Tag: Major Depressive Disorder

Adam, Get Her That Cat!

Well, it’s a good thing I set my book deadline for November. Just putting it together is so much work! I had it organized by theme, but so many of my chosen poems are from when I was a teen, so I wanted to highlight they are my early works and hopefully show some growth over the years.

I didn’t write for years because so much of it was too painful to think about, let alone write about (everybody dying). The other things — the good stuff like falling in love and finding some happiness — I was enjoying the moments and not writing about them. Admittedly, I am prone to writing during the darker times when I find the motivation to sift through it all.

So, instead of themes, I decided to do a Wonder Years part, poems I wrote when I was a teenager and going through some things, and The Reawakening part, when I started writing again in the last few years. There is some light stuff to go with the darker stuff, so I sub-parted (I don’t think that’s a word) the main parts into The Light and The Dark. Good? Bad? I don’t know. I doubt I will even have an audience. I want to realize my dream because it is my dream, but I am also doing it for Mom.

I am terrible at building an audience and socializing offline and online, so the word-of-mouth is going to be awful. I know Adam will appreciate it because he is super-supportive of whatever crazy ideas I pursue.

Speaking of, things are going better here. Adam subscribes to my blog, and he also knows I do not talk about him behind his back. If I can’t say something about him near him, how is that healthy? He feels the same, but his irritation comes out only when I am fussing at him about something 😒. I guess there’s a reason he fell so hard for a volleyball player 🤣🤣.

He’s been getting the dishes done and the laundry, both big chores because Ollie is not too keen on potty training and he is going through my towels like a public pool. I really dread replacing every single floor in this house, mainly because I have no idea what I’m doing and no one to help. I helped replace a bedroom floor once in a single-wide trailer, but I was on nail duty and just had to hammer the nails in. Having double vision and terrible aim, that was hard enough for me!

Open your eyes, Dad!

I do have some very upsetting news that I am not looking forward to. Piper Paws is going to be put down soon. She has not fared well since we brought Merlin in and her health has gone downhill from there. Somehow, she is 22+ pounds although we never see her eat. She really hurt her back leg a while back, which the vet completely ignored and blamed on her weight, but the day it happened, she was lying on the floor crying and would not walk at all. We just laid there crying at each other.

Pretty Girl

She also has a weird patch on her back that is from me treating a sore on her back and I had shaved a small patch so I could treat the sore. That patch has never been the same. The sore healed up, but the fur doesn’t grow in normally and she is sensitive to touch back there. For that, the (worthless) vet said it was fleas, but none of the cats have fleas and haven’t since living with us because they are all flea-treated indoor cats and this was way before Neville happened, let alone Ollie. We don’t always get a stupid vet but we did for her appointment.

Enjoying the outdoors.

Piper Paws is the cat Mom made Adam promise to get me before Mom died. She is also named after Mom as Mom’s initials are PAWS. I don’t know how I am going to handle losing her. It’s unbearable grief now and she is not gone yet. She has started using the bathroom exclusively on the kitchen table and she can’t walk well because of her (untreated thanks to the vet) leg and her weight. We watch their food, but I cannot put her on a diet food when her siblings are all healthy weights.

She turned 10 years old on my brother’s birthday. Even though she was for me, she is Adam’s cat. I think she is a one-cat-household cat, so I don’t think she has been happy for quite a while. I really failed her when I took Merlin in. Girl can hold a grudge, just like her mother. I am really going to miss her but the poor thing has had a rough life, dealing with cats she doesn’t like and then dogs. At least the pups don’t bother her physically. And now I’ve upset myself. Until next time!

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Lookin’ Good!

Daily writing prompt
Describe a random encounter with a stranger that stuck out positively to you.
View all responses

I saved this prompt because it prompted (heh, heh, heh) me to think of something I’ve not forgotten. Back when Mom first started chemo, she started losing her hair. She has always had short hair since I’ve been around, although it was to her waist when she was in high school, which is wild to me. She told me she used to straighten it with a clothing iron; equally wild. Also, she sucked at styling hair, which I inherited from her, sadly. She would get perms, then curl her permed hair, like, the next day. Anyway, my point is it never looked good to me, but it was hers.

Obviously, chemo is known for one of its many side effects being hair loss. It is almost synonomous with it, but not all chemo drugs carry this common side effect, and I know a lot of the oral chemo drugs do not. The chemo my dad was on did not make him lose his hair, but he apparently lost a lot of weight (I didn’t get to see him). Mom was able to avoid being super nauseous on a regimen of Zofran or Phenergan.

Mom was losing hair in the shower, so she decided to go to the mall and have her head shaved, then go to Claire’s and get some scarves and turbans. She gets her head shaved, and I am the one standing in the back crying. She does so well keeping it together but she does not wish to look in the mirror when the stylist is done. We cover her head with something before leaving the salon, which I forget what it was, and we make our way to Claire’s.

At Claire’s we find a lot of cute scarves and turbans and she tries them out, all the while facing away from the little mirrors. Using scarves as head wraps was new to us, but Mom had watched some videos on YT of how to do it and there was more than one way to fix them. She chooses a number of each, and when she goes to pay for them, the clerk gives her a 50% discount, which I thought was super cool and so sweet. We continue on to Target.

Mom’s in a wheelchair, which we are new to navigating in public but she was in some pain and pretty tired and Adam and I fought with her about using one or we would not be shopping. I could always gauge how she felt on a given day by how much of a fight she gave us. This was a low fight day. While we maneuver her out of the walkway so she could try some hats and more scarves out, Mom’s kind of hunched down trying to be less noticeable and she keeps touching the scarf on her head nervously. It was a big day full of all sorts of emotions felt by all three of us.

So, we’re pulled off to the side on the carpeted area near the head gear and people are walking by us, and a man sees Mom and says, “Lookin’ good!” and gives her a wave or thumbs-up, which just warmed my heart so much! Mom gives him a smile and thanks him and she seems to relax a little bit.

As time went on, she became more comfortable going bare-headed, mostly because wigs, scarves, and turbans made her too hot and she would get sweaty, which she hated. The wigs never looked right on her because they were styled well and cute. Her hair grew in steel gray, which was so weird because she had only countable gray hairs before losing it, and Grandma had very few as well and she died in her 70s. Mom’s hair matched her eyes, which no one ever realized that she had gray eyes because of her mess of curled and sprayed hair. My brother told her how pretty her eyes were and how she looked much better “without that ugly mop of hair.” 🤣🤣 I think she was most beautiful with her new baby hair.

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this is me trying

I just don’t know what to do anymore. I have talked, hinted, blogged, poeted, texted, reacted, proacted, and nothing has changed. Why do men continue to think that it is a woman’s job to assume a motherly role? There are not strict gender roles any longer for majority thinkers.

I can take the trash out, do the litter box, get myself up for appointments, and get things done, whether I outsource those jobs or do them myself. I don’t need a man, I need a partner (unless I want to be single, then I need myself, the cats, and Ollie Bear).

Don’t want to do the “dirty work”? Choose the more desirable tasks without being asked or told and those are what you get. If you unload the dishwasher and consider that your part, guess what the other person is doing? Loading the dirty dishes into the dishwasher. My brother and I had that chore after school and he would run home (he pushed me down a hill a couple of times to get home before me) so he could unload the dishes and I would have to touch the dirty, gross ones. If the dishwasher was empty and just needed loaded, he made sure I got home before he did. Siblings are great, huh 😂😂? But leave the decision-making to someone else and at their discretion, you’re on 💩 duty every time; quite literally with a puppy and blind cat. That’s the way the cookie crumbles.

My guts are spilling out (literally) and I’m still doing more than my part. Taylor dropped a lyric from the new album and it sums it up well, as she tends to do: Even statues crumble if they’re made to wait. I have seen a lot of instances where men and women think their partners will stay around because their parents stayed together regardless of how they were treated. I am not like that. My mom became a strong woman and taught me there is a limit and I can certainly stand my ground and say enough is enough (and I will).

I have changed everything for the loml in the last ten years. I went from having a caretaker my entire life, briefly having two in Mom and Adam for three years, to running an entire household by myself, having an independent, and trying to figure out everything. Mom didn’t know she was going to die and I would be flying solo. I think she thought if she didn’t make plans and preparations, she possibly could not die, which I totally get. She taught me many things but not everything (do parents ever get the opportunity to teach their children everything they want to before they die?).

I mean, I paid Mom’s house off with her life insurance by mailing a very large personal check via the post office… Obviously, that was incredibly stupid but I did not know that was a no-no because I knew about traveler’s checks but not certified checks or other secure ways to make transactions, like money orders, in 2014. I just knew I needed to get it done so I wouldn’t have to worry about the mortgage. The house bank called and asked if I was attempting to pay the house off and I think I started crying and told them what was going on. They were very helpful and took care of it for me.

All this is on top of living with someone who was too emotionally abused and stunted for me to be able to be myself. I never had to pretend or suppress with Mom when I got older because she was used to me and would back off and let me regulate on my own. Now, when I’m overwhelmed and need to decompress, I am asked “what’s wrong?” constantly until I answer or he marches off in a huff.

Even though we have a nephew on the spectrum, I am not supposed to behave or react out of neurotypical character. I have always had such expectations placed on me when other family wasn’t held to the same. I was supposed to be the good girl, the polite one, never speak up, never confront, let things go, etc. I cannot become irrationally frustrated or physical with things or have my entire mood ruined because one small thing was not as I expected or wanted it. That results in me containing everything, and my mental and physical health deteriorates until I can barely function and I break instead of merely snapping.

I really don’t ask for much, seriously. I want a relatively clean home free of ants or ladybugs (which means food and drink and trash not left all over the house), a mowed and trimmed lawn, and things repaired around the house. We’ve had a roof leak in the bathroom forever that should have been repaired a long time ago. But instead of getting it done, he’s going to wait until the ceiling caves in and then try to comfort me when I lose my 💩 because I don’t have the money to fix the roof or the ceiling.

When I just stop to see how bad he lets things get, it’s pointed out to me as soon as I fuss at him (well, you left this out and that there; you do this and that; you act this way; everything is a comparison with no responsibility taken, ever).

Of course, I’m the dramatic and unreasonable one for wanting it fixed yesterday, or wanting anything done, really. I already have to figure out how to replace the floors and subfloors in the kitchen, living room, and Mom’s room on my own because of the cats. I didn’t grow up in garbage and I don’t like being forced to live in it just because someone else did and has zero self-respect. Love and support are not the only things one needs.

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Stick a Fork in Me; I’m Done

I worked on my Shakespeare PowerPoint presentation for hours and a couple of hours after submission, my teacher emailed me to let me know how bad it was and that it didn’t make sense. For context, I love making PowerPoints because I can be very creative with them and every teacher before this one has loved them; most recently, my literary theory professor.

Madness in HamletDownload

I spent most of the day crying and jerking (I don’t know why I jerk) before finally taking my anxiety medication and getting some sleep. My perfectionism did not let me not submit my final paper. I had most of it done, anyway.

On a good note, Taylor’s new album comes out in one day!! It is also Mom’s death anniversary, but I have something to smile about on that day finally. It is a little light in the dark that has been the last couple of weeks.

I don’t remember if I mentioned it here but I changed my pup’s name to Oliver instead of Oswald. He just does not seem badass enough to be an Ozzy 😂. He has taken the change quite well and we call him Ollie. Adam calls him Oliver Twist, so I guess he is Oliver Twist Hemingway. He has been very helpful with reducing my stress since he is pretty cuddly, but, like Neville, he wants to lick my face when we are facing each other.

And, my goodness, these boys are so jealous! When I take them out to pee, Neville gets back on the porch before Ollie and gets on my lap. I found out yesterday that Nev’s head comes to my shoulder when he is standing on his back legs, which he can take several steps like this (it’s kinda creepy, like the Scooby Doo movie). I introduced Ollie to my sensory room and we lay on my soft rug and Mom’s Steeler throw. He did pretty well being still. I really need to get a video of him jumping off the porch; it is hilarious. I want to make a little red cape with an O on it.

Sorry for all the April Showers

Huh. WP PC app is back to normal, so I don’t know what that was all about.

It’s April again, and I thought things would get easier but that isn’t the case. April 10, National Siblings Day, marked five years since my brother died. He didn’t even make it to 40. We weren’t physically close as he lived in a different state and neither of us liked using the phone, but I adored him and loved when he came to visit or I went to his house. After Mom died, I got the best sleep and rest when I stayed with him and his family for a weekend.

April 19th will make 10 years since Mom died. That is also the date of Taylor Swift’s new album, so I will have something to smile about at least. Mom and I were/are longtime fans since Tim McGraw. I cannot believe it has been a decade that she has been gone. I wish there was an AI program that could create her voice. All I have for that is an answering machine outgoing message that I captured on my phone after she died. No videos. No recordings.

I don’t sound like her, so I can’t even record myself and pretend it’s her. I sound more like my dad, unfortunately. My birthday is at the end of the month, 10 days after Mom died. I don’t celebrate it. Depression and trauma covers an entire month for me! I will be 29 again this year, per usual. Just like Phineas is 11 months old every year. He is my baby and always will be.

I was banned from Reddit again but only for 7 days this time. I made a comment that I don’t like the F-word and wish people would stop using it and someone called me a baby, so I tagged Adam in it. Adam made a comment to this guy, so the loser got Adam banned from the sub and when I participated in another post in the same sub, I was banned for “ban evasion” because the idiots at Reddit cannot comprehend that more than one person in a household can have a Reddit account. I really, really hate Reddit with a passion but I have no other social outlet. X is a cesspool as well, and Facebook isn’t really that active since they screwed up the feed and don’t show recent posts first. I don’t get Tumblr, although I do have an account I reactivated yesterday.

I appealed Reddit’s decision, again, and was turned down, again. It makes my blood boil, but I am trying to keep my mouth shut. Reddit workers and moderators are such fascists with too much time on their hands. They have subreddits with any type of porn (made up of Reddit users) one can imagine, subs for photos of upskirt shots (not consenual), and some of the most disgusting fetish subs, but I get banned because some pissant can dish it out but not take it when my husband defends me. It has not been a good month 😒.

I guess this month makes a year since I started this site/blog. Yay, me! Why do we use the word “yay” when the correct spelling is “yea”? I do it because people think I just made a typo while trying to say “yeah.” Why do people just take it upon themselves to change the way things are spelled and then claim that is what is correct? Like “could of, should of, would of.” Or, one of the worst phrases, “I could care less.” You’re not stating you really don’t care by saying you could actually care less than you do. Come on, people. If you could not tell, I am very cranky at the moment. It seems like it was New Years just last week.

In my next post, I will talk about how utterly insufferable Adam is because of Neville!! If only I had listened to myself. (Do I ever??) Also, we will be losing one of our babies very soon.

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I’d Rather Have you Back Again than all that Mountain Dew

Daily writing prompt
Describe one positive change you have made in your life.
View all responses

What the heck happened to the WordPress PC app? My editor is all the way to the left now instead of in the middle. I don’t like it! I buck all change by default, but there is just too much coming at me at once.

Should it look like this or am I going crazy? Possibly both.

Whatever. One positive change I have made in my life (there aren’t many) is I stopped drinking Mountain Dew a few years ago. I drank it for years and it was my and Mom’s favorite thing to drink. I would drink 10-12 cans a day! One day, I just got tired of it. I was like, “I don’t want to drink this anymore, I’m going to quit,” and I did. I started drinking Lipton Diet Green Tea Citrus and drank that for a long time until my psychiatrist prescribed Wellbutrin. I don’t know why but that medicine changed my taste (a rare side effect) and that tea was terrible from that point on! I had to give away what I had stocked up on.

I switched to diet raspberry tea because I love raspberry tea and the diet version is acceptable. My absolute favorite tea it the peach bellini raspberry tea that Olive Garden has!! I want to be able to buy that in the store so badly! It would actually be a good move for OG because they are struggling; perhaps not as bad as their sibling restaurant Red Lobster.

I now drink Dr. Pepper Zero Strawberries & Cream, which is so good! I have never liked diet or zero sugar pop, but this stuff is yummy. It keeps my sugars in check as well, which is always a plus. I’ve discussed with my husband how fake sugars have improved over what used to be used. I hate the taste of Splenda, but they now have Splenda monk fruit and I cannot tell the difference between that and sugar when I cook with it.

I went off the rails here a bit, but my answer stands that I made a positive change in my life by getting rid of sugary pop in my diet.

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Dream a Little Dream of Me

I started a new medicine this week because we still have not found an ADHD medicine that helps me (I think I could do crack without feeling a thing) due to my Dandy Walker or one of my many autoimmune disorders, I’m assuming. I am to take it three times a day, which has been a trip even with the Hero Health machine (which I love, btw).

Anyway, like most antidepressants, I dream and remember those dreams when I first start taking them, and this has been no different. I may dream after adjusting to the medications, but not that I remember. The first night, I dreamt I was with Johnny Depp. He looked kind of like his character in Secret Window and had a floppy brown leather hat (not like the black hat in the movie), glasses, a bleached denim shirt, and all his usual accessories. I don’t know where we were or why we were together, but he was very kind and humble.

I do remember that I changed my shirt a lot and I apologized about it and he was cool with that. Also, he commented about the amount of cat food we had, but I can’t remember ever seeing Mom’s house in the dream. I told him it wasn’t a lot of cat food when living with five cats (to paraphrase). I hadn’t watched any of his movies or read anything about him so I don’t know why he was in my dream. Usually, my dreams have a little bit of life sprinkled in them. I very much recommend meeting him in person.

The next night, I dreamt about having low blood sugar, and I vaguely remember Adam waking me up and giving me cookies, so my sugar was low for real. Sometimes I remember him feeding me, sometimes I don’t, and sometimes I think I dreamt it and have to ask him. With my continuous glucose monitor (CGM), he is alerted on his phone when my sugar goes below 55, which is awesome because it does that so often. My watch alerts me, but I sleep through it because I am obviously out of my head.

In my dream, we were at my Family Christmas at one of my family members’ houses, and I don’t know if Adam was afraid they would criticize him for letting my sugar get low (not his fault, of course) or not having any sugar on hand in case it got low, but I told him abruptly that it was low and then I went unconscious. I saw the rest of my dream from above us. He basically Weekend at Bernie’d me so my family would not know I was not conscious. He made me wave by pulling my sleeve, kept my head on his arm or chest, walked me through the house, visited with my family, etc., while I was all Bernie’d out. And that’s all I remember.

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~*~AuDHD~*~

I learned a while back that people in other English-speaking countries pronounce Adidas much differently than people in America (the States). Here, it is pronounced Uh-dee-duss, while in other countries it is pronounced Oddy-doss. I found that interesting. Most of the time, when I see or hear Adidas, the only thing I think of is All Day I Dream About Sex 😂. Iykyk. Anywho, I am here with another poem 🙂. 

~*~AuDHD~*~

Divisible by 5
Is how it should be
The volume for my music
And the TV

It doesn’t stop there
I have to confess
The passage of time
Is part of this mess

At 1, it’s all good
And I feel alive
Then, utter chaos
‘Til it’s 1:05

2 units of insulin?
That won’t work for me
I’ll skip it altogether
Or add another 3

But that’s not all
That goes on in my brain
The mental gymnastics
Could drive one insane

My ADHD
Pops up to say “Hi!”
There are too many rules
And it wants to know why

Dinner needs washing
The laundry needs cooking
A treat for the puppy
When no one is looking

Now nothing is finished
And it’s time for bed
But I must get some work done
I’ll sleep when I’m dead

I’m still not happy with either of my instructors 😒. Poetry lady says I have “a lot of lyricists” on my reading list. Well, duh. I told her in the first week that I do not read much poetry. My last instructor was just fine with that. Lyrics are poetic; poetry can certainly be put to music if one so desires. Many, many folk songs were poems before songs were even born. But I held my tongue.

Then…I emailed my Shakespeare instructor to ask about thesis statements (she wasn’t happy with mine) and she replied that I need to address her by name in emails and to mind my tone 😡😡😤. Mind. My. Tone. I am autistic, I literally cannot “mind my tone.” What you see is what you get. I would understand if I was rude or pissy but I write how I speak and that is how it has always been. I honestly do not know how to be otherwise.

Forgiveable, perhaps, if I had not disclosed being AuDHD in my first post as I do with every class. I do not have an intentional tone and since Mom’s gone, I don’t have a filter because I would speak through her, and now I do not have that option, which would not be an option in school, really, unless I asked her to read stuff before I submitted it and she suggested changes. So, I sat there and cried for an hour or so and kept myself from replying, which was a very hard thing to do.

She also gave me a low grade on my discussion post because my answer was “vague.” I need specifics if you do not want me to be “vague” (according to you). My husband knows this, so if I am vague when I ask him something or answer a question, he lets me know or asks me questions so I can elaborate and/or explain myself. At the very least, she could have responded to my post so I had an opportunity to appease her. I am a straight-A student and a junior; I know that all my other instructors were not just handing out A’s willy-nilly and letting me coast. I am literal. I can seem obtuse or sarcastic when I am not being either of those things. I spoke to my advisor about it so at least he is aware. Work with me and I will work with you.

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She Thinks I’m Cute!!

I got last week’s homework back; two free verse poems, and inserting line breaks in an unknown poem that had the formatting stripped, the latter of which included my all-over-the-place “reflection.” My professor said my reflection was exemplary 😂😂. She also said one of my poems, In the Garden of Remorse, was beautiful, which surprised me a bit because it was rather dark. She once again mentioned experimenting with structure and punctuation, which I don’t completely grasp yet. I have started experimenting with em dashes (long hyphens), something Emily Dickinson was very fond of, and I’m not even a fan of her work. 

Poems with weird spacing and punctuation really throw me off, which I feel is because of autism, ADHD, or a combination of both. I really like the movie No Country for Old Men and was excited to read the book when I found out the movie was based on the book, but the author is not a fan of commas or quotation marks. I could not discern when people were speaking, and the lack of comma usage was so annoying that I stopped reading the book. 

Another author did the same thing with quotation marks (what is up with that?) and I had to stop reading it which really stunk because I was enjoying the book aside from getting completely confused. Oh, it was 13 Reasons Why. I never watched the show so I’m in the dark about why the girl killed herself. Anyway, with poems, it really takes me out of what I’m reading when I am presented with weird, artsy formatting. 

I forgot to write about what Neville did! I got rid of most of my stuffed animals, which I really regret now, but I kept a few that are important to me. I love pandas and tigers, so I have some of each. I dog-proofed the living room before Neville got here and it’s nearly empty, but I have some stuffed animals in there because the room’s theme is safari and pandas (weird combination, I know). I have some pandas on the entertainment center since removing the TV. I take so long to tell stories. 

Nev likes to grab random things and bring them into the room and chew on them. He has plenty of chew toys and bones, but for some reason they aren’t preferable. He hunts for things, and I know he knows he is not supposed to have what he gets. He’s already destroyed two of my wireless mouses and the cord to my Dyson. He doesn’t seem interested in Adam’s stuff. 

So, he comes into the bedroom carrying one of my pandas and I take it from him and put it and the other ones on the entertainment center on top of the entertainment center so he can’t reach them. I see my brother’s slippers on the entertainment center, so I scoot those back against the back so he can’t reach them. Then, I return to work. Nev goes in and out of the bedroom a few times, then he lies down behind my chair and is quiet, which is when I know to look at him. He is lying there with one of Bub’s slippers just going to town on it, ripping the top to pieces. 

I can’t remember if I yelled at him or not but Adam comes into the living room where I’m standing and trying not to cry. I get very still and quiet when I’m angry or upset. I attempt to go back into the bedroom (I hate showing emotions around people) but Adam stops me and pulls me into his arms and I just lose it. I’ve had those slippers in the living room since Bub forgot them here and I like them being there so I can see them. I made it a point to move them out of the way so nothing would happen to them and they are the very next thing Neville goes after. I have my brother’s slippers and a pair of sunglasses, which he also forgot here, and that’s it. I’m not surrounded by his belongings like I am with Mom’s. 

I looked a bit worse than that.

Neville is still here, of course, but I wouldn’t have anything to do with him for several days, and he stayed in the room with Adam. He is supposed to be helping me, not making things worse! 

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See Me!

Due to AuDHD, my posts suffer from a several-day lag! Classes started again today, so of course it’s time to write a post 😂😂! One of my required classes is Literary Theory, and I don’t care for that at all. I just finished Critical Approaches to Lit last year before break and while I got an A, I didn’t like or understand it. I have trouble thinking like that, as I have trouble thinking like the neurotypicals. 

What they see or don’t see is often not going to coincide with what I see or don’t see. This occurs in my life regularly, which I never think about unless/until I’m around “normal” thinkers. Adam is getting very attuned with how I think and feel and I still manage to surprise him. Then again, I surprise myself oftentimes. 

May (2002) – See Me!

In other news, I got back on Reddit but they don’t know that. Skirting a perma-ban is super annoying and I’ve been working on doing that since I was banned. It’s just so dehumanizing, especially when one doesn’t deserve it. What they do (without readily admitting it) is something called shadowbanning. On the user’s end, everything looks hunky-dory but the user is the only person who can see any comments they make as well as upvotes and downvotes. You’re basically talking to yourself without knowing it unless you all of a sudden notice no activity good or bad. It may not be a big deal to regular people, but to agoraphobic hermits, that connection means a lot. Plus, I had several NFT avatars that I own, free and paid, and they are locked to my banned Reddit accounts. I like those avatars 😢. 

Reddit is made up of some super weird and lame people but there are also some pretty cool ones occasionally if you dig deep enough. The lame ones are the overwhelmingly liberal and sub moderators. Like, a lot of moderators will outright ban users if the users have and use the NFT avatars. How messed up is that? I don’t know why I would miss that kind of interaction and engagement, but it gets pretty boring with just my husband and me. The cats don’t talk much, and Nev mostly looks at me with his head cocked to the side when I’m talking to him. Cute but not responsive.