Hi @Lula. Don't take any offense if I tend to assume you aren't very computer literate. My last job was working for a local community centre where I looked after all of their IT and designed and ran basic computer classes for members of the community. The students tended to be either retired people who wanted to learn how to use a computer, or people looking for work that were told they needed some basic knowledge to improved their chances of finding work.
I was very new to this when I started and it took a lot of work for me to learn to not use jargon and explain things as simply as possible. I did these classes for about 15 years so it's sort of become habit to explain things starting right from the very basics.
I remember when computer first started to become more common. I was still in school but I still remember everyone being so scared of stuffing something up on them because they were so expensive. I imagine it was specially stressful if using one at work. If you're a kid in school, then it's the teacher's fault if you do something wrong, but in the workplace it's more on you if something goes wrong I would have thought.
The way I see the whole thread while I'm replying to a post is the by opening the whole thread in a new tab in my browser. I don't know of an easier, simpler way so maybe someone can correct me of i'm wrong but this is how I do it.
Up the top of the screen when replying, you'll see the heading "New Reply". Directly under that you'll see the path of the current thread.
Here's a screenshot to show you. At the end of this path is the name of the thread I'm replying in. (i've circled it). I right click on that and open it in a new tab or window. I usually then move that window onto my 2nd monitor, but otherwise just switch between tabs in my browser so I can easily go between my reply and reading through the entire thread. It's a bit messy but I find it helpful to have the whole thread open to me when i'm replying and there's been a few other replies already.
I really do consider myself lucky I'm with my partner. She the only person I've ever been close to and the only real close relationship I've ever had with anyone, even including family. I think she's enough like me in a few ways to understand more why I am the way I am... enough to give me a chance where others wouldn't maybe.
I get the whole finding a needle in a haystack thing. I never though I would ever find anyone. I'm sure I've written about this somewhere on this forum before but not sure where, but basically I met her through online dating when I was almost 43. I had been using this online dating site for about 3 years after having a sort of mid-life crisis at 39 and knew I had to do something desperate if I was ever going to find anyone. I knew I'd never be brave enough to contact anyone, but thought that putting a profile up gave me more chance than doing nothing. Over the next couple of years I had a couple of people make contact and even had a couple of dates with each of them. These were the first dates I had ever been on in my life... while in my early 40s... so I was terrified, completely out of my depth and I so who knows what these women thought but needless to say it didn't last very long. So after almost 3 years I had about a week and a half of my paid subscription left and I thought there's no point in paying anymore since I was obviously clueless and just didn't have the confidence to have any chance. I then got a message from someone and thought well why not have one last nice chat with someone before they stop replying to me... 11 years later I'm still with her! Having said that, I would never do it again! It was so stressful and I still think I just got extremely lucky so it's not like I should recommend it to anyone, but I guess, just to say never completely give up. Sometimes you just have to be in the right place, at the right time, with the right person. Yeah, there's a lot of luck involved but we all deserve a lucky break once in our lives.
I think I've been dealing with depression my whole life as well. I didn't think so before a couple of years ago, because it was just 'normal' for me. I knew I struggled to have people in my life where other people didn't and I think I always just kept those feelings to myself, buried them, and always presented a smiling happy me to anyone I was around. It wasn't until late last year when I first started talking to people about personal issues and was told that I showed a lot of signs of depression. My first thought was "this can't be right!" because these were the same feelings I had always lived with. So maybe i'm a bit slow but I eventually figured out what that most likely meant. Especially when my GP gave me one of those mental health screening tests. I was told I scored pretty bad, and was asked what was going on. I thought, nothing was going on, I would have answered those questions the same 10, 20, even 30 or 40 years ago.
The past couple of years had been extremely tough for me due to health issues. A specialist told me in late 2022 that 2023 would be a very difficult year, probably the worst of my life. He was right. What he didn't say was 2024 would be even worse! So only having my partner around for support, I started reaching out for more support as I just all became too hard to deal with. I started being hones with the doctors and nurses I was seeing, took their advice to see a psychologist, and sought out support groups to find people who understood and who I could talk to... with someone I met through one of these nurses, we even started a support group of our own this year!
So I think through the toughest couple of years of my life, I've discovered how much just talking to people can help and how important it has been for me to help me through. So it's become a strong passion of mine to try to do the same for other people. I have no idea what to do with this, I've applying for volunteer roles that felt important to me (helping other people going through the same disease as well mainly) but it seems no one wants to take you on while you're still having treatment for cancer... even if it is just drugs you need to take for the rest of your life. Psychology is expensive so I have support groups left as an option. So I find the best help I can get for myself is reaching out and using my experiences to help others. As someone who's only ever known how to build and repair computers, I have no idea what to do with this desire I've found to help other people going through some of the toughest times of our lives so support groups, like here, is where I focus my energy now. It helps to give me a reason to get out of bed each morning because sometimes it's real hard to find one.
So it does mean a lot to me to hear you say the contact we've had has helped you and I hope it can help you stay on that track because I know how much it helps me. So it may start with a few people replying to your post, and then a few more people and then you starting reaching out further and finding more people to talk to and slowly building that support network around you and things start getting a bit easier.
I hope this week is a bit easier for you Lula.
