u/ustinov_feudilistic

I walk into it often that everything is cool then she'll ask the dreaded "are you close with your family" question. No, they kicked me out. This used to be so fucking normal that it wasn't even a question people would really bother each other with because it was obviously gonna be a touchy subject but now everyone asks each other within the first twenty minutes of meeting and I think it's crap.

I'm getting treated like the pariah because my answer isn't "yea totes we're besties and braid each other's pubes." What's the big deal? It's not like I threw them away and it's not like I'm some criminal who set the house on fire and killed the dog or is on all of the drugs selling their shit on ebay. They got rid of me so why is it giving me "red flag vibes" to simply not have a family?? I didn't do anything I'm just gay. Why are so many lesbians so unhinged now where they'll tell you they don't want to date you because you don't have family? Worse, I'm also seeing influx in "what did you do?" Like tf I did nothing I'm just gay and that's a really rude question for you to jump to. You're a stranger I just met you and you're already asking why my family sucks.

I get women who ghost immediately after they ask if I'm close with my family and all I'll say is "no." I'm not even handing out the tea and it still creating them blocking me ONLY because I said I don't have family. Dudes what is going on.

I left the church a few years ago and it's been really difficult mainly because my impulse is always to start talking to God when I need support but I definitely have a lot of anger towards his followers, maybe him too I'm not entirely sure how much he can really control though. I watch more faith based films than any other type and I haven't been able to rip myself away from feeling comforted by I Am Not Ashamed on my toughest days.

Still, I have experienced a lot of religious abuse from people. It's really hard to separate out the churches and people I grew up with when I'm thinking about going back to church again as an adult after all the negative experiences I've had for being a lesbian.

I feel really torn and intimidated. I spoke to a church elder today at the church I might attend and she was so accepting and the mood in the church felt comfortable and maybe even safe, but I;m still scared to go. I want to but it feels like a super overwhelming commitment and I don't know what it says about me. I don't know if I'm a christian. I know I miss service and community and being around people with similar values but it's also really scary and heavy and overwhelming and I'm nervous that if the two other lesbians I know in this town find out that they're gonna look at me funny. It feels crazy to be this embarrassed about wanting to go to church and feeling like I'm hiding parts of who I am.

I don't know if this was a mistake but I outed myself to the church elder ahead of time just to ask if the congregation is one that's comfortable with lesbian congregants. She was really cool but I'm still stressed out. I'm looking at buying a bible again and it just adds to the feeling of "this is a commitment what if I change my mind. What if this isn't right for me." And overall feeling really overwhelmed and like I'm being secretive must mean I'm being bad.

The part about how I'm not sure I'm a christian seems to matter a lot though. I don't know if I belong there if I'm not sure about that yet. It feels like I'm walking into somebody else's territory and am gonna have to be really guarded and pretend I have it figured out and that I'm more devout than I am when the truth is I do have some problems with the bible itself. If I am a christian I'm probably a really bad one cuz I have a lot of questions and a lot of side eye for some parts of the bible.

What advice does anyone have besides just "pray about it" because I think hearing the answer and calm to prayers is a really specific skill I haven't mastered so praying doesn't give me the same level of heart response to know what to do after praying the way that I hear other people talk about it. It doesn't help me make decisions.

Put a finger down if the repo song "ohhhh i want to goooo outsiiiiide out side" is your personal theme song lol. I want to go outside and I can't. I crave going outside and I fucking can't.

This morning I got ready for a thing and instead of going I said "if I'm supposed to go I won't need to rush. It'll happen" It didn't. I got ready. I sat on my floor. I did my makeup. I put on my boots. I looked in the mirror and fitchecked and then what did I do? The clock said I was too minutes late so I said "welp. can't go." And I sat in front of my door thinking about whether I could still go if I was only two minutes late till I was seven minutes late. Then I said "shit I need to go now if I'm gonna go." And I got up and I grabbed my bag, and I saw my reflection and changed my mind about my shirt, so I had to look for another shirt and by that time I was 12 minutes late. I told myself it's fine just double check all the locks so I did and then I stood in front of my door and saw the clock was 17 minutes late and decided it's too late to go outside today because by the time I get to the activity I'll be over twenty minutes late so there's no point to go.

I thought about looking for something else to do last minute but that felt impulsive so instead I made a coffee and settled in to get work done in my house and eventually got so understimulated (adhd sucks) that I started crying from a lack of stimulation and had to shotgun an energy drink and two caffeine tablets and blast thunderdome live bootlegs and the radio and a movie all at once (typical for my adhd) in order to get my nervous system to calm down enough that I can be relaxed again. But I'm still in my house. I'm just working in my house again because I can't leave it.

If I have an appointment I have to take something to get outside and I don't like taking anything. I don't like that I need something to stupefy my brain in order for me to be outside because then I'm not as vigilant as I would be if I wasn't under that fuzzy veil, but if I take nothing I can do nothing other than sit in my house. This isn't what my life was supposed to become and this is where it's at and I notice everyone talking about it like it's a choice because they hate people or there's just nothing to do and to both of those valid yo valid af, but that's not me. I see a lot of people acting like agoraphobia is just a convenient word for hating going outside. I yearn for going outside, I just make myself do it.

Anyone else feel the same about the posts you see? Anyone else feel the same level of yearning for going out and not being able to make yourself move? I fucking cried like a dumbass today because I wanted to go outside and I couldn't. I don't see anyone talking about that side of agoraphobia.

I was raised in an extremely religious and secluded environment and left a couple years ago. Now I find it impossible to locate places to socialize, especially as a lesbian, because it seems like every social event is leftist oriented unless it's religious and even religious events are currently doing drag brunch. Don't come for me, no hate, I don't care how anyone votes, I simply don't have common threads with these groups. Not every gay person is a democrat it's cool, we're cool, no skin off my back. That being said, I don't know where people who fall more moderate/independent/ or even conservative find each other. And I am using the term "conservative" loosely because it's currently being applied very loosely. Since about 2021 ish I've noticed classic liberals are getting pushed out and told they're conservative or identifying as conservative even though 80-90% of their policy opinions are still classic liberal. So, where do the non-religious, non-leftist people hang out?? It's hard to find people I relate to.

Thanks to everyone in advance who chooses to answer productively!

I care deeply about a woman who when we met she was in the middle of drug rehab and a messy divorce. We both liked each other but her ex-wife is the scariest most violent abuser I have ever even heard of, so when she told me she needed us to space out I accepted it for a lot of reasons. I want to respect her and she was worried about my safety. I didn't like that she talked about herself like she thought she was a mess and I deserve someone who isn't. She broke down about that often because she cares a lot of shame about having scars. Her scars never scared me but I've been trying my best to respect her space.

I just found out she's in jail and even though I'm supposed to respect her space it hurts way more and feels like I'm being abuser neglecting someone I love at this point if I don't reach out and stand by her and let her know she has support. I wrote her a letter which I don't know if she would even respond to. I'm wrestling with whether I would just make everything worse if I reach out and offer her someone to talk to who believes in her and her ability to be sober and keep her head down and get through this. I don't know if that's me being really foolish, but I can't handle how painful it is knowing how alone she must feel.

When you were in that situation, would you have wanted to hear from someone who knew you who you haven't seen in a while or would it have just rubbed it in that you were in your situation? What helped you and how do I know what the right thing to do is when I'm mud wrestling between respecting her asking me for privacy and stepping in saying "no not this time, you're not gonna make me watch you sink when I'm in a boat." It doesn't feel like respecting of privacy right now it feels like choosing to neglect someone you love, but I worry that's very selfish of me. I'm not deluded to think I can "save her" I just want her to have the option of my support if she wants it.

Add to that how do you find out someone's inmate id number if they can't tell you because they're already in the jail? It feels like how do you find a job without work experience situation. And what are red flags specific to felons in jail..? I have a feeling she'll eventually ask me for commisary money cuz she's never been shy about asking for money in the past. I don't know anything about jail but I wonder if money boundaries should be different when someone's in that situation because her asking when she has a job and I have to pay out of pocket for meds I told her no, but now if she's in jail and she doesn't have resources I wonder if I'm supposed to make it happen either way whether can or not because I don't know how important the items you can get in commisary are.

Any feedback would be greatly appreciated. Thank you in advance for any comments.

I'm a lesbian and that's not okay in my family. It's also not okay in my culture. Needless to say I don't feel protected.

Recently some weird stuff has been happening. I lived on a cross point where four leylines crossed and a fifth lied perpendicular to the crossing point and had to fall down a rabbit hole of why that matters cuz I was having insane synchronicities and visions everywhere. I moved out of that area and things went back to being not just a normal level of shitty but severely worse.

Most of my family actively practices some version of paganism whether it's santorini or hoodoo or voudoo or norse paganism (norse paganism is step family but you get my point)

I have a doll from Louisiana that seems to ward off a lot and I don't understand why. She has faces for hands and a masked face. The only problem is that as much as she generally protects me from unsavoury others, if I'm alone eventually I notice that I can't go in the room she's in without being physically drained by overbearing judgment. There's a heaviness attached to her that is generally safe, but I don't know how to appease her or detach whatever negative thing is attached to either me or her -yes I can hear how crazy this sounds.

If my ancestors hate me I can't exactly ask for their protection to banish anything and I can't do closed practices which leads to a catch 21.

The doll creates a cloud in the house on occassion. Right now I'm staying in my den and I'm fine but the second I walk in to her room I just start feeling hopeless and crying and wanting to break things and it's not me. It's not my emotional state it's just a flood of intensity that doesn't belong to me. It's not even about me, it's this misplaced sensation of sensitivity about tragedy in general. I notice everything in the room constantly falling and cuss out gravity endlessly. Everything fucking falls in this room. Everything fucking gets lost in this room. I do not know what I'm dealing with.

And the worst is if I don't have ancestors to talk to and ask for help from I don't know what my options are.

Any advice on direction would be really helpful. I swear something not evil but insanely mischievious and territorial is attached to her because I date omen who also have collections who aren't spooked by dolls in general but are very spooked by her specifically and refuse to set foot in that room. Many have even told me to throw her away or burn her specifically. I want to stress these women are also considerably more spiritual than I am and also have porcelain dolls and are very comfortable with the rest of my collection, including the deconstructed heads and limbs I have from doing antique restoration and reconstruction. They all ONLY have a problem with this one specific doll. And it feels like I'm walking into a room where a child is in agony and I can't do anything to calm her or fix it.

Idk how people protect entities but there's definitely an entity in the doll and I don't know how to make her feel safe when she gets like this, especially if I can't use any practice that isn't my culture, AND I can't use any practice that IS my culture because my ancestors aren't exactly at the bit to help me.

I recently started adopting vintage porcelain dolls. Pierrot clowns mostly but also vintage pieces made with real human hair largely sold at auctions and estate sales. One specific doll is in my house now and her being in my room has this odd familiar sadness that makes me smile and cry. I'm not sure how to explain it but she feels emotionally heavy.

Since adopting her something odd has been happening.

I have a long, substantial history with domestic violence. I grew up in violent houses and then had an issue of unintentionally attracting women with extreme anger issues, one of whom is currently serving a jail sentence for attempted murder on her ex-wife. Most of them have also had BPD and I'm not entirely sure what that pattern is but it's probably not too important.

You can imagine my surprise now that since I adopted this one particular beautiful very emotionally weighted doll there is a peculiar shift in my life. I am doing nothing different, but it feels like there is a bubble of protection around me. Suddenly, women I date who have these violent personalities or mental illness issues have been falling out of my life. We might go on a date or two but at the point she's invited over to my house something shifts. The doll seems to be creating a barricade. These are women who are not uncomfortable with porcelain dolls so it's not "oh you're creepy." These are women who equally have joy in taxidermy and oddities.

Everything is okay until they see her (the specific doll) and then I watch their face go pale and they start blurting out all these dark secrets out of nowhere. Their anxiety shoots through the roof and they start emptying all these red flags in front of the doll. They'll say things too about how my house feels like a childhood memory. I have had two women get panic attacks when they saw the doll and start hyperventilating and one -who has choked out an ex- said she couldn't breathe and felt like something was choking her.

The thing I don't understand is that the doll makes me feel safe. I could snuggle it all day. She seems like she needs hugs and I don't know how to explain that but I have her sitting next to some of my most prized possessions and I check in on her fairly regularly but mostly I just give her space, but she's sitting in my lap right now and I just feel like there's a really positive bittersweet energy attached to her that makes me want to cry and smile at the same time. I'm not sure what that is and I don't know any of her history.

All I know is that I bought her from an old toy company that it came across like it was going out of stock. I don't know if it's going under or what but she has a masked face and masks for hands. She is also from Louisiana but from what I've read the masks for hands is more specific to mexico and cuba. I don't know anything else about her but I'm wondering if anyone else had similar experiences? I know this sounds absurd but when she's near me it feels like someone's hands are playing with my hair and rubbing my back. I've had numerous women ask me to get rid of her, but I feel so safe with her around.

Does anyone know more about this phenomenon? I don't get why anyone would be scared of her and I don't get why the girls I date don't care about any other porcelain doll or live specimen or taxidermy creature, but they all freak out at this specific doll and ask me to throw her away or burn her.

I only meet addicts about to relapse, anorexics in active relapse, and "soo is idle" people right before the end it. Also people who are just about to get murdered. That's happened like ...too many times. The oh yay this is a delightful person and we see each other as equals and we understand each other and everything's good and then BOO! their dad randomly murders them. It's always their dad. Super weird.

Something energetically is FUCKED. I don't know what it is cuz I'm not a depressed person so it's definitely not like attracts like. I'm optimistic, patient ig according to everyone, i'm not really all that much of a dick though I'm sure I have my days. Over all though I'm on my shit and I mind my business and I have a strong work ethic and I pick myself up no matter how much shit hits me over and over and over again without fail. Still, I have never had anyone last in my life for longer than a couple months cuz they all only find me when they're on the edge of death.

wtf.

thoughts? theories? advice?

I want actual kinmanship in this damn world but it never finds me. I just mead the undead on their last hello before they're gone.

I'm gonna try my best to articulate this clearly but it's very muddy and hard to hold down in my head.

I was adopted, given up, adopted, given up, adopted given up and then aged out. All those houses changed my name so I grew up with multiple names. I got my birth certificate recently and it's a changed document so it's not even whatever my original birth name was. It is also a different name.

Ethics and philosophy are more or less my map for what to do next because I don't have firm facts to guide me on what to call myself and that's hard when ethics and philosophy can be manipulated and grey and subjective.

I don't have a huge emotional response to any name and I'm trying to figure out different philosophies that play with this problem of identity manufactured vs identity prescribed. Humanistic symmetry like Goffman and Riesman propose in their essays on dramaturgy and wider sociological impacts of tribal identity vs individualism conceded and reconsidered have helped but I don't know what to read next to help me DO choosing. Securing a choice is like putting your foot in a bear trap and then being surprised when it gets cut off.

My current view is that I'm always gonna be in this limbo of having no name even if I choose one because it will always be "wrong" because it is manufactured and therefore it is inherently a lie. Since it is inherently a lie the only thing I can do is ignore it and keep having no name or use a name that is inherently traumatized merely because it is easily recognized as something I have been called in the past by others who renamed me. My fear is that the act of naming myself is inherently deceptive, inherently egotistical, and inherently a form of psychosis. I try to keep myself in check with being self aware, being authentic/honest, and keeping my ego locked in a cabinet as much as I can without being self-degrading. Obviously, this poses a lot of internal conflict because I have to manipulate the way I think and couple the action of choosing a name. I do not know how to make it feel like I am anything other than a machiavellian dark triad problem child who wants attention and "needs" to stand out if I choose any name, even something as basic as "Mary."

I am essentially bullying a child. Inner me is an attention whore because they want a name that isn't Kate. Inner me is dishonest and manipulating people because I want a name that isn't on my government ID (privacy). Inner me is egotistical for wanting to like my own name (but all the names I like are apparently "weird"). Lastly, inner me is evil and "running away" and a fucking coward because I don't want to be called the names I was called growing up where I was abused, but then that also circles back into I'm a fucking liar if I choose a name that is inconsistent with what they called me. It's a video game drop down menu where my options are a custom name or to choose previous names from abusers. It sucks. And I am in task paralysis. I want to change my way of thinking so that I can have symmetry in my life and be grounded, but I don't know how to dissolve those beliefs when I don't have a new belief system to put in it's place.

I can see some of the flaws in my views, I can also see that most of them are not even mine. I can't see other people's views and how to -as Paulie Shore would say "Interweave them."

Help.

Does anybody have any resources of other philosophers, sociologists, even anthropologists, or some other social or philosophical mathematicists who have addressed "choice" in subjects like this in a way that makes choice easier to enact? I know I need humanistic symmetry and I understand that action comes before glue and repeated action seals it it once I decide on a name, but choosing one is a puzzle I can't solve.

I would love more resources. Do not say "therapy" I've been in it for thirty years. They do not help you with this.

short version is I was seeing a girl, that girl assaulted me, at the time I didn't know if it counted as assault because I wanted to date her and I wanted to sleep with her but I didn't want to have the type of sex she bullied me into. I'm a very social person but after that I shut down. My friend reached out trying to find out why I stopped talking and I trusted her enough to confide in her. That was my first mistake. She lectured me for hours about how I was raped and sent me youtube videos about how consent is like tea. Then she told her girlfriend I was raped without asking me if that was okay.

She was my only friend at the time so I tried to ignore it for months but eventually it hurt too much and I didn't see the point in confronting her about it so I ghosted her.

I still feel like an asshole with no integrity because I didn't sit down with her and explain what she did was fucked up. There's a voice in my head that chimes in sometimes that I'm an asshole for abandoning her without any explanation.

There's also this other weird thing now where every girl I've tried dating since either goes out with friends one night and immediately ghosts me or sends me the same cryptic message about how when they were out with friends someone "told me all about you" and then I never hear from her again. One girl asked if I had a her account (I don't) and I said I did once but it got hacked a year or two ago (when all this went down) and she just responded with something vague about how even if it's not my account my face is attached to it and she doesn't want to be associated "with that" whatever "that" is. I never get context what is being said about me specifically and I don't know who is doing it but I work from home and I don't know anybody in the country.

In the end it just seems like I ruined my entire life and am now being punished for being the buttface who ghosted like a coward instead of talking to her directly. I don't even believe she's the type of person who would character assassinate me but this all feels like karma because I was a little bitch who couldn't handle my issues face to face.

This might not be the best place for this but it's closest I've found to the types of minds I'd like to talk to. I've read some of your posts and communications and I feel fairly confident most if not all of you take to the "what am I attracting and why" without turning it so spiritual/religious that it becomes preachy and starts to miss the point. I appreciate seeing the analytical side of how this subreddit seems prone to fidget with an issue and see it from more than one perspective. I'm trying to do that by myself and I feel unequipped to resolve the issue.

Without writing an essay or trauma dumping, the synopsis of my life has been baked into a lot of death. I've witnessed death since I was very small and I've lost a lot of people, many of which I had to watch the spirits leave their bodies. Most people probably would have been terrified of this but I adjusted quickly and accepted dying as normal and have no fear of death itself. I do not judge death and I do not experience anger or sadness the way other people tend to when people die. I am not numb, I just don't see it as a bad thing so much as I view it as a necessary part of life. It doesn't overwhelm me.

The problem is I seem to ONLY attract people when they're on their deathbeds, whether that is from a disease, a natural progression of fate, or the grossly intentional towards their own undoing. Intentional people who crave death are oddly attracted to me. They make me sit through their thoughts and expect me to save them, or else maybe they're just too comfortable with the fact I won't try to. I'm not sure. Regardless, I would like a partner and friends who are like me: Ones who want to experience life and are bright about the future even when the future itself appears bleak. I've had glum times but I'm always curious enough to keep going because I always want to turn the page and find out what the next chapter will be. The thought of resigning my own book to a shelf and cashing out early has never appealed to me. ...What does it mean though if all the moths who find themselves at my flame are the ones so lost they need someone who will witness their pain?

I have lost so many people and it doesn't hinder me. I'm at a loss for what shadow work I can really do anymore if any that will help me meet people who aren't three seconds from a short grave. I've buried friends, family, partners, children, and every person I meet is either more of the same or else it's someone who meets me the day their closest people die. I feel like I've been forced into the role of an anti-reaper, one who sees people after death and is expected to ferry them back to the land of the living. The isolation in this is beginning to weigh on me.

Respectfully, if anyone has heard of or is experiencing something similar or knows about the topic, I would appreciate any guidance on how to dance with this predicament so as to actually meet people who survive and want to survive. The longest anything I've had friendships included has been less than a year. It seems everyone meets me at their grave. It's hard not to feel like I'm an omen.

I wrote a book when I was seventeen when my best friends were murdered. It has been in a drawer almost as many as years as they were when they died. Recently, I've been considering publishing it. Considering it is grammatical to have em-dashes, they are strewn throughout my book. Now that AI exists (almost fifteen years later) everyone seems to think the presence of em-dashes means it was written 'by' AI.

I have already edited this book several times throughout my life, more than three and probably less than a full seven, so it doesn't need another run through. Unfortunately, due to the way people are, I feel collapsed by the effort I "wasted" because it is a chonky boy of a book (about 600 pages including all the pages that are "just" illustrations which is half the novel/graphic novel). It's also a very heavy read emotionally, dealing with traumatic experiences that I don't personally want to read through again.

Am I supposed to force myself to sit through the whole mugging book and rewrite every barmy passage with a fine toothed comb to remove every em-dash? If I don't is everyone gonna just throw my book away and assume it's ai generative slop?

I am crushed by the weight of everything I have "wasted" by utilizing proper syntax to begin with. Will these damned em-dashes truly have such a potential to ruin me before I begin unless I re-traumatize myself with the task of sifting through everything? It's not 'just another slice' at this point, the knife is a pendulum that drags over thin skin these days and my eyes burn dry at the thought of it.

I was thinking how there's a tendency for people to assume personality traits off names. Plenty of studies that show we make these types of "oh they'll act like...." based off names.

I'm curious if you're hitting it off with a new potential friend, what names make you decide "i'll invite her to the after party" type energy vs "i'll invite her to that dinner I have to go to"

ignore the urge to say "i actually get to know people" because everyone does. Names do affect how much you want to connect in different ways.

Nothing feels right cuz nothing ever really feels right or wrong and it's a huge commitment and I've never been allowed to make any type of commitment that wasn't forced on me. (sports your parents put you in type of commitments and when they arrange who you're supposed to be in a relationship with crap).

When you can't feel what you want and there's just a bunch of pressure to do the "right" thing and so many negative associations that anyone can have including you it's already tricky. I know a couple features I want of the name but once I get to the shortlist phase nothing happens. I don't know what I'm supposed to feel so I don't know how to go "oh it's that one."

Anyone have any tips how to deal with finding the "this is the dress" feeling when you have intense alexithymia? Any tips and tricks would be great.

Moved to a new culture and want to forego my very long name to something shorter and more consistent with how I feel. I'm kinda icy, a bit abstract, grew up a huge ballerina head. I have a lot of sharpness but I'm still gentle and I want to find a name that suits that.

I made the mistake of trying Brisa and then being later informed Bris is the word for circumcision. I recently fell in love with Sprita and it made the person I told choke and spittake their drink. She had to explain to me apparently Sprita is the word for when a girl ejaculates urine during sex or an animal pees during mating season. So I thought I'd try Ilka but everyone kept calling me Helga and Elkie which I didn't like or asking me if I was saying I'm ill. I like Iska a lot, it's the only option I have left, but it still doesn't feel right.

I need some assistance from people who know negative associations in english better than me. I like sharp short names. All the short names I can find for girls aren't sharp they're like Elle, Blaise, Blythe, Blaire, Dawn, Fawn, Laine, Paige, Maeve, Neve, Raine, Wren, Belle, Bella, Ella, Anna, Ona, Ola, Katie, Kylie, Layla, Hannah, Duffy, Sophie, Sophia, Daphne, Dana, Dina, Lena, Tina, May. They're all soft and open. I can't find a list anywhere that sounds more like ice and hissing and sharpness that's a bit more abstract. I don't want weird I just want clean sharp and distinct. Any ideas?

Update: Shortlist is Forming.

Current Shortlist: (in no particular order. none are necessarily perfect but I figured a longer list would help people hear what I'm attracted to. A lot of these names just sound too old fashioned but they have the right components. Others are just too famous like Nausicaa and Nikita. I'm hoping somebody will see this list and go "hey wait this one you don't have fits what you like" and I'll have an ah-hah moment, but idk how realistic that hope is and what that ah-hah moment is supposed to feel like)

Thistle -don't like that it doesn't sound like a real name but like the sound.

Urszula, Dorinda, Tamasina, Tommeliska, Caprice, Jude/Juda, Saskia, Sitka, Sasha/Stasha, Setha, Isaaca, Barzah, Balta, Belka, Parkita, Parvatia, Petra, Drell/Drella, Dinithi, Enid, Tanushi, Cynthia/Scythia, Helene (Huh Layne Uh) -hate how much I know it will be mispronounced on paper, Okoye, Harukaa, Denise, Narcissa/Narissa, Nausicaa, Otil, Otilis, Nikita, Nadissia, Itka/Iska, Irecles/Herocles, Ikisa, Kaliske/Calista, Cosima, and lastly Irene/Ailene (don't love that it sounds like I'm leaning on stuff but I like the vowel sounds)

Any ideas are welcome. Thank you guys so much!

Edit: Ulterior Short List.

I just watched this video about instincts versus external pressure and how to tell the difference. Basically if the only reason you don't do something is because you're "not supposed to" or "shouldn't" then that's not actually about you and you're actively shaming your instincts of personal inclination. So I have made this secondary Short list. I shall call it the Shame List. It's every name I fucking LOVE and am completely obsessed with, but I know I "shouldn't" be for a number of reasons.

Urszula, Nancy, Adelaide, Blanca, Bruschka, Branca, April, Beatrix/Trixell/Trixie, Ined, Petra/Petrovka, Hortensia, Hildegarde, Agnetska, Cosima, Calliope, Kaleida, Pruscilla, Portensia, Iska, Sitka, Cassandra, Hosanna, Havana, Hosefina, Sempra, Cecilia, Breony.

obviously some names are on both lists. There is a reason.

there are a lot of reasons I am not supposed to do those names and I won't explain them, but that's the north star. I don't know how much that helps when they're all names I "Shouldn't" do, but maybe they all have something in common that I can't see and someone else does see a resemblence I'm not noticing.

I grew up in a culture where it's normal to have upwards of 6 and 11 and 18 middle names and every daughter has two first names and I'm feeling like a bit of an outsider since moving to a western culture. It's sort of putting me on edge a bit that people I meet will immediately treat me like an exhibit and ask me several invasive questions immediately. I don't think any of them are acting in malice but I do feel uncomfortable. My first name is 9 syllables which is extremely common from how and where I grew up. Even though it's very easy to say (think "AbolisAkodolana" or "GretaninaHavaline" every name is very staccato syllabic where it's just Da-uh-pa-ka-la-na-ma. In my opinion if you can just sound it out and it's all simple sounds I really shouldn't have to deal with people deciding they get to give me a nickname that's more convenient for them. If I'm telling you my name OlanadaLianani then why are you immediately calling me Nina and thinking I'm gonna know you're talking to me? I feel it is very rude too, but here if I say "That's actually not my name, please say my name or I won't answer when you call" it is making people act like I am the rude one and I am the bitch for not letting there lives be made easier by saving half a second in not learning to say my name correctly.

I am also experiencing a lot of rude laughter where you will hear me say directly "OlanadaLianani" and the westerners go "Kokodigadicksauce" and "Digeridoopoopoowah" there's a point where it feels like you're just actively trying to be abrasive towards me.

So here is my dilemna: I have started trying on different names and they all feel like I'm trying to be someone else. It makes me feel fear that people will decide I'm a liar if I keep trying on different names to see how they fare in social settings so I am becoming reclusive to avoid social harm. I'm thinking of just going by one of my many middle names, some of which are only two syllables, which feels somewhat less like lying but makes my body feel very defensive. I feel my shoulders tighten and things like this. I notice even with two syllables westerners do not want to say the name right. (Telka will become Tiana, Drinka will become Genie, Hanika will become Harajuko, etc) I know nicknames are very common here but I can't help feeling like what is the point in having a first name (or any name) if I don't even get to go by it because people here just change it for their own preference.

As well, I have started wondering very much if I should cut my name down to one first name and one last name like westerners here because it is unlikely to ever have a need for any middle names here, I do not have access to anyone from my culture here, and it would likely simplify introductions and overall my life perhaps, but it feels conflict in my body because how do you choose which parts of your heritage deserve to continue? I am massacreing my ancestors if I start choosing which names are valuable enough to keep.