janeerie
Normie quokka
User ID: 713
janeerie
1d ago
My husband's parents live with us, and I am going a little nuts dealing with his mother. She is 81, obese, and can barely walk at this point. She sleeps about 16 hours a day, and there are many days that will go by without her coming upstairs (their bedroom and tv room are in the basement). And yet, I can see her going on like this for another 10 years or so. Hooray for modern medicine!
I have to remind myself to detach emotionally and not get frustrated with her. But what particularly bothers me is how it limits the life of my father-in-law. He used to have a job at the grocery store that he loved, but she didn't like being alone, so he quit and now just sits and watches tv with her all day. We're trying to plan a trip to Spain (where he's from), but have to figure out what to do with her because she refuses to go.
I guess I'm struggling to figure out how much of this is coming from her body not working anymore, and how much is just depression (she did spend some time in a mental hospital about 15 years ago and is on Lexapro, which doesn't seem to be doing much). And what do you do when somebody is unwilling to make any moves to help themselves get something out of life? She's just waiting around to die at this point and I hate watching it.
janeerie
10mo ago
It allows people to choose how they want to live their lives. Many will make bad choices, many will be less happy than they otherwise would be, but one of my basic values is liberty/self determination. You may not value this as highly, in which case you would prefer stricter gender roles.
Women's lives used to be extremely constrained, with no opportunity to explore their potential. That's no way to treat half the world's humans.
janeerie
1yr ago
I had a weird conversation with my boss's boss yesterday. It started with talking about a new project I might be involved in, but then went into her telling me that "people don't know how to read you" and "it's hard to tell when you're excited and passionate about something." She also kept repeating that I was very "even-keeled" and I make people feel relaxed. I guess those were supposed to be compliments.
Then she says that I need to come up with a plan for what I am going to do about this! Basically, I need to take some deliberate actions to let people know what I am thinking and feeling. I told her I would set up some check-ins with her where we can talk, but I'm really not sure what else I'm supposed to do. I asked what other people were doing that she felt was more effective, but she didn't have an answer to that.
It was so bizarre, because I am fine with getting feedback if there's an issue with my work, but this seemed to be about how my personality was causing a problem (I'm sorry, I was raised by Midwestern farmers - we're not expressive people). I ended up crying in front of her, which pissed me off. It just touched on some lifelong feelings about feeling a little out of step with people.
To tell the truth, I don't really get "passionate" about things at work. It's work - I enjoy it when I have interesting problems to work on, but I'm passionate about my family, about ideas, not about work stuff. I suppose that's why I appear "even-keeled" at work, because I don't deeply care about any of that crap so it's easy to let things slide off my back.
janeerie
1yr ago
What are the actually useful applications of ChatGPT? I see a lot of people playing around with it and having fun, but I'm having trouble thinking of anything good this tool could actually provide to us. The downsides are quite obvious (a big one for me is that now I will always be wondering if the text I am reading was generated by a bot).
janeerie
6mo ago
WTF is the Hock? Every time you mention it here, I google it and only learn about horse legs.
janeerie
1yr ago
It’s a bitch having a mild mental disorder.
I sit here remarkably sane by all outward appearances. I have a family that I take good care of and have good relationships with. I do well at my job. I am smart with my money and make good, responsible decisions. I get along with pretty much everybody. But inside I am constantly struggling with anxiety, and the fear that the anxiety will get so bad that all of this will fall apart. I am consumed by a fear of fear.
In the past, my main problem was panic attacks. I always had a fear in the back of my head that I might have another and it was quite distracting. But it didn’t really affect the course of my life. I would hear about people who become agoraphobic, or who do all kinds of OCD rituals, and I just couldn’t relate. I’ve never experienced anything like depression. I just walk around scared most of the time.
Getting on medication pretty much cured my panic disorder, and when I had my child I went off meds and a round of CBT kept me from relapsing. I’ve always had health anxiety, but that also fades into the background as long as nothing weird is going on with my body. I have been back on medication for the past couple of years, but it doesn’t seem to be helping nearly as much as it used to.
I always have the thought in the back of my head that my anxiety might get so bad that it will ruin my life. If I read about somebody with intense OCD or who develops DP/DR, I think “Why couldn’t that happen to me?” If these are just disorders of thinking, why wouldn’t my own brain go down that path? It causes a huge spike of anxiety, which eventually goes away and I return to my baseline. I basically live in a world of potential triggers.
My latest therapist was big into ACT, which stresses the importance of continuing to do the things that you really want to do, and just letting the anxiety come along for the ride. I already do that, but the anxiety prevents me from getting the most emotionally and mentally out of those things that I am doing.
One of the things that helps me most is to just understand that my brain is broken. I can’t trust the things it is telling me. That’s very difficult when in so many other places my brain has served me very well. In some sense, my fear of fear is entirely logical. It’s quite clear that anxiety can make you miserable so why shouldn’t I be afraid of it? It’s just an unfortunate reality that it causes this terrible cycle:
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I know being anxious is bad.
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I know anxiety is something that my own brain produces.
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I am afraid I won’t be able to stop my brain from producing more anxiety.
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Hence I am more anxious.
The weak spot in this seems to be point 3 - that actually there are ways to stop my brain from causing more anxiety. I’m just having a hard time developing trust in those. An added wrinkle is that I am afraid to examine my brain too much. The concept of consciousness is really scary to me. I am afraid there is a fundamental truth about reality out there that I don’t want to encounter.
I guess it just feels like I’ve hit the wall on what I can get out of therapy, and I’m going to have to always deal with an elevated, sub-clinical level of anxiety that bugs the hell out of me. Thanks, brain!
janeerie
1yr ago
I need some career advice. My priority right now is finding some job security, and I'm not sure which of these options is best in the current environment.
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Stay where I am for now. I'm at a digital agency, but I lost my last client project in November and have been sitting on the bench since then. We don't seem to have a whole lot coming in the pipeline anytime soon. I still have a job and am getting paid, but who knows how long that will last (plus, I'm bored as hell)
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Join a large-ish company that is in the loan space. Their stock price has dropped a lot lately and it doesn't seem like a great space to be in while interest rates are so high. But they are hiring, so...
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Join my former boss's two start-ups/projects. He says he has funding for now but I have no idea what that actually means. I've asked for more details before seriously considering.
I have health insurance through my husband, so that's not a concern. I just really hate the idea of having some period of unemployment. I'm a relentless optimist, so my gut instinct is to think that any of these will turn out great, and I could use some more hardheaded opinions on this.
janeerie
1yr ago
Women tend to score higher on conscientiousness than men, and voting is a boring activity that requires planning and deferred gratification.
I know in my house, my husband’s mail-in ballot would never make it out the door without my prodding (even though I know his vote will undo mine).
janeerie
1yr ago
Here is an amazing chocolate cake mix, if you're looking for something you can make at home. I have high standards for chocolate cake and am happy to make one from scratch, but this mix does a darn good job. You'll still need to make the frosting yourself - I'd recommend a swiss meringue buttercream.
janeerie
1yr ago
I've had this happen. The last town we lived in, the entire ER staff was out-of-network! Do you know if your state has a law against surprise billing? I am really happy that I now live someplace that does.
janeerie
6mo ago
I had this since I was a little girl. I don't think there's anything terribly strange about it; childbirth is an extremely painful and scary process. I don' t know that it was the main reason I didn't want to have children, but it was in the mix. When I decided I did want to have a child, it was because the pro reasons finally outweighed the cons.
I ended up having a natural birth. It was traumatic but I got through, though I wasn't interested in doing it again. A few months later, a friend of mine died in childbirth. Like I said, this shit is scary and it's pretty reasonable to be afraid of it.
janeerie
8mo ago
I'm a married mom who hangs out here, and I've lately been enjoying Megan Daum's Unspeakeasy forum. It's expensive, but often feels like The Motte for Her. Of course, the posts aren't quite so long because we have shit to do :D
janeerie
9mo ago
I feel the same way, and so arguments like this are puzzling to me. I find the idea of an afterlife incredibly disturbing, and felt that way even when I was a Christian. At the time though, I did enjoy feeling that there was a God looking out for me.
janeerie
9mo ago
For a woman, a bit dumb and indicative of low self-esteem?
This nails it (cf. my 20-something self). I don't think morality comes into play so much as just poor decision-making. I'd say most woman grow out of it eventually, so it seems odd to judge one for her past.
janeerie
10mo ago
I'm not going to assert that men or women had a great deal of liberty in the past, but there were still a much larger range of options open for men than women. Are you really going to argue that men and women had equal opportunity to higher education, the professions, property ownership, and elected office before the mid-Twentieth Century?
Yes, it's very nice that women didn't have to go to war and were allowed to donate their time to social movements, but they were the property of their fathers and husbands and had nothing of their own. That is the life of a child, not an adult.
janeerie
1yr ago
I'm healing up from my first bout with COVID (vaxxed+boosted, had what felt like a mild flu for one day), and thinking about long-COVID. As somebody who has long had an anxiety disorder, the list of long COVID symptoms sounds pretty much like how I feel most of the time. And guess when my anxiety disorder got a lot worse!
I caught COVID on a work retreat to NYC and it was totally worth it. Getting to spend time talking to people, working with people, being immersed in a city where so much is happening, was amazing. There is nothing worse for our mental health than spending all our time in our houses on our computers.
I completely believe that there are people who have bad post-viral reactions. That's always been the case. But I also believe that much of this is uncontrolled anxiety and we need some kind of mass CBT/SSRI intervention.
janeerie
4mo ago
It's so interesting that you and JulianRota say that this person is unlikely to work with a trans person. Perhaps it depends on what industry you are in, but in tech I've worked with quite a few trans women. Go to a "women in tech" conference and it will be half the crowd (ok, not really, but it sometimes feels like it).
I have not worked with any trans men, so it's likely they are all in non-profits somewhere.
janeerie
1yr ago
That was certainly my belief in the past. This mix changed my mind.
Here is the recipe I use when I'm making a cake from scratch. It takes me about a half hour to put together (not counting baking time). The mix I linked to takes 5 minutes. Very little difference in the final result.
Now I'm hungry for chocolate cake.
janeerie
1yr ago
Can you point me to any support for this statement, or why this legislation would be undesirable for consumers?
janeerie
1yr ago
I joined a book club, so I'm now reading Project Hail Mary though I hadn't really intended to. I read The Martian a while ago and thought it was fine.
I love the idea of book clubs, but hate how they require you to read certain books that might not otherwise be on your list. I know there's the argument that it helps you diversify your tastes, but there are just too many books out there that I won't live long enough to read that I hate spending time on one I'm not passionate about. So in my ideal world I have a book club, and I am the autocratic dictator who chooses every book.
Anyway, the book is interesting enough so far (I'm 1/5 in). It is a little weird to me though that it follows the same pattern of The Martian of "guy alone in space."
janeerie
1yr ago
Albion's Seed. Scott Alexander's essay about it really stuck with me, and the book is just as interesting as he makes it sound. Every night I bombard my husband with fun facts about how crazy the Puritans were.
janeerie
1yr ago
I made a cheesecake for my family even though I hate cheesecake (I made brownies on the side for myself).
janeerie
1yr ago
As one of the last print newspaper subscribers, I've actually been really enjoying this story line (even though I disagree strongly with most of Adams' politics). I have wondered, though, how many readers know what the hell he's talking about. ESG is a pretty niche topic.
I just applied for a job that included this beautiful pronoun selection question (skipped it). Then further down the page there was another blank field to enter my pronouns (skipped it)!
I kind of want to know what the hell "Fae/Faer" is, but also kind of don't. Is that for people who identify as fairy folk? I can see that giving you an advantage on your job application!
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