Venting thread that still excludes eddy (2)

[malloc]

Having witnessed the wave of political reaction sweeping the world over the past year, I have become increasingly pessimistic about the future. It seems difficult for me to imagine what could dislodge the GOP from all three branches of government or stop the rising tide of xenophobic nationalism in Europe at this point. I fear the reactionaries have finally defeated the long tendency toward social progress and set the stage for permanent autocracy.

[Travis B.]

People will remember that the Republicans tried to get rid of Obamacare, and for all the people who wanted it repealed, there are more people who dreaded its repeal due to relying on it for their healthcare. This is why the repeal effort failed, because Republicans with non-safe seats knew they would be punished at the midterms if they dared vote for it. And I assure you that when midterm time comes around, that the Republicans wanted to take people's healthcare away will not be forgotten. And anyways, the party that wins seats on presidential years almost inevitably loses seats at midterm time.

Looking little under four years into the future, I am sure that by then Trump will have provided more than enough ammunition for whoever will run against him, and people will be reminded of this. The difference this time around is that actual people will have suffered from his policies and have reason to be more bitter about them. Then it is just the job of the Democrats to capitalize on this. The only question is will the Republicans have the nerve to replace their own presidential candidate with someone else less compromised in hopes of just possibly retaining the presidency rather than essentially leaving it to the Democrats to win.

[alynnidalar]

I've been sick off and on for a week now, and I'm thoroughly bored of it. I legitimately want to go back to work now! But I just don't think that's a good idea until I'm sure I won't need to e.g. run to the bathroom at a moment's notice, or randomly take a nap.

I can technically work from home, but let's be honest--I don't get much done when I do that. (not that I have much to do--the only thing I have to do this week is some testing in the database, which won't possibly take more than a couple of days anyway)

Ah well, at least the nausea has mostly gone away. I finally went to see a doctor yesterday and he determined it's most likely just a stomach bug and I'll be fine in a few days, but he did give me a prescription for anti-nausea meds that seem to be helping. Yay?

[Travis B.]

I feel I cannot escape this for long; it always resurfaces whether I like it or not. Things got better mood-wise over the course of last week, which got my hopes up that maybe things would return to normal, now that the psychosis is (mostly) gone. Nope. I wake up feeling like crap on Monday, and have continued to feel like crap up until this point, complete with bizarre intrusive thoughts (probably thanks to my OCD traits) of killing myself in very odd fashions (e.g. using my bare hands to rip my head off or commandeering a cement mixer and using it to bury me alive). And this was the week where I figured (last week) that I did not have to go to my therapist's every week as everything was going a-okay, so I have to wait now until next week. Sigh. I hate being a crazy person. Of course most people understand depression better than psychosis, but do they understand bizarre intrusive thoughts and like?

[Viktor77]

Aly, I hope you'll be back this week and better.

Travis, don't call yourself a crazy person. I don't think you're a crazy person and I've been reading your posts here for quite some time.

For my part, I am beyond glad I have decided to leave academia. I just got back comments and a grade on a draft of a stupid research project I have to do for a class and it is brutal. I excelled at my MA thesis but apparently I cannot repeat that success. This class will destroy my 4.0 GPA. I will not graduate with a 4.0 in May as I hoped, as I will surely get a B in this class (and this class alone likely). The professor is a real *insert word I want to say but am choosing to not say*. She grades extremely harshly and penalizes students at every possible opportunity. Her pedanticism has turned me off entirely to research. If research is this pedantic, I don't want any part of it. I understand the need to be clear, concise, accurate, in research (and I did that for my thesis), but I don't care enough about this class to have to meet those same levels of quality. I was forced to take this class despite trying to get out of it, for my degree requirements. I am not planning on publishing this paper. I do not care. I've nearly mentally checked out of this class already. Thankfully, we're almost done and I can leave academia, go be a teacher, and never look back at this horrendous world.*

*Which, BTW, offers no reward for the punishment you put yourself through to get through academia. I see my own colleagues with PhDs struggle to find jobs. I want no part of that world. I'll happily teach high schoolers French, take home a nice paycheck, and enjoy my life again...something I haven't done in quite a while.

[Travis B.]

Travis, don't call yourself a crazy person. I don't think you're a crazy person and I've been reading your posts here for quite some time.

Seriously mentally ill person feels like officialese and kind of glosses over what is really meant. Crazy person is much more direct in what is meant and indicates everything one really thinks about serious mental illness rather than glossing over it.

Sure, I may not seem like a crazy person, but there is less difference between people like myself and the homeless and other low-functioning mentally ill you see. The problems I have, including mood problems (including depression, (hypo)mania, and mixed states), positive symptoms (including hallucinations and delusions), negative symptoms (including avolition), and OCD problems (including obsessions) are not really all that different from the problems many of them have.

In the end, the real difference is that I am high functioning (read: can hold down a job), largely have insight (read: I know my crazy thoughts are crazy - except in the case of my obsessions), have no substance abuse issues, have access to good mental health care, and have a good amount of support from my family, while those people are generally low functioning (read: cannot hold down a job), often have limited insight, are very frequently alcoholic, generally have no mental health care, and have limited to no support outside of homeless shelters and soup kitchens.

Of course I do have some clear advantages - my moods are short and are not truly disabling for long, I am able to keep my positive symptoms in my head unless I specifically want to tell someone about them (in large part because I do have generally good insight), my negative symptoms do not really affect parts of my life where I have a clearly established routine, and my OCD traits are not severe. At the same time, I have trouble living on my own, thanks to the negative symptoms; last time I lived on my own it was a disaster.

In the end, most of the differences are ones of quantity rather than ones of quality, which implies it makes little sense to differentiate high-functioning seriously mentally ill people from low-functioning seriously mentally ill people. In my own case, if a few factors were different in my life (e.g. if I had more severe psychosis, or I had little insight, or I had longer and more severe mood episodes, or I did not have family I could live with, or I did not have something I do well in spite of it all that gives me a daily routine and keeps me from feeling worthless) things could definitely be much, much worse as a whole. And these things likely would be different if I did not have access to decent mental health care; e.g. if I already get psychotic on antipsychotics, just how am I going to be without antipsychotics? And if one is to choose an adjective to encompass both, I would choose crazy specifically because it is not euphemistic or officialese in the least.

[jal]

For me, crazy is defined by a lack of insight. The fact that large parts of your brain regularly malfunction, but at least some part of your brain knows the other parts are malfunctioning, makes you, in my eyes, not a crazy person.


JAL

[Travis B.]

The thing about insight is that it is not a fixed thing; one's insight can change over time. I used to not have insight into paranoia - I seriously thought unmarked police cars were watching and following me and that the police were out to arrest me for crimes I was not aware of committing; then eventually I gained insight into this. Likewise, I for a long time did not realize I had negative symptoms; I did not realize there was anything wrong with my functioning, outside of mood episodes, when left to my own devices. Similarly, up until quite recently, I thought that everyone got the hallucinations I get in low light, and that such were not abnormal. And I still do not have insight into my obsessions, in that I do not generally realize I am obsessing while I am doing it; I need someone else to tell me I am obsessing before I realize I am doing it. In the opposite direction, people can often lose insight, often either due to psychotic symptoms getting more severe or paradoxically due to getting better and forgetting that one is still mentally ill even when one feels fine.

[Viktor77]

Travis, I didn't mean to question your right to self-identify how you like. I just found the term negative and self-deprecating and didn't think it very positive to call oneself. Of course you have every right to call yourself as you like.

Myself, I don't know if I'll ever deal with Africans again. I did a large translation for a client from the Congo. In trying to meet up to give them the papers and get paid they disrespected my time immensely. I waited on and off 8 hours yesterday, kept promising they're coming, no show, etc. Today they were still late to our meeting and showed up with only half the money, despite numerous notices of the amount to be paid. With a handwritten contract they say they'll pay the rest Friday. They better or I'll be taking them to court.

But what frustrates me is how little they value my time towards this. I don't want to be that guy, but when you're in America you need to respect American culture and our culture says that if you have an appointment, with the exception of an emergency, you show up on time. And if you are billed XX$, you show up with XX$.

[Travis B.]

Travis, I didn't mean to question your right to self-identify how you like. I just found the term negative and self-deprecating and didn't think it very positive to call oneself. Of course you have every right to call yourself as you like.

Properly speaking, it is reclaiming the term. And yes, I don't mind that the term is self-deprecating, as terms that have been reclaimed often are.

[Travis B.]

The intrusive thoughts were bizarre and disturbing, and are gone now, completely. That is the good news. What has replaced them, though, is probably not an improvement, a relapse of the paranoia (and not anxious paranoia but psychotic paranoia). Now I want to avoid my coworkers in the halls - I feel like they're watching me - and ideally not be seen by them at all, have impulses to find myself an unused conference room and simply hide (preferably with the lights off), view the cars on the road as watching me (especially if their lights are on), view all the cars in parking lots as watching me (I don't know how empty cars can watch people), think that there is something outside the window, watching, at night, and generally feel watched even if no one is around (except in my cube space - where no one else sits - and where I can feel safe from being watched). I hate being psychotic. Sigh.

[jal]

Myself, I don't know if I'll ever deal with Africans again. (...) when you're in America you need to respect American culture and our culture says that if you have an appointment, with the exception of an emergency, you show up on time. And if you are billed XX$, you show up with XX$.

Although I largely agree - when in Rome do as the Romans do - I don't think you can expect someone not living in country X, but trying to do business there, to completely understand the culture, or "respect" it, or whatever. You say they don't respect your time, I say their concept of time is totally different. Google for "sequential vs synchronic time" or "monochronic vs polychronic", and be enlightened :).

What has replaced them, though, is probably not an improvement

Damn Trav, you really don't get a break... Hang in there!


JAL

[Salmoneus]

Travis, I didn't mean to question your right to self-identify how you like. I just found the term negative and self-deprecating and didn't think it very positive to call oneself. Of course you have every right to call yourself as you like.

Myself, I don't know if I'll ever deal with Africans again. I did a large translation for a client from the Congo. In trying to meet up to give them the papers and get paid they disrespected my time immensely. I waited on and off 8 hours yesterday, kept promising they're coming, no show, etc. Today they were still late to our meeting and showed up with only half the money, despite numerous notices of the amount to be paid. With a handwritten contract they say they'll pay the rest Friday. They better or I'll be taking them to court.

But what frustrates me is how little they value my time towards this. I don't want to be that guy, but when you're in America you need to respect American culture and our culture says that if you have an appointment, with the exception of an emergency, you show up on time. And if you are billed XX$, you show up with XX$.

Congratulations, Viktor. In the era of Trump and Brexit, you have somehow managed to say the most racist thing I've heard in years. "I met an African once - they were late to a meeting, so I'm never going to talk to an African ever again. They need to be more like white people, or go back to Africa!". Congrats.

Mind you, I'm not sure why I'm talking to you at all. After all, you're an American, and I met an American tourist once who spoke way too loudly in a restaurant, so...


[small hint: there are 1.2 billion people in Africa - approximately 16% of the entire human population, and approximately 1.2 billion percent more than were late to your meeting. Although their skin is in most cases darker than yours, they actually do differ from one another in many other important ways.]

[Travis B.]

What has replaced them, though, is probably not an improvement

Damn Trav, you really don't get a break... Hang in there!

Things can always be worse; in this case things are not as bad as they were back in February, for instance.

[jal]

the most racist thing I've heard in years

Though I agree with you Vik was rather thick there, I don't think he was racist per se. I bet if it'd be an Estonian, he'd have said the same about all Estonians :).

Things can always be worse; in this case things are not as bad as they were back in February, for instance.

Well, yeah, count your blessings I guess, but it still feels a bit like a cold comfort... Let's just hope things go better without setbacks for a change...


JAL

[Travis B.]

Things can always be worse; in this case things are not as bad as they were back in February, for instance.

Well, yeah, count your blessings I guess, but it still feels a bit like a cold comfort... Let's just hope things go better without setbacks for a change...

Hopefully that will be so, even though in some ways I doubt it, particularly since mood-wise I have not really stabilized after my mood stabilizer got changed (because it was reducing the effectiveness of one antipsychotic and its interaction with the other antipsychotic was unknown). I am really disappointed though about the paranoia, though, as it really did seem like that was under control; supposedly this will get better once the crosstaper from one antipsychotic to the other is complete, but I wonder.

[Torco]

Racism is not, in fact, american rednecks yelling about how much they hate blackies: that is racist, but racism is not limited to the KKK: if it was, it'd be hilariously easy to solve. 'African' is not a race, except when it is, cause the whole idea of race is funky as fuck, but I gotta admit, I'm tempted to make Vik's post a copypasta since its so hilariously illustrative of what you'd call non-malicious bigotry.

[linguoboy]

the most racist thing I've heard in years

Though I agree with you Vik was rather thick there, I don't think he was racist per se. I bet if it'd be an Estonian, he'd have said the same about all Estonians .

I've heard "racism" in UK usage expanded to cover bigotry based on national and ethnic origin as well as "race" in its stricter sense. (Keep in mind that it was once common to talk about such concepts as "the English race" or "the Malay race".)

Obligatory Mock the Week example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fPx7CNT2aVs

[KathTheDragon]

the most racist thing I've heard in years

Though I agree with you Vik was rather thick there, I don't think he was racist per se. I bet if it'd be an Estonian, he'd have said the same about all Estonians .

I've heard "racism" in UK usage expanded to cover bigotry based on national and ethnic origin as well as "race" in its stricter sense. (Keep in mind that it was once common to talk about such concepts as "the English race" or "the Malay race".)

Obligatory Mock the Week example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fPx7CNT2aVs

Well that's what racism looks like here. Poles are probably as white as white Brits, but god help them if they dare look for a job here.

[Travis B.]

I just wish this paranoia would stop; it's making me miserable at work, to say the very least - I almost considered not coming in to work today, and I practically always come into work.

[Viktor77]

You all need to calm down. I was a bit mad when I wrote that (this is the Venting thread after all). And if anything it's xenophobic not racist.

But these were individuals who did live in the US and who have businesses here. They made us wait hours on Monday when they weren't even in the same city as us and were never going to be, even though they kept saying they would be there in an hour. The next day they made us wait another half hour and only showed up with half the money but had to have all the documents for immigration. The third day (today) they showed up with the rest of the money but again they showed up half an hour late when we told them to arrive pile à l'heure because we have other engagements.

If I was racist or xenophobic in wanting someone to respect my time and my culture, then the colleague I was with who is the most multicultural-respecting person I've ever met, was also because she voiced the same frustrations. And true it's not all Africans, but this has been a trend with past work with Africans (especially Congolese). Some of my colleagues have outright stop doing translation work because they were frustrated by this exact phenomenon of not showing up on time and not respecting our time. And my colleague told me the were sexist towards her. I didn't notice it then but in retrospect they only ever really apologized to me (the male).

If I'm xenophobic to ask someone to respect my culture than I guess I'm xenophobic. If I went to Africa, I wouldn't expect to use American time. I believe you have to respect the culture of the country you're in.

[Travis B.]

The issue here is where you associate this specifically with Africans, as a group...

[Ketumak]

My absences from the board get longer and this post doesn't mark a full-time return, but things have been pretty crazy here of late.

Where to start an explanation? I've mentioned before that I was helping edit my mother-in-law's biography of her father. We've also had increasing caring responsibilities for her since she moved up here in 2009. For the last three years my brother-in-law (who has mental health problems but won't get help) has been living with her.

He's taken on more caring work, which is good as mother-in-law has gone downhill since summer, but he can be very over-bearing. About a month ago M-i-L said she felt like a prisoner in her home and this was one reason she wanted to go to hospital. The same day, B-i-L issued death threats against me, my wife and our son. While she was in hospital, B-i-L was aggressive towards us and towards the hospital staff. We floated the idea of him being sectioned again with M-i-L whilst visiting her in hospital. The night after that, M-i-L rang my wife and I, demanding we get her out of hospital (hospital wanted her to spend an extra 2 days there). I think she wanted to protect B-i-L from himself, us and mental health practitioners.

We refused to take her out and both got abuse off her. She discharged herself. There was then a month of no contact as we felt we couldn't go back into such a dysfuncitonal situation. They made no contact with us either. Then M-i-L died.

And that's when the shit really hit the fan. B-i-L disputes the funeral arrangements and the will. He also complains about "our treatment" of M-i-L in her final weeks. We think its too early to talk wills and want to agree funeral arrangements. He wants total control of funeral arrangements and detailed discussions over property. We have been called shameful, sickening, etc. and told we are going to hell. We're getting solicitors to write and tell him to back off. Meanwhile, the funeral directors won't deal with either B-i-L or my wife, so arrangements are on hold and we could lose the timeslot we booked at the Crematorium.

What happens next is anyone's guess. Apart from that, I'm fine.

[Vijay]

How credible are your brother-in-law's death threats? Can you get him arrested for doing that? I've dealt with emotional abuse before, but that's just ridiculous.

[Ketumak]

Not particularly credible in themselves, fortunately. Though I think they're indicative of some kind of serious move against us when we have the arguments we will need to have. Not knowing what exactly he will do or when does rather prey on your mind.