Gas and back pain after eating

My fiancé and I got engaged last June, and the week we moved in together (shortly after), Crumbl had the wedding cake cookie. It is my absolute FAVORITE. This week, wedding cake is back in the rotation and I bought one to eat now and one to freeze so we can enjoy it next month on the one year anniversary of our engagement!!! 🤍
Does anyone else have any cookies with great memories/nostalgia attached? Which cookies get you super hyped?

I've been with my BF for a little over a year and a half. I rent a room in a flat and pay full rent for that. After a few months of dating Q, my anxiety around his alcohol increased which lead me to stay at his most of the time, to check on him, wait up for him to return home at 4am a lot of the nights a week, just so I know he's ok etc. Make sure he has food to eat, because he hardly eats, tidy up etc.
He was an alcoholic/addict when I met him, but it was the jekyll and Hyde situation, so I just saw the nice bits about him and stayed. Became codependent.
He's been emotionally, verbally and physically abusive(happened a few times, police were called, hasn't happened after in months). The past few months he's been extra nasty to me, emotionally, it was too much to take, I felt myself lose feelings for him. I left yesterday.
Today I rang him, he said he was sorry he was so mean the past few months, but its because I'm at his place rent free all the time, I invade his space. I can't afford to pay rent for two places. My family and even his fam have made it very clear after the DV incident that I shouldn't give my flat up.
But after my convo with Q today he seemed to have convinced me that he cares about me, but either I need to split rent at his and give him space (not call him even if it's 4am in the morning to ask when he's coming back, etc) or spend 2 days a week at his flat because that's when he's not out drinking. He said then our relationship will improve and he'll treat me better. I feel guilty for not paying rent at his but stay here most of the time.
I'm really confused now, was feeling proud of myself for leaving, now I'm back to this and somehow I feel his argument maybe right and maybe things will be ok then? I can detach with love while staying at his spliting rent? I've already learnt to detach to a large extent. Never question his drinking/drugging.
What should I do? Really need advise.

Does anyone have any advice for getting in my own way mentally while working out?
I’m 22, female and do strength training and have been for about a year and a half. My goals are hypertrophy and also just general well being.
I’ve always struggled with gym anxiety before the gym.
But now when I go, I find myself dealing with feelings of anxiety/depression during and after my workout.
Getting frustrated because I’m not pushing myself hard enough when I know I physically could do more. But mentally I just end up giving up instead of trying harder (for example only hitting 6 reps instead of 8 on the last set, but knowing i could’ve done more if I pushed myself to) Just going through the motions and avoiding pain as much as possible.
This causes me to feel shitty and depressed mid workout. Then on top of that I feel extremely frustrated at myself doing exercises because I don’t know if i’m doing them right and I just feel like i’m not really making any progress and it just makes me spiral every time. I’m constantly comparing myself to others and i’m pissed that I’m not bringing the intensity to the workouts like I see others doing but I just have a mental block that makes me think I can’t do it.
Then after the gym all these emotions come to ahead and I’m either holding back tears with a lump in my throat or straight up crying in my car the whole way home and it takes me a while to come down from these feelings.
Does anyone have any advice? I’m just so tired of this because exercise seems to be everyone’s outlet but it’s just making me feel worse about myself.

Am I wrong for being angry/upset for being called a liar and untrustworthy for telling my daughter that the movie popcorn has "butter" poured on top of it at the theater? The question came up from my daughter asking whether the movie popcorn has any nuts/peanuts in it because she has a nut allergy. I simply said, "No, it's just popcorn and butter and some salt." I know the liquid stuff they put on the popcorn isn't butter, even though the concession stand person asked if I wanted "butter." I grew up eating this stuff and have bought some in the past. I know it's some oil with coloring and salt. It could also be some other type of fatty substance they use, but I'm confident it doesn't contain nuts or tree nuts. The reason they even use this "butter" stuff in the first place is to keep it from going rancid if they use real butter. It's also cheap, so adding nuts would increase the cost. I know there is hazelnut flavoring (also fake and has no actual hazelnuts), and that's more expensive than "butter."
Anyway, my wife got pissed at me about lying to my daughter, and she deemed that I couldn't be trusted. My daughter has asked about whether there are nuts in pretty much everything. It's good that she's looking out for herself, but when she does this all the time, it gets pretty old. I didn't want to interrogate the concession stand staff about whether the popcorn or the fake butter stuff had any nuts/peanuts in it.
My wife kept bringing up trust a lot in the past several years because one time many years ago, I told her I wanted to get a divorce during a heated verbal argument because she was driving me nuts.
Here are some of the situations that have accumulated over the years and made me resent her more and more. I think I'm a trustworthy person, and I try my best to live with integrity. I have a high-paying professional job. I don't have any vices (alcohol, drugs, gambling, etc.). I also don't do much other than going to work and coming home. I go grocery shopping on the weekend and spend most of the time doing household chores on doing stuff on the computer.

• She got mad at me because I painted the window sill with polyurethane because it was getting moldy waiting for her to decide what wood treatments to put on the windows. This took almost a year and the wood already was getting moldy.
  
• She got mad at me for not telling her about a joint account I have with my mother. My mom felt that it was unfair that my wife has an investment account that her dad setup for her since she was a child. She never told me how much she has in that account, but we pay thousands in taxes every year because of it. When my wife found out about my account, she demanded that we split that money. I did so for my account, but she never shared her money from her own account with me because it's still invested. I have no idea how much money she has, and I don't care since it was her money before we got married. It just seems lopsided that somehow my money must be shared with her.
  
  • She got mad at me for getting in a fight with my mom when we went to visit her at my childhood home overseas. My mom was upset with us because she paid for the plane tickets (~$6k total) to fly to visit and offered her house for us to stay, but we repaid her generosity by only spending less than a couple days with her during our 2-week visit. My wife didn't want to stay in the city and would instead go off exploring. I got in a fight with my mom trying to defend my wife when my mom was accusing her of being ungrateful and rude to the family. Even today, my wife keeps saying how she can't trust my mom because "your mom is unstable and explosive".
  • She got mad at me for going to San Francisco for a week to get my mom (72 years old at the time) coming from overseas to visit a couple of places she wanted to visit for planning to relocate to the Bay Area. She didn't know anyone else in the US so she asked me to help her. She paid for all the expenses. At this point my mom also didn't like my wife so she didn't ask her to come. My wife said I shouldn't go and just let my mom deal with it herself. I hadn't seen my mother in 3 years at this point so I did want to see her and help her. I was also worried about her safety. My wife's family was living 10 minutes away from us so she couldn't understand why I would want to see my mom.
  • She got mad at me for planting grass seeds in our backyard when she went away for the weekend. Up to that point, my wife had already spent hundreds of dollars hiring random people to come to pluck out goutweed from the backyard to get rid of them. I read somewhere that grass can outcompete with goutweed so I decided to just plant the seeds. I didn't want to tell her because she kept delaying the decision to do anything with the backyard and we have goutweed growing everywhere despite all that money spent to get rid of them. The grass actually worked, and we have a grass lawn now instead of a goutweed field as long as I mow the lawn. She said I was sneaking behind her back to plant the seeds. It made her not trust me.
• She got mad at me for wanting to take a business trip that could further my career at the company I was working for. I passed on it and I lost the promotion.
  
  • She got mad at me for not wanting to send the kids to private school ($18k/year per kid and we have 2 kids). I was making $135k/year but I left the job because my wife said that I spent too much time at work and not enough with family. I took a lower paying job so I can spend more time with family, but the private school cost is just making it difficult. She was only working part-time but had to go full-time because I don't make as much as I used to.
• She got mad at me because I sometimes came home half an hour late after 5 pm and didn't make dinner in time for the kids to go to bed by 7:30 pm. The older one is in 6th grade and the younger one in 3rd grade. I have to make breakfast and dinner everyday and I also have to do all the dishes. Her job is to put the kids to bed. I also have to drop the kids off every morning at their private school and I can't drop them off before 8:30 am and it's over half an hour away from my work the wrong direction. I could never get to work before 9:00 am and my wife demanded that I need to be home by 5 pm to make dinner.
  
• She demanded that I spend at least an hour or more every day with her after the kids go to bed even if I see her everyday at breakfast and dinner. She got mad when I wanted to teach a pottery class some evenings 2-3 times a week because I used to enjoy pottery and teaching. I had to quit because she got mad at me for not spending time with her.
  
  • She got mad at me for starting a golf equipment business. She hated the products I was making because she didn't play golf and disliked golf. She wasn't supportive and probably couldn't wait for the business to fail so I stop spending time on it. The business is still going but not making that much money, but it's only been a couple of years.
• She got mad at me for not wanting to have sex a lot with her anymore. She really let herself go after having the kids while I still trying to maintain my fitness. I used to go running every other day but pretty much quit at this point because I couldn't do all the cooking and cleaning and still have time to go running.
  

She kept holding a grudge about all these things, and now she has us taking many marriage therapy workshops and sessions. She insisted that I'm too withdrawn and uncaring. She insisted that I needed to be a better husband.
I used to think I was a responsible person, and I tried my best to succeed in life. I try to spend as much time with my kids as possible so they know I'm there for them. My father wasn't around much when I was younger so I don't want to make the same mistake. We have been married for 15 years at this point but I'm just getting more and more sick of being in this relationship. I want my kids to have an intact family but it's just getting harder and harder. I don't have any other woman in my life so it's not even a part of the equation. I'm just not happy being questioned all the time and treated like a piece of garbage.
Anyway, I got really upset today after she called me a liar and said I was untrustworthy for telling my daughter the fake butter stuff is butter. I decided to walk home from this event we were supposed to get dinner together. I'd rather come home and cook my own dinner than be accused of something I can't even comprehend anymore.

Back in 2016, I was working at a roadside diner west of St. Cloud, Minnesota. Neat little place, had a bit of a 60’s vibe to it, but without the hairdo. On the slow hours of the day, or whenever we just had locals around, I’d be humming along with the chefs playing radio out of the kitchen. It wasn’t an exciting time, but it was nice to have a workplace that felt like a second home.
A couple of weekends a month, we had an all-night crew to serve passing truckers. You usually never had to do more than one shift though, and we got to make own schedules. Our boss was pretty hands-off. It was during one of those shifts, at the first week of early summer, that my life took a turn for the worse – and I didn’t even realize it.

We were used to having the occasional odd customer during those hours of the day. When this guy walked in, I didn’t know what to think. He was about 6’2, bald, and pale as chalk. He wore this worn-out t-shirt that looked like it’d been on fire. With every step, he dragged his feet, and collapsed in one of our booths, seemingly exhausted.
I looked back at the chef, and he just shrugged. Guy wasn’t hurting anyone, but he didn’t look like he was all there. But a job’s a job, so I went up to him.
“You alright there?” I asked.
He looked up at me like I was speaking a foreign language, then sunk his head back down, gently shaking it.
“Nah,” he said. “I, uh… I don’t think I am.”
He had this voice on the knife’s edge between a hysterical laugh and a howling cry. He was trembling.
“You need me to call someone?”
“Call?”
“Yeah, call someone.”
“How?”

I didn’t understand the question. I figured he was coming down from some kind of binge, and I wasn’t about to take any chances. I asked the chef to get me a side of bacon to keep the guy calm while I called the police.
As I slid the plate over to him, he sunk his face into his hands, sobbing.
“T-thank you,” he cried. “I-I’m… please…”
I sat down across from him, instinctively reaching out to grab his hand. He let me. Even at a light touch, I could feel the scars on his palm and fingertips. Whatever’d happened to him, it must’ve been awful.
“I can’t go back,” he sniffled. “Don’t make me go back. I can’t. Please, I can’t.”
“You’re not going anywhere. It’s okay,” I smiled. “You’re safe here.”
“Can you help me?” he asked. “Can you keep him out?”
“I’m sure we can figure it out,” I nodded. “Just eat up. It’s okay.”

His fingers trembled as he tentatively bit off a piece of bacon. His teeth were black, and he flinched.
“I need time,” he said. “I need time to run.”
“Don’t worry,” I assured him. “We’ve called for help.”
“I just… I just need time.”
We just sat there for a while. He calmed his breathing but kept staring out the window. I could tell he was looking for something – or someone. All I could see was a road and a handful of moths. We sat there for some time, in silence, as he carefully nibbled on the slices of maple bacon.
As two police officers entered the diner, he got up from his seat. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a small bundle of scrunched-up trash. A couple of singles, a plastic card, dirt, and something resembling animal bones. He tried to straighten out the bills, pushing them into my hands along with the laminated card.
“Just… I need time. I’ll come back. Please.”
I didn’t understand. I just nodded and accepted it. Seconds later, the officers asked him to step outside and explain the situation. I got busy taking orders from a couple of passing truckers, watching glimpses of the scene through the window. A couple of minutes later, the strange man was taken away.

My shift ended at sunrise. I dragged myself to my car with a yawn, shuffling around my pockets for the keys. I hadn’t thought much about the items he’d handed me, but I took a closer look. I’d thrown away the animal bones and dirt, but there were a couple of dollar bills and that laminated card left. I checked the card first.
It looked like some kind of bookmark. On one side it was completely white, and on the other side there were dried blue flower petals arranged in a spiral. Kinda reminded me of a sunflower. And finally, there were the dollar bills.
I didn’t pay much attention to these at first. Just a couple of singles. But after a closer look, I noticed something unusual. There was a man on the bill that I didn’t recognize. It took me a couple of google searches to realize that this man was Walter Mondale – the man who’d lost to Ronald Reagan’s second run for president back in ’84. Why was this man on a one-dollar bill?

Before heading to bed, I put the items down on my nightstand. In a moment of silent wonder, I looked out the window. What had that man been looking for? What’d he been running from?
There was nothing out there.
Just a couple of moths.

Waking up the next morning, I had a full day off. I spent it cleaning my apartment, watching movies, having dinner with a couple of friends, and ending the night with a couple of drinks at the pub down on the corner. No binge or anything, just got a bit boozy. I was still gonna be in bed by midnight.
I took the scenic route home; a long walk. All the way down main street, past the lake. I took a shortcut through the park by the final stretch, speeding up a bit. That place was trouble.
As I hurried by the fountain, I spotted someone in the distance. A shrouded figure at the edge of the streetlights. I stopped to observe for a second, but as I did, the lights flickered. Coming back on, the figure was gone.
I chalked it up to imagination. I was a bit drunk, after all. Besides – it was small, like a child. What the hell would a kid be doing out at this hour?

A couple of days passed. I didn’t notice anything unusual, but I kept coming back to that distressing feeling of missing something important. Looking back at it now, I just feel dumb. He was there all along. Outside the supermarket. In the parking lot. Off the highway. Hell, he was outside my window at night sometimes, but just too short for me to spot.
I’m getting ahead of myself.
It wasn’t until one morning when I was driving to work that I got a clear view of him. I was crossing a four-way street, taking a sharp left turn, when I had to throw myself on the breaks. There was a kid in the middle of the street.
I hadn’t seen him that clearly before. He was probably around 6, maybe 7 years old. Wearing a plain black shirt and a pair of light blue canvas pants. Short black hair, dark eyes, and no shoes. That particular detail stuck with me. No shoes? Why?
I almost lost control, but I was lucky. There wasn’t much traffic, and I managed to stop further down the road. There were black lines in the pavement from my screeching tires swerving back and forth. Regaining my composure, I looked in the rear-view mirror.
The kid was gone.

But that was just the start.
I’d spot him every now and then. Looking out the window at work. At the gas station. A passing face in the crowd when shopping for groceries. Every now and then, something would pull on my attention, forcing me to whip my head around, looking for the source of that ill feeling crawling up my spine. Sometimes I saw him. And even worse – sometimes I didn’t.
I remember lying awake at night, hearing moths tap against my window. There was nothing else. Nothing outside. I patrolled my apartment six times, checking every window. I’d looked everywhere, and there was no reason for me to feel the way I did. I was growing paranoid.
And yet, in the morning, my front door was unlocked, and slightly open.

It all came to a head one afternoon when I was out on my smoke break. I’d barely slept for the past three nights, and you could kinda tell I was having a bad day. As I stood there, leaning against the side door of the diner, I see the kid again. This time just across the road, maybe 50 feet or so away. I’d had enough. This had to end.
I was furious. I stormed forward, calling him out with every slur and curse I could think of. I was psyching myself up. I was in the right, and I refused to be harassed anymore – kid or not. Didn’t matter. I crossed the road, barely dodging a speeding jeep, and met him face-to-face.
“What the hell do you want?!” I’d yell. “Why are you following me?!”
He was completely expressionless. He didn’t even flinch, no matter how much I pointed or screamed. I snapped my fingers in front of his eyes, and he didn’t even blink. He just stared at me, like a porcelain doll head on a swivel.

I wasn’t thinking about the bystanders though. A couple of middle-aged men stepped up, asking in no kind terms what the hell was wrong with me. I was held back and restrained. Someone called the police. Someone else called my manager – I’d forgotten to take off my apron, so they could see the diner logo. A couple of people filmed it. One of the videos got like 120k views in a day before it fell off the map. I still see it as a react gif sometimes.
It was a disaster. After a couple of officers came by to talk to me, he’d just disappeared into thin air. The officers took me down to the station – not to detain me, but to get me away from the heated crowd. That car ride downtown sobered me up to what the hell was going on. I was being stalked by this kid, but there wasn’t a living soul out there that would believe me.
Well, maybe one.
Maybe.

I was asked a couple of questions and released within about half an hour. They told me to go home and sleep this whole thing off. That wouldn’t be a problem. I didn’t have a job to go back to anyway, according to the (many) texts I’d gotten. I had all the goddamn time in the world.
I was just about to leave when something came to mind. The two officers who’d picked me up were still waiting by their car when I turned back to them.
“Sorry, you picked up the guy I called in about at the diner, right?” I asked.
“Sure did.”
“You got any idea what happened to him?”
The two looked at one another for a moment, shrugged, and turned to me.
“Didn’t have any ID and gave a fake name. I think they took him to psych.”
“Psych?”
“Well, he was saying some, uh… strange things. There were interviews with a, uh…”
The two quieted down and flashed me a smile.
“There’s not that much we can say.”

Coming home, I decided to get to the root of this. It didn’t take me that long to find the place where the guy’d been taken; there aren’t a lot of mental health facilities in this part of the country. Especially facilities that accept involuntary subjects.
But my eyes kept drifting back to the strange dollar bills he’d given me, resting neatly on my nightstand. They were so detailed. A bit old, sure, but that only made them seem more genuine. What the hell was he doing with a handful of clearly fake dollar bills? Like, what’s the purpose? There had to be a purpose.
That unnerved me.

I managed to arrange a meeting. It wasn’t easy, and I think a lot of it boiled down to the police having no idea what could make this guy talk. For some reason, he kept providing them with false information. Maybe a familiar face, for one reason or another, might make him talk.
Just a couple of days later, I was putting my items in a metal bowl on the second floor at a mental health institute in the next town over. I asked one of the nurses if I could keep one of my dollar bills. Apparently, that was okay.
I was shuffled through a couple of locked doors and escorted to an off-white side-room. No décor, no locks. The guy was already there.

He’d been dressed down into these neutral eggshell-white garbs. It was strange seeing him in a lit-up room like this. I didn’t know what to expect.
Getting a closer look at him, he was probably in his 50’s. It’d been hard to tell earlier. I couldn’t get over just how pale he was; it was almost a complete lack of pigment. It looked sickly. His thin arms didn’t help – he looked malnourished. And yet, he was smiling.
“Hello,” he said.
“Hello to you too,” I smiled. “You doing okay?”
“I’m… I’m pretty good,” he nodded. “Thank you.”
I sat down across from him and took out the dollar bill he’d given me.
“I wanted to ask you about this.”
“For the bacon,” he said, matter-of-factly.
“Excuse me?”
“Sorry, was that not enough?”
“No, it’s…”
I took a moment to compose myself. I had too many questions.

He sighed, took the bill, and looked it over. Looking back at me, I could tell there was something painful stirring in his mind. His smile slowly faded.
“Sorry,” he said. “I try to forget sometimes. It’s easier than making sense of it.”
“Let’s start with something simple,” I nodded. “Like… your name. Where you’re from.”
“Those things are pretty far from simple.”
He was looking straight through me; his eyes sinking back to deeper, more uncomfortable thoughts.

His name was Samuel, and he was born around these parts in back in the 1970’s. He’d worked as a telecommunications specialist out of St. Cloud back in the 90's. He had a wife, three children, and a four-bedroom house.
“But it… that was all before, see?” he explained. “Then it all just…”
“Just what?” I asked. “What happened?”
He looked at me, opening and closing his mouth, looking for the right words to come out. Nothing happened. He shook his head, trying again.
“It started with the street preachers,” he said. “Hundreds of them, marching on every city. All saying the same doomsday shit as always. World was dying. All coming to an end.”
“I haven’t seen anything like that.”
“Then there were storms,” he continued without skipping a beat. “Some would last for weeks. Others longer. Entire cities would be flooded or torn apart. Earthquakes causing monster waves along the east coast, sending shockwaves all the way to mainland Europe. Then, Yellowstone.”
“Yellowstone?”
“Yeah,” he nodded. “Lights out.”

Samuel was painting this apocalyptic vision of a world undone. Catastrophe after catastrophe. Hooded people marching the streets, screaming for the mercy of a mad god. But there was more to it.
“Then things stopped making sense. It’s as if the rules changed,” he continued. “Roads would stop leading home. Trees would change color. People turned twisted and corrupted. Like… one of our neighbors couldn’t eat anything but gunpowder. There was a woman just down the street who tried to kill anyone wearing glasses. It was… pandemonium.”
I didn’t say anything. What he was saying didn’t make any sense, but he was trying his best to keep his rambling coherent.
“The plants died. Trees too. The only thing that could grow in that environment were these twisted blue things that popped up out of nowhere. But people… people are what got twisted the most.”
He told me of these towering 7-foot-tall humanoid creatures that roamed the forests. Black as night – not even reflecting light. Arms reaching all the way to their knees. Elongated, inhuman things that all used to be someone he knew.

“The doomsayers all said the same thing,” he continued. “That God was a scared little boy, and that he was dying. Everything that was happening was just an expression of that ceaseless, bottomless, existential grief.”
Samuel looked back and forth, finally burying his face in his hands.
“It all broke down. Roads stopped leading anywhere. No power. No water. Julie changed. Ollie changed. Tobie made himself a mask and wandered off into the woods. Ira just… disappeared. And for… years? Has it been years? It’s just been me.”
“But you’re here, now,” I said. “And what you’re describing, it… it didn’t happen.”
“It happened,” he insisted. “Just not… here. But here.”
He tapped his finger on the single dollar bill.
“Somewhere, somehow, I must’ve taken a wrong turn. I slipped through something broken, and now I’m here. And… and he’s coming to bring me back. He doesn’t want anyone to leave.”
“Who?”
“Just! Just…” he chuckled. “Just a sad little boy who’s been told he’s going to die.”
I didn’t know what to say. I just sat with him for a while, holding his hand.

Before I left, Samuel got up from his chair. He looked at me, forcing himself to smile.
“If I go back, I’ll try not to… to be like them. I’ll try. And… and I’ll be the one to say something.”
He let out a painful little laugh, shaking his head.
“Maybe just a… hello.”

I left that day with more questions than answers. I couldn’t picture the world he’d lived through. Then again, how could it be true? None of it had happened. But what was he gaining from lying about it?
That was the last time I saw Samuel. A few days later, he went missing, as if he’d disappeared into thin air. I didn’t know what to think of it. There was nothing on the cameras – no one entering or leaving the building. No quick escapes, no clever plans. He’d just walked into his room and disappeared. Nothing left but a couple of moths fluttering about.
And for a while, that was it. That was the end of the story. I got busy looking for a new job, and all the little items given to me by Samuel was put away into a little box in my glove compartment. Life soldiered on, and no matter how many questions I had, there was no one around to answer them. Even the strange kid that’d been following me was, seemingly, gone.

A couple of months later, I was driving home from a friend’s place. I stopped at a four-way street, waiting for a couple of trucks to pass, when there was a knock on the passenger side window. I almost choked on my own spit. Scared me half to death.
Looking out, I could see that kid again. I hadn’t seen him for some time, and I quickly bounced between curiosity and downright anger.
“What do you want?” I yelled out.
There was no response. Instead, the door just opened. It’d been locked. As he opened the door, he pointed to the glove box.
“You want his things?” I asked. “Is that it?”
He nodded. I wanted to lash out, but there was something telling me I shouldn’t. Instead, I reached over, opened the glove compartment, and pointed to the box.
“Just take it and leave me alone,” I said. “Get it over with.”

He reached in and grabbed the box. So much effort for a couple of mementos. I turned my head back to face the road. The kid backed out. But of course, I had to get the last word in.
“Not even a thank you, huh?”
That made him pause. He looked at me, tilting his head. As he opened his mouth to speak, a moth fluttered out. Then another. And another.
Then – darkness.

What happened next is hard to describe. My memory of it is fragmented. It’s like trying to watch a buffering video, where long stretches of it are just nothing – but you know something was supposed to happen in-between.
Blink. I was sitting in my car. There was a dark blue sky. No clouds, no stars. Figures in the distance. An open field with blue flowers bending to a howling wind. A powerful stench of ammonia stinging my nostrils. Something to my immediate left, ripping the car door straight off the hinges.
Blink. Running. Ruins of a town. It seemed familiar, but there was barely anything left. My leg was bleeding. I was being followed. No matter where I turned, or where I ran, I seemed to end up at the same intersection.
Blink. A three-story building, brimming with life. Glimpses of arm-long antennae through the broken windows. Clickety-clack of bursting wings tapping against crumbling concrete. A loud warning shriek as something rubs its legs together; a call for prey.
Blink. Hiding in a tipped-over trash container. The rain has stopped in mid-air. Raindrops held in indefinite suspension. I suck water drops out of the air to quench my thirst. My hands are shaking from the blood loss.

Countless little images. Some in order, some not. I have no idea how much time passed. In the moment, it must’ve been much longer than I can remember. Days. Weeks, even. There’s no way to tell.
Blink. Walking through a barren field. It feels like walking through a dead forest, but there are no trees. Only those willingly impaled and wailing.
Blink. An abandoned booth by a broken highway. A sign offers phone calls, in exchange for “real teeth”. There are six sizes of pliers hanging on a wall within. All are bloodied – even the small ones.
Blink. The church that had burned down the night before had reappeared. The people inside, too. They couldn’t leave. Tonight, they would burn again.

Somewhere in this nightmarish puzzle-pieced fragment of nothing, there was a constant drive in me to get away. To get out. I knew that if I’d gotten there, I could get back home again. I just had no idea how. Maybe finding the kid. Asking. Begging. Something.
The last fragment of memory from that space was being cornered in a cellar. They were banging on the door. I’d tipped over a wardrobe to keep them out, but they weren’t going to stop. They were never going to stop. I couldn’t let them kill me again – not like that.
One of the Changed ones were coming. I don’t know what that means, or how I know the name, but I knew of it. There was a mirror, and I could see the signs. It stepped out. Seven feet tall, black as night. Elongated arms and neck. Barely a body at all – just a void space vaguely shaped like the remnants of a person.
Except this one felt… familiar. It was the first one to speak.
“H E L L O.”

Blink. Running. A cold hand. If I squeezed too hard, my fingers went straight through it. I had to keep up. He was showing me something.
Blink. They were flooding over the school bus, tipping it by their sheer numbers. Eruptions from the sewer grates. They were famished.
Blink. An open field. Sunflowers facing me, no matter where I turn. It’s not far.
Blink. I look back, as I’m pushed over the edge. He looks just like the rest of them. They aren’t angered by his betrayal.
They feel nothing, as I fall.

In February of 2017, I was found by the side of the road. I’d been gone for months. My car was too. I came back with nothing but the clothes on my back and countless scars. I’ve been told that I didn’t make any sense at first; I was just rambling nonsense. Or maybe it just sounded like nonsense to these people.
Over time, I forgot more and more of these fragmented images. And the less I remember, the more I can move on. Still, I’ve written them down over time, and they paint an ugly, insane picture of what I’d been going through. Some of which I, myself, have a hard time believing. Then again, I know myself well enough to see that there’s no point in lying.

I haven’t seen Samuel, or that strange kid ever since. I think this is all over, for now. There’s nothing left for me to give.
But even now, years later, I still wake up to that feeling at night. That there’s something wrong, or that I’m forgetting something. That there’s something near that I’m looking straight through, or past.
And every now and then, I hear the flutter of a moth’s wing, tapping against my bedroom window.
And I think I know what it wants.
It wants me to go back.

I've been with Q for a little over a year and a half. I rent a room in a flat and pay full rent for that. After a few months of dating Q, my anxiety around his alcohol increased which lead me to stay at his most of the time, to check on him, wait up for him to return home at 4am a lot of the nights a week, just so I know he's ok etc. Make sure he has food to eat, because he hardly eats, tidy up etc.
He was an alcoholic/addict when I met him, but it was the jekyll and Hyde situation, so I just saw the nice bits about him and stayed. Became codependent.
He's been emotionally, verbally and physically abusive(happened a few times, police were called, hasn't happened after in months). The past few months he's been extra nasty to me, emotionally, it was too much to take, I felt myself lose feelings for him. I left yesterday.
Today I rang him, he said he was sorry he was so mean the past few months, but its because I'm at his place rent free all the time, I invade his space. I can't afford to pay rent for two places. My family and even his fam have made it very clear after the DV incident that I shouldn't give my flat up.
But after my convo with Q today he seemed to have convinced me that he cares about me, but either I need to split rent at his and give him space (not call him even if it's 4am in the morning to ask when he's coming back, etc) or spend 2 days a week at his flat because that's when he's not out drinking. He said then our relationship will improve and he'll treat me better. I feel guilty for not paying rent at his but stay here most of the time.
I'm really confused now, was feeling proud of myself for leaving, now I'm back to this and somehow I feel his argument maybe right and maybe things will be ok then? I can detach with love while staying at his spliting rent? I've already learnt to detach to a large extent. Never question his drinking/drugging.
What should I do? Really need advise.

I went through every stage of mono and recovered in a month. This is the steps I took to do so, and hopefully they can help you too. I am not a doctor and there is a lot of stuff that could be wrong here, and/or not do anything at all. If you are dealing with issues please go get medical assistance.

1. Sore Throat

For throat pain I visited my doctor and was prescribed prednisone and unfortunately I was dealing with an infection so I had to take anti-biotics. If you are diagnosed with mono and your doctor is assuming it is strep or another type of infection communicate with them the uncertainties you have in order to be tested for strep (taking anti-biotics with mono burdens you with a high chance of a rash).
Besides prednisone. I used a humidifier in my room in order for my throat to not dry out in the back. Even if it hurt horribly I attempted to drink at least 4 glasses of water every 4 hours so I wouldn't be dehydrated.
I suggest not taking Ibuprofen during use of Prednisone as it can cause intestinal issues. Use Tylenol.
I stuck to smoothies and chicken noodle soup for food during this time. Salty broth foods help soothe the throat quite a lot and help you get some nutrients.
It was hard to sleep because of my throat pain, I ended purchasing a sitting pillow for my bed. It took a lot of the stress off my lymph nodes during rest.
Finally I made sure to brush my teeth twice a day and use Orajel hydrogen peroxide mouthwash. Oral hygiene is incredibly important during any issues with tonsils in order to keep an infection from happening and washing off pus from throat scars during mono.

2. Sleep

For me sleep was quite difficult and I unfortunately didn't have many ways to deal with it for the first couple of days.
I tried to not take naps throughout the day and rather hold in my sleep for the nights, as your body does better healing when it's in REM. Which is more difficult to have happen if you take brief short naps.
By around my third day I learned that having a humidifier in my room made it so much easier to breathe and feel a bit better.
I took one extra strength Tylenol right before bed, and 10 mg of melatonin. Keep in mind that melatonin only is going to help put you to sleep and you will need to change your diet to be heavier in magnesium in order to have a better time staying asleep. If I woke up due to the pain at the middle of the night i'd take another tylenol and wait it out until I was able to sleep again. Continue to drink water throughout the entire time.

3. Spleen Pains

I dealt with really bad spleen pain for a couple of days and my only solve for it was laying on my back and using a heatpad on the area where my pain was. I tried not to move around very much. If your pain becomes increasingly worse go in to get screened for a risk of rupture.

4. Mental Health

Out of all the things I dealt with, this was one of the worst. I felt defeated for most of my days. I tried to feel better by looking at other peoples experiences and seeing how others have it worse. It also can help to call loved ones and friends and talk with them. I also watched shows and movie continuously in order to distract myself. Eating good helped me a lot, once I started making protein smoothies my mood changed for the better. Also try to stay out of the dark for to long, if you can go into a more open room with sunlight and lay during the day it will make you happier. Try to retain your sleep for just the night, this way you feel like you still are holding to a schedule. It also helps with REM which is incredibly important for mental health and can't be done with naps. Finally, self-care was a breakthrough for me. I tried to shower daily, and clean up my face before bed. It made me feel happier and nicer.

5. The Rash

This rash was one of the worst parts of the whole thing besides my throat. It happened after I had taken my antibiotics for 5 days. It itched so badly. In order to deal with the itch I went to the ER and was prescribed hydroxyzine and another dose of prednisone. For the first day I used calamine lotion, I soon realized it was making me even more itchy as it caused my skin to dry up. I switched over to Eucerin anti-itch lotion and it helped so much. I applied when I woke up and before I went to bed. I applied ice packs to my skin, instead of itching and it works much better at stopping the itch. Also try to sleep with a fan pointed towards you. During the rash stage, it is the most important for you to drink as much fluids as possible.
I hope this can maybe help someone? Idk, i am very thankful for this subreddit as most of these posts helped me recover much faster. Thank you all.

Add me to the long list of parents who mistook their sleepy 3 day old as having a super chill personality.
My daughter is 3 weeks old now and some days (like today) she screams all day. We can’t make her happy. She will be clean, fed and snuggled with a pacifier and she spits it out to scream. Won’t take the pacifier back and insists on screaming. My husband and I are taking turns but after 8 hours of this we are both so over stimulated. I started crying with her just now and had to walk away.
What in the world do we do??? I know newborns should not be left to cry it out but WHAT do you DO when nothing makes a difference? She doesn’t have reflux and never spits up, eats well and is gaining weight amazingly. It’s like she’s mad she’s alive. If we can get her to fall asleep she will wake up 15-20 minutes later and start screaming as soon as her eyes open.
Is this colic/purple crying? Isn’t this early to start at 3 weeks?? What can we do that doesn’t traumatize our baby while having mercy on ourselves and our marriage?

No it's not about a catch or anything, but I was hanging with some friends today (common) and my ex ( she is the dumper) spawned out of nowhere.
My anxiety just went sky high in that moment, and I was shaking big time.
I said hello and I kept it cool, i continued talking with my friends, however she asked me how I was and I told her I'm just busy with all my projects and work. In 4 month since BU a lot of things happened, I went from 110 KG all the way to 87 KG, constantly going to gym and focusing on myself.
She complimentted my looks, my new car and she even told me that she has to give me my stuff back even if this hurts her a lot, but she keeps forgetting. I said it's fine, she can keep em or donate them to kids in need.
I had her key and left it in her mailbox when I went to her city to catch a plane and she was mad and told me that I was an asshole cuz I didn't call her to let her know about the key. I told her that I didn't want to call because I just wanted the things to be left how she left them and and there isn't anything else to be said. She was left speechless and she didn't talk with me anymore after that.
When she left she fist bumped with me with the hand that was wearing the ring I gave her ( a ring golden with infinity sign that I gave her and told her I will always feel the same thing for her) for me to see that she still wears it.
To end this "rant" I'm happy and I'm happy that I could overcome a random encounter with someone who hurt me so bad, I really really loved her and to be honest with you guys, I thought she might be the one, we had such good connection until she dumped me due to her "depression" but yet again was on tinder not even a month after the BU.
Everything will change, it's just a matter of time, fight through the pain and the cuts your ex leaves you. You will get eventually through and if you fear something, embrace it breathe and let it be. As much as it hurts, you deserve the win.
A part of me is happy that I saw her and a part of me is proud of myself for how I handled it as to be honest I held a lot of hate towards her as I was so hurt for leaving me out of nowhere. I could have been mean and tell her everything I kept ruminating about all this time. But I chose peace.
Let yourself feel the pain and embrace it, you will win eventually and doesn't matter how small the win is you will feel better about yourself!
Stay cool and if everyone is going through something similar, just know you are loved and you will get better. I trust you and we all do

It is time for the proper reveal for the Maztiax of Lyg and his Servants of Xrib and Xribain are more than they may seem. The Xarxesh revolved around them, writing down the lists of ancestors as immutable laws. Hewn into towers which by stealth and profane magicks were rubbed into the fragments of Lyg. Maztiak, The Ashamed One, had enslaved Aldu of Jill, chaining him to his eating cycles. Taking his teeth to be the foundations of the World, and taking his great silver tusk to be the surveillance tower. Thus was it given to us by our forefathers Mankar and Vehk The Wind Demon.
That Maztiak was slave only to the Auri-El. It was he who who drove the tusk into the ground, wearing the skin of Aldu who had been only but the recurrence of moments before it was too late and he was gone. Although recent meddling with towers has infused him with new life and caused new breaking magic in the mythic dawn. Aldu is unbound and living once more. But Auri-El's song-torture still rings throughout his mind, and Akatosh is born from him although he would be later Reborn as Ald Son of Ald, swath in just as a dense a madness as his forefathers.
It was time for the change of seasons in the realms of water, and so Maztiak took upon Dagon with his outstretched bones and tortured him until he became the rhythm of doom. Dagon having gone mad, sought no more realms of water, and brought a great drought unto his once vast oceans and islands making them bathed in flame and death. Calling them dead lands evermore.
Dagon lamented the loss of the sea and began fashioning from the last remnants of that sundered prince, the Absolute Razor called the Mehrunes. Something that severs Maztiak from his domain of Cycles. But because Maztiak had forced himself into Dagon's mind, the etchings of the circle bade him come back around to the start and he could not finish the Razor without help from the Ge.
It was Dagon who led the assault on Maztiak and his sons, after Graht had eventually went mad away into deeper realms of thought. Dagon fights with Razor against the turning of the wheel in his own mind and in the outer world.
A Red Signal fell upon Dagon in his realm of Dead lands and called herself Merid-Nunda, saying "I am eldest of the Nine Mother Dawns. I give you hope for a new ageless age, where the life of energy bubbles throughout and all beings swallow the incalculable order of unhindered afterthought. Take this and I dub thee the Mehrunes Dagon."
The Razor was Finished and Maztiak was slain.

This is based off a post I saw somewhere else, and I thought it could make an interesting mental exercise where you'd have to think about what's the most important to you and how your goals would change based on the amount of time you had.
For the sake of this game, you'll know with 100% certainty that you'll be dead after your time allowance is up. There's no "but what if I only think I'll be dead in six months but then I'm not and I fucked up my entire life?" When your time is up, it's up. You'll be dead and won't have to live with the consequences of your actions.
So just for fun (and growth, maybe?) here's mine:
If I had 24 hours to live: Realistically, I'd know I wouldn't be able to accomplish anything of substance, so I'd just focus on pure pleasure. I'd go out and do something fun, maybe go to the nearby theme park in the city I haven't been to in a while or an expensive night club and wear my favorite outfit. I'd eat and drink whatever I wanted, and however much of it I wanted. When I got back home I'd take something to keep me as calm as possible and call/text the people I care about who live far away to let them know I care about them. I'd spend my last hours in bed watching a comfort movie.
If I had a week: I'd go on a road trip with my entire family to somewhere I always wanted to go to, maybe LA or somewhere similar, and spend the rest of my days there. Probably my actions would be pretty similar to the above, I'd just have slightly more time to do bigger things and say goodbye to people in person.
If I had a month: I'd quit my job for sure (for the top two, idk if I'd even bother to formally quit, I'd just stop showing up) and again, probably act fairly similar to above. I might try going to another country like Italy or Japan to see what it was like and try their food, but I don't think I'd want to die there. I'd also try and maybe finish something creative before my death, even if it was just a short story or a few poems.
If I had six months: 100% quitting my job and putting all my energy into finishing my long term writing project and having fun. I'd use my savings and hire a cleaner to come in once a month to take care of boring everyday tasks so I have as few distractions as possible.
If I had a year: Same as above really, but I might also try and experience a brief romance before the end. Probably wouldn't be able to truly fall in love but hopefully I'd at least meet someone cool.
If I had five years: I wouldn't quit my job, but I also try and find something better and something that would be fairly undemanding. I wouldn't be making any big career or life plans, but I would try to write something and get it professionally published before I died. I'd want to leave having made my mark on the world in some significant way.
If I had ten years: I'd probably quit my job ASAP to go back to school, while trying to find a relationship and work on my creative projects when I had free time or after I was done. IMO ten years would be super hard for me because it's long enough to where I'd definitely want to build a life but short enough to where I'd really have to haul ass if I wanted to make that life come to fruition.
If I had twenty years: Honestly, I'd probably be doing exactly what I'm doing now just with even more anxiety lol.
So yeah, feel free to add yours!

Hey everyone I was laid off a couple weeks ago and still having trouble in this market. For everyone else out there struggling I feel your pain. I was a regional sales rep for a revolutionary startup developing tinder for dogs. I was with them for 2 years after meeting the founder at lucky duck while finishing my bachelors in exercise sports science. I completed some LinkedIn Learning certifications to better negotiate my base salary to $130k. Unfortunately the accounting team didn't do their jobs right and we ran out of money. I took a much needed trip to cancun with my girlfriend but now it's been 3 weeks back and almost out of money. I'm thinking of enrolling in a cyber security bootcamp

Just curious if anyone else has had a similar experience. I meet with the MFM pharmacy team on the 28th, so I am obviously going to go with what they say, but it doesn't seem like I have GD based on my readings so far.
At my 1 hour test I scored 189, so they sent me back for the 3 hour test. I ended up having to redo it because of a car fire in the parking garage where I had the test done, they evacuated us and we didn't get back inside in time to take readings. They had me carb load for 3 days and my repeat numbers were 92 fasting, 1 hour 211, 2 hour 175 and 3 hour was 90.
A friend of mine had a spare cgm and sensor and sent it to me. I also ended up with a finger prick setup, too, and got them both yesterday. I calibrated the cgm and have been using it since. I had 44g carbs for dinner last night and I was at 124 an hour post dinner. I went to bed about 8 and at midnight the low glucose alert went off, so I had a few grapes and went back to sleep.
Fasting this morning was 83 at 8am. I had breakfast (frosted shredded wheat and some more grapes) and an hour later was at 160, which I know is above goal, but an hour after that I was at 60.
Lunch time we decided to conduct an experiment. We went to taco bell and I had a crisp taco, 3/4 of a chalupa and a baja blast. An hour later I was at 126 and now 2 hours later I am at 104.
Ive been laying on the couch all morning watching bad movies, so I'm not exercising, haven't had a ton of water, etc.
Has anyone else been firmly diagnosed with GD but had relatively low readings? My provider's handout said their goals for me are <90 fasting and <120 an hour after meals. Meals where I have protein have been only slightly elevated (and usually I don't eat a lot of sugars or carbs and very rarely have more than a few sips of my husband's sodas).
30w1d, 40 year old FTM. I'm anemic, but other than the GD diagnosis, I haven't had any issues whatsoever. It's been a good pregnancy.

My therapist of 3 yrs crossed a lot of boundaries that would have her license taken away if reported. Nothing that wasn’t platonic. However, giving me cash multiple times when I didn’t ask for it, coming to my house, making the relationship personal texting daily. I came into therapy for attachment and trust issues. This therapist specialized in trauma and stated I had severe trauma. She pointed out how dysfunctional my family was that I am no longer in contact with. She encouraged me to get attached to her and trust her repeatedly. She had me do an EMDR session that wasn’t properly done & led to flooding, which she admitted to and apologized for. The biggest thing is that for years she has promised she was keeping me in her life forever, yes forever. She said was going to go on walks with me and see me after she retired twice a week still. She made numerous comments about ten years from now x,y annd z; and about how she had already told her daughter. She promised multiple times a week for years she would never change her mind. She is retiring next month and has suddenly changed her mind. About two weeks ago, she did this and then immediately took it back and stated she didn’t mean it and kept apologizing. I did overdose and end up in the hospital. For the last few weeks she insisted she hadn’t meant it. Now she is suddenly stating once again that she has changed her mind. She said she understands if I report her to the board and she has apologized. However the pain is immense and has obviously trigger my attachment and trust issues severely making my suicidal ideation the worst it’s been aside from an attempt. I have an older cat and no one who would take care of him, that is the only thing keeping me here. Yet I’m extremely physically sick and can’t stop crying and feeling like there is something inherently wrong with me - that I’ll never be wanted once I open up or get attached to someone. I believe she is a good person and the messed up thing is that I still wish she would take it back. I’ve never been so hurt or confused.

Hi everyone, I'm here as I'm trying to figure out if I had a chemical pregnancy this cycle. I'm doing OPK and BBT. I've noticed I tend to ovulate pretty late and have a short luteal phase (between 9 and 11). this last cycle I ovulated at day 17, and I noticed this cycle my bbt was rising but very slowly (36.59-36.66) in the first week after ovulation. Dpo 8 I decide to go for a short run and when I come back I noticed my underwear I had a heavy discharge of watery cm mixed with a little bit of brown spotting. Not long after that I felt a quick sharp pull on one side of my lower abdomen, that same day I also had a dip in my bbt to 36.53 when i took my temperature in the am. I thought maybe that was implantation bleeding! And next day my temperature went up to 36.74. Felt really bloated, and I thought this was it!! Dpo 10 my bbt just goes up to 36.79 and some time thay day I had a few seconds of really bad cramping. Dpo 11 temperature starts dropping (yesterday). Otherwise minimal cramping throughout it all and some very light spotting for 4 days plus bouts of nausea. I took a pregnancy test on day 11 and BFN. Today I got my period and I had some pretty bad cramping that I had to take pain meds which is fairly unusual for me so I wonder if I had a failed implantation/chemical pregnancy despite not having a positive pregnancy test??? I guess it's worth mentioning I never spot before my period. It usually starts spotting but bam get my full blown period in a matter of hours so I thought 4 days of little bit of spotting was a sign of pregnancy as well.

So 2 weeks ago I finished my course, and my gut feels fine again. I made sure to eat a lot of probiotics and fiber, but my oral microbiome seems to still be in shambles. My teeth all feel rough and I think it is just plaque developing WAY faster than before. After brushing it feels normal, but any type of meal and its back very quickly. Does anyone know if it will go back to normal with time?

At first i wanted to post it on 4chan, never been there, but it seems the right place, so i typed it in a "be me" template. Failed posting over there for some reason so i'll do it here. Also, sorry for any typos, as english is not my native language.
Ok.

• be me
• 19 years old in 1 week
• born in Ethiopia
  • Came to Israel Because I'm jewish with my mother and her side of the family
• father is chrisitian so can't come/he doesn't really care
  • growing thru racism since first day (literally) of kindergarten until last day of highschool
• other black kids in neighborhood were kind of thugs, i was keeping myself from troubles and wore glasses, so was secluded and bullied -therefore didnt go out much to the neighborhood
  • be physically and mentally abused by mother
  • not having friends/gf whatsoever
• at 17 asking myself why am i alive, what is my goal, and whats important to me in life, understanding its wealth and financial freedom
  • learn everything about wealth and financial freedom

• leaving my abusing mother and renting a shitty apartment in another city right after graduating highschool
• working all kind of shitty jobs
• people in that specific city were crazy racist in a way i never experienced
• got obsessively into trading
• being drafted
• scheming a way to get out of the [mandatory] millitary because its a waste of time
• getting out
• drug addicts moving to the apartment next door (i think one of them was in some kind of fire cuz her face was burned and twisted asf)
• drugs smell all over my apartment
• turn 2k-17k in one month
• lost it all in 1 hour
• question your life
• decide to take your life
• but before, taking all the money i have from 9-5 jobs (3k in usd) and fly to japan (always wanted to be there at least one time in my life)
• lonely travel
  • travel end, go to the rainbow bridge to kms
  • cold asf becuase of [winter+] the height
  • looking downward
• not afraid a bit
  • something stops me
• tellin me to keep on
• that im not that kind of guy that suicide
• go back to israel
• be homeless and barely eat for 3 days
• no money at all
• find a job at hotel
• having a place to eat and sleep [hotel]
• working 12 hours shifts while sleeping 5-6 hours at best
• trying to trade, puttin all my salary in to my account, turning 1.5k in to 2k after 5 hours
• losing it all the next day
• mixture of bad shit happenes
• becomes suicidal again
• going to the sea
  • Its dark asf
• water is cold asf, its 1 am, no one is there
  • taking my shirt and pants off and entering the water
  • water is at my chest height
• decide to lie my body
• again cant kill myself
• same kind of voice tells me that im not the person that can do it
• get out of the water, soaking wet, wearing clothes, sand over them,
• going back to the hotel, sleeps in the gym's bathroom 3 hours to wake up for a 12 hours shit [couldn't sleep at my shared room that night]
• motivation for making money reduced
• still wanting to make money
• working on an online biz
• quit your shitty hotel job, and move to a normal apartment
  • still waiting to see results from the biz, but its - not looking so good
• be 1 week from turning 19 and type this on 4chan.

Overview

1. Kennedy on the state of our union (9 min)
2. 2024 candidate comparison chart
3. Overview of Kennedy (3 min)
4. Fixing huge issues Biden & Trump don't fix (1 min)
5. Policies on Kennedy's website
6. Who is Bobby Kennedy? (30 min)
7. Kennedy's Record vs Biden's Record vs Trump's Record
8. A Hero Of The Planet
9. Kennedy's podcasts
10. Kennedy's books

Countering common smears

1. Kennedy isn't a grifter, or a plant to help Trump or Biden; Kennedy is a legitimate candidate who can win
2. Kennedy isn't anti-vax
3. Kennedy isn't a conspiracy theorist
4. Kennedy fully recovered from the brain worm incident over a decade ago and doesn't have cognitive issues
5. Kennedy isn't a spoiler
6. Kennedy isn't antisemitic and didn't claim covid-19 was an ethnically targeted bioweapon
7. Kennedy didn't claim atrazine causes transgenderism
8. Kennedy respects the 2nd amendment and isn't going to take people's guns away
9. Kennedy isn't authoritarian and didn't say climate change deniers should be jailed
10. Kennedy isn't responsible for the measles outbreak in Samoa
11. Kennedy has a solid stance on abortion that most Americans would agree with
12. Kennedy wants the right kind of environmentalism that both sides can agree on, not authoritarian scams
13. Kennedy cares about both Israelis and Palestinians and wants peace

Evidence supporting counter-narrative claims

1. Science supports Kennedy's claims about Big Pharma corrupting our scientific system
2. Science supports Kennedy's claims on Covid, vaccines, EMFs, glyphosate, microplastics, and more
3. Science supports Kennedy's mercury-related claims
4. Science supports Kennedy's fluoride-related claims
5. Science supports Kennedy's Ivermectin-related claims
6. Science supports Kennedy's frog-related claims
7. Science supports Kennedy's claims about Wifi, 5G, and radiofrequency radiation
8. Science supports Kennedy's claims about syringe-injectable electronics
9. Science supports Kennedy's claims regarding different populations potentially having different levels of susceptibility to Covid
10. Kennedy's claims about NATO and Ukraine are supported by strong evidence
11. Kennedy stands up to the corrupt establishment

Short-form content

1. The truth about Ukraine (3 min)
2. Inflation, war, and banks (2 min)
3. Rising above partisanship and the duopoly (4 min)
4. Making housing affordable (3 min)
5. Not a conspiracy theorist 1 (5 min)
6. Not a conspiracy theorist 2 (3 min)
7. Calling out Fed, MIC, Oil, Pharma, CIA (2 min)
8. Persuasive memes
9. Truth to power and fighting for freedom (3 min)
10. Chronic disease (3 min)
11. Fighting factory farming corruption (3 min)
12. Making our government tell the truth (3 min)
13. Making our farms and food healthy (1 min)
14. The right kind of environmentalism (4 min)
15. Kennedy vs Biden for democracy comparison
16. Kennedy can win 1 (1 min)
17. Kennedy can win 2 (3 min)
18. Draining the swamp (2 min)
19. The truth about Trump's swamp record (2 min)
20. Fighting the great reset (2 min)
21. Mercury in vaccines (15 min)
22. Fighting against totalitarianism (13 min)
23. History lesson on Ukraine (4 min)
24. Vaccines: science vs orthodoxy (10 min)
25. Kennedy's covid record vs the duopoly's (4 min)
26. Kennedy can beat Donald Trump in 2024, Biden can't
27. Kennedy vs Trump on draining the swamp
28. Looking at vaccine science vs trusting Bill Gates (2 min)
29. Pro vaccine safety testing, not anti-vax (13 min)
30. Neither right nor left: what we stand for (2 min)

I’m 30F from Northern Ireland. The waiting times for surgery are not even worth talking about. Constant daily attacks for over a month. Eating very little, happy about the weight loss. Then all of a sudden they disappeared for about a week and BANG back with a vengeance.
I have been to ED multiple times, GP sick of seeing me and still awaiting initial consultation with surgeon.
Please for the love of god can someone recommend anything that’ll take this pain away or even just give me a chance to breathe in peace for 5minutes.
Have codine everything. Buscopan. Anti sickness that doesn’t stop the vomiting.
Not been one for illegal substances ever but definitely worth trying even if they knock me out until it’s over.
I’ve been suffering with these pains intermittently for two years. Always told it was never gallstones (because they always examined me after a period of no pain so assuming it was sludge that’s passed) now I’ve been told I do have them. If anyone thinks they could do a half decent job of getting it out of me I’d be tempted to let anyone have a try. Fair play to you poor people who’ve suffered repeatedly like this for years, I will never ever ever be able to explain the pain to people who haven’t had it.

This was my first car and I recently purchased it back after 32 years. Just got the new gas tank installed so the shakedown cruises are underway. I have not driven this thing in over 32 years.
https://imgur.com/a/IIxDxys

Hello, everyone. I’m posting here as I’m becoming desperate to find help or some answers.
I’m a 27 year old male. Toward the end of last year, I began having severe issues with the vision in my right eye that led to a traumatic cataract diagnosis. Around 15 years ago, I was shot in the right eye with a BB gun.
In January of this year, I called the University Hospital regarding the loss of vision and pain in my right eye. I was rushed in, as pain is a big concern and they wanted to make sure everything was okay. I was told I have a cataract and scheduled an appointment with a surgeon for the removal. When I asked about the pain, they told me that cataracts do not cause pain, but it may be what the cause is.
Over the course of the next 3 months, I went through phases of pain in my eye. One night, It was severe enough for me to visit the ER, from which I wasn’t given any real help. I was also incredibly sick with influenza B and congested, which seemed to make the pain even worse.
I was given an MRI and went through several different tests. Ended up getting home around 2am. Around 6am I noticed 5 missed calls from the hospital, asking me to come in right away as they may have seen something on the MRI and need more imaging.
After the additional imaging, I was told nothing seemed to be wrong, and they were at a loss in finding the cause. At one point, the ER doctor said chicken pox may be a possibility (I don’t know why). Then they told me it’s just neurological.
I spent the next few months with the pain coming and going, up to my following surgery appointments. When I brought it up to my surgeon, he didn’t know what could cause the issue either. He mentioned the cataract was so old, it had become soft.
The surgeon then explained to me the procedure, risks and benefits. I was told that I may or may not need glasses after the surgery, which I was fine with. I was told they’re standard procedures, simple and short recovery periods. I agreed and the surgery was scheduled.
Fast forward to the day after my surgery, and I begin to notice the difference in clarity of my vision. It was honestly crazy how clear my far sight vision was, but very disappointing how little I could see close up. I’m now unable to read my phone or see any detail closer than 5-7 feet away, but I was told glasses will correct the issue. No problem, I thought.
This is where my problems really begin. At night, I started noticing these incredibly intense visuals from light sources. So intense, I wasn’t able to go outside at night, or be in a dimly lit room for weeks. I am 1 month past my surgery and I am still unable to drive in the dark and struggle immensely with sitting anywhere dark with acute light sources. The best way to describe the visuals are halos, but not just like glowing street lights, I’m talking about psychedelic looking, hallucination type halos. They disappear when the light source is covered, and move in all directions, side to side and back and forth.
The best way to describe them is that they are perfectly circular and very sharply defined. Sometimes, there will be a slight ray type effect inside of them. They are present around every light source in a dark space. On the street, sometimes it’s so bad that there are dozens and dozens layered on top of each other. For weeks, I could literally feel my pupil swelling and sort of “popping”, as it adjusted to the lights. Immediately after, it would begin adjusting again, and the halos would come back. The lights go away when very bright light sources become present (like incoming headlights) or when equally disbursed. Better nights make the halos become more blurry, less defined outside of the circle.
I’ve tried to design this image to explain what I’m seeing to my doctor and others. I’ve also included a picture of how my right pupil looks in most dimmer lit, inside spaces:
https://imgur.com/a/o7vxpo3
Furthermore, I am experiencing a shadow casted around the outside of my vision in my right eye. Feels almost as if I’m looking through a tube, and seems that I have lost a fair amount of my peripheral vision. Some new floaters and flashes of light starting appearing around week 3, but not as drastic as it was with the cataract. I’m used to floaters in both eyes.
I showed this image to my surgeon and tried explaining the problem. He really didn’t seem to understand what the problem was, saying the eye looked good and halos are common. But I never knew that it would be so debilitating. He was at a loss, and mentioned that if my pupil is over dialating, it may be extending beyond my IOL, causing this issues. He’s been doing cataract surgeries for 2 years now. He also kept saying “well typically patients are older…” and then continued to explain protocol and experiences with older patients, not really considering my case individually, or offering to refer me to someone else.
At my post 1 month checkup, I asked him if there are different sizes that should have been used, only for him to say “well most IOLs are a certain size, but some are slightly bigger.” And then explained that my pupil dilating past the lens, causing the visuals. This makes sense to me, as the visuals do seem almost “prism” like. I was also told the lens was acrylic, and not as perfect as the normal lens, but I’m pretty sure there are different lens material types.
This confused me. It still does. I told him about my pupil being larger than the other before my surgery, and he saw it as well. Was this not a considering factor in my lens choice?
Additionally, I told this surgeon that back in 2013, I was diagnosed with optic nerve swelling, but he said that he had no idea what that was regarding and simply disregarded the diagnosis.
I’ve spent weeks trying to research the subject, but honestly, it’s causing me to become severely depressed and frustrated. I feel that my concerns have been totally disregarded, as I was told to wait another 3 months for my next appointment. I actually had to suggest treatment I read online with eye drops that cause the pupil to stay smaller. He agreed after my suggestion and said he would prescribe me these.
Unfortunately, they have not submitted the medication to my insurance for the past week, so I haven’t been able to try it. I hope it helps.
I really could use some help or advice. I’m writing this in the middle of the night and once again suffering from a headache from my eye issues. These visuals have not gotten any better since the night of surgery. Recently, they just go away, and some nights are better than other. Sometimes, artificial tears seem to help and other times they don’t. Sometimes losing the tension in my neck helps, sometimes moving my head down makes it worse.
I was also severely congested a few nights ago, and the halos were terrible. Decongestant spray seemed to make them totally disappear. I was told in the past I have a deviated septum, and on my right side I believe (not sure if they can be correlated)
If anyone’s has a suggestion as to what type of doctor may be able to help, or what I should expect my recovery to be like, I would be very grateful. I’m starting to feel hopeless and that people don’t believe or recognize the struggle I’m having.
At this point, I feel like I may have permanently messed up by opting in for this surgery, and I’m afraid I’ll never be able to drive or do things at night again. I understand that the damage the accident caused in my eye may be repairable, and that I probably will just need to adjust to new vision, but I really don’t think I can live with the issues I’ve been having at night. I feel as though I may never get to watch movies in theaters or watch events in dark spaces without severe visuals and head pain.
Let me know if there’s any additional info I can provide to help. On Monday, I am going to try to have my primary care provider help recommend me to someone else (insurance requires this for a second opinion).
Thank you for your time and help.