u/pomegranatejello

I’ve been dabbling in spells and rituals but it seems like it’s expected that you invest in a lot of different ingredients, tools, books, crystals, herbs, special candles, and so on. And I’m noticing quite a lot of consumerism, marketing and advertising related to it (not that other faiths don’t have problems with it in their own ways).

I’m assuming there’s definitely ways to practice more frugally without as many supplies. I’m just new and don’t know exactly where to look.

Have you found useful resources for spells, learning resources, and so on that don’t require much of a financial investment or a ton of supplies?

I can know I’m engaging in the sunk cost fallacy but still drag my feet over abandoning something hurting my mental health. I can know I’m catastrophizing illogically and still struggle to break free of it. I can know a habit is holding me back mentally and not suiting me but still feel absolutely stuck in it…etc. Why is it hard to break thoughts we already know make no sense and only make us feel worse?

I’ve been very, very slowly recovering from anxiety/agoraphobia and depression. I’m so lonely and bored in life, but I feel so much shame that my life has been so empty and unfulfilled. Everyone always asks you what you’re up to, where you work, etc when you join a group but I have nothing really going on. I’ve never been able to find a full time job and haven’t worked in more than a year. I don’t necessarily want to get into my whole mental health history with a stranger. But I end up setting a first impression of being kind of a loser when I try to break out of those habits that’s very hard to shake and it becomes self fulfilling. My therapist is on vacation for ten days; going to discuss with her but wondering if people have things that have helped (acknowledging that a Reddit post isn’t equivalent).

It doesn’t matter what I do, how many times I correct people, or how often I correct people. Cis (and sometimes trans) people will always misgender me, often within a few sentences. I’ll give a heartfelt discussion about my struggles with gender identity and then they’ll completely forget or ignore it the next day.

I’m not naturally androgynous, can’t afford a whole new wardrobe or styling or whatever, and don’t want to medically transition. I can’t be open with everyone in my life. And if I feel like doing traditional masc presentation like growing out my beard or wearing shorter hair it compounds (which makes sense of course).

I wish it didn’t bother me so much when that’s just how our society is. I didn’t always identify this way. I’d like to just accept it but every time it jabs me. There’s little I can do about it so my life would be easier if I could just learn to accept it more. I feel like I have to shrink myself for everyone else and no one will let me grow.

Part of a hobby group and I’d formed a casual friendship with another member; we’d drive together to dinner after the group meetings several times. She hadn’t been to a lot of meetings in a while so I sent her a message saying “I hope to see you again tonight! No worries if not.” She didn’t respond.

But we didn’t sit close enough to talk to each other at the meeting when she did arrive and couldn’t go to the dinner, which I decided not to go to as well, so we only had a minute or two in proximity as we left the building. She seemed kind of uncomfortable or expecting me to say something as we were walking out around the same pace, and I felt like I was kind of darting between with my gaze, but I had no idea what to say in that short of a time frame so I was just completely silent and she was largely quiet as well, seeming tense.

It made me feel kind of creepy and I’m worried she might’ve thought I was into her or something even though I’m gay. She said herself an earlier time a few meetings ago that we were friends, but I feel like I acted kind of weird, like she was a stranger to me, since she never responded and I felt like I was supposed to say something but didn’t know what.

I am very isolated as I’ve very slowly recovered from agoraphobia, so my social skills, which were never great in the first place, are quite rusty and I’m prone to overthinking.

For instance, I’ve been soft spoken throughout my life and I know people would like me more and see me as more confident if I was better at projecting my voice. I know how to speak at a higher volume. But for whatever reason I can never remember or stay consistent in actually doing it, so I’m always mumbling or being too quiet even though I technically know better. DAE struggle with breaking similar habits? What’s helped you overcome them?

Sometimes in a social group I’ll have an off day where I’m not as feeling talkative and people will call me out and ask why I’m not contributing more, why I’m so shy or quiet, etc. Sometimes I’ll just say I’m tired or whatever, but when that doesn’t work or I happen to have one too many off days in proximity, whatever social progress I made seems to immediately fall apart.

I know there’s no negative intentions behind it, that they’re either trying to inspire confidence or are asking out of concern.

But it’s embarrassing and it creates an uncomfortable pressure that I feel like I need to perform for them. It makes me feel like I can’t be myself around them anymore. I stop being able to just talk in the moment because now I’m hyper aware of how I’m acting, if I’m being too quiet, if I’m acting weird, etc. And it becomes a vicious cycle where I retreat further and further. I’ve struggled with this for ages.

“Just stop caring” has never felt very helpful, I would if I could.

My novel concept deals with themes related to mental health struggles, and draws upon some of my past experiences with some past religious trauma, anxiety and OCD tendencies.

I want to give writing this story a genuine chance, but drawing upon and revisiting those heavy topics can of course be pretty challenging and dredge up uncomfortable anxieties I've avoided for a while. And I think writing horror in general, by its nature, can draw forth uncomfortable feelings and fears, even though I think the effort is worthwhile. I want to channel my past, but also want to be careful to minimize a mental health flare up when I can.

As an author, what helps you balance the desire to write honestly and unsparingly about challenging topics without sacrificing your own mental well-being?

Not in the sense of trying to say it’s better or worse than other mediums, like movies, video games, podcasts, etc, or that you have to choose between them: rather, some aspects that specifically draw you to horror expressed through literature, and what you like that the medium offers for horror stories.

My sleep is always terrible but I got no sleep whatsoever tonight.

I have a meeting today at one for a volunteer opportunity. I have the questions I’d mainly want to ask prepped.

But the opportunity (helping prep a marketing campaign to build experience for my resume/portfolio) requires a lot of thought, the info I’d get from the meeting will be pretty important for me to base it all on, and idk how much I can really sustain intelligent conversation on no sleep and with a lot of anxiety.

There’s time to try to nap but then I think I’ll further mess up tonight’s sleep without feeling much better when I wake up from the nap .

I think they’d be pretty understanding if I asked to reschedule because I wasn’t feeling well.

But I do feel guilty if I reschedule for letting the insomnia/anxiety “win” so to speak. Much of my lack of sleep was related to anxiety even though I know the meeting when I actually go to it won’t be that bad. I am trying to push myself more when it comes to powering through things like that and not let it take over when I won’t always have that luxury.

When I’m anxious and trying to sleep I use my phone to listen to a podcast or music so I have something to focus on besides my physical symptoms or racing thoughts. It does eventually help calm me down when I’ve settled on something, but the light from the phone is terrible for my sleep and I often spend a lot of time fussing over what will hold my attention without being too stimulating. So I settle down eventually but still get terrible sleep.

I’ve tried reading, journaling, painting etc but usually when I’m done I still have to return to the anxiety and dread in my bed while music or a podcast keeps me company and consistent distractions from the anxiety.

I've seen some very general statistics on readers as a whole being largely white, college educated, skewing older in age, and leaning female. But when it comes to genre, I don't see a lot of verified sources, and trying to find out demographics about the average reader of a given sub-genre seems too narrow and specific to find good information about.

So, when you're planning to build your online presence and thinking about strategies for marketing your work, what helps you evaluate the best ways to reach the kinds of readers who would be drawn to your work (in addition to writing a good story)?

On July 4, the winner of the Coney Island hot dog eating contest ate 66 hot dogs in the span of ten minutes.

Apparently he’s been in various eating contests since the mid 2000s and trains for contests by gorging himself with milk and protein shakes to stretch his stomach and by practicing with huge amounts of hot dogs grilled at home. It sent me down a whole rabbit hole of other professional competitive eaters.

How does someone eat more than 50 hot dogs in one sitting without getting a heart attack or something? And how does someone regularly compete in contests like that without dying in a few years later from the complications of downing those extreme amounts of food and training for the contests?

I’m part of a creative writing community and one of the members is drawing their own book cover. The sketch they’re working on so far is otherwise good, but the composition is such that it almost looks like a childlike (alien) character bending over near another character’s lower half is a massive curved, erect penis with limbs and a face. I may be overthinking it because she’s a little lower placed and maybe other people won’t see it that way, but I did a double take when I saw it at first and assumed it was nsfw. I would want someone to tell me that but I feel bad for giving unsolicited criticism that could tear down what they called their best version yet in what’s presumably a number of renditions. How would you politely broach a topic like this without being insulting or embarrassing them more than necessary?

I’ve had my resume reviewed nearly ten times. I’ve filled out hundreds and hundreds of applications by now. I’ve attended virtual networking conferences. I’ve networked with people I know and people working in companies or roles I’m interested in. I’ve been to a career coach (who just gave generic platitudes). I’m volunteering now. I’ve been trying to take online coursework to build additional skills.

And nothing seems to matter.

The rate at which I send out job applications by now has been pitifully small.

I just have such a hard time seeing the point and taking action when it seems I’m completely unhireable by now.

Something about coping with sorrow over climate change in a way that’s healthy, but that does not necessarily sugarcoat reality or give too much false hope, either.

Primarily looking for nonfiction, but fiction suggestions with these themes would also be acceptable.

It would be useful for my marketing to see who the “typical” reader might be for different literary genres, and how that compares to readers in general, but I’m having a bit of a hard time finding information like that online. Does anyone know resources that generally break down common reader demographics by genre?

It’s out of my control and I feel like people point out that fact like it’s supposed to help instead of make me feel even more powerless. They say that plenty of people have died in the past from other disasters like we haven’t been warned over and over again how many disasters climate change specifically will create, and how much worse they will be.

I grew up hearing over and over that climate change was going to devastate us all if we didn’t do enough about it. And then we didn’t do enough. We were told catastrophe would come and are now told that catastrophizing it is irrational and melodramatic.

Heatwaves are happening everywhere and getting worse with constantly breaking records, storms are getting more severe, rivers keep drying up, winters are either nothing or more volatile than they ever were in my childhood, species keep dropping like flies, etc. And everyone seems to react by either acting like nothing’s wrong, sticking their head even further down the sand, or contributing even further to our own destruction.

So many people are going to die in the coming decades. I fear my niece and her generation will inherit a graveyard.

Hope this is acceptable under rule 4.

I’m part of a creative writing group that’s generally pretty warm and accepting.

The founder of the group is having another member of the group (who lives far away and usually interacts via the group discord channel) review his novel.

Offhand at our last meetup session, he started calling their edits stupid and complaining about everything he didn’t like about them publically, without the editor there to defend themselves or discuss them productively.

I don’t think that’s a constructive way to express criticism and I’m worried other people hearing someone call their edits stupid could discourage them from sharing their work or feedback with the group. And I’d be pissed if I was voluntarily going out of my way to edit a nearly 600 page novel for free just to hear my friend trash talked my edits and called them stupid behind my back.

But idk if it would be smarter to just let it go and know to keep him at a certain distance, because I haven’t come upon those issues with anyone else in the group and don’t want to start drama that could alienate me from the group.

When do you bring up unproductive criticism vs letting it slide?