Not bad - chuffed to bits that my daughter got a 'First with honours' in English and Creative Writing. No idea what that means* apart from it's an excellent result.
*I left school at 15, before taking all my exams so that I could start work in a factory. So very proud of her ;-) Her substack is here
Suspect your daughter may be downplaying things a bit here...
She got the top result possible. Students who achieve First with honours (sometimes written as 1:1) have to be even better than excellent across their entire degree.
Some years nobody on a particular course will do this well, because it is reserved for the exceptional.
I just don't go outside. AC running throughout the day, though I do set max temps at different levels throughout the day to take advantage of lower electricity rates or avoid higher rates.
This past week I did have to do some rare outdoors work for work over a few days. My team elected to do it in the evenings and early in the mornings. Was still quite warm, but not sun glaring down on us, we're gonna get heat stroke from this, afternoon sun.
Not the greatest solution, but... living in a place where it's mostly been raining for the last 7-8 weeks makes it easy to cool down.
I'd love to write something about A/C and going for a swim/dive instead, like last year. Maybe in July?
Miserable. I'm moving but I can't get off the hook for my last two rent payments. Combined with rent at my new place, they're going to destroy my savings account. Plus I owe $900 for a urine test. Also I accidentally left my adderall in the car for several 90°F days and I swear I cooked it, it's not working. So I have to pay for that, too.
I've technically had good times! I've been more social than usual, invited coworkers out and I guess had fun? But all I can ever think about is money and moving.
ETA also honestly the way my family and friends talk about me is getting to me. I try not to make it my whole deal but I do have some psychological issues. Mostly some trauma-related disorders but also a couple minor learning disabilities. My psych thinks I'm autistic but I didn't want to pursue a diagnosis since there aren't any reasonable sensory accommodations for my job.
But my family has flat-out told me that I can't have any of those things, I'm "the good one". They self dx with all those things to explain why they can't keep jobs or be independent. I have a job and am independent and it hurts their egos, so they tell me I don't have the things I've been in treatment for for years.
My friends do a weird thing where they try to self deprecate but dismiss my problems in the process. I attempted to open up about some heavy stuff once (I thought it was appropriate given the tone of the conversation), and my friend immediately started saying how much worse a person he is and how I must hate him because I'm dealing with my suicidal feelings so much better.
He also tried to self deprecate by saying that it's not fair that his mental illness makes him a bad person, but mine makes me a good person??
I feel so guilty because I'm honestly spiraling but everyone keeps telling me I'm not. I can't, because it makes them look worse.
Tbh it's mainly one friend, it just took me way too long to realize that it wasn't normal to be talked to that way because everyone else treats it as normal. They used to swoop in to comfort him before I talked to them about it.
It's just hard to pull back because we've been so enmeshed for almost a decade now 🙁
That's a long time. Well, thankfully, we don't have to tell even our closest friends everything. You're always free to compartmentalize and share different things with people who you think are most likely to help you. I don't think there's any one person with whom I share everything, personally, at least at the moment.
Yeah, that's something I've been thinking about myself. I think I have trouble holding it in because I really strongly believe in emotionally supporting the people I care about, but I get resentful if I keep letting people lean on me while feeling like I couldn't ask for the same thing.
I'm trying to make more casual friendships to remove that inequality. People I can just hang out with, but without that emotional expectation that always seems to fall on one person.
I get resentful if I keep letting people lean on me while feeling like I couldn't ask for the same thing.
Some, perhaps many, would say, "As you should."
Trust is a big deal. Trust is, basically, belief in the future presence of another's support—whether emotional, or whatever you want to define it as, which can change per person.
This is why solid, trustworthy friendships take soooo long to develop, even literal years; they are mutual support, and people are so different that the best way to uncover this (since you certainly can't force it) is through time and lesser experiences, which sort of double as tests of trustworthiness. While I've lethargically been on my way out of Christianity for years now, Luke 16:10 comes to mind.
Small acts of leaning should be reciprocated. If not, back off in both depth and frequency of communication and seek out others who do reciprocate.
I suppose I passively assess based on simply how the other person responds to questions of any kind involving my or their life, or my decisions. If there is a general trend of negativity, and your efforts to change it aren't working, then it's time to step back and look elsewhere.
I feel so guilty because I'm honestly spiraling but everyone keeps telling me I'm not. I can't, because it makes them look worse.
I don't even know where to begin.
Going through difficult times is not a weapon in a dick-measuring contest to determine who's owed the most pity. Downplaying somebody else's problems in order to make one's own problems seem more important is not something a friend* does, period.
But then again, those people may just be unable to imagine you holding yourself together so well if you really had all those problems you describe. That's still no excuse though, a real friend should listen to you and believe you.
I think what (some of) your 'friends' are doing is reminiscent of crab mentality. That's the mechanism that makes sure you're being gifted a never-ending supply of chocolate and junk food as soon as people notice you've successfully lost weight, or alcoholics insisting that their dry friend has just one small beer with them for old times' sake.
One of the foundations of crab mentality is the assumption that life is a zero-sum game and/or desired resources are scarce, i.e. if you get more sympathy/attention then somebody else will get less.
I'm not saying you should do this - that would require some hefty assumptions about you and your life - but one of the best things I've ever done is ranking all my friends and family by the degree to which they've made my life better or dragged me down over the years, balanced scorecard-style. It sounds heartless but with some people was a real eye-opener for me.
Either way, surround yourself with people that give something back. If that means losing some 'friends', then so be it. A handful of real friends will get you much further than hordes of false ones.
( * I'm including family members here, though they can generally get away with much more BS than a friend just because they're family.)
Thank you, this is really kind. Logically, I know it's true that demeaning and comparing other people's experiences is wrong, but I encounter it so much it's hard to really believe it.
I think ranking the impact people have had in my life is probably a good idea, but it'd take me some time to figure out how to quantify that.
Logically, I know it's true that demeaning and comparing other people's experiences is wrong, but I encounter it so much it's hard to really believe it.
I can relate to some degree, though in my case it was my parents. The good news is that it doesn't take much practice until you start noticing the difference.
There's not a lot of advice I can give you, because above all you need to figure out yourself what you want (and how you want to get there). Just keep reminding yourself every now and then that the most important person in your life is you, and anybody trying to tell you otherwise is unlikely to have your best interests in mind.
Idk. I was feeling very bad recently but some great people helped me a lot so now I feel better but idk if this improvement will last for more than a few days (usually it doesn't). I'm really depressed because of the state of the society
Keep spending time with these people! In some ways the state of society certainly does suck, but finding our people who go against that grain has the potential to make things better. At the very least, we can make some things better in the small ways we can, and that's still something important.
I agree but seeing 2/3 or even more people act not good and everything getting worse every year has a stronger impact on me than seeing and interacting with great people. I guess it's a pretty uncommon thing. I also have personal issues that are really serious and I can't even talk about it because it's very intimate. And smh every time I say I feel better, I feel worse again in a few hours. Very supernatural looking this one.
I'm feeling the need to do a social media detox, including Beehaw. Pro-AI techbros are getting me down.
Shockingly, keeping Instagram active. My feed there is nothing but frogs, greyhounds, and art from local artists, and detoxing from stuff that is improving my mood rather than making it worse seems unnecessary.
This is one thing I noticed as well. I only have my Instagram profile to check on others but whenever the algorithm feeds me something it is always cute animals.
Basically it's an approach to teaching music with a heavy focus on giving students the building blocks they need to have a creative relationship with music. It comes from the idea that music is inherently in all of us and that everyone has something valuable to offer. As teachers our job is to give students the tools and vocabulary to communicate it.
I really don't like killing things, but ants have literally invaded my home, so I've had to do something.
Sprinkled some diatomaceous earth today. Watching a few stragglers just kind of meandering and basically not knowing what the fuck to do while they dehydrate and succumb to death has depressed me a little.
On a basic level, the way it works, it's just cruel. Yeah, they're not "sentient", they're mostly drones, etc., but still. Seeing this lonely ant kind of just... slowly dying and not knowing what to do is a bit heartbreaking.
Honestly one of the quickest ways I've found to cool down is to run my wrists under cold water.
And for my dog, wet t-shirts and wet towels tucked under his groin and armpits. I wish he was a water dog (we've tried wading pools, sprinklers etc) but he's not so other than forcing him to drink enough water, I've found he'll tolerate the wet items on him.
I have a pair of cheap UV protection sunsleeves that I've cut to just cover my wrists-forearms that I wet with a spray bottle when it's crazy hot. Works incredibly well.
Chat
Active
This magazine is not receiving updates (last activity 0 day(s) ago).