First of all, I’m truly sorry that you have had this experience. It hurts my soul that you, from the age of 9 have felt that life isn’t worth living. I do hope you have had good moments too and life hasn’t been all misery for you because fuck. That isn’t how it should be for anyone!

As for myself, I will say that I do not have an official diagnosis, but display MANY ADHD symptoms, just in the more inward sort of way.

So for me, growing up, I was pretty good at being sort of invisible in school so i was never really yelled at, but i did get bullied a lot and i was projected to have a very low IQ by a couple of teachers which has stuck with me my whole life. I did experience a lot of rejection too both from peers but also from one of my parents. Later in life I have realized that almost everything about me that was rejected by others had to do with my symptoms.

I did think I would have kids someday, but I didn’t want kids until I had a reasonable income and a house and neither ever happened to me. I also didn’t want kids until I was mentally mature enough for it and that never happened either.

I love children and I’m really good with kids, but I will never be a mother. I cannot do that to them.

I can’t give them a home nor financial stability and I cannot promise that will be a good parent either.

I am extremely scared of the idea of becoming a parent and then turning out to be a monster to my kid.

I don’t want to be selfish. My self worth is in the dumpster when it comes to believing i would ever be good enough to be a parent. People used to not understand it. Sometimes they still don’t.

But it is what it is. I’m not going to fuck up somebody else’s childhood. Instead I can be an aunt to other people’s kids and be useful that way. I think that is better.

Whatever their reasons for screeching, it’s not something I care to be around.

We have all screeched at some point, especially online. I’m not innocent either, I have just grown out of it and seek to engage with people in more productive ways.

It is one of the reasons I came here in the first place because silly me believed this place would be full of rational and mature people and they are certainly here too, but holy shit have I been overall disappointed in the tone on this platform. To me it is no different than Meta, Twitter and Reddit and maybe I was a fool for believing there would be a platform online where people act normal and are able to have a discussion without becoming hysterical and flinging insults as the first measure of rebuttal.

This is like saying that everything is religious and that everyone is religious and then making arguments for why everything can be turned into religious doctrin.

You’re technically not wrong if you choose to have that lens on for everything, but it is a very limiting way of viewing the world and to someone like me, borderline madness.

It is also more of an uhm actually argument rather than engaging with the point I was making that I think most of us are aware of. When someone says they would like to avoid politics they are more often than not referring to the aggressive and argumentative stupidity that occurs between people when certain inflamed topics - usually current events in politics - are brought up. It is pretty easy to discern that from anyone who says “can we just not talk about politics right now?”

Much like dicks and religion, some people just don’t want that shit shoved down their fucking throats constantly because it is rarely if ever productive and beneficial to anyone. It is, at most a passing contest or an attempt to shame and attack people who sees the world differently from yourself.

For what it’s worth, I am very appreciative of you making me aware of Knockout as an alternative. 🤗

Anything that fits into ideological screeching.

There are plenty of topics out there that are political in nature that I do not mind, but I do mind the combative, aggressive, reductive and unintelligent discourse that has become the norm online. To me it is not actual discussion nor is it people wishing for a better world. It is just angry people screeching into the void and attacking anyone who disagrees with them and calling them whatever slur they can come up with.

I find it childish, unproductive and stupid and I don’t want to see or hear it. If I wanted to rot my brain I could just drill a hole in my skull and pour some feces in there. It’s the same effect that political screeching has.

I’ll try and check it out when I have the time to dive in. I’m honestly leaning more and one toward just cutting the chord and not using the internet for anything other than work related stuff and watching youtube on the DuckDuckGo player. The current state of the internet is for bots and hysterical political people and I’m honestly over it at this point. Even on this knockout place from the brief glance I had, it also looked like a very political place so eh.

Even after filtering out as much of it as possible. Its like a cancer, spreading to every forum page on here.

That also goes for the forums I have subbed to.

Preach, my friend. It is actually the main reason I’m considering deleting my profile because part of the reason I left mainstream social media was to get away from politics and ideological lunatics, but this platform is fucking full of both. Even after filtering out as much of it as possible. Its like a cancer, spreading to every forum page on here.

Is there anywhere on the internet where people are just focusing on hobbies and interests that aren’t mired in hatred and aggression?

It’s a good thing I wasn’t talking to you, then :)

I mean, there are some dark unhinged things in the pipeline of wtf memories, but I prefer the funny and lighthearted ones.

Like when my 80something year old dad got into Shawn the Sheep and Bluey and would start babbling on about the lore in the shows and explain character arcs for different characters and letting me know that this or that season is awesome but that the latest season was total ass.

He also named his lawnmower after one of the characters in one of the shows and actively refers to it by that name when he talks about his gardening projects.

Hate to be that asshole, but antisocial = psychopath. Asocial = not into hanging out with people. There is a difference and unless I’m misinterpreting your comment, I don’t think you belong in the former category.

Are you telling me that there are companies out there that actually care about the LGBT for real?

I’m glad I don’t live in North Korea because I wouldn’t want to traumatize their poor government with pics of my face and body in the morning. There are limits to cruelty.

It sure is possible, because I untagged myself from all pictures people had tagged me on before deleting all comments I ever wrote, all pictures I ever posted myself and then deleted my Facebook after that.

For years, the only thing that kept me on Facebook was that I had a few people I only had contact with through messenger due to us being from differnet countries.

When I learned about Signal, I immediately got those people onto that app so we could stay in contact and then I went on a mass destruction rampage of my profile. Literally went from “but I have to keep it because of my connections” to “let me simulate digital dementia, bitch”.

I understand that most people can’t do what I did. For me it was several years of gradual detachment from the platform that made it super easy to pull the plug in the end. It’s a bit harder for those who actively use fb every day for social connections and jobs and so on. So I get it.

But yeah, you can’t really control whether or not people keep posting about you after you leave. I have already had that happen after visiting an old friend and honestly, I cannot bring myself to care about it.

I remember years ago someone in my class decided to make Russian look alike pictures of everyone in the class and post them as a gag on the doors. I forget what it was called, but several of my classmates were angry that the person had taken their pictures without consent and given them to some weird Russian picture algorithm.

At this point in time, I have no doubt that all kinds of pictures and information regarding me is in the hands of people and companies I don’t care for. A lot of it is my own doing and some is out of my hands.

It is hard to avoid when you don’t have any control over your own information because people share your pictures and your info without consulting you. All the time and without malice. It is what it is.

I have a few dumb mobile type games on my iPad that I play when I need to not think, and I watch a good friend play video games on twitch now and again while we chat about life over the phone.

I haven’t owned a console since 2015 and am not on Steam. There are many games out there with amazing stories that I will miss out on, but I’m okay with it, tbh. I’ll catch a playthrough on youtube if a game attracts my attention enough, but even that has been awhile. Nothing against games or gamers. I just lost interest one day and I never regained it.

I friggin wish xD

I feel like I’m doing the midlife crisis thing wrong. I’m factionless atm. I’m also too tired to have a crisis. My time is spent going to work and trying to survive in a field that is increasingly difficult to survive in.

I’m jealous some people have time and energy to have a full on crisis on the side. You lucky, lucky bastards.

I am so glad I abandoned video games in 2015. I feel for the rest of you, though.

I had a black cat once. She was the smartest, funniest little thing and her farts were deadly.