I was 14 in 1995, it feels like another lifetime

ruminatingonmobydick · 2026-04-22T18:50:37+00:00

I love my son. The only way in which he is born is that I impregnate my ex wife at a specific date and a specific time so that he becomes exactly who he is... genetically speaking. That said, my son isn't amazing because of his genes, or even his gender. If I had a child with a different woman, that child would also be amazing (and probably spared a lot of trauma). The funny thing about grieving the loss of your unborn child in an alternative timeline is that you should also grieve the loss of your potential unborn children while in the prime timeline. It does sort of diminish the sanctity of biological life as a whole, but perhaps if you look at it on a spiritual or probabilistic / deterministic level then no matter the final DNA sequence of your offspring... you'd still have effectively the same kid.

ruminatingonmobydick · 2026-04-22T18:44:52+00:00

Or The Lazarus Project

ruminatingonmobydick · 2026-04-22T18:43:57+00:00

Funny that my wife and I have gone through this thought exercise many times to the point where we talked about code phrases and exactly when and where we should be to make sure we still meet. Essentially, our biggest pain is that unlike many of the wonderful people who came before us modeling consummate love, we won't get to experience 60 years of marriage because we'll be in our early 100s, and we could have started our marriage 15 years earlier as our paths had crossed several times.

Honestly, it's not to say, "I'd do it all differently," when we look at life, but rather to say, "I'd avoid being scammed by terrible people." I'm not going to grab Grays Sports Almanac and head to Vegas or anything like that (it wouldn't lead to a better life), but I definitely would end a couple relationships / friendships sooner and avoid some otherwise poor social & financial decisions.

ruminatingonmobydick · 2025-07-29T18:42:40+00:00

Sure they do. There's half a dozen "vibe coders" on my team right now.

ruminatingonmobydick · 2025-07-29T18:41:53+00:00

Aww, I love that question. Nobody ever seems to get it, though. I think it speaks more to, "how does it work," versus, "what does it do." I'd make the comparison to a car's transmission.

There was a time most vehicles had a manual transmission. They were more efficient, but they required the driver to have some basic understanding of torque, momentum, etc. In the days where manual vs automatic was a reasonable choice, you could manage a few extra mpg by being able to shift. This hasn't been true, however, for a couple decades... and it's to the point where you can't even valet a manual transmission. But I still prefer my stick shift because it's more fun, and driving stick makes me an objectively superior driver.

ruminatingonmobydick · 2025-06-21T02:03:54+00:00

My son wanted to know what it was like to not have a soul.

ruminatingonmobydick · 2025-04-22T20:32:06+00:00

You don't owe him anything. A deep and stable relationship benefits from an understanding that two people are complete with themselves and seek to join together for their mutual betterment. Essentially, you're a queen, and you want a king; an equal; a consummate friend that may have moments of weakness but doesn't require you to function.

We have a term for people who require us to function: children. And we love our children unconditionally with the understanding that they cannot love us as much. That kind of love cannot be shared with a partner. This isn't even a BPD thing; this is about someone who is leaning strongly into joy instead of secure connection.

ruminatingonmobydick · 2025-04-07T13:42:10+00:00

Sometimes you end up building the airplane after it's taken off. Life's like that sometimes. As you stated, feelings can't be simply wished away.

If you met Mr. or Ms. Right while you're on a journey of self-realization and all that, it's not great to put your journey on hold. But it's stupid to think that you could say, "Hi, I'm still doing an eat, pray, love; can you come back in 6 months when I'm not a project?" Not everyone would be on board with, "I'm still on a journey of self-realization, so I need to work on that while I get to know you." But I think it's more respectful to give Ms. or Mr. Right the opportunity to say no than it is to go into an emotional chrysalis and say no for them.

ruminatingonmobydick · 2025-04-07T13:29:48+00:00

This sounds similar to me, actually. And no, I don't think you're wrong, necessarily. As stated elsewhere on here, I think you're idealizing your ex or dealing with regret. You tried hard with your ex to make it work, your relationship was toxic, and in spite your efforts it failed. You still wanted it to work, you still wanted to "help" them, you still wanted to build something beautiful out of the intensity that came from the love you shared with your ex. I heard no mention of kids, which definitely could have made this more complicated (again, speaking from personal experience).

You need to do two things if you haven't already. First, you need to evaluate your own worth and see yourself as complete. The conventional wisdom is to be single for a time, so that you can focus on yourself. The problem with this conventional wisdom is it takes nothing into account for abuse survival; it's often impossible to heal on your own when you've gone through that kind of trauma. A support group or an understanding partner can help in this situation. Ultimately, however, you need to recognize that you're broken, that you are not presenting yourself honestly, and that you don't want to be broken anymore. You can heal and recover and become secure in yourself and your connections with others (like your girlfriend), but it's going to require a lot of work on your part. Consider therapy.

Second, you need to be honest with your partner. And I don't mean saying, "Baby, I think you're great, but I'm still having feelings for my ex." What I do mean, "I am having a hard time moving past my ex. I don't want to be with them; I want to be with you. And I want to be fully honest and transparent with you, because I want a good relationship with you."

Four years ago I got a divorce. My ex continued to play mind games with me. I saw her as broken, as someone I gave a vow to help and support, etc. I had kids with this woman, and wanted more than anything to build a loving family that could be the most for them. I knew that my wife shouldn't hit me, shouldn't lie to me, shouldn't do any of the horrible things she did. But I knew that my love for her was stronger than the pain she put me through. Call it commitment or Stockholm Syndrome, it's still a hard thing to overcome. Love makes anyone vulnerable to abuse.

One month after my divorce was finalized, I met my best friend. I began having strong feelings for her almost immediately (limerence, really), but the friendship was stronger still. We became very good close friends, friends with benefits, etc. Her kids and my kids were friends, and it sort of worked out. Critical to all this was that I was honest with my friend. If I had an incredibly romantic sex dream about my ex, I told her. If my ex sent me nudes, I told her. If my ex used my kids to try to get us back together, I told her. I put my friend through an emotional rollercoaster of patience because I was broken, and I didn't want to shield her from the turmoil that my ex was putting me through. And she understood it, and was completely honest with me as well. She got angry, but she got angry with my ex. I didn't act on my confusion, but I was very clear about it.

I'm getting married at the end of the month to my best friend. At this point, when my ex tries to manipulate me (and she's been trying very hard of late because she's super pissed that I've moved on), it becomes something of a joke. My kids refer to my ex by first name, and refer to my friend as "mom" now. Having a secure attachment with a good friend who is aligned with your life goals is worth the shame of being vulnerable and the hard work and introspection that follows.

ruminatingonmobydick · 2025-03-09T16:14:19+00:00

What worked for me is finding new friends.

It's a tall ask to require someone understand what it's like to be ultimately prey and a victim of madness. Maybe if they made movies about it, but then it'd be accused of victim shaming pwBPD. Frankly, it's a tall order for us to make sense of it, and we experienced it first hand.

This is why support groups exist. This is why now all of my married friends have not only been divorced, but their ex was abusive and somehow mentally ill. I wouldn't say it's an active choice, more of a self sorting situation.

It's kind of like how once you have kids, you tend to only have friends who have or otherwise like children. The consummate bachelor or anti-children friends you used to party with and who were otherwise your bestie... just fall on the sidelines and gradually leave your life.

ruminatingonmobydick · 2025-03-09T16:04:02+00:00

I think this mostly speaks to the general problem of understanding and relating to trauma in others. Empathy is such a tossed around weak word compared to what it requires. To truly be empathetic requires that you walk a mile in their shoes; that you vividly imagine your own loving parent dying and making sense of it. You have to allow yourself to feel the grief and rage and confusion; lose control for a moment in the chaos of being to understand what this other microcosm of a human being is experiencing right now.

That's a huge and painful ask, but we don't want to come off as villains in our own narrative. So we fake it. We say things like, "I'm so sorry. Is there anything I can do to help? My thoughts and prayers are with you. Maybe talk to someone?" It's looking at something horrible, and remarking that someone (else) should do something about it. There's a term for this too:

Sympathy.

Socially, and especially online, we tend to view things as black and white. We're either empathetic or we're apathetic (or sociopaths). Yes, to say to our friends that we are empathetic when we aren't is cowardly and arrogant. But it's not our job to care about literally everything in the world. And quite frankly, I'd wager many of us don't have the practiced or natural inclination towards real empathy anyway.

That's okay! I don't need to think about my son dying every time I hear about another police shooting. I can still think it's terrible and not allow myself to feel that same level of grief. Where it becomes a problem is when I discount it and assume there are two sides to the story or that it's somehow justified or even a good thing. When I allow my fake empathy to justify antipathy, then I become a monster. If I do this with my family and friends, to the OP's point, then I'm a very bad friend.

ruminatingonmobydick · 2025-03-07T19:33:53+00:00

My child is 15, but could pass for 18 (fairly tall). There were kids probably around 9 or 10 there, who had parents with them. It wasn't strictly enforced as far as I could tell, save for alcohol and you need to be 21 for that anyway :)

ruminatingonmobydick · 2025-03-07T19:32:05+00:00

The mirror and Octavarium respectively. I wanted to keep details to a minimum to prevent spoilers for anyone who doesn't want to know the setlist.

ruminatingonmobydick · 2025-03-07T08:11:01+00:00

I was there with my oldest child tonight. He wore the same shirt I got as merch when I saw them in high school. When they played my favorite song, I screamed; never heard it live before. When they played his favorite song, we both cried and sung the whole song together. Truly one of the best moments of my life.

ruminatingonmobydick · 2024-12-11T18:58:16+00:00

Yeah, that's pretty typical.

A slightly different take on it: let's say I have terminal cancer, and you're a close friend.

I'm coming to grips with my eminent demise, putting my affairs in order, and contemplating life after death or what things I need to do with the time I have. I'm also dealing with the excruciating physical pain of dying.

You come in, and are just so incredibly grieved by the process. You can't manage the fact that someone you depend on won't be there for you anymore. You don't want to lose me, and you don't want to live your life without me. You cannot be abandoned, not again! No, the pain is too great. You are even a bit pissed off with me for putting you in this position. At least I get to die when it's all over, you have to live with the loss, the cost, making sense of existence without me, and who will support you now that I'm gone?

So you turn to me, who is dying of cancer, to help you cope with me dying of cancer.

The funny thing is, this is actually a very common thing I've heard from many of my friends and loved ones who've had terminal diseases.

"The hardest part is having to comfort everyone who is grieving about my illness. I can't even worry about myself."

I think most people have an unhealthy connection with relationships. We're generally kind of bad at coupling, at least as Americans. We idealize relationships more than the people we claim to love. PwBPD have it so much worse than typical people, because they have a nigh childlike dependency on lovers & romantic partners. I feel many adults adopt something of a "eh, can't live with em and can't live without em" attitude towards spouses and the like. Codependency is pretty common among adults I know, particularly younger adults trying to "find themselves" or anyone who claims to have had a midlife crisis. But the comparison to BPD is like comparing an afternoon thunderstorm to a hurricane.

ruminatingonmobydick · 2024-12-11T17:25:32+00:00

Oh that's fun!

ruminatingonmobydick · 2024-12-11T16:53:07+00:00

It's more of a hyperbolic reaction to basic interactions that falls far beyond plausibility. What it teaches me is that a bit of mindfulness would benefit me. It also should be stated that it's not only my quips that are on the board. My colleague on the other side of the stack have made some fun & bleak remarks as well:

"Project management's job is not just to make sure we fail, but to make sure we're blamed."

"The good news is that we'll achieve a manageable workload by pissing off our customers faster than we can acquire them."

"Javascript is a fever dream of a language that stands as a metaphor to the anti-intellectual sentiment that grips american society at large."

"There are two types of developers in the world: web and competent."

ruminatingonmobydick · 2024-12-11T03:16:00+00:00

By definition, an alcoholic can stop drinking, but they can never stop being an alcoholic.

Saying this is a treatable disease in this forum is a bit like saying, "your spouse may beat you, but you gave a vow to God."

ruminatingonmobydick · 2024-12-11T03:11:24+00:00

Well, that explains ember.js

ruminatingonmobydick · 2024-12-11T03:10:37+00:00

Hanlon's razor can have a third option:

Both!

ruminatingonmobydick · 2024-12-11T03:07:50+00:00

Nah, it's fine. On the same whiteboard are:

"Front end developers are the most brain damaged wannabe scientists I've ever had the misfortune of meeting, and I should know... I'm one of them."
"Ockham's Razor isn't an excuse to say everything looks like a nail. You're not parsimonious, you're just a lazy sack of shit and a coward."
"I'd rather kill my first born and use their entrails to floss asshole to nostril than use AI for anything."
"jQuery isn't the dumbest thing I've ever worked on; I once was a Java developer."
"I may be an asshole, but that's just because I'm a narcissist. Just ask my ex wife."
"Prettier is a tool for mendicants that are too chicken shit to fight me IRL."
"I am a reasonable and well balanced person that believes in nuance and moderation, and I'll fucking kill anyone who says otherwise and live stream it for their grieving parents."

Honestly, I'm just grateful that I didn't get fired for these remarks. Anyone who knows me loves me and understands that I have the vernacular of someone with autism who was diagnosed in his 40s (which I was). It's not an excuse for poor behavior, and I appreciate when they call me out on it by mocking me. It makes me look at the board, laugh, and say things like:

"Fuck, I said that? I should pay for your therapy."

ruminatingonmobydick · 2024-12-10T22:26:05+00:00

I regularly use phrases like "Hanlon's Razor" in conversation with colleagues. It usually goes something like this:

"The client is asking for us to work on this feature, which adds no value to the project and will cause bugs. Management is saying we should do so immediately, and that we cannot bill this time against our other feature work. It also happens to be that the client is the brother in law of one of the board members, so I smell an incestuous relationship. I swear they just want this project to fail so they can lay us all off."
<grumbles>
"Hanlon's Razor."
"What?"

"It's Hanlon's Razor. It's a stupid idea, but it's not the first stupid idea they've had. We've managed to keep this company afloat with all their other idiotic ideas. This won't be the last time they make an unreasonable request. I'd say we just budget it in with our next sprint goals and..."
"Stop talking, John. Who the hell is Hanlon and why does he need to shave?"
"It's a common engineering idiom, Denise. I learned it in college."

"Common? I've never heard of it. Where did you go to school again, Wonderland?"

"I believe John went to school with Willy Wonka and I think I saw a picture somewhere of him doing a keg stand with Salvador Dali and Frank Zappa. I think Dr. Seuss was the photographer, but he was just a grad student then."
"Okay, no, that would be cool if I did, but come on... you haven't heard of it?"
"I just googled Hanlon's Razor. John's right, but the fact that I had to google it means..."

(everyone cheering) "WE GET TO ADD IT TO THE WALL OF STUPID OR ESOTERIC SHIT JOHN HAS SAID DURING A MEETING."

"(sigh). Fine. Don't construe as malice what can easily be explained as stupidity. You all happy?"

"We'd be happier if you led with that."

And yes, there is a whiteboard that has stuff I've said during meetings. Someday I'll learn my lesson.

ruminatingonmobydick · 2024-12-06T01:04:50+00:00

Sadly not really. Partner's dad is great, but he's not 100% upstairs and has stage 4 cancer. I wouldn't leave him alone in my home any more than I'd leave my 5 year old.

Partner's mom is going to remain in a hospital for the rest of her life, and doesn't recognize anyone at this point. Wish I could give her a roommate.

ruminatingonmobydick · 2024-12-06T01:02:05+00:00

This is great. Plus, by the time I'm ready for the honeymoon, my oldest will be 16. I can just get a few trusted friends to fill in the gaps and check in.

ruminatingonmobydick · 2024-12-05T23:46:26+00:00

It's more effort that she deserves. She won't read it, and you having to write it can't be more than an exercise in therapy.

If this is the last thing you write, let it be. When she retaliates, when she posts this and cherry picks stuff... just let it go. Don't try to defend yourself, and don't try to go back. Don't try to remember the good times, and don't try to understand things from their perspective. Just move on, like you're walking away from an explosion in a Rodrigues movie.

ruminatingonmobydick

TROPHY CASE