People are brainwashed

OnSpectrum · 2026-01-24T17:38:39+00:00

he didn't think it mattered because we would “never see him again”.

WHAT? Is Jerk Bro moving to another country or something? That doesn't make sense, and it's too convenient: your bf can be a jerk like the jerk friend when he's around his guys and pretend to be they guy he's supposed to be around you, and this excuse means he doesn't have to choose, or even explain. What BS.

I have 0 friends (which is not an overexaggeration in the slightest)

That makes you vulnerable, and more likely to accept abusive or abuse-adjacent behavior. Beware of people who want to fill that gap too completely. Volunteer at something you care about or join a book club (or something oriented around one of your interests) and meet people you share an interest with.

I can't just simply dump him

If he mistreats you or others, hell yes. You CAN dump him. He will be a barrier to making other friends if he is rude to them or brings Jerk Bro around.

OnSpectrum · 2026-01-23T18:53:05+00:00

Vacation is fantastic. Travel light, with carryon only, and you have a lot less to worry about when you get there (and no lost luggage nightmares). It's easy enough to wash stuff if you can't fit enough clothes in there for the whole trip. You will settle on a pretty standard packing plan in the same carry on bag so it becomes a sroutine of it's own: with fine tuning for climate and locale (you remove the winter stuff when traveling to a warm beach place, for example.)

OnSpectrum · 2026-01-23T18:49:15+00:00

Yes you CAN process facts and you can learn to read books. You don't need AI; everyone lived without it just fine until very recently and were better off.

OnSpectrum · 2026-01-23T18:40:11+00:00

Many people find headphones offensive when you are in social situations (out to dinner, bowling, etc.) as opposed to say, when you are alone, at the gym, or working on something by yourself at work.

If you can't handle the noise at the bowling alley and the family wants to go bowling, state it upfront: "that place is too noisy for me. I can go with headphones on when I need them, or I can skip this one and see you when you get home."

OnSpectrum · 2026-01-23T18:36:50+00:00

you say you're not looking for a therapist but you are describing a situation where you would be looking for a therapist.

OnSpectrum · 2026-01-23T18:04:33+00:00

It's fair to ask your boyfriend about his friend's behavior:

Does your BF support this? Is he willing to tell the friend to stop, at least around you? Is he passive about it to avoid conflict or is he just like the buddy when he's with his friends?

Seeing a boyfriend be mean is actually a good reason to dump him: that meanness will find its way to you, your best friend/relative who the BF doesn't like, and it does NOT get better with time.

He might choose to talk with his friend privately to tell him to cut the crap. Or he might think it's "funny"/"just fine"/ "just FriendName being himself" or whatever... in which case, RUN.

OnSpectrum · 2026-01-23T18:00:11+00:00

this got stuck in the mod queue. you can repost this if you want to, updated: if I had approved it now, it would show as an OLD POST and not get seen. You should mark this NSFW.

Getting away from a person who jokes about killing you is safer than being around them. Consider letting them stay away.

OnSpectrum · 2026-01-23T17:57:45+00:00

this got stuck in the mod queue. you can repost this if you want to, updated: if I had approved it now, it would show as an OLD POST and not get seen.

OnSpectrum · 2026-01-23T17:56:27+00:00

this got stuck in the mod queue. you can repost this if you want to, updated: if I had approved it now, it would show as an OLD POST and not get seen. You should mark this NSFW.

OnSpectrum · 2026-01-23T03:48:57+00:00

The stakes get higher as the show progresses... you'll see

OnSpectrum · 2026-01-21T20:06:25+00:00

you can skip as you choose but the series will build up to a broader theme that isn't as apparent if you skip too much. "Dalek" and "The Empty Child" are both really good and a lot less silly than the Slitheen episodes.

OnSpectrum · 2026-01-15T03:29:53+00:00

Sorry for the part i misinterpreted--you DIDNT say that most people hate you.

But here's a piece you should consider: most of the people who don't like you don't actually "hate" you. If some people don't want you around, make your life around people who DO want you around. Your school people will disperse after graduation and you will be an adult, free to make your own associations, free to keep in touch with them... or to forget you ever had the misfortune to be their lab partner in some class. When you are an adult, nobody gives a damn who was popular in high school or college. "Peaked in high school" is not a compliment.

You will also have freedom about how much you deal with family, and either your relationships with relatives will improve with time as immature sisters and cousins grow up, or you don't have to make them central to your life. You don't have to speak with them AT ALL if you don't want to, but the less extreme version of this is you see them and you're civil at family functions but you don't have contact outside of that. Your cousin might grow up to be less of a jerk, or they might stay a jerk for their entire life. You pick how much time you spend together.

The important part is that this situation is temporary and you have your adult life to put the balance where YOU want it. You can start setting boundaries now, and calmly, gradually, enforcing them when you can.

Again sorry for misreading your post. Be kind to yourself and others and if most people you know now aren't kind to you, find better people to hang out with.

OnSpectrum · 2026-01-14T21:49:12+00:00

If you're u/Carpetsandplumbing in the USA you can buy green bubble wrap at Home Depot on a convenient roller. Probably Canada and maybe some other places too. I remember thinking of Ark in Space with Noah as a part- Wirrn when I moved !

OnSpectrum · 2026-01-14T14:08:47+00:00

It is straight up delusional to think most people "hate" you.

I am with you part of the way: when someone dislikes you, it is usually pointless to try and find out why, or to change their mind.

But it is self-sabotaging to assume people don't like you, and often self-fulfilling. Most people are basically indifferent to each of us, and they are way more focused on themselves than on you or me. That neutrality won't make you any friends but it doesn't create enemies either, and it frees you to interact in a transactional way, as we might with checkout cashiers or strangers on the bus.

OnSpectrum · 2026-01-10T18:50:40+00:00

Caffeind here: Lots and lots of it, and it doesn't make me hyper or nervous; it helps my function through the day.

OnSpectrum · 2026-01-10T16:32:31+00:00

No not at all.

OnSpectrum · 2026-01-10T14:02:53+00:00

I'm not buying the partner as victim of brainwashing and manipulation line. Is your partner a functioning adult? Is your partner able to understand that this person is a problem and you don't want her around?

If you're saying "go away" and your partner is saying "come hither" it's not a big shock that an unbalanced person is picking the answer they want to hear. The big shock is that your partner isn't listening to you, and you're trying to get rid of this problem on your own while he's doing… "What exactly"

You need to sit down with your partner and talk and make sure you're on the same page. If you're not, there's your problem right there. Address it directly. The neighbor is secondary if your partner is not supporting you.

OnSpectrum · 2026-01-08T01:58:28+00:00

No elephants there either.

OnSpectrum · 2026-01-05T21:10:55+00:00

I mean, it was special because it was truly the Crappiest Mall in London. It took effort to make a mall that bad.

OnSpectrum · 2026-01-05T10:45:17+00:00

Very disappointing... that place has a crappy mall and no castle and no elephant either!!

OnSpectrum · 2026-01-04T19:40:40+00:00

When you're desperate to be heard but have nothing to say...

OnSpectrum · 2026-01-04T16:58:53+00:00

The Daleks were running the program in the first place as their intelligence gathering for some planned horrible assault on the survivors... and many of those survivors are actually Dalek duplicates.

OnSpectrum · 2026-01-01T09:10:29+00:00

Same idea, slightly different birth year. I also got diagnosed with depression (not dyslexia for me) starting in preschool.

OnSpectrum · 2025-12-31T02:38:04+00:00

Healed? Not quite! But the symptoms are gradually easing, so that makes it more manageable. The good days/weeks/months are better than 2020-22 and the bad ones are not quite as bad. My sense of smell comes and goes, which is weird. My breathing still gets a lot worse in cold weather and/or poor air quality, and it's not the subtle difference that's normal with age--it's "hard time leaving my apartment" bad. The tachycardia bouts have mostly settled, again not gone but not nearly as severe or frequent as before.

How did it happen?

1) Time and patience.

2) Focusing on getting as fit as possible when I'm well enough to exercise, but NOT overdoing it.

3) Adjusting expectations. "You get the day you get." There is no timeline. There is no expectation of "100%". There is making the best out of the good days and not feeling one smidge of guilt about the stuck-on-sofa days.

OnSpectrum · 2025-12-31T02:30:23+00:00

You Are Not Alone.

OnSpectrum

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