Mixing with teenagers (especially on Tumblr, which was basically a feminist dystopia when I last saw it) is fairly non-relatable. Although groups of middle-aged 'moms' aren't much of an improvement; you probably want to be looking for a more academic slant.

I ended up in a Facebook writers' group as a substitute for FFnet writers' forums, which does at least slant slightly older (although a lot of people there are either 'young adults' or trying to write 'for young adults'). However, in both places I'm afraid the most congenial -- and by and large the most tolerant -- people turned out to be those in higher education; there is a great deal to be said for being taught to think, or at least to think before you knee-jerk.

I'm not sure the old-style fannish spaces really do exist any more, judging by what I've seen of people complaining about it. That culture was mostly gone before I ever came on the scene anyway, so the only experience of it I ever had was Usenet circa 2005 -- I've done a lot of looking on at the echoes of long-gone conversations... Most of my fandom interaction has been on a one-to-one basis or simply as private analysis, either sparked off by or itself sparking off fiction. The 'spaces' involved aren't much bigger than my inbox :-(

People I want to connect with don't want to connect with me, or don't exist, and places where I would belong don't want me there, or don't exist. It seems like I won't find peace until I stop wanting or expecting those things to be happy.

I'm afraid that's pretty much the conclusion I came to. (And also, my -- unfavourable -- impression of therapy has been that what you actually want is for the intolerable things about the world to change, while what the therapist wants is to change *you* so that you don't care about them any more.)

I thought I'd found a place where I belonged, and someone I cared about, for the first time in my life. I lost both (or lost one and consciously threw away the other), and stopped expecting to be happy. And I am absolutely inhibited from ever trying for those things, or any emotional or physical closeness at all. I stumbled into something I wasn't looking for in the first place, and don't have any tools or intention to go out seeking substitutes.

(It turned out the one thing I couldn't burn out/turn off was my writing tendencies, which I suppose is as good a way of finding out what really matters to your subconscious as any.)



Migraines, on the other hand, I would assume are *probably* physiological in cause, although that doesn't by any means imply 'curable'. (My father eventually worked out that his migraines were caused by *release* of stress; every time he tried to relax, he got a crippling sick headache. Very inconvenient when it predictably incapacitates you almost every weekend and on holiday. In the long term, they stopped when he was no longer under high daily levels of stress and his body (presumably) got used to being without the constant overdose levels of adrenalin. I inherited them but simply grew out of it at a fairly young age -- I still get the aura from time to time, but the actual migraines haven't manifested in twenty years or so now.)

Yes! I think that was once a cause of my migraines, the release of stress. I used to go back and forth between ailments: stomach aches/reflux, then migraines. Once I was feeling better after one, the other would start up. Sometimes in the same day. That is why I worry that the doc might say I need a therapist, because I'm somehow interpreting everything I have to do outside my apartment as extremely stressful, when it's really not. But obviously it is to me, subconsciously, if my migraines have worked that way.

But then as of late they don't? I used to be able to say they never happened at work (when I was "going through the stress"), but now they do. And they happen at home on the evenings of my days off, after I've had almost no stress at all. We're supposed to find our triggers, but for me it seems whether I'm home or at work, whether I'm exhausted or just awoken from a solid night's sleep, whether it's dark or light, quiet or noisy (usually never is it noisy)... etc. etc. etc. How does one figure it out when there isn't a reliable pattern anymore? That's why the migraines seem to be the symptom of something else. Woah I didn't mean to write so much about this. XD We opened a can of worms.

We probably should not be encouraging each other, though -- RE: to swear off so many joys. I know it's not the answer, but it's all I can come up with at the moment. There's got to be something more for us.

Another thing associated with migraines is clenching your jaw/grinding your teeth, which can either be a stress response or a boredom response, so crops up in different contexts...
But of course repeated headaches can very much be an indication of brain tumours and stuff like that, so apart from anything else it does pay to get it checked out just in order to be sure :-(

In terms of swearing off joys I'm not a good role model, because I made a deliberate decision to do so ('I don't want to find pleasure in these things under these circumstances'). I actually spent quite a lot of time in my twenties suffering from the anticipated inevitability that my body would betray me; 'people don't live like that long-term'. Turns out they can.

I absolutely hate stupid therapists. They only suggest stupid, shitty ideas, because they have no idea what to say to help out. -_- You think you could find a better one to see?

I like tumblr, but are right about too many teenagers running the place. I rarely make comments, and all I do is download pretty pictures to use as wallpapers anyway. I can say I found some nice YouTube people to subscribe to....and that's about it for tumblr.

Disney? Ever seen Pocket Princess comics?

Oh, he isn't a therapist I've seen any time recently. After only a couple of sessions, I never returned!

Can't say I'm familiar with Pocket Princess. I mostly joined the discords because I like the classic Disney films, and the parks. Ahhh, nobody was talking, though! It was a bummer.

Pocket Princesses is a comic about the Disney princesses. You can find it on Tumblr and Instagram. :D

I have been hunting for your Alice icon forever! I've gotta save it before I lose it again.

I'd rather have your therapist than the one I'm currently trying to get away from right now. His way of therapy is to do ART to try to erase negative memories. If I could, I would rather do talk-based sessions. The last time I was in a session with him, he literally wanted to just do ART for the hell of it. Pissed me off.