I went nc with my sister years ago for a multitude of reasons. One of the reasons being that she had mental health issues and claimed she was getting help but no one (including her then husband) was allowed to know what she was diagnosed with, what the treatment was, etc. No one was allowed to know what her physical medical diagnoses were and what meds they were being treated with. It started with random things like she was on a medication that requires her to take (per her…there is no proof she was willing to show proving what she said) 6 pills at once. She claims she asked her then teenage daughter to give her six of these pills while she was driving. (It was for a fever blister supposedly.) But her daughter gave her the wrong pills and she didn’t notice bc she was driving. I could understand a mix up (we do have SALAD drugs. Sound alike look alike drugs) but that wasn’t the case. Think of the meds being named something completely like shrimp vs chicken. The pills didn’t even look similar or have similar sizes. She ended up in ICU bc she overdosed since apparently her daughter gave her the wrong drug. BUT no one was allowed to ask said daughter bc (per sister) she was devastated and felt guilty. Once the initial shock wore off…my husband and I realized things didn’t add up. Then a few months later she randomly took FMLA from her job and left the state to do a 6 week in house mental health clinic. they wanted her to stay for 12 weeks but she would only agree to 8 weeks. After she came back she would only talk about movies (she tried to equate movies to every situation in life and it was exhausting), religion which was strange bc I never could tell if she would be 110% pro religion or thinking it was all an elaborate scheme, politics where she was in the far far far left (people should have a right to demolish anything if it made them uncomfortable. At one point I told her the sheer size of her house made me uncomfortable so I should have a right to demolish it…totally never would. I don’t think I have that kind of rights. To which she fought back that was her home and I had no right. I just looked at her and said…so people don’t have a right to demolish something bc it makes them uncomfortable or is it only your things that rule applies to), and jobs (at my then 3yo’s birthday she kept bringing the convo back to a client of hers who had been SA and how she had to teach the client what that meant and what intercourse was and what that situation was bad. People kept redirecting the convo but she kept going back to it). At that party I finally reached my breaking point and sent the kids outside to play and yelled. I yelled a lot, kicked her out of the house, and went nc. I did apologize to the other adults for losing my temper. She sent me a long crazy message about how I needed help bc I was mentally unstable.
Recently I read a post on Reddit and it made me curious…I looked her court records up online. I expected maybe another cc that went into the system bc it was 15k plus that she stopped paying on. (Not the first time or even second that would have happened.) Boy was I wrong. She had traffic violations for 15-24 over the speed limit. She had failure to yield tickets. She had a couple tickets for no tags. A warrant out for one of the vehicle tickets. And…a violation for a trashed yard due to excessive rubbish which also had a warrant out on her.
I don’t know if she has custody of her kids at this point. They are all older. One is a legal adult. I know she convinced my parents after all was said and done that I went to court and testified against her. I’m still left confused over that one bc…my parents were at court with her for the divorce. They were in the court room with her. I was never there. I didn’t even know when the court date was. I asked my mom if she remembered seeing me on the stand but she would never answer. Golden child can’t be questioned when holes appear!!! Must defend golden child!!! (We are no contact with my parents now for a multitude of reasons.) my parents defend her so much and all I can think is…you’re enabling her to be a total and utter mess.
Part of me wants to contact her to see if she’s ok. I feel the need to make sure she’s not on the verge of doing something bad. Just know she’s ok on some level. I won’t bc I’m not going down that sewer pipe. I just feel so bad for her. I want to wrap her up in a warm blanket and give her hot chocolate telling her it will be ok. I hoped the court records would have been empty. I hope and pray she’s moving on in her life and thriving. Instead it just feels like she’s getting worse. I feel horrible for my nibblings who are experiencing all of that and in all honesty I don’t even know if they have contact with her now. Ex BIL may have stepped in for the health and safety of the kids. I don’t know.
But yeah I feel total guilt. I remember when I told my BIL about the birthday party event (in case the kids said something to him I didn’t want to be the crazy person and he deserved the right to know what was going on) he told me I needed to find a way to fix the relationship with my sister bc she needed me now more than she realized. He was more right than anyone could have imagined. She has/had two best friends. Best friends for 25ish years. All lived in the same town. Neither were willing to show up and testify in her defense. One agreed to but then gave a bs answer to back out at the last minute. The other couldn’t bc she couldn’t get off work rofl. She didn’t even write a character reference letter to the judge. Who would have thought they would have abandoned her.
I know it’s safer for me and my kids (mentally, physically and emotionally) to stay away from all of them but I still feel guilty. What’s the best way to handle the guilt?

Hii, funny story: I went to an infrared sauna session today, because of all the benefits etc. I am almost 4 months postpartum and still feel like a truck just hit me yesterday 😂 so thought yay this might help me somehow.
Anyway, I went there, it was super hot of course, but I didn’t sweat a drop the entire time I was there (35 min). Ok maybe just a small mini drop under my boob 😂 but seriously not a significant drop anywhere.
And I thought that was weird as I reached 65°c with no sweating. So I googled “why can’t I sweat” and found out that antihistamines like Benadryl have disgusting long term side effects and one of them is to mess up the sweat glands in the body.
Another nasty side effect is a significant increase in risk of dementia and other neurodegenerative diseases, including memory problems early on. (Already experiencing them, on top of the “mommy brain”)
I also take 6 mg melatonin, and the bad side effect is that your body starts gettin lazy and relies on the synthetic melatonin instead of producing its own. So also want to wean off that one too but one thing at a time.
Also taking l-theanine 200 mg and 400 mg magnesium glycinate but I think those are fine.
Also taking zopiclone but only got 15 pills left and no doctor will prescribe me that again where I live (and completely understandable that they won’t - stupid Big Pharma)
Thoughts or comments on experiences using Benadryl to sleep long term, especially any experiences weaning off it?
Thank you amigos

My daughter (12) has what seems to be a panic attack if she thinks she is the last one awake. She will come and tell me late into the night that she is still awake (over and over). I have explained to her that I need sleep, and that at her age she has to start managing her sleep without waking me. I have 2 other kids (she is the oldest), a traveling spouse, work part time, and other obligations. I cannot be a zombie with no sleep a couple of times a week. She will tell me that I am her mom and she needs to be able to tell me when she has trouble falling asleep (frequently). During the school year, she has a later start in the morning (9:30) so she “can” stay up later if she would want to. My day starts at 6. I want to be asleep 10/11, at latest. During the school year I got into the habit of waking her up much earlier than she needed just so she would be tired at night. This helped. But now it’s summer. We all want to sleep in a little but this means she, again, is not falling asleep before me. I have tried negative consequences for waking me, positive reinforcements for not waking me, sometimes melatonin, bribes… I don’t seem to be getting through to her. We do no screens well over an hour before bedtime. She is active in sports. We do no social media etc to keep anxiety low. I really think she is at the age where she should be able to put herself to sleep without expecting me to be such an active participant in her bedtime routine. For example, if she finds she isn’t tired after I have gone in to say goodnight and tuck her in then maybe read a book a little longer then put it down and go to sleep/ on her own. She can’t seem to grasp this (she is extremely smart and independent elsewhere). Has anyone been through this? What do you do to help late tween/early teen gain independence at bedtime. I have an extremely hard time with this because I was putting myself to bed at a very young age and managing my own bedtimes much younger than she is now. I have no idea what to do to help her be independent in this area. Any tips? Has anyone been through something similar?

The defense and the prosecution today made their closing statements in the New York criminal case against Trump for falsifying business records to hide a $130,000 payment to adult film actress Stephanie Clifford, also known as Stormy Daniels. The payment was intended to stop her account of her sexual encounter with Trump from becoming public in the days before the 2016 election, when the Trump campaign was already reeling from the Access Hollywood tape showing Trump boasting of sexual assault.
The Biden-Harris campaign showed up at the trial today with veteran actor Robert DeNiro and former police officers Michael Fanone and Harry Dunn, who protected the U.S. Capitol and members of Congress from rioters on January 6, 2021. In words seemingly calculated to get under Trump’s skin, DeNiro said, “We New Yorkers used to tolerate him when he was just another grubby real estate hustler masquerading as a big shot,” and called him a coward.
When Robert Costa of CBS News asked campaign spokesperson Michael Tyler why they had shown up at the trial, Tyler answered: “Because you all are here. You’ve been incessantly covering this day in and day out, and we want to remind the American people ahead of the…first debate on June 27 of the unique, persistent, and growing threat that Donald Trump poses to the American people and to our democracy. So since you all are here, we’re here communicating that message.”
Yesterday, in remarks at Arlington National Cemetery in observance of Memorial Day, President Joe Biden honored “the sacrifice of the hundreds of thousands of women and men who’ve given their lives for this nation. Each one…a link in the chain of honor stretching back to our founding days. Each one bound by common commitment—not to a place, not to a person, not to a President, but to an idea unlike any idea in human history: the idea of the United States of America.”
“[F]reedom has never been guaranteed,” Biden said. “Every generation has to earn it; fight for it; defend it in battle between autocracy and democracy, between the greed of a few and the rights of many…. And just as our fallen heroes have kept the ultimate faith with our country and our democracy, we must keep faith with them,” he said.
His speech at Arlington echoed the message he delivered to this year’s graduating class at the United States Military Academy at West Point, where he urged the graduates to hold fast to their oaths. “On your very first day at West Point, you raised your right hands and took an oath—not to a political party, not to a president, but to the Constitution of the United States of America—against all enemies, foreign and domestic,” he said to applause. Soldiers “have given their lives for that Constitution. They have fought to defend the freedoms that it protects: the right to vote, the right to worship, the right to raise your voice in protest. They have saved and sacrificed to ensure, as President Lincoln said, a ‘government of the people, by the people, and for the people shall not perish from the Earth.’”
“[N]othing is guaranteed about our democracy in America. Every generation has an obligation to defend it, to protect it, to preserve it, to choose it,” he said. “Now, it’s your turn.” Biden spent more than an hour saluting and shaking the hand of each graduate.
In contrast, Trump ushered in Memorial Day with a post on his social media company, saying: “Happy Memorial Day to All, including the Human Scum that is working so hard to destroy our Once Great Country, & to the Radical Left, Trump Hating Federal Judge in New York that presided over, get this, TWO separate trials, that awarded a woman, who I never met before (a quick handshake at a celebrity event, 25 years ago, doesn’t count!), 91 MILLION DOLLARS for “DEFAMATION.” He then continued to attack E. Jean Carroll, the writer who successfully sued him for defamation, before turning to attack Judge Arthur Engoron, who presided over the civil case of Trump and the Trump Organization falsifying documents, and Judge Juan Merchan, who is presiding over the current criminal case in New York.
The message behind this extraordinary post was twofold: Trump can think of nothing but himself…and he appears to be terrified.
On Saturday, May 25, Trump had an experience quite different from his usual reception at rallies of hand-picked supporters. He was resoundingly booed at the national convention of the Libertarian Party in Washington, D.C., where Secret Service agents confiscated squeaky rubber chickens before his speech. Attendees jeered Trump’s order, “You have to combine with us,” even when he reminded them of his libertarian credentials—tax cuts and defunding of federal equality programs—and promised to pardon the January 6 rioters who attacked the U.S. Capitol.
Trump also promised to pardon Ross Ulbricht, who founded and from January 2011 to October 2013 ran an online criminal marketplace called Silk Road, where more than $200 million in illegal drugs and other illicit goods and services, such as computer hacking, were bought and sold. Most of the sales were of drugs, with the Silk Road home page listing nearly 13,000 options, including heroin, cocaine, ecstasy, and LSD. The wares were linked to at least six deaths from overdose around the world. In May 2015, Ulbricht was sentenced to life in prison and was ordered to forfeit more than $180 million.
Libertarians want Ulbricht released because they support drug legalization on the grounds that people should be able to make their own choices and they see Ulbricht’s sentence as government overreach. Trump has repeatedly called for the death penalty for drug dealers, making his promise to pardon Ulbricht an illustration of just how badly he thinks he needs the support of Libertarian voters. But they refused to endorse him.
Trump appeared angry, and on Sunday, as Greg Sargent reported in The New Republic, he reposted a video of a man raging at MSNBC host Joe Scarborough. In it, the man says that when Trump is reelected: “He’ll get rid of all you f*cking liberals. You liberals are gone when he f*cking wins. You f*cking blowjob liberals are done. Uncle Donnie’s gonna take this election—landslide. Landslide, you f*cking half a blowjob. Landslide. Get the f*ck out of here, you scumbag.”
Trump’s elevation of this video, Sargent notes, is a dangerous escalation of his already violent rhetoric, and yet it has gotten very little media attention.
Last November, Matt Gertz of Media Matters reported that ABC News, CBS News, and NBC News provided 18 times more coverage of 2016 Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton’s comment at a fundraising event that “you could put half of Trump’s supporters into what I call the basket of deplorables” who are “racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamophobic,” than they provided of Trump’s November 2023 promise to “root out the communist, Marxist, fascist and the radical left thugs that live like vermin within the confines of our country.”
CNN, the Fox News Channel, and MSNBC mentioned the “deplorables” comment nearly 9 times more than Trump’s “vermin” language. The ratio for the five highest-circulating U.S. newspapers was 29:1.
Clinton’s statement was consistent with polling, and she added that the rest of Trump’s supporters were “people who feel that the government has let them down, the economy has let them down, nobody cares about them, nobody worries about what happens to their lives and their futures, and they’re just desperate for change.” She said: “Those are people we have to understand and empathize with as well.”
Sargent noted that news stories require context and that Trump’s elevation of the violent video should be placed alongside his many threats to prosecute his enemies. While there is often concern over disrespect toward right-wing voters, Sargent writes, there has been very little attention to the presumptive Republican presidential nominee’s posting of “a video that declares a large ideological subgroup of Americans ‘done’ and ‘gone’ if he is elected.”
Scott MacFarlane of CBS News reported yesterday that Republicans have ignored a law passed in March 2022 requiring the placement of a small plaque honoring police officers who protected the U.S. Capitol and the lawmakers and staffers there on January 6, 2021. It was supposed to be in place by March 2023 but has not gone up. A spokesperson for House speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) says his office is working on it. Kayla Tausche of CNN reported today that three of the police officers at the Capitol that day—Sergeant Aquilino Gonell and Officer Harry Dunn, both retired, and Officer Daniel Hodges, who is still with the Washington, D.C., metropolitan police—will be traveling to swing states for the Biden campaign to tell voters that Trump threatens Americans’ fundamental rights.
Finally, today, Melinda French Gates, co-founder of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, announced $1 billion in new spending over the next two years “for people and organizations working on behalf of women and families around the world, including on reproductive rights in the United States.” Only 2% of charitable giving in the U.S. goes to these organizations, she wrote the New York Times, and “[f]or too long, a lack of money has forced organizations fighting for women's rights into a defensive posture while the enemies of progress play offense. I want to help even the match.”
—
Notes:
https://www.politico.com/news/2024/05/26/libertarians-reject-trump-rfk-chase-oliver-presidential-nominee-00160040
https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/speeches-remarks/2024/05/27/remarks-by-president-biden-at-the-156th-national-memorial-day-observance-arlington-va/
https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/speeches-remarks/2024/05/25/remarks-by-president-biden-in-commencement-address-to-the-united-states-military-academy-at-west-point-west-point-ny/
https://newrepublic.com/article/181973/trump-media-attacks-media-dangerous-turn
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/congress-fails-to-install-plaque-honoring-jan-6-police-officers/
https://www.cnn.com/2024/05/28/politics/biden-campaign-january-6-officers/index.html
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c722qy5dzlgo
https://www.politico.com/news/2024/05/25/trump-commute-ross-ulbricht-sentence-libertarian-convention-00160025
https://www.ice.gov/news/releases/ross-ulbricht-aka-dread-pirate-roberts-sentenced-life-federal-prison-creating
https://www.businessinsider.com/trump-is-spotlighting-ross-ulbricht-silk-road-appeal-to-libertarians-2024
https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/4305566-trump-doubles-down-death-penalty-for-drug-dealers/
https://www.mediamatters.org/donald-trump/major-news-outlets-gave-much-less-coverage-trumps-vermin-attack-then-they-did-clintons
https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/4687060-donald-trump-squeaky-chicken-libertarian-controversy/
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/05/28/opinion/melinda-french-gates-reproductive-rights.html
The Dworkin ReportDe Niro and Jan 6 Heroes Unload on Trump Outside NY TrialRobert De Niro just showed up outside the New York City courthouse, where Trump is facing 34 felony counts. Rightwing lunatics are already trying to start conspiracy theories lying and saying that thi…Read more8 hours ago · 765 likes · 132 comments · Scott Dworkin
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I went to school about 20 years ago, so there are bound to be some students here and there. I live very far away from where I went to school and it was a while ago so I'm not the most abreast on these things, but once in a while I'll look someone up and see they've passed.
Graduated in 2005. I saw one kid who was on the track team with me pass in 2015. Apparently, he died in a skateboarding accident. Another student who was in my graduating class died last year in a car accident. It kinda sucked because I followed him on Facebook and saw he had an young daughter at the time of his death. I'm sure there are a lot more, but again I haven't really spoken to anyone for the past 20 years.
I know a lot of other folks have peers who passed from drug overdoses, you don't really hear the reason for those types of deaths but you can tell. It'll look something like THIS.
Anyone?

Kruger Kayla

· Don’t give up usually the miracle happensAfter things get so tough that we think but then remember why we started I didn’t come this far to go this far I didn’t survive , child sexual abuse, human trafficking, herion , fetynal, meth , pills addiction, car crashes / high speed chases, 3 overdoses,in and outta jail 4 years total , being beat up head shaved , ex’s who beat and used and abused me to benefit only them ,trama , tried to kill me, hospitals, mental institutions ,Melosing my son at 23 and him 3 then to lose his father whom died over drug overdose and who I dated for8 years ) loosing my grandma who raised me to grade 9 ,( only mother figure I ever known) foster cares from grade 9-12 , shelters for abused women and kids for years in and out, rehabs x5, abandonment issues fromNot growing up without BOTH parents, being bullied my whole life And bashed all over google .. having my whole addiction posted and mocked ALL over the BC news and o ratio news sites and websites and then bashed all over Facebook , dirty etc.. also I’m now raising a child who when I found out I was pregnant was in Toronto being trafficked and beat, guns held to my head on the daily , shot up right drugs in my sleep. When I found out I was pregnant was on 55 mls methadone and I went to Toronto hospital and stayed 3 weeks of hell , feeling like I was gonna die from withdrawal so she wouldn’t be born addicted cuz that’s the kinda women iam. Nurse says in 30 year career she’s never seen someone follow through but I did … I’m without a license or any help fromAnyone really !!! these past 3 and some years all while slowly weening of methadone down half my dose im one yearAnd it’s not easy also keeping up with all these different socialMedia accounts, and doing cannabis influencing etc cannabis cures saving me while I get off this crap seriously way better than any pill or drug Paired with healthy food and exercise all while trying to make content and share my life and be realAnd to be honest and it’s Lonley ASF but I’m learning so much about myself , when you get clean, it’s not easy or everyone would do it learning to live again and find the things I like.. but most my attention,money, energy is spent on my kid.. but I’d DO anything to get us in a better position in life ..I wasted10 years that just flew by on dating loserMenAnd doing so much drugs and booze .. these past 3+ years I swear, I been made as an easy target , because I’m so new In sobriety and don’t drive or have much right now cuz I can’t work like I’m used too and many have been so rude and toookadvantage talked a lot of and hate when they see me yell out windows calling me names despite never actually meeting me .. but I won’t give them the satisfaction hell no … I’m out here and I’m a warrior built like they don’t makeMany of.. loyal to those who are to me .. show love to allWho have never judged or gave upAnd either motivated me or helped me with their words heck even my haters y’all help me so much thank you for making me famous in lindsay lol but ya girl had a taste nowShe want it ALLAnd by any meansI fit necessarily I will get to the top and as long as I have my kids and I stay clean and sober she good choices imma be Good … ASF duhhh obviously feeling super blessed super greatful and humble and I pray for those who wish me harmAnd whom are talkin my name and because y’all got issues too that’s why you so quick to point the finger at my flaws … well girl for once in my life I’m legit. Sober and clean I have everything I need technically that I can handle right now but this mama is on fire and there’s not a damn thing y’all can do bout it imma keep winning Kruger Kayla

Hey sorry if I’m posting in the wrong place my phone won’t let me choose a space to post it just hoping anyone with advice sees this so to get started I’m 16 make with excrutiating ptsd and dissotiation to the point where it’s at multiple points me into phycosis that thank God I was able to get out of without medical attention I’ve almost overdosed probably 15 times I went to a 3 programs escaped one and was on the run for a month before somehow being able to come home after calling my mom on a stolen phone I’ve been around actual killers for years people who don’t give a single shit about a human life and would end someone just for their convenience and pride I went to juvy before for a month wasn’t bad tbh but due to my perspective then it was horrible I got out thank God and was able to for the most part change my life around slowly quitting the huge list of drugs I was using I’m really big into woodworking now about a year and a half later I can make beautiful things when I put my mind to it which just makes me more mad when I realize how I’m not doing much with it right now and I mean the past couple weeks because I recently pretty much became an alcoholic I grew up in an amazing family my brother is an alcoholic but my sisters all 5 of them are doing great one in the navy and btw I’m Christian to the death Jesus is the only reason I’ve been able to come out of the absolute hell whole of my phycotic drug fueled mind I take adderall 25mg which I’m addicted to severely somehow even though it’s a low dose and btw I’ve taken up to 200mg in a day in my any drug goes days but somehow my broken mind can get basically the same high every day not in a bad way I mean it’s pleasant and helps me to stay sober from everything but porn which holy shit is a whole nother story my addiction with it I need help holy shit I jus zoned tf out but yeah I’m at this point mentally self reliant but I’m rapidly degrading from the alcoholism and porn which I try not to watch but fall into watching it about once every 5 days and I’m so serious I’m pretty sure as in Ive been and am completely convinced is caused by the porn because I have to fight the urge to kill myself every time I give into it reminding myself my family loves me every time but that fight I put up fades each time I give in and I have to drink to battle the suicidal thoughts I have for days after I can’t take it I need help I believe I can do it I’m just stuck right now and need help I know I can do it to the depth of my soul I’m the biggest fighter I’ve seen in my life mentally speaking I’m partially crazy but you’ll never ketch me saying something that sounds crazy but yeah Idek what I’m asking for advice or a second hand summary just please understand if you can imma pose more context if you want message me if u want it I got pages on pages I need help bro I know it doesn’t sound much like urgency if it does thanks for listening but I need help I’ve been screaming silently for years please just tell me something I need to know help me to come back

hey hey!! looking for some tips to overcome using sleep as a coping mechanism :’) (for a note, yes i am on meds and am in the process of seeing if i need to up the dose or get new ones, im in the process of getting therapy and im in the process of getting an updated diagnosis i was just hoping someone had some good tips in the meantime!)
context: i have diagnosed bpd, gad and insomnia (currently in the process of seeing if i have ocd/adhd). ive always struggled w a bunch of stuff, but ever since moving out for uni my mental health has gotten so bad that im constantly unable to sleep at night and use sleeping during the day to cope. i have constant anxiety attacks, compulsions/compulsive thoughts, issues sleeping at night, and mood swings to name a few.
i have been able to take melatonin to sleep earlier at night (though it does cause me nightmares) but i’ll end up waking up a few hours later and not able to go back to sleep. then i’ll end up sleeping at like 7am until 4pm. it’s ruining my life cause i can’t stand to cope w my mental health and only know how to sleep to avoid it. other than this is causing me to get nothing done every day, it’s also causing my partner to be sad about having no time w me!
i’ve read that maybe trying to meditate instead of sleeping during the day etc but let me know if you have any other good tips pls :/

I am currently taking Suboxone films (strips) I am prescribed 16mg a day or 2 strips per day, when I take my second strip , which is usually 4-6 hours after my first strip in the day, I tend to get a lot of anxiety and sometimes feel as if I'm struggling to breathe, do you think I am just anxious because I worry about the respiratory depression from Suboxone or do you think I may actually be having difficulty breathing? My doctor told me that I wouldn't be able to overdose on 26 mgs and that I can even take both strips at the same time if I wish, she said that I'm just overthinking it and becoming anxious, do you have anything you can add or comment about this situation please.

Feel Free put me in the hospital twice during my last week of use due to vomiting, blood pressure, and heart rate.
Some quick details about me, since some of it is a little unique and could help other people with similar attributes:

• I had gastric bypass 12 years ago
• I get all of the side effects from medications and other drugs, due to bypass
• My body is more susceptible to physical addiction, due to bypass
• Liquid based drugs/meds/alcohol hit faster and stronger but the effect is shorter, due to bypass
• Used to abuse alcohol

Usage details:

• I started using FF in December around the holidays
• Quickly ramped up to using 5-6 a day since Feb
• I got caught up into the loop of "I feel like shit on it, I feel worse off of it."
• There were times when I got upwards of 10 a day and one day where I had 16, but most of the time I needed 5-6.
• Never used Kratom or Kava before FF

Quitting Details:

• Moved to Kratom Only using capsules
• The first 3 days, I took as much as I wanted to try and keep withdrawals away which was a mistake and caused side effects like nausea and temperature fluctuations.
• On day 4, I backed off to try and get on a schedule and to see how much I really needed.
• By day 7, I could take 7 g of capsules upon waking up, 7 g before lunch, and 7 g before dinner.
  • If I felt any withdrawals I would take 4 g, if I felt side effects I would back off until I felt withdrawals.
• I have started to taper the Kratom by 1 g of caps per serving, every 1 week
• I am starting week 3 of the taper and have not had any debilitating withdrawal since day 2

Side Effects during ff use:

• Lack of hunger
• Weight loss (35 pounds in 4 months)
• Occasional vomiting from overdosing
• Yellowish and dry skin
• Cracked lips, inner cheek damage, and numbed sense of taste
• Exhausted and sick feeling
• Would crash at night
• Racing heart beat
• Indigestion
• General malaise
• Rare Brain Zaps/Exploding Head Syndrome (would get this when I took SNRIs, combatted by starting to take SNRI again)

Side Effects during quitting ff using Kratom (Day 1-4):

• Body temperature fluctuations
• Cold sweats
• Mild headache
• General malaise
• Sweating after eating
• Brain Zaps/Exploding Head Syndrome in the middle of the night (every night)

Side Effects post FF with Kratom Only (Day 5 to Current):

• Rare body temperature fluctuations and sweating
• Occasional Brain Zaps/Exploding Head Syndrome middle of the night
• Occasional nausea from overdosing
• My skin is flaking off still, but looking so much better.

Other Notes:

• I feel a million times better, my quality of life is SIGNIFICANTLY BETTER
• I thought I was going to die during my last 2 days of ff use
• Kratom caps are way cheaper
• I can function perfectly well at work and as a parent and probably could have during day 1-3, if I had not taken using ff to the brink of death and if I had switched to Kratom earlier, do it ASAP.
• I was already in a ff taper trying to quit when my health took a turn and my usage bumped back up on the last 3 days trying to fix the sick with more ff.
• My taste has returned to normal
• I could eat normal again with 5 days of quitting, magnesium seemed to help
• I did 2 weeks of Prilosec starting day 5
• Join kratom and quittingkratom to learn about this beast and how to get off of it as well

Best of luck to anyone trying to quit, find a way to get off of FF as soon as you can. I plan to continue to taper off of Kratom and then taper off of the SNRI. If you have any questions or clarifications please ask here.

Late 30's. Ive done it all... cutting my work hours in half, and then switching career paths.. ive been diagnosed many times, and have been struggling my entire life with Adhd/DSPS/N24/insomnia
Things ive tried that worked, and werent enough ( ranked 1 - 10, 10 as best ):
CBTI (10), Therapy (10), Light therapy (4), Push ups in hot shower with 10,000 lux light on me. (8), 3 sleep studies (8), Mouth tape (1), All the sleep hygeine - cold, dark, special mattress, pillow, etc (3), Light alarm (2), All the supplememts, megnesium, theinine, cbd, melatonin, bl bla bla add 50 supplements more (3), Sleeping meds - clonidine, trazadone, hydroxzyine, ambien, diazepam, z quil, etc etc (4), Spike mat (5), Brain wave delta relaxing music (3), Caffeine (0), Tumeric golden milk (1), Excercise (5), Hot baths (7), Perfect diet (5), Sex (9),
You get the picture ( all help, but varying degrees for my DSPD, and some are more for insomnia. Since Dspd is incurable and these are all essentially bandaids, each have their own use / overall impact on this genetic condition )
So after all of that... i noticed that my health GREATLY improves when i work night shifts, and when i work early mornings ( 5am wakeup ) it declines rapidly...
I can do all of those things.. And they can work! But its constantly fighting an uphill battle. Even with 8hrs sleep, its a huge struggle to continue.
To make matters worse, I believe I may have N-24, and not DSPS. As even when i work night shifts, i feel myself gradually able to stay up later and later every day.. However, i feel more healthy overall by a long shot on a night shift because i can atleast ditch the alarm for most days.
what comes next
I am telling my manager i can only work nights, which will likely net me half the hours im working now.. and I may even lose my job entirely... my goal then is to take a side step in my career into a different field that will allow me to more or less pick my own hours.
...im done yall. Im still working mornings but after having tried literally everything, i need to prioritze my health. If it means less money for right now, so be it, as long as I can survive.. I hope I still can in this economy.
Hopefully this post helps someone.. And any advice on anything.. switching jobs, what worked for you, what diddnt... Lmk. Even now I still have a lot to learn.
Thanks all.

I am NOT OP. Original posts by probkev in probation
 
TRIGGER WARNING: incarceration, police interactions
 
 
Just got 10 years deferred felony probation for thc. - February 25, 2024
after 3 and a half years on bond, i finally had my punishment hearing. this is my first time getting in trouble with the law. got arrested in texas for MAN/DEL CS PG 2 4-400g. They found around 80g’s of concentrated thc and an oz of marijuana. unfortunately, this was in one of the most conservative county’s in all of texas. during my 3 and a half years on bond, i did everything i could to turn my life around. graduated college, held a prestigious job with multiple promotions, voluntarily did 100 hours of AA, community service, therapy, got married, bought a house, never had any violations during this time.
after doing all of this, the DA still wouldn’t budge on his plea. my last plea deal was 5 years probation, 40 days jail and a felony conviction. the only thing we were asking for was to change it from straight probation to deferred so i can have the chance to not have this on my record. we ended up going open to the judge to possibly get this deferred. my lawyer thought we had a good chance. during the open hearing, the DA was trying to put me in jail for 5 plus years, but we ended up getting 10 years deferred felony probation. with the 10 years, i have to do 20 days in jail, and complete 400 hours of community service.
if anyone has any advice, let me know. i’m happy of the outcome that i won’t have a felony after completing this probation, but 10 years is a long time. i realize i fucked up, but texas doesn’t play around with thc. since this was a first degree felony, i had a max sentencing of 99 years in prison. crazy to think about going to prison for life because of thc. posting this mainly for anyone who is in a similar boat. when this happened over 3 years ago, i didn’t see too many people in similar situations.
 
Update: 10 years felony probation for THC - May 19, 2024
Just wanted to provide an update. Check my post history for the first part.
I was assigned a probation officer in Brazos County. On my first visit, I started the process to transfer probation to Travis County. When you transfer probation in TX, this is known as courtesy probation. Meaning whatever county you transfer to, they offer a probation officer as a courtesy to the county you got charged in and have to abide by all terms set by the original county. For the first 2 months before it got transferred, I got signed up for the drug testing hotline, scheduled my 20 days in jail, and was told to start knocking out my 400 hours of community service.
For drug testing in Brazos County, There is a phone line that you have to call in everyday to check and see if you are drug tested that day. The phone line was open from 6am-4pm. If you didn’t call within that time frame, you would be risking a violation for a missed drug test. This made it difficult to follow up with. I was constantly worrying about making sure I called every day. Fortunately, i didn’t miss a testing day for the 2 months. I was tested 3 times in 2 months. My 2nd test, I was tested at the end of the month and my 3rd test was at the beginning of the new month. Only a couple of days apart from the 2nd one.
For the community service, I had to complete at least 10 hours per month. I checked to see if there was a way to pay my hours off, but Brazos County doesn’t allow this. I was also only allowed to do community service in Brazos County. Since I live in Travis County and that’s where my probation was getting transferred to, my PO in BC allowed me to wait to do community service until it was transferred.
For the 20 days in jail, It was not as bad as I expected it to be. I was allowed work release to only go in on weekends. On top of that, there was an option to only do nights on the weekend. This meant that I only have to go in from 9pm and would get out at 6am. I had to do this every Friday, Saturday, and Sunday night. This was also count for 4 days credit. For all STs in Brazos, they would put us in a small cell with mats on the ground and they turned the lights off. This was different from general population where it was loud and they would keep the lights on at night. I would pop a couple of melatonin pills before going in and would generally sleep through the night.
I have now been transferred to Travis County and things are much better here. I don’t have to call the drug testing hotline anymore that Brazos County requires. From what my PO told me, they stopped doing random testing since covid, and do what they call “frequent testing.” I’m not sure what all that entails yet but he let me know beforehand that I was going to get tested at my intake. At my first visit, I was given a saliva test and passed with flying colors. He immediately put me on low risk and my only requirement is to do a 5 minute phone call every month instead of in person meetings.
For community service in Travis, I asked my PO if there was anyway to pay off my hours and be told me he had to check with Brazos. He got my original PO on the phone and got it approved. I am able to pay $150 maximum every month at $10 an hour. After 26 months of paying $150 every month, I will be done with my community service hours.
Sorry for the long post, just wanted to provide an update with my experience. Thank you all for the kind words and messages on the last post. Things are starting to look up.
 
Reminder - I am not the original poster.

Why do I have to take something every day?
TLDR: The past two years, since graduating high school, I have found myself unable to resist taking something each day.
Long wall of text, but this is a summarization of my life/experience and I’d appreciate it if anyone has advice/thoughts/their own experiences.
I would really appreciate it if even just one of you took the time to read this and share your thoughts.
Is there something wrong with me based off what you’ve read? Some solution that pops out at you? Please, just help me identify a diagnosis or something. I’m getting sick of this cycle.
I never tried anything until the summer after graduating high school. I had always been a caffeine fiend, drinking 300-400mg just about every day. Now I was occasionally using weed, alcohol, and kratom.
As I went off to a college far from home with only a handful of people I knew, at 18 years old, I eventually turned to alcohol and weed every couple of nights until I discovered adderall.
My first time taking a 30mg XR I was crying tears of happiness, sending texts to everyone I knew saying how I much I loved and appreciated them, etc. I hadn’t felt this happy and secure ever since beginning college.
This went up a level when I got onto the dark net, I began popping addy pressies (meth) and went down a months long dark route that ended in me breaking down, flushing it all, and having my mother fly out to talk to me.
I told her I was abusing adderall (didn’t mention meth pills or anything else) and that life was so bleak, that my only interactions with others were with flings and one night stands…
She helped me develop an approach to finish the year strongly, I was only half way done with the school year at this point.
I was ready to reapproach with a sober intention. I turned to psychedelics, using 4 AcO DMT or lsd every 5-7 days. I was alone. No friends and nothing better to do than trip, receive beautiful epiphanies and keep myself alive until something better came along.
I used adderall when I could get it. 30mg XR at $2.50 a pop from basically my one and only friend, this was script grade and he was empathetic, I claimed I was treating my own ADHD…
Thankfully I met a girl who was accepting of my faults and helped me regulate my use… I tried FXE, Xanax, a few times. I ended the year with just my about every 2-3 week psychedelic use…
I broke up with her in order to keep messing around and receiving short gratification from flings as I went home for summer. We still see each other occasionally, as friends (mostly). We genuinely care about each other.
Freshman year complete. Returned home for summer. Had a job with my best friend and loved it. Still abused kratom, weed, and alcohol (I’ve never really been an alcoholic, I just mean that I would drink a couple beers in order to cope, I consider this abuse.)
Now I’m off to begin my sophomore year. This time I have 3 random roommates I’ve never met.
Move in week im abusing kratom and drinking a lot with my family. I’m very anxious. Literally vomiting from kratom overdose in bathroom while we’re eating at a restaurant.
The first week of school I trip LSD with one of them, we become great friends. I get into obscure drugs. I have a 1,4 BDO scare just weeks into the school year, end up being fine.
The entire year I used weed about every night. 1,4 BDO in increasing frequency until I’m using it every night. I’m using adderall and vyvanse whenever I can get it. Kratom whenever I have it.
LSD, 3CP, and 4AcO DMT microdoses when needed.
Ketamine, 2FDCK, and canket at scary frequencies.
The school year ends. As I’m writing this, I am on summer break, about to enter my Junior year. I’m 20 years old and have done dozens of substances, many unlisted.
At the moment I most often abuse 1,4 BDO, taking it practically every night just to take the edge off even though it doesn’t affect me too much anymore, nicotine pouches (only been using these for a couple of weeks), and I take lsd/dxm microdoses as needed
I do it strategically, with the goal of minimizing harm to my body and keeping myself healthy and alive. I could’ve gone off the rails so many times. I could’ve killed myself so many times but that is not my goal. My goal is to be content.
In my mind, I have to use something every day or else I’m not living/performing at the level I desire.
At times I convince myself I was born with a chemical imbalance, but then I see this was never an issue until college. At times I look back and see how much I was bullied in middle/high school.
Deep rooted insecurities and sense of worthlessness? Maybe just an extended 2 year bender? Every waking moment of these past 2 years I have been completely self aware of what I’m doing.
I question it often. I journal often. I meditate and search for answers all the time. I genuinely can’t find the source/what is wrong with me that leads me to do this.
Just recently, I’ve gotten to the point of taking from my old prescriptions (mom is pharmacist, doesn’t want me to take opioids unless necessary) like from my hydrocodone prescription a few years ago. I wanted to experience it. I just love experiencing a new feeling/drug alongside the obvious contentness it brings me.
This past week I have taken 10mg of hydrocodone and 100mg of tramadol from some very old prescriptions my grandparents have. Took them on separate days, I came out here on vacation with a slight intent of rehabbing myself but I find myself taking LSD microdoses often and abusing nicotine pouches.
The lsd tolerance in my body is high at the moment, probably for the next few days, and I’m out of pouches. So today I took 30mg dxm. Just to have that aknowledgment that I’ve taken a mood improvement substance.

Trial Day 18
Katherine, Janet, Rebbie and Randy Jackson are in court. Only one of the siblings was allowed in the courtroom as they are potential witnesses. Janet accompanied Katherine during morning session while Rebbie was with her during the afternoon session.
Paul Gongaware Testimony
Jackson direct
Paul Gongaware is one of the defendants in the case. He's an adverse witness called by the plaintiffs. Gongaware is Co-CEO of Concerts West, part of AEG Live. Gongaware has toured with Beach Boys, Led Zeppelin and is currently on tour with The Rolling Stones. He worked for Jerry Weintraub in the 80s
He produced Prince's tour in 2004. He has not promoted/produced tours since. Gongaware has not talked to Prince after the tour
Gongaware was a CPA licensed in NY and Washington. He said he believes he's still licensed but hasn't checked status since there's no need
Gongaware testified that landing Jackson, whom he felt was the biggest artist of his era, was huge for AEG. In a 2008 email to AEG Live President and Chief Executive Randy Phillips, Gongaware described how the company should approach Jackson and his manager about a possible comeback tour:
We need to start at the fundamentals. How we do it. The difference between [Live Nation] and us is huge. We are artist-based, they are Wall Street-driven. We are smart people. We are completely honest and transparent with everything we do. That's how [founder] Phil [Anschutz] wants it
Gongaware said he worked on an Elvis Presley tour. Panish asked if Elvis died of drug overdose, and Gongaware said "Yes". Gongaware replied to a condolences' email on July 5, 2009:

"I was working on the Elvis tour when he died, so I kind of knew what to expect. Still quite a shock"
"So you knew what to expect when Michael Jackson passed away, is that right, sir?", Brian Panish asked.
"I kind of knew what was going to happen, yes",Gongaware answered.

Despite working as a tour promoter for 37 years -- including for Led Zeppelin, the Grateful Dead and many others -- Gongaware testified that the only artist he ever knew that was using drugs on tour was Rick James
Panish asked about working for Jackson 5, Gongaware said had no interaction with Michael. Gongaware was a logistics manager on the Dangerous tour in 92-93. Panish said Michael made $100 million and donated it to charity. Gongaware said he didn't know
When Gongaware met Jackson was with Colonel Parker (Elvis' manager) in Las Vegas. Michael had wanted to meet the Colonel
Gongaware explained the difference between being tour manager and managing the tour. He talked about Michael's History tour

Panish: "You knew that Michael had been to rehab during the dangerous tour?"
Gongaware: "Yes, based on the statement he made after the tour"

Gongaware said he never knew MJ was involved with drugs until after the end of the Dangerous tour. Gongaware told LAPD he was aware of Jackson's previous use of pills/painkillers but did not want to get involved. Gongaware had known for years that Michael Jackson was taking painkillers but wasn't aware he was abusing them until MJ abruptly canceled his Dangerous world tour in the early 1990s to enter rehab. Gongaware said he knew of "two occasions" when Michael used painkillers between shows, but he claimed he didn't grasp the scope of the Michael's sickness until the taped 1993 announcement.

"I would dispute knowing that he had a problem. I wasn't aware that there were problems", Gongaware said

Gongaware said he knew a doctor was medicating Jackson during the Dangerous tour but did not find out why the tour was eventually cut short.

"Didn't have time,I was just dealing with what was in front of me", he said

Panish said Dr. Finkelstein testified under oath that Gongaware knew Michael had problems with painkillers before the Dangerous tour ended.

Panish: "Do you dispute that?" (Finkelstein testimony)
Gongaware: "I knew that he had pain"

Gongaware said Dr. Finkelstein is his doctor and friend and that they talk off and on, but he doesn't know specifics of the doctor's deposition. Dr. Finkelstein said he gave MJ painkillers after the concert in Bangkok following Michael's scalp surgery. In Gongaware's video deposition:

"Did you ever ask Dr. Finkelstein if he treated Michael during the Dangerous tour?"
"He wouldn't talk about that stuff"

Another part of Gongaware's video depo:

He said yes, he "occasionally treated Michael Jackson on the Dangerous tour"
Panish: "Were you always honest with Michael?"
Gongaware: "I believe I was"
Panish: "Did you throw around numbers to trick Michael Jackson?"
Gongaware: "I didn't try to trick Michael"

Panish elicited contradictory testimony asking over and over about Gongaware's memory, how long he spent with lawyers to discuss testimony.
On the Bad Tour MJ sold out 10 stadiums at 75,000 tickets per night.

Panish: "That's a pretty big number?"
Gongaware: "Huge"
Panish: "In 2 hours, how many tickets sold?"
Gongaware: "In initial presale we sold 31 shows"
Panish: "The fastest you had ever seen?"
Gongaware: "Yes"
"No one knows how many shows we can get with Mikey," said Gongaware.

Panish asked about name "Mikey" - he said he used it occasionally
Email on 2/27/09 from Gongaware to Phillips:

"We are holding all of the risk, if Michael won't approve it we go without his approval.We let Mikey know just what it will cost him in terms of him making money, and then we go with or without him in London. We cannot be forced into stopping this, which Michael will try to do because he is lazy and constantly changes his mind to fit his immediate wants"

Gongaware said his use "Mikey" was affectionate, not disparaging, and that the 'lazy' crack amounted to "poor choice of words" but one that accurately reflected how Michael

"really didn't like to rehearse. He didn't like to do these kinds of things."

​

"People were aware at this point there would be a press conference. Michael wouldn't show up at the conference, it'd cost money," Gongaware said. "It wasn't much risk at all, we hadn't spent money," Gongaware said about that point of the tour. This was prior to news conference.

Gongaware said the situation in London, where they constantly referred to Michael as "Wacko Jacko" would impact marketability to sell tickets

"He doesn't want to do this kind of things, but it was important to show Michael to the world if he wanted to do a show," Gongaware explained

Jurors were shown several e-mails from Gongaware that Jackson lawyers suggested were evidence that AEG Live deliberately misled Jackson about how much money he would make from his comeback concerts and how many days he would have to rest between shows. Gongaware wrote to his boss, AEG Live President Randy Phillips, that they should present gross ticket sales numbers to Jackson, not the percentage of the net profits, during contract talks.

"Maybe gross is a better number to throw around if we use numbers with Mikey listening"

Panish talked about an email Gongaware sent to his secretary suggesting that she design a concert calendar for Jackson using light tan colors for show dates, while drawing attention to his rest days
Don't want the shows to stand out too much when Michael looks at it.Less contrast between work and off. Maybe off days in a contrasting soft color. Put 'OFF' in each off day after July 8, as well. Figure it out so it looks like he's not working so much.

Panish: "Did you want to change the color of the schedule to show Michael would not be working so hard?"
Gongaware: "Yes"
Panish: "Were you trying to fool him?"
Gongaware: "Nah, I wasn't trying to fool him, I wanted to present it in the best possible light"

Gongaware said it would be obvious when Michael would be working and not and he wasn't trying to trick him.
Email on 3/25/09 from Phillips to Gongaware:

"We need to pull the plug now. I will explain"
Panish: "Mr. Phillips wanted to pull the plug on the show, right sir?"
Gongaware: "I think he was referring to pull the plug on Karen Faye. We never talked about pulling the plug on the tour. Not that I recall"
"Kenny wanted the pull because the way she (Faye) handled situations," Gongaware explained. "She tried to control access to Michael and Kenny didn't like that"

Karen Faye expressed strong opinion that the tour as dangerous and impractical for MJ. Panish asked about a chain of emails where Gongaware said the pulling the plug refers to Ms. Faye.

"I believe he was," Gongaware repeated.

In another March 25, 2009, email, Ortega wrote Gongaware that it was Faye's

"strong opinion that this is dangerous and impractical with consideration to Michael's health and ability to perform"

​

"I thought he was in good shape at the press conference, I was there," Gongaware said at the deposition. Gongaware was at O2 arena and Phillips was with Michael.
"Michael was late, Randy [Phillips] was saying I'm trying to get him going, I'm trying to get him going".
Panish: "Did Randy tell you MJ was drunk and despondent?"
Gongaware: "No, not drunk and despondent. Just said he was having hard time getting him going"

As to Dr. Conrad Murray, Gongaware said there was 1 rehearsal he said hello to him.

"It was basically a hello, on the floor at the Forum. Mikey asked me to retain him. I never hired him"

Panish played an interview of Phillips to SkyTV after Michael died:

"The guy is willing 2 leave his practice for large sum of money, so we hired him"
"I was told Michael wanted him as his doctor for the show," Gongaware said. Gongaware said Michael did not have any illness that he knew of.
Gongaware: "He had taken a physical, he passed the physical and from what I understand there was nothing wrong with him. Maybe some hay fever"
Panish: "Do you know what his blood test showed?"
Gongaware: "It showed it was good"

Gongaware said he received an email from Bob Taylor that everything was fine and that Michael had passed the physical. Gongaware said he never saw the results of the tests and doesn't know who saw them.
Panish showed video deposition of Gongaware and a declaration he signed about a month before giving the deposition. They contradict themselves.At first, Gongaware insisted he did no negotiating with Murray, but, confronted with emails and his previous testimony, he changed his position and said

"The only thing I did with Dr. Murray was negotiate a price." Gongaware said that neither he nor anyone at the AEG investigated Murray's background or credentials
Panish: "First you said how much did you want?"(to Dr. Murray)
Gongaware: "Yes"
Panish: "He said he wanted $5 million, right?"
Gongaware: "That's what he said. He said he had four clinics he would have to close, he would have to lay people off"

Gongaware said Dr. Murray had been Michael's personal doctor for the past 3 years. He said he did not know how many times MJ had seen the doctor.

"Michael insisted on him, recommended him, and that was good enough for me, it was not for me to tell him who his doctor should be" Gongaware said
"The fact that he had been Michael Jackson's personal physician for three years was good enough for me," Gongaware said.

He said that Murray initially asked for $5 million to travel to London with Jackson and tend to him during the tour.

"I just told him it wasn't going to happen," he said, recalling that Jackson then suggested offering him $150,000 a month.

​

"Michael Jackson insisted on it and recommended him and it was not for me to tell him no," said Gongaware. "I wanted to provide what was necessary for him to do his job...He wanted a doctor and I wanted him to be healthy."

Even after the offer of $150,000, Murray wasn't satisfied.

"He started saying he wanted more and I said, 'The offer is coming directly from the artist," Gongaware said.

Minutes later, he said Murray accepted.

"Did that seem desperate to you?" asked Panish.
"No," said Gongaware. "He just accepted Michael's offer."
"We agreed on what the compensation was going to be, but there were a lot of issues to be resolved," Gongaware said.

Gongaware said he recalled meeting with Dr. Murray where he was told the doctor was going to take care of the medical licensing in London. Gongaware and Timm Wooley are longtime friends. They are currently working on The Rolling Stones tour. Gongaware said he negotiated the price for Dr. Murray, but didn't negotiate the contract. Gongaware explained that he didn't do the negotiation, he would normally refer that to Wooley.
Dr. Finkelstein and Gongaware have been friends for 35-plus years. Gongaware said he never offered Dr. Finkelstein the job of being MJ's doctor and said the doctor would be mistaken if he testified otherwise. Gongaware told the jury he called Dr. Finkelstein to ask what a fair price for a tour doctor would be. Doctor told him it was $10,000/week. As to Dr. Finkelstein wanting to be the tour doctor, Gongaware said he didn't recall specifically, but knew he wanted it.

"After his death we may have talked, but I don't recall specifics," Gongaware said.

Gongaware said he sees Dr. Finkelstein a few times a year, but the subject of Michael never came up. Panish asked Gongaware if Dr. Finkelstein wanted to know if Michael was clean or using drugs. Gongaware said he didn't recall the conversation

Panish asked: "You could have told Dr. Murray at any time that his services were no longer needed, couldn't you?"
"No", Gongaware replied.
Panish: "You were involved in terminating one of the nannies who took care of Michael's kids?"
Gongaware: "Yes"

Gongaware told nanny, Grace Rwamba, that her services would not be needed anymore because AEG was cutting down on Michael's expenses

"I never read the contract, I was there when Michael signed it, but didn't see what was in it," Gongaware said, "Doctor Murray was 100% Michael's cost"

Based on the contract, Gongaware said 95% of the production expenses were Michael's responsibility, 5% AEG.

Panish: "Who decided there was a need for a written contract with Dr. Murray?"
Gongaware: "I don't know"

Gongaware said that if the tour went forward, Dr. Murray would've made $1.5 million for 10 months. Ortega would've made almost that.
Gongaware said although AEG never did a background check on Murray, in his view they had "checked out" the doctor according to their standard practices.

"When we check out someone, we either rely on if we know the person or if they're known in the industry or if they're recommended by the artist & in this case, Dr. Murray was recommended by the artist, in fact, the artist insisted"

Panish pressed Gongaware:

"You did nothing to verify anything about Dr. Murray, isn't that true, sir?"

Panish asked Gongaware if he approved budgets for April-July including Dr. Murray as production expense. He said he didn't know which budgets he approved. "It's my job to get that show on the road," Gongaware said.
Gongaware said he had to know how much the production had spent at any given time, but didn't have time to read the budget.

Panish: "Do you think you're good at your job, sir?"
Gongaware: "Yes"
Panish: "Very good?"
Gongaware: "I think so"

Gongaware testified that he didn't pay attention to the tour budgets that he approved, even though he was the tour manager.Paul Gongaware said he didn't read through the budgets, instead trusting that the tour accountant knew what he was talking about.
Gongaware testified that Dr. Murray's salary, although included in the company's budget for several months, wasn't something he saw as an actual payment that would be made.

"If there's a potential for cost we put it in our budget so there are no surprises later", he said.

Gongaware often pleaded poor memory of events. He said he may have met with Jackson as many as 10 times, but could remember only two of the meetings and only one when Murray was present
Gongaware said he doesn't remember how many meetings he attended at Carolwood house. He didn't recall a meeting where a vase was broken.

"There was a meeting where he signed the contract," Gongaware recalled, saying there were more but he doesn't remember specifics.

At the meeting in early June, Gongaware said he was present along with Kenny, Randy, Frank DiLeo, Dr. Murray and Michael.

"The meeting was about making sure Michael and Dr. Murray had everything they needed to care for Michael," Gongaware explained

​

"Yes, we did talk about health-related issues. It was more a general meeting about what Dr. Murray would need", Gongaware said.

He had told the police the topic of the meeting was Jackson's overall health ( i.e., diet, stamina and his weight)
He remembered that Jackson arrived late from a doctor's appointment and had slurred speech. Gongaware said Michael Jackson "was a bit off".

"He was just coming back from visiting Dr. Klein. I believe he was under the influence of something. That was the only time I saw him like that", Gongaware said.

Jackson had missed a rehearsal and was thought to be dancing at home. However they discovered he was only watching video. Doctor Murray was receptive to their concerns and indicated he would take care of the situation
Court Transcript
Paul Gongaware Video Deposition (12/20/12)

We just got back from a long Memorial Day weekend trip to Disneyland and wanted to share some thoughts. We've been to WDW many times over the years, but this was our first time visiting Anaheim.
Before our trip I read Richard Snow's book "Disney's Land" which is a great work on Disneyland from its original idea through construction and following opening day (highly recommend this book to anyone interested in Disney history).
Pros - The food is unequivocally better in DLR. I overdosed on specialty churros, Pixar Fest booths, and just regular park fare. - The "locals vibe" is very much a thing. The parks are much more laid back than WDW, which has a frenetic pace due to the volume of people on a once in a lifetime vacation trying to cram everything in and running everywhere, so the relaxed pace was great. - Several of the rides were better than their WDW counterparts. Space Mountain (especially with the SW overlay), Guardians > ToT, Radiator Springs Racers > Test Track, Pirates, Autopia, et al. - Walkability of the parks is great given their smaller size, which makes Genie+ more bearable than WDW (which will criss-cross you all over the park due to return times). - DCA is an extremely underrated park. It's as if they combined the best parts of Epcot and Hollywood Studios together into one park. We were in Anaheim for 3 full days and anticipate doing DL day 1, DCA day 2, and DL day 3, but we ended up loving DCA so much that we opted to change our reservation on day 3 to DCA. - Goes without saying, but the weather is infinitely better in SoCal than Orlando. We wore sweatshirts most of the time, whereas it was in the high 90s and sweltering in Orlando this past weekend. - Cars Land is probably the best insertion of IP into a theme park, ever. Just incredible.
Cons - I found myself missing the 'Disney bubble' quite a bit when I was in Anaheim. In Orlando you're immersed into a different world the minute you drive through the archway, and I didn't realize how much l'd miss that. Resort hopping isn't a thing like it is in WDW beyond plopping in the GCH lobby for a few or briefly visiting the DLH. - Similarly, there doesn't seem to be a real benefit to staying on property at DLR beyond the 30 minute early entry, though it's now only applicable to one park on a rotating basis. - We found Main Street USA to be underwhelming. Granted, that's moreso due to the limitations they faced when building the park which they did not have 16 years later when building MK, but it doesn’t have the same magic as Main Street USA in MK. - The park isn't laid out as well as WDW is in terms of navigability. To the point about the castle's size, in WDW you can use the castle spires to calibrate yourself directionally, so we found ourselves getting lost a bit (albeit briefly) in Disneyland. - The fireworks were underwhelming compared to WDW, though that's understandable due to ordnances and the constraints of being in the middle of a city. - We found Genie+ a bit more difficult to work in DL and there are fewer rides on G+ as opposed to WDW, so its value is so-so.
All in all we had a great time, and we're glad we had the opportunity to visit the original park and see and feel Walt's influence. There were a multitude of things we enjoyed; however, we found ourselves missing WDW and making plans for an Orlando trip as we were leaving.

We just got back from a long Memorial Day weekend trip to Disneyland and wanted to share some thoughts. We’ve been to WDW many times over the years, but this was our first time visiting Anaheim. Before our trip I read Richard Snow’s book “Disney’s Land” which is a great work on Disneyland from its original idea through construction and following opening day (highly recommend this book to anyone interested in Disney history).
Pros - The food is unequivocally better in DLR. I overdosed on specialty churros, Pixar Fest booths, and just regular park fare. - The “locals vibe” is very much a thing. The parks are much more laid back than WDW, which has a frenetic pace due to the volume of people on a once in a lifetime vacation trying to cram everything in and running everywhere, so the relaxed pace was great. - Several of the rides were better than their WDW counterparts. Space Mountain (especially with the SW overlay), Guardians > ToT, Radiator Springs Racers > Test Track, Pirates, Autopia, et al. - Walkability of the parks is great given their smaller size, which makes Genie+ more bearable than WDW (which will criss-cross you all over the park due to return times). - DCA is an extremely underrated park. It’s as if they combined the best parts of Epcot and Hollywood Studios together into one park. We were in Anaheim for 3 full days and anticipated doing DL day 1, DCA day 2, and DL day 3, but we ended up loving DCA so much that we opted to change our plans on day 3 to spend an extra day in DCA. - Goes without saying, but the weather is infinitely better in SoCal than Orlando. We wore sweatshirts most of the time, whereas it was in the high 90s and sweltering in Orlando this past weekend. - Cars Land is probably the best insertion of IP into a theme park, ever. Just incredible.
Cons - I found myself missing the ‘Disney bubble’ quite a bit when I was in Anaheim. In Orlando you’re immersed into a different world the minute you drive through the archway, and I didn’t realize how much I’d miss that. Resort hopping isn’t a thing like it is in WDW beyond plopping in the GCH lobby for a few or briefly visiting the DLH. - Similarly, there doesn’t seem to be a real benefit to staying on property at DLR beyond the 30 minute early entry, though it’s now only applicable to one park on a rotating basis. - We found Main Street USA to be underwhelming. Granted, that’s moreso due to the limitations they faced when building the park, which they did not have 16 years later when building MK. - The park isn’t laid out as well as WDW is in terms of navigability. To the point about the castle’s size, in WDW you can use the castle spires to calibrate yourself directionally, so we found ourselves getting lost a bit (albeit briefly) in Disneyland. - The fireworks were underwhelming compared to WDW but that’s understandable due to ordnances and the constraints of being in the middle of a city.
All in all we had a great time, and we’re glad we had the opportunity to visit the original park and see and feel Walt’s influence. There were a multitude of things we enjoyed; however, we found ourselves missing WDW and making plans for an Orlando trip as we were leaving.

Hey y'all, this is gonna be a long one. Obligatory on phone so layout may be weird.
Before I get started, I think it's important to give some background. Me (N) and my partner (X) have been together for two years, nearing 3. This will be really long, so idk read at your own risk I guess.
At the time we got engaged, I honestly didn't know his family super well. We had met and everything, don't get me wrong, but as they live a fair distance away - neither of us drive, I have a chronic pain condition too so there wasn't/isn't a lot of opportunities for us to see them so I just didn't know them very well and would say personally that, that's still the case.
At the time we got engaged, BIL (his biological brother) and SIL (now married to biological brother) got SUPER mad at us for getting engaged and that we had begun wedding planning already. They were mad because their wedding was around 3-4 months away roughly and they were very competitive, incredibly worried that we would get married before them. Which in my eyes is low key kinda nuts, you don't own the whole year, weddings or other people's proposals because you, yourself are getting married at some point. I'd understand their anger if my partner proposed actually at their wedding, week of or something like that but that's not what happened nor did we have our wedding before theirs nor did we plan to (which in my eyes, is honestly really immature to be worried about regardless).
For context, at the time we got engaged there was still a massive backlog from COVID-19 from all the weddings that had to be postponed etc, so we wouldn't have been able to get married before them anyway even if we wanted to. It would have been a 2 year wait minimum for us to be able to get married (we were engaged within first year of dating). We informed them of this. They were still pissed.
We were actually viewing our venue when BIL blowed up my partner's phone with angry texts, my partner innocently and excitedly told his family group chat and his brother got really reactive and sent really nasty private messages. Even though they (SIL & BIL) again, were aware that we were getting ahead of booking things due to the backlogs - not to get married before them.
It got kind of ugly and turned what was supposed to be a really exciting day for us, to be pretty shit and exhausting. I was so distraught that I almost didn't go for our venue at all because I was worried that all I'd be able to think of would be their irrational behaviour.
Fast forward, we were trying for a baby. We were successful, but I had a missed miscarriage. For those who may be unaware, and to put it in over-simplified terms, a missed miscarriage is when the body doesn't recognise that the pregnancy is no longer viable and it still grows but is dead but your body still produces all the symptoms of being pregnant and you basically have to wait to actually physically pass it.
His family knew that we had lost/was in the process of losing our baby and very closely after actually physically passing the baby and me almost dying in the process, SIL decided to send a photo of her kid in the our group chat with something along the lines of how she's so glad to be a mum/biased but so proud of her kid. (For reference the GC was just me, my partner, FIL, BIL and SIL). I was really upset at the time and thought it was inappropriate. I still do, as does my partner.
Our thought process is this: almost half of the group chat have just suffered losing their baby after a gruelling, cruel wait, almost died during it and you post that? Knowing we'd directly be sent that to our phones? When you could very easily send that picture & sentiment to FIL and BIL individually? I left the group chat, very clearly hurt. Neither she nor BIL apologised. Obviously, it was more her responsibility to apologise but neither of them did nor did they check in on me when I had left.
I'd like to believe that it wasn't intentional of her to do that, but I just don't get why she couldn't have sent it individually or why she didn't apologise when she clearly hurt me. Even if it was unintentional, when its something as hurtful and as big and as traumatic as this, you apologise. "It wasn't my intention, but I can see I really hurt you and I'm sorry." It's just not that hard. Right? It wasn't like she posted something on social media in general, it was something that was sent to our phones directly.
My partner was really mad at the time and wanted to say something, but because I was still new to the family and because of how they reacted about us getting engaged I told him to leave it be because I didn't trust that they'd be able to take accountability or that they were honestly safe people to talk to about this. I didn't think any good would have come from it whatsoever, we were dealing with enough as it was. Reduce contact and let it be.
Fast forward to now, their kids birthday is coming up. I brought a gift that is a little bit over the "allowed" amount as far as budget goes, but I did ask for permission before making the purchase months ago. They had forgotten they okayed it. No big deal right? Wrong. I tried reminding them about it & the fact it was previously okayed and SIL got really passive aggressive remarks made back to me about "if you really want to help, you'd use that money to go up to see us more" and saying I "broke a boundary" by purchasing a slightly more expensive gift. Despite the fact I got permission to do so prior to buying.
She knows this is largely not feasible for me and something I feel intense guilt about. It's not feasible just because of finances because sometimes there is cheap ways to get down there, but because I literally have a chronic pain condition and always have to overdose on pain meds just to be able to travel to see them at all and have very intense side effects of. They all drive and are able bodied btw, they don't come to see us either. They've literally came to us once, in the space of almost 3 years.
This was my partners breaking point, even though its kinda small, it's the straw that broke the camels back so to speak. It's just clear that she doesn't like me for whatever reason. Probably holding a grudge from the whole wedding/engagement thing, which is very petty tbh.
He called BIL, asked straight up why doesn't she like me. And listed everything I've mentioned now inc the engagement/wedding stuff and the miscarriage.
BIL got reactive again and said "WELL WE FORGOT!" In reference to the gift. Okay? But that's not on me? Passive aggressive comments don't need to be made towards me because YOU both forgot.
Then BIL made some really dismissive remarks about the miscarriage "when could we post then?" It wasn't a post. It was a direct message. A deliberate attempt to misrepresent and reframe the events to try and point score with an added bonus of trying to make me seem unreasonable/overtly sensitive imo. He said "it didn't happen a week after the miscarriage, it was a few weeks!" Not true either. It happened a few weeks after they were made aware that we were going to lose the baby, a week after we physically lost it. Not that it even matters or makes it any better, a few weeks still isn't a lot of time to grieve anyway.
BIL swears up and down that they have "no issues" with me. This has been nothing BUT issues. And he's really upset because I sometimes double text or sometimes add "unnecessary" information (context, I have autism and ADHD and sometimes struggle prioritising info when having to communicate it especially written format and sometimes double text if I forget stuff). They also take issue with me because I offered to buy their kid a backpack to go back to school? They declined and I didn't push it any further so I don't understand the upset.
So to put it in perspective, they think that them being upset over gifts that was previously approved, a backpack I offered and didn't push when declined and slightly annoying texting style due to disability is more reasonable and more justified to be upset about than us being upset over them making insensitive remarks about all things listed - included but not limited to the miscarriage.
So reddit, I ask WBITA if I told them not to come?

I was diagnosed with DSPD in 2018 (at the age of 19), & struggled with it, at least since my teens, probably even earlier, I've been back at my old job for 3 months now, & worked there for a month the 1st time, anyways, it's a morning job, starts around 9am & ends around 2pm or 3:30pm (depending on the day).
I've struggled to find work for a few years, & managed to find this job, which is a job training program for folks with high-functioning developmental disabilities, through the Regional Center (social services for developmental disabilities).
I wish I can just go to bed around 9 or 11pm, & wake up at 5am, 7am, or even 8am, I feel like I accomplish more in my life with that schedule, plus, I have weekly appointments (besides work), & they are usually around a 9-5 schedule, with a lot of them being in the morning.
I've taken Zzzquil, Trazadone, Zyprexa, Remeron, etc to help me sleep, & from what I've seen, it only works (usually) with a cocktail (zzzquil mixed with remeron), but it only works like that if I wake up before noon, the only solution that has managed to work is to pull an all-nighter, staying up all night until the next day (usually late afternoon or evening), then wake up at a appropriate time.
I've tried telling people about my condition, & they just talk out of their ass about it, & come up with all these remedies "I will give you trazadone for sleep" "try using no screen time before bed", "You drink energy drinks, that's the problem" "You need better sleep hygiene" you know BS like that, & it just frustrates, because guess what? I tried all of that, & here I am at almost 5am, I wish our condition was more well known, like how Autism has became more well known (thanks to the media), I have Aspergers BTW as well, & I'm just tired of this.
My sleep doc told me that using the bright light in the morning & melatonin in the evening, would help treat this, that it can take 8 weeks to finally take effect, the problem is that I don't always wake up at the same time, & from what I understand, the bright light has to be used around the same time, every day.

so i have a loooong story. i was on subs for years back when i was on my moms insurance. but ever since i turned 26 i can no longer be on her insurance + i have felonies on my record it is nearly impossible to get a job in my state (idaho) that isn't either kitchen work, construction, or call centers if you don't have your college degree completed (3 credits away from my AA trying very hard to finish it so i can become a peer support counselor to help other addicts like me) anyway my suboxone doctor is telling me if i fill my xanax script again she won't prescribe me subs anymore. which is crazy because the last three years Ive been on and off subs while doing fentanyl in between the periods of falling off the wagon. I never once had a problem with taking my subs with my xanax. but now that this is happening Im worried that she is going to see in my drug test that Ive been taking more xanax than usual because Ive started to get xanny bars off the street so i wont fill my script in order to get her to keep prescribing me subs. but deep down inside, i know that all of these problems could be solved if i could just get off subs. Ive tried to taper from 6mg to 4mg and that seems to work on some days, other days ill take a whole 8mg strip like i used to back in 2021- October, 2023. but either way it doesn't effect my xanax usage and i know its a liability on her part because if i were to overdose by combing those it would be her fault. but i know my limits. and i know she is just saying and doing this so it wont look bad for whoever runs this bullshit suboxone factory. they are more set on you taking suboxone (and only suboxone if youre like me which i take xanax for ptsd, gabapentin for anxiety and the fact that i got surgery on my left ankle last November. it still hurts a lot and subs help the pain as well as just daily getting through normal work, human interactions, group therapy, etc. Im scared if she takes me off subs ill relapse. Im hoping she would let me taper if that were the case. but does anyone have any ideas on how i can get better at tapering from the 6mg to the 4mg and then the 4mg to the 2 or 3mg? Im desperate to get off this stuff. i can deal with the broken bone pain in my leg. what i cant deal with is this stupid doctor trying to mess with the meds Ive been on for years. should i get a different sub doctor? should i keep trying to taper? there's a lot more to this story Im not comfortable saying on this post so you can message me if you want to hear the rest but any help would be very much appreciated... thank you guys. and happy belated memorial day!

Hello everyone,
I have really been feeling like I am the crazy one for this situation and I could honestly use a lot of help. My sister (32) and I (25) female had another fight yesterday about the same topic. Her mentioning that she might ask my ex to be her best men. So backstory: This ex and I met when I was 18 and he was 23 in a seaside town where we were both working summer jobs. I was working with my sister and we met him together on a night out because he lived with my sisters then fling. I was fresh out of highschool and I had just moved from my small town to the seaside to live and work with my sister in a hotel. I just wanted to earn some money before university and have some fun with my sister who I had just started building a real relationship with. She is 7 years older then me so it was hard for us to be close when I was younger and when I was around 17-18 we finally started becoming more like sisters and less like “mother and daughter” Our relationship has always been a bit strained because our parents worked a lot and she took care of me when I was younger which kind of made us more mother and daughter and less sisters. Our relationship was also strained because I feel like she always preferred and put her friends ahead of me. She always had more loyalty to them which made me both jelous and hurt and I have pointed that out to her multiple times but she always get amnesia and says she does not remember a certain situation. So we finally start building a relationship and we are going out and having fun and then meet THE EX. Mind you I did not notice him at first at all because I thought his roommate was kind of cute but the roommate was a bit of a player and I have never liked that. I have always dated the good guys who are a bit nerdy and loved sports and a healthy lifestyle. Nerdy athletes basically and I still consider that to be my type. So we start all hanging out as a group (my sister, our girlfriend, my sisters fling, the ex, and two more of their roommates). After maybe two weeks of hanging out with them my sister mentions that the ex might be the guy for me. I remember it vividly but she has amnesia about it. We were in our room and she was talking on the phone with our mom and she says that she thinks she has found the guy for me and I was sitting there dumbfounded because I had no idea who she meant and the she says she meant him and after that i started noticing him more and he was really sweet towards me. He basically courted me by buying me a rose every other night and on other nights he would bring me mu favorite chocolates and after a while I fell for him and we got together. Even tho we both knew that I was moving to a different country for university but it was no big deal because the city I was moving to was an 1.5 hour drive from the city he lived in (he was from said country) Side-note he is called the ex because he was my first serious relationship and my first well everything. So in the beginning everything was really good but he was into big gestures (i will sound like a bitch now but after two weeks of dating he got a tattoo of my lips and he moved cities for me after a month of us dating ) which deep down scared the shit out of me and he moved really fast but everyone told me how lucky I am and that I should be grateful so I complied. And I also felt really guilty because he worked really hard as a waiter in the new city and I just started university. He was really supportive of me and I felt so grateful. But before he moved I told him that university was truly my number one priority and I needed to know if he was okey with coming second. And he was fine with that. I did not notice things at first like him saying I should not wear makeup when I am coming over to his place because I did not need to waste my time on that (even tho putting on makeup had basically been my morning ritual for the past 4 years) and I agreed with him. Then it was that I should take the earliest bus in the morning so I could come to his apartment before he wakes up and make him coffee and we could have morning coffee together and i did not see anything wrong with that in the beginning. But every morning he would find an excuse to lecture me on something I was doing wrong and then he would say ‘Sorry I am just not a morning person’ and I just accepted that because I was supposed to be grateful for what he had done for me (the move) and how hard that was for him (i got reminded quite often. The next thing he got angry that I put on makeup when I went out to meet up with a girlfriend from university. The he told me he was jealous if I spent time with anyone but him. His sentence was ‘even if you were walking a dog I would b jelous because he is spending time with you and I am not’ Then he asked that I take the latest bus home which was around midnight so we could spend time after his shift. Mind you I was already getting up before 7 am to fulfill his previous request and I was juggling classes and studying and I had moved to a different country and a big city. And I just did not want to fight with him so I kept giving in to everything. Mind you I am usually not a pushover and I am quite argumentative actually, it is why I was studying law Next situation I dyed my hair dark (i have naturally brown hair) but I wanted darker and he had called me names and humiliated me until i started crying and could not listen anymore. Then he would console me and I would accept that. I have no idea what the fuck I was thinking. That is when I started noticing that there was a lot of situations of me giving and giving and him just fucking taking and behaving entitled. He would make a scene if I was freaking offline during classes. His previous girlfriend had cheated on him and he caught her and he beat the shit out of her and humiliated her in public whenever they ran into each other. And he told me this story around the middle of our relationship when I was starting to notice that he was not a stable person. I think he saw that I was noticing his behaviors and used this as like a scare tactic and to like get sympathy because he was playing it like it was not his fault that he as this way. And he didi that all the time. It was basically everybody else’s fault that he was being shit towards me. The first time I tried to break up was after that and he made it seem like he would do something to himself and he even used his little nephews to guilt me into staying (he said things like that they would never see him again) I was really young and before him I had only dated sweet teenage boys and he had so much experience in life and he had to grow up really early in life because of his unstable family. He was 24 by this time but he could be compared d to a 30 something men when it came to life experience and knowledge. So I stayed. It was the same old same old after that. Studying and him. Studying and him. Being emotionally abused and telling mu family everything was a okey. I was doing really well in o school and to them that was like the proof that backed up my words. End of spring came and he decided that he would go to the seaside again to live with my sister and earn more money. The pay there was a lot better. I was not able to go because my university had exams in both July and at the end of August and in September. The school system was just set up like that. So ‘we’ decided that I would just visit after the exams in July and that I would study there for my next exams. This is where he fucked up mine and my sisters relationship. Every day he would find something to be angry about some new or old thing that I was doing wrong and I felt like the worst person and the worst girlfriend ever. My self-esteem was crumbled by this point. I have no idea how i could let that happen because before him I did have insecurities like any other teenager but I always made sure appear confident and unfazed (something I learned from my sister because she was old school tough love type of person where showing emotions is showing weakness and you could not allow yourself that) For a month I let him belittle me almost every day over the phone and it was hard and painful and I cried more times that I care to admit but I am also very grateful for that period of time bcause it helped me clear my mind and se him for what he truly was which was an overall shit person. I finally starts to realize that the way he treated me and what he did was not okey. He lied so many times, manipulated me and made me seem and feel like a crazy person. One part of the story comes full circle now because the same tactics he used on me to gain my sympathy he reused on my sister. He honestly had all the ammunition here from all the knowledge i had given him because i trusted him completely with all my insecurities and all my problems that i opened up to him about my relationship with her and our problems. He used all of that knowledge to basically make my sister believe that i was the asshole and i spent a lot of time going over ever single detail of that relationship and questioning if maybe i was this shit girlfriend. Basic example There was this situation where he told her that i just randomly sent him screenshots of every name in my dms and she got really angry with me saying shit like i was provoking him or trying to make him jealous. She just went of his words and attacked me but when I sent her a screenshot of my chat with him where he is demanding i sent him those names she just brushed me off and blamed me still. She got amnesia of that event as well. I tried to break up a few more times in the next month but it wasn’t sticking because either his sister would get involved or his mother or my sister and every time I would budge and give him another chance. It got really bad for me in that period because I was so unwell mentally i even fucked up my exams for the first time ever which alerted my family that something was wrong with me. After talking to a family member who lost her friend because a crazy jealous boyfriend I really decided that i could not do it any longer. I was exhausted. On the night I told him we were really done for good my sister was out with some friends and he was alone in their apartment. The following happened: he told me he took pills and then he told me that he was drinking after that. Alone in the apartment. When I finally got a hold of him on video call I was fucking traumatized because he was barely speaking, couldn’t hold his head up, drugged up with alcohol set up in-front of him and this time he told me that he wanted to hurt himself which really scared me and I immediately called my sister and asked her to go back to the apartment and help him. I was in a different country and I was scared and my sister was behaving like I was lying, being dramatic and overly emotional and i was just messing up her night with her girlfriends and being an overall burden but eventually she got that i was really scared and went to him. By this time he had hung up on me and i could not reach him. When she finally did get to him and i did get a hold of him he was behaving differently. Previously he behaved like he was a step away from overdosing on something and passing away. But with my sister he behaved like he was better just really drunk but from what he told me he had a lot of pills and not a lot of alcohol. To her he said that he took like maybe two pain killers at work hour ago and forgot so when he had a beer after work he got really sick. To me he said he wanted to end it to her he basically went oopsies and made me seem like mental case. And with her track record of always putting her friends before me and always believing them/siding with them (which he knew about because I freaking told him that that was the problem in hers and mine relationship) you can all guess who she believed. The overly emotional 19 yearold or her bff. After witnessing him telling me one thing and then making my sister believe i was a liar and crazy I was completely done with him. He disgusted me. There were instances of him trying to get back into my life there were presents being sent to my address and flowers and chocolates like when he was ‘wooing’ me. He even showed up in the city but i would not see him then he moved back to the city i fucking hated going anywhere round the city for the longest time because i just did not want to run into him. I blocked him on every number and every account. Even his mother harassed me and told me how it was all my fault that her baby boy was not okey.that hurt a lot because i really loved his family especially his mother and older sister. I have left out other moments of abuse because i just did not want to go into those details and memories again. I have been trying not to paint myself as a victim nor have i been saying that i am perfect because i truly am not but i really did give my all to that relationship and truly did my best. He remained one of my sisters closest friends and he became a really sore subject for her and I. Overtime I moved on she even invite him over to our home multiple times and I behaved normally and have never made him feel unwelcome even tho he made me feel uncomfortable and had inappropriate comments about my body when other could not hear him. Just gross shit about how he could remember this and that and I was looking good and reminded him of stuff. He was in a another relationship at that time and he even followed me on insta from a different profile and asked me out while his girlfriend was out of down i turned him down. My sister behaved like that was no big deal. She hung out with him and his new girlfriend and went out with them and mentioned them to me even tho i did not ask nor didi i care to know because i was busy with school and my friends which I finally made. The only thing that hurt me was my sister behaving like I had done him wrong and he deserved happiness and all things good and I was the bad guy. It really hurt that someone she knew for a few years had that level of her loyalty and devotion and I did not. So now it is years later and honestly I do not care about his existence the only reason I know he married that girl and had a kid is because my sister went to his wedding and I even did her makeup, took pictures of her and I honestly felt nothing about the whole thing. I did not care if she mentioned him and went to the city where he now lives to visit him. Now my sister is finally in a happy relationship with a guy I really adore and look up to as a brother. They have moved in together and will be getting married next year. Which I am extremely excited for because her and my relationship is so much better now that my ex is far far away. We workout together and we even worked together and it is mostly really good. We have small disagreements like all sister but it is all in the realm of normal sister behavior. But we never resolved out conflict about my ex and probably will never resolve it. She knows I do not care if they are friends and I have proven that by my actions and behavior. I do have a problem with her asking him to be her best men because where we are from the best men is very important he basically becomes the equivalent of a close blood relative. Family. She has mentioned it in passing a few times that he is on the short list for that title and we have had disagreements about it. She believes that I have not moved on and am holding onto the past and holding a grudge. But I disagree because I believe that you can and should move on but you should not just forgive and forget. I believe that i have moved on but i will not just forget that someone was a bad person towards me. And my biggest problem here is that I was completely fine with him coming to the wedding but i am not okey with my sister making him family. They don’t event talk often from what I understand nor do they seen each other more then once maybe once or twice a year. She has friends that have been in her life for more then 15 years and still are more involved then him. I know this is her special day believe me, but I also know that I have always adored my sister and looked up to her and been loyal to her. I believe it is okey for me to ask her not to turn my ex into family. Am I the asshole?

TLDR: Here is everything I've tried for suspected hydrogen/methane SIBO. This is not medical advice intended to treat or diagnose anyone, just my own case study.
I didn't take all of these at once, I usually took no more than 2-4 herbs at a time. For extra liver safety when taking multiple herbs at once, look up CYP interactions between the herbs and any existing medications you take and avoid taking combinations that might interact (or consult with your doctor). Most of the supplements I used are from Thorne Research, Pure Encapsulations, Metagenics, Organic India, Life Extensions, and Designs for Health. Research your brands carefully; the supplement industry is largely unregulated.

Helpful

Bolded are the most helpful; interventions in which I noticed a difference almost immediately.
Herbals:

• Berberine (works best on empty stomach)
• Allicin (works best on empty stomach for me, but causes reflux and gastritis after awhile so I can only take it for a couple of weeks at a time)
• Neem (1000mg, with meal)
• Oil of Oregano (Very strong...I caution against jumping to this one immediately. I always took with meals since I couldn't tolerate this on an empty stomach.)
• Olive leaf extract (empty stomach)
• Grape seed extract (empty stomach)
• Nigella sativa extract (empty stomach)
• Milk thistle (silymarin)

Motility agents:

• Ginger (specifically MotilPro, but it eventually caused heartburn and LPR for me so I had to stop)
• Triphala (empty stomach)
• Magnesium citrate (up to 400mg per day, although I usually take 100-200mg, or 300mg at most)
• Artichoke extract (empty stomach)
• MCT oil (i'd take a teaspoonful whenever i was feeling particularly backed up, as an emergency treatment)
• spoonful of olive oil on empty stomach in the morning
• dark chocolate (Double edged sword as this also increased histamine reactions for me. Also need to be careful what dark chocolate you buy because many sources of chocolate have high levels of heavy metals in them.)

Fiber supplements:

• Bimuno
• Sunfiber

Digestive aids:

• Betaine HCl with pepsin (I was taking up to 6 500mg pills per meal at one point, and tapered slowly off of that as I started producing more stomach acid. Stress also lowers the amount of stomach acid you produce. The die-off from taking 1 pill of this for the first time frightened me and I almost didn't try it again, I got very dizzy and almost felt like I was going to faint. I'm very glad I tried again.)

Lifestyle changes:

• EMDR or IBS focused meditation
• Walking, running, or other forms of low/medium impact cardio exercise
• Squats/deadlifts (can trigger bowel movements)
• Sleeping before 1am
• Sleeping > 6 hours a night
• Not eating 3-4 hours before bed
• No snacks between meals (good for motility)
• Whatever activities or changes you can do in your life to reduce stress
• Singing or karaoke (stimulates vagus nerve, self-soothing)

Dietary changes:

• Avoiding dairy (How do you think methanogens got into your gut?)
• Increase variety of plant foods - eat the rainbow, and eat organic if possible, or at least avoid the Dirty Dozen
• Specific foods that encourage the growth of beneficial bacteria in your gut microbiome: walnuts, kiwi, pomegranate, broccoli sprouts, legumes (lentils and green peas being two of the most easily tolerated ones, especially if you didn't previously eat a lot of legumes), sweet potatoes, spices (black peppercorn). There are many more beneficial whole foods, these are just some of my favorites that I try to eat every couple of days.
• Eating something like the mediterranean diet (low to medium fat, low to medium protein, medium low-glycemic carb intake, high in fiber, plants, spices, fruits, and polyphenols) turns out to be healthiest for your gut microbiome - everything in moderation, no major restrictions in diet

Probiotics:
I am especially picky with probiotics because I noticed increased histamine/MCAS-like reactions to some probiotics that I've taken in the past. I try not to take any probiotics these days that aren't single-strain. The strands below should all be non-histamine producing or releasing strains.

• B. longum bb563
• B. coagulans MTCC 5856 (Lactospore)
• B. infantis
• S. Boulardii CNCM I-745 (Florastor)

Biofilm buster:

• Nattokinase (be careful taking this if you're on blood thinners)

Didn't notice a big difference, but potentially helpful

Bolded are interventions that I felt were more on the "potentially helpful" end of "no difference" for digestive issues, or things that I would consider trying again. Some of these I took for their adaptogen or mood-boosting effects, hoping that it would lessen stress and help with stomach pain or reflux, but ultimately I didn't notice a huge change from taking them. I'm no longer taking most of these, and of the ones I've continued taking, I'm taking them for reasons other than digestive health.
Herbals:

• Atrantil (2x pills per meal)
• Andrographis
• Artemisinin (another one to be careful of taking long-term, i suggest no more than 2 weeks at the most)
• Fenugreek
• Asafoetida (mostly used in cooking, great for making legumes easier to tolerate)
• Cinnamon
• Parsley oil
• Quercetin (helped with increased histamine reactions caused by probiotics but didn't do much for stomach problems)
• Gymnostemma
• Pomegranate extract (Some research actually shows that this can decrease acidity in your stomach, so be careful about taking it if you already suspect low acid. I always take this for a couple of days when I notice any gastritis symptoms and it helps a lot with that.)
• Green tea extract
• Sulforaphane (careful taking this for longer than 2-3 weeks at a time, stop immediately if you start feeling any pain in your liver)
• Apigenin
• Tumeric/Curcumin (caused increased reflux for me too)
• Cranberry extract
• Ashwagandha
• Mushrooms (reishi, lion's mane, chaga, turkey tail - some of these actually increased constipation for me)
• Astaxanthin
• Bittermelon extract
• Deglycyrrhizinated Licorice
• Slippery elm
• Marshmallow extract
• Aloe Vera extract

Fiber:

• Arabinogalactan
• Acacia fiber
• Glucomannan
• Apple pectin
• Flax seed fiber
• Psyllium husk (Taking too much of this (or any fiber) can actually increase constipation too.)
• Beta-glucan
• HMOs
• Modified citrus pectin

Other supplements:

• Inositol (Didn't have any particular improvement in digestive issues, but I've continued taking after noticing increased mood and wellbeing)
• Colostrum (empty stomach in the morning)
• Magnesium L-threonate
• Magnesium glycinate (hoping it would help with sleep, but didn't really notice much benefit)
• L-glutamine
• Vitamin C (reducing severity of histamine reactions)
• Iodine + Selenium
• Zinc L-Carnitine
• Vitamin B12 (I still take about 1000mg once a week, just because I don't eat that much meat)
• Vitamin D3 + K2 (I still take this because I don't get that much sunlight)
• Omega 3 Fish Oil
• Phosphatidylcholine
• Ubiquinol
• D-Limonene (tried for acid reflux)
• Sodium Alginate (tried for acid reflux)

Digestive aids:

• Swedish bitters
• Digestive enzymes
• Beano

Biofilm busters:

• Serrapeptase
• Klaire Labs Interfase Plus

Probiotics:

• Biogaia L. reuteri DSM 17938 (I made yogurt with this too and also didn't notice a huge difference...it may have actually increased my gas a little, as many lactobacilli seem to do)
• Pendulum Akkermansia (there's chicory inulin in this as a prebiotic which might cause some symptoms for people)
• B. subtilis
• Other various bifidobacterium strains

Possibly harmful

• Any lactic acid bacteria probiotics or fermented foods - kefir, kimchi, yogurt, sauerkraut
• Processed foods
• Seed oils
• Sugar alcohols (sorbitol found in prunes and apricots are often used to trigger bowel movements, but it doesn't seem to be good for you long term)
• Artificial sweeteners and even some natural sweeteners (stevia!)
• Inulin, FOS (feeds everything, including fermenting bacteria)
• Long-term FODMAP diet (reduces diversity of your gut microbiome over time)
• Low salt diet (Sodium chloride is one of your main sources of chloride. Guess what your stomach needs to produce HCl? That's right: chloride!)
• Melatonin (severely slows down gut motility and causes constipation for me whenever I take it, even at <1mg)
• THC/CBD (also slows down gut motility)
• Alcohol (literally poison for your gut microbiome...i indulge rarely, and only socially)
• Metagenic MegaSporeBiotic (caused me to have histamine reactions that lasted even after I stopped taking them)
• Overdosing on laxatives/increasing gut motility to the point of diarrhea

Didn't try but would consider doing in the future

• TUDCA
• Xifaxan/Rifaximin (I was never offered this or any other antibiotics by any of my doctors. I could probably have gotten even more second opinions or pushed harder, but I wanted to see if herbals worked first.)
• Phage-based probiotics
• Lactoferrin
• Moringa
• Tulsi
• More herbals (There are many more herbals out there that I haven't heard of or researched yet.)
• Prolonged fasting up to 2-3 days (Unsure about this, as research shows that fasting can increase Akkermansia...but interestingly, it also increases methanogen presence in the gut. The gut bacteria of anorexia patients is enriched in methanogens as well.)
• Elemental diet (I also think of this as a last resort because it'll really kill the diversity in your gut microbiome)

This is a throwaway account and this post is a thank-you to this community and everyone who has shared their stories and approaches. If you take anything away from this, let it be that there is always hope as long as you're still alive, and "do your own research" - by which I mean, try to read actual scientific articles from pubmed or other journals to confirm what you're reading online or consult with medical professionals (google scholar is a great resource!). Above all, rely on your own judgement: don't abdicate your critical thinking to anything you read on the internet, including this post.
Here's my story. I was going through an intensely stressful period of my life 2 years ago, culminating in a junk food binge (I had nothing but ice cream, chips, and other processed foods for a week or two). Naively, I thought having some kimchi (probiotics are good right?) and various probiotics would make up for the recent binge. Soon after that I started having a bunch of symptoms:

• Extreme bloating after meals, sometimes I was so bloated I was nauseated
• Lots of burping, sometimes it would wake me up at night
• Very little flatulence, all the gas felt like it was trapped in my stomach or colon
• Constipation and a dull, nagging pain in lower left abdomen, near sigmoid colon (when constipated)
• Sleeping on my left side when gassy was uncomfortable and painful, it felt like I was lying on some sort of bubble, gas trapped near my splenic flexure
• Trouble taking a full breath when sleeping on my back
• Waking up in the morning with souacidic taste in my mouth and pain in the back of my throat from acid reflux due to increased gas
• Could not eat anything with FODMAPs in it without a lot of pain and suffering
• Increased allergies and histamine reactions
• Brain fog, fatigue and dizziness, especially after eating

I went to multiple doctors and gastroenterologists who just diagnosed me with IBS and told me to try the FODMAP diet. They refused to do diagnostic exams (endoscopy and colonoscopy) due to my younger age (mid 20s) and lack of occult blood in stool. I tested negative for H. Pylori, but I never ended up taking any SIBO-specific breath tests and mostly went by symptoms and how I felt. My guess was that I was mostly dealing with hydrogen and methane SIBO, as I never had sulfuric smelling gas or diarrhea (besides when I accidentally overused motility agents at various times).
I started with one of the standard herbal treatments recommended in this subreddit:

• Candibactin BR, 2x in the morning, 2x at night
• Candibactin AR, 1x with every meal

I did this for about 2-3 weeks and felt an almost immediate relief after the first week and a half, although the first couple of days were unbearable with increased die-off gas. In hindsight I'm not sure if I did the right thing going with oregano oil right off the bat. It's very strong and I think I may have permanently damaged my microbiome in some way, because after around 3 months of remission, I started to notice the constipation and pain in my sigmoid colon. What followed that was multiple rounds of different types of herbals as I reached a slightly more "stable" place and then relapsed repeatedly. I've listed all the things that I tried above. Most of my rounds were 4-6 weeks long, and then I'd take a break. Taking 2-4 herbs at a time seemed to be mostly safe as I had blood tests during my yearly physicals that showed no abnormalities and good liver numbers.
What were my root causes? I suspect high stress (slows gut motility, reduces production of stomach acid), improper use of lactic acid bacteria probiotics and fermented food (fermented food might be fine for people who don't have compromised gut motility, but the food just ended up sitting in my stomach and fermenting even more), and binging on dairy (big source of methanogens in the gut). All of my relapses can be traced back to attempts to fix things with lactic acid bacteria probiotics, fermented food, slipping and having dairy (one of my relapses was caused by a cheese binge!), or having another stressful period in my life where I'd start eating poorly, sleeping poorly, skipping meals, and not exercising.
After the most recent round, which was 5 months ago, I've been eating onions, garlic, and other FODMAPs with no problems. I have no major restrictions in my diet besides dairy: I eat nuts, fruit, meat, mushrooms, sweet potatoes, oatmeal, etc, many of which I used to find difficult to digest. I'm still taking Triphala, 100mg magnesium citrate, B. longum bb563, Bimuno, and Sunfiber supportively, but no antibiotic herbals. I've been tapering off the magnesium citrate (down from 300mg/day) and have started to taper off Triphala as well. Current schedule: fiber supplements + probiotics in the morning, magnesium citrate with my evening meal, Triphala on an empty stomach before bed.
Am I cured? I'm not sure...this might be something that I'll have to deal with again in the future. But I'm definitely feeling more optimistic than I've ever been about it, and each time I finish a round of herbals, I've noticed that I'm getting closer and closer to normal. So maybe one day! Good luck to everyone reading this!

Have you been disappointed and sad when you left the organization? I will give you a small background about myself so you can understand better. During our meetings it has always been said that people in the world wants to have sex almost all the time, the girls actually jumps on you, that you need to be very careful speaking with women. It is actually better if you don’t speak with them otherwise you will end up having sex with them. That everyone outside is dying by overdose, that you need to be careful because people offers you drugs for free, that everyone wants you to be drug addicted. When I left I was quite happy because i thought to have tons of sex with a lot of girls and have drugs , weed, cigarette beers and wine for free so easy! But then I discovered the truth, you need to work hard even to find a single girlfriend, drugs are expensive and no one give you for free.