It was the whole point. Badum-tss!

Your friend’s ferrets would hunt? Mine refused even to try eating anything except their pellets.

Nyughohoirihu.

I, on the other hand, am fascinated not just by guns but by weapons (and other military technology) from throughout history. Weapons, as products of human ingenuity, are unusual in the sense that they function in direct opposition to the ingenuity of other humans. It’s a very high-stakes competition.

No it’s true. I was the nail.

They already have you covered. It’s just missing the turret.

The vibe I like is “gritty action movie”. Some people prefer something zanier.

Because I hate fun, I assume that the people in a fantasy world aren’t all fools so if there’s an application of magic that seems obvious but isn’t already happening in the setting, there’s a good reason for that.

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Maybe I should have said rodenticide, because it’s not specific to rats (or to rodents, for that matter).

Anecdotal but I also have depression mixed with ADHD and a nice dosing of anxiety (so fun!) and I found medication did help a lot. For a long time I was very reluctant to try anything but it has been very nice to have some relief.

I grew up in a family where we just didn’t go to the doctor. One time, my dad seriously cut his arm. He stitched the cut closed himself using the same needle and thread that he used to fix torn socks. (We had health insurance. He’s just that kind of person.) I didn’t even seriously consider medication for the first five years, and I’ll always be grateful to the woman who finally convinced me to try antidepressants.

With that said, my antidepressants take me from being very, very unhappy and frequently unable to do anything to just being kind of unhappy but still frequently unable to do anything. That’s a really big improvement (I’m not being sarcastic) but I still have a serious problem.

Ritalin made me jittery and nervous. It also made eating optional. Adderall feels a lot better. It makes me less sleepy during the day, which is nice, and eating remains optional. However, I haven’t experienced the sort of dramatic improvement that some people say they get from these medications. My sister takes them to study, and she says she can study non-stop day and night while using it. I have felt nothing like that. I think I might be resistant to stimulants - even several energy drinks’ worth of caffeine has no noticeable effect at all. I wonder if I should try two pills at once, without telling my psychiatrist. (I doubt he would approve.)

I got lorazepam for anxiety once and it felt really good. At the time, I described it as feeling happy all the way down for the first time in years. However, I only took it for a short while since it’s addictive. I keep the pills around, just in case, but I don’t take them.

Do you mind talking about what you take, and how effective it has been for you?

I think my depression is mostly caused by not feeling like I fit in well to our society (USA) and that I often am playing a role and not being myself.

A friend of mine talks about feeling that he is just playing a role, and how lifestyle changes and medication help him deal with that. I don’t really know what he means by that, since his description doesn’t match anything I have ever experienced myself. It’s interesting to hear that his experience isn’t unique. I wonder if it has something to do with not fitting in for him too - he has told me that when he was growing up, he felt like his sexual orientation was somehow wrong despite having a supportive family.

I live in the country

When I lived in the country, I bought rat poison in bulk from the farm supply store. That was much cheaper than buying the little containers at Walmart. Warfarin has an antidote in case your pet does something stupid. (My dog never ate any but I was worried that he would.)

I’m a city boy but a guy who helped me out a lot with renovation lived there his whole life. I saw him spot a dead mouse in my house, pick it up with his bare hand, chuck it outside, and then go back to work without washing his hands. Probably not smart but it impressed me.

I am employable and in many ways even valuable. I was at my last job for seven years and getting paid a decent amount until they finally managed to find someone they could afford who had my skills but not my mental health issues. (The guy needed an H1B.) I don’t blame them. They gave me a lot of chances and they were willing to accommodate me to a reasonable extent, but my issues don’t ever go away completely and ultimately they weren’t willing to accommodate me that much after they no longer had to.

I suppose this proves that I can hold a job - seven years is a long time. Still, it hurts to think of myself as defective, someone people settled for rather than someone people wanted. I asked my good friend for advice. He used to be my boss ten years ago, until the startup we were at ran out of money and he had to lay off either me or another guy. For ten years, I assumed that he laid me off because he knew that I was financially secure while the other guy had less savings and a new baby. It turns out that’s not the case. He laid me off because when push came to shove, he kept the employee who was adequate and reliable rather than, in his words, the employee who was brilliant but unreliable.

I was the happiest I have ever been in my adult life (in other words, since the depression started) when I was working at that startup, and the most productive I have ever been too. That wasn’t enough. Now I don’t want to tell my boss that I missed a deadline anymore. I don’t want more performance reviews that say I do good work when I work. I don’t want to keep trying to convince my dad that no, I’m not just being lazy and selfish. (If I do become lazy and selfish, there won’t be anything left to convince him of.) I have enough savings to live on for a decade. Two decades if I cut out everything except the bare necessities. (One benefit of anhedonia is that I don’t spend much money.) That’s far from the life expectancy of someone my age, but it’s still tempting.

I remind myself that bad episodes do end. Nine months is a surprisingly long time, but that’s probably because I also left a five-year-long relationship rather than an indicator of what things will be like from now on. I probably shouldn’t be telling all this to anonymous strangers on the internet but often I feel like you guys understand when everyone else, even my psychiatrist, doesn’t understand. That helps.

I’m not advocating advocating violence, but I am advocating advocating advocating violence.

Wow it has a Wikipedia page? I thought it was just a 4chan thing.

I have been unemployed for nine months. I think I’m gradually becoming a NEET shutin. A part of me wants that.

Hakuna Matata! What a wonderful phrase

Hakuna Matata! Ain’t no passing craze

It means no worries for the rest of your days

It’s our problem-free philosophy

Either I had weird chipmunks or other people do, because even bees did more damage by chewing up my house than chipmunks did.

Is there anything else left? On Reddit I just looked at a lot of small subreddits dedicated to my niche interests but Lemmy is too small for that so there aren’t a lot of people to talk to unless I want to talk about news and politics.

Imagine not being able to fit through tiny openings. The hydrostatic skeleton gang is laughing at all you rigid losers.