YOU ARE NOT ALONE - A companion online community discussion board for The Mental Illness Happy Hour podcast with Paul Gilmartin

I love when I'm lying face down on the ground and a cat or small dog walks on top of my back.

I love when I use a frying pan for something and I run it, still hot, under the sink it makes a loud sizzle and steam billows off and I feel like I'm in an Asian restaurant.

I love when a native speaker compliments me on my Spanish.

I love being able to help Spanish speakers with their English.

I love being alone in someone else's house and finding a frosting container with a nozzle in their kitchen cabinet and just inhaling half of the frosting.

I love when a difficult concept in learning another language just clicks.

I love the orgasmic rush of seeing the new episode symbol for one of my favorite podcasts when I'm feeling down. Especially great when the title or description suggests that it's about an interesting topic.

I love hanging out with my super cool aunts and cousins whom I never really got to know when I was younger because my narcissistic mother isolated us from them in order to protect her own image.

I love when my family members tell me crazy fucking stories about awful crap my mother did and I feel so much better knowing that I'm not crazy.

I love a good bowl of microwave ramen with a buttload of grated Parmesan cheese. It reminds me of my childhood when my mother refused to get out of bed to make my sister and I food so my sister would make us that because the only cooking she knew how to do was cooking pasta over the stovetop.

I love getting a new pair of plaid pants.

I love my shitty, beaten up converse and insisting that they're fine when people tell me that I need to get new shoes.

I love reading things in in Spanish or German and just being able to understand them without any problem.

I love learning about the grammar of another language.

I love when a fantastic idea pops into my head but I have no idea what to do without so I'm forced to just file it in the back of my head. For example, I came up with this weird idea for an all-lesbian, Korean, Beatles cover band called "The Same Strawberry". I thought it was the greatest fucking idea in the world but then I realized that I have no idea what I would do with that idea. I still get excited about the idea just thinking about it.

I love going for a walk alone at night and listening to the latest episode of This American Life.

I love fantasizing about which city I could move to after high school. New York? San Francisco? Philadelphia? LA? Portland? Boston? I wish I could live in all of them at once.

I love when people compliment me on my short hair. I know they don't know they I'm a lesbian, so they aren't connecting the dots, but when they say it, it makes me feel more comfortable and confident about my sexuality.

I love hearing a little philosophical tidbit that puts my existentially angsty mind at ease, even if only for a little while.

I love how my dad and I refer to Chinese food in general as "10 minute" because there's one restaurant that we don't go to anymore where the person taking the order on the phone would the conversation by saying in a heavy accent "Okay, tha' be ten minute."

I love popping a particularly hard to pop zit on my face and the wave of satisfaction I feel when it splatters on the mirror. That feeling keeps me high for about half an hour.

I love finding a good, smutty yaoi fanfiction with my favorite pairing.

I love it when my best friend who I secretly wish I could be with gets vulnerable with me.

I love, on a winter day, waking up tired, not wanting to go to school, and angry that I need to get up and be active even though it's still pitch dark outside, reaching over to me phone and finding the message that school has been canceled due to snow, and, relieved, contently returning to my slumber.

I love when my mom makes up a bunch of crazy lies in attempt to drive my father and I apart, and my dad and I just laugh because we don't believe her bullshit even a little bit and we know that she only thinks we'll believe her because she doesn't understand what a true, loving, stable parent-child relationship is like.

I being tired and exhausted after a long day and feeling accomplished as I collapse in my bed and go to sleep.

I love the sheer fucking relief of finishing a 10 page essay that was assigned 2 months ago at midnight the night before it's due, having just started it that day, and then collapsing into bed, even better when I later get an A on the essay.

I love watching weird Korean TV shows dubbed to Spanish.

I love a good cry before going to sleep.

I love doing some arbitrary thing or seeing some object that triggers a memory, whether happy or very dark, from my childhood that I never would have remembered otherwise.

I love when a heterosexual guy is not afraid to call himself a feminist.

I love seeing stay-at-home dads like my dad used to be for me who just DGAF about what society thinks of them.

I love dressing androgynously and no longer feeling pressure and anxiety to dress according to how society thinks women should dress.

I love texting people I know from Argentina and Spain in Spanish.

I love the relief getting rid of a hang nail with a pair of tweezers.

I love baking cookies and then eating all the fucking cookies. They have to be really soft cookies though.

I love lemon curd.

I love tearing through a carton of Ben and Jerry's red velvet flavored ice cream.

I love taking a good, hard piss after several hours of holding it in.

I love squeezing out a bunch of blackheads on my face at once.

I love when people are surprised that I, as a girl, wear shorts for the bottom half of my bathing suit.

I love when I meow at my cat and my cat meows back.

I love when a blow air at my dog's face and my dog tried to lick the air.

I love images of very effeminate males wearing French maid dresses and fake cat ears.

I love frozen yogurt topped with Swedish fish and marshmallow sauce.

I love defying society's gender stereotypes.

I love eating scarfing down some macaroni and cheese when I'm sad.

I love marriage equality!

I love the message board username FuckfaceTheGreat.

I love your list. It made me laugh.
These are my faves:

I love when I use a frying pan for something and I run it, still hot, under the sink it makes a loud sizzle and steam billows off and I feel like I'm in an Asian restaurant.

I love a good bowl of microwave ramen with a buttload of grated Parmesan cheese. It reminds me of my childhood when my mother refused to get out of bed to make my sister and I food so my sister would make us that because the only cooking she knew how to do was cooking pasta over the stovetop.

I love getting a new pair of plaid pants.

I love when a fantastic idea pops into my head but I have no idea what to do without so I'm forced to just file it in the back of my head. For example, I came up with this weird idea for an all-lesbian, Korean, Beatles cover band called "The Same Strawberry". I thought it was the greatest fucking idea in the world but then I realized that I have no idea what I would do with that idea. I still get excited about the idea just thinking about it.

I love how my dad and I refer to Chinese food in general as "10 minute" because there's one restaurant that we don't go to anymore where the person taking the order on the phone would the conversation by saying in a heavy accent "Okay, tha' be ten minute."

I love popping a particularly hard to pop zit on my face and the wave of satisfaction I feel when it splatters on the mirror. That feeling keeps me high for about half an hour.

I love it when my best friend who I secretly wish I could be with gets vulnerable with me.

I love, on a winter day, waking up tired, not wanting to go to school, and angry that I need to get up and be active even though it's still pitch dark outside, reaching over to me phone and finding the message that school has been canceled due to snow, and, relieved, contently returning to my slumber.

I being tired and exhausted after a long day and feeling accomplished as I collapse in my bed and go to sleep.

I love doing some arbitrary thing or seeing some object that triggers a memory, whether happy or very dark, from my childhood that I never would have remembered otherwise.

I love the relief getting rid of a hang nail with a pair of tweezers.

I love tearing through a carton of Ben and Jerry's red velvet flavored ice cream.

I love taking a good, hard piss after several hours of holding it in.

I love when I can get just a little graze of physical intimacy from female friends (just something as simple as touching their hand for a second) that satisfies my desire to be intimate with women. The almost masochistic frustration of wanting more is the best part.

I love it when my female friends go out of their way to bolster my douchey, masculine ego by doing things like affectionately calling me a "big ol' dyke" and pretending to be flattered when I insist on holding open doors for them and carrying their things.

I love going to the bookstore and coming out with an ass-ton of books.

I love playing basketball against men. When it's against women I kinda half ass it, but throw just one man on the opposing team and suddenly I turn into a fucking animal.

I love reading a book or listening to a song or consuming some other work of art and just finding one particular line that is so profound and transcendental that you just have to put your book down (or whatever you're enjoying this art with) and roll it around your head for a while, appreciating its rich meaning, then lament that you can't conjure the words to share this deep appreciation with someone else, and finally go through something akin to the five stages of grief when you become jealous that you didn't think of it first.

I love watching some children's shows, specifically cartoons, like My Little Pony, Ben 10, Pokemon, etc. They're just so refreshingly innocent and comforting, even though I feel a little bit dumb about it sometimes.

I love it when a funny podcast or something makes me laugh even when I'm alone. Sometimes it just feels like it's been so long since the last time I was able to genuinely laugh; it's nice to know that I still can.

I love it when a friend very earnestly comes to me with their problems and very willingly and emotionally opens up. It touches me to be able to know that I provided them with that something that they needed.

I love realizing that I felt genuine empathy for someone.

These are great! I wish I could love cooking, haha.