vis4valentine

I wanted to talk about academic anxiety. Of course, my anxiety is kinda generalized, but I have a very specific type of anxiety related to academic environments.

Like, I always hated school, all of my 11 years of obligatory education were absolute hell, but things went downhill in college. I started to fail in college after a first year of doing very well, but then I started failing, and spiraling down, and over time the fear of failing made me fail, and then fail even harder. And my mom did it a lot worse.

I won't tell everything my mom did because I don't want to write a bible, but because I was failing I was screamed almost daily, verbally abused almost daily, guilt-tripped, and told that I would never accomplish anything in life. Some days my mom would scream at me for hours with no end.

I stopped telling my mom about my grades, and then went out of her way to get them anyway, because she has a friend who was a professor at the university I was at and he told him my grades (not even a professor of my degree).

I didn't want to continue because I failed second year and couldn't bear the shame of coming back after failing. I had fought with my mom a lot about it, and then, she went and sign me up to redo the year behind my back, so I had no option but to do the year again, and I did even worst, because I couldn't focus on anything, I was only thinking about ending myself in class, and then started skipping classes, and even exams. I skipped the most important exams of the year because I was doing so terribly at them.

At some moment in this year, I suggested my mom to sign me up to an online university, and she exploded at me, we had the biggest ugliest fight we ever had. Of course she don't remember any of it, conveniently.

And I failed again, the university don't allow people who fail the same year twice in a row to sign up again, so I just dropped out and my mom could do nothing about it.

In the upcoming years I tried changing careers and universities, and my mom never liked any of them, because they were "lesser" careers and universities. But always, when the first exam came up, I just froze and failed, and then stopped going to university altogether. It happened at least 3 times. The last one was computer science at an online university, I thought would be easy since I like computers a lot and it was an online university, but it happened again, and I'm frustrated that for the online students they just gives us PDFs and videos while the ones that live in the city the university is located, they can go there and actually talk to professors and have in person studying, so I felt at a disadvantage.

My mom will always say I'm a failure because I didn't finish law school, and I don't think I can go back to an university because of this terrible anxiety. I can't even come into a classroom anymore because I have to deal with the anxiety.

The thing is, I love learning, I learn a lot everyday and I love reading a lot. But being at classroom is just terrible for me and I can't go beyond the easiest first exams.

Hello, for some context, my grandpa is in bad health, and is currently at the care of a few aunts. A few weeks ago they had almost let him die, and out of frustration I did a tiktok talking about the situation without sharing names. A few days later, my sister calls me and tells me to please delete it and does wild accusations against our mom. I deleted the video then. However, then turns out my aunts tried to sue me and my mom for the tiktok video.

This is a letter I wrote to my sister, that was the last chance I gave her before going no contact. Turns out she still insists on believing my aunts lies and we went no contact, and I requested to be completely cut from the family tree.

I'm glad I've gone no contact because I don't care about a "family" that never cared about me in the first place, I've always been an outsider. I redacted the personal information and had cut some other parts, but yeah, this is the letter, where it also explains what happened. Warning for too much text.

BTW I can write well in english, but I used a translator for the letter because is too long and I didn't feel like manually translating, sorry if something got translated literaly or sounds weird.

Hello [SISTER]. This is going to be important.

Yes, this is about MOTHER, [BAD WITCH], [GOOD FOR NOTHING] and me, to tell the truth of what happened with the complaint they put on me and the whole situation. I really wanted to do this in a call, but I don't feel like I have the energy for it, there is a lot to tell, and I don't want anything to slip out or be misinterpreted, I also don't want to risk it being interrupted because the power goes out, the signal or something, so text alert a lot.

First of all, I want to say that I have a huge disappointment with you. When you told me about MOTHER being schizophrenic over the phone, I didn't say anything, because I knew something didn't add up, so I looked up the symptoms, I researched, I even asked my psychologist. You know very well that MOTHER does NOT have schizophrenia, it is very difficult for an untreated schizophrenic to hide the most important symptoms, like hallucinations. If she were schizophrenic, I would have known it for years, especially in the conditions as you described, where you say she has psychotic episodes where she threatens to kill children with knives and such.

However, all doubts were cleared up for me when I learned that the source was [EVIL WITCH], you know, who casually tells of hearing voices, who interacts with the voices, even when there are people visiting where she lives, and that aside, coincidentally, the only children my mother has supposedly threatened with knives are hers, but coincidentally none of them have ever mentioned it and there are never any witnesses to corroborate her version of events. Having conspiratorial allusions and paranoia where other people constantly want to hurt you is precisely one of the symptoms of schizophrenia.

I mean, as such I expected [BAD WITCH] to go around telling crazy stories because I remember that once [BAD WITCH] many years ago told me that MADRE wanted to kill [Cousin] because she was in love with [Mister F] (the ex-husband of [BAD WITCH]) even though [Cousin] is not [Mister F]'s son.

But I expected more from you than to believe all the lies of a crazy woman like [BAD WITCH], and on top of that, to go around serving as a megaphone for her even though you know very well that it is a lie, I expected you to be smarter than this, I expected more from a qualified nurse in her 40s. On top of that you know I have an unmedicated schizophrenic uncle on my father's side, so I know what someone with that condition looks like. It's amazing that you thought I was going to believe the lie immediately, like you think I'm an idiot.

I'm disappointed because [BAD WITCH] lies more than she talks, and now I'm going to tell you all the lies she told at the meeting with the prefect where she, [GOOD FOR NOTHING], MOTHER and I were.

The meeting started with them doubting the authority and actively insulting the prefect, because she had not wanted to pass the complaint to the prosecutor's office. They tried to report it again at the [Capital] prefecture, but they were only sent back to [Sector].

The prefect started reading the complaint, it turns out that there is a part where [BAD WITCH] and [GOOD FOR NOTHING] insinuated that I should receive psychological help and that I would have some kind of disability, they did not say it directly but they insinuated it, I said “I do not have any disability and I am 26 years old” to which they said “We did not say that” to which the prefect replied “This is what they wrote” pointing to the part where they insinuated it. This would be the first of many times where they would say one thing and then try to retract or directly contradict themselves.

Then they were given the right to speak so they could say what they wanted to do, which was essentially to present themselves as the victims, [EVIL WITCH] specifically making up years of alleged harassment by MOTHER. Since the point was the alleged defamation because of my tiktok video, they would then ask questions along the lines of “Where do you get that I am a santera?” and “Where do you get that I gave my mom (my grandmother) something to kill her?”.

I listened to them patiently to which [BAD WITCH] and [GOOD FOR NOTHING] started to say “Why don't you say anything? Could it be because you have something to hide?” to which the prefect replied “You are waiting for your right to speak” I mean, they thought I was going to be afraid of a couple of crazy women.

When it was finally my time to speak, I told everything I had to tell, the story of how the famous video was born, specifying that it was only one video on my Tiktok account where I never talk about family issues. That I considered everything I said to be true, and that with my grandfather's neglectful situation, I had recited what MOTHER had told me and then MOTHER told her version of events. Then to answer the questions of these 2 crazy women, I told the prefect that I know perfectly well that [BAD WITCH] is a santera, not only because she has a long history of doing rituals and forcing people in the family to participate in them, as she did in her previous apartment, but also that during my grandmother's funeral, the body was still warm when precisely, [BAD WITCH], suggested doing a ritual, putting grandma on the floor, lowering her from her clinical bed, surrounding her with candles, and praying something weird. I objected to that ritual, but they did it anyway. When the father arrived for the wake that was done right there in grandma's room, it turned out that the father was an exorcist, and without us talking to him, he said “there are witches here” while looking at [BAD WITCH] and [GOOD FOR NOTHING].

I also could not fail to tell him the undeniable fact that there is a mound of earth where they buried the animals they sacrificed in the santero rituals they performed in the house, they dug so deep that part of the construction they have at street level began to sink. Coincidentally they were silent while I was telling this story.

Of course I suspect they had something to do with my grandmother's stroke, at the very least they made her angry. They had the audacity to tell the prefect that MOTHER never took care of grandma, even, that when she died she hadn't seen grandma for a year and only arrived when she had already died, when you know very well, that my mother was taking care of my grandmother, as often as she was there 4 days a week, that she fixed the house, painted, planted, cut trees, put the house in order, and that not only my mother and I went to be with my grandmother as soon as they had the decency to notify her that she was having a stroke, but on top of that, my grandmother died in my mother's arms. I was the one who told this to the prefect to disprove them. Also [GOOD FOR NOTHING] wanted to ask me questions, about “Where do you get that I never did anything at mom's house?” And I told the prefect, that for as long as I can remember, grandma, even though she was disabled, washed, cooked, tidied, tidied, cooked, etc. Even when she complained about everything hurting her, she did everything, while [GOOD FOR NOTHING] was always doing nothing, sitting, watching TV, sleeping, etc. Grandma herself complained that [GOOD FOR NOTHING] was doing nothing. Nobody told me about it, I saw it.

While I was talking, [GOOD FOR NOTHING] said if she could lower “my tone of voice” because “she had a headache” and I told her that's not my problem, I'm talking. Then the 2 locals tried to LEAVE the prefect's office, the prefect stopped them and said “WHERE ARE YOU GOING?” she stopped them and said “Sit down, we are here because you filed this complaint, because you wanted this” and they had to sit down like scolded girls.

I submitted a visiting regime to the prefect, specifying the days of the month where we would go to visit my grandfather. What we asked was that [GOOD FOR NOTHING] and [BAD WITCH] not be there while we were visiting, and that we have accompaniment either by police or prefect staff to go and see him, because otherwise the 2 crazy women could make up anything, say that my mother threw my grandfather down the stairs or something like that, and then the family will believe the 2 crazy women without questioning them and proceed to lynch her internationally, citing again when they said that the grandfather's fracture did not originate in my mother's house, but while he was in their care.

The prefect wanted to negotiate because she felt it was going too far, until [GOOD FOR NOTHING] started saying that MOTHER had stolen things from the house. According to [GOOD FOR NOTHING], my mother had stolen grandma's clothes, a blender, a microwave, etc. Then MOTHER explained that after grandma died ,YOU [SISTER]! sent for the things to give to her. Then [GOOD FOR NOTHING] said that YOU! [SISTER]! could support her to confirm that MOTHER did steal things from the house.

After we told how the story really went, the prefect was fed up with the story and said “If she wants to ‘steal’ things from the house, then let her do it, she is her mom too” there [GOOD FOR NOTHING] started to say that MOTHER also stole personal things from HER, that MOTHER many times tried to enter [GOOD FOR NOTHING]'s room and went through her things. MOTHER asked her what need she had to go through his things and what things she claimed she stole, [GOOD FOR NOTHING] could not mention anything specific and was trying to explain herself, because the lie was not getting through.

Later, it occurred to [GOOD FOR NOTHING] to say that “When I say, she stole, I mean that she [MOTHER] is a hoarder” There you can tell that the prefect was running out of patience, because she replied “No, you specifically used the word STEAL, I am a lawyer, and if you tell me that she stole, I will assume that she stole, and on top of that you explained what MOTHER supposedly stole” She almost “throws the book at them” as the gringos say.

Then the conciliation was reached and we agreed that MOTHER and I would notify the prefecture before visiting the grandfather so that there would be an accompaniment, but that those 2 crazy women could not deny us a visit. Also among the agreements was that no one would speak ill of relatives in public places until the 3rd degree of familiarity. The prefect wanted to take the route of “you are family” to which I said “Have you heard the phrase ‘Blood is thicker than water’? The phrase is incomplete, it's actually The blood of the horde is thicker than the water of the womb, and that's the philosophy I go by because my family has never treated me like family.”

The “family” I have is one that thinks that and I don't breathe if my mother doesn't tell me to, the fact that I'm the one who made the video but they also dragged my mother into the complaint is proof of that. They think I have severe cognitive abilities, they still talk to me like a child and they will never stop. Here I include you, the fact that they thought I would be such an idiot to believe at the first time that my mother is schizophrenic is proof of that, but you also talk to me as if I were 10 years old, as if I didn't have a job in an important company, as if I didn't pay taxes, as if I wasn't in the process of registering my company, as if I didn't have a lot of people who hold me in good esteem.

[BAD WITCH] Is lying so much, that I'm sure, in complete lack of doubt or hesitation, to absolute certainty, that she's faking her Parkinson's or whatever the shaking is, because she could go a long time without shaking, and she would start shaking her hands when the prefect would address her exactly. She's not even faking it right, it's not even a cold shiver because it was really hot that day and we were getting cooked, a super re contra fake shiver. She's faking it so much, that she, when we had all signed the final agreement and she went to sign it, SHE SIGNED WITH HER RIGHT HAND! You know she is LEFT HANDED! I called her out when I saw her, and I said “Hey, aren't you left-handed? Why do you write with your right hand?” and do you know what they answered me? “What do you care?” that's what they answered me, and on top of that they answered me angrily.

As my mother and I have nothing to hide, I offered to send a psychological report to my mother, to refute the defamation that [BAD WITCH] makes about her being schizophrenic, and I still maintain it, I send that report, to demonstrate to those who believe [BAD WITCH], you the first one, that it is completely false.

This is not all that happened, but this is already getting longer and this was the most remarkable and important thing that happened in the prefecture.

Now to get back on topic with you, as I said, I expected you to be smarter than blindly believing [BAD WITCH], but my anger with you is something that is building up, not only because you still treat me as if I were a child as I said, but because you have effectively been turning into the Venezuelan equivalent of a “whitexican” and specifically because you have this attitude of pretending you are better than us to the point of not believing when we say we are doing well. Yes, Venezuela in general is fucked up, but it has been getting better and we particularly are doing well. It's as if you take it as a personal offense when the answer to How are you? is something other than utter and complete misery. You'd rather believe some bodegas with instagram who are clearly ripping you off than us, even the dentist you paid my mom has ripped you off, because they put in teeth for my mom that didn't cost the hundreds and hundreds of dollars you paid them for at all, and they ended up falling out recently. But no, they are the businesses that the other venecos-miameros recommend and therefore they can't go wrong with anything.

I can't trust you if you have such poor judgment, and of refusing to see other people's realities if they are further than your nose, but you do believe [BAD WITCH] so much at the first time. If you care so much about [BAD WITCH], then let's see if she adopts you. Maybe at this point you think I have my mother supervising what I'm writing, instead of writing it with my own hands, under my own free will, in my boyfriend's house, without MOTHER knowing anything at all. Overall, it's completely up to you if we have a relationship in the future, but I don't shake my pulse when it comes to cutting off relationships no matter who it is, and I don't lose anything, because this “family” has never been family with me, I can't pretend to care about people who have never cared about me at all, and after my grandfather is dead and buried, they cut me completely from the family tree, never even think about me again, and pretend I don't exist, moreover, they may say I'm dead.

That is all. Now it is up to you, and if you wish, that this be a final goodbye and that we never speak again. I wish you a good life with success and that your current and potentially future children, and possible future grandchildren have a wonderful life. Good night to you.

To be clear, I don't really think my mom is, but this was revealed to me by my sister yesterday.

So, I was having an argument with my sister, there is a family situation and my sister said I was repeating out mom's version. During the argument, she said that our mom was diagnosed schizophrenic as a child, and that she was even locked up (?).

For context. I'm 25. My sister is in her 40s.

Our mom had my sister when she was 17. Our mom is the middle child of a total of 5 sisters. She was born in 1964. She had my sister to a man that I know absolutely nothing about, since she never talked about it. According to my sister, she also never knew who her father was till she was a teenager, when our mom finally agreed to let her meet him once.

When our mom was 20 she meet my dad, who was in his 40s. After that, my sister was raised by our grandparents and my mom pretty much forgot about her. I was born in 1998. All my life I was told that they were married but insisted on not having children until my dad's son died in 1996. But turns out that in reality, they got married a few months after I was born. I know this only because I saw they marriage certificate during the divorce lawsuit.

My sister and I never lived together, since when I was learning to walk, she was starting university in the capital of our country, years later we used to visit her once or twice a year until my sister moved to the US with my nephew and niece.

When I was 8 to 10, my parents had a terrible separation. My dad cheated on my mom and she went crazy and my dad went extremely abusive and violent. I witnessed some of that with my own eyes.

Then, they hated each other so much that couldn't even agree on divorce terms. It took them 15 YEARS to officially divorce (that's when I saw the marriage certificate, because the lawsuit was delivered to be, because they couldn't contact my mom).

Now, to get on topic. My mom is very obviously a narcisistic, since she has the entire criteria. She also made my life hell multiple times.

One of the things she does is having her own version of what is happening, and run with that version, no matter how different it is from reality. Like the many times I rebeled in my early 20s, was because I was doing drugs, got into a cult, got brainwashed, and was having gay sex, according to her. No, I was just having my university partying phase. The only thing she was right about it was me having gay sex, but not the way she was thinking and not with the people she was thinking, I was still closeted. And her concern wasn't me having gay sex, was more like "hanging out with those f***ts who are maybe fucking your ass". She always makes wild assumptions about people, mostly when she don't like them.

During university I was severely depressed and thinking about dropping out, but I found an online university that had my career and I could continue there. I told my mom about it and she went BALLISTIC, assaulting me physically even, and I hit her back, then she restrained me, because she didn't want me to study in an university for "bums and lowlives" according to her. This fight was so bad that I was thinking about killing myself that week, but I didn't. However, years after I dropped out, she asked "Why didn't you find a way to study online" then I remind her of this incident, but she says "that never happened, what are you talking about?".

She also wanted me to graduate from law school to "become her lawyer in her divorce" agaisn't my dad.

She also used to trashtalk my dad A LOT when I was a kid, almost daily. I was constantly told that if I didn't succeed, I would be a bum like my dad (my dad is a successful lawyer).

She has a hard time maintaining friendships, because everybody is "stupid, inefficient, irresponsible" according to her so she gets tired of everyone. I am also irresponsible and inefficient according to her. I'm also super smart or slow according to who she is talking to, if is literally everyone else, I'm super smart and a gifted kid, if she is mad at me, I'm stupid and slow.

I got an autistic diagnostic as an adult, when I asked people on my family, they told me that they knew and told my mom to try get me in a special environment, but she refused to do that and told everyone to not dare talk about my autism.

When I told her about my diagnostic, she said "but you knew your whole life you were asperger" and I was like "NO I DIDN'T, KNOWING SOONER WOULD HAVE HELPED A LOT" She still insists that I knew my whole life.

I suffered many other forms of abuse and I'm still receiving them because I still live with her. But this has been too long already.

I don't think she might be schizophrenic. The ironic thing is that when I had what I now know are "autistic meltdown" she said I was having a schizophrenic psychosis and I should see a therapist (funny because she is very much anti therapy). I have a paternal uncle who IS schizophrenic and has dealt with it his entire life. He is a very hard case.

But yeah, the important thing here is that I don't think she ever had hallucinations, not that I know off, like seeing things, or hearing voices that aren't the usual "were you calling me name?" when I wasn't. Maybe you can give me a but more of perspective. IDK if what my sister said is true, but I hope I can get some perspective. if it is, she might have been diagnosed in the 70s or 80s and mental health wasn't good at all at the time (my country was still doing electroshock until a few years ago).

Sorry for the long text.

TLDR: My sister said my mom is a diagnosed schizophrenic, but I don't think my mom has the signs of being one, tho I'm telling some of my history of abuse from her to know if there is something to analyze from there.

The series has some perfect black tones and I wonder if it would work on AMOLED screens.

I assume you have read my previous posts, I don't wanna retell everything.

We went to my psychologist. First he went alone with her to talk, and after half an hour he got out and I came in.

I told my psychologist everything about why I needed to break up with him. She understood and helped me through it.

Then she let him in to talk, and I gave a long speech about the reasons why I had no choice but to end the relationship.

I thanked him for all the good moments, all the love he gave me, for being so sweet, and that I didn't regret any of it. I told him that I still loved him and wanted nothing but all the best to him, and I don't want him to die because of me. It was way longer than that but I'm just not in the mood for writing a lot.

He was visibly broken, almost crying, in silent the entire time. When I finally finished, the psychologist asked him to talk and he just said "no words" She told me that I was done for today and I left.

We are not 100% done yet, I need to take my things out of his house, and his family still wants to be in contact with me and I'm more than glad.

Is just... I wanted this, I had the chance to try to talk and fix everything, yet I ended it because I knew I needed to, he has hurt me for a long while after all, I don't wanna be trapped with him, yet I feel so bad right now. I hope I did the right choice. I hope I don't regret it. I'm sad and heartbroken. I Know he is even more heartbroken. But it needed to end. Yet I'm still sad about it. So sad. How long will I still be this sad?

This feeling has stopped me for a while. I already made a post here a few days ago about my feelings about breaking up. I haven't done it yet because I'm waiting will we have at least a session with my psychologist.

The biggest feeling that keeps me doubting is that I may be ending things right before things get better.

I am more than welcomed to live at his house, he knows I'm trans and accepts me, he will be fixing his car, and he will get a new job, so he will be contributing to the finances instead of relying on my money as he has done since the start of our relationship, but I feel like even so I can't continue the relationship.

He had been physically abusive to me, he has confessed to me that yes, he is controlling and codependent, right now he is being sweet and his libido seems to have "come back" right after I told him I would break up with him, but he also told me that he would die without me, so now I'm feeling trap. I don't like it, I don't like feeling trap in a relationship just so he don't get depressed and die. Yes, he can give me some stability, but I still have my home with my mom and I might find that stability elsewhere. I feel like I don't need him anymore to be happy on my own. My feelings are changing, and also I for a long time thought wouldn't be able to find someone else, but a friend has confessed that likes me romantically. I won't cheat on him, they know that and comprehends my situation, but it made me realize I'm not unlovable. I'm also feeling sexy again on my own, in fact, I feel sexier than ever rn.

But I come back to the feelings of "What if I wait a bit and things get better?" while also reminding to myself that I already know what my boyfriend can do when he gets angry at me, just for doing things that I love to do. Even on this "love bombing" phase, he is still so controlling, I changed my phone's lock pin so he couldn't look at it and started interrogating me about it at 4 AM.

Has anyone had a similar feeling?

Not eat anything that casts a shadow.

It's from the Simpsons if you haven't seen it.

I know Jewish people are granted some special right to visit the state of Israel, and some companies organize free tours for Jewish born or living outside.

But does that apply only for people ethnically Jewish that come from Jewish families? Or also applies to new converts to Judaism?

Like, not literally converting tomorrow and demand a free vacation to Israel, but like, converting and in a few years wait and see if they offer me a free vacation to the country to visit the most iconic places of Judaism?

How does that works?

edit: I'm a hispanic atheist with no Jewish family that I know of, and I'm not interested on joining any religion, this is just a hypothetical case.