Not like, casual “Hi, how are you?” but seriously, how are you? Are you sleeping okay, is everything in your personal life going all right? And if not, can Internet strangers do anything to help?
Pretty good! Doing things that feel meaningful and interesting. Able to follow global politics and read in ways that couldn’t 3 years ago due to work stress. Life situation is excellent. I feel very lucky, and trying to use that to make myself useful.
That “No” buttons looks sexier every night.
I feel that, just gotta keep on keeping on though. Even if today sucks, tomorrow could be better, and you can only hit the no button once.
It’s a real sexy no button though.
From my experience life is a ball rolling down a hill. It never gets higher than the day before and if it hits the bottom you die.
Your birth decides the starting height and your effort decides the slope.
I started somewhere in the lower middle and put zero effort into life. Now I’m not even half way past others but I’m already near the bottom.
Let’s say I’m not exactly expecting a natural end to my life at this stage.
This is my life story. Every day, I understand more and get closer to “old man lives alone with his dog in the woods”
Yeah, except I can’t afford a dog or woods.
Stressed about finances, I splurged on a few things that were not essential, but were wanted for varying reasons, some sentimental, some out of sheer practicality in that treating myself is a good thing every once in a while. Now my budgets blown for at least a month or so until I can rebuild the savings I dipped into.
I feel like deflated Squidward every day.
It’s a mix. The heating is out on my apartment, so it’s currently 55 degrees in here, and i have no clue when the furnace will be fixed. My kitties don’t seem to mind, but it’s definitely feeling frigid. On the plus side, i sign a lease for a new apartment walking distance from my job on Friday, so won’t be a problem for long. I had to get an advance on my pay, but it will be worth it to be able to walk to work everyday. Financially i am fucked, but that’s been no different for the past year, so I’ll just have to accept that
I am doing better as I realize a lot of things are out of my hands.
I voted, show up to protests when I can, boycott the companies at Trump’s inauguration.
So I joined a gym to go to classes to force myself out of the house and trying to read more to deprogram the effects of social media on my attention span.
But overall im exhausted and have this underlying worry of what dreams I’ve been having lately. I don’t believe that much in messages received in dreams but I’ve had some trippy moments lately.
I’m okay as long as I don’t doom scroll too much.
I’m Canadian and middle aged. I was braced for a rough Trump 2.0, but the last month has truly exceeded expectations for suck. Our country is under economic attack by our biggest trading partner. Human rights and trying to help and support each other are suddenly considered bad things. Our window to address climate change is snapping shut as our leaders around the world move in the wrong direction. I’m feeling really good about my decision to not have kids at least.
On the plus side, my sick cat is responding to treatment, and my partner and I have just set up a nursery - we’re going to start fostering wee kiddos whose families are going through rough spots. I’ve got some financial flexibility so I’m treating myself to a stack of coffee gift cards each week that I hand out to folks who look like they could use it. Sorta makes my day to be able to make sure someone unhoused gets a warm drink and some food.
Politics is absolutely a mess right now, part of the impetus for this thread lol
I’m so glad your kitty is responding to treatment! It’s so scary when they’re sick, I hope they get better soon.
I love the coffee card idea! When I have some extra cash at the end of a paycheck I might steal that.
Silver lining, the disaster down South and the threats being hurled is waking people up to sloganeering populism.
Expect a lot of fearful people who are expecting their medicaid to get cut and lose access to healthcare.
As someone with cancer, that’s what I’m going through.
Not much can be done. The suffering is the point. The majority will not stand up for people like me.
I’m definitely expecting a lot of fear, I know I’m pretty terrified myself.
I’m so sorry, you just shouldn’t have to worry about your healthcare being dropped randomly, especially not in the middle of treating something. I hate that I can’t make your situation any better, I’m just sorry you’re facing that.
I’m in the USA, I’ve been seeing this harrowing bullshit for a long time. Long before it affected me personally. I’ve been angry about it for a long time. Nothing changes, everything gets worse. I’m just a statistic. It is what it is.
Thank you for the kindness, however. The kindness does matter.
I just bought my first home and I move in tomorrow. So really good. I come from a buttfuck nowhere conservative town and I own property on vancouver island now. Hell yeah!
Congrats that’s so exciting!
Congratulations! That’s hella frickin exciting! After you get it all furnished and everything it’s gonna be fantastic, not having a landlord to pay rent to is so nice.
Yeah my place is going to look like Rust Cohle’s house for a bit here. I have nothing left to buy furniture. All I have is my computer and desk, a futon, a tv, and a mattress. LOL
I don’t make fast enough progress with what I’m currently doing in my job (VM images with distrobuilder and cloud-init to call ansible-pull, if you’re into that kind of masochist thing), I get too little sleep because my body insists in waking me up 1h early every day, my 4yo sleeps in bed with my wife instead of me and I miss her terribly, and though we do make good money, it’s still kind of tight.
OTOH, we’re having a spontaneous long weekend getaway with my brother’s family and for friends in a mountain cottage coming up that we’re all really looking forward to, so there’s that. There will be multiple dogs, we’re gonna light a fire and make bread on sticks and marshmallows, and we’ll have a wonderful view over Saxon Switzerland.
But at least equally important: how are you?
Too little sleep is rough, I was up at midnight tonight so that really resonates with me right now lol. Maybe the kid’ll get comfortable sleeping alone soon so you can get your bed back?
Long weekend, multiple dogs, and nice views though? That sounds fantastic, I hope you enjoy it!
Edit oops: I’m doing okay, actually! I’ve been getting treated for depression and it seems to be working, I’ve been having an easier time kinda dealing with life despite the whole everything.
I also totally have a concert coming up, I’m gonna see my favorite band (Delain) next month and my husband’s gonna gonna drive me so I don’t have to park or stay sober or anything, I’m looking forward to it :D
I’m thankful to be alive, did my oil change in my car today, my new ramps that were supposed to be good for 10k lbs snapped as I was driving off them with my 3k lbs Malibu. Least I was behind the wheel and not under the car.
Amazon didn’t even bother having me return them, they were like “oh shit OK yea going to skip offering a replacement and sending the old ones back, here’s your money back”.
Other than that though, feeling accomplished, I haven’t been doom-scrolling as much lately and I’ve started straying away from more political posting’s because I found that there isn’t much I could do regarding everything and it was starting to dampen the mood.
Looking at the brighter things in life I have found helps tremendously in keeping positivity alive.
Please, please keep safety first when working with these heavy vehicles. And don’t cheap out when your life is on the line (jacks, ramps, brakes, steering components, …)
I looked at the reviews and black widow was supposed to be an amazing brand, it was 60 bucks but like every review was five stars, but yeah needless to say I don’t plan on buying them again
Ooh, that sounds like it could have been scary! Glad you’re okay.
Avoiding doom scrolling is probably good, I could stand to take a page out of your book lol
Besides worrying that my country might be invaded by the US in the not so distant future, I’m doing good! 😃 I’ve got everything I need and my health is good. I’ve got some slight art block going on at the moment, so I’m mostly playing videogames in my free time which usually tends to inspire me haha.
An actual list of the “problems everyone hopes they never have” category of our various problems is pretty long right now, and many of them are more personal than I want to share.
Shit’s not the worst it’s ever been for us currently, but financially it’s closer than my wife realizes it is (because she’s got enough to deal with right now), and (gestures around at everything Trump related) I’m figuring several of our problems are going to get worse before they get better.
I’ve got long and medium term plans to sort most of it out, but like all such plans they depend on the short term stuff going at least more or less as I hope, and on the complete collapse of US society not actually happening.
Glib sounding yet serious response in meme-form because this really is how it’s looking so far in my mid-late 50s:
OP sounds like a nice person for posting such a thread, and I hope you are doing well sir or madam. 🙂
I get not wanting to share anything too personal, totally no worries. I’m glad you have plans at least! I think we’re all crossing our fingers that the US doesn’t totally collapse, it’s interesting times to say the least. Hopefully whatever happens doesn’t hit you two too hard. I think as long we get through this mess things can start getting better.
Any fellow insomniacs or any neurologists have some obscure wisdom? I truly don’t sleep. Since 2015, likely earlier, my sleep latency is forever, I keep waking up if I do fall asleep, and I wake up too early. When I do sleep, according to an inpatient sleep study, I barely get to stage 3 sleep for a few minutes and hang out in stage 1 & 2. There is no REM sleep happening. I have limb movement multiple times a minute. I was prescribed a CPAP a few years ago and it hasn’t helped, even with strict adherence to use. The AHI is only between 0 and 0.4 any night of the week. You name a medication, on and off label use, and I’ve tried it. My sleep hygiene is impeccable. I keep thinking one good night’s sleep will fix me, but at this point, I’ve lost hope.
I’m the opposite of an insomniac - I’m a rabid sleeper and love sleep. I usually hit 9 hours a day, sometimes more.
Here’s what works for me - most obviously won’t work for you, but give some another try if you haven’t done them yet -
- Clean your bedsheets every couple days. Clean sheets = 😍
- Wash your hair well and shower right before getting into bed. No smell = 🥰
- Use white noise. You’ll never get perfect silence, so drown out noise instead
- Turn off every single LED and light in your room. Don’t have a single light source visible while you’re in bed.
- Get an eye mask - a high quality one - if you can’t do the above.
- Do the workout of your lifetime - Do an all-day hike or something. You can clock out from physical exhaustion
- Get in and out of bed at the same time every day. Start with less sleep time than you need. Force your body to recognize “I only rest in this bed”
- Conversely, don’t do anything in your bed besides sleep. Especially don’t use your phone with the nasty blue light
That last one I heard from a psych. They also said: if you’re in bed and you can’t sleep, get up. Go back to bed only when you feel tired again. That way you train your brain that bed=sleep.
My sleep has been off the last few nights. Waking up every couple hours. And I take sleeping meds to boot. I have a big audit Friday (I’m the lead auditor and it’s my first major one) so I’m hoping the next few nights are better so I’m on top of my game.
