OK. Is that helpful for the OP, I wonder? Maybe you could take your thoughts to a spin off thread for a general discussion on the topic of how we can learn not to create pain for others.

Jeez Louise, the man can take himself off to therapy and learn how to process his pain so it doesn't create more pain. That's his one job. My sympathy is reserved for the person struggling with the same pain, while working, raising the other children, and dealing with verbal abuse and other shenanigans from the spouse. Having a mental illness is tough, but so is being around someone with a mental illness. No-one, not even a wife, is obliged to interpret abusive behaviour through a compassionate lens.

Ha! I brushed/combed it out. Have the type of hair that it doesn't matter what I do to it, it always turns out the same wave-frizz. The fave? The wizz?

A bouffant Medusa.

Uh-huh. Amen. Really.

I would just like to let people know that I tried the method in the video above and am currently sporting more than a passing resemblance to Medusa. I think I need to work on my technique!

It's rude. But this is the messaging most people are internalizing - that Covid is over, it's no big deal, and you have to 'get on with life'. Besides the Covid thing, you should leave a concert when your coughing becomes more than the occasional clearing of the throat.

I loved him in Cracker. He was fairly well known as an actor long before HP, I think. But of course, made an excellent Hagrid!

JP gets a lot of (undeserved imo) stick because of the way he came to public attention in Canada, that is outwith his work, but Murphy is right, there are way more interesting professional psychologists and psychiatrists out there who don't come with the baggage. I wasn't aware he had anything interesting or authoritative to say about creativity, honestly.

Peterson is OK on Jung etc, but he's had a severely troubled recent few years with a substance addiction post pain medication and treatment in Russia? that nearly killed him, so while I don't think he is necessarily the anti-Christ, I wouldn't rely on him as an authority on anything. I don't really understand the conversation around creativity being had here, or what JP or personality has to do with it. My thoughts are that: The ability to create in inherent in human beings. Some people, through innate ability and practice, create in a way that garners attention, often due to the quality of what they produce. Some people are outliers and produce works or ideas of such quality that we call them geniuses. Not all geniuses and high quality practitioners are recognized in their life time, and not everyone can reach their creative potential for a variety of reasons. Creativity is a human good no matter how it is practiced - at the level of the domestic or on the world stage. Creating is good for us as humans. A career as a creative is hard, and there is an element of luck and privilege in who succeeds by the metrics of our capitalist, consumer-driven society. There is no hard binary; no 'natural' line of distinction between art and science. Only a culturally imposed division.

Live long enough and you find out that the vast majority of people are doing what they can. Like I said, you and you.

This is a good way to ensure he is always 'my kids' Dad'. I'm sorry; that is stressful.

Discernment and being judgemental are not the same things, imo.

Well, that's between you and you, I guess.

Nope, not in this case.

He can feel what he feels, but it's still not ok to express the fury to you. He needs to go journal that out or something. It's awfully controlling to express fury at your use of a common phrase that means, this is my children's father, we are not together, which merely reflects a fact of your lives currently.

Yes. It says, 'we're not together' to me, and that's the way I use it. 'X, my kids' Dad'. If him being my child's parent isn't relevant, I just say 'my ex'. Furious is an inappropriate reaction to express. Your words, your choice.

Saying school can sometimes have social advantages isn't offensive. Suggesting that you can 'tell' which kids are exhibiting certain behaviours you judge as socially awkward because they are weird and not nurtured socially, and feeling smug that they are not your kids is offensive.

Who's being ideological?

This is why I love Wendell Berry - farming + art (poetry/prose).

This is very similar to my experience, coming to high school as a high potential kid but with undisclosed ongoing abuse at home. The psychological cruelty of other students and staff still takes my breath away. Being taunted after a suicide attempt by my year advisor, something I'm still grappling with 30+ years on. Being taunted and shunned by peers for 'being smart'. 'A snob'. Being punished for 'not living up to my potential'. Teachers joking with my abusive parent that 'I just needed a smack across the head with a lump of wood' to 'wake me up'. Executive colluding (no other word for it) with my abusive parent who was well-liked at school. Affairs between staff and female students (rape/pregnancy/abortion). Verbal and emotional abuse in the classroom. Witnessing the emotional torture and physical bullying of other students. I mean, sure, there were a lot of kids there. This was not considered a particularly difficult school, btw.

Oh man, if you could 'fix' quirks, I would have. Not knowing about dd's autism, I spent 17 years full time assisting her with 'fixes' (lovingly) at home, because school just wanted to stick her in a box and forget about her. Literal quote from her kindy teacher: 'oh, we just call her the loner'. (Attitudes to autistic students in mainstream classroom teachers do not appear to have improved much in the intervening years, judging by some of the bull I hear my colleagues come out with, still appearing to think autistic people can be trained out of their autism). It was MY LIFE! Bucket loads of nurture, ladies, bucket loads. At no stage did anyone close to her say 'oh, autism, give her a break', because she doesn't look stereotypically autistic, mostly because of my intensive 'nurture' aka how to mask beautifully. This included a childhood psychologist. So please, not sure anyone has autism radar. It was an unforgivable effort in many ways, because yes, it was aimed at remediating the child to get her to fit into our (excuse the language) totally f***ed and narrow 'society'. Which she can, but at a very high cost. So mostly, as an adult, she's stopped doing it. I'm still paying the economic price of school's failure and my efforts to step in in place of school.

It's making me feel a bit crazy, tbh. I keep wondering if maybe I'm imagining we are still dealing with a serious airborne virus!

Of course. I did the same with dd2. But it's only about fit, not the superiority of one over the other. I think people who had neutral or good experiences of being schooled themselves may not understand the extent to which it can be a traumatic place for some.

Honestly, I wish school was a social utopia. Life would be so much easier for that cohort of lonely schooled kids who have no option but to endure. I wish I went to work every day and saw a population of kids with wonderful social skills. That would make my life easier!