Complaints Welcome Here.

[RussellSue]

so predictably people attack

I hope you won't be offended by an observation that you have probably already made. I suspect that part of why you are being attacked is because your writing level and style upset people. In an online environment, your writing stands out in a major way. It is easy to assume that you are brighter than average and this can create a lot of aggravation in people. I assume this aggravation stems from jealousy or feelings of inferiority in the reader. The unexamined attitude may simply be that you feel superior.

My husband and I recently left a rural environment where we both held responsibilities at the local paper. We wound up relocating, due in large part, to the consistent attitude that we were elitist snobs - this is part of my experience that makes it easy to come to this conclusion after reading only two of your posts. You may be saying offensive things for all I know, but I kind of doubt it.

This may or may not be the slightest bit helpful since you are who you are and express yourself with high-level use of language as you do. But I just wanted to say it because I feel for you.

I suspect and hope that people will be more self-reflective and less apt to attack here.

 

[Resilientbibliophile]

Oh - it's certainly O.K.,

I definitely give off that Prussian aristocratic vibe when my copy is read, and this unquestionably has caused me problems. It's odd too given my longstanding habit of diving back into the books to better clarify what's amiss and/or unknown, while if anything my 'condition' grows worse for such application. I don't want to threaten anyone - certainly not habitually or for absence of awareness, while as can be discerned nevertheless the potentiality of evidencing impatience ranging up to an attitude of ill-disguised contempt just hovers in the background. For some people the hope of writing an anonymous letter to this or that manifestation of authority isn't advised, while as the topic relates to myself, sadly anything I might pen could be identified and traced back very quickly indeed.

Although part of my particular CPTSD profile and an imperfect strategy at best in the day-to-day world, sometimes I'll restrict myself to memorized simple phrases or instructions consistent with telegraphing clear intent, and what I hope would be perceived as good cheer. I have to remember to take in a deep breath consistent with maintaining an audible volume across the duration of whatever it is I'd wish to communicate. Too few people in my life then, no strict need to communicate much face to face with loved ones/coworkers/the public however manifest, hence one can regress and fail to meet standard in no time flat. Such an odd way to live, while I try my best not to be evil!

Negotiating 'social space' has always been a challenge, as it is for a great many here. I'll try to keep my expectations in check for limited forays made, but impatience will be felt, and soon I'll just silently gather my cluster of marbles and vanish forthwith after suffering what the larger crowd or majority would judge a defeat. I really wish that aspects of myself outside of the more typical identity parameters one could cite wasn't such a secret if you will. More words if not further clarification of circumstances suggested to come - thanks for your interest and reply...

Resilient - or at least such is the hoped-for quality

 

[RussellSue]

one can regress and fail to meet standard in no time flat.

I'm wordy because I analyze things from multiple angles and it irritates people and I know it. I try to simplify and cut down on the words, but I'm bad at it. It takes me so long to shorten and simplify my thoughts that most of the time, I'll usually choose to keep it to myself rather than trying to make it reader-friendly for an everyday online environment.

My trauma diary here is a different story. I'm me there pretty much always keeping the idea that it's more for me to look back on than it is for anyone else to have feedback about. I have 1-2 faithful responders in spite of my rambling and they are much appreciated, but my expectations are pretty low because I am very much used to being the discussion ender - the person who went too far.

Most of my higher education was completed online and was mainly comprised of English and writing courses, so I can spot avid readers pretty easily by their writing, even when they don't identify themselves as such. I, personally, am not an avid reader, but I was surrounded by them in school and tend to relate well because I have always enjoyed writing even though fiction never found a home in the survival story of my youth, and therefore, did not follow me into adulthood.

I wrote and played music and that was the extent of my own escape from the stress of my life. I wish I had read more; it probably would have helped.

I still struggle here and elsewhere online because I have a very dense and long history of trauma and an overly-introspective nature that makes writing novels on what looks like a one-line to others very natural to me. I have been attacked, insulted, and otherwise treated poorly online for these and other reasons, but not so much in here. Still, I accept that popularity is not in my future based on the obvious silences I experience.

sometimes I'll restrict myself to memorized simple phrases or instructions consistent with telegraphing clear intent, and what I hope would be perceived as good cheer.

I really relate to this.

I sincerely hope that you are able to make connections here where you can feel free to be yourself and write as you do. It seems extremely unfair to me that some of us must regularly cut back volumes of our very real feelings just to have a small piece of our point heard.

I was born into a low-income, poorly educated family in California, so I learned west coast foodservice speak very young, but it doesn't serve any meaningful purpose for me, so I never adopted it as a serious way to communicate. Yet, online communication can have some major similarities. I'm still not convinced that it will do anything for me, so I still haven't made an ongoing effort to speak that language. I sometimes think I get lonely for my stubbornness but other times I am glad to restrict my relationships to those that actually allow me to be myself.

That said, do you mind me asking where you grew up? I'm quite sure it wasn't in bars and restaurants in California.

I am having some serious physical pain issues at present, and I am not tracking extremely well, as a result. Forgive me if I am not being the slightest bit helpful. The underlying point of all of this is just to say that I relate and also hope that you are able to find a safe space to be yourself, here.

 

[RussellSue]

I haven't been able to make an appointment with the neurologist, yet.

 

[8888]

I haven't been able to make an appointment with the neurologist, yet.

I hope you are able to get one soon.

 

[8888]

My therapist tried to help me but I think she only made it worse. I'm just so sick of everything!

 

[Resilientbibliophile]

That said, do you mind me asking where you grew up? I'm quite sure it wasn't in bars and restaurants in California.

The environment in which I was raised and still reside is largely working class/lower middle class at best. Geographically, I'm situated in a declining light industrial ring suburb outside of the physical decay if not urban squalor of Detroit, MI. The cultural and intellectual milieu afforded here is basic and hard edged. Slightly to the north would be more than a few severe evangelical Christian turning their back on modernity, while others wearing typically mismatched fatigues join citizen militias. Don't Tread On Me/Thin Blue Line/Trump flags fly from many a pickup truck during the summer months, while even the odd Confederate stars and bars is witnessed flying from the odd (as in very) decrepit (more often than not) home. Residents are advised not to give into the luxury of a negative thought - or habits of critical thinking full truth be told.

Most people around possess the bare minimum in terms of formal education, while it could be said that no great harm came of such an orientation for one could support a family here for decades past with only a high school diploma (or even less). I don't believe that everyone can suddenly be educated to be middle managers, while I'm painfully aware that a certain kind of employment is evaporating consistent with feeding legitimate anxiety and often illegitimate and misdirected anger. What continuing education and application to matters that exists here for people on the street is made up of chatter heard or engaged in at the convenience store, the barber shop, the coin-operated laundromat, etc. People don't debate in public here so much as harumph, harumph, harumph everything at this or that Coney Island.

Predictably, a great many men tune in to right wing AM radio, searching for affirmation to who or what is threatening their dignity and/or fragile sense of entitlement this week/day/minute/second. Nearby Warren, MI. has been a regular stop for esteem challenged Donald Trump to take a noncritical fill up of praise from his fervent noncritical followers, while if he isn't divisive enough, Steve Bannon has spoken here too. It's highly disconcerting that the white working class, hardly bereft of substantial and textured issues, proves again and again inadequate to the task of casting itself free from haters and grifters affording binary solutions to the issues of the day. For myself it's like enduring an occupation, while Trump's base simply awaits the next Angry Messiah to arrive and hasn't been chastened in the least. Most of the election paraphernalia has vanished post-presidential election, but know if anything the plotting behind doors has picked up pace.

Environmentally, the area offers every convenience. About three miles away is the county jail, hence bail bond agencies are close, and no-tell motels too. Plasma donation centers, emergency clinics, pawn shops, private investigator offices and services, check cashing agencies, metal recycling centers (should one have a spare 150 lbs. of copper in the trunk discovered roadside), lottery outlets (should one want to invest in the future) and more feature. Terrible post-secondary educational options abound - more akin to student debt manufacturing centers consistent with affording momentary hope while amplifying a sense of failure for being a strictly cheaply availed and decidedly substandard product not equal to the sophistication of the challenge. Medicinal marijuana is touted as a growth industry, while vaping (is he smoking or is his head on FIRE?) is pretty common. Psych. hospital referral is swift and efficient, a constellation of social service agencies of middling quality are scattered about. Definitely reconsider that abortion the billboards implore - there is so much to live for!

It's wildly difficult to take upon the task of reading about the Silent Majority mindset and tradition consistent with diffusing a certain bomb, but then again I'm here and this is my circumstantial 'home'. To choose not to study the literature describing and deconstructing such dynamics just doesn't seem an option for me, given the intensity of the times and the undeniable pressures of this environment in particular. Some of this is evidence of my CPTSD 'talking to me' so to speak, but other aspects are undeniably real if one is only sensitive enough to form a coherent narrative of the sights and sounds. Needless to say, I don't bliss out very well or very efficiently. Thanks for listening...

Resilient Bibliophile

 

[mumstheword]

It's flooding here. My bloke is stuck in the middle of a flood.

Sigh.

The world is so divided.

Sigh.

People like me who "love God" are, somehow, the enemy.

I'm highly intelligent, but, I'm sooooo glad I'm not an intellectual.

I'd rather be a social misfit than fit in with all the cultural marxists and post modernists. I've been to uni, I get it, I just don't like it and don't agree.

So much is taken for granted and ill examined, but, people have to find out what's what by their own trials and errors. I just hope their errors don't take all of us and our children and children's children down with them; "China world" is not an exciting prospect, to say the least, and without discernment and a measure of "sight" ( as in those with eyes to see and ears to hear) we are destined for a shut-in, liberty-deprived and coerced future.

So much for "the educated". They are proving to be some of the most spiritually bereft and myopic of all.

No reverence for the sanctity of life. No respect for liberties. No discernment of truth from lies. No awareness of the sovereign nature of each, individual soul. Not even an understanding of how the immune system works.

Unlike those who actually appreciate how freeing the constitution of the US of A is and how important; examining your beliefs and who you give your power to, is..

 

[RussellSue]

The cultural and intellectual milieu afforded here is basic and hard edged.

Your description of your home-base appears to have a lot of similarities to rural central Oregon, where I lived for far too many years of my adult life. It's agricultural, but the simplicity sounds familiar.

We recently spent about a year-and-a-half in Portland, Oregon. We lived in the Cultural District downtown and I felt like I was in heaven for a while. We had the big library, the big museum, some of the best, old architecture in the city (which was also usually big), lots of parks, and tons of great statues and street art. We left at day 55 of the George Floyd protest, party in response to my explosive internal responses to the sound of flash grenades (resulting from my trauma story), partly because me being a covid layoff and my husband's promise of another year of poor pay as a private school teacher didn't make our futures look bright, and partly because my husband chose an out-of-state school where he could get his teaching license.

For us, Portland demonstrated a lesson in wayfinding. We all tend to get extreme when we make changes. My sister was a completely different sort of parent than my mother was and when we finally got tired of cattle drives, we went the opposite direction. Granted, we did not land in New York, but we didn't have the money for that, or we might have. We were that sick of the ways of things in central Oregon. Neither my sister's intense new parenting style nor our extreme change in location was completely successful. The major swings we made to get out of the old were really a little too major to be successful in the long-run. Though honestly, my heart is in Portland, and the gravity of those protests was not lost on me, even if I can't live too close to what sounds like nightly gunfire.

Because we moved to New Mexico, my husband was able to start teaching immediately upon enrolling in a licensure program. He got the first teaching job he applied to on the day he applied, demonstrating New Mexico's incredible desperation for teachers.

We were in the thick of the pandemic when he started teaching in this tiny village near Santa Fe, so we haven't been meeting people. We're both 100% ginger and the village is over 90% Latino with a large Catholic School planted in the center, and to say that we are out of our element is a pretty big understatement. Further, because neither one of us is very good at meeting people, getting to this new cultural landscape when we were expected to stay home as much as possible means we've had very little of the New Mexico experience. It's kind of a shame, too, because what we have seen is fascinating and beautiful, but we'll probably be back in Oregon before things have settled down - if they settle down.

this is my circumstantial 'home'

By circumstantial, do you mean you got there due to circumstance or that the circumstances make are your current residential atmosphere? Do you have a location you would prefer? Do you have any plans to get there?

To choose not to study the literature describing and deconstructing such dynamics just doesn't seem an option for me, given the intensity of the times and the undeniable pressures of this environment in particular. Some of this is evidence of my CPTSD 'talking to me' so to speak, but other aspects are undeniably real if one is only sensitive enough to form a coherent narrative of the sights and sounds.

I heard a lot of this in school. And I imagine I would agree in deed were it not for my own peculiar mental twists having to do with my trauma.

School came at me from the direction you describe and my right-wing family has made every attempt to make sure that I have guns and know how to use them. Some sort of social collapse/social madness was at the heart of both. The summary version of why I don't pay much attention to literature, news, or how to clean a rifle is that I really hope that the next big trauma takes me out. I'm sure there is some psychological term for this phenomenon, but I think the word done sums it up -- perhaps evidence of a long-term struggle with depression. My trauma history is long and complicated and I don't want to survive to see another round of recovery.

I've been told that there is something very amiss that I would not be concerned with my own survival. I understand the assessment to a degree.

In real life, however, I eat healthy and exercise daily and I work to have a good life, a healthy brain/body, etc. But I think I just feel that I have reached my limit, emotionally. I feel like one more major trauma might just destroy everything good that is left inside of me. Survive that? No thanks. Find a way to escape and thereby watch tons of other people get destroyed from afar? Nah. Honestly if things get too bad, I'll probably run to the front of the line and beg for a bullet. No, it's not normal mammal behavior, but there is nothing normal about surviving the myriad of traumas I have survived to this point, either. I don't want to "recover" again - it's taken too long, I'm tired, and I'd rather have a good life right now than worry about what is probably happening out there.

I feel a little like a Disney grasshopper saying that, but it's how I feel. I used to be a bit of a prepper, myself, with a stockpile of food, water, and supplies, but this arthritic body is only going to make it so far, anyway.

Needless to say, I don't bliss out very well or very efficiently.

I don't either. I will avoid looking at possible future scenarios in this disaster, but I've got my own list of concerns going on all the time.

Thanks for listening

Yeah, and I am sorry it took me so long to get back to this discussion. I enjoy talking about culture and can appreciate that you have a sense of humor about your current location.

Right now, standing and laying down are really the only positions I can be in long-term but I can't stand for hours on end, either. I pretend to be joking when I tell people I'm devising a strategy to mount my laptop over my bed, but that's a real consideration. Though, there may be seating options that would work better, too.

I don't know. I know I have an acute problem I haven't discovered a solution to, just yet.

Well, best of luck to you out there. It's a wild world.

 

[Survivor3]

My therapist tried to help me but I think she only made it worse. I'm just so sick of everything!

What happened? How do you mean? Hope your ok.

 

[Mach123]

Your description of your home-base appears to have a lot of similarities to rural central Oregon, where I lived for far too many years of my adult life. It's agricultural, but the simplicity sounds familiar.

We recently spent about a year-and-a-half in Portland, Oregon. We lived in the Cultural District downtown and I felt like I was in heaven for a while. We had the big library, the big museum, some of the best, old architecture in the city (which was also usually big), lots of parks, and tons of great statues and street art. We left at day 55 of the George Floyd protest, party in response to my explosive internal responses to the sound of flash grenades (resulting from my trauma story), partly because me being a covid layoff and my husband's promise of another year of poor pay as a private school teacher didn't make our futures look bright, and partly because my husband chose an out-of-state school where he could get his teaching license.

For us, Portland demonstrated a lesson in wayfinding. We all tend to get extreme when we make changes. My sister was a completely different sort of parent than my mother was and when we finally got tired of cattle drives, we went the opposite direction. Granted, we did not land in New York, but we didn't have the money for that, or we might have. We were that sick of the ways of things in central Oregon. Neither my sister's intense new parenting style nor our extreme change in location was completely successful. The major swings we made to get out of the old were really a little too major to be successful in the long-run. Though honestly, my heart is in Portland, and the gravity of those protests was not lost on me, even if I can't live too close to what sounds like nightly gunfire.

Because we moved to New Mexico, my husband was able to start teaching immediately upon enrolling in a licensure program. He got the first teaching job he applied to on the day he applied, demonstrating New Mexico's incredible desperation for teachers.

We were in the thick of the pandemic when he started teaching in this tiny village near Santa Fe, so we haven't been meeting people. We're both 100% ginger and the village is over 90% Latino with a large Catholic School planted in the center, and to say that we are out of our element is a pretty big understatement. Further, because neither one of us is very good at meeting people, getting to this new cultural landscape when we were expected to stay home as much as possible means we've had very little of the New Mexico experience. It's kind of a shame, too, because what we have seen is fascinating and beautiful, but we'll probably be back in Oregon before things have settled down - if they settle down.

By circumstantial, do you mean you got there due to circumstance or that the circumstances make are your current residential atmosphere? Do you have a location you would prefer? Do you have any plans to get there?



I heard a lot of this in school. And I imagine I would agree in deed were it not for my own peculiar mental twists having to do with my trauma.

School came at me from the direction you describe and my right-wing family has made every attempt to make sure that I have guns and know how to use them. Some sort of social collapse/social madness was at the heart of both. The summary version of why I don't pay much attention to literature, news, or how to clean a rifle is that I really hope that the next big trauma takes me out. I'm sure there is some psychological term for this phenomenon, but I think the word done sums it up -- perhaps evidence of a long-term struggle with depression. My trauma history is long and complicated and I don't want to survive to see another round of recovery.

I've been told that there is something very amiss that I would not be concerned with my own survival. I understand the assessment to a degree.

In real life, however, I eat healthy and exercise daily and I work to have a good life, a healthy brain/body, etc. But I think I just feel that I have reached my limit, emotionally. I feel like one more major trauma might just destroy everything good that is left inside of me. Survive that? No thanks. Find a way to escape and thereby watch tons of other people get destroyed from afar? Nah. Honestly if things get too bad, I'll probably run to the front of the line and beg for a bullet. No, it's not normal mammal behavior, but there is nothing normal about surviving the myriad of traumas I have survived to this point, either. I don't want to "recover" again - it's taken too long, I'm tired, and I'd rather have a good life right now than worry about what is probably happening out there.

I feel a little like a Disney grasshopper saying that, but it's how I feel. I used to be a bit of a prepper, myself, with a stockpile of food, water, and supplies, but this arthritic body is only going to make it so far, anyway.


I don't either. I will avoid looking at possible future scenarios in this disaster, but I've got my own list of concerns going on all the time.


Yeah, and I am sorry it took me so long to get back to this discussion. I enjoy talking about culture and can appreciate that you have a sense of humor about your current location.

Right now, standing and laying down are really the only positions I can be in long-term but I can't stand for hours on end, either. I pretend to be joking when I tell people I'm devising a strategy to mount my laptop over my bed, but that's a real consideration. Though, there may be seating options that would work better, too.

I don't know. I know I have an acute problem I haven't discovered a solution to, just yet.

Well, best of luck to you out there. It's a wild world.

Thanks RussellSue and mums. Idk how I stumbled on your posts but they were both great. I don’t read much here. I get depressed. But these posts were easy to read. I have the feeling of wanting to die before everything really goes south? I’ve known for years it was going. I hoped I’d pop off first, which is not very brave I suppose but I don’t want to watch the people I love suffer, and I don’t feel like I am able to protect them. We can defend ourselves but I’d really rather things not come to that.

I’m over sixty and extremely arthritic, I have to find a way to make money somehow and I have no idea how or if I’m even able.

I live in the burbs not far from where I grew up and I act like everyone expects to the degree I’m able. I’m more socially liberal than I let on, but I have a lot of trouble trying to think about what should or shouldn’t be, and I’m afraid it’s probably too late. What’s going on now feels much bigger than anyone individually. Bigger than me anyway.

It’s good to read you guys, I hope we all get through together somehow.

 

[mumstheword]

Thanks RussellSue and mums. Idk how I stumbled on your posts but they were both great. I don’t read much here. I get depressed. But these posts were easy to read. I have the feeling of wanting to die before everything really goes south? I’ve known for years it was going. I hoped I’d pop off first, which is not very brave I suppose but I don’t want to watch the people I love suffer, and I don’t feel like I am able to protect them. We can defend ourselves but I’d really rather things not come to that.

I’m over sixty and extremely arthritic, I have to find a way to make money somehow and I have no idea how or if I’m even able.

I live in the burbs not far from where I grew up and I act like everyone expects to the degree I’m able. I’m more socially liberal than I let on, but I have a lot of trouble trying to think about what should or shouldn’t be, and I’m afraid it’s probably too late. What’s going on now feels much bigger than anyone individually. Bigger than me anyway.

It’s good to read you guys, I hope we all get through together somehow.

I think, myself, that things, collectively, are going to get much, much better, after they get very hectic, for a bit.

I'm very socially liberal really, myself, but being autistic and a Capricorn I tend to be quite old fashioned, deep down, and don't adapt to radical change too easily or excitedly, even though I grew up just about as "liberal" as one can possibly be raised.

I respect people I grew up referring to as "red necks" a lot, unlike my "hippy" ma who taught me to feel superior to such people; now, I utterly reject that way of thinking.


Now, for me, I am much of a populist, rejecting the political elite's authorty over my mind, and respecting the working men and women who just do what needs doing and don't go around thinking they have all these extra rights to dictate to other's. Lots of them seem grossly misinformed anyway (in my opinion), just echoing a narrative that's popular and repeated a lot, but not reeeeaaaalllly informed, in the way good scientists, who aren't (selfishly and fearfully) politically motivated, are informed.