Camaro shower curtain

I rent out a 2 bedroom apartment. The tenants are 2 couples and I guess one of them broke up. 1 of the 4 people gave me written notice that he is leaving.
I prefer to have all of them leave and get someone else in there. They have been very high maintenance and I would rather not continue with them.
I told them that if one person on a lease gives notice, that ends the lease for everyone. They don’t believe me and are saying they won’t leave.
What’s the process when this happens? Do I need to give them something in writing or do I wait until they overstay the notice period and file to have them evicted?
For some context: they broke all of the blinds in the apartment. One at a time. In the exact same way. After I explained how to use them over and over again. They keep hanging clothing on the shower curtain rods and then asking me to re-install the rods each time. They keep dropping spoons into the garbage disposal and can’t figure out how to press the reset button even though I’ve shown them half a dozen times. They won’t use the bathroom fans and complain about it being steamy. There’s some damage due to the humidity already. They asked me to get a better washer (the one that’s in there was brand new when they moved in and of high quality) because they don’t like that the one there is front loading. The balcony gets dusty quickly and they wanted to know if I could fix it.

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

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

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

I've had sensory issues with jewelry for my entire life. I remember being 4 at the jewelry store with my mom. She was putting up earrings to my ear and asking me if I liked any. Not only did I not like any but I would've rather died than let those things touch me and I was using all my brainpower to tell my mom no without hurting her feelings. I rejected a guy I liked at 13 because he "proposed" with a ring. My mom got me this pretty chain with different charms for each day of the week. I put on a turtleneck and tried to wear the necklace over it. I felt like I was suffocating. It makes me feel like a wet shower curtain is touching me. Beaded/ braided bracelets don't bother me too much and I've been getting into rings veeery slowly. I even got a silver anklet that I can kinda wear once it warms up to my skin because it's not dangling and it's far from my head. I'm still not intrested in any kind of piercing but I do like how some chokers look on others and would like to slowly get into that. Another part of this is that it would be a huge change and people would start pointing it out which will make me feel uncomfortable, same thing happened when I started wearing makeup and girly clothes after being a tomboy for 15 years. Even the words jewelry, earrings, necklace make me uncomfortable both in English and in my native language. I refuse to date anyone who has piercings or wears chains, I know I would struggle with physical contact. Any advice?

Like I get worried & chug drinks or just stop drinking them because I'm worried they're going to be full of bugs. Also have to sleep with a light on because of paranoia & thinking someone could be in my room. Have to keep my shower curtain completely open at night cause I'm paranoid that somebody or something will be hiding behind the curtain.

Extremely embarassing thing happened today while showering I had sudden diarrhea. I cleaned it as best I could with the shower spray but I think someone ought to use bleach and replace the shower curtain. I'm worried I'll get in trouble or lose my membership if I inform management. Anyone know?

I (22m) live with my cousin (22m). I had moved out since I was 20 into my own house that my dad bought my sister which evidently been handed down to me. My father paid off the house so all he gave me to worry about are the utility bills. The bills comes out to be 300 a month. I handle all the bills while my cousin just sends me through Zelle his portion. Other than that we share the cost of everything pretty” fairly”. I usually am the one to tell my cousin when he should be buying stuff like the necessities like toilet paper, paper towels, toilet bowl cleaners, etc. whenever he goes shopping, it’s only for what he thinks the house needs (usually only foods)
Routine: My cousin works 40 hours a week with some days of the week he may work 12 hours. He enters at 2pm and gets home anywhere between 10:30-2am. His routine is pretty much, wake up at 12pm, take a shower, get ready, get to work by 2am (only a 30 min commute due to traffic). When he gets home, he would pretty much smoke weed, play video games and finish off his night watching tv. Rinse and repeat every single day. He claims he can’t get adequate sleep.
Kitchen/ dishes issue: When it comes to chores, he is very poor when it comes to it. We had a routine where we would switch on and off who does the dishes by who did them last. Whenever I have dishes that I need to do, I tend to do all of them and clean the sink itself as well but when it’s his turn, he only does whatever he can in that free time being 1 sink and/or leave all the pots and pans left for me.(I have 2 sinks) we had multiple discussions where the dishes are becoming a problem because they pile up pretty bad to where they start to smell. He told me to let’s no longer do the “your turn for the dishes strategy” but just do the dishes whenever we can. Since last month, I had done the dishes 80% of the time as he never did them after he got out of work. It’s been dreadful as I know I am picking up the slack whenever he is not doing his 50%. Let me inform you guys that he is the type of person to leave the drain hole without the middle piece to prevent food from going down the drain because “it was clogging the sink”. There was a time where I told him that I will be cleaning out the fridge to which I did while he did the dishes and he left some for tomorrow to which it never got cleaned by him but instead piled on until the following week. I had told him 2 weeks ago that if he can clean the stove as there is buildup of grease/ oil and grime. As well as the microwave to which he agreed but he never cleaned the microwave and he did clean the stove but never washed / dried the shiny trim that is removable from the sink. Instead what he did was put it in the sink and left it there for 3 days until I told him to clean what he left.
Smoking Issue: Overall he is a person that has some respect for the house but he is living too comfortable I would say and is using my kindness to an advantage. I used to have a roommate which would throw get togethers every week or so and whenever she has multiple people over, she would feel like to smoke a cigarette inside the house without asking me. She didn’t do this on a daily basis but only whenever there are people in a party setting. I told my cousin to not do this and which he agreed. Soon after him moving in, he would smoke a blunt in his room which would make the house smell like weed and would occasionally creep into my room through the vents. I told him to stop smoking blunts / joints as it makes the entire house smell which he understood and began to smoke bongs only. I would say smoking a bong is 100x better than joints. Smells a bit but not where I am constantly thinking about it. As long as it does not smell like weed while I’m in the bathroom, room, living room, or kitchen.
Lawn: It’s starting to get warmer and I have paid 80 bucks for spring cleaning work from this landscaper and mentioned it to my cousin that we should go half and half. He disagreed and said we should work on it ourselves. I didn’t care about spending 80 bucks so I bought it and told him that I don’t expect him to pay half to just consider it me doing my turn in a way. Well it began to grow after a week pretty quickly and needed a trim again. Instead of me just tellling him “hey it needs a cut” I just cut it myself again after I worked 8 hours, a 10-6. After that I told him to cut it in 1-2 weeks and which he said okay but when it was getting closer to 2 weeks, he couldn’t cut the lawn as it began to rain and it was pushed back to 3 weeks. when he was cutting the lawn, he took separate days to cut the back and front and when he was cutting the back, he had asked me to buy a rack as there was a lot of grass ontop of the lawn and which I did. He ended up making me rack the lawn as we went out randomly to a bar that night. The lawn is pretty big, so I only did 30% and which he never finished the job. The next week being this past week, he had went outside to cut the grass as he just wants me and him to cut the grass as we go whenever one of us has the chance. That day we had a lot of dishes to do and the grass I had the ability to mow the next day as I had the day off. Overall I just am getting frustrated with the change of dynamics of how things were getting done as now it just seems like he wants to find someway of not doing work for a week or 2 consecutively rather than staying on a planned schedule.
Bathroom: The bathroom has been minor but yet just frustrating as whenever I use the bathroom, I always set up a new roll of toilet paper when I finish it into the holder and when I am drying my hands off with the hand towel, I hang it up neatly back where I had it placed. Now when it comes to my cousin, he does things differently. When he finishes the toilet paper roll, he leaves the old one in the holder and grabs a new one and leaves it infront of the toilet where I have a shelf at. I told him multiple times to just put the toilet paper roll in the holder where it belongs and he agreed but still ignored me. Finally after he lived there since October of 2023, he finally did it as of recently. Just once. When he washes his hands, he leaves the hand towel on the table when he can just put the hand towel up normally keeping the bathroom as it possibly can. Another thing which I take blame for my part is the leaving the clothes in the bathroom. There is a little space under the sink that can fit a laundry basket for dirty clothes and I use that area for my clothes after I finish the shower. It never sticks out or anything as I push it far back as possible. Whenever my roommate finishes the shower, he leaves his clothes in the bathroom maybe once every week being socks, shorts, underwear, socks by the toilet, by the sink, on the shelves. I take part blame as I do that as well. Not really something I complain about as whenever I see it, I just grab them and throw them in his room.
Tip of the iceberg: I had told my cousin to do a deep clean of the bathroom, while I clean up the kitchen and living room. I believed it was fair as he has not done a deep clean of the bathroom yet while me and my girlfriend (she does not live in my house, just sleeps here for a few days in a row) has cleaned it once each. We scrub the tub, walls, sweep the floor, mop the floor, clean the sink table and wipe down the mirrors. I had told him Sunday to do it and he told me he was going to do it next weekend with no given reason. I told him to do it whenever he has free time as it only takes about an hour and that he has no other chores as I made a bet with him to which I lost and have to do the dishes for the next 2 months (he claimed that I don’t have to follow through with that bet). I am frustrated because why can’t he complete it within the week? The bathroom is not that hard to clean as it just involves scrubbing and personally the tub is very disgusting. I wonder how did he not just want to be proactive. I personally wanted to wait until he decided to clean it but I waited over a month having the expectation that he wanted to clean it. I remember I bought the curtains for it and I know it will have to be replaced but personally I already know if I tell him to replace it, I would feel cheap and just feel guilty that I don’t want to buy the replacement. To me it’s just the principle of things that if I bought the first one, he buys the next and the cycle continues. He told me that he wants to hold the “big chores” for the weekend but I told him that I have the rest of the chores covered as I already partly cleaned the basement (we had a table full of clothes that we didn’t know what to do.) I cleaned the kitchen, and the living room. All he really had to do was fold his clothes and that’s it. I basically told him that that’s really his only chore that he has. I feel like a butthole just for me to tell him as soon as he can but I know he can wake up early being at 10am to clean it or something and go to work after or when he gets home from work to do work around the house instead of smoking pot and playing video games. If he couldn’t do the chore because of work then he could tell me but instead his immediate answer was “I’ll do them next weekend” not a “I’ll try before the weekend but it may end up being done at that time”. Am I just nitpicking? Should I be easier on him as he never lived alone? I feel like I have to tell him to do stuff around the house.

I started as a housekeeper at a hotel about 2 weeks ago. Yesterday, I had the most rooms I've ever had, which was 15.
I started cleaning around 9:30AM, and around 4:40PM, my supervisor comes and tells me she's gonna leave the rest of my rooms for tomorrow because the other housekeepers had already left and she was just waiting on me to finish.
The other housekeepers had 14/15 rooms as well, and I could not believe that they had finished ALL of their rooms. I'm assuming they finished around 3:30/4:00 and my supervisor decided to give me a little extra time to finish my rooms.
I was only able to finish 10 rooms by 4:40PM. So my question is, how long does it take y'all to finish a room? Cleaning a room for us entails

• Stripping the bed*
• Putting new sheets and pillowcases on*
• Picking up trash*
• Wiping down/dusting*
• Vacuuming
• Cleaning microwave and fridge
• Cleaning bathtub and toilet*
• Cleaning sink and mirror*
• Putting new towels in bathroom*
• Putting up new shower curtains*
• Putting new trash bags in bathroom and room trashcans*
• Mopping*
• Restocking cups, coffee, soaps, etc*

The ones with an asterisk are things that are usually done for every single room. Am I taking too long or is 10 rooms in 7 hours reasonable? 😬
Here's what our rooms and bathrooms usually look like. Some rooms are doubles.

TLDR Found husband watching porn without masturbation; I didn't know he watched it without that specific need. I'm feeling weird about it. Am I overthinking?
Little background: I'm in a, what I would consider, healthy relationship. My 25M husband and I 31F live together after being married for 1y and together for 3. We're very caring to each other and are attentive to each other's needs. We're a very cuddly and conversational couple. Each one of us has individual rooms but we sleep next to each other almost every night. We don't argue much, it can get to code Orange once in a long while. We shower each other with love and are basically friends in love as we share most interests.
When it comes to our sex life, it is a little slow for now as my husband is injured. We're pretty opened; we both watch porn individually and respect each other's "masturbation-time" if we ever interrupt the other on accident. Sex is also great (we'll find out if that's true here though); we love talking about it, we're flirty and we try to please each other a lot during the act.
A few days ago, while I was sleeping and he was out on the terrace. I woke up and was looking for him. I checked on the terrace by the window and saw him watching porn. He had headphones and didn't hear me behind. I closed the curtain and went on.
I'm not sure I understand why it bothered me when I know he normally watches when he needs to masturbate. It was a different feeling. So it got me thinking and, after dinner, he caught me in the corridor and we made out to finish in a bed of roses. After that, I was still wondering about it so I thought to turn to Reddit, to possibly shed some light.
I wanted to ask some men if they could just share the possible causes and if I have to do anything? I want my partner to be happy and fulfilled. I know I don't have the greatest body and I wish I was gifted just a little more volume but hey, what can I do.. I know he wishes it too as I don't really receive any compliments about it haha.
Is ignorance bliss here?

So, in general showers make me tweak. Like I enjoy showering because after a long day, I wanna wash the day away and feel CLEAN but showering is a task that genuinely makes me irrites. Like when I accidentally touch the walls or the shower curtain, I feel myself slowly getting angry. Washing my hair is actually a task I’ve hated my whole life… and I’m a black woman so wash days are long and strenuous… and I loathe them. I hate the feeling of moisture and the cold damp feeling of being in the shower and what makes it worse is that uneven disturbition of water… idk I could go on a rant about this topic.

Moving into a new apartment. It doesn’t have a bathtub, rather a SUPER TALL shower.
I didn’t notice before but as we were moving in, we realized 1. There is no shower door (glass or anything 2. There is no bar to hang a curtain.
I’m all cool with showering without a door if it’s done right. BUT in this case my entire bathroom will get soaked from the water splashing off of whoever is showering.
Any ideas?
Also I HATE regular shower curtains. It makes me want to throw up if they touch me while I’m showering.

As someone who is diagnosed with Bipolar type 1, I can tell you now all she is suffering with is too much drink and too many drugs.
I'd give anything not to have it, not to have spent months in a psychiatric unit, it's a living hell and the fact she pulls this new "diag-nonsense" out her ass is a fucking joke.
Manic episode? You mean.. Having a little cry and triggering people online with a sharp object? Wasting the time of ambulances and NHS staff you call for yourself?
It's not how she thinks it is and I don't usually post but I genuinely feel so personally hurt by this new claim.
Try being so elevated you feel like you're invincible, but not in a tiktok "I'm invincible and the queen of the app no one can remove me" way
It's like you suddenly have a god complex, absolutely nothing can affect you and that actually the law isn't something you have to abide by because you're pretty damn special.
Money is no object, everything you earn is disposable but also don't forget.. you're going to make it big because you watched a single video on something random like being a fashion designer.
So you quit your job straight after watching the video and order some supplies and spend hours focusing on it, making yourself a business that's never going to take off..
You could lose your job, your house, your family. You start taking mega risks that can ruin your whole life.
You wash your car at 3am because you suddenly remember you need to do it, you mow the lawn at 4am waking up your neighbours causing an ongoing conflict, there is 0 sense of time, sometimes you genuinely think you're completely invincible.. like you could walk in front of traffic and nothing could hurt you or you could take a shortcut to the garden by just jumping from a second story window because rules, consequences and things just don't apply or exist to you.
You sleep with people just for the thrill, the excitement of being so bad, you get married after knowing someone for 3 days, You do reckless things like driving your car down the motorway at 180mph just for the sheer thrill and adrenaline of it, you do things to feel alive.
You are so out of it that you don't even REALISE how far gone you are. You don't REALISE you need to get help. You don't REALISE you need to reach out or get therapy or whatever. You don't REALISE until the damage is done or the comedown from the mania into the depression.
You also do everything you needed to do when you were so depressed you didn't want to exist, you didn't leave your actual bed for 4 weeks, you didn't shower, you didn't brush your hair, you didn't brush your teeth, you didn't go out, you stayed in the same clothes, you don't eat, you don't open your curtains, you couldn't even reply to a text message from friends simply asking if you are ok let alone going live and going out.
Going on a drug/alcohol bender, lying about everything and causing shit online and crying wolf 24/7 isn't bipolar.

Could anyone please recommend a coveprotector for this mattress (king)?
No eating or drinking in bed, we just want to protect the mattress from breakdown due to body oils and preferably would like to maintain the mattress feel as much as possible. Organic non-toxic materials would be nice. As would not feeling like a shower curtain underneath. Read that it can retain some heat so whatever helps with that, and lastly we are not opposed to spending some $ here and/or in a sheet set if it truly makes sense (as they say, don’t go cheap now), but if a the cheaper options function the same, we are open to those. Thank you.

As someone who is diagnosed with Bipolar type 1, I can tell you now all she is suffering with is too much drink and too many drugs.
I'd give anything not to have it, not to have spent months in a psychiatric unit, it's a living hell and the fact she pulls this new "diag-nonsense" out her ass is a fucking joke.
Manic episode? You mean.. Having a little cry and triggering people online with a sharp object? Wasting the time of ambulances and NHS staff you call for yourself?
It's not how she thinks it is and I don't usually post but I genuinely feel so personally hurt by this new claim.
Try being so elevated you feel like you're invincible, but not in a tiktok "I'm invincible and the queen of the app no one can remove me" way
It's like you suddenly have a god complex, absolutely nothing can affect you and that actually the law isn't something you have to abide by because you're pretty damn special.
Money is no object, everything you earn is disposable but also don't forget.. you're going to make it big because you watched a single video on something random like being a fashion designer.
So you quit your job straight after watching the video and order some supplies and spend hours focusing on it, making yourself a business that's never going to take off..
You could lose your job, your house, your family. You start taking mega risks that can ruin your whole life.
You wash your car at 3am because you suddenly remember you need to do it, you mow the lawn at 4am waking up your neighbours causing an ongoing conflict, there is 0 sense of time, sometimes you genuinely think you're completely invincible.. like you could walk in front of traffic and nothing could hurt you or you could take a shortcut to the garden by just jumping from a second story window because rules, consequences and things just don't apply or exist to you.
You sleep with people just for the thrill, the excitement of being so bad, you get married after knowing someone for 3 days, You do reckless things like driving your car down the motorway at 180mph just for the sheer thrill and adrenaline of it, you do things to feel alive.
You are so out of it that you don't even REALISE how far gone you are. You don't REALISE you need to get help. You don't REALISE you need to reach out or get therapy or whatever. You don't REALISE until the damage is done or the comedown from the mania into the depression.
You also do everything you needed to do when you were so depressed you didn't want to exist, you didn't leave your actual bed for 4 weeks, you didn't shower, you didn't brush your hair, you didn't brush your teeth, you didn't go out, you stayed in the same clothes, you don't eat, you don't open your curtains, you couldn't even reply to a text message from friends simply asking if you are ok let alone going live and going out.
Going on a drug/alcohol bender, lying about everything and causing shit online and crying wolf 24/7 isn't bipolar.

If you’d told me that the visitation with my son, an event that happened only every other weekend, would be extended indefinitely, I would’ve jumped with joy. In the end, I wish the circumstances under which they unfolded had never happened.
The clouds were sightless in the clear sky the day Jasmine dropped off my boy, a perfect day to play a little catch in the yard or go fishing at the nearby stock pond. Cyrus bounced out of the car and ran joyously toward me, unaware that his old man was a perpetual fuck up that had broken up the family in the first place. Oh well.
It was a happy day, the birds sang their old nostalgic tunes of a lost Summer in my own childhood. It was warm, not too warm, and the neighborhood was buzzing with excitement as the Spring showers had come to a close. It was as close as it could get to perfect.
The evening light danced against the tree tops, turning a violet hue as dusk began to settle in. Burnt orange water reflected the dying sun as it continued sinking away to nothing. We grabbed our tackle box, the giant beige one my uncle gifted me before he was stolen by cancer, and filled it with the empty, crumpled up bits of plastic that once held bologna sandwiches. As I said, it was a perfect day, very reminiscent of my own childhood.
We’d thrown the fat bluegill back that we had caught, I hadn’t felt like messing with cleaning and cooking them. Instead, dinner would likely be mac n’ cheese with some cut up hot dogs, a staple in my household whether or not Cyrus was visiting. Hopefully I hadn’t run through Oscar Meyer supply.
Home never felt so lonely, the walls never seemed so barren of old family pictures when Cyrus wasn’t around. Sometimes, he only added to the pain. I would never tell him that, though.
Even with the faucet turned all the way up, the water dribbled out and made boiling pasta a very patient game. Cyrus was babbling about some game he was playing on my phone. ‘He’s just a kid’, I thought, and pretended to be interested in whatever the hell he was talking about.
The sun had vanished and the moon was especially bright that night, having slid nearly halfway to its crescendo before dinner was finally done. Cyrus had stolen my phone to the living room, staring at the bright characters absentmindedly as a nondescript Netflix show played in the background.
“Here, buddy, sorry about the wait”, I sat the bowl of neon yellow stuff in front of him, the pink scramble of hotdog jutting out made me feel… a little ashamed? I plopped down next to him and flipped through the various titles on Netflix, most of which I had already seen a couple of times. Cyrus tossed the phone aside and picked at the mess of ‘food’ in the bowl. I can’t remember if he took a bite or not.
“Dad!”, I jumped, reeling from the doze I had fallen in. If Jasmine was here, it would’ve been such a perfect day, such a perfect day. Instead, this is where it all fell apart.
He massaged furiously at his temples, his knees pulled tight against his heaving chest.
“What’s the matter, are you okay?”, I jumped from the couch and got on one knee, putting my hands around his shoulders. I watched helplessly as Cyrus twisted and contorted his body, trying to run away from whatever pain was in his head.
Suddenly he fell still.
I studied him for a while, nearly on the verge of tears as his body had become totally limp. Then, a noise. At first it was quiet, then it grew and grew until it filled the room with totality. It’s hard to describe that noise, almost like a wind turbine if you were up close to it.
From behind the couch, just above my sons head, it peeked at me. Its thick, black fingers ended at sharp, nailess points. Just as I met its eyes, it slithered behind the couch and that’s when Cyrus awoke in a screaming fit.
I jumped awake again, Cyrus sitting next to me as pale as a sheet. His eyes were bulging, glued to the blank TV ahead.
I couldn’t help but check behind the couch, to make sure it wasn’t still there. Then, to my son who was still staring at the nothing on the television. His mouth was hanging open, just enough to allow the continuous stream of drool to fall out.
I ran to the kitchen to grab a paper towel and cleaned the odd amount of drool from his chin. There wasn’t a thermometer in the house but it didn’t take a rocket scientist to tell that he was burning up. A fever, I thought.
I carried the boy to his bedroom, feeling as though I was being watched the entire way, and tucked him into bed. A doctors visit would soon be on the horizon. I returned to the couch in the living room, careful to keep my gaze fixed on the TV and nothing else. Truthfully, I was too afraid to look in the shadowy corners.
That night was filled with nightmares.
The next day I rang Jasmine, letting her know that Cy was sick and needed to go to the doctor. Ordinarily, this wouldn’t have been an issue, but Jas was immunocompromised (she’d been diagnosed with breast cancer a few months before we divorced) and my son would be staying with me for the foreseeable future. I couldn’t complain, I didn’t get to see him nearly enough as it was.
That day was very much the opposite of the previous, the sky was gloomy and spits of rain fell consistently from dawn to nightfall.
The doctor had said that Cyrus had a particularly severe ear infection, but nothing that some antibiotics couldn’t fix. He sent us home with a tube of the stuff, my wallet noticeably lighter.
“Apply some of this twice a day, once in the morning and once before bedtime”, the older gentleman had said. He squeezed my shoulder and smiled, though there seemed to be something else behind his wary eyes.
He stopped me again as I turned to leave.
“Sir…”, he started, though he seemed to study his words carefully, “your son kept mentioning something he called the flumes”.
I shrugged, the only time I had heard the word was in reference to a ravine on the edge of town where we’d all smoke pot in high school. Nothing struck me as odd about it at the time.
“They come from the flumes, those noises, those noises, he kept saying”, the doctor pushed closer, his eyes growing wild. I stepped backward, tugging at Cy’s hand as we left the building wordlessly.
Aside from my busy mind, the car ride home was utterly silent. I could hear my boys heavy, labored breaths all the way from the backseat. ‘Inner ear infection, my ass’, I thought.
After laying Cyrus back down for bed, I fixed him a bowl of instant chicken and noodles and decided to give Jasmine a call. The phone rang endlessly before the robotic voice indicated that the caller wasn’t available. I tried once more but gave up after it rang a few more times. Probably sleeping.
I returned to the couch, deciding to rewatch Nightmare on Elm Street for the fourth or fifth time.
After a while, I decided to put on cable, growing tired of the listless titles on Netflix. I was never too interested in the local news, but today seemed as good as any to catch up on the towns happenings. The Grantfield Gators girls softball team had advanced to sectionals and one of the townsfolk were celebrating their 100th birthday.
A ‘Breaking News’ graphic slid below the frazzled newslady on the television. Wherever she was, it sure looked familiar.
‘Wild dog shits on mayors front yard’, I laughed at my own stupid joke and surely turned as white as Cyrus had the previous night as the lady on the TV continued.
“A local woman was found tied to a tree and disemboweled at the scene. Police are saying various symbols were branded all over the womans body, and the material used to bind her to the Elm tree was ‘of unusual property’”, she continued on for a while but I hadn’t noticed, the air had fallen heavy and that familiar warbling had filled the room again.
Heavy footsteps slammed up the staircase at an otherworldly pace. Up the staircase and towards my sons room.
I ran, I swear I ran as fast as I could but I knew… I knew.
When I got to his room, he was gone, the curtains blowing aimlessly in the wind as the window had been slammed open so hard that the glass had shattered in the panes. The bowl of chicken and noodles sat on the bedside table, untouched.
I tried calling Jasmine again and again and again. Still, no answer.
I wanted to write this, to whoever may be reading, so that you know where to look if I don’t return. I know where my son is, I know where Jasmine is.
The flumes took them, or whatever might be lurking in it.

My neighbor and I split our water bill 50/50. They manage a luxury hotel and since Sunday have done 5 loads of laundry, mostly hotel shower curtains. Have hotels been restricted with water usage? If so, are they allowed to just.... bring all the hotel laundry to their home and do it there? I'm over here minimizing water consumption every way I can, meanwhile 3 loads have already been run this morning of their work laundry. Is this something to bring up to my landlord or is this just what happens when hotels are restricted?

Hi !
What could someone do today (or soon), to help their futur self ?
Let me explain myself with some examples: * I bought a washing machine with an integrated dryer (that has a drain hose). This way I don't have to unload the washing machine to load the dryer. And I don't have to empty the water compartment of the dryer.

• I bought a shower curtain even if I have a glass shower wall. The limestone is sooo hard to get out the shower wall. And the easiest way to not have a limestone covered shower wall is to clean it after each shower (that's impossible for me). So I just close the curtain between the shower wall and my shower. Once in a while, I wash the curtain in the washing machine.
  
• I freed a shelf in my kitchen cabinet. I put on this shelf everything that needs to be eaten soon.
  
• I freed a shelf in my personal wardrobe. I put on this shelf everything that "needs to be done one day". This way, when I'm motivated, I look at it and decide what I can do.
  

Do you have other things that, while it could take time to do now, would help our future self ?

Hey, welcome to my house! I'm sure you remember me from my last rule set explaining how to grab a nice cup of ramen for yourself, today I'll explain how to simply exist past midnight.
Bathroom Segment

1. You need to use the bathroom past midnight? Alright well, head to the bathroom and turn on the light, shut the door behind you and make sure it's locked. We wouldn't want any unwanted guests now would we?
   
2. Check behind the curtains and then check in the laundry area where the washing machine and dryer are, make sure there's nothing there. Double check, or even triple check just to be safe. If there's nothing continue to your business.
   

2A. If there is an unusual object in any of the spots, wake me up and I will take care of it, no worries about interrupting my sleep I might actually be awake anyways.
2B. If there is a creature in either spot, you have two options depending on what it's like. If it's small or similar in stature to you, kill it. End its life immediate, rip it to shreds do everything in your power to destroy it. If it's bigger than you run away and hide inside my room, wake me up and pray. Be sure you're not too slow escaping the bathroom, or else.

1. If all goes well, wash your hands. Before you do anything, stare at the mirror for a while, if it blinks grab something and break the mirror then call me. (No worries the mirror will be fixed in the morning). A better way to confirm is playing rock paper scissors, if your reflection wins or loses do as I previously stated.

3A. If you're brushing your teeth late at night, look up to the mirror after you rinse or anytime you look away, make sure the reflection isn't staring out you. If it is, refer to rule 3.
3B. If under any circumstance the reflections eyes are completely black say "Goodnight" and close your eyes, this will ensure your death is swift and painless, or it will create a slim chance you live. If you somehow survive go to bed and don't ever get up until 6 AM.

1. If all goes well, please check the shower and laundry area once more, of something is there refer to rule 2A and 2B.
   
2. Turn off the lights and make ABSOLUTELY sure you close the bathroom door. After that be very quick about making it back to bed.
   
3. I don't recommend showering past midnight, but if you are going to, refer to rule 2 and it's variants when entering the restroom. Turn on the shower and get in.
   
4. Check the edges on each side of the curtains make sure nothing is reaching in, use water to get the fabric to stick to the shower wall, my father bought a strange non water proof inner curtain.
   
5. Whatever you do, DO NOT close your eyes while showering. If something's in your eye, power through and close one eye and switch between them if you need to then rinse or wipe out whatever is in your eye.
   
6. Once you're finished showering exit the shower, dry off and before you leave you must obviously check behind the shower and the laundry before leaving. Afterwards get dressed and swiftly make your way to where you're staying, which will be my room.
   

This is it for the first part of the surviving past midnight at my house! Please stay tuned for the next part coming soon. Hope you enjoyed!

I’m redoing this bathroom in my new house and having a hard time picturing what different colors will look like. I want to paint the walls, and the cabinets, and will do the ceilings and trim if it will add to the look. I’m a fan of more both light and dark academia styles. I was thinking dark green color drenched in everything, or possibly a light wall with a dark ceiling? The connecting bedroom is a French blue. I want it to flow between rooms but with some contrast. In these pictures I did a little bit of editing to show my new shower curtain and to edit in the new cabinets I will be painting and installing. Let me see your ideas!