| Posts | Subscriptions | Replies | Shoutouts | Tags Followed | Posts Touched | Favorites, Fans, and Friends |
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Yes, lots of homework questions, more than usual. I’ve not yet bothered to break out my favorite snarky-reply-website, but I really think it needs some airtime.
http://www.letmegooglethatforyou.com/
- written 4 years, 4 months ago – voted for by lazy, Pae
Getting turned down isn’t humiliating. How can it be, when it happens to everyone except people who are so scared that they never take chances?
Talk to him. Ask him out. It is too hard to read minds, and working through friends is only good for creating drama. If he turns you down, forget about him and move on.
- written 4 years, 4 months ago – voted for by Jules22871, RisingHearts
Crying isn’t bad, but it isn’t fun either. My wife cries very easily, and has a hard time stopping. Because I have some background in biomedical neuroscience I have done some specific reading of papers on crying. Here’s what I have learned.
Crying is a response to stress. It can be flavored with any number of different emotions (fear, sadness, happiness, etc) but the essential trigger is stress. If you feel near to crying and something stressful happens you can be sure you will tip over into crying. My wife is afraid of crying and she used to become angry at herself when she cried. This naturally made her cry harder, because anger is stressful. As strong a person as she was, her natural instinct to tense up and force herself to stop crying was only making it worse, because it just strengthened the stress responses that were making her cry. Crying is like sliding in a car on a slick surface — trying to turn out of it right away just makes it worse, but if you turn with the slide you can regain control and stop the car.
Knowing this has helped my wife. She still cries easily (especially when she feels that someone is disapproving of her), but she recovers more easily because she has learned not to berate herself. I used to try to get her to stop crying by addressing the reason she started crying, but now I know that just holding her and giving her time to process her emotion works better. Once she feels calmer and safer, then we can talk about whatever is upsetting her.
The worst is when we beat ourselves up for not being good enough in some unrealistic way. My wife does that a lot. Anger can be hard to let go of, and self-anger is even harder. However, forgiveness and acceptance do the trick.
There are also some things you can do right away to feel better, if you don’t already. Avoid caffeine and energy drinks. Stimulants trigger the body’s stress response by increasing the neurotransmitter norepinephrine, the effect of which which is like getting a small shot of adrenaline. If you cry a lot, you don’t need any more norepinephrine floating around in you.
I say it a lot in different posts, but exercise is as close as you will ever find to a magic cure for intense worry and anxiety. You don’t have to be good at it, just find something that you can do to raise your heartrate for 45 minutes or so, and it will alleviate much of the stress that makes you cry and feel anxious. Running is simplest, but if there is something you enjoy more like dancing, yoga, or skiing, then that is even better.
I know this is a really long post, but I hear a lot of my wife’s experiences in what you said, and I hope that our experiences will benefit you.
- written 4 years, 5 months ago – voted for by Felicity, jclarke21
Different people have different ideas about what it means to be an adult. As far as I am concerned, some people never stop behaving childishly. I think that when they take responsibility for their own actions and welfare, and recognize the impact of their actions on other people, they are behaving like adults. Just because a person can “take care of themselves” in the sense of earning enough to pay for rent and food (or cars, or jets, or whatever), it doesn’t mean that they are adult in any emotional, social, or intellectual sense.
- written 4 years, 6 months ago – voted for by Flipsyde, ¡ʎuɐɟɟıʇ
Angelica, I am sorry to hear about what was done to you. This is not something that was your fault in any way. Many rape victims initially suffer feelings of shame and self-recrimination like what you have expressed, but you need to know that his actions were his responsibility alone, and he is the one who is to blame. You did not control him — he did what he did all on his own.
You have done all the right things. Talking to the police, posting here to find help, and deciding to see a counselor are all good steps. The important thing right now is to reach out to people who can love and value and support you. The people who suffer the most from rape are the people who keep it a secret, or who are too afraid to ask for help, because secrets isolate us from people who can help us. Although what was done to you is still fresh in your mind, and you still have the bruises, you have already taken the best and most important of all steps to start your healing.
It is normal to be in shock right now. That is the natural first step in processing what was done to you. As you are able to process the events, the next step is probably anger, and the important thing about dealing with anger is to make sure you have someone to talk to. You can talk to us here, and you can talk to a counselor of some kind, and you can talk to your friends and family. A counselor can also help you find other sources of support, such as local groups of people who have dealt with the same types of experiences. The key idea is that you do not want to let your anger be bottled up inside you — you need to be able to talk to work through the anger, because otherwise it can be even more painful.
Hang in there. Let us know how you are doing, and we will do our best to help you through this.
- written 4 years, 1 month ago – voted for by angelica_nelso
Losing interest in things that used to be enjoyable is one of the key symptoms of depression. Lack of energy is another. Feeling sad is another. Don’t wait until it gets worse, because once depression gets worse it interferes with your ability to get help.
Talk to your doctor. There are a variety of non-drug methods to help treat depression, and a good doctor or psychiatrist can help you identify any underlying physical causes of depression.
In addition to (not instead of) seeing your doctor, you may want to read about depression and learn some techniques for coping with it and getting over it. Believe it or not, Depression for Dummies exists and is a pretty useful non-medical guide to things you can do to improve your mood and avoid the isolating effects of depression. It isn’t a substitute for an insightful counselor, a supportive friend, or a skilled physician, but it is one more thing you can do to learn ways to beat depression.
- written 3 years, 4 months ago
You should talk to your doctor if you have any concerns about depression. He/she can help determine what (if any) treatment might be appropriate, or refer you to someone who can.
Your doctor can use well-established screening tools, usually a short series of questions, to help determine the severity of your depression, the type, and sometimes other relevant problems (such as anxiety, mania, PTSD, etc.). Your doctor can also recommend a good psychiatrist (a psychiatrist is a medical doctor who specializes in treating depression and other mental illnesses). Depression can also be related to a variety of glandular and other general health problems, so you should tell your doctor even if you were not seeking treatment from them. If you are interested, your doctor may also be able to recommend a psychologist/counselor/therapist/coach. A psychologist is not a medical doctor, but may have good advice for you on specific actions you can take to improve your life and possibly reduce the severity and frequency of your bouts of depression.
Proper diagnosis can take a long time in some cases. Bipolar is often diagnosed late, and some co-existing conditions (such as anxiety) may be missed because the focus is on the initial diagnosis.
- written 3 years, 4 months ago
[quote Anonymous]I understood that the maid of honour was suppose to be already married… or is that nor correct… maybe if she thought the same that is why she said no.[/quote]
If the maid of honor is already married, then she is actually a matron of honor. “Maid” implies being unmarried. Some people have both a maid of honor and a matron of honor, or just a matron of honor, especially if they are getting married (or remarried) later in life.
- written 4 years, 1 month ago
Did she say why she said no? It is a lot of work to be a MoH, and maybe she felt like she would not be in a position to carry out the responsibilities right now.
- written 4 years, 1 month ago
What are you feeling or thinking about when you pull away? Have you had bad experiences in the past that make you feel afraid?
It isn’t bad to pull away if that is your choice, especially if you are still young. However, if you are feeling unable to do things that you would like to, or to be intimate with someone you care about, then it is a good idea to explore what is going on when you react.
- written 4 years, 1 month ago
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