u/essstabchen

We all know The Visitor. Most of us have cried (or at least teared up) at this episode, and it's been put on most people's top 10 lists.

During my current rewatch, I'm so stricken by Tony Todd - maybe it's just because he's passed since the last time I really watched the episode. But whenever he's acting against Avery Brooks, he melts into being a kid again. Like this full adult man completely pulls out this wounded child part of him that just wants his dad back. He postures himself smaller, he looks like he just wants Sisko to be proud of him.

It's such a great part of the performance and absolutely devastating.

I've never really thought of myself as a people-pleaser, and I tend to shut down in arguments as opposed to fawn, necessarily. One thing I have learned in my avoidance journey, though, is that I'm most avoidant with myself. I take care of all of my needs myself or don't define my needs/discomfort at all because I don't see the point in trusting anyone else with them.

I recently read something along the lines of "my own feelings feel optional, while other people's feel urgent", and that really resonated with me.

This all brings me to the title of this post and a realization that I had recently - I'm very good at tolerating my own distress. Sometimes unhealthily, with dissociation or avoidance, but sometimes just genuinely dealing with it.

I am NOT good at tolerating the distress of others. I shut down during conflict/avoid it all together. I avoid bringing up if I'm uncomfortable because I worry about how the other person will react. If someone is in my direct vicinity and is upset, I drop everything. If me and someone else are upset at the same time, no I'm not. They're upset, I'm support.

I've got to fix their feelings. If I can't fix it, I remove myself from the situation.

If I think I may be an inconvenient presence by asking for support, I don't ask for anything because I don't want to put anyone else into distress. The idea of getting help at someone else's inconvenience is unfathomable.

It's like that visceral feeling some people get when a baby cries where they have this deep-seated, evolutionary need to ensure the infant stops crying. Except I have that with other adults/attachment figures.

In previous relationships, I only stayed because of guilt and fear of hurting them, long after I'd checked out. I can hardly let myself be angry at another person, even if it's justified.

I can ghost people, because that's removing myself and possibly minimizing harm. I've had hard conversations, etc. But the deep discomfort around other people's hurt feelings, particularly when I am the one setting off those "bad" feelings, makes me avoid shit for so long or completely erase the idea that I have needs that may conflict with someone else's comfort at all.

And it's not a fear of rejection. It's fine if they don't like me or want me in their life. It's that another human is in pain, and maybe I've caused that.

I've leaned DA a lot in my OWN feelings and I don't resonate with FA fears of abandonment. But I think I've got a bit of FA sprinkled in there.

Does anyone else resonate with this? How do you build up that kind of tolerance? I came to this thought very recently so I haven't picked it apart in therapy much yet.

Hello lovely Stratford humans,

My partner and I will be visiting your city for the first time in many years this Thursday. We're taking the bus in, which will get us there around noon. Unfortunately, our accomodations won't take us (or our stuff) before 3pm, and our first of two shows starts at 2pm.

I don't want to commit to too much walking, as my partner is disabled and can't walk for too long. Any cafes or downtown spots that would be good to hole up in for a couple of hours?

Bonus question: anywhere downtown where we'd be able to securely store a bag or two for a few hours?

Hello hive mind,

I wanted to pick your brains about something I've been mulling over:

(Context: I'm in Canada but this is a more general question so I didn't think jurisdiction matters).

We currently run a semi-monthly pay schedule with 81.25 hours per pay periord, regardless of the number of days in the pay period. All our folks are on salary, so the hours are kind of arbitrary.

Unfortunately, semi-monthly pay is incompatible with a lot of other external reporting. WSIB, our benefits providers, etc., all assume everyone has a bi-weekly schedule and can account for actual hours worked (ie a 7.5 hour day, in our case, evenly spread over 10 days).

I'm the payroll admin, so I've got a lot of sway, and I've been wondering if it would be better to start reporting actual hours worked on pay stubs, but variating the hourly rate to still pay their fixed semi-monthly salary.

Being able to use "real" hours as opposed to our arbitrary system would have its advantages, but I do worry that I'd be creating a different headache with this.

What do y'all do/wish you did? Am I just looking to give myself extra work with this one? Any pitfalls (outside of implementation) that I'm not considering?

It feels like a lot more people are stumbling into this sub after doing like 10 minutes of googling to "diagnose" their partner as asexual. Not even like a "I think my partner is ace, how do I talk to them?" More "we've been married and they seem to hate me and hate sex and just won't accept my assertion that they MUST be asexual". And also it's the worst thing in the world. And our advice is always the same: talk to them or leave the damn relationship.

No perspectives from the partner. Just a person who should be in therapy (or couples therapy), or should be on relationship advice subs.

I'm not against posts from allo partners asking questions, or even from people asking for help on how to communicate with their partner that they suspect is ace-spec. I'm here for folks engaging with the community in good faith and curiousity. I'm against posts that paint us as a "problem" and air out a bunch of stuff that we do not need to know about their private life.

It feels like I'm seeing it more, and it's getting frustrating that the community's attention is being hijacked by people effectively venting about a relationship that doesn't meet their needs, and deciding to make that our problem.

A bit of a vent, sorry.

I'm fibally going to have some free time this Sunday to finally catch up on school after a busy work week.

I'm looking to find somewhere that serves a decent breakfast sandwich into the afternoon, a good cup of coffee, a good amount of seating, and has some wifi so I can have a lil sandwich and hunker down on some reading and notes.

I tend wake up pretty late on weekends, so ideally somewhere that doesn't close at like 2pm.

I've been to Morning Parade already (it's great), but I'd love to find somewhere new, too.