Neck and rib pain difficulty exhaling

My ex (22M) broke up with me (24F) after a big fight we had, after one year together. The fight was about me not understanding him and not being pacient. I was in a dark place and needed him to spend more days at my place but he didn’t wanted to. I cried and insisted he’d give me e chance but he said we were too toxic for each other and we were not compatible. I do agree we had many fights in our relationship, but I never lost my temper without a reason, it was only when I felt hurt. I have told him in the past that I will control my reactions but somehow we always went back to arguing. However, this time, I truly believe with all my heart that I was able to change and control my emotions because I finally felt how it is to lose him. I told him that he’s everything to me and I would change everything about me that he hates, that there would be no fights, no screaming, that I will always think about the fact that I don’t wanna lose him, will always remember this moment that destroyed me and when I’ll feel hurt, I’ll know to comunicate my feelings in an easy way, that I would put no pressure on him and have no expectations from him. I asked him to at least think about it and after a week I spent without him he told me that he made his decision and even if I changed everything he didn’t like about me, he would still not feel like trying anymore, because he wants to focus on himself and has no energy for a relationship anymore. I was in agony and still am. How could someone make love to you, tell you that they love you and then the next day decide that they are better without you? We kept each other on social media, I still felt him a bit close because of this but knew I couldn’t reach out because when I tried, I got nothing back. The only times when I heard something from him was when he would judge the fact that I was posting myself (trying to feel better), calling me an attention seeker and a hypocrite. I have serious health issues, the main reason I was giving him a hard time lately. A lump in my neck that no doctor can find a cure for, that needs to be surgically removed and examinated for cancer, low risk HPV which gave me warts, high risk HPV which caused me to have a high grade squamous lesion (precancerous cells in my cervix) and will need hurtful interventions, anemia, etc. He was there for me during our relationship, made me forget about everything just by being there because besides him, I had no one, that’s why I expected from him more time together. My parents live in another country and we barely talk, when we do, I don’t want to make my mother cry. I only have one friend, we talk, but rarely because she has work, a fiancee, her own life. I realized I was dependent on my boyfriend. When we were still together, we were together every second: in person, on the phone, or through texts. With him being gone, I started visiting my friend once or twice, started therapy once a week but when I was alone in my house with all my fears, thoughts and had no one to talk to, I genuinely felt like jumping from my window and end all the pain. The only thing that kept me from doing it was thinking about my poor mother, I don’t want her to be broken, she really went through a lot for me. After two weeks since our breakup, I installed tinder, it was the only option I saw for my loneliness. I didn’t do it because I wanted a new relationship or sex. I was and still am heartbroken, can’t have sex even if I wanted to because of my virus and would find impossible to enjoy it with someone else when I am so empty. I just needed someone to talk to and I found a few people that made me feel better but did not form a conexion with them. A mutual found me on tinder and told my ex about it. He laughed, sent me their convo and told me “I better never hear from you again”. He blocked me on instagram and removed me from everywhere (facebook, tiktok, discord, discord servers, even from all of the video games we used to play) and his friends also removed me. And here I am, after 3 weeks, stalking him on social media and only thinking about him. I can’t comprehend the fact that it’s over. I dream about him every night and when I wake up, for the first seconds, my brain thinks we’re still together, I reach for my phone to hear from him and then it hits me, the nightmare starts. Couldn’t go to uni because I was too depressed, quit my job because I hated it, was the type of job that made me sit with my thoughts and it was unbearable. There’s no point in starting a gym membership because in about 2 weeks I’ll go under surgery and will need time to heal. I can’t enjoy anything I did before because it makes me more depressed. I tried playing video games alone or with other people, but because he’s not there to carry me and make me laugh it makes me more sad. I started drawing recently but since the breakup I can’t anymore. I started an anime called nana but it hurts me, cause it makes me remember him. The music I like now it’s the music he introduced me into. I just can’t do anything and I’m a mess. The only joy I have are cigarettes and I’m not allowed to smoke anymore. I was 2 weeks free but since he left, that’s all I have. He is the opposite now. He goes to work, makes music, goes to the studio, hangs out with his friends, plays video games with his friends, even livestreams sometimes. Besides that, since he saw my tinder, he added girls on insta and liked all their pics, even girls from his workplace. For the past 3 days, he stopped streaming and only played his fav game with a beautiful girl and I’m sure he likes her because that’s what we did in the start too. I don’t know if this is how he genuinely feels or he does it just because he thinks I wanted to search for someone to fuck. I thought about reaching out to him, to tell him I was just lonely and needed to talk to someone but I think he wouldn’t care anyways. Please give me some advice, anything.

Hey guys, I’ve had graves for the last 3 years. Just wondering if anyone else experiences intense pain in thyroid/lymph nodes/neck? In the most recent months it’s been really persistent and hard to deal with, more than it has been before. My thyroid feels painfully swollen, like I spend my days wearing a choker that’s too tight or there’s hands around my neck. I can feel my thyroid/goiter whatever it is span across the whole width of my neck. The lymph nodes in my neck also feel swollen. Hell even the back of my neck feels swollen. I get these sharp pains or twinges too that feel like something has been pinched and it randomly fires off. Is this normal for us or does this warrant a deeper conversation with my endo? I feel the anxiety/irritation worsen, my eyes also feel like there is pressure behind them most days, I can’t sleep through the night and even if I get 8 hrs of rest I feel like I never slept. Heart rate has been sitting lower these days around 50s-mid 60s, which is odd as a graves patient and I’m not losing any weight either. All I feel is the hands around my neck, the swelling of my thyroid/nodes/neck and generally a miserable sack of shit.

I have ADHD so it might not be accurate to the average person but I just kept thinking about it and I wrote out this list. Do other people feel these physical sensations too? Or are they different sensations? Or no physical sensations at all?
Anger: burning in the sternum
Joy: an inflating feeling behind the ribs
Pride: spreading warmth through the midsection
Sadness: soreness in the throat and cold in the stomach
Grief: a heavy weight hanging from your stomach along with the sadness sensations
Disgust: a roiling just below the stomach
Embarrassment: heat behind the ears
Shame: the dropping of a weight from heart to stomach mixed with roiling just below the stomach
Lust: a sudden throb in the ovaries (idk what it's like for men lol)
Dread: a heavy tightness like huge rubber bands around your ribs
Excitement: tickling in the limbs, especially the legs and hands
Shock: cold water in the eyes
Affection: a throbbing underneath the throat and pleasant warmth in the sternum
Fear: like if you sprayed cold water from the shower onto your warm belly and it trickled down and wrapped around your legs
Sympathy/empathy: a wriggling by the ribs and a coldness just below where your collarbones meet
Satisfaction: a rush in the brain like a tickling
Contentment: a solid block of warmth between your lungs
Anxiety: a coldness in your fingertips and tightness around your lungs
Horror: a shocking jolt from your feet to your head like you've just jumped from a height onto the ground and a tightness in your oesophagus.
Fury: heat rushing up the neck to the cheeks along with the burning in the sternum
This is all the ones I could think of off the top of my head. Just very curious what other people's experience is.

26(M) So I don’t want to seem like a complete hypochondriac but I’ve been dealing with these symptoms:
Fatigue, Light headedness, Dizziness, Cognitive impairment, Brain fog, Depression, Anxiety, Adrenaline rushes, Vivid dreams, Dysautonmia, Gastroparesis, Cold feet, Sensory nerve damage, Run down sick feeling, Head pressure, Pain above eyes, Light sensitivity, Joint pain, Costochondritis, Insomnia, Body temp dysregulation, Dry skin, Body aches, Muscle weakness, Tremors, Neck pain, Headaches.
For 7 months straight. Some of the worst being the psychiatric symptoms. I’ve always had mild general anxiety but I literally seemingly woke up one day morbidly depressed, extreme anxiety, DP/DR, got sick, and now have all of these symptoms. They seem to flare up and calm down, but never go away. I feel like I’ve lost my mind and I’ve been stuck like this. I’m losing my life. The SSRI has not touched it. I have a positive ANA of 1:160, high hsCRP, and high IgA antibodies. I’m suspected of potential autoimmune disease but came across this and was wondering if it would be worth testing for? The last time I had my thyroid hormones checked back in December my TSH was .88, my free T3 was 4.8, and free T4 1.7. So nothing really out of the ordinary I don’t think but I never got antibody testing or any other thyroid checks. I do believe thyroid issues run in my family as well, I know autoimmune disease does. Thanks in advance for anyone that gives an opinion.

TLDR; 7 years of symptoms and this seems to be the answer.
In 2016 I was involved in a hit and run and damaged my neck. I don't know how, I didn't go to the ER. I found out I was pregnant at the time a month later and my entire pregnancy was amazing. I gave birth at the end of the year and 3 weeks later started having SEVERE PAIN.
I went to the er thinking spinal fluid leak, etc. The pain was so severe I couldn't walk. It was electric (boogie woogie woogie) and ran up my neck and head. I spent 2 years going to specialists who finally diagnosed me with occipital neuralgia. They told me pregnancy relaxed my nerves enough to not allow the pain to hit until after I gave birth. I was in pain almost constantly.
Over the years, the pain has gotten a bit better and I've learned triggers. The last 3 years have been bad. I've developed severe vertigo episodes, almost constantly lightheadedness, I've been diagnosed with dysautonomia, hypotension and muscle fatigue. I now have almost constant neck pain and sleeping is bad. I have a lot of flashes of light in my eyes, eye pain, anxiety, brain fog. Etc.
So after years and year of tests, mris of every single part of my body, and fearing being alive. I was diagnosed with adrenal fatigue because I'm so scared and stressed constantly. I somehow came across CCI while learning about adrenal fatigue and it fits. Now what the hell do I do?

So I've been struggling with ntos for less than a year..it began in my left arm then developed in my right 2 weeks later. All the usual symptoms including neck and shoulder pain, numbness, tingling, weakness and nerve pain in hands and arms.
I got it from playing the violin. I had only been playing for 7 months so it's weird I got it. I did injections into my scalenes which was unsuccessful. The specialist who l diagnosed me said he wants to do an arthroscopic brachial plexus neeurolysis and pec minor release, as he believes compression is purely scar and fibrous tissue with no issue with my scalene or rib. Has anyone done a procedure like this? Thoughts?
My pec minor is a bit tight but I don't think it my main issue..I largely get pain in my neck. The pros of this surgery is it doesn't produce as much scar tissue..I'm worried that my body may produce more scar tissue and that's how I got tos :/ have done 6 months of pt with no success. I'm worried if I get the traditional supraclavicular scalenectomy I'll be caught in a cycle of scar tissue.
Surgery is also safer as it doesn't go near the phrenic nerve. But I'm worried it won't work

Has anyone had swelling like this from Tietze? https://imgur.com/a/MrBxmtm For what it’s worth I had a first rib resection three years ago on this same side for Thoracic Outlet Syndrome. I also had a bad cough and chest pain about a month ago which is why I’m hoping it’s Tietze.. the swollen area is hard and not painful. I’ll be making an appointment with a doctor but in the meantime would love to hear if anyone else has looked like this. Thank you!

The results are in for Match 18. The winner is…
The human body is only capable of handling so much external stress before it collapses.
This limit depended on many factors. Your average person would likely not be able to withstand much without beginning to panic, and any truly absurd amount of stress would cause the aforementioned collapse. The more endurant among us may have a far larger limit, but a limit is still a limit. Marcus was one such man. He had lived through seemingly endless pain, forced through tragedy and turmoil at seemingly every turn. Even a man like him had his limits.
And he had long since hit them.
Marcus stumbled backwards, growling under his breath. His vision was spotty, constantly assaulted by bright lights. His skin was constantly victim to bites, blood spurting out from what felt like a thousand cuts along his body. The constant swarm had grown too loud. He felt like he was going to explode, and it took every ounce of will in his broken body to force himself to keep up with the oncoming Steric, who-
Bright light, like fireflies, filled his vision. Something from the man’s mouth. It didn’t matter what it was. It overwhelmed Marcus’s senses. His Stand was screaming something at him, but he couldn’t hear it. It was too much. This was all too much.
Something punctured his chest.
In that moment, he gained a sudden clarity. He could see the pipes around him moving skyward - no, that wasn’t right. He was falling. The man who’d been so much trouble to him was in front of him now. He glared, but there was something sympathetic there, too.
“This is for your own good!”
Ah. No, that wasn’t right. This man wanted to help him. He didn’t deserve help. Marcus’s teeth dug into Steric’s shoulder, ripping through flesh, just before-
SLAM
He landed on the factory floor, sword sinking through his chest. His head slammed against hard metal beneath him, and the reaving hound finally felt nothing but peace and silence, a gentle calmness guiding into a slumber where he may, for just a moment, find some sort of rest.
He did not want to be helped, but... He couldn’t refuse this peace and quiet, either.

Steric Lou Farin, with a score of 78 to Marcus Keller’s 69!

Category	Winner	Point Totals	Comments
Popularity	Steric Lou Farin	11 (4.5+2) - 19 (8.5+2)	Thank you to everyone who turned up to vote!
Quality	Steric Lou Farin	23 (7 8 8) - 24 (7 8 9)	Reasoning
JoJolity	Tie	25 (8 7 10) - 25 (7 8 10)	Reasoning
Conduct	Tie	10-10	Nothing to report!

Captain Hooked and Kho Pesci clattered to the concrete, as the hunter gently slid the edge of his own spectral blade out of his arm. Steric stood, panting over the incapacitated Marcus, finally given a chance to rest—a reprieve from his torment. Yet still, they both bled red in the end. Blood pooled around them, an indistinguishable mix of their collective strife and struggle over the past...how long had this been? What a headache.
Steric struggled and lurched into something approximating good posture, speaking to the aether in hopes at least one of the supposed monsters before him could hear.
"Who knows if the human spirit rises upward and if the spirit of the animal goes down into the earth? As a witness to many such spirits coming and going, I can say that it is certainly not the case, and confirm that believing otherwise truly is tantamount to vanity. We're not irredeemable, even when behaving so savagely...whether viscous with reckless abandon or flailing like a cornered beast... Do not resign yourselves, please... And I can promise the support of at least one ragged hunter." Steric’s smile was warm, inviting, and most importantly, real.
Allowing himself to sit down in the mass of viscera and buzzing flies for a mere moment, Steric uncapped his flask, only to find it empty. It truly did become one of those days, huh?
He could hear the groaning of pipes above him, the distorted form of Texas Aco glaring down from between stalks of metal. Steric could tell that she was sobbing, now, seeing her up close. He’d offer her a drink, but... Well, the flask was empty. He’d get her a milkshake later, once she calmed her down.
...How was he going to calm her down, again? She didn’t seem to look too happy with him. He probably didn’t have much time until she attacked, and lord knows he wasn’t in the state to fight. He had to say something. In a single moment, he had to say something to get her not to gut him like a fish. In a normal circumstance, he might’ve been able to think up something real clever, but with his exhausted mind, all Steric could muster was a simple
“Happy birthday, kid.”
All at once, Texas’s weeping stopped.
“I spoke to your mother earlier,” he continued, not passing up this chance. “It’s a long story, but, uh. She’s proud of you, y’know? Don’t beat yourself up too hard.”
Texas seemed to genuinely consider that, to some degree. But it was not enough, not now, and one of her wretched limbs shot towards Steric, aiming to stab right through him.
But it did not reach him. It was held, tightly, in a massive silver claw. Steric grinned.
“You could’ve given me a little more notice.” Brighid Rhodes sighed as her Stand toppled the wailing Texas Aco into the mass of pipes and held her there. “I’m a busy woman, y’know? If you hadn’t said it was urgent I would’ve ignored you.”
“Haha!” Steric collapsed onto his back, content to let his backup handle the situation. “I’m glad you gave me your card! Would’ve been a real pain in the neck otherwise.” He’d decided early into taking the job that going on his lonesome wouldn’t be the smartest call. The rest of PINDROP were all sorts of busy with other things regarding the Metropolis case, so he had to call in an outside hand. Luckily, he knew just the person to ask - even if it took a lot of work to convince her.
Brighid sighed, approaching Texas’s struggling form. She readied a hand, and dashed forward, weaving past insectoid limbs. He palm raised, and smacked into the back of the girl’s head. All at once, the buzzing stopped.
“Learned that one in college.”
For a moment, the two were silent. The situation was handled, but... What to even do, now? Brighid resigned herself to bandaging the man’s wounds, hoping and praying Texas didn’t regain consciousness anytime soon, and when she finished, the man gave her one of his signature grins.
“Let’s get her a burger or somethin’, yeah?”

If you’re looking for another brutal brawl, check out the latest Middleman attack, leaving two Stand Users to fend off them and each other!

Scenario: Zafar Singh’s House, Mist City — 10:42AM
Zafar didn’t live in as luxurious a mansion as some of the other high rollers of Rākinnagarh, the modern Major General and his late wife had still acquired what may be considered one for the sake of raising a family together. While the place certainly was larger than the man needed since he became the sole inhabitant, right now the house couldn’t feel smaller for the man and Mahimit—the latter having visited to discuss their future plans.
“...Are you certain about this?” Zafar spoke, breaking the silence as he poured another cup of tea for the two of them.
“Yes,” Mahimit answered wearily. “With everything that’s been going on, I think it’s really important that I take a break for the sake of my mental health.”
“I understand that, but isn’t leaving everything just…extreme? You might not be able to get back into the City’s Planning Board, and I know that was a job you loved.”
Mahi sighed, hand shaking slightly as they took a sip. “I suppose I did, but it was more that I enjoyed being able to give back to the city…I thought that I wouldn’t need to focus on myself, that I could push through everything for the sake of the city but…I just can’t anymore. I’ve realized that just pretending that everything was okay wasn’t going to fix things, and while I will miss the work I did as part of the planning board I think I really need some time for myself.”
Zafar nodded in understanding. “I see. I recognise it must be a tough decision to forgo doing some good for the city.”
“I mean, you make it look ea…sy…” Mahimit huffed, only realizing that they spoke too loud when Zafar’s eyes widened in slight shock as he lowered his teacup.
“What do you mean by that?” the major general sputtered. “I’ve done plenty for the community through the military—“
“And what has the military actually done these last few years, or even the police?” Mahi countered. “There’s been a string of murders—no, assassinations—that have been getting more and more public, with the latest being in broad daylight at a public bazaar. Why are the institutions meant to protect the city doing nothing to protect the people who live in it?”
“You know exactly the reason why we can’t do anything about it—”
“Except helping cover it up? You really think people haven’t noticed that it’s barely been covered in the news despite people having been murdered? The fact that it took place right after the police were there and left is also going to have people wondering if they’re involved with this Middleman.”
“The average person doesn’t pay attention to this sort of thing for too long—you’re severely overestimating how many people are even going to learn about it. I understand your concern but it should solve itself. It is a shame people died, yes, but leaving this alone is necessary for the good of th—”
At that, something in Mahimit snapped. “NECESSARY!?!?!?” They shouted, slamming their hands onto the table as they shot up in anger. “You’re telling me that people’s deaths were necessary?! That the murder of all these people is a good thing?!?!?!”
The room was silent, Mahimit trying to calm themself as Zafar sighed—this too will pass, he thought to himself, before speaking up to attempt to clarify. “You know that’s not what I meant—”
“Do you know what your problem is?” Mahi cut him off, voice shaking as he held back the anger he felt—but not his disappointment, dripping from his voice in volumes. “It’s that you ignore any problem until it either affects you or until it's too late: especially if it's one of your pals doing it. You wouldn’t let someone you just met commit abuse, but you’ve never once tried to stop Sing Now! from abusing his daughter during the decades of it you have been witness to. Of course you’ve never been at a crossroads in your life, you’ve always turned away whenever you’re faced with a choice.”
Mahimit started walking out of the room, facing their father once they reached the door. “I do still love you dad, but I can’t ignore all this any more,” they spoke, and then Zafar was left alone in the house once more.
The row of chic Mist City townhouses were no stranger to congregating and kibitzing; even if much of the district was nominally focused on business and luxury development, the glitzy streets and shops made for the perfect backdrop for social climbers to establish and flaunt themselves. Even here, in the residential area where the young architect stormed off, many could be found loitering and talking amongst themselves on the sidewalks.
Three heads turned to watch Mahimit as he walked past to clear his head.
One of which belonged to a motorcyclist, the sleek leather and chrome of his ride and his jacket matched the black and silver of the modern city around them, but the kaleidoscopic splashes of color on Vasant’s jacket was enough to gather attention.
Attention that would have gone to those beside him. One of whom was Gioia Arancini, talk of the tabloids for her recent arrest and subsequent firing from Night Train studios. Her hair wrapped in a headscarf and sunglasses kept her discrete: perfect for the trio’s stake out. “That’s the Planning Board’s wonderkid, yeah?”
The other celebrity nodded. An internationally acclaimed architect, Disco D. Lune was enthusiastically invited to urban planning meetings and historical societies across the city, whenever the hosts could find her, if she even deigned to give them a response. A few attended meetings at the city’s Planning Board, a few handshakes with the enigmatic Disco D. Lune and she had all the connections they could ask for. “Will you follow him?”
“Nah,” Gioia looked back towards the townhouse as Mahamit disappeared into the distance. “His dad’s the suspicious one.”
There had been murmurs of discontent stemming from the ‘conspiracy theorist's message board mixed with a gossip rag,’ and the recent rumors of the Middleman’s appearance at police altercation had only fanned the flames.
Disco frowned. Regardless of whether or not the Suite’s tendrils had burrowed into the urban planning committees, such an influence over the city as a whole made things increasingly difficult for her. “Urban planning:” top down governance and management that siphoned and suppressed the general public that she, despite her seclusion, relied on. Architects built for people after all, not shadowy cabals.
“What’s the reason we’re suspecting him again?” She asked her peers. “I understand the police may have been involved in the latest attack, but the military is quite different.”
“He’s been suspected since before we got a name to give the Metropolis Suite,” Vasant responded, keeping his attention on the house. “Some people we met a few weeks ago had found some documents in the military base that showed that finances and resources were being transferred to accounts with little attachment to army operations of any kind.”
“—And he’s a close associate of Sing Now!’s for decades,” Gioia carried on, turning to Disco. “Regardless, these latest attacks by the Middleman have been meant to scare us away from pursuing them—but that just means they’re scared of us, right?”
“Like a cornered animal,” the architect mused to herself. “Snarling to try and scare off threats.”
“Exactly: so we push harder. And what better way than to follow as many leads as we can to get at least one person to spy on a meeting? Sing Now!, Luiviton, and several we suspect such as Zhengqi—there’s people watching each of their moves. Getting into or even just able to listen to a meetup would be able to provide valuable information on who we’re dealing with.”
Vasant coughed, bringing the other two’s attention to himself. With a tilt of his head, he motioned that Zafar had left the town house and was beginning to head to a car parked outside—he was on the move.
“He’s on the move,” Gioia stated. “You two, follow him. I’ll stay behind and look through the house to find anything—I can't get more fired than I already am.”
“Got it,” Vasant nodded, hopping onto his Silver Dollar as he motioned for Disco to do the same. The architect sighed, getting onto the motorcycle behind him and holding on, before they eventually started pursuing their target at a distance.
Scenario: Holiday Road Military Base, Port Konwar — 11:24AM
Sunlight shone across the outside of the military base, silence filling the air as most of the soldiers based there had left for the weekend, leaving only those tasked with keeping guard and those involved in training new recruits. Security had been increased somewhat since the explosive infiltration that occurred months ago, but any urgency has laxed out with few incidents since.
It wasn’t that hard then for Dried Donuts to climb the perimeter wall, the guards at the nearby gate not noticing the rainbow arms of the panther’s Stand bending the barbed wire at the top to let her slip through unharmed to drop down onto the other side. She snarled as she noted the lack of vegetation in this place, with only the grass beneath her paws showing that there was once life here.
Cautiously she began to prowl around the area, investigating her surroundings as she stuck close to the wall. She’d been told that this place was dangerous, even for most humans—but that in itself had sparked her curiosity on what sort of place this was supposed to be. D.D. had learnt about what a military was, but the chance to learn more was exciting for her.
At the same time, that wasn’t the sole reason she was here: she hasn’t been paying as much attention to the recent going-ons of the city, only vaguely knowing of the existence of the Metropolis Suite through discussions some of her friends had about it. She got some weird vibes from the time she met Xenagoras, but she didn’t learn of his connection to this group until much later. To be honest, she didn’t exactly know what they were doing beyond trying to run the city from the shadows. But recently, a friend of Dawn’s got brutally wounded by someone from this Suite—so she thought that if she could figure out some info about these guys that might be able to cheer her friend up!
Her ears perked up as she heard the wall’s gate start to open, quickly cloaking herself with her Stand as she saw a car drive through and stopping. The panther quickly moved closer, spotting the driver—some buff old guy—talking to the two guards that were there.
“Is everyone accounted for?”
“Y-yes, General Zafar!” One of the guards answered, raising his hand to his head in a sharp manner—wait, was this one of those ‘salutes’ that they do? D.D. pondered.
“Good—make sure nobody manages to get in, I need some peace today.”
“Sir yes sir!”
With that, the car continued on into the compound as the gates shut behind him. D.D. recognised that name from when she was using the internet to read up more on this place—that guy’s the person in charge here! And given his supposed connections, he certainly isn’t the model of a modern major general. Surely if there was a Metro meeting or something he would be going to it, right?
As she began to follow where the car was headed, she noticed something strange occurring on one of the outer walls: a door had appeared, subtle and blending into the rest of the wall but it was still there. This caught the attention of D.D.—to her knowledge doors didn’t just appear out of thin air.
The panther watched as the door opened, and a woman stepped through and closed it behind her. The door vanished almost as quickly as it had formed, leaving just the person who made it, her dark suit making her begin to blend into the shadows—at least, for a human’s senses she would. D.D. recognised this figure from internet news articles: Disco D. Lune, one of the most well known architects in Rakin City. What was she doing here? Was she also trying to follow that Zafar guy?
Disco sighed looking at her surroundings—she couldn’t afford to lose Zafar now after Vasant had managed to find her an opening to get into the base. Surveying her surroundings, she paused as she noticed a shimmer of light in the middle of the wall’s shadow. Instantly, she summoned her Stand to her side, keeping her eyes on what she presumed to be a threat.
D.D. stepped back, surprised to have been spotted so soon while excited as she figured out that door must have been a Stand effect. Cautious, she decided to uncloak and reveal herself to the architect, whose eyes widened as she saw a panther materialize in front of her.
The two’s attention were quickly taken by a loud shout, the two instantly hiding as they saw Zafar exit his car as he was shouting over to one of his men. One quickly ran over to the general, and the two watched as he was handed the keys to Zafar’s car. It seemed that he had decided to continue his journey on foot past the next set of gates.
As the two Stand Users hid, looking from each other to Zafar, they realized that the two of them both had the same goal—alongside the fact that it was likely that only one of them was going to successfully follow the general without getting caught.
Open the Game!
Location: The Holiday Road Military Base!
The outline of the base and its buildings are given here, along with how many floors are in each building and section. The base does not have exact dimensions, but is fairly large. Zafar's path is given here.
He will arrive in a car, drive along the roads through the checkpoints, then get out and walk to a group of new recruits doing training exercises. He will examine them and their bunks, then examine the marina. He will visit the office briefly, then get lunch, then work in his office for a while. His route will take roughly 2 hours and 30 minutes.
Once he’s done with his office work, he will exit the office, enter the parking garage, and drive out in a car. He will do so with no fanfare, and afterwards drive out to a meeting with the rest of the Metropolis Suite. It is highly suggested that players keep especially close tabs on him while he is in the parking garage, and keep in mind he will be on highest alert there.
The compound is ringed by brick walls that are 5m high and lined with anti-climbing surfaces on top, and there are several watchtowers that would be able to point out anyone actively out of place. There are checkpoints, denoted by red lines, where someone going into the base must present identification. Obviously, players may circumvent these with their Stands how they wish; they are not expected to go through checkpoints normally.
The military buildings, notably the garages, training fields, barracks, and marina, are filled with various soldiers and service people going about their day to day work. The office buildings contain white-collar workers, while the central command contains the higher-ups in the base and their offices. Zafar’s office space is on the third floor, marked out in red.
All buildings have security cameras that are being watched by reasonably competent guards; obvious skulduggery will likely be noticed. Assume that unless you’re inside a bathroom, while in a building, you will be watched by some security camera. Creating a distraction for the guards or otherwise making yourself hidden is recommended.
Goal: Follow Zafar without getting caught, and keep an eye on his actions throughout the military base! Zafar will be walking in the path specified on the map - while players do not have to follow his exact path or keep eyes on him at all times, they must stay aware of where he is moving around the map. Keep in mind that in character, players do not know his routine or path, and must trail him without leaning on that knowledge.
Players may not attack any people on the map, as any fight or an NPCs’ absence will be noticed and put the base on high alert. If a player is spotted and confirmed as an intruder, or a player loses track of Zafar, this will count as a loss condition. While they don’t have to stick by him entirely, the players must at least be aware of his general location and be able to follow him.
Players may enter from any point they wish on the edges of the map. In the event that neither player loses the match and both keep track of Zafar proficiently, whoever leaves the less overall evidence behind of their presence on the military base will be counted as the winner.
Additional Information: Zafar’s attention will be drawn to especially loud noises, but will continue onwards if he does not spot anyone. Repeated bizarre situations or seeing the same person over and over will raise his guard; he isn’t expecting anyone to follow him around at the start of the match, but he can and will spot a sloppy approach.
Zafar and everyone else in the match cannot see Stands, but will still be able to see their effects.
Players may use any misdirection, stealth, disguise, and other factors to keep their presence hidden. The longer that a player loiters in a particular area, the more likely any disguise they have will fail. Part of the challenge of the match isn’t just following Zafar, but remaining non-obvious when he stays in a location for a particular amount of time.
Security is highest on the areas right outside of the map or on large, open areas. It’s lowest inside of the office buildings, or in areas with a lot of people. It does take some effort to get past checkpoints into or out of buildings, though these can be circumvented through various means. The more close scrapes players have, the more alert people will be as rumors of some intruders start going around.
Disco won a bid on designing the main building; while she has no intrinsic knowledge of other buildings on the map that her Architectural knowledge wouldn’t give her, she knows the full blueprint of the large building, including the location of all security cameras and their blindspots. Both players can be considered to have some understanding of how to ‘move’ around an environment while disguised to not be seen as suspicious.

Team	Combatant	JoJolity
I.M.P.A.C.T.	Dried Donuts	“Choose. (2 seconds remaining.) [Banana Peel] or [Dog Turd]” You’re an ambush predator, and some old fogey isn’t going to shake you! Use every tool you have, and show off mastery of human behavior and stealth!
Evergreen	Disco D. Lune	Paisely Park, what ‘lock’ did you just break?” You’ve designed so many structures for these people, it requires an intimate knowledge of how they think and act. Use every tool you have, and show off mastery of human behavior and misdirection!

Link to Official Player Spreadsheet
Link to Match Schedule
As always, if you would like to interact with the tournament community and be among the first to get updates for the tournament, please feel free to PM a member of our Judge staff for an invite to our Official Discord Server!

Species: dog
Age :9
Sex/Neuter status: female - spayed
Breed: pitbull-boxer mix
Body weight: 72 lbs
History: she was very malnurished as a puppy before we got her. no medical issues before this except some dental stuff (gums growing over teeth and her teeth have always been weak)
Clinical signs: swollen abdomen, breathing difficulty, fluid, loose stool
Duration: noticed swelling 4 weeks ago
Your general location: San luis obispo, Californa.
​
My dog Maddie is very swollen in the abdomen area, its hard and there is fluid in there. she seems quite uncomfortable and her breathing seems labored. we took her to the vet twice, and after 1800 dollars worth of testing the vets are stumped and have no idea what to do except for drain the fluid every once and a while. following is a list of things they did in the two visits. they said that there was some protein in her urine, and everything else looked good.
I know its hard to diagnose things over the internet, and in general. I just dont know what to do next.
any advice would be very appreciated.
​
Exam/Consultation Medical Condition
Ultrasound Effusion Check
Abdominocentesis Primary/15min
VetScan Comprehensive Diagnostic Profile
Hospitalization Holding
Exam/Consultation Reassessment Pain Management Level
US Guided Abdominocentesis
REPEAT/15min(to drain)
Fluid Analysis w/Cytology
Urinalysis
Hospitalization Setup
​
​

Does anyone get bad neck pain all the time, even when they don’t get migraines? If so, how are you managing it.
For nearly a year, I have been suffering sore-tight neck and shoulder pains. I’ve tried a standing desk, and while that initially helped, but body has adjusted. Sometimes, the pain precludes a headache or migraine, and sometimes it just plagues me with no headache event.
I recently started expensive acupuncture and do various mental health therapies, but I have yet to see a solution and am reaching my wits end ….

I just want it to go away, all the pain, stress, the feeling of loneliness, the feeling of being a constant disappointment, everything. I don't really remember the last time I woke up happy or excited about a day. The last time I smiled out of being genuinely fulfilled. I try my damned hardest to roll with the punches but it's so god damned much. I've been fighting for years and years at this point and life is just not letting up its just constantly kicking me in the ribs while I'm down, I finally feel I've got one thing down and bam life just sucker punches me. I'm literally drowning silently, screaming with no mouth. I just want to lay down and not wake up. I won't kill myself because of the pain it would bring to people and because I don't want to die I just want this to be over because haven't I suffered enough? I want to help people in this world because this fucking world just sucks, I want to be a good man and help those in need. I don't want to be rich or famous, I just want to help. But life just won't let me stop suffering. And I have no idea what to do, I've seeked therapy just to be put on mouth long waiting lists and then forgotten about. I just want it to end.

For me i find plats around between 6 and 8 difficulty rating generally the most satisfying to achieve. Those usually require some effort and dedication while at the same time not being too overly painful. Anything less than a 4 i often have just a "whatever"-feeling when it pops, and i havent done enough 9-10 difficulty games to have an opinion on them.
View Poll

*Btw, I know they would literally never do this because they hate updating voicelines but hypothetically
Galio:
"There's only room for one fighter in every ring this Macho Man-ument steps in! It's Galio!!!!"
"An Icon, A Symbol, and a world class rabble rouser, please welcome GALIO!!!!!"
Bel'veth
"Putting her plans on world domination on hold to duke it out just for you, Enter stage right Belveth!!!"
"Remember to wait 30 minutes after eating before she drowns you in the Lavender Sea! It's Belveth!!!"
Sion
"An Iron Jaw in more ways then one and an unquenchable thirst for the blood of the living! The Undead Juggernaut Sion!"
"A Shambling Mass of reanimated muscle and blood! Who doesn't wanna see this thing hurt people!?"
Jhin
"Beauty is Pain, and the competition is about to be gorgeous because Jhin has entered the arena!!!"
"1, 2, 3! Say it with me everybody!!!! FOUR!!!"
Tahm kench
"Now that he's finally in the ring, our snack bar isn't gonna be the only thing begging for mercy tonight, it's good ol' Twocoats!"
"He may not be scheduled but we owe him a lot of money, Please welcome Tahm Kench!"
Draven "You all know him, you all love him, I don't even have to say his name, all I need to say is that its not Draven, ITS DRRRRAAAAVVVEENNN!!!!"
"The Champ is stepping into the ring, and to make it fair he is only using a fraction of is true power! Please welcome back to the floor DRAVEN!!!""
Teemo
"There's about to be alot of unhappy campers, cause here comes TEEMO!!!"
"I hope you all like the smell of sump shrooms, cause Teemo has entered the building, and he's brought enough to share!"
Sett
"The Boss of a competing death pit decides to settle our differences in the ring to prove who's pit is best. Please welcome our friendly competition, Sett!"
"An Ionian Brawler in search of his old man but he said he's fine with cracking a few necks on his way there, It's the Pit boss Sett!"

Part One
The recluse in my room won't stop talking to me. I don't even know when it started. Once it did though, it became more and more frequent. At first I thought, maybe I was going crazy. However I had always been a bit on the mentally unwell side, to put it lightly. I was diagnosed with anxiety and depression in six grade. The psychiatrist said it was like I was put together wrong. The thing is he didn't just mean my internal organs, nor did he simply mean the thoughts in my head; but like something deep to the core of my very atoms was wrong. Was gross. War rotten. Was nasty. Then.. when I met Dr. Peterson is when he told me I have something against people. He told me that I seemed to have disdain for those around me. That my pain was caused by me in many ways. He wasn't wrong of course, but he could never figure out why exactly I ended up this way, and of course I could never tell him. When you tell doctors the truth, they try to hurt you. The try to send you away to that place. To the dark side of the earth. I will NOT go there again. I will not go there again. I will not go there again. I will not go there AGAIN.
So, I lied. I Said I didn't know what he meant, and that I just like to keep to myself. He wasn't wrong of course. I did have a disdain for the humanly figure. Disdain for the small minded ants that wandered the broken halls of past men many times their equal. They stand in the disrepair, and wallow in it. Not me. I could never. I am not, them. I will never be them. I will however be leaving soon. So, I needed to get this out. You might not be able to tell, but I am terrified. I am terrified of him. I am terrified of it. I am terrified of me. However, I am most terrified of the spider. No matter what it says to me. The brown recluse that follows me into my dreams, it tells me to not fear it. It tells me to not fear it while it plunges it's incisors down into my forearm, and pushes the venomous liquid out of it's body into mine. Sucking away the little life I have, while plunging in new disease on top of disease. In order to understand my fear, to understand my pain, to understand the bottomless stairs to the lair of hell which innocent souls go. Then let me go back. Let me go back. Let me go back. Let me go back.
I was thirteen when I was diagnosed with an auto immune disorder, I wasn't surprised, even back then. Sickness, disease, and torture seemed to follow members of my family wherever they went. Take my grandmother for example. She had led a very good life. A modest, God fearing life. Ya know where that got her? Laying six feet deep, after a years long struggle from oral cancer. The woman never chewed tobacco in her life, never so much as laid a finger on any drug, and never did anything bad to anyone in her entire life. Yet, she still moved onward to the dark abyss that we call death. Now I'm alone. I'm alone, and that spider knew it. It knew when I was watching it. It knew when I was thinking about it even. It knew. It always knew. It knew that the one person I had left, was gone.
My grandmother was my favorite person. She helped me when I needed it most. She came to me when I was down. She came to me when I was blue. She came to me, when the spider wouldn't leave and wanted you. Now she sits down, down down down. Down in the murky waters of soot and sand. I will go down there one day too. Honestly, I hope I go down further. I would rather burn in hell for the reset of eternity than allow my consciousness to go straight into an endless abyss of darkness and loneliness coagulating into the oozing mud that is the pitch black. It isn't my choice though now is it. See my grandmother always terrified me. This is one of the reasons that I love what scares me. I love the excitement. I love the thrill, but I also loved her. My grandmother was a child of four. She was a beautiful girl, but her mother hated her for it. As the eldest, her mother would always tell her that she had a face only a mother could love. That no man should ever want her.
When she entered high school though, that wasn't quite true. When she finally found a man that she cared for, her mother enraged with jealousy of her beauty, youth, and freedom decided to rob her of it. She decided that if she should suffer, so should her daughter. So, she went into the kitchen and grabbed a pot. She seared it on the low burning flame, and added oil until it popped. Then when my grandmother came home, she splashed a pot of boiling oil on the side of her face. It caused the skin of half of her face to melt, and droop downward like melting wax. Only for the oil to leave her face and the skin that melted downward hardened in various spots. Creating this crater effect on half of my grandmother's face. My great grandmother finally made her wish and statements come true, my grandmother had a face only a mother could love. That was until I came along. I see my grandmother for what she is. A beautiful woman, with the soul of an angel and the face of a loving goddess. As I said before, tragedy and despair follow my family like vultures. Waiting for dead corpses to pile up so that they might chew away at the last remaining fabric of their skin.
Most people think of me as an outcast. I never cared. I always thought that the best thing I could be, is alone. I was always sick everyone said. No one knew quite how sick I was, or what type of illness I bear. People told me I had my weaknesses, like my immune system. My immune system has always been somewhat confused, it seems to think that I am the foreign body. That mere consumption provide enough reason, to rid the body of itself. This caused me much pain, mentally and physically. However, no one told me I also had my strengths. I had to find that out for myself. See when no one bothered me, my brain could be set free. I could see anything I wished. Feel anything I wanted to. It all started when I was very young. I used to sit in my room for hours and talk to my friends, some of them more real than others. I had a friend named Koby. He was my most real friend.
I met Koby at elementary school, a private school where everyone except me was laced with hundred dollar bills. Koby’s family was also wealthy, but he was different from other people too. He didn’t understand when people made fun of him, why people made fun of him. He was naïve. Me on the other hand, I watched everyone. Judged everyone, just like they judged me. I got a cheaper entry in to my school due to my grandmother working at the school office. After summer ended people would come into class and the teacher would inevitably ask “What did you do this summer class?”. Everyone else either went to Greece, Italy, Rome, Japan, or some other foreign country. They were different than me, and they made sure I knew it. Not Koby though. Koby never asked me about my money, and we liked some of the same things. People would tease us and call us gay, because we liked “girly shows on the Disney channel”. We both came from a perspective of liking what we like unapologetically, at first.
We did indeed have a close and personal friendship, the kind young boys who care not about societal boundaries have. We would throw each other over one another’s heads in his pool mimicking wrestling moves. Imitating Randy Orten, and Brock Lesnar as if we were lumbering monsters of flesh and bones. Sometimes we would get hurt, bang our head in to the wrong object, or hit something too hard; only to console each other as to not cry and get in trouble. We also would make short films that ranged from comedy to action, and we replicated the bad language we saw online. We loved choreographing fake sword fights, and I always loved living as a swordsman in my head. Imagining chopping apart opponents, limb by limb as I dismantle their world and build my own. I also always wanted to act. I thought I was quite good at keeping on masks. Never relenting on an unending character, the likes of which only I know are fake. Koby and I didn’t see eye to eye on a lot though. He was a huge fan of childish games, while I liked things to be a bit more advanced and difficult. He thought random curse words were funny, while I felt my taste a little more sophisticated. Did I feel superior to him? In some ways yes. It didn’t matter though, what mattered is they didn’t like him almost as much as they hated me. That helped us bond.
Then one day something changed. Koby changed, he became one of them. Koby began to play into their jokes. Tried to be what they wanted him to be, a clown. The bullying got worse, and worse. It started with calling us gay, use the f slur towards us, and other homophobic slurs. It then turned in to physical violence. People slapping us, using us as punching bags. I was a big kid. I think they enjoyed the idea of having power over someone larger than them.
One day during basketball, we were playing knock out. During Koby’s turn, one of the kids James went up to him and punched him directly in the eye. He did this due to being “knocked out” moments prior in the game by Koby. Having had enough, I immediately threw my basketball at the kids head, and moved to begin smashing his skull with my bare knuckles. Gnarling, and utilizing years of frustration I lunged at James. Rather than joining me in fighting him, Koby stopped me. He stood between me and James. He apologized to James profusely begging for his forgiveness, and scolded me. Told me how evil I was for simply fighting back. I had never felt more embarassed. More betrayed. The person I called a friend, would stop me from protecting him, and make me look like a weak fool in front of everyone. He cared more about his image to them, the people who didn’t like him to begin with than the will and anger his own “friend”. I would never stoop so low as to let the people who berated me, who hurt me choose who I become or what actions I take. That’s when I realized my “real” friend, wasn’t so real at all. I gladly accepted that I would never protect another being again.
After he stopped me, he became close with the people we once loathed. He would go on to spend time with them, join their clubs, go to their birthday’s. He was no longer the Koby I was once tolerated, and was now something very different. I hated him, at first. That was until he became comfortable enough with them, so comfortable he told them my deepest darkest secrets. The boys that had been scolding us, making us feel like nothing for years, he told them of my abuse. He told them of my desires, and of my fears. He told them who I enjoyed spending time with, what kinds of media I enjoyed, and what goals I had. He told them. That is what matters, and that is unforgivable. When I told him that what I thought about him, when I let him know how small of an ant he truly was to me, that’s when the voices around me became more than real. In a way they were the truth. They never lied to me. They always told me what I needed to hear, not what I wanted to hear. They never judged me when I was wrong. So, when I was by myself… I was never truly alone. Some of them have names, others are a faint whisper. An echo of the wills of the past. A presence, that is not quite understood.
See I grew up in a trailer park. That is why the rich kids would never like me. I wore the same tattered uniform to school every day. Never having enough change to purchase a hot lunch, always begging the school for free food just to eat for that day. I never really thought much of my family’s money, or lack thereof. I somewhat liked living at the trailer park. I had acquaintances of all backgrounds, ethnicities, nationalities, languages you name it. However, people knew of me, but no one knew me. I would put on a front, and call myself by different names just to toy with people. Sometimes I would do different accents, to see how long it would take for someone to realize how fake it was. I always liked playing tricks on people, it’s one thing that often alienated me more than anything else. I didn’t care. I saw it as more of an art than anything. Plus never letting anyone in on the joke, made it all the more special. Only I could control what others knew of me. I was the bottle neck for that pipeline of information.
One trick I used to play on my neighbor Darren was exceedingly hilarious, but he didn’t like it much at all. He had a cat, it was a black and white cat named Moo that loved all the kids in the neighborhood. Except me. It would always scratch at me when it saw me, hiss like I was some monster. One thing that no one liked however, is that this cat meowed as loud as a Bostonian woman in the middle of an orgasm. Every single night, throughout the neighborhood it would whale on. It kept me up at night as a child, and made my dog anxious too. I always prayed that cat would get hit by a car, or smashed by a falling anvil. One day my wish must have come true. One day, the cat stopped meowing. Some say the cat got skittish, ran off, and got lost. I think differently. I think someone killed that cat. Someone took matters into their own hands, and good for them. When there is an annoyance, I say end it. People always get so sentimental over things like death. I find death to be peaceful, inviting. Warm.
However, even with Moo gone Darren and I still didn’t get along. He hated my dog, and blamed me for his cat going missing. So, one night I found an old recording on my phone. It was the cat meowing in the backyard. So I took my speaker over to Darren’s house, and played it at just the right volume to make it sound like the cat was at his gate. He got up moments later, and ran downstairs, searching for his cat. The way his face shimmered with mere glimpses of hope, and happiness only to give way to utter defeat and despair really put a smile on my face. The deep smile he had, turning in to a frightful scowl made my night perfect. His misery for some reason provided me with a level of comfort, knowing I could control someone’s emotions with such ease. It felt right. It felt like a power, that I deserved. Darren later that week would tell all the neighbors, and the neighbors started keeping an eye out too. The cat was never found, so they say. I think differently.
These days I don’t play many tricks on people at all. These days I’ve lost my power. I stay inside, away from those who can harm me. Free from everything of the societal world. Free to roam the mind that I so desperately aimed to understand in it’s entirety. Voices, that need to be satiated with conversations only I can have with myself. This is the only way to truly escape. The only way to be truly, and utterly free.
Day 3
I sit here on my couch. Staring at a blank screen ahead of me. Thinking not of the future, but of the past. I look fondly on my childhood memories. Moments with my parents where we would go on glorious adventures, filled with frights and delights all the same. One I recall is going to Bodega Bay with my father. We were roaming through beach caves, as the tide began to rise. I was with another child I met on the playground, and at a moments notice we were nearly trapped in the cave unable to get out. Luckily the other child’s father was able to get in the cave, and get us out. I hate to think what might have happened, had that man not been there on that day.
I think fondly of my school memories. While I had some friends, I mostly stuck to my studies. I was able to move forward, and at least pass my classes with relative ease. I always procrastinated, which gave me a lot of anxiety. I continued to do so anyway. By the time I reached high school I was able to graduate at 16. This made me ecstatic, because I no longer had to attend the high school that bored me so deeply. I was then able to take online classes for school, limiting my contact with others. Most see this as negative, I loved it dearly. I always felt I excelled when I worked on my own, rather than in teams. They always slowed me down anyway.
Today I sit quietly, in silence. Except for the sound of a child. The neighbor downstairs keeps a little brat that begs for attention all day long. Sometimes that baby reminds me of my neighbors cat when I was a child. It’s a long story, maybe we’ll get to it some other time.

• Nicholas Anderson

When I moved out of the trailer park, and started going to high school is when everything really changed. We went from living in a place with a community, to living in an apartment where no one knew their neighbors. Not that I cared for the people in my community much anyway, but having something to interact with seemed helpful. That was now gone. My father traveled for work, and my mother was usually getting high somewhere. So I would often stay by myself, in my home, alone. Listening to nothing but music, and the voices I had come to love so much. The voices that I began to see as more real, than reality itself. Even when one of my parents were around, I still just wanted to be left to my own devices. I’ve never liked interacting with anyone much. I don’t think I ever will.
Considering this to be the case, I was also still what you might consider to be anti-social. I did not like people, and most people did not like me. Once I learned how much I loved spending time with myself, this seemingly just got worse. Once I entered high school I realized how different I still was. No one here was significantly richer than anyone else, but I still felt a barrier separating me from them. I did find a small group of misfits however, to waste my time with at lunch. Even then I often still sat silently, while everyone else clambered on.
Even in this group, I still felt utterly alone. What I did enjoy however, was that my mere presence to them was somewhat of a trick. I did not care for these people. Yet they seemed to believe that simply because I was there, that I somehow cared about them. They also seemed to enjoy the embodiment of mystery I took on. I would rarely provide any information about myself, and when I did I would still commonly lie. Lie about who I had been with, what I had done, what I accomplished, what I had faith in. They believed it, for a time.
It all started to come apart, when Jada came around. Jada always seemed to take an interest in me. I didn’t really understand why. I never paid her any attention, and when I did it was always quick, simple, and to the point. Maybe my lack of interest in her, is what caused her interest in me. Either way, it wasn’t a good decision for her. I never have cared much for how my actions effected others. Nor have I ever really considered what would happen, if my lies were to be discovered. It just doesn’t matter to me, and typically I don’t stay around others long enough to be figured out anyway. Jada however, stuck to me like glue.
Anywhere I would go she would follow, with sad puppy dog eyes. Begging for attention. To be honest on some level I thought it was quite adorable, but also relished in the idea that I might be able to exert some sort of romantic power over someone. She was going to provide that to me. So, I fed in to her ways. I told her what she wanted to hear. I told her that she made me feel ways no one else ever had, which was completely fabricated. Pulled from thin air. I did not love this girl. I loved what she could do for me. I loved how I could make myself feel with her, and now that I had a taste of it I loved that power. That was, until she started to push back.
For a while I thought I was untouchable, I thought no one could break the spell I had on Jada. Any time I would ask her to be somewhere, she would be in an instant. It did not matter the time or the place. I could tell her any lie, ask her to complete any task and she would believe it or complete it. I had her fully in the palm of my hand with a firm grasp, until others in our little group started to get in to her head. They started to realize that some of my stories, didn’t quite add up. They saw how Jada spent her time with me. How she was at my every beck and call. That she would give up anything for me, yet I would give up nothing for her. They were jealous. They wanted to have that control over somebody, but they never could. They were never smart enough, never talented enough to do so. They told her that I was no good for her, that I was using her.
Make no mistake, I was using her. Isn’t that what love is? One using another person, to find some bliss. Some happiness which they can’t find elsewhere? Why am I wrong for doing the same. She provided me pleasure, I provided her with some in return. Sounds like a fair transaction to me. Besides, who are they however to interfere with my life. With my people. With my toys. When she finally told me she never wanted to see me again, I knew she was lying. She wanted me more than ever. Wanted to fix me. Wanted to make me hers, but she would only ever be mine to toy with. I was unfixable, because I wasn’t broken. It was everyone else that needed fixing, I was simply playing the game. Not long after Jada said that to me, I was excised from our group.
They thought of me as a dirty liar, who they couldn’t trust. It’s not my fault I played with those who are easily fooled, preyed on what made them weak. I was simply showing them what they were doing wrong. What they could do better. I knew from then on that the only person who understood me was the people I spoke to when I as alone. They knew me better than I knew myself. They knew what I wanted, what I could do. They had faith in me. That’s when I knew I needed to keep myself low. Put away. Kept neatly in a box, so that way I could ascertain my full potential. Once again I realized, only then could I be free. People, even as my toys were more detrimental to me than anything else. I loved being alone, but more importantly I thrived in it.
Once I started staying away, keeping to myself. I realized love was not what I had been told. Love was not for others, but for the feeling one can attain from the power it provides. With other humans that power is fleeting, but with one’s self it remains until your eminent death. With only myself in my home is when I found my first true love aside from loneliness. Cutting. Utilizing a blade to make the marks on my skin which I now define as art. A knife’s place is meant to be against the skin of a being. It fits so fluidly down the fold of one’s figure, like a figure skater dancing around an icy path with the blades on their feet. Leaving behind trails of love, despair, pain, and joy.
I swear it was an accident at first. I was in the kitchen one day, angry that I couldn’t understand myself. Why I felt the way I felt about life. Angry that I felt abandoned, without a mentor to assist me in both my strengths and my weaknesses. That’s when I instinctively took a knife angled it directly downward with both hands grasping it, and I slammed it straight down in to a cutting board. Little did I know that my hand would slide on to the knife as the impact was made with the board. My white tendons on the left side of my inner right palm, sliced open. Bleeding profusely.
My anger swelled in that moment, and manifested in immense pain that synergized and gave me something I had never quite felt like that before. Euphoria. Pure, and utter bliss. In that moment I felt aroused, excited, ready for something to happen. Nothing did. As my feelings of euphoria began to fade away, I was left with the slide in my hand from the blade. Blood dripping all over the cutting board, and the counter beside it. Crimson red splattered behind the board, leaving a bloody mess to clean up. I quickly applied pressure, and got a bandaid from the bathroom sink. Applied it, and sopped up the red stained tile with paper towels. As I did so it occurred to me, that feeling can be replicated again. All I needed was a knife, and a will to achieve nirvana. With blood spilt, it would be far easier the next time.
Day 5
Today I find myself on the floor of the kitchen. Staring at the ceiling, thinking of past relationships. The wrongs, the rights. What I did, what I didn’t do. What could have been, and what never will be. These things I find fascinating as a self-exploration exercise. What could I have done wrong to the woman that I once said I loved, so much so that she deems it necessary not to speak to me again. Did I do anything wrong to begin with? Is it true that she will never speak to me again? I find it doubtful, although I do not put myself in high regard on this situation either. I called her my baby doll, because that is what she is for me. I just want her back. Sometimes. However, I want her back for me. She wants me back for her. Maybe we can meet in the middle.
I think of my parents and what they didn’t do for me as a child. They weren’t model citizens, but they also weren’t terrible parents. They just didn’t know how to raise a child, and honestly who the hell does? I fault them not for what they did, but for allowing themselves to have a child in the first place when they were not ready. Bringing a child in to a world you are not prepared for let alone them, is downright despicable. A selfish and vile act of pure arrogance of nature. The arrogance of two to think love is enough to fill the stomach of their child.
Children deserve to be nourished and cared for. They deserve to prosper and have what is needed at their fingertips to grow. Anything below what you are most capable of is a disappointment, however being short of the basic necessities is abuse. This is why I would never have a child, I am not ready nor am I sure that I could truly care. If I could not care, but fake it would that be equally meaningful as a father who truly loves their child? Is it a father a child needs? Or does a child just need a figure. Someone, anyone to emulate. For finding your own way, and your own emulation in the world is the scariest task one might undergo.
Take the child downstairs for example. It cries non-stop, yet the parents do nothing to satiate the child. Whaling on and on. I could never understand bearing your carbon copy, only to neglect them. Why copy yourself to begin with. Let the branch of life come to an end. Let it fizzle out of the universe alongside that great big ball of fire we call a sun. Let us fizzle out like the final firework in the night sky during a Fourth Of July display. Burning ever so slightly less until the stars of the galaxy swallow the light whole, leaving nothing left to be devoured.

• Nicholas Anderson

Some people might say I am deeply arachnophobic, I am not. I say I am not, because it’s not the spiders I fear,. I fear what I don’t know. I don’t know where they are, I don’t know where to expect them, I don’t know what they want. I don’t know. I don’t know… Except this time. This time it seems… different. The spider in my room, it seems to understand me, somehow. Somehow, I understand… it. I’ve never liked spiders, their creepy multiple eyes, their sharp toothed grin ready to snatch away your life at any moment. Sure most spiders aren’t poisonous, but some of them are. That’s all that matters. Some spiders are small, some are massive. I hate the big ones. Ya see, I got bit by a black widow as a child. I was foolishly playing in the garage with my toys, oblivious to the world around me.
At 3 years old, I had my first encounter with this terrestrial alien. The spider that bit me injected me with enough poison to kill a small horse, so the doctor laid me down; She looked over, and with a big smile she said those famous words. “This won’t hurt a bit”. She put no numbing injections, she simply wiped the site clean, and began cutting. Sawing away at my tiny toddler stomach, slowly making their way through layers of fresh, soft, smooth skin. I remember nothing but warm tears streaming down my face as I screamed at the top of my lungs. Screaming at a rate I as a child had not even yet known. The screams of pain, they are unique. People can attempt to mimic them, but the true scream of torture and death is one so blood curddling that it makes your skin crawl. As a child you know only playful screams, this was my first introduction to what pain in the real world looked like. I just so happened to be it’s next patient.
I remember the pain, the cold feeling of blood pouring down my side, and screaming for my father. Yet, my father was the one to hold me down when I started kicking at the doctor from the pain. Rather than force them to stop cutting into a child without some type of anesthetic, he continued to hold my arms and legs as the doctor cut away. My greatest support system, to betray me in such a way. To take the trust of a child and crush it. After that session, I never trusted doctor’s again. I surely, never trusted a spider. That was until now.
That’s because even if the spider in my room were poisonous… It meant me no harm. Even if it did need to nest, and lay eggs it would not do so in my body. Even if it needed sustenance, it would not come in my direction. At least, that’s what it told me. That's what it told me as it's incisors pinched it's way into my arm once again, numbing the area unlike the doctor that went to work on me as a child. As I stare into it's eyes, I realized... I was scared. I was more than scared, for once... I was terrified. For my entire life, I was the one to induce fear in others. Now, that fear was being induced in me. So I am here. I am here to tell you. Until I am not. Let these words keep you from the spiders. Do not talk to them. Do not listen to them.
Do not be afraid. Even though deep down... fear consumes me.

Hey guys, I am posting here because I have gotten removed for "not being a personal scary experience". The only thing I could think is that the character does not always seem fearful, but there's a back and forth on it, and the fear is explained. Further, I can see that maybe the sections that are in diary format might be an issue. However, they are overall still in first person and add to the story as well as are important for a turn that occurs at the end of the story. Any help would be great!
" The Recluse In My Room Won't Stop Talking To Me"
Part One
The recluse in my room won't stop talking to me. I don't even know when it started. Once it did though, it became more and more frequent. At first I thought, maybe I was going crazy. However I had always been a bit on the mentally unwell side, to put it lightly. I was diagnosed with anxiety and depression in six grade. The psychiatrist said it was like I was put together wrong. The thing is he didn't just mean my internal organs, nor did he simply mean the thoughts in my head; but like something deep to the core of my very atoms was wrong. Was gross. War rotten. Was nasty. Then.. when I met Dr. Peterson is when he told me I have something against people. He told me that I seemed to have disdain for those around me. That my pain was caused by me in many ways. He wasn't wrong of course, but he could never figure out why exactly I ended up this way, and of course I could never tell him. When you tell doctors the truth, they try to hurt you. The try to send you away to that place. To the dark side of the earth. I will NOT go there again. I will not go there again. I will not go there again. I will not go there AGAIN.
So, I lied. I Said I didn't know what he meant, and that I just like to keep to myself. He wasn't wrong of course. I did have a disdain for the humanly figure. Disdain for the small minded ants that wandered the broken halls of past men many times their equal. They stand in the disrepair, and wallow in it. Not me. I could never. I am not, them. I will never be them. I will however be leaving soon. So, I needed to get this out. You might not be able to tell, but I am terrified. I am terrified of him. I am terrified of it. I am terrified of me. However, I am most terrified of the spider. No matter what it says to me. The brown recluse that follows me into my dreams, it tells me to not fear it. It tells me to not fear it while it plunges it's incisors down into my forearm, and pushes the venomous liquid out of it's body into mine. Sucking away the little life I have, while plunging in new disease on top of disease. In order to understand my fear, to understand my pain, to understand the bottomless stairs to the lair of hell which innocent souls go. Then let me go back. Let me go back. Let me go back. Let me go back.
I was thirteen when I was diagnosed with an auto immune disorder, I wasn't surprised, even back then. Sickness, disease, and torture seemed to follow members of my family wherever they went. Take my grandmother for example. She had led a very good life. A modest, God fearing life. Ya know where that got her? Laying six feet deep, after a years long struggle from oral cancer. The woman never chewed tobacco in her life, never so much as laid a finger on any drug, and never did anything bad to anyone in her entire life. Yet, she still moved onward to the dark abyss that we call death. Now I'm alone. I'm alone, and that spider knew it. It knew when I was watching it. It knew when I was thinking about it even. It knew. It always knew. It knew that the one person I had left, was gone.
My grandmother was my favorite person. She helped me when I needed it most. She came to me when I was down. She came to me when I was blue. She came to me, when the spider wouldn't leave and wanted you. Now she sits down, down down down. Down in the murky waters of soot and sand. I will go down there one day too. Honestly, I hope I go down further. I would rather burn in hell for the reset of eternity than allow my consciousness to go straight into an endless abyss of darkness and loneliness coagulating into the oozing mud that is the pitch black. It isn't my choice though now is it. See my grandmother always terrified me. This is one of the reasons that I love what scares me. I love the excitement. I love the thrill, but I also loved her. My grandmother was a child of four. She was a beautiful girl, but her mother hated her for it. As the eldest, her mother would always tell her that she had a face only a mother could love. That no man should ever want her.
When she entered high school though, that wasn't quite true. When she finally found a man that she cared for, her mother enraged with jealousy of her beauty, youth, and freedom decided to rob her of it. She decided that if she should suffer, so should her daughter. So, she went into the kitchen and grabbed a pot. She seared it on the low burning flame, and added oil until it popped. Then when my grandmother came home, she splashed a pot of boiling oil on the side of her face. It caused the skin of half of her face to melt, and droop downward like melting wax. Only for the oil to leave her face and the skin that melted downward hardened in various spots. Creating this crater effect on half of my grandmother's face. My great grandmother finally made her wish and statements come true, my grandmother had a face only a mother could love. That was until I came along. I see my grandmother for what she is. A beautiful woman, with the soul of an angel and the face of a loving goddess. As I said before, tragedy and despair follow my family like vultures. Waiting for dead corpses to pile up so that they might chew away at the last remaining fabric of their skin.
Most people think of me as an outcast. I never cared. I always thought that the best thing I could be, is alone. I was always sick everyone said. No one knew quite how sick I was, or what type of illness I bear. People told me I had my weaknesses, like my immune system. My immune system has always been somewhat confused, it seems to think that I am the foreign body. That mere consumption provide enough reason, to rid the body of itself. This caused me much pain, mentally and physically. However, no one told me I also had my strengths. I had to find that out for myself. See when no one bothered me, my brain could be set free. I could see anything I wished. Feel anything I wanted to. It all started when I was very young. I used to sit in my room for hours and talk to my friends, some of them more real than others. I had a friend named Koby. He was my most real friend.
I met Koby at elementary school, a private school where everyone except me was laced with hundred dollar bills. Koby’s family was also wealthy, but he was different from other people too. He didn’t understand when people made fun of him, why people made fun of him. He was naïve. Me on the other hand, I watched everyone. Judged everyone, just like they judged me. I got a cheaper entry in to my school due to my grandmother working at the school office. After summer ended people would come into class and the teacher would inevitably ask “What did you do this summer class?”. Everyone else either went to Greece, Italy, Rome, Japan, or some other foreign country. They were different than me, and they made sure I knew it. Not Koby though. Koby never asked me about my money, and we liked some of the same things. People would tease us and call us gay, because we liked “girly shows on the Disney channel”. We both came from a perspective of liking what we like unapologetically, at first.
We did indeed have a close and personal friendship, the kind young boys who care not about societal boundaries have. We would throw each other over one another’s heads in his pool mimicking wrestling moves. Imitating Randy Orten, and Brock Lesnar as if we were lumbering monsters of flesh and bones. Sometimes we would get hurt, bang our head in to the wrong object, or hit something too hard; only to console each other as to not cry and get in trouble. We also would make short films that ranged from comedy to action, and we replicated the bad language we saw online. We loved choreographing fake sword fights, and I always loved living as a swordsman in my head. Imagining chopping apart opponents, limb by limb as I dismantle their world and build my own. I also always wanted to act. I thought I was quite good at keeping on masks. Never relenting on an unending character, the likes of which only I know are fake. Koby and I didn’t see eye to eye on a lot though. He was a huge fan of childish games, while I liked things to be a bit more advanced and difficult. He thought random curse words were funny, while I felt my taste a little more sophisticated. Did I feel superior to him? In some ways yes. It didn’t matter though, what mattered is they didn’t like him almost as much as they hated me. That helped us bond.
Then one day something changed. Koby changed, he became one of them. Koby began to play into their jokes. Tried to be what they wanted him to be, a clown. The bullying got worse, and worse. It started with calling us gay, use the f slur towards us, and other homophobic slurs. It then turned in to physical violence. People slapping us, using us as punching bags. I was a big kid. I think they enjoyed the idea of having power over someone larger than them.
One day during basketball, we were playing knock out. During Koby’s turn, one of the kids James went up to him and punched him directly in the eye. He did this due to being “knocked out” moments prior in the game by Koby. Having had enough, I immediately threw my basketball at the kids head, and moved to begin smashing his skull with my bare knuckles. Gnarling, and utilizing years of frustration I lunged at James. Rather than joining me in fighting him, Koby stopped me. He stood between me and James. He apologized to James profusely begging for his forgiveness, and scolded me. Told me how evil I was for simply fighting back. I had never felt more embarassed. More betrayed. The person I called a friend, would stop me from protecting him, and make me look like a weak fool in front of everyone. He cared more about his image to them, the people who didn’t like him to begin with than the will and anger his own “friend”. I would never stoop so low as to let the people who berated me, who hurt me choose who I become or what actions I take. That’s when I realized my “real” friend, wasn’t so real at all. I gladly accepted that I would never protect another being again.
After he stopped me, he became close with the people we once loathed. He would go on to spend time with them, join their clubs, go to their birthday’s. He was no longer the Koby I was once tolerated, and was now something very different. I hated him, at first. That was until he became comfortable enough with them, so comfortable he told them my deepest darkest secrets. The boys that had been scolding us, making us feel like nothing for years, he told them of my abuse. He told them of my desires, and of my fears. He told them who I enjoyed spending time with, what kinds of media I enjoyed, and what goals I had. He told them. That is what matters, and that is unforgivable. When I told him that what I thought about him, when I let him know how small of an ant he truly was to me, that’s when the voices around me became more than real. In a way they were the truth. They never lied to me. They always told me what I needed to hear, not what I wanted to hear. They never judged me when I was wrong. So, when I was by myself… I was never truly alone. Some of them have names, others are a faint whisper. An echo of the wills of the past. A presence, that is not quite understood.
See I grew up in a trailer park. That is why the rich kids would never like me. I wore the same tattered uniform to school every day. Never having enough change to purchase a hot lunch, always begging the school for free food just to eat for that day. I never really thought much of my family’s money, or lack thereof. I somewhat liked living at the trailer park. I had acquaintances of all backgrounds, ethnicities, nationalities, languages you name it. However, people knew of me, but no one knew me. I would put on a front, and call myself by different names just to toy with people. Sometimes I would do different accents, to see how long it would take for someone to realize how fake it was. I always liked playing tricks on people, it’s one thing that often alienated me more than anything else. I didn’t care. I saw it as more of an art than anything. Plus never letting anyone in on the joke, made it all the more special. Only I could control what others knew of me. I was the bottle neck for that pipeline of information.
One trick I used to play on my neighbor Darren was exceedingly hilarious, but he didn’t like it much at all. He had a cat, it was a black and white cat named Moo that loved all the kids in the neighborhood. Except me. It would always scratch at me when it saw me, hiss like I was some monster. One thing that no one liked however, is that this cat meowed as loud as a Bostonian woman in the middle of an orgasm. Every single night, throughout the neighborhood it would whale on. It kept me up at night as a child, and made my dog anxious too. I always prayed that cat would get hit by a car, or smashed by a falling anvil. One day my wish must have come true. One day, the cat stopped meowing. Some say the cat got skittish, ran off, and got lost. I think differently. I think someone killed that cat. Someone took matters into their own hands, and good for them. When there is an annoyance, I say end it. People always get so sentimental over things like death. I find death to be peaceful, inviting. Warm.
However, even with Moo gone Darren and I still didn’t get along. He hated my dog, and blamed me for his cat going missing. So, one night I found an old recording on my phone. It was the cat meowing in the backyard. So I took my speaker over to Darren’s house, and played it at just the right volume to make it sound like the cat was at his gate. He got up moments later, and ran downstairs, searching for his cat. The way his face shimmered with mere glimpses of hope, and happiness only to give way to utter defeat and despair really put a smile on my face. The deep smile he had, turning in to a frightful scowl made my night perfect. His misery for some reason provided me with a level of comfort, knowing I could control someone’s emotions with such ease. It felt right. It felt like a power, that I deserved. Darren later that week would tell all the neighbors, and the neighbors started keeping an eye out too. The cat was never found, so they say. I think differently.
These days I don’t play many tricks on people at all. These days I’ve lost my power. I stay inside, away from those who can harm me. Free from everything of the societal world. Free to roam the mind that I so desperately aimed to understand in it’s entirety. Voices, that need to be satiated with conversations only I can have with myself. This is the only way to truly escape. The only way to be truly, and utterly free.
Day 3
I sit here on my couch. Staring at a blank screen ahead of me. Thinking not of the future, but of the past. I look fondly on my childhood memories. Moments with my parents where we would go on glorious adventures, filled with frights and delights all the same. One I recall is going to Bodega Bay with my father. We were roaming through beach caves, as the tide began to rise. I was with another child I met on the playground, and at a moments notice we were nearly trapped in the cave unable to get out. Luckily the other child’s father was able to get in the cave, and get us out. I hate to think what might have happened, had that man not been there on that day.
I think fondly of my school memories. While I had some friends, I mostly stuck to my studies. I was able to move forward, and at least pass my classes with relative ease. I always procrastinated, which gave me a lot of anxiety. I continued to do so anyway. By the time I reached high school I was able to graduate at 16. This made me ecstatic, because I no longer had to attend the high school that bored me so deeply. I was then able to take online classes for school, limiting my contact with others. Most see this as negative, I loved it dearly. I always felt I excelled when I worked on my own, rather than in teams. They always slowed me down anyway.
Today I sit quietly, in silence. Except for the sound of a child. The neighbor downstairs keeps a little brat that begs for attention all day long. Sometimes that baby reminds me of my neighbors cat when I was a child. It’s a long story, maybe we’ll get to it some other time.

• Nicholas Anderson

When I moved out of the trailer park, and started going to high school is when everything really changed. We went from living in a place with a community, to living in an apartment where no one knew their neighbors. Not that I cared for the people in my community much anyway, but having something to interact with seemed helpful. That was now gone. My father traveled for work, and my mother was usually getting high somewhere. So I would often stay by myself, in my home, alone. Listening to nothing but music, and the voices I had come to love so much. The voices that I began to see as more real, than reality itself. Even when one of my parents were around, I still just wanted to be left to my own devices. I’ve never liked interacting with anyone much. I don’t think I ever will.
Considering this to be the case, I was also still what you might consider to be anti-social. I did not like people, and most people did not like me. Once I learned how much I loved spending time with myself, this seemingly just got worse. Once I entered high school I realized how different I still was. No one here was significantly richer than anyone else, but I still felt a barrier separating me from them. I did find a small group of misfits however, to waste my time with at lunch. Even then I often still sat silently, while everyone else clambered on.
Even in this group, I still felt utterly alone. What I did enjoy however, was that my mere presence to them was somewhat of a trick. I did not care for these people. Yet they seemed to believe that simply because I was there, that I somehow cared about them. They also seemed to enjoy the embodiment of mystery I took on. I would rarely provide any information about myself, and when I did I would still commonly lie. Lie about who I had been with, what I had done, what I accomplished, what I had faith in. They believed it, for a time.
It all started to come apart, when Jada came around. Jada always seemed to take an interest in me. I didn’t really understand why. I never paid her any attention, and when I did it was always quick, simple, and to the point. Maybe my lack of interest in her, is what caused her interest in me. Either way, it wasn’t a good decision for her. I never have cared much for how my actions effected others. Nor have I ever really considered what would happen, if my lies were to be discovered. It just doesn’t matter to me, and typically I don’t stay around others long enough to be figured out anyway. Jada however, stuck to me like glue.
Anywhere I would go she would follow, with sad puppy dog eyes. Begging for attention. To be honest on some level I thought it was quite adorable, but also relished in the idea that I might be able to exert some sort of romantic power over someone. She was going to provide that to me. So, I fed in to her ways. I told her what she wanted to hear. I told her that she made me feel ways no one else ever had, which was completely fabricated. Pulled from thin air. I did not love this girl. I loved what she could do for me. I loved how I could make myself feel with her, and now that I had a taste of it I loved that power. That was, until she started to push back.
For a while I thought I was untouchable, I thought no one could break the spell I had on Jada. Any time I would ask her to be somewhere, she would be in an instant. It did not matter the time or the place. I could tell her any lie, ask her to complete any task and she would believe it or complete it. I had her fully in the palm of my hand with a firm grasp, until others in our little group started to get in to her head. They started to realize that some of my stories, didn’t quite add up. They saw how Jada spent her time with me. How she was at my every beck and call. That she would give up anything for me, yet I would give up nothing for her. They were jealous. They wanted to have that control over somebody, but they never could. They were never smart enough, never talented enough to do so. They told her that I was no good for her, that I was using her.
Make no mistake, I was using her. Isn’t that what love is? One using another person, to find some bliss. Some happiness which they can’t find elsewhere? Why am I wrong for doing the same. She provided me pleasure, I provided her with some in return. Sounds like a fair transaction to me. Besides, who are they however to interfere with my life. With my people. With my toys. When she finally told me she never wanted to see me again, I knew she was lying. She wanted me more than ever. Wanted to fix me. Wanted to make me hers, but she would only ever be mine to toy with. I was unfixable, because I wasn’t broken. It was everyone else that needed fixing, I was simply playing the game. Not long after Jada said that to me, I was excised from our group.
They thought of me as a dirty liar, who they couldn’t trust. It’s not my fault I played with those who are easily fooled, preyed on what made them weak. I was simply showing them what they were doing wrong. What they could do better. I knew from then on that the only person who understood me was the people I spoke to when I as alone. They knew me better than I knew myself. They knew what I wanted, what I could do. They had faith in me. That’s when I knew I needed to keep myself low. Put away. Kept neatly in a box, so that way I could ascertain my full potential. Once again I realized, only then could I be free. People, even as my toys were more detrimental to me than anything else. I loved being alone, but more importantly I thrived in it.
Once I started staying away, keeping to myself. I realized love was not what I had been told. Love was not for others, but for the feeling one can attain from the power it provides. With other humans that power is fleeting, but with one’s self it remains until your eminent death. With only myself in my home is when I found my first true love aside from loneliness. Cutting. Utilizing a blade to make the marks on my skin which I now define as art. A knife’s place is meant to be against the skin of a being. It fits so fluidly down the fold of one’s figure, like a figure skater dancing around an icy path with the blades on their feet. Leaving behind trails of love, despair, pain, and joy.
I swear it was an accident at first. I was in the kitchen one day, angry that I couldn’t understand myself. Why I felt the way I felt about life. Angry that I felt abandoned, without a mentor to assist me in both my strengths and my weaknesses. That’s when I instinctively took a knife angled it directly downward with both hands grasping it, and I slammed it straight down in to a cutting board. Little did I know that my hand would slide on to the knife as the impact was made with the board. My white tendons on the left side of my inner right palm, sliced open. Bleeding profusely.
My anger swelled in that moment, and manifested in immense pain that synergized and gave me something I had never quite felt like that before. Euphoria. Pure, and utter bliss. In that moment I felt aroused, excited, ready for something to happen. Nothing did. As my feelings of euphoria began to fade away, I was left with the slide in my hand from the blade. Blood dripping all over the cutting board, and the counter beside it. Crimson red splattered behind the board, leaving a bloody mess to clean up. I quickly applied pressure, and got a bandaid from the bathroom sink. Applied it, and sopped up the red stained tile with paper towels. As I did so it occurred to me, that feeling can be replicated again. All I needed was a knife, and a will to achieve nirvana. With blood spilt, it would be far easier the next time.
Day 5
Today I find myself on the floor of the kitchen. Staring at the ceiling, thinking of past relationships. The wrongs, the rights. What I did, what I didn’t do. What could have been, and what never will be. These things I find fascinating as a self-exploration exercise. What could I have done wrong to the woman that I once said I loved, so much so that she deems it necessary not to speak to me again. Did I do anything wrong to begin with? Is it true that she will never speak to me again? I find it doubtful, although I do not put myself in high regard on this situation either. I called her my baby doll, because that is what she is for me. I just want her back. Sometimes. However, I want her back for me. She wants me back for her. Maybe we can meet in the middle.
I think of my parents and what they didn’t do for me as a child. They weren’t model citizens, but they also weren’t terrible parents. They just didn’t know how to raise a child, and honestly who the hell does? I fault them not for what they did, but for allowing themselves to have a child in the first place when they were not ready. Bringing a child in to a world you are not prepared for let alone them, is downright despicable. A selfish and vile act of pure arrogance of nature. The arrogance of two to think love is enough to fill the stomach of their child.
Children deserve to be nourished and cared for. They deserve to prosper and have what is needed at their fingertips to grow. Anything below what you are most capable of is a disappointment, however being short of the basic necessities is abuse. This is why I would never have a child, I am not ready nor am I sure that I could truly care. If I could not care, but fake it would that be equally meaningful as a father who truly loves their child? Is it a father a child needs? Or does a child just need a figure. Someone, anyone to emulate. For finding your own way, and your own emulation in the world is the scariest task one might undergo.
Take the child downstairs for example. It cries non-stop, yet the parents do nothing to satiate the child. Whaling on and on. I could never understand bearing your carbon copy, only to neglect them. Why copy yourself to begin with. Let the branch of life come to an end. Let it fizzle out of the universe alongside that great big ball of fire we call a sun. Let us fizzle out like the final firework in the night sky during a Fourth Of July display. Burning ever so slightly less until the stars of the galaxy swallow the light whole, leaving nothing left to be devoured.

• Nicholas Anderson

Some people might say I am deeply arachnophobic, I am not. I say I am not, because it’s not the spiders I fear,. I fear what I don’t know. I don’t know where they are, I don’t know where to expect them, I don’t know what they want. I don’t know. I don’t know… Except this time. This time it seems… different. The spider in my room, it seems to understand me, somehow. Somehow, I understand… it. I’ve never liked spiders, their creepy multiple eyes, their sharp toothed grin ready to snatch away your life at any moment. Sure most spiders aren’t poisonous, but some of them are. That’s all that matters. Some spiders are small, some are massive. I hate the big ones. Ya see, I got bit by a black widow as a child. I was foolishly playing in the garage with my toys, oblivious to the world around me.
At 3 years old, I had my first encounter with this terrestrial alien. The spider that bit me injected me with enough poison to kill a small horse, so the doctor laid me down; She looked over, and with a big smile she said those famous words. “This won’t hurt a bit”. She put no numbing injections, she simply wiped the site clean, and began cutting. Sawing away at my tiny toddler stomach, slowly making their way through layers of fresh, soft, smooth skin. I remember nothing but warm tears streaming down my face as I screamed at the top of my lungs. Screaming at a rate I as a child had not even yet known. The screams of pain, they are unique. People can attempt to mimic them, but the true scream of torture and death is one so blood curddling that it makes your skin crawl. As a child you know only playful screams, this was my first introduction to what pain in the real world looked like. I just so happened to be it’s next patient.
I remember the pain, the cold feeling of blood pouring down my side, and screaming for my father. Yet, my father was the one to hold me down when I started kicking at the doctor from the pain. Rather than force them to stop cutting into a child without some type of anesthetic, he continued to hold my arms and legs as the doctor cut away. My greatest support system, to betray me in such a way. To take the trust of a child and crush it. After that session, I never trusted doctor’s again. I surely, never trusted a spider. That was until now.
That’s because even if the spider in my room were poisonous… It meant me no harm. Even if it did need to nest, and lay eggs it would not do so in my body. Even if it needed sustenance, it would not come in my direction. At least, that’s what it told me. That's what it told me as it's incisors pinched it's way into my arm once again, numbing the area unlike the doctor that went to work on me as a child. As I stare into it's eyes, I realized... I was scared. I was more than scared, for once... I was terrified. For my entire life, I was the one to induce fear in others. Now, that fear was being induced in me. So I am here. I am here to tell you. Until I am not. Let these words keep you from the spiders. Do not talk to them. Do not listen to them.
Do not be afraid. Even though deep down... fear consumes me."

Does anyone ever get random different anxiety symptoms everyday? Example: chest pain, neck pain/tension, shaking, lightheadedness, heart feels weird or just more hyper aware of it, throat pain, shoulder pain, jaw pain. Or is that just me? Like it'll be something different everyday, and also wake up shaking thinking "this is it" here and there?

Does anyone ever get random different anxiety symptoms everyday? Example: chest pain, neck pain/tension, shaking, lightheadedness, heart feels weird or just more hyper aware of it, throat pain, shoulder pain, jaw pain. Or is that just me? Like it’ll be something different everyday, and also wake up shaking thinking “this is it” here and there?

Is there anything that helps ?. I mean besides an nsaid or medication etc......, where I live is terrible for up and down weather (northeast) and my migraines have gotten progressively worse , I can deal with the pain but the dizziness and constant tinnitus is driving me nuts. Any advice would be greatly appreciated.
P.S. the weather x earplugs have done nothing for me . I also have TMJ and neck pain

I have been friends with this woman for well over 17 years. While we live very far apart we have kept in contact over the years and have been very close. She really has been my dearest and best friend.
We both got married to different people and I got a divorce 5 years ago. She has just divorced recently. It was a very painful divorce for her and her 3 kids. Her ex-husband was an abusive POS in every aspect. She had it very rough with him. At one point she tried to game over herself due to all the abuse.
I decided to go visit her for a bit after her divorce finalized to help her unwind after all that stress. We had a great time together and then when I was getting ready to go home she made a love confession to me.
Under normal circumstances I'd be very happy about this. However I'm in the Military.
Part of the conditions of her divorce is she has to stay in her home state because of custody of her children and her alimony. I tried to tell her that due to my job I don't get to pick where I live, or even when I would be home. She wasn't hearing any of it.
After returning home my work has been busy and we haven't had a lot of time to talk since then. Just some quick "hey how's it goings" and that's.
Last night I finally had time to call her and talk. I told her that I'm in the military and that I don't have a say in where I go , when I go and in some cases I can't even tell her where I'm going or what I'm doing. I'd be forced to lie to her about where I've been and what I've done. I also told her that there's always a very real chance I could go out sometime and never come home. She might not ever get to know what happened if this were to occur. My stance on all this is she deserves to be with someone who can be there with her and be honest with her. After all she's endured she deserves that.
She comes back with "so what, at least I'd get to see you a bit. and if it was for even a year or two I'd be ok", "I don't care what you do, I won't ask" I tried to tell her that I wouldn't be able to provide that well for her or her kids and she came back with "I don't care about money, I don't want to be lonely". She went on to again tell me how she lost all trust in men and that I'm the only one she still trusts. That we've known each other for so long and went through so many difficulties. She said we've been given a second chance at being together and we should take it. She then again professes her love for me.
At this point she is crying a ton and I feel like total garbage.
On my side of things I do care about her a lot, in fact I'd say I love her too. However I can't be in a relationship with her. Maybe I have a little bit of an old fashioned take but I want to be in a position where I would be able to properly provide for someone and that means being present, being able to provide them with everything they need, and being honest with her. I would want her to feel secure at all times knowing that her partner would be there to love and care for her. All are things I would never be able to do. Also I don't know if I'd be accepted by her kids who are all teenagers and I don't want to be a point of contention between them and their mom. The biggest issue is she can't leave her home state due to alimony and child custody and I can't choose where I live so it forces us to live apart. That's not fair to her.
We ended our conversation with her saying the ball is in my court and I have to make the decision. Do I lose all this for the job or do I risk it and be with her?
I think she is so insistent on the relationship because of how bad things were for her and she needs to feel safe with someone, so she's latching on to me. I feel honored by that but I know the way my life is, and it will be that way for quite some time. Her and I trying to be together isn't fair to her.
I have a bad feeling that I'm about to lose my best friend. During my lowest points I was able to lean on her and she helped pull me out of some really dark places. I don't want to lose her friendship but from the sounds of things it's a romantic relationship or nothing.
How to I try to make this break without losing her completely or breaking her heart too badly?
Some background on the 2 of us,
We've known each other for 17 years
Me, Divorced 5 years ago from a wife who cheated when we were apart, tried to date a little after, got into a relationship for a couple of years with someone who was emotionally and mentally abusive to me. I've given up on trying since my job gets in the way. I've accepted that I will have to be alone for the foreseeable future.
Her, recently divorced from her ex-husband who mentally, emotionally, and physically abused her and their 3 kids, can't leave her home state due to alimony and child custody, tried dating some guys didn't work out cause she says they were only after sex. Says she is lonely but also has given up on dating.
TLDR: my best friend is in love with me but due to work (military) I can't be with her and give her what she needs. She says she doesn't care about any that and just wants a relationship. I want to preserve our friendship but it's looking unlikely. What do I do?

29M Here 249 pounds 6’1 love to drink beer, back in January the day after my mother passed away I developed some right rib pain and I initially contributed this discomfort to being emotionally unstable.
February 3RD, I experienced really bad abdominal pain and I had a pale colored poop. Once again I contributed this strange event to my mother passing away.
Fast forward to March, I had a co-workers son who is also 29 get diagnosed with cirrhosis- after I heard that i immediately scheduled a doctors appointment because this dull intermittent pain on my right side was still lingering around.
I went to the doctor March 19th, I was some what of a mess because I had convinced myself that I had cirrhosis of the liver, constantly checking for other symptoms the full nine yards. He did a blood test, everything was in range- nothing was out of range besides glucose. That was proof enough for me until I read an article talking about how not to be fooled by good liver enzyme test. So here we go again… My doctor scheduled an ultrasound on April 15th, the ultrasound sound said that my urq was normal, no suspicion of liver disease.
My doctor gave me anxiety medication, the pain still remains and sometimes my right shoulder will hurt, I haven’t had a pale poop since February. What would you do in this situation? Trust the good doctor and move on with the annoying pain? Just looking for thoughts, not looking for medical help.

I have really bad health anxiety, and just suffer from general anxiety as well, so this bump is starting to really freak me out. I heard prodding at lymph nodes can cause them to swell, though. It's not visibly swollen, so I attached a photo circling where I can feel it; and I'm not even sure if what I am feeling is a lymph node or not. I want to say it is about nickel sized. For a week my neck felt very tense, and it hurt. As of right now though, the pain has gone away but it has not disappeared. I don't believe I can quite move it, but I can only feel it if I tilt my head upwards and press very lightly down on it. Should this be a cause for concern? I'm worried it's something serious but that could just be the anxiety talking. (F19)