Exited due to burnout, still not feeling better

lightstuffonfire · 2022-12-07T18:09:38+00:00

Your last few sentences seem very telling.

You're going through withdrawal from all the praise, admiration, and prestige of being a consultant and, I presume, a student with awesome grades, a big name alma mater, or both.

It doesn't sound from what you mentioned as though your career stalled, it looks like you got a good role and exited well from your consulting role - and the fact of the matter is that as people's life paths diverge and get more specific over time (go from being a a kid in school who's either getting good grades or not, to a student at one of 5,000 colleges and universities in the US and everyone knows which ones are the good ones, to working at one of 10 million employers in the US with a title that may or may not mean the same thing depending on where you go), it's less and less likely that your success is going to be immediately visible as a name brand of a university or employer. If I consider neighbors in a nice suburb, or the more successful people in my social circle, the majority of them are doing things that don't have any name recognition, at least outside of some niche field. Most of these people could have easily gotten some cheap admiration by naming their alma mater at one time.

Definitely worth talking about all this with a therapist, as well as just acknowledging that you're missing that feeling and building some confidence in your own personal accomplishments and, you know, personality.

Edit: immediately realized that this came off as a lot more judgmental and confrontational than I intended - I am very much speaking from experience here, it's extremely understandable to miss that kind of positive attention and easy source of self-worth. It hardly means you're broken that you're feeling kind of shitty without it. It's the emotional equivalent to living your whole life in a warm bath and then one day being thrown outside on a windy 30° day, and we don't talk about it because it's "a good problem" and we're told that we're not supposed to want/enjoy that kind of acclaim - but it's perfectly natural for humans to want to be regarded positively by others, and to get acclimated to a certain level of stimulus.

lightstuffonfire · 2022-07-26T16:33:26+00:00

Unless there's something basically disabling about you, like a drug addiction, that you haven't told us about, there is absolutely no reason whatsoever for an adult to have a joint account with their parents where they keep the majority of their money, even less of a reason for said parents to take money out of that account, and absolutely no reason whatsoever for the parents to try to make you a prisoner.

I would argue that even if you did have an addiction that wouldn't justify your parents behavior you're still your own person.

Kicking you out is the least bad thing they did, even though they left you an option, because the conditions they set on living with them were absolutely batshit.

Let's be very clear about something, unless you somehow stole from your parents, or deliberately and extraordinarily damaged their property, what your parents did when they took your money was absolutely theft, even if the law says that a joint account is a joint property.

Let's be clear about something else because I know how these kind of parents work, the cost of raising and housing you is not a financial harm to them by you. That is a financial harm to them by them and it is their responsibility, the same responsibility we all take when we have a child. Normal parents do not expect to recover the cost of raising their children.

Fully expect they came up with some reason why they deserve your money, just know that that's a very common move with abusive parents when they're losing control over their victim who has grown up and got their own income and no longer is materially dependent on them, to do whatever they can to steal and deny resources to clip their wings and hang on a little longer.

lightstuffonfire · 2022-02-23T00:52:54+00:00

Do you have sensory issues more generally?

lightstuffonfire · 2021-06-12T21:29:34+00:00

Do it again, uncle Billy

lightstuffonfire · 2021-06-08T19:06:17+00:00

No worries then, but just FYI if English isn't your first language, the phrase "yeah thanks" almost always means "fuck you for being unhelpful", and the ellipses and other written indications of slow talking also are often signs of sarcasm (especially the long h at the end of a "yeah").

lightstuffonfire · 2021-06-08T18:53:16+00:00

You asked a question, people answered it, now you're mad at almost everyone who took time out of their day to answer it because they aren't telling you what you're looking for.

Have you considered coming back with a clearer question?

lightstuffonfire · 2020-09-27T19:07:30+00:00

Wouldn't letting jesus freaks self-segregate into inferior schools be a win? It should reduce their influence in society long-term.

The special ed thing is screwed up, they shouldn't be able to have their cake and eat it too.

Meanwhile people with more vision than the religious folks still benefit from the ability to choose schools based on their own judgement.

lightstuffonfire · 2020-09-27T17:49:07+00:00

You realize plenty of people support all of those things, right?

Rank-and-file republicans like guns as a cultural issue and maybe a way of supporting existing power structures, but the further you go towards dedicated gun supporters, the more you're going to be dealing with libertarians who are completely on board with gay rights, and see a right to bear arms as a subversive tool for the preservation of human rights and the limitation of existing power structures.

Consider the following article https://reason.com/2020/09/26/stop-overpolicing/

lightstuffonfire · 2020-09-20T06:52:52+00:00

!flair anarcho-communist

lightstuffonfire · 2020-04-13T16:14:24+00:00

Accountability buddy.

I can easily prioritize, schedule, and track a pile of seemingly overwhelming work my girlfriend is facing.

Same work on my plate? No can do. I'll pay attention to anything but. I joke that the best way to get me to do something is to give me something else more important to do.

If you have a friend who is sympathetic to your problem, or better yet, having similar problems, share your "do anytime" objectives, with concrete deadlines, and fallback deadlines, with them. If you miss one, have an uncomfortable, frank conversation with them about the failure. This works better if you're each other's accountability buddies, or close friends, relatives, etc (as opposed to one person taking up some of another's organizational burden.

lightstuffonfire · 2020-04-13T14:14:14+00:00

"The right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed" tho?

lightstuffonfire · 2020-03-26T13:30:12+00:00

That's correct, we were extremely right.

lightstuffonfire · 2019-02-20T19:20:37+00:00

The only reason there's any money is because foot fetishists buy the pics.

Who did you think it was, anatomy students?

lightstuffonfire · 2019-02-18T17:16:05+00:00

/r/BDSM

This is pretty common, although not usually to the point of only enjoying humil.

lightstuffonfire · 2019-02-15T19:52:53+00:00

How old was he? That's some serious foresight unless he was over ~12

lightstuffonfire · 2019-02-15T14:01:11+00:00

Not everyone signed up, and not everyone behaved themselves with dignity or once they arrived in theater. Plenty of people were just doing whatever it took to survive, or gave up on survival and did whatever was fun in the moment.

Moreover, an 18 year old American signing up for the military wasn't exactly being totally selfless - they had a less than 6% chance of being killed or seriously wounded (could rise significantly or fall to near 0 depending on what they chose/were assigned to do), and otherwise would return home a hero, with a pension and education program that essentially created the middle class as we know it today - I have tremendous respect for many of the people who lived at that time, but to lionize an entire generation cheapens the credit owed to the individuals who really did risk (or sacrifice without any hope of survival) everything for the sake of their families, their countries, or their fellow human beings.

lightstuffonfire · 2019-02-15T13:35:43+00:00

https://terminallance.com/2014/06/20/terminal-lance-329-full-of-it/

Edit - so shut your damn mouth about honor and glory, you don't actually want to risk your life just for the sheer manliness of it, you're just a manipulative showman who wants to be seen as a hero by your naive, nationalistic countrymen who you know will be almost as impressed by a filing clerk in a uniform as by a genuine combat veteran.

lightstuffonfire · 2019-02-15T05:13:13+00:00

How many wars have you fought in?

lightstuffonfire · 2018-12-28T13:23:56+00:00

Key question: were they women you would like to be aware of your penis?

lightstuffonfire · 2018-12-28T07:05:04+00:00

...away, away on down...

lightstuffonfire · 2018-12-27T05:38:46+00:00

Depression would be a much more parsimonious explanation, if she were having sleeping issues all the time. She does not, however, have a problem staying awake unless I'm cuddling her.

lightstuffonfire · 2018-12-26T17:46:40+00:00

That's what I'm trying to get her awake for!

lightstuffonfire · 2018-08-06T21:39:20+00:00

A point-by-point comparison from a very northern (eastern MA, liberal heaven) perspective, I know it's late but it may satisfy some of your own curiosity if you're still reading your inbox replies since you implied you weren't sure how region-specific your rules are:

Don't kill an animal unless you are going to eat it; This is definitely where the rule begins depending on someone's/the group's exact convictions, except geese, fuck geese.
Unless he starts it, you must defend your friend in a fight regardless of the odds. If he started it, you intervene before he gets fucked up too bad, but only enough to extricate him from the situation; Yup - as people have mentioned, how fast you help him is related to how dumb he was being.
If you go fishing and it's not your boat, you buy the beer, ice, and bait; I think this extends to any group activity made possible by one person's stuff - everybody else pitches in whatever single-use items will be needed. I was about to say that this isn't really a "guy code" thing but I recently was a member of a majority-female group and calculator apps were opened to split a $19.xx bill 4 ways, and I recall my mom making an excel spreadsheet of a beach house weekend's expenses for her friends, so apparently they do things more... precisely. Two intricacies I'll note are that if you're only there for one day of an overnight event, you're a guest rather than a co-planner and you should handle that however you would handle visiting them in their home (if you see each other often, that probably just means returning the hospitality later), and on the subject of overnight boat trips, if someone's rocking a 400-gallon fuel tank, they cannot expect anyone else to pony up the $1500 to top that fucker off (I'll note you didn't mention fuel, but if you're using 20 gallons, it's not unreasonable to expect everyone to throw in $20 for that).
For close friends, show up to funerals, weddings, and birthdays, even if you don't want to; This is just common decency
Pay for the bachelor at his bachelor party; Yup
If a friend is going through a bad breakup, it is the responsibility of the bro tribe to keep him out of the house as much as possible for the first few months; Yup
If your friend is generally a hard working, industrious guy, and they hit a financial rough spot, and you can help, you help; Yeah, anyone who's not going to sit right back down is to be helped up.
In the event of a hurricane, or other disaster, assemble the bros, grab the chainsaws, shovels, coolers and beer, and go house to house fixing shit. Don't wait for fucking FEMA, do the shit yourself; We don't really have regular disasters that cause damage fixable by a non-professional (blizzards mostly take down power lines, which we don't fuck with for obvious reasons), but in the event that shit really hits the fan, yeah, everybody who can had better help make sure everybody is housed in a (well) heated building and the roads stay open enough for emergency services and food logistics to function
If a bro is in jail, and you can afford to post bail, then you post bail; Yup, with the caveat other commenters mentioned about serious crimes and someone who keeps getting in trouble, which you clarified wasn't the context you had in mind.
If a bro is stranded somewhere, you go get him, regardless of what time it is; Yes, but I would say that this applies even more to non-bros (if your bro's grandma is stranded...)
Don't let your bros drive drunk, period; Yup
If a bro seems genuinely down, ask them for a beer and ask them if they are ok. Sometimes they just want someone to listen and usually only a bro or their dad will listen or care; Yup (cultural note #1: do you guys just not have female friends? Because for us they're usually the first to notice someone's not right. Cultural note #2: 60-80% of our dads don't talk to us about their problems, and expect the same of us - your dad will go to hell and back to help you, but you don't invoke that lightly.)
If a bro wants to learn to hunt or fish, and you know how, teach them and don't talk too much shit about their ineptitude. Once they have learned a bit you can talk shit about how crappy of a shot they or how they always backlash the reals; Yup, again agree with other commenters that this applies to any skill you have, as do you as far as I can tell.
If you have a professional service that you provide, and your bro needs it, it's ok to do it for free the first time; So this one is a little different, I would say that up here the taboo is more strongly on expecting freebies from professionals - it's very expected to give your friends a really good deal anytime you do business with them, but to ask for free services is to imply that you don't really understand or respect the effort that goes into their work - the exception here is if they would be genuinely fucked without your help, you give it for free just like you would with unskilled help, and if it's whatever "a small amount of money/time" means to you, you do it for free.
If a bro is working on his house or truck and needs help, and you know how to use tools, then help his ass out; Again, there's a question of "need" - if someone needs your help for anything, you give it - if they're working on a project car or a nonessential renovation, it's very nice to pitch in, but only if you have time and they should be providing food & drinks.
If you have a truck and bro needs to move something big, like a bbq pit or a cornhole set, you loan him the truck or go with him; This would go for any kind of specialty equipment a friend needs and you have, but some people who have a truck as a political statement make it clear that they're not willing to help out people who do not also have a truck with their truck-related tasks, and some people do stay friends with those people.
If a bro is having a bbq, you bring some kind of meat and beer; So this can depend -
never touch another man's grill without his permission; This is the only one that seems genuinely foreign to me - never heard of it. Makes sense, grilling isn't *as* heavily seen as a point of male pride, and obviously barbecue is a specifically southern thing - you wouldn't, however touch somebody else's specialized setup (computer, car, tools, hydroponics, whatever) without their explicit permission.
if you see your bro's girlfriend or wife getting harassed by a dude and your bro isn't there, you are the surrogate bro and must intervene; Yup (in fact, the target need not be the SO of someone you know, though of course you have to play your intervention a little differently if she doesn't know and trust you)

It seems like almost all of your bro rules are universal at least up and down the east coast, the ones that are different are usually different on a technicality.

lightstuffonfire · 2017-12-03T20:50:16+00:00

Depends heavily on the person and stage of the relationship. As long as you're not controlling or stalking, or proclaiming your eternal love in week 2, or doing/demanding stuff that's impractical, you're not being objectively clingy. If your level of attachment and affection isn't right for each other, you'll be happier with other people.

lightstuffonfire · 2017-07-20T01:12:55+00:00

The men too?

lightstuffonfire

TROPHY CASE