Depression, Anxiety, or other Mental Health Conditions

Thanks for the support guys.

More drama today. My dad who has textbook narcissistic personality disorder wants his 3 biological children and 2 step children, 1 in Thailand, 1 in Japan with a kid, 1 in England with a kid, and 2 more including me, to join a zoom meeting (he literally used the word meeting) at 11am on a Saturday. Because he doesn't want to or doesn't understand that he can just pay to lift the 45 minute limit on zoom group meetings, we have 4 minutes each to speak on 3 specific subjects. We have 3 days to magically make this happen. One of my brothers doesn't even really use computers. My step sister I have no idea if she even has WiFi.

His email is titled "my 69th birthday" and has the joke he's used before "Meantime - be happy - that's an order."

For context my dad is a professor and lecturer, retired early and moved away to a remote region of France into a massive house with his wife, abandoned my mother when I was 5 after multiple affairs and cut off his bank account so we couldn't pay the bills, and fiercely defended himself in divorce court against my mother who is physically disabled, 11 years after he strawberry floated off. Subsequently, I seldom see him after I came to understand what a moron he's been.

He also sent out £ each to us essentially to "make covid easier" and here we are. It's always something. There's always some immensely poorly considered, utterly ridiculous demand just around the corner that in anyone else's idea of reality is extremely unlikely to actually occur.

I actually feel bad for the man, only now. I certainly do not feel guilty. His mind is so far gone into the narcissist territory that he literally doesn't have the capacity to understand how absurd this most recent demand is.

Why not just call all of your children for once? Why do we owe him this fantasy as as "my present".

Also for context, my bother hasn't spoken to me for 2 years after he witnessed a breakdown/meltdown after yelling at me, and pretending to stab me for a joke.

I wouldn't normally do this but it's such a strange example of narcissism I'm just going to post it here

I thought about what I would like most as a present and it is to have everyone join me for a Zoom meeting. It will be an opportunity for everyone to tell everyone else what it is that they have been up to, are going to do, and about where they are in the world. The meeting is limited to 45 minutes so it will be 'talking stick' with a couple of minutes each and then a chance to chat for a short while. I do hope you can make it. The meeting is Saturday 28th August at 11:00am PARIS TIME which if I have calculated it properly is 16:00 Thai time, 18:00 Japan time and 10:00am UK time. I would be really happy and excited to see you all - crappy rural French internet allowing! Let me know if you can do it.

Dad

I am lost for words.

For more context my eldest brother has never even been in the same room as my step sisters never mind had a conversation with them (not in 26 years) and my other brother isn't good with computers and didn't make it to a similar thing on FB messenger for my niece's 2nd birthday (but that was his victim side of the family, it didn't try to throw together two branches of his family). I cannot imagine how this zoom birthday "meeting" can even vaguely resemble what he is asking for.

Sounds utterly ridiculous and painful.

share the zoom details and we can all join you, gg

I think the best I can do is show up. I was the only son who attended his wedding for example while I coped by getting blind drunk, throwing up on myself and blacking out in a locked toilet cubicle and almost chocking on my own vomit - nobody came looking for me so I could easily have died, the adults just carried on partying around the portaloo while I was comatose in there for several hours. I remember the next day soaking in the bath and my step mother cried because she couldn't wash. There was a separate shower in the same house. To this day neither of them have ever spoken to me about what a monumental gesture of forgiveness attending that wedding was and why I felt I had to do that to myself to cope with it.

I'll write to him suggesting he may need to temper his expectations and I'll explain why at another date...

I'm sorry you've had to deal with all that bollocks. Sometimes I feel guilty for being depressed because I know I've been pretty lucky as far as family go. I can't imagine how hard it must be to have parents/family like that.

My ex's mum was a massive narcissistist and some of the stuff she would expect/think of people was ridiculous.

EDIT: dude, I was just searching through some old stuff and I found an admissions ticket for my ex's university graduation, none of her family came, and she was so upset she almost didn't go herself, the only reason she went was because I told her I was proud of her etc and talked her round.

It annoys me to no end that both her narcissistic parents are still in her life but I was somehow the scapegoat. Don't think I'll ever get over it honestly, not emotionally. I've never poured so much patience, love and care into a relationship only for it be thrown back in my face. Having no friends to help me deal with the aftermath was just salt on the wound. It fundamentally changed my view if people from "generally good" to "generally bad"

Sorry to go off track I just really needed to vent about that.

I wouldn't even bother showing up. You owe him nothing at this point.

GG I hope you don't mind me asking, but why are you making such an effort with him? Like others have said, you owe him nothing.

Family wise for me I only really know my mums side. When my parents divorced, dads family (apart from his mum) cut all contact so I never got to know them very well so I don't bother. I only really ever being them up if asked. Dad's mum tries to contact me from time to time. But she refuses to contact me directly and it pisses me off.

Instead of calling me directly (I've had the same mobile number for about 10 years now and she has my number), she will call my nan instead and try to get her to make me call her. She tries to push the "I'm getting older now, I want to see my grandchild" card all the time and my nan, always tries to stay calm and collected. I don't think it's fair on my nan and I've told her to tell dad's mum to call me directly, which she does, but dad's mum still does it every time. I don't get why. I can understand that she wouldn't want to talk to my mother, but I moved out years ago (which she knows) so I'd be the only one answering the phone!

She's even got my dad involved at points, which I find weird as we have an extremely strained relationship. He's been in America since he divorced mum and he never kept a steady relationship going. Now he only contacts me when gooseberry fool goes down for him, so I've stopped responding.

Its also like they've forgot my brother exists. My brother was only 1 when my parents split, but even still, they never seem to bother with him.

Enough of me ranting anyway, talking about family and dad's and stuff always gets me annoyed.

What is it with shitty dads from that generation?

I'm glad things are getting more progressive because I can't help but feel like masculine social norms from 50+ years ago left a lot of men from that generation with a lot of issues. Ones without parents that offered them unconditional love anyway.

I think my grandad was quite lucky he had such loving parents, his defining characteristics are that he farts a lot and really likes ice cream hes such a sweetheart

Now my ex friend is telling me via text that I'm immature and petty for removing him as an admin of a band page he never did anything with and hasn't really done much at all with the band since well over 10 years ago. I think he's on one recording in the past 5 years. He's also upset I "removed him from Facebook", when I deleted my Facebook account 2 years ago and so I don't have any friends on there, so why is he noticing this only now.

Of course I have cut ties. What a smug, condescending banana split.

This is gaslighting right? No apology. No contrition. Just "despite our disagreement, we both have a right to our opinions". And more insults and character attacks. We didn't merely disagree on something you clueless idiot, you openly mocked and denied my own sexuality. My kinder friends have called this "gatekeeping sexuality" and that's right.

I'm done. I've told him if he's upset about me no longer representing his involvement in our old music project (I've taken down all imagery or videos or recordings including him, which I uploaded in the first place) he should instruct a lawyer.

"I'm entitled to my opinion that your very identity is a lie"

What a prick

Doing the right thing here GG. Keep the course.

Squinty wrote:I wouldn't even bother showing up. You owe him nothing at this point.

1000 x this

Zilnad wrote:

Squinty wrote:I wouldn't even bother showing up. You owe him nothing at this point.

1000 x this

Add a couple more thousand 'this' on top, but just straight up ghost him, don't bother trying to explain as it sounds like it just wouldn't compute anyway.

I've blocked the number but unfortunately my phone still notified me about it.

He still maintains he is "there to respond not passively listen" to what HE found offensive... me stating I'm queer (without "proof")? What the strawberry float is offensive about that? The only gay in the village? I mean I was literally crying, it was obvious I was hurt. In this text he repetitively lectured me again on how it's not acceptable to respond to "disagreements" with violence. I immediately and have multiple times apologised and neither has he a accepted my apology. I have admitted that was wrong and that I am deeply and unreservedly sorry about that (yet I understand myself being that upset about this to be driven to act my worst self). This was a mostly empty 330m tin of lager for strawberry float sake, not a full pint of Stella that might actually have caused bodily harm or damage to property. I damaged nothing but his ego. He has displayed no contrition at all, just hooked on this one mistake or mine that was in direct response to his cruel treatment of me. At worst I responded to verbal and emotional violence with physical violence. This is manipulative bullshit.

He's stated "in life you will meet people who's opinions differ to your own". Well strawberry floating no gooseberry fool. How immensely patronising. I'm 32, not 10 years old.

He openly mocked and acted with incredulity when I came out of him and insisted I would have to prove it by sleeping with a man despite being in a relationship. How the strawberry float can he not see that is grossly wrong?

I've switched to the stock android messaging app and blocked, hope that helps as it goes straight to the bin. I've formally asked him to never contact me again, hopefully that gets the message across because beyond that it's harassment.

Right, so here's the blowback from this:

top advice from academics regarding queer debates

In essence, as far as I can recall, neither me nor Huw rejected you or your arguments, just placed them within a different form of scrutiny. The way to win in such circumstances is through moral integrity and intellectual courage, not throwing objects at people

site23 wrote:

Sorry to bring you into this, but in your experience, is this how academics who are close to bigoted views or themselves bigots act? They both have strawberry floating doctorates in philosophy and political history. I'm pretty sure the bi guy laughed at the phrase "queer studies" for no apparent reason. I didn't even bring it up?

Is this what skin deep bigotry looks like? Juuuust beneath the surface?

Is everything some kind of strawberry floating intellectual debate like, I dunno, the "Jew problem" was to the Nazi intelligentsia? You can just "win" your sexuality with "moral integrity and intellectual courage". What the absolute strawberry float world are these people living in?

I was literally told YOU ARE HETEROSEXUAL repeatedly. One's sexuality isn't a strawberry floating "issue" to be debated. strawberry floating hell.

By distancing myself I'm being accused of, I quote, "negat[ing] their existence for what appears to be some form of affirmation of the self/ego".

I am also slightly concerned by the manner in which you have sought to delete friend from any association with yourself online. Not that that in itself bothers me too much, but more the manner in which it is done, such that, it implies some form of systematic attempt to negate the existence of someone or some event in your mind for the sake of a narrative you are keen to propagate.

How is not being friends with someone ON THE INTERNET "systematically negate the existence of someone" or "negate their existence".

I removed some old photos that I found difficult to look at from literally 2007 where I had long blue hair which was a queer expression and he's in the same pictures. I took and/or published nearly all of those pictures myself. If they've gone back that far, and it mattered that much, why treat me like strawberry floating dogshit?

I put in thousands of hours of work over 15 years. If anything, it's all the more reason to rake back my gifts to them, but I haven't done that - it's 99% intact and available to anyone should they want it. In fact, they can strawberry floating have it for all I care.

They literally moaned about the fact I wasn't friends with them on Facebook anymore, when in fact, I merely deleted my Facebook account over a year ago.

And I'm the egotistical one.

To clarify, this is my other friend present defending the bi person who verbally accosted me. What the strawberry float is this bullshit about "erasing their existence" by deciding not to be friends with them and cutting ties on the strawberry floating Internet.

Green Gecko wrote:top advice from academics regarding queer debates

In essence, as far as I can recall, neither me nor Huw rejected you or your arguments, just placed them within a different form of scrutiny. The way to win in such circumstances is through moral integrity and intellectual courage, not throwing objects at people

site23 wrote:

Sorry to bring you into this, but in your experience, is this how academics who are close to bigoted views or themselves bigots act? They both have strawberry floating doctorates in philosophy and political history. I'm pretty sure the bi guy laughed at the phrase "queer studies" for no apparent reason. I didn't even bring it up?

What's going on here is that it's easier for someone to justify being a dickhead if they convince themself their lack of empathy is "rationality".

Doctorate or not I wouldn't pay too much attention to their ideas about "winning" against their "scrutiny". If they insist on treating your life like some kind of debate club game, seems to me you'd "win" even harder by ditching them and hanging out with different friends who respect your identity.

i dont post in here anymore really, my issues have gone pretty deep and pretty dark and i do have therapy now which is nice

im on some new meds which in general have been really helping me and i feel less bad most of the time

anyway, a couple of weeks ago i dumped my gf, no reason really, just a general ennui with her and everything - shes a really good girl and we get on well but i just constantly have this self destructive urge, all of the time, and it got a bit too much for me. we had some frank and open talks last week and decided to give it another crack and she is very understanding of my problems and stuff which is good, but i am just constantly surrounded by either doubt or the feeling i need to get away from her

in my traditional vein of tmi, ive been having major sex problems the last year or so, partly because of medication, partly because of god knows what - and its mainly that i strawberry floating hate doing it. whenever a relationship or casual encounter gets to the point of being sexual i just actively resent and hate the person for making me do it. i dont have fun, the mask just comes down and i make sure she comes and stuff and then i make my excuses and get out of there

over the past couple of years ive cycled through maybe 10 or so gf's and 30-40 casual encounters and not one of them does it anymore. its a problem because i can engage with these people conversationally and really enjoy my time with them, good gf vibes all of that, but as soon as enough time elapses im entirely disconnected and force them out of my life - i dunno if its a product of age or the current climate or whatever, but the majority of these women then want to remain friends with me after ive binned them off, which says to me that the social connection aspect is there and would appear to be genuine. i have gone on to have casual friends only relationships with these people and have even actively refused casual sexual encounters despite being attracted to them because i just know that the second that switch flips i wont want to be there again

i have cheated on my current gf a couple of times, most recently last night and i literally had this chick on top of me and i was just staring at the ceiling wanting to kill myself, which i dont think is the expected outcome of pooty time - i feel bad for the girl and guilty and ashamed that i put her in that situation, not that shes aware really. but the thing that concerns me is we had a great night, good dinner, good chat and i really was looking at her as a relationship prospect, and then that just evaporated; and i dont think it was my plan but i feel now like ive accidentally lead her on because shes left with a positive feeling and thinks that we are meeting again etc, so now how long do i have to keep that charade up

i obviously feel a bit bad for my gf too but idk what to do about that, other than not be an arsehole

ive been very up front and frank about my problems and non-monogamy and all other alternative interests with a lot of these women and they just bend over backwards and give me the world really if i want it, but again, it seems as soon as the problems are aired and compromise is achieved i just walk away and want them away from me. its again not good to make people have this degree of emotional labour and then be like haha psyche

i suppose i dont know what i want from this post, maybe just a clearing of the mind, but i honestly find myself entirely unable to feel anything 90% of the time and the idea of love seems completely impossible. i dont even love my family or anything like that, ive got the kitten and i care for him and hes adorable sometimes and stuff but like if he disappeared i would move on. maybe not too healthy

my current gf mentioned to me that my last few years appear to her to have been me just experimenting with people constantly to see if im capable of feeling love in different scenarios which is something i hadnt really considered up to then

ah well, theres my incomprehensible wall of text

Green Gecko wrote:Right, so here's the blowback from this:

top advice from academics regarding queer debates

In essence, as far as I can recall, neither me nor Huw rejected you or your arguments, just placed them within a different form of scrutiny. The way to win in such circumstances is through moral integrity and intellectual courage, not throwing objects at people

It seems to me that he's the type of person who wants every conversation to be framed as a debate and their needs to a winner in that debate. The disappointing thing is, being bi, you'd think he'd understand and be more accepting rather than deny your sexuality. What it comes down to is that he's being a pompous dick (maybe because he has a PhD, maybe he's always been like that). Your sexual orientation isn't up for debate and for him to frame it like that is hurtful to you and disrespectful to everyone in similar situations.

Framing deleting your Facebook as erasing their existence comes across as being really childish while trying to frame it as an intellectual dissection of where you are emotionally and mentally. He succeeds at the first (being childish) while monumentally failing at the second. Some people try to sound smart and detached to hide their nastiness and it shows in how he's treated you.

Honestly, you are better off without him in your life.

False wrote:

i dont post in here anymore really, my issues have gone pretty deep and pretty dark and i do have therapy now which is nice

im on some new meds which in general have been really helping me and i feel less bad most of the time

anyway, a couple of weeks ago i dumped my gf, no reason really, just a general ennui with her and everything - shes a really good girl and we get on well but i just constantly have this self destructive urge, all of the time, and it got a bit too much for me. we had some frank and open talks last week and decided to give it another crack and she is very understanding of my problems and stuff which is good, but i am just constantly surrounded by either doubt or the feeling i need to get away from her

in my traditional vein of tmi, ive been having major sex problems the last year or so, partly because of medication, partly because of god knows what - and its mainly that i strawberry floating hate doing it. whenever a relationship or casual encounter gets to the point of being sexual i just actively resent and hate the person for making me do it. i dont have fun, the mask just comes down and i make sure she comes and stuff and then i make my excuses and get out of there

over the past couple of years ive cycled through maybe 10 or so gf's and 30-40 casual encounters and not one of them does it anymore. its a problem because i can engage with these people conversationally and really enjoy my time with them, good gf vibes all of that, but as soon as enough time elapses im entirely disconnected and force them out of my life - i dunno if its a product of age or the current climate or whatever, but the majority of these women then want to remain friends with me after ive binned them off, which says to me that the social connection aspect is there and would appear to be genuine. i have gone on to have casual friends only relationships with these people and have even actively refused casual sexual encounters despite being attracted to them because i just know that the second that switch flips i wont want to be there again

i have cheated on my current gf a couple of times, most recently last night and i literally had this chick on top of me and i was just staring at the ceiling wanting to kill myself, which i dont think is the expected outcome of pooty time - i feel bad for the girl and guilty and ashamed that i put her in that situation, not that shes aware really. but the thing that concerns me is we had a great night, good dinner, good chat and i really was looking at her as a relationship prospect, and then that just evaporated; and i dont think it was my plan but i feel now like ive accidentally lead her on because shes left with a positive feeling and thinks that we are meeting again etc, so now how long do i have to keep that charade up

i obviously feel a bit bad for my gf too but idk what to do about that, other than not be an arsehole

ive been very up front and frank about my problems and non-monogamy and all other alternative interests with a lot of these women and they just bend over backwards and give me the world really if i want it, but again, it seems as soon as the problems are aired and compromise is achieved i just walk away and want them away from me. its again not good to make people have this degree of emotional labour and then be like haha psyche

i suppose i dont know what i want from this post, maybe just a clearing of the mind, but i honestly find myself entirely unable to feel anything 90% of the time and the idea of love seems completely impossible. i dont even love my family or anything like that, ive got the kitten and i care for him and hes adorable sometimes and stuff but like if he disappeared i would move on. maybe not too healthy

my current gf mentioned to me that my last few years appear to her to have been me just experimenting with people constantly to see if im capable of feeling love in different scenarios which is something i hadnt really considered up to then

ah well, theres my incomprehensible wall of text

I can kinda of understand the sex thing, not that I've been with nearly as many people as yourself

But like, I've found quite recently that sex makes me feel kind of empty. I think possibly because there is a big difference between intimacy and sex and I find the former much more fulfilling.

I think sex can be so detached from reality at times, especially if it's with someone you don't know very well, or doesn't really understand you. Maybe that triggers something in you brain that makes you aware of the disconnect?

I can kinda of understand the love thing as well. It's hard to love when you get burned all the time. I genuinely find it really really hard after my BPD ex and subsequent having to deal with it on my own.

yeah i think emptiness sums it up

ive considered the fact that maybe ive moved toward asexuality but that cant be right, because i do have the desire sometimes, i dunno