u/Electronic-Waltz5763

I have to be very careful to avoid things that remind me of certain places, people or times in my life. It seems like I'm unable to reminisce in a healthy way.

I moved away from my hometown around 10 years ago and sometimes I miss it and want to move back, but then I think about how I would have to avoid specific places because too many memories happened there with past friends or partners who I'm no longer in contact with and seeing those places again would give me a kind of bittersweet sadness about the past. It feels like even if I go back there it'll never be as good as it was because things are different now, and I'll never be able to relive those memories etc. I really avoid these places at all costs because it's too emotionally painful.

I also have to avoid any songs (which are particularly emotional for me) that remind me of someone or make me think "oh that reminds me of summer 2017. Turn it off before I start crying!!!" even if it's a good memory, I don't like it because it reminds me how much time has passed, how I'll never get those times back and how my life is so different now. It's not even necessarily that my life is bad different now, just different. There have been times when I'm out in a store, and an old song will come on and I have to leave because I hate how nostalgic it makes me. It puts me in a really sad mood for the rest of the day and triggers something deep inside me lol.

For example, I used to go to this mall with my dad all the time as a child, and now it sits abandoned. I can't even drive past it because it's too emotional for me. It's so sad for me to look at because it reminds me of my childhood and how different things are now and how it'll never be the same again.

I don't know. Does this make any sense?

Life always pushes you to the limit until you nearly can't take it anymore, and then eases up a little so you don't lose all hope. I've noticed that one bad thing after next can keep happening in your life and you can tell yourself it'll get better but it keeps getting worse until it pushes to rock bottom where you feel like you simply can't take it anymore and only THEN will things get a little bit better. It's the carrot archons use to dangle in front of you.

People even talk about how things 'come in threes' when experiencing a run of bad luck. That's by design. They know that's usually all people can take before they start thinking that maybe this isn't a coincidence. Say your mom dies, then you lose your house, and then your car gets towed. At that point, you start to feel like someone up there is 'out to get you'. There's a reason why they can't just keep throwing bad things at you left, right and center, because no one would be able to handle it. They'd be looking for the exit. But archons extract the necessary loosh by pushing you to the limit but reeling you back in with a glimmer of hope so they don't lose you altogether.

I had an office job that started off as temporarily remote due to covid. I did the interview on Zoom and worked remotely for a year. After that, we had to start going to the office. I feel like since then, people's perceptions of me have changed and the way they treat me has changed when they saw me in person. I know I still look young even over Zoom, but my height and size really add to my 'childlike' look. I'm 5ft and 90lbs. I met one of my coworkers for the first time who was 5ft 10 and she seemed to have a problem with me that she never had previously. I've had this happen a few times before with taller women who claim I 'make them look big', so they start treating me like shit. I also got a lot of "Oh I didn't realise how small you were!" You're so cute!" Then the patronising talk begins, like I'm a baby.

For this reason, I'm searching exclusively for remote jobs. Have any of you experienced better treatment from coworkers when working remotely?

I grew up being told how intelligent I was over and over again. I was always ahead of my peers in school, and my teachers constantly praised me. I began reading at 2 and grew up to be a voracious reader and an avid writer. My family always had high expectations of me, and expected me to be very successful when I grew up. They kept telling me how I was going to be a famous author one day. I assumed success would 'just happen', but it didn't.

Adulthood presented some unique challenges. I struggled to find my feet with jobs, money, and supporting myself, and I still continue to struggle at 29. I've only ever had low-paying menial jobs, mostly because I don't have the necessary connections or social skills for work politics.

What bothers me is how my family seems to think I could be doing a lot better. They're often surprised that I'm still 'not doing anything with my life' and that I haven't achieved much. They think I'm 'wasting my potential' at these pointless jobs, but they don't understand that this is all I can get or handle. I don't have any savings, don't own a house and haven't achieved anything 'of worth' so to speak. I've just been struggling through life since leaving college. It's embarrassing to meet old family members who want to know what I'm up to now and I can tell they're disappointed/surprised at my current life lol.

If anyone else has experienced something similar, how do you deal with this? I know the obvious answer is to just not care but it's not that easy.

This has been happening to me since I was a child. I had hyperlexia and always loved reading. My whole life, I've had people make fun of me for using certain words in conversation. I don't do it on purpose to try to sound clever, it's just the way I talk and I'm not even using complicated or big words. I'll just be talking normally and someone will stop me, repeat a word I said in a mocking tone and laugh at it, simply because they don't know what it means and think it 'sounds funny'.

Then I get people who argue with me about what a word means. These aren't even big words or unheard of words. When I was 12, one time in class, I was the only person to get this question right "What is the definition of a diet?" I answered, "What you eat". Everyone else answered "something you do to lose weight" and then argued with me that I was wrong, even though the teacher said I was the only one to get it right lol. As you can see, these aren't even complicated concepts, but I still encounter arguments like this all the time from NTs who are convinced they're right when they're not.

Do you also find yourself having to do everyone's job for them? It's fucking infuriating. I'm talking about doctors/customer service people etc. I encounter idiots everywhere, at every turn, on a daily basis. Why do I always have to go back and forth handholding these people through their job? Basically, running around getting them what they need and providing solutions, even when I'm the customer? I always have to tell them what the problem is and also how to fix it because they're clueless.

I'm one of these people who always remembers my dreams the next day. Without fail, every night I have a bad dream. The themes are recurrent, just slightly different each time.

For example, one dream I keep having a variation of is that I'm a prisoner in a dingy, dirty cell in pretty inhumane conditions. I'm wearing rags and have a heavy chain around my ankle. I'm scared and curled up in a ball on the cold floor. I can hear the sound of the ankle chain rattling against the floor as I move. I feel all the hunger and pain of a real prisoner.

I also have dreams of being stabbed. This has happened in different settings but always in the same area of the abdomen. Funnily enough, I have a birth mark in real life in that same area. One time, a girl picked up a pointy piece of bathroom tile and stabbed me in the stomach. I felt it go in and all the pain that comes with it. I was also stabbed by 2 dudes in a dream and bled out (I was also a boy in that dream but I'm a girl irl).

I also have that toilet stall dream where the public bathrooms are huge with tons of stalls, and it's all kind of dark, dirty and very busy. A lot of the stalls are locked but when I find one that's open, the door or walls aren't tall enough and everyone can basically see me going to the toilet lol.

I also have dreams where I'm arguing with my partner or family members. Usually they're shouting nasty, hurtful words at me, swearing at me, calling me names, saying they hate me and they wish I didn't exist etc. None of this stuff has ever been said in real life and they would never say that to me. But after I wake up, I'm always pretty down because it felt so real.

All of these dreams I've had many times, for years, I don't seem to necessarily have 'new' dreams anymore, as in, my dreams are always in the same locations, just slightly different things happening.

Locations include: A big elevator, a hotel hallway, a manor house, my high school (but always at night and it's creepy), my local mall, public bathrooms, and a prison cell. Does anyone have this?

I hate the way the world is going. How am I supposed to plan for the future including a career when it feels like AI is coming to destroy everything? I used to be a copywriter for 8 years but I've been out of work for a while thanks to AI. I don't mean to sound like a major downer but every day I can't ignore the fact that our world is changing. Nothing is same as it was even 5 years ago, imagine where we'll be at in the next 5? At this rate, that's not a world I want to live in. I feel a deep sense of sadness looking at the fakery online. AI-generated art, AI-generated posts, AI voice-overs on ads, and even humans using AI scripts in their videos. Nothing is real anymore and I'm second-guessing everything I see online. Job descriptions that used to be based on real human creativity are now reduced to having AI proficiency as a requirement. It also highlights how meaningless these jobs really are if a sloppy bot can do them. I try and take a moment to be in nature and check out but then I'm reminded how AI is pillaging this planet of water. And I feel so powerless against it all. I just hate that it had to be like this. No one wants this and I'm scared that it's just the beginning. I hope more than anything that the bubble bursts and this fucking AI is destroyed.

One thing I never understood about my narc dad is how he would go on and on about how awful his childhood was, how his parents abused him, phsyically and through emotional manipulation. He had endless stories about all the shitty things they'd ever done to him (and they are true) and he had a very strained relationship with them. So, he's fully aware of his parents' faults and would act all high and mighty when telling it, meanwhile he would subject me to the exact same narc abuse he went through (dripping in hypocrisy). But that's not even the point, the point is I could never understand why my parents would still leave me in my grandparents' care? Why would you think it's a good idea to let these 'awful' people who abused you look after your child? Why would you want to potentially subject me to the same abuse you went through in the same house you hated? And sometimes they did abuse me (emotional manipulation, tantrums, playing victim, emotional neglect, all that good stuff,). I just can't understand. I was already getting that treatment at home through him. He said he hated his parents so much yet I still had to have a relationship with them and was forced to be in their care for a lot of my childhood. And it's not like I really HAD to be in their care, my mom didn't work. Your natural instinct should be to protect your child at all costs. I know that if I had a child, I would NEVER bring that poor soul around my dad, let alone leave that child alone with him in HIS care. I would be 100% knowing that I was subjecting that child to abuse. Dear god. Never in a million years. The buck ends with me.

One thing I never understood about my narc dad is how he would go on and on about how awful his childhood was, how his parents abused him, phsyically and through emotional manipulation. He had endless stories about all the shitty things they'd ever done to him (and they are true) and he had a very strained relationship with them. So, he's fully aware of his parents' faults and would act all high and mighty when telling it, meanwhile he would subject me to the exact same narc abuse he went through (dripping in hypocrisy). But that's not even the point, the point is I could never understand why my parents would still leave me in my grandparents' care? Why would you think it's a good idea to let these 'awful' people who abused you look after your child? Why would you want to potentially subject me to the same abuse you went through in the same house you hated? And sometimes they did abuse me (emotional manipulation, tantrums, playing victim, emotional neglect, taunting me, all that good stuff,). I just can't understand. I was already getting that treatment at home through him. He said he hated his parents so much yet I still had to have a relationship with them and was forced to be in their care for a lot of my childhood. And it's not like I really HAD to be in their care, my mom didn't work. Your natural instinct should be to protect your child at all costs. I know that if I had a child, I would NEVER bring that poor soul around my dad, let alone leave that child alone with him in HIS care. I would be 100% knowing that I was subjecting that child to abuse. Dear god. Never in a million years. The buck ends with me.

For certain reasons, I need a remote job (at least for now). I'm wondering which remote jobs people here do that works for your needs? Stimulating and not repetitive. I don't even care about high pay that much, just something I can do. I used to love working shifts (retail) for a lot of the reasons other people don't. I like a varied schedule because I don't get bored, every day is slightly different, there's an ebb of flow of quiet and busy and you get to leave work at work! That's the best part tbh. Are there any type of clock-in, clock-out remote jobs out there? I hate not having any work to do, I get so bored and love being busy! I used to thrive working in fast food but it doesn't pay enough! I also worked in an office but was very 'slow-paced' and I get bored doing long projects that span months, I prefer more immediate task completion.

I used to get very anxious in school when we were assigned homework. I would have to come home and do it right away as quickly as possible to get it over with. Only then could I relax and watch tv. Sometimes I didn't even care if it was done 'right', the fact that it was 'done' felt more important and more satisfying than taking my time with it. I'm wondering if this is linked to the fact that mentally demanding or boring tasks that give no dopamine are very hard for me to do, so I just need it to be over as soon as possible. I've never been that person to forget a deadline or leave my homework to the last minute. I needed it done asap, just so I could forget about it.

In college I was super overwhelmed with writing big essays. I hated it because it required a ton of planning which is really hard for me. I remember my professor saying that actually sitting down to write the essay is the very last step and that most of our time should be taken up by reading, which is the most important part. I basically couldn't do it and started writing right away. Thinking about why (I wasn't diagnosed back then), I guess it's because planning is boring and feels stagnant. If I can't tangibly see my progress (like writing it), I get no dopamine and feel incredibly bored and unsatisfied.

This has also bled into my work life. At work, I cannot take my time with anything. I rush through my tasks as quickly as possible, leading to silly errors etc. I can never take my time with it. I'm assuming because the task is not mentally stimulating so it's incredibly hard to focus on? I really wish I could stop doing this. The thing is, I don't even necessarily want to be done to move onto the next thing, I just want to be done so my brain can go back to mindlessly wandering.

Anyway, I know procrastination is a symptom of adhd, but I seem to avoid procrastination by not planning (since planning feels overwhelming, mentally demanding and boring) anything at all and jumping right in just to get the thing over with. I'm still trying to understand why I do this. Anyone else??

I used to get very anxious in school when we were assigned homework. I would have to come home and do it right away as quickly as possible to get it over with. Only then could I relax and watch tv. Sometimes I didn't even care if it was done 'right', the fact that it was 'done' felt more important and more satisfying than taking my time with it. I'm wondering if this is linked to the fact that mentally demanding or boring tasks that give no dopamine are very hard for me to do, so I just need it to be over as soon as possible. I've never been that person to forget a deadline or leave my homework to the last minute. I needed it done asap, just so I could forget about it.

In college I was super overwhelmed with writing big essays. I hated it because it required a ton of planning which is really hard for me. I remember my professor saying that actually sitting down to write the essay is the very last step and that most of our time should be taken up by reading, which is the most important part. I basically couldn't do it and started writing right away. Thinking about why (I wasn't diagnosed back then), I guess it's because planning is boring and feels stagnant. If I can't tangibly see my progress (like writing it), I get no dopamine and feel incredibly bored and unsatisfied.

This has also bled into my work life. At work, I cannot take my time with anything. I rush through my tasks as quickly as possible, leading to silly errors etc. I can never take my time with it. I'm assuming because the task is not mentally stimulating so it's incredibly hard to focus on? I really wish I could stop doing this. The thing is, I don't even necessarily want to be done to move onto the next thing, I just want to be done so my brain can go back to mindlessly wandering.

Anyway, I know procrastination is a symptom of adhd, but I seem to avoid procrastination by not planning (since planning feels overwhelming, mentally demanding and boring) anything at all and jumping right in just to get the thing over with. Anyone else??

A nearly 30-year-old having a midlife crisis. Picked a useless degree at the age of 17 when I had no idea what I wanted from life, and now I'm stuck with it. I haven't been able to get any jobs without the help of someone I know and they've all been soul-sucking bullshit marketing stuff and low-paying. I now have an idea of the general areas that interest me in STEM that I'd like to work in but I have noooo desire to go back to university to obtain such a job. Not because I don't want to study it but mainly because I'm depressed, tired and unmotivated. I also can't afford to piss away more years not earning a salary and potentially not even getting the job I want after graduating.

I'd be interested to know if any other INTJs work in the following areas and know if there are other ways to get into these fields and work my way up or study while working (would be most ideal). I'm interested in archaeology, biology, nuclear power, clean energy, pharmaceuticals, and geology.

Whenever I open my front door to get a delivery and other people are passing by (other residents of the building) they will stare into my apartment as they walk past. Why is this normalised? In the UK this is not something we do, it would be considered very rude and nosey. I purposely don't look when someone's door is open so as to respect their privacy. But gawking into someone else's home is just normal here? They could at least say hello, but they just stare blankly. I'm not specifically talking about any nationality either, in my experience, it's a wide range of people. Is it just a dubai thing?

I ask because customer service is not my strong suit, whatsoever. I was reprimanded at two separate jobs for 'not smiling enough' because I don't really like people, and I'm bad at faking it. Anyway, as I was recently going through passport control at the airport, I thought about how the immigration officers are always very serious and never smile or even reply to you. They work with the public, but their concern is not customer service, it's doing their job, which is more important than being 'pleasant'. Being smiley, friendly and conversational is the opposite of how they're supposed to behave. I almost felt kind of jealous that they get permission to be like this at work. For someone like me, it would be a pretty good fit because that's my normal attitude towards the public. Anyone else attracted to this kind of job because it suits your serious demeanour, or know of any other jobs like this?

I need a job that has clearly defined tasks and expectations. I especially want to stay away from jobs that want you to 'use your judgement', 'fast-paced' or require a lot of 'task switching'. Essentially something like 'these are your tasks, follow these guidelines or framework'. I do not want a job where I have to come up with creative solutions to problems or one that challenges me.

My nightmare would be something like marketing, where your job description is something vague and revolves around a bigger overarching goal such as 'grow the company'. Same with social media management, such as 'grow the account, maximise engagement'. Yes, that's an expectation but there's no clearly defined tasks, I have to come up with a strategy, so I'm left with no idea on how to get there. There's no system in place and I don't want to come up with that system. Honestly, life is already challenging enough, I don't need to be mentally challenged at work. I'm doing my best to just survive.

I used to work in a clothing store, and while the customer service aspect was hard (and the pay was not enough to live on), I really loved having shifts because it's just 'come in at this time, serve customers, leave at this time' that's it. Someone else turns up and takes over from you. I loved that when you leave, you also get to leave work behind. Nothing comes home with you, there's no staying late to 'finish work' or worrying about a deadline.

Is there anything like this remote? I have certs in qa testing but haven't been able to land a job. If anyone works a job like this, please do let me know what you do. I'd be happy to get new certs if needs be. I'm looking into remote IT support or help desk work because it sounds close to what I want but I don't know how to get in.

I looove watching TV game shows focused on general knowledge/trivia such and playing along at home, as well as puzzles like Sudoku! But I hate playing board games such as Monopoly. I think I just don't like playing games with other people in general lol. It's stressful. Other people get so competitive, and I just do it for fun (same with sports, I'm not competitive). There's also sometimes weird rules about 'letting' certain people win (a child, maybe), which I don't always understand. I remember one Christmas I won a game of bingo when I was playing with my in-law's family, and everyone looked at me like I'd run over their cat, like some of them were genuinely annoyed and sour-faced. I had no idea why. I think it's because I didn't let his grandma win, and it's her favorite game? I don't get it at all. That's why I just stick to single-player games/puzzles, I also just don't find stuff like uno, guess who or Monopoly very interesting. Anyone else?

I'm trying to move into a new industry but I'm painfully aware how difficult it is for me survive at work (but what other option do I have?). So, I've been attending local networking events that are women-only. I mean...I should have known already that NT women hate me right off the bat based on a lifetime of bullying. But anyway.

I attended a networking lunch at a restaurant. I walk up to the table of 5 women and they're all talking to each other, mid-conversation. No one acknowledges me, they just look at me. I sit down and take off my coat and still everyone ignores me and keeps talking. I feel awkward just sitting there, like do I have to interrupt? So, I say "Hi!". I was then handed a menu by the staff, so I said "Have you guys ordered anything yet?". They all stop talking and just stare at me with a dirty look and then look at each other. I know I was probably meant to announce who I am, but it's a very intimidating situation. I was trying to just use an easy conversation starter, especially since people tell me I can be overly formal, so I tried being more casual :\

I introduced myself to the women sitting directly beside me, which is a bit easier since it's just one-on-one. As other women walked in, everyone at the table would immediately give them a warm welcome. I couldn't quite believe it.

Then, the strangest thing happened. I have 2 women on either side of me and one in front. The 3 of them start having a conversation. One of them leans AROUND me to ask the woman beside me where she lives, and then the one in front, purposely leaving me out. Then they start organising a run together and making a group chat. The 3 woman are just blatantly excluding me and if I try to interject with a word to two, they just ignore it. Then they all say, "yeah, let's get each other's numbers!" and pass each other their phones, literally just excluding me completely like I'm part of the furniture.

I'm so upset, I can't face going to another one. Tell me if you think I did anything wrong?