Some context:
I work at that nature kindergarten thursday and friday and on other days I work at a daycare (with children aged below 3 years); both are unpaid internships and will last until end of July. The phonecall I had on monday was with one of my superiors in the network of that daycare and was more intended as a feedback than criticism but it ended in an argument. There is more to this, but it's not worth telling.
As a result of that phonecall, today my boss at the daycare wanted to talk to me. I expected the worst, but it turned out to be a really uplifting and long-needed talk. They love me, they see me do great work with the kids and I'm a likeable person. The problem with me in the perception of that boss is that I'm too complicated. I cannot settle for one thing and declare, I really want to do it. Instead I've been going to places with a mindset "yeah maybe this will work out but I could also do plan B instead, Idk". Apparently everywhere I have gone, I just spoke too much - I rambled. And people found this to be bothersome. Now knowing this is a handicap of mine, I think I can put this information to use in the future.
@grassini, if I give up, it would mean I'd go to rehab which is what everyone - and I mean everyone who doesn't understand me or my ambitions - wants me to do. I imagine if not anything that has happened before made me succumb to depression, then this option definitely will. There is too much that speaks against it. I'd much rather care about my future and fight for it.
I don't mean for you to do whatever others want,but when you refuse to do it,do it in the most respectful way possible.Things can be done without putting other people in a position where they feel attacked.I suspect you may insist on having an agressive tone because of the things you tell us yourself:
"and was more intended as a feedback than criticism but it ended in an argument."
" Instead they try to shoehorn me into this rehab year, no questions asked."
" I talked about it with someone, and that call ended in a heated argument where he accused me of shit I never did, and of interrupting him all the time (after he did the same to me), and he basicly said I was an annoying person"
I'll give you that:your understanding of these situations is probably accurate and correct,but it doesn't matter as long as you don't put these people at ease.Fighting for your future is not putting people on positions they'll be against your endeavors.Even if they're against your objective,they can still be put at ease if you do everything to calm them down and show how calm and collected you yourself are.There are ways to disagree in peace.
And I'm glad you had some decent conversation with understanding people recently,I'm sure things will get better someday.
TAS i'm interested:
megaman series: mmbn1 all chips, mmx3 any% psx glitched
fighting games with speed goals in general
I share grassini's concerns. Since we're only hearing your side of things, we cannot possibly be sure what the "full picture" is or why you're getting the treatment you are. For emphasis, I don't think you're a bad person or necessarily antisocial, but there have been little hints throughout your posts, such as what grassini quoted, that suggest there may be a common thread of misconduct on your part.
I hesitated to bring it up because we can't know what your interactions with others are like and even if we did, no one here wants to kick you while you're down. The best I can say is that I also struggle with making horrible outbursts when I get excited and so I've done a lot over the years to put myself in an environment that minimizes those situations, actively dampen my own excitement, and reassuring myself that when I say something inappropriate, it isn't the end of the world. With that three-pronged attack, I've been able to rein in my outbursts or at least not let them weigh me down.
None of us can answer this for you, MUGG. If there's something there (and there may not be), I urge you to think very carefully about what you've said and how you've acted shortly before people turn on you. I'm not saying that to place the blame on you or justify their responses, but instead to make you feel empowered that this may be something you have some control over.
Thanks for your posts Bobo and grassini.
I could tell you everything from start to finish of what's been happening in my past few years, but it would probably take too long and not be worthwhile.
Yes, those places that rejected me may have their own good reasons for doing so. And I have indeed looked at myself to try and see if the problems are with me in any way. I think I'm a nice guy with a healthy brain and decent social skills. I don't think I'm missing out on how others perceive me.
But sometimes those "reasons" are really absurd to the point where I think, they expect me to be a very specific certain way, perfect and free of quirks. One place I visited, I tried to be nice to everyone and another place I tried to get involved and ask if they need my help with anything, repeatedly. The former told me I was very rude and the latter told me I wasn't quite as involved as they wanted me to be. And no, I'm not shifting the story to my liking. This is really what has happened, I tried to understand it but I can't. That former place also told me I talked to the children about war and mature themes like that, which I really didn't. I can only assume this is a misunderstanding. One of the women hearing a wrong word, or I don't know, I will never know how they came to that conclusion...
You go to places and after 3 hours trying to get involved, they pass judgement on you, whether you like it or not. Do one or two bad things and you fail. And all those places have different tastes and ideals. For one place it's ok to "get involved" while the next place wants you to watch from a distance instead. Impossible to please everybody.
It's sad that I really want to work but I don't get the chance to.
Yesterday was my final day at the kindergarten, we celebrated the departure of the eldest children as well as my farewell. All the parents were present and there was singing and speeches.
I always feared this day would come and it will cause me grief for a long time to come, I expect, because I will dearly miss certain children that I bonded with so much. I couldn't hold back my tears when we sang Möge die Straße uns zusammenführen (Link).
For me this is a good ending. After all, I got so much support from the parents and the team, and we will definitely see each other at certain events throughout next year or maybe even in private.
It's been a year.
Today one year ago there was a feast. I had the most blissful and happy time in my life playing with the children on a late summer afternoon and getting to know other colleagues who were working in the same system.
And the days after that, I had what I would call now the darkest time of my life.
I think maybe I have PTSD because I can still clearly remember what happened and it fucks me up.
I would recommend you try not to ruminate about the bad times, and only think of the good times. Try to distract yourself when you find yourself ruminating about bad times.
I'm actually having a hard time thinking about good times. They either are nice occurrences that lie in the past or they are connected to certain people that I miss dearly.
I just woke up after dreaming that I spent time with such a someone that I love but is unreachable and it really hurts me. It feels very similar to the times right after they restricted me to one day a week (after September 2016) because I couldn't see the children as often anymore and it felt like that time was ending (on a really terrible and sad note).
Oh I'm ruminating right now aren't I? It's not like I can just laugh my dream off or ignore it and try to think this world is all pink and sugar. Because it ain't.
I fear that the same thing happens in my class. I make friends or have (subconscious) love interests and someday they're all gone. It's also not something that motivates me to keep going. I just keep going to not end up a total loser which is what I will be if this class fails. Then I would effectively have wasted 5 years.
The thing is, it is never a waste, people will always come and go. Look at it another way, you might miss people in the past, but there are so many other people in the world you have not met that could give you good memories! The 5 years is not a waste because you learn and grew during those 5 years. Nothing can take that away from you.
So after some time has passed, this is what I feel:
Half my class are shit people. The other half is ok. There is yet again a girl I have fallen in love with but haven't confessed due to a great number of reasons...
And I have a good friend.
Class itself is sometimes interesting, sometimes boring/gives me a headache. It's ok.
Listening to music in the morning helps me a lot.
The past continued to hurt me quite a bit. There is so much more to tell but it's better left untold. Since about 2 weeks ago, I felt nothing anymore. I don't feel pain as much anymore when thinking about the past. It's a time I was fucked with, was misunderstood, I tried to live dreams and couldn't because of others not giving me a chance. When I think about the past, I usually shake my head in denial, as in, I won't forgive all those people that fucked with me and made my life so much harder.
I think the past has made me a bitter person. Because I often find myself in situations in class where everyone is cheering or laughing, or they prepare for Christmas and I don't want to have any part of it. But I can't be blamed if they take 3 hours and counting for planning a half hour Christmas theatre play. While I was motivated to learn something, I had to sit through those hours instead. I can't get into a mood where I look forward to Christmas and be all like "yes, let's have a nice time everyone is so happy" because I sure as hell am not happy.
The girl I like doesn't seem to care; she's not signalling anything back.
I'm basicly an outsider in my class.
Through all of December, everyone in my class planned for a Christmas theater play in school. That's nice... But they planned it like every 3 days for up to one hour each time. The times where I went into lessons wanting to actually learn something, I had to sit through discussions of which kind of Christmas tree we get, where to get it, what price, how to dispose of it, if to dispose of it or keep it, who is doing what, when, how, and I'm getting a bigger and bigger headache. Then there are lessons that are canceled in favor of cutting out paper stars or painting cardboard. Overall I feel people in my class like to discuss over every little thing and it leads to endless discussions. And they often laugh over something that I don't feel are enjoyable at all (that's what I mean by "bitter" in my previous post).
I'm so tired and stressed out and people in my class don't seem to understand or care, because all they ever tell me is I'm impolite, I should contribute and I shouldn't waggle with my foot when sitting next to them.
I decided to not partake in rehearsals for the theater play, where I was supposed to play a role where I quickly run across the stage saying a one liner. Today was the play, and I missed it because my bus didn't come. My class in Whatsapp were like "really?". So, I let them down, but everything fucking sucks so it's not like I can be blamed.
Dear MUGG,
I am sorry to hear that you're struggling with depression issues, and I should say that I didn't have time to read your entire story, so I might be unable to analyze the whole situation. However, even though I have never been in circumstances as serious as yours, I think that if I share some of my experiences with similar issues, I should be able to help you.
I am a researcher on Condensed Matter Physics specializing in computational methods in Quantum Field Theory and come from a developing country. My story should tell you how difficult it is to get things to work on that environment.
When I was in high school, there were two ways of getting higher education, you either went to a private university and paid exorbitant tuition fees to get a mostly fraudulent education or you took extra classes after high school to be able to pass on the admission test of public universities. There was so much competition for these tests that it was not uncommon to see people trying them for three years or more. Nevertheless, I was a good student and managed to pass quickly.
After getting into university, though, things were not so wonderful as most led me to believe. In Brazilian law, university professors are public servants and once they are hired, it's pretty much impossible to fire them, so they could do basically whatever they wanted. Some were ridiculously incompetent.
Because of that, I mostly ignored their classes and studied mathematical and computer science stuff for programming competitions. My friends and I were very successful and got some awards. That was obviously completely ignored at my institution. In one course a professor even gave me the minimal passing grade because he believed I had cheated, I told him that I didn't and if he believed I did he should take the issue to the appropriate person instead of just setting me a grade. He never replied to my emails and just let things like that.
As I was close to graduation, I discovered the most productive professor in the Computer Engineering department was just making up papers and submitting to predatory conferences. The thing is, I was forced to take his course, and he even submitted a paper with one of his fraudulent studies with my name on it without my permission. I've contacted the editor to retract the paper and he simply doesn't care.
Frustrated by this, I changed to the Physics department, as things looked better there. Immediately before joining the group, the postdoc who supervised me alleged that I was breaching the Institute's ethics code because I took too long to reply to one of his emails. I complained about his behavior to the boss, who did nothing. Months later, this same postdoc submitted a paper without putting one of the professor's collaborators as co-author, because he believed she didn't contribute (and she really didn't). This was seen as a fatal offense and he got kicked out immediately.
During my Master's, my project was delayed because another postdoc had "accidentally" formatted the hard drive with my data because he thought it was not working. Curiously enough, I later saw that he gave his account root privileges when performing maintenance and the logs showed he was accessing code from other members. I reported this and nothing was done.
At my PhD, I had to teach for two semesters in order to get the degree. In one of these, I offered to reformulate the Quantum Field Theory course, since the professor just projected the book pages on a screen and read it together with the class. That was the "course". The problem is, the funding agency requires professors to have a minimum of productivity to teach at grad school, and many didn't achieve this minimum. When they learned a PhD student was preparing a graduate course, they were not happy.
During that semester, I learned I was being accused of sexually harassing a girl I had a fight with earlier. I thought this was strange and asked her if she said I harassed her and she said no, it was just a fight. Nevertheless, they opened investigations against me, interviewed some people and after two weeks they dropped the charges because no one accused me of anything. I consulted with a lawyer and he said that was absurd, they could not have opened investigations against me without first sending me an official document with an accusation signed by the person who received it.
Nearing my qualification, I was performing maintenance on the group's computers, writing the entire research papers for my advisor, and even his research grants. I complained to the department's head that he was doing this just to pad his resume with publications and this was not letting me finish my thesis. Naturally, he just said it was because they expected a lot of me and told everything to my advisor, who reprimanded me for not talking to him first.
After qualifying, I came to Germany and my supervisor here was a complete idiot. Whenever I showed him code, he said that was not physics and literally told me to manipulate the data. Thankfully, I had consulted with lawyers and knew what to do. I reported everything to my advisor in emails, this time expecting he would do nothing. Then I played dumb with my supervisor until he manipulated the graph himself and sent me by email.
This is where the fun part begins. I immediately called him on his misconduct. Naturally he made counter-allegations against me and the boss just ordered me to work on another project to cover everything up. I said this was unacceptable and asked to change advisors, they replied it was impossible and my only alternative was to give up my scholarship. Upon receiving this answer, I sent it to my lawyer who immediately filed a lawsuit with all emails.
Seeing the lawsuit, my advisor resigned and professors at my home institution are so scared that I have been researching without advisor for a few months. Now we have the Brazilian Federal Justice, the funding agency and two institutions investigating the massive amount of corruption there, lots of fun.
What do I want to say with this story? It's perfectly fine to think, as you do, that your class sucks. In many cases that's what happens. However, whatever we do also happens in the complex process of human sociology, and to bring positive change, you need to be in the system and interact with it.
If I just isolated myself when I first saw misconduct, I would never have learned how to do proper research and would not know how to proceed to report it effectively. Besides, even though many people I have worked with were fraudsters, I learned something from them. The fact that they got so far indicates that results are usually more emphasized than methodology, which is something I had difficulty in grasping.
So, my suggestion to you is, interact with your colleagues! Nobody is asking you to give up your way of seeing the world. Given that they don't know your issues in detail, it's possible they just think you are being unfair to them by isolating. I am sure that once you interact with them, you will see things are not as clear cut as you initially thought, and also that you acquiring this knowledge progressively is a natural process, and indicates no problem with you.
Thank you p4wn3r for telling your story.
The thing is if I didn't isolate myself and instead played along with my class, that would be like wearing a false mask, like I'd be lying. It wouldn't be right. There wouldn't be anything to learn from it either, really. And even as nice as it would be to just get along and be friends with my class mates, I simply don't want to.
Their priorities and views are backwards; Christmas is oh so important, because it's such a happy event they can spend with their loved ones (and probably have). But nobody cares that I'd spend Christmas alone and sad and that I'm feeling a great deal of pain and regret over my past. I tried to play along with their Christmas plannings but in hindsight, it was not worth it. I realize now I should take care of myself more and save my sanity instead of listening to "don't waggle your foot" and "you gotta do this and that, we need to make this Christmas thing epic together". After all, I'm going to part ways with them again sooner or later.
I see myself as a broken person. I talk about it with my therapist and she hasn't been able to help me much. I will try to do what I can, but I'm not going into 2018 feeling like "yeah, let's do this! Will finally do the driver's license test here, and work on the long overdue essay there, and rock this school life". Because oh wait, (as I learned) this first year's degrees don't even count for anything. What a motivator...
I'm not only broken, I feel also like I'm an asshole. I need to be an asshole and distance myself from the others to save my sanity.
In complicated situations when I struggle to remain sane and when I look and feel like the one who failed something (and when other probably think I gave them up), I always become saner and calmer if I apologize to people that are probably angry at me, even if I'm doing everything right, even if I consider them to be wrong.
Warning: When making decisions, I try to collect as much data as possible before actually deciding. I try to abstract away and see the principles behind real world events and people's opinions. I try to generalize them and turn into something clear and reusable. I hate depending on unpredictable and having to make lottery guesses. Any problem can be solved by systems thinking and acting.
In complicated situations when I struggle to remain sane and when I look and feel like the one who failed something (and when other probably think I gave them up), I always become saner and calmer if I apologize to people that are probably angry at me, even if I'm doing everything right, even if I consider them to be wrong.
It may indeed be a good idea to be the bigger person, swallow your pride, make amends, and apologize if somebody is angry at you, even if you haven't really done anything wrong or unjust. This often de-escalates the situation and is the best for everybody.
However, in some cases there is the danger of this backfiring. I know I'm being a bit cynical here, but one should be a bit careful about these things. If you too eagerly apologize to anybody who gets angry at you, with some of these people you might be sending a message that you are just a pushover who is easy to be taken advantage of. Doing this to the right (well, wrong) kind of person might make them take advantage of you in the future as well, because you are giving them the message that you are willing to submit to the abuse (emotional or otherwise) even if you are not at fault.
But as said, this is probably not very often the case. But it might happen. I suppose the principle "fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me" applies: Better to apologize at first, but if similar events start happening again and again, perhaps reconsider.
Dear MUGG,
Again, I can only recommend that you talk to your colleagues and explain your situation. There is nothing "broken" about pointing out problems in school or workplace. It is your right to do it. However:
But nobody cares that I'd spend Christmas alone and sad and that I'm feeling a great deal of pain and regret over my past.
This is a very serious allegation. You are saying that your colleagues know of your problems and are deliberately isolating you. This is essentially an accusation of harassment. Which school are you in? Is it a Hochschule? If what you are saying is true, you should ask who is the person responsible for these matters and present it to them and they will probably issue a formal warning to your colleagues.
However, in order for the school to take action, you need to prove your allegation, you need to point out when you told them of your problems, that you tried to spend Christmas with them and they denied it because of your issues, and name the people responsible. And, naturally, the school will have to hear your colleagues' version of the story before deciding what to do.
Perhaps I have described things the wrong way and exaggerated.
My colleagues aren't aware of my problems for the most part. There is basicly consensus that each one of us is suffering stress during the education, some more and some less, and each one of us needs to pull themself together regardless what their problem is. That is why I received disregard. But it's not like I have gone and told every single person my life story. So I can't really expect them to give me a special treatment. Not that I want a "special treatment", but I just want to be understood.
I think there might, however, be two or three people in particular that have shown disregard for my situation (to a small extent, multiple times). I don't know if they are to blame. They simply wanted to celebrate Christmas in an amazing and ideal way and I didn't want to go along. We are also talking about women. Maybe they take a liking in pretty things and having tea and finding things cute moreso than me.
that you tried to spend Christmas with them and they denied it because of your issues, and name the people responsible.
Hold on; the thing is, yes, I wanted to spend Christmas, but not with such extraordinary planning that took 4+ accumulated hours. It's not like they denied me. It was really me. I didn't want to go along with it the way it went.
I have posted an apology and my explanation, my reasons. And for the most part I have received understanding and warm words. I don't know what will happen from now on. School starts again tomorrow, and the week is full with assignments and exams.
In fact, I was working with that girl I liked on an assignment and it wasn't possible to work with her. She worked alone and we failed to meet up and discuss the matter more. The situation ended up being, she messaged me today (the last day) to work 2 pages on something I have no idea about or how it should be written to fit with the rest of the assignment (she didn't show me her work, after all). And that it's my fault we failed to work together. (...)
She is an energetic, busy, inaccessible person, with a full calendar, and I didn't know how to get through.
(Reminds me of a person who was the reason I started this topic.)
I made her small presents but after all she thinks of me no more than as a friend. That is what she messaged me: She is scared thinking I'd want more than friendship. Because she doesn't want more. She is happy with her life as it is. (I've heard that line before, too.)
If it wasn't already difficult for me in recent days due to depression arising again, it is now incredibly painful and wearing to go on from here. I feel I have no real friends. Many people I thought of as good friends have fucked me up in one way or another. But I have been through this pain before; For now, I can take the sorrow and put it to energy to finish another assignment I need to do.
What I described in my previous post, things settled down from there. I'm not going to get into much detail on it; That girl and I both ended up getting bad grades on our assignment.
I'm really unhappy with the school system, the way teachers judge you and that whenever I have to work with my classmates on an assignment, their own view of things is always the right one and mine is wrong.
It's the school holidays right now and I got to make a visit to the kindergarten I had been to. The second one since my farewell in July. It was a really nice day today. But when I talk about that kindergarten, I also talk about a time that was full to the brim of disappointment and a feeling of being misunderstood and undermined. I had been discussing with a lot of people if I should take an action and the consensus was I shouldn't. But I couldn't hold it any longer. I decided to say what needed to be said.
I'm hurt, I've been carrying this hurt in me ever since then. I still carry it in me. My therapist can't help me. I'm fucked. I'm not going to that kindergarten anymore. I will not see the children anymore. I'm disappointed.
We left on good terms.
I'm not sure where it goes from here.
I think people in my school and anywhere will make it hard for me. They will give me lots of trouble. And school will drag me down, big time. It will be a shit fest.
But I will make it. Because I can't go anywhere if I don't. What am I supposed to do if I don't make it? That thought alone will drive me forward. But I also have a dream I want to see fulfilled.
The situation in my school is getting really stressful and heated.
Teachers don't care when I'm sick or can't finish an assignment on time. I got told something along the lines of "we see you will be heading towards big trouble in the future". Just because I handed in an assignment a day late. That one girl and me had yet another thing to work on and we couldn't come to an agreement who is responsible for what part of it. I SMS'd her and she explained she didn't care about those messages, she was angry at me for not messaging earlier, and she doesn't want to look at messages on the weekend. The teachers then looked at me as if I was to blame. And they didn't care when I explained I was in love with her and got turned down, and I kept messaging her in the Christmas holidays with no success. Basicly the teachers have full understanding of her migraine problem (she misses 70% of classes) but they have zero understanding for any of my problems. Understandably so, considering the job I'm aiming for, I have to be stable. But I cannot be stable all of the time and I have to call in sick some times.
After this meeting (which was 3 days ago on Monday), we continued to work on the project and she agreed to meet today after school, but she then said nope, I got no time and that she didn't agree on anything. I then told the teacher about this, who doesn't give a shit, I'm supposed to communicate with that girl myself.
This school is a huge clusterfuck of subjects that are shifted back and forth without notice, no matter what you do, you are to blame, everyone else's opinion is correct and yours is false. We had a meeting yesterday and one of those "your opinion is false" girls talked about me and started crying, in front of the class and the teacher. It felt like I was to blame.
She apologized to me later and we are on good terms, but I don't know if everyone else saw that part of the story. In the mind of the teachers maybe I'm a huge disruptive factor/disturbance.
It's hard to keep my composure in what I'd call a rather hostile atmosphere. My goal with this school is to later work in a kindergarten, with children and I didn't expect that dealing with everyone else's bullshit and compromising was such a big part of this job. At least not to the degree that I'm facing in this school. They expect that "everyone can work with everyone", which I think is not possible in the way that they expect or imagine.
I've been following this topic for a little while now, but first and foremost, let me just say that you have my sympathies for the stuff you're going through. I've dealt with bouts of depression myself from time to time, but not to the extreme that you seem to be dealing with (for me, the cause is usually my apparent inability to score with girls, but also occasionally feeling directionless about my future). My personality tends to be on the side of a people pleaser, and the reason I bring this up is because one of the things I've learned in feeling better about my situation is to not care so much about what other people may think of me.
Reading through your posts, I get the sense that you're much the same way. Obviously, you need to take stock of things that you're told, especially if multiple people are bringing up the issue, but if you know you've done the best you can in a given situation, that should be enough. Put the issue behind you and move on. If the situation had an unfavorable outcome, ask yourself if there's anything you could've done differently. Any type of relationship is a two-way street, so it's entirely possible the problem lies solely with the other party (still, it's best not to immediately assume this). Either way, it's best not to give too much thought to what other people think, unless it's a recurring issue. I know this is easier said than done, however.
MUGG wrote:
The situation in my school is getting really stressful and heated.
Teachers don't care when I'm sick or can't finish an assignment on time. I got told something along the lines of "we see you will be heading towards big trouble in the future". Just because I handed in an assignment a day late. That one girl and me had yet another thing to work on and we couldn't come to an agreement who is responsible for what part of it. I SMS'd her and she explained she didn't care about those messages, she was angry at me for not messaging earlier, and she doesn't want to look at messages on the weekend. The teachers then looked at me as if I was to blame. And they didn't care when I explained I was in love with her and got turned down, and I kept messaging her in the Christmas holidays with no success. Basicly the teachers have full understanding of her migraine problem (she misses 70% of classes) but they have zero understanding for any of my problems. Understandably so, considering the job I'm aiming for, I have to be stable. But I cannot be stable all of the time and I have to call in sick some times.
After this meeting (which was 3 days ago on Monday), we continued to work on the project and she agreed to meet today after school, but she then said nope, I got no time and that she didn't agree on anything. I then told the teacher about this, who doesn't give a shit, I'm supposed to communicate with that girl myself.
Sounds like a sucky situation, and obviously we don't have full knowledge of what's going on here, however I do have a couple observations. First, what's the point in telling the teacher about your crush? I don't see how that info specifically pertains to your class assignments, other than you're working with said girl. To me, it sounds solely like a personal issue, and it's not the teacher's place to get involved in such things.
On a slightly related note, I do think you should be more careful about calling your feelings towards the girl "love". Obviously you have (had?) a crush on her, but to me, the word "love" should only be used towards those that you know intimately well (family and friends, for example), and it sounds like you probably don't know this girl nearly well enough for that to be the case. Maybe I'm wrong on that last point, just my two cents. Mostly I bring this up because it indicates you perhaps may be coming on too strong in your romantic endeavors. (But what do I know about such things? =p)
Regarding you and the girl being unable to properly set aside time for your project, it's a crappy situation, but it's not the teacher's responsibility to make you two work together (not unless time in class is set aside to allow you to work on the project). While I do think you're correct in bringing this matter to the teacher, it seems to me like something you should do closer to the project's deadline, and if you and your partner truly can't set aside time, then to do the best you can on your own (probably best to show your teacher the work you could get done, in that case).
This school is a huge clusterfuck of subjects that are shifted back and forth without notice, no matter what you do, you are to blame, everyone else's opinion is correct and yours is false. We had a meeting yesterday and one of those "your opinion is false" girls talked about me and started crying, in front of the class and the teacher. It felt like I was to blame.
She apologized to me later and we are on good terms, but I don't know if everyone else saw that part of the story. In the mind of the teachers maybe I'm a huge disruptive factor/disturbance.
This relates to what I was saying earlier about not caring too much about others' opinions. Stick up for yourself, obviously. Ultimately, people will think whatever they want about you, and probably have (in their minds) fair justification for thinking that way. Still, if it were me, I'd probably find it hard to be on good terms with the one girl again. I'd most likely take everything she said from then on with a huge grain of salt, having as little to do with her as possible, but still being respectful and probably somewhat curt. Of course, that's just me, I can't tell you what to do or think.
In any event, hang in there. Things will get better, but you also need to put in the work to make it happen (I'm not saying you're not doing this).
I've read most of your posts MUGG and would like to help you. I would like to ask, do you have any questions or topic to discuss that you couldn't do already? (for example, available treatments for discomfort, suitable jobs without affecting negatively your mental helth, etc)
This sounds very stupid, but I rather help in exploring an answer than asking things one by one about "life goal" and "what do you like to do".
Other than that, I felt I have to write down some "facts", things that won't change in the near future:
- life is not fair
- everyone has problems, everyone deals with them differently
- scapegoating is easy, people sometimes start dealing with things with this... (rather blame someone else than accepting their own fault)
- school systems in most countries sucks. And unfortunately there are many toxicity by teachers and students. The only thing you can do about this is not going to public school which isn't always a possibility to choose.
PhD in TASing 🎓 speedrun enthusiast ❤🚷🔥 white hat hacker ▓ black box tester ░ censorships and rules...
I don't know if I want to come back to this topic to start discussing about hardships again. But I would like to say I'm definitely in another hole right now. My parents put a lot of psychological pressure on me and it feels like they treat me like shit. There is zero questioning "could this be my own fault?". I suppose this is the scapegoating thing that MESHUGGAH mentioned. Even though my mother repeatedly tells me I'm retarded, once I tell her that she is retarded, she grabs my arm and pulls me through the room. When I shout, my father comes and tells me I should quiet down or else I can live on the street. And several similar situations. They like to cut my internet connection and keep me isolated from the outer world. It is like a psychological prison here.
I would like to keep living here at least 1 year longer, because I feel well in at least two rooms here. The next year of my education is going to be really tough. I need to be stable to do it. But my parents tell me things and do things that make me extremely unstable and feel like I'm worthless, I'm a retarded person who should go back to the clinic. I'm wondering if it is possible to sue them for all the damage they have done to me, for how they didn't prepare me for life.
Moving elsewhere, in a foreign room with foreign people (who don't understand me), I fear that this would make me just as unstable. If it ever comes to that, I think I will never be the same anymore. I won't be able to enjoy gaming, anime or TASing anymore. It's just going to be about "why am I doing this, why do I keep going?"... This ties in heavily with another situation which I never mentioned here before. And I'm not going to mention it, but it is about losing someone I loved.
I can see how some of my colleagues, who are mothers, treat their young children with so much care and love which I never had. It is extremely painful to me.
I think this is an important part of the problem. I must acknowledge that it is very likely to be raised as an unstable person in general if the parents aren't stable. The bursts of absurd and hostility that you described are in fact extremely common, it's so insanely common here in Russia!
But there are a few aspects to that that people usually don't notice.
First of all, you need to figure out whether your parents want evil things to happen to you. It's common to think that they can't wish that, but I've seen tons of people who enjoy destruction for real, and they are indeed very destructive to the community they are in (more so if they have some power and authority there). People who have rejected morality do exist, and they do evil for fun. So yes, you need to determine if your parents are like that.
Second, you need to understand that them being so unstable means a lot of what they consider bad and scary (which in their eyes requires attacking, just because they fear it) is in fact not bad nor scary. They just don't know how to handle/resolve those problems they are seeing. It is correct to think that using attacks and threats instead of trying to actually resolve is bad. But what's the reason for that? The reason is that they are weak. They see something that can be solved with just a bit of empathy and comprehension, and they aren't used to that. They consider such things hard (or, conversely, weak), so they just use what they have left. Being afraid of being weak (and using methods that only make the problems bigger) is in itself a weakness. Every time I look at things from that perspective, I feel sorry for people that do bad things out of weakness. Each of us is weak in something after all!
Third, maybe their weakness if not related to rotten morality. It is also quite common to see people, that are generally sane, do absurd stuff, and then act normally again. In such cases, you just have to concentrate of what good they do, and try to avoid triggering their bad sides. I used that a few times IRL and on the web, and the results were quite nice.
Warning: When making decisions, I try to collect as much data as possible before actually deciding. I try to abstract away and see the principles behind real world events and people's opinions. I try to generalize them and turn into something clear and reusable. I hate depending on unpredictable and having to make lottery guesses. Any problem can be solved by systems thinking and acting.
