Back pain diagram

So, for those of you who know my story I have been through a lot during R. Those who don’t can view my post history as I wrote a lot about it.
Back in June of last year I caught WW still in communication with AP. And by communication, I mean I caught her with a hidden camera in our bedroom on a FaceTime masterbating with him while I was staying at a local AirBNB for a golf tournament.
To say I was devastated is an understatement, as it invalidated 6 months of R and put us back to below zero. Looking back, I realize now that I was the only one driving R initially. I was active on subs, reading articles and books, learning everything I could about how to recover from this devastation and keep my family whole. I was also telling WW what I needed from her for R but to her it felt forced. Like I was telling her what needed to be done and when, like being in IC.
She didn’t want to do any of it back then. She was sorry, sure. Sorry for the pain she caused me. Sorry that the kids had to hear us fighting behind closed doors. Sorry that her friends thought less of her. Sorry she got caught. In her mind, she was still blaming me for the affair but knew she couldn’t say it out loud because she couldn’t defend that feeling under scrutiny.
Since DDay 3, I have seen a remarkable shift in my WW. She started IC shortly after and has been dedicated to improving herself as a person. She confessed her actions to our families, some of her friends and one couple that we are close with. She has cut her toxic mother off for long stretches (4 months) and no longer allows her influence on her life and our marriage. This was the big one for me as it was a massive strain on our marriage for its entirety. She has read books to better understand how she could allow herself to self sabotage like this. How she could take everything good in her life for granted and jeopardize it for so little gain. She has evaluated how she interacts with others (men in particular) and established clear boundaries for her behavior. She supports me in my career and helps more with the kids on a day to day basis (also a problem pre-affair). She acknowledges all the things I do for her and our family and expresses appreciation. She reciprocates and shows me how much she respects and values me on a daily basis. She communicates what she is feeling and when she needs more from me in a particular area (also a pre-affair issue). She recognizes AP’s motivations and feels shame for not seeing it sooner.
We have had a few missteps along the way, such as some omissions from the original affair coming to light as well as a coworker acting inappropriately that she didn’t share with me until I found the voicemails and made him call the both of us with his wife on the call also to admit what he was doing (threatened to send the voicemails to HR and blow up his career). While these were serious violations, we have worked through them along with her motivations for keeping them secret. She understands and verbalizes why her motivations were misguided and realizes that therapy has been key in getting her to understand these things.
As of now we are settled back into a comfortable routine, but this time it is more even when it comes to supporting each other. We have made new friendships with others outside of her long standing and somewhat toxic friend group and distanced ourselves from the ones that don’t support us. We have an improved level of intimacy that we are both comfortable with (though I do admit I miss the hysterical bonding 🤣). We focus more on family than before and our children have become much closer with their cousins as a result. We “date” each other often and she drives half of that equation now instead of me having to pursue her as before. We spend quality time with the kids as well as alone with each other every day. In short, we have built the marriage we want out of the ashes of the old one.
There are still struggles of course. I still harbor resentment and anger at times and can face triggers on isolated occasions. She is overcoming a lifetime of conditioning and poor coping skills which is not done overnight. We argue (respectfully of course) on things at times but we communicate our frustrations immediately now instead of letting them fester. I still have some struggles with intimacy as I can get stuck in my head in the moment on occasion, which concerns me, but we make it work.
At the end of the day, we both have taken this nightmare and have turned it into an opportunity to better ourselves and our marriage. To honestly and harshly assess our flaws and shortcomings and dedicate ourselves to either fix them or at least minimize their impact.
I look back on the period before DDay 3 and still have many regrets, from ignoring my gut during the affair to how I handled things after it came to light, but I don’t fault myself. I realize I was doing the best I could with the information I had available, and was making decisions from a place of integrity and hope. While I may have been naive at times, I never betrayed my own values during this process. I always made decisions with the best interests of my family at heart. We still have a long way to go and this is a life long endeavor for improvement, but at this moment I feel content and optimistic with our progress. This is a long, ugly path that can be avoided with emotional intelligence and maturity, but unfortunately some don’t have the self introspection needed to do so. That is where the childhood trauma comes into play in my opinion.

So, for those of you who know my story I have been through a lot during R. Those who don’t can view my post history as I wrote a lot about it.
Back in June of last year I caught WW still in communication with AP. And by communication, I mean I caught her with a hidden camera in our bedroom on a FaceTime masterbating with him while I was staying at a local AirBNB for a golf tournament.
To say I was devastated is an understatement, as it invalidated 6 months of R and put us back to below zero. Looking back, I realize now that I was the only one driving R initially. I was active on subs, reading articles and books, learning everything I could about how to recover from this devastation and keep my family whole. I was also telling WW what I needed from her for R but to her it felt forced. Like I was telling her what needed to be done and when, like being in IC.
She didn’t want to do any of it back then. She was sorry, sure. Sorry for the pain she caused me. Sorry that the kids had to hear us fighting behind closed doors. Sorry that her friends thought less of her. Sorry she got caught. In her mind, she was still blaming me for the affair but knew she couldn’t say it out loud because she couldn’t defend that feeling under scrutiny.
Since DDay 3, I have seen a remarkable shift in my WW. She started IC shortly after and has been dedicated to improving herself as a person. She confessed her actions to our families, some of her friends and one couple that we are close with. She has cut her toxic mother off for long stretches (4 months) and no longer allows her influence on her life and our marriage. This was the big one for me as it was a massive strain on our marriage for its entirety. She has read books to better understand how she could allow herself to self sabotage like this. How she could take everything good in her life for granted and jeopardize it for so little gain. She has evaluated how she interacts with others (men in particular) and established clear boundaries for her behavior. She supports me in my career and helps more with the kids on a day to day basis (also a problem pre-affair). She acknowledges all the things I do for her and our family and expresses appreciation. She reciprocates and shows me how much she respects and values me on a daily basis. She communicates what she is feeling and when she needs more from me in a particular area (also a pre-affair issue). She recognizes AP’s motivations and feels shame for not seeing it sooner.
We have had a few missteps along the way, such as some omissions from the original affair coming to light as well as a coworker acting inappropriately that she didn’t share with me until I found the voicemails and made him call the both of us with his wife on the call also to admit what he was doing (threatened to send the voicemails to HR and blow up his career). While these were serious violations, we have worked through them along with her motivations for keeping them secret. She understands and verbalizes why her motivations were misguided and realizes that therapy has been key in getting her to understand these things.
As of now we are settled back into a comfortable routine, but this time it is more even when it comes to supporting each other. We have made new friendships with others outside of her long standing and somewhat toxic friend group and distanced ourselves from the ones that don’t support us. We have an improved level of intimacy that we are both comfortable with (though I do admit I miss the hysterical bonding 🤣). We focus more on family than before and our children have become much closer with their cousins as a result. We “date” each other often and she drives half of that equation now instead of me having to pursue her as before. We spend quality time with the kids as well as alone with each other every day. In short, we have built the marriage we want out of the ashes of the old one.
There are still struggles of course. I still harbor resentment and anger at times and can face triggers on isolated occasions. She is overcoming a lifetime of conditioning and poor coping skills which is not done overnight. We argue (respectfully of course) on things at times but we communicate our frustrations immediately now instead of letting them fester. I still have some struggles with intimacy as I can get stuck in my head in the moment on occasion, which concerns me, but we make it work.
At the end of the day, we both have taken this nightmare and have turned it into an opportunity to better ourselves and our marriage. To honestly and harshly assess our flaws and shortcomings and dedicate ourselves to either fix them or at least minimize their impact.
I look back on the period before DDay 3 and still have many regrets, from ignoring my gut during the affair to how I handled things after it came to light, but I don’t fault myself. I realize I was doing the best I could with the information I had available, and was making decisions from a place of integrity and hope. While I may have been naive at times, I never betrayed my own values during this process. I always made decisions with the best interests of my family at heart. We still have a long way to go and this is a life long endeavor for improvement, but at this moment I feel content and optimistic with our progress. This is a long, ugly path that can be avoided with emotional intelligence and maturity, but unfortunately some don’t have the self introspection needed to do so. That is where the childhood trauma comes into play in my opinion.

So, for those of you who know my story I have been through a lot during R. Those who don’t can view my post history as I wrote a lot about it.
Back in June of last year I caught WW still in communication with AP. And by communication, I mean I caught her with a hidden camera in our bedroom on a FaceTime masterbating with him while I was staying at a local AirBNB for a golf tournament.
To say I was devastated is an understatement, as it invalidated 6 months of R and put us back to below zero. Looking back, I realize now that I was the only one driving R initially. I was active on subs, reading articles and books, learning everything I could about how to recover from this devastation and keep my family whole. I was also telling WW what I needed from her for R but to her it felt forced. Like I was telling her what needed to be done and when, like being in IC.
She didn’t want to do any of it back then. She was sorry, sure. Sorry for the pain she caused me. Sorry that the kids had to hear us fighting behind closed doors. Sorry that her friends thought less of her. Sorry she got caught. In her mind, she was still blaming me for the affair but knew she couldn’t say it out loud because she couldn’t defend that feeling under scrutiny.
Since DDay 3, I have seen a remarkable shift in my WW. She started IC shortly after and has been dedicated to improving herself as a person. She confessed her actions to our families, some of her friends and one couple that we are close with. She has cut her toxic mother off for long stretches (4 months) and no longer allows her influence on her life and our marriage. This was the big one for me as it was a massive strain on our marriage for its entirety. She has read books to better understand how she could allow herself to self sabotage like this. How she could take everything good in her life for granted and jeopardize it for so little gain. She has evaluated how she interacts with others (men in particular) and established clear boundaries for her behavior. She supports me in my career and helps more with the kids on a day to day basis (also a problem pre-affair). She acknowledges all the things I do for her and our family and expresses appreciation. She reciprocates and shows me how much she respects and values me on a daily basis. She communicates what she is feeling and when she needs more from me in a particular area (also a pre-affair issue). She recognizes AP’s motivations and feels shame for not seeing it sooner.
We have had a few missteps along the way, such as some omissions from the original affair coming to light as well as a coworker acting inappropriately that she didn’t share with me until I found the voicemails and made him call the both of us with his wife on the call also to admit what he was doing (threatened to send the voicemails to HR and blow up his career). While these were serious violations, we have worked through them along with her motivations for keeping them secret. She understands and verbalizes why her motivations were misguided and realizes that therapy has been key in getting her to understand these things.
As of now we are settled back into a comfortable routine, but this time it is more even when it comes to supporting each other. We have made new friendships with others outside of her long standing and somewhat toxic friend group and distanced ourselves from the ones that don’t support us. We have an improved level of intimacy that we are both comfortable with (though I do admit I miss the hysterical bonding 🤣). We focus more on family than before and our children have become much closer with their cousins as a result. We “date” each other often and she drives half of that equation now instead of me having to pursue her as before. We spend quality time with the kids as well as alone with each other every day. In short, we have built the marriage we want out of the ashes of the old one.
There are still struggles of course. I still harbor resentment and anger at times and can face triggers on isolated occasions. She is overcoming a lifetime of conditioning and poor coping skills which is not done overnight. We argue (respectfully of course) on things at times but we communicate our frustrations immediately now instead of letting them fester. I still have some struggles with intimacy as I can get stuck in my head in the moment on occasion, which concerns me, but we make it work.
At the end of the day, we both have taken this nightmare and have turned it into an opportunity to better ourselves and our marriage. To honestly and harshly assess our flaws and shortcomings and dedicate ourselves to either fix them or at least minimize their impact.
I look back on the period before DDay 3 and still have many regrets, from ignoring my gut during the affair to how I handled things after it came to light, but I don’t fault myself. I realize I was doing the best I could with the information I had available, and was making decisions from a place of integrity and hope. While I may have been naive at times, I never betrayed my own values during this process. I always made decisions with the best interests of my family at heart. We still have a long way to go and this is a life long endeavor for improvement, but at this moment I feel content and optimistic with our progress. This is a long, ugly path that can be avoided with emotional intelligence and maturity, but unfortunately some don’t have the self introspection needed to do so. That is where the childhood trauma comes into play in my opinion.

Hey guys, I would love to hear opinions on what I got going on right now. This doesn't have to do with my ex but actually a different girl I was talking to shortly after my relationship had ended. I'll just jump straight into it. It's gonna be bit long, but for those of you who stick it out, I greatly appreciate it.
So, 6 months ago in November my ex broke up with me. It was a 3 1/2 yr relationship. About 3 weeks after the breakup, I decided to ask out a girl who was in my class at the time. I genuinely actually liked her as a person prior to the breakup. She would just come hang/study with me every day before class, and I genuinely enjoyed being around her. I had no intentions of getting into anything with her but one time thought to myself that if I wasn't in a relationship I would totally ask her out and want to get to know her on a more personal level.
Well, low and behold, I was dumped and now actually had the opportunity to ask her out. Idk what I was thinking at time that made it seem like a good idea to go straight into dating after coming out of a 3 1/2 yr relationship 💀. But she said yes to going on a date. I told her we should wait till after finals, which she agreed to (we were in the last 2 weeks of the semester at that point, and the workload was crazy).
In this time, though, I was still in a lot of pain from my breakup and hurting. My ex was constantly on my mind. I was very emotionally unavailable to this new girl. I think to the point where she probably started having doubts by the time we finished the semester. I tried planning 1 date with her, and it didn't end up happening. It was around Xmas though and she had a lot of family stuff going on, which I understood. After Xmas passed, she messaged me apologizing for how busy she was and said we'd figure something out. I told her that was cool and just to let me know when she had time in her schedule. She said that was cool but never reached out about specifically about a date. But in this time her and I would message each other on instagram. We gamed online a little as well.
Once February hit and we hadn't gone on a date, I finally realized okay this is not going anywhere, and I was still deep in my healing process. Reality hit and I could see how not good the situation was that I was in. I never had told her about my breakup either. So by mid-February, I had lowered the amount of interaction to almost little to none hoping it would die out (terrible idea, I should have just communicated to her properly like an adult). But she would still send me stuff on Instagram, so I assumed okay is she still interested? So I messaged her and asked if she was still interested in going on a date, which she said yes to. I told her, though, that I wanted to talk to her over a call to talk about something important. I was going to be straight up to her about my breakup, which I felt was very important for her to know about if she were to invest anymore time into me. I didn't want to talk about it over text, though. She said she was busy atm so I told her it was okay and to let me know when she had some free time to talk. She said okay and I left it at that. I refused to take anything further without having that talk with her. She never reached out about the call but sent a reel here and there. I stopped replying to her and it finally just died out. I told myself I needed to just focus on me.
Fast forward to now. It's been 6 months after my breakup. I haven't had any contact whatsoever with my ex and could care less about anything that has to do with her, her life and what she does is none of my concern or business. I also haven't messaged the other girl since February. I've been committed to heavy personal growth and have detached and healed properly from my breakup. I've been working on my unadressed traumaus, attachment style, and anxiety by doing countless hours of workbooks, courses, and watching videos addressing my mental health and teaching me important skills that are required for a healthy relationship. I now feel like I am truly ready for another relationship.
Looking back on the situation I had started with the other girl, I feel so bad. I had no business asking her out at the time. I was completely in the wrong doing it. I was emotionally unavailable to her and probably came off like I didn't care much. She probably felt lots of mixed feelings cause of my mixed emotions and lack of effort/interest. And quiet frankly I don't blame her at all for how she was acting. I would be acting the same way in her position, having to deal with someone like me at the time.
Since then, I have run into her in person a few times, and we had decent short interactions. I would love to try again with her but properly. I just don't know if it's worth it. I already had put her through a rollercoaster, and we weren't even in a relationship. If I were to start up something again with her, I would want to have an actual conversation with her, apologize, and be straight up front about everything before moving anything forward just to clear things up (if she would even be open to the idea).
So I guess my question now would be, should I reach out to see if something can work? Or should I just leave it be? I don't care about being rejected, I'm just more afraid of disturbing her or making her upset or uncomfortable by reaching out. What's your guys' honest opinion and what would you do in this situation?
Thanks again for those who took the time read through all that. I greatly appreciate it :)

I’ve been trying to make keto work for weight loss for 6 years but it created an unhealthy relationship with food. This year I decided to try just calorie counting and allowing for all foods and just hitting a protein goal. I’ve lost 15 lbs, feel happier and don’t struggle with my relationship with food anymore but I’ve tried this before in 2022 and the same thing happened.. after a few months of a balanced lifestyle my skin takes a hit.. more breakouts and painful pimples when normally my skin is clear. Advice? I mean I guess if I have to live a keto lifestyle then that’s what I have to do but I’m afraid I’ll go back to an unhealthy relationship with food.

I miss how my girlfriend was before she lost her older brother two weeks ago. And the worst thing, with grief, it always takes a while… as right after the funeral, she seemed to be her usual self for a few days, but lately, it almost feels like she is gone from my life.
As the days went on, the physical intimacy also got less and less - at first refusing sex, then cuddles, and then even holding hands… with random moments when she’d be physically affectionate, that became more and more fleeting as time went on.
We went back to her home country for the funeral for a week’s time, and now she changed her mind and said she needs space to deal with her grief, whereas we were supposed to stay together after our trip for the weekend. So I gave her space, and of course will keep checking in on her regularly to make sure she is okay.
She also recently doesn’t want to talk about feelings, and it literally feels like I’ve lost her on both, and emotional and also physical level. She did react positively when I told her that I want her to have that space and spend the weekend having some alone time which she didn’t manage to have since her brother’s death, but it is scary.
She says she loves me and wants to see me soon, but I know that if I now went up to her and tried to show affection, that wouldn’t work. I also miss her usual smiles and good mood and company - after the death, I literally feel like she also ceased to be on the inside. The most upsetting bit is that we never fought, our relationship was lovely. As close to perfect as it can get, despite there obviously being some differences.
I do feel her pain and immensely commiserate with her and the entire family, plus she also knows what her parents are going through, so it’s all very understandable to me, but I am worried because I don’t know what will be tomorrow regarding us.
Losing her would be painful for me, and I just wanted to vent here…

I think all my problems started somwhere in 2019, when I changed schools for the thousandth time.
During the next change, I got sick and they sent me to the hospital for a week. And idk I think that was the moment that changed everything. It was in 2019. The experience in the hospital was terrible, but more importantly, when I left I felt... idk gentle? Unreal? Everything seemed strange. I was leaving home to go to school. Traveling by bus. Crossing to the other side. Got on the second bus. Came home, go to bed and cried. Day by day.
On the one hand, I started reading more and felt "creative", on the other hand, reality terrified me. Then, thanks to home school, I was able to ignore the symptoms. But over time they began to disturb my interests. I stop reading. In fact, I had a strong feeling that if I touched the book I would destroy it somehow. And if I damage one, the whole collection will collapse.
Then I made friends with someone and that also ended badly, because my paranoia told me more and more strange things. I removed myself from the Internet and spent 2023 tightly locked at home.
Now I have this feeling of unreality again. Sometimes I feel like I'm looking at something, I see words, I understand them, but... at the same time I don't? As if there was a stain in the very center blocking my full view?
I have also been hearing the heartbeat continuously since April. I mean day in and day out. It is in the head, in the hands, in the legs. Thanks to it, my head is a perpetual migraine. My arms and legs are weak. The belly is heavy, as if all the organs had enlarged within a month. I'm shaking and I keep expecting to fall.
All days are the same: I wake up, it's even bearable, I eat, I browse something, I take a bath and... It all begins. The pain sends me straight to bed. And so I sit in it. I can't read books again - comics are the best my brain can handle.
Sometimes I try to walk because I feel a little less tired outside the house, but lately it's been difficult too. My legs feel so heavy, as if I fighting gravity. So. Basically, I'm just waiting for the moment to take a sleeping pill and have a moment of peace.
Last week I was taken to hospital because I was vomiting. They took me in this one because I fainted in the bus. They did the same tests again and said everything was fine and I could go home.
In addition, I have visited many other doctors, but each of them focuses on one small thing and completely ignores the whole thing. Always just "take bibloc", then "drink electrolytes", and then "yes, you had side effects last time, but here's hydroxyzine again”. (And yesterday doctor literally said "yes, this medicine for your blood pressure probably won't help you, but that's okay. I'll give it to you anyway. If you faint again, please come back for more diagnostics :)")
I think everyone is tired of me. Doctors look on and become more and more confused. My mother went from "yes, we need to find a psychiatrist and help you" to "well, you have a small hump on the back of your neck sooo... maybe it's his fault?".
I don't have patience anymore either. I just want screaming. I used to have a bearable life. Why can't I have it now? Will it always be like this?
I feel pathetic.
(Also sorry if anything sounds weird. English is not my first language and I recently took a sleeping pill, so I probably have messed something up. But I really had to vent somewhere :x)

hi i’m f19. my mom has had severe health anxiety since i was a kid and still does. i don’t want to get into details of how bad it gets, but it’s baaaaad. she never got help for it even though we (dad, me, and brother) all told her she should. spent my childhood reassuring her she doesn’t have every disease you can imagine.
i thought i was spared from the health anxiety curse but then last summer, i was in the worst pain of my life. i had a 6cm ovarian cyst that they first thought was appendicitis but then they did a ct scan. after that i have gotten much more scared about being in pain and google all my symptoms
flash forward to my first year at college with my bf. anytime we do something intimate, even if there’s no p in v penetration (there hasn’t even been any yet), and my period is a bit off, i convince myself something is wrong. the first time he fingered me my period was late for a week and i was in literal SHAMBLES. that was November. i thought i would’ve gotten better since then, but it’s now may and my period isn’t right on the dot. there was no fingering this time, just oral and he touched my cl!t i’m convincing myself there was precum on his finger as he did..but im cramping severely, stomach issue, sore boobs (pms ik) and also a upper thigh pain that comes and goes which started around the time of my cyst(i think if my cyst comes back it’ll start hurting there). now ive convinced myself i have endometriosis or im pregnant. and my body reacts really badly to hormones and the IUD freaks me the fuck out, i’m w orried of being in pain like the cyst again
My mom’s health anxiety has just gotten worse over the years and i feel like mine is getting there. i started therapy recently but right now i just want my period and to feel physically better. idk how to get over the idea something will always go wrong

I have been running in merrel trail gloves now for the past 4 years. I LOVE them for trail running in the woods. Today I ran my second ever half marathon and what held me back was foot-ache after 14 kms. I could still keep on going and ended up getting a time of 2:10. Next year I'm running the same race but I want to get a sub 2hour run. And would like to step up to the full marathon length. My muscles felt fine and I had prehydrated well and drank water at every station, the only thing holding me back was my foot pain.
Is there anyone on here that is an avid marathon runner in zero drop that has any recomendations for shoes that are better suited for running on roads??

Hi everyone. I've been lurking for a long time, for as long as I've suspected I've had some condition under the umbrella of neurofibromatosis. I've read so many posts from all of you over this time and I feel like I should introduce myself, and also ask a few questions of you all.
Introduction
I've always been into genetics as a hobby. My grandmother had an incredibly rare condition that took many years for her to be diagnosed with, and every day of her life she was at risk of sudden death as a result (and has absolutely nothing and no relation to any form of NF). When I started in school and learned about genetics even being a thing, I was convinced that her condition was likely a component of it. As it turns out, it is. I couldn't become a geneticist: school was so challenging to afford to begin with, even with really fantastic grades, and I was a high school dropout, so my career became something else (software engineering), but I was always interested in the subject.
Many years ago, I got several consumer-level DNA tests. One of the tests had a mutation in NF1, and I checked to see if it was a miscall. It appeared not to be. I had gotten a new job with fantastic insurance and wanted to see if I could get it checked out.
I see the geneticist. No mutations in NF1 detected, but a mutation in LZTR1 was present, along with a Variant of Uncertain Significance that had not been recorded and studies at the time (now, it's published). So I went about my life as of a few years ago knowing that was a possibility. Saw a neurologist, got an MRI, they said I looked good, life moved on.
A few years before this happened, I had a child (who does not have any of my pathogenic mutations.. I've checked). So this whole time, I started getting some symptoms of issues with my eye over the years: a symptom where i had sudden extreme pain that felt like my eye was out of the socket almost, happened twice, eye doctors had no idea what was going on. Then, a retinal hole, so I had surgery to repair it. My vision just has never been as strong there.
As of the last few months especially, I've had other symptoms on the same side as my eye: tinnitus, a feeling that my ear felt dislocated until I put it back in place, slight aching, a little bit of dizziness, and in hindsight I think my hearing was already being impacted. Less than two weeks ago, I had a moment where everything hit hard: all of the sudden, it hurt more on the same side with my eye, the vertigo got worse, I could definitely tell I had lost hearing, double vision when seeing up close. I knew in that moment that something more than just some sort of ache was going on, that this seemed worse. Also keep in mind, I actively avoid getting COVID-19 by masking, air purification, vaccines, etc. So as of now, I have never had it, and thankfully have also barely been sick at all in the past few years beyond these other unusual symptoms.
I saw my neurologist immediately after realizing what was going on. I told him what I thought this was: an acoustic neuroma, and maybe something else additional with my eye or something similar to it. The appointment ended up being really disappointing, dismissive and not at all in the direction I had hoped, and I'm going to find care elsewhere after I get my MRI because I know I deserve better than someone who does not care to drop his ego. But I did convince him to get me an MRI (it's been two years), which happens tomorrow morning. And I did also find out that my optic nerve is tortuous, especially the left side (and I doubt he reviewed it himself back in the day, beyond the written report). And I pointed out to him again about the mutation I had in NF1, and how I also have cafe au laits and freckles in patches throughout my body, that are just harder to see because I'm multiracial and they're very close to my own skin tone. And he confirmed my conductive hearing loss. And examined my ears and ruled out an ear infection. So... what else could it be in someone who has LZTR1-related neurofibromatosis diagnosis from a geneticist?
So I have, what I believe, is mosaic neurofibromatosis type 1. I think the first DNA test I saw that in was legitimate. I also think the LZTR1-related schwannomatosis is kicking in, but that I knew about. I think I have even a spot on my spine, as I've had pain there with pressure for almost my entire life (at least as long as I can remember).
And I am hoping someone can take me seriously at another place of care once my MRI comes back. Whatever is happening is large enough to impact my hearing and vision and face. And it's the weirdest experience knowing part of this in advance of it before I had symptoms I noticed. It's like every step of the way, I've had to convince someone else of what I thought was going on. But I am super lucky to know enough in advance to find the care I need. WIsh that was the case for everyone.
TL;DR: Inadvertently found out I have LZTR1-related schwannomatosis and I suspect mosaic neurofibromatosis type one. Might have acoustic neuroma based on symptoms, some optic nerve involvement based on symptoms, MRI tomorrow.
Questions
I have some questions just to generally ask. I try to search the subreddit, but sometimes it's just easier to ask in the way I need to, and I want to add a bit more detail to some of the questions to help clarify what I'm asking about.

• Is there anyone else here who has Mosaic Neurofibromatosis Type 1 and LZTR1-schwannomatosis? Or anyone that has any form of mosaic NF1 and schwannomatosis?
• For those of you with acoustic neuromas / vestibular schwannoma, is there anything you would want to know or tell anyone who goes through any treatment for it?
  • I know a ton about the general facts and procedures for the moment. I mean anything that you would have found helpful to keep in mind, or something that helped you during the treatment and in recovery?
• For those of you with anything around the optic nerve including optic nerve glioma, is there anything you would want to know or tell anyone who goes through any treatment for it?
  • I know roughly about this, but looking more for anything that you would have found helpful to keep in mind, with treatment, recovery?
• For absolutely anyone in the umbrella, what helped you cope with finding out this news?
  • I usually deal by digging deep into a subject and educating myself, which I've done ad nauseam already. But I am really struggling with what's going on, the juxaposition between how I feel just god awful physically on the daily, and also coping with this news, and how I have been treated by my neurologist and others. I imagine some of this will probably be helped by actually seeing and knowing the details after tomorrow. I know I'm pretty resilient because I've been through so much real shit in my life, and I know I am in no degree perfect, and I'm going to try to persevere as much as I can. I just try to be a good person, and life just hits me with the hardest situations. And now I have a kid that I want to do absolutely everything in the world for and that's jeopardized. And I am the only person I know like me.

I know that was a massive post. Thank you for reading. Thank you if you give any answers. And thanks for being a part of this community, I wish none of us had to face this, but I am glad there are places where we can know we're not alone in our experiences.

So one day, I had a 'creepy encounter' with my family doctor...
I am a 35 year old woman now, but this encounter happened when I was around 14 or 15 years old (so about 20 years ago now) but the memory is as fresh and as vivid as though it happened yesterday. I haven't even thought of this story in many years until I came across this Reddit channel, and after reading some of the other stories, my own personal memory of this story came flooding back! So anyway...
Everyone in my family (and some still do) used to see this one family doctor for many many years for all our medical needs. We'll call him 'Doctor D.' We'd been seeing this doctor for soo long, he was even there at the delivery of my birth, where he held me in his arms when I was just a new born baby. From then on, I would see him for everything. Every time I got sick, for all my immunization's, etc, etc. So it was only natural that I would go see him the day I needed to get my first Pap smear ever done. I had just started becoming sexually active for the first time with my very first boyfriend at this stage, and I had learnt in school sex ed, as well as from other various sources that once a female starts becoming sexually active, they need to also start getting Pap Smear tests done.
(For those who may not know, a Pap SmeaPap test is a test or procedure done by your doctor to check for Cervical Cancer in women. The test is not painful in any way, but can feel a little bit strange, uncomfortable and invasive as it requires a swab being inserted 'inside' to collect the sample. Other than that, it is a very quick procedure that altogether takes no longer then a minute or two from start to finish. This last point is important to take note of for later in the story).
So its important to note here, that even before arriving to my appointment, I was already in a state of feeling a little bit freaked out and uncomfortable with the whole situation because at 14, I was a lot like most other young girls my age where I felt very awkward about my growing body, had poor self-image, would often where baggy clothes to hide any signs of my 'womanhood' from the outside world (such as the breasts that were forming!) So the idea that I had to do a test that required I strip from the waist down, sit on a bench with my legs WIDE open, ONLY to have some random grown up come right up in there and fiddle around down there...sounded to me like the LAST THING IN THE WORLD I wanted to do and was feeling already very embarrassed about it! And even though I was told by many different people that if I wanted (and if it made me more comfortable) I could request for a female doctor to do the test but for some reason, I had turned that option down. (Something I would regret later!) I guess i just thought in my head...it's okay, I'll just see Dr. D like I always do, I mean, he is my doctor, I've known him for years so it's only natural I continue to see him and treat this appointment like any other appointment. And I guess I just managed to convince myself to stop being soo silly, everything was fine, and besides, he is a professional doctor who will approach this situation with professionalism, and will conduct himself in a way that will not make me feel any more awkward than I already do. How wrong I was...
So Dr. D tells me to take off everything from the waist down, to lie on the bed, put the white sheet over my lap and wait for him while he gets everything together. I do this, feeling a bit red in this face, but I do as he asks, hurriedly, as I am impatient to get this over and done with quickly. When he does come around the curtain, he sits down on a low stool right between my legs, whips off the sheet and looks up at me with a big smile on his face. He then proceeds to have a conversation with me about...I don't remember what about. However what I do remember was that it wasn't at all relevant to the situation at hand or anything to do with the test or any medical information in relation to me what soever. I just remember that he had chosen that moment to talk about other trivial things like 'So how's the family going?' or 'What year level are you doing at school now?' and things of that nature. Honestly, I wouldn't have been listening to anything he was saying at the time as all I would of been thinking about is me screaming at him to hurry up and get on with it! And that I do NOT feel like having a chit chat with him while my private bits are in his face! But if I had thought for a second that this ill-timed catch up session would be the most uncomfortable thing to happen in that moment I would be wrong. As he is chit chatting away to me as well as going back and forth between making eye contact with me and flashing me a wide smile to looking down at my private areas with a deep, penetrating gaze, he all of a sudden wraps his hand right around my inner thigh, closest to where my knee is. He does so just gently, almost like he's just resting his hand there for a second, but it makes me do a little jump. He doesn't seem to notice though and continues talking, and as he's talking I realize that he's slowly started to circle his thumb on my inner thigh in a slow gentle caress. Immediately alarm bells start ringing in my head. I'm thinking to myself...what is he doing? The action was almost like he was trying to soothe or relax me in some way, sort of like how a mother might use her hand to do small circular motion's on her crying child's back in an attempt to soothe. But why? Was I maybe being outwardly obvious about how uncomfortable I was with the situation, despite my best efforts to not let it show? And even if it was obvious to Dr. D...is it normal for a Doctor to do this soothing action on a patient? And on top of this...how much longer is this whole damn thing going to take anyway?! I thought this was meant to be really quick!
That's when deep down I started to realize that something was very wrong with the situation. Or that I started to sense his intention's weren't good or appropriate at all. Because he started to move his hand slowly up my inner thigh, towards my private area, still caressing me with his thumb, and still gazing directly at me as he went. It's when his hand reached its destination, (and NOT because he was about to do the swab at that stage, but to continue just to caress me) that my legs started to shake uncontrollably. Not for any other reason than the fact that i was scared, and I just couldn't stop myself from shaking in fear. Then 2 seconds later, the tears started to slowly form and roll down my face as I let out a little whimpering sound.
Of course Dr. D immediately noticed this but doesn't at all stop or spring back like you would hope he would do in that situation as though he might be realizing what he's doing is wrong and decides to stop what he's doing...NO. He just continues to do it more intensely and says to me,
'Honey, your shaking! What's wrong? Why are you feeling soo nervous? Don't be nervous honey, just try and relax, everything's fine'...and just continues to caress, almost like he believes his words and action's are actually helping me to relax when quite clearly, its doing the complete opposite! But for some reason, I don't say a word! I don't tell him to stop or back off, I don't move a muscle (other than the uncontrollable shake that I can't help). What's even more baffling about my behavior and reaction at this point is...I even quickly try to wipe away and hide my tears from him so he doesn't see it! Because for some reason, in that moment, I feel bad for HIM, because I'm worried my tears and distress might be making HIS job harder in some way by me being a challenging or uncooperative patient! I can't explain why I thought or reacted this way other than the fact that I was just a young 14 year old girl who was freaking out and just didn't know what to do in a unsettling situation and especially because it was happening with someone I knew my entire life, and had looked up to and trusted for a long long time.
Anyway, it relieves me to say that he eventually did perform the test, and that this story doesn't end with any further graphic details of some sort of sexual assault or anything of that nature. He did however act completely oblivious to my distress throughout the whole thing, acted the whole way through like he wasn't doing anything wrong and that everything was normal. Oh, and remember how earlier I mentioned this test should only take usually 1-2 minutes at most to complete? I was on that table for 15MINUTES with him...which might not be a long amount of time...but to me, it felt like years in that moment!
Do you know what the worst part is? The moment i got home to my parents, I burst into tears, flung myself into their arms and proceeded to tell them the entire story. As freaked out as I was, within seconds I started to feel better, just knowing that I was back within the safety net of their presence but also knowing that once I finished telling them what happened, that my parents would know what to do to fix the situation as well as offer me much needed comfort...But you know what? That's not what I got. What I got was being immediately thrusted out of their embrace and then straight away got the biggest telling off session of my life! They didn't believe a word I said! In fact, they got soo angry at me, for being a trouble maker and making up stories about their trusted family doctor who they have known for years and knew for a fact wouldn't ever do anything of what I was accusing him of! Then, they told me to stop crying and immediately grounded me!
I was in complete and utter shock and to this day I'm still not sure which one is worse...my doctor doing what he did, or my own family's reaction to the situation...both experiences ended up hurting me deeply. So nothing ever came of the situation. I had to bottle it up inside and bury it all away, and he got away with it. The only thing I had in my power to do was make the decision to NEVER see him again which I haven't to this day. There had been plenty of times where I had thought about reporting him to police, especially fearing for the wellbeing of any other women out there in his care...but after how my parents reacted, I convinced myself that the police probably wouldn't believe me either...if it came to me against him...i believed I would lose so stayed silent.
I just truly hope that nothing awful has ever happened at his own hands after my experience. And to Dr. D? May we never meet again.

I was born In a violent place, I'm trans and my country is dangerous, I suffer there a lot, rape, and domestic violence, all my life. I came to the Netherlands to work and change my life, the company put me in an accommodation with 250 people from different cultures, and on my birthday after months alone and without friends and family, I bought this Xbox S, to play something and use my free time, the internet was to slow and was taking to a long time to download my warframe, I play this game from 2016 until now. 12 hours to download, so I bought wine just relaxed, and waited, I was there outside sitting in one of the trees taking some sum and drinking alone, I never drink too much, and this guy came and started to talk, my English is shit but was ok, he asked me some wine and I give, after some minutes I started to feel like in the clouds my body was not working good, I tried to get up but no strong in the leg and arms, I was feeling like I can't move and in jail inside myself, he took me to the woods and rape me I was feeling nothing, I couldn't do anything, I have no idea how long time this take, I just wanted to this stop, and I have some blackout, was dark when I was able to move and I finally got strong to move and I came to the room, I was in shame and guilty of myself, I was confused I sleep in the floor for 2 days and after that, I go to the police, they asked proves, video or photos, (wtf??) nobody helps me, I tried to work as nothing had happened and every time I looked to people I feel like they know that and I was feeling dirty, I started to use drugs to go work and try to get better alone, nobody will help me, I get that, here I'm a nobody, so in some moment I was not able to work (1 month later ) I put sick and I never come back to work, I made everything to run from that place, I find a room In other city and I just move in that same day, here, I found some silence and loniless, until this Bulgarian old guy started to bother me with small things, I cant wash my clothes always because he complain with the owner saying is too much, I can not cook because if I forgot just 1 seed of rice fall he complain saying I leave all kitchen dirty, I can not even pass in front his door he complain about noises. I feel like doesn't matter where I go, everything will be the same, I don't have money to rent another place, I eat instant pasta for weeks, and I try to be invisible, but is impossible, I found a doctor but, she says I have to move on, I have 37 and I'm old to continue to cry, I have a rabbit now, but, I have no help, no family, friends, I feel like Netherlands hate me so much, and this ongs I tried to get help, they say here is not my place and I'm not Dutch and I should back to my country, I have no place to go back and no strong to forward, drugs yeah I'm still using just to not feel more pain, now I look everything in my life and I think I just want to die and give up from all this shit. Maybe I should, I have nobody anyway, if I die nobody will missing, and maybe the next life can be better. IDK maybe I have no hope anymore. I'm tired of this place but I can't go because the agency still pays me, but just enough to rent, insurance, and food. I'm stuck in hell. Dutch people are the most fake and ignorant people I ever met in the world, if you are an immigrant, they will be polite and put you down with beautiful words. They care only about taking you out of the way. 😔

Hi everybody, it's my first post on reddit ever, I hope I can get some feedback about my problem/dilemma. I'm 23 years old, student. A little less than two months ago, I started getting first a sense of tension and some pain in my left leg, mostly the back of the calf and quad. During the next 7 days, doing regular everyday things and some exercises, the pain started getting worse and worse plus the back of my quad and calf (and lateral part of foot) started going numb, so I decided to go to a doctor, while barely being able to walk or sit in a car. The doctor did a physical exam, told me it's probably an L5/S1 herniation and recommended I get an MRI. He gave me meloxicam to drink once a day, which didn't help much. After that day, maybe because I exerted myself going to the doctor, the pain became almost unbearable, sleeping was barely possible and I would wake up because of the pain, going to the bathroom was hard as well, showering or basically anything else caused quite a bit of pain because I couldn't stand on my left leg. I spent the next 10-14 days in bed in one single position in which the pain was bearable, that is on my back with my legs bent in the knees and with my feet on the floor. Couldn't go out of my apartment for that whole time, because moving meant a whole lot of pain, almost unbearable, and I am not exaggerating. The most I tried to do was some very light exercises I got from a friend who had almost the same problem and got the operation (microdiscectomy), but his symptoms were more severe. After that time I finally became well enough and went to get an MRI scan. Basically the three bottom disks are degenerated with critical spinal stenosis especially on the L4/L5 and L5/S1 level. I also have a cyst, which doctors think is benign and haven't really paid much attention to it as far as I've noticed.
The radiologist who read the MRI scan said that it would be wise to consult with a neurosurgeon since the stenosis is severe, but if I didn't want to through with the procedure we could try with PT and decompression therapy.
The third doctor I went to, neurologist, after a physical exam and reading the description of my MRI scan said that I should so the operation without delay because I could lose my legs. At that point I was already feeling better, but have been walking using crutches.
In the next 2-3 days I went to a neurosurgeon. He looked at my MRI scan and said multiple times I should go through with the procedure, even though I was constantly saying I'm feeling a lot better already.
I thought that was it, I need to get it over with and be done with it so I started with preoperative preparation (blood work, internal medicine, anesthesiologist and everything else that's needed). Now I am just waiting for the surgery, which I am guessing should happen sometimes in the next 7-10 days.
Right now, after all that time has passed, I feel much much better, I have basically no pain while sitting and laying down, but still have some pain while walking (mostly in the back of the calf, it gets worse if I press my hand on it). My left leg is a little bit weaker than the right, again mostly concerning the calf, it is much harder to raise myself to my toes using my left leg, but in the beginning it was absolutely impossible to even stand on the toes of the left leg.
Through all this time I have continued with exercises and keep implementing more, focusing on core and back muscles and stretching. All of these exercises are with little to no pain, except some stretching exercises, they still hurt.
My question is, even though I understand every case is different - is there anybody that had a similar experience or could offer any advice as to whether I should go through with the procedure (microdiscectomy) or just continue exercising since I am already much better and cancel the operation?
I'm sorry for such a long post, but I felt like I needed to explain my condition in order to expect any answer.
Huge thanks to everyone who took the time to read and answer, it's much appreciated.

I've been in isolation for a long time trying to figure out my narcissistic family dynamics since before the pandemic. In fact I was going to go back into the world of the living after 3 or 4 years of recovering then the pandemic happened and made me worse.
I guess in my youth I kind of unknowingly ran in networking circles, meaning that people were socializing just for the sake of job prospects rather than real connection. This might be the culture of the college I went to but because I was already so damaged by my family I deluded myself into thinking these were my real friends.
I internalized their slights and standoffishness by working on myself harder. Being more friendly, more generous, more giving, and boy did they take. It felt like nothing was enough because of feeling like a POS since before I can remember.
Coming out of isolation, I reached out to people that convinced me we were real friends. I felt so happy I was doing this because the isolation was so painful that I didn't think I'd make it out alive. I felt like now that I knew myself better, I could explain to them what I was going through. Also we are all in our mid to late 30s so I figured there would be some maturity. I started to kind of go into what I have been battling with. I could tell they were disturbed and obviously didn't want to associate me with absolute weakness. They did that familiar awkwardness I remember in college and my instinct was to block everyone for some reason.
I want to scream and write them all rage messages. All this time I felt like I was diligently working on myself to be deserving of friends but truly this was another thing my abuse blocked me from seeing clearly and I wasted so much time wanting to be accepted by not very good people.
Back to the drawing board - this time it's what makes a good friend.

This was not the intent but it happened lol.
Then again, it helps I really like this story and the POV character is one of my favorites to write. Of all of my characters I've written, she's just one of my favorites. She's a goddess that's around 5000 years old and has been through boatloads of trauma that's made her incredibly dynamic and flawed. She's a love goddess so one of her main flaws is loving things and people too deeply and being incredibly selfless.
(I know a lot of people are like "selflessness isn't a flaw!" It can be when done right. She's someone that will put all of her own needs on the back burner to take care of others. Right now her planet is dying a slow, painful death due to a war 1200 years before the current era. Her main focus is more on the political situation that her descendant is in because the young queen has severe anxiety and not much of a backbone due to her own trauma. She needs like 15k calories a day but, because of the lack of arable land, she eats maybe 2k calories even though she could easily just pop up to the heavens for like 20 minutes, eat enough, then come back down. But no. She refuses to leave the city she's in and is just slowly dropping more and more weight. She's maybe like 90lbs when she should be like 120, 130lbs. So she's selfless to the point she neglects her own health because she places so much more importance on others than herself.)
She just got into go mode. She got an idea on how to get her mother back and was just like "hell no I'm not stopping until I can be sure I'm getting her back." So I was just absolutely compelled to write until she got that confirmation.

Girlfriend (28F) made a comment about her sexual past. Why does it bother me (28M) so much and how do I deal with it?
We were sitting on the couch, watching TV. Somehow the topic of sex came up, and how she is a little on the tighter side and I am above average in size and it is sometimes uncomfortable for her. I was trying to raise a legitimate issue we were facing as sex for her is sometimes painful and we have to take it really slow. She quipped back that she's had bigger in the past.
Here's where it got tricky. I got hurt by this comment. Like...I felt reduced to my size. I know it's stupid. I wish I wasn't hurt by the comment but I was.
I'm wondering if this is normal, and how do I get over it? I have a tendency to obsess over these things and I don't want it to affect the relationship as otherwise it's really great. We tried talking about it and she was reassuring but the comment just keeps coming back to me. I can't help it.
I know everyone has a sexual past. I accept that as normal and know she was a person before she met me. But it's just that I really, really didn't want to know that specific detail and actually have asked her in the past that we not share details about our sexual pasts as I know it may hurt me to hear some of them. I don't know if I'm making sense.
I'd love some advice. How do I get over this comment? She apologized but I just can't help but think about it still. I guess it stings a little more this time around because it's not the first time this happened.
Tl;dr - gf said something about her sexual past even though I asked her that we not talk about that stuff in the past and now I'm hurt.

It was around 2020 that I developed breathing problems, every 1 minute or so my body wants a specific breath. It can be a deep breath, but also a short breath, but the main thing is that I feel it coming and when I take the breath it gives a sort of relaxing feeling to my body. But 24 hours a day is very exhausting.
My lower backpain is killing me. I have an office job, which means I sit approx 6 hours a day. Since this week I decided to alternate 1 hour of standing and 1 hour of sitting. Man, I can't even stand for 10 minutes without getting massive pain in my lower back. I dont even know if I should continue with this level of pain. Even brushing my teeth is a painful operation.
My sternum is very painful, and it radiates to the sides. This means every force I exert hurts my chest with a sharp pain. When laying down and coming up for example it hurts and sometimes cracks open just to cause pain again after a couple of minutes.
This all affects my sleep sincerely, from 5 a 6 I will wake up with the urge to get that breath. Trying to get to sleep again, and of course on my belly because thats the best way for me to get back to sleep and not loose hours to get to sleep on my back (which is the best way i know)
I'm going to a personal trainer, who says for the lower back I should actually not hold my back straight but kinda slump my lower back. He explains that all my life I keep my lower back caved and that keeps constant tension so now its going to relax. Well, im not really convinced.
I'm going to the gym by bicycle (which causes a lot of stress on my lower back already) and upon arriving I already know I cant do squats, deadlifts, bench presses or other straight push exercises for my chest.
Tried swimming, lots of stress on my lower back and chest.
I had (and have) to get this off my chest. I dont know what to do.
Oh, im 22 by the way. And looking fit from the outside. The only thing I can manage is a good and healthy diet. Which doesnt explain why I have trouble with bowel movements but yeah, won't bother you with that as well.

I have been playing the tuba for 3 years and it's been getting boring for me. It's such a pain to keep carrying a heavy and large instrument back and forth; plus playing the sousaphone will make it worse. I've been thinking lately about switching to the trombone or trumpet. I can't make a decision because of how many cons there are with each instrument. I am taking mb next year but there are like 20 million people that play the trumpet in mb and trombone is really hard to master and tuning is hard.

I have been playing the tuba for 3 years and it's been getting boring for me. It's such a pain to keep carrying a heavy and large instrument back and forth; plus playing the sousaphone will make it worse. I've been thinking lately about switching to the trombone or trumpet. I can't make a decision because of how many cons there are with each instrument. I am taking mb next year but there are like 20 million people that play the trumpet in mb and trombone is really hard to master and tuning is hard.

I took my first injection 4 days ago and last night started having lower back pain, abdominal cramping, and frequent, painful, burning urination. Concerned I decided to go to the ER since it’s the weekend and was told there was nothing to worry about. But no tests were done. Should I be concerned about these symptoms?

Harrison Butker’s commencement speech has been spending entirely too much time living rent-free in my head. I’ve seen a lot of “I cannot believe he said that in 2024!” and disbelief that anyone still actually thinks like that. A lot of women (including myself) are justifiably livid. But it doesn’t surprise me. I grew up in a place where those ideas were just…life.
I (37F) grew up “evangelical-adjacent.” I say this because, while my parents never really subscribed to the gender or social norms of conservative evangelicalism, most people around me did. I went to church camps as a teen, and at my religiously-affiliated college, traditional gender roles were expected, and even joked about (gotta get that MRS degree!).
As I’ve grown older, I’ve come to realize how much that entire way of thinking permeated not only my life, but my psyche. And that is what makes me SO MAD about that commencement speech. I know what imbibing those gender assumptions can do. I internalized all of the traditional gender roles I was exposed to as a teenager and young adult, and the result is an adult woman who feels incredible guilt for wanting and needing fulfillment elsewhere.
This legacy of evangelical gender norms in my life has hurt my marriage. My husband and I have had so many fights about unequal division of labor, but not because he was lazy or uninvolved—because he wanted to be my partner, and I wouldn’t let him. It took 6 months of couples counseling for me to recognize this. I was taking everything on myself without communicating to him that I was drowning, because the gender roles I was exposed to when I was younger were showing back up again after our son was born.
I married a man who wants to be an equal partner in all things. But the entrenched conviction of “women are supposed to do this” has its hold on me, even still. After 6.5 years of marriage, my husband recently took over all the cooking, meal planning, and thinking about food in our house. He had been begging me to let him do that for YEARS—and I couldn’t let him, because doing so somehow meant that I’d failed as a woman and as a wife. And even when I did finally get out of my own way, it took a lot longer before it just became second nature. I still feel guilty about it sometimes, like last night, when I collapsed after a very tough week at work while he both made dinner and entertained our toddler.
I have chosen a career over staying at home, and I would rather manage a project at work than make dinner. And the guilt I sometimes feel about the fact that I prefer those things is painful. “You don’t get personal fulfillment from baking cookies? What kind of woman are you?”
So this is why this speech makes me so mad: because I have tried to live that life, and found it so unfulfilling as to be damaging. I will be working to untangle the legacy of evangelical social thought from my life forever. I knew I wanted something different than that for my life, and I don’t live in that world anymore. But the legacy is real.
*I know Butker is a Trad Catholic, not an evangelical, and that there are differences. But the thinking on gender roles and women’s rights is the same; Trad Catholics just throw some Latin in on the top.

I recently did barbell back Squats with slightly Poor Bar positioning and Felt a Sharp main in my Chest starting 2 days ago. The Day after I went to the ER because I literally couldnt move my right lat and way so umcomfortable I couldn't sleep. Got some painkillers but the x-ray the doctor Took dir not sed and broken bones, and I didn't hear a snap or not do i have brusining. The pain is still there but noticable, I use icey hot (hence the red on my boy wheee it hurts - see images attached). I have an appointment with a PT on Monday but in the meantime what injury do you Think this is and that can I do to take care of it? I attached images and the red spots on my body are where the main still is 2 days later.