Sombyr

Sombyr , 6 days ago

Gen Z here.
Do people really not have wallets now? There's so much I can't carry without a wallet, most importantly my ID. Am I expected to just put that loose in my pockets or bag?
And like, sometimes I'm forced to carry cash for one reason or another. I need a space place to put that.
I'm guessing it's just because the majority of my generation isn't old enough to be regularly encountering these issues. I'm 100% certain it'll change as they age the way I was forced to.

Sombyr , 25 days ago

Yeah, and the worst is when people are talking about something I know a lot about, getting virtually every detail wrong, and I have to resist saying anything because I know my input will either be ignored, or worse, straight up unwelcome.
Luckily the blessing of being dumb as bricks is that that doesn't happen a lot, but I sure hate when it does.

Sombyr , 29 days ago

I had this problem with one I modded myself because the new screen was just slightly thicker than the old, pressing on the outer shell and causing the dpad to need more pressure. The solution that worked for me is cutting a small ring of cardstock and putting it between the dpad and the membrane. It increases sensitivity by a lot, but does come with the side effect that you'll be able to press every direction down at once if you press on the center.

Sombyr , 27 days ago

Yeah, but that seems to be an issue with aftermarket membranes mostly. I haven't found any that aren't stiffer than the OEM by a significant degree. If you can find an OEM membrane in good condition, and combine it with the cardstock mod, it usually reaches about the same stiffness. However, after all this time I've found OEM membranes tear pretty easily, making them even stiffer than aftermarket, so I personally opted to deal with the stiffness of aftermarket membranes combined with the cardstock. Though nowadays I actually just use an SP because I like that dpad more (it uses metal membranes that don't as easily wear down.)

Sombyr , 1 month ago

I have a similar issue as somebody with a case of dysphagia worsened by certain foods, which happen to be 90% of what you're supposed to eat to be healthy (suspected to be a combination of eosinophilic esophagitis and another unknown condition.)
The amount of times on various social media platforms I've been told to "suck it up and just eat them anyway" as if my condition isn't real and that won't cause me to choke to death is absurd.

Sombyr OP , 1 month ago

I can see that perspective, and maybe subconsciously it is that stability I'm looking for, especially because I've gone through 2 separate traumatic events that resulted in me losing every friend I had, the second, the only person who stayed with me was my ex, who I was dating at the time.

I guess though I kinda feel like I have achieved some level of stability even without a relationship. That ex I just mentioned is still a good friend, and he and his girlfriend talk constantly about trying to move closer to me, because at this point they both consider me more of family than just a friend.

And it's like that for most of my close friends. I've got some that come and go, but my tightknit inner circle seems here to stay at least, at least for a very long time. I can see the appeal of wanting somebody to be there for my entire life though. Granted, the only people I can think of that I want that out of are the friends I already have, but on account of the fact that my friend group is practically composed purely of exs and people who've rejected me romantically already, it seems I'll have to look elsewhere. Although that's kind of a sad prospect to me, that I don't get to choose any of them to stay by my side forever.

Sombyr OP , 1 month ago

As far as sexual reasons go, I don't really need that myself. I'm not exactly asexual, I'm sexually attracted to people, I just find it's easy enough to take care of that need without a partner.

Losing friends to relationships though, I haven't ever had that happen. I just become friends with their partner too and absorb them into my friend group.

Although I found out that way through some of them that apparently I give off a really intimidating aura. Apparently I give off the vibes of "the popular girl who refuses to associate herself with the peasants" as somebody said. They tend to be pretty shocked I had any interest in being friends with them at all.

Sombyr OP , 1 month ago

I do have that resting bitch face (if you can see my profile picture, that's evidence enough.) I also have a habit of being unintentionally rude on account of autism. It causes most people who interact with me to really quickly turn away because I give off the vibe that I don't wanna be around them, even when I am enjoying their company. I end up being unintentionally popular anyway though because most of my friends are very popular, on account of them being so social even my unintentional rudeness couldn't turn them away. And naturally having a lot of popular friends turns heads in my direction as well.

Sombyr OP , 1 month ago

I think it's a bit of both in my case. I have a lot of popular friends, and that happens to turn a lot of heads my way and make some people insecure around me, but I also act unintentionally rude quite often, which I've been making an effort to fix, and I've been told by some people that it does make me look stuck up until people get to know me and realize I'm not rude, just very autistic.

Sombyr OP , 1 month ago

Ah, don't worry, I wasn't trying to defend myself. More trying to understand my own feelings via comparison. Because I know that for some reason I do still want and enjoy romantic relationships, but I don't know why, since I get so much from my friends. It makes it difficult to know when somebody would be a good romantic partner for me because I don't know what I want from them in the first place, as evidence by the fact that all my exs have ended up making better friends for me than partners.

Sombyr OP , 1 month ago

I'm beginning to wonder what romance is as well, after gaining close friends, especially one very close friend, who considers everything I once considered romantic to be just friendly interaction. That was kinda the catalyst for me to start wondering what it is a relationship can even offer me if I can have friends like this anyway.

Sombyr , 1 month ago

I keep luring them out by accident just by bringing up any kind of women's issue at all. Thankfully though, a quick report and they get banned from my instance real fast.

Sombyr , 1 month ago

Everyone on Lemmy is either a late 30s dude (cis or trans,) mid 20s trans woman, or late teens enby. Those are the only demographics.

Sombyr , 1 month ago

The long story short:
Fell in love with somebody, she rejected me, but we ended up becoming very close friends anyway. Now she's going through a medical crisis and has been leaning on me a lot to get through it emotionally. Besides emotional support, I've been reminding her that even as friends I still love her, in fact a lot more than before. Hearing that she says has cheered her up a lot and really helped.
I don't take it her answer will change given her reasons for rejecting me, but I've come to realize I don't need it to as much as I thought I did. It's enough for me that my love for her makes her happy. That's all I need.

So I'd say in spite of everything seeming like it should be going wrong, I'm having a great week, and I'm going to try to keep having good weeks so she can rely on me to help her through whatever she needs.

Sombyr , 2 months ago

Extrovert here.
People do. Constantly. It's a normal thing. If you're hanging out with people who refuse to shut up and let you be comfortable for a while the problem isn't that they're extroverts. The problem is that they're assholes. Unfortunately the two can look similar on account of assholes having less boundaries making them appear to be more extroverted when in reality they're just less respectful.

Sombyr , 2 months ago

https://lemmy.zip/pictrs/image/b0f91861-8357-4673-befe-1ccd1a257386.webp

Sombyr , 2 months ago

Older gen Z here, I remember these really strongly.
People always forget gen Z was alive for these kind of things and I'm starting to think nobody realizes how old we actually are. Most people you think of as gen Z are only really on the younger end of gen Z. Some of us are in our late 20s now and also struggling to understand kids these days.

Sombyr , 2 months ago

Gen Z is 1997-2012. The oldest of us are 27.

Sombyr , 2 months ago

The generations are determined by what the biggest common experience they all have is (at least, that's how it's supposed to be.)
Millennials are millennials because they all remember the turn of the millennium. anyone born 1997 or later wouldn't remember it, which is why the generation line was drawn where it was.
There are people who find that weird and prefer to call anybody born after 2000 gen Z because they were born after the turn of the millennium, so there's a sizable amount of people who've taken to calling anybody born 1996-2000 a "zillennial" as a compromise. I use the term sometimes, but only when I need to demonstrate to somebody that there's no clear difference between a young millennial and an older gen Z.

Sombyr , 2 months ago

I'm gonna go against the grain and say this is the only change I've seen them make in a long time that I'm glad to see. I often read comments while watching the video, especially now that dislikes are gone to quickly tell if a video is real or not, or if there's anything else to be wary of. I never scroll video suggestions until after I'm done watching the video, to decide what to watch next. This layout just makes more sense for that.

Sombyr , 2 months ago

Gen Z here.
People liked being part of in jokes nobody else understood. Eventually it evolved into creating jokes even you yourself weren't in on just to confuse the fuck out of people. Brings the satisfaction of seeing people not understanding the "in" joke and the additional satisfaction that they never will be in on it either.
The "that explains nothing" feeling when you see the origin is part of the joke.

Sombyr , 2 months ago

Can somebody give me a better explanation of how NH keeps ending up red on these maps? As a trans person who's lived in both NH and VT for very large parts of my life, I've found that they're really, really similar when it comes to trans rights. Hell, NH is one of the few states to cover laser hair removal and electrolysis for facial hair under medicaid for trans people. Vermont doesn't even cover that and has repeatedly shot down any attempts to add it.
Also even though both states cover breast augmentation for trans people, Vermont refuses to cover it for me because I have a deformity and require a slightly different procedure which they go out of their way to explicitly exclude, whereas in NH that procedure is explicitly also covered.

I'm assuming there's something deeper and more sinister going on in NH if it's red even despite that. I wouldn't doubt it tbh. I can't move back there because they intentionally illegally shut off people's disability benefits hoping they just won't bother to appeal the decision, so I'm not blind to how awful the state can be.

Sombyr , 2 months ago

It is when I do it.

Sombyr , 2 months ago (edited 2 months ago)

Responding late but as somebody who has trouble expressing emotions through words but easily communicates through music, I've been waiting my whole life for somebody to ask this exact question.

Edit to note that a lot of these songs are Japanese, but they have subtitles. Also it's mostly Vocaloid, which can be grating to hear to people not used to that kind of music.

First up, This specific cover of "Dark Woods Circus" gets my childhood down pretty well.
Second, experience the immediate mental consequences of that childhood with "Echo."
Third, "Abstract Nonsense." ...yeah...
Fourth, "I'm Glad You're Evil Too," finally a happy one, still my favorite song.
Fifth, "Tell Me Why"
Sixth, "Out of Sight, Out of Mind,"
Seventh, and last, describing my life today, "Life Starts Now."

It's been rough so far. I still have really, really bad days, but things are looking up. I've been genuinely happy more days in a row the past month than ever happened in the rest of my life.

Sombyr , 2 months ago

I can't see the fake colors either, so in a way I relate to the shrimp. I've done the overlapping an image of yellow and blue by unfocusing your eyes, where you're supposed to see an impossible color instead of green, but I just see green. I've also done the ones with staring at a color then glancing at another, and it still produces very normal colors. Yellow circle then glancing at black? Just dark blue. Green then glancing at white? Regular pink. Blue then glancing at orange? Just looks red.

Sombyr OP , 3 months ago

An emotional outburst for me is crying hysterically over things that don't matter, sometimes accusing people of doing things without evidence because people have done them to me before, and most commonly, starting arguments in an attempt to prove to myself that somebody must really be as bad as I subconsciously think they are, so I have an excuse to leave and not risk getting hurt again.
I've gotten quite good at recognizing when an emotional outburst is happening so I can warn people I'm gonna be completely irrational for a bit, but most people when presented with "you betrayed me, haven't you?" whether or not they know it's just an outburst I can't control, still get incredibly offended and leave rather than make any attempt to calm my fears.
An example would be the fight that broke up my last relationship. They said something that sounded a little suspicious. I said that, even though I knew it was irrational, I was starting to feel like they'd lied to me about everything they'd said, because I'd been through that before, and asked for reassurance. Instead of reassurance, they became angry at me for accusing them of lying about perfectly normal things. I, in turn, snapped completely, now genuinely accusing them of being a pathological liar because they wouldn't reassure me they weren't.

I can get along fine with the kind of people who can recognize that being irrational means I can't always control myself, and who are willing to just simply reassure me that my fears aren't founded, but if I'm not constantly supported in all the right ways, I will eventually have an outburst like the previously mentioned one, and most people can't handle that.
The outbursts, once again, are something I'm physically incapable of controlling. The only thing I can do is avoid the situation that causes them, usually by communicating what irrational thoughts are on my mind so they can be dispelled before they become a huge issue. I cannot, however, stop myself in the middle of one. And the only way to actually avoid triggering an outburst ever is to become a hermit and refuse to ever interact with another human. The best I can ever hope for us to have people surrounding me who know how to prevent it, and can take it when one day it gets triggered anyway. And like I said, I've got friends who can handle it fine, but zero of them desire any kind of relationship.

Sombyr OP , 3 months ago

My bar for a relationship right now is literally just that they don't flee when I cry about something stupid, and that they don't yell at me when I tell them they're scaring me and triggering traumatic memories. Both of these things would seem like obvious things almost anybody could provide, but when I'm crying constantly or trauma is getting triggered multiple times a day, even the best people walk out, or snap. Because my emotional outbursts are triggered by constantly feeling like I'm reliving old traumas, even when there's literally no reason to feel that way. 99% of people don't have the emotional fortitude to reassure me every day that no, they didn't suddenly decide today that they secretly want to destroy my life. Presented with fears of betrayal enough times, I've never been in a relationship where they didn't finally snap and become convinced that I thought they were a terrible person. My first ex became convinced that they were a terrible person and that must be why I constantly fear betrayal. Another ex ended up calling me a crazy bitch because they thought there was no way I was constantly having these thoughts and didn't genuinely believe them to be true.
The most recent friend I made is the only one I've found who was able to handle it flawlessly. Most times, she found it really easy to simply reassure me it wasn't true, and if I crossed and boundaries, she'd simply tell me I had so I could step back for a minute and reevaluate myself. She never blew up at me. She never fled because my emotions were getting too intense. And most importantly, she never blamed herself for me having irrational fears about her. That's a rare combination to have all in one person.

Sombyr OP , 3 months ago

All therapy I've received thus far has been simple talk therapy. I was supposed to receive CBT at one point, but the therapist ended up needing to drop me because she didn't have enough training in my combination of issues to properly address the problem.
I have an anxiety disorder (what anxiety disorder is currently unknown, but GAD runs in the family.) I have schizoaffective disorder, which is well controlled with meds, but still results in me being more irrational than normal sometimes and more depressed that normal others. I might have PTSD, but that's not diagnosed, just something my psychiatrist has brought up multiple times. The same for BPD, which they have difficulty diagnosing because the symptoms overlap extremely heavily with schizoaffective. On the less severe side, but still effecting how effective therapy is for me, I have autism and ADHD. On top of everything else, I've been known to display symptoms of dissociative identity disorder, but not enough to get diagnosed.
Very few therapists can deal with all of those issues at once, so I've had trouble finding any. I currently don't have one, and am on a waiting list to find a new one, but due to my combination of issues it's taking dramatically longer than usual.

Sombyr OP , 3 months ago

I appreciate the support. I think I'm just having a bit of a bad few days. Every issue feels 1000x worse than it really is right now, so I suppose the best I can do is get through it until I'm thinking rationally again.

Sombyr OP , 3 months ago

Separating myself and being alone works to an extent. If I'm not breaking down yet but know I'm starting to get irrational, I find if I don't allow myself to say anything, and simply remove myself from the presence of anybody who could be hurt, I can often abort the episode entirely. However, that doesn't always work. Sometimes it makes it worse and I have to bring myself back to them and straight up ask "hey, this thing you did made me feel like you might be trying to betray me. Why did you actually do that?" Answering that question makes it much easier to dismiss my anxieties.
There's also a strategy I've deployed with my first ex after our breakup, since we're still friends and they have a very similar set of disorders, where we have times we allow each other to have controlled blowups at each other, knowing explicitly that that's what we're doing. It makes it easier not to blow up at other people. The only rule is we never do it at the same time. Being able to shout all kinds of horrible things and have somebody just go "yeah, whatever, I get it. Do your thing." is extremely therapeutic for both of us.
We also, after we're finished blowing up, go over what we said and analyze whether it was rational and how to avoid similar thoughts. Realizing fully why something doesn't make sense makes it easy to dismiss later so we don't fall down the same irrational path the same way later, and have fewer blowups over time. It's a powerful tool to be able to go "I'm feeling X way about Y thing, but I've felt that way before and determined it was irrational, so it can't magically be rational this time."

Sombyr OP , 3 months ago

My physical health is constantly monitored because there are some issues there, but nobody can identify the root cause of most of them. I get constant blood tests done to check the levels of things like my electrolytes and stuff (at least I assume that's what they're checking considering they label it as metabolic.) All my levels there are completely normal.

However, I am trans (mtf,) so my estrogen and testosterone levels get tested a lot, and while they've found my testosterone is consistently exactly where it's supposed to be, my estrogen swings extremely wildly far beyond what it's supposed to. I have times where my estrogen is consistently measured as being much higher than it's supposed to regardless of how long after my injection it's measured, and I have times where where my estrogen is practically nonexistent only a few days after doing the injection. The cause is unknown and an effective solution has not been found. It leads, of course, to me being incredibly moody for no reason a lot, on top of my mental health issues. But for some reason people are way more understanding with "sorry I yelled at you, my estrogen was through the floor" than they are "sorry I yelled at you, I have a collection of severe mental illnesses." That's a totally separate vent though about how people are way more understanding about physical health than mental health even though it matters just as much.

There's a slight chance I have sleep apnea, but I've been told it's pretty low. I did do one sleep study and nothing unusual was found. I do, however, suffer from horrific migraines, and have my whole life. I also have bizarre nerve issues in my lower back and legs that only Tylenol relieves. For whatever reason, stronger pain relievers, even opiods, do nothing for it.

As far as thyroid issues, I get checked for that constantly because they run in my family. Also, I do have high inflammation markers for some mysterious reason, but no inflammation has been found anywhere in my body. I also have oddly high white blood cell counts every time it's ever been measured. They were looking for a cause for that at first, but after literally over a decade of zero positive results and more doctor's appointments in a year than there are months, they eventually just had to say maybe it's just like that for no important reason.

So yeah, my physical health is perhaps just as fucked up as my mental health. I'm actually considered legally disabled for that reason.

On a note about the aro ace thing you mentioned, I've actually been through that. It ended up turning out that I only identified as aro ace because my religious upbringing made me terrified of romance and sex. At this point I identify as biromantic and probably demisexual. It was definitely a scary thing at first indeed, but I found myself much happier once I'd finally come to terms with who I really was. Just remember that you don't have to figure yourself out all at once, and you're allowed to get it wrong as well. Nobody knows perfectly who they are, so if you have to change your labels a few more times, or even a lot more times, before you've started to find your footing, just go for it.

Sombyr OP , 3 months ago

I think I've given the misimpression that I immediately jump to blaming my partner for everything and telling them they're a bad person. I used to do that, but not so much anymore. How things typically go nowadays is that I explain that I'm having an irrational thought because of a traumatic memory, and try to guide them through what I need them to do for me to help me feel better. However, the more common response, instead of listening to me about what I need, is for people to tell me that I'm taking the wrong approach and that they have a better solution to alleviating my fears. This inevitably leads to me having an emotional snapping moment where their solution didn't work, my emotions spiraled out of control, and now I think they're evil. This is immediately followed by me breaking down crying, apologizing profusely, and feeling like the whole thing was my fault. What I need people to understand is that I know what works for me and I cannot compromise on that.

I suppose it's actually a little inaccurate to say nobody ever has a better solution, because my most recent ex actually was able to really easily keep me under control, simply by overloading me with being super nice every time I was about to have an outburst to the point where my brain would just short circuit and go "I couldn't possibly have been thinking anything bad about her, right? Because I can't see a single bad thing right now." We still, however, ended up breaking up due to an emotional outburst of mine, but that was a very rare case where everyone who witnessed it or heard the story said it was justified (she was the one who I accused of being a compulsive liar, but she had literally just tried to gaslight me into believing I had never once told her I was uncomfortable with some aggressive types of advances she made on me, even though I said it constantly, all the time, and repeatedly asked her to stop. The only issue was I accused her of lying about a lot more than she actually had lied about.)

Unfortunately, my mental health issues just straight up aren't going to go away. I can't do anything except eliminate the triggers that cause them, and that's what I want people to understand and help me do. I'm not expecting people to sit down and take my emotional blowups. I'm expecting them to work with me to prevent them in the first place. That's what this new friend is so good at. Because she listens to me about what I need, with the sole exception of if it crosses her boundaries, where she informs me so I can work around it and work with her to find a solution that she is capable of doing for me.

And it's not like people gain nothing from me. I'm told I'm exceptionally good at emotional support and giving good advice (which is largely because I have to do these things for myself all the time, and I'm exceptionally more fucked up than the average person I'm supporting.) I'm also the kind of person who doesn't feel the least bit bad if somebody can't be there for me all the time (in fact, I kinda appreciate it because it gives me plenty of chances to learn better control of my emotions without the need of somebody's help.)

But even with all that said, maybe I am still asking too much. Evidently most people still can't handle it, so at this point I probably have to admit it's not a normal thing to expect of somebody, even if to me it feels like the bare minimum.

Sombyr , 3 months ago

Confessed to a woman I liked. Didn't get flat rejected. Still said no but with conditions so I'm gonna call it a victory.

A friend who knew her blabbed to her over messages about somebody having a crush but didn't mention it was me. She responded that almost certainly it was gonna be a flat no. Then she hunted her down, found us, and upon realizing I was the only one said friend was hanging out with who wasn't in a relationship and I was clearly super nervous, it became really obvious from there it was me.
I didn't get a flat no, so that was good. Response I got was basically "I'm into somebody else, but if that doesn't work out I don't see why it couldn't potentially happen if we became better friends."
I'm very happy with that. Even if nothing else ever comes of it, I don't get why people don't like romantic rejection. It's basically an infinite friend glitch.

Sombyr , 3 months ago

I identify as white simply because I recognize I have privileges other races don't have as often.
You could be more specific and say I'm by coincidence a very large part Sami, but I'm not part of the culture, all my fully Sami relatives are really far back in the family tree and I've never known them, and people who look at me aren't going to see anything more than a white person, and thus I'm afforded the privileges of being white, so therefore, why call myself anything other than white?

Sombyr , 4 months ago (edited 4 months ago)

JESYS FUCK IT'S BEEN 3 FUCKING DAYS AND IT FEELS LIKE IT'S BEEN 3 YEARS.

You might remember me posting a while ago about breaking up with my wife. That week does not even COMPARE to this week. I can't mention a lot of it without a lot of people getting very angry, but maybe being angry would be an improvement over how things are now.

Got drunk tonight because everyone thought the drama was over, and we wanted to wind down. Turns out no, it was not over, and we got smacked with all of it at once AND MORE while drunk and of course, dealt with it like drunk idiots and made it worse.

So now it's 6am. I haven't slept. I won't be sleeping. I feel like I'm gonna vomit. I gotta try not to make people angry tomorrow, people gotta try not to make me angry tomorrow. Nobody will succeed.

What sucks is there's a bunch of amazing stuff that happened tonight, too, but it was more than ruined by drunk idiots like me handling drama. Jesus I want it to be over so I can just appreciate all the good stuff that came out of this, but that's gonna take a lot longer than just this week.

EDIT: good news guys. I'm 36 minutes more sober and things already don't feel that bad anymore.
They were that bad, but now they don't feel like it.

Edit: It's the next day. It was surprisingly easy to smooth things over. Apparently the drunk stupidity ended up being a good thing somehow because it let everyone get everything out, zero filter, and now that everyone's sober we were able to properly address things and things are actually dramatically improving now.
The short version is there were still some complicated feelings left after my breakup, and somebody close to me came out as trans right in the middle of it, so balancing trying to support them and trying to manage those leftover feelings fucked me and everyone else up bad. Now, it seems though that those feelings are finally getting left in the past, and I can fully focus on supporting them.
There's was also a short drunken probably undiagnosed bpd induced, definitely alcohol induced episode where I accused said trans person of lying about being trans with zero evidence, but luckily they're an incredibly strong person and weren't even phased by it, knowing I was drunk and also mentally ill, and instead choosing to gush over how pretty I said they were and how I'd told them I was super happy to know they trusted me, when I was less drunk. I've spent a part of this morning apologizing profusely for my behavior when I got clearly far too many drinks in.

Sombyr , 4 months ago

Why?

Sombyr , 4 months ago

I have a gigantic ultrawide monitor, and 90% of the reason for that was because I figured if my cat sat in front of it I could just move the window I'm using to a spot he's not blocking.
The bastard watches my eyes and moves to block it again. He will not settle for anything less than the center of attention.

Sombyr , 4 months ago

Not exactly a coherent collection of a specific thing, but I like to gather older video game consoles and retro tech to hook them all up in the most interesting way possible. I've currently got an SNES, N64, GameCube, and Sega Saturn hooked up to an old decent quality CRT security monitor over s-video. I plan to get an s-video matrix to hook up all the consoles at once and switch between them easier, and I also plan to at some point add a PS2, Xbox, and Dreamcast into the mix.

I might also at some point try to find an old early 2000s or even late 90s computer and hook that up too. I don't have a lot of space, so I might have to hook it up to the TV, but as long as it can play the games from my childhood without issue, I don't care what wonky setup I need. Old games just aren't as fun on an LCD.
I do probably need to degauss the CRT though. When I first picked it up it looked fine, but I ran a metal fan a little too close to it for too long and now it's got distorted geometry on that side.

So I suppose I collect retro electronics. I don't even collect games for the consoles I own. I just bought them for the fun of hooking them up.

Sombyr , 4 months ago

Bad.

My wife and I broke up several days ago. We were never legally married, and I suppose that makes it a lot easier, but still not easy.
We both had severe emotional control issues, for different reasons. I tried countless meds to help, and keep myself, and us, together. Tried therapy. But in the end, more often than not, there was no voice of reason in our relationship. We could reach points where we'd go a month or so without fighting, but it'd always happen again some day.
Finally, at a time where we were both calm and unemotional, we came to the decision that we needed to work on ourselves separately. When the consequences of our mental illness were not just hurting ourselves, but each other, it was just too hard to cope with.
We're still friends. We're still supporting each other, but I feel like I've lost the best thing I've ever had in my life and it's my fault. I'm happy that she no longer has to feel chained down by my angry outbursts, my constant panic attacks, and wondering every day if I'm still going to be with her tomorrow, but I wish none of those things existed in the first place, so we could be happy together.

On top of all this, the catalyst for making this decision in the first place was that there was a new guy, who was very interested in me. When he found out I was already taken, he tried to back off, but.. I guess now my ex-wife encouraged him to keep going. We'd been open to the idea of polyamory from the beginning of our relationship, so that's how we were hoping it would go. Unfortunately, it turned out he couldn't be comfortable with polyamory, and wanted an exclusive relationship.
And that's when we suddenly realized that there was a choice. I could try to stay with her, hoping one day things would get better, or find a new relationship and hope it doesn't end the same way. We realized quickly that the second was the only healthy option, even if we really, really didn't want that.

And now, several days later, this new guy is already telling me he's in love with me. He said it was love at first sight for him. I told him I'm going to need a long time before I can even consider anybody else romantically, and he's told me he's willing to wait however long it takes, but the concept scares me.
My last relationship ended largely because of emotional and psychological problems that feel insurmountable. I'm terrified if this goes anywhere that I'm going to screw it up the exact same way.

I just don't know what to do anymore. I've checked up on my ex a few times, and it feels like she's handling this better than I am. At the very least, she'll survive, and that makes me happy. I was friends with her for a long time before we even started dating, and I'm just really hoping I can learn to see her that way again. But this is the hardest thing I've ever had to deal with emotionally and I don't feel like I'll survive, even if I know consciously that I will get through it.

Sombyr , 4 months ago

Your suggestion in the second paragraph sounds good. Most of our fights were more or less caused by extrapolating information incorrectly due to our high strung emotions. Things like she'd mention a famous person in passing, and I would happen to know said famous person had a horrific controversy, and I'd suddenly go on high alert thinking she supported said terrible things, which would snowball into "If she supports that terrible thing, she must support all these other terrible things as well," at which point I'd explode, she having no idea why because she didn't know about said controversy and didn't even like said famous person very much in the first place.
When she'd blow up at me, it was usually because I ignored a load of warning signs that she was in a really bad mood, because I felt bad not helping when she felt bad, but the only help she actually needed was for me to leave her alone until she could settle down.

As for the new guy, the situation is a little complicated by the fact that he did actually try to do the polyamory thing at first, and a bit into that is when he first confessed that he was in love with me. However, we realized that what he was really hoping for was that I'd fall for him so hard I'd decide I wanted to be exclusively with him. Once he realized that, that's when we realized polyamory wasn't going to work and I had to make a decision.

It still disturbs me a bit that that happened so fast, but I don't feel like I should be judging since I was exactly like that with my ex before we started dating. Just fell so deeply in love that I couldn't bear not telling her.
At the same time though, maybe that should make me more worried, because I was absolutely off my rocker back then and the first year of our relationship was almost entirely her reigning me in and teaching me how to approach relationships in a more healthy way.

Sombyr , 4 months ago

I don't know why, but the support I get from people who can't understand but still want to help means the most to me.

Luckily, I've had a load of messages from a million people on just about every platform I knew anybody on filled with support and encouragement. Everybody's making really sure I don't feel unloved.

Sombyr , 5 months ago

Not if you're really bad at them.

Sombyr , 5 months ago

Kerbal landing technique? Like smashing into the surface max speed because you somehow managed to decouple your only engine due to poor preplanning? At least that's how I play it.

Sombyr , 5 months ago

Trigger warning on this. Can't get the spoiler thing to work at all.

Definitely not imagining it.
Since I first joined I went from having nice conversations with strangers about the weirdest things, never having a single negative interaction, to nowadays saying I think women deserve a baseline level of respect and being told I should die giving birth to a rapists baby.
To be fair, the dude who said that did get banned from the instance I'm on for that, but it happening in the first place would have been unthinkable to me a few months ago.

Sombyr , 4 months ago

You are correct that in most environments, it is the other way around. In most places, women wanting tall men is considered normal and acceptable, but men having any preference at all is not. My point was not about how things are in society as a whole, but how things are on the larger Lemmy instances. However, even that seems to have rapidly changed since I made this comment. There was a thread about men's issues I saw recently that didn't devolve into "this is why women are awful" and actually stayed on topic, and that was really nice to see.

What I was frustrated about was that there was no space where both men's and women's preferences were respected, and also not resorting to body shaming when people do not meet those preferences. Lemmy is primarily dominated by men, which naturally makes it easier to talk about men's issues without being shamed for it, but it did lead, for a while, to women's issues not only being overlooked, but also often being intentionally ignored or outright shamed, mostly because men could not understand these issues they'd never experienced, so they didn't feel as real (which is largely the same reason women often have trouble respecting men's issues.)

I'm guessing it has to do with Lemmy's population finally growing again and new perspectives being thrown into the mix, but I've noticed a lot more empathy about gendered issues lately, which is nice to see.

As far as whether you risk your account for only wanting cis women, probably depends heavily on the instance. A shocking amount of the time people use preference as a cover for bigotry, so I wouldn't be surprised if some mods are heavy on the trigger finger when it comes to that. Not that there's not legit reasons to not want to date trans women. We can't provide biological children and a large portion of us have no desire to "fully" transition, which are both reasonable reasons to not want to be with a trans woman (and of course that's not an exhaustive list of every valid reason.) It's just often people who say that mean they don't view trans women as actual women and don't want to date them because they're "not gay."