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Joined 3 年前
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Cake day: 2023年6月10日

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  • I like to replace the concept of “free will” with that of “agency”.

    The Britannica definition of free will is “the supposed power or capacity of humans to make decisions or perform actions independently of any prior event or state of the universe”. But it seems to me that any state where you temporarily cannot act or communicate would automatically rule out free will, at least while that condition persists. Do you lose free will every time you fall asleep? Are people who are aware but whose bodies are nonresponsive - people who are “locked in” - lacking free will? Certainly both conditions lack agency, but these are still inarguably people - yet free will is so tightly bound with the concept of personhood, that it’s supposed lack is often used to imply one is “less human”!

    Frankly, free will seems like too broad and binary a concept to match what people actually do and deal with day to day. Agency comes in degrees, and can be gained and lost - which seems to me a much closer match to what people were trying to describe with the phrase “free will”.







  • I struggle on two fronts with this - I don’t want to “burden” others with how I feel, and fairly often I don’t know what I feel.

    Grew up in the American Midwest as a preacher’s kid. My parents are awesome people, but Dad’s job meant our family had to seem close to perfect for small town political reasons - we had their support for any kind of crisis, but we had to keep it inside the house so our single limited income wasn’t threatened.

    Between that and a family full of neurospiciness, it felt like we were always on the edge of catastrophe. I was generally able to get by day to day, so I just kept quiet so we all had room to deal with whatever else needs handled.

    So, I think I got in the habit of bottling things until I couldn’t even tell what I was feeling, and also developed an aversion to sharing what I could tell was bothering me. I’m open to the idea of sharing things, I just can’t often tell what needs shared until it pops out unexpectedly.







  • Ugh, that is a shitty situation - wish I knew better how to help you get out of it! No judgement either - from what I understand, all of this is pretty common in these sorts of relationships. And yeah, depression makes everything far harder than it seems like it should be.

    Like others have said, this is absolutely a situation where professional help is warranted. I know it might be tricky to figure out a regular schedule with one, but I think it’d be worth reaching out - I strongly suspect most would be flexible with a situation like yours, especially as it doesn’t sound uncommon (meaning they may well already have a process in place for helping people in your situation).

    As for the separation anxiety issue: I wonder if you might be able to adjust your tolerance? Sleep a little farther away in the house and see how that goes, and once that’s feeling comfortable, sleep on the opposite end, then try a little farther again? I have no idea of that would work, but it’s one more thing that might give you some control.

    (I’m also here to just vent to, if you need it! Hearing about a situation like yours has me wanting to fix it, but I can also just listen!)