u/red1127

I'm a middle school/high school computer science tutor, also with a little experience in algebra tutoring.

My business is dropping in computer science. I suspect it's the way families are not convinced CS is good career preparation any more, now that AI can code well.

So I'd like to get more into math, particularly calculus tutoring. Why calculus? I have a good resume from a top-class engineering school (year of graduation was 1991) so that can probably appeal to clients, and also I don't have a teaching degree and I'm not trained in math pedagogy, so it's probably best to avoid younger math grades and students who have basic struggles in math.

I also want to note at this point that I have a chronic illness that affects a number of things. In particular it causes brain fog. I tutor fairly advanced CS (a lot of my young students are working at the college level) and the only way I can stay ahead of my students is that I have decades of experience programming and I'm very facile with code. The brain fog troubles me, but I'm like a bodybuilder with chronic fatigue or something... the mental muscles in coding are very strong from all these years of practice so the brain fog doesn't trouble me too much.

However, I'm very rusty at math. I'm reviewing math right now, and I'm starting with precalculus. It takes me a lot of practice to recall what I used to know in high school and college, and I make a lot of mistakes. In high school I was into competitive math and got a 10 on the AIME in 1987, but boy do I feel a million miles away from that now.

So I took a precalculus tutoring job this summer but I'm not sure it's working out. The main problem is this: when I'm working on a problem with my student, I try to solve it working on my own first, then help him. But I'm pretty slow, and a lot of times he finishes before I do. When he makes a mistake, I can help him find it, so I'm not useless, but I feel like I'm not staying on top of this. I might tell this client they need to find another tutor.

I'm curious for people who tutor calculus: do you have to solve the problem they are given, then help them? Or do you watch them solve it? Or do you just know the solution right away because you've seen so many calculus problems?

I thought of using Wolfram Alpha to solve problems, then helping the student, to prevent me from making mistakes.

I will probably get much sharper at this by the time I want to start calculus tutoring (I'm aiming for fall 2027) but it's difficult, and maybe this isn't realistic.

Happy Pride Month everyone. Very inexperienced guy asking a question.

I'm a straight cisgender 57M and I've only ever dated cisgender woman. I met someone on a dating site who listed her gender as woman, then later told me that even though she uses she/her pronouns for convenience, she identifies as non-binary and bisexual. One way she expresses her masculine side is dressing in men's clothes and performing in drag.

We've talked on the phone a lot, sent pictures and so forth. I really like her as a person Planning an actual date next week.

Background: I'm very inexperienced with dating because I've spent my life recovering from childhood trauma. Because I'm straight, I'm mainly romantically attracted to the feminine parts of her, particularly her voice, but also her body and some of the body language she uses and her lived experience in a female body. As a guy, I explore my feminine side (and if I were younger I might identify as non-binary myself, I've rejected a lot of the male stereotypes) so I certainly like that she explores her masculine side.

Is it wrong to date a non-binary person when you're thinking to yourself "I sure like that dress because it makes her look pretty" or something like that? Or that I love her feminine voice?

To be clear, just the fact she's non-binary doesn't bother me. Because maybe I'll explore some of my feminine side. Maybe I'll put on necklace or carry a purse to see how it feels. It's just that for me to feel safe with a person that I'm intimate with, I need to think of them as a woman.

So, would it be wrong to date her? I imagine that I would have to ask her, so that brings up the issue of how I should go about asking her without being offensive.

(NSFW as I mention sex near the end)

I recently healed quite a lot. I started participating in Adult Children of Alcoholics and Dysfunctional Families and that helped me get more social, and awakened a desire to have a romantic partner.

I've been on a couple of dating sites, and met one woman, who I like a lot. But there are other things that I don't like. She doesn't have the same kind of intellectual mind I do (Myers-Briggs NT subtype) (although she is very smart, she applies it in different ways). So there is stuff I might not be able to talk with her about. Sometimes I feel bored talking to her (which is not necessarily a bad thing for me as I've had trouble with living life in a much too excited way [mania]).

What's good about her is that she's not traumatized like I am, so we wouldn't be trauma bonded. She is a caring, gentle person and I'm interested in her life and she in mine.

We have talked on the phone a lot but haven't met, so that's the next step.

When I think about whether I want a relationship with her, a number of issues come up that would seem disappointing (like having a different style of intellect and a few things I haven't mentioned).

So what I'm wondering is: does it make sense to start a relationship with her if I'm not committing to her as my ultimate dream wife forever partner? I think I would really enjoy it, it's just that I can't see us going long term, so a breakup would happen at some point. (Maybe she would break up with me first.)

I need practice with relationships. I need practice with flirting. With sex. I have very little experience with any of this. I also have a 75% disability due to chronic pain, fatigue, stiffness in my body, etc. If she is understanding, caring, it could be a great way to get into all these activities, as long as I'm not doing something inherently wrong by thinking in the back of my mind that she's not really my ideal.

I have chronic pain, fatigue, and anxiety (OCD) that all together mean I need to be on SSDI. I do some side work to earn around $1000/month (which is below the maximum you can earn on SSDI). I can walk and do light chores, and people can't see my anxieties on the outside, so my disability is somewhat invisible.

I've been recovering from childhood trauma for some time. As a 57M, I have never had a healthy relationship, but I feel ready to date and look for a healthy relationship. However, I am really insecure about being on SSDI, because it means I can't be a "provider" in the traditional masculine sense. I think I have a lot of internalized ableism. I feel like it makes me less desirable as a romantic partner.

I'm wondering about advice for bringing up being on SSDI with dates (if I should even do it at all). I have been talking to a lot of women on the phone and have scheduled one date with V. So as it turns out, after talking for a lot of hours with V, I told her I'm on disability and she didn't seem to care. She is definitely not looking for a conventional provider. This has given me some confidence. On the other hand, maybe she is not looking for something serious or long term, which would be a bit disappointing as I am.

I haven't brought it up with any other women. I figure that I shouldn't bring it up right away, because for one thing, if I'm going to get past this internalized ableism, maybe I should think of it as something that doesn't matter. On the other hand, I don't want to wait too long because if the woman ends up rejecting me because of this, I'd rather get it over with.

I also had one disability forum member tell me that a romantic partner should think of it as a guaranteed income. Like a job that I can never be fired from.

So, I'm looking for advice, maybe not even just what to do, but how to update my perspective on disability.

I think I'm a freeze type. Let me describe my history. 

I think I was abused (terrorized) as an infant by my mother. I didn't know this until 3 years into therapy when I began having flashbacks and nightmares constantly that suggested extreme aggression toward me, in which my mother's face appeared. 

As a child, I had nightmares too, and I know now I was extremely dissociated from reality and had severe fragmentation. But I only knew that after going to therapy, because this defense was formed in infancy and it was the only reality I knew.

I felt dead. I had constant scary experiences but there was a layer of numbness over them. I was completely numb to my body and lived in my head. One of my defenses was constant thinking. Only when I started to come out of that years into therapy did I realize how dissociated I was from my body and how I previously felt dead.

When I was a child I dreamed constantly of being in a bad situation and then teleporting to another location. I know now this represents dissociation. But again, I wasn't aware of this consciously as a child; it was the only reality I knew.

A few years into therapy I became aware of a menacing presence in my psyche. I was completely numb to that before; it was totally split off. I became aware that this menacing presence was torturing an infant, another part of my psyche that was split off before.

I began to experience pain and fatigue constantly. I still experience that 34 years later.

I also have nightmares and flashbacks about being SA'd, and I remember a creepy neighbor (but don't have many memories of interacting with him other than he gave me a strange attention) so I kind of suspect there was SA.

Right now, I do a form of bodywork called Feldenkrais, which helps tremendously, but I still have extreme muscle clenching all over my body which causes misery, I think a kind of armoring. I developed this armoring "habit" so early that it's very entrenched.

This was all pretty bad, but I accomplished a lot with my first therapist. I got to the point of doing metta (lovingkindness) meditation. I also have to take some pretty heavy-duty psyche meds to keep the internal aggression under wraps. But my life has meaning now. I have good friends. I compose and improvise at the piano to express myself.

I'm interested in dating now. I've had a couple LTR's in the past but they were very unhealthy with depressed/anxious women.

Overall my story feels positive, like I went through hell and came out the other side. My first therapist was a great source of "unconditional positive regard," as the Rogerian's say.

I practice IFS therapy with a co-counselor. I want to write about how my parts might be affected by dating.

I have an infant part, Mikey, who was very, very traumatized by my mother. She was vicious toward him. (I imagine she was experiencing post-partum depression, extreme anxiety, living with an emotionally abusive husband, and she suffered abuse from her own mother.) Mikey longs for a good mother. So when I'm talking to these women I like, his longing is stirred up quite a lot. Mikey feels like if he doesn't find a good mother in a girlfriend or wife, that he will never heal.

I also have a part I call the Warm Inner Mother. Maybe she is a way of experiencing Self, I don't know. (Self, in IFS, is an inner center of compassion, connectedness, curiosity, etc.) IFS talks about "being in Self," so I get the idea this means that the client is identifying with those qualities of compassion, curiosity, etc.

For me, I think of myself as the "ego" in depth psychology terms (Jungian), and Self is an archetype of the unconscious mind that can become conscious through active imagination. My ego feels "depleted" by which I mean it is lacking in emotional resources, lacking in self-compassion, frozen by trauma, etc. So when I experience Self, I tend to experience Self as coming toward me and nourishing me with those its qualities. But I don't identify with it.

For example, I don't identify with the Warm Inner Mother. I don't feel like I inhabit her qualities. Instead, she comes to me and gives me a dose of compassion and love.

When I have journal sessions with the Warm Inner Mother, it soothes me and any feelings that have been stirred up by talking to women.

But I'm sure that if I cuddle with an actual woman, longing for mothering will be stirred up.

Then Mikey had the experience of losing my mother's love at times. For example, when she got raging mad. Also when my 2-year younger bother was born, I was jealous of him for stealing my mother's love. My parents were very hard on me for being jealous of my brother, shaming me, judging me, telling me I was ungrateful.

So I imagine I will also fear losing this actual woman.

I've also noticed in the few woman that I've dated in the past that I fear getting close, too. Mikey is terrified that the terror of my mother will be repeated.

So, I don't know how well I will be able to tolerate these experiences. I don't want to put any responsibility on my girlfriend to take care of me or reassure me.

So, I met this woman on the dating site Hinge a week ago and we've talked on the phone. It was a great conversation. And she wants to talk again. We've been texting all day long, too. I finally texted her that my childhood was rough, and it still affects me today, but I'm very, very optimistic about recovery. And I texted that I want to tell her a little about it in our next conversation. She texted back "I'm looking forward to our next convo."

She actually thought about becoming a therapist when she was younger. She has a natural curiosity about people.

She doesn't seem to be suffering from trauma in the same way as me. So what I'm wondering is whether this will be good for me. We don't have to "trauma bond." She is empathic and shows curiosity about my experience.

The only thing I'm hesitant about right now is that she's probably not a Myers-Briggs "N" type. I am a very strong "N" and tend to enjoy talking to other N's. I think she's an S.

(S means you prefer concrete experiences to abstract ideas, and N means you like hidden patterns, ideas, and abstractions.)

In terms of parts, an S is similar to my younger parts. It's also part of Feldenkrais work and other mindfulness work, and it's a balancing quality I aim to develop.

N is more my thinking part, and when I was younger it was a defense against the experience of my body and emotions. But it was enjoyable. I got excited about ideas. That excitement was a defense, too. But to this day I get pleasure from ideas, in a healthier way.

My ex Rowan, who I'm still friends with, is a strong N. Rowan and I occasionally go on road trips and we spend the time talking about ideas, which I love. I don't know how much I would miss this if I was dating an S.

On the other hand, I need to develop S to become more in my body and live with my emotions. My best guy friend is S (ISFJ).

I first entered therapy having symptoms of PTSD and OCD in 1990 and was with that therapist for 31 years until he retired. He was great. He gave me unconditional positive regard and helped me change a lot of my patterns. But change was not quick for multiple reasons. I was very numb to all emotions and that numbness was changing only very slowly, largely because of the way OCD affects me. My physical health was pretty bad. I went on disability in 2010. Some things had to change before I could change certain longstanding patterns. For instance I started doing some side work as a tutor in 2017 and for the first time I had a purpose, and that radically woke me up and got me to come unnumb. My parents had to die in 2023 and 2025 before I felt safe enough in the world to confront certain emotions. 

I'm 57M. I'm just starting to feel that I can have healthy relationships (romantic or platonic).

Last December I started attending a 12 step group. I feel more consistent social connection now and that is giving me new hope. Being more social has awakened a longing for healthy friendships or a romantic relationship. I'm starving for human contact especially since my first therapist retired in 2021.

However, I'm struggling with forming friendships and having a lot of shame for different reasons.

For instance, there is a guy I have a lot in common with (we both have an interest in mindfulness of the body). We talked a few times on the phone, but he didn't seem interested in continuing it. I texted him a month later asking how he was doing. He was going through a personal crisis and was on the phone a lot during the day with fellow members of the fellowship. It was getting to be nighttime and I'm a night person, so I offered to give him some phone support at night.

So he called and I was delighted, partially because I'm so used to feeling (from my childhood) that people don't like or even hate me. We talked a bit about his crisis, but without realizing it, I changed the subject to topics more about myself. As soon as we hung up, I realized what I had done, that I had not let him lead the conversation (even though that was my original intention). I texted him to apologize but he hasn't texted back.

I was immediately filled with vicious self-recrimination. I had thoughts about being such a clumsy, non-social person and will be alone forever.

Another person. There is a woman who I feel a lot in common with. A few times after meetings I went up to her to talk.

By the way, after meetings for the most part people form into cliques. It is rare that anyone comes up to me. It does happen sometimes, but it's easy to catastrophize: "no one likes me, I will be alone forever."

So she never came up to me, and instead I went up to her. Then a couple of times she remarked that I ask very good questions and show curiosity about her and that she learns something about herself every time we talk.

I immediately thought - "Maybe she wants to get romantically involved." I'm love-starved, and it was a very powerful fantasy. However, I was always aware that I had no idea if she was feeling that way.

I continued to go up to her at meetings, but never asked her out or anything like that. But sometimes she seemed uncomfortable. So I went up to her less.

Then last Friday I was standing next to her as we put the chairs away and said "hi." She seemed to put up a barrier immediately. However, I was so much craving having some good caring conversation that I didn't give up right away. I asked her some questions about how she was doing, and she gave curt replies. Then she said she had to get going, was feeling tired that day and wanted to go home.

So I gave up. I immediately felt extremely disappointed. I feel like we have so much in common and I crave getting to talk to her. But I resolved not to bother her any more.

As I left, I looked back and saw she was talking excitedly with another guy. So apparently she didn't really need to go home.

I had a very deep trauma in my childhood about my brother being born when I was 2 (I'm the oldest) and stealing my mother's love. I was deeply traumatized by my mom as an infant and was probably dealing with severe PTSD even as a young child. Then my parents judged and shamed me for being jealous of my brother.

Based on doing IFS and talking to this toddler part, I know it was pure hell. PTSD, shame, envy all mixed together while being a 2 year old child with no ability to regulate (and not getting any help from my emotionally immature parents).

So this envy wound was triggered when I saw her talking to this other guy and clearly enjoying it.

Since then I've been obsessing non-stop. I have a vivid aural and visual imagination, and the scenes of her being uncomfortable with me and seeing the other guy are flashing in my brain non-stop. I feel just grueling shame and isolation every time it flashes. I feel ashamed that I "gave away" that I enjoy talking to her (by going up to her so often after meetings) and probably made her feel uncomfortable. She may have even felt I was hitting on her although I was careful not to do anything like that.

I haven't been to a meeting since then. I'm isolating.

Also note that when I was a child I felt horrifically ugly. Apparently, I interpreted my parents' hate for me and love for my brother as meaning he was beautiful and I was ugly. To this day I can't be around him, I feel so disgusting. So a few years ago I started developing spots on my face (keratosis). So now I'm terrified that I look ugly to this woman. Also I don't feel very masculine. I'm physically in bad shape with chronic pain and fatigue. I developed a lot of back pain in the last year and I was at a doctor appointment yesterday with a spine specialist. He was kind of creepy, and said that I was very weak and stiff. That criticism hit me hard given these other events (and also his creepiness didn't help).

I'm looking for support and some advice, although be gentle with the advice please.

I've been working on recovery for 36 years, but in some ways I'm just starting to confront the most serious abuse I think happened to me: my mother abusing me in some way, when I was an infant. Actually I suspected this going way back based on flashbacks and nightmares, as well as coming to learn in therapy that I had an extremely menacing inner world (apparently as a defense formed in infancy), but after my parents both died recently, I seem to be "waking up" to the reality of how this affected me. It's no coincidence, I think, that I'm waking up after they're both gone. If they were still alive I would have to be wrestling with confronting them with this. Now it's only me and my own needs, and I think that makes it safer.

One thing that woke me up recently was learning about post-partum depression and how some mothers feel aggression toward their infants. My mother was always a very anxious person and I was born a year after she married my father, an abusive husband. I can only imagine her home with me all day, no doubt severely depressed and anxious, trapped in this house with a screaming infant and having nothing to look forward to except a cold, mean, controlling husband returning at the end of the day. I believe her own mother probably abused her. So I think it's totally realistic to imagine she unleashed aggression on me.

I do have some understanding of this. I don't entirely fault her, despite how deeply it hurt me.

Anyway, I'm wondering if others here either suspect or have confirmed they were abused as infants by their mothers.

I've recovered enough that I joined a couple dating apps and I'm exchanging messages with people. However, I'm really scared about possible conflict and rejection (either I reject someone or they reject me). I just got a rather judgmental message on Hinge. It started when I said that I like to socialize with support groups. This woman wrote back "what do you mean by support groups?" as their only reply, so that didn't feel friendly. I wrote that I mean Adult Children of Alcoholics. Then they wrote back "So you don't socialize with anyone but 12-step groups? I'm not sure what you're looking for. Most women my age are not introverts." (I had also mentioned that I'm looking for introverts to feel most comfortable.)

So this feels unfriendly at best, and possible overtly judgmental. I have almost no experience dating, so I'm not sure how to reply, if at all. I could point out her unfriendliness to "wake her up" to it, but I don't want to risk her sending more mean messages to me. I could just unmatch her quietly. Can I get some advice?

I'm working with an Elementor Pro site previously designed by a professional web designer. I can't afford him now, but I'm a programmer so I usually understand technical things. I want to change the default typography used by H4. I went into Site Settings and found the font I believe he set... the font name matched what I see when I make an H4 heading. I changed the font in Site Settings. Mysterious, it has not changed in any of my pages. I regenerated CSS etc., and cleared the WP-Optimize cache, exited the page editor and reloaded the page, etc. all to no avail.

Could he have set default fonts somewhere else on the site that overrides Site Settings?

Incidentally I have an unrelated question. I'm not sure if I actually need Elementor Pro. Does the free version provide the Theme Builder? Does it provide templates and a template widget, which would accomplish something similar?

It would be awesome if I could get feedback on my website at Learn With Mike Mossey

I tutor junior high and high school students in coding. I have been doing mostly online students, but because I love tutoring in person (and it's great for my mood), I am looking for local students I can tutor in-person. I'm not going to advertise this website nationally... just in local areas and handing out flyers outside the local Apple Store and so forth.

So for instance, I mention "Pasadena," and everyone who finds this site will know I mean Pasadena, California, not Pasadena, Texas.

I'm looking for comments on the copy (the language) and the "look and feel." It's very simple - has only three pages - in part because of the marketing principle that if you give people less stuff to look at, they won't get distracted.

I plan to hand out flyers and talk to people around town, especially where wealthy people congregate. So many people who find this site will have already talked to me. This is just a convenient place to consolidate what everyone needs to know.

Some of you may have thoughts on the viability of teaching hand-coding in an era when vibe coding is taking off and there is some drop in software engineer hiring. I have plenty of students online who like to hand-code, but it's possible that I will have to adapt how I teach, for instance using Claude Code as part of our projects.