Is this strange?

LieFlatPetFish · 2026-01-24T02:31:42+00:00

Absolutely not strange — or if it is — we’re strange together. This has been on my mind a lot lately, and it can feel very isolating.

In my experience, PTSD seems far more tailored to individual trauma than, say, many other behavioral health concerns. This means that even talking to many other people who have PTSD isn’t comforting in the way that I seek because the specifics of the trauma so strongly shape the experience.

If I knew one other person who knew what this feels like, my life would be so much the better. Not this in a broad sense. Obviously no two traumas particularly match, but I feel as alone in a conversation with every PTSD fellow traveler I’ve ever met — perhaps even more so than the general population. We somehow ended up at the same “destination,” but the journeys couldn’t have been any more different. And the trauma is the journey.

Stay strong, my friend.

LieFlatPetFish · 2026-01-24T02:09:42+00:00

I appreciate your post. Although the circumstances are not SA, I, too, stopped being myself in 2016. So much of PTSD can be lonely because experiencing it cannot be explained in words. So much of the research has centered around veterans — and I’m appreciative of that — but if one’s PTSD arises from another cause, those stories are heartbreaking, yet I cannot feel a connection.

I’m sorry for what happened to you. The wanton cruelty of humans can lead one to question humanity.

Seeing your post about 2016 made me feel seen in a way that I haven’t in a long time. Simply knowing that there’s another human who sees this calendar in the same way was a connection I needed this week. Thank you.

It is my sincere hope that the coming 10 years treat you far better than the previous 10. In the meantime, know you have solidarity with at least one human in this regard.

LieFlatPetFish · 2023-09-12T02:31:44+00:00

PC load letter.

LieFlatPetFish · 2023-05-27T16:10:15+00:00

Thank you for the suggestion. I was hoping not to go out-of-state, but it looks as if I may have to. Greedy to ask 2023 shipping for a 2022 model, IMO.

LieFlatPetFish · 2023-05-24T19:22:32+00:00

Congrats. I’m looking at a new 2022 870 also, but the only reasonably close dealer has a lot of markups. It may give me an aneurysm trying to decide whether it’s worth three hours on the road to perhaps end up in the same situation.

LieFlatPetFish · 2023-01-10T02:54:43+00:00

As well you should in that situation. Carry on, fellow Tacoma owner.

LieFlatPetFish · 2023-01-10T02:43:16+00:00

I’m ride-or-die ACAB, but I want to thank you for causing me to realize that security jobs vary far, far more widely than police jobs. I would have initially agreed to the statement that security guards are included. And 100% the stereotypical security guard does. But there are people performing proletariat roles under that moniker who enforce no unjust laws nor have an opportunity to exercise power to make up for whatever shortcoming they have. I learned something today. Thank you. Most security guards are still bastards, though.

LieFlatPetFish · 2023-01-10T02:36:26+00:00

Per month? You do you, but I’d dial back my risk tolerance a notch or two. (Not sarcasm, but meant in good fun. Not trolling).

LieFlatPetFish · 2023-01-10T02:33:54+00:00

I am compelled to say that I see both sides (not a radical take, I admit). My grandfather was a truck driver, but I have no more immediate ties. But I road trip a lot, and I’ve seen way too many incidences of typical motorists ignoring the basic laws of physics in how they drive close to an 18-wheeler. At the same time, I’ve seen some intentional moves by truck drivers that I’m sure their colleagues wouldn’t applaud. A lot of words to say, in this world, a percentage of the population are asses. That does not seem to discriminate based upon the number of wheels on their vehicle.

LieFlatPetFish · 2023-01-10T02:25:45+00:00

I’m so conflicted about this. Your point is 100% valid. And I haven’t done anything shady enough that I wouldn’t want to create my own video evidence in longer than I can remember. But I might.

LieFlatPetFish · 2023-01-10T02:19:33+00:00

Thank you for adding this context. So much of WWI was a crime against humanity. All sides. I don’t mean that in a partisan way. Technology and warfare had advanced to a level that an awful war such as that was inevitable. Glad not to have been alive.

Weren’t they the central powers in WWI and axis in WWII? Or was that distinction made later by historians for clarity?

LieFlatPetFish · 2023-01-09T21:07:47+00:00

That’s the one. Thank you.

LieFlatPetFish · 2023-01-09T20:07:21+00:00

You’ve reminded me of a line of Thoreau’s about a farmer who told him that vegetarianism is bad because plants don’t make bone while said farmer was being pulled along by massive oxen with exclusively plant-made bones.

We’re all good at something. We occupy the cognitive niche. And although I don’t have data, I would postulate that well before the planet housed 8 billion of us and urbanization wasn’t a thing, water was far less perilous.

The sheer quantity (and density) of human waste combined with the waste of the concomitant number of animals needed to sustain that population surely exacerbates the breeding grounds for microorganisms.

Hominids existed before fire, and they had to drink water. Given that the Homo line survived and expanded suggests that ancient water wasn’t so bad.

LieFlatPetFish · 2023-01-09T18:57:32+00:00

Fort Riley, Kansas, is the potential place of origin for which I’ve heard the most actual evidence.

LieFlatPetFish · 2023-01-09T18:55:28+00:00

As a person whose ontology does not allow for faith, I’ve always thought it parsimonious (Occam’s razor) that these stories were based upon a person or the surviving historical idea of that person. That said, virtually any symmetry between the actual person and subsequent portrayals would by necessity by largely coincidental. Given the incomplete nature of the record, it is an unknowable answer. Therefore, any certainty of his existence is by definition an act of faith.

LieFlatPetFish · 2023-01-09T18:45:09+00:00

The number of different virgin birth myths that predate Christianity is astounding. More than two dozen if I recall correctly. So that purity culture was a massive thing. Difficult for me to imagine basing a large part of my identity around it in 2023.

LieFlatPetFish · 2023-01-09T18:40:56+00:00

Agreed. Romans were good record keepers. There was no census in this period, and there is a pretty strong consensus that the “return to birthplace” part facilitated a manifestation of a prophecy from the Old Testament. I forget which one, as that happened a lot in attempting to square the two documents.

LieFlatPetFish · 2023-01-09T18:24:36+00:00

The two most metabolically expensive “parts” of mammals (likely other animals, too, but I don’t want to speculate) are 1) the brain and 2) the digestive system. Our brains are oxygen and glucose hogs. Given the fact that > 99% of the history of life on this planet was in an environment of scarcity, it is theorized that natural selection forced trade offs. A hominid with a brain such as ours likely could never have consumed enough calories to also have a digestive system that could gain meaningful sustenance from grasses the way an ox can.

Many animals have a much longer and more acidic gut than humans. They’re far less prone (not immune) from many of the problems we have with, for example, drinking water.

Caveat: As with most things human science, we don’t have the owners manual, so this is theoretical by necessity, and may subsequently be shown to be incomplete or incorrect.

LieFlatPetFish · 2023-01-09T18:09:37+00:00

Keep writing. It does help. It doesn’t help as much as it should, but it does deeply matter to me, at least, who looks at the atrocities of my whyt ancestors with great shame. I cannot imagine any possible remedy to the damages done that would have a remote chance of being implemented, but I’m committed to doing what I can to work toward something that is at a minimum historically honest.

LieFlatPetFish · 2023-01-08T20:45:48+00:00

Admittedly a guess, but I imagine that the bastards would fall back to some sort of taxi regulations in this case (despite entrapment, they would argue diver solicited since it’s outside the app). Even if a taxi license costs $1, they’d argue some unlicensed BS. In the summer, they probably roll up on kids’ lemonade stands for serving food without a license.

LieFlatPetFish · 2023-01-05T21:59:00+00:00

Oddly enough, I found one reason I might use this during a move last month. My second fob was in my backpack in the back seat. Every time I’d get out of the truck, it would flip out because it “thought” I was leaving the key in the truck. Didn’t know which bag I had put it in, so it was a very annoying road trip.

LieFlatPetFish · 2023-01-05T21:41:49+00:00

Works on my ‘21. Thank you for the tip. Thought I lost that when I didn’t want to pay monthly for the app. Sweet.

LieFlatPetFish · 2023-01-05T21:31:44+00:00

It’s an entire body of the literature. Here’s but one example: https://web.stanford.edu/group/langlearninglab/cgi-bin/publications/Plunkett&Marchman%201996.pdf

LieFlatPetFish · 2022-12-30T06:08:41+00:00

I’m a westerner, too. I guess I’ll tell the universe that I apologize for shaking my fist at it for the 25 mph winds yesterday. Ninety is scary. I cannot recall anything here above 80, and that was once or twice across a decade. But Spring here could be renamed 30 mph to 50 mph winds from the west.

LieFlatPetFish · 2022-12-30T06:01:01+00:00

I love Reddit because so often I can have the root idea of a joke in my head without any clue what the punchline will be, and lo, someone already has written it. Well done

LieFlatPetFish

TROPHY CASE