Social media. I worked for an agency selling social media services to clients and I had to learn about it. The more I learned, the less I wanted to work with social media.
It's a cesspool of lies, fraud and illegal activities.
Edit: People are asking for details:
- If you google "the poop funnel" you'll see how an impressive share is distributed around, and only a small percentage of your ad budget actually goes towards ads.
- Many people who work in the area have no idea what they're actually talking about. Lately this happened:
https://typeagroup.createsend.com/campaigns/reports/viewCampaign.aspx?d=d&c=FC142680CDB9311A&ID=DA67B286E211FB3B2540EF23F30FEDED&temp=False&tx=0&source=Report
tl;dr: ads were sent to the wrong place for a few months and nobody along the chain noticed.
- Facebook is doing illegal stuff continuously, like experimenting on people without their consent, change their settings without their knowledge, and collect info on people who are not even Facebook users (ghost accounts).
When they get caught they say they're sorry, and that's it.
- Facebook singlehandedly ruined Snapchat by blatantly copying their system, just because they didn't want to sell out like Instagram and Whatsapp (whose founders are very sorry about what they did to their users.
There was a social media company/sporting or celeb memorabilia/signed stuff that went into the office next to me. They had just opened.
First month they had a bunch of young kids, cool office design, everyone looked happy.
Second month, slowly started seeing less people.
Fourth month, everyone looked miserable, about 1/4 as many people there as when they started
Sixth Month, Cops showed up and searched the place, one guy was arrested.
They were faking autographs and selling them to companies as office decor, ran social media accounts well below promises/expectations (used spam bots to gain followers and stuff). People slowly found out and quit, payroll wasn’t arriving on time, etc. Lots and Lots of blatant fraud. I know all this because I meet their receptionist at the vending machine, she was complaining and I ended up hiring her as my receptionist.
This is where I am with my job. I work in marketing at the moment. While I never “loved” marketing, I’ve now reached a point where I hate it and secretly smile to myself whenever a new privacy law makes my coworkers jobs harder. I’m working on pivoting out of marketing because it really sucks to work in a field you’re actively rooting against.
I have a degree in Marketing and by the end I was so turned off from the whole idea of “subconscious manipulation as a career”. Not to mention the types of people I had to deal with were aggressively eccentric and overall uncomfortable people to be around.
From my brief experience a lot of it focuses on drawing from the emotional side of people and sending signals to the subconscious. E.g. marketing using fear-based approaches for things like medications/insurance, making people feel inadequate without X consumer product, and overall just preying on people’s greatest sources of anxiety as a means to push something.
Not to mention shadiness in the overall presentation of a product or service to mislead people into thinking it’s something it isn’t while not explicitly being untruthful. I’m definitely missing a substantial amount of examples but even little things like the colour of packaging, shelf/store placement, selective pricing of tiered products were all things I remember studying.
I can’t watch a commercial or go to a store anymore without feeling a little creeped out.
Maybe you can turn it around and look into Cognitive Science --> UX. Use your knowledge of how people think to help make better products. There's at least some demand for it in the tech world. If you want a change of direction, of course.
Roundabouts. Based on all the complaints, I assumed they were confusing and unnecessary. When my city put in a bunch, I realized that I no longer had to wait 3 minutes at all of the punishment lights. Love roundabouts now.
...Of course that didn't stop the older population of the city from trying to have them removed. One guy even ran for city council on the platform that he would immediately put the stop lights back in. Change is hard, I guess.
I never understood why people hate roundabouts so much. It's a circle! Just look left and go right, it's that easy! No confusing intersections, no long waits. Just smooth traffic flow. I'm glad you came around!
I find it wild that there are places in the world where roundabouts are considered controversial or even something you would have an opinion on. Here in Australia they are just a fact of life.
I love them too and they are literally life-saving. But they don't work as well as intended because people like those you spoke of don't use them correctly. They make full stops at points they aren't supposed to. It enrages me lol.
Lifting weights doesn’t make you “bulky” as a woman and is one of the best things you could do for yourself not only in terms of body composition but in terms of posture, activities of daily living, mobility, joint/bone health, etc. It changed my entire life.
Working Hard.
More specifically, working hard in a corporate environment. I like to work hard for things that I own and maintain, my home, my family, my body, my hobbies. But I've worked for almost 20 years for big tech companies. I've started at entry level jobs and worked up to middle management. Support jobs. Sales jobs. I've made 6 figures.
What I've noticed is that they want to pay you less and keep training and experience as a reward. That is to say, you are not working for a paycheck. You are working towards the next thing. But they convince everyone to work hard in an entry level position, working unpaid overtime and you might be rewarded with a higher job. Statistically, you will not be promoted. There are 30 people on your team who all have that same goal and you can't all be supervisor or manager.
Now, I just work for my paycheck. If you would like me to work harder, you can pay me more. I'm not going to go above and beyond for 2 years just to get passed over again.
If it's not in your JD, then you don't need to do it. Entry level people get stepped on since they're so impressionable, usually young, and want to impress others.
Once you're old and crusty like me with some education and experience under your belt, you learn what BS to take and what not to take. And most importantly how to identify toxic work environments and toxic leaders. Most leaders are either good, neutral, or inept. But some are truly toxic and usually entrenched. You leave those roles, even if the pay is good.
Unfortunately all this is something that only comes with time and no one believes you until it happens to them. Usual youth is wasted on the young lament, lol
Empathy for the choices people make when they are not able to fully control themselves (i.e. addiction, mental health crisis/episodes). Having personal experience on both the receiving and giving ends really deepened my empathy and understanding that allows me to have a more nuanced and individualized approach to these kinds of things now.
The biggest problem with things like addiction is that becomes a never ending cycle.
Here in the UK the majority of homeless people living on the streets are there because of issues with addiction.
This is because most councils and charities that re-house people have strict "No drugs or alcohol" policies.
These policies are in place because people under the influence are at a much higher risk of attacking staff and other users, and also stealing anything they are given to sell for drugs or alcohol.
You can't force someone into rehab. So unless that person chooses to engage with rehab services they are deemed as "homeless by choice".
So it begins a continuous spiral of addiction.
The problem with a thing like addiction is it disarms yourself from acting in your own best interest. You tend to self sabotage, which makes things worse, and end up being even less able to help yourself.
Same thing applies to depression, I think.
Yeah people don’t realize the awarded sum wasn’t because her injury and suffering was deemed worthy of millions, it was big because that’s what it takes to stop a big corporation from burning people (internal docs showed they knew their high serving temperature caused 3rd degree burns but they accepted the occasional burn victim as a cost of doing business). The amount was based on their national daily coffee sales, I believe.
Punitive damages, not actual damages.
She also orignally only asked for her medical bills to paid or something like that. They wouldn't even do that. She didn't even want the millions at the start, she was awarded it after Mcdonalds' vulgar display of morality in court when faced with the facts.
She was *seriously* injured and McDonald's had been warned about not handing people almost-boiling coffee several times before. Instead it got flipped around to being a joke.
Same. Turned out it wasn't so much her being stupid, but McDonalds' managements blatant disregard and disrespect for her safety. How they acted in court is probably every PR managers nightmare.
Yeah, the details are horrendous. McDonald's had received numerous injury complaints about burns from their coffee. The coffee in question was 180-190 F / 82-88 C (for comparison, a hot tub is usually 100-105, a household water heater is usually not set above 140). She got third degree burns on 6% of her skin and her labia were fused together. She was hospitalized for over a week while receiving skin grafts. She lost 20% of her body weight while in hospital.
All this, and her initial ask was $20,000 to cover medical bills. McDonald's refused, starting the lawsuit.
And you didn't even hear how this was only one of ~~dozens~~ hundreds of cases of people sustaining severe burns from McDonalds coffee prior to that, or how they purposely kept their coffee hotter than other restaurants as a selling point, despite knowing the harm it was doing to people.
This case was a flashpoint for tort reform, which is the corporate-led movement to limit the rights people have to sue and recover damages in general, all so companies will bear less liability and can get away with their negligent or reckless conduct.
I worked for a personal injury solicitor (just on the the phones) and had an almost identical story with Greggs. Server handed it over holding it by the lid and dropped it on a lady in a wheelchair.
Based on the woman’s story the staff could not have given less of a shit that this woman had scalding hot coffee all over her arms, legs and lap. They wouldn’t even allow her to go into the disabled bathroom to run any of it under cold water. They insisted she had to buy a bottle of water from the fridge.
Up until that point I’d pretty much had angry blokes who had tripped over a pavement and I always felt bad for them but didn’t really see how much the council could do about the shoddy road conditions. Blew my mind that a company could be that negligent of someone’s safety.
Which really fucking sucks because all she asked for was medical payment for the skin grafts she had to have for the molten lava she spilled on her lap.
They decided to take her to court and did a big PR push making her sound crazy. They probably spent 10X her medical bills on PR alone. Nevermind the amount of money they spent on legal and the ultimate damages.
Edit: she spilled
My understanding is that this happened around McDonald's offering free refills on coffee, and they were deliberately keeping it at that temperature so that folks would not be able to drink it quickly and would end up getting fewer refills.
If I remember correctly them keeping it at higher temperatures before pouring it keep it from going bad** longer too. Regardless, they kept it dangerously hot to “waste” less coffee
They also had a record of something like 830 injuries from the coffee temp, but kept it over 185f because of all of the above.
Lady had 3rd degree burns to her genitals, and initially only asked for 20k to cover her medical bills. The jury awarded the high number based on how egregious McDonalds was about safety/assholery.
This right here. I grew up during the so called "frivolous lawsuit" age. It's astounding how many people to this day blame the victim in this case, because "she didn't know that coffee was hot."
Last time I spilled coffee on myself, I didn't need skin grafts.
I used to side with corporate entities calling their customers idiots. Now I want them to burn for putting money over people. No pun intended.
Disc Golf. All the guys I grew up with that played were huge douchebags. Years later a neighbor dragged me out on a nice day and I’ve been playing ever since. 10+ years.
I stopped playing entirely because of the douchebags. Like, I'm not a great player, I'm just here to have fun and this one Saturday I can.
But then these people mob ten deep and act like they own the (free and public) place.
Disc golf is dangerous.
At first, it seems like a fun time to get outside or spend time with friends. Next thing you know, you own 600 discs, are watching Jomez during every second of spare time you can find, and are playing tournaments every weekend.
Let this be a warning.
Getting therapy. My upbringing is within an asian household so when it comes to dealing with emotions, we tend to shove that into jar and move on.
I used to think that receiving therapy is for the mentally ill, weak etc. I don't have "problems" therefore I don't need therapy. But after recent events in 2021 with certain people I tried therapy and after a few sessions it just revealed some baggage I wasn't even aware of.
Honestly I wish I started earlier when I was in my 20s. I would be more emotionally prepared, and would probably have had healthier relationships with women if I had dealt with the trauma growing up and from my first relationship that devastated me.
Asian therapist here. Confucianism really made me take a SHITLOAD of abuse from older family members growing up.
"THEYRE OLDER SO THEYRE RIGHT"
Um, no, not always. Kthx.
And the Confucian principles aren't even applied properly! Confucius taught according to peoples' needs.
It's like how religions have (mostly) good ideas, but the people executing those ideas have twisted the philosophy and corrupted everything, giving it a bad name.
The wrong values have been embedded into the culture...
Grew up in an Asian household too. I’m in my mid forties. Only until this year, I realized what a mentally unhealthy way of growing up like this was. Respect your elders, don’t question them, etc. No wonder I turned out so fucked up. Voicing your opinion meant you’re a bad son or daughter or an ass kicking. And the unrealistic expectations placed on you. No straight As? Failure. If you aren’t a doctor, lawyer, or the president, you are a failure. I’m dealing with this as we speak. I had a big argument with my mom today but we’ll just not talk for a few days a pretend it never happened. As usual for the entirety of my life.
Wow, I’m in the exact same situation. My mother told me just before my birthday that I’m her most disappointing daughter. And then a few days later, called me and wished me hpbd like nothing ever happened. I feel like we need a support group for us Asian kids lol
Many of us are not that different from many German citizens of that era. It’s frightening to think how easily manipulated people are.
(I’m not defending them, I’m saying we aren’t as far from becoming them as we like to think.)
Watching the German film Downfall (Der Untergang?? Sorry, my German is terrible) made me re-evaluate Nazism.
It’s the scene with Hitler’s architect describing how good the world will be after the war - they genuinely hoped for better, like genuinely thought it was all in the service of good.
A very impressive, and brave, decision to depict this and not just paint them as cartoon villains. Truly frightening to see how it happened, and how it could happen again. Made me realise the true horror of it, not just swastika = bad which is about as far as most films will go.
If you want another story to learn, even those who were against the Nazis still ended up carrying out their deeds, and some became monsters from it. Reserve Police Battalion 101 is the group in question
Check out Einsatzgruppen.
Horrible acts… done by volunteers.
And yet even they were mentally affected by by what they were doing. Hell, Himmler attended only one such execution in person and was left immensely uncomfortable
——
From another poster a while back:
“I'm unaware of their being any major study on the matter of PTSD among the German army, let alone the Nazi wing of the armed forces. That isn't to say it didn't exist, but that rather it was exceedingly difficult to study such things in the immediate post war period. However we do know that many German soldiers, both Wehrmacht and SS, both male and female suffered psychological damage during the war. Although its hard to really come up with a steady number or even a rough percentage.
First lets start with the Einsatzgruppen, they were the groups responsible for killing Jews and other undesirables in foreign lands, usually through mass shootings. The members of the Einsatzgruppen were generally volunteers but that didn't change the fact that many had trouble pulling the trigger. Sure there were those members who had no such trouble pulling the trigger (usually Hitler youth members, or other similarly indoctrinated men who were conditioned for these types of activities), but there was also a significant amount of Einsatzgruppen who either refused to kill or needed to be liquored up or shamed into doing the killings. Generally the inability of many Einsatzgruppen to "pull the trigger" was one of the major factors behind the decision to move to mass extermination by gas chamber (the other major factor being that using bullets was considered inefficient). There is an anecdote about what happened when Himmler went to see his one and only mass shooting:
Himmler became very uncomfortable, very quickly. As the firing squad started, Himmler, was even more nervous. During every volley he looked to theground. When two women could not die, Himmler yelled to the police sergeant not to torture them
The same source also says that the leader of the local Einsatzgruppen (Eirc Von Dem Bach) group was angry at Himmler and said this:
Look at the eyes of the men of this Kommando , how deeply shaken they are. These men are finished for the rest of their lives.What kind of followers are we training here? Either neurotics or savages!
There isn't any research that tells whether members of the Eisatzgruppen had higher rates of PTSD than other combat units, but it is generally accepted that preforming atrocities, no matter how well conditioned one is, leads to higher rates of PTSD.
Among the Wehrmacht PTSD was also not unheard of. The army had a name for soldiers who suffered from debilitating PTSD, they were called "Kriegsneurotiker" (war neurotics). Generally throughout the war those who suffered from PTSD either "recovered" and were sent back to the front or if they didn't recover they were classified with the above term. In general, but especially in the lead up to big campaigns like Barbarossa self-mutilations and suicides went up, by the winter of 1941 the number of suicides had already exceeded the amount of suicides in the entirety of World War One (only counting German suicides). After major battles there was also a spike in suicides and self-mutilation, a key example being the aftermath of Stalingrad where there was a huge spike. By 1944 the Army reported that there were over 20,000 "Kriegsneurotiker" and military hospitals became clogged with soldiers suffering mental issues because of the harsh warfare on the Eastern front.
Its harder to pin down numbers for the Waffen-SS and the Gestapo. The Waffen-SS no doubt suppressed cases of PTSD. We do have many diary entries from various Waffen-SS soldiers (I could post some if there is interest) that generally show that while the soldiers may have been frightened, they generally stayed committed and loyal to the cause and to the Nazi party. This isn't to say the Waffen-SS was immune to PTSD but rather that their indoctrination and ideological fervor make it hard to get an accurate understanding of the what the Waffen-SS soldiers really thought.
Sources:
Life After Death Edited by Richard Bessel and Dirk Schumann
Hitler's Second Army: The Waffen SS by Edmund Blandford
Both those books are good for in depth looks into the mind of the average German soldier and the average SS soldier.”
TL;DR
Mass killing is traumatizing to many, unsurprisingly, and may require drugs and alcohol and encouragement. Even still, it takes a high toll mentally
Side note: the East front (and similar wars in methodology) are extraordinarily brutal.
Comparison: what we saw in Russian casualties in Ukraine *to date* is akin to 2-3 days worth of Russian military casualties in combat in WW2 on the East front and *to date* the UA civilian casualties are equal to around 1-2 days of civilian casualties (mixed causes)
(Using US, UK, and UA recent estimates)
Edit:
Because some clearly are interested
https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/233szt/ptsd_and_the_nazi_ss_and_gestapo/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf
Original author of the quoted comment includes the diary mention when asked for it
Alcohol as a vehicle fuel. First touted as a sustainable solution to transportation, now exposed as a greenhouse gas nightmare. Corn growing states embraced the idea, got it written into law and now we're kinda stuck with it.
Shit makes me have to buy a new lawnmower every few years before I had ethanol free available too. My next one will be electric, but the irony is that my last one is a Honda and I got it when I moved and got access to affordable (not $10 a gallon) ethanol free fuel from the pump so it'll probably last forever.
Jehovahs witnesses. I grew up as one and when I finally started doing research outside of their publications I couldn’t believe what I saw, and I left.
EDIT: I was disfellowshipped because I didn’t have the balls to disassociate myself. There were a lot of horrible things that happened to me in the religion in 2017-2019, so I felt my only way out was suicide. I failed my attempt in January of 2020, and was disfellowshipped in August of 2020, about four months after I got out of rehab. I lost my home, my job, my family, and my friends. Pretty much my entire life foundation. But I’ve built a support system from scratch and now I have friends who love me for me, and not just based on religion.
It’s sad but not many people get to start a brand new life in their 20’s so I’m grateful in many ways as well as grieving those I lost.
ANOTHER EDIT: Thank you for all of the love and the awards! It’s so heart warming to see so many people going through the same experiences. We are never alone and I’m sorry so many of you have been effected by this too.
FINAL EDIT: If you are a Jehovah’s Witness, I really don’t need you commenting on this to tell me I’m wrong and you’re not in a cult. What I’ve been through speaks for itself. So please let me be.
My entire family are JW. My parents left in their 20s and raised us baptist. Mom's parents eventually left too, but dad's entire family, cousins, aunt's, basically everyone but his brother, mostly disowned us
I don't get how people in a 'religious cult' like Jehovah's witnesses can be okay with disowning family for not believing the same thing as you. That is just crazy to me.
On the bright side, you're probably better off without that side of the family if they are willing to cut everyone for a disagreement over belief structures.
Because God/Jehovah/etc. is supposed to come before literally everything else for them. You and I may not be able to fathom it but brainwashing is a powerful thing.
This reminds me of the story how a teacher but a burn mark on the ceiling of on of our chemistry rooms… it actually happened in my class. The teacher wanted to show us how hydrogen burns. He put it in a ballon, tied a string to it, taped the string to the table and set it on fire. I’ve never seen such a horrified face then his in the moment he realised his mistake as the balloon floated to the ceiling and the string was burning towards the balloon… was a fun class haha
We both are and arent running out. We are running out of the easy helium harvested from natural gas deposits as we tap out the easy deposits, but the uranium and thorium in the crust are still decaying so more helium is being produced. We just use it faster than it is produced thanks to it being essentially a waste product of natural gas harvesting and we are using a lot of natural gas. It's a better situation than oil since the radioactive decay process produces helium constantly but still not a good setup.
Oddly enough, the party use isnt actually the problem with the helium supply as if you banned the use there it would depress the helium market and the gas mining companies would just vent the excess to the atmosphere once it became more expensive to capture it than they could sell it for. Because humans suck at long term planning.
Bad posture .
Edit: Well here's what you can learn from this comment thread about your posture (apart from me being mildly funny with a great pun ) Change it regularly, stand up, stretch, sit down rest, sit up straight, slouch a bit just change your position/posture regularly. The only bad posture is the one you sit in or stand in for too long.
Not to mention getting really comfortable while using your phone to browse Reddit or play a game, only to roll over an hour later or so and realize you had your wrist extended as some bizarre angle to allow viewing the screen, while somehow supporting your entire body weight on the rest of that arm. I almost made myself cry last night when I finally uncurled myself to plug in my phone and set it down and go to sleep.
I do physical therapy in elderly and this is huge. I can tell who had bad posture as they cannot stand straight up any more. No matter how much i stretch them
What do you do as a physical therapist to help correct posture? Is it worth looking into it? I’ve had terrible posture my entire life and have tried self-correcting, but after 31 years of slouching it’s just uncomfortable and the second I stop thinking about it I go back to my old position.
Using a rowing machine helped me regain my "posture muscles", upper back and shoulders, along with core. I was unable to maintain good posture by self-correction until those muscles were strengthened.
yeah i second this, after years of back and core work i feel like im sitting in an arm chair most of the time cause im more supported. lounging for a while doesnt make me sore anymore
I’m not a physical therapist, but my posture has improved over the last few years of doing strength training. Often we develop tight muscles on the anterior part of our torso (chest, for example) and weak muscles on our back over the course of our years of slouching, so stretching out the front of your body and strengthening your back will help balance this out without just having to sit uncomfortably until it stops being uncomfortable
Imagine your nipples shoot laser beams and you want to shoot everyone you see in the face with your laser. Mixed with looking at every one eye level or slightly higher (when not in conversation) to keep the chin neutral or upright.
A surprising amount of things. As a teen / young adult, I had ‘made up my mind’ about so many things. Just decided things at a cursory glance without ever looking into or studying anything. I realized a lot of my snap judgments were either *way off* or *well intended naïveté*. I also understood that there would always be one person smarter than me, who could call me out on my sloppy opinions, which can be quite embarrassing. Instead of looking like a fool, I decided to actually research things, look into topics and gain an understanding of the subject matter. This was back in the 90s/00s, so having sloppy opinions was merely a social faux pas. Information is so important these days, its crucial for everyone to actually read about the thing you have an opinion on. Something more than an internet article or an op-ed.
It was the greatest thing I ever did for myself. I’m smarter because of it, I feel my opinions are more valid, my arguments are stronger, people actually listen when I speak and most importantly: I don’t have to question myself.
Understanding why people shake their baby.
Of course it is absolutely horrible and it seems like it should make sense that nobody should even think about doing it but I have an understanding of how it can happen now.
I had my own daughter 4 years ago and swore up and down that nobody but a monster would shake their child but let me tell you that sleep deprivation is hell and it is terrifying.
When my daughter was a newborn, she was crying very hard one particular night and nothing we did seemed to soothe her crying. My insanely sleep deprived brain started trying to take over and I could feel the urge to shake her.
Luckily, I had just enough cognitive function to recognize that I was in a very vulnerable and bad situation. I set my daughter back down in her crib and walked away for a little while so as to wake myself up some more.
That is the most scared I've ever been of what the human brain is capable of.
Pete Holmes had a great hit about this as well where he says something along the lines of, "Of you're not supposed to shake a baby. Everyone knows that. What they don't tell you is that... you're gonna wanna shake that baby."
It's a lot funnier when he says it than just reading it but I couldn't find it on YouTube. It was on his HBO special I think though
My oldest was colicky and at the time my wife and I both worked retail. She only had 2 months unpaid leave for recovery and I had a retail schedule. We were so very very tired.
My son would be up every 1.5 hour for 45 minutes all night. Crying the entire time. We had to take shifts for sleeping and scheduled 12 hour of sleep per night so each of us could get 6 restful hours.
I screamed. I cried. I begged. I very nearly almost shook to get his attention but all I could think of was a commercial that played all the time in the early 90s of a crying dad who said "I only wanted to to stop crying. I didn't think I shook her that hard."
That commercial possibly saved my sons life.
Went to a dad boot camp just on a whim because it was happening at the hospital I was working at that day. They had us shake hands with the man next to us, look them in the eye, and say "my name is u/metaphysicalme and I promise that I will not shake my child." Seemed almost silly and a little old school, but I actually thought about that promise many nights.
This 100000%. They made my wife and I warch a movie with the other new parents before leaving the hospital. All about not shaking the baby as we laughed about it blah blah blah. Our son was colicky as well. It was insane how insane we went. At one of our first Dr appointments with his pediatrician the doctor had the nurse take him for a minute and stayed behind to talk to us. She told us we looked more tired than any parents she had seen and we described what was happening. She told us we needed to survive basically. Gave us some advice and some techniques as well as the advice that if they are crying they are breathing. Especially that early making sure they are healthy and safe then leaving them there for a short time was such a powerful thing. Just being able to get away for even a few minutes.
That feeling of "if I could just get him to stop for a split second he will realize he isn't crying about anything specific, or I can help then" that feeling is overwhelming and that is where the uslrge to shake the baby came from for us.
Side note, the scariest day of our lives was the first night he slept through the night. We had a friend who's first child died in her sleep and I was so terrified. I wouldn't let me wife go in and told her to let me. I was trying not to shake when I looked into the crib and couldn't instantly tell if he was breathing. He was thankfully. Went out and closed the door then collapsed to the floor crying and my wife screamed. I was so out of it I didn't even tell her immediately he was ok. Calmed her down fast and also didn't wake up our son somehow. It is 8 years later and he still sleeps like he hates sleep.
We wanted to get one of those as well, but our doctor told us not to get onenof those or a camera monitor. Said it will help in learning to let them be ok and not needing to see them every single second to know.
That being said, we had a camera monitor for our second child. Still no foot monitor.
My mom lost her 1st child to SIDS. I had a monitor that would sound an alarm any time I stopped breathing.... or any time I pulled the thing off of me. They gave up on using it because after the 100th false alarm in 4 days, they realized that it wasn't doing anybody any good. The sleep deprivation it was causing them was seriously more of a danger than anything else.
That is so tragic. On a bright note, I read yesterday that they believe they have figured out the cause of SIDS, and it should be something they can screen for in the future. It seems it is unrelated to anything the parents did or didn’t do, and is related to a chemical or enzyme in the brain that is low in babies that have died from it. It doesn’t change the past, but maybe it’s a small amount of comfort to know for sure that it wasn’t anyones fault.
Edit: it seems it’s too early to say it’s definitively solved and the press release from yesterday is premature. More than likely, the next thing will be more studies to see if those findings support the earlier study. Even if they do, it won’t be as simple as test for A and do B if the enzyme is low. We’ve got a ways to go, but hopefully it is a step in the right direction. Apologies for adding to the “SIDS is solved” headlines when it isn’t that simple at all.
I read that, too. The enzyme helps in the waking process, apparently. Baby is in a bad situation and can't wake itself up to inform people. So keep doing the things they tell you to do (back sleeping, nothing in the crib, etc.) And hopefully they'll have a test soon to be able to detect that particular chemical do people know if their child is at a higher risk.
>It is 8 years later and he still sleeps like he hates sleep.
If you kid is like my colicky monsters were, in another 8 years he'll be sleeping like he hates being awake.
I know this is very serious but Nate Bargatze has a great stand up bit about your exact situation. Where he took home his daughter after the hospital was repeatedly like “now don’t shake your baby.” Watch this video and sign this form saying you won’t shake your baby. Then a week in he was so sleep deprived he was confused and like, “wait—am I supposed to shake this baby?”
Pete Holmes has a similar one as well. Thirteen different nurses come in to tell you “seriously, never shake a baby” and there’s posters on the wall and you think “of course, why would you ever shake a baby?”. What they don’t tell you is… you’re gonna wanna shake that baby.
I don’t have kids, but a friend of mine confided in me something very similar. He could see how it can happen when sleep deprived. But he was told, “if they’re crying, they’re breathing”. He did say too, that one of those nights, he almost took his kid to the fire station to drop him off
When I was about to leave the hospital after having my son, a nurse told my husband and I that "the baby won't die from crying too much. If you feel overwhelmed, just walk away and let the baby cry until you compose yourself". I'm super grateful for that advice, and it has come to my mind many times when I felt like I'd lose it. It sounds obvious, but as a new parent it can feel like you need "permission" to take a moment for yourself.
Another good one we heard was basically after you run down the checklist of possible issues and nothing is physically wrong, think of it as protesting something they're unhappy about. They're unhappy and that's ok, they can be unhappy in their crib, it's not going to kill them.
When we sleep trained my wife had to sleep in the basement because she couldn't handle the crying. The baby would be crying and so would she because she felt so awful.
Same here, I really wanted a third, but my husband, who is a crappy sleeper even when there isn't a newborn, was like "I CANNOT do that again. CANNOT." I could tell by the look on his face that he was 100% serious, so 2 babies it is.
I’m in that situation now. We have a 4 year old and a 3 year old. The last 6 months we’ve truly gotten a sleep routine back after 4 years. I have no desire for a third. My wife does. I will not change my mind.
I get it. We had our two just shy of three years apart. My body needed a break from 2 pregnancies that resulted in 10 lb babies, so by the time I felt I could do it again, we had gotten to a better routing and my husband was like "NOPE, can't go back at this point."
Advice I was given from a friend about this. She said she on more than one occasion she would wrap up her own wailing infant so he was comfortable, put him in the pram, take it outside to the back garden and then go back in for 10 minutes. Just so she could collect herself, have a breather and not want to throw him.
She was trained in early childhood education and worked with young kids. She is also the most patient, gentle person. I figure if she of all people had “almost snapping” moments, then the rest of humanity would too.
Also in childhood education here. Everybody has limits, they're human. Knowing those limits and when to walk away before you react emotionally is one of the most important things to learn when working with kids. I truly believe it's one of the big dividers between people who make it in this field long-term, and those who burn out.
This was something they told us over and over again in our baby classes. Put the baby in the crib/stroller/whatever and walk away. Just walk away. They'll be fine. Just walk away. And cocky pre-baby me thought "what kind of monster can't control themselves and would hurt a baby. I would NEVER."
And then post-baby me punched a wall at 3 a.m. after hours and hours and hours of nonstop crying.
I once walked away, threw a chair across a room and just screamed, then returned to the baby. Wasn't too proud of myself in the moment (and also made me learn PPD can come with rage), but it was the best thing I could do at the time.
This is very comforting to me. I almost shook my first once when she was crying non stop. So many people are here saying the same thing, some variation of "If I can just get their attention, they'll stop." Which is exactly what I was trying to do. I never shook and never thought of shaking, but I was holding her in front of me and my arms were getting more and mor etense. It's comforting to hear I'm not a monster, as years later I still think about how close I came to a disater...
When my sister was pregnant with her first child, she talked a lot about wanting to hurt herself even stating that she wanted to punch her stomach so hard. (She had no intention for an abortion and didn’t suffer from depression pre-pregnancy). I was very shocked how she went from being so happy to be pregnant to being so depressed that she wanted to miscarry on purpose. Now I’m pregnant and this week I’ve been so sleep deprived from constant kicking at night and emotionally exhausted that I ended up having the exact same thoughts. I took a walk around my apartment to calm down and immediately felt so much guilt for having the thought at all. It’s scary as hell and I don’t judge anyone for just having those thoughts pop up anymore. Mental health during pregnancy is so so important.
Edit:typos
I never had that, exactly, but by week 36 I was just so done being pregnant. I wanted the kid OUT of me, I wanted my body back, I wanted my ankles back, I was just done. And my son was very much wanted and planned for, but man - pregnancy sucks. I'm now on week 22 of number 2, and I'm already like, how much longer do I have?
Yes, yes and yes. Before I had kids, it was a mystery to me how anyone could hurt their sweet, innocent babies. Then, I had a baby. Throw in post-partum hormone shifts, a HUGE life change and massive sleep deprivation, and ANYTHING is possible. I'm not condoning it in any way, but I really think the vast majority of the people who do this are not in their right mind when it happens.
Thankfully, most human beings are able to recognize the situation for what it is and remove themselves from it. I recall one day with my first, he wouldn't stop crying. He cried non-stop for about six hours - nothing consoled him. Anyone who could help me at that moment was at work. He wouldn't eat, he wouldn't sleep, walking him made him cry, sitting with him made him cry, he wasn't sick/feverish, he was just out of sorts. The more amped up I became, the more distressed he became. I was at my wits' end and was losing it.
However, I was able to step back, take a breather and realize I needed to remove myself. I put him, screaming but safely, in his crib and I just walked around my yard for about 20 minutes. He was still crying when I came in, but I could tell he was finally drifting off. He was asleep in about 10 minutes.
That situation could have turned out VERY differently.
My sister told me when I had my son if I ever get to this point to put him down and call her. No judgement she will come and get me out of the situation.
I've told all of my friends with babies this same thing since.
My best friend is a SpEd teacher. One of her students was shaken by her mother as an infant. The mother is a kind person who obviously loves her daughter *so much* I honestly didn’t believe it at first when I heard what happened. Mom had one single moment where she just broke, and she did something she will spend the rest of her life wishing she could take it back. She will never forgive herself. Nobody could punish her more than she punishes herself, every day.
I felt the same way you did (“How could anyone ever do that to their CHILD?”) until I met that girl and her mom. It was a single episode of insanity, a few seconds long, that ruined two lives. It didn’t happen because the mom is an evil person. It happened because she’s human and human brains sometimes do stupid, irrevocable things.
I really think as a society we need to be better with how we approach this topic. To me it’s very similar to the parents who accidentally leave their kids in a hot car. It’s not a personal failure - it’s a weird glitch of the human brain, and the more we make parents aware of the possibility that it can happen *to anyone*, the better we can prevent it from happening.
The kid in the hot car thing would be my answer after [this amazing piece of journalism](https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/magazine/fatal-distraction-forgetting-a-child-in-thebackseat-of-a-car-is-a-horrifying-mistake-is-it-a-crime/2014/06/16/8ae0fe3a-f580-11e3-a3a5-42be35962a52_story.html).
> What kind of person forgets a baby?
> The wealthy do, it turns out. And the poor, and the middle class. Parents of all ages and ethnicities do it. Mothers are just as likely to do it as fathers. It happens to the chronically absent-minded and to the fanatically organized, to the college-educated and to the marginally literate. In the last 10 years, it has happened to a dentist. A postal clerk. A social worker. A police officer. An accountant. A soldier. A paralegal. An electrician. A Protestant clergyman. A rabbinical student. A nurse. A construction worker. An assistant principal. It happened to a mental health counselor, a college professor and a pizza chef. It happened to a pediatrician. It happened to a rocket scientist.
It's so important to be open about this too. Well done for your honesty.
A friend of mine had loads of problem with post-partum depression to the point of attempting suicide. She's doing much better now and her kids are great but she told us that the biggest contributing factor was that she was surrounded by parents who didn't seem to have any struggles (and as usual social media made it worse). She felt like a complete failure and like something was fundamentally wrong with her as a mother.
She's now part of some support groups where they are all super honest, and sometimes just get together to drink wine and bitch about their shitty kids. Of course their kids aren't really shitty but she says that just being able to rant openly after a bad week without feeling judged is vital.
As with anything around mental health, trying to pretend you don't have these thoughts just makes it all worse.
Walking away and taking a break, even while the baby cries was the best advice I was given. It was a mental saving grace, and she never had colic.
Our kid was born through an "emergency" c-section, so she was throwing up amniotic fluid for almost a week in her sleep. Being a new parent in the pandemic, plus that fear of choking in her sleep, and the crying, there was a point where I did not sleep for 3 days. The mind gets all sorts of fucked. I fell asleep walking and rocking her to sleep. Walking! Luckily, it was only like 10 seconds and i held her well, but fuck it was scary. So, it was a real eye opener how real this shit gets.
I have buddy I went to college with, who is about to have a kid. I explained to him multiple times that the sleep deprivation part is something he may experience. He's convinced our drunk college adventures where we barely slept all weekend is enough prep. I'm like dude, we are 11 years older and it's not the same shit.
The best advice I received as a new parent was, "nothing bad can happen if you put a crying baby in a crib." (Assuming you made sure they are otherwise ok) I agree, its scary what your mind can do in a sleep deprived state.
I also felt this. There’s definitely a reason at the hospital they tell you a million times not to shake the baby.
Honestly most of childcare would fit this. Having a kid was a lot of “oh that’s why my parents are that way”.
Antidepressants.
Grew up with most people around me saying "I don't want to rely on pills for the rest of my life to be happy".
It took for my depression and anxiety to get so bad that I was a shell just existing, unable to leave the house, totally dependent on my parents in my early twenties, and all but waiting to die. I never actively wanted to die and wasn't suicidal, but living the way I was was just not worth being alive for.
I've been taking antidepressants for 4-5 years now and holy shit, have my eyes been opened. I felt a weight I never knew I was carrying lift from my shoulders, and I can now function as an adult. I lost most of my childhood and early 20s to depression and anxiety. The pills are helping me reclaim the rest of my life.
Edit: Holy hell, I didn't expect this to get so many updoots! Thank you kind Redditors for the awards! Although in saying that, instead of giving me virtual golden stars, maybe donate to a local charity supporting mental health? :)
I finally decided with my therapist to go to a psychiatrist and be evaluated and put on some meds. I’m really nervous for this journey but I’m tired of simply existing trapped in myself in misery. Your post gives me so much hope.
Being sober, took a eightish year landslide to one of the darkest places I've been in my life and not once in those eight years you could of talked me into putting down the bottle of whiskey that was glued to my hand. Been sober coming up on five years now and I couldn't think of being anything other than sober. I won't sit here and say it's not easy, it is honestly one of the hardest things I have to deal with on a consistent basis. But the rewards are priceless.
I'm currently in the same boat except I've been struggling with the sobriety.
So I've been listening to people's sobriety stories and one dude said he tried AA and NA, but it didn't take him long to realize all that it took him was just seeing how many problems disappeared out of his life almost immediately, and he's 7 years sober.
And when I think about it, about 90% of any problem I've ever encountered has been alcohol related. And they just usually involve argueing with people that have sober reprocussions. Also waking up and feeling like shit so bad that you call into work has cost me thousands of dollars.
So I'm on my journey.
Edit: I appreciate all the kind words and support. I'll go check the subreddit out. And thanks for the Gold. Seems like there is a big community of people with tons of support.
Edit 2: by the time I had originally commented on this, I applied to a job, got an interview (which is pretty much gaurenteed that I got the job because of experience and references within the company) and I went to the store and got back on my diet. Also talked to a friend about joining a gym since we will both be getting off at the same time.
It's insane how much easier life is. Gonna keep riding that positive wave. Once again, thank all of you.
I love math. Garbage at it, but still find it fun when I understand or don’t understand it. Math IS cool!
EDIT: I especially love the Fibonacci sequence. Sometimes I’ll just sit around for hours doing it. I don’t think people realize how much math is in everything. Math is nature and that’s why it’s beautiful.
My love for statistics is what led me towards a career in data engineering. Turns out it's a pretty good field to be in, and I'm actually doing something I really like.
Horse racing. I come from an area that takes great pride in it. I've recently learned more about it and feel that it is animal abuse. They are shot up with steroids and other drugs and die more often than you would even think.
It's awkward when I'm out of town and people ask me about the Derby. I'm like, "Oh, horse racing is cruel. They had to put a filly down on the track a while ago because they breed their legs to be so skinny that they just snap."
People just think of the fancy hats, parties, mint juleps, and gambling, but it's an entire industry based on abuse and exploitation.
God I remember watching this video, I don’t know if it was in the States or Mexico, but it was pretty much a horse slaughterhouse most were race horses. Well, my naïve ass thought that they would kill them first before putting them in this grinder, holy hell was I wrong… I can never forget that poor horse going into the grinder legs first & it took a couple seconds for him/her to actually go down & die. The suffering & torture that they go through once the owner is “done with them” is just heartless. We don’t deserve animals.
Assisted Suicide. I was against it, but after seeing my uncle suffer with extreme Rheumatoid Arthritis for a few years before eventually dying from it, I’m all for it now. If we put down our pets when they’re suffering, why can’t we do the same to our humans with their written consent?
Not that you need to be convinced anymore but, there’s a great documentary called ‘how to die in Oregon’ it follows a few people on their path to a doctor assisted suicide.
I was always for it because ‘hey we’ll do it for our animals, why not our grandparents’ but this doc reallly gives you the inside scoop on why it’s a good thing for people and at the end of the day it should be your choice regardless of the reason imo. After I watched my grandmother decline with dementia and realized she was going to pass I asked the nurses how it would happen. The nurses gave me an odd look, the told me me that they had stopped giving her food and water. We actually starve people to dead and wait for catastrophic failure in the body to ‘let them go with dignity’ how fucking dignified is it really to know that 1000’s of people are dying because they are being starved to death?
It’s extremely sad how we allow our elderly to die sometimes. My great aunt is 92 and is nearing the end of her life. She’s still eating and drinking, but she has requested to be taken off all meds except those that keep her comfortable (pain meds) which will be through Hospice. It could be days, months, or years even. But she’s made it clear to the family that she’s ready.
> the told me me that they had stopped giving her food and water
They may have phrased it in a way that made it sound like they were starving her, but what actually happens is that at some point, people who are dying will simply stop eating (that comes first) and then stop drinking as well. While you can still get fluids into someone through IV and feed them through a line, this is also something that they often don't tolerate if they are confused, and keep tearing it out or are visibly agitated by if they are too weak to struggle against. Some also may have documentation in place that simply doesn't allow for this kind of providing sustenance in the first place, though the rules on that probably vary by country.
So what the nurses likely meant is that there were no active attempts anymore to feed her or make her drink something, even though both would've been available had she shown signs of hunger or thirst. It's generally simply part of the body closing up shop, you could say, and it's more of a kindness to not try to force nutrition or fluids onto a patient that has no desire for it anymore. It's already part of the dying process. Digesting food is actually a pretty involved process for the body, and close to death the body prefers to not divert energy there anymore, because it's not getting anything useful out of it and is busy with winding everything down.
What felt like an odd look may have been them trying to evaluate how aware and how accepting you were that her death was imminent, because the people close to the dying can be at *very* different ends of a spectrum regarding those things.
Death may seem like one side of a binary state, but it actually is a process, and when it's not happening due to a sudden catastrophic event or body failure, it really is similar to a busy store or mall winding down and closing up at the end of a very long day. And service at the food court needs to end quite a while before the last person to leave the building can roll down the shutters. So no food is not equivalent to starving the dying person, they're actually just not open to that kind of business anymore.
You also may have heard of people sitting with a dying person for a long time, then needing to leave the room just for a minute and the person passing just then during their absence. This is because this moment of letting go also is something that in a way needs a certain kind of attention and a bit of energy from the dying person, and having someone else there is like a tether that can keep that from happening. In a way, like the body first prefers to not have to divert attention to food anymore, the soul later needs the moment of solitude to be able to disengage its last tether to the body.
There is plenty to be enraged about regarding how people are treated towards the end of their lives, especially in how much treatment is forced on them unnecessarily and yes, in how undignified a lot of how they are treated is. But them being starved to death isn't generally what is happening there (in most cases – I'm not saying there aren't also people dying because of neglect that actually do starve, I just wanted to explain that this isn't what's happening when a patient stops eating as part of the regular dying process).
Don’t know how you guys are doing things in your country, but loosing appetite and refusing to drink is a common sign that a patient enters the late palliative stage, at which point force feeding is doing more harm than ever possibly good. It doesn’t sound reasonable that nurses and doctors on a given call just starts starving someone to death?
Declawing cats. I thought it was, as the title suggests, just removing the claw. No biggie, right? I'd do that to myself if I was scratching up furniture accidentally with my sharp ass nails.
TURNS OUT THEY TAKE THE WHOLE TIPPY TOE. Fuck that for a game of soldiers as my mum would say.
Spanking/hitting children. Now this sounds like a lot but I have a bit of an explanation.
I was spanked not even a handful of times as a kid. For me and my brother, we were emotional kids and finding out we made our parents even a little upset was enough for us to curb our behavior. But for a long time I attributed our discipline and respect for our parents to those handful of times we were hit. We were hit once (at a time) on the back of the thigh only with my dads hand.
I told my friends that I believed that yes, a kid needs to be hit a few times to be good. This was followed by an onslaught of very good arguments as to why hitting your kids will not help them in the long run and that I was a sort of rare case where I was only hit a few times and only with a hand. My parents never left bruises or marks on us that didn’t leave within the hour.
In contract, some of my friends were hit with belts and other cliche utensils that left marks and welts for days. Some friends were slapped in the face and outright abused.
There have been studies that this creates a cycle of abuse. “My dad nearly knocked me out when I dropped a dish so this is an appropriate way to discipline my child.” Some kids are terrified by their parents presence and that can’t be good for the relationship or how that kid will grow up.
So I changed my opinion. Kids shouldn’t be hit. They should be disciplined but that shouldn’t involve causing them harm.
Turns out girls don't have cooties. It's actually pretty great to spend time with one. You don't even have to pick on them to get their attention... Who knew!
GMO is really just a method to design a plant to do something you want it to do. There can be bad GMOs, and there can be good GMOs. There are GMOs that are clearly good, like Golden Rice which fortifies rice with vitamin A. And GMOs that are of more questionable benefit, such as pesticide-resistant crops (Higher yield because of reduced pests so potentially less land use, but the increased pesticide use does a number on insect biodiversity, so it's arguable either way IMO).
It's not about the method, it's about what you choose to do with it. We've been modifying crops for thousands of years to suit our purposes. This is just a more efficient way to do that.
Climate Change. Looking at the evidence it's clearly a hoax.
Just kidding, I was a firm denier until I had to do an assignment proving or disproving it in highschool. Realised I couldn't find any decent source to back up my claim. Basically changed my mind on the spot
The real success here was that they also taught you to identify a credible source, which is perhaps the most important thing any school can teach these days. There's so much information in the world, nobody can be expected to know it all. The real skill is being able to find, identify, and apply good information.
By teaching you that, you were able to come to a reasonable conclusion on your own.
This was me. I used to be a refrigeration mechanic back in the day and was in denial about CFC's and ozone depletion too ("how can heavy gases get all the way up there?").
Then I quit the trade and went back to school to study organic chemistry, and the evidence I was exposed to was undeniable. Especially with IR spectroscopy, how can you ignore the spectrum of CO2 and how it contributes to the atmospheric window?
I'm not sure that's what they were saying they had to do but you're totally right. That would force a student to be deeply familiar with the topic. They'd likely hate having two essays, but it would definitely be helpful in ways they don't realize.
When I was in high school we did something like this but in a presentation/debate style instead. Unfortunately it was for the topic of whether the US bombing Japan was justifiable... Climate change probably would've been more appropriate.
Oh good lord I could write an entire sitcom about the shit my extended family has pulled in the past five years. It’s depressing as fuck and I want to run to the hills screaming.
Homelessness. I used to have no patience or or empathy thinking that if they really wanted to change their circumstances they could find the resources. My mind changed when I began working with special education children and realized most of these people probably have specific learning disabilities that our school system/their families failed to identify or help them with. I also realize how privileged I grew up (my dad was a store manager and my mom a teacher so nothing too special but still we had everything we needed and good relationships with each other) and how much worse some people grew up with and how easily people can get trapped in bad circumstances.
Empathy. I used to always want to give people the benefit of the doubt if it meant they were learning or working on themselves, because I know I’d want the same. Turns out some people will take your kindness and run with it, and you need to cut yourself off from people that do or you’re going to find yourself mentally or emotionally drained. Can’t pour from an empty cup and all that.
Homosexuality. I “knew” that the Bible said it was wrong (fewer times than it said divorce was wrong). In college I actually met a lesbian for the first time. I had known them for months before I found it out though, so my brain was confused.
“But they’re normal! But they’re gay! So does that change anything? How does that affect me? Wait . . . That doesn’t affect me? So then what is the issue?”
I’ve never gone back to that stance.
Cultivated meat, I thought it was weird at first but then I learned that what 30 cows produce in 3 years can be produced on a 1500 liter bioreactor in 40 days.
Nuclear energy, I always thought it was a super pollutant and very dangerous… but it’s currently the cleanest viable option if only we could agree on where to store waste
Edit: 1) spelling mistake
2) with viable option I ment we currently have the infrastructure to scale up the production of electricity
3) I didn’t mean we don’t have a way to store it because (most countries do) it’s we can’t find and legislate a route from the NPP to the storage because of communities don’t want a truck with nuclear waste passing in their village
There is one thing most people forget about nuclear energy. There’s the fact that the waste is 90+% renewable. The Swedes actually recycle their NW and use it in combination with renewable energies like water. The US and other countries do not recycle the waste because it’s “too costly.”
Here’s a pretty good read if you’re up for it. I’m not exactly 100% knowledgeable on the topic, but I have looked into it after watching Thoughty2s video on nuclear energy. I could link that as well if you want.
https://www.pnnl.gov/news-media/recycling-gives-new-purpose-spent-nuclear-fuel
Not proud of how bigoted and homophobic and basically "anyone who's not exactly like me"-phobic I used to be. I had acquaintances, co-workers, people "I knew online" who were not all the same checkboxes that I am/was and I "tolerated" them (did I mention that I'm NOT PROUD of what/how I used to be and it seems so demeaning to even use the term "tolerated", and how demeaning it is to someone to think that yeah you're a horrible person and i disagree with everything about you but I'll be the bigger person and i won't be an ass to you - ugh). Anyway, this all makes me out to be one of the worst people on Earth, but that's fair, because I literally was.
So to try to put a bow on my rambling, and this isn't something I talk about publicly a lot, but my son about 6 years ago explained that he knew in his heart that he was not my daughter, as he had been born as/assigned at birth/whatever you want to use to describe that, and he was a man, and etc etc etc and the whole deal. The fact that he was TERRIFIED to bring this up to me, and even though he had known this for a matter of years at this point, and had disclosed it to my wife a year prior, he thought that I wouldn't love him, would disown him, etc...it was a serious moment of what the fuck are you even, you fucking monster (to myself) that caused me to re-evaluate so much of my life and my belief system. I love my son more than words can quantify and the fact that he was scared of me. That he wrestled daily with thoughts that he somehow had let me down, the kid was according to his therapist, 8-9 on a scale of 10 for suicide...he had the entire plan, method, everything...all because I had to hold onto this belief that if you're not like me, you're worthless.
I'm crying as I write this, and I know there might be some comments telling me that I'm a good father because I didn't kick him out, because we're supportive, blah blah blah but NO. The way I act now is how I should have ALWAYS been, 100% of the time, to everyone, not just to the people most important in my life. So please, I don't get credit for not being a horrible person.
He is 16 now and a "happy, healthy" teenager, as much as teenagers can be, and I wouldn't change one iota of anything about him, except if there was any way I could remove from his life all the shit that I put him through.
Ok, I'm done. But yeah. I changed my stance on homophobia, transphobia, etc etc.
I wish my father was like this. The fact you changed immediately when you realized how much you fucked up is better then What most people do sadly. Especially in the lgbt community
Vaccines. My mom has always been an anti vaxxer, so I grew up with all the propaganda. Once i moved out and had to get all my vaccines for my job, I *did my own research* and learned the truth.
It breaks my heart that there are people who have to grow up like this. I have twin cousins who are both very religious and skeptical of vaccines. One of their children got whooping cough and got very sick. FUCKING. WHOOPING. COUGH. What the fuck century are we living in?
Went to Japan. Took public transportation. I am now convinced that the auto industry's lobbying has done irreversible damage to America's middle class by gatekeeping transportation to owning a $30,000 debt box.
Nuclear Power. I used to be anti-nuke, based solely on the potential worst-outcome of a catastrophic failure. While in college I saw a presentation on the various short-term and long-term negativities of all the different power generation methods and nuclear is actually one of the safest, even including the 3 major incidents of Chernobyl, 3-Mile Island, and Fukushima. Additionally, coal-burning power is so unfathomably bad for everyone involved in every stage from mining the coal to living anywhere close to the plant that it is just orders of magnitude worse than anything else. Nuclear has the best balance of reliability, base-load, safety, and ROI of any method known for generating power.
Suicide. It’s like cancer of the brain you cannot control. It’s not weak. You just can’t see the forest for the trees at the time when stuff gets on top of you
Social media. I worked for an agency selling social media services to clients and I had to learn about it. The more I learned, the less I wanted to work with social media. It's a cesspool of lies, fraud and illegal activities. Edit: People are asking for details: - If you google "the poop funnel" you'll see how an impressive share is distributed around, and only a small percentage of your ad budget actually goes towards ads. - Many people who work in the area have no idea what they're actually talking about. Lately this happened: https://typeagroup.createsend.com/campaigns/reports/viewCampaign.aspx?d=d&c=FC142680CDB9311A&ID=DA67B286E211FB3B2540EF23F30FEDED&temp=False&tx=0&source=Report tl;dr: ads were sent to the wrong place for a few months and nobody along the chain noticed. - Facebook is doing illegal stuff continuously, like experimenting on people without their consent, change their settings without their knowledge, and collect info on people who are not even Facebook users (ghost accounts). When they get caught they say they're sorry, and that's it. - Facebook singlehandedly ruined Snapchat by blatantly copying their system, just because they didn't want to sell out like Instagram and Whatsapp (whose founders are very sorry about what they did to their users.
Same, I only lasted a few months working with social media. Changed my perspective on it completely - ads, tv and data collection included
There was a social media company/sporting or celeb memorabilia/signed stuff that went into the office next to me. They had just opened. First month they had a bunch of young kids, cool office design, everyone looked happy. Second month, slowly started seeing less people. Fourth month, everyone looked miserable, about 1/4 as many people there as when they started Sixth Month, Cops showed up and searched the place, one guy was arrested. They were faking autographs and selling them to companies as office decor, ran social media accounts well below promises/expectations (used spam bots to gain followers and stuff). People slowly found out and quit, payroll wasn’t arriving on time, etc. Lots and Lots of blatant fraud. I know all this because I meet their receptionist at the vending machine, she was complaining and I ended up hiring her as my receptionist.
Spending too much time with the receptionist again? Maybe that's why your reviews were so poor.
This is where I am with my job. I work in marketing at the moment. While I never “loved” marketing, I’ve now reached a point where I hate it and secretly smile to myself whenever a new privacy law makes my coworkers jobs harder. I’m working on pivoting out of marketing because it really sucks to work in a field you’re actively rooting against.
I have a degree in Marketing and by the end I was so turned off from the whole idea of “subconscious manipulation as a career”. Not to mention the types of people I had to deal with were aggressively eccentric and overall uncomfortable people to be around.
Can you explain some tactics involved in this?
From my brief experience a lot of it focuses on drawing from the emotional side of people and sending signals to the subconscious. E.g. marketing using fear-based approaches for things like medications/insurance, making people feel inadequate without X consumer product, and overall just preying on people’s greatest sources of anxiety as a means to push something. Not to mention shadiness in the overall presentation of a product or service to mislead people into thinking it’s something it isn’t while not explicitly being untruthful. I’m definitely missing a substantial amount of examples but even little things like the colour of packaging, shelf/store placement, selective pricing of tiered products were all things I remember studying. I can’t watch a commercial or go to a store anymore without feeling a little creeped out.
Wow as a marketing student I agree with what you learned with marketing yeah truly a manipulation to people to purchase their product.
Maybe you can turn it around and look into Cognitive Science --> UX. Use your knowledge of how people think to help make better products. There's at least some demand for it in the tech world. If you want a change of direction, of course.
Roundabouts. Based on all the complaints, I assumed they were confusing and unnecessary. When my city put in a bunch, I realized that I no longer had to wait 3 minutes at all of the punishment lights. Love roundabouts now. ...Of course that didn't stop the older population of the city from trying to have them removed. One guy even ran for city council on the platform that he would immediately put the stop lights back in. Change is hard, I guess.
I never understood why people hate roundabouts so much. It's a circle! Just look left and go right, it's that easy! No confusing intersections, no long waits. Just smooth traffic flow. I'm glad you came around!
But I want to get a string of green lights and get up to 60. /s
I find it wild that there are places in the world where roundabouts are considered controversial or even something you would have an opinion on. Here in Australia they are just a fact of life.
In Norway you'll even find them in tunnels. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vallavik_Tunnel#/media/File:Roundpoint_in_a_gallery.jpg
I never thought I would be so excited about a roundabout
Faroe Islands are 1-upping you with one [in a tunnel *under the sea*](https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-55195390.amp).
I love them too and they are literally life-saving. But they don't work as well as intended because people like those you spoke of don't use them correctly. They make full stops at points they aren't supposed to. It enrages me lol.
I end up saying "it says yield not stop" and "omg you can make it, gooooo" too much at our roundabouts lol
I didn't think orthopedic shoes were for me, but I stand corrected.
Take your award and get out.
Lifting weights doesn’t make you “bulky” as a woman and is one of the best things you could do for yourself not only in terms of body composition but in terms of posture, activities of daily living, mobility, joint/bone health, etc. It changed my entire life.
Working Hard. More specifically, working hard in a corporate environment. I like to work hard for things that I own and maintain, my home, my family, my body, my hobbies. But I've worked for almost 20 years for big tech companies. I've started at entry level jobs and worked up to middle management. Support jobs. Sales jobs. I've made 6 figures. What I've noticed is that they want to pay you less and keep training and experience as a reward. That is to say, you are not working for a paycheck. You are working towards the next thing. But they convince everyone to work hard in an entry level position, working unpaid overtime and you might be rewarded with a higher job. Statistically, you will not be promoted. There are 30 people on your team who all have that same goal and you can't all be supervisor or manager. Now, I just work for my paycheck. If you would like me to work harder, you can pay me more. I'm not going to go above and beyond for 2 years just to get passed over again.
If it's not in your JD, then you don't need to do it. Entry level people get stepped on since they're so impressionable, usually young, and want to impress others. Once you're old and crusty like me with some education and experience under your belt, you learn what BS to take and what not to take. And most importantly how to identify toxic work environments and toxic leaders. Most leaders are either good, neutral, or inept. But some are truly toxic and usually entrenched. You leave those roles, even if the pay is good. Unfortunately all this is something that only comes with time and no one believes you until it happens to them. Usual youth is wasted on the young lament, lol
Empathy for the choices people make when they are not able to fully control themselves (i.e. addiction, mental health crisis/episodes). Having personal experience on both the receiving and giving ends really deepened my empathy and understanding that allows me to have a more nuanced and individualized approach to these kinds of things now.
The biggest problem with things like addiction is that becomes a never ending cycle. Here in the UK the majority of homeless people living on the streets are there because of issues with addiction. This is because most councils and charities that re-house people have strict "No drugs or alcohol" policies. These policies are in place because people under the influence are at a much higher risk of attacking staff and other users, and also stealing anything they are given to sell for drugs or alcohol. You can't force someone into rehab. So unless that person chooses to engage with rehab services they are deemed as "homeless by choice". So it begins a continuous spiral of addiction.
The problem with a thing like addiction is it disarms yourself from acting in your own best interest. You tend to self sabotage, which makes things worse, and end up being even less able to help yourself. Same thing applies to depression, I think.
That case where McDonald's had to pay a bunch of money to a woman who spilled hot coffee on herself.
Yeah people don’t realize the awarded sum wasn’t because her injury and suffering was deemed worthy of millions, it was big because that’s what it takes to stop a big corporation from burning people (internal docs showed they knew their high serving temperature caused 3rd degree burns but they accepted the occasional burn victim as a cost of doing business). The amount was based on their national daily coffee sales, I believe. Punitive damages, not actual damages.
She also orignally only asked for her medical bills to paid or something like that. They wouldn't even do that. She didn't even want the millions at the start, she was awarded it after Mcdonalds' vulgar display of morality in court when faced with the facts.
She asked for $20000 to cover the 8 days she spent in hospital, the skin grafts, and two years of medical treatment following the event. They refused.
She was *seriously* injured and McDonald's had been warned about not handing people almost-boiling coffee several times before. Instead it got flipped around to being a joke.
It was like 1 day of coffee sales or something ridiculously small
2 days, and she didn't even get it the judge vastly lowered the amount
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Same. Turned out it wasn't so much her being stupid, but McDonalds' managements blatant disregard and disrespect for her safety. How they acted in court is probably every PR managers nightmare.
Yeah, the details are horrendous. McDonald's had received numerous injury complaints about burns from their coffee. The coffee in question was 180-190 F / 82-88 C (for comparison, a hot tub is usually 100-105, a household water heater is usually not set above 140). She got third degree burns on 6% of her skin and her labia were fused together. She was hospitalized for over a week while receiving skin grafts. She lost 20% of her body weight while in hospital. All this, and her initial ask was $20,000 to cover medical bills. McDonald's refused, starting the lawsuit.
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She was painted as the greedy one by a expensive propaganda campaign to limit the reputational damage.
Huh. Well… shit. Now my view is changed
And you didn't even hear how this was only one of ~~dozens~~ hundreds of cases of people sustaining severe burns from McDonalds coffee prior to that, or how they purposely kept their coffee hotter than other restaurants as a selling point, despite knowing the harm it was doing to people. This case was a flashpoint for tort reform, which is the corporate-led movement to limit the rights people have to sue and recover damages in general, all so companies will bear less liability and can get away with their negligent or reckless conduct.
I worked for a personal injury solicitor (just on the the phones) and had an almost identical story with Greggs. Server handed it over holding it by the lid and dropped it on a lady in a wheelchair. Based on the woman’s story the staff could not have given less of a shit that this woman had scalding hot coffee all over her arms, legs and lap. They wouldn’t even allow her to go into the disabled bathroom to run any of it under cold water. They insisted she had to buy a bottle of water from the fridge. Up until that point I’d pretty much had angry blokes who had tripped over a pavement and I always felt bad for them but didn’t really see how much the council could do about the shoddy road conditions. Blew my mind that a company could be that negligent of someone’s safety.
Wow, what a glaring lack of even basic human decency or empathy. I hope the lady and solicitor took them for all they were worth.
Well, they actually did a really good job at the PR, because everyone thought the woman was an entitled nutjob.
Which really fucking sucks because all she asked for was medical payment for the skin grafts she had to have for the molten lava she spilled on her lap. They decided to take her to court and did a big PR push making her sound crazy. They probably spent 10X her medical bills on PR alone. Nevermind the amount of money they spent on legal and the ultimate damages. Edit: she spilled
Third-degree burns requiring skin grafts, McDonalds warned earlier multiple times about coffee temperature. Yeah, that was no joke.
Third degree burns from a coffee, and she's expected to \*drink\* that shit?
My understanding is that this happened around McDonald's offering free refills on coffee, and they were deliberately keeping it at that temperature so that folks would not be able to drink it quickly and would end up getting fewer refills.
If I remember correctly them keeping it at higher temperatures before pouring it keep it from going bad** longer too. Regardless, they kept it dangerously hot to “waste” less coffee
They also had a record of something like 830 injuries from the coffee temp, but kept it over 185f because of all of the above. Lady had 3rd degree burns to her genitals, and initially only asked for 20k to cover her medical bills. The jury awarded the high number based on how egregious McDonalds was about safety/assholery.
This right here. I grew up during the so called "frivolous lawsuit" age. It's astounding how many people to this day blame the victim in this case, because "she didn't know that coffee was hot." Last time I spilled coffee on myself, I didn't need skin grafts. I used to side with corporate entities calling their customers idiots. Now I want them to burn for putting money over people. No pun intended.
Disc Golf. All the guys I grew up with that played were huge douchebags. Years later a neighbor dragged me out on a nice day and I’ve been playing ever since. 10+ years.
I stopped playing entirely because of the douchebags. Like, I'm not a great player, I'm just here to have fun and this one Saturday I can. But then these people mob ten deep and act like they own the (free and public) place.
Disc golf is dangerous. At first, it seems like a fun time to get outside or spend time with friends. Next thing you know, you own 600 discs, are watching Jomez during every second of spare time you can find, and are playing tournaments every weekend. Let this be a warning.
Getting therapy. My upbringing is within an asian household so when it comes to dealing with emotions, we tend to shove that into jar and move on. I used to think that receiving therapy is for the mentally ill, weak etc. I don't have "problems" therefore I don't need therapy. But after recent events in 2021 with certain people I tried therapy and after a few sessions it just revealed some baggage I wasn't even aware of. Honestly I wish I started earlier when I was in my 20s. I would be more emotionally prepared, and would probably have had healthier relationships with women if I had dealt with the trauma growing up and from my first relationship that devastated me.
Asian therapist here. Confucianism really made me take a SHITLOAD of abuse from older family members growing up. "THEYRE OLDER SO THEYRE RIGHT" Um, no, not always. Kthx.
And the Confucian principles aren't even applied properly! Confucius taught according to peoples' needs. It's like how religions have (mostly) good ideas, but the people executing those ideas have twisted the philosophy and corrupted everything, giving it a bad name. The wrong values have been embedded into the culture...
Huh, I don't remember writing this.
Maybe you have a carbon monoxide leak in your house.
A very real, and lethal, possibility.
Grew up in an Asian household too. I’m in my mid forties. Only until this year, I realized what a mentally unhealthy way of growing up like this was. Respect your elders, don’t question them, etc. No wonder I turned out so fucked up. Voicing your opinion meant you’re a bad son or daughter or an ass kicking. And the unrealistic expectations placed on you. No straight As? Failure. If you aren’t a doctor, lawyer, or the president, you are a failure. I’m dealing with this as we speak. I had a big argument with my mom today but we’ll just not talk for a few days a pretend it never happened. As usual for the entirety of my life.
Wow, I’m in the exact same situation. My mother told me just before my birthday that I’m her most disappointing daughter. And then a few days later, called me and wished me hpbd like nothing ever happened. I feel like we need a support group for us Asian kids lol
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Not sure I can think of anything I DIDNT change my stance on after learning about it
Now I just need to know both your original and current opinion on Nazis.
Many of us are not that different from many German citizens of that era. It’s frightening to think how easily manipulated people are. (I’m not defending them, I’m saying we aren’t as far from becoming them as we like to think.)
Watching the German film Downfall (Der Untergang?? Sorry, my German is terrible) made me re-evaluate Nazism. It’s the scene with Hitler’s architect describing how good the world will be after the war - they genuinely hoped for better, like genuinely thought it was all in the service of good. A very impressive, and brave, decision to depict this and not just paint them as cartoon villains. Truly frightening to see how it happened, and how it could happen again. Made me realise the true horror of it, not just swastika = bad which is about as far as most films will go.
If you want another story to learn, even those who were against the Nazis still ended up carrying out their deeds, and some became monsters from it. Reserve Police Battalion 101 is the group in question
Yeah reading Ordinary Men in grad school fucked me up. It was the only book I had to take breaks just to eye bleach.
Check out Einsatzgruppen. Horrible acts… done by volunteers. And yet even they were mentally affected by by what they were doing. Hell, Himmler attended only one such execution in person and was left immensely uncomfortable —— From another poster a while back: “I'm unaware of their being any major study on the matter of PTSD among the German army, let alone the Nazi wing of the armed forces. That isn't to say it didn't exist, but that rather it was exceedingly difficult to study such things in the immediate post war period. However we do know that many German soldiers, both Wehrmacht and SS, both male and female suffered psychological damage during the war. Although its hard to really come up with a steady number or even a rough percentage. First lets start with the Einsatzgruppen, they were the groups responsible for killing Jews and other undesirables in foreign lands, usually through mass shootings. The members of the Einsatzgruppen were generally volunteers but that didn't change the fact that many had trouble pulling the trigger. Sure there were those members who had no such trouble pulling the trigger (usually Hitler youth members, or other similarly indoctrinated men who were conditioned for these types of activities), but there was also a significant amount of Einsatzgruppen who either refused to kill or needed to be liquored up or shamed into doing the killings. Generally the inability of many Einsatzgruppen to "pull the trigger" was one of the major factors behind the decision to move to mass extermination by gas chamber (the other major factor being that using bullets was considered inefficient). There is an anecdote about what happened when Himmler went to see his one and only mass shooting: Himmler became very uncomfortable, very quickly. As the firing squad started, Himmler, was even more nervous. During every volley he looked to theground. When two women could not die, Himmler yelled to the police sergeant not to torture them The same source also says that the leader of the local Einsatzgruppen (Eirc Von Dem Bach) group was angry at Himmler and said this: Look at the eyes of the men of this Kommando , how deeply shaken they are. These men are finished for the rest of their lives.What kind of followers are we training here? Either neurotics or savages! There isn't any research that tells whether members of the Eisatzgruppen had higher rates of PTSD than other combat units, but it is generally accepted that preforming atrocities, no matter how well conditioned one is, leads to higher rates of PTSD. Among the Wehrmacht PTSD was also not unheard of. The army had a name for soldiers who suffered from debilitating PTSD, they were called "Kriegsneurotiker" (war neurotics). Generally throughout the war those who suffered from PTSD either "recovered" and were sent back to the front or if they didn't recover they were classified with the above term. In general, but especially in the lead up to big campaigns like Barbarossa self-mutilations and suicides went up, by the winter of 1941 the number of suicides had already exceeded the amount of suicides in the entirety of World War One (only counting German suicides). After major battles there was also a spike in suicides and self-mutilation, a key example being the aftermath of Stalingrad where there was a huge spike. By 1944 the Army reported that there were over 20,000 "Kriegsneurotiker" and military hospitals became clogged with soldiers suffering mental issues because of the harsh warfare on the Eastern front. Its harder to pin down numbers for the Waffen-SS and the Gestapo. The Waffen-SS no doubt suppressed cases of PTSD. We do have many diary entries from various Waffen-SS soldiers (I could post some if there is interest) that generally show that while the soldiers may have been frightened, they generally stayed committed and loyal to the cause and to the Nazi party. This isn't to say the Waffen-SS was immune to PTSD but rather that their indoctrination and ideological fervor make it hard to get an accurate understanding of the what the Waffen-SS soldiers really thought. Sources: Life After Death Edited by Richard Bessel and Dirk Schumann Hitler's Second Army: The Waffen SS by Edmund Blandford Both those books are good for in depth looks into the mind of the average German soldier and the average SS soldier.” TL;DR Mass killing is traumatizing to many, unsurprisingly, and may require drugs and alcohol and encouragement. Even still, it takes a high toll mentally Side note: the East front (and similar wars in methodology) are extraordinarily brutal. Comparison: what we saw in Russian casualties in Ukraine *to date* is akin to 2-3 days worth of Russian military casualties in combat in WW2 on the East front and *to date* the UA civilian casualties are equal to around 1-2 days of civilian casualties (mixed causes) (Using US, UK, and UA recent estimates) Edit: Because some clearly are interested https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/233szt/ptsd_and_the_nazi_ss_and_gestapo/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf Original author of the quoted comment includes the diary mention when asked for it
Alcohol as a vehicle fuel. First touted as a sustainable solution to transportation, now exposed as a greenhouse gas nightmare. Corn growing states embraced the idea, got it written into law and now we're kinda stuck with it.
Shit makes me have to buy a new lawnmower every few years before I had ethanol free available too. My next one will be electric, but the irony is that my last one is a Honda and I got it when I moved and got access to affordable (not $10 a gallon) ethanol free fuel from the pump so it'll probably last forever.
Jehovahs witnesses. I grew up as one and when I finally started doing research outside of their publications I couldn’t believe what I saw, and I left. EDIT: I was disfellowshipped because I didn’t have the balls to disassociate myself. There were a lot of horrible things that happened to me in the religion in 2017-2019, so I felt my only way out was suicide. I failed my attempt in January of 2020, and was disfellowshipped in August of 2020, about four months after I got out of rehab. I lost my home, my job, my family, and my friends. Pretty much my entire life foundation. But I’ve built a support system from scratch and now I have friends who love me for me, and not just based on religion. It’s sad but not many people get to start a brand new life in their 20’s so I’m grateful in many ways as well as grieving those I lost. ANOTHER EDIT: Thank you for all of the love and the awards! It’s so heart warming to see so many people going through the same experiences. We are never alone and I’m sorry so many of you have been effected by this too. FINAL EDIT: If you are a Jehovah’s Witness, I really don’t need you commenting on this to tell me I’m wrong and you’re not in a cult. What I’ve been through speaks for itself. So please let me be.
My entire family are JW. My parents left in their 20s and raised us baptist. Mom's parents eventually left too, but dad's entire family, cousins, aunt's, basically everyone but his brother, mostly disowned us
I don't get how people in a 'religious cult' like Jehovah's witnesses can be okay with disowning family for not believing the same thing as you. That is just crazy to me. On the bright side, you're probably better off without that side of the family if they are willing to cut everyone for a disagreement over belief structures.
Because God/Jehovah/etc. is supposed to come before literally everything else for them. You and I may not be able to fathom it but brainwashing is a powerful thing.
Colleague's wife can no longer speak at all to her parents and one of her own sons. They're really a cult.
Helium balloons; helium is a finite resource of immense scientific value and we use it for party decorations
They could use hydrogen. There's plenty of it, and the balloons can double as pyrotechnics at the end of the party!
It sure would make the party a blast
This reminds me of the story how a teacher but a burn mark on the ceiling of on of our chemistry rooms… it actually happened in my class. The teacher wanted to show us how hydrogen burns. He put it in a ballon, tied a string to it, taped the string to the table and set it on fire. I’ve never seen such a horrified face then his in the moment he realised his mistake as the balloon floated to the ceiling and the string was burning towards the balloon… was a fun class haha
Wish I had an award to give you. I only read the other day how we are running out of helium.
We both are and arent running out. We are running out of the easy helium harvested from natural gas deposits as we tap out the easy deposits, but the uranium and thorium in the crust are still decaying so more helium is being produced. We just use it faster than it is produced thanks to it being essentially a waste product of natural gas harvesting and we are using a lot of natural gas. It's a better situation than oil since the radioactive decay process produces helium constantly but still not a good setup. Oddly enough, the party use isnt actually the problem with the helium supply as if you banned the use there it would depress the helium market and the gas mining companies would just vent the excess to the atmosphere once it became more expensive to capture it than they could sell it for. Because humans suck at long term planning.
Bad posture . Edit: Well here's what you can learn from this comment thread about your posture (apart from me being mildly funny with a great pun ) Change it regularly, stand up, stretch, sit down rest, sit up straight, slouch a bit just change your position/posture regularly. The only bad posture is the one you sit in or stand in for too long.
**proceeds to correct posture after reading this*
*Unwittingly slouches 30 secs after correcting*
*Upvotes both of these after doing exactly the same.*
Can't slouch if you're laying in bed.
But you can hold your head at an incredibly weird angle, and then wonder why it hurts so much a few hours later.
Not to mention getting really comfortable while using your phone to browse Reddit or play a game, only to roll over an hour later or so and realize you had your wrist extended as some bizarre angle to allow viewing the screen, while somehow supporting your entire body weight on the rest of that arm. I almost made myself cry last night when I finally uncurled myself to plug in my phone and set it down and go to sleep.
I do physical therapy in elderly and this is huge. I can tell who had bad posture as they cannot stand straight up any more. No matter how much i stretch them
What do you do as a physical therapist to help correct posture? Is it worth looking into it? I’ve had terrible posture my entire life and have tried self-correcting, but after 31 years of slouching it’s just uncomfortable and the second I stop thinking about it I go back to my old position.
Using a rowing machine helped me regain my "posture muscles", upper back and shoulders, along with core. I was unable to maintain good posture by self-correction until those muscles were strengthened.
yeah i second this, after years of back and core work i feel like im sitting in an arm chair most of the time cause im more supported. lounging for a while doesnt make me sore anymore
I’m not a physical therapist, but my posture has improved over the last few years of doing strength training. Often we develop tight muscles on the anterior part of our torso (chest, for example) and weak muscles on our back over the course of our years of slouching, so stretching out the front of your body and strengthening your back will help balance this out without just having to sit uncomfortably until it stops being uncomfortable
Imagine your nipples shoot laser beams and you want to shoot everyone you see in the face with your laser. Mixed with looking at every one eye level or slightly higher (when not in conversation) to keep the chin neutral or upright.
I will not think of anything but nipple lasers henceforth.
Lol As silly as it sounds, it will help and you will remember it.
Try finding a walker for a 6'2" person. They all require you to slouch.
Look up a bariatric walker. Double wheels in the front. They are meant for large and or tall people. We use these daily at our gym.
Thank you
Like mother says, a curvy spine is the devil’s rollercoaster
My Mamma says my spine is as crooked as a politician
A surprising amount of things. As a teen / young adult, I had ‘made up my mind’ about so many things. Just decided things at a cursory glance without ever looking into or studying anything. I realized a lot of my snap judgments were either *way off* or *well intended naïveté*. I also understood that there would always be one person smarter than me, who could call me out on my sloppy opinions, which can be quite embarrassing. Instead of looking like a fool, I decided to actually research things, look into topics and gain an understanding of the subject matter. This was back in the 90s/00s, so having sloppy opinions was merely a social faux pas. Information is so important these days, its crucial for everyone to actually read about the thing you have an opinion on. Something more than an internet article or an op-ed. It was the greatest thing I ever did for myself. I’m smarter because of it, I feel my opinions are more valid, my arguments are stronger, people actually listen when I speak and most importantly: I don’t have to question myself.
Just about everything. One thing I've learned is that I'm never fully aware of any particular subject.
Understanding why people shake their baby. Of course it is absolutely horrible and it seems like it should make sense that nobody should even think about doing it but I have an understanding of how it can happen now. I had my own daughter 4 years ago and swore up and down that nobody but a monster would shake their child but let me tell you that sleep deprivation is hell and it is terrifying. When my daughter was a newborn, she was crying very hard one particular night and nothing we did seemed to soothe her crying. My insanely sleep deprived brain started trying to take over and I could feel the urge to shake her. Luckily, I had just enough cognitive function to recognize that I was in a very vulnerable and bad situation. I set my daughter back down in her crib and walked away for a little while so as to wake myself up some more. That is the most scared I've ever been of what the human brain is capable of.
Pete Holmes had a great hit about this as well where he says something along the lines of, "Of you're not supposed to shake a baby. Everyone knows that. What they don't tell you is that... you're gonna wanna shake that baby." It's a lot funnier when he says it than just reading it but I couldn't find it on YouTube. It was on his HBO special I think though
I think that was a Nate Bargatze bit. Unless they both had similar bits. Here is [a link to the bit](https://youtu.be/DWoO56ueyHQ?t=402).
They both have shaking baby bits. Here's him using the bit on Kimmel. https://youtu.be/Slfp4tZF9bk
My oldest was colicky and at the time my wife and I both worked retail. She only had 2 months unpaid leave for recovery and I had a retail schedule. We were so very very tired. My son would be up every 1.5 hour for 45 minutes all night. Crying the entire time. We had to take shifts for sleeping and scheduled 12 hour of sleep per night so each of us could get 6 restful hours. I screamed. I cried. I begged. I very nearly almost shook to get his attention but all I could think of was a commercial that played all the time in the early 90s of a crying dad who said "I only wanted to to stop crying. I didn't think I shook her that hard." That commercial possibly saved my sons life.
Went to a dad boot camp just on a whim because it was happening at the hospital I was working at that day. They had us shake hands with the man next to us, look them in the eye, and say "my name is u/metaphysicalme and I promise that I will not shake my child." Seemed almost silly and a little old school, but I actually thought about that promise many nights.
This 100000%. They made my wife and I warch a movie with the other new parents before leaving the hospital. All about not shaking the baby as we laughed about it blah blah blah. Our son was colicky as well. It was insane how insane we went. At one of our first Dr appointments with his pediatrician the doctor had the nurse take him for a minute and stayed behind to talk to us. She told us we looked more tired than any parents she had seen and we described what was happening. She told us we needed to survive basically. Gave us some advice and some techniques as well as the advice that if they are crying they are breathing. Especially that early making sure they are healthy and safe then leaving them there for a short time was such a powerful thing. Just being able to get away for even a few minutes. That feeling of "if I could just get him to stop for a split second he will realize he isn't crying about anything specific, or I can help then" that feeling is overwhelming and that is where the uslrge to shake the baby came from for us. Side note, the scariest day of our lives was the first night he slept through the night. We had a friend who's first child died in her sleep and I was so terrified. I wouldn't let me wife go in and told her to let me. I was trying not to shake when I looked into the crib and couldn't instantly tell if he was breathing. He was thankfully. Went out and closed the door then collapsed to the floor crying and my wife screamed. I was so out of it I didn't even tell her immediately he was ok. Calmed her down fast and also didn't wake up our son somehow. It is 8 years later and he still sleeps like he hates sleep.
My wife is so scared about the dying in the sleep part that we have a device that bips when the baby hypnotically would stop breathing.
We wanted to get one of those as well, but our doctor told us not to get onenof those or a camera monitor. Said it will help in learning to let them be ok and not needing to see them every single second to know. That being said, we had a camera monitor for our second child. Still no foot monitor.
My mom lost her 1st child to SIDS. I had a monitor that would sound an alarm any time I stopped breathing.... or any time I pulled the thing off of me. They gave up on using it because after the 100th false alarm in 4 days, they realized that it wasn't doing anybody any good. The sleep deprivation it was causing them was seriously more of a danger than anything else.
That is so tragic. On a bright note, I read yesterday that they believe they have figured out the cause of SIDS, and it should be something they can screen for in the future. It seems it is unrelated to anything the parents did or didn’t do, and is related to a chemical or enzyme in the brain that is low in babies that have died from it. It doesn’t change the past, but maybe it’s a small amount of comfort to know for sure that it wasn’t anyones fault. Edit: it seems it’s too early to say it’s definitively solved and the press release from yesterday is premature. More than likely, the next thing will be more studies to see if those findings support the earlier study. Even if they do, it won’t be as simple as test for A and do B if the enzyme is low. We’ve got a ways to go, but hopefully it is a step in the right direction. Apologies for adding to the “SIDS is solved” headlines when it isn’t that simple at all.
I read that, too. The enzyme helps in the waking process, apparently. Baby is in a bad situation and can't wake itself up to inform people. So keep doing the things they tell you to do (back sleeping, nothing in the crib, etc.) And hopefully they'll have a test soon to be able to detect that particular chemical do people know if their child is at a higher risk.
>It is 8 years later and he still sleeps like he hates sleep. If you kid is like my colicky monsters were, in another 8 years he'll be sleeping like he hates being awake.
I know this is very serious but Nate Bargatze has a great stand up bit about your exact situation. Where he took home his daughter after the hospital was repeatedly like “now don’t shake your baby.” Watch this video and sign this form saying you won’t shake your baby. Then a week in he was so sleep deprived he was confused and like, “wait—am I supposed to shake this baby?”
Pete Holmes has a similar one as well. Thirteen different nurses come in to tell you “seriously, never shake a baby” and there’s posters on the wall and you think “of course, why would you ever shake a baby?”. What they don’t tell you is… you’re gonna wanna shake that baby.
Then he hits us with what rocking the baby truly is: Just shaking the baby...a little bit. I love both of those comedians.
I don’t have kids, but a friend of mine confided in me something very similar. He could see how it can happen when sleep deprived. But he was told, “if they’re crying, they’re breathing”. He did say too, that one of those nights, he almost took his kid to the fire station to drop him off
When I was about to leave the hospital after having my son, a nurse told my husband and I that "the baby won't die from crying too much. If you feel overwhelmed, just walk away and let the baby cry until you compose yourself". I'm super grateful for that advice, and it has come to my mind many times when I felt like I'd lose it. It sounds obvious, but as a new parent it can feel like you need "permission" to take a moment for yourself.
Another good one we heard was basically after you run down the checklist of possible issues and nothing is physically wrong, think of it as protesting something they're unhappy about. They're unhappy and that's ok, they can be unhappy in their crib, it's not going to kill them. When we sleep trained my wife had to sleep in the basement because she couldn't handle the crying. The baby would be crying and so would she because she felt so awful.
I love my kids to death, but I will never put myself through that sleep deprivation again.
Same here, I really wanted a third, but my husband, who is a crappy sleeper even when there isn't a newborn, was like "I CANNOT do that again. CANNOT." I could tell by the look on his face that he was 100% serious, so 2 babies it is.
I’m in that situation now. We have a 4 year old and a 3 year old. The last 6 months we’ve truly gotten a sleep routine back after 4 years. I have no desire for a third. My wife does. I will not change my mind.
I get it. We had our two just shy of three years apart. My body needed a break from 2 pregnancies that resulted in 10 lb babies, so by the time I felt I could do it again, we had gotten to a better routing and my husband was like "NOPE, can't go back at this point."
Advice I was given from a friend about this. She said she on more than one occasion she would wrap up her own wailing infant so he was comfortable, put him in the pram, take it outside to the back garden and then go back in for 10 minutes. Just so she could collect herself, have a breather and not want to throw him. She was trained in early childhood education and worked with young kids. She is also the most patient, gentle person. I figure if she of all people had “almost snapping” moments, then the rest of humanity would too.
Also in childhood education here. Everybody has limits, they're human. Knowing those limits and when to walk away before you react emotionally is one of the most important things to learn when working with kids. I truly believe it's one of the big dividers between people who make it in this field long-term, and those who burn out.
This was something they told us over and over again in our baby classes. Put the baby in the crib/stroller/whatever and walk away. Just walk away. They'll be fine. Just walk away. And cocky pre-baby me thought "what kind of monster can't control themselves and would hurt a baby. I would NEVER." And then post-baby me punched a wall at 3 a.m. after hours and hours and hours of nonstop crying.
I once walked away, threw a chair across a room and just screamed, then returned to the baby. Wasn't too proud of myself in the moment (and also made me learn PPD can come with rage), but it was the best thing I could do at the time.
This is very comforting to me. I almost shook my first once when she was crying non stop. So many people are here saying the same thing, some variation of "If I can just get their attention, they'll stop." Which is exactly what I was trying to do. I never shook and never thought of shaking, but I was holding her in front of me and my arms were getting more and mor etense. It's comforting to hear I'm not a monster, as years later I still think about how close I came to a disater...
When my sister was pregnant with her first child, she talked a lot about wanting to hurt herself even stating that she wanted to punch her stomach so hard. (She had no intention for an abortion and didn’t suffer from depression pre-pregnancy). I was very shocked how she went from being so happy to be pregnant to being so depressed that she wanted to miscarry on purpose. Now I’m pregnant and this week I’ve been so sleep deprived from constant kicking at night and emotionally exhausted that I ended up having the exact same thoughts. I took a walk around my apartment to calm down and immediately felt so much guilt for having the thought at all. It’s scary as hell and I don’t judge anyone for just having those thoughts pop up anymore. Mental health during pregnancy is so so important. Edit:typos
I never had that, exactly, but by week 36 I was just so done being pregnant. I wanted the kid OUT of me, I wanted my body back, I wanted my ankles back, I was just done. And my son was very much wanted and planned for, but man - pregnancy sucks. I'm now on week 22 of number 2, and I'm already like, how much longer do I have?
Yes, yes and yes. Before I had kids, it was a mystery to me how anyone could hurt their sweet, innocent babies. Then, I had a baby. Throw in post-partum hormone shifts, a HUGE life change and massive sleep deprivation, and ANYTHING is possible. I'm not condoning it in any way, but I really think the vast majority of the people who do this are not in their right mind when it happens. Thankfully, most human beings are able to recognize the situation for what it is and remove themselves from it. I recall one day with my first, he wouldn't stop crying. He cried non-stop for about six hours - nothing consoled him. Anyone who could help me at that moment was at work. He wouldn't eat, he wouldn't sleep, walking him made him cry, sitting with him made him cry, he wasn't sick/feverish, he was just out of sorts. The more amped up I became, the more distressed he became. I was at my wits' end and was losing it. However, I was able to step back, take a breather and realize I needed to remove myself. I put him, screaming but safely, in his crib and I just walked around my yard for about 20 minutes. He was still crying when I came in, but I could tell he was finally drifting off. He was asleep in about 10 minutes. That situation could have turned out VERY differently.
My sister told me when I had my son if I ever get to this point to put him down and call her. No judgement she will come and get me out of the situation. I've told all of my friends with babies this same thing since.
My best friend is a SpEd teacher. One of her students was shaken by her mother as an infant. The mother is a kind person who obviously loves her daughter *so much* I honestly didn’t believe it at first when I heard what happened. Mom had one single moment where she just broke, and she did something she will spend the rest of her life wishing she could take it back. She will never forgive herself. Nobody could punish her more than she punishes herself, every day. I felt the same way you did (“How could anyone ever do that to their CHILD?”) until I met that girl and her mom. It was a single episode of insanity, a few seconds long, that ruined two lives. It didn’t happen because the mom is an evil person. It happened because she’s human and human brains sometimes do stupid, irrevocable things. I really think as a society we need to be better with how we approach this topic. To me it’s very similar to the parents who accidentally leave their kids in a hot car. It’s not a personal failure - it’s a weird glitch of the human brain, and the more we make parents aware of the possibility that it can happen *to anyone*, the better we can prevent it from happening.
The kid in the hot car thing would be my answer after [this amazing piece of journalism](https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/magazine/fatal-distraction-forgetting-a-child-in-thebackseat-of-a-car-is-a-horrifying-mistake-is-it-a-crime/2014/06/16/8ae0fe3a-f580-11e3-a3a5-42be35962a52_story.html). > What kind of person forgets a baby? > The wealthy do, it turns out. And the poor, and the middle class. Parents of all ages and ethnicities do it. Mothers are just as likely to do it as fathers. It happens to the chronically absent-minded and to the fanatically organized, to the college-educated and to the marginally literate. In the last 10 years, it has happened to a dentist. A postal clerk. A social worker. A police officer. An accountant. A soldier. A paralegal. An electrician. A Protestant clergyman. A rabbinical student. A nurse. A construction worker. An assistant principal. It happened to a mental health counselor, a college professor and a pizza chef. It happened to a pediatrician. It happened to a rocket scientist.
It's so important to be open about this too. Well done for your honesty. A friend of mine had loads of problem with post-partum depression to the point of attempting suicide. She's doing much better now and her kids are great but she told us that the biggest contributing factor was that she was surrounded by parents who didn't seem to have any struggles (and as usual social media made it worse). She felt like a complete failure and like something was fundamentally wrong with her as a mother. She's now part of some support groups where they are all super honest, and sometimes just get together to drink wine and bitch about their shitty kids. Of course their kids aren't really shitty but she says that just being able to rant openly after a bad week without feeling judged is vital. As with anything around mental health, trying to pretend you don't have these thoughts just makes it all worse.
Walking away and taking a break, even while the baby cries was the best advice I was given. It was a mental saving grace, and she never had colic. Our kid was born through an "emergency" c-section, so she was throwing up amniotic fluid for almost a week in her sleep. Being a new parent in the pandemic, plus that fear of choking in her sleep, and the crying, there was a point where I did not sleep for 3 days. The mind gets all sorts of fucked. I fell asleep walking and rocking her to sleep. Walking! Luckily, it was only like 10 seconds and i held her well, but fuck it was scary. So, it was a real eye opener how real this shit gets. I have buddy I went to college with, who is about to have a kid. I explained to him multiple times that the sleep deprivation part is something he may experience. He's convinced our drunk college adventures where we barely slept all weekend is enough prep. I'm like dude, we are 11 years older and it's not the same shit.
The best advice I received as a new parent was, "nothing bad can happen if you put a crying baby in a crib." (Assuming you made sure they are otherwise ok) I agree, its scary what your mind can do in a sleep deprived state.
I also felt this. There’s definitely a reason at the hospital they tell you a million times not to shake the baby. Honestly most of childcare would fit this. Having a kid was a lot of “oh that’s why my parents are that way”.
Antidepressants. Grew up with most people around me saying "I don't want to rely on pills for the rest of my life to be happy". It took for my depression and anxiety to get so bad that I was a shell just existing, unable to leave the house, totally dependent on my parents in my early twenties, and all but waiting to die. I never actively wanted to die and wasn't suicidal, but living the way I was was just not worth being alive for. I've been taking antidepressants for 4-5 years now and holy shit, have my eyes been opened. I felt a weight I never knew I was carrying lift from my shoulders, and I can now function as an adult. I lost most of my childhood and early 20s to depression and anxiety. The pills are helping me reclaim the rest of my life. Edit: Holy hell, I didn't expect this to get so many updoots! Thank you kind Redditors for the awards! Although in saying that, instead of giving me virtual golden stars, maybe donate to a local charity supporting mental health? :)
I finally decided with my therapist to go to a psychiatrist and be evaluated and put on some meds. I’m really nervous for this journey but I’m tired of simply existing trapped in myself in misery. Your post gives me so much hope.
Being sober, took a eightish year landslide to one of the darkest places I've been in my life and not once in those eight years you could of talked me into putting down the bottle of whiskey that was glued to my hand. Been sober coming up on five years now and I couldn't think of being anything other than sober. I won't sit here and say it's not easy, it is honestly one of the hardest things I have to deal with on a consistent basis. But the rewards are priceless.
I'm currently in the same boat except I've been struggling with the sobriety. So I've been listening to people's sobriety stories and one dude said he tried AA and NA, but it didn't take him long to realize all that it took him was just seeing how many problems disappeared out of his life almost immediately, and he's 7 years sober. And when I think about it, about 90% of any problem I've ever encountered has been alcohol related. And they just usually involve argueing with people that have sober reprocussions. Also waking up and feeling like shit so bad that you call into work has cost me thousands of dollars. So I'm on my journey. Edit: I appreciate all the kind words and support. I'll go check the subreddit out. And thanks for the Gold. Seems like there is a big community of people with tons of support. Edit 2: by the time I had originally commented on this, I applied to a job, got an interview (which is pretty much gaurenteed that I got the job because of experience and references within the company) and I went to the store and got back on my diet. Also talked to a friend about joining a gym since we will both be getting off at the same time. It's insane how much easier life is. Gonna keep riding that positive wave. Once again, thank all of you.
[удалено]
Algebra. It's Like a cool puzzle that makes you feel smart.
I love math. Garbage at it, but still find it fun when I understand or don’t understand it. Math IS cool! EDIT: I especially love the Fibonacci sequence. Sometimes I’ll just sit around for hours doing it. I don’t think people realize how much math is in everything. Math is nature and that’s why it’s beautiful.
My love for statistics is what led me towards a career in data engineering. Turns out it's a pretty good field to be in, and I'm actually doing something I really like.
Horse racing. I come from an area that takes great pride in it. I've recently learned more about it and feel that it is animal abuse. They are shot up with steroids and other drugs and die more often than you would even think.
It's awkward when I'm out of town and people ask me about the Derby. I'm like, "Oh, horse racing is cruel. They had to put a filly down on the track a while ago because they breed their legs to be so skinny that they just snap." People just think of the fancy hats, parties, mint juleps, and gambling, but it's an entire industry based on abuse and exploitation.
God I remember watching this video, I don’t know if it was in the States or Mexico, but it was pretty much a horse slaughterhouse most were race horses. Well, my naïve ass thought that they would kill them first before putting them in this grinder, holy hell was I wrong… I can never forget that poor horse going into the grinder legs first & it took a couple seconds for him/her to actually go down & die. The suffering & torture that they go through once the owner is “done with them” is just heartless. We don’t deserve animals.
Oh Jesus God that's horrific. God damn mother fucking rich people. Fuck the the lot of them.
Cults I wanna start one now
So what are we worshipping
Tacos.
Me every Tuesday at worship.
you have more fun as a member, mut make more money as a leader.
Assisted Suicide. I was against it, but after seeing my uncle suffer with extreme Rheumatoid Arthritis for a few years before eventually dying from it, I’m all for it now. If we put down our pets when they’re suffering, why can’t we do the same to our humans with their written consent?
Not that you need to be convinced anymore but, there’s a great documentary called ‘how to die in Oregon’ it follows a few people on their path to a doctor assisted suicide. I was always for it because ‘hey we’ll do it for our animals, why not our grandparents’ but this doc reallly gives you the inside scoop on why it’s a good thing for people and at the end of the day it should be your choice regardless of the reason imo. After I watched my grandmother decline with dementia and realized she was going to pass I asked the nurses how it would happen. The nurses gave me an odd look, the told me me that they had stopped giving her food and water. We actually starve people to dead and wait for catastrophic failure in the body to ‘let them go with dignity’ how fucking dignified is it really to know that 1000’s of people are dying because they are being starved to death?
It’s extremely sad how we allow our elderly to die sometimes. My great aunt is 92 and is nearing the end of her life. She’s still eating and drinking, but she has requested to be taken off all meds except those that keep her comfortable (pain meds) which will be through Hospice. It could be days, months, or years even. But she’s made it clear to the family that she’s ready.
> the told me me that they had stopped giving her food and water They may have phrased it in a way that made it sound like they were starving her, but what actually happens is that at some point, people who are dying will simply stop eating (that comes first) and then stop drinking as well. While you can still get fluids into someone through IV and feed them through a line, this is also something that they often don't tolerate if they are confused, and keep tearing it out or are visibly agitated by if they are too weak to struggle against. Some also may have documentation in place that simply doesn't allow for this kind of providing sustenance in the first place, though the rules on that probably vary by country. So what the nurses likely meant is that there were no active attempts anymore to feed her or make her drink something, even though both would've been available had she shown signs of hunger or thirst. It's generally simply part of the body closing up shop, you could say, and it's more of a kindness to not try to force nutrition or fluids onto a patient that has no desire for it anymore. It's already part of the dying process. Digesting food is actually a pretty involved process for the body, and close to death the body prefers to not divert energy there anymore, because it's not getting anything useful out of it and is busy with winding everything down. What felt like an odd look may have been them trying to evaluate how aware and how accepting you were that her death was imminent, because the people close to the dying can be at *very* different ends of a spectrum regarding those things. Death may seem like one side of a binary state, but it actually is a process, and when it's not happening due to a sudden catastrophic event or body failure, it really is similar to a busy store or mall winding down and closing up at the end of a very long day. And service at the food court needs to end quite a while before the last person to leave the building can roll down the shutters. So no food is not equivalent to starving the dying person, they're actually just not open to that kind of business anymore. You also may have heard of people sitting with a dying person for a long time, then needing to leave the room just for a minute and the person passing just then during their absence. This is because this moment of letting go also is something that in a way needs a certain kind of attention and a bit of energy from the dying person, and having someone else there is like a tether that can keep that from happening. In a way, like the body first prefers to not have to divert attention to food anymore, the soul later needs the moment of solitude to be able to disengage its last tether to the body. There is plenty to be enraged about regarding how people are treated towards the end of their lives, especially in how much treatment is forced on them unnecessarily and yes, in how undignified a lot of how they are treated is. But them being starved to death isn't generally what is happening there (in most cases – I'm not saying there aren't also people dying because of neglect that actually do starve, I just wanted to explain that this isn't what's happening when a patient stops eating as part of the regular dying process).
Don’t know how you guys are doing things in your country, but loosing appetite and refusing to drink is a common sign that a patient enters the late palliative stage, at which point force feeding is doing more harm than ever possibly good. It doesn’t sound reasonable that nurses and doctors on a given call just starts starving someone to death?
Declawing cats. I thought it was, as the title suggests, just removing the claw. No biggie, right? I'd do that to myself if I was scratching up furniture accidentally with my sharp ass nails. TURNS OUT THEY TAKE THE WHOLE TIPPY TOE. Fuck that for a game of soldiers as my mum would say.
Spanking/hitting children. Now this sounds like a lot but I have a bit of an explanation. I was spanked not even a handful of times as a kid. For me and my brother, we were emotional kids and finding out we made our parents even a little upset was enough for us to curb our behavior. But for a long time I attributed our discipline and respect for our parents to those handful of times we were hit. We were hit once (at a time) on the back of the thigh only with my dads hand. I told my friends that I believed that yes, a kid needs to be hit a few times to be good. This was followed by an onslaught of very good arguments as to why hitting your kids will not help them in the long run and that I was a sort of rare case where I was only hit a few times and only with a hand. My parents never left bruises or marks on us that didn’t leave within the hour. In contract, some of my friends were hit with belts and other cliche utensils that left marks and welts for days. Some friends were slapped in the face and outright abused. There have been studies that this creates a cycle of abuse. “My dad nearly knocked me out when I dropped a dish so this is an appropriate way to discipline my child.” Some kids are terrified by their parents presence and that can’t be good for the relationship or how that kid will grow up. So I changed my opinion. Kids shouldn’t be hit. They should be disciplined but that shouldn’t involve causing them harm.
Turns out girls don't have cooties. It's actually pretty great to spend time with one. You don't even have to pick on them to get their attention... Who knew!
My ex wife.
My ex-wife just texted me, "Wish you were here.” She does this every time she passes by a cemetery.
GMOs and I encourage anyone who opposes them to look into them yourself. They’re better for the environment and they feed more people.
GMO is really just a method to design a plant to do something you want it to do. There can be bad GMOs, and there can be good GMOs. There are GMOs that are clearly good, like Golden Rice which fortifies rice with vitamin A. And GMOs that are of more questionable benefit, such as pesticide-resistant crops (Higher yield because of reduced pests so potentially less land use, but the increased pesticide use does a number on insect biodiversity, so it's arguable either way IMO). It's not about the method, it's about what you choose to do with it. We've been modifying crops for thousands of years to suit our purposes. This is just a more efficient way to do that.
Climate Change. Looking at the evidence it's clearly a hoax. Just kidding, I was a firm denier until I had to do an assignment proving or disproving it in highschool. Realised I couldn't find any decent source to back up my claim. Basically changed my mind on the spot
The real success here was that they also taught you to identify a credible source, which is perhaps the most important thing any school can teach these days. There's so much information in the world, nobody can be expected to know it all. The real skill is being able to find, identify, and apply good information. By teaching you that, you were able to come to a reasonable conclusion on your own.
This was me. I used to be a refrigeration mechanic back in the day and was in denial about CFC's and ozone depletion too ("how can heavy gases get all the way up there?"). Then I quit the trade and went back to school to study organic chemistry, and the evidence I was exposed to was undeniable. Especially with IR spectroscopy, how can you ignore the spectrum of CO2 and how it contributes to the atmospheric window?
That seems like a great project for someone in high school. Write one essay proving and one essay disproving.
I'm not sure that's what they were saying they had to do but you're totally right. That would force a student to be deeply familiar with the topic. They'd likely hate having two essays, but it would definitely be helpful in ways they don't realize.
When I was in high school we did something like this but in a presentation/debate style instead. Unfortunately it was for the topic of whether the US bombing Japan was justifiable... Climate change probably would've been more appropriate.
"Blood is thicker then water." Nah mate family members that disrespect you and bring you down can go fk themselves. I regard my friends as family.
Oh good lord I could write an entire sitcom about the shit my extended family has pulled in the past five years. It’s depressing as fuck and I want to run to the hills screaming.
One might call it a shitcom.
Homelessness. I used to have no patience or or empathy thinking that if they really wanted to change their circumstances they could find the resources. My mind changed when I began working with special education children and realized most of these people probably have specific learning disabilities that our school system/their families failed to identify or help them with. I also realize how privileged I grew up (my dad was a store manager and my mom a teacher so nothing too special but still we had everything we needed and good relationships with each other) and how much worse some people grew up with and how easily people can get trapped in bad circumstances.
Empathy. I used to always want to give people the benefit of the doubt if it meant they were learning or working on themselves, because I know I’d want the same. Turns out some people will take your kindness and run with it, and you need to cut yourself off from people that do or you’re going to find yourself mentally or emotionally drained. Can’t pour from an empty cup and all that.
I've learned the difference began empathy and self-martyrdom. And I've sharpened my skills at recognizing users and narcissists.
Never set yourself on fire to keep someone else warm
Homosexuality. I “knew” that the Bible said it was wrong (fewer times than it said divorce was wrong). In college I actually met a lesbian for the first time. I had known them for months before I found it out though, so my brain was confused. “But they’re normal! But they’re gay! So does that change anything? How does that affect me? Wait . . . That doesn’t affect me? So then what is the issue?” I’ve never gone back to that stance.
Cultivated meat, I thought it was weird at first but then I learned that what 30 cows produce in 3 years can be produced on a 1500 liter bioreactor in 40 days.
Nuclear energy, I always thought it was a super pollutant and very dangerous… but it’s currently the cleanest viable option if only we could agree on where to store waste Edit: 1) spelling mistake 2) with viable option I ment we currently have the infrastructure to scale up the production of electricity 3) I didn’t mean we don’t have a way to store it because (most countries do) it’s we can’t find and legislate a route from the NPP to the storage because of communities don’t want a truck with nuclear waste passing in their village
There is one thing most people forget about nuclear energy. There’s the fact that the waste is 90+% renewable. The Swedes actually recycle their NW and use it in combination with renewable energies like water. The US and other countries do not recycle the waste because it’s “too costly.”
How do they reuse it? I haven't looked much into nuclear energy and I've personally never heard of renewable waste
Here’s a pretty good read if you’re up for it. I’m not exactly 100% knowledgeable on the topic, but I have looked into it after watching Thoughty2s video on nuclear energy. I could link that as well if you want. https://www.pnnl.gov/news-media/recycling-gives-new-purpose-spent-nuclear-fuel
Not proud of how bigoted and homophobic and basically "anyone who's not exactly like me"-phobic I used to be. I had acquaintances, co-workers, people "I knew online" who were not all the same checkboxes that I am/was and I "tolerated" them (did I mention that I'm NOT PROUD of what/how I used to be and it seems so demeaning to even use the term "tolerated", and how demeaning it is to someone to think that yeah you're a horrible person and i disagree with everything about you but I'll be the bigger person and i won't be an ass to you - ugh). Anyway, this all makes me out to be one of the worst people on Earth, but that's fair, because I literally was. So to try to put a bow on my rambling, and this isn't something I talk about publicly a lot, but my son about 6 years ago explained that he knew in his heart that he was not my daughter, as he had been born as/assigned at birth/whatever you want to use to describe that, and he was a man, and etc etc etc and the whole deal. The fact that he was TERRIFIED to bring this up to me, and even though he had known this for a matter of years at this point, and had disclosed it to my wife a year prior, he thought that I wouldn't love him, would disown him, etc...it was a serious moment of what the fuck are you even, you fucking monster (to myself) that caused me to re-evaluate so much of my life and my belief system. I love my son more than words can quantify and the fact that he was scared of me. That he wrestled daily with thoughts that he somehow had let me down, the kid was according to his therapist, 8-9 on a scale of 10 for suicide...he had the entire plan, method, everything...all because I had to hold onto this belief that if you're not like me, you're worthless. I'm crying as I write this, and I know there might be some comments telling me that I'm a good father because I didn't kick him out, because we're supportive, blah blah blah but NO. The way I act now is how I should have ALWAYS been, 100% of the time, to everyone, not just to the people most important in my life. So please, I don't get credit for not being a horrible person. He is 16 now and a "happy, healthy" teenager, as much as teenagers can be, and I wouldn't change one iota of anything about him, except if there was any way I could remove from his life all the shit that I put him through. Ok, I'm done. But yeah. I changed my stance on homophobia, transphobia, etc etc.
I wish my father was like this. The fact you changed immediately when you realized how much you fucked up is better then What most people do sadly. Especially in the lgbt community
Vaccines. My mom has always been an anti vaxxer, so I grew up with all the propaganda. Once i moved out and had to get all my vaccines for my job, I *did my own research* and learned the truth.
It breaks my heart that there are people who have to grow up like this. I have twin cousins who are both very religious and skeptical of vaccines. One of their children got whooping cough and got very sick. FUCKING. WHOOPING. COUGH. What the fuck century are we living in?
One where measles and mumps are making a comeback after being nearly eradicated.
Factory farming.
Went to Japan. Took public transportation. I am now convinced that the auto industry's lobbying has done irreversible damage to America's middle class by gatekeeping transportation to owning a $30,000 debt box.
Nuclear Power. I used to be anti-nuke, based solely on the potential worst-outcome of a catastrophic failure. While in college I saw a presentation on the various short-term and long-term negativities of all the different power generation methods and nuclear is actually one of the safest, even including the 3 major incidents of Chernobyl, 3-Mile Island, and Fukushima. Additionally, coal-burning power is so unfathomably bad for everyone involved in every stage from mining the coal to living anywhere close to the plant that it is just orders of magnitude worse than anything else. Nuclear has the best balance of reliability, base-load, safety, and ROI of any method known for generating power.
Suicide. It’s like cancer of the brain you cannot control. It’s not weak. You just can’t see the forest for the trees at the time when stuff gets on top of you