Support For Historylover

[chibam]

Hi @Historylover ! Just wanted to check in and see that things are still okay with you? 🙂

[Historylover]

So good to hear from you, @chibam. I got a bit choked up to think that you had thought of me.

I join things from time to time and withdraw for one self-protective reason or another. I recently joined an indoor bowls group with a local activities organization. I have no trust in people as you probably know. People may seem benign but only time will tell how it plays out. I feel that I am being sized up by the established group. I'm not expecting good things but I'm hoping for the best as I'm thoroughly enjoying the game. My attempt to teach myself keyboard has slowed dramatically. Either I'm not musical or I just have too much on my mind. I think I'm just lost.

How are you going?

[chibam]

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@Historylover wrote:

So good to hear from you, @chibam. I got a bit choked up to think that you had thought of me.

I join things from time to time and withdraw for one self-protective reason or another. I recently joined an indoor bowls group with a local activities organization. I have no trust in people as you probably know. People may seem benign but only time will tell how it plays out. I feel that I am being sized up by the established group.

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Very relatable post, in many ways, @Historylover . I, too, have no trust left in the world, or the people therein. I seem to have lost my capacity for optimism regarding what once might have seemed like "new opportunities." Although I think it's less a case of having lost optimism and more a case of being mindful of the hidden small print.

As you know, I often speak out for better services (to the extent of which I have the energy). Losing optimism that they'll ever arrive in my lifetime. But I sometimes wrestle with the idea that, even if a service arrived tomorrow that said all the right things and made all the right promises, I suspect I would be very reluctant to get involved with them. I've been sold lemons far too many times in my life. I don't think I have any trust left. So where does that leave me? In desparate need of help, yet without the necessary trust to place myself in anyone's hands. Seems like a no-win situation to me.

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@Historylover wrote:

How are you going?

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(Hopefully) Coming out of a spell where it just seemed to be one thing after another. A week or so ago, seemed like every day there was some sort of problem tying me up. A couple of unrelated electrical failures; storms; then there was the Optus knockout; and then I've had relatives with issues that needed sorting out...

It's been nice to have a couple consecutive days where I wasn't waking up saying "Oh, what now?"

[Historylover]

It would be so easy to make a sombre reply, @chibam, but I'm trying not to go where I'm coming from. I'm sorry to read that you've been going through a tough patch (amongst tough patches). Life was supposed to be the proverbial 'fair go for all' but there's no such reality, in my opinion. 

I'm just trying to keep myself occupied at the moment. I get new ideas, try new things, decide on new directions...and end up in the same place. Perhaps the new year will be a good one, or at least better. 🤞

[NatureLover]

Hi @Historylover  and @chibam  🙂

Hoping things improve for you both... 🤞

[chibam]

Thanks, @NatureLover ! 🙂

Sorry, @Historylover , I didn't mean to lump my woes on you. I realize you've got your own problems to deal with. I should've thought before I typed. It was just a slip of the tongue.

[Historylover]

Hey @chibam! What's with the apology? You did nothing wrong. I don't know what we are going to do with ourselves—still looking for our magic lantern, I guess. I would just love a decent psy to discuss my woes with, to disentangle this mess and help me rebuild, but I know there's just no point, so I spend my life like an individual with severe trauma 'indigestion'. It's not fair on so many levels.

I had a multi-person newsletter on an ADHD senate enquiry from Niall McLaren today. He said words to the effect that "I'm worn out by enquiries and reports and all that stuff. Also by the endlessly proliferating wars around the world.
There's a rule in senior levels of public services around the world: Never hold an enquiry unless you're sure you can get the answers you want. The show must go on, but make sure it doesn't blow up in your face. The report of the Senate enquiry into ADHD, released a week or two ago, is a neat example of the genre: Ask a series of loaded questions, then invite a gaggle of people whose minds are made up to answer them. As theatre, it's a winner, and that's all this enquiry was, a diversion, a distraction and a total waste of public time and money. However, a lot of people around the country are feeling very satisfied, believing they're going to get what they want. Well, beware of what you wish for. I've had my fill of ADHD this month, we'll come back to it another day, but one small point on p137, almost a throw-away, caught my eye"...

Like a lot of enquiries that have been going on in times past...and nothing has changed. Niall McLaren's an interesting fellow. 

You didn't lump your woes on me! I like to know how you really are any time you need to vent. 

[chibam]

Hi @Historylover .

Just a short response because I think we're headed for stormy weather here, which means I'll have to disconnect all our internet gear to prevent it getting fried; so I'm trying to get all my internet stuff for today done as quickly as possible.

Those remarks from Niall McLaren remind me of an episode of "Yes Minister", where Sir Humphrey more or less said the same thing - that government inquiries are always designed to reach predetermined conclusions. He actually gave Bernard a tutorial on how to design a public survey so that it delivers the desired results, too.

I skimmed over that inquiry a little this arvo and noted that it had over 700 submissions. Judging by the huge amount of anonymous and first-name-only submissions, I'm guessing it had a large response from the lived experiance community. That makes me happy. And in it's reccommendations, the government seems to place great emphasis on lived experiance input going forward, which is also pleasing to see.

I'm no fan of the way this supposed condition is medicalized; but you could pretty much count on the government supporting this approach. At least the renewed interest in lived experiance input is a silver lining. A foot in the door that we never had only a few years ago.

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@Historylover wrote:

I don't know what we are going to do with ourselves—still looking for our magic lantern, I guess. I would just love a decent psy to discuss my woes with, to disentangle this mess and help me rebuild, but I know there's just no point, so I spend my life like an individual with severe trauma 'indigestion'. It's not fair on so many levels.

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So true.

It's interesting that you mention a magic lantern. I'm sure I've mentioned this at some point, but one of my all-time favorite movies is the animated cartoon Aladdin (i.e. the Robin Williams one). Loved it as a kid. And I've never stopped dreaming of finding a magic lamp for real, so I could get my three wishes. Seems like that's the only hope we have.

I'm a rational man, but in my most desperate days, I'd literally go digging up beaches, and climbing up exotic oriental trees looking for that mystical genie. Meanwhile, others can get that same sort of assistance from actual people for free, and in the blink of an eye. The world just wasn't made for some of us, methinks.

[Historylover]

Feeling too gloomy to make a lengthy response, @chibam. Yes, it was your mention of a magic lantern that I was referring to.

I watch Alone from time to time as an observer of human nature and the desire to survive and be self-sufficient. Some folk break early, but others go into it fully prepared mentally and skilfully. I also watch snippets of Survivor from time to time, for the social observations to be made. I don't know how they can betray so unconscionably...but perhaps that really is what life is about. It certainly seems to be so in the real world. Personally, I don't know how they could come out of that game without needing therapy. I've been trying to bring out the better nature of the people in my life but there's too many of them, and it just put a target on my back. Could you imagine being in Survivor and trying to get everyone to play nice? So, from my observations, it really is dog-eat-dog in this world and I really am a fool.

Sure could use three wishes...even one would be great.

I hope your weekend goes well despite the weather. There's nothing like a good storm as long as we suffer no damage. We may have one this afternoon.

[chibam]

I've never watched any of those shows, myself, @Historylover . I doubt I could relate to the people on there at all. Survival's never really appealed to me. Neither has money. I've always been more of a kamikaze myself.

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@Historylover wrote:

I've been trying to bring out the better nature of the people in my life but there's too many of them, and it just put a target on my back. Could you imagine being in Survivor and trying to get everyone to play nice?

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Maybe the problem lies in the class of contestant those shows collect. Survivors. People defined by that self-preservation streak you mention. I know too many people like that.

Maybe the happy ending depends on gathering up a group of people who are more interested in making a family; even at the expense of their own survival, if necessary.

I was researching Hinduism a while back, and there's this story of this family of five brothers and their communal wife (don't ask), and after they all die, four of the brothers and the wife go to a sort of hell, to atone for the various sins in their life. But the fifth brother was more virtuous and he gets to go to the Hindu equivalent of heaven. But he can't find his family there, so he wanders all around until eventually he finds this pitch-black cave. He can hear the voices of his family in there, so he goes inside.

This is their hell. They are trapped in there as rotting zombies. The stench was supposedly overpowering. And then I think one of the gods comes along and tells the healthy brother that he doesn't belong in this place, because he's virtuous and he belongs in happy heaven. But he chooses to stay with his rotting family, because he'd rather be with them in hell, then all alone in heaven.

I don't know. Sometimes I think that loyalty like that only exists in fairytales. I'd love to be part of a family with a bond like that - where living separately from one another is completely unthinkable. Where there is no amount of material gain that can justify the price of loneliness.

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@Historylover wrote:

I hope your weekend goes well despite the weather. There's nothing like a good storm as long as we suffer no damage. We may have one this afternoon.

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Yeah. Looks like we're in for a bloody wet week, according to the weathermen. Probably be a storm or two in there somewhere.

Be well, @Historylover . 🙂