no boys allowed in the room!!!!

And it turns out that the real me is a monster lol

Oh shiiiit, I have so much to say on that topic (not you, but me) but ... I am not going to reveal that much.

I look forward to it! It's not really that I'm terrible, maybe a little lazy, selfish, human...but I can't be afraid of being flawed or else everything is doomed, including my mental health.

most of the recent long term couples i know either knew the person from school or met them on the internet. no in-between.

Basically, my attitude towards "the real me" is: there is some dark evil garbage there, but I have a choice whether to indulge it or repress it; I have the agency to prevent other people from being hurt by it; I can work on understanding what triggers it and how to talk myself down and deal with things in a kinder more empathetic way.

And to me, that's the scary aspect of the alt-right MRA incel dudes -- it's like they are just collectively saying "fuck it" and indulging their inner angry sociopaths as opposed to saying, "I don't want to be evil," and trying to be better people.

Wow, Sarahell, it's like you've reinvented hardcore Calvinism? (I am mostly joking, but only mostly.)

I dunno. Like, a large part of therapy for me was letting go of this idea (totally internalised from that kind of Christianity) that the fundamental core of me was some dark evil garbage. Like, yes, I had some pretty heavy neurological difference that caused me to interpret (and be interpreted by) therefore react to (and be reacted to) other people in some fucked up ways. But it was up to me how I navigated and negotiated that, with that knowledge?

Like, even with the hardcore misandry that has built up over years, deep down, I really have a hard time believing that anyone is a truly totally garbage human being. That there are flawed human beings operating within twisted systems that twist them. But believing that makes it harder for me - like, when cis dudes confirm all the wost aspects of cis dudeisms, I get angry, like - you have the ability to do better? You could, and you should! Every non-cis-dude I know works on themselves so hard all the time, why don't you make that choice, instead of just doubling down on it?

Anyway, this thinkpiece seems to be resonating with a lot of what's been said here (and I love the phrase heteropessimism) but it's still leaving me with a sense of ... I don't know, rubbing me the wrong way. Girls, what is bugging about this piece?

https://thenewinquiry.com/on-heteropessimism/

Wow, Sarahell, it's like you've reinvented hardcore Calvinism? (I am mostly joking, but only mostly.)

ha the religion of my ancestors (probably)! ... I don't think everyone has dark evil garbage at their core. Or rather, there's a spectrum of dark evil garbage -- and mine is "above average" like if we were to compare it to absorbency ratings on menstrual products, with the most innately kind compassionate people having a panty liner's worth of dark evil garbage, mine would be definitely be a "super plus" but not so bad as to require a tampon + heavy days pad. And I'm not saying I was "born that way" -- a lot of it was unhealthy thinking and coping mechanisms as a result of being a weird kid in an oppressively normal small town, as well as untreated mental illness.

That there are flawed human beings operating within twisted systems that twist them. But believing that makes it harder for me - like, when cis dudes confirm all the wost aspects of cis dudeisms, I get angry, like - you have the ability to do better? You could, and you should!

What I believe is closer to that, btw. Some people get twisted "worse" than others, some get twisted towards narcissism, sociopathic tendencies, bullying, intolerance/hatred of difference ... others get twisted towards fear, crippling anxiety, low self-worth, etc. Not to make it binary ... because some of the "predatory" twistedness stems from "victimhood" twistedness.

Branwell, I haven't read the article yet, but would it make sense re: your discomfort, that the person on social media I saw post a link to it is a cis white hetero dude who is into idm and alt-right adjacent?

That article, I dunno. Heterosexuality is such a huge mess and there are too many rigid institutions that want to keep it that way. I have been getting annoyed with my fb friends, women with phDs and full time jobs who circulate articles about the unseen labor they do in the household while their husband still has to be reminded of simple adult things to do. Such a shitshow.

Which also leads into that study recently about men benefitting more than women from being married and women being more likely to initiate divorces. Like, no shit.

Tldr that hot garbage. Any time an accusation is made that some act of resistance is "performative," I mentally mute all following content.

The little bit that I did read made me really angry because, among probably 1000 other things, the author is

1. Pretending that they don't know that when straight women complain about being attracted to men, what they're really critiquing is patriarchy, not heterosexuality as itself.

2. Pretending that heterosexuality is the same as violent/toxic masculinity/patriarchy. "I think they're wrong, that there's evidence heterosexual culture is changing. But even if it weren't we would have to believe it could, because tens of thousands of women are currently dying of it [heterosexuality] every year, murdered by their husbands, boyfriends, or exes.") THEY'RE NOT MURDERED FOR BEING HETERO, THEY'RE MURDERED BECAUSE THE MEN IN THEIR LIVES ARE VIOLENT MISOGYNISTS. Also because guns, honestly.

3. The writer just equated women who are "pessimistic" about heterosexuality, as in point #1, and Men Going Their Own Way, which I don't have the resiliency to explain here but google MGTOW if you must. Those two ideas are NOT EQUAL.

Honestly there's so much more but I can't type it all out. Throw the whole article away.

haha, otm. Yeah, I started skimming because the entire thing was confusingly written.

on point 1 about being attracted to men I thought they were going to go into a sexual attraction vs romantic attraction angle but that wasn't the case.

Thank you, in orbit, you hit the ball right out of the park immediately.

I think it was Point No. 3 that just stuck in my throat, like, what, no - these two things are not the same thing at all. The reasoning is different, the logic is different, the power dynamic is completely different. And just feeling like that author had really, really missed something incredibly big, as to why she would even think this way.

And of course, what she has missed is exactly points 1 and 2.

Thank you! You have very succinctly articulated what was bothering me!

Yes, io otm. That essay or whatever it is sounds like garbage.

Also I value succinct point-making/articulation of ideas so much in the face of disingenuous long-winded endurance tests designed to fatigue the reader into capitulation to their pov

💜

It’s like when someone says “fight me” — my first thought is “no way, f u”

Boy, and how.

Recently I was in a professional training and the speaker asked for a show of hands: "Who in here sees themselves as a person of excellence?" or something like that. And a few ppl raised their hands but honestly I was just like "That sounds exhausting. Is there a medium version?"

xp - I prefer "fight me" to a long ass diatribe about "this is why you suck" -- having experienced both

relatedly, going back to the differences between teen dating and adult relationships -- it is way way easier to avoid the people it doesn't work out with when you're an adult.

oh my i would not give the time of day to a diatribe about why i suck
1) excuse you, i don't suck. your thesis is invalid.
and 2) who has the time/inclination to type out paragraphs of hateful shit and deliver it to a person? wtf, no one i want to know.

poof
* u got jettisoned *

being a teenager fucking sucked, i'll take adulthood any day any way

wtf, no one i want to know.

you know this person. you regret knowing this person.

basically I prolonged the diatribe by logically arguing against each of his points

Not the wisest choice, next time press EJECT to jettison rather than REPLY

The difference is palpable! Hard FU to anyone who tries to manipulate people that way.

Tbh I felt pretty good about myself that I didn't press "LOOP PLAY"

I did eventually press EJECT after telling him that he was projecting his own insecurities and inadequacies onto me, that he has serious control issues, and that he should work on having the self-discipline necessary to not treat other people like shit

It took a lot of self-discipline on my part not to do anything vindictive ... outside of post on this thread.

What I believe is closer to that, btw. Some people get twisted "worse" than others, some get twisted towards narcissism, sociopathic tendencies, bullying, intolerance/hatred of difference ... others get twisted towards fear, crippling anxiety, low self-worth, etc. Not to make it binary ... because some of the "predatory" twistedness stems from "victimhood" twistedness.

― sarahell

cycle of violence and abuse. i know i've done both at once.

a lot of what i've gone through is getting myself to a point where i can _listen_ to that vicious hateful screaming person inside of me. turns out all that anger and rage and shit was because i wasn't _listening_ to them, which of course i wasn't because they were screaming and abusive and possibly violent. anybody else behaved like that and i wouldn't listen to them, i'd shut them out and keep them away to keep myself safe, but when it's me doing that it's not enough to say that's a "bad person" and ignore them, and it's not enough to argue with them and tell them all the ways they're wrong. "i hear what you are saying and i disagree" seems to work, though.

a long ass diatribe about "this is why you suck"

Inspired by Captain Awkward and 5 long years of therapy, the most satisfying response to such a thing, is a succinct non-engagement.

To them: "Wow, you're right. The person you're describing sounds like a total arsehole. You should stop being friends with them."

THEN WALK AWAY.

To yourself: "wow, why would I want to be friends with someone who genuinely views me that way?"

(Usual caveats that this is based on highly gendered patterns. That people who are viewed as women are trained to view every relationship problem as their specific personal responsibility, and that it is their job to placate or even fix angry or demanding men. I think the hardest lesson is not actually learning to press EJECT; but to learn to distinguish genuine and helpful advice from this kind of controlling behaviour.)

I'm having a weird and horrible experience right now, which is really messing with my head, and my ideas around gender-based violence. But it's very much a question of "this is one isolated and individual example, that violates but does not invalidate the general patterns of how this shit works."

I don't know if this thread or a Neighbour Problems thread is the appropriate place for it (I still have panic attacks at the thought of asking even reasonable questions on General ILX.) But a new couple have recently moved into the flat next to mine, and since then, there has been near-constant, loud, invasive and open (as in, it does not stay in their flat, it moves into the shared areas directly outside my door and windows) terrifying domestic violence.

After trying repeatedly to offer help to the girl, then (very reluctantly, with great trepidation because my local police are known for their brutality) getting the police involved bcz one of them pulled a knife - I discovered that it was actually the girl being abusive and violent towards the boy.

It's a fucking nightmare, because it drives home exactly what "local services cut to the bone" actually means in an inner London borough - little to no response from the council, her social worker impossible to get hold of, no resources at the police's domestic violence department to deal with it, no spaces at local mental hospitals to address either her untreated mental illness or the pair's drug dependency.

I'm pretty well versed in how to support a woman being abused by a man. I know what resources are available, I know how to help and how not to help. But this? I got nothing. It is rare; it is generally the exception. But being unprepared for the exception is... well, this is a lot right now, and I don't know how to handle it.

Not really expecting replies, but thanks for listening/reading.

To me this is the frustrating thing about the whataboutists who turn every conversation about abuse into a pretext for misogyny. It happens. Sometimes women abuse men. Sometimes women assault men. And the whataboutists make me afraid of even mentioning this, talking about the people I've known, lest I sound like one of them.

One of my wife's former co-workers openly sexually assaulted a man at their office (hence "former"). One of my co-workers, the week I came out, went to court to testify for one of her friends, whose ex was violent towards him. It was a difficult and terrifying experience for her, and after all that the judge still dismissed it as a "domestic dispute", because he had the not uncommon perception that women don't abuse men.

Like you say, these are individual examples, and they don't imply larger patterns.

I'm pretty well versed in how to support a woman being abused by a man. I know what resources are available, I know how to help and how not to help. But this? I got nothing.

ugh ... yeah, it's tough ... in situations like this (and I have been in similar ones) I tend to ask myself, "what am I willing to do, what do I feel confident I can do and not make the situation worse, and how much responsibility am I willing to take on?"

That people who are viewed as women are trained to view every relationship problem as their specific personal responsibility, and that it is their job to placate or even fix angry or demanding men.

It's true ... but in this case, at that particular stage, I felt more like I was providing diagnostic tech support for his shitty personality

omg let me ask how much responsibility am I willing to take on?

bc diagnostic tech support for this particular situation sounds like a looooooooot of work :)

wait, Branwell's situation or mine?

yours

i mean, i had done previous research ... it's not like it took much effort to assess his problems ... he pretty much had admitted them ... if we are comparing this "relationship" ending discussion to tech support, it was like, "oh, you have weird pop-ups and your browser is screwy? and you said that you regularly look at foreign porn sites? sounds like malware. Yeah, you need to get something to get rid of the malware. I can't do anything on my end. Thanks for calling. Bye."

obviously I hadn't done _enough_ research to realize he was a horrible narcissist before getting involved, even to the fairly minor extent I did. ... and by "research" I mean, refreshing my memory of previous conversations throughout the years

Alright, I am very much tired of this menopause bullshit, and I would simply like it to be over.

The physical stuff is annoying but I can mostly handle it. (Hot flushes, night sweats (totaly misnomer BTW), rivers of blood periods - and to be honest, I am finding growing facial hair really interesting and would actually kinda like more of it?)

The *emotional* stuff is... holy fucking shit, I cannot cope. I am at the point where I am getting anxiety about getting anxiety, if that makes sense. (I am constantly on edge about everything, on edge about noise, on edge about fighting and conflict of any kind... but I'm at the point where I'm getting seriously, life-affectingly anxious about the fear that I might get anxious and lose it.) And the weeping...?!?!? What the fucking fuck. I am not and have never been a weepy person. But I've been weeping for, like, two hours at a time. Full-on, ugly-cry, body-weeping, at work, to the point where I have to go and book out a room so I don't upset anyone around me. If I have to go through a year or two of this, I am genuinely worried that I'd be at risk of harming myself or someone around me.

I'm going to the doctor on Friday but I wanted to canvas some opinions about WHAT CAN BE DONE.

Do any anti-anxiety or anti-depressant drugs actually work on this body-related business? (I'm really reluctant to get into taking hormonal treatments because even hormonal birth control made me full-on psychotic. Does this work differently if you're trans? Jeez, ILX is the wrong place to ask this, due to lack of AFAB ppl, let alone trans AFAB ppl.) Most of the menopause related discourse I see out there is about the physical stuff, or the 'oh no, I'm losing my fertility and vitality' stuff. (And I understand why, because who wants to reinforce that 'menstrual stuff be driving AFABs kerrrrr-azy!' narrative.) But what can be done about extreme emotional symptoms?

I think it’s not uncommon to get SSRIs for emotional stuff during menopause. Like so many AFAB body things, there is a broad range of symptoms and experiences. I am sorry yours are so severe. But if doctors will give women psych meds for post-partum emotional messiness, it would be counterintuitive that they wouldn’t help someone going through menopause

That's kind of what I was afraid of. I had very mixed results with SSRIs. I honestly don't think they would be appropriate for what I'm going through at the moment. They did help with levelling moods, and taking the edge off the bleakness when I was in a severe depression. But I also found that they actually increased that odd ~OMG option paralysis~ lack of executive function, can't make a decision anxiety state of constant fear that I'm really struggling with at the moment.

Good luck with the doctor on Friday. Hopefully, you have one that you trust. Maybe it would help to write down all the emotional changes, with severity and regularity so you have it on hand while discussing it with them.

Not on current topic**** I just read that "thread for contemplating the serious issues raised by the Men's Right movement" and I don't know how I have never seen it before. That thread is really something. Lotta words.

That's actually a really good idea! (writing down the changes) Thanks for that.

That serious issues thread is something I really have to avoid, if I want to maintain any kind of equanimity! One of those topics where just a recap is enough.

xp yeah...

Hi Branwell! Sorry you're going through this; I'm afraid I don't have anything to suggest, but I hope the Dr is helpful and can help you find an acceptable option.

also if anyone does have any suggestions, chemical or otherwise, for the v well-described "odd ~OMG option paralysis~ lack of executive function, can't make a decision anxiety state of constant fear", please do share, sigh...

Yeah I get overwhelmed at doctor's sometimes, and I have a tendency to just ignore or underplay pain. So I try to just state what I experienced over what length of time, the duration, etc etc. and before I go I know what I want to leave with. xpost

spacecadet, is this somewhat about home ownership?

oh, it's a very familiar feeling throughout my life in general, but yes, it's definitely applying to that!

there's a very long list of things I was supposed to do or even wanted to do but felt like I couldn't start without researching every option and all their possible implications, which is of course such an overwhelming and neverending concept that I just... didn't do anything at all, for ages and often forever, because I was scared of missing something or getting something wrong, I guess? Even in cases where not doing the thing at all was a worse thing to get wrong than any possible mistake.

So when it comes to something like "empty out your bank account and live with your choice for years into the future; PS if you've counted wrong then you may not have a safety net", total paralysis and dread, yes :|

It's good to research to know your options and to make plans. But you can never be fully prepared so I try to live in a state of flexibility and knowing what my priorities are so that I can adapt or dig out of changing circumstances.

I almost put in the other thread but didn't want to come off as too gloomy, that you should discuss what would happen if either one of you decide not to live in the house together in the future. It happens. I don't know about your relationship but money is often the source of issues with couples. You should feel comfortable going over this with your bf before you make this big financial commitment.

Oh man, buying a house is a big, big decision and there is so much that can go wrong and it is overwhelming and requires too much research. And being scared of getting something wrong makes you end up putting it off and putting it off, but things like house-buying require acting sooner rather than later, or else the price will have changed, and the interest rate will be bad, and changes happen that render your research useless anyway. Getting an independent financial advisor whose job was to make the decision for me - that was the best thing ever. (However, I did not have to pay for their services, as I worked for one. If doing it again, I would definitely pay for their services tho. It was worth putting those difficult decisions like "what mortgage should I get?" in someone else's hands.)

But... that is not the kind of option paralysis I'm dealing with at the moment. The level of executive function failure I am dealing with is so severe I can't make little decisions right now.

Actual true story: I have been sitting on a chair in the kitchen, trying to decide if I need to make lunch and then do the dishes, or do the dishes after I make lunch. I have been trying to make this decision for 20 minutes, but I keep being distracted by the thought of needing to do laundry at some point. Should I take a shower first so that I can put my current clothes in this load of laundry? But I definitely need to eat lunch before I take a shower. Wait, do I need to do the dishes before or after I make lunch? Now an hour has gone by and I still have not made the decision, and I am getting hungrier and rattier. After an hour and a half, I finally stand up, and see the groceries that I bought to eat that morning are sitting melting on the floor by the fridge because I have totally forgotten to put them away. My executive function is fuX0red.

I have *never* been this scatterbrained before (except for the two years I spent on SSRIs) but this is my life now. I'm not *like* this. This isn't who I am. I'm a "fools rush in where angels fear to tread" who blurts stuff out without thinking about the consequences. Now I spend 2 hours weeping over hurting the feelings of a fork I dropped, and I can't even move a spoon without worrying how it will all go wrong. I want my "I don't care, just do the stupid thing" drive back.