u/snarfalotzzz

In Los Angeles. For starters, the whole reason I need food stamps is because I cannot find work, but there's NOW a 30-hour-per-week work requirement to KEEP THEM. Find a job in THREE months or else you're kicked off. Let me tell you I've been looking for full-time work for THREE YEARS. I have found nothing. I have tried everything. I have two degrees and great work history. I've had odd contracts, jobs, freelance gigs to help, but now it's all dried up.

Tariffs, war in Iran, AI everything, corporate consolidation and private equity layoffs, saturated market of talent, offshoring: there are no new jobs.

I've responded to adds on Craigslist to hand out stickers and flyers and random odd gigs and NOTHING. I have an MA.

Anyhow, so I can technically use my 40-hour-per-week looking for a job work maybe as an exemption, per the person I talked to after waiting TWO hours on the phone. They used to have a callback option. It's gone.

He tells me to fill out the form re: work requirements with my info and then to submit it. I do this. I try to upload it four times. It says I have no uploaded documents. I also spent 2 hours compiling screen grabs of all the applications I've submitted. It's a LOT. I pdf them, along with a statement of my situation,

None of this shows up in my uploads even after I've received "you've successfully submitted your documents!" after I press "submit."

I mean we all know they want to deter us. That's the point. And it's so gross because you lose it. Like you really lose it. I mean the automated menu for the call center was SEVEN rounds of confusion and frustration. You know it's just one person at the end of the line, but they BS you with "for this, press 1, for this, press 2"

TWO HOURS I waited.

Never mind the fact that the 30-hour work requirement in LA will most likely bump everyone off SNAP anyhow. The minimum wage is $18.50 and the max income pre-tax is $2,600.

They don't want anyone using SNAP, THAT'S THE POINT. They make it impossible. Are they intentionally barring uploads? Because that's how I prove I qualify for an exception.

I will go into the office, and I will send this SNAIL mail since I've tried a million times.

But the sick thing is they know most people will give up. It's confusing. It's exhausting. It's demoralizing,

I guess Newsweek already reported on this. I also learned the original leadership stepped out of DSA a while ago as it became more ML. Just posting this in case anyone's interested. The London Times may be center-right, but it's still a paper of record, and if we're gonna give AJ+ cred, which is owned by Qatar, a monarchy with ties to the MB, we can also give at least a little credence to the Times.

I'm sorry. China is more capitalist than communist, their human rights records are abysmal, and even with the whatabouting about US/EU human rights violations, I'm not going to buy into "China is democratic" BS. Heck I've been there and seen it with my own eyes. Chilling, the Great Firewall is.

As for me, I'm not sure if Mandami is a Social Democrat or an actual Democratic Socialist. I have read he is also tied to Working Families Party, which is proper SocDem I think.

I don't have any political home anymore, to be honest. I see the dangers of working within a capitalist system being a SocDem, but I can't get on board with socialism either. I like anarchy, but can't see how it could work, state socialism gives me the icks, probably because I had family in the USSR who disappeared.

This year has been especially dramatic with seasonal shifts. Fall and winter was full-blown sludge fest (I don't get real dark depressions thanks to bupropion, last was 2022) but still low motivation, heavy, and "blugh."

Spring comes and it's like, "Weee!" But I curbed that with exercise and a 'lil extra lamictal.

Had a low-key crash after an international trip in June. Then, it started getting warmer. This week, where I'm at, it's 90 degrees, and I'm so revved up I didn't eat or sleep for two days and feel more focused and refreshed than in weeks. Everyone else is a zombie from the heat, but I read it can trigger mania in bipolar.

I will be OK because I have forced myself to eat and have trazodone to sleep and am avoiding all alcohol and meditating. Should be OK, but if necessary, I'll take a bit more lamictal (it totally levels out hypomania).

But I didn't realize heat, not even just the light, but ambient heat, triggered mania. And when I think of my worst episode in 2007, it was off the rails, I recall it was during a horrid heatwave. The international trip this year was in a cold and rainy country, and last year's trip was in a sunny, insanely hot country and I was amped out of my mind and coming up with all these story / novel ideas.

I guess it makes sense. They even said bipolar may have been an adaptive variant for the ice age. I'm not looking forward to fall now, but this is interesting to realize.

Hi there. I'm new to Anarchism and have been reading stuff on and off for about a year. With where things are at economically, I don't see how people will survive without mutual aid and cooperation, which is what I see in Los Angeles.

I was delighted to see there is a large network of Community Land Trusts. Small in scope, sure, but growing. These orgs are supported by state funds and are piloted with the city. Maybe that's what municipalism is all about, however what drew me to anarchy was getting around the massive power of the state. I favor anarchy because the idea of radical self-reliance and self-determination is how I think we can escape the chokehold of capitalism. Plus I don't like hierarchy and coercion. So going to the state or the city for public funds, which is what these groups have done in a pilot program, gets rid of that entire factor. I am not trying to judge these groups. It's better than nothing, and they are promoting community governance, ownership, and helping spread the idea that land shouldn't be commodified, which I agree with.

I would imagine some of you who are more interested in municipalism or mutualism would find this tactic of being closely tied up in government, pushing for bills and policies that favor land trusts, and partnering with the city to get funding better than what we've got now?

I have this knee-jerk reaction to this kind of action. Probably because I'm from the city and have seen the dysfunction over the years but who knows.

Any thoughts on this? Is it a step in the right direction? Or just more of the same? I'd favor building a trust through independent means, even if it is just grassroots donations from random people, as opposed to partnering with the government (it's a pilot program with the county of LA).

I'm also looking at the bureaucracy that's already fattening up.

Hey all, I just started r/BipolarAuDHD because these conditions are often comorbid, and navigating this trifecta often feels impossible and comes with heightened risk of SH and SI and behavior. We need specific tools to cope. There's little support as far as forums or research, so I thought maybe I could help start something. Feel free to share in similar communities if you'd like!

Here is my story and the welcome post.

I started this sub because people with Bipolar Disorder* + AuDHD have an extraordinarily difficult time navigating planet earth, and just surviving every day can feel nearly impossible. Making matters worse, we are often gifted and multi-exceptional**, so we constantly feel like we're not "meeting our potential." If you're a woman or assigned female at birth, there's a likelihood you have PMDD as well, complicating the whole picture. Throw in AUD (Alcohol Use Disorder) or an ED (eating disorder) or CPTSD, which is common in bipolar and neurodivergent people for various reasons, and you've got a very dangerous combo.

Suicidality is a massive risk for bipolar disorder (especially in bipolar 2 where highs and lows are more frequent), the highest for any mental health condition, and so is autism, especially in high-IQ women. The combo is dangerous because bipolar highs and lows + autistic cognitive rigidity and "looping"—perseverative all-or-nothing thinking + ADHD impulsivity = an extremely high suicide risk. I've attempted it nine times, and have almost died once. I was out of consciousness for five days.

At the time, I was only diagnosed with bipolar and ADHD. The bipolar meds worked well, but cooccurring ASD and was the missing piece. I baffled clinicians over and over. How could my meds be working, my moods relatively stable, but I still wound up in psych unit after psych unit? The issue was AuDHD impulsivity coupled with ASD catastrophization. Making matters worse, some psychiatrists diagnosed me with BPD in the emergency rooms before even speaking to me.

Treatment methods are different for ASD and bipolar, and Dialectical Behavioral Therapy (DBT) is a great pick for people with ASD, but it's best when augmented for that condition. I've found 180-degree "state changes," like visiting a gorgeous beach or going to the dessert or an amusement park or a concert or rave or dinner at a delicious spot snaps me out of a suicidal spell faster than meditation or CBT or even talking to a friend or therapist about my thinking. Why? Because these are powerful sensory experiences that break the spell—the autistic perseverative loop of catastrophic thinking. I have also found playing my hand drum to immediately pull me out of a dangerous perseveration loop. Why? It's a repetitive behavior—a stim, and one that's paired with sensory (auditory) input. It is extremely regulating to my nervous system. I've played it five hours straight.

People can be misdiagnosed as having bipolar when they are in fact AuDHD (ADHD + Autism Spectrum Disorder), and vice versa, so in ASD and AuDHD forums, many people reject the bipolar diagnosis. But there are many of us who legitimately have bipolar disorder and ADHD, ASD, or both. Oftentimes, you can look at family history for a clue. Schizophrenia, which is closely linked to bipolar disorder, runs in my family, including in a first-degree relative, and my grandmother had bipolar. My father has ASD or what was once called Asperger's.

The diagnoses can be so similar, but bipolar disorder is unique because the highs and lows are often triggered by things like lack of sleep and seasonal changes as opposed to special interests or external events. What complicates things is how all of this intersects. Bipolar hypo/mania intersecting with a special interest can be a "superpower" like no other—until you get so "high" you crash and burn. These "superpower" periods don't last long, especially if you have cooccurring ADHD, which gives you an interest-based nervous system that has you hopping from one thing to the other. Then you have autistic burnout intersecting with depression often, making both worse. You are typically highly creative and maybe brighter than average (something common in bipolar people, especially verbally), and this tug-of-war between heightened creativity, goal-oriented activity, productivity and burnout, depression, executive dysfunction, task paralysis, and autistic inertia gives you so much inconsistency you wind up loathing yourself whilst your teachers and bosses and colleagues scratch their heads wondering why you flail when then "know you can do it!" and know "how smart you are, how much potential."

Then, you have the social issues. Reticence and social anxiety fall by the wayside if you're hypo/manic. ADHD already masks the social issues in autistic people, but this is much more intense if you have comorbid bipolar disorder, so getting a diagnosis, especially in women, can take decades. When you're hypo/manic, you have so much energy you become a social butterfly. Often, people with ASD can drink in social situations to cope with social confusion. If you have bipolar disorder, that drinking can send you into a nosedive of depression, render your meds inactive, and this amplifies ASD catastrophic and ruminative thinking, making you incredibly vulnerable.

We need peer support and targeted research, especially given our heightened risk of suicide, self-harm, and substance misuse and abuse.

*For clarity, the acronym for bipolar disorder is BP or BD, not BPD. BPD is borderline personality disorder, and entirely different beast. Having said that, many women with autism are misdiagnosed as BPD due to rigid thinking patterns and RSD - rejection sensitivity dysphoria, and men with ASD or bipolar are sometimes misdiagnosed as having NPD - narcissistic personality disorder.

**Research suggests bipolar individuals have higher IQs than average, along with heightened creativity. Research also suggests ADHD and ASD people have heightened creativity and divergent thinking.

Hi there,

I'm not going to act like I have a solid grasp on mutualism or anarchic theory, because I don't. I've only read Proudhon's "What is Property?" and am a big fan of some of his ideas. I am always trying to figure out how we can balance the tension between liberty and equality, and anarchy is the only thing that makes sense.

I don't espouse any one anarchic view, and again, I'm pretty ignorant on the topic as a whole, but my thing is...for self-determination, I just think voluntary micro-communities (maybe no more than 100-150 max people) that unplug from the internet, AI, social media, email, would be a good way to fight the massive amounts of control these companies, kleptocrats, technocrats, what have you, have on the populace (I'm in the US).

Basically, we drop out and create a parallel society and ecosystem. Free from their tech.

I've never been a huge tech-skeptic, although I've lamented social media and how screens and algorithms wreck our brains. Generative AI is a whole different level, something I just can't accept and am now forced to use as "work tools." Prior to this, as a knowledge worker, I'm basically stuck emailing all day, messaging all day, never truly away from work. Face-to-face interactions are dying, automation is replacing interaction, we're outsourcing intimacy, as one thought leader says, and I really want zero to do with that. We have zero privacy, our data is constantly mined.

This isn't living.

I don't want to "fight the system," stop AI (I doubt I can) or even try to sway the government with this or that movement or politician.

Why can't we just create alternative, autonomous communities, parallel societies that reject harmful, corporate tech (not all tech is bad)? Creating self-sustaining, self-supporting mutualistic communities? I've spent so much time among indigenous cultures in villages. People, food, music, dance, art, creation, nature, community - honestly, this is the stuff that feeds the soul. Sounds cheesy I guess.

I'm not a fan of trying to control or even change our corrupt system. Because I don't know if we can and I don't like the idea of controlling or coercing anyone to adopt a type of living or ideology that I adopt - that violates my principles of liberty. So instead of fighting or resisting, we just drop out and create something new.

I suppose if this kind of stuff scaled they'd fight us as we'd drain Big Tech's pocketbooks, but on the DL, why not? The only snag is medical care. And that's a big snag.

Forgive me if I sound unsophisticated. Just wondering if the principles of mutualism sort of align with this ethos, or if you've heard of anyone doing something like this without it being some crazy cult - religious or otherwise.

For context, I've flown on Qatar, Japan Airlines, Turkish, Lufthansa, Air France, KLM*, and then every other more budget-friendly airline you can think of.

I just took TAP Portugal, which I guess is often heavily criticized, to offset the new $2400** KLM sticker from LAX to AMS. I travel there yearly for family and have been out of work for around six months and needed to economize. Air Lingus is in between but starting at $1500 with the war, it was a no-go.

Anyhow, after adding six hours to my total flight time, which I don't think I'll do in the future (faster to fly through Dublin or obviously straight to AMS), for the price, I wouldn't say it was bad. Maybe I got lucky?

My planes were all on time, and I've traveled with all these other top-ten airlines and still faced delays (rarely with KLM or Lufthansa - maybe 10 min with KLM once).

The staff were very friendly, way better than American Airlines. I don't think there was a difference between TAP Portugal and Air France or Qatar as far as friendliness - and I feel TAP was even more friendly than most airlines! KLM is just very dutch, which means the people are just cool cucumbers and not snappy, which is why I married a dutchman as I'm mediterranean and a bit more...um...excitable. But TAP came close!

They are able to offer severely cheaper flights by charging for everything, including seat selection (free on KLM, Air France), offering very low carry-on weights if you don't want added charges (but I made this work by packing efficiently), and then there's the far less impressive food choices and menus, but I wouldn't say the food was terrible. Just not as much of it! There is only water throughout the flight and some little crackers and sandwiches, unlike KLM where you can get juices, snacks, drinks for free. But if you just suck it up and kind of rough it, which is how it is for me when I'm in between work, you can maintain the same economy price.

Seat size was average and seats not any more uncomfortable than all other flights.

Customer service. I had to deal with them three or four times over the phone. Wait times were better than most US airlines, longer than most international ones, but not too bad. One was like 5 minutes, another 10, and another I hung up on after 20 minutes.

They were very very very helpful in the Lisbon airport for my 40 min connection going through passport control. Super organized, the man was right there at the gate to take us through.

Would I take this airline again? Only if flying to Lisbon or Spain where it makes more sense as far as flight time. I would opt for economy comfort maybe, bring my own water and snacks since it's limited compared to KLM or Air France (I travel both a lot), but overall definitely better than American Airlines and others I've flown!

I feel they are worth the value. I got a roundtrip tix for $1K with seat choices, when Air Lingus was $1500 and KLM was $2400. In tough times, not a bad tradeoff.

*I'm stunned KLM is #22 on the best airlines list, below Iberia. Crazy! KLM is probably my favorite airline out of all I've traveled on, except maybe Japan Air and Lufthansa. I like it far more than Air France or Iberia.

**I don't begrudge KLM's price. The workers demand proper wages and the service is excellent and so you pay for that. The NL is such a high-quality society overall compared to America. But right now, I just don't have enough cash for KLM. Next year hopefully!

Hi there!

My family is Armenian. One side came from what is now the Republic of Turkey but was historically what we call Western Armenia (the land was colonized by the Ottomans in the late 13th century), the Kingdom of Armenia in ancient times. Many ethnic groups have lived in this region over the millennia, from Greeks to Assyrians to Armenians to Kurds to Turks, etc.

Anyhow, my ancestry includes Malatya and Erzurum, Turkey, in addition to parts of what is now Armenia. This area was primarily Armenian inhabited prior to the ethnic cleansing / genocide of 1915 and the founding of the Republic of Turkey.

They say that the DNA matches "people with known ancestors from the region." Well, that could be Armenians, it could be Turks, it could be Kurds! Does 23andMe go to the locations and get the DNA of the population living there now? Even so, there are a lot of "hidden Armenians" in Turkey who changed names and pretended to be Turkish to survive.

I'm just curious. My family was in the region for so many centuries, it makes sense that there would be admixture, and I always joked that we had some Turkish blood. But interestingly, another side of my Armenian family comes from Iran, and there's no DNA placing my ancestry there!! Even weirder, recent studies in genetics have found Armenians to be closer to Lebanese and Druze and Spaniards than Persians, Turks, Kurds, Assyrians. Interesting stuff.

Thanks for any help!

Hi there!

I'm just wondering if anyone here knows of any individual darbuka / doumbek teachers in the Glendale / Little Armenia / Los Feliz / Atwater area? If not that, perhaps a good school? I'd love to support an indie musician.

I am specifically learning the split-finger technique and would love to learn the Armenian Dohl and Persian Daf eventually. I have an Armenian background and really enjoy the odd Armenian meters, like 9/8, 10/8., 7/8, but also the Arabic / Egyptian rhythms I'd like to master as well with all the ornamentation, flourishes, and various hits and rolls.

Anyway, thanks for any help! Also - if anyone knows of some good Armenian dance schools for circle dance, or feminine dance, I'd be interested in those as well. I'm a third-generation Armenian Angeleno, and don't know all the dances!

Cheers.