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Hope August 19th, 2020

Welcome to everyone who's joined our lovely community!
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This post is dedicated to welcoming members. If you are a listener, please show support to the members who post here! Listeners can introduce themselves here.

Hi there! We are so excited you joined 7 Cups! Allow us to welcome you by posting in this thread!

heart Please tell us why you are here and what topic are you seeking support for?

enlightenedHow can we best support you?

Bouquet Here is a resource you may find helpful: Find Welcome Pack here!

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Practice compassion and empathy for yourself and others. Also, on successful completion, get a chance to earn a shiny badge known as "Compassion Hero". Open Here!

edited by ASilentObserver as of Feb 17, 2021

8319
sereneParadise1862 July 23rd, 2021

Hi everyone, I am a nursing student and i am here to try and help make a difference and spread positivtiy through 7cups as my clinical assignment

MrRaven July 24th, 2021

Hello everyone,

bouncyJoy9511 July 24th, 2021

Hi everyone, I'm a listener here. I want to be a good listener. And I'm here to listen and support you.
Take care heart

TeeEmJay04 July 24th, 2021

Hello! I am new here. I am currently in school, work full time, and have a beautiful little boy at home. I just thought it would be nice to meet new people here and hopefully find someone who can relate and offer advice. I have extremely low self esteem and awful anxiety at times. I put on a little weight during Covid and now I have some body issues that affects my every day life and relationship. I get so depressed sometimes that I binge eat, and then I am depressed because of my binge eating so it is like a vicious cycle. I am constantly comparing myself to other females wondering why I can't look like them. My fiance tells me I am beautiful all the time but I just tell him to stop. How can a litttle weight make me feel so ugly? I certainly do not look at other women that are the same size as me or even heavier this way, I think they are beautiful. I just cannot get out of this self loathing stage. Sorry for the novel! haha

1 reply
VioletSpringGlade August 13th, 2021

@TeeEmJay04

Hello! Sounds like you are very busy with school, work and parenting! I can relate to that, though my kids are older (teens and adult). Good on you for taking the time for yourself to connect here with others who understand.

Low self esteem, anxiety, eating challenges are so common, I had them also, over the years I have improved my self esteem pretty much completely, still working on the anxiety, it is just in certain situations now, not so often as before.

Have you met some new people here and are you finding support/connection with others that can relate?

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incrediblescarlet198 July 24th, 2021

@Hope

heartPlease tell us why you are here and what topic are you seeking support for? Hi, I am here to help e get some help for all of my mental health, LGBTQ, and disability. One of the topics that I looking for seeking support the most is self-harm

enlightenedHow can we best support you? You can best support me by being my friend and listening to me vent.

convivialMoon443 July 25th, 2021

Hi I'm Laura, new to 7 cups. I started here because I struggle with depression, autism and *deep breath* narcissistic personality disorder (NPD). I feel terrible for y'all dealing with narcissistic family, first hand I know how awful we can be, but.. I try really hard and am about to start therapy. My depression is pretty severe but, hey, we're all trying. I'm also agender and aroflux/pansexual, so happyish gay vibes over here

1 reply
VioletSpringGlade August 13th, 2021

@convivialMoon443

Hi Laura! Have you found your way around here well and feeling supported? I can relate, I have a personality disorder also. I have found therapy ver helpful, have you? It can take a lot of practise and hard work though. blush

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SoulfulCat22 July 26th, 2021

Hello, I am a new listener but have been on 7 Cups for several months as a member. I suffer from BiPolar Disorder and Anxiety. I have found it a great help to share with others here. Now I want to give back by learning the skills of active listening and supporting others who struggle as I do. I am so grateful that there is a forum like 7 Cups that makes all of this possible.

ManuelMiercoles July 27th, 2021

I posted this elsewhere, but the spelling mistakes I can't find the edit button to fix are annoying me. And I can't delete it. So here goes, editted to fix semantic problems born of incorrect tense of a word for what I'd intended and some spelling errors.


Hi. My name is Manuel. I'm a deportee from the United States as of about a decade ago now. I've struggled to find myself in Mexico due to my poor Spanish, and how being deported at 18 kept me from graduating highschool in 2011. I've since concluded equivalent studies, but have had a hard time in higher education. This pandemic I've dedicated my time to bettering my dietary habits, quitting drugs, and engaging in online learning to see what other opportunities might be out there and to study core subjects and related materials to engineering in mining development and engineering in renewable energy sources. Which I plan to apply to the following year.

Before I was deported my grades had begun tanking due to non-stop racism and fat shaming I faced for a few years after my family moved from the Southwestern United States to the Midwest. I felt like I couldn't seek help nor report it lest my status as an undocumented migrant be further revealed. It ultimately killed the enthusiasm I had as a child to be in school, and I spent most of my time with a nose in some science fiction, history textbook, or fantasy novel ignoring everyone around me from middle school onwards. Despite that I participated in some sports without significant success, I was never one to watch sports but at the time felt like an equal where no one cared about anything except how I did and coaches were clearly dissaproving of racism. But which I attribute to the weight-loss that had me overcome obesity I'd fell into from preadolescence entering adolescence.


I'm here because I find that after I've quit substance abuse I've shed most of my friendships. Have not been out much since the pandemic began and I self isolated. Mexico has been rationing vaccines, prioritizing the elderly, workers in border states, and pregnant women. I'm 28, finally was able to register for a vaccine 2 weeks ago but have not received any call despite what the official government site states following the registration. Some of my friends online from Canada and the United States are already prepping for their 2nd booster shots.


After I was deported, I met a woman online in a chat room and we began a relationship that lasted over half a decade as we explored other relationships local to us. I see now that in a way, she was a listener to me. But now we're no longer teens, and she has too many stresses as well as her own mental health I'd become a detriment to. Hence why I quit substance abuse, I'd taken to abusing illicit stimulants to be productive. I see now I was addicted to the productivity and sense I could do anything. Until I became a paranoid and irritable wreck, and my personality drastically changed to one she no longer felt safe speaking to. Which sucked, when we'd met I hadn't ever really related to another Atheist before. We shared a similar taste in science fiction, and Cloud Atlas as our favorite novel in adolescence. It was downright magical, and I'm struggling to let go. My push for sobriety was hoping she'd forgive me and accept me again, but she remains peeved at me last I know anything of her. I feel as if she hates me for how erratic and deranged I'd come to be at points as I was quitting meth and dealing with vivid nightmares and paranoid delusions. Also, we're no longer teens. I was deported a decade ago, and am privileged amongst deportees for my father was able to keep his employment working online outsourced. His bosses thought our deportation was a load of crap, we'd overstayed our welcome due to the unexpected employment they offered him at one point. But I remain dependant on his income which was significantly reduced, yet enough for a middle class lifestyle in Mexico. While she has a career she deserves, and well, dating at 28 does see women increasingly expecting one have their life in-order compared to when we'd met.


I'm striving to re-organize my life and make preparations to leave my parent's home more permanently. But lately, suicidal thoughts I haven't had since I was an adolescent have returned. And the self-depreciative inner monologue I overcame from within me directed at myself, has now become audio-visual hallucinations of many people including that ex-relationship from abroad telling me I can't, that I don't deserve it, that I'm stupid. They become particularly intense when I try to learn something new or brush up topics I was never that great at, like pre-calculus and trigonometry. I sometimes have to shout them down for an hour or so before I can get anything done. That's what made it hard to quit meth. The elated ego it incited in me, which had me acting quite the arrogant jerk compared to my usual humble self, and the boundless energy specially that mental energy, made it easy to just dismiss those voices even once they began appearing as hallucinations. But when I'd stop using, the lack of energy and the sudden lack of stim-bloated self-esteem downright paralyzed me.


I'm no longer addicted to anything but coffee, and I'm prescribed methylphenidate 54mg. Americans might recognize it as Ritalin. But sometimes I fear that due to her lack of forgiveness, I might relapse to those occasional thoughts of 'Hey, ithe methylphenidate is nice, and its nice to sleep at the end of the day instead of going 3-4 days till hallucinating and paranoid due to lack of sleep, but wasn't it fun to spend 2 days straight doing math and enjoying it due to the dopamine rush?'


I recognize now I should have sought professional help. Perhaps been kept away from the internet and my phone a bit while I cleaned up instead of locking myself in and dumping the paranoia and fearful state vivid nightmares had left me in on someone who'd once trusted me to be a place of relaxation and lovely things to her. But I was afraid I'd be indoctrinated into religion. Not only do I not wish to be religious, I'm pretty vehemently Atheist, but I was afraid she'd dismiss me if I contacted her sober and spouting praise for the Christian God, when one of our last pleasant conversations she'd led me into chanting 'Fuck your God!' loud enough for my younger brother, a Catholic, to hear after I re;ated to her how he attempted to shame me into converting. I don't know how she knew I needed that, it cheered me up in a way I felt nothing else could have.

5 replies
VioletSpringGlade August 14th, 2021

@ManuelMiercoles

Hello! I get annoyed also if I can't edit mistakes! I have OCPD and I really like my writing to be perfect. laugh

That sounds an enormous challenge, being deported to a different country, though it sounds like the midwest was a pretty rough time for you also. What a wonderful acheivement quitting drugs! I like how you have thrown yourself into your studies, there is so much to learn. I feel so blessed I am a reader/writer, it has helped me both in finding support and also a healthy hobby/lifestyle of learning. You also seem to have really great skills of self-reflection, and self-awareness.

It sounds like you have been quite isolated, not surprising, from moving away both geographically and with your lifestyle/choices,and pandemic on top of that. I am sure there have been benefits, but now it is time to find some connection with others. It is so hard when we lose a friendship. Maybe she doesn't 'hate' you, but maybe your behaviour at that time was too much for her to understand/deal with. Sometimes we are not realistic and see others as being more capable than they are. I am sure she has her own challenges she is going through, and/or insufficient skills which might have prevented her from being able to support you all the way through your craziest times. And yes, life stages change. It sounds like you want her forgiveness...do you have your own forgiveness yet? Sometimes it is most difficult to forgive ourselves, and be our own support person. heart

Did you find any professional help? A true professional should respect your atheism, if not, go elsewhere! I know that a lot of religious groups offer therapy and counselling, but most qualified, experienced professional psych/therapists should not judge either way.

And have you found support and connection here in this community? Best wishes!


5 replies
ManuelMiercoles October 2nd, 2021

@VioletSpringGlade


Thanks for the support! I'm sorry for the much delayed response. But I've found a new job and its been much for satisfying than my previous employment, so I've been feeling as if I have a little more purpose even if I still would like to seek other prospects and possibly attempt to return to university after I've saved some to move out more permanently or even study abroad in an English-speaking country.

I'm just trying to withhold from attempting to contact her further, she was left quite vexed with me. Understandably so, she had forgiven me to a point around last winter but I had misunderstood something sweet she'd said to me after I played (quite terribly at that) a few chords for her on an acoustic guitar and sang her happy birthday in Spanish.

She'd given me the response, 'tu y yo, siempre,' after asking me how to say forever in Spanish and I suppose I got too excited, and equivalated it to how she would once say we would always be lovers the year before that. Later that winter, we got to talking about science fiction given our similar taste in literature and it was late at night for me, so I attempted to turn the conversation towards something sexual and open of my desire for her in a way that was once well invited, but clearly wasn't any longer. She left me without a response and well, weeks later we finally spoke and I was quite rude to her. Said things I didn't mean, was rather insensitive which was unwarranted of me irregardless of how upset I'd felt at being left a few weeks without a response when I felt like we were having something I'd wanted to share with her again, sharing our thoughts over something I rarely share with anyone. Even if I did also attempt to lead it away from science fiction literature towards something else we'd also shared before that I missed.


Still, I'm not sure if her offer of being just friends would have been the best for us anyway. At least not how we were handling it. I certainly would prefer to be on good terms with her over this.. Silence. But I wouldn't be honest about my intentions if I said I was only interested in friendship after everything else we'd hyped up over 7 years only to leave unexplored. I think that it would demotivate me and stress me to have to constantly restrain my desire to avoid repeated rejection where once such was openly invited. That I would see her as denying her white privilege against me and considering me some subhuman for failing to advance higher education studies after I had been deported, which set me back by denying me my highschool graduation the year I was deported. Before I had to navigate an academic system in a language I could hardly speak. My Spanish has improved swathes since, and I am now quite fluent in both English and Spanish.


Been since February of 2020 since I last had sex now, been rather shut-in with the pandemic. Finally gave in and opened an OnlyFans account, because after so much free pornography I may as well support some creators. Still, I nearly just deleted my account despite a couple active subscriptions I paid because the offer of some paid internet girlfriend puts me off so hard after having experienced such a real relationship develop with someone spontaneously online. Even if nudes and expressions of sexual desire were few and far in-between compared to the blatant unabashed sexuality offered on that site, the support, sharing something through literature I've rarely found elsewhere, and the mutual belief in a lot of leftist causes is something that can't be replaced by a paid service even if I've no doubt an OF model can be quite witty, even funny to talk to or otherwise have great taste herself.


I think I'd rather be dead than see myself ever paying for that type of service. That it would be some cruel joke on me by some white patriarchy for me to fall so hard down the capitalist system after systematic marginalization and racism faced much of my life, that I'd rather die than live to see the day I consider that appealing. But I do support the creation of pornography, particularly how platforms like OF have allowed creators/models to take back agency over their output from brands that can be exploitative and often are. So I suppose I may as well support something I've enjoyed freely much of my life, at least until next time I'm in a relationship. I try to avoid pornography when dating.

ManuelMiercoles October 3rd, 2021

@VioletSpringGlade


I just feel like I'd feel much better if me and her could have ended at least on good terms, even if we weren't to be friends like she had offered. Not that I'm against that idea. Many of my closest friends are women, and I can often confide in them or expect them to confide in me should I need someone to talk to. But I'd rather not make of our communication constant negativity and my own whining at her loss and what grates me.


I think I equivalated her romantic rejection after 7 years of openly inviting such advances we never explored too strongly with how constant bullying and racism during my youth conditioned me into thinking myself unworthy and stupid. And how I've had to overcome that, and as the years progress I realize well, I was actually a lot smarter than many people around me who didn't have their formation interrupted and were able to graduate high school the year I was expected to had it not been for being deported. And that I am still quite potent and capable of progressing with my life and seeking a career. I brought into it a whole lot of baggage that shouldn't have affected us and a whole lot of racial tension that wasn't truly present.

ManuelMiercoles October 3rd, 2021

@VioletSpringGlade


I haven't sought professional help aside from the psychiatric prescription for methylphenidate I take because I feel its too expensive. And I haven't had feelings of anxiety and thoughts of suicide as strongly as I did the night I spoke to a listener and found this site.


Also because I've come to feel suicide isn't the worst end for me. That if I feel stuck, and can't progress to where I want to. If I can't meet a partner who inspires as much in me as she did, or someone else I feel worthy of me, and for me to become increasingly capable of maintaining such a relationship. Then perhaps it would be a better end to die, than to lower my standards just to avoid being alone. And I'm afraid that therapy might be costly and only result in someone attempting to goad me into accepting things as they are, and being okay with that. And not into pushing for more and helping me to push and shove for more. Maybe it is the cultural perception of therapy that is sometimes negative. But I'd rather not waste money on something to help me accept things as they are. I already quit drug-use, because it was doing just that.

ManuelMiercoles October 3rd, 2021

@VioletSpringGlade


Regarding the previous, I do not consider myself a greedy man. I've always been quite humble. But we all require a capacity for self-agency and control of ourselves, immediate environment, and what control a partner (or partners) would allow us unto them and for us to allow them unto us for us to feel satisfied.


All of which I seek increasingly. And will no longer drug myself into complacency lacking it, accept religion into denying my need for it, nor consider therapy if it does not assist me in finding more of it.


In a sense, I think this has been good. Her love for me served to instill in me a complacency and comfort with how things were. Everything was fine, for she'd declare we'd always be lovers. It did not bother me she married another man and chose to move to England with him rather than to Mexico with me. For I consider the pursuit of power to be up the upmost noblest pursuits, and she did explain to me how it was of convenience to a man she was fond of but felt more a friend with benefits and marriage as an institution served to cement her place within a community where she'd find socioeconomic opportunity. And I support feminism, so I supported her being where she felt and I knew she could reach for whatever she deserved. It was okay with me, she still claimed desire for me, their relationship was one open she made clear was not at all restrictive of her maintaining a relationship with me. And there was no problem, I loved her above all even when I'd felt love for other women nearer to me physically and locally. I was always comforted by the thought we'd meet someday, and physically consumate our desire even if she'd return to her marriage.


I suppose that is also why it might be a good thing. I rejected a marriage proposal from a woman embarking on a prestigious career locally not just because I did not want to be the stay-at-home husband to a woman who wanted me to impregnate and marry her knowing she'd be too busy for the role. Not that I'd want her delegated to it, I believe in sharing of housework and childrearing between couples. But I was not financially independent, and am not just yet despite a job that pays better than my previous employments. I also rejected marriage to such a beautiful woman because I could not claim fidelity in my mind when I still spoke to and desired another. We had spoken of swinging and inviting others into our sexual activity and lives, but she was uncomfortable with me continuing a relationship with that foreign woman and having a marriage as open as hers.

So I could not marry her. And this does provoke me some self-resentment as well as the resentment for me it woke in her, for had I not been cast aside by systematic racism culminating in my deportation after denying my so many levels of social support allowed others despite my parents growing socioeconomic status lifting us from near poverty to a comfortable middle class, I feel I would have been stable enough to have said yes when asked to marry her after such pleasant physical acts resulting in her draped bare upon me, asking me that before my reply of no turned her warm body suddenly cold against me.


I suppose that incapacity to feel satisfaction and constant craving for more, that I'll not sate with drugs again, may find itself turned less desperate again the next time I meet a woman so physically beautiful, intelligent, and communicative with me that also shares feelings for me.

ManuelMiercoles October 4th, 2021

@VioletSpringGlade

I would just like to clarify by that pursuit of power, I do not mean power over others or control of others beyond that they themselves allow. I mean power over one's own destiny, self, power to seek romantic relationships, new connections, and new experiences.

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shiningIcicle2526 July 27th, 2021

@Hope Be positive :)

1 reply
Faithful84 July 27th, 2021

Stay busy @Hope

Faithful84 July 27th, 2021

I'm also new and very grateful for this space. I love the support. I suffer from lots of issues. Anyone needs help lmk I have lots of life experience

1 reply
BeautifulSun298501 September 21st, 2021

@Faithful84

Hi! I am sun and welcome to 7 cups! Life is definitely a bag of tricks sometimes, and experience definitely can help us and others that need support. I hope you enjoy helping others on your journey and I hope you get the support you need here.

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Tree0sloth July 29th, 2021

@shiningIcicle2526
hi I have intrusive thoughts and often feel lonely even when im with someone. I joined 7cups so I could chat to people going through similar stuff to me

1 reply
iamhannah1998 August 1st, 2021

@Tree0sloth I have intrusive thoughts too. Do you see a therapist? I do but need support in between times.

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Tara1121 July 27th, 2021

I joined 7 cups to help people the way I wish I could've talked to people!

1 reply
blackBreeze8485 September 12th, 2021

@Tara1121
hope youre doing well❤❤

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