Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with misery

Fuck death

Bageena — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 17:58:49 -0800

Both of my wife's parents died. Her dad first in January, now her mom in September. My wife is the oldest child. No will was left. What do we do? I tried this question before but I put way too much information on it and I had to get it removed. I thought we'd figured out what steps to take, but we're back at square one. There's several properties, several vehicles, life insurance policies, monies in bank accounts, bonds, et cetera. My questions are;
1. Is there any way to do this without a lawyer?
2. If not, is there cheap or free legal counsel I can find online or where we live, in Arizona?
3. What should we be expecting in the way of hurdles? Probate, taxes, things like that.

I don't know. I'm hyper-depressed. I really didn't want to handle all of this shit and with all the family in-fighting, I wish the state would take it all. However, my wife has a vested interest I guess, so here I am. Please help Mefi.

(I'm in AZ)
(If your an attorney who can help me, please, by all means, drop me an e-mail)

Just asking this question feels like self-indulgent wallowing

Anonymous — Sat, 14 Nov 2009 18:47:05 -0800

Why am I such a pathetic sad-sack these days, and how can I shape up before I drive all my friends away? I am miserable. I just got out of a three-year relationship about 3 months ago. I don't regret breaking up and I don't want to get back with him, it was all very amicable and blah blah blah, but I guess I now realize that being with him masked some pretty terrible emotional problems I have.

I met him when I was 18. I really hated myself then. I just knew no one would ever love me. I’m lucky to have met him, a genuinely nice guy, because I was just asking to be taken advantage of. And I thought that being with him had made me better, because I was very happy with him and I liked myself and all that. In fact, ironically, being with him made me strong enough to say goodbye when the time came- he made me confident enough to do that. I thought, leaving him will be ok, because I’m strong now and I’ll find someone else. But now I realize- I'm not fixed. Being with him just covered up my problems, and now I'm almost 22 and I'm still the same needy, pathetic wreck I was in high school.

My life. I had behavioral problems as a kid which meant that I never had close friends. Some school friends, but nothing meaningful. Finally got some good friends in high school, one best friend, but I didn’t appreciate them and I didn’t know how to be a friend to anyone. I was too scared to even pick up the phone and ask someone out for coffee because I KNEW that they didn’t really like me and would just go along, not enjoy my company, and then talk about me to everyone else. As you might guess, I never dated anyone in high school. I did go on two dates with a guy I met outside of school, but that was it.

College was wonderful, in that everyone really did seem to want to be friends, I joined clubs where I could contribute, etc. All good stuff. And I had a little success with guys. A date here, a makeout there. But somehow it was all sort of pathetic. I wanted a guy, no matter who, and so I spent some time with some major sleezeballs. Even though I had finally gotten guys to notice me I still didn’t think I was worth dating and I was still very sad about it, although my life was immeasurably better.

Then I meet my ex. He was and is a sweet, attractive and talented guy, and we hit it off immediately. Like talking for 6 hours the first night we met, and that was that. I became a different person with him. I liked myself. I had a ton of friends. I felt attractive and loved. We went out for 3 years, but age, distance and different life directions made us realize this summer that we were growing apart. Now we are friends (we did the no-contact-for-6-weeks thing).

Here’s the thing. When I was with him, by the end, I thought- there are ways in which we’re not good for each other. There is a guy out there for me who is a better fit, and I’ll find him. I just knew it- I would be ok. Being in such a better place than I was 3 years ago, I would go back out in the world a changed woman and everything will be so different from how it was before.

Well now I sit alone in my room wishing that I could get just one guy to glance in my direction, no matter how stupid and assholey he is.

And the REALLY stupid thing? I did! I slept with a very attractive guy after the breakup, and I was the one to tell HIM, sorry, this was a bad idea, it’s too soon for me. And there’s another guy I know who clearly likes me who I am not attracted to. Those guys liked me! And I know that just because all the guys I’m attracted to are taken, it doesn’t mean that that will continue to be true forever and I missed the boat on love. And I know full well that since my school is 60% girls and my major is 80% girls, the fact that I don’t have guys all over me doesn’t mean anything. I know I’m not actually some ugly unloveable hag. But I don’t BELIEVE it.

Here’s some other stuff I know but don’t believe:
-Hitting on guys doesn’t make me a pathetic skank, and guys don’t laugh about my efforts after I’m gone
-The fact that all my friends have boyfriends and I don’t doesn’t mean all my friends are more interesting and hotter than me
-I am someone worth knowing and someone who a person might actually want to have sex with
-My ex was not the only person who will ever love me
-If I am unattractive right now it’s because of my bad attitude, not because of who I am

I am well aware that I’m wallowing in misery. What’s worse is that my friends all know I’m feeling like this. I try to keep it under control but, last night I drunkenly spent an hour crying to my good friend about this stuff, and while she was very sympathetic I know I need to get it together. I need to stop being miserable or my high school fears will come true and no one will ever want to spend time with me. I am ‘that girl’ and I don’t want to be. Twice I have gotten drunk because I was sad. I have never let myself do that before. The other day I was cleaning my room and just burst into tears.

I want to be happy with or without a man. I want to be the person I was with my ex- the person who was funny and fun to be around and didn’t dwell on her lame cliché problems constantly. I want to be able to be alone and not have these shadows of self-loathing always waiting for the moment when I hear a sad song or see a happy couple. What the hell is wrong with me.

Short-term reward for running?

Mrs. Pterodactyl — Sun, 10 May 2009 20:15:20 -0800

What are some good (non-food) rewards to keep me motivated as I try to start jogging? Mr. Pterodactyl and I have started jogging and I would like to create a standard treat to keep myself motivated. All of the rewards I can think of are food related and not only would that help defeat the purpose of running, it also seems like it would be a good way to develop an unhealthy relationship to food.

The main activity I use to relax is reading, but I'm not going to stop doing that in order to make it a reward for running, so that's out. Our bathroom is not attractive or relaxing (even by candlelight) so bubble baths are unfortunately not the pleasant experience they were in my old apartment.

Any suggestions you might have for something simple and enjoyable (and cheap -- the Pterodactyl household's riches are all of the spirit rather than the material world) that someone physically exhausted would find pleasant would be very welcome. Thank you!

How to survive this horrible job one day at a time?

Anonymous — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 16:35:17 -0800

My job is making me miserable. I need some short-term coping strategies. Things are crazy over here and it seems, to me, that I get blamed for everything that goes wrong. I'm trying to handle it as best I can, but I don't feel as though I'm succeeding, either at continuing to do my job or at managing how ridiculously angry I feel. I'm looking into other opportunities, but in the meantime- how do I survive this? I'm talking about the day-to-day; I hate feeling like I'm wasting day after day being mad. Help me better manage my mind.

This time, I want to move WITHOUT trauma...

paultopia — Fri, 25 Jul 2008 02:39:51 -0800

How to manage short, cluttered move solo, with no swap space? I'm bad at planning big projects... I'm an on-campus grad student, and in just under a month, I'm moving from one end of campus to another. I'm really bad at big projects, and every other move I've ever made (many) has been a horrible traumatic crisis, with me frantically flinging stuff into boxes with the landlord looming waiting for me to get the hell out, etc. I'm really BAD at this. So I turn to mefi...

Here's the 411.

- It'll probably be just me (I hate recruiting friends to do this).

- No major furniture will be moved, perhaps just a couple of bookshelves.
-- but one of the bookshelves might not be movable (I might not be able to get it out of the old place without destroying it), so I might have to buy a new one before installing the books in the new place.

- But I must get rid of a bed first (and replace it with the disassembled university-provided one attached to my old place).
-- which requires finding the bolts and so forth to put it together, which are buried under mounds of stuff somewhere

- I have hundreds upon hundreds of books. Other than books, the major items to be moved are clothes, paperwork (lots of it), and misc clutter (old computers, etc.) But the brunt of it will be books. It's not too much stuff -- maybe 1.5 rooms worth.

- I'll have two days from getting the keys to the new place before I have to turn in the keys from the old place. So I have to transport everything in that period.

- I have no "swap space" -- that is, in the current place, there is approximately nowhere where I can do things like pre-pack things and pile them up. At most, I can find room for a few (like 4 or 5) small boxes.

- I'm just going across campus, so it seems silly to pack boxes and stuff...

- I have to clean the place too, after the stuff is gone. But I can possibly hire someone to do that on the cheap, and I probably will, because I hate cleaning.

- I can't afford to hire anyone to do anything else.

- Every time I've moved before, in my life, I've ended up living out of boxes because I've been so exhausted after the process that I can't bring myself to unpack.

Help? I'm at a loss for how to plan this. The best I can come up with is pack as many boxes of stuff as I can squeeze in, use that to clear enough space to switch beds out, and then leave the rest for a panicked miserable rush in the two days... ??

thx

I hate my neighbors

gjc — Wed, 04 Jun 2008 04:09:00 -0800

Can a Homeowners Association (condo, specifically) require that its dues be paid by the mortgage company out of escrow? Tiny background: I live in a 12 unit condo building. I was on the board for 7 years, and it was an exhausting nightmare. I resigned. Now the board is whining for me to come back. I don't want to. But I want to at least help them. Because I don't want my home to crumble to pieces.

So anyway, one problem we have is collecting association dues in a timely manner. So I figured one way to solve this problem is to let somebody else deal with the problem- let the owners' mortgage companies pay the dues out of escrow. The property taxes and other fees get paid that way, why can't the condo dues?

But I can't find any resources on the 'net regarding this. How do we set it up? Is it even possible?

(I know I can have a lawyer do it, but I want to gather information before I contact ours, and/or avoid it if possible.)

((And what tags do I use to make that tiny print that I see people using?))

Feeling/being happy? How? Help me.

isoman2kx — Wed, 14 May 2008 14:13:19 -0800

Feeling/being happy? How? Help me. I'm not 100% sure where to start with this one except I wanted to pose the question to fellow metafilterer's after my meeting with my psychologist today.... read on. I've always been trying to hone in on my problems to address them better and figure out just why I feel how I feel.

The one thing I came up with today is that I have no motivation to be happy, to be social around anyone, to be my old self, to go to class, to have a career. WHEN I feel like this that is. This lethargic, self-pitying, worrying about what everyone else thinks, etc mood occurs in my life about 60-65% of the time and it's a burden.

I try and keep my head up, hence the 35-40% where I don't feel like all is hopeless. However, a great deal of my interactions in a given day occur in that 60-65% shitty feeling zone and my perspective when dealing with those things is just entirely out of whack.

I end up saying the wrong thing, jumping to the completely wrong or unfounded accusations, pacing around worrying that I am too needy on other people for my happiness because I don't have much of my own right now.

I don't have a particularly large amount to be worrying about right now and as I've said in the past, my life (crappy physical feelings aside) is a good one. I say that particularly because some people always ask, well you must be hiding something or harboring some deep childhood trauma. People can't believe I guess that I just generally have really shitty self-esteem and am capable of being very intelligent when I'm in a good mood.

Just for additional info:

I try and live the healthiest life possible. I get exercise (at least 25-30 mins) on a daily basis and generally eat the right foods about half the time. I take a B-Complex vitamin, 2 tablespoons of flax seed oil, 30 mg of lexapro, and nexium on a daily basis to battle anxiety/depression.

I've never bought the whole start volunteering places and you'll magically feel better, so I'd rather exclude that suggestion and other just "feel good" suggestions. I want practical advice of how I can kick my own ass.

How do I do this? Particularly, for those that are depressed/anxious like I am , how are you dealing with it? Is it getting better?

Implant vs. bridge

NorthCoastCafe — Sat, 23 Jun 2007 17:45:38 -0800

Is an implant a solution to the terrible removeable bridge I just got? It's my front tooth and the tooth next to it. I hate the bridge, it hurts, I can't eat, what I do eat I can't taste, I can't talk--it sounds like I'm drunk I slur so much and all around I'm very unhappy. This removeable bridge replaces a failed fixed bridge. The root canal on the front tooth went bad and the fixed bridge to which it was attached failed and couldn't be repaired. I'm very unhappy with the new (temporary) bridge and wonder if I can get an implant instead of going ahead with permanent removeable bridge. Anyone have a similar experience or recommendation?

Help a lawyer find happiness?

GIRLesq — Wed, 09 May 2007 15:10:44 -0800

What kind of job/career-change should a semi-miserable lawyer look for? Here's the problem: You've invested years and lots of dollars in your license to practice law. You make good money. But you are not so happy with practicing law. But you can't exactly quit and become a sandal maker on the beach of some Greek island because you have student loans! And a dog to feed! What to do?

With a couple of years of litigation experience, and a few years of in-house experience (Internet/New Media), where can you go that would still pay the bills?

Any ex-lawyers out there who've made a successful change?

Help! I've fallen in love and I can't get up.

scarylarry — Sun, 14 May 2006 17:54:45 -0800

Lovefilter: how do I get over a girl while remaining close friends? This is a long story, I'll try to confine it to an outline:
A few months before I graduated university, I met a hip, brilliant girl and we fell madly in love. It was like a shot for both of us. We'd never felt anything like this before with other people, though we'd both been in love several times. The summer went wonderfully and come September we decided to move in together. Over the course of the next six months, it became apparent that it was too early in the relationship to've done that. We still got on well as friends, but as lovers we became tense and eventually everything we did was so overloaded that the only thing that made sense was to break up. I moved out and LEFT THE COUNTRY for a couple of months.

In my time away we had frequent and satisfying contact by e-mail and instant messaging. Work called me back to her town, and when I arrived I hadn't begun to get over her. We met three times, and the physicality of our dynamic intensified with each meeting....never anything more than long, wet kisses, though. I kept asking if this was okay, she said "yes."

Today she tells me that, even though it feels natural to be affectionate with me, she doesn't love me romantically anymore and doesn't feel comfortable with the kissing. I take this very badly, as I had begun to believe we might get back together.

So, here is the issue: I love this person feverishly, and she is my best friend. She is more than up for a close friendship. I want that, too. But I don't know how to proceed, since when I spend time with her I feel an urge to be more romantically involved. Since this is the most important friendship in the world to me, I don't want to pull away completely--which is how I've gotten over relationships in the past. At the same time, I don't want to put on a happy face while harboring some hope that we might get back together down the line. That tack seems destined to hurt both of us.

Does anyone have any practical ideas for things we could do together to help make this transition easier? Also, can anyone list some things I might be able to tell her (or myself!) so that I feel honest with her but I am not hurting her (my current mode of expression is too heavy in the "I love you more than anything" area).

I am sorry this is so long, and yet somehow also so bereft of detail. I think also that what might not come across in this is the confusion we've both felt over the past few months: while she was pretty clear with me today, there has been a definite push/pull on both sides as to how to define our relatinoship. I'm happy to supply specifics if they'll help. Thank you!

Big trip to Asia

gottabefunky — Tue, 21 Mar 2006 21:09:46 -0800

We are finally going on the big trip to Southeast Asia (and China) in a few weeks. Would love some advice on a few general and specific travel topics. Namely:

1) Surviving a 24+ hour flight without comitting homicide
2) Dealing with 14 hours' worth of jet lag (do those No-Jet-Lag pills work?)
3) Enduring the hottest time of year in the region, when heat and humidity make you really really unhappy
4) Finally, any itinerary suggestion (rough 5-week route: Bangkok->Chiang Mai->Mekong river trip->Louang Prabang->Angkor Wat->Bangkok->Kunming->Beijing)

What do you do when you're miserable?

dame — Wed, 01 Sep 2004 09:47:48 -0800

What do you do when you're miserable? (Bonus points for answers that don't include drugs or god.)