Let's have a party!!!
Nov. 21st, 2014 06:09 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
gingerschnappsIt's the time of year when moods are crashing. The days are short, the weather is miserable, Wintermas looms on the horizon with all its stresses, frustrations, and problems. At the suggestion of the lovelystaranise , it's time to have a [mental health] Downswing Party!!!
By which I mean, come on over and:
(points shamelessly borrowed fromrecessional )
staranise , it's time to have a [mental health] Downswing Party!!!By which I mean, come on over and:
- complain. go ahead. let it all out. anon comments are screened if you'd prefer other people don't read it (tho if you want me to know who YOU are, signing is good) I won't tell, I won't think you're pathetic, I won't think at you "other people have real problems and you don't". Promise. Also, I will only unscreen YOUR comment if you tell me it's cool. Otherwise, your secret is safe with me.
- yell at your mood disorder of choice - MDD, Bipolar, PTSD, anxiety, whatever - anything that's currently fucking you up. The world, maybe. Or your meds! While there is a community for that, it can be fun to do it some more.
- post funny cartoons, macros and pictures of cute kittens, great stories you found, instances of people not sucking, hilarious gifs and other things (if it's nsfw, put it behind a link and note it and follow charitable warning systems - we're not here to make people feel WORSE after all).
- talk about things that make you happy, no matter how much you swear other people don't care about them.
- ask other people who might be reading about other stuff.
There's metaphorical tea, although I cannot recommend highly enough making yourself a cup of tea/coffee/tisane/hot chocolate/hot milk/whatever as a calming, soothing exercise. I'd turn on some music, except I do not know how to make a playlist show up in your computer. ANYWAY.
The only rules are EVERYONE PLAY NICE. If you DEFINITELY don't want any unsolicited internet advice, just stick "NO ADVICE" in your subject line. Even if someone doesn't have that, please offer advice politely, as a suggestion, and with the assumption that the person you are talking to is an intelligent human being. I would like to reemphasize this. Don't phrase it "you should look into X". Phrase it as "have you looked into X?"
Ready? GO.
(points shamelessly borrowed from
recessional )
Your hostess
Date: 2014-11-22 02:17 am (UTC)Plus I hate my job so much. My boss hired me to do tasks that he won't actually allow me to do, or lets me complete and then redoes after I am finished because he's changed his mind about what he wanted. It's driving me BATSHIT CRAZY but I can't quit because I'm leaving the country in less than a year and I really need to save money, plus I would have a real hard time finding another job that had such congenial hours and flexiblity. So ARGH, that is really not helping matters.
PLUS I AM MOVING TO THE OTHER SIDE OF THE WORLD IN LESS THAN A YEAR AND VISA STUFF IS REALLY STRESSFUL AND SCARY. *hides*
Re: Your hostess
Date: 2014-11-22 03:52 am (UTC)And wow, that's a lot of hard things. Reworking coping strategies is hard and feels pretty thankless for awhile. Kudos for doing the work. And moving dear god why is it so terrible, I am moving RIGHT NOW (same country! same coast, even!) and it still sucks so hard. Good luck.
Re: Your hostess
Date: 2014-11-22 10:07 am (UTC)(Coping mechanisms may have been unhealthy, except they were much healthier than DEATH so there's that to say for them.)
Re: Your hostess
Date: 2014-11-22 03:45 pm (UTC)Ha. Bahahaha. Jesus my life was such a disaster area. Learning to cope with an existence that is not two steps and a cough from total collapse is one of the thing sad we're working on.
Re: Your hostess
Date: 2014-11-22 07:09 pm (UTC)This. So much this.
Re: Your hostess
Date: 2014-11-22 10:55 am (UTC)*Mine was a US Student Visa. It was a process.
Re: Your hostess
Date: 2014-11-22 03:47 pm (UTC)Re: Your hostess
Date: 2014-11-22 06:51 pm (UTC)*I have the kind of chronic brain fail that gets horribly Too Too Much Everything out of cheese so I made lists. Of the documents etc I needed to have on hand before I could even start the application so that I could just tick off small steps without getting overwhelmed (it had things like 'get birth certificate' 'get student record' 'get bank statement')
*I ended up printing out a couple of copies of the visa application so I could fill it all out in a rough draft form first.
*The US Embassy website had a checklist for what to bring to the visa appointment that I also printed out and used to tick things off and could check and double check. and check again.
(I hope at least one of these might prove helpful)
Re: Your hostess
Date: 2014-11-22 10:48 pm (UTC)Re: Your hostess
Date: 2014-11-22 08:45 pm (UTC)Mostly...the UK Visa website is utterly terrible if you want to find any sort of information. If you have a workplace in the UK sponsoring your visa, it's easier, but there's still a million expensive hoops to jump through and no matter how many times you dig through the website trying to make sure you've dotted all the i's and crossed all the t's, it's never enough.
Things that I wish I knew sooner:
* Be aware you'll need a certain number of months of bank statements showing you've carried a balance of above $X - to show you won't be dependent on social services in the UK. Since you have some time, this is a good time to check what that number is and do all you can to keep a stable bank account above that number.
* I had to mail my passport and Visa application to the UK embassy in New York. Nowhere on any of the forms did it say I needed to give them a stamped, addressed return envelope. Luckily they let me take care of it after the fact, but knowing ahead of time would have been useful.
* When I initially tried to look up what I needed, it linked me to a website to find out where I needed to get my "biometrics" (aka: photo and fingerprints) and that site claimed that in the entire US I could only do so in New York City. I panicked about adding a 2000 mile trip to my plans. Turned out after you submit the application online, you get a list of lots of places all over to go. I don't know if Canada is similar, but don't freak out if it looks like you're going to have to travel forever for fingerprints - it lies.
* The Visa process wanted all my previous passport numbers and my past 10 years out of country travel history - something that may or may not be easy to assemble.
Good luck! It is a painful and expensive process. Just keep reminding yourself that plenty of people have managed it, and you can too.
Re: Your hostess
Date: 2014-11-22 10:53 pm (UTC)Re: Your hostess
Date: 2014-11-23 12:20 am (UTC)I just...it looks all friendly and helpful, until you try to use it. And then you click on a link that says something like "click here to find details of bank account requirements" and it sends you to either a "404 page not found" error or, I don't know, something completely unrelated to the link like how to peel a banana if you're in Wales and facing the north pole, or similar bullshit.
And sometimes it links you to other "helpful" websites That Are Even Worse and claim you ask them questions but you can either choose to call them (for which they have a ridiculous per minute fee) or a free online form, which gets responded to with a standard cut-and-paste answer that made it clear nobody read what you wrote.
....and clearly 8 months later I am still scarred.
I am so jealous of my EU colleagues here who Did Not Need a Visa, damn them. My Aussie colleague and I can at least commiserate about the pain of the Visa system.
Anyway, I'm glad I could help a bit, and I hope coming from Canada makes things easier (or cheaper) for you, and especially hope you get an employment sponsor because that makes a huge difference. Lots of luck! It's such a relief when you finally get here and have all that behind you (until you realize you then have to figure out how to do things like find somewhere to live and set up utilities...).
Re: Your hostess
Date: 2014-11-23 01:00 am (UTC)Luckily I have until August to figure it out, and I have put contingency plans in place in case things do fall through. But watch this space for much complaining and swearing about bureaucracy and its fuckups!!
Re: Your hostess
Date: 2014-11-23 05:04 pm (UTC)Just remember you aren't going crazy - the Visa process really is as nonsensical and convoluted as it seems. It isn't just you.
Re: Your hostess
Date: 2014-11-23 12:21 am (UTC)Re: Your hostess
Date: 2014-11-22 09:27 pm (UTC)And sympathies. That sounds like a huge amount of stuff to deal with.
Re: Your hostess
Date: 2014-11-22 10:46 pm (UTC)