Message me if you're interested.

Hey everybody, wanted to share our details, help hold us accountable as well as provide info to anyone interested.
Mrs and I both have FT jobs, our primary interest right now is in financial independence. We live in a LCOL area and both WFH at different companies (I'm in tech, she does govt/tech work). 2 kids (high school and middle school). It's a full house, lots of pets etc.
Combined Assets:

• House (450k value estimate, probably more as its had a number of upgrades, paid in full)
• 600k in various age 59 retirement accounts (401k, IRA, etc)
• 400k in brokerages
• 230k in vested company equity (RSUs)
• 20k in HYSA accounts
• 2 commodity cars, paid for and both good working condition
• 30k in 529's for the kids but not really counting that either. Will probably double that this year.

Liabilities, none. No house debt, no car debt, no student loans, no CC debt. Ok, that's not entirely true. There is 8k on a store card to pay for a kitchen upgrade, but this 8k is just sitting there at 0% for 24 months. I could pay it on Monday but there's been no rush. I've committed to paying it off at some point this year to keep the missus happy.
Net income is too high for our expenses and living area. Combined we're about 850k/year. Basically, salary plus company RSUs, so that is not all straight salary. It has had some variability to it.
Expenses are about 5k a month. If you do the math, assume about half of our income is going to taxes and 401k/IRAs (which are maxed out), we live on 60k/year and have roughly 350k/year left over. That 350k goes to more investments, savings, 529's or the occasional extra thing like a vacation or some fun money. In the past that money has gone to those things plus paying off the mortgage, house upgrades and the like. But its been like that, we're actually fairly frugal so well over 90% of that goes to more saving. It's not torture, we enjoy it.
In past years we did make less, so this is a bit of a record acceleration year for income. It has not always been like this.
My projections for the next 3 years are fairly linear and are bound to be wrong, because our progression has not been linear so far:

• 2m in assets by the end of 2024
• 2.5m in assets by the end of 2025
• 3.1m in assets by the end of 2026

Past that I couldn't predict. We passed the 1m mark about a year ago so I could be way off with how things could accelerate now. I think you can see that we are big on saving and investing, at this point we really enjoy the progress and talking to each other about it, and trying to do better at it. As I said our goal right now is complete financial independence, I'm not sure what we'll do with that but we don't like to be beholden to anybody or anything.
Long term we'd like to figure out how to get a 2nd home in a different area. We intend to always keep this house, keep it in the family and get a 2nd home somewhere for us. But the timeframe for that is probably 8+ years out so we don't have that figured out yet. We wouldn't be doing it before both kids are grown and out of high school. We also intend to be travelling more often at that point, so we'll have more things to spend our money on.

I’ve came across so many sub reddits about the topic of Sammi and Jennie and it INFURIATES me how majority of people are team Sammie/ give excuses for her shitty behavior??? It was made CLEAR in the season 1 reunion that Sam was insecure about Jenni bc her and Ron had an initial attraction to each other. This was proven in season 2; when the whole note situation went down. I think everyone collectively agrees that Sam was dumb ASF for taking Ron’s side and turning on the girls the way she did even tho the note was a stupid idea. Nobody disagrees with that.
But for some reason, I’ve seen so many people pick and choose Jenni’s quotes within the show to push a narrative that Jenni always wanted Ron, that she never liked Sammie, and so forth to explain why Sammie made TEMPORARY amends with Snooki. Like no. Let’s be fr for a second. Sammie was a stuck up asshole from season 1. Like when Snooki got belligerently drunk in episode 1 and thew up. The next day Sammie was like “I don’t want your pukey breath on me.” Like girl what? What are we in middle school? Her being referred to as “Sammi Sweetheart” is an oxymoron tbh.
Jenni NEVER gave me stuck up vibes. She never gave me fake vibes, and was always VERY transparent about her feelings and opinions of others. I mean she only knew Snooki for like a few weeks and defended her against another girl at a club who was calling SNOOKI fat?? Idk why people were acting like Jenni wasn’t a girls girl? When Sammie was a guys girl through and through. Ron could murder someone and she’d defend him. And don’t even get me started on how horrible she was to Deena and the NASTY things she’d say about Jenni (which only further proves my point on how jealous of Jenni she was.)
I still have a bad taste in my mouth when it comes to Sammie. Jennie was my favorite in the earlier seasons so I guess I’m biased. But I just don’t get how people have managed to view Jennie as the villain?
Also: Not team Ron. He is the DEVIL. I feel like him and Sam were the worst people in the show.

The Context:

A user posts to /BoomersBeingFools wondering if boomers don’t eat enough and are “starving” themselves, and by extension pushing their expectations unfairly onto others.
Many users quickly take issue with OOP’s premise. The discussion quickly devolves into multiple slapfights, insults over weight, and the war in Gaza.

The Drama:

Does metabolism change as people age?

People commenting it’s cause they’re older and don’t need to eat as much. Yes, I know that could be a part of it, but let’s be honest, it’s mostly them just being judgy/brainwashed by diet culture/think it’s absurd to spend money on eating out…

"Brainwashed by diet culture" ah so in other words you are obese and need to eat a lot and probably deeply into healthy at any size/fat acceptance.
No they just know they don't need 5000 calori3s a day to exist.

I’m obese for wanting to eat some lunch and dinner? 🤯

No I say that because of "brainwashed by diet culture" there's exactly one group that talks like that.

You must not get out much

[Continued:]

I do actually it's how I maintain not being fat. Limiting calories to under 2500 and being outside moving a lot.

I lost 140 pounds by eating more. 🤷 starving myself led to weight gain.

I'm sure you eat more but less calories in total. No one increases their calories and losses sorry.

You're wrong. Instunted my metabolism and my body was holding on to the weight to protect me.
I was eating skinless baked chicken and plain broccoli for 2 years and could not lose weight. I was sick and exhausted but worked out all the time.
Started eating carbs and the weight came melting off.
Sorry :)

[Continued:]

For sure. Thats why all the body builders are morbidly obese. They eat chicken and broccoli and their body just goes into starvation mode and holds all the fat. Same with like the concentration camps. All those poor morbidly obese starving people. Once we saved them and fed them the weight just shed off. It's the craziest thing.

It's almost like bodies are different, user name doesn't check out, a nerd would know that 🤔

Whatever you need to tell yourself.

[…]

i guess the law of thermodymanics doesnt apply to you.
You should get studied. Defying the laws of thermodynamics is pretty impressive!

[…]

Tell me you see someone fat in the store and cringe inside/judge them for no reason without ever speaking to them without telling me 😂
You dislike/hate fat people for the horrid crime of being fat when they don't think about you at all and haven't ever wronged you in any way at all.
Also, I can tell you have never struggled with your weight in the past due to not giving a shit how hating random people for looking a certain way effects them. That, or you did struggle once, and bought into the haters telling you you were worth less based on the number on the scale, in which case I am sorry you believe that.

Dude I was 350lbs at my heaviest. People love saying "oh he says weightloss is eat less move more? Clearly he wants to genocide fat people" but no that's not it at all. I lost tons and most of the people around me went from morbid obesity to overweight or a normal weight. We changed our lifestyles and got in shape. The people that didn't lose weight claim all kinds of medical issues but none of them changed their diet and not of them want to work out. It's pretty clear how to lose weight. That's all.
No more no less no hate.

Wanna know how I know you're a liar or incredibly ignorant of how you come off?
You say you don't dislike them but make fun of their physical disabilities like it's funny. It's not funny. You're making fun of them. It's not funny to make fun of people for having disabilities or for how they look. You perpetuate hate against them that makes them feel like crap for being alive. I don't care about your spiel about medical issues or dieting in general or the fat acceptance movement. When you make fun of disabled people who have trouble walking i'm going to call you out on it. That's exactly what you did. Whether they're fat or not I refuse to make fun of people for that.

I have never made fun of a single person. Only a movement that claims you can be healthy at any size. You can't be vastly under or over weight and be healthy.

Whatever you say buddy. Keep on making fun of people because they can't walk or cope some more that it wasn't directed at a specific person. Have fun with that.

[Continued:]

Shut the fuck up fatty

Insults are made, ending with accusations of sockpuppeting:

I don't think you realize how pathetic you sound. When my jaw was broken I went 6 weeks without solid food and I'm sitting here rolling my eyes at your propensity for letting your stomach color your opinions of other people. I'd bet dollars to dimes that your body mass index is over 30.

Hey.
You should know:
It costs $0 to not be a dick.

I'll pay that cover charge any day of the week. Especially when I'm dealing with a major league dipshit like [Candy_cane999]
Radagast was brown, nerd.

Wow, you’re disgusting. It’s not that deep

Says the person here gossiping about their relative's metabolism. "Not that deep" lol you made a judgment about an entire generation of people because your family member wasn't hungry..lol fuck off
I bet you are high as a kite right now from all the users here agreeing with you, even if they haven't a fucking clue what they are talking about.
Seriously, though, how fat are you? I'm guessing fat enough that you can't hide that stomach roll when you sit down.

High as a kite? Huh? Relax weirdo, it’s just Reddit

You still haven't told us how fat you are.

Damn this guy hates fat people !

I used to be one.

[Continued:]

So now you just hate fat people for fun?

People with no self control, ESPECIALLY when that self control would benefit their health, are people who are functionally useless as human beings. They are the pieces of shit who would hoard food while everyone else is starving.
It ain't for fun.
Do you comment on Reddit to be an annoying middle child?

Ahhh yes. The fat people are useless excuse. Okay bud have fun out there!

It seems you have to self control over your feelings little guy. Go out there and practice some self control!
Bitter, party of one.

[…]

Get a life, chill

Get a life, chill

Ah yes, the mating call of people who "have lives"...ohhhhhh the irony.

😂sounds like you’re projecting. What’s it like still living in your boomer mom’s basement?

lol "projecting", I see you have your masters in Reddit psychology.

What’s it like still living in your boomer mom’s basement?

Oooooof, sounds like someone is...................................................................................projecting.

You do realize calling someone fat is the easiest most insecure insult to throw out there. Classic textbook. Hypocrite

I used to be fat as fuck, 270lbs at 5'10. I'll judge you fatties all I damn well please.
You keep avoiding answering the question. You're a landwhale, aren't you?

Ahha! There it is. It’s because you hate yourself. Hope you’re in therapy

[Continued:]

The more you avoid this the more we know what kind of person we are dealing with.
You talk shit about people who have self control to excuse how fat and disgusting you are.

[…]

Dude why admit that, all you are showing is that you had become really fat, and rather than learn a healthy relationship with food even at that extreme point, you just chose to hate food in general. You took the easy way out because nobody ever taught you portion control. Your loss I guess.

I admit it because I was raised in a home where I couldn't get up until my plate was clean and my mother made sure there were never leftovers that way. I admit it because it is the truth and I don't lie or omit details to make myself sound better. I admit it to show I can relate to being a fatfuck. I admit it because being fat is a choice.
”why would you say something true about yourself!?" - if that isn't Reddit-in-a-nutshell I don't know what is.

I'm just saying it makes you look like you just hated yourself and were pushing that onto another person that may or may not have a healthier relationship with food than you, that's all.

[…]

They didn't answer did they?

After several attempts they've avoided even talking about their fat stores and are now trying the victim angle.

No doubt. Fatty McFat Fat can't comprehend people not being addicted to constant feedings.
Reddit in a nutshell.

Bro's talking to himself on an alt ​

Then, there’s this:

OP is a fat fuck

As a former fatass this was my immediate thought

I knew as soon as he said road trip to Florida

For wanting lunch and dinner? You’re sick
They’re someone whos whole identity is shoving food in their mouth. Look at their username

Eat shit.

One user thinks they’re speaking uncomfortable truths:

If StandardSafe isn’t willing to say it again, I will: grow up and get over it. 99% of the people who say they “aren’t heavy” actually are, your dad was probably just being a concerned parent. “unhealthy relationship with food”, LMAO. A first-world problem for sure

No, he was just a bully and abusive. But thanks for playing.
That’s a really weird thing to say to a stranger, dude
You ok bro? Did that make you feel good about yourself? To insult a stranger because you personally didn’t have to deal with abuse? Or let me guess, you did, but it made you a “strong man” who knows what’s best for everyone.
You don’t know me. You have no idea what my childhood and young adulthood was like and maybe it sounds like a “first world problem” (which by the way, is so fucking dismissive and gross to say to people when they an issue) to you, but for me it became an eating disorder that I still struggle with in my 40s.
I’m going to try to say this as politely as I can, please fuck off into the sun with your bullshit and go troll somewhere else. You’re an asshole who seems to get off on insulting people to get your pathetic dick hard. I hope you don’t have kids because I worry if you do how fucked up they are and if you’re married I feel terrible for your wife. But let’s be honest, you’re a sad, lonely, angry man who has nothing better to do.
Dumbass takes like this are part of the reason people develop eating disorders on both ends of the spectrum.
You're gonna tell me someone who is suffering from Anorexia/Bulimia just needs to "grow up and get over it"?
You need to grow up and take a biology class.

When did the commenter say she had anorexia/bulimia? Those are actual eating disorders…she just said she eats very little and blames her dad.
A biology class, really? Psychology sounds more like it. Or are you telling me you learned about eating disorders in a bio class? Where was that, at some sort of school that gives out certificates in self-actualization or holistic-healing?

Sorry -- from what school did you get a psychology degree that allows you to label Anoerixa/Bulimia as "actual" eating disorders but not what OP described?

The school of hard knocks 😂 he’s so superior to us that he can diagnose a stranger through the internet on Reddit based on a paragraph that seemed to make him bigly angry.
He’s just a sad man who needs to get off by insulting people. He can go live that life and we’ll be over on this said being human to each other.

Finally, the war in Gaza is brought up for some reason:

You know that on the other side of the apartheid wall Israel set up there are thousands of people who had access to the Dead Sea (and their homes), that was changed by the establishment of Israel. Millions of people around the world are coming to the decision to boycott any company that supports the Israeli Apartheid Occupation. Millions are urging their universities and employers to divest any money and programs with the genocidal force that is Israel. I urge you and your family to take a hard look at yourselves and learn what Israel really is made of. Then the logical decision will be to never visit or spend a dime in Israel until their genocide and apartheid ends. Ty

Take a walk off a short pier.

This response is unhinged.
“Learn about an ongoing genocide, with bombs falling through the air as we speak, that you knowingly or unknowingly support, that we can do something about”
“Your response”
Please just look someone in the eyes today and remember what it means to be a human. Each of us is a library of life, and we’re constantly diminishing the value of each other as “enemies”.
I’d rather that than share air with someone who supports the ongoing genocide. Not for me, not for you, but for the kids and our collective humanity: please learn something new today.

You’re supporting the death of my family in Israel. Seriously, you’re a PoS

Before Israel was, there was Palestine. Palestine was for all. Muslims, Christians, and Jewish families all lived together. We all visited Jerusalem.
When Israel decided that only Jewish people would now be allowed in to these random borders drawn over Palestine, well, that should come off as racist. Now the Christian and Muslim Palestinians had their villages raided and their women raped by a well funded militia, before it became the IDF. This terrorised the Palestinians that lived in their homes, so they ran.
Then these homes were empty.
The land without people for the People without a land. Fabulous. Absolutely fabulous. The people that were born there were displaced by a terrorist militia, and now it was a land magically without a people.
And your family came in, and settled in “Israel”. A family out there has the keys to the very home your family lives in in Israel, although you’ve probably changed the locks by now.
But for generations this land fed them and protected them from the elements. All of a sudden it’s yours?
And the people Israel oppresses, the thousands of Palestinians that are in prison with no trial. Children and women Palestinians have been taken captive for over 70 years!! Where’s the outrage?
Are we not human?
When we say free Palestine from the river to the sea. It’s for everybody. Come by and buy my home. But please don’t show up with an armed force ready to exterminate me for refusing you the home my forefathers have called their own.
TLDR Israel is the fire nation in avatar the last airbender.
The best way I can put it is.. if a bunch of armed chickens showed up and kicked you and your family out of their homes, one day you might want to fight those armed chickens back instead of being homeless. Israel are the armed chickens

The Flairs:

• “We boomers don’t hungry as often as you gamers”
  
• “ok nerdguy 👍🏼”
  
• “Radagast was brown, nerd.”
  

I'm an English student transferring from CC in the Fall. I'm like 99% sure I'm going to Berkeley, but they're asking for my high school transcripts. I was homeschooled (not accredited, not a pleasant experience) and they don't exist. To my understanding, it's my legal right in California to make my own in this situation, but I was wondering if anyone with experience or insight could help me first. I really want to go here and I'd be absolutely heartbroken if my upbringing found another way to haunt me.

title. 20F, and i honestly don't think i ever formed a healthy self-image. i attended a K-12 school with a small student population and a severe endemic bullying problem so the same 15 individuals i met as a toddler were the classmates alongside whom i graduated high school. my school was actually known throughout the surrounding area for having a bullying issue and i got dealt a pretty bad hand in those terms. bullying and social exclusion followed me from kindergarten all the way up to high school. my only friends were my cousins up until sixth grade. i know this by itself doesn't sound all that bad but feeling like an alien and an outsider as a six-year-old girl messes you up. i wasn't a "quiet" or "weird" kid or anything like that- just literally a normal young girl- but a lot of the other kids in my grade just came in with these vicious, catty personalities which didn't mesh well with the sunshiney, always-assuming-the-best-in-people attitude i had as a young child. my parents were also working class and i didn't always have the trendiest items/wasn't "hip" to what was popular and that certainly didn't help. i never really formed any sort of self-image during those formative childhood years because all that time was just spent feeling awful about myself and trying to figure out what i had to do to earn acceptance. my most formative memory is just spending years and years trying to figure out why i couldn't be accepted by the other kids in my grade and trying absolutely everything to no avail. additionally, i wasn't exactly able to build a strong self-image at home because my father was largely emotionally absent and hypercritical. (he was never abusive in the slightest, but was just very rigid, not emotionally involved, would criticize every single thing etc). i internalized a lot of those criticisms and still have an incredibly overactive hypercritical voice. then when i was 11 i got involved with an excessively-competitive intensive sport which involved adult male coaches who (as i now recognize) were incredibly abusive. think those eastern european gymnastics coaches in the 50s. i was training 30-35 hours a week by the time i was 13 and my life resembled an Olympic training regimen. because i already was so incredibly weak in self-esteem i internalized and accepted all of the abuse from the coaches while other children told their parents and were removed from the environment. i felt like this sport was a place where i could be competitive, included and treated like a mature adult- a break from the constant exclusion i was experiencing from my peers at school. i couldn't figure out how to quit because the coaches' validation (which was few and far between) had become the only thing remotely resembling a self-image i had. i couldn't relate to any of my peers or the few friends i did have because i didn't have a normal teenage life where i could go to the mall or hang out with friends; all of my waking moments involved crippling anxiety due to these adult men who i spent the majority of my time around. they screamed at, insulted, threw things at, and took delight in physically hurting the young children involved in the sport. i felt like i didn't own or control my life and i had a sense of being completely isolated because i didn't know how to get out of or even define the situation. i finally left at 15 (in the middle of my freshman year of high school) and within a month of leaving developed some sort of mental health/trauma response (which i am still unable to identify because i never got any sort of psychological help due to being afraid of seeming "weak"). i started having regular anxiety attacks (something which i had never experienced before), throwing up daily, having nightmares and losing my hair. growing up although i was always insecure i had never dealt with any mental health issues and i am neurotypical so this was all absolutely new for me. the fact that this was something i had never felt before all arising so abruptly at once- seemingly overnight- made the experience scary and unfamiliar, and i felt like i was losing my control of my mind and body at 15, right when teens are meant to be naturally growing into and forming healthy relationships with their bodies. it was around this time when the usual teenage drama of high school really took off and due to the mental health issues i had begun to experience i found myself involved in typical teen drama which led to me losing my entire friend group multiple times over. my high school years were full of painful drama, friendship breakups and a plethora of unhealthy actions which i now recognize as desperate efforts to regain some sort of sense of control over my life and self-image. i got rejected from my dream ivy league university which i had wanted to attend since i was a child (the university where my father works) because my grades had dropped after my experience in the sport- not a lot, but just enough to remove me from the ivy league range. i enrolled in my state university and entered my first relationship which swiftly ended due to my baggage from childhood/the fact that my insecurities made me unable to accept the fact that someone genuinely liked me. i got my life together (in some sense) in college and now am an honors program + dean's list student on a pre-law track, set to graduate with phi beta kappa and magna cum laude distinctions as well as a near-perfect gpa and membership in a national honors society for my area of study. i still have absolutely zero self-esteem or even any idea of what it feels like to have a healthy relationship with myself. my opinion of myself (physical appearance, personality etc) is so negative and distorted that i have absolutely no idea what i look like or how people perceive me. i have been told that i am attractive but i honest-to-God just don't know. i criticize myself brutally for every decision i make and i can't go a day without comparing myself to other people. nobody knows that my self-esteem is so awful because i seem on the surface to "have it all together". i don't want to go to therapy or counseling because i feel like my parents would see me as weak or incompetent and even if they didn't i know that i would see myself that way. the mental health issues i dealt with in my teen years are (for the majority) gone now but only because i've had to develop my own coping mechanisms (some healthy, others not so much) and most of it has just come down to toughing it out and pushing it all down inside. i have this weird overachiever complex where i purposefully will put myself in painful/uncomfortable/excessively difficult situations in order to "prove" that i can overcome them and feel like i'm proud of myself/have accomplished something, if that makes sense. i'll stay awake 72 hours consecutively studying for an exam and skip meals just to score the highest in the class on zero hours of sleep and an empty stomach and the more uncomfortable/unpleasant it is the better i end up feeling because it seems like i've accomplished something/like i'm being "disciplined". everyone just thinks that i'm an overachievereally good student and so i feel like if i actually did tell someone about how bad i feel on a daily basis i'd be dismissed with "but you have it all together!!" etc etc. idk how to fix this or if it even can be fixed but i would appreciate some sort of advice. i want to be able to just enjoy my life.

Ok, so, I used to live in a different state during my childhood than the one I live in now (I live in the Northern US, originally born in this northern state as well). I lived in this other state from the ages of 6 until I was almost 16, and throughout the entirety of my elementary and middle school years up until the middle of 9th grade (which was at the high school, some start at 10th grade instead of 9th).
There were 2 main bullies that I dealt with starting in 1st grade/first school year after moving to this state, and as the years went on, these two girls (let's call them Marie & Clarisse) would get their friends in on bullying me. I wasn't popular by any means, but my mother always had me in sports and extracurricular activities with these girls, so I could never really escape them. It was just as bad outside of anything school related as Marie has two younger brothers that my brother was friends with, so I had to pretend to be the 'best of friends' with Marie from 1st grade up until about the end of 7th grade since our families drifted apart from being "close friends".
As far as typical bullying goes in elementary school, I dealt with constant name-calling and cruel "pranks", mostly aimed towards my weight, I wasn't fat, but I wasn't skinny either despite being in sports and was always active. However, those incidents extended to my stuff being stolen, like my notebooks I'd use for schoolwork, or my box of pencils/pens/etc., forcing me to constantly borrow from the few friends I actually had or from the teachers. I used to be in band (which started in 6th grade in that school district), and I played the clarinet, my stepdad had bought me a very nice/sturdy and somewhat expensive tote bag to put my clarinet, music stand, and music binders in for easier storage and to keep my hands free when transporting my 'equipment'. Us band kids were allowed to keep our instruments behind the curtains of the stage in the school's cafeteria (the stage was against the farthest wall from the kitchen/lunch lines), and out of the ~20 kids in band, only my expensive/sturdy tote bag was stolen within the last 2 days of 6th grade, of course suspects were Marie & Clarisse (I saw Clarisse using my tote bag that summer, as my now-smudged name had been written in permanent marker on the straps and one of the sides of the bag). I left it be because I didn't want any conflict, my stepdad bought me another one after finding out the original one was stolen in the first place.
Middle school wasn't much better as the name calling got extensively more graphic and consisted of slurs (like the F slur, as I'm proudly part of the LGBTQ+ community, specifically AgendeNon-binary), furthering the self-hurting thoughts that had started in 3rd grade. I had continuously tried to tell my mom and stepdad about it, only for my pleas for help to go unheard until one week during the winter season in 7th grade. I had gotten sick for 2 days and stayed home an extra day to recover, but during those three days, Marie, Clarisse and their friends had made an Instagram account, posting very unattractive pictures of fellow classmates (i.e. purposely taking pictures with very unflattering angles, poor lighting, etc) and blamed it on me since they put my address in the private information into that account. My mom had found the account, immediately asking about if I was the one behind it, she unfortunately didn't believe me until *after* she ripped my phone from me to look through it for "evidence" that I made the account. When I returned to school the following Thursday after recovering from the small cold, I was constantly bombarded by fellow students about the account since Marie & Clarisse were the ones that spread the obvious false rumor that I made it. By the end of the day, I had finally snapped, yelling "I didn't make that f-cking account. Why can't everyone just stop bothering me about it?" Of course, that earned plenty of attention from the teachers and students within earshot (and thanks to the tiled floors and walls, my yelling echoed throughout most of the first floor and partly into the second floor of my school), I ended up having to talk with the counselor about the whole ordeal because of my frustrated outburst, which resulted with very little help from the staff, but after a few weeks, people seemed to forget that the account even existed since it ended up deleted within a few days after my outburst.
That following school year, 8th grade, was even worse. Sure, the slurs, the other name-calling and thievery of my belongings continued (more so the slurs/name-calling), but by this year, I was almost constantly committing the self-hurting since my mother was of no help, my stepdad was sympathetic but always working and the therapist my mother found for me was basically a deadbeat with bullying situations (she didn't seem to understand or even want to actually help me with the bullying as she was more of a family therapist than anything else). For the district curriculum, we are required to take health class in 8th grade, and as we were going over the unit that encompassed depression, self-harm, and su!c!dal thoughts/actions, I constantly had to have another staff member in the back of the classroom to watch over me and take me out of the class if any of the course material triggered an episode. Thankfully the staff member was that was there for me was the school's police officer, let's call him Officer Lennox, he was like a protective older brother, especially after finding out about how consistently I was bullied. Near the end of the unit, we had to watch Ronan's Escape (it's on YouTube), and since I was going through my own version of Ronan's situation, I ended up breaking down sobbing in class, only to be laughed at by some of the boys that were close friends with Marie & Clarisse. Officer Lennox snapped at them as professionally as possible while helping me out of the classroom to go sit with the nurse to have some downtime to stop sobbing before I was allowed back to my classes.
Another situation, which is the worst of it in 8th grade, was this one girl, let's call her Ava. She thought it would be hilarious to eavesdrop into my conversations with my best friend (we'll refer to her as Raven since that was a nickname she used) throughout lunch and shared classes, only to take our conversations completely out of context in order to string up a lie that Raven and I were planning to unalive the principle. Of course, this wasn't true, the principle was an a-hole to everyone, and Raven & I would discuss that we greatly disliked him. Ava mostly got away with spreading this lie as her mom was a higher-up in the school district, forcing Raven and I to entirely change our class schedules so we weren't in any classes with Ava, as well as almost being expelled. Thanks to Officer Lennox sticking up for both of us, we only had to have in-school suspension for 3 days instead of being expelled. Sadly, Ava got very little repercussions from this, but Raven and I grew even closer as best friends after "The Incident" as we still refer to it as almost 10 years later.
Summer rolled through without a hitch, leading to 9th grade, the start of high school. I was given more freedom from my mother (she's a helicopter parent and abusive/narcissistic) to dress in clothing that I preferred in comparison to always wearing brightly colored athletic wear. I completely changed my appearance, chopped my hair from just above the small of my back to a punk pixie-styled cut, and started wearing graphic t-shirts, ripped jeans, combat boots, and leather jackets. On top of that, I started becoming more confrontational/combative towards my bullies, since they still wouldn't let up, I earned a "bad@ass/bad b!tch" reputation, made friends with other rebellious and misfit types of people in the grades above me, and just fully became more of "me" despite the disapproval from my mother of the amount of change I undergone.
Despite being 14 at the start of 9th grade, I began dating, specifically one fellow student that was a very close friend and felon, he went to jail/juvie throughout the 2nd half of 7th grade and all of 8th grade. He came to the high school 3 months after the year started, and our friendship-turned-relationship sparked right back up as if he never left. I had kept my dating life secret from my family, mostly my mother because I know how bad her reaction would've been if I told her. With him almost always by my side (excluding classes we didn't share), my brand-new appearance, and my quickly attained delinquent/rebellious reputation, most of my issues dissipated much quicker than before. In spite of that, Marie & Clarisse kept making their remarks, trying to drag down my new confidence and constantly break my felon boyfriend (let's call him Collin) and I up. They got more degrading and verbally abusive with these antics, I eventually was completely fed up with it all. In the middle of the school year, within a couple weeks after Yule (Christmas for the non-pagans) & New Years Break, Marie, Clarisse and their group of friends had stopped me in the hallway, purposely surrounding me (there was about 30 of them in total) on my way to class, continuing with their shtick as usual, I slipped the pocketknife out of my pocket, flicking it open as I finally gave in and threatened to unalive them and everyone they care for if they don't leave me the f-ck alone. They saw the opened knife and knew then & there that I was 100% serious, I turned on my heels, shoving through them only to notice the principal and school's police officer (not officer Lennox) staring at me with concerned expressions, they also noticed the knife as there was a glint from the blade due to the blindly bright lights in the hallway. Not a word was uttered as they walked away, never sending a call to my mother or stepdad about the weapon or the confrontation as they had seen my progression in attitude and the amount of f-cks I had (which was none). After that day, those girls never spoke to me again, would barely glance in my direction, would purposely take alternate routes to class if they saw me in the hallway (or would keep to the wall if they couldn't move quick enough), and if we shared any classes, they'd be on the opposite side of the room from me and would do everything they could to never be partnered/grouped with me in class projects.
Everything was smooth sailing from then on, and now I'm 22 (as of late April this year), happily living with my bio-dad, my brother and my 2-year-old kitty, Ziggy. My mother is out of the picture entirely as she refuses to change her mindset and parenting style. I'm still confrontational towards anyone that tries messing with me, especially if they're anti-LGBTQ+/racist/abusive/etc. And thanks to my continuation of my drastic change from 8th grade to 9th grade, I'm now considered both the protector and the therapist to my friends, always there for them because I grew up knowing what it was like to not have that kind of support. I hope this story of roughly half my life can provide some sort of comfort or proof that it does indeed get better, even if it doesn't seem like it in the moment.

It will take forever to explain every situation. I am 21, Pakistani-born-American and a woman. I live in Ohio and I am an engineering student. I’ve had jobs in high school where I would get a few race questions but nothing that made me feel uncomfortable.
Within the past few years I’ve suffered a pattern of harassment at my jobs. This ranges from casual part time retail jobs to engineering co op/internships. Usually from a white man about 40 years old. At my first internship my boss threatened to rape me, (I was 18 he was 40ish) I reported him, nothing happened, I got the EEOC involved and left that job.
Now i’ve had some more incidents from that job to my next one. I got harassed to a lesser extent at my 2nd engineering internship. Now i’m working part time as a retail sales associate and my coworker asks me so many questions about my race. He’s made me uncomfortable and during my last shift he asked me if I was muslim. I’ve been reading books about setting boundaries so I told him “I don’t think it’s a good idea to talk about that at work” he flipped out, screamed at my face, degraded me, and told me he was going to report ME. I reported him to HR at work so now i’m waiting for how that will turn out.
Now I know i’m not supposed to let this affect me but it’s really hard. It’s scary and mentally draining. My reality terrifies me. I’m concerned for my future because I keep getting harassed by creeps. I’m unsure how to continue and I just really really need some advice about what to do now and in the future of my career. I don’t think harassment will ever stop so how do I deal with it in a way that doesn’t hurt my health

My husband (30M) and I (28F) got our second retriever who was already 75lbs at 9 months living in a small apartment with a full time nursing student. She said she just can’t give him the life he needs because of school and where she lives. We took him in. We started socializing him early on and I worked on training. I work from home so I can take time training, feeding, and providing attention to him. He had bit me a handful of times because he didn’t want to listen when I told him to stop or leave it (not touching him). Each time he had bitten me my husband questions me and asks “what were you doing? Why would he bite you” or “don’t discipline him, you know he’s going to bite.” Never does he asks if I’m ok or come and handle the situation but instead say dismissive things like it’s my fault. We had taken him to the beach once and he was sitting with me on the beach while my husband was in the ocean. A toddler and dad came up to ask if they could pet him. I said yes! Next thing I know he bites the kid! I was mortified and anxious. Asked if he’s okay and they quickly walked away. I told my husband and he was not bothered by it. After that, any time we go on vacation I drop him off at boarding. One of the places, after watching him a few times, had told me “they are happy to watch our one dog but they can’t watch him.” This boarding place is not only boarding but a board and train facility who is highly recommended in our community. I’m embarrassed. He continues to bite and snap and my husband continues to dismiss and question me like “well why didn’t the dad come and get me when he bit his child” or “yeah right, why would they watch one of our dogs and not him”. I had multiple times told him I’m concerned about our safety because he is unpredictable and is hard to train.
Mind you, I’m the one that stays at home and works full time for the government, works as a pet sitter as a side hustle, manages the home (fixes things, and calls professionals out when needed), the pets, the vacations, and the finances (my husband just graduated medical school so he wasn’t making money and even now, I manage the finances). My husband and I both have advanced degrees but with him having been in medical school and now residency, I have the most flexibility to take care of basically everything. All I’m asking for in my marriage is understanding, sympathy, and support (not that we have to agree on everything).
I’ve been very unhappy in my own house and anxious when guests come over especially with little ones or pregnant friends.
I am tired of my husband saying “his experience with him is different and doesn’t see why I don’t want him.” As a side note, my husband is like this with every “me” issue and dismisses toxic/concerning behavior from our dog and his mom. I was exhausted of his responses to everything serious and saying it’s fine or questioning me that I attempted s*****.
After my attempt, I tried telling my husband that we need to get him a behaviorist and/or training. I had called several places and got quotes. He told me and our therapist that he “doesn’t want to spend the money on it (really “my money”) and that we can do it ourselves” and he “honestly doesn’t think he needs training.”
I bit the bullet and paid for training because my husband is so desperate to keep him. Literally at the first assessment the trainer said “I could see why you would be concerned. You have to decide what you want. Once you decide to start a family you have to think about what is best. He is a pretty dog and him sure he will quickly find a home if choose to do that. You’re not a bad person for considering to rehome him.”
My mom tried talking to him about the dog and my mom’s perspective is that came off as “this is a her problem and I don’t see the issue.” Even recently, now that I am pregnant, his brothers have all agreed that our dog is a lot and that they’ve all had to consider the safety of their babies.
My husband has told me “you don’t need to resent him” or how “I’ll be a bad mom because I have favorites.”
This week my husband was bitten for the first time and he had drawn blood. My husband who is a doctor didn’t want to go get stitches from his work so I superglued his wound. He hasn’t told any of his friends, family, or his doctor friends. He continues to say “yeah it’s a concern but I don’t think he will bite our children” and how “it was his fault he got bitten in the first place.”
I’m just tired of how my husband doesn’t think that this dog is a concern, that actually he is fine and doesn’t need help, and that he makes multiple comments about how I will be as a mother to my kids. I have tried and done everything. And it still feels like my husband picks the dog over my mental health, the safety of our family, and honestly what is best for our dog before he is put down.
Am I overreacting? How I treat my one dog vs my other animals will make me a bad parent? Am I delusional and should continue to give our dog a chance? Just need some perspective.

I just got accepted to the Maxwell School for the fall as a rising junior, and the admissions office told me that I would most likely be placed into south campus apartment. I've heard some pretty mixed reviews about them but Im pretty used to commuting so I don't think that will be an issue. My question is how do I go about finding a roommate for south campus apartment? do transfer students get grouped at random? I'm new to the whole private college experience so the whole housing situation is a bit confusing for me.

Here is my situation:
I am a 3rd year CS student and a veteran [relevant in terms of how I am financing college]. Essentially, I have grown concerned about remaining in CS due to seeing the mass tech layoffs, the way America doesn't appear to protect American tech workers jobs [i.e., we have to compete for jobs internationally since American companies like to outsource labor to other country's], or even the fact that this path seems a lot more grey-area ish than I anticipated. To clarify . . .
I am studying Computer Science with an emphasis in Software Engineering, I wanted to be able to build applications [generally speaking]. The issue here is that there is a lot of things not being said while I am in college pursuing this road, such as:
When I look on linkedin/indeed software engineering positions vary wildly in terms of the technologies they want you to know of [which I have never heard about ever], several coding languages, and a whole host of things that made me say "this degree doesn't particularly feel like it is preparing me to be competitive in the job market and this seems like a train leading to broken tracks."
It's as though I have more material to learn than time available in the day and people with no life other than breathing CS are the only ones who can exist in the space. I hear to do "projects" but that is rather vague, perhaps I should be thinking of a system of organization such as :

1. Identify what types of applications I want to make as a software engineer
2. what technologies/software are primarily used for building that particular type of application?
3. build projects that utilize those software's/technologies and have those viewable by the recruiter
4. live on leetcode?

Other than doing what I am supposed to be doing in school in terms of grades and knowing I need to land an internship at some point, I am quite unsure what I should be doing with my time to even be competitive in what appears to be a sinking ship/saturated market.
I was considering using my CS undergraduate degree to go to Law School thinking that being a licensed professional would solve a few problems being :
a) I don't have to compete with people in other countries that are willing to work for much less than Americans are.
b) Maybe law is better during recessions/lay-offs
c) perhaps law is less ambiguous of a career path than software engineering is. The fact that software engineering seems so ill-defined in terms of direction appears troublesome to me.
d) as a stem undergraduate I am more competitive in terms of law school applications [from what I read] and can also pursue specialized law practice that non-stem majors could not do [i.e., patent law/intellectual property]; ergo, it would be as though I haven't wasted my time spending 4 years in college.
IMPORTANT:
I would not graduate with debt in either case as my school costs should be covered in full.

“I attended middle school with her, although we did not attend high school together (she instead attended a high school that was supposed to help students gain college credits. She earned two liberal arts degrees while there in Social and Behavioral Sciences and Natural Sciences. She now attends an HCBU, and has on her LinkedIn profile that she is presently working toward graduating from her college with a degree in Health Sciences, Pre Med, and a minor in Military Science. She is apart of her school’s Army ROTC.)
I remember that a lot of people in middle school did not like her (although that was also the case for me,) and I understood why. She seemed noticeably introverted, yet also didn’t seem like the kind of person, at least from my perspective, who would try to appease you in the way I imagine a lot of people feel the stereotypical woman might. She had a strong glare (I remember mentioning this to my then best friend’s mom, who agreed with the suggestion) and stood out to me as being weird (it wasn’t necessarily anything she said or did - not her personality, exactly - it’s just the strong glare I mentioned, like she didn’t tend to look sincerely happy nor would she pretend to be unless she was around friends of hers. I remember that she didn’t tend to look happy, in my opinion. It’s possible that she was depressed, or she may have just tended to look irritable, I don’t know. She didn’t strike me as being the kind of person who would make an effort to be polite, struck me as being tomboyish and unladylike, the kind of person who wouldn’t try to change the way she was for you - I wasn’t used to it. Seemed competitive, too. I had truly never interacted with a girl who was like that before. She also struck me as being smart, although she was in the normal math class whereas I was in the advanced one (I was known for being smarter, but thought it should have been her. However, I did notice after looking at her LinkedIn profile that there were more grammatical errors than I expected.)
I remember that she and her friend (who I later on ended up being on good terms with) decided early on that they disliked me, although I hadn’t done anything to them, which bothered me. They also once used me for food in sixth grade, which had also bothered/upset me.
I remember that my former best friend had issues with her ranging back to elementary school, and that in sixth grade in particular they were competing for the attention of an ISFP they’d both been friends with since elementary school. This girl is the one who won the ISFP’s attention/was officially her best friend by the time they were in seventh grade. However, around seventh or eighth grade (it’s been so long that I no longer quite remember,) she “ditched” (in the words of my former best friend) the ISFP and the other friend I’d mentioned in favor of a new crowd. I actually remember my former best friend suggested that the people in her new crowd didn’t like her, either (although she hung out with them throughout eighth grade, and briefly went to high school in person with one of them as a junior whilst presumably taking courses at the other high school online, so I assume that she never knew this/didn’t read them well enough to know or understand this.) I notice that she unfollowed the ISFP at some point as a senior, though the ISFP never unfollowed her (she strikes me as being the kind of person who likely took note of the fact that the ISFP’s life doesn’t seem to be heading in a good direction - the ISFP was abused a few years ago, and has had substance use issues since, in addition to having had to repeat a year of high school. She also unfollowed my former best friend, and my former best friend recently unfollowed her back.)
She figured out that I was the one who owned the middle school gossip account (although most of our peers already suspected, and technically, this girl couldn’t prove it either.) She figured this out because she remembered that I was standing nearby when she told my former best friend who she had a crush on (I was being mean and told our peers who she was crushing on.) However, she never directly confronted me about the matter, even though she told my former best friend that she suspected it to be me. She later on changed her mind when I was kind to her friend who lost the role for graduation speaker to me toward the end of eighth grade (but she was right the first time.)
I noticed around junior year that she has actually turned out to be quite nice looking, even though I had once meanly suggested that she was fat in middle school (she was a tad bit chubby, though as an adult I’m inclined to suggest that this was likely simply baby fat/that with us being so young there wasn’t really anything wrong with this.) She does seem to wear makeup, but also has nice style (she is light skinned, and has a looser hair texture, which are likely factors in me thinking she’s attractive, if I’m being honest - she’s mixed race, with a black mother and white father.) I can’t possibly know, but she gives off the impression to me of being someone who knows that she’s attractive (just something about her energy/facial expressions in photos. She has her Instagram account public now.)”
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Here is my situation:
I am a 3rd year CS student and a veteran [relevant in terms of how I am financing college]. Essentially, I have grown concerned about remaining in CS due to seeing the mass tech layoffs, the way America doesn't appear to protect American tech workers jobs [i.e., we have to compete for jobs internationally since American companies like to outsource labor to other country's], or even the fact that this path seems a lot more grey-area ish than I anticipated. To clarify . . .
I am studying Computer Science with an emphasis in Software Engineering, I wanted to be able to build applications [generally speaking]. The issue here is that there is a lot of things not being said while I am in college pursuing this road, such as:
When I look on linkedin/indeed software engineering positions vary wildly in terms of the technologies they want you to know of [which I have never heard about ever], several coding languages, and a whole host of things that made me say "this degree doesn't particularly feel like it is preparing me to be competitive in the job market and this seems like a train leading to broken tracks."
It's as though I have more material to learn than time available in the day and people with no life other than breathing CS are the only ones who can exist in the space. I hear to do "projects" but that is rather vague, perhaps I should be thinking of a system of organization such as :
1) Identify what types of applications I want to make as a software engineer
2) what technologies/software is primarily used for building that particular type of application?
3) build projects that utilize those software's/technologies and have those viewable by the recruiter
4) live on leetcode?
Other than doing what I am supposed to be doing in school in terms of grades and knowing I need to land an internship at some point, I am quite unsure what I should be doing with my time to even be competitive in what appears to be a sinking ship/saturated market.
I was considering using my CS undergraduate degree to go to Law School thinking that being a licensed professional would solve a few problems being :
a) I don't have to compete with people in other countries that are willing to work for much less than Americans are.
b) Maybe law is better during recessions/lay-offs
c) perhaps law is less ambiguous of a career path than software engineering is. The fact that software engineering seems so ill-defined in terms of direction appears troublesome to me.
d) as a stem undergraduate I am more competitive in terms of law school applications [from what I read] and can also pursue specialized law practice that non-stem majors could not do [i.e., patent law/intellectual property]; ergo, it would be as though I haven't wasted my time spending 4 years in college.
IMPORTANT:
I would not graduate with debt in either case as my school costs should be covered in full.

Hi everyone! I am currently in college across the country as a full time student. I am only home for about 2 weeks between semesters. I got called to jury duty back at home (2k miles away) and it is during my semester as well. I got ahold of someone at the office and told them my situation and they said I have to get something filled out online with the dean of my school. Then he said that I can get my jury duty pushed back to the following month when I am going to still be in school… I kept saying that I am in school and he just kept saying that I’ll have to come back the following month… I’m so confused and lost and have no idea what to do. I’m the first person in my family who has been called to jury duty who lives across the country. Can you guys possibly help explain to me what to do and what should be happening…? Thank you!

First of all, I would like to say THANK YOU to all of you that showed so much love to my first post ever in Reddit!
Since my girl Millie got too much hate for wearing white and ruining the best photo of the wedding, I decided to write her sad story and share it with all of you. It's a LONG tale, full of ups and mostly downs (TLDR at the end of the post). Sooo, grab some cookies and popcorn while I spill the tea ;)
******WARNING******** The story features what I believe to be unsettling content (pregnancy loss) for some. It's hidden as spoiler, so please don't click it if it's a sensitive issue for you. <3
Our story starts with poor young adult who shall not be named (because I don't remember her name). God (me) had big plans and challenges for her, as she started with 0 simoleons in an off the grid island, with hopes of her becoming a millionaire. She moved in the big island without money, a place to sleep, a toilet, nothing. The challenge goes like this: raise money from beachcombing, buy a towel to sleep on, buy a bush to pee in, snorkel, plant and build a life from zero. And, under no circumstances communicate with another sim.
This challenge was too difficult. The loneliness and hardships, the struggle to just survive and find food, led this young girl to her death by drowning in the middle of the ocean. It was too soon, so God decided to try this challenge again, giving the new sim a head start.
That leads us to the protagonist of the story, Millie Carson.
Millie Carson is a young adult who moved in the same island, like a castaway. All she found on that island was a towel, some planted trees, a toilet bush and a grave.
The ghost from the grave came often to haunt and tease her and finally became her enemy.
At first, young Millie tried to stay away from other sims but, since they kept coming and visiting, God decided that it was ok for her to have some friends.
Millie's neighbors were Miki and Ali, a happy couple with two babies. They kept visiting and bringing food to their poor young neighbor, since she was struggling so much. Millie grew close with Ali, who came swimming to her island sometimes.
Meanwhile, Millie learned some skills that earned her some money and food. She became really good at fitness, gardening and fishing. Little by little, she earned enough money to buy diving supplies and took up some diving photography and treasure hunting. All those helped her build a tiny wood home which finally had a toilet and a shower and even a fridge. Life was getting better for Millie, until she started having feelings for her married neighbor...
Millie was attracted to Ali: his long blond hair, his green eyes and dark skin. To her surprise, Ali was interested in her as well. She tried to fight it but it was over her own power to resist. They made sweet woohoo and became a couple, while he was still married with two kids.
Love makes you do stupid things and that's what happened to Millie. She fell in love with a married man and, surprise surprise, she got pregnant with his kid.
While on her 1st trimester, she visited her neighbolover's home to tell him the news. His wife, Miki, opened the door and the sight was unbelievable: She was pregnant as well, on her 3rd trimester. Millie chatted with Miki as nothing was wrong and even socialized with her kids for a bit. But it was now time for Ali to learn the truth. Millie pulled him aside and told him everything.
To her surprise, Ali was content with being a parent to their child. Millie felt his support and fell even harder for him, causing her to do the unthinkable: Woohoo with him all over his tiny house while his wife and two kids were inside! They woohood EVERYWHERE: The small single bed, the kitchen sink, the counters, standing... They almost got caught by Miki, but hopefully she was so pregnant that it took her an eternity to reach the woohoo spot.
Millie started thinking about their future. Tormented by her jealousy, she asked Ali about Miki. Miki's super pregnant belly was an indicator that Ali still loves and woohoos with his wife, two-timing both women. To her dismay, Ali confessed his love about Miki, but he was willing to keep his relationship with Millie. But that wasn't enough for Millie...
Without hesitation, Millie served Ali an ultimatum: It's her or Miki. No love triangles, no hiding. Her kid needed a father and she needed support as a poor young woman. All those pregnancy hormones made her unreasonable - she came between a happy couple and now she felt that her lover's wife stole him from her, even though they were already together! The irony!
Millie couldn't get over her feelings, so she invited Miki over and told her EVERYTHING. That she was pregnant. That the father was poor Miki's husband. Miki got even yelled at for sleeping with her own husband. Millie was out of control.
Like a tsunami, a force that couldn't be stopped, Millie called over Ali and told him to break it off with his wife. It was now or never. Ali did as told and suddenly Miki broke down crying, hating life and those two who ruined it.
Eventually, Miki left and the.. happy couple were finally alone. Millie asked Ali to move in and he gladly accepted. He even proposed and they stayed engaged until after their baby girl, Angelique, was born.
Meanwhile, even though Miki was hating them, she still came over with extra food like a good neighbor. But her relations with the couple never improved much.
The happy couple decided to get married. Millie wore a pretty but simple boho white dress, hair down and golden jewelry. But her joyful smile was the prettiest jewel she could wear. It was a lovely, quiet wedding on the seashore, during sunset.
Soon after, Millie got pregnant again but wasn't ready or happy for it. Unfortunately, there were some complications with the pregnancy and baby Donovan was born dead. They buried him under a lemon tree and cried for many seasons about him.
Ali started helping Millie with gardening, fishing and diving. But his dream was to finally earn his degree in Communications. He still had 3 classes to pass and then he could enter the PR world. He soon earned his degree with a low to medium score and was ready to start working. There was a huge problem, though...
The island was off the grid and he could not apply for the job, not use the very much needed internet. A decision had to be made: Should they live on this island forever, living off the land, or they should move somewhere else and follow Millie's dream to become millionaires?
The choice was easy. The couple moved to Finchwick, in a big cottage house with a big garden, front and back. They brought with them the plants they had gardened with so much love and also bought some chickens. Life was good for a while, baby Angelique was growing but woohoo life was... fine.
Ali found a job in PR and had to work all day, even from home. He had to polish his charisma and writing skills and meet new people. So, that made Millie a stay at home mom, a gardener, a housekeeper. But there was no time for her lifestyle needs: outdoor living and working out. She became frustrated and was always in a bad and uncomfortable mood. She had gained a lot of weight from her pregnancy, she hardly recognized herself in the mirror...All this bad mood made her cranky. Everytime Ali tried to woohoo with her, she had no drive. So, their love life went down the drain...
Meanwhile, Ali was doing great at work, earning at least 2000 simoleons per day. He had met many people, and one of them became a really good friend of his. His name was Gabriel and he was thin, with black short hair, dark skin and modern makeup.
Ali was tormented by his feelings when he hang out with Gabriel. He couldn't understand how a man can be attracted to another guy like that. He was open to the idea, but had never acted upon it. It wasn't the looks - Gabriel was pretty basic. But there was something about the both of them that made him feel... amazing. The attention he got from Gabriel, the friendship.. It was like they knew each other from another lifetime.
Every time Gabriel came over, Ali got excited. He was interested in his words and inner world, not only his appearance. One night, he couldn't take it anymore. While they were talking the backyard table, Ali started flirting with Gabriel. Things got heated fast and they shared the most beautiful first kiss. That was exactly what he always wanted to feel, but was missing from his other relationships. He proposed to have woohoo in the home office, while Millie and Angelique were sleeping unaware upstairs...
They woohood hard and many times. It was a total WoohooFest. Morning came and Ali, having not slept at all, got ready to go to work. He didn't forget to kiss his wife goodbye, but he spent the entire day thinking about Gabriel. By night, he had decided to ask Gabriel to become his boyfriend.
Millie on the other side, was getting better. She bought a walking machine and she often went swimming in the river. Her woohoo drive was coming back strong and that meant more time with her beloved husband. They started woohooing more often, but Ali was also missing Gabriel...
God suddenly had an idea! Ali should ask Millie to have expanded woohoo with someone else, and that someone else couldn't be other than (yes, you guessed it) Gabriel. Ali went on and asked his wife and God told her that yes, it would be fun! So, unaware of God and her husband's plans, she happily accepted to engage in multiple sim woohoo...
Ali was so excited! He couldn't believe his ears! He immediately called over Gabriel and explained the situation. Gabriel accepted as well and it was time for Gabriel to meet with Millie. Millie tried to get to know him but for some reason he was distant. She tried to flirt with him but he didn't reciprocate. Millie got embarrassed and locked herself in her room for some time, to recollect herself. It shouldn't be so hard, right?
At the same time, Ali made his move on Gabriel and they woohood. Gabriel was more than excited to get together with Ali. So, why not Millie?
After Millie got over her embarrassment, she came out the room. Ali proposed having multiple woohoo and they did it. Everyone had a pleasant time.
After that, they got together two more times. But, the last time, at Gabriel's house, was the final blow.
Millie kept trying to flirt alone with Gabriel, not getting the message but, DUDE. He was NOT into her. It was heartbreaking. She tried so hard for her husband, her self esteem and again, she was turned down. A second choice. She didn't deserve it. And then, she though about it. The flirt between Ali and Gabriel. How they would have woohoo, the three of them, but Gabriel was rejecting her. It was time for answers...
Millie first told Ali to end the expanded woohoo agreement. It was too much for her. He wasn't happy about it, but he agreed. And then, she asked the million dollar question: "What's going on between you two?". Ali tried to hide it, told her they were only friends. But God was starting to feel bad about poor Millie, so had her ask again: "WHAT'S GOING ON BETWEEN YOU TWO?"
The answer was like a knife, going through her heart. Ali loved Gabriel and that's all she needed to know. Their woohoo life was non existent before and now had found someone who made him feel better, more... alive! That's all Millie needed to know. She went over to Gabriel and try to make a last, desperate woohoo pass at him. Once more, he rejected her. It was all so clear. She was the third wheel.
Her ego and her heart were stomped on the ground, like a cockroach. A beautiful, kind, hard working sim shouldn't go through all that. She headed back home, to the privacy of her bedroom and cried her eyeballs out. Ali didn't come home that night and went straight to work.
The next day, Millie invited Gabriel over. Oooh no, she wouldn't let him have Ali so easily. She would humiliate him first. He came over and she started yelling at him. Her face was red and hot, she was fueled by rage. She ending up giving him the beating of his life. When Ali came home from work, both his lovers were black and blue from fighting.
Baby Angelique started crying. She had woken up. Millie rushed upstairs to help her toddler with her needs, but Ali and Gabriel stayed downstairs. Ali tried to comfort Gabriel, asking him to stay. He didn't care about his marriage anymore. God led them to the hall upstairs, outside the bedrooms. They started woohooing again, right there, like animals!
Poor Millie, as she opened her daughter's bedroom's door, she caught her cheater husband in the act! THE AUDACITY!!! And if it that wasn't enough, when she went over to slap him, he acted like she wasn't there and went to woohoo in the shower with his boyfriend - AGAIN! WTH!!!
At this point, Millie knew it was time to give Ali the boot and kick him the hell out of their home, and so she did. After Ali's lover left, the married couple had a long, heated conversation that only had one outcome - Ali had to move out immediately.
So, he left and rented a one-bedroom apartment in the city. He also decided to ask Gabriel to live with him, and Gabriel happily accepted. A new chapter started for Ali but unresolved things were left in the middle with his wife that needed to be dealt with.
While all these took place, Millie had gotten close with celebrity Rahul Chopra. They became good friends and she was invited to his wedding. It was a one of a kind event because Rahul had a shotgun wedding with his wife when they were teenagers due to unwanted pregnancy. After many kids later, Rahul's eldest daughter, with the villainous valentine aspiration (long story) decided to break her eternally faithful parents up for fun. So they did break up, but they were so made for each other, like puzzle pieces, that it was impossible to not end up together again.
Rahul fell back in love with his wife and they decided to do it right this time. They planned the perfect wedding event in San Myshuno's park, during sunset. The whole family was there and their 2nd child, Philip (YA) would take the professional pictures of the wedding.
The ceremony started, everyone (almost) was seated and the photographer (and me) were preoccupied with taking the happy couples pictures. As the ceremony ended, the couple was ready to share their first kiss as husband and wife. The air was filled with confetti that floated playfully around them, the fireworks were set off behing them and the sun was showering them with the warmest rays. It was a one time opportunity to get the perfect picture. Philip got ready to press click. And then, she appeared.
Millie, clearly bothered and heartbroken by other people's love, made a run for the exit and ruined Philip's perfect photograph. The angry look on her face would forever haunt Philip's mind. Why would that woman ruin this happy moment and why the hell would she wear white at someone's wedding? I mean, you wouldn't mistake her for the bride, who wore an expensive wedding gown, but still... Something was wrong with this girl and Philip had to find out...
After the wedding, Millie went back home. The days passed and the divorce was not finalized. She asked her kid who she wanted to stay with, but without reply. She called Ali over, but he texted back he didn't want to come over. Millie had her -now child- daughter call over her dad. This time, Ali responded positively and soon after he arrived. Millie took him straight to the lawyers to see who will get custody of Angelique.
This time, God had no plans, God left it all to luck. So, unfortunately, Ali won custody of Angelique, who immediately went to live with him. Now, Millie was alone. Only her and her money and her baby son's grave in the front yard. Now she was angry, NOW HE WOULD PAY.
Millie grabbed Ali and went once again to the lawyers. It was now time to split the estate. At least 100k simoleons in the bank, plus whatever the house is worth. Millie wants to get everything, but once again, God won't interfere. She comes back home, head down, beaten - she lost 80k.
She turns to her new friend, Philip. He is basic, but he's a good guy. He lives alone in an apartment in San Myshuno, studies Fine Arts in university, comes from a good family. He also has a girlfriend that lives across the hall from him, but Millie doesn't know. And God tells her to come onto him. Now Philip has two girlfriends and God must interfere.
God and luck are playing games with Millie's life.
As I'm writing her story, there's only one thing I feel: Sad.
This girl started out with hopes and dreams. So I think that we should forgive her for attending a friend's wedding wearing white. Some God forgot to change her formal outfit and it was all she had to wear. She's going through a lot!
Her story ends for now, but if you guys like it I might write more about her life's adventures.
Also, what should she do with Philip? Let me know in the comments!
If you read this whole essay / story , you are amazing! And thanks! Hope you liked it! :)
TLDR: YA woman starts with 0 money in off the grid island. Wants to earn a million. Gets pregnant by married neighbor with kids. Marries him and they buy new home. They get pregnant second time, lose the baby.He gets a good job, meets new people, gets new guy friend, has woohoo with that friend. The 3 of them have expanded woohoo. Woman breaks it off. Woman confronts husband about loving other man, he confesses he loves him. Woman kicks him out and he lives alone in flat. The other guy moves in with him. Woman heartbroken, goes to friends wedding wearing white, is angry at happy couple's love, ruins the married couple kiss photo. Photo becomes famous on Reddit. Woman loses custody of only child. Woman loses 80k simoleons after splitting estate. Woman becomes girlfriend of the photographer from the friend's wedding. Photographer already has another girlfriend.
*****EDIT*********** I can't believe I forgot to write this, but Millie also drowned in the ocean while being fatigued from diving for treasures. I decided to not save and give her a second chance. Her life is dramatic, UUUUUUGH!!!!

Spoiler: If my books ever gets published, the fact that this character is autistic isn’t revealed until later in the series, so I guess it’s a spoiler. 😂
(This is very long, but if you want to give me any advice, please keep reading. I’ll get to the point eventually, I promise. The beginning is just context.)
So, I’ve been working on this book for a long time. I haven’t published any books at all yet, but I’ve wanted to be an author for several years and I’ve been working on this book series since elementary school. I’ve just started taking it seriously and making actual plans for the series these last two years. (Because so far, it’s only been character designs, written comedy skits, backstories, etc.)
I won’t reveal too much of the plot (and please don’t take any of my ideas, I’m paranoid, I know 😭), but I plan on making the main character autistic. This IS a recent development.
People keep telling me to write what I know, so ever since I’ve made up this book (in elementary school), I’ve been giving each character a few of my personality traits or habits. This made me able to connect more to the characters. However, ever since I’ve started suspecting that I’m autistic, I think I’ve subconsciously given the main character many of the traits and habits I have that make her seem autistic as well.
I decided to lean into this idea, especially because the entire book has an overarching theme of inequality, discrimination, and self-discovery. I wanted to accurately portray the main character’s autism and narrate her life through the lens of her personality and experiences.
Her backstory (which I won’t go into too much detail with for the sake of spoilers) is that she’s a heavily isolated individual and that she didn’t have a lot of social connections for several years growing up. (She is a teenager, by the way.)
This is COMPLETELY unrelated to her autism and the overarching theme of discrimination and inequality isn’t focused on autism or neurodiversity specifically. It’s meant to be a dystopian future disguised as a utopia where equality is actually prominent. Neurodiversity, race, gender, etc. isn’t discriminated against and is actually recognized as an important, meaningful part of society instead of a problem. The discrimination in the books is actually against machines (probably a cliché, I know).
Something that might be a contentious subject is the fact that the main character is a cyborg. (She’s meant to be a bridge between humans and machines in the books.)
Now, first, she’s NOT emotionless. (Neither are the machines because the entire point of the book is to show that sentient creatures all have feelings and emotions.) In fact, she’s very upbeat, optimistic, and energetic in most situations, despite her childhood and backstory (which she discovers is horrible later on). The tragedies she suffered are things that she chooses to view as ultimately good, no matter how terrible they were (which she does recognize), because it got her to where she is now. (The trauma she experienced was a controlling guardian and the surgery she underwent that made her a cyborg.) But she also has her weak moments, some involving overstimulation or meltdowns or shutdowns.
Second, she’s not the only autistic character. The other autistic character is a successful, middle-aged, male adult who is fully human, which I’m pretty confident removes the implication that the MC is autistic just because she’s partially robotic. As do the many background characters that are also autistic.
I feel that the MC is very humanized and she has her strengths and weaknesses, some of them unrelated to her neurodivergence.
But here lies a problem with her being a cyborg:
Both autistic characters, which obviously play a big role in the story, are very smart. The adult male is very good at recognizing patterns and he’s very brilliant, which probably will be recognized as a sign of autism. The MC, though, is only as smart as she is because she’s a cyborg. Her mind has access to the entire internet and artificial intelligence that gives her a lot of answers to everything. Although she sometimes misunderstands or misinterprets some of the information she gets, it doesn’t change the fact that her partially artificial brain grants her plenty of intelligence. I don’t want to imply that all autistic people are some kind of untouchable, inhuman geniuses. That’s obviously not true and the last thing I want is to contribute to that unreasonable, unrealistic standard or alienate the autistic community any further.
Is there anything I can do to improve the MC and just generally portray autistic characters more accurately?
(Sorry it took so long to get to the point 😂)

the night before my chem paper 1, i was stressing profusely over the exams seeing that my predicted grade was a 9a which isn't good enough for me so i endeavoured to rest my head in order to tranquilise the chaos inside my mind and find some solace. however, overnight, all of my chemistry knowledge had perished; i dreamt it was squandered by a malevolent leprechaun with a macabre, sinister pattern of speech consisting of a strict ABABAB rhyme scheme and trochaic tetrameter signifying his desire for power and avarice for the acquisition of knowledge. my gargantuan intellect slipped through my fingers; I had been Light Yagami before (metaphor; i was not literally the antihero protagonist), with the chemistry knowledge of Walter White and a reputation that truly preceded me as when i walked to school that morning i realised i would be receiving a U despite my overwhelming intellect. destitute, despaired, despondent. if only that machiavellian villian hadn't seized my smarts. i held a vast sea of repressed rage inside of me, and once i opened my paper to a 6 marker on equilibria, i arose from my creaky chair and disenthralled a mighty bellow, tearing my shirt apart with my bare fists like the hulk, and releasing my agonising mental anguish through the form of sound waves in which shook the mortal ground, quaking under my feet in submissive obedience. this caused most of the students in the silent hall to turn to look at me in disbelief, so in a fit of anger i lost my temper and absolutely dashed my desk at the nearest student. (he suffered minor fractures to his skull and a couple bruises but nothing major. not that i could say the same for the desk; alas, it had shattered into fragments.) the students in the hall gasped in shock at the sight of their classmate consummating the role of the catalyst for a catastrophic carnage to emenate (note my alliteration of the fricative "c" amplifying the harshness of the situation). another ear-piercing screech ensued, resounding from the molten iron core of my chest, as I threw myself to the ground in defeat.
now then, any moral person witnessing this incident would clearly relate to my pain and suffering, and would at the very least leave me to grieve the remnants of a drained IQ of 341, but an invigilator chose to approach me and had the AUDACITY to REMOVE me from the hall. i was promptly disqualified and issued several consequences for disrupting the exam. this is clear evidence that examiners do not care for mental health, a stark contrast to the claims held by thousands of them worldwide. it is time to take action. it is time to make a change. it is time to fire every invigilator in the country and beyond; students' feelings shouldn't be invalidated and we have the right to express them in any form necessary, especially during the stressful exam period. i listen to the drone of students chattering as they leave the exam and i think to myself about my perpetual experiences with being dismissed and punished for natural behaviour. i can no longer pursue my lifelong aspiration of becoming a high-school chemistry teacher in Alberquerque, New Mexico because this examiner was unable to CONTROL THEMSELF IN THE EXAM HALL. they didn't even think about how much escorting me out would disturb the hardworking students completing their questions. for this reason you must make a stand against invigilators; join me in my venture to cease this barbaric treatment of well-behaved, well-prepared students such as myself.

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 am a 20 y/o student, living alone and this is my very first post in this sub. There was a time I got bullied in school and sports club. I have a difficult relationship to my parents. I was never able to talk to them about my problems, I was silent instead. My mother was very controlling and patronizing. My father only cared about my school grades.
After a long time of self reflection I realised, that I'm seriously suffering from:
-social anxiety: I'm often trying not to behave awkwardly, because I care too much what people think about me and I feel watched many times. I have problems approaching stranger people. Also, I often feel caught in normal situations, for example when someone is entering the toilet and I'm styling my hair in the mirror. I'm getting a bit sweaty and my heart pumps. I have these problems especially when interacting with women.
-porn addiction: it literally slows down my life. My dopamine level is constantly low in phases of watching porn (rn I'm trying to beat this stupid habit). It isolates and destroys my social life. I'm not getting my things done and porn changed my view of women. I'm very ashamed of this, ashamed of sexulizing women. And I really don't want this any more.
-depression: tbh I think depressions are the result of the problems I mentioned above. Negative thoughts only come, when I'm alone at home for a longer periods of time. Times of feeling hopeless and helpless.
If you have come until here, thank you for your time🙏. Can anyone understand me? Does anyone have advice? 👇

I feel like I truly and deeply do not know myself or what I want in life. I have a lot of young siblings that I’ve been pushed into taking care of for as long as I can remember. Like even caring for them over night when they were crying or needed to eat as baby’s. Because of this I slept through most of my middle school and high school lectures barely passing by. I didn’t really get to progress and grow personality wise as a kid/ teenager. Like yes I have hobbies but like what makes me ME. I find it hard to let people get to know me because I don’t k ow what’s there to get to know. I never got to figure out what I liked in school I didn’t go to college because after high school I was promoted to sibling nanny for like 2 entire yes 2 years. Now that I am out of that situation I just work. And then distract myself when I get home until the next day and the cycle repeats. I feel like I’m in a point of my life where I’d like to start dating but I’ve literally never had a girlfriend or boyfriend before. So I’m going off of no experience at an age where people have already been dating for years and already know what they want in a relationship and in their careers. I know I’m not asexual or aromatic because the desire for those things are there but when I like someone I have this deep feeling in my pit and become super weird and awkward around them and completely blow it. Like I feel like a middle schooler having their first crush and am to embarrassed to tell them. Or even worse if I did tell them and they like me back what do I do then. I don’t have a good example or experience of what a healthy relationship looks like. And I’m so god damn tired of being perceived as this quiet chill person when my mind is going 100 miles per hour 24/7. I just don’t have the ability to express myself so I stay quiet.