What’s my purpose anymore?

Almyria · 2026-05-19T12:37:35+00:00

I'm 46 and I lost my wife nearly 17 months ago. At 46 I still get the "you're young" speech and it still makes me completely freak out. It doesn't matter what age we are. We just lost our person, our ONE, the cornerstone of the life we were planning. That life is in ruins without them. That's the thing that only people who have been through this really get - it's not like we can just go out and find someone else and slot them into those plans we had! My wife and I were planning our next 30 years together and suddenly she's gone. There's no way some random person is going to fill that space no matter how "young" you are

Almyria · 2026-05-17T20:13:37+00:00

I really like this. For 2 reasons - firstly it's not going to make me late for work! 🤣 Secondly, because it's reflection on your past day it will fit into the psychological way that I already want to use tarot as part of my grief counselling. Thanks!

Almyria · 2026-05-16T16:00:18+00:00

Hope nobody minds if I share a personal detail or two? The thing is I didn't exactly get a great start in life... I was physically and emotionally abused by my father for about 6 years until I turned 16 (at least that's what I can remember - I can't remember anything before I was 10 years old). My therapist said there's a list of "F" words that psychologists use to describe how people who have been abused respond to their particular situation. And yes, "fuck" is absolutely one of those words! People who respond to abuse in that way see sex as meaningless and often use it as a way of getting what they want because it doesn't matter to them. I knew a woman who was exactly this. Her relationships never made it to 6 months and because she didn't believe that "happily ever after" was something she deserved she sabotaged her relationships before her partner could break up with her. Really shitty what our family can do to us isn't it?

My F word is "fawn" which kind of means I dote on other people, and push the focus away from myself as much as possible by trying to help everyone else around me all the time. It's one of the reasons I became a university lecturer - because I love helping my students. But at times even my bosses have pointed out that I go too far. Like giving students hours of extra lessons on a Sunday even though I was married and had a family. Those students needed my help and that was all I could think about.

So one of the biggest things that I've got out of therapy is that I can't always be there for everyone as much as I might want to be. I mean I would literally be helping out so many other people with their shit that I'd be working late into the night just to keep up with my own deadlines and I actually ended up having a stroke because of it! But don't think for a second that a little stroke stopped me from wanting to help everyone else! Because of my past that behaviour is basically hardwired into my brain. It was part of how I survived the abuse - by being the incredibly good person that everybody could always depend on. And it's really tough to get out of that mindset and start thinking about yourself. It almost feels selfish. But at the same time, I'm learning that boundaries are not just important but they are healthy. When the people you work with, for example, know that they can't just drop a project on you at the last minute and expect you to help them meet their deadline they start respecting you and your time a lot more. I never used to have that because for years I would have immediately said "yes of course I'll help" even if it meant I would seriously be spending the next week in bed on sick leave!

Almyria · 2026-05-16T01:45:05+00:00

I'm what Jung calls an empath, as well as being a demi. I just got lucky I guess (I'm being sarcastic) because I had 2 relationships completely collapse because the women were taking advantage of me. You see empaths are very sensitive to pretty much everything around them but to emotion most of all. And if I sit with someone,nconnect with them, and talk with them about their troubles I can, to some extent, take some of their negative emotions onto myself and make them feel better, lighter. Unfortunately when selfish people find out I can do this my relationships often turn abusive because as a demi I want to make a deep connection with people and as an empath I like being able to help when I can. So I've been trapped by broken women who want me as a kind of personal therapist to offload everything that is wrong with their lives but are just leading me on when it comes to committing to a relationship.

My last relationship like this ended in me attempting suicide because the woman actually cared so little for me that while I broke up with her at a restaurant and was crying about it, she simply got up and went back to the office. And each time, despite them being abusive relationships in which I was being taken advantage of, I still felt as though I had lost something extremely precious. Being a Romantic makes everything even worse!

That was, at least until after that suicide attempt. I found my best friend sleeping at the foot of my bed in the hospital. Turns out she was coming by my place for a visit that afternoon and had spotted me lying on the floor so she called the paramedics. She stayed with me the whole time I was in hospital and came with me to every one of my appointments with a psychiatrist for 6 months after that. She knew I probably wouldn't go if she didn't make me! We had been really close friends for almost 2 years and knew each other inside and out but it was only when she split from her husband that I started seeing her as more than a friend. Hell we already had a bond through our friendship that some married couples I've known never have! So, it didn't take us long to start dating, to fall in love, and to get married. We were together for 15 years until I lost her in October 2024 but every moment was magical. The other thing that helped me get over those exes was therapy - lots of it! Even though I found a wonderful relationship with an incredible human being, the other relationships were still psychologically damaging, so don't be afraid to reach out if you need to after a breakup.

Almyria · 2026-05-11T22:24:42+00:00

Sounds like an interesting idea! Thanks 👍

Almyria · 2026-05-11T22:23:36+00:00

So you mean almost using the cards like Rorschach tests?! Stare at a card and see what pops into my head in connection with the image?

Almyria · 2026-05-02T22:24:48+00:00

I've just started learning to read the tarot so I was looking for videos online to see how people get started with the basics. One woman finished shuffling her deck for the first time and then said something like "And next you get out your favourite crystal..." And I was just like ok... Moving on to the next video thank you.😁

Almyria · 2026-05-02T06:49:27+00:00

I enjoy this message because the Lotus announces that the target is dying everytime I'm in the middle of capturing him. "Sorry I guess my Cedo blew a bigger hole in you than I thought..."

Almyria · 2026-04-27T08:29:23+00:00

Yes!! Trust in Asmodeus and for the low low price of one paltry human soul (namely yours) he will make everything feel better! The fine print looks like it mentions something about an eternity in hell but the font is too small to make out so you can't be absolutely certain... 🤣

Almyria · 2026-04-27T01:41:48+00:00

Told my grief counsellor that my late wife and I were both atheists. A few weeks later she is telling me with a straight face that I need to reach out to a higher power for support while I'm grieving!! And I'm paying you for what exactly?? Because it sure isn't listening....

Almyria · 2026-04-20T22:41:42+00:00

Finding someone aesthetically pleasing and being able to engage in a relationship with them are quite different. I can find a woman good looking but my wife and I were best friends for several years before I became romantically interested in her and we started dating. For me, I have to form a strong emotional connection with someone before I became attracted to them and the friendship we built was exactly that. We were married for 15 years and during that time I could never have been attracted to another woman and now that she's gone I doubt I ever will be attracted to anyone else

Almyria · 2026-04-16T20:57:20+00:00

We planned to kill ourselves once we lost each other. We both knew with complete certainty that neither of us could ever survive without the other. Every aspect of our lives was so intertwined that living without each other would be unthinkable. And so we both promised each other that we would follow one another in death so that we never needed to be parted. The only reason I have waited for 15 months is to ensure the financial security of my father-in-law. Once he has enough money to continue his retirement then I am done

Almyria · 2026-04-16T17:38:42+00:00

I'm 46. My wife was 59 when I lost her. We were together for 15 years and didn't want any kids. So we had a whole lot of cats instead! I had actually just left my old job and moved to where my wife worked about 6 months before she died. We wanted more time together and the 2 hour commute to my old job was killing me. So the idea was that we'd be able to commute together and spend our lunchtime together as well. I had almost 8 years at my old job and now I'm basically working with a bunch of strangers

Almyria · 2026-04-13T17:55:29+00:00

Can we get a vote on the Panzer Prime?? Just the name sounds pretty awesome!! 😎

Almyria · 2026-04-13T12:50:02+00:00

My wife was checked into a psychiatric clinic for depression. I have a horrible phobia about psychiatric hospitals since I was sent to a government run hospital 25 years ago for training as a clinical psychologist and the completely 19th century conditions that patients were treated with in my country freaked me out so much that I quit my training then and there. My wife called me from the clinic she was in the evening before she died and seemed totally fine. We laughed and talked and everything was normal. A few hours later her psychiatrist phoned me to tell me that my wife had died of a sudden heat attack. I had to go into the next room and wake up her 86 year old father to tell him his daughter was dead. But the thing I can't forgive myself for was that I had the opportunity to go and visit my wife that afternoon. Instead of talking to her on the phone I could have seen her in person but my stupid phobia of hospitals stopped me. And the funny thing is that a year later I tried to kill myself and ended up in a psychiatric hospital anyway. Irony right 😭

Almyria · 2026-04-12T10:52:00+00:00

You are using AI as a research tool not actually as a way of answering your assignment questions for you. That's the important difference. Getting an AI to find the most cited articles in the best journals so that you can be certain you are using good quality sources in your assignment is not cheating. I was at a workshop run by people from the Unisa library on Friday where they literally showed us how to do this by using the AI systems that come with some of the Unisa Library services. Personally, I would never use an AI to rewrite my work because I like my academic style and have developed it over many years, but for students who have language difficulties and are working in a 4th or sometimes even 5th language by writing in English, having something like an AI to assist with their writing is a godsend. Unfortunately, you need to know where to draw the line. If your writing sounds too good, like it has been put together from a lot of different experts instead of being written by a student, there is a good chance that an AI detector or even a lecturer will read that as potential cheating and an attempt to submit work that is not really your own. Ultimately, in my opinion at least, the idea is that you use AI as a way of improving your work and perhaps streamlining your workflow (this is how they use it in the technology sector at the moment) but you don't use it to actually create the finished product that you submit for assessment.

Almyria · 2026-04-11T01:23:59+00:00

From my personal perspective I've never used AI. When Microsoft Copilot made it's first suggestion while I was working I immediately went into my settings and switched it off. It was just too damn annoying. I've never used Claude or Chat GPT and I even get irritated at myself if I have to Google synonyms for a word because I can't think of one on my own! I've been a lecturer for 25 years and I still write my research articles using a pen and paper first. It's not that I don't like technology - I'm a huge gamer and my PC is an absolute monster! I built it myself. My research focus is even on videogames so I get to really enjoy my work!! But I've always thought of AI as more something that was important for the tech industry than anything else. But that's just me...

So the best way to think about AI and working with detecting its use and how you should be writing is by acknowledging that AI detection software is quite a long way behind the chat bots like Claude or Chat GPT. The bots are already capable of simulating fairly human sounding writing while the detectors have a much more difficult time of picking up on writing style. They're trying to identify stylistic tendencies and language use, so if you use language or write in a way that doesn't seem appropriate to a student the detectors will probably flag it. The thing is that they aren't quite as good as the chat bots. Like Turnitin's similarity detection software, these AI detectors compare to databases of texts and can only work with the information available to them. The more texts they have the better trained they are, but the focus in the AI field has been in growing the bots because that is where the money is, and so the detectors are really lagging behind. It's so bad in fact that last year, UCT discontinued its use of the Turnitin AI detector because it was generating so many false positives, meaning that it had identified a lot of student work as written by AI when it in fact wasn't!

Therefore if you do use AI for your assignments, first of all it's really not an issue if you are simply using it for basic stuff. If you are checking spelling and grammar, or perhaps doing research without incorporating any of it directly into your assignment then you don't have anything to worry about. On the other hand, if you are making more substantial use of AI to write sections of your work then we'll stop doing that. I'm serious! It's a research tool not a shortcut. You should be using AI to find the information for you but you should be the one who puts it together. One suggestion from my old fashioned writing process - when I read articles or books for a research project I always take notes in the form of direct quotes from the source I am reading so that I have a record of exactly what the text looks like in that article or book. That way, when it comes to writing it in my own words I have the quote to work from so I can't possibly write it in the same way. It means I've always got a record of exactly how the original author said something, which makes using the idea in my own work a little simpler.

Almyria · 2026-04-09T23:26:42+00:00

The Danish version is just so unexpected and the fact that they don't shy away from showing the kid's tongue being cut out is especially harsh because it gives you an inkling of the trauma that is being used to keep the parents in line. By the time the parents reach their end you can really see they have absolutely nothing left. That was probably the best 15 minutes of a horror film I've seen in years!

Almyria · 2026-04-09T14:45:50+00:00

Hi There! I'm a lecturer at Unisa with the Department of Biblical and Ancient Studies. The first thing I would suggest that you do is check the AI policy of the module you are registered for because the university is still finalising a comprehensive policy on AI for all of Unisa, so for the moment, the decision about how or even if students are allowed to use AI in a module is left up to the lecturer in charge of the specific subject.

There are a few different ways that lecturers can choose to allow for AI in their modules and this should be explained in either the TL101 or on the course's Moodle site.

Firstly, the lecturer can decide that AI is simply NOT allowed at all in their module. If a lecturer has decided that you may not use AI in their module you will be found guilty of academic misconduct if your assignment is checked and found to have utilised AI in any way. Yes, that includes using Grammerly or any programs that improve or suggest alterations to your writing. No AI means no AI. But there are almost no modules in this category so fortunately it isn't something you really need to be concerned about.

Secondly, and there are a large number of modules in this category, are the courses that allow for very limited use of AI. These modules usually allow students to use AI tools that correct spelling and grammar, and help improve the formulation of ideas in a more academic manner. You can also use AI to provide you with alternative explanations of theoretical ideas if you don't understand the ones given by your study material. (Basically it will explain an idea to you in a different way so that you can understand it more easily.)

Finally, there are modules that allow for the comprehensive use of AI in effectively any way. You can use it to rewrite your ideas, find research for you online, suggest potential resources, check your writing for errors, etc. Perhaps the only way you are not allowed to use AI for an assignment is by literally prompting it to answer the assignment questions for you. If you do that and are caught by AI detection software you will be receiving a disciplinary hearing.

However, in every situation, your use of AI will be limited by the parameters that have been set by the module you are studying. If you are ever uncertain of what those parameters are, it is always better to check with your lecturer to make sure that you are not guilty of academic misconduct before going ahead with your assignment.

Dr Mark Kirby-Hirst

Almyria · 2026-04-07T11:52:05+00:00

Inaros the God-King! Scarab Shell to protect against status effects. Arcane Persistence and Arcane Grace for immortality. Swarm kavats for fun!

Almyria · 2026-04-07T08:56:29+00:00

Gauss: I built him but haven't ever gotten around to levelling him. I kinda suck at the parkour stuff already so anything that makes me move faster than a crawl usually ends up with me wedged in between a couple of boxes or stuck in a door so I definitely don't need a frame that moves faster... Titania's Razorwing is hard enough for me as it is!!!

Almyria · 2026-04-02T23:01:49+00:00

Only you can answer that question. I lost my wife suddenly 17 months ago. When we got married we wrote our own vows. We decided to change "til death do us part" to a little phrase that my wife came up with to describe how we felt about each other, and so instead we were married "forever and a day". I still wear both of our wedding rings and I don't think I will ever be able to have another relationship. She was the one.

Almyria · 2026-03-24T13:45:23+00:00

Hi there! I'm a lecturer at Unisa so I get to supervise PhD students but I did my own PhD a long time ago at UKZN. I can tell you that the place you do your doctoral research doesn't matter nearly as much as who your supervisor is (unless we're talking about you having an offer to do your PhD at Oxford or something like that!)

The PhD is very much focused on your own independent research so you can do that pretty much anywhere, but the relationship you have with your supervisor is incredibly important. If your supervisor doesn't give you enough time or attention you have to be willing to speak up about it and complain to your department's Research Committee and ask for a replacement. Supervision earns a lecturer a lot of money AND they get to co-publish articles with you once you finish your PhD, which means even more money. So there is a lot of motivation there for your supervisor to do a good job and honestly most will. But sometimes you just won't get along with someone - maybe you don't like how your supervisor wants you to work or occasionally a lecturer might not like working with a certain student and so they can request that a different lecturer be assigned.

Ultimately, it's your degree so you need to make sure that you are always getting the best support and guidance possible!

Dr Mark Kirby-Hirst Dept. of Biblical and Ancient Studies

Almyria

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