Pentacat [he/him]

My shitty Midwest city needed a co-signer for me to move into an apartment, even with a roommate. My parents refused, so I recruited a friend, rented a car and drove 2,000 miles away to a beach where I didn’t need a co-signer or shoes, for that matter. Had some rough times, but never looked back.

First apartment was a one bedroom in a famous SoCal beach that would drop in price by $100 in the winter because I guess demand would decrease. My roommate and I would alternate between taking the bedroom and the living room. There was a shitty, bulging waterbed in the bedroom that the previous tenant just left. It felt luxurious.

I could hear the water crashing all day and night, I never even needed a fan for cooling due to the breeze, and I could see the ocean (just a sliver) out the bedroom window. The living room window was above a dumpster, though, and some player in the building would always argue and break up with his girlfriends by that dumpster. We eventually nicknamed that dumpster the Dumpster of Love.

I worked shitty temp jobs for a while because I could type fast, but I kept working myself out of a job. I learned pretty hard that corporate America is about looking busy and not actually getting anything done. I routinely finished 3-day temp assignments before lunch and would get dismissed with only 4 hours pay for my trouble.

Eventually I had a friend who was working on a film production for a low budget company. They blew up cars and shit and were pretty popular overseas. My friend invited me to come to set and work for free for a week with the promise that they’d hire me for their next film. I had nothing better to do, so I gave them a week. I worked on bad movies with them for the next several years nonstop, getting paid, though. My friend quit after that first one.

A lot of this stuff says I’m either stupid or I was exploited or both. But I’m not mad. I still think it was much easier for my generation than the ones that followed. Also, everyone living a life worth living learns as they go, imo.

Sorry, I tried. I realized society was bullshit and I had sex, but no other men followed me.

Rookie numbers.

I’m pretty sure the ultimate invention of paper for cleaning anuses happened, at least in the US, in 1791 when the Bill of Rights was ratified.

I’m not sure the US has people like that.

The only ones that matter to the US as an entity. The only victims we weee formally taught about until college.

Swastikas? Not so much. Too many apolitical uses for swastikas to make a judgement either way.

This is just like at the beginning of Covid, when stores were out of toilet paper. Only the paper that’s in crisis now is less valuable.

They’re always talking over their children. Makes sense to ignore everyone who has lived experience with autism in favor of parents getting over the narcissistic wounding that came with having a kid that didn’t fit their fantasy.

If you don’t like it, you’re sexist.

Fundoids will never lack confidence. You’re thinking of rational city folk.

Always has been.

Puppy, please!

Right. Their definition is meaningless.

Kentucky is strangely miles ahead of Ohio.

Edit: also bourbon. Bourbon is the point.

That’s funny because China plans for everything.

It just sucks for the immigrants here who make a living importing that stuff, because not only do they lose their livelihood, but they also live in a country that is about to turn on them.

For sure. It’s a recipe that has been around for decades, but today’s “solution”—due to the internet—is more troubling in part because a lot of those old economic “opportunities” have dried up. The culture doesn’t even offer the old, shitty ways for men to “make it” anymore.

Your therapist sucks in multiple ways. I’m sorry. A good therapist doesn’t see people as “legal/illegal.”

Also, long response incoming. Sorry.

I think you need to ask questions about the therapist’s experience and comfort level. A lot of people claim to “specialize” in something but they never really experienced it. It would help you to find someone with experience working somewhere like drug and alcohol rehab, community mental health (the word “intensive” should be in there somewhere, like “children’s intensive services” or whatever), a mental hospital, and/or with inmates or parolees.

I say those things not because I think you necessarily fit in with those populations, but because a therapist with experience with individual and group therapy in those settings is going to be experienced with nearly every combination of disorders and situations.

Edit: a good question to get the above information is to ask the therapist where/how they earned their hours while an associate/intern. A lot of schools send people to community based programs like the stuff I mentioned above. If they did earn their hours at a place for underprivileged people, ask about their experience. If they act like they’re so grateful to be out, make a note. If they earned their hours in private practice (working under a therapist in private practice vs an agency) they likely don’t have experience with jack shit.

In other words, you need someone who isn’t scared. Ask them if they’ve ever hospitalized anyone. Find out their policy on doing so. You need someone experienced with assessing for plan, means, and intent without being trigger happy at first mention of suicide. Clients are much better off being able to voice their thoughts without fear that the therapist can’t handle it and without fear that mere mention of suicidal ideation gets a psych team called. You want someone who can navigate that situation so you can decide together how to keep you safe and alive.

Clearly, it might also help to ask their opinions on ICE and/or Palestine, though I get why you wouldn’t. Someone who cares about people would be rightly horrified by the current situations, and you deserve a therapist who cares about people.

The number one determining factor in whether therapy works is if the client can trust the therapist. It’s not the therapist’s orientation, education, etc., it’s trust. Ask questions as if you’re trying to determine if they’re the kind of person you can trust.

It’s her parents’ fault for naming her Fartlow.