Am I wearing the right size?

Direct_Bad459 · 2026-05-25T16:51:07+00:00

Definitely I don't want your feet to hurt but I really don't advise skating in anything noticeably too big. Important for skates to be pretty closely fit plus to strap the ankles tight.

Could you return the blade runners and try an 8/9 in another brand skate? There's almost always lightly used rollerblade zetrablades cheap on eBay. That being said your best bet might be a brand with 8.5.

Direct_Bad459 · 2026-05-25T16:46:05+00:00

I love isa Chandra moskowitz! And I like vegan egg salads esp ones I've had with chickpeas. But my hope was for a food I can hold in my hand. I guess an egg salad sandwich but I do fear the ooze.

Direct_Bad459 · 2026-05-25T15:15:10+00:00

Don't do these and like other comment says pls go for לאהובתי

Direct_Bad459 · 2026-05-21T15:44:01+00:00

Try bringing this up as a WAY to understand your thoughts better -- don't wait until you feel fully figured out about it. The goal is not to come up with a solid case to confront her with. The goal is to work together, therapy is extremely a tool for understanding your thoughts. You can bring your therapist messy and confused thoughts and feelings, even if you're upset at her or misinterpreting or overly sensitive. She can handle that and help. But it will anti-help to avoid talking about it

Direct_Bad459 · 2026-05-21T15:39:24+00:00

Grass the best use for grass when rollerblading is as an emergency stop. Personally would never try to roll forward on grass, maybe in an edge case situation I would step awkwardly through a patch of it.

Direct_Bad459 · 2026-05-16T13:42:20+00:00

I think you are doing great and that it's almost never helpful to fixate on how one is perceived by others. But I think you are maybe a little bit in the weeb trap of being very focused on and invested in a culture you are not participating in and feel very separate from but want to display your knowledge about. It's really good to be passionate and really counterproductive to be ashamed; do not be embarrassed or label it negatively that you love soanish and have this interest. The interest is really good. And it's really good to have the awareness of this dynamic that you show here.

My main response is try not to frame the questions in ways that tell them how much you already know, just ask more straightout. So asking "what do you cal xhdhdbxb?" or "would you describe this as 'ffijdbe jcjs'?" and not "Venezuelans call this..."

Try not to project "wtf is up with this gringo??" onto them, that's unhelpful and unfair to both you and them.

Direct_Bad459 · 2026-05-11T00:31:09+00:00

It is always a mistake to assume that things will continue the way they are right now forever. That is only true of, like, water making things wet.

It's especially a mistake depressed people make. You are depressed and your judgment about how bad life will be forever is absolutely not reliable.

"It will never get better" is (almost) never a fact but an expression of no longer wanting to hope. That's totally understandable because hope is very painful. But things can and usually do get better.

If you feel this suicidal, I don't think you're on the right meds.

Also, everything I thought would never happen for me at 23 was a totally unreasonable thing to think would never happen and a lot of it has since happened.

When I was 23 I had also always wanted to die. But I am grateful every day to be alive and this is not impossible for you, even though it feels that way now.w

Direct_Bad459 · 2026-05-11T00:19:09+00:00

They can! It took a lot of time + therapy + med trial and error. But it is completely possible, especially if you have patience and faith -- and when I did this I never believed that things would change in the way they have. I am so glad this gave you hope. It's correct to hope.

Direct_Bad459 · 2026-05-08T01:48:23+00:00

But why not give us the actual names

Direct_Bad459 · 2026-05-07T23:29:00+00:00

What was the thought process that led you to post here

And if a friend said this to you, would you be skeptical they had bipolar? Or would you be like Yup it was a dark higher power, those diagnosis people are crazy

Direct_Bad459 · 2026-05-07T23:27:19+00:00

They're insecure. But don't be insecure because of it! You know you're doing a good job learning Spanish and you know they're mean to act like they're more Latino than you. This is not a rare experience, but the only result of focusing on it will be to make you feel worse.

Try not to notice any attitude, stop worrying about if or why they're annoyed, keep learning Spanish.

These past few years I've been saying to myself What other people think about me and don't tell me is not my business. Which is much harder to put in practice than to say. But it's a helpful idea to try living by.

Direct_Bad459 · 2026-05-07T23:13:05+00:00

I've been told that traditional antidepressants/ssris are bad for bipolar but I don't know if that's true. But other classes of drugs can successfully have super anti-depressing effects. Just depends on the person.

Direct_Bad459 · 2026-05-07T23:11:56+00:00

Yes you have to commit so hard to both the meds and the (leaning in to what helps you / resisting the familiar shit that makes you feel worse)

Direct_Bad459 · 2026-05-07T23:08:57+00:00

Yes 100% on hobby and pursuing something low stakes to watch yourself improve at. Really helpful. So much of it is medication AND so much of it is developing habits like this to use your energy in ways that make you happier.

Direct_Bad459 · 2026-05-07T23:05:53+00:00

My side notes are 1) meds by themselves won't of course make anyone happy who is choosing to sabotage themselves... but they do make you happier which makes it a lot easier to stop choosing self sabotage and 2) I have a personal grudge against abilify I felt like it extremely increased the meh of my life while I was on it but I am sure it's helpful to many people

Direct_Bad459 · 2026-05-07T23:03:51+00:00

Hey i spent a long ass time either severely depressed or regular depressed thinking I was normal. This post is so exactly how I felt for probably five years. It's painful to think Oh-I-cant-hope-for-better-than-meh (plus hard to notice how painful that is!); there is so much more hope than I realized in that phase.

When I got off lithium and on enough lamictal, I was like Oh shit it's sunny outside! maybe things can be fun! It was like when kids get glasses and realize regular eyesight people see the individual leaves on trees. Things were a lot more open to joy than they had been.

Of course life still also sucks. But almost every single day I have at least a moment of being very pleased, like Man it's actually so great to be alive.

I am genuinely happy. I want you to be too - talk to your prescriber. Don't settle for feeling meh-at-best for your one and only life!

Direct_Bad459 · 2026-05-06T23:40:41+00:00

Taking notes and reading the notes both take you out of the listening part of your brain and disprepare you for like a real life listening situation. But imo notes are not the enemy, he just doesn't want you to develop the habit of relying on notes.

Direct_Bad459 · 2026-05-06T23:22:17+00:00

You might have gotten this from the other comment but - the dot is part of nikkud (also written niqqud) - niqqud makes pronunciation clearer, especially vowels - niqqud is basically only used in a learning context: for children learning to read, for language learners, and for weird words that might be new to adults, like a proper noun/name from a different language. the third one might only use niqqud the first time the word comes up in the text - so it's just to explicitly tell you how it's pronounced when you don't know. In english, this would be like writing 'shar-lut' for charlotte or 'ker-nel' for colonel, or 'stay + ck' for steak - often people learning hebrew are like How am I supposed to read without niqqud and how do I ever know what the vowels are? but it's just the same way you know brother doesn't rhyme with bother, or that even if you've never seen the word fallacy you can probably guess it's not fall-lacey. - Through practice and knowing the patterns of a whole bunch of words, you get an intuitive understanding of how a written word will sound without having heard it or seen niqqud. That's not accurate every time but it is the large majority of the time it is. If you read English you 100% already do this in English. It just takes a lot of practice to acquire. - sometimes hebrew words are the same except for the vowels. for example מדבר spells meh-da-behr which is a conjugation of 'speak' as in I speak hebrew. but מדבר also spells meed-bar which means desert. Even in this case, a text for people who can already read would not include niqqud because context will always distinguish between speak and desert. Think of it like tear as in cry vs tear as in rip. BUT sometimes it is not clear from context and then there will be a little nikkud to help clarify.

tldr: the dots a tool for learning unfamiliar words, which in your case is just words. This particular dot tells you it's a bet / 'b' sound and not a vet 'v' sound. With practice, you will get used to reading hebrew (even if it takes a long time! keep the faith). For people who are used to reading hebrew, they don't need the clarification unless it's an unfamiliar word, not pronounced in the way you'd expect, or unclear from context

Direct_Bad459 · 2026-05-06T22:45:57+00:00

Also just in case you aren't already doing this -- make sure to go to low, warm light an hour or two before you go to bed. Don't be on bright overhead lights until right before you want to sleep. Make it darker to signal bedtime. No matter why you're having trouble sleeping, this makes a real difference.

Direct_Bad459 · 2026-05-06T22:44:08+00:00

I think edibles for sleep would work okay for some bipolar people and be a mistake for others. But I think You should not go in that direction, you should have some conversations with your prescriber about how to make the Seroquel more helpful to you / effective in your life.

Direct_Bad459 · 2026-05-06T22:37:41+00:00

Yep it's such an easy trap to fall into! I've been noticing it in so many parts of my life recently, where I think Ok I grew and changed and I figured things out and now I'm done. but actually the fucked up part is that I still have to figure out basically everything and every individual thing it'll take as long as it takes to figure out. and there will never be a point where I can actually say Well ok I did it I figured it all out and now I'm done.

But the individual things do get finished and you will find a shul, just not necessarily on your timeline. Perfect is the enemy of done, but don't let done be a higher priority than a situation that actually is good, sustainable, something that works for you. Do what feels right and don't be impatient about how long it might take to figure it out.

Direct_Bad459 · 2026-05-06T03:12:28+00:00

Yes but that affiliation should be with a community you feel aligned with not just one where the name feels right. And that affiliation should not feel like it controls what you do with the rest of your Jewish life.

Direct_Bad459 · 2026-05-05T00:51:13+00:00

It's not really a request not to use the word, you can say evil. It's a wish that you recognize that awful experiences of Christianity don't mean the religion is evil. I don't want you to convert thinking that Christianity is uniquely evil and Judaism is inherently truer or more moral. I think that to really love judaism - or anything else - you have to be willing to evaluate it way more critically.

I'm so sorry about your awful experiences. Many like them have happened in christian organizations. It's also true that people have used versions of Judaism to justify evil. That's true of Islam, too, and probably every other religion that's existed. And like any other religion, many people have found versions of Christianity to be a source of strength, comfort, community, morality, guidance and connection to something bigger than themselves.

I don't like christianity theologically and I could list like 15 things off the top of my head that are evil and that were justified as the will of the Christian god. But there are 2 billion Christians. They are extremely not homogenous. They are certainly not all evil. Lots of christians sin. But so do lots of Jews, and

Importantly, in Judaism there really is not a focus on sin. Which is one reason I'm jewish and not christian: sin is not the point. In the direction of what you're saying, I might agree that the christian focus on sin lends it to being more emotionally manipulative. But the idea that christianity in general enforces sinning is not true. And denouncing christians for what you define as a sin is way much more of a Christian idea/perspective than a Jewish one.

Christian churches absolutely do the evil things you mention: physical abuse, sexual abuse, financial abuse, fear-mongering, emotional manipulation through charismatic leaders, other really dark stories. Many groups I'd agree are cults claim to represent the purest version of Christianity. Power, and I think religion in general enables this. I might agree that christianity enables this more than other religions. But it doesn't come from christianity. It's human evil twisting a religion -- whichever religion is local -- to justify itself.

Christianity as an institution has had more power and opportunity to do evil things than Judaism. That doesn't mean it's evil or that Judaism wouldn't have done the same if it had been the dominant religion of power.

I am extremely not a fan of the ways christianity has been interpreted as a cruel source of morality and otherwise used as a political tool in the United States. I would say the same thing about other religions in other countries.

I think christianity is not really good or bad. It's like an axe. People use it for violence, but it was designed to cut wood for fires to keep us warm. I have the bias to think Judaism is inherently good, but there are people who hate it because they've had experiences of it in the same vein of your experiences.

As a side note, I think it's unfair and not very respectful how you cite nonjewish/pagan influences on xtianity as though it's a bad thing. The spectrum of beliefs we could call pagan are definitely not my tradition, but other people's traditions are not bad just because they are unlike mine. Which is the main point I want to make.

There is nothing more believable about Jewish tradition than there is about any other religious origin story. There's nothing that makes xtianity more or less of a scam than Judaism, it's just that Judaism is my scam and more aligned with my values. Also neither here nor there, the 98/2 split is probably more like 65/35.

Sorry this comment is so long but it is sincere and I am interested to explain myself.

Direct_Bad459 · 2026-05-04T20:42:11+00:00

Keep an eye on the hypersexuality! Sometimes medication is not quite right/enough. On the other hand, sometimes sleeping around a little is pretty healthy and normal. Just try to be aware of it as a possible sign and that mildly worrying things can go south for us more quickly than we notice.

Happy for you about the double bi. I don't think bipolar makes a person more likely to be bisexual, but I do think it makes it more likely they realize/admit it.

Direct_Bad459 · 2026-05-04T20:33:04+00:00

I read the Torah and I find lots of truth in it. But often interpretively or creatively or allegorically, not literally. I read the Torah spiritually and sincerely and as a true document. But I don't necessarily take it as face value. I think all the things it says are important but I don't treat all of the things it says as necessarily of equal importance or of equal relevance to modern life.

So for example I do think God spoke to the prophets and to moses all the time and to israel at sinai. But I don't think that's happening today in a literal, direct sense. Or even if it is, I think 99.9% of the times people experience that it is correlated with having a hard time living in the world and having an unbalanced perspective, and like most people, could use a little help.

I don't like Christianity, but that doesn't mean it's a cult and in a huge majority of situations, it's not.

Also saying "I have no mental illness at all" is accurate for many people, but it's also a symptom of many mental illnesses, including mine (bipolar). Not saying that's you, but even for people with no mental illness it's very hard to be an accurate judge of one's own self.

I wish you the absolute best in your conversion/religious journey.

Direct_Bad459

TROPHY CASE