Being an American that was raised in California, I feel like I missed a lot of opportunities to learn about my family’s culture and origins. My family is mostly Scottish, British, and Irish, but there is also a mix of Norwegian, Icelandic, and a tiny bit French, in there too. When I traveled abroad, I met people who lived in Ireland, Norway, and France. They would approach me and speak the native languages of those places, and I would just try my best to explain that I didn’t speak any of those languages. The always looked disappointed that I didn’t know their language.

In school, as a teen, I was only offered the option of Spanish foreign language. I learned it rather well, and was able to walk around Spain and speak with the locals quite well. They always looked a little puzzled when they realized I spoke Spanish, in addition to English, despite not being Latina. I feel the need to explain that I was only given the opportunity to learn one other language besides English as a child. The local area in which I live is mostly populated by Mexican-Americans. Many of the cultural events in the area are focused on Mexican culture. As I child, many of my friends spoke Spanish, as well as English, but they were mixed race, and it made sense that they were raised with that opportunity to learn their native language.

I feel like I was denied opportunities to learn languages that were native to my ancestry. I feel like I missed opportunities to learn about the history and culture of my ancestors. It saddens me that every St. Patrick’s Day, people want to wear all green, grab a plastic bowler hat, and discuss where to find green beer and local pubs. No one wants to go to mass on St. Patrick’s day? No one wants to sit down at the dinner table for a pot roast with the family and talk? As a child, the mother that raised me wasn’t Catholic, so I wasn’t taken to mass, unless I went with my childhood friend. I was constantly asked, “why are you Catholic, if you’re not Mexican, like us?” Nearly all of the other white children at my school were Baptist, or Lutheran. Some even told me they couldn’t hang out with me because I “didn’t go to their church”. So the friends I had were classmates that would stand near me at recess and talk to me. If I attended any events in town, they were typically related to their social groups. My friends were nice to me. They always included me; making sure I never felt like an outsider. They didn’t have to do that, but they did.

It was nice to visit Ireland, as an adult, and finally learn more about some of my ancestors’ culture. At the same time, I felt like I was an outsider. I wasn’t raised in a school that taught me to speak Irish. I use words like “Awesome”, which made locals remind me, “isn’t a word we use in Ireland; at least not like that!” I would pass people on the street that would tell me I looked like certain other Irish locals. That was interesting! I wish I could have met them! I’m left trying to piece together the family tree to determine which Irish families were part of my family tree. I returned to California to see large gatherings of Californians in local parks; celebrating birthdays and holidays. Those people have big families and they’ve preserved their culture. Their culture isn’t necessarily American, but they have kept that culture in their family, and they aren’t treated like an outsider in California. Sometimes I wonder if I should have stayed in Ireland, but then again, I’d still be an outsider there, too.

My children have been in the custody of a relative for about seven years. I signed them over because I had been in the process of joining the army. I was told by a recruiter to sign them over before I was supposed to be sent to boot camp. My relative is not someone I trust. When I asked her to add my children to ancestry.com she became upset and tried to cut me out of my children’s lives. Something happened when I was gone, and she won’t explain what I missed.

I asked the court for forms to request dna on my children. One of the clerical workers for family court called me and asked why I would need that. She teased, “don’t you remember what your children look like?!?” I explained that I have been apart from them for seven years and that their facial features have changed (hopefully just from aging). She kept insisting that they only, typically, offer paternity testing. She began to badger me as to why I would want maternity testing if I’m the mom of the children.

I am now in the process of obtaining an attorney to fight this in court. I have wanted dna on my daughter since 2015. My daughter was born looking blue and barely breathing. She was taken to ICU before I could hold her, and then returned to my delivery room appearing to have no health problems. She measured shorter upon being returned to me, than when she left the delivery room. I have wanted dna tests on her since she was brought back to my delivery room. After being apart from my children for seven years, I just want dna confirmation that they are the same children I birthed. I figure, why not test them both? I have wanted dna on my daughter since the day she was brought back to me in my delivery room. Why not just take dna on both kids after all these years apart? It’s not that expensive. It will put my mind at ease to know that relatives didn’t hurt them, or pull some scam with their records and distant relatives. I can’t tell you how many times my parents put us in the car, or rv, and drove us across state lines to visit “family”. It turns out, my parents might not actually be my biological parents. They don’t want to discuss that with me, and I have no adoption records with my name on them as an adopted child. Long story short; my family is shady. The kids my “mom” has in her custody today could be two distant relatives that are just using my children’s names now. My kids could be in some shack in Arkansas for all I know, while they pull their shady crap.

Am I asking for too much to have the court confirm dna on my own two kids after seven years apart?

He isn’t my biological dad. He actually had to take his dna kit to someone else and have that man spit in the tube, after he registered the dna to his email account. He admitted this to everyone in our family, at our kitchen table, upon receiving the kit as a gift. Since he divorced my mother (the woman who raised me), he has been forcing me to live with him and care for him. He had a restraining order placed against me in 2018, told the judge he served me with documents. He actually asked me to come over to visit, after claiming he had served me with a restraining order. I was never served with documents. He then framed me for violating the restraining order because I, at some point, was invited over to my parents’ house, where he claims I broke the order. I notified the judge that I was never served the documents and the case was dismissed without charges.

In 2019, I fell behind on payments to my trailer, after losing my second house in a short sale. He called the repo place and told them where I lived so that it could be repossessed faster. I spent about a year being homeless. He bought an rv and parked it in the rental space that I had been renting before the repo. He did this just so that I would be forced to give up my address. This meant that if I bought another trailer to park there, the space would already be occupied and I would have to change my address to another space in the park. He basically stole my rental space out from under me. He then told me that I legally had to live with him, which was a lie. I was forced to live in that rental space with him, while he kept my childhood home empty, out of spite. During this time, I continued working, and continued trying to join the army. I had left my career and had signed my children over to my mother in anticipation of attending boot camp for the army national guard. I was denied admission after they realized I had a metal clip on one of my arteries from a past surgery. I had left my job for the opportunity of joining the military.

“Dad” spent the next year belittling me and verbally abusing me. He forced me to live with him in my childhood home, after he sold his used trailer that was occupying my previous rental space. I walked through the house and realized there were blood stains all over my mother’s bedroom floor. He became upset and refused to discuss it. I notified the police and the sheriff’s department about the stains, since it occurred just before my parents’ divorce, and because he was defensive about it. If that sounds like I was overreacting, consider the fact that he beat one of my relatives to death around 1990, and she is buried along the North West side of the house! Anyway, upon resettling into my childhood home, I was allowed to sleep on the floor of my old bedroom. I was not allowed to place a door lock on my bedroom. There were times when I would wake up and find “dad” in my room, kicking me as I slept and cussing at me. I woke to find red marks and the start of bruises in the inside of my thighs that became darker bruises as the day continued; leading me to believe that I had been abused in my sleep the previous night.

Why didn’t I just live with my husband? So where is my husband in all this? Well, he left me in 2017, after we had bought our second home. He gave his wallet and car to a group of guys that have been terrorizing me since then. They all take turns with his wallet and even his email account now. They love sending out emailed selfies of each of them, dressed as my husband, while verbally abusing me in messages. My husband has walked out in the past. He used to walk out on me and our children all the time. He would leave for his friends’ bachelor pad where he would stay for days. He would drink, play video games, and sleep there. He would take his clothes and other items with him, and announce he wasn’t returning. He even threatened to have me killed and replaced by a mail order bride from some place like Poland. That was around 2016. I shouldn’t have agreed to reconcile with him. I have filed for divorce twice from him (2013 and around 2015). We reconciled twice because he would refuse to attend court dates and drag the process out until the judge dismissed it for my husband’s lack of attendance. Why so many divorces? Well, he hit me in 2013, bashed holes into the walls of our home, and shoved my infant son’s crib across the room with my son in it. In 2015, he choked me while I was holding my newborn daughter. I have already had one restraining order against him. Since our separation in 2016, he has sent gangs after me. Some have just made verbal threats. Others have broken into my residence, damaged food in my fridge, and one even stabbed me after following me off of a freeway.

Oh, and to make matters worse, I need dna testing on my children. My husband, in a fit of rage, revealed that he was letting his friends rape me in my sleep when we were married. He would insist on fixing dinner and yeah, it made me sleepy after eating his dinners. I was the only one working, so I thought he was trying to be nice. It turns out they would give him items like vape supplies and other free things in exchange. So, my husband didn’t father my children (which is why he hasn’t cared to even visit them since 2016). My daughter really needs dna taken because she was born blue and looked like she was dying just after birth. She was rushed from the room, but returned looking normal. She measured shorter than when she had left the room. The hospital never made any comment about whether she might have been swapped in ICU by accident.

So here I am, 35 years old, with a graduate degree in a STEM field, an ASVAB score of 97th percentile, and past yearly earnings that were around $70,000. I have to spend my days watching my elderly “father” frame me, degrade me, and bully me. I think I’m going to stop cleaning the house, cooking, doing laundry, and doing dishes as contribution, while living here. I’m also going to stop buying groceries for him. He won’t even tell me who my biological dad is, but he constantly makes it sound like he blackmailed my biological dad for money when I was a child. He constantly makes remarks about my blood type being different than his, as if he thinks he is better for being O+, instead of O- like me. He bullies me and tells me to cover my head because I shave my head; revealing a different head shape than he has. He hates it when I point out that he has black hair instead of a light brown, like mine. I like to tell him that my real dad must have had brown hair like mine. Oh, and if I really want to see him rage out, all I have to do is show him a math problem that I have completed, or something artistic that I have created with functions on Desmos or Geogebra. He hates mathematics. He has tried to destroy my career because he hates the fact that I enjoy my job, which is heavily based on mathematics. He throws fits every time I discuss anything math related. He behaved the same way when my “mother” would discuss her career. She had majored in math, as well, but her graduate degree was in education, not math. He would often bully her in an attempt to make her quit her job, insisting that teaching wasn’t a real job, like his.

I don’t know what happened in the late 80’s, but I wish my biological father had raised me instead of allowing this arrangement to plague my life. I am literally waiting for my elderly “father” to die. I think his job (and now retirement) was only possible because of some leverage he had against my biological dad by having me in his custody.

So annoying. Prescribed adderall and then they ran out. Spent a month taking life raw and chugging coffee. Prescribed vyvanse then the generic came out. Prescribed lisdexamfetamine and the pharmacy ran out.

There’s something ironic about having adhd people take action to refill their meds every month and I’m so sick of it but I can’t function without it.

Going on 3 months no meds now

Every once in a while I'm hit in the face with a boomer moment, and my wife and her phone are just the pinnacle of this. My wife is GenX, and not even a particularly old one, but damn she will dig in her heels against technology and progress. She has an iPhone and staunchly refuses to use a passcode. She doesn't need one and doesn't want one. Basic security? Oh, no, not convenient. Tap to Pay? Oh, no, she'd rather dig through her purse for a credit card and get flustered while 30 people que up behind her to get on a bus while she tries to find one that has rfid (which she doesn't like because "I want to insert the card myself").

So we get new phones. eSim phones to replace the physical sim ones. And we spend the better part of an hour trying to figure out why her sim won't transfer. Mine was a simple dialog, as was DDs. What's different about hers? iOS is up to date. Phone is compatible. madly searches internet a dozen links in and buried in a t-mobile help page - "make sure bluetooth is on and the phone has a PIN code". MFer.

I suppose it could be worse. Her mother answers facetime video calls by putting the phone to her ear like it's a normal call and then talking the entire time while broadcasting the top of her ear to whoever is on the other end. 🙄

I do not care for anime, or hentai. Or even generally porn/nsfw when I’m browsing lemmy.

I do like to browse all/new to see what else exists. But my god, I’ve blocked so many god damn anime and nsfw communities its getting ridiculous.

Ive turned nsfw off (so tagged posts don’t show) but generally I don’t even want “mildly” nsfw pictures (posing celebrities, scantly clad anime).

I like the concept of the fedeverse and decentralised communities. But there are so many god damn versions of anime and celeb communities.

Well thanks for reading my rant.

I just walked into a store and bought a pair of socks. And before I could pay I was asked for:

• Full name

• Address

• Email

• Phone

To buy a $15 pair of fucking socks.

Businesses, stop this shit. Just let me pay and go home. I will never give a solitary shit about your marketing to me, and this drawn out process at the register only makes me never want to come back.

In a world of daily data leaks and cyber attacks, I’m not giving you one piece of true information anyway.

I produce pottery and lost $450 in comissions and around 20 hours of careful work to make the pieces all special because i didnt teste a new glaze batch even having a bad feeling. It worked the last two times without testing because it was mixed at the clay facility. This time it was brought home instead then mixed later.. Dont be dumb like me and follow your gut feeling if its got a risk attached!! Urgh!