That’s not true, it’s illegal!

Herbs? Like, leaves from plants? 🤮

Feelin like a freak on a leash…

Easy mistake. This is a reign deer. You can tell because of the rein of terror.

I had mine in my early 20s. Sucked. Laying the groundwork for my own stability was a lot harder than it should have been, but I got it done anyway with a combination of a mountain of determination, an incredible amount of work, natural talent and smarts, and so much luck.

But the child will be an adult by the time I am 40, so I got that going for me.

If they want their own space, they are just bigots. That’s what they called me when I excluded them from the general space in the past!

-the people arguing against that comm, probably

Gender modifier. Neutral, male, female.

🚣🚣‍♀️🚣‍♂️

You can also get different skin color variations.

🚣🏻🚣🏼🚣🏽🚣🏾🚣🏿

A vast improvement over the original dialog.

That appears to be part of the contact’s name

Slayer would totally party with some vampires

Checking their bank balance

I don’t know, my tummy hurts more after eating a cigarette than junk food.

Oh yeah? Well my $20k PC is better than your $15k PC, peasant.

It sounds like you are struggling with how your parents and the rest of your family treat you.

Does it make it better or worse if you were indeed their child?

In my mind, blood means nothing. Blood might be your starting place, but you can choose to keep who you want at any time. I only associate with people that do not mistreat me. I was NC with my dad until he died. He treated me like shit, so one day I refused to give him the time of day.

My ex was also horribly abusive to me. When I decided “no more,” he got no special treatment from me either. I got a restraining order against him, like I would for anyone that would try to physically harm me.

Holding on to the past and keeping score isn’t helpful for you. It’s ok to remember it as the reason why you wouldn’t talk to them (or gray rock if you must still associate), but to wish the score was settled? It is a burden on you. Treat yourself with the dignity you deserve, let it go, and heal.

It is not easy, but you are worth this work.

I realize that you see things that planted this seed in your head. I am telling you, that is not really the root of your issue.

What does matter? The people that you do choose. The things YOU decide are important.

Believe me, I know this. I have been mistreated for my childhood and early adulthood. I always wondered what I did to deserve it. Truth of the matter is, I was never likely to find the answer. I could spend a whole lifetime wondering, and for what? I just chalked it up to other people sucking. The way they treated me isn’t a reflection of me, it speaks more to their own shortcomings. I still get mad at how they treated me sometimes, it’s not perfect. But it has made my life a whole lot happier when I let this go. It’s time for you, too.

Unless you decide to independently verify everything you interact with, there is a certain amount of faith that one needs to keep to live day-to-day. I’m not talking about religion.

If I hold a rock in my hand and think it’s a very old rock, but instead it was just a piece of concrete, does it matter?

To you, am I just a bot or am I a person very far away from you talking to you over the Fediverse? Does it matter?

Is the sun really there, or is it an elaborate hoax? Observing the sun and moving on is enough. Does it matter?

What does matter to you? If you ask me, you should care about a few things. Your own wellbeing. The wellbeing of your community. Your friends. The things that bring you any joy. (And if you have none, then if you work on your own wellbeing, you will be able to find joy after a certain point.)

What if you weren’t biologically your parents’ child, but they weren’t aware of that fact, either? Like you got swapped at the hospital? What would that change for you?

Those New Jerseyans know what they did.

Him: “do you enjoy your job?”

Me: “eh, it’s alright. I don’t hate it.”

Him: “you should enjoy it”

Me: shrug “ok”

No need to really engage. No need to give a lot of details. If he pushes just kind of blow him off.

I sometimes get miffed by people that are more privileged than me telling me I should take it easy like them, when that is not an option for me. I remind myself that they just don’t get it and move on.

Yum

I can taste when they haven’t cleaned the nozzles for a very long time. I try not to think about how moldy they are even when I can’t taste it.

That is a lot better than what we called them: a suicide.

Swamp water is the name of a regional beverage where I am.