The Feelings Thread

Also, I tried to watch the video but I can’t get it to play.

NothingButFlowers Oh babe. It is awful, you are right. All of it. I wish that your family wasn’t going through all of this suffering. And multiple deaths and losses has a way of putting us on edge, doesn’t it? We become hyperaware of how vulnerable and helpless we are against it and, like your brother, start digging in hard to find ways to prevent another blow if we can. Makes me wonder if that powerlessness is behind your mom’s reaction as well. Having lost her husband and now his mom. Wielding power where she can by denying her own mortality and also shrugging off the concern and suggestions that are being made by loved ones. And sometimes drinks are a wonderful lubricant for expression, and sometimes the ears and mouth become a little too lubricated. Hearing what was meant to be love and good intention powered by pain as instead words sharp as daggers. Feelings that we are trying to express not coming out with the right words.

I hope that as the days pass, and things settle *some*, that she will be open to the loving regard that you are all showing for her health and where it is coming from. What a tragedy it would be for the family to lose her on top of all of this.

Also, I almost posted this tonight to this thread so I will now. I love these words. They have carried me so many times because it is a perspective that has made me feel less alone and lost to my own grief. Because grief is about us, and how our lives have a void after someone is gone. We cry for ourselves as much as we do for them. They are gone and no longer aware of pain the way we still are. We are the ones still stuck here in it. Swimming in it on good days, drowning in it on bad days. But in physics there is the notion that time is more malleable than we realize. That the past, present and future all already exist, simultaneously. We just experience it in this order.

I don’t like the last sentence so much. All is not well for you and your family right now. And alive would certainly be BETTER, but since death is as much a part of life as being alive is, maybe this isn’t so far from the truth for them. Wherever they are.

Thinking of you and your family. Sending you every ounce of love that a person can throw across the miles.

This year I've been working on trying to better handle toxic relationships in my life.

With family, particularly my mother - I just don't come around as often and don't share much when I do. I know she won't come to RI to visit me.

With the abusive shop supervisor at work, I was able to free myself from under his department and got put on someone else's team.


In regards to my ex-gf and still roommate - TBD. We're civil enough where cohabitation is possible, but we both have a problem of stringing each other along for our own selfish needs. At some point, one of us is going to have to end this so we can both truly move on.

At least you have insight into all of this. Sometimes we don't realize where we are going wrong, or that we are being selfish or need to be better to ourselves and others and just keep on keeping on making our mistakes. Good on you for seeing where you need improvements in your life and deserve more/better.

I feel like Tim Minchin had a good POV on that in a commencement speech he did that went viral some years ago. His idea was, yes, life is at its root devoid of intrinsic meaning, but that there’s only one thing to do with a fundamentally empty existence: Fill it.

David Foster Wallace also spoke and wrote about this, about how we have a choice in how we react to the tedium and mundanity and infinite frustrations of modern life. That it’s hard, and requires conscious repeated choices, but that it’s the only way to survive (see also: Everything Everywhere All At Once).

Life is pointless. So, it’s up to us to give it a point. Choosing that over and over again is fucking hard, and requires making the effort to live consciously over and over again.

I have hope that there are moments that you don't feel this way, or that those moments come to you. Love ya!

I am really struggling with my anxiety around the situation in Ukraine and its potential to escalate into a nuclear war. I realize this thread has mostly been dedicated to other kinds of feelings, but existential dread counts as a feeling, too, I figure, so...

I've always had a fear of apocalyptic stuff, which I think came of growing up in the '80s, when World War III/nuclear armageddon was on everybody's minds and really prominent in pop culture media. I saw movies like Wargames or The Day After or Threads at a young and impressionable age, and I remember having recurring nightmares about nuclear war back then, about being in my backyard and seeing the vapor trails of ICBMs as they launched, knowing the world was going to be ending within minutes/hours. The whole thing terrified me. To be fair, I think a lot of people were keying in on trying to make sure everyone understood how terrifying that kind of scenario was back then - supposedly, watching Threads was one of the things that convinced Reagan (may he burn in Hell) to get more serious about arms control and detente with the Soviets. Maybe an urban legend. I don't know.

Anyway, that all subsided for a long time after the fall of the USSR, even though the threat of nuclear war was always still out there on some level. It just felt a lot less likely, I suppose. In those years, my apocalyptic dreams changed, became about zombies or shit like that. Then, when the whole thing with North Korea and Trump having a pissing contest was going on in 2017, it all came roaring back. I had my first-ever full-on panic attack. That, too, eventually died down, although that threat is still very much there.

Now, all this. Putin's going to announce illegal annexation of parts of Ukraine tomorrow. He's said before they have all options on the table to defend Russian territory, and as of tomorrow, whether the rest of the world acknowledges it or not, he's going to consider those areas Russian territory. I am trying so hard to fight the fear that's boiling in my chest over all of this. I'm having success some of the time. Not all of the time.

I know all the reasons I shouldn't necessarily be this afraid - that Russia hasn't show indications that it actually plans to use a nuclear weapon, that there are several steps between a tactical nuclear weapon being deployed on the battlefield and someone lobbing a missile at NYC, that even someone apparently as fucked in the head as Putin has to know that taking that step would be suicide. I also know all the arguments against anxiety over it - it's not something over which I have any control whatsoever, so I should just live my life and, if it happens, it happens, and if we're at the point of New York getting nuked everyone's fucked, anyway, so whatever. I just have a really hard time going from knowing that to internalizing it and not being overcome with anxiety.

I think that last part - it being something I can't do anything about...people intend that to be comforting, on some level, but to me, it's so goddamn depressing and horrifying. A small collection of people hold my existence and the existence of a large portion of the population of the planet in their hand and if they decide they've had a bad day and want to end it all, well, I'm just fucked. I fucking hate that. I don't want to die over stupid lines on a stupid map on the other side of the stupid world, and the fact that I might just feels like the biggest pile of shit to swallow.

It's gotten worse now that I have a daughter, too. I'm so scared for her. I keep having this nightmarish thoughts about her last moments, about whether she'd be terrified and crying and what that would look like in the last moments of my life. About how there's absolutely nothing I can do to protect her from something like this.

Of course, part of this also ties into my atheism, and my belief/fear that there's really nothing on the other side of death. Again, lots of people couch that as comfort, "Oh, well, then when you're dead, you won't know it, you just won't be there, so no worries!" But that total loss of the self is so fucking scary. I acknowledge that there are privileges - of geography, of background, of whatever else - that have allowed me to live my life without wondering whether each day might by my last as a general rule. I've been lucky in that regard. But acknowledging those things doesn't make this idea of total annihilation any easier to digest.

I'm sorry. I know I'm rambling. I just don't know where else to spill all this stuff. Even my therapist has heard it all before and kind of comes back around to the same advice every time. It just sucks. This whole thing sucks and I don't want to be fucking vaporized and I don't want the last thing I see to by my daughter screaming in fear as she is, too, and I can't stop being afraid that's what's going to happen, and with every turn in the course of events over there, it only gets worse.

OK, vent over.

PS - I know some people will say "Just unplug and don't read the news so much," but that's impossible. I work online, in digital media. Even if I don't deliberately seek news about this stuff out, it finds me. I can limit it, which I'm already doing...but even that isn't enough.

I can't find the exercise thread, but it counts here too:

Today I had so much anxiety I went for a run (which I normally hate) and when Florence + the Machine's "Free" came on my earbuds, I started to cry. Cry Running! A new sport for 2022!

...I did feel better after.

I'm worried that I have my opinions and thoughts on the previous post but -- people throw away what I think because of my mental health issues.  Meaning I feel like it's pointless to post about anything but meme's and now playing, because the rest doesn't matter

Compassionate care does not deal with sympathy and empathy directly... they are products of our emotional-societal norms kicking in (not a bad thing, just a natural response.)  We know someone where a friendship had to end, and during that situation I did not feel sympathy or empathy but I was compassionate, whether validated or not.  I actively think there's an issue and tried to use my compassion and not anger/resentment be the first option.  But we build then tunnels of thinking surrounding whether we sympathize or empathize.  I felt a clear split in what as a problematic drinker and ex-hard drug user feels direct empathy - but also has been trained to not let things like this just float.  But my sympathy is high - I THINK I understand where this person is coming from as a life perspective, and I can say for myself that there are moments acknowledging that makes me angry.   

I think we need to divorce the conversation that compassion is immediate empathy (or sympathy, especially without knowledge)

Today's assignment for the discussion board was to find a labyrinth in our area or go on a nature walk while reflecting on a moment of grief or loss that we have gone through, and then write a short post about it. Here is the submission I just typed up. Just under the 11:59 due date wire, once again.

Listed on the Labyrinth website was one located within walking distance to my home. I was surprised to see this, as I walk this area frequently and have never seen such a thing. I was skeptical of its existence, in fact. So I took off for a walk this evening, my first chance to check it out after working a long stretch of days in the ER. I walked around the building that it was listed as being located, one I am very familiar with because I have volunteered at the local food pantry there. Realizing I look much like a burglar walking around the building under the darkness, I began regretting my decision to do this at night. On top of that, I couldn't locate this labyrinth. I was about to give up, but decided to use the photo to find the windows that appear to be in it. I found the spot, but saw no obvious signs of the labyrinth in the picture. Then, I started to realize that there was a vague circular pattern to the way that the lawn was cut. I kick around the grass and discovered a line of bricks, and then more. I was never able to fully make out the entire pattern, but I could sense its presence. So I stayed. I think that it was no accident that this was the labyrinth that I found. 

The past loss I contemplated was the loss of my infant son almost 20 years ago. I was pregnant with fraternal twins and experienced a premature rupture of membranes of "twin A", later to present himself as Matthew. After three months in the perinatal unit on complete bedrest and many attempts to prolong the pregnancy as long as possible, the boys were born a few hours after Christmas ended. It was 9 weeks too early. While all previous tests suggested that Matthew's lungs were developed to the point that he would survive, sepsis had set in and he only survived eight hours. This unexpected outcome caused me to feel lost and looking for answers as to "why?" from whoever or whatever it is that may be watching these events. Much like tonight, as I looked in the dark, not even really knowing what exactly I was looking for. 

As days and weeks went by, I had no choice but to walk forward because I had another baby who was in the special care unit, working through the struggles that premature infants go through. A child who looked much like the one I had lost. Forever to be a source of joy and hope, but also a reminder that there were two. I also had a nine year old who had been without his mom for three months and who was adjusting to a new step-father, a new home and a new school.  But, as I walked I realized that nothing about me was the same. I was not the person I had been before, nor would I ever be. Just as this labyrinth not even closely resembled the photo that I saw of it online. Time and weather had changed it. Time and the weather of life had changed me. 

I started working again, and then began nursing school shortly after. I started obsessively exercising and dieting. I found that immersing myself in these other endeavors kept my emotions at bay. It was a coping mechanism for certain, but one very much drawn from avoidance. I would find moments to let go late at night, listening to songs that emoted for me. Songs that said what I could not.  I didn't find talking about it to be of comfort then, so someone listening wasn't terribly helpful. I did appreciate compassion for what I was going through, however. And acknowledgement.  The words of another spilled out over a melody seemed to be the perfect way for me to privately work through things, to feel seen and understood. I eventually connected with a large group of fellow music lovers and have been traveling with one group of them or another to take part in the thing that buoyed me for all of those years. 

I truly thought that there would never be a single moment that I wouldn't be grieving the loss of Matthew. I was sure that I would yearn for him every minute. And it isn't that I've stopped yearning. It is simply that as time has passed, the sharp edges have softened. The grass has grown over the stark sadness some. It is all still there, it is just awash in the years and the joys and even the pains that have come with those years. Ever one of the most important paths in my own winding labyrinth. 

LoveLuckLaughter I was touched after reading your post earlier, and I just stumbled across this and thought it was relevant to what you wrote.

(The second slide is what I'm referring to)

http://instagram.com/p/Ci2h6O8IPyu

Does anyone have any tips for long term loneness?

- I'm not trying to not meet other people, but the end up being very few and far and in between who align with my political and societal feelings. Mostly are men, which even though I have to identify as a cis male I never feel that comfortable around.

- My family and I have fractured to the point where I don't have an emergency contact anymore, and will probably not be invited to Thanksgiving or Christmas dinner. I have to eat it - the breaking point of that situation was me walking away yelling from the phone and punching through a wall. (Sheet rock).

= I have a shit therapist and no one in nyc that is going to help me find a new therapist. So listening to other people's thoughts helps because I do try harder than most people think to keep balance and deal with this.

= I'm noticing that I talk to myself more at work to the point, where people think I'm talking to them. It's because when I'm home - I usually use my vocal chords for 30 minutes tops? One roommate who sometimes when I'm supplying them weed I can have a discussion.... but otherwise I'm just silent in my room.

I have to repeat this because people without mental issues don't get it... I AM Reaching out... people just don't have time for me.  Which at 37, basically alone, is painful.   Not screwdriver in a finger painful, like your chest in constant paranoia and you working to just keep it settled.  I am reaching out