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The topic for unhappiness/vent your sorrow

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  • ThacoBellThacoBell Member Posts: 12,235
    I don't think anything I could say would be adequate, but I offer my condolences. If you someone to vent or talk to about this, I'm here everyday.
    semiticgoddessMichelle
  • MichelleMichelle Member Posts: 549
    Balrog99 wrote: »
    About a week ago my uncle called to tell me my old man had died. I hadn't spoken to him in years and apparently he was half the country away when he died of a stroke. In all honesty, he was a failed scam artist that was brainwashed by fox news and Rush Limbaugh. He probably had to move somewhere else just due to the fact that everyone in the region knew he was a scammer and he couldn't keep it up here. It doesn't even make any sense for him to be so right wing, since he was Chinese Canadian and broke. But he liked to pretend he was rich and felt entitled to anything and lived up to his ears in debt his whole life. I don't think he ever did an honest days work in his whole life and had ripped off most of my extended family. I think it was when he stole my cousin's credit card and rang up like $20-30 grand in charges that I finally accepted what a piece of shit he was. He couldn't even be assed to have my sister or I listed as next of kin or emergency contacts, so I had to basically find out through third hand information that he died. I had to talk to the county coroner today, at least a county cremation shouldn't cost much and is probably more than the bastard deserved. People wonder how I could just cut my dad out of my life and I ask them "Your parents were probably hard working honest people, right? Well, mine weren't." I remember from when I was 14-16 working at McDonalds in the '90s, and he said if I gave him money he'd match it for a car when I turned 16, welp, the money just disappeared. He liked to brag how he made a million dollars when he was in his early 20s, which was bullshit, his old man bought him that house, then he sold it to fuck around in Mexico in the '70s. He had so many advantages in life that he never extended to me. He pretty much epitomizes everything wrong with the boomer generation. The Trump administration has been really hard for me, since he acts so much like my old man, entitled to everything and everything is someone else's fault.

    Well, you can pick your friends but you can't pick your family. Sorry yours was such a pill. Kudos for rising above though! ?

    Sorry, just been wanting to use my uncle’s quote since you posted this;
    You can pick your friends and you can pick your nose, but you mustn’t be picking your friend’s nose. Frivolous I know, just can’t hear, “you can pick your friends” without thinking of it.
    Balrog99
  • MichelleMichelle Member Posts: 549
    Sorry, I am tired. I wish only the best for everyone here.
    semiticgoddessStummvonBordwehr
  • semiticgoddesssemiticgoddess Member Posts: 14,903
    Whatever you need to do to recover and heal, @_Nightfall_. Just now that we'll be here whenever you want to visit. I hope that you're finding support IRL.

    You're one of the good ones. I know I've mentioned this before, but you changed my life.
    mlneveseThacoBellJuliusBorisovArvia
  • FlashburnFlashburn Member Posts: 1,847
    On the topic of dementia, I found this video by pure chance. It's a musical representation of dementia and what happens to a person's mind as it degenerates over the course of six Stages. It's six hours long and has millions of views, so I listened... and, wouldn't you know it, I haven't had a good cry in a long time, either. If this is what trying to remember ballroom and jazz music from the 30's and 20's sounds like, I'm terrified to imagine what the beeps and boops of my favorite videogame music will sound like to me if I get dementia.

    My grandma has dementia but I never gave it much too much thought, or rather, I never tried to confront it. But after listening to this, I have a far better understanding of what it's like, and if I'm going to die, I'd much rather keep my mind intact and have my body go first instead of having to go through THIS. It's terrible beyond description. I think she's in late Stage 2 or starting Stage 3. It's Stage 4 that scares me the most, though.

    If you're not in a good place mentally, DO NOT listen to this. I am dead serious because it purposely induces anxiety. And if you don't have time for the full six hours, at least listen to each stage for 10-20 minutes or so; don't try to skip through or it won't make any sense. And watch it on Youtube so you can read the video description and the track titles.



    Writing something about each stage helped me unpack my feelings and I feel much better after getting it out of my system. Sorry if this isn't the place for it.
    Stage 1:
    Everything is fine. The memories may sound like they're played back on an old record player, but that's just how it is when you get old. What's important is that you still remember.

    Stage 2:
    Something is not right. The scratchiness is getting worse and the memories sound like they're being played from a distance in a tile hallway, with accompanying echo and reverb. Didn't it always sound like that, though? Must be getting old. But... they seem to be more melancholy than before.

    Stage3:
    No, something is definitely wrong. The memories are getting further away and the reverb and echo are increasing. The noise is getting worse. It's interfering with the ability to properly recall the melodies. Sometimes the melodies repeat or go in reverse as if on a broken record player, but just for a second or two. The warbling of the memory is getting worse, the disorganization is obviously apparent, but it still sounds like how you remember it. Doesn't it? Wait, no, this one sounds fine - it's only when you try to remember about that other thing. What was it again? Ehh, you're getting old, maybe it doesn't really matter, it was just one memory. But you don't recognize this one at all. Where'd this one come from? No... no, this fog is just so... damn it. If only you could clear your head.

    Stage 4:
    What!? What is going on? The memories... You can't focus on them. They're so distorted, they're running together, they're not making sense. You can't remember a single one for more than a second before it segues into another and they're all terribly, just so terribly... wrong! It's like the reel of photo negatives of your memory is burning away, leaving only bits and pieces intact, but even what's left is so mangled beyond recognition that it is completely alien to you. Confusion and terror and unfamiliarity are overpowering everything. What is happening to you!? And the noise...! How long has it...!? You can't... Why can't you...remem...

    Stage 5:
    Chaos and entropy have torn everything asunder! Once, you had hundreds, thousands, millions of memories. Now they are but scattered fragments so minuscule that it has reduced your mind to an endless and barren desert. You try to sift through the sand of your memories to recover something - ANYTHING - that is still whole; SOMETHING to cling to in this dying world, and you'll occasionally pluck out some grains that are larger than the rest, but they disintegrate between your finger and thumb as you hold them. And the noise is unbearable! The NOISE!! It is all-consuming! It has already scratched its way through your sanity. It blasts the sand of your memory against your being, threatening to flay you alive and scour the very soul from your body! You can't even be sure if you're trying to resist it anymore. You can't be sure how long it's been like this. You can't be sure of anything except the fear and emptiness.

    Stage 6:
    Ah... Ahhh... A low and quiet thrum now reverberates throughout the infinite expanse. It is so pleasant compared to the noise from before. And the sand... No... Just floating... Drifting aimlessly, but there is no direction here. No direction, no speed, no time, nor body nor memory nor sense. A black void. Pinched off from the universe in unparalleled isolation. The thrum sometimes subsides for a while, giving way to the comforting embrace of silence.

    Wait. Up ahead. What... what is that? You think you... recognize? That? Oh... The black void around you is slowly fading to white, but now you know what you've found. Ha ha. It was here all along. You can't believe you hadn't found it even though you'd been searching for it this whole time. You completely forgot about it, but it's your last shred of self. You're holding it now. Hah, look at it, it's pretty beat-up, huh? Ha ha ha... Your last wonder before oblivion. Now, only the silence remains. Forever.
    JuliusBorisovArvia
  • semiticgoddesssemiticgoddess Member Posts: 14,903
    A close friend of mine showed me that video once. The sound is very disturbing, and the more you think about it, the darker it gets. It's a grimly accurate representation of one of the scariest things to contemplate and the most painful to experience or see.
    Flashburn
  • Son_of_ImoenSon_of_Imoen Member Posts: 1,806
    I might have a misrepresentation of dementia, but I'm not too afraid of it, as I imagine with the loss of memory I can't worry about the inequality and injustice in this world no more, nor about the degradation of our environment and with the depressing thoughts being forgotten, the depression will also fade - making place for another illness of the mind of course - but I'd love to be not depressed by Weltschmerz no more.

    However there seems to be a way beside dementia to loosen them: I've got haptotherapy now and by paying attention to my body instead of being stuck in my thoughts, I can deal living better. It seems to be far more effective than a quarter of a century of mental health care and medication. Though I have had a similar effect of things getting a lot better when I started on medication.
    ArviaDrHappyAngry
  • ArviaArvia Member Posts: 2,101
    I might have a misrepresentation of dementia, but I'm not too afraid of it, as I imagine with the loss of memory I can't worry about the inequality and injustice in this world no more, nor about the degradation of our environment and with the depressing thoughts being forgotten, the depression will also fade - making place for another illness of the mind of course - but I'd love to be not depressed by Weltschmerz no more.

    However there seems to be a way beside dementia to loosen them: I've got haptotherapy now and by paying attention to my body instead of being stuck in my thoughts, I can deal living better. It seems to be far more effective than a quarter of a century of mental health care and medication. Though I have had a similar effect of things getting a lot better when I started on medication.

    I can relate to that thought. I imagine the beginnings of dementia are hard on a person, when they notice how cognitive function is degrading, but at more advanced stages it's harder on family/ loved ones, not so much on the person affected by it.
    Son_of_Imoensemiticgoddess
  • MichelleMichelle Member Posts: 549
    edited January 2021
    ...
    Post edited by Michelle on
  • semiticgoddesssemiticgoddess Member Posts: 14,903
    Whatever it was, @_Nightfall_, I'm here for you. You're a sweet person and you deserve support.
    mlneveseThacoBell
  • Son_of_ImoenSon_of_Imoen Member Posts: 1,806
    Healthcare insurance in the United States is absolute garbage. We shell out tons of money just to fill the pockets of pointless middlemen who only exist to siphon money from the system. Insurance companies charge as high premiums as they can get away with and try with all their might to avoid covering healthcare when we ask them to live up to their end of the bargain. It's a poorly-regulated system based on market forces and profit instead of the public good, and for all the money we spend, we're not even healthier than folks in similar countries.

    It's so bad that a lot of folks here go without healthcare because they just can't bear the insane costs, and others go broke or into debt paying for treatments they can't live without.

    Sorry if I'm misinformed, but didn't the USA finally get public health insurance with Obamacare? What went wrong that it's still such a mess?
    JuliusBorisovmlnevese
  • Balrog99Balrog99 Member Posts: 7,366
    Healthcare insurance in the United States is absolute garbage. We shell out tons of money just to fill the pockets of pointless middlemen who only exist to siphon money from the system. Insurance companies charge as high premiums as they can get away with and try with all their might to avoid covering healthcare when we ask them to live up to their end of the bargain. It's a poorly-regulated system based on market forces and profit instead of the public good, and for all the money we spend, we're not even healthier than folks in similar countries.

    It's so bad that a lot of folks here go without healthcare because they just can't bear the insane costs, and others go broke or into debt paying for treatments they can't live without.

    Sorry if I'm misinformed, but didn't the USA finally get public health insurance with Obamacare? What went wrong that it's still such a mess?

    It's not 'free'...
  • MichelleMichelle Member Posts: 549
    Yeah, since quitting my high pay and higher stress job 15 years ago I could not afford insurance. Don’t know what I would do without the VA.
    semiticgoddess
  • semiticgoddesssemiticgoddess Member Posts: 14,903
    Calls to mind a line from Allen Ginsberg's poem Howl.

    "They broke their backs lifting Moloch to heaven."
  • semiticgoddesssemiticgoddess Member Posts: 14,903
    I'm watching AGDQ 2021 speedruns on YouTube and I'm noticing that the ONE speedrun by a transgender runner has a massive downvote count, unlike all the others. It's a reminder that the gamer community as a whole isn't nearly as tolerant as the folks I've found here.
    shabadooStummvonBordwehrmlnevese
  • shabadooshabadoo Member Posts: 324
    I'm watching AGDQ 2021 speedruns on YouTube and I'm noticing that the ONE speedrun by a transgender runner has a massive downvote count, unlike all the others. It's a reminder that the gamer community as a whole isn't nearly as tolerant as the folks I've found here.

    It's sad, but true. Many of the people that I used to play with (and a couple that I still do) have shown a side of themselves in the past few years that I finding shocking. On issues of race, sexuality, the police, homelessness... I can't even talk to them half of the time anymore, they've become so narrow-minded and hateful. Most were not always so angry, a couple were tolerant if not actually accepting of others. It makes me angry, and sad. I remind myself to live and let die.
    semiticgoddessmlneveseBalrog99
  • shabadooshabadoo Member Posts: 324
    As far as healthcare in America... I'm right in middle, financially, affording insurance has severely affected my lifestyle. While my state approved the Medicaid expansion, the subsidies I qualify for are small in comparison to costs. Raising my two grandchildren and a wife with several health problems makes it impossible to not have it. I'm lucky to receive a small additional subsidy because my grandkids are court ordered into my care, which is comically considered a hardship. Their my family for Pete's sake, but I'll take the money.
    semiticgoddessmlneveseBelgarathMTH
  • MichelleMichelle Member Posts: 549
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    Welcome to my life.
    semiticgoddess
  • MichelleMichelle Member Posts: 549
    I was harsher than needed to be to Emily, I feel horrible for that. Just so tired of the whole thing.
  • MichelleMichelle Member Posts: 549


    The video. Sorry, I feel for her but it is so old now. I have dealt with this longer than she has been alive. I can’t fix her, I can’t just bow down to this nonsense either.
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