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[Gentlefish]

Oof, that's hard. And also the reason I prefer Wii Bowling.

And as for the first half wow that's fucked up and I'm positively happy for her but that's not advice she gave. At least, it's as much advice as "have you tried just being happy?"
Is there any constructive hobby (train sets, woodworking, computer programming, hell, building in minecraft) that you enjoy that gives you fulfillment? Do that. That's advice.

[hector13]

You’d be surprised how much your mindset influences how you feel and think.

[heydude6]

Stopped by Fountain House today. Came along just in time to hear one of the other members giving a presentation about her life, talking about violence and sexual abuse from at least 8 years old (possibly earlier, though she has no recollection of anything before 8 years), suffering infertility, divorce, serious injury, getting an ultimatum from her physical therapist where he basically said "you can either stop doing all the physical activities you enjoy, or you can make sure that the joy they give you is worth the pain and injury they'll cause for you later", getting whammed by PTSD-induced panic attacks later in life, finding a therapist and coming to terms with the fact that she was a product of incest... And basically just transitioning from that to "it really is all just about how you approach life and how you choose to look at things, and about appreciating all the good times instead of dwelling on the bad times".

Which, I mean, great for her... Really doesn't make me feel any better about how massively I've failed to keep a positive outlook in my own life and inflicted weakness and incapability on myself when I really didn't have any good reason to do so.

Kagus, there's no point in hating yourself for not suffering enough in life. You don't choose to be born in a position of privilege (in this case, the privilege of being born in a loving household), so you shouldn't fixate on it as if it was your fault. Happiness isn't determined by the total amount of good things in your life, it's based on how close you are to a standard set by your conscious and subconcious*.

From what I gather from your posts, your relationship with your girlfriend is a bit strained and you have trouble interacting in social situations. These are real problems in your life and so naturally your brain wants you to fix them. It's human nature to want to constantly improve one's current situation. With that woman for example, she managed to get out of her abusive household, fall in love and get married (even if it did lead to divorce), and finally resolve some emotional baggage with a therapist. She's had many more years to deal with her problems than you have. The contentment she has comes from the ability to look back and see how far she's come.

You shouldn't be ashamed about not having the wisdom of a sage in your 20s or 30s. You get to that point life slowly, one incremental improvement at a time. As long as you keep things progressing in a forward direction, things will turn out all right.

*Did you know that people who went to the same school as a future president tend to end up miserable in adulthood, even when they live perfectly normal lives?

[Kagus]

You’d be surprised how much your mindset influences how you feel and think.

That's just it; I've been receiving this line and others like it for nearly my entire life. Growing up I was consistently told that "you feel what you choose to feel", "if you look for the positives in something, you'll find them", "feed the right wolf" etc... When I started having difficulties, I was informed that I'd change my opinion and feel better about myself when I felt it was important enough for me to do so, and that the only reason I hadn't pulled myself up out of the slump was because it clearly wasn't important enough for me yet.

If it hasn't sunk in yet, 20-some years later, when will it?


When I got diagnosed with dysthymia + depressive disorder, it was a great relief... "Yes!", I thought, "I'm actually not just lazy!".

Progressing with treatment and getting the diagnosis annulled because, after closer inspection, it turned out I didn't really qualify... Well, the weight came back in full.

Now I've got some meaningless, unintelligible diagnosis for the sake of having something to write in my evaluation reports. And so, equipped with my father's mantra that only I can determine what I feel and his wisdom that psychiatric professionals are just vultures preying on the easily manipulated, I'm left with the dilemma of thinking that I don't have any sort of illness, I'm just incredibly lazy and faking disability in order to pander to my ego and take a load off... Even though the therapy is presumably what helped me feel content (I'm leery to use the word "happy", due to its nebulous definition) again for the first time I can remember since reaching a double-digit age.

It's not that I haven't suffered enough in life, I have... It's just that I have no reason to suffer. So hearing again that "it's only a matter of how you look at things" just reinforces the point that I've been tormenting myself for nearly my entire life because I was too dumb and/or lazy to "stop hitting myself", doubly proven by it being uttered by someone who actually has experienced awful things and seems to be doing quite well for herself (well, aside from going to Fountain House, of course... And she's stopped parts of her therapy because "I think I do better leaving that lid tightly closed").



On the plus side, I'm starting to regain the ability to properly close my right hand now... I knew that ball was just a touch too heavy.

[Yoink]

Kagus, there's no point in hating yourself for not suffering enough in life.

Gosh, dude, that was a good post.
I wish I could internalise some of that wisdom you just handed down. I think for the most part I've managed to get over the whole tendency to... "compare my unhappiness to that of others" or whatever, though. Which is a good thing, I don't know how I'd cope if I had to feel bad about feeling so bad with so little reason for feeling bad on top of feeling bad in the first place.   

[Doomblade187]

Hey, Kagus. Just because your life circumstances make you feel like you have no reason to suffer, doesn't mean your brain isn't going to do dumb shit. That's normal.

[scriver]

I suck at taking compliments and I think I made an ass out of myself like three times in a row today because of it.

[Telgin]

The company I work for was bought out back in August, but we were mostly left to our devices with the parent company just sitting back to see how things went.  Evidently, they decided that they needed to accelerate their plans to better integrate things, and that involved a reorganization that meant my current manager's position as the former CTO before the purchase is being dispensed with.  He said it wasn't voluntary and he only knew a week or so ago.

On one hand, he's a C level executive, so I doubt he'll have trouble finding another job or suffer in the mean time, but I genuinely liked working with him and it feels like a pretty scummy thing for the company to do.

And of course, they're bringing in someone else to take over for him, and I have no idea how working for him is going to be.  Guess only time will tell, but today kind of sucks.

[Yoink]

I forgot to get "milk" while I was out, so I had to have another coffee instead of a chai latte as I'd planned.

Also I just read Blankets by Craig Thompson. I think it was pretty sad? I don't know, I don't really have a point of reference any more.
Gettin' all sad and teary over a book or graphic novel used to be a really rare thing for me, rare enough to be a clear indication that whatever was responsible was a potent, powerful work of art indeed. Now I dunno. I'm pretty sure this was an excellent book.
Pretty sure Good Bye, Chunky Rice fucked me up as well. *sniff*   

[WealthyRadish]

I suck at taking compliments and I think I made an ass out of myself like three times in a row today because of it.

I think I usually dismiss compliments reflexively in exactly the same way I would a scam or advertisement, usually without considering whether it might be genuine or even remembering it moments later.

[Yoink]

Oh my gawd, compliments. Terrifying indeed.   
...I can't think of much more to say than that, but regardless of the circumstances they are usually quite concerning.   

[scriver]

I did two awful acceptances and then an awful turnaround immediately afterwards because I realised how awfully I had accepted the first two times. All in all a big rude screwup. Worse, it was with a girl, so of course I'm going to fret it for years now.

In hindsight I should have just returned the sentiment. But then again the only thing harder than gracefully accepting compliments for me is giving honest and earnest ones to others.

Basically a cute girl went "[other cute girl] really likes you. I like you too" and I, an idiot, answered "I've noticed" because I am a huge stereotype and a dumbass who apparently belong in a stupid sitcom rather than the real world.

Really. I should not be allowed near any kind of social situations.

[Yoink]

How long ago was this? I'm (kinda) sure you can fix this. Or at least remedy it in a way that shows you as a cool, sensitive dude indeed.                                                                                                         

[scriver]

Just yesterday. We're both part of an course/activity thing so yeah lots of time to further make an arse of myself!

[Rowanas]

I'm going to ask the tremendously attractive woman at the Christmas Market mead stall out, because then I'll have an excuse to pretend it was totally fine while visibly swallowing sadness at the pub later after she turns me down, and it'll make whatever drunken nonsense I get up to on Saturday evening somewhat more reasonable in my head.