Your question made me think.

I came into contact with /e/OS indirectly after discovering the Fairphone. The concept made sense. I do not enjoy their approach to offering the services they do but I admit I am even less of a fan of the approach of IodeOS, with their parental control tools; I respect some people will want that, I just think it is not the correct nor the best.

Regarding phones, IodeOS does have quite the line-up but most of the models I’d consider purchasing are either out of stock or pricier than the GS6 Murena offers. In a perfect world I’d rather just buy the full pair of Fairphone+/e/OS and be done with but it is not a casual decision I am taking here and it is cash stressing.

Murena OS seems at the moment the best choice for what I intend. I may lose my banking apps but I can live with that,

Bank issued ID? Can you explain that a bit?

Very well, reasonable, but why exactly?

I’ve tried and somehow it fails to install.

More people carry a smartphone nowadays than those that have a computer at home. Banks are not stupid; they cater to the clientele and that clientele is shifting towards apps at an accelerated pace. There are a couple of banks operating in my country that don’t even have any other access but their app: no website, no physical locations.

I have an integrated payment system that works directly from my banking apps; without those apps, I’m out of the system, as it depends on push notifications to accept and allow transfers, payments, etc. Another ugly thing happening is the slow but steady shift of banks towards app-only remote access. My day to day bank is somewhat a middle of the ground but they’ve invested heavily into their app, while ignoring their website, that stopped somewhere around 2015. It’s clunky, hard to use and even lacks some options that are only available on the app or at a walk-in location but those are but a few in the entire country. There are already two banks operating in my country that are app only for access.

Another example is my carrier. Their entire support is done through the app. No email, no phone, nothing. Unless I have their app, if I have an issue, I’m locked out. I can switch carrier and avoid this problem but that implies getting worst coverage.

And I wasn’t originally considering it but my government does have an app that concentrates a number of direct services and allows for digital copies of official documents to be available.

That can not be comfortable

Good and evil are relative. Those are social constructs our species has been reviewing basically from our inception. I’ll grant that, as an individual, feeling alone and small, dealing with overwhelming issues may feel as something one can’t overcome by oneself but resorting, immediately, to something outside oneself? It is as dangerous. And I like to think my entire line of ancestors is watching me; sometimes, that feeling of having a personal fan club feels great. But they won’t be solving my problems; they’re dead.

Nothing personal against wasps. But I prefer them far away from me. Which often comes into conflict with their interests, as they have this nasty tendency to invade the space I occupy, as in my house, my patio, the places I have to go in order to work, etc. If they ignore me, I’ll show the same respect. If stingers come out blazing, insecticide starts being sprayed.

I read somewhere that one part of going through the AA (USA) process revolves around channelling the person towards a sense of belief in a higher power; for the already religious, it basically stirs a new found sense, to those without belief it can essentially become into forced “evangelisation”, even if not into a formal belief.

I’ve known a couple of hardcore alcoholics, both in and outside the family, and those who underwent detox, here (Portugal), it involves medication to aid in withdrawal, paired with mental health aid and educating the person on what the alcohol is doing to them. We have two singers, both former heavy drinkers, that are strongly vocal against alcohol abuse; one even states he is not “healed” but “in a never ending healing process”.

So, what is all this about throwing people into belief for getting out of an addiction? Medicine is a thing, with proven results.

None is a concern. In fact, my current therapist has been trying to assess me for autism is a very discreet way and I’ve made my mind on why take such a roundabout way instead of just coming clean.

Again, I have a lot of baggage from a very troubled life; it leaves scars.

I never went into therapy expecting for everything to be all roses and rainbows. I’m a big boy and can handle pain, to a point most people find disturbing, including a therapist. I was acquainted with suffering very early on and needed to develop ways to handle it, as I had nobody available and even less capable of helping. I grew up being the weird kid, kept to himself. Not that I did not want to be with others; I just had stuff in my head that completely went over theirs.

Nowadays, going into therapy I expect at least respect for my concerns. Not compassion, nor sorrow, or any demonstration of socially adequate behaviour towards my internal conflicts. I expect an approach that somehow can give me a guidance or a tool to navigate my mind out of the knots it created.

I sincerely hope you can keep going strong in your journey.

Good luck on that. I wish I could. One in particular said would not be receiving me again as they were not to be questioned on their practice.

Nah!

I do not live with anything. I’m an average person, with a very troubled past, in need to unpack a lot of things that I am aware hurt me along the way. I am not struggling with PTSD, autism, ADHD or any other condition to my life and perception, which I have multiple times been very concrete about and been ignored about.

Two very grim examples I can provide:

• I’m a very fast thinker and talker; I had to develop this capability in order to provide justifications or backgrounds to save myself from violence. This generated a subroutine in my mind to try at any cost to appease in every single interaction, to the point I knowingly accept being trampled over just to avoid conflict. This fosters anger and difficulty to manage it and navigate healthy interactions where the other person try to be a bit pushy and I am not willing to be rolled over. This is not healthy. It has actively hindered me in my life. I stated this openly, in deep detail, to at least three professionals. Only one addressed it has being something that should be addressed. But later.

• I’m highly adverse and suspicious of authority. Not in the sense that I want a lawless society or to abolish police and courts but in the sense that in order for me to accept someone’s authority, the other person needs to show the authority they have is based off respect and cooperation. I spent years thinking I could not work in a team setting. I work better when alone, as I can take all the risks and consequences of my decisions, with no risk of endangering or harming others. I loathe having to take responsibility over others, I hate the hierarchy narrative that is force fed to every single human being since the cradle, as if people are incapable of using higher cognitive functions and instead need to be shepherded around by “superior” individuals, because they can not go beyond their reptilian brain. One day, in a fit of rage, against myself, over the idiotic behaviour of a coworker, I got a very shy agreement that my attitude is what makes good leaders but, again, not something I should be concerning myself with.

I have to be a bit distraught over the process, at this point.

In nearly 20 years I risk I’ve met around 10 professionals. Statistically, I should I have met someone who I could be able to work with and progress. It has not happened. It becomes tiresome.

Thanks for the insight and I wish everything good to you.

Exactly. Like a compass or the North Star. We make the journey; sometimes we just need the help to find the way.

The list is too long and extensive - and sincerely too private - but the issues I feel the need to clarify revolve around how I interact with the world and the need I have to understand why I act and why hurt as I do. Some things go way back, some are recent. Everything is an event that contributed to force me to adapt in order to survive. Some tools I developed are useful, some have ceased to be useful and others are just hindrances I need to get rid of. Having people either ignore what I intend to explore and understand or outright try to tell me I can just ignore those things and move on does not work.

But the bad luck streak seems to be dragging too long.

Situations like you describe are sad and extreme. Fortunately not my situation but it does not stop me from relating with what you shared about your brother. In my lowest point, under the effect of medication that was supposed to help I still remember the feeling of numbness, the fogginess in my head, how it was hard to think and even explain myself. Nobody really cared when I said I wasn’t feeling well. I was expected to comply, to be peaceful, silent.

I’m not afraid of going where it hurts. In fact, that is exactly where I want to go. Peel back the layers, expose the wound and analise everything that piled on it and was put on top of it to prevent it to fester and keep me going and functional as a productive member of society. What made me into what I became and that I want or need to discard in order to be a better person.

I never went to therapy with the same problem or issue in hand; I went back when I stumbled into something I could not solve by myself or when I felt overwhelmed or truly in need of some guidance. Getting several professionals telling me either flat out I do not need to look into what is troubling me or that I should not when that is precisely what I am looking for makes no sense to me.

I work on logic and reasoning. I like to understand things and how they connect to each other and how they influence one another and, by extension, me. I have feelings and reactions that spur from it and vice versa but I can’t dissociate one from another; I can’t just feel and not understand why I feel as I do and I can’t understand what triggers a reaction from me, which I do not want to have, and not try to somehow act on it, particularly if negative.

Does this make any sense to you?

Going into therapy wanting to learn how to better understand myself and how I interact with the world without losing my mind is a clear objective; having several experiences of being told I’m overvaluing this, is not what I expect or need. I already have difficulty handling strong emotions; being told to ignore it is not positive.