I've seen "let alone" used on Lemmy a good number of times now and, at least when I noticed it, it was always used incorrectly. It's come to a point where I still feel like I'm being gaslit even after looking up examples, just because of the sheer amount of times I've seen it used outright wrong.

What I'm talking about is people switching up the first and last part. In "X, let alone Y" Y is supposed to be the more extreme case, the one that is less likely to happen, or could only happen if X also did first.

The correct usage: "That spaghetti must have been months old. I did not even open the box, let alone eat it."

How I see it used constantly: "That spaghetti must have been months old. I did not eat it, let alone open the box."

Other wrong usage: "Nobody checks out books anymore, let alone visits the library."

Why does this bug me so much? I don't know. One reason I came up with is that it's boring. The "wrong" way the excitement always ramps down with the second sentence, so why even include it?

I am prepared to be shouted down for still somehow being incorrect about this. Do your worst. At least I'll know I keep shifting between dimensions where "let alone" is always used differently or something.

Last september everything came to a head and due to my failing mental health I tried to commit. It failed and I've been off work ever since.

Next June will be my 10 year anniversary with this company. I thought I was, well, not "liked" but at least somewhere above just "tolerated".

Well, that's one fantasy out if this world.

I probably will be fired because of my prolonged absence. I used to dread that option, but now I welcome it.

For a decade I felt unheard & unseen and when I spoke up about it, people convinced me it was all just in my head.

But it isn't. I really am as loathed as I feared I would be.

Then again, I loathe myself most of all, so I "understand" the situation.

I wouldn't reach out either if the roles were reversed.

Straight face only means I want to fight. Any kind of smiling is passive aggressive. Looking sad means I want to fight. And of course looking angry means I'm angry with you and specifically you and nothing else. The only way to Fix My Face is to just hide it entirely.

I really hate my ugly ass face for all other reasons, but being unable to order food in person without a cashier thinking I'm angry and willing to fight over the pettiest thing possible is the last straw.

I can't wait until I don't need to work anymore and I can just shut myself away from society and be a white vtuber or something. If I really want fast food then I'll do no contact delivery so the deliverer doesn't assume I'm angry at them for literally doing their job.

Can't even apologize for bumping into someone without them assuming I'm angry that they're in my very important way. Whoops, sorry, excuse me, doesn't matter what I said, it's passive aggressive and I want to fight.

Can't say anything is fine or okay, can't thank anyone, can't wish them a nice day, can't greet them, can't say anything without it being taken aggressively. And not saying anything at all is silent treatment, or passive aggression.

Can't thank anyone for a gift. Every holiday, I was "ungrateful" for everything. My smile was fake and the thank you was sarcastic. I hate holidays, birthdays, and gifts for that reason.

So many black women glorify this as "culture". I might as well be the only black woman who isn't petty, passive aggressive, or overly willing to fight someone. I really wish I had just died at birth since clearly something is wrong with me.

tl;dr NP; hugs

After 10 years of physical disability I'm very cautious about hope. Misplaced, it is very dangerous in the repercussions that can follow.

A corset like support wrapped around my ribs seemed very promising. It was one of my last potential remedies for a life outside of this bedroom prison.

Two weeks ago I lifted something heavy while wearing the corset. I held the item close to my torso, like I always do. I made it halfway across the house before I felt the little odd twinge of a pain; like a sapling tree yielding the most minor of prostrations to the god of pain.

I had asked family for help carrying the thing, but asking is so very demeaning, asking twice felt ready to strip me bare. The alternative was to stop eating, or rather ruin 2 weeks worth of food prep. This situation speaks to the reality of the unimaginable twist to one's mental health in chronic circumstances; the frustration of helplessness is most damning.

Still, I tried to ignore it, to press on. I didn't and couldn't know how much that little twinge would cost me. It broadcast itself in an everpresent noise in my conscious and an infinite supply of sand, grinding through my spine when my head turns left; the rhythm section playing the torso twist. This injury seemed different than most of those that had come before. It was a few ribs higher than ribs 5 and below that were wrapped tightly at the time.

I had felt so good initially with the corset. I even told my family, "if it persists, I'll get a job at the first of the year," –fool that I am to have such hope.

Hope—that terrible precipice; the cliff of danger. Hope is blind, like the naïveté of a child running in the dark of a moonless night. The pain of that hidden precipice edge is so sharp a merciless knife.

I broke some ribs back in April of 2020. It was the best two weeks I have had since 2014; even better than the 3 days I got from a spinal injection. The relief from my ribs breaking sewed the seeds that lead to the corset. There were minor remedies that I tried, but I never broke through to the point of possible hope. When the corset idea struck, I still cautiously approached the precipice terrified of the danger of hope. A fear I learned from countless experiences of hurling myself over the edge into the unknown into that chasm. Like battling through the fog as a human cannonball, determined to find an inevitable surface, refusing to acknowledge the existence of uncrossable oceans.

The very mention of uncrossable oceans is homo sapien heresy for physical health. The heresy of empiricism. It is the second front of the battle; a flanking cavalry cutting down those that fail to cross the void and march on in life; wielding the swords of ignorant assumptions; adding the heavy load of self doubt even in the face of clear evidence.

Four weeks ago I started a project. It was the foundation of a cannon shot with hope. 'Complete it, and I would consider myself capable,' I told myself, 'escapable, to have landed on a weak and marshy shoal of some sort, but arrived on some other side.' I let myself believe in a chance, a chance that this shot is my last; the closure of a chapter; the chance to mourn 8 of 9 of my (cat) lives lost on that fateful February bicycle commute. A chance for a celebration; of remaining life potential; of connections; of love, kindness, empathy, and growth I so desperately need to give someone at the core of my meaningful existence... I could do so much, even now...

Or at least, that is a direction I still have not fired my human cannon of hope. I think the fear of hurling into that void is one I'm unlikely to overcome. Talking to people online, I am far too scared to act. It doesn't matter anyways. No one would ever want to be on this terrible prison island, home to a tribe of headhunter cannibals, eager to make a meal of any genuine person over the bonfire of Christostupidity. I fear discovering a void in this direction more than anything but maybe homelessness I fear more. I have no interest in the primitive cannibals.

I failed at my project; my hope. One of so very very many. For two weeks so far I cannot sleep more than 4-5 hours, and wake up feeling exhausted from the hellish tormenting god of pain. Taking any medication that stops me from laboring and twisting the grinding stone of spinal sand will make the problem worse. I must shut down entirely, lying in bed; watching the movie of life as nothing more than a viewer.

My failure is my professional incompetence. In this case a poorly thought out element in a CAD design.

I did an unthinkable project. I worked on my tool chain I need to use for physical therapy activity. I need to return to that routine now, to battle through this defeat.

It took two weeks for the tears of this message to coalesce; to assess the scope of the battle; to clear the fog of war; to see the shot hit the ocean. The tears of that ocean came this morning in the shower; a random moment on an unexpected day.

I write this message not for the pain of right now; not even in the mourning of hope. I must drag myself out of this void, crippled as I am. I must get back to shore and find a way back up that precipice. This is the real physical pain part. Tonight I will likely be nearly absent of mind entirely, this bike ride will hurt. It is the only empirical bootstrap I've got to get me back to that rock. I feel like there is no way I should ride; no way I could ride when I hurt like this. I know it will hurt like hell and for days. Only with a return to my daily routine will I improve with time and stop this spiral. I also must overcome the fear of the half mile near the start and end of my route. The cars; knowing one street over is where it all happened, where the pain started.

To some mysterious ghost I must believe in; my visage of hope: I still love you enough to not come and find you; to shield you from sharing my hell. I still hope for a day of escape from my prison bed island. To be the person I imagine; to be free; to love you.

Ever have one of those close conversations with some, and walk away thinking “yeh… I’m a good guy” (or whatever pronoun you choose, of course). I just had that happen. It’s a nice, reassuring feeling.

Lost a good friend on Nov 11th, I last talked to them on the Oct 27th.

I've spent about 2000 hours with this friend, over three years, so a new friendship, but a deep and recurring one. Lately our schedules have not meshed (Since about February), so I've only see them sporadically.

The first 12 hours were rough, I'm getting better now, but still misty eyed. Given the frequency of our activities there are many things that just remind me of their absence. There is the aspect of losing someone, and that sadness... but there is something more here, with a 2000 hour mental model of someone else's behavior and reactions, the brain feels a little empty now that whenever anything triggers the 'oh we did this', 'oh they would like this'.... it gets short circuited by... and they are gone now.

I've lost people before, quite a few - sadly, but it never really had this level of impact. I suppose there is a proximity / frequency factor in the impact of a loss.

Rest in Peace - General.

I really struggle to make friends and being an adult trying to make friends is even worse than when I was a kid in school.

It appeared that I had made a friend but they turned out to be kinda toxic. I made mistakes too but I never tried to hurt them or manipulate them. They've made me feel like they're embarrassed to know me. Like our friendship had to be a secret.

Now, I finally managed piss them off that they don't want to talk to me anymore. Part of me is glad but part of me feels lonely. Very lonely.

I've been in a long distance relationship for quite some time now and we are waiting for her to finish school next spring before we move in together. It's difficult for me to think that's really going to happen. She reassures me often that it will.

I should be happy with that but nothing beats seeing a friend face-to-face regularly and talking to each other.

I feel sad and lonely and selfish. I don't want to hurt myself but I do kinda wish I was dead.

(Cross reference all of the points here and apply them to how Donald Trump, and the people and groups that have been around him, starting from 2015 to now.)

How did Adolf Hitler rise to power in Germany?

___ Adolf Hitler's rise to power in Germany was a complex process that involved a combination of factors, including:

Economic and social unrest: After World War I, Germany was in a state of economic and social turmoil. The Treaty of Versailles imposed harsh reparations on Germany, leading to hyperinflation and widespread poverty. This created a fertile ground for extremist ideologies to take root. ___

Political instability: The Weimar Republic, Germany's democratic government at the time, was weak and unstable. It was plagued by political infighting and lacked strong leadership. This allowed Hitler and the Nazi Party to exploit the situation and gain power. ___

Hitler's charisma and propaganda: Hitler was a skilled orator and propagandist. He used his speeches and writings to spread his message of hatred and nationalism. He also used propaganda to manipulate public opinion and demonize his opponents. ___

Violence and intimidation: The Nazi Party used violence and intimidation to suppress dissent and consolidate its power. The SA (Sturmabteilung), the Nazi paramilitary wing, was responsible for numerous acts of violence against political opponents and Jewish people. ___

The Reichstag fire: In 1933, the Reichstag, the German parliament building, was set on fire. The Nazis blamed the fire on communists and used it as an excuse to crack down on political opponents and consolidate their power. In 1933, Hitler was appointed Chancellor of Germany. Once in power, he quickly dismantled democratic institutions and established a totalitarian dictatorship. He also initiated a campaign of persecution against Jewish people, culminating in the Holocaust.

___

Hitler's rise to power was a result of a complex interplay of factors, including economic and social unrest, political instability, Hitler's charisma and propaganda, and the use of violence and intimidation. It is important to remember that Hitler's rise to power was not inevitable, but rather the result of a series of choices made by individuals and institutions.

___ ___

SEE THE SIMILARITIES!?!

The other day I saw a post somewhere on Lemmy, it seems to have been taken down or at least I'm unable to find it again, by some dickwad asking, pretty clearly it bad faith, why people felt like they needed the day off from work or school after the election. It was full of him bitching about basically people being too soft if they couldn't handle their feelings being hurt and that sort of garbage. This was basically going to be my reply to that.

I work in 911 dispatch, that should tell you that I'm the kind of person who can handle stress well, i've dealt with some crazy shit both at work and in my personal life, I don't think anyone is going to claim I'm someone who's easily rattled.

And still, despite all of the things I've seen, done, heard, and been a part of, I have never felt as physically sick from stress as I did watching the election results coming in Tuesday night.

I was at work, and in the midst of it as it was becoming clear that Trump was going to win, right around 2AM, I got one of those really insane calls, the kind of thing that makes the evening news and that they make true crime TV shows out of, that normally leaves even a hardened tough guy like me a little bit shaken-up, and all I felt was relief because something finally came along to wrench my mind from the election.

I woke up the next day still feeling sick to my stomach. My wife woke up in tears. I spent the day feeling like I was lost in a fog, and by the next day the fog lifted giving way to a simmering rage that I'm not sure will ever go away entirely. Luckily Wednesday and Thursday were my scheduled days off this week, I genuinely don't think I could have worked Wednesday night feeling like I felt.

I'm an old boy scout, I took the scout motto of "be prepared" to heart, I believe that most people don't really rise to the occasion but instead they fall to their level of training, and all the other sayings and such about preparedness and self-reliance and all of that, and I've prepared myself so that I am rarely at a complete loss of what to say or do in any given situation, I have plenty of training and life experience to fall back on.

No one ever trains you how to watch democracy die.

Or how to handle something like ¾ of your country turning their back on your most deeply-held values either by actively voting against them or by not even caring enough to bother showing up to vote.

And nothing prepares you to look around you in a 911 dispatch center, surrounded by people that people are supposed to be able to trust to stand for justice, safety, law, order, security, fairness, equity, compassion, basic human decency, who are supposed to stand up for and provide assistance to vulnerable members of our community when they need it most, who like to pat themselves on the back for being the "calm voice in the night" or the "thin gold line"...

... And realizing that most of them either don't care or are actively rooting for a man who stands for the exact opposite of all of those values.

For the first time I can remember I feel well and truly lost. I tend to be the guy people turn to when they have a problem because I know how to fix it or I at least know how to find someone who can. I don't know how to fix this, and I certainly don't have a guy for this. I'm gonna keep on soldiering on until I figure it out or I guess I'll die trying, but I really don't know what my path forward from here is going to be. And if I need some time to figure this shit out. I certainly won't think less of anyone who needs the same.

And everyone deals with different kinds of stresses differently and more or less successfully than anyone else. Despite the crazy shit I've managed to deal with, there's other more mundane situations that some people can handle just fine that I can't hack. Put me in a regular office environment with reports, paperwork, deadlines and presentations, and I'd probably be burned out in a week. It's like the old saying about trying to judge a fish by its ability to climb trees.

It's ok to not be ok right now, honestly I think anyone who says they're ok right now is either faking it or a psychopath. Don't be afraid to ask for help, if you have it in you, try to check in on others to make sure they're doing ok and getting what they need too. The only way we're getting through this is together.

To everyone who voted for Trump and relies on social security, or ACA healthcare, or have pre-existing conditions, or has a child with special needs, or LGBT family, or undocumented friends and family, I have no sympathy for you. You got what you voted for, next time learn your candidate's policies before the election. We tried to warn you, we tried to tell you his policies were radical or even dangerous. We tried to tell you he wanted to take all those things away. We tried to tell you we would be the ones paying for his tariffs; but you wouldn't listen. He is not your friend, he does not care about you, all he wants to stay our of jail and make himself and his wealthy friends richer. The rest of us were willing to pay a little more for groceries if it meant our families would have healthcare, our friend's children with special needs could get an education, our parents could collect their hard-earned social security. Instead we will all pay a lot more for everything when tariffs are imposed and the migrants who pick our fruits and vegetables are deported.

Now your penance: call your congressmen every day for the next four years, ask them to stand-up to Trump, to block his policies that will make life harder and more expensive for everyday Americans, to block his nominations, tell them you will vote them out in the next election if they don't -- and actually vote against them when they don't. Write letters to the White House asking them not to do all the things he promised us he'd do. Write to the Supreme Court, and all the government agencies we rely on everyday asking them to resist rolling-back all the progress we've made as a country over the last century. If you don't, it won't just be the liberals paying the price, it will be your friends, your families, and even you.

I'm going to start by saying I've become more of a commenter than a poster on Lemmy but, the election has gotten me fucking heated for obvious reasons.

I want to preface this by saying I don't mean this as an "all is lost" doom and gloom post, but it's the number one thing that has been on my mind in recent days reading headlines and even comments all over Lemmy regarding various ways people are attempting or planning to attempt to resist Trump.

• "But XYZ is illegal!?" Followed usually by some citation of a law showing that Trump's plan A or B are technically against the law, be it military deployment, or firing of Federal employees etc.

Y'all, get this through your heads. They have the POTUS, the Senate, the House, the SCOTUS. It's over for "precedent". It doesn't matter what the law says. Trump can now do LITERALLY anything he wants and all the other branches will fall in line and MAKE IT legal or otherwise wave the illegality away.

• "But this program has already been signed off on by Biden"

This means nothing. On January 6th it WILL be cancelled immediately. No program is outside the reach of Trump now. No amount of studies or research or anything will do a damn thing to stop this.

This, in my opinion, extends to Aide to Ukraine or Palestine or Taiwan. ANYTHING that has not physically left the country and already been handed to the country in question, by January 6th, will be completely within his power to drop. It does not matter if we have a treaty, or an agreement, or a contract.

• My last vent is directed towards the far left .ml people around here.

I'm so fucking tired of your holier than thou attitudes. Some of you come into the comments on .world and other instances and act like you're part of some club that has a plan for your far left ideals and you're somehow going to be immune to all of this and you're just sitting back and watching it all burn.

Get this straight. You will be first.

In times of far right take over and violence, they don't go after the peaceful first. They go after the agitators, they go after the armed and ready agents of chaos, they go after any they deem a danger to their ideology and YOU are the biggest target. So laugh while you can but, to all of you that find this election turn out just SO funny and promoted all your Jill Stein or whatever third party bullshit. To you, a sincere Fuck. You.

The feed is too anxious and loaded for my self health with my physical disability and social needs. I'm likely impacted in life altering ways too. The only way I can mentally cope is to constrain my thoughts to only worry about the things I can change.

To anyone struggling: please heed this advice and focus on the things you can change. Also, no permanent solutions to temporary problems, if that is an issue.

Do a digital detox and disconnect from everything. Read a book. I'll be finishing Foundations Edge by Asimov as my primary stand in for Lemmy.

I totally understand everyone's emotions, the posts, and comments. I simply don't have the emotional buffer to cope without spiraling.

I'm posting, not because anyone should care if I am around, but more to say to anyone else, it is okay to do the same, maybe even healthy if you find yourself in similar challenging life circumstances. It took me a decade to both recognized where I'm at mentally and learn to act preemptively before things get out of hand. I wish all of y'all the best, better spirits, and many happy days. - your internet friend Jake

I wanted to talk about academic anxiety. Of course, my anxiety is kinda generalized, but I have a very specific type of anxiety related to academic environments.

Like, I always hated school, all of my 11 years of obligatory education were absolute hell, but things went downhill in college. I started to fail in college after a first year of doing very well, but then I started failing, and spiraling down, and over time the fear of failing made me fail, and then fail even harder. And my mom did it a lot worse.

I won't tell everything my mom did because I don't want to write a bible, but because I was failing I was screamed almost daily, verbally abused almost daily, guilt-tripped, and told that I would never accomplish anything in life. Some days my mom would scream at me for hours with no end.

I stopped telling my mom about my grades, and then went out of her way to get them anyway, because she has a friend who was a professor at the university I was at and he told him my grades (not even a professor of my degree).

I didn't want to continue because I failed second year and couldn't bear the shame of coming back after failing. I had fought with my mom a lot about it, and then, she went and sign me up to redo the year behind my back, so I had no option but to do the year again, and I did even worst, because I couldn't focus on anything, I was only thinking about ending myself in class, and then started skipping classes, and even exams. I skipped the most important exams of the year because I was doing so terribly at them.

At some moment in this year, I suggested my mom to sign me up to an online university, and she exploded at me, we had the biggest ugliest fight we ever had. Of course she don't remember any of it, conveniently.

And I failed again, the university don't allow people who fail the same year twice in a row to sign up again, so I just dropped out and my mom could do nothing about it.

In the upcoming years I tried changing careers and universities, and my mom never liked any of them, because they were "lesser" careers and universities. But always, when the first exam came up, I just froze and failed, and then stopped going to university altogether. It happened at least 3 times. The last one was computer science at an online university, I thought would be easy since I like computers a lot and it was an online university, but it happened again, and I'm frustrated that for the online students they just gives us PDFs and videos while the ones that live in the city the university is located, they can go there and actually talk to professors and have in person studying, so I felt at a disadvantage.

My mom will always say I'm a failure because I didn't finish law school, and I don't think I can go back to an university because of this terrible anxiety. I can't even come into a classroom anymore because I have to deal with the anxiety.

The thing is, I love learning, I learn a lot everyday and I love reading a lot. But being at classroom is just terrible for me and I can't go beyond the easiest first exams.

• Going to work
• Paying off loans
• Finishing a project
• Mastering a hobby

It's all just...never-ending. I can't do it all...or really any of it. The rest of my life looks like a never-ending stagnant grind right now. I've really tried to finish anything, but when the timeline is years?! How do I even do this when I've only got like...50 years left? And MOST of that time is grinding a job?

"Start now" I hear you all say. I've done that. Everything is indefinitely unfinished. I don't have the time to commit to it, for another hobby or interest is more engaging.

Right now, my wife is finishing up her last day of work at her current job. Her boss has been on again/off again toxic and she had enough. She’s got another job lined up right away on Monday.

The past two weeks since she put her notice in, it’s been nothing but a torrent of praise of all of her contributions. Every day she’s been emotional about someone telling her how much they value her and are going to miss her. Taking her out to lunches, numerous emails and texts of positive affirmation.

Her new job comes with a HUGE sacrifice on my end. Not only do I have to do school pickups for our four kids, I had to forgo my remote days (2x a week), so I can depart an hour or so earlier to be the one to pick them up every day. Now I also have the sole responsibility to bring them to appointments.

Now, here’s what falls on my plate:

• Morning school prep (Make Breakfast, Lunches)
• Pickups
• if children are sick, I have to be the one to work from home/PTO
• Dinner, given she will just be getting done at work
• Homework supervision
• Bedtime routines
• Cleaning

On top of this, she wants more things off of her plate, like playdate organization and activity planning.

I’m super hurt by this. And she thinks I’m not supportive of the job change for her. What she doesn’t realize is that my anxiety is through the roof of managing even more things while being the primary breadwinner.

It’s so unfair.

She gets complimented for everything she does. No one ever thanked me for my time at work, usually just a brief “see ya”.

She gets less and less on her plate, pretty much by brute force. “About time, husbands don’t realize how good they have it.”

She gets everything she wants. Time, space, possessions. She’s the gatekeeper of our intimacy and doesn’t desire me.

I’m always concerned for her, and compliment and reassure her of any insecurities. She will not even flinch if I have an anxiety attack.

I just want to scream.

I had time to play some video games today. So I opened Sea of Thieves. After taking a fucking ETERNITY downloading all the latest update data at 40% of my actual network speed, it finally runs. It then crashes due to some bogus error. I run it again AND IT HAS TO REVERIFY ALL 113GB OF THE INSTALLED FILES ALL OVER AGAIN AT NETWORK SPEEDS.

How the fuck do people who live in cities and places with bandwidth caps deal with this" "Oh shit I gotta pay $30 in bandwidth overages because my game crashed and it has to verify again". WTF? Imagine having to wait en entire month for your bandwidth limit to rollover so you can try launching a game again to see if it still crashes. I've blown through 400gb of bandwidth in the past 2 days just trying to find a game in my library I can play that doesn't do this as badly.

This problem is not limited to sea of thieves. Skyrim is a fun game. I never get to play it because steam has to reverify the entire install every other fucking time I open steam.

All i'm saying is that the absurd install size of modern games along with the constant forced updates makes everything too much of a pain in the ass to be worth dealing with. I guess moving forward only GOG games are still viable in the era of enshittification.

Why can't steam just give us the ability to circumvent verifications.. fuck.

I was hit by a couple of SUV's in a crash while riding a bicycle to work 2/26/14. I have chronic spinal issues. I haven't really allowed hope to know me since 2017. A lot happened then. I kinda fell apart and had to come to terms with my limitations and disappointments from people I really needed to rely on. Hope became a destabilizing force; a danger I needed to protect myself from.

I've seen over a dozen neurosurgeons, and several pain management specialists. I've had physical therapy until I was broke. Never once did a doctor actually try to break down the problems or recommend someone who would. I complained about how I could be in tremendous pain just before a MRI but within a few minutes of lying flat, I felt fine. No MRI has ever shown anything major wrong with me. I even went as far as bribing the tech and radiologist with coffee shop gift cards and stuff to try and get them to take extra time and effort. Still nothing ever helped.

Today, I put on a corset thing for the first time. I haven't been able to turn my head left in over 10 years. As soon as I tightened this thing, I can turn my head left again and there is no restriction that I can feel. I haven't sat upright at a table in a straight chair in over 10 years, but I did so today. I was so elated about sitting there I wrote this stupid long reply to someone. I didn't know what to do with myself. Normally the pain would kick in and stop me, but I just kept going.

I'm laying in bed now out of habit and caution, but for the first time in many years I feel anxious about staying here, capable, like I could get up and do something without the punishment of major pain.

I feel like a scared abused animal nearly unable to move out of this mental space; to allow hope a place in my mind. I have no idea where this ultimately leads. My inner cynic wants to laugh at the ten years of my life wasted when all I needed was a simple brace; all those reputable doctors failing at something so fundamentally simple; that my own uneducated intuition eventually lead me here on my own.

I asked here when the idea to try this first crossed my mind. Y'all pushed me to try it. Thanks. I still hesitated for whatever reason, but now I'm trying it. I'm scared to even admit it, but this feels different, it feels like hope, and that is something I really needed.

Posting from a throwaway. [TW contains a little bit of internalised ableism and touches on Suicide and Firearms]

I’m heavily disabled. Like can’t move or get out of bed type disabled. And sometimes lose the ability to communicate.

Anyways most of the time I’m happy to be alive. But the fact I couldn’t kill myself if I wanted to really makes me feel trapped. I take medicines given in a daily pill box, I’m IV fed water and food, and I can’t get out of my bed. There is literally no way for me to end it.

All I’m doing is laying here draining my family’s resources. I love learning, and most of the time that’s enough. But when the pain get’s really bad, or my disease starts to progress or worsen. I just want it to end. And not even having that option, or being able to communicate it, is terrifying. Like I could be stuck in an endless cycle of pain and suffering and not be able to let go even if I wanted it.

At the same time, in better periods I’m glad I’m alive. And if I did have a gun on my bedside table, I can remember more than a dozen moments I’d already have ended it. It’s like I only need to feel suicidal 1% of the time for my life to end if I have access to a weapon, so the other 99% feels glad that I don’t.

I don’t know what I want from this post. But I guess this is my message in a bottle. I needed to get this out there and throw it away.

If you’re here, thanks for reading. I hope your day went well. Peace.

I really love to listen to a wide variety of music. Beethoven, Biz Markie, Salieri, Nina Simone, etc. but I just... never really watched Music Videos until recently. I am astounded that I simply missed out on decades of visual feast. Nine Inch Nails - Closer. George Michael, Freedom '90, an entire decade of MIssy Ellliot nonsense, and of course Aha.

What, in your opinion, is the best music video that you are sure I will like? I'm old, as evidenced by my grammar and lack of spelling.

I'm aware that I'm worthless but still can't turn off that libido or sexual desire and is killing me. Another thing to add to the list of failures as an male adult.

No job, own place, car, friends, virgin. Why am I even alive?