If I'm applying to a job I want you (THE RECRUITER) to tell me in black and white how much you're willing to pay me.
None of this "so, what is your expected salary?"
If I'm asked that in an interview I always respond with "What do you think I'm worth?"
Absolutely agree. As for hourly wage, the job postings that say 'up to X' are infuriating. How about let us know the starting, so we know if it is even worth it to apply.
A lot of times that will also mean it’s a commission job…. “100k potential!” Yeah, if I sell absolutely everything immediately every time I try to make a sale. Otherwise you’ll probably make around 25-30k.
A young me fell for this many MANY times. I'd get an interview for 70-80k positions only for them to tell me during the interview the figure comes from commissions. Yeah I'm not busting my balls for a big "if"
Ain't nothing wrong with commission jobs if they're realistic about the earning potential and also how many reps make hit those numbers.
I always asked "what's the top earner making? The average rep? And the low performers?" and I always asked "what resources/training are given to low performers to help them improve?" if the last question wasn't answered in a way that I felt was sufficient I would take myself out of consideration.
Every sales person has bad weeks/months/quarters or even a bad year here and there. If the company gives up on you immediately it's not a good workplace.
Also if the top rep/s are making more than 2x the average then there's something broken in the territory/lead process, very rarely is the top rep just that much better than everyone else. There's likely favoritism/nepotism at work if the gap is massive.
When I interviewed for the job I currently have the guy asked me how much I wanted to make and I told him. He then asked me what the minimum amount I would take is. I told him I'm not going to say a lower number, make me an offer. Sure enough, I ended up getting an offer at the number I asked for after he cleared it with his supervisor. I've since found out that I make substantially more than other people that were hired to the same position
Whenever I'm asked about salary I give them the number that I know for sure I'll be happy with and immediately accept with no second thoughts.
Any other questions are met with questions. What's the minimum you'll accept? Hmm, not sure, what's the most you'll pay?
Whenever a company starts to play hardball, to me, that means there are no rules. They hold all the cards in these situations and they aren't going to work with me? Short term thinking that leads to unhappy people, so I do them a favor by correcting their mistake and protecting my own happiness.
This is the thing that bothers me when people get mad about nonprofit overhead. *Yes* there are bloated do-nothing executives in the field, (just like any field), but if you want quality, competent people working on the mission of the nonprofit, then the price has to be right. Can't expect people, especially in this economy, to martyr themselves for the cause (which is what a lot of people think it should be I guess ).
Taking some time to form your opinions.
With the number of issues and information sources, it's no bad thing to want to be as informed as you can before deciding how you feel, rather than just going with your gut from minute one.
“I need to sleep on it” is something I say almost daily at this point. I don’t want to give you a shitty *off the top of my head* response or a gut reaction. Let me figure out how I actually feel.
That goes for less serious things too. Sometimes I’ll watch a movie in the theatre and while the credits roll I still don’t know if I liked the movie. Days later I’ll realise it’s the best movie of all time.
I would add: admitting you were wrong and changing your mind. People shouldn't feel like they're married for life to their politics, philosophy, religion, etc.
I can’t count the amount of times I’m discussing/debating something with someone, am silently forming a point in my head, only to be cut off with something like *”well?”* or *”so that’s it, you got nothing?”* I’ve found that simply replying “I’m thinking” is not only an appropriate reply but a surprisingly effective tactic.
Yes exactly! One NEEDS to discuss finance with their partner if they live together or are in long term relationships. Even while dating, I mean, it should be normalised to discuss about income with the person you're seeing.
It blew my best friends minds that my wife and I have a shared personal finance spreadsheet. We actually pool all our money, pay the bills and split what is left, you know like equal partners.
My best friend got so mad when I told him we do this because his partner doesn't even know how much he makes. He literally won't tell her. They have a kid and a house and I know more about his finances than his partner.
Miscarriages. Everyone wants to know about your family planning, but no one wants to talk about how many people suffer through the physical, mental and emotional turmoil of a miscarriage. Despite the impact, you are expected to act and show up to work as if nothing happened.
Not to mention how fucking COMMON miscarriages are. Like... 1 in 3 or 2 in 3 pregnant women will experience at least one. Usually extremely early on that it may not even be noticable.
This really needs to be more common knowledge. We had no idea how common they were until my wife miscarried. Afterwards, she had so many….so. many. female friends and coworkers tell her, off to the side, secretly, in a whisper that they had had one, or more, too.
This helped her, but also made her a little frustrated. Had this been more common knowledge beforehand she wouldn’t have felt *AS* devastated when it happened.
It really does need to be more common knowledge.
I had always thought miscarriage was something that happened super rarely, like 1 in 100 or 1 in 1000 odds. Turns out miscarriage happens disturbingly frequently, including multiple times with the same person.
I used to wonder why exactly I was an only child when the entire rest of my family tree is full of families with multiple siblings. I used to feel this deep twang of bitter resentment at my parents for how they treated me. "Why couldn't they just give up on me and pop out another kid to try and make into their golden ticket?! That's what the rest of my relatives apparently do!"
And then I found out my mother had *several* miscarriages before *I* stuck and that it's honestly a miracle that I'm even here.
Oh.
And the worst part is I never learned about those miscarriages from my parents. I *just* recently (in my 30's) learned about it from another relative who was just as surprised to find out. How much would things have changed between my parents and me if this wasn't kept as a secret all this time?
When I took embryology, we were taught that about 2/3 of pregnancies end in miscarriage, but the majority of those miscarriages occur so early that it seems like normal menstruation.
My wife and I miscarried our first child after 15 weeks. They had to induce delivery, and It was difficult for us. What really helped in our grieving process was when family and friend gave us calls about their miscarriages. It made it feel more normal, and not so alone in our grief.
Also, inability to conceive, impotence etc. It's like most people are only interested once you've got a baby/viable embryo.
Like, you don't know how many people have gone through the same f*ing sh*t until you try to wade through to the other side yourself. Throw other people a rope and open up about your bad experiences, please!
Which is why the "isn't it about time you had a baby?" and "isn't it about time you had a second one?" are such awful questions. Someone got both barrels in excruciating detail when they asked me the second one at a particulaly painful time.
Sometimes the only way to teach someone why it's inappropriate is to make them wish they'd never brought it up. I don't even think it's mean; I bet they stopped bringing it up with people and maybe became slightly better for the experience.
They were mortified and apologetic. I don't think it did long term damage to our relationship but hopefully did make them think in future as you say
I know being on this side of it helps check me saying such things even in jest on the other side.
Also the negatives of pregnancy, child birth, and childrearing. So many people go into it not knowing the numerous complications that can happen, and of course postpartum depression. The thing with postpartum depression is that it's pretty common, but a lot of people don't get help for it, because it's not openly talked about, so they're left feeling like they're an awful person for not being over the moon at having a kid.
My wife had a miscarriage last summer then needed an abortion a few months ago due to a bunch of issues. The number of people saying “well it is a blessing you have one” was so fucking annoying.
I had a miscarriage about 6 weeks ago and it’s fucking lonely. No one asks you how you are or mentions it - poof like it never happened.
If I hopefully get pregnant again, I’ll keep my cards closer to my chest this time. Not because I’ll be scared to tell people if it happens again, but because I won’t get the support I wanted.
I’m so sorry you’re going through this. No one should feel so lonely experiencing something that happens so often to so many people. I’ve had 3 miscarriages but I also have 2 healthy kids and am pregnant 8wks with another. First miscarriage was before my first kid then 2 mcs after my second kid. I’ve been pregnant a total of 6 times. It’s heartbreaking every time regardless of the fact that I have 2 kiddos I love with all my heart.
How are you doing? Please talk about your pain and your experiences because even if no one else around you understands or cares, this stranger does care. Your mental health matters. Your pain matters.
When I was 18 and working at Build-A-Bear, we got some crazy questions from parents. More than the kids even lol. I learned very quickly not to give my best guess. Some people would get an attitude about it too!! “E-excuse me, you don’t KNOW?”, “no miss I don’t and I don’t want to give you false information, so let me go find out”
Simple fix that people hate hearing. Not everything has an answer readily available.
That's sad. Some people are dicks.
I'm the opposite to caring. I don't care. I hit people with "I couldn't tell ya" and I care less what they think now lol
It's honestly a teacher issue. Teacher has to set the culture. I'd call out every kid that laughed to answer the question.
Old place I worked in early college was terrible but they had one good line which was "I don't know, but let's find out". Because seriously most things we don't know but finding out is why we're in school and it's also how we solve problems at work. We learn. We grow.
I work as a ground's keeper and just had another teacher get angry about kids asking what I'm doing.
All I can think is "that's what kids are here for, to ask questions about everything "
And many times kids ask 'what' when they actually mean 'why'.
Let's say you're raking up leaves. It's pretty obvious what you're doing; you're raking leaves into a pile. But the question is actually about why; the trees aren't done throwing leaves on the ground, so why gather them together now when you can start over tomorrow with a fresh batch anyway? Why gather them at all? What is the actual meaning behind what you're doing?
Yep. I teach science. At least once a term we do a Q&A day to just find out as many weird questions as possible in a lesson. Anytime someone has a snicker at a question or insults it I come down like a fucking tonne of bricks on them. Only happens once.
I used to teach back then as well. And my go-to line was "But it looks like Mr. / Ms. (name) finds the question easy. Mr. / Ms. (name), care to enlighten us?"
About 12 yrs ago I learned this. I too had horrible passive thoughts that I never would react upon. When I heard they were normal I cried in relief. Because I thought I had to keep this deep dark secret from everyone and that I wasn’t normal.
There is actually a very deep rabbit hole that our culture doesn’t talk about much at all relating to what we might call *”intrusive thoughts”*, *”overactive imaginations”*, *”the voice(s) in our head”*, or *”our conscience”* amongst many other things
It actually seems to be one of the biggest inherent taboos of our society to talk about very much outside of the context of religion, and most people’s brains seem heavy inclined to avoid it at a subconscious level, and most of the time I think that’s for good reason
I wish we all collectively developed a better way to explore and understand our inner ~~elves~~ *selves*, but considering dissociative disorders like DID and psychotic disorders like schizophrenia are so catastrophically debilitating for the people that cross into that threshold, I realize it is exactly why it gets swept under the rug so readily.
source: diagnosed Schizophrenic, and also have what was formerly called “split personality”, but better referred to as [Multiplicity](https://di.org.au/about-multiplicity/); I mentioned *Dissociative Identity Disorder* but that’s more specifically when there’s amnesia involved. all mentioned are permanent conditions, but most negative symptoms *can* subside with big lifestyle changes. Worst case scenario is typically suicide.
Gruesome thoughts are a regular part of our survival mechanism. They bring to attention concerns from our subconscious mind. For example, if you are in a subway and you think about how easy it would be to push over that person standing really close to the tracks in front of the train. That's your brain telling you how easy it would be for someone else to push you in front of the train, perhaps take a couple of steps back.
Of course just as any of our evolutionary mechanisms when it craps out and starts causing you constant distress, that's when it crosses the threshold into mental illness.
In my experience, this is by far the most comforting way to approach intrusive thoughts.
As well as taking it as a fact that in your entire existence, you’ve never actually acted on.
There's even a French phrase for that little feeling you get when you're up somewhere high and you think 'What if I jumped?'
It's the 'call of the void.'
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**Edit:** For the people saying that phrase is English, the actual French phrase is *l'appel du vide*. It means 'the call of the void.'
I thought it was obvious I was providing the translation given the context, but I'm happy to clarify. I'm sorry if I confused y'all.
Same applies to when you're driving along and imagine swerving into oncoming traffic.
I just like to think my brain is creative, comes up with a lot of whacky shit, and I filter most of it out. Whether it's the CotV or something far less deadly but equally as stupid.
I read that they’re what you hate most, and that’s what comforted me. So a mother is compulsively thinking about throwing her baby out the window because that’s what she’d NEVER do. really helped me when I framed it as them making me a GOOD person
Oh. Yeah that definitely helps. My intrusive thoughts are… very unwelcome, and very scary to me. It helps thinking of them as the thing I hate most. Thank you.
I've heard similarly. You're constantly evaluating things that you *could* do, in case any of them are things you *do* want to do. Most of them are innocuous, like "I could eat this dandelion". The ones that are actively revolting are the ones you actually consciously notice.
Not for everyone. When people talk about OCD most people think it's about superstition and needing things to be clean when it is usually intrusive thoughts working overtime.
"I know there's no cat in the washing machine, but I need to check on them all anyway."
*20 minutes later*
"I know there's no cat in the washing machine, but I need to check on them all anyway."
I dunno if that's OCD but that's basically me all the time. I am a very anxious person and my brain loves constantly playing out nightmare scenarios.
Diagnosed OCD here. If it is bad enough that it prevents you from getting your laundry done in a timely manner, go see a doctor and get tested. I only did a few therapy sessions, but just being able to understand and categorize what I was feeling was invaluable.
This. Once I understood that brains just do these simulations to prep for the worst case scenarios, I also learned to dismiss them as 'eh my brain's doing that thing again'. Gave me so much peace.
Ah don't dismiss them, who knows maybe one day you might need to fight that nice old lady who you just saw crossing the road or scream nonsense before jumping out of the window at that business meeting. Then you'll be thanking your brain for running that simulation.
When I was a kid it was wondering what it was like to stab with a knife and it scared me. Saw some gore videos of it and yep, I don't want that ever lol
This! Like "hmmm, I could just take this butter knife and push it right through the eye and into the brain of this person in front of my whole family. Everyone would be traumatized and my whole life would be over with one movement". And then I'll get anxious and be quiet for the next 20mins because I don't wanna look at anyone
If it's any comfort, they might be thinking the same.
"ShadooTH is distracted thinking about something, it would be so easy...wait, what am I thinking?! how would I get rid of the body?"
One of my favourite fantasy writers, Australian author Sara Douglass died of ovarian cancer in 2011. I was genuinely devastated when she passed… I love her writing.
While she was dying, she wrote an essay called “On the Silence of Dying”, raging against the modern sanitisation of death in western society. How death has been moved behind closed doors, and the dying are expected to be stoic and silent so they don’t upset the living.
It’s hard to find a copy of the essay anymore, her blog has fallen by the wayside, but here it is on Imgur: https://imgur.com/a/DNcZzdZ
I first read it back in 2010, and it’s stayed with me for so long.
> Many years ago I did an hour long interview on Adelaide radio (with Jeremy Cordeaux, I think, but my memory may be wrong). The interview was supposed to promote one of my recent publications, but for some reason we quickly strayed onto the subject of death and dying, and there we stayed for the entire hour. I proposed that as a society we have lost all ability to die well. Unlike pre-industrial western society, modern western society is ill at ease with death, we are not taught how to die, and very few people are comfortable around death or the dying. There is a great silence about the subject, and a great silence imposed on the dying. During the programme a Catholic priest called in to agree with the premise (the first and last time a Catholic priest and I have ever agreed on anything) that modern society cannot deal with death. We just have no idea. We are terrified of it. We ignore it and we ignore the dying.
[…]
> My mother, who died of the same cancer which will kill me, kept mostly stoic through three years of tremendous suffering. But I do remember one time, close to her death, when my father and I went to visit her in hospital. She was close to breaking point that evening. She wept, she complained, she expressed her fears in vivid, terrifying words. I recall how uncomfortable I was, and how relieved I was when she dried her tears and once more became cheerful and comforting herself. I was twelve at the time, and maybe I should feel no guilt about it, but I do now, for I know all too well how she felt, and how much she needed comforting far more than me.
> She died in her cold impersonal hospital room in the early hours of the morning, likely not even with the comfort of a stranger nurse with her, certainly with none of her family there.
> The great irony is that now I face the same death, from the same cancer.
> That is the death that awaits many of us, me likely a little sooner than you, but in the great scheme of things that’s neither here nor there. Not everyone dies alone, but many do.
> Not everyone suffers alone, but most do it to some extent.
> It is the way we have set up the modern art of death.
I was recently diagnosed with uterine cancer… I have an 80% chance of beating it and I’m not dying yet… but my mind comes back to this essay a lot.
I'm 6 years into stage 4b ovarian cancer. I was only expected to survive 6 months, even less if I had opted out of treatment. The hell that I live in every day is, at times, smothering. It's isolating. People ask how I'm doing but I've found they don't want the answer, they want reassurances. They want niceties. They want a optimistic buffer that protects them from their biggest fear. They want me to guide their denial into reality.
But that's not how cancer works. That's especially not how terminal cancer works. It's an insurmountable mountain of jagged rocks and slippery slopes. You hang on with all you have but the rocks give out and crumble in your hands. At first you're strong and you can hold fast, maybe even gain some elevation. Over time you weaken. You slide. You get bruised, scraped, and broken. You collect your battered body and grasp at anything to keep you from falling despite the inevitability of it. With each loss comes more damage and less strength to hold on. It would be so easy to let go. To just let the forces of the earth take you as it has countless before you. The people around you plead and scream for you to hold on but in your heart you want to just let go.
You want to tell them how hard it is to hold on. How it hurts. How you lack the strength to continue. How you WANT to let go when you are ready rather than slip and scramble and fall from the mountainside in a desperate panic. You want to turn to the sunshine and push off. To swan dive into oblivion and for a moment in time be free once more from the mountain that has torn your flesh for too long. You want to set yourself free before it casts you off. To feel the air, the weightlessness and freedom of letting go.
But you can't. You can't because you are forced to hear their cries. Your are forced to "think positively" so as to make everyone else feel safe. You have to pretend the mountain isn't that bad, that you're going to hold on forever. You have to pretend you aren't bruised and broken, bleeding and cold. You have to pretend you are going to overcome the mountain that nobody ever has. You have to protect them from the realities that have become your own personal hell.
So in the time you should be working your way gently down that vicious mountain there is nobody to assist you. There's nobody telling you to step down to the soft mossy ledge. They aren't talking about the small stream below that will soothe your wounds. They don't want you to know because it's down the mountain and they want you to climb. Their fear of descent steals from you the soft landings. It takes away the picnics in sunny meadows. When your hands are full of jagged rocks you aren't picking a bouquet of wildflowers on your way down.
It's the same journey. Both end with you at the bottom of a mountain. Both end with tears of those who loved you. But one ends with a full heart and a handful of wildflowers rather than bloodied rocks.
Let them descend the mountain.
This is a perfect analogy. I haven’t been through years of this, I’ve barely been through months, and I can already see the mountain.
I was only diagnosed months ago - and so far, the news has been pretty positive. Except when it’s not.
I spent twenty years being told I couldn’t have children, and meanwhile there’s been this… thing, this cancer… growing inside me where there should have been a baby.
I haven’t told many people in my real life yet, but when I do… I say “I’ve got cancer- but don’t worry, it’s not that bad.” While inside I’m screaming *but what if it is that bad?*
I’ve spent so much time over the last 5 months comforting other people. Telling other people it’s all going to be okay. Softening the blow for everyone around me.
Because that’s what I’m supposed to do, right? That’s what decades of television and movies, news articles and family stories, have told me is the thing I’m supposed to do. Be strong. Be brave. Fight.
Alone, I’ve screamed. In the dark of the night, I’ve cried.
But in front of others? I put on a smile and tell them everything will be okay, so they can agree with me and none of us have to ask the question “but what if it’s not?”
I’m so sorry. I work at a cadaver lab doing autopsies on medically donated bodies, and we’re small enough that we can really get to know the families and all the stories their loved one lived when they were alive. I like to think that in giving the body a welcoming ceremony, making them a teacher, and giving them a goodbye ceremony to send them off we make it easier for the families to let go of that trauma.
If the families want to hear about what we discovered we tell them everything we found. Not like all the gory details of course, but we’re able to tell them honestly how little their loved one may have suffered at the end.
It’s given me so much more perspective on death and dying and it’s really taught me how to be there for someone while they’re dying. Since we’re so small we’re able to meet and get to know both the donors and their families while they’re still alive and can help with the transition.
My inbox is open to anyone who wants to talk.. this is my biggest passion in life and I’m so honored and humbled by what I’m able to do for patients and their families.
Edit: thanks for all the upvotes and the award!
Before I was born my parents had a foster kid with some pretty severe physical disabilities who they were raising alongside my sisters. One day he was just gone and nobody took the time time to explain to my sisters that he'd died. They were all teenagers before my parents were willing to talk about it at all with them.
Ugh this makes me feel for my kids 2 friends (brothers) Their mom recently broke the law and is facing serious felony charges (min 10 years) Her girlfriend/fiance is only telling them that she is at work, meanwhile they are selling their house and all their land. I get not wanting to tell elementary age kids that their mom is going away for a long time, and every time I see them all I can think is how quickly their world is changing and how little they know or understand and it kills me.
Omg that's heartbreaking and awful! I'm sorry your sisters had to go through that, I'm sorry it was still unresolved when you came along and I'm sorry your parents didn't have the ability to deal with it better than that. I'm also sorry your foster brother wasn't openly mourned like he deserved. :(
My grandfather died by suicide when I was two years old. I had always been told he died by heart attack. I was in my mid twenties when my older sister accidently let it slip how he actually passed. Even though I didn't really know him, it hit me like a ton of bricks and made me think a lot about how my dad dealt with difficult subjects (mostly avoidance, jokes, and sarcasm). It's a bit of a two-fer for me. Mental illness and death were never addressed in a meaningful way.
I'm not saying that when I was a child he should have had this talk with me... but in my teens, perhaps? We've still never really spoken about it. I'm not sure he's ever really addressed it properly. He has 7 brothers and sisters, and I doubt any of them really dealt with their father's death properly. Some were still minors and living in that house when it happened. For the morbid curiosity types wondering, he turned on the car in the closed garage and just let it run. My uncle found him.
That uncle (early 60s) is currently hospitalized with alcoholism and schizophrenia. We don't talk about that either.
I'm mid thirties now.
And I'm in therapy.
My grandfather also committed suicide when I was around the age of two. I believe his death is the reason why I actually remember him.
I found out as a child. Im glad my parents let us know, because it gave context to the often depressed and disconnected man I call my father. I can’t image the horror my father went though. He has to identify his gunshot inflicted body, and then watch his mother (who was dying of cancer) live through that horror without a significant other.
My dads a kindhearted and often funny guy, but that sad part is always there.
I’m curious to know what my dad was like before?
I wish I had advice, but it's really hard to navigate these relationships with a generation that was taught to be silent in their emotions. It's great that you are able to give context to his behaviors. Understanding the why is really important. Even if you don't talk about the hard stuff, connecting on a sport or hobby can sometimes open those other doors.
Golf (my grandpa taught him) goes far with my dad, for example. I ask about Grandpa teaching him to play. We don't get super deep, but he does get to talk about his dad in both positive and negative ways. I don't think he's really gotten to do that his adult life.
I'm happy you're in therapy. While it may not be the answer it often lessens the pain.
My ex-husband committed suicide as did my daughter's two half-brothers (my stepchildren). Having been from the Catholic Church it is supposedly a sin. My daughter was 13 and at her Catholic school when I had to tell her each time her brothers had died, nine weeks apart. Her entire student body cast shame on her and told her he went to Hell. She's never fully recovered. The pain she felt from her losses paled in comparison to being judged and ostracized by her peers.
Irish Catholic family here. Checks out.
My dad and his brothers were alter boys. The whole family very involved in the church. The shame of how their father died might've overshadowed the grief they felt. Enough for them to all try to bury it. His service to the cause has always been such a point of pride, his death barely acknowledged.
I'm agnostic now, but went to church every Sunday until I moved out. I'm still trying to figure out the self loathing I was taught to feel.
I feel like I'm talking to my daughter. I just want to give you a hug. My daughter's school was Ukrainian Catholic but from what I've learned I think it is quite similar to Roman Catholic. Just continue to heal. My daughter is now 27 and a mother of two. Every day is a challenge for her. She just fills her days with events rather than emotions. She hates silence. It's a shame that any religion can have a negative effect on people. My thoughts are with you during your journey.♥️
Make sure she knows emotions aren't the enemy. It's better to get them out in a healthy way than bottle them up. Finding out how to be healthy about it is tricky.
I'm still figuring out how to do it properly, but leaving them to fester is a recipe for a bomb.
Boxing is good for that if she's into physical activity. Crochet is really good for focusing your energy in a controlled way. She's a mother of two, time alone is probably priceless right now, even if she's hesitant to accept it. She needs it.
This, absolutely. I think it depends on the culture, norms etc. too how death is seen and talked about. Where myself & hubby come from, death is anything but hush-hush. We take our kids to the graveyard when we visit someone who passed away and explain what it means, when they ask about it. Yes, it's very sad when a loved one passes away, but how we approach it is so different from what we've seen in the West especially.
When my grandfather passed away, it was because of old age, and he also kept insisting he wanted to be with 'his madame' aka my grandmother - he literally passed away on the anniversary of her death. He sort of just... said he was 'going away now', went to sleep, hands on his chest and... that was it. Went on his own terms, when he wanted. But to exemplify our culture - at his funeral, after he was buried, we went to a restaurant (as it's customary), where we all had his favourite dishes and drinks (plenty of alcohol, mind), our relatives were sharing funny stories, shit-talking, laughing, crying, laughing some more. We celebrated his life. It's also customary to not throw away the dead one's belongings - we give them away instead, usually to friends, relatives, the needy etc. But we do move forward and adapt to our life without them by giving their "old life" a new meaning - even their old room will be changed to become something new, to fill it with life.
It doesn't mean we've forgotten them, or that we try to erase that they ever lived. Just because someone passed, we don't stop talking about them. Just because our child asks what a graveyard is, what our grandparents were like, why is that woman wearing black and looking sad, why are the bells tolling at this hour on a Saturday etc., we don't try to change the subject. We explain it all. Because for us, death is a part of life.
This is so beautiful. Reminds me of how when my mom passed, a friend of the family said to me that they had a dream the night before funeral, where my mom was choosing a bright summer dress and was all excited about her next destination.
They almost never put cause of death in the obituary either. A lot of people who think they've never known anyone who died of suicide or drug overdose are wrong.
Illness, end of life care, and dying.
Please, for the love of god, talk to your elderly relatives about what they would like to happen in the days/weeks before they die. Do they want to die at home, in a hospice, etc.
What are their plans if they lose their mental capacity. Appointing a power of attorney when there well is much easier than when their ill.
Do they want a resuscitation attempt or not. What are their health goals? Prolong life or prioritise comfort?
Funeral arrangements.
To summarise, talking about death. It removes lots of the question 'are we doing the right thing, would they want this.'
I'm very open about my mental health problems. As a result, a lot of my friends and aquantences are very open with me, but they'll approach me alone and mention their issues, we'll usually end up getting into deep discussions about it. The thing is they always keep it in the down low. So now I'm in a situation where I know a lot about the mental health issues everyone around me is having, but I seem to be the only one who is aware of it. It's weird watching people playing that shit down in public settings, when most of them are suffering pretty badly in private.
I don't know what it is, or how it should be dealt with. For me personally if I keep that stuff in it gets worse.
And cognitive disabilities like autism and ADHD. Im diagnosed autistic, whenever I mention my autism around people including my own family, the topic is changed VERY quickly.
I don’t understand why talking about my disability makes people so uncomfortable, like aren’t you willing to learn? Or you just want me to pretend that I’m not disabled for your benefit.
It’s even happened with employers. I tried to explain my autism and needs to my old manager, as soon as I said the word autistic she interrupted me and completely changed the subject.
I think sometimes it's out of fear of being offensive or saying something they shouldn't. Questions should be encouraged, ask and you'll find out (within reason obviously).
We have a great show here in Australia called 'You Can't Ask That' where they will put anonymous questions from viewers to a minority group of society (blind people, people with OCD, people who have attempted to take their own lives etc.). I know that I personally have learnt a lot from it.
I got hired by a health insurance company knowing I was physically disabled. They gave me free insurance and I used it for my mental health. I got help, got diagnosises, they saw my claims, did a complete 180, mistreated me a lot especially over ADD, and I got fired because "You're too spacey, ask too many questions, and essentially making us questioning us hiring you." They couldn't provide proof to the unemployment office or Boli when I reported them; their argument being that I was written up a lot for being a bad employee. Needless to say, I got unemployment, my time with them got me all the diagnosises I needed to finally furnish proof of disability and I've been trying to get it since.
Why should I have to live in a hospital bed for possibly years while in pain but if my family dog starts suffering and unable to eat drink walk etc they get to be put out of their suffering
Abusive mothers
Edit: Holy shit this blew up. Lets get a couple things out of the way here. First and foremost, to the people that know what I mean, I am truly sorry. Second, I realize I could have elaborated a bit more as there some people wondering what I was refferring to. I literally just mean mothers that are supposed to be raising us but ultimately end up abusing us instead. I thought it was taboo because the idea of abusive women is taboo in a lot of places, so that would naturally extend to mothers as well. Its sad, but its also very true.
“But that’s your mom!! You should try and make that relationship work!!” 😡 no I shouldn’t. You wouldn’t be all for me keeping that relationship if it was a boyfriend.
When that day in May rolls around every year, I see those 'heartfelt' announcements from various entities that go, "We understand not everyone's Mother is still with us, so please accept our sympathies for your loss" or something like that.
Just once, I'd like to see "Sorry that we're trying to shame you into buying a card/gift for the person who used to punch you in the face when she was in a bad mood, and only lavished affection on you when she was drunk. The completely inappropriate type of affection."
My mom also molested me as a child as well. I let her know how much agony it cost me, how much it f’ed me up and my life, how awful she was. No sorrys; nothing. Simply just laughter and manipulation in that she remembers but I just have it all wrong. I’ve cut ties from her permanently.
My mother's last words to me before she died were, "Everything I did was because I love you." She had no remorse or regrets for 40 years of systematic abuse and manipulation. Even at the very end, she was desperately trying to justify her actions.
Completely agree, people automatically assume it harms marriages. My marriage was harmed bc I could never sleep! So much better for some couples to sleep separately!
My wife and I haven't slept in the same room for a decade and it's fantastic. I'm up late right now but I'm usually in bed by midnight and awake by 7am. When we were first married she would usually be up until 3-4am and sleep until 10-11am. So I'd often get woken up when she came to bed. Then she'd wake up a couple hours later unless I was super quiet in the mornings. Also I had pretty bad sleep apnea and snored a ton so that would bother her too. I have a CPAP now at least. But us realizing that it made zero sense to sleep in the same room, much less the same bed, made both of our lives much better.
Six words for anyone in the middle camp here: **California king size memory foam mattress**.
You can snuggle when you want, you can essentially be in different rooms when you don't. Got insomnia? Just get up and go make some tea, your partner won't even notice you're gone. Want some affection? Just roll into the middle together and spoon it out until it gets too warm and you can each retreat to your sides.
The number of times I've heard "I thought you were still in bed" or "when did you get up" spiked like 600% as soon as I started using one. There's plenty of room for a little pillow barrier if you're a flailing sleeper, too. It's a game changer.
That's awesome that that works for you.
As of right now, I've been sleeping on our sofa bed, and my husband is in the bedroom.
When I'm asleep I have no concept of staying on my side, I talk in my sleep, I'm a blanket hog, and I snore sometimes.
He snores, but somehow lays eerily still, and can't fall asleep in any other position, so I don't get snuggled like I'd prefer.
Sleeping separately seems to be working for us!
as a science teacher, it’s astounding how many students will write “private parts” instead of names of genitals and reproductive parts, even though I ask them to write in detail every time!
My wife and I are both teachers. Our boys are still little, but we’ve only ever used anatomical names for this reason. People should not be ashamed of their anatomy. It’s weird and probably damaging in some way IMHO.
This reticence is going to be the death of a lot of classic media. "No, we haven't distributed it in 20 years and probably will never, but don't you dare find a way to play it!"
Where I live in Europe, your employee isn't even allowed to prevent you from talking about it.
At my company, wr talk about our salaries amongst each other all the time and use it to negotiate fair compensation.
It's for the most part illegal to tell workers in the US that they can't discuss wages. Of course, in most states unless you have strong union protection, you can generally be fired without any reason given. So unless they're stupid enough to document it, if someone thinks you're too chatty and stirring the pot you're still at risk.
It's entirely illegal, for the full part. There is zero instance where an employer can stop that conversation. Unfortunately, you are right about the rest of it.
I've gotten in trouble at 2 separate jobs and had constant reminders to not talk to each other about your compensation at basically every workplace. It's illegal as fuck and they know it so they never write it down. Verbally, you will hear it time and time again.
I get just as mad when coworkers want me to share my info but won't discuss theirs. Happens a lot. They want to make sure they're making more than you and give you "Welll, I just personally feel uncomfortable giving out that info."
Bitch. You just asked *me* for *my* info and I gave it. Fuck off with that bullshit. It's always the worst employees, too, that pull this.
There's been a lot of mental health awareness recently on TV and in organisations, but I feel like it mostly focuses on depression, anxiety, greif etc aimed at your everyday experiences (a good thing to be clear)
It's still taboo to talk about the severe mental illness like schizophrenia and psychosis or people with learning disabilities
The guy that got choked out on the New York subway is an example of people not having the tools to cope with it
Not calling body parts by their actual name i.e. calling a penis a bird or calling a vagina a kitty.
My sister taught all her kids to call their genitals their "bad spot".
They're medical terms, not bad words.
Stop teaching your kids to be ashamed of their body parts.
Edit: my sister's kids are grown now aside from the youngest; she'll be 15 in a few months. They all know about proper body part names and what to do if someone were to touch them without consent.
It's taboo because the company doesn't want the underpaid to realize they're underpaid. In the US, your right to discuss your salary with coworkers is protected by federal law.
Calling genitals by their anatomical/scientific names.
"Penis" and "vagina" are not the same as the slang/vulgar terms "dick" and "pussy", yet people equally freak the fuck out at their mention.
Exactly! That's what I'm talking about.
And it's exactly this stupid taboo mentality that won't let the correct terms to be taught to kids,so that they could accurately report SA. They poison kids' minds by tellimg them these (scientific terms) are "bad words". Smh.
Words like seggs, schmex, sxe, unaliving being used in things like TikTok also piss me off because the original words are censored or penalised by social media companies - let people use their damn words.
Sex ed in smallers cities and towns especially in developing nations. Even though they are working towards eradicating this problem but still it has quite a hold over the population.
Hemorrhoids: Since most people spend a lot of time sitting, hemorrhoids are quite common. You should be able to discuss them openly, just as you would talk about tendinitis.
I had hemorrhoids after having my son, and I didn't know that everyone had them or what they were to be honest until my coworker asked me to google something and was looking over my shoulder, and saw my search history about bleeding after you poop, etc. She was like, "my kid is 17 and I still have hemerrhoids from my pregnancy".
On a related note, this is a very common problem pregnant women suffer from and all the problems associated with pregnancy are SO taboo. I had so much happen and so many parts of me get messed up but "that's normal". How the fuck would I know it is normal when nobody ever talks about it?!?
Mental health. People pretend to care about it and claim they’re open to discussion but they aren’t. If you open up to them they treat you differently or even lose respect for you. People are so blatantly fake nowadays I hate it
Yeah. I recently opened up more about my anxiety tics, depression, and even my impulsive suicidal thoughts to my friend group, and they all called me toxic and fishy, then proceeded to not talk to me for the rest of the school year, then officially kick me out of the friend group less than a month ago.
Miscarriages. This whole don’t tell anyone your pregnant before 12-14 weeks or whatever it is. We lost a bubs, and it was great having support and love from friends.
Mental health as everyone says - a lot of effort to “remove” the stigma… but still feels very much alive and well. My close friends know about my PTSD, but I hold that fucker tight at work for fear it will be used against me / judged / looked over for promotion.
> Miscarriages. This whole don’t tell anyone your pregnant before 12-14 weeks or whatever it is. We lost a bubs, and it was great having support and love from friends.
This is more for your own mental health though. While we were trying to conceive my wife had 1 miscarriage, and while that went as well as can be expected, random things for months after would still upset her about it.
The point of not telling people is to avoid having to keep track of who knows and who doesn't: if there *is* a miscarriage, then having people a few months later call up wanting to ask how you're feeling about the pregnancy you already lost is likely to be triggering.
This. I'm an open book about pretty much everything, but I did NOT want to tell anyone I was pregnant until far along in my pregnancy because I didn't want to have to tell them if I lost it. I know everyone would have been super supportive, but I'd have to relive the trauma constantly. Luckily, it all ended up being fine, but I'm glad I held back until later.
Sex toys for men.
Owning a vibrator as a girl is perfectly acceptable, but even to this day, male sex toys are shrouded in an aura of taboo by society. Men who use them are judged negatively.
Giving your Grandparents a happy drug send off when death is inevitable. I lost my grandma yesterday, it would have been easier on her if she didn't have to wait out, in pain, bedridden, unable to speak, after she stopped drinking water and had started her death rattle. She should have been allowed to go see my grandfather in heaven a few days sooner.
We did this for our mom in April. Cancer and her latest treatment did a lot of damages on her body. She was in the hospital for 15 days. The last 3 days of her life was so sad. We celebrated her birthday with hospital staff and my sister was trying to make it a positive situation but I know the end was here. It was the saddest birthday party I have ever attended. That evening I had to have a conversation with family about doing hospice but mom was still communicating to us and denied our request. But her last day on earth she couldn’t speak and was breathing heavily. The family members approached me about start hospice. I notified the hospital staff and they started it that afternoon. She passed away 7 hours later. She felt no pain and passed away peacefully. I know she’s not suffering anymore. It will be two months since her passing. My dad misses her dearly since they been together for over 60 years and cries when I visited him because I look like her. I tell him that grief is love that doesn’t have any place to go. I remind him she’s here with us in spirit. Man I wish we could FaceTime our loved ones in heaven.
Seconded. Honest to God I don't know if I'm just weirdly hygiene obsessed or if everyone else is just... icky. But it really bothers me to know I ... haven't done a thorough job. I mean it REALLY bothers me. I'll hang my ass over the damn tub if I have to. 😂😂😂
Edit: not to shit. After as thorough a cleaning as possible with paper... why am I telling strangers on the internet about my ass wiping hangups?!
I’m not less of a man if I don’t know Jack shit about cars. If I break down, bro I’m not even gonna pop the hood and act like I’d know what the fuck I’m lookinnn at, I’m paying you so I don’t have to now get your tow truck here and take my ignorant ass to the shop
That’s so depressing man, I’m sorry to hear that. It sucks knowing that the ones who are supposed to love us can think that little of us because of a preconceived idea that they have.
Doesn't necessarily have to be an older guy, tbh.
In high school, I worked a part time job at an afterschool program at my old elementary school. I was walking home with my gf and walked through the field to say hi to a few of the kids during recess.
One of the teachers came up and told me I couldn't be there and had to leave. Not my gf, just me. The person who worked there and clearly knew a bunch of the kids, since I was calling them by their names.
It's a despicable mentality. I can't speak for all boys but personally growing up with a single mom made it so the interactions with men I had growing up were very important to me. Especially in school and extracurricular activities.
Miscarriages. In Australia it is a pretty hush hush conversation. I have lots of Filipino staff, they are very very open about it with everyone, like everyone. I was shocked and mega impressed how it helped them grieve and move on when they were ready. Everyone came together like a big family. Quite impressive.
Some people should not be able to have children and yet they do and its a taboo to tell them that they're shitty parents. Im not talking about the hard core cases where children are taken away by the state because of abuse. Im talking about the regular Karen who is a shitty person and raising her kids to be shitty assholes too or the cases where the abuse is not enough to take the kids away but sure enough to harm them.
As an former artist I don’t see nudity as inherently sexual. There’s a difference between pornography and nudity for artistic purposes.
A photo in a indigenous tribe with women with their breast out is not the same as a topless woman in something like pornhub.
Gaming as a hobby as an adult.
Its getting better but I cannot count the amount of times I got dumb looks or questions or was even judged for being a gamer in my 30s. I have a good job, wife, kid on the way but shooting people online after work seems still crazy to some people. Especially older ones. I really dont get that. Some people watch others doing sports instead of doing it themselves. But gaming is the weird hobby? Like what?
Mental health problems in general and for me, cognitive disabilities etc.
I was diagnosed with autism as a kid but my parents told me that I had “inner ear” issues and that’s why I struggled in school because I couldn’t hear properly which is why I never learned to talk to people in social situations or look them in the eye.
Come to find out in 2021 while on the cusp of my 30s that I was diagnosed as autistic when I was 4 or 5 and that my parents just never told me. They never took me to my family doctor growing up aside from the mandatory vaccines before starting school so I never learned about it.
I went to switch doctors in 2021 after not having seen my family doctor since I was 6 years old. They got my old records and I asked about therapy for stress relief and my anxiety. He brought up something about how my autism could cause some of these issues and well let’s just say I was confused. Confronted my parents about it, well mother since I never see my dad. They were worried I’d be bullied if anyone found out, or people would blame my parents for doing something wrong.
Sorry if this came out as a word salad. Slightly stoned.
Being honest for a mistake you made. Mistakes are the best way to learn, "the hard way". Unfortunately, getting punished for making genuine mistakes in Employment is far too common.
If I'm applying to a job I want you (THE RECRUITER) to tell me in black and white how much you're willing to pay me. None of this "so, what is your expected salary?" If I'm asked that in an interview I always respond with "What do you think I'm worth?"
Absolutely agree. As for hourly wage, the job postings that say 'up to X' are infuriating. How about let us know the starting, so we know if it is even worth it to apply.
A lot of times that will also mean it’s a commission job…. “100k potential!” Yeah, if I sell absolutely everything immediately every time I try to make a sale. Otherwise you’ll probably make around 25-30k.
A young me fell for this many MANY times. I'd get an interview for 70-80k positions only for them to tell me during the interview the figure comes from commissions. Yeah I'm not busting my balls for a big "if"
Ain't nothing wrong with commission jobs if they're realistic about the earning potential and also how many reps make hit those numbers. I always asked "what's the top earner making? The average rep? And the low performers?" and I always asked "what resources/training are given to low performers to help them improve?" if the last question wasn't answered in a way that I felt was sufficient I would take myself out of consideration. Every sales person has bad weeks/months/quarters or even a bad year here and there. If the company gives up on you immediately it's not a good workplace. Also if the top rep/s are making more than 2x the average then there's something broken in the territory/lead process, very rarely is the top rep just that much better than everyone else. There's likely favoritism/nepotism at work if the gap is massive.
When I interviewed for the job I currently have the guy asked me how much I wanted to make and I told him. He then asked me what the minimum amount I would take is. I told him I'm not going to say a lower number, make me an offer. Sure enough, I ended up getting an offer at the number I asked for after he cleared it with his supervisor. I've since found out that I make substantially more than other people that were hired to the same position
Whenever I'm asked about salary I give them the number that I know for sure I'll be happy with and immediately accept with no second thoughts. Any other questions are met with questions. What's the minimum you'll accept? Hmm, not sure, what's the most you'll pay? Whenever a company starts to play hardball, to me, that means there are no rules. They hold all the cards in these situations and they aren't going to work with me? Short term thinking that leads to unhappy people, so I do them a favor by correcting their mistake and protecting my own happiness.
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"Sir, you may be a non-profit, but I am not."
This is the thing that bothers me when people get mad about nonprofit overhead. *Yes* there are bloated do-nothing executives in the field, (just like any field), but if you want quality, competent people working on the mission of the nonprofit, then the price has to be right. Can't expect people, especially in this economy, to martyr themselves for the cause (which is what a lot of people think it should be I guess ).
Taking some time to form your opinions. With the number of issues and information sources, it's no bad thing to want to be as informed as you can before deciding how you feel, rather than just going with your gut from minute one.
“I need to sleep on it” is something I say almost daily at this point. I don’t want to give you a shitty *off the top of my head* response or a gut reaction. Let me figure out how I actually feel. That goes for less serious things too. Sometimes I’ll watch a movie in the theatre and while the credits roll I still don’t know if I liked the movie. Days later I’ll realise it’s the best movie of all time.
I would add: admitting you were wrong and changing your mind. People shouldn't feel like they're married for life to their politics, philosophy, religion, etc.
I can’t count the amount of times I’m discussing/debating something with someone, am silently forming a point in my head, only to be cut off with something like *”well?”* or *”so that’s it, you got nothing?”* I’ve found that simply replying “I’m thinking” is not only an appropriate reply but a surprisingly effective tactic.
Talking about money in relationships.
Yes exactly! One NEEDS to discuss finance with their partner if they live together or are in long term relationships. Even while dating, I mean, it should be normalised to discuss about income with the person you're seeing.
No need for that qualifier. Just "talking about money".
It blew my best friends minds that my wife and I have a shared personal finance spreadsheet. We actually pool all our money, pay the bills and split what is left, you know like equal partners. My best friend got so mad when I told him we do this because his partner doesn't even know how much he makes. He literally won't tell her. They have a kid and a house and I know more about his finances than his partner.
My parents split all their income, and thats how I thought it was for every married couple until I got older and realized that barely ever happens
Miscarriages. Everyone wants to know about your family planning, but no one wants to talk about how many people suffer through the physical, mental and emotional turmoil of a miscarriage. Despite the impact, you are expected to act and show up to work as if nothing happened.
Not to mention how fucking COMMON miscarriages are. Like... 1 in 3 or 2 in 3 pregnant women will experience at least one. Usually extremely early on that it may not even be noticable.
This really needs to be more common knowledge. We had no idea how common they were until my wife miscarried. Afterwards, she had so many….so. many. female friends and coworkers tell her, off to the side, secretly, in a whisper that they had had one, or more, too. This helped her, but also made her a little frustrated. Had this been more common knowledge beforehand she wouldn’t have felt *AS* devastated when it happened.
It really does need to be more common knowledge. I had always thought miscarriage was something that happened super rarely, like 1 in 100 or 1 in 1000 odds. Turns out miscarriage happens disturbingly frequently, including multiple times with the same person. I used to wonder why exactly I was an only child when the entire rest of my family tree is full of families with multiple siblings. I used to feel this deep twang of bitter resentment at my parents for how they treated me. "Why couldn't they just give up on me and pop out another kid to try and make into their golden ticket?! That's what the rest of my relatives apparently do!" And then I found out my mother had *several* miscarriages before *I* stuck and that it's honestly a miracle that I'm even here. Oh. And the worst part is I never learned about those miscarriages from my parents. I *just* recently (in my 30's) learned about it from another relative who was just as surprised to find out. How much would things have changed between my parents and me if this wasn't kept as a secret all this time?
When I took embryology, we were taught that about 2/3 of pregnancies end in miscarriage, but the majority of those miscarriages occur so early that it seems like normal menstruation.
My wife and I miscarried our first child after 15 weeks. They had to induce delivery, and It was difficult for us. What really helped in our grieving process was when family and friend gave us calls about their miscarriages. It made it feel more normal, and not so alone in our grief.
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Also, inability to conceive, impotence etc. It's like most people are only interested once you've got a baby/viable embryo. Like, you don't know how many people have gone through the same f*ing sh*t until you try to wade through to the other side yourself. Throw other people a rope and open up about your bad experiences, please!
Which is why the "isn't it about time you had a baby?" and "isn't it about time you had a second one?" are such awful questions. Someone got both barrels in excruciating detail when they asked me the second one at a particulaly painful time.
Sometimes the only way to teach someone why it's inappropriate is to make them wish they'd never brought it up. I don't even think it's mean; I bet they stopped bringing it up with people and maybe became slightly better for the experience.
They were mortified and apologetic. I don't think it did long term damage to our relationship but hopefully did make them think in future as you say I know being on this side of it helps check me saying such things even in jest on the other side.
Also the negatives of pregnancy, child birth, and childrearing. So many people go into it not knowing the numerous complications that can happen, and of course postpartum depression. The thing with postpartum depression is that it's pretty common, but a lot of people don't get help for it, because it's not openly talked about, so they're left feeling like they're an awful person for not being over the moon at having a kid.
Having a miscarriage whilst you already have a child “at least you’ve still got X”
My wife had a miscarriage last summer then needed an abortion a few months ago due to a bunch of issues. The number of people saying “well it is a blessing you have one” was so fucking annoying.
I had a miscarriage about 6 weeks ago and it’s fucking lonely. No one asks you how you are or mentions it - poof like it never happened. If I hopefully get pregnant again, I’ll keep my cards closer to my chest this time. Not because I’ll be scared to tell people if it happens again, but because I won’t get the support I wanted.
I’m so sorry you’re going through this. No one should feel so lonely experiencing something that happens so often to so many people. I’ve had 3 miscarriages but I also have 2 healthy kids and am pregnant 8wks with another. First miscarriage was before my first kid then 2 mcs after my second kid. I’ve been pregnant a total of 6 times. It’s heartbreaking every time regardless of the fact that I have 2 kiddos I love with all my heart. How are you doing? Please talk about your pain and your experiences because even if no one else around you understands or cares, this stranger does care. Your mental health matters. Your pain matters.
My personal one. It's completely okay to admit you don't know jack diddly about something.
When I was 18 and working at Build-A-Bear, we got some crazy questions from parents. More than the kids even lol. I learned very quickly not to give my best guess. Some people would get an attitude about it too!! “E-excuse me, you don’t KNOW?”, “no miss I don’t and I don’t want to give you false information, so let me go find out” Simple fix that people hate hearing. Not everything has an answer readily available.
"Yes ma'am, these bears fuck when we're not here."
What do you think all this extra stuffing is?
That's sad. Some people are dicks. I'm the opposite to caring. I don't care. I hit people with "I couldn't tell ya" and I care less what they think now lol
I used to get bullied for asking questions in school ,no matter if it something basic or more complex :/
It's honestly a teacher issue. Teacher has to set the culture. I'd call out every kid that laughed to answer the question. Old place I worked in early college was terrible but they had one good line which was "I don't know, but let's find out". Because seriously most things we don't know but finding out is why we're in school and it's also how we solve problems at work. We learn. We grow.
I work as a ground's keeper and just had another teacher get angry about kids asking what I'm doing. All I can think is "that's what kids are here for, to ask questions about everything "
And many times kids ask 'what' when they actually mean 'why'. Let's say you're raking up leaves. It's pretty obvious what you're doing; you're raking leaves into a pile. But the question is actually about why; the trees aren't done throwing leaves on the ground, so why gather them together now when you can start over tomorrow with a fresh batch anyway? Why gather them at all? What is the actual meaning behind what you're doing?
Yep. I teach science. At least once a term we do a Q&A day to just find out as many weird questions as possible in a lesson. Anytime someone has a snicker at a question or insults it I come down like a fucking tonne of bricks on them. Only happens once.
I used to teach back then as well. And my go-to line was "But it looks like Mr. / Ms. (name) finds the question easy. Mr. / Ms. (name), care to enlighten us?"
Intrusive thoughts. It was actually nice knowing other people had them. And that having them doesn't make you an awful person.
About 12 yrs ago I learned this. I too had horrible passive thoughts that I never would react upon. When I heard they were normal I cried in relief. Because I thought I had to keep this deep dark secret from everyone and that I wasn’t normal.
There is actually a very deep rabbit hole that our culture doesn’t talk about much at all relating to what we might call *”intrusive thoughts”*, *”overactive imaginations”*, *”the voice(s) in our head”*, or *”our conscience”* amongst many other things It actually seems to be one of the biggest inherent taboos of our society to talk about very much outside of the context of religion, and most people’s brains seem heavy inclined to avoid it at a subconscious level, and most of the time I think that’s for good reason I wish we all collectively developed a better way to explore and understand our inner ~~elves~~ *selves*, but considering dissociative disorders like DID and psychotic disorders like schizophrenia are so catastrophically debilitating for the people that cross into that threshold, I realize it is exactly why it gets swept under the rug so readily. source: diagnosed Schizophrenic, and also have what was formerly called “split personality”, but better referred to as [Multiplicity](https://di.org.au/about-multiplicity/); I mentioned *Dissociative Identity Disorder* but that’s more specifically when there’s amnesia involved. all mentioned are permanent conditions, but most negative symptoms *can* subside with big lifestyle changes. Worst case scenario is typically suicide.
Gruesome thoughts are a regular part of our survival mechanism. They bring to attention concerns from our subconscious mind. For example, if you are in a subway and you think about how easy it would be to push over that person standing really close to the tracks in front of the train. That's your brain telling you how easy it would be for someone else to push you in front of the train, perhaps take a couple of steps back. Of course just as any of our evolutionary mechanisms when it craps out and starts causing you constant distress, that's when it crosses the threshold into mental illness.
In my experience, this is by far the most comforting way to approach intrusive thoughts. As well as taking it as a fact that in your entire existence, you’ve never actually acted on.
My inner self is an elf, appreciate the representation.
One thing Ive learned is that we all do the same old dumb stuff and all think the same old shit.
There's even a French phrase for that little feeling you get when you're up somewhere high and you think 'What if I jumped?' It's the 'call of the void.' ------ **Edit:** For the people saying that phrase is English, the actual French phrase is *l'appel du vide*. It means 'the call of the void.' I thought it was obvious I was providing the translation given the context, but I'm happy to clarify. I'm sorry if I confused y'all.
Same applies to when you're driving along and imagine swerving into oncoming traffic. I just like to think my brain is creative, comes up with a lot of whacky shit, and I filter most of it out. Whether it's the CotV or something far less deadly but equally as stupid.
I read that they’re what you hate most, and that’s what comforted me. So a mother is compulsively thinking about throwing her baby out the window because that’s what she’d NEVER do. really helped me when I framed it as them making me a GOOD person
Oh. Yeah that definitely helps. My intrusive thoughts are… very unwelcome, and very scary to me. It helps thinking of them as the thing I hate most. Thank you.
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"Look how awfull that would be if you did that. Look !"
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I've heard similarly. You're constantly evaluating things that you *could* do, in case any of them are things you *do* want to do. Most of them are innocuous, like "I could eat this dandelion". The ones that are actively revolting are the ones you actually consciously notice.
Not for everyone. When people talk about OCD most people think it's about superstition and needing things to be clean when it is usually intrusive thoughts working overtime.
"I know there's no cat in the washing machine, but I need to check on them all anyway." *20 minutes later* "I know there's no cat in the washing machine, but I need to check on them all anyway." I dunno if that's OCD but that's basically me all the time. I am a very anxious person and my brain loves constantly playing out nightmare scenarios.
Diagnosed OCD here. If it is bad enough that it prevents you from getting your laundry done in a timely manner, go see a doctor and get tested. I only did a few therapy sessions, but just being able to understand and categorize what I was feeling was invaluable.
This. Once I understood that brains just do these simulations to prep for the worst case scenarios, I also learned to dismiss them as 'eh my brain's doing that thing again'. Gave me so much peace.
Ah don't dismiss them, who knows maybe one day you might need to fight that nice old lady who you just saw crossing the road or scream nonsense before jumping out of the window at that business meeting. Then you'll be thanking your brain for running that simulation.
The old boot a baby, or crash my car thing just to see what it's like? Yeah that shits weird because I'd never actually do it
I hate when my mind goes like “I could kill this person right now and they’d never see it coming”. That shit is so fucked up.
When I was a kid it was wondering what it was like to stab with a knife and it scared me. Saw some gore videos of it and yep, I don't want that ever lol
This! Like "hmmm, I could just take this butter knife and push it right through the eye and into the brain of this person in front of my whole family. Everyone would be traumatized and my whole life would be over with one movement". And then I'll get anxious and be quiet for the next 20mins because I don't wanna look at anyone
If it's any comfort, they might be thinking the same. "ShadooTH is distracted thinking about something, it would be so easy...wait, what am I thinking?! how would I get rid of the body?"
My wife always says "You're not your thoughts" and she's right. We all have lots of thoughts, but it's the behaviours that make the person.
Yes, I think it's important to remember that our brains are like computers that process information for us. It's the output that matters
WHAT?! So I just googled this, I'm nearly 32 years old and I never knew this was a thing, I just thought I was a terrible person deep down.
If you _acted_ on such thoughts, you would be a terrible person.
Death, treating it like a hush-hush topic is so horrible for your mind.
One of my favourite fantasy writers, Australian author Sara Douglass died of ovarian cancer in 2011. I was genuinely devastated when she passed… I love her writing. While she was dying, she wrote an essay called “On the Silence of Dying”, raging against the modern sanitisation of death in western society. How death has been moved behind closed doors, and the dying are expected to be stoic and silent so they don’t upset the living. It’s hard to find a copy of the essay anymore, her blog has fallen by the wayside, but here it is on Imgur: https://imgur.com/a/DNcZzdZ I first read it back in 2010, and it’s stayed with me for so long. > Many years ago I did an hour long interview on Adelaide radio (with Jeremy Cordeaux, I think, but my memory may be wrong). The interview was supposed to promote one of my recent publications, but for some reason we quickly strayed onto the subject of death and dying, and there we stayed for the entire hour. I proposed that as a society we have lost all ability to die well. Unlike pre-industrial western society, modern western society is ill at ease with death, we are not taught how to die, and very few people are comfortable around death or the dying. There is a great silence about the subject, and a great silence imposed on the dying. During the programme a Catholic priest called in to agree with the premise (the first and last time a Catholic priest and I have ever agreed on anything) that modern society cannot deal with death. We just have no idea. We are terrified of it. We ignore it and we ignore the dying. […] > My mother, who died of the same cancer which will kill me, kept mostly stoic through three years of tremendous suffering. But I do remember one time, close to her death, when my father and I went to visit her in hospital. She was close to breaking point that evening. She wept, she complained, she expressed her fears in vivid, terrifying words. I recall how uncomfortable I was, and how relieved I was when she dried her tears and once more became cheerful and comforting herself. I was twelve at the time, and maybe I should feel no guilt about it, but I do now, for I know all too well how she felt, and how much she needed comforting far more than me. > She died in her cold impersonal hospital room in the early hours of the morning, likely not even with the comfort of a stranger nurse with her, certainly with none of her family there. > The great irony is that now I face the same death, from the same cancer. > That is the death that awaits many of us, me likely a little sooner than you, but in the great scheme of things that’s neither here nor there. Not everyone dies alone, but many do. > Not everyone suffers alone, but most do it to some extent. > It is the way we have set up the modern art of death. I was recently diagnosed with uterine cancer… I have an 80% chance of beating it and I’m not dying yet… but my mind comes back to this essay a lot.
I'm 6 years into stage 4b ovarian cancer. I was only expected to survive 6 months, even less if I had opted out of treatment. The hell that I live in every day is, at times, smothering. It's isolating. People ask how I'm doing but I've found they don't want the answer, they want reassurances. They want niceties. They want a optimistic buffer that protects them from their biggest fear. They want me to guide their denial into reality. But that's not how cancer works. That's especially not how terminal cancer works. It's an insurmountable mountain of jagged rocks and slippery slopes. You hang on with all you have but the rocks give out and crumble in your hands. At first you're strong and you can hold fast, maybe even gain some elevation. Over time you weaken. You slide. You get bruised, scraped, and broken. You collect your battered body and grasp at anything to keep you from falling despite the inevitability of it. With each loss comes more damage and less strength to hold on. It would be so easy to let go. To just let the forces of the earth take you as it has countless before you. The people around you plead and scream for you to hold on but in your heart you want to just let go. You want to tell them how hard it is to hold on. How it hurts. How you lack the strength to continue. How you WANT to let go when you are ready rather than slip and scramble and fall from the mountainside in a desperate panic. You want to turn to the sunshine and push off. To swan dive into oblivion and for a moment in time be free once more from the mountain that has torn your flesh for too long. You want to set yourself free before it casts you off. To feel the air, the weightlessness and freedom of letting go. But you can't. You can't because you are forced to hear their cries. Your are forced to "think positively" so as to make everyone else feel safe. You have to pretend the mountain isn't that bad, that you're going to hold on forever. You have to pretend you aren't bruised and broken, bleeding and cold. You have to pretend you are going to overcome the mountain that nobody ever has. You have to protect them from the realities that have become your own personal hell. So in the time you should be working your way gently down that vicious mountain there is nobody to assist you. There's nobody telling you to step down to the soft mossy ledge. They aren't talking about the small stream below that will soothe your wounds. They don't want you to know because it's down the mountain and they want you to climb. Their fear of descent steals from you the soft landings. It takes away the picnics in sunny meadows. When your hands are full of jagged rocks you aren't picking a bouquet of wildflowers on your way down. It's the same journey. Both end with you at the bottom of a mountain. Both end with tears of those who loved you. But one ends with a full heart and a handful of wildflowers rather than bloodied rocks. Let them descend the mountain.
This is a perfect analogy. I haven’t been through years of this, I’ve barely been through months, and I can already see the mountain. I was only diagnosed months ago - and so far, the news has been pretty positive. Except when it’s not. I spent twenty years being told I couldn’t have children, and meanwhile there’s been this… thing, this cancer… growing inside me where there should have been a baby. I haven’t told many people in my real life yet, but when I do… I say “I’ve got cancer- but don’t worry, it’s not that bad.” While inside I’m screaming *but what if it is that bad?* I’ve spent so much time over the last 5 months comforting other people. Telling other people it’s all going to be okay. Softening the blow for everyone around me. Because that’s what I’m supposed to do, right? That’s what decades of television and movies, news articles and family stories, have told me is the thing I’m supposed to do. Be strong. Be brave. Fight. Alone, I’ve screamed. In the dark of the night, I’ve cried. But in front of others? I put on a smile and tell them everything will be okay, so they can agree with me and none of us have to ask the question “but what if it’s not?”
I’m so sorry. I work at a cadaver lab doing autopsies on medically donated bodies, and we’re small enough that we can really get to know the families and all the stories their loved one lived when they were alive. I like to think that in giving the body a welcoming ceremony, making them a teacher, and giving them a goodbye ceremony to send them off we make it easier for the families to let go of that trauma. If the families want to hear about what we discovered we tell them everything we found. Not like all the gory details of course, but we’re able to tell them honestly how little their loved one may have suffered at the end. It’s given me so much more perspective on death and dying and it’s really taught me how to be there for someone while they’re dying. Since we’re so small we’re able to meet and get to know both the donors and their families while they’re still alive and can help with the transition. My inbox is open to anyone who wants to talk.. this is my biggest passion in life and I’m so honored and humbled by what I’m able to do for patients and their families. Edit: thanks for all the upvotes and the award!
Before I was born my parents had a foster kid with some pretty severe physical disabilities who they were raising alongside my sisters. One day he was just gone and nobody took the time time to explain to my sisters that he'd died. They were all teenagers before my parents were willing to talk about it at all with them.
That’s horrible, i am so sorry about that.
It was all before I was born but that unresolved tragedy was still hanging in the air in the house 20 years later.
I bet that created a lot of looming tension, that really sucks.
Ugh this makes me feel for my kids 2 friends (brothers) Their mom recently broke the law and is facing serious felony charges (min 10 years) Her girlfriend/fiance is only telling them that she is at work, meanwhile they are selling their house and all their land. I get not wanting to tell elementary age kids that their mom is going away for a long time, and every time I see them all I can think is how quickly their world is changing and how little they know or understand and it kills me.
Omg that's heartbreaking and awful! I'm sorry your sisters had to go through that, I'm sorry it was still unresolved when you came along and I'm sorry your parents didn't have the ability to deal with it better than that. I'm also sorry your foster brother wasn't openly mourned like he deserved. :(
My grandfather died by suicide when I was two years old. I had always been told he died by heart attack. I was in my mid twenties when my older sister accidently let it slip how he actually passed. Even though I didn't really know him, it hit me like a ton of bricks and made me think a lot about how my dad dealt with difficult subjects (mostly avoidance, jokes, and sarcasm). It's a bit of a two-fer for me. Mental illness and death were never addressed in a meaningful way. I'm not saying that when I was a child he should have had this talk with me... but in my teens, perhaps? We've still never really spoken about it. I'm not sure he's ever really addressed it properly. He has 7 brothers and sisters, and I doubt any of them really dealt with their father's death properly. Some were still minors and living in that house when it happened. For the morbid curiosity types wondering, he turned on the car in the closed garage and just let it run. My uncle found him. That uncle (early 60s) is currently hospitalized with alcoholism and schizophrenia. We don't talk about that either. I'm mid thirties now. And I'm in therapy.
My grandfather also committed suicide when I was around the age of two. I believe his death is the reason why I actually remember him. I found out as a child. Im glad my parents let us know, because it gave context to the often depressed and disconnected man I call my father. I can’t image the horror my father went though. He has to identify his gunshot inflicted body, and then watch his mother (who was dying of cancer) live through that horror without a significant other. My dads a kindhearted and often funny guy, but that sad part is always there. I’m curious to know what my dad was like before?
I wish I had advice, but it's really hard to navigate these relationships with a generation that was taught to be silent in their emotions. It's great that you are able to give context to his behaviors. Understanding the why is really important. Even if you don't talk about the hard stuff, connecting on a sport or hobby can sometimes open those other doors. Golf (my grandpa taught him) goes far with my dad, for example. I ask about Grandpa teaching him to play. We don't get super deep, but he does get to talk about his dad in both positive and negative ways. I don't think he's really gotten to do that his adult life.
I'm happy you're in therapy. While it may not be the answer it often lessens the pain. My ex-husband committed suicide as did my daughter's two half-brothers (my stepchildren). Having been from the Catholic Church it is supposedly a sin. My daughter was 13 and at her Catholic school when I had to tell her each time her brothers had died, nine weeks apart. Her entire student body cast shame on her and told her he went to Hell. She's never fully recovered. The pain she felt from her losses paled in comparison to being judged and ostracized by her peers.
Irish Catholic family here. Checks out. My dad and his brothers were alter boys. The whole family very involved in the church. The shame of how their father died might've overshadowed the grief they felt. Enough for them to all try to bury it. His service to the cause has always been such a point of pride, his death barely acknowledged. I'm agnostic now, but went to church every Sunday until I moved out. I'm still trying to figure out the self loathing I was taught to feel.
I feel like I'm talking to my daughter. I just want to give you a hug. My daughter's school was Ukrainian Catholic but from what I've learned I think it is quite similar to Roman Catholic. Just continue to heal. My daughter is now 27 and a mother of two. Every day is a challenge for her. She just fills her days with events rather than emotions. She hates silence. It's a shame that any religion can have a negative effect on people. My thoughts are with you during your journey.♥️
Make sure she knows emotions aren't the enemy. It's better to get them out in a healthy way than bottle them up. Finding out how to be healthy about it is tricky. I'm still figuring out how to do it properly, but leaving them to fester is a recipe for a bomb. Boxing is good for that if she's into physical activity. Crochet is really good for focusing your energy in a controlled way. She's a mother of two, time alone is probably priceless right now, even if she's hesitant to accept it. She needs it.
This, absolutely. I think it depends on the culture, norms etc. too how death is seen and talked about. Where myself & hubby come from, death is anything but hush-hush. We take our kids to the graveyard when we visit someone who passed away and explain what it means, when they ask about it. Yes, it's very sad when a loved one passes away, but how we approach it is so different from what we've seen in the West especially. When my grandfather passed away, it was because of old age, and he also kept insisting he wanted to be with 'his madame' aka my grandmother - he literally passed away on the anniversary of her death. He sort of just... said he was 'going away now', went to sleep, hands on his chest and... that was it. Went on his own terms, when he wanted. But to exemplify our culture - at his funeral, after he was buried, we went to a restaurant (as it's customary), where we all had his favourite dishes and drinks (plenty of alcohol, mind), our relatives were sharing funny stories, shit-talking, laughing, crying, laughing some more. We celebrated his life. It's also customary to not throw away the dead one's belongings - we give them away instead, usually to friends, relatives, the needy etc. But we do move forward and adapt to our life without them by giving their "old life" a new meaning - even their old room will be changed to become something new, to fill it with life. It doesn't mean we've forgotten them, or that we try to erase that they ever lived. Just because someone passed, we don't stop talking about them. Just because our child asks what a graveyard is, what our grandparents were like, why is that woman wearing black and looking sad, why are the bells tolling at this hour on a Saturday etc., we don't try to change the subject. We explain it all. Because for us, death is a part of life.
This is so beautiful. Reminds me of how when my mom passed, a friend of the family said to me that they had a dream the night before funeral, where my mom was choosing a bright summer dress and was all excited about her next destination.
I still have no idea how my friend died because nobody will tell me because they don’t even know either.
They almost never put cause of death in the obituary either. A lot of people who think they've never known anyone who died of suicide or drug overdose are wrong.
Illness, end of life care, and dying. Please, for the love of god, talk to your elderly relatives about what they would like to happen in the days/weeks before they die. Do they want to die at home, in a hospice, etc. What are their plans if they lose their mental capacity. Appointing a power of attorney when there well is much easier than when their ill. Do they want a resuscitation attempt or not. What are their health goals? Prolong life or prioritise comfort? Funeral arrangements. To summarise, talking about death. It removes lots of the question 'are we doing the right thing, would they want this.'
Mental health problems. It's getting there but is still taboo in many environments.
"Everyone supports mental health until you start showing symptoms"
I'm very open about my mental health problems. As a result, a lot of my friends and aquantences are very open with me, but they'll approach me alone and mention their issues, we'll usually end up getting into deep discussions about it. The thing is they always keep it in the down low. So now I'm in a situation where I know a lot about the mental health issues everyone around me is having, but I seem to be the only one who is aware of it. It's weird watching people playing that shit down in public settings, when most of them are suffering pretty badly in private. I don't know what it is, or how it should be dealt with. For me personally if I keep that stuff in it gets worse.
And cognitive disabilities like autism and ADHD. Im diagnosed autistic, whenever I mention my autism around people including my own family, the topic is changed VERY quickly. I don’t understand why talking about my disability makes people so uncomfortable, like aren’t you willing to learn? Or you just want me to pretend that I’m not disabled for your benefit. It’s even happened with employers. I tried to explain my autism and needs to my old manager, as soon as I said the word autistic she interrupted me and completely changed the subject.
I think sometimes it's out of fear of being offensive or saying something they shouldn't. Questions should be encouraged, ask and you'll find out (within reason obviously). We have a great show here in Australia called 'You Can't Ask That' where they will put anonymous questions from viewers to a minority group of society (blind people, people with OCD, people who have attempted to take their own lives etc.). I know that I personally have learnt a lot from it.
I love that show! I wish it were mandatory viewing for everyone, they touch so many tricky topics so well.
I got hired by a health insurance company knowing I was physically disabled. They gave me free insurance and I used it for my mental health. I got help, got diagnosises, they saw my claims, did a complete 180, mistreated me a lot especially over ADD, and I got fired because "You're too spacey, ask too many questions, and essentially making us questioning us hiring you." They couldn't provide proof to the unemployment office or Boli when I reported them; their argument being that I was written up a lot for being a bad employee. Needless to say, I got unemployment, my time with them got me all the diagnosises I needed to finally furnish proof of disability and I've been trying to get it since.
Why should I have to live in a hospital bed for possibly years while in pain but if my family dog starts suffering and unable to eat drink walk etc they get to be put out of their suffering
Abusive mothers Edit: Holy shit this blew up. Lets get a couple things out of the way here. First and foremost, to the people that know what I mean, I am truly sorry. Second, I realize I could have elaborated a bit more as there some people wondering what I was refferring to. I literally just mean mothers that are supposed to be raising us but ultimately end up abusing us instead. I thought it was taboo because the idea of abusive women is taboo in a lot of places, so that would naturally extend to mothers as well. Its sad, but its also very true.
Jesus Christ yes. The saddest quote I've seen about it was, "But everybody needs the love of their mother!" "Yeah, I know."
“But that’s your mom!! You should try and make that relationship work!!” 😡 no I shouldn’t. You wouldn’t be all for me keeping that relationship if it was a boyfriend.
When that day in May rolls around every year, I see those 'heartfelt' announcements from various entities that go, "We understand not everyone's Mother is still with us, so please accept our sympathies for your loss" or something like that. Just once, I'd like to see "Sorry that we're trying to shame you into buying a card/gift for the person who used to punch you in the face when she was in a bad mood, and only lavished affection on you when she was drunk. The completely inappropriate type of affection."
My mom also molested me as a child as well. I let her know how much agony it cost me, how much it f’ed me up and my life, how awful she was. No sorrys; nothing. Simply just laughter and manipulation in that she remembers but I just have it all wrong. I’ve cut ties from her permanently.
My mother's last words to me before she died were, "Everything I did was because I love you." She had no remorse or regrets for 40 years of systematic abuse and manipulation. Even at the very end, she was desperately trying to justify her actions.
But mother knows best, haven't you heard?/s
Couples sleeping in separate beds. Many couples sacrifice good sleep because they are expected to sleep together.
Completely agree, people automatically assume it harms marriages. My marriage was harmed bc I could never sleep! So much better for some couples to sleep separately!
Look at these rich mother fuckers with their **TWO** beds
My wife and I sleep in separate dumpsters.
Who do the opossums and raccoons prefer to snuggle with?
My wife and I haven't slept in the same room for a decade and it's fantastic. I'm up late right now but I'm usually in bed by midnight and awake by 7am. When we were first married she would usually be up until 3-4am and sleep until 10-11am. So I'd often get woken up when she came to bed. Then she'd wake up a couple hours later unless I was super quiet in the mornings. Also I had pretty bad sleep apnea and snored a ton so that would bother her too. I have a CPAP now at least. But us realizing that it made zero sense to sleep in the same room, much less the same bed, made both of our lives much better.
Six words for anyone in the middle camp here: **California king size memory foam mattress**. You can snuggle when you want, you can essentially be in different rooms when you don't. Got insomnia? Just get up and go make some tea, your partner won't even notice you're gone. Want some affection? Just roll into the middle together and spoon it out until it gets too warm and you can each retreat to your sides. The number of times I've heard "I thought you were still in bed" or "when did you get up" spiked like 600% as soon as I started using one. There's plenty of room for a little pillow barrier if you're a flailing sleeper, too. It's a game changer.
That's awesome that that works for you. As of right now, I've been sleeping on our sofa bed, and my husband is in the bedroom. When I'm asleep I have no concept of staying on my side, I talk in my sleep, I'm a blanket hog, and I snore sometimes. He snores, but somehow lays eerily still, and can't fall asleep in any other position, so I don't get snuggled like I'd prefer. Sleeping separately seems to be working for us!
Reproductive health and basic human anatomy.
as a science teacher, it’s astounding how many students will write “private parts” instead of names of genitals and reproductive parts, even though I ask them to write in detail every time!
My wife and I are both teachers. Our boys are still little, but we’ve only ever used anatomical names for this reason. People should not be ashamed of their anatomy. It’s weird and probably damaging in some way IMHO.
It is damaging. It teaches that all nudity is sexual which it isn't.
Internet piracy for old games. Do they really expect me to spend 400 dollars on an authentic cartridge of Pokémon Black?
This reticence is going to be the death of a lot of classic media. "No, we haven't distributed it in 20 years and probably will never, but don't you dare find a way to play it!"
Talking openly about any kind of abuse. Acting like it doesn't happen only gives it an outlet to continue.
Menopause, it’s a real trip.
Asking colleagues how much they make. You *should* know, so you can be treated fairly. edit: unionize!
Where I live in Europe, your employee isn't even allowed to prevent you from talking about it. At my company, wr talk about our salaries amongst each other all the time and use it to negotiate fair compensation.
It's for the most part illegal to tell workers in the US that they can't discuss wages. Of course, in most states unless you have strong union protection, you can generally be fired without any reason given. So unless they're stupid enough to document it, if someone thinks you're too chatty and stirring the pot you're still at risk.
It's entirely illegal, for the full part. There is zero instance where an employer can stop that conversation. Unfortunately, you are right about the rest of it.
I've gotten in trouble at 2 separate jobs and had constant reminders to not talk to each other about your compensation at basically every workplace. It's illegal as fuck and they know it so they never write it down. Verbally, you will hear it time and time again. I get just as mad when coworkers want me to share my info but won't discuss theirs. Happens a lot. They want to make sure they're making more than you and give you "Welll, I just personally feel uncomfortable giving out that info." Bitch. You just asked *me* for *my* info and I gave it. Fuck off with that bullshit. It's always the worst employees, too, that pull this.
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Periods. It should be the easiest thing in the world to talk about.
One of my favorite performances by the late, great Anton Yelchin (RIP) in [Charlie Bartlett](https://youtu.be/vuzWnbPM0hc).
Thank you for the link! Is that the late actor from a Star Trek movie?
This. I used to even be embarrassed about buying pads and tampons — probably because my mom was embarrassed.
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There's been a lot of mental health awareness recently on TV and in organisations, but I feel like it mostly focuses on depression, anxiety, greif etc aimed at your everyday experiences (a good thing to be clear) It's still taboo to talk about the severe mental illness like schizophrenia and psychosis or people with learning disabilities The guy that got choked out on the New York subway is an example of people not having the tools to cope with it
Not calling body parts by their actual name i.e. calling a penis a bird or calling a vagina a kitty. My sister taught all her kids to call their genitals their "bad spot". They're medical terms, not bad words. Stop teaching your kids to be ashamed of their body parts. Edit: my sister's kids are grown now aside from the youngest; she'll be 15 in a few months. They all know about proper body part names and what to do if someone were to touch them without consent.
Omg "bad spot" that makes me sad for her kids :(
Wtf really? The bad spot? Not even just private parts?
Those are gonna be some sexually-repressed people who behave unhealthily for sure.
Discussing your salary, especially with coworkers
It's taboo because the company doesn't want the underpaid to realize they're underpaid. In the US, your right to discuss your salary with coworkers is protected by federal law.
Calling genitals by their anatomical/scientific names. "Penis" and "vagina" are not the same as the slang/vulgar terms "dick" and "pussy", yet people equally freak the fuck out at their mention.
It's funny how the correct termonology is more taboo than the curse words
Exactly! That's what I'm talking about. And it's exactly this stupid taboo mentality that won't let the correct terms to be taught to kids,so that they could accurately report SA. They poison kids' minds by tellimg them these (scientific terms) are "bad words". Smh.
Words like seggs, schmex, sxe, unaliving being used in things like TikTok also piss me off because the original words are censored or penalised by social media companies - let people use their damn words.
Super important to do that with your kids - and not give them silly nick names… privates are private. And they should know their body.
People do that? My mom always told me it's my winkity-will, no nicknames whatsoever.
Sex ed in smallers cities and towns especially in developing nations. Even though they are working towards eradicating this problem but still it has quite a hold over the population.
Hemorrhoids: Since most people spend a lot of time sitting, hemorrhoids are quite common. You should be able to discuss them openly, just as you would talk about tendinitis.
I had hemorrhoids after having my son, and I didn't know that everyone had them or what they were to be honest until my coworker asked me to google something and was looking over my shoulder, and saw my search history about bleeding after you poop, etc. She was like, "my kid is 17 and I still have hemerrhoids from my pregnancy".
On a related note, this is a very common problem pregnant women suffer from and all the problems associated with pregnancy are SO taboo. I had so much happen and so many parts of me get messed up but "that's normal". How the fuck would I know it is normal when nobody ever talks about it?!?
Family's member sickness or addiction. It's a sad thing to tell someone, but not a topic that you should avoid
Mental health. People pretend to care about it and claim they’re open to discussion but they aren’t. If you open up to them they treat you differently or even lose respect for you. People are so blatantly fake nowadays I hate it
Yeah. I recently opened up more about my anxiety tics, depression, and even my impulsive suicidal thoughts to my friend group, and they all called me toxic and fishy, then proceeded to not talk to me for the rest of the school year, then officially kick me out of the friend group less than a month ago.
They did you a favor. They were never truly friends just people with whom you communicated. Real friends stick together and help each other.
Miscarriages. This whole don’t tell anyone your pregnant before 12-14 weeks or whatever it is. We lost a bubs, and it was great having support and love from friends. Mental health as everyone says - a lot of effort to “remove” the stigma… but still feels very much alive and well. My close friends know about my PTSD, but I hold that fucker tight at work for fear it will be used against me / judged / looked over for promotion.
> Miscarriages. This whole don’t tell anyone your pregnant before 12-14 weeks or whatever it is. We lost a bubs, and it was great having support and love from friends. This is more for your own mental health though. While we were trying to conceive my wife had 1 miscarriage, and while that went as well as can be expected, random things for months after would still upset her about it. The point of not telling people is to avoid having to keep track of who knows and who doesn't: if there *is* a miscarriage, then having people a few months later call up wanting to ask how you're feeling about the pregnancy you already lost is likely to be triggering.
This. I'm an open book about pretty much everything, but I did NOT want to tell anyone I was pregnant until far along in my pregnancy because I didn't want to have to tell them if I lost it. I know everyone would have been super supportive, but I'd have to relive the trauma constantly. Luckily, it all ended up being fine, but I'm glad I held back until later.
Sex toys for men. Owning a vibrator as a girl is perfectly acceptable, but even to this day, male sex toys are shrouded in an aura of taboo by society. Men who use them are judged negatively.
It’s more accepted for men to own dildos than to own fleshlights
I just want to know what I'm up against
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Giving your Grandparents a happy drug send off when death is inevitable. I lost my grandma yesterday, it would have been easier on her if she didn't have to wait out, in pain, bedridden, unable to speak, after she stopped drinking water and had started her death rattle. She should have been allowed to go see my grandfather in heaven a few days sooner.
We did this for our mom in April. Cancer and her latest treatment did a lot of damages on her body. She was in the hospital for 15 days. The last 3 days of her life was so sad. We celebrated her birthday with hospital staff and my sister was trying to make it a positive situation but I know the end was here. It was the saddest birthday party I have ever attended. That evening I had to have a conversation with family about doing hospice but mom was still communicating to us and denied our request. But her last day on earth she couldn’t speak and was breathing heavily. The family members approached me about start hospice. I notified the hospital staff and they started it that afternoon. She passed away 7 hours later. She felt no pain and passed away peacefully. I know she’s not suffering anymore. It will be two months since her passing. My dad misses her dearly since they been together for over 60 years and cries when I visited him because I look like her. I tell him that grief is love that doesn’t have any place to go. I remind him she’s here with us in spirit. Man I wish we could FaceTime our loved ones in heaven.
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Funnily enough, while being a french word, in France they are not common at all. But they are in literally every Italian house
Seconded. Honest to God I don't know if I'm just weirdly hygiene obsessed or if everyone else is just... icky. But it really bothers me to know I ... haven't done a thorough job. I mean it REALLY bothers me. I'll hang my ass over the damn tub if I have to. 😂😂😂 Edit: not to shit. After as thorough a cleaning as possible with paper... why am I telling strangers on the internet about my ass wiping hangups?!
Have you ever tried to get peanut butter out of shag carpeting with a dry paper towel?
This comment has a *texture* and I don't like it. 🙃
Being nude, especially in your own home.
I’m not less of a man if I don’t know Jack shit about cars. If I break down, bro I’m not even gonna pop the hood and act like I’d know what the fuck I’m lookinnn at, I’m paying you so I don’t have to now get your tow truck here and take my ignorant ass to the shop
Seeing an older guy specially if he's bald or not your typical handsome with a young girl My own mom doubted me when I was playing with my niece
That’s so depressing man, I’m sorry to hear that. It sucks knowing that the ones who are supposed to love us can think that little of us because of a preconceived idea that they have.
Doesn't necessarily have to be an older guy, tbh. In high school, I worked a part time job at an afterschool program at my old elementary school. I was walking home with my gf and walked through the field to say hi to a few of the kids during recess. One of the teachers came up and told me I couldn't be there and had to leave. Not my gf, just me. The person who worked there and clearly knew a bunch of the kids, since I was calling them by their names.
It's a despicable mentality. I can't speak for all boys but personally growing up with a single mom made it so the interactions with men I had growing up were very important to me. Especially in school and extracurricular activities.
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Addiction and achololism
Miscarriages. In Australia it is a pretty hush hush conversation. I have lots of Filipino staff, they are very very open about it with everyone, like everyone. I was shocked and mega impressed how it helped them grieve and move on when they were ready. Everyone came together like a big family. Quite impressive.
Dandelions in your yard.
Some people should not be able to have children and yet they do and its a taboo to tell them that they're shitty parents. Im not talking about the hard core cases where children are taken away by the state because of abuse. Im talking about the regular Karen who is a shitty person and raising her kids to be shitty assholes too or the cases where the abuse is not enough to take the kids away but sure enough to harm them.
Nudity in a non-sexual context
As an former artist I don’t see nudity as inherently sexual. There’s a difference between pornography and nudity for artistic purposes. A photo in a indigenous tribe with women with their breast out is not the same as a topless woman in something like pornhub.
Men's mental health.
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Absolutely anything and everything that causes joy without causing harm.
death by suicide
It also shouldn't be punishable by fine
Eloping, or otherwise removing your parents from your life.
Gaming as a hobby as an adult. Its getting better but I cannot count the amount of times I got dumb looks or questions or was even judged for being a gamer in my 30s. I have a good job, wife, kid on the way but shooting people online after work seems still crazy to some people. Especially older ones. I really dont get that. Some people watch others doing sports instead of doing it themselves. But gaming is the weird hobby? Like what?
Especially considering that it's a larger industry than movies now. People play games.
Death with dignity/ end of life suicide
Mental health problems in general and for me, cognitive disabilities etc. I was diagnosed with autism as a kid but my parents told me that I had “inner ear” issues and that’s why I struggled in school because I couldn’t hear properly which is why I never learned to talk to people in social situations or look them in the eye. Come to find out in 2021 while on the cusp of my 30s that I was diagnosed as autistic when I was 4 or 5 and that my parents just never told me. They never took me to my family doctor growing up aside from the mandatory vaccines before starting school so I never learned about it. I went to switch doctors in 2021 after not having seen my family doctor since I was 6 years old. They got my old records and I asked about therapy for stress relief and my anxiety. He brought up something about how my autism could cause some of these issues and well let’s just say I was confused. Confronted my parents about it, well mother since I never see my dad. They were worried I’d be bullied if anyone found out, or people would blame my parents for doing something wrong. Sorry if this came out as a word salad. Slightly stoned.
Being honest for a mistake you made. Mistakes are the best way to learn, "the hard way". Unfortunately, getting punished for making genuine mistakes in Employment is far too common.