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I have a whole lot of things on my plate that I'm stressing over, and yet all my little insecurities keep bubbling back up anyway.

I came out to a friend the other day, and even though it went really well, deep down I feel like I've ruined it, and now it's just a slow familiar wait for everything to go wrong. Every single person I've ever told has eventually come to hate me. My own parents couldn't bring themselves to love me, how could anyone else?

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Seems like around most sane people coming out would not ruin a friendship. If it did, then fuck 'em, who needs a bigoted jerk in their life?

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Seems like around most sane people coming out would not ruin a friendship. If it did, then fuck 'em, who needs a bigoted jerk in their life?

 

Yeah, I have to remind myself all the time that people who actually judge me like I'm constantly afraid they're judging me are really awful and that I'm better without them, even if I also worry that I'm not. Nolite te bastardes carborundorum, tegan!

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Teg, you're awesome and everyone on these boards cares about you and what happens to you. 

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I have a whole lot of things on my plate that I'm stressing over, and yet all my little insecurities keep bubbling back up anyway.

I came out to a friend the other day, and even though it went really well, deep down I feel like I've ruined it, and now it's just a slow familiar wait for everything to go wrong. Every single person I've ever told has eventually come to hate me. My own parents couldn't bring themselves to love me, how could anyone else?

 

Really sorry, Tegan.

And I'm extra sorry that you feel like you've ruined the friendship by merely being honest. I can definitely relate to internalizing that kind of stuff, but if that friend bails on you, that's on them, not you.

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I went to the dentist today for a root canal. My fifth root canal, actually. On the same tooth!

 

I first got it done over a year ago, but they didn't get all of the nerve out so I still had feeling in it. My dentist had three more attempts at it before he eventually referred me to a dental hospital. I was originally supposed to have surgery where they pulled back my gum and drilled out the root of the tooth, but the surgeon decided he could do a better job than my crappy dentist and put me down for another root canal. At this point I'm just getting bored of them.

 

I did manage to sneak a wee selfie on the chair though, so it's all been worth it.

 

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I just put a security deposit down on my first solo apartment, and I'm freaking the fuck out about moving and money and living by myself.

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I just put a security deposit down on my first solo apartment, and I'm freaking the fuck out about moving and money and living by myself.

 

Moving sucks, start packing early, throw a bunch of shit out, and it might be a little easier. if you want to ball hard get some movers. Having your own place is awesome, and definitely worth the transition.

 

...and in my life...

 

My dog is sick, very sick. I'll spare the details. Girlfriend and I were up till 4 last night taking her in to a veterinary emergency clinic. At the end of the visit, we had to make a choice about what kind of care we wanted to give her. 2000 bucks for the deluxe hospitalization, 1000 for the basic hospitalization, or 300 for home care. That's not an easy choice to make at 4am. We took her home with a bunch of medicine. I took the day off to watch over her, she's not displaying the symptoms she was last night, but she is still super lethargic. I hope it all passes, that it's a sickness and not an internal problem. It's all quite upsetting.

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Sadly, $1000 for pet hospital (a night I assume) sounds somewhat reasonable compared to some of the prices I've heard. Still a lot of money to spend though.

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I'm very sorry to hear about your dog Spenny, I hope it improves today.

 

As a general piece of advice regarding pet health care (in the US at least), if you are in a city and generally find vets to be expensive, it can be worth checking around in small communities 15-30 minutes outside the city.  We changed vets after we moved to the country from town, and our new vet is generally about half the cost of our old vet, despite being only 20 minutes away.  I know our family in New York do this as well, as the vets in NYC are crazy expensive, and so for all non-emergency stuff, it's well worth the drive to schedule shots, checkups, etc., a little bit outside of town. 

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Thanks for the kind words. Part of the reasoning behind taking her home was not just to save money, but also if things did go further south, our regular neighbourhood vet would be opening at 8am. Then we would could get her treatment at a place that we're familiar with and is walking distance from our apartment, and probably cheaper than the emergency clinic.

 

Dog pro tip, if your dog is hesitant to drink, put a little chicken broth in with its water. This is keeping our little lady hydrated today.

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My boyfriend's family came up to Wellington to visit for the first time (we usually see them down South) and we had a nice day visiting Te Papa Museum and just hanging out and catching up which was cool.

At the museum though we went to see a free exhibition on Gallipolli featuring something like 2.5x life size dioramas of people from the war and they had hair on their arms and realistic looking skin and they were all designed by Weta Workshop.

What really struck me though was just how harrowing the exhibition was. Going in I was feeling really chirpy and within a few minutes of being there I lost my smile as I just became totally absorbed in the stories and realities of that terrible war. Y'know at some points the trenches were under 16ft across and the stairs to the main positions were caked in blood and ugh wow it was just so much horror (which feels weird to say since I feel I understand that war is horror I'm just not sure I've ever empathised this much with the experiences/realities of war). I've been to a fair few military exhibits but I've never been to one that went this far to humanise and ground the conflict through the accounts of the soldiers.

 

If anyone's interested in what war in Gallipoli was (may have been?) like for New Zealanders Lieutenant-Colonel William Malone (who has been described as having symbolised/lived the Kiwi experience of WWI) has an excellent diary entry of the first days of landing here.

 

Also here's a review of the exhibit with pictures of the dioramas: Glorification or commemoration; a moving, disorienting exhibition at Te Papa.

 

Anyway we're off to maybe the zoo, maybe another war museum (it'd be interesting to see how affecting their exhibits are), maybe to explore the rest of Te Papa (in 5 years I haven't had the time to explore beyond the first floor!).

But we are definitely going on a tour of Weta Workshop tomorrow afternoon which I'm reeeeally excited for. Then we're having a big dinner with (my) Mum, Ben, + his family, and I which'll be super cool.

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I've been to that exhibit, the size of the models had an impact on me I wouldn't have expected. The small details of each model being so intense sort of heightened the experience. Also did you look at that weird x-ray bullet damage physics simulator? 

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I've been to that exhibit, the size of the models had an impact on me I wouldn't have expected. The small details of each model being so intense sort of heightened the experience. Also did you look at that weird x-ray bullet damage physics simulator? 

 

Yeah it was ghastly. I didn't spend too much time with the simulator tbh -I'd already had my fill of that grisly impression of what the shrapnel shells could do from the text descriptions and the resin inlaid shell cross-section. The simulator itself reminded me of the 'kill cam' shots from the tank mode of War Thunder and the descriptions of the wounds left behind reminded me of playthroughs of Dwarf Fortress. It's one thing to read a combat description of DF but to actually have an injury report presented in the context of real life left me sickened.

 

Coming down from that exhibit I'm reflecting on the amount of pride part of my family has for having served in many of the wars and areas of conflict NZ has been involved in since The Boer Wars. I was already distanced from their pride because of NZ's role as a Dominion of Imperial Britain throughout much of that time and other reasons (the killing ones for starters). But I'm starting to question whether participating in a war should sooner be seen as a source of shame rather than pride because of the cost of dooming so many people to die for ideals that honestly were frequently dead on arrival. I can understand a "damned if we do, damned if we don't" mentality and the yearly celebration of the soldier's 'sacrifice' to attempt to make up for the 'sin' of sending them to war in the first place. But I can't quite come to grips with concepts of pride and glory stemming from war. Maybe a pride of a fashion from going through hell on earth so others don't have to. But I still think it should be tempered by remorse. Eh I don't know. Maybe I'm not giving those family members enough credit seeing as the older members have certainly experienced being affected by war more directly than I ever have.

 

I think for now I still support friends and family who choose to join the armed forces. I know many of them have been deployed as part of a civil disaster relief force in places like Samoa and Christchurch. Even when they haven't they've most commonly gone over to the Solomons and East Timor; states that as far as I know had fallen into strife and part of my ideals (and possibly ignorance?) see their deployments as helping to bring stability to stricken places.

 

----

 

I've been kicking around the idea of one day making a game that exists as a cross of Valiant Hearts, Darkest Dungeon, and Dwarf Fortress (not the violently detailed bits, the management and emotional states bits) and I think recapturing a part of my experiences from today will filter into that. I might end up re-framing the game around the civilian or non combat participants of war and how their interactions with the combat is affected by the ongoing war and their human interactions. I've been skimming "non violent mechanics in video games" discussions for a short while now and this might be a smart way of dealing with topics like war without (direct) player enacted violence.

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I graduated this week! I don't have much to say other than I was exhausted with education and I am so, so happy to be finished. So please forgive me for feeling incredibly self-satisfied about having a degree.

 

And because I'm Scottish, I dressed appropriately for the ceremony.

 

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Congrats Vasari!

 

I finally talked to my mom today about my depression and am scheduling a doctor's appointment for next week. I never told anyone other than my girlfriend because I tend to be mostly fine for a week or more, and then will have 3-4 days of being at my lowest. This has been consistent for 18 months now outside a few-month-period early last year where I felt terrible every day and only really left my room to go to work where I worked alone at night. No one really noticed other than my girlfriend because I am still functional at work and school (other than failing one class) and whenever I started to talk about it to my friends I would hide it in jokes and other stuff. 

 

I sort of realized a few weeks ago that even though I have been going to school, have a bunch of career things look good, and am travelling to Japan next month on an exchange program, day-to-day I do not feel better. I have constantly thought that it was something I had to change in my life, but I moved house, started going to school, and broke up (and got back together) with my girlfriend before realizing that there's actually something wrong with my brain and not everything else. 

 

Now I'm worried that I'm overblowing things or straight-up lying. When I feel good, I feel like the depressed days aren't real, and when I feel depressed, I feel like I've never had a good time in my life. I've been told that's normal, but who knows. During the last few weeks I have been staying up most nights and have had to call my girlfriend almost every night because I couldn't stop thinking about just giving up on everything. I did not plan on telling anyone but my mom asked me today while I was in a particularly rough mood and I finally decided not to just say I'm fine.

 

Turns out my brother went through a much rougher period of depression a few years ago (that I didn't really know about until now) so it seems like my parents know what the process is like. On one hand, I feel better now, but on the other hand it has brought a whole bunch more worries (not that I ever have trouble finding something to worry about). 

 

Sorry if this is weird since I've never really posted on here before. I have no one else to talk to about this other than my girlfriend and I just felt like writing a bunch of stuff down and putting it somewhere. I'm sure at least some of you have gone through something similar. 

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Congrats Vasari! Nice kilt. Nice sporran. ;)

 

 

 

Cestus, don't be concerned with posting on here! This thread is for talking about your life. Definitely don't be concerned that you're overstating the way you feel. You know what it feels like, and that's certainly not lying! I am glad you were able to tell your mom, and it sounds like she had an even-headed reaction.

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The guy I've been seeing was teasing me tonight about being nervous about being his parents -- it's not gonna be anything big, just an orchestrated, "Oh, fancy meeting you here!" but I'm still being weird about it because his parents only speak French, and I don't really speak any French.

In his teasing, he pointed out that even when I'm talking to him, I change the way I talk to use more words that have roots in vulgar Latin, and therefore are more likely to be French cognates? Or something? (We have different first languages and both do our best, but communicating complex ideas about things that neither of us are experts in can be tricky.) That was a weird thing to be told since I didn't realize it/don't think it's true, but he thinks it's sweet of me so ???????? I studied linguistics for a hot minute, but I don't think I know language well enough to do something like that subconsciously.

Also, I went to a drag show tonight. One of the visiting drag queens runs his own show not that far away from me, and was really supportive of my weird drag ideas, so I might actually get a chance to do drag some time!

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Fantastic day. Went to the Zoo, Weta Workshop (got to hold props from LoTR and guns from District 9, and saw the fully functional Halo Warthog that speeds up to 100km and can travel 50km sideways), then had a great dinner with our fam and blobbed and made plans.

Back to studies tomorrow; it's been a good three weeks off.

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I graduated this week! I don't have much to say other than I was exhausted with education and I am so, so happy to be finished. So please forgive me for feeling incredibly self-satisfied about having a degree.

 

And because I'm Scottish, I dressed appropriately for the ceremony.

 

attachicon.gifMeKilt.png

 

You're not Cardassian at all!

 

(But congrats!)

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Sorry if this is weird since I've never really posted on here before. I have no one else to talk to about this other than my girlfriend and I just felt like writing a bunch of stuff down and putting it somewhere. I'm sure at least some of you have gone through something similar. 

 

Please, feel free to post about this, it really is better to talk about it.  I'm on the tail end of coming out of a long period of depression.  I spent one and a half years really denying it was going on before finally going to get help.  It's taken about 6 months for me to feel like I'm close to being my old self.  I went on medication, something that terrified me, but was ultimately for the best.  The medication wasn't a cureall, by any mean.  But what I found is that it helped me avoid behaviors that were more likely exacerbate my depression (lack of sleep, overeating, obsessing about certain games) and helped me with getting back into good behaviors (better diet, exercise, more rounded leisure time activities, better work structure).  I think it was finding the strength and energy to work on those behaviors that really helped me improve, but before going on meds, working on any of those seemed like such giant obstacles.  I've backslid a few times, but it's been overall good progress.

 

So stick with it, this is something you can get past.  And if the first attempt at treatment doesn't seem to help, don't give up.  Not every drug or treatment plan works for everyone, it may take a few attempts before you find what works for you.

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Please, feel free to post about this, it really is better to talk about it.  I'm on the tail end of coming out of a long period of depression.  I spent one and a half years really denying it was going on before finally going to get help.  It's taken about 6 months for me to feel like I'm close to being my old self.  I went on medication, something that terrified me, but was ultimately for the best.  The medication wasn't a cureall, by any mean.  But what I found is that it helped me avoid behaviors that were more likely exacerbate my depression (lack of sleep, overeating, obsessing about certain games) and helped me with getting back into good behaviors (better diet, exercise, more rounded leisure time activities, better work structure).  I think it was finding the strength and energy to work on those behaviors that really helped me improve, but before going on meds, working on any of those seemed like such giant obstacles.  I've backslid a few times, but it's been overall good progress.

 

So stick with it, this is something you can get past.  And if the first attempt at treatment doesn't seem to help, don't give up.  Not every drug or treatment plan works for everyone, it may take a few attempts before you find what works for you.

 

Medication is often portrayed as this great panacea, like you're going to take your Prozac and the world will be unicorns and rainbows, but that's not how it works. Medication is just to get you in a headspace where you can do the work you need to do -- your brain is kinda scrambled when you're depressed, and medication just helps you see where everything is so that you can start putting things in order. Being afraid is okay, but don't let that fear stand in the way of you getting better. No medication works for everyone and no treatment works for everyone, so it absolutely is important to talk about these things and keep trying. As long as you keep talking and keep trying to get help, you're doing good. Even if you just come make a post here, you're still doing good.

 

(That's more directed at Cestus, I'm just piggybacking on this comment)

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