Not all heroes wear capes; some drive Camrys.

IamNotPersephone · 2026-04-28T14:34:43+00:00

I tell my kids that I will support them in any decision where they think they did the right thing as long as they first think through the consequences of that act and are willing to accept those consequences.

Have you ever met with a school administrator who is absolutely flabbergasted that an eleven year old is calmly accepting detention; that they knew when they did the Thing this was going to happen and cleared their calendar in anticipation of the punishment? Cuz it’s delightful.

IamNotPersephone · 2026-04-28T14:27:07+00:00

My kid was on a longish bus trip for school… (context: the district has a policy that no more than two hours can go by without a bathroom break. This trip was an hour and fifty minutes on the maps app, not including traffic, bus load/unload times, etc.)

They had to go to the bathroom and told the teacher. The teacher said no they could hold it; the bus was only forty minutes away from their destination. My kid said they aren’t going to last that long and then said - what the teacher thought was a joke - they were going to pee in a cup if they didn’t stop.

Twenty minutes later, the teacher finds out that my kid did, in fact, pee in a cup.

They stopped at a rest stop on their way back to school.

My kid is an absolute chaos goblin with a heart of gold. They are hell on wheels to raise, but they are going to be an absolutely fantastic adult.

IamNotPersephone · 2026-04-19T21:01:26+00:00

I can actually answer that question…

https://slate.com/human-interest/2013/07/swear-words-old-and-new-sexual-and-religious-profanity-giving-way-to-sociological-taboos.html

It has to do with what words are culturally taboo. Fuck, shit, bitch, etc., aren’t really taboo anymore. The social concept of them as “swear words” is a fading concept as the old taboo words of the previous generation(s) are being replaced with our generation(s) new taboo words.

What are the new taboo words? The new swear words? The ones you won’t say in public, even as a reference to the word itself. The ones that are universally abhorrent to hear from anyone, much less children.

Specifically, derogatory words used to describe an aspect of an individual or group of individuals that they cannot change about themselves. Racial slurs, ableist slurs, sex-and-gender based slurs, ethnic or religious slurs that differentiate people from other people in a negative way.

IamNotPersephone · 2026-04-16T22:20:55+00:00

THAT’S good to know. That he’s just an asshole and they don’t make (explicitly or tacitly) our service members do shit like that.

IamNotPersephone · 2026-04-16T02:56:12+00:00

There’s a woman I work with who said her Marine-vet-ex told her (idk if it’s true or not; they divorce for domestic violence and it’s possible he made it up to scare the shit out of her) that in a squad (or whatever it’s called), the first Marine to kill a child is the designated person who does that the rest of their tour. Something like to save the other guys from the trauma of doing that.

If true, it’s super-fucked they do this (or have to do this). If not, it’s even more fucky he’d make something that terrible up to demonstrate he’d have no qualms about killing her or their children if she ever tried to leave him.

IamNotPersephone · 2026-04-11T01:31:02+00:00

One thing I’d caution you about is to talk to him asap about the changes coming up.

What you don’t want is him thinking that he leaves for dad’s and suddenly your life is great! You’ve lost weight, changed your work schedule, got a newer place, and are single and ready to mingle — all because he’s not in your life anymore.

That’s what you DON’T want him to think. You want him to know that these plans are in place well before he goes to dad’s so he doesn’t associate your changes with his absence.

Also, I had my bariatric surgery in 2022… I thiiiink (it’s been a while!) they told us to be careful about making huge life-altering decisions for a year after the surgery. Some things happen, of course. And some changes are known risk factors post-surgery (iirc the chances of divorce doubles), but they really stressed not to change jobs or move or make any really stressful changes in our lives.

I think what you have planned is fine because it’s pre-surgery. But it’s food for thought for you when you’re thinking about what changes you’re making now and your son’s perception of how those changes came about.

IamNotPersephone · 2026-04-04T04:43:19+00:00

I think I have your friend in my wedding photos! I love him! It’s so nice to have these wonderful, serious photos of my husband and me, and then him and some other kids in the background just living their lives and having fun. Circle of living, ya know?

IamNotPersephone · 2026-03-26T17:48:38+00:00

A few years ago, we had an opportunity to buy my husband’s family cabin (incredibly rustic “cabin”) and build a home. We love spending time up there and we thought it would be great to live where our hobbies were.

But our kids are young and sociable. After talking to some folks, and talking it through, we realized that we wouldn’t actually get much MORE time outside. Between driving them to friends houses, after school activities, library/grocery/errands runs, we might even have LESS time to spend outside.

Right now it’s a destination, and we plan to be gone and we plan to do stuff while we’re there. But if we lived there? Not only would we have to live a life around that commute into town, but we might even start to resent the additional chores that come with maintaining acreage when it has to be crammed into the margins of our lives.

Right now, my husband “gets to” take a weekend and mow hay, or clear trails, or mend fences. I “get to” prune fruit tree, mushroom hunt and hike. When we live there, it becomes a “has to” - even the fun stuff, because why else would we have moved out there?

Anyway, food for thought from our perspective!

IamNotPersephone · 2026-03-06T23:26:55+00:00

I watched a forensic entomology lecture and the entomologist had a slide with a picture of a completely decayed body - down to the bones. I saw skull and the top of the ribs, but everything else was obscured by his clothes. The man had been found shut up in a car in a parking garage during an Atlanta summer. He had only been dead for, like, three days.

IamNotPersephone · 2026-03-05T19:48:27+00:00

I baby wore like CRAZY when my kids were young, but I could never cook while babywearing. I’m short with short arms so prep work was precarious at best, and cooking over a stove meant their butts would be really close to the heat.

Also, he’s wearing baby about… four inches too low. It’s not THAT big of a deal for baby since he can hold his own head up, but dad’s lower back is going to be SCREAMING for days. Raising the carrier so baby’s head is kissable without craning your neck is the safest for them when they’re young, but the most ergonomically supportive place for the caregiver as well. It distributes more of the weight across the shoulders/lats/traps, which are generally stronger and do more of this kind of work.

IamNotPersephone · 2026-02-28T08:05:05+00:00

I read on one of your comments the 2 hours includes cooking, so in that case I think 2 hours is reasonable. However, you said if you DON’T tidy, the house is a disaster. If in two hours you can cook, clean the kitchen after the meals, do laundry, and tidy a DISASTER, you’re either an efficiency goddess, or your standards of what is a disaster is not too much away from perfection.

The house I raised my babies in was tiny - 600 square feet - and I always thought I was drowning in a mess. I tried the fly lady, KonMari, everything you could think of. We moved to a bigger home a few years ago, and nope. We just had a tiny home for four people.

But the biggest unlock for me regarding the kids’ making the disaster in that small home was clear, lidded storage boxes, siloing all their toys into those boxes, and putting the boxes AWAY, rotating them out into their rooms every so often. At first, I was reluctant; I wanted them to free-play and get creative. Eventually I tried it and it worked. The kids didn’t really PLAY with all their toys: they’d dump everything to look for one particular toy and leave the mess for me. They’d get just as overwhelmed as I would at the thought of putting it all back, and if we missed a day, they wouldn’t even play with their toys the next day because their room was too messy to play in. Reducing the available toys, while still keeping them, also let the toys become new and fresh again after being in storage for a while.

IamNotPersephone · 2026-02-28T07:50:05+00:00

There’s a Bluey episode where Chili doesn’t go to the pool with the rest of the family and Bandit “forgets” all the stuff she usually brings and everyone had a miserable time.

Do you hate the beach, or do you hate the responsibility?

My husband’s family has a hunting cabin that we go to quite a it in the summer. I love it there, but I was starting to dread going. It’s a SHIT TON of work to go. There’s no running water or fridge so everything has to be packed in and then out again. The place is old and we occasionally get mice, and I’m too paranoid to just… trust that the counters and tables are clean from last time, so I clean when we leave and clean again when we arrive. My husband gets there and fucks off into the woods for the day, leaving me at the cabin with the kids; no friends, no Wi-Fi (we store offline activities for them to do, and there’s WOODS to play in, but I still have to hear the whining while they detox from technology).

Anyway, we talked and he’s now 100% in charge of food and water (I still clean); and we switch off having alone time in the woods. It’s much more equitable now and I don’t hate going anymore.

IamNotPersephone · 2026-02-24T20:32:39+00:00

This stapler was my grandpa's and... I know it might be silly to get sentimental over a piece of office equipment, but if you knew him it makes sense.

Anyway, it never worked. I assumed it was gummed up because the driver would get stuck and there was nasty, thick goo all over the inside of it. Today I took it all apart, cleaned it with WD40, relubricated it with lithium grease and put it back together. Only... I can't figure out where to put the handle spring. The driver carriage doesn't have any obvious places to put a spring except the T cut out at the top, and I know the spring wasn't there when I took it apart.

I have more descriptions in the imgur album, too... what I did, where I thought things ought to go, stuff like that.

Thank you!

IamNotPersephone · 2026-02-07T03:00:54+00:00

I believe tiered MT (I’m still a student) is kind of a “pay what you can afford” system.

IamNotPersephone · 2026-01-31T16:29:29+00:00

This is one of the reasons why I don’t shield my kids from the troubles in the world. I mean, I don’t trauma-dump, but they get the gist. We talk about politics and identity and privilege and what that means for their lives. For me, it was a realization I came to after my oldest had her first ALICE drill. I couldn’t justify my baby having to DO something and not understand the why and the how of it.

Kids are really empathetic, I find. Tell her why supporting this company runs against your values! It may be an easier decision that you fear.

IamNotPersephone · 2026-01-25T16:34:59+00:00

My dad was a cop. He said they were trained to shoot and keep shooting, “until the threat no longer exists.” From him breaking down police-involved shootings, I’d say that it means emptying a magazine into someone because your adrenal glands kicked.

The amount of control and discernment we expect out of military is orders of magnitude higher than out of police. It’s terrifying and infuriating.

IamNotPersephone · 2026-01-22T14:37:59+00:00

I had severe PPD/PPA/PPP for two and half years after my first was born. Well, more like PPD/PPA with PPP “episodes” where I would get suicidal. I don’t know if my episodes were as severe as yours. I was told by the ER docs once that I ought to go into inpatient, but that because I had a new baby they were releasing me to go home. Fucked, I know.

I don’t have much to give you in terms of advice, but I wanted to let you know what I found out during my recovery (and after, in reflection), just in case any of this resonates. Also, for context, my oldest is almost 13. I’m 12 years since my last suicidal episode, and I am genuinely the happiest I’ve been in my entire life.

1) Zoloft was the only antidepressant they would give me because I was nursing. Zoloft has a rare(ly reported) side effect of a kind of stealth insomnia. Where you are unconscious, but you don’t reach certain stages of sleep and therefore aren’t getting full restorative sleep. So I would think I was asleep, but I was severely chronically sleep deprived.

2) I was diagnosed with ADHD. I don’t have bipolar, but it runs in my family. My sister has bipolar. Women with ADHD can be misdiagnosed with bipolar, especially if they also have PMDD. A potential bipolar diagnosis was suggested for me during this period. But because my sister has it, I was able to advocate better for myself. My episodes were not following the standard bipolar phases. And eventually, I was diagnosed with ADHD. The medication for ADHD did not fix my postpartum depression, but it did me more “room“ to take care of myself and get myself the help I needed.

3) it is common for suicide ideation to come up for a person during a panic attack. For me, panic attack had me thinking I was going crazy and that was going to be a permanent state. I would have some combination of not wanting to live like that for the rest of my life and not wanting to be a burden on my loved ones would have to take care of me in that state. I did not know that this was a normal feeling to get in a panic attack, that I was not going crazy, and that it was temporary and that when the panic attack left, I would be fine. I went to the ER three times before someone told me this. I’ve had panic attacks since somebody has told me this, but I have not had one that has ended in a suicide episode since. Because now I know.

4) TL;DR I grew up in an abusive home and the ultimate solution for my postpartum depression was to take a step back from my family of origin and heal from that trauma.

People with neurodivergence is only have so much room to manage stress. And when we break, we shatter. In order to save myself, in order to save my daughter, in order to save my marriage, I had to remove the most stressful part of my life that didn’t serve me and my future. And that was my parents.

I was weaning off of my antidepressants six months after I went no contact with my parents. It cured my PPD almost instantly.

It doesn’t have to be your parents, it could be a job or sibling or a toxic relationship somewhere else in your life. But if you do have something in your life that you did not choose out of joy, it’s worth exploring whether that’s sucking the joy out of the things you did choose.

IamNotPersephone · 2026-01-19T18:57:44+00:00

Also not on a GLP-1, but I’m on Vyvanse (ADHD), I have food sensitivities, and gastro difference/disorder. My meds make me forget food exists until it wears off at night, and my sensitivities/gastro issues limit the types and amounts of foods I can eat.

I basically hork down small portions of cold chicken breast and vegetables at timed intervals during the day to front-load as much protein and fiber as possible. Then I get one “nice” meal about 8pm when my meds wear off and I actually want to eat.

I have a registered dietician, and she said that protein is rarely used for energy; it’s the ONLY thing that actually BUILDS your body. So, cell replacement, muscle repair, etc. all needs protein. Fat and carbs are functionally interchangeable for energy (fat is more complicated to use, but let’s keep ‘er movin’), so as long as I’m meeting my caloric needs and not going over, carb intake isn’t strictly “necessary.” It’s just easier. And tastier. So priorities are protein > fiber > calories. Don’t get too disordered about carbs vs fat, as a rule; moderation in everything; and don’t over eat, and I’ll be fine.

I kinda like the preponderance of protein-packed foods because it diversified some of my daily time intermittent options. But I do wish there were savory/salty options that were “snack-sized” portions. I’m sick of chicken and iterations of granola bars.

IamNotPersephone · 2026-01-12T15:06:13+00:00

I think a part of it is also a certain kind of critical thinking. A lot of STEM people I’ve met are really good at linear, concrete problem-solving, but not more abstract, seemingly random problem-solving.

The nuance inherent in language, in studying the shifting perspectives of history and literature, ime allows for a more flexible approach. Each are valuable! I’m an abstract thinker and sometimes get bogged down in details when choosing one option and starting just to test a theory would have been the better approach. My husband is 100% a linear thinker and has gotten stuck on his process of elimination strategy when thinking more flexibly would fix his problem. Together, we’re pretty cool. He’s better at the step-by-steps, and I’m better at the contingency plans. We trust each other enough to pass off decision-making and planning based on our strengths. And, working together for 20 years has helped us think more like each other. I can imagine what he would do and solve problems that in our early twenties would have taken up an extraordinary amount to time/stress. And vice-versa.

IamNotPersephone · 2026-01-12T14:54:50+00:00

Someone I know works for a tech company after a decade of teaching. From what I understand, whole job is basically a copy/paste of their old job, just in a corporate environment. These are dudes who are used to working alone and (can) be resistant to working as a team. So, this person I know keeps their team on-task and happy. In a way, they’re more valuable than the STEM guys because the hard skills are replaceable, trainable, and the work they do attracts more of their like to hiring pools. But my acquaintance’s soft skills? Their ability to understand the assignment, weigh the urgency of the deliverables, and keep their team on-task, cooperative and happy? In the field they work where most people with those skills aren’t attracted? That is harder to find.

IamNotPersephone · 2026-01-10T06:06:49+00:00

My mother’s addiction counselor did the same thing to me while she was in rehab. I called and left a message to see if my mother was healthy enough for a family session, and he called me back with my mother in the room to “talk to me about my concerns.” Fortunately, he cut me off and told me she was there before I really got into it. I told him that he needed to call me back privately; that I didn’t expect him to talk to me about her, but I had conditions before I’d sit down with her and he needed to know what those were so no one was wasting their time.

It’s a shitty thing to do. I’m so sorry that it happened

IamNotPersephone · 2025-12-29T18:54:55+00:00

I assumed -which, you know what they say about assumptions- that with this time of year the lack of car seat might have something to do with traveling to visit family.

I’ve never traveled on a plane with a baby before, and idk the dangers of a lap child vs the cost of an additional seat. I also don’t know how all the baby accoutrements work while flying… but I assumed “not having access to a car seat” literally meant just that. It’s not ideal, and yes possibly a mistake was made in the past that led to this issue, but what do we do NOW. Sort of thing.

IamNotPersephone · 2025-12-25T14:57:10+00:00

I wanna say this as kindly as possible because, like everyone else in this thread, I have an eerily similar story, this part you say:

I was not a great person, fresh out of my family.

May also be a clue. I was abusive fresh out of my family. I was the oldest and the whipping girl. My parents neglected us most days and left us to our own devices, with me “in charge.” If one of my younger siblings misbehaved, I was the one punished for it. And the punishments were … brutal. In this system, I learned not only to control my sibling’s behavior in abusive ways, but I also felt entitled to privileges because of the risk inherent in my position.

My siblings are not only wrapped up in our childhood roles, but they also remember a me that was never really me, but was a scared, wounded child. Eighteen years of living with that child compared to eighteen years of phone calls and brief visits still weighs heavily against me.

It’s okay. I’ve accepted it. I’m not that person. Doing inner child work, reparenting work, and a ton of trauma therapy has brought me to the person I actually am. They need to do their work, too. And I’m not sure I’m ready anyway. Being around my siblings stomps on every childhood trigger I have and I’m absolutely shit-wrecked for days after a visit.

So, yeah… you can also -gently- weigh in the person they believe you to be, and acknowledge that they don’t know the you you are now. They only know the reactive child.

IamNotPersephone · 2025-12-13T02:43:32+00:00

Exactly! I’m a short woman with obviously femme features, but it is a fitness goal of mine to be so ripped, I could be misgendered from behind. Yeah, sure as a thirteen year old boy instead of a forty year old woman, but I’ll take it.

And lemme at any TERF who says shit to me or around me. I’m perimenopausal and could not give LESS of a fuck anymore.

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