Not really. A lot of it is just happenstances and inconvenient coincidences.

I do have some themes going in my life though that could make it seem that way.

• Anytime I get something good or things are looking too good to be true, there’s always something horrible or bad waiting around the corner to ruin that momentum.

• Anytime I am randomly crying or completely angry, it sometimes can mean someone I know is either dead or suffering as proven from the times I got emotional to eventually find an obituary of someone I knew who died.

• Irony loves to rear its head in my life now and then. In the past whenever I’ve said I never wanted to work at a fast food company, I ended up working at one.

• Anytime I am out to get one thing or do one thing such as a single errand, it always turns out to be the most frustrating experience ever. For example, if I needed to go out and grab one product I forgot to get or needed to get, I’ll end up having to store-hop several stores before finally getting it and during that whole trip, I’m dealing with dumbass drivers and even dumber pedestrians. As well as dealing with idiotic shoppers too.

• Anytime I needed something for emergency situations or to double-check something to be sure of it, suddenly the services I use are not available or down for maintenance.

• Currently, I’m dealing with a series of matters that consist of things requiring me to put more effort into them. Like having to double-click things for buttons that are usually one-click or fighting with things that appear to be broken when they worked flawlessly before.

Not really, mine is pretty random and based on choices I made in the past

Neurology tells us that we make decisions before we’re consciously aware that we made them.

I felt that specifically on an anti-seizure drug that I used to stop familial tremors. Almost as if someone was walking in my body and doing everything 5 seconds before I knew what was happening. It’s not abnormal, but it can feel remarkably disconcerting to believe you no longer have agency of your own body. Sorry for that, homeslice, but don’t be too concerned.

Where do you think the idea of “The Fates” comes from? Or any number of other similar deities/forces in nearly every society around the world. That feeling has been with us as humans for a long, long time.

I don’t feel like it’s scripted and that’s slightly worrying. I feel like a plank of wood being tossed about by the sea in a storm. At least with a benevolent god, one can assume that the suffering of life has a purpose. The older I get and the more evil I see prospering, the less confident I feel that there’s a point to it all. This depresses and mildly frightens me.

Do you mean ‘life feels scripted’ in the sense of you feel like there is a narrative structure to life, like your actions and words are decided by an external writer? Or do you mean in the sense of life has a narrative economy, like someone could have ‘plot armor?’ Or is it the sense that life should have more structure, like it goes against some unwritten law of writing that some things could happen at all?

The worse things get in my life the more I feel like this. I believe it’s a consequence of being raised Christian. (Though I am an atheist now.) When I was younger I believed God never gives you more than you can handle. So when things got bad it felt like God was breaking that promise. Now that I’m older it feels like “bad writing.” Like, really? This many bad things in such a short time period? It’s a little on the nose, isn’t it? It’s why I can’t rewatch I saw the TV Glow until I know I am in a very stable mental place.

The irony being that I have been going through a bit of a gender journey for a while and knew the movie had themes to do with that, but none of that really hot anywhere close to home as the rest mentioned above. I’m just glad I planned to see it surrounded by friends.

The idea that there’s an escape hatch on reality is so alluring. The idea that all the bad things in your life are the fault of one person, even if they’re a metaphysical entity, is so appealing. The sad reality is that it’s all random and sometimes we just get unlucky streaks.

It sounds like depersonalisation to me. A form of dissociation.

Lots of trans people deal with it when they’re closeted. I know I did.

i think this is a common side effect of being self aware

little existential crises before getting back into life

I don’t feel important enough for that. Same reason I’m not religious. People claiming a personal relationship with the goddamn creator of the universe are hella conceited.

Locus of Control

Yeah, a bit. My life is one of those shows where when something’s finally going right it immediately gets undercut and everything falls apart

Tbh some of those incredible downturns in my life couldn’t be better scripted if you tried

Is a parent or grandparent in your family a narcissist? That crud does trickle down.

• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ha7EwIAwoqM

On questions 1,2 and 3 no.

On question 4m yes it is, religious fruit cakes think that all the time.