10
votes
What’s something that didn’t work for you?
Something that generally works for most people, but you were an exception.
Something you were expecting to help, but it didn’t.
Something that promised a lot but failed to deliver.
Something that fell through.
Something you couldn’t get used to.
Could be an item, a piece of advice, a plan, a path, a relationship, etc.
Whatever it was, it didn’t work and that was significant.
What was it? Why do you think it didn’t work? How do you feel about it?
The "expected" life path, particularly around relationships and family, just didn't work for me
I grew up Catholic and definitely assumed my first boyfriend (and then second) and I would get married. Leaving me to stay in relationships that weren't great (I wasn't great either at the time, teens suck) for far too long. But failing that then obviously I'd end up marrying a guy eventually and having kids and...
And then I discovered polyamory, and being queer, and then... Without those relationships, some of whom I'm still friends with, I wouldn't have ended up here, but there were other shitty people along the way. So I think I'm carving a new path...
And then I meet my current partner who's been disabled our entire relationship. I was still figuring out how to make a new path, but also saw us maybe "settling down" wherever that meant, I even briefly considered fostering or something but then COVID hit and the world was terrifying and exhausting. And then he became paralyzed. And now our relationship is inevitably different.
We can't ever get married for financial reasons. I am always in the role of caretaker as well as partner but the lines feel real blurred. We own a house (inconceivable). But money is a constant stressor because disability is expensive and I feel incapable of maintaining anything like a normal life. And I'm too tired to date anyone else and put the energy into another relationship despite still being nonmonogamous, nonbinary and queer I'm in a cishet appearing relationship.
So here I am, in some weird warped version of settling down with a man and owning a house that isn't anything like what I was told to expect. I don't even know how to put into words how surreal it is sometimes and others it's just the most normal thing ever.
I developed a hole in the macula of my left eye. There is an operation to deal with this problem, called a vitrectomy, which has a high success rate, but not for me. I happen to be one of the unlucky 10% for whom the operation did not give great results. Now, I can't really complain, since it did improve my sight in that eye by a large margin. It just didn't get rid of all the distortion in the center of my vision, and that makes it difficult to read with my left eye.
As to my feelings... eh. My ophthalmologist did everything he could for me. You take your best shot, and sometimes it just doesn't work out. There was no way to predict the result.
I can give one bit of advice. Don't hesitate to talk to a doctor when you feel something has gone wrong with your body. The faster you can get it diagnosed, the better chances you'll have. Yes, this is obvious, but I'm constantly learning about people, men especially, who try to tough it out.
My CPAP machine.
Having heard from other people with sleep apnea about how great they are, how you not only get better sleep but that the better quality sleep means you can get away with shorter sleep, I was really looking forward to reclaiming just a bit of time per day. It would be nice to not have to choose between commuting, going to the gym, and cooking, but currently I can only pick two, so unfortunately the majority of my dinners have been either prepped and frozen on weekends, or bought from a local business who does the cooking and freezing for me. Without the CPAP machine I needed more than 8 hours a night to feel like a normal person, while most people around me can get away with 6-8 hours and seem to operate just fine.
Alas, it has not really helped with that in any noticeable way. What it has helped with is that because I’m no longer snoring like a freight train, my partner (who is a very light sleeper) can get a good night’s sleep whenever we have sleepovers so I still consider that an excellent quality of life improvement overall.
Next on my list: surgery to fix it good and proper forever!