A loosely moderated place to ask open-ended questions
If your post meets the following criteria, it's welcome here!
Looking for support?
Looking for a community?
~Icon~ ~by~ ~@Double_A@discuss.tchncs.de~
That property has more rights and protections than people do.
The value of human life, in reality, is much lower than I thought it would be.
Laws and rights are only as good as the people & mechanisms that enforce them. A piece of paper doesn't protect you, people do.
That people often prefer a comforting delusion over the truth, even if it hurts them in the long run.
you don't have to make a living from the thing you enjoy most in life, in fact it's sometimes better not to.
That I will never enjoy the taste of wine.
I figured out I would never like coffee in my teens, and had the same realization about beer in my 20s.
But it wasn't until this year, in my mid-thirties, that I finally accepted that I don't like the taste of wine and probably never will. After years of trying the full spectrum of wines, I had to admit that it wasn't the "notes" that were turning me off, nor was it a problem with the quality of the wine. It was the fundamental "wine-ness" that I disliked, the same as I don't like the "beer-ness" of beer or the "coffee-ness" of coffee.
I've never quite gotten into wine either. I like most stouts and porters. Bit anything too hopy in my bear and it's going in the sink. Shame with the whole IPA revolution going on. Other than that cider and cocktails are the only thing I really enjoy consuming. Everything from the sweet Swedish Briska to the most fermented fresh pressed apple cider goes down without much problem.
Not all rich people are smart, and not all smart people are rich. Seems kind of obvious to me now, but it took me a long time to comprehend this.
It's OK to only do what you KNOW you are capable of doing. Too many people hurt themselves trying to push themselves too hard, when they just aren't ready yet.
Dad was not lying on top of mum to squash her.
No matter how much 6yr old me was complaining after entering their room early one morning.
Probably would’ve been nice to know I was trans a few years younger but I started hormones at 20 as did a friend my age who came out at 16, so like it probably would’ve been less consequential than much.
The importance of studying. And related, calculus and how electricity works. Both would’ve saved me a lot of money to have learned 6 months earlier.
Also how to say no to someone trying to negotiate your boundaries and use your kindness to push you into a relationship. I should’ve walked away the second she said she wanted to negotiate my no and that she wasn’t going to give up on pursuing me. That situation fucked me up and wasn’t even the first time someone with insufficiently controlled bpd wound up pressuring me into romantic/sexual situations I wasn’t comfortable with by making it harder to say no than to give what they wanted.
That it's never too late!
Don't buy the cow if you're lactose intolerant.
Why buy the cow when you can get the milk for free
That in spite of doing my best to care for their mother as she slipped into the madness of depression and alzheimers before dieing last year, that they care about my sacrifice because no one other than me or my brother cared enough about her to help with her care(we did the best we could I know it wasnt enough but at least we were there for her)
But they get to keep her money after kicking us out of the house and selling everything she had so thats cool right?
Not too late but later than I should have:
And that being gay was bad. It was not conveyed well in our media, and our culture was full of negative connotations with non-heterosexuality. I feel you on this one. Bi people exist, and we're everywhere!
When someone is abusive or hurtful to you, 90% of the time it's not your fault. It's that there is something wrong or something broken in them. They are malfunctioning and it's necessary to understand that.
The other 10%.... Well, own that and fix your mistake.
But a very large majority of the time, it's them being broken and wrong.
Figuring out abusive relationships for me was hard because I knew friends with good intentions, and gave valid criticism but were absolutely brutal about it.
Now I very rarely associate with very insecure people. They are always looking to "prove" themselves, often by putting others down.
They can't just accept someone's accomplishment, they have to go "well actually you got help from so and so..." And always try to undermine your achievements. Extremely mentally exhausting people.
For me it’s been rough accepting that I’m absolute bpd bait. I struggle to hold boundaries and am happy to help people in need. Add in a trusting nature and yeah I’m still learning how not to get abused.
The things that don't kill you, do not always make you stronger, but leave you wounded forever.
When I was a little girl I thought that everything, all the abuse and neglect, it somehow made me... special. And I decided that one day I would write something that would make little girls like me feel less alone. And if I can't write that book...
...if I don't, that means that all the damage I got isn't good damage, it's just damage. I have gotten nothing out of it, and all those years I was miserable was for nothing. I could've been happy this whole time and written books about girl detectives and been cheerful and popular and had good parents, is that what you're saying? What was it all for? - Diane Nguyen, BoJack Horseman, S06E10, "Good Damage"
People just don't care about you that much, if you go into the street wearing nail polish as a a male presenting person no one will care if you don't act weird about it. Same thing for shaving your legs.
Family might care though, what helped me was understanding that I spend a few days per year with my family maximum, but I spend that whole time with myself. So who cares what they think be yourself.
This helped me start transitioning at 19
I don't want to transition. I am 100% male and this will not change, but I still wanna dress sometimes like a gothic queen. Will happen for Halloween.
But I still feel like people care. Even small changes on me get attention. I guess it depends if you learned lots of peoplr and friends in University or not.
I think when Learning new people, it might have an influence. But idk. I never tried it because I am afraid.
People will often take “I felt like it” or “I thought it looked cool” for an answer. Halloween crossdressing is normal, though yeah some people will wonder if you’re questioning your gender, it’s more because it’s a common safe way to express that and any concern is likely from a desire to help.
And for what it’s worth I’ve known many cis men who like nail polish. Especially as an expression of goth, punk, or emo aesthetics where adopting feminine expressions are seen as cool for guys to do.
No matter how hard you try, how loud you cry, some people will never change.
That there's a opensource version of reddit!!
Nah I feel like I hopped on right on time. When this first started out there wasn't too much content.
Dynamic programming. I should have just chased a check rather than trying to save the world
That I have moderately severe to severely severe ADHD and I'm on the autism spectrum.
Makes functioning as an adult quite difficult.
Knowing has helped me a bit, like "ok, I'm not a bad human, my brain is just weird"
I'm not sure it's ever too late to learn anything. Unless you are dead.
But I do wish I'd been able to feel ok about my body as a teenager, the anorexia was harmful to my bones & heart, so I guess technically I learned too late to value my body, or learned it too late to avoid damage anyway, though I'm pretty healthy overall now. I think almost all teenagers are uncomfortable with their looks in some way, at least they were back then.
I have elderly family that seem miserable because they never bother to learn or achieve anything since they are "too old" for it to matter.
They assume retirement is just lounging around all day until you die. They don't pursue hobbies, read books and are not very active since it "doesn't matter" .
I read somewhere that if you actually wanted to feel good when you were old, it took 3 hours of exercise every day (meaning physical activity, not 3 hours of weightlifting). Which made sense to me, and I figure if I'm able, that's what I'll do if ever lucky enough to retire. I don't have a spare 3 hours a day now but have increased my daily movement to get ready so it's not a shock, lol. So they could be depressed because of physical idleness.
But it seems hard to never learn anything, unless you are making a very intentional effort not to!
My grandpa likes to talk about how it’s when people stop doing things that they begin the downward spiral. He’s not doing the best at the moment himself but by the standards of a 90 year old he’s doing amazing.
Accomplishment and knowledge are their own rewards, aim for a high score in them
Your own happiness is more important that somebody else’s happiness.
Not to say you shouldn’t be nice or help people, or invest in other people’s growth.
But don’t do it to the detriment of your own.
Your high school diploma. Nobody ever asks for it. No job I have ever held has asked for proof that I completed high school which I didn't. My last job had a class they wanted me to take at a night school and that's when they realized I didn't have it after 7 years of competent, exceptional work, so they just shrugged and got me in there anyways
Shit, I was able to get my GED to get in to college, didn't complete, and get a job at one of the biggest tech companies on a prestigious project without completing either. But I was self taught and lived and breathed tech stuff to get there at 29 while the people with CS degrees were getting there at 22, so there's a downside. But it's just a piece of paper.