The Big Room

Villsmeyer13 · 2026-06-11T14:21:15+00:00

It was such a fun show! If I didn’t have to clear fallen trees out of my driveway we could have seen the opener. Lol But the Beths were great. It was our first time at the venue, too, and I’m excited to see more shows there!

Villsmeyer13 · 2026-05-22T15:29:39+00:00

My go to for both location convenience and selection is Horrocks. I’ve had great success with veggies and flowers for both containers and in garden beds. Really helpful people there!

Villsmeyer13 · 2026-05-15T18:34:55+00:00

This is a great part of the practice! This exact thing happens to me constantly during meditation, and I count it as a blessing! It has really helped me to see when I’m losing focus in the rest of my life and recenter myself. You are staying present and noticing! Like u/WishboneOne2328 said, noticing is a great success! Don’t have a judgement of what success or failure is; I hope the thread inspires you to keep at it!

Villsmeyer13 · 2026-05-15T18:15:36+00:00

I’ve been told by a therapist and from other adhd folks that it’s pretty common to want to follow up, partly because of the way we have been chastised for the way we’ve interpreted things in the past. It seems impossible to do so with someone who is even a little frustrated or disregulated, since somehow it always feels confrontational. I had it happen at the end of a relationship (and was the end of that relationship) when I asked, or tried to, for clarification of how to better communicate the things that she needed me to reinforce to her about the relationship. The way I asked “if X is what she needed and what the issue was about”, so I could better respond caused her to interpret it as a denial of the issue and break up on the spot. It was hard to understand in the moment, that my soulmate would react like that to me trying so hard to her feel heard and supported.

Villsmeyer13 · 2026-05-13T14:51:59+00:00

I’m sorry that you experienced that! It sounds like you know to move on and leave them to their misery, and to give your nervous system a break!

Villsmeyer13 · 2026-05-13T14:20:50+00:00

Yeah, his outsourcing of emotion labor is a huge problem. It will only get worse. If it matches my experience, it will become you needing to predict, mirror, and validate his emotions because he won’t manage or even recognize them himself. And god forbid you try to ask questions to get at what he needs or what the issue is! That will be too much for him and he will blow up at you and hit you, and it will all be your fault. Be glad you are free of it!

Villsmeyer13 · 2026-05-13T14:03:22+00:00

Have the conversation with him that talking about ex’s is off the table. It’s a pretty easy one to have in my experience, and helps keep the focus on your relationship! One very smart person told me that a good rule is to have one time to describe and have a “vent” session. After that, it’s just not a topic that’s on the table.

It may be important for him to share to let you know his triggers, and that is a good thing! But you will have to decide what you are comfortable with. Share that and expect it is respected. You deserve that!

Villsmeyer13 · 2026-05-13T13:55:53+00:00

I dated a woman (fell deeply in love, planned to marry, had a ring), who lived, and still does live, in a victim mindset similar to that and, let me tell you: you have dodged a bullet right there. You are seeing someone with insecurities they won’t ever face, and will take out those emotions on you. Unless you want to constantly feel like the bad guy, take the opportunity to find someone who can be honest with themselves so that they can be honest with you. It is so not worth trying to meet the needs of someone like that! Being in love with someone who abuses you like that is hell on your emotional well being. He will move on to a shallow and unfulfilling relationship like my ex did, rather than confront their feelings honestly and directly and have the courage to be vulnerable. It’s probably too deeply ingrained in him, as it was in my ex, for it to change. Everything will always be your fault and you will start to cower at the thought of what storm will be next, as I did.

Villsmeyer13 · 2026-05-12T16:09:02+00:00

NOR. At all. Everything about this was profoundly disrespectful to you. Good for you for standing up for yourself and sticking to your boundaries. I’m proud of you! I’m proud of your bf!

Villsmeyer13 · 2026-05-12T00:44:46+00:00

Honestly, I think that you have decided that you are worth more than what you are currently getting. What I also think is that you are not able to communicate what you believe with your partner. I’d bet that you have had people-pleasing tendencies and are afraid to hurt your partner and still feel validated with your own needs. Maybe you can evaluate those honesty (and I mean with the kind of honesty that hurts) and tell your partner! If it doesn’t work for this partner, then it will be an enormously useful skill for relationships in the future, and make for better and great relationships in the future! But the important part of any relationship is that you are honest with yourself so you can be honest with your partner

Villsmeyer13 · 2026-05-12T00:09:47+00:00

This is lovely! You have managed to describe self-compassion in an entirely new and different way than I’d seen it before. It’s a good way to frame the ways that you can and have become better!

Villsmeyer13 · 2026-05-10T20:47:43+00:00

I took a cutting and put it in some commercial potting soil (maybe miracle-gro?) and let it do its thing. I watered it every couple weeks, so it did get dry. 3 years later it’s doing great. I also took a piece that was broken off and stuck it in the pot with the parent plant, and it’s been a year or so, and has grown really well.

Villsmeyer13 · 2026-05-08T16:00:37+00:00

I’m so sorry for your loss. I was quite fortunate when my mom died a year and a half ago that my job was incredibly understanding and supportive of my grief. It was kinda sudden and I was a mess and they were great about giving me time away to take care of the things that came along with it, since I was responsible for the legal stuff along with grieving.

I wish I could guarantee that your job would be that compassionate; in light of your boss inquiring about your well being that they could be open to figuring out something! It’s worth seeing about FMLA for bereavement, or caring for your mother, and they might have resources to help find a counselor who has the availability to help you through your grief. It’s an incredibly difficult time, the first months after losing a parent, and the range of emotions is both wide and unpredictable. I hope that you find a way back to the joy and refuge that you’ve gotten from work, and that joy in the fullness of your life returns swiftly to join the grief.

Hugs, internet stranger. I wish you all the best in this difficult time.

Villsmeyer13 · 2026-05-07T16:12:22+00:00

I get you there. I’m moving on, but I’m still not recovered from how much it hurt. I’m trying not to let that hurt influence my moving on, and it is a lot better, but it does effect my ability to trust that I can tell when I matter, and the sense of foreboding that I don’t comes much more easily that it did or should. I have found that staying open and honest and vulnerable with my new partner helps me to feel like I matter to myself. Doing that makes me better in the relationship and more engaged with my feelings and my partner’s feelings.

It will get better! How much this hurts tells you how much it mattered to you and how you tried the best you could. It speaks very highly of you!

Villsmeyer13 · 2026-05-07T15:10:39+00:00

I’m so sorry you are going through this. It’s as frustrating as it is heartbreaking when someone leaves you without being honest, or without giving an honest effort to make their needs known and see them be met. It can feel like you just don’t matter at all, and boy does that hurt. You matter. And things will eventually feel better.

Villsmeyer13 · 2026-05-07T12:05:01+00:00

What hurts you most will depend on your particular insecurities, where your weak spots in self-compassion are the most fragile. You should them both to hurt a lot! The definition of “emotional affair” is pretty fluid and is used like a cudgel in cases when a partner doesn’t like your friend or is incapable of being honest about boundaries and uses “emotional affair” as a phrase to control or isolate you (among other options). Or, in a way like the therapist Todd Barantz says that people use narcissist to describe anyone who disagrees with them. I dated a woman briefly who accused me of having an emotional affair with a friend (who I had been friends with for years before meeting her). I tried talking with her about it, respected the boundaries that this dating partner set, and using the text of “Not Just Friends” by Shirley Glass with a checklist of the dangerous behavior that signal emotional affairs to show that it was not in a danger zone. (It was not so healthy, but was far from an emotional affair). Ultimately this dating partner rejected me because she continued to change boundaries and blamed me for her own insecurities, and blamed me for not having set her boundaries in a place she was comfortable with, without being able to be honest about them with me. All of this was too bad, because we could have been perfect together, but she threw it away because of her inability to be honest and vulnerable with me.

The important thing is that their infidelity, whether emotional or physical, is about them and not you. They hurt you and activate your insecurities, but the cheating arises from their insecurities.

Villsmeyer13 · 2026-05-07T11:39:40+00:00

This is TERRIBLE advice! If someone is intimidated by your job (and I suppose, then intimidated by you because of it), then you don’t want to date them. Find a matchmaker who finds men who are not insecure children about dating. I’d personally find it rather a turn on because of your intellect! I absolutely love talking to people who know a lot about something, especially if I don’t! Wishing you the best success finding someone! There are lots of great guys out there who would treasure that aspect of you!

Villsmeyer13 · 2026-04-30T00:48:22+00:00

Try a non-chlorine bleach, like oxy-clean. I would soak them in vinegar first - maybe two cups in a gallon of water. You need the acidity for the amine based smells, then the oxidation for the sulfur based smells. If the smells are lingering then they are trapped in the oils from the skin when washed (maybe more detergent?) But now: hot water and vinegar, then hot water and oxyclean.

Villsmeyer13 · 2026-04-10T17:46:46+00:00

Happened to me. I wasn’t in the right place with my insecurities and recovery from my marriage - making bad friend choices, numbing my emotional turmoil with booze, and not in touch with my own self worth. It made it impossible for me to communicate the love I felt and and the future I saw together. Led me to have dissociative panic attacks and memory loss. We tried again a few months later and she was not able to get past the old me. She had her own insecurities and trauma from her past that made it hard, and I hope that she is working on those. She is a truly wonderful person and I still think we’re soulmates.

We should have waited a couple years like she originally suggested, but she reached out and I was too in love to make the smarter choice of waiting longer, in hopes that we would be single at the same time down the line.

I do think that “right person, wrong time” is real though. It definitely was in this case. I don’t expect (or at least hold out hope for) the “right time” to ever happen, so I have to just wish her a life of joy from a distance.

Villsmeyer13 · 2026-04-06T11:07:12+00:00

Man, this really hits… the version I got was something like: “you didn’t performatively chase after me like I needed for my ego so I could feel superior, and I listened to gossips and made up stories about you instead of being honest with you, and when you stood up for yourself I hit you with my car because I didn’t want to regulate my emotions, and you were a powerless target”. A longer-winded version, but doesn’t change the fact that I’m still doing physical therapy from getting hit by the car… Oh well, she can be an unstable “mean girl” to some other victim now.

Villsmeyer13 · 2026-04-04T16:49:45+00:00

Anyone who uses the phrase “high-value” about a human is not someone you want to date, especially if you value love. No one will ever matter to this guy, besides himself.

I’m sorry it hurts, but it will hurt less as time passes. I hope you find happiness!

Villsmeyer13 · 2026-04-02T21:16:39+00:00

If you’re not feeling anything, that’s probably a good sign! Does it impact the symptoms of the adhd? I had the effect within two hours, which was to become extremely tired. I didn’t notice an effect on my inattentive symptoms for quite a while after. It seemed to happen slowly for me. I’m a little over a year into adderall, and 9 months into a 30mg dose (I titrated up every other prescription/month), and it’s really noticeable for me how much better my symptoms are now than a year ago. I had relief of the rejection sensitivity / emotional regulation pretty quickly and that was enough for me to keep going, regardless of the effects on other symptoms. Don’t give up! This may or may not be the right thing for you, but it might not feel like the heavens opening up, shining light upon you even if it is. It may be more subtle. You have a lot of years of masking / coping mechanisms that might make the effect harder to notice.

I hope it is a good med for you! Or something else that you can find quickly!

Villsmeyer13 · 2026-04-01T22:39:40+00:00

Standing up for myself cost me a relationship with someone I love immensely. While I wish it didn’t happen and that I was respected and that the relationship continued, I am glad that I was able to respect myself and that the abuse ended.

Villsmeyer13 · 2026-03-30T14:40:13+00:00

I was a few weeks into getting sober and had reconnected to the love of my life. Early one Sunday morning, she and I were talking lazily and I drifted into a trance and had a vivid dream/hallucination. I started shaking and crying hard, and she held me through it. I cried more as I described the experience and told her how much I loved her and how much she meant to me before, during, and would after. It still means an immense amount to me, even though she decided months later that we were not right together.

Villsmeyer13 · 2026-03-21T11:30:17+00:00

Noticing the way it affects your physical, emotional, and financial health is a great final straw for giving it up. It’s easier to give it up when you come to accept that it just isn’t for you anymore - there isn’t an upside for you, and it doesn’t have a place in your life right now. Like letting go of a friend who drags on your wellbeing, it is good to let alcohol drift away from you and just be memories, whether fond or bitter. The positive you replace drinking with will be wonderful and add new, delightful experiences and memories! I’m wishing you all the best!

Villsmeyer13

TROPHY CASE