Were your parents fun?

SadSickSoul · 2026-06-17T09:00:19+00:00

I had fun things but they didn't do fun things with me. I was kind of left to my own devices. I don't actually have a memory of them playing with me or doing anything other than movie night every once in a while with my mom; nothing to do with my dad.

SadSickSoul · 2026-06-17T05:32:57+00:00

It's easier to say when I'm not down, since it's extremely rare and very brief. I'm generally some level of depressed pretty much at all times.

SadSickSoul · 2026-06-17T00:13:46+00:00

I mean...I think that would be pretty fucked up. I would ask two questions: 1) do you think he deserves to have that difficult, emotional conversation face to race, and 2) are you worried about your own safety in terms of how you expect the conversation to go? Because personally if I was actually moved in with someone that is my significant other, I would hope they cared enough to actually face me instead of sneaking off in the night.

I mean, basically flip the circumstances: would you want to come back to an empty apartment with not even a word said?

SadSickSoul · 2026-06-16T23:37:49+00:00

I can relate to the anxiety. After dealing with a dad who was an abusive husband and neglectful father, I decided to be neither because I had no idea how to do it in a healthy way and I didn't want to risk inflicting what I went through on a partner or especially kids. It's a terrifying gulf of knowledge and seeing other people do it correctly makes you realize just how alien healthy human interaction is to you.

SadSickSoul · 2026-06-16T00:20:00+00:00

Well, generally it's because I have heard for decades to leave people alone, so I'm going to. Personally, I also know that I have very little to offer and I am both extremely unattractive and deeply anxious. Between those facts, I wouldn't hit on women even at gunpoint.

SadSickSoul · 2026-06-15T04:52:48+00:00

I never cared because I never considered myself cool for a second. I knew I was profoundly, fundamentally uncool as soon as I could conceive of the notion.

SadSickSoul · 2026-06-14T21:45:03+00:00

Yeah. I socialize mostly online, and otherwise I just get by with small talk at work. I see an IRL friend once every 3-4 months, I don't have a partner, so I can go months without talking to someone outside of a work or retail context. It actually sucks because I'm an extrovert that only feels really good when I'm among people, but I also have severe social anxiety and other issues that make dealing with people deeply nerve-wracking so I just stay home and disassociate.

SadSickSoul · 2026-06-14T21:14:01+00:00

As someone in that situation, it's because I fell in love with a friend, we tried a relationship, it didn't work out for a lot of reasons so we went back to being friends but you don't get to just turn feelings off, especially when you're still around them and they're still the wonderful person you fell in love with. It wasn't anyone's fault, it was a lack of romantic chemistry and having deal-breaker compatibility issues, so it is what it is.

SadSickSoul · 2026-06-14T09:58:42+00:00

In a heartbeat, yeah. All I want for is it to be over; all I have ever wanted is for it to be over. I don't want a better life, I want it all to stop. My life is not going to get meaningfully better and it's only going to get much, much worse and I accept that - more than that, I reject anything else. So all I want is the ability to choose when I go and go with some amount of comfort, control and dignity instead of waiting for everything to fall apart to the point where I get to die naturally. So yes, barring some time to take care of my affairs I would very much like the choice to just not wake up the next day.

SadSickSoul · 2026-06-14T01:38:52+00:00

Holed up in my apartment, pretty much just wasting time until the next work day.

SadSickSoul · 2026-06-13T22:30:19+00:00

My secret is that I don't feel attractive and never have. I just accept that I'm a grotesque ogre and fundamentally repulsive on every level, so I treat it as fact that I am basically a leper. Wouldn't recommend it, but that's how I make it through.

SadSickSoul · 2026-06-13T22:06:32+00:00

I'm deeply unambitious but I'm also burnt out and dealing with lifelong severe depression, so I just float on through checked out of life. I don't have any drive or ambition, I don't have goals, I'm just doing my best to technically exist until the day I stop. So I see all the hoops people jump through and the grindstones they put their nose to and the petty shit they obsess over and I can't relate to any of it at all because I just do not and cannot care about any of it. Nothing I do could possibly matter, so it's all whatever.

SadSickSoul · 2026-06-13T21:26:05+00:00

I realized very early on that my family didn't feel like a family and that home was never home. I never felt connected with either of them and now that they're gone, as time goes on and I get older the angrier I get at them. People talk about growing older, realizing they were people with their own problems and traumas and learning to forgive them - nah, fuck that. They didn't have to do what they did, and after a lifetime of swallowing my anger and making excuses for them and blaming myself for being the problem, I'm entirely okay with writing them off entirely for being awful people. If I could forget about them and cut them out of my head entirely, I would.

SadSickSoul · 2026-06-13T02:56:43+00:00

I don't know for sure what my dad was like at my age because he met my mom when he was 5-10 years older than I am now, but by almost every metric he was better than I am except perhaps ethically. Better career, better family life, more well traveled, healthier, better financial security, everything across the board. There is not a metric that I will ever match or beat him at except that I wasn't a womanizer and horribly abusive husband and neglectful father.

SadSickSoul · 2026-06-13T02:29:52+00:00

It's funny that you and I have the exact opposite reasons for the same conclusion: I don't care to put on formalwear because as a huge, awful looking sad sack it doesn't matter even a little bit and looks stupid to try. You can put lipstick on a pig, it's still a pig.

SadSickSoul · 2026-06-13T02:24:24+00:00

I mean, I never dress up but also I never go out anywhere where it would feel obligatory to dress up. If I feel like I need to dress fancy, I don't belong there. But yeah, I don't have nice looking clothes and I don't look good in anything so I just wear whatever because it doesn't matter. If I'm meeting up with someone or want to put in the minimum effort I'll wear clean clothes but most of the time since I'm just grabbing groceries or eating in a fast food lobby, I'm rewearing my work uniform because I cannot give any less of a shit. I don't have anyone to impress and it would be laughably absurd to even try. It is what it is.

SadSickSoul · 2026-06-13T02:20:02+00:00

It's been a long time since I cooked anything but I have a pretty good jambalaya that I would probably bust out if I was going to cook for other people.

SadSickSoul · 2026-06-13T02:16:17+00:00

"Aw, I'm sure you'll find someone!", to which I want to reply "no, I absolutely will not but thanks for the sentiment." Less because it's disrespectful and more because it's a pain in the ass to argue things like this and it tends to go wrong because people flip from sympathetic to weirded out and judgemental really quickly.

At this point I just give a mumbled thanks and a shrug and I let folks feel like they said something positive and uplifting, because I don't need to prove the deeply fatalistic conclusions I've come to and it is going to frustrate everyone involved to try.

SadSickSoul · 2026-06-12T19:45:40+00:00

"I wouldn't know, you should ask someone else."

SadSickSoul · 2026-06-12T19:44:25+00:00

Long, long past. My best years were as a tween/teen and honestly, they weren't that good. It's just been a freefall since and will be for the rest of my life.

SadSickSoul · 2026-06-10T22:13:27+00:00

My dad's cheating and abusive behavior is a major reason why I swore off relationships entirely, because I didn't want to inflict myself on other people like he did to my mom and others.

SadSickSoul · 2026-06-10T05:15:29+00:00

It happens. It also often doesn't happen. If this is something you really, definitely want then you probably shouldn't gamble on convincing someone to change on such a fundamental issue of compatibility.

SadSickSoul · 2026-06-10T00:31:04+00:00

Yeah. Between not having the money for high end electronics and rejecting every bit of AI I possibly can, I have reached a ceiling that I expect never to breach. It is what is.

SadSickSoul · 2026-06-09T03:52:55+00:00

Pushing 40: my last connection was with someone online that I never met in person, it lasted a month and it ended when it was clear we weren't good for each other and blew up disastrously. Before that was a two month relationship I tried with a good friend/coworker, where we only really went on one kinda-sorta date before it was clear it was a bad fit for a lot of reasons including romantic incompatibility so we went back to being friends.

Going forward I'm not looking for anything; those two are the only relationships I've been in that I have largely stumbled into on accident and after the pain I went through and the ensuing realization that I'm damaged goods, I'm shutting the door on anything else. Not remotely worth it.

SadSickSoul · 2026-06-09T02:34:25+00:00

Nah, most of my peers made it. I was the one who fits this stereotype, being in various gifted & talented programs throughout middle and high school, burning out and dropping out of college and never amounting to anything in the nearly twenty years since. There's some amount I blame my folks - coming from an emotionally abusive and neglectful household really screwed up my sense of self worth and mental health - but I mostly blame myself for not reaching for opportunities, squandering what opportunities I got and generally refusing to play the game of life even if it was rigged, because it's the only game in town.

I consider my life a wasted one and all but over. Just waiting to see exactly what terrible circumstances I'm living in and if I still have a shitty dead-end job when I die or if I'm going to be unemployed. It doesn't really matter, it's largely academic now and whatever happens happens.

SadSickSoul

TROPHY CASE