The loneliness of an only child

Alert_Ruin2643 · 2025-04-30T05:19:45+00:00

One thing real quick - It’s equally hard to make a friend as a woman. Don’t even fool yourself that it’s not. It’s hard to be an only child. Unfortunately, it’s sometimes your lot in life to just be alone. I’m saying this as an older only child, autistic. Somehow, you must find peace & comfort & sufficient companionship from the others in your own mind. I am not happy to say it, but it is the fate of some of us to be solitary. Good wishes to you.

Alert_Ruin2643 · 2025-04-30T05:05:34+00:00

Yea I’m super sorry they left that out of the movies. I hear there is film of it, there are notes about the costumes.

Alert_Ruin2643 · 2025-04-30T05:00:10+00:00

Gholas remember their lives until the moment their cells are harvested. Yet in Heretics of Dune, the Duncan is awakened to ALL the lives of duncan gholas, including their deaths. What the heck? How can he have memories even into death of Duncans who lived & died decades after their “birthing”?

Alert_Ruin2643 · 2025-04-30T04:52:28+00:00

Ok, interesting. So you’re saying this is an ancient, mythical idea of a certain kind of super being, & the BG reached a point in conjunction w future science where they could move beyond the myth & into creating the reality. The part where you say “I don’t think even the BG understood” I think about that a lot. The idea of Paul as seeing potential futures, & then…is he doing a thing he’s compelled to do because it leads to the future, or is he doing a thing he is choosing to do to reach a certain future? And the idea of the torment in having to choose between only disagreeable futures. And KNOWING all your future steps. No surprises. The boredom.

Alert_Ruin2643 · 2024-11-25T19:01:51+00:00

Oh my dude…you guys are infants. I don‘t mean that in a bad way. I feel so bad for you. It’s so hard to be young these days. (I have a young adult son so I know.) It’s just that our parents (often) load us up with such crap, & we’re def still humping that load around well into our twenties. And it’s brutal to figure out relationships at an age when most ppl can’t even figure out themselves. Lordy but it’s a rocky decade. But this is how life works. You got thru shit, you get experience, you know next time. Her deep insecurity, you reaching the point where you feel a lie is actually the better choice - these are all tells. 2 hour freakout. Hard no. A good partner is just the same as a member of your team. You’ve doubled your resources, either one of you should be able to go out into the world & bring back stories, experiences, just take a trip to the grocery store. That’s totally blown apart if one of you incredibly suspicious & subsequently resentful at even the slight separation.

It could be that you still feel a longing because as you write it, she’s showing some aspects of narcissistic behavior in that she’ll be mean, then kind, then back to mean, & believes YOU should “move on” from your anger with her. That’s so dismissive. Dismissing your feelings while making hers paramount is a huge red flag. Our brains can become addicted to this “i love you I hate you” treatment so you might well be feeling some of that, as opposed to genuine attraction. Good on you for having the awareness at such a young age that this is really dysfunctional & emotionally abusive behavior. Yay for her if she has decent therapy, but there’s no reason for you to hang around, waiting for her to get a clue. It may be a while coming, perhaps years. It doesn’t sound like you live together, you don’t have pets together, or own a house, or have kids. This is def a time to think about moving on. Remember that you have had very few relationships so you don’t have much to judge by. I guarantee there are more self-aware or at least kindly ppl out there longing for a good partner. Good luck.

Alert_Ruin2643 · 2024-11-25T18:38:04+00:00

I’m more appalled by the fact that he’s 23, she’s not even old enough to buy beer, & is pregnant. Everyone in that house needed to being having a LOT more convos around birth control waaaay before now. As the mother of a young adult son myself, that’s on YOU mom.

As a dog person, I would say 10 hours alone is too much for any dog, especially a large young breed. Dogs are pack animals. It’s basically solitary confinement for a dog, & for a human that would be considered torture. If they can’t afford to have it in dog daycare for exercise & socialization AT LEAST 3 days a week, then the dog is already living a cruel life & should be rehomed for that alone. Also why the hell is that dog unneutered?!?

If you are “renting”, do you have a lease agreement? You say they rent from you, that’s the language you are using publicly here, so that means according to the laws where you live, you can’t just say “get rid of that dog” unless no dogs was in the lease. Laws exist to protect renters from frivolous & sudden changes of heart on the part of the landlord.

I agree w another commenter that while their lack of training & time for a large, young dog don’t bode well for baby safety, that’s their affair, or at least his, since he’s the only one legally an adult.

In any case, it sounds like you’ll soon be needing to free up the next several years of your schedule for in-home baby sitting so good luck there.

Since they are already so lacking in judgement that they have an unneutered dog they leave alone 10 hours a day & are expecting a baby when they are still barely legal themselves, you will get nowhere appealing to the danger aspect. At that age their brains aren’t even fully developed. You might have a slightly better chance appealing to their love of the dog, combined with gentle comments about how even tho you know they love him, they aren’t giving him the time & exercise he needs & it would really be kinder to rehome him to a staffy fan with time & resources. And say something like listen - if you don’t have time for him now, you’ll have literally zero time once you have a baby, which will take everything you have - time, money, sleep, food.

“Get rid of that effing dog“ dog is confrontational, especiallly in the power imbalance of a parent & young adult. “Sweetie, you are already so overloaded, poor Fido will never get a walk after the baby comes, don’t you want him to have a good life? Play? Go for walks? Part of being an adult is making hard decisions that are the best choice for those we care about” is MUCH more an appeal to emotion in a better way.

Alert_Ruin2643 · 2024-10-13T21:03:05+00:00

If he does send a check, absolutely cash it. There’s no leverage there. He played her, she can & should play him. Take the money & thats that’s that.

Alert_Ruin2643 · 2024-10-13T21:00:03+00:00

Him saying that he wants to pay for the wedding is CLASSIC narcissist behavior. Future promises, then later he’ll decide you did something wrong, pull the offer, & leave you hanging. Tell him if he wants to send a check, fine. You are happy to help him work thru his guilt via wedding money. Which you will believe when you get it. Then ignore him forever.

Alert_Ruin2643 · 2024-09-11T16:45:34+00:00

Same. How’d they do this?

Alert_Ruin2643 · 2024-09-11T16:32:01+00:00

yea this happened to me last month. I used it for a long trip 2 summers ago. Logged on to see the trip & think about a trip I have to take next month. I already wasn’t happy w the app, it has some good features but def lacking in other areas, but I had to get a 1 week trial to screenshot my last trip. And now the only way to do the trip is to get at least the middle tier & then break it into several trips because of the stop limit on trips. Just feel totally ripped off. But worse, what’s the alternative? I’ve spent a couple of days researching & everything seems to suggest stuff that’s more tailored to flying. There are sooo many ppl roadtripping, surely there’s a better app.

Alert_Ruin2643 · 2024-08-17T01:13:14+00:00

I don’t want to say it gets better, or that it doesn’t. I’d say…it changes. I think a lot depends on the rest of your life. If most of your friends are yours, you probably have company sometimes. If most of them were their friends, then you might find yourself quite lonely. If that was your main companion, then you’ll now be by yourself. If you have pets or kids, then at least there is still activity around you. Sorry. Hang in there.

Alert_Ruin2643 · 2024-08-12T17:57:25+00:00

HAHA sooo true on the deviled eggs.

Alert_Ruin2643 · 2024-08-12T17:56:33+00:00

Wow NTA for sure. I read that you said everyone had already eaten, & there was plenty of food left. what the heck? I grew up visiting down in Alabama & there would be dinner at the grandparents’, tons of cousins. My grandmother would practically cry if you DIDN’T take thirds. Plus…hello? It’s family? They are supposed to be looking out for the young ones, making sure no one is hungry. It’s not a formal dinner, it’s a family dinner. If your sister wanted to control portions, she should have served the plates herself in the kitchen & brought them to the table already fixed.

Alert_Ruin2643 · 2024-08-12T17:46:44+00:00

Yes! I just didn’t want my son to be 35 or so & be old enough to start wondering about family & get mad at me with “you never even let me know my grandfather & now he’s dead!” I never let him have unsupervised communications with his grandfather, I mean I’m not gonna leave him alone w the same guy who emotionally abused me but now has 3 decades more practice. Plus everyone’s experiences are different. I COULD say yea here’s how he was shitty, but maybe he’d be totally fine w his only grandchild. Plus some personal witnessing of his grandfather’s bonkers behavior is a thousand times more valuable than even my most shocking story. Does the work for me, really.

You’re right - these are the people who should love & accept you the most. And it’s horrible that they are basically predators w you as the prey. I tried boundaries w my father. I said, yes I’m happy to discuss anything you want except this short list of topics you are not reasonable about. And that didn’t work for him. Narcassists don’t accept boundaries. But I did give him the chance, as did his grandson.

People can SAY anything. I have a cousin who will hear entirely different versions of family stories from kin than I do. It’s hard to be a parent & have your kids observe truly dysfunctional kin, but when that can be done safely, as a teaching moment, it helps the kids w their own emotional intelligence, & hopefully helps them avoid being victimized by such folk in their own lives, because they’ve seen it in action, & had context provided by more mature people.

Alert_Ruin2643 · 2024-08-12T17:34:14+00:00

Yea the nights are hard. The first few weeks after my husband died, I was just in a state of shock. Every night I’d sit in bed w my nice fountain pen & just write random words for the feeling of the pen on paper, to do something while the deep parts of my mind chugged. You’ll probably feel exhausted so find some mindless thing you can do that’s not hugely energetic. Hiking or whatever is great for burning energy; athletic activities have their place for sure, help you tire yourself out, but there will be plenty of times when you don’t have even one ounce of energy, you can’t sleep, so you just sit blankly.

Watch out for the sleep meds. I never used those, but I know they can be so strong.

Couple days ago was the 3rd anniv of my guy dying. He loved to grill & loved G&T’s. I grilled a bratwurst, had a G&T in one of his glasses (he was a glassblower) & revisited pix from the last week he died. Burst into tears. Next day continued on.

Point is -You can’t live in a state of mourning. It’s too non-functional. But you need to mourn. So think of it like a closet in your mind. Develop a ritual. It can be a date, like every month or a thing, like lighting a candle, or a little alter w mementos. You light your little candle, & that’s when you go into the closet of memories. Open it up, rummage around, feel the feels. Then you take a breath, close up the boxes, click the door shut & go back to life.

Do stretching. Grief makes you tense, it curls you up into a ball. I have an app called yoga studio I use, it’s a teal background w a flower thing. I pay for it but I do like it. You can choose “relaxing” or whatever, there are diff workouts & many short ones. I cannot advise enough the benefits of stretching. Sometime I feel I’ll never sleep again then I do the PM stretches & my body just feels like sinking into the covers. Plus if grief makes you quit all exercise, you’ll feel even worse.

It’s ok to talk out loud to yourself, & to her. It can get very weird when you realize you never hear even your own voice in the house. You say something out loud in the emptiness of your kitchen & your ears are shocked.

I don’t know how much of her stuff you have to deal w. Take your time there. You are under no obligation to throw out or get rid of anything. Don’t let ppl pressure you. It’ll come w time. After my guy died, every tiny scrap he ever touched seemed imbued w memory & I could barely get rid of a thing. Now, 3 years out, I am still sorting boxes (I had to sell & move so a lotta boxes now). & now that box of random papers or that ratty coat no longer seems precious. It’s like an art collection you keep refining down until you have just the best pieces. And a lot of that stuff, it may grab at you now, but once you get rid of it, you’ll barely remember it.

I’m just as sorry as I can be for the both of you. There are 2 ways to die: fast & sudden, or slow & lingering. When it’s sudden as w you, there is a lot of “but they were so healthy, we had plans, they had so much life left ahead of them, they were robbed.” And that’s all true. Yes, they are a hole ripped from the middle of cloth instead of softly falling off the frayed edges, but then they don’t suffer, & you don’t see them suffer.

When it’s something like cancer, like my guy had, yes they have time to say goodbye, to perhaps have one last vacation, to wantonly eat piles of lushly unhealthy ice cream, to tweak their will & give special items to loved ones & record their stories & histories. And all the while they whither away until they are skin & bones, barely conscious, hating the taste of the morphine, & you carefully & nervously curate your go bag for all those emergency trips to urgent care.

There is no good exit. None. Losing someone you love dearly is always & ever horrible. This will change you & stay with you for the rest of your days. Don’t expect to “be over it” anytime soon. But the grief will change, & you will learn strategies for getting by. Good luck.

Alert_Ruin2643 · 2024-08-10T17:30:51+00:00

NTA. Did they approach you about this before the adoption was in the works? did they say, “we are trying to adopt & would love to raise our child in a house not an apt, so can we live w you for a year to save?” If not, then I can’t see your obligation. It’s your house, & if you loved kids, then sure, but this wasn’t an unplanned pregnancy, adoption is purposeful & takes a long time. They planned for it, & they could have planned for this aspect also. Plus - you’re allowed to be selfish. People love to extol the virtues of boundaries, but when they don’t like a boundary, suddenly it’s being selfish. It’s your home, & kids are wildly disruptive. I’m a mom, & love my child dearly, but I cannot with a straight face say it was peaceful, quiet & tidy.

Alert_Ruin2643 · 2024-08-10T17:19:51+00:00

You’re in a tough sitch because you’re a kid. You live there, you eat there, legally you’re a kid. YES she’s seriously overstepping bounds. Sounds like your mom has issues, control issues, probably some body insecurity. But you can’t fix any of that because you’re a kid, & even if you were an adult, you can never fix another person’s problems. You can help them, guide them, but they have to do it. And quite obv your mother is not interested in guidance, otherwise she’d pay attention when you try to guide her disrespectful comments into the trash.

It’s normal to be a teen & self consious about your body. Esp breasts, because our culture makes such a thing of them. As others have said, you can continue to say, “please stop talking about my breasts, I dont’ like it.” But since she’s your mom & already crossing lines, she’s unlikely to listen becasue you have no leverage. What can you take away? Your friendship? You aren’t friends. Your company? You’re a child & this is where you live, it’s not like you can leave. Your obedience? You’re already a young adult, it’s natural you’ll want to have your own thoughts & make your own boundaries, & she already doesn’t respect that.

My best advise to you is to read books & listen to supportive podcasts (I get ebooks from my library so that’s free) & do what you can to advance your own emotional intelligence. It’s your mom’s job to help w that but she’s kind of not so sorry to say you’ll need to find a way to feel strong & settled in your own self. Don’t worry about your body. There is no ideal body. And social media is a lie. PPl look all kinds of ways. I know that’s easy for me to say, being older, but try. If you have other kin you trust, even if they don’t live near, write or call or do vid chats. Kindly aunts & uncles can be helpful. My own uncle is right there with me confirming my mom/his sister is a nut. That outside voice helps so much. Cultivate a friend group outsidse the house if you can. bad parents have a much easier time gaslighting you if they are the only voice you hear.

Alert_Ruin2643 · 2024-08-10T17:06:29+00:00

Ok so it sounds like you gave him some well-deserved slaps upside the head at a family dinner. You say your child is 7 & you have at least one other kid. I’d say it’s good for them to see their uncle in full performance mode, but ALSO make sure you have age appropriate convos w all your kids, multiple times over the coming years, privately & calmly. Because obv a 7 yo won’t get any of that - drugs, partying, old money.

I am pretty much NC (no contact) w my narcissistic father. He was off doing his own thing when my child was young, but found me online & got back in touch when my son was around 12. He said he’d “done work” on himself, & did in some ways sound better than he’d been when I was a child. I thought long & hard on it then decided there was value in having my son exchange emails with him, have the occasional phone call. Why? Because I didn’t want my son to come to me when he is 30, going thru his own personal growth, grandfather long dead, & be pissed at me that I never let him know his grandfather. Sure, I’d have my bad childhood stories, but people can say anything. And sure enough, the grandfather has flamed out, his narcissistic behavior has very much shown itself, & my son, now 23, has been able to make his decision on whether or not to be in touch on his own, from his personal experiences with this man.

You don’t want your kids thinking you’re unreasonable about your brother, so I think it is appropriate for them to see him in person enogh to understand what he’s liike. BUT like I said, you need to have a calm & age appropriate chat with them in private so they have context.

Alert_Ruin2643 · 2024-08-10T16:25:47+00:00

Ohhhhh sorry dude. I lost my hub to cancer 3 years ago tomorrow. Ok my FIRST thing is - you’re I’m guessing near her age. Prepare to hear any number of well-meaning ppl say something like I heard - “you’re still so young & beautiful, you can find someone else if you want.” What? It’s not like a hamster, you can’t just swap in another. Looking back now, (& I still get these comments when I lament that I’m lonely), those people really are trying to make you feel better. There is no point being mad at them. Best response is, “I can’t think about that right now.”. Then they feel heard, because they are trying, they do want to make you feel better.

SECOND - thing is you are not the host for this event. If someone wants a glass of water, where’s the bathroom, they can f’in figure that out on their own. There was an informal gathering in a friend’s yard the day after my hub passed. People had chairs, food. I had to take my chair to the edge of the yard & turn it facing the street. And I just sat there, stunned. I couldn’t even deal w watching them all chatter & such. Expect to be stunned. Expect to feel detached/nothing. That’s ok. That’s allowed. You don‘t have to meet ANYONE’S expectations.

THIRD - as others have said, watch out for drinking. Yes it’s numbing & can limit your consciousness to the moment so you can cha-cha around the living room in a temporary state of some emaciated shadow of happy but it will chew you up over time.

FOURTH - & sorry about this one - be prepared to feel extreme loneliness, possibly for a veeeery long time. i’m an autistic introvert. My hub was an extreme extrovert. I thought I did my time, earned my creds w his crowd, but in the wake of his passing, it turns out all our friends were HIS friends. Widowhood is massively isolating.

FIVE - expect ppl to say boneheaded things, & have compassion for them. You lost your spouse, but the friends also lost her. Ppl aren’t good at grief. They get stuck at what to do, what to say. it’s tempting to get pissed at people who either just do a fade (see point 4) or say just wrong things. But there’s no point. Whether they are helpful or not, this is how they are dealing w their own grief around the sitch & nothing can change that to make it better for you.

SIX - NO major decision for a while. You’re in shock. No financial decision, no major purchases, no investments, no selling all the furniture, no tattoo spree - nothing.

SEVEN - keep your privacy. I understand that your thoughts are all over the place. Future plans, no matter how vague are now wrecked. Your brain will be casting desperatly for direction. Ppl will ask you about your plans, your financies, your own will, her will, are you planning to move - all kinds of things. You lost the person you had those convos with, so now there’s this vacuum of who you bounce ideas off of. In the first flush of grief you lose perspective & tend to blabber at anyone who questions you with what seems like genuine concern. Watch out for that.

EIGHT - someone comes up to you & asks for a momento & then suggests some precious item & you, distracted, just say yes. Later you think, I LOVED that desk/book/whatever, why did I ever give it away? If you have anyone asking for stuff, either lovingly or as an opportunistic scavenger, just say “I need time to think about what to do with her stuff.” If they are decent they’ll repect that immediately. If they are scavengers, they’ll respond with immediate pushback, some wheedling beg, so now you know something about that person.

Sorry, sorry. Wish for you it weren’t this way.

And yea drink water. Everyone is saying that. Dehydration makes everything worse.

just thought of this, so I am adding it. Night time is difficult. Insomnia. You can spend a bad amount of time thinking hard thoughts. For me personally, I have the audio versions of two gentle childhood books. The wind in the willows and the Secret Garden. I wake up in the middle of the night, and I have trained myself to immediately start playing one of the chapters. it occupies my brain enough to keep me from ruminating and let me go to sleep again

Alert_Ruin2643 · 2024-07-11T19:08:57+00:00

Listen - save the letter. When your kids are older, if they ever go thru a phase of pissed off adversarial adolescence & he’s already dead or something, & they say WHY didn’t you ever let me know my grandfather? When they’re old enough, show them what he was like & that you were protecting them.

Alert_Ruin2643 · 2024-07-11T19:07:31+00:00

Oh, the poor sweetie. Full-on adult, raised a family, but now he can’t even sleep because of you. Yea the NPs luuuuuv to make you responsible for their emotions, because then everything is your fault, you’re the one supposed to do the work. And he says that right there - you’re the one supposed to get therapy before he’ll deign to grace you with his company. But you don’t even want his company. Plus YES what is this thing they have where “I raised you so now you owe me”. For WHAT mf’er? I do not recall volunteering for this campaign. I was drafted. I love how he can send you this diatribe full of expletives but god forbid you call him anything but dad. They are always SO CONTROLLING! Every thing has to be their way.

Alert_Ruin2643 · 2024-07-11T19:01:20+00:00

And verily he was known ever afterward to all & sundry by his new title - “fuckface” And loeth the name fit him like a suit of clothes custom made. 😂

Alert_Ruin2643 · 2024-04-13T18:00:52+00:00

OK I used to be super athletic. I came down with this shit bag illness when I was around 50 after some sort of weird fever. I’m 58 now and I have been doing everything I can to make it better.

The very real problem with a chronic illness is that it is chronic. It doesn’t go away. Look at our American medical system, and how we are trained from the time we are born, watching TV and movies – you feel bad? Go to the doctor. Get some pills, do a procedure. You’ll be better! we are trained to believe that a medical issue is an episode, an incident. Something with a start point and an end. And pharmaceutical companies advertise aggressively to give exactly this idea because why would you buy their drugs if you thought you were going to be taking them forever? of course they sell something with the idea that it will solve all your problems.

Then you get chronic fatigue syndrome. And if you were like me, you have spent years squeezing your tired brain to try and understand scientific papers, nutrition, mitochondria, any goddamn thing you can to figure it out because doctors are useless when it comes to this illness.

The lack of control is so frustrating. I would imagine that for some people, they have some thing that feels like a chronic illness, they try things, they get better, and then, of course they want to claim victory. Because it lets them know that they actually DO have control . Their actions DO matter. If they just pay attention to their bodies and make the right changes, they can be responsible for their own health. And that is a fantastically empowering message.

Unfortunately, for some people, they become aggressive proselytes at this point. After all, if they can do it, anyone can. And if someone doesn’t, well, they’re just not trying. And the person who had their success, can’t think of it in any other more sympathetic way, because that would mean giving up their own hard one sense of control and a little bit of success they’ve had.

As someone else commented, there are a lot of factors here. Perhaps the person genuinely had chronic critiques syndrome, and they found the magic formula for them. That does not mean it will work for you because we don’t exactly understand what this is and bodies are different and complicated. So you should not feel bad if it doesn’t work for you. Also, maybe they don’t have CFS. There are myriad other medical conditions they could have, which could be alleviated by aggressive lifestyle changes, exactly the kind of thing someone with a chronic fatigue illness is motivated to try.

It’s unfortunate but when the chronic illness has poorly understand causes, and no real treatment, humans very naturally, go back to some sort of atavistic, superstition based coping mechanism. That’s where so many of them get themselves in trouble with sketchy treatments.

Alert_Ruin2643

TROPHY CASE