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PaperclipPerfector  25d ago (text post)   1647 thread views

Wellness Wednesday for August 12, 2026

The Wednesday Wellness threads are meant to encourage users to ask for and provide advice and motivation to improve their lives. It isn't intended as a 'containment thread' and any content which could go here could instead be posted in its own thread. You could post:

  • Requests for advice and / or encouragement. On basically any topic and for any scale of problem.

  • Updates to let us know how you are doing. This provides valuable feedback on past advice / encouragement and will hopefully make people feel a little more motivated to follow through. If you want to be reminded to post your update, see the post titled 'update reminders', below.

  • Advice. This can be in response to a request for advice or just something that you think could be generally useful for many people here.

  • Encouragement. Probably best directed at specific users, but if you feel like just encouraging people in general I don't think anyone is going to object. I don't think I really need to say this, but just to be clear; encouragement should have a generally positive tone and not shame people (if people feel that shame might be an effective tool for motivating people, please discuss this so we can form a group consensus on how to use it rather than just trying it).

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It's a subdued, cloudy morning here in my little corner of the world. The Kenyan coffee that I'm sipping, a roast that I've been highly pleased with, tastes just a touch odd compared to the bright, sour cherry note that has been characteristic of this particular batch, and I can't help but wonder if perhaps I didn't rinse my coffee mug well enough, as the odd flavor is close to the scent in my dish soap. Then again, perhaps the issue is an issue with the brewing--when I poured the initial 50 ml of hot water on the grounds for the bloom, it funneled straight through them and down into the cup, and I had to compensate by pouring water around the edges to bring all of the grounds into play before they behaved themselves. First time that's ever happened to me, and I know I gave them their proper shake to let them settle before pouring, but perhaps I didn't do it well enough. Regardless, it's still really good coffee.

Above me, a mourning dove coos, and one across the street gives its own answering call. I am sitting on the generously sized deck of my new apartment, a third floor walk-up, and directly in front of me is a mature maple tree that makes me feel like I'm in a tree house, my very own Raven's Nest. The dove's call tugs at my heart strings a little, and I pay attention to them, finding the familiar feelings of obligation and guilt at the other end of the strings. I like my new apartment, I'm having fun outfitting it and fitting my essential things into it, a new puzzle for me to complete with many possible correct solutions. Deeper still, I've found that my intensely painful feelings of failure, grief, sorrow, and identity loss were all acknowledged and dealt with the last time my wife precipitously separated from me, and the work I did then, when I didn't even have an answer for who I would be if I wasn't trying to be a good, supportive husband, is still here with me. Moreover, I've actually found a fair bit of excitement in the prospect of building a new life for myself and discovering who I want to be now that I've finally let go of my rigid adherence to the vows I took almost two decades ago.

Grey divorce is a Hell of a drug.

In sharp contrast to my own attitude, my wife regularly texts me with her own emotional struggles, crying herself to sleep, feeling like life isn't worth living, etc. etc., and I feel badly for her, even as I recognize that she has consistently chosen for herself the prison in which she currently abides. Still, here is the source of guilt and obligation, my old role as emotional caretaker that still wants to help and be supportive, even as the wiser parts of my brain intercede with the knowledge that the best thing I can do is maintain enough distance to let her work her feelings out for herself. I know these things to be true, and yet I can't help but feel guilty for growing enough to have accepted that my marriage was dead, to have grown enough to learn to be comfortable in my own skin.

I'm not the one that said I wanted a divorce in the first place. I'm not the one that said of my vows, "I meant them when I said them." I'm too damned stubborn autistic for that.

The particulars of our divorce have been finalized and notarized, we've agreed to the division of assets, and we are both reasonably content with our choices. All that's left for us to do is wait for our court date, when a judge will make everything official. Then, we'll be legally free to go our separate ways and live our own lives. What once seemed like an insurmountable obstacle now just seems like a good, challenging hike, even though I have not one, but several different elephants to eat one bite at a time, the largest current one the almost two decades worth of cruft that I've accumulated in our home and need to clear out. My most prized possessions that won't fit into my new lifestyle, like my home theater system, will probably go into storage, but I'm going to try my best to practice Swedish Death Cleaning and let go of anything and everything that isn't essential to me or prized enough that my younger siblings would like them, and I know that's going to be a slog.

At this stage of the game, it seems my life is being most enriched not by what it contains, but by what I can remove from it.

Despite my age, this is the first time in my adult life that I've lived on my own and truly enjoyed it for its own sake. The other two times I was following the motto of, "fake it until you make it," and while I did my best, my emotional make-up was still far too close to the dynamics I learned in childhood, namely that I needed to be a part-time caretaker for my mother's sometimes-volatile emotions. That dynamic was so ingrained in my own emotional make-up that I didn't feel complete without having a partner in my life to nurture and care for, and the lesson life has consistently been teaching me as a result is that there is a boundary at which nurturing becomes caretaking, and another boundary that separates caretaking from enabling another's bad behavior, and that my idea of nurturing is far into the enabling spectrum by default.

The question that I try to stop and ask myself when it comes to helping others now is, "am I setting myself on fire to keep this person warm?"

And the beauty of that powerful question is that it helps me to stay the worst of my behaviors, the ones that are popularly called codependent. It helps me find better choices, and as a result I'm better positioned than ever before to take care of myself first, to meet my own needs, and to live a life I want to live for myself without feeling a deep, aching need for another to live that life by my side. I still love and cherish my romantic streak, but freed from the bonds of the expectations of a relationship, I can and do find romance in many of life's small, simple pleasures, like the food I eat, the apartment that I'm renting, this beautiful treetop deck that I like to enjoy, and the unique flavor of my current batch of coffee. My next batch is an Ethiopian bean, and one that looks promising, though an oversight in my roasting process meant that the roaster glitched out several times due to overheating, leading to a significantly longer than usual roast time as the temperature dipped with each glitch. I'm interested to see how it turns out, wondering if it won't be up to par, as my general rule of thumb with my roaster is that it does best with hot, speedy roasts, or if perhaps those glitches will lead to a happy little accident of flavor that I might not otherwise have had from my coffee. Time will tell, and I expect to be tasting my first cup this Sunday.

As strange as an earlier version of me would have found this, despite the challenges and the inevitable problems and complications, for the first time since childhood, I find that all is well in my life and that I am generally pleased and often happy.

Good post. I'm pleased that you are pleased. :)

Thank you kindly, I appreciate it!

This was beautifully written and I'm glad you're in a good headspace. Wishing you all the happiness you obviously deserve.

Thank you, that's high praise coming from a writer such as yourself, and I appreciate it, and the well wishes!

Any guides or advice for attending academic conferences? I'm a late bloomer in that regard so I haven't gone to a "real" conference before - nothing national or with much significance. I know, generally, that you go and listen to talks and "network", but that's far from a complete understanding. I feel like social norms in academia are so opaque. I don't want to be clueless upon arrival.

As tempting as it is to socialize with the people you know at a conference (fellow attendees from your organization, most likely), I'd recommend you at least make an effort to talk to someone new (daily?). It'll vary based on field, but "what is your research interest?" or "are you presenting? Tell me about your topic" are pretty evergreen. Some conferences provide meals, which I've found to be a good time for this. I'd expect many/most of these attempts to go nowhere (maybe they're a vendor of something you don't need), but the practice of talking about it and making connections is useful, and sometimes you learn something or meet someone interesting. If you want to be particularly savvy, find a paper/presentation that sounds interesting to you and try to chat with the specific author/speaker.

You’re not presenting a session? You don’t have to do anything. They probably have an app to select attendance, just sit and digest, while digesting the food. You can hide in the hotel room between sessions if you want.

Yes, this approach is a possibility if you are attending a conference to tick a box.

I'd advise against it if you want to succeed in academia, however. Take the following with a caveat that it comes from someone who failed at that game.

Theoretically / in the mythic past, the point was to hear about new ideas and all the minor details that won't get published in the journals or before it is published, and made your own work "known", avoid getting insular as due to talking about your ideas to people you already know, and perhaps find someone who works on something you can collaborate with. In practice / in recent decades, the feeling I got was much less collegial and more mercenary and superficial: many people lie a little bit in order to advertise their work if they can get away with it, because every contact you make is a possibility of your work getting cited. Everyone, even the less scrupulous, is there to find potential co-authors or people to organize a workshop with (CV padding) or job opportunities (people to send your CV to, if you ever need to) or because someone ordered them to be there (clueless CV padding). (Some might be there to try to get something out of presentations, but whenever I did so, I felt it was a losers game and inefficient use of time. Successful ones spent their time social butterflying through them.) Manners and presentation-wise, in general, you want to make a good impression as in any other social event.

The Motte informs me that high-grade LLMs can increasingly do serious scientific work these days, so the social proof aspect of the insular ivory tower social club is going to be more important.

I hate my corporate day-job but I hate it less than academia. On the other hand, I hate the regular "corporate" networking, too, because I don't understand it properly, and it isn't that different either.

Today is one of those days where I wonder if I should be in some sort of counseling. And then I wonder what the point would be since the only truly actionable advice would be "find a new line of work."

I have been a public defender long enough that I now mostly have murder cases and sex cases (plus supervisory duties). My rural area is thankfully low on murders, but not so low on sex cases. It is generally possible to have semi-normal conversations with murder clients. It is almost impossible to do so with a 40yo man accused of having sex with a 13yo girl. Or a 30yo man accused of molesting his 8yo step-daughter. Or a 70yo man accused of molesting every child in the neighborhood. Or the pick-an-age man who has collected TB of CSAM, some of which is so appalling that just reading the description (much less having to actually see the videos) is something straight from the torment nexus.

Even for someone jaded by years of this work, it is wearing to hear the delusional and horrifying things they say. Some of them don't see anything wrong with what they've done, and some are even proud of it. And of course, if they're confessing to past actions they haven't been charged with, that's confidential information that goes to the grave with me. So they finally get to unburden themselves (or brag) and I can do nothing with it except store it away in my elephant's memory (I am not Funes the Memorious, but I remember far too much).

So there are days like today where I had custody visits with a number of my clients and it would be great if I could somehow memory wipe my time at work.

I second (seventh?) finding someone professionally equipped to talk to. Humans aren't built to handle that kind of thing alone. It's about getting out of your own head at least as much as any practical advice.

I've done some forensic work and my practice setting gets me more exposure even when I'm working on civilian units.

It is okay to be burnt out by what you hearing.

It is also okay to not be burnt out. Sometimes people find something not triggering - don't feel guilty if certain types of crimes or criminals don't bother you.

Therapy is completely reasonable, the formal, big T-Trauma includes exposure to bad shit in certain vulnerable populations (medical staff, police, etc.). That's not quite you but what you are working with gets you damn close. Trauma... can be bad. I don't know if they do video visits but you can find therapists who specialize in high achieving individuals with a need for sensitivity due to their profession.

The natural arc in healthcare for people working with forensic patients is to eventual leave and stop. Some people don't have the temperament or just lose it because they've seen too much.

I know that's not ideal for you because of location but life is too short to be miserable. If it's what you need, that's what you need.

For me I hold onto the wins - people being jammed up, people who try and improve, people who are upfront and polite, you can pick out good bits and mentally focus on that to fuzz over the bad stuff.

Working deeply with the American criminal population is to some extent like being a veteran. People who haven't gone through it just don't understand.

I hope you find your balance.

Go to therapy. I used to work a similarly demanding job with a severely mentally ill clientele. The things I experienced weighed on me terribly and friends can only offer support to a certain extent. After a certain point, I almost felt like I was doing harm by telling them these horrible stories that they were not equipped to process or understand. A therapist will listen and listen and listen, and probably offer you at least a few helpful tidbits. Consider seeing one with a specialty in meaning-making or depth work, but I always say the best therapist is the one that is cheap and accessible enough that you will actually go to sessions. Best of luck.

I'm legitimately curious about how attorney-client privilege here interacts with therapist-client privilege.

After a certain point, I almost felt like I was doing harm by telling them these horrible stories that they were not equipped to process or understand.

Aside from my other PD friends who deal with the same issues at work, I don't share what I experience at work with friends or family. As you note, they are not equipped to hear this stuff.

Jesus, man. I don't envy you on any of that.

It sure does reinforce my wish that public defenders like you got more cultural respect, though. What you're doing is incredibly necessary for a functioning society, and I'm glad that you've been willing to do it for as long as you have.

It sure does reinforce my wish that public defenders like you got more cultural respect, though.

It's a good thing I get paid so much to make up for that lack of cultural respect... oh wait.

I don't expect much cultural respect from Red Tribers, but the decrease in cultural respect in the last 5ish years from the NPR liberal set is vaguely annoying.

According to Gallup, only 20 percent of USAians view lawyers as having above-average "honesty and ethical standards", vs. 7 percent for members of Congress, 37 percent for police officers, and 57 percent for doctors. And, according to Ipsos, only 31 percent of people globally view lawyers in their respective countries as "trustworthy", vs. 15 percent for politicians, 38 percent for police officers, and 58 percent for doctors. But are perceived "honesty and ethical standards" and "trustworthiness" the same thing as "cultural respect"? I feel doubtful. IMO, cultural respect is more like "are lawyers cool?" than "are lawyers trustworthy?".

"The Enlightenment Is Bad Actually (because I've forgotten 'community justice' just means the town lynching anyone who consensus has social guilt)" is intolerably annoying.

Anakin: I'm in favor of community policing.

(filling the other panels left as an exercise to the reader)

I imagine counseling is available gratis as part of your work? Which may be shit tier counseling, it's always a diceroll, but might be worth it. I can't imagine the shit you deal with, almost as bad as cops. Worse, in a way.

Go to therapy. Touchy feely bullshit aside, just the opportunity to talk to someone who is good at listening and will be discreet about things is often worth the money. This also describes friends, but I'm not sure even I have a ton of friends who would listen to me vent about things along those lines for as long as it takes for catharsis.

Alternatively, I second the questions about whether you can switch to a less... visceral branch of law.

I just fucking know that if I had opted for law, I'd have turned to drink. Sorry you're going through this.

This also describes friends, but I'm not sure even I have a ton of friends who would listen to me vent about things along those lines for as long as it takes for catharsis.

As mentioned in another reply, I only vent about these things to PD friends. I don't tell friends and family about work, and even my wife is occasionally surprised at things I do at work (like the amount of social work and mitigation gathering and stuff that doesn't seem like legal work at all) because I really, really don't talk about it.

Alternatively, I second the questions about whether you can switch to a less... visceral branch of law.

Not without relocating.

I just fucking know that if I had opted for law, I'd have turned to drink.

I don't even have that, as even mild drinking (like a glass of wine with dinner and then an after-dinner cocktail with friends) started to give me hangovers that wrecked the next day, so I'm a boring sober guy who doesn't even have stories of past alcoholic excess to go with it.

Well, you could just flame out and strangle one or two of your clients to death. Or write a tell-all book on all of them, consequences be damned. Yes that would very definitely end your career and your life as you know it.

Would you consider another branch of Law or are you burned out from the whole thing?

Would you consider another branch of Law or are you burned out from the whole thing?

I would consider it, but as I live in a rural area (it's debatable whether @birb_cromble or I live more of a country mouse life), the options here are slim to none. I'd have to move to a city, which would bring all the negatives associated with that.

Was the job rewarding before you reached this level of seniority?

It's been a pleasure watching the fresh batch of baby doctors arrive on the ward, all wet behind the ears, lanyards tight around their throats. It makes me feel nostalgic, protective, and very old, all at once.

My colleagues before this lot were excellent, so the bar was set high. You can absolutely tell the new ones are new, but they compensate for the gaps with genuine diligence and a willingness to learn, which is all I can really ask.

Although "gaps in knowledge" is the wrong phrase. Talk to them for five minutes and the knowledge is plainly there, filed and indexed and ready to be recited. What makes an experienced clinician is the intuition about which parts of it apply to the person in front of you. Chess grandmasters famously don't calculate more moves than amateurs; they just see the board in chunks, and the bad moves never make it to conscious consideration in the first place. Medicine is like that, except the board is a 78-year-old with three comorbidities who has stopped taking one of her medications and hasn't mentioned which.

It's one thing to know the drugs and the diseases cold. It's another beast entirely to have a messy, inconvenient human in front of you, and that description covers the other doctors as fully as it covers the patients. Eventually, through sheer exposure, observation and practice, you just know. The relevant information stops requiring a search through your head, or a panicked Google in the loo (I am not above this). You build up what I can only describe as a mental cache, log(n) for the things that matter. Inconsistencies start to make you itch before you can articulate why.

Then there's the tacit stuff, none of which appears in any curriculum. How to refer to General Surgery without being swatted away. The exact words that make a busy Med Reg give a damn. Tactical phrasing that gets an urgent CT head done urgently rather than eventually. Presenting a patient so it parses for a doctor as exhausted as you are, who lacks the benefit of having spent the last four hours with them. Shortcuts through the hospital. Where to liberate your fair share of patient coffee, the single perk of the job. How to comfort the disturbed and disturb the comfortable, when clinically indicated. Which consultant will cheerfully field the silliest question, and which one will not suffer fools. The importance of booking annual leave early, so there is something to live for that isn't an ARCP. Getting along with your colleagues, because the NHS is a harsh mistress who will grind you down, and collegiality is a slow, reliable form of karma that they will be drawing on regularly. And, in due course, a tolerance for my worst puns.

I've been rather delighted by the FY1s and their impostor syndrome, which has a prevalence I estimate at 100%, give or take 0. They do their best to hide it, and you can always tell. I say that the shoe does fit, and eventually they'll stop noticing the blisters. They're fresh out of med school, and suddenly here is a human being who might die if you sneeze at them wrong.

Catch.

The most poignant case was the new core trainee. Lovely girl, fretting that she didn't know a thing. I told her, firmly, that if she knew everything already she'd be wildly overqualified, or at minimum a Senior Registrar. You're here to train, miss. It's in the name. You'll be fine.

On day one I told them that stupid questions do exist, and that I was issuing everyone a month of exemptions. The exemptions have been used. Expired ones remain welcome, because God knows I still ask colleagues, sotto voce, things I very much hope nobody senior overhears.

Sigh. I was there once, permanently braced for the moment someone worked out that I had no idea what I was doing. You pick up a few tricks, and hopefully avoid killing anyone en route. I think I've become the sort of senior I wanted when I started. Visibly stressed, clearly overworked, but always willing to make time for those need mine more than I do. I've certainly known worse.

As Black Wednesdays go, last week was far from the worst.

even if i bypass many of such posts, it is good to see this being done here regularly (as do many other posters). Not everything has to be for the keeps and polished and shiny.

Dude, get a blog. Or a diary. Or a journal. Or literally anything other than dumping random vignettes about your life in the latest weekly thread. How is this not a violation of the rules?

What makes it iffy to me is SMH's admitted use of LLMs for writing. Yes I know they're supposedly used only as editing tools, not as generators, but still - this prolific blogposting with the shadow of slop hanging over it feels weird. Like it's only one step removed from things we really don't want here.

No offense intended, @self_made_human.

In smh's defense, in practice "Wellness Wednesday" is the "Weblog Roundup" thread. Better have it here than elsewhere.

Please, do show me the rule violated. Preferably with quotes. I do have a blog.

Blog link

I enjoy reading these, and they're not unrelated to the thread topic. It's not like the Hock guy repeating the same thing over and over.

I like reading those from time to time, what's the problem?

Second this. I enjoy reading it when I'm in the mood, and if I'm not, I can just scroll past it, not a problem.

I’m drinking more water.

Reduced nasal respiratory capacity -- aka I'm noticing more trouble breathing through my nose over the past several months/year. Short of seeing a specialist (a bother), anything that can be done about this?

I got surgery for that. Other than also requiring a constant treatment of beclorhinol to keep the effects, it worked.

Alas, this too required seeing a specialist, which was a multi-year bother.

Without knowing a cause simply attacking a symptom such as this is possibly very counterproductive. Of course seeing a specialist is a pain. Doing things that are a pain is part of adulthood. Add my voice to those suggesting you consult a specialist. Even with a doctor looking at it you're also not guaranteed to get the proper diagnosis immediately, but you've a better chance with someone actually looking at you than with listening to randos online.

I started irrigating, my nose a few years ago using those saline rinse kits.worth a try, it’s something which has at least improved my quality of life.

I recommend seeing a doctor. You might have a deviated nasal septum, could be inflamed sinuses or low grade allergies, you might have nasal polyps, it might actually be an issue further downstream. But short of someone actually taking a look inside, what do you really expect anyone to suggest?

I figured there was a non-zero chance it'd be a "this is normal as people get older; here's XYZ that tends to help." But I do appreciate the advice.

A lot of things are "normal" with aging. Like heart attacks, and cancer, unfortunately. You're going to lose lung capacity with age, but finding it more difficult to breathe through your nose? I'd find that worth at least a mirror and a light even if it was someone genuinely elderly reporting.

See a specialist. It's a bother, but it's worth it. Also, when was the last time you took ibuprofen or another NSAID?

Flonase is a pretty good stopgap fix. The only thing that worked for me long-term was a long series of allergy shots.

The pain in my butt is still there. I switched to machines to keep my glutes out of my quad and hamstring work.

UPD: I can bench press 0.95x times my bodyweight four times. But not without spraining my shoulder, it turns out. Fuck.

The pain in my butt is still there.

This thread is going to start getting weirder as we grow older, won't it?

Yes. So very, very yes.

New Year's resolution check-in:

  • Went to the gym three times last week and again yesterday evening. I can deadlift 1.62x my bodyweight, squat 1.26x and bench press 0.71x.
  • Have not consumed any pornography since waking up on January 1st.

How goes it @self_made_human, @thejdizzler, @birb_cromble, @ThomasdelVasto and @falling-star?

I finally quit my job. There was just no hope of the business making it. Bumming around now. Think I should be studying for programming interviews.

Been trying to take care of my appearance and act like nothing bothers me. When I pull it off it's surreal how many strangers start talking to me in public and how nice to me people get. When I slip even for a second minute I become what feels like completely invisible. I really wish I understood this vibe management stuff better.

Got sick, lost a few pounds. Better again and going to the gym again. I feel like I've been gaining and losing the same weight repeatedly. Most food seems pretty unappetizing most of the time to me. I have been making smoothies with protein powder every day, so hopefully that starts adding up.

My resolution was to track calories, which I did for maybe a few weeks. I think think I'll order a food scale and actually try again now.

It's going good!!!!! Kind of. Idk I ended a long relationship / engagement and has been a bit of a mess but still. good.

I’m sorry to hear that, but I hope it’s for the best. Were you having relationship problems or just had different goals?

Relationship problems for a loooong time that she basically refused to work on.

It can be hard to see at the time but being single is vastly better than being with the wrong woman.

Hope you’re doing okay man. Sorry to hear about the relationship end!

Sorry to hear about your engagement. Hope you're doing okay.

  1. Work. Going to take a postdoc job here in Baltimore next year to give myself a bit more experience working with bacteria to pivot to industry after.
  2. Fitness. Workouts are very up and down depending on the weather, but I hit 60 miles last week and had a great long run. 9 weeks until chicago. Weekly hours: 8.1 running.
  3. Intellectual stuff: Now that I'm pretty much definitely not moving to Germany, I can really focus on Spanish. Wrote a blog post last week on my 6 years of Anki usage that got some traction. Spanish Immersion hours last week: 10.5. Blog posts this month: 1
  4. Finances: seems like the roommate isn't coming until the end of this month, so finances will continue to bad this month, especially since I bought two new pairs of running shoes ($350) and train tickets to Boston Labor Day weekend ($400). Seems like I'm going to be way over budget this month. Monthly spending so far: 2988.
  5. Dating. Nothing.
  6. Tarot. No session this week
  7. Socializing: Ran with my friend Monday morning and had a board game night with my lab yesterday.
  8. Screen time: 1.4 hours. That's more like it
  9. Meditation: 5 minutes 3x last week. Would like to make this more of a priority.

Spending is $3,956.81 lower than the same day last year. The contractor keeps getting cock-blocked by the weather, so my progress still looks good for now.

Ungodly levels of stress, but better overall. Managed some exercise.

I've continued to get good feedback from work, and my relationship with my boss is back to cordial. I've got a presentation tomorrow, and I asked him for his input. He was very pleased with the choice of case, and said he'd defend me from any serious pimping if the other seniors had had their cereal shat in. What more can I ask for?

As of this morning, my weight is down by about 6kg from thirty days ago. Long may it continue.

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