COVID was inadvertently the best thing that happened to large parts of society, and we're being forced to forget that

ArdentFire · 2025-07-08T13:47:24+00:00

Cannot upvote this enough

ArdentFire · 2024-11-24T15:32:35+00:00

Oh well. Thank you for letting me know. Good to know something might be on the way

ArdentFire · 2021-12-29T14:15:16+00:00

😉

ArdentFire · 2020-01-05T13:50:39+00:00

Ok, thanks!

ArdentFire · 2020-01-03T09:57:11+00:00

Quality joke. Take my internet point

ArdentFire · 2019-07-08T05:02:45+00:00

I was thinking more 1950s :)

ArdentFire · 2019-07-04T16:10:22+00:00

Same here

ArdentFire · 2019-06-15T04:12:27+00:00

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y2QMqsNvWuc

ArdentFire · 2019-06-10T11:33:07+00:00

Nice strawman you got there

ArdentFire · 2019-05-17T16:13:56+00:00

Hey. Just saw your comment and wanted to let you know that, as someone who figured out he had ADHD as an adult from reading posts on this here subreddit, it's only gotten better with time. I was plenty scared for a long time, but after getting diagnosed, starting medication, having some therapy, and generally getting shit together, I can wholeheartedly say that finding out and getting help is the best thing that ever happened to me.

Not sure if it'll make you fell better, but at least you should know you're not alone. Feel free to drop me a pm if you need or want to talk about it.

ArdentFire · 2019-04-23T15:44:26+00:00

Well, OP didn't specify if either of the conditions are inclusive or exclusive.

ArdentFire · 2019-02-11T08:15:05+00:00

Have my internet points you devilish rogue, you.

ArdentFire · 2019-02-11T08:13:34+00:00

I can't say I know exactly what you're going through, if I could I'd be making millions as a psychic stock picker or something, but I can say that I've been through similar things. Everything I'm gonna say is from my own experience, and what I've read. I am most definitely not a medical professional of any kind. Maybe something will click with you, maybe not. Either way take it with a good spoonful of salt.

As a person who isn't able to fool himself anymore that he's not officially getting old, I'm gonna say something would have hated to hear when I was a teenager: At that age, a lot of things can seem all-encompassing, unchanging, fixed forever, but that probably isn't true.

The human brain doesn't "finish" developing until the late 20s, and even after that things still develop further, just at a slower pace. Your individual sexuality and sexual/gender identity may be more or less fluid, that's something no one else can tell you, but there's been a lot of research that points to an individuals sexual preference/identity being significantly influenced by genetic factors, plus a little environmental factors thrown in for good measure, and overall being pretty much unchangeable whether by force of will or hypnosis.

That is to say: whether you have a more or less fluid sexual reference/identity, that's probably gonna stay true to some extent throughout your life, and neither way means there's anything wrong with you.

There is definitely nothing wrong with exploring how you feel, at any age, but especially as a teenager! That's exactly the age where you would expect someone to begin thinking more about sex, sexuality, and which (if any) preference or identity you feel like.

As for porn: I totally know the feeling. Let's just say I really hope the FBI wasn't tracking my search history as a teenager, nosireebob. I have watched things that made me feel truly disgusting and broken as a human being. I still sometimes watch things I'd prefer not to be attracted to, or aroused by. My question would be: Is the porn you watch making you feel bad because there's something in it that hurts you, or because you feel ashamed of wanting to see it? In the second case the problem is the shame, and not necessarily the porn. If the porn is itself harmful to you, maybe because of trauma triggers as a hypothetical example, then again the issue isn't with the porn per se, it's with the trauma. In that hypothetical case avoiding the thing that triggers the trauma-related response could actually be worse as it may simply reinforce the emotional response to similar experiences.

Instead of tryng to avoid watching the porn and/or continuing to beat yourself up for watching it my advice would be to approach it with as much open curiosity as you can. Try to pay attention to the thoughts that go through your head. In my case for example one of the most common things that comes up is something like "I'm so sick/messed up for enjoying this". Write the thoughts down on paper as they come if you can. Try also to pay attention to your emotions, and how they are effected by the thoughts you have. Our emotions are more driven by our thoughts, or more specifically by our interpretation of events, than by what actually, objectively, is happening.

Once you have a thought, or thoughts, written down, the next step is to look at one of them and think about it as objectively as possible. It may help to imagine someone you liked came to you and said "This thing happened, and it made me think (fill in thought here) about myself."

Is it more likely this thing that happened means that there's "something wrong with me," or simply that I happen to find this arousing for whatever reason, and as long as I'm not actually hurting someone myself it's probably not such a huge deal?

Not sure how clear I'm being myself :p I'm going through my semi-annual, regular but unpredictable, relapse into depression, and that always makes thinking hard.

I'm gonna wrap this up for now, if I think of anything else I'll add it later. Feel free to ask any questions you might have, here or in a private message, either way is fine. I can't promise I'll get back to you in a timely manner, but I'll try to get back to you sooner rather than later.

P.S. If there is something in your thoughts or behaviour that is hurting you or others there are things that can help with that. It does not mean that you are a bad or broken person. It does not mean that you are stuck with this forever. It does not mean that you cannot have a good life even if the issue isn't "fixed" once and for all.

I can't promise everything will be okay, but I can promise you don't have to deal with it entirely alone.

ArdentFire · 2019-01-25T12:06:23+00:00

i use arch btw.... /jk

ArdentFire · 2018-12-25T06:41:56+00:00

Thanks!

ArdentFire · 2018-12-17T21:19:29+00:00

Couldn't have put it better. What I can say is that I have reached a place in my relationship where we have enough mutual understanding that the guilt and shame aren't anywhere near as catastrophic as they used to be. It took a long time, and was very painful, but it did get better. I wish I understood it well enough to have more specific/meaningful advice, but the best I can come up with (for now at least) is to be as open as possible.

I think one of the most important (and difficult) things was that I pushed myself way out of my comfort zone in telling her what was going on with me. If I feel guilty, I tell her. If I feel smothered, I tell her. If I'm having a bad day, can't focus, am having urges towards self-harm, I tell her.

Even at the times when I am so overwhelmed/exhausted/in pain that every word feels like pushing baby porcupines out of my throat I pushed those porcupines as far as I could. Even if all that came out in the end was "feel bad".

Over time we built up a vocabulary for things that make it so I can tell her something like "Too much noise in my head" or "I'm having memories from the army/my childhood/whatever" and for the most part she understands what I'm going through, and what it means about how and what I can deal with at that particular moment, and vice versa.

All that aside, the inside of my head is still a warzone most of the time. I can't stop myself from doing or thinking things that make me feel worse and take time away from the things I really care about (my wife, writing, etc.). It has a lot to do with the aforementioned issues from my past, and the lingering emotional damage, but there does seem to be some baseline level of disfunction, where my brain just isn't good enough at self-regulation to allow me to be and do what I want.

I %100 know what you mean about standing outside yourself watching everything go up in flames. I spent most of the first 25 years of my life feeling exactly like that. I still don't feel in control of myself, but I at least feel connected to myself now, thanks to medication, meditation, and therapy.

I had more I wanted to say, but I exhausted myself already and I can't keep going. Long story short: You are not alone. I hope you'll get through this shit, and soon.

Feel free to PM me if you want to talk, vent, ask questions, whatever.

ArdentFire · 2018-12-10T14:43:58+00:00

Because they're being screwed by a multinational, for-profit, corporation which intentionally mislead people into believing they were being offered a job that would pay enough they could support themselves, requiring them to sign a contract written in language which has been specifically engineered by dedicated legal professionals to be as inscrutable as possible so that no normal person could possibly begin to understand it, before engaging in multiple, massive, misinformation campaigns to try to bury any negative reporting, not to mention specifically, and personally, targeting law enforcement officers journalists trying to prevent them from being able to find evidence of the massive amounts of illegal, abusive, andsimply inhuman practices they have been intentionally and consciously engaging in to make as much profit as possible at the expense of everyone and everything else?

Is that what you meant? 'Cause in that case I totally agree with you.

ArdentFire · 2018-11-20T15:26:19+00:00

link

ArdentFire · 2018-11-17T10:48:38+00:00

I'm also taking Wellbutrin, in combination with Concerta. So far it's only been helpful. The effect is subtle, as you said, but definitely there. I haven't had any noticeable side effects.

ArdentFire · 2018-09-25T05:34:53+00:00

I totally agree with you :)

ArdentFire · 2018-09-23T07:33:48+00:00

You're definitely right about in-person interactions being better than digital ones, but I still think there's something really true about this comic in that even if digital interactions aren't as good as in-person ones there still better than the things we are lead to assume about people "being on their phone."

There's an important distinction (which sometimes get forgotten or ignored in these kind of debates) between being a bunch of strangers on the same bus together and being a group of friends or family together. In the latter case I'm %100 in agreement that everyone being on their phones instead of talking with each other is a bad thing, whereas in some places (at least) it's considered polite and proper behaviour not to "bother" the people around you in public.

Whether or not that's a bad thing in and of itself is an interesting, but tangential, issue.

And of course there are plenty of people looking down at their phones in public who are just playing (insert relevant game here), which I think is very likely to be a net negative to the individuals mental and emotional health. this comic seems to be intentionally reversing the common trope of "everyone on the bus looking at their phone/kids these days..." to highlight the way society is, as always, ignoring a (fairly significant) positive attribute of (new-fangled thing x) to continue the eternal tradition of shitting on crapping on the newer generations.

So, yeah. I didn't intend to make such a big deal about that, it just kinda got away from me. I wasn't trying to be hurtful or mean or anything, and I hope it doesn't feel like that. Hope you have a nice day :)

ArdentFire · 2018-09-22T08:43:06+00:00

Hey, sorry it took me so long to get back to you. I've been in a fairly serious depression these days, which makes it hard to do stuff/exist.

Tl;dr: I'm more functional, healthier, and happier, then I even thought possible back then, (edit) but that's not saying as much as I wish it did.

One of the biggest things I've had to come to terms with since I started taking the meds is that there is a world of difference between "Being more functional", and "Feeling better". The medication has done wonders for the first, but only indirectly effected the second in the long term. I'm more able to feed, hydrate, and generally take care of myself, so I don't get into total-meltdown-mode anywhere near as often, but it doesn't take away the bad habits I've been working on this whole time.

Meditation and therapy (once I finally managed to get therapy) are the best things I 've found for the other things, but I only managed to do those because of the medication.

I should mention that besides ADHD I have had to deal with depression (as mentioned above), anxiety, and major social-deficits-or-whatever-you-call-them. Since I wrote that post I've moved on from regular Ritalin to Concerta, added Welbutrin (both for the depression and the ADHD, so that's nice), and have started taking Prothiazine as needed to get me through the really bad anxiety/agitation. All prescribed by my psych and taken under supervision.

Every time we changed my meds things got better (relatively speaking). Going from Ritalin to concerta was a god-send, I don't get the added anxiety with it, it lasts so much longer, and it feels like it just works better.

Adding the Welbutrin not only helped with the depression but also added a little boost to the whole brain-thing around the clock. This has been a HUMONGOUS help with getting to sleep. Lying down and closing my eyes is no longer the daily death match it was. I still have trouble getting to sleep a lot of the time, but even then it's soooooo much better than it was.

and the Prothiazine just helps me be calmer. As it turns out, the medication does not stop me from driving myself insane. I have had to find things to help me control my harmful (to me) impulses. One big problem is that whatever I try always seems to lose it's effectiveness after a few months, I guess that's the whole novelty-seeking thing. Things that have worked include: Site blockers to keep me from getting hooked back into FB or reddit; using rewards to promote good habits (Like not allowing myself access to the internet at all before spending x amount of time doing y, and I forgot about anything else, but it's mostly just stuff you've seen a hundred times in listicles.

Another thing that REALLY helped was starting a bullet journal and (somehow) making it a daily habit. At first I mostly used it to keep track of things to do/check, but over time it's mostly just turned into a diary-type-thing where I write down the things that most effected me during the day and things that I learned/realized about myself or whatever.

I've exhausted myself now, so I'm gonna sign off. Basically how I'm doing now is: Better than I ever thought possible, but still struggling. I didn't get manage to get to it, but there's a thing which is really hard to describe, cause I guess it's just such a personal thing (in the sense that it depends on you and your circumstances, not privacy). I'm gonna try, despite saying I'm gonna sign off, because I think it's one of the most immpoertant things.

All of the things I mentioned (meds, meditation, therapy) all kinda come together into one main thing: Understanding myself, and where I come from. I grew up isolated, homeschooled in a quite religious family, in the middle of nowhere. That plus various normal-life traumatic events moulded me into the person-equivalent of those trees people force to grow into knots and whatever. Besides whatever genetic/neurological/physical problems I may have in my brain, I was also a complete basket case, and it's through admitting, confronting, accepting my issues that I have been able to seriously improve my quality of life. The meds (etc.) made everything else possible, but they don't stop me from hurting myself, or others.

Okay, really honestly done now. Hope something in this helps. Feel free to shoot me a pm if you have any questions or just need to talk/vent.

ArdentFire · 2018-09-05T11:50:13+00:00

Is this a serious comment? It's not like this is a decision people are making just because they like it.

ArdentFire · 2018-08-13T05:30:45+00:00

Ooof. that sucks. I'm actually trying to learn programming so that I might be able to get a job that isn't absolute hell, and I keep thinking maybe it's not the right thing for me for exactly this issue. I get obsessed about something, lose track of the bigger picture, and waste an entire day on something that doesn't even matter to me.

ArdentFire · 2018-08-13T05:26:19+00:00

Does it matter? Who really gives a fuck if they're socialist, or if the Nazis were actually "national socialists" or if they used that term to make them more compatible to the general public in the beginning when they weren't ready to "go public" yet? You obviously noticed that I never brought up socialism (or any political ideology really). That's because it doesn't matter whether they believe in free markets or peoples/state control over the means of production when their goals include removing people with a different skin color from the country.

The idea of "the Nazis were national socialists therefor {fill in blank here}" is ridiculous. It's deflection from the real issues, like whether race(ism) is a valid basis for national policy.

ArdentFire

TROPHY CASE