:14 pm
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>>33715
I'm thirty. It's not that I feel responsible or disgusted, I just feel guilty for ignoring the whole thing. As a spritely younger millenial I still recall how horrible basically anything and everything can feel at 19, so I see what I've done as having spared myself at her expense.
>> No. 33717 Anonymous
11th June 2025
Wednesday 9:15 pm
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>>33716

It's never too late. Just apologise and say you felt awkward about it. Best way to stop things like this tormenting you is to address them.

Took me fifteen years to learn that. Make a habit of it, and bit by bit, you can tackle the general daily anxiety and just end up non-anxiously bored instead.
>> No. 33718 Anonymous
12th June 2025
Thursday 10:06 am
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How do autistic people socialise.
I keep getting comments that I'm talking in riddles. I keep becoming overwhelmed with social experiences to the point that I kick up a fuss with increasingly disinhibited behaviours. Much of this is happening online being that I've come to avoid live social interaction. It absolutely happens in person too, only that the consequences are much more distressing.

I don't understand why people don't like the way I communicate. I can understand to a degree why people dislike rudeness, even if's prefaced with 'don't mind me I'm just an arsehole' - I am learning this by doing, mind.

Yes, I can talk fairly loose like a bro but it's largely ingenuine.

I gotta stop calling myself a retard and I don't want people to begrudgingly accommodate my eccentricities. Quietly excusing behaviours is incinsere when the pretense is friendship - you're not my fucking friends, we're unfortunately using each other for social engagement. I don't know if that's true as I simply won't explore the services intended for people like me.

I don't want to go to autistic support groups who play D&D because it's framed so unusually as a 'safe space for autistic people'. I don't want my fucking condition (if it's even that?) defining my being.

I'm having a bit of a moment, this disjointed conversation isn't my every day experience.
>> No. 33719 Anonymous
12th June 2025
Thursday 7:23 pm
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>>33718
I am friends with a bunch of people from pub quizzes who all met through some friend-making website, and several of them are utter turbo-spergs. So if you try one of those websites, you might well find like-minded people in a relatively normal context.

If people say you're talking in riddles, you're probably thinking a bunch of thoughts really quickly and then telling a story that feels relevant to you, but to them is completely unrelated to whatever they just said. I do this too, so I don't have much advice to offer on this one.

>I kick up a fuss with increasingly disinhibited behaviours.
This isn't especially helpful, but: just try not to do that. I have a friend who occasionally causes massive drama out of nowhere, and apparently he has some compulsion to do so. He hasn't done it for a while, so I'm sure it's possible to fight the urges. When you want to go loud, go quiet instead. I honestly doubt anyone will even notice, assuming you're in a group.
>> No. 33720 Anonymous
12th June 2025
Thursday 8:21 pm
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>>33719
>When you want to go loud, go quiet instead. I honestly doubt anyone will even notice
Is it ever apropriate to 'reach out' to someone privately to talk about what you're feeling, or is that entering a realm of intimacy beyond what you should expect from mates? I could occasionally pick out a person to lean on and 'develop relations with' but would regularly convince myself not to because it's weird to force familiarity on someone.

>If people say you're talking in riddles, you're probably thinking a bunch of thoughts really quickly and then telling a story that feels relevant to you
This is exactly what it feels like I'm doing, in hindsight. Stringing those thoughts together is often a challenge, even when they clearly have relevance to one another from my perspective.
It's often that I'll start typing a new sentence before concluding the previous - this even happens in verbal conversation too, to the point of multiple strings occuring beside one another (sometimes even varying in tone, it's very interesting to experience).
I keep recalling that a part of autism is presuming people know the same as you. There's that classic test in kids where a person hides an object from one location to another, then the observing autistic kid can't comprehend that a third person doesn't know the new location. I never had that problem specifically but it definitely happens in the way I communicate.

I have calmed down an awful lot now.
>> No. 33721 Anonymous
12th June 2025
Thursday 8:30 pm
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>>33720
>Is it ever apropriate to 'reach out' to someone privately to talk about what you're feeling, or is that entering a realm of intimacy beyond what you should expect from mates?
You can talk to some friends about this, but not others. And I don't think there's any way of knowing in advance which ones you can talk to and which ones you can't. However, I don't think I've ever had anyone turn against me or abuse me for wanting to talk about feelings, even if they don't care at all about what I have to say. If you can just say a little bit at a time, you should really be okay in almost every situation.
>> No. 33732 Anonymous
23rd June 2025
Monday 9:15 pm
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The husband of the woman who ran the Save A Fox animal rescue (2.43M Youtube subs) just released a video saying she killed herself. Apparently other animal rescues were trolling her online, and due to her BPD and autism and depression she couldn't take it. She had saved hundreds of foxes from fur farms. It's pretty sad.

It really upset me, more than I would like. I think one reason is it's sad that the foxes don't have their friend anymore. Another reason is that I struggle with suicidal thoughts a lot and did attempt suicide about a decade ago, and the husband crying made me think how sad my loved ones would be if I killed myself, and I felt bad for being suicidal and potentially putting them through a bad time. Then I thought how would I cope if my wife died, I reckon I'd be pretty sad.

Fucking foxes having me pondering mortality.
>> No. 33733 Anonymous
24th June 2025
Tuesday 9:36 am
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>>33732

That's genuinely awful. Bullying is the worst impulse of the human psyche. I hope those people live with deep and painful regret for the rest of their lives.

Fur farms are disgusting too. It's one thing to farm and animal for food, it's quite another to farm it just because you want to rip off its skin and wear it as a fashion accessory. The worst part is even the rescues can't be properly released or allowed to breed, because they would introduce severe genetic defects into the wild population. Knowing that gives me a very existential kind of sadness.

Humans are terrible.
>> No. 33734 Anonymous
24th June 2025
Tuesday 11:01 am
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>>33732

I think it is entirely normal to be sad to learn that this happened, and I hope you are well on your way to circumstances that lessen your own suicidal thoughts.

I can't help but wonder about this, though:
>Apparently other animal rescues were trolling her online

Excuse me? One would think that animal rescues would at the very least be too busy rescuing animals to engage in this, if not actively supporting one another. Was there some controversy?

I suppose the specifics don't matter, unless it's parlayed into a more productive conversation about how cruel, thick, and plain old careless people can be.
>> No. 33735 Anonymous
24th June 2025
Tuesday 6:55 pm
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>>33734
It's never "single story", I don't mean to trigger anyone. I obviously don't know the story of the bullying, but usually suicide is at least a 4-5 part explosive after teen years. Interacting parts, sadly.

So mental issues plus criticism (for profit or method) gives us plenty of powder to set of en episodes, and the trouble with determinded episodes is it takes only one.
>> No. 33736 Anonymous
24th June 2025
Tuesday 9:15 pm
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>>33733
Some of the Reddit trolls behind the online hate are now being targeted by Save A Fox fans, telling them to kill themselves. The Sharty has doxxed a trans autistic furry who spread a lot of slander against Save A Fox. Seems fucked up to try get someone to commit suicide as a response to them contributing to a suicide. Violence breeds violence.

>>33734
Animal rescues seem to be full of people who think the people who don't do things the same way as them are scum. Many of the domesticated fur farm foxes were rehomed with private owners, and some rescues see this as the pet trade and therefore bad. Another thing is that she had an OnlyFans (non-nude), the proceeds of which she put towards the rescue, but she caught flak for that.

I don't know what a happy fox looks like, these seem quite happy.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rZa5eSBnQgM
>> No. 33737 Anonymous
24th June 2025
Tuesday 10:12 pm
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>>33736

>doxxed a trans autistic furry who spread a lot of slander

Furlad here, didn't want to say anything but I would have bet money on it. The dark triad traits are never far around the corner with those lot.

I suspect that for many of them, they are narcissist powder kegs first and foremost, and the trans/autism/furry etc stuff comes second as a way to blend into a "tolerant" community which has no mechanisms for countering their malicious behaviour.
>> No. 33778 Anonymous
1st July 2025
Tuesday 2:08 pm
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I'm going to cave some skulls in.
>> No. 33779 Anonymous
1st July 2025
Tuesday 2:11 pm
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>>33778
Whose, and why?
>> No. 33780 Anonymous
1st July 2025
Tuesday 2:51 pm
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>>33779
Anyone who gives me hassle. Why? You'll have to ask them.
>> No. 33782 Anonymous
1st July 2025
Tuesday 4:50 pm
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>>33778

And yet there's a reason you are posting this in /emo/.

If you are anything like me your anger is a sign of being hurt or upset by something, and most people are too short sighted to see that. Even when they do see it, they are too judgemental to cross the line into genuinely understanding, and consequently you frequently feel as though your feelings are often treated as invalid just because you can't express it in the socially approved ways. Which is, in turn, an extra sprinkle of that bitter injustice that adds to your mounting frustration.

So go on, tell us what's got you wound up.

>>33738
>>33781

Lads for the last fucking time. Every single other board, you can be a smarmy dickhead on. From /pol/ top /nom/ to /poof/, knock yourselves out. I encourage it, in fact. But on this one, specifically this one, be an adult.
>> No. 33784 Anonymous
1st July 2025
Tuesday 5:23 pm
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>>33782
People won't leave me alone. so I'll now make them leave me alone, or ruin their day the same way they're trying to ruin mine. If you want to shout at me or laugh at me for whatever it is you don't like about me, fine, but I will, from now on, be carrying a hammer in a rucksack and I will use on any cunt who takes the piss.

>consequently you frequently feel as though your feelings are often treated as invalid just because you can't express it in the socially approved ways
Not really, I actually want horrible things to happen to people who go out of their way to make my life worse for no reason.
>> No. 33786 Anonymous
1st July 2025
Tuesday 6:17 pm
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>>33784

That sounds like a good way to end up in jail, and very little else, honestly mate.

I know how you feel, but the issue is, the time for telling people to fuck off and leave you alone with physical violence was between year 3 and year 11 of school, and if you didn't do it then you sort of missed the chance. I wish somebody would have taught me it was actually the right thing to do then, because it undeniably was and my life would almost certainly have turned out better if I gave a couple of cunts in particular a good smack in the gob when I was a teenager; but it won't do any good now.

Do the people in question actually go out of their way, as in, contact you out of nowhere, visit your home, or contact you via phone etc with no provocation to? Or do you mean like, these are people you are forced to interact with as a part of daily life, who you find yourself at odds with?
>> No. 33787 Anonymous
1st July 2025
Tuesday 8:06 pm
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>>33786
I've got nothing going on.

I walk down the street, I get shit. Fucking builders and fucking cunts in vans and fucking cars, they just give me shit. Was it my black t-shirt and beige jeans I was wearing that upset some cunt in a BMW today? Is there some kind of Man Burqa I should be wearing so as not to upset other blokes? Doesn't matter, the next time one of them does it, if I have the opportunity, I'll hit them over the head with a hammer. Because let's be honest here, if I square up them, what do you think they'd do to me? Say sorry for hurting my feelings and let me go on my way? No, they'd kick the shit out of me. I know this is true because the last time I did stand up for myself, some cunt almost did attack me, but stopped because his very young kids were in his car and started screaming "daddy!" at him. But I won't give them the option of beating me up, because I'll just hit them. Go ahead, try to intimidate me, but I hope your bitch mother remembers how to spoon feed you.

>physical violence was between year 3 and year 11 of school
Wrong, I've got Polish ancestry, which can easily be spun out into Jewish ancestry, and you know what that means: a one way ticket to chaos and genocide in the Gaza Strip, baby. But that's not really my scene, I'd rather just get a bit Niko Bellic on some slab brained twat.
>> No. 33789 Anonymous
2nd July 2025
Wednesday 6:49 pm
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>>33787

As you mentioned you have calmed down today, I hope you don't mind continuing to elaborate. So, your angry response was "I'm going to start caving these cunt's skulls in", but how is it you normally react? Do you react? Do you give them the finger and shout fuck off? Do you do that "you wot cunt" shoulder shrug and neck craning thing? Do you just try to ignore them?

The other week I was driving towards some traffic lights. This bellend was sauntering across the road, in the middle of three lanes, so I slowed down to a near stop, and motioned for him to carry on. He hesitated so I motioned again. He was eyeing me up as I eventually moved past, so I leaned to the window slightly and pulled next to him, and made that sort of "what?" gesture. He said "The fuck are ya doing ya tit" (he had a Teesside accent). And I instantly went "Letting you across, you prick" (I have a Beeston accent). He turned left without another word.

I have thought about it a bit because it seems unlike me. The "old me" normally got quite anxious at the slightest confrontation, but I didn't feel a thing, it just happened without me even thinking about it, and it seemed to head this guy off from what was otherwise a confrontational situation. But I feel almost certain if I had just ignored it like in the past, he would have followed up and tried to carry on giving me grief.

I dunno, I don't want to make it about me. Just sharing an example of a similar thing. I think the way you react matters a lot. Not that you should always "rise to it", definitely not. But I think these sort of folk do probe for targets to harass.
>> No. 33790 Anonymous
15th July 2025
Tuesday 10:47 pm
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Is it normal to be gripped by a panic in the middle of the night as you get older. One where your mind almost forces you to deal with the fact that you're getting older and nothing has really worked out as it should have? Do men in any situation feel this?

I try to address the facts without judgement; that I'm middle aged and single, that my career has long plateaued and I've achieved nothing of note, that I'm in a period now where my physical and mental health will only decline. Then I try to treat it with some compassion, that I'm still doing better than most people, I have savings and I can still run a fun meeting even if I never cured cancer. But it doesn't stop my unconscious mind of racing.

Maybe this is how midlife crises start and as we're all about the same age things will get weird on here.
>> No. 33791 Anonymous
16th July 2025
Wednesday 9:20 am
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>>33790
Personally I was laid awake at 1am thinking about, if the only two Beatrix Potter books to be translated to Welsh in the previous century were titled "Hanes Meistres Tigi-Dwt" and "Hanes Benda Bynni", what the other titles would have been as opposed to the contemporary translations, which are quite different. I think what you're describing is a stress response that can be had at any time of life, but realising that your best years are behind you might be a common trigger for stress.
>> No. 33792 Anonymous
16th July 2025
Wednesday 9:55 am
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>>33790

I don't wake up in the night panicking about things like this, but I do sometimes have very downer low mood days where I do think that way about myself. It'll usually be triggered by a hangover or being ghosted on a dating app or something like that, and it'll send me into a bit of a paranoid thought spiral.

I think it's important to recognise that often, you are just being hard on yourself. There are probably plenty of things you have achieved. You have plenty of things you are good at. Even just the fact you have your own home and support yourself as a single man, that's a barrier seemingly half my generation can't overcome and they still moan about constantly. I mean, I am not trying to downplay how fucked up the property market is, but by the same token if you succeed in having your own place despite that, that is in itself a sign you are doing something right. It shows that you, for lack of a better term, "have your shit together", in a way that a huge chunk of supposedly adult people just don't.

Personally I've been trying to big myself up, in my own head, lately. Without letting it get to arrogance, just reminding myself that actually, I have plenty to be proud of. I might not have a stellar career, but I have never wanted one, work is just work to me. I have, on the other hand, succeeded in many creative pursuits that most ordinary people have never even attempted to apply themselves to. I'm fucking good at music and art, like legitimately fucking good, I can confidently say. And I fucking well should be, after 15 years at it. When I show people (not that I often do) they go "wow, YOU made that? It's really good!" and I'm like yeah, yeah I fucking did. I told you I'm fucking good at it. You thought I was just bullshitting like every other dick who bought a guitar during lockdown, but no, I am a fucking musician.

You have to remind yourself of your good qualities and not be shy about them.
>> No. 33793 Anonymous
16th July 2025
Wednesday 9:42 pm
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I'm so shit at everything and I hate myself and everyone forever. I wish someone had helped me become a proper person instead of just idly staring at me like my waste of flesh parents. I'm too old to blame my parents, but they definitely didn't help, also I'm pissed off so I don't care.

The funeral suit I ordered didn't fit, so I ordered a replacement jacket, only it was "next day", even though I paid for it. So now the replacement jacket is arriving the day of, and I don't have a jacket. j,mnlknm That's me punching my keyboard.

So now I have to go to this funeral dressed like a cunt. Seeing all these fucking family members that I have met in more than ten years looking like a fucking cunt. I don't know what kind of cunt I'll look like like yet, but it's certain to be some kind of useless, failure, cunt.

I was looking at this really neat job opportunity. It's the kind of bollocks I could actually get. But I'd have to move all the way to Surrey, and I'm looking at rentals and it would be more than half my income to live in a tiny flat. Whatever, I couldn't afford a deposit anyway.

I can't recall a single thing my therapist has said to me in the past six months. She's off soon anyway. It genuinely troubles me to think how much time and money the NHS has wasted on me.

>>33789
>Do you give them the finger and shout fuck off?
Yeah.
>Do you just try to ignore them?
Sometimes.
>> No. 33794 Anonymous
16th July 2025
Wednesday 9:59 pm
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>>33793

It's going to be too warm to wear a jacket anyway mate. Don't worry about it. You'll be reyt.
>> No. 33795 Anonymous
16th July 2025
Wednesday 11:41 pm
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>>33792
What do you make?
>> No. 33796 Anonymous
17th July 2025
Thursday 12:57 pm
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What do you think about this, britfa.gs?
It seems to me as though 'therapy' as a concept is reletively modern, whereas humans have been working out their mental knots for generations. For better or worse, that's where we're at now.
Could it be that people should just exist and not think about existing?
There's the whole idea in Buddism or Taoism that knowing is not knowing, coupling with rhetoric of intuition.
It could be a problem if a persons intuitive behaviour is offensive, but that's not really going to happen for me, is it? I don't feel a pull to risk.

I've had a satyr on my shoulder for a couple of weeks now and am starting to think that maybe doing the thing is therapy, to a degree. I feel better and more engagable with life, save for my current exhaustion. To think all I needed since puberty was a deep massage.

/emo/ because there's a shadow of doubt - I'm unsure if it's legit or the sting of 20 years of supressed cuiosity and playfulness.
>> No. 33797 Anonymous
17th July 2025
Thursday 4:05 pm
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>>33796

Specific types of psychotherapy are valid, evidence-based treatments for some psychological disorders, particularly mood disorders. Doing some vague kind of "therapy" if you don't have a diagnosable disorder and don't have a specific treatment goal is a bit like taking random pills out of your dead nan's medicine cabinet on the off chance that they'll do you some good.

Several clinical trials on interventions designed to prevent mental illness in the general population (e.g. teaching coping skills or mindfulness in schools) showed that those interventions actively caused harm and increased rates of mental illness. We don't know exactly why this is the case, but it's plausible that these interventions encourage people to see normal ups-and-downs as the symptoms of disease, or to worry excessively about completely normal thoughts or changes in mood.

Behavioural change is a core goal of all good psychotherapy, arguably the core goal - the point isn't to sit there navel-gazing until you feel better, but to provide you with the encouragement and support you need to make real changes in how you live your life. You don't fix anxiety or depression just by sitting there and thinking, you fix it by facing your fears or doing things that give your life meaning.

If you're stuck in a miserable rut and don't know how to get out of it, then psychotherapy genuinely could change your life. If you've got a plan for improving your life and that plan seems to be working, then psychotherapy probably won't help you and might hold you back. A lot of the most enthusiastic advocates for what we might call "therapy culture" - the kinds of people who believe that everyone should be in therapy all the time - are generally using that belief as a defence against change. Their belief that "therapy" is an essential way for them to "work on themselves" is just an excuse to legitimise their self-obsession and their unwillingness to do the real work of being a better person.
>> No. 33798 Anonymous
20th July 2025
Sunday 11:23 am
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You know what it is? I didn't survive the pandemic. I was a casualty.

My body might be here, I might have lingered on in the sense that I wake up on a morning, go to work, get home, make dinner, pay my bills, and that responsible adult stuff. If I were to just tuck away some of the more unsightly, self destructive habits, and take the selfie from the right angle, it would appear I'm a model citizen, in fact.

But that's just not true. Ever since the lockdowns, there was some kind of schism. It was supposed to be this temporary break that things would bounce back from, but it wasn't. Ever since then, it's all been slowly falling apart, like in a cartoon- You when they are driving a car, and they are still chugging along while all the doors and side panels all fall off around them, until they are left just holding a wheel? That's the perfect visual metaphor for how my life's been going.

I've lost contact with all my mates, I had a bad break up that I never picked myself up from and I've just been stuck single ever since, I've stopped caring about most of the hobbies and goals that I had before because why do they matter any more. I've got nobody to share anything with, so why bother doing anything other than just sit there watching YouTube, and having the occasional episode of binge drinking/substance abuse to take the edge of when it starts to feel a bit too lonely. I just feel extremely apathetic. I'm not suicidal, but if you were to tell me I have a brain tumour and I would die in two years time, I might a feel like it was something of a relief.

Now it feels like it should be obvious the solution, there. Knock the drink and drugs on the head, join a club, start to be more social again. But that is a lot, lot, lot easier said than fucking done, isn't it.
>> No. 33799 Anonymous
20th July 2025
Sunday 11:43 am
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>>33798
>if you were to tell me I have a brain tumour and I would die in two years time, I might a feel like it was something of a relief.
I've been feeling something like that regarding health concerns, to be honest. Cancer of the arse or intestine, blacking out occasionally, etc. It's probably a fantasy that suddenly I'll have some energising secret in enjoying life, then go out quitely having inspired my family or some shit.

>join a club, start to be more social again. But that is a lot, lot, lot easier said than fucking done, isn't it.
I absolutely agree that it's easier said than done. There's a degree of me that simply doesn't want to 'join a social group' even when I feel socially desperate.

What has been interesting is that I've found an organisation that I probably want to volunteer with as it's relevant to an unexplored interest. With this group I could learn something more than just how to be around fellow losers.

I've also started to see charitable and social groups (like Men In Sheds) as a resource rather than a social group. I don't have space for many tools, they do. If I donate what I got they'll probably let me persue a project at their place, employ their skills and labour, help me source materials, etc. Sounds cynical maybe but it's mutually beneficial.

It's taking me a while to realise what 'join a social club' means - it's general, abstract, and must be applied to your lifestyle and interests.
>> No. 33800 Anonymous
20th July 2025
Sunday 12:34 pm
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>>33798
>Now it feels like it should be obvious the solution, there. Knock the drink and drugs on the head, join a club, start to be more social again. But that is a lot, lot, lot easier said than fucking done, isn't it.

Yeah pretty much. I'd start small with the low-hanging fruit that brings you joy and that in turn will help energise you and bring momentum to then tackle the bigger stuff.

I'm not talking about small like 'just go up and talk to her mate' I'm saying get a houseplant, go for a walk everyday, try reading a book instead of going on Youtube. If you're really struggling then changing your bedding and getting some new clothes might at least start to pull you out of the death spiral.

>>33799
I can report with that dick cancer scare I had a few years back that it doesn't magically change everything in your life. When I walked back from the doctors I wasn't skipping with joy and hearing the birdsong, my mind was racing about how I can build up a nest egg for my nephews because the thing about dying is that yeah, nothing matters but also yeah, nothing matters gg. Then as I waited for weeks because it's the NHS I gradually just forgot about it.

My mum had a different reaction when she had cancer of wanting to leave my dad because she found him boring but I think that was her being vulnerable with my auntie whispering in her ear and my dad trying to keep their finances under control but either way she wasn't having a great time either and that's without getting into her physical issues.

By the way your job or anything else doesn't give the slightest fuck when it comes down to it. Don't be under the illusion that you're anything by a cog in the machine and the moment you slip up the system takes a look at the defective part. Our value is what people can get out of us.
>> No. 33801 Anonymous
20th July 2025
Sunday 2:36 pm
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>>33799
>I've also started to see charitable and social groups (like Men In Sheds) as a resource rather than a social group. I don't have space for many tools, they do. If I donate what I got they'll probably let me persue a project at their place, employ their skills and labour, help me source materials, etc. Sounds cynical maybe but it's mutually beneficial.

Not cynical at all. You're talking about sharing resources for everyone's benefit. There's a difference between treating a relationship as entirely transactional and instigating a relationship by offering something - thinking about it, that might be a big hole in the rhetoric of dating and romance, too.
>> No. 33802 Anonymous
27th July 2025
Sunday 10:02 pm
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How do you deal with The Algorithm feeding you stuff you're not ready or willing to digest? I'm afraid to use it lest it show me somthing about myself I can't confront. Like Dorian Gray at his portrait or summat.

I recognise I'm being vague but the actual content of my concern isn't directly the issue, just irrelevant (It's probably not, right, but what).
>> No. 33804 Anonymous
27th July 2025
Sunday 10:16 pm
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>>33802

"The Algorithm" will serve me all sorts of bullshit I'm not interested in just because there happened to be a keyword on a page I clicked on once to see what it was before immediately closing it. If I accidentally click on an article about Labubu and it starts trying to direct me to a dozen Labubu forums and shops I'm not schizophrenic enough to interpret that as having some deeper meaning about my subconscious. It's just pareidolia, you're reading too much into it.
>> No. 33805 Anonymous
28th July 2025
Monday 12:06 am
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>>33804
I don't know, Amazons "Other people also looked at this" can be accurate, though my sample size is small.
If you keep the algorithm focused, ie minimal mistakes and misclicks, it would surely describe a character.
>> No. 33806 Anonymous
28th July 2025
Monday 12:37 am
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I find my youtube feed hideous. My youtube feed apparently believes my optimal watching habits are people who I turn off after 5 minuites because I realise they are wasting my time by making vague promises they are going to teach me something new that they padding the shit out of that i conclude if they had somethingto say they would have already told me. Its like a short form non fiction version of a thousand JJ Abrams. I guess I cannot blame the algorithm as these videos seem to some times to have millions of views despite being rubbish, so it's the fault of other people's non decerning nature that I am bombarded with aimless rants that purposefully delay delivering on their premise.
>> No. 33807 Anonymous
28th July 2025
Monday 2:11 am
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>>33805

Because I looked at a vacuum cleaner on amazon before buying one elsewhere it doesn't follow that I want to see vacuum cleaners for the next month but that's what the incomplete marketing data concludes.

Obviously there is associative information that can be inferred about a person some of it over presumptive some of it more general, it doesn't necessarily follow that I am a house proud middle-aged women who will buy anything associative with cleaning, but it would probably follow quite reasonably that I am both not a small child or homeless. I suspect the nature of the algorithms are that it is far too enthusiastic to assume the former rather than the latter because deranged housewives engage with it more than I do, and therefore give it positive feedback that those are the ways it should behave.

>"Other people also looked at this" can be accurate

Is it accurate or is it that you ignored the 1000 suggestions that were barely connected, and remember the time that it did the equivelent of when you bought a lamp it suggested a bulb.
>> No. 33808 Anonymous
28th July 2025
Monday 3:21 am
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>>33807

I've said this before, but you are in fact astonishingly likely to buy a vacuum cleaner immediately after buying a vacuum cleaner. About 17% of everything that gets bought online is returned for a refund within 14 days. Most people who return something will end up buying something similar shortly afterwards - they probably didn't change their mind about needing a new hoover, they just didn't like the first one they chose. Showing you adverts for a thing you've just bought seems completely stupid on the face of it, but it actually has an insanely high return on investment.

Likewise, a recommendations algorithm that keeps suggesting things that you hate but watch anyway is working exactly as intended; an algorithm that flatters you but delivers lower total watch time is a failure.
>> No. 33809 Anonymous
28th July 2025
Monday 9:04 am
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>>33805
Not in any particular detail. It's just trying to sell you things you might be tempted to buy, given that other people have bought the same things. It is not a psychic able to see into your soul.
Go on a clicking spree of random shit if you're worried. Build a gift list as though you're pregnant, then one as though you're about to go on a Vietnamese holiday. Throw stuff into the mix.

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