I’ll go first…after 10 years of speculating in the market (read: gambling in high risk assets) I realized I shouldn’t ever touch a brokerage account in my lifetime. A monkey would have made better choices than I did. Greed has altered the course of life many times over. I am at an age where I may recover from my actions over the decades, but it has taken its toll. I am frugal and have a good head on me, but having such impulsivity in financial instruments was not how I envisioned my adulthood. Its a bitter pill to swallow, since money is livelihood of my family, but I need to “invest” all I have into relationships, meaningful moments, and fulfilling hobbies.
i’ve recently had to accept that my neurodivergence makes managers, supervisors, etc. uneasy about me despite my stellar track record and the sole reason why i was able to maintain continuous employment was because of my high demand skill set; which means that employment will become increasingly difficult as i continue to age.
That just meaning well or having good intentions, are not enough. You need to actually show up and make time for the things, and people, you value.
Thinking of a great friend who had the courage to break up with me, and tell me straight up it’s because I was a bad friend to them.
That choosing a relationship with someone who is monkeybranching into the relationship with you directly from another relationship is you allowing someone in your life who is fundamentally dishonest and manipulative. It’s one thing to be casually dating in general, and just finding someone you click with and ending it with the people you are casually dating, but entering a relationship with someone who pursues you even though they’re in an ostensibly committed relationship is choosing to accept someone who is really not a good person, because they will just do whatever they want and eventually hurt you without a qualm too. Tolerating any of this means you are tolerating abuse, really.
Unfortunately he didn’t tell me this fact until 18 months into it, but that should have been what made me realize that he wasn’t trustworthy and leave then.
Also committing from the get go and falling in love? That’s just also not valuing yourself. You’re just looking for someone to fit into your life because you don’t love yourself enough to wait and take your time and get to know someone, and you’re afraid to be alone and have nobody to care for you. And I did all of that, because I was immature, completely without any idea of how to make it in life alone or cope alone, and I thought that was all I deserved and was the only way to be safe. And it was all wrong.
That I wasted over a decade trying to figure out what was wrong with me on my own before I finally got professional help.
I once had an Excedrin get stuck in my throat sideways. That was a pretty uncomfortable several hours of my life.
That I come from a highly dysfunctional family and my entire personality is a reaction to them. I knew they were dysfunctional but I was in denial about their impact. Connecting with my true self had been a bitch.
Yep, that one fits. I’m not really sure there is some kind of other me, though.
There is. You can connect to that other part of yourself through inner child work. You then need to complete the developmental milestones that you missed. It’s very difficult work but it’s achievable.
Mmm. That sounds like something someone is selling. There’s many theories of childhood development, going right back to Freud, and they don’t necessarily have a lot in common with each other.
I’m the sum of my nature and my experiences. It was a painful way to grow up, but in some ways it’s good practice for a dysfunctional world. In other ways it’s maladaptive, and all the therapists I’ve seen have talked about finding strategies or new ways of looking at things to deal with that, not finding some way to erase it.
Inner child work isn’t for everyone. Luckily, there are many methodologies, like you mentioned. The main purpose of inner child work is to process the stuck emotions/ the stuck grief that left you emotionally stuck in whatever age the trauma happened. You’re not erasing anything, you’re acknowledging what happened and feeling the feelings that you originally shoved deep inside. This is how you reach the unmet developmental milestones.
That trauma is not an identity and if I want to grow as a person I have to resolve that trauma and let go of the past.
When people told me I was smart as a child/young adult, what they really meant was I was showcasing a skill they lacked, which the overwhelming majority of people don’t give a shit about an adult having.
The biggest pill was that I am not intelligent. I was just studious and invested enough time to pass exams. People not doing what they should do is not them being stupid but me not grasping the full picture.
The second biggest pill that I am still swallowing is that I am not a good person. I try to behave in a good way, but it’s manipulative and not authentic. People don’t like goodness if it doesn’t come from the heart.
People don’t like goodness if it doesn’t come from the heart.
I’m curious if you mean in an abstract way, of if you’ve done nice-seeming things for people only for them to call you out on whatever ulterior motives.
Cool that you’re way at the end of the willing-to-face-facts bell curve, though.
The latter made me aware of the former.
The thing with the former case is that basically nobody does nice things out of pure abstract altruism. Being nice can bring pleasure, be part of an identity, avoid shame and maybe boost your ego. That’s why people do it, and why they can turn around and be a monster the next moment if a new way to meet those needs becomes dominant (just open a history book). So, I wouldn’t worry too much.
Edit: Where that leaves human kindness and relationships morally speaking is a bigger question. And given that we’ve just established how little people care about abstract things, a weirdly irrelevant one.
This is the part where I’d normally give practical advice, if I wasn’t staring straight into the existentialist abyss. Anyway…
That no matter how often people said it as a kid, I’m not capable of anything I put my mind to. I’m not smart, I’m very very mediocre at best, and my interests don’t align with my capabilities so my only options for work are things I don’t generally want to do.
I only really had 2 goals in life, a third developed later, and I’ve failed at all if them. I wanted to be in a loving relationship (going on 40 and have been single for the last decade), to not be the person who hates going to their job every day, and eventually I started wanting to own a home because I found that I need space for the hobbies I enjoyed. It’s a Sinatra song right, 0 out of 3 ain’t bad? Something like that… Lol
Ugh, I hate the lie we’ve promoted for decades that “you can be anything!” and “you’re all special!”. No, we can’t all be anything we want. I’ll never be a rock star, I’ll never be a great athlete, etc. And we aren’t all special, we are more alike than we may care to admit.
Your specific issues may be due to unrealistic expectations. Do you hate jobs in general due to being on a schedule all the time? Should you have your own business? Look at what you choose in other people, what you look for may need to change since it has a bad track record. Look at your own behavior too, are you self sabotaging? Do you have bad traits like a short temper? As far as a house that has so many variables like where you live may just be too expensive, need to look harder for smaller and older homes in your price range, etc.
As far as the job goes, I just meant that my interests are more aligned with scientific research/discovery but that I’m in no way shape or form a “scientist.” I’m nowhere near smart enough for that. Other than that I do like fixing things, but I hate driving and I need a schedule. I hated being a service technician never knowing when the day would be over and having to get a call once I got home to go back out.
For the house, it’s 100% the area… Houses that are basically twice burned down, glorified sheds, once selling for $60k USD back in 2016 are now $250k+ it’s absolute insanity.
Are you qualified to be a technical assistant? You could get involved in a science oriented environment without, say, having a degree in a scientific field. It could be pharmacology, etc.
I’m not sure if I am qualified to do that, but I’d have to look into it. I appreciate the suggestions! Certainly would beat the dead end factory job I have now lol
