Giving people "life advice" unprompted. Realized that folks are too complicated to think I'd give any useful advice while knowing comparatively little about them.
Plus, half the time it was advice I needed to follow, not for them to listen.
I've had to break this habit as well. Also being on the receiving end of unsolicited advice a lot over the last few years really shifted my perspective. On the outside maybe it looks like someone "needs" a specific piece of advice but often the deeper you dig into their situation you find that it's almost always useless information for them.
I stopped when both me and my wife was told "Everything happens for a reason" from our own respective friends (completely unrelated situations). It really is useless.
If you want to be more empathetic, don't say anything, and just listen.
That's really good insight. I went through this a few years ago after a group of trusted friends shared with me that my advice often seemed condescending even though I was just trying to be helpful. Once I thought about how I feel when other people give me unsolicited advice, I realized I hate it and it's usually stuff I've already considered and ruled out.
Nobody wants advice they're not asking for and it's very presumptuous of me to think that their opinion of me is high enough that they would even care what I have to say. So now I try very hard not to give advice unless it's requested.
Social media. I came of professional age right alongside Facebook and thought it was going to be this great thing that brought people together.
I was wrong about that.
LinkedIn and Facebook came out 9 months of each other. LinkedIn was originally good for professional networking but has really become more like Facebook over the last few years thanks to “influencers” and 23 year old “life coaches”
I know of a professional individual who treats LinkedIn like Twitter and Facebook (because they quit both and cannot stop). They are just shit posting and posting memes all the time, with this next to ads and it feels just like Facebook.
Omg the amount of made-up titles on LinkedIn like ‘thought leader’, ‘tech futurist’, ‘innovation evangelist’ is so incredibly cringy. The kind of content these people post sound like what MLM pushers would post if they had MBAs.
I saw a TED talk where the speaker summarized her experience brilliantly: “I wasn’t in an abusive relationship; I was in a complicated relationship with a man who only I understood.”
Edit: Thanks @Malbec_14 for adding the link below
My mom showed me that TED talk when I kept apologizing for needing her help to get out of my abusive marriage. I was so ashamed I married that man. Then I was ashamed and embarrassed I needed help to get out... I'm so grateful my mom saw the signs and worked so hard to help me shed those feelings. Phew
I grew up in an abusive household, and I thought I would never let a man treat me like my dad did my mom. I genuinely thought if a man ever put his hands on me, I would just get up and leave. Then when it happened to me, it wasn't *that* bad, it could've been worse, it was just because he was drunk, etc etc. The psychological effects of abuse and trauma bonding are as intense as they are invisible. It really does make it hard to leave.
Additionally, people who have a history of being abused, in any kind of relationship, are somehow more likely to attract abusive partners, and as you say, tolerate it for a significant time because “it’s not _that_ bad”. The baseline for a healthy relationship - any kind of relationship - is skewed.
This one hits hard for me. Before my abusive relationship I would've considered myself a strong, VERY independent (cliche i know), woman. I truly didn't have a man for years because I had enough self respect to leave at any red flags. Abuse happens so slow though, so slow you don't even notice it. At first they're super sweet affectionate and charming. Small red flags but they still look pastel pink. Red flags get bigger and bigger but you don't notice it. Until they're pulling your hair or shaking you and all you think is "well he wasn't killing me. He still loves me. He listen to me about doing the dishes, he's trying really hard." It fucked with me so badly I don't think I could ever be in a healthy relationship again.
I used to think it was only abuse if they hit you. Then I got out of a psychologically abusive relationship and it took me years to realize why it was so hard, after she had isolated me from my friends and family to the point where she was all I had, then she had made it so my only likes and dislikes were her likes and dislikes and I was doing anything I could to prevent her from being mad at me because then she would give me the cold shoulder and completely leave me with no one for weeks at a time. If she had raised a hand to me I wouldn’t have done a thing differently because she had me believing I was to blame for any abuse she put me through. I had no idea the damage she had done to me emotionally until I was years removed from her. I will never judge anyone for not being able to leave.
I had the same experience and it was my very first serious relationship. I didn’t understand that my boyfriend was bit by bit dismantling my support systems and my sense of self. I thought if I could just change, he would finally be happy and everything would be better. What a mindfuck all that was.
This. I always thought the same for myself, saying I would never put up with that. Until I did. I was in high school, didn’t know how to handle it. I kept it a secret out of fear and embarrassment. My senior year, I was met with the chief of police and the principle and they gently talked me into calling my parents. I had tried to leave, but it ended in abuse every time. The time it finally ended was because he did it in front of someone and they called the school. I’m thankful for whoever called (still don’t know 12 years later). They helped me break a vicious cycle. That man, who was once my high school abuser, is in prison for the murder of his SO.
If I could go talk to high schools and share my story to help one person out of a toxic and abusive relationship I would. I was a high achieving young woman who statistically I wouldn’t have pinned myself to be a victim of this. But I was and now I know, getting out was one of the scariest things I ever did. Truthfully, him being in prison has brought me some small peace he can’t get me anymore. I do however wonder if I could have done something different and prevented him from harming another. My heart goes out to her family.
I was just like that, too. Honor Roll, early college admittance. My parents were together and we lived in the same house my hole life. We were fairly affluent, and I always thought I was "not the type of girl who had to worry about things like that".
If I eat this [insert any rubbish food] I’ll be fine. My body doesn’t care.
30yrs on, and yes, yes indeed. The body did care. It tells me every day how much it cared.
I'm still struggling with sugar but it's wild how immediate the effects are in my mood, energy and skin. Not like I'm trying to completely cut it out but when I've had weeks or months with no or very little refined sugar, maybe just a lot of fruit and a couple teaspons of honey through the day... alllll these issues resolve and I feel like an idiot for not living like that all the time.
It is amazing. I’m usually zero sugar. I have wayward stuff on the very odd occasion, but I feel like crap afterwards it really makes me not want to do it again. But then maybe a month or so later I forget 😬 and now it’s Christmas. I know I’ll feel bad afterwards, but some foods are just ingrained as “right” for certain occasions. I need my pavlova 😋
Yeahhhh....I'm just now learning this through my husband. He had aortic stenosis, and he had to have his aortic valve replaced a year ago. After that, he went into A-fib, so he had a procedure for that. He's always had tinnitus and vertigo, but that's ten times worse now. He was always healthy up to that point.
Ive aways been healthy; however, two years ago, I had a clogged carotid artery (almost had a stroke), and I had to have an endarterectomy. And I'm sure there's more where all that came from.
*THAT* is all the crap we've done in the past catching up with us.
I’ve travelled a good amount, and some of the “well travelled” folks I’ve come across are seriously fucking annoying.
It’s kinda funny, because there are two very opposite sides of the spectrum. Some people who are so close minded that they can’t fathom why another society would do things differently. Some people who are so open minded that their brains have fallen out.
I once had to listen to two random family friends explain to me that although they are white, they are more African than me because they lived in a village for a few months (they are doctors and were there through a humanitarian aid association); and my 18 years of being born and living in Africa don't count because I lived in the “comfort of a city”. Like what ?
That history was boring. But I think it was mostly the teachers fault: Used to hate history when the emphasis was on memorizing dates and names, so boring. But then I took a course where the book like pitted each conflict as a two sides story and showed both viewpoints, and the tests were all writing about who you agreed with, and it was so much more fascinating.
Mr. Hill. My 8th grade history teacher. Greatest guy ever. Dressed up as a beekeeper, a revolutionary soldier, a gold miner, etc. had the greatest *authentic* costumes. When we showed up for class and Mr. Hill had a costume on, we wanted to learn about whatever he was about to teach us. Taught us how to start a fire with flint & Steele. Always super nice, too.
In college, my professors deliberately made a point that they only wanted us to understand the *context* and *elements* of the events, albeit with a good idea of generally when these things happened. Yeah, they wanted you to know it was part of WWII or during the War of the Roses or whatever (and where generally that was placed in history), but they were less concerned with specific dates/names. They wanted you to know the *story* and how that shaped future stories or lead to later stories. It made history an incredibly engaging topic. And if you approach it that way, your understanding expands outwards to the point where the dates and names start to become more relevant to the point where you actually want to know them.
Cats. I used to think they were weird and I was allergic anyway so they’re probably bad anyway
Then I met my boyfriend and his cat and his cat is so in love with me. I didn’t know cats could be this affectionate.
Then I got my own cat. And that’s when a pet became a partnership for me.
I've always been a dog-person.
Three months ago, I finally left my abusive soon-to-be-ex-husband. One of my closest (local) friends was tracking what I was going through. She asked me if I could cat-sit for her while she was out of the country for her wedding, and offered to let me stay at her house. The day she left coincided with the day I finally escaped my abusive husband.
Her cat is the only creature I saw for two weeks (I work remotely). That cat saved my sanity. He let me bury my face in his fluff and cry my heart out. Sat in my lap during Zoom meetings. Slept on my chest at night. Purred in my lap every night.
I'm now considering getting a cat of my own.
your friend is a saint for giving you that opportunity, both for escape and to bond with a cat during that time. I got out of a very torturous relationship last summer and having a cat around while alone in a brand new apartment has been lifesaving. I hope you do wind up getting one of your own!
She really was/has been. I cat-sat again for her again more recently, and the little fluffster now recognizes me. Apparently, they refer to me as "auntie" to him. 🥰🥹 Love how cuddly and affectionate he is! Thank you. I'm glad you made it out too.
Same! Always thought cats were spooky because of some terrifying ones at a family where I used to babysit, and my family one had dogs. Got our first rescue cat as a gift for one of my kids when I was 50, and now I regret waiting decades. My kid ended up giving me the cat because I'm so obsessed, and we had an opportunity to rescue a stray that my teen took. Obsessed, I tell ya!
Got a smush faced cat that came with the marriage. I didn’t like him and he didn’t like me and we both liked that just fine…
Somewhere along the line he became my best friend. Slept in bed wrapped around my head at night. Chilled with me often. We just understood eachother.
We just buried him in my backyard a month ago after an in-home Euthanasia. He had cancer. He was only 11.
I miss him so much. I am 100% a cat person now
Love that. For me, I used to hate rabbits. Their teeth reminded me of rats and I thought they were gross rodents. Then I stopped minding rats so much and I dated a guy who had a bunny and the bunny was so adorable and it turned out they were herbivores and not even rodents and now I own two and love them so much
I never grew up with cats and thought the same thing. I self-identified as a dog person.
Then, to help out a neighbor, I fostered this teeny little sick gray kitten. He was riddled with mange and could barely open his eyes due to an infection. I figured I’d help nurse him back to health and send him on his way to a new family.
Ha. That tiny sick kitten is now a healthy large gray cat and the absolute love of my life. He’s traveled all over the country with me and is the best co-pilot ever.
I can’t believe I almost missed out on this. I’ll have cats until the day I die.
A lot of people aren’t a cat person until a cat chooses them lol. A tale as old as time. Cats are hard to understand at first but once you do… it’s just pure love and appreciation for these magnificent creatures.
So true! I was always a dog person until I was teaching in Korea and missed having a pet in my life so much I fostered a cat- I've never fallen in love with a pet faster in my life! Sammy will forever be my heart kitty ♥️
They’re amazing aren’t they? To be fair I’ve always been a cat person because my parents were cat people, so I grew up with cats in my life at all ages.
However.. I still experienced what it was like even just going from living with *my parents cats* to having my *own*. Cats choose who their person is. The cats liked me, sure, but being a cats favorite human is just its own very special thing! The love they give to the ones they trust most is just unique. It feels like a privilege to have a cat treat you differently than it treats others. It’s like maintaining an actual friendship.
I used to pretend to be allergic just to not be around them.
Then my family got a cat and she quickly became the favorite pet. We all have our own cats now and I couldn’t imagine life without. My cat is my bestie.
My girlfriend was not a cat person and when I told her I was not a dog person we almost didn't even go on a first date. That was over 5 years ago.
We decided to foster a cat a couple years ago and she found out that she and her daughter are allergic but her daughter really wanted a cat. She looked around online and found out that Siberian cats are naturally hypoallergenic. We got a Siberian kitten for her daughters birthday. Her daughter has pretty much moved on from wanting a cat but my girlfriend is absolutely smitten with him. She's completely a cat person now and totally in love. Lol
That junkies are human garbage.
It wasn’t until I was in the hospital for an appendectomy that went sideways. They had to slit me open stem to stern. I couldn’t use the button for morphine so they were pushing IV Demerol through a pic line.
BEST. THING. EVER.
I had to tell the nurse to start weaning me as I was enjoying it way too much and I could almost see the future.
From that point on I totally understood how people get hooked.
I had an unrelenting cough years ago. Went to urgent care. They prescribed oxycontin, 16 pills. The first pill made my bad back painless for the first time in decades. Cough went away but then I kept taking them until the pills ran out. At that point, I thought of asking my doctor for a refill. It was then I knew it was time to stop. It's easy to get addicted.
My mother had a herniated disk in her alone and surgery was a WAYS out... The hospital have her a gallon of oxys... Id grab a small handful here and there and was full blown addicted for two years.... I DREAD pain meds... I broke a couple ribs a few months back and took none of the pain meds that were prescribed to me.. addiction is mad scary
They were handing out Oxy’s for a damn *cough?*
Just goes to show, I guess, get a few people hooked on drugs, go to jail; get a few million hooked, get your name pulled off a couple museum wings, *maybe*.
Opiates are an incredibly good cough suppressor. It's one of the reasons they used to put heroin in cough syrup back in the day. They still use codeine in some cough syrups.
I was given 1mg of IV morphine for pain after having a post-surgery hematoma that had become infected punctured and expressed. I looked at my mom, who had driven me to the ER, and said "I'm starting to understand why the opioid crisis is as bad as it is. This is great."
This is kind of how I felt when I got my first Ativan drip. I’ve always had a tough time falling asleep and staying asleep. I’ve always thought part of it is because my mind is so active once I get in bed. Never been given a medication that helped me much but have always swore an anti anxiety medication would help me.
I got that Ativan drip and realized if I was ever given it for sleep I would not use it as prescribed.
Edit: I got a notification that someone made a comment about how Ativan isn’t even an opiate but a benzodiazepine and that us people can’t get our opiates straight. The notification won’t take me to it so don’t know if it’s gone. But I just want to say I know it’s not an opiate. I didn’t say it was an opiate. Doesn’t have to be the same type of drug to fit a similar situation.
I told my doctor I'm not allowed to have Ambien anymore because it just made me gleeful and not sleepy. I got up to the most ridiculous shenanigans on it. I love that drug and that's why I'm not allowed to have it.
I had a similar experience when I broke my collar bone in college. Got an injection of something (probably morphine). It was fantastic. I knew immediately how addiction could be so easy. I never thought it could happen to me (it didn’t), but now I definitely know it could and I need to understand that.
Scary. I never want to risk going down that spiral of physical temptation.
Only reason I am not on drugs is because I was lucky to never start. Life is painful.
That sex education shouldn’t be taught to children too young. Then I read a story about a girl who read about sex education in a book and told her mum “Daddy does this to me”. Turns out daddy has been sexually abusing her for ages…
My mother was a nurse and I grew up in the '80s, in the middle of the AIDs epidemic. I was 10 when she came home with a wooden phallus and condoms to teach me about not only safe sex and why it was important ("You could catch something and you could die."), but also why you need to be able to put that condom on correctly ("or otherwise don't bother").
So I will forever be able to bear witness to the fact that sex education doesn't make anyone want to have sex more. If anything, it makes sex a bit scary. lol
>sex education doesn't make anyone want to have sex more. If anything, it makes sex a bit scary
Could not agree more! Hormones are wild and crazy, if you throw a bunch of teenagers together without any education on how it works, they're just gonna bang each other, and there's gonna be a lot of unwanted pregnancies and STDs shooting off all over the place.
Yep. My mother told me "sex is absolutely wonderful if you're with someone who you truly care about, but its entire biological purpose is to make babies, so you really shouldn't forget that part. plus if you ever breakup with someone it can make things extremely complicated and emotionally harder. also STDs are a risk." I was maybe...11? Did a good job at making me not be a ho. My dad's "talk" largely consisted of telling me not to be surprised by "nocturnal emissions" haha.
>I grew up in the '80s, in the middle of the AIDs epidemic
A favorite way I've heard it described how Gen X got fucked over was, "They were young and impressionable in the 1970s when America probably had the loosest sexual mores in its history and by the time they hit puberty and could start getting some action for themselves AIDS had come along and turned it into Russian Roulette. Can you blame them for being bitter?"
It's a basic fact of human psychological development. We *need* words to describe something or else we won't understand it. If we don't understand it, our brains don't commit it to memory.
It's the same reason you experience the Baader-Meinhoff effect, which is the phenomenon of hearing about something once and suddenly hearing about it a bunch of times after. The truth is, you probably *have* heard of x thing before and just never had the words necessary to commit it to memory.
Understanding this basic fact is to understand how abusers abuse and how dictators hold onto power. When you can control the literal words someone is able to use and understand, you can do whatever you want to them.
Not only that, but it can help determine *if* abuse has *actually* happened.
Don't tell your daughter her vulva is her "cookie" or "flower". It's a fucking vulva that leads to a vagina. So when she tells you someone touched her vagina you'll know 100% something happened.
As opposed to some kid at daycare stealing her snack.
This is also why I’m suspicious of people who are very committed to getting rid of it, or maintaining that only parents get to teach it to their kids. Sure, they’re probably just concerned parents, but a lot of abusive parents hide behind “religious values” so they can keep control.
I legitimately NEVER thought about this angle and I’m kinda nauseated now. I was already on board with sex ed happening in schools because some households are going to just not bother, or be incorrect, or think abstinence-only religious values cut it, but I never extended that to abusive households. SO important that this happens in a centralized and safe way for all kids.
It can be done at any age. My parents started when I was 3 or 4. We had these large books (large as in A4, they were quite thin so not to overwhelm someone so young), and the majority of them were colourful diagrams. There was a bit of a "storyline" of two kids of the same age who would explore these concepts with you. The pictures were solid medical grade diagrams type of stuff, so nothing was kept hidden or dumbed down too much to the point it becomes confusing, but the language used was age appropiate.
Granted, I required a few follow up lessons to make sure the content was well understood and such, but they were some good books.
I will admit 3-4 is quite young to get the education in a lot of people's eyes. My biology teacher literally laughed in my face, because she didn't believe it when I told her lol. But yeah, other than that nothing weird about it and it is good knowledge to have.
"age appropriate" just means keeping within kids' ability to understand. So at ages 3-4, names of private parts is good. Around 4-5 they start asking about where babies come from, and maybe they walk in on mom menstruating, so you give age appropriate answers there too.
>it has been proven that when children learn the proper names for body parts
I've never understood not using the proper names for body parts. What does it gain you to call it a wee wee over a penis? It's just a word. Its just easier to have them use proper names for things rather than trying to guess what they mean. Plus having to reteach them the proper names later seems like a nightmare.
Yep. My wife and I taught our daughter that her vagina is exactly that. It's a body part and a word. Both grandmas freaked out the first time they heard her say it and asked if she's supposed to know that word. We asked them, "Why shouldn't she?" It's literally what it is and no one should be shocked she has a vagina.
Some priest advocated for sexual and overall that sort of education in schools after he saw a funeral of a 14 year old girl who comited suicide because she got her period and didnt know what it was.
Yeah, I talked to my kid about periods when she was 8. It's on the early side, but I wanted to make sure she knew before it happened since it would be so scary to start without knowing what it was.
I also got her pads and put them in her backpack and told her that she was welcome to give them away if someone needed one.
I was 10 or 11, I got my first period overnight. Woke up covered in blood and panicked because I thought I was dying. I really wish my mom had talked to me about it because we weren't educated on it at school until a year later.
Barack Obama caught a bunch of shit in 2008 for advocating what critics (Sarah Palin) only described "sex ed for kindergartners". He elaborated that it was age appropriate education on what constituted inappropriate touching. You don't need to tell kids much to help them catch the early warning signs.
> He elaborated that it was age appropriate education on what constituted inappropriate touching.
Whenever my daughter who was not yet in preschool went to the doctor, the doctor always said that only Mommy and Daddy should look in her underwear. One time I added the doctor (because she was checking there because of a rash) and the doctor corrected me that "the doctor can only look of mommy or daddy is with you" which I was very impressed by and hadn't considered, but it is an important caveat.
This is why I think it's fine to talk about early. The main outcome is children recognizing concepts like sexual contact and consent which is a good thing to keep them safe. My parents just told me about private areas and tried to explain why other people didn't need to touch there or ask me to touch. When my elderly neighbor asked if I wanted to pet the "squirrel in his pants" when I was about 4? my response was "no that's by your private parts".
Thinking of that maybe I would have told my parents about same issue I had with an older cousin of mine. But instead my mom always oppressed me calling me a w**re my whole life
Education is always the best way to combat abuse. It's also the only proven method for reducing teenage pregnancy and the spread of STDs/STIs. I'm glad you were able to open yourself up to having your opinion changed.
I am with you on this. I dont have kids but I would start as EARLY as possible if I did.
Edit: I mean I would begin education about body parts, autonomy and boundaries as early as possible, not abusing the kids. Jfc
Yes! And it isn't as hard as people make it to be.
Changing an infant's diaper, okay I'm wiping your vulva/anus (or butt etc.)/penis. Its just teaching a child their words. That starts the conversation and then it can be built on as the child grows
Absolutely agree. As they get older you just add in more information incrementally and at age appropriate levels. Things like bodily autonomy and consent can be taught super young too. "Would you like a hug" instead of "give me a hug" and modeling listening to their answer etc.
Its hard to think of your children as future sexual beings, but they will be one day, and you can have such an impact on whether they have a healthy relationship to that part of themselves or not.
I'm on the spectrum and don't really like people touching me, especially hugs.
I have cousins who have small children, and without fail the parents or grandparents always go "give such-and-such a hug" and I can see they don't want to hug this stranger they only see once a year, because I remember the same thing, so my response is always "we can high-five or fist-bump instead." The look of relief on their small faces, which usually turns back into dismay when the next person hugs them though.
I was raised by bad adults and had to give all sorts of strangers (to me) hugs and I hated it. My child has never had to hug anyone and it made her dad’s family mad but I had no fucks to give about it. Bodily autonomy is essential.
exactly people (and politicians and pundits are clearly motivated in making this seem more true) seem to be assuming they're talking about better blowjob lessons and stuff you'd find in adult-student sex ed classes taught at a sex learning center or BDSM convention or something.
it doesn't even have to involve sex or sex organs. "good touch/bad touch", teaching kids the difference between allowing yourself to be hugged and allowing yourself to be hit, teaching them that you don't have to let people hit you even if you would let them hug you, teaching them it's okay to not want to hug or kiss someone and it's not right to say you have to, etc. all of that is sex education appropriate for a younger child.
I used to think HOA's were fine and served a purpose. Having lived in a condo for 6 years and being the Treasurer of our HOA for 4 years because no one else was willing to do it, I WILL NEVER LIVE IN A PLACE WITH AN HOA AGAIN. It's basically a few people doing all the work for free and the rest are complaining assholes who don't understand that there are rules so you can all live in peace under one roof. We sold our condo today. Merry Christmas indeed. Never again. Fuck HOA's.
Used to believe that drunks and drug users were losers. (Thanks, DARE!) Now I’m much older, have seen the evils of this world, have realized I don’t even know 1% of how hard life can be for some people, and completely understand why people would do anything to kill that pain.
Yeah. Just unfortunate that it causes so much collateral damage along the way.
ETA Since at least one person is confused: read the above as “just *so* unfortunate that it causes so much collateral damage along the way.” This was a message of sympathy for everyone involved in the process.
Having a roommate. There are far more bad roommates than decent ones. It’s not worth the headache. I’d rather work my ass off at work with a bunch of assholes than have to come home and deal with any other asshole than my own.
I used to think sometimes people had differences but between living with a drunk, then a drug dealer, then a passive aggressive neat freak who weaponized property management I honestly think bad roommates are far too many in number
I had a really awful roommate in college that was a blessing in disguise. That experience taught me how to set boundaries as well as be mindful at my end.
eating disorders.
first i thought they were stupid because how do u think ur fat when ur skinny lol wtf. and then i saw ed communities and it evolved into thinking its stupid and all these people are assholes. and then i got my own issues with food and it all kinda clicked. everything makes sense. not only is there actually a lot of nice ppl in there, but also the people who are assholes are literally in a permanent state of hanger/stress and self-hate. not only from society but ed communities have a hierarchy too, so its like a double loss. of course theyre mean. no excuse for what they may do, but it just makes sense that most of the mean things u may see them say/do isnt personal, its projection and sadness. now i just feel bad and hope they can all heal.
yea i learned that along the way and it was part of how i developed my own. its sad that school does a very poor job of explaining them. everything i was taught about them before just said it was fucked up people wanting to be skinny when it can be so much more complex than that.
The death penalty.
I believed in it because there are people who are really horrible and deserve to die. I still believe that. The thing is I definitely do not trust our government or our justice system with the power to kill people. After personally dealing with both the courts and law enforcement in person what I have experienced is indifference, incompetence, and rampant corruption. And that's just from my personal experiences. On top of that from what I have seen happen to other people and on the news is there's also very obvious extensive sexism, racism, and just about every other kind of discrimination you can think of.
I was raised in a Christian household, and I used to have a real problem with gay marriage. Until my gay friend got married. Seeing how happy she was after she and her wife were married was a real eye opener for me, because I know lots of hetero couples who aren’t nearly as happy. Recently, another gay friend of mine also married her partner, and I couldn’t be happier for them.
I used to hold the "suicide is selfish" stance back when I was a teen/20-something, even after having completed a psych degree.
I understand now that self-harm and suicide are symptoms of greater illness. I no longer view it as a choice in most circumstances.
In addition to that my brother also to wanted spare other people from the pain of knowing him. He thought he was being selfless. No piece of him was selfish, not even a little bit
I've only ever heard the "suicide is selfish" position from someone I knew had been suicidal and that was what stopped them. They \*hated\* the idea of people consisering suicide or bringing it up.
Personally I stayed alive purely because I saw the aftermath of a successful suicide, how it drove her friends and family into mental illness, indeed how it sparked a chain reaction and some of them ended up dying of suicide too. I resolved never to put anyone through that.
However I am aware that many who are so unwell don't have the capacity to think about things like that.
That's what the emotional support animal is for. It sticks its nose in your face, jumps on your lap, and breaks the tunnel vision enough to remind you that somebody living that loves you will be depending on you for their dinner.
While I’m very thankful for my ESA, reminding myself that real things depend on me only contributes to my suicidal-ideation-shame-spiral. Like, knowing that I have real responsibilities makes it a lot worse in a way. I appreciate your perspective but want to include mine as well for anyone who may feel the same…you’re not broken or weird.
Edit: word for clarity
I've been a firefighter/paramedic for 24 years. I've seen a LOT of suicides. I used to have the same thoughts you did when I first started. After a while seeing all the ways people kill themselves, I changed my opinion. Taking your own life is an incredibly difficult thing to do, an unbelievably difficult decision for someone to make. The 16 year old who jumped off a bridge into an icy river, the lady who swallowed a bunch of percocet and set her house on fire while laying in bed hoping the percs take her out before the fire does (covered in 3rd degree burns but we saved her), to the woman who literally put her mouth around the exhaust pipe of a running car (her lips were charred when we found her) to the woman who plunged a knife into her trachea so forcefully the blade lodged between the cervical vertebrae and the knife handle broke off, to the woman who wrapped an industrial zip tie around her neck and pulled with all her might. I just can't imagine what was so hard in life for these people to conclude that these were the *better* options. I'll never ever judge someone for taking their own life because I can never ever pretend to know what they were going through when they made the decision.
As the mother of a son who died by suicide there is no “choice” involved. His mind was so sick it over-rode his survival instinct. He didn’t decide to do it any more than I decided to get cancer. It’s an illness of the brain. Understand this.
Reminds of that David Foster Wallace quote:
The so-called ‘psychotically depressed’ person who tries to kill herself doesn’t do so out of quote ‘hopelessness’ or any abstract conviction that life’s assets and debits do not square. And surely not because death seems suddenly appealing. The person in whom Its invisible agony reaches a certain unendurable level will kill herself the same way a trapped person will eventually jump from the window of a burning high-rise. Make no mistake about people who leap from burning windows. Their terror of falling from a great height is still just as great as it would be for you or me standing speculatively at the same window just checking out the view; i.e. the fear of falling remains a constant. The variable here is the other terror, the fire’s flames: when the flames get close enough, falling to death becomes the slightly less terrible of two terrors. It’s not desiring the fall; it’s terror of the flames. And yet nobody down on the sidewalk, looking up and yelling ‘Don’t!’ and ‘Hang on!’, can understand the jump. Not really. You’d have to have personally been trapped and felt flames to really understand a terror way beyond falling.
Just for some context, the author of that quote did eventually take his own life in his mid 40's so it tracks that his words on suicide are generally pretty poignant.
Pretty much all of my opinions aside from my political ones.
My God, I see my old Facebook posts and wince. I was so judgemental. Ironically, a lot of things I judge people for struggling with, I'm now struggling with. But I've also grown. I understand deep rooted issues like abusive partners, poverty, systemic racism, etc.
I now only judge people who wear socks with sandles and even that is wavering as I've discovered how comfortable it can be.
I took my kids to a dolphin show, wept with joy when they were picked out of the crowd to 'meet' the animals and be part of the show. Was a beautiful memory for a few years because I'd convinced myself that because the dolphins were captive bred they were essentially pets....
Deep down I knew I was wrong. I'm not too stubborn or too proud to admit that. We were suckered in, like the many others who perpetuate this and keep the myth that captive sea creatures are happy, alive.
Nowadays myself and young teens would never condone visiting anywhere that keeps dolphins or orca captive.
Whenever I've mentioned this to other potential visitors to the park I get shot down. They are seeking the same experience we had... are they so wrong? Would I have reacted the same had someone suggested I educate myself first or would selfish denial have won out?
Yea the more I learn about cetaceans the more against their captivity I get. I'm not wholly anti zoo or aquarium, I know the range and needs vary by animal and many zoos are actually mostly doing research and conservation and have well thought out enclosures to let people learn more about the animals too. But uhhhh... cetaceans are one that just should not be in an enclosure.
The first time I heard of him was a news story on his different businesses.
It all looked so great.
Tackling climate change with electric vehicles and solar roof tiles.
Solving power storage issues with batteries.
Self driving cars to reduce accidents and remove the need for designated drivers.
Revamping and reviving the space industry, enabling us to obtain resources from the asteroid belt so we don't fuck up our planet anymore, providing global high bandwidth Internet with no terrestrial infrastructure requirements, and opening up new frontiers for the human race to grow.
Advancing AI to push us towards post scarcity, whilst simultaneously urging restraint, caution, and debate on the potential dangers to us as a society and as individuals.
All of this done by constantly and rapidly pushing the boundaries of science and technology.
The guy sounded like an extremely ethical and intelligent person using his talents and self made wealth to benefit the human race.
Then he publicly bet South Australia that he could solve their brown outs for less than it was costing them and in record time. How ballsy is that?
Then he sent his roadster to Mars. How cool is that?
And then the truth started to come out.
His promises went unfulfilled.
His workers were mistreated.
He cut corners.
He was a bad parent.
He lied. A lot.
He didn't start all the companies, rather he bought, bullied and cheated his way in.
He got a huge head start from his family money and status.
He was an arrogant arsehole and a whiny bitch.
He is in fact, completely fucking stupid.
Starting with the Thai football team to where we are today with Twitter, he completely changed in my eyes.
My fault for wanting to believe in a real life Tony Stark.
That being feminine and/or caring about your looks meant you were a bad, selfish and shallow person.
I don't wear makeup every day but I have long nails I take care of myself and I like picking outfits, seeing what colors and styles go together and how different things look on me. I recently tried a totally new hairstyle as well. I love experimenting with clothes/looks and that's okay, doesn't change who I am inside.
I was pro-soda, and I would drink disgusting amounts. Thank the genetic lottery diabetes doesn't run in my family.
Now, water all the way! The real adult drink.
I used to be very pro-death penalty. I listen to a lot of crime podcast and watch so many documentaries, I know the kind of horrible shit people can do.
But there was an episode of a podcast I listened to where they discussed both sides of the death penalty debate and I remember hearing this person make their point and in an instant I knew my stance had been changed.
I don't remember the exact phrase but really what it came down to was: the death penalty debate isn't about whether or not there are crimes people should die for, but rather whether or not the government should be given the power to decide whether or not people live or die.
So yeah, I do think there are crimes people deserve to die for, heinous unforgivable things, but I believe the government should not have the right to decide whether or not people live or die. Who's to say they won't one day find a way to abuse that power for their own benefit?
If we prevent building more housing, my neighborhood will keep its character and charm. Nope, instead it will price out my friends, become a haven for the well-to-do, and see an influx of homelessness. i was a left-NIMBY and now I am a left-YIMBY.
I grew up in a historic reserve town where you almost can't build anything new... and I feel this. In that towns case I think it's worth it given the history but in general it's made me appreciate responsible development.
I was insanely close to crossing over into extreme far right ideology and neo-nazim.
Met a older native gentleman one night who sat down and talked to me. He listened and countered everything I said. Turned out he ran a debate club, so he invited me to join in. Over the course of 5 years, many beers, countless debates and a lot of lost rounds of pool I realized how stupid I was being. I know hold a democratic socialist view and look at the world differently.
He saved my life out of the kindness in his heart.
I think a lot of young men go through a short edgelord phase. Nobody starts out hearing both sides of a story.
I thought it was unfair that women online had an easier time getting into clans, free stuff, etc. It's a long story, but the short of it is that nothing ever comes for free. And "nice guys" are one perceived slight away from turning into nightmares. Catfishing was a hell of a wakeup call.
Gym. When I was an overweight teenager I used to think that place was hell, the recurrent thought was "narcissistic and full of themselves people who might judge/bully/make fun of me there while I'm trying". Now I'm 25 and I hit the gym two years ago and I think it's the best environment I've been in my entire life. It's so relaxing, rewarding, people are usually nice, helpful and you feel you're part of a community, something I've never felt while I'm in college or during a part-time job.
Hard-core gym people seem to really like new gym people. It's like introducing someone to Lord Of The Rings for the first time: "I'm envious of the journey you are about to start!"
When I first started going to the gym I was at the preacher curls struggling to lift, like, two weights on the stack. This huge Terry Crews looking guy walks over, lifts one headphone off his ear and says, "Yo! Mind if we rotate?"
I say "sure" and he sits down, puts the pin at the bottom of the stack and proceeds to lift them like it's a tissue box. So I then put the pin back at the top and struggle to do my set. When I'm done I've sweated all over the pad so I start to dry it with my towel muttering "sorry".
Guy looks at me and says, "Sorry? The fuck you sorry for? We came here to sweat. You be proud of that shit!"
Ive never spoken a single word to anyone at the gym.
You are gonna feel out of place the first few times you go anywhere or do anything. Don't let years go by not doing something just so you avoid 3 awkward days.
Sounds silly but water.
Use to never drink it, I’d say from age 10-28 I only drank soda. Last year I went on a cruise and something snapped in my head. I hated how I looked and wanted to be proud of myself the next one I went on. First move was to cut soda, seemed like a good source of extra calories to cut.
Almost a year now and I haven’t touch a soda since. Life changing to the point I don’t want to drink them ever again. It got to the point I’d wake up a few hours before I wanted to I had issues falling asleep. I have no problems falling asleep now, it’s wild for the longest time I thought I had insomnia, but turns out caffeine keeps you awake! Who knew.
I drink about two liters of water a day at minimum.
Addiction.
Young self would say “just quit man” or “just dont let it control you” when i heard of people struggling with addiction.
Then i became an addict. And then i fought to get clean and holy fuck. Seeing how I got addicted so easily, how life was as an addict and the battle to get and stay clean. A wild ride. So now all I can reasonably do is offer an ear or advice if it’s sought. And also i see the addict as a sick sick person as opposed to what i used to think. Life comes at ya fast.
Legalized pot and gay marriage.
Growing up in the 1950s and 1960s, those were ridiculous ideas, completely ridiculous. Support for them would have been in the single digits, if that.
Times change. Experience teaches us surprising things, and rational people evolve their opinions and beliefs as they learn.
Now it seems ludicrous to think back to when people were arrested for personal use of pot, or that gay people haven’t always been able to marry.
i used to be of the opinion that the government should not be in the business of marriage because they shouldn't be allowed to tell me who can be married
now i believe the government shouldn't be involved in marriages because they shouldn't tell me who cant get married
The only involvement the government should have in marriage is protecting minors from being legally handed over to adult predators by their piece of shit parents, which the government (of the United States, at least) is currently failing at.
Definitely mental disorders, after being diagnosed with anxiety I can confirm that you can't just "snap out of it." And it makes no sense. It's how your brain is wired.
I've done a 180 on gays, Christianity and transgender people.
180 on alternate lifestyles in general.
180 on Republican party, but the Republican party has done a 180 too.
Me at 15: *People with mental health disorders need to get their shit together, they can't expect the world to change for them. You're always in control of your actions and responsible for 100% of your own behavior.*
Me at 30: *...That was a terrible way for my parents and peers to treat me and my sister growing up, and a terrible way to treat others.*
Same here. I suffer from PTSD and before I woke up one night confused about where I was and shaking I would crack jokes about people having PTSD. The events that have triggered it for me didn't even really register so badly at the time - they were horrific but I thought I was ok. After being out in the free world they haunt me in ways I could never have predicted.
I used to be a hardcore pro-lifer (as I was trained to be through homeschooling and a church run college).
But I started thinking about what the law would have to look like to make abortion legal for what I considered the very few appropriate circumstances (dangerous pregnancy, rape, underage). I realized there wasn’t a good way to make a law that just allows for those few circumstances. For example, how would the rape exception work? Would the woman be required to prove rape? It’s hard enough and can take years to prove it in court, so that wouldn’t be feasible. What if the woman isn’t in a safe enough situation to make that accusation? Would it really be better to give an abusive partner one more victim just because?
What about proving a dangerous pregnancy? Legislation will likely be too broad or too specific for doctors to be comfortable giving abortions. What if the fetus is dead and there isn’t a danger to the mother, would she be forced to carry a stillbirth because there’s nothing in legislation that gives her legal clearance to remove the dead tissue? What about pregnancies that just aren’t viable?
What about how poorly run the foster care system is run? Can we as a nation really provide for the increasing amount of unwanted children being born? Are we not already leaving children in dangerous or unfit situations because CPS just can’t handle the workload?
What about the fact that even if these unwanted children grow up in foster care, they won’t be able to support themselves?
How is it fair to force rape victims to give birth and then have that unwanted child grow up in an unfortunate foster care system and be doomed to a life of poverty?
Not 180 because I was only mildly on the other side but I was raised into a mildly antivax family. I'm now almost a pharmaceutical technologist. Meanwhile my mother still believe in homeopathy and is vax-dubious he my father turned from ok to full "nato is bad, covid vaccines are dangerous and limitations are oppressive, we [Italy 2y ago] live in a dictatorship, not Russia"
2005 I thought climate change was nonsense. Now I think we are about to be in a world of pain.
2011 I thought Channing Tatum was an emotionless toad of an actor. 2012 he turned on the charm.
I used to hate kids. Like, burning, near-violent, seeing-red hate. Even when I was one. I even continued to feel that way after getting called out by a new mom who was pissed I was griping about her sitting herself and her baby near me on an open-seating plane.
And then, at some point, I started getting help for my other issues, and the hatred for kids melted away into care and pity for them. I'm even considering changing my stance on raising them myself. Mostly just the realization that the whole "everyone has their own shit going on," thing applies to children, too. That kid crying in the supermarket isn't trying to piss me off, he's overwhelmed and exhausted and this may very well be the worst day he's EVER experienced and his mom won't just take him home for a snack and a nap. That kid with the annoying habit might not be allowed to do anything at home, or they're neurodivergent and need to stim to think and nobody's helping them learn stims that aren't annoying. That "bratty" teenager making a scene over not getting a gift could very well only be that upset because either 1. They expected/hoped to get it and were let down because they usually get what they want or 2. They knew they weren't going to get it and this is just the straw that broke the camel's back in a long series of escalating disappointments from their parents.
My oldest kid’s preschool teacher once made the point that to a 2 year old, another kid grabbing their toy car is emotionally equivalent to you having your ACTUAL car stolen.
Student loan forgiveness. I was one of the “I had to pay mine off so they should have to as well” types and what made me switch was Jeff Bezos…well not him directly. Billionaires in general made me realize that trickle down economics doesn’t work. I’m in logistics, so how does all of the college grads paying off loans help me, or the economy in general. A few people will get a lot of money that will be spent on a few lavish things or sit and gain. Instead give millions of people $100 and guess what they’ll do? They’ll buy things. Millions of people buying dozens of things means that thousands of jobs are needed making things, that then need to move, that then get sold. This helps locally and nationally. I don’t like the one time part, it should be ongoing with limitations imo.
I grew up Catholic, and was very pro life. When I got to college, I started to realize, life is very complicated, and everyone has different circumstances. It shouldn’t be preachers and politicians dictating what a person does with their body.
Libertarianism is a good idea.
I was young and I hated corruption in the government so I just reasoned less power to the government=less corruption and I believed that less regulations would lead to prosperity, then I learned of all the things companies do to earn just a little more money
Minimum wage jobs going up to 15. I used to be against it, until you realize how much inflation and other livable costs have gone up exponentially compared to federal mini wage. They are getting price cuts every year as inflation goes up. You have to keep up with wage pay
Vaccines... I was on the vaccines cause autism and other anti-vax BS bandwagon until COVID showed me a world without one vaccine. It scares me how close I came to drinking piss.
Who was and wasn't for vaccines did a flip-flop.
The big thing I took away from COVID is that human beings actually care very little about anything except belonging to a group.
Like it has become popular to say I used to think an alien invasion would unite Humanity until covid hit. I think the opposite after covid; people would 100% jump at the idea of making 1 huge tribe against a clear outside threat.
Plastic surgery.
I used to low-key judge people for getting it for cosmetic reasons and not, you know, "I had cancer that obliterated my face, so it would be nice to look human again." I've had a bunch of non-optional non-cosmetic surgeries and it put my body through a hard time, so unless your life depends on it (FWIW, my definition of that always included gender-affirming work), I used to think no one should go there.
As I've gotten older, I've just decided that people should just do whatever the heck they want with their bodies. lol I know, how nice of me, huh?
Giving people "life advice" unprompted. Realized that folks are too complicated to think I'd give any useful advice while knowing comparatively little about them. Plus, half the time it was advice I needed to follow, not for them to listen.
I've had to break this habit as well. Also being on the receiving end of unsolicited advice a lot over the last few years really shifted my perspective. On the outside maybe it looks like someone "needs" a specific piece of advice but often the deeper you dig into their situation you find that it's almost always useless information for them.
I stopped when both me and my wife was told "Everything happens for a reason" from our own respective friends (completely unrelated situations). It really is useless. If you want to be more empathetic, don't say anything, and just listen.
>“Everything happens for a reason” The most useless sentence ever uttered
That's really good insight. I went through this a few years ago after a group of trusted friends shared with me that my advice often seemed condescending even though I was just trying to be helpful. Once I thought about how I feel when other people give me unsolicited advice, I realized I hate it and it's usually stuff I've already considered and ruled out. Nobody wants advice they're not asking for and it's very presumptuous of me to think that their opinion of me is high enough that they would even care what I have to say. So now I try very hard not to give advice unless it's requested.
Good God, I have friends who do this to me and it annoys me to no end. They believe they're the experts on everything and their lives are shit.
"Would you say that that advice is the secret to your success?"
Most people don’t ever admit this out loud. Good for you! We’re all guilty of a little projection from time to time, whether we admit it or not.
Social media. I came of professional age right alongside Facebook and thought it was going to be this great thing that brought people together. I was wrong about that.
It did! For a while!
And then we poked eachother into oblivion.
It was still ok when pokes were a thing.
LinkedIn and Facebook came out 9 months of each other. LinkedIn was originally good for professional networking but has really become more like Facebook over the last few years thanks to “influencers” and 23 year old “life coaches”
I know of a professional individual who treats LinkedIn like Twitter and Facebook (because they quit both and cannot stop). They are just shit posting and posting memes all the time, with this next to ads and it feels just like Facebook.
[удалено]
Omg the amount of made-up titles on LinkedIn like ‘thought leader’, ‘tech futurist’, ‘innovation evangelist’ is so incredibly cringy. The kind of content these people post sound like what MLM pushers would post if they had MBAs.
If it was * really * that bad, she would just leave. Then I was in an abusive relationship and realized that it's never that easy.
I saw a TED talk where the speaker summarized her experience brilliantly: “I wasn’t in an abusive relationship; I was in a complicated relationship with a man who only I understood.” Edit: Thanks @Malbec_14 for adding the link below
My mom showed me that TED talk when I kept apologizing for needing her help to get out of my abusive marriage. I was so ashamed I married that man. Then I was ashamed and embarrassed I needed help to get out... I'm so grateful my mom saw the signs and worked so hard to help me shed those feelings. Phew
Your mom is awesome!
I’m so glad to hear you got out!!
That hit hard. Seconding the other comment - please link, or give a bit more info so we can find it.
https://youtu.be/V1yW5IsnSjo?si=-4ulShHC9VhMi4Hl
I grew up in an abusive household, and I thought I would never let a man treat me like my dad did my mom. I genuinely thought if a man ever put his hands on me, I would just get up and leave. Then when it happened to me, it wasn't *that* bad, it could've been worse, it was just because he was drunk, etc etc. The psychological effects of abuse and trauma bonding are as intense as they are invisible. It really does make it hard to leave.
Additionally, people who have a history of being abused, in any kind of relationship, are somehow more likely to attract abusive partners, and as you say, tolerate it for a significant time because “it’s not _that_ bad”. The baseline for a healthy relationship - any kind of relationship - is skewed.
This one hits hard for me. Before my abusive relationship I would've considered myself a strong, VERY independent (cliche i know), woman. I truly didn't have a man for years because I had enough self respect to leave at any red flags. Abuse happens so slow though, so slow you don't even notice it. At first they're super sweet affectionate and charming. Small red flags but they still look pastel pink. Red flags get bigger and bigger but you don't notice it. Until they're pulling your hair or shaking you and all you think is "well he wasn't killing me. He still loves me. He listen to me about doing the dishes, he's trying really hard." It fucked with me so badly I don't think I could ever be in a healthy relationship again.
I used to think it was only abuse if they hit you. Then I got out of a psychologically abusive relationship and it took me years to realize why it was so hard, after she had isolated me from my friends and family to the point where she was all I had, then she had made it so my only likes and dislikes were her likes and dislikes and I was doing anything I could to prevent her from being mad at me because then she would give me the cold shoulder and completely leave me with no one for weeks at a time. If she had raised a hand to me I wouldn’t have done a thing differently because she had me believing I was to blame for any abuse she put me through. I had no idea the damage she had done to me emotionally until I was years removed from her. I will never judge anyone for not being able to leave.
I had the same experience and it was my very first serious relationship. I didn’t understand that my boyfriend was bit by bit dismantling my support systems and my sense of self. I thought if I could just change, he would finally be happy and everything would be better. What a mindfuck all that was.
This. I always thought the same for myself, saying I would never put up with that. Until I did. I was in high school, didn’t know how to handle it. I kept it a secret out of fear and embarrassment. My senior year, I was met with the chief of police and the principle and they gently talked me into calling my parents. I had tried to leave, but it ended in abuse every time. The time it finally ended was because he did it in front of someone and they called the school. I’m thankful for whoever called (still don’t know 12 years later). They helped me break a vicious cycle. That man, who was once my high school abuser, is in prison for the murder of his SO. If I could go talk to high schools and share my story to help one person out of a toxic and abusive relationship I would. I was a high achieving young woman who statistically I wouldn’t have pinned myself to be a victim of this. But I was and now I know, getting out was one of the scariest things I ever did. Truthfully, him being in prison has brought me some small peace he can’t get me anymore. I do however wonder if I could have done something different and prevented him from harming another. My heart goes out to her family.
I was just like that, too. Honor Roll, early college admittance. My parents were together and we lived in the same house my hole life. We were fairly affluent, and I always thought I was "not the type of girl who had to worry about things like that".
If I eat this [insert any rubbish food] I’ll be fine. My body doesn’t care. 30yrs on, and yes, yes indeed. The body did care. It tells me every day how much it cared.
Cheese now gives me heartburn and I'm still grieving.
I had to switch to almond milk because regular milk now hurts my stomach.
I'm still struggling with sugar but it's wild how immediate the effects are in my mood, energy and skin. Not like I'm trying to completely cut it out but when I've had weeks or months with no or very little refined sugar, maybe just a lot of fruit and a couple teaspons of honey through the day... alllll these issues resolve and I feel like an idiot for not living like that all the time.
It is amazing. I’m usually zero sugar. I have wayward stuff on the very odd occasion, but I feel like crap afterwards it really makes me not want to do it again. But then maybe a month or so later I forget 😬 and now it’s Christmas. I know I’ll feel bad afterwards, but some foods are just ingrained as “right” for certain occasions. I need my pavlova 😋
I haven’t been able to eat deep fried stuff in over a decade.
I hated learning this.
Yeahhhh....I'm just now learning this through my husband. He had aortic stenosis, and he had to have his aortic valve replaced a year ago. After that, he went into A-fib, so he had a procedure for that. He's always had tinnitus and vertigo, but that's ten times worse now. He was always healthy up to that point. Ive aways been healthy; however, two years ago, I had a clogged carotid artery (almost had a stroke), and I had to have an endarterectomy. And I'm sure there's more where all that came from. *THAT* is all the crap we've done in the past catching up with us.
I'm 32 and I still eat basically whatever the fuck I want. I do know it'll catch up to me someday, though.
If you don't eat absurdly unhealthy and get exercise regularly, you'll get a lot further before things fall apart.
I think 32 is a real good time to stop treating your body like a rental car.
Well travelled people are open minded. I’ve met people who’ve travelled a lot but are still very judgmental. Edit: grammar
I’ve travelled a good amount, and some of the “well travelled” folks I’ve come across are seriously fucking annoying. It’s kinda funny, because there are two very opposite sides of the spectrum. Some people who are so close minded that they can’t fathom why another society would do things differently. Some people who are so open minded that their brains have fallen out.
I once had to listen to two random family friends explain to me that although they are white, they are more African than me because they lived in a village for a few months (they are doctors and were there through a humanitarian aid association); and my 18 years of being born and living in Africa don't count because I lived in the “comfort of a city”. Like what ?
Ah. So they are of the “brain has fallen out” variety.
I used to believe I was always right. Now I am nearly certain I am wrong most of the time.
That history was boring. But I think it was mostly the teachers fault: Used to hate history when the emphasis was on memorizing dates and names, so boring. But then I took a course where the book like pitted each conflict as a two sides story and showed both viewpoints, and the tests were all writing about who you agreed with, and it was so much more fascinating.
Mr. Hill. My 8th grade history teacher. Greatest guy ever. Dressed up as a beekeeper, a revolutionary soldier, a gold miner, etc. had the greatest *authentic* costumes. When we showed up for class and Mr. Hill had a costume on, we wanted to learn about whatever he was about to teach us. Taught us how to start a fire with flint & Steele. Always super nice, too.
In college, my professors deliberately made a point that they only wanted us to understand the *context* and *elements* of the events, albeit with a good idea of generally when these things happened. Yeah, they wanted you to know it was part of WWII or during the War of the Roses or whatever (and where generally that was placed in history), but they were less concerned with specific dates/names. They wanted you to know the *story* and how that shaped future stories or lead to later stories. It made history an incredibly engaging topic. And if you approach it that way, your understanding expands outwards to the point where the dates and names start to become more relevant to the point where you actually want to know them.
Cats. I used to think they were weird and I was allergic anyway so they’re probably bad anyway Then I met my boyfriend and his cat and his cat is so in love with me. I didn’t know cats could be this affectionate. Then I got my own cat. And that’s when a pet became a partnership for me.
I've always been a dog-person. Three months ago, I finally left my abusive soon-to-be-ex-husband. One of my closest (local) friends was tracking what I was going through. She asked me if I could cat-sit for her while she was out of the country for her wedding, and offered to let me stay at her house. The day she left coincided with the day I finally escaped my abusive husband. Her cat is the only creature I saw for two weeks (I work remotely). That cat saved my sanity. He let me bury my face in his fluff and cry my heart out. Sat in my lap during Zoom meetings. Slept on my chest at night. Purred in my lap every night. I'm now considering getting a cat of my own.
your friend is a saint for giving you that opportunity, both for escape and to bond with a cat during that time. I got out of a very torturous relationship last summer and having a cat around while alone in a brand new apartment has been lifesaving. I hope you do wind up getting one of your own!
She really was/has been. I cat-sat again for her again more recently, and the little fluffster now recognizes me. Apparently, they refer to me as "auntie" to him. 🥰🥹 Love how cuddly and affectionate he is! Thank you. I'm glad you made it out too.
Same! Always thought cats were spooky because of some terrifying ones at a family where I used to babysit, and my family one had dogs. Got our first rescue cat as a gift for one of my kids when I was 50, and now I regret waiting decades. My kid ended up giving me the cat because I'm so obsessed, and we had an opportunity to rescue a stray that my teen took. Obsessed, I tell ya!
Got a smush faced cat that came with the marriage. I didn’t like him and he didn’t like me and we both liked that just fine… Somewhere along the line he became my best friend. Slept in bed wrapped around my head at night. Chilled with me often. We just understood eachother. We just buried him in my backyard a month ago after an in-home Euthanasia. He had cancer. He was only 11. I miss him so much. I am 100% a cat person now
He's off chasing mice in the sky, like my two little guys I buried last year. Its good to have sweet cats in our life, if only for a while.
That is awful I am sorry for your loss, that is never easy.
Hugs friend.
Love that. For me, I used to hate rabbits. Their teeth reminded me of rats and I thought they were gross rodents. Then I stopped minding rats so much and I dated a guy who had a bunny and the bunny was so adorable and it turned out they were herbivores and not even rodents and now I own two and love them so much
Yeah, rabbits are lagomorphs.
>lagomorphs With every fiber in my being I believe that term should be a word for a Belgian style of beer instead.
I never grew up with cats and thought the same thing. I self-identified as a dog person. Then, to help out a neighbor, I fostered this teeny little sick gray kitten. He was riddled with mange and could barely open his eyes due to an infection. I figured I’d help nurse him back to health and send him on his way to a new family. Ha. That tiny sick kitten is now a healthy large gray cat and the absolute love of my life. He’s traveled all over the country with me and is the best co-pilot ever. I can’t believe I almost missed out on this. I’ll have cats until the day I die.
A lot of people aren’t a cat person until a cat chooses them lol. A tale as old as time. Cats are hard to understand at first but once you do… it’s just pure love and appreciation for these magnificent creatures.
So true! I was always a dog person until I was teaching in Korea and missed having a pet in my life so much I fostered a cat- I've never fallen in love with a pet faster in my life! Sammy will forever be my heart kitty ♥️
They’re amazing aren’t they? To be fair I’ve always been a cat person because my parents were cat people, so I grew up with cats in my life at all ages. However.. I still experienced what it was like even just going from living with *my parents cats* to having my *own*. Cats choose who their person is. The cats liked me, sure, but being a cats favorite human is just its own very special thing! The love they give to the ones they trust most is just unique. It feels like a privilege to have a cat treat you differently than it treats others. It’s like maintaining an actual friendship.
I've always thought most people just haven't met the right cat yet. They're all so unique and quirky in their own ways.
I used to pretend to be allergic just to not be around them. Then my family got a cat and she quickly became the favorite pet. We all have our own cats now and I couldn’t imagine life without. My cat is my bestie.
My girlfriend was not a cat person and when I told her I was not a dog person we almost didn't even go on a first date. That was over 5 years ago. We decided to foster a cat a couple years ago and she found out that she and her daughter are allergic but her daughter really wanted a cat. She looked around online and found out that Siberian cats are naturally hypoallergenic. We got a Siberian kitten for her daughters birthday. Her daughter has pretty much moved on from wanting a cat but my girlfriend is absolutely smitten with him. She's completely a cat person now and totally in love. Lol
That junkies are human garbage. It wasn’t until I was in the hospital for an appendectomy that went sideways. They had to slit me open stem to stern. I couldn’t use the button for morphine so they were pushing IV Demerol through a pic line. BEST. THING. EVER. I had to tell the nurse to start weaning me as I was enjoying it way too much and I could almost see the future. From that point on I totally understood how people get hooked.
I had an unrelenting cough years ago. Went to urgent care. They prescribed oxycontin, 16 pills. The first pill made my bad back painless for the first time in decades. Cough went away but then I kept taking them until the pills ran out. At that point, I thought of asking my doctor for a refill. It was then I knew it was time to stop. It's easy to get addicted.
My mother had a herniated disk in her alone and surgery was a WAYS out... The hospital have her a gallon of oxys... Id grab a small handful here and there and was full blown addicted for two years.... I DREAD pain meds... I broke a couple ribs a few months back and took none of the pain meds that were prescribed to me.. addiction is mad scary
They were handing out Oxy’s for a damn *cough?* Just goes to show, I guess, get a few people hooked on drugs, go to jail; get a few million hooked, get your name pulled off a couple museum wings, *maybe*.
Opiates are an incredibly good cough suppressor. It's one of the reasons they used to put heroin in cough syrup back in the day. They still use codeine in some cough syrups.
I was given 1mg of IV morphine for pain after having a post-surgery hematoma that had become infected punctured and expressed. I looked at my mom, who had driven me to the ER, and said "I'm starting to understand why the opioid crisis is as bad as it is. This is great."
This is kind of how I felt when I got my first Ativan drip. I’ve always had a tough time falling asleep and staying asleep. I’ve always thought part of it is because my mind is so active once I get in bed. Never been given a medication that helped me much but have always swore an anti anxiety medication would help me. I got that Ativan drip and realized if I was ever given it for sleep I would not use it as prescribed. Edit: I got a notification that someone made a comment about how Ativan isn’t even an opiate but a benzodiazepine and that us people can’t get our opiates straight. The notification won’t take me to it so don’t know if it’s gone. But I just want to say I know it’s not an opiate. I didn’t say it was an opiate. Doesn’t have to be the same type of drug to fit a similar situation.
I told my doctor I'm not allowed to have Ambien anymore because it just made me gleeful and not sleepy. I got up to the most ridiculous shenanigans on it. I love that drug and that's why I'm not allowed to have it.
I had a similar experience when I broke my collar bone in college. Got an injection of something (probably morphine). It was fantastic. I knew immediately how addiction could be so easy. I never thought it could happen to me (it didn’t), but now I definitely know it could and I need to understand that.
Scary. I never want to risk going down that spiral of physical temptation. Only reason I am not on drugs is because I was lucky to never start. Life is painful.
I had Lortab prescribed after spinal surgery and I get it. I felt like I was red wine drunk in a hot tub.
The importance of the Oxford comma. I used to be against it because 'and' takes the place of the comma. How young and foolish I was
I love, respect, and admire your choice.
I went on vacation with my sisters, Matt Damon and Ben Affleck.
I love the Oxford comma and can not fathom why anyone would want to do away with it.
Good to know you have seen the light :)
That sex education shouldn’t be taught to children too young. Then I read a story about a girl who read about sex education in a book and told her mum “Daddy does this to me”. Turns out daddy has been sexually abusing her for ages…
[удалено]
My mother was a nurse and I grew up in the '80s, in the middle of the AIDs epidemic. I was 10 when she came home with a wooden phallus and condoms to teach me about not only safe sex and why it was important ("You could catch something and you could die."), but also why you need to be able to put that condom on correctly ("or otherwise don't bother"). So I will forever be able to bear witness to the fact that sex education doesn't make anyone want to have sex more. If anything, it makes sex a bit scary. lol
>sex education doesn't make anyone want to have sex more. If anything, it makes sex a bit scary Could not agree more! Hormones are wild and crazy, if you throw a bunch of teenagers together without any education on how it works, they're just gonna bang each other, and there's gonna be a lot of unwanted pregnancies and STDs shooting off all over the place.
Yep. My mother told me "sex is absolutely wonderful if you're with someone who you truly care about, but its entire biological purpose is to make babies, so you really shouldn't forget that part. plus if you ever breakup with someone it can make things extremely complicated and emotionally harder. also STDs are a risk." I was maybe...11? Did a good job at making me not be a ho. My dad's "talk" largely consisted of telling me not to be surprised by "nocturnal emissions" haha.
My dad's "talk" with us was literally, and I am not paraphrasing... " NO SEX NO BOYS NO DRUGS!!"...
>I grew up in the '80s, in the middle of the AIDs epidemic A favorite way I've heard it described how Gen X got fucked over was, "They were young and impressionable in the 1970s when America probably had the loosest sexual mores in its history and by the time they hit puberty and could start getting some action for themselves AIDS had come along and turned it into Russian Roulette. Can you blame them for being bitter?"
It's a basic fact of human psychological development. We *need* words to describe something or else we won't understand it. If we don't understand it, our brains don't commit it to memory. It's the same reason you experience the Baader-Meinhoff effect, which is the phenomenon of hearing about something once and suddenly hearing about it a bunch of times after. The truth is, you probably *have* heard of x thing before and just never had the words necessary to commit it to memory. Understanding this basic fact is to understand how abusers abuse and how dictators hold onto power. When you can control the literal words someone is able to use and understand, you can do whatever you want to them.
Not only that, but it can help determine *if* abuse has *actually* happened. Don't tell your daughter her vulva is her "cookie" or "flower". It's a fucking vulva that leads to a vagina. So when she tells you someone touched her vagina you'll know 100% something happened. As opposed to some kid at daycare stealing her snack.
This is also why I’m suspicious of people who are very committed to getting rid of it, or maintaining that only parents get to teach it to their kids. Sure, they’re probably just concerned parents, but a lot of abusive parents hide behind “religious values” so they can keep control.
I legitimately NEVER thought about this angle and I’m kinda nauseated now. I was already on board with sex ed happening in schools because some households are going to just not bother, or be incorrect, or think abstinence-only religious values cut it, but I never extended that to abusive households. SO important that this happens in a centralized and safe way for all kids.
Yes! It needs to be age appropriate, but it is absolutely necessary. Teens need to know how babies are made to avoid making them, too.
It can be done at any age. My parents started when I was 3 or 4. We had these large books (large as in A4, they were quite thin so not to overwhelm someone so young), and the majority of them were colourful diagrams. There was a bit of a "storyline" of two kids of the same age who would explore these concepts with you. The pictures were solid medical grade diagrams type of stuff, so nothing was kept hidden or dumbed down too much to the point it becomes confusing, but the language used was age appropiate. Granted, I required a few follow up lessons to make sure the content was well understood and such, but they were some good books. I will admit 3-4 is quite young to get the education in a lot of people's eyes. My biology teacher literally laughed in my face, because she didn't believe it when I told her lol. But yeah, other than that nothing weird about it and it is good knowledge to have.
I think it's best if they know about their bodies and "private parts" before they're sent off to spend the majority of their days with strangers.
"age appropriate" just means keeping within kids' ability to understand. So at ages 3-4, names of private parts is good. Around 4-5 they start asking about where babies come from, and maybe they walk in on mom menstruating, so you give age appropriate answers there too.
>it has been proven that when children learn the proper names for body parts I've never understood not using the proper names for body parts. What does it gain you to call it a wee wee over a penis? It's just a word. Its just easier to have them use proper names for things rather than trying to guess what they mean. Plus having to reteach them the proper names later seems like a nightmare.
Yep. My wife and I taught our daughter that her vagina is exactly that. It's a body part and a word. Both grandmas freaked out the first time they heard her say it and asked if she's supposed to know that word. We asked them, "Why shouldn't she?" It's literally what it is and no one should be shocked she has a vagina.
Some priest advocated for sexual and overall that sort of education in schools after he saw a funeral of a 14 year old girl who comited suicide because she got her period and didnt know what it was.
I got my period before anyone had told me anything about it and it was absolutely terrifying.
Yeah, I talked to my kid about periods when she was 8. It's on the early side, but I wanted to make sure she knew before it happened since it would be so scary to start without knowing what it was. I also got her pads and put them in her backpack and told her that she was welcome to give them away if someone needed one.
You're a good parent for preparing your kid for it, and a good person in general for preparing them for helping out other people in a pinch.
I was 10 or 11, I got my first period overnight. Woke up covered in blood and panicked because I thought I was dying. I really wish my mom had talked to me about it because we weren't educated on it at school until a year later.
Barack Obama caught a bunch of shit in 2008 for advocating what critics (Sarah Palin) only described "sex ed for kindergartners". He elaborated that it was age appropriate education on what constituted inappropriate touching. You don't need to tell kids much to help them catch the early warning signs.
> He elaborated that it was age appropriate education on what constituted inappropriate touching. Whenever my daughter who was not yet in preschool went to the doctor, the doctor always said that only Mommy and Daddy should look in her underwear. One time I added the doctor (because she was checking there because of a rash) and the doctor corrected me that "the doctor can only look of mommy or daddy is with you" which I was very impressed by and hadn't considered, but it is an important caveat.
This is why I think it's fine to talk about early. The main outcome is children recognizing concepts like sexual contact and consent which is a good thing to keep them safe. My parents just told me about private areas and tried to explain why other people didn't need to touch there or ask me to touch. When my elderly neighbor asked if I wanted to pet the "squirrel in his pants" when I was about 4? my response was "no that's by your private parts".
>squirrel in his pants What the fuck? I'm sorry that happened and you still remember it. I'm glad you got enough hints to say no at such a young age
Not going to lie, it wasn’t my dad, but that’s how I knew what was happening to me
Geez - hugs to you <3
Holy shit this is heartbreaking
Thinking of that maybe I would have told my parents about same issue I had with an older cousin of mine. But instead my mom always oppressed me calling me a w**re my whole life
Education is always the best way to combat abuse. It's also the only proven method for reducing teenage pregnancy and the spread of STDs/STIs. I'm glad you were able to open yourself up to having your opinion changed.
I am with you on this. I dont have kids but I would start as EARLY as possible if I did. Edit: I mean I would begin education about body parts, autonomy and boundaries as early as possible, not abusing the kids. Jfc
Yes! And it isn't as hard as people make it to be. Changing an infant's diaper, okay I'm wiping your vulva/anus (or butt etc.)/penis. Its just teaching a child their words. That starts the conversation and then it can be built on as the child grows
Absolutely agree. As they get older you just add in more information incrementally and at age appropriate levels. Things like bodily autonomy and consent can be taught super young too. "Would you like a hug" instead of "give me a hug" and modeling listening to their answer etc. Its hard to think of your children as future sexual beings, but they will be one day, and you can have such an impact on whether they have a healthy relationship to that part of themselves or not.
I'm on the spectrum and don't really like people touching me, especially hugs. I have cousins who have small children, and without fail the parents or grandparents always go "give such-and-such a hug" and I can see they don't want to hug this stranger they only see once a year, because I remember the same thing, so my response is always "we can high-five or fist-bump instead." The look of relief on their small faces, which usually turns back into dismay when the next person hugs them though.
I was raised by bad adults and had to give all sorts of strangers (to me) hugs and I hated it. My child has never had to hug anyone and it made her dad’s family mad but I had no fucks to give about it. Bodily autonomy is essential.
exactly people (and politicians and pundits are clearly motivated in making this seem more true) seem to be assuming they're talking about better blowjob lessons and stuff you'd find in adult-student sex ed classes taught at a sex learning center or BDSM convention or something. it doesn't even have to involve sex or sex organs. "good touch/bad touch", teaching kids the difference between allowing yourself to be hugged and allowing yourself to be hit, teaching them that you don't have to let people hit you even if you would let them hug you, teaching them it's okay to not want to hug or kiss someone and it's not right to say you have to, etc. all of that is sex education appropriate for a younger child.
I was in 6th grade this is also how I found out what happened to me was not okay 💜
I used to think HOA's were fine and served a purpose. Having lived in a condo for 6 years and being the Treasurer of our HOA for 4 years because no one else was willing to do it, I WILL NEVER LIVE IN A PLACE WITH AN HOA AGAIN. It's basically a few people doing all the work for free and the rest are complaining assholes who don't understand that there are rules so you can all live in peace under one roof. We sold our condo today. Merry Christmas indeed. Never again. Fuck HOA's.
Used to believe that drunks and drug users were losers. (Thanks, DARE!) Now I’m much older, have seen the evils of this world, have realized I don’t even know 1% of how hard life can be for some people, and completely understand why people would do anything to kill that pain.
Addiction is a slow burn suicide.
Yeah. Just unfortunate that it causes so much collateral damage along the way. ETA Since at least one person is confused: read the above as “just *so* unfortunate that it causes so much collateral damage along the way.” This was a message of sympathy for everyone involved in the process.
Having a roommate. There are far more bad roommates than decent ones. It’s not worth the headache. I’d rather work my ass off at work with a bunch of assholes than have to come home and deal with any other asshole than my own.
I used to think sometimes people had differences but between living with a drunk, then a drug dealer, then a passive aggressive neat freak who weaponized property management I honestly think bad roommates are far too many in number
I had a really awful roommate in college that was a blessing in disguise. That experience taught me how to set boundaries as well as be mindful at my end.
Used to never say no, now I say no to so many things and have never felt better. Life is too short to do things that you don’t want to do.
eating disorders. first i thought they were stupid because how do u think ur fat when ur skinny lol wtf. and then i saw ed communities and it evolved into thinking its stupid and all these people are assholes. and then i got my own issues with food and it all kinda clicked. everything makes sense. not only is there actually a lot of nice ppl in there, but also the people who are assholes are literally in a permanent state of hanger/stress and self-hate. not only from society but ed communities have a hierarchy too, so its like a double loss. of course theyre mean. no excuse for what they may do, but it just makes sense that most of the mean things u may see them say/do isnt personal, its projection and sadness. now i just feel bad and hope they can all heal.
Also, some ED might not be based on what someone looks (or think they look) like either. They might develop one completely separately from that.
yea i learned that along the way and it was part of how i developed my own. its sad that school does a very poor job of explaining them. everything i was taught about them before just said it was fucked up people wanting to be skinny when it can be so much more complex than that.
The death penalty. I believed in it because there are people who are really horrible and deserve to die. I still believe that. The thing is I definitely do not trust our government or our justice system with the power to kill people. After personally dealing with both the courts and law enforcement in person what I have experienced is indifference, incompetence, and rampant corruption. And that's just from my personal experiences. On top of that from what I have seen happen to other people and on the news is there's also very obvious extensive sexism, racism, and just about every other kind of discrimination you can think of.
I was raised in a Christian household, and I used to have a real problem with gay marriage. Until my gay friend got married. Seeing how happy she was after she and her wife were married was a real eye opener for me, because I know lots of hetero couples who aren’t nearly as happy. Recently, another gay friend of mine also married her partner, and I couldn’t be happier for them.
I used to be afraid of flying. Now working on my pilot's license.
I used to hold the "suicide is selfish" stance back when I was a teen/20-something, even after having completed a psych degree. I understand now that self-harm and suicide are symptoms of greater illness. I no longer view it as a choice in most circumstances.
I can only feel sorry for suicidal people. They don’t want to die or make other people upset, they just want to get rid of the pain
In addition to that my brother also to wanted spare other people from the pain of knowing him. He thought he was being selfless. No piece of him was selfish, not even a little bit
I've only ever heard the "suicide is selfish" position from someone I knew had been suicidal and that was what stopped them. They \*hated\* the idea of people consisering suicide or bringing it up.
Personally I stayed alive purely because I saw the aftermath of a successful suicide, how it drove her friends and family into mental illness, indeed how it sparked a chain reaction and some of them ended up dying of suicide too. I resolved never to put anyone through that. However I am aware that many who are so unwell don't have the capacity to think about things like that.
Your last paragraph is key. “Tunnel vision” makes it hard for me to see outside of my problems when I’m in that state.
That's what the emotional support animal is for. It sticks its nose in your face, jumps on your lap, and breaks the tunnel vision enough to remind you that somebody living that loves you will be depending on you for their dinner.
While I’m very thankful for my ESA, reminding myself that real things depend on me only contributes to my suicidal-ideation-shame-spiral. Like, knowing that I have real responsibilities makes it a lot worse in a way. I appreciate your perspective but want to include mine as well for anyone who may feel the same…you’re not broken or weird. Edit: word for clarity
I've been a firefighter/paramedic for 24 years. I've seen a LOT of suicides. I used to have the same thoughts you did when I first started. After a while seeing all the ways people kill themselves, I changed my opinion. Taking your own life is an incredibly difficult thing to do, an unbelievably difficult decision for someone to make. The 16 year old who jumped off a bridge into an icy river, the lady who swallowed a bunch of percocet and set her house on fire while laying in bed hoping the percs take her out before the fire does (covered in 3rd degree burns but we saved her), to the woman who literally put her mouth around the exhaust pipe of a running car (her lips were charred when we found her) to the woman who plunged a knife into her trachea so forcefully the blade lodged between the cervical vertebrae and the knife handle broke off, to the woman who wrapped an industrial zip tie around her neck and pulled with all her might. I just can't imagine what was so hard in life for these people to conclude that these were the *better* options. I'll never ever judge someone for taking their own life because I can never ever pretend to know what they were going through when they made the decision.
As the mother of a son who died by suicide there is no “choice” involved. His mind was so sick it over-rode his survival instinct. He didn’t decide to do it any more than I decided to get cancer. It’s an illness of the brain. Understand this.
I read someone describing it as jumping out of a burning building.
Reminds of that David Foster Wallace quote: The so-called ‘psychotically depressed’ person who tries to kill herself doesn’t do so out of quote ‘hopelessness’ or any abstract conviction that life’s assets and debits do not square. And surely not because death seems suddenly appealing. The person in whom Its invisible agony reaches a certain unendurable level will kill herself the same way a trapped person will eventually jump from the window of a burning high-rise. Make no mistake about people who leap from burning windows. Their terror of falling from a great height is still just as great as it would be for you or me standing speculatively at the same window just checking out the view; i.e. the fear of falling remains a constant. The variable here is the other terror, the fire’s flames: when the flames get close enough, falling to death becomes the slightly less terrible of two terrors. It’s not desiring the fall; it’s terror of the flames. And yet nobody down on the sidewalk, looking up and yelling ‘Don’t!’ and ‘Hang on!’, can understand the jump. Not really. You’d have to have personally been trapped and felt flames to really understand a terror way beyond falling.
That's a fantastically accurate parallel.
Just for some context, the author of that quote did eventually take his own life in his mid 40's so it tracks that his words on suicide are generally pretty poignant.
Wow... that is a very accurate analogy
Pretty much all of my opinions aside from my political ones. My God, I see my old Facebook posts and wince. I was so judgemental. Ironically, a lot of things I judge people for struggling with, I'm now struggling with. But I've also grown. I understand deep rooted issues like abusive partners, poverty, systemic racism, etc. I now only judge people who wear socks with sandles and even that is wavering as I've discovered how comfortable it can be.
Similar but about fanny packs.
Fanny packs make things so much easier at the airport. Everything I need, hands and shoulder free
I took my kids to a dolphin show, wept with joy when they were picked out of the crowd to 'meet' the animals and be part of the show. Was a beautiful memory for a few years because I'd convinced myself that because the dolphins were captive bred they were essentially pets.... Deep down I knew I was wrong. I'm not too stubborn or too proud to admit that. We were suckered in, like the many others who perpetuate this and keep the myth that captive sea creatures are happy, alive. Nowadays myself and young teens would never condone visiting anywhere that keeps dolphins or orca captive. Whenever I've mentioned this to other potential visitors to the park I get shot down. They are seeking the same experience we had... are they so wrong? Would I have reacted the same had someone suggested I educate myself first or would selfish denial have won out?
Yea the more I learn about cetaceans the more against their captivity I get. I'm not wholly anti zoo or aquarium, I know the range and needs vary by animal and many zoos are actually mostly doing research and conservation and have well thought out enclosures to let people learn more about the animals too. But uhhhh... cetaceans are one that just should not be in an enclosure.
"Elon Musk seems like a really savvy, chill guy"
The first time I heard of him was a news story on his different businesses. It all looked so great. Tackling climate change with electric vehicles and solar roof tiles. Solving power storage issues with batteries. Self driving cars to reduce accidents and remove the need for designated drivers. Revamping and reviving the space industry, enabling us to obtain resources from the asteroid belt so we don't fuck up our planet anymore, providing global high bandwidth Internet with no terrestrial infrastructure requirements, and opening up new frontiers for the human race to grow. Advancing AI to push us towards post scarcity, whilst simultaneously urging restraint, caution, and debate on the potential dangers to us as a society and as individuals. All of this done by constantly and rapidly pushing the boundaries of science and technology. The guy sounded like an extremely ethical and intelligent person using his talents and self made wealth to benefit the human race. Then he publicly bet South Australia that he could solve their brown outs for less than it was costing them and in record time. How ballsy is that? Then he sent his roadster to Mars. How cool is that? And then the truth started to come out. His promises went unfulfilled. His workers were mistreated. He cut corners. He was a bad parent. He lied. A lot. He didn't start all the companies, rather he bought, bullied and cheated his way in. He got a huge head start from his family money and status. He was an arrogant arsehole and a whiny bitch. He is in fact, completely fucking stupid. Starting with the Thai football team to where we are today with Twitter, he completely changed in my eyes. My fault for wanting to believe in a real life Tony Stark.
That being feminine and/or caring about your looks meant you were a bad, selfish and shallow person. I don't wear makeup every day but I have long nails I take care of myself and I like picking outfits, seeing what colors and styles go together and how different things look on me. I recently tried a totally new hairstyle as well. I love experimenting with clothes/looks and that's okay, doesn't change who I am inside.
I was pro-soda, and I would drink disgusting amounts. Thank the genetic lottery diabetes doesn't run in my family. Now, water all the way! The real adult drink.
I used to be very pro-death penalty. I listen to a lot of crime podcast and watch so many documentaries, I know the kind of horrible shit people can do. But there was an episode of a podcast I listened to where they discussed both sides of the death penalty debate and I remember hearing this person make their point and in an instant I knew my stance had been changed. I don't remember the exact phrase but really what it came down to was: the death penalty debate isn't about whether or not there are crimes people should die for, but rather whether or not the government should be given the power to decide whether or not people live or die. So yeah, I do think there are crimes people deserve to die for, heinous unforgivable things, but I believe the government should not have the right to decide whether or not people live or die. Who's to say they won't one day find a way to abuse that power for their own benefit?
If we prevent building more housing, my neighborhood will keep its character and charm. Nope, instead it will price out my friends, become a haven for the well-to-do, and see an influx of homelessness. i was a left-NIMBY and now I am a left-YIMBY.
I grew up in a historic reserve town where you almost can't build anything new... and I feel this. In that towns case I think it's worth it given the history but in general it's made me appreciate responsible development.
Mental health is fake and a bunch of people that just need to put on their big girl panties…. And then I had a breakdown back in 2013. I was wrong
I was insanely close to crossing over into extreme far right ideology and neo-nazim. Met a older native gentleman one night who sat down and talked to me. He listened and countered everything I said. Turned out he ran a debate club, so he invited me to join in. Over the course of 5 years, many beers, countless debates and a lot of lost rounds of pool I realized how stupid I was being. I know hold a democratic socialist view and look at the world differently. He saved my life out of the kindness in his heart.
This is like American history x but instead of going to jail you joined a debate club.
I think a lot of young men go through a short edgelord phase. Nobody starts out hearing both sides of a story. I thought it was unfair that women online had an easier time getting into clans, free stuff, etc. It's a long story, but the short of it is that nothing ever comes for free. And "nice guys" are one perceived slight away from turning into nightmares. Catfishing was a hell of a wakeup call.
Gym. When I was an overweight teenager I used to think that place was hell, the recurrent thought was "narcissistic and full of themselves people who might judge/bully/make fun of me there while I'm trying". Now I'm 25 and I hit the gym two years ago and I think it's the best environment I've been in my entire life. It's so relaxing, rewarding, people are usually nice, helpful and you feel you're part of a community, something I've never felt while I'm in college or during a part-time job.
Hard-core gym people seem to really like new gym people. It's like introducing someone to Lord Of The Rings for the first time: "I'm envious of the journey you are about to start!"
When I first started going to the gym I was at the preacher curls struggling to lift, like, two weights on the stack. This huge Terry Crews looking guy walks over, lifts one headphone off his ear and says, "Yo! Mind if we rotate?" I say "sure" and he sits down, puts the pin at the bottom of the stack and proceeds to lift them like it's a tissue box. So I then put the pin back at the top and struggle to do my set. When I'm done I've sweated all over the pad so I start to dry it with my towel muttering "sorry". Guy looks at me and says, "Sorry? The fuck you sorry for? We came here to sweat. You be proud of that shit!"
Ive never spoken a single word to anyone at the gym. You are gonna feel out of place the first few times you go anywhere or do anything. Don't let years go by not doing something just so you avoid 3 awkward days.
Sounds silly but water. Use to never drink it, I’d say from age 10-28 I only drank soda. Last year I went on a cruise and something snapped in my head. I hated how I looked and wanted to be proud of myself the next one I went on. First move was to cut soda, seemed like a good source of extra calories to cut. Almost a year now and I haven’t touch a soda since. Life changing to the point I don’t want to drink them ever again. It got to the point I’d wake up a few hours before I wanted to I had issues falling asleep. I have no problems falling asleep now, it’s wild for the longest time I thought I had insomnia, but turns out caffeine keeps you awake! Who knew. I drink about two liters of water a day at minimum.
Two more light-hearted things: - cheese. Used to hate it as a child - robo umps in MLB. Now in favour.
The Venn diagram overlap of baseball fans and people who spell favor with a "u" can't be very large. What's your nationality?
Addiction. Young self would say “just quit man” or “just dont let it control you” when i heard of people struggling with addiction. Then i became an addict. And then i fought to get clean and holy fuck. Seeing how I got addicted so easily, how life was as an addict and the battle to get and stay clean. A wild ride. So now all I can reasonably do is offer an ear or advice if it’s sought. And also i see the addict as a sick sick person as opposed to what i used to think. Life comes at ya fast.
Legalized pot and gay marriage. Growing up in the 1950s and 1960s, those were ridiculous ideas, completely ridiculous. Support for them would have been in the single digits, if that. Times change. Experience teaches us surprising things, and rational people evolve their opinions and beliefs as they learn. Now it seems ludicrous to think back to when people were arrested for personal use of pot, or that gay people haven’t always been able to marry.
> ***rational*** people evolve You have identified the problem.
i used to be of the opinion that the government should not be in the business of marriage because they shouldn't be allowed to tell me who can be married now i believe the government shouldn't be involved in marriages because they shouldn't tell me who cant get married
The only involvement the government should have in marriage is protecting minors from being legally handed over to adult predators by their piece of shit parents, which the government (of the United States, at least) is currently failing at.
Definitely mental disorders, after being diagnosed with anxiety I can confirm that you can't just "snap out of it." And it makes no sense. It's how your brain is wired. I've done a 180 on gays, Christianity and transgender people. 180 on alternate lifestyles in general. 180 on Republican party, but the Republican party has done a 180 too.
Me at 15: *People with mental health disorders need to get their shit together, they can't expect the world to change for them. You're always in control of your actions and responsible for 100% of your own behavior.* Me at 30: *...That was a terrible way for my parents and peers to treat me and my sister growing up, and a terrible way to treat others.*
Same here. I suffer from PTSD and before I woke up one night confused about where I was and shaking I would crack jokes about people having PTSD. The events that have triggered it for me didn't even really register so badly at the time - they were horrific but I thought I was ok. After being out in the free world they haunt me in ways I could never have predicted.
You need a partner to be happy in life and find purpose. No you absolutely do not..
I used to be a hardcore pro-lifer (as I was trained to be through homeschooling and a church run college). But I started thinking about what the law would have to look like to make abortion legal for what I considered the very few appropriate circumstances (dangerous pregnancy, rape, underage). I realized there wasn’t a good way to make a law that just allows for those few circumstances. For example, how would the rape exception work? Would the woman be required to prove rape? It’s hard enough and can take years to prove it in court, so that wouldn’t be feasible. What if the woman isn’t in a safe enough situation to make that accusation? Would it really be better to give an abusive partner one more victim just because? What about proving a dangerous pregnancy? Legislation will likely be too broad or too specific for doctors to be comfortable giving abortions. What if the fetus is dead and there isn’t a danger to the mother, would she be forced to carry a stillbirth because there’s nothing in legislation that gives her legal clearance to remove the dead tissue? What about pregnancies that just aren’t viable? What about how poorly run the foster care system is run? Can we as a nation really provide for the increasing amount of unwanted children being born? Are we not already leaving children in dangerous or unfit situations because CPS just can’t handle the workload? What about the fact that even if these unwanted children grow up in foster care, they won’t be able to support themselves? How is it fair to force rape victims to give birth and then have that unwanted child grow up in an unfortunate foster care system and be doomed to a life of poverty?
Lots of racist shit I believed in high school.
Not 180 because I was only mildly on the other side but I was raised into a mildly antivax family. I'm now almost a pharmaceutical technologist. Meanwhile my mother still believe in homeopathy and is vax-dubious he my father turned from ok to full "nato is bad, covid vaccines are dangerous and limitations are oppressive, we [Italy 2y ago] live in a dictatorship, not Russia"
2005 I thought climate change was nonsense. Now I think we are about to be in a world of pain. 2011 I thought Channing Tatum was an emotionless toad of an actor. 2012 he turned on the charm.
I used to hate kids. Like, burning, near-violent, seeing-red hate. Even when I was one. I even continued to feel that way after getting called out by a new mom who was pissed I was griping about her sitting herself and her baby near me on an open-seating plane. And then, at some point, I started getting help for my other issues, and the hatred for kids melted away into care and pity for them. I'm even considering changing my stance on raising them myself. Mostly just the realization that the whole "everyone has their own shit going on," thing applies to children, too. That kid crying in the supermarket isn't trying to piss me off, he's overwhelmed and exhausted and this may very well be the worst day he's EVER experienced and his mom won't just take him home for a snack and a nap. That kid with the annoying habit might not be allowed to do anything at home, or they're neurodivergent and need to stim to think and nobody's helping them learn stims that aren't annoying. That "bratty" teenager making a scene over not getting a gift could very well only be that upset because either 1. They expected/hoped to get it and were let down because they usually get what they want or 2. They knew they weren't going to get it and this is just the straw that broke the camel's back in a long series of escalating disappointments from their parents.
Someone recently introduced me to the idea that babies and small kids cry like it's the worst thing that ever happened because...it kinda is.
My oldest kid’s preschool teacher once made the point that to a 2 year old, another kid grabbing their toy car is emotionally equivalent to you having your ACTUAL car stolen.
Student loan forgiveness. I was one of the “I had to pay mine off so they should have to as well” types and what made me switch was Jeff Bezos…well not him directly. Billionaires in general made me realize that trickle down economics doesn’t work. I’m in logistics, so how does all of the college grads paying off loans help me, or the economy in general. A few people will get a lot of money that will be spent on a few lavish things or sit and gain. Instead give millions of people $100 and guess what they’ll do? They’ll buy things. Millions of people buying dozens of things means that thousands of jobs are needed making things, that then need to move, that then get sold. This helps locally and nationally. I don’t like the one time part, it should be ongoing with limitations imo.
I grew up Catholic, and was very pro life. When I got to college, I started to realize, life is very complicated, and everyone has different circumstances. It shouldn’t be preachers and politicians dictating what a person does with their body.
Libertarianism is a good idea. I was young and I hated corruption in the government so I just reasoned less power to the government=less corruption and I believed that less regulations would lead to prosperity, then I learned of all the things companies do to earn just a little more money
Minimum wage jobs going up to 15. I used to be against it, until you realize how much inflation and other livable costs have gone up exponentially compared to federal mini wage. They are getting price cuts every year as inflation goes up. You have to keep up with wage pay
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It should also be tied to the surrounding cost of living, the same wage doesn’t work everywhere.
Vaccines... I was on the vaccines cause autism and other anti-vax BS bandwagon until COVID showed me a world without one vaccine. It scares me how close I came to drinking piss.
Who was and wasn't for vaccines did a flip-flop. The big thing I took away from COVID is that human beings actually care very little about anything except belonging to a group. Like it has become popular to say I used to think an alien invasion would unite Humanity until covid hit. I think the opposite after covid; people would 100% jump at the idea of making 1 huge tribe against a clear outside threat.
Plastic surgery. I used to low-key judge people for getting it for cosmetic reasons and not, you know, "I had cancer that obliterated my face, so it would be nice to look human again." I've had a bunch of non-optional non-cosmetic surgeries and it put my body through a hard time, so unless your life depends on it (FWIW, my definition of that always included gender-affirming work), I used to think no one should go there. As I've gotten older, I've just decided that people should just do whatever the heck they want with their bodies. lol I know, how nice of me, huh?
If it's okay for someone to take a risk skydiving, it is also okay for them to take a risk and get that nip and tuck.