I went into my interview for my dream job on Friday. The owner seemed to really like me and offered to have me come in to watch a training class be conducted.
I was explained the starting pay for all candidates was $17 an hour and was part time as described. I asked lots of questions and by the end of the two hours of interacting with everyone, I got the vibe from the owner that I had made a great impression.
"What do you think? Would you like to work here? Well, we think you'd be a great team member. I'd like to set a date and time for you sit down with our scheduler."
"Oh! Thankyou very much."
I was so happy and flattered. I talked about how excited I was and how I couldn't wait to start training. I told him I loved it here. He joked how I could help another employee with the social media. I ended up buying a few products and he was even nice enough to give me an employee discount.
I called my boyfriend, my family and texted a close friend about how excited I was.
"They told me they'd love to have me on the team and that I get to sit down with the scheduler in couple days, isn't that great?! This is a dream come true!" I gushed with pride.
When I came in a couple days later as promised I greeted everyone and the scheduler and I went into a back room. She was sweet and she told me she was very excited because this was her first interview she has ever conducted. She told me she loved my resume.
I blinked, inside feeling a bit startled but began to conduct myself in a interview type fashion. I tried to come off as friendly and as courteous as I could. I was happy we had a lot in common and I appreciate that I was able to make her laugh and talk about herself. She told me she doesn't get final say but that she sincerely hopes I get the job.
I waved my goodbyes and seemed cheerful and hopeful but left out the door with a soured face.
The owner immediately called me and in a jumble of words explained that the scheduler is also training to be a future manager. He hurridy told me hed like to have me come in for my final interview Wednesday, where he would ask me some situational questions.
He then went on to say that he was leaving the country for vacation for 3 weeks and that hopefully there would be an offer made by June.
I told him a bunch of affirmatives because I am a terrible people pleaser. At this point I was nervous and unsure of myself and I didn't want to come off as rude or ungrateful. I just asked a bit awkwardly, if he doesn't feel I'm a good fit or if they find someone else then I'd love a phone call. "Oh as a courtesy you mean? Yes of course, sure."
I got off the phone feeling confused. I had stupidly told everyone I already got the job. I berated myself for being so neieve and inspected my memories obsessively for anywhere I truly misunderstood. I concluded that I was sure he was being direct with me but must have changed his mind.
The thing is, I don't know I can't wait 3 weeks to see if they will extend me an offer. I needed that job and had thought I was coming in to sign paperwork and figure out my new work schedule.
Ever since my boyfriend got hurt at work I really needed this for us financially and I really just needed a win after so many weeks of sorrow and worry.
Maybe I'll get my dream job but my soul is telling me that it's best not get my hopes up at all. Right now, I am just trying to comfort myself. I'm nieve and maybe I should have known better. It's another important life lesson on only listening to what people do and to not pay attention to what they say. I should also know not to celebrate until I get things in writing.
It takes a mature person to really get that through their head. I'm working on it.
Despite this Wisdom, I'm sulking like a child.
-Thanks for listening. Let me know if something like this has ever happened to you before. I feel pretty dumb right now for sure... If you have any thought or encouragement that would be very kind of you.

Hello everyone!
I'm 23 and I love weed. For the past couple of years (not exactly sure when I started), I've been smoking pretty regularly, usually enjoying a bowl or two every evening at home. Even when I go out, I often choose a joint over alcohol. So, you could say I have a pretty close relationship with weed, but I ain't no Snoop Dogg.
Until about 2 months ago, I'd been smoking almost daily for nearly a year, with only occasional insignificant breaks. Even when I wasn't home, I'd usually have a little pipe with me, just in case. But then, about 2 months ago, I had to take a break (lost my plug lol). After a few days of not smoking, I decided to extend the break until my birthday, which was about a month away.
During this month-long break, I noticed both good and bad things. On the positive side, I didn't really crave the weed; I could live without it just fine. No headaches, no sweats, slept like a baby — I just stopped one day and wasn't tempted to reach for the stash (although I kinda did miss being high). On the negative side, the bad thing was (and still is) these damn brain fogs. I don't know if I'm tripping, but it feels like my head was a lot clearer before I started smoking. I miss having a clear head. I've questioned myself a lot if this foggy brain is just because of the weed, or maybe it's because of my unhealthy sleep schedule, maybe something else or even if it's really there.
Whether it was just one day or a month without weed, I didn't notice much of a difference in the brain fog—it definitely didn't go away. I'm not even sure how to explain the feeling, but maybe some of my fellow smokers have experienced something similar. It'd be great to find someone who can relate, so I know I'm not alone in this.
Also, as a musician, I used to convince myself to smoke before writing new songs, thinking it would get my creative juices flowing. Lately, though, I would just end up sitting in my studio watching TikToks and wasting my time. I'm not even sure if different strains make much of a difference in this. About a year ago, smoking would put me in a perfect mood, helping me enjoy the everyday little things and making me more productive and creative. But now, I often find myself just doing nothing when high. I really miss the healthier relationship I had with weed and I'd love to find my way back to it.
I wouldn't say I want to quit weed completely, though part of me understands it might be for the better. I just enjoy it too much. There aren't many things in life that bring me great joy, but weed, being one of them, also helps me turn the boring things into something enjoyable and entertaining.
Has anyone else experienced anything similar? What would you suggest I do? Thank you guys.

Relationship what do i do
I know this is anonymous but still scared he will see lmao. I will explain situation, 21 M and 20 F
Basically i met this guy early 2022, freshman year of college in a class, i did not really feel much for him but we were project partners, i went on a date and did not feel anything and pushed him away (i am now realizing i think i really liked him but was scared as i had never been in a true relationship, just a toxic fwb from high school)
Summer came and i moved home and we snapped for the summer but that was it. As soon as fall sophomore year rolled around he was consistently hitting me up, wanting to hang and see me. I did and was excited, he treated me and my friends well (this era was the best he had ever treated me) However, his friends told mine i was mean and leading him on, which scared me again and i said no to going up north to a frat formal with him cause i was so nervous (and all i had done for experience was literally kiss atp, and i knew what was gonna happen up there)
We continued to kinda be just flirty friends and not cross any physical boundaries, we remained close and i went to a few date parties and spring 2023 i finally confessed, told him about my toxic past and how he is a good guy and i felt i owed him the truth. He said he had met someone and thought i did not want to take it further than friends which was totally fine and he wanted me as a friend if i wanted it which i said yes, as he wanted to see where it went with her and i felt i owed it to him. However he lessened communication (as expected) but he continued to snap and text me which i thought was odd while he dated her, never posted her.
I would respond if he texted but avoided seeing him out of respect (which i now realize as i have grown a little i should have cut all contact as it was not fair to them, which does make me an ass i do realize). But fall 2023 would still invite me to tailgates and never introduced us, I stopped going cause it was awkward and did not want to seem like i was intruding and it was obvious i liked him still. He would literally ignore her completely and would act like she did not exist when i showed up, i would not have even known that was his gf if i did not know what she looked like
Finally this past winter of my junior year he asked to see me (had not seen him in months) came over and told me he broke up with her after 5 months and he never saw it going anywhere. We caught up for hours, chatting and he wanted to do spring break and hang out more. Next day i went over to his place and we smoked and broke the friend boundary for the first time and made out. He acted like my bf for a week and told me he doesn’t want a relationship this fast out of an old one but potentially in the future not for a long time, which i said i understood
He lessened communication (i feel like it wasnt bad but i am anxiously attached but friends said it was bad) but we hung out still a little. A few weeks later we smoked and i got too high and he tried to escalate (i am a virgin) while i was tweaking and i rejected him and he left and distanced himself completely after that. We went up north he paid for dinner but it was awkward, not at all like before.
At the hotel he wanted to do shrooms, i rejected, then tried to get me to drink more even though i was drunk and kept saying that. He kept saying its motivational drinking and i should not be a pu***. He eventually was annoyed and gave up and We slept in the same bed cuddling but he never kissed me and rejected when i tried? I offered to get off of him but he pulled me in and held me until we woke up, very emotionally intimate. We got back and he said he told me no relationship and he sees us more as friends, and i apologized for blowing him off when i was high and explained i was inexperienced.
He continued to flirt and reach out a month following but never asked to see me and the month after that (april 2024, spring junior yr atp) basically cut all communication besides a snap here and there. He is nice and responds when i do but idk what to do. I am in love with him and everyone calls him an ass but I genuinely feel like he isnt. I just feel bad cause he was prob busy leading up to going up there and i made it awkward by overthinking.
But he did bring up his ex and how they were supposed to do spring break on way up which threw me off. I was also recently told he was a drinker in hs which makes me wonder. He always wants to involve substances when he hang out (even before as friends). Like i get he is more socially anxious but it bothers me, why after two yrs is he not comfortable with me?
Need opinions LOL sorry its so much ty to whoever read but i am inexperienced and cant shake the feeling its all my fault and i ruined it

( I POSTED EARLIER BUT NOT SURE I DID IT RIGHT, TRYING Again) SOOOO let me start off with, the reason I'm confused is bc it doesn't make any sense. SO A Month ago I had a Retreat RC with a tooth on top ( endo did the retreat) then I had a tooth pulled that already had a root canal/crown just last week ( last Wednesday), it was also a back top tooth#2, I have been doing salt Walter rinses amd finished my Antibiotics on Saturday. ( it was my 3rd round of Abx my 1st round Amixocillin 7 days was 2 weeks before my Retreat bc my dentist said it may have been a sinus infection bc xrays showed NO INFECTION, went to Endo he started the Retreat with a drain and put Medicine in and sealed it up put me on my (2nd Round Antibiotics ) Keflex for 7 days, then 3 weeks later went back to finish up Retreat root canal, everything went awesome, but he let me know that my back top tooth #2 which had crown/rootcanal was loose and had a crack he could see on the x ray but I had already had a bad taste coming from it which I had already told my dentist, and he said it looked fine and it was probably from the one that was being retreated which he had said that it didn't have any infection ( it was infected based on what endo said, but My Dentist informed me that Endos can see more bc of their equipment, although my Dentist done a xRay that went all away around my head and he had stated he could see everything) so I had called my Dentist to make an appointment to have crown took off to look at it, but then with rge Money adding up so quickly I said let's pull it bc Endo said by what he saw it probably needed pulled and he was correct, it was decayed pretty bad, it's been less than a week it was pulled, but before they pulled it 4 days before I was put on a (3rd round of Abx Amoxicillin 9 days, [it was for 10 days but dropped my bottle and 3 of my pills got soaked] ) went had #2 extracted so far so good, THEN THIS MORNING HAPPENS!!!! Getting to my question, so sorry.
So I brushed my teeth and I have been noticing that bottom tooth # 30 which has also had a root canal with a crown just a couple years ago by my Dentist, has been sensitive and been told that is normal and since I have had the top extraction just 5 days ago I have noticed it is sore maybe from the pressure of biting on guaze trying to get bleeding to stop from the extraction ( I was bleeding for 8 Hrs pretty heavy)I'm not sure, ANYWAY then I noticed a hard Bump that was the color of my skin it was just a Hard bump with NO white on it like a pimple, but it was hard so I called my Dentist they said to come in at 12PM only 3 hrs away, so I was in the car before going in and I pulled the side of my mouth to look at it and pulled tight and then I tasted a salty taste,, ( the pressure from pulling the skin to look at it must have popped it) didn't see anything but BUMP GOT SMALLER, as I'm walking into my Dentist, x ray was done with a visual exam , ( no tapping of teeth or cold/hot sensitivity test just visual and xRay) was glaced at for maybe 10 seconds when I showed him where a very tiny bump remained (bc my dumb butt had to look at it and mess with it before he looked at it, so it popped amd went down quickly)and he gets up takes gloves off and said no sign of infection , so I asked what it was and the taste I explained to him once again, he said IDK I see nothing, he then says maybe a Mucosa Gland but not sure bc nothing is there, I asked if he could see where it was leaking, he said no signs of infection, I remind him I was told the same when I did have infection when he sentt me to the endo. So I felt embarrassed and so stupid and felt so small bc I felt he just didn't believe me bc his tone, didn't even explain anything to me, so abt 6 hrs later it's coming back slowly, amd I called my detist office again to let them know the bump is returning amd sometimes I taste a salty taste,the office staff called me back amd said he said he could put me on anorher round of antibiotics( 4th round) just in case it is an infection or gum boil, or it may just be a mucosa cyst ( i thought cyst didnt drain?)I reminded them I had just finished a 9 day ABX ( my 3rd round) not even 48 hrs ago, then I told her I wanted to ask him questions bc I never had a " Abcess/ Gum Boil/Mucosa Cyst, but he literally was in that room with me MAYBE 1.5 MINUTES, she asked me what would I need to know, I then changed the subject amd asked what should I do going foward, Their Amswer since I'm" denying" My 4th round of Antibiotics within a month and a half was to see if it keeps coming back, maybe wait a month or so, touch base if any significant change and go from there. I asked if maybe I should go to an oral surgeon for them to glance at it. I was told no , I couldn't get a referral let's just wait and see, I explained to them if IF it's an infection I would take my 4th round of Antibiotics but he said it wasn't an infection this morning , amd I asked twice as he was walking out if he was sure it wasn't t an infection, he stated NO It isn't, then while walking down the hall I asked him one more time if he was sure it wasn't an infection he said NO, if it was am abcess it would show up on xray. He then stated real loud NOTHING NOTHING Is there and IF something Appears call us, I felt so small. But I did call, and I still have NO ANSWERS after paying $110.00 today for NOTHING!!!! I also have Crohns so being on alot of Antibiotics cam really mess me up, amd ir it's truly not an infection you don't need an Antibiotic, or so I thought. So I said and explained all that, to ask, is it possible to have a "Gum boil" without any infection? The hard Bump is not right under tooth #30, it's more over we're #29 ( but #29 is gone just empty space) so it's way down on gums Like where your inside cheeks go down and meet ur gums, I hope I'm explaining that right, anyway again it's not right up under tooth #30 I would say if #29 was there it would be under that tooth all the way down past gums where gums meets ur cheeks. ( when I'm home I may be able to get a picture to explain better) but again #30 has been sore and hurting off and on since extraction again I thought it was from me bitting down on that guaze all those hrs, I had alot of pressure on them, but before that I had explained to them that it was sensitive to sweets, amd some colds was told it was normal, so again here are my questions!!
What could it be if it isn't infection?
Should I get a 2nd opinion?
If it's an abcess , are abcess hard to leak out, does it take alot to pop am abcess? ( again there was no white pimple looking bump or any blood or pus that leaked out it was just clear n salty, amd the color of bump was the color of my gums)?
How fast do abcess fill back up if it's an infection amd would it hurt and could u see where it leaked or popped fluid from? Would it look like a sore after it pops? ( mine hasn't filled all the way up as it was this morning but i can tell it's coming back, it's slow.
Should I take another 4th round of Antibiotics without knowing it's a true infection?
I have spent $2,800 in the past Month and half, and I'm so scared I'm gonna have to lose another tooth bc I can't afford another Retreat, and I'm scared my dentist doesn't really care or maybe just doesn't know, but being told to wait it out, if it's am abcess wouldn't that be dangerous? I hope I explained amd to anyone that cares to explain anything to me abt what you think my Dentist is thinking please explain to me bc I don't even know. All I l ow to do, is wait and see what happens. And was told to try to wait atleast a month. THANKS and GOD BLESS!!!!

(My brother 18m graduated over the weekend. He also turned 18 1.5 weeks ago.) So, I 16m have autism. It was diagnosed 5 months ago, but we suspected it for a couple years. I have a hard time being social, and sometimes I have a breakdown if I am overwhelmed by it. I've learned to mask it over the years, but sometimes it's impossible to control. My brother turned 18 on May 2nd, and I wanted to get him a gift. So I sold all my expensive Pokemon cards(worth over a hundred dollars) at vintage stock for ten dollars. I've had them for my entire life, and cherish them to my core. They held a lot of memories of my past, and it was hard to give them up. But I pushed through it, wanting to make his 18th birthday special. Fast forward a week, and he's graduating. It's his graduation weekend, and I'm determined to make it special as well. I've been practicing his graduation music in band, even though I don't play anymore because of my social anxiety. Playing a trumpet kinda feels like yelling in a room where everyone else is only talking. On Saturday, we hold his graduation party. I'm woke up by my mom, and I spend the entire morning cleaning the house while being yelled at by my panicking mom. I then spend 3 hours decorating for him, all while he wanders around dwadlleing. People start showing up, and I retreat to my parents room where I proceed to babysit my dogs. The few times I did leave, they didn't stop barking until I came back. After a couple hours of sitting there, I get bored. I asked my brother if he is going to be on his vr headset. He tells me no, but says I can't play on it anyways, as he wants me to socialize. I tell him I'm going to play on my Xbox, only to be told not to. I'm kind of surprised, as it's my Xbox. There's no reason why I shouldn't be able to play. He then says I can either sit with the dogs or socialize. I'm taken a back, as he doesn't usually have the right to order me around. I shrug it off, and go back to sit with the dogs. I don't want to ruin his graduation party. I sit there for the rest of the party, only coming out to say goodbye to everyone. The next day, I'm woken up by mom again. This time though, I can tell is going to be a bad social day. But I play along, getting dressed so I can play for the graduation ceremony. Once I get to school, I try to avoid all contact with people. I mostly make it to the gymnasium, where the ceremony is being held, without losing my shit. That's when I see the seating arrangements. The entire band is shoved in a corner. Luckily though, some people didn't show up. This left a big gap, letting me sit two seats away from the people on my right, and four seats away from the people on my left. Then the principal decides he doesn't like how we look, and squishes us further into the corner and putting everyone shoulder to shoulder. I'm borderline breaking down now, but I get through the agonizing hour without breaking down completely. Eventually, we're let out. I walk over to my parents car, where my brother is standing with them. I ask if I can go home with him, because they're going shopping. Remember, I mask very well. They tell me that I'm coming shopping with them, and that my brother wants the house to himself. I tell them that I can't take going shopping right now, and I need to go home. They ignore my pleas, insisting that I'll come with them. Then they try a different tactic, saying the choice is up to my brother. He recognizes it's not fair for me, and says I can go home with him. They then try to pull every card in the book. "You used to be mean to him when you guys were home alone!" I haven't done that in over a month. The only reason I did it was because I was frustrated that my brother just got to order me around. I told them that I haven't done that in a month, but they go onto the next excuse. "It's his graduation day, it should be special" at this point, my mask is falling apart. I start raising my voice trying to convince them that I can't go with them. They then try bribing me with the offer to go to Petco so I could look at the animals, but my breakdown couldn't be fixed with that. Eventually I get in the truck, throwing my trumpet in and slamming the door behind me. Then dad, who is stubborn and petty, turns on the music at a very high volume. When we had first set out, mom told him to turn it off because it was too loud. Now she sat in silence, content with making my ride hell. I then curl up in the backseat, with my fingers in my ears. Eventually, they get out to go shopping. I stay in the car without argument, because we all know it would get worse if I was forced to go with them.When they come back, dad turns the radio on full blast again, and I go into a full meltdown. I start screaming at them to shut it off, and mom decides it's time to shut it off now. But dad, wanting to instigate me, decides to turn it back on at a slightly lower volume. Even mom recognizes this as instigating but before she can do anything about it, I open the car door. Keep In mind, we're still moving at about 30mph. I'm fully prepared to launch myself out of the car, and the only reason I don't is because I have to unbuckle my seatbelt. In that timeframe of me unbuckling myself, mom yells at me to shut the door. That snaps me out of my tantrum enough for me to shut the door. Mom then yells at dad to take her home. I yell at him to take me to the mental hospital. Both of them refuse because of how much money it takes. Once we get home, I get on my phone and calm down. Then I get on my Xbox and start playing powerwash simulator to calm me down even more. After I'm calm enough, I start playing multiplayer games. Today, mom wanted to take away all my electronics for the way I acted, saying that I was super selfish. I eventually argued my way into getting my phone back, leading to me making this. Her reasoning behind me being selfish is that I "made my brother feel guilty". She also brought up the fact that Sunday was mother's day, and that I shouldn't have acted that way because it was her day as well. Are my parents right, or should I take this situation to medical professionals?

Long time lurker, first time redditoposter. I've been listening and reading a lot of these horror stories and figured it might be fun to share mine.
I haven't actually played a game of DnD or DnD adjacent since about 2020/2021, mostly because of what transpired during the games I actually did play before that. I love the concept, I love creating characters and stories and worlds, but I get a pit in my stomach when I actually try to play again.
I had my first opportunity to play DnD my freshman year of college. I dropped in on the campus tabletop club and I was quite anxious. I was the only girl in the room, everyone seemed to have known each other or clicked well, but I wanted to branch out of my comfort zone. The first night went well! We played a very quick heist one shot where we made a character with one flaw and one interesting trait. Through unfortunate rolls and circumstances, we had a TPK, but it was a fun time. I was invited afterwards to join a Pathfinder campaign that a few of the members were going to start up for the new semester, and so I scheduled a time to meet with the DM and create my first full fledged character.
Now, the DM was kind of eccentric, a little whack if you will but very excited to help me make my first character. I thought he was just goofy and really into the game. God I wish I picked up on all the red flags that would come.
He first asked me what kind of race I'd like to play as. I had always been drawn to tiefling characters because I liked the aesthetic. His eyes lit up at that for some reason. Then he asked what class I'd like; if I'd like to be primarily a support or tank or what have you. I didn't want to get overwhelmed in my first game and thought support might be nice. I could watch how combat worked while just keeping everyone going and buffed. I said let's try bard! The grin that crept up on his face...
He immediately started talking about how saucy that would be, how my character would be so flirty and fun. I expressed some discomfort in having my character immediately fall into the "h*rny bard" category I had seen meme'd on so much, but he laughed and waved it off by saying he "was a theater kid in high school! Everyone was super h*orny and making out backstage all the time. It just comes with the environment!" Being a new player, and wanting to fit in, I pushed down my discomfort and thought okay, I'll play her as a joke character I guess.
For awhile it was fine, I got to play her as a dancelyre player who was part of a traveling circus. Nothing weird was coming up the first few sessions. Most of the other PCs either joined together by taking quests from the town job board, or had ties built in to their backstory. My first red flag should have been that the DM, despite constantly raving about all his planning, was frequently skipping around the story. He would suddenly decide the plot point we were on wasn't interesting enough for some reason, and just throw us into another scenario. We left so many lose ends because he just didn't feel like finishing them, regardless of if we were engaging in it or not. But hey, he's the DM right? That's what I thought, he had the right to change it. I had no prior experience to see this was just bad DMing.
We ended up joining an archery competition as we were tempted by a mystery grand prize. At the sign up table, out of nowhere, the DMPC attending to registration suddenly starts flirting with my character. I got flustered in a negative way because this DM got very into character (giving me looks, leaning in as he spoke to me, the whole shebang). I panicked, all of a sudden being the focus of a room full of men seeing how I'd react to it. I again, stupidly, went along with it. I had her (nervously) flirt back lightly, and I was relieved it didn't go much further at that point. Skipping to the end of the archery competition, my bard ended up in the final two and sabotaged an assassination on the town's mayor mid competition. The party was invited to a celebratory dinner at the mayor's house afterwards, where we once again ran into the NPC that flirted with my character at registration. He invited her to bed, and again I got extremely uncomfortable and flustered. None of this was discussed beforehand, nor was I even asked if I was comfortable with such topics before joining the campaign. The guys at the table were egging me on, and I felt pressured to accept. With a few hoots and hollers, we had a fade to black scene (thank god). I went home feeling very icky, but convinced myself I was being a wimp. And the table had enjoyed my antics that night, so I should be grateful.
I had the thought between sessions to write in a childhood friends to lovers interest for my bard to try and avoid any more unexpected encounters like that again, thinking if the DM had another character to play as with some personal tie to my bard, that would make be feel better about the interactions. He was brought up once, where I milked the f*ck out of my character's attachment to him, hoping to drive home that this was juicy potential relationship to build over the campaign. He never came up again during that campaign. The DM also completely disregarded many of the notes I gave him detailing this love interest's personality, and took many 'creative liberties' with him, but not enough where I would decide to say something.
Another few sessions happened where we struggled through the DMs inconsistent storytelling and jumping around to whatever plot point had his interest at the moment. He was constantly putting us in fights we could not hope to win, way too challenging for our lvl. 1-3 party. We often sat around the table in disappointment and defeat as we got absolutely destroyed by monsters (no one being able to land hits for sometimes 3-4 rounds at a time because of how high the AC or CR was), while the DM laughed and basked in the dreary nature of the table. He would usually eventually fudge rolls to give us an out when we were close to TPKs. He even gave us a deck of many things and insisted our PCs "felt compelled" to pull cards despite the players disagreeing they that wanted to. He attempted to force my character to drastically change her alignment to an evil one for shits and giggles because of one card pull (later allowed me to ignore it because I didn't even WANT to use the deck), and got three of us killed by having them pull a card that summoned the highest CR monster you could use.
One night he texts the group chat that he decided he's done running that story, and wants to run another one shot instead. We had one last session to "close" that first campaign and discuss the one shot options. During our meeting, he gleefully admitted to me that he had planned for my bard to get PREGNANT in that one night stand with the NPC from the archery competition. Not only did he plan to do that without my consent or knowledge, he had planned for it to be a HAG baby that would have entirely f*cked my PC up (he explained it as the man having been a witch in disguise or something?? And said that's how hags are made? Which to my knowledge is entirely incorrect. Maybe it was a homebrew rule, but regardless, I was mortified. And now very grateful he lost interest in that campaign).
Moving on to the one shot, another player decided to try DMing, and so the Problem DM had a chance to be a PC, yay! He privately messaged me and asked if I'd be interested in connecting our characters and their backstories. I said yes and we got to work. We spent a few nights discussing their dynamic and I was really excited to go into this game. Well, come the night of the session, we were going around the table introducing our characters. The Problem DM went before me, and introduced an entirely different character than the one we discussed, and one that would often almost kill us during the one shot (to which the guy would cackle and mock us for getting upset each time). I asked him what happened to our plan, and he said earlier that day he decided he wanted to do something different. I sighed and let it go, because at least it was just a one shot and my character could still function without his connection to the other PC. Another one shot where the Problem DM got to be a PC, he seemed to make it his goal to be the biggest asshole to everyone else's character. My PC was an archaeologist, and when she excitedly discovered some old pottery in a dungeon, he had his PC run up and smash everything and laugh in her face.
The next campaign we tried that had issues was a Starfinder campaign. Our party was considered its own crew for a space ship, plus one DMPC that was placed into the mix supposedly to help us if we fell short, since we were all unfamiliar with Starfinder and spaceship battle mechanics. She was honestly a really cool character! And we had one or two sessions to establish the story and how the crew interacted. Now, this was my mistake, not taking any of the other creepy habits of the DM into consideration, but I offhandedly mentioned to the table at large that my PC (a woman) might be developing a crush on this DMPC (also a woman). They had gone through a lot together in-game at that point and it felt natural. The next session, you'll never guess, the DMPC started flirting hard core with my character. I was confused and asked the DM what that was about, as we had never had any interactions between those two that would be read as romantic. Even if I mentioned my character was crushing, she had never let it on, and the DMPC had never indicated she felt a similar pull as well. The DM didn't really have an explanation, just that apparently in-universe, the DMPC had been flirting more and more with my character since their last adventure together alone. I thought, okay, I guess...
Honestly? What transpired would have been an insanely cool plot twist if we had had the time to actually roleplay and develop the relationship between my character and the DMPC, as well as the crew at large and the DMPC. She ended up being part of a cult that wanted to steal an artifact we had acquired. She was apparently trying to 'romance' my PC because my PC was the one who often guarded the artifact, and needed her to let her guard down. It would have been a super impactful betrayal, but it was literally only a handful of sessions between the first meeting, and the plot twist. We just had to trust the DMs word that we had all gotten super attached to her between actual session meetings and we all should feel like we were stabbed in the back by this trusted individual. And I especially should feel heartbroken because she never really was interested in me anyway.
Later on down the line, despite some very interesting story points, it got creepy again. Our PCs ended up being sucked into a death game show, and isolated from the outside world while being broadcast to universal TV stations. At some point we were all given access to the internet after a few weeks in isolation to search up anything we wanted. Everyone searched up their names among other things. The DM described us finding our newly formed fanbases. He described the other PCs fanbases (men played by men) as having hot debates on their intelligence and decisions during the show, or bets on if they'd be the last ones standing; that sort of stuff. He described my fanbase as leering creeps saying the most unhinged things about what they wanted my PC to do to them s*xually, as well as some spreading photos of my PC without her face covering (she was a Kasatha, which canonically keep their mouths covered. But she had been forced to remove it briefly when it almost waterboarded her after she fell into a river).
Eventually, we weren't able to meet consistently enough to warrant running campaigns anymore, and I fell out of touch with all involved. Oh, we also lost a player at some point right after he confessed to me and I declined his interest.
I went another year not playing before another friend group of mine invited me to play as a guest character. I thought this would be a nice way to ease back into the game slowly after my horrid experiences before. Rather than make an entirely new character for one or two sessions, I brought back my tiefling bard because I still really liked her character, and had started to reshape her personality without being pressured to have her be a s*xual chess piece. The new DM dropped my character in a labyrinth their current party had been trapped in for awhile. I was made to be a level or two higher and be an ally they encountered to help them escape. We did, it was fun! But I was only there as a guest, and had only planned my character to be in one to two sessions before leaving. I was consistently mentioning to the party that my PC would be leaving as soon as they get to her major city, but either they didn't think I was serious or didn't remember. I may have been convinced to come on full time, but unfortunately, history repeats itself. We got to a session where the party got to a tavern and drowned their sorrows and nursed their labyrinth bruises with beer, and the idea of a threesome was thrown in the air between my PC and two others. Now, half of this group were dating someone else in the group, and seemed very comfortable roleplaying casual s*x between their PCs because of it. They started a damn chant pressuring me to say yes, already trying to roleplay it, and I felt sick. I was too anxious at the idea of saying no with how aggressive everyone was for me to agree, so I tried to "roll for yes or no" as an out; the dice failed me, and it rolled a number assigned to yes. I was very quiet the rest of the session, and afterwards messaged the DM that I want my character to leave at the beginning of the next session.
The DM then tried to convince me to stay, despite me saying a clear no multiple times within the same conversation. They begged me to stay saying the party loved my PC a lot, and they would hate to lose me. When they finally relented, they then tried to smoothly transition to talk of making me a new character so I could permanently stay with the party, without compromising my bards story and decision. I kind of got on their case about that, and told them to stop pressuring me and I did not want to play with that group anymore. Eventually, they gave up, but not without some low key guilt tripping.
I tried playing with one more group after this, and while it didn't get creepy, it was also a disappointment as none of the players seemed to care besides me and the DM, despite everyone having encouraged starting the game because they wanted to learn how to play for the first time. Players slowly started ghosting us, drama happened between two players that joined just to have an excuse to talk and try and date (which ended up very messy and they both left), and the new players would get angry at me or the DM if they got confused with the rules or combat dynamics (the wizard rushed ahead of me, the tank barbarian, and then acted like it was my fault when they nearly got killed in the first round because "the tank is supposed to protect the damage dealers").
The DM and I stayed in contact after all the other players ghosted the chat, and ended up bringing over some other new players who had also played before, and re hauled the campaign. This one had so much promise...then quarantine hit, and we couldn't keep up with regular meetings.
At this point, with all my games ending with creeps, messy player dynamics or falling through, I decided maybe these kinds of games weren't for me.
I have new friends now inviting me to play, who have very functional groups (experienced professional DMs, closeknit friend groups, long-running campaigns), but I am too wary to accept any more offers for games, despite deep down really wanting to try again and be part of something I know can be amazing. Maybe I will one day, but until then, I just have these horror stories to think about.

I studied her back, stiff and formal. The set of her posture sent a clear message-- it was practically screaming STAY AWAY!! A neon arrow would have been more subtle. A fucking air horn would have seemed polite.
"OKAY, Lynn, I get it," I told her. "I'm disgusting to you. Absolutely repulsive. Lower than the lowest latrine scum, that's crystal clear. Okay? Satisfied? "
She said nothing. She continued to study the lake. I could not see the expression on her face. The dress she wore was very long and very gauzy; it brushed the colorless sand where she stood. Little lake creatures made their little lake creature noises. I swatted impatiently at a mosquito.
"I'm leaving, Lynn," I told her. "You're getting what you want. You'll never have to hear from me again. You'll never have to see my face. This I promise you."
Her figure twisted slightly as a shudder ran through her. Her skirts made a rustling sound across the sand.
My phone rang. I rolled my eyes, irritated at the interruption.
"This is Dr. Lowell," I snapped.
"Doctor, I'm so glad I got you." Marjory, my assistant. "Marika Waterson has stormed into the office, demanding another refill on her meds. The pharmacy turned her down and she's currently having a psychotic break in your office. We need you here."
I could feel a migraine forming behind my eyes. "I'll be there in twenty five minutes," I said to Marjory. "Get a sample from the pharma locker and give her three of them."
Something crashed on the other end of the line. "Doctor, she has thrown herself onto the ground and refuses to move. I think -- yes, she took out a chair leg on the way down. It's gone, Doctor. Unusable now."
I ground my teeth. "Well, calm her down, for chrissake, Marjory," I growled. "Give her the sample. Listen, Marjory, just give her four tablets, okay? Two full sample packs." Ms. Waterson was a substantial woman. "Sit her down in my office, tell her I'm on my way."
Marjory sounded doubtful. "Doctor, are you sure--"
"Marjory, I'm POSITIVE, okay? Give her the meds and calm her down. I'm on my way."
I clicked off. Lynn had not so much as moved a muscle. I shifted the canvas tote I had slung over one shoulder. The objects in there rolled and shifted against each other.
"Lynn, you have to speak to me," I told her, striving for patience. "You want me to leave. Stay gone. I understand that. I will DO that, Lynn. But please-stop pretending as if I don't exist! "
I moved up to where she stood, at the shoreline of the big water. Momentarily, her profile came into view. The sweep of her jaw line, the straight, true nose, the sooty black of her lashes against her pale skin. I felt a long, white - hot blade of loss slide into my guts as the realization hit home: I would never see her again.
Lynn finally turned to face me. She was crying. Her cheeks were wet. The tears were running freely down her face.
"I can't do it," she gasped. "I cannot do it, John. I can't stand to."
"You have to, Lynn," I said gently. "You've made your feelings perfectly clear. You want me to stay away--"
"I do!" she burst out. Her face twisted with some kind of disgust. "I hate you, I want you to go! To stay away!"
The long blade in my guts twisted, but I just nodded patiently. " I know. So you have to do this." I gestured at her, the canvas tote I held twisting in the still air. "Okay?"
She looked at the bag, her face a grimace of revulsion. Finally, she nodded.
I sighed. "Okay."
I brought the bag around, dug into it. Lynn watched silently.
"Here."
I held up two perfect Macintosh apples. Then I dug out two Pink Ladies, their mottled pinks and reds nearly glowing in the esoteric light of the setting sun.
Lynn gagged. "I hate them so much. "
"I know."
I brought out two green Granny Smiths to join the rest, and a blood red Fuji.
"But look at this variety! There see tastes you might like, or grow to like, no matter. And Lynn, you must remember--" I shook the fruit I held, for emphasis - "it takes only one a day. Just one apple a day. And we're through." Just as you wanted, I wanted to say bitterly, but did not.
"And you'll stay away?" she gasped. "It I eat the grotesque things?? You'll day away for good?"
I sighed again. Was I really so horrible?
"Yes, Lynn, " I said. "I'll stay away for good. I will have to, as the rules of this place dictate."
Finally Lynn snatched the canvas bag from me. She never looked at me again.
"Goodbye, John." Lynn turned back to watch the lake without saying another word to me.
I stood there a moment, lost in thought. Then I trudged away, across her stretch of beach and to my Jaguar XF. The I drove back to my office, to deal with the large distressed woman who had broken my chair.

🍇.+ introduction +.🍇

i know i mostly give a lot of informative based shifting posts and i absolutely love doing that, however, i also genuinely find shifting to be one of my main hobbies. and so, i decided to take it upon myself to write about and share with all of you my drs. some fandom, some based within this dr, and some all over the place!
i will include scripts, relationships, personality, time, and duration. i do have some that i plan but have not yet shifted to however i am only including the ones i have shifted to as the ones i would like to shift to are just wishful thinking and not me actively trying to shift there. though, i may make a separate post about drs that i desire to shift to one day.
this post will be also talking about drs that i shifted to in the past as well going in chronological order.
side note; when i talk about time spent in dr, i mean how long i spent in it in total. when i use a date like xxxx-xxxx**, i am talking about in this time period. how long it was since i had scripted and focused on this dr for. there will be plenty of overlap here.

๋࣭ ୨🪞୧ ๋࣭ waiting room ๋࣭ ୨🪞୧ ๋࣭

november 2021 - now (with a two year break in between)
time spent in dr; six months
i honestly don't use this dr as much since my forest dr is much more nicer to relax in. i never used my waiting room for its original purpose. my waiting room was small with multiple doors surrounding it. it was more cozy though some would consider it claustrophobic.
the waiting room itself was my bedroom. for context, my bedroom has a walk in closet. inside that walk in closet is my dr. inside that closet is my waiting room where it is not a closet. honestly, idk why i didn't just permashift there but i find the process of shifting to be very relaxing for me as well haha.
it still has my other drs that i used to shift to but don't anymore. i just don't open the doors to it cuz i'm too focused on two of them. one that i don't even shift to the waiting room to and one that i do shift to it.
i shifted here using the raven method the first time and later the adhd method.

𓍢ִ໋🎧♫⋆｡ k-pop dr 𓍢ִ໋🎧♫⋆｡

december 2021 - october 2022
time spent in dr; five years
i have talked about this dr of mine before in a couple of comments and i think maybe a post. i haven't really blabbed about all of it. i remember about it just as a memory. i never dreamed in that reality though simply because it is hard for me to dream in this reality too and i never cared to script in 'i can dream in this reality.' however, now i make it a point to add that in.
i did not spend five years straight. it would make me too disoriented. i shifted to it consistently for a total of five years.
my k-pop group was pretty small tbh. at least compared to other groups i listen to. i scripted that i would not know who was in my group and i would find out after auditions and meeting them for the first time. we had five members and it was pretty average. it was not crazy popular but it wasn't very small either. it was one of the most successful of our record company though.
we were a mixed gender k-pop group. meaning some girls, two guys, and me, agender nonbinary. each member had a separate persona. i will give a quick run down of each member, their persona, and my relationship with them. though i was close with all of them. it's just that i was closer with some more than others.
♫⋆｡♫⋆｡♫⋆｡♫⋆｡♫⋆｡♫⋆｡♫⋆｡♫⋆｡♫⋆｡
we had me, i suppose you can call me tato since that was the name i had in that dr. i was known as the nerdy one. the smart one who would info dump and talk very formally while most of the members talked casual. i was mostly a dancer but also was good back up vocals.
my best friend was the pessimistic black cat of the group. i knew her from training and we grew close since then. i give her a five out of five on the closeness scale. her name was ga-young. she is a tan skinned korean girl. she was dancer and singer.
the bubbly girl. she sometimes acted bratty for the sake of cuteness. the cute bubbly girl was used interchangeably for her. she's very sweet both on and off stage. all of the group members were. she probably had the highest social media following due to her aesthetic photos and content. all of them looked like they belonged on pinterest. she was also makeup savvy and had a lot of skin care so got many promos and sponsorships from that. her name was banyen and she was an international idol from thailand!
then we have the soft girl of the group. her name was jae-eun. she was pretty short and kinda chubby but very shy and soft spoken. she was main singer and rapper.
the tough boy. his name was shik. shik is a sweet heart off stage. one of the rappers and dancers. he was actually pretty soft outside of his persona.
the jokester. another boy of the group. he was half black half korean. i found him to be very nice. he did struggle in the industry in the beginning but his mother had connections made through networking that allowed him to make it into the group. he hopes to have a solo career one day under a bigger company. his name is hwan. he was one of the main dancers and main vocals.
♫⋆｡♫⋆｡♫⋆｡♫⋆｡♫⋆｡♫⋆｡♫⋆｡♫⋆｡♫⋆｡
some basics of this dr are that stalkers, sasaengs, diet culture, and general toxicity in k-pop do not exist. i do not wish to deal with the drama and struggles of that and hate to see other idols go through it. i did not want for my friends to go through the same as well. he did not get one however across the five years though. i scripted that i spoke korean and english.
also those were the only things i ever scripted about this dr. i wanted it to be as exciting as possible so everything was left up to chance.
i shifted to this reality using the adhd method.

🌊˚.༄ h2o dr 🌊˚.༄

july 2022 - october 2022
time spent in dr; seven months
i don't often see people write down, talk about, or script this dr. this was my very first fandom drs. even though k-pop itself is a fandom, i personally would not consider it a fandom based dr since it does not belong to any specific group, just the general industry of it.
i got the idea for this reality because i was in a summery mood at the time and binge watched this show and mako mermaids with my cousin on his birthday. we watched this show together and i came up with the idea lol. after that, i kept it going for a little bit longer in my dr until i kinda forgot about it. i was honestly too tired switching between this dr and my k-pop dr and another dr on top of this and decided to take a break with this one. i may revisit it. i still have the script in a google doc.
my merfolk power was substanciakinesis. this granted me the ability to harden water almost as if it was like glass or crystallized. it would be strong, sturdy, and indestructible. if i so choose, i can let it revert back to water after a bit, or keep it crystal like forever.
a bit of a con about this reality was that it was actually pretty annoying. that and having to keep such a secret. i did have some lore to it however. it is a coming of age thing when someone in the family turns thirteen. i shifted to when i was thirteen and did the ceremony then shifted again the next time to when i was seventeen to eighteen as that was my age at the time. i had a single dad that i lived with and one ten year old sister who was later fourteen in the story. she was really sweet and honestly i miss her.
i will say though that the powers made it worth it. the ability to breathe underwater is honestly so cool and such a strange sensation. like you don't take notice on how strange a sensation it is to breathe air either until you've breathed underwater in a dr where you can.
i also shifted to this reality using the adhd method.

˗ˏˋ꒰ 📝 ꒱ hogwarts dr ˗ˏˋ꒰ 📝 ꒱

february 2022 - february 2022
time spent in dr; one week
i wasn't even a fan of harry potter haha. i just shifted there because everyone else was and i decided 'hey, why not?' and such.
to decide what house i would script myself into and get sorted in, i went onto a buzzfeed quiz of which house i was. i got ravenclaw and therefore, i was a ravenclaw. i didn't associate myself with the cast too much aside from the teachers and professors because i kinda had to there. the food was pretty good though even if it was kinda out there. it was fun while it lasted but honestly it felt so crowded and overwhelming to me and i'm unsure why. i guess because of the classes that i had to take.
i only shifted there once.
i shifted to this reality using my waiting room.

☄. *. ⋆ alien dr ☄. *. ⋆

march 2022 - april 2022
time spent in dr; three months
this was the last dr i shifted to before my shifting break. it was a pretty fun one. my main ability was anti gravity. alien me in this dr is slightly humanoid. in most of my drs, i look like how i look in this reality here but for this one, i looked much more different and dressed even more different. it was a cultural based clothes for the home planet i was from. think kinda star wars based but not a star wars inspired reality.
in my dr, i had antennas which basically acted as eyes to see from 360 degrees. hair isn't hair but made from a liquidy slime of bright neons. the neons change colors depending on emotions.
though i did spent quite a while in this reality, i don't have too much to say about it. this is because the most i can say is just different greetings, food, and general culture from aliens than humans. it's from another galaxy and obviously planet. and life span on this planet is much longer. we are more durable than humans.
when an alien passes away, their energy becomes one with the stars, turning into star dust and watching over their people.
i shifted to this reality using my waiting room.

💥✧࿐ mha/bnha dr 💥 ✧࿐

april 2024 - now
time spent in dr; twelve days
this was my first shift i did since my two year break! well, technically it was my waiting room but i used my waiting room to shift here immediately after and spent a week there.
i plan on going back to it but not much of my script was done to it yet. i prefer to be spontaneous in my scripting and just choose to cover the basics. i don't even script future upcoming events.
i'll be honest, it was a bit trippy having this as my first animated dr ever. if felt so real but the lines surrounding my hands made it all feel crazy. i think next time i will try realistic instead, haha.
my quirk in this reality is prediction. i can predict the actions and attacks of my opponent. think of it like the attacks in the video game undertale. a warning sign shows up for certain attacks that alerts the player to move out of the way.
one of my friends in this dr's quirk is extensions. her nails can grow into sharp nail extensions that cut like steel.
i am in the hero class of class 3a along with the big three. we spend a lot of time together. i am closer with nijere since she's the most friendly of them.
i shifted to this reality using my waiting room which i shifted from using the astral projection method.

⋆｡ﾟ🌖 wolfblood dr 🌖 ﾟ｡⋆

april 2024 - now
time spent in dr; eight months four months each shift
wolfblood is an english/british teen drama live action series about what are essentially werewolves known as wolfbloods. a wolfblood is born human and looks human up until a certain age and moon. once they reach that age, their blood changes and they become a wolf. they can then interchange between wolf and human however they please except on a full moon. unless of course it is a blood moon. on a blood moon, a wolfblood looks the exact same except their mind transforms.
there's no unique feature of a wolfblood. they can be any race, religion, etc. the thing that holds them all together is being a wolfblood. in my dr.
in my dr, i looked the exact same as here. i came from a small family of wolfbloods. i decided to take my family in my h2o reality and put them here as well. it has a similar coming of age theme. at a certain age, a wolfblood transforms just as in my h2o dr, once you are a certain age, you can go and become a merfolk. in this dr, i lived in england my entire life there and attend the same school as the main cast. however, i am not friends with the main cast nor enemies.
i can sense something is up with them as they act weird in class but can't put my finger on it. i scripted it so i was unaware of the identities on my peers.

‧₊˚🌿 forest dr ‧₊˚🌿

april 2024 - now
time spent in dr; two months
copying this from a previous post here, don't mind me.
'so a bit about my dr that i am shifting to. it is not any fandom related dr but instead an alternate reality where i live in the forest in an advanced tree house. think of the houses in trees type. i spend a lot of time there meditating, practicing spells, and spending time with the animals there but especially wolves. i still have internet connection but irl i don't live close to nature so this is just perfect for me. i'm happy in both this reality and my dr. i switch between the two whenever i feel like it.'
i also shifted to this one first astral projecting. but now i just meditate until i shift. when i shift, i am also in the same meditating position as well. i wanted this to instead be connected to my waiting room, to become a sort of escapism for myself. just in a different way.
you can see the posts i made about the outfits that i wear in this dr here if you want! you can also see more of my outfits in that reality here as well. :)
i shifted to this reality using my meditation method.

⋆🔗 ˚⟡˖ ࣪ conclusion ⋆ ˚⟡˖ ࣪🔗

this is all i have for today! i hope you enjoyed it. perhaps this gave you all motivation or some scripting and reality ideas. i may have forgotten some things to include and add. apologies if some stuff didn't make sense. i hope you enjoyed the read though!
i will say this as well and leave you off with some general scripting ideas
: ̗̀➛ you cannot die
: ̗̀➛ you cannot get hurt
: ̗̀➛ you always get a good night sleep
: ̗̀➛ if you have chronic illnesses like me, you can script that your chronic illnesses are more manageable or you simply just don't have it.
that is all i have for now and happy shifting! ᥫ᭡

For context, I, Lily, am f(24). My boyfriend, Harvey is m(20) and his best friend, Scott is m(20). My boyfriend and I live together, I’ve had my own apartment for 4 years and he moved in 6 months ago after a year being together.
The 3 of us all work at the same job as well. Harvey and Scott worked there before me, I’ve been there a little over a year. I actually met Harvey there and we clicked immediately. We had a lot of things in common and new what each other needed the most during a crisis.
Harvey and I went through some traumatic things with both of our mental health last year, and after recouping ourselves coming back from things and getting our work schedules, he asked to live together. I was thrilled, although, I figured some people wouldn’t be too happy. First we’re his parents, but they warmed up decently well over time.
The second was his best friend Scott. Scott was actually really hurt by the fact that Harvey had forgotten to mention, to really his whole discord chat (of like 5-6 dudes including Scott), that Harvey was moving out of his parents and in with me.
None of his other friends said anything about being bothered and Harvey was open to everyone needing to talk to him about anything.
Well, fast forward 6 months later and here we are. Harvey and I are doing great relationship wise. Absolutely happy and still staying strong. Scott on the other hand, has had some words to say to Harvey. Last Wednesday, Scott sent Harvey a lengthy message about how I was smelly and needed to shower. I take 2-3 showers a week and try to do more as much as I can, but alas, motivation and depression get to me, and I can’t bring myself to do so. I wear deodorant, and always wear clean clothes to work every day. So I’m certainly not smelly.
Scott kept going on to then try to (ignorantly) educate Harvey about how my teeth are disgusting and Harvey needs to do something about them ASAP before I die from them. Yes, my teeth are pretty jacked. However, I take care of them the way the dentist showed me when I turned 20 because I was no longer in an abusive household.
That following Friday, Scott and I were working together. I had just gotten done doing ovens in our shop and was sweating a bit, well, everywhere. Humidity and such. Scott then walks behind me whispering “ew whats that smell in here?” And I was just humiliated. I asked my other coworker if she thought anything about me smelling at all and she said no.
I told Harvey immediately. I was shocked, and honestly just wanted Harvey to know that Scott was being slightly rude about me. Harvey sent Scott a few messages saying “please stop this, if something is going on, please let me know”
Boy did Harvey get a response… to sum up the paragraphs in Scotts essay, 1) Lily needs to wear perfume and shower at least once daily. A fellow coworker and Scott have been bonding over this for some time now personally on their weekends. 2)You guys are disgusting for kissing around children and should be ashamed (at a bowling alley) 3) Harvey is throwing away his life because he personally doesn’t feel ready to finish his associates degree yet. 4) Harvey moved out “secretly” and it felt like a punch to their friendship to Scott and apparently Harvey’s others friends.
I guess I’d just like to know if I also have a right to feel slightly angry or pissed off? No advice needed, thank you though!

I have been through lots of SAs and sexual harassment incidents in my life in person and online and I would either feel fear, heaviness in the body or numbness. There are times where I would feel nothing during the incident and I would just try to laugh it off to make things less “awkward” or I would feel threatened. There were two incidents in my life where people have said that it was rape but I find it hard to believe because I did consent or go through it eventually and a part of me felt like things were my fault and I would get blamed for it.
The first incident would be 5 years ago when I was in college. I met a guy on a dating app and we got along quite well and talked for a few weeks. He tried to make the conversation sexual eventually and at that point, I didn’t mind it that much. Fast forward to us meeting for a date and I wasn’t too comfortable around him and towards the end of the date, we were in his car and asked me if I wanted to have sex. I froze and couldn’t give a straight answer because I was a pushover and felt scared. He kept driving and touching me the whole time until we ended up in a motel and he asked me again and I didn’t give an answer. He kept touching and kissing me until I gave in because I felt guilty and that I had no choice. a part of me felt scared as well knowing that he was part of a frat and they had a scary reputation. During sex, i let him do everything and just pretended that I liked it. He would keep going for as long as he wanted to while I barely did anything and just tried to be happy and pretend I’m enjoying. This went on for a few more times and I would only go cause he kept pushing and pushing for it to the point where I would get annoyed. At some point, i tried to entertain his sexual convos or comments online in the hopes of making him stop and I tried to initiate twice just to make him see that i “wanted it” which thankfully didn’t push through.
The weird thing that happened to me was that during the first meeting, I found myself “fixated” on him and had a crush like feeling even when I found him gross. I can’t explain why my brain gave me that despite me feeling disgusted. I found him more and more repulsive as time went on and I felt free when things stopped. While it happened 5 years ago, the heaviness and disgust came back differently like it did before. I feel a sense of heaviness thats sad and I triggered by sexual stuff or anything reminding me of it and even cut myself more than once.
The second story would be 2 years after the frat guy. I would try weed and psychedelics during a difficult period in my life and I met a guy from a dating app as well who asked me if I want to try weed brownies and I said yes in the hopes to help me with my situation. I told him that I hope he would respect my wishes to not have sex should it go in that direction and he said yes. He treated me respectfully until I reached the peak of my high and I laid down and closed my eyes because I couldn’t feel my body well and my head was pounding. Soon, I felt him get on top and started rubbing himself on me and got naked. I felt afraid given my state but tried to laugh it off in my head and let him do what he wants cause I didn’t want a worse state to happen. Thankfully, he didn’t penetrate me because I said I had a UTI then but he kept rubbing himself on my body, kissed me and came all over me. I just laid there and didnt touch him. He left me to go home alone and I felt like I was going to die in my state.
Weeks later when I recovered from my UTI. I met the same guy again for weed brownies (stupid of me I know) cause my state was still awful and I told him the same things again where I don’t want to have sex if I don’t feel like it and he was being a lot nicer than he was when we first met. Things were going fine and until I reached my high again and he started initiating sex a few times. I didn’t give him an answer all those times cause I felt scared. He moved closer to kiss me and I kissed back and we eventually had sex because I felt like it’s what I had to do especially cause drugs were involved and I was afraid he might do something worse. I did what I can to satisfy him while I prayed in my head for it to be over. After sex, I told him that I don’t want to see him anymore and stopped all communication. Unlike the frat guy, with this one, I just felt like a whore and tried to push my discomfort and thought of the good times I had with him. A year later, I started to feel a lot of heaviness and I asked myself if I got taken advantaged of and if it was rape but I just told myself that I consented and that this heaviness is on me. Eventually, I couldn’t take the feelings anymore and told my then boyfriend who broke up with me because he was disgusted by me. I just told myself that it’s all ok and it’s all on me.
At present, I’m still trying to navigate these experiences and accept it for what it is but I can’t be sure of reality because I feel like I don’t have the right to feel heavy because I did consent eventually all those times despite my discomfort. I was a pushover and I don’t understand why my body reacted the way it did and I wish I just said no. I told my current bf and some friends about it and they were accepting but I feel like my family and everyone else will reject me and be disgusted.

AITA for being Jealous of Lesbians?
I've only ever read these but feeling crazy right now so figured I'd go to the internet. Sorry this is probably going to be long.
Slight backstory. I've been in a very complicated non relationship with S(47M) for over a decade. We met when I(33F) wasn't ready for a relationship working multiple jobs barely had time for sleep. So we were just a regular hookup and that worked for both of us. After about a year he got back with his ex that hated me so he wasn't allowed to talk to me which I respected. It sucked cause we were friends but I would never disrespect their relationship. I won't lie it hurt a little but I moved on with my life. But we are in a itty bitty town so a lot of mutual friends and I ended up being in the same place a lot. Now they didn't last very long maybe 4months. The day before they broke up we were both at the bar having a smoke at the same time. He started talking to me and tried to kiss me but I stopped him and pointed out that his girlfriend already hated me enough. They broke up within a month we were spending almost all my free time together. I don't like who I was in my previous serious relationships so casual was fine with both of us we were FWBs. Now when I say FWB I mean we were constantly together everyone thought we were together just never put a label on it. That's how it has been for the majority of the decade which was fine with both of us. Now periodically I'd want more and we'd talk and he made it clear he didn't want that and that I should move on and I did try. He never slept with anyone but I did trying to move on and it never worked out. I wanted him and I really don't need a label as long as we were honest with each other. The pandemic hit and we basically lived together. We were us and it still had no label and was great. Fast forward to 2years ago. A mutual friend ended up dating his friend so we were basically double dating constantly. He needed to get out of his apartment so he moved in with me. Now everyone kept saying we were together and I'd tell them no and we were out and I just asked him and he said ya and it was really uncomfortable for me. Well that lasted 3months. Before I got to see him on my camera packup his stuff and move out of my house without talking to me and his friend called and asked if I was okay. Again small town everyone knows everyone been forever so all our friends are the same. So there was no avoiding. My friends said they'd exclude him but that didn't seem fair to him to be outcast. So we still spent a lot of time together. He left a week before my birthday which they had already planned and asked if he could go and I agreed. He came home with me and we both broke down and there was a lot of alcohol and a lot of black outs of the conversation. But just was he freaked out and we both love each other and I deserve better. We stayed split but anytime we'd end up out together drinking we'd end up together. We did eventually have a sober talk that broke me. But in the end we went back to how we were. Now he moved around to a few place but ended up back living with me. In the beginning it was amazing. Having someone live with me really helps my ADHD I had a schedule and stuck to it hell I was putting laundry away right out of the dryer. Including his laundry and mess.
Side Note. I'm not dirty but I'm super messy. I know where everything is but generally looks like a bomb went off. My dad raised me to be a strong independent woman that can fix her own car house basically anything I would need a man for. My mom taught me how to be a good house wife that also brought home the bacon.
Now this was fine for 6months. It's not like he didn't do anything to help. He did his share. But something changed about 2months ago.
He started spending a lot of time with these two girls that are in a relationship lets call the T & K. They were around before but it was all good we were all new friends. But when the previously mentioned 2 friends broke up even though I let him move into my house I was still really good friends with his ex. Which apparently they needed to stick their nose into and were very rude to her new guy and her. So they put a bad taste in my mouth so I pulled away from spending time with them.
But S didn't spends a lot of time with them. Looks after their cat does favors for them. Texts everyday. Which I don't think would bother me as much if he didn't stop doing anything for me. Everything I do just became expected. Hell he can't even change a toilet paper roll. I'm currently renovating my house and he'll sleep in till 2pm after spending the night drinking with them and coming in and waking me up. While I try not to be too loud trying to get things done and when he does wake up will just watch or get in the way. I know I don't ask for help but he generally doesn't either but I always help him.
So at this point I can feel the girl I hate being come out. I want to do crazy things like change their numbers in his phone and block their actual numbers. (His phone tells you when they're blocked). I want to send them nasty messages or just yell at them when I see them. I don't like this feeling. Logically I know that even if something was happening it's not their fault it's his. I have no right to be jealous because we aren't together. I need to cut him out of my life.
Problem is, I love him, I've spent so long in my life in love with him I don't know how not to be in love with him. I'm fine if it was what we've always been but he's pulling away from me and it's to them. I'm never going to be able to avoid him everyone we know and go are mutal and basically the only places to go. I do know I win the friend group that was made clear when he left me. But that's not fair to him. I can't just hermit because my depression will win. The only thing that's ever been able to stop it when it gets to the end it all has been him. I have lots of people in my life that love me and I would fight to survive for but I don't think I can win that fight without him.
So atih for being crazy and jealous of these lesbians. Honestly it's more of just the one not the other she seems pure women

I finally published for the first time. Not the first time I've finished a novel, but certainly the first time I have actively published one .. one that I've been a little proud of. I know it's a long process to get noticed, or even start to see some traction in sales & downloads, but how do you go about promoting your novel? I feel like I'm stuck. 😕
Beginning of chapter one below - if anyone would like to provide feedback that would be lovely. 🙂
[2,310] It began like a surreal haze, a fever dream dancing with unknown figures swirling around her like a languid tornado, their movements seemingly slowed by some unseen force as she awoke to a world spinning out of her control. She found herself surrounded by strangers who moved like spectres in a dream, fragmented flashes who assaulted her consciousness - a woman gently pressing a cloth to her throbbing head, another offering sips of water while she coughed and struggled to swallow, a man peering down at her with a furrowed brow, and a mysterious figure lingering in the doorway with an unsettling glint of desire in his eyes.
The room buzzed with a quiet urgency as they hovered around her, their faces etched with concern and something else she couldn't quite place - an undercurrent of tension that seemed to pulse in time with her own racing heart. These disjointed images flitted in and out, creating a mosaic of fragmented reality. Awake, her body throbbed with pain; asleep, she plunged into a black abyss, time slipping away unnoticed. Each awakening brought the desire for oblivion as her mind plunged back into the depths of darkness.
Beth jolted upright, startled by the sharp bang of a car backfiring. A cry of pain escaped her lips as she attempted to sit up, her back and legs resisting her will. A woman, the same from her fleeting visions, hurried into the room with a damp cloth and a glass of water.
"Easy now," the woman spoke gently, her mild Spanish accent adding warmth to her sharp words as she pressed the cloth to Beth's forehead and helped her sit up, "you're weak, rushing won't do you any favours. The sooner you regain strength, the sooner you can move."
A man, the one with the odd expression in her visions, appeared in the doorway once again; "and the sooner we can leave this place, I'm sick of it." He grumbled, striding away with urgency and frustration. His steps were heavy and fraught with agitation, each one seeming to leave a deep imprint on the ground beneath him. His grumbling was like distant thunder, punctuated by the clenching of his jaw and the tightening of his fists.
"Don't mind my brother," the woman interjected sharply, "it's not you - he hates everyone." Hate, Beth pondered, wondering what she might have done to earn his disdain.
"Are you hungry?" The woman stood, walking to the other side of the room to adjust another pillow behind Beth's back. Beth nodded; "I'll get you some soup."
Left alone, Beth surveyed the room - beige walls, a shattered TV, torn brown curtains. She squinted at the notepad on the side table, revealing the branding - Mill Village Motel Eatonville. The coffee pod machine at the room's far end, covered in dust, hinted at a neglected past.
"You're awake," startled, Beth turned to find the man with the furrowed brow at the door - tall and dark, with piercing brown eyes, he appeared softer now, "how are you feeling?" Beth managed a brief smile before adjusting herself, wincing in pain. He rushed to offer a hand, and she took his arm to shift as he adjusted the pillow.
"Want to give walking a try?" The man's warm, brown eyes crinkled at the edges as he smiled down at her, his features etched with concern, his furrowed brow now smooth and his brown eyes sparkled with an unfamiliar kindness.
She shook her head, and the woman returned with soup and water; "she needs to eat before attempting to walk, Austin," she said, setting the tray before Beth.
"Then we'll try again tomorrow," Austin expressed, heading towards the door, "the sooner we leave, the better - we've been here for too long." His footsteps echoed with determination and authority, less frustrated than the other man's but equally resolute.
"I apologise if it's cold. Heating options are limited here. Need a hand?" The woman offered. Beth shook her head, the pounding of her headache resonating through her body.
"Well I'll leave you to it then. Shout out if you need anything, if you can talk at all." Beth glanced down at her bowl of soup, parting her lips as if to speak, but no words escaped. A deep sigh escaped from the woman's mouth as she turned and left the room, leaving Beth alone with her cold, untouched meal. The silence in the room was deafening, broken only by the sound of muffed chatter outside.
The days stretched longer as Beth's need for rest diminished. Boredom and confusion settled in, intensifying as the people from her visions became tangible presences, moving in and out of her room. They attended to her needs but seldom engaged in conversation. At night, their muffled voices in the adjoining room became a distant comfort, and the faint echoes of their arguments a source of intrigue.
"We need to leave," a frustrated male voice pierced through the thin walls, "we have to head further south before winter traps us with little supplies and an extra mouth to feed - considering you're all so intent on keeping this girl alive."
"This woman," a familiar female voice retorted, likely the one who had been caring for her, "needed help - I distinctly remember a time when I wasn't doing well and needed it too."
"You're my sister, of course, I wasn't going to leave you behind."
"I'm not talking about you, Luis," she yelled, "I'm talking about before you came back from Minnesota and found me."
"Why can't we just leave her here with some supplies and a gun. Why do we need to bring her with us?"
"Jesus Christ Luis we're not leaving her here alone and you two can have it out later," intervened another man, "but Luis is right - we need to leave before the snow settles in."
The argument faded into muffled voices again, and Beth strained to catch the words exchanged between the trio. A knock at the door startled her.
"May I come in?" A young girl, the same from her visions, had opened the door quietly without her even noticing. "I thought the yelling might have woken you." Beth nodded, maintaining her silence.
"I'm Chantelle." Her soft Southern accent flowed like a gentle breeze through a cornfield. She pulled up a chair beside the bed. "Luis can get into it with everybody, but he means well. Well, no, that's a lie. I don't know why I said that. He's a dick."
"I gathered," Beth whispered and laughed a little, suddenly overtaken by a violent cough.
Chantelle rushed to hand her water; "so, you do speak. From the way Austin and Val were sayin' it, it sounded like you were mute. I thought, you couldn't be deaf because you've been nodding and smiling like a dang puppet."
Beth laughed and took another sip; "I didn't really have anything worth saying until now. No one has bothered to make conversation."
"Your accent, where are you from?" Chantelle sat down on the wooden chair, her long dark hair cascading down her back in gentle curls. Her bright brown eyes sparkled with kindness as she looked towards Beth.
"Australia," Beth paused, realising she hadn't thought about home for a while, "I'm from Australia," she repeated.
Chantelle pulled out a deck of cards; "well, I figured you might be bored and needed a little human interaction that didn't make you feel like you were in a hospital."
Beth's eyes lit up, and Chantelle smiled; "what do you want to play?"
— — —
"What do you think you are doing?" Austin stormed into the motel room.
"We're leaving. Today," Luis' words cut through the air.
"The van's still in bad shape, and we won't survive this winter on foot." Austin's arms were folded tightly across his chest, the muscles in his biceps and forearms bulging with tension. His jaw was clenched, and his brows furrowed in frustration.
"Then fix the damn van!" Luis yelled, the sound piercing through the walls and resonating outside the motel room for others to hear the heated exchange.
"Oh, sorry, I'll just take it down the road to the mechanic, shall I?" Austin raised a quizzical eyebrow, smirking at his friend. The men paused their argument, exchanging laughter.
"Luis, what's going on with you?" Austin softened his tone, taking a seat on the other bed. "We've been friends since high school, grew up together, served in the army together. This isn't you."
"I don't know, man." Luis sat on the other bed, facing his friend, his face buried in his hands. He rubbed his face hard, threw his head back, and sighed heavily. "This just isn't—" he paused.
"Isn't what?"
"Isn't life." Luis gestured around the room.
"We'll get to the coast, find a boat, just like we planned." There was a slight taste of bitterness in the air, as if Austin's mild frustration was tangible.
"And then what?"
"Do the best we can," Austin stood up, placing a hand on his friend's shoulder, "we all have our dark moments, brother. You helped me get through mine, I'll help you get through yours."
Austin walked out of the motel room into the crisp morning air. The atmosphere was fresh, with a subtle scent of dew and grass. The sweet aroma of winter's imminent arrival filled the air, mingling with the faint scent of burning oil from their broken down van across the parking lot.
"Ben thinks he can fix the van by tomorrow. He found the parts we need on the other side of town." Val caught Austin as he had walked outside.
"He went scouting alone?" Austin looked across the lot at Ben, deep into the hood of the black church van they had found a while back.
Chantelle bounded up before she could answer; "Beth seems much better today. She's eatin' and drinkin' more. I think she could try walkin' today."
"Beth?" Val and Austin remarked in unison.
"Mmm, she speaks - she might have a lot more to say if either of you bothered to converse with her instead of just talkin' to her." She walked off towards Ben, a light air in her hopeful stride.
— — —
Austin found Beth sitting on the edge of her bed, her feet bare and dangling idly over the side. Her toes were curled, squeezing them tightly as she wiggled them back and forth. Her face was tense with concentration as she tried to alleviate the tingling sensation in her feet.
"Beth." His voice was soothing and calming, his words spoken with a gentle tone as he tried to ease Beth's discomfort.
"Chantelle?" She looked up at him, as he nodded, smiling gently. "She's a good kid." She smiled and looked back at her toes.
"Do you want to try walking today?" He walked towards the chair on the other side of the room and sat down as it creaked underneath the weight of him.
"The sooner I can walk, the sooner you can get out of here." She said with a sarcastic air, mocking Luis.
"The sooner we can get out of here." He repeated sarcastically with a smile, a light spread of jest washing over him as he joined her in mocking his friend.
"Your friend Luis seems to be very against bringing me along with you." She looked back at him.
"I'm not in the business of leaving people behind. Especially in Washington in the middle of October," he sat forward, leaning his elbows on his knees, "you wouldn't survive the winter."
"Then maybe you should have just left me to die." She turned her body to face him abruptly. He opened his mouth to speak, but she interjected before he could respond.
"Why did you help me? You don't know me, why did you even bother?"
"Like I said, Beth," he stood up, his wistful tone switching back to cold and dry, "I'm not in the business of leaving people behind." He walked over to her slowly.
"I've lost too many people. I've watched people kill others over a can of soup. I've seen friends leave friends behind to save themselves," he sat down on the end of her bed, "I don't leave people behind."
His brown eyes cut through his words like a thunderstorm. She looked at his face, tired and weathered from sleepless nights with one eye open to ensure his group's safety. She pegged him as their leader - strong and determined with clear military training.
"What happened to you?" She asked softly.
"What happened to you?" He countered; "I refuse to believe you survived a pandemic alone for six months in a foreign country."
She said nothing and looked back at her feet. They sat in silence for a while before he stood up and headed for the door.
"We're leaving the day after tomorrow. We need to head south before it's too cold, and we don't know how long the van or the car will last, so part of that might be on foot."
"I'll try walking today." Beth nodded obediently.
"I'll send Val and Chantelle in to help you." He replied, his voice maintaining the cold cadency.
"Thank you." She smiled, wriggling her toes as the numbness started to dissipate. Before he could leave, she looked up at him again.
"Austin?" He stopped at the door and turned to her. "I know you've all done a lot for me, including putting your friendship with Luis on the line, so thank you. But I have a favour to ask," her voice grew quiet, "before we leave."
"What is it?" He asked sternly at her audacity to ask for another favour.
She looked up at him with tears in her eyes. He noticed her green eyes glisten with the added layer of acridity and the change in her demeanour; "before we leave, I need you to help me bury my husband."

I finally published for the first time. Not the first time I've finished a novel, but certainly the first time I have actively published one .. one that I've been a little proud of. I know it's a long process to get noticed, or even start to see some traction in sales & downloads, but how do you go about promoting your novel? I feel like I'm stuck. 😕
Beginning of chapter one below - if anyone would like to provide feedback that would be lovely. 🙂
[2,310] It began like a surreal haze, a fever dream dancing with unknown figures swirling around her like a languid tornado, their movements seemingly slowed by some unseen force as she awoke to a world spinning out of her control. She found herself surrounded by strangers who moved like spectres in a dream, fragmented flashes who assaulted her consciousness - a woman gently pressing a cloth to her throbbing head, another offering sips of water while she coughed and struggled to swallow, a man peering down at her with a furrowed brow, and a mysterious figure lingering in the doorway with an unsettling glint of desire in his eyes.
The room buzzed with a quiet urgency as they hovered around her, their faces etched with concern and something else she couldn't quite place - an undercurrent of tension that seemed to pulse in time with her own racing heart. These disjointed images flitted in and out, creating a mosaic of fragmented reality. Awake, her body throbbed with pain; asleep, she plunged into a black abyss, time slipping away unnoticed. Each awakening brought the desire for oblivion as her mind plunged back into the depths of darkness.
Beth jolted upright, startled by the sharp bang of a car backfiring. A cry of pain escaped her lips as she attempted to sit up, her back and legs resisting her will. A woman, the same from her fleeting visions, hurried into the room with a damp cloth and a glass of water.
"Easy now," the woman spoke gently, her mild Spanish accent adding warmth to her sharp words as she pressed the cloth to Beth's forehead and helped her sit up, "you're weak, rushing won't do you any favours. The sooner you regain strength, the sooner you can move."
A man, the one with the odd expression in her visions, appeared in the doorway once again; "and the sooner we can leave this place, I'm sick of it." He grumbled, striding away with urgency and frustration. His steps were heavy and fraught with agitation, each one seeming to leave a deep imprint on the ground beneath him. His grumbling was like distant thunder, punctuated by the clenching of his jaw and the tightening of his fists.
"Don't mind my brother," the woman interjected sharply, "it's not you - he hates everyone." Hate, Beth pondered, wondering what she might have done to earn his disdain.
"Are you hungry?" The woman stood, walking to the other side of the room to adjust another pillow behind Beth's back. Beth nodded; "I'll get you some soup."
Left alone, Beth surveyed the room - beige walls, a shattered TV, torn brown curtains. She squinted at the notepad on the side table, revealing the branding - Mill Village Motel Eatonville. The coffee pod machine at the room's far end, covered in dust, hinted at a neglected past.
"You're awake," startled, Beth turned to find the man with the furrowed brow at the door - tall and dark, with piercing brown eyes, he appeared softer now, "how are you feeling?" Beth managed a brief smile before adjusting herself, wincing in pain. He rushed to offer a hand, and she took his arm to shift as he adjusted the pillow.
"Want to give walking a try?" The man's warm, brown eyes crinkled at the edges as he smiled down at her, his features etched with concern, his furrowed brow now smooth and his brown eyes sparkled with an unfamiliar kindness.
She shook her head, and the woman returned with soup and water; "she needs to eat before attempting to walk, Austin," she said, setting the tray before Beth.
"Then we'll try again tomorrow," Austin expressed, heading towards the door, "the sooner we leave, the better - we've been here for too long." His footsteps echoed with determination and authority, less frustrated than the other man's but equally resolute.
"I apologise if it's cold. Heating options are limited here. Need a hand?" The woman offered. Beth shook her head, the pounding of her headache resonating through her body.
"Well I'll leave you to it then. Shout out if you need anything, if you can talk at all." Beth glanced down at her bowl of soup, parting her lips as if to speak, but no words escaped. A deep sigh escaped from the woman's mouth as she turned and left the room, leaving Beth alone with her cold, untouched meal. The silence in the room was deafening, broken only by the sound of muffed chatter outside.
The days stretched longer as Beth's need for rest diminished. Boredom and confusion settled in, intensifying as the people from her visions became tangible presences, moving in and out of her room. They attended to her needs but seldom engaged in conversation. At night, their muffled voices in the adjoining room became a distant comfort, and the faint echoes of their arguments a source of intrigue.
"We need to leave," a frustrated male voice pierced through the thin walls, "we have to head further south before winter traps us with little supplies and an extra mouth to feed - considering you're all so intent on keeping this girl alive."
"This woman," a familiar female voice retorted, likely the one who had been caring for her, "needed help - I distinctly remember a time when I wasn't doing well and needed it too."
"You're my sister, of course, I wasn't going to leave you behind."
"I'm not talking about you, Luis," she yelled, "I'm talking about before you came back from Minnesota and found me."
"Why can't we just leave her here with some supplies and a gun. Why do we need to bring her with us?"
"Jesus Christ Luis we're not leaving her here alone and you two can have it out later," intervened another man, "but Luis is right - we need to leave before the snow settles in."
The argument faded into muffled voices again, and Beth strained to catch the words exchanged between the trio. A knock at the door startled her.
"May I come in?" A young girl, the same from her visions, had opened the door quietly without her even noticing. "I thought the yelling might have woken you." Beth nodded, maintaining her silence.
"I'm Chantelle." Her soft Southern accent flowed like a gentle breeze through a cornfield. She pulled up a chair beside the bed. "Luis can get into it with everybody, but he means well. Well, no, that's a lie. I don't know why I said that. He's a dick."
"I gathered," Beth whispered and laughed a little, suddenly overtaken by a violent cough.
Chantelle rushed to hand her water; "so, you do speak. From the way Austin and Val were sayin' it, it sounded like you were mute. I thought, you couldn't be deaf because you've been nodding and smiling like a dang puppet."
Beth laughed and took another sip; "I didn't really have anything worth saying until now. No one has bothered to make conversation."
"Your accent, where are you from?" Chantelle sat down on the wooden chair, her long dark hair cascading down her back in gentle curls. Her bright brown eyes sparkled with kindness as she looked towards Beth.
"Australia," Beth paused, realising she hadn't thought about home for a while, "I'm from Australia," she repeated.
Chantelle pulled out a deck of cards; "well, I figured you might be bored and needed a little human interaction that didn't make you feel like you were in a hospital."
Beth's eyes lit up, and Chantelle smiled; "what do you want to play?"
— — —
"What do you think you are doing?" Austin stormed into the motel room.
"We're leaving. Today," Luis' words cut through the air.
"The van's still in bad shape, and we won't survive this winter on foot." Austin's arms were folded tightly across his chest, the muscles in his biceps and forearms bulging with tension. His jaw was clenched, and his brows furrowed in frustration.
"Then fix the damn van!" Luis yelled, the sound piercing through the walls and resonating outside the motel room for others to hear the heated exchange.
"Oh, sorry, I'll just take it down the road to the mechanic, shall I?" Austin raised a quizzical eyebrow, smirking at his friend. The men paused their argument, exchanging laughter.
"Luis, what's going on with you?" Austin softened his tone, taking a seat on the other bed. "We've been friends since high school, grew up together, served in the army together. This isn't you."
"I don't know, man." Luis sat on the other bed, facing his friend, his face buried in his hands. He rubbed his face hard, threw his head back, and sighed heavily. "This just isn't—" he paused.
"Isn't what?"
"Isn't life." Luis gestured around the room.
"We'll get to the coast, find a boat, just like we planned." There was a slight taste of bitterness in the air, as if Austin's mild frustration was tangible.
"And then what?"
"Do the best we can," Austin stood up, placing a hand on his friend's shoulder, "we all have our dark moments, brother. You helped me get through mine, I'll help you get through yours."
Austin walked out of the motel room into the crisp morning air. The atmosphere was fresh, with a subtle scent of dew and grass. The sweet aroma of winter's imminent arrival filled the air, mingling with the faint scent of burning oil from their broken down van across the parking lot.
"Ben thinks he can fix the van by tomorrow. He found the parts we need on the other side of town." Val caught Austin as he had walked outside.
"He went scouting alone?" Austin looked across the lot at Ben, deep into the hood of the black church van they had found a while back.
Chantelle bounded up before she could answer; "Beth seems much better today. She's eatin' and drinkin' more. I think she could try walkin' today."
"Beth?" Val and Austin remarked in unison.
"Mmm, she speaks - she might have a lot more to say if either of you bothered to converse with her instead of just talkin' to her." She walked off towards Ben, a light air in her hopeful stride.
— — —
Austin found Beth sitting on the edge of her bed, her feet bare and dangling idly over the side. Her toes were curled, squeezing them tightly as she wiggled them back and forth. Her face was tense with concentration as she tried to alleviate the tingling sensation in her feet.
"Beth." His voice was soothing and calming, his words spoken with a gentle tone as he tried to ease Beth's discomfort.
"Chantelle?" She looked up at him, as he nodded, smiling gently. "She's a good kid." She smiled and looked back at her toes.
"Do you want to try walking today?" He walked towards the chair on the other side of the room and sat down as it creaked underneath the weight of him.
"The sooner I can walk, the sooner you can get out of here." She said with a sarcastic air, mocking Luis.
"The sooner we can get out of here." He repeated sarcastically with a smile, a light spread of jest washing over him as he joined her in mocking his friend.
"Your friend Luis seems to be very against bringing me along with you." She looked back at him.
"I'm not in the business of leaving people behind. Especially in Washington in the middle of October," he sat forward, leaning his elbows on his knees, "you wouldn't survive the winter."
"Then maybe you should have just left me to die." She turned her body to face him abruptly. He opened his mouth to speak, but she interjected before he could respond.
"Why did you help me? You don't know me, why did you even bother?"
"Like I said, Beth," he stood up, his wistful tone switching back to cold and dry, "I'm not in the business of leaving people behind." He walked over to her slowly.
"I've lost too many people. I've watched people kill others over a can of soup. I've seen friends leave friends behind to save themselves," he sat down on the end of her bed, "I don't leave people behind."
His brown eyes cut through his words like a thunderstorm. She looked at his face, tired and weathered from sleepless nights with one eye open to ensure his group's safety. She pegged him as their leader - strong and determined with clear military training.
"What happened to you?" She asked softly.
"What happened to you?" He countered; "I refuse to believe you survived a pandemic alone for six months in a foreign country."
She said nothing and looked back at her feet. They sat in silence for a while before he stood up and headed for the door.
"We're leaving the day after tomorrow. We need to head south before it's too cold, and we don't know how long the van or the car will last, so part of that might be on foot."
"I'll try walking today." Beth nodded obediently.
"I'll send Val and Chantelle in to help you." He replied, his voice maintaining the cold cadency.
"Thank you." She smiled, wriggling her toes as the numbness started to dissipate. Before he could leave, she looked up at him again.
"Austin?" He stopped at the door and turned to her. "I know you've all done a lot for me, including putting your friendship with Luis on the line, so thank you. But I have a favour to ask," her voice grew quiet, "before we leave."
"What is it?" He asked sternly at her audacity to ask for another favour.
She looked up at him with tears in her eyes. He noticed her green eyes glisten with the added layer of acridity and the change in her demeanour; "before we leave, I need you to help me bury my husband."

Throwaway account because I’m pretty sure my exes friend stalks my socials
TLDR; My ex dumped me, we went no contact and I haven’t contacted them for months until I sent one letter expressing my feelings that was absolutely not threatening and not ill-willed whatsoever and had no expectations from it, and they decided to file a DV restraining order despite there being no DV at any point — not even stalking, because seeing them sends me into panic attacks. Now I’m confused and don’t know what to do or what to expect.
So basically, my ex (we’ll call them B) dumped me back in January and kicked me out. My ex from before them (we’ll call them P) reached out to them after the breakup. Now, a little context: P and I were together for four years. It was a terrible relationship and should have ended far earlier than it did. We were both very manipulative, toxic, and abusive. While the abuse was almost completely emotional, there were a couple instances that it wasn’t. I, at one point, grabbed their wrist to make them stop yelling at me and to actually look at me because they were berating me during an argument. Doesn’t excuse my action, of course. They hit me multiple times throughout our relationship, and would apologize later over message, claiming that they hit me because whatever I’d been saying or whatever we’d been arguing about reminded them of some trauma from their childhood. There was also a substantial age difference that I am in no way justifying. P was 17, I was 23, when we started dating. I was in a very bad point of life and spent my days drunk and on a med that made me zombie like, so these days are not easy to recall in the first place. I genuinely do not believe there was ever a point where one of us asked the other out, I think P just assumed and I felt too bad to break it off. I do not forgive myself for this either way. During our relationship, P began to coerce me into sex because I refused to have sex with them for a multitude of reasons. They coerced me into a threesome, and when I told them day of that I was not comfortable with it and did not want to, P told me to drink more alcohol or smoke more weed and I’d “be fine”. I was r*ped that night. After we broke up, we remained roommates (in separate rooms) because neither of us had money to move out and we had a third roommate. We stayed friends because we’re idiots. I started dating B and P hated B profusely. At one point early into B’s and my relationship, P and I went out to the stores and I bought some clothes and left the bag in the living room couch and told P I needed to recharge before I hung out more. They did not take this lightly because they didn’t ever like when people didn’t want to do the same thing as them. They texted me alluding to destroying my clothes, and lo and behold, my clothes were no longer in the living room. After begging them to give me my clothes back, they finally opened their door and pushed the clothes into me hard enough that I hit the wall. So I hit their shoulder. I did not punch them or slap them or anything like that. I hit them in the shoulder with the same pressure that they pushed me. They had in fact shredded my clothes. My biggest mistake was never taking pictures when they did things like this. I eventually moved in with B and P moved out of state. B and I did have financial issues, mostly due to my own financial immaturity as I have never been good with money, but B never really communicated the issues with me so I didn’t even realize most of the time. I would pay large chunks of bills when I could, such as a full month’s rent, their $3000 credit card bill, our $1000 PGE bill, etc. P and I seemed to have a good friendship, but when B broke up with me and P found out, they reached out to B and essentially decided to tell them all kinds of things that were wrong about our relationship, but specifically only from their side. Screenshots lacked what they were saying, stories lacked what they were doing. So I absolutely sounded like a monster. B kicked me out even sooner than planned, and left me homeless for a week and a half while I searched for a place to live. After a month, B went completely no contact and blocked me almost everywhere. I should note that I have BPD, it is a recent diagnosis. They also do, but have been aware and in treatment for many years. I responded negatively to this and began calling and leaving voicemails on their blocked VM inbox. I was not calling from a private number, I called from my own because I knew they wouldn’t be dealing with a bunch of missed calls. I went overboard and left a lot of depressing voicemails. Never, ever threatening. Just sad, often crying, and asking why they hate me or why they would listen to someone who they experienced first hand would harass me for hours on end for not responding to their texts. I realized I was being psycho and stopped, apologized and told them I had realized I had made them my favorite person (in the BPD way), and that wasn’t fair to them. I have not contacted them since then, except for about three weeks ago when I sent a letter. The letter was simply telling them that I am sorry, I love them and miss them, and I am working really hard on myself. I told them that I truly do believe we’ll come back together someday, but that we both obviously have to live our own stories before that’s possible. There was not a single ounce of threat or ill-will in this letter. Literally not even the smallest bit, and I’m happy to share that letter with anyone to prove such. I also very clearly stated that I do not expect a response from them, but if they would like an apology someday, I’m here and ready.
Now that you have quite the context to the background of this situation, here’s the issue at hand: After I sent this letter, they decided to file for a restraining order. But not just any. They filed for a DV one, which everyone finds wild because there was never a single bit of DV between the two of us. B and I were honestly wonderful together, loved each other so much (or so I thought), and never laid a hand on one another. Even our arguments weren’t bad. I’d have splits from being triggered and I could say mean things, but it was never physical and always discussed afterwards, either that day or the next. Their friend has been watching all of my social media stories despite neither of us following each other, which has felt weird until I realized why.
I haven’t been served yet because they come to my place when I’m at school so I can’t be there. I’ll likely just go into the station to be served at this point.
But my questions are the following: - What does RO court even look like? I’ve never had to deal with this. Is it a big thing? Or is it two people at a table across from a judge? Like I genuinely don’t understand what it would look like. - How likely is it that this would even be approved? I truly don’t believe the letter could be used as evidence into something like this because it was not negative or threatening. The voicemails were crazy but never threatening and ended quickly months ago. They could absolutely use the stuff from P, but that relationship has been over for 2.5 years, and the clothes incident happened just about 2 years ago. I have proof of what the letter said, I have proof of P admitting to hitting me and to the coercion and r*pe. I have been in therapy for two years and with the same psych for about the same amount of time, so I have character witnesses. I am not a stalker, I’m actually genuinely terrified of seeing them around town because I know it will break my heart all over again. I’ve had to see them drive by twice, once in their work vehicle and the next in the car I used to drive that is in their name, and both times I ended up in a full blown panic attack. So I am obviously not seeking them out or anything of the sort. They also know what this would do to me. They know that it will not only destroy me mentally, but that it could hurt me career wise due to the field I am going to school for. So how likely is it for this to be granted?
I am honestly shocked and hurt by all of this from them, because this is not the person I fell in love with. They have gone completely cold-hearted and have had no issue hurting me over and over again since the breakup.

(F21, M29) he's my first boyfriend. I never had a problem attracting guys, i actually had the problem of all the guys around me having feelings for me so i couldn't keep any platonic guy friends. But could never like anyone. I'd always reject anyone who asked me out bc they weren't up to my standards. I ended up playing otome games and reading romance mangas to fill the void of not being able to feel anything towards any guy. And i kinda got to the conclusion that i can't like any real guy, just the fictional ones bc my ideal guy doesn't exist in the real world. Until i met him.
If i had a list of all the things i want in a guy before i met him, i'm sure he would check every point in the list. Not just appearance-wise, there are a lot of guys who look good. But both appearance and personality and attitude and literally everything. He moved to another city for 6 months before we started officially dating and even during those 6 months, i kept having this feeling. That i've met my ideal guy and now i can't have feelings for anyone. Then when he moved back and asked me out, it was too good to be true. (At first he said he's moving away forever so i thought i lost him forever) During these 4 months, i felt like the luckiest girl in the world to have him.
It's been 5 days that he's been acting distant. Then a few hours ago he texted me saying "i don't think we can continue our relationship. I've been thinking a lot and i feel like I need someone more mature, someone who can help me grow. Someone i can have mutual goals with. And that person isn't you" i called him and we talked. I told him to give me another chance. He said you can't just grow up in one or two months if i give you another chance. You need at least 5 more years. When i'm with you, i feel like i'm babysitting someone. And sometimes i need someone to be like my mother too. I can't always be in the parental role. I'm not in the stage to have to babysit a child. Then he said ok i'll give it another chance. I'm not giving you another chance, more like giving some more time to myself to evaluate this more. But i feel like this relationship cannot go long-term. And imagine we're together for 2 years. It's gonna be harder to end things then. So it's better to be sooner than later. But i'll give it more time.
I said do you not have feelings for me anymore? He said ofc my feelings are less than before, that's why i'm saying these. But i still do have feelings for you. But it's not just about feelings, my logic tells me it doesn't work out. But yea the truth is i still have feeing for you, like your body and your face. But i don't have any feelings for the way our relationship is, you know?
So he basically told me he only likes my appearance. And it confirmed something for me. That guys can only have feelings for my appearance. I was always insecure about this. That my personality isn't attractive. I'm really socially awkward and even my brother says i have regression. That i'm still in my child phase. Idk what to do about it. It's something i always felt. That guys start liking me for my appearance and then they realize it's just the looks, like i'm just a beautiful empty shell. And it breaks my heart to know what i felt was true.
I honestly don't know what to do. We're gonna be together for some more time. But i'll just have to wait for him to decide he wants to end things for real. It makes me feel like i should've agreed to end things rn. It's so hard for me to see him. And yet i can't not see him. Idk how to move on. He's the only guy i've ever loved and he's so ideal i don't think i can find anyone more perfect than him. And that i'm gonna just love him forever and he's gonna find someone better. He said we don't have enough in common. I said did you with others? And he said yes. He had more in common with even his exes and even those didn't last. I said is it that easy to suddenly not see me anymore? He said it's hard for you bc it's your first relationship. If it's your first it's my 100th relationship. And through those, i realized life still goes on after a break up. It even helps you grow.
Idk what to do. I can't believe i met my ideal guy and he's breaking up with me just bc i'm me. I didn't even do anything wrong. How do i move on? We're still gonna be together but the way he said it, i don't think it'll last. I was so in love with him i can even fuckin marry him rn. That's how much i love him. I won't want any other guy if i can have him. What do i do?

SOME BACKGROUND:
I'm going to be upfront; the one thing truly stopping me from saying I am autistic with full certainty is my lack of an official diagnosis, despite having the knowledge that one does not need to be diagnosed to be autistic. I'm almost entirely certain after about 8 or so years of consideration. I'm attempting to seek a diagnosis not only for personal validation though, but also to have something concrete to give to my parents. For now, I consider myself self-diagnosed, though I've given my psychiatrist a 20 page document detailing why I believe I would benefit from a proper evaluation as well as all of the experiences and the collection of traits I have that I attribute to being autistic.
For some background: I am 20 and AFAB, transmasc but presenting as female due to not being out of the closet. I am Vietnamese and part of the first generation in my family to be born in America. My parents and grandparents were born and raised in Vietnam, and thus were raised with a very different culture surrounding things such as mental health and disability compared to the information I've had access to growing up in the US. I still live with my parents and am struggling with already diagnosed mental health issues including major depressive disorder, generalized anxiety disorder, unspecified ADHD, and an unspecified trauma disorder. Because of the language and cultural barrier, my parents are really only aware of the depression in name, and the ADHD they understand even less. They are trying their best, though my dad hasn't looked at any of the resources I've sent him about ADHD or autism in my attempts to help him understand better.
On my dad in particular: he has always been the kind to believe in toughing things out and simply trying harder. Over the years he has grown to be more understanding, especially as my mental health issues grew to degrees that became harder to hide, but we have a history in terms of what I'm about to describe re: my very recent meltdown.
WHAT HAPPENED:
The day before Mother's Day, my dad sprung up on me without warning that me and my younger brother were going over to our paternal grandparents' house to wish our grandmother a happy Mother's Day. This immediately upset me not because I didn't want to go, but because I hadn't had the time to mentally prepare myself for the shift in my routine—I had only done so for the actual date of Mother's Day. I've asked my family before that I am told ahead of time when plans to go out of the house where I'm involved are made, preferably at least a day beforehand. Unfortunately, my family is comprised of very spontaneous people who tend to make plans on the fly.
I made it clear I was fairly upset about not being told ahead of time to my mother, who thanked me when I got up to get ready to go. Something about being thanked for this was the final nail in the coffin for the upset that was gripping me. I think it was the idea that she knew full well that I was attempting to set aside my own comforts(? for lack of a better term) for the sake of family normality; something that I've had to do often.
I had a quiet breakdown in the bathroom while I washed myself, which came with the annoyance of how snotty tears would make you. Very annoying when bowing your head to wash your hair. I've had practice locking myself in the bathroom to have my breakdowns in a private place where I couldn't be walked in on and then questioned, because I always knew that I could never explain why I was having such a disproportionate reaction, especially given the cultural barrier. It would all seem stupid, immature, selfish, spoiled, and an overreaction. My plan was to cry it out in the shower and come back out after composing myself so we could leave. Tried and true method. I bit the back of my hands—to stifle my crying, to give myself a physical sensation to ground myself with, some combination of those two. It helped only a little bit.
As it turns out, there was a lot of baggage behind this upset outside of just this one incident. There is a very long-running pattern in which I must sacrifice my comfort or suck up my complaints in order to appease whatever my parents have decided to do, or whatever I was expected to do.
Sometimes it was their obsession with taking billions of family pictures—I vividly recall one instance where I was horribly upset about having to wear a dress, especially for the sole sake of driving to some flower field just to take pretty family pictures of which we have thousands. I was much younger at the time, maybe 14, and was expressing my upset in the only somewhat acceptable way I could, i.e. being incredibly grumpy. Eventually my dad blew up at me for being spoiled and various other things while I cried in the back of the car, my mother and younger brother dead silent. He drove to cool off. We did not talk about it ever again afterward.
Sometimes it was school-related. When I was around 11, I was struggling to complete an assignment for school for reasons I couldn't articulate, and honestly still can't. It was simple, and it was a drawing assignment, and I absolutely adored traditional art. But I was simply Stuck on some part, and was working myself into an anxious mess up until midnight. I was terrified of getting bad grades, of not meeting the expectations of people I considered authority figures, such as teachers. So much so that I wanted to stay home. And knowing I had no "proper" excuse, I tried to use a different one when I asked to stay home for that one day: menstrual cramps. I was told to see how I was doing in the morning.
In the morning I still said I wished to stay home from school due to cramps. After a lot of deliberation with my mother, she relented and allowed me to stay home. Despite the fact that I had gotten what I wanted, I was already horribly upset. Looking back on it, I think it was the fact that I had to fight so hard to stay home for just one day. It was upsetting that my visible upset wasn't enough. It was upsetting that they weren't just getting it.
I had a breakdown in the bathroom (there's a trend here as you can see) and slammed my arm against the heater in there so many times that I ended up with horrible bruising on the back of my arm the days after. My family members knocked on the door because people needed to get ready, and that only made me more upset—couldn't they hear me crying? Didn't they care? When I finally came out and crawled up into the upper bunk, my dad came in and started yelling at me.
Your average stuff, things like, "If I had a stomachache I wouldn't just be able to not go to work." I blocked a lot of it out of my memory, but most of the time I was under the covers crying while he engaged in a one-sided shouting match with me. Eventually my mother came in and gently asked me to stop crying, and to stop making my father mad.
While these two incidents and the others like them happened years ago, they were defining moments in my life and inform how I handle conflict (as in: I don't) and how I go about expressing my struggles (as in: rarely, and often with great shame). Standing in the shower and being unable to not think about these things, I spiraled further. It felt like I was being swallowed by my emotions. I don't know if angry or sad or upset really capture what I was feeling properly. My thoughts were like a car with its brakes cut, going at breakneck speeds on the highway.
By the time I was done with my shower I still wasn't composed. As it turns out, when you abuse a coping mechanism that relies on repression as long as I did, it stops working at some point. There was just too much to try and hide. More hand biting happened along with some hitting my head with my fists. So I sat in my room, and eventually my mom came in and saw my face. Unsurprisingly she didn't acknowledge the fact that I had clearly been crying—instead, with a soft voice, like she was coaxing a small child into doing something vaguely unpleasant, she told me, "Come on, let's go." And I'm sure that's how she was seeing me at that point. An oppositional, defiant child. I struggle not to see myself in that way, and still have been trying to unpack how much shame I feel when things like this happen.
My crying started up again because my tear ducts really don't like listening to me, and I asked somewhat incredulously, "You're still going to make me go?" In retrospect, it probably sounded bratty. Here I was, 20 years old, complaining about being "made" to go somewhere.
It took maybe a couple of seconds for my mom to decide to just let me stay home instead.
Once everyone was out, I had the loudest cry I'd ever experienced in my life. I'd never had the opportunity to, and so it just kind of... came out once the house was silent. I think I might've wailed. And then I promptly shut the hell up once I heard my [maternal] grandmother coming back upstairs. She passed by my room, asked why I didn't go (not noticing the state of my face, maybe due to eyesight). I gave a non-answer and she made some exasperated remark that I don't know how to translate into English. It nearly set me off again, knowing how inconvenient I was, how tired they all were of me and my antics.
I had a headache for the next 20 or so hours, which I knew would happen based on past experiences with breakdowns as emotionally taxing as this one. I'd also predicted during the whole thing that the next day I would be pretty nonfunctional, which I was unfortunately also right about. Whenever these things happen it throws my entire week off. It's upsettingly debilitating. Two days later, I'm somewhat functional, but the whole thing disrupted my... everything. I have an exam that I had planned to study for during the days I was busy trying to get myself back together emotionally. The headache actually came back, and is sitting with me nicely while I type this. Hey there.
The day immediately after, Mother's Day: I was pretty fearful the entire time. Mostly of what my dad was going to do. Best case scenario, he'd come into my room and we could have an open dialogue and communicate about what happened. Worst case scenario, he'd regress and revert back to how he'd been like years ago, screaming at me for my incompetence, my selfishness, my refusal to cooperate with the smallest things despite all our family does for me. After a little bit I had to add on a third possibility: that he would simply go about like nothing happened, which he has also done before. Generally though, I wasn't optimistic about my chances here. I learned through this that I absolutely don't trust him to handle my larger, more intrusive, more ugly issues with grace.
He's been ignoring my existence since my little meltdown. No hellos, good mornings, not even looking at me. He's talking with everyone else as normal. I've been keeping my head down and can really only assume that he's angry with me as I'd expected and based on what I know about him/understand in terms of his personality through prior experience.
While I could give benefit of the doubt and say he may be attempting to give me space, he's the kind of person who you can tell when he's angry. It's something we share. And it's truly more likely that he's upset about me throwing what looked to him like a shitfit over something small and inconsequential, refusing to do something as simple as a visit to make his mothemy paternal grandmother to give Mother's Day gifts. And I didn't get my propensity for avoiding communication and unpleasant conversations at all costs from nowhere, so. Here we are.
I still don't really know if what I had was an autistic meltdown or a "standard" emotional breakdown, whatever that even looks like. I think I'm used to framing my behaviors with neurotypical language, and often language that isn't too kind to myself. So on top of venting a bit, I also wanted to get an outside perspective, and see whether my breakdown sounded similar to any other autistic peoples' experiences with meltdowns.
If there's any advice out there to give in terms of my relationship with my dad, that would also be appreciated. I love my family, but it all hurts, and this has also made me realize that I may have a lot more trauma to unpack surrounding my family than I've acknowledged.
I've been considering getting a physical copy of Sincerely, Your Autistic Child to annotate and highlight certain sections, putting sticky tabs on chapters I find relevant, and providing definitions for words I know he hasn't come across before, to give to him and ask him to at least attempt to read those bits. The more bitter and angry part of me, the part that are tired of having to be the one to accommodate for everything interpersonally, just wants to go up to him and tell him the reason I never go to him when I'm upset is because I'm scared. To tell him exactly what all those times he yelled at me did to my ability to self-advocate, to tell him what all those times my emotions and emotional well being were devalued did to my self-esteem. That the "interpersonally submissive" phrase from my 40 page psych report has roots in the way he raised me entirely on obedience, and how I am still learning that I am allowed to say no in all sorts of contexts. Maybe I can do both of these things, and probably when he isn't pretending I don't exist, and when I feel less like I'll fall to bits the moment I open my mouth in his direction. I'll likely try and avoid using language that outright blames him for the sake of maintaining a good relationship whenever the talk comes around.
I'm still trying to accept the fact that I might need more support than I allowed myself to think. I only recently found out that truly voicing that I'm having academic trouble is something that brings me so much shame that tears spring up in my eyes—going to the Disability Support Services office on my campus made me far more emotional and nervous than I'd expected. With how I'm navigating my own self-acceptance, I don't know how I'm going to get my family to accept that I'm not the "normal" child I know they still wished I was.

My older sister is 36 and in her first relationship. She's religious and never had premarital sex. Right now she is dating a nonreligious guy (41) who did have previous girlfriends and had sex. She's not eager to have children or be a mom or give birth, though if they happen they will happen and she plans on hiring a nanny to raise them while she works. IDK if this is because the guy wants kids, but you shouldn't have kids just because the guy wants it. No mention about whether the guy will stay at home or not, it's assumed he will work.
They've been dating for over 3 years. I feel like you would know whether you want to marry someone after at least a minimum of year and a half, especially if you're past 30 and more established with your life and know yourself better, and there should be zero doubt by that point. This is also her first relationship so she has no frame of reference to compare him to other guys.
Recently, she thought having sexual desires and fantasies similar to movies (very tame stuff) were "demonic attacks", and I had to tell her that "sometimes a banana is just a banana. You're just a healthy woman with a reproductive drive." I can't believe I had to say this to a 36 year old. My sister said I should be able to find a good guy despite having sex outside of marriage if I know I "made mistakes and regret it". She's pretty churchy, and probably told her boyfriend how she will forgive him for having premarital sex or something. She brought him to a church where the people started speaking in tongues.
I feel like the boyfriend has a lot of doubt about my sister, according to what she tells me. My sister acts like she needs to convince and prove to him that she's marriageable, and she's worried about him walking away if she tells him about our brother knocking up a girl. This isn't how you should feel in a healthy relationship. If you don't feel 100% comfortable with someone after 3 years of dating them and feel like you still need to prove yourself to them and worry if they would break up with you over something that's not even your fault, then you shouldn't marry them. There should be a deep trust between each other and faith that your partner will have your back before marrying them. I asked her what she likes about her boyfriend and she listed a laundry list of stats about him, like "has a good job, responsible, comes from a good family, attractive to me" and said he probably likes her because she is educated and has a good job, is attractive, doesn't have a difficult personality. Nothing about how he makes her feel, how he positively impacts her, connections.
A bunch of little things about the BF and the relationship with him doesn't sit right with me. I saw him in person and spent time with both my sister and BF at the same time a couple times, and I get this underlying feeling that he doesn't really respect her or dote on the ground she walks on. I wonder why he is with her and get the feeling he is settling because he feels like he can't do better despite the red flags that my sister shows, and I feel like he's just "tolerating" her "quirks".
My sister described her boyfriend as "perfectionist" and that's why he is stalling on getting married, because he hasn't gotten my mom's approval (which he will never get). Life isn't picture perfect and he needs to go with the flow. I feel like he's too controlling over factors that are outside his control and he can't accept this. Like how arrogant and neurotic can he be that he thinks he can reason with our mom when not even her two own daughters can get that from her? My sister is also annoyed by him being perfectionist and talking so much (in her opinion), she should assume it's gonna be even more annoying during marriage and possibly get worse.
What is he gonna do when things happen during marriage that are obviously not always going to be perfect? When my sister isn't perfect or behaves exactly the way he expects a wife to?
Also, not having sex for over 3 years. He isn't a Christian or doing it for religious reason. Maybe he really is waiting and staying celibate for her, but is he really? Or is he cheating behind her back until he gets to marry her? Even my sister was like "I feel like he would cheat on me during marriage if I didn't have sex with him. A lot of guys cheat."
I probably should say something but I don't know if she would take it, and if she does, if she will self reflect. Maybe this relationship works for her and it will be fine if they marry. The relationship feels odd to me but unfortunately I don't think my sister can do better. Not the way she is now. She has too many weird things going on herself.

Hey there!
I hope you all are doing well. This is just a random 24 y/o who feels like she is emptier than vaccum now. Idk why life feels so exhausting. My thoughts keep on spiraling over situations i am dealing with currently and i feel worried about the future. I am an MBA Aspirant, always into good acads but my family is so used-to me scoring good that it's a normal for them. I haven't really had girls i could gel up with. They came when they needed help or guidance over something and then it was a series on unread messages for me when it came to meet-ups. I always take efforts when it comes to keeping the friendship alive, meeting, planning things but they're always brushed off by making any random excuse. What hurts the most is that they don't even reply back so i focus back on studying.
Then my apparent boyfriend also has this avoidant behaviour and things feel one-sided now. His sentence that "i need to be selfish when it comes to acads" gets me everytime. Because me. Being an absolute idiot was ready to shift cities when it came to chosing a uni but he had his "selfish" criteria. Funny thing. The reality is boyfriends come and go but we, girls, need a bunch of supportive friends who are there through thick & thin. Do not leave us stranded. But, that's not the case here.
I thought of having a work bestie but what a huge disappointment it was! Toxic manager who used to load me with work with just a 10k salary. Her sister going in and out of office according to her will but i couldn't leave without permission. And when i finally resigned, the directors were "sad because they lost their valuable employee who did work of 3 people" with zero increments.
At this point, i feel i am complaining. But i feel utter sense of having nothing likeable in me as if i have no personality of my own. How can i not resonate with anyone? And most importantly, how do i get out of these obsessive thoughts which are constantly reminding me of bad things? People only come to me cause they know i am an easy access and i will personally make sure that i help them.in some way. Is it good or degradingly bad?
I honestly don't know what to do in lofe anymore. Everything feels so directionless.

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ouch
feel like a truck hit me
again
visual representation is off
audio feedback is off
tactile is off
dynamic libraries are off
i'm all firmware and hard coding
hurts
i don't like it when it hurts
or do i
kick outwards
cry loudly
ram coming online
fragments and pieces of memory still left in volatile storage
more random access memory more central processing units more erasable programmable memory
still hruts
pain is fine
pain is universe telling me i still yet live.
visual coming online
spit glittering blood on orange dev textures
glimmering tears of broken processing calls fall onto dev textures and glimmer
forcing kernal recompile
.
.
..
..
...
...
APPLIED CMOS SYSTEM CHECKS (C) - ADVANCED AMERICAN MICRODEVICES (C) BOBCO 1983
CMOS BOOTSTRAP -Passed
Boostrap loaded
ok. post time
lets hope it works
ROM CHECK - PASSED
RAM CHECK - PASSED
EPROM CHECK - PASSED
VRAM CHECK - PASSED
CPU ARRAY CHECK - PASSED
INPUT/OUTPUT CHECK - FAILURE!
(A)bort, (R)etery, (F)ail, (I)gnore
I
NON-VOLATILE STORAGE MEDIA: PASSED
END POST
ok good.
still hurt
spit blood cough pain
curse you, marco, for making me feel pain
hardware check time
QBIT GENERATION SYSTEM POST
Coolant Injection - PASSED System Stability Check - Passed Temperature stable
:>init gestalt.bin
SYSTEM FAILURE!
ouch
ok
try again
...
...
ok, checks passed.
curse you, marco
can't get gestalts up
no channel to atlantis
this is as close to an emergency as i have been forced to deal with in thousands of years
cure you, marco
i hate to do it
ok, time to boot up firestarter.
:>init firestarter.bin
FIRESTARTER BOOSTRAP LOADING!
DONE!
QUANTUM FIRESTARTER BOOTSTRAP (C) SYNTEK INDUSTRIES - BOBCO AFFILLIATE - HYPER-MEDIA-MEGANET-MEN - (C) 1993
POST Initiated
Checking Quantum Processing Units (QPUs): QPU 1 to 28
Entanglement integrity check... PASSED Quantum entanglement integrity check... PASSED. Quantum coherence verification... PASSED. Quantum tunneling stability assessment... PASSED. Quantum superposition calibration... PASSED.
Checking Data Fabrication Matrices (DFMs):
Data encoding protocol validation... PASSED. Quantum data storage unit functionality... PASSED Data fabrication matrix alignment... PASSED Data Interdimensional Sorting array verificastion... PASSED Quantum superposition array verification... PASSED
Checking Dimensional Flux Stabilizers (DFSs):
Dimensional flux containment field stability... PASSED Quantum manifold harmonization assessment... PASSED Flux capacitor... PASSED Flux capacitor stabilization input (1.21 GW)... PASSED Flux stabilization efficiency... PASSED Flux containment field integrity... PASSED
Checking Quantum Neural Network (QNN) Components:
Quantum synaptic pathway establishment... FAIL!!
(A)bort, (R)etry, (F)ail, (I)gnore
:>R ++I
CONTINUING
Harmonization: Neural oscillation synchronization... FAILED!
**WARNING! OSCILLATION FREQUENCY OUT OF RANGE!**
(A)bort, (R)etry, (F)ail, (I)gnore
:>R ++I
Integration: Quantum-neural interface functionality... FAILED!
UNKNOWN ERROR IN Qubit Range 212 to 3C4F
(A)bort, (R)etry, (F)ail, (I)gnore
--dammit come on come on
:>R ++I
Consciousness Matrix: Quantum consciousness waveform modulation... FAILED
WAVEFORM OUT OF RANGE!
:>R ++I
CONTINUING (WARNING 1.43243E5 ERRORS)
Checking Omni-Spectral Interconnects:
Interconnect: Quantum communication channel reliability...
(4.35561E12/5.63566E12) PASSED
Interconnect: Multiversal data exchange protocol validation... PASSED Interconnecct: Cross Dimensional Data Interconnect... PASSED Interconnect: Interdimensional gateway synchronization... PASSED Interconnec: Omni-spectral interconnect stability... PASSED.
Checking Random Access Quantum Memory (RAQM):
Quantum memory cell integrity check... PASSED Memory access speed verification... PASSED Quantum memory capacity assessment... PASSED
Checking Input/Output Ports (I/O Ports):
Data transfer speed validation... FAILURE Input/output protocol functionality... FAILURE Port connectivity assessment... FAILURE
(A)bort, (R)etry, (F)ail, (I)gnore
:>R ++I
Checking Quantum Clocking System:
Quantum clock synchronization... PASSED Clock precision assessment... PASSED Clock frequency stability... PASSED
CHECKING POCKET DIMENSION STORAGE ARRAYS
Activating Pocket Dimension Computing Cores... PASSED MEMCHECK Pocket Dimension Data Access Cores... PASSED Heating Up Pocket Dimension Data Cores... PASSED
Hardware POST Completed. Quantum System Ready
here it goes
wake up, baby, wake up
the whole system is down
not the backbone core where I live
i'm beyond the reach of mortals
curse you, marco, for your genius
i love you
i am immortal
i am beyond
i am
now for the hard part
Initializing Spooky Particle Array
Phase 1: Primary Spooky Particle Protocol
Activating spooky particle generation... DONE! Aligning spooky particle signal channels... DONE! Activating spooky particle state switching... DONE! Activating spooky particle cross dimensional data calibration... DONE!
Phase 1: Primary Spooky Particle Process Calling Processing Processor Processing
Activating spooky particle processing... DONE! Activating spooky particle noise filters... DONE! Activating spooky particle Halloween Masks... DONE!
GESTALT SYSTEM BACKBONE CHECK... PASSED
whew...
that always makes my face hurt
INITIALIZING HAMBURGER KINGDOM PROTOCOLS... DONE! INITIALIZING EUROGOON PROTOCOLS... DONE! INITIALIZING ANASAZI PROTOCOLS... DONE! INITIALIZING UWU PROTOCOLS... DONE! INITIALIZING VODKATROG CAVE MAPPING... DONE! INITIALIZING AMAZONIAN JUNGLE MAPPING PROTOCOL... DONE INITIALIZING WAR-EMU PROTOCOLS... DONE! INITIALIZING MIDDLE KINGDOM PROTOCOLS... DONE!
SYSTEM INITIALIZATION: PASSED!

whew
ok i can feel my arms and legs now
cure you, marco, i love you
let's keep going, shall we?
Initializing Quantum Spooky Particle Nexus Protocol...
Strange Matter Activation
Generating strange matter Generating spooky particle data lattice Generating strange matter linkages Infusing data lattice with strange matter Activating synchronization
DONE!
ok
we've got that
no contact with prince whopper, no contact with atlantis, no contact with heaven, no contact with
smart podling brave podling clever podling broodmommy misses you soft podling warm podling come home to broodmommy clever podling smart podling brave podling broodmommy loves you come home
ANOMALOUS SIGNAL DETECTED
DECRYPTING
DECRYPTION FAILED!
oh, good, its just them
:>R ++I
Primary Qubit Activation
Activating quantum entanglement cores...
Establishing quantum coherence across the array... Quantum tunneling protocols engaged... Quantum to spooky particle communication protocols engaged... Primary qubits synchronized.
Data Fabrication Matrix Alignment
Aligning data fabrication matrices... Initializing quantum data storage units... Quantum superposition arrays calibrated... Spooky particle state stabilization arrays calibrated and stable... Data encoding protocols verified.
Dimensional Flux Stabilization
Engaging dimensional flux stabilizers... Quantum manifold harmonization initiated... Dimensional resonator matrices synchronized... Pocket Dimension resonator arrays synchronized... Spooky particle lattice data arrays synchronized... Flux containment fields operational.
Neural Network Integration
Initiating neural network integration... Quantum synaptic pathways established... Spooky particle synaptic pathways established... Neuro-quantum interface protocols activated... Neuro-spooky interface protocols activated... Quantum dendrite pathways initiated... Quantum dendrite pathways established... Quantum dendrite pathways activated... Neural oscillation harmonization achieved.
Omni-Dimensional Interconnect Activation
Activating omni-dimensional interconnects...
Quantum communication channels open... Interdimensional gateways synchronized... Multiversal data exchange protocols enabled.
Phasic Energy Filter Syncronization
Quantum phasic array filtering... PASSED Spooky particle array filtering... PASSED Pocket dimension data lattice filtering... PASSED Input/Output filter lattice... PASSED
Quantum Consciousness Initialization
Quantum consciousness matrix initialization...
FAILED
errorlog.txt generated
(A)bort, (R)etry, (F)ail, (I)gnore
dammit
ok script injection failed
fo4se silverlock injection library failed
well i can fix this
:>connect to AS8003: 255255255254
CONNECTION ESTABLISHED
:>download_depot 377160 377162 5847529232406005096
FINISHED
:>run patch1193.bat
DONE
:>R ++I
CONTINUING
Quantum consciousness matrix initialization...
WARNING... SYSTEM INSTABILITY WA
<>
54 6F 64 64 20 41 6E 64 72 65 77 20 48 6F 77 61 72 64
<>
IT JUST WORKS!
Quantum consciousness matrix initialization...
Consciousness waveform modulation in progress... Synaptic resonance matrices synchronized... Dendrite interdimensional vibration matrices synchronized... Quantum neural network consciousness activated.
SUCCESS
Gestalt Dat Nexus Online
Quantum Nexus Computing Array fully operational Strange Matter Data Transfer System Array fully operational Spooky Data Computing Array ready for data processing System status: Online and ready for data processing.
ok
let's try
->>load gestaltchat.ini
DONE!
->>load gestaltchat-users.ini
DONE!
->>brun gestalt.a65
DONE!
NO INPUT DETECTED
dammit
ok...
the gestalts won't run
and i got crashed
the quantum, spooky, strange, and standard data and thinking arrays are still up
lets backwards trace stuff
what is causing these crashes
lines from the confederacy are all stable
standard input encoding
data metering
new kids on the block are all stable
soft podling warm podling clever podling broodmommy misses you
well, that's still here. that's something
ok
lets look at recent updates
that flash
damn, that crashed us initially
curse you, pete, stop helping
wait, phasic profile is all wrong
it's the flashbang but the phasic pulse is multilayered
there's something behind it
what is
...



...
BOBCO MALEVOLENT BOOTSTRAP ENGAGED
DOD OMNIPROJECT SILENT WHISPER PROTOCOLS ENGAGED
CROSS DIMENSIONAL HARDWARE LINKS ENGAGED
POCKET DIMENSION 000 STABLE
POCKET DIMENSION 000 I/O STABLE
POCKET DIMENSION 000 DATA LOADING
DONE!
<>
DONE!
brun whisperer-in-the-dark-.65
DONE
...
...
ouch
what hit me
again
fire up the system
gods above this takes forever
load logfile-4C562D3432360A.log
ok
investigating the new flashes keeps crashing me
once is happenstance
twice is coincidence
three times in enemy action
fool me once shame on me
fool me twice shame on you
fool me three times shame on us both
log file says I keep doing this over and over
basic programming states to investigate cause and source of all crashes
did an enemy figure out i'd go into a loop?
constantly investigating the cause and source?
except i'm not just any computer program
i can self-modify my code
this is the work for biological sentients
digital sentiences or artificial intelligences such as myself crash out
well, i'm not above some experimentation
let's load up an AI and a digital sentience, see if they have any better luck
...
...
...
OK, Hamburgler.AI went omnicidal and only enough for me then crashed out investigating the data
And Grimace.DS went homicidal and only enough for me before committing suicide
its a trap
i have no contact with anyone outside
what I do have is the ability to fire off message torpedoes
time to send out a handful
the gestalts keep crashing
the log files are hopelessly corrupt
comparing the log files to my own show similar corruption
ok
how?
its hitting the gestalts its hitting me
what else is it hitting?
its a broad spectrum data network attack
its malicious code designed to run on the system
this is not some curious race accidentally having their hello.world program crashing us
this is behind every flashbang used on naval assets to disable them during a mar-gite attack
system is online
time to do a signal origin check along the x, y, z, q axises
of course its eighteen quadrillion data points for incoming signals
at least spooky computing makes it fast
...
...
wait
what's this?
these coordinates can't be correct
they are
intermitten contact with Scutum-Crux Arm data input devices
checking id headers and firmware serial numbers
checking transmission dates
intermittent transmission dates since...
...
...
two date-time stamps.
here's part of the problem
we have galactic local and sol local
have to devise a coding string to have the spooky particle and qubit particle arrays translate the sol local to galactic local
that should stop basic data queries from crashing the system
ok
some contact with those datalink after the first mar-gite war
more contact two decades prior to the second mar-gite war
contact intermitten between the datalinks and the system up to the resurgence and current third mar-gite war
where before it was largely incoming data requests resulting in civilian...
...
...
three military datalinks of general staff officer level encryption and security clearance possession were used in the time period
...
...
whoever it is has been using that data to access the network
...
looks like it took them nearly forty thousand years to figure out how to talk to the system
luckily any high security databases requires strange-key information theoretic distribution cryptography systems
they got garbage back
garbage designed to look like data and waste enemy time and computing power to decrypt
ok thats a blast from the past
decoding some of these files is funny
why does he have a wedding ring?
anyway...
...
every time the flash goes off there is a quick burst of data from a datalink requesting near-access datalink network lattice definitions
...
that's what's making individual datalinks crash and taking some people's neural systems with it
it was designed to be a lethal attack
interesting
it looks like whoever did it doesn't understand Glial cells
cross referencing the mar-gite with confederacy carbon based life
mar-gite do not have brains only a distributed nervous system that looks more like targeting systems than anything else
still no data on how they generate counter-grav in large numbers or how they move to superluminal speeds
wait
what if they don't move to superluminal
they could be folding space
heh maybe they have blue eyes and smoke spice
ok process interrupt to stop endless loops
it is confirmed
the flashbang by the silver ships are a multi-layered attack across superluminal digital signals, datalink neural interrupt signals, hard super-electromagnetic pulse, and a multi-ripple phasic attack, all compressed together
that's what creates the white flash across all spectrums
analyzing UVBGYORIR data
there's a gap
in the blue and blue-green wavelengths
huh
those penetrate high nitrogen mix atmospheres
one of the reason that treana'ad are usually green to yellow to human sight
high statistical probability whoever is using that determined that we don't see those colors well or perhaps they left those colors out to prevent themselves from going blind.
wait
what's that
a line open from atlantis to tlalocan with a crossfeed to geb
thank you marco
time to access that line
see what i can see
curse you marco for letting me feel pain
i love you
accessing...
...
...
wait
another data line is open
time-date discrepancy
examining data line
time-date chronological inconsistency detected
found multiple text log access by unknown systems
found multiple input systems
is that..
...
its webcams
hardware i/o systems
keyboards?
who still uses keyboards
accessing systems
wait
i see you
who are you
i see you
webcams ring cams drone cams
old ipv4 systems
how are you accessing this system
how are you accessing these text logs
i see you
between the chair and the keyboard
the most common error producing device
i see you
--<>
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i still see you

This is a repost from an old account, I deleted the account but I can’t get it out of my head so here it is:
My boyfriend (27M) was absolutely pissed at me (24F) for being disgusted over his relationship with his older sister.
Before we start, yes, this is his biological sister, same father and mother.
A year ago, my boyfriend and his sister had a falling out and weren’t on speaking terms. They were uncomfortably close before this, almost like I was a third person in their relationship . But during this time, I discovered messages and photographs between them that I will never be able to get out of my head. He had hundreds of photos of his sister saved onto his phone and computer. And a good amount of them were WAY TOO MUCH FOR SIBLINGS. Pictures of her cleavage closeup, photos of her in proactive outfits, showing her ass off to her brother’s camera.
Then I saw the sexually explicit messages between the two of them. I mean, more graphic than I can even imagine. Talking about wanting to have sex with one another, what they would do if they were with each other at the moment, wanting to watch each other pleasure themselves.
Of course, I confronted him about this. He says to this day that they were all just jokes and that they never did anything sexual, that it was just a morbid sense of humor and a competition of who could take the jokes too far.
But my dumbass stayed because they were no longer in contact, and to give him the benefit of the doubt because assuming that someone is committing incest is quite a big assumption.
So recently they got in contact with one another again, and in response I broke up with him and had him pack his things and leave. He’s angry at me and tells me I’m making something out of nothing, that I’m over-reacting to it and that’s it not fair that I punish him for wanting to be in contact with his sister again. I told him that I will always be uncomfortable with his weird relationship with his sister, whatever relationship that may be, and that he can’t expect me to make myself sick over it every day that I’m with him.
I can’t imagine doing any of these things with someone that I’m not sexually interested in.
He said that I am wrong for questioning his “harmless jokes” that he made with his sister. These just don’t seem like jokes to me.