How are you doing? - Kiwi Farms Wellness Check

[boards of canada]

Obligatory "I am not a veteran" but holy shit it's so true that the parents and adults trying to be "diverse" and "tolerant" are always worse than innocent children who just don't know better.

The keyword is "trying", because that's truly what it is - a very poor and dishonest attempt. They want to make themselves feel better. Women have told me they get upset and emotional just looking at me and "thinking about what I've gone through", but that does nothing for me. Pity won't make me walk painlessly again. Fake pity even less so.

A lot of people truly have issues understanding the reality of permanent physical disabilities. I think I had just told her I had an injury, and she thought I meant like I'd been injured a few weeks ago.... not years ago.

And that is exactly because of how much we shelter children from a young age and they grow up with this idea of disabled people as a vague "unfortunate" group. They grow up unable to comprehend that these are very real things that happen to very real people. They get overwhelmed when I describe what is just daily routine to me, refusing to accept the idea of a person waking up in pain every single day.

"I could never let that happen to me."

One of the most painful aspects of my disability is the fact that I had to accept I wasn't letting anything happen to me. It just happened as it did, it didn't ask me anything. For a while I felt like my leg was stolen from me somehow, because it just felt so wrong.

In the same vein: I often leave my card game group early because I just run out of juice. My buddy was explaining this to a new person and said "Bliblbl has PTSD." And I'm like "I don't have PTSD." And all my buddies told me I "obviously have PTSD." It's kinda thrown me for a loop and I just haven't had the time to track any of them down to really ask about it. I don't know if they were just using the term lightly, or if I'm really foolish. I'm not really sure what difference it even makes. I'm open to internet criticism. I really have the feeling that I'm being stupid in some regard. Why would my friends say something like that?

People have an idea of PTSD not as a condition but as just "person with some kind of trauma", minor or major. They're probably saying it because they're assuming based on this idea. You could, or you could not have it - again, in your own words, it won't make much of a difference, it's just something to know about yourself.
It didn't change much for me, but it's easier to tell people I have PTSD than to describe things. They don't like when I do.
I developed a fear of sleeping.

 

[LonesomeDud]

I got accused of sexual harassment at work. Let me just say: It didn't happen. It is totally fabricated. I refuse not to tell everyone what this woman said about me. I refuse not to tell them about the investigation. She does not own me. She does not control my life. She picked the wrong one. You want to make up lies about me? Great. But I'm going to let EVERYONE know what you said about me, because hey, I'm such a big predator. You should be happy I told everyone about what you said.

 

[Ewan McGregor]

I am really awkward in person sometimes, I hate it.

 

[bliblblblbbllb]

She picked the wrong one. You want to make up lies about me? Great. But I'm going to let EVERYONE know what you said about me, because hey, I'm such a big predator. You should be happy I told everyone about what you said.

Be careful. Part of the reason people make up lies of this nature is because even disputing the lies will make people distrusting of you, especially women. Unless she's so batshit that half the building has been accused of abusing her (which does happen on occasion) I'd caution you against "telling everyone what she said about me." Women are going to wonder what the "pearl of truth" it in is and "believe all women" thinking has never been stronger. If you talk about any crazy woman too much or with too much anger or frustration in your voice, people will start to think you're sexist, even if it is a crazy bitch who keyed your car and smashed all your windows and threatened to kill herself if you don't come back to her. People will still tell the guy "Isn't it kinda mean that you called the cops on her? Did you even care about her feelings?"

You have to handle it with gravitas.

People don't wait for investigations to make their judgements and a clear investigation definitely won't change most people's minds. The best thing is for people to not know anything about it in the first place. When women make false reports of sexual harassment they are also often allowed to just "oopsy daisy!" revoke it, like, it's considered just a mistake, not a malicious act. They do this because of the idea that if they really go after people who make false reports, people will be afraid to report real abuse. Point being, even if you get "cleared in the investigation", YOU can still get in trouble for speaking badly about "a woman who just made a mistake." YOU can definitely get fired if people think you're going to retailiate against her.

The only way to end up the victor is to keep all your dignity and keep your head up at work, and be as sincere and professional as possible..... and hope the other person leaves the company. Very sorry you're dealing with this crap.....

It didn't change much for me, but it's easier to tell people I have PTSD than to describe things.

When I was younger I was very obsessed with "not being a crazy person", and this also definitely fueled my interest in lolcows due to their lack of shame. Because of my situation, many times it was like the doors were wide open and groups of bad people with ripped jeans and shitty tattoos were hitting crackpipes and saying "come join us at the bottom of this bucket." Once I went to a therapy group and the group leader joked about how everyone there knew what the insides of the local mental ward looked like from being sectioned. I can't express how damaging this was to hear, as someone who has never been in that sort of situation. Many times over, people would say the most self-deprivating things and everyone would laugh. I was horrified and felt very isolated. People had even told me things like "what you went through must not have been as bad as the rest of us, otherwise you'd agree that starting a family is awful, and it's impossible to hold down a job. If you still want things like that, you must not really be that bad off."


Now that I'm older I understand and accept more, the devastating impact this stuff has had on my life. Working with the elderly and meeting a lot of very old war vets and people raised in terrible communist countries- people that still went on to have good careers and finances enough to afford my facility- has helped a lot.

I am not a crazy degenerate and I don't use my situation as an excuse to give up on life and be worthless, but I also am not normal. It took a long time to realize not being normal didn't mean giving up on being a good person.

I really need more mental help, but I feel like I've totally exhausted what's available to me. I get to the point where I just roll my eyes when people bring up some book as if I haven't heard of Peter Levine or The Body Keeps The Score yet. I get really angry and frustrated because I feel like most people don't understand how many paths I've already walked down. Lately I enjoy my little home gym a lot, but it doesn't actually fix anything. People saying "If it's so bad why don't you just get help?" drives me INSANE.

 

[Cats]

I'm doing like this:

 

[Betonhaus]

Good news, I should be able to find work next year.
Bad news, I'll need work for the winter to make ends meet and there are no jobs.

 

[LonesomeDud]

@bliblblblbbllb I'm the second of three people she accused. She's also in her late 50's/early 60's and has a past of professional errors that I ended up finding online and bringing to management after raising concerns.

 

[Friend of Dorothy Parker]

My buddy was explaining this to a new person and said "Bliblbl has PTSD." And I'm like "I don't have PTSD." And all my buddies told me I "obviously have PTSD." It's kinda thrown me for a loop and I just haven't had the time to track any of them down to really ask about it. I don't know if they were just using the term lightly, or if I'm really foolish. I'm not really sure what difference it even makes. I'm open to internet criticism. I really have the feeling that I'm being stupid in some regard. Why would my friends say something like that?

I don't know your situation but I do know someone who likely experiences combat ptsd. In the couple of years I've known him he's gone from "wtf I don't have ptsd, why does everyone think people who saw combat have to have ptsd" to "I guess I might have ptsd." He's told me about some of the things he did and saw and experienced (no major injury, but he killed a lot of people, including some civilians, and saw horrific things the rest of us only see in gritty movies). He also carries a very present recollection of an horrifically abusive childhood, and is factual but fierce about it, so it's a mish-mash, who knows what impacts it all has had. I take people as they come and irl don't go about lay -diagnosing people, but even I expect he probably does have ptsd from both periods of life. And it frames up a lot of the ways he interacts with the world, which is generally not easy.

...So what I'm saying is that even if people (in general) often throw out conditions & diagnoses left and right, if you're hearing it from multiple people who know and observe you irl, and you have gone through terrible or even just difficult things, there may be something to it. Might not hurt to try to find someone to explore that with.

...anecdote: I once went to a counselor for a very specific concern (to do with work). She kept going back and back to certain personal situations/dynamics I'd experienced that, in my mind at the time, were irrelevant. I had no patience for that line of discussion. It was the past; I was fine, just wanted to sort out this one thing. After a few appointments, I got annoyed and ditched. And I thought she was not that smart, probably new at the job, whatever: useless for me.

Fast-forward a few or several years, information and education and a bunch of other things confirmed that what she'd been trying to steer me to look at was actually incredibly important, both for the concern I came in for, and for many, many decisions I made later on. I'm not saying she grasped it all in one go, but I am saying that sometimes other people see things we don't (we may see a problem but not how to plot it out right or attack it effectively).

It wasn't until even more years later, after I'd made a series of catastrophic choices, allowed my life and self to be about completely tanked, that I finally started thinking about the ways that the situation she'd been pushing me to talk about had affected me, and how it dovetailed with the pre-existing tendencies and weaknesses I'd had but had not really understood at a conscious level. So then FINALLY I got real and was able to start piecing together my life and the drivers behind my choices - and how to be different about things I'd just absorbed into "what is."

Tl; dr: truly understanding and digesting (I hate this word but whatever) "triggers" and how those triggers can/did lead one off-track, is the key to doing better - and we can all do better.

 

[boards of canada]

I am not a crazy degenerate and I don't use my situation as an excuse to give up on life and be worthless, but I also am not normal. It took a long time to realize not being normal didn't mean giving up on being a good person.

If I was normal, I'd be weak. I wouldn't be able to handle all these things; there and now here at home as a result of there. You are shaped into something not normal yet something resilient, strong, willing. That's what matters to me at least. Strength to go on despite everything, because it's a sign that you are indeed worth something, there is something that's worth going on for.

Spoiler

I could've killed myself. I wanted to and I tried to because I had these moments where I felt like living was worthless. I couldn't imagine living a few decades more, permanently injured, in pain, with the memories of all those people, some who I held dear, dying, some in horrible pain and some as "peaceful" as you can get in raging war, and with the knowledge that other people will look at me and see a murderer. Because that's what I, too, thought I was, and therefore I was worthless, or rather that it was unfair or unjust for me to continue. But I also realized that I did not make it out of that hellhole alive just to quit. I lived because I was strong enough; maybe not at first, but I was shaped into being strong enough. This strength isn't innate for most people. But you can, and if you strive for it, you will get there. I continue to live because if it wasn't over then, it isn't over now. If it wasn't over when I had my leg blown off and thigh nearly burnt to a crisp, it isn't over now, at home, with my thigh wrapped in gauze and leg brand new and made of metal. If it wasn't over when I held my friends as they died soaked in their own blood and wishing with their last breath that they'll be forgiven, it isn't over now, when I'm alive to remember them. Not only did I not want to die, I wanted to live.
Strength is to make the most of your situation, no matter how unfortunate it might seem to the unaffected. It's the fact that you continue to live in spite of your disability and what caused it.
I still had very fresh mental wounds when my sister had her first child. It was a girl and I was there to hold her. That's probably the brightest moment of clarity I had since I got home. I held this little living being wrapped in white and felt it lightly squirm with eyes shut in content and peace. She was so impossibly tiny in my hands. It felt like everything around me disappeared and it was just me and this little being. For a moment, it seemed like nothing wrong ever happened to me, like I and this being have lived forever in this peace. The truth came back to me, but I didn't feel crushed by it. I felt strangely content. I was happy that those things happened, because I lived in spite of them, and lived to hold my little niece in her first moments of life.
If I knew then that I would watch this little being grow into a beautiful smart little girl, I would have never wanted to die. I've watched and caused so much death and in that moment I watched life.

Being normal and fitting in boxes that other people set for you should not be your priority. You should prioritize setting an example for the people who share your pain, and in the face of that pain becoming a virtuous individual who sows the seeds of good.

 

[Justa Grata Honoria]

My buddy was explaining this to a new person and said "Bliblbl has PTSD." And I'm like "I don't have PTSD." And all my buddies told me I "obviously have PTSD."

Pling but

Spoiler: my experience do what you will with it

plenty of people mentioned something was wrong with me untill finally i went to see a therapist i came out with anxiety diagnosis and later ptsd when the meds did their job . Seriosly nigger just get yourself checked out just in case might be something if everyone are like something is wrong

 

[Day of the Cope]

Someone I've known and loved for over a decade decided to completely cut me out of their life so they can, basically, live a hedonistic lifestyle of doing whatever they want when they want without any commitment.

 

[MerriedxReldnahc]

I am the only person in my household who isn't totally blackpilled about the election results so that's a bummer.

I have OCD or some other shit and while I consider my true personality to be very optimistic and motivated, my OCD is like a second personality that is a massive doomer. I compare it to being a Tigger and Eeyore at the same time. Usually I can shut that bitch up, but being around people who are defeatist and miserable makes it hard to do that. In person and online I try to keep the optimism up to combat everyone else's constant doom and gloom, but right now I feel like sharing something I'm really happy and proud of would piss people off.

I did have a moment the other day where I realized how thankful I am for where my life has gone despite being a hot mess of a person. I hope all my fellow Kiwis can get there too, baby steps matter. I believe in you Fuckers!

-Snip-

This reminds me of a story from a college friend- she had a condition that was slowly rendering her blind due to growths in her eye that couldn't be removed safely- so she had gotten a white stick to help her walk around campus and one day she overheard a little boy asking his mom what the stick was for. The mom was trying to be very polite and was dancing around the issue, saying
"Well, maybe that lady needs help walking..."
"But mom, she has TWO LEGS! Why can't she walk?"
"Well it's because she might not be able to see well..."
"but that lady has TWO EYES! I don't understand!"

My friend thought it was hilarious, and kind of wished the kid point blank asked her "Lady, what is the stick for?" because she would have been happy to explain.

 

[Booger1488]

Well, to be honest, I'll probably end it all at the end of the month. So that's how I'm doing.

 

[Saint Agustin]

Well, to be honest, I'll probably end it all at the end of the month. So that's how I'm doing.

Stream it.

 

[AnOminous]

I can't fucking sleep.

I am the most insomniac faggot alive.

 

[Jason Wynn]

Been smoking like hell all day. No idea why I've been needing my nic-fix so much, but I've gone through an entire pack of cigs in like 10 hours (typically average about half a pack a day)

Well, if any roving gangs of Haitian cannibals make their way to my area, I'm highly carcinogenic.

 

[Snazzy Sneedy Snake]

I'm existing. Up til Trump won the election, I was pretty low motivation. Have a bit more energy since then. Frankly, after how much shit has gone on in my life this year, I kind of needed that. Cause, uh, this year has been rough...

Spoiler: A bit of PL but eh

This year, I lost my dog, a friendship (still trying to fix that one), my younger brother, and a great-aunt and great-uncle, the latter two occurring within a day or two of each other (grandmother's brother, and grandfather's brother's wife). This year is fired.

The best thing that's happened this year besides Trump winning is us adopting a kitty to keep our other cat company. He's still getting used to us a little but he's mostly settled. I might be a little obsessed with my little void...

Struggling a bit with my ADHD and fibro rn but it's gotten a little better recently. Gotta give myself some goals to do tbh...

 

[Juan But Not Forgotten]

Well, to be honest, I'll probably end it all at the end of the month. So that's how I'm doing.

What happened?

 

[DickMain]

Stayed up until like 7am today and didn't get up properly until about 1, and just been exhausted all day long. Felt kinda cooped up so I just drove around doing nothing for like forty minutes and now I'm just doodling and napping.

 

[bliblblblbbllb]

just get yourself checked out just in case might be something

I have zero desire to "go get checked out" because I'm not at that stage of life lol. It's been over a decade and 20+ providers. I don't really identify with any mental health label anymore. I'm not really in active recovery anymore, I haven't been for a few years I think. I'm in the "the rest of my life" part.

I never found a good label, anyways. It seemed like basically every specialist, every specialized support group, every community would still end up saying "you aren't this." I'm not looking for any new labels- to what end? Point being, it's been at least 6 years since I would have said anything like "I have PTSD".

I will say I think I'm kinda developing an eating disorder over the last year, but it's basically impossible to get help as a guy, especially with my sort of background.

Spoiler: Paralyzed men can't get eating disorder treatment

The eating disorder clinic wants me to see the SLP before they'd see me, the SLP wanted me to see the neuro, the neuro wanted scans done, insurance said no, they told me to fight insurance, and that was about the point I gave up. I still had to pay my specialist copays for these meetings where nothing was gained. My physical disability justifies and maybe neccesitates eating habits that make me an unhappy camper. The eating disorder therapy people were very concerned that they didn't want to tell me to do anything that wasn't medically advised. The eating disorder clinic is also definitely built around anxiety and body image-induced eating disorders. I did all their questionnnares and they were like "Maybe this is more for the SLP/neuro" because I don't really fit the bill for eating disorders. Brother have you met a neurologist. They do not give a SHIT about your feelings and the complex reality of life, it isn't their job. It just felt like they were saying "We don't handle real eating problems here, we only handle anxious teenagers." So where am I supposed to get help? I really have it on the backburner so that I don't get too angsty.

Once I found a place that seemed so holistic. They actually seemed to understand me, and they spent a lot of time trying to figure my situation out. They wanted me to come for a 5 day intensive. They wanted me to pay 10,000 dollars. Didn't take insurance. I just didn't think I could get 10k of treatment in 5 days. But if anyone has good stories of programs like that, my mind is open.



Please enjoy the rainy car ride, especially you insomniacs....