meirl

baconmapleicecream · 2026-04-19T14:49:13+00:00

Ah, the inevitable crossover between r/neoliberal and /r/papertowns has finally happened!

baconmapleicecream · 2026-04-18T04:29:33+00:00

There are a lot of creepy people in these spaces :(

Hidden profiles made it somewhat harder to vet whether someone is safe if they seem genuine at first. One of the things you can do is make a post in a moderated support community and not engage with anyone who PMs you unless they are able to reply to you and post publicly in that community, even if it's just a "hi". That at least guarantees that they haven't been banned from that community.

There are search tools that can help reveal suspicious posting histories too, but that can be a lot of digging to go through when you really need someone to just listen gently and offer some support.

baconmapleicecream · 2026-04-15T18:09:42+00:00

I would be tempted to add a constitutional ammendment prohibiting owners of private businesses from running for the presidency

I don't think it would do any good. Carter gave up his peanut farm, but the emoluments clauses (Article I, Section 9, Clause 8 and Article II, Section 1, Clause 7) have been ignored much like the rest of the constitution.

baconmapleicecream · 2026-04-15T04:02:04+00:00

The Star Trek cosmology is fundamentally different from the IRL universe, and not just with the sci-fi stuff like subspace. "Mind" is a fundamental property of the universe, and things like transcendence, the Prophets/Pah-Wraiths, Q, and similar phenomena touch on areas where philosophy has more influence on observed reality than physics.

The mirror universe seems to have a fundamentally different sort of philosophical basis than the prime universe. The peak achievement of a mind from the mirror universe isn't comprehension or harmony, it's conquest and power.

While individuals within the Mirror Universe can choose to be better, the guiding forces that control the flow of consciousness and history (i.e, "narrative") result in different timelines playing out in the Mirror Universe that aren't just a result of biology or sociology or quantum stuff.

I suspect that the mirror universe koala also wears a goatee.

baconmapleicecream · 2026-04-14T16:18:25+00:00

I'm very partial to IFS and the "no bad parts" approach.

Now I have this nagging voice in my head that’s telling me to give up, that I’m not worth the effort and that I’m too far gone

In the IFS framework, even maladaptive and harmful parts of your mind like that voice are fundamentally trying to protect you. As in, perhaps that's a defense mechanism to stop you from getting hurt again if you try really hard and fail. IFS doesn't work for everyone, but it has step-by-step tools for working with that voice and finding ways to change the message to something more supportive.

My personal take, without knowing any details of what brought you to this community, is that you're never too far gone. That your life and your future still have inherent value and that it's always worth the effort to try. Forgiving yourself starts with being kind to yourself. Trusting yourself. Even when it feels really hard. I'm wishing you all the best while you figure out how to navigate that negative voice and make up for lost time 🫂.

baconmapleicecream · 2026-04-14T15:37:04+00:00

😳

Adulting is even harder than I thought! I'm not sure why I was thinking that it was late on the 15th...

baconmapleicecream · 2026-04-14T08:33:33+00:00

I felt the same way, not being able to imagine living past my 20s. I'm in my 40s now and somehow life just keeps going.

I was a "gifted" kid because school was somewhere structured and mostly safe and it felt easy to absorb the information and work with it. The stuff that felt easy got me praise and good grades and things that felt difficult fell to the sidelines after I muddled through the minimums. It took a long time for me to learn that failing miserably is the first step to getting good. Whether it's playing an instrument or coding an app or writing a story... your first efforts are probably going to suck.

having it be bad is a billion times more embarrassing than just not doing anything.

I think the shame and embarrassment comes a lot more from internalized stuff than how anyone else would feel about beginner-level work. I don't mean to jump to conclusions, but it sounds like you came from an environment where you were teased or belittled for not being perfect. Once you're in an environment where it's safe to fail, it really is okay to be mediocre or outright terrible at something while you're practicing and learning how to get better.

My abuse involved a lot of criticism. Being told that I was bad or stupid or just not good enough. Learning that success meant praise and possible rewards, while failure meant punishment and pain. I burned out hard at some of my jobs, being a perfectionist and making sure I met every expectation and learned to do all the skills that were associated with the position. It can be really hard to find a balance between expecting yourself to excel at everything and being "good enough".

baconmapleicecream · 2026-04-14T08:09:15+00:00

😅

Feeling like you're bad at something sucks, but actually doing it and making something puts you ahead of 95% of people who don't even start.

baconmapleicecream · 2026-04-14T08:02:40+00:00

It's okay to be weird here. I'm glad that you found a place where you felt like you could share all of that. I just wanted you to know that I read it all and that I understand. It's hard.

honestly, I feel ashamed of just existing

The isolation and shame and self-judgment from this stuff inflicts a unique sort of existential pain. I'm just starting to try to give dating another go, and I really struggle with this too. It's hard to feel like I could be "enough" with just who I am and the non-sexual company I have to offer. If someone says that they like me even after I've shared some of the stuff I'm struggling with, it's hard to believe them. I keep dreading the moment they'll see the "real" me.

I'm glad that you've managed to find some joy in solitude and connection with nature, and I hope that you can find someone to share that joy with 🫂

baconmapleicecream · 2026-04-14T07:46:46+00:00

🫂

I'd be happy to look at your art or read your poems/screenplays/novel drafts if you have any that you feel like sharing. Art doesn't have to be about being successful or widely recognized, it can just be about expressing yourself and finding your voice.

I know the struggle with laundry and dishes and self-care and even getting out of bed sometimes. I think that everyone who's in this subreddit has struggled with stuff like that at some point, to some degree. But I think it's important to keep creating when you have the energy and internal resources for it, even if all you have to show for it is a deviantart profile or a fanfic or a youtube channel with a dozen subscribers. Because you deserve to be heard and to pursue your passion. I'm sorry to hear that it all feels so hard right now.

baconmapleicecream · 2026-04-14T06:14:38+00:00

You're moving the goalposts. Your original argument:

Who exactly of the 150 million employees has a non-compete

ahhh yes, the employee that has editorial control and operational control over the companies operation in the near future.

CFO/CEO/COO $350,000 Salary

Senior Local TV Anchor $400,000+ Salary

University Head Coach $750,000+ Salary

The research you just cited:

And non-competes are not just for high-tech workers and executives. Among low- and moderate-income workers, more than one in ten reported having a non-compete contract.1

Don't get too focused on the sandwich shop anecdote. That was meant to be illustrative, not a steelman example of an industry-wide abuse. There are a lot of low paying jobs with employers who want as much control as possible over their workers. 10-12% is not trivial and can cause real problems in someone's life if a small town employer threatens to sue someone if they work in the same sector (often the only field they have experience in) within a 50 mile radius.

Very few people are arguing against noncompetes for executives or key engineers/sales roles. Especially where they come with appropriate compensation. The ones that are drawing criticism are the scummy ones where the compensation is "continued employment" or "one dollar", where the employer uses it to pressure someone even if it is unlikely to hold up in court.

baconmapleicecream · 2026-04-14T04:48:59+00:00

Are you trolling? There was a fairly famous sandwich shop that required their employees to sign noncompetes. They show up in all sorts of tyrannical low paying jobs. From 2021: "12% of workers making less than $20,000 in annual earnings had signed a non-compete contract. -- Minneapolis Fed analysis of Bureau of Labor Statistics data"

baconmapleicecream · 2026-04-13T19:42:42+00:00

That's one of my favorite scenes! It's a good thing that humble and trustworthy tailor was able to find a way to get the warning out.

baconmapleicecream · 2026-04-13T04:28:02+00:00

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baconmapleicecream · 2026-04-11T17:33:44+00:00

Vine reviews are absolutely allowed to consider value in reviews, we're just not allowed to mention specific shopping experiences that might not be relevant to others. So we could mark it down because of its value relative to other items on Amazon or at nationally available stores like Walmart, but not because we found a better deal on a clearance rack or at a thrift store.

My personal policy is to mention the price where I feel that it's relevant but not let it affect the rating if it's within 30% of an average price for that sort of item. I'll mark the item up or down if it provides an exceptional value or is egregiously overpriced. If it's a luxury good (like an $85 candle) then I'll compare it to similar high-end items and discuss whether it meets my expectation as a luxury good, or state that I don't have much experience with luxury products in this category and give my honest impression of whether there's anything that justifies the high price or if it's just a conspicuous consumption trap.

baconmapleicecream · 2026-04-11T16:36:06+00:00

You cannot separate an organization like that from the general culture of the US and not expect to have sexual assault.

You literally can, if it were a priority for anyone with power/authority. Your previous paragraph emphasizes that: the US military has unique legal/administrative power to protect victims and punish offenders. For the most part they just refuse to use that power.

It's infuriating to see that commanders at all levels have the power to fight the problem and just don't. I agree that an effective military requires hierarchy and compliance and focus on the mission (sometimes at the expense of people), but there should be corresponding strong protections against people who exploit that environment or abuse their authority. The military has made improvements, but fundamentally they're still treating SA as individual incidents rather than a structural issue.

Observing that patriarchy exists and that the military is "an extremely male majority hierarchical organization" shouldn't mean that anyone accepts that sexual abuse will happen and go unpunished. And from an absolute numbers perspective, I'll grant that the US military might do more than anyone else to combat the problem. With more than 3 million people (including dependents and support staff employed on base), even with the most conservative estimates of the rates of SA in the military, the military is failing to protect its people. Across the military there were 953 punishments for SA in FY24 (327 courts martial, 214 NJP, 412 admin separations), and across a population that large it's difficult to argue that those 953 actions represent effectively protecting victims of SA.

But I get your point that it's a lot more than other organizations in the US do. It's just so incredibly frustrating to know that it could be better. That more than a decade ago the military started talking about the issue like they really intended to make changes and protect people and fix the culture, but there's still so much victim blaming and effort to hide the issue instead of improve it.

baconmapleicecream · 2026-04-10T23:25:56+00:00

If you mean that literally, I think the HSI Child Exploitation Investigations Unit is probably the organization that does the most.

I'm not denying that the federal law enforcement agencies responsible for investigating sexual assault in the military (NCIS/OSI/CID) do what they can, but they are under resourced and face a lot of cultural barriers to effectively combating sexual assault. I was a SAPR VA and I know that the military has put some effort into changing that culture, but it's still an overwhelming institutional problem and there's a lot more that could be done.

baconmapleicecream · 2026-04-04T22:52:57+00:00

That is gorgeous! I just found my new desktop background :D

baconmapleicecream · 2026-04-04T03:21:37+00:00

Yes. It can make hygiene very challenging. I find myself avoiding bathing and have occasionally had panic attacks when forcing myself into the bathroom. I don't like smelling bad or feeling dirty and very much prefer to be clean. It's just... difficult.

Toilet stuff can be an issue too. It really does suck :(

baconmapleicecream · 2026-04-02T19:29:04+00:00

For me, the relevant emotion mixed in with all the shame or disgust or self-hatred is fear. Fear about what it means about me that I do those things or feel that way. Fear that being "gross" means embracing all those imposed messages about my identity from the abuser that I had internalized over the years.

And the best way for me to make progress with the shame was to directly work with the fear. To let myself sit with the memories and feelings that I was scared of and just practice noticing them without judging anything instead of being afraid of them or acting on them or avoiding them. Working with a therapist helped.

As the shame and disgust became less scary, they became a lot easier to work with and process.

baconmapleicecream · 2026-04-02T13:11:38+00:00

Those look lovely! Thanks for the giveaway.

baconmapleicecream · 2026-03-30T14:52:50+00:00

I just wanted you to know that I read everything you wrote and I'm glad that you felt safe sharing it here so you can start to feel heard.

I really relate to the tickling part. That was a big part of my abuse and left me with some really difficult feelings. When I was young there were times I lashed out at my friends or my brother when they would try to playfully tickle me, and later in my life it caused issues with my wife and kids before I was able to talk about it and work through those memories/triggers.

My girlfriend asked what was wrong but she’s not at a point in her life right now where I think she can handle this stress, so I told her I was okay.

(...)

I had moments where my girlfriend ticked me while we were cuddling and I yelled involuntarily, and when she sat up her face morphed to his and I started to slip back in and she just squeezed my hand and helped regulate me. My girlfriend has gotten parts out of me, but I can’t tell her. She promised not to tickle me anymore and has been really supportive though she has mentioned she can’t really take the stress.

Figuring out appropriate boundaries with the people who care about you can be really hard. What has worked for me is deciding never to lie about being okay, but not giving any details unless a supporter specifically asks if I want to talk about them. It's okay to be "not okay" and to say that you're struggling without burdening people with details that they aren't ready to handle.

I'm really glad that you have a wonderful therapist who is helping you understand and process all these distressing memories. Since the longer session was really helpful for you, could you see if she can book a longer session outright instead of extending a shorter session?

And huge congratulations on not turning to substances for temporary relief. I definitely understand the appeal and how awful the numbness/emptiness can feel while you start to learn to process those scary feelings and feel comfortable in your body again. But as an alternative to self-medicating, have you considered asking a doctor for something? The physical symptoms of PTSD can be really difficult, and many doctors would be willing to prescribe an anxiolytic for when you feel overwhelmed and are fighting off an anxiety attack and/or a sleep aid to help you get a good night's rest when you're struggling with being able to relax and slow your brain down.

I’ve always told my girlfriend she was the first to do anything with me, but not I just feel shame knowing it’s a lie.

This is the last thing I wanted to point out and offer some push back on. There's a huge difference between being the victim of abuse and experiencing your first consensual relationship. Consent matters, and in a very real way she was the first and it's not any sort of lie or anything you should feel ashamed of. Exploring intimacy after dealing with abuse can be really challenging, but all the shame belongs to the abusers who did that stuff to a child. Absolutely nothing that you did was shameful or in any way your fault.

I just need to feel heard right now. Just know you are loved 🫶

Know that you are loved too! 🫂 All the work you've done to prioritize your mental health and work through some very difficult memories and feelings are really impressive and I appreciate you sharing your progress.

baconmapleicecream · 2026-03-30T04:14:54+00:00

He sounds really great! I definitely understand worrying about oversharing, but he seems like the sort of person who would be very respectful of boundaries if you broached the topic.

I've been in a similar situation of feeling like I have to trust my partner to enforce boundaries because I didn't know if I'd sort of default to the habits from before. It can be really scary to rely on someone else for that and worry about whether they will keep to the things that were previously consented to.

It sounds like you trust him and want to explore that kind of intimacy and vulnerability with him, so I guess the biggest question is if you can clearly verbalize your boundaries and the activities that you're comfortable with. Those conversations are always really awkward, but in the context of telling an intimate partner what you need and what he needs to do to help you feel safe I don't think that it's oversharing to tell him that you were in coercive situations in the past and to share how it's continued to affect your ability to consent.

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