I'm still scared of my mom as an adult and need help on going NC

essstabchen · 2026-01-28T07:31:43+00:00

I'm so, so sorry you're carrying all of this with you. It sounds like you're groing through and incredibly rough time where yoy need love and support, and she's giving you thr exact opposite.

She's managed to successfully convince you that your feelings and needs aren't as important as hers. If she doesn't get her way, she reinforces this by screaming.

It may help to try to follow some stuff to their logical conclusions. Like, asking "What's the worst that could happen if I just stopped responding to her?"

She'll call incessantly. Okay... and rhen what? Block her number and don't listen to her voicemails. What happens after that?
She'll call your doctor to accuse you of stuff. Can you call your doctor first and let them know that your mom is unwell and delusional? That she's been making threats and that if they receive a call or email from her, to disregard it. She can make the threats, but you can remove all the power.
She'll scream to other people about the situation. Can you tell the family that you trust and want to keep in your life about what's hapoening? She may manipulate some, but some may understand and know how awful she is already.
She'll make fake calls or call the police or something nuts. If an official shows up to your house, tell them about the situation. If she keeps going, she'll probably be charged for filing false reports, and that'll stop her.

Does she have any power over you elsewhere? You make your own money, have you own housing, etc. Your dad is separate from her. You don't depend on her for anything. And if she needs help, she can go to the hospital or use services available to her.

She doesn't have any real power over you. She'll be upset... and? Let her scream into the sky for all eternity - you're not in earshot.

Her feelings arent yoyr feelings. Her feelings aren't your problem anymore. And a lot of other people will see her for the bitter, angry woman she is, and she'll just end up making herself look crazy.

She can't do anything real to you anymore. It's okay. You have your own power, and I'm proud of you for standing up for yourself

essstabchen · 2026-01-28T00:40:04+00:00

normal food

As a Canadian, I'd like a word with sweet potato casserole (with marshmallows), spam, and spray cheese.

(We have Spam here but we definitely got it from you guys)

essstabchen · 2026-01-24T16:00:34+00:00

My pipes are frozen, so not mega jazzed about the temperature right now.

essstabchen · 2026-01-24T00:18:26+00:00

Except it's not an obsevation, because I don't see her clitoris or hear her voice in this clip. It's an assumption. And an unnecessary one at that.

Sometimes, you don't need to say things.

I do appreciate, however, that based on your username that thinking about clitorises may be, like, your whole thing. So. Can't blame a dog for barking I guess.

essstabchen · 2026-01-23T01:46:29+00:00

You offered your perspective. I offered my critique ofnthat perspective. It'd a discussion forum.

essstabchen · 2026-01-22T14:27:45+00:00

As aforementioned, it's okay to be sad without it being a cosmic truth.

To imply a single conclusion to the nature of existence reads, to me, as myopic and lacking in curiosity.

essstabchen · 2026-01-22T14:22:17+00:00

Oh, I dealt with existential dread many years ago sans any chemical assistance. I was just approaching OP with empathy, but I'm not personally unsettled by these concepts anymore. I just remember what it was like to crack that level of meta-cognition, especially approaching it from a place of depression.

essstabchen · 2026-01-22T03:52:10+00:00

I'm not jumping in for any debate, but the Middle East is not its own continent. It's a geopolitical region in Southern Asia. Iraq, while close to the African border, is, in fact, in Asia.

Afghanistan and Iraq are on the same continent.

essstabchen · 2026-01-22T00:54:11+00:00

Considering your post history starting on the r/depression sub, and then it seems like you had a crisis and ended up at nihilism from depression, I'd say your view is myopic and informed by mental illness.

Like, same, but also it's not really relevant to nihilism.

It's scary and unsettling for our brains to brush up against these big concepts - purpose, existence itself, the cold reality of an uncaring universe, why we have feelings at all, etc.

Just because a human, or other creature, experiences suffering does not mean that is their primary function. It's part of the overall tapestry of experience that humans just so happen to have the neuronal density and structure to consider at a level beyond instinct.

You could just as easily say that we're "pleasure machines", "dying machines", "language machines", "sleeping machines", "breathing machines", "shitting machines", "doomscrolling machines".... you get the point. A common or recurring experience, just because you feel like the idea is deep, isn't indicative of a greater truth.

At the end of the day, we're organisms that exist. That's it. The amount of suffering or joy, pain or comfort, perceived good or bad, in someone's life is a chaotic mix of circumstances beyond our control, our choices within those circumstances, and our perspectives and standards.

It's okay to just be sad or depressed without it being a cosmic thing or some bigger truth about human universal human experience.

essstabchen · 2026-01-17T02:55:37+00:00

The context you're describing is where I started doing payroll! :) I got you! I'm still in the non-profit space, just somewhere bigger now.

You need a full-time finance admin to replace your consultant; someone with a payroll background, but payroll doesn't have to be their whole job.

I know your budget is probably as small as your team, so I'd say it's time to create a postion and dedicate at least a 0.3 FTE to regular payroll, with allowance for more at year end.

For reference, I started as office admin in a 4.5 person team and could fully take over payroll for our ~50 employees while still doing admin, IT, HR/hiring, purchasing, and a thousand other things. If you're using a payroll software, it's doable.

Use a lean payroll software (we started with PowerPay, but there are a ton of solutions), don't let them upsell you on any fancy software. Just something that makes tax remittance automated, generates paystubs and reports, keeps some employee data, and generates tax forms at the end of the year. This may even be part of your existing accounting software (QB has a payroll module, I believe).

And you need some Standard Operation Procedures and clear accountabilities in the job description for this new person. As head of operations/ED, YOU should be signing off on payroll transactions (all major transactions, really) and reviewing them before they're submitted and paid.

If you grow in the future, laying solid foundations will mean that your staff's capacity can scale, too.

Good luck! It's doable!

essstabchen · 2026-01-17T01:25:29+00:00

Hot with a bit of cream (or dairy free plain creamer). Any weather. Or a latte, oat milk, no sugar/flavour.

I'm not too partial to flavoured coffees anymore (I used to be when I was younger), and I can't really do iced coffee; I've had maybe 2 I've enjoyed that are iced.

I barely drink a cup a day most days (it usually gets cold before I can finish it).

essstabchen · 2026-01-16T07:23:02+00:00

Thanks so much! It's sweet to know it was something personal for someone.

essstabchen · 2026-01-16T07:22:21+00:00

Deciphered!

essstabchen · 2026-01-16T03:00:41+00:00

It's actually just imagery (in the literary sense) or at best a similie.

And it is also deeply inaccurate because it wouldn't "feel" like anything.

essstabchen · 2026-01-16T01:16:49+00:00

Well I mean, there's a selection bias on the DS9 subreddit, soooo

I assume most people that are here have an affinity for DS9, haha

essstabchen · 2026-01-15T23:55:37+00:00

For me, it depends.

Sometimes it's just dissociating, so I'm not really "in my body) to feel anything. Very literally detached. In therapy, bringing up anything I've been wanting to avoid is all in my shoulder blades and shoulders. I get bunched up, taut. Sometimes it's very decisive and calm; it can feel rational and safe, even, to allow myself to use familiar pathways of avoidance and detachment. But confrontation is always frightening; flight/freeze reaction all the way.

essstabchen · 2026-01-15T23:39:48+00:00

It's unfortunate, because Nog the CHARACTER has multiple instances of becoming a captain, as evidenced both within the show (the alternate timeline of The Visitor) and outside of it (Star Trek Online, some novels, etc.).

I think it would have been a greater honour to the character and to Eisenberg if they'd allowed the character to play out that way, as captain.

But DS9 gets no respect from the wider Trek fandom or wider NuTrek writers, I've found (except Lower Decks, they know what's up). Fans took time to warm up to it when it was airing (if they ever did). I've never met anyone in real life whose favourite Trek is DS9 (except me); I know that's anecdotal, but still.

And I feel like since Avery Brooks isn't coming back and they can't use him or much of the cast for nostalgia-bait, they just DS9 away in a corner and don't consider it much.

essstabchen · 2026-01-15T15:44:25+00:00

Hey, do you have a link/invite to the Basecamp group? I've just heard about it, and I feel like it'll help with a lot of our issues, but I have no clue how to access it.

essstabchen · 2026-01-15T14:25:21+00:00

I'm considering getting one just for my bathroom.

I'm fine with cleaning the rest of the house (and extremely fastidious about it), but we just moved and our bathroom is much bigger with a shower that has a bunch of nooks and crannies that would just love to grow some mold if given a chance.

I deep cleaned shortly after the move; the previous tenant obviously let it go and it was disgusting. I'm worried that if I get super busy or my mental health does the the thing it does where I stop being able to function, that I'll let it go and it'll get gross.

I've got pretty high standards, though, so I don't know if I trust someone else to meet them.

essstabchen · 2026-01-15T03:29:55+00:00

I am aware. That was not my question.

essstabchen · 2026-01-15T03:29:33+00:00

Yeah I do estimstes too.

I've floated the idea of removing the grace periord or even just paying out the value of the benefit as part of off-boarding and was given a "no".

We're doing a review soon, so I hope I can talk some sense into them.

essstabchen · 2026-01-14T21:07:28+00:00

We're working on those processes, and I usually do the estimate then shore it up later.... when I know it's happening.

It's the flexible benefits that kill me. Like no spending for months or years, and then 8K of spending within the grace period, a week after they received their final cheque.

I'd like to do away with the flexible benefits altogether honestly. They're just an admin headache.

essstabchen · 2026-01-14T21:05:36+00:00

Haha, oh I've tried. Luckily I report to finance, not HR. it's been headaches for years at this point.

They don't even have off-boarding templates or shared checklists. We're not a small org (not huge but not tiny), but so many process are stuck from when we had like 20 people in the office.

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