• 2 Posts
  • 59 Comments
Joined 3 years ago
cake
Cake day: June 16th, 2023

help-circle
  • The Instagram is private and me sharing is for group of people that have shown concern when I do not contact.

    It is proof I am getting outside and doing something

    Because my normal pattern of behaviour is to close myself off and isolate as I feel “insert negative emotion”

    I want social connection because I am starved of it, so I am sharing it in a “safe” environment provides a means to get a social need met- which I have not been doing, hold myself accountable to my actions while having social pressure to keep doing it and doing something that improves my overall health

    On the oversharing thing, yes I am very guilty of that, but just posting pictures of where I walked and milestones is, I feel, a healthier alternative to how I usually react which is either too much or nothing at all.


  • Thank you for the offer

    I am currently trying something for myself seeing as my options are limited.

    Basically I am walking - target, for now, is 5 KM a day with a goal of 25 KM a week and then post on a weekly schedule to act as a cataloguing tool in conjunction with social media to reaffirm a feeling of social connection.

    It isn’t perfect but I am trying something to try and work on the the deep self-hatred, self-shame, loneliness, etc.

    I feel by doing something that works the energy out and acts as proof to validate that I am not alone, especially when a few people I have on the social media acknowledge it - small victories.

    I am also hoping that social pressure will help to motivate me to not stop and can hit a few birds with a stone throw - so to speak.


  • Your daugther is very lucky to have you, to show care and support and try and build her up to be able to handle the harsh world.

    I want to change, I really do and it feels so hopeless to keep trying and being knocked down time and again, it feels like it would be easier to just end it and then everything would stop.

    This is like a thing in general that I am tired of struggling alone and not being able to find “instrumental characters” to show me a different path. Every path I have tried to take leads me to failure and those failures somehow get bigger and more painful as I struggle to move forward which ends up just making things worse because of my poor emotional upbringing cascading with the results of having that compound with trying, but then realising it was not enough and thinking it will never be enough.

    I am carrying all this with me, all these things with me and it is ruining my life and robbing me of being a better person.

    It is decades of unresolved and untreated misalignments sparking off and making things worse. The myriad intertangled and almost “cancer-like” buildup of things that is a overwhelming burden of carrying something no one knows what it is and feeling “like what is wrong with me, why can’t I just do this thing” and I must just carry this burden on my own, I am expected to be this “pillar of strength” when it feels like my strength is spent and I am tired of trying and consistently failing.


  • Thank you for your reply

    I wish to say that my reply is not to demean or invalidate what works for you and has led to you finding results that have been met with success and just a realisation that I just need to accept the situation for what it is.

    Additionally, not this group but another I tried to seek assistance with in a different environment, but it is something of a sore spot for me to mention because I have mentioned my financial difficulties and how it is hamstringing my healing process. I wish to say that I am not asking for financial support. It felt demoralising to want to air the frustration of how difficult it is to get the help I need and not be able to afford the means to get it.

    I understand that people have their own difficulties in life and it is hard and answers cannot be always be found, but the feeling that it gets treated like I am begging for financial gain, for someone to “save me” with a swipe of a transaction really felt insulting and I wish to iterate that I am not asking for financial assistance.


    I tried to plan trying again to go the hospital and endure what I would after breaking away from feeling how my treatment was not taken seriously.

    Currently with my finances, I cannot afford it, I worked it out and at most I can afford 3 trips

    • So making an appointment to get clearance for an appointment with the mental health services (getting a proof of requiring attention)
    • Then an appointment for assessment
    • Then an appointment with a psychologist to then run the tests for assessment
    • Then come back to go to get answers for assessment and being assigned an diagnosis

    That is not taking into account if they drag their feet again and waste my time and what I assume above is the best case scenario, which is usually not the case - even if it might be easier or harder than what I imagine.

    Then if I want to apply for a grant - which should be able to at the very least help alleviate some pressure and be able to pay for transport costs

    This will require and hinge on the hospital actually giving me my diagnosis paperwork and not decide that meds is all I need like the last time I tried to get help. I can be able to get the necessary documents sorted with it all hinging on whether the hospital wastes my time again or not within the 3 trips I can afford.

    Currently it is not feasible to get the support that I want - I will need to wait for family to gift me money over my birthday or Christmas time to afford this process. The house is somewhat existing on the charity of family to keep it above the point of uncomfortable struggle.

    I have to just accept the fact that I just cannot afford it, right now.

    The only thing I can do is try to “self-medicate” and unfortunately that is met with mixed results, because I do not have the luxury of much choice. Best I was able do recently is go for an hour long walk and adding music to it the routine. This is to stave off the unbearable inner voice that accompanies me while walking, only thing I need to do now is try and build some consistency with it.

    There are other things I wish to try more forward with but there is a lack of self-confidence and I guess planning to be able to where I want to be.

    I have tried to cut back on sugars - have coffee with 1 sugar at most twice a day, with a rare exception of 3 times, only drink water with the occasional sugary drink that the family shares once week.

    Evening meals are alternating between chicken and meat with variation with potatoes, vegetables or some form of refined product , but I do admit there is a lot gluten (bread, processed foods because cheap), milk, refined sugars in bread and most likely seed oils (used for cooking, in food additive products ) in the way the food is prepared and served.

    Thank you for the suggestion though


  • I mean only one side of the family is the benefactor, but they are too far away to offer more support than trying to keep the things above water.

    But I do get the point, even if they are far apart they still put some effort to help and I should see that as a positive that they are offering said support, regardless of how small it is.

    That doesn’t discredit your experiences, it just I think a part of me has given up as it feels like the more progress i make the more pain and trauma i seem to attract.

    Being silent in my mind is torturous as there is a lot of these many small and deeply intertwined emotions and traumas and I am surrounded by and living in. The “voices” are so persistent that even if I calm them that unless I get to understanding and healing them, it is just too much to process. I can force it for a time, but that is like tying a knot in a hose with running water.

    It is bad because the moments I feel better about myself, I end up doing something that destroys all the progress. It feels like I am sabotaging myself everyime I think I am ready but reality finds a way to drag me back down.

    It is hard to get away when I cannot, to do so requires that which I feel incapable of grasping as it keeps falling through my fingers from my skills that feel inadequate.

    I try and fail and it is on repeat and this really drains me because I wish I had someone around to just get through to me when I falter to keep me going forward. Like someone to help me break through that wall I keep getting stuck at because every time I hit it I can’t break through clearly and I start at square 1 again.

    It feels too hard for me to maintain on my own as I cannot trust myself to make the right choice, especially when I process and see where the wrong choices were taken.


  • There is a part of me that feels a need to explain my thinking in regards to feeling do negative about work prospects, so I will spoiler it for those that are interested to look at their own discretion.

    spoiler

    I know I speak about unemployment but the focus is in on getting the youth employed and am no longer within that bracket

    Then this is the population break down with jobs being given to the majority

    Then you have then take into consideration that women and younger adults are again taken into consideration as a priority.

    That a lot of the male-based “white” jobs are taken

    Which then leads into the how small of a percentage I feel I have to get a job without some form of knowing someone who knows someone.

    And then consider how if I can get a job, that it will be fill a quota on the lower end of the spectrum as all the “quality” white-assigned jobs are already taken by people that are entrenched or had connections to be in the position after proving their value.

    So that is where my conclusion comes from where I say I need to be either extremely competent or rely on nepotism.

    Or alternatively, be self-employed (which is another monster that must be slain)

    If the images do not come through, then

    There is an:

    • employment rate of 40.70 %
    • Labour force participation rate of 59.70%
    • Unemployment rate of 31.90 %
    • Youth Unemployment rate of 58.50 %

    The population demographic is

    African : 81.4% Caucasian: 7.3% for relevancy on topic


  • Thank you for the reply

    Yeah the strong sense of justice thing i get because I have been in the situations where I feel angry at it and is almost character defining

    I don’t know if that is a result of childhood trauma mixing with later life trauma and from that just becoming a state of existence

    I like that aspect of being able to talk, but unfortunately the person who I could talk to for hours was an ex, and that is messy because there are still feelings there and because of that I cannot communicate with them when they are hopping between relationships

    Otherwise, people just shut down, make assumptions or move away.

    So I have just been very avoidant and keep everything in because when I share a lot of the time it is met with silence or disinterest.

    I don’t know if I mentioned it before but in the country where I live there is about 33% unemployment which enforce quotas require race and gender based distribution. Unfortunately by legal definitions, I am in the least desirable demographic.

    Without a form of nepotism, one has to be, jn my case, generally exceptional to make it past such filters and even then expect to be stuck at lower end of the ladder because the upper end has its quotas already filled.

    It is just a fact of life here that connections equal job mobility or one must start one’s own income stream.

    If not, then sucks to suck.

    The thing that worked the longest, but collapsed was a regime of

    -exercise -read a book -Journaling -meditation -affirmations -mindfulness -self-care

    But without support to help me keep going when times are tough I just backslide

    From that, I disliked the reading as it felt forced and the Journaling ended up being something I would be stuck ruminating on and that felt unhealthy

    Affirmations and mindfulness, I guess helped but felt fake and forced

    Meditation was alright when in the right headspace but generally became annoying

    Exercise was probably the most positive,but my room is too small now to really do the regiment I was doing and my headspace is really messed up that I keep myself locked in a room because I rationalize no reason to leave it - which I is wrong but struggle to cognitively understand why my being refuses to just go out - probably some deep seeded traumas I have not got around to.

    Self care is inconsistent


  • Hi

    I get that and thank you for the advice

    I am just so tired of suffering and doing so alone

    It is something that I have had to deal with since childhood and I am not asking for pity or sympathy, It is just I am so done with life and not knowing what to do.

    I am tired of being strong on my own and not having the strength to be better for myself. I wish I had it, but I don’t.

    The proper path is always out of reach because I have no support, no one to give me a hand, not even my own parents and thus I can rely on no one for help and I get that I need to find my own way, but I have been trying to do so for so long and I think a part of me has given up and is tired of trying and getting nowhere.

    I am so tired of reaching out, really trying and then getting subpar results because I cannot afford the type of stuff that I need to do. I am living off of someone else’s charity and this illusion is going to break eventually and what is going to happen, scares me so much. It feels too much for me.

    I know nothing is easy, but damn, it so hard to continue living when near everything thing I try to do continuously results in some form of failure or I get left behind with something that leaves me bitter.

    It is not easy, and I don’t expect answers but I wish I was a better person to be able to find a way out of this constant suffering.


  • Thank you for your advice

    Although I find it difficult to work on most of the suggestions put forward I can at least work on some of them at least - take small steps

    I have tried some of the things you have mentioned before in the past, but I usually backslide because I have difficulty keeping it consistent, for at my best about 3 months, but that is because I did not have support to keep me going or something happened that disrupted it enough that threw me off my rhythm and then I fall into bad habits again

    I know in another group mention that a friend recommended me a church counselor for mental health counseling and although it is not perfect I do have an appointment in about 2 weeks.


  • It is just a lot of going through rejection, isolation and feeling like what I say doesn’t get taken seriously (in regards to when I went to the hospital - they stopped trying to diagnose and just started giving meds and I got very frustrated after 6 months of that and how they were stopped looking for the cause and decided that treating the brain chemicals was more important)

    I only recently got told I most likely have neural divergent patterns because usually people do not really bother to get to know me or I am manipulated by people thinking I am too soft.

    So basically I have like decades of built up issues because I don’t have a means to get it out of my system, so yeah it is like a stewing pot that is always too full and bubbles over when I try to “serve” up information - it can get messy. If anything I have gotten more coherent compared to how I used to be, was told I don’t need therapy, I need an exorcist before - from a normal person.

    Thank you for the advice.

    I do have a thing with video games and I can be very invested in shows that can make me emotional from tying a moment to a scene. I do try to get involved in groups, but unless it is small I get socially exhausted and then I have difficulty getting the motivation to get back into it.

    I tried to get a something in software dev (but after getting my diploma) realised that that kind of work environment is not a good fit because I am not a great at coding and felt stronger on the information systems side but lacked confidence and the ability to “stretch the truth” to even know that I am capable because of bad interviews (my part largely ) giving me the impression that I am not qualified for the role - I have been more open to the idea of the embellishment concept, but I haven’t had much luck to test it. I kind of abadoned that career path and try my hand and looking at TEFL but that is also an over-saturated market that I do not have experience in.

    I sort of like books, but it is something I really need to enjoy from the start and then I can “lock in”, chess I feel out of my depth in as I know it is a game that rewards large scale pattern knowledge and it is a bit too involved for me.



  • I find creating a role and working a self story into a character with role play elements can give enjoyment with the right type of motivation.

    I also like to put restrictions on myself or play something that I am not great as but still enjoy.

    So I guess I make my own motivation and that gives me the impetus to do a thing.

    I create my own dopamine channels through my own player agency, although finding those type of games is down to player choice or experience

    I think a nice game to explore

    Might fit criteria 2 a bit but:

    Outer Wilds, there is time pressure but it is always recommended to not spoil yourself and just discover the story on your own steam and allow yourself to figure things out on your own.


  • If it is video games

    I think do not force yourself to play

    Like there are games that I just take forever to be in a mood for - like I can have a certain game phase and I would watch something around it, read a bit about it.

    It is like how the big companies build hype, but you build your own hype and then when you get in the mood just try to immerse yourself in a session

    Don’t have to finish a game, just play( within reason) until you get your fill.

    Could focus on short intense session games, left 4 dead or slay the spire, so you can enjoy a session or two or if rpgs, depend on personal preferences, I like to come up with at least a theme around a character and really try to rp the role.

    If you don’t mind reading, games like disco elysium I found was one of those games that I had friction getting into until I stopped thinking too much about what I wanted to exactly play and just picked a role and stuck with it and it is one of those games that will show you different sides to it depending on your role play.

    Whatever you do, be careful of factorio if you value your time - there is a reason it is called cracktorio because it has a way to “hack” your brain into an efficiency mindset of always looking for more to create more and you loop this gameplay mindset of “the factory must grow”


  • I have only played the first chapter - old (out of 3, I believe)

    Was also a very engaging game, had a very coming of age theme to it with a combat system that seemed simple but starts to show its depth once abilities get unlocked and you start to chain it.

    I liked how the relationships felt more grounded and the story’s build up had, for me, more intrigue and mystery than most jrpgs

    Only complaint, more like criticism, is it is a nightmare for people that feel the need to complete everything or realise that the npcs have different dialogues over time and feel compelled to make sure that everything is done before moving on. That can be a positive or negative depending on player though.

    Despite the criticism, it did feel good to know I deserved and worked for the ending I got, even though I found out after I missed a few things


  • I would say depends on your preferences

    By today’s standards, old 7 gameplay, graphics and story will seem dated.

    I am unable to play the newer ones, but from what little I have seen it seems to “feel” better when you see and know characters from the original.

    I have played and finished old ff7 and if you don’t mind reading everything, some grinding unless you are going to for the secret stuff ( which is heavy grinding) it should be a “smooth” experience once you get to grips with the game systems, graphics and gameplay - and yeah, It can feel difficult in the old one to get into but I found the payoffs were engaging, had moments of emotional resonance and generally felt satisfied by the end - but that is because I allowed myself to be engaged with the game world.

    That is all up to personal taste, as I know there are games that have had a stronger effect on me, but I also understand why FF 7 is rated the way it is.



  • Build 42 unstable right now, is more single player until they iron out everything for a stable release.

    I would say if you don’t mind playing build 41 until they release build 42 stable - then short story long:

    I can be fun with friends, but if you want to play without having to worry about too much grind then it is best to play with sandbox settings and tweak gameplay towards what you and your friends find fun.

    The world can made persistent, but your individual character is unique and when they die you would have to respawn with a new character

    There are mods that do help with the starting out from scratch bit:

    https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2503622437&searchtext=journal - make a journal that stores a characters stats so you don’t have a grind a new character again)

    The sandbox settings are very flexible (and mods can make it even more so) and you can even play in a world without zombies if you wish


  • Firstly, I feel offended you reduced the giant mecha vs a dragon cinematic to robot vs a doll army :P

    Ff9 did the “all powerful god” but it is really a wtf out of no where momement that can feel jarring with the themes of the game - a ludonarrative narrative dissonance, unless I missed some obscure reference to it somewhere

    I would argue that ff6 wrote a less jarring “kill a god” fight:

    spoiler

    Although pulling ideas from christianity, it has a psychopathic clown ascend to godhood, shatter the world and sit a top his “heavenly throne” shooting god rays from the sky on a whim

    The fight then is a series of killing his “angels” before finally destroying him and shattering his “heaven”


  • That is a shame, I would have thought that she would have some measure of control after the events of the first game

    Especially, since the burden she was carrying was lifted.

    spoiler

    I guess she has a severe case of the “blessing” that she disassociates with reality regularly and is unable to discern what is real and what is not as she lives a life of what she thinks is real as truth.

    I guess I can see that happening without any form of medication or therapy and only having her own thoughts to live with after the traumatic events of her past


  • FF 8 Spoiler Response

    spoiler

    If I recall, Squall sees a defeated Ultimecia staggering and ready to pass her powers on before dying, but Edea stops him from finishing her off They sort of have a conversation and SeeD is mentioned and young Squall comes running to Edea

    Rinoa grew on me, at first hated the brattiness but over time she grew on me as a character who acts a blunt force determined to break Squall out of his shell. The Ragnarok scene and her becoming a sorceress locked her in as she matured and leaned on Squall for support in a reversal of her wanting to be his support and Squall being more “human”

    The real love story is Zell and Hot Dogs (oh, almost forgot, Pig-tail girl)

    Laguna and Raine was a lot more wholesome and mature with it not having any internal drama. The drama is more external elements leading to a more bitter sweet tale of Laguna accomplishing his mission but living with guilt of his failures


  • FF8 spoiler response

    spoiler

    Yeah, I agree especially with her being a tragic character her final lines sounds line someone desperate:

    “Recall a memory from your childhood. The sensations, emotions, the words from back then. Growing up means leaving something behind and throwing something away. Time will not wait, no matter how hard you hold onto it, it escapes you. And …”,

    especially considering how Ellone’s powers work

    I think it is repeated (at least once already) or she achieved some form of omnipotence with her time compression as her plans seem to have a definitive goal to them like she knows who to look for (Adel and Ellone) and what to do to achieve her ends. Edea (forgot her name) probably still had enough power to “guide” her a bit but ultimately she was overpowered most likely, until Ultimecia released her power to hop to the next one.

    Yeah, Squall could have finished that in a few ways - although, I guess seeing Ultimecia survive (especially after she implanted that final thought, in retrospect), his instincts probably didn’t want to take the chance of her time hopping again and wanted the time line to be prepared. Also he couldn’t kill an innocent person either and risk one of the orphans getting the power as Edea tells him

    The love story between Squall and Rinoa can be melodramatic, but it is done well enough with Rinoa peeling away the layers of edge off of Squall.

    Laguna and Raine though, I agree was a lot better and I think Raine understood the type of person Laguna was and supported him - her personality was like his in some ways. She probably saw Ellone as a daughter as well and knew how far he would go to protect her, which is why she probably kept her pregnancy quiet to not distract him on his quest to save their “daughter”.