The Contradictory Feelings Thread

[linguoboy]

I've gotten so accustomed to the "new normal" that I was momentarily puzzled while filling out my timesheet today. "Wait, I took a day off last week? What for? Oh right--my husband was in hospital. Again."

I'm not sure how I feel about that.

[Imralu]

So, my counsellor told me he's out of his depth with me and I've made him question the limitations of his profession. How far can he go to help me before he's just unethically experimenting? Basically, this is mental-health-professional speech for "Dude, you are fuuuuuuucked!" I'm impressed with his honesty and the fact that he's not giving up on me. He wants to help me get my life to the point where I can get the support I really need. It's scary but also weirdly validating to hear all of this. I'm as fucked up as I think I am. Yay, I think! He also said I have the depth and self awareness to really benefit from intense psychoanalysis or deep psychotherapy in a way most people don't, so, I have the tools.

[Salmoneus]

So, my counsellor told me he's out of his depth with me and I've made him question the limitations of his profession. How far can he go to help me before he's just unethically experimenting? Basically, this is mental-health-professional speech for "Dude, you are fuuuuuuucked!" I'm impressed with his honesty and the fact that he's not giving up on me. He wants to help me get my life to the point where I can get the support I really need. It's scary but also weirdly validating to hear all of this. I'm as fucked up as I think I am. Yay, I think! He also said I have the depth and self awareness to really benefit from intense psychoanalysis or deep psychotherapy in a way most people don't, so, I have the tools.

The thing about mental fuckedupedness is that thinking you're fucked up is itself a form of being fucked up, so yeah, people are usually at least as fucked up as they think they are.
[This may also be why most counsellors/therapists/etc are also fucked up...]

[Imralu]

The thing about mental fuckedupedness is that thinking you're fucked up is itself a form of being fucked up, so yeah, people are usually at least as fucked up as they think they are.
[This may also be why most counsellors/therapists/etc are also fucked up...]

I've always had this thing, where I've thought that I'm actually not "legitimately" fucked up (because I don't have enough reason to be as I have "had it pretty good", apparently) but only imagine that I'm fucked up (due to intrinsic personal shitness (IPS), which is a quality I tend to assume I posses an unusual amount of) so to hear that I actually am fucked up is some kind of acknowledgement that it's not all in my head (even though it is, of course, quite literally all in my head, but you know what I mean, I hope), and to hear from a mental health professional that I am incredibly fucked up but not have it ascribed to my IPS feels like a huge relief.

To put it in less insane words - I kind of expect everyone to just tell me I'm being an idiot and snap out of it because my problems aren't real (!?), so, having this all taken seriously feels like someone telling me "You're actually fine," ... which is odd because I'm literally being told the opposite of that. I guess that's not going to make much sense without knowing how much I really feel like I am not even mentally ill, just being a weak and pathetic idiot all the time. And I know that a counsellor is never going to be like "You're just being an idiot" to anyone in my situation. I'm intellectually aware that I am just mentally damaged, and there is no such thing as IPS and that's just my self-esteem, but I still just always feel like an idiot, so the times when I'm told that I'm not just an idiot feel good, even though, intellectually, it shouldn't come as a surprise. What did come as a surprise though, was that I'm not just an average case, at least for this guy. I've made him question stuff... Kind of weird. I feel less like I can rely on him, with my issues being clearly too deep for him, although it's not such a letdown as he's free so I've always assumed that I can't fully rely on him anyway, and his honesty makes me trust a but more, so it balances out to mixed rather than good or bad I think.

[vampireshark]

Partly because my current lease expires in mid-April, but also because I'm tired of commuting, I'm currently in the process of trying to find a place to live that's closer to where I work. I may have found a few leads, but and the amount I would have to put up-front to rent anything is ridiculous. Seriously, most places want a security deposit of two to three months' rent plus an "agency fee" of one month, and considering the rent here is already high...

[Viktor77]

Partly because my current lease expires in mid-April, but also because I'm tired of commuting, I'm currently in the process of trying to find a place to live that's closer to where I work. I may have found a few leads, but and the amount I would have to put up-front to rent anything is ridiculous. Seriously, most places want a security deposit of two to three months' rent plus an "agency fee" of one month, and considering the rent here is already high...

Same in Belgium. We paid 2 months for our security deposit and that was considered "kind." So essentially with the first month's rent we paid 3 times our rent all up front...of course God willing we'll get 2 months back.

[Pole, the]

In two weeks I am leaving Finland.

[Vijay]

For Poland?

Today, my mom gave my dad and me Valentine's Day cards she made herself at work. I don't remember her ever doing anything like this before. I thanked her, but I'm not really sure how to feel about this. Of course it's a kind gesture, but given our history with her, especially the fact that she's tried many times to manipulate my feelings since I was about twelve (God knows how long she's done this or worse to my dad), it's difficult for me to see it as genuine. It feels more like something she did so we, and quite possibly her colleagues at work, would think of her favorably. It doesn't make me happy so much as make me think.

[Imralu]

Is there a word for the afraid-of-sex equivalent of 'horny'. I'm, like, spoon-hungry or something. I'm doing this whole looking-at-attractive-strangers-and-wondering-how-good-they-are-at-cuddling thing.

Today, my mom gave my dad and me Valentine's Day cards she made herself at work. I don't remember her ever doing anything like this before. I thanked her, but I'm not really sure how to feel about this. Of course it's a kind gesture, but given our history with her, especially the fact that she's tried many times to manipulate my feelings since I was about twelve (God knows how long she's done this or worse to my dad), it's difficult for me to see it as genuine. It feels more like something she did so we, and quite possibly her colleagues at work, would think of her favorably. It doesn't make me happy so much as make me think.

Is she a narcissist?

[Vijay]

Is she a narcissist?

Nah. More like she always wants to be right. I mean, she used to always insist on being right. Now, I suppose it's that I'm no longer very close with my parents, and she's trying to look like she's taking the moral high ground.

[finlay]

Yesterday I got quite a lot done: I went to the tax office, and I'm gonna get my quite large rebate. That's good, of course. I also went to Ikea and bought a bed and some furniture for my house. But I can't get it delivered until next week. I was really hoping to get it finished off this weekend, but my boyfriend arrived five hours after he originally told me he would, on Thursday, meaning that we didn't have time to get my furniture then - and it turns out Nitori, a Japanese home store brand, doesn't keep beds in stock, and they'd have taken two weeks to deliver. We were hoping we could just load it in his car and take it home. The other problem is I threw away my old futon because it had gotten a bit of mould on the underside, and I gave my sleeping bag to my boyfriend to keep for the time being, so if I move into the new house, I won't have a place to sleep. So I feel really stressed and disappointed because I can't do everything today like I intended. Even if I had, I haven't set up the internet so not sure I'd want to do it yet.

I'm also still not sure how I'm going to move the rest of my stuff. I think I have to rent a car, or maybe a moving company. This is why I wanted him to help me, because he has a car! He still doesn't seem to get the message that if he can't come at the time he'd told me earlier I'd appreciate more advance notice - so this time when he decided to go to the doctor in the morning instead of coming here, he should have told me at that point, not in the afternoon when I was expecting he'd already be here.

[linguoboy]

My sister is pregnant again. I thought after one surprise baby they might take precautions, but I guess not.

[vampireshark]

So, I just signed a lease for a pretty nice apartment. Located in the city center about 15 minutes away from where I work, nicely located in proximity to a lot of things, awesome kitchen, and actually in the same building as one of my friends/coworkers, which is even better.

Problem is, though, that the expenses I need to put up front right now (or, rather, within the next two weeks) equal about 4 months' rent. And rent here is really high, high to the point that, I do have enough money to pay all of the expenses, but just barely, and I definitely don't have enough when you take into account that I have to pay the current month's rent on the place I'm presently in.

Thankfully, the bank I'm with offers decent personal loan terms and conditions, but their minimum loan amounts are €5000. (And I really don't want to have to take the loan, but, quite frankly, it's what's needed to make this work.) So the idea is that I'll use the amount I absolutely need to pay the expenses up front and immediately repay the balance, allowing me to spread the security deposit fee over a few months (which is better financially).

A bit of complex yoga posing's needed, but I think this should work.

[Vijay]

There's a lot of things I haven't really been managing to do lately even though I'd like to, but hey, that's always the case. It's also really frustrating to deal with my best friend's severe lack of self-esteem, but I have managed to write out a bit more of my grandfather's diary and practice using a few Malayalam words I'm not so familiar with on this forum.

[linguoboy]

A bunch of my friends are at C2E2 today and my niece-in-law offered us free passes, but I just can't get up the gumption to go. I feel as if I want to go, but tomorrow, only I already have plans then.

[Imralu]

Two old friends of mine from Australia have written to me something along the lines of "I saw the news and thought of you. Please tell me you're OK." While I'm touched by their concern, do people really get Berlin and Brussels mixed up? With one of them, I pointed out that they're different cities in different countries, but with the other, I felt like that would be a bit dickish and I just said everything's OK. I went to Brussels once - maybe that confused them? Or has something happened in Berlin that I know nothing about?

[Vijay]

I found some old ads for Vicco Turmeric Ayurvedic Cream and Vicco Vajradanti on YouTube, though all of these are in Hindi and I remember seeing all of them in Malayalam, too, if not also in other Indian languages (though I'm not sure I remember seeing all of these particular ones in Hindi):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2BRYGTqouuE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=coNJY1lqkLg
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rtJAsb7LAkM (don't remember the beginning part at all, only the jingle at the end, I think)

These are basically Indian beauty products, especially for women. Vicco Turmeric Ayurvedic Cream is supposed to be some kind of herbal paste that makes women's skin whiter. Vicco Vajradanti is an herbal toothpaste that's supposed to make your teeth whiter ("vajradanti" means something like 'diamond tooth'). Aside from the fact that my parents, my brother, and I don't believe in Ayurvedic medicine, Vicco Turmeric Ayurvedic Cream is especially objectionable at least to my dad and me because it's pretty explicitly reinforcing the idea that only white skin is beautiful and dark skin isn't, which in our opinion waaaaaaay too many Indians buy into.

But I think I kind of remember seeing all of these ads, so in a way, it's kind of a fond childhood memory, too. Every time we rented movies from the Indian store, they would always have these ads interrupting the movie and at least sometimes replacing parts of the footage, too, like this:

Hero: ...God opened the gates of heaven for my niece...and...she never came back.
Naive kid: Where'd she go?
Hero: Actually, she didn't go anywhere because
*VICCO TURMERIC AYURVEDIC CREAM! VICCO TURMERIC AYURVEDIC CREAM!* (<- haven't found that particular commercial online yet)
*cut to completely different scene half an hour later into the movie*

[vampireshark]

These are basically Indian beauty products, especially for women. Vicco Turmeric Ayurvedic Cream is supposed to be some kind of herbal paste that makes women's skin whiter. Vicco Vajradanti is an herbal toothpaste that's supposed to make your teeth whiter ("vajradanti" means something like 'diamond tooth'). Aside from the fact that my parents, my brother, and I don't believe in Ayurvedic medicine, Vicco Turmeric Ayurvedic Cream is especially objectionable at least to my dad and me because it's pretty explicitly reinforcing the idea that only white skin is beautiful and dark skin isn't, which in our opinion waaaaaaay too many Indians buy into.

That was a bit disturbing to see when I was in India: all the ads for fairness creams and things that were meant to lighten one's skin (for both men and women). Obviously, though, a lot of people buy into it, especially when they're bombarded with it all the time (Bollywood actors... advertisements...). Even one of my Indian friends admitted to trying to use the products when he was younger (though to no success).
It is a bit ironic considering how popular tanning is in the US, both artificial (spray tanning) and less artificial (tanning beds).

Contradictory feeling time (well, two): So, I move next Friday. I'm excited to be moving to a bigger place with a really nice kitchen and a better location in comparison to where I live, but I hate moving. And there's a lot I have to get arranged for the move: internet, insurance (which is compulsory in Luxembourg), the security deposit... so this weekend/next week should be busy.

Also, I've been giving getting a haircut some thought, but I like having long hair and am very used to it by now... but, at the same time, taking care of it can be a bit of a bother, and Luxembourg's been so dry...

[Vijay]

That was a bit disturbing to see when I was in India: all the ads for fairness creams and things that were meant to lighten one's skin (for both men and women). Obviously, though, a lot of people buy into it, especially when they're bombarded with it all the time (Bollywood actors... advertisements...). Even one of my Indian friends admitted to trying to use the products when he was younger (though to no success).
It is a bit ironic considering how popular tanning is in the US, both artificial (spray tanning) and less artificial (tanning beds).

Yeah, I know people who have lived their whole lives in the US and still try (or at least have tried) to use those kinds of things (though probably because of parental pressure). Stupid Indian inferiority complexes!

Also, I've been giving getting a haircut some thought, but I like having long hair and am very used to it by now... but, at the same time, taking care of it can be a bit of a bother, and Luxembourg's been so dry...

Well, for whatever it's worth, this sounds a bit like my attitude towards shaving. I used to dream of growing out my facial hair, but I also find having a beard itchy and my mom doesn't like it when I grow it out, so I shave it off every Sunday.

[Viktor77]

I'm going to spend 4 days in Paris next week. It's nice since I will be able to stay with a friend in Neuilly-sur-seine who is willing to show me around a bit and will offer breakfast and dinner. I'll have to do some traveling myself though. My husband isn't coming. With the controls on the French border it's not possible but this is the only time I could go and stay with my friend, so I feel bad for my husband but he has accepted that this is something I need to do for my French, visit Paris, speak French with a French family, etc.

[Vijay]

I'm sorry to hear about your husband, but I still hope you enjoy your time in Paris.

[Viktor77]

I'm sorry to hear about your husband, but I still hope you enjoy your time in Paris.

Thanks! Now I need to remember all those places in Paris I've been learning about since undergrad that I need to visit. My friend is going to take me around some places, and apparently Neuilly-sur-Seine is very conveniently located to the Champs-Elysées and major metro lines so when it comes time to travel on my own (something I've only done once and that was in the US), I should be fine.

[Vijay]

Yeah, I think I've only traveled on my own twice, and that was within the US, too (and to the same place). I think I'm about to start going there more often, though, because now I have a niece there.

[Pole, the]

I have just finished watching all the episodes of Steven Universe.

[Travis B.]

The good: my contact has been officially extended to the end of the year, with the possibility of being extended beyond that.

The bad: the crazy is not going away, and instead is becoming more complex. Yay for mixed episodes... (My mind feels like a tank of water slashing back and forth right now.)