[!@#$%!]

Originally Posted by d.sound

I tried Thus Spake Zarathustra when I was like 17. Too dense. Too young maybe. I wasn't aware of Zoroastrianism either tho, lol.

i didn’t like zarathustra either, read a bit like a very ponderous comic book, and i definitely wasn’t ready for it. it was nietzsche’s own favorite book though, and the ideas there keep coming back throughout his work, so i’d like to revisit some day.

there are other books i have enjoyed, and the walter kaufmann’s translations are the best. my favorite is “beyond good and evil” which is maybe his peak after the excesses of youth and before his breakdown and manipulations by the family. but there is so much stuff out there. i wish i could read german! apparently his prose is great.

Originally Posted by d.sound

My ex talked a bit about being borderline. May have dodged a bullet there.

the modus operandi of the borderline in a relationship is “i hate you—don’t leave me.” which, wow, can exhaust the neurotransmitters.

the other thing is that they go from idealizing you one day to demonizing you the next one. there’s no way to negotiate an easy departure in my experience. if you’re the one leaving you gotta run and don’t look back.

yeah you dodged a bullet. if you were the dumpee, be doubly glad.

Originally Posted by d.sound

I'm surprised you didn't have a bad experience with bipolar exes though. Not everyone has the extremes. When I get full manic I have pretty bad delusions and psychosis. I get angry easily, think I'm some incarnation of a religious figure, hear voices in my head. I have had some hallucinations that fucked me up. When you think you meet God but it turns out you were in a hospital, it makes you a hardcore atheist.

i never got the psychotic part, or maybe i read them as mystical visions and cosmic vibrations and shared into all that a bit. but it was never extreme. and then, yeah, things would sour for no apparent reason, there would be absurd dramas, etc. still, it was neither mean nor manipulative, so we could part as friends.

i do have a bipolar friend and sometimes he’ll get a bit paranoid, but when we hang out we mostly laugh a lot. he’s moved literally across the planet though so it’s been a while since.

Originally Posted by d.sound

There's this neighbor of mine who is a "preacher" and obsessed with conspiracy theories. It's obvious he has bipolar. He told me he was kicked out of the army with a bipolar diagnosis. Wasn't at all surprised. Of course he doesn't see that his delusional thinking is off the rails. He's been homeless, he can't keep a job. I'm trying to convince him to let me take him to netcare that gives free mental health screenings, but of course psychiatric medications are an evil conspiracy.

my friend has a hard time keeping a regular job and was dependant on his wife for a long time. but he’s a good artist, and now he teaches. how he keeps to his schedule i am not sure but he kept a panoply of pharmaceuticals he would sometimes share (lol).

one ex i know used to work as a writer, drank too much, lost everything, hooked up with some pathological liars, got a stalker, turned religious, and now works in the mental health field—yup. of course meds help, and finding the right place that accepts and understands helps.

it’s always about the social system.