I just want to pipe in and and say thank you for caring about diversity. Lots of discourse here about how that's hostile to white people. In my opinion purposefully misinterpreting "unfortunate" to mean "white people not welcome" is a perfect representation of why WHY diversity matters.

Because as a POC it's clear to me that there are valid reasons why a white-dominated community can be... Uncomfortable. Like the very comments here that push back and pretend that race isn't a issue and that POC are racist ones for caring about it. Not bothering at all to understand where it's coming from and why it matters.

Edit: I didn't write this at first but I can't bite my tongue anymore. White people who get hositle over this have suffered from main character syndrome for way too long. You feel unwelcome because some online community simply wants more diversity? Why is it that in your mind one more POC means one less white person? Speaks more about your world view than anything else.

I've felt unwelcome my entire life because people resent my intrusion into their white bubbles. The whole point of Beehaw is that it's inclusive. I'm a snowflake who wants her safe space.

Saying this as an ethnically Chinese person who is not being racist... I had a eufy robovac and when I discovered it was Chinese-owned and had a video camera installed on it... I immediately got rid of that thing. I don't trust any technology company owned by China to be able to see into my home.

Between this and Northwestern, I'm so glad student journalism is getting a spotlight!

This week is the first week I've felt halfway close to being a human being in a really long time. My rTMS treatment for depression is finally starting to kick in. This is my 3rd round now and each time I see significant improvements, but they only last 4ish months and I relapse horrifically after.

My most recent relapse lasted 3ish months while I was scrambling to get treatment (and an unsuccessful Ketamine trial). I finally found a hospital willing to treat me, and also give me maintenance treatments so hopefully I don't relapse again.

It's just been hell for a while. Last weekend I finally felt the gears in my brain "click". I am capable of experiencing positive emotions again. I still feel emotionally dead a lot of the time, but at least I don't want to die anymore (for now).

It feels good to not be in excruciating pain. It feels good to have less disordered thinking. I look back and it feels like I was a different person, I don't even understand or recognize that person.

Anyways, I'm just... Trying to take a breather. Trying to fully experience the moment. I don't know how things will go in the long term, but I know the next couple of months will continue to be livable. Trying to be grateful for that, and not think too much about what comes next.

I've talked about it a bit with my boyfriend. It's just hard to talk about it. It's kind of a new realization for me even though I've known it in the back of my mind all along.

And I just can't help but feel stupid and small for it. Like, "What's the point? You're in a straight monogamous relationship. Why are you so attention seeking? Just move on with your life."

I think I'm the one who needs to accept myself, not other people, reading that last paragraph back to myself lol. I think I'm scared to be bi in a straight monogamous relationship.

Thank you. It's hard to say more right now because this is a lot to take in... But thank you.

I would love to eat meat replacements on a more regular basis, but impossible and beyond burgers are more expensive than actual meat where I live. So I just don't buy them. If the technology /economies of scale actually manage to make them cheaper than meat, I'd replace 80% of my meat consumption.

I literally fantasize about having enough space in my home for a chest freezer.

I understand your desire to stay informed but also grounded. I have actually fantasized about a newspaper exactly like that - tells the world as it is, but also helps the readers cope. My biggest thing is climate change and climate despair. I ended up googling how to deal with climate despair and came across a number of articles that were really helpful.

Hooe you find something similar for Russia/Ukraine.

Absolutely. Your only choices for not getting downvotes was to say something everyone will agree with, or cloak yourself in 1000 layers of sarcasm and jokes so no one can shut you down anyways.

And as I mentioned I am extremely sincere and don't care for defensive irony. Not for me.

Always just stuck to the smaller, interest/specific topic focused subreddits as a result.

First week into rTMS treatment for depression. Been struggling a lot recently but know that I'll start feeling better in 2-3 weeks, so there's a light at the end of the tunnel (I've done this treatment 2x now, and know it really helps me... But only lasts 4-5 months).

Have a driving test tomorrow that would normally be a piece of cake, but I'm so depressed it's difficult to drive. This is the last possible test before I lose my license... I kept on putting it off (because, depression). Hoping I pass!

I'm so glad that the mods aren't getting steamrolled into submission. I was having a bad mental health day today and some of these comments really bothered me. Immediately my reddit-trained mind was like, oh, you dumbass snowflake. Touch grass.

But then I was like, fuck, the whole reason I'm on Beehaw is because it's supposed to be different here. Thanks for continuously affirming my belief in it 👍

Hang in there ❤️. The cloud will dissipate. Change is the only constant.

Thank you! I am tough. The last 3 years have been harder than I could've ever fathomed, but I'm still trucking on. There's a lot more to me than depression, even though it swallows everything sometimes.

I'm not saying that I got downvotes consistently. Just that it has happened for really innocuous reasons, and in general the threat of downvotes keeps me from engaging much at all.

I can understand how you might think that not knowing who I am, but I assure you I really do try to be genuinely nice and don't court controversy (I haven't the energy for it). It's fine if you don't believe that though, I'm just a random person on the internet.

Exactly! I once posted about a particular TV show, and how it really helped me view my personal trauma in a different way and empowered me. A really long and emotional and sincere post. After around an hour I got scared and deleted it because I had 0 comments and like 15 downvotes. I just felt embarrassed for not sharing a meme or something and instead being earnest about it.

Idk if I'm just dumb or something but I have tried to play terraria on 5+ separate occasions and the controls and UI just DON'T make sense to me. Like how to craft?! How to equip? How to do stuff? It was just so confusing. I tried on mobile and steam deck. I even looked up the controls online and mapped it out. It just never clicked for me. I felt like an 80 year old using a smartphone for the first time.

Exactly on the identity piece, although I do kind of feel like I missed out. I keep thinking about all the times I felt attraction and ran away from it 😅

But I'm with the love of my life too, so, I guess I just move on.

There's one opinion that I've been afraid to say out loud forever because people are so passionate about it... Disco Elysium. I love rpgs and I love choice-based, narrative-driven games. But there were two main things which drove me crazy:

1. I really didn't like the writing. Honestly it felt like some fresh English lit major suddenly discovered big words and angst and went crazy with it. It was really cringy to me.
2. I didn't like the false paradigm of choices in terms of world views and beliefs, when the game very clearly sets them all up to suck. With a strong preference for communism. Like when you try to be measured and moderate the game actively negs you for being weak. Why give me the choice when you're just going to punish me for it? And what if I have some anti-capitalist beliefs but don't want to kill the landlords? It was just so extreme and off-putting.

Nutella bacon crepes

I don't know if this will be helpful, but I wrestled a lot with dealing with despair/fear from upheaval as well. Mostly climate like I said, but I used to cry for days thinking about kids starving in Venezuela, for example (that's a crisis from many many years back).

Studying history actually helped me cope. Just learning about the past like 5000 years of human history and how much upheavals and famine and war and civilization collapses there have been.

I kind of realized that feeling like the world is ending (as we know it) is the NORM rather than the exception for most of human existence.

We've been exceptionally lucky in Western countries for the past 300ish years. But that caused us to believe that's what's to be expected. It's not.

It just helped me understand that humans have survived through lots of things. And the turmoil comes with being alive.

I adore cats and I could not agree with you more. Better the wild cats die than hundreds/thousands of potentially endangered birds.

I actually think your words carry a lot of weight, both bad and good. As an ally you can advocate for and support. As a POC it can be exhausting to always have fight. You can't live our lives but you can help carry the torch when we're too tired to do so. And other white people care more about what you have to say.

The reality is as a white man you have outsized power. You can use that to dismiss and berate, or you can use it to understand and support. Thank you, from the bottom of my heart, for doing the latter. Your words are extremely important in this discussion.

I love space but I know I'll never be an astronaut and go there, yet that doesn't make my desire to see the stars any less real and valid.

I actually love this and it legitimately makes me feel better lol

Agreed, in my opinion asking for safe spaces is not entitlement. It's people who feel most comfortable (safe) with the status quo, who think others are entitled for also wanting to feel safe.

Thank you so much. I feel your big hug and it's appreciated. I do have a therapist I see for my depression and ptsd. I will definitely talk about this with her.

Your empathy stretches beyond even the topic at hand. You hit the nail on the head when you say that suffering added on to existing suffering makes everything more complicated.

If I were mentally healthy right now I think I would process my sexual identity more easily. But for 3 years I've been struggling with annihilating depression.

Writing this is also a helpful reminder that I'm not in the best spot to figure it all out right now, and that I don't have to. I can sit with these somewhat complicated feelings for now and wait for when I'm healthier to open the box. At least I've acknowledged the box for now, instead of shoving it in the closet (har har).

Thank you again for your empathy and kindness. Really.

As a Chinese person I actually think they're more Korean-inspired, not Chinese. And the devs are Korean, so it doesn't seem disrespectful.

I'd tell me in high school to get treatment for depression instead of white knuckling my way through life and ending up with treatment resistant depression at 28 because I went without for so long.

The most refreshing thing here has been to be able to respond and be backed up in my response.

Personally the most demoralizing thing about having the conversation taken over is often not being able to respond/take it back. At first I was afraid to say that this is just one more example of white people main character syndrome, because I was like, ugh, I'm going to get a bunch of comments of how I'm the actual racist one for generalizing all white people.

The justaskingquestions crowd makes me feel crazy for getting upset, and then villanizes me for being the upset one. But obviously I'd get more upset than them, they're the ones erasing me.

So normally I just slink away from these places, whether it's online, or my (supportive) boyfriend's shitty white family, or my uni alum groups, or my workplace. And that's the most demoralizing part, that they can say whatever they want and I have no recourse other than to leave.

So it means a lot to me that I don't have to leave here. That I can say my piece and have it backed up by the mods, not bullied & downvoted into submission.

I genuinely support people asking in good faith. Some white people just don't understand and they want to. But by the 2nd or 3rd response it's very clear which are in good faith and which are simply camouflaging their intolerance. So thank you for shutting the latter down.

You articulated my issue with it perfectly. In theory it was this amazing open world with tons of player freedom, but the minute you engage with the actual story at all you have no choice in anything. There was one quest where I HAD to rescue Micah and kill a butt load of people which really annoyed me given I was going for a white hat run.

Honestly I played it for the first time last year and... It's good but I don't understand the hype? The story in 2022 didn't blow my mind. Definitely fun and I still recommend though.

Off the top of my head I feel like reframing as POC instead of white-identifying would ask the same question, but be less inflammatory to white people who are afraid of the word "white".

Tbh though the reality is those who are focusing on the pedantic word instead of the intent are likely looking for a reason to be unhappy... But asking for POC identification is more in line with what I'm used to seeing in diversity reports (admittedly white VS non-white is a bit... Blunt).

(edit for adding that white vs non-white being off-putting for a biracial person with mixed feelings on their race actually makes a lot of sense)

I like to say that everyone deserves white privilege... Including white people! Thanks for showing up and trying to be a good person!

I stopped drinking 3.5ish years ago. I didn't have a choice, drinking always made me super sick and vomit. In uni I thought it was normal to "puke and rally" everytime you drank. As I got older I wouldn't even be able to get very drunk anymore, because I'd vomit before I could even get there.

The final nail in the coffin was I had a heavy night of drinking and was vomiting for a MONTH after. So I finally stopped. 6 months later I had a single shot and vomited for a week.

Since then every now and then I'll try having 4 (literal) sips of wine, and I'll have gastric distress every time.

The first year or so was very difficult because I missed social drinking and didn't really know how to be social otherwise.

Now I'm just used to it. I don't even miss it anymore. I'll just chill with friends sober, or high. My friends don't give me shit for it, and when randos do I'm just super rude and blunt and tell them "it makes me shit myself" and maintain aggressive eye contact until they go away awkwardly.

the attention visibly queer and visibly trans people get, at least in my experience, is negative - who gets up in the morning seeking that?

You articulated this particular piece so well for me. I think I'm also struggling because I don't WANT to be queer. Between the mental health issues and the race and gender and and and I just... I didn't want to be bi on top of that. This isn't fun for me. I don't want one more thing my family is going to invalidate and judge me for. I didn't want to recognize my suffering on yet another thing.

But people (especially younger people) around me are getting more vocal and comfortable with their sexuality and I was watching Atypical where this teenager was discovering she was bi and I just hit this wall. I had to skip the scene because I couldn't bear to hear her say, "I'm bi." It just... Hurt. I both envied her and felt shame I wasn't her. But it wasn't the same 15 years ago when I grew up. (which just makes me feel stupid again. 15 years ago is bootycheeks compared to 50 years ago)

Thank you for humoring my late night high thoughts! Got really emotional about it so wanted to write it out 😅