So I have maybe an odd question. Your example gives a somewhat common enough experience on the web. So it leads me to believe that a significant portion of the population are this way.

At what level does this then begin to fall under a “disorder”? If most people do something, then isn’t it really just considered normal and not any kind of pathology?

I started trialing low dose psych meds recently for anxiety/depression and it has got me thinking. If my thoughts and feelings are the same as almost everyone, then do I really have a disorder?

If everyone is abnormal, then what really and truly is “normal”?

If you lived alone I’d say it would be a terrible idea to get a dog. But if your wife is home a lot then it sounds like a much more doable situation imo.

Yeah I love alone and have a career where I cannot work at home. Sometimes I think about getting a pet, but I just can’t see it as being ethical in my situation. Sometimes I do ponder getting a cat though as they seem more independent, but I don’t have much experience with them.

It’s usually not a psychology issue. It’s a money issue. The vast majority of people on the planet cannot afford to retire early.

I know people with kids and they always seem like they are perpetually exhausted and barely hanging on. They talk about not sleeping and conflicts and issues and it just honestly makes it sound horrendous and really looks like they are all suffering from an outsider’s perspective. But then they tell me that it’s worth it because it’s “fulfilling” like you said. I don’t know. From an outsider’s perspective, parents’ words don’t seem to correlate with what I see and hear.

I have a feeling that when people talk about things being “fulfilling” or “worth it” despite seeming to objectively be suffering must be some combination of strange hormones with coping mechanisms.

Idk. That’s just my thoughts as a confused outsider. I’m happy that people are able to raise children. Someone has to. But I don’t think I could make myself suffer to that extreme for a being that will never truly understand what you’re doing for them until decades later.

Honestly, it’s kind of obnoxious that you’re inundated with porn by default in “all”. I mean, it’s fine if people are into that, but it’s not necessarily what every user wants to deal with blocking when the are a new user. Some might just erroneously assume the whole platform is just a porn site and leave if that isn’t what they want. I have blocked a shitton of porn communities because I’m not interested in that, but there are a hell of a lot of them. I’m glad instance blocking became a thing because prior to that I had a zillion communities blocked.

Would just nice for the default to be different is all. I get why some people are immediately super turned off by using Lemmy because of stuff like that.

Again, I’m not trying to say porn is necessarily bad, but it’s a bit jarring when that’s not what you came here for and when it’s not what the platform is “advertised” as. It’s like if Grandma tries to join Facebook to stay connected to people but when she first logs in there’s just porn all over her feed. Obviously that doesn’t happen there. I’m just trying to paint a picture.

People still call places for takeout in 2025 instead of using the internet to order???

Thanks for helping to validate my comment haha. I do appreciate it.

Is there anything specific you’ve done and would recommend to help swing in the other direction like you’ve stated?

Was curious as to what you might have found helpful. I had tried the beginnings of CBT in the past, but it just makes me feel bad and frustrated. I have always been taught that my thoughts and feelings are wrong, and that’s effectively the core of CBT. I don’t like it because it just propagates how everything I think and feel is invalid. Yet it’s the “trendy” thing to do nowadays so every therapist and their mother uses it as their modality.

Interestingly though I don’t think that this issue necessarily stems from deliberately toxic parents. My mom did the best she could and is very loving and nurturing but I was just too much for her to know how to deal with in this way.

When I was a kid, I would always get in trouble for getting upset. No one ever wanted to know why I was upset. They just wanted me to shut the fuck up and I often had a hard time doing so. I really wish things would have been handled the way you describe. My siblings didn’t have the same problems as me in this way so it has always made me feel alone in feeling what I feel. Now as an adult, I never know if what I’m feeling is real and valid… usually I think it isn’t.

Anyway sorry that was only tangentially related.

So why do you feel that it’s ok for your dad to have multiple wives, but not for his wives to have multiple husbands? Curious.

Lol! She was a real “mean girl” growing up. I’m hesitant to outright call her a bully because she wasn’t ever direct like that, but she played a part in making multiple people’s lives kind of miserable tbh.

Really not that shocking at all compared to many… occasionally finding out someone is dead and etc.

But one of the ones that got me was finding out that the girl who I grew up… initially was sort of friends with and eventually painfully shunned me and treated me like an alien eventually became a therapist lmao

I like how casual her “ow” sounded when being mauled by a cheetah

I run in the local park! Tbh it’s not the prettiest of parks but it’s ok. Sometimes if I get there early enough, I get to see some animals like deer or the birds will be out sometimes with their babies.

I worked extra hours because work had been insanely busy. My supervisor decided to give me a lecture about some incredibly minor thing I did wrong so that was fun when I already was overworked. She loves picking at everyone like that. Then the following day I ran 11 miles which is the farthest I ever ran. But otherwise I was just at home alone.

Honestly what would I even ask for help with?

Mental support? What is anyone going to realistically be able to do to help that? They can’t. All it does is place a burden upon someone with a ton of shit already going on in their lives. Hell, even fucking therapists that you pay money to see and are supposed experts don’t even seem to be able to do fucking shit about that. What the hell is a friend gonna do for free?

A physical task? I’ll just struggle and do it myself or see if I can pay someone to do it. Not sure why I would be a burden to ask someone to help with some dumb bullshit just because I’m a loser with no other friends.

I would absolutely gladly help anyone I know who needs help. But it’s a different scenario. I have no life so people aren’t bothering me. Other people have lives so I am bothering them.

Do you mind expanding on this? What habits are you tracking?

I thought the normal way was to crawl up on all fours like an animal

I’m not sure who out here is randomly posting that information to ChatGPT. But even if they were, your address and personal details are unfortunately readily publicly available on the web. It’s 2025.

Lmao. I’m curious on what about my post history makes me sound like a Russian bot.