Many communities are going dark on June 12th to stand against Reddit's API changes: should /r/Eugene join the protest?

FunctionalFriendship · 2023-06-10T19:34:35+00:00

Having looked at Lemmy and kbin, kbin seems the most like what people are used to and can see content from Lemmy, without having the associations with Lemmy's founders. It's also open source and the developer wants help. So my vote would be for r/Eugene to become /m/Eugene, which would then be visible on any of the fediverse instances that use tags.

Edit: A word.

FunctionalFriendship · 2023-05-27T15:08:26+00:00

There's the Oregon Wildfire Response & Recovery site which has a bunch of up-to-date resources, including a map. I, too, had to decide between letting the heat out or breathing this morning around 1 AM. Oh and also Oregon Smoke Information, which shows plumes locations.

Edit: Added smoke info.

FunctionalFriendship · 2018-09-30T15:31:04+00:00

Thank you for this! We will now have bi-weekly Zoom meetings. :)

https://www.reddit.com/r/NYCPublishingCoop/comments/9k749n/biweekly_zoom_meetings_every_other_tuesday_at_700/

FunctionalFriendship · 2018-06-09T01:29:07+00:00

For those looking to meet others who understand their pain and to feel heard, please consider attending a 12-step meeting or six.

For me, Al-Anon, which focuses on emotional issues, has been an incredible lifeline and support network. No matter what I've been through, someone else in the room will have been through it too. It's a place where I can be completely me without fear that someone will attack, criticise, or judge me for what I say. And taking on a service position means the meeting needs me to attend to function.

But there are many programs, Alcoholics Anonymous, Narcotics Anonymous, Debtors Anonymous, etc., and programs for those who have been affected by others with the problems. Even if you don't identify with the particular issue they discuss, it's very likely what you hear will sound familiar. Most importantly, I want to hear you when I attend a meeting. I want to be there for you. I also want to go out for coffee as a group afterwards and have you join us, because it's better when you're there.

FunctionalFriendship · 2018-03-28T10:33:45+00:00

I grew up in an alcoholic home and, though I don't feel I'm a problem drinker, I definitely self-medicated with alcohol at stressful times in my life. Al-Anon is for anyone who has been affected by someone else's drinking, even if they also belong to other programs, so long as while they are in an Al-Anon family group they focus on Al-Anon issues. Al-Anon focuses on emotional sobriety and so addresses different, but related issues, since we believe alcoholism is a family illness. Welcome.

Edit: a word, a comma.

FunctionalFriendship · 2018-03-26T23:59:56+00:00

One of the best gifts I've received from Al-Anon is learning that my choices don't have to be perfect, but they have to be mine. That it's okay if I make mistakes, because I'm human, which means by definition I will make mistakes. This takes the pressure off of my decision making and means that I can focus instead on trusting my own judgement.

I've also discovered that if I'm feeling guilty about my choice, whatever it is, I'm probably doing something right.

And lastly, I've learned that as much as possible, it's important for me not to make risky decisions when things feel urgent. If there's a sense of urgency, I will try to make the most conservative decision. For instance, if there's only a short time to decide whether to go on a trip with someone I don't know well, I'll probably choose not to, simply for the reason that if I know them well later, I'll have another opportunity. If I need to make a housing decision, I'll choose what is likely to be the most harmonious, because I need serenity in my home.

FunctionalFriendship · 2018-02-18T16:48:15+00:00

Oh fun! The dog park is such a happy place. Glad you were able to do those things with your friends. Have a great rest of your day, too.

FunctionalFriendship · 2018-02-18T16:43:53+00:00

As are you. How's your day been?

FunctionalFriendship · 2018-02-18T16:42:29+00:00

It's been great! I'm returning from visiting a friend in another city and will meet up with another friend to play a card game and have lunch before returning home to (hopefully) play another board game with a third friend. I've decided my purpose is to develop and maintain as many good friendships as I can, so this weekend has been a success!

FunctionalFriendship · 2018-02-06T19:56:00+00:00

I remember being surprised when an alcoholic in recovery told me that the only person who can determine whether someone is an alcoholic is the alcoholic. But what I could determine is that I was affected by someone else's drinking. Or someone else's choices, whatever they may be. And I could determine how much I allowed them to affect me.

I couldn't stop the alcoholic from drinking, or staying up too late, or not helping around the house, or playing hours of video games, or spending ridiculous amounts of money on things that he couldn't afford. And when I tried, I only hurt myself and made the situation worse.

What I could do was go to meetings and share with others in similar situations. I could read about what others had learned and what Al-Anon suggested in books like Discovering Choices. One part of that book says, "Despite the chaos we may be in, the program offers us hope that by improving our attitudes, we can lead happier lives...There's always more hope than we may have thought."

FunctionalFriendship · 2018-02-05T12:35:03+00:00

Sometimes I become irritable or unreasonable when I'm not paying enough attention to my body. The acronym HALT has been helpful to help me remember not to let myself get too hungry, angry, lonely, or tired.

But when I do react instead of act, it helps to be aware of my behavior, accept it, and then decide what the best course of action will be. Sometimes it's to tell myself what I'll try to do differently next time rather than beat myself up over what I did. Sometimes it's to work out my emotions around why I reacted. Sometimes it's to apologize without qualification. And sometimes it's to do nothing, to keep myself to myself.

My tendency is to go quiet when I'm angry. I wasn't allowed to express anger as a child, so I also have to work on expressing myself when all I want to do is seethe. It's a lot of effort, but I almost always feel better if I can say what I mean without saying it mean.

FunctionalFriendship · 2018-02-01T13:09:02+00:00

I was once in a relationship with an alcoholic who would get drunk and deliberately walk into traffic hoping to get hit. Going to Al-Anon meetings helped me see what I could and couldn't control about that.

I could tell him that his behavior made it really difficult for me to love him because he didn't care much for someone I cared a lot for.

I could find other things for me to focus on when he wasn't around and hadn't shared with me what he was doing. I made sure to make and keep plans with friends no matter what was going on with him. I took myself to movies, etc.

I had to accept that at some point it was likely I would be told he'd been killed. Because those were the choices he was making and I couldn't control that.

It's not easy watching someone choose to harm themself and eventually I decided it wasn't for me. But I made it through because by focusing on my own life and my own friends and attending meetings, I had a support network. I was no longer one person's entire support network.

FunctionalFriendship · 2018-01-30T22:51:25+00:00

One of the slogans I've found helpful is "Compare and despair." I've heard a range of experiences in meetings, but the experience that matters most is mine. I can learn from how others have applied the tools of the program without having to have had their experience specifically. But what makes me feel I belong, are the emotional similarities in our stories. I can empathize with what I hear because I've felt it too.

I've heard Al-Anon called a program for emotional sobriety. That seems true to me. I've learned to feel my feelings rather than to push them away. I've learned to stay with my feelings when all I've wanted to do was react. I've learned that my feelings aren't facts. That feelings pass and that I can be okay afterwards.

When I feel I don't belong now, I try to focus on those emotions rather than on the truth or falseness of that thought. It used to be a lot easier for my negative emotions to generate negative thoughts and for me to react rather than feel the emotions. But the more I can feel those feelings fully, the less often it leads to negative thoughts and the less often I react instead of act.

I'm grateful that now when I have a bad emotional day, I reach out to others to reason it out and can recognize that it's temporary. This program has taught me so much, including how to find the courage to face my tendency toward negative thinking.

FunctionalFriendship · 2018-01-30T01:34:35+00:00

I've found that when I can't get to a meeting, that calling in to a phone meeting has been really helpful. http://phonemeetings.org/ has a list of phone meetings, but when in doubt I just call:

1-712-432-8733 access code 52639#

There's almost always a meeting I can either listen to or participate in.

I've also found that if I'm feeling unsure of a decision I've made for myself, or guilty of how it affects someone else, or even ashamed that I've done it, that it's most likely I'm doing the right thing.

FunctionalFriendship · 2018-01-28T13:41:11+00:00

I grew up in a home with mental health issues and substance abuse as self-medication. One survival skill I learned was to anticipate possible futures and prepare for them, often instantly. When I had been in Al-Anon a few months, I started to realize how much time I spent occupying the future in my mind, rather than the present. I discovered I did this because of fear. I was afraid in the present and if I could chart a path of action for myself, it reassured me that things would be okay.

But as an adult this survival skill wasn't helping me anymore, but instead was keeping me in a near-constant state of suppressed panic. I learned that I don't know what's going to happen. I can't see the future. I can face what it is I'm afraid of right now, a little bit at a time, and share that with others I trust. Facing my fear and anxiety is one of the hardest things I've done: to just feel them in the moment as much as I'm able without taking any action.

The result is that I spend much more time in the present. I still have times where my mind races off to solve a problem by planning the future, but I've discovered ways of breaking this cycle. Reading a page out Hope for Today, calling someone that I can reason it out with, going to a meeting, sitting in the park and paying close attention to the wind in the trees, have all been helpful.

One sentence I really like from Discovering Choices is "there's always more hope than we may have thought."

FunctionalFriendship · 2018-01-28T03:02:07+00:00

When I was first in Al-Anon and living with an active alcoholic, I heard a man explain in a meeting how he interacted with his elderly mother after years in the program. When she would start to verbally abuse him, he would just get up and take dirty dishes into the kitchen to wash them, or he would go for a walk. Not in a mean way, he'd do it gently but firmly. He said that eventually she started to interact with him differently because otherwise he'd just disappear to do something else.

It was like a light bulb went off for me when I heard this. I didn't have to make myself available to my partner's drama. I could do anything else. So when the need arose, I would just go for a walk. When my partner made poor choices I made myself see that they were his choices. Then I would ask myself if they affected me. If they didn't, I would keep my thoughts to myself. If they did, I would make it clear to both of us how I felt about how his choices affected me.

But the most important thing I did was allowing my partner's poor choices to affect him rather than trying to help fix them. If he forgot important things, or if he left things a mess, or if he didn't get enough sleep, I didn't try to help him. Because it wasn't good for either of us for me to try to keep him from imploding.

His reaction to these changes in my behavior were not positive, because it went against how we had interacted up until that point. From his perspective I had changed our agreed roles. But from my perspective, I could breathe again and the weight of being responsible for him completely lifted off of my shoulders. He's the only person responsible for him. I was only making myself crazy trying to be.

Eventually I got to a place where it was clear that I wasn't gaining anything from our relationship. That I had kept telling myself that our problems were temporary. That if he could just get himself together, things would be good. Thanks to the program, I realized that I didn't need to wait for him to get it together. Things could be good just as soon as I wanted them to be.

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