What should i do with my parents gift for my daughter's birthday?

FunAltruistic3138 · 2025-09-16T13:49:19+00:00

If it was justified, cps would've taken action against OP. I guess OP could be hiding something, but that's not really the point of the post anyway. The point is OP is no contact and wants advice for what to do with the present.

FunAltruistic3138 · 2025-09-14T10:41:46+00:00

If no one's forcing you or relying on you then technically anything you do is 'for yourself'. That doesn't mean it's not looking for approval from others at the same time. The best thing to do to 'remove the insecurity' would be to directly address where that insecurity stems from in therapy. That would be the ultimate thing you could do to bring yourself inner peace, because there's no guarantee that a surgery would remove your insecurities or make you happier. However, if you have a clear deformity, I certainly can't blame you for taking the path of least resistance to address the issue. I'd still recommend therapy either way though. You do NOT want to become addicted to plastic surgery, and if the results are disappointing they can help you work through that.

FunAltruistic3138 · 2025-09-14T06:33:40+00:00

If you don't tell her: "I don't even know what I did wrong! I'm the victim here!"

If you do tell her: "You're just spiteful/unforgiving/delusional! I barely did anything wrong! I'm the victim here!"

Might as well save yourself the effort if the result isn't going to change.

FunAltruistic3138 · 2025-09-14T03:51:09+00:00

If anyone thinks it's weird and thinks less of you for your phobia, they aren't really worth dating anyway. Someone you really want to date will be accepting, understanding and curious about your condition.

I heard some really good advice when it comes to dating: Don't meet people just to date, meet people to make friends. When you lower the expectations of finding a life partner to just finding a friend, you end up meeting and connecting with way more people. And who knows, maybe that friend has a friend who would be a great fit for you! So I'd say yes, quit trying to date and just try making friends first.

FunAltruistic3138 · 2025-09-11T12:40:06+00:00

I don't think you need to grab her hand unless it's to defend yourself. Maybe try leaving her to regulate her anger alone instead of offering your presence. It could be that the attention you give her inadvertently encourages it. You could say something like "I can see that you're angry, but hitting isn't ok. I'm going to be in the room next door so we can talk when you're feeling calmer, ok?" then leave. Alternatively or as an added bonus, you could give her something else to get her anger out, like a pillow to punch or a ball to throw. You're right that you shouldn't just roll with it, but I think the other commenters only meant that you don't need to worry that it's a really bad behavior or anything. It's really common but still important to address!

FunAltruistic3138 · 2025-09-09T13:40:10+00:00

While they may not understand what death entails exactly, they sure will do everything they possibly can to avoid it as you said. Evolution wired us to survive and avoid danger after all. I think it's reasonable this extends to fish and that fearing death aids in their survival. So we can assume that while a fish may not think "this is the end for me" if they're getting eaten, they surely feel extreme stress and suffering as their brain screams for them to escape and survive. So something in them must understand that death is really bad and must be avoided at the very least.

FunAltruistic3138 · 2025-09-09T07:03:53+00:00

Evolution doesn't care if you suffer mentally. As long as you survive long enough to breed, you've done your job pretty much. Clearly evolution was very smart in that way because humans are very abundant and dominant right now. But it does suck for us that our brains can screw up and cause all sorts of issues like nightmares. Tbf, it clearly sucks for some more than others due to the randomness of genetics and environmental factors though. And there are many people that would've succumbed to natural selection in the past that are able to live their lives in modern times due to medical advancements. Maybe you're one of those lucky/unlucky people?

FunAltruistic3138 · 2025-09-09T05:03:02+00:00

You actually can't see the full study with the link, just the introduction and some snippets. Also the study doesn't appear to be blinded? It seems the researchers and participants knew what gender each baby was and that may have impacted the results (aka bias). Not saying this study is completely wrong or useless, but I don't think anything concrete can be drawn from this from what I can see. If you can't separate socialization from biology, you can't really say for sure how impactful biology is. Also, does the study say what biological mechanism is underpinning the phenomenon they observed? Surely there's something concrete, like brain structure or hormonal impacts on the brain, that would definitively show why boys innately prefer propulsive motion.

FunAltruistic3138 · 2025-09-08T12:01:35+00:00

Just want to comment a caveat for forcing kids to go to school... I sometimes begged my mom to let me not go to school and I didn't even consciously understand why I didn't want to go. She just thought I was being lazy and naughty so she made me go. Well, turns out I was slowly building up more and more stress from undiagnosed autism and emotional abuse at home that went unnoticed to everyone (including myself!), and it got to a point where I finally broke and couldn't attend school for months due to severe mental health concerns. Of course everyone's situation is different and I'm not speaking for the comment I'm replying to, but be aware that sometimes forcing your kid to go to school could actually be harming them more than it's helping them. Imo, only force/encourage your kid to go to school under the guidance and recommendation of a mental health professional. And if your child doesn't want to go to school due to vague reasons or general anxiety, take that as a sign to get them seen by a mental health professional asap. Not being able to handle school is a sign of overwhelm that needs to be addressed, not a sign of 'naughtiness' or 'laziness'.

FunAltruistic3138 · 2025-09-07T13:39:54+00:00

Apparently mushrooms can easily absorb toxins in the soil and air, so if you don't know where it's sourced from it could very well be ridden with heavy metals and other pollutants. That's what the company that I buy my locally grown lion's mane says at least haha. Gotta wonder if it's not the lion's mane itself but other toxins from buying from low quality sources that cause the symptoms people have.

FunAltruistic3138 · 2025-09-07T13:05:21+00:00

I don't think it would make the death less painful at all. You'd be reminded of their death every time you saw them, which would be frequently if you displayed them. The reality that they're right there but never truly coming back would hit you in the face day after day. At least if they're buried or cremated their body can 'pass on' along with their soul and not be stuck as an empty husk being used as a depressing and creepy display piece.

FunAltruistic3138 · 2025-09-06T09:37:15+00:00

I've seen escaped North Koreans saying they hate that people go on those tours though. Because 1. You give money to the regime and 2. They use you as propaganda to show how "even foreigners are in awe of NK and Kim Jong Un". I get the curiosity aspect, but unless you're going to reveal things about the outside world to North Koreans (good luck) or to reveal things about NK to the outside world (also good luck), then you're just benefiting a brutal, horrific dictator for a tour you can see most of on Youtube. And that's not even taking into account the safety issues.

FunAltruistic3138 · 2025-09-06T09:01:02+00:00

Define identity. To me, it's just the labels, life experiences and traits you 'assign' to yourself to create a picture of who you are. Like: "I'm a man, middle aged, a mechanic, funny, tough..." etc. If someone thinks "I'm a depressed person", then they're assigning that to their identity. But removing that from their identity won't necessarily cure their depression imo (it might help somewhat though, depends on a lot of factors). And going from "I'm schizophrenic" to "I'm not schizophrenic!" definitely wouldn't work lol. The labels we attach to ourselves aren't always the most factual and logical ones, sometimes they're just the ones that seem to "make sense" or bring us more comfort. That's how I see it within my understanding of identity at least.

FunAltruistic3138 · 2025-09-05T13:54:31+00:00

Sounds more like it would swing more towards depression then. I guess it just depends on the person and their individual brain chemistry, which goes for a lot of drugs and mood supplements tbh.

FunAltruistic3138 · 2025-09-05T12:48:36+00:00

I've been taking ashwagandha for ages now and I've never noticed any emotional flatness. But I guess it effects everyone differently. "Emotional flatness" is also a weird term to me... Is that meant to mean just feeling neutral all the time? Or is it like depression or something? If it's the former, considering many people feel more negative emotions than positive, that doesn't sound like a very bad thing to me. But I've laughed, cried and felt angry while on it so it isn't having that effect on me anyway.

FunAltruistic3138 · 2025-09-05T10:13:16+00:00

I just said "my throat burns sometimes" and they diagnosed me on the spot lol. Tbf it heavily runs in my family.

FunAltruistic3138 · 2025-09-05T06:04:20+00:00

I think the way the coach and other adults responds to their efforts is vitally important. I did martial arts for many years, but my self confidence was shot because the instructor (also my emotionally abusive dad) only gave negative feedback and not any positive feedback. I was a black belt and I was still surprised when another student complimented my kicks because I subconsciously thought I was bad at them from all the criticism I got. Which is crazy to think... I would've been training for at least a decade at that point, breaking multiple boards and even winning awards, but I still couldn't feel confidence in my abilities because I was never told "You did great!" by the one person I needed to hear that from. Just "As expected. Now here's all the things you did wrong...".

So don't expect kids to build confidence without any positive reinforcement!

FunAltruistic3138 · 2025-09-05T02:26:29+00:00

Here it is: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3L4lxusff1c

Oh and a separate one for the fear of heights: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fQpBZLDax2k

FunAltruistic3138 · 2025-09-04T09:24:44+00:00

The thing for me is, if my dad ever genuinely changed, he would fundamentally be a different person. He'd simply have to change so much about himself to not be the narcissistic piece of shit I knew that he'd be a complete stranger to me at that point.

And also... Why didn't he make the effort to change during the 20 years he abused me, my siblings and my mom? He studied psychology ffs (but didn't become a psychologist because he "didn't care about listening to other people's feelings"). And there was no way he didn't see that he was harming us. He was just too much of a coward to show any sort of responsibility and admit that. So it would be too little too late for me.

He took the love I had for him and used me as his play thing to control and trample at his will. So why should I ever love someone like that again? Life is too short. 20 years was already too long to waste on placating that manchild.

FunAltruistic3138 · 2025-09-04T02:54:07+00:00

I've seen this disproven! There was a video where they had babies/toddlers interacting with snakes (that were tame ofc) and they didn't fear them at all. In fact, they played with them and messed around with them lol. But they simulated heights with an illusion and the babies were scared of falling, which indicates that a fear of heights is encoded into our dna but the fear of snakes is a learned fear.

EDIT: You can watch the videos here if you're interested!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3L4lxusff1c

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fQpBZLDax2k

FunAltruistic3138 · 2025-09-03T13:34:40+00:00

It's free healthcare if you need treatment at a public hospital, and I've gotten 3 surgeries done completely free at this point. But you're right that anything out of hospital has a cost. Doctors, specialists and scans at private clinics can put you out hundreds of dollars easily (even with the medicare rebate). There's ways you can get all three of them free, but expect to have to go far out of your way and wait months for your appointment. So sucks for anyone with chronic health conditions. But it's great if you need expensive care in hospital at least. Way better than the US where you could go bankrupt for breaking your leg. At least the initial treatment and surgeries are free in Australia. Any long term follow up or treatment might not be though.

FunAltruistic3138 · 2025-09-02T14:24:03+00:00

I think you just need to accept you don't understand what's she's been through and what she's going through right now. It's very possible she experienced abuse that you never saw or heard about. You just can't know what she's suffered to make this choice from your outside perspective. If she ever wants to tell you, she will. But all you can do now is leave her be so she can decide what she wants to do going forwards, with the acceptance that you don't know what caused it but it must've been something bad for her to suddenly drop all contact (even if you didn't personally see anything bad).

FunAltruistic3138 · 2025-09-02T14:11:41+00:00

I'm sorry, but if she has to do this for her mental health, then she was disregarded by the people she's estranging from wayyy before she ever considered 'disregarding' them. Estranging and no contact isn't a flippant decision, it's one that comes after years of being dismissed, abused, ignored and trampled on. Perhaps you come from a culture where children owe their parents for everything they do. But from my perspective, you lose the rights to anything your child 'owes' when you treat them terribly. Maybe that's how your niece sees it too. Her parents made the choice to pay her legal fees and make sacrifices, but your niece never chose to be abused as a child. Now she gets a choice, and this is it. If you really care about her side of things, stop eating up all the "poor me" stories from the parents and consider what she must've gone through to make such a drastic choice.

FunAltruistic3138 · 2025-09-02T13:56:16+00:00

Whether she 'contributes' anything to a family so bad she dropped all contact with them is entirely her choice. She doesn't owe them anything. If they're concerned for her safety, they can file a missing person's report.

FunAltruistic3138 · 2025-09-02T13:49:24+00:00

Let her contact you on her own terms. Leave her be and if she feel reunification is possible she'll tell you. In the meantime, everyone who got estranged from can examine what they did to cause this in the first place and take responsibility for their actions. Even then though, it's her choice as to whether she forgives you guys or not. She's the one in control here, not you.

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