The Great Experiment

What is life but a great experiment?

[everanix]

Whenever someone reblogs one of those “I don’t feel like a real person I’m just faking it” posts I look at the number of notes

And then I figure that’s just what being a person is like

And the problem is less the “reality” or “sincerity” of our feelings and personalities and more how much stock we put into the reality or sincerity of the feelings and personalities of others

It’s not that you’re not a person, you just think you’re doing it wrong and everyone else is somehow doing it differently when that’s not actually the case

[the-great-experiment]

I don’t feel good. I feel lonely. My boyfriend came over and I was still stuck playing Minecraft so I didn’t really talk to him. Eventually he fell asleep and I never got to talk to him because he was too sleepy. :( 

The tragedy of wasted time. I can’t get it back.

[the-great-experiment]

Things I like to do when I’m depressed: 

- Cry myself to sleep

- Practice ceasing to breathe

- Lay on the ground and feel like garbage

- Eat nothing

- Self loathing

[the-great-experiment]

You know what’s confusing? When Arabic people start typing Arabic using English letters but substituting numbers for some letters that are missing. I just read it thinking “how am I supposed to pronounce the 7?”

I mean, I’m pretty sure it’s Arabic. I can’t use Google Translate to find out what it means though…

[the-great-experiment]

I found out the 7 is a “Kh” sound. Still trying to figure out what the 2 and the 3 are though. 

[pine-tease]

PSA: Parents. Please do not emotionally manipulate your children.

They will grow up completely untrusting with a general sense of sadness and guilt.

Manipulation includes:

- “I just wish [something passive aggressive involving your child]”

- “You do whatever you want to do.” and then getting mad when they make the “wrong” choice

- Not believing them when they tell you something someone did or said to them, including their friends, your friends, family members, or even you

- Doing something shitty and then pretending you didn’t in hopes they’ll forget?

- Getting upset when they open up to you. About anything. Even if it’s something angering or disappointing. Don’t show them it’s dangerous or counterproductive to talk to you.

- Making them feel bad for the friends/significant others they choose, career path (or lack thereof), school choice (or lack thereof), gender/sexuality (or lack thereof) literally anything that either they didn’t choose or that they would be miserable without

- Do NOT EVER UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES pressure them to talk to you about personal things.

- Kids do not owe their parents anything. They did not choose to be born. You chose to get pregnant/chose to carry to term/chose to raise a baby (even if you didn’t choose all of these things, you at least chose one) under the assumption that you would love this child no matter what.

[taylor-dibbles-and-mipsy]

this post means so much to me.

[scelerabam-me]

Also - Don’t doubt your child of they are very clearly telling the truth - Don’t call them nicknames or anything like that they they don’t want want you to. - Don’t force them to participate in social activities if they don’t want to. - Don’t tease them if they don’t want you to.

[the-great-experiment]

As one who has experienced many of these things, I concur with these points. Though I’m unstudied in parenting, I hope I can become a good parent some day. I’d also like to add a few things I think parents should avoid: 

- Do not prohibit children from arguing with you if they have good reasons. 

- Do not force affection on children when you’re scolding them. Ex: forcing child to sit down and cuddle while you explain everything they did wrong, stroking their hair while telling them they should be more like such-and-such. You will teach your children to associate affection with punishment. In fact, forcing affection on anyone without their consent is really a bad thing to do.

- Do not blame the children’s interests for their “bad behavior” and threaten to take away things they love if they don’t shape up. In fact, threats in general are not good parenting.

- Do not tell your children terrible things will happen if they won’t, if the children are simply doing something you don’t like.

And because I like being positive, some positive things to do instead:

- Respond to wrongdoings with understanding, kindness, and love instead of anger. Try to understand why the child did the thing you don’t like, instead of punishing them out of anger.  Patience.

- Allow and teach your children to argue logically and kindly. Lead by example. Admit you were wrong if you were wrong, then decide what to do based on that. You do not have to appear to always be right in front of your children. Everyone makes mistakes. More respect is gained from someone admitting a mistake and fixing it than trying to cover it up.

- Positive reinforcement works a lot better than punishment. Reward good behavior instead of punishing bad behavior. 

- Encourage your child to be who they are. Support them in their endeavors. Be there for them when they need it. Be better at listening than talking. Enable them to become the best they can be.

[the-great-experiment]

I tried to have a fight with my boyfriend today because we are getting along way too well. It didn’t go very well. 

Me: “We’re getting along way too well, we have to have a fight.”  BF: “Okay let’s have a fight. What are we going to fight about?”  Me: “HMMMM. We can fight about not knowing what to fight about!” *shakes finger at BF* “I am scolding you! You have to be less accommodating to people!”  BF: *looks chastened* “Okay I’ll try to be less accommodating”  Me: “No! You’re still doing it!” *laughs and hugs him instead* Me: “I’m going to fight you!” *lightly punches BF on the shoulder* BF: *very lightly punches me on the shoulder* Me: *Does fake karate* BF: *Does fake karate back* Me and BF end up dancing instead of fighting. Me: “You’re wrong!” (at nothing in particular) BF: *thinks a minute, then answers out-of-character* “No, I’m right and you know it!”  Me: “No, I am right!”  BF: “You’re only saying that because you want to fight.” Me: *looks sheepishly* “You got me, you’re right.”  We aren’t very good at this. I suppose this bodes... well.... I don’t know if I’ll ever find a good reason to get rid of him. He’s just too great. 

[the-great-experiment]

How bothered should I be that my boyfriend thinks my anxiety symptoms are “cute”? 

On the one hand, he does help me overcome them. He gives me reality checks when I’m worrying about things that are way off base or totally implausible. He tends to give me more information when I’m beginning to panic about not knowing what to do. He reassures me and speaks quietly and calmly, or more sternly when needed to get me to calm down.

On the other hand, he’s told me he thinks it’s cute when I’m all stressed and worried about stuff. That I’m constantly processing information and trying to judge which is the “right” thing to do even in totally trivial decisions like what to eat or wear. I threatened to call his ADHD symptoms cute, except that I don’t think they are, and it felt mean to do that. But maybe sometimes he could use a dose of his own medicine. Or like... actual medicine.

I guess I shouldn’t be bothered by this right now. It doesn’t seem like it’s causing me problems. In fact, he’s helping me overcome things I would not be able to alone. At least he doesn’t hate or criticize me for my weaknesses (like I do myself sometimes). I guess it’s better that he thinks they’re cute, than yelling at me for them or getting exasperated. People thinking things are cute seems to make them a lot more amenable to helping out or taking care of you.

[the-great-experiment]

Memories can become very strongly attached to objects. I find it amazing the things I can recall when I'm just holding an old book or a toy from my childhood. If you like the memories associated with a certain object, make sure to keep it. If you don't like them, make sure to get rid of it.

[the-great-experiment]

ON THE BRIGHT SIDE.

I apparently now have the focus/motivation to work on comic updates again.

So there’s one panel down.

[the-great-experiment]

Medications are difficult

I’m on like the minimal dose of everything and I just started the new medication which is Zoloft. Half of the smallest dose. But I’m all like “OMG WHAT I FEEL DIZZY I CAN’T FEEL MY HANDS” *waves hands around randomly*

Like I feel there’s some kind of dissociation between my mind and my body. Like I’m this nebulous being in the middle and there are hands sticking out and feet and they’re doing stuff but I don’t really know.

Well my boyfriend is back and he is going to make sure I don’t do anything stupid (or is he? we will find out).

[the-great-experiment]

It's not good to be alone. If you're with someone who doesn't appreciate and accept you for you, you really are still alone. If you know someone out there who loves and appreciates who you are, no distance can keep your souls apart, but it comes at a cost of great pain for the distance. If you don't think you'll ever find someone who appreciates you for you, keep looking. Don't lose hope. Sometimes you have to take the first step.

[the-great-experiment]

The qualities of physical affection determine the character of any relationship.

I was surprised that anyone could be this kind, this loving, this caring, or that their affectionate care could make me want to be as kind, loving, and caring in return.

[the-great-experiment]

So, as a (very) few of you may know, I’m in a romantic relationship now. I feel like it is a lot more successful than any of my previous romantic relationships. I’d like to ponder a bit more about why I think this may be the case. 

I think in part this is probably due to the fact that I finally forced myself to get past my stupid mental fear of physical affection. I like affection. A lot. Some subconscious mental process of mine makes me afraid of physical and emotional closeness to someone. (Whether this is because of the influence of my parents, my prior religion, past bad experiences or what, I don’t know and it doesn’t really matter anymore.) What caused the shift here? I think it’s because I finally stopped judging/condemning myself for my own feelings.

Anyway, I think I previously underestimated the importance of physical affection in romantic relationships. It seems like the physical closeness has drawn me into more emotional and mental closeness with this person. It has allowed/encouraged me to spend more time with him and therefore I’ve gotten to know him better in the past week than I knew almost anyone else I’ve dated. I guess it helped that we were friends and spent a lot of time around each other already before we started dating. It’s just so comforting to spend time with him. It’s definitely better than being alone, which is something that I as an introvert cannot frequently say.

I think it’s also because I trust him. He has proven to be polite and respectful in all our interactions and that is something I absolutely treasure. I used to shy away from any sort of intimacy, and I think it was because I was afraid of “crossing the line” no matter where I started. But I’ve discussed this with him and we have established our boundaries. I trust him to keep his word or I wouldn’t continue the relationship. One of the things I like about him and I think is absolutely necessary, at least for me, is being open and communicative at all times. Keeping misgivings about any of our plans or activities a secret would be the start of serious problems. He told me he believes physical affection should always be voluntary, and I think that’s a marvelous thing.

I may feel different in a few weeks or days, who knows. We’ll see where this goes. At least I’m not afraid anymore. I think it’s safe to say, based on our prior friendship, that the romantic relationship may last quite a while. And it may last the rest of my life. At least I can hope. I’m tired of looking.

[the-great-experiment]

As a woman in a programming field, I sometimes have people ask me questions like “do you feel lonely as the only woman here?” or something along those lines. 

I honestly have to admit that I find the presence of other women somewhat unnerving. Since I am a nerd and always have been kind of eccentric, it could be that memories of how other girls and women have treated me in the past -- their expectations of me, their ridiculous amounts of drama, the subtle power-play that goes on beneath every word -- are all subconsciously affecting my desire to be around them. Maybe it’s because they remind me of my mother and my sister, who have been at times very unkind to me, and whose emotional outbursts I have a lot of trouble dealing with. But I’m definitely much more at ease in the presence of men than women...unless they’re chauvinistic or something. (I hope this is not too ironically sexist of me to say.) 

I find that men tend to be more direct in their communications. If there’s a problem, they will tend to let you know, instead of holding all the emotion inside and unleashing it all at some seemingly innocuous trigger. And at least I’ve found that they typically don’t try to surreptitiously control my life or guilt trip me into doing things. On the other hand, I’ve met significant outliers in both groups, so I don’t really know if I can make this generalization. But I speak mostly from my experience in real life. If there are more women I have to work with, I find myself subconsciously avoiding them if at all possible. Is it that I see them as competition? Perhaps it’s a personal problem. At least in programming it’s not something I have to worry about a whole lot.

I just always found the question weird. I don’t understand the problem. Should I feel out of place and lonely when I’m doing what I love best, regardless of who I’m around? 

[the-great-experiment]

At least I don’t have to get extra anxious about remembering to take my anxiety medication. If it starts wearing off, I’ll get anxious automatically, and then I’ll remember.

[the-great-experiment]

On second thought, if I don’t REMEMBER the fact that I took my medication, how do I know if I’ve already taken it... O_O 

[the-great-experiment]

At least I don’t have to get extra anxious about remembering to take my anxiety medication. If it starts wearing off, I’ll get anxious automatically, and then I’ll remember.

[the-great-experiment]

I am so, so tired of fighting my brain and stupid side effects of stupid medications on stupidly low doses. 

I just want to be normal. Normal-for-me maybe would be fine, as long as I’m not going to die from stress. I am so tired of trying to be normal. I am so tired of trying to do the things I want to do and the things other people want me to do and trying to figure out which of those to pick when they’re in conflict. I’m not always right but I guess I’m not always wrong either. Second-guessing myself? I need someone to give me a reality check. I need someone to tell me when I’m freaking out needlessly or blowing things out or proportion, to remind me that there’s something outside myself that I can depend on (objective reality) and live for.

I just want to rest. When can I rest. When will this be over.