Posted this in FND as well, but also turning to this sub - I am just really desperate and need some support.
For the last two days I have just been lying in bed, having a random show on, barely noticing it because I am slipping in and out of seizures all the time. When I am not having a full-blown seizure, I still get a ton of motor tics in between or my limbs get locked in weird positions and it’s really painful. I can barely type this because my hands are cramping so much. I have needed to go to the toilet for hours now, but I just can’t get up, my legs won’t work. I managed to get a glass of water earlier, but it took me ages to get to the kitchen which is literally next to my room and it hurt so much and my legs couldn’t stop shaking and I fell quite a few times (don’t know how there was any water left in the glass when I reached my bed again). I am supposed to be at University right now. I got a wheelchair recently to be able to attend courses when my legs don’t work, but my arms are having trouble too and of course I keep having seizures. This is really bad. This is the third time I am starting university, I can’t mess up again. I don’t know why this is happening right now, my symptoms are so so extreme. I have so much to do but I can barely move. How will I ever live a decent life? I am really trying but right now, I think I am realising that I am really, really sick, that this is a serious chronic illness and I’m just not able to do what I want and need to do. I don’t know. I’m new in my town as well and I don’t really have anyone to turn to… had a neurology appointment this morning, but there wasn’t even enough time for me to describe my symptoms and she just ordered another eeg (which we all know will most probably show nothing) and sent me home (which, by the way, is like four minutes away but it took me half an hour to get back because my legs would not work (couldn’t take my wheelchair because the elevator was broken). This was the only time I managed to leave the house in the last few days, and it went terribly. There are so many things I’m just not able to do. I really want to smoke, but I can’t because I don’t smoke inside and I can’t go all the way outside right now. How can my movement issues be stronger than a nicotine addiction? People go to extreme lengths to satisfy their addictions. I can’t even take a few steps. Which just makes it clear to me that maybe I am not making this up, maybe it isn’t something I can just “cope away”, maybe this is a real, serious disorder with no real treatment. I just wish I could take some pills and be in control of my body again. I’ve been doing psychotherapy for years, and in general it does help, but I don’t think it’s doing much for FND. My symptoms keep flaring up. If I didn’t know this was a functional disorder, I’m definitely at a point where I would call an ambulance. But I can’t, because there’s nothing they can do for me. I have to fix this by myself and I have no idea how. I don’t know how to build a good enough life with this. I don’t know what to do. I am kind of losing hope…

We stayed near Cefalu for about a week in early May. Most days the air smelled like wood smoke, and sometimes it was enough to make it hard to breath outside.
We saw people burning small piles of green plants in many nearby properties, which causes surprisingly smoky fires. Are people just burning brush to get rid of it? It seemed more common than I'd expect, but perhaps we were in an unusual location. The greenness of the plants also surprised me, since the fire would be a lot less smoky if they let things dry out.
I didn't find anything when Googling for this, but I did find a lot of articles about wildfires last year. Could it be an attempt to clear underbrush to prevent wildfires?

For the last two days I have just been lying in bed, having a random show on on Netflix, barely noticing it because I am slipping in and out of seizures all the time. When I am not having a full-blown seizure, I still get a ton of motor tics in between or my limbs get locked in weird positions and it’s really painful. I can barely type this because my hands are cramping so much. I have needed to go to the toilet for hours now, but I just can’t get up, my legs won’t work. I managed to get a glass of water earlier, but it took me ages to get to the kitchen which is literally next to my room and it hurt so much and my legs couldn’t stop shaking and I fell quite a few times (don’t know how there was any water left in the glass when I reached my bed again). I am supposed to be at University right now. I got a wheelchair recently to be able to attend courses when my legs don’t work, but my arms are having trouble too and of course I keep having seizures. This is really bad. This is the third time I am starting university, I can’t mess up again. I don’t know why this is happening right now, my symptoms are so so extreme. I have so much to do but I can barely move. How will I ever live a decent life? I am really trying but right now, I think I am realising that I am really, really sick, that this is a serious chronic illness and I’m just not able to do what I want and need to do. I don’t know. I’m new in my town as well and I don’t really have anyone to turn to… had a neurology appointment this morning, but there wasn’t even enough time for me to describe my symptoms and she just ordered another eeg (which we all know will most probably show nothing) and sent me home (which, by the way, is like four minutes away but it took me half an hour to get back because my legs would not work (couldn’t take my wheelchair because the elevator was broken)). This was the only time I managed to leave the house in the last few days, and it went terribly. There are so many things I’m just not able to do. I really want to smoke, but I can’t because I don’t smoke inside and I can’t go all the way outside right now. How can my movement issues be stronger than a nicotine addiction? People go to extreme lengths to satisfy their addictions. I can’t even take a few steps. Which just makes it clear to me that maybe I am not making this up, maybe it isn’t something I can just “cope away”, maybe this is a real, serious disorder with no real treatment. I just wish I could take some pills and be in control of my body again. I’ve been doing psychotherapy for years, and in general it does help, but I don’t think it’s doing much for FND. My symptoms keep flaring up. If I didn’t know this was a functional disorder, I’m definitely at a point where I would call an ambulance. But I can’t, because there’s nothing they can do for me. I have to fix this by myself and I have no idea how. I don’t know how to build a good enough life with this. I don’t know what to do. I am kind of losing hope…

Hey Guys, I’m trying to find the best solo carry Yi build, so it doesn’t has to be the most DPS one, but the ones where all stats together are good enough to carry even if your ADC goes 0/5 again.
So we need snowballing to reach our 2-3 items as soon as possible. They need to be very gold efficient and every item needs to be a quite good spike.
So my thoughts about this were Navori first cause it’s insane cheap with 2600 gold and gives 40 attack speed what is quite good too. Then we need heavy AD to get rid of this annoying E dmg nerf. I thought about Deaths dance, cause of it survivability as well. Another Idea would be going for the standard (rageblade, botrk or kraken). But we could even build this third to get our attack speed up again.
Other idea was blood thirster. It gives 80ad and 18 lifesteal what looks quite good on paper too. After that maybe something tanky like steraks, titanic or so.
Just leave your ideas. Would be cool if we maybe find a cool build together.

Alright so If you're on the hunt for a natural alternative to Ozempic for weight management, Ozemra offers an interesting option. From my perspective, it's got a strong focus on boosting metabolism and controlling appetite (especially with its glucomannan and chromium), which are key for shedding pounds.
But while it sounds promising, its effectiveness can vary depending on individual factors like your diet, lifestyle, and how your body specifically reacts to its ingredients.
Overall, I’d rate it at 3.5 /5, with PhenQ beating it at 4/5, as better Ozempic alternative.
This post discusses all such potential Ozempic alternatives.
One issue is glucomannan is only at 200 mg in Ozemra, with more potent glucomannan based weight loss supplements use it in much higher quantities. Glucomannan like Berberine, is a potent appetite suppressant, Here I've listed out more glucomannan supps. worth checking out.
I have also compared Ozemra comprehensive with PhenQ and Serolean in my review.
However, none of these supplements – PhenQ, Ozemra, Serolean contain Berberine, which is recently most talked about ingredient as natural Ozempic alternative.
While PhenQ mimics berberine with the use of a strong Nopal cactus fiber, Ozemra does it with glucomannan.
If you’re sepcifically looking for best berberine for weight loss, I’d recommend a supplement by Dr. Sam Robbins - Blood Sugar Optimizer. I recommend reading this article on Berberine supplements.
Comparing Ozemra with Serolean and PhenQ, here's the lowdown: if you're someone who struggles mainly with emotional eating, binge-eating and stress-related cravings, Serolean might be more up your alley and suit you more.
It targets weight loss not just by suppressing hunger but also by improving your mood and reducing stress, increasing “serotonin levels” which can be a game-changer if these are your main stumbling blocks.
On the other hand, PhenQ could be a good fit if you're looking for an all-in-one weight loss supplement that targets weight loss from multiple angles. It not only helps with fat burning and appetite suppression like Nature’s Ozempic but also includes ingredients that help prevent fat production and improve mood and energy levels. This makes PhenQ a comprehensive solution, which might appeal to you if you want multiple benefits in one go.
In essence, Ozemra is a solid choice if you're primarily looking for a metabolic boost and appetite control without too many extras.
However, if your weight loss journey involves tackling mood fluctuations or if you need a more aggressive approach against fat accumulation, then PhenQ or Serolean might serve you better.

Intro

If you're diving into the overwhelming world of weight loss supplements, you might have stumbled upon Ozemra. This product is buzzing in forums and among fitness enthusiasts as a natural alternative to some of the heavier prescription options out there, like Ozempic.
In this post, I’ll break down everything about Ozemra—from what it is, how it claims to work, to the critical take on whether it's as good as it sounds or just another bottle on the crowded shelf.
As someone always on the lookout for effective and safe ways to manage weight, I was intrigued but skeptical. I'll walk you through my unfiltered thoughts on Ozemra and its fat-burning stages, plus a deep dive into its ingredients.
What is Ozemra?
Ozemra pitches itself as a revolutionary, non-prescription aid for weight loss, prominently highlighting its natural composition. If you are like me, wary of side effects and long ingredient lists that sound like a chemistry exam, Ozemra’s approach might initially catch your eye. It boasts a formula packed with components like glucomannan, green tea extract, and other natural ingredients known for their health benefits.
However, let's not get ahead of ourselves. Each ingredient in Ozemra is supposed to support weight loss through different mechanisms. For example, glucomannan is a dietary fiber that helps you feel full longer, potentially cutting down your calorie intake. Green tea extract is celebrated for its metabolism-boosting and antioxidant properties.
While these ingredients are impressive on paper, the real question is about their concentration and synergy in the product. Just having them listed isn't enough; they need to be in effective doses to truly work, which many supplements often skimp on to cut costs.
How Ozemra Works: The 4-Stage Fat Burning System
If you're curious about how exactly Ozemra claims to tackle weight loss, they’ve laid out a 4-stage system, each targeting a different aspect of weight management. Here’s a rundown from a user perspective:

1. Stage 1: Appetite Suppression - The journey starts with controlling your hunger. This is where the glucomannan comes into play. It absorbs water and expands in your stomach, theoretically helping you eat less. From my experience, while it does help a bit, don’t expect miracles. You’ll still need to control your eating habits actively.
2. Stage 2: Metabolism Ignition - Next up, Ozemra claims to fire up your metabolism, helping you burn more calories at rest. Ingredients like green tea extract are supposed to boost this process. However, if you are someone who already struggles with caffeine sensitivity, the added natural stimulants might feel overwhelming rather than energizing.
3. Stage 3: Lipolysis Trigger - This phase focuses on breaking down fat. Here, substances like L-carnitine come into the mix, which in theory helps transport fats into cells to be burned for energy. People may notice a slight uptick in how they feel during workouts, possibly due to this, but it won't be the drastic fat loss promised.
4. Stage 4: Optimized Energy Utilization - Finally, Ozemra aims to ensure the energy from the fat being burned is efficiently used. It’s supposed to help you feel more energetic and less sluggish, even on a calorie deficit. While there's a mild boost, it's comparable to any decent B-vitamin complex.

Each stage of this system sounds great on paper, but in practice, the effects are more subtle than you might hope. If you’re looking for a dramatic change, Ozemra’s gradual improvements might feel underwhelming.
Plus, consistency is key; these pills alone won’t work wonders without proper diet and exercise.

What Should You Try? PhenQ vs Ozemra

Choosing between PhenQ and Ozemra depends largely on your specific weight loss goals, health condition, and preference for certain types of ingredients. Here’s a guide to help you decide:
PhenQ is best for you if:

• You are looking for a comprehensive weight loss solution. PhenQ’s variety of ingredients supports multiple aspects of weight loss, from fat burning to mood enhancement.
• You struggle with fatigue while dieting. The inclusion of B-vitamins and L-Carnitine helps convert fat to energy, combating the usual tiredness associated with calorie deficits.
• You need help with sugar and carbohydrate cravings. With ingredients like Chromium Picolinate and INNOSLIM, PhenQ is designed to reduce these cravings significantly.
• You are looking for an effective natural Ozempic alternative: Although NOT a direct replacement to Ozempic, PhenQ has some weight loss benefits with it.

Potential alternatives: If PhenQ seems too intense or if you have sensitivities to caffeine, consider looking at supplements that focus more on mood support and less on stimulants, such as those containing more adaptogens or fiber.
Ozemra is best for you if:

• You prefer a straightforward approach to weight management. Ozemra focuses on metabolism and appetite control without too many additional effects.
• You are sensitive to stronger stimulant effects. Even though Ozemra contains stimulants, it might be less intense than PhenQ due to the different formulations and concentrations.
• You are primarily concerned with metabolic enhancement. Ozemra's ingredients like caffeine and L-Carnitine are great for boosting metabolic rate.

Potential alternatives: If you find Ozemra too mild or are looking for something that also supports gut health or has anti-inflammatory properties, consider supplements that include probiotics or omega-3 fatty acids.
Both PhenQ and Ozemra offer unique benefits, so consider your personal health profile and weight loss goals carefully before choosing.

How I evaluate Ozemra?

Blood Sugar Regulation: 3/5 If you are looking for a natural supplement to help manage your blood sugar levels, Ozemra has some notable ingredients. The combination of chromium picolinate and chromium nicotinate glycinate in Ozemra is impressive, as chromium is known to enhance insulin sensitivity, which can stabilize blood sugar levels. However, I would say it doesn’t fully mimic the comprehensive glucose management effects of Ozempic. It provides a moderate benefit, suitable for mild cases or as a supplementary measure alongside a balanced diet.
Appetite Modulation: 3.5/5 When it comes to suppressing appetite, Ozemra is pretty promising. Ingredients like glucomannan and the dietary fiber from ingredients like cayenne pepper can help fill you up and decrease overall appetite. This mimics one of Ozempic's benefits, making it a decent natural alternative if you're looking to curb those hunger pangs effectively.
Metabolic Enhancement: 3/5 Ozemra includes ingredients like L-Carnitine and a significant amount of caffeine from the Phenterex Caffeine Anhydrous Complex, which can stimulate your metabolism. These ingredients are effective for boosting metabolic rate to some extent, but the effect may not be as significant as Ozempic’s indirect influence on metabolism through glucose management. Therefore, if enhancing metabolism is your main goal, Ozemra provides moderate support.
Energy Optimization: 4/5 If boosting your energy levels is crucial for your weight loss journey, Ozemra could be a beneficial supplement. The high levels of Vitamin B12 and the stimulating effects of caffeine anhydrous contribute significantly to energy optimization, helping increase physical activity and vitality. This aspect of Ozemra is quite effective, making it a good natural alternative to support energy levels, though with a more temporary effect compared to the sustained energy regulation one might see with Ozempic.
Weight Management Support: 3.5/5 When you're looking for a supplement that supports sustainable weight loss, Ozemra seems quite capable. The presence of L-Carnitine helps with fat metabolism, essentially aiding the body in burning fat for energy, and cayenne pepper can enhance fat oxidation. These ingredients, combined with the appetite-suppressing effects, make Ozemra a solid choice for those aiming to manage their weight naturally. However, it may not be as powerful as Ozempic, which has a more direct effect on weight loss through its influence on insulin.

A lot of write posts about peoples experience with their Bi-Salp helped me prepare for mine so I thought I would post about my personal experience!!
So about three years ago, I got my copper IUD placed. I didn’t want to try any hormonal birth control because I tend to be hormone imbalanced, considering I got my period when I was nine years old and I already had ovarian cyst when I was 12 I didn’t want to add to the mix. For the first two years of me having it because my wedding ended up getting postponed due to Covid January 2023, I got married started my first year with the copper IUD being actually sexually active. I always loved my IUD because of the presence of no side effects. Other than the fact that my periods were terrible my periods would fluctuate from being seven days to eight days to 14 days to 20 days long. Throughout the month, I would always spot and have random cramping and then on the day cycle or the day leading up, I was already spotting a lot.. I would take 800 mg of ibuprofen every four hours for the entirety of my period because I could not Barrett all of this medication definitely affected my gut health. Towards the fall of last year, I felt like my cycles were getting a little lighter. Finally I thought I’m about to be three years with this may be it will be regulating a little more soon even with the copper had an extreme paranoia of anxiety, but I didn’t realize how extreme my anxiety is now that this risk of getting pregnant I felt was so prevalent, even though I had a obsess over people and I didn’t use any other form of birth control like condoms because I didn’t really like how it felt. I was always paranoid sitting on the toilet for hours waiting for everything to come out not doing anything for two weeks out of the month I include my period and then my ovulation week because that would also make me more paranoid. The last few months of a light cycle I got the worst cycles I had ever gotten they lasted about three weeks with giant clotting and in general I would always be having to wear. Diapers. I would wear a diaper with a pad on the inside of it and I would go through that every hour and a half so my blood loss was intense after my cycle I would get super lightheaded and the worst part is that I have always been chronically anemic my whole life I’m also vegetarian. I don’t eat meat.. It was a perfect storm. The anemia was being affected by the IUD blood loss and then I was diagnosed with heavy menstrual hemorrhaging. so in January, I decided to go to the doctor and see if there was any other options. Still, I knew that birth-control with hormones was not some thing I wanted. I was referred to a minimally, invasive, OB/GYN surgeon, and I asked about getting a Bi-Salp. he spoke to me about the whole process, and I was very excited that day we decided to take my IUD out, which thankfully was not as painful as the torturous insertion. His plan was let’s see how my natural cycle after. Take the IUD out if my bleeding regulates and I’m not losing as much blood. Would be a good option, but then it will be evident that the IUD is not the cause and that it’s a further issue and then they were considering doing a hysterectomy so that I would no longer get a cycle and I wouldn’t have to worry about my anemia by taking the IUD out sure enough my cycles got better two months and my cycles went from a two week. 22 Would be a good option, but then it will be evident that the IUD is not the cause and that it’s a further issue and then they were considering doing a hysterectomy so that I would no longer get a cycle and I wouldn’t have to worry about my anemia, but by taking the IUD out sure enough my cycles got better two months and my cycles went from a two week period to a 2 to 3 day. to 3 day period. Not even days after removing my copper IUD I felt so much relief. I felt a fullness disappear that I didn’t even realize was there in the first place and a lot of other things changed to my skin got clear and overall I felt less anxious. I believe that the copper in the IUD had been causing me some sort of copper toxicity. so after two months, I called the doctor and told him that my period had gotten better so I went back and we schedule the Bi-Salp. So I went two months without any birth control and stayed away from my husband. Lol, thankfully at the end of the two months I was able to get my surgery and a week before my surgery. I went to a regular visit with my OB and they did an ultrasound and they saw that they’re good possibly be a polyp on my uterus so when they went in to do my procedure, they also did a Oppie with to see if there was any polyps and remove the polyps that were there. They also found some cysts that they removed and I also had some endometriosis growing on my left tube and ovary thankfully they were able to remove! For the surgery and leading up to it, I stayed away away from any foods that would make me gassy and anything that would constipate me. I was drinking MiraLAX in my tea every night for the week leading up to the surgery.
Surgery day of: On the morning of the surgery, I was advised to not take my Vyvanse, which I use for anxiety and ADHD. So I skipped it and just drink water since I have been fasting since 10 PM the night before. When I arrive to the hospital, I was able to go to the bathroom thankfully and then started getting prepped for surgery. They obviously had me do a urine test and then got me set up with my IV where they would insure all of my meds this was very painful, but I sat and waited before I was feeling loopy. They gave me the anti-stress and anxiety medication before they administered the anesthesia and suddenly I was knocked out. All I remember is walking into the surgery room and thinking wow this is like Grey’s Anatomy and then knocking out next thing, I remember I wake up in the room and I am very groggy and out of it. Thankfully, the anesthesia did not cause nausea. The hardest part during this transition was getting me to pee because I kept wanting to fall asleep so badly but they kept telling me if I didn’t pee then I wouldn’t be able to go home to finally sleep so I was bloated and swollen And I finally peed the second time. After that, I was discharged and my family did a great job at trying to keep me awake while we drove home because I was asleep in the car that could get nauseous and throw up, which would hurt my belly from making those kind of movements. Thankfully, I got home and I knocked out on the couch. I woke up dazed and confused but feeling a lot better and refreshed. I felt good for about an hour and then the pain started, but not any sort of abdominal pain from the surgery itself. It was just the Thankfully, I got home and I knocked out on the couch. I woke up dazed and confused but feeling a lot better and refreshed. I felt good for about an hour and then the pain started, but not any sort of abdominal pain from the surgery itself. It was just the pain from the gas pain from the laparoscopic surgery. This pain was definitely intense and it progressed my worst day was the day after the surgery. But that same night after the surgery was difficult because I could not find any position where I was comfortable. I was taking Gas-X every two hours charcoal pills every two hours and ibuprofen and Tylenol alternated every four hours. They gave me OXY if I wanted to take it, but I never did because I didn’t wanna get constipated and I really didn’t feel any pain that the oxy could resolve pain medication does not resolve gas pain. First night I slept propped up with a lot of pillows around me holding my belly holding me from every position where I could put more weight to add pain to my body well, I didn’t really sleep that night, but I tried to sleep, but I rested upright on the couch and I was up maybe every hour going to pee and walking around because the best advice I could give is just walk as much as it hurts. Everything hurts with these gas pain so I feel better to be walking around in pain than to be sitting down, knowing that I’m not actually resolving any of the gases that is the only way the gases will escape your body. That was exhausting because I could not sleep as much as I wanted to. the day was extremely painful trapped in my ribs. It felt like someone had a split my ribs but again I had no tenderness or soreness in my abdomen no cramping anything like that. I complain the most and the most uncomfortable part of everything was just being very very bloated and not being able to suck in my stomach. I’m naturally a very thin person so having my stomach was frustrating because none of my clothes fit me comfortably. The bloating started from the top of my rib cage all the way down. But I kept up with charcoal pills and Gas-X, and I’m thinking the charcoal definitely help because I would notice a difference after taking that even more so than the Gas-X. I finally was able to go to the bathroom after the surgery and thankfully it was a smooth transition to going into the bathroom. I’m sure the MiraLAX helped because of that and I had hardly been eating because my stomach was so swollen and were so severe that even one bite of food in my stomach would make everything swell up even more and it it would hurt me. So those first few days I kept it very light. The second night after the surgery was another miserable night. I almost cried that night because I thought I was gonna lose my mind. I hadn’t slept or napped all day because the pain would prevent me from being able to rest in a comfortable position and then all night again, I did not sleep, those were the hardest 2 nights. The following day I saw a tiny bit of progress with the gas pain. But eventually, I think I got used to it by Saturday surgery having been Monday. I felt significantly better still very swollen but better. Sunday I left the house for the first time got ready put normal clothes on. The loosest clothes that I had. And that was nice to finally leave the house and try to do something normal, came back and was definitely exhausted and rested for the rest of the day by this point I was no longer taking any pain medication. Just the charcoal pills. By Monday I was feeling significantly better. I had gotten my cycle over the weekend and it was not a very painful cycle. Just a little bit of mild cramping and bleeding but nothing crazy on Wednesday. I had my follow up appointment a week and a half after surgery and I was cleared for all activity and just told to be careful with how heavy things are when I lift them to stay away from anything more than 30 pounds. I had sex for the first time in three months because of the fact that I had no birth control before my surgery for those two months when they had taken my IUD out. It was a little bit painful because my body had gotten used to sex and no penetration at all. Very quickly my bodygot used to it again. And I enjoyed it so much. I was scared to have an orgasm because I had heard online that some people complained of cramping after the orgasm, but I had no cramping at all only enjoyment. The fact that I was able to do everything I wanted without any anxiety that I would get pregnant without having to do anything to prevent that was liberating and it literally has improved my sex life incredibly and just the short amount of time today I am 2 1/2 weeks postop. And I feel great. My incisions are healing really well and I’m about to start using scar tape for the scars. I have barely any gases. My stomach is as flat as it normally is, and I’ve been feeling wonderful. The only thing I noticed after my surgery was a little bit of breaking out right after the surgery, but they said that that was normal since a lot of the drugs and medicine they put into your system for surgery is basically detoxing after you come out of surgery so it comes out of your body in different ways. I do not regret this surgery. It has completely changed my mindset towards life. I feel free finally. I’m sure my age has a lot to do with my recovery time and overall I’m a very sickly person for my age so I was expecting for this recovery to take me weeks to months, but I am feeling wonderful. I’m about to be the maid of honor for a wedding this Friday and I feel no restraint and dancing or anything of this sort. I’m grateful I didn’t get any soreness or pain in my abdomen after the surgery and that all I had to deal with was the severe gas pain. I know that is not everyone’s experience, but that was mine and I’m very happy with it. Just wanted to share some details on how everything went and hopefully this can be helpful to someone. Thankfully, my insurance covered most of the procedure and all I had to pay was $1,500. I have never been happier with a decision in my life.

Hello, 41 F, started Jencycla last year for heavy periods. While taking this medicine, it did lessen the flow of my periods, but it was very irregular. I decided to stop it in November.
I just stopped on a random day in my cycle because everything says that you can just stop it whenever. I immediately got back on after 5 days because I was so irritable.
In March, I decided to try again because I realized that ever since I had started, my mood had been really low, very difficult to get up in the morning, anxiety was high, I started seeing a therapist, my appetite was gone. My tolerance for things was very low. So, anyway. I stopped it in March, on day 1 of my cycle. Knowing how the first time went, I wanted to see if that would make a difference. I made it to day 12 because around day 5-7, I had terrible anxiety. The kind where you just pace and appetite totally gone. Once back on, it took me about 2 weeks to feel better and then another 2 weeks to feel "normal".
Well, this month, I had had enough. I have been spotting constantly since January with some periods thrown in. I felt dull. Brain fog was awful, my emotions were muted, libido totally gone. So, I stopped on March 4. This time, I decided to taper. This was not advised by anyone, I just saw a post on here about it, and thought I'd give it a try. So, I took half a tablet for 5 days before stopping for good. I had a much more elaborate plan to taper, but after 5 days on half a tablet, I thought, I can do this.
So, once stopped, even on the half tablet, I felt better. Easier to get up in the morning, more energy. I have had brief feelings of overwhelm and anxiety but they are brief. I was driving around a couple of days ago, and this feeling came over me like, "Oh wow. This is me! I'm back!" and it's all good. I just feel like I did a year ago, before starting the medicine. My thinking and brain processes all feel like I used to.
I have been to doctors and have asked them about these symptoms before stopping the pill, and everything from the appetite to the brain fog was either attributed to Long Covid (had covid in Sept 23) or "sadness". They didn't even consider that maybe the medicine I was on was having an affect.
TL/DR: I stopped the mini pill and feel way better. 10/10 recommend.

Holy priests are arguably one of the more boring healers in Warcraft to the point that people often refer to them as the ‘default’ healer. I’m sure there are more deep, underlying issues that Holy has but I wanted to try tackling them on a purely thematic level with some minor thoughts on a more gameplay-oriented level.
I aim to make more interesting spells that interact in a fun way that gives the holy spec a little more flavor than, “The default RPG healer”.
Quick preemptive self-defense though. This is all in good fun and purely theoretical. It’s always been interesting for me to speculate what a class or spec could be and rather than hoarding it all to myself, I thought it would be more interesting to see some other people's opinions and possibly inspire others to do the same. With that said...

• Make the Holy Priest a little more bard-inspired

Some of Holy’s biggest cooldowns are Divine Hymn and Hymn of Hope (Renamed to Symbol of Hope now). Singing to help your allies. You’ll notice other spells in the toolkit like shadow WORD pain and power WORD shield. Shadow has a spell called SILENCE for god’s sake. Basically, the implication is that priests are using their voices to channel their spells somehow. Why not...do more of that? Because I can’t lie, having several spells named “Heal” with different variations is killing me inside.
Plus, a bunch of the talent node names already lean into this! A few notable examples are:
Voice of Harmony
Healing Chorus
Gales of Song
Divine Word
Resonant Words
All the Holy Word Spells
Let’s make it so Holy is all about literally singing the Light’s praises. After all, if Shadow and Holy are canonically on two ends of the spectrum with Discipline being the proverbial middle ground, let’s really have Holy Priest’s be truly ‘Devout Feeling’ with their spell names. Double points if the spells end with a sung note or maybe a little arpeggio of a harp or something.
Let’s go through a few examples I’ve thought of and any non-obvious reasons behind each decision.
“Heal” -> “Holy Solo”
“Flash Heal” -> “Divine Etude” (An Etude is a short music piece)
“Prayer of Healing” -> “Holy Motet” (A motet is mainly a vocal musical composition, the name describes the movement of the different voices against one another)
“Circle of Healing” -> “Sacred Cantata” (A Cantata, (from Italian cantare, “to sing”), originally, a musical composition intended to be sung, as opposed to a sonata, a composition played instrumentally)
“Renew” -> “Grace Note” (An extra note added as an embellishment and not essential to the harmony or melody)
And now, I’ve saved my favorite for last. Its effect is decent but the name is so uninspired…
“Trail of Light”? More like... “Light Motif”!
A light Motif is a dominant recurring theme and what’s more dominant and recurring than spam healing?
The point is that there are so many possibilities with having the Holy priest being the spec that heals with singing, and unlike trying to shoehorn bards in as a new class, it makes some sense here.

• Holy’s New Groove

Ok, so all this stuff so far is just replacing words for other words and I know what you’re thinking…
“This doesn’t do anything to fix the fact that Holy is still quite dull compared to other healers!”
You’re dead right. The Priest’s Discipline spec currently rewards thinking ahead of what the encounter you’re facing will bring while Holy just sits back and collects red solo cups after the party is over. Let’s change that.
My main problem is with its mastery. Don’t get me wrong, it’s very “Good” when you’re thinking about the throughput and the pure numbers but it’s also a very “set it and forget it” style of gameplay and reminds me of the Shaman’s sometimes similarly maligned mastery that dishes out healing depending on how much health is missing. There’s no thinking required and frankly, Shaman have a much more interesting toolkit to justify it.
I think we would all prefer it to be more interesting like how Paladins generate more healing based on how close they are to the action which allows them to get in close with their other melee abilities anyway and encourages them to help out with the DPS. Excellent design decision. Win win win.
So the first thing is to fix the mastery and the new system I am proposing is…
“Mastery: Chord Progression”
To start, your basic heal will apply an effect to a targeted party member. This effect will have a very long uptime which can stack called Holy Note. (I’m personally imagining a buff that has a golden crotchet note with a little wing instead of the tail). Now your first Holy Note merely exists on top of the target and does a small heal over time in a similar being to how the mastery currently works, increasing with how much mastery you have.
A second heal to the target will apply a second stack and increase the stacked effect. This will change the buff icon to be two crotchets, stacked on top of one another. This will, again, increase the heal over time effect.
A 3rd heal to the target will complete the stack and heal the target with an effect called “Holy Chord” that heals more depending upon your mastery stat. Instead of just spamming heals over and over again mindlessly to get that powerful Holy Word spell you want back in case you need it, you instead work up chords on friendly targets. Targets that don’t require constant spamming will have heal over time effects up near constantly whereas targets that are dying and in need of healing will receive direct heals instead!
The effect is largely the same but with a little more thought and interactivity involved. If a target has two Holy Notes ready but is only at, say, 70% health, you can wait and focus on other party members until they drop a little more, and then you complete the chord.
So that’s the base outline of the spec. The long uptime of the buff rewards not finishing off the chord until you actually need it and still makes it usable in PvP.
The best part about it is that if we don’t want to be rid of the cooldown reduction mechanic that Holy is currently working with, it can fit very neatly over the top without changing anything too fundamental. The Holy Words might need some very slight tweaking to work but I don’t see any immediate problems with this system.

• New and Reworked Spells

Now, Holy needs some new cooldowns. Over the years, Holy has gone from having one of the most well-rounded toolkits to one that looks very limited in comparison. Shaman's can heal by sharing health percentages. Paladin’s have all their auras, Glimmers, and immunities. Evokers can fly and bombard people with healing, heal through stuns and other CC, and reverse recent damage taken. Monks are dashing around like no one's business and healing by punching them in the face. Let’s find some good stuff to give the Holy Priest.
Guardian Spirit stays right where it is. It’s extremely thematic to the spec identity by this point and I think it works well with the Holy Note system since you can leave a target with Guardian Spirit to die while you work on other targets with Holy Notes in the meantime.
Hymn of Hope (Not Symbol, change it back) can also stay because its raid and PvP utility is interesting and works collaboratively with other healers and DPS. A good singer should strengthen and work off those around them, right? It works thematically with this Bard theming we’ve got going on. Plus, having to drop it isn’t nearly as painful as having to quit Divine Hymn early. Speaking of which.
The first thing to change is Divine Hymn itself! Sure, on paper it feels very Holyish and it’s certainly quite powerful but ask any Holy Priest what its main flaw is and they won’t hesitate to tell you. You can’t move and nothing is stopping it from being interrupted from an interrupt, a knockback, a stun, or a pull, etc. There are so many instances I can think of where I wanted to press it so badly but I knew it would do more harm than good. Added that it’s often a dead button for me if I ever decide to try using Holy for PvP since in the rare event that I’m not being trained or chain CC’d, it’s so AOE-focused that it often isn’t strong enough to help anyone outside of a Battleground from behind a rock. It requires a PvP talent to make it more worthwhile which is very seldomly picked anyway.
I had a thought after playing Discipline for a while and having Ultimate Penitence available to me. It’s an incredibly fun spell that does a boatload of healing and/or damage while making you immune to CC effects and giving you a huge absorb shield to delay damage to yourself. It’s balanced by having a long cooldown that you can reduce but only by talenting into the following nodes in the tree.
I can’t be the only one who’s noticed that Divine Hymn is basically Ultimate Penitence but drastically weakened and less cool looking to boot.
My idea was to give it the same ‘un-crowd-controllable’ effect as Ultimate Penitence and make it do generally increased healing instead of a stacking effect to increase further healing afterward. The new ‘gimmick’ of it would either be that it would either expel enemies from within a certain radius once, like Anduin’s big bubble of light from the cinematic, or gently push enemies back from the priest as the center point. This would not completely negate adds or an enemy player’s walking speed having any forward momentum, but it would definitely aid in players trying to kite adds when they’re dying or from enemy players in PvP where that little extra distance would make the difference, and would also reward the priests choice in a central location. You could inadvertently push enemies INTO players, after all.
To top all of this off, I would prefer to have this ability further down in the tree to make it feel a bit more impactful of a choice rather than ‘almost’ mandatory’ where it is smack bang in the middle. A lot of spells in talent trees that are sat dead center in the tree feel like they're meant to be picked and I feel like Guardian Spirit should be where Divine Hymn is at the moment, not as close to the level 10 talents as it is currently. For example, Soul Swap for Affliction Warlocks, Invoke Yu’lon/Chi’ji for Mistweaver, Dancing Rune Weapon for Blood Death Knights, and Pillar of Frost for Frost Death Knights. I could go on but the list is pretty exhaustive.
Another thing I would like to change is very synonymous with Holy Priests but something that I think, overall, doesn’t see as much use as we’d like. Primarily because it relies on the priest dying.
Spirit of Redemption is a cool spell, the problem is that unless you take the capstone talent to make you revive afterward or you take the PVP talent to make it into a cooldown in PvP, you don’t really ‘want’ to trigger its activation requirements or have a reliable way of doing so in PvE when you want its effects. I do enjoy that now it allows you to resurrect an ally if you die so someone else can continue the fight but it’s more of a consolation prize or at worst, a reward for bad skill expression. It is also basically a required talent in Solo Shuffle as, if the priest dies, your teammates have 15 seconds to get a kill of their own to win the match or you take the PvP talent as a way more powerful cooldown.
What I would like to do is make the Spirit of Redemption a bigger cooldown spell but give it an obscenely long cooldown so you cannot feasibly use it more than once per fight. Like the Holy Word: Salvation spell without the possibility of cooldown reduction. Because you are losing it upon death, the gimmick here would be that it would last the full 15 seconds, you don’t use mana while casting and you can resurrect a party member instantly in that form(Outside of PvP). This would make the spell more central to the spec rather than as an add-on, free up a PvP talent choice node, and make the battle resurrection more readily available rather than having to wait for your death to use it.
Another such spell we could make SO much more interesting is Divine Star. The one people don’t like taking because who the hell doesn’t WANT to take Halo, right? Whether it’s effective in whatever format you’re playing in, it’s much more visually interesting and it just FEELS powerful, y’know?
Now to fix this, I’m going to do none of the work and instead do what Blizzard should have done by taking an idea from their own IP…Anduin’s Divine Star in Heroes of the Storm!
Yeah, I know they’ve stopped doing anything with HoTS but still…
In HoTS, it has had a bunch of effects over its tenure depending on the talents you take and most of them would make the spell more interesting in WoW. Maybe when it comes back to the priest, it could explode and heal party members or deal damage as Shadow near the priest since you’re already in close range due to the nature of the spell. Maybe it doesn’t even buff up the healing of the actual spell itself and instead interacts with your other heals by producing a stacking buff per enemy/ally you hit that increases the power of your next Flash Heal or Mind Blast?
We can also improve the lackluster mobility of the Holy Priest outside of always picking Angelic Feather by giving them the reverse Leap of Faith Glyph back as a choice node between the normal Leap of Faith.
The ability to jump to your allies was a worthwhile drawback to not being able to troll people as hard with the Leap of Faith ability when Glyphs were a thing and frankly, I miss it. I find that sometimes I’d rather be able to jump into the fray, especially as a class with an AoE fear effect, and the regular leap of faith doesn’t reward that playstyle as much. I remember back in Shadowlands that having Door of Shadows to jump in, disorient them with the covenant effect, and then Psychic Scream before running back out was actually really interesting and it’s one of the only things I miss from that expansion.
In terms of a new name instead of being a glyph, our new ability “Light Transposition“ will cause you to fly to your friend’s location just like old times. Stick it on a choice node with Leap of Faith and you have two differing playstyles almost immediately.
Now a major problem all healers have to contend with, especially to compete with the Meta of Discipline Priests and Holy Paladins, is providing some level of damage.
Not gonna lie, this is where I’m not sure about this idea since I already don’t ‘love’ the idea of healer’s DPSing and having to work around the base spells of the class now that they’ve been reintroduced has made this a little clunky so I’d love some other suggestions for this part. I’d prefer that healers offered utility that DPS do not have access to rather than extra damage but that seems to be the direction Blizzard is rolling in. Frankly, at the moment, Smite and Holy Fire interact with very little of the Holy toolkit outside of Chastise and Empyreal Blaze and we also have Shadow Word: Pain and Mind Blast. I fear that they will all just be tacked on to the toolbar with no thought and we’ll just have this myriad of spells to randomly fire off when we’re bored.
Personally, as a basic idea, I would consider removing Holy Fire as a button as, in the theme of removing bloat that War Within seems to be addressing, I think having Holy Fire as an add-on effect in the same way as the Monk’s Chi Wave is being remade would be ideal. It could function in the same way as Holy Note in that every three casts of smite would bring down a blast of Holy Fire which would give way to being justified in making Holy Fire feel a bit more impactful. Mind Blast could be used within this to ‘erupt’ the Holy Fire DoT, causing an effect I think I’d like to call “Discordant Notes” on account of mixing the void with the light which would either do additional damage or perhaps cause an extra effect like a slow or AoE damage around the target.
With this in mind, Empyreal Blaze could remain as a talent and cause Smite to proc Holy Fire two additional times when it next triggers its chord effect. Shadow Word: Pain would likely exist as just an extra DoT you can throw on as it is now or it could be applied through Mind Blast to clear up more bar space.
Anyway, those are just some thoughts I’ve had. I’m sure there are flaws in them and I’m looking forward to hearing them but I hope you found them fun to theorise around!

this is my first time posting on reddit, im looking for any kind of advice or input. i (17F) have been with my boyfriend (19M) for almost six months now, our anniversary is in 2 days. this is my first relationship and his second relationship, we’ve had problems since we started dating, we’ve never been in a fight over anything ive done, just gonna be completely real im a very anxious person and a huge perfectionist in every aspect of my life and since this is my first relationship i have been extremely diligent to do everything right, i cant say the same for him. hes hurt me emotionally so many times throughout this relationship, he can often be careless and doesnt consider me, and then doesnt see a problem with that. hes fucked up in so many MAJOR ways that have literally landed me in the hospital, no physical ab*se is happening, but he is still the cause of my reoccurring doctors visits. i wont get into all the ways hes hurt me emotionally and done shit thats fucked me over since this post is intended to be ab my current predicament with him, but i will just say that it gets BAD. hes never cheated on me as far as i know, i believe women should never trust men so im not saying this because i trust his every word, i just genuinely dont think he would have the balls to do something like that, plus i am literally the catch of his life. his friends and mine and just people we are acquainted with often ask me how he pulled me and say to him and i that im way out of his league, my boyfriend says this as well. i dont want to come off as cocky or anything like that at all, i am a very humble person irl, but i just want to paint the picture of our relationship for anyone who can help me out right now. i do know that im very very pretty, patient, caring, generous, kind, understanding, polite, and poised. i grew up with an eating disorder most of my life and never believed my appearance was good enough or held any value, so i made a point to not have a rotten soul, i made a point to really really work on myself on the inside, so that i could fall in love with being alive enough to realize that my appearance was not the most important thing. throughout the years my insecurity faded away and ive gotten to a point in my life where i know who i am, i know that im a truly good person, and i know that im really good looking. ANYWAY sorry for that whole spiel but it will be relevant when i get into whats happening in my relationship at the moment!!!!
my relationship has a lot of really good moments, i can be so real with him, we are always laughing on good days, he can be so kind and caring and chivalrous at times, i feel so safe with him in those times, i believe we have a really genuine connection.
NOW for the current issue… i broke up with him this march (we were only broken up for exactly 24hrs) due to the build up of fucked up shit hes put me through, him following pornstars on insta, liking girls thirst traps, disappearing to LA when i was in the hospital because of him, and the list goes on and on and on. my point is, one of the reasons was him following porn stars and liking that kind of content on social media. we are not an on and off couple, this is the only time we’ve broken up, and the whole 24hrs that we were we quite literally stayed on the phone, throughout the whole evening, night, morning, and his whole work day up until we met up to continue talking ab things in person. i was extremely explicit in the fact that his current behavior was unacceptable, i wasnt going to stand for it, and that i would have a 0 toleration policy for any boundary crossing, fuck ups, or general asshole behavior in the future.
i told him that i had 2 options, i could either follow through with my decision to leave him based on what has actually happened in our relationship, or i could trust him saying that he was going to change and give him a second chance. i am really in love with him and i want him to be a part of my life, as i want to be a part of his, so i chose to stay with him and give him the opportunity to prove to me he could be better, and continue to be a better man from that point forth. things have been really good since i made this choice, hes made a major effort to be better in every aspect, and made positive changes to his own life, he seems happier and seems to have more energy and more of a lust for life since this, and i am so happy to see that. i could go on and on but basically things have just been really amazing.
NOW FOR THE REAL TEA!!!! 2 weeks ago i found out i was pregnant, and had to take the abortion pill a few days after that, he was really amazing throughout the whole process, but its been hard for me nonetheless, the way doctors treated me, having to hide it from my mom, having morning sickness, the hormonal up and downs of it all, the fact that being pregnant is my biggest fear, combined with other stress in my personal life. ive been kinda down lately due to this, it was just a hard thing to go through esp at my age, but ive been making an effort to take care of myself, not slip into depression, and move forward with my life. ive been doing well more recently, but it was just a rough patch for me personally. my cat has also been sick since ab the exact same time i found out i was pregnant, and ive been super stressed ab that and losing sleep taking care of him all night and day, every night and day.
REALREAL TEA TIME. REAL TEA. since my cats not doing well, i decided to hangout with my boyfriend after he got off of work the other day, just to get my mind off of it, get out of the house, and enjoy life for a bit. we ended up having an AMAZING night, like seriously so good, i fell in love with him all over again ab 10 million times that night. at the end of the night we decided to go back to my place and sleepover there. he went to sleep soon after we got home, but i stayed up because i needed to take off my makeup and take a shower. before showering, i decided to go on his phone to send myself cute pictures we had taken and also to take a peak at what hes been up to. things have been so good lately and i wanted to prove to myself that i made the right decision in staying with him. unfortunately things did not go so well. i ended up looking through his phone for a few hrs because i found LOADS of hentai and porn he was looking at on reddit in his history, porn on discord, repeating onlyfans links in his search history (which were dated to the DAY after i found out i was pregnant and would have to have an abortion), i found a group he was in on facebook that consisted entirely of borderline porn, and i found messages he had deleted on facebook of him messaging a girl and asking her to send him nudes and telling her that she was sexy dated to when we first officially got into a committed relationship, his recent searches on reddit were all groups that consist solely of porn, his link history on reddit contained onlyfans links, and there were onlyfans models in his recent searches on insta as well. i was absolutely devastated, i was feeling so many things and wanted to end it right then and there, i decided to take my shower, do skincare and all of that stuff, go to sleep and tell him what i found in the morning. it was like 3am at this point. i finished getting ready for bed around 5:30am and went to my nightstand to plug in my phone, my boyfriend is a super heavy sleeper so i didnt think him waking up was even a possibility, but he woke up and asked me to come cuddle in bed with him, since he was half awake, i knew if i got into bed he’d start cuddling with me, and i could not handle that so id have to push him away, leaving me no choice but to confront him at that time instead of in the morning as i had planned. so i said “hey (bf’s name), do you wanna tell me why you’ve been looking at loads of porn on reddit” he quickly became fully conscious when he realized what was happening. he was still out of it but kind of trying to talk to me and ask me what was happening, i didnt say anything, i grabbed my pillow and a blanket and told him to go back to sleep and that we’d discuss it in the morning, he asked me where i was going and i said to sleep on my couch, then i gave him 2 options, i said he could either leave right then and there, or go back to sleep and we’d talk ab it later in the morning and i would sleep on my couch, but i told him we were not gonna have the convo right then and there. i went downstairs and set up my couch bed, then i was like wait a damn minute why am i the one sleeping on the couch, i came back upstairs and told him that i changed my mind and that he could either leave or sleep on the couch. he never made a decision and we ended up having the whole convo ab everything right then and there, i remained stern and i was clearly angry but i did not raise my voice or throw out insults. at first he tried lying to me and saying it wasnt him and all this other bullshit, but eventually he admitted that he has a porn addiction. i was still extremely upset, i understand that its a common thing in my generation, porn-like content is all over social media and so easy to access, but it still shook me to my core. porn addiction is a real thing but like idk how to deal with this, i am so hurt and feeling so many things, there was SO much of it and it all feels like cheating to me. this is making me question everything ab our intimate life, it makes me feel like it doesnt mean anything to him. idek when and how he has the energy to jerk off because we both have a high sex drive and see each other rly often, so we have LOTS of sex and im never the one to tap out after multiple rounds. its not vanilla either so its not like theres some sort of unfulfilled desire happening, i really do not get it at all, and i am SO unbelievably hurt. i dont know if i can ever move on from this or forgive him, or “help and support and reassure” him as he tries to quit this addiction. it feels like im begging my bf to only have eyes for me. like im support him in his endeavor to stop looking at other naked girls. nothing about it feels right and i dont know what to do. i love him so unbelievably much, but this changes everything, i wish this never happened because i do want to be with him, i just dont know how to, or if i should, now. any and all advice would be appreciated. i am completely undecided on what to do from this point on.

My (29F) husband (40M) wants to sell our family home. What do I do?
Hi Reddit,
I'm in need of some advice regarding my current marital situation and the potential sale of our home. To give you the full picture, I'll start from the beginning. Apologies for the length, but I feel all the details are necessary to understand the context.
I (29F) met my husband (40M) on Tinder four years ago. We dated for about eight months when my family had an opportunity to purchase a property. My then-boyfriend was also looking to be involved in a business deal of that sort, and he was interested in having his name on the property as well. My father supported this, seeing as how my boyfriend was a physician with a good income, and saw this as a way to bring him closer to our family. The opportunity came quickly, and we all signed the contract to purchase the house.
Trouble began shortly after this. My boyfriend requested that only he and I be on the title of the house, removing the rest of my family, as he saw a future with us and envisioned it as our potential family home. My father was very pleased to hear this and supported it, so we obliged. During this time, the property had increased in value, and I requested the other family members be paid off so we could buy out their shares. My boyfriend declined, feeling it was unfair.
To skim over some details, here are the highlights of the construction: My boyfriend paid more for the down payment than we initially realized would be required. Because of this, he paid no further construction costs. The construction proceeded with debt from my family until the construction loans came through. My family paid for the construction, and my father built the house for us without charging for his management services. My father was displeased with my boyfriend’s behavior and required him to pay more money for the construction due to inflation and the COVID shutdown. My boyfriend declined, and my mother and I secretly took out a line of credit to front the construction costs to my father, pretending it was from my boyfriend. Eventually, as we got the construction loans on a rolling basis after meeting construction milestones, my mother’s line of credit was paid off.
During this time, my family and I wondered why my boyfriend had not proposed. I decided that if he hadn't proposed by a certain time, I would leave him. Fortunately, he did propose on Valentine’s Day 2022. By spring of 2022, construction was coming to an end, and it was time for us to settle into the house. My fiancé felt uncomfortable with how much money he had put into the house and was worried I could leave him and make a profit. I promised him I wouldn’t leave him, but it wasn’t enough. He said he would believe me if I had a child with him, otherwise women would leave men if there were no ties. I told him I would have a child with him right when we got married. He suggested I come off birth control, as it takes months for a woman’s cycle to normalize after being on birth control for many years. I promised him I would come off birth control.
Coming off birth control was more stressful than I realized. I was very hormonal, breaking out, and felt unlike myself. This contributed to my fiancé and I fighting more than usual. In one particularly heated fight, I told him I would go back on birth control and even purchased the pills, but he told me he would break up with me if I did because he wanted to get to know the real me. I conceded, and then something switched in me and I became excited at the possibility of having a baby. I started tracking my cycle and figuring out my ovulation days. I shared this with my fiancé, and on one of those days, we got pregnant. I didn’t find out until the end of summer 2022. When I did find out, I told my fiancé and suggested we should probably get married.
My fiancé's first response was that we should wait to see if the baby sticks, and if it does, then we can plan a marriage but he wanted to wait until February 2023. I was very disappointed and angry and yelled at him. I felt alone and overwhelmed by the thought of having an illegitimate child. After discussing potentially getting an abortion, potentially breaking up, and potentially selling the house, I talked my fiancé into keeping the baby and getting married. He also wanted to keep the baby but was afraid of our situation. After many fights about when to have the wedding, we finally decided on December 2022. At that point, I was four months pregnant. During this time, my fiancé and I had major arguments that therapy couldn’t even remedy. We would yell at each other, slam doors, I would cry, and he would hold himself up in a room for hours. We had nice moments too, but they were heavily clouded over by the bad.
Finally, we got married, and things were good for a while. But then we faced some marital problems. My husband kept separate accounts and managed the finances himself. We had a joint credit card where I could pay for expenses without being questioned. He made all of the major investment decisions and major purchases. If I tried to disagree or speak up, he would get upset because this was not the submissive wife I had promised him I would be. I made significantly less money than him but lived a good lifestyle, buying almost anything I wanted within reason. Coming from a traditional family, I was upset that finances were kept separate. And so it continued that my husband would invest tens of thousands of dollars into our house so that his family from out of town would visit. We live in Vancouver, Canada, but his family is from Ottawa. In hopes of luring his youngest sister (of four) to Vancouver, my husband would make any modification to the house that his youngest sister showed the slightest interest in. This included a hot tub on the rooftop, a media system in the basement, a movie projector, and much more. After said sister got married, she made it clear that she would not move to Vancouver. Then a switch happened in my husband, and he suddenly wanted to sell the house.
Meanwhile, during all this time, I had my baby, and my husband and I were still fighting more than ever. I felt no support from him, and he felt drained by his work, our fights, and being away from his family. Recently, for the past three months, he has been consistently pushing for the sale of our house. This is where my dilemma lies. I am afraid to sell this house because my husband has kept finances separate, and the mortgage on this house has been serving as a way for me to feel secure. My husband contributes a monthly amount on a regular basis. He could have forced a sale in the past but didn’t, instead paying into the monthly mortgage on top of other bills. Now, he is considering forcing the sale of our house, but I am upset that he is citing financing as the issue when I have been begging him to save money instead of spending (his response is that $200,000 does not affect a $2M mortgage, and that he now feels burnt out and wants to retire sooner and live passively). If I agree to sell, I feel unstable about moving from our home given that my husband and I fight so frequently, and I am left alone to take care of the child. It is also worth noting that my parents live right across the street and come over frequently to help with the child, or I would go over to seek their help. My husband says that he feels abandoned and uncomfortable frequently because of our proximity to my parents, but I feel it’s only been helpful because there have been times when I felt truly alone, and my parents were my only solace and support. My husband would ignore me for days, especially when I was postpartum and vulnerable. My parents now see my husband as someone who doesn’t put his wife and child first. My husband says that the massive mortgage we have is too stressful for him, and he can’t take that burden. I am sad that my husband will not consider keeping this house for another three years so that I can get comfortable with the idea of selling the house and that potentially I and my family can all move to Ottawa so that we can allow my husband to be closer to his family. My husband says that he’s tired of the mortgage and feeling forced to work and missing out on spending time with our daughter (his job is very high stress).
I don’t know what to do at this point, Reddit. I’m currently on extended maternity leave, but it ends in six months. My husband and I will have to come to an agreement about the house, otherwise, it is likely that he will force the sale of the house even if I’m not ready to move. I’ve consistently felt rushed and overlooked in this relationship. I am tired of being the small voice that does not impact decision-making. My husband is now being nice to me and trying to show me a good time, but I see it as him turning on his charming mode so that I can say yes to the sale of this house. I’m not sure what to do. Our fights and disagreements are so bad and the marriage feels like doom sometimes (never any physical violence). I sometimes questions even staying with him, but I worry for my daughter. I’m afraid of her being an only child of divorce; I imagine it’ll be lonely and emotionally traumatizing. He is a good father to her, even though he is cold (but civil) with me.
Any advice would be greatly appreciated.
TL;DR:
I need advice. I met my husband four years ago, and we bought a house together with my family's help. Financial disputes caused issues. Despite getting married and having a baby, we fight often. My husband handles our finances separately, spent a lot on the house, but now wants to sell it. I feel insecure about selling because the mortgage is like an investment to me, and also I rely on my parents, who live nearby, for help with our child. My husband feels stressed by the mortgage and feels homesick for his family 3000km away. I feel overlooked in decision-making and am unsure whether to agree to the sale, or to stand my ground and not sell. Sometimes I question staying in the marriage for my daughter’s sake, or is it better give up on this unhappy marriage.

I'm sitting in my nice apartment in the favorite city with my handsome boyfriend and my cuddly cat, crying. I can't find a job and I'm scared. It feels like I am washing away my achievements with every tear that runs down my face. I can't see beyond this hurdle to the beautiful life around me, but I refuse to relax until I get that offer letter. Maybe I'm acting entitled, but I can't help but fearfully imagine that without a job, this life in front of me could be taken away. I know I am not alone but that doesn't give me camaraderie, rather sheer hopelessness and panic. Shouldn't a job be more of a right than a privilege?
I am on a ride with the universe. Every 10 days or so, I feel a spark of hope with an enlightened new venture that could pan out. A dream job posting, a new email from a recruiter, a LinkedIn notification, a friend who knows someone. Often it's just a grand promise of an opportunity from yet another charlatan that I always fall heavily for. The bottom feels endless, with hundreds of applications rotting in some forgotten inbox. Currently left unread by my last application spree, resources tapped out, zero opportunities on the horizon paired with a rolling wave of bad surprises. New charges, prices rising, emergencies, taxes, rent, health, bills. Normal stuff I could handle if I had a job! It just all feels so heavy and I have no foundation to hold it up anymore.
Every night, I battle with myself to try and fall asleep. Pills, vitamins, tinctures, teas, meditations, exercises, ASMR, cooking videos, anything. Now it's just a mixture of it all along with trying to soothe my nerves enough to trick my brain that it's tired and needs to stop chattering. Once I finally get to sleep, I usually startle awake around 3:30, scared out of my wits, my nerves are on fire and I am visualizing something in the room with me that is somehow evil and staring at me. I try to calm myself down with a bathroom trip, a prayer, and eventually more phone time feeling the side of my face burning from fear, my stomach tossing in knots. I lay still in the light of my phone while I try not to let the feeling that something is going to pop out and grab me. Too scared to have my feet feel the air outside of the covers so I don’t get dragged by whatever evil thing is at the foot of my bed or watching me from the walls.
This started during the pandemic. I was so stressed out I started having hallucinatory night terrors. It resumes itself whenever I am stressed. My body turns on me at times when I need peace, startling me awake for fear of a dark shadow demon with long fingers near the window or a spindly witch with ear-to-ear pointed teeth at the top of my wardrobe. Objects and reflections transform into evil entities that startle me awake in fear. My body is in fight or flight mode, my neck is tingling, all the hairs on my body are standing to attention and I feel every muscle in my body tense. I can't wake anyone up because I am frozen within my terror. The most I can do is ignore it and run towards the real evil, my phone. A pacifier for anxiety that only feeds my fear more and more every time I use it. I can't stop turning towards it because I would have to sit and stare at the nightmarish demon taking the form of the curtains on my window that night. The demon always seems so real when it approaches me, when it wakes me up to watch me suffer.
I know my night terrors are just a symptom of a bigger issue, my stress. I also know they are genetic. My dad would wake up screaming in the night and my mom would flip the lights on to snap him out of it. My brother would take different forms of his night terrors often sitting in front of the TV in his usual spot when we were younger. Now his wife describes him waking her up in the middle of the night by removing her "live laugh love" decor and putting it in the garage. I wish my night terrors would just let me redecorate. I am in an impossible position, my stress is causing my night terrors, but my money problems are causing me stress. So essentially, the demon in the corner of the room is a figment of my bank account, my rejected applications, my dead-end wishes for a career, my student loan debt, and astronomical rent. How can I, an unemployed and overly anxious person, finally crush this demon? Well, I've bought some sage today. That's a start.
In my dream apartment with my boyfriend and my cat, I find myself in tears, scared, and jobless. Each tear feels like an erasure of my achievements. I’m terrified of losing everything without a job. I feel alone and panicked. Despite the occasional flicker of hope with a potential opportunity, the reality is hundreds of untouched applications and a constant wave of financial difficulties.
Sleep is a struggle, with anxiety-induced insomnia and night terrors. Each night, I wake up in fear, hallucinating terrifying entities. These terrors, a manifestation of stress, are inherited. My father and brother experienced similar episodes. Now, my stress and financial woes fuel these night terrors. I’m caught in a vicious cycle - stress causing night terrors and financial troubles causing stress. How can I, unemployed and anxious, overcome this? I've started by buying some sage.

First things first, by all classification, Reg is a cyborg. He has a mechanical body supported by organic processes. His organic processes are very human like and enhanced (like Reg's ability to smell) by artificial means. He sweats, he eats, he gets rid of waste, he's even anatomically correct. But he can also be disassembled and is not impacted by the curse.
The golden city is supposed to be in the 7th layer or connected to it in some way. With what we know, this is the place where the curse would be the strongest. This would make survival difficult if not impossible if you couldn't go up a few meters without getting gooped by the curse.
How would people who settle there deal with it? You can't if you remain human. They could become Hollows through the blessing but that won't work for everyone as someone as to be sacrificed. So they came up with a means to do it artificially. If the interference units were built by the residents of the Golden City, they are advanced enough to build cyborgs.
Bondrewed has a relic that lets you move consciousness between people, the zoaholic, so it's something that can happen within what's already been established.
Plus Lyza claims to have seen a being like Reg near the entrance of the 7th layer. I am not automatically assuming this being WAS Reg, but another resident of the golden city. This resident could be the one that attacked Reg.
So sometime ago, around the settlement of the golden city, in order to combat the curse, the residents transferred their minds or part of their minds into Cyborgs to facilitate traversing the abyss safely. One arm is a go go gadget rope arm that makes it easier to ascend, and the other being a super weapon to fend off beasts..with that fatal flaw of making the user pass out.
The twins (Sherumi and Menae), Hello Abyss encounter are also cyborgs and residents of the golden city. With how they tell Reg that "Your friends will end up like this", the residents of the golden city will try to turn Riko and Nanachi into cyborgs as well. Nanachi isn't necessary but will try to entice her with a more human body.

Hi, ive been on this sub for a couple of days along with some other ones on my browser without having an account just reading thru a lot of posts in hope of getting advice on how to end things, but i havent found a way that doesnt involve gas and cars and unfortunately im in no possesion of either things. So i decided to make a burner account to post this in hope of someone helping me out here.
I’ve been considering getting pills, either oxy, benzos or xanax, and a bottle of vodka, but im not even sure that would take me out. I read a thread about slitting wrists but i dont think i could succeed in going deep enough for me to actually die. But maybe a combination of taking opioids, alcohol and then slitting my arms from elbow height down to my wrists might work?
Im not looking for attention, im not looking for anyone to help me get out the decision ive made, i just want advice from people who are like me and i just want to find a way to do it. Please help.

The Undraftables: Week 6 Update (Going into/during Week 7)
This challenge was initially undertook with the NBA and it was fun, so decided to extend it to MLB as well. The rules are simple: Cannot select any player who has an Average Draft Position (ADP), regardless of how high or low it may be. Even if a player's ADP is 250+, they are off-limits if they have any average draft position. The draft took place on Sunday, April 7th. Admittedly, this was after the start of the season, but my focus had been primarily on the NBA season, leaving me with limited time to prepare for baseball. Nevertheless, managed to squeeze in most of my MLB prep work within a few days/week. This is a standard 12 team head to head category league on yahoo with 6 adds per week. The buy-in was lower than my usual, but not free (inactivity and too easy).
Here was the draft results:

1. (6) Lance McCullers Jr. (HOU - SP)
2. (19) Drew Rasmussen (TB - SP)
3. (30) Dustin May (LAD - SP)
4. (43) Ronel Blanco (HOU - SP,RP)
5. (54) Brady Singer (KC - SP)
6. (67) Paul Blackburn (OAK - SP)
7. (78) Cody Bradford (TEX - SP,RP)
8. (91) Chad Green (TOR - RP)
9. (102) Steven Matz (STL - SP,RP)
10. (115) Tanner Houck (BOS - SP)
11. (126) Tyler Anderson (LAA - SP)
12. (139) Spencer Turnbull (PHI - SP)
13. (150) Connor Joe (PIT - 1B,OF)
14. (163) José Caballero (TB - 2B,SS)
15. (174) Gio Urshela (DET - 1B,3B,SS)
16. (187) Will Brennan (CLE - OF)
17. (198) Jake McCarthy (AZ - OF)
18. (211) Jorge Mateo (BAL - SS)
19. (222) Dairon Blanco (KC - OF)
20. (235) Jacob Young (WSH - OF)
21. (246) Bubba Thompson (CIN - OF)
22. (259) Trevor Williams (WSH - SP)
23. (270) Reese McGuire (BOS - C)

Recent Additions from Last Week and This Week (since last update):

• Taijuan Walker (wins streamer)
• Bryse Wilson (wins streamer)
• Gavin Stone (wins streamer)
• Josh Lowe (1 FAAB)
• Dairon Blanco

Recent Drops This Week and Last Week:

• Sal Frelick (might re add)
• Esteury Ruiz (he just isn't playing or doing anything)
• Taijuan Walker
• Bryse Wilson
• Jameson Taillon (because he missed the start I was worried)

Trades that I performed since my last update:

• No trades for this week.

Current Roster and why I choose to own them:

• C: Luis Campusano (for AVG, sorta Runs?)
• 1B: Yandy Diaz (Runs, AVG)
• 2B: Ahmed Rosario (SB, AVG)
• 3B: Maikel Garcia (SB, Runs, maybe AVG, somehow RBI?)
• SS: Jose Caballero (SB, maybe AVG)
• OF: Jacob Young (AVG, SB, maybe R cuz leadoff?)
• OF: Jose Lowe (AVG, SB, possibly R)
• OF: Jackson Merrill (AVG mostly, mid SB, mid R)
• UTL: Jake McCarthy (AVG, SB)
• UTL: Dairon Blanco (AVG, SB)
• SP: George Kirby (Ace)
• SP: Kevin Gauseman (Ace)
• RP: James McArthur (closer)
• RP: Kirby Yates (closer)
• P: Hector Neris (closer)
• P: Cole Ragans (Ace)
• P: Chris Sale (Ace)
• P: Bobby Miller (Ace, but is hurt)
• Bench: Chris Bassit
• Bench: Erick Fedde (Numbers look elite like in the KBO)
• Bench: Jon Gray (2.36era 1.20whip, sell high operation)
• Bench: Garret Crochet (.99whip, high k rate, may sell high)
• Bench: Gavin Stone (streamer, sell high operation)
• IL: Jacob Degrom (ELITE when healthy)
• IL: Max Scherzer (ELITE when healthy)
• IL: Drew Rasmussen (almost elite when healthy, bit underrated)
• IL: Kodai Senga (almost elite when healthy)

Continue the grind! I made it through yet another week! I would like to talk about last week's matchup: It was a humbling defeat where I lost 3-6. The few categories I won were SB, Saves, K. We tied in wins with 7 for each of us. (Incredibly high amount of wins) My ERA and WHIP were massive because of my "Aces" not performing like it. Kirby, Gauseman and Ragans all did bad. People made a big fuss about me "winning those trades" a few weeks ago, but actually if I had Lugo and some of those other names I would have won this week.... Still long term I should be just fine. Oh McArthur also inflated my ratios. Walker was useful to help me with those wins. RP Neris somehow got 2 of them? Fedde continues to shine just like his KBO numbers and I'm much higher on him than most others are. On offense I barely got enough SB actually. Then really did NOT hit for high average. The two standouts were Yandy Diaz and Campusano! Ruiz was a terrible add and recently cut him. He hasn't played in 5 games. Time to shake this loss off and focus on the future.
No trades to report on this week. I was slightly less active trading and sending offers out this past week than I usually am. I still intend on selling high on Jon Gray and possibly Crochet (cuz innings limits concerns), and my streamer who just had an awesome start TUES Gavin Stone. Three for 1 package deal of course. I will be going after those buy low SP. I have no issues holding onto Jon Gray or Crochet either.
My matchup for this current week features an opponent who has only 22sb on the season compared to my 39. They only have hit for .243 average compared to my .251 so I feel pretty confident I can win at least those 2 offensive categories. Since we are two days in I'm actually ahead in runs at this moment too, however I doubt that will last since they are 4th in overall runs on the season. For pitching I'm absolutely dominant in the season stats. I am the LEADER in every single category. Pretty awesome considering the way I started at the draft! (It helps that players I took were absolutely incredible to start the year and I have streamed in many strong names). A deeper look on the pitching though they have 7 starts remaining vs my 5. I'm severely ahead thus far though with 4 wins, 26k, 0.94era, 0.70whip. So I absolutely have no real need to stream more SP. This is the manager that I traded some of my former SP like Tanner Houck, Seth Lugo, Jordan Hicks and Spencer Turnbull. They only have 2 closers compared to my 3 so I like my odds there too. I do predict a likely 7-3 victory for me this week.
In terms of the moves I have made already this week and my future moves this week: I secured a real nice speed and contact hitter in Josh Lowe! Feels like he will fit it on my squad perfectly! And it gets rid of my weakest hitter Ruiz. When I added in Dairon Blanco it's purely a speed play really. He may still be replaceable if this weekly matchup is close in runs and I need them later in week. Sal Frelick is an option to re add as well as other leadoff hitters across the majors. (Frelick hasn't been batting leadoff) I'm glad I held the line on Fedde and Crochet. I almost was going to drop them to stream in more starting pitchers. Late in the week I knew it was close in wins and I had no chance to win the ratios so I streamed in a few extra SP and cut Taillon. I certainly could have tried harder to "sell high" on him. Gavin Stone is fine on my roster, but I may actually add a pitcher with higher upside to both dangle in trades and/or just keep on team. I been in talks to obtain Jarren Duran or Brice Turang (both owned by the same manager) so that might be something that happens for the next update!
Bit of strategy talk here regarding my team build. The goal of a punt power build is to win 2 offensive categories (Ideally 3 eventually, R, AVG, SB) and win 4-5 pitching categories. (If you are able to obtain closers you have upside to win 5 pitching cats, if you punt saves then your upside is 4 and you would be more consistently likely to win WINS and K categories) I technically currently have the upside to win all 5 pitching and 2 hitting categories. (If I gain runs value I would even have maximum upside of 8 categories! 5+3=8) Remember that in category leagues you ONLY NEED TO WIN 6 categories folks! This is the benefit of punting! (And technically in h2h playoffs you can have a tie 5-5 and still advance to next round due to season standings and matchup ranking!) I think punting gives you less variance than other builds? Or maybe this less variance is just from having high AVG contact hitters? Discuss? (Could be an ongoing discussion throughout the season)
There is an interesting topic to bring up regarding trading for hitters who fit the "punt power" type of team build. I think buying low on Kwan and Trea Turner now become viable possibilities for my team and other punt power teams that may exist out there! If you have any other names that could be buy low, I'm all ears. Remember to always keep an eye out for prospects coming up who have the skills that you want/need! Sometimes you can trade away your current assets that you have for upgrades at weak positions on your team and then fill those holes of the guys you traded away with prospects who are coming up soon or have already come up. (Or a hot waiver wire bat that will fill in temporarily) In this way you become a team with "less weaknesses" (Of course that advice can apply to all sorts of type of team builds in head to head category leagues). What this means for this Undraftables team is I may be able to flip my pitching assets for hitting upgrades that give the full trifecta of RUNS, AVG, SB. (Corbin Caroll firmly on my future radar) Maybe I should already be sending feelers, hmmm...
Overall, continue to be quite happy with my team's performance and strategy, (despite last week's loss). As mentioned my goal is to win by a score of 6-4 or tie 5-5, but eventually will have upside to win 7-3 or even 8-2. I'm willing to make adjustments for each week and consider player recommendations to achieve that goal. So far, this has gone better than I expected (whereas this was tougher in the NBA)! One of the bigger takeaways you can glean from this strategy is that there are numerous ways to win a category league. I have won with punt power strategy for 3-4 years now so for me it is "proven winner". (Notate that this punt power strategy has NOT been tested in Roto YET. I plan to test that next year. Is this the best way to "punt power"? No, remember this was an "extra challenge" that I set forth upon myself.) You really don't have to go "Undraftables" (hard mode) like I have! A big takeway is that having superstars (or stars) undeniably will help a build like this do even better (Ronald Acuna, Elly De La Cruz, Witt, Corbin Carroll, etc), but you don't necessarily "need" those superstars. Instead you just need to have the right build or combination of players and a focus on your matchups. (In fantasy and MLB) There are various "useful" players with skill sets that are still worthy. You don't always need "The best player" in everything. (At least NOT IN A CATEGORY LEAGUE) If you have suffered severe injuries to some power hitters (like Trout, Casas, Royce Lewis, Josh Jung) you could transition and/or trade into a "punt power build" to try it out? (Or that could be something you consider further down the road in the season too) If you need help on how to do it, I'm your guy!
I'll provide weekly updates on the team's progress, so let me know if you'd like to follow along or have any suggestions! Thoughts on the team? If you want the previous updates on the team with "How I ended up here" and each week breakdown you can find them in a FB group or I can send them to you in a message. (I wasn't able to post early in season because I changed reddit profiles (hated my username) from last year which had bunches of karma!) (Can't post if you don't have enough karma) Additionally, I'm recruiting for next year, (although this is NOT the central goal of this post) where this unique drafting strategy will be the league's standard for each owner.

Ever since i've been a child i've had these dreams about a man, its like im awake but dont realise i aint awake?? first dream i had was when i was 7-8. i was in my childhood room, keep in mind i cannot sleep for the life of me, and at that time i didnt have sleeping pills. so i was doing my normal playing with plushies late night game. my room was on the second floor and i lived in a small town, my house was ontop of a mountian with a big forest right outside my window. but a small road just before it. as i looked out it was raining, the small light coming from the street light but it was flickering cuz it was old, i watched the rain drop but got an uneasy feeling as i looked further into the forest i saw him, he was a man, tall, strong but not too strong to it being his only feature. he looked like a normal man. his left hand had an axe. and i started to sweat as he walked slowly towards my house. stopping under the dim light. then up the driveway, then watched me like i watched him. he threw the axe at my window, and i must've woken up, but i didnt realize i was dreaming it, so i fell off my bed and ran to my parents room yelling at them that 'hes here' and call the cops. i still to this day dont remember it being a dream.
as some time went by, i didnt sleep at all. but only night i fell asleep, but woke up to an uneasy feeling like the first dream. then i heard it, our doorbell. i somehow didnt get scared and just walked downstairs, knowing he was there. i opened our door, and walked out. it was propally in the middle of the night cuz it was fully dark. i started to walk towards the forest. knowing he was there. my ma stopped me. asking the hell i was doing. i straight up told her 'hes here' but then realised what i was doing. keep in mind, i was too scared as a kid to even leave my bed at night. i still dont get how i just walked out of the house without sobbing.
my dreams slowed down. i felt uneasy sometimes but kept telling myself it was a dream and i was okay, even tho i was actually awake. it fully went away in some years, moslty cuz i never slept. but when i moved to a diffrent place he came back. first one after a while was while i was babysitting this dog for two weeks, he had been there for a week atleast at that point. i woke up and went upstairs, sitting on the arm rest on my sofa and scratching the austrelian sheperds ears. he was pretty big so he was perfect height for it, but then he got a freaked out face on. like he knew someone was there but didnt dare to look. i was confused and got the uneasy feeling again, i looked over at this corner, as i look down i saw two shoes. and i know for a fact no one was home cuz it was summer break and everyone in my fam was at work. i didnt say a word, my breath stopped as i saw the shoes move a bit. then i woke up, with a full on panic attack. it felt so real.
some days later i dreamt another dream. it felt so real, i was doing my morning rutine, but when i came to the living room which is upstairs. i saw my whole family, mom, dad, and my big brother. they were towering over something on the floor. it was an dark aura around it as i kept asking them why there were home and not at work. but they had the same as the dog in the other dream had. i looked more down. the shoes were at the floor with some jakcet over them. but then somone started to crawl out of it, hands gripping the floor as it came to life. and i woke up.
after that he kept coming. one dream i had was while i was sleeping at my aunts in my childhood city. i dreamt like i was walking back to my old house, going to check it out. but when i came there, all the windows, door and carage was fully open and fully dark inside. all our stuff was thrown out of the house laying at the drive way. i went up and kncoked on the wall next to the open door. no one came so i turned around going to leave. but when i turned around someone grabbed me, dragging me inside the dark empty house. i looked down as it happened and then i saw it again, those shoes.
im starting to lose track on what happens after what, but i remeber always feeling awake as it happens, to the point i dont know if im awake or dreaming anymore. ive had plenty of dreams of just living and then seeing him stareing. then waking up. i wont name them all but imma name the worst ones.
still during the summer i was laying in my bed, my room is very small, and my window is next to my bed, but i got curtains over the window to block the sun light, i was watching tiktok as i layd there, but then i got that uneasy feeling again, i looked to my door, and the light in the hallway made it easy to see two shoes blocking the light. i sat more up, grabbing some scissors i had next to my bed on my desk. as i sat started to sit even more up i heard knocking on my window, i fully turned my eyes there, and it was a gap just with the curtians enough to see some of the window, and there he was sititng, leaning down to meet my gaze. same shoes as always. i woke up in a panic. i didnt even know if i was awake or not. but i looked towards my window, and it was a gap with my curtians, its never a gap there cuz its creepy.
Another dream i had was that me and my family was at this place, my pa was sunbathing and i was chilling inside. its like a hotell. i kept going out to check on my dad as it started to get dark and i got an uneasy feeling. i knew something would happen. as i went out again, i found my dad laying on his sunchair, only that his limbs had been awfully ripped off. just where is knees started his leg stopped, just where his elbow started his arm stopped. and he had that look on his face like in the others dreams whenever someone saw him. i ran inside agsin and got met by his gaze as i woke up in panic. i ran to my parents room as they were dead asleep. but i needed to check if it was real cuz it felt so real.
im seeing that im writing a lot so imma just hurry up with the newest ones.
one dream i was back at my childhood home, i was with my two friends from there as we were playing in some tunnels made from WW2. me and my friend was supposed to find our other friend cuz he ran away somewhere. but as we looked she also dissepeared. i looked around. i saw some stairs, i know exaclty where i am and is 100& i was there, the stairs leads you to the dakrest point of the tunnel, its like your eyes are closed cuz its fully dark, as i went down i stood still for a second trying to hear them. but only thing i heard was the mans heavy breathing. in every damn dream he has this heavy breathing. i woke up with a scream as i dreamt that.
this is the newest one, only last week i dreamt of him again.
i was biking to my nearest shop for a drink, as i went back my bike had stopped cuz something happened with it, it does that sometimes. so i walked instead. it was fully dark outside and raning just so slightly. but as i looked forward in the small street, i saw him walking towards me. his head slighty turned to his side like hes watching me. with a knife in his left hand. i woke up with my breath knocked out of me, i went out again with a friend, we were getting some snacks to watch a movie, it was late, so it was dark. she sat behind me on my bike as we biked the same way i did in my dream. i got like a deja vu from my dream. but i was awake for sure, cuz i had already dreamt. but then i saw him again. the sight made me crash the bike into a small hole. she fell off as well did i. i quickly sat up a bit and went to help her sit up from the fall. but then as i was helping her i felt that uneasy feeling. but i didnt turn. her face went like everyones face whenever they see him. i didnt have time to turn. the knife he held in the other dream went straight into her collarbones. i turned around in fear only to be met by him sitting close to me, watching me with a damn mask on, the mask is fully black wiht a white lines a cross of it with some 2-3 other small lines over it. i had, had a double dream. it felt so unreal. and i never know if im awake anymore.
i went to a therapist for it one time cuz i hadnt slept for two week straight, and my parents got worried, and they tried to sign me up for pills. but i told them i was getitng better cuz i didnt wanna take pills and get worse.
PS. one dream i had was that i was in school, i had a morning rutine. getting ready, biking down there, sititng in fucking math class, learning math!! but then i got an uneasy feeling as i saw him just stand next to the door to the classroom watching me. that was an annoying dream cuz when i woke up i actually had to do it all over again.
but he seems to alwyas hurt people i know but never seems to hurt me, just stare, watching or some touches. ive had one dream where he shot my two best childhood friends in my old woods at where i used to live. it felt so real, i saw their pain as i hid behind a rock, as he just shot them with a hunting gun. and while they're brains were dripping everywhere he just stared at me and walked closer till i wake up.
i srs dont know what is happening, its creepy and idk if im dreaming or awake anymore. i be hanging with friends but get the uneasy feeling and just run off. into the woods or hide or legit start to sob.

Me :
Tall, average looking, fair, medium built, fit but not skinny
Not settled in career but have enough to support basic living expenses,
Never been in a relationship before and Childfree. Believer in DINK or SINK lifestyle.
can relocate/move to your city.
honest, truthful, straightforward,
Mostly introvert but extrovert in some situations with some personalities. INTP or ENTP perhaps. It also gets affected by how positive my psychological state is.
doesn't drink or smoke
Hobbies : I like thriller movies, reading, anything logical like solving problems, programming, chess, playing soccer, cricket, badminton, cooking. I also like to volunteer as a virtual therapist (unqualified). Since helping people makes me feel good about myself. I wish I could do more for the country as a politician or social worker but I don't have any good qualifications or resources for that.
You :
It's alright if you drink or smoke. I understand any addictions are not easy to get rid of.
You can be in any profession or unemployed. I am not controlling about what you chose to do with your life. However, I believe in self improvement and consistent growth.
If you have mental health issues, depression etc, I will try to be supportive and empathetic.
Where you live doesn't matter. (even outside India is acceptable). But you should put effort into communicating to make LDR work since long distance can be tough.
Physical attraction is essential for relationship, so let's exchange pics after we talk for a few days.
FOOTNOTE :
I want to be upfront about my flaws and shortcomings to save your time. I understand everyone has requirements in a partner they look for.

So this whole thing might sound silly but hear me out please.
Im a 5’9” tall girl and have faced the usual tall-person problems throughout life. I know its not tall per se by international standards but seeing girls my height or above is like spotting a rare animal in the wild. The usual comments from aunties, while growing up, was “kitni lambi horahi hai, shaadi nahi hogi tumhari aise”
“Tumhare paer kitne bade hai, ladko jaise”
The boys I had a crush on were uncomfortable being with me because they were insecure of being the same height. All this may have contributed in my fear of not being “feminine enough”.
Just for context- Im usually considered attractive by people around me and Im married to a wonderful guy (who is the same height), who thinks I look great too. Technically I should be happy with all this. But maybe the years of teasing gets to me.I have a tough personality so it may seem to others that I dont need much caring. Also my parents were very against me marrying a guy of my height “because I looked bigger and more mature than the guy”.
I look at my husband sometimes and wonder “would he have looked better with a small petite girl?” “Do I look weird sitting on his lap and not fitting in it snugly?”
If you are a guy whos with a girl of the same height, I’d love to know what you think of the girl not being the archetypal “short and cute” that men feel protective towards.
A funny incident- I was once stuck in a bad local train rush during the rains. It was getting impossible to get down at the station and the ladies were pushing and fighting. When my short friend who was getting suffocated, started crying, the ladies felt bad and let her get down at her station. When mine came and I asked, they continued to elbow my ribs and said “you are tall, you’ll manage”. It was partially true lol but I was also in pain and scared (I was 16 then).
Whenever I see posts of men being angry that girls want only tall guys, I wonder if they realize their own prejudices/preferences too. I’ve accepted that tall men prefer short girls in general. Might be an evolutionary thing. I focused my attention towards the men who find my height attractive. But I wish I can get rid of this insecure voice that makes me question if my husband will ever want to “protect me”. I may look Amazonian but I am just a lil girl when I’m around him who wants to be cared for.🥹

I hate my life, I wish someone loved me. Not pretend to love me. Or only when it’s convenient.
I am alone and I blame everyone else for it, yet it’s my fault.
I am alone because I have no girlfriend nor friends. I have a great family yet it isn’t enough. I value them, but my thoughts and experiences grow worse over time. It isn’t enough. I need another type of love.
I am alone and I feel alone all the time. The only reason I don’t feel alone is because of school and a job I barely work. I have a lot of ‘friends’ who think they are there for me, but aren’t. They pretend to be and only talk to me when they need something. An example, I was friends with a girl for one year and we were talk a lot we flirted and then she ghosted me and then she got a boyfriend and all of a sudden she turned out like all the others. I wish I had a girlfriend. I am so tired of people saying that. I wish I was good looking. I wish that I had that. Let me tell you something, if every time you met someone and you asked them to hang out and be your best friend/girlfriend and they told you ‘oh sorry, no but you can find it in somebody else’, if everyone tells you that it’s a cycle and you will never ever get it; that’s the issue I’ve had for the past four years. I just want affection. I’m tired of feeling this way.
I reach out in college. At work. Attempt to make friends. I bet whatever solution is to be told, I’ve fucking tried it. Maybe I’m meant to be this way. Wow. That sounded so corny. But it feels the truth. I’ve broken out of my shell and went into it multiple times. I think the longest streak I’ve had being myself and loving life was two years until I was told I wasn’t good looking and would be this way forever, and even if I didn’t let that get to me, in that entire year, I felt alone.
I don’t want to live my life like this. Some days I want to block all the ‘friends’ who say they’re there for me, but they aren’t. I wanna be an asshole but I can’t. I have no friend group. I have no true friends. Nobody ever reaches out to me. Sometimes I want to die. But I don’t mean. 1% out of 99% I do. Other times, I want them to love me and care for me. But I know you can’t force that on someone, so why don’t I just get rid of them first good? Block them. Unfriend them. They pretend to care yet love another and love others. They only care for me because they don’t want my death on their conscious. Honestly, that’s how I feel.
All I want is for someone to love me.
And I’m jealous, envious, and cocky. I used to not be, I’ll admit that. I used to selfless and always care for others and be kind, and then realty I stopped. Two years of me just being a kind man, and getting nothing out of that. See? Look how selfish that sounds.
I was born to live and enjoy life. Not to be other people’s pleaser. To not be your rebound. To not be your convenience friend. To not be someone you can talk to every 6 months when you feel pity for me because you’re the one who made me feel the way I am.
I feel like I know the solution. Suck it up. Cherish what I have. Be the better man. But what if I don’t wanna be? I’ll be left behind and cast out. Or maybe, I’m just rambling. I’ve never been so 50 / 50 split of getting rid of all of those people, telling them the truth (what I say here), or not.
What do I do? Get rid of them? Ignore it all? Be a better person? Suck it up? I truly don’t know. So many things.

So firstly I take this on faith, I know him to be the Truth for reasons that are beyond material explanation but for the doubters show me how this is not evidence. I'm just posting this on my profile due to most subs being controlled, so all you that watch my profile I invite you to give a good explanation to this.
Isaiah 53 1 Who will believe our report? and to whom is the arm of the Lord revealed?
2 But he shall grow up before him as a branch, and as a root out of a dry ground; he hath neither form nor beauty: when we shall see him, there shall be no form that we should desire him.
3 He is despised and rejected of men: he is a man full of sorrows, and hath experience of infirmities: we hid as it were our faces from him: he was despised, and we esteemed him not.
4 Surely, he hath born our infirmities, and carried our sorrows, yet we did judge him as plagued and smitten of God, and humbled.
5 But he was wounded for our transgressions: he was broken for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him, and with his stripes are we healed.
6 All we like sheep have gone astray: we have turned every one to his own way, and the Lord hath laid upon him the iniquity of us all.
7 He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet did he not open his mouth: he is brought as a sheep to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearer is dumb, so he opened not his mouth.
8 He was taken out from prison, and from judgment: and who shall declare his age? for he was cut out of the land of the living: for the transgression of my people was he plagued.
9 And he made his grave with the wicked, and with the rich in his death, though he had done no wickedness, neither was any deceit in his mouth.
10 Yet the Lord would break him and make him subject to infirmities: when he shall make his soul an offering for sin, he shall see his seed and shall prolong his days, and the will of the Lord shall prosper in his hand.
11 He shall see of the travail of his soul, and shall be satisfied; by his knowledge shall my righteous servant justify many: for he shall bear their iniquities.
12 Therefore will I give him a portion with the great, and he shall divide the spoil with the strong, because he hath poured out his soul unto death; and he was counted with the transgressors, and he bare the sin of many, and prayed for the trespassers.

• I assume anyone who reads this has a decent enough knowledge of the Gospels but if not then read them and you will see this is prophecy of Jesus Christ. This is estimated to be written between 740 and 700 BCE and the earliest surviving manuscript was found in the dead sea scrolls written between 140 and 100 BCE. So it is definitely over 100 years before the birth of Christ. Now look at Tacitus' account of who he referred to as Christus.

"But all human efforts, all the lavish gifts of the emperor, and the propitiations of the gods, did not banish the sinister belief that the conflagration was the result of an order. Consequently, to get rid of the report, Nero fastened the guilt and inflicted the most exquisite tortures on a class hated for their abominations, called Christians by the populace. Christus, from whom the name had its origin, suffered the extreme penalty during the reign of Tiberius at the hands of one of our procurators, Pontius Pilatus, and a most mischievous superstition, thus checked for the moment, again broke out not only in Judæa, the first source of the evil, but even in Rome, where all things hideous and shameful from every part of the world find their centre and become popular. Accordingly, an arrest was first made of all who pleaded guilty; then, upon their information, an immense multitude was convicted, not so much of the crime of firing the city, as of hatred against mankind."
"Scholars such as Bruce Chilton, Craig Evans, Paul Eddy and Gregory Boyd agree with John Meier's statement that "Despite some feeble attempts to show that this text is a Christian interpolation in Tacitus, the passage is obviously genuine"."
Show me any evidence this strong for the other 2 so called Abrahamic Religions. You can't and never will yet Christianity receives the most doubt. Why? Because it is not religion, it is the written Truth and the events described in Revelations will occur.

I'm putting fake names... (A lot of the timelines are spread out but they talk about those specific moments, I hope they make since)
I have a friend, I'll call her J. I have known J for almost 9 years. She and I grew up pretty close and we were inseparable. Over the first few years of our friendship she had lost my parents trust from an incident involving a boy, she wasn't allowed to stay over for sleepovers and I practically lost my whole summer that year. I was pretty angry at my parents and blamed things on them. I regret my actions and I did learn but in my mind I thought J was the only person who understood me.
After the whole incident settled down. School started up again and she would jokingly push me into a boy or a locker. She started putting her arm around my neck, trying to choke me. She would continuously punch me or smack me on the head. I honestly got annoyed by it but I acted like it was nothing. She had suddenly became obsessed with TikTok and she posted a whole TikTok about her friends, their was a video of me that stood out. I wasn't wearing a shirt. Which completely made me uncomfortable because I wasn't wearing a shirt and she took the video while I was changing. She didn't take it down. She also would post photos without my consent. Like ones that made me feel ugly or disgusting. And I would tell her how they made me feel. But she would still post them. I started telling her no when she asked for photos and she always would sneak one when I wasn't looking. She doesn't take no for an answer. She will start whining when you don't listen. I used to trust her with my feelings and I would tell her about everything. And now I feel like she knows too much.
This past school year all of my friends (king, J, Joe, Bell) and I went to SDYC. And well when we went J was lying a bunch and starting a bunch of drama and it threw all of my friends off. We all didn't trust J and Joe that well during that time. I felt like the only people I had was my friends King and Bell. Because they both understood how I felt.
After that. King, J, and I had a sleepover. During the middle of the night I was watching a movie and J began to bug me. She started pushing on me saying I was taking up too much room. But honestly I was the one who was sleeping in between two couches there's no way I was taking that much space because I was falling in the crack. She then proceeded to call me a fat roll. I said "no your a fat roll" jokingly. And then she freaks out and she went to tell her boyfriend. It annoyed me because all her boyfriend knows how to do is talk bad. After that sleepover. She started working at the same place as me and I told her about my big crush on this coworker of ours. And so then she decided to start flirting with him in front of me. She would throw something at him jokingly and giggle. I didn't try to think anything of it. But then when we were talking about him the next thing she decided to say was, "your just jealous because he talks to me and not you". The thing is I don't want to talk to him that's why I don't try to talk to him. He has talked to me before, but I rather admire him from afar. He's like 13 years older than me. He was just hot to me at the time.
I'll just say I am lighter than a 5'6 girl. I might have a little bit of belly fat but that's just my body. And I do have an eating disorder. I don't eat enough, I practically starve myself. J honestly made me feel worse and I started having moments where I would basically pass out from no iron in my body. J continued to body shame me even from the amount of food I would eat. She straight up made is feel like she was calling me ugly and fat. It hurt and it made me angry. I told my dad and he said she's just jealous and not to worry about it. I brushed it off but she basically would say something everyday. It got to a point where I was crying all the time.
During my last year of highschool J didn't have a vehicle. So she would ask me to drive her places. I didn't mind because we would be going to the same places. And I started offering to pay for her drink or something. I didn't think much of it in tell I was always taking her places and buying her drinks but she still wanted me to pay her back for stuff when I didn't have much money. She managed to buy a vehicle for a small price by saving up the money she didn't spend. I feel stupid for offering. One day her mom even texted me asking for the small money I "owed" J. But my parents think I don't owe her anything because I have given her most of my money and that she owes me money.
J also does this thing where if you don't give her your attention she'll keep tapping you. Over and over again. Everytime she asks for my attention it's always for something so pointless and stupid. Nothing serious. And everytime I ask for her attention she'll ignore me. She does it a lot. She only wants to have the attention. I stopped telling her about how I feel because all I know is she'll either use it against me or not actually listen and move past it. Like once she asked me how I felt and when I told her that I cried about something she moved on from it into her talking about her crying over some movie she watched.
The way she treated me made me so angry that I texted her boyfriend anonymously asking him to control his girlfriend and get her to be nicer to others. He didn't like the message and told his girl on the spot and J tried to call my fake number. I didn't answer and then she ran to me to tell me the tea. She later assumed it was a boy she was flirting with that she pushed away.
I hate her boyfriend but he deserves better.. because she has talked to another boy behind his back. When I started liking this one boy. I told her about it and then she began to tell me how she met this UK boy and she thinks he's all that. She later found out he was lying about his age and she got back to reality before she lost her in person boyfriend.
She told king I was flirting with this one dude but I wasn't. J told me to add this guy she found on Facebook on snap, I said okay and I called the dude a nickname like a Grandma would call their grandchildren. And I thought it was funny and the guy thought it was chill. I didn't think anything of it and then I blocked him because I didn't want to talk to him. She then decided to add the guy on snap. And she starts talking to him. The amount of times she has lied is crazy. I blocked him but she still has him on snap. For what reason I don't know.
J and Joe and I have recently had a lot of problems with each other. It's always J and Joe fighting and I'm between listening to them both argue about each other. I was getting tired of it. J hit my breaking point when she decided to ask me for my boyfriends sisters snap. You don't just ask your friend for her boyfriends sisters snap. That's weird. She also asked for my boyfriends and she looked him up when I told her no and she added a bunch of dudes with the same name. She didn't find him but there is no way I want her knowing him or his sister. I have too many trust issues with her. She's the main reason why a lot of my relationships didn't work out. They didn't like her and she manipulated me into saying things that upset them. She makes me so uncomfortable. She made me seem lesbian once when I know I'm not. But she made a TikTok about it and a lot of people from my school saw it. I don't like false accusations. I'm pretty sure she used it for clout. But also my parents think she's inlove with me because she can never leave me alone and she always HAS to hold hands or hug.
J doesn't understand a lot of things. And she calls me stupid. I honestly want karma to come get her but that's bad and I don't mean to say that. It hurts a lot.
I had blocked J on everything. But since I worked with J I saw her and she started bawling her eyes out at me saying she did nothing, I felt bad but I was annoyed because she kept bugging me. So I unblocked her. I decided to block her again after because my boyfriend said she was manipulating me. And well the more I had her blocked the nicer she was. After a while Joe did something to make me give up on my friendship with her too and J expected that to be a chance to get me back. And well she did practically. She was a lot nicer and I felt like she changed. But Man was I wrong.. Just today I was working my second night shift. I said something as a joke because I was hoping J would get what I meant. Her boyfriend was on the call... He took everything out of context and said something that made me feel less about myself. I already feel like crap being the person I am. I want to better myself but the more people say things the more I give up. I want to be encouraged not dragged down. I don't know why he has to be so mean. I never did anything to him. I don't know why they both have to be... I listen to her call people ugly all the time. Like just stop. I want her to stop. I'm leaving for the military soon, and she said that I can't get rid of her. That sounds psycho. And it honestly makes me want to get away more. I'm tired of the toxic environment and I want to get away. But she's everywhere. She knows everything about me. She has photos of me I hate. She has so many things she can use against me. I'm honestly scared. I want to block her again but I know she's just going to keep bugging me about it. And she might turn people against me. She's good at talking to people. I'm not I'm an introvert. I don't want her ever find me again once I leave. But I know she might try. People always find a way. And she's creepy. Because I know she'll be able to. But I just want to move on with my life. I don't know how to remove her from my life. What should I do?

Welcome back to a little more MARRIED Mary Mania before I wrap things up with The Abridged Goblinization. I decided that this bit deserved its own chapter. Some of you seem to be entertained by Mary (or at least entertained by your own loathing of her), so I hope this will prove amusing. In my life, I've encountered an inordinate number of low-key lolcows (probably because I was far too patient and far too passive for far too long), so I might as well throw just enough distortion on the page to protect the good guys and the genuinely reformed beards. But I'm also gonna shine a bright, unflattering spotlight on the lolcows, creeps, weirdos, pervs, and BEARDS, both neck and leg.
And I'll very, very cautiously tiptoe over the bit where I do a bunch of mental gymnastics, squint my eyes, tilt my head, and convince myself that dating Whisky might be a welcome change of pace. I have no delusions when I look back on it. This was a dumb move in retrospect, but all the mental gymnastics in the world can't bring me to a reasonable scenario where I was psychic and thus able to predict what he'd become once he stopped pretending to be a gentleman. Nor can the most elite, Olympic-level mental gymnastics execute a double salto layout with a half-twist perfectly enough to force me to concede the "logical point" that I should have spotted warning signs that I'd never freakin' seen before. Okay, that's enough saltiness for today. Don't worry. This chapter mostly focuses on Mary's mania. Whisky's just kind of... there.
So there I was... dating a guy who called when he said he would, remained constant in his affections, never asked for weird stuff in the sack (in fact, we weren't even intimate at that point), and claimed to be a secular humanist who practiced elements of Hinduism (as opposed to conveniently becoming born-again whenever it suited his needs to wallow in shame). And we seemed to have similar enough tastes in media, which made for pleasant movie nights and enjoyable conversations about nerdy stuff. It felt like a step up. It felt safe. At that point in time, I was content.
But here's a shameful admission for ya. My original intention was to make Whisky the "for now guy." I knew I could do better. I was formally educated, I was in shape, I was normatively attractive, and I tended to be successful in both my theatrical and academic endeavors. Plus, I was super friendly and good with people. Whisky was kind of a bump on a log. Sure, he seemed nice. He was sometimes able to make interesting conversation. But my overall sentiment regarding the relationship was, to quote Whisky's favorite catch phrase, "Meh."
I knew he was mooching off his mysterious "big bro," and he wasn't doing this with the intention of saving up and eventually becoming self-sufficient. He just kicked up a fuss whenever he wanted something, and... it usually appeared. I still thought he was physically unattractive, too. I hate nasty-ass beards, I have a strong preference for shorter guys (they don't need to be as short as Dennis, but I don't exactly love being towered over), and Whisky had whatever the dude version of resting bitch face is. I admonished myself for being shallow and decided to soldier on. Date after date. And I did kind of get used to all the shallow things I objected to.
But, really... Dating Whisky at all was a dick move on my part. Then again, how many Nice Guy (TM)s want girls to do exactly what I did? Not attracted? Think he's kind of a bum? Find him a bit boring? Just give him a chance!!! Go on a crap-ton of dates with him until you like the familiarity enough to settle for him. That's the key to a healthy relationship!!! It never works. You could flip this around and apply it to Nice Girls who want pity dates, too.
Anyway. Lucy knew I was dating Whisky, and she thought it was great. She was honestly just happy to see that I was no longer pining over Dennis and that Whisky was no longer getting relentlessly stalked by Mary. Speaking of Mary... She'd had an imaginary dramatic breakup with Scumbanger not long after she crashed Lucy's brunch. Murky aside... The following summer, I'd do another show with the pervy pest and I'd find out that Mary had given the former Rum Tum Tugger a tug in the parking lot of The Imp and had let him motorboat her. When dozens of lewd messaged filled his inbox the following day, the most indiscriminate playboy I'd ever met in my freakin' life blocked that clingy legbeard's number and never had any further contact with her. But seeing as neither of them are especially reliable sources, my best guess is that the truth is somewhere in between.
After the dramatic "breakup" with Scumbanger, Mary immediately became obsessed with the new tech guy (and his wife). They allegedly had something of a throuple situation going on, but no one ever witnessed any hard evidence of this. And then Mary and Tech Guy's wife allegedly had a catfight in the middle of the fancy restaurant where the three spent their date nights. Mary did have a shiner and a scraped knee for a few weeks, and she intimated to me that Chuckie was actually the one responsible for her looking a little rough...
I believed her because there was something very different about her demeanor when she told me this. When she was in larger groups, she just screeched about how she thought the catfight was foreplay until Tech Guy ghosted her. Yet again, we'll never know the truth. But I err on the side of belief when someone tells me that DV is going on in their home, even if I generally regard that person as a delusional pathological liar. Plus, Mary had never badmouthed Chuckie before and she never made excuses for her philandering. She just felt entitled to any ding-dong she desired. Bottom line, I think there was an unfortunate incident, and I urged her to report it. She didn't; but that doesn't mean it didn't happen.
And, yes. I think we're allowed to show compassion for Mary if Chuckie did indeed do what she was accusing him of. She absolutely deserved to get dumped in a spectacular fashion. No one deserves violence, though. But I think we're also allowed to laugh at Mary when she's acting like a crank-crazed maniac.
Moving on to lighter topics! Mary claimed to be having a hot, steamy affair with the artistic director of The Imp. At first, this seemed outlandish. But he had been the one to hire her. And he repeatedly refused to replace her when she consistently failed to learned her lines, ran around naked, and contributed little more than mukbangs to the comedy (again, I personally found it funny when she did that, but I was in the minority).
Some skullduggery was definitely afoot. Was it "sexy time," as Mary enthusiastically claimed? Who knows. Chuckie might have been paying the dude to give Mary a hobby. But not long after Mary started boasting about boning the artistic director, he suddenly began calling her out on her unprofessional behavior. They "broke up," but Mary managed to avoid getting kicked out of the improv troupe, bragging that she could sue the director for sexual harassment if he fired her.
And then... there was the pièce de résistance of Mary's misadventures in mating. She met a biker dude at Filthy McNasty's. This guys was disgusting. Most of her previous dudes had been questionable, weird, or possibly imaginary. But we all saw this one. He was as fat as a Hutt, he smelled like a grease trap, motor oil, B.O., and a very specific type of cheese... The few teeth that he had were black and green, his fingernails were yellowed and a few of them oozed pus. Finally, the volume and crackly, bubbly properties of his frequent farts indicated to George Gay that he, "definitely had a virgin booty." Mary's lard-ass loverboy called himself "Hogg," which was probably a reference to the two-wheeled vehicle that he was very obviously too large to actually ride. Or it might have just been an obvious nickname for a filthy fat fuck.
But Hogg, like Tech Guy a few loverboys ago, had a wife. And she made frequent appearances at Filthy's as well. Hogg's wife was shockingly... kind of pretty. A little rough around the edges. Didn't smell the greatest. But she stood in stark contrast to her repugnant hubby, even with her fried hair, her sloppily inked tats, and her imprecisely applied eye makeup. Her teeth were free of obvious rot. She had a beautiful figure. And she had a carefree attitude that was probably attractive to a number of people. She'd fart right along with Hogg, she didn't shave her legs, and the profane compound nouns she came up with always cracked me up (lard-tard, smegma-booger, felch-belcher).
And Mary was once again claiming to be in a throuple with The Hoggs. But this time, there was hard evidence. They'd get busy in some corner of the establishment, and even got booted from the dive bar a few times for lewd behavior, offensive odors, and illegal drug use. On one particular night, Mrs. Hogg lit one of her hubby's gargantuan ass-rippers while Mary was doing her thing, completely shrouded by his big belly. The blue flame ignited some spilt booze on the dingy floor, and a small fire erupted. The staff were able to stomp it out, but the nasty throuple was unceremoniously banished.
Alas, management allowed Mary to re-enter the bar because she apparently had some sort of sway with one of the bartenders. Instead of meeting her...uh... "partners" for some more boom-boom, Mary decided to come back inside and gush about Hogg's majestic rooster to all of us. She smelled like D cheese, ammonia, and burnt farts as she plopped down at our table, already screeching about how much bigger her "new boo" was, compared to that vile turd of an artistic director.
George Gay: Fuck me, Mary!!! You reek. Go wash the uncircumcised methhead off your hands and then you can sit with us.
Mary started to protest. Lucy cut her off. "Your whole body is probably a veritable Petri dish from fooling around with those nasty-ass people." She handed Mary some Purell. "Was the junkie junk off, keep the bottle, and don't you fucking touch me when you come back!"
Mary's bottom lip began to quiver and she looked pleadingly at me. "Just wash up," I told her. "You're too pretty to go around smelling like that.”
Off she went to the dingy bathroom. Maybe I wasn't harsh enough, but flattery got results in this instance. And when she returned, she had managed to dilute the stench enough so that we could stand to sit at the same table with her.
Mary took a deep breath in preparation to gush about something that would have undoubtedly been disgusting, but George cut her off this time. "Mare. How do you even BANG someone with a belly like that?"
Mary (speaking a bit more quickly than usual): Oh, it just takes some creative positioning. We get him to lie down. If Mrs. Hogg is taking in the rod, I hold his bowl of jelly up with both arms and stick my cooter in his face. He eats it like his mommy made it! And when it's my turn to get blasted, the missus uses a bunch of yoga straps to hold it up. I have to take it from behind because my own little tiny bit of va-jiggle-jaggle bumps up against his bowl of jelly if why try to smash like vanilla people. It's so much fun, though!!! And then he props his bowl of jelly up on the coffee table and plays with himself while he watches his honey strap on a dil...
George: I so regret asking.
Mary: They're sooo fun to fool around with! I think they might be my forever partners! (Her hands were too shaky to slide down her body in unbridled ecstasy, so she clasped them together and hid them underneath her itty bitty little gunt.)
Lucy: So when are you gonna dump Chuck?
Mary: Well... Hogg and the missus don't have much scratch. And what they do have, they spend on smokeables. When I meet a real sugar daddy, I'll get rid of Chuckle. He pretended to be a baller before we got married. But he's just middle management and he's content to stay there. Pffffftt. No ambition.
Mary launched into another long, unnecessarily graphic gushing about her garbage partners and their nasty-ass boom-boom. So I decided this would be a good time to clear my conscience about dating Whisky. Mary hadn't so much as mentioned him in months. She was inexplicably smitten with The Hoggs. And her ultimate dream man was obviously some filthy rich dude (perhaps a literally filthy dude who was also rich), which took Whisky out of the running. I still think it would have been amusing if Mary had tried to date Mori...
I waited for her adult film star gasp to wind down before I finally interjected, "Wow. Sounds like you've got a fantastic sex life right now!"
Mary: I do! You need to get over that born-again weirdo and find a real man so that you and I can have good girl talk!
Me: Well... I'm not banging anybody, but I am dating somebody. Sort of. It's not really that big of a deal. I'm not even sure that I'm completely into him. But he's been super sweet to me...
Lucy put her arm around me, almost as if she knew I was about to need protection.
Mary: TELL ME!
I hesitated. "Well... It's Whiskers."
In an instant, George jumped up and grabbed Mary by the shoulders, lest she lunge at me.
But Mary got very quiet. Silent tears welled up in her eyes and rolled down her cheeks. She gasped and buried her face in her hands, now emitting one seemingly endless, impossibly high-pitched whine.
George loosened his grip and began to pat her on the back. Lucy's grip tightened on me and she whispered, "Here we go. Overreaction sequence has commenced."
Mary lifted her red, tear-stained face and glared at me. "HOW COULD YOU???"
Me: Mary, I swear. I thought you hated his guts. I haven't heard you talk about him in ages. When he asked, I thought it would be good for me to give him a chance since he's always been really sweet to me.
Mary: But what about the way he treated ME??? He was such an asshole!
Lucy: Was he? Mary, you stalked the guy. If he was rude, it was only because you weren't taking NO for an answer.
Mary: He never told me he wanted to end things. He just kept ghosting me. But whenever I showed up at his house and jumped on him, we always wound up smashing. Eventually.
I didn't have the gumption at that point in my life to suggest to Mary that it's wrong on every imaginable level to coerce someone into intimate activity, regardless of gender. And even knowing what Whiskers would eventually become, he didn't deserve THAT. I should have called her out. Instead I tried to steer the conversation back to her current bedroom bliss and try to get her to resume thinking the disgusting thoughts that delighted her so much.
Me: Who cares what he's doing now?! Aren't you insanely happy with your fun new lovers???
Mary: NO! THEY STINK! HE'S FAT. I want my sexy Whisky-Boo Whiskers back!!! Give him back, Valley! Puh-leeee-eeee-eeeee-eeeease.
Me: I don't "have" him. I'm just seeing him. If he hurt you this much, why don't you try to sit down and have a real conversation with him? It might be good for both of you to clear the air.
Mary: He blocked me on everythi-iiiiiii-iiiii-iiiiiing. Waaaaaaaaaah!
Me: Well, I guess that's your answer. You probably overwhelmed him. He seems like a bit of a softy. Personally, I need a softy right now. But I think you need a manly man.
Mary rose. She gave me an icy stare. And then she cooed in an unnervingly sweet tone. "I love you, Valley-Boo. I know you didn't mean to break my heart."
Me: Thank you, Mary. Really, I wouldn't have even considered his initial invitation if you hadn't been calling him "Satan," and telling us all that you hated him, and dating all these new guys. I didn't do it to spite you, I swear. It just happened.
Mary (still creepily, icily sweet): Yes. We're so alike, you and I. It's perfectly understandable that the same guy would go for both of us. But you owe me. You owe me big.
Me: I'm gonna disagree with that. If you think I slighted you, just tell me to fuck off. If you really do understand that these things happen, then you'll accept that there was no malice on anyone's part.
Mary: Mmmm-hmmmm. We'll see about that.
She jiggled her Jupiters, tossed her hair, and stalked out of the dive bar...

AND THEN SHE BANGED DENNIS.