TW: Alcoholism, drug addiction, violence, suicidal ideation, sex abuse
This is going to be a LLLLLOOONNNNGGGGG one. This story goes back quite a way, but yesterday was the tenth anniversary of the ending to this story and I'm feeling it, still got some guilt about everything that happened, wondering what I could have done differently and I just want to vent it out and hope to get some closure from it.
This story started in 2010.
Characters in this story (names are fake, duh!):

• Me, Guy, 32M at the time, 45 now.
• My BFF Stephanie, 33F at the time.
• Stephen, 40M at the time, Stephanie's boyfriend.
• Maryse, 27F at the time.

Background and intro
I had known Stephanie for many years and we had the kind of friendship that made her BFs and my GFs uncomfortable to put it lightly. We had never crossed that boundary and I wouldn't consider us in the friendzone, we were just friend, but the kind of friend where she would sit on my lap with her arms around my neck or her head on my shoulder.
At the start of 2010, Stephanie met her then boyfriend, Stephen. He tolerated me and my friendship with Stephanie because I also had a gf back then. She liked Stephanie, wasn't at all jealous of my friendship with her, so he didn't deem me too suspicious. Then my gf and I broke up for reasons unimportant and all hell broke loose for Stephen. He became convinced that I would try and steal Stephanie from him. He insisted that Stephanie introduce me to her female friends or female friends of his. Thus began what I called the year of the 50 blind dates. It was probably closer to 20, but still I like saying the year of 50 blind dates. Most of them were unremarkable and never went beyond the first date. There are some fun stories in there if anyone wants to hear them eventually!
In July of that year, I had to switch gears because I had to focus up and study for a professional exam for a certification important to my career. This exam required close to 600-800 hours of study over a 3-4 month period. So I hunkered down, told Stephanie to stop the blind dates for now because I had to focus on that. She respected my wishes and, other a text here or there, we went low contact for the last two months before the exam.
Except for one fateful night in September. Her birthday was in September and she always threw these big bashes at her house. She would throw a big pool party that started around noon and would go on to the wee hours of the morning. I knew she would harass me to go to her party, so I made some quick math and figured I would lose more energy and time trying to dodge her calls, texts and most likely visits at my place than by just going to the party itself. So when she called me to ask, I just said: "Okay I'll go to your damn party, now git." I texted her I would get there in the evening probably around 8. She texted back "Great, can't wait. Now study, bitch!"
So I ultimately get there around 8PM. Basically everybody is already drunk off their gourd. Stephanie sees me, squeals in excitement and runs to me in her bikini and just jumps in the air and slams into me, wraps her arms around my neck and her legs around my waist and gives me a big hug. I hug her back and just keep walking back to the pool where she had started, carrying her with me. I just duck my head around hers and say hi to Stephen, who just glares at me.
She drops back down and I give her her gift. We chat for a few seconds and says "There's beer in the fridge and food in the dining room." I told her I'd be right back.
I go inside and grab a beer from the fridge. I head to the dining room and the table is against the wall with a buffet of sandwiches, tomato pizza, salads, etc. I grab a plate and start putting food on it. I was focused on the task because I was starving. I barely noticed, sitting at the end of the table one of the most stunning woman I have ever seen. I just see her in my peripheral vision and I do a quick double take, quick glance at her and back to the food. I do that a second time. And finally a third time. At that point she is just straight up staring at me and I can't help but chuckle and whisper under my breath "Subtle Guy, sub-tle".
Thankfully she starts laughing too, saving me some embarassment. I look at her and greet her. She says "Hi, I'm Maryse and I'm guessing you're Guy?" I just nod and we start talking. At that point, I just thought I have no shot with her, she's so far out of my league that I'm just gonna talk to her until she sees one of the "models" hanging out by the pool and ditches me for him.
So I'm not feeling like I'm playing for anything, so I'm just myself and not nervous, just talking to her as I would any friend. We chat and she laughs at all my jokes, she gets all my cultural references. She never gets up or ditches me. The plate of food I had made and the beer I had gotten are sitting on the table next to me untouched, I was too busy with the convo to think about food or beer anymore.
After what felt like only 20-30 minutes, Stephanie comes in and tells me, fake grumpy: "So that's where you disappeared to. I invite my best friend to a party and he spends the whole night talking to someone else." I laugh and go: "What do you mean the whole night? I haven't been here that long." She says "Dude, it's 2AM. You've been here for 6 hours..." My jaw dropped and I just said: "Wow, time flies when you're having fun." Maryse chimes in, with a big smile: "It sure does!" That made me happy as you can imagine.
Now I was a little stuck because where Stephanie lived, there's no night service for the bus and the subway had been closed for an hour or so. I figured I would cab it. So I turn to Maryse and tell her: "It was absolutely lovely to meet you and I enjoyed our conversation very much." She says that she did too. I continued with "At the moment, my schedule is incredibly hectic. I'm basically working full-time, studying full-time and sleeping part-time. So I don't have a lot of free time, but if she was interested, whatever little free time I had, I would love to call her or text her to keep on getting to know her."
I see Stephanie in the backgroudnd, looking like a proud mama at how smooth that came out, knowing I was always anything but smooth with women, as proven by the string of blind dates! Maryse has a big smile and we exchange numbers. I go to Stephanie to wish her a happy birthday again. While I'm talking to her, my phone buzzes with a text from Maryse: "Just checking!"
I asked Stephanie "What's the best cab company to call in this area?" Maryse chimes in: "Where do you live?" I tell her where I lived and she goes "It's on the way to where I live, I can give you a ride if you want." Stephanie raised an eyebrow in surprise. I learned later, she did it because it absolutely was not on the way to her place, like, at all. I say that I would love that as it would give us a chance to keep talking.
We get in her car, driving to my place. We talk, she asks me what I'm studying as I hadn't mentioned it earlier. I tell her all about the boring maths I had to study. Much too quickly, we get to my place. She parks in front of my building and we keep talking. At some point, I tell her: "Normally, this is where I would try to "trick" you into coming up to my place..." She interrupts me: "You wouldn't need to trick me. I'm willing and able!"
I tell her that "As tempting as that sounds, I know who I am and I know that if you come up and things proceed to where they're going, I'm not going to be able to study for the rest of the month. I have a kind of obsessive mind and when I find someone or something I like, I can push everything else to the side in favor of that. So to make sure I can still focus on my studying, I have to go up by myself."
She looks at me, a little disappointed but then says, half-jokingly: "We don't have to go up, there's a backseat right there!" We laugh and I give her a kiss and wish her a good night. I managed to stay strong and go back to my condo. Damn it, why did I have to stay strong!!!
My exam was at the beginning of november. During the month of october, we texted a bunch of times and talked on the phone. We went for coffee a couple of times and dinner once. She respected my boundaries and never pushed for more, which I appreciated but also hated at the same time, if that makes sense. The exam came and it was a monster of a Friday. I slept for basically 18 hours after the exam as the adrenalin dropped and my system crashed.
I texted her when I woke up at around 1PM. She was working at the clothing store Stephanie owned. She said "I'm off at 5PM, wanna meet me." I said: "Duh! Why do you think I'm texting? ;)" So I met her at the store downtown. I asked if she wanted to grab a drink, go for dinner, or what. She proposed going to her place and getting some take out. Stephanie who was closing the store at that moment, came up to us and said: "Hey, so what are we doing?" I said: "WE, that is Maryse and I, are going to her place and getting some takeout. Bye!" I'm sure you'll understand when I tell you that no food was ever ordered that night!
Thus followed a whirlwind month of November where any free time we had was spent together, and I wasn't going to complain!
The troubles
By the start of december, things were still going great with us. One saturday night, we were having dinner at a restaurant and I mention that this coming Friday is my office Christmas party, that it's employees only, so we wouln't see each other that night. She tells me: "Oh sure, that's fine! It'll give me a chance to go see some girlfriends I've been neglecting lately." I said "Great! BTW I also got us a reservation at [this great restaurant she had mentioned a few times] for next Saturday, so we could go there and I'll tell you all about my party and you can tell me all about her night with the girls!"
That was settled, I thought. I was wrong. On Thursday, we had spent the evening together at her place and I was about to leave to go back to my place. She tells me: "So are you coming to meet me at the store tomorrow or do I go to your place?" I reminded her: "Neither, tomorrow is my office Christmas party and we won't see each other tomorrow." She said: "Oh right, I forgot." I asked her if she had made plans with her friends like she had mentioned last saturday. She said that they were all busy tomorrow and weren't available.
She suggested "If your party is boring, maybe you could come meet me." I retorted that it wasn't going to be, knowing who was going to be there.
"Yeah but what if?"
"But it won't"
"But what IFFFFFF?" she kept insisting and I kept saying no. After what felt like 30 minutes of that (probably only 2-3 minutes in reality), I had enough and just said to end the argument: "Okay, if it's boring, I'll come. but it won't be." She said: "Cool" with a big smile on her face. I came to learn that that smile meant "Challenge accepted".
The following night, my colleague and I were pregaming in a conference room before leaving for the party proper and my phone buzzes. Maryse was wishing me a good party. I replied. She texted me again. I replied. She texted again, but I was in a conversation with a colleague so I didn't reply or even look at the phone. My phone buzzes again. Still talking, and didn't want to be rude to my colleague. Another buzz. I just kept talking. Phone buzzes differently, she was now calling because I hadn't answered her texts.
"Why aren't you replying to my texts?"
"Hey, sorry, was talking to my colleague Patrick."
"What? you don't want to talk to me?"
"I am talking to you now."
"Why didn't you reply to my texts?"
"Because it would have been rude to my colleague to pull my phone out while talking to him."
"But you're talking to me now."
"Because I thought something was wrong, maybe it was an emergency."
"I wanted to talk to you, that's all."
"Well, gotta go back to the party. Talk to you later."
She kept texting and if I didn't reply right away, she would call after two or three missed texts. After about 2 hours of this, I stopped answering the texts. When she called back, I asked her: "Aren't you supposed to be working?" which started another round of guilt-tripping of "why are you asking me this? you don't want to talk to me?" At that point I had had enough and wanted to enjoy my party. I remembered that the Blackberry (no shaming old tech!) I had had an annoying feature, but I was hoping to put it to good use at that moment.
Whenever the battery would get really low, like less than 1%, it would let out an ear-piercing BEEP for about 3 seconds, reminiding you to charge it and giving you a heart attack all at the same time. It would do that even when you were in silent mode. It had happened a few days earlier when I was with Maryse. I figured, if I press a button on the Blackberry, it would make a beep too that could be heard through the phone. So while I was talking to Maryse, I pressed my thumb on the space bar for a good 3 seconds and sputtered; "what... the .... what?" trying to put on a somewhat believable performance.
She asked what that noise was and I tell her that it was my blackberry letting me know I was low battery and it might shut off any second. I told her "Listen I'm gonna wish you a good night, I'm having a good time at my party so I'll see you tomorrow at 5PM to go spend our evening together. I hope you have a good....." and hung up mid-sentence. I promptly shut my phone off and went back to the party. I concede that I may be a bit of an AH for that move.
The party was great, I got drunk much quicker than I expected owing to the fact that I hadn't had a drink in over two months because Maryse didn't drink so I didn't either when we were together, and we were always together. At 1AM, I went home and passed out on my bed.
This is another place where I may have been an AH. I didn't turn my cell phone back on and I unplugged my home line too, because I wanted to sleep the deep sleep of the drunkard. I woke up at around 1:30 PM, not knowing it was already too late. In my mind, I was meeting Maryse at 5PM to go out on the town that night. Maryse had other ideas as you'll see.
So like I said, I woke up at 1:30PM and was sticky with alcohol sweat, so I went straight for the shower to get clean again. While in the shower, my stomach grumbled with hunger and I started daydreaming of bacon and eggs. That pushed me out of the shower right quick. I dried myself off quickly, tied the towel around my waist and went to the fridge. No bacon.... booo. Looked at the egg compartment... no eggs... booo again. Okay then, how about a cream cheese bagel. No cream cheese, damn it. Look in the pantry, no bagels.... god. I was starting to get angry. Okay, cereals then. I pick up the cereal box, that mofo was empty and I get mad: "who's the idiot who puts the empty box back in the pantry?" I remembered I live alone.
I close the fridge dejected and see the grocery list stuck on the fridge, taunting me with everything I wanted to eat for breakfast written on it. But I felt like if I went to the grocery store hungry as I Was, I'm just gonna pay 600$ and not get one single healthy thing to eat. I then remembered there's a restaurant next to the grocery store that serves breakfast until 3PM. I get excited! I get dressed quickly, grab my wallet and keys, put my boots on, my coat on, wrap my scarf, my tuque and my gloves and go to the restaurant. If you notice, I didn't mention my phone in there.
I get to the restaurant and confirm that they still have breakfast and get even more excited when she confirms it. I order the "heart attack", at least that's how I nicknamed it: 3 eggs, 3 servings of bacon, 2 sausages, and, I guess to give one peace of mind, fruit (or to be precise, one single solitary slice of orange). Now that the food is ordered and coming I figured I would check if I have any messages. I pat the pocket where my phone always is. No phone. uh-oh. I start clutching evert pocket, no luck.
I wonder if I should go back home after the meal before going to the grocery store and decide against it, it would be too long a detour. So I scarf my breakfast down, rush through the grocery store. I get home and set my bags down in front of the fridge. I go pick up my blackberry. I turn it back on. The little tape icon tells me there are messages on my voicemail, at that time there were no red dots with a number in it to tell you how many.
I connect to the voicemail while starting to put the groceries away. The little automated voice tells me "You have 25 new messages." I pull the phone away from my ear, look at it in disbelief as if saying: "are you f'ing kidding me?" So I press 1 to start playing the messages.
Remember: Maryse knew I was at a party with a dead phone, no chargers and I probably wouldn't get home until 1AM. From 6:30PM, when my phone died, to 11:34 PM, when she went to sleep she left me 9 messages. BTW I know she went to sleep at 11:34PM because she left me a message saying "it's 11:34PM and I'm going to bed. Thinking of you." The 9 messages were in the same vein. These are the salient details, but the messages were all much longer.
She woke up at 7:15 the following day, I'll let you guess how I know that tidbit of information! She left me 5 more messages like those from the day before: 7:15 woke up. 7:35 going to take a shower. 7:55 out of the shower. 8:25 getting ready to leave for work 8:50 walking out of the subway to go to the store.
She leaves me another message at 9 that was different. She sounded very excited as if she had had the best idea in the world: "Hey it's 9AM, I'm about to start my shift. I know we're only supposed to meet after my shift, but what if you came and met me for lunch so you could tell me all about your party." I just did my best Scooby-Doo "Ruh-Roh" and chuckled that I blew that, not thinking the calamity that was awaiting me.
Another couple of messages to talk logistics: "I could take my lunch at 12 or 12:30, let me know which you prefer." "I'm taking my lunch at 12:30"
A slightly worried message: "It's 11:15 and you stil have not said if you were coming or not, are you okay?"
The first bomb goes off and I knew I was in trouble then: "Where are you? We're supposed to meet for lunch and you still haven't given me any sign of life, you're not answering your home phone either, what happened?" Reminder: we were not supposed to meet for lunch, she suggested doing so a couple of hours earlier and I never agreed to anything. I guess she told her colleagues I would meet her for lunch and it was now fact and could perhaps make her look bad in front of her colleagues.
The second bomb drops: "It's almost noon now, WHERE ARE YOU? Stephanie says you're probably sleeping off your drunk, but I don't believe her. I'm sure you got yourself a slut and cheated on me. Didn't you? didn't you, you asshole." Stephanie knows me very well, but that wasn't enough for Maryse it seems.
Ensued four more messages from 12:30 to 1:15, where she starts sounding more and more drunk and accusatory, spewing more attacks like in the message above. At that point I already knew it was over, there was no coming back from that. I can understand having trust issues, but that was nuclear. I don't tolerate jealousy because of horrible experiences with a couple of jealous toxic exes.
A final message comes in, and it's a different voice, that of my best friend being more than a little angry: "Hey Guy, listen, Maryse tells me you had a Christmas party yesterday, so I'm guessing you're sleeping off your drunk, still. But call me when you get this. I put Maryse, who's f'ing drunk, in the backstore so she can dry off and "do inventory". She can't be on the sales floor obviously and I just don't feel safe sending her home in the state she's in. Call me to tell me how you want to handle this."
At that point I had finished putting away my groceries and had put my boots and my coat on and was making my way to the subway to go to the store. I call Stephanie and tell her I got the messages and I was coming. She was right, I was sleeping off my drunk and had just woke up (didn't feel the need to mention the breakfast and grocery store). I ask her if she knows what I'm gonna do when I get there. She says that she knows and understands. She knows my bad history.
When I get out of the subway, I call her again before getting to the store. I ask her how she wants me to do this. It's her store and I don't want to create drama in front of her customers. Does she want me to wait outside and she tells Maryse to meet me in the street or do I go in the store and she takes me to the backstore and I do it there? She says to come to the store.
I walk in the store and every saleswomen on the floor looks at me and gives me the biggest case of the stink-eye. They only have Maryse's side of the story, so they think I did all these horrible things. I see Stephanie in the middle of the store and I walk towards her. She shakes her head and points me towards the cash register. I look over there and see Julia, a salesperson that I've known for a couple of years and really like, who also happens to be the biggest gossip in the store. I understand what Stephanie is trying to do. She's gonna make me tell her my story in front of Julia so Julia can spread the "good news" to the other employees and rehabilitate my name possibly.
So I get to the register and say Hi to Julia. She barely acknoledges me. Steph joins me. She asks me:
"How are you?"
"I was better an hour ago, before I listened to those voicemails. I had gone to our office party last night, had a great night, got drunk off my ass, got home at around 2 and woke up around 2."
Julia asks "Maryse told us you were supposed to meet her for lunch."
"No we weren't. I have a reservation for tonight at XYZ restaurant. I was supposed to take the day to do errands, stuff around the condo and meet her here at closing time. She suggested that it could be fun if I came at lunchtime to meet her, but that was never the plan."
Julia asks again "But why didn't you answer your phone?"
"It ran out of battery last night during the party and when I got home, I was so drunk that I forgot to plug it back in. I only plugged it when I woke up at 2. That's when the messages came in."
Julia asks "She says she tried calling your home line and you didn't answer and your machine didn't kick in."
"Yeah, that one's my fault, I knew I wanted to sleep and telemarketers have a habit of calling me early saturday mornings so I didn't want to be awoken by a call for a rug cleaning service, so I unplugged it yesterday morning, knowing I would be drunk when I got home and forget and be angry if I was awakened by a telemarketer."
Julia gave me a hint of a smile, showing me she was starting to believe me. She asked me a few more questions and then she asked what I was gonna do. I told her that whatever I'll do, I would tell Maryse first.
I looked at Stephanie and said: "Can you open the back store so I can go see her?" So we went to the backstore. As we reached the door, it swung opened and out popped Maryse, looking absolutely terrifying, I actually jumped back when I saw her. Her usual perfect makeup was completely smeared, her mascara streaking down her cheeks from the crying. Her hair was disheveled. She was a mess. Apparently, she had had enough of waiting back there and was planning on leaving the store to go home and had put her coat and boots on.
When she saw me, she went into an unhinged rant about me being an asshole for cheating on her, me not being great in bed, me not treating her right, etc. I let her vent everything she had to say, I looked at Stephanie and apologized for creating such a scene in her store. I tell Maryse we should go outside and talk in private. She keeps on yelling, but when I grab her hand to lead her outside, she follows.
When we get outside, her anger had started to wane a little, or maybe just her energy. I was able to talk to her to explain everything, how I had gotten drunk, had overslept (alone) and woke up at 2PM. I reminded her that we were only supposed to meet at 5PM not for lunch. The anger was leaving her and a smile almost appeared on her face. Through all of this I was being very calm and patient with her, which she interpreted as me not being mad at her. I then said in a firmer tone: "However..." and let it hang for a second.
The beginning smile vanished. I continued: "When you accused me of cheating on you, that broke me. That triggered memories of toxic exes who would always accuse me of cheating, not trusting me when I would tell them where I was, snooping on me, stalking me. Because of those experiences, I have a zero tolerance policy for jealousy. I told her that if she was behaving like after only two months of dating, it didn't bode well for the future and I have to protect myself."
At that, the tears started again and she just turned and ran/waddled away. I told her to wait, but she didn't hear me. I turned towards the entrance of the store to see basically all the employees and customers milling around the door trying to catch the drama. I went back inside to talk to my best friend. The mood had definitely changed and no one was giving me the stink eye anymore, but I didn't really care. I was just sad that it had ended, but proud of myself for having stood up for myself.
So AITA for getting drunk and keeping my phone turned off?
There is a lot more to this story and if you want to learn what happened afterwards, then read on.
The immediate aftermath
So I went back inside the store and talked to Stephanie. I told her that I had a reserrvation for XX restaurant and if she wanted to go with Stephen, she could take it, I wasn't in the mood for a dinner. She said "I already have plans for tonight, but thanks for offering." Julia said she would go with me if I wanted, but I just said that I wasn't in the mood to go out. I just wanted to crash and eat a pizza and get into a food coma.
Stephanie said she didn't feel comfortable leaving me by myself and I should join them at her house. They were having friends over to play board games and it could at least distract me a little. I said why not. So brimming with enthusiasm, I went to play bored games. I left early as I wasn't in the mood. I was feeling a little better, but still a bit down. I thanked Stephanie for the invite and left. I got home and just passed out on the bed.
I woke up at around 7AM the next morning and I saw along the corners of the window the tell-tale signs of a snow-drift and got excited as it was the first snow of the season. I pushed the curtains aside and looked on to see a beautiful white carpet outside. It was early enough that very few cars had marred the whiteness. I was admiring it when I noticed that, against the red bricks of the building across the street, there was a pink blotch. As I focused, the blotch became human shaped and I cleared my eyes enough to realize that it was Maryse and she was raising her cell phone to her ear.
On cue, my phone rings. I pick it up. Still sounding drunk, she asks me if we can speak. I ask her to give me five minutes to get dressed and I'll meet her down there. She asks why she can't come up. I say that I'm not sure I want her in my apartment. She says that it's cold out. I say: "Good, then this will be quick."
I get dressed and meet her outside. I'm still bleary-eyed from having woken up 5 minutes ago, but I try to get my wits together. I tell her that we're going to walk to the subway. It 's a 10-minute walk normally, but with her drunkenness, it might take 15-20 minutes. That's how long she has to tell me what she wants to tell me.
She wants to apologize for accusing me of cheating on her. She says she knows I'm a great guy and... I may be the A-hole at this point too, but I start to drift off in my little bubble and start daydreaming about, if I go back to bed, would there still be some residual heat or would it be cold? I could take a hot shower and warm the bed that way. I could still hear her in the background making excuses, saying how she had been cheated on, but I wasn't really listening.
During the daydreaming I notice it got quite quiet. I look on my left and she's not there, I turn around she's a good 5-6 steps behind me looking angry and she says: "you're not listening" I just say: "when you're right, you're right." I tell her that I understand she's been hurt too in the past, and I hope she can work to resolve her issues, but I was done and I'm going back to bed. I was a bit harsh there, but I was tired and still down.
I walk past her and get maybe 10 paces past her when I hear a scream coming from her. I turn around and I see her messing with something inside her coat. She pulls out a chef's knife with like an 8-inch blade. That wakes me the fuck up. Byebye bleary eyes, hello wakefulness. better than a cup of coffee or a red bull I tell you!
So she's got the knife, she's screaming something that I can't quite understand. She gets quiet and then she charges at me with the knife. If I'm being honest I could have stayed where I was and she probably would have missed me anyways, but someone charges at me with a knife, I'm gonna nope out of there. I take a massive side step and once she gets to where I was and realizes that I'm no longer there, she turns her head towards me and says heyyyyy.
At that point, I have a moment of clarity and see what's gonna happen. She's drunk running one way and looking another, I know she's gonna trip. As I predicted, she stumbled over her feet and starts falling to the ground. I start praying to god and anybody who would listen: "Please don't let her cut herself. I don't want to have to explain this to the doctors, EMTs and nurses. I don't want her drunk ass deciding to take revenge on me by saying I did it."
Thankfully, she winds up in a sitting position on the sidewalk holding the knife up and it was clean. Thank god for small miracles. She starts crying and, other moment of clarity, I know she's gonna turn the knife on herself now. I jump towards her and I realize I was right, the knife starts moving towards her left wrist. I tackle her, grab her right wrist and twist it so she drops the knife. I pick the knife back up and put it in my pocket. She looks at me crying and says: "Why did you stop me?"
I pick her up and take her back to my building. In my building there was a couch in the lobby, so I take her there and I sit her down and plop myself next to her. I look at her and wonder out loud: "What am I gonna do with you? What can I do?"
She goes: "Just let me go, I'll be good." I tell her that's not going to happen. I realize I have three options and I give her the three options.
"So here's the choice I give you.
1- I pull out my phone, call 911 and tell them about the attempted murder back there and they send the police to arrest you. I don't want to do that because that could derail your life and not get you the help you need. Besides, they might not do anything anyway as it's your word against mine.
2= I pull out my phone, call 911 and tell them about the attempted suicide back there and that you need to be placed on a 72 hour hold. I could do that, but at the same time, again it's my word against yours, so maybe they don't believe me.
3- I'm gonna hazard a guess here. From what I've seen, you have alcohol problems. So I'm gonna guess you were in AA, had been sober for a while, I want to say 6 months, maybe less, when we met."
She confirms my guess.
"alright so option 3, I'm guessing you had a sponsor in AA." she nods "we call them up and tell them about your relapse and what happened this morning. Can they come get you and take care of you?"
She takes her phone out and picks a contact and calls. She hands me the phone. Someone answers and I explain the situation. They said they were coming right away. I give them my address, they get here 15 minutes later. Maryse had fallen asleep in the meantime, so I wake her up gently and help her to the car. Off she went.
I went back to my apartment and just crashed back to sleep.
A month later
Mid-january, my phone rings and I see Maryse's number on there. I send her to voice mail. Another call. Voicemail again. 5 minutes later, Private number calling. "Gee I wonder who that could be." Voicemail once more.
Afterwards, I didn't get any unidentified callers for a little over a week. One afternoon, I was at work and my phone rings and it's a number I do not recognize. I pick up.
"Hello."
"Hi, is this Guy?"
"Yes, to whom am I speaking?"
"This is Hannah, Maryse's sponsor. we spoke last month." I started fearing the worst.
"Yes, I remember. How can I help you?"
"Maryse tried to reach you last week and you rejected the calls. I think it could help Maryse if you listened to what she had to say. You're obviously not obligated to entertain her, but I think despite everything that happened, you still care about her or you would not have called me that morning."
"You are right, I do still care about Maryse. I'm just not sure how good it would be for her to meet me this soon after everything that happened. I understand wanting to work through the 9th step and making amends, but..." She interrupts me.
"So you know about the steps."
"Yes I have friends in the program. which is how I could guess that she was in the program too that morning."
"You know it's important."
"I know. I know. How about this: we meet in public at a cafe, you would have to be there. Not necessarily at the table with us, but nearby in case she needs help, in case meeting me causes her pain. Tell her I promise to be in a more receptive mood than I was that morning."
So we make an appointment for that saturday afternoon.
I get to the coffee shop. She's already there, and so is her sponsor. I realize happily that she's not wearing makeup. I say happily because that means she understands that this is not a date, but something serious. She's still stunningly beautiful, and I feel sad almost right away.
I grab a coffee and go join her at the table.
"Hey" I say,
"Hey. So this is gonna be uncomfortable, but thank you for agreeing to meet me and for coming, I appreciate it more than you know. I'm sure you heard I quit the store."
"I have, I'm sorry about that, I hope you didn't do it just because of me."
"No, I needed time to focus on myself for now."
She proceeds to tell me about how I wasn't far off with my guess. She had been sober 4 months when we met. Now she had 39 days. She tells me that in AA, if you are single, they recommend not dating anyone new for at least the first year of your sobriety as it can cause issues, similar to what happened with us. I was like her "drug" and as long as I was available, she could get her fix. But the moment I wasn't available all hell broke loose, and that is what led her back to drinking that day.
I told her I'm glad to see her back sober again this quickly and I hope she can get all the help she needs from it. I ask her if she wants to talk to me about her drinking.
She starts to share a story about how she started drinking at around 11 years old. When puberty hit her, she got into a deep depression because the sexual feelings she was starting to feel were triggering responses. As a child she had been abused by two of her uncles repeatedly and her parents never believed her. They accused her of trying to make herself interesting. That was until they caught one of those uncles red-handed.
They finally believed and took the necessary steps to protect their daughter. But they were poor and they couldn't afford therapy. So she never really got help for it. At 11, she started self medicating the depression with alcohol. When alcohol wasn't enough, she added drugs.
At that point, I was full on crying. She asked me if I wanted her to stop. I told her that she doesn't have to stop. That the tears are there because that was one more thing we had in common. I was also a survivor of sexual assault as a child. In my case, it wasn't a family member, it was only a stranger, so it only happened once. But I also self-medicated with alcohol at the onset of puberty, switching to drugs later on too. I was lucky to avoid the pitfalls of addiction, but I was still dealing with my demons, slowly making peace with them.
So there we were, sitting at a coffee shop, both crying and holding each other. I tell her that I think it's great she's getting help for her alcoholism and addicion, but was she doing anything to help with the underlying issue, the original trauma? She said no, she couldn't afford therapy. I tell her that I am a member of a survivors group and if she is interested, I could get her into a meeting and perhaps learn to heal that part of herself too.
She said that she could give it a try. I tell her I have to talk to the other members to know if I can bring someone new and I would let her know. If they said yes, we would go to her first meeting together, I would introduce her and then we would coordinate so that I never went to meetings where she was. I wanted to do that because I wanted her first few meetings to be about healing and I didn't want our own history to be intertwined or mixed in with that.
After that, we left both feeling content and, while not necesarily happy, at peace if you will. Later on, I contacted Stephanie who was one of the "pillars" of the support group (that's how we met) to ask her if it was okay for me to bring in a new member to the group. She said sure. She asked if it was anyone she knew. I told her she would have to meet her at the meeting if she decides to come.
We were having a meeting the following day. I called Maryse, told her the time and place, and she said she would be there. She came to the group meeting and was shocked to see Stephanie there but Stephanie kinda guessed that it was Maryse I was referring to.
I introduce her, we start sharing stories, talking about how we're feeling, etc. The meeting was good and Maryse liked the vibe. So for the first six months after that, I never saw Maryse and we planned which meeting we would be attending to ensure we didn't cross paths. She started feeling much better.
After maybe 2 and a half years, she finally felt ready and she started dating again. She met someone and she fell for him. They were together for about six months, she looked happy. Unfortunately after about six months, she caught him cheating on her. We tried supporting her, being good friends, cursing his name, doing all the things we could to make sure she didn't relapse. But on April 5th 2014, she ODed on heroin. She was hospitalized for 2 weeks after that.
Hannah took her in and she set up a room for Maryse. She was still in a fragile state, so a group of her friends and I started taking turns watching over Maryse, making sure there was always at least one person there with her to keep her company.
Despite our vigilance, on May 14th 2014, when Hannah was out running a quick errand, she was gone maybe 15 minutes tops, Maryse found a way to cut her wrists and she died. We found a note saying that "the OD was not an accident, and neither was that. Thanks for everything you did for me. I love you all, but I can't do this anymore."
It feels good to write that story (I'll just ignore the fat tears rolling down my face!). Thanks for reading this far and sorry for the long story, I just started writing and couldn't stop. I apologize if it was a bit of a bummer.

Hi,
Just wanted to get some clarification from other people (especially those who fall into the „twink“ category) about what is happening to me.
So I myself am gay and I often get labeled as a cute twink and also identify myself as one (skinny, young, blue eyes/blond hair). For quite a long period of my life I was completely insecure about my physical appearance - as I always thought that I have to be masculine, have a beard, muscles etc.
Considering the gender norms I’d also personally say that I have a large number of qualities that are associated with femininity. I am kind, modest, affectionate and try my best to look „pretty“ as such.
Now I think I got over the fact that I’ll probably never be the macho, hypermasculine guy and I am embracing the fact that I am a twink that might appear effeminate to some people. Nevertheless deep down I am quite insecure and shy although I am not always projecting it to the outside world as I try to appear quite confident and self conscious to others.
Now after growing up a bit more, getting more experiences as well as trying to look even more cute/boyish and I notice the vast amount of attention that I get from (especially) males. I recently started working in a large restaurant that serves a few hundred guest each day and I literally feel like a zoo animal as I get constantly stared at as soon as I appear in their view. Sometimes when I’m busy doing something and look suddenly up I just notice that I am being watched and how guys are trying to quickly try to look away but are sometimes just not fast enough for me not noticing it. When I walk somewhere there would be always, more often, guys that try to make eye contact or sometimes I’d also notice that someone is trying hard almost forcing not to look at me. Now the problem no.1 is that I feel a bit overwhelmed and I don’t know how the behave anymore as I feel like I am being constantly watched and as a result I am a bit to self-aware of myself, thinking how I should walk and keep a neutral face and try to not act weird in any way. The second thing is that for a long time I was a bit scared of straight guys. I always thought that straight men would judge me for being physically and emotionally more effeminate and react quite bad or even with aggression towards me.
However after having contact with so many customers each day I started to see that most guys are trying to be quite nice to me and most shockingly there would be guys who would become extremely nervous during interactions (hands super shacking) beyond the point that I have to look away sometimes so they can pay with their credit card. On the other hand women can be quite shitty to me and very unfriendly or dry although I am generally trying to be more gentle and kinder to them as I feel more comfortable presenting myself as more feminine or gay to women. I also sometimes feel that some might be jealous especially if there are with their partners and the guy is paying a lot of attention to me. Not sure if that feeling is valid.
So after realising all this I started to understand that I might attract a lot of males, which straight up confuses me. Considering that only 10% of people consider themselves lgbt I can’t understand why I get all these reactions considering that most people still know that I am a guy. Knowing that, I myself, try not to maintain the eye contact with guys but rather try to look down to avoid the response to their gaze. Sometimes I am quite curious where it would lead to with some of them if I would actively engage with them for a longer time where I clearly make it visible to them that I find them appealing.
I just want to say that I feel quite embarrassed writing all this as I feel that I might come of as arrogant, but it’s just something I noticed for a while now and I can’t cope with it. It’s actually negatively impacting me to the extent that I hate going out to public places and after each shift I’m yet again confused about all the male attention.
So maybe someone has some explanation on what is happening here so that it no longer confuses me. Maybe there are people that would describe themselves being similar to me and experience a similar phenomena. Or maybe I’m just starting to become insane (idk).

#Set the number of threads computers can run on. A higher number means more #computers can run at once, but may induce lag. Please note that some mods may #not work with a thread count higher than 1. Use with caution. #Range: > 1 computer\_threads = 1 #The maximum time that can be spent executing tasks in a single tick, in #milliseconds. #Note, we will quite possibly go over this limit, as there's no way to tell how #long a will take - this aims to be the upper bound of the average time. #Range: > 1 max\_main\_global\_time = 10 #The ideal maximum time a computer can execute for in a tick, in milliseconds. #Note, we will quite possibly go over this limit, as there's no way to tell how #long a will take - this aims to be the upper bound of the average time. #Range: > 1 max\_main\_computer\_time = 5 

#Enable the "http" API on Computers. This also disables the "pastebin" and "wget" #programs, that many users rely on. It's recommended to leave this on and use the #"rules" config option to impose more fine-grained control. enabled = true #Enable use of http websockets. This requires the "http\_enable" option to also be true. websocket\_enabled = true #The number of http requests a computer can make at one time. Additional requests #will be queued, and sent when the running requests have finished. Set to 0 for #unlimited. #Range: > 0 max\_requests = 0 #The number of websockets a computer can have open at one time. Set to 0 for unlimited. #Range: > 1 max\_websockets = 4 #Limits bandwidth used by computers. \[http.bandwidth\] #The number of bytes which can be downloaded in a second. This is shared across all computers. (bytes/s). #Range: > 1 global\_download = 335544320 #The number of bytes which can be uploaded in a second. This is shared across all computers. (bytes/s). #Range: > 1 global\_upload = 335544320 #A list of rules which control behaviour of the "http" API for specific domains or #IPs. Each rule is an item with a 'host' to match against, and a series of #properties. Rules are evaluated in order, meaning earlier rules override later #ones. #The host may be a domain name ("pastebin.com"), wildcard ("\*.pastebin.com") or #CIDR notation ("127.0.0.0/8"). #If no rules, the domain is blocked. \[\[http.rules\]\] host = "$private" action = "allow" \[\[http.rules\]\] #The maximum size (in bytes) that a computer can send or receive in one websocket packet. max\_websocket\_message = 1310720 host = "\*" #The maximum size (in bytes) that a computer can upload in a single request. This #includes headers and POST text. max\_upload = 41943040 action = "allow" #The maximum size (in bytes) that a computer can download in a single request. #Note that responses may receive more data than allowed, but this data will not #be returned to the client. max\_download = 167772160 #The period of time (in milliseconds) to wait before a HTTP request times out. Set to 0 for unlimited. timeout = 0 

#Enable Command Block peripheral support command\_block\_enabled = false #The range of Wireless Modems at low altitude in clear weather, in meters. #Range: 0 \~ 100000 modem\_range = 64 #The range of Wireless Modems at maximum altitude in clear weather, in meters. #Range: 0 \~ 100000 modem\_high\_altitude\_range = 384 #The range of Wireless Modems at low altitude in stormy weather, in meters. #Range: 0 \~ 100000 modem\_range\_during\_storm = 64 #The range of Wireless Modems at maximum altitude in stormy weather, in meters. #Range: 0 \~ 100000 modem\_high\_altitude\_range\_during\_storm = 384 #Maximum amount of notes a speaker can play at once. #Range: > 1 max\_notes\_per\_tick = 8 #The limit to how much monitor data can be sent \*per tick\*. Note: # - Bandwidth is measured before compression, so the data sent to the client is # smaller. # - This ignores the number of players a packet is sent to. Updating a monitor for # one player consumes the same bandwidth limit as sending to 20. # - A full sized monitor sends \~25kb of data. So the default (1MB) allows for \~40 # monitors to be updated in a single tick. #Set to 0 to disable. #Range: > 0 monitor\_bandwidth = 1000000 

TLDR: Toxic friendship group with a lot of pressuring behaviour (particularly related to alcohol) that culminated in a huge standoff where I was accused of being the victim and being a bad friend when I couldn't drink due to illness and had to leave early. My only source of close friends, I decided to leave but feel alone, which has made a lot of other things difficult (e.g. dating). At this moment, am I right to leave them completely and focus on building a social life first?
25M, had a clique of friends from high school and junior college that we were really close with. We used to hang out every week, but over the last two years I felt that I was slowly drifting apart.
First of all there were two friends from high school that I'd slowly grown out of, and we reached a stage where we didn't go beyond exchanging mutual pleasantries and surface level banter and small talk. These two people had also betrayed me in the past in school, so I was well aware of their behaviour. There was also another mutual acquaintance from junior college that I never really talked to. But, there was one friend that I was extremely close to - we'd known each other for 11 years. We were able to talk about anything and everything, and we used to meet every week.
We also used to drink very often, but it got to a point where the behaviour was extremely problematic. The one friend I was close to had no conception of limits, and every session was a binge drinking affair. While I liked it initially, I realised that alcohol was simply a coping mechanism and was more firm with my limits. I became firmer on this limit when crazy incidents started happening, namely fights over petty insults. There was a huge turning point, when a hotel room was trashed, that made me think of finding a new social circle. But I had no idea how to, and I was extremely scared.
Fast forward to last year, and people slowly started drifting away, and the friend that I was close to was deliberately cutting off people for extremely petty reasons (e.g. this person is of no value to me, this person is too sensitive when I make fun of them, this person has weird habits). At this point, I'll admit that I was complicit in this gossiping behavior too. When my father had a stroke shortly before my overseas internship, I also gifted my friends a bottle and beer the day before, but when I told them I was coming, was met with the response of 'no one asked you to rush down' despite telling them that I wanted to meet them one last time.
However, things really reached a turning point in June last year, when I was doing an internship overseas and the friend I was close with came to visit with someone else. At that time, I was sick and on medication, and I really couldn't drink because my bronchitis was really bad at night, but my friend wasn't really concerned [I also forced myself to drink just to blend in]. On one night, I left early because the smoke around that area was really bad, and I couldn't talk. I'll admit that I didn't communicate that clearly, but I was coughing really badly.
The next day, while we were having a normal conversation, I was calculating my expenses and decided to split our share evenly because I had paid my friend everything. Out of nowhere, I got a long message about how I was not a good friend for entertaining him and always paid the victim and that we should no longer be friends anymore. I was profusely apologetic and accepted the blame, but my friend refused to concede, repeatedly crossing the line with remarks such as 'lying piece of shit' because I went hiking the next morning, after my cough had cleared, or 'always blaming everyone for my misfortune' [at a time when my dad had a stroke], 'not entertaining him because people are there to drink if not there's no fun' and being ' the worst person that he's happened to meet', and 'regretting ever meeting me'. Not knowing what to do, I called my brother, who told me that cutting off this person was the best thing I can do.
After two months, when I came back home, my friend apologized for his behavior. But during that period, he was extremely adamant about his saying things like 'I was taking things too seriously and behaving petulantly'. At that point, I had already made my mind to cut that friend off, and unsurprisingly, no one from that social circle reached out.
The subsequent year has been tough. To rebuild my social circle at 25 hasn't been easy. Its forced me to confront my flaws - yes, I admit that I never made the effort throughout school because I always thought that these people would be around. Occasionally, the thought of following up with these friends has popped up. But deep down, I know that this split was long overdue.
All in all, this split has left a gaping hole in my life that I haven't made the effort to fill, with caregiving responsibilities + school making it harder. However, after going on a couple of dates, I've realised that this gaping hole is preventing me from being the best that I can be. It really hit me when two 'dates' that ended after a couple of months hit me very hard.
As a result, I've decided to focus on myself before getting into anything. I've registered for counselling, and I've started trying out hobbies such as book clubs, dancing, volunteering, and reaching out to people I've known before. I feel that finding a balance between, work, family, self care, and social life is priority for now. This experience, coupled with caregiving, has forced me to take extreme ownership and honesty over all aspects of my life. Its made me much better at school, work and physical health.
Long post I know, but the questions I have are: (1) Am I right to not keep in contact with these people, knowing that it was a decision long time coming? (2) Am I right to focus on myself for now, carving a social life? Its a lonely journey, but I feel that its the most important step.

I’m in a tricky spot. My ex left me out of the blue a month ago. We had a great relationship, both had faults but nothing major. We were good to each-other. We had an insanely stressful time period & we lived together for a year at this point, we were also together for 2 years. I think he just needed time away & we needed to go back to long distance for a while. Our living situation wasn’t working out at all anymore & we didn’t know how to navigate that properly.
I don’t think we (mainly him) communicated affectively enough about what needed to happen. He just got lost, confused & just kinda dipped. Then, he did/ said strange stuff & gave a million bs reasons for why he left. None of them were true. I knew exactly why he left. He was just lost. He still loves me & I know he didn’t want to breakup, he just felt he had no choice, which was dumb. I tried so hard to show him he was making a mistake & clearly just in a bad mental state, but eventually I gave up.
I went no contact & tried to move on. Then, he calls a few days ago to tell me he is deeply sorry, he took accountability for what he did & he just described it as him getting crazy overwhelmed & he felt backed into a corner. He wanted to discuss getting back together. I told him I need him to take more time to really think about that decision. While part of me wanted to just say “yes omg let’s do it come home baby” I did not. He has to prove himself to me again. It’s been 3 days since that call & we’ve barely spoken, when we have it’s not about that. It’s weird.
He reopened the wound & yes I did tell him to take them to think, but now I just feel like shit because I don’t know what is going on. I’m scared to even ask. It sucks. I’m tempted to text & call all the time but I’m not sure what to say, I need him to take the initiative but I guess it’s just a weird cross road. I could forgive him for this, I do think we needed time apart. He went about it absolutely awful, but I do believe in 2nd chances. It’s just a shame he called me saying everything I’ve been waiting to hear, but nothing has happened really. We’ve spoken each day since, but I’ve initiated contact more during this time than he has. He still says I love you & doesn’t tackle the topic again. I’m so so confused. I get that getting back together should be a slow process, I get I told him to take time to think, but I don’t know what is even going on & I NEED to know. It hurts.
So, I called him tonight & decided to open the topic. He said he was taking the time to think as I requested, he said he meant what he said the other day. He said his main issue is that he is worried about my feelings & my security. He said he feels like I will never feel secure again, he thinks everytime we argue (if we get back together) that this will be brought up against him & obviously that wouldn’t be healthy. He said he just never wants to hurt me again & while he says he wouldn’t, he knows I’ll have an underlying fear that he will one day leave. I appreciated the fact that these were his concerns, as much as it sucks that they’re his fault. He took accountability & simply stated that he just doesn’t want me to be unhappy in the long haul after what he did.
I told him I think hesitation on both sides is healthy & normal, I also told him I appreciate the fact that those are his concerns. That shows a selfless view on the situation. It shows he clearly doesn’t want to get back together strictly because he loves & misses me. I do appreciate it as much as it hurts. I told him that it’s going to be a slow process, may not work or it could be better than before. It depends. He said he wants to discuss it further & see what we end up doing. Is this a good approach? Thoughts?

I’m in a tricky spot. My ex left me out of the blue a month ago. We had a great relationship, both had faults but nothing major. We were good to each-other. We had an insanely stressful time period & we lived together for a year at this point, we were also together for 2 years. I think he just needed time away & we needed to go back to long distance for a while. Our living situation wasn’t working out at all anymore & we didn’t know how to navigate that properly.
I don’t think we (mainly him) communicated affectively enough about what needed to happen. He just got lost, confused & just kinda dipped. Then, he did/ said strange stuff & gave a million bs reasons for why he left. None of them were true. I knew exactly why he left. He was just lost. He still loves me & I know he didn’t want to breakup, he just felt he had no choice, which was dumb. I tried so hard to show him he was making a mistake & clearly just in a bad mental state, but eventually I gave up.
I went no contact & tried to move on. Then, he calls a few days ago to tell me he is deeply sorry, he took accountability for what he did & he just described it as him getting crazy overwhelmed & he felt backed into a corner. He wanted to discuss getting back together. I told him I need him to take more time to really think about that decision. While part of me wanted to just say “yes omg let’s do it come home baby” I did not. He has to prove himself to me again. It’s been 3 days since that call & we’ve barely spoken, when we have it’s not about that. It’s weird.
He reopened the wound & yes I did tell him to take them to think, but now I just feel like shit because I don’t know what is going on. I’m scared to even ask. It sucks. I’m tempted to text & call all the time but I’m not sure what to say, I need him to take the initiative but I guess it’s just a weird cross road. I could forgive him for this, I do think we needed time apart. He went about it absolutely awful, but I do believe in 2nd chances. It’s just a shame he called me saying everything I’ve been waiting to hear, but nothing has happened really. We’ve spoken each day since, but I’ve initiated contact more during this time than he has. He still says I love you & doesn’t tackle the topic again. I’m so so confused. I get that getting back together should be a slow process, I get I told him to take time to think, but I don’t know what is even going on & I NEED to know. It hurts.
So, I called him tonight & decided to open the topic. He said he was taking the time to think as I requested, he said he meant what he said the other day. He said his main issue is that he is worried about my feelings & my security. He said he feels like I will never feel secure again, he thinks everytime we argue (if we get back together) that this will be brought up against him & obviously that wouldn’t be healthy. He said he just never wants to hurt me again & while he says he wouldn’t, he knows I’ll have an underlying fear that he will one day leave. I appreciated the fact that these were his concerns, as much as it sucks that they’re his fault. He took accountability & simply stated that he just doesn’t want me to be unhappy in the long haul after what he did.
I told him I think hesitation on both sides is healthy & normal, I also told him I appreciate the fact that those are his concerns. That shows a selfless view on the situation. It shows he clearly doesn’t want to get back together strictly because he loves & misses me. I do appreciate it as much as it hurts. I told him that it’s going to be a slow process, may not work or it could be better than before. It depends. He said he wants to discuss it further & see what we end up doing. Is this a good approach? Thoughts?

I’m in a tricky spot. My ex left me out of the blue a month ago. We had a great relationship, both had faults but nothing major. We were good to each-other. We had an insanely stressful time period & we lived together for a year at this point, we were also together for 2 years. I think he just needed time away & we needed to go back to long distance for a while. Our living situation wasn’t working out at all anymore & we didn’t know how to navigate that properly.
I don’t think we (mainly him) communicated affectively enough about what needed to happen. He just got lost, confused & just kinda dipped. Then, he did/ said strange stuff & gave a million bs reasons for why he left. None of them were true. I knew exactly why he left. He was just lost. He still loves me & I know he didn’t want to breakup, he just felt he had no choice, which was dumb. I tried so hard to show him he was making a mistake & clearly just in a bad mental state, but eventually I gave up.
I went no contact & tried to move on. Then, he calls a few days ago to tell me he is deeply sorry, he took accountability for what he did & he just described it as him getting crazy overwhelmed & he felt backed into a corner. He wanted to discuss getting back together. I told him I need him to take more time to really think about that decision. While part of me wanted to just say “yes omg let’s do it come home baby” I did not. He has to prove himself to me again. It’s been 3 days since that call & we’ve barely spoken, when we have it’s not about that. It’s weird.
He reopened the wound & yes I did tell him to take them to think, but now I just feel like shit because I don’t know what is going on. I’m scared to even ask. It sucks. I’m tempted to text & call all the time but I’m not sure what to say, I need him to take the initiative but I guess it’s just a weird cross road. I could forgive him for this, I do think we needed time apart. He went about it absolutely awful, but I do believe in 2nd chances. It’s just a shame he called me saying everything I’ve been waiting to hear, but nothing has happened really. We’ve spoken each day since, but I’ve initiated contact more during this time than he has. He still says I love you & doesn’t tackle the topic again. I’m so so confused. I get that getting back together should be a slow process, I get I told him to take time to think, but I don’t know what is even going on & I NEED to know. It hurts.
So, I called him tonight & decided to open the topic. He said he was taking the time to think as I requested, he said he meant what he said the other day. He said his main issue is that he is worried about my feelings & my security. He said he feels like I will never feel secure again, he thinks everytime we argue (if we get back together) that this will be brought up against him & obviously that wouldn’t be healthy. He said he just never wants to hurt me again & while he says he wouldn’t, he knows I’ll have an underlying fear that he will one day leave. I appreciated the fact that these were his concerns, as much as it sucks that they’re his fault. He took accountability & simply stated that he just doesn’t want me to be unhappy in the long haul after what he did.
I told him I think hesitation on both sides is healthy & normal, I also told him I appreciate the fact that those are his concerns. That shows a selfless view on the situation. It shows he clearly doesn’t want to get back together strictly because he loves & misses me. I do appreciate it as much as it hurts. I told him that it’s going to be a slow process, may not work or it could be better than before. It depends. He said he wants to discuss it further & see what we end up doing. Is this a good approach? Thoughts?

I have been suffering from premenstrual syndrome for some time. For over a week before my periods start, I feel angry, stressed and depressed. It can even last 2 to 3 weeks.
Funny part? I always get it during vacation. For example, last summer was a blast (it wasn’t). With my boyfriend, we booked a week-long trip abroad for the first time and I got my period during the last day. Needless to say, the whole week was awful. Not only I felt numb, angry and depressed but I questioned my RS the whole time.
My periods have come quite regularly during the course of last year, so this year around I told myself I could anticipate and book vacation on the date I was least likely going to have PMS or periods. My periods were supposed to start on 6.5, so I booked the trip on 21.5. Today is 15.5, I still don't have my periods or any sign I'll get them soon, if that isn’t for PMS syndromes… these I already have. It becomes clear that these will either last during the whole vacation or I will get my periods during vacation, which means awful lower abdominal pain that keeps me in bed.
Either way, it makes me want to not plan anything enjoyable for my self ever again because periods or PMS just end up ruining it every time. It is not only about last year and this year, it applies for almost every short trip I have ever planned.
This post is just for venting, I know not much can be done.

I’d like to begin this invitation of advice or experiences by stating that what I want in life is a partner who feels like home, will always give me their genuine effort, & will love me through all of the highs, mediums, & lows of life.
I specifically want to know about any advice or things I should consider when it comes to the age gap I have with the man I’m seriously considering making a staple & serious part of my life. I (29f) met (40m) 3 years ago & we have been seeing each other for a little over a year. We met at the public school in which we both work- he’s the social worker, I’m a teacher. When I first saw him, he looked like a meat head (he’s pretty muscular, bald, beard, wears hoodies) & I’ve always been into nerds so it never occurred to me that I’d end up attracted to him. The first year we knew each other, it was very surface level, & then, during the second year of my time at the school, I got to know him better, as I did a few coworkers I now consider close friends. This second year of friendship was also a tough period for me as I was going through a divorce from with a man who wasn’t on the same life path as me & kind of made me dislike myself just for being me (wanting kids, needing to be intrinsically motivated in my career rather than financially motivated)- basically he was type A & I am B. I was absolutely enamored with him in my twenties & was crushed that it didn’t work- I spent a lot of time trying to change myself to accommodate his desires.
Anyhow, as I was processing my divorce & creating friendships, I got to know M(40) better both at work & at hang outs with friends outside of work. I watched how the kids at school just flocked to him & how kind he was with everybody. He coached the basketball team, did an after school program with the SRO to help at risk kids, & often stepped in to help others with tasks that weren’t related to his job as social worker. & he always did it with a positive attitude & good sense of humor. People just LIKE him, you know? It became obvious that he was just a really good person. One day, we had a discussion about kids & how we both wanted them. He told me I’d be a great mother because of how I treat the students & I told him he’d also be a wonderful parent. & he cast his spell on me & I slowly started falling for him. I couldn’t quite figure it out. Here I was, recently divorced from a relationship that had a tremendous affect on me mentally/emotionally, & I was gaining feelings for a man who was very different from my ex, & 11 years older than me. Was I just looking for a distraction? Was I using him to boost my confidence up after it had spent so much time at all time low? Or was I simply recognizing that this man had all of the features that I’d been missing in my past relationship & maybe I should pay attention to that? I was worried that my judgement post- divorce couldn’t possibly be clear, so I expressed that I had feelings for him but had to take things very slow. I was a bit of a mess as I tried to take the initial steps to get closer to him. I’d get emotional & have somewhat of a panic attack, or I’d go through some wishy washy phases when it came to wanting to see him in general. No matter what it was, he said that he understood, he wasn’t going anywhere, & that he just wanted me to be ok. He’d always ask what he could do to help & what I needed from him to feel better. If we were kissing & he felt that I wasn’t comfortable, he’d stop. One time he could tell that I wasn’t feeling great & he cried because he thought he’d made me feel bad. Needless to say, he was always there for me & ACTUALLY cared about how I felt. As we got closer, he was always respectful, would leave me flowers on random or special occasions (like when I was in an art show that he attended, or the first day of a new semester at work), wanted to make things like holidays memorable for me (one time I specifically thought was sweet was when he decorated my place with a Christmas tree & lights because “it’s your first Christmas in your new apartment, it should be festive!”). I consistently got solid evidence that he was emotionally mature, ready for a relationship, & wanted the same things as me.
So, I thought, “why is this sweet, courteous, kind, responsible, funny man single?” I’d heard some woman at work “pick” at him about this & say “I just don’t get how you’re single!” & I honestly wondered myself. You always heard that it’s a ref flag if a man dates a woman over 10 years younger & that it’s because “women his age didn’t want him”. Well, there are a few rational explanations I could think of: 1. He’d been sexually abused by his stepsister for years as a child. He’d told me that he’d had a few relationships during his 20s & 30s, but they didn’t last long & he’d had some issues with women not dealing with his anxiety around sex well. With me, this was not an issue, really. We’d taken the physical really slow, & when one of us felt anxiety as things heated up, the other stopped & supported. After a few months, it became a non-issue & we were able to have great sex with no fear that one of us would get anxious. I think us being so patient & supportive in those initial tough moments & making it clear that we were just as happy to show non-sexual affection helped bond us a ton. 2. When he was younger (childhood-20s) he was overweight. He began balding in his 20s & so he shaved his head. Maybe there weren’t a lot of women who wanted to be with the overweight, bald guy? Women can be just as shallow as men.
So, I began to try to look for any signs that maybe this man is “grooming” me or something. I looked for issues as well as green lights. How’s his family? His brother is happily married with children & he is close with his family, seeing them weekly. What are his friends like? I enjoy his friends. They’re nice, fun people & his best friends are in happy marriages. Does he manipulate you? No, he treats me like a princess (I’m not used to it) & tries to establish healthy relationship patterns (he always insists on a weekly date night, suggests activities together, such as me weight lifting with him & him running with me). He also hypes me up like no other- If I’m wearing a risky outfit that I love but know my mom would insult, BAM he is the first one to compliment it as his jaw drops to the floor. Always telling me how strong, sweet, & cool I am. Made me take his gloves when we went on a snowy hike & I’d forgotten mine. Just basically an endless stream of courtesy. Sometimes I worry if he’s just being really sweet to me because he wants to keep me- he’s said he’s trying to be less of a “people pleaser”- but he has always been consistently kind to me in a genuine manner.
I have gotten a lot of evidence that this is a solid person with whom I could build a beautiful relationship & family with. Everything he’s shown me has been positive as far as communication, morals, empathy, kindness & life plans is concerned.
So… is the 11 year age gap a concern? Should I be more paranoid about why he is still single, or are my theories valid? Although he goes to the gym daily & is like a kid at heart, should I worry about his age when it comes to us potentially raising kids? He’d likely be 43-45 by the time I was ready for that.
If anyone has any experience with being the victim of or being a partner to the victim of someone who went through sexual abuse as a child, please give any thoughts of how that might have affected someone when it comes to dating.
If you have any thoughts, please let me know. Truthfully, I do have other potential options if I pursued them & I’m not afraid of being alone, but I’m feeling that I’d like to commit to a relationship.

Light added two fake rules, one being that if it's burned or destroyed that everyone who's touched it dies. This is a very good rule to put in. The other fake rule is that once someone has written a name in the notebook, if they don't keep write names consecutively within a 13 day period they'll die.
I understand the last rule clears him of suspicion during his confinement, but was it really necessary? If it gets disproven, he's almost certainly proven to be Kira, and that's quite risky.
If it really was necessary for Light to add this 13 day rule, then before Light relinquished ownership of the deathnote, he should have been aware of the risk that it being disproven holds for him when making his big plan.
Does this mean that Light planned for Rem to kill L by drawing suspicion towards Misa, even before he relinquished ownership of the death note? Because it's only by killing L quickly after the task force discovers the death note can he keep this rule being fake a secret.
Perhaps there's another element here where Light didn't think L would necessarily suspect the presence of fake rules? What are your thoughts? I think that while Light was planning his relinquishing of the death note, he should have been aware before hand that L might see through the whole thing, and that his victory would only come through quickly killing him with Rem.
My memory is a bit hazy on part 2 of death note, but I remember that a shinigami told Mello that rule was fake. But not much more part 2 I remember

Hi All-
When looking for testosterone pellet information, I found very little documentation in the form of journals and regular cadence check-ins. The one I found was immensely helpful to me, and I wanted to return the favor. I am six weeks into my first pellet therapy and very happy with the decision to do it.
Prior to the pellet, I was really suffering from massive amounts of brain fog, and I could hardly focus. I had very low energy, no libido (no desire at all), I was unhappy, cranky, and cried easily.
My biggest fear going into this was having a ravenous libido (as some have experienced). I let my doctor know this and we started with a healthy but moderate dose.
I've tried to provide as much detail as possible, but happy to answer any questions.
46 yo
158 lbs, Current T level of 18 (prior test was 11), estrogen is in the normal range
Biote 125mg on 3/29/24
3/29/24 - Day one
The procedure was quick and easy, I was nervous and tense, but it was painless.
No shower for 24 hrs, no soaking for 3 days.
Also taking DIM 150mg once per day (also prescribed a supplement for ADK and B12 but these are unrelated to the T pellet)
Was tendesore at insertion point for a few days but nothing major.
4/5 - 1 week update
Sick for a few days this week (unrelated), so this may impact my overall experience. I haven’t felt any different for the most part.
I rubbed my eyes (thanks to allergies) and lost some eyelashes and brow hairs. it seemed to be more than normal, which could be a tiny side effect, but maybe not. I did notice a few small pimples over the week, but I’m also in my week of menstruation.
I haven’t gained or lost weight, no mood changes.
Still a tiny bit of tenderness at the insertion spot, but it’s very minimal. The incision is completely healed from the outside.
I haven’t been consistent with the DIM supplement due to illness, but have restarted after a few days off.
My doctor did tell me that it may take a few weeks to start to feel the effects of the testosterone.
4/12 - 2 week update
Allergies took over and I had a bad couple of days with extremely low energy. Went to bed at 9pm one night, and the next day had the worst hot flash of my life (beet red from chest to face for a solid 45 minutes.
My weight gain has been minimal but a bummer. I have gained 3 lbs and currently weigh 160.
No change in sexual desire, or energy that I’ve noticed yet.
I met briefly with my doctor, who said I should be feeling it by now, but I’m not. Maybe it's due to a couple of weeks of not-so-great health.
4/19 - 3 week update
I’m starting to notice some changes. In general, my energy seems to be slightly increased. I seem to wake up a bit easier in the mornings. I feel more motivated in general, and more capable of letting go when bad things happen.
I noticed that the mild vaginal dryness I was experiencing is gone. There is no real noticeable change in desire (yet), but I will say that even the slight increase in energy and ability to once again self-lubricate makes me feel more open to the idea of sex.
My weight has leveled off and I have dropped half a lb since the week prior.
5/5 - 5 weeks update
No changes from week 3. Feeling a bit of motivation and more energy to keep going during the day. The biggest change so far has been a decrease in my brain fog. I have clearer thoughts in general and fewer days spent lost to brain fog. I have noticed that the severe breast swelling and tenderness I typically experience ~2 weeks before my period has not happened since being on testosterone. It’s only been 5 weeks, which means I’ve only moved through one cycle, so this may change, but an observation for now. There are no other changes in my cycle to note, but because of the Mirena IUD, I do not typically have periods where I bleed (but I have had a handful of breakthrough bleeding in the last year).
I’ll be going in this week for my 5 week (midpoint) bloodwork and I’m very curious to see what my T levels have balanced out to and talk through what my next dose may be.
5/13 Check-up
160.5 lbs, Testosterone 195!!
Great check-in with my doctor. My testosterone is in a great range at 195. I feel good. Not bad. Thats something worth celebrating! Nothing earth-shattering, but I feel so much better in general. Most days I wake up feeling ready for the day (and waking up is a bit easier), there are fewer brain fog days, my libido has come back (YES!), and I feel much more able to focus and get things done. No breast swelling pre-cycle as I had before, and much less dense fibrous tissue as well (from what I can tell). I think I may have noticed a decrease in inflammation in my joints, but I can’t be sure just yet.
My emotions feel much more in check. In the last few years, I was referred to as a "crier," which made me very self-conscious. Now, when there is conflict or some sort of upset, it's much easier to keep this in check. I still get weepy occasionally; it's just easier to manage. Crying is healthy. I don't not want to cry; I just want the ability to have a bit more control over it.
No side effects other than a few lbs of weight gain (which I’ve read could be water weight and may go away), but I’m fine with this given the other results.
Overall thoughts: I’m really happy with the results. The energy boost is subtle but noticeable after a few weeks. Keeping a journal has definitely helped me check in with myself and take note. I would say this option is worth exploring. Prior to the pellet i tried the gel, but was not happy at all with the results. This is clearly a very personal choice. Gel or injections may be right for others, but pellets work for me.
Honestly, I feel like I'm back to the me I used to be. It's really nice!
I scheduled my next pellet insertion for another 6 weeks out. We’ll continue to monitor levels throughout the year.
I hope this helps others make a more informed decision!

I've been regularly posting here about my items (thanks for the positive support!) but I've come to recently learn that people who are new to IMVU don't see the same catalog everyone else sees.
When an item clears Peer Review, it's suppose to be available to all, but actually they are withheld for another 4 weeks from everyone except for IMVU users with long, established memberships.
Apparently, in the early days of Peer Review, many unsavory items got through. To curb the spread of this filth, a high ranking member of staff added the 4 week moratorium, on top of Peer Review, that applied to all new users. The idea was that older users would get a chance to report erroneous items during this period of time. Noting the number of clearly adult items I've seen in general selection, I don't think this helped at all.
So if you see a post from me, but it links back to an item you can't see, please know that the item is there, it's just been delayed. Only new members will be forced to wait. Sorry for the delay, please be patience.
Since I've been a developer on IMVU for nearly 20 years with an excellent track record, I'm asking if this moratorium could at least be repealed for developers in good standing. It's unfair to upstanding developers, it's unfair to new users, and it makes advertising items very difficult. My request is being discussed now, so we'll have to see how far it gets.

I, 37F was involved in a car accident senior year of high school after someone hit me going 56 in a 45 zone when I was driving to my part time job. I overall wasn’t hurt badly, I had just broken my arm and had bruises. I had texted my boyfriend at the time, who was a freshman in college, who was home what had happened and that I was fine. He came to the hospital about 40 minutes later. My mom had called the school and told them about my accident and a few staff members were talking about it in the office, where my friend who I will call b to respect her privacy, was grabbing something for a teacher. She overheard, and went to tell our friends and then left school to come visit me. A teacher gave everyone a free period to make cards or play a game. By the end of the day, everyone had found out and some people had came and visited. Towards dinner, my mom had left to go pick me up dinner and my dad had left to go pick up one of my sisters from a track meet and my other sister up from soccer practice. So it was just me, my boyfriend (now husband), and my friend b. For about 10 minutes we sat around talking, my boyfriend, who I will call M talked about his recent baseball game, b talked about her latest crush, just normal stuff. Until two guys came and started “playing around”.
The Addams family had come out a couple years ago during this and I had dark hair, a “big forehead”, overall I just looked like Wednesday Addams. So the two guys started calling me Wednesday, other rude names, while I lay in a hospital bed. It hurt to move so all I could do was sit there and take it, but sometimes I would say something to make fun of them. It was usually to one guy who played football and had fat fingers. B screamed curse words at them, while M sat there and stared at them. Eventually M stood up and screamed at them both words I probably shouldn’t say here. B left to go get a nurse or security to get the two boys out. That’s when M punched the one who plays football in the face and knocked him over. He then went to the other one and punched him. And went between the two.
My parents, sisters, and friends stood in the door way, while security pushed through them and broke it up. I loved watching this to be honest, they finally got what they deserved. Security escorted the two boys out and let M stay because I had begged. He didn’t even have a bruise on him. I had actually had a crush on M since 7th grade but didn’t get the courage to ask him out until 10th grade. Everyone hugged M, and my dad made him invite his parents over to the hospital to tell them what M had done. Most of my friends, my family, and M sat around across the room eating pizza from my favorite pizza spot, and even though I was hurt, that night was one of my favorite nights I’ve ever had.
M had played baseball all through college, and I played softball once I was better and clear to play. We got married when I was 24 and he was 25. We had a set of identical twins a year later, who are 12, two sons, 10 and 6, and a daughter who is 4. The night he fought for me I will always remember.

Apart from having autism and ADHD, I (26F, turning 27 at the end of the month) also have what my previous psychiatrist called a “neurological feeding disorder”.
This is due to impaired interception (internal body sensations) from neonatal brain damage. This brain damage was caused by a hemorrhage, which also caused cerebral palsy. I also have general anxiety disorder and depression.
As a child and teen, I definitely had ARFID behaviors, which were dismissed as picky eating behaviors. It’s just that “high-level” autism, ADHD, and ARFID wasn’t diagnosed in girls in the early 2000s.
I basically lived on a “beige diet” of cereal, bread, snack cakes, pasta, pizza, and some meat, like chicken strips or cheeseburgers. I wouldn’t eat sandwiches, eggs, seafood, fruits, or vegetables, except for peas and white potatoes.
I was somewhat underweight until high school, and I remember my mom would always offer me “chocolate milk” (Pediasure / Ensure) when I was younger. I then gained weight in high school due to depression and just generally eating processed food. At my highest weight in school, I was 135 pounds.
Here’s some backstory about where things started to shift. Trigger warning for numbers, skip over if needed.
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That carb-heavy diet was up until I turned 24, when I first tried a keto diet for mental health. Things were going really well, until I eventually developed malnutrition from losing too much weight unintentionally. My height is 4’8” tall.
I went from 110 pounds (BMI 25) and 28% body fat to 90 pounds (BMI 20) and 20% body fat in 10 months. October 2021 to August 2022. I couldn’t get warm worth a damn from subnormal body temperatures, and I lost my period at around 95 pounds.
Even so, a calorie intake of 1000-1200 per day on top of 2-3 miles of walking (daily activity and steps) would have eventually lead to relative energy deficiency (RED) at some point because I never knew about planning scheduled refeeding periods to mitigate the down-regulation in metabolism.
Especially when considering that my hunger signals are impaired due to my brain damage. My interception is about half as sensitive as normal. I don’t really feel stomach hunger until it’s very strong. Lots of times, I can hear the noise before I actually feel it. And I can’t say that I’ve ever identified satiety correctly before.
I didn't know that low-calorie interventions shouldn't be done for months at a time without proper nutritional supervision to prevent deficiencies.
Then I gained 20 pounds in 14 months from October 2022 to December 2023 (93 to 113) after having my previous IUD removed, stopping keto, and hormonal eating patterns once I realized that I had PMDD when my period resumed in July 2023 once I had gained back enough weight.
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Now, I do my best to meet my keto macros and make sure that I get enough calories every day.
I try not to eat under 1200 kcal and keeping a food log helps keep me accountable that I’m not under-eating due to not feeling hungry. Logging wasn’t something that I did last time. I also keep up with my electrolytes, because being in ketosis is very diuretic and sheds electrolytes quickly due the carb restriction.
However, my current diet is relatively… limited, to put it lightly. I mostly eat heavy cream in coffee, heavy-cream ice cream, cream cheese, eggs, and some kind of meat every day to meet my protein requirements. This isn’t the previous “beige diet” of my youth, but rather what I call a “heavy cream diet”.
I used to be hypersensitive to flavors and textures when I was younger, for example, I never ate salads before the age of 24, but that switch “flipped” when I started having reactive eating episodes when I was underweight.
I started eating sandwiches, spicy foods, and seafood, all of which were foods that I was previously very avoidant of, to the point of having anxiety attacks when seeing the shells in shellfish.
Those reactive eating episodes really showed the kind of primal need for food that malnutrition does to the brain, because the body needs a lot of calories to gain back weight while underweight.
Now, instead of avoiding fruit/veg and shellfish, I still avoid sweet fruits, starchy veggies, nuts/seeds, peanut butter, and any other kind of carb food.
I avoid eating because the food isn’t enjoyable anymore. Instead of being hypersensitive, it feels like I’m now hyposensitive, like I just have a general disinterest in food, apart from the usual low appetite. Even when I try to focus, sometimes I can’t mentally “taste” the food.
I can also eat quickly because I can’t feel the food inside my stomach, which makes pacing difficult.
I’m also currently averse to cold coffee because my mouth just says no to for some reason, which may be because my mom explained that cold coffee is less acidic than hot coffee (she was a barista) and tastes different?
However, I will get what I call “vagus hunger” after passing a bowel movement, and I’ll get very hungry. It’s a very distinct feeling, and it’s one of the few times that I can clearly recognize the feeling of hunger.
I eat only one or two “meals” per day, not including the “fat boluses” like cream, oil, or butter that I eat straight or put in my coffee during the day to maintain my ketone levels. The fat helps because I have neurological delayed bowel motility and I take GI meds to manage this.
By the way, I’m using “avoidant” to describe sensory overstimulation, and “averse” to describe choking/nausea symptoms, as that’s what I was previously taught in speech therapy when I when for a few sessions when I was 24 due to neurological swallowing spasms.
Does this sound like ARFID behaviors? OSFED? Where is the line between an “eating” disorder and a “feeding” disorder, if there is one? I was always told that my circumstances were FD related, not ED related, but no one ever explained the difference. Apparently, ARFID isn’t on the ED side, but rather the FD side?
I wouldn’t want to say that I have orthorexia, even though I have some food rules, because I literally eat butter to increase my calories, and that seems against the premise of “healthy foods” even though it’s perfectly acceptable within a keto context.
At the mental health practice I’m currently with, the former psychiatrist left, and the practice is still waiting on a new one. But I want to bring this all to the attention of my psychologist, who knows about my longstanding feeding issues, and then the new psychiatrist, whenever they get hired.
Advice is appreciated, and my chats are open if you don’t want to publicly comment. Thanks in advance!

***I posted this originally in but think this might be a better place for it
TLDR: I'm struggling to understand if my relationship issues are genuine concerns or my past influencing my perception. My boyfriend (29M) and I (25F) have been dating long-distance for 10 months. He initially talked a lot about our future, including plans to get a place together, but has since become non-committal and distant. Given my history with a narcissistic parent, I'm unsure if these are red flags or typical relationship hurdles. I'm worried he's "future faking" me. Any advice on discerning these issues would be appreciated. ___________________________
Sorry this is so long - It's clearly weighing heavy on my mind and I also have a habit of overexplaining myself due to my past. Believe it or not, this was my attempt to keep it short.
As someone raised by a single narcissistic parent, I (25F) have a lot of difficulty in figuring out if my perception is accurate or if I'm misinterpreting things. I've spent years working on this in therapy and have made progress in figuring out when I'm being treated poorly, specifically in platonic relationships, but have still a ways to go.
Recently, I've gotten into a relationship with my bf (29M) after having been single for 5 years. The person I've started dating proactively chased me during this time and I was clear that I wanted to be just friends due to concerns about long-distance, feeling overwhelmed with the interest they had in me without knowing me super well, and feeling like my boundaries weren't being respected. Over those 5 years, we developed a strong friendship/relationship and these issues resolved (except for the long-distance). I had a major life event happen in 2023 that had me questioning how much of my life I had lived in fear and avoidance. Simultaneously, this person was a huge support to me while I went through this difficult moment. I decided I was ready to pursue a romance with him and he agreed he wanted to too. So we started officially dating roughly 10 months ago.
In the beginning of our relationship, he would make tons of comments about our future together, talking about our kids, what life would be like when we're married, trips that we would take, etc. I was hesitant in the beginning to believe this, but slowly started to imagine this future too and would join in these conversations. I had never dated someone who so openly talked about a future with me and while it felt scary in the beginning, I started to feel like it was a beautiful thing and I was experiencing healthy love.
Back in January, he started to talking to me about getting a place in my city. Although we're long distance, he has to come to my city fairly often for business reasons and likes to extend his stays to spend time with me. I initially thought he just meant something for himself that he would stay in when he was in my city. This wasn't super surprising since he has an apartment in another city sitting completely empty and he was talking about getting a place in another city for when he'd visit before we started dating. To be clear, he has vast financial resources. Like hundreds of millions.
I was excited that he was going to get a place in my city, because I knew it would make him more comfortable when he'd visit and therefore make his visits more likely. However, he clarified to me a week later that he actually wanted to get a place for the both of us - where I would stay full time and he would stay when he was visiting. He was surprised that I thought this would just be his place. I thought about it and got excited at the idea (although I had some concerns about living alone for those periods he wasn't there - I've always had roommates and have loved it honestly).
Once I agreed, he said he wanted to start looking at places when he was visiting my city for a few weeks that February. I started to look at places online and have conversations with him about what we'd both want. February came, he didn't make any effort or mention of seeing places in person. My roommates started to ask me if I'd be renewing the lease with them or not and I told them I wasn't sure. I'd periodically bring it up to him and emphasize that we probably need to start looking and make serious progress on it. He would agree, but I wouldn't hear anything more about it. Finally, I told him I needed to give my roommates a final answer about it. He said that I should renew the lease with them so that we're not rushed into finding something and can find the perfect place. He said it was okay if the leases overlapped, assuring me that it wouldn't be a problem and he'd cover it financially. I was hesitant, but given his vast wealth, I figured this was just one of those rich people things where comfort is prioritized over wastefulness.
He has not brought it up since. Recently, I had felt some distance from him. He wasn't as communicative. He flaked on a vacation we were supposed to go on during my spring break at the last minute due to a conference he wanted to attend. He was vague about when he would be able to visit next, saying that I could visit him whenever even though he knew I was in school until May. He invited me to go to a friend's wedding in a far away state in late April, but said he figured I wouldn't be able to go because he knew I had finals. I decided to make it work by flying in for 48 hours despite having finals. While we were together in person, it didn't seem like anything was wrong at all. I decided to talk to him about some of these concerns and mentioned the apartment. He said that he wanted to find the perfect place for us and not stress about it. I told him that I get that, but we need to take action in order to find the perfect place. He said that there's no rush. I pointed out he said he wanted to start looking at places in February, so it seemed like he wanted to get a place fairly soon, but I was feeling confused because since those early talks, I've been the only one to talk to him about it. I told him that it felt like he didn't want to get a place with me anymore. He said that he does want to still but when he brought it up to me, he meant he wanted to get a place in the future and there's no timeline. In his head, it will happen eventually and I shouldn't be worried (????? WTF). Anyways, I decided to drop it and give him the benefit of the doubt.
He also early on told me how excited he was for when we go to his home country, how we'll go in the next year, how he needs to take me there. A week or two ago, an opportunity came up where he would be in a nearby country for business and I would be on a break from school. We talked about me going with him and then going to his home country after for a bit. Yesterday, I asked him about it and he started to express doubts, saying he's never taken a girl home before... Keep in mind: 1) I have already met his parents and brothers more than once. 2) This man has only dated one other person, and it was in high school. 3) This man has been talking about taking me there as soon as its convenient since we started dating.
I'm worried given my past with parental narcissistic abuse and having my perception constantly questioned/invalidated that I'm not able to identify red flags unless they're really severe or different from what I experienced growing up. Prior to this relationship, I always pursued men that were emotionally distant and whose love I had to earn because it felt safer (and mirrored my relationship with my absent parent). This is the first time I've dated someone who consistently showed interest in me. I thought this was healthier and that I was recalibrating my dating patterns, but now I'm starting to have doubts. I'm feeling like I can't trust his word anymore. I'm starting to wonder if he's been future faking me.
What do you guys think? Any tips on what I should be looking out for in the future? Or how you can know with certainty that there might be love bombing/future faking before things get worse? I don't want to find myself in a position years down the line in an abusive or toxic relationship and realize that there were signs I missed/ignored earlier on. I also don't want to ruin a happy and healthy relationship because I'm making mountains out of mole hills.

Hey y'all,
Long time lurker here, but I wanted to make a post of my experience because I found a lot of reassurance from many folks here before I got my surgery.
I'm exactly seven weeks post-op today; I had a total laparoscopic hysto, including ovaries. For some background, I'm 34, 5'3 and 134lbs; been on T for 9 years now.
Surgery day: Nervous as hell, but medical team was amazing. Surgery took about 2.5 hours and I was able to go home the same day. I had a bit of trouble fully coming to afterwards, but after a nap, I was good to get up on my own and make my way to the washroom for the highly anticipated pee (can't leave without peeing). It did take me a long time to pee, but I managed a little something. There will be blood immediately after surgery, so it certainly can be startling if you've been without a period for years. Didn't eat much that day, as anaesthetic kinda ruined my appetite. Pain was tolerable, but getting up from the couch/bed was tough - you'll kinda have to roll out. I peed A LOT that evening (it did subside a bit the next day). Nurses said nothing over 5lb (I 100% did not abide by this because 5lbs is very light to me and I felt it silly) and no sex for 6 weeks.
First week: Pain was very manageable, just similar to sore abs. I continued my prescribed painkillers for a couple days and made the switch to Tylenol, which I took for another couple days and then I didn't feel like I needed anything. Bleeding was pretty mild throughout the first week. I think after about 4-5 days post-op, I was walking quite a bit (couple 10-15 min walks a day and general tidying around the house). I did get a little tired, but nothing bad. Drove my car around 4 days in. Was also drinking a dissolvable stool softener - you're really gonna want this. I never took it with top surgery, but hystos are so connected to your bowels, its just a must-have.
Second week: Went back to work after 12 days - I work in service and was on my feet 6-8 hours a day. I felt fine and didn't really overdo it. I didn't lift much over 10-15lbs, but was able to hustle. Bleeding continued to be quite light. I was pretty much cleaning my house as normal at this point, as well as walking my dog (though he is super young and a puller, so I was very cautious during our walks). Continued drinking the stool softener because I still felt a little discomfort when trying to go to the bathroom.
Third and Fourth weeks: Third week I just increased my walking, working and started to ease back into my routine. I will say my gas pains/bowel discomfort got pretty bad around this point - I've never experienced anything like it. It was obvious it was related to my intestines and bowels settling into a new place inside me, but it was so uncomfortable. I continued the softener every other day until the fourth week. Once I reached week four, I went back to the gym to do some stretching and isolation work on machines (leg extentions and curls, shoulder presses, rows, light curls and tricep work). I only went two days, that week, but it felt amazing to get back in there and move my body. I had no more bleeding at all after that week and had no adverse effects from going to the gym.
Fifth and Sixth weeks: Pretty much a full return to normal for me. Fifth week, I started increasing the weights (half my usual) at the gym and hit the exercise bike as well. Sixth week, I started my compound body work like squats, bench presses, light deadlifts, etc. Again, had no adverse effects. I'm now at week seven and I'm back fully to normal, in my opinion. My doctor has cleared me for all regular activities and I'm feeling great. This will be my first full week back in the gym and though things are feeling heavy as hell after all this time, it will come back in no time.
Some other things that I was worried about before my surgery: Muscle loss/Weightlifting - If you're in good shape beforehand and are a seasoned lifter, you're gonna be just fine. I was so freaked out about losing my muscle and physique, but it wasn't so bad. Just don't eat like shit and stay as active as you can. Things are gonna feel really heavy when you get back, but just go slow and focus on form.
Sex/Masturbation - I got myself off probably 2 weeks after and had some light bleeding, but nothing else. I waited again for another few days and it was fine after that. I continued to get off regularly after this with no adverse effects. Myself and my partner obviously didn't have penetrative sex during these 6 weeks, but we did manage to get by with some hands-on fun. I've yet to have the more "aggressive" penetrative sex I'm used to, but light penetration this past week has not bothered me - just go slow and make sure it feels ok.
Scarring - SO TINY. Seriously, just don't pick at them and keep them moisturized and they will heal great.
That's mostly all I can recall right now, but I'm happy to answer any questions. Sorry if this was long-winded, but I figured maybe it would help someone out!

I forgot about it, until some guy pulled up Some receipts, so here it is…

 The History Of Ye: The year of 1977, a year to remember. A superstar was born during this year. The young Kanye West, now known as Ye, was birthed into this world by Donda and Ray in the ATL. Ye may have grown up lower middle class but he had a great background with his mother, Donda, being a well-spoken, charismatic, and wise woman, and his father, Ray, being a Black Panther Journalist. Unfortunately, the two parents would split when Ye was around the age of 3, and Donda got Ye to move with her to Chi-Town. Ye would go to a variety of places with his mother, even places like China! Young Ye was a great student and characterized as charismatic and outspoken by his teachers. He would graduate in the 90’s, where his career really began to spring. Ye always wanted to be a producer, so he took the opportunity and ran with it. He first started making beats for local guys, and then bigger artists like Common, and even bigger ones like Jay-Z, starting in the early 2000’s. However, Ye also wanted to be a rapper, even being in a group called the Go Getters, but no label wanted to sign him. That was until a reluctant Dame Dash of Roc-A-Fella signed him to a record deal. Things weren’t always sunshine and rainbows though, as Ye would get into a car crash in early 2003, making his jaw wired shut. This did not stop the determined Ye however, ash he pushed through and dropped his hugely successful and influential The College Dropout. Then he did it again with Late Registration, and again with Graduation….but this streak of happiness and well health for Ye would snap with the death of his mother, Donda…. Everything began to go downhill from there. That along with the break up of his fiancée inspired his fourth album, 808’s & Heartbreak. Ye would start spazzing out, however, even crashing the MTV VMA’s to interrupt a young Taylor Swift. This caused Ye to go into exile, but not for long, as the release of My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy bringing the world back to him, and then Watch The Throne with close friend Jay-Z. He even started his own label during this time, G.O.O.D. Music, and got married to the love of his life Kim, having 4 kids in North, Saint, Psalm, and Chicago. He went on to drop Yeezus, experimental and influential, and The Life Of Pablo, a modern piece of art. His mental health would begin to spiral again however. He had to cancel a whole tour and was medicated at UCLA, where Ye was diagnosed with Bipolar Disorder. He would embrace the diagnosis however, dropping Ye, Kids See Ghosts with close friend Kid Cudi, and several other executively produced albums in 2018 all while under a controversy revolving around slavery and the president. After this period, Ye completely gave his life to Jesus, forming the Sunday Service Choir and scrapping a whole album to reshape it as Jesus Is King. Ye was finally mentally clear….until he and Kim started having issues. Ye would drop Donda in 2021, dedicated to his deceased mother, another gospel album, but behind the scenes, Kim wanted a divorce, and started hanging out with other guys like Pete Davidson. 2022 would be the worst year of his life, scrapping a whole album he already “dropped”, hanging out with weirdos and creeps, and then the straw that broke the camel’s back….becoming publicly antisemitic, praising Hitler on live media. This snapped his sponsorship deals in half, including the generational Adidas deal. All hope was lost….until Ye found a new wife in Bianca, and a real friend in Ty Dolla $ign, who dug Ye out from his grave and released a collab album with him, Vultures 1. There may be a Vultures 2 and 3 one day, but Ye’s current state of mind is unknown, with rumors of an old demon coming back on his shoulders. Will Ye find more help? Will Ye spaz again? We will know soon for certain… 

Hope you enjoyed :)

Blachowicz here.
Kept yah’ waiting, huh? Heh, sorry about that one, but I can explain. As we all know… we lost a few good men the last few months.
That’s the brutal part of a hybrid war like ours: We’re fighting a foe unconventional, with half our arsenal tied down because those who grant us authorization are either in disbelief of the true facts, or scared… or already assimilated. That being said our momentum recently was a change not seen in years, and because of that… despite the losses we have garnered, we were close through a breakthrough. One last night Krol pulls myself and other two must trusted squad leads into the back of our COP. There is one of our equipment cages, surrounded by m-bitter radios, tripods, and several hundred thousand dollars of equipment he brought us around a simple worn table. Before us he laid a map of eastern poland… red markings indicating cells that seemed to dot the countryside like a pestilence, or used to… as deep gashes of advance from raids had trisected their lines, even if ones did pop up in the interior.
It was a back and forth; an outside virus infecting Polska at it’s heart, and we were the antibodies sent to drive them out. To which… Major Krol points to one of the largest symbol on the map: a dark red diamond, the NATO symbol for an enemy unit, deep inside of an untouched wooded area, adjacent to a mountain ridge. Several jagged lines indicated entrenchment, with red horizontal lines indicating possible enemy control… or our contested control, for over 20kms surrounding it. Letting us all look, the Major lit himself a cigarette.
“Sir, you sure it’s wise to smoke in here with the dive tanks just behind us” 1st Squad’s lead quipped. “Fuck off” Krol dryly said.
“Alright… this is it… this is the one we’ve been searching for for years, this is the nucleus my predecessor commander died trying to find” he says, pointing to it. Not far from Zamosc, it was almost touching the border with Belarus, the contested area indicating the Strigoi did operate over it… indicating one of the largest spill through points. “-It’s an old soviet bunker, made during their 1960s initiative it was designed to hold the munitions and manpower of several units in the event of a NATO first strike” Krol explained. “It’s gotta be massive then…” I said gazing at the map; “Didn’t the army demolish all of the old soviet hulks near Belarus to prevent any infiltrations?” 3rd Squad’s lead asked. “National Police took the effort over… and by extension, the Strigoi. It was halfway demo’ed before they burrowed into it and have been using it as a bridgehead ever since. This is it…” Krol said. He looked around at all of us, a sense of certainty I had never seen before as he blew smoke from his nostrils; “We’ve been fucking around in the dark for so long, it’s hard to believe we’ve made any progress, but this is it. With this gone, this will set them back over a decade and the momentum will finally shift into our favor… into Poland’s… -Europe’s”.
I swear there was almost a flash of joy, of pride in his eyes and a phantom of a smirk before reality set back in “That being said… we can’t leave this to chance, especially not something as important as this. We’re going to have to go there ourselves… clear through every inch of that place, and tear it all down, piece by piece. I will be straight with you all… when we go, there will be some of us that aren’t coming back. -but we are going… a whole generation is counting on us, and unborn billions rely on us to succeed”. We all nodded, a silent agreement washing over us as we took this upon ourselves. Echo-1 spoke up: “So… They’re authorizing a raid? How big?”. “We’re rolling in as a hard target, armor, explosives, and air support” Krol answered, taking a drag off his cigarette. “Aviation? How the hell did we get that approved, we’ve gotten attempts shot down four times due to those leeches” I said in disbelief. “There’s too much evidence here pointing to the human trafficking tied to their actions… We’ve finally got too much weight pinning them down, to keep the hammer from slamming into their necks” Krol chuckled. He looked around “Any questions?”. “When?” Echo-3 asked. “Three hours. We’re hitting them in the dead of night, only time we could get the birds authorized. Get your boys ready. We’re rolling out” Krol said, dying the cigarette bud out on the table. I can’t begin to tell you the euphoria we felt leaving that cage, as our men started arriving, they did so a lot quicker, and with their heads a lot higher than they had in weeks. As Second Squad’s lead we were going to be one of the main arms of attack into the bunker, thus I made sure we had a breacher loaded with enough thermite, charges, and tools to cut through anything. Our shield bearer we ready to go, as was our assaulters, grenadiers, and machine gunner. I double checked each and everyone of their weapons; ensuring the feeder paws of our squad’s belt fed were intact, making sure every breach charge we had was properly set and packed. There was going to be no mistakes, no slip ups. The margin of error needed to be the smallest it had ever been for us tonight if we were going to make the gore spilt worth it.
Finally… there on the outside of the building, the bright LED lights kept the darkness of the ensuing night at bay as the roar of our MRAPs could be heard. It was said once that war is 99% peace, and 1% chaos, they were right. The slow periods where the blood slowed and the doubt creeped in was the worst… yet we all kept it at bay. We needed to, there was going to be no backing down tonight. All three squads were up, all of us ready to go… we circled up… short stares and shaky nods telling us one things: We were in this together, till the end… the finish line so many before us had been searching for, we were being granted tonight.
A single set of footsteps could be heard as we turned, Major Krol stepping into the center. He took the last drag of a cigarette, throwing it down to the ground and stamping it out onto the damp concrete. He looked around… his chin strap blowing in the weak air as he met everyone of our gazes… then mine… then looked around. “I want you to remember every detail of tonight, as you have every other night… when you are situationally aware, scanning for the enemy, liberating the subjugated, I want you to remember the sting of anxiety, the shake of adrenaline, the chill of the bunker, the heat of your weapon as it cuts them down… because tonight we are going to write every fine detail of our victory, their defeat, in history…” Krol’s words echoed deep into our souls. He paused for a moment, staring around he looked down… a small pause before he said “When you are ruthless in combat, remember to be patient, and reserved in victory. This conflict is for our existence… a lot of innocents have bled due to the mistakes of those who failed to listen, a lot of our brothers are now laid under because we had to bridge the gap of uncertainty with their lives. We remember them now… but in an hour? We forget them… when we raise our barrels, when we cut into those foes, and we liberate Polska!! This does not end tonight, but history puts everything in it’s place, and patience is the companion of the victor… All of our hard work will be cemented, no matter the obstacles we face in that darkness… no matter the demons, the blood, no matter what incomprehensible horrors, we will make them comprehend that to invade our land, to bleed our people, the justice will be paid in full… Load up. It’s time*”*.
The purpose in our steps was heavy as we climbed the back ramps of the MRAPS; Four of the heavily armored vehicles, one for each squad with an additional for attached personnel including our JTAC, the term means Joint Terminal Attack Controllers. With air support requisitioned to us for this operations, there needs to be a definite liaison on the ground who can directly communicate to the birds, and coordinate their fire and progress. I’d worked with many of them in the past, resourceful guys, quick thinking though I guess that comes with the position they hold of needing to quickly figure out what bombs to drop, on which target, at what precise points, whilst taking contact. He loaded in the lead vehicle with Major Krol… and soon, our convoy kicked off.
The drive was several hours as myself and my squad sat in the back of that forty ton goliath, the rumbling of the engine keeping us awake as the crap heater fought to keep the cold from the outside frost from setting in. I looked around to each of them, some were catching some sleep because even with the circumstances… better to get all the energy you can, than to stay awake for nothing. Others were checking their weapons… My gunner locked eyes with me, the same one from the village extraction… many of these men I had trained with for a while now, fought with for months.
We may have met on unconventional circumstances but those in JW Grom thrive on austere chance and create opportunity from scratch. I was pulled from my thought by the sound of a transmission, my peltors were set up for dual comms so I could both receive information from the Major and other leads, whilst communicating with my team.
Krol himself sent out: [“Approximately 10 minutes from enemy AO…”]. As the rest of the squads acknowledged, I quickly sent out [“Echo-2 Copies”], before kicking the boots of any of them sleeping: “Look alive, we’re here”. Through the exterior net armor of the MRAPS, and the bars protecting the small reinforced windows, we could barely see jack shit. I reached up, turning off the overhead light as we all looked through our nods to scan the outside. A dark wall of dense trees was shown before us, making it difficult to see… in addition to night vision capabilities we had also requisitioned ourselves some thermals… when mounted onto rifles they were bulky, made it a pain to aim down quickly, but considering the supernatural capabilities of spotting our foes we needed every advantage necessary.
I flipped out one of my tubes… scanning the outside with my scope. I looked over to one of my assaulters who had been assigned to man the turret of the MRAP, seated near the view screen as he controlled the 50. Cal. Each of the vehicle turrets had been assigned a direction to cover… we took the 9 o’clock, the left flank. “See anything?” I asked. He shook his head; “Negative… wait… I’ve got two cold signatures, front left heading to our rear”.
I quickly scanned the far tree line, at approximately 60 meters off our left were two cold signatures… followed by a third heading to our front… then another. They were surrounding us, moving at speeds so fast I could barely keep my reticle on them. Is this what the National Police saw? What they faced at that lodge without the benefit of a foot of heavy armor protecting them on all sides. Then… suddenly. Something slammed into the side of our MRAP so hard, it caused it to shake. From over the leader comms, Echo-3 quickly shouted [“Contact right!! 4 hostiles!!”].
One of the Strigoi… so bold, had charged and slammed into the side of our MRAP. I quickly looked to see the figure, a dark blue mass of cold energy through my thermal, back away without so much as a stagger… as they tried to flee into the woods, the white hot justice of Echo-3’s gun fired at them, cutting them down. “Blachowicz I’ve got a few breaking for our vic” my man on the turret called out, I spun around, spotting out the window.
Just then, Major Krol announced [“weapons free, watch and shoot for targets of opportunity…”]. I turned to him… “take those fuckers out-”. Without hesitation my vic’s turret began to quickly target them, and through the darkness I saw a stream of outgoing fire bisect one of them, the ISR of the black blood freaking out the optic so badly it didn’t know what temperature to register it as… but it did register it. As another was cut down, one broke through the tree line and latched onto the side of our MRAP. The thing tore at one of the outer net armor panels, usually made to stop RPGs. It grabbed at the bars near the windows, tearing one off… I lowered my rifle as we locked eyes through the reinforced window.
The thing… the Strigoi looked at me, skin cracked as putrefied muscle fibers seemed to leak through dead flesh. It’s teeth were corroded and worn down to sharp fragments, alongside newly mutated fangs that messily protrude from the jaws. Even through the thick walls of the MRAP I could hear it’s roar, as it then tried to punch it’s way through… it cracked the outer coating of the vehicle… but it wasn’t getting anywhere near. My machine gunner, seated next to me, seemed to chuckle at the sight, quippily saying “Yeah… fuck you too”. It’s then our vehicle lurched upwards, as we began to climb the small incline of the bunker. I knew the layout, mapped it in our head, the main entrance was built into the rocky side of an old cliff meaning we could easily set up a defensive perimeter around it, a horseshoe. Krol’s vehicle was first, taking to the right as Echo-3’s MRAP followed. My vehicle, third, left the incline and took a left and… that’s where things got complicated.
We’re still trying to work out what happened but… from what Joakim says his drone captured. Right when the MRAP turned, several of the monsters quickly slammed into the side of the vehicle, as another more bulkier one, pushed at it’s undercarriage. The result.. Was the 40 ton armored vehicle tipped over. It wasn’t uncommon, hell in some cases a well placed IED, a good shot with a recoilless rifle, have been known to tip over Oshkoshs and Maxpros all the time. But this beast? Needless to say we barely had a second to comprehend it as it leaned to the left; “Grab on to something-” is all I had time to shout. A mess of gear and men spilled onto one side of the vehicle as it slammed into the old gravel and dirt.
Several of my assaulters, my grenadier planted right ontop of myself and the others as we came to a stop. Someone’s knee slammed directly into the side of my skull, causing me to dazily bob in and out of consciousness as my face was smushed against the glass of one of the windows.
Through my peltors, the other squads were erratic;
[“Echo-2’s vehicle is down!!”].
[“Echo-3 to Echo-2… Echo-3 to Echo-2…”].
Krol’s voice came through the comms;
[“Echo-Lead to Echo-2… Fuc-... Echo-1 secure Echo 2’s flank, Echo-3”].
[“Echo-3 to other units, they’re spilling through, I’ve got several enemy combatants converging on Echo-2’s vehicle”].
I pushed the legs of my grenadier off my head as I fought to my hands and knees, unfucking my nods as I looked around… “Fuck it… we’re going lights on, shield your eyes” I muttered as I reached for the overhead lights and flipped them on. The bright LEDs bathed the inside of the vehicle as we all gained our bearings, a mess of multicam, gear, and weapons as we quickly pushed each other off. My gunner caught as he fought to realign his promask, from what I gathered one of the assaulters had landed directly into his gun, pushing it directly into his jugular, as pulled back at the rubber and coughed, freeing up his esophagus. We didn’t have time to think however… the sound of bending metal caught our attention… as the back ramp door of the MRAP was ripped clean off. I could barely believe it but as the white light of the MRAP’s interior poured to the outside, a hulking mass leaned in, the dead flesh on it’s face nearly fallen off as the hideous Strigoi leaned inside.
Without hesitation I aimed took aim, yelling “Keep to the deck!!” to any of those inbetween myself and the invader as I opened fire. A burst of full auto fire tore through it’s collar and neck, my men quickly clung to either sides of the fallen MRAP as a few more fired out. As the thing backed up, a blast of .50 cal fire quickly tore it to shreds, along with several others as I realized they were fuckin swarming over the outside of our vehicle. Echo-3’s vehicle continued to carefully fire on the Strigoi on the outside, the sounds of .50 cal ricocheting off the outside of our armor was enough to make the pucker factor set in.
[“Echo-3 to Echo-2”].
[“This is Echo-2, we’re green on ammo, equipment, men”].
[“Roger, we’re shifting fire, exit the vehicle”].
“Hurry up let’s go!!” I barked to my men, leading the way as I staggered out. I turned on my peq, taking aim at silhouettes in the brush as I began to fire. The sounds of machine guns lighting up the brush, as a sea of growls, howls, and incomprehensible roars fired back at us was the ambient noise of the night. My men quickly exited, my gunner being the last as he and I pulled back to the rest of the defensive perimeter. I set in my men to take up the frontal security, as 3rd squad took the right flank, 1st squad to the left. Major Krol and the JTAC were bickering with each other; “How far out are the birds”. “They’re entering airspace now…” Joakim said, already scanning his smart book.
I asked “What’ve we got?”. He then flipped through… to the NATO combined arms segment, quippily saying; “Apaches…”. This caused me to pause as Echo-3 turned their head whilst directing their squad’s fire “The hell… where did we get apaches from?”. “The Americans… they volunteered” Krol said dismissively as he took aim at the darkness, firing off a controlled trio. “Volunteered? They’re aware of what’s going on?” I asked.
Krol seemed to stop, glancing back at me before returning his focus “There’s a lot more going on than you realize, Blachowicz… Prep the breach, you and 1st are going on”.
I quickly pulled my breacher off the line, securing some thermite as the reinforced bunker door wasn’t going to go as easily as a conventional door breach would. 1st Squad pulled back, stacking up and preparing themselves to be the first in. All the while… Joakim gave his firing solution; “Alpha Hotel Two Five Nine, This is Bravo-4…… Type 2….”.
I snapped to my right, watching as a Strigoi managed to dark across the clear gravel field, only to be cut down by my gunner, the peq’s laser marking the burst as it tore through the beasts’ hips, as it hit the ground and still continued to claw, another GROM operator took aim and fired into it’s skull. Joakim popped up to his feet…. “Marking laser, high power…”. He then pulled out a target marking laser… if you’ve watched night operations, you’ve probably seen them.
The green laser than as it says on the label, marks targets. The pattern of which can vary… if it’s a point target, it’ll usually lasso an area, or remain on target until the target is removed with extreme prejudice. If its close air support, then it’ll be a line of the general area… and Joakim damn near marked the entire perimeter around us. He quickly pocketed the tool, turning back to Krol; “Don’t go past 20 meters unless you want to be liquidated”.
With that… 2nd and 1st stacked up at the door as 3rd squad took up the perimeter security. As Major Krol went over to Echo-1… I saw them. A single blinking IR strobe from the beasts as they moved on the far off horizon, converging from several angles… and fired. The sound of the Apache’s main gun, the M230, truly sounds like the hammer of god… the 30mm cannon shot through the dark sky, lighting it up as we saw three incoming streams tear up the woods. Only then as the sound broke did we start to hear their rotors as they broke and began to circle, firing again… then… Joakim dipped his head and looked to Krol; [“Foxtrot Mike, hang onto your teeth…”]. One of the Apaches fired off a AGM-114… a Hellfire. I barely saw it out of the corner of my eye as the Apache from our right flank fired off at a target approximately 200 meters off. A fireball lit up the forest as the horrendous roar echoed throughout… then went silent.
Echo-3 scanned the horizon carefully;
[“Echo-3 to Echo-Lead, enemy contact is starting to die down”].
[“Maintain perimeter, Close Air is to maintain fire mission until we are boots up, Break…”].
[“Echo-Lead to Echo-1, condition white has been met. Proceeds”]. I saw Echo-1 and his men quickly stack up close to the wall and gesture to me; Breaching. I quickly pulled my stack back against the wall as his and mine breacher quickly hit their actuators. Now under normal circumstances, it doesn’t take much for thermite to melt the locks off of a metal surface, in fact it’s a more precise took as alternative means get real medieval like saws, pry bars… we weren’t in the mood for precision, we need to breach their little lair, and drag them out. The sound of several pounds of hellfire burning through the metal could be heard around the corner as a sea of white and red sparks flew out… after several seconds, two of our men tossed a fragmentation grenade and a nine-bang through the opening… a series of concussive blasts and a large explosion rang out.
Echo-1 and his men maneuvered. 1st Squad quickly converged as we followed them in.
Stepping through the black wall of smoke, the dark abyss of the interior was illuminated in a white light as entered barrels raised. Shots rang out as several of the beasts near the entrance were cut down, though not immediately, rounds disconnected the shoulder of one of them, leading to their arm hanging limply by a single tendon as they roared… another series of rounds putting them down. What greeted us was a messy concrete hell of rust and debris, fecal matter, trash, and all kinds of obstacles laid in our way, our boots sticking to the floor. I thank every god we had promasks that night. I called my shield bearer up, 2nd squad leapfrogging ahead to take the next corridor as 1st squad checked their weapons.
One of my men mule kicked the metal door ahead, twice, finally the latch gave away as we tossed in a grenade. A horrifying roar was cut off as an M67 shook the walls of the ancient soviet mausoleum, frag and spall kicked off the walls as I moved in right behind my shield man. The cramped russian design meant there was barely enough space for three people, and that’s three normal people, not in 50kgs of kit, moving slowly and maneuvering against creatures of the dark. Still… we moved forward, my shield bearer and I pushing the pace as two stacked of either squad formed on either wall.
As we passed doorways they flowed in… “Door Left!!”, “Door Right!!”. “Move!!”.
Two men entered each side, no gunshots, we moved up, a roar came.
“Door left!!-”. A series of gunshots came out as we continued to push forward.
“Two down!!”. “Confirm them” Krol commanded, as a series of gunshots run out in response. From one of the doorways, a Strigoi emerged… a female… clumps of hair had been ripped from her decaying skull, as her blooded eyes locked on myself and my shieldman. The skin on her hands had been tore down to the point where barely her bones and tendons remain… looking like huge talons as she roared and lunged at us. He fired off his pistol, though the rounds did little to stop her as she pushed against our stack.
“Fuck!!” he muttered, somehow her strength caused him to stagnate, holding up the advance… fuck that. I shoved the muzzle of my MK18 into her ribcage, flipping the weapon to auto as I fired of round after round. The 5.56 salvo disconnecting her spinal column, causing her to fall as I continued to fire, along with a man to our right and left as the stacks reformed as we pushed to the end of the hall. I fell back, dropping the magazine and loading a fresh one, like clockwork a GROM Operator from 1st squad took my place. Krol was beside me as we approached the end of the hall.
[“-Prep an entry”] I radioed to my breacher, a comrade handed him one of the charges from his back panel as he took to the door, quickly securing it. We all moved as far back as we could, look away, exhale. The blast knocked metal and wood in all directions, scrapping against our uniforms and kit as we made our way in and what laid before us was… it used to be the center atrium of one of these bunkers. Soviet’s loved their grandiose designs, the complex was supposed to be a circular room around a central planning table… instead. It had been turned into some sort of church. Runes and old eastern Romuva pagan symbols written in black ink and blood across the walls, old rotten filing cabinets, long receipt terminals. In the center… several of the Strigoi were kneeling before the table where someone had been tied down, flayed, and… shared amongst the group. They rose to their feet, we aimed our barrels…
The ladder amongst turned to us… his skin wasn’t cracked, or flayed, it was smooth… it still looked dead as the body on the table but it seemed more… accustomed to it. I don’t know… evolved? Under the surface however I could see it’s darkened veins pumping whatever cursed blood ran through them as it locked two blood red eyes onto each of us. It’s nose had long since been turn off, exposing boney nostrils to the open air as it seemed to smirk. All across it’s body were the same symbols on the walls, in every cell… markings of death, of rebirth, of assimilation… From behind this seemingly Alpha emerges another figure I had never seemed before… dressed in a white cloak with a deer head.
"So they've followed the trail... they're too late" the Deer headed individual spoke, definitely not from here, a dialect similar to an Americans but... aristocratic? Each word was drawn out, assurance as if they had everything mapped down to our actions. They didn’t sound like they were from Poland or the east.
“Doesn’t matter…” the Alpha growled… and then, it lunged at us. Quickly breaking from their ground it slammed into my shield man knocking both him and myself at the ground as it displayed an intense feat of strength. Around us I could see several of the Strigoi leap at our comrades… though to no fruitful endeavor as I could see one GROM operator cut two down, as another got into a hand to hand confrontation… my breacher, crafty as they were, reached back and slammed one of the prybars of his kit into the skull of the beast.
The Alpha however was not content as it threw away the 90lb shield, sending it flying across the room as it grabbed my comrade by the skull. I quickly kicked up at it, firing my MK18 into it’s body as the rounds pierced it’s gray and rune covered flesh. The thing simply seemed to chuckle… that was until Major Krol blasted away at the side of it’s head, the alpha turned… and it’s smirk turned to a scowl when face to face with the major. A knowing pause almost like they had done this dance before…
The creature lunged, locking up with Major Krol as it swung and slammed railing. Krol didn’t back down however as he pushed against the creature, hiptossing it to the ground even as it tore at his armor and gear. But the beast pulled, both of them rolled and the Major was on his back as the thing reached for his neck. I fought to a kneel, firing into the creature messily with my MK18, trying not to hit my commander… then…
Click. A sound sends a chill up the spine of every warfighter during a firefight.
My gun ran dry. I dropped the magazine, looking to load another, but the thing came up and with one of it’s claws, sliced deep into my cheek, through the pro mask. I could feel my own blood go flying through the air as I landed hard on my back plate, spitting out red iron as I quickly tried to adjust my mask. Through my fogged up, blood covered lense… I saw my shield man raise his pistol, firing into the skull of the thing staggering it with a roar. Krol came from behind, drawing his knife he sunk it deep into the neck of it…. I reached for my rifle, forcing a new magazine in and damn near punching the bold release. ““Sir, down!!” I shouted, Krol rolled away, back to his own rifle as I fired. So did my comrade as he continued to fire his pistol… so did the Major as he fired his rifle. All of us chewing through that apex predator of darkness, that beast… the leader that had been preying on our people for so long. Layer by layer, muscle group by bone… eventually… the alpha landed on whatever was left of his back.
The silence of the fight died down as all of us checked our surroundings, GROM Operators putting controlled pairs in the heads and nerve stems of any Strigoi laying around… I flicked my weapon onto safe, letting it hang as I pulled off my mask. I dared not touch the wound on my face… the pain nearly crippling me if it wasn’t sheer will pushing me through, and adrenaline doing all it could to subdue it. The sound of the apaches continuing to lay hate drew us from our moment of contemplation as the Major went back to work; [“Confiscate any info, burn the rest…”]. He turned back to me as I shoved my damaged M50 mask back into it’s bag, chuckling as he looked at the sight; “You need a medevac, Blachowicz?” he quipped.
I shook my head, barely able to speak as I muttered; “Negative sir…”. The two of us scanned the room as my shield bearer went to collect his defense implement turned 90lb projectile, we scanned the center of the room, checking and confirming bodies, until we got to the last one alive. His white gown was soaked in red crimson and black ooze, as his dear head was mangled from bullet fire and impact from falling on it. I swear… the way his blood poured out of it though made me wonder if it was a mask. I gave it no second thoughts as he looked to Krol; “You… you can’t stop this, they’ve already-”.
The Major was in no mood for communication as his rifle snapped up and fired off three rounds to the body, four the head. The violent yet quick salvo ending the cultists life, I looked down at it, then to him as he remarked; “Have your squad drag him out to the front, burn the rest”. I stood alongside him, looking down as the sight of it’s deer head was both captivating and horrifying… the curiosity in me wanting to look closer at it fighting the primal instinct I had to burn the thing to ash. “-Haven’t seen one of those before…” I muttered, thinking the Major had an answer.
He didn’t. Krol saying “Neither have I…” shortly before he walked away, was what truly shook my soul about that entire night. Victory stood firm in our hearts that night as we stood outside of the bunker. The night sky burning with fire and white phosphorus as we watched the ruin burn from the inside from the other side of the lot. In the distance, the Apaches continued to scan and circle the forests, no longer firing…. Which meant they had driven any or turned to glass any enemy combatants within a four miles, probably both, more than likely the latter. Echo-1 patted me on the shoulder as we stood there, soaking it all in, though Krol looked none to pleased. “In the time it took us to take this one down, they’ll be trying to set up three more cells… that being established…” he said, looking to either of us, then to Echo-3. “-Hell of a thing we did tonight, been waiting for this one for a decade, cleanly, maybe more… but no time to rest on our laurels… we’ll have another task for us as soon as we’re boots down back home” he said, to which his eyes followed mine, the body of whatever cultist that was zipped up in a black body bag beside the wheel of one of the MRAPs. The fire from the bunker casting an orange hue over it’s shiny jet black outside, something didn’t sit right with me… “That wasn’t a Strigoi…” I said to Krol.
“That’s very clear…” the Major said, shoving his mask under his arm and lighting a cigarette. “So… someone’s helping them?” I asked. The meer notion of it shook me to my core, sickened me. This parasite was already badly infecting Europa, Polska… if it was spread like this throughout the world. Krol settled my nerves: “We’ll be ready… It’s not just us anymore”. As he said that, I realized what he meant… my eyes looking to the Apaches as they started to form up, leaving the areas as their thunderous propellers melted into the night’s calm, unnerving ambience.
It’s been a couple of weeks since then, Echo Detachment has been busy. We’ve gained good ground against the enemy and honestly I think in a few years, we might see a much larger change. For now… we must keep going, that being said the Strigoi aren’t the only ones we’ve been combating. Recently we’ve made contact with of some sort of extermination coalition, they’ve known about the Strigoi, and others plaguing the world, the level of corruption and corrosion on society goes deep. Regardless a lot of the units we’ve been working with are apart of NATO, such as this “4th Special Forces Group” of the American Military. I don’t know where the road from here leads, but we’ve gotten momentum on our side, finally. Just remember… these things are out there, in every town, every city, every nation… preying and waiting for you to be alone, vulnerable, so they can take you and replace you.
Watch your back, and stay safe.
For now, Blachowicz signing out. Until next time

Mr. Steve Lewis
Mr. Patrick McKinney
Mr. Bryan Freiermuth
c/o Gideons 1898 LLC et al
1600 East Buena Vista Drive

A

Lake Buena Vista, FL 32830
VIA ELECTRONIC MAIL
May 10th, 2024
Final Demand
Gentlemen,
There is an odor most foul in the Bakehouse. It is the stench of the fish rotting from the head.
To our proprietor Steve, and our managers Bryan and Patrick:
There is dissension within the ranks, and if the following items are not resolved as we outline
below, we’re prepared to drag this house of cards to the ground.
Before we proceed with our grievances, numerous and shocking, and the demands to resolve
them; allow us a moment for introductions.
We, are the Ghosts of Gideons, the poor and unfortunate souls upon whom you have built your
cookie empire. We are the many, the unseen, and as of the disastrous meeting May 6th, 2024, the
decidedly unheard.
Many of us have approached management and ownership multiple times with helpful hints,
strong suggestions, and desperate pleas to rectify a myriad of health, safety and operational
concerns- with nearly all of them being dismissed or ignored entirely.
Now, we, the collective, have banded together to deliver this tome- not as a warning of what is to
come, but as a final demand to resolve the issues outlined herein. You may dismiss us
individually, but you cannot ignore all of us together.
Make no mistake, if the following solutions are not implemented with immediate effect, we will
do everything in our power to topple this cookie castle permanently.
We should start by informing you, that, yes- we are but lowly workers for Gideons, however, we
are supported by families who hold prominent positions in the community as lawyers, labor
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representatives, publicists, and county government workers. Families who love us, and want to
see us remain safely and fairly employed.
Through our vast, and well connected network the following steps have already been
implemented:
1) A lawsuit for your numerous unfair and unsafe labor practices and work conditions has
been drafted.
2) A press release, along with a copy of this letter, have been sent to local and national
media.
3) We have created social channels to connect directly with customers and inform them of
the reprehensible work conditions we are enduring.
4) We have filed health and safety reports with local government bodies detailing the
extensive issues we are faced with at the Springs location.
5) We have informed Disney Springs leadership of our position relating to the above, and
below in this letter.
In all cases, these competent bodies are awaiting our word. If the demands listed herein are not
satisfied immediately, we will, in tandem with the above, begin a campaign to inform the world
of your numerous transgressions, filing lawsuits and media coverages exposing you and the
Company for the shill that it is, and we will not stop until the Bakehouse bakes no more.
We should also mention that should any attempt be made to retaliate against us, including
termination, reducing our hours, benefits, or taking other pervasive actions against any Gideons
employee, will promptly result in our bringing legal class-action.
The time has come for you, our leaders, to actually lead. This means spending money where
money must be spent, and making the following operational changes, so that we can all continue
to exist in harmony, and not feel like we’re trapped on an 1800’s plantation- working for the big
house.
1) Communication- How dare you drag the entire workforce to a 9AM meeting,
demanding our presence, and then talk directly at us with the most mundane drivel we’ve
ever heard. Everything dictated today could have been very well sent as an email-
especially when you did not allow for any discussion between us, the workers who
actually make your business run, and the disconnected upper-management who are hell
bent on implementing misguided and inefficient policies. Do not call us in for a
mandatory meeting again when the points can be covered in an email, unless you intend
to open the floor for actual conversation and listen to what we have to say.
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To that end, since our voices were silenced this morning, we demand the following:
● Cold Brew- We will not adopt the ‘bartender’ shaking style of preparing the cold
brew drinks. When we have 10+ beverages queuing to be made, shaking each
drink 10 times will severely impact our ability to be efficient. This is but one
example of Steve’s desire to have ‘form over function’. We understand there may
be a ‘look’ you’re going for, but when it compromises our ability to efficiently
perform our function, we refuse. We demand to be allowed to resume our ‘stir
stick’ preparation immediately.
● Point System/ Order Accuracy- Under no circumstance should Management take
the side of the Guest over the word of the employee. Too often we see guests
complain that an order was incorrect, and Management issues a point to an
employee. This must stop immediately. We demand you implement a ‘please
check your screen for order accuracy’ procedure where the guest confirms their
order before they pay, and remove the ‘point’ system. If the guest confirms the
order, it reduces the possibility for an inaccurate order.
● Inconsistent/ Inaccurate menu boards and Social Postings- The inside Menu
Board has been outdated for nearly two years. It must be updated immediately to
remove items we no longer sell (IE Coke Products) and ingredient offerings (IE
Banana WALNUT). By correctly labeling the items, it reduces the stress on us in
having to confirm that certain items have nuts, or not being yelled at by guests
who are disgruntled that we no longer sell Coke products. Further, there are
multiple social media inaccuracies when describing new products (IE peanut
butter buttercream, VS the actual peanut butter cream cheese). These inaccurate
product descriptions hurt the brand, and cause confusion with the guests when
they come to order these products. Also the new umbrellas are not UV resistant;
therefore any mention of them ‘protecting you from the sun’ is false, and may
result in legal action from guests. We demand you only post accurate descriptions
to the website/ social media to avoid further guest/ employee confrontation.
● HR- Given the fact that Cynthia engaged in using racial slurs during the May 6th
meeting, referring to guests as gypsies and hoodlums, we demand her firing and
removal immediately. Multiple members of staff were deeply offended by the
hurtful stereotypes that Cynthia perpetuated, and we no longer have any trust in
her ability to lead this organization, especially from a HR perspective, when she
herself seems to harbor unfair and demeaning racial views.
● Management- We cannot express with limited words the level of dissatisfaction
we maintain for Drew. The staff, in our entirety, have never dealt with such
incompetent, slothful, and wasteful behavior. Drew consistently stays on his
phone, refusing to help the team accomplish any of their tasks, and barely exudes
a modicum of effort through his rare action of helping build cake boxes or taking
out trash before disembarking on a break (which none us other managers/leads are
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cookie king, bringing in circa $40,000 per day, affording you a life of luxury, and not
fairly compensate the employees that are making Gideons everything that it is. The
cookies are good, but make no mistake, as was stated during the May 6th meeting, the
customers come for us. I can’t imagine what they’ll say when they learn about the
slave-like conditions in which we work, especially with Auntie Anne’s earning $18 per
hour + tips.
3) Hours- Part time is up to 30 hours per week, full time is 30 hours or more. We must have
a guaranteed number of hours per week, pending our availability. For example, if a
full-time employee has open availability, they must be scheduled for 40 hours. If a
part-time person has open availability, they must be scheduled for up to 30 hours per
week. This is to ensure we have a stable and uniform weekly income, guaranteed by our
base pay and consistent hours.
4) On Call- All shifts that are ‘on- call’ must be guaranteed a full 8 hour shift, regardless if
the employee is called into work or not. We clear our day and make ourselves available to
cover the Company, and we demand to be compensated a full 8 hours ($16 per hour) for
the flexibility to suit the Company’s needs.
5) Pay Protection- In the event that the store is closed for any reason, employees currently
scheduled to be working during the closure must receive all payment for the shifts they
were scheduled for. If the AC goes out again, and we’re down for several days, those of
us scheduled must receive full compensation for shifts as scheduled.
3) Health & Safety- While it seems that Gideon’s is based primarily on the ‘cool factor’ in how
our processes look from a customer perspective, we are still a fully functioning kitchen and retail
location with a haphazard health and safety process, at best.
To ensure a properly safe workplace and customer experience, we demand the following changes
immediately:
1) Shorts/ Heat Safety Prevention- We’ve been told time and time again that the ‘Disney
Contract’ we cannot wear shorts. After having multiple conversations with Disney
Springs leadership and the Unite Here 362 representatives, we have come to understand
that a change in uniform can be initiated by amendment. No longer can the ‘look’ of
something overpower the safety of us. In terms of being outside in the sunlight and heat,
we demand that the contract be amended immediately to account for a uniform change,
thus allowing us to wear shorts within the next five days. It is dangerous for us to be
outside in the heat and sunlight during high-heat (more than 70 degrees fahrenheit) days,
wearing all black and long pants. We are unwilling to compromise our personal health
and safety to appease your ‘style guide’ insisting on long pants, but we’re happy to
maintain a look via style guide for shorts. In addition, we have seen multiple large/
battery operated fans in use around Disney property, keeping other Cast cool during these
heat waves. We demand that large fans are procured and placed in strategic outside
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locations within the next 5 days, so that we may have respite during high temp days. The
cooling towels and neck fans you have provided are ineffective.
2) Egress- We bakers are trapped. There is no second means of fire egress from the kitchen,
and should a fire or other disaster occur with the ovens, we would be trapped and unable
to escape. We demand you add in additional egress from the bakery, into the outside
alley. We understand this will require planning and stairs, however, planning must be
commenced immediately. We will not work in an unsafe environment, and with no place
to escape in the event of an emergency, we will be burned alive.
3) Handicap accessibility- Our retail location does not comply with ADA mobility
standards. The counters must be moved to allow an employee who utilizes a wheelchair
or other mobility device the proper space to move behind the counters and throughout the
kitchen. While yes, a wheelchair will ‘fit’, they will be unable to properly move. We are
discriminating against hiring ADA employees due to the way the store is currently
overcrowded and built. We demand proper spacing be added within the next 90 days.
4) Safety Training & Procedures- As of right now Operations have not developed any safety
or training procedures relating to fire, bomb threat, active shooter, lighting/ rain, accident
or other hazard. We are provided with no training in the event of any of these
emergencies, and we are all woefully unprepared with a common knowledge of how to
address emergency situations. We demand that a safety plan be developed and provided
to each of us in writing, and that we receive sufficient training of the new procedures
within 14 days.
5) Sanitation- Our baking sheets never get cleaned. We demand that you hire an outside
vendor to pick up used equipment nightly at close, and deliver a clean set at the same
time, so that we may rotate clean equipment daily. It is too large a task for us to wash in
house, and this needs to be automated for us. Our current sanitation procedure is
inadequate to ensure proper health and safety standards.
6) Bathroom breaks- Many of us suffer from various biological disabilities that force
frequent trips to the restroom. We simply cannot ‘hold it’ until we’re on break. IF we
need to go to the restroom, we must be immediately accommodated to do so without
repercussions. While this is not common, it does happen, and must be allowed.
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Demand Timeline:
May 11th- Cold Brew BartendeShaking preparation is disbanded, stir stick preparation is
reimplemented.
May 11th- Cynthia is terminated immediately for using racial slurs during a company meeting.
May 11th- Drew is demoted as manager immediately for failure to act as a leader, and help his
team, undergoing an immense retraining before he is reinstated.
May 12th- All employees earn a base rate of $16 + tip share.
May 12th- An automatic/ mandatory 7.5% gratuity is placed on all guest orders.
May 12th- All ‘on call’ shifts will be guaranteed a full 8 hours ($16 p/h), regardless of working
or not.
May 12th- Lead/ Trainer pay to increase to at least $19 per hour when training, and $18 per hour
at all other times + tip share.
May 11th- Planning for additional egress to begin. Must be fully installed and operational no
later than June 20th, 2024.
May 17th- A $1,200 bonus is paid to all employees who worked during the last three pay
periods. This bonus covers the lower wages suffered from the ‘no tip’ asking policy.
May 13th- Schedules to be created, guaranteeing all ‘part-time’ employees up to 30 hours per
week based on employee availability, and ‘full-time’ employees at least 40 hours per week,
based on employee availability.
May 14th- Commercial grade fans outside submitted for approval to Disney, installed upon
approval.
May 15th- Shorts implemented for all workers, all shifts, when the outside temperature is more
than 70 degrees fahrenheit.
May 14th- Sanitation company must be contracted to pick up used baking sheets nightly, and a
second set of baking sheets to be procured to ensure sufficient sanitation of products in direct
contact with food.
May 24th- All health & safety procedures will be drafted and provided to all employees in
writing, with in-person training to occur with all employees. New hires shall receive the new
procedures and same in person training as a part of their onboarding.
August 4th- Handicap/ADA compliance. The store and kitchen must be rearranged/ decluttered
to allow for the hiring of mobility device users, including wheelchairs, to comply with ADA
layout requirements.
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While the above demands only scratch a portion of the hazardous operational procedures, we are
confident that should they all be addressed and the solutions we have demanded are implemented
within the allotted timelines, we can avoid a disastrous fallout and continue to work together to
ensure Gideons remains a successful operation.
We understand that this will most likely come as a shock, not less because ownership and
operations seem to be blissfully unaware of the vast deterioration, but moreover, the inane
procedural overhauls implemented in today’s meeting simply reek of disconnection to the reality
of the process, and will only serve to further delay and complicate the already struggling
operation.
It is time to see beyond all of the narcissistic ‘it looks cool, so we’re going to do it my way’
absurdity, and recognize that the above demands come from your soldiers on the frontlines. A
tough pill to swallow, but it is medicine critical to survival, nevertheless. We further recommend
that all upper management leadership work at least one eight hour, front of house shift per six
months, to ensure they remain fully connected and relevant.
We must issue a final word of warning: should this letter be ignored, or any of the above
demands are not implemented, or any retaliatory action be taken, it will be met with the most
severe consequences.
We know that you are amassing a fortune, and all we Ghosts ask for is a fair wage, a safe and
comfortable working environment, and to be treated with dignity and respect.
We’d hate for the adoring public to learn of any other reality. This is your one, final, opportunity
to make it right.
We look forward to your prompt email reply confirming your plan of action to comply with our
demands herein.
In Solidarity,
The Ghosts of Gideons.

In case you don't know, the Sun Princess is Princess Cruises' latest behemoth ship. I just got back from a 2-week sailing and took meticulous notes on this epic new vessel. Here's my extremely detailed, no-BS review:

The Sheer Size is Nuts

When I say this ship is massive, I mean it's absolutely nuts how big this floating city is. Especially when you get off in ports and have to walk back down the dock to reboard - that's when the sheer scale of the Sun Princess really hits you. Even though it carries a ton of people, the only time it really felt crowded was during breakfast. The Eatery fills up quick and the International Cafe, which sits outside The Eatery doesn't lend itself well for crowds of people wiaint for their coffees. You kind of end up waiting in the middle of where the walking traffic moves.

The Medallion Life

Your entire cruise experience revolves around the new Medallion wearable device and app, for better or worse. I'll admit it has some creepy "Big Brother" vibes with how much it tracks your every movement and purchase. But the convenience it provides is undeniable.
The medallion is your modern day "cruise card" that you tap everywhere to make payments, order drinks, unlock your stateroom, get on/off the ship, and more. But what's crazy is the app can use the medallion to detect your location anywhere on board. Order a drink or meal through the app and the server will manage to find you anywhere on the ship to deliver it, usually within 15 minutes. Caveat: there were times when it took longer and other times when our order was marked "delivered" and it never arrived.
The medallion definitely feels like getting on/off the ship is way faster. The only time we ever waiting in line was for the few minutes it took people to run through security.
This made getting food/drinks almost too easy. On port days when we needed to get off the ship early for excursions, setting up a scheduled delivery of my Egg McMuffin, fruit plate in coffee was really convenient.
Fair warning though - if you're anti-tracking and value privacy over convenience, the ubiquitous Medallion system may not be for you.
Story: we were sitting by the Crooners bar having our nightly pre-dinner cocktail. The bar was packed on this night for some reason. A staff member in a suit started wandering the room, made eye contact with me from 40-feet away and then made a b-line for us. He wanted to sign us up for a wine/food pairing event they were having. I have to believe this is because of the tracking being done via the meddalion. They could see we drink our share of wine. It definitely felt like targeted marketing.

Premium Package Was Best for Us

We opted for the Premium beverage package at $80 per day and I'm glad we did for a few reasons:

1. If you need to have more than one device connected to the internet at a time, Premium makes sense just based on that (you can have four devices). The cheaper Plus package only allows one device, which was a non-starter for me needing both my phone and laptop to be online. I'm unfortunately not able to just live off the grid for almost three weeks and need to periodically check in with my clients.
2. The wine selection is way better with Premium vs Plus. As a wine drinker, the upgrade was 100% worth it.
3. Two free speciality dining meals are included, which was clutch on our 2-week cruise to break up the repetition of the main dining rotation.
4. Unlimited premium desserts and ice creams - a nice perk for those with a sweet tooth.

Basically, Premium removed almost any need to think about or worry over costs on board. For $80 per day, the premium drinks, speciality dining, better wines, desserts and internet made it an easy choice for our group's needs.
And for those wondering about the 15 drink per day limit (since there's almost a weekly post asking about it) - it was never an issue for me. I'm a scrotch drinker and to get a decent pour, you basically have to order a double. Even drinking doubles, I never got to 15 drinks/day. This even includes sea days where we'd typically have a mimosa or two with breakfast, a few cocktails/beers at the pool, an cocktail or two before dinner and then wine at dinner.

Staff & Service

I can't say enough about how incredible and friendly the service was across the board on the Sun Princess. Our room steward, waiters, bartenders - everyone went so above and beyond daily, it really elevated the experience. I'm always amazed how they remember everyone's names.
However, we did notice a clear slip in the quality of service in the second week compared to the first, likely due to a crew changeover partway through our sailing. Simple things like forgetting drink orders or getting meals wrong became more frequent from our new set of MDR servers.

Suites & Staterooms

We originally booked a balcony room. When the bid offer came in I followed some old advice and just placed bids on upgrades because "you don't have to take the offer if you don't like it." Well guess what, that's not the case anymore. My offer was accepted and we automatically became the proud recipients of a Reserve Mini-Suite for an additional $500. In hindsight, I'm glad it worked out. The room has noticably more space than a standard balcony room. These mini-suites are spacious, basically a separate living room and bedroom divided by a curtain you can close off. Having two TVs and an extra closet was great.
As mini-suite guests we also received a nice amenity of free premium wines in our room - on the second week they even topped us up with two more complementary bottles! I guess each week is looked at as a new sailing -- so you get two more bottles! Some older posts complained about the wine quality. It looks like it's been upgraded because we received a Pinot Noir and Chard from La Crema. Being California wine people, La Crema works great for us. If you can swing it, I'd highly recommend going for a mini-suite over a regular balcony.
That being said, I'd avoid the "Cabana" balcony suites. The layout is really bizarre and in my opinion a downgrade. When you walk out onto your balcony, it's not really a balcony. There's another area in front of your balcony that connects a few other cabana suites. The idea is that a few rooms share a private balcony with jacuzzi. However, it also means that walking out onto your balcony doesn't give you a private ocean view because there's this 20-30 feet of additional patio in front of you and everyone above you just looks down into your balcony area.

Dining Highs & Lows

Main Dining Rooms

It can be confusing because there are three floors (Decks 6, 7 and 8). We reserved dining in the MDR prior to the trip via the app for the first few days just so we knew there was a guaranteed place to eat. On night one, the dining room manager introduced himself to us and said he went ahead and booked our table for us every night of the trip. If we didn't show, it was fine.
Food quality in the main dining rooms (MDRs) was consistently good across breakfast and dinner. On port days, it's an "express breakfast" which just means a shorter list of options. Nothing mind-blowing, but solid and tasty. My biggest gripe here is the operating hours. On sea days, the MDR closes for breakfast at 9:00am. You basically have to choose between sleeping in a little, hitting the gym, or getting a decent breakfast.
Pro-Tip: Biggest breakfast tip is stay away from the scrammbled eggs -- they're gross. We figured out that the scrambled eggs come from a bag. If you want real, cracked eggs, either get an omelett or over easy/medium/hard/etc.

Reserve Suite Dining Access

The Reserve mini-suite gives you access to the Reserve Restaurant. It's a little bit more elevated of a dining experience and reservations aren't needed -- you just show up. We dined her a few times and it did feel more elevated. Unlike the MDR, the server in the Reserve Restaurant feels more personal because they're handling smaller groups.

Lido Deck

For more casual fare, the Lido deck had some surprises like an awesome made-to-order salad bar station that became my go-to for healthier meals between all the indulgent dining. The burger grill, taco station and pizza areas were pretty standard, but that salad bar slapped.

Lackluster Buffet

On the flip side, The Eatery buffet left a lot to be desired. Despite different themed stations, the quality was mid at best. We largely avoided eating at the buffet outside of quick breakfast grabs. The Eatery closes for breakfast around 10:00 AM. At which point if you move further into the ship, the restaurants that are normall Catch and Butcherblock become a buffet extension that's opened later -- it's kind of funky.
The layout of the buffet is weird and leaves people wondering if they're cutting in line especially when you go to the extended buffet at Catch/Butcherblock.
What's odd to me is you can go grab a million cheese plates, fruit plates or hummus/veggie plates at the buffet. But if you order those things through the Medallion app, it's not "complimentary." You have to pay like $4.99-$5.99 for those items. We still can't figure out why it costs $5 to order a tiny cheese plate but ordering a cheeseburger is free.

Specialty Dining Winners

We used our two speciality dining credits at Crown Grill and Butcher's Block. I was a little worried because I had read mixed reviews on here about both of these restaurants. However, both meals were really good and before you come at me, I'm a foodie guy -- I'd tell you if they sucked.
We chose Crown for my parent's anniversay dinner. The service was awesome and they made us all feel really special. The setup here is like a steakhouse, where you order your beef and then the sides are a la carte family style. We had a group of seven -- the manager just said "we'll bring you out all the sides, enough for your whole party" which was great.
The next week, we hit up Butcher's Block by Dario. I've never left a meal more full on a cruise ship than at this place. It's family style dining and they just bring out everything for you -- almost like a brazilian barbecue place. We started with a bread appetizer and a glass of wine while you wait for them to get the dining room setup. Then there's more bread on the table + veggies. Then the food starts coming out: beef tartar; beef carpaccio; etc. The main event is the massive tomahawks and porterhouse steaks they carve up tableside. They'll just keep putting beef on your plate until you beg them to stop. Finally, there's desert and a grappa digestif.
Both restaurants were great experiences and a very welcomed change from the MDR after a week of repetition. The food, service and overall vibe were a noticeable step up.

Spellbound

We also splurged one night for the Spellbound immersive magic/dinner experience and it was easily a cruise highlight despite the $150/pp price tag. After an elevated multi-course meal, you get ushered by a guy in a top hat into an exclusive hidden club. While waiting for the magic show, you hang out in their bar which is reminiscent of the Dinseyland Haunted Mansion. While enjoying your drink, there's a magician perorming more intement magic for everyone at the bar. Once they're ready for the show, you're brought into the room where the actual magic show takes place. Afterwards, you're welcome to hang out in the Spellbound bar and continue drinking.
If you're from LA, you probably know about the Magic Castle in Hollywood. Spellbound is an extension of the Magic Castle. Just like with the Magic Castle, you show up in formal wear. This means a coat and tie for the men and an evening gown/dress for the woman.
Overall, we really enjoyed it.

Room Service

This was hit or miss for us. You fill out the paper door hangar and place it on your doorknob before heading to bed. Then you hope and pray that it will actually arrive -- which in two of our instances, it never did. Your options are also super limited. You also may or may not receive what you actually ordered. With coffee for instance, you have a choice of ordering it to-go (paper cup) or stay (actual coffe cup). We always seemed to get the opposite of what we ordered to the point where it became a running joke for us.

International Cafe

This became our goto for a lot of things: coffee, snacks, quick breakfast food (pastries, coffee cake, avodcado toast, Egg McMuffins). Werid fact though: if you order the Egg McMuffin through the app, it comes as an egg patty just like McDonalds and with cheese. When you get the one at International Cafe, it's just an over easy egg and no cheese. Why they can't just be the same is odd.

Night Owl Needs

My main dining gripe was the lack of solid late night food options for us night owls. The Eatery buffet closed at an absurd 10:30pm, leaving only spotty room service or mobile ordering as the choices if you worked up an appetite after evening activities. More robust late-night casual dining would be appreciated.

Bars & Alcohol

Overall, great selection of cocktails. All of the bars have their own little theme and different menus. The ladies I was with were consitently impressed at the quality and thought of the cocktails at each bar. They were also super impressed with the quality of the glassware being used. I must admit, everything from the rocks glasses to the martini glasses really were beautiful.
If you just want straight spirits, you have to order a double to get a normal pour (they're actually measuring out the pours). That being said, with either Plus or Premium, you'll get a good selection of top quality booze.
You gotta try really hard to hit the 15-drink max. Some days I had drinks at breakfast, during the day, lunch, before dinner, during dinner and after dinner. I never hit my max.
One thing that impressed me was staff actually being concerned about drink quality. We were having drinks at one of the bars on the Lido deck. The supervisor was upset with the bartenders because they ran out of premium liquor and hadn't requested more. He made sure to remind them that when someone orders a premium drink they get a premium liquor -- no exceptions.
You also must checkout the Good Spirits bar. There's a few times throughout the night where you watch a live cocktail demonstration. The bartenders at GS are so fun and playful -- really makes for a great vibe.

Amenities - Hits & Misses

The gym facilities on board were a bit of a disappointment, especially for a new ship. While they had a nice assortment of cardio machines, the actual weight room was laughably small with only a few pieces of strength equipment that were always monopolized. Not a deal-breaker, but an area that could be improved.
The pool areas were nicely spread out across different sections of the Lido deck. On sailing days, there was typically a band, the DJ and then a random movie on the jumbotron. The random blasting of action movies at 3pm really ruined the pool vibe and it's typically when the deck would thin out. One minute you're relaxing in the jacuzzi, the next an action movie with explosions is shaking the pool area. It made no sense and seemed tailored for a much younger crowd despite this sailing's passengers being mostly older adults.

Technology & Support

In addition to the Medallion app, the overall internet speeds on board were fast and reliable enough for me to easily stay connected for basic work needs.
The technology support via the app's live chat feature, however, was utterly useless. Any time we had issues properly being charged for drink packages or had to modify reservations, the live chat was a time-wasting nightmare. You're clearly just talking to an outsourced rep with zero actual knowledge of Princess' systems or operations. Your best bet is to go in-person to the guest services desk.

Other Notes & Quibbles

• Dress codes weren't enforced at all. We did the whole suite/gown routine for formal nights only to see plenty of people still rocking jeans and t-shirts in the MDR. Same lack of enforcement for the "formal attire required" Spellbound event. Either lose the formal nights or enforce them.
• Our drink package tallies often had errors, with our group's drinks randomly getting combined onto one person's account. Always double check and ask for corrections.
• The "Cabana" balcony suite layout is bizarre - your balcony is just a shared landing in front of other suites, rather than a private space. We avoided these after hearing the lack of privacy.