A few reasons I am here:
- for the last few years, I've had some pretty strong negative voices in my head. I've always told myself that I deal with them well. Recently, a conversation with my wife made me challenge that notion. I'm still not convinced, but lately I've been thinking a lot about the possibility that a lot of my dissatisfaction with my situation is caused by my brain, and not my situation. ...the pessimism and anxiety threads here are excellent, and I wanted to be more involved with them
- some day, one of my kids, or nephews, or nieces, or grandkids, is going to say to me "I'm _____". As someone who grew up in a reasonably isolated and conservative part of the world, this is an excellent place to come to listen to people who have experiences that are foreign to me. vis, the trans thread.
While I've read a lot that has made me upset/unhappy (the mods can testify to that), I'm trying to do my best to listen, rather than to talk.