Thank you for the kind message. It is good to hear that it is possible to have it great even after a miscarriage. I have had two miscarriages and two biochemical pregnancies. I did not really have time tomprocess this yet, as I had to continue treatment as my fertility is further declining due to my age. I think that might be part of the emotions as well.

It is difficult for me to not wager my personal happiness on it. I have a small nephew and when I take care of him, it just makes me very happy. It makes me feel like I would be as happy or even happier with my own child. Also, I was abused as a child and I feel that I did not have parents that really loved me. It feel unfair that I am not able to experience the mother/child bond from the perspectives of a child as well as that of a motger.

I also tried to take care of my younger siblings when I was a child. I was able to provide them with some of the emotional support my parents failed to provide, but because I was too young myself I always felt like I was not able to give them what they need. I am an adult now and I feel like I am capable now of providing children with a safe and warm environment. And I feel like I have all this love to give, but there is no child to give it to. I do not know where to put it.

I don’t know. Having a child will not fix all of this and a child does not exist to fix this or to make me happy. However, it could have been an area of my life that could have been beautiful and where I might have been able to give something and be valuable. And instead, this also does not work out and is another thing that goes on the pile of things that have failed in my life.

I agree that staking my life’s success on it is not a good idea. But I am not sure what else I have left. I am trying to become a writer and I am writing down all my experiences from my youth and with my sister who passed away and my fertility treatments, and so on. Maybe it can help some people who experience the same things. I think that might be fulfilling maybe and a way to create something positive out of the things that feel negative now.

Sad and empty. I love kids. I had fertility treatments for years, but that did not work out. I will start IVF again in a couple of days. Hopefully it will work this time. It is one of my last chances.

I would like to adopt or have foster kids. However, I suffer from PTSD and in my country it is very difficult to adopt or foster if you have a background with mental illness. Even though my psychologist and the people in my environment all say that they think I would be able to do it and my partner does not have any mental illness, my chances are very low.

To be honest, looking any further than the next IVF makes me panic. I do not know how to live with not having kids and how to deal with that. I had a lot of bad stuff happen to me. Having children would be something I believe would have made me very happy. It feels like I failed at life. However, I just turned 40, so I know I need to give up at some point.

I have hyperphantasia according to these kinds of tests (although I am not sure how accurate they are). In any case, the ball was white with a green glow it was smooth and looked like plastic but no seams where the halves were joined, male, like a large blue bird I saw in a cartoon, a bit larger than a baseball, the table was a very long rectangle shape. It was also white. The ball was pushed very hard from one end of the table to the other and then it bounced on the wall, the floor and the ceiling. The room was a bit small, with only a very small window rectangular window. It was black behind the window. The room was also rectangle shaped, with concrete grey walls. It was a bit dark, but there was some artificial light from a lamp. The bird acted very cartoonish when pushing the ball. I think that is all.

( ͡°❥ ͡°)

It is very secure

My research is so specific that I would doxx myself if I explained what I do.

This is very scary.

Yes, let her in.

Yes, looks good!

I agree with that. Part of the point that I was trying to make is that when you only consider IQ, you have a very narrow view of intelligence.

When you consider intellectual giftedness, there are some definitions that just say you should have an IQ of above 130. However, there are also psychologists who consider it more like a complex syndrome with many attributes of which IQ is just one. The psychologist who worked with me had the latter view.

The ‘diagnosis’ of intellectual giftedness helped me to understand myself better and to understand some of the issues I have. It explains how and why my brain works differently from most other people and why I run into problems sometimes because of that. That helps me to deal with it better. So, it can be important for people to know about their intellectual giftedness in the broad sense and it should not just be ignored in all cases.

I do not think I view myself as belonging to an IQ caste or something like that. The word ‘caste’ suggests a hierarchy between people based on IQ. I disagree with that and I think people should not be considered worth more because of their IQ. However, at the same time, I tend to feel very bad about myself when I feel I am dumb. So, there is a bit of a discrepancy there between thinking and feeling that I need to work on. I should apply the idea of equal worth not only to others, but also myself, which I am working on. Apparently, I cannot just reason that feeling away.

I am intellectually gifted (officially diagnosed by a psychologist and psychiatrist) and 90% of the time I feel like I am very dumb. The other 10% of the time I feel like other people are very dumb. That is why I did not believe I was actually gifted for a long time. Apparently, smart people are sometimes more aware of mistakes they make and things they do not know, which can result in them feeling dumb.

Additionally, I am actually a quite dumb with practical stuff. It is boring, so I cannot concentrate on it and then I mess it up. I think that is also quite common.

I do not think it is that black and white. IQ is just one way of looking at intelligence. If people are walking around feeling like everyone is dumber than they are all the time, they either have a very narrow view of intelligence, or they might lack self-awareness considering their own weaknesses.

Yes, little brother vibes are good vibes. 👍

Oh, I did not know that. I have been doing it wrong all these years then. Could have been drinking cocktails on the beach instead of reading all these papers.

I am sorry, but what is wrong with your professor? You were doing exactly what you are supposed to do in a peer review. You should go look for things that are wrong or should be improved and only if the paper can withstand that process, it should be published. Only providing positive comments is really harmful to the scientific process and, in the end, to society.

To be honest, I think I reject more than half of the papers that I review. The rest require major or minor revision. It is not that I have a target or anything for how many I need to reject, it is just that most papers are of such low quality that I cannot do anything else. I think the number of papers I reject is quite normal in my field.

So, not all your comments need to be positive. If there is reason to be positive, you should mention it. And your comments should be constructive and respectful, but definitely not always positive.

In the case you are describing where the authors seem to only have read the titles of the papers, I would definitely reject. This is fraud. You are saying you did a literature study and you did not. So, I would be quite clear about that. I would also be a bit angry that they wasted my time. So, in my opinion, that is how a reviewer should respond in this situation, not with only positive comments.

Yes, that is an interesting question as well. I am wondering what the people with near death experiences could still experience from their bodies, because that would make a big difference as well.

The article by the Guardian that is linked is very interesting! I can really recommend reading it to people interested in this stuff.

I think the person who thought I was an AI explained it quite well. Thet said they just got jaded. However, they believed me when I told who I was and apologised. I appreciate it when people are able to revise their idea and it shows they did not have bad intentions.

I would not say people are crazy, there is a lot of manipulation going on on the internet by businesses and some governments. I think a lot of people fall for bots all the time. For example, Twitter and Reddit is full of them. So, I do not think it is that weird that people sometimes are not sure whether they are talking to AI.

What happened to you when you even showed pictures of yourself and they still were convinced you were AI is quite extreme. I hope that that does not happen too often, because that seems like the other person is either a troll or paranoid.

Thank you, I appreciate that very much. I try to be accepting of other ideas and to be understanding. But sometimes it is difficult for me too. Especially if I get many negative reactions and I do not completely understand why (I do not mean you, but some of the other people that responded to me). Then I get defensive as well, even though I try not to be.

Your work sounds nice and very useful! As a researcher, I know a lot about a very small set of subjects. Sometimes, I am wondering whether I am actually contributing enough and whether what I am doing is actually useful. When you are building homes, at least it is very clear who you are helping and how they benefit from it. I would not be able to do it. I have two left hands, as we say in my language. I am not good with the practical stuff, I am only good with theory.

In any case, thank you for the discussion. I checked the gut microbiome out a little bit already and there is a lot of scientific work on it. Very complex and very interesting! I am looking forward to delving into that. I hope you have a nice day (or evening depending on the time where you are).

I am not an AI. I am not sure how to prove that, but I am not. I am a scientific researcher, but in another field than the medical field. Maybe my scientific background shows in the way I communicate? Also, English is not my native language, so that might be why I sound different as well.

The reason I checked out so much research on obesity (as well as on being underweight) is that many of my family members suffer from eating disorders. I lost my little sister to anorexia a couple of years ago and my mother had it. However, some of my family members are obese as well, also due to eating disorders. I think trying to understand why people eat in a certain way and to help them instead of just judging them, might change things. And for me, scientific work and data is the best way to understand things. Maybe that gives you a bit of understanding where I am coming from and why I am interested in this subject.

If something is the result of research, it cannot just be called bullshit and set aside. It is not just another opinion that you can just decide to disagree with, considering the care that usually has been taken to reduce bias and ensure validity. Of course, research can be wrong and it is important to have a scientific debate. However, such a debate should be based on clear reasoning and arguments and other research results.

I was not pitying you. I was being compassionate. There is a difference between the two. I tried to be kind and understanding. That’s all.

Edit: I also wanted to mention that the study I linked refers to a study on women who were pregnant during the famine in WWII in the Netherlands. Maybe that is what you meant.

Thanks for the name. I will check out Rhonda Patrick and see what research I can find on the topic. I thought you were calling the different theories bullshit, but maybe I misunderstood you and you only meant to say that they sound like that. If that is the case, I apologize. I got so much negativity just for mentioning the research that I might have responded too harshly.

I am sorry to hear that you are struggling with weight so much. I think obesity has to do with eating habits. However, there is a reason for why you have this eating habits. One reason for that could be gut microbiome.

What often happens is that people just get angry with themselves for eating too much. And that anger might help in the short term to force yourself to eat less, but in the long term it will not work and it will just make you feel bad about yourself. However, if you look at the actual underlying causes, such as gut microbiome or setpoint theory, this might provide the insight needed for long term weight loss without the extent of suffering that most obese people have to endure.

It is the only study I know about this. I checked it out, because I have a lot of people with anorexia in my family as well as some people with eating disorders causing obesity. I thought maybe being anorexic and pregnant is similar for your body as being in famine and pregnant. So, that is why I know about this study.