I’ll go first…after 10 years of speculating in the market (read: gambling in high risk assets) I realized I shouldn’t ever touch a brokerage account in my lifetime. A monkey would have made better choices than I did. Greed has altered the course of life many times over. I am at an age where I may recover from my actions over the decades, but it has taken its toll. I am frugal and have a good head on me, but having such impulsivity in financial instruments was not how I envisioned my adulthood. Its a bitter pill to swallow, since money is livelihood of my family, but I need to “invest” all I have into relationships, meaningful moments, and fulfilling hobbies.
I cannot sing.
Anxiety and taking care of others before I take care of myself.
That I actually do have a bad temper and do get angry very easily, that my anger does not justify my verbal/physical reactions (nor was I ‘right’ just because I was angry) and that these reactions will hurt those I care about/those I don’t care about but still didn’t deserve my violence, which is a surefire way to end up in jail (perhaps) and in Hell (more likely).
For everyone who has similar issues, try to remember two things:
- Ambiguous behaviour does not mean aggressive behaviour.
- The flesh is weak. If you, in your anger, start a fight and perhaps just push someone and they crack their head and die/lose function, you’ll never live it down, you will always be the guy who killed someone in anger (and not even righteous anger, you’re just temperamental). And it can happen very quickly too! A good man cannot live with that, only a hell-bound one can, so either you’ll be oppressed by your guilt or you’ll realize you’ve lost your humanity and you’re a full on psycho.
I needed to read this
I dissociate and fawn pretty much constantly in most social situations. I do not feel in control. What most people know me as is a bunch of trauma responses. I feel like I’m watching myself have conversations and making “decisions” from another room.
It took me a long time to admit this to myself.
Do you manage to better “stand your ground” now that you’re aware of the fawning ?
I have this too, I have some friends that I can be myself with and some other people that my trauma response just kicks in and I become non confrontational people pleaser. Im starting to notice it more and trying to not do it.
holy shit, u put it better than i could, this is exactly what i have been grappling with lately and i have no idea how to fix it
If I understand correctly, fawning is people pleasing to an excess because you’re afraid of the potential response. I’ve had trouble saying “no” for a long ass time, and have been bending over backwards to accomodate other people, at my expense, completely disregarding my own comfort and preferences. I think that’s part of the same mechanic. I slowly realized other people mostly place their own needs first, and somehow find themselves legitimate when asking the other party to “meet them halfway”. So I’ve been trying to emulate this. Does this ring a bell to you ?
Intelligence and depression go hand-in-hand. Thank God for drugs.
My ADD is far worse than I thought and I should have noticed that decades ago.
That life is truly a neverending struggle. Sure, you get to enjoy some of that struggle, and you can take a break every now and then. Nevertheless, the only time you’re truly free from it is when you’re dead.
No, I don’t plan to end it immaturely. Please don’t put me on suicide watch. I still have my people to take care of. 😅
I only exist to care for the people I love, and without them I have nothing else to organize my life around.
You can do everything right that people taught you. But you only start living when you make mistakes, fuck up, and find the places where you belong, and a picture perfect life doesn’t bring you happiness; it’s rather shallow and lonely.
That paired with the realization that my mental disabilities will make me lonely for the rest of my life and there’s only so much I can do.
“It is possible to commit no mistakes and still lose. That is not weakness, that is life.”
- Jean-Luc Picard
It’s easy to do when we’re all surrounded constantly by the paradox of money meaning nothing at all, but also the only material thing that dictates the action and activity of everything past and future
Biggest Pill I’ve had to swallow is that no matter much I love programming and will continue my computer hobbies for life. I will never make a profession out of it. I’m slowly coping with the fact that all my work will ultimately influence very nearly nothing at all…
I’m not here to influence things. I was in the thick of it for a bit, but I’m here now.
I love coding. I get to do it for money. It allows me a nice little apartment in a nice environment and with my wife chipping in her half we’re a little insulated from financial strife. A little.
That’s it. I code, I eat food and live with a beautiful girl who seems to care for me, and we occasionally get to go see family or a strange new place. I’m flying as close to the sun as I dare.
Find peace in your existence and enjoy what you’re doing, whether programming is the bread or it’s the butter. It’s all a means to an end of doing something you love for what little time we have here.
I feel you. I think about how intangible code is and how quickly that will fade from existence… It’s heavy, to say the least. And yet the challenge ever calls me to solve a problem with ones and zeroes.
I built a business with my code, and it helps save/improve hundreds of thousands of lives around the world. I don’t want to doxx myself so won’t give any further info.
Just because it’s intangible, your code can still potentially have a huge amount of value.
I agree. The impact can be real, and that’s the case for my coding job too, maybe to a lesser extent than yours. A lot of days I think I have my dream job. But still, digital data isn’t like a Roman ruin or something. It will be gone in 1000 years. Just wild to think about, and sometimes I feel like that fact matters.
For me, it was “saying no doesn’t make me a bad person.” I was raised around extremely Christian people who emphasized that you should be there for everyone, even at the expense of self.
The problem is, people eventually take advantage of you. Also, when you finally say “no” to them, they act as though you’re a terrible person.
I had this recently. My parents wanted me to make a full hour round trip drive across town to pick them up in the middle of the night so they could save $50 on a taxi. I said no as I have kids to look after now, and my mom launched into how I’m not family first anymore and after all the things she did for me as a kid, she can’t depend on me to pick her up.
I stuck to my guns though. They conned my brother with the same story, but I set a boundary.
Wow, the “family first” remark, while you’re taking care of your kids, gets me. That’s so familiar.
It’s as if people hearing “no” from you, when you would normally just cave in and do whatever was requested, is an act of aggression from people. It’s strange… they become so hateful.
Good on you for sticking with your boundaries!
Agree with the other commenter. If she ever pulls that line with you again make sure you throw it right back at her. “You’re right, family first. That’s my kids and my spouse.” Maybe she’ll start to realize the family shifts as you age.
I’ve experience this first hand, and watched it from the other side. My mother is extremely “Christian”, and that’s one of her phrases there. To her, people helping her became an expectation, not an act of kindness. She was a single mom, and so people around town would help her out. Like our local appliance guy, he’d give her a deal on a new dishwasher - and then she would push her luck and ask him to install it. And then start calling him directly when the slightest thing might be wrong with it. And then for other appliances. And then for random handiman stuff. She of course never repaid him for everything he did.
Because he’s a Christian, and so was she. So of course he was “happy” to do it for her. A few people eventually did tell her no, and she would immediately convince herself that they were bad people and that she “had to cut them out of her life” because of the negativity.
I try to remind myself that when I do say yes, they’re never quite as happy/appreciative/etc. as I expected or hoped for.
I try to please the people but the people aren’t even pleased, ugh.
“Yo, you could be at least a little happier and grateful about it, you know I could be {doing something else that I actually enjoy}, I’m just doing this for you!”
I felt this loaf
That no matter how often people said it as a kid, I’m not capable of anything I put my mind to. I’m not smart, I’m very very mediocre at best, and my interests don’t align with my capabilities so my only options for work are things I don’t generally want to do.
I only really had 2 goals in life, a third developed later, and I’ve failed at all if them. I wanted to be in a loving relationship (going on 40 and have been single for the last decade), to not be the person who hates going to their job every day, and eventually I started wanting to own a home because I found that I need space for the hobbies I enjoyed. It’s a Sinatra song right, 0 out of 3 ain’t bad? Something like that… Lol
Why won’t you try your luck at love again? Buying a house is easier done with a partner who works too…
That’s one part that’s really killing me, not having the relationship makes not having the house pretty much guaranteed.
It’s sorta complicated, but mostly I’m just not a desirable person and I live in an area that’s predominantly really really old people. With my lack of education and the general state of the economy, moving away from my job never felt smart and because of where I live moving is really complicated. I can’t get a new job first because the move would put to way too far for a commute so you’re stuck in that “how can I get a place to live without a job, and how do I get a job without a place to live?” situation.
I’m sorry you’re in such circumstances, yeah, it’s kinda shit… But hopefully you’re wrong about being undesirable and someone good and not too old comes along! Maybe it could start online? Anyway, sorry again, God bless you.
No worries, thanks for the kind words! Hope you have a great weekend! :)
I once had an Excedrin get stuck in my throat sideways. That was a pretty uncomfortable several hours of my life.
Since no one on here will ever know me…
It’s accepting that I have autism and that having autism is ok. My mom used “autistic” as an insult against me, the first time I remember was from age 5 as an attempt to control behavior she saw as undesirable. Running circles outside until I wore the grass out and flapping my hands about was something I needed to feel ashamed about according to her. And so I hid that and everything else she criticized so hard that I couldn’t accept that the reason I struggled so hard with a lot of things in my life wasn’t because I was just some innate failure but because I had an unaddressed condition that was she not only refused to help with but actively made worse.
To this day I still cannot do things like make eye contact, or tolerate being touched. But I’ve learned to not only accept myself for who I am, but accept that little boy who never understood why his own mother never seemed to be able to love him.
💔
That not only am I not a good person, it’s mostly impossible for a person to be truly good. Even knowing what good is, in its entirety, is nigh impossible. The best that can be done isn’t necessarily within my energy and/or skill.
There are wrongs that cannot meaningfully be righted.
Doing a little good some of the time is the most I can ever aspire to.
Autism enters the chat
That’s Jesus’ “why do you call me good? Only the Father is good”. You can never be perfect nor infallible, of course, but maybe you’ll be good enough and God will approve of you and that’s all we can work towards. No need to use this understanding to give yourself moral allowances though: let your mistakes be mistakes and not plans for immorality.
I feel you. The more you know, the less you can do any good. You can try and try and try all around and all you achieved by doing your best in doing good is discovering more bad and feel like you’ve failed altogether. I try to stick to the thought of that it’s only MY best I can do, I’m not almighty and everywhere. And maybe I just have set my standards/morals too high.
