I was robbed whilst in Barcelona. They inadvertently stole my passport. While waiting for a new one, I basically got my life going there and didn’t want to leave.
But hey, if that wouldn’t have happened then I wouldn’t be me!
I left my husband a year ago due to his addiction to heroin. It was absolutely the worst thing I've ever experienced to watch an addiction destroy someone you love. We were together since we were in high school. It took a lot of work, but I'm at a place now where I'm really truly happy, like happier than I've ever been. I had never been single as an adult and it's like I had to re learn who I was, because for years our life revolved around him and his addiction. It's been an adventure and while I'd never wish addiction on anyone, if things hadn't turned out the way they did i would probably have spent many more years in an unhappy marriage.
All my life I've struggled with what I guess you could call intermittent bouts of OCD, periods of weeks where my brain assails me with intrusive thoughts about destroying whatever I care about most.
In 2021, my brian was a firestorm, and the object of my intrusive thoughts was my relationship with my girlfriend. This led to me breaking up with her in an attempt to get some respite from the constant anxiety, three weeks after moving in together. That summer was a hell of misery, confusion, amd regret. My mental state got so bad I was fired from my shitty job at a shitty nonprofit. (Also, Chris, I emailed you at the time about getting you in contact with Rob Greenfield, sorry I never got back to you, I was going through it). I was suicidal and partially delusionally convinced that I had to die before my nephew could be born that fall. I was able to work with a great therapist and found methods to finally get my brain under control.
I was able to learn a lot about what love really means, to me at least, and a lot about forgiveness of self and others. I can now differentiate between what is 'intuition' and what is an intrusive thought. I still struggle with it sometimes, but I have trust that I'm in the driver's seat now. Years later, I'm back together with the love of my life, we've been living together for a year and are happier than ever, with someone who I am now convinced is an avatar of Patience and Understanding.
This is some very heavy shit so be warned. I wouldn’t call this a great gift but one of the worst things to happen to me did have its benefits.
My Dad died from an alcohol related illness four days after I turned 15. A series of utterly horrible events transpired over Christmas time of 2000 and he died on Jan 4, 2001. Being 14/15 years old and watching my Dad’s body slowly give way to death was a transformative experience. During that holiday season my Dad taught me that life is so utterly fucking fragile. Although I was on Christmas break, I learned so much during my Dad’s 11 last days of life in the central DuPage County hospital.
I grew up in a divorced household. My brothers and I would see our Dad every other weekend and on Wednesday evenings for dinner. That wasn’t much time for a father to impart life lessons. I feel he, in his uniquely indirect way, taught me to be a man in those final days.
Got cancer and wasn't sure if i had a future. Left a bad marriage after 27 years .,left my job .Bought a pushbike and a tent after chaemo and kept cycling and camping around the world for a permanent summer for 4 years .Had a whole new lease of life and a paradigm shift ..Always darkest before the dawn.
I worked for an abusive boss and he demoted me (and was going to fire me eventually). Knowing it was coming, I used all my vacation time and hiked the John Muir Trail. When I got done I went back to work and gave my notice. A month later I started my own business. This allowed me to go to school and eventually get my masters. Now I have several jobs I really like and I could not have done it at my old job.
I got into an abusive relationship at just 17. I started to have panic attacked 2 -3 years in. Not knowing what was causing it and slowly realising that it was the relationship. I couldn't stay knowing my body literally was going into panic because of it. So I left him and started to go to therapy at 20. I am now happily married to the MOST kind amazing person and have done a heck load of therapy thats helped me through this life. Who would have thought having a panic attack could be good thing.
I'd say it was losing $666K gambling with NFT's but that wasn't really the BEST worst thing.
Most recently it's been a (thankfully very brief) deep dive into AI-assisted porn writing sparked by a glimpse of my girlfriend eating messily and a story in the NYT about some woman with an AI boyfriend. This three-week detour was an echo of my lifelong history of addictive patterns, some of which have taken decades to unwind.
Not coincidentally, it came at a time when I had already begun working on a a new book idea about the relationship between addiction and intuition. This resulted in the tightest successfully resolved addictive loop that I've ever experienced, from initial spark of aversion to compensatory craving to seeking, exercising the addictive behavior, noticing how it felt (super gross), steering in the other direction, seeing it clearly, coming clean with her and others, integrating the experience, and moving on.
My wife had an affair. It was horrible!, Then I thought of all the positives, joined an online dating site after 10 days and eventually met my second wife.
If she hadn't had an affair, I would probably still be married to my ex - and much less happy.
a hotel room,I was stopped by a character who claimed to have met me at the frontier .--a taxi driver....I had not taken a taxi at the frontier but he was slick enough to say maybe it was someone who looked like me ,shook my hand and,disappeared .......a short way further on ,I realized that he had somehow removed my watch while shaking my hand !! ..I was infuriated and...impressed !!......By the time I had secured a hotel room then gotten to American Express they were closed ...and it was a long weekend ! I was too bummed out to stay in the city so next day went across to the coast where my luck started to change -- a good cabin and ,good company .When I Returned to San Jose ,no worries getting my money and mail in the morning and in the afternoon ,did a bus trip up Irazu volcano ...they let us loose and said to return in 2 hours .Normally I would never would have had a courage ,or need to ask a pretty English girl the time but ,I was minus my watch .......we became friends and fate had us meet again 8 months later at Iquazu falls in Brazil ......... our friendship has continued since then ....42 years ago .
It is wisely said that real adventure and experiences happen when plans and anticipation go awry ...so true ......
In 1993 I was leaving early Arenal in Costa Rica on a Friday to get to San Jose in time to collect a mail,and money from American Express-- back in the pre internet days .About an hour into the trip ,I realized that I had left my valuables belt under the pillow of last hotel room.By the time I had backtracked and resumed the journey It was getting late in the afternoon by the time I eventually got to San Jose .As I was striding along ,looking for
After I left the Navy I started a dream job working for the National Weather Service. I was fired 10 days before my 1 year probationary period was up. I was devastated! Embarrassed, I came home and told my family the news. My ex wife suggested I take my GI Bill and go to college. I thought she was crazy, I hated school and was a high school drop out. But I did it and I thrived. I ended up with a graduate degree and it helped me realize that I am intelligent and love learning. Something I never would have known, had I not been fired from that job. Also given the current political climate that job might not be so great right now!
Losing my drivers license for a couple years fresh out of automotive tech school, devastating to say the least. I ended up moving with a friend to the east village nyc where I could live easily without a car.
I ended up working for a mom and pop shop that never asked me for any credentials. Long story short from there, looking back my life has been on a crazy (but mostly good) trajectory that certainly wouldn't have happened otherwise.
I'm very grateful everything happened how it did. It's fun being older now and looking back on life and being in awe about the whole thing.
All the men I’ve fallen for have rejected me. At the time, it was devastating, but now I love my single and childfree life at 46. I have plenty of friends. I have plenty of sex. I feel super sexy, free, and desired. My life is full of partying and dancing. The money I make is just for me. I also don’t think I missed out on any of those men—my life wouldn’t have been as cool or interesting with any of them. Exploring sexuality as a single person is one of my greatest interests; I just didn’t know it because I had no model for it. I also learned to ignore the fact that some people pity me for not having experienced what being in a loving relationship is like or what it feels like to be loved in return. I wake up happy every morning, and that’s enough.
These are all so beautiful. Nearly six years ago, I chose to leave a high demand fundamentalist religion (which is fancy speak for CULT). Shout out to fellow ex-Mormons. My wife followed my daughter out and on the day she told me she was done, she said, "You're not a wizard, Harry." I had tried some bull shit line about priesthood (read: patriarchy). Not more than 3 days later, her dad, who had been living with ALS for a year, took a turn for the worse and by the time he passed, I was out. Best Worst Thing Ever (but not better than anyone else's best worst--just best for me and our family).
I was robbed whilst in Barcelona. They inadvertently stole my passport. While waiting for a new one, I basically got my life going there and didn’t want to leave.
But hey, if that wouldn’t have happened then I wouldn’t be me!
Ha! The only give-away is that I'd never use the word "whilst."
I left my husband a year ago due to his addiction to heroin. It was absolutely the worst thing I've ever experienced to watch an addiction destroy someone you love. We were together since we were in high school. It took a lot of work, but I'm at a place now where I'm really truly happy, like happier than I've ever been. I had never been single as an adult and it's like I had to re learn who I was, because for years our life revolved around him and his addiction. It's been an adventure and while I'd never wish addiction on anyone, if things hadn't turned out the way they did i would probably have spent many more years in an unhappy marriage.
All my life I've struggled with what I guess you could call intermittent bouts of OCD, periods of weeks where my brain assails me with intrusive thoughts about destroying whatever I care about most.
In 2021, my brian was a firestorm, and the object of my intrusive thoughts was my relationship with my girlfriend. This led to me breaking up with her in an attempt to get some respite from the constant anxiety, three weeks after moving in together. That summer was a hell of misery, confusion, amd regret. My mental state got so bad I was fired from my shitty job at a shitty nonprofit. (Also, Chris, I emailed you at the time about getting you in contact with Rob Greenfield, sorry I never got back to you, I was going through it). I was suicidal and partially delusionally convinced that I had to die before my nephew could be born that fall. I was able to work with a great therapist and found methods to finally get my brain under control.
I was able to learn a lot about what love really means, to me at least, and a lot about forgiveness of self and others. I can now differentiate between what is 'intuition' and what is an intrusive thought. I still struggle with it sometimes, but I have trust that I'm in the driver's seat now. Years later, I'm back together with the love of my life, we've been living together for a year and are happier than ever, with someone who I am now convinced is an avatar of Patience and Understanding.
This is some very heavy shit so be warned. I wouldn’t call this a great gift but one of the worst things to happen to me did have its benefits.
My Dad died from an alcohol related illness four days after I turned 15. A series of utterly horrible events transpired over Christmas time of 2000 and he died on Jan 4, 2001. Being 14/15 years old and watching my Dad’s body slowly give way to death was a transformative experience. During that holiday season my Dad taught me that life is so utterly fucking fragile. Although I was on Christmas break, I learned so much during my Dad’s 11 last days of life in the central DuPage County hospital.
I grew up in a divorced household. My brothers and I would see our Dad every other weekend and on Wednesday evenings for dinner. That wasn’t much time for a father to impart life lessons. I feel he, in his uniquely indirect way, taught me to be a man in those final days.
Got cancer and wasn't sure if i had a future. Left a bad marriage after 27 years .,left my job .Bought a pushbike and a tent after chaemo and kept cycling and camping around the world for a permanent summer for 4 years .Had a whole new lease of life and a paradigm shift ..Always darkest before the dawn.
Wow. That's a pivot!
I worked for an abusive boss and he demoted me (and was going to fire me eventually). Knowing it was coming, I used all my vacation time and hiked the John Muir Trail. When I got done I went back to work and gave my notice. A month later I started my own business. This allowed me to go to school and eventually get my masters. Now I have several jobs I really like and I could not have done it at my old job.
I got into an abusive relationship at just 17. I started to have panic attacked 2 -3 years in. Not knowing what was causing it and slowly realising that it was the relationship. I couldn't stay knowing my body literally was going into panic because of it. So I left him and started to go to therapy at 20. I am now happily married to the MOST kind amazing person and have done a heck load of therapy thats helped me through this life. Who would have thought having a panic attack could be good thing.
Chris asked "What's your best bad experience?"
I'd say it was losing $666K gambling with NFT's but that wasn't really the BEST worst thing.
Most recently it's been a (thankfully very brief) deep dive into AI-assisted porn writing sparked by a glimpse of my girlfriend eating messily and a story in the NYT about some woman with an AI boyfriend. This three-week detour was an echo of my lifelong history of addictive patterns, some of which have taken decades to unwind.
Not coincidentally, it came at a time when I had already begun working on a a new book idea about the relationship between addiction and intuition. This resulted in the tightest successfully resolved addictive loop that I've ever experienced, from initial spark of aversion to compensatory craving to seeking, exercising the addictive behavior, noticing how it felt (super gross), steering in the other direction, seeing it clearly, coming clean with her and others, integrating the experience, and moving on.
I've begun to write about this new project here → https://bowendwelle.substack.com/t/mirror
Here's the full story, by the way
I [almost] became an AI sex slave ⬇️
https://open.substack.com/pub/bowendwelle/p/i-became-an-ai-sex-slave
My wife had an affair. It was horrible!, Then I thought of all the positives, joined an online dating site after 10 days and eventually met my second wife.
If she hadn't had an affair, I would probably still be married to my ex - and much less happy.
I think this might be the best open thread ever. These are great!
a hotel room,I was stopped by a character who claimed to have met me at the frontier .--a taxi driver....I had not taken a taxi at the frontier but he was slick enough to say maybe it was someone who looked like me ,shook my hand and,disappeared .......a short way further on ,I realized that he had somehow removed my watch while shaking my hand !! ..I was infuriated and...impressed !!......By the time I had secured a hotel room then gotten to American Express they were closed ...and it was a long weekend ! I was too bummed out to stay in the city so next day went across to the coast where my luck started to change -- a good cabin and ,good company .When I Returned to San Jose ,no worries getting my money and mail in the morning and in the afternoon ,did a bus trip up Irazu volcano ...they let us loose and said to return in 2 hours .Normally I would never would have had a courage ,or need to ask a pretty English girl the time but ,I was minus my watch .......we became friends and fate had us meet again 8 months later at Iquazu falls in Brazil ......... our friendship has continued since then ....42 years ago .
It is wisely said that real adventure and experiences happen when plans and anticipation go awry ...so true ......
In 1993 I was leaving early Arenal in Costa Rica on a Friday to get to San Jose in time to collect a mail,and money from American Express-- back in the pre internet days .About an hour into the trip ,I realized that I had left my valuables belt under the pillow of last hotel room.By the time I had backtracked and resumed the journey It was getting late in the afternoon by the time I eventually got to San Jose .As I was striding along ,looking for
Don't leave us hanging!
After I left the Navy I started a dream job working for the National Weather Service. I was fired 10 days before my 1 year probationary period was up. I was devastated! Embarrassed, I came home and told my family the news. My ex wife suggested I take my GI Bill and go to college. I thought she was crazy, I hated school and was a high school drop out. But I did it and I thrived. I ended up with a graduate degree and it helped me realize that I am intelligent and love learning. Something I never would have known, had I not been fired from that job. Also given the current political climate that job might not be so great right now!
Losing my drivers license for a couple years fresh out of automotive tech school, devastating to say the least. I ended up moving with a friend to the east village nyc where I could live easily without a car.
I ended up working for a mom and pop shop that never asked me for any credentials. Long story short from there, looking back my life has been on a crazy (but mostly good) trajectory that certainly wouldn't have happened otherwise.
I'm very grateful everything happened how it did. It's fun being older now and looking back on life and being in awe about the whole thing.
All the men I’ve fallen for have rejected me. At the time, it was devastating, but now I love my single and childfree life at 46. I have plenty of friends. I have plenty of sex. I feel super sexy, free, and desired. My life is full of partying and dancing. The money I make is just for me. I also don’t think I missed out on any of those men—my life wouldn’t have been as cool or interesting with any of them. Exploring sexuality as a single person is one of my greatest interests; I just didn’t know it because I had no model for it. I also learned to ignore the fact that some people pity me for not having experienced what being in a loving relationship is like or what it feels like to be loved in return. I wake up happy every morning, and that’s enough.
Pity, jealousy all sounds the same to me.
I wish I had had the discipline to not get anyone pregnant, but hey ho! Enjoy the ride you're on.
These are all so beautiful. Nearly six years ago, I chose to leave a high demand fundamentalist religion (which is fancy speak for CULT). Shout out to fellow ex-Mormons. My wife followed my daughter out and on the day she told me she was done, she said, "You're not a wizard, Harry." I had tried some bull shit line about priesthood (read: patriarchy). Not more than 3 days later, her dad, who had been living with ALS for a year, took a turn for the worse and by the time he passed, I was out. Best Worst Thing Ever (but not better than anyone else's best worst--just best for me and our family).
Another Exmo here, I never thought I would leave the church, but when I read the CES letter, it was over. And I don't regret it.
I wish my family didn't treat me so weirdly now and I miss having a big community, but overall life is better outside the church.
I was going to hop on this thread and say the same thing, but now you've said it so I don't have to type it out!