I can’t cope

@Captain24 course hun.

Hmm... if you had no restrictions on money to spend, what kind of house would you build/buy for yourself? How would you decorate it?

I would either build a big ranch style house and furnish it in a country way @Jynx. Or I would build my current house in a larger size! Both would have green feature tiles and probably the same as I already have! Needless to say.. I absolutely love my house and my feature choices!

I would build a second house on the coast though. It would be waterfront with all glass windows on the ocean side so I could watch the waves and the storms. It would be designed as coastal with mostly whites and hints of blue.

I have so thought of this before! Lol

What about you?

@Captain24 honestly I'd love to live in an old abandoned church! Big open ceilings, gothic architecture, stain glass windows, the whole shebang - but I'd furnish it to be more my style. I got a lot of nature stuff in my house - bones, skulls, feathers, cool seeds and rocks and stuff. So that all on display. And like, curly black iron work stuff like candelabras and then put fairy lights and candles EVERYWHERE.

But also turn one of the rooms into a little like... rave cave haha. I love UV lights and have a bunch of decorations in another room in my house that all glow under UV. Would make that like, my gaming room perhaps.

I love that you already have a home in which you have been able to inject your style! Really makes a difference hey.

Oohhh an old church! @Jynx I love it. You never cease to amaze me with your interests. I’ve got this image of it being one style then open the door to a room that is completely opposite! I do love a UV light though.

Yeah.. I designed my house and the builders wife drew it up to measurements and stuff. It was hard to pick all the features. They looked good in the samples but I didn’t know how they would look on a larger scale but they all turned out swimmingly!

Haha why thanks @Captain24! I've always been an oddball, got called weird so often that I decided I might as well embrace it! I also have found that having a healthy fascination with the dark, macabre, and scary parts of life helps me to find balance, and to be able to be more accepting of the bad stuff - cos it wouldn't be bad stuff if we didn't have the good stuff to compare it to.

Haha yes! Like walking through the house is an adventure, Alice in Wonderland style! Never know what is gonna be next 😋

Aww yay I'm so glad your house feels like it's got you written all over it! What kind of decor do you have? You a paintings/wall-hangings kinda person? Maybe once the sun goes down I can show you a little slice of my UV room 😉

I’m really boring and straight laced compared to you @Jynx! I love that you can embrace who you are. I don’t feel like I can be. I feel like I have an expectation on how I should be.

You would find my house sterile! 😜

I have picture rails in the front room and down the hall so they have my diamond art and Elvis pictures on them! The hall is 10 metres long. In the front room of have 2 drawings from a local artist of my dog that has passed and one of mums dogs that has passed. That room also has all my ornaments and trinket's plus photos. It’s my favourite room and feels really homely.

I want to get picture rails installed in the open plan living area and in all 4 bedrooms. For more diamond art! But now I also need to find somewhere for lego!

A pic would be awesome!

@Captain24 oh it took a lot of work to get to this point. I used to try to shape myself to fit into what I thought others would accept. It only lead to much mysery and internal conflict. I can very much empathise with how it is to feel... almost compelled to live up to others' expectations - and not just the people around but social and cultural expectations too. I discovered that embracing my weirdness has acted as a wonderful filter though - those who don't like my weirdness don't stick around in my life, which is good cos they're not my people. But the weirder I became on the outside, the easier it was for other weirdos to find me! My friends are all pretty similar in their weirdness. It's comforting. I hope that you too can find and embrace the parts of yourself that you have perhaps suppressed, and that it allows you to form bonds and find kinship in people who celebrate you for the things that you've been shamed for in the past. Are there any parts of yourself, like style, interests, or anything else, that you feel you've suppressed due to how others might perceive it? Could you pull some of those things out (physically or metaphorically I guess haha) and give yourself permission to embrace them? Feel free to tell me about em!

The fact that you've got art of your own creation hanging about is wonderful! And hey, even if I did find it sterile, if it is an expression of you then that's all that matters! As long as it feels homely for you 💜

Haha I feel like there's gonna be some new lego shelves being put up in many people's houses!

I don’t know who I am @Jynx. I know I suppress a lot of me but at the same time I don’t really know what. I’m too scared to change either. I don’t have the confidence.

The thing I struggle most with is my sexuality. I know, obviously, the social norm but where do I sit. I know it doesn’t even matter. You are who you are but I don’t know who I am with that either.

Yeah love my house the way it is. I even put a green roof on. My builder hasn’t done one of those in over 10 years! My thing is if you don’t like it it’s not my problem.Im happy and that’s all that matters.

The process of self-discovery and self-construction is a wild ride @Captain24. It can sometimes help to reflect on your childhood - what were some things that you enjoyed or wanted to do that you were told off for or shamed for?

Also, I really found this helpful, maybe you will too:

I don't feel like I have confidence, it's not something I actively put on or have to practice. But by refusing to let other people's opinions define me or dictate my happiness, it allowed me to embrace the parts of myself that I had so long suppressed. The weird irony being that as soon as I stopped trying to be what I thought other people liked, people started to like me more. Cos what people like most of all, I think, is authenticity. And you demonstrated your capacity for that authenticity in the last line of your post! Darn tootin' your happiness is all that matters!

Yoooo, as a big pile of queer myself, I'd be happy to sit and chat with you about your sexuality. I am hopping off in about half an hour so we probably won't get time tonight, but feel free to share as much as you're comfortable with and I will get back to you when I can, hopefully when I'm around tomorrow. Or perhaps we could even make a new thread specifically for folks who are questioning their sexuality or gender to have that safe space to talk about it! 🌈

I was always shamed for wanting to express myself, especially emotionally. @Jynx. Wearing anything that

mum didn’t approve of, having my hair how I wanted it. I’ve never really had the chance to be whoever I am.

I don’t enjoy sex. I don’t even like it, I kinda hate it and it sort of repulses me. I’ve been with both male and female I don’t think I’m bisexual. I couldn’t care if I never had it again. But if someone wants it I just let them as I can’t say no after my SA. Male, female, married, single. Then afterwards I feel disgusting, dirty and ashamed.