How It Ended
by Ethan O’Driscoll
A thrilling Post apocalypse story
Intro
HRV-1
22 July 2024
Dr Olivia Warren Head of Biotech NARU
This is my latest report on the HRV-1 Virus we were instructed to design by the Russian Government.
The HRV-1 is an incredibly viral and infectious Retrovirus similar to HIV. Changes have been make on a genetic level to provide the request modes of transmission and symptoms.
Those symptoms are:

• Profuse bleeding from the mouth, eyes, lips, gums and pores of the skin
• Confusion
• Coma
• Total organ failure leading to death
• Reanimation after death and post-mortem hypo-aggression

This all included in a highly infectious package
The infection vectors are:

• bodily fluids
• contaminated area
• ANYTHING that has come in contact with infected bodily fluids
• airborne droplets

This is by far the most dangerous diseases we’ve ever designed. I pray to god the Russians only want it as a means of deterrent because if they use it I have no doubt it will end the world. The first sample should be ready to ship next week.
Chapter 1
The Outbreak
1 January 2025
Dr Olivia Warren Head of Biotech NARU
I can’t believe the bastards used it. The first cases came in from Kiev in December from there it spread like a wild fire through Europe the death toll now sits at 65 millions. The hordes rampage through city after city by the millions. There is no way to stop this. What have I done.
NATO forces have established a quarantine of Europe but I can’t help but feel like its too little too late. My estimate is that all infected nations in Europe will be consumed within the next month or two. The Corporation has started the construction of a company safe haven for us higher ups. All we can do is hope the construction is complete before this thing breaks quarantine.
15 February 2025
Dr Olivia Warren
The world is ending. Europe is gone. The quarantine is broken. We’ve got cases in Asia, South America, Here at home in the US, Australia and Africa nowhere is safe. I did this.
Infection number right now:

• Africa 100 Million
• Europe 890 Million
• Asia 250 Million
• North America 250 Thousand
• South America 120 Million
• Australia 24 Million

There is no hope
The safe zone is complete at least we are planning on moving all operations and personal within the week. I don’t know how I’m going to live with myself. Dixie is my only saving grace and at least she’ll be safe. I pray for the soul of all those my creation has killed.
20 March 2025
Dr Olivia Warren
Dixie is at the Safe zone.
I can’t live with myself any more. 4 billion people dead
Chapter 2
A New World
My name is Dixie Warren. Daughter of Dr Olivia Warren. Not that I’ve seen her in 15 years. I remember like it was yesterday. She told me to get on that NARU helicopter that she’d meet me at the safe zone. Those were the last words she ever said to me. I was 8 when the world ended.
Its been 15 years since the Outbreak. There isn’t really anything left of the old world. NARU still exists and turns out they created the virus and my mom was the head of the department that did it. They sold it to the Russians hoping they wouldn’t use it but they did.
It was specifically designed to spread and destroy as fast as possible and it did. I left the safe zone 2 years ago after I learned this information. Now I just spend my time wandering from town to town. My training on the NARU security team helps. At least I know all the best places to shoot a Freaker. That's what we call the infected and for good reason. Most of the time you’ll find them wondering around in groups of 5 to 10 if the group gets too big they turn on each other and form a pile of bodies devouring each other. They moan and scream to communicate and once they see you they will hunt you till you kill every last on of them or you get far enough away. They can run and are abnormally strong if there bodies aren’t damaged they’re a bitch to kill but I’m pretty good at it.
Right now I’m outside Richmond I’ve been stuck here for a week waiting for a large horde to move through. I’m hoping to hunt some of the stragglers and re-up on some supplies. A big horde like this usually leave a few hundred behind. My new AR has been waiting for some fun, I’ve got a new red dot and laser so I should be able to pop headshot after headshot but for now I should go find something to eat.
I’ve made it to a small department store outside the town. It looks like the horde is almost gone. Tons of freaks roaming around though. I can hear a few in the store. I’m going to try getting in through the back and take them out.
Made it back home and wow that store was a gold mine. I got food, water, bullets and even some whiskey. I’m going to enjoy the night then its time to hunt some stragglers. Then I’m thinking of going further south maybe New Orleans heard there might be a small settlement out there from another traveller, might be able to get another courier job or at least I’ll be able to stock up on supplies properly after all these years there isn’t much left in the cities to scavenge.
I better get some rest got a long day of freak killing and walking tomorrow.
Chapter 3
The Road to Home
I left Richmond yesterday. It’s a long road to New Orleans I wished I lived in the days when cars worked. NARU are the only people with working vehicles left and they aren’t exactly the sharing type. Its so lonely out here its been weeks since I last saw another living person the only things you see out here in the ruins are freaks by the hundreds. Its hard to believe the whole world was reduced to nothing by something my mom created. I remember her being the kindest most caring person in the world to think that she could create something so destructive is unbelievable. I’ve still got a long way to go the first city I should have to go through is Raleigh.
I’ve been walking for about a day and I can see the ruins from here. Its always so surreal to see the cities now, so desolate so empty. I remember growing up in Seattle, the city lights, the noise it was always so alive and busy. Now they’re all empty husks or mostly empty at least can’t forget about the freaks. Must’ve killed a thousand of them on my way here almost got bitten when one jumped me under an overpass about 10 miles back. Luckily my machete seems to be as good as ever at cutting up freaks. I should make it to Raleigh within the day.
Made it to Raleigh and its a mess, thousands of freaks I could hear the moaning and screaming from a mile away. I’m going to try finding my way around the city no point in trying to fight my way through a wall of freaks.
Heard crying coming from a house I walked past I decided to check it out and I found a young boy name Richie hiding in a bathroom with what looked like his infected parents trying to break the door down. I took both of them down with a clean headshot. The look on his face when he saw them dead breaks my heart. He says they’ve been hiding out in this house for a month or two after there homestead was overrun by freaks. Its a sad story but it gives me hope that people are at least trying to survive and rebuilt. He’s only 16 yet he’s seen so much and has nowhere else to go so I asked him if he wanted to stick with me and he was elated so I guess I’ve got a sidekick now. I’m not complaining should make the long lonely road more interesting. He’s got no combat experience but he can shoot a pistol so I gave him one of my backups at least I always carry extra. We’ve decided to hunker down for the night and do some scavenging before we leave for Charlotte tomorrow. I’ll be nice to have company for once I’ve been alone for so long.
I woke up to a gunshot and Richie screaming in the other room. When I got there I found Richie pale as snow and a little girl that was clearly infected shot lying on the floor. When I asked Richie who it was he replied in a cold distant voice “My little sister”. It was a heart breaking moment in less than 24 hours Richie had lost everyone. That was a feeling I knew too well my mom was all I had my dad died when I was really young and all I knew after the Outbreak before I left the safe haven was NARU but that wasn’t the best place to build personal connections just a bunch of science types that destroyed the world. Not exactly the most social lot and the security forces were just a bunch of military types that didn’t like the fact that as a teenager I was doing better than them in every metric except raw physical strength but even in that I was better than a lot of them. It’s almost time for us to get going I should pack up and make sure Richie’s okay.
We decided to stop by the old gun store on our way out of Raleigh. Richie mentioned seeing it when him and his dad went out to scavenge one time. He says it looked all locked up meaning there’s a good chance that there might still be something left to take. When we arrived there Richie was right it was locked tight it looked like there might be a way in from the roof so we decided to climb up when I got up there I was jumped by a freak that was just waiting but this one was different smarter in a way it heard me climbing up but instead of screaming and jumping off to get me it decided to hide and wait. In my years of freak killing I’ve never seen one that waits and ambushes. I hope this isn’t a sign that the infected are getting smarter. Anyway Richie popped it in the head and we got in to the gun store and what a find it was. I managed to get a brand new Glock 9 with a torch attachment and extended mag to replace the pistol I gave Richie. Speaking of Richie he decided on a 12 gauge pump with a tube extension and a AR-15 with a suppressor, extended mag and front grip. We also found enough ammo to keep us stocked even if we have to shoot our way to Charlotte now that we’re locked and loaded its time to leave this shit hole and start walking to the next shit hole at least for once I won’t be alone.
Chapter 4
The Road to Charlotte
We’d been walking for 60 miles before we were jumped by a gang of thugs. I caught a round to the leg before I knew what was happening Richie was more awake than me and managed to put a round through the bastards chest before his friends jumped out from behind two cars in front of us we managed to take cover behind a ruined car and we returned fire. I could see the thugs had no skill they just fired randomly in our direction while we were in cover I waited till they had to reload and tossed a molotov at one of them burning the bastard to a crisp. Richie rushed the other and unloaded some buckshot into his head. My leg hurts like a bitch. Richie bandaged it up for me he’s really starting to get used to life on the road. Looking at our map it looks like there is a gas station about 10 miles away so I guess I’ll limp my way there so we can hunker down while me leg heals. I still can’t believe I let the bastard catch me lacking but it won’t happen again
We made it too the gas station. The place looks almost perfectly preserved except the group of freaks that were shuffling around outside nothing that we couldn’t deal with. There is a lot of food and water here and we should be safe here while my leg heals. I hope we don’t run into any more problems till then. I trust Richie but he’s still learning and I’m not sure he’d be able to deal with any major problem on his own.
Its been 4 weeks since I took that shot to my leg and I’m feeling a lot better. Richie managed to find some painkiller so he was able to get the round out and everything healed nicely. He really is an amazing guy young and naive but he really is a good person. I don’t know how I did it without him for so long. It nice not being alone any more. I think I’m ready to get moving again we have about another 100 miles left to go before we get to Charlotte so we better get moving.
We’re about 20 miles from Charlotte, the roads been peaceful we ran into a group of survivors living on a pretty well fortified farm about 25 miles back. They were having issues with some freaks hanging around their water pumping station so we dealt with them for them in exchange for some antibiotics to help with an infection Richie got in his leg where he cut himself jumping a fence while a freak chased him before I could dome it. Only god knows how I didn’t get an infection in my leg after getting shot but he did from cutting himself on a rusty fence guess I’m just lucky. After helping them back we continued on our way. Nothing else interesting happened and Richie is looking a lot better and his cut is basically healed. We should get to Charlotte within the day but I want to stop on a hill on the Outskirts to set up base and get a look at the situation in the city because the farmers mentioned that a horde had passed through recently and they usually get held up in cities they should have moved on by now but better safe than sorry
Chapter 5
Charlotte
We made it to the hill outside Charlotte and the place is infested millions of freaks. I’ve never seen so many of them in one place and I think I know why. In the middle of the city is an old NARU emergency treatment centre. A place where all of the cities first infected were sent. A good plan till there were to many of them and quarantine was broken then all it was was a collection of infected right in the middle of the city which lead to the whole thing being infected much faster. I’m guessing this caused most of the freaks to pile and the smell was attracting more. Oh I forgot to mention the smell imagine a pile of thousands of rotting corpses that’s the smell I’m talking about. There’s no chance we’ll be able to get through the city but I need to get to that NARU site. There might be some old documents or something about my mom I need to find out what happened to her. I’ve spoken to Richie and we both agree that we should try and divert the horde away so we can have time to get to the NARU centre.
Richie has volunteered to draw the hordes attention away while I get to the NARU building. The plan is he triggers an explosion at an old gas station on the other side of town while I get to the building and look for information about the virus and what happened to my mom. All I know is that my mom created the virus while working for NARU. I need to find out what happened to her. I hate putting Richie at risk but it needs to be done.
I just heard the explosion and it works thousands of freaks started moving like a tidal wave of flesh towards the sound I hope Richie is on his way to the meeting place at the abandoned NARU checkpoint on the south side of town but I don’t have time to think about it now I’m almost at the NARU centre I need to be as fast as possible
I made it to the NARU centre and it’s covered in bodies there’s no way I can get in it looks more like a pile of living human corpses than a building I’m guessing the freaks all turned on and consumed each other till they were all stuck and fused together. I’m making my way to the NARU checkpoint I hope Richie is already there and safe.
I made it to the NARU checkpoint and reunited with Richie. He was covered in blood and gore. He had to kill hundreds of freaks to make it here. He says he was almost bitten a few times. I can’t believe I risked his life for nothing. I’ll never do it again. While exploring the place I found this.
20 March 2025
Dr Olivia Warren
Dixie is at the Safe zone.
I can’t live with myself any more. 4 billion people dead
The final communication between my mom and NARU it turns out she couldn’t live with the guilt and decided to kill herself. I can’t blame her I would probably do the same if I was the reason the world ended and killed billions of people but it still breaks my heart. I am happy to know she’s dead and not infected lumbering around somewhere.
Richie is exhausted and so am I were going to take a brake here and continue on to Atlanta tomorrow.
Everything is packed up and we’re ready to go. Last night was rough I kept watch while Richie slept I hate to admit it but I think I’m falling in love with him. I never really had a first love I live for 13 years at NARU but I was the oldest kid there by far by the time any of the boys were close to my age I was already jaded and thinking about leaving so I didn’t pay any attention to them but Richie is different when I found him he was so helpless and lost now he’s strong, confident and he’s so loyal to me. I don’t want to speak to soon by I think he might feel the same way I guess time will tell we still have a long road to walk together. Speaking of walking Atlanta here we come.
Chapter 6
Road to Atlanta
We ran into a group of survivors hiding in a shed on the outskirts of Charlotte on our way home two parents and a little girl they were all bitten and waiting to turn they begged us to put them down before they turned so I did but I think it took a toll on Richie. He’s been almost silent since it must’ve reminded him of his parents and little sister I hope the day never comes that one of us get bitten and the other one has to decide whether or not to do it but if it does I hope Richie has what it takes to put me down if not I hope I get to do it myself before I turn but I shouldn’t be thinking about things like that. Thinking about your own death is a pretty sure-fire way to make it happen.
We ran into a pretty large group of infected must’ve been about 20 of them but all of them behaved the same as the one that jumped me on the roof of the gun store back in Raleigh. I guess that confirms that it wasn’t a once off thing but I still wonder what causes it maybe I’ll find out one day. We took them all down and continued on I hate to admit it but I really enjoy killing freaks call it therapy I guess. Richie is running low on ammo for his 12 gauge. There should be a gun store in about 30 miles so we should be able to restock there. My ammo supplies are also running a bit low only got about a hundred rounds per gun left. I know that sounds like a lot but with all the freaks on the roads it barely enough after Raleigh I had about a 500 per gun. Lets hope we don’t run into any large hordes till we get to the gun store.
We made it to the gun store just to find it controlled by 2 less than friendly guys. They opened fire as soon as they same us. We returned fire and we’re about to enter the store. Richie kicked the door down and I rushed in I let of two shots taking down the one guy the other was a second away from filling me with bullets from his Uzi but luckily Richie put a round through his chest and another through his right eye before he could. Thank god. I don’t know what I would do without him. We’ve decided to rest tonight and continue tomorrow morning.
Dixie: “Hey Richie”
Richie: “Hey Dixie”
Dixie: ”How you feeling buddy”
Richie: ”Oh you know always OK”
Dixie: ”That’s good buddy”
Richie: “Hey Dixie thank you for everything you really are the best thing that ever happened to me”
Dixie: ”Don’t mention it buddy I love you”
We’re almost 20 miles away from Atlanta and I’m not hopeful judging by smell. I’m guessing its going to be a lot worse than Charlotte but we’ll have to wait and see.
We’ve made it to the outskirts of Atlanta and its as bad as I thought there are hundreds of body piles almost the size of buildings. The living freaks move around the city streets like blood through the veins of the body. Some of them are engaged in massive fights with other groups ripping each other apart.
We’re going in tomorrow but for now Richie’s hunting while I scope out the area. I hope he brings some venison anything but rabbit. I’m sick of rabbit meat. When he comes back I want to try and cuddle up to him and see what happens
Richie and I have eaten and we’re getting ready to sleep. I asked Richie if I could sleep in his sleeping bag with him. He looked at me like I was crazy but once I insisted I was serious I could see the joy on his face so we cuddled up for the night and went to sleep
Wow it felt so amazing sleeping in Richie’s arms and today everything feels different but in a good way everything just feels more intimate we had an amazing conversation about life this morning and it feels like our bond is on a whole new level. Its time to go explore Atlanta there should be an old NARU field hospital on the North-side of town but we’ve got a whole city to get through before that.
Chapter 7
Atlanta
Atlanta is a nightmare right now we’re stuck in a pharmacy bunch of freaks trying to get to us. I’m busy wiring up a pipe bomb while Richie holds the door then when I’m done BOOM
Richie Move....
BOOM....
Well that’s one way to deal with freaks. Always hate being covered in gore though. We’re near the city centre now and its as bad as we thought the place is infested with freaks every building, street and alley we’ve been fighting for every mile we’ve been moving basically carving our way through the city leaving streets flooded in blood but its worth it I can see the NARU hospital and it looks like I might be able to get in this time.
We’re Exploring the NARU hospital and its a goldmine I found a bunch of old documentation on the virus and even some reports of small towns keeping quarantine for years after the Fall. There’s also apparently an old supply and weapons depot nearby so were going there next.
Richie has been opening up a lot his little sister was out playing when a freak got her. Her parents couldn’t put her down so she turned and bit them he hid in the bathroom for 2 days before I got there and put then out of the misery. I wish I could understand how he feels because I never had anyone except my mom and I lost her so young so it never really affected me. I love him so much. This would be so difficult without him.
We made it to the NARU supply depot and it basically empty I mean it make sense Atlanta was one of the first city to fall due to vast number of infected that moved in from the nearby NARU detention camp. That was a bright idea locking up a bunch infected in one place and expecting the place to last. So the city fell to chaos pretty quickly and NARU withdrew most likely taking everything with them that or it was looted after the city fell doesn’t matter now its almost night and we should get some rest we’re going to camp on a nearby rooftop.
Sitting on the roof with Richie and a fire I can’t help but feel like life isn’t that bad yeah its not what it used to be but I mean I have food and freedom and someone I love what more could someone want from life. Looking out at the desolate streets full of freaks well except the streets we pushed through I see the death of the old world and the birth of a new one.
I should get to sleep we got a long road to Birmingham tomorrow. Its so warm and cosy pressed up against Richie.
Chapter 8
The Road To Birmingham
On our way out of Atlanta we ran into a huge freak and I mean a huge motherfucker must’ve been at least 10 feet tall and covered in muscle it looked like it was made of at least 5 other freaks. He tossed Richie against a car and knocked him out I managed to chop one of its arms off before it threw me 10 feat in the air and I crashed down on my back and passed out when I woke up Richie was putting round after round in the things chest and it still wouldn’t go down to I ran jumped on its back and used my machete to chop the freaks head off and burnt the body with a molotov just to be sure the thing was dead
Richie was pretty beat up and I’m not going to lie so was I my back hurts like a bitch but we keep on going no matter what because we still have each other. Still I wonder how those freaks got combined into that thing. Maybe that’s why they pile the way they do so they can combine into something bigger I remember something in one of the NARU document mentioning the virus being able to cause “cellular recombination” so I wonder if that’s not maybe what happened and if it is it means things are about to get a lot worse and a lot more dangerous.
We’re about 50 miles always from Birmingham now. The road has been pretty quite only the occasional group of freaks and the group of raiders we ran into outside a gas station awhile back but this time we got the drop on them and not the other way round gave all three of them a new hole in the head Richie was worried that they might be survivors till we found Sandra tied up in the gas station bathroom turns out the bastards grabbed her from her family farm during the night a few days ago and have been taking turns on her over and over since then. We agreed to take her home its the least we could do after everything that happened to her. When we got her home we found the place burnt down and her family butchered outside. I’m guessing after they grabbed her the bastards came back to finish the job. She’s decided to stick with us she’s a lot older than me and Richie. She used to be a nurse before the Outbreak she dealt with some of the first infected until NARU took over the hospitals. When things really started to go bad she moved back to Alabama to her old family farm to live with her parents they managed to set everything up before the Fall and have been living there since well till recently. She’s pretty shook about the whole situation but she should be okay in a day or two. We’ve all lost something in this new world.
We’ve made it to the outskirts of Birmingham and the place is a fortress looks like remnants of the US military and NARU have fortified the place they have watch towers, auto-turrents and armed patrols. Also looks like they have a lot of military hardware. I know better than to approach the main gate NARU has a shoot on site order for all there quarantine zones no reason to assume this place would be any different. Still I have to get a look inside. Tonight while Richie and Sandra set up camp I’m going to look around and see if I can find a way in. I have to know what’s going on here.
I’ve taken a look around and I’ve found a way in through an old sewer pipe running into an old factory from there I should be able to sneak into the city and have a look around maybe they have some new information on the virus or at least I should be able to find some weapons for Sandra
Chapter 9
Birmingham
Richie and Sandra are waiting for me back at camp while I go explore the city. I left most of my kit behind except my Glock and combat knife. I’m not planning on getting into any fights and if I do I want the finished as quickly as possible. I’ve made it to the sewer pipe it should lead me to the sewer grate I saw on the other side of the fence from there I should have free reign over the city as long as I avoid the NARU patrols and don’t draw to much attention to myself.
I’ve made it into the city and it looks like something out of a George Orwell novel. Security cameras on every street, I’ve seen security forces beat a man to death and another group drag a young women kicking and screaming into an abandoned building. I hate to say it but I think life is better outside with the freaks than in here. Can’t say I’m surprised there’s a reason I left the NARU security forces and the safe zone. Lets just say civilian life and happiness has never been on their priority list. I can see a NARU supply depot I should be able to get a uniform and standard load out last I remember NARU doesn’t have a way of removing employees from the database so my security id number should still work.
I was right NARU never changes I just used my id to get a brand new NARU-P-2a NARU's home grown assault rifle basically its everything the AR-15 is but better its literally a gun made for killing freaks and you can feel it. I always wished I stole one when I left but I guess better late than never I also scanned through a few of the latest security reports and it seems like big guys like we fought back in Atlanta are becoming more common as well as a new faster infected with razor sharp claws that hunt and ambush their victims. We haven’t ran into one of those yet and I hope we don’t any time soon. I hope Richie and Sandra are okay, they should be we have no shortage of fire-power but I still worry. I’m going to keep taking a look around and maybe find out how they’ve maintained quarantine for so long
Well I got my answer and its not a good one. The NARU higher ups here basically outlawed being sick. Anyone with any symptoms that might be HRV-1 are immediately executed and burnt without exception I guess that’s one way to maintain quarantine but I can’t help but wonder how many thousands of innocent people have died to maintain it.
I think its about time I get out of here and back to Richie and Sandra.
I made it back to camp. I’m so happy to be back with Richie. He went out hunting and brought back a nice fat wild pig for dinner. Sandra is looking a lot better as well she still has that distant look in her eye but that should go away soon
Next stop Montgomery Alabama.
Chapter 10
The Road to Montgomery
I still can’t get it out of my head. The freaks are changing getting more dangerous, if I understand correctly the longer they are infected the more unstable the virus gets leading to mutations. I hope this doesn’t mean that the longer we survive the harder its going to get but there’s no point in worrying about whether or not the freaks are going to be stronger in the future as long as we make sure we get stronger too it should work out just fine. Richie and I are doing really well our love kinda makes everything a lot easier. Gives us a reason if that makes sense Sandra on the other hand is kinda dead weight if I’m being honest but its not her fault. She’s been through a lot Richie and I do our best to look out for her and take care of her. I just wish she’d start to adjust to life out here she still winches every time we take out a group of freaks or thugs and she’s a bleeding heart. Yesterday as we were going past a little abandoned convenience store we heard a little girl crying when we asked what was wrong she said they were trapped and needed help. It was obviously a trap we could see the store was fortified and the little girl looked too happy for a kid whose parents were stuck and dying but Sandra insisted we go in and help and what do you know the kids parents are perfectly healthy and holding us at gun point luckily I’m pretty quick on the draw and managed to put two rounds through the fathers chest and Richie tackled the mom. I walked up to the big dude and put one through the head to make sure the mom learns her lesson. We agreed to let her and her daughter live as long as the promised to stop robbing travellers. Sandra couldn’t handle the fact that I finished the dad off even though I think that was better than leaving his family to watch him bleed out because there was no way he would have survive I shot him through both of his lungs they would have filled up with blood and he would have chocked to death I did him a favour by putting him down but she didn’t see it that way even threatened to go it on her own until Richie and I told her to go ahead if she really thought it was the best thing for her. She then decided to stick with us
We’re nearly at the outskirts of Montgomery, we just passed the old civil rights monument. The roads been a bit too still I have a bad feeling about what we’re going to find when we get there

Hi reddit, I really need some advice. I have a good retail part-time job right now, with a company that values their workers and a store manager that is understanding and flexible with me. But... I've gotten to the point that I wish something could happen to me, an illness or violence or a freak accident, so that I could have an excuse to not come to work. When I'm at work, my chest tightens and I struggle with breathing normal. As common in retail, the downlights are so so bright and the store music is so loud and people can stand super close to me and I literally cannot explain how much it hurts. I feel like I can't complain because it's the best company I've worked with, but lately I can barely stand the environment and customers and am having regular breakdowns at work and am calling in sick for how my body physically feels and my mental state at the thought of work. My parents, mainly my dad, thinks I'm purposely being dramatic and "how will I get a real job one day if I can't handle it". I don't know what to do. I've already been lucky enough to cut down my PT hours to 10 hours a week, and on days that aren't so busy, because my manager is so nice and understanding. But it still feels too much. I don't know what to do. I don't even know what I should be doing, job wise or at uni or tafe. I have tried so many uni degrees and don't know who I am. Is there something wrong with me?

Why shouldn’t you trust trees? They seem shady, but you can trust me!
I am a college graduate and work full-time, so at times, my responses may be slow. I will always try to respond as quickly as possible. My job does require long hours but one of my current goals is to achieve a better work-life balance. I usually watch a movie/show/YouTube video every night and if we hit it off after chatting for a bit (Chats preferred over Messages), watching something together sounds really fun. I don't have many forms of social media, so to move the conversation away from Reddit my only other options are WhatsApp and Telegram, or we could just text like the good ole’ days. P.S. I don’t use Snapchat and will not download it.
My hobbies include:

• Sleeping, seriously, I greatly enjoy a good night's sleep. I hope my username checks out :) I try to average about 6-8 hours every night during the work week but I am not always successful. Fun fact, I can basically fall asleep on command.
• I enjoy mostly pop, country, and rock music. If I had to have one favorite band, it would probably be Linkin Park. I usually have music or a movie/show playing throughout the day so it is not too quiet. I enjoy having background noise.
• I enjoy watching tv shows and movies in my free time (I usually try to find something to watch every night to wind down)
  • As far as tv shows go, I usually enjoy drama or romance-related shows. I am currently on the hunt for a new tv show to watch, but unfortunately, nothing has really caught my attention.
  • As for movies, I enjoy horror and romance movies. My favorite is the Conjuring series.
• I enjoy baking and cooking new recipes. I don't have a favorite food or dish to cook but rather it depends on what I am craving at that exact moment. I’m not a picky eater and a firm believer in trying everything at least once.
• Lastly, I also read about a book a week, mostly romance books. Oftentimes, I will read for a bit before bed or when I have a few minutes of downtime.
• Most importantly, I don’t drink or use any drugs and would prefer a night in over a night out.

Now, this part splits into two, the infamous what I am looking for (DISCLAIMER: I believe that relationships start from a great friendship):
Friendship:
I am looking for someone older (preferably between 30-40) as I tend to be able to communicate more effectively with those who are older. I reside in the U.S. and would like to chat with others in the U.S. as well to not have to work around too many different time zones. I would like to have a conversation flowing throughout the day as opposed to one message a day. Also, wouldn't it be great to be able to send and receive funny TikToks throughout the day? (Extra Bonus Points for iPhone users. iMessage and FaceTime are both fantastic) Someone with similar core values as myself. I value honesty and would much rather have a brutally blunt answer than sugarcoat something. I don't believe in lying even if it is just what most consider "a little white lie". I am an extremely motivated and goal-oriented person and would hope that my friends are passionate about whatever it is that they want to pursue. With that being said, to put it bluntly, I am not looking for someone who plays video games and watches anime for hours on end.
Relationship (take everything above + some extra fluff):

• Deal Breakers:
  • Kids (so no single parents please)
  • Open Relationships/Polygamy
  • Tattoos or Piercings
  • Substance Addictions

If you are interested, please send me an introduction about yourself as opposed to “hey” or “hi”. I will not respond to a lacking introduction. A great conversation is a two-way street.
Note 1: Due to the number of creeps on here, please send a picture of yourself, fully clothed, I may add, so I can ensure you’re not an 80-year-old man looking for some adult time. I will also send one in return.
Note 2: Some unpopular Reddit opinions; I am not into video games or anime (old-school Nintendo games and board games can be fun though). Politically, I lean right. I do not believe a person’s political views should be a deal-breaker in friendship but then again, this is Reddit.

This is an update to a previous post I made that I can’t seem to link. I am a window & Gutters cleaner, whilst full time in my van. I recently offered an opportunity to people in this community to make money anytime in their own time. Now I almost have a 6 weekly window cleaning round that I am trying to push to an 8 weekly, now this involves door knocking and speaking to people to get more customers (it’s has always been this way, I’m 20 years in the trade) I’m now very comfortable with approaching people but I can only do so much whilst keeping my business going. So we offer you the full amount of any first clean carried out to whoever provides us the work, now I’m not surprised that this spooks a lot of people entering properties and speaking to householders, but this form of work I’m offering was mentioned alongside the likes of a Ponzi schemes. I’ll be honest now, the only catch in this form of what some would call “sales” is that you have to be HARD mentally, confident, consistent, positive and this comes and goes.. me and my co worker like to call it our “mojo”. Sometimes one of us hasn’t got our mojo but we keep going and we always guarantee to pick up the work, despite how we are feeling. So anyway for the ones who said this form of work isn’t “lucrative” for my fellow vanlifers, today having dropped my wife and son off at the airport at 2am i arrived into a familiar area in my home on wheels a little late in the morning, so I decided not to go out and clean windows, instead I said this afternoon would be dedicated to canvassing. 12pm - 8pm to be precise me and my coworker went to work, on a whim. So what did the 2 of us pick up? With myself running on 3 hours sleep and zero mojo? So we basically threw a dart at the map at this point and the first stranger we knocked was soon a new customer before we knew it we had a cuppa in both our hands and she had my Boston terrier running around her house
That’s £40 every 8 weeks guaranteed and booked in starting Monday, good start. Old brown mini estate in the drive, wont forget that one!
After some pottering around some lanes less than an hour later, another old MINI! In the drive! What are the chances? Another £60 booked in every 8 weeks starting Monday. Thats now £100 of new work. ( this householder here, very well off, paid for the actual equipment us windows cleaners use and the top of the range gutter vacuum that our cleaning industry use, £1000s in the best equipment and still booked in our 8 weekly service because none of this cleaning business is as straight forward as you think)
Now some more searching, knocking, soliciting went by before we found a chicken farm that employs 30 people. Cut a long story short £55 booked in on an 8 weekly basis, again…starting Monday.
Now at this point my mojo was taking a pounding, the mental barrier was strong on 3 hours sleep, why? Because the previous jobs were booked in by my co worker, he was on fire. What was I running on? About 5 “will let you know” jobs that gives your mojo a good kicking whilst it’s down.
But as always you do get there in the end, I got a bungalow booked in. His wife just recently told him this week that he needs to get a window cleaner but he told me himself “I wasn’t gonna go and find a window cleaner so I just thought I would wait until One comes to me” So what does that tell you? they’re expecting you to knock on the door and I did! £22 on the round booked in , 8 weekly. Monday. ladies and gentlemen!
So here we are four jobs deep into our notepads. My coworker can’t pass a pub so we had a break. But myself with my Mojo in tatters needed some extra reviving so I carried on alone. I took Blue, my Boston terrier with me and carried on knocking doors. (Rejection was definitely happening) so I came across this fabulous new build with Glass balconies galore, I had to try but all I could tell myself is “now this guy has already got a window cleaner”but no before you know it £80 job booked in 8 weekly. Starting when? You got it Monday. So I gave him my YouTube channel just to verify that I’m not just a stranger, but I’m actually very good at my job and take it seriously. Did I forget to mention I have a YouTube channel and TikTok to verify and back me up? I won’t promote it here but DM me if you have any questions.
But we are not finished yet after my coworker had a couple of pints we moved on did a little more but I don’t wanna make this too long so I’ll say we picked up another £15 House and an £18 house and called it a day and I didn’t even mention our fish and chips break.
I concede it was eight hours work, but it was a very chilled out eight hours work that involved a pub break, fish and chips and numerous dog walks. So just having conversations and driving. What does the total bring us to? Going off the top of my head I know the sum was £295 so I have missed £5 somewhere. But there you have it two people without even hardly trying picked up £295 worth of work. For you crazy, wonderful van lifers who are willing to give anything a go… that’s £142.50 each person in the bank. Is that lucrative? For a van lifer I’d say so but I’m out of touch with the real world is that even a wage these days? Anyway could be more not often less in our experience! I didn’t even mention the householders who pulled out the “I will let you know” card or “I’ll ask the other half” because IF they all called me back your looking at £150 again to be added. Lets see if they do
So what do you need to start? A voice, pen and paper.
I’m only saying this because I see many ask “what do you all do for money?”
Well, this is me personally offering you cash in the bank. I can tell you how you could just try it out for an hour a day a week a month it’s up to you. You don’t have to do anything at all. You don’t have to bother but I’m telling you, it’s worth your time to know about this so you can earn money on the road at any time.
I’ve got all the tricks to pick up new customers and I have the lingo and I am an introvert so don’t tell me it can’t be done. You can do it. Anyone can do it
I even pay £10 per gutter clean and they are even easier to pick up.
I totally understand the hesitation. But like I said, you can say what you like…This is a legitimate exchange for time and money. It would only take you one day to find out with nothing to lose. The only thing stopping you from making money this way is your attitude and approach to it and I know it seems I’m on my high horse about this.. but really I would like to help anyone who wants to know more and of course I get something out of it (growing my client base) but I will continue to push you where the money is if you ever need it. Like I said i have a YouTube you could take a look at you could see I’m busy cleaning windows and Gutters satisfying customers all day every day, don’t get much time to talk to people door-to-door but still do it every day no problem. I do it every day no problem just with what little time I have left to do it.
Thanks for taking time to read this. I am just offering you some way to earn cash and if you needed it I would train you and show you and pay you in person for a day a week or a month even I a few DM’s. It’s up to you.. It’s up to you. Simple!
Try me!
Here below is the old post with the nose up neysayers below. They don’t know any better, it’s fine!

Just want to be clear at the start, this might be intense or draining for some people. I don't want to rope anyone into something they wouldn't want, and I try to respect everyone's boundaries, so that's what the lil warning here is for!
Anyways, hey there! I have been talking with my therapist about friendships more lately, and with their suggestion I am trying to reach out more to find a good, long-term friendship. I suffer from bipolar-2 disorder (with mixed episodes), and a really messed up sleep disorder, and I'm usually pretty stressed out or uncomfortable with The Way My Brain Is (tm), and what I've found is that most people lack the experience and/or self-confidence to help. I've been met with so many "I don't know what to say"s with my past friendships, and I would rather start off with a person that has more empathy skills, and a larger emotional capacity and understanding, rather than trying to push my current friendships that direction. Also (no offense) but I would rather talk to someone closer-ish to my own age. Not that age = emotional maturity, but I would hope there's some correlation there. I am absolutely okay with returning the favor, too; I don't want this to be a one-way street, that feels too selfish of me. I think I'm at least decent at understanding other people, and providing comfort where I can, so if anyone has space for a mutual friendship like that, that's exactly what I'm looking for!
My hobbies include puzzles (mainly logical-deduction like Sudoku, but I know literally hundreds of other genres/variants and would consider myself an expert), video games (almost exclusively single player [sorry to all the multiplayer fans], with indie games and/or Nintendo being what I play most of the time), and the occasional listening-of-music and watching-of-youtube. I'd also like to think I have a bit of a sense of humor, but no promises I'll actually make you laugh.
Also, I'd prefer talking to someone who is friendly towards LGTBQ+ and furries, I find myself somewhat fitting somewhat into both categories. :3
Lastly, I do prefer talking on discord much more than reddit, so if things go well in private messages I would like to eventually move conversation over there. I am open to calling and even screensharing to play/share games together, but only after things are comfortable and familiar between us.
Thank you for reading this far if you did, and if you'd like to chat, please send me a message! I'll try to get back to you soon, but if it takes me a little while it might be because my sleep is abnormal and I am (temporarily) nocturnal.

I'm not trying to be rude when saying these things but these are just truth's that can't be denied if you're a Christian:
1) Mormons/LDS aren't Christian 2) being a "progressive Christian", doesn't make you a Christian 3) Being a Unitarian/oneness "Christian" just means you're a heretic, same with being a modalist and partialist. 4) knit picking parts of the Bible to fit what you want it to say, makes you a false believer. 5) Denying major doctrines makes you a false believer.
I will explain why for all of these:
1) Mormonism was founded by Joseph Smith, who oddly has the same story as Muhammed from Islam. A illiterate man recieved a revelation from a divine being hile in the wilderness saying that the Bible is corrupt and that they have the true word of god. Both receive said book and go against major teachings in the Bible and Torah, they go against what's already known. Both marry multiple women, some which were minors and both say it's okay because "God told me you are my wife". Both had a deep hate towards a group of people, Muhammed hated Christians and Jews(as said in the Quran and hadiths) and Joseph Smith taught that black people were unclean and lesser (taught in the book of Mormon which was later changed in the last few decades). The Bible says that anyone that teaches a different gospel than that which has been taught will be cursed (Galatians 1:9)
2) By progressive, I mean that you comfort sinful lifestyles, instead of trying to get away from sin you embrace it. A great example would be the sin of sexual immorality. They don't want to discuss it, they don't even want to acknowledge that everyone is a sinner and needs God. The Bible calls us to call each other out and help one another in our paths of righteousness. As iron sharpens iron, So a man sharpens the countenance of his friend (Proverbs 27:17)
3) Unitarians and oneness heretics are people that deny the Trinity. The Trinity is a doctrine that's as old as the Bible and was taught in both the old and new testament (I will go deeper into this talk another time, titled the Trinity doctrine). Modalists and partialists are basically people that don't understand the Trinity but don't try to understand it, they think god is seperate parts that work together or that God has different forms. This is out right wrong
4) If you are a Christian, you have to admit that the Bible is the inerrany inspired word of God as said in 2 Timothy 3:16 (All scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting, and training in righteousness, so that the servant of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work). To just tear at the parts you want is to say Gods word isn't important unless its what you want, dont pick the parts you want that way you can live your life however you want.
5) There is a reason there are major doctrines in Christianity, these are truths that have been taught by the Bible, the early church and church fathers, and theologians. These are important things needed to understand our faith, what God has revealed to us in these doctrines are sound with what the Bible says and stand with it. An example is denying the Trinity, once again, a major doctrine of Christianity that if it's denied then you deny who Jesus is and what the Bible teaches.
I don't mean these things in a disrespectful way, but its something that needs to be cleared up between us Christians and something we cannot hide from.

I'm not trying to be rude when saying these things but these are just truth's that can't be denied if you're a Christian:
1) Mormons/LDS aren't Christian 2) being a "progressive Christian", doesn't make you a Christian 3) Being a Unitarian/oneness "Christian" just means you're a heretic, same with being a modalist and partialist. 4) knit picking parts of the Bible to fit what you want it to say, makes you a false believer. 5) Denying major doctrines makes you a false believer.
I will explain why for all of these:
1) Mormonism was founded by Joseph Smith, who oddly has the same story as Muhammed from Islam. A illiterate man recieved a revelation from a divine being hile in the wilderness saying that the Bible is corrupt and that they have the true word of god. Both receive said book and go against major teachings in the Bible and Torah, they go against what's already known. Both marry multiple women, some which were minors and both say it's okay because "God told me you are my wife". Both had a deep hate towards a group of people, Muhammed hated Christians and Jews(as said in the Quran and hadiths) and Joseph Smith taught that black people were unclean and lesser (taught in the book of Mormon which was later changed in the last few decades). The Bible says that anyone that teaches a different gospel than that which has been taught will be cursed (Galatians 1:9)
2) By progressive, I mean that you comfort sinful lifestyles, instead of trying to get away from sin you embrace it. A great example would be the sin of sexual immorality. They don't want to discuss it, they don't even want to acknowledge that everyone is a sinner and needs God. The Bible calls us to call each other out and help one another in our paths of righteousness. As iron sharpens iron, So a man sharpens the countenance of his friend (Proverbs 27:17)
3) Unitarians and oneness heretics are people that deny the Trinity. The Trinity is a doctrine that's as old as the Bible and was taught in both the old and new testament (I will go deeper into this talk another time, titled the Trinity doctrine). Modalists and partialists are basically people that don't understand the Trinity but don't try to understand it, they think god is seperate parts that work together or that God has different forms. This is out right wrong
4) If you are a Christian, you have to admit that the Bible is the inerrany inspired word of God as said in 2 Timothy 3:16 (All scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting, and training in righteousness, so that the servant of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work). To just tear at the parts you want is to say Gods word isn't important unless its what you want, dont pick the parts you want that way you can live your life however you want.
5) There is a reason there are major doctrines in Christianity, these are truths that have been taught by the Bible, the early church and church fathers, and theologians. These are important things needed to understand our faith, what God has revealed to us in these doctrines are sound with what the Bible says and stand with it. An example is denying the Trinity, once again, a major doctrine of Christianity that if it's denied then you deny who Jesus is and what the Bible teaches.
I don't mean these things in a disrespectful way, but its something that needs to be cleared up between us Christians and something we cannot hide from.

But that Doesn’t meant I don’t miss you.
I miss you every day. In ways that I still have to let go of.
The random texts throughout the day when we still used to do that. The waiting for you to come home to give you a hug, one that you never seemed happy to receive in retrospect. The way you would eventually give in to my requests to cuddle or watch something when you had finished up your daily routine or exhausted yourself enough to need a break. The way your lips would pucker out as you exhaled after taking deeps breaths while you were starting to fall asleep. The way your hair smelt, the way the house smelt.
I miss Dex oh so much. I cry everyday over my lil fur baby boy. I know John gave him to you and he’s technically your cat but I raised that little bugger. when you were going back to the office and I was home alone writing my mixtape and doing breath work. He supported me and would lay next to me as I worked on rhymes and learned to calm my trigeminal. He would watch me spin in my ‘tism circles as I listened to the beat and came up with the words. I guess I just miss him extra now that I’m writing again. He’s not here to give me emotional support and I’m not there for you to come home to even if you did ignore me most of the time.
I would have given you all of my money if you had just paid more attention to me. Let’s be honest you don’t need my money never did but I don’t mind paying my fair share for things. I just couldn’t keep shelling out my hard earned money for an empty home. You were never there even when you were. Never present with me; always planning always going always saying how if I wasn’t broke I could do things with you. The truth is Lon, Eventually I just kept telling you I was broke because I was saving to leave. My needs, my wants, my concerns, my love languages were never important to you. Lord knows I tried to voice it, tried to make you see that emotionally connecting would only deepen and strengthen our relationship. But you can only meet me as far as you’ve met yourself.
Somewhere in between you invalidating my childhood trauma by telling me “you need to just go get help” and you cheating on me with the exact two people I asked you not to cheat on me with (since you decided my asking for a closure to our open relationship wasn’t really a valid request, even though I gave you years to explore) I had come to realize I had no value to you. Not at all. The only thing I was to you was a supplemental income, even if a tiny one. But if you couldn’t get that from me I wasn’t worth anything to you at all.
So in the end you made your decision for yourself. You are the reason I stopped paying for things, I stopped hanging out with you, your friends, and mine outside of the house (since you turned them all against me anyway with your painted pictures of “using you” and my “emotional instability”). News flash; true abuse and extortion can only come from a place of power downward. Did I say things that hurt your ego and brought to attention your emotional unavailability, yes, but that’s not abuse. How you made over 100,000 a year and still required my money when I was making less than 15,000 freelancing at the time is not only abuse but beyond me in conscious. Add on top of that you making fun of my dreams and telling me I’ll “never be a writer” or a lyricist and how “stupid” I am. If you really wanted me gone I wish you had just said so instead of playing mind games until I felt more and more unwelcome.
You want to look at me and say I am to blame and that we just grew apart. No Lon you tore us apart and now I have to stay away. When you chose to tear us apart you ripped certain seems in my core, in my character, in my being. Threads I had woven and sewn from our connection. I once thought I was safe with you, that I was uplifted by you, but as I tried to step into a more unmasked version of myself it became more and more of a hostile avoidant environment. It’s taken me almost three months of constant therapy to bring me back to who I am as a person and away from that scared subservient little boy you created to serve you.
It’s okay though it’s all you were demonstrated from your parents; just as all I was demonstrated was how to give all of yourself for someone who sees you as less. Therapy has opened my eyes to so much I know you know that as I tried my hardest to heal our connection. I hope as you continue therapy, if you’re even still going, that you start to do the real work of looking at yourself instead of just using our differences to justify our demise as a couple and team.
It hurts so much to write this and to know that even if I did send it to you I wouldn’t get a response beyond your defense mechanisms. In the end you’re just like my “best friend” of 16 years; if it ain’t your way you kick em off on the highway at full speed.
All in all I hate what you became to me, what you are to those who can’t benefit you in some way, but for some reason I still love you and I’ll always miss you. Not as much as Dexy boy :p But I’ll always love you enough to hope that you start to look in the mirror. And that when you do it’s long enough for you to actually see yourself and in turn that you might truly see the people around you and why they are really there.
With the last of my love, Z

Hello, it's my first time ever posting on Reddit. I am also German and pretty young (sqr of 225) so I'm sorry if my English isn't the best. I just want to share my story, be truthful for once and maybe get some advice. In September last year a couple of friends and I wanted to play a game of valorant, we were 4 and 5 are required to play the game. So I decided to join a random discord server and find someone to play with us. That someone was a girl, let's call her Lilly for simplicity, she was nice and I invited her to play with us. My friends were very young and I was the only one who spoke English semi fluently. After chatting, while actively playing the game, we exchanged names and got a bit acquainted. She is 1 year older than I am and she is from Canada. I kinda liked her and I was single for a couple of years, so I obviously was kinda attracted to her. It didn't really help that she had a very cute voice and the fact that she definitely was horny. Nothing happened, we won a couple of games and called it a day. We made plans for the next day though and started hanging out frequently. I think two days after I met her, my hamster passed away and she was the only one I really wanted to talk to. She comforted me and made me feel better. After a couple of weeks I finally confessed my feelings by asking her if she would consider being something more than friends. She was happy and told me that we can be more than just friends. I told her I loved her for the first time over text and she said it back, which really really made me extremely happy. After a week passed by, I asked her to be my girlfriend. This time around she rejected me but she still seemed to be incredibly happy with me asking her. A bit of time later we started saying I love you to each other constantly and we would hang out every second day. After getting mad at me for being bad in league of legends, which I btw just played for her, she abruptly hung up. I texted her and asked her if she was ok and she started telling me, she had BPD and that she was sorry for being mad at me. I read about it and researched for like two days and because she didn't really show any symptoms, I did the worst possible thing and forgot about it in a way. Our relationship was really good, we both enjoyed spending time with each other and basically behaved like a couple. We talked about it a couple of months ago and we both agreed, that we were basically dating. She started distancing herself and cancelling plans, by just ignoring me. I was hurt and forgot about her BPD, I don't only want to talk myself down, I might not like myself but it's still unfair to not mention how it affected me mentally, I was kinda miserable, that still doesn't validate my decision to play with her fear of abandonment. I didn't have any bad intentions but I still hurt her. My condition worsened too, I started having like 5 hours of sleep every day and I was constantly thinking of her. I failed to keep my facade up and I hurt my loved ones by not being myself. I feel so bad that I have hurt my parents, my two friends at the time and her. I still ask myself why I am so emotional about it, others experience way way worse and are still happy. I feel bad for having this urge to seek help, Lilly suffers through so much more. It really breaks my heart every time I have to think about that Anyways after she ignored me the morning of some day, I forgot to mention that I was waking up at 5am every day just to text her good morning or good night, she didn't reply at all. I was hurt and since our relationship was doing worse over the last couple of days, I started to freak out and texted her that I had a panic attack and stuff, which I immediately regretted a lot It was true but obviously a terrible move to make She replied, I apologized countless times and understood if she would have wanted to leave me there After like half an hour she told me "I am a bad word", I did the rational thing and told her she wasn't and that she shouldn't call herself that. Problem being she actually is She explained to me that she was throwing around with nudes I had a feeling in my gut that she was doing that for some time cause of little things she said along our relationship I should have left her. I didn't and told her either me or her hobby I even offered to fill the gap, I never actually wanted to be sexual with her ever I fantasized about it and liked it but I was and still am just not ready She never really chose and rather broke up a week later After another week she texted me again, we talked about it and decided to continue being friends but just friends We hung out once a month and spent some time texting every week I fell for her again, at least I think I did After I told her we could speak more often and that it would be ok for me, we spoke one more time and then I went to Egypt on a vacation I thought about her a lot I came home on Valentine's Day, texted her and didn't get a response She started ignoring me and randomly started sending me spicy pictures and gave me some attention I enjoyed the night but I felt bad for some reason We started texting a bit more frequently and she started ignoring me again I told her in a very sweet way I would like to move on And she came back I focused more on treating her right and started learning more about BPD, I fucked up once because I was trying to hang out with her and after I asked her quite frequently She got very mad at me We started texting and everything got better for a couple of days Someday she asked me if I'd like to hang out and I obviously said yes After a cold reunion, we had a good time, we played league and I was playing terrible in the last game, she wanted me to leave and so I did I text her, she ignored me But started saying back good morning and stuff Well for like 3 days, then she stopped I asked her if everything was ok She told me she didn't want to talk and I said ok but she could always text me She simply said she didn't want to I don't know if I misinterpreted it but I responded with a short explanation that I know it's not easy for neither one of us and that we were on a good way I also promised her to not text her I skipped a lot because I just don't remember details or don't want to bore you I'm so incredibly sorry for hurting her and for talking with friends over my relationship problems I hate myself so incredibly for it I don't feel any happiness anymore and every feeling seems to be so distant I shake very hard when I text her and I either always think of her or I catch myself avoiding her I hate myself a lot for everything, I just wanted to help her I wanted to be happy And I got heartbroken and made fun of by very close friends, I was getting bullied and I didn't get a single bit of appreciation ever in my life by anyone but my parents I don't think I deserve love I'm trying so hard to be who I'm supposed to be But I at least still appreciate life, so don't worry about me If you want to help, please give me some advice on what I should do and how I can actually go through with it
TL; Dr: it's about my relationship with my borderline partner and how BPD can affect both parties
Thank you for reading I hope I entertained you a bit, I would really appreciate any serious advice and I ask myself the question of I should just let her ignore me or text her

Do you ever have childhood nightmares or dreams? As for me, at a very young age, I always got nightmares whenever we watched something scary or even just a mention of ghosts. Where I grew up in the Philippines, there was this fantasy show that we watched as kids. Thinking about it now, it's kind of creepy. Whether it was about fairies or friendly ghosts, I still got creeped out and had nightmares about it. There was this nightmare of mine that traumatized me as a kid. You don't really remember your dreams until you're eating breakfast and it suddenly hits you that you had a nightmare before waking up. It's about this island. Imagine the town/island where the Teletubbies are. That one, but imagine it with brown grass instead of green, complete darkness instead of the baby sun, and instead of open space, it's filled with creepy trees. All I remember is running towards that forest and something chasing me. I couldn't look back and kept running. I could feel the trees snitching on my location until I stumbled over a big root of a massive tree. There's a scratch on my knee and I can feel it sting. With my petite body and out-of-breath lungs, all I did was stare at my bleeding knees. I wasn't crying, but I know I was scared. *Dum...dum...dum.* I could hear it, not in my ears but in my heart. It seems like my heart is synchronizing to the vibration. I still don't know what's out there, but I know I should be running away from it. I saw a silhouette walking towards me slowly. It's big, but not giant big. I close my eyes and then suddenly I am awake, lying down straight like a person in a coffin.
I never talked to anyone about my nightmares. It's normal to have nightmares, but the people around me are saying that it's not normal for a kid to sleep straight like a dead body. I never really took it seriously. I kept having weird nightmares of running in a dark place again. I still don't know who's chasing me. When you are a kid, you have very vivid memories of what your childhood was like. Mine is filled with nightmares. I did still enjoy my childhood and yet still able to be a 'normal' kid. I had plenty of friends, played in the street, and did such fun things. I still feel like something is missing and I tend to mix up memories with dreams. When you are a kid, you have such wild imaginations that you think it is real, but once you turn into an adult, you think that it's impossible for that to happen in the real world. That is just one of the nightmares that stuck in my head and that something I still dream about.
I remember having this dream, or perhaps something happened? Until now, it still confuses me, but here's how it goes. I was playing with my cousins and some of our friends. It was in the middle of the night, maybe 8 or 9 PM? I know it was dark, with streetlights shining through the street. Living in the busiest city in the Philippines, you would still see a bunch of people outside. We were playing hide and seek. I was thankful that I was not 'it' this time. As the seeker counted to 10, we all spread around and found a place to hide. I decided to hide behind a motorized tricycle, as we simply call them tricycles (just Google what it looks like). One of my friends came with me, but I told her to go away as I didn’t want to get found. She ran off and found another place to hide. I was chuckling, and I could still hear people around me talking and laughing, but in my mind, I just didn’t want to get caught. I didn’t hide far away from where the seeker was; I could still hear him counting 'and… 10.' Suddenly, everything went quiet. I was quiet too, as I didn’t want him to find me first. I crouched back behind the motorized tricycle, and I could hear him walking far away from me. I sighed with relief. I heard that he found someone far away, as I heard one of my cousins scream in excitement because the seeker found her.
I chuckled.
I didn’t hear any footsteps, but I could see a shadow coming towards me as the tricycle was parked just below a lamppost. I slowly moved around to avoid being found, circling slowly and getting into the rhythm of the shadow. Now, there was a gap inside the motorcycle where I could see the other side. I slowly looked through the gap and, to my surprise, saw a figure looking at me. I got startled, but I didn’t scream. I stood up right away, and to my surprise, I was back there again, on that island. The tricycle that was in front of me became a tree. Not just a tree, but a tree with massive roots that made me stumble in my previous dream. I was confused. Even now, as I think of it, I know it’s not a dream, but it's getting weirder. My first thought was 'Where are my friends?' The figure I saw earlier was gone. I got out from behind that tree and searched around the forest for an exit. As I was running, I could hear mumbling sounds. I was a kid, and my brain was controlling this stuff, so I went and followed the sounds. One sound seemed familiar—it was my friend's voice—but it seemed like something was stuck in her mouth; it was echoing through the forest.
As the sounds became clearer, my eyes couldn’t believe what I saw. My friends and cousins were tied to the trees, their mouths covered with tape. In my mind, I had to get out of there because I was scared as hell, but at the same time, I wanted to help them. I ran to my cousin first, and as I was going near her, a figure appeared behind her tree. It had eight hands like a spider, but it was brown and shaped like a cockroach. It had a face like a human—technically an image of a human in a cockroach-spider-looking costume. His or her face had makeup that blended with what it was wearing, and it was smiling towards me; I could see its yellow teeth.
"We've looked everywhere for you," it said while slowly coming towards me.
I couldn’t speak or move. I was so scared. I wanted to cry, but I couldn't.
"Now we can start the game," it said in the friendliest way possible. "I won't hurt you or your friends. I just want to play," it added.
Being raised to be nice to everyone, I nodded. I still wasn't speaking.
"Can I get a hug?" it requested.
I nodded again.
It hugged me, and I could feel all of its legs on my body. The thing I thought was its costume? It was actually connected to it. It was warm, and I just closed my eyes. I touched one of its legs, and it felt sticky. Suddenly, I woke up and saw my grandma's husband staring at me, telling me to wake up as it's time for school, and then he left. I saw my left palm was kind of sticky, sweat, I guess. That's all I can remember from that time. I went to school and lived the rest of the day as a "normal" kid, still thinking about that nightmare. Some of my dreams are not all nightmares; they are happy dreams too. But what's stuck with me is that every time I have a nightmare, it's basically a continuation of the other, but it only happens once I completely forget about it.
Later that same year, I dreamt about it again, but differently. I had already made friends with this creature. It seems that I completely accepted it, and I was not scared of it anymore, but I was not happy either. There was something about it that still seemed odd to me, but I was just not reacting to any of it. We would play tag, hide and seek, and other games. As I noticed the place getting darker and darker, I also noticed that a few of my friends who were in my dreams were getting fewer and fewer until it was just us. It still kept its attitude, lively and happy to play with me. I asked it, "Aren't you sad?" It just kept smiling for a good 5 seconds and slowly frowned, answering, "Why would I? You are all I need as a friend." Then it started jumping around like those mascots you see in kids' TV shows. I remained the same, not happy, not sad, but I went with its flow.
I also noticed that before I woke up, it hugged me, like saying goodbye and at the same time inviting me to see each other again. There was something about its hug too. I could feel the warmth of its eight legs covering my whole body and its breath around my neck. In my dreams, I kept touching at least one of its legs. It seemed that it became a habit, and I could feel it sticky. I woke up again in a straight laying-down position, and my hands were drying, but I could feel the wetness. Then my grandma's new husband was ready to take me to school again.
When I was 9, my mom decided that my siblings, my dad, and I would move to my mom’s side for 3 years before leaving the Philippines. It was my dad's side where I kept having nightmares. I don’t get those nightmares anymore. Sometimes I miss them, and sometimes I wonder if they miss me too. I stopped looking for them. I feel like they went away when I started going to church with my strictly Catholic grandmother. We had to wake up at 6 am to prepare for church, and every day for those 3 years, we had to pray at 7 pm for an hour. We knelt in front of the saints' statues, and my belief in God strengthened. I forgot about the nightmares. I lived like a normal child, had a great childhood, had a bunch of friends, and grew up to be a decent girl. My mom announced that we were all leaving for Canada, and I just remember being so excited about it.
I was 11 years old when I and my friends were playing outside my house. I know I was still a kid then, even if my grandma keeps telling me to stop playing as I am already a grown woman (culture things). Our neighbour's are like aunts and uncles to us; I play with their kids sometimes who're the same age as me. We are all close to each other, even the adults. They treat us as their own since my mom grew up with them as well. One of my neighbors, whom I called “Tito” (uncle in Tagalog), called me and asked me when we were leaving for the Philippines. I told him soon, and he told me how I looked like my mom. I told him how much I miss my mom and how I cannot wait to see her again. He gave me a hug, and then my world stopped. This hug looks familiar. I can feel his breathing around my neck and the warmth of his hug. His hands are playing on my back, slowly stroking it. I swallowed and told him that I had to go since my grandma was probably looking for me. He let go and smiled at me. I just felt tears running through my eyes, and everything came back.
I was SA when I was a kid. I was SA by my step grandfather at my dad’s side. I feel like throwing up, and I can feel everything crawling toward me. I remember the first time he did it. When my mom left, he started touching me. As a kid, I treated him as a monster and just created these scenarios in my head. Even my childhood friends saw it, but since we were kids at the time, what would they know? It was inside the motorized trycicle where he was touching all over, but he said that we were just playing hide and seek and that he found me. It was then that I was so ashamed to play with my friends, as I remember one of my cousins stopping coming over because he started touching her too. The place is my dark place. Now I remember everything. I was so mad and angry. I remember that I would wake up in those positions after he touched me and felt my whole body. And remember the sticky thing in my hands? Yeah, it was his semen that he wiped away before I got to sleep, which is why whenever I am about to wake up, he is almost always there.
Now that I am in my 20s, I have tried to move on, yet the trauma still lingers within me. That monster died a few years ago, and his last words to me were, “Do you still remember me?”. I never had a chance to confront him. I opened up about my experience to a couple of my friends and gave advice to those who have experienced it too. I help those friends of mine who are still experiencing it and assist them in getting out of that situation. My only regret is that I was too afraid. I used to blame myself, but not anymore. None of it is my fault; I was just a child. I was not strong enough to keep my peace, still thinking that it is all a dream for the sake of my peace of mind. I wanted to apologize to the kid in me for not protecting her during those times, but I will never let that happen again to anyone that I know of. I now live in Canada, working in an office and happily thinking that my monster’s body is burning in hell. Thank you for reading. Please always watch out for whoever is watching your kids, your younger siblings, as you never know even the very person you trust can do massive damage to your loved ones.
What happened to me is not a dream or a nightmare. It's reality.

I just wanted to write on here to perhaps get some advice on a situation at my work. I’d like to leave the name of the shop out of this but iv been working at the same supermarket in the same department for the past 4 years while in university.
My time here I would say has been good a few problems here and there but nothing really serious up until about a 2 months ago when a new manager came in and that’s were the more serious problems started. All was going well until about 2 weeks passed after he started when the manager approached me in a aggressive manner asking why I wasn’t able to do a certain task properly, I explained that I was too busy doing my other tasks and that I didn’t have enough time but I did do the task maybe not at my best as it was rushed but I attempted it and I noted to him that the other jobs I do are more of a priority, he was a bit annoyed by this I could tell by the manner he spoke in after but nothing too serious to report him about.
About another 2 weeks later he questioned me why I didn’t pick up the phone to him on my day off when he was ringing me to cover for someone who didn’t come in whose shift I covered the day before after I was begged into it, I simply explained I was driving which I was and also stated I wouldn’t have came in anyway, again he gave out to me in a aggressive manner , he also proceeded to I feel punish me that day by getting someone else to do my job while I pick up cardboard around the shop for 3 hours before doing the parts of my job the other staff member wasn’t able to do.
Then this week I feel like it was clear I was being bullied I don’t want to report it just yet as I know it’s a serious matter but he stated to me that’s I was doing my job too slow Just minutes prior he asked me to work later past my shift which I said no to as it was quite late and I was tired , he approached me just before I was about to leave saying that I have 2 weeks notice and just stopped talking I responded obviously saying what? He said he is moving me sections basically to a shelf stacker all day because I’m too slow at my current department, I responded by saying no I don’t want to do that and that I’ve been here 4 years in the same department and nobody has ever commented on me being slow at my job and he’s the only one ever to have a problem with me he just told me speak to the store manager if I have a problem with this. I must also point out on this day he got me to do another departments work for the day while also doing my departments work which affected my job but still I got everything done he just wanted me to do another job also which would of made completing my main jobs in time impossible so he wanted me to stay on longer.
Sorry for the long read I’m just really annoyed about the situation and want to make sure it’s right to report this as bullying and how to go about it. Thank you.

Hi All,
I just wrote a very lengthy post on my life as a parent of a "troubled" daughter. She is 16 and has been diagnosed with autism, anxiety, depression, bi-polar disorder, and borderline personality disorder. She has been in three different programs. Currently, she is at Red Hawk Academy in Littlefield, Arizona. She has been at the school for the past six months.
On my own, without any request by Red Hawk Academy , I have decided to address and dispel any accusations and/or allegations directed at Red Hawk Academy ("RHA").
RHA is located in Littlefield, Arizona and is the owners of the school are Valerie and Sonny. Valerie, Sonny, and all of the staff at RHA are honest, caring, and true to their words.
Before I address the outrageous and false accusations regarding RHA, I would like to point out that these posts/conversations are usually written by individuals who: (1) never had a daughter who attended RHA or (2) disgruntled, upset, and emotionally charged kids who may or may not have attended RHA.
That being said, when reading any negative post (including accusations and allegations) about RHA, or any therapeutic program, you should always think about who is writing the post. I have noticed that parents who have actually sent their kids to therapeutic boarding schools have long posts where they take the time to explain how they ended up sending their kids to one of these programs.
I have nothing to gain in writing this post. I am writing this post because I have a daughter with many psychological and behavioral problems. I am writing this post because sending her to RHA was the best decision I could have made for her and our family.
The following are accusations/allegations about RHA are without merit and completely ridiculous:
1) There is no information on individual staff members: FALSE - you can go to the RHA website (https://www.redhawkrtc.com/) and you will find information on each staff member. If you click on a staff member's name, you can read a bio on that person.
2) " My brother told me my niece can't get calls or mail": FALSE - we speak to our daughter every week. She also writes us letters that are scanned and sent via email. The family can send letters via email or regular mail. I know she receives the letters because she sends a written response or we discuss the letter on a video call. Every Wednesday, the girls receive all correspondence from their family members. In regards to the calls - the calls are all video calls. We get to talk to our daughter every week. There are two types of calls which occur every other week: (i) hour-long zoom family session with our daughter and Valerie (who has a master's in social work); (ii) 15-minute video call with our daughter on Google Meet. On the weeks where we do not have a family session with our daughter, we still meet for an hour with Valerie. As a parent, you may worry that every other week, you are only able to talk to your daughter for 15-minutes. I believe there are many reasons for the call schedule: (1) an hour-long family session every week is tough on our daughter (and I believe most kids); (2) it is nice to have a therapy session without our daughter, so we can work on our family and learn how to best support our daughter; and (3) parents are a distraction - when we have the family sessions, at times, we witness an angry, defiant, and resentful daughter. Both our family and our daughter need time apart to heal and self-reflect on the process.
3) "The owner (Sonny) gets his feet rubbed by the girls": FALSE - our daughter has never reported any inappropriate conduct by Sonny or any staff member. While you may think that my daughter (and the others) can't truthfully report what is going on at the facility, what you may not know, is that I visit my daughter every three months. I went to visit her in April and she stayed in a hotel room with us for three nights. If there was something going on at the school she would have told us.
4) " They (therapeutic boarding schools) are all unregulated and abusive": FALSE - all facilities are regulated at the state level or county level. As for the "abusive" comment, I can only speak as to the programs my daughter has attended. All three of the programs were not abusive. In our family, we have agreed to a safe word, which is a word our kids will use if ever in danger. My daughter has done everything in her power to get expelled from these programs and she has not once used the safe word. She knows the seriousness of using the safe word and knows that it should be used only if she truly is in danger (or being abused). Also, if you think about it logically, RHA would not allow families to take their kids away from the facility for days at a time if there was any abuse occurring at the school. In addition, some people may believe that consequences equates to abuse. My daughter's behavior is driven by her borderline personality disorder, and consequences are needed to curb that behavior. I have spoken with psychiatrists, psychologists, and therapists and all have agreed that consistent consequences are the way to handle borderline personality disorders. The consequences are RHA are: (i) NOT abusive, (ii) reasonable, and (iii) sufficiently address the bad behavior.
5) " Sonny had them doing chores outside of the facility": FALSE - The girls can work outside of the building (located on school property) once they reach a certain goal. My daughter looks forward to working outside with Sonny and she gets to make some money in the process. I can't imagine any parent getting upset because his/her daughter is working. My daughter (and many other daughters) need to learn how to work, follow instructions, and follow-through with a project. My daughter had a great time painting a structure and it helped her understand the value of hard work. One of the staff members sent me a photo of my daughter after she finished the painting and she had a great big smile and paint all over her. Bottom-line, I want my daughter to be proud of her accomplishments, whether it be weed picking, painting, or other outdoor tasks.
6) It is dangerous to give guardianship to RHA: FALSE - I admit that I was scared when I was asked to sign a document giving temporary guardianship to RHA. But then, once again, I thought about it logically. My daughter lives in another state and I need to someone to have the legal right to make choices/decisions on daughter's behalf. I will not risk the health and well-being of my daughter due to my own ungrounded fear in allowing temporary guardianship. More importantly, I truly trust RHA staff and know that they have the well-being of my daughter in mind when making decisions.
7) "It’s usually the parents that are the problem and that’s the reality of it. So maybe check urself too or try family therapy or try to understand ur kid better": FALSE - If there is anything you take from this post is that not all families are the problem. Yes, some parents may be the problem, but not in my case. My daughter grew up in a loving environment where she was well taken care of. The family dynamic was healthy and we, as parents, offered emotional support, encouragement, love, kindness, and respect. My husband and I wanted to provide my daughter with the best life possible. My daughter, with no choice in the matter, has a chemical imbalance in her brain. I do not fault my daughter for this imbalance, but I do hold her accountable for her actions. She is consciously making decision that have put her life at risk.
I have not covered all negative posts, but addressed some of the posts that stood out to me.
Her is my message to you - I love my daughter unconditionally. Above all else, I want her to be happy and healthy. It was a difficult decision to send her away, and there are many days that I am sad she is not living with us. Sometimes I wish she could come home. But, then I remind myself why she is at RHA. She is there because she needs help, help that we could not provide her. She was breaking the family and in the process destroying herself. My greatest act of love was to send her to a program where she can get the help she needs.
The only program that has been successful for our family is RHA. RHA offers a safe and caring environment. The staff listen to us and guide us to making the best decisions for our family and our daughter. RHA offers encouragement and support to our daughter. It is hard to think about where my daughter would be if we did not seek help for her last year.
Words of wisdom, when you call a program or visit a program, pay attention to your gut instinct. Ask for the telephone numbers of parents who have had a daughter in the program. Not all therapeutic boarding schools are bad and abusive. Talk to the head of the school/program and make sure you feel heard and understood by that person. The first time I called Valerie, I had a really good feeling. She had a positive attitude and answered each and every question I asked. She was not evasive and she was forthright with her responses. Sometimes, you need to take a leap of faith, and that leap led me to RHA.
For parents of daughters who struggle, remember that you are not alone and there are options for you and your daughter. Every so often, I see glimpses of my sweet daughter, and I hope that for you!
Wish you all the best!

I have some opinions about the way people are perceiving Brooke lately
The listeners have been running with the narrative that Brooke is conceited and a mean girl now for a while and I have some thoughts on this.
In the way I perceive her and judging through the podcast episodes I just think Brooke is in a toxic environement and struggling with insecurity and identity issues is hard when in an environment where someone is the ring leader of your friend group. I feel that Brooke hasn’t always been treated greatly by Tana’s closest friends in different ways and that’s probably hard for her to navigate which is probably why she is seeking out other friendships in the industry. Tana is the main focus of all of their friends and a best friend to everybody. Being the best friend of someone who is a best friend to everybody is hard because I doubt Tana speaks up for Brooke enough against her friends like Ashly while claiming her as a best friend and cohost. I’ve watched Tana since her story times and she’s shown she can be a bit messy at times with friendships and Brooke has made it clear how important friendships are to her. I’m not saying Brooke is perfect and Tana is terrible I’m just saying that if I were Tana I wouldn’t tolerate my childhood bestie being mean to my new bestie if I respected my new bestie and our friendship. Their dynamic is hard because they’re friends and they work together and Tana is an already established influencer but I don’t think that means Brooke adds nothing to the table. Every person enjoyed Brooke when she would open up more and tell her stories and since she stopped people have started to hate her but judging from the Reddit cancelled sub I’m not surprised Brooke doesn’t feel comfortable on the pod anymore with opening up. People nitpick every aspect of her. I know I wouldn’t.
I think the podcast would go back to normal if the fans just were more loving and supportive of them both equally. Brooke is new to the internet she’s not going to be perfect and. She’s in her 20s she’s not going to be a model person and that’s not the reason they started this podcast. The reason for this podcast was for them to yap and tell about their personal lives and the more y’all nitpick every aspect of the that podcast the more yall ruin it. I wish people would just enjoy things for what they are instead of trying to make everything perfect all of the time. It’s obvious they have the most fun when they are enjoying themselves and with the fan base I’m seeing right now it would be really hard to enjoy myself with people who degrade every aspect of me.
Also with the talk on Brooke trying to be more brand friendly and always going to alo and talking about it or having a clean girl aesthetic
Why is that so bad? - Tana mentions wanting to be more brand friendly and how she wants to be able to work with more brands which is good so why should Brooke not want that as well - going to Alo is good and exercise how is that conceited and I’m talking specific what story has she said that insinuates she’s better than everybody else because she goes to Alo or is she just proud of herself? - having a clean girl aesthetic doesn’t make you a good person and she never claimed to be a saint and people have pushed the narrative of the fact she’s so put together but how is that her fault she says she’s not all of the time and it’s probably because yall use that to shit on her but y’all created that . - Brooke story about how nobody goes to her birthday in the friend group and on the ep how invalidating her friends were just made it very clear the dynamic in that friend group and I don’t think Brooke is is in the wrong for wanting to make new friends and to sustain her career.
Tana gave her the platform and Brooke is trying to do the best she can to make something of herself. It would be wrong for Brooke to not be grateful in which she has stated countless times how grateful she is and it would be wrong for Tana to expect Brooke to kiss her ass for the rest of her life for her career because that’s manipulative and toxic and not giving a platform for the right reasons.
Yall go back and forth with victimizing one of the girls and pitting them against each other. I just hope Tana has Brooke’s back because it’s evident that Brooke really cherishes their friendship and this opportunity and the only way to get Brooke back to the fun careless girl she was is to make her comfortable and loved and she’s made it clear how much friendships mean to her and with the dynamic of that friend group and the hateful fans my mental health would be shit too.

This is my first time posting here so let me know if I'm doing anything wrong, should give more info, etc.
I've been working on my first (so-far unnamed) conlang for the past two years for a worldbuilding project. I recently had the idea that it would be good to create a family of languages around the one I currently have. Since my Conlang is still in the relatively early stages (I have most of a phonology and a handful of simple words, very little actual grammar besides for planned features) and I'd rather not start completely from scratch (it did take a two years to get to this point after all), I figured it'd be easiest to "reverse-evolve" what I already have to get a proto-lang, and then normal-evolve that to get multiple conlangs that I could actually use. One of my main goals is naturalism, so I would greatly appreciate feedback on how to improve what I have, but my main question is as to how I might go about constructing a Proto-lang based on my current work, so that I can flesh both of them out to point where they're actually usable.
The phonology (or what there is of it) of my conlang is mostly based on Old Norse and Icelandic, and is as follows:

Phonology

Phonemes

Consonants

	Labial	Dental	Alveolar	Palatal	Velar	Glottal
Nasal	m		(n̥) n		(ŋ)
Stop	p b		t d		k (ɡ)
Fricative	f v	θ ð	s (z)	(ç)	x ɣ	(h)
Approximant	(ʍ) w			j	(ʍ) w
Rhotic			(ɾ̥) ɾ
Lateral			(ɬ) l	(ɫ)

Symbols in parentheses represent allophones
I'm a little on the fence about including /v/

Vowels

Monophthongs

	Front Unrounded	Front Rounded	Central	Back
High	i iː	y yː		u uː
Mid	e eː	ø øː		o oː
Low	æ æː		a aː	ɒ ɒː

I'm also on the fence about including /ɒ ɒː/

Diphthongs

ai̯ au̯ ei̯ oi̯ øi̯ (idk how you're supposed to organize diphthongs in a table)

Gemination

Some consonants can be geminated in syllables codas (especially word-final) or cross syllabically. The consonants that can geminate in coda positions are /m n p t k f s ɣ ɾ l/. All of these, as well as /b d θ ð/, can also be geminated over a syllable boundary, i.e. when one syllable ends with the same consonant the next syllable begins with.

Phonotactics

General Syllable Structure: (C/sP̥)(v)V(C)⁴
P̥ represents a voiceless plosive /p t k/
R represents a sonorant /m n w j ɾ l/
Syllabic consonants can only occur word-finally, and only /n ɾ l/ can be syllabic

Allophony

I've come up with a handful of rules for allophonic variation. Here are are a few of them:
x → h / #_
ɣ → ɡ / {#,n}_
n → ŋ / _{k,ɣ}
x{n,w,j,ɾ,l} → {n̥,ʍ,ç,ɾ̥,ɬ}
ɾɾ → rː

Grammar

Again, I don't really have much in the way of grammar, but these are some of the features I hope to include in this conlang:

• 5 Noun cases: Nominative, Accusative, Dative, Instrumental, Genitive
• Clusivity in 1st-person plural pronouns, possibly eveolved from a dual-plural distinction (if that's realistic)
• Masculine, feminine, and neuter genders (only present in 3rd-person singular pronouns)
• Proximal-medial-distal distinction in demonstratives
• Vowel gradation in verb conjugations, most likely to mark tense-aspect-mood

Once again, I am mainly wondering how to "reverse" the state of my Conlang to get a Proto-language that I could flesh out more before evolving it into a more complete Conlang. Any advice or feedback on anything I have shared or mentioned would be immensely appreciated.

Last week, I asked what your "controversial skips" are – songs that are fan favourites but not really your vibe.
This week, I want to hear the reverse. What are some songs the fans overlook or typically skip that you really enjoy or are your favourites?
Here are mine:
– Woke Up in Japan
– Tomorrow Never Dies
– Don't Stop Acoustic (I unironically enjoy this song)
– Space Between a Rock and a Hard Space (Catch 22) (not sure if it's disliked by fans but don't see people really talk about it)
– Over and Out
– Thin White Lies (is she a fan favourite? I'll edit it she is)
– Emotions
Please, no bickering. It's all in good fun. 💖

Are MLMs in decline? I ask because maybe 5 years ago, Stella & Dot were expanding and very big among some of my friends. S&D brought their skincare line Ever and their bracelet line KEEP Collective under one umbrella with their usual jewelry line, plus accessories and even clothing items -- it was like they were expanding in all kinds of ways. Then, one friend who was a top salesperson for them and had gone all in on that as her only work discovered they were changing their compensation structure drastically. Seemed like, overnight no salesperson (no matter how good) would be able to survive on what they would now make off of S&D. I have not heard much about them in the last few years. Went and looked them up today and discovered they now have an extremely scaled back line of products to sell (no clothes, no accessories, only a very limited range of jewelry, no KEEP Collective, and Ever skincare items are also pared down). They are also now claiming they have left "fast fashion" behind and now do "slow style" (which seems to mean very few items in more classic designs). Really, today's S&D looks like a shadow of its former self.
Anyway, I am curious -- if you were a Stella & Dot salesperson or have studied MLMs, what happened? Do you have any insights into what changed and why? Is the Stella & Dot trajectory a story about how MLMs are in decline? Is it just a casualty of the pandemic? Or is it some sort of MLM "life cycle," and S&D are just the latest to go through i?

I was exposed to pornography at 13, I am 19 now and it hasn't stopped. It's gotten worse and worse to the point where I feel like there's just no hope for me. On top of that I have a bunch of other problems with myself that I don't even know where to start if I wanted to try and improve myself, but I feel that this addiction I have may be a causing factor for a lot of my other issues. From an outside view I would say my life looks good, or at least fairly regular for a 19 year old. I have friends and I go to school, but when I'm around my friends I feel out of place or less then. I've always felt like the extra one just sitting in the back who seems to just be whoever the people around me are, I feel like I don't really know who I am and it kills me. I feel extremely lonely as well even though I have plenty of people around me, I don't think I deserve to feel this way but I do, Im not sure why. Going onto school, I am in college and basically have zero motivation to be there at all, I feel as though I've never been good at it. I'm not sure if it's not for me or if it's because I'm always mentally drained. I really don't know what my life would look like if I took better care of myself, I don't think it's something I really deserve right now. Everything I do from waking up in the morning to going to sleep at night is my decision so I feel too at fault to really be allowed to complain the way I am now. This is honestly the first time I've shared this much about myself, I do pretty well at playing it off like I'm the same as everyone else around me and that I'm not some disgusting addict or a kid who's struggling in school and has terrible grades or no self confidence. That's also one of my biggest issues, my confidence has been a key factor to a lot of my failure in life and I feel like there's no fixing it. It's given me troubles with school, socialization, finding relationships, etc. For the longest I've wanted a girlfriend, to be in a relationship but my confidence in myself tells me that that's something that I just cannot have. I find it hard even to accept compliments if anyone ever gives me any, it feel like my body at this point rejects any chance of positivity I have to give myself. Due to the porn, the way I look at women has felt effected, not too much to where I'm super awkward or anything, I think its just that Ive got so much instant pleasure from porn that I've had a warped perception on how things should be. Therefore I've always felt like I don't deserve any type of relationship until I could somehow fix myself. On top of that I don't even have enough confidence in myself to build up the courage to put myself out there anyway. I've had possible relationship endeavors in the past but I feel like I usually end up shooting myself in the foot before I can really get anywhere with anyone. Im 19 now and I don't want to be 30 still with no girlfriend or relationship experience. Im too lonely right now. These thoughts all run through my head daily and I'm not even sure where to start with myself. Ive come to the conclusion that the addiction is probably causing a majority of my problems but I can't seem to knock it, I never have. I feel like my life is at rock bottom and there's almost no point to even trying because it never works. Don't get me wrong there's a million things in life that I would love to and I would love to be able to look back at this one day and laugh at myself but if It hasn't happened in six years I don't know how I ever see myself suddenly flipping a switch, although I want to so bad.

Just a few words to start off with: this will be a pretty long post since I want to be up front with as much detail as possible to avoid vagueness, but I'll try and break it into sections, and put a quick TL;DR at the end, as well as my best guesses for what's going on. I'll also state now that I'm originally a car guy that's worked solely on newer, fuel-injected car engines, so this whole experience of working on an old carbureted motorcycle has presented a lot of new things to me. My apologies if I get anything wrong here or have proceeded with anything under an incorrect assumption. Anyway, a major thank you to anyone that reads this!
- - - - - - Context - - - - - -
In the past month, I took on a restoration and road-legal-ification of my dad's old '88 FZR400 he raced back in the 90s. During its heyday, my dad had done some mods to the engine, of which I can't really remember exactly what off the top of my head; they had at least included intake or exhaust porting, though, and maybe a stroke or bore (? again not sure). Needless to say, upon dyno tuning it back then, it apparently made around the stock brake horsepower, but at the wheel.
After my dad retired due to injuries, picking up car racing, and starting a family, the bike sat for many years, until he fixed it up a bit to be sold in the early 2010s. However, after he found no takers due to many other things going on for us as a family at the time, he eventually let it sit for the past decade. Unfortunately, he didn't run it dry before letting it sit, which according to him, was likely because he assumed he'd continue trying to sell it, so I've spent most of the past 30 days un-gunking the carbs and fuel tank of degraded ethanol and whatnot.
While I can say I've made fairly consistent progress, I've continually hit roadblocks with it, from starting one day to dying off idle the next and such. But, just the other day, I had a massive breakthrough where I got it to start, idle, hit redline, and ride around the lawn up to 2nd gear. Later that same day, though, it began to refuse to idle and consistently died a short few seconds after every start.
- - - - - - A/F Fiddling - - - - - -
I've been a bit confused with the powertrain on this thing since it's seemingly sentient and has a vengeance, as whenever I get it to do something I want it to do, it quickly protests by doing something else undesirable, or even the opposite of what's expected. For example, after cleaning the carbs four times (I'll get to those in a bit), I eventually deduced that the hesitation and sensitivity to rev off idle, as well as its behavior on closed throttle (rev drops) could be due to an A/F mixture issue; so, I messed around with the air screws on each carb:

1. This is where I became even more confused, though, as the stock (or at least how it was when I received it) 2-turn setting was acting very lean (hanging revs, hesitation to rev, overheated really easily).
2. Tightening the screws to make a richer mixture seemed to have no effect, even making it act as if it was leaner (revs hanging even more, refuses to start or idle at times).
3. Backing out the screws to around 2.5 turns out, however, seemed to not even really change the behavior from the "rich" screw setting.
4. Going back to the original 2-turn setting, the bike began to run great and is the setting that allowed me to take it for a ride on the lawn. Thus, I deduced that despite a cleaning and visual inspection, maybe the screws were just holding some gunk or something in the perfect, hidden place.

Problem solved, then, right? Wrong. Like I said, it refuses to stay running now. Regardless of that fact, though, even when it was able to run, the hesitation to rev off idle was so bad that I could intentionally stall the bike whenever I felt like it just by giving it too much throttle too quickly at idle. It was as if the engine was a glass cannon, working amazingly under the right circumstances, but would fall apart at the blink of an eye if something changed.
At this point, I'm just kind of confused since the various things I've tried have seemed to have no impact or positive change most times, and when I do end up doing something right, it seemingly makes the bike run for a totally different reason or behave in an unintuitive manner. To close, I'll just list some of the things I've tried in an effort to make it work properly.
- - - - - - Carb related changes - - - - - -

• 1st carb cleaning (at this point I didn't fully understand how carbs worked, so understandably the bike didn't run after this): bowl de-gunking and cleaning, also changed out the totally blocked 88 main jets for some 87.5s that were lying around.
• 2nd carb cleaning: full passageway cleaning of both air and fuel sides, as well as diaphragm and needle cleaning. Bike started after this, albeit not very easily, but didn't really run.
• 3rd carb cleaning: essentially a full carb rebuild to totally eliminate the possibility of blocked passageways (still, not 100% sure it's totally perfect, but it was good enough to get it to run, idle, and rev nearly properly for a bit).
• 4th carb opening: changed the 87.5 mains back to the 88s after a good cleaning in an aim to sort out the lean behavior. The day after this is when I was able to get it out on the lawn.
• Messing around with the idle position screw, I've been able to keep it at the right idle speed on certain days, but it feels very inconsistent and like I have to keep changing it every other time I start the bike.

- - - - - - Carb unrelated changes - - - - - -

• Changed out the spark plugs that were in the bike (can't remember the brand/model off the top of my head, but they're not NGKs) for what I believe to be the stock plugs that came with the bike when new, the NGKs (CR8E according to the manual).
  • As a sidenote, the electrodes are noticeably smaller in design than the ones that my dad was running, but seemed a little less roughed-up, so I'm not sure if that's contributed to any of the issues or not. I don't think it would, since they're listed as the stock plugs, but due to the engine modifications, I can't say for sure.
• I've tried running the bike with and without the airbox/filter while changing other variables, and haven't really noticed any differences; I will note that the lawn test included the airbox/filter.
• Plugging, routing to airbox, or letting the transfer case vent to atmosphere hasn't seemed to do anything. Not totally sure what other vacuum leaks people online could be referring to since the carbs sit directly on top of the engine block and have no tubing in or out of them, and the diaphragms are in great shape, able to hold vacuum on their own.
• I fit the radiator fan back on the radiator so I could run the bike without a fan or having to let it cool intermittently. Funny enough, I'm pretty sure this is when the bike started to refuse to start, but I'm not sure why. The load on everything shouldn't be that high nor even present when it's off, and the only things I touched were a single tube and clamp on one side of the radiator to access its back for the fan.
• I've kept the like-OEM lead-acid battery topped up the whole time, as well as letting the bike idle for a while sometimes to keep it charged on its own.

- - - - - - TL;DR (and possible solutions) - - - - - -
Restoration of an old '88 FZR400 set up for track racing that sat with gas in it for a decade or more, but I've run into weird and inconsistent engine behavior surrounding what I believe to be fueling. Sometimes it'll start, sometimes it won't, I've taken it for a ride on the lawn, but it stopped starting later that same day.
Here are some of my thoughts/guesses as to what could be going on:

1. I suck at cleaning carburetor passageways: the possibility of me taking apart a carb four times and still missing certain things is very real, since it's the first carb I've ever touched. But, from the various successes I've had with it, I can't see why it would somehow randomly get much worse out of nowhere.
2. Imperfect jet needles: I only used some fine steel wool on the needles in my 2nd carb cleaning in order to not damage or scratch them up too bad. Because of this, they're still, ever so slightly (seriously, barely noticeable), sticky when fully seated. My hope was that they'd polish themselves up as time went on and since a lot of my problems are idle related, I don't think this is the main issue, but could be doing something undesirable, not sure.
3. Bad-good fuel: I've been using 87 octane in the tank for all my testing purposes up until the lawn test day, where after I noticed the bike starting to want to not start, I went and got some 93 in my can simply because I felt like it. Still refuses to start. I doubt this is the issue, since why would a higher octane perform worse in any situation? However, this makes me think that maybe the fuel filter has just coincidentally gave up at the worst time.
4. Bad spark plugs: not sure this is really the cause, but just an option since I keep forgetting to buy brand new plugs. But, I have inspected and gapped both sets I have and they seem to be in order.
5. Valves out of spec: I will be honest, I have intentionally avoided this since I really don't want this to be the problem, but I'm beginning to suspect that maybe the bikes rude awakening after a decade of sleep may have shocked some things out of whack.
6. Vacuum leak: a lot of people online keep mentioning this on different forums for other bikes, but I can't see where there could actually be one on this specific bike. Still a possibility, though, I just can't see where it might show up.
7. Desynched carbs: this is definitely something I will be doing just as a maintenance thing soon down the line, but perhaps the idle issues are mainly because of this. Don't know why it's sometimes pretty difficult to rev, though.
8. Something I haven't thought of: I think there are probably a few things I've left out of here since I've just forgotten them at the current moment, so if any of you can offer any advice or thoughts, I'd greatly appreciate it! Thanks!

Totally frusterated and I dont know what to do. My blood work and everything comes out "normal" but this unexplained weight gain is really hurting me mentally.
Ive had some good results with Happy Hormones by Happy Mammoth and Ryze coffee. Both products seem to calm me, reduce anxiety, help with mood but nothing with weight. It just keeps on climbing.
My main symptoms are digestive issues, weight gain, anxiety, not great sleep and brain fog. I can manage most of these symptoms pretty well except NOTHING helps with weight loss.
Any help would be great.
For some stats Im 41, weight train 4 times a week. Bike ride 3-4 days for 20-30 min and walk a minimum of 12.5k steps per day. Veg and protein for diet. Help!!

I’m a mixed girl so my shade range varies so much between winter and even just the beginning of summer, but, what are some good brands for skin tints. I have really clear skin so I don’t need any foundation or concealer, but I need a good Primer and skin tint that work well together. I thought I had a good one but I forgot the name of the brand I had and I’m pretty sure they discontinued it😞

Hello! I wanted to get some perspective on a situation my partner and I are considering.
My partner’s best friend is going to be moving abroad this summer for his job for at least the next year. He owns a nice little townhome and doesn’t want to sell it yet, and he also wants someone living there ro manage it and take care of his plants lol. So, he has offered to let us move in for a fair monthly rent. This would only be for a year, as my partner is finishing up his PhD and then we will be moving away for his job opportunity as well. My partner and I are homebodies, no kids (just a cat), and my partner is extremely, extremely clean and tidy. At the surface, it seems like a good deal with a set end date that benefits all involved. BUT I know that everyone says to only rent to/from friends and family if you hate them and want to destroy your relationship lol so I know there is a catch.
His friend is going to be drafting up an official lease, but what other things should we be aware of going into this situation? I would really love to take advantage of this, but I know my partner cherishes this friend and so I don’t want to be in a situation where their friendship is ruined. For whatever it’s worth, both my partner and his friend are from a country/culture that is very heavily focused on supporting friends and family, so something like this would not be uncommon at all there. I think that’s why they both are thinking so positively about it while I’m being the realistic Negative Nancy over here hahah
Any advice would be much appreciated!