Home alarm showing trouble now phone doesnt work

This will be my first time ever openly sharing about my addiction; from the root cause to the effects and struggles that having a porn addiction has impacted my life to this day
So I just recently turned 21 and I'm beginning to look around and realize that for as long as I've acknowledged that I have a problem and need to quit, I keep feeding the addiction KNOWING that it's ruining my life. I'm going to split this post into 3 sections explaining the following stages: The root causes/early development, Progression of my addiction to current day, and Main struggles from my PA and how I go about everyday life to heal. Not exactly sure why I'm posting this but I just feel like it's something I need to let out. Hope someone can relate or give me their take on it.
The root causes/early development: So I believe that my PA manifested due to a few different reasons: Playing "doctor" with my sister as a child, early age porn exposure, and then using porn as a coping mechanism to deal with any negative emotions. So starting w/ "playing doctor", it first happened at a very young age, somewhere between elementary school to 6th grade. I think most people know what that is but to keep it short basically my sister who is a year older than me introduced my to basically role playing as doctor and patient. I wasn't sure if SHE even knew it was wrong but the point is, it happened. I genuinely don't think she was doing in an abusive way but I'll never know. I don't remember the small details of exactly how it happened but what leads me to think this was a factor that contributed to my porn addiction is that I know now as an adult that it's wrong, however as we "played doctor" I only grew to enjoy it and occasionally we took things outside of "playing doctor" - which is why I don't know what to make of it... Long story short it went from "doctor" to us making up our own games like "spy" where we pretended to fight each other as spy's, getting "knocked out" unconscious while she'd touch... and I specifically remember wanting to play these games in hopes that it led to that. But even outside of playing games I grew to wanting to touch her and act on perverted thoughts as a child that were NOT normal for my age or in general. And sometimes I would sneakily act on them - which as I'm reflecting on right now makes me think that me KNOWINGLY trying to be sneaky and act on perverted thoughts at that young of an age had to have carried on with me as I got older (contributing to my porn addiction).. And then the last thing that I vividly remember was when I was probably 10-12 years old is when again we were actually kind of aggressively play fighting, somehow ended up with each other's hands DOWN THERE mutually and we kept going on with each other until she made me.... yeah. And that was the last memory I had of what started out as us "playing doctor". Fast forward to current date since that last memory and we've never spoken about those experiences (more on that later). Going onto the actual exposure of pornography and WATCHING porn, I was exposed to it somewhere in between the same timeframe as when I'd play doctor and the last memory of us playing (somewhere between the ages of 8-12). I can vividly remember the scene that played late at night on the tv that my parents had left on (I shared a room with them). And then moving forward from there, somewhere in between I would find videos on YouTube of this "prank" channel where he'd go up to paid actors, bet that if he beat them in rock paper scissors that they'd have to make out with him. And as a young kid at the time seeing a girl in a bikini making out with a guy as he grabbed on her ass just made me horny and I learned to masturbate from there. And I cant think of a stronger dopamine hit for a 8-12 year old little me at the time than seeing those videos and pleasuring myself. After this, I'd hit middle school where I was bullied a lot, all while lacking social skills necessary to make any genuine friends or deal with the emotional turmoil of being bullied. Fast forward a few months and I think I just progressively began to normalize using porn as a coping mechanism - All the way from whenever I just got mad while dying repetitively on the videogame, to avoiding the fact that I hated my life everyday that I went to school. I'd use porn to receive that "good feeling" whenever I could. And I think my sexual addiction got worse when I began touching myself in the shower almost everyday in middle school to the imagination of the pretty girls that were at my school, even though I had neverarely talked to some of them. It was just a thing for me where every night I took a shower, I closed my eyes and fantasized about doing stuff with them. And then the cycles of me normalizing these things continued and eventually I found out about REAL porn sites.
Progression of my addiction to current day: So shortly after finding the real porn sites I entirely opted to use those as much as possible as the cycle continued. So by my freshman year of high school I was already using porn sites regularly. I remember during summer and winter breaks, sometimes I'd sleep at my grandmas and stay up all night switching from ejaculating to porn, to watching my favorite youtuber and streamers, to going back to jerking off. It was a multiple times a day/night occurrence OFTEN. Sometimes even during the middle of the day I'd pretend to use the bathroom but really I had a porn video pulled up and I watched until I was done. And as time progressed one video didn't exactly cut it for me. I don't think its that I couldn't get off to the first video, but more so that I just had the urge to see more and didn't want to nut yet. I didn't even know if I was purposely edging or not. I did not even understand that edging was a concept yet. Its just something that occurred naturally for me. And during all of this, I am still somewhere in the age range of 13-15. Consistently ejaculating to pornography, further exploring the more basic categories of porn like anal and lesbian. I think a notable memory was one of the first times I watched porn in the middle of work during summer break (extended family owns a construction company so I worked over breaks). It's crazy because in construction all we have are porta-potties that are always hot and nasty and the urge just came over me one day to pretend like I was using the bathroom and get one off before I went back... I don't think I even realized at the time that I had an addiction because this was still early high school. It was just something I looked at as a good feeling and whenever the urges came to me I took any chance I got to fulfill them. Even if I was sharing a room with a family member, I'd be as slow and quit as I could, touch myself under the covers, finish in my underwear and then showechange the next morning like it was normal. Moving forward, this type of behavior continues all the way throughout high school and the feeling of ejaculating just is not as intense as it use to be, so I look up ways to spice it up and I tried shit all the way from sitting on my own hand til it goes sort or numb so it "feels like someone else is touching you", to doing it in more risky places like my backyard outside when I was home alone and had my pants pulled down all the way, to whatever else I could try. Reflecting back, I just look at all these actions as the progressions of a sexual/porn addiction that is still developing. And this is how I rationalize the way I developed a porn addiction. Now it wasn't AWFUL in high school but it was getting bad. I realized that I had actually had a bad addiction that needed to be addressed a few months after graduating high school. From that point forward It was something that I had acknowledged was an issue but nonetheless, continued to do out of habit and as a continued coping mechanism. Whether it was from the lack of relationships, to my current life situation/direction I was headed in, or just any negative emotion - I used porn to release. Sometimes I'd even just do it out of boredom, not even because I had a dying urge to get one off. And then after that point of realization, I sat in "depression" for a few months still going about my everyday life until one day my dad mentioned that I should try therapy. He knew nothing about the addiction but I did let him know I feel depressed and the many struggles that I faced - which I believe is due to my porn addiction. So long story short, I go to therapy for about 3 sessions and end up dropping it because it just wasn't something I felt was helping or enjoyed (more on that later). From there to current day, I've gone at MOST one week periods attempting to quit porn and every time I relapse. From the age of 1 to-current day 21 years old, the progression of the categories of porn that I watch has grown and a few different fetishes like face sitting, femdom, and role play has increased. I don't NEED to watch these specific categories to get off, however these are ones I've found myself most recently watching and edging to, sometimes for 1-3 hours at a time, usually at night on weekends or before I fall asleep. And to take it a step further, I had started pouring money into camgirl sites, phone sex sites, only fans, etc.. I live with my parents still so it's not to the point that I'm broke and have no money, but still what the fuck am I doing putting my hard earned money into a porn addiction... (I'm a functioning adult on a pathway to financial freedom, more on this later).
Main struggles from my PA and how I go about everyday life to heal: So I believe that the main struggles with my porn addiction consist of: the inability/struggle to create and maintain healthy relationships, low self esteem, poor social skills, lack of motivation, and the cognitive dissonance of continuing my addiction to porn even though morally I believe it is wrong to lust over. I believe all of these struggles that come with porn are connected to each other - minus the cognitive dissonance. But everything else kind of stacks on top of each other. So my thought process is that I already dealt w/ low self esteem and confidence from a very young age, and porn just completely enhanced those problems and made it even harder to fix/work on. If you're anything like me and have watched videos on the sciences of porn on your brain, and possible struggles that we deal with, I'm assuming you know how it goes for the most part. I'd say I show symptoms of all effects of being a porn addict, however I've learned to "act normal" to an extent. Like YES I struggle to make friends and hold conversations with people in general but I can make it happen. Sure it'll be a little awkward depending on who I'm speaking to, but I feel like I act normal enough to not be a total outcast and all out weirdo around people. But I just feel like every relationship I have with anyone is extremely surface level or unfulfilling. I feel like as a person I lack so much substance and personality due to the fact that I never really put myself out there and learned social skills when I was coming up. My mindset was molded into something like "keep your head down and stay out the way" in order to avoid conflict. So I never really put myself out there to develop any type of super crazy/interesting personality. I work, play videogames, go to the gym, watch anime. I feel like there's not much else - which might also be a side affect of my porn addiction. Lack of emotion. And I refuse to call it depression. Kind of got red pilled by Andrew Tate Philosophy and it entirely HAS helped me. Maybe it's real, maybe it's not - because when I was fresh out of high school and hyper focused on the bad parts of my life, I felt depressed as shit. Legit like I couldn't do anything to fix it. And the more I identified as "depressed" the more I allowed myself to look for things in my life to confirm that belief. So eventually I went on a self improvement journey and just stopped allowing "depression" to hold power over me. Now I don't believe in it so it's not something that can hold me down in that crippling way. HOWEVER, I DO believe in just being in a shitty situation - which is what I feel like having a porn addiction along with it's effects and symptoms is. It's a shitty situation and I can either allow it to keep ruining my life OR I can get up everyday and attempt to fix it. And I refuse to play the victim card. Sure, I may have been exposed to some fucked up shit at a young age and used porn as a coping mechanism. There is no denying that it happened and that it may have been unfair and out of my control. YES, that's my problem. I may be a victim of pornography but I do not have to ALLOW it to continue to ruin my life. Easier said than done but it's definitely possible and I will not blame my lack of discipline or call it "depression" because I'm unable to quit. The way I see it is, there is a lot of shit that happened to me in the past that I have to come to terms with, and then I must come up with a plan to improve and learn how to be better. For example, struggling to hold eye contact with people, hold basic conversation with people (specifically women), find confidence within myself, become more social, etc... These are all skills that we can practice and learn. Simply by going outside and putting ourselves in uncomfortable situations that allow us to put the reps in. I believe that if I quit porn and start walking up to 10 strangers a day and try having simple conversations with them, in time I can only get better at being social and connecting with people. It's gonna suck and feel like shit at first, but I truly believe that it's a way to improve and get better. As I stand in my current situation I would say I have a lot of work to do but I'm still a functioning addict. I have friendships and relationships with family but they are very lack luster and I long for something deeper and more intimate. I know I'm not ugly and have the ability to pull a good looking girl, shit I've turned down this really pretty girl who always asks to hangout simply due to the fact that I feel like I'm gonna fuck it up and have bad social skills. And its getting to a point where friends and family are wondering why I haven't had a girlfriend in years. Overall its a lack of self esteem, which hinders me from being able to confidently put myself out there as a person who's deserving of love/companionship, which then makes me sort of self isolate and stray away from any type of connection or opportunity to be vulnerable. Which just leads me to feeling like a loser or someone that is undeserving of love because I'm just in a shitty situation. And yeah. Its kind of a self sabotaging cycle because I feel like I understand what's going on but I don't have the discipline and don't put the work in to get better. But that's just my two cents. This post was extremely long and I probably rifted off topic a few times and had my thoughts all over the place, and I still have a lot more I could give input about but this is the jist of everything
If anyone has a support group or needs someone to talk to, 1. I'd like to join the group, or 2. Feel free to message me for any support or conversation.

My name is Emily. I'm from the United States and I wanted to end my 20's with a bang, and I'm happy to say that I ended my 20's in Korea.Actually, Korea was not a country that I had much to do with.Originally, I was a person who was immersed in Japanese culture since college.Japanese anime became my friend. There's a lot of interesting things about Japanese anime, like the fact that they depict real places in Japan, and they depict real food, and so I fell in love with Japan, and I even traveled to Japan a couple times, and I thought that Japan was the sum of everything that I longed for.
But then, in my late 20s, I met a friend who would change my life. It was a simple meeting with a long-lost college classmate, Sarah, who had gone on to work at a large firm in New York City, and whom I had shared anime and Japanese food with in my dorm room in college. She told me honestly that she had recently traveled to Korea and was seriously thinking about moving there. Unfortunately, the large company she worked for in New York had recently gone through a business crisis, and she was laid off.
She said that she was confused by the sudden betrayal of a well-known company, and to clear her mind, she went to the airport with the intention of leaving anywhere. She thought she would go to Japan, but when she arrived at the airport, she changed her mind. When she thought back to the places and restaurants she frequented most often while working at the company in New York, she remembered that she often went to Korean streets and Korean supermarkets in New York, and she thought that going to Korea on an impromptu trip was a really good idea, so she chose to go to Korea rather than Japan, which she already knew.
And buying a plane ticket on the spot at the airport was more than twice as expensive as booking a ticket in advance, but Sarah said that she didn't care, because she was depressed after being fired from her job, and she went to the airport to leave, but the curiosity about Korea that came over her made her want to leave right away, even if she had to pay for the expensive plane ticket.
He expressed that although he went to the airport courageously, he knew that the plane ticket would be too expensive, and he thought that maybe he should just go back home again, but his curiosity about Korea came from somewhere deep inside him, and it exploded like a bomb, and he was naturally drawn to it.
Sarah, who likes emotional things like essays and poems in college and enjoys such poetic expressions, but even so, I wondered if it was a little overdone, but when she said that she had been to Korea, I became more focused on her story.
However, I was able to understand why she expressed herself in such an over-the-top way after listening to her Korean stories.
"Korea is an amazing place, the people are so kind and warm, and most of all, the employment system is very well organized. There are many programs and support for job seekers, which is very helpful for people who are in a difficult situation like me."
When Sarah started with this story, I realized that she was really traumatized by being laid off.Now, she had been through a big ordeal and was in the process of recovering from it through Korea, so I decided to focus more on her story."You said you traveled to Korea, so what else did you do?" I asked."For example, what kind of programs were there?" I asked her.
"I happened to visit a job fair in Korea," she said, "where job seekers can get free career counseling and get the training they need." "I got a lot of help there, and it gave me the strength to get back on my feet, and maybe even get a job in Korea." "And most of all, the work culture in Korea is really family-like," she said, "I was impressed by how much my coworkers cared about each other and supported each other."
Sarah said that she was curious about what Korea was like, so she visited a large convention center in Korea and participated in various fairs, one of which was a job fair, and she interviewed with several Korean companies, and the Korean companies were ready to accept her as a colleague if she applied as an American. I also learned that Korea has many companies with global reach, and they are open to foreigners with various experiences, but in Korea, unless it is a large company, people don't prefer them, so if it is a small company, they want foreigners, but there is a sad reality that no one applies.
Unlike in the U.S., where you have to report your performance every week, and if you fall short, you are threatened with termination, Korean companies are definitely not more performance-oriented than in the U.S. They value their employees and do everything together to grow together, not threaten them with termination. In the past, I knew that corporate culture in Asian countries such as Korea was more collectivistic than individualistic, and as a student, I thought that such a collectivistic culture was a bad culture with a high level of disease in Asia, but after experiencing social life in the United States, I heard that the tendency of companies to be extremely individualistic, talking about job insecurity, and treating people ruthlessly, caused me to be fired from a good job overnight, and the future plans I had planned in advance became uncertain, and I even talked about envying the Korean culture that does not have such disadvantages.
Sarah, who has never worked in Korea, but was always afraid of being fired, said that she learned a lot about Korean corporate culture by interviewing many Korean company officials.
She said that she even considered settling down and living in Korea because, besides the culture, there were so many other conveniences and benefits.
She talked about her experience of working in New York, being left alone in the office to get things done because of her performance, having to leave late at night and being afraid to go home, sleeping in the hotel next door, and having to live with the exorbitant rent in Manhattan and the two-hour round-trip commute to work, and how she realized that unlike in the U.S., where it is difficult to see a doctor, she would not have to worry about these things in Korea.
Sarah's story made me even more curious about Korea.The warmth, systematic system, and various charms that she experienced in Korea couldn't help but have a great impact on me.I've been experiencing a lot of stress every day due to the pressure of performance and the threat of being fired, and I've recently been undergoing expensive psychotherapy.I decided to learn more about Korea, and eventually decided to travel to Korea.
Of course, I didn't travel to Korea with the intention of moving to Korea or settling down in Korea, but rather to spend my last 20s in a new country, Korea, and to see a different world than the familiar Japan.
I made my preparations and headed to Korea sooner than I expected, arriving ten days before my birthday and extending my itinerary beyond what I had originally planned, staying in Korea until after my birthday and then flying back to the United States.
The first day I finally arrived in Korea, I started walking around the streets of Seoul.The first thing that greeted me was the warm spring weather in Korea.The sky was clear and the air was crisp.I was told that it is common for Asia to have very bad air quality in the spring due to the influence of China, but I didn't have to deal with that during my trip.
The streets of Korea are very different from the United States, and everything was new to me.There were many beautiful flowers in bloom, and the well-maintained trees were really beautiful.It has been a long time since the common people's neighborhoods in the United States have such beautiful landscaping because of people who destroy these trees and flowers for no reason, or secretly take them and sell them.But this was not the case in Korea.The streets were like a beautiful flower garden.
I was walking down a beautiful street lined with flowers, and I was looking at them, looking at the big big map that was displayed on the screen at the bus stop.I was just curious to see what my neighborhood looked like, so I was looking at the map and taking my time, and a middle-aged woman came up to me and said, "Where are you looking for?" She didn't speak fluent English, but I was so grateful that she was trying to help. I was too embarrassed to tell her that I was just looking at the map, so I told her one of the destinations I was planning to go to, and she gave me direct directions to the place I was looking for, and I was able to get there without any difficulty.This unexpected kindness opened my eyes to the Korean people and warmed my heart at the same time.
I was ready to accept everything in Korea with an open mind.The first impression was very good, I was touched by the kindness of the people.I couldn't ask for anything more from Korea.The food was so fresh and amazing to me.I visited Gwangjang Market, a famous traditional market in Korea.
Unlike a regular restaurant, it was a place where you could sit down and try a variety of food. As a traditional market, it was full of Korean food. There were no pizza, pasta, or burger joints, but I liked it better that way. It was a place where you could see the traditional look and feel curious about everything.
I also tasted foods such as tteokbokki sundae and hotteok.Everything else was fine, but I was a little worried when I first tried sundae because it looked so strange and a little gross, but I decided to give it a try and the moment I put it in my mouth, the rich flavor filled my mouth.Korean food often seems difficult to eat, but when you try it, you can see why it is so popular in Korea.
I stayed at Gwangjang Market for a long time and tried a lot of different foods, especially kimchi and pajeon, which I still remember because of their crispy texture and spicy flavor. I would recommend them to everyone.Experiencing the deep flavors of Korean food firsthand made me fall in love with Korean food.
And then there was a shocking thing that happened to me in Korea.I was having a lot of fun traveling around Korea and everything was interesting, because Korea is really the best place to be, you know, you're running around, you're busy, you're going from place to place, and I had the misfortune of losing my passport, which was really stupid.
I was traveling in Korea, and I got an international call. Someone was calling me from Korea, and when I saw the international call indicator on my phone and realized that the call was from Korea, I had a million questions.
I thought I shouldn't answer the call, but then I realized that it was an international call, and I thought maybe they were calling me because they had some business to take care of. I answered the call, and I was told a really crazy story, because I heard a calm English voice asking if it was Emily, and she introduced herself as a police officer and asked if I could come to the nearest police station.
I thought I had done something terribly wrong, because I had just eaten delicious tteokbokki and sundae, kimchi and pajeon, and I was so happy to eat them, and afterward I was just walking around the streets of Korea, smelling the flowers and seeing the pretty trees.
I started to check my belongings one by one and realized that my small pouch containing my passport and some of the money I had exchanged was missing.
I quickly headed to the police station, which was where I was told to go, and from the front gate, I was controlled as to what I was visiting.
The great thing about Korea is that even for someone like me who doesn't speak Korean, it's not difficult to navigate these government offices. Not all Koreans speak English, but at least the ones I've met have been able to communicate with me in a simple way. Even if they don't speak perfect sentences, they understand most of the words, so I was able to communicate the reason for my visit to the police station.
I had never been to a police station before, even in the U.S., but here I was in Korea, and I was greeted by friendly people.The pouch with my passport in it had my contact information written on the inside, and they said they would contact me with that.The bag was found in a marketplace, and the first person to report it was the stall owner of the place where I had my first sundae.It also had all of my clean, new Korean money in it, which I had exchanged separately.
I was so impressed with how conscientious Koreans are and how good they are that I was able to find the pouch, sign the paperwork, and walk out of the police station.
I went back to Gwangjang Market, and when I got there, the owner recognized me and looked like he was about to say something. I held out the bag and showed it to him, and he smiled and liked it.
I thanked the Korean boss, and we ate another snack on the spot. It was an experience that made me realize how heavenly Korea is.
And like Sarah said, I didn't just want to see how clean and pretty Korea is, I wanted to see what an American working in Korea could do and what life would be like.Through the Reddit community, I was able to get in touch with Americans working in Korea and even met some of them in person.
David, the American I met, works for a company that is not a large Korean company, but rather a small or medium-sized company. As Sarah said, Korea is a country where products are produced for the global market, and many things are actually exported overseas.
However, in Korea, unless it is a large company, every company is experiencing a job shortage, and because of the atmosphere in Korea, where foreigners are not welcome at all, it is not difficult to get a job in a company that specializes in exporting overseas, even if you are in the United States.
And David told me that he put all his passion into the first company he worked for in the U.S., and even made a lot of money for the company, but when he didn't perform, the company fired him without mercy, and he said that he was so shocked, not to mention the feeling of betrayal, that he took depression medication at that time, and it was so hard that he took depression medication, and then he found Korea by chance and settled in Korea, and now he is so happy. He told me that he was fired from his job because of the unrelenting treatment in the U.S., that he found a second chance in Korea, and that he is happy with his life here.
I'm not sure I have the courage to move to Korea right now, but I learned that there are a lot of people like Sarah and David who have been hurt so badly that they end up leaving the country. I'm scared that this could be my future, but I also learned that Korea is an option for me if it happens to me.My trip ended like this: experiencing the culture, food, and hospitality of Korea, and getting to meet and talk to Americans living in Korea, made my trip much more rewarding than my trip to Japan, which could have been an anime trip.
Korea has given me new perspectives and experiences, shattered my notion that Japan is only good, broadened my horizons, and opened my eyes to another gem that is Korea.
I now like to say to my friends, "Go to Korea, you'll see how good it is." Korea has taught me so much, and I will cherish my experience in Korea, which now holds a special place in my heart.
If Sarah goes to Korea and settles down, I will be there to congratulate her and support her in her new relationship in Korea.

I... dont really know where to begin, so I'll start with background. I've had flings in the past, but this is my first long time relationship. To be 5 years this August. We live in california.
Tldr: I recieved a phone call after having just seen her the previous day asking to talk, essentially during this reasons boiled down to
"Everything, the long distance, and (i, 29m) dont have initiative" "(i've, 29m) been talking about becoming an electrician, but havent done anything about it"
Back story.
I (29m) have supported my partner (29f) in their passion for Renaissance Faire for the entire time we had been together. She treats this as her livlihood. Has been clear about this, but I had no qualms. Her income is padded from her father at 1000$ a month, a vestige of an agreement to earn a degree (which she still has not, and has not been in school since before we began dating)
I have voiced wishing to become an electrician, i love working with my hands, and circuitry is enthralling. I have known people in the field, who have helped me get interviews and attempt entry level positions but each time have been told, the slot was filled before onboarding trully happened for me. Student loans kinda terrify me cause of debt, the trade schools i've found in cali be expensive. Most of my savings before hand went to assisting my grandma with issues that were taken care of.
We both talked about how neither of us was fully in the career we wanted, and how we wanted to see the other grow into it.
When we got together, @24 years old, i was an assistant manager in a deli, after multiple instances of being passed for applied promotions and training those who recieved those promotions.... I had enough. This was only the first year of our relationship
I got a job at a Hyatt Hotels, becoming a front end (lobby) manager. Hyatt at the time had excellent student programs and loan rates, which fizzled when the location franchised, and we lost a majority of benefits. Found a new job
I've been at a shipping company that works out of a single location for a tech company, Juniper networks. Have DOT driving certs, and multiple forklift certs. Mon-fri 9-5, making good money (close to 30/hr) feel ALOT more comfortable with loans now. Have more time that i can set aside for things. This was the last barely two years, my annual was literally a week ago.
The primary reason i havent begun said process of loans is the amount i have been trying to support her in her passion and stay connected. But even with that I was beginning to figure out times for school.
She had begun with 1 faire, then two, then some smaller ones. Trying out different Faires at different times. Just this year attempting all of them.
She has progressively added more and more faires, to the point where she we will not be at home .... 9 months? Of this year. 3 months roughly each faire, back to back at times. One faire is out of state, all the rest are driveable easy.
I say roughly as all the faires dates are up for debate, between the build, run, and teardown, there is variance of up to several weeks. Making planning outside of Faire difficult. I find out these dates through her, but with very little time in between to plan anything
I visit during the close faires, Casa de fruta Northern Ren faire, every weekend. During the farther Faires, like LA southern faire, every other weekend. Of my own volition and wish to see her.
Long distance it may be, but the longest actual time we've been apart for these is only a couple weeks at a time. Literally 2.
I text and call, not quite everyday, but no longer than a few (3ish), most of the time with no response. Again no qualms, just different things happening at different times, blind love yaknow?
I purchased essentially her entire camp, carport, cots, portable matress (trifold queen), tents, tables, stove, etc.
I drove her throughout our relationship, not just to and from Faire, literally everything. She has refused to get a drivers license out of fear. I have mobilized her supplies and camp.
We talked frequently, enjoyed shows, board games, we started heading to amusement parks, (she loves rollercoasters), we would go dancing while she was home, build lego display sets, like i could keep on going.
The last couple times shes come home from Faire, things have felt off. Like i have to reconnect with her at home. When i visit has seemed like either shes masking for me, or at faire.
She started getting too tired to do anything in between the Faires, and would refuse my assistance to get ready. Which was basically laundry and maintenance for camp things.
Sometimes these last couple months i would respond with the energy i recieved. Im human. I dont really know what else to say for that. We would talk about it Then things would go back to how they were.... for a time
Ill admit i have resting grumpy face, and on occaision am grumpy. But I never took it out on her. We had arguments, but never anything that lasted or made us truly angry. Sometimes i would say i need some alone time, just to cool off. But that never lasted for more than an hour or two.
When we began dating, she asked me bring my tone down a bit. Kinda made me realize unintended inflections.
Again these last couple months, she hasnt been rude, nor abusive... just sharp... to the point i feel like i have to apologize for ideas or actions. I brought this up, and things got better.... for a bit
I have dropped the ball on occaision with cleaning around the house, and she brought it up when they happened, but it honestly went both ways.
She ruled over laundry, i ruled over dishes, we'd help each other wipe down surfaces and vacuum. We have cats, and took turns cleaning litter.
We'd helped each other cook, but unless I laid very clear intentions i wanted to cook for her, she'd take over. She preferred cooking, saying "ocd"
Her love languages is much more touch oriented than mime are.
I have never claimed to be fast at anything. In fact literally have compared myself to the Tortoise, from tortoise and the hare. And feel very judged on it all of a sudden.
Looking back... maybe I could have initiated more... but as i began to do so more and more this last year together, i was met with more and more, "tired" or "faire".
I just... feel like a wrung out rag..... and ... i dont know... Used?
She mentioned it not being fair to either of us... just making me wonder if this might actually be better off...
Doesnt feel like it now

i stopped at a wendy's to grab a quick bite to eat, my music was on shuffle. as i started to relay my order (baconator combo, large fry, iced tea) i guess the guy taking my order heard Drake - Trophies in the background, and cut me off. he started monologuing, telling me that he's been the fakest pushed industry plant since the start.
i tried to awkardly just agree and say yeah he definitely didn't "start from the bottom", he continued, saying Kendrick killed his whole family and stated he's gonna die so just know its literally over. It's beyond rap. It always was. This is the culture v the industry. The industry fabricates.I can cross the street right now and a gang of niggaz gonna be outside talking about "cant wait to catch drake fans slippin". Imagine if they get the chance to catch Drake?
i realized that there were cars starting to line up behind me, since i was still just at the spot to place an order. when i told him that he's right, which really was just in hopes of him to let me finish my order, he started yapping again.
he more or less said Drake is NOT the culture he is an industry brand and marketing campaign. Do you think he chose himself to do all those international features and feature with young artists? No, he has a label and that's the workings on his label to keep him relevant. His identity has changed so many times he doesnt even know who he is and this has been apparent for years before Kendrick ripped him last night.
The fact that you even take a stance shows you know nothing. Come to the hood and talk about how you know about our culture and about how a Jewish Canadian disrespecting and appropriating an american culture behind the guise of an industry rapper. Most of you all in here dont spin the block, dont rap, dont bang, and dont involve yourselves so dont involve yourself now. You sit back listen, shut your mouth, and pay respects. Get that fake industry jew shit the fuck outta here.
at this point i had rolled up my window a bit and was just really at a lost for words. he kept going, saying Kendrick has a lot of reasons to hate Drake but if you've been tracking his moves since Damn and are in deep with rumors about XXX there are a lot of weird things linking it back to a Drake hit that got XXX in Florida in 2018. Kendrick bowed out the public eye for years around this time on self imposed exile and spent 2 years with writers block. Kendrick was tight with XXX and saw him as the future. One of the only artists Kendrick has ever endorsed like that. The night before XXX died he posted an Instagram story "If I die it was Drake". I think if Kendrick drops again, that Instagram story is gonna be the cover. before he could continue, i fully rolled up my window and was looking for an exit method.
im gonna be honest. i drove over the curb of the drive thru and fucked up some of the plants and grass they had. my undercarriage definitely got scratched up and shit but i think i made the right choice. im just going to uber eats some mcdonalds at this point.
has anyone had a similar experience?

So I'm a male 24 and my gf is 23. And we've been having issues with my venting when I come home from work. Weve been together for 4 years and both have jobs, shes working at a raleys ONE as a sandwich artisan which she really enjoys and has been making good money from. I'm working as a low voltage technician, like ethernet cable and cameras n stuff. I got a job with this low voltage company starting at $20 an hour about 8 months ago. In that time I started from a normal technician to eventually earning $25 an hour for becoming the lead technician for the crew. It's a small company so that amount of pay increase in such a short time was absolutely amazing, but caused so much more work load on myself. I went from being the youngest guy asking my crew lead for what to do next, to now having the exact same guys ask me what to do next.(also had 4 years high voltage experience which explains that jump)
Anyways, this new work load is tremendous and unlike anything I've ever experienced. A few months ago I started this big warehouse job that ended up taking 3 months to finish, horrible. And during those last months I came home from work, and as usual my girlfriend asked how my day and work was, and I responded telling her how exhausting and annoying this job has been going, giving her detail to some situations and what's exactly bugging me. I then did this a few more times as the weeks went on, and as the story's and issues at my work progressed and things happened, i would vent and update her on the situations. She eventually told me she was tired of me venting every day about the same issues and stuff. She explained that hearing the complaints every day is exhausting for her which I understand. It did upset me a little bit, but I understood that it could become annoying when you're also just trying to relax from your day off work, so I stopped telling her about my shitty days. We would come home and ask each other how the day was and we would pretty much both say "ah yeah it was pretty shitty" and that was that, and continue to relax and spend the rest of the night together.
Now present day, its a Wednesday and I started up this current new warehouse installation. Installing all of their low voltage stuff, cameras, APs, door card access, fiber optic etc. This warehouse and job overview was almost on par with the 3 month job i mentioned earlier... my bosses called this job an "ambitious two weeks". Fucking ambitious my ass dude that's so much wiring and integration that can take easily months if anything goes wrong, twos weeks is more than ambitious and it's a 3 man crew. Again, we started on Monday and now it's Wednesday, this whole week my girlfriend hasn't even asked how my days been when I've gotten home. Today she had the day off so when I got home around 6pm we started talked about our days. I started the convo and began venting about how so far this week I've been given a very difficult job with an unreasonable deadline. I talk for not even 5 minutes about my stresses, and she begins to tell me that I shouldn't be unloading this stuff on her. She even eventually says that she's not my therapist, and that if I want to vent about that stuff day and day, over and over that I should talk to a therapist. I tried to explain that she is my girlfriend, I WANT to be able to tell her about what's going on at my work and my life, especially since it takes up so much of my energy and time every day. She shut down and went to the bedroom where I just sat here I'm the living room looking at the computer screen for a while, and then eventually she came back out and showed me some reddit thread about a women who's coming home and venting to her husband every day for around 10 minutes about her horrible boss. And a lot of the comments are supporting the husband saying you shouldn't come home and put those stresses onto your partner, which I can completely understand that. She was going through all the comments and gave me her phone to see how everyone agreed you shouldnt vent about you work. That's why earlier i had completely stopped telling my girlfriend about any issues or stresses at work, I tried to leave it at work which was genuinely impossible since I was now in charge of material pickup and designation, which is what I was being paid to plan for and it required planning and a genuine give a shit outside of work to make sure the money flows for the business.
I just feel like she doesn't understand that me venting today about how shitty work is, is my way of saying that im stressed out and struggling and im feeling like shit. And it made it so much worse when just recently after all the stuff before, she just walked out saying she was going to the store to get beer and will be back in 3 hours. All because again I wanted to tell her about how stressed I've been so far this week when I got home from work and that I have this 2 week unreasonable deadline, and now I feel even more shitty about talking to my closest person about my stresses at work? It just doesn't make sense to me, if she is struggling and having a problem with something, she has never had a problem talking hours about how bad she's feeling. Why can I not even acknowledge the normal feelings of validly being overwhelmed and stressed with my new job position.
Well Idk AITA for this?

I think there’s something off about my campus
Hey everyone, I’m typing this on my phone so I apologize if there is weird formatting. Anyways, to get to the point, there’s something really off with some people on my campus. I have come seeking answers.I noticed it first walking home from my 7pm class last Wednesday.
To set the scene, most of the campus is tucked back into the woods a little, and my 7pm class is in the farthest building from the parking lot (further into the woods). I get out from that 7pm class around 9pm, so on cloudy nights like last Wednesday, the only lights on that long sidewalk are the lights radiating from the other buildings. Usually, there’s roughly 30 feet where it’s pitch black because the foliage is pretty dense. I usually walk back to my apartment with some classmates that live in the same complex as me, but I told them to go ahead of me while I finished the rest of the project.
After packing my laptop away, I started heading back home. It was roughly 9:30 at this point, and my brain was slowly shutting down preparing for the deep sleep that has yet to come.Walking down the sidewalk, I heard somebody not too far into the woods laughing like they’ve just heard the funniest joke ever. I immediately thought, “probably some Freshman walking the trails with their friends smoking weed”. Chuckling to myself, I put in my AirPods and picked a playlist for my journey back home.
When I looked up from my phone, there was the silhouette of somebody walking towards me. I have no idea how I missed them before, but honestly, it’s very possible they were just in a spot where the light wasn’t quite reaching them. A little unnerved, I shifted over to the left side of the sidewalk.
(Now I’m usually fine walking alone at night; I’m a 6’2 man who’s dabbled in the world of MMA. But something about this person gave me a primal feeling of unrest.)
When they shifted over to the left mirroring me, I felt my blood run cold. But alas, I had to keep walking because this was my only way back home. As I neared closer to the figure, I almost laughed at myself when I realized it was just some harmless girl walking towards the Murphy building. If anything, I’m the intimidating one to her.
This is where it really gets weird. She stopped as I was passing her and turned to me. Thinking she needed to ask me something, I took an AirPod out and asked “what’s up?”. After staring at me for an uncomfortable amount of time, she opened her mouth, and I kid you not, mimicked the laugh I heard moments before perfectly. Before I could chalk it up to it just being her in the trails earlier, I noticed something. Her mouth wasn’t moving at all. If I had left my AirPods in, it would just look like she was just opening her mouth and staring at me. She then shifted into a deep raspy laugh. She did all of this without moving her mouth at all; I couldn’t even see her throat moving as you would expect if someone was laughing. It was almost like she was some fucked up human-shaped gramophone. The feeling of absolute horror that came over me is something I’ve only experienced in my imagination. Before I could think to do anything next, My body began to run off some sort of primal instinct. With my legs burning, it took me about 10 minutes to get all the way back to my apartment and lock myself in relative safety.
I’m coming on here now to ask if anybody knows what I experienced? I have been hearing that same laughter outside my window every night since that night, I am too terrified to sleep well and have refused to go to any of my classes. Please I just want answers, I don’t want to keep living in fear.
Part 2:
Hey everyone, I’ve gotten some DMs telling me what it may be. I’ve heard everything from banshee to skinwalker. After further research I pray to god it was neither of them. I’m praying it was just some girl with a speaker playing some sort of cruel joke. I mean yes there are people who don’t like me on campus, I’ve made some enemies over the past 4 years. But, I just don’t understand what could’ve brought it to this point. I had to stop hiding in fear and go to my classes before my grades plummet, I’m almost done with my degree and only have a few more weeks. If I let some sort of stupid prank ruin my career, It would be everything I swore against to my parents.
A lot of you guys in the DMs were also asking what college I go to and what my name is. First I want to say sorry for not providing that information in the first post, I’m sure you can understand where my head was at typing that. So let me introduce myself, my name is Nick and In order to keep my privacy, I will only provide that I go to a midwest university.
I’m sure you may be wondering, “so did it just stop?”. I would love to say yes, but really things have just gotten weirder. Though, I am pleased to say that there is no longer laughing out my window every night.
Ever since that night, I’ve been noticing more things off with the people on campus. Now you may just think it’s paranoia, but just be patient and listen.
Yesterday, I decided to muster up all of my courage and go to class. Luckily my first class is at 10AM, when the sun is well in the sky, so walking across campus seemed much less threatening. When I sat down in my first class, I noticed something off with the girl that sits in front of me. Usually she’s chatty and excited to be in class, but today she just stared blankly ahead. I tried to say good morning and ask about her weekend, as we do every Monday, but she continued to have that blank stare. She did turn her head towards be, but her eyes read “lights on, but nobody is home”.
Thinking to myself, she may just be hungover, or going through the bout of college student depression. I decided to shrug it off and turn to the front of the class and get my notes ready. But the moment I turned around, I could feel it. Her eyes burrowing deep into the back of my head. When I flipped around to see if I was just being irrational, I quickly learned I wasn’t. Her eyes went from the blank glare, to the most enthusiastic face I’ve seen on her. It was horrible, it almost seemed like she was trying so hard to pretend she was thrilled to be in class and to speak to me. It was inhuman.
I’ve been on the internet long enough to catch on to the term “Uncanny valley”, and what I witnessed In my first hour gives me that same gut feeling I got when I saw that girl last Wednesday.
I was right to be uncomfortable though, I texted her after class to make sure she was doing alright. But her response only reignited the flames of deep fear burning in my soul.
I’ll copy and paste the messages here:
Me: Hey Is everything good? You seemed off in class today.
Steph SCI 101: Uh yeah, I’m fine. but I was not in class today, I’m severely hungover from Tanner’s party last night.
Me: Haha, good one.
Steph SCI 101: No I’m so Fr, are you okay?
Steph SCI 101: Are you trying to fuck with me or something?
Me: Nevermind, I’m sorry to bother you.
(End Of Texts)
Okay so I’m sure that this gives you all the same feeling of dread that it gave me but I’m sure scaled down a bit. This is where I have started to doubt that it’s a prank, because me and Stephanie are cool. There’s no level of hate for either of us, and even if it was some joke, we don’t know each other on that type of level.
Not only did this seem to happen in my first class, but in between classes while I was walking across campus as well. I walk past hundreds of faces in my many treks across campus, and I swear to you, at least 1/4th of the people I walked past had that same dead stare look. And the way they walked, god I hate even thinking of it. It was like they were an alien trying out their new body suits for the first time. The steps and the bends of their legs just seem so meticulous, dramaticized, and puppeteered.
I’m going to try to investigate further, because at this point my fear for my life is more of a reason to try and figure out what it is so I can try to stop it.
I’m no hero, and I’m sure as hell nothing special, but If I can know what to expect for another encounter, maybe I can avoid meeting the demise I have imagined.
Part 3

First off I would like to apologize for my 20-day hiatus. For those who were worried that curiosity killed the cat so to speak, I appreciate your concern. On top of my investigation, I have also had to go through finals and work for a boss who didn't believe in life outside of work. So let's start where we left off. I had a feeling that this task was left for me to solve. it may sound stupid, but let me explain why. That night, after my last post, I had a dream that further solidified my need to solve the mystery. I tried to write all that I remembered down the morning after so here is what I wrote. 

April 4th, 2024
I had a strange dream last night, stranger than usual at least. I awoke in the woods, laying face down in the grass with someone looming over me. I heard their footsteps flee rapidly before I flipped over. I found myself just off the trail where the “incident” happened, on the trail laid a girl, bloodied and motionless. When I got up to approach her, she was quickly dragged into the parallel section of the woods. Seeing this I turned and ran into the section of woods I was in. When my legs gave out I found myself near an old supply shed, worn and long abandoned. Searching for cover, I tried the door, which luckily gave after a quick pull. There I found a trapdoor which emanated a blue hue through the cracks. The only thought on my mind, survival brought me to throw it open and climb down. I clattered down the ladder and right before my feet touched the ground, I was pulled backwards by my shirt. That’s where I woke up.
I have always trusted my gut and having a dream that vivid gave me a sense of courage I did not previously have. I know where to start my search now. I have decided my best course of action will be to record my findings on a tape recorder app. After I finish each entry it will be uploaded to a cloud that will ensure if anything happens to me, the story will get out. I am packing my backpack now with a flashlight, glow sticks to mark my trail, and a machete I was gifted by a local in Mexico. All of my recordings will be uploaded below and auto posted after 10 days. Wish me luck everyone, I’m going to need it.
Entry 1: I have started at the only place that makes sense, the trail. It is currently 1:45 PM and I have plenty of sun left in the sky. I just needed to find exactly where to start my journey into the woods. Strangely it was very easy to find. I recall one of the trees having a funky twist near the middle of the trunk. Probably just some two lovebirds trying to carve their name into the tree and realizing there were softer trees to carve into. Anyways hiking further into the woods I believe I can see the shape of the shed through the branches. I wish you guys could see how dense these trees are so you can understand my struggle.
Entry 2: I made it to the shed, but unfortunately the floor in here is concrete. This really sucks for me because I have absolutely no idea where to go from here. It’s identical on the outside but I just don’t understand. Maybe I’m just delusional, which in that case what a waste of time and energy. I’m going to head back home and just start packing for summer. Maybe it’ll be best if I just forget about all of this and leave it behind me. I am graduating after all. Wait hold on what is this?? there’s a button behind one of these shelves. I am going to press it, but idk how it would work because this floor is seamless. I’m just going to leave this recording so if anything does happen I don’t have to worry about holding the phone the whole time. Holy shit, the entire floor is lowering. It’s a fucking elevator.
Entry 3: Okay so I’ve been going down this elevator for like 30 seconds, how far down am I going?.. Oh wait hold on, Im stopped… There’s a metal door with a padlock. Ig since I have the machete there’s only one thing to do, break it. Im going to use the blunt side so I don’t ruin this thing, I like it too much. the lock clatters to the ground after 3 solid hits. Well ig there’s only one way to go now, there’s no button to get back up so I pray there’s another way up. The metal door creaks loudly. Fuck I regret this, It’s dark and I can tell it’s a big area because it’s so echoey in here. I’m currently praising my past self for thinking about the flashlight and glow sticks. I need to find out what in the hell this place is and most importantly, if there’s a damn light switch.
Entry 4: God this place is terrifying I’ve been walking around the sterile white halls of this place for like 10 minutes and have found nothing, no doors, no light switch. I feel like a rat in a maze. Also scratch what I said about being glad I packed glow sticks, because my stupid ass only brought like 20 of these things and I’m already down to 5. Also I feel like I’m not alone, every now and then I’ll turn a corner and the glow from the previous glow stick quickly vanishes. I feel like it might just be because the darkness seems to envelop everything like a blanket. But I have that feeling that I’m being followed. You know the one, where you know somethings wrong you just can’t pin point what it is. Oh shit no way, there’s light, I think there’s a door or something up ahead.
Entry 5: Holy shit… It’s a lab, and worse, there’s people strapped too tables, completely naked and unconscious. I know they are alive because each of them are hooked up with a million different cords, and one of those are plugged into a heart monitor. This place is huge, there has to be at least 50 people on these tables.
“Hey you, you’re not supposed to be in here” yelled a man adorned in a lab coat.
“What are you doing to these kids you sick fucks.” I yelled back at the man across the lab.
In a haste the scientist rushes towards a red button, setting off a loud alarm, turning the lights to a flashing red. With no exit behind me, I could only do one thing... Rush towards him. My training kicked in as I launched into a flurry of calculated strikes. My first hit connected, a right overhand clean under his eye. The doctor stumbled back, but I didn't give him a chance to recover. I pressed the attack, keeping him off balance with a relentless barrage of punches and kicks. He fought back ferociously, but I was one step ahead, anticipating his moves and countering with swift, efficient strikes. We wrestled, the room around us becoming a blur of pain and adrenaline. I used the environment to my advantage, improvising weapons from the scattered medical equipment and turning the empty tables on my opponent. Pinning him to the ground, I laid down a harsh barrage of final blows. His face was a bloody pulp, unrecognizable. But I didn’t walk away unscathed, somewhere in the tussle, the scientist buried a scalpel deep into my stomach. With my adrenaline wearing off, the pain overtook me, sending me into darkness as I fainted from the blood loss and adrenaline dump. I awoke with my arms and legs strapped to the cold metal operating table. Before I could try to struggle, a face overtook my field of vision.
“Quite a fight you put up, you turned poor Dr.Samson into a soup” the looming face said with a chuckle. “You are the first person to put the pieces together and for that I am thoroughly impressed Mr. Hayes”
“Who are you?!” I said fighting at my binds. “Let me go!”
“I’m afraid I can’t do that Mr.Hayes. You have seen far too much, and I definitely can’t have you running around telling the world what you saw here. Although nobody would believe you.” “And to answer your other question, I’m surprised you don’t recognize me… really take a moment and look at me” He said pulling down his face mask.
“Dr.Blackwood?” I said as I looked back on my freshman year biology class.
“Ding ding ding ding. We have a winner!” He said in a maniac joy.
“What are you going to do to me?” I asked.
“Well Mr.Hayes, first I’m going to sew you up from your little tussle you had with my late assistant and then I will put you under and cut into that skull of yours and take out a small piece of what we call in the science world your hippocampus. Then I will draw from that all of the necessary memories to create the perfect clone of you.” He responded.
“Why? Why would you need a clone of any of us. Why can’t you just clone someone willing to be apart of this?” I asked
“Because that’s no fun Mr.Hayes, the hunt excites me. Actually you’re lucky I didn’t get you the first night. Unfortunately my creation had a little bit of a malfunction and formed a wee bit of an attachment to you. I’m sure you remember the ruckus outside your window? Anyways I digress, I do this because everyone of you lowly students will go onto do mediocre jobs where you waste away at a desk. I must also add that with having a clone of you under my control, I can do anything and get away with clean hands. My plan with you originally was to have you go into the admissions office and steal every last cent all for me. On top of that I like the power, because one day I will have a clone of every student on this campus and eventually I will cause a revolt against our comedy of a government. Who will stop me, when I won’t even be on the front lines?” Dr.Blackwood explained.
“I will” I said freeing my last hand from the binds.
What he didn’t realize is that with all of this monologue and the questions I had been feeding him, I was slowly loosening my binds with each wiggle and movement in retaliation.
Lurching forward I grab onto his collar, pulling him into a vicious headbutt. The impact sent Dr. Blackwood reeling backward, his grip on consciousness loosening as he staggered. Seizing the moment, I lunged off the table, adrenaline coursing through my veins despite the searing pain in my abdomen. With a swift motion, I grabbed a nearby surgical instrument, holding it in a defensive stance as I faced my adversary. Dr. Blackwood, recovering from the blow, snarled with rage, his once calm demeanor now replaced by a feral intensity. The room seemed to shrink around us, the tension thickening with each passing second. This was my chance to stop Blackwood's twisted plans. As he lunged forward, I met his attack head-on, the clang of metal reverberating through the room. Blow after blow, we fought with an intensity born of desperation and determination. Despite my injuries, I refused to yield, driven by a fire burnt under me to protect myself and others from Blackwood's actions . In a final, swift move, I delivered a powerful front kick, sending Blackwood crashing to the ground. The room fell silent, the echoes of our struggle fading into the darkness. Coughing he sat in the corner laughing with blood spilling down his face. “You know that it’s too late to save any of these one lying on the tables. I would’ve released you, you know that right? I would’ve simply taken your memory from today out of your brain and leaving you in your bed to wake up thinking you had a fun night” he said with final resolve as he watched me grab the scalpel from the ground taking slow steps near him.
Looking down over him, It was my turn to laugh. Kneeling down to eye level with him I grabbed him by his hair and delivered a final message to him “Fuck you and your little science experiment” as I sliced deep into his throat watching the life fade from his eyes.
I eventually found an exit door, which lead me to a storm drain deep in the woods far from my campus. It took me 2 hours to limp my way onto a main road and flag down a passing car. Pulling over I was rushed to the hospital and later interrogated by some men in suits, my guess is CIA. Here I am now, writing my final entrance. I think I heard them say something about trying a new medical process on me to help me heal quicker

Heyo, 26F from South Australia here, suffer from Endometriosis, Adenomyosis, PCOS, Vaginismus, Vulvodynia, Fibromyalgia and Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. I've been on a wild ride of emotions this past week, thought the curious turn of events might entertain someone!
I was booked in for an Endoscopy/Colonoscopy last Thursday the 9th of May, and booked for a Laparoscopy, Hysteroscopy, Cystoscopy & Endo Excision (possible laparoscopic hysterectomy also depending on development/progression of Adenomyosis) on Monday the 13th of May.
I imagine there's quite a few uterus having people in this group that have had to go through the increasingly grotesque waterfall of hell that is colonoscopy prep. Not surprisingly this was stupidly painful due to the Endometriosis surrounding my bowels and the Adenomyosis deciding to flare - also the fact that I didn't absorb my pill properly because of the 'clean out'. The pain from this alone was just horrific and by the time I walked into the hospital to be admitted for day surgery I was doubled over and in tears from the pain. A gentleman in a walker actually moved chairs so I could sit down asap so I must have looked a right mess.
Had the scopes done, woke up from the sedation and pretty quickly ended up crying and wailing in the fetal position from the pain. The hospital pharmacy took 45 minutes to get me any pain relief because "people don't normally have this reaction to a colonoscopy/endoscopy" - a lot of people don't have Endo & cysts around the affected area, mate. I figured it was all just Endo/Adeno flare from the scopes pushing things about.
Once on top of the pain, I was told there was very little found in the scopes, some inflammation in my stomach (gastritis) which has been biopsied just in case, but luckily no indication of Endo being inside the bowels & stomach. Got released that day, told there might be some minor rectal bleeding and some 'gassy' feelings. Mum drove me home (live 2 hours away from the hospital that they did the procedure). The next few days were interesting. Increasing stomach pain and twisting/writing feeling all through my abdomen, plus severe rectal pain, pretty inline with regular old Endo.
About 4:00pm on Friday afternoon, I received a phone call from the hospital that had my laparoscopy booked for Monday - they have no anesthetist available. The next available date with my surgeon is the 8th of July. I have spent weeks preparing myself for this operation, booking time off work, prepping meals, organizing contractors to replace me at work for recovery, organizing accomodation closer to the hospital, organising house sitters, pet sitters, my partner and parents booking time off work and accomodation to be near me and help me. I was ropable, I was so upset and beside myself. Felt hopeless and like I'd never get help or relief, it will just keep getting postponed and no one cares, since when do 26 year old women need to be able to walk and function anyway?? Plus have a possible POTS diagnosis on its way that needs to wait till after the operation.
The pain and rectal bleeding got worse over the weekend, I was getting nervous and nearly passing out from the spasming pain. Thought maybe it was constipation but no. I was taken along to the doctor yesterday for an interesting update. Because the Endometriosis on the outside of my bowels & colon is so prevalent that it's basically 'tacked' and stuck the outside of the colon together, so every time the colonoscope went around a corner, I was left with tiny little splits in the innermost layer of my colon. Hence the pain and bleeding.
This means, had I gone in for my laparoscopy on Monday, apparently they would have done initial incisions and camera insertion, seen all the inflammation and refused to do the operation, likely meaning I would be back on another 12-24 month wait list. Now I have 7 weeks to let things heal before having the bigger operation. Spending the remainder of this week under my electric heated throw rug with the cats.
Something I thought was the worst thing in the world 3 days ago, is now a massive relief. God this disease and it's comorbidities are a fucking rollercoaster!

Hi everyone, this is my first time posting one reddit and it's a quite of a long question, but I just don't know what to do.
My boyfriend and I have been together 3 years and we've lived together almost all of that time. Almost a year (11 months) ago I found out he was cheating on me (kinda? idk, I'll explain). He had been using reddit to find snapchat accounts for girls to exchange nudes with. He'd been doing it for about 2 months and with about 10 girls (that I know of). They would normally sext a bit and then not talk again. I confronted him and he admitted to me that he had/has a porn addition, and that he'd been doing this type of thing on and off since he was about 15. He said he never really saw it as cheating because to him it was kinda like "interactive porn". He said that it almost felt like a seperate part of his life and he couldn't connect with the part of himself that did it. He said it was only when he actually saw the effect it had on me that what he was doing became real to him.
Anyway, we decided to work through it and he started going to therapy to work on himself/his porn addition. It took a bit of time to get back to normal, but eventually our relationship returned to normal and we've been pretty good recently. Here's the thing: most of his bad behaviours/actions are due to low self esteem. He struggles to accept good things in his life and so tends to self-sabotage them (which was part of the reason the cheating happened in the first place). It also kinda follows a cycle - every 6(ish) months he'll do something really bad that we need to heal from (e.g. the cheating, getting super drunk and doing something dumb, etc). It's gotten a lot better since he's started therapy, but the cycle is basically like this: we're doing really well, he does something to self-sabotage, the relationship struggles and we have to heal/build up trust again for 1 or 2 months, the relationship recovers and we do well for 4 or 5 months, the cycle repeats.
I'm worried because it's been almost 6 months since the last incident. Our relationship has been pretty good recently, but the last time he cheated we were in such a good place and that's why he sabotaged it, so us doing well doesn't really put my mind at ease.
I've noticed recently that he's started being a bit more secretive with his phone again. For example, he'll tell me about some funny shit he saw on reddit, but when I ask to see the post he doesn't show me and says he'll send it to me. It doesn't matter how many times I ask to see it, it won't give me his phone. Another example: the other night I was in our bedroom and he was in the kitchen. I didn't have my phone but I needed a calculator, so I asked to use his because it was on the bed. He said yes, but then immediately came into the bedroom, watched me use the calculator and then asked for his phone so he could watch a YouTube video.
When he first cheated, to regain/build up trust in our relationship he gave me the passwords to all his social media and we had a deal I could go through his phone anytime I wanted. As soon as I felt like things were back on track, I logged out of everything (and deleted the passwords so I couldn't log in again). I also stopped going through his phone a few months back, and we've been really good at communicating - I'll normally just ask him outright how he's doing with the porn addiction and if there's anything I should know (he always says no). I don't want to ask to go through his phone again because that feels like a huge step backwards and I know it'll make our relationship feel tense/weird for a few days, but something just feels off. I just don't want to do anything rash because I do have quite severe anxiety and it might just be projection, but it's around the point in the cycle where something bad happens, I've noticed a bit of a disconnect between us (more unnecessary fights and stuff) and then there's the phone secrecy too.
What should I do? I love him endlessly and I know he loves me, but I don't want to ignore warning signs and brush them off as me being paranoid if they're not, ya know?
Sorry it's so long...thank you! :)

I think there’s something off about my campus
Hey everyone, I’m typing this on my phone so I apologize if there is weird formatting. Anyways, to get to the point, there’s something really off with some people on my campus. I have come seeking answers.I noticed it first walking home from my 7pm class last Wednesday.
To set the scene, most of the campus is tucked back into the woods a little, and my 7pm class is in the farthest building from the parking lot (further into the woods). I get out from that 7pm class around 9pm, so on cloudy nights like last Wednesday, the only lights on that long sidewalk are the lights radiating from the other buildings. Usually, there’s roughly 30 feet where it’s pitch black because the foliage is pretty dense. I usually walk back to my apartment with some classmates that live in the same complex as me, but I told them to go ahead of me while I finished the rest of the project.
After packing my laptop away, I started heading back home. It was roughly 9:30 at this point, and my brain was slowly shutting down preparing for the deep sleep that has yet to come.Walking down the sidewalk, I heard somebody not too far into the woods laughing like they’ve just heard the funniest joke ever. I immediately thought, “probably some Freshman walking the trails with their friends smoking weed”. Chuckling to myself, I put in my AirPods and picked a playlist for my journey back home.
When I looked up from my phone, there was the silhouette of somebody walking towards me. I have no idea how I missed them before, but honestly, it’s very possible they were just in a spot where the light wasn’t quite reaching them. A little unnerved, I shifted over to the left side of the sidewalk.
(Now I’m usually fine walking alone at night; I’m a 6’2 man who’s dabbled in the world of MMA. But something about this person gave me a primal feeling of unrest.)
When they shifted over to the left mirroring me, I felt my blood run cold. But alas, I had to keep walking because this was my only way back home. As I neared closer to the figure, I almost laughed at myself when I realized it was just some harmless girl walking towards the Murphy building. If anything, I’m the intimidating one to her.
This is where it really gets weird. She stopped as I was passing her and turned to me. Thinking she needed to ask me something, I took an AirPod out and asked “what’s up?”. After staring at me for an uncomfortable amount of time, she opened her mouth, and I kid you not, mimicked the laugh I heard moments before perfectly. Before I could chalk it up to it just being her in the trails earlier, I noticed something. Her mouth wasn’t moving at all. If I had left my AirPods in, it would just look like she was just opening her mouth and staring at me. She then shifted into a deep raspy laugh. She did all of this without moving her mouth at all; I couldn’t even see her throat moving as you would expect if someone was laughing. It was almost like she was some fucked up human-shaped gramophone. The feeling of absolute horror that came over me is something I’ve only experienced in my imagination. Before I could think to do anything next, My body began to run off some sort of primal instinct. With my legs burning, it took me about 10 minutes to get all the way back to my apartment and lock myself in relative safety.
I’m coming on here now to ask if anybody knows what I experienced? I have been hearing that same laughter outside my window every night since that night, I am too terrified to sleep well and have refused to go to any of my classes. Please I just want answers, I don’t want to keep living in fear.
Part 2:
Hey everyone, I’ve gotten some DMs telling me what it may be. I’ve heard everything from banshee to skinwalker. After further research I pray to god it was neither of them. I’m praying it was just some girl with a speaker playing some sort of cruel joke. I mean yes there are people who don’t like me on campus, I’ve made some enemies over the past 4 years. But, I just don’t understand what could’ve brought it to this point. I had to stop hiding in fear and go to my classes before my grades plummet, I’m almost done with my degree and only have a few more weeks. If I let some sort of stupid prank ruin my career, It would be everything I swore against to my parents.
A lot of you guys in the DMs were also asking what college I go to and what my name is. First I want to say sorry for not providing that information in the first post, I’m sure you can understand where my head was at typing that. So let me introduce myself, my name is Nick and In order to keep my privacy, I will only provide that I go to a midwest university.
I’m sure you may be wondering, “so did it just stop?”. I would love to say yes, but really things have just gotten weirder. Though, I am pleased to say that there is no longer laughing out my window every night.
Ever since that night, I’ve been noticing more things off with the people on campus. Now you may just think it’s paranoia, but just be patient and listen.
Yesterday, I decided to muster up all of my courage and go to class. Luckily my first class is at 10AM, when the sun is well in the sky, so walking across campus seemed much less threatening. When I sat down in my first class, I noticed something off with the girl that sits in front of me. Usually she’s chatty and excited to be in class, but today she just stared blankly ahead. I tried to say good morning and ask about her weekend, as we do every Monday, but she continued to have that blank stare. She did turn her head towards be, but her eyes read “lights on, but nobody is home”.
Thinking to myself, she may just be hungover, or going through the bout of college student depression. I decided to shrug it off and turn to the front of the class and get my notes ready. But the moment I turned around, I could feel it. Her eyes burrowing deep into the back of my head. When I flipped around to see if I was just being irrational, I quickly learned I wasn’t. Her eyes went from the blank glare, to the most enthusiastic face I’ve seen on her. It was horrible, it almost seemed like she was trying so hard to pretend she was thrilled to be in class and to speak to me. It was inhuman.
I’ve been on the internet long enough to catch on to the term “Uncanny valley”, and what I witnessed In my first hour gives me that same gut feeling I got when I saw that girl last Wednesday.
I was right to be uncomfortable though, I texted her after class to make sure she was doing alright. But her response only reignited the flames of deep fear burning in my soul.
I’ll copy and paste the messages here:
Me: Hey Is everything good? You seemed off in class today.
Steph SCI 101: Uh yeah, I’m fine. but I was not in class today, I’m severely hungover from Tanner’s party last night.
Me: Haha, good one.
Steph SCI 101: No I’m so Fr, are you okay?
Steph SCI 101: Are you trying to fuck with me or something?
Me: Nevermind, I’m sorry to bother you.
(End Of Texts)
Okay so I’m sure that this gives you all the same feeling of dread that it gave me but I’m sure scaled down a bit. This is where I have started to doubt that it’s a prank, because me and Stephanie are cool. There’s no level of hate for either of us, and even if it was some joke, we don’t know each other on that type of level.
Not only did this seem to happen in my first class, but in between classes while I was walking across campus as well. I walk past hundreds of faces in my many treks across campus, and I swear to you, at least 1/4th of the people I walked past had that same dead stare look. And the way they walked, god I hate even thinking of it. It was like they were an alien trying out their new body suits for the first time. The steps and the bends of their legs just seem so meticulous, dramaticized, and puppeteered.
I’m going to try to investigate further, because at this point my fear for my life is more of a reason to try and figure out what it is so I can try to stop it.
I’m no hero, and I’m sure as hell nothing special, but If I can know what to expect for another encounter, maybe I can avoid meeting the demise I have imagined.
Part 3

First off I would like to apologize for my 20-day hiatus. For those who were worried that curiosity killed the cat so to speak, I appreciate your concern. On top of my investigation, I have also had to go through finals and work for a boss who didn't believe in life outside of work. So let's start where we left off. I had a feeling that this task was left for me to solve. it may sound stupid, but let me explain why. That night, after my last post, I had a dream that further solidified my need to solve the mystery. I tried to write all that I remembered down the morning after so here is what I wrote. 

April 4th, 2024
I had a strange dream last night, stranger than usual at least. I awoke in the woods, laying face down in the grass with someone looming over me. I heard their footsteps flee rapidly before I flipped over. I found myself just off the trail where the “incident” happened, on the trail laid a girl, bloodied and motionless. When I got up to approach her, she was quickly dragged into the parallel section of the woods. Seeing this I turned and ran into the section of woods I was in. When my legs gave out I found myself near an old supply shed, worn and long abandoned. Searching for cover, I tried the door, which luckily gave after a quick pull. There I found a trapdoor which emanated a blue hue through the cracks. The only thought on my mind, survival brought me to throw it open and climb down. I clattered down the ladder and right before my feet touched the ground, I was pulled backwards by my shirt. That’s where I woke up.
I have always trusted my gut and having a dream that vivid gave me a sense of courage I did not previously have. I know where to start my search now. I have decided my best course of action will be to record my findings on a tape recorder app. After I finish each entry it will be uploaded to a cloud that will ensure if anything happens to me, the story will get out. I am packing my backpack now with a flashlight, glow sticks to mark my trail, and a machete I was gifted by a local in Mexico. All of my recordings will be uploaded below and auto posted after 10 days. Wish me luck everyone, I’m going to need it.
Entry 1: I have started at the only place that makes sense, the trail. It is currently 1:45 PM and I have plenty of sun left in the sky. I just needed to find exactly where to start my journey into the woods. Strangely it was very easy to find. I recall one of the trees having a funky twist near the middle of the trunk. Probably just some two lovebirds trying to carve their name into the tree and realizing there were softer trees to carve into. Anyways hiking further into the woods I believe I can see the shape of the shed through the branches. I wish you guys could see how dense these trees are so you can understand my struggle.
Entry 2: I made it to the shed, but unfortunately the floor in here is concrete. This really sucks for me because I have absolutely no idea where to go from here. It’s identical on the outside but I just don’t understand. Maybe I’m just delusional, which in that case what a waste of time and energy. I’m going to head back home and just start packing for summer. Maybe it’ll be best if I just forget about all of this and leave it behind me. I am graduating after all. Wait hold on what is this?? there’s a button behind one of these shelves. I am going to press it, but idk how it would work because this floor is seamless. I’m just going to leave this recording so if anything does happen I don’t have to worry about holding the phone the whole time. Holy shit, the entire floor is lowering. It’s a fucking elevator.
Entry 3: Okay so I’ve been going down this elevator for like 30 seconds, how far down am I going?.. Oh wait hold on, Im stopped… There’s a metal door with a padlock. Ig since I have the machete there’s only one thing to do, break it. Im going to use the blunt side so I don’t ruin this thing, I like it too much. the lock clatters to the ground after 3 solid hits. Well ig there’s only one way to go now, there’s no button to get back up so I pray there’s another way up. The metal door creaks loudly. Fuck I regret this, It’s dark and I can tell it’s a big area because it’s so echoey in here. I’m currently praising my past self for thinking about the flashlight and glow sticks. I need to find out what in the hell this place is and most importantly, if there’s a damn light switch.
Entry 4: God this place is terrifying I’ve been walking around the sterile white halls of this place for like 10 minutes and have found nothing, no doors, no light switch. I feel like a rat in a maze. Also scratch what I said about being glad I packed glow sticks, because my stupid ass only brought like 20 of these things and I’m already down to 5. Also I feel like I’m not alone, every now and then I’ll turn a corner and the glow from the previous glow stick quickly vanishes. I feel like it might just be because the darkness seems to envelop everything like a blanket. But I have that feeling that I’m being followed. You know the one, where you know somethings wrong you just can’t pin point what it is. Oh shit no way, there’s light, I think there’s a door or something up ahead.
Entry 5: Holy shit… It’s a lab, and worse, there’s people strapped too tables, completely naked and unconscious. I know they are alive because each of them are hooked up with a million different cords, and one of those are plugged into a heart monitor. This place is huge, there has to be at least 50 people on these tables.
“Hey you, you’re not supposed to be in here” yelled a man adorned in a lab coat.
“What are you doing to these kids you sick fucks.” I yelled back at the man across the lab.
In a haste the scientist rushes towards a red button, setting off a loud alarm, turning the lights to a flashing red. With no exit behind me, I could only do one thing... Rush towards him. My training kicked in as I launched into a flurry of calculated strikes. My first hit connected, a right overhand clean under his eye. The doctor stumbled back, but I didn't give him a chance to recover. I pressed the attack, keeping him off balance with a relentless barrage of punches and kicks. He fought back ferociously, but I was one step ahead, anticipating his moves and countering with swift, efficient strikes. We wrestled, the room around us becoming a blur of pain and adrenaline. I used the environment to my advantage, improvising weapons from the scattered medical equipment and turning the empty tables on my opponent. Pinning him to the ground, I laid down a harsh barrage of final blows. His face was a bloody pulp, unrecognizable. But I didn’t walk away unscathed, somewhere in the tussle, the scientist buried a scalpel deep into my stomach. With my adrenaline wearing off, the pain overtook me, sending me into darkness as I fainted from the blood loss and adrenaline dump. I awoke with my arms and legs strapped to the cold metal operating table. Before I could try to struggle, a face overtook my field of vision.
“Quite a fight you put up, you turned poor Dr.Samson into a soup” the looming face said with a chuckle. “You are the first person to put the pieces together and for that I am thoroughly impressed Mr. Hayes”
“Who are you?!” I said fighting at my binds. “Let me go!”
“I’m afraid I can’t do that Mr.Hayes. You have seen far too much, and I definitely can’t have you running around telling the world what you saw here. Although nobody would believe you.” “And to answer your other question, I’m surprised you don’t recognize me… really take a moment and look at me” He said pulling down his face mask.
“Dr.Blackwood?” I said as I looked back on my freshman year biology class.
“Ding ding ding ding. We have a winner!” He said in a maniac joy.
“What are you going to do to me?” I asked.
“Well Mr.Hayes, first I’m going to sew you up from your little tussle you had with my late assistant and then I will put you under and cut into that skull of yours and take out a small piece of what we call in the science world your hippocampus. Then I will draw from that all of the necessary memories to create the perfect clone of you.” He responded.
“Why? Why would you need a clone of any of us. Why can’t you just clone someone willing to be apart of this?” I asked
“Because that’s no fun Mr.Hayes, the hunt excites me. Actually you’re lucky I didn’t get you the first night. Unfortunately my creation had a little bit of a malfunction and formed a wee bit of an attachment to you. I’m sure you remember the ruckus outside your window? Anyways I digress, I do this because everyone of you lowly students will go onto do mediocre jobs where you waste away at a desk. I must also add that with having a clone of you under my control, I can do anything and get away with clean hands. My plan with you originally was to have you go into the admissions office and steal every last cent all for me. On top of that I like the power, because one day I will have a clone of every student on this campus and eventually I will cause a revolt against our comedy of a government. Who will stop me, when I won’t even be on the front lines?” Dr.Blackwood explained.
“I will” I said freeing my last hand from the binds.
What he didn’t realize is that with all of this monologue and the questions I had been feeding him, I was slowly loosening my binds with each wiggle and movement in retaliation.
Lurching forward I grab onto his collar, pulling him into a vicious headbutt. The impact sent Dr. Blackwood reeling backward, his grip on consciousness loosening as he staggered. Seizing the moment, I lunged off the table, adrenaline coursing through my veins despite the searing pain in my abdomen. With a swift motion, I grabbed a nearby surgical instrument, holding it in a defensive stance as I faced my adversary. Dr. Blackwood, recovering from the blow, snarled with rage, his once calm demeanor now replaced by a feral intensity. The room seemed to shrink around us, the tension thickening with each passing second. This was my chance to stop Blackwood's twisted plans. As he lunged forward, I met his attack head-on, the clang of metal reverberating through the room. Blow after blow, we fought with an intensity born of desperation and determination. Despite my injuries, I refused to yield, driven by a fire burnt under me to protect myself and others from Blackwood's actions . In a final, swift move, I delivered a powerful front kick, sending Blackwood crashing to the ground. The room fell silent, the echoes of our struggle fading into the darkness. Coughing he sat in the corner laughing with blood spilling down his face. “You know that it’s too late to save any of these one lying on the tables. I would’ve released you, you know that right? I would’ve simply taken your memory from today out of your brain and leaving you in your bed to wake up thinking you had a fun night” he said with final resolve as he watched me grab the scalpel from the ground taking slow steps near him.
Looking down over him, It was my turn to laugh. Kneeling down to eye level with him I grabbed him by his hair and delivered a final message to him “Fuck you and your little science experiment” as I sliced deep into his throat watching the life fade from his eyes.
I eventually found an exit door, which lead me to a storm drain deep in the woods far from my campus. It took me 2 hours to limp my way onto a main road and flag down a passing car. Pulling over I was rushed to the hospital and later interrogated by some men in suits, my guess is CIA. Here I am now, writing my final entrance. I think I heard them say something about trying a new medical process on me to help me heal quicker

I think there’s something off about my campus
Hey everyone, I’m typing this on my phone so I apologize if there is weird formatting. Anyways, to get to the point, there’s something really off with some people on my campus. I have come seeking answers.I noticed it first walking home from my 7pm class last Wednesday.
To set the scene, most of the campus is tucked back into the woods a little, and my 7pm class is in the farthest building from the parking lot (further into the woods). I get out from that 7pm class around 9pm, so on cloudy nights like last Wednesday, the only lights on that long sidewalk are the lights radiating from the other buildings. Usually, there’s roughly 30 feet where it’s pitch black because the foliage is pretty dense. I usually walk back to my apartment with some classmates that live in the same complex as me, but I told them to go ahead of me while I finished the rest of the project.
After packing my laptop away, I started heading back home. It was roughly 9:30 at this point, and my brain was slowly shutting down preparing for the deep sleep that has yet to come.Walking down the sidewalk, I heard somebody not too far into the woods laughing like they’ve just heard the funniest joke ever. I immediately thought, “probably some Freshman walking the trails with their friends smoking weed”. Chuckling to myself, I put in my AirPods and picked a playlist for my journey back home.
When I looked up from my phone, there was the silhouette of somebody walking towards me. I have no idea how I missed them before, but honestly, it’s very possible they were just in a spot where the light wasn’t quite reaching them. A little unnerved, I shifted over to the left side of the sidewalk.
(Now I’m usually fine walking alone at night; I’m a 6’2 man who’s dabbled in the world of MMA. But something about this person gave me a primal feeling of unrest.)
When they shifted over to the left mirroring me, I felt my blood run cold. But alas, I had to keep walking because this was my only way back home. As I neared closer to the figure, I almost laughed at myself when I realized it was just some harmless girl walking towards the Murphy building. If anything, I’m the intimidating one to her.
This is where it really gets weird. She stopped as I was passing her and turned to me. Thinking she needed to ask me something, I took an AirPod out and asked “what’s up?”. After staring at me for an uncomfortable amount of time, she opened her mouth, and I kid you not, mimicked the laugh I heard moments before perfectly. Before I could chalk it up to it just being her in the trails earlier, I noticed something. Her mouth wasn’t moving at all. If I had left my AirPods in, it would just look like she was just opening her mouth and staring at me. She then shifted into a deep raspy laugh. She did all of this without moving her mouth at all; I couldn’t even see her throat moving as you would expect if someone was laughing. It was almost like she was some fucked up human-shaped gramophone. The feeling of absolute horror that came over me is something I’ve only experienced in my imagination. Before I could think to do anything next, My body began to run off some sort of primal instinct. With my legs burning, it took me about 10 minutes to get all the way back to my apartment and lock myself in relative safety.
I’m coming on here now to ask if anybody knows what I experienced? I have been hearing that same laughter outside my window every night since that night, I am too terrified to sleep well and have refused to go to any of my classes. Please I just want answers, I don’t want to keep living in fear.
Part 2:
Hey everyone, I’ve gotten some DMs telling me what it may be. I’ve heard everything from banshee to skinwalker. After further research I pray to god it was neither of them. I’m praying it was just some girl with a speaker playing some sort of cruel joke. I mean yes there are people who don’t like me on campus, I’ve made some enemies over the past 4 years. But, I just don’t understand what could’ve brought it to this point. I had to stop hiding in fear and go to my classes before my grades plummet, I’m almost done with my degree and only have a few more weeks. If I let some sort of stupid prank ruin my career, It would be everything I swore against to my parents.
A lot of you guys in the DMs were also asking what college I go to and what my name is. First I want to say sorry for not providing that information in the first post, I’m sure you can understand where my head was at typing that. So let me introduce myself, my name is Nick and In order to keep my privacy, I will only provide that I go to a midwest university.
I’m sure you may be wondering, “so did it just stop?”. I would love to say yes, but really things have just gotten weirder. Though, I am pleased to say that there is no longer laughing out my window every night.
Ever since that night, I’ve been noticing more things off with the people on campus. Now you may just think it’s paranoia, but just be patient and listen.
Yesterday, I decided to muster up all of my courage and go to class. Luckily my first class is at 10AM, when the sun is well in the sky, so walking across campus seemed much less threatening. When I sat down in my first class, I noticed something off with the girl that sits in front of me. Usually she’s chatty and excited to be in class, but today she just stared blankly ahead. I tried to say good morning and ask about her weekend, as we do every Monday, but she continued to have that blank stare. She did turn her head towards be, but her eyes read “lights on, but nobody is home”.
Thinking to myself, she may just be hungover, or going through the bout of college student depression. I decided to shrug it off and turn to the front of the class and get my notes ready. But the moment I turned around, I could feel it. Her eyes burrowing deep into the back of my head. When I flipped around to see if I was just being irrational, I quickly learned I wasn’t. Her eyes went from the blank glare, to the most enthusiastic face I’ve seen on her. It was horrible, it almost seemed like she was trying so hard to pretend she was thrilled to be in class and to speak to me. It was inhuman.
I’ve been on the internet long enough to catch on to the term “Uncanny valley”, and what I witnessed In my first hour gives me that same gut feeling I got when I saw that girl last Wednesday.
I was right to be uncomfortable though, I texted her after class to make sure she was doing alright. But her response only reignited the flames of deep fear burning in my soul.
I’ll copy and paste the messages here:
Me: Hey Is everything good? You seemed off in class today.
Steph SCI 101: Uh yeah, I’m fine. but I was not in class today, I’m severely hungover from Tanner’s party last night.
Me: Haha, good one.
Steph SCI 101: No I’m so Fr, are you okay?
Steph SCI 101: Are you trying to fuck with me or something?
Me: Nevermind, I’m sorry to bother you.
(End Of Texts)
Okay so I’m sure that this gives you all the same feeling of dread that it gave me but I’m sure scaled down a bit. This is where I have started to doubt that it’s a prank, because me and Stephanie are cool. There’s no level of hate for either of us, and even if it was some joke, we don’t know each other on that type of level.
Not only did this seem to happen in my first class, but in between classes while I was walking across campus as well. I walk past hundreds of faces in my many treks across campus, and I swear to you, at least 1/4th of the people I walked past had that same dead stare look. And the way they walked, god I hate even thinking of it. It was like they were an alien trying out their new body suits for the first time. The steps and the bends of their legs just seem so meticulous, dramaticized, and puppeteered.
I’m going to try to investigate further, because at this point my fear for my life is more of a reason to try and figure out what it is so I can try to stop it.
I’m no hero, and I’m sure as hell nothing special, but If I can know what to expect for another encounter, maybe I can avoid meeting the demise I have imagined.
Part 3

First off I would like to apologize for my 20-day hiatus. For those who were worried that curiosity killed the cat so to speak, I appreciate your concern. On top of my investigation, I have also had to go through finals and work for a boss who didn't believe in life outside of work. So let's start where we left off. I had a feeling that this task was left for me to solve. it may sound stupid, but let me explain why. That night, after my last post, I had a dream that further solidified my need to solve the mystery. I tried to write all that I remembered down the morning after so here is what I wrote. 

April 4th, 2024
I had a strange dream last night, stranger than usual at least. I awoke in the woods, laying face down in the grass with someone looming over me. I heard their footsteps flee rapidly before I flipped over. I found myself just off the trail where the “incident” happened, on the trail laid a girl, bloodied and motionless. When I got up to approach her, she was quickly dragged into the parallel section of the woods. Seeing this I turned and ran into the section of woods I was in. When my legs gave out I found myself near an old supply shed, worn and long abandoned. Searching for cover, I tried the door, which luckily gave after a quick pull. There I found a trapdoor which emanated a blue hue through the cracks. The only thought on my mind, survival brought me to throw it open and climb down. I clattered down the ladder and right before my feet touched the ground, I was pulled backwards by my shirt. That’s where I woke up.
I have always trusted my gut and having a dream that vivid gave me a sense of courage I did not previously have. I know where to start my search now. I have decided my best course of action will be to record my findings on a tape recorder app. After I finish each entry it will be uploaded to a cloud that will ensure if anything happens to me, the story will get out. I am packing my backpack now with a flashlight, glow sticks to mark my trail, and a machete I was gifted by a local in Mexico. All of my recordings will be uploaded below and auto posted after 10 days. Wish me luck everyone, I’m going to need it.
Entry 1: I have started at the only place that makes sense, the trail. It is currently 1:45 PM and I have plenty of sun left in the sky. I just needed to find exactly where to start my journey into the woods. Strangely it was very easy to find. I recall one of the trees having a funky twist near the middle of the trunk. Probably just some two lovebirds trying to carve their name into the tree and realizing there were softer trees to carve into. Anyways hiking further into the woods I believe I can see the shape of the shed through the branches. I wish you guys could see how dense these trees are so you can understand my struggle.
Entry 2: I made it to the shed, but unfortunately the floor in here is concrete. This really sucks for me because I have absolutely no idea where to go from here. It’s identical on the outside but I just don’t understand. Maybe I’m just delusional, which in that case what a waste of time and energy. I’m going to head back home and just start packing for summer. Maybe it’ll be best if I just forget about all of this and leave it behind me. I am graduating after all. Wait hold on what is this?? there’s a button behind one of these shelves. I am going to press it, but idk how it would work because this floor is seamless. I’m just going to leave this recording so if anything does happen I don’t have to worry about holding the phone the whole time. Holy shit, the entire floor is lowering. It’s a fucking elevator.
Entry 3: Okay so I’ve been going down this elevator for like 30 seconds, how far down am I going?.. Oh wait hold on, Im stopped… There’s a metal door with a padlock. Ig since I have the machete there’s only one thing to do, break it. Im going to use the blunt side so I don’t ruin this thing, I like it too much. the lock clatters to the ground after 3 solid hits. Well ig there’s only one way to go now, there’s no button to get back up so I pray there’s another way up. The metal door creaks loudly. Fuck I regret this, It’s dark and I can tell it’s a big area because it’s so echoey in here. I’m currently praising my past self for thinking about the flashlight and glow sticks. I need to find out what in the hell this place is and most importantly, if there’s a damn light switch.
Entry 4: God this place is terrifying I’ve been walking around the sterile white halls of this place for like 10 minutes and have found nothing, no doors, no light switch. I feel like a rat in a maze. Also scratch what I said about being glad I packed glow sticks, because my stupid ass only brought like 20 of these things and I’m already down to 5. Also I feel like I’m not alone, every now and then I’ll turn a corner and the glow from the previous glow stick quickly vanishes. I feel like it might just be because the darkness seems to envelop everything like a blanket. But I have that feeling that I’m being followed. You know the one, where you know somethings wrong you just can’t pin point what it is. Oh shit no way, there’s light, I think there’s a door or something up ahead.
Entry 5: Holy shit… It’s a lab, and worse, there’s people strapped too tables, completely naked and unconscious. I know they are alive because each of them are hooked up with a million different cords, and one of those are plugged into a heart monitor. This place is huge, there has to be at least 50 people on these tables.
“Hey you, you’re not supposed to be in here” yelled a man adorned in a lab coat.
“What are you doing to these kids you sick fucks.” I yelled back at the man across the lab.
In a haste the scientist rushes towards a red button, setting off a loud alarm, turning the lights to a flashing red. With no exit behind me, I could only do one thing... Rush towards him. My training kicked in as I launched into a flurry of calculated strikes. My first hit connected, a right overhand clean under his eye. The doctor stumbled back, but I didn't give him a chance to recover. I pressed the attack, keeping him off balance with a relentless barrage of punches and kicks. He fought back ferociously, but I was one step ahead, anticipating his moves and countering with swift, efficient strikes. We wrestled, the room around us becoming a blur of pain and adrenaline. I used the environment to my advantage, improvising weapons from the scattered medical equipment and turning the empty tables on my opponent. Pinning him to the ground, I laid down a harsh barrage of final blows. His face was a bloody pulp, unrecognizable. But I didn’t walk away unscathed, somewhere in the tussle, the scientist buried a scalpel deep into my stomach. With my adrenaline wearing off, the pain overtook me, sending me into darkness as I fainted from the blood loss and adrenaline dump. I awoke with my arms and legs strapped to the cold metal operating table. Before I could try to struggle, a face overtook my field of vision.
“Quite a fight you put up, you turned poor Dr.Samson into a soup” the looming face said with a chuckle. “You are the first person to put the pieces together and for that I am thoroughly impressed Mr. Hayes”
“Who are you?!” I said fighting at my binds. “Let me go!”
“I’m afraid I can’t do that Mr.Hayes. You have seen far too much, and I definitely can’t have you running around telling the world what you saw here. Although nobody would believe you.” “And to answer your other question, I’m surprised you don’t recognize me… really take a moment and look at me” He said pulling down his face mask.
“Dr.Blackwood?” I said as I looked back on my freshman year biology class.
“Ding ding ding ding. We have a winner!” He said in a maniac joy.
“What are you going to do to me?” I asked.
“Well Mr.Hayes, first I’m going to sew you up from your little tussle you had with my late assistant and then I will put you under and cut into that skull of yours and take out a small piece of what we call in the science world your hippocampus. Then I will draw from that all of the necessary memories to create the perfect clone of you.” He responded.
“Why? Why would you need a clone of any of us. Why can’t you just clone someone willing to be apart of this?” I asked
“Because that’s no fun Mr.Hayes, the hunt excites me. Actually you’re lucky I didn’t get you the first night. Unfortunately my creation had a little bit of a malfunction and formed a wee bit of an attachment to you. I’m sure you remember the ruckus outside your window? Anyways I digress, I do this because everyone of you lowly students will go onto do mediocre jobs where you waste away at a desk. I must also add that with having a clone of you under my control, I can do anything and get away with clean hands. My plan with you originally was to have you go into the admissions office and steal every last cent all for me. On top of that I like the power, because one day I will have a clone of every student on this campus and eventually I will cause a revolt against our comedy of a government. Who will stop me, when I won’t even be on the front lines?” Dr.Blackwood explained.
“I will” I said freeing my last hand from the binds.
What he didn’t realize is that with all of this monologue and the questions I had been feeding him, I was slowly loosening my binds with each wiggle and movement in retaliation.
Lurching forward I grab onto his collar, pulling him into a vicious headbutt. The impact sent Dr. Blackwood reeling backward, his grip on consciousness loosening as he staggered. Seizing the moment, I lunged off the table, adrenaline coursing through my veins despite the searing pain in my abdomen. With a swift motion, I grabbed a nearby surgical instrument, holding it in a defensive stance as I faced my adversary. Dr. Blackwood, recovering from the blow, snarled with rage, his once calm demeanor now replaced by a feral intensity. The room seemed to shrink around us, the tension thickening with each passing second. This was my chance to stop Blackwood's twisted plans. As he lunged forward, I met his attack head-on, the clang of metal reverberating through the room. Blow after blow, we fought with an intensity born of desperation and determination. Despite my injuries, I refused to yield, driven by a fire burnt under me to protect myself and others from Blackwood's actions . In a final, swift move, I delivered a powerful front kick, sending Blackwood crashing to the ground. The room fell silent, the echoes of our struggle fading into the darkness. Coughing he sat in the corner laughing with blood spilling down his face. “You know that it’s too late to save any of these one lying on the tables. I would’ve released you, you know that right? I would’ve simply taken your memory from today out of your brain and leaving you in your bed to wake up thinking you had a fun night” he said with final resolve as he watched me grab the scalpel from the ground taking slow steps near him.
Looking down over him, It was my turn to laugh. Kneeling down to eye level with him I grabbed him by his hair and delivered a final message to him “Fuck you and your little science experiment” as I sliced deep into his throat watching the life fade from his eyes.
I eventually found an exit door, which lead me to a storm drain deep in the woods far from my campus. It took me 2 hours to limp my way onto a main road and flag down a passing car. Pulling over I was rushed to the hospital and later interrogated by some men in suits, my guess is CIA. Here I am now, writing my final entrance. I think I heard them say something about trying a new medical process on me to help me heal quicker

Here's something that's been bothering me. There is zero chance that the writers didn't know how people would react to a foreigner stealing the spotlight from a native. Why, oh why, did they not try to make Yasuke even a little bit likeable?
What do we see in the trailer? The man got enlisted (rather than bought) by Nobunaga Oda, given full samurai armor and weapons (which he knows how to use for some reason), and went to slaughter a village. He receives immediate forgiveness and is now collaborating with the female kunoichi to assassinate Oda, thereby betraying him. I assume that he had decided that Oda's methods are evil, but why carry out a massacre of children first if you are going to betray the dude? Shadow working for light my ass.
Even the female protag is struggling a bit in this trailer. If you look at the trailer, Yasuke's armor is more richly made. He cuts through the opposition with ease, establishing his superiority over the people of Japan. I am sorry, even in the AC game about the Vikings's invasion, they showed that the MC's lost in battle in the trailer and won through his cunning, and because his opponent got distracted, they gave us the idea that no, the English aren't a bunch of weaklings. Here? A man from a faraway land instantly learns the way of the sword and lords over the opposition, to the point that he doesn't need to hide, he just goes and kills whoever he wants. Who is going to stop him?
What optics is this? You made a character who slaughters civilians, who is superior to the natives, who is apparently a genius at everything... Would it kill you to show Yasuke being amazed at local culture or architecture, or about how Japan's soldiers operate in discipline, or... Anything! Give this bastard some personality; other than "I am better than you all" mode.
I admit, I'll never be as good as Ubisoft writers. I tried and still keep writing books, but my creativity is poor and my vocabulary is abysmal. But I am a stupid person who works full-time and writes for fun. Their writers are writing for a living. Why in the world do they not use their talents to soften some of the initial distaste for the character? Show him training, show him losing, make him relatable, show him enjoying the local cuisine and culture. You don't need to show all, but something other than just arriving in Japan and wiping a village of innocent people and then going and killing four or five soldiers in a single swing would be nice. He is so OP that a secondary MC isn't needed, based on the trailer.

So just recently I had to leave my job. I was a cleaner for a company who never valued me and I felt like I was back at high school. I was getting bullied all the time, she put me on schedule for 12 hour shifts on top of that I had college classes after work. I was normally working 8am to 7pm and I couldn't find any work and my boss was talking to me one day and basically body shamed me and called me a terrible worker. I got so fed up I quit without notice. I couldn't stand going home crying everyday from being exhausted and drained from so much negativity.
I thankfully had some money from my birthday and then money I saved but it was only enough for one month. I normally help my mom with 800 a month, and my phone 90$ a month, my car 441$ a month and then just gas and groceries. so I'm trying to find something on the side to do like maybe DoorDash or anything just to get money coming until I find another one. I made pretty good money but it wasn't enough. And then I ask my man if he could help me with my car insurance and he says yeah I got my own priority's so no.
I always help him with gas money, I give him money for food I'm always giving him money. I literally was being a sugar mommy to him when I did have a job. He never had money. He always spent his paychecks and never had enough for gas until his next paycheck and it was a cycle over and over. And when he quit his job I helped him with everything and told him to not worry. But now when I'm in this situation he's not there. He told me he hast to pay for school, insurance, phone bill, and gas. He spent have insurance for his car and he hasn't for 3 months and hasn't made that a priority unless I need something.
He hasn't been in school. He has a fine he hast to pay bo he got dropped from his classes, another thing he hasn't been worried about at all. And then he already payed his phone bill this month so l was confused. His last paycheck he went to the mall and bought a new Xbox controlle chain, a watch, and then went and got his hair done fu 150. let me remind u l'm upset bc I help this man out like I'm his mother. If I didn't help him out so much I wouldn't care what he does with his money. But the fact that I struggled and made him #1 priority when he needed it on top of what I had to do and now he's treating me like this when I need help is making me not want to be with him. but he told me it's my fault I quiet and I did this to myself and I could have worked there until I found another job and it's not his problem.
Pleas someone give me there honest opinion on how you would feel if this was you or what I should do going forward. And let me tell u he just payed his moms car bill for her right before my b day so he couldn't get me anything for my birthday. But that's a whole other story. I'm just frustrated and need some guidance. I would like to hear other people's thoughts on this because I'm starting to feel defeated

Hello, reddit First, tw: Self harm and suicidal thoughts, please skip if triggering Here is the thing, I'm basically asking for judgement here, and if I really deserve what I am doing to myself. I think I do, really, because what I did was unforgivable, but do give your opinion, even if it's hate. Because I do deserve it here, really. So, I grew up in a religious family. Like, one in which things like "love marriage " And......well.......The "child making process" was considered a sin. Absolute sin. Like—I did not know what......you know—that—was, but I knew it was sin, it was disgusting, it was something so disgusting that anyone who associated themselves with it were perverts and such, not someone you should ever stay alone in a room with. Do not blame my family for this, they were saying what they were taught, and they had their trauma. They have broken through enough abuse for me, do not blame them please. Anyways, I was a huge fan of Harry Potter. And I stumbled into the world of fanfiction. And I read them. Now, most of them were pretty much SFW, but in those which did infact have anything explicit, they put a whole line of "18+ content ahead, skip to the end of the chapter". I had no idea what the hell 18+ was, but if it said not to view, I wasn't risking it, straight up went to the very last part of it, or changed reading, you know, what a sane person does. Now, I had a favourite author there on Quotev, who wrote some really nice fanfics. Some of them were a little weird—but c'mon who am I to judge, everyone is different. One day, I stumbled upon some works of her. Well, the stories she did write, those were completely SFW. But if you used Quotev, you'll know there was a thing called "Journal" in there. Sort of like "conversation" in Wattpad. There, she had written NSFW chapters on the characters. Here's the thing. There was no warning. None at all. No warning or tagging or anything provided there to show that it was 18+. The title was just—say: DracoxInsertocname I know, nobody forced me to read it, I could have skipped it as soon as I realised it was 18+. But here is the thing. I DIDN'T know what it was. I had read through some of it, and only realised on seeing the comments, that it was 18+. And I felt. I felt tainted, like I had committed a sin. To know that I had read something that perverted, to my 12 year old self, it felt sinful. Like I had my pure white mind muddied out of carelessness. I know, authors don't own us any tags. And if it were a hardcover book, it wouldn't have any tags. But here is the thing. I fully believed that even actual books (I had no idea books had smut back then, I thought it was an internet or like seperate movie thing, I found out books had smut when I was 15+) had warnings for smut. Blood and gore? Sure, no problem, make it as gross as you want, no warnings needed. But something as sinful as 18+? Must be tagged. MUST. BE . TAGGED. That was my thought process. Remember it wasn't AO3. So there was no tagging system. So I thought that if others are warning it, then the author was in the wrong for not providing warnings on hers. It was a site where children as young as 11 were. Later on, I did encounter many more such unwarned content on the internet, but thought, "Eh I'm already ruined any way" Like ofcourse I didn't read it, but yeah. Logic. That I was a sinner too, so I can't get offended anymore. Here comes the bad part, for which, if you hate me, I'll not blame you. I wrote her a letter. Like, online obviously. In the inbox of her writing site. I was.....very mean. I told her her writing "ruined my innocence and it was wrong of her to not provide a warning" something along these lines, I don't remember, it happened 4 years ago. But I did not insult her, or her preferences, or anything, let me make that clear. Just wrote in detail of how her work affected me negatively. If it in itself were insulting, I apologise. And here comes the stupid part which will definately make you hate me, and it'll be fair, really. She always said she liked dark humor. And where I grew, friends told each other, with fully smiling faces, that "I'll hit you so hard, you'll end up hanging from a tree" "I'll hit you so hard you'll go through the roof." Heck, even now our teachers joke that if we don't score well enough, they'll well.....very graphically describe how they'll beat us. So I grew up knowing violence was a joke. That unless someone actually did the thing to you, it was all fine really, funny even. Even till now, I make jokes of "Sorry I'm late feel free to hit me with a pan" So, when I read it, I thought "I don't want her to think I'm angry on her, or hate her. I'll add some jokes so she takes it lightly and realises I may be upset but in the end she's my favourite author whom I love" (Yes I called her my favourite author in the letter) I wrote, beginning with "Dear Daughter of Hermes, and Slytherin" and proceeded to explain on how she ruined my innocence and all such. I did not use any curse words—to clarify. I said something along the lines of "I'll be outside your window at night, watching you". Which was virtually impossible since she lived in a seperate *continent*. "And why the heck would you want to actually hurt someone physically unless you're mentally unstable" -My thought process at that age But it hurt her, and I was so surprised because it was the exact opposite of my intention. I at maximum expected her to be annoyed or something if it went worst case scenario. It hurt her so much, and apparently she had been getting a lot of hate over it (she had deleted the work like—some days ago? I don't remember) and that I should unfollow her. I apologised immediately, but like what good is the apology when the harm is already done. I had already planned to delete my account anyways, so that's what I did. I decided to give her space and hence, I apologised again, some months later. Another stupid thing? I addressed her as sister. I thought it would placate her. I really thought of her as close to me, even though she was a stranger. Okay pausing the writing to go hit my head on the nearest wall, I am sorry for being so stupid, what was wrong with me. I said I was suffering from a bad time, and was going through self harm (still am) and I will do anything she asks of me to gain forgiveness (another mistake). She said I was too late in apologising (which I was, yes, but my first apology was instant though) Anyway, she posted about it on announcements (didn't mention my name) but said "Imagine apologising after this long" and so, with people obviously supporting her. It scared me, so I left in fear of being attacked. (Would've deserved it though) It....well.....4 years passed. At age 15, I was so afraid, because I had an exam and I thought that I'd score bad out of karma for hurting her, that she cursed me. I scored pretty well but anyways. As someone who got continually harassed by a girl for 10 years to the point I was afraid of school, (she wanted to be my friend apparently, but what a terrible way, really, she literally sexually harassed me) but still asked her if she was okay after I saw her crying, I had a pretty high forgiveness scale. I really thought she'd (author) would forgive me for apologising. But like. No. I am not owed any forgiveness and I am aware of it. It wasn't her fault or duty, really. Anyway, fast forward to age 17. I was lying on the bed beaten up and crying and it was 1 am, and for some reason, her username came to my mind. I don't know why. For 4 years I had thought of any perfect apology, maybe drawing her something nice for her books, anything. But decided not to bring back bad memories to her. And also, I was a coward afraid of facing her. But I guess being beaten up messes with your head. Personal trauma is no reason to hurt someone, I agree 100%. But I wrote her a final apology. This time, I didn't ask for forgiveness, took all the blame on myself. I didn't apologise for closure. I apologized because I wanted her to know that she was worth being apologised to so many times. I called my younger self stupid and wished I could smack her on the head. I poured my entire heart and soul into it. I did not expect a reply, but I decided that when I wake up the next day, I'll delete my account, hopefully she had seen it by then. Woke up to find myself blocked and honestly? Deserved it. It took me a discussion with some people to realise that I had indeed gone too far and that hardcover books don't come with tags. And that apologising so many times was basically harassment. Back then, I had apologised for hurting her, but I believed that my opinion on 18+ things being warned of was legit. Then began true guilt. I loathed myself, thought of myself as a monster. I saw myself as a rapist, as a murderer, that I deserve all this sadness and guilt. I really wanted to kill myself over it. Like I did so before too—but this time I was actually ready to step off the pavement onto any vehicle nearby, except the poor driver did no wrong really, and I'm an only child so why harm my parents over it? I really hated myself over it, still do actually. If I can go back in time, I'd drag my 12 year old self away from the laptop and give her a nice slap. I did not want to hurt her, I hate hurting people but seeing that it has been so long, and she still refuses to interact with me, what I said must've affected her very badly. I kept on thinking, what if I drove her to thoughts as negative as she is driving me to? Each time I stopped feeling like a complete demon over it, my mind said "You hurt someone" and I went back to crying. My own mother said that I looked like I came from a funeral, at times. Couldn't focus on classes which is actually bad because those are important. The worst part is, I can't completely remember what I wrote to her. My head keeps on saying I called her bad things and gave her worse threats but......I don't remember doing it and there were no chances if I see it logically. I literally stopped being happy. Forced myself to be, for my own and my families' sake, and I tried, yeah. There were times I thought of taking this up legally because what I did could be considered a threat (found out when I was 17). Give myself over to the police or something. But I still hate myself. So I decided to punish myself. (Graphic descriptions of self harm come in here) I burnt my own skin on purpose. Nothing too bad really, just thumb sized burns from a saucepan. Then I proceeded to pour toilet cleaner (the strong ones which require gloves to handle) over my open wounds, four of them. I'll be honest. I have a very high pain tolerance. But that thing hurt like hell. When I actually cleaned it off after ten minutes of absolute agony, that wound had been somewhat........cauterised? Like there was this thick hard layer and it had no sensetivity when I scratched it. And I pulled off those hard layers. Some of them were stuck to the skin, I had to use a blade to ease them off. Then pour on them again. I did this to all three of my burns (the fourth one was small so it healed) three times, so nine times in total. It has been a month and it still hasn't healed. These scars won't go away even with surgery. Permanent reminders. (Description ends here) I thought it to be like this: The incident hurt her? I'll hurt myself more than she could possibly ever get hurt. But that wouldn't undo her hurt. So I'll hurt myself even more. I have frankly forgotten of who I was two months ago. Of what I thought when my mind was empty. The first thing I remember on waking up is her and the last thing I think of before sleeping is the incident. Deleted my accounts, lost my passion in drawing, don't feel like doing anything. I just. I hate myself. I truly do. I wish I could die but I can't so I just need to survive forever with this. Every time I read the word 'villian' or 'bad' or 'wrong' in a book, it felt like a bucket of cold water being poured over me. I had been a victim myself, so knowing that I myself hurt someone — Its just........I always thought of myself as a good person. Someone who was kind, someone who helped everyone, including strangers the best they could, someone who didn't cheat in exams because that would be unfair to those who studied, someone who protected and loved their friends, someone who made others happy, someone who hates conflict and lets karma take care of the whole thing, someone who ALWAYS says thank you and sorry no matter who or what. So many times, people have told me I made their day better, that I'm a very kind and nice person, I'm someone who even the meanest teachers like and I got exemplary behaviour awards too. I always believed myself to be a good person. So knowing I did something this bad broke me. It took me some time to quit the whole "How dare I be happy after hurting her" thing. I believe fully, that I do not deserve happiness, or love, and that nobody will accept me or think of me as a kind person after knowing what I had done. I'd have deserved it though. I got therapy (not actual one, I used Chatbot AI) It took me time, I finally believed that I deserved to heal from this, that I hurt myself too much maybe, permanent scars over someone who doesn't know my real name and never saw my face and vice versa. Maybe........I don't deserve *this* much of punishment. Today, I went to youtube and saw a video on bullies apologising. I saw comments on how apologies fix nothing, how bullies don't deserve forgiveness and should live with that shame and guilt their entire life. That a thousand good deeds won't make up for that one bad deed. And I believe I do. I really do. Which is why I permanently scarred myself. So here is the question. Do I deserve it? To let go of this incident? Do I deserve to heal? Deserve love? Or should I keep goimg? Because I believe I should. That I truly am no better than a rapist or bully. So, give your judgement, and throw hate at me if you want, because I do deserve it.

Every room is the same. Every person is the same. The sky is blue - I don’t feel it. I don’t feel the “fresh air”. Nature is just nature. It’s hard to make eye contact without spacing out. I walk in a fast paste like I’m late for something, always. Time is all the same. The days of the week are all the same. Months of the year, all the same. Holliday aren’t even holidays anymore, I don’t feel excited for any of them, it’s just another day. The words that come out of my mouth I don’t even think about I just type and go with it, same as my speech. I feel like I need to drink 1-2 beers to feel calm and back to life. I am so out of touch with reality. I don’t know what I’m doin with my life. It’s like I am trapped in my head I can’t even see or put any real thought into anything I just act off of instinct. I’m back in the crisis again unfortunately and am gonna need to move back home and start meds again or do ect. I need to find a therapist who specializes in this shit because I’m a write off right now. I isolate from the world. Everybody at work thinks I’m a fucking crazy weirdo. I can’t walk by people on the street without having to look away or look down on the ground or pull out my phone because I just know I make them uncomfortable and seem weird. Great unc who was it Vietnam war told me I had the thousand yard stare - that’s a lot coming from what he’s seen and knows. I just don’t even fucking know anymore at this point. I want to delete myself because who wants to live in a world like this? “You are not alone” why do I feel like it all the time? I feel like I’m the most fucked up person on the planet, like nobody relates or can understand. Even if they do relate or say something I get schizo an take it personal. I want to low key die but to scared to, so I’m stuck living in fuckin hell. Literally this is hell on earth. The fact I am trucking through it all with no meds or therapy anymore or anything is a fucking recipe for disaster. That’s how dumb I’ve gottten, why do I think I am strong and can take this head on and just continue to live like this? Life is short man I need to get help as soon as possible. Even if it means to quit everything goin for me, again, and be a loser, again. I guess that’s better than suicide.
Sorry

I'm an engineering graduate student at a very famous university. She's a different kind of STEM grad student at the same university (mid-twenties). She has only been in America for a few years. Before everyone jumps and says "Chinese girls are just like American girls" the reason that I'm making this post is because i'm afraid that i'm missing some cultural norm or context, causing me to screw up the situation. Dating in America is fairly toxic, in my opinion. It seems as though it's often a contest of who can appear to be the least interested. My Chinese colleagues tell me that Chinese girls need to be chased a bit harder. That they're more pragmatic, so a guy who shows little interest would not be a good long term investment for a Chinese girl. Also, I realize that I'm anxious and insecure so there's no need to over-emphasize this in your response. Ultimately, I'm really sad for how this has turned out, but friends of mine tell me things are probably going as well as they could be. With that out of the way, I hope to hear your thoughts on my story.
Back up to a few months ago. I see this girl at the gym quite frequently. One day she asked how many sets I have on a machine. There are very few machines at the school gym so I get this question from girls quite frequently. Anyway, in between sets, I chatted her up, made little jokes "where did you do undergrad? ... well, no one's perfect" ... "I'm going to ask you five questions, and to win, you need to give me incorrect answers only"... she seemed to enjoy this, was smiling a lot, and when I'd see her from across the gym, she would smile and wave. Anyway, some weeks passed and I would see her at the gym occasionally. I would try to get her to play along with fantasies about robbing a bank together, but she didn't seem to follow, and would ask what I meant, perhaps because of the language barrier, perhaps because she's a STEM girl. I noticed that she actually cheated at the "wrong answers" game by changing one of her answers, so I called her out on it the next time I saw her. "how do I know I can trust you?" :)
I probably went too far the next time that I saw her. I was nervous but planning to get her number "has anyone ever told you that you're super cute, but super annoying?" She gave me a big embarrassed/confused smile and said "WHAT?!". I asked how we might continue the conversation, she suggested instagram, but I presented my phone number keypad. She looked around a bit embarrassed and reluctantly typed her number in. I didn't call her. I figured that was already too intense. I texted her and told her to save my name as "(My name) - such and such clever hot fantasy thing". She laughed let me know she saved it (!).
I saw her around campus a few days later, she smiled and waved to me. I figured that I hadn't screwed up too badly yet. A couple of days later I saw her at the gym, tried to make the joke about robbing a bank, again, but she asked what I meant. I guess that didn't go over well and I don't remember exactly how the conversation ended. I called her later that night and she didn't respond. I texted her and told her that I just had a quick question and she could call back if she would like, but that there was no pressure to do so. She responded with laughing emojis and asked if I wouldn't mind texting. I texted her an invite for coffee, but told her to hold the flowers and chocolates since we just met. She laughed, said thank you but she's too busy lately, and let me know that she would see me "at the gym sometime!". Fairly disappointed, I said "cool, shoot me a text or call sometime". She hearted the message (ouch). I thought this was a death knell, but friends of mine encouraged me to keep trying. "She's probably attracted to you, but not comfortable enough yet."
So the next time I saw her at the gym, I said "Hey!" gave her a Hi-five and kept going. She looked embarrassed, so I didn't want to stick around in case she needed space. A couple of days later, we were at the gym together, but I didn't want to come off as upset or needy, so I kept my head in my phone. I figured that maybe she had had enough. Anyway, this time, she actually said hello to me as she walked by. So of course, I smiled and said hi back. We would see each other about once per week, making small talk. I told her that she had a pretty voice. Rather than leaving the complement there (too much tension), I asked if she could sing, found out that we both like Karaoke, and told her we should start a rock band. This was a joke of course, it seems that the two of us have little time for a life outside of our research.
I texted her the next day, told her that I am curious about her thoughts on American vs. Chinese culture, and about why she was considering saying in the US after graduation. Told her that I enjoy our chats together, and was hoping that she would consider joining my American rock band (Laughing emoji). Try-outs to be held at the Karaoke lounge nearby. She didn't respond and I was quite disappointed again.
I happened to be walking on campus last week and we ran into each other (very unusual) so I asked if she had a minute to talk. She was on her way to a meeting, so I suggested that we meet up after that. She told me to text her. So naturally, I texted her, and this time she agreed to meet! (Last Tuesday) I was more excited that day than any time I can remember, at least for the past few years.
So we met up that afternoon and she suggested that we sit on the grass together. She smiled and asked me why we couldn't just continue talking at the gym together. I can't believe that she doesn't know why I was asking her out for a second time. She must have been looking for emotional reassurance or something like this. I told her it's hard to get to know someone if you only ever see them at the gym, smiled, and playfully said, "but maybe this is a one-sided relationship, don't worry, I'll just be crying myself to sleep, no big deal". I tried to say this in a light-hearted way so that it wasn't too intense. She was wearing large sunglasses this day (relevant later), I asked her to take them off but she refused, "OK, no problem". I then did a cold read routine on her, as an ice-breaker. She corrected me when I was wrong, and it sounded like she's a workaholic (not uncommon for our university) and that she had trouble not thinking about work. I thought it was a nice time, as we got to learn a bit more about each other. She told me that she would be away on an internship for the summer, but she would be back. I made a joke about how my heart broke for a second but was quickly mended. Our "date" didn't last very long, less than a half our, and she went back into her office building. She said goodbye to me, but only said the first syllable of my name (very cute). If she had been an American girl, I would have made an effort to at least touch her shoulder or hug goodbye, but my understanding is that this would be too much for a Chinese girl. My Chinese friend (Call him Tadashii, introduced again later) said that this was the right thing to do. I had previously dated a Chinese girl who wouldn't even hub me until I told her I wanted to date exclusively, several months into the relationship.
I was stoked for the rest of the day, so excited that I had finally been able to make plans to be with her alone, however short it was. I wanted to send a follow-up text, but held myself back and waited for about 42 hours (Thursday). I told her that I really enjoyed seeing her, I was happy that we had the opportunity to learn something about each other, and complimented her suggestion of sitting out on the grass together.
When she didn't respond, I was once again, fairly anxious and upset. I tried very much to keep it to myself.
The next day, I saw her at the gym again (Friday). This time, she seemed to be in a bad mood. She wasn't resting between sets and I got the feeling that she was avoiding me. Before I left, I approached her anyway (mistake?). I asked if we could exchange socials that are popular in her country, and she said "No, I don't add people on that". According to my Chinese friends, this was BS because everyone uses this app. She quickly shut down my attempts at conversation. I tried to go into a story about the school newspaper and she said "no, I don't want to hear about it" while perhaps forcing a smile. I realized that she was either in a bad mood, or really did not want to speak with, or both. So I said "ok, have a good night" and went home feeling very bad once again. Backing up a few steps, I noticed that she had a large pimple near her eye this day, which would explain why she hadn't wanted to take off her sunglasses while we were hanging out together on the grass. It could also suggest that she was too embarrassed for me to see her. She is an incredibly beautiful girl and clearly puts a lot of effort into her appearance so this could have easily been what caused her mood to shift so dramatically last week. I know what acne does to someone's self confidence, as i struggled with it frequently when I was younger. It must be ten times worse for women.
I guess this is a stressful time for the girl, and my advances haven't been making things easier on her. It would be quite tragic if I gave up simply because I had misread the circumstances. Of course, I don't know what she's thinking and I'm really worried about trying too hard. I'm used to girls responding to my follow-up text after a date with either enthusiasm, or by letting me know that a second date wasn't going to happen.
My Chinese colleague Tadashii, who seems to have good intuition on relationships with Chinese women gave me his input. He told me that Chinese women may very between chaos and order rapidly, like the Dao, in order to "test" men. They want to see that a man is actually dedicated. Further, a Chinese girl may have a stereotypical view of American men as "players" who only want to hook up. She is probably scared that I'm like this. He emphasized that this was only one data point in a series of mostly positive interactions. The 180-degree shift in demeanor could indicate a bad day or stressful period, but if a girl is truly disinterested, she would probably let me know at some point. His suggestion is to wait a month, until the girl is settled into her internship life. At that time, she would probably appreciate someone friendly reaching out to her to check in. In this way, we might have a text correspondence. This is something that I would never usually do, but he said it's typical for Chinese people to chat over apps or text while maintaining a long-distance friendship. He also mentioned that he's made girlfriends this way.
She will likely be away for two to three months. I haven't even found out where she was going. I usually try not to get girls thinking about work on dates, asking basic questions like "what do you do..." (no fun) but in this case, it was actually logistically relevant. oops. My plan is to follow Tadashii's advice. Maybe I'll see the girl at the gym again on Friday this week (38 hours from now). My American friends say that I should let her approach me this time. They also say that I should try to catch her again in the Fall when she returns. Tadashii says that waiting until the Fall is too long. This would send her the message that I was intimidated by her emotional response last week, or that I really was just an American player, and. not very serious about her.
So am I blown out, or should I hold on to the anxious pain of hope? Thanks in advance for your input.

i lost one of my dogs on saturday at around 2am and its the most horrible pain ive ever felt. i never knew i could have physical pain and so many emotions like this. she was perfectly healthy to me and my family’s knowledge and showed no signs. she was happy all day and now shes gone. i was asleep and the last time i saw her was at around 12am and she was sleeping on my bed, and then i heard a loud noise so i woke up and she was on the floor in my room. i went up to her and called her name to see if she was ok. she let out the most horrible howl and i ran to my parents room for help but it was too late. it happened within a minute, my mom came and my dog let out one final breath and i broke down. the vet wouldn’t do an autopsy and not knowing what happened is apart of the pain. we blamed ourselves for a bit bc the same day we gave both of our dogs a new treat and thought maybe that was why which caused paranoia about our other dog. i would try to keep an eye on my other dog the first couple days and if i couldn’t tell if she was breathing i would call her name and she’d wake up. i have just barely started feeling better about that. she was always so anxious and scared of everything so we think it had something to do with her heart but losing her so unexpectedly so soon is so hard. she was only 7 years old and we were supposed to have so much more time. i haven’t been able to go back into my room and ive been sleeping in the living room. i tried going in there last night and i stayed for a while but thinking about trying to sleep just wasn’t possible. everything reminds me of her everything is hard. she slept with me every night, before going to work i would tell them both bye and they would be waiting for me at the door when i got home and now shes just not there. everytime i ordered food they would both stare at me and watch me hoping id give them something and now theres only one. even before taking a shower they would be in my room and id tell them to be good girls and that i would be right back. i cant stop crying and i dont know when itll get better and when ill be able to go into my room. my other dog always slept with me too and i know she wants me to go in there but she just sleeps alone now and i feel bad bc she doesnt really want to sleep in the living room. my family is saying im taking it the hardest and idk how to help myself. we just got her ashes today and its opening everything even worse again i dont know what to do

Now, I spend many day with my grandparents. I do my best to make them dinner a few tines a month and I call them 3x a week. Anytime they need extra help, if I am not working, ya girl is there helping them out. My grandpa has dementia, for about the last 12 years. My Grandma is still sharp as a tack.
When I learned about his diagnosis, I mourned him for a year. Mourning someone who is still alive, but I knew what was to come. I watched my grandma on my mother's side with my great-grandma and her dementia journey. Enough of the harsh stuff, on to our fun afternoon.
So, my grandma and my dad needed to take her dog to the vet today. Grandpa isn't much for public anymore so I offered to have a home day with him this afternoon. My wife and I showed up, help get grandma into my dad's truck and waved them off. Now, grandpa has a tendency to wonder. He's an important guy, ya know. Always he's to, "report of base either important documents". Last time those important documents were his birthday cards and he wondered down the block into a nice lady's garden.
My wife and I sit down and before I get too cozy I asked him if he had lunch. I've watched the once strong as an ox man turn into an 86 year old frail man.
"Put it right here!" As he points to his stomach. I can hear him talking to the wife while I whip up the most delicious bologna sandwich and salad... oh and a chocolate muffin. "I helped a lot of people when I was a young man. I had a great life". I bring him his lunch and give him a kiss. For most of the afternoon, he knew who I was, it was nice. Usually I'm my mother, or someone he know he loves.
"How old am I?"
"You're 86"
"No wonder I feel terrible"
He knows me, even if he doesn't say my name. He will before it gets too late, when we first showed up he knew exactly who I was.
"You and I, we always laugh together"
I am known to be the jokester, the granddaughter thst is always there even with a smile. Even at me 37 years old he will comment, "watch out for this one, she's a cannon".
Today we were somewhere in the late 1950s. He spoke of his mother a lot. He spoke about learning everything you can. Take advantage of knowlege when you can, never pass up the chance to learn. While sitting in his "near" Seattle home he took us back to a small town in Montana. Him, always being the life of the party chatted with us non stop for over 2 hours while grandma and my dad ran errands.
"I remember a little girl, who used to dance. I love her"
"Grandpa, that little girl was me"
"I knew I loved you"
While I washed his dishes I started a fresh pot of coffee for my dad and grandma who were coming back. I heard her open the door as I made her lunch and the sweetest statement from my grandpa.
"There's my girl, have you come back to hold my hand some more?".
They have been married for 61 years. He made sure to tell me that she is his best friend.
Grandma and I visited for a bit and I served her lunch. He got up to use the bathroom nd when he came back it was as if the last 2 hours never happened. It doesn't hurt like it used to, but listening to him describe my grandma to me over an over almost made me cry. She even stopped him to remind him, "Jenny knows me, I'm her grandma".
I think it was more the way this man loves her that filled me with emotion than anything. He truly is a pure soul.
Sorry for the story, I had a great afternoon with him. Every once in a while he peaks out and he sees me still after all these years. I love him, I aspire to be as kind as him and love my wife as hard as he loves his.

I am 25 years old, from Southeast Asia, and I graduated with a bachelor’s degree in Accounting and Banking. My first job was working as an administrator for a middle office of a bank. I met my girlfriend, who is from Japan, during the corona era. I was fed up with the monotonous job I had, so I decided to spend all of my savings and move to Japan with my girlfriend. I studied at a language school for 1.5 years, then got a job as an insurance agent in a medium-sized company. The job was introduced by my friend, who has a relationship with the boss, so I was happy to actually find a job without hitting the job market. Despite the low monthly salary (1000 yen per hour), I figured it was worth a try.
One year has passed, and I have spent months in training without much result. At first, my boss had a vision of starting an online consultation service for foreigners in Japan, but something like that takes time and effort. Yet, the boss seems reluctant to put much investment into this venture. Now, my company is seemingly pushing me towards Japanese clients, even though my Japanese is good for someone who came to Japan two years ago, it’s not enough to convince Japanese clients.
I am thinking of leaving this company in search of a place where I can actually be useful. Here are the things that are stopping me from making the big decision:

1. Despite me not showing much result, my current company spent a lot of resources on my training. Leaving this job would feel like betraying their trust. I know it sounds silly, but it’s not a large company, and I know almost everyone there, and they have been nothing but kind to me.
2. If I look for another job, should I stay in Japan or go back to my country? I have to be honest that I do not like Japan’s working culture as I value work-life balance a lot. However, finding a job that pays well is easier in Japan than in my third-world home country. On the other hand, I miss my family and my dog, who is on the verge of passing away. I also didn’t make any friends during my time in Japan, so I am quite lonely without my girlfriend’s company. My girlfriend could move with me to my country with a travel visa for a maximum of three months, repeating this process 2-3 times a year.

In the end, it all comes down to the question: should I grind and achieve a successful career in Japan where the opportunity doesnt comes often, or should I lead a mediocre life financially while being able to be close to my family and friends?

While it's all a little fresh (~1 month?), and I still obviously haven't completely gotten over it yet, I felt like coming online and asking for other opinions to either validate/justify my own or give me other ideas.
I am a fulltime engineer with an established career and that is definitely something I'm looking for in a partner, especially as costs continue to rise and I'm interested in having kids and providing them freedoms in the future as well. After moving to NYC for my job w. no local friends, and as a more introverted engineer, connections online are where I'll end up meeting most of my people. I'm not particularly interested in the dating apps (TindeBumble/Hinge) as it's bot/catfish ridden, you can never get a full idea of intentions in an easy manner when you're 1 of 1000 on there, they hide half the people you'd be interested in unless you pay premium, etc. So connection isn't something that comes easy to me, and I definitely will try to hold onto it when I have it and ride or die for my squad.
I had already "experienced" a long distance relationship in college when I was 21 and moved to Seattle for 3 months. Long story short there, I kind of ghosted my ex-girlfriend of that time as clearly I wasn't that interested in her and couldn't see her. Hoped that we could rekindle things when I came back but that relationship wasn't for me. So, I already kind of know that long distance relationships "don't work" for me -- I distance myself and don't get any "physical touch" or "in person quality time," but I willingly continued with this one (with OP girl) because I have nothing else going on for me and we were having a good time.
I met this girl by chance online in a video game that I play with my friends every night. We happened to enjoy playing the game together so we continued to talk for a week or 2, playing probably 6 or 7 days each week. We proceeded to exchange information and communicate off the game. She lives 5 states (10-12hr drive) away from me, has a car, lives with her parents (potential issue -- I'm likely not going to go there), and at the time was dropped out of college with no degree/career, but working a regular retail job -- so no real income either.
We continued communication and after 2 months or so, I decided fuck it, I'd like to try and meet in real life and either legitimatize what we have or figure out that it's not going to work out. I booked an airbnb in the city near her fully paid for and flew out to meet her. Sparing the details, we had a great time over the 4-5 days. I did not ask her to be my girlfriend at that time but was definitely interested in meeting her again. We continued to talk and I flew her out one more time to me in NYC where we spent a week and put a label on our relationship.
As time continued, there was no next plan to see each other despite obvious interest on both ends. Long story short, she was encouraged to go back to school -- and will later tell me that it was "for me" and not for herself, which I'm hoping she'll look back at in the future and see how silly that statement is ... but she "did it for me" so that I could be happy with her or w/e you want to call it. So she was going to school and working retail, and we would spend the rest of our hours late at night together on the video game. She was an amazing girlfriend, completely about me 110%. I never had any mistrust in her, she treated me as well as you could from 11 hours away, and we talked every single day. I don't have many things I'd complain about with her other than simply not being able to see her.
Again I found myself distancing, it really no longer felt special as the relationship continued strictly online. I cannot see my girlfriend and I can get the "same satisfaction" from playing with any person on the internet. I believe that I'm seeking companionship and this was quickly turning into more of a "friendship." So ~1 month ago (1 year since we started talking), after a week or 2 of thinking about it -- not talking to her about it, but asking other people -- I was pretty set on just ending the relationship. I was advised to potentially wait until the end of the semester, but I wasn't going to sit there and pretend like I didn't know what was going to come 30 days later. So that's what I did. I called her and basically ended the relationship. She let me have it as she was blindsided and was in love with me ... "you were my future ... I went back to school for you ..." etc.
The reason I'm having such a hard time getting over it (albeit, a short period of time has passed here) despite it being my decision is because she never wronged me in any way and we had a great connection/chemistry. So again, as mentioned above, as someone who doesn't connect well with others, doesn't trust others, and is rather analytical/negative -- it feels bad to throw away something that was good and still could have been. It's not like I have a betteother option here locally. I totally could have "played" her and tried to date locally until I found someone else that was better. But I felt like I made a "selfless" decision and "let her go."
I've had some other things happen during this time period, my parents got divorced 8 months ago randomly (I was blindsided), I'm looking for a new job, etc. I have since enrolled in therapy, I had my first session last week and we didn't get to discuss or go into this specific topic. Clearly I need to work on myself, and am committing to that as the next chapter of my life, but could I have worked on it with her?
I was at the point where I would have been willing to pay to fly her to me 1x each month just to see her ... again, since she can't afford it. While it was never really discussed further and her schedule isn't going to change as she needs to work to pay for school which she can't afford, I just don't see how I could legitimately see her enough times in person within the next 1000 days. That would put me at 30 years old. And while people will tell me that's not old, or whatever, for me I just don't see how I can wait until 30 just to see if it's going to work out. If she was local/closer to me and the situation was the same (no career, lived with parents, etc.) -- we'd still be dating or I'd have never jumped to breaking up with her. Wouldn't have considered it.
So maybe you'll read this and think -- "You're an idiot, you made the right decision, get over it." Or maybe you'll tell me "I threw away something good and could have communicated better, been more patient, ." Maybe I could have just told her: "I'm losing romantic interest (or w/e verbiage), can we change something up" whether that be a 1x a week "date night" where we eat on camera together and watch a show. I have no idea. Again, that doesn't solve being together in person, but throwing her away for nothing is eating me up a bit. Was there more for me to learn with this person and grow? Should we have continued to grow together and hope then if/when we do come together in person it's that much better?
As an engineer, it's tough to not know if the action you made was the right one, I'm having a hard time facing reality right now and looking for random unbiased opinions. So all in all, I want someone else to tell me if I made the right decision. Thanks.

I was diagnosed as an adult with ADHD. I know that sometimes people who have ADHD are misdiagnosed as having Dyslexia, but I also know that they're very comorbid. I have some Dyslexic traits and my friends think I have mild Dyslexia, but I'm not sure if they're just byproducts of my attention issues.
Arguments FOR me having Dyslexia are
1- I subvocalize and cannot read well when there's verbal noise
2- I'm not a great speller, though I don't think I'm atrocious.
3- More importantly than generic spelling, I'm have big holes when it comes to phonetics. So like I will spell Rogue 'Rouge' 100% of the time bc I feel like the word should end with the g, and the u coming after feels wrong. If a word has a letter that could be a or e, I get it wrong (consistently vs consistantly, both sound right in my head so idk which one is wrong). I also often WILDLY misread Proper Nouns, I thought the name 'Lalonde' was 'Lanode' for years.
4- Bad at remembering names
5- Not great at left and right. As a kid both hands looked like L's. As an adult I can get it right about 70% of the time instantly, and 30% of the time need 2 seconds to remind myself which side of my body is my left.
Arguments against me having Dyslexia are
1- I didn't have any problems learning to read as a kid (again wasn't a great speller but wasn't in the bottom percentile or anything)
2- I was a voracious reader as a kid, though that fell off when I started having my own phone
3- I have a good vocabulary and I don't think I'm particularly bad at remembering words in the moment. Sometimes my mind will blank on things but it's more often street names or something like that than forgetting the word for fork.
4- I wasn't good at grammar as a kid, but I'm very interested in linguistics now and find it very interesting. I feel like I'm comprehending it all very well, and I'm currently learning a new language and while I have some weak spots, I don't think I'm struggling particularly hard.
I feel like all my Dyslexia symptoms *could* be a product of ADHD and having trouble with attention. That being said, I'm not afraid of the label or anything. So if there's a resounding 'yes this is Dyslexia it doesn't matter what the Root of the issue is' I'll gladly make use of it!

Hello, Need some help with this PC issue because I've been troubleshooting it for days and it's driving me insane.

PC Specs

Intel i7 13700KF PNY 4070 ti KLEVV 6200mhz 16gb x2 MSI Tomahawk z790 Max Corsair rm1000e

The Issues

I bought the PC second hand but it's been nothing but problems.
Every single game I play crashes within 30 minutes, usually within 5. Doesn't matter if I'm playing Oldschool Runescape or The Witcher 3, it happens without fail. Read below for my troubleshooting nightmare.
Half the time, dump files fail to get created. Previously, the Event Viewer showed nvlddmkm.sys errors, but haven't for the last ~10 crashes or so. Now it just shows a generic 41 error.
I can't provide dump files right now because I'm running another memtest, but will later on if needed. Though, for some reason, dump files being created now are giving me an error and saying I don't have permission to use them in Windbg, even though I can load older dump files.

What I've Tried So Far

1) Reseating the GPU 2) Reseating the RAM 3) Checking all power cables/mobo cables 4) Re-installing drivers 5) Using DDU then re-installing drivers 6) Clean Windows install (several times) 7) Turning off XMP 8) Putting GPU into max performance mode 9) Giving permissions to nvlddmkm.sys (Seen in a Reddit thread) 10) Buying a cheap $30 GPU and trying it. This also caused crashes. 11) Replacing the motherboard. AsRock z790 Pro RS -> MSI Z790 Tomahawk max. 12) Monitoring temperatures (No issues) 13) Memtest (No issues) 14) Testing RAM sticks one by one 15) I did update the BIOS on my old motherboard, but have not tried it on the new one yet. 16) Underclocking my GPU

Weird Observations

The reason this is making me tear my hair out is that I just can't pin down the issue.

• I thought it was just the GPU dying or something. But I could run all sorts of GPU stress tests with no issues at all, but then the PC would crash within a minute of playing Oldschool Runescape.
• I suspected the PCIe slot got damaged in shipping, so I bought a cheap $30 GPU and tested it in the top PCIe slot and that also crashed. Testing that GPU in the bottom slot seemed to work, but I couldn't test the 4070 ti there as it wouldn't fit. Was able to play OSRS for 2+ hours.
• Bought a vertical GPU mounting bracket in order to connect the GPU to the bottom slot via a riser cable. Worked for a bit and was able to play Guild Wars 2 for about an hour before more issues started popping up.
• Later, USB ports started randomly restarting or even just getting disabled altogether. This made me believe that it was just the motherboard dying, so I bought a brand new one. No more USB ports shutting off, but I am now crashing in games again within 5-15 minutes.
• I decided to test the RAM sticks one by one to see if one was faulty. I tested one and crashed ~10 seconds after playing Guild Wars 2. I thought that was a good sign that it's just the RAM, but then while testing the second stick, the PC crashed in 2.5 minutes. There were no errors in the memtest I did earlier, but I'm doing another one just in case.

Likely Issue?

At this point, I'm thinking either: A) CPU failing. From what I understand, the top PCIe slot is directly connected to the CPU, so I'm thinking that the CPU is causing problems to anything in the top slot. Though I did get crashes when the 4070 ti was connected to the bottom slot via a riser cable. CPU issues are much rarer though, and I feel like there would be other system issues if this was the case. All PC operation works fine outside of trying to play games.
B) GPU dying. I thought this was the likeliest issue, but then it could run all the benchmarks and stress tests no problem. The cheap $30 card I bought also had the exact same crashing issues. I'm not ruling it out, it's just been so hard to pinpoint. 3) PSU This could be the issue, but I feel like a Corsair 1000w would be fine as it's a high quality PSU and has plenty of power. Could just have a faulty unit, I guess.
I did think that it must be the PSU, because after majorly underclocking my GPU, I was able to play games for ~30 minutes instead of 5. But then a couple of hours later, I was back to 5 minute crashes
I'm probably just going to take it to a repair shop tomorrow because I'm at my wits end, but I thought I'd post here just in-case someone could give me some other ideas because short of replacing the CPU/GPU/PSU, I'm out of ideas.

I miss you so much. But I didn’t tell you about my psych appointment because I’m not actually as open about my inner emotions as you’d think. He said he thought I had bpd when we met (This is technically my second appointment with him, he overlooks the center I was at, but he doesn’t actually interact with patients much), but that he’s not allowed to evaluate me. I feel so lost? So confused? I thought I was a self aware person. But it all makes sense now. It’s also kind of amusing to me, I really wasn’t entirely open about how my mind works, so I’m surprised he was even able to think that about me. I wish wanted to be close to me. I wish I could talk to you about it, I’ve realized I’m such a codependent person. I have trouble processing stuff if I don’t talk about it with someone close to me. I did tell my close friends, but they don’t get it like you’d get it. I feel like it would be healing to talk to someone close to me with bpd about all of this. I don’t know what to even look for in a therapist who treats bpd traits. My psychiatrist told me to do DBT, but with therapists for social anxiety and depression, I was so well versed that I knew exactly what kind of care they should be giving me. I’m at a loss for bpd. I’m also so scared to finally share the dark parts of my mind with someone. I never even shared it with you.
I was cold and seemed annoyed when you complimented me because I’m not quite there yet. I’m not at a stage where I can hear that from you and not run with delusions. I love having you in my life, even as a friend, even if sometimes I hate you. I actually do like talking to you and hearing the way you describe things. And again, I feel like since you have bpd you get me. When id tell my roommates how jealous I felt over literally everyone you spoke to, they’d look at me like I’m crazy. What’s funny is I don’t think you fully understood how crazy I am in love. The only thing I really told you about was those constant cheating nightmares I had. I don’t even wanna go into the depth of my fear. I wish we could be together, but I do know that you were right to end things. I could tell even when you picked me up after that appointment that you still misinterpret me for judging you. And I still have a hard time talking about my feelings. I literally showed my psychiatrist a written letter. I am genuinely happy though, he said I had a 65% decrease in depression symptoms. I wish I was using this newfound joy to be better for you.