hard for me to connect with others. Everything I do feels forced
Does this interaction you have here with random people feel forced? It doesn’t look like it does from your replies. It doesn’t look like you have trouble connecting with people here either.
If I’m wrong about that, the following will feel hollow/bad/be contra productive, but I’m reasonably sure about it… it doesn’t feel like that here because you can just be honest about everything since we’re just a bunch of anonymous strangers and you don’t have to worry about us at all. You can just be like you are and feel like you feel without any compromises. You said in another comment that you’ve talked to your sister and best friend about it, and literally said “they need to sleep so I’m also trying not to bother them too much right now”. Of course I don’t know your best friend and sister. But literally everyone I know would drop almost anything they’re doing and invite me over or come over to me if I needed it this badly like you need it right now. You are allowed and I encourage you very much to take this support from people. If you think about it, wouldn’t you do the same for them? Why would you do that for them? It’s very likely they feel exactly the same way and actually want to help you in any way they can. If I personally think about it, a night’s sleep, even multiple, would not even register as a reason to maybe not support my friends in any way I can.
So this is what I do when this happens. It literally happened about 7 months ago, not quite in the extreme and sudden way like it did for you, but it still hurts like hell. I went to all my friends and talked to them about it, as much as I needed. They offered a lot, but even what they didn’t immediately offer, I asked for what I needed. Someone to hold me, and other things. And there was not even a hesitation in them doing whatever I asked. I held nothing back.
I’m in a (relatively) good place now.
Everything I feel was/is valid, everything I asked for I would have gladly done the same for any of them. I say that it’s the same for you. Everything you feel is valid. Everything you need is valid. Take the support you need. I think this thread here is already perfect, you’re doing stuff to get yourself help. Mutual help is what the human race is all about (well, often at least). Feeling lonely is your body telling you to connect with others, so do it. More. As much as you need.
Edit: your best friend and sister are autonomous people. They will tell you if they don’t/can’t do something for you. So even if something was a problem for them, it’s their responsibility to tell you. Don’t preemptively say “I don’t want to bother them”. I’m very sure they want to be bothered, even though I don’t know them. But even if not, you always “bother” them first, and let them tell you if it’s actually a bother.
I mean a “treatment” that has been suggested and applied is trying to help trans people be not trans anymore, through some form of therapy, mostly because it was believed that it’s “unnatural” and a mental illness, a way that people shouldn’t be like. The treatment now is the polar opposite effectively, not treat it like an illness at all, instead letting trans people embrace their preferred gender, because it’s generally believed that it’s not a mental illness that should be worked against.
Like idk, social anxiety disorder, while probably for some people having an innate component, is mostly believed to be caused by trauma during development. Twin studies have also been conducted for social anxiety disorder, however the risk increase was only 30-50%, while for gender dysphoria it was an increase from absolute values of ~2% to ~30%, so an increase of something like 1500%. As such, it is treated much differently, trying to figure out the triggers of the social anxiety disorder and doing some kind of therapy to continually lessen its effects.
Because it is relevant to people and what they should be doing right now. Life can not stop or stay in limbo until we have more evidence. Most often it is better to act on the best guess than to do nothing.
It’s fine if stuff changes and one thing turns out wrong later.
You seem to not understand the reasoning I’m applying. Just because something is incomplete does not mean we can’t work with what we have. But I’m pretty sure I will not be able to explain this to you.
We always work with incomplete information. We know nothing for certain. It seems to me like you’re essentially arguing to just throw our hands up in uncertainty and say “we can’t know so nothing we can do”.
But even with incomplete, weak, non-95%-statistically-significant data we can make better decisions than without any data. If there is a 51% chance for the one thing being right instead of 49% chance for the other thing, it makes rational sense to act 51% like the one thing is true and 49% like the other thing is true, so in other words, lean towards the 51% thing. On average, you’re going to make better decisions this way. You should look into Bayesian epistemology if you want to know more.
I obviously don’t know the exact percentages for the things I claimed. But there is decent evidence for gender dysphoria not being entirely environmentally (still acting on our genes of course) caused, but relatively independent of the environment.
One, of course, is the mass of reports of transsexuals that they’ve “always in some way felt like this”. While not being scientific data, as a rational person you should not ignore this evidence. Of course you don’t weigh it as heavily as a peer-reviewed scientific study with proper methods, but it should still have some weight.
Then there are a few studies that have found differences in genes responsible for sex hormones, specifically androgen which seems to reduce its effectiveness in binding testosterone. I’ve heard of other such studies on sex hormones.
There are also twin studies done. They have found that identical twins have a much higher likelihood to both be trans than dizygotic (non-identical, i.e. different genes) twins, further pointing towards significant innate genetic predisposition towards gender dysphoria.
Of course, the topic of identifying as a fox has not been studied this deeply. However, based on all I know on human behavior, it is extremely likely that this condition has nothing really to do with foxes or fox-based genes somehow causing this behavior. From the way I talked to the person that identified as a fox, if I were to take it seriously, I would say that they have a deep feeling of not belonging anywhere and having found companionship with other people of similar interests. But I would be pretty sure that this interest could have been something else, filling the same need for companionship, without much friction, thus my claim that it is solely culturally/environmentally-based.
I’m not sure what you’re talking about/what point you’re trying to make. I understand that all our behavior is genetic in some way, since that’s what we’re built based on. However there is still a qualitative difference between an innate condition that is not majorly affected by the individual environment/circumstances (gender dysphoria), and a condition that only manifests through a specific environment/circumstances (identifying as a fox). One you can do something about, the other not really.
The neural circuitry must exist for people to think like this, so naturally every human behavior is neurological.
But what they were referring to is that gender dysphoria is likely (some evidence has been produced) a condition with an innate genetic cause. Some chemistry related to hormones being different makes it very “easy”/logical that a born man may feel like a woman (and vice versa), the genetic code is almost completely identical. However it’s much harder, if not impossible, to make the link to feeling like a completely different species, thus it is more akin to religion, “just” a culture-based belief system.
I mean I’ve met someone who actually identified as a fox… I’m like 95% sure they were just doing a bit, but they were pretty adamant and actually never let on that they were joking, and there was a lot of detail to it… so I actually don’t know
But I mean that has nothing to do with being trans but instead the furry subculture, so irrelevant anyway here
You could read a bit about NAT, which your router does, if you want to know more. But yes, of course only the initiation requires an open port, otherwise like you said, it doesn’t make sense. As soon as a connection is established your router knows where packets should be sent and an “open” port is not necessary.
I just don’t hear any difference between ~200kbps VBR mp3 and flac. If you manage a large library, 10x smaller matters a lot, it’s faster to transfer, easier to share on the web, space still costs money.
I understand they have access to all this information you listed, but what do they gain from that if I don’t use any (other) Facebook services? Normally, I understand that it allows for better ad targeting, but WhatsApp does not have ads, and if I don’t use any other Meta services that actually serve ads, how could this info being out be a problem for me?
How do I know other browsers/messengers actually include the code that is published when they arrive on my phone? Wouldn’t it be possible to simply add tracking/malicious code outside of the open-source repository, build an APK from it and put that on the Play Store instead of the “clean” code on the repository?