u/TayTheOcelot

Sorry this is just a bit of a nothingburger clog post, but I've been thinking about this for the past few days and I can't tell if I'm being a dick or if I'm kind of justified. Also please don't insult me to the moon and back if I'm being unreasonable, just let me know 😅

I recently ordered an item that was described as being ''dark red'' in colour. On the actual product page, while there was colour swatches for various other colours, including a regular red, dark red was not shown so I made the foolish mistake of assuming that it was simply a darker shade of the red that was shown.

However, when I actually received the product, it turns out their idea of dark red is a desaturated, wine-red kind of burgundy. I know they technically didn't do anything wrong, many people still class it as red, but I feel kind of cheated out of my money knowing that (at least in my opinion) the product name was a little bit misleading and there was no attempt to elaborate. At least where I'm from, burgundy is it's own thing and I've never, ever seen it described as dark red. A shade of red, but not just dark red. I feel like all that would have been needed to avoid confusion was to either list the colour as ''burgundy red'' not ''dark red'', actually displaying the colour swatch as done with the other colours or a note literally anywhere on the product listing.

I messaged the seller inquiring about a possible item exchange, because on their site they did claim to offer returns and exchanges (but I'm new to Etsy so maybe they're forced to say that, I don't know). I probably would have just sucked it up if they had responded politely and simply declined, but they have ignored my message for 3 consecutive business days (their store isn't closed or anything) which just adds more salt to the wound.

I know some people don't look at their Etsy on the weekends, so I'm going to message them again on Monday and try to get a response out of them. If they still ignore me and fail to contact me by the end of the week, how much of a jackass would I be for requesting a refund from Etsy? Normally I wouldn't bother because I'd feel cruel and like I'm robbing/ scamming them, but the fact that this item cost me so much money, was very disappointing, and the seller just won't reply not even to decline, makes me feel inclined to take some kind of action.

EDIT: thanks to everyone who replied honestly. i've decided to leave it be.

This obviously isn't an issue exclusive to those who self-harm, but I just want to vent about this particular issue. Also I'm speaking mostly from my own experiences, not a general point of view.

When my mother found out that I self harmed, she requested a reason for why I did what I did; only to inform me the reason that I gave for self-harming was a lie to save face, and that how I really felt was xyz. When I tried to argue with her she simply dismissed everything I had to say because I didn't know how I really felt/ was lying. Contrarily, however, upon finding out that a friend of hers' child was suffering from self harm, she did nothing but express great sympathy and concern about how this girl ''must be feeling so lonely and sad''. I don't doubt that the girl probably did feel such a way, but it made me realise that my mother refuses to empathize, she will only sympathize with/pity you after re-arranging the truth to fit her own beliefs. It's not just my mother who has done with, either, but she is the only one I felt like properly getting into and the best example. I also had a friend tell me people who self-harm don't want to and if I haven't quit already it's solely because I am attention-seeking.

If you don't describe your self-harm as something terrible, scary and sad, then you're either just lying about how it affects you or you must not really be self-harming. You've become so accustomed to the behaviour that you instinctively resort to it after every bad event, in a way that is so ordinary to you it doesn't even inspire a lick of emotion? You're just lying, it actually makes you very sad- you're repressing your true feelings. You crave a sense of adrenaline and excitement that self-harm can provide, leading you to describe it as ''fun''? You're just making shit up, obviously you aren't really self-harming because if you were you'd be super depressed and cry at the thought of it.

When you attempt to speak about self-harm you are immediately dismissed and shutdown, for what could you know about it? You self-harm yourself, clearly if you were capable of realising how bad it is you would not be doing it in the first place, so you must have zero idea what you're on about. People will just begin to assign their own interpretations to your problems, and suddenly your own thoughts and feelings are meaningless and redundant as their opinions become fact.

This makes it especially hard to seek help as well. I have never spoken about my self-harm to a professional, and never intend to, but for similar reasons I've also struggled with finding help for my mental health. You think you may be depressed? Well, you don't look/ speak the way a depressed person would. That's another story though, one that's already talked about quite a bit.

I know this isn't really a ''pet peeve'' because it's genuinely disrespectful, but I don't know of a more appropriate sub to post this.

I hate people who just ramble and yamble, rapid fire talking without allowing you to get a word in edge ways. And when you finally do cram some syllables in, they just go completely ignored. Bonus points if you stop talking and they genuinely don't even realise/ respond. So fucking rude, dealing with these people is exhausting.

There's a difference between not contributing anything to the conversation and therefore not really being ''acknowledged'', and people who just don't want to hear a single fucking voice beyond their own. I'm not talking about the former.

WARNING this post is just me moping like a bitch and wailing into the void

OK the title is a little bit dramatic, sitting around doing nothing is just as pointless. But the more and more I learn about the state of the world, the more I start to believe that continuing to brute force survival isn't rational beyond an animalistic level.

Not to play the woe is me card, my life is pretty much perfect in every department besides being a miserable twat and I know many have it far, far worse, but I really just don't have the fucking energy to do this nonsense any longer. I'm going to college. And for what? A degree that won't get me anywhere? OK, don't go to college then. And then I have absolutely no ground to stand on and will just be another name on a screen amongst billions. Well at least I'll have a living space to call my own that I can relax in, even if for only a couple hours.. If I can afford one. Don't forget global warming, heatwaves and the ever impending doom of society folding in on itself making all of this nonsense 10x more frustrating and draining to deal with. Hey though, at least there's the parts of life than make it enjoyable! Those scarce but impactful moments of joy that give you a reason to go on <3 Except they don't happen, at least not for me. If I'm lucky, I get to deal with being dragged into my family's drama, to spice things up a little.

I just.. don't get how people have the bother to go in this miserable fucking world. Sorry that I'm contributing nothing of substance and just complaining, but how do you people do it? I understand that I have depression, so I'm always going to have a jaded view of the world, yet even so I don't think I'm capable of ever being happy in this place. There is nothing. We're just living in an oblivion. I thought I had a decent grasp on a life philosophy, but when ''we're all going to die'' turns into ''we're all going to suffer immensely within the next few years'', the idea of living in the moment and accepting what you can't change just morphs into despair and hysteria.

This isn't worth it. And I know the obvious solution is to either do everything I can to make my life as tolerable as possible, or just throw it in the towel, yet I can't seem to bring myself to do either. All I can manage is barely trudging through life, patching up the holes in my education and hygiene so that I'm not triple screwed, just double. Sometimes I wonder, if I had of just stayed in the position I was 4 years ago, a borderline hikikomori with no education or hope for the future, would any of it have mattered? Would I be any better off, or was it all just a waste of my time? I don't know anymore.

I know that BlueRobotto is mentioned in the wiki, but I just thought I'd ask what the general consensus about the website is. Are they overpriced/ tacky in quality? And are they just dropshipped aliexpress bags in disguise like the majority of ita bags?

From what I've gathered they seem to be genuine in that they're handmade and not just dropshipped, but I'm also wary of falling into the same trap that some people did with itabagshop. I'm also just rather ''paranoid'' in general when it comes to spending my money and want a second opinion first.

Also sorry if this is tagged wrong I didn't really know what flair to choose.

I follow the DSM5 definition of trauma, that a traumatic event is basically threatened or enacted harm of any variety to yourself or another person. I really, really don't like the whole culture of ''trauma is whatever you say it is!'' and I don't want to hear it anymore. Trauma is a type of pain, not the end goal for any suffering. Ironic I can say that but not believe it myself.

Multiple unpleasant but absolutely not life-threatening things happened to me as a child, as well as living with a non-abusive, relatively passive but just fucking miserable to co-exist with alcoholic parent starting from birth. I've had feelings of wishing I wasn't alive, being in a state of depression and what I could only describe as akin to mild dp/dr starting from the age of 4.

Logically, my childhood sucked and I think most people would agree it wasn't great, but because it wasn't traumatic I feel like I don't have a right to ''get better'' because I shouldn't even be sad in the first place. Every time I feel slightly better and more inclined to recognise that my childhood affected me and heal from it, I'll think about all the children who are actually suffering in life, reading horror stories posted on subs like cptsd or something adjacent, who have significantly more severe problems and it just ends in me self-sabotaging back to square 1 because I think I'm unjustified and pathetic.

I don't know how to overcome this stupid thought pattern and just accept that I have the capacity to be damaged by non-traumatic events and that I deserve to be better. Yeah I can write it out here, knowing it to be objectively true, but it doesn't change how I ''feel'' on the inside. I'm so sick and tired of feeling this way. I bet even if I was traumatized, it would still never be enough for me. I'm also aware that I don't actually want to be traumatized because that would be horrible and only make me worse, it's all stupid and irrational.

I might get flayed alive for this because I'm dogshit at analysing media and don't really have a clue what I'm talking about, but I wanted to get it off my chest because besides episode 3 this show has done nothing but let me down lower and lower.

The majority of people only seemed to clock on around episode 6 that this show wasn't doing the best job at valuing the characters equally, but I'd argue that much was already painfully evident in episode 4. The ''Gangle episode'' was a clusterfuck of ideas being forced together, and instead of focusing on Gangle it just hurled about a million different plot points out all at once. The first time Ragatha stopped being cheery, the first time Jax's mask slipped and Gummigoo re-appearing even if only briefly. Maybe I'm just not paying enough attention, but imho the only kind of information we got about Gangle was just spoon-fed nuggets like ''see, Gangle is insecure because she tells Zooble she is!'' or ''Gangle is depressed because she looks very sad, but it's OK because Pomni resolves the conflict instantly both times!'' This would have been more tolerable if Gooseworx wasn't pushing the false narrative that each character had their own ''designated episode''.

Half the cast only exist to support another, like Gangle having no meaningful interactions with anyone besides Zooble or Ragatha being a nothingburger character who literally would not exist if it wasn't for Jax and Pomni. I won't even get into Jax being the only real character in the show because we already know that, but Jesus why the Hell did Pomni get set up as the main character only to be side-lined half way through her own show for someone who should have been a side character? We didn't need a ''2nd main character''. Not Ragatha, not Caine and certainly NOT Jax. If it was really that necessary it should have been Kinger, the character who actually knows the most about the circus and already does all the heavy lifting for the plot and narrative anyway.

The only episode I actually enjoyed was episode 3, the only time I felt genuine excitement and enjoyment what I was seeing and didn't come away thinking about how disappointing it was or ''well, I'm sure they'll resolve/ explain that next episode!'' After around episode 5 I kind of realised that this show was just going to be like that until the end, not the 9/10 amazing Youtube series I had believed it would be when I first saw the pilot but a 5/10 good enough way to pass the time.

I can't even say I hated the ending, because episode 5, 6 and 7 had left me so disappointed that my hopes for the finale were already in the gutter. My expectations were so low it managed to do the bare minimum and raise above them, so I ended up leaving the cinema thinking ''well that was actually okay compared to what it could have been''.

I know this show could have been so much more, and while I like it well enough to still buy merchandise and talk about it and whatever, it disappoints me that this is all it ended up amounting to.

I don't have access to bandages, plasters or anything of the sort. I want to damage control my cuts as best I can to limit infection, does anyone know of anything at all that I could try?

Or is my best bet just forgetting about covering them up and trying to keep them as clean as possible?