I 19 female, I've been in a long distance relationship for 3 years with John (fake name) 19 male. I was diagnosed with depression and anxiety when I was 16. For context, John and I met in a group and since then we started talking. (I was dating my ex, but when I realized that I had developed feelings for John I ended that relationship.) In this group he was a big womanizer, and he talked to his ex, which didn't bother me since I never thought there was anything malicious about it. 4 months later I asked John if he felt anything for me, because he was acting romantic and sweet toward me, he said yes and then we started dating. (Note: he was jealous of my friends). A few weeks after we started dating, and all of our mutual friends knew about our relationship, and he didn't feel uncomfortable with people knowing about it, I sent him Intimate photos, he went on and sent these photos to our group, where there were more than 100 people, including our friends. When I saw it I was shocked and immediately left the group. My friends came to talk to me and so did he. He apologized, said he was going to send these photos to a group that was just him because according to him it was easier for him to see. Reading this now I realize it's a strange thing... but at the time I was so in love that I excused him. That same day we made a video call until I went to sleep, he praised me a lot, dedicated some songs to me, it was very romantic.During the next few weeks we made video calls every day, watched movies, listened to music, talked a lot until the early hours of the morning. There was a day when a girl joined the group where we were, and she and I became very good friends, there ended up being a lot of confusion because she wanted to date John, but he didn't want to. However, he always asked for intimate photos for her or for another girl in the group, he said it was to make me jealous, he ended up sending some intimate photos to her too. Well, a few months passed and I was suffering with my mental health, a few months before I met him I had tried to take my life, and I was under psychiatric care. During that time I started smoking and hurting myself, but he always helped me not to do so and always asked me to stop smoking and never use drugs. Until one day I was having an anxiety attack and felt the need to hurt myself while I was on a call with him, so he asked me to write his name on my skin with the razor. I did, he laughed. Some more time passed and I experienced what I think was an attack of schizophrenia, I saw and heard a person talking to me and asking me to do certain things that would hurt me. John stayed on video call with me while he tried to calm me down and said everything was ok and asked me to pray. That day my mother had gone to work, so I was alone at home, she wouldn't come back until 1pm. A few months later he asked me to buy some sex toys, I initially refused and was a little afraid, but then I agreed and bought my first vibrator. He always asked for videos and photos, or even for me to use the vibrator on a video call, as he always sent photos and videos and even did things on a call, I accepted. It turned out that I got sick, I couldn't walk, I felt a lot of pain, very strong cramps, I went to the hospital but it didn't help. I took some medication but none of it helped. Jonh was worried about me and asked me to go back to the hospital, which I did, but once again it didn't do much good. Then in December he asked me to buy another toy, but this time it would be a dildo. I was very afraid to buy it since I didn't have much privacy at home, but I bought it. When it arrived, he asked me to use it but I said I wasn't going to use it at that moment because I wanted to wash it first and then use it but my mother was in the living room so there was no way. He was extremely upset, he said that I had promised to use it the day I arrived and that he was tired from work and just wanted it to cheer him up a little. We argued a little and went to sleep.Cut to a few months later when he got a new job (he worked with his father), met some new people and completely changed. He became cold, distant, wanted everything his way or he would get upset and give me the silent treatment. Since then we started fighting almost every day, sometimes several times during the day. He always said he would break up with me if I didn't do what he wanted or the way he wanted, as I was "blind", so to speak, I always did everything. I don't want to go into too much detail but this but one thing you need to know is that during one of those fights he told me "welcome to hell". Since then everything has gotten worse. For me to achieve the minimum I had to do everything he wanted, how he wanted and when he wanted, in his time. If he wanted videos, I had to record them and send them to him, otherwise he He said he was going to break up with me or that he wouldn't talk to me until I sent the videos. I'm not a saint either, I often freaked out because of jealousy and when I saw that he had followed his ex I got really upset, because she was the only one who made me insecure, and he knew that. One thing I forgot to mention was that he told me at the beginning that he only followed some friends and family (he told me who was who and that if I wanted I could remove someone). Another thing I forgot to mention was that he's been in a group for a few years where his friends who are in that group always hit on him, he's kind of reciprocal with them. He never let me go there because according to him I wouldn't like the type of humor they have there... a group that sends a lot of videos and photos of naked women, women dancing.. But he refuses to leave because he "is already a long-time member there, and his friends are there", in his words. Coming back, he told me that he only followed her because she followed him first and I told him that if she followed him it was because he unblocked her, he was upset that I said that and blocked her again. Some time later I returned to the hospital with some urgency as I was unable to cope with the pain, I needed to stay there overnight whilst receiving medication. He wasn't happy about it at all since that meant there would be no videos or photos. The doctors asked me to do some tests as quickly as possible to try to find out the cause of this pain, which they thought was the kidneys (but it wasn't).This meant I had to leave the house and go to the clinics to schedule exams and take them. He was never happy when I needed to leave the house or when I went out with my family. Cut to a time later when we broke up (my initiative) and I put all the toys in the trash. He was super upset and we kind of talked back and forth (I know what many off you will think But I couldn't really break up with him. So he made me buy all the toys again. That is what happened. Well, I bought not only the toys but also some lingerie. He really liked that and it seemed like we were finally okay. But it didn't last long. Soon we fought again and broke up, once again I put everything in the trash, he came back, he forced me again Buying but he was the one who bought the things. He continued to force me to record the videos and send them to him. During this time of ending the relationship and coming back, ending the relationship and coming back, I called his friends to ask for help. John was super upset with this attitude of mine. He told me that I made a mistake and broke his trust. Then time passed and he went on a trip with his family when he returned home, it was on a day when there was a party in his city and his friends were going. When he got home he told me and said he was going to sleep. I was suspicious so I went to look at his friend's profile and guess what? His friend had just post a story where John appeared. Same t-shirt, same cap. The same face. Obviously I confronted him about it and he told me it wasn't him because he was sleeping at home. I didn't believe it but leave it behind. At this point, my best friend couldn't take it anymore, almost every day of me crying to her about John and his actions. A few weeks went by and I asked his friend if it was really John or not, he said no (I believe he was covering it up.So he went to get a tattoo, on his neck. When it was over he went to sleep. I don't remember that day well but I remember that I called him many times that night and when he answered I heard moaning.. so I hung up and told my best friend. I called again and again and when he answered I heard the sound of a car. I was devastated, I couldn't believe it. The next morning he freaked out at me, and said he was sleeping. First he said that his mother had answered the phone, then he said that he had answered the phone and that the moans were his because of the tattoo. I pretended this situation hadn't happened and we moved on. (note: I was emotionally dependent on him) Cut to January of this year, when he asked me to open up the relationship as this wasn't working. I said no, and that in my view it was like cheating but without the burden of conscience. So he continued to treat me badly. He admitted that when he first started treating me badly it was only because he wanted me to break up with him. (he thought traumatizing me and triggering me was a good idea) He told me he didn't want me to see his Facebook so I wouldn't see his relatives' profiles. When I asked about some people he followed that he had already said were cousins, he said that they were friends or that he didn't know that his friends had asked him to follow them and sending messages to them. When I followed someone he always freaked out and asked who he was over and over again, for example: I followed someone, John saw it and sent me a message asking who it was, I replied "he's a friend of mine" Then John would go on "who is he?" and again "who is he?" and again and again... Two months ago he said he wanted some time, I said very badly, he said it could be but that we wouldn't be with other people nor would there be flirting with other people. He agreed. But then we got into a big fight where he threatened me with a lawsuit, he didn't give me reasons or anything, he just said he was going to sue me. I insisted on knowing why he only said he was going to have to pay him a high price and I would probably go to prison. So for the next 3 days this was our topic of conversation, him threatening me, me crying, and asking why. Then I reached my limit On the day of the last lawsuit threat, I told my mother about him, the way he treated me and that I wanted a new cell phone number.(She didn't know, I never told her about him. Although he tried to contact her a few times. But I blocked him) So we went to buy a new contact for me, as he couldn't call me or get in touch with me anywhere. He asked some people to call my mother and my friends. My friends were talking to me and sending me screenshots of everything, so someone sent him the link to our group and he went in there and found out my new number. I was weakened when my friend told me that he was crying and that he told him that he loved me and that he was afraid of losing me. So I said okay I could talk to him. He told me some things like that he was sorry for making me suffer. I tried to understand his side. We came back. But I told him that the first thing he did I would leave. I did not go. And I regret it. He was never affectionate, or cute with me again. He continued to force me to send him photos and videos. And doing what he wanted. He was upset when I left. He didn't like me posting full body photos or showing more. Whereas he could go around shirtless, send shirtless photos to his group, post shirtless photos online. Once he published a photo of a photo with his cousin and hid it from me so I wouldn't see it (I knew he was going to this party, he had told me, it was a family party) Since then, I went to lawyers to ask for advice. One of the people I managed to talk to, as it was online and free, told me to contact the police and that what he was doing was wrong. Every time I ask him something he gets upset and says they are useless questions, that I'm stupid, I don't understand anything. Whenever he forces me to record something, he never sends anything. He always says he's tired, But if his friends ask him to go out or go to dinner or do anything, he'll go, even if he's tired. This is it. I don't know what to do anymore, I'm really afraid that he'll do something, after so many threats, and all the lies. I have the support of my family and friends. I'm sorry if there are some mistakes, I used the translator and tried to explain more or less all the information you should know. Please be friendly.

Because I (17F) have the most experience/technical skills, I was selected by our director as the soprano section leader in our choir(where my job is to give constructive criticism). This is where the problems started:
(We'll call her) Ella's pitch was pretty bad. This led to our entire section sounding bad on many occasions, and it was almost always Ella's voice was sticking out. I doubted myself so much that I would turn to the same senior girl (who isn't in Ella's group at all) and ask her to clarify it was Ella having the issues and she would say yes every time. I still never said anything to Ella out of fear. This would go on for weeks, and with the added stress of my director (who we’re all afraid of) telling the soprano section we were going flat a lot, it made things get pretty tense.
To let off steam, I talked VAGUELY to some people in the choir circle at another event about being frustrated at "some people in the soprano section being flat." I swear I never named Ella and never said it in a way that targeted the other person. The venting was always about my stress and wanting to impress our director, and it was just the normal talking that goes on. I even clarified that to the people, like "I just need to let it go, but it stresses me out, etc."
Later, Ella got my number and texted me to tell me she had met with our director to tell on me, basically. I wasn’t there, so I don’t know what exactly she told our director, but everything I found out from Ella herself. (Ella also said that our director said that I was wrong and that she wasn't the issue, which I don't know to believe or not.) I was shocked that she would have gone to our director before talking to me first, especially since I wasn’t bullying or anything, I was just stressing myself out about how much our section sucked (also, all the info she got about what I was saying was from my section and people in the choir circle I had vented to).
After a really difficult two-hour text conversation, we came to an understanding of sorts, but by the way things went, it was very clear that she was not open to negotiating and wanted to prove me guilty however she could (saying very loaded things and telling me “you can’t lie about that” even though, again, she never heard a single thing I said), so I can't imagine what she said to our director to make me look bad. This happened right before a contest, and every time I wanted to go to our director to clear my name and explain our resolution, Ella got really adamant that I should wait until after. I didn’t, but after writing a huge email where I basically took the fall for not being able to lead well and tracing it to “miscommunication” (totally bullshit because I just wanted to end this), I didn’t even get a response from the director, who never ever mentioned it again, even though I know she saw the email. I've been in the choir for longer and my director trusts in my ability, but I don't want her to think I'm a mean girl!
It's felt like an uphill battle because I'm a WOC and the other girl is white, and I get the impression Ella fits our director's "look" more, plus Ella is pretty rich and super involved at the school, whereas I just do choir because I'm good at it and enjoy it. I've been in choir longer and by the solos I get, it's no secret that I'm a better singer than Ella, but I never would gloat about it. I just wish she never got into the choir this year :((

My bf (43, m) and I (35,f) have been together for nearly two years. He has two children from a previous marriage ages 7 and 12, which he just got full custody of. I gave birth to our baby son on Sunday morning around 5 am by emergency c section. This happened to be the same day his uncle was bringing his kids back from their grandparents house. They had planned this prior, as my bf could not pick them up himself since it was too far a drive so close to my due date. His uncle arrived at our house at 2:30 pm the day of my birth. I knew my bf wanted to let them in the house and welcome them a bit. He asked me if I’d be alright if he had dinner with them and I said sure, thinking it could only be an hour and a half or so. What he actually meant was he was going to let them in , and then stay all afternoon, then have dinner with them. When I found out, I started crying and asked him not to leave me. In the end, I said ok but only because gone for two hours. He was gone from 3:00 until 8:30. I slept the first few hours. Then my dinner tray came and I couldn’t eat because I didn’t want to let go of my 5 lb baby. No nurses were coming by, and I still was in a post op stupor. The person who brought the tray had placed it across the room, not knowing I couldn’t get to it. Finally a nurse came at 7:30 to help me. Apparently it was a busy day and they had many people to attend.
bf came back at 8:30 and I was really upset at him. I was so happy about my baby though that we didn’t argue for long about it. However, he still maintains that he did nothing wrong. He and his uncle had enjoyed a bottle of champagne together while I couldn’t even eat my dinner until two hours later and it was cold. He says in his culture (he’s French) the men don’t stay the whole time in the maternity ward. I told him that’s fine, but not in the day of my major surgery with our baby.
He does not see my side of this. I felt really abandoned in that moment and don’t know who is in the right here or how to move forward.

I really apologize for the length of this post. But writing down all the details took way longer than I thought. And this situation was downright crazy. I never thought my sister would do something like this. Not too long ago I (23m) posted in AITAH for advice because my parents and sister were angry at me for regularly eating in a hospital cafeteria because it's close to my work. I enjoy the peace and quiet there on the days I do show up to eat. But this situation escalated so radically, that I can't believe something so dumb actually happened. My sister did the pettiest thing she's ever done to me. And for completely undeserved reasons too.
When my sister found out I was eating at the hospital cafeteria, she went off on me over how that food is just for people who are at the hospital because they need to be. We ended up in a big argument about it in which I told her it wasn't like I was taking food from the mouths of patients. Then she went to our parents to get them on her side like always. And they immediately sided with her just like I thought they would. They backed her up on how the hospital cafeteria was not a place to go eating casually. And we had a big argument. They spent days hounding me and telling me I was wrong, and demanding I stop. So I went to Reddit. And here I learned that not only was I not doing anything wrong. But it's a very common thing for people to go eat at hospital cafeterias just because they like it.
I hoped the situation would just fade away. But a few days later, my sister called me asking if I had stopped eating at the hospital. I said no. And then it started all over again. My parents then called me fuming and acting like I was supposed to stop going because they said so. I reminded them that I don't live under their roof anymore. And this is exactly the kind of reason why I moved out. They take my sister's side in almost everything. They huffed and puffed about it.
This time the fight didn't stay at home though. Other relatives found out because my sister tried to broaden her support. She was so dead set on enforcing her will upon me, that she went looking for help from other relatives. But our parents were the only ones on her side. And my uncle personally admonished my parents and her over the phone for it once I told him what actually happened. He told them they were only siding with my sister because she's their favorite. And they're terrible parents for ever playing favorites to begin with. Then cousin went to eat with me at that hospital cafeteria, and said he'd like to go there once as week too, as he also works nearby and bicycles everywhere. We've run into each other at lunch there once already since then. He was actually rather pleased to find out the food was made healthier than most other places. He's a bit of a picky eater. So this place is kinda like his new lunch hangout. And my sister got even angrier after finding out there were other people in the family eating at the hospital now too.
Once outed, my parents backed down due to embarrassment. They apologized to me, and gave me some malarkey that they honestly thought eating at a hospital was weird, and that they felt like they just needed to defend my sister. I told them they'd been placating my sister for so long, that it's all they do whenever she starts something with anyone. She's been treating me like a condescending control freak and a bully since we were teenagers, even though I'm older. And they just kept enabling that. But I won't put up with it anymore. My parents ended up conceding, and apologized. Then they made my sister apologize to me too. And I could tell she hated every second of it, because she tried to speak through her teeth at first.
Later on my parents invited me to dinner as another form of apology. But it felt more like a show to look good to the rest of the family, because they told everyone about it before it even happened. The dinner was great, I can't deny. My parents had cooked a turkey. Arguable one of my favorite things to eat. I love the drumsticks slathered with gravy. Yeah, I'm kinda a pig when I eat them. But I can't help it. My sister always thought it hilarious. And was one of the few things I didn't mind her laughing about. So I thought nothing of why she was so giggly at dinner.
Later after the family dinner, I noticed that my bike was missing. I'd parked it in the back yard out of sight. But it was just gone. I freaked out because it's my only mode of transportation. My parents did panic a bit with me. But my sister seemed just the opposite. She actually looked happy and was still giggling. I immediately suspected her, and she played innocent. She even gave the "I can't believe you'd think I'd do something like that!" line. I already knew she's extremely petty. But this was a whole new level of it for her. So I said that I was gonna go over to the neighbor because I know they have cameras, and they'd have seen what happened. And then I'd call the cops. My sister suddenly looked panicked, and I got mad and said I knew it was her. And demanded my bike back. She started crying and saying she didn't do anything. And our parents were immediately taking her side while scolding me for daring to accuse her.
So I had enough and said I was going to the neighbor's to ask to check their cameras. And then I'd be calling police. My sister finally fessed up and called me to come back. The looks on our parents' faces after they'd just defended her were priceless. My sister said she was just so angry at me for having made her apologize for something she still believed she was right about. So she planned to have a couple of her friends to come and grab my bike during dinner. She said her friends were in a minivan with it just down the street. She then started saying that I couldn't call police on her anyway, because I'm her big brother. Our parents backed that up too. But I pulled out my phone and started marching outside again. They ran after me with my sister begging and crying for me to stop. I called her a brat. And then I told my parents I couldn't believe they were still defending her when she was acting this way.
Our parents finally hit their enabling limit with her and told her to make her friends bring my bike back immediately. She got on her phone while sniffling and called her friends up. But then she suddenly ran into her room to talk to them. I couldn't hear a thing she said through the door because it was all in whispers. And our parents looked very worried too.
My sister would never have willingly admitted she had my bike stolen. She just kept sobbing that it was only a prank over and over again. And she also kept using the excuse that it's just a cheap bike anyway. I bought it used some months ago for $50. But it's in great shape. And it's my main mode of transportation. My sister kept looking at our parents to back her up. And that time they just couldn't. So she just slumped down in a chair hugging her knees and waiting with the rest of us. My sister looked increasingly freaked out the longer her friends took to bring my bike back, and was repeatedly texting them.
Even though my sister said her friends were just down the street, it took them roughly an hour to bring my bike back. They finally pulled up in the minivan with my bike shoved in the back. And it was completely soaked and all muddy. Like it'd just been pulled out of a wet muddy ditch. The bike is a 700c, so it's too tall for either of them to ride. So they just drove right up and stole the bike by dragging it into the van as fast as they could before taking off. I say they stole it because I was almost certain in the moment my sister had told them to dispose of my bike. Had I not pointed out the neighbors have cameras, I may not have gotten it back.
When her friends did finally arrive, their legs were all muddy and wet nearly up to their knees. They both begged me not report them to police for taking the bike. I asked while recording them to tell me the truth, and pointed out the neighbors have cameras. Did my sister want them to get rid of my bike? They broke down and said yes, my sister wanted them to take the bike and dump it in a pond a few miles away. And they had to go back and get it when they realized they were caught. My bike had been near completely submerged in muddy water. Thankfully I didn't have many added accessories on it other than a detachable headlight and my water bottle. But the water bottle was missing.
I wasn't surprised by what my sister's friends told me. And I had them tell our parents too. They laid into my sister till she was bawling on the floor kicking and pounding like a toddler. I had never seen my sister act that way since she actually was a toddler. And I found it mortifying she was still like this on the inside. Then she shut herself in her room. Her friends were banned from ever coming to my parents' house again. Then my sister was forced to come out of her room by our mother, and make another big apology to me.
Our father then forced her to wash and oil my bike from stem to stern under his supervision while I took apart the headlight and cleaned it out to dry it. By the time my sister was done, it was dark outside. She glared at me like I was the devil when she came back in the house. But our parents shut her attitude right down, and said they've never been more embarrassed by her in their lives. She went back to crying in her room. I had a very frank discussion with my parents about my sister's child-like behavior. And how it stemmed from their spoiling and enabling. I said I couldn't believe I had to be the voice of reason. But the fact that she was on the floor crying like a toddler, kicking and pounding, showed that she's still mentally a child because of them. And they kept making me the scapegoat when she screwed up, so she barely knows any sense of accountability. For once they didn't argue with me about it. And then my father silently drove me and my bike back to my apartment with his SUV. He also gave me some money to replace my bike's missing water bottle before we parted.
My sister and her clique used to harass me a fair bit whenever we ran into each other. They made fun of me as a group whenever possible. And I usually just ignored them because they bored me. And that really seemed to tick them off. But after the bike incident, I got sent numerous messages from numbers I didn't know cussing me out for making my sister cry over a silly prank. Knowing her, my sister probably fed everyone she knew a very different story on what happened. I texted lengthy replies of what actually happened, and even stated I have recordings of her friends admitting the truth.
Some people at my sister's college found out what actually went down. Maybe from my texts, maybe her friends spilled the beans. But it embarrassed my sister so much she came home having a crying tantrum about how people there were calling her and her friends B's and a bike thieves. I may not have gone to college. But I know students who need them are VERY protective of their bikes. A lot of them live on shoestring budgets after all. My sister said someone even joked that they shouldn't leave a bike around her, because it might just disappear if she had to apologize to anyone. My sister ended up so upset that she refused to leave her room for three days to have her pity party.
My parents called me up to try and turn everything on me again. I reminded them about the discussion we had days before, and that they needed to stop babying her, and let her deal with the repercussions of her own actions. If she fails her classes again, it's because she's not trying like she should be. Then I went off on them how were just looking for someone to blame to make her feel better. She made the problem. Not me. And I wasn't gonna be the one they make the scapegoat anymore. My sister is an adult. And she needs to act like it. They sounded defeated, and then apologized before ending the call. Looks like they were genuinely hoping I'd just sit back and take the blame so my sister would get better. But I never will again.
Now my parents are trying to pretend this all never happened, and my sister as well as her clique are avoiding me at all costs. Which I suppose is fine with me. Because I don't want anymore drama. But the next time something like this happens, I won't take it from them.
TLDR: My sister make a big deal of me eating at a hospital cafeteria, and then had her friends steal and dump my bike just because I made her apologize to me. Now she's being ridiculed by everyone.

I've seen posts about this searching for a fix for myself and couldent find anything useful. So here's a step by step on how I fixed it and what I think the issue is. This issue is when your riding your gt and out of no where you get a overcharge error that dosent make any sence because your at 50-70% but now the app says 100% and won't let the board stay rideing even after a power cycle. So first the fix 1. Conect the app the your board and turn off auto connection and disconnect from the board 2. Close the app and turn off your phone 3. turn off your board 4. Let the board sit for a few minutes then turn it back on. 5. Repeat steps 4 and 4 until the board will let you ride 6. Turn your phone back on but do not open the onewheel app 7. Your board should work just fine now but remember it's not actually at 100% so your range will have to be based on your memory of how long your board can go for so play it safe 8. Once you get to your charger give it a long over night charge, unplug and replug in the charger a few times after the light turns green to really top it off. 9. Now your board should work just fine besides now I would recommend being very carful useing the app, I never use it on rides anymore and have had no issues. 10. The light bar should be correct for your first bit of rideing but be very carful going below 20% if it feels like you've gone farther than it usually would, it will lie to you and die.
This has been a super annoying issue but since I'm well acquainted with my board I know how far I can ride without seeing the percentage and I don't miss the app too much. I've gone as far as takeing my board apart when it says 100% after I've riden for awhile and read the battery voltage as well as individual cell voltage and nothing was out of wack the controller or bms was just sending the wrong percentage to the light bar and app. So it's not a battery issue but im guessing a issue with fm's way of measuring battery percentage trying to stop people from adding bigger batterys so sending it into fm will give you a fix but definitely at a cost that's above just vescing the board and makeing her way more reliable. I hope this helps someone siting on their board in the woods with a overcharge error issue. Because that's exactly where I was when I was searching for this information😂 float on🤙

Content Warning:Mentions of Child Abuse & Gore
They called me a colic baby, meaning I was a seemingly healthy baby that was distressed for an unknown reason. The fits of crying mostly dissipated by six months, but they'd crop up every now and then into toddler-hood. When I became capable of babbling a few words, I would summarize my pain in a few words: belly hurt. Belly HURT!
My parents didn't have much money, but they took me to the doctor for a checkup anyway. After running a physical exam and blood test, they determined that I was merely an excessively gassy little girl and should probably eat a more gut-friendly diet. They also prescribed some medicine which would eliminate the gas and relieve my pain.
It was from that moment on that my parents gave me the nickname "Gas Girl" (which I despised). The name stuck for several years, and anytime I'd get a little stomach ache my mom or dad would say, "uh, oh. It's not Gas Girl returning, is it?" I'd glare at them with my arms folded and pout, saying, "I'm not Gas Girl. I'm Wonder Girl!" My parents would share a look, then burst out laughing. Just as I was about to shout a retort, my dad would open up his arms and bend down in that familiar pose which signaled liftoff, and all my childish rage detached like a racing sticker as I leaped into my dad's arms and he flew me around the living room shouting "Who is it? It's Wonder-girl! Here to save the day from Gas Girl!"
Anyway, just as the nickname wore off, the pain returned. I was about 7 or 8 when I had my first big episode. I was in second grade, and the class was cutting out shapes. The pain came on so suddenly I remember lurching back and falling out of my seat. The next few hours were a blur of adults: my teacher, the nurses, the principal, my parents. I remember how cold and alone I felt despite being surrounded by grown ups, and my stomach hurt so much I was crying pretty much nonstop.
My dad bought a bunch of OTC medicine to try and settle what he thought was a really bad gas episode. My mom laid at the side of my bed and did bicycles in the air with me. Hours passed in pain as my adolescent imagination conjured up images of an evil little elf blowing thousands of bubbles in my belly. I consciously pictured myself popping them, but every time I did, more were blown. My dad scheduled a doctor's appointment for the next morning, and my mom stayed at my side until I was able to fall asleep sometime late in the night.
I dreamed vividly a horrific nightmare. I was strapped to a black, metal box. A surgeon donning blue scrubs with white gloves and a mask entered the space in my peripheral vision. The air was cold but crisp, as if every bit of dust had been scrubbed out of existence. I could feel my breathing, my heartbeat, even my skin. The doctor stepped forward and I could see the distortion of a smirk in the folds of his mask. I expected him to say something, to tell me what he wanted, but instead he lifted my shirt so my belly was exposed. "It's cold", I said in a mumbly voice. He lifted his hand in the air, and I saw behind it off in the back of the room was what looked like the glass wall of an aquarium. I was confused for a second, but only a second. The surgeon plunged his hand into my stomach like a spear, splitting through the flesh as if it were the skin of a ripe fruit. The previously silent man began to cackle like a maniacal villain as I nearly passed out from the pain. I felt his fingers swimming through my guts like parasitic worms. My body shook as cold sweat and blood began to ooze from my pores. I wanted to scream but I couldn't make a sound. I could only lay there, paralyzed, as the evil doctor explored my insides.
Somehow I lost consciousness in the dream, but when I woke up, the memory came flooding back, and I screamed with all the force of a thunderstorm. My parents skipped the appointment and rushed me to immediate care, but by the time we arrived, the pain was gone. I explained my dream to the doctor, but he said it was normal to dream up reasons for the pain. They recommended a CT scan to screen out the possibility of an ulcer or internal bleeding. Despite my parents' scarce savings, they agreed to run the test. However, something deeply entrenched in my mind thought of the dream with the surgeon and I protested. "I don't want a test!" I screamed. "But, honey, how are we going to know what's wrong?" replied my mom. "Nothing's wrong now. I don't want a test."
Looking back now on my persistence, it should have been obvious that there was something wrong with me, but my parents, who were thinking of their finances, allowed themselves to acquiesce to my demands. The pain would continue into and throughout my teenage years, and the one benefit that I can credit to it was that it taught me how to endure pain and hide it well before puberty started. Compared to my childhood cramps, period cramps were around a B+. Very bad, but not end of the world bad. However, they'd stick around more reliably, and eventually the two began to combine until I could no longer discern between them. Occasionally I would have a nightmare and wake up with a pain that was a little higher in my stomach, almost approaching my chest, but it would always disappear by breakfast time, and the chaos of a teenage girl's life would once again reassert itself in the form of an outfit that didn't look quite right or the memory of every word of a conversation with a guy I liked or how my teacher was out to get me. Basically, I had become normal.
And then two weeks after I turned 16, my dad passed away from heart failure. Apparently the stress from a paycheck-to-paycheck life in sales added onto a bad diet and a penchant for alcohol was a recipe for disaster. He was only 49. I was crushed.
The weeks and months following his funeral were filled with teenage anger and resentment. I directed most of it at my mom, who I held accountable for not being strong enough to step up and help with the bills. One day, when I was searching the drug cabinet for some painkillers to deal with some bad cramping, I noticed a new prescription for a drug with a really long name. I looked it up. It was an antidepressant. From that moment on I stopped giving my mom shit, but I grew a bit distant from her. I started spending a lot more time with my friends. I became reckless, adopting a drinking habit and unsafe sex practices. I smoked a bit but I didn't really like it. I guess I was just trying to find a way to move on, as naive as it was.
Fast forward to my present situation, and I'm a college student. A junior to be exact. I ended up scrounging up enough money from working two restaurant jobs to see a therapist on my own dime, and managed to make peace with my mom before leaving. We both talked out all of our trauma and cried together, and from that moment on, I haven't had a drink. About six months ago I got on the pill. I was starting to see one guy consistently and I wanted to be safe, but also I wanted to know what it felt like to not have stomach cramps anymore. It was freeing. I remembered my dad lifting me up into the air as a child, and I figured it kinda felt like that. I still cry thinking about him, although I don't let anyone see.
Anyway, about a week ago I started having really bad pain again, but this time it was in my chest. I would wake up in my apartment (I share a 3-bedroom with some friends from the college) with heart palpitations. My heart felt like a snake had wrapped around it and was trying to choke it out. The pressure would give way to a burst of fast ba-dum's, then settle, then start again. I remembered my dad's prognosis and started to get really scared, so I scheduled an appointment with the on-campus doctor for the next day through the online health platform.
They told me that chest pain is no joke and scheduled to have me scanned at a nearby hospital. This was four days ago. My boyfriend, Kevin, drove me there even though I said I'd be fine going alone. I think I already knew our relationship wasn't going to work out long term, so I was kind of checked out. I felt bad about it though because Kev is actually a really good person, but our personalities just don't match. He's very introverted and doesn't like to go out, whereas I thrive in group settings. Anyway, he drove me and I ended up getting an X-ray. The doc came in to share the results and I was immediately put off by the dubious expression on his face.
"What do you mean the images are blurry?" I asked.
"Well, it's just… that. They're blurry. It's very unusual for this to happen unless you have a pacemaker or some other device implanted. Do you know if you have something like that?"
"No, never," I said with a quaver in my voice. For some reason I thought back on my childhood dream with the surgeon and felt the urge to vomit.
"Well, let's run a CT scan and see if we can make anything out." He soothed.
Normally the CT and MRI dock was booked for a week out but the doctor happened to have an open space for me that same morning, so I waited about an hour and then got in the big tube machine that took pictures of my chest and abdomen. He said he should have the results by Thursday. That was Yesterday.
I was driving onto campus for my 9AM class when I got the call.
"Hello, this is Dr. **** calling for Josie **** ." (names redacted for privacy reasons)
"Oh, yes, this is Josie," I said and fit the phone between my shoulder and ear as I tried to find a comfortable posture."
"Yes, hello," the male doctor said in grave way which made me feel like this wasn't going to be a short call. "I wanted to see if you were available to come in today for some more tests."
"More tests?" I asked. "What about the first ones?" Images of blocked heart valves and cancer presented themselves on my mental screen.
"Yes, well, I wanted to discuss the results with you in person. There was a bit of a … well, an inconsistency, and I didn't want to upset you—"
"Upset me!?" I blurted, my free hand flying out over the steering wheel, swerving my car toward the curb. I corrected, then lowered my voice, "sorry, I don't mean to be …" be, what? This is completely absurd. "Could you at least give me some indication of what's wrong with me? I'm just kind of panicking here."
The doctor was quiet for a moment, then returned. "Sorry, Josie, I didn't mean to spook you. Both the X-ray scan and CT scan are picking up interference which is unusual. It's possible it's just a flaw on our end, so that's why we wanted you to come back in—to do an MRI and really verify what the issue is. This one would be free of charge and we'd get you results same-day as we feel bad about the issues with the machinery. Do you think that would be possible?"
I took a deep breath. I still felt uneasy, but at least now there was some kind of explanation I could lean on. "Okay, yeah, I can come in. I have class until 9:50AM, but I can drive over after and be there around 10:15, 10:20-ish. Would that work?"
"That would work great. We'll see you then."
I spent the whole of my communications class thinking about what could be wrong with me, doodling my ideas down on a notebook. Heart disease. Cancer. Some kind of peptic ulcer. Maybe it was the pill? The drinking? Was this some kind of cosmic retribution? I didn't know.
An hour later I was back at the hospital. I expected to be ushered into the MRI prep room, but instead I found myself in one of the normal patient rooms, sitting upright on a bed. The nurse did the preliminary height and weight measurements and medical history. I asked about the MRI, but all she said was that the doctor will discuss that with me. Before she left, she handed me an assessment to fill out. It seemed to be a list of questions about the medical history of my family, specifically about our mental health. Does your family have a history of Schizophrenia? Have there been any instances of domestic abuse? Did you have vivid nightmares as a child? Etc. I marked the boxes, then set the clipboard down.
At last I heard the fated knock on the door, and my doctor came in holding an Ipad. The door was only open for maybe a couple seconds, but I could see multiple nurses and technicians peeking their heads in my direction, as if they were trying to catch a glimpse of me. That can't be good.
"Hello, Josie," the doctor said and clicked on the little TV screen. He didn't even look at me. I could see dried sweat along his hairline.
"What's happening? I thought I was going to get an MRI…"
"Well, actually we aren't sure if that's the best course of action." the doctor said as he clicked the screen and pulled up a series of images.
"Can you look at me, please?" I snapped.
The doctor raised his head and tilted it in my direction. His mouth was agape, his eyes wide as if only realizing I was here at that moment. "I'm sorry, Josie." He took a deep breath, preparing some kind of canned presentation, then let it out and said, "It's just easier if I show you." He pulled up the first global image from what I presume was my CT scan. It was a front-shot. I could see my organs as little geometric shapes and—
"Wait, what is that?" I asked, pointing at the screen.
"That—is the problem."
I spent the next minute just staring at it. Somehow, in between all of the organs, there was some kind of cylindrical mass—I thought it was my spine at first but quickly realized it was too wide and there weren't any vertebrae—and at the head of the mass was, very clearly, a hand.
"What the fuck is that" I said in a tone that was at once forceful and pointed.
"It appears," the doctor started, looking away again. "It appears that there is a mechanical hand in your chest cavity. It's attached to a piece of a forearm that begins at your stomach, here," he pointed, "and continues up until, well, it appears to be holding your heart."
Ten seconds passed in silence. Then I was hit with the equivalent of the laughing gas they give you at the Dentist's office. All the blood in my body surged to my forehead and I felt light as the very thin hospital air. "Hahaha!!! You expect me to believe that? What kind of fucking clown-show hospital is this? Am I at the circus?' I stood up and started toward the door. The doctor body blocked me.
"Please, Josie, that isn't it."
"Oh?" I said sarcastically. "Please, do tell."
"Could you have—oh, okay, okay,, let me explain."
I stood there with my arms folded, unrelenting.
"When we first had you do the X-ray there was a big blur. It was clear that something was blocking us from seeing the image. The CT scan was able to take some actual pictures of it. I know it seems, well, unusual—"
"Wait, what the hell is that?" I asked, gesturing toward the clipboard.
"What?" The doctor looked disoriented.
"Those questions. Are you trying to insinuate that my mom and dad implanted some kind of mechanical hand in my body?"
"No," the doctor raised his hands. "We were just trying to gather some more information… Josie," the doctor said as I once again headed for the door handle. "Please, there's more. From the blood test we conducted it seems that you're pregnant."
I was so done. "I'm on the pill, asshole." I sneered and swung the door open, ignoring the sets of eyes trained on me as I scurried to the end of the hall, ran outside, and climbed into my car. I expected to see a bunch of people in white coats running after me, but there was no one. I started the car as tears began to stream from my eyes. Fuck them, I thought and sped out of the parking lot.
I couldn't return to my apartment. I ended up driving for hours, working my way back to my hometown. I spent a long time thinking about all the things I had experienced growing up. The stomach pain, slowly working its way up to my chest. The vivid dream of the surgeon feeling around my guts. Was it really that crazy to think my body was trying to tell me something? Why had I decided against having a CT scan all those years ago? Why now? I didn't—couldn't believe what was happening to me. But was that just because I didn't want to believe it?
And then there was the pregnancy. I was definitely on the pill. I knew it wasn't Kev's, or at least I was pretty sure it wasn't. We haven't been having sex for a little over a month now. But did that mean that something else didn't impregnate me? My paranoia was at its peak. I considered the possibility that maybe it was me that was Schizophrenic. None of this made any sense. I wanted my dad. I missed him. I considered going to see my mom, but despite making up with her, I still didn't feel close enough to her to own up to everything. I wanted to be alone—needed to be alone.
I ended up getting a Motel about 10 minutes away from my house. It was around 1AM when I finally opened the door to my room and laid down on the bed. After hours of thinking, a single thought occurred to me like a kind of defense mechanism: if I really am pregnant, I'm not keeping the baby. I want it out.
Just as I was drifting off to sleep, I heard the notification sound go off on my phone, which was odd since I was sure I had set it to vibrate. I turned and grabbed it, unplugging it from its charging dock. I had received a text message from an unknown, 5-digit number: 66669. This is what it said.
66669: If you terminate my baby, I will crush your heart.
***
I haven't been able to sleep since. It's now 6AM and I've drafted this as a cry for help. Please, let me know what you think I should do. I'm too "in it" to see the details clearly. I feel alone and scared and paranoid. Someone or something is watching me. Maybe it has been my whole life.

I was working on my car earlier today flushing radiator and when j was taking the car of ramps I realized the when I hit the gas the car won’t move and had to give it a lot of gas. Some water splashed in the engine so I made sure all ignition coils were dried and gave it another try I could move forward but the transmission was struggling to keep up.
I parked the car again and now I can’t get it to move in reverse any idea what could’ve gone wrong I drove the car perfectly the day before could it have something to do with the water splashing in engine

The abundance of dwarves, humans, and elves in The War Within thus far has ignited a whole new wave of debate across WoW social media on the supposed faction favoritism of the devs. This is a tale as old as time. Whether it was BfA showing "Horde favoritism" by repeating the Horde-centric story of MoP where the Alliance are just sort of along for the ride of a Horde rebellion, Legion showing "Alliance favoritism" for the prevalence of humans, elves, and draenei throughout its core themes, or hell, how BfA's "Horde favoritism" wasn't the "favoritism" the Horde needs because it makes them out to be irredeemable monsters regardless of player input, so BfA was actually "Alliance favoritism" and round and round it goes.
So now we come to TWW and the arguments have started up all over again. But both sides of this debate tend to overlook what exactly is going on with the story, and in the process being vocal about the wrong kind of problems with the storytelling that need to be addressed. What's been happening isn't any kind of faction favoritism. It's race favoritism.
The only playable races that get consistent advancements in story from expansion to expansion are humans, orcs, and elves. Anyone else typically spends their time waiting around for the devs and writers to glance in their general direction and hopefully toss them a crumb of content. A patch that uses their race's aesthetic. Possibly even an expansion that puts them at the forefront. And they just have to pray that whatever story they are given is good, because they won't be getting any more for years after. Otherwise we get something like the retaking of Gilneas: A story Worgen players had been begging for since Cataclysm that ultimately ended up being incredibly short and barely focusing on the Gilneans at all.
Generally what this means is that a race will suddenly get that aforementioned crumb of story, only to be surrounded by people of the opposing faction calling out faction favoritism, when the race in question has not had any story in years. It's happening currently with dwarves. TWW is finally doing something with story threads that were sewn and then left to dangle all the way back in Cataclysm. Dagran is no longer an infant. Dwarven politics are being explored. And a new tribe related to the dwarves is at the forefront of marketing. Again, this is the first time since Cataclysm that dwarves have been given anything to work with, but their role here is being decried as "Alliance favoritism" as if the dwarves had been getting story all along.
Often even when the story would theoretically be most suited to a certain non-human/orc/elf race, we will get new lore making them fit in, or otherwise attach a main character of those races to the story so that players don't get too "lost." The return to Argus, the home of the Draenei, should have been a huge deal for Draenei everywhere. And Velen himself was prominent. But we didn't really get any other Draenei stepping up to play major roles in this Argus storyline. Instead, we reintroduced Turalyon and Alleria. Turalyon is now the leader of the otherwise-Draenei group known as the Army of the Light. He actually is the one who introduced Elekks to their army. Meanwhile Alleria's connections to the void take center stage in Eredath: The zone that is the former main hub of Draenei civilization. Or look at TWW. An expansion entirely underground calls to mind none of the three "main" races WoW likes to focus on. Instead, it makes sense to shift the focus to dwarves, goblins, gnomes, and also other non-playable races. But a whole expansion not focusing on the faves of the writers is unthinkable, so we have to introduce Hallowfall: An underground civilization of humans, elves, and half-elves who have immediate ties to the main plot and quickly take over the focus of the story from the Earthen and Kobolds of the first two zones. Notably, every press release on TWW has said Anduin and Alleria are the main characters of the expansion, not Moira, Dagran, Magni, Gazlowe, or others.
It's also worth noting how the only allied race leaders who have consistently gone on to appear in important story roles after their introduction are the humans and elves. Turalyon and Alleria continue to be important, while Captain Fareeya (I'm sure you're asking "Who?") still has yet to get a defined personality. Thalyssra of the Nightborne immediately went on to play a major role in the Naz'jatar zone of BfA, and has since married Lor'themar, while Mayla occasionally shows up with glazed over eyes to say "Hey, Baine is pretty cool, right?" Talanji actually got a book after BfA, but then disappeared in the actual game in the following expansions. Her appearance in the background of the first TWW trailer turned some heads, only for it to be revealed that she was a placeholder for a new race that seem to be more tied to the Night Elves than anyone else.
There are a few different ways in which an underutilized race can get a story boost:
1) Human/Elf/Orc ties:
Often times we'll start to see a race appear more if they are given explicit ties to one of the three races I talked about. Genn Greymane did appear in many stories beginning with the Legion expansion, though none were really about the Worgen people or Gilneas. Genn himself prefers to stay in his human form, and he is far more invested in Anduin's story than the plight of his people for most of his run as a recurring character. The retaking of Gilneas saw Genn even abdicate the throne to his daughter, Tess, who does not even have a Worgen form. I would not be surprised if Gilneas became a much more prominent part of the story moving forward now that their figurehead is more human. Notably Darius Crowley, someone who is very important to Worgen lore, consistently stays in his Worgen form, and is canonically the leader of the effort to retake Gilneas from Cataclysm to Dragonflight, has been on the bench since his debut and was not even included in the ultimate culmination of his work.
Or how about the Forsaken? Most Forsaken story was not about them, but about Sylvanas Windrunner: An undead High Elf who by virtue of plot is able to not have any visible rotting or traditional Forsaken traits on her body. When BfA and Shadowlands happened, there was some hope among Forsaken players that future Forsaken story could actually be about the average undead, only for them to immediately be tethered to Calia Menethil, another undead who by virtue of plot is able to not have any rotting or traditional Forsaken traits on her body. And we all know how much people love Calia.
2) Complete separation from their race:
Sometimes a character from a race not usually focused on will rise to main story prominence, but only because they no longer have strong ties to their race. Therefore, they can get some story without having to also advance the story of their race. We've already talked about Genn staying in human form most of the time and acting as Anduin's advisor, but he's not the only example. When Magni returned as the "Speaker of Azeroth," there was no shakeup in dwarven society to address. The only place we actually saw some acknowledgement of the shakeups this could cause was in a short promotional comic for Legion where he wakes up, tells Moira he won't want the throne back, and leaves. From Legion to now, Magni has not had a hint of a connection to his people, and we're only now addressing that in TWW.
Baine's biggest roles in the story never have anything to do with him being a leader to his people. Instead, it's when he needs to play the diplomat to Jaina and Anduin. The uncertain foil to Sylvanas or Garrosh. Baine, and the Tauren as a whole, exist as supporting characters in stories not their own. In fact, there's a long history of races only existing to prop up the story favorites. They had to write into the lore that Gelbin Mekkatorque specifically chose to ignore his own people's plight and support the wider Alliance in the hopes they'd one day return the favor. They never have.
3) The story of their debut expansion is focused on them:
Finally you sometimes get an expansion that is dead set on tying its new playable race to the story of its expansion. I speak primarily of the Pandaren and the Dracthyr. Two races introduced in expansions focused on the introduction of their people to the Alliance and Horde, and the problems erupting in their homes. Unfortunately, as we saw with the Pandaren, the buck stops there. Once Mists of Pandaria ended, so did any drive to tell the Pandaren's story. They have remained playable. They remain able to occasionally appear as a background NPC who is drunk or something because that is the one characteristic they're now known for. But any focus on them as a people is gone. Time will tell if the Dracthyr will see the same fate once Dragonflight officially ends, but I don't like their odds.
Conclusion:
All of this is to say, I hesitate to paint with a broad brush and declare something like "Alliance favoritism" or "Horde favoritism." Because that would be to ignore how stagnant the stories of so many of the races in those factions have been for so long. To ignore that Dagran, the supposed next ruler of a united Dwarven people has only just now graduated from a generic baby dwarf model despite being introduced in 2010. To ignore that Gazlowe was casually handed leadership of the Bilgewater Cartel with one line of dialogue while humans and orcs get whole expansions dedicated to a transfer in power. To ignore that "For Gnomeregan" has been the battle cry of a still homeless Gnome population since Vanilla WoW. To ignore that the Draenei, introduced in 2007, are finally confirmed to be thinking about building a new home in our current year of 2024.
I'd like to believe things have changed. I'd like to be excited that Dwarf storylines are being told at the start of Khaz Algar, and there is seemingly setup for a Goblin-centric patch in our future. But I know this franchise's history.

Recently my twin lost their father from a brief stint with Cancer. Up until this point we had been in fairly regular daily contact, but now he’s retreated. (Don’t get me wrong, I understand this and will fully give him his space to properly grieve with his family). My question is, has anyone gone through something similar with their twin, and how did you manage to be supportive from afar and WITHOUT hovering?

This is a very new relationship, about a month and a half long. Honestly this is very confusing for me. When we are in person, I can’t get enough of him, not in a sexual way, just his presence. I love him and love talking to him and just spending time together. He makes me laugh so hard and is incredibly sweet. But as soon as we’re away from each other (we see each other about 2-3 times a week because of school, work, and social lives out side of eachother), I don’t really feel compelled to talk to him much, and when he texts me I sometimes put off responding for a while, not because I dislike texting him, but because I don’t want to?
Don’t get me wrong, i was never the type of person to wait on texting someone because I wanted to make them jealous or anything. But whenever he texts, I just kinda ignore it and pay attention to whatever’s in front of me. I used to be very quick to respond, and it’s gotten worse as we’ve gone along. We do chat here and there, which i’m happy with (i don’t want to be the person always on their phone talking to their boyfriend), say i love you, good morning, and goodnight.
The times I feel bad are days when we’re having a conversation and i get swept up with something in person and don’t respond for hours. Then when I do he’s dry, which I understand. Couple of examples:
On friday, we had a farewell assembly for seniors who were leaving. school got out early, so me and my friends (2 other girls, 4 guys) went to starbucks, then to work on one of our cars. then i went home, crashed and didn’t wake up until almost 10. I didn’t text him the whole time, from around 9/10 am to 10 pm, and dropped off in the middle of a conversation we were having. He had also texted me during my nap. He seemed annoyed while texting that night (he was at work), but didn’t address anything.
Today, I have an off period so I got off school early. I drove home, sat and listened to music for another half hour. When I went inside I texted him telling him i’m off school and he said I was out a little early. I had said i got off earlier and was listening to music and all he said was “I see”. Then the rest of his texts were pretty dry, and he cut the conversation off short.
I feel really bad, but I don’t really want to talk about it with him until I understand why i’m doing this, because I want to give him an explanation. i’m also not 100% sure it’s an issue, because he’s a pretty laid back guy, but I do think it’s bothering him, and I want him to be happy. I just want to know why so that I can know what to look out for and change. any advice on what to do and how to address it?? or does it seem like i’m overthinking things?

I just want to rant so I can forget this and focus on my exams. If you have been in a similar position and can help, I would appreciate it. If not, that's also fine <3
My bf (23M) and I (23F) have been dating for almost 3 years now. When we started dating, I was a virgin and thought I was asexual (had someone kind of sexually manipulate me, it's super complicated).
We met on an online dating app when I wasn't expecting anything. I told him about my asexuality and asked if that would be a problem. He responded frankly, saying he would like to be with someone he can have sex with but would love to get to know me better. We went on a date and it was magical. I felt so connected and seen, by the end of the first date, I was clearly not asexual. I realised that I was demi-sexual but have had never really had anyone I connected with.
When we started dating, we had a really hard time with sex. It was very painful for me, sometimes so painful I would have panic attacks. We couldn't have penetrative sex for a while and that really frustrated him. Often times, when he tried to initiate, I would turn him down which made him feel dejected. He doesn't know this, but a lot of times, I would just pretend like I wanted it and help him finish. He spoke to me about how dejected he was feeling and we decided it's best for me to initiate when I'm ready.
This is the important bit, I recognised how this affects his mental health and body image so I actively worked to make him feel better. He is short and skinny, something he has been made fun of all his life. I would shower him with compliments, beg him for shirtless pictures and remind him that I prefer him for how he looks. I also worked on my sexual issues, visting the GP, trying to ease myself into penetrative sex by practising on my own and making sure I initiate regularly (even when I didn't feel it) so he didn't feel frustrated.
A couple months into our relationship, things got better. We were able to have penetrative sex, something that made both of us feel incredibly close to each other. I loved having sex with him, it made me feel so loved and connected. Even though I never finished (and he never really tried. He'd ASK if I want him to go down on me, but I struggle with body dysmorphia and would say I feel insecure. At this point, he would just shrug and say okay and not eat me out) I knew it was important for our relationship and would consistently initiate. At this point, he had completely stopped initiating.
This is when things started getting bad. At some point, he started frequently rejecting me. I didn't think too much of it at first, but it started to build up. I would order lingerie and send him nudes, but he didn't seem to care. I remember once actively performing to turn him on and he just stared at him, not touching himself or anything. I knew something was wrong, but when I tried to give him a BJ I fully realised it. He was completely soft. I started crying, I thought there was something wrong with me.
During this time, he had also started talking about the receptionist in his place. She was beautiful and our age. She had much larger breasts than me (something he admitted he liked when we first started dating, but he said he USED to like it and now he prefers my itty bitty ones) and was everything he wanted. I could tell she was flirting with him. He kept insisting she wasn't and had apparently talked about me a bunch. But I could just tell. It broke my heart every time he would replay his conversations with her to me.
With everything that was happening, I just felt like some weird BFF of his. It felt like SHE was the one he wanted and I was just a listening ear. My body issues peaked. I was counting calories and I couldn't leave the house without a ton of makeup. I felt so ugly.
We fought regularly.
He finally opened up to me and told me that he wasn't having sex with me because he had POIS, a condition where ejaculating felt like an allergic reaction to him. He would be dizzy for days and he didn't like that. His health was generally quite bad, he'd often forget meals and with the stress of uni, he was becoming super unhealthy. He asked that we stopped for a couple months to see if he would get better. He promised we would resume once he finished his dissertation and started working. I said okay.
The next couple months weren't easy. He continued to flirt with the receptionist, asking her inappropriate questions like if she would wants kids after marriage and what she would prefer on a first date (I don't know if they've discussed more, this is all he told me). I would cry myself to sleep most nights, but he didn't seem to care. I felt so distant from him, so alone even when he was right there. Eventually, I asked him to stop talking to her. He said he wouldn't but then he accidentally told me something and I realised that he had continued to talk to her. I was furious and it felt like we needed to break up. This was a couple months before he had to move out of that place. We found out that she had been referring to him as her bf behind our backs (he says he's never given her any reason to think that, but she's not a weirdo. Why would she randomly call him her bf????) and apparently he confronted her and told her that was not okay. He says he hasn't spoken to her since, but I don't really know. He said he doesn't have her socials but I really doubt that.
We somehow managed to get through those months, they were truly awful. I felt so alone but I never told anyone about my issues. Everyone thought we were the dream couple and would jokingly ask us when the wedding was. In reality, I wanted to break up with him almost daily. I felt so shit in my body, I lost a decent amount of weight and started to become scared of certain foods.
I kept telling myself things would get better once he started working and our sex life resumed. When he started working, he was living with me on most weekdays, only visting his mum on the weekends. Things didn't get better. He didn't ever initiate sex and I felt so awful. I had needs too! He would hardly compliment me. Sometimes, I would leave the door open when I showered or would change my clothes infront of him. He wouldn't even pretend to be distracted. He would continue talking to me like I'm his friend, my body reduced to some lump of clay. I began to resent him.
Especially because of hormones, every month for 7-10 days, I would be super horny and would try and seduce him. Every time I would get rejected and my body issues would peak. I talked to him about my feelings countless times, and every time he would promise to do better and promise that he loves me and finds me really attractive. He would promise that it was just his POIS and once he started taking care of his health, things would be fine again. Through the months of Sept to Dec, we had sex less than 4 times. He would say he was too stressed to work on his health, he even made his gastritis so bad he would have debilitating headaches where he wouldn't even be listening to what I was saying. It was getting awful.
In Dec, I went home. For the first time, I spoke to someone about the reality of my relationship. I told my sister how dejected I felt, and how my body issues had gotten so bad I was forcing myself to puke meals and regularly staying under 1200 calories while over-exercising. My sister was so sad, she told me I needed to break up with my bf because this was never going to stop. I told her that I don't think I will ever find someone like my bf. He and I were really good friends and I used to find him incredibly attractive. When things were good, I was ecstatic, he truly felt like my soulmate. He is a great guy. My sister kept telling me that him being a great guy wasn't enough. I deserved to be with someone who made me feel desired.
I rang my bf and tried breaking up with him. He kept asking for a second chance, saying he was feeling better and things would be fine. I went back to my place in Jan and was waiting for him to mend things like he promised. Jan was the same, no intimacy.
Around Valentines day, I lost it. I was feeling so awful in my body. I was so angry, his mother threw a tantrum last time we did something for Vday so he would always spend the day with her and we would celebrate the week after. That was fine with me, but I wanted to be asked to be his valentines. I sent him a bunch of hints, sharing reels where guys would ask their partners to be their valentines. When he hadn't asked me couple days before he left for home, I calmly told him that I wanted to be asked. He just looked at me blankly and said, "okay, do you want to be my valentines?". I said that's not what I meant, he had to plan a surprise for me, nothing fancy but it had to be intentional. He said he'd do it but he didn't. A day or two later, he left for home. I spent Vday alone, having not been asked. I was so upset and angry, all I had asked for was this one gesture to show me that I am loved and wanted. He didn't even get me flowers and chocolates. I got really angry and while I was lashing out, I brought up the fact that he said he would initiate but he still hasn't.
He said he was planning to ask before the 20th (when I had planned a late Vday treat for us). He never asked btw, when the 20th came around he said he wanted to but because I had made such a big deal about it, the surprise was gone so what's the point (this is his excuse for everything. When I ask calmly he forgets to do it and then when I get angry he doesn't it because "what's the point after you've asked"). I was hurt but I didn't bring it up again. I put on a dress he liked, did my makeup and wore some heels for our Vday play. That night, we had sex. He initiated.
I was so nervous the whole time, it was so lovely but in my head a tiny voice told me this wouldn't last. I felt so loved and wanted, but at the same time scared because I knew it wasn't going to happen again.
As expected, that was the last time we had sex. A week later, he said that his condition had worsened and he can't do this anymore. He asked me to wait two months till his private healtcare kicked in and he would get it sorted out. I told him I will wait but I want to feel cherished in the meantime. We came up with a list of non-sexual things he can do to help me out, like compliment me.
It was so awkward. Everytime he would compliment my body, it felt so off. He would say things like "your face is snatched". It felt like I had a gay bff, not a bf. To his credit, he did try. For most the part, he was consistent with the compliments even if they didn't really help me with my body image issues.
Two months passed, and he still hadn't gotten it checked out. He didn't even make the first appointment till after four months had passed. That was only because I had complained about how he wasn't even taking the initiative. I felt like he was so relieved to not have sex with me, he was "forgetting" to get it checked so he could continue to not be intimate with me. I felt so pathetic, I would have urges and would feel so ashamed. I cried a lot. I stopped changing in front of him or doing anything else where I would want him to be mesmerised by me. I felt pathetic.
Last week, he just got it checked out. I don't think he is going to be able to treat it. His GP has asked for a bloodwork. I don't think he will get it done without my nagging. I am so tired. I keep thinking about why I even want this man, I'm becoming disgusted by him. I hate to say this, but I am beginning to hate his body. He eats like crap and is now skinny fat. He hasn't worked out in three years and - thanks to all the meal-skipping - he has become so weak I'm stronger than him. He was always weak and could never lift me or anything. But now he can't even lift suitcases. He is always complaining about work, never in a good moood. I feel so drained around him. Drained and distant. When I see him naked, I just feel disgusted. And angry. I want him to know how awful it feels to be made to feel ugly and undesirable.
I think I need to break up with him. The other day, I demanded an open relationship. He gave up and said okay. I don't even want an open relationship, I am demi-sexual and can't get turned on by random people. I just want to hurt him, I want to tell him I've kissed other men and make him feel bad.
That's thing, we don't even kiss. The last time we made out was 4-5 months ago. It's that bad. He doesn't touch me, he doesn't kiss me, he doesn't even look at me longingly. When I say we have no sex, I mean nothing even sexual. He looks at me like I'm his puppy dog. That's it. I'm so done with this, I'm a reasonably attractive young woman. Men ask me out all the time. Why do I have to deal with this? What is so special about this man? A couple years ago when we dealt with my sexual issues, I still ensured that he was feeling desired and satisfied. Why doesn't my feelings and needs matter? It's been over a 1.5 years since I've felt wanted on a regular basis. He doesn't even pretend like he's struggling to not be intimate with me. How is this fair??? If we break up, he's the one that is losing. He's the short, weak, skinny man with sex issues so bad he can't even kiss his partner. He's the one that needs to try to keep me. Why am I the one begging??
I feel so angry and hurt. I want him to feel the same way. I hate that he isn't even trying to satisfy me. Okay, he can't use his thing. Why can't we makeout? Why can't he watch me in the shower? Why can't he kiss my body? Why can't he eat me out/finger me?? Why is he not struggling with this???? I don't think he wants me anymore. I feel so worthless, I don't know what to do. I feel like I've wasted the last three years. I feel pathetic. I hate myself for trying so hard to make him feel secure when I was the one struggling sexually. I wish I had let him feel shit, at least I wouldn't feel so bad now. It would just feel like this is my karma. But this isn't fair, I treated him well, why isn't he treating me well :(
NOTE: Please do NOT make this one of those TikTok / Instagram posts. My friends do not know about this and I don't ever want them to find out.

Has my cheese slid off my cracker? So, my doctor called me about some tests that were done. Said he would send the info to the specialist I booked an appointment with. Great! All good stuff. Then a nurse or medical assistant named miss Kindvoice calls me from the specialist saying that my doctor sent the stuff but they have no idea who I am. They checked their computer and I have no records there. So, I say let me call you back in 20 minutes when I get the business card to check that I gave my doc the correct info. She says sure, just call back before the end of day.
I go get the card and just call back the same number that called me. A lady answers and I give her my info and tell her that I was confirming my appointment for Wednesday. Again, she tells me that she has no idea who I am. So I tell her that it was an issue and miss Kindvoice told me to call her back when I found the business card with all the info on it. So, she says okay, let me get miss Kindvoice and she can help figure this out. Great!
Miss Kindvoice gets on the line and says hi what's this about? I tell her that we talked 20 minutes ago and there was an issue about them having no idea I existed. She's like okay, I didn't call anyone but I can help you figure this out. Great!? (But then how did I know her name?) yeah let's figure this out. She asks when my appointment is and I tell her. Date and time. She says that the doctor doesn't work that day of the week and to check the card to make sure I have the right doctor. So I read off the info, doctor name, address of office and office number. And she says that all that info is correct. I'm calling the right doctor. Which I know because I just went to recent calls on my phone and called that number back. But whatever. At this point i have given my name and number 5 times. So she says she will make an appointment for the day after that the doctor does work. Great?!
So, I get the appointment and I think I'm done, right? Wrong! Not done. Then the doctor herself calls me back and says that she wants to meet on the original date that's written on the card but at a different location to do some sort of specialized test that's based off the information my primary care doctor sent to her. So, we've come full circle again. Back to 5/15.
So, again, I read them the card front and back. Correct address. Correct doctor. Correct everything except the doctor changed the address to another location.
So, have I gone insane? Did the cheese slide off my cracker? Does the elevator go all the way to the top? Does the world end if I don't make the appointment? Is this like when the flash goes back in time and creates Flashpoint? Is this time travel? The Mandela effect? Glitch in the matrix? Am I a brain in a jar? Is that you? Is this me?

I have been craving a solid, oily, almost red, bad for the tummy kinda chicken fried rice for a few days now. But the fast food places nowadays mostly turn out to be big bummers. No flavour only chilly powder.
NS and Sharadhas have gone to dogs, please don’t suggest those.
My main criteria is taste. I don’t care if that stuff will give you diarrhoea (my stomach is pretty strong). I don’t care about parking, ambience or any of that. Just a guy who wants a good fried rice and chicken starters.
So give me suggestion of the best places as per you.
Thank you in advance. :)

Hey people. I wanted to share my long ass story about how nitrous used to be one of my most favorite things in the world and now my relationship with it is complicated and twisted.
A lot of this will tackle interpersonal relationship dynamics, but I’m trying to illustrate to the reader the progression of how this drug took my ex’s mind. This is more of a thorough essay about my experience than a rant. When I was going through what I went through at the time, I wished there was a story like this out there to help me know better and understand. This is how I watched the love of my life melt away his brain on this drug.
I will try and keep this brief, but it probably won't be. I wish to convey the addictiveness this drug can have and the toll it can take on your mind and body. In the summer of 2022 I met my then bf who introduced me to the rave scene and drug scene he was a part of. He really only used K and Nitrous (which I will refer to as N going forward). He told me about his 1.5 years of being addicted to K, but did not inform me of his also 1.5 years (at the time) addiction to N. He told me after meeting me he didn’t want to abuse K anymore so as far as I knew when we started dating he got better about that.
It all started very early in the relationship. We went to a weekend festival together and both found doing N together was so fun. We continued on using and abusing N every weekend, and sometimes many weekdays. Probably going through 6 or 8+ tanks a week, this went on for like 3 months. Sadly, I do look back on those days fondly, despite what would happen later down the line. We had so much fun together and yes sadly it bonded us in this weird way. Using it causes you to feel more open and positive in the beginning, and we had so many heartfelt and deep conversations. And it felt like a little special world we could go into together.
At the time I had no clue how much those small-medium sized tanks cost ($65 and up for just one where we live). And he never told me how much they cost, and didn’t ask me to chip in, so I had no idea he was throwing himself into financial ruin buying them all the time. Looking back I have no idea why I didn’t ask, I just figured they were only $25 or something, or his friend was giving them to him, and I was aware it was probably a poor financial decision, but figured he could bounce back after the summer. You have to understand I thought I had him figured out, but I didn’t really know him that well at this point, or know about the drug scene at all. Before this I really only drank and smoked weed with the occasional cid or shrooms trip.
Three months into us dating and abusing N we come to the conclusion we just need to stop and take a break from N as this had all become quite excessive. Still he doesn’t explain to me how much debt he is in from buying all of those tanks over the summer. Two months into the break and he’s starting to crack, asking for me to be okay with us using it regularly. I tell him that I think it’s okay for us to just do it once and awhile. It was hard to not cave in because truthfully I missed it as well, I myself was starting to feel the addictiveness of this drug, so I reserved it so that I only ever did it with him. We go back to doing it occasionally on the weekends. Over the span of 1 month my bf started to constantly complain of having nerve issues, his feet and legs and hands were numb, I also noticed that he seemed really depressed. This is when he started to experience the vitamin B deficiency, although both me and him didn’t realize this at the time.
Around this time is when he finally and unceremoniously reveals to me how much these things actually cost. This is the tricky aspect of his personality I would go on to experience more of. It was clear he was resentful towards me, that I had no idea how much money he was spending, but the reality is if I had known how much those things cost I would have ended it a lot sooner. I didn’t even understand how he had the ability to spend so much money, I don’t even want to do the math. I would find out later he would just take out credit cards and max them out. In addition to him doing them with me occasionally, he was also doing them behind my back, which I had caught him doing several times and was always forgiving over this.
So, because of this constant spending he was in a substantial amount of debt. What he told me at the time was around $6,000. Knowing him, this was probably a generous assessment. This is definitely a point in the story where I should have left him. Clearly he was developing this addiction towards N and spent an ungodly amount of money that was beyond even my comprehension. But, I was head over heels and believed that he could figure this out. People go into debt all the time, I would tell myself. But I told him, this all needed to outright stop. No more N, not even occasionally. Unfortunately while he of course agreed to my face I have to suspect now, he was doing it behind my back all the time. Around this time he wouldn’t come home from work until 7 or 7:30 which didn’t make sense as his hours at work would fluctuate from time to time, but he was usually always off at 5. He would lie and say his work was very busy and made him stay later, which I believed at the time.
Maybe about a month later we are in bed together sleeping, it’s the middle of the night. He wakes me up and explains he literally cannot feel his feet or legs and has been having trouble walking for the past several days. I take him to the ER that night. This night and the following weeks after were some of the most heartbreaking and emotionally terrifying times of my life so far. At this time neither of us had any idea or reason to suspect N was the reason for this. We actually talked to the doctor there and ran tests for over 3 hours, he got an MRI and a spinal tap which was so hard to watch being done to him. It wasn’t until I desperately did research on my phone in the hospital room and suddenly see all of these remarks and reddit posts and studies about N causing paralysis and nerve damage. I tell my bf and the doctor and they have no trouble assessing that is what is causing this. They give him a regiment of vitamin B shots as you typically do in this situation. The doctor even said that they hope they can stop permanent damage from happening, because if not he may lose control of his legs and it may spread to his pelvic area (IE dick don’t work) etc, he had to do physical therapy and see a drug counselor.
The following days and weeks after I was constantly on edge worrying and wondering if my bf and love of my life would lose his ability to walk. Thankfully, the treatment took and he didn’t even end up needing physical therapy. This is when I truly believe or would like to hope he actually quit and wasn’t doing N behind my back. Unfortunately it wouldn’t matter, as I’ve learned, a lot of symptoms of N abuse don’t show themselves until after you stop. Shortly after this event is when our relationship took a nosedive. He had also ditched the drug counselor. To compensate for no N he was drinking so often. He started to become aggressive and violent. I remember it all started in a fight where he got real close and in my face and stared me down to try and intimidate me. In a way it was both terrifying and laughable (because he’s only a few inches taller than me), I couldn’t even comprehend the kind of person he had turned into. After that came the months and months of never ending name calling, insults, degradation, and constant arguments over every little thing I did. He became so addicted to the high of his power trip of making me feel small and weak he would find any excuse to fly into a rage at me, even when we were tripping on mushrooms together.
Nothing was ever the same after that. We didn’t go out, didn’t do dates, and every activity together felt like it was all a big chore to him. I could look in his eyes and see he was constantly thinking about N, and when he would do it next. He really changed, and what I am now realizing is he was probably starting to experience the effects of pure brain damage. My close friends who knew him even agree with me that there is a huge change in his demeanor around this time in April of 2023.
I also want to add more info about his bizarre behavior. He started to develop an unhealthy obsession with social media, scrutinizing what I posted and what he posted. He started to obsess over current events of any kind, any breaking story or ongoing conflict and he would rant and rant about the current state of the world and destruction of humanity all the time. He started to get obsessed with mental health and psychology and pathologize me and himself and other people in our lives. He would send me 10 videos everyday about mental health and relationships and expect me to reply and have a response for every single one like a book report. This obsession with the destruction of humanity turned into a paranoia about the world, he would often say no one understands him, and he is all alone. He turned on his best friends of several years because he was paranoid they were racists or had bad morals (they were all pleasant and nice people who enjoy edgy humor from time to time). There was no more middle ground for anything, you either loved something fully, or hated it fully. Somewhere down the line he actually got his account banned on Instagram for the craziest reason. He couldn’t stop or control himself from having heated arguments with random strangers in comments sections, of almost any video of any topic. He would insult people there constantly.
Here is another big mistake I made.I allowed him to live with me, and we moved in together. At this point we had been dating for a year. Before this I lived on my own and didn’t want to renew my lease, and he was living with his dad who was abusive and financially took advantage of him. At the time I was convinced that this bad behavior would go away if he could get away from his dad and his toxic household. Well the toxicity only followed. That summer we went to another weekend festival and he revealed to me when we got there he had purchased N and brought it. I was so conflicted as I myself had missed it quite a lot, and I had to deny myself my healthy regulated usage of it in order to not trigger him. I caved again and said we could do it only for this weekend. You may not at all be surprised to learn it didn’t end that way.
After the festival everything truly fell apart. He continued to buy tanks of N and do them behind my back constantly. He would say he was just going to his car to talk to his friends, or his mom, and be gone for hours. Because he was totally abusing me and I had no idea because I was under his spell of manipulation, I had no recourse. Any comment of mine asking why he was gone for so long, why can’t he just talk to his friends inside our apartment, I’ll go in the other room for privacy, was only met with complete indifference. These questions only pissed him off. He would say it’s because I was so exhausting and demanding he needed a break from me. When I would call him when he’s on one of these “excursions,” he would every so often mute the call while I was talking or in a silent moment. I eventually realized he was hitting the tank every time he muted himself. When I finally called him out on this he gaslit me and told me he just does this all the time because he coughs and clears his throat, fyi he had never done this before in our relationship. Because I had no recourse I just had to agree and move on. And because his mind was deteriorating more and more each day he would go on to make randomly muting himself in calls as a common, thing so as to keep up the facade he told me. Actual crazy behavior.
He even started doing K again, he would clearly be f-ed out of his mind by both K and N, and stumble around our apartment with crazy red bulging eyes and again and again tell me he was just drunk. Around this time is when he finally divulges to me not only had he been abusing K for the 1.5 years before he met me, he had also been abusing N for 1.5 years before he met me. And it wasn’t actually the case that he only “began” to become addicted to N when we started dating and doing it together. This really started to put a lot into perspective for me, and it made sense how he had almost paralyzed himself over this, now at this current time 3+ year addiction to these substances, and it made me realize how psychologically and cognitively he was failing based on changes in his personality. You also have to understand he explained to me before he met me, he was doing 1.5-2 grams of K or more and N, EVERYDAY.
And still at this time the name calling, insults and manipulation continued. He of course was no longer experiencing any true “high” from the N anymore, it would just simply dull his senses. It was like a stereotypical violent alcoholic husband comes home from the bar and berates his wife, kind of situation, except with N. And I became obsessed with figuring out how to get him to stop and go back to the loving person I remembered meeting and loving. I began to do very toxic things, going through his backpack, going through his car, and constantly always finding tanks and balloons and all kinds of paraphilia everywhere. I would find tanks in our recycling bin, like he actually thought I wouldn’t notice. I would come home late from being with friends and catch him passed out on the couch with an empty tank in his hand. He couldn't be left alone anymore. If he wasn’t with me, 100% of the time he was sitting in his car doing N. At this point in time there was no forgiveness, I was completely broken. I would yell and scream at him or wake him up and demand he stop and choose me or the drugs, all terrible things to be doing. I know that.
Eventually it got so bad I felt I had no other recourse other than to call and inform his mother of his behavior and what he had been doing all this time. Me doing this is probably what saved his life, as there was never anyway I was going to get through to him myself. But it did not save his mental health. Even having his mother involved didn’t stop any of it. He still went out and bought it behind my back like nothing happened. Another painful painful aspect of how his personality had changed is he would constantly have crazy back and forth mood swings, one minute showing me the sweet man I had fallen in love with, thanking me and praising me for having stepped in and put a stop to this, the next minute he hated me and I was the worst thing in his life and I could never tell what was even real anymore.
But did I leave, oh no, that would have been the smart thing to do.Instead at the time I was seeing a therapist who also specializes in couples therapy. I get us started with counseling and during our second session he gets called out by my therapist and yells and screams and berates her, it was actually insane. That is when things really ended between us. He moved out and moved into his moms apartment 30 minutes away that night. Even though the breakup was traumatizing and painful I still had hope that even if he isn’t with me, now he will receive help from his mother. Well, she didn’t place him in any special drug counselor program or rehab, she just severely cut off his finances so that he could pay off his debts, which she had bought back from several banks so it would not gain more and more interest. I do believe now his debt may be somewhere in the $10,000-$20,000 range. So now he, as an almost 30 year old man, needs to ask his mother in order to buy or purchase anything. Somehow, despite all of this I would learn he was continuing to do N and K.
Amazingly, we still tried briefly to even make our relationship work after he moved out. At this point he has mastered the art of manipulation and being fake, and convinced me he was getting better, he had even started to look better too, but he was still up to his old BS. He came over to the apartment once for us to have a mini date. Because he went on and on about how he was getting more and more into walks he said he was going to take a quick stroll around the block to get some fresh air. Well a quick stroll turns into 30 minutes, and I start to notice his car is gone from our street. I call him and he says now he is sitting in his car talking to his mom, I tell him I don’t see his car and it’s been a long time, he clearly had left to buy N. He becomes irate and claims he simply moved his car down the block for “reasons” and I was in the wrong for being accusatory and not trusting him. P.S. I went down the block and he just was not there. This guy is either absolutely crazy or thinks I’m some kind of imbecile, or both. It basically ended from there.
We tried to be civil, but he cannot control himself from completely going ballistic on me anymore, or his mother. And it is so painful when he is remorseful and doesn’t remember all the things he said to me. At this point I have had to realize I am basically talking to and trying to reason with a mentally disabled person. The fun loving, easy going, creative, altruistic, thoughtful, smart and attentive man I met doesn’t exist anymore, and I don’t think he will ever come back. All that remains is the shell of a confused and angry person.
Some small things to address, how it came to be that he abused these drugs all the time before he met me is because his best friend was a drug dealer and in the beginning would give him all of these things for free. Once he was hooked and doing it everyday it seemed he would stop at no end to spend money and buy them. Yes K was definitely a contributor into his mild psychosis but I still think it would have happened even from the N abuse alone, based on research I’ve been doing lately. And yes I have to admit I think he had bad and malignant psychological traits before abusing drugs, and doing that made it all worse.
So that is the story of how I watched this man ruin his life, and scare away maybe the only person who could withstand experiencing all of his BS and still wanted to love and help him. There are SO MANY things I too should have done differently. There is also an age gap between us of 3 years, so I naively thought he had a better handle on his life than he really did. I do find it hard to understand how people can be so addicted at times, but in the end like my ex, everyone is trying to chase some kind of feeling or experience that came with it, rather than the drug itself.
Thank you for reading if you made it to the end.
TLDR: Two years ago I started dating a guy who wasn’t honest with me about his 1.5 years of Nitrous abuse before we started dating. He was a sweet and honest and caring man when I met him. Sadly most of our relationship was spent on doing lots of Nitrous together. He eventually developed health problems like a vitamin B deficiency and even almost got paralysis and permanent nerve damage, which was hard for me to watch and witness. His health issues didn’t deter him away from Nitrous and he was constantly buying tanks and doing it behind my back. The more he abused Nitrous the more abusive towards me he became as a person. Our relationship crumbled and not even getting his mom involved helped. He was also clearly experiencing psychosis and mental deterioration. We broke up because he yelled and screamed at my therapist and he had to move in with his mom. Moving in with his mom didn’t stop his addiction even though she cut off his finances.
Even when we tried to make the relationship work he still abused it anyway. I would now consider him a mentally disabled person and I don’t recognize who he even is anymore after 3+ years of abusing Nitrous almost everyday. Please use Nitrous responsibly or don't at all.

I have parents who have ignored eachother (gone home from work, slept in different beds) and didn’t say anything to eachother for a WHOLE YEAR in 2020 (not a SINGLE word, and no I’m not lying. , and ever since then they’ve been on and off. (Mind you in 2020 i was 12)
And when they do talk, it’s mostly instances where I did something mildly wrong whereas they get together and gang up on me (which happened many times) and scream at the top of their lungs through ages 14-15
I think that psychologically messed me up in the head, just wondering why they were so petty and why they didn’t get a divorce, even now they were cool last month but they’re ignoring eachother again (for some reason?)
I am just tired, i dislike my parents and I wanna restart my life, or be reborn, then to live in this fucking household.
Am I being dramatic ?

The following journal entries were written by Sonja Dorfmann, sister of the perpetrator in the days leading up to her running away from home and the murder of her parents and Paula Forst.
June 13, 2021
School is out for the summer! That means I have to endure six weeks at home with my awful family. On the plus side, I have enough time to work on my painting. It's something that I've been thinking about for most of the school year and I can't wait to turn it in to the art contest.
June 17, 2021
Lately, my older brother, Benedikt has been acting even more harsh towards me. He has always been such a bully towards me. And whenever he gets mad, he would either blame me for Mom leaving us when we were younger or take his anger out on me or anyone else for whatever problem he had going on. Sometimes I wish I could live with my older sister, Liesa and her girlfriend in America so that I wouldn't have to worry about everything.
June 18, 2021
I think my painting is nearly done. It describes a young girl surrounded by beautiful red flowers and a glass dome that are protecting her from the monsters that are trying to take her back. To me, I think the monsters represent my father through his drinking alcohol and hitting me when he gets drunk and my brother through berating me and also hitting me when he doesn't get what he wants. Once I finish painting this, I'll make sure to mail my painting and prove them wrong.
June 20, 2021
My older brother is a horrible person and an asshole. He not only looked through my journal, but he destroyed my painting. After that, he lied saying some animal broke into the house and tore it apart. But I know what really happened. So that evening, I sneaked into his room and went through his notebook. What I saw haunted me and even gave me nightmares. On every page, my brother wanted to kill me. But he didn't just want to kill me, he wanted to kill our parents, his former classmates, and a girl named Paula Forst.
I need to get out of here before he kills me first. But how? Then it came to me. I have to run away from home and live with Tante Irma. She's my mom's sister and she would be willing to take me in.
June 26, 2021
It's been a few days since I left home. I'm now staying with my aunt, Irma. When I first arrived, she gave me a hug saying how happy she was that I left this hellhole of a home I grew up in behind. She then told me that I can stay here for a few days. I opted to stay in the guest room as my two cousins were already asleep and they already have their own rooms. Now I'm looking forward to calling mom and telling her that I'm staying with Tante Irma. I hope she'll be relieved to know about this.
June 27, 2021
I tried calling Mom yesterday, but she hasn't picked up the phone. Maybe she's working an overtime shift at her new job in the hospital? I mused. But it wouldn't make sense. After all, the hospital would never allow Mom to take the night shift or even an overtime shift for that matter. I just hope she's okay.
July 2, 2021
Mom. She's dead. The police came to our house to tell me and Tante Irma the horrible news of what happened. Two adolescent boys entered the house where my dad and brother lived and found their dead bodies covered in bags. They then called the police who entered the backyard and found the bodies of my parents and Paula, the girl whose name I saw in the notebook. Not only that, but they arrested the one responsible for the murders: my own brother Benedikt.
I couldn't believe it.
My brother who treated me like trash is a murderer. And my parents are gone.
November 16, 2021
It's been four months since I last wrote in this journal. I just didn't have the time to do so what with the trial for the murder of my parents and going back to school. After the deaths of my parents, Tante Irma told me that I can stay with her for as long as I wanted. I gave her a big hug with tears streaming down my cheeks and said, "Thank you." I've been attending therapy and I still have nightmares about what happened.
But I'm getting better. Bit by little bit. I only hope to be a therapist so that I can help children like me who are going through terrible situations at home so that way they won't do the same horrible things my brother did.

I saw a post about a month ago about the sabbath and in the comments there was a guy named the celt that very strongly shut down a lot of the “Christians” I saw responding in the comments. I was raised Christian but have since fallen off and not held on to my belief because the faith I saw growing up in the southern United States was shallow. It didn’t seem to have very much substance.
However, this Celt fellow piqued my curiosity and I found this subreddit. I’ve lurked ever since and while I don’t think this group is any more perfect than the Christian’s I normally run into the people here seem to at least know what they are talking about. I haven’t fully committed to being a Christian or whatever this group seems to be but I am very interested to see what the group is about. What I feel the most guilt for is my addiction to pornography. I’m very much in the NoFap community because I am trying to drop that habit. I was wondering if there was a unique take on why getting rid of the addiction is beneficial within this community as well as figure out exactly what all of you believe.
Here is what I’ve been able to tell so far from reading y’all’s post:
God made the law, Leviticus and Deuteronomy, and you should obey all of it. I think some are in favor for salvific obedience and others just do it out of love, correct me if I’m wrong. Some of you really don’t like Paul and some of you are fine with him. You celebrate extra holidays. Some of you think that you should call God by a specific name like Yahweh, Yeshua, etc.
I admire the transparency and intellectual honesty that many of you have with your positions. Lots of people don’t stay consistent with their worldview when challenged. Especially on Reddit.
I do have lots of questions though when it comes to how you justify certain bible verses with your worldview. I’ve gone over a Christian YouTubers response named Mike Winger, who I watched a lot coming up, and he seemed to refute a lot of y’all’s claims. Anyways I’ll definitely be sticking around to see what y’all talk about but I’m not sure I can come around to believing the same things that you guys do.

I'm pretty sure I'm going to be dead in the next 24 hours.
Whether that's the Costella family, or whatever this is, I'm not sure.
The police are taking forever, and part of me knows they're either refusing to believe me, or RC got them too.
I'm holed up on our school bus, so I've got nothing better to do.
I want to tell you about my team.
We met in our sophomore year.
Strangers standing outside the club room.
Levi was the freckled brunette who wouldn't stop talking about Game of Thrones.
Sunny, a pretty redhead, told him to shut up.
Tom, a sandy blonde, nodding his head to music corked in his ears.
I just wanted to be part of a club, and get away from my overbearing mother.
I won't say it was a perfect start. Our school was lacking in funding, so anyone could join, which made us more of a Quiz Club. I had some serious anxiety, so I stayed on the sidelines for a while, watching, rather than taking part.
It's not like we actually talked to each other initially. The first few weeks, we played Jeopardy, and attempted to find more members to cement us as an official Academic Decathlon club.
Unfortunately, though, it was just the four of us.
Which made it extremely hard for us to be taken seriously.
According to Google, Academic Decathlon teams were made up of nine members, placed by their GPA.
Our principal laughed at us, but he did let us become official.
Which was out of pity, I assumed.
The club was assembled, and we started meeting up after school.
Sort of.
Sunny barely showed up, and Levi didn't take anything seriously, preferring to spend the time telling us about his weird family turf-war.
Our principal dumped us in a tiny classroom with a resident rat living under the floorboards.
There was barely enough room to move, and the four of us crammed together for three hours was less than appealing.
Still, though, I wanted to be part of a club.
I had grown up with parents who were obsessed with board games, so I was pretty good at general knowledge questions. Our club room was too small for anything else but three desks (Sunny and I shared one) and a whiteboard we had to shove through the door.
But, again, we didn't start as an Academic club.
It was more akin to Story Time Club.
Arriving late on my third day, armed with quiz cards from home, I found Tom and Sunny completely mesmerised by Levi’s storytelling skills, drowned in shadow.
They didn't even turn the lights on.
I strictly remember squeezing next to Sunny, and hearing the words, “But there was so much blood all over the floor, and my Mom told me to go upstairs and hide under the bed…”
Sitting in front of them was Levi, perched on a desk, his legs swinging, a whiteboard marker between his teeth.
Sometimes he'd get up, and illustrate parts of his story.
It sucked that his drawings were all stick people.
I won't go into full details of his life, but Levi grew up as part of a family who had… interesting methods of making a living. I had seen the guy’s father multiple times when we hung out at his place, and, yeah, my friend’s family definitely had Soprano vibes.
Levi’s Draw My Life was nothing to do with the club, but it did bring us closer.
Even if, at that point, I was considering leaving.
But it's not like it was easy to walk away from these guys. It's like finding your soulmates. Levi wasn't the only one with an interesting life. Sunny Lang was an ex kpop trainee, who was kicked out for being too fat, which led her to develop a severe eating disorder, and a hatred for her own body.
Sunny explained her family were originally from Boston, her mother growing up in Korea.
She signed up for an idol agency focusing on creating a new girl group, and had gotten all the way to the final stages, before being kicked for her weight. Sunny told us her story with a smile, though there was a hollowness in her eyes I couldn't ignore. The other girls were judgemental bullies, and the idol diet and brutal regime almost killed her.
Sunny lived in a tiny apartment with 9 girls, who would tear each other apart for a chance to debut. Sunny said all the other girls debuted, and when we (not so patiently) asked for names, she shrugged, admitting she signed an NDA that prevented her spilling the beans.
What she did say, was the K-pop idol is a product, not a person– and are made and moulded into a product.
She had zero interest in throwing her humanity away to become a manufactured doll.
So, one of us was the son of an underground family, and the other was an ex idol.
Tom was an aspiring horror writer with a famous older step-brother.
His story times were usually, That one time I went to the Met Gala.
When it was my turn to reveal my story, I told them the only interesting thing about me.
I could smell when something bad was going to happen.
They laughed, but I was being serious.
When I was a kid, I smelled my mother’s brain tumor.
I remember it smelled like curdled milk.
I asked Mom why her head smelled of mouldy milk, and Mom laughed and said it was her shampoo.
It was actually a grade two tumor growing inside her brain.
Thankfully, the tumour was found quickly and removed.
Growing older, I became sensitive to smell. The little girl choking on the bus smelled of singed wood, and the old man crossing the road stunk of gasoline.
In the fourth grade, my classmate Alex Castor smelled of lemons all morning.
I sat behind him, choking on the stink all the way through class.
Ever since I met him, Alex had always smelled… off.
It was a distinct smell I could never understand, and as the days and months and years went by, that smell morphed into a subtle orangey musk that was so strong I had to cover my mouth and nose. Then, he smelled like lemons.
During Recess, I watched Alex fall off of the jungle gym, straight onto his head.
Alex Castor was dead before the paramedics arrived, my panicked teacher attempting CPR when his brains were leaking out of his ears.
The school claimed it was an accident, but Alex would have been fine if the jungle gym wasn't built on solid concrete.
I told my team members this, and Levi was sceptical.
“You can smell bad things?” He said, his lips curved around his milkshake straw. In the early days, we hung out in the local bar. It's not like we were allowed inside, but Levi could get us in anywhere.
I was squeezed between Tom and Sunny, while Levi took the seat opposite us. I couldn't help noticing our waitress was insisting on free milkshake refills, her frantic eyes glued to Levi.
I had zero idea why. Levi Costella was about as intimidating as a fruit fly.
Wearing a white shirt with a popped collar, a leather jacket thrown over the top, Levi was giving rebellious Harvard student, rather than son of a crime family.
Leaning forward, he raised a brow, clearly not believing me.
“So, you're like a stink psychic?”
I shrugged, sipping my own shake.
“Sure.”
I wasn't planning on telling him the club room smelled off on our first day.
Once we actually started the club, Levi surprised us as the smartest member, and getting to know him further, I came to the realization his family were infamous in our town.
However, his parents hid it well. Lucy and Michael Costella were the owners of a popular ramen store in our town, hiding under the facade of two successful business owners. The Costella’s were an attractive family.
Lucy was a sophisticated brunette with a lipstick smile, Michael, a handsome fluffy haired man who looked like he modelled glasses.
The two were fiercely protective over their youngest son, not so casually reminding us behind grinning smiles, that if anything happened to Levi, we would automatically be involved in the family.
I mean, they did laugh and say, “We’re joking! Look at your little faces!” when Sunny went deathly pale. But there was definitely truth behind their words.
Being Levi’s friend was… challenging at first.
Tom and I were in his room studying for finals, and an alarm went off, flooding Levi’s room in red light.
I had zero idea where it was coming from, but it locked all the doors and windows, forcing the Costella residence into temporary lockdown. Levi didn't seem fazed, casually mentioning his parents were taking care of it.
He had a whiteboard set up in his room, and was standing in front of it, cramming all of our textbook notes into one easily digestible drawing.
Levi wasn't just smart.
He was Ivy League smart, so we had struck gold with him.
His family were questionable, and yes, sometimes I did fear for my life, but as the more time we spent at his house, the Costella household became a second home. We got used to the alarms.
I just brought along ear plugs.
I wish I was writing this post about Levi’s family, and sure, they are a factor in what is going on right now, but I want to preface this by saying the events below involve the 2024 scholastic decathlon final in our town with the school’s listed:
Starbrook High School.
Ratcliffe High School.
Please note, the incident that took place last night was immediately covered up, and all phone footage was destroyed. Our town is mostly out of the way, and does not show up on Google searches.
We also have our own version of the academic decathlon, which is a more town-level competition, due to lacking funds. The four of us were desperate to start competing with our schools.
So, we started taking things a little more seriously.
We got a coach.
Mr Hanes, who was hesitant at first.
In his words, “You will hate me as your coach.”
He started by recruiting more members, announcing, “If you want to be taken seriously as an actual club, then I'll be taking the reins from now on.”
He did, and with our teachers guidance (and sometimes brutal honesty), we reached a level where we could start competing with other school’s in town. Now, none of us knew this, but Mr Hanes was obsessed with winning.
So, club meetings were twisted into two hour study sessions with no talking, followed by Mr Hanes Jeaprody, which was Jeaprody, without the actual fun.
We were quizzed multiple times, answer cards and practise questions quite literally thrown directly in our faces.
I hate to admit this (I really hate to admit this) but Mr Hanes’s tactics worked. Sure, we had been mildly brainwashed by our slightly unhinged coach, but with Levi Costella, we destroyed our competitors. Like I said, our town held their own version of the academic scholastic decathlon, but it was pretty much the same, with some changes.
Ten subjects. Language and Literature, Math, Social Science, Economics, Art, Music, Interview, Speech, and Essay.
Unlike the official Decathlon, ours was more like a game show, with the ability to be knocked out if a team member answers a question wrong. Whoever answers the most questions correctly wins. Team meet ups were either tests, study sessions, or quizzing each other.
Which leads me to last night.
The finals were held in the reigning champions, Ratcliffe High School’s, auditorium.
And we were about to win our town’s Scholastic Decathlon 2024 Championships.
Well…I was knocked out in the music section. Standing next to my coach who I was sure was going to asphyxiate from excitement, I could smell the sudden potent stink of lemon. I tried to ignore it at first, but the more questions my team were answering correctly, the smell got worse, suffocating my senses.
This wasn't just lemon. The stink was like a burning, singing smell trickling into my nose and the back of my throat.
It was stronger than what Alex smelled like.
This was suffocating, drowning my thoughts.
“Are you okay, Cassandra?”
Mr Hanes nudged me when a Ratcliffe girl was struggling to answer a question, only for Sunny to jump in with the answer. “You look quite pale.”
I nodded, forcing a smile.
My gaze was on the Ratcliffe coach, a scary looking blonde woman, whispering in one of her student’s ears.
The Ratcliffe kid freaked me out. He was way too tall, dark blonde hair, and bulging eyes I swear were not blinking.
His gaze was glued to Levi, who wore a smug grin.
There was a smaller girl next to the Ratcliffe kid, a Macbook balanced on her knee. Every so often, he leaned into her, the two of them in deep conversation.
“I'm just nervous.”
I jumped when Ratcliffe scored a point, their side erupting into cheers.
During the break, we had a mini team meeting.
Sunny rushed to the bathroom to freshen up, and I noticed a Ratcliffe girl with a bouncing ponytail following her.
Ignoring our coach’s speech, I joined the two girls in the corridor, that lemony scent hanging thick in the air.
I caught them in an awkward position.
The Ratcliffe girl had her fingers pinched between the material of Sunny’s dark blue shirt bearing our school’s name.
Sunny looked confused, her lips parted like she was going to yell.
Ponytail dropped her hand, suddenly, with a nervous laugh. “Oh! I'm so, so, sorry,” she gushed. “You had, like, the biggest spider crawling on your back.”
Sunny caught my eye, shooting me a reassuring smile.
“Thanks.” She made sure to keep her distance. “Uh, where's your bathroom?”
The Ratcliffe girl nodded down the hallway. “It's just down there. I'm going there too if you want me to show you?”
Sunny motioned for me to go back to the auditorium. “Uh, sure! That'd be great!”
I did try to follow them, only for Sunny to cough loudly.
I took the hint, reluctantly heading back into the auditorium.
My team was hyping each other up, Levi in the centre, sweating through his team shirt. He ran a trembling hand through his hair. “I can't do this,” He groaned. “Ratcliffe High is known to play dirty, man. They're unbeatable.”
“In what way do they play dirty?” I asked, joining them.
Levi gulped down water, shrugging.
“I dunno! They're already trying to distract me with the stink eye.” The boy narrowed his eyes at a grinning Ratcliffe kid who, after noticing our stares, jumped to his feet, waving at us.
“Hey guys!”
“That's Harry Cartwright, the son of the Cartwright family who tried to kill my parents in the third grade.” Levi mockingly waved back. “As you can see, their kid is a fucking sociopath.”
Huh. I wasn't expecting the smiley kid to be the mobster’s son.
Harry Cartwright was not what I expected.
Unlike his team members, he was the only one in casual clothing, a short sleeved white shirt and jeans, a pair of sunglasses perched on top of his head.
Tom went pale.
“Fuck.” He hissed. “He’s one of you? Then those bastards will have a reason to play dirty, right?”
Levi shrugged, averting his gaze. It was the first time I saw his eyes darken, like he was subtly telling the boy to back off.
“The Cartwright’s have been trying to buy our land for a while,” he muttered. “I wouldn't put it past them to use the Decathlon as a way to attack.”
“Attack?!” April, another member of our team, hissed. “Like, attack attack?”
Mr Hanes grabbed the boy, resting his hands on Levi’s shoulders. “Ignore them,” he said. “Hey. Look at me.”
Levi did, raising a brow.
“You're losing that spark in your eye, young man.”
“Spark?”
Our coach nodded. “Look at me, kid.”
Levi rolled his eyes. “I am looking at you, Mr Hanes.”
The man was shaking. I was guessing his whole career (or coaching career) was on the line.
“They know they're losing, Mr Costella.”
Hanes shook the boy, squeezing his shoulders. “You are being positive and Ratcliffe doesn't like that. They want you to be nervous. They want to make you second guess yourself and lose confidence. Don't let them get into your head.” he smiled, giving the boy a playful shove. “Kick their asses.”
“Exactly!”
I didn't realize Sunny was back from the bathroom.
The faint smell of lemons had followed her. I noticed a wet patch on her shirt collar, though she was quick to smile at me, admitting she'd spilled water down herself. Sunny wrapped her arms around Levi, squeezing him into a hug.
She hung on for a little too long, Tom dragging her away with a laugh. “Good luck, all right?” she backed away, ruffling his hair. “We’ve got this!”
When I hugged Levi good luck too, I had to resist covering my nose.
The smell of lemon was unbearable, just like fourth grade Alex.
But it wasn't as potent as earlier.
I vaguely remembered the smell starting to fade once Alex’s body was being carted away on a stretcher.
Following my captain through the crowd, I was right. The smell was less suffocating. Before he went back to the stage, I grabbed the back of his shirt.
The material was soaking wet.
“How are you so wet?” I said, swiping my hands on my shirt.
“Huh?”
I shook my head. “Never mind. Do you remember what I told you in sophomore year?”
Levi settled me with a confident, but nervous smile. “Thaaaat you're scared of clowns?”
“No. I mean the boy who smelled of lemons.” I gritted out.
Levi surprised me with a laugh. “What are you talking about?”
Something ice cold trickled down my spine.
Levi did know what I was talking about. He brought up my stink sense a day earlier in front of his parents, and I had to cover his mouth to shut him up.
Leaning close, I whispered in his ear. “You stink of rotten lemons.”
He nodded slowly, pulling away. “Uh… thanks?”
I bit back a hiss of frustration. “No, you don't understand what I'm saying–”
“Starbrooke High School,” The host announced. “Can all members please return to the stage.”
Levi held up his hand for a high five.
“Can we do this later?” He winked. “I'm kinda busy carrying this spelling-bee on my back right now.”
I nodded shakily, high fiving him, and letting him jump back onto the stage.
Before his words hit like a tidal wave, ice cold water slammed into me.
Spelling Bee?
Slowly making my way back to the stands, Levi’s mistake was circling around my head. He did win a spelling bee, but that was in middle school.
Thankfully, the smell of lemons was gone when I returned to my seat.
Mr Hanes handed me a soda. “Chill out, Cassandera, it's just a game.”
He could talk. The guy was on his fifth coffee.
Mr Hanes was not chilled out in the slightest.
Surprisingly, the event went well. I was half expecting my team to be crushed by the rafters, or caught in a blaze started in the crowd. But we were doing well. No, we were winning.
Reaching the climaxing round, Sunny choked against a smug Ratcliffe boy, joining me on the sidelines.
Levi answered the next question with a confident smile.
We were winning, but Ratcliffe could still catch up with a miracle.
The second to last question was to Ratcliffe, and it was general knowledge.
”Where on the human body would one find the *orbit?*
I knew the answer, and so did Levi, his lips breaking out into a smile when the Ratcliffe boy was hesitating, eyes wide.
Our school’s buzzer went off, Levi slamming his hand down.
Bzzz!
The host turned to our team. “Starbrooke, can I have your answer?”
Levi nodded, shooting our team a victory grin.
“It's…!“ He opened his mouth to answer, his jaw slackening suddenly.
The boy’s shoulders slumped.
“Uh… “
“Um…”
“Huhhhhh…”
Levi inclined his head, blinking, his eyes glazing over. There was a sudden, hollow vacancy that sent chills down my spine. It was like someone had reached into his skull, and yanked out his brain, leaving a shell in his place.
To my confusion, our team captain frowned at his buzzer like he'd never seen one before. He pressed it, exploding into child-like giggles.
Bzzz!
The audience laughed along nervously.
Tom nudged me. “What the fuck is he doing?”
Bzzz Bzzz Bzzz!
Levi’s entire body was slumped, his hand slamming down on the buzzer.
I caught something pooling down his chin.
“Is he… drooling?” I whispered.
Mr Hanes looked mildly horrified. “Has he been drinking?
“Levi?” Tom spluttered. “Drinking?!"
Whatever we were watching, however, was definitely influenced by… something.
Bzz. Bzz. Bzz. Bzz. Bzz!
“Young man, that is not a toy!”
The host wasn't amused. “Starbrooke High School, I need an answer from you,” He nodded to Levi, who was pressing the buzzer, his smile growing.
“Once again,” The host backed away, like Levi was contagious. “Where on the human body would one find the Orbit?”
Levi cocked his head, lips parted.
His gaze found the overhead lights, and he winced, his lips curling into a frown.
“Starbrooke High School!”
Levi jumped, tipping his head back and blowing a raspberry. “Palm tree?”
The audience laughed, and I started feeling nauseous.
Across from us, I could see the twist of a smirk on the Ratcliffe coach’s lips.
Bzzz! Levi slammed the buzzer again giggling.
“Starbrooke High School, if your team member continues to act like this, I will be forced to disqualify all members.”
Our captain stopped, gaze glued to the host, his hand creeping towards the buzzer, like it was a big red button.
The audience loved it, laughing like they were watching a sitcom.
“He wouldn't.” Tom whisper-shrieked.
The auditorium was silent for a moment, awaiting Starbrooke’s response.
Levi stuck out his tongue, slamming his hand down.
Bzzz! Bzzz! Bzzz! Bzzz! Bzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz–
When Tom dragged Levi away from his podium, a Ratcliffe girl hit her buzzer.
“Starbrooke High School, you are disqualified,” the host announced. “Ratcliffe High School, do you have an answer?”
It was Ponytail who nodded with a grin.
“The answer is the eye socket! The Orbit is part of the eye socket!”
“That is the correct answer.” The host was distracted, his eyes glued to Levi.
“Ratcliffe High School wins.”
Levi jumped when the Ratcliffe wide erupted into cheers.
His eyes were wide, clinging onto the buzzer for comfort.
Next to me, our coach looked like he was going to faint.
I barely noticed Ratcliffe’s victory, too busy watching our team captain, who was Harvard bound, tipping his head back and smiling at the ceiling like a new-born baby. Tom dragged the stumbling boy over to me, his mouth twisted.
“This was Ratcliffe, right?” He hissed, shaking our captain, who was struggling, squirming in his grip.
“Did they put something in his drink?!” He prodded Levi. “Hey! What did they do to you?!”
Still, though, drugging his drink didn't make sense.
Levi never left the auditorium, and kept his water bottle with him the whole time.
How did they even manage to slip something into his drink in the first place?
Did I smell our competitors drugging him?
Sure, intentionally inebriating my teammate was morally wrong and illegal, but why could I smell lemon?
“I doubt it was Ratcliffe.” Sunny squeezed next to me. “I've been watching them. They're harmless.”
“Then how the fuck do we explain this to his parents?!” Tom whispered, grappling with Levi, who was fighting to get back to the buzzer.
When Tom let go of him, he dropped onto the floor, crawling over to his podium. It was like watching a child.
Who was determined to piss off the adults.
Levi jumped back to instead feet, his gaze was glued to the host, a smile curved on his lips, when he slammed the buzzer again.
Bzzz!
“Someone, please remove the Starbrooke boy from the stage!”
I was embarrassed, our whole team ducking our heads as our captain was forcibly removed from the podium.
Mr Hanes grabbed Levi, pulling him off of the stage.
I expected our coach to be mad at him, but I think the teacher was more worried, a phone pressed to his ear while he forced the boy into a sitting position.
No, I don't think it's influence from alcohol, I could hear his conversation.
Levi kept trying to get up, mesmerised by the buzzer. The teacher was firm but gentle. “Hey. Sit down, all right? Keep still.” He went back to his phone call, gently prying Levi’s eyes open.
From what I can see, there's nothing wrong. He's just kind of…
Mr Hanes swiped his own hands on his jeans. ... wet?
Team Ratcliffe came over to rub it in our faces, though I was still tuned into our coach’s hissed whispering.
Water? No, I don't think it's water. It smells… no, I haven't told his parents…
“You guys did awesome!” Ponytail's voice was sugary sweet. Too sugary.
She held the 2024 trophy, bearing a satisfied smile. I noticed the Ratcliffe members were surrounding Harry, like guards.
“Better luck next time, okay?” She held out her hand, her eyes twinkling.
“No hard feelings?”
“Control your dog.” Harry said, amused eyes flicking to Levi, who was once again sprinting back to the fucking buzzer. His eyes had visibly darkened, lips curled into a triumphant smile.
Harry Cartwright was watching Mr Hanes chase our team captain like it was his own personal entertainment.
I had to look away before I died of second hand embarrassment.
“What did you put in his drink?” Tom demanded. “Weed? Edibles?” the boy attempted to shove Harry, only to be pushed back. “What the fuck did you do to him?”
Harry’s smile didn't waver. “Like I said. Control your mut.”
When the Ratcliffe team walked away, our red faced coach struggling with Levi, who was behaving progressively more erratically, informed us we were longer welcome inside the school.
Tom suggested calling an ambulance, but our coach was hesitant.
We all knew who Levi’s family were.
On the way out, Tom matched my stride. He was frowning at our team captain struggling to walk.
The way he was acting was already eyebrow raising.
But walking at an angle and being unable to stand up straight was worrying.
“I don't think they drugged his drink.” Tom muttered.
We pushed through the doors out of the school, and I revelled in the cool night air grazing my cheek. “If they did, he would be acting out of it, right? So, what's the deal with him acting like–”
“A child.” I finished for him.
“Yeah.” Tom leaned closer. “Do you think this has something to do with their turf war?”
I slapped at a bug creeping across my cheek.
Levi fell over again, this time bursting into giggles.
“Almost definitely.”
Levi was right about Ratcliffe playing dirty. I didn't realize how dirty until we were on the losers bus home. Levi was in the seat next to me, and the kid hadn't moved since we left Ratcliffe, his eyes wide, lips pulled into a dazed grin.
Bzzz!
The noise startled me from slumber. I was drooling, my head pressed against the window. Outside, the sky was pitch dark, and squinting through the glass, I couldn't get a bearing on where we were. I thought I was hearing things, but when I sat up, I heard it again.
Bzzz!
It was close.
Leaning over the boy, I glimpsed a smear of scarlet on his headrest.
I choked on my next words.
“Tom.”
Tom was in front of me, listening to music.
He didn't reply, his head of dark blonde curls nodding to the beat.
“Levi.” I managed to get out. I prodded him, and his head lolled into his shoulder. “Hey. Can you… sit up?”
Bzzz! Bzzz!
When the boy didn't move, I gently grabbed his shoulders and pulled him forward myself, something contracting in my stomach.
I don't know how long it takes for your mind to fully register something, but my body was already reacting.
Levi’s seat was infested with bugs, eating their way through the upholstery. I was aware of my body moving back. I threw up, instantly, screaming into my hand.
The back of my best friend's skull resembled a deflated soccer ball, what was left of his brain leaking from his skull where a swarm of skittering bugs chewed their way through brain tissue, metallic legs scratching the curved, pearly white of the base if his skull.
Levi’s head hung, his body flopping into mine.
But his eyes were still open, lips still stretched into a smile.
Blood ran in thick rivulets from his nose and ears.
Bzzz!
I could see them, black writhing dots alive in his eyes, wriggling movement under his skin.
“Tom!”
I jumped up, stumbling into the aisle, my stomach heaving.
And it was only when I was on my knees, swiping bile from my lips, when I realized the others weren't reacting.
Tom wasn't moving.
I pulled an Airpod out of his ear, a long, slithering string of pink attached to the end.
There was a stray bug skittering across his hand, his face starting to twitch and writhe.
Moving back, I checked myself over, my hands shaking.
Head.
Shoulders.
Hair.
Clawing through it, my breath was stuck in my throat.
Arms.
Legs.
Feet.
Mr Hanes was slumped against the window, a reddish froth bubbling from his mouth.
Sunny.
I started towards the back of the bus, but all I had to see was her bowed head, half of her skull chewed through.
Sunny was in a far more deteriorated state, her face had been ripped through, a skeletal smile glinting in the dim.
The thick black smear on the window next to her was moving.
When I screamed for the driver to stop the bus, he ignored me.
If anything, he stamped on the gas.
I moved forward to shake him, before glimpsing a bug creeping down his face.
Calling 911, the operator laughed at me.
“Bugs are eating your friends.” He said. “Do you know the penalty for calling with bullshit pranks?”
The bus didn't stop, so I stayed at the front, while the bugs took over the back, eating through my teammates.
After four hours, I risked leaning over the seat next to Tom to check on Levi.
They were eating him.
Chewing all the way through skin, muscle and bone.
I tried to stop the bus, but the driver’s hands were tightly wrapped around the wheel.
Another hour, and blood was seeping down the aisle, crawling with bugs.
Levi was gone, and in his place, a buzzing skittering pile of bugs, that I thought were going to move to a second victim, maybe burrowing into the seats.
But, no.
These things began to tremble, replicating.
Building.
Slowly, nothing became static, and static became muscle.
Then bone.
Then flesh.
When a body began to slowly form, moulded from the dead boy, I stumbled back.
These things weren't eating Levi Costella.
They were rewriting him.
…
Edit: I'm still on the bus. I'm 99.9% sure that I'm infected with whatever this thing is. I can't stop fucking itching.
I keep picking them off me but they won't stop. This bus isn't going to stop until I'm like the others.
…
Edit 2:
I can feel them chewing into my skull. They're in my ears. I keep spitting them out. Please, someone get them off of me. Help me. I don't want to die at 17.
Edit 3:
Still alive. Still breathing. Maybe they're leaving me alone????? I think I'm okay. There is a pile of bugs at my feet, but they're crawling off of me.
Edit 4:
Levi really wants to go home. Like, he just told me he REALLY wants to go home. He's got a gift for his parents.
~~Edit 5 :) ~~
Levi is next to me right now, an odd smile on his face.
The bugs are not finished building him yet, but he'll be ready soon.
We will be ready soon.
Your son says hello! He is a wonderful boy, is he not?
Mr and Mrs Costella, I cannot wait for you to meet him.
He is our greatest achievement, and rest assured, you will give us what we want.
Warm regards.
The Cartwright's.

I am so confused right now.
I (17f), have a best friend, we'll call her B(17f). We became good friends really quickly and it has just been a year of being close to one other. It all started when we had a free period in school and talked about our family and stuff for the whole time without hesitation. From then on we were inseparable. She means so much to me, really. I was soo lonely before her, never had anybody to talk to or just be with and she changed it so I'm really indebted to her for that.
We have just given 12th boads this year (its bacically final exams of 12 standard which is on a all india bases). During the exam month maybe after 2 of the exams I got to know that my grandmother passed away. It was really shocking because even though she was in the hospital, she was making speedy recovery. The day she got discharged from the hospital, we lost her on the way home.
I wasn't really close to her but this is my grandmother we're talking about. I was really disturbed after hearing this, especially because I hadn't met her for years, neither I was able to bid her a last goodbye. I wasn't even able to participate in the rituals for her funeral.
The day I got this news I told B. I told her that my grandmother died. She said it's okay, and that even though my grandmother wasn't nice it's hard to loose a grand parent and that I should focus on my studies. This is badically all that she said. I had talked to her about my grand mother and told her some questionable things that she has done, so maybe she thought that I wasn't affected with her death but idk why I expected her to console me, to just be there for me. i didn't even get are you OK text from her.
The next day she was texting me about how there is this person she texted on reddit who turned out to be weird. That's what she asked me the next day after my grandmother just died. She never asked me how I was, never. I was not as responsive as usually was but that was because i was bloody alone. My parents had all gone to the hometown for the funeral and i was at my aunt's house because i could'nt leave the exams. I was so alone and not even once she asked me how i was. I even told her after a few days that i am not okay and that it really hurt when she started taliking about a guy to me after i told her my grandmother just passed. To that she replied that I was being cold so she thought she should give me some time and also she was sick with a throat infection do she couldn't wait for me to talk.
That really hurt. I know she was unwell and it must be difficult for her to think about other stuff while being in sickand I also understand that I am not a baby and that I shouldn't expect people to coddle me, but that really hurt. She did apologise and said that she didn't expect that I would be affected by this. But then went on as if it's all normal from the other day. After this incident, I tried to just forget it and move past it, but everything that she did just infuriated me. It never felt like she was sorry, even after she said it. This has just made me feel like she doesn't care at all. She is recently started talking to this guy on telegram. And all we talk about is him. "Should I send him this?" Or " he send me this message what should I reply with" something or the other about him. She tells me that she talked to him for hours one day but she couldn't even txt me once.
I was really trying to just forget it, really but I just felt so off. It's like I have to work to make things no longer awkward between us when she was the one that hurt me. It still infuriates me. Every conversation is about her, how her father demotivates her or how her grandma did this or something something along those lines. I have started to feel as if she doesn't know anything about me. Sometimes it's like she doesn't care at all about me.
I know I'm no angle myself. But when I did something wrong I know that I tried to change that about myself, tried to mend things (atleast in my head i was trying, idk if it was noticeable).
I know her life is harder than me, she has gone through more stuff than I have, but sometimes is it too much to expect someone to just listen and tell you that you aren't being dramatic Or hell's sake tell you that you are being dramatic rather that telling them that worse happened with them?
I am so just frustrated right now. We were on a meet and she started to talk to that same telegram guy in the meet. I have done this too but in my head it's like "i did it only once and then apologised for it, and its not like i always talk about someone else while we are together."
I don't know what to do. I really wanted to tell her that I am hurt but it feels like it has been to long and I shouldn't hold on to something that happened a month ago. I really don't want to loose her. She is that only friend that I have and we have a great friendship apart from some things. Idk if what I feel is justified or if i'm being dramatic and entitled, expecting too much from people Please be completely honest and tell me if I'm wrong so that i can try to better myself or how I should handle this situation. Any advice for this pety situation is welcomed.
Thank you for reading Sorry for the long post and if things are unclear, it my first time trying this so I don't really know how to be presise!