Skip to main content Skip to bottom nav

A place for Vase and Berry

exuberantBlackberry9105 November 5th, 2023

Hi @bestVase7265 This is a place where we can chat with each other. Thank you so much for supporting me, Vase. I'm very grateful and I'm happy to continue our previous conversion here. 😊

559
bestVase7265 May 1st

Yes, my youngest son is in 12th grade and the exams do have some impact. He starts with maths tomorrow and then continues to test for the next three weeks. Luckily, his play is now done so he has more time to study. He will test in maths, history, chemistry, drama, literature, and French. Some of his test scores will show what level he is when he starts at uni. My oldest son currently works in politics. He was the legislative aide assistant for a representative in our state government. Now he is running her reelection campaign. Sometimes he gets to meet famous people. Last week he was in the room when President Biden gave a speech. But he will return to school in another year for more advanced study. 

You are right that your friend will probably not change. But I always hope that a change that I am not expecting happens. Sometimes it occurs with my students as well. The ones who struggle at the beginning suddenly become great students and do good things. You are absolutely right in not trying to plan out careers so far in advance. Those who try to do so (I know some on here) end up getting themselves seriously stressed and burned out when things don't go as they have planned. It is MUCH better to be flexible. There is no need to listen to her about future careers. She is already on the wrong path. 

I would continue to be a little friendly with your lunch seat mate. It is better than sitting by yourself and being lonely. I don't think that I would judge her too harshly for liking a teacher that you hate. People can see things very differently and that is okay. She may not be able to see your view right now, but you weren't bringing it up directly at that moment either. She was just talking in general. Your canteen friend may be figuring out how to deal with people in general. There are often people who talk extra and try to dominate things a little when they get especially nervous. They don't quite understand how to be friendly. Maybe it will turn out to not be a good friendship for you, but no need to give up on it completely quite yet. 

You are right about your mom being stressed if she also must travel soon especially just after moving. I am glad that you are able to be patient with her. You are learning to get along better and that is awesome. 

Hopefully you will figure out how to cool down a bit over the break. You can continue to try to experiment with what makes the space even a little cooler. Every little bit helps. I can imagine that it is harder to concentrate, etc. when it is hot. 

My good moment for the weekend was definitely my son's play (though the songs will continue to run through my head for at least a week after watching it three times). I also had a good moment yesterday in watching one of my students who I have known for 4 years (and who was massively mentally ill when he started) present an excellent final senior project. 

@bestVase7265 hmm yeah, moving is feeling a bit better now. i agree, things do feel better to me when things are more organised. today has been an extremely busy day with my father doing all the stuff he needs to do in my room, like fixing the noisy fan, fixing a part of the broken window grill (yeah, he had to do welding in there). he also put in a curtain rod at the entrance of my room, so if my parents need the door to be open, i can keep it open and just have the curtain drawn instead. now he had to do some drilling for this which made my whole room very dusty and dirty, so i had to clean everything all over again, but i do think my room looks a bit more organised now. i am really very tired from doing all that cleaning work in addition to helping my father with the stuff he was doing for me (so i was running around the house getting whatever he told me to get) and i also had to help my mother with a lot of stuff. i am really exhausted, and my legs are hurting a lot from standing for most of the day. but yes, at least my room feels more organised and feels better. i have lots of more cleaning to do, but i was too tired and my legs are too tired to stand any more, so i decided to do the rest another day. i am going to bed now because i am very sleepy, and i know i haven't been able to really reply to your messages today, hopefully i will manage to do it tomorrow. lol, i kinda wonder why i enev started typing right now because i knew i needed to go to bed soon, but anyway, since i typed this, i'll just send it across for now and will respond to the rest tomorrow (hopefully).

3 replies

@bestVase7265 (continuing my message here) i feel awful at the moment and i am very tired but I'll try to respond to as much as i can today.

ah, i see why social media is a problem in your classroom. we don't have that problem here because we are not allowed to take any electronic devices inside the school. if someone needs a phone because they go home or come to school alone or whatever, they all need to submit their phones in the school gate and then come in and they can take it back before leaving school. and somehow it is not a problem when we are in the computer lab also, maybe because they are the school's computers, or whatever, but either ways, it is a good thing that people don't try to do those things in school. anyway, yeah, i know excel sheet has it's uses but then i have no idea how this connects to computer graphics.

i am glad your mom has been able to order new glasses. i so hope things get better for her soon.

umm yeah, trying to ignore the comments of my benchmate, but it is hard. on tuesday, my father had to submit some address change letter to the school office, so he decided to drop me to school himself instead of having me go to school by bus. so yeah, i didn't go by bus that day. my benchmate, who also happens to be traveling by the same bus (he actually lives rather close by), on seeing that i wasn't there in the bus that morning, jumped to the conclusion that i'd be absent in school that day, and that he'd get the whole bench to himself that day. but unlucky for him, i was not absent as my father took me to school. that resulted in him getting really very annoyed, so when he saw me sitting in my place, he went "where did you come from?!" he said it in a horrible tone of "where the h3ll did you come from?!" i tried to stay calm and said "i came with my parents." and he was very, very, angry about it. he went on and on complaining about how he doesn't want to sit next to me and how i should have remained absent and blah blah blah. it really started the get to me, but i tried to not show my annoyance as far as i could. he eventually decided to storm off and go sit somewhere else instead of his assigned place, that too without the teacher's permission. he went and sat on the one single bench that we have in class (we have only one such bench).

now i really don't get why he'd to that. changing your place without permission is risky because you could get scolded. also, sitting on a single bench? i mean i cant believe he would go sit all alone than next to me. am i that bad to sit next to? what did i even do to him? i was just trying to tolerate him and treat him like any other person, only to get this in return? like in a way it was good that he went away, it meant my "friend" could come sit next to me (if you're wondering how that's not risky, it is because my friend is just sitting on the first bench of another row, and she moved to the first bench of my row, next to me, so teachers don't mind because it's not disturbing anything and she is still on the first bench, just of a different row). it was a nice break from my annoying benchmate, but it was hurtful too. it made me think to myself, "if i were to die, among the people who would be happy with me being gone, this benchmate would surely be one on them".

also, i must say, before this happened, i kinda used to wonder why everyone hates him so much. i have always disliked him because of his vibes you know, but not i totally understand why he is so hated. it is because no matter how nice people are to him, he is almost never shows some basic politeness. to tell you about another instance of this, tuesday morning, before he moved away from me, he ran out of ink in his pen and asked me if i had an extra pen. i did, and i gave him one. he wrote a little and then snapped at me saying that it wasn't writing well. i took it back and give him another one, he looked it at, said that it didn't have a lot of ink in at and refused to take it, very irritated, and chose to write everything with a pencil instead (so it means he needs to do home and rewrite everything because we are not allowed to use a pencil to write in our notebooks (except diagrams and number lines and geometrical constructions). like first off, he is supposed to be bringing a few, but just one pen to school. and he brings only one pen and runs out of ink and isn't carrying a refill, and he treats the people we are willing to offer a pen, so impolitely. that's amazing, right? i'm starting to hate him now.

yeah, having these holidays i quite a good thing. i should be able to get settled here and also catch up on studies. i have real lots to do. i need to complete my notebooks, finish two projects, one for english and one for geography, and the english one is a real lot of work because we have to do a book review, and i haven't even started to be honest. and we need to submit it just the day after school reopens (school reopens on 6th june and we have to submit it on 7th). i also need to do a really long, 63 questions long worksheet for maths. just imagine me doing so much maths, my brain will get fried for real. all in addition the the regular pending maths homework from monday and tuesday and regular notebook completion. i should also start studying for our exams in july so yeah, lots a lots to do. and also helping my father with stuff and chores when my mother is not around plus my regular room cleaning.

things do sound quite intense for you with less than two weeks before exams for your students. are you mostly done with most of the teaching, or do you still have lots to finish?

ah i see. how did your son's maths exam go? i do hope it went fine at least. wish him luck for all his remaining exams. your oldest son's work sounds nice, i hope he is enjoying it. speaking of your sons, how's your middle one doing by the way? is he better in terms of his injuries?

i agree about my friend, i like how you say "But I always hope that a change that I am not expecting happens." i don't really expect her to change, but it would be so amazing if it somehow happens. right now during our summer holidays, i will not be seeing her at all, so i do hope things go fine when we return to school, i don't really want her to totally drift away. either ways, it i nice hearing that sometimes with your students, many of them become a lot better even if they struggle at first.

yes, i know i should continue being friendly to the lunch seat mate, and i am most certainly doing that because i don't want to be sitting alone. hehe i know she could see a teacher differently, and i am totally okay with that. what i am not a fan of is that she is not open minded enough to want to hear about what the haters have to say and why they hate that teacher. i did want to bring up why i hate that teacher, but i saw that she wasn't willing to hear me out and showed no interest in learning why those of us who dislike or hate the teacher feel the way we do. "Your canteen friend may be figuring out how to deal with people in general. There are often people who talk extra and try to dominate things a little when they get especially nervous. They don't quite understand how to be friendly. Maybe it will turn out to not be a good friendship for you, but no need to give up on it completely quite yet." i do like to think of it like that.

my mother is definitely super stressed with so much going on. her travel was initially not intended so soon after moving, but we sadly didn't have any other options because of general elections going on in the country. my mother initially wanted to go to her brother around the end of may, but that wont be useful because over there, they have voting sometime around 20th may, so most government employees including many bank workers will be off for election duties, so the bank isn't going to entertain such not-so-urgent-matters like these that have to do with my grandfather who passed away in december. so that's the reason why my mother has to go earlier and finish everything off quickly. because she cant be going after may because she needs to go and come back during my holidays because otherwise my father wont be able to manage everything if my mother was gone while i had to go to school. because if i don't have school, at least i can help around at home, or my father would have to do everything himself while i'd be at school and he would never be able to do that.

to be honest though, i am not always able to be patient with my mother. sometimes i do get angry, but me having my own room gives me some space to cool off. she is surely annoying at times. she also yelled at me a lot today and i ended up feeling horrible and also very angry. this is actually the first time she yelled so much since we moved, she even threatened to slap me but i could avoid it by saying sorry for what i had done.

as for the heat in my room, yeah, i'm trying to manage by using a cooler at night. it helps me sleep a bit better.

i have had a very bad day today, andin general i have been really tired and sleepy for most of today and it has not been nice. i think i want to talk about the day, but it is getting late and i need to go, so can we please talk about it tomorrow or another day? also, there is something i have been dealing with for quite some time, but i feel very embarrassed to talk about it. i did try talking about it some time back by posting on the forums but i didn't tag anything because i'm embarrassed about it. but right now it's getting a bit too bad and i think i need to talk a bit.

2 replies
bestVase7265 May 3rd

Moving is very exhausting physically and mentally. What is good about it though is that things gradually begin to smooth out as you enjoy the new space. It sounds like that is happening overall for you. But that makes days in general feel longer and worse right now.

Yes, I am not sure how Excel will connect to computer graphics either but maybe they are just starting you off with a basic skill that you need to have before getting to the more fun stuff.

Sorry that your bench mate was so rude. He obviously wants to over control the space around himself. But at least you didn't have to sit right next to him for a day. Maybe he will attempt to make the move more permanently and see if he can get away with it. I would try not to take his words too personally. Remember that he is mentally ill and bullied. It says NOTHING about you and your ability to be an excellent seat mate. The easiest thing to do rather than be overly annoyed or think about whether you hate him or not is to just not let him impact you at all. He wants to get you upset because that is how he was taught to interact with others. He simply isn't worth your time except to offer him a pen when he asks and shrug if he doesn't like what you offered. You did the best that you could.

Being busy during your break will be good. Just start on the pile and don't look down at how bi it is. Vary your work so that you are doing a mix of things each day. It will help the time to pass more quickly.

I now have just one week of regular teaching left. In one of my classes, all I have to do is watch them do presentations, in the second I have one full lesson left and then a video to show, and in the third we have a final discussion about learning from our failures. But this is when a ton of grading starts to come in. So rather than reading quality material and creating discussions, I have to read student writing. It is usually a bit less pleasant and harder. I will have to grade probably about 300 pages of written papers in the next three weeks. 

My son said the 2nd day of maths was a bit harder than the first, but overall he felt confident. Next week he will have history, chemistry and literature all crammed together so that will be much harder. But he has a long weekend to study. I think that my middle son's injuries are a bit better but he will not be continuing with rugby. He has a busy summer planned with three summer jobs - resident helper in the college dorm, working with children at a summer camp, and doing scientific bird watching. We will live on campus so we won't see him all that often.

That does sound really stressful for your mom. I can imagine how the bank holiday has messed things up for her. She probably can't see the stress winding down anytime soon so that makes her more frustrated and angry in general. That can't be easy for you to deal with.

I am sorry you had a bad day. Feel free to talk about anything, even embarrassing stuff. No judgment here. My day could have been better as well. I have a student who decided to complain about me. I had a horrible time with her last fall because she seems to enjoy talking behind my back and then saying she is to anxious to talk to me directly. But she graduates in two weeks so she will soon be out of my hair. But I will still look for good moments - so today's was probably talking to my parents who both seemed to be doing fairly well and weren't complaining about too much. @exuberantBlackberry9105

1 reply

@bestVase7265 yeah, moving does start to feel better when things smooth out. i guess that's slowly happening, but some days are really horrible. this place overall does feel better than to previous one though.

haha, just let it be, the computer graphics and whatever stuff. they are actually teaching data science so far and i don't know what that's related and whatever but just let it be, it doesn't really matter.

yeah, me not having to sit next to him was a good thing, that day. but sadly, even if he tries to move more permanently, he will not be able to get away with it. we can a class teacher (who is also our maths teacher) who is very strict about discipline and about people changing places, so there is no way my benchmate will get away with trying to change his place by himself. especially since no one else will let him get away either. other people might get away with changing places if they have a lot of friends and people who will save them from a scolding, but that's not the case with my benchmate. most people enjoy seeing him get scolded so they try to get him in trouble.

i know he's just trying to get me upset. i wonder how he thinks that will help him, but never mind. to be honest, i think that by being so rude to the people who are at least trying to tolerate him, it's just causing himself more problems. he's just pushing away even those ones away from him. but then i think i too have made that mistake before too, but now i have learnt that i should never push away something who is at least a little kind. maybe he will learn it some day.

yeah, i do think being busy during my break is a pretty good thing. it might keep me from thinking too much about some stuff. but i hope the business doesn't stress me out too much, you know. and i hope i get all the work done.

i see. i hope this week goes well for you. having once whole lesson left to teach does sound stressful given that you don't have a lot of time, but i hope the lesson isn't too long. ah, i understand that reading student writing is not really that pleasant. i wish you luck with that.

it is good hearing that your son felt confident with the maths, confidence does make quite a difference in maths. i hope next week goes fine for him with so much all together. it's nice knowing that your middle son's injuries are a bit better now. his summer sounds like it will be very busy, but i hope he's able to manage fine.

yeah, my mother is being really frustrated lately and she is annoying me a lot. she was extremely annoying today morning when she woke me up. she woke me up pretty at 8:30 and expected me to be very quick with everything, in spite of knowing that i am slow in the mornings, just because the maid was supposed to come at 9 am to sweep and mop the floors and my mother needed to finish some things before that (yes, she now decided to have a maid do the sweeping and mopping daily because it's a lot of work for my mother to do by herself, and also, literally everybody has a maid do that work).

umm, by the way, it isn't exactly a bank holiday at that time, the banks will still be open for urgent stuff, but for things like for what my mother needs to go, they will tell her to return later, because these things can wait, you know.

okay, so i think i wont start talking about how bad a day yesterday was, i'll let it be. there is one part of it i want to talk about, though, and that is about going down to play. so, we have a few kids in our society and they apparently want me to come down and play with them in the evenings. so, to communicate this message, they told our neighbours to ask me to come down (they asked our neighbours because they go down for a walk in the evenings so the kids would have told them). our neighbours are an old couple, the lady would be 70 i guess. she is quite nice and was talking to my mother from the balcony yesterday and she called for me and asked me to go down and play. i was obviously not willing to do that though. my parents and the neighbour insisted, but i didn't really go. my parents then really made me go down and ride my bicycle a bit though. i didn't want to do because i said that i feel too hot and sweaty riding it in the hot summer evenings, but they made me go anyways. so i was down bicycling for about 20 minutes, after which i came back home. and i didn't enjoy it at all and it made me feel absolutely horrible for the rest of the day, i don't know why.

anyway, talking about the embarrassing stuff, it's about my eyebrows and eyelashes. half of them are gone from pulling them at this point. (i had posted about it a while ago here, in case you want to read a bit more.) it's really embarrassing because i don't even know what i am pulling them when i know it makes me look ugly, and i want to stop but i cant. even if i manage to not do if for a few days, i end up doing it again a few days later, and it feels good for some reason. but then it feels horrible and it is a lot of work trying to cover up my half gone eyebrows. for my eyelashes, there is nothing i can do to really hide it. i also don't normally pull so much, and i am relatively gentle while pulling, but lately i have been pulling out a lot more than usual, and a lot harder than usual, i dunno why. i am able to cover up my eyebrows fine i guess, but not so much with my eyelashes. i end up looking what other people's eyelashes look like and then worrying about how horrible mine look.... i know i need to stop, but i don't know how.

anyway, coming back to your message, i am sorry you had to deal with such a student. she sounds very hard to deal with, but luckily it's just two more weeks hehe. nice to hear about your good moment. i guess mine today would be ice cream, though for most of today i have not been feeling very good.

load more
load more
load more
bestVase7265 May 5th

It is good that the new place feels better than the old one. You will adjust slowly but surely.

Data science also isn't the end of the world. It is another way for your brain to be thinking. Using your brain in lots of different ways overall makes lessons less boring. It also helps you confirm which subjects that you like and which ones you dislike.

That second paragraph about your benchmate is really insightful. For some reason, he thinks pushing people away will protect him from getting hurt and then he actually gets more hurt that way. You do a much better job of understanding kindness.

I hope that the time off for you will continue to not be too stressful. Just keep working on the homework pile. Sorry that your mom was a bit rougher this morning. Sometimes when you get a maid, especially at first, people feel like their house should be at least partially clean so they don't appear like they are disorganized or slobs. 

My grading, etc. is going okay so far and I am finishing the papers that I need to do. It really is a day at a time.

My son who is at home continues to study for the upcoming week of history, chemistry and literature. He is working on the history homework now which will prepare him for that exam, but it is the chemistry one that concerns him.

It is good to mingle with people when you can even if it is a little cycling in the heat. Can you take a cool shower when you return? I know doing such things for any length of time is quite hard for you and I am not suggesting that. Just do stuff for short intervals. Both the exercise and the meeting people help keep your brain healthier and the mental health stuff more manageable. 

What you are doing when you pull your eyelashes or eyebrows is self-harming. It is something that many people do who have harder forms of depression to manage. When I was especially ill, I scratched my arms slightly. It made me feel horrible, especially if I left any kind of mark. Training yourself not to do it is hard, but you can do it. One thing that therapists suggest is doing something else instead - as soon as you start doing it catch yourself and give yourself a hug instead. I know it sounds pretty stupid, but it is known to help. You can also try something like putting a rubber band on your wrist and holding it when you feel the urge to self-harm. For me, I gradually began to stop by praising myself for each day that I didn't do it and saying "tomorrow is a new day and I won't do it then" if I gave into the urge. You are pulling out more right now because you are stressed due to the move. Try focusing on doing things that care for yourself instead.

My special moment today was probably being able to purchase some small birthday gifts for my sister (some jewelry) and my niece (a small journal and pencils) and finding a box that was the right size to send them in. I have so much on my list this month that it was good to check something off.

5 replies

@bestVase7265 i agree. adjusting is taking me quite some time, lol. so much is so different in here.

hmm yes, i get it about the data science. also agree about my benchmate.

i know i should work on the homework, lol. and to be honest, i haven't even started. i have done literally nothing for the past 5 days. every one of these days, i either get caught up with too much to do in the mornings, or i am feeling horrible and not wanting to do anything. and the big problem is that a whole lot of things are lying on my study table and it needs a lot of effort to clean up. so i first need to do that in order for me to be able to do any homework or studying. and i always try to clean my study table in the morning, and i dont get much done in the mornings and afternoons. and by evening i am fed up so i just decide to sit with the laptop, organising photos, cupsing, and watching youtube. so i end up getting nothing at all done.

so for today i decided to change things a bit. i decided to tidy my wardrobe in the morning and afternoon, and get most of the cups work done before 6 in the evening, and then i can clean up my study table and try to get some homework done in the evening. but it totally didn't work. i did mange to clean up my wardrobe before 6 pm, but couldn't get on cups much. but then something happened that totally disturbed my evening. 5 kids from the society, along with the lady next door, came at around 5:50 pm asking me to come down to play with them. and there was no way i could say no to 6 people in front of my mother when all 7 of them want me to go down and play for a bit. i thought to myself that okay, i'll spend some time outdoors, maybe max 30 mins. but oh god! i ended up being down for more than an hour. everyone else was still playing when i decided "i absolutely need to do home now, i am so done with this" so i just said goodbye and walked out. and i am so tired from it and my legs are paining. i came home at 7:15 pm i guess, i sat under the fan to dry my sweat, got changed, ate something, had to help my parents with some stuff, and now i am too tired for anything. i don't want to tidy my study table, i don't want to study. so yeah, i'm sitting with the laptop cupsing. no studying done today either. maybe i might do a bit tomorrow...

haha, yes. i get that people may want their house to seem partially clean when the maid comes. for my mother, it is more that she wants to get some things, things that make the floor dirty, done before the maid comes to sweep and mop the floors. now you see, literally any cleaning work will make the floor dirty. the things my father is doing around the house right now (like changing some taps that are causing inconvenience or drilling into the wall to put a screw to hang the wall clock) will also make the floor dirty. so there are a lot of things my mother wants to get done before the maid comes. but also, it is practically impossible to get everything done in the morning.

and what is funny is that she has asked the maid to come at 9 am. that is, in my opinion, just too early to do so much. 10 might be at least a bit better, i think. and the thing is, with the floors being cleaned so early in the morning, it gets so dirty within just a few hours because of everything going on. to add to that, the maid also doesn't sweep or mop properly to get the floor actually clean. she leaves the corners as is. and that annoys me a lot to be honest. i told my mother about it and she told me that "we cant expect more than that from a maid, once in a while we need to mop the floors ourselves. maybe we could ask her to go the corners better, but then i'll have to stand and watch her, which i don't have time for right now so we'll see about that next month". as for why my mother has to call the maid so early, my mother just told me "not everything can happen according to your convenience. i can't be waiting for a maid till later, it'll disrupt my whole routine". so yeah, i just gotta put up with all this mess for this month. the thing i hate the most is that i will never ever be able to sleep past 8:30 am no matter if it's a holiday or weekend or whatever. this absolutely sucks. i'm very very annoyed about this. so yeah, i'm usually really very irritable in the mornings because of this, and so is my mother. so we have some kind of disagreement every single morning and i get scolded and i end uo feeling horrible throughout the morning. now i need help dealing with this. i can't manage feeling awful every morning for the rest of this month and even after that on every non-school day.

i also don't understand why my mother wont say anything to the maid about the corners sooner. my mother normally has very high standards of cleanliness, which is why she had never ever had a maid clean the floors before. we did have a maid before like 2018, but the maid didn't clean the floors, she just did any odd jobs my mother told her to do, like taking care of the plants, or cleaning the windows, or chopping vegetables, or taking care of me if my mother was busy. my mother has always cleaned the floors herself, so i am too used to clean floors at this point. i mean yes, when i was a very little baby, she did try to have a maid do it, but maids never do it well enough and the problem with me was that i lovvvvveeee sleeping on the floor and lying on the floor, especially in the monsoons and winters (because the floor is cold and i love it) and she didn't like the idea of me sleeping and rolling around on the not-so-clean floor, so she has ended up always sweeping and mopping the floors herself. she is having a maid do it now because it is getting too much for her and her body cant take it anymore. but if the maid does it so early in the morning and the floor gets dirty again, and also if she doesn't do the corners well and doesn't get the floor under the furniture clean, so that we still have to do it ourselves if it gets really dirty from something some day, or even if it doesn't get dirty, we need to do it ourselves once in a while, what's the point? i don't get it. i understand why my mother cant do it, but then i also want clean floors. i know this is a childish thing to say, but even as a 14 year old, i still love lying and rolling around on the floor just for fun, especially on monsoon or winter days, (i don't like to fall asleep on the floor though, it hurts my rather bony body). i know this is very weird, but yes, it is something like.

anyway, i think that is enough of talking about the floors. let's come back to your message. i am glad your grading is going okay so far. i hope the rest of it goes fine as well and isnt too stressful.

i see. i do hope his revision and exams go well. hehe with history i think he can come to you if he needs help with something so hopefully it will go well. i understand he's concerned about chemistry, i know it can be quite hard and it has tons of things to remember, so wishing him good luck.

well, that day when i was downstairs, cycling in the society, i didn't really talk to anyone, there was nobody down at that time. it was just me, and i little kid, i think she'd somewhere between 6-8 years old (just guessing and i am horrible at guessing ages). i said hi, but she just stared at me and said nothing. i guess she was scared. haha, sounds like a good idea to take a shower afterwards, but that feels hard to do. on days when i am at home, i normally shower around noon (yes, i know it might sound weird, but everyone showers around that time in my family. we only shower in the morning if we won't be home at noon. so yeah, showering at noon and again showering in the evening sounds like too much showering.

i did, however meet a lot of people when i was downstairs today. those 5 kids had come to call me down. i do have to mention that our neighbour, while introducing me to them, constantly kept messing up if i'm in 8th grade or 9th. because clearly i don't look like a 9th grader. anyway yeah, one of the kids seemed quite nice. i think it was her idea to ask me to come down to play, because she was very welcoming. and not just to me. she say a little baby walking around and invited her to play. like a 3 year old baby wont really be able to play much among everyone else who is in 3rd grade or above, but i liked that she still had her come in to play. the other kids were fine, i guess, but i didn't really like them much. and yeah, we played some timepass games. but one hour was too long for me and was very tiring also quite boring, so i didn't really like it.

but the big problem is, i'm worried they'll call me down every day now. and i don't want to be going every single day. so what could i tell them if i don't want to go? i cant say i'm busy because you're supposed to have lots of time during summer holidays. i need to figure out some excuses i think.

hmm i see. i know some people say that hair pulling is self harming, but i dunno, it's kinda confusing. i'm not intentionally trying to hurt myself, you know. but yeah, never mind. mmm thanks for the suggestion. i sure will try out giving myself a hug when i feel like pulling my eyelashes or eyebrows. i actually also pull from my arms and legs (yeah, i'm hairly, lol) but that's not very problematic. so i guess i'll let it be? or do i really need to stop that as well? hehe i did pull a bit of hair today, let's see how tomorrow goes.

it's good to hear about your good moment. glad you were able to check something off your list. i have had a very rough day today, had a lot going on, and my mother's flight is early morning (5:50 am) tomorrow so there's chaos everywhere. i guess my good moment was going out in the balcony some time ago to look at the sky and stars, and i did look nice. i wasn't exactly feeling the best or at peace though because i am very tired and sleepy, my legs hurt a lot, and i don't feel well. plus i had my father sitting in the balcony when i was there and he had been smoking and i hate that awful smell. but yeah, the sky looked nice.

by the way, i better go to bed now. it's midnight. and i have to wake up at 3 am tomorrow to accompany my mother to the airport. we should we back at home by 4:30 am and i'll sleep a bit more probably. then i'll have to be up at 8 am again for the maid to come at 9, also because my father wants to finish some work before that. i am going to have a busy day tomorrow with a lot of chores to do. i hope my father is not too hard to deal with while my mother is away. the last time she was away, my father was very depressed during that period, and i do have to say he is easier to deal with when he is depressed. not that i like to see him struggle, but he normally appears calmer and less irritable when he's struggling. and right now he is in his "good" state, so he might be really hard to deal with and very annoying for me. it's funny how it's the opposite for me, the more i am struggling, the more irritable and annoying i get, and i am usually a lot more pleasant when i am not having that hard of a day. anyway, let's see how it goes dealing with my father this time.

5 replies
bestVase7265 May 7th

Ok, so I would figure out how to find time to study tomorrow. Otherwise you are going to be really overwhelmed and stressed near the end. Once you get over the hump of starting it will become easier. My son is a good example of that not studying and being overwhelmed bit. He took off most of the day on Friday and Saturday and has been highly stressed (doing about 8 hours straight of homework and studying) today for his exams which begin again tomorrow. He is also only really prepared for the first one and not the other two that follow immediately after. I had to spend most of my day getting him to relax and focus. He is a bit better tonight but the next few days will be hard.

It is good to get outside with people though. You just need to create a good balance and study a bit even if you are tired. You will figure out something I am sure. If they ask you to play more often, then consider just doing it for the half hour and keeping to that. Just say you have study. A half hour per day is long enough.

I know that it feels a little early for you, but your mom unluckily feels differently and there isn't much that you can do about that. I know that 8:30 feels early and makes you grumpier, but it will make going back to school easier at least. I try not to change my own schedule too much because then I get exhausted. If you can, try to figure out how to accept it so your day won't start off on such a bad note. 

I can imagine how much you like clean floors, especially because they are cooler. I would want a cool floor to sit on too. But it sounds like the maid is getting things at least partially clean so that does count for something. You can also clean the rest of the floors yourself if you would like them cleaner than your mom can handle right now, especially because you have a summer break. You could do it as a study break. 

Yes, with my son's exams his history teacher isn't my favorite. He is likely to do well on that exam but the teacher assigned tons of homework to get students to study. This means that my son has no time to study for chemistry where the teacher hasn't really assigned homework. But there is little that I can do about it and I know my son is doing the best that he can to balance it all. Sometimes it is easiest just to accept things and work with what you have.

As far as the hair pulling goes, that is up to you. You could just focus on less obvious spots, but think each time about any pain that you are causing yourself. If it is really often and hurts then it probably is best to try something else that shows love for your body. But it can be really hard to do so give yourself lots of grace.

Looking up at the sky is an excellent moment to have even if things didn't smell all that great and you were tired. My moment today was a giant turtle walking into our yard to lay her eggs. She was probably at least 70 centimeters long, maybe 80. It was very powerful to watch. My guess is that her eggs might not do too well though because the pond where she lives is pretty far away across a street.

I hope that your trip to the airport went well and your time with your dad alone also goes okay for you. Take it a day at a time. @exuberantBlackberry9105

5 replies

@bestVase7265 hey there. i am sorry i couldnt reply yesterday. i did want to get on here for a little at night, but i thought maybe i should try to go to bed a bit early and do cups the next day. not sure if that decision was worth it, because i didnt sleep well. so in spite of sleeping for nearly 8 hrs i am incredibly tired today, my body feels lifeless, i also look horrible, and i have no energy at all. i feel so lazy and so dull.

things have been really hectic lately with my mother not being home. i'm having to do so many chores and my father isnt being nice at all. and i dont really have the energy to do so much. it's tiring. and i'm really struggling and feeling awful with all this. my parents are annoying me a real lot (yes, even my mother). feeling really frustrated... i'm feeling suicidal sometimes lately. for some reason, even though nothing particularly bad is happening and i am trying to manage chores and everything and i am managing fine i guess, today i even managed to study a bit and i exercised and i went down to play so seemingly i am doing everything i need to so and i am supposed to feel good about it and feel satisfied. but i just keep feeling horrible even though 'everything is going fine', i don't feel anything close to fine. feeling awful but still somehow doing everything because i don't have a choice. and i don't know why on earth i am feeling so awful, everything is going fine, right? yes, i know with depression... but even then, so far i used to feel better when things would be going fine. i don't know what changed.

yes, i did figure out how to find time to study today. i didn't do any studying yesterday (tuesday) or the day before, but i did do a bit today now that i am finally done with tidying up my room. i cleaned my study table, my bookshelf, and my wardrobe. now it's just the regular maintaining work to keep it from getting messy (and that's way easier to do) but the tidying work to move created is all done. i have also done some of the things my mother had told me to do before she left. now i mostly have to do the regular bit of dusting and tidying of my room every day, folding my clothes and cleaning my bathroom, and mopping my room occasionally. and till the time my mother's not here, i need to do some extra chores (like laundry, cleaning the kitchen, watering the plants in the evening, and making my father's bed because he wont do it himself). anyway, i didn't study a lot today, because i was busy with chores in the morning and in the afternoon, i just felt so unwell i dunno why, so i just had to rest for a bit. i did do a bit in the evening though when i felt less unwell. i didn't manage to get too much done in the evening because they had called me down to play and after that i needed time to calm down a bit and eat something.

i understand about your son. similar things have happened to me too before exams, so i get what you're talking about. the fact that he doesn't have study leaves before each exam is tough though. especially since these are some really big and important exams. we usually get a study leave before each exam during our half yearly or annual exams, not doing unit tests though but there it's more manageable because there is less to revise. either ways, how's your son managing? you're being an amazing mom by getting him to relax and focus when he's overwhelmed, i must say that.

haha yes, i do need to study even if i'm tired. i did do that today. but that day i was just too tired to study, because i was out for over an hour and it was the first time since i don't normally do those kinda things. i was tired today too, but less since it was only about 40 mins. we didn't play on monday or yesterday though. i guess they just decide to play on some days and when they do, they come at our door calling us down.

yeah. in my mother's opinion 8 am is too late to get up. she thinks anything after 7 am is too late, but i don't care to listen to that. actually i'm going to get up before 8:30, usually like 8 am. today though my father woke me up at 8 and i fell asleep again because i was so tired and didn't sleep well at night. i only got out of bed at 8:36 am today... but yeah, right, it will make going back to school easier.

yes, i did mop the floor myself on monday. i did only my room though, and it was incredibly dirty. but it was nice to get it clean. i was able to do it the way i like it to be. yes, it was tiring, i did it after 9 pm on monday and i was exhausted, but i also needed to do it because my father had done some drilling work and that had made the floors dirty. he might do something again tomorrow to dirty the floor in my room, so i might need to mop it myself again tomorrow. it is tiring work and since it's not something i go often, i am slow at it and it takes me like 30 mins just to mop my room, but worth it i guess. clean floors would normally make me feel good though, and somehow i haven't really been getting that feeling now.

oh dear, your son had homework even during exams? so is it like homework that's just for the purpose of revision? and he needs to submit the homework too? that sounds really stressful. we normally don't have homework during exams, we may have homework to submit after the exams are over, but not during exam, because we don't have regular classes during that time, we just go to school for the exam and come home after it. things probably work very differently there. oh, yeah, and we do get revision worksheets we are expected to solve before exams, but we don't need to submit them so it's not a big deal if we don't do them. really few people actually do the revision worksheets, even i don't do them unless the teacher gives it very much in advance and makes us do it in school, or the maths revision worksheet which my mother makes me do because maths needs practice.

umm anyway, as for the hair pulling, it actually doesn't really hurt. but it does hurt my fingers on days when i pull a lot of hair. i use my thumb and index fingers to do it and they become painful on days i pull a lot from my arms and legs. it doesn't hurt at all to pull my eyelashes or eyebrows though, and it also feels better than pulling my arm or leg hair. i think for the past few days i was pulling a bit less, but today i just pulled out a lot though. now i'm mad at myself for it... hmm how could i possibly try something else that shows love for my body, especially when i don't really love my body?

woah, a giant turtle in your yard? that's interesting... i dunno about what good moment i had today. i was feeling a bit unwell in the morning and very unwell in the afternoon, i was very dizzy and my stomach hurt and i wanted to take a nap so bad but i couldn't because i was scared about what would happen if i was sleeping and my mother called or something. so yeah, no good moment for most of the day till there. i felt a bit better in the evening i guess i terms of feeling unwell so let me think of a good moment. i guess i'd say i felt a bit at peace when i managed to get some homework done? not i didn't really feel good about it like i normally would, so i dunno.

yeah, that day the airport visit was okay, i guess. i woke up a lot later than i was supposed to (i was supposed to get up at 3 am but i got up 30 mins late) so everything was rushed. we were supposed to be out by 3:45 but we went by 4. and reached at about 4:15 at the airport which was later than we wanted to reach but quite fine. for some reason i felt quite sick on our way to the airport though for some reason. i hugged my mother goodbye, and we were waiting outside the airport a bit away just till my mother was done with all the security stuff and check in. at took quite some time to be honest i was was hoping we'd be home by 4:30 but we came home at about 5:15 and then i could finally sleep in bed. i was so tired i kinda slept in the car though but it was nice and cool at that time for the night so it was nice, i had the window open and the cold air felt good, since it is not something i ever really get much in the summer.

being with my father is not going very well though. he is not being nice. and my mother is also calling a bit too much and getting annoying. i'd want to talk about it, but i must go to bed right now so i'll talk about it tomorrow.

4 replies

@bestVase7265 just coming on here to talk about how it's going with my father. first off, he is mostly staying at home, which is annoying me a lot. also, he's busy doing a lot of things around the house, and that's not only making the place dusty and messy, but it's also noisy. okay fine, he can do whatever he wants, but then he's complaining to me that he's just constantly having to do work and that i'm just sitting and relaxing. like i didn't tell him to do all the stuff he's doing. nobody is forcing him to do it. he's doing it only because he wants to. and he's really overworking himself. but then i am not just sitting and relaxing. i'm having to do a lot of chores and things, and he's not being very cooperative in that so i'm having to manage a lot myself.

and also, when my mother's around, we don't talk much (and i like it that way) but now we have to talk about a lot of things and if i don't get the tone right or something he's getting mad at me. he's also been giving me a lot of unsolicited advice. he doesn't do that much when my mother is around because my mother tells him to stop but now nothing stops him from advising me on why i should wake up early and the benefits of waking up early and how friendships are important and blah blah blah. it's very frustrating, and also it really hurts. makes me end up feeling horrible. i wish it was easier to ignore him, but it's not that easy...

my father is also making things way more complicated than they need to be. for example, he takes an hour to make breakfast and also he needs youtube to help him cook and he adds too much of things while trying to follow those recipes. like he made upma the other day, and while my mother keeps it simple with just come mustard seeds, onion and coriander, my father had to complicate it by adding peas, groundnuts, tomato, urad dal, chana dal, cauliflower and whatnot into it. and i did not like it. when my mother cooks, he complains about how my mother doesn't know how to cook, as if he does. so if he does know cook well and he's the best cook in the world, why does he always add too much salt in everything? also, why does he cook extra when it's just the two of us, such that we end up wasting food sometimes? having to put food in the dustbin really hurts me, you know.

i really would say my father was a lot easier to deal with the previous time. everything was really better last time and he wasn't so annoying. and my mother wasn't so annoying either. my mother has been calling way too much lately, like about more than 5 times a day. and every time she's like "when did you wake up today? what are you doing? what is your father doing? has the maid come yet? have you eaten yet? what did you eat?/what are you going to eat? have you showered yet? when are you going to bed?" and this is really frustrating, i don't like being asked these same questions every single day. i'm not a 1 year old baby, you know. the last time when she was gone, she was really busy there and didn't call too much. but this time she doesn't have too much to do so she keeps on calling. mostly on the phone that stays at home which is currently staying with me most of the time. but she calls a few times on my father's phone too and my father gets very annoyed by those calls, and he gets asked pretty similar questions. and then he gets his frustration out on me. i know he gets really annoyed by those because the other day he told me "your mother has all the time in the world now so she's calling because she had nothing else to day" and then today when my mother called me and asked me what i was going to eat for lunch and i didn't know so i asked him what he was going to cook and my father responded "tell your mother too cook with her remote control". so yeah, that's how things are going. i'm fed up of this. and i also don't feel like i miss my mother this time like i did last time. if fact i miss one of my friend on cups much more. this feels weird that i don't miss my own mother. what's so wrong with me? also i don't get what's wrong with me because nothing is making me feel good. i mopped my room today i was hoping it would make me feel better but it didn't. i feel so fed up. i just really want to feel better but nothing is helping.

3 replies
bestVase7265 May 10th

I can understand why you are so tired. You got very little sleep that night that your mother left and you need time to get caught back up. Your body will probably sort it out over the next few days.

The chores are going to feel like a bit much, but keeping busy is a good thing, especially if you are feeling more depressed than usual. I know that it takes tons of stamina right now that you don't really have, but much of this is your brain readjusting from all of the excitement of the last few weeks with the move. It is brain chemistry, NOT YOU. It really is a bit of a slog and kind of like moving through concrete. But you can do this. You are doing this and it will get easier. Just be sure that you are drinking plenty of liquids and eating okay even when your brain says such things won't help. You need the physical strength to survive the mental stuff. Look at plants, water and sky in some ways. Nature helps too.

Everything that you do get done, praise yourself for. You did study - great! You did get chores done -  great! Every little bit you do takes another thing off the pile. Stay as focused on that as you can. The days that you do better with the hair pulling praise yourself too. You will have rougher days, especially when the depression hits harder. Be kind to yourself then and just keep trying to avoid it.

I know that it is hard to love your body when all those voices in your head tell you otherwise. Can you think of one part of your body that you like? Maybe it is your big toe. It can be anything. You start loving your body by focusing on one thing that you think is okay. Maybe its your smile. 

My son is managing okay and is over the worst of it. He has one more literature exam tomorrow and then several French exams next week. He has already turned in his final homework, so that is good. I think that he has learned to manage his procrastination better. It is a really tough thing for all of us. I still struggle with it at times when I really don't want to do stuff.

8:00-8:30 is good enough for getting up for right now. You will figure out how to manage it with your dad. Remember that your dad is also dealing with all the stress of the move. It is probably why he is working so hard around the apartment. He wants to get it looking what he sees as "perfect". The hard work means that he gets angry easier and yells more. Think a little about how you felt before your room looked the way that you wanted to. That is probably how he feels about everything else. And if he is doing it all while dealing with mental illness it is harder. None of that means that he should yell at you. But it makes it more understandable. Sorry for the unsolicited advice. Men can see things very differently than women. Remember that you don't have to take his advice. It isn't necessarily correct. Your father is experimenting when he cooks because he doesn't get to do it as often. There will be failed experiments. That is okay. It is bringing him some joy to try.

You will survive until your mother returns. You are allowed not to miss your mom. Nothing is wrong with you. Your brain is sending you all sorts of ways at once.

Remember to try to think of one good thing for today. Some days are harder than others. Today I had a friend die pretty suddenly of heart disease and my oldest son's car broke down and caught fire. So some bad stuff. But I am going to also try to remember the good. It was my final teaching day of the semester (just grading left) and I enjoyed spending a few minutes at the end of class talking about activities that students liked and what had helped them the most. @exuberantBlackberry9105

2 replies

@bestVase7265 haha i dunno if i am actually tired from not sleeping the day my mother left, i was quite fine the day after that. i still had tried to sleep a bit more one day some time back, but i was unable to fall asleep, so yeah. and for the past couple of days i'm been going to bed at 1 am every day. maybe even after that. so yeah, i'm tired. maybe when my mother returns tomorrow i'll be able to go to bed earlier. because right now i am usually so busy with chores and trying to do a bit of homework and stuff then i also want to be on cups so i do that quite late at night. and even if i feel sick i cant rest or sleep or something, i need to keep working even if i feel unwell because first off, who'll do the chores if i don't do it - the whole place will be a mess, and secondly, what if my mother calls and i'm asleep so i cant pick up? and i gues that i really tiring me out a lot.

chores do feel like a bit too much, and the wort part is, it's the same old things every single day. it's boring. i know keeping busy is good, but being busy with boring and repetitive tasks that don't really require much attention or thinking does not help. it doesn't distract me from my thoughts. being busy with things that are not that repetitive though (like mopping my room, i don't do it every single day) do help. but hey, what excitement of the last few weeks are you talking about? the move didn't ever really make me feel excited. i was excited about it around let's say march end and april beginning because i was looking forward to it a lot, but the move itself hasn't made me feel excited much. maybe a little bit on 20th april the day we moved, but after that, not at all.

yeah, i hope it gets easier. like with my mother coming home tomorrow. so i wont have to force myself to do everything if i am feeling sick. i can tell my mother that i'm sick and take some rest and sleep if i need to. and because i have my own room, she wont be that bothered if i sleep a bit during the day as long as i'm completing my work when i am awake. i might also be able to feel a bit better by cupsing more or watching nice stuff on youtube that help me cry and then feel better. somehow lately i'm not able to cry much just like that and i really want to cry because it helps me feel lighter. so i try to find emotional short films on youtube in hopes that it'll make me cry. and cupsing more and not having to stay up late for cups would be nice. cupsing does let me talk and usually feel better afterwards.

umm not sure if i am drinking enough water lately. like i'm drinking what would be considered "enough", that is 2 litres a day, but that is a lot less than what i usually drink. i dunno, it's probably because even if i feel thirsty but i'm in the middle of chores, i say i'll drink water later and later becomes really a lot later. because you know, let's day i'm doing the dishes and wearing kitchen gloves and i feel thirsty, i decide that it would be too much work to take the gloves off, go to my room and get my water bottle and drink water and come back and put on the gloves. and even if my water bottle is with me in the kitchen, i still need to take the gloves off. i cant hold my water bottles with dirty or soapy gloves. similar thing for other chores too. like if i am spreading out the clothes on the clothes stand for drying, i'll have to wash my hands after drinking water before i can tough the freshly washed clothes. or if i'm mopping my room, i cant hold my water bottle without washing my hands because the mop handle isn't that clean. i know this sounds extreme, but i'm used to this because this is what my mother has taught me. she is just what i would call "excessively unnecessarily clean and marks everything as 'clean' or 'dirty'." so yeah, i'm used to it and if i don't follow all those cleanliness rules now, it bothers me. so yeah, the point is, i am not drinking the amount of water i normally do, which is probably 4-5 litres a day (i know that's a lot but i normally cant stop myself from drinking so much water, i love water, lol). i guess i'm eating fine though. it's not that hard lately because working so much makes me feel a bit hungry. but i still don't feel like have the physical strength i need. my body feels so weak and lifeless half the time. i have no idea why.

yeah, nature is nice. doesn't necessarily make me feel better to look at plants or the sky, but rain helps me a lot. and it rained very heavily yesterday evening and again today evening and it really made me feel better. i love rain. and hate summer. it raining so nicely made me feel very good for the first time in a long time. but then when the rain stopped, i feel down again. i wish it would have rained a bit longer. and i wish it could rain every evening. rain makes things so much better. the plants and trees around look brighter and fresher, it's not sunny when it rains and that's nice because i don't like it to be sunny, and it gets a lot cooler when it rains (only if it rains heavily though). also the tiny rain droplets coming in through the windows with the nice cool wind.... it's beautiful. rain makes my life feel so much better. and i don't dislike gloomy weather either, as long it's only for a day or two. if it's gloomy for longer than that and there's no rain, then it sucks.

well, it's quite hard to praise for everything. i mean with studies, it's easier because i actually get something off the pile. like yesterday i managed to complete all my history homework so i did feel a bit better having it done. by the way, i had planned on doing english today but i decided to let it go. because i know that if i do that, i wont be able to respond to you today and that would make me feel horrible. not doing a lot of homework one day would make me feel less bad. because you are taking a lot of efforts to try and help me and respond to me as soon as you can, so if i cant do the same with holidays from school, i feel awful. i feel bad for not being able to respond to you yesterday. but i did some homework yesterday. today i'm not doing much homework and responding to you and some others instead, because this helps me feel a lot better than getting some homework off the pile.

but you know with cores it's hard to praise myself. because chores are repetitive. i clean the gas stove today, i will again have to do it tomorrow. i mop my room today (which i actually did), i will again have to do it 3 days later. i wash the clothes today, i will again have to do it tomorrow. (by the way i do not literally mean tomorrow as in 12th may 2024 because my other will be home tomorrow afternoon so she can do a bit too though i'll also have to let her rest after so travelling because travelling is tiring. but you get the point, right?) it doesn't feel like i am actually getting something off any pile. for homework it's more like if i do this today for once i will never have to do the exact same homework again. that's not the case with chores. it doesn't feel worthy of praise. also about the hair pulling, i have no had a single day so far when i haven't pulled. i do it every day, at least one hair from my eyebrows or eyelashes. (i am totally not counting the arms.) my eyebrows and eyelashes (especially eyebrows) look horrible. and people say eyebrows the part that completely changes your appearance, so i dunno. i feel horrible about them. my eyelashes are much less noticeable than my eyebrows.

one part of my body that i like? i dunno. i think what part of my body i like it really depends on how it looks that day, it changes. if i am having a good hair day, i will really like my hair. if i am having bad had hair day, i will hate my hair more than anything else in the world. if my nails are clean (i mean if there's no dirt stuck under my nails) and not looking rough, i could really like my nails, if they look dirty and rough, i could dislike them a lot. and you mentioned that i could like my big toe or smile, but those are both things that i hate about my body. ummm trying to think of some part i like most of the time... my arms i guess? they usually look okay these days with me not being as skinny as i used to be.

i'm glad your son is managing okay. i really hope his literature exam went well, and that his french exams next week go well. haha procrastination. i think we all do that, lol. glad he is learning to manage it.

i need to go to bed now, i do need to get up on time tomorrow because we need to reach the airport by noon to pick up my mother. so i'll get to the rest of your message tomorrow. sorry i couldn't do it today.

1 reply
load more
load more
load more
load more
load more
load more
load more
bestVase7265 May 13th

Chores are really a very necessary part of life unluckily. Think about how bad your mom must feel when that is really all that she gets a chance to do. It explains in part why she gets upset at you all the time. So your job is to figure out how to do them with as much calmness as you can. Letting yourself get upset because you have to do them doesn't make them go any faster. Trust me. I am saying this as I look at tomorrow's laundry pile and try to figure out when I will find time to dust and clean the bathrooms this week with visitors coming this weekend.

By excitement with the move, I didn't mean joy. I meant stress and the rearranging of everything. It is something different and that is hard on the brain, especially one which has depression. So I hope that you can find more time to cry a bit when your mom gets home. But sometimes there isn't a way to make yourself cry. You have to wait for your brain to decide to do it.

You are feeling in part weak because you aren't getting enough water. I know that it breaks the cleaning routine but it is important that you care for yourself. Otherwise the chores will seem more overwhelming and you won't be able to get them done as quickly and easily. 

Do listen to the rain as often as you can. Unluckily rain in summer usually means that it will be hot and steamy afterwards, but enjoying the rain itself can make that heat more bearable. We are still waiting on the rain to start. So far all we have is the heat. They say maybe rain in another few days, but probably just to the north of us. Once our rainy season starts though, we should get intense downpours about once a day for 15-30 minutes. 

You got the history done - that is great. Focus on the homework before me. I can easily wait a week or even longer between messages. I have lots of other people that I answer too. You are right about homework being more of something that you can check off a list than chores. But that doesn't mean that chores aren't still praiseworthy. What would things look like if you hadn't done them? In many cases you would have double the work the next day.

As far as the hair pulling, if you are doing it every day then start to figure out how to limit it to a certain part of your body. Work on "no more eyebrows" for instance. You can pick a different body part each day to like. That isn't a problem. Just force yourself to pick one rather than just always focusing on what you don't like. You are retraining your brain.

Ok, on to as much of your second message as I can get to before I need to stop for the night.

I can see why your dad wants to make your house a home. That can be really important in terms of giving someone a sense of accomplishment. But your version of home is different than his. Having bare walls works well for you so that it is good for your room. Yes, I can imagine that he doesn't cook when your mom is home. To be honest, men get away with not doing as much in terms of helping around the house because women let them. They get to choose the chores that they want to do. You won't necessarily change your dad, but you can look for a partner later who is more willing to help with household things and recognizes how hard women work. My husband still doesn't do half the chores or anything but he does do the dishes and his own laundry. That is a massive blessing. 

Your mom is someone who you see all the time. Cups people and other friends are people you make a decision to see. Your mom you don't. So sometimes you will miss her and sometimes you won't.  That's okay no matter how you are feeling about it. I am sure part of you is relieved that she can now do more of the chores while you are simultaneously worried about getting yelled at. That is how it is with parents. 

You actually did a great job handling the wifi/electricity issue. You showed tons of ingenuity in keeping working at the problem until you had a temporary solution. I am impressed and I can imagine why your father was as well. Not giving up is critical. His happiness is what you should focus on rather than how long that happiness lasted. Remember how his brain works with his illness - happiness cannot last long. Actually it doesn't last long for most of us. But we are in charge of making those little moments of happiness as precious as we can. So be grateful for the kindness that you did get.

That is a good happiness moment. It can be very relaxing to be by yourself.

My son's car ended up not being seriously broken so it was all okay. I am doing okay with the other stuff as well. I got to see all three of my sons at the same time today with my husband. We shared a meal together and that was very special because it happens so rarely now. It was a day that made me smile.

2 replies

@bestVase7265 yeah, chores are necessary, i understand. i get how bored and fed up my mother must be of doing nothing but chores for the past 16, almost 17 years now. at least she had other things to do before that. now for her it's just chores and dealing with me and my father. but she is back home now so i don't have to do as much. but i kinda feel sorry for her and feel like i should be helping her. but i'm totally unable to. i did help her with a bunch of stuff yesterday. but today i feel too sick to do anything at all. umm, yeah, getting upset about chores doesn't really help, i agree. how did your chores go by the way?

umm i'm sick so i've just been sitting in my room, trying to study, clean up my room, and spend time on cups. i'm feeling unwell and i think i might get very sick soon. my body hurts so much. i wasn't able to sleep properly last night so i am really tired. and today morning i woke up with a stomachache and headache. and then a little later i started to feel like my back really hurt.and right now i feel my neck hurting a lot. this is very unusual. i feel like i'm about to fall really sick.

oops, sorry i misunderstood what you meant by excitement with the move. oh yeah, still waiting for my brain to decide to start crying, lol. i managed to cry a bit today, but only a very very little bit, like less than a minute. really nothing is making me cry properly. and i want to cry because it helps me feel better when i'm done crying, that is, if i am able to cry freely until my brain decided to stop, an abrupt stop of crying because my parents come in or something, that only makes matters worse.. but even the stuff that usually makes me cry isn't making me cry anymore. i just want to cry! what is so wrong with my brain and tear glands or whatever?!

well, I've tried to drink more water for the last few days, but it's still not helping. and i am sick today. and now being sick is making it hard to drink water. my throat hurts and my teeth hurt, so it's not very pleasant to drink water (or eat). basically my whole body hurts though. every single part of it. i hate this.

i guess i'm just gonna go sleep right now. my mother told me to go to bed earlier today and get some sleep, and i think i should listen. i'll get to the rest or your message tomorrow.

1 reply

@bestVase7265 hi vase. i do think i'm better today than i was yesterday. somehow my body doesnt hurt so much today and i don't feel that sick. so yeah, you don't need to worry too much. but you know what, even though i tried so much to go to bed earlier yesterday, i ended up going at 12:55 am. but i feel asleep immediately and didn't wake up much in between so that was nice.

so let me get to the rest of you message now. i might not be able to get to everything today, but i'll try.

haha if it rains, i will obviously look at it, i love watching it rain. well, i think whether or not it gets hot and steamy after rains in summers really depends on the climate in your area. where i live, in summers, if it rains heavily enough, after the rain, it is very cool and pleasant. however, if the rain is very light, then it will be a lot hotter and more humid after those little rains. in monsoon though, it will always be pleasant after some rain, even if it's very light.

how hot is it getting there lately? in my city it's gone up to 41°C this summer, but it's a bit cooler for the past few days because of the heavy rains on friday and saturday, so it's going up till 37°C. also, when does rainy season start there? here it's supposed to start in june but lately it usually starts in july.

i know that technically you can wait for a week or so for me to respond, but that's not something i really like doing. i love talking to you, i usually feel better after posting here, and i think it also helps me sleep better. also, once i am back in school in june, i am scared that i might not be able to get on here much, so i want to make the best of being able to come here more often. after school reopens, i might only be able to come here to type on weekends. by the way, don't let this make you feel pressured to reply quickly, i know you have others to talk to as well. know that i'm trying to post more because i wont be able to when i am back in school. but you're totally free to stick to your usual response rate, it's not a problem at all.

so yes, i will try to do homework, but i'll also try to come talk to you as much as i can. i manged to finish my english notebook work on monday. but i wtill have other english work to day for the project. i hope to start that tomorrow. we have to read a story book and write a book review on it. i still have to start reading, lol. and i'm trying g to get my chemistry homework done, god, i have a ton of chemistry homework. and then maths and physics which i can do none of without my mother's help.

yes, right. trying to praise myself for chores too, lol. i don't have much of general chores to do anymore, just my room. so making my bed, folding my clothes and putting them in my wardrobe, dusting my room, cleaning my bathroom, and occasionally mopping my room. i agree that for some chores, if we don't do it one day, we'll have double work the next day. but for me, i think that only applies to filing my clothes. for the rest, things will just be more untidy and dirty if i don't do them once day, so not really double work for the next day, just a little more effort if it's more dirty or untidy.

yep, i am trying to not pull from my eyebrows at the moment. i think i need to try it for my lashes too... but i usually still end up pulling a one or two from my eyebrows every day, but that is a lot less than what i usually pull, so i hope my brows get a bit of a chance to grow and look more normal.

it's 12:18 am right now and i am trying to go to bed by 12:30 today, so i'll stop here. i realise that i still have a lot to get back to, and i hope i can do it tomorrow. i think i'll try getting on here in the morning tomorrow for a bit to see if i can try to type up part of my response in the morning and the rest in the evening if i cant do the whole thing in the moring.

load more
load more
bestVase7265 May 16th

So sorry that you have been sick. That is no fun. Glad to hear that you are feeling better today. Rest and drinking water helps even when your throat hurts.  My guess is that you are just too physically ill to cry at the moment.

I cleaned my house well for a few hours today in between grading and will do the same tomorrow. My youngest son graduates on Saturday so we have a bunch of relatives coming into town. If I am less active on Cups the next few days that is why. Today I did bathtubs, toilets, etc. It always feels nice when things are cleaner. Tomorrow I need to do my bedroom where my mother will be sleeping and iron a bunch of clothes for my son. That is in addition to grading several papers from my pile, attending someone's thesis defense, helping prepare for a big ceremony of honors graduates at my college, going to that ceremony, and going to a dinner at my son's school in honor of his graduation.

We did start to get our rains yesterday. Today there was a steady rain in the morning. It was steamy in the afternoon but pleasant this evening. Today the high was 29 but it will be up into the low 30s for the next few days. We will probably get some rain most days for the next few months until early September or so.

We seem to be on a good schedule in terms of communicating. We will both do our best. 

You are going to get the homework done slowly but surely if you keep at it. Go for variety - english, then some chemistry or math or physics. The more you mix things up the less overwhelmed or bored that you might feel. Avoid leaving one subject to the end. I hope that the book is a nice read. 

I am glad that you are back to your normal chores which feel more manageable. 

It is great that you aren't pulling from your eyebrows right now. Every little bit that you limit yourself is a step in a good direction.

Have a good rest. 

1 reply
bestVase7265 May 16th

I forgot to include my good moment for the day - seeing some very pretty clouds that looked like little wisps this evening. @bestVase7265

load more

@bestVase7265 hey hey i couldnt get on here yesterday, i got a little carried away with some other things yesterday. but i'm here to reply today.

(responding to the second part of your message from monday)

haha yes, my father wants everything in the house to look perfect in his standards so as to have this feel like home to him. and he had pretty high standards obviously. plus as an engineer, he has the knowledge and tools to get everything exactly how he wants them to be, so yeah. umm he's not working on putting photo frames and stuff yet, those things are for decorative purposes only so he's kepy them for later, right now he's working on properly placing the tv speakers and stuff. it matters to him because he's considering using the tv now, but it doesn't really matter much to me or my mother. but yes, bare walls do work for me, so i wont let him do much in my room.

i think the fact that many men don't help with chores much could be because of what they are stereotypically expected to do. you know in olden times it was normal for females to sit at home and do all the household chores, and males go out and earn. now that's changing these days with women too going out to work but i guess men enjoyed it the way it used to be so they don't like chores. i mean my mother is a housewife, but she is one only because my father is unwilling to do any chores. he wont even make his own bed.

if fact my mother thinks and tells me that my father got married only to not have to do chores. you see, before my father got married he used to depend completely on his business partner's family for cooking and he did everything with that family, so they started to completely control my father's life and get him to do a lot for them and my father tolerated it for some time because the business was going well but when it started to not go very well, he had a lot of arguments with that family and he got rid of them from his life. now he hated to cook and manage stuff, and even though he lived alone he needed to do chores, right? and apparently from what i hear he tried to keep many maids but none of them stayed because of my father's rude behaviour. so yeah, he decided to find himself a wife who he could keep trapped. and my mother is exactly the kind of person he needed, someone with parents who were desperate to get her married and out of the house and parents who weren't nice to her and from him home state where he grew up, which if far away from where we live. that way my mother has nowhere to go and nothing to do once she's here with him. especially now since he's trapped her with me, a child. my mother cant possibly mange all chores herself (even if i help her) take care of me, and work to earn enough to free herself.

i know that's a pretty bad thing for my mother too, and i hate the fact that my maternal grandparents (especially grandmother) had so stereotypical beliefs and wanted to get her married and out of the house. because traditionally, a woman gets married and goes to the husband's house, and men stay with their parents even after getting married (doesn't happen much these days). i mean, my mother was earning and doing something, and they had such a problem with her just living there. because they wanted to get my uncle married and needed space in the house in my uncle got married for his wife to come live. they wouldn't let my uncle go anywhere else because they would need him to take care of them as they grew old, because according only men can take care of their old parents and women cant.

and of what use was all this is still don't know. because my uncle, who is 48, is still single and had always been. my grandparents tried desperately for their whole lives to find him a wife, but he didn't like any of them because he has too many specifications (and some of them make no sense, like the "she has to be fair skinned" one). also, my grandparents actually allowed him to choose and gave him some freedom. they gave none to my mother, she never got to say no even though her first impression on seeing my father wasn't good, she was forced to get married because my grandparents seemed to like my father. also, i really doubt that he actually took good care of my grandparents, i really don't think he did. and my mother thinks so too, and she thinks that if my grandfather would have been taken better care of, he might have lived longer. also, my uncle hated the responsibly to taking care of my grandparents, he constantly complained about it over the phone and asked my mother to come help him. that makes no sense, my mother has me and my father to deal with, she cant go somewhere a 30 hour train journey away to him take care of his parents. if he seriously didn't want to take that responsibility, be could have stood up for my mother when she was getting married.

anyway yeah, now that my grandparents have passed away, my uncle is all by himself in a 2 bhk, lol. he's got nothing much to do, just work, do his gardening hobby and spend time with one friend that he has, and annoy my mother over the phone. yet he still doesn't do chores. he has a maid for the dishes and brooming and mopping the floors. he does the laundry and cooking, and that's it. nothing else at all, from what my mother saw when she visited. he's also very lazy about the cooking. so for tomorrow's lunch and dinner, he will chop up all the vegetables from today night and keep them in the fridge. then get up and be done with cooking lunch and dinner (he has the same thing for lunch and dinner every day) and then make breakfast, then brush his teeth, have breakfast and then work. he works from home by the way and his schedule is quite flexible, so all that with the cooking is quite unnecessary. i wonder how he eats that kinda food every day. because from what i know, if you cop vegetables hours before cooking them, they do not tase good after cooked. oh, and some news by the way, he will be coming to visit us in july. and i am not looking forward to it. and he'll stay here for a week. i don't know how i'll manage. also, when my mother goes there, he makes her do chores there, so i wonder if he'll do chores when he comes here, lol!

umm i think i have really gone off topic very much here, so coming back, i agree that i cant change my father, nor man my mother change him. i can only hope that my mother's kind of story does not repeat with me, i know my mother wont want it to, but my father, i don't know. my father can be a very old fashioned person so i don't even know if when i grow up, if he's let me look for a partner or if he'll insist on an arranged marriage or worse, look for a partner himself and not let me say no. and who knows if i ever even will grow up, maybe i wont live long enough, and let's just hope i don't.

hmm anyway, yes, i get why i didn't miss my mother but i miss cups friends. it makes sense. lol, i am definitely relieved that i don't have to do so many chores anymore. i still do have to help her, but not do everything. but yes, i am getting yelled at, and a lot. it really hurts so much. yesterday and today were the most my mother has yelled at me after we moved. my mother was mostly keeping her voice down here because she doesn't want everyone to hear and she doesn't want to look like a horrible person. she tells me to keep my voice down too. i try to, but sometimes i fail. and she is definitely failing very badly.

well, that day with the wifi/electricity issue, i had given up. but something happened again and the ups was beeping so i had to get on the ladder to check. i also realised that it was impossible to reach my father and let him know that he needed to come home soon. and i figued i just couldn't survive for hours like that with no fans. so i just had to do something. so this is not something to be very impressed with. i agree that happiness doesn't last long for most of us though. but i don't think that most of us actually completely change our behaviour and attude towards a person just because they did something that impressed us. he does, and that is very short lived, that's what i'm talking about. i'm grateful for the kindness he did give me, but i wonder, do i always need to be able to to something to impress him to get some basic kindness? i don't think it works like that for most of us, we do treat people with some politeness even if they didn't do something to impress us.

it is surely nice to be alone at home though and i honestly kinda miss it now.

i am glad your son's car was not seriously broken, also glad that you're maganging okay with the other stuff. it's good to hear that you were able to share a meal with all your sons and your husband the other day, it sounds good. i think my good moment today was after mopping my room. i was so incredibly tired, but it was nice.

i'll stop here for today, it's really late, but i'm on here because i slept for 1 and a half hour in the afternoon and knew that i wouldn't fall asleep if i went to bed on time today, so i decided to stay up and type here. now that i'm feeling a little sleepier, i'll get going. i'll respond to your newer message tomorrow.

1 reply
bestVase7265 May 18th

I am going to try to answer as much as I can tonight. My son's graduation is tomorrow and we have to leave the house at 6:30 am to be there on time.

I do totally agree with your assessment of men and your father in particular. We women just need to keep working on such things and they will improve. They have been getting better slowly but surely over the last few decades and we can keep insisting that men be better. Eventually they won't have a choice. That is why voices like yours are so important.

You are doing a good job in recognizing the rough situation that your mom is in. None of it is your fault. It is the fault of patriarchy and what your father and your mom's family has been allowed to do. The key is you figuring out a better path for you than the one that your mom has had. Your uncle has ended up in a bad spot because of his own selfishness which his parents and society allowed. He deserves to see that he has made a lonely, miserable life for himself. You will survive the week in July, especially if you have school. It will give you an excuse to avoid him. Homework can sometimes be a mini-blessing. If you don't have homework, claim that you do.

This is part of the reason that I am having you look for things that you enjoy even minimally at school. They provide you with that way out of your situation. School is how you can escape your dad if he becomes overbearing in the future. Your mom obviously wants this for you because she could not get it for herself. School is your life line, even if you don't like the actual work. It is part of the reason that your mom yells. She wants you to have a better life that badly that she gets anxious about it.

I am still impressed that you found a solution to the wifi thing. Every little success that you have deserves to be celebrated. I am glad that you had a good moment after you finished moping your room. It is nice to know that things are clean. I felt the same way after I finished my own cleaning before guests arrived.

It has been an up and down, intense day for me, but seeing family was good overall. We work hard to get along with one another. Tomorrow is the actual graduation. @exuberantBlackberry9105

load more

@bestVase7265 hi there, i'll try to reply to everything today, so let's start with your message from 2 days ago first.

i guess i am not really that sick now but i am not exactly doing physically well either. i was really sick on tuesday, wednesday was a lot better, thursday was mostly the same as wednesday i guess. but i have not been good since yesterday again. i think i was fine in the morning yesterday but in the afternoon/evening i was feeling awful. i was so exhausted and felt so weak and my head hurt. i had done a lot of work like dusting my room and mopping it, so i guess i was just really tired. i was also feeling kinda dizzy so i decided to lie down. and i thought my bed looked nice and i had taken a lot of efforts to make it look that way so i didn't want to lie on it just yet and thought i'd lay on the freshly mopped floor instead. so i lay down for a bit and then tried to get up but was too tired to. and i fell asleep like that.

i woke up about 30 mins later at 5:30 pm and was feeling awfully tired to do anything so i just moved to the bed. slept on for another hour and woke up to my mother's yelling. i guess i managed to get up and get some things done. i knew i had to sleep at night again and knew that there was no way i'd be able to do it just like that. so i exercised a bit in the evening to maybe be able to sleep again at night. but i realised that i still didn't feel like i'd fall asleep if i went to bed at 12:30 am. so i decided to stay up cupsing. and ended up going to bed at almost 2 am. still struggled to fall asleep, but somehow managed a little while later. and i am quite tired and not feeling good today. i hope i can get through the day without sleeping though, so maybe i can go to bed early tonight and get some rest and maybe feel better tomorrow.

i'm glad you've been able to get some cleaning done in between the grading. cleaning bathrooms isn't exactly fun, but glad you managed to get it done. i hope cleaning you bedroom and ironing the clothes went fine. what is it like for yo to have your mother sleep in your bedroom? are you both sleeping there fine or have you by some chance have had to go sleep somewhere else? how many relatives will you really have staying in your house? woah, cleaning in addition to grading, preparing a ceremony and attending a bunch of stuff, that sounds like a whole lot of work for you. how're you managing? and are you getting any time at all for yourself?

i'm glad you got some rain the other day, also that the evening was pleasant after a steamy afternoon which was surely not very fun. wow, a high of 29°C sounds very nice to me, low 30s sound good too. but i understand that what temperature is nice for me might not be for you. it really all depends on what our bodies are used to and what kinda climate we live in. for me, a high of 29 would be the best thing in the world, because that only happens on the few very cold days in winter. but in your area that might be more summerish temperature, so i understand if it's not the most pleasant for you. oog how do you feel about getting rain on most days for the next few months? do you like rain?

yes, i'm trying to get the homework done. i'm trying to do it by aiming for something specific for each day. today it's 10 question answers for chemistry and the first chapter of the book for the english project. i haven't really started the book yet, but hopefully i will start today. starting is the hard part, because usually when i start reading a book i am quick to finish it. it's actually the first sherlock holmes novel that i've decided to read because my mother had them with her and she thinks i'll like the story. the book as been with her from when she was in school, so the pages are all yellow hehe. and we don't really have a lot of books at home, i have harry potter but i didn't want to take that for this activity because half the class might do harry potter and i don't want to be part of that. i think doing something that not all your classmates are doing makes your project different and less boring and you don't need to put in too much effort to get marks. plus the teacher already suggested harry potter so many people might take it up. i wonder if many people read sherlock holmes these days though, a few people might but certainly not half the class.

yeah, being back to my normal chores feels so much more manageable hehe. it might still be tiring but it is better than having to handle the whole house.

i think i am managing to not pull from my eyebrows. i did give in with my eyelashes yesterday though and they arent looking good at all. hopefully they'll grow a bit soon.  i want them to look better by when we're in school again...

ooh, seeing some pretty clouds sounds like a nice good moment you had the other day. i don't know if i've had one yet today, it's just about 1 pm so not a lot of good has happened yet. i'll send this post across right now and get back to your newer message later today, so i'll try and include a good moment there. i'll be showering soon and then having lunch (and my father is home for lunch today which is not nice, but yeah) and then trying to study and read a bit. then i'll be back on cups in the evening today.

2 replies

@bestVase7265 here to reply to your newer message now.

i really hope your son's graduation goes well. feel free let me know how it goes.

haha let's hope these things do eventually get better. you would know much better than me about whether or not these things have slowly improved over the past few decades and exactly how much they have improved, as someone a lot older than me and as a history professor hehe. but surely i think things arent like how they used to some hundred years ago. i do see families where husbands help with at least a few chores. hopefully eventually they wont have a choice to do a chosen one or two things around the house that they find easier to do. but at least a chosen few chores is better than none at all like my father does, lol. what do you mean by "That is why voices like yours are so important." though??

i feel like the tough situation my mother is in is my fault. partly, at least. yes, it is also my maternal grandparents' fault, my father's fault and my paternal aunts' faults. paternal aunts because they were the ones to actually look for a wife for my father. normally in an arranged marriage, parents look for a partner for their children, but my father's parents had passed away long before my father got married (my father lost his father when he was 2 years old by the way) and in such cases older siblings or other relatives can do it instead of parents.

anyway anyway, my mother's situation is also my fault because if i was never born, my mother wouldn't have been trapped like this, she might have been able to work and earn money and free herself. she cannot do that because of me if my father wont help with anything at all. my father wont help with household work, he wont help me with my studies or anything. when i was younger, my mother would request him to do only one thing - encouraging me to do sports and exercise and stuff and that my mother would handle everything else including my studies. but my father didn't even do that. my mother asked him to teach me how to ride a bicycle and though he kinda tried with that, he gave up and my mother ended up teaching me.

now that i am older and i mostly only need help with studies and not anything else maybe my mother could try working, but it wont be of much use. because realistically speaking, if she starts now, how will she ever earn enough to raise me by herself? you need lots of money for school alone. right now for this year school fees are about 84000 rupees a year. and it goes up every other year. so yeah, she has no way out. to add to her problems, she fears that i am growing up to be a horrible person just like my father. and that's my fault. if i was never born, none of this would have happened in the first place. my mother would never have been so trapped. also, if i died now, that would still give her a way to get out of her situation. so to me it all feels like my fault and it is also part of the reason i think of suicide so much. if i just died, i would be a free soul, and she would be able to free herself from her situation and if she felt like she couldn't, she could join me in being a free soul. i wish i could just die without easily without having to think about it so much. and i don't even know why i promised myself that i cant die without a good lengthy explanation for my parents, particularly mother. but i promised myself and i cant break the promise so i'm living because i am too lazy to write such an explanation. if i wasn't so lazy, i'd have been dead today.

umm is my uncle really in a bad spot now that that he's done with taking care of his parents and stuff? i feel like he might be happy with this, but i will never really know. but why do you say that he has made a lonely and miserable life for himself? i get it about the lonely, but what do you mean by miserable here? you know, about the loneliness, while i was there in december when my grandfather passed away, i heard a lot of relatives talk about how he'll be alone and lonely now and how he'll eventually start to struggle with depression. but i do wonder, how can we really know if he's lonely? he's not a very social person after all. so he might be fine the way he is, or he might not, we never know. and if he isn't fine with his situation, it's really up to him to do something about it. most relatives are still asking him if he wants them to look for a woman for him. he just doesn't respond to that question.

and yes, i do agree that he is selfish, he is not polite enough to people, and he also doesn't like spending money. so no matter how much he is told to repaint the apartment that was last painted in the year 2000, he wont do it. he wont fix the slow fans in the house, not the broken windows, and so many other problems in there. i guess he likes living in that old looking apartment. i think that in a way, it's a good thing that he's not married. because if he did, that woman's going to struggle a real lot. and their children would struggle as well. and i don't want that to happen, i am totally okay with not having any cousins on my mother's side of the family. (and all my cousins on my father's side of the family are all grown up, and i don't even know them or anything. i've heard that i have a lot of cousins and that they are all between ages 28 and 59. i know that's funny hehe given that i'm 14.)

hmm yes, i realise that school will let me avoid my uncle when he's visiting us. and then i can be busy with homework while at home. but really, what worries me is that he doesn't like to respect other people's privacy and he doesn't like to give them some space. and that annoys my mother too. whatever he sees you doing something, he will peep in to see exactly what you are doing. if you keep a carry bag full of some stuff somewhere, he's gonna take out closely observe all the contents of the bag. my mother found it so annoying while she was there. this makes me worried that he'll come into my room and start exploring all my stuff and my drawers and shelves. and he could possibly do that while i'm at school. my parents never go through my stuff (they never did even when i didn't have my own room) and that's something i am very grateful for. and if my uncle did that, my brain would explode and i'd be dead.

and even if he doesn't do that, he might be coming into my room a million times and might catch me on my phone cupsing or something. that too would have the same result, my brain will explode. i just really hope my parents allow me to keep my door docked during that time when he's here. but i bet both my parents will be annoyed by his behaviour. maybe he will sit in the balcony looking at our plants and give my mother some unsolicited gardening advise because he loves plans and gardening. in the apartment building where he lives, on the rooftop terrace, he has a lot of plants that he grows. now i wonder who'll take care of his plants while he's away. maybe he'll ask his neighbours to do it.

i understand why you want me to look for good things in school, it could kinda provide an escape sometimes. i didn't fully understand your whole paragraph about school though. could you please help me understand what you mean by "School is how you can escape your dad if he becomes overbearing in the future. Your mom obviously wants this for you because she could not get it for herself. School is your life line, even if you don't like the actual work. It is part of the reason that your mom yells. She wants you to have a better life that badly that she gets anxious about it." school might help me escape my father while i am there, but what about the rest of the time? also, my father normally stays at work for longer than i stay at school, and unless he starts working less, how will school really help with that? also, i'm not sure about what exactly you think my mother wants for me that she didn't get for herself? how is school the reason my mother yells? and how can we really know if my mother wants me to have a better life than hers, when he yells at me saying that i deserve 10 times the amount of pain and suffering that i cause her? by the way, know that i'm just asking because i didn't get it, i don't mean to argue with you or something.

well, if you're still impressed about the electricity/wifi problem, i guess i don't cant change that, lol. aww and thanks, that's very sweet of you. oh, and i'm glad you felt good when you were don't with your cleaning.

you've certainly had a lot going on, so i understand that this has been an intense day for you. i hope you're able to sleep well at night to be able to deal with so much and i also really hope you're able to find some time for yourself in the middle of all this. i'm glad seeing family was overall good for you though and hopefully you'll get along with each other. feel free to talk about how it goes and anything else you'd like to share. again, i really hope your son's graduation goes well.

today my mother and i had gone outdoors for a bit. i went on my bicycle and she came walking, and we went to this nearby hill. there's basically a little stretch of road on it where people go for walks and stuff. i think the place is quite nice. the road has a bit of a slope and the uphill ride is horrible but the downhill ride is nice. and since it's a short little road inside a college area (it's not a public road but everyone's allowed there for walking and stuff) i was just going back and forth. i did get all hot and sweaty as i rode my bicycle there and my mother mostly just strolled because she got tired after a while. and she saw a beautiful peacock. she called me to see it too and it was nice. and also kinda tried to ride my bicycle for a bit and it was kinda nice watching her. i think it was nice going out for a bit and i think it was good exercise. i'm really tired now, and my legs hurt from trying to ride as fast as possible of a sloped road. but i guess i'll sleep better tonight because of how tired i am, and it would be nice to be able to sleep well. but yeah, i'd call the downhill rides my good moments for today.

2 replies
bestVase7265 May 21st

I am going to try to complete my response.

You aren't arguing with me at all. It is fine. Okay, let me begin explaining the school stuff with a story. At graduation yesterday, the speaker talked about her own horrible childhood. She lost her parents at age 3 and was in 14 different state homes until the age of 12 when she was finally adopted. She had no one who really cared about her and she was physically abused. What was her saving grace - being able to go to school. It gave her a place to imagine a different world for herself. She could read stories of people elsewhere and figure out how to start finding a path for her. The same thing can happen for you. That is what I mean by a life line. Based upon what you are saying about your mom (her life and her being good at math) she too saw school as a refuge growing up. I do believe that she would love you to devote yourself to school as a way of not turning out as she did. It is why she yells so much about school work. She knows that is the best path for young women to not have to endure what she did. So what I am describing is thinking more long term as often as possible. You don't have to figure out your future. You just have to imagine that through school and studying that it could be a brighter future than you have right now.

Ack, again I didn't finish. I will do so tomorrow. 

@exuberantBlackberry9105

bestVase7265 May 22nd

Okay, now I am definitely going to finish. It has been another very, very long day for me with the start of my 9-5 workshop. I apologize in advance if parts of this don't make sense. My brain is a bit mushy at this point.

I love the idea that you ended with exercise and seeing a peacock with your mother. That is awesome. Be sure to keep including little moments like that.

Mine today was also a bird. As osprey flew overhead as I was walking back to my car. It is rare that they get quite so close. It just sat in the tree for a bit and I watched.

@exuberantBlackberry9105

load more
load more
bestVase7265 May 20th

Sorry that I missed a day.

Sleeping and schedules can be really tough during school breaks. Hopefully you will find a way to feel better soon.

I managed to survive my son's graduation just fine and did okay at today's school graduation as well. For my son, it was just my mom staying at the house and I was able to sleep where my husband usually does while he slept on the couch. No one slept well but we survived. For both graduations I had to get up before 6 am, so I am tired tonight. For my son, we had 15 people in attendance and then at the house for a party afterwards. It was intense, but people get along well so it was good. Today's ceremony was outside under a tent in velvet robes with temperatures in the upper 20s. But I managed to score a spot by one of the giant fans. That was very much my victory for the day though my hair was a disaster afterwards.

I love Sherlock Holmes. It is a great series of adventures. That will be a good one to read for you. You are right that it will be a little less popular than Harry Potter but still lots of fun. The key is that it will start a little slow and then build up. You will always be surprised somewhat in the end because Sherlock is seeing things that you just miss as you read it the first time. There are also some great Sherlock Holmes things that you can watch. A more modern one is Sherlock with Benedict Cumberbatch. He is really awesome.

It is great that you have managed to stop pulling your eyebrows! Great job. Keep that up and work towards the eyelashes. I am sure that you can do it. Keep trying and praising yourself. 

In terms of chores, what I meant was is as you get older standing up for yourself. I don't mean telling your dad that you won't do a certain task. What I mean is telling other men in your life that you believe in better division of chores. I know when I was younger, people insisted that I would end up doing all of the laundry and ironing. When I met my husband, we agreed he would do all of his own laundry and ironing. We have kept to that. I did my kid's stuff when they were younger but now they do all of their own clothing. So think in terms of as many little things that you can do like that. 

You can blame lots of relatives for your mom's situation, but you can't blame you. All you did was be born. You don't cause her any more stress than any other child would. The marriage had already happened. There was tons wrong there before you were even around. She may see you as the culmination of all that went wrong, but she knows deep inside that she is wrong. You are a beautiful person who enriches her life. She knows this but doesn't know how to say it. She also wants to protect you from what happened to her. That is why she gets so upset. She is trying to break the cycle of toxic men who don't do anything by raising you to be strong. 

You aren't being lazy in not dying. You are being stronger. Lazy is to not fight the battle for life and to give into the depression and the bad thoughts that your brain sends you. You are a warrior. 

I doubt that your uncle likes the way he is living. He is uncomfortable in terms of his living space and know that people don't want to be around him. No one really wants to be in that spot. You are never content if you cannot care for others. You are right to worry that he might enter your space. I would tell your mom your concerns beforehand. She might not be able to prevent it, but she can be on the lookout for it. She won't want that to happen either. Maybe she can help you to come up with a plan. 

Okay, I need to stop for tonight because I have gone well over my time limit. I will try to catch up tomorrow.


@bestVase7265 hey, dont worrry about missing a day, it's okay. you've had so much going on, so it's totally okay. can i ask you if you've been getting any time for yourself lately?

yep, sleep is quite hard to be honest. every single day i'm trying to go to bed before 12:30 am and i'm failing every day. sometimes by an hour and a half, sometimes by 25 mins. but i have never been able to go to bed on time. plus to be honest i have also not been getting much homework done. i'm writing this in the morning right now. i'll try doing something a bit different to try to get some homework and reading done. let's see how it goes. because there is seriously a lot for me to get done.

you got through the graduations fine and that sounds good. ah, i get that no one was able to sleep well while your mom stayed. and also, if you had to be getting up before 6, you probably didn't get much sleep either. that must be really very tiring. i'm glad you were able to sit under a giant fan during the ceremony at your uni. but yeah, the fan made your hair fly around and get all messy and tangled. that's quite annoying honestly, but getting drenched in sweat isn't fun either.

that sounds great. i think i started reading a few pages but i forgot something important. the teacher needs us to list down all the new words we've come across, and i forgot to underline those as i read. so i need to start again with a pencil ready to underline. and honestly speaking, that is not fun. when you're reading a story it's much better to just read on even if you don't know the meaning of some word, for me at least. i usually figure out the meaning when i read the whole paragraph. and even if i don't, i move on and figure it out somehow by the end of the story, and even if i don't, i don't care. as long as i understand the basic story. i only look things up if not knowing the meaning of a certain word is seriously messing up my understanding. but now i need to underline every word i don't know the meaning of so i can find out and write it for the teacher. i feel like this is going to suck out all the fun of the story. it feels like a very boring task now. plus we have to summarise the full story.

well, i haven't completely stopped pulling my eyebrows. i still pull a bit sometimes, though not so much. and on sunday i think, i pulled out a lot of my eyelashes. for some reason when i try to pull lashes from my left eye, they get pulled out so easily. but they don't get pulled out easily on my right eye. i have no idea why. but yeah, now i have more eyelashes on one eye and a lot less on the other. i'm kinda just really hoping i can stop and let them grow out. i managed to pull out none yesterday and haven't pulled today so far so i guess that's good. maybe i pulled none on monday too, i don't really remember.

hmm got it about the chores. it's really nice knowing that even though people thought you'd end up doing everything yourself, you and your husband were able to agree to him doing his laundry himself. i'm glad you've been able to keep to it.

ah okay so i think you see it as, if i wouldn't have been born, some other child would have. but not sure if i can say that i haven't caused her more stress than any other child. my mother often tells me that no other child in the world causes their mother as much pain as i cause her. not sure how true that is, because obviously, she hasn't gone to see the pain every child on earth causes their mother. but surely i cause her more pain than some other children. because it's not like i always listen to her and am very nice to her. surely there are more obedient and nicer children. maybe if i wasn't born, some other more obedient child would have. and that kid would have caused my mother a lot less pain.

can i ask you why you think that i am "a beautiful person who enriches her life"? and she wants to protect me from what happened to her? a lot of stuff happened to her, so what of that does she want to protect me from? also why does her wanting to protect me make her upset? i also didn't understand what you meant by " She is trying to break the cycle of toxic men who don't do anything by raising you to be strong." exactly what cycle is she trying to break, and how is she raising me to be strong?

well, i guess you might be right that i'm not lazy by not dying. but i think i am living because i cant figure out what to write, how to write and how to actually say goodbye, and i'm too lazy to figure it out. whatever, my brain isn't working well right now so i don't think any of what i'm saying is making sense. i dunno, actually giving in to the bad thoughts also needs effort. maybe not generally speaking, but if you've promised yourself that you'll write a ten page long goodbye letter before to go, then it take a ton of effort. and that's too much for me when i am actually struggling a lot. it's easier when you're not struggling, but why'd you write a goodbye letter if you're not really struggling at that point? so i feel like that promise to myself is keeping me going. in a way i am glad i made that promise. in another way i regret it. i dunno how to feel about it. just so you know, since march, i've been thinking that 24/05/2024 would be the day i'd go. but now that there's just two days for it, i know it's not gonna happen because i'll never be able to finish writing so much. plus i wont be home tomorrow all day so no way could i manage to write all that. i think the fact that we're going for a trip tomorrow is very good, it'll keep me distracted. and if it happens to be fun, it might also make my life feel more worth living.

i think yeah, my uncle might not really like the way he's living. not sure what you mean by him being uncomfortable in terms of living space, but i agree about people not linking to be around him much. only very few people are actually okay with him, the rest just talk to him for the sake of it. to be honest he's mostly cut off most relatives out of his life by being rude to them. and that also affects my mother because those relatives get back at my mother for her brother's behaviour. doesn't make sense because my uncle isn't in my mother's control or whatever, but that's what people do.

umm i will tell my mother about my concerns of him coming in my room and exploring everything. i actually already kinda told her and she just jokingly said that we could put a not entry sign on my door. like how's that gonna stop him, but whatever. i hope we can do something.

i think i'm gonna go now, i'll reply to your other two messages later today. by the way, if you're wondering why lately i am getting back to some in the morning or around noon and doing the rest later, it's because coming on here early in the day makes me feel better. but normally when i come early and don't finish, i keep it saved in my notes and come back in the evening. but with that i've noticed that i tend to re-read my message again to make it more like i've written it in one go and like it includes the incidents of the day. and i spend a lot of time on that. so it's just better for me to type it and send it immediately after. that way i don't feel like i need to change what i originally type in order to make it sound more continuous. i can just make another new post at the end of the day which covers any incidents of the day and good moments and stuff.

2 replies

@bestVase7265 lemme continue my message now.

ah i see. sounds like the speaker has had quite a difficult childhood. yes, my mother did like school when she was a kid. for her, it was nicer to be at school than be yelled at and threatened and beaten at home. she says that school wasn't too good but a lot better than home. but then she says that teachers were in general better back then and she understood everything in school. she also says that school in general were better than schools are these days and everyone felt included and stuff, she says. and they didn't get as much homework as we do these days. so she would just go home and try to study. because they had a very different exam pattern back then. they had a class test every saturday and those marks were actually counted, in addition to other exams like those at the end of the term. so they actually had to stay really consistent with studies even though they didn't have much homework. but it was hard for her to study at home, especially as she got older, with everything that was going on.

things have changed now though. she knows i hate school. she knows teachers these days hardly explain anything much in class and give everything as homework. she knows that these days most of the people who become teachers in schools only do so because they didn't manage to get into anything else. she knows that these days many children decide a specific group of friends and interact only with them and leave out the rest. she knows just how much i hate school. so what she really wants out of me is that i devote myself to studies, not school. she doesn't care if i don't do homework (she only cares about the maths homework), but she wants me to understand stuff and study at home. she doesn't care if i skip school a lot, as long as i sit at home and study properly. she really wants me to take studying seriously. she thinks that since i have a better environment at home than she did growing up, she expects me to be able to do study properly because i apparently have nothing much bothering me.

i wonder, why do you think she wants me to devote myself to studies so i don't turn out like she did? she tried to devote herself but it was hard for her as she got older, but is that really why she turned out like this? what in her opinion is the best path for me to not have to endure what she did? and in what way will school and studying give me a better future?

aw i'm so sorry to hear that you've had a long day. i hope you're able to sleep and hopefully feel better. you don't have to apologise for your responses, they always makes sense, a lot more sense than my responses ever will.

it's good to hear about your good moment, i'm glad you could enjoy that. a lot has happened for me today, and i'd want to talk about it. but it's getting late and i need to go to bed. i need to get some sleep because we'll be going on a trip tomorrow and that will tire me out. plus, i'm not well, my body doesn't feel good and i started my yucky period again. what a timing! just the day before we go on a trip. but we'll mostly be in the car because of the heat so i hope it's fine. we'll be home tomorrow evening and i might be able to get on here for a bit to talk about everything that happened today, but i don't know. i think my good moment for today might be sitting in my mother's room for a bit or rather laying i her bed and chatting a bit as she was resting. her bed is a lot cosier than mine. but yeah, not sure how much of a good moment that was because we had a huge argument soon after because my stomach was hurting like anything and i was in pain and i didn't know what i was saying and she got mad at me and i stormed off.... i can discuss the rest another day.

1 reply

@bestVase7265 hey hey just want to talk a bit. i hope you don't mind.

so yesterday morning it was my father's psychiatrist appointment and my mother insisted that she go along with him. for the last two months my father refused to take her along, but for yesterday he was somehow fine with her going, so they were supposed to leave at 9:10, and i'd stay home alone while the maid did her work. honestly, it was really very weird to be home with her yesterday and it felt very awkward. especially when the maid started chatting with me.

she first asked me a very weird question to begin with - how many siblings do you have? and i responded saying that i have none. but really i was astonished to be asked that, because she's working here and she only sees me and my parents, but i guess she though i might have some older siblings who are somewhere else right now. anyway, after that, she went on talking about how she has 3 brothers and 3 sisters and so on. and i was really struggling with how i should respond to what she was saying, because i don't understand her words clearly. yes, she speaks hindi and i understand hindi just fine, but she's nepali so her hindi sounds really different from what i normally hear. so i was only partially understanding her words and thus only nodded my head sometimes and didn't say much. she went on to talk about how some nine month pregnant sister or some other relative of hers (i didn't hear her well) hung herself.

and now i didn't know what to say, and i also wondered why she was telling me this in the first place. i don't know why she's talking to me about this. i also wonder how old she thinks i am, because people don't usually tell kids these things and i may be 14 but i don't look that old. so why is she telling me? does she somehow feel comfortable with me especially since it's only her and me? i dunno. but either ways, the response i gave her was a very stupid one. "why?" i feel so stupid. as someone who also feels suicidal a lot, i know the answer. plus, what sense does it make to ask why someone attempted suicide? she just said "who knows" and moved on. but i feel bad that i many have made it worse for her. maybe she was just trying to get something off her chest and i asked such a stupid question and didn't show any kind of understanding or empathy. i feel horrible about this.

anyway, she finished her work and left, and my parents came home later and yeah, the day went by. i wonder if my mother asked the doctor for anything about me. remember i had told you that she thought i have some problem and that she'd take me to the doctor? she hasn't told me anything about it since, so i don't know if she asked about me. maybe she's forgotten, or maybe she now thinks i don't really have any problem or whatever, i don't know. something funny though is that yesterday during lunch my mother was telling me about how the psychiatrist told my father that he should have become a lawyer and so on, because apparently the he's trying to get to know my father and questioned him about politics and stuff and based on that told him that he's make an excellent lawyer. and my father seems to be very happy about this and seeing himself as a great person who's good at so many things....

anyway yeah, yesterday afternoon i had tried to sit in the kitchen to get my homework done because my room was getting too hot. but then my mother saw me sitting there (she was the one who told me to sit there) and then she asked me when i came and if i saw her sleeping in her room when i went to the kitchen. and i hadn't checked her room and had directly gone to the kitchen and told her that and then she commented "you've grown up too much, you don't need your mother anymore." so then i had to go the her and sit with her and show her that i do need her and stuff. it was going fine until my stomach started hurting. since i was sitting on her bed, i decided to lay down there. and i also became fairly irritable and got a bit impolite to her because my stomach was hurting really bad. she didn't understand and thought i was just showing her some anger just like that and she yelled and me and i stormed off and came to my room, turned on the cooler, and tried to sleep. she yelled at me a ton saying that this is not the time to sleep and then i just yelled back saying my stomach hurt and went to sleep. i woke up some time later drenched in sweat. she had turned the cooler off and turned the fan on instead. and the fan is away from my bed so i was sweating so much. i got so mad at her about that. just so mad. and i was mad at her for most of the day yesterday. why on earth did she have to turn the cooler off? i asked her and the claimed that she thought there was no water in the cooler. and i said that "you could have just tried to move the cooler and check if there's water in there or not". and then she admitted, "if i wouldn't have turned it off, would you ever have gotten up from your sleep?" like is that a way to wake me up? she could have just called me and asked me to get up if she wanted me to. but really, how does it bother her if i sleep? and how can she be so evil to make me wake up all sweaty? i hate this.

and don't get me started on everything that happened today. the trip was not nice at all. some part of it may have been nice, but for the most part, it was awful. and things are very heated at home after the trip too. but i can talk about it another day. and by the way, i also want to talk about my teeth, something that's bothering me. but i gotta go to bed now, it's very late and i'm tired from the trip.

load more
load more
bestVase7265 May 23rd

Ok, I am going to try to get to at least some of this, but I don't think I am going to be able to finish again. My semester will be over completely in another day or so and then I will have more time. But the 9-5 workshop yesterday, today and tomorrow is very draining. 

I am glad that you are attempting to rearrange your schedule to find more time for homework. That will be pretty critical as your holidays begin to wind down and you have to go back to school. Sherlock Holmes is going to have more unknown words. But I would probably do just a quick underline right now of unknown words so you can keep reading. Go back at the end to do the vocabulary part. That way the story itself will remain exciting. Which one are you reading?

Every day that you succeed in pulling nothing allows the hairs to grow back. So keep up the good work on that front! You can do it. I believe in you.

I would disagree with your mom's assessment of you causing her more stress. What is interesting is that you can logically see that - she hasn't had any other kid to test that on so how could she possibly know? But I disagree that there are necessarily children that listen more or more obedient. The age that you are right now is when you are figuring yourself out and so kids naturally listen a bit less. All children are disobedient in different ways. That is very true of my own sons. There are no perfect ones. All kids cause their parents some stress and anguish. The problem isn't you. It is your mom having expectations that aren't attainable. 

You enrich the world by being here so you enrich your mom too. Think about that moment you told me about her showing you the peacock. If you hadn't been there, she would have had no one to share her momentary wonder with. So even in very little ways, you bring her joy.  I still do think that she doesn't want what happened to her to happen to you. It is what you naturally want for your children. Her stress over seeing that path as one you could go down causes her to yell. She has tons of conflicting emotions that she doesn't process particularly well. She thinks she is raising you to be stronger by getting you to do your homework, know how to keep a clean house, etc. 

Your life is very much worth living and you are figuring out a path forward. Yes, it is really tough but that shows your strength and bravery. It is a battle you are fighting. Writing goodbye letters puts you in a much worse spot and makes you more ill mentally. I would avoid it at all costs. It will bring you NO peace, only pain. Focus on the small moments of joy. You are finding them. The possibility of fun is always there.

Ok, I need to stop for tonight, but I hope to finish answering tomorrow.