Thanks for this - it looks interesting, I'm planning on giving it a try for my low level reflux that's been bothering me for over a decade (but always had other health issues that seemed higher priorities to try to address).
This comment reminds me of my own socially anxious belief that I am boring, that people don't want to hear what I have to say, etc. And I have had plenty of evidence to reinforce those beliefs. As I have been working through things in therapy though, I have realized that my wounded mind grabs on to those things that reinforce that negative belief and tends to be dismissive of things that would contradict it. I've also realized that because I have those fears/wounds I often interact with people in ways that are more likely to elicit disinterested responses - I often have a flat affect and emote little, display no enthusiasm when communicating about things that I care about because I expect that the other person won't be interested or care. I wouldn't be surprised if I subconsciously have chosen friends who re-inforce those beliefs as well, I think I sometimes feel uncomfortable when people do respond enthusiastically toward me.
Some of my early experiences as an adult that broke my heart open a little were also with children - I don't have any of my own, but when my nephew and niece were young they were so open and enthusiastic and happy to see me it got past my wounded defense mechanisms.
That's maybe one of the biggest helping things. Having the right audience and even if it is only one or two people (or kids). This can make a lot of difference.
> display no enthusiasm when communicating about things that I care about because I expect that the other person won't be interested or care
This resonates a lot, and especially in "our community" of tech enthusiasts. I don't display enthusiasm about electronics, pcb design and assembly, with non nerdy people because I don't expect any form of interest (which is compounded by the assumption the person won't understand a word about it).
It got especially reinforced of late as I made a foray in woodworking to build myself a bookshelf from scratch with a custom design. There is something about non-tech hobbies that anyone can relate to (everyone was stoked by said bookshelf) that makes it easier to share. Even the layperson can grasp the design challenges faced in such hobbies, including nerdy but non tech ones (warhammer figurine painting is the first that comes to mind). OTOH when I show a custom-made PCB to someone, I just get a "ok cool".
> I wouldn't be surprised if I subconsciously have chosen friends who re-inforce those beliefs as well
There is also a strong tendency to vary friend groups and "get out of your bubble" if you think you're boring, to get "non-boring" people around you. Which can be healthy but highly frustrating, because you don't get to share stuff with them.
I can't wait to get children to share those interests with them.
yeah, the pre-rolls for the other shows are exactly what I'm talking about. Those are ads. And they are only skippable if you scrub forward past them. You are forced to deal with them.
I'm not sure how this fits in, but in my experience a further complication as someone with chronic pain/illness is that often the thing that bothers me the most isn't what I would describe as painful. I would describe it as very uncomfortable but on a different axis than pain. As a simple example that I think most people can relate to - I do not think of being dizzy as painful, but it's very impactful if you are dizzy all of the time. I had an episode of vertigo that was one of the most miserable experiences of my life but I don't think I experienced much pain during it.
I guess if the goal is to tell whether the person needs pain meds that complication may not matter as much since they don't help (afaik) with those symptoms. But I do sometimes feel like my health problems get taken less seriously if I report on my pain levels rather than my discomfort and/or how it impacts me. Eventually I found a migraine pain scale that focuses on how it affects your life rather than directly how physically painful it is and that helped me have a normalized system for reporting.
I don't know what gets taught in school these days about what was done to the native groups in the US, but when and where I went to school (in the US a few decades ago) we were taught about a number of very bad things that were done: Intentional spreading of diseases, broken treaties, forced displacement, etc.
I do think there are a lot of things bad that we did and do that get ignored or glossed over but a lot of it does get (at least briefly) taught and as far as I know, other than government secrets that are recent-ish, information about these things is not repressed.
I tried to send a message to your the feedback email address on your dustmite guide site but gmail told me it was undeliverable because the address was not found.
What I emailed about was asking what you meant by biweekly for washing bedding - is that twice a week or every other week?
In the early days, populations of eggs and protonymphs are high and perhaps you haven't learned to control humidity in different weather conditions, washing 2x a week will be effective imho.
But if you can maintain low humidity for a longer periods, the dust mite populations in your home will go down and frequent washing will be less important.
thanks for letting me know my email fwding is not working. Twice a week. Be sure to wash as hot as your machine can do. I found that the highest setting on my front loading LG washer does 158f and is more effective than the next hottest setting.
As a man in my mid-40s who has gradually become more aware of my emotions and the need I have for connection, I disagree. Of course I can't make claims about anyone else's needs or happiness, but for myself my life has been a lot better as I have built supportive friendships. I don't feel infantilized, I feel more able to have my needs met, be happier, work through blocks that are triggered by old wounds, etc. I feel more capable of living a satisfying life.
That often happened for me in grad school as well. Generally the questions I had trouble with on a take home exam would yield to late night inspiration. And if they didn't yield by a semi-reasonable time, I would go to bed and many times, as I was drifting off, an insight would come to me. One memorable time though, that didn't happen and I woke up several times in the middle of the night from stress dreams where I was trying to solve the problem. And when I thought about the dream, nothing I had been doing in it made any logical sense to actually help me with a solution. Fortunately I woke up early and was able to figure it out in the morning. It was not a very restful night of sleep though.
Empathy may not be the right term for this, but I've noticed recently times of emotional resonance with some characters/stories. One recent example that I particularly noticed this with was actually a Harry Potter fan fiction. It was fairly well written, but you know, not exactly fine literature. But I noticed how activated my emotions were getting reading those stories, the anger coming up about how the character was being treated, the sense of righteousness in her response to the circumstances and people around her.
I'm not sure if that helped me understand other people better, but I think it may have helped me understand myself a little better. Get a little more in touch with my emotions about parts of my own life. A little catharsis.
And this is not the point, but I think that getting in touch with my own feelings more probably does lead to more empathy for me. I've definitely noticed that when I feel more compassion for myself, I often also notice an increased sense of compassion for others who I perceive similarly.
