I would love to eat meat replacements on a more regular basis, but impossible and beyond burgers are more expensive than actual meat where I live. So I just don’t buy them. If the technology /economies of scale actually manage to make them cheaper than meat, I’d replace 80% of my meat consumption.
Saying this as an ethnically Chinese person who is not being racist… I had a eufy robovac and when I discovered it was Chinese-owned and had a video camera installed on it… I immediately got rid of that thing. I don’t trust any technology company owned by China to be able to see into my home.
Thank you! I am tough. The last 3 years have been harder than I could’ve ever fathomed, but I’m still trucking on. There’s a lot more to me than depression, even though it swallows everything sometimes.
I literally fantasize about having enough space in my home for a chest freezer.
This week is the first week I’ve felt halfway close to being a human being in a really long time. My rTMS treatment for depression is finally starting to kick in. This is my 3rd round now and each time I see significant improvements, but they only last 4ish months and I relapse horrifically after.
My most recent relapse lasted 3ish months while I was scrambling to get treatment (and an unsuccessful Ketamine trial). I finally found a hospital willing to treat me, and also give me maintenance treatments so hopefully I don’t relapse again.
It’s just been hell for a while. Last weekend I finally felt the gears in my brain “click”. I am capable of experiencing positive emotions again. I still feel emotionally dead a lot of the time, but at least I don’t want to die anymore (for now).
It feels good to not be in excruciating pain. It feels good to have less disordered thinking. I look back and it feels like I was a different person, I don’t even understand or recognize that person.
Anyways, I’m just… Trying to take a breather. Trying to fully experience the moment. I don’t know how things will go in the long term, but I know the next couple of months will continue to be livable. Trying to be grateful for that, and not think too much about what comes next.
Agreed, in my opinion asking for safe spaces is not entitlement. It’s people who feel most comfortable (safe) with the status quo, who think others are entitled for also wanting to feel safe.
I’d tell me in high school to get treatment for depression instead of white knuckling my way through life and ending up with treatment resistant depression at 28 because I went without for so long.
As a Chinese person I actually think they’re more Korean-inspired, not Chinese. And the devs are Korean, so it doesn’t seem disrespectful.
Thank you so much. I feel your big hug and it’s appreciated. I do have a therapist I see for my depression and ptsd. I will definitely talk about this with her.
Your empathy stretches beyond even the topic at hand. You hit the nail on the head when you say that suffering added on to existing suffering makes everything more complicated.
If I were mentally healthy right now I think I would process my sexual identity more easily. But for 3 years I’ve been struggling with annihilating depression.
Writing this is also a helpful reminder that I’m not in the best spot to figure it all out right now, and that I don’t have to. I can sit with these somewhat complicated feelings for now and wait for when I’m healthier to open the box. At least I’ve acknowledged the box for now, instead of shoving it in the closet (har har).
Thank you again for your empathy and kindness. Really.
I love space but I know I’ll never be an astronaut and go there, yet that doesn’t make my desire to see the stars any less real and valid.
I actually love this and it legitimately makes me feel better lol
Exactly on the identity piece, although I do kind of feel like I missed out. I keep thinking about all the times I felt attraction and ran away from it 😅
But I’m with the love of my life too, so, I guess I just move on.
the attention visibly queer and visibly trans people get, at least in my experience, is negative - who gets up in the morning seeking that?
You articulated this particular piece so well for me. I think I’m also struggling because I don’t WANT to be queer. Between the mental health issues and the race and gender and and and I just… I didn’t want to be bi on top of that. This isn’t fun for me. I don’t want one more thing my family is going to invalidate and judge me for. I didn’t want to recognize my suffering on yet another thing.
But people (especially younger people) around me are getting more vocal and comfortable with their sexuality and I was watching Atypical where this teenager was discovering she was bi and I just hit this wall. I had to skip the scene because I couldn’t bear to hear her say, “I’m bi.” It just… Hurt. I both envied her and felt shame I wasn’t her. But it wasn’t the same 15 years ago when I grew up. (which just makes me feel stupid again. 15 years ago is bootycheeks compared to 50 years ago)
Thank you. It’s hard to say more right now because this is a lot to take in… But thank you.
I’ve talked about it a bit with my boyfriend. It’s just hard to talk about it. It’s kind of a new realization for me even though I’ve known it in the back of my mind all along.
And I just can’t help but feel stupid and small for it. Like, “What’s the point? You’re in a straight monogamous relationship. Why are you so attention seeking? Just move on with your life.”
I think I’m the one who needs to accept myself, not other people, reading that last paragraph back to myself lol. I think I’m scared to be bi in a straight monogamous relationship.
I stopped drinking 3.5ish years ago. I didn’t have a choice, drinking always made me super sick and vomit. In uni I thought it was normal to “puke and rally” everytime you drank. As I got older I wouldn’t even be able to get very drunk anymore, because I’d vomit before I could even get there.
The final nail in the coffin was I had a heavy night of drinking and was vomiting for a MONTH after. So I finally stopped. 6 months later I had a single shot and vomited for a week.
Since then every now and then I’ll try having 4 (literal) sips of wine, and I’ll have gastric distress every time.
The first year or so was very difficult because I missed social drinking and didn’t really know how to be social otherwise.
Now I’m just used to it. I don’t even miss it anymore. I’ll just chill with friends sober, or high. My friends don’t give me shit for it, and when randos do I’m just super rude and blunt and tell them “it makes me shit myself” and maintain aggressive eye contact until they go away awkwardly.
I don’t know if this will be helpful, but I wrestled a lot with dealing with despair/fear from upheaval as well. Mostly climate like I said, but I used to cry for days thinking about kids starving in Venezuela, for example (that’s a crisis from many many years back).
Studying history actually helped me cope. Just learning about the past like 5000 years of human history and how much upheavals and famine and war and civilization collapses there have been.
I kind of realized that feeling like the world is ending (as we know it) is the NORM rather than the exception for most of human existence.
We’ve been exceptionally lucky in Western countries for the past 300ish years. But that caused us to believe that’s what’s to be expected. It’s not.
It just helped me understand that humans have survived through lots of things. And the turmoil comes with being alive.
I understand your desire to stay informed but also grounded. I have actually fantasized about a newspaper exactly like that - tells the world as it is, but also helps the readers cope. My biggest thing is climate change and climate despair. I ended up googling how to deal with climate despair and came across a number of articles that were really helpful.
Hooe you find something similar for Russia/Ukraine.
Idk if I’m just dumb or something but I have tried to play terraria on 5+ separate occasions and the controls and UI just DON’T make sense to me. Like how to craft?! How to equip? How to do stuff? It was just so confusing. I tried on mobile and steam deck. I even looked up the controls online and mapped it out. It just never clicked for me. I felt like an 80 year old using a smartphone for the first time.
You articulated my issue with it perfectly. In theory it was this amazing open world with tons of player freedom, but the minute you engage with the actual story at all you have no choice in anything. There was one quest where I HAD to rescue Micah and kill a butt load of people which really annoyed me given I was going for a white hat run.
Between this and Northwestern, I’m so glad student journalism is getting a spotlight!