Years ago, my parents set out on a long journey from their home city to a rural location in another country.
Approximately five minutes after setting out, a car went flying past them. It was a bright red sports model that was very eyecatching.
Not long after, they arrived at a toll bridge, right behind the same red car. They noted the number plate.
Past the toll, the red car sped off again, quickly accelerating well past the speed limit.
Over the next few hours, this repeated at a major junction. When they eventually arrived at the ferry again just behind the red car, my father flashed his headlights.
Disembarking, they got another flash from my father, and sped off.
Several hundreds of miles later my parents arrived at their destination, parked up, and got out to stretch, when pulling in beside them was a curiously familiar red car.
Not wishing to make assumptions, my mother casually checked the plates, then saluted the driver and inquired about their journey to the event they had all arrived for.
Nope, they'd made no detours or stops, they'd taken the same route.
My mother has a way in these situations of wording things just so, that totally makes the person she's talking to feel like an absolute worm without ever getting the escape of thinking my mother was being anything other than lovely and charming to them.
Red car was spotted driving most sedately in the local town the following afternoon.
Because they mostly have no clue that measles is a potentially fatal illness, with potential severe lifelong complications including some which require 24/7/365 full nursing care.
They think of it as a mild rash with mild flu-y symptoms for a week or two.
They also have no idea it is so very contagious.
So though the measles vaccine has an amazing safety & efficacy record, whether singly or as part of the combined MMR, with endless research turfing up no link to autism whatsoever, and carrying only a negligible risk of vaccine injury (none as severe as the complications of measles), those who reject it do so not only out of totally false beliefs about the vaccine, but also out of fully wild misconceptions about the risk of measles.
Though now the anti-vaxx movement has become such a big thing for a while, they're all egging each other on with the help of ideological pundits. This combines to create a group highly distrustful of public health organisations and all medical advice on the matter, who are much more resistant to accepting correct information than their vaccine-shy counterparts ever were in the past. It also seems to be true that scary conspiracy theories are comforting to them in a world where serious infections can just catch a person, where autism isn't something one can simply opt out of - they want simple answers, and everything which debunks that simple wilful ignorance is a threat to their sense of security.
Well, it worked initially, then more often than not my searches produced no results or confusing error messages.
Experimented a lot with the SearxNG settings, and also with my browser and firewall settings in case there was some issue there, and eventually gave up.
I was unable to find information online about the issues I experienced, in part because I had no idea how to describe them in order to find help.
Think I tried it in three different browsers, over the course of a month or so, but primarily in Firefox.
Have tried out SearxNG without self-hosting, via different instances, but had to abandon it as it is way, way beyond my mental capabilities to get it to work.
I doubt I could manage to self-host, having looked into Docker for some other matter.
Using Mojeek currently, which isn't great but not too terrible.
DuckDuckGo's search engine introduced AI assist and an AI chat as opt-out features, which it repeatedly re-enables at random, with no ability to disable it permanently, even though we've been able for years to set a bookmarklet to make all our other DDG settings persist.
Users are very unhappy, with requests for a way to permanently disable AI features ignored, receiving only patronising responses from DDG.
No matter, DDG's utility for searching has deteriorated these past years so severely, even relative to the deterioration we've seen with many other options, that I wonder will it survive.
It is always unfortunate when a recommended privacy tool shifts away from privacy, but several doing so all at once is alarming.
Might not even flag up the origin of the term, unless the person queries why it has fallen out of use.
Mostly because it can lead to them feeling the need to then explain that they didn't use it with eugenic sympathies, and me needing to reassure them that I knew that they used it in innocence, all of which is a big diversion from the original topic of conversation.
I feel it easy enough to mention a change in terminology where there's a good deal of consensus regarding the switch, as there is with Asperger's & Oriental, but altogether more delicate where members of a group are split on which they prefer for themselves. Not because I find it difficult to acknowledge & move to the language the person I am speaking with prefers, but because I see the blinkers come down when gently explaining to others who want a definitive answer that there is no consensus, and to take it gently themselves.
A skilled therapist will be able to assist anyone to use CBT or other modality as a tool, even if they don't have training or experience specific to that person's needs.
Nobody here needs to be told that finding such a therapist is far from a given, and engaging one who is not helpful (or worse) tends to make it hard to convince oneself to try with a new therapist. Run through a few, and the reluctance compounds into aversion.
That said, I do feel that CBT attracts therapists who have a strong preference for an unreflective practise, and who are more comfortable with very straightforward & commonplace anxieties.
It doesn't help that many health services, whether publicly or privately funded, push short courses of CBT as the predominant or sole psychological therapy. Even a highly skilled therapist will struggle to arrive at the point of being of assistance to those whose difficulties don't map so closely to those most commonly found in the general population, if they have just six 45 minute sessions to work with, and even more so if the person comes to them undiagnosed.
Yes, but two hours enveloped within the Tears Of God are amongst the most glorious of all human experiences.
Had there been fewer visitors, I'd have tried to make my train home, but instead surrendered to a slow passage through, happily missing my train and electing to camp beside the tunnel for the next two nights.
Late to reply, but very excited to have Moldova in our Union. I realise a yes vote is not a given, so all power for continuing the campaign to join if it does not succeed this time.
Going to come back to this to reflect in more detail to your original post and to this comment, but wanted to quickly float the idea that perhaps these people view you as particularly sound, so when they lay things on you or are just more emotional or intense in front of you, and you seem unphased - neither rushing to condemn them nor scrambling to reassure - they interpret that as disapproval from someone whom they find sound. And that because they value your judgement & integrity, they get sheepish and awkward in the absence of a strong outward reaction, which in turn you interpret as them thinking ill of you.
Only suggesting this because have seen quite a bit of this between people, and experienced mild versions of both ends of that dynamic.
Not that it helps, if it even resonates, or provides guidance.
Have you considered putting letters written on paper in the post?
Seems unwise to give your child's early life story to any of these companies, especially when mapped to a network of her relatives and likely including photographs which people may not be as diligent to keep private as you.
Your daughter cannot consent to this, and it is your duty as parents to protect her privacy until she is old enough to decide for herself what to share and where.
Entirely different groups of people, and they're profoundly opposed to each other.
At the core of this massive protest/strike are groups which have been against the bombardment of Gaza from the outset, and protesting Israel's war against Palestinians for years.
We dumbly agree, out of convenience or some notion that if we wanted to read the paper edition we'd have to pay for it, but one can shell out cash for the paper, pick it up in a waiting room, read a friend's copy, etc.
As soon as we attach a subscription to an online edition, all that happens is they get more data on us (as we are les inclined to delete their tracking cookies) whilst handing over solid confirmation that we are who they suspected we probably are.
If you must subscribe, use a dedicated browser & multiple measures to confound tracking.
Reading the alt-text one might imagine a well-filled used condom of an especially fine latex.
Which isn't inaccurate, but now imagine the above gazing at a girl the second Terminator right before it spears Conor's foster mother right through her eyesocket.
Years ago, my parents set out on a long journey from their home city to a rural location in another country.
Approximately five minutes after setting out, a car went flying past them. It was a bright red sports model that was very eyecatching.
Not long after, they arrived at a toll bridge, right behind the same red car. They noted the number plate.
Past the toll, the red car sped off again, quickly accelerating well past the speed limit.
Over the next few hours, this repeated at a major junction. When they eventually arrived at the ferry again just behind the red car, my father flashed his headlights.
Disembarking, they got another flash from my father, and sped off.
Several hundreds of miles later my parents arrived at their destination, parked up, and got out to stretch, when pulling in beside them was a curiously familiar red car.
Not wishing to make assumptions, my mother casually checked the plates, then saluted the driver and inquired about their journey to the event they had all arrived for.
Nope, they'd made no detours or stops, they'd taken the same route.
My mother has a way in these situations of wording things just so, that totally makes the person she's talking to feel like an absolute worm without ever getting the escape of thinking my mother was being anything other than lovely and charming to them.
Red car was spotted driving most sedately in the local town the following afternoon.