Vent Thread

Fair warning if you decide to read

Hi LT,

I've not had the pleasure of interacting with you very much here on the forum, but in reading many of your posts, you truly seem to be a good-hearted person who has fallen prey to a touch of depression aggravated by your situation.

While I will not pretend to know exactly what you are feeling, I can empathize with you over the loveless relationship. I came very close to marrying someone who was an expert manipulator and was using me for nothing but improving her financial and social situation. I was following the "expected path" that had been set before me: Graduate college, get a professional job, get married, home, kids, etc., so my eyes were blind to all the warning signs that kept popping-up.

I'll spare you the gruesome details but fresh out of college I found myself $40k in unsecured debt, brokenhearted, unemployed, and being forced to leave town due to the political and business connections of the man she had been cheating on me with for a year.

Now that I've established my background, here comes some of the hard-won advice I wish someone had given me:

1) Relationships are always a gamble. Marriage moreso than most others due to the legal nature of it. So many people "rush" into marriage simply because it is the "expected" behavior then find out that they should have just waited a bit longer to see what stresses develop. I'm of the belief that all worthwhile relationships are worth trying to save, but never at the expense of your happiness, health, or mental well-being. If you are both unhappy, and honestly do see a way, or reason, to save the marriage, don't let the fear of change keep you in place. By doing so, you seriously limit the possibilities of discovering someone else who truly loves you for who you are.

2) You are the most important person in your life. Your life, your happiness, your family, your health, your experiences, your love, your faith, they all have the same first three letters: YOU. Without You, none of these things exist. Sure, you can easily make someone else the center of your life, but it is still YOUR life. If the concept of you taking care of yourself first upsets someone, screw-em. After all, they are not as important as you are.

3) That said, I found my greatest happiness in helping others. Whether it is physically helping someone in need, lending an ear to listen or a shoulder to cry on, helping bury the occasional body, or giving random gifts to people on forums, it brings me joy to make others happy. Smiles are contagious, so see what you can do to catch a smile from someone else, even if you have to make them smile first.

4) Watch your finances. In times of inner and outer turmoil, it is very easy to lose control of your money and add more stress by building up debt.

5) Set aside time for doing something you enjoy every day. For me it was reading. I could escape into my books for a couple of hours each day, happily sitting in my recliner, cat on my lap, and losing my worries in the printed word. It helps to be able to turn-off the worry machine that is your brain by feeding it what it likes.

6) Whether you believe it or not, you do have friends. Your brain is going to try and trick you into believing otherwise through negative emotions and chasing that "bad feeling" rabbit over and over again. It is very easy to sink into despair when this happens, and by doing so, reinforcing the feeling and feeding the beast. Yes, the beast looks like a monster from where you are standing, whispering in your ear all the negative things you dread hearing, working to beat you into submission. Now you are a WoT player so you know tactics. When faced with an enemy that is too strong or too well entrenched to attack head-on, what do you do? You mark it, call for fire from your allies, pin it in place, flank it, and tear it a new one. And exactly how many allies does this usually take? Just one. So it sounds like it is time to start calling for fire. I'll wager you will be surprised how many allies you truly have. Heck, if nothing else, PM me and I'll give you my phone number, assuming you are willing to talk to an Auburn man.

7) It's going to hurt, and there will be setbacks along the way. Some people that you thought were friends, or potential friends, will turn their backs on you as you change and grow. To hell with them. Now is the time when you will find the true friends, men and women who will stand beside you to face the demons, suffer the blows with you, share your burdens, and celebrate your victories. And when the time comes, these are the people who will turn to you in their pain and despair, and you will comfort and support them, for they, and only they, are your true brothers and sisters.

8) Have faith. Even as society derides those of us who believe in something or someone greater than ourselves, we have nothing to lose. If we were wrong, and were good people for no reason, we were still good people. Plus, it really pisses non-believers off when they see you smile at their feeble attempts to prove a negative, and let's face it, there is always a certain perverse joy in chapping someone's ass when they deserve it.

9) Improve yourself in any way possible. Find something, anything, that you want to do better and set a goal. Make it obtainable, measurable, and just barely outside of your comfort zone. It doesn't matter if it is something as simple as learning to cook a new dish, finding a new Anime to enjoy, learning more about something you are interested in, or even picking up the phone calling someone you haven't touched base with in a while. What does matter is overcoming your personal inertia. Keep doing it and you will soon find that your inertia has suddenly become momentum toward the future.

10) Change is inevitable. Every decision we make changes us in some way. The very act of reading this has changed you. Want proof? Before reading this all you knew about me was, to paraphrase a quote, "He's just a peckerwood who lives in the East Tennessee hills with too many guns." Now you have to decide, does this peckerwood really know what he is talking about or is he so full of crap it spills out his ears. Either way, you have to make a decision, and that decision will change you. (Of course the third option is that I'm utterly full of crap but I do know what I'm talking about, so I just wanted to put that out there.) You have to decide to either sit back and let the change happen to you, and accept whatever fate decides to dole out, or you can embrace the suck, poke fate in the eye with a raised middle finger, and start driving the change yourself. I don't know about you, but I hate having to ride shotgun instead of being behind the wheel.

Now is the time for you to seize the initiative, spit on your hands, raise the Gadsden flag, muster your allies, and start stacking the bodies of your demons. And never forget to celebrate every single victory, no matter how small. Nothing pisses of your enemies, and encourages your allies, like seeing you celebrating.

I feel bad for only just reading this now, for that j apologise. If you ever see me on the xbox and fancy a chat or just want a human voice to listen to then just join the party or invite if I'm not in one, I'm usually on with Beard or Skagpipe but they're harmless and are great bait when on tanks. 😬
Seriously though, just holler if you see me on. 

It's good to get it all out, the bad thing would be to keep it all in (I for one know that).
I've platooned with R35T so I'm not bothered about peoples skill level.   

You still live with your parents correct? It sounds like that's a very toxic environment for you to be in, and it definitely seems to be having a negative effect on you. I would absolutely recommend looking into finding a place of your own.

I saw in your Twitter post about how living alone is just as bad but for different reasons. This is just me speaking from experience as I personally have lived alone for 4 years, but it's not as lonely as you might think especially with the internet.

I know it sounds kind of generic and unhelpful, but you should try to find a hobby you have a passion for. The sole reason I'm such a hardcore weeb is because anime is what pulled me out of my depression slump from High School and early College years.

I know very well what it's like to be pining for someone and have them get together with someone else, and that was basically the catalyst for my slump.

I'm not going to try to be an internet therapist, but I can at least try to tell you what helped me when I had similar thoughts and feelings.

Seen some more doctors Tuesday for our son. For at least 7 months he's been constantly tripping over things he should see, bumps into walls etc. Mention it to his Neuro at every visit and multiple messages and she basically said its due to his large head.

Seen the Neuro Tuesday, said same thing. Go to the Ophamologist ( eye doctor) she does an exam, and while talking to us our son trips over stuff in the office, bumps into a table and she tells us that he has at least a CVI( cortical vision impairment) and asked up if we had mentioned it to neuro. Told her we have been bringing it up but has been essitially ignored.

To say I'm livid, we have repeatedly brought up CVI with neuro, now because of that incompetent bitch our sons vision assessments treatment has been delayed by 6 months at least. It was really difficult to not go up to her office and tear her a new one. This was Tuesday and still want to deck her.

God I'm Pisssed.

Speaking of seizures this is our son not having a seizure according to his current neuro


share.icloud.com/photos/0uWhCbJUPJ89bs5EVgvuLHviw

We are getting a 2nd opinion from a different neuro Friday at a different hospital that is much higher rated.

Well, you got a cute kid there. Hopefully this other doctor will be more helpful. And also wanted to say, maybe his head measures large, but it doesn't seem all that big to me. He's perfect.

Decided I didn't need to share this.