Twounwhe's comments

> Frontline did an episode a while back were dentists were performing unnecessary major dental work on poor people when the government had a program to pay the dentists for such work

I haven't seen this episode and so don't know what qualifies as "major dental work." However, as someone who has had government dental insurance, I wanted to chime in with a possibly irrelevant anecdote.

This dental insurance covered few things, one of which was having teeth pulled. When I was having major pain and other issues with a molar, the only covered treatment was to have the tooth pulled. Anything else would have to be paid 100% out of my own pocket. So the only viable option for most people in my situation would have been to have the tooth pulled, which certainly seems like "unnecessary major dental work on poor people", through no fault of the dentist.

> It’s $99/mo

I'm clearly not one of your intended users because I don't have $99/mo, but I don't have $99/mo because of how ADHD impacts my ability to function in current society.

As for other feedback, 11 options for question 3 on the intake survey is just too much. It takes too much effort to adequately focus on this question, so I closed the page.

> I sometimes feel like the things my wife cares about are essentially endless.

> Like how can a dirty dish even perturb somebody so much in the first place? Is it related to some trauma or childhood conditioning? Can it be addressed somehow?

Well, yes, sometimes "irrational" things are indicative of a deeper issue, e.g. Dad told me Mom left because I was messy, and if I keep things tidy I can keep people from leaving me and I will be OK.

Perhaps she's going through a rough patch, and this "I need a tidy environment" is how she's able to express it. Maybe she feels ignored/neglected/etc, and this is how she's able to express it. And it could be that you've dictated that things must go your way in other areas of the house/relationship, and here is where she feels comfortable asking that she not need to walk on eggshells, for things to be her way for once.

One thing to remember is that each of us has "irrational" requests when seen from the outside, regardless of how logical and reasonable they seem to us. Having a heart-to-heart where you both sit down with the mindset of "us vs the problem" could determine the root, which is the first step towards finding a true solution.

I will not venture a guess as to whether the author's wife articulated her feelings and needs clearly because I do not know either of them.

However, I can say that in my own life, I have been quite explicit about how I was feeling multiple times. In my own words: "When you {seemingly insignificant thing} that I've mentioned bothers me, it makes me feel like you don't care about my concerns, and only care about yourself. That hurts me, and because I've already mentioned this, it makes me doubt that you have any concern for my feelings." (Somewhere around the dozenth time, append "or my wellbeing.")

Even so, it usually took repeating half a dozen times or more before my significant other exhibited any reaction beyond dismissal (i.e. moving past "It's just a cup. It shouldn't bother you."). This happened in three separate LTRs.

Obviously my anecdote doesn't prove anything... except that "women need to be explicit about how they are feeling" is insufficient (though necessary) in at least a non-zero % of communication.

Thanks for the reply.

When I click on the "managing self-harm" course, I only see a "form.typeform.com refused to connect" error. Seems this is because I'm using tor, which is the only way I'd feel comfortable legitimately using the service. Would be nice if there were a way to use the service via tor.

I did complete the course. All the negativity coupled with "it's easy!!" made me feel worse, but sounds like I'm an outlier. Is there a reason there are no positive statements in the course, like "I think I'm a good person"?

> We follow-up 5hrs later and ask general questions about their experience with the life line.

> If they are experiencing self harm, in addition to crisis lines, we offer them a single-session online intervention on managing sh. For that, we see significant improvements pre vs post on measures like “self-hatred”, and “desire to stop selfharm”, with medium effect sizes (.4-.8 cohen’s d). Very hard to show enduring effects for this, however.

Are you measuring in such a way that you can realistically determine which effects are due to the online intervention and which are due to the SH itself? I ask because after SH, especially a few hours later, I consistently have increased "desire to stop selfharm", and lessened "self-hatred". SH has that effect on me, hence its unfortunate use as a coping mechanism.

(I'm not the person you were replying to.).

I've had similar symptoms, and more, for the past 8 months. Heart palpitations, feeling of heaviness in the chest, strange exhaustion... I admit this does sound like anxiety. However, after suffering from anxiety for two decades, I've learned what my anxiety feels like. This is different. It's like comparing grits and runny oatmeal--I can understand why many descriptions are insufficient to distinguish between them, and even how one might be able to masquerade as the other, but having had both, it's clear they are not the same.