Miramiss

@EndTheUsurpartion: I did not incline that cougars are sexy, but that society for some reason say they are. I can understand it is creepy being hit on by a woman who could be your mother, in the same way I think it is creepy getting hit on by men who are much older than me too. I don't see the difference. I am sorry to hear you have experienced harassment. I know how not fun it is getting grabbed

I can not find the thread....

okay... don't burn me too hard guys, I am not good at discussing but I will give it a try since female perspective is asked for. I have personally been catcalled a lot in the streets. When I was younger and started to get the attention I enjoyed it. This turned pretty quick tho. When someone gave me positive attention and I responded, it suddenly turned into more. Then a date or my phone number was asked for, when I politely rejected this, guys started to nag me about it. And sooner or later I would turn into a bitch that think I am so fucking hot that I can't even give away my phone number to nice guys that are complimenting me on the street. Sometimes they yell and threaten. Often they say I owe them something since they where nice. A few times it has been physical. Therefore: compliments from strangers has turned into a negative thing. It makes me nervous because I know there is a good chance that it can turn into harassment. It does not matters what I wear. I am not that pretty. Guys in gangs are more likely to catcall than loners (which makes them more intimidating), except when it is just me and one guy and no one else around. Then the really creepy stuff happens. I am not saying all guys are like that, all I am saying is that this happens to me on a regular bases, and several times I had to take the long way home from work since there was guys following me, and giving me rude and creepy catcalls. But guess what! Woman are not better! I happen to have a very attractive husband. He works as a salesperson and therefore being nice to people is his job. I can say that there is few times he comes home from work without some crazy lady trying to get his number. In all ages. He tells them he is not interested, if he is out of luck, that is ignored and he get his butt pinched. Sometimes he says he is married and some are polite and say "that is a shame, you have one lucky lady" others say that I don't have to know *wink wink, nudge nudge*. One even said that I would probably not mind if he joined her back to her house after work for some "friendly cuddling". Hubby is not getting many catcalls on the street, but at work, damn! And it is not like it is only ladies in his age group that is on him. We have everything from teenagers to cougars (why are cougars sexy, but men in the same age creepy btw?) and woman have a tendency to be physical quicker than men when they are flirting. I feel that men have this tendency to try to corner me into a situation where they are in charge and I have to give in to whatever they want, while woman are trying to lure my hubby into something he is not interested in. He is not scared of the woman as I am for the men, but we both feel uncomfortable in the situations. Both are equal poor mannered, and is both a man and woman problem. And not all men are like that, and not all woman are like that, but those who are jerks destroys it all for everybody else.

yay! my skype account is blocked. If I manage to get it back tonight I'll be there, if not, next time

Still 6pm?

I am in

problem is not being trans, it is that they are not allowed to define their own gender. Not everybody feel they belong to only one gender, and some people feel they have the wrong gender. When people are only defined by what is between their legs, and not whats happening in their head, things like this occur.It could be solved easily by opening up for a third gender in passports and two pictures. But no... surgery is required *sigh*

Awesome on learning a new language!My husband learned my native language in about 2 years and is on year 3 as bilingual. He is still not fluent, but speaks well enough for eating out, asking for directions, daily conversations and learning new skills. We do not discuss philosophy, argue or explain difficult technical stuff in my language, but stick to English for that. We do have dinner conversations, express love and do grocery shopping in norwegian tho.I assume from your post that you only speak one language (english) now. Correct me if I am wrong.It all depends on what language you start with for learning a new one. How closely are spanish related to your native tongue? Which spanish are you learning? (seems like no issue right now, but when you get deeper into it you will see differences from where you are.) For an example, my native tongue is norwegian, which means the easiest language for me to learn (outside from other scandinavian languages) is dutch. Dutch and norwegian have many similar pronunciations and grammar. The hardest is polish, where we have almost nothing in common. I could probably be really good in dutch in a year, but would need several years to get to the same level in polish. Also people are different, some are learning quicker than other. I am a slow learning in language and spent many years mastering english and I STILL have tons of mistakes. An other side of the aspect is: are you learning to read it or speak it? If you are sitting home by yourself you can be badass at reading spanish! But the moment you get out and talk to native speaking people you might mess it up.My tips are: 1. Get out there. Use the basic language programs like babbel to get you trough the start-up but after that, go be social. Really. Be social! Connect with people on skype, make friends and say you want to learn their language. Learn all the cursing right away, then you know when you meet people who just want to mess with you. This does not mean use the cursing, just recognize it.2. Be brave and do not be afraid to be the clown. People will laugh. You will be an adult speaking like a 5 year old for a looong time. My husband said (and still say) so many funny things in norwegian we made his own dictionary and book of quotes. We pull it out from time to time, read it out loud for people, laugh, and remind him of how much he learned since that time. When people laugh, think that you probably made their day a little brighter and you got better in spanish. Do ask what you did wrong so they can help you correct it. 3. Learn the culture. A language is so much more than the words spoken. Some phrases will not make any sense if you do not know the cultural references. Culture takes as long time to learn as a language. exampel: in english you say: "speak of the devil" and translated into norwegian it is "speak of the sun". If you do not know the back story, you are likely to directly translate from english and use phrases that do not exist in spanish. Which will give people a good laugh :)4. When you learn something new. Attach a hand sign to it. Like the word "cat" make whiskers or ears with your hands while you say it. Then you remember it easier and you can get rid of the hand signs after a while. And over use your new words and phrases. When hubby learned a word in norwegian that I can only translate into "royal awesome", absolutely everything for 3 days was royal awesome. 5. Have fun, laugh of yourself and embrace every victory. Fist bump people and cheer when you get a new word or phrase. Get people to cheer with you. Be the person who is really enthusiastic about learning spanish, then native speakers will be more enthusiastic to teach it to you. This is such a cool adventure! From just being the one standing there listening to gibberish, to understand some words, to understand sentences to participate in conversations to having long complicated conversations on technical stuff, philosophy and even start studying! the feeling can not be described :DI do not intend to discourage you with this long post, but give you a somewhat realistic picture of how it is to learn a new language. It can be frustrating, but believe me, it is so worth it. And when it is is fun, it is really fun! Oh, and remember to give your brain a break for the evening if it is too much.Good luck! *fistbump* Yeah!!

Your situation sounds terrible. I'm so sorry no one has taken you seriously. I am not qualified to give advice, but you did ask. I think Stef would say something like, self-knowledge is the first step toward any serious goal. You have some access to the Internet, so presumably that is an option. You also seem to have moved from recognizing a mistake you have made to condemning yourself for it. I hope you will consider working on self-compassion and self-forgiveness. If you can learn from a mistake and then move on, it can be seen as a qualified positive. If you use it to motivate self-attack, then it is a pure negative. What do you see as your strengths? What would you be doing if money was not such a pressing issue? Could you write a blog or run a web business, or would that violate the terms of your relief income? Is there any area of your life where you are the one who is in control, and you could expand it? Okay, that's about as vague as it can be. I apologize, but I am not a pro. Hope it helps. TDB I have talked with my fair share of "pro" people. The last one interrupted me in the middle of my first sentence to pat my knee and tell me I was just spiraling downwords in negative thoughts. I should just go to bed earlier and drink camomille tea. This is a far better advise. The thing is, I have not really done anything wrong. I don't try to say I am flawless and never do mistakes, but my mistake was finding the love of my life and wished to live together with him. Is that really a mistake? My other mistake before I found my husband, was getting infected on the membrain, getting isolated and chained to a hospital bed with medication streaming into my brain in the age of 16 months. They forgot me there until my mom found me. I got som much medication my forehead had swollen up and hung down in my face and blinded me. That was when my problems started. I do have plenty of good things I could do. I have many good skills and much knowledge (you get that from sitting up all night [] ) The problem is that I have no energy left what-so-ever to do them. I have longer periods of time I sleep 3 hours or less at night. When I finally get out of that, it takes a good week to get back up to get anything done. And the things that then needs to get done is basic stuff like showering, making a deacent meal, take all those phonecalls I have avoided for the last weeks, and so on. I am working on a illustration-project, and it would be great to keep that up, but the program I have to follow is demanding things from me that makes it impossible. I have not touched the project for a month since I had to prove just how bad I am functioning at work. I have more things to do to "prove" that I actually have problems. My situation is that the state says "jump" and if I answer anything but "how high?" they take my support money. I am in control of what I eat, how much of it, and when. As long as I am not "working" and have to wear a uniform, I am in control of what I wear. Spend time with my housemates and husband, except when social-anxiety decides to keep me stuck in my room all day. Maybe I am stuck in my head again, I can not think of anything else.

So! I made an account here a couple of years ago when I started to listen to FDR podcasts and was curious about anarcism and wanted to explore it further. I never really got into it back then caused by many things. Not gonna get into details, but after 2 years, started on my third, of fighting and loosing to the system for something as simple as live in my own country with my foreign husband, I just broke mentally. We are talking paranoia, panic-anxiety, PTSD, extreeme sleep deprivation, social-anxiety and a high number of phobias to mention some. Some of those issues I have struggled with for years, but no one has taken me serious. I never have had more than a 50% job because it is physical impossible for me.I am now 90-100% disabled as a direct cause of how the system and its rules have treated me troughout the years. "Luckely" I live in a country where we have almost identical healthcare system as Canada. I get payed a small amount of money every month to pay rent and buy food. The state also cover my treatment (that is non-existent or making it worse). The problems are: I hate being dependent on the state like this, especially since I would not have been in this situation in the first place if I could just live with my husband and mind our own bussiness or if I got help back when it all first started 27 years ago. I need a way to accept my situation. I know I am living on stolen money. I have for years. But what should I do? I am not able to work. Most days I am not able to leave the house. Some days I can not even leave my bedroom. The money I get from the state is the only thing I have to keep me and my husband alive. It is measured for one person, and we are two adults living off of it. (He is not allowed to work since he will not get a work permit) There is ways I could get out of this, but it would make me a criminal so it is out of question.It will not last forever, I am aware. We have plans on how to get out of our situation, tho it can take years before we get there. Right now it is embarracing and humiliating to know that my excistens depends on money the state has stolen. I am not living the way I want to live. I am trapped!