Apparently this case got national attention in America in 1998, the murder of a girl Ryan Harris?
I just saw a mention of it the Connecticut Law Review (2022) From Interrogation to Truth: The Juvenile Custodial Interrogation, False Confessions, and How We Think about Kids in Trouble
which also mentions Brendan Dassey and btw says

the number of interrogations that occur every year—both for adults and juveniles—is a mystery. It is impossible to measure, either loosely or perhaps speculatively, how many interrogations occur every year and, therefore, impossible to track over time.

This is what Ryan's mother now says

The state had me so convinced that those two little boys killed my daughter, and so I hated those boys.” When the charges against Romarr and David were still pending and they’d been released on house arrest, she drove down their block several times, hoping to see them outside. She told me she planned to hop the curb with her car and “pin ’em up against the wall.” She pictured herself choking them, “seeing them foam up around the mouth like a dog.” She added, “You would have never dreamed of me being a parent for the hatred I had for these little kids. When I think about it now it makes me cry.” She blames the state’s attorney’s office for misdirecting her hatred.

What the cops said

Detectives said that during questioning at a police station the boys made incriminating admissions and gave details of the crime only the killers could have known. “We are certain we have the right people,” Area One sergeant Stanley Zaborac told a swarm of reporters at a press conference. The boys were among the youngest accused murderers in U.S. history, so the case got not only national but international attention.
Two weeks after the charges were dropped, DNA tests showed the source of the semen was 29-year-old Durr, who was already suspected of raping three young Englewood girls earlier that year.
After Major identified Durr the task force was split along predictable lines on whether the evidence was sufficient to indict him–most of the non-Area One detectives favored indicting him, and most of the Area One detectives opposed it.

The above quotes are from https://chicagoreader.com/news-politics/who-killed-ryan-harris/ which rambles off into case sidelines but anyway.
P.s.

“I’ve never seen a case with foreign objects stuffed in the nose,” said Area One sergeant Zaborac in his deposition.

That stuck out to me because of a long-running legal mess in Britain over the murder of a young girl Billie-Jo Jenkins in 1987, who'd had plastic stuffed in one nostril. The police decided to go after the stepfather who'd left her alone for a while. Rather than the episodically psychotic violent man seen acting bizarrely down the road near the time and who stuffed plastic in his mouth and nose.

Hey all I am in a bit of pain and ended up with the day off but I thought I might make a little post about my experiences and things I’ve learned through transitioning (also from being in a number of trans subreddits and having a lot of trans friends 😊)
Apparently I haven’t been in this subreddit until very recently…which feels like a huge oversight lol. Anyways I’m Liv (she/her) pronouns and I’ve been transitioning socially and medically for nearly 3 years (2 months where it was only social)

• Keep all old emails/accounts if they are important A lot of things come up that you don’t expect, I will say it’s pretty easy to delete old accounts if it’s nothing crucial but I highly recommend not deleting emails. A lot of places will make these things difficult to change. It’s going to also take a while to move everything over to new emails if you need to change it for any reason (using deadname, or masculine/feminine names that don’t reflect the you now)
  
• Learn to take up space and be your own advocate Other people won’t always speak up for you and there will be times where you have to make decisions of whether or not asserting your identity is worth it in the moment. Until presenting femininely in a way that was obvious I didn’t bother with store clerks I likely wouldn’t see again.
  

At the same time though we need to be able to assert our pronouns and remind people. I find making sure it’s included in introductions is important, especially when not passing. A lot of people will make assumptions and it’s not always with ill intent. People who’ve known you a long time will have a harder time adjusting. I find that people who are trans or non binary are the best with affirmation, but also people who know some personally. Older Family will likely have the toughest time try to be patient about it but don’t be a pushover. There’s a fine line

• get medical things rolling as soon as you feel it’s right for you You may find you can’t wait until later or there are long waiting lists. Do take your time and research the best options around you if you can
  
• if you are taking spiro dizziness pretty normal Get up slowly when you experience this, drink more water, and make sure you are eating a good amount of food
  
• listen to your body! Eat when you feel the need! You are going through a new puberty, people going through puberty need appropriate levels of sleep and nutrients to get by on.
  
• get some hobbies I was fairly obsessive early in my transition and time crawled. It’s okay to focus on your transition but there will be a point where you’ve addressed all the early stuff you can and you need to distract yourself. Get into video games, movies, cooking, softball, whatever you like doing. Maybe try learning something new?
  
• if you don’t already get into creative works of whatever gender you are Having women role models to look up to was great, learning about my fellow women’s experiences was crucial. And following trans content creators did a lot for me. Having that energy in your life helps, it gave me a feeling of belonging and made me less lonely
  
• Pinterest! Use Pinterest to learn about other styles and look at aspirational people of your gender
  
• realistic goals Be realistic or keep your expectations lower. You want immediately take hormones and be goals. It’s normal for not much to happen after a couple months. Try to find people who transitioned from a similar place to you on transtimelines
  
• the best time is yesterday but the second best time is now Don’t spend too much time pining about what could be. Any age is a great age to start
  
• use a letter when you come out or a social media post I really liked using letters because that appealed to the older members of my family who like that sort of touch. People can’t interrupt you if they have to read it. You can take the time and explain yourself
  
• you can only come out once and people may out you I think a potential mistake of mine was telling people one at a time for a while. It’s how I handled it and what felt right to me though. Come out to people you feel more comfortable with first. I had several times where I backed out in the moment because I was nervous. That’s okay, take your time. You will learn to speak confidently as it goes
  

My phone is being kind of laggy so I’m going to leave it there. I hope you are all doing the best you can and you are loved. Even if it’s by one stranger on the internet. If you took the time to read this I hope you got something from it 💜🏳️‍⚧️

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In Botswana, the elephant population has grown significantly due to effective conservation measures. However, this success has also led to serious human-elephant conflicts, as these large animals often raid crops and pose risks to human safety. To manage these challenges, Botswana sets annual hunting quotas, which last year included fewer than 400 elephant hunting licenses, adjusted based on scientific assessments to balance conservation with human-wildlife coexistence.
Botswana's President Mokgweetsi Masisi has highlighted the severity of the overpopulation issue by proposing to relocate large numbers of elephants to European countries, specifically threatening to send 20,000 elephants to Germany and a large unspecified number to the UK. This proposal serves as a protest against these countries' stance on banning the import of hunting trophies, which could impact Botswana's conservation funding derived from legalized hunting.
Additionally, Botswana has offered to send 8,000 elephants to Angola and 500 to Mozambique. However, relocating elephants to other African nations is not straightforward and involves complex international cooperation. The process must align with international agreements and requires the consent and logistical cooperation of receiving countries. It's crucial that these relocations do not lead to international tensions but rather are handled as part of a coordinated effort to manage wildlife sustainably across borders. This cooperative approach ensures that conservation efforts are effective and respect the sovereignty and environmental policies of the involved nations.

This video shows the great views available from the Garfield Memorial balcony, although I'm fairly certain a telephoto lens was employed. Visitors definitely can benefit from binoculars!
<< After nearly ten months of work that shut down the President James Garfield Memorial in Lake View Cemetery, the final resting place of the 20th President is back open to the public.
This was the final phase of a $7 million three-phase project that started in 2016....
One of the highlights of the work has been the ability to re-open the upstairs balcony to the public, which had been closed for several years.
“So this is one of the coolest parts of the project: the upstairs balcony, which has been closed for years, is now open to the public. I’ve covered this story for years; I’m seeing it for the first time.”>>
https://www.news5cleveland.com/news/local-news/lake-view-cemeterys-garfield-memorial-reopens-to-the-public-after-ten-months-of-construction
Here's what one ecstatic visitor had to say:
<<“You can see Little Italy, you can see Cleveland Clinic, you can see the lake, downtown, Tower City, you can see everything Case, everything that has to do with the beginning of my family in the city. It’s all there.”
“This building is very important to me,” he added. “When people refer to this building, they always say, ‘Have you seen Garfield’s tomb?’ And I always tell them it’s not a tomb, it’s a castle with one of the best views of Cleveland.”
It’s been said that of all of the final resting places of American presidents, this is truly one of if not the most majestic, from the grandeur of Memorial Hall featuring the statue of Garfield, red granite columns and a gold mosaic ceiling to the crypt beneath containing the caskets of Garfield and his wife. >>
Kids, and adults, have a hard time grasping the reality that you can see the caskets of a deceased President of the United States in the memorial. It's not want most persons imagine as a tomb.
Visitors to the memorial also should check out the life-size bas relief panels on the exterior celebrating Garfield's life.
https://case.edu/ech/articles/g/garfield-monument
Ironically, the Garfield Memorial dwarfs the Lincoln Tomb in Springfield, IL, in both size and wonder, likely reflecting the relative wealth of Cleveland in the 1880s.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_A._Garfield_Memorial
For Presidential tourists, the James A. Garfield National Historical Site in nearby Mentor also is excellent and a worthwhile visit.
This article has a more accurate view of the Cleveland skyline from the memorial balcony without any magnification. I wonder if the skyscrapers erected in University Circle, such as One University Circle, now block any good views from the balcony.
https://www.onlyinyourstate.com/ohio/cleveland/james-a-garfield-memorial-cle/
Garfield was the last President born in a log cabin. A replica birthplace cabin can be viewed in Orange Twp.
https://www.nps.gov/jaga/planyourvisit/nearbyattractions.htm
Speaking of Cleveland wealth at the dawn of the industrial age, visitors to the Garfield Memorial should look to the left at the memorial entrance and take note of the large, white obelisk standing on an even higher hill. It marks the resting place of John D. Rockefeller, the richest man in American history as measured by the percentage of the nation's wealth controlled. Read about the Rockefeller family monument in the following thread.
https://www.reddit.com/Cleveland/comments/1bzuola/daffodil_hill_nearing_full_bloom_at_lake_view/
As noted in the above thread, Wade Memorial Chapel at Lake View Cemetery contains some of Louis Comfort Tiffany's most celebrated stained glass windows. The chapel is a memorial to Jeptha H. Wade, a founder of Western Union Telegraph Company, who also led the construction of the Garfield Memorial, and likely made a significant contribution to its construction. Clevelanders today perhaps most recognize Wade for his contributions to University Circle, such as Wade Oval, Wade Lagoon, and his family was major early benefactors of the Cleveland Museum of Art.
<< In 1885, he donated 75 acres for the creation of Wade Park in University Circle. By 1960, it was estimated that the Wade family had donated over $25 million in Cleveland. The family has also donated a number of artworks to the Cleveland Museum of Art. >>
https://clevelandhistorical.org/items/show/380
Wade family philanthropic contributions to Cleveland probably exceed $400 million in inflation-adjusted dollars.
https://case.edu/ech/articles/w/wade-jeptha-homer-ii
For Cleveland visitors, one of the nation's best remaining Little Italy neighborhoods is just below (turn right on the Mayfield Road entrance to the cemetery upon exiting it) the Garfield Memorial. Other nearby restaurants are discussed in this thread.
https://www.reddit.com/Cleveland/comments/1bql9wj/daffodil_hill_at_lake_view_cemetery_is_on_bloom/

Hi, there I suffer from social anxiety every time I play a game of 40k or Killteam. I'm a introverted person in nature, but usually don't have any problems socially.
Except when I play. Its like all my ability to talk normal just vanishes, and I get nervous and stuttery while talking (which obviously is a big part of the game). Especially the last two games, where I teached some first timers the Killteam rules. It's not exclusive to people I don't know well yet, as it happens when I game with my friends too.
It's gotten so bad that I think bad of myself every time I finish a game and leave the gaming club. Again, it doesn't happen to me in any other situation I'm in.
I know it might be far stretched to ask for some advice, but maybe some of y'all experienced something similar and can help me out a bit :)

Ever since graduating in 2020 my life has seemed to stay stagnant while my friends have earned a masters, got into PhD programs, bought a condo, etc. I know that for many people in life, we suffer longer with less successes and then reach great success later in life. So it’s not that I don’t have faith. But I absolutely hate where I am right now. I’m unemployed again and lost on a career path.
The reason I bring this up is because I just a binge eat and basically ate a whole box of chocolate after a meeting with an old coworker. She pretty much barked the typical career advice at me, like “filter your resume with keywords!” Then updated me on how great all the other ex students from our lab are doing. How one is out of the country right now traveling, how the other just got into a new program…
Then this turns into making me feel like shit, mourning my lost dreams (I left grad school to get surgery and haven’t got back yet, then I turned into a nanny for 2 years), and feeling like I had so much hope as a newly grad and was so promising and that all that is just lost. Then I binge eat.
Idrk what to say. I’m taking an online course which will open up some doors for me, but I can’t seem to figure out what to do with my life still and I’m already 26x

Someone in my life suffers from feeling guilty about how they've treated people in the past. They have reached out to several people no longer in their life to apologize (an attempt to get rid of the guilt rather than reconnect, and these people did not cut them out of their life or anything) and at the same time they admit that this has not allowed them to move on. They also said they believe people don't realize how terrible they were treated and that the truth is the most important thing-so this is their approach rather than no contact methods of looking into forgiving themselves or wishing themself and those they did wrong well or focusing on little good things they do for others in the present. I have compassion for them and I recognize that no one but them has the ability to make them truly feel better: I believe this entails inner work ideally with a professional.
At this time they are averse to therapy and just "want to feel better". They say I am trying to prescribe them solutions (by mentioning therapy) and that they just need to talk about this stuff. I believe this is a compulsion because they have talked about it at length for a while and still suffer from the same issue. It could also be a defense mechanism from feeling the emotions. Another reason why I wonder if it could be OCD is they also have verbal compulsions when ruminating on past situations. I have mentioned EMDR but when I say it can help with changing core beliefs they shoot it down because of the "beliefs" and thinking aspect which they say their problem is not thinking but feeling and their body.
They think therapy is about thinking not feeling and they think the issue is solely their body (physical health) and not also the mind. Imo this also absolves themself of a lot of power in doing things to decrease their suffering. I've also mentioned the somatic aspect of EMDR and how there are therapies like somatic experiencing-but maybe I didn't communicate it in the right way? At the same time they have to be open to help and perhaps I just have to recognize the limits of what I can do and distance myself in a compassionate way.
Any advice on how to phrase therapy suggestions and are there any potential modalities people would suggest for this person?

So this post made me think of creating a subreddit for scary story authors. I tried posting this as a series on nosleep. It was taken down immediately for not being 'complete.' It was a series, I clearly marked it as such. Anyway, take a read, it's quick, and let me know what you think. And where do you think the story could go? Thanks, as always. Happy Camping.
​
I’ve had SiriusXM radio from almost the beginning. A perfect circumstance of listening to Howard Stern on syndicated terrestrial radio and actually seeing the (back then,) outrageous antics on the E! Network. Combine that with being just out of college and able to buy my own Sirius radio in 2005, a year before he was set to debut on satellite radio.
This was well before Sirius and XM radio merged. Today, every newer vehicle comes with the ability to listen to satellite immediately. Most have a year to 6-month trial. Back in 2005, you had to buy an actual hardware unit. It wasn’t super expensive from what I can remember. And even the monthly subscription was fairly inexpensive. Six or seven bucks, at most.
I was happy to pay it. Even though I still didn’t know my ass from my elbow back then, fresh out of college AND moving 1500 miles away to California from my home state of Michigan, I knew my sad monthly income had to include the Sirius radio and all the excitement that Howard and commercial-less music channels would surely provide.
I’m not here to put free advertisement out for Sirius. I’m just going to call it Sirius from now on. Nothing against XM, that’s what it was called at the beginning and it’s what I’ve always referred to it as. I have no problem speaking satellite radio’s praise, however. I’ve happily paid a monthly subscription now for almost twenty years. Never once considering dropping it. Especially when I have to deal with regular radio while driving in a work vehicle, or someone else’s car that doesn’t have satellite. How do you still deal with that? The constant commercials, the same goofy Howard wannabe talk shows that have to work around swearing and being fake controversial. Even though I no longer listen to Howard, it’s just gotten tired now, like most things, I still find interesting shows and hear new music that I never would on terrestrial.
Sometimes I like going through the channels I never listen to. Seriously, there’s like 300 channels on Sirius. I only listen to maybe five or six regularly. I’ve found some compelling shows and channels I never would have found if I stayed in my regular rotation. Did you know there’s one dedicated only to Hispanic techno? Well, there is.
Always looking for talk radio, and I’ve found some great programs. A lot of which come and go. Sirius inherently was made for this format. The appeal of course is that the FCC has no regulation over satellite radio. Almost anything goes. Now days there’s a million podcasts, spanning every conceivable topic. Everyone from the top a-list celebs, comedians, and even politicians have their own show. But in the early days, it was fresh. Exciting. You never knew what diamond in the rough you could find. That’s where I find myself today.
Almost twenty years later, I’ve gone back to my home state. A couple hours south of where I graduated college. I’ve got a family, a mortgage, and run my own plumbing company. I’ve been fortunate enough to move out of the shit (literally,) and supervise a good team of men and women that handle the actual jobs. I use my own vehicle to bid for jobs, check up on job progression, etc. My personal/work vehicle has Sirius radio, naturally. This is when one late afternoon drive changed what seemed to be a completely normal day.
I’ll try my best to be brief in my setup. I feel like I’ve rambled on too much. I’ve never been a good writer. The last time I seriously wrote was for my college papers. Majored in Sociology. Can you believe that? Five years of school figuring out how people interact with each other just to clean your clogged poop. Life happens to everyone, right?
I’ll also do my best to recap what I heard. I wasn’t recording or anything so please bear with me. This is a loose recollection of what I heard about two days ago. I’m still trying to make sense of it, if there’s anything to make sense of. Maybe someone out there can help.
After going through a set of channels I normally don’t listen to, I landed on channel 119, Channel J, the tab said on my display.
“Welcome back to WJEF,” a deep buttery voiced man yelled, when I stopped on the aforementioned “Channel J.”
Right away this hit me as strange. WJEF sounds like a FM or AM designation. Channels on satellite are usually named, not given a random set of numbers/letters. Howard 100, the 90’s channel, SiriusXM fly, etc.
WHAT THE HECK IS UP JEFFREY NATION! I’M YOUR HOST, DOUBLE J, JEFFREY MALUM. Ok, Ok, I’ll take my voice down. It’s getting late in the day, and you know what that means… it’s time for Jeff Nation’s spot o’ the week. You know how it goes here. We always dive into the mysterious. The dark. The.. uncanny. And this week’s spot o’ the week will have you itchin in yo drawers. Serious ants in the pants for this one.
Wouldn’t you be intrigued? Personally I’ve always been into urban legends, scary stories, cryptids.. This sounded right up my alley.
How many of you remember the Texas crossroads from a few months ago? Car stalls on train tracks and ghost kids start pushing your car across, trying to save you from the same fate they suffered? Who remembers the mysterious Alburquerqe lights that mesmerized an entire city for the better part of two weeks? Well today’s story makes those experiences sound like a SESAME STREET STORY!! HAHAHAH. Excuse me. You know Uncle Jeffy gets excited.
Today, we’re talking about “Knock Knock Road.” This one seems to be a little more.. macabre. And what’s better.. it might be just around the corner from you. So sit back, grab a drink, IF YOU’RE AT HOME, and get ready to get absolutely JEFFED. That’s patent pending, so don’t steal it.
After that introduction, the host read off a couple sponsors and threw it to a short commercial break.
A slight pang of remembrance hit me in the forehead. I’ve heard of “knock knock road.” Probably just a run of the mill urban legend, but something still stood out to me. A guy I used to work with (who I hated,) mentioned it to me years ago.
Welcome back, Jeffrey nation. So, what is knock knock road, and where can you find it? Better yet, how can you survive it? Better YET, do you want to even bother?
This simple legend has a simple set of rules. Best case scenario, you and your friends tuck up your baby nuts and get a little thrill in the middle of the night. Worse case scenario? You see the ghost of a little girl that was brutally murdered by a hit and run, ever searching for her killer. Legend has it, anyone that seeks her out is just a fine a victim as the one that actually killed her.
Like I said, this is all from what I can remember. I am not a great writer, but I always have had a good memory. It’s not word for word, but I know I’m conveying the general idea of what I heard.
About 20 years ago, so a fairly newer urban legend, it was said that a few friends were having a little night out after seeing a movie. The group raced up and down their neighborhood. Probably imbibing, probably smokin’ up that cush, YOU KNOW WHAT I MEAN JEFFREY NATION?! Before the driver knew what happened, his friend yelled “look out!” The driver snapped his gaze back to the road, where he saw, just for a second, a little girl in the middle of the street. Staring at him with dark brown eyes, holding a teddy bear in one hand, and dreams that would never come to be in the other.
I’ll spare you the gross details, folks. The worst part of this is that the people in the car, between their own cries of hysteria and disbelief, kept hearing a knocking on the bottom of the car. It didn’t stop until the driver finally, mercifully stopped.
At this point I’m hooked. I love this kind of stuff. Until the next few lines. This is why I’ve come here, to see where I should go from here.
The best part about this legend is, it seems to be in everyone’s hometown. Don’t believe me? How dare you! Go outside. You’re by a lake, right? There’s a stop sign about a block away. Come back after your dumb plumbing job, about midnight, and take a right at that stop sign on Langley Rd.
I know this is hard to believe, and I don’t expect you to. It was lie he was talking directly to me. I looked up, I was stopped at Langley. I’ve driven by this road who knows how many times in my life. Did he say something about plumbing? Has anyone else heard this? Am I.. am I in danger?

I don't have a whole post to write this time or anything! I'm behind on both the library and the torrent at the moment, I've got new stuff and raws from other shows people have sent me that are piling up as well. I apologize! I'm talking things over with the secret subbing cabal (it's not that damn secret actually it's just the people who tend to make/fix subs and help with library backend and tech stuff) to try and figure out what to do. One discussion point is that maybe I need to delegate some of the things that I've been the sole controller of since the start.
In any case, the golden age continues, there's some great stuff going on with the folks over at Father Jimmy's, and we've seen a solid number of new subbers in the past year. I can't possibly remember everyone to call out by name, and I can't be arsed to dig through my horrible spreadsheet (I swear to christ a replacement system is still in the works, it's not as stalled out as it might seem) to find everyone—you know who you are!
A moment as well to thank all the ex-subbers who have moved on to do better things with their lives! Thank you all for your service and we're always happy to see you again if you feel like picking up the old aegisub again in the future.
This I swear: I will do a library improvement stream this coming Sunday (05/05/24) and get caught back up, hopefully catching a few extra improvements in the process. Who knows what time, it's not worth waiting around for anyway because these things are tedious as hell for most viewers, but for some strange reason (especially considering I'm not a person who partakes in any kind of streaming), they do give me big library energy and I obviously need some of that right now.
I also swear that a torrent will follow shortly after. A big reason I've been putting it off is because there are still obvious to-do list items, but if I wait for a perfect library there will never be another torrent so it's time to just draw a line under it and release one.
Here's to four more years ヽ(´ー｀)ノ

Continuing with my Abnormal Psychology class lesson and topic The Law and Mental Illness, more specifically, on the Insanity Defense and Not Guilty by Reason of Insanity, I showed the beginning of The Girl Without Feelings episode.
In the opening hook, Tally is seen at a party getting into a verbal altercation with her brother. Cut to her waking up with blood on her and the brother on the floor dead, stabbed by scissors. Dr. Bull visits her in lockup and they have a history together. He provided therapy for her and ended the counseling relationship when he started TAC, 14 years ago. He want to help her legal defense and asks her if she did it. Tally says that she blacked out and can’t remember.
Cut to TAC headquarters and their sophisticated monitor bank. Marissa is explaining that Tally is a diagnosed sociopath who Bull was previously counseling. Benny says it will be hard to convince a jury that a sociopath is innocent and Marissa says that Dr. Bull will have them submit the Not Guilty by Reason of Insanity plea. Tally suffered blackouts while working with Dr. Bull, so he is aware of them.
It was very interesting that Marissa explains that sociopaths do indeed have internal feelings of anger, jealousy, and such, but do not have the capacity for external feelings, such as empathy. Most psychology students and people are not aware of this.
Also, Marissa’s explanation of the blackouts, fugue dissociative state, actually, is right from the textbook.
As for the Not Guilty by Reason of Insanity Defense, Marissa basically explains and summarizes the M’Naghten Rule, which a person can be acquitted if it can be shown that at the time of the act: The defendant had such defective reasoning that they did not know what they were doing (nature of the act) and the defendant was unable to comprehend that the act was wrong (quality of the act). Thus, the fugue state or blackout.
Again, I don’t know whether Dr. Phil was in the writer’s room or the show had consulting psychologists or lawyers, but this is a couple of well explained psychology concepts. My students appears to enjoy this one, too, and some said they will give the show a try.

I am looking for self love online programs or apps. I have consulted the google and there are a number of programs available but would like feedback from people that have actually used them.
I prefer not to have a physical journal/workbook as I do not have a safe space to keep said journal without prying eyes.
I have used apps such as I am and others with positive affirmation, gratitude prompts but looking to take my journey to the next level. Thanks!

FYI: I have a hard time believing in Christianity as it is. I'm a skeptic at heart and I don't think that will ever change. The only reason why I even give it a thought is because of the gospels written that claim Jesus Christ had eyewitness's that witnessed his miracles, teachings, his crucifixtion and resurrection. I'm just saying this now incase you'd like to know where I'm at with understanding since I'm still learning right now.
Anyways, something I did learn was in Matthew 22:37 (NIV) that Jesus said that one of the most important commandments is “love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind”, unfortunately I have a problem with that, I don't feel it in me to love God back and it has to do with his "godly ways". Pretty much everything I've heard about him and the stuff he's done just screams nonsense to me and his decisions come off as bizarre and illogical. I know God isn't human but you'd think his decisions and personality would at least sound less worldy and human inspired. Some of the problems I have with the Bible include the Adam and Eve story, Noah's Ark and the whole system of heaven and hell, that being the worst of them all. I'm sure there's many more stories that I've yet to hear that I'll find dumb too but we'll see.
It's hard for me to love a someone that makes me so uncomfortable and is so extreme with how they do things, I have friends and family that I care for deeply yet it feels like many of them will be condemned to suffering for eternity by the system of the god i'm supposed to worship to avoid the thing I don't want, hell. I find it so dumb that people say we choose to go to hell when it's so much more complicated then that, Christian's seem to love simplifying the unsimplifiable. I can struggle with sin sure, but that's not what I'm worried about, it's others that fall into the category of unrepentant sin like atheists, agnostics, mentally/psychologically ill people,other beliefs and people who simply don't know enough about Christianity to be condemned for the choices they make, how is it fair? Everyone's brains are different when it comes to believing in something and determinism can be a bigger factor then what some Christian's say doesn't matter as much. Free will and determinism come in hand and hand with each other when it comes to choices that affect the next life. You could show a particular atheist what another could believe and they would be unphased by it since everyone has a different threshold of what they need to believe whether it's info itself, the environment one is raised into and more. While I will never deny the possibility of anything since that's my world view, it's not fair for others to suffer from unconscious ignorance or simply not agreeing because of their own personal view of things, so much of what I know about the bible contradicts itself along with basic principles of life and human psychology. None of us deserve heaven (probably) but is hell really the only other option? Not everyone is gonna get what they need to change to avoid being condemned to hell in time. No one wants hell unless you're an active practicing satanist so the notion that god is a fair god seems to contradict itself too if all of what I said about how someone going about their life with what non Christian worldview they have, with where they are at psychologically/mentally and simply being unaware of their actions can land them in a place in eternity where they wouldn't consciously/unconsciously/subconsciously want to be if they either knew differently about certain things or if they were completely different people even to a small extent, the only way that god can be called fair and just is by his own rule but that's it, I get logically whoever is the most powerful being in existence will always have the universal morals because they have rule over everyone but when those morals go against the people you're trying to bring to you in such an antagonistic way like God's requirements, it makes you wonder why it's worded that he wants everyone in heaven yet makes it's near impossible by design. Of course we can change ourselves on our own accord to an extent, but some of us just won't realize that in time :(. I guess the real question is what is gods judgement standards but I only based all of this from what I know from scripture so if what I said about how gods system judges us is accurate, may humanity be cooked🪦, I could have a hard time with loving anyone who judges others like this but that's just how I feel.

i see the new therapist every two weeks or so. after the hour-long session i spend hours and hours, days in fact, imagining talking to her again, heated discussions, skits between her and me of various kinds. i am fascinated by her mind, she seems so resourceful on multiple fronts, wide-ranging. she has gifts that i do not have. she sees me among dozens of patients every two weeks, yet she is able to notice if i have groomed my look one notch more. at the same time she has high listening skills and keen observations always at the ready...she can be deep, serious, and rigid, as well as affable and witty depending on the moment. she seems so adept at juggling all this. in my few relationships i so lacked such intellectual stimulation. now perhaps i have found it in her... will I become more and more infatuated for nothing? to suffer from frustration again? who knows how many other people can appreciate her qualities. and how many of them have equally estimable qualities. i think of the friendships she might have, people with brilliant minds who do not feel inferior or superior to her, with whom she will have an exchange made up of genuine appreciation and enthusiasm in mutual enrichment, without roguery and weird intrapsychic conflicts. I envy this image and feel excluded from it, because in mental distress I have mortified my intellectual and social potential for decades instead of cultivating it. i am not able to appreciate and exchange resources with that simplicity and gratuitousness...because i do not have that lightheartedness inside, but a deep crevasse where the beauty of an encounter falls and becomes the pain of another missed opportunity.

Warning: Long post.
So, I'm sure that most people here have some experience with the GTA franchise. There's a reason why it's so highly regarded. You can't talk about open world games without mentioning GTA, because it's basically their god, and rightfully so. Obviously, any GTA title has big shoes to fill. GTA V is the second best selling video game ever, only behind Minecraft. It made back its budget through pre-orders alone, and over 10 years after its release it's still going strong. You know all that. To a lot of people, for a long time, it was peak GTA, peak video game even. And I have a problem with that.
I'd like to mention some obviously positive things about it. It's a well built game, runs smoothly, no glitches or anything (none that affect the gameplay anyway), and all in all, it's in excellent working condition, especially compared to contemporary games, and even new ones, that get released with a ton of bugs and problems that gamers have to then find and complain about, hoping developers will fix them. You can tell it's a quality game in all its aspects. On a technical level, it's probably as good as a game could have been in 2013. That's about where all the positives end for me.
My problems with GTA V lie with the creative decisions behind it. First of all, and this is a huge problem I have with it, gameplay-wise, everything and I mean everything is dumbed down. All cars drive essentially the same, like they are on rails. Obviously an adjustment that was made after GTA IV was criticised for having "boat-like handling" cars. But they overcorrected. Fist fighting is a joke compared to IV, that has more complex mechanics and the punches actually feel like they have weight. And there's the weapons. I'm not sure how to feel about those. One the one hand, I feel like weapons in GTA V are more precise, but once again, I do feel like they're too effortless and perfect. Notice a pattern? All the major mechanics in GTA V have been made easier, simpler and effortless compared to GTA IV, which in my opinion takes away from the experience.
Then there's the story, which is just weak. GTA III had a protagonist that wouldn't even speak. Vice City gave him lines and a more complex story about crime. San Andreas took that many steps up with themes about family, loyalty, commitment, and coming from an underprivileged background. Then, it all came to a peak with the most mature story of any GTA, in GTA IV, with Niko being a war veteran with a dark past he is running from. Themes about the effect and stupidity of war, regret, the need for revenge, and the American dream, or the reality of it. Then there's GTA V. This time around, we get three protagonists, and at best, they each get 1/3 the characterisation they should have gotten, and the shortest story since Vice City. There's Trevor, basically a wild animal with trauma that never gets explored. Then there's Franklin, a complete nothing character who only exists to be ordered to do stuff or get yelled at by other characters. Then there's Michael, the character with the most potential for exploration. Instead of that though, his story is basically "boohoo, I miss being a criminal". And the game doesn't even have a main villain. In the end you get to kill two guys that were minor annoyances at best, just because the story needs to wrap up somehow.
Now that isn't to say that what we got is without potential. It has been said that the three characters represent each GTA generation, Trevor being the mad top down games, Franklin being the 3D era criminal that wants to rise through the ranks and be someone, and then there's Michael. He's what happens next. What happens after he gets what he wants. That's honestly very interesting and worth exploring, but the story only ever goes surface level deep. The story, which comprises mostly generic action set pieces, with only a few standouts, jokes junior highschoolers would find funny, a bunch of set up missions that require nothing more than a bit of walking around...and heists, which can be interesting, but they too seem more ridiculous the more you think about them. All of which brings me to my next point.
GTA V tries too hard to be GTA, instead of just...being it. In a way, it is a parody of itself. In many aspects it has a few SaintsRow-isms. It's over the top, overly on the nose and generally speaking, "too much", in a bad way. Meaning: No subtlety. Now, that isn't a word that would quickly pop into your head when thinking about GTA, but it is what sets it apart in the end. GTA, usually, knows just how far to go without crossing the line. Not so it doesn't offend, but so it pulls off what it's doing tastefully. It's a good satire that makes fun of and criticises the shortcomings of the modern world. GTA V often crosses the line and ends up being ridiculous, and not in a good way. It feels like the franchise has suffered a sort of flanderization with this entry. It's like they forgot what GTA actually is and tried to make everything that GTA is remembered for by the general public, regardless of how accurate that is. Like I said earlier, it's dumbed down in every aspect.
And I haven't even said a thing about the map, which is huge, the biggest in any GTA ever, yet so empty. It's literally a tiny urban part and then there's just bland nature. If you see it once, you've seen it all. There's no point exploring because you won't find anything interesting. It's huge for the sake of being huge, with no attempt to make it interesting. There's also all the missing content. No restaurants, no bars, no sports, no minigames generally speaking, for absolutely no good reason. GTA IV infamously took stuff out, and was criticised for it, but there were reasons for that. Technical limitations and such. I mean, you can't even crouch properly. You can't even leave your car running. Why would they even take that out? More dumbing down and simplifying. Which is ironic, because you can also carry like 30 weapons at once, complete with attachments and everything, which is absolutely ridiculous. The point of it all is, the game is a dilution of its formula, to the point where it loses character.
And I would be...okay with it, if it wasn't for the game's reception. Raving reviews everywhere. "GTA V is the best game ever" I've seen written annoyingly many times. It seems like people just took this game and embraced the shit out of it. They just took it all and jumped right into it, no criticisms, no nothing. It doesn't matter that is was hyped as fuck and that it didn't even come close to meeting expectations after GTA IV, two excellent trailers, years of quiet development, and gameplay rumours that ended up not being true. Now, is it the game's fault if random people came up with stuff that would obviously never have made it into the game? No. But it serves as a cautionary tale to everyone who is too ambitious with their expectations. It also helped its success that it was probably the jumping-on point for a lot of people.
Anyway, I have a lot of problems with this game. I got it when it was brand new and it took me years to really admit that it was simply a disappointment, at least to me. I've spent countless hours playing it. I've seen the good, I've seen the bad, and even though I think it's a good game on its own, especially compared to its rivals, I still think it leaves a lot to be desired as an entry in the GTA franchise.
And I haven't said a single thing about GTA Online, which is a whole different beast.
Sorry for the long post, thank you for reading if you made it this far. I'd love to know what you think.

Personally for me it took roughly 7 years of routine back pain to finally hear about the term Kyphosis and what it means to have it. It felt surreal to finally know of the condition that was affecting me so badly, it was suddenly like all those years of pain and suffering was justified when I learned of it. All the years of just thinking it was “normal pain” or I just was just “lazy” because I couldn’t stand up straight without hunching over. I see so many newcomers on this sub posting pictures and asking how bad their kyphosis looks and all I wonder mainly is how they actually learned of this condition. I mean it’s not like it’s widely known, if anything scoliosis is a lot more commonly known among the general population of people, but how would you learn of the term kyphosis so easily. For me it took finally visiting a Primary care doctor about my pain and obtaining an mri to actually figure out the term kyphosis. I feel like this isn’t talked about enough, I think Kyphosis isn’t a rare condition, it’s just not widely known and recognized enough, I think the majority of people suffering from this condition just think it’s “normal” back pain.

I have seen a number of those around here. And I need advice for my case. I came in the UK in 2018 (September) to study physics. On my third academic year (2021), I was offered a Studentship in Europe and after some discussion with my uni supervisor, I was advised to switch my degree from a normal one to Physics with Professional Placement Abroad (most unis offer such courses), that basically started at 2021 (September) and ended one year later; September 2022. That was a normal "Uni Module"; as in, I submitted several reports, and had an interview + presentation after returning back to University and also paid university fees that year. The course (which I passed) is also present on my academic transcript and I have kept all of the documents that my department officials signed at the time, approving me to go and work abroad.
Needless to say (and expectedly), I broke my continuous residency in the UK that year. I calculated my absence using a calculator online for these things, and my longest one was 353 days (!!), which falls in the 6-12 month absence bracket (more than 6 months but less than 12). Every other absence, in my qualifying period for settled status, basically is (way) under 6 months. It is only this one that breaks things ...
Now, I have since finished my degree (May 2023) I still live and work (as a PhD student) in the UK and I am looking to apply to get the settled status. What is people's experiences with cases like these? Do I have a good chance of getting the settled status? I am bit worried and I don't know what to do.
Note: I am currently pre-settled, which I got back in Dec 2020.

I've seen this meme going around and I'm genuinely confused by it. I guess it's because I'm a more rational/data-driven person and the arguments I've seen from women about this have to do with emotional arguments or traumatic experiences, but even using these to justify the meme are bad for reasons I'll explain:
So let's get the math out of the way first because for some reason, it seems like people are not actually looking into the actual data on sexual assault and the male population, which is readily available and easily parsed:
Using 2021 data, there were 140,902 rapes reported to law enforcement.
Using 2021 data, there are 100,994,367 males in America over age 18.
Given this data, there is a 0.13% chance that a random male a woman encounters is a rapist. People will quickly say "But 10 gajillion rapes go unreported to law enforcement!"
Okay, we should really stay in the realm of empirical data, but for the sake of argument let's say the actual number of rapes is 500,000. That's more than triple the reported number. With this greatly inflated figure, that means that there's a 0.5% chance that any random guy you come across is a rapist.
You might say "There's more than just rape! There's also sexual assault!" On average, there are 433,648 victims (age 12 or older) of sexual assault each year in the United States. So given this data, there's a 0.42% chance that a random guy a woman meets is a "sexual assaulter" (whatever that means).
So there's anywhere from a 0.13-0.5% chance that a random guy a woman encounters is a rapist and a 0.42% chance that a random guy a woman encounters is a sexual assaulter(?).
Now what chance do you suppose there is that a bear would maul you?
After sharing this information, a common response seems to be, "You don't get it, women's experiences are valid, I was raped, etc." or the ever-rational response of, "You're one of the men we're afraid of" - "If you don't blindly validate our misandrist and illogical reasoning, you're a rapist". Makes sense.
Okay, so again I'm not sure why this isn't self-evident to most people, but this is a very explicit fallacy. And once you change the identity involved, it becomes crystal clear.
If I told you, "I was robbed by a black guy once, so I don't trust black men", how would you feel about that? Your knee jerk reaction is likely to be "that's different!" but is it? Why? So you can distrust all men because you were raped once, but I can't distrust a subset of men because I was robbed by that subset of men? The racist logic in this hypothetical is actually a lot more justifiable given crime statistics, but I know that's an uncomfortable subject for a lot of you.
It seems to me that this meme is really just a combination of shameless misandry combined with ignorance of crime statistics and logical fallacies. I think this meme is really disheartening because it shows how normalized and widespread misandry has become in the culture.
Feminists like to say that their ideology is not about hating men, but when you hear about this meme, it seems pretty clear that these women just don't like men and don't trust them for fallacious reasons which are not supported by the data.
So what's going on here? Do you endorse this meme? Why? Using what information?
https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2018/crime-in-the-u.s.-2018/topic-pages/tables/table-1
https://www.infoplease.com/us/census/demographic-statistics
https://www.savacenterga.org/statistics

ELECTORAL COLLEGE ELIMINATION
Initial Submission: 04/27/2024 09:00 MMK.
Item Description: Eliminate the Electoral College in favor of using the Popular Vote.
Item Prerequisite:
Intended Audience:
Questions / Comments / Concerns:
· Excerpts taken from - https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/452738-sanders-says-he-favors-abolishing-the-electoral-college/ Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) said he favored getting rid of the Electoral College. “It is hard to defend a system in which we have a president who lost the popular vote by 3 million votes” he said. “I believe that we need to reexamine the concept of the Electoral College.” A number of other Democratic Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), Cory Booker (D-N.J.) and Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.), as well as South Bend, Ind., Mayor Pete Buttigieg (D) have also called to eliminate the Electoral College. And a recent NBC News–Wall Street Journal survey found that a majority of voters says the Electoral College system should be abandoned in favor of a national popular vote.
· In his first Annual Message to Congress, President Andrew Jackson recommended eliminating the Electoral College.
· There are five presidential elections in American history in which the winner of the popular vote did not win the presidency.
· There is no Constitutional provision or Federal law that requires electors to vote according to the results of the popular vote in their States.
· In other U.S. elections, candidates are elected directly by popular vote. But the president and vice president are not elected directly by citizens.
· What would happen if we eliminate the Electoral College? If eliminated, the power to elect the President would rest solely in the hands of a few of our largest states and cities, greatly diminishing the voice of smaller populated states. I (MMK) say that this is assuming the Popular Vote is tallied into a Representation by State versus a tallying by the entire nation.
· From a Congress CSR Report 2/9/2009 found on Congress.Gov states: “American voters elect the President and Vice President indirectly, through presidential electors.”, my question is should it not be a DIRECT vote by the citizens of the United States?. Ref: https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/RL/RL34604/7#:~:text=The%20fundamentals%20of%20the%20electoral,than%20the%20passage%20of%20legislation.
· .
Today: The Electoral College is used with its flaws.
Solution Proposal #1, by MMK:
Use the Popular Vote as tallied into one National figure. Using those figures (one per candidate), the candidate who has over half (50%) with a winning buffer of 5% be declared winner, upon that not happening, eliminate the figure for the lowest candidate and reanalyze the results. Continue this process until a winner is declared.
PROS
· Ease of calculations and analysis.
CONS
· Implementation on changing the Constitution.

In my current campaign, the DM has allowed players to make some homebrew spells. Although I'm experienced with DND as a system, me and the DM are both inexperienced when it comes to making spells. After I wrote the spell Mass Flesh to Stone, and presented it to the DM, they seemed supportive of it but wanted feedback from more experienced people. If you could give me some input on balancing the spell, that would be great.
Spell in Question:

Mass Flesh to Stone

8th-Level transmutation
Casting Time: 1 Action
Range: 20ft
Components: V, S, M (the calcified and jeweled hand of a a petrified creature worth 1000gp)
Duration: Concentration, up to 1 minute
You attempt to turn all creatures within range of a point centered on self into stone. If any of the target’s bodies are made of flesh, the creatures must make a Constitution saving throw. On a failed save, it is restrained as its flesh begins to harden. On a successful save, the creature isn’t affected.
A creature restrained by this spell must make another Constitution saving throw at the end of each of its turns. If it successfully saves against this spell three times, the spell ends. If it fails saves three times, it is turned to stone and subjected to the petrified condition for the duration. The successes and failures don’t need to be consecutive; keep track of both until the target collects three of a kind.
If the creature is physically broken while petrified, it suffers from similar deformities if it reverts to its original state. If you maintain your concentration on this spell for the entire possible duration, the creature is turned to stone until the effect is removed.
Mass Flesh to Stone
8th-Level transmutation
Casting Time: 1 Action
Range: 20ft
Components: V, S, M (the calcified and jeweled hand of a a petrified creature worth 1000gp)
Duration: Concentration, up to 1 minute

Apple reported fiscal second-quarter earnings on Thursday that were slightly higher than Wall Street expectations, but showed overall revenue down 4%, and iPhone sales falling 10%.
Apple announced that its board had authorized $110 billion in share repurchases, the largest in the company’s history, and a 22% increase over last year’s $90 billion authorization.
Here’s how Apple did versus LSEG consensus estimates in the March quarter:
EPS: $1.53 vs. $1.50 estimated
Revenue: $90.75 billion vs. $90.01 billion estimated
iPhone revenue: $45.96 billion vs. $46.00 billion estimated
Mac revenue: $7.5 billion vs. $6.86 billion estimated
iPad revenue: $5.6 billion vs. $5.91billion estimated
Other Products revenue: $7.9 billion vs. $8.08 billion estimated
Services revenue: $23.9 billion vs. $23.27 billion estimated
Gross margin: 46.6% vs. 46.6% estimated
Apple did not provide formal guidance, but Apple CEO Tim Cook told CNBC’s Steve Kovach that overall sales would “grow low single digits” during the June quarter.
Apple posted $81.8 billion in revenue during the year-ago June quarter and LSEG analysts were looking for a forecast of $83.23 billion.
Apple reported $23.64 billion in net income, a 2% decrease from $24.16 billion in the year-earlier period. Overall sales fell 4% in the March quarter.
Cook told CNBC’s Steve Kovach that year-over-year sales suffered from a difficult comparison to the year-ago period, when the company realized $5 billion in delayed iPhone 14 sales from Covid-based supply issues.
“If you remove that $5 billion from last year’s results, we would have grown this quarter on a year-over-year basis,” Cook said. “And so that’s how we look at it internally from how the company is performing.”
Apple said iPhone sales fell nearly 10% to $45.96 billion, suggesting weak demand for the current generation of iPhones, which were released in September. The sales were in-line with analyst estimates, and Cook said that without last year’s increased sales, iPhone revenue would have been flat.
Mac sales were up 4% to $7.45 billion, but they are still below the segment’s high-water mark set in 2022. Cook said sales were driven by the company’s new MacBook Air models that were released with an upgraded M3 chip in March.
Other Products, which is how Apple reports sales of its Apple Watch and AirPods headphones, was down 10% on an annual basis to $7.9 billion in revenue.
During the quarter, Apple released its first new major product category in years, the Vision Pro virtual reality headset, but the $3500 device is expected to sell in low quantities, especially compared to Apple’s major product lines.
“We’re only scratching the surface there so we couldn’t be more excited about our opportunity there,” Cook said.
Apple has not released a new iPad since 2022, which is a drag on sales. Revenue for the division fell 17% to $5.6 billion. Apple is expected to announce new iPads on May 7 that could revive demand for the product line.
Cook also said Apple has “big plans to announce” from an “AI point of view” during its iPad event next week as well as at the company’s annual developer conference in June.
Services was a bright spot during the quarter. Sales rose 14.2% to $23.9 billion. That’s how Apple reports revenue from its subscription services, warranties, licensing deals with search engines, and payments. Apple has a broad definition of subscribers, which includes users subscribing to apps through Apple’s App Store, and said that it has over 1 billion paid subscriptions.
Sales in Greater China, Apple’s third largest region, were off 8% to $17.8 billion in revenue, which was significantly better than the $15.25 billion in sales expected by FactSet analysts, potentially quelling investor worries that Apple may have been losing market share to local competitors such as Huawei.
“I feel good about China, I think more about long term than to the next week or so,” Cook said.
Cook told CNBC that iPhone sales grew in China during the quarter. “That may come as a surprise to some people,” Cook said.
In addition to the buyback authorization, Apple said it would pay a 25 cent dividend, a one cent increase. Apple’s $110 billion buyback authorization is the largest-ever announced, ahead of Apple’s previous repurchases, according to data from Birinyi Associates.
Source: https://www.cnbc.com/2024/05/02/apple-aapl-earnings-report-q2-2024.html

(16M) im preparing for JEE, im currently in grade 12, Ive been studying 5-6 hours a day for the past 6 months. I wasted half of my grade 11 and because of that, my parents, especially my dad think of me as inferior to my brother who got IIT BHU and is currently in bits pilani cse. I study mostly from 5 pm to 12. My chemistry teacher literally said "kash mera beta hota" but my dad believes that im not even smart enough to go to college.
He says "any college besides IIT is not worth it" whether it's nit, iiit, bits or anything else.I remember how he acted when my brother made the decision to go for bits cse rather than iit bhu mining. He believes I shouldn't go to college if i can't get iit, instead i should help in his company so that I get 4 years of experience instead of "wasting time" in college. When I try to talk to him about how ive been doing really well in school (so far not a single mark cut in any tests of grade 12) and coaching (completed all current chapters and currently doing pyqs) and all he says is "bolta toh tu bohot hai lekin asli kahani toh number batayenge" in the most ignorant tone. He said yesterday "tu iit rehne de itna important nahi hai, paas ke gurgaon university/amity mein karwa deta hu" that line genuinely hurt me because the kind of kids that want to go to those 'univerisities" are the ones who have an iq of 70. No offence
He has always thought of me as inferior to my brother my entire life. He always used to comment on my height (i was 5'3 in 11th, ~5'7 now. My brother is 6'1). I recently started going to the gym and increasing my weight, trying to build muscle, and he never supports me in that either. He says "kamzor hai tu injury ho jayegi". Ive increased about 15 kg weight since june of last year and have not gotten a single remark from anyone in my life. Family, friends, no one.
No one in my life supports me in anything I do. Everything is either time waste or bakchodi. There was a point in 11th grade that my mental health was basically non existent. Every day was the same. Wake up, go to school, go to coaching, lie awake till 5am. I was working on autopilot, and nothing in my life felt real. Its like i was controlling a character.
From the past two months I've been having sleep paralysis almost every night. I wake up suddenly, can't move, i feel extreme fear, try to scream but can't.
I knew from 9th grade that i wanted to take science stream but my dad always told me to take commerce because "tere bas ki nahi hai". Ive been the top of my class since birth💀. Anyways. If i ever go below 90% the reaction of my parents is disappointment. Anything above that is "tu aur bhi zyada la sakta hai". Every time at the end of the school year, they would see my result, about ~92-93% and say "bhaiya ke zyada aaye the iss class mein". In 10th boards i scored 94% and that was the first time that dad seemed proud of me. And that was when i deserved it the least because i barely studied for boards. Now when I'm actually studying, and my dad comes in my room and passes off some autistic comment i want to smash my head in my fucking table or rip my ears out so I don't have to listen to his bullshit. He belives hes "motivating me" my telling me ki merse nahi hoga, but I don't think he understands how motivation works because all his bullshit has affected my mental health in the past 1-1.5 year. Ive talked to my mom about it and she laughs it off. Everybody that i go to just goes "hehehe" like what the fuck
I don't tell my parents, and my dad especially anything anymore. He once came up to me and said "tu itna acha bacha tha, kya ho gaya ". Surrounded by everyone doing drugs, vaping, failing 2-3 classes, and im not doing any of that. Infact my golden child older brother is the one who used to smoke. My dad needs a fucking reality check or ill fucking kill myself and for that also he will blame me.
One thing i remember(but my perfect parents deny of course) is that in one of my annual day functions in school, they missed my performance, saw my brother's performance, picked him up afterwards and left me. I called them from my teachers phone and they had to come back to get me. That's when i realised that they always prefer my brother over me. Never told anyone this, but there was also one time when my dad told me ki mein galti se ho gaya tha lmao. Expected hi tha since i have 0 value in their eyes. I've never been jealous of my brother. Ive looked up to him for his efforts in studies. It's my parents who automatically assume the worst with me. One time i went to a shop to buy chips and they assumed i bought cigarettes. Ive never touched drugs or anything similar in my life. Idk what i did do deserve this kind of treatment from the people that are supposed to love me the most but im over it. I can't wait to move out and cut off my family. Don't need my dad and his 200cr companies, i would rather just be happy.