Get Things Off of Your Chest

[Kimonio]

The OD was a tragic accident, and nothing more, and you can't let this loss ruin your health.

She hanged herself in mid-June, about five or six days after telling me she needed to talk to me that very next day.

It feels like her death stopped nearly every plan I had in its tracks. We had a pact that if we were still single some years later, we would co-own a place in B.C., raise animals, grow our own food, and live our lives out as friends.

We both knew we had depression and agoraphobic habits, and we were the ones who could help each other be pulled from the trench. When my 16th birthday was pretty much a night of listening to arguing parents and overdue loans being discovered, she was the one that told me it would get better. Even if I sounded edgy that night.

Now I'm pretty much doing it on my own. I could still move to Canada, but it would be just me. And with no one like her there to give me the drive to go out go people, I'd basically relapse into a state of seclusion, where no one would even know I existed.

No go on the driver's license either, I panic in a way where I could kill someone. People tell me it takes practice, but when you swerve in front of a semi or nearly T-bone a family because you are so nervous, that's a serious problem. I mean, I can definitely try to get better, and I know how to drive, but I'm also a really big liability on highways and inner cities.

I've even juggled making YouTube videos. The only problem here is a headset bug where I either get crackles or can't get the voice to register on the PC. The recording is no problem, I can get video footage, and I know how to edit videos....I just can't get my voice recorded. Third headset I've tried, and this one is a wireless model.

I'm up for anything at this point, even moving to another state broke as ♥♥♥♥. I just don't know if my subconscious, the one giving me this anxiety, grief, etc will let me.

I'm definitely working on your suggestion, Bog. There's just.....not really any work here. Not unless I do what my dad does, check gas lines in other cities of the county. Even then, we're back to the original problem I have: driving.

I know this sounds pathetic, or like I'm trying to find excuses, but I'm not. I really am not. It's almost like I was born with a gift to help others play life, while I get the ♥♥♥♥ deck of cards.

[Bogdan]

Now there fella, there are a bunch of things you overlook. I can understand your fear of panic and doing mistakes in the traffic, but regardless of how horrifying it may seem, eventually it is not that hard. Pretty much everyone around me kept telling that a driving licence is a must have, at least B-category (normal cars), if not more of them (trucks, trailers, etc). Initially I was mortified on the first lesson too, but you have the instructor right next to you and the learning cars are obliged to have an additional set of pedals on the instructor's side so he can take action in case you do mistakes (at least, that's how it is here). Not trying to force you to get a driver's licence, and paying for it might be a problem, but I highly encourage you do try to get one. It opens another area of employment and if you're good at it, you may take it a step further (truck driving, bus driving, Taxi/Uber service, etc).
*given the popularity of Automatic cars in the US, it will be a piece of cake. To this day, my biggest fear isn't speeding or steering the wrong way, but rather clutching

Careful about the moving part. There might be bigger opportunities in other places, but since you got no income and you'd pretty much need a place to stay, you wouldn't afford to rent a place, let alone buy one. I could still move to Canada is a bluff. If you consider moving, consider places not far from home so you can always return there in case you fail.

Last suggestion, join the army. If you are physically able to pass the exams and meet the minimum requirement criteria, then the army can be your salvation. My physical condition doesn't allow it unforunately, but I would personally take the army any day rather than go to college because it gives you a bunch of benefits. Decent pay, they'll pay for anything housing-related if you're not stationed in a camp, special healthcare access and the education is free (so no notorious college debt). Furthermore once you're enrolled you'll be set with a job until retirement (unless you wish to do something else and decide to resign). I can expect a lot of people to be against joining the army (be it stress, ethical, moral or whatever the hell factors), but I do consider the benefits overweight the downsides.

[Doram]

Ok, let me tell you a story.

When I was 15 or so, my mother had gone to my Aunt's out of state, and at the end of that period, she needed someone to come get her. Our car at the time was not in good enough shape to go get her, so my father had to rent a car. We were all stressed out as hell at the time, with the family stuff that had sent her away in the first place, and my father, in a rush to get this all over with, asked me to drive our family car less than a tenth of a mile, from the car rental place to a parking lot where we could safely leave the car. I had had exactly one time that I had been behind the wheel, that had gone well, I guess, so I said Ok, I'll try. I had my little sister with me in the passenger seat. The exit to the parking lot had two cement poles on either side of it - a normal security feature of such places. Needless to say, I misjudged the turn, and scraped the entire side of our car along one of the poles on the driver side, smashing the driver side mirror off, and spraying me and my sister with broken glass and plastic through my open window.

I was done - clearly a danger to everyone around me while behind the wheel, and was mortally afraid of trying to get my license. I ended up living in Hartford for quite a while after that, and, using the bus for everything, no matter how inconvenient, I managed to avoid anything to do with driving... for 20 years.

When my marriage fell apart, and we separated, I ended up living with family out in the countryside, and needless to say, with a legal requirement to earn child support, I had to get a job out there, and to get a job out there, I NEEDED a license. So, at the ripe old age of 35, I started to try to learn how to drive. All that fear and worry, multiplied by 20 years over nursing the horror of it, was still there, but I had to do it for my son, so I grabbed onto the steering wheel as tight as possible and moved the thing as slowly as I could, and started practicing with the thing.

The funny thing is, I loved Mario Kart and had played tons of that, as well as more serious racing games like Gran Turismo, and I had also been paying attention to everyone else and what they did while they were driving, so I had actually built up a pretty good mental image of what driving was like, and with a lifetime of gaming in general, my reaction time was quite fast, and I found that the only real barrier I faced was a psychological one, and once I got some pure and simple experience under my belt, I was an EXCELLENT driver. And I wasn't the only one who thought so. The inspector that did my driving test complimented me, saying that was the best test he had ever been on.

So, tl;dr, Your fear is not anything you should let stop you, because, if nothing else, it makes you pay more attention and be a safer driver than your average newbie, and once you settle into it, you will be amazed at how well you can do. Truly, driving is not as exacting a process as the non-driver imagines, and there is a TON of room to screw up, and still be perfectly safe. I've been driving for four years now, and never had an accident. Most of the time, my extra attention and fast responses have avoided several accidents that probably would have caught other new drivers. If I can do it, you definitely can do it. Just get out there and try. I love to drive now, and I am free to do whatever I need, whenever I feel like it. It's amazingly freeing, and definitely worth the effort.

[MessengerOfDreams]

This post by MessengerOfDreams was thumbed up by:

Harmless (January 21st, 2017, 4:13 pm)

[MessengerOfDreams]

Either way, the ruling went in my favor and though the insurance company is trying to deny me again we already won so they ain't ♥♥♥♥, basically.

lolno they won

[Karyete]

Wait, did you not actually win beforehand? How did they end up winning?

[MessengerOfDreams]

Turns out I won one treatment but the rest I haven't

[MessengerOfDreams]

This post by MessengerOfDreams was thumbed up by:

l.m (February 3rd, 2017, 2:11 pm)

[CedarBranch]

I don't dare to get it off my chest, but I'm just gonna say that something totally random, even the word itself, bothers me. It started on one specific day during 2nd Grade. That's the only part of it I'm getting off my chest. I would ♥♥♥♥ kill myself if anybody found out what the word was.

Not as accurate as I remembered, but I still cannot get it off my chest.

---

I've kept going to therapy, but I still can't see myself "just saying it."

Let me just...

[Vajrin]

LDCs and contests destroyed me.