What were you thinging?
The Thtar Thpangled Banner. 
I recently took a break of a couple of weeks, and found it very salutary to my internal peace of mind. It helped me to keep the things that are said and done here in a more reasonable perspective.
It sounds like your current stressors don’t arise from this place per se, although they may be made worse by all the doom-saying that goes on here. Perhaps a break on a wider scale is called for, if you can manage it. Anyway, best to you, and, as always, I hope things are not as bad as they may seem, for you and for all of us.
I did as well at one point. I would not be surprised if more of us have than have not?
This place can be a fun distraction, even a source of support. But if it reaches a point for whatever reason that it is adding to our stress more than relieving it then a break may be a good idea. Not flouncing, not leaving. Just a break.
That said, yeah sometimes a good verbal brawl is a bit therapeutic? Stress relief! Like punching a pillow. And The Pit can serve that function. Or not. 
My problem was a bit different, I think. I found a lot of people irritating (sometimes justified and sometimes not) and I was trying to relieve that irritation by catching them out in mistakes of various kinds. That was such a waste of time (and just admitting it to myself has been therapeutic). The re-set allowed me to step back and not care about the irritations, and to focus on the things that actually matter to me in the long term. My hope is that, if I start to regress to that earlier state, I will be able to recognize the symptoms and stop, or else realize that I need to take another break.
The OP in the Unified Field Theorem thread in GD has been around for 11 years! I would have guessed it’s some drive-by crank. Anyway, I have no idea what’s happening in that thread, but thought it made sense here, since that poster has been around for so long. That thread is all kinds of bullshit and nonsense.
There’s the potential for a useful discussion. But definitely headed into Crankland and I’m done with.
I remembered the username from similar threads they started with crackpot theories.
Yeah, my first though was “Wow, cladking is back! Wait, I thought he previously said he WASN’T coming back?”…
Is there? I can’t make heads nor tails of what cladking is trying to say. I can’t tell if it’s physics, sociology, economics, biology, or something else.
All of them. The clue’s in the name - unified field theory.
I think it’s always useful to talk about how science actually works. Many people think it’s magic that smart people use. That poster seems to be using that line of thinking.
Until a theory demonstrates usefulness in a specific experiment, it’s just grandiose blathering.
Hahaha! I hadn’t thought of that.
In a thread about a unruly toddler who wouldn’t sit down on a flight, causing the child & parent to be removed and the flight cancelled due to the late hour, @Dorjan relayed a story about spanking his child who wouldn’t stay in his car seat. I’m not commenting on that, but when I suggested that would be a bad idea on a plane full of people, @ThelmaLou thought that a toddler being spanked would result in “all the other passengers would have burst into applause and cheers.” That’s pretty horrible. There are arguments whether spanking is or is not child abuse, but anyone who would applaud or cheer it is a fucking sadist and sociopath.
And in the same thread, @Jasmine once again couldn’t be bothered to read any of the replies before posting.
I came here just to post that. It’s ok though. She’s posting from work and doesn’t have enough time and is way too important to read the thread before making one of her useless posts or she’s just dull witted.
And another thing, and I realize this is a me problem, she and Johanna have similar names and similar avatars and it often throws me off. It will be like “wtf? Jasmine said something intelligent? Oh, it’s Johanna” or the other way around.
I sometimes have that confusion a bit too.
Which is unfortunate because I value one poster a hundred times more than the other.
I admit to the same confusion between the two.
And also, if Jasmine has limited time to interact with the SDMB while she’s working (me, too. And i go off the clock to do it) she might want to read more and post less with that limited time.
Posting takes more time, anyway. At least it takes me more time. I gotta decide what to say, and then proofread, and then edit… (And yes, i still miss a lot.)
You almost sound human!
Oh shoot! My cover is broken.
I think the useful discussion that comes from that thread is being a front-row witness to someone descending into AI-induced psychosis.