Balls getting cut off pain olympics

**Sorry for the lengthy post in advance*\*
My car was sideswiped on the right side on May 7th. I was driving straight when the other Driver tried to merge into traffic after being stopped beside a yellow curb. Somehow the other Driver didn't see me as she went to pull forward and she hit my car hard enough to take her front bumper almost clean off (was still hanging just barely on the right side) and my right side passenger door will no longer open, giant gash all the way down the right side of my vehicle. I called the police, took photos of the scene (had to move my car because it was hindering traffic directly, cars were lining up), and gave a statement to the officer. He checked both drivers for "suspected at fault" on the police report, but in his narrative, he clearly stated that the other driver "Unit 2" was determined to be at fault. This is where things started getting difficult..
Accident happened on Tuesday 5/7. I called the police immediately, my insurance, took photos, provided them to both insurance parties- everything I was supposed to do on day one. Meanwhile, two days go by before the at-fault driver makes contact with their insurance at all. I had called Wednesday and Thursday to find out if their insurance had heard anything from the driver- nothing. Finally, Friday 5/10, after I'd been called them early that morning and left a voicemail, their insurance calls me back around 5:00PM (you know, when everything's basically closing for the weekend.) I'm told by an agent assisting with my claim (not the agent who was handling it "directly") that there was nothing they could do because "The police report shows you to be at fault" (he was reading an ACCIDENT INFORMATION FORM and NOT a **POLICE REPORT**) and that he'd spoken to their insured driver "yesterday" about it. Well, awesome, they let a whole two days go by without telling me they'd heard from their insured while I'm having to cancel plans to pick up my Mother for Mother's day that weekend (she's 75 and I frequently drive 8 hour long trips to pick her up for family events. My passenger door again won't open and she can't ride in the backseats.) I managed to get in contact with the police department customer service line just before they closed for the weekend and they informed me that the **police report** hadn't even been completed yet, that it wouldn't be released until the following Monday lol. So, the genius who told me that they had a **police report** screwed up because they in fact **didn't have one yet**, and didn't know wtf documentation he was even looking at, which seems extremely unprofessional at best and in bad faith at worst. Either way, not good to tell me they have official documentation when they don't.
So, Monday morning rolls along, 5/13. I call in and get the **actual** police report from police customer service. It shows myself and the other driver "Unit 2" to be at fault, both of our names checked for "suspect at fault" but in the narrative it clearly states "Unit 2 determined to be at fault but not cited." I send this to their insurance. They call me the next day, Tuesday, and come at me with a double standard about the report. They claim that because the officer was not there, that they cannot go off of his narrative as proof... but they can take his word on the two checked boxes where I'm "suspect at fault" along with their insured lol? Okay.. well, the officer **also** wasn't there to attest to either of us being qualified as "suspect at fault" because he didn't see anything. This is ridiculous, and I understand it's how things go with insurance, but lol. It's a clear double standard: take one part of the evidence to your benefit and leave the other part out. They told me since there was no video footage, I was out of luck. When I asked the adjuster to provide me with any proof they'd been given and a written statement about what story they'd been given by their insured, the adjuster got really rude with me and hung up on me and wouldn't return my call back. So, I called my insurance agent (I had reported the accident to her initially but told her I would be going through the at-fault's insurance, she said that's fine and my premiums will remain the same) and I informed her of all this just to be honest and keep her updated. By this time, I was also waiting on the police to get in touch with me about getting my police report amended to remove the check box showing I was "suspect at fault".
From Tuesday 5/14 to Thursday 5/16, I spend days calling the police, trying to get in touch with the officer who responded to the scene, keep getting told I'll hear back from him or a sergeant, nope. I go to 4 different police precincts and 2 different courthouse buildings TRYING to figure out who the hell I can get to just amend the report for me, each location pointing me somewhere else... I eventually speak to a sergeant who informs me he'll get the police report amending process "expedited" (still haven't heard back from him lol) and he tells me I might need to request approval for the footage from the county sheriff........... SO, after realizing I was basically on my own, realizing that my only recourse was that surveillance footage, I just went straight to the location where the accident happened outside of by myself (it actually was outside one of the courthouses I went to for information...) and they fucking handed me over a disc with the surveillance footage the following morning, Friday 5/17. No police escort needed, no court order, no county sheriff..! The woman working the front desk happened to also be outside when the accident happened on May 7th, and she remembered me and knew exactly what I was there for! I sent this video footage to my insurance agent and she said she would send the video file to the other insurance party herself and try to get the ball rolling for me about getting all of this settled.
Thank you for anyone that has read this far. This is my first time dealing with this kind of thing and it's been more leg work than I expected. I don't mean to come off as blunt to anyone reading, just trying to handle this as assertively as I need to not get myself ripped off by anyone, as I thought this would be a very straight forward proceeding and thought that the other driver was very clealy liable. At this point, what should I do to proceed? Does the other insurance company sound like they dropped the ball a few times or am I being too brash in thinking this? They basically lied or didn't know what they were telling me about when they stated prematurely that they had a police report, and let me go on indefinitely with bad information that I had to figure out on my own wasn't true. They had an entire department from another state handling my claim in the beginning that apparently wasn't "legally allowed" to handle my claim because of whatever red-tape explanation they gave me, I cannot recall.. but more time wasted. I know insurance agents get swamped, I understand you all work very hard, but I felt pretty disregarded by at-fault's insurance when I was trying to seek answers about their reasoning. It is now Tuesday 5/21 and I have yet to hear from their insurance, their website still says I am liable for the accident, and there's absolutely no way lol. They have the video, they've had to have watched it by now, it absolves me of any liability plain as day. I feel like they are still collating this information and sitting on their hands. At what point should I press for escalation of this issue? Should I hire a pro bono lawyer? Or should I just relax? I feel like the adjuster hanging up on me and trying to move forward with no explanation provided and just writing me as liable isn't right. I'm also out of work now for the past two weeks (I do rideshare and also help take care of my father in-home hospice care with my sister.)
Any advice is appreciated. I'm not trying to gouge anyone or upset anything, I just want to get compensated correctly and get this over this. I am very confident in that I am not liable, I have photos and video to back this up. I am just wondering how should I be handling the at-fault's insurance from here on?

I’m pretty sure a vast majority of people here know about Jonak Toys. For those who don’t know, he’s a person who sells custom LSW clone trooper decals and UV products. Not much to say other than that, he’s just another LSW seller in the community. His products are good, great even, I’ve bought from him many times. But unfortunately, he has both a terrible community, and terrible shipping times.
Starting out with the shipping times, because there is a LOT to dive into with his horrendous community, and I want to save that for the end. They’re very inconsistent. At best, when I first ordered from him, my stuff shipped out in less than a week. It was a small order, only a few decals and blank bodies as I was starting out decaling. That was the only exception on shipping. And at worst, it took 4 MONTHS to get something I ordered in March. Yeah. Although, it might not be a turn off for some people as they’re patient and can wait a few months to get something. Cool, all the power to you. But the shippings not the worst part, it’s his discord community.
Cutting straight to the chase, it sucks. One of the worst discord servers I’ve ever been in. To start, the mods don’t do their job at all, and even encourage the bad behavior of all the members (with the exception of one mod, he’s actually cool, but he’s unfortunately not as active as the other sub-human mods). Furthermore, they’re very biggoted. Like, one time they were unironically spouting white supremacy talking points. Yikes. Also, they’re one of those people where they love “dark humor” that’s totally not bigotry. Like for example, this super funny joke from the server: “yeah the trans arc followed by the suicide arc”. Soooo funny, right? If that wasn’t bad enough, they will actively pick on members who are neurodivergent and call them slurs “because they’re annoying”, and it gives them pleasure in their sad, pathetic lives. I was a victim of their constant harassing and slur calling. I had my appearance mocked, my ex harassed, attempts to rig auctions and outbid me, talked shit behind my back (probably what they’re doing right now as they read this call out post. If you sub-human Jonak folk are reading this, hello.), and treated me like I’m subhuman, which is ironic, because they themselves are subhuman.
And don’t even get me started on how their toxicity affects other LSW discord servers. They’re like a plague on the entire LSW community, and Jonak has done NOTHING to stop this. ABSOLUTELY NOTHING. Nothing for all the bullying and harassment people like me have faced for being different and not complying with their bigotry, especially for those minors who were drawn sexually behind their back in Gartic Phone games. Yeah, you heard that right. They drew PORN of REAL people, who were also MINORS.
So yeah, don’t buy from Jonak until he gets his community and shipping times shit together. If you want an alternative for decals, try CMD or LSW customs. They’re much better people, but less quality products.
TL;DR: don’t buy from Jonak because his shipping times are slow, and his community is filled with subhuman white supremacist bigots who like to harass people and draw porn of them.

Long post ahead so bear with me.
I’m 24F dating my 24M boyfriend for 4 years. Overall I’d say our relationship has been pretty good - no serious issues until now, all of our fights have been over his tendency to be moody or passive aggressive.
Some background information: I’m on the neurodivergent spectrum and suffer from depressive episodes, but I’m high functioning because I don’t want it to affect my professional life or anyone else but me. A side effect of that has been my tendency to isolate myself from everyone, which I’ve done for the majority of our relationship - sometimes I didn’t interact with anyone at all except for my family and my bf. I haven’t gone a single day in the last 6 years without any contact with him.
I realized that this wasn’t healthy so this year I decided to try and come out of my shell and build more friendships. It’s a bit hard but I’ve been working on it slowly, and one of my newfound friends was one of my bf’s friends, J (23M), as well - they had been friends for about a year at this point. We hit it off pretty well and as someone who’s really bad at friendships I enjoyed talking to J, but it was strictly platonic - nothing out of the ordinary, exactly like every friendship I have/have ever had. Please keep in mind I did not prioritize interactions I had with J or anyone else over ones I had with my bf.
While my bf initially really liked J, around the time we started becoming friends he started to sour on J until he eventually just started icing him because he didn’t like anything about him all of a sudden, and the only reason he could come up with was “J was annoying.” He also told me he found it “weird” that he chose to be friends with his friend’s gf (confused about that one because I met some of my closest friends through him/his circles). I reassure him that there’s nothing weird going on and my friendship with J is, once again, platonic. In all honesty, I also didn’t really think much of it because I didn’t find J to be annoying and my bf has had a pattern of disliking some of my friends for no apparent reason, even if he’d never talked to them. (My friends are all just goofy nerds so I never really got why.)
3 weeks ago my bf tells me he thinks J is trying to sleep with me but he has no evidence or thoughts to support this. I’m obviously shocked and once again reassure him that I’ve never picked up sleazy vibes from J and he’s never been inappropriate with me. I’ve had really creepy encounters before so I’m always hyperalert about these kinds of things and if I do get those vibes I shut them down immediately.
Onto the main clown show: last week my bf texts me angry that I’ve been lying to him and that I’ve been repeatedly gaslighting him into thinking my friendship with J was normal, but after a conversation with one of his other friends he’s convinced that he’s right and it’s inappropriate for J to be friends with me. Then he goes ahead and texts J to stop texting me and accuses him, amongst other things, of being a creep. To the surprise of absolutely no one, turns out this scenario that my bf created of J secretly trying to steal me away from him was completely false and J is both hurt and pissed about it. He tells him that he’s only ever thought of him as a good friend and he never had ill intentions towards me but he cannot in good conscience be ok with this and subsequently cuts both of us off.
For obvious reasons, I’m extremely pissed about this and we have a blowout fight over it, because turns out I don’t like anyone messing with my friendships like that and falsely accusing someone who’s done nothing wrong to you of being a creep is a shitty thing to do. He genuinely didn’t see anything wrong about what he did and “he did what he had to because he was desperate to get J out of my life and I left him no other choice.” He also told me that if he woke up to find out I did something to cause his friends to cut him off, he’d assume I had a good reason to do so and everything that happened with J was for the best. He screamed at me, accused me of being disrespectful and thinking of him as an insecure loser, called me a whole slew of hurtful things, that I’m disgusting and make him feel worthless and that he fucking hates me repeatedly. It overall just turned into a really ugly mess.
The next morning he was calmer and apologized for the hurtful things he said and that he didn’t mean any of it. He also admitted what he did was wrong, that he overreacted out of paranoia, and that he’s sorry he hurt J and ruined my friendship with him. He admitted that I was right, there wasn’t anything weird going on like he thought and he apologized for messing with my personal life.
The issue is I’m having a hard time processing all of this. First of all this couldn’t have happened at a worse time because I have a lot of personal issues going on that I’m incredibly stressed out about and he’s well aware of that. He’s also aware that I’ve always struggled with making friends, and now any urge I’ve had to do that is gone. I can’t get over him saying I make him feel worthless because I’ve dedicated so much and sacrificed so much to be with him and make him happy every way I could. I’ve never and still don’t prioritize anyone else over him. Having your boyfriend of nearly 5 years tell you he doesn’t trust you and despises you is also pretty fucking shitty because I’ve never done anything distrustful or been anywhere near as hurtful as he has been to me. His apologies sound hollow and lukewarm to me because at the end of the day, he got exactly what he wanted. And I’m left to suck it up and deal with it.
I don’t know what to do and I feel like I’m alone backed into a corner and I’m about to break with all the other things going on in my life. I’m sorry if this post isn’t very coherent but I’m a little tipsy right now. I just feel so violated and I’ve never felt more horrible or alone in my life than I do now and I’ve never not felt like that my entire life. I don’t know and can’t tell if I’m the one who messed up here and what I should do. Any advice, harsh or gentle is appreciated.
TLDR: bf incorrectly assumed mutual friend was trying to sleep with me and subsequently went nuclear on both me and friend. Am hurt and don’t know how or if I should resolve this.

/uw Part four is here! Here's part one, part two, and part three! This one's probably a little more unpolished than the other ones, but I hope that doesn't ruin it! CW: Death, blood. I made a render in blender, but it got the post removed! Take two!
/rw
The end of the book, thin as it is, draws near. The text is overwritten dozens of times, always with the same phrase: "IT WAS AN ACCIDENT". Same as the other pages, though, it's easy enough to look past the bad coverup job. History cannot be erased, after all.
...
When I arrived at the hospital, I was in bad shape. I had a fractured skull, a missing eye, a lesion in my frontal lobe, and I was in hypovolemic shock. They didn't think I was going to make it.
It was a miracle that I even woke up from my two-week coma, but it wasn't all perfect. From the moment I opened my eye(s), I didn't know where I was. I had to relearn everything. My name, my address, my identity... They were all gone.
It was as if I was a new man who'd been transported into a stranger's body. Everyone talked to me as if they knew me, but I couldn't say the same for them. Especially that drow, Eldred. He claimed we were childhood friends. Every day, he'd tell me stories of our history together, but they were stories I never wanted to hear. It felt wrong listening to him talk, knowing there was a man who knew more about me than I did.
The moment I was discharged, I fled to my apartment. I drew the blinds, locked the door, and cut off all contact from the outside world. I wanted to run away from it all, to start a new life, not some travesty of another man's life.
After a few days of my isolation, Eldred (presumably) got worried about me, and came knocking on my door. I didn't answer. I wanted nothing to do with him—or anyone, for that matter. He was a remnant of my old life, and I couldn't let him influence me.
A couple days later, he did the same thing. He offered some kind, reassuring words through the door and left. He did this again, and again, and again, for weeks. I was running low on food and supplies, so I was faced with a choice: leave my safe haven, or starve to death in my own home. I didn't like either option. Although... there was another way.
After 17 days of his repeated attempts, I finally answered the door.
"Ith!" Eldred cheered. "You... you really answered!"
"Yeah."
"So uh... Have you been doing alright?"
"I'm fine."
He looked over my shoulder. "Have... you not left the house?"
"Not yet."
"Jesus, Ithael..." He pulled me in for a hug, but I didn't react. "Do you, uh, need anything?"
"Could... you go to the market for me?"
He let go of me. "Yeah, of course! I'll... I'll be back!"
"Alright."
I slammed the door in his face. Just another echo of my old life, that's all he was... A few hours later, he knocked on the door again. I almost didn't answer, but then I remembered he had my groceries.
He exclaimed with clearly-forced optimism, "Heyyyy! Hope you've been alright! So, I was thinking, and... I was wondering if you wanted to do dinner together?"
"Not out there. Never out there. Here. Please."
"I figured you'd say that... so I got ingredients! I found this recipe for some pan-seared chicken in the library earlier, and it sounded really good!"
"...Alright." I took the bags from him and walked over to the kitchen. "Come inside."
"I, uh, was going to make it for you—"
"It's fine," I interjected.
I rummaged through the bags for the cookbook he talked about and flipped through the pages. It didn't look too difficult to make, but I wasn't sure how I knew that. This was the first time I had cooked anything, after all.
Assumedly hearing the pans clattering, Eldred wandered over to the counter, sitting down in a chair across from me. "Need a hand?"
"I'm alright."
"Are you sure? I mean, you were just—"
"Shut it," I commanded. I didn't mean to be so stern. What had come over me? I decided to brush it off. The recipe called for a diced onion... I needed a knife.
He slumped down in his seat. "Sorry... I, uh, got these books for you, by the way."
I glanced up from the cutting board. "...'Healing trauma: a guide for survivors'? And... 'How to cure amnesia'?" I scoffed. "If they could have fixed it, they would have, Eldred. It's incurable."
"We can't know until we try!" He strolled over into the kitchen, flipping to a bookmarked page. "See? This one here says—"
"It doesn't matter."
"Ithael... I'm here for you, man. I'm just trying to help—"
"And I don't care."
I focused myself back to the task at hand, ignoring his look of disdain. The room fell uncomfortably silent. I needed to fillet the chicken. I rummaged through the bags, trying to find—
"Seriously?" Eldred huffed. "I put in all of this work, and you just... don't care?"
"Never asked for it." Now, where was I? Right, chicken—
"That doesn't mean anything! Let me help you, you're clearly struggling!"
"I could manage without you." I continued to avoid eye-contact.
"Why are you so dead-set on pushing me out of your life?!"
"You were never in it to begin with, Eldred. I'm not the Ithael you knew."
"And who cares that you aren't?! Can't we still be friends?"
I tried to explain, "You're just a remnant of my past—"
"And that's an excuse to treat me like shit?! You know what?" He grabbed the books. "I'm done trying to fix you."
"Fix me?" I scoffed. "So I'm a problem, then? Something to be solved?—"
"You're twisting my words! Why... Why do you hate me?!"
"Face it: I'm a different person! Move on with your life, already!"
"What gives you the right to say that?!"
"Oh, what gives me the right?!" I waved the knife around a little too recklessly. "Were you just in a coma for two weeks? Did you just get thrown into a world that knows you better than yourself?! Where's your excuse, huh?!"
"...What do you want from me, Ithael?"
"I want you to get out of my life!"
Time slowed to a crawl as a deep pit formed in my stomach. I yanked my hand back like I'd touched a hot stove, and the knife... clattered to the floor. That look in his eyes... I'd never forget it. I had never seen a man so afraid before.
He grasped at his neck, his face turning pale as his hands soaked with blood. He fell to his knees, mouthing some words at me, but the only sound that came out was a sickening gurgle. He struggled to keep his balance as he fell flat on his face. His breathing grew labored and shaky as he lay there, a crimson puddle forming around his neck.
I knew that I should have gotten help, but, no matter how hard I tried, all I could do was watch. He cried onto the tiled ground, his breathing growing quieter and quieter, until he finally went silent.
What had I done?
...
It seems that he forgot to put any kind of warding spell on this newspaper clipping, as if he didn't expect anyone to get this far. Or perhaps he was too preoccupied with deceiving himself.
"As rumors regarding the disappearance of Eldred Wyndorn continue to circulate, the enigmatic Ithael Ralich opens a new therapist's office. In response to the whispers, Ithael states, 'There's a profound lack of support in this world, and every person could stand to have someone like Eldred by their side. I hope I can step up and fulfill a role he would have approved of.'
In other news, authorities are taking steps to curb the rising number of missing persons cases. Officials urge citizens to adhere to newly-instated curfew until the threat is solved, but claim there's nothing to worr—"

20F 5’8/140 lbs
i have already been to the doctor but my symptoms are not going away. i keep telling myself that it’s just anxiety but there’s certain things that i am having a really hard time just ignoring
i will try to keep this as concise as possible given the amount of context involved. about five years ago i was forcefully choked by an ex boyfriend. with his hand on my throat, he suddenly pressed down with considerable force i remember feeling/hearing a “pop” followed by swelling for the rest of the night. i woke up and felt fine other than tightness in my neck that came and went for a few months. i have had pain on the right side of my neck (where his thumb was) on and off since then
about a month ago (and i feel stupid for this) my boyfriend was (consensually) choking me during sex and we may have accidentally gone too far. i woke up the next morning with petechiae on both sides of my face on my cheekbones and under my jaw
it has been about a month and i have experienced the following symptoms that come and go depending on the day; some days i feel fine, others i experience symptoms that are so persistent i become concerned:
——- enlarged pupils, especially towards end of the day
localized 3/10 pain at impacted area (right side of neck under jaw)
sometimes feel lightheaded and considerable pressure in my head when standing up, can also “hear” or feel my heartbeat when this happens
general weakness
small black spot that flashes for a millisecond in the same area of my vision (this started only a couple of days ago and has happened >5 times)
vision feels “off,” not quite blurred/double vision but almost like my eyes have a hard time focusing or my brain has a hard time interpreting what i’m seeing
persistent pressure behind right eye
slight difficulty with speech (feels effortful to enunciate/find words, but ever so slightly and unnoticeable to others)
occasional tinnitus (lasts anywhere from 5 sec-5 min)
occasional dizziness
sharp chest pain on left, next day dull ache on right that extended to my shoulder and arm ——-
i am very concerned about carotid artery dissection given my history of trauma to that area. i have been to urgent care as well as my general practitioner to receive a physical examination for this issue and both told me that my vitals were normal and that i should be fine. i specifically mentioned carotid dissection with my GP and she said she wouldn’t recommend imaging as it was likely unnecessary and would be difficult to get covered by insurance. however, it has been a month since this happened and there are days when my symptoms are bad to the point where i really can’t ignore them. i know i can have health anxiety at times, but the fact that i will feel completely fine and not anxious and then feel physical symptoms out of nowhere is what concerns me
could there be another explanation for my symptoms? should i go to the ER and eat the cost of imaging? also, my BIGGEST question is: if i had carotid artery dissection in my neck, would my BP be abnormal? both times i was examined, the doctor told me that my BP was normal so i should be fine. is this true? or could the dissection be minor and affecting blood flow to my brain but not my BP? since it’s been a month, when will i know that i’m in the clear and not at risk of having a stroke? i am doing everything i can to convince myself that my doctors are right and that imaging is unnecessary, but these persistent symptoms are driving me insane with worry

I had a positive H Pylori test last year in NovembeDecember (I don’t recall correctly).
Since then I took: 1 round of 2 strong antibiotics to treat it, then I had another bacterial infection for which I took an antibiotic, then I tested positive for H Pylori AGAIN and had to treat it with 2 strong (different this time) antibiotics and then another bacterial infection which had me taking an antibiotic again.
By the end of all of that, my gut ended up being completely messed up.
It’s been months since and my gut is not recovered.
I have 3-5 bowel movements per day. Yellow. Sometimes they are watery, but most of the time they’re kind of soft and mushy. I’m in pain every day.
I went to a specialist when I was on my second time battling H Pylori and I mentioned these symptoms (they were a little less serious than they currently are) but he just brushed it off as IBS since I only had a H Pylori diagnosis.
I read a bunch about C DIFF and I am almost sure that I have it.
However, I tested once for toxins and it came back negative for all toxins. I heard that the test often gives out a false negative. I also tested a stool that I took the day before bringing it to the lab (I took the stool about 16-20 hours before bringing it to the lab and kept it in my fridge until I took it to the lab). Is that a mistake? Does it affect the test?
Now I’m starting to get more symptoms like shaking and tremors. I’m guessing it’s because my body can’t properly absorb nutrients from the IBS maybe? I don’t know.
All I know is, nobody will treat me unless I get a proper positive test/a diagnosis.
This sucks. I’m only 18 and it’s really messing with my life. I don’t really complain to anyone and nobody knows what I’m dealing with (except my family). I haven’t told anyone, but it’s really taking a toll on me mentally and I don’t know what to do anymore.
I heard that C Diff can be life threatening if left untreated and that only scares me even more since I can’t even start the treatment yet (if I have it).
Please drop some advice if you have it. Anything is greatly appreciated. Thanks to everyone in here. This sub has been of great help (especially mentally). You guys are awesome and I hope every one of you gets through c diff ❤️

Three year career nanny here. I started for my most recent family in April and I’ve been here a little over a month. I’ve encountered a new problem that isn’t something I typically deal with, that being NK and I are inside all day. When I say all day, I mean the full 8 hours I am there. I am perfectly fine to meet parents where they’re at and my job is to collaborate with them so everyone gets what they need. They don’t want me to transport him to any activities out of the house and as far as I know he doesn’t have any scheduled activities on a regular basis. Both MB and DB work from home. Typically, outside time is one of the staple activities I use, parks, splash pads, just walking in the neighborhood. I pride myself on being creative with what we have and we absolutely don’t need to drive anywhere to have fun. This is where it gets tricky. NK is turning two in June. He’s developmentally ready to do a lot. He’s tall for his age and very active, which leads to a lot of frustration when we are inside because I am constantly redirecting him. We have two “yes” zones but those are limited to his room (with minimal toys, mostly books) and the upstairs loft with most of the bigger toys and activities. When I started, the family’s current nanny was bringing her own daughter and it was a little chaotic to say the least. Everyone was under the assumption two kids under 2, with one nanny, and outings was a lot. Now that the dynamic has changed, I was hoping we would get to do more. At first the reason was they wanted to “get the backyard ready” and give him time to transition caregivers. Very understandable. When I suggested walks, MB said she wouldn’t want us to go alone until one of them had the chance to go with us a few times, also reasonable. However, that just never seems to materialize because they both need to be on work calls at 9. I know they typically take a short walk around the block as a family in the evening. Now that’s it’s getting hotter, the only reasonable time anyone wants to be outside is the morning, so I think they’ve been skipping evening walks. It can be over 100 when I leave at 5. We have gone outside in the back yard a few times within the last week, but there is no swing, nothing to play on or climb, not even a water hose. We have some chalk and bubble but those typically last about 5 minutes before he’s ready to move on. Even then, he wants to play with the grill and again I have to tell him no. We usually only last about 20 minutes because there’s just nothing that engages him.
I clarified with MB what temperature she thinks is too hot to be outside, I follow ISD rules which say 90+ degrees is usually the cut off. MB said nothing lower than 50 and nothing higher than 80. We are in Texas, summers here are brutal, and I always take necessity precautions when we do go outside, but there will seldom be a day where it’s under 95 realistically. We rinse and repeat the same thing everyday with little variation other than what is in my scope of control, like toy rotation and creating activities. And even then I have to ask and double check and ask because MB wants to source materials herself. We have weekly check-ins to see how everyone is doing. I’ve already brought up that outside time is a great way to add variation to routine, and how he might be acting out of frustration/boredom. Hell, I’m starting to get zoochosis myself. With a lot of my other kids my watch counts 10-12k steps a day, when I leave at 5 sometimes I’ll have less than 5k.
Is it really that unreasonable to want to bring him to a park within walking distance?

first of all, i wanna say i do feel really bad for grace as i’ve had sooooo many friends in the past ditch me for their boyfriends and it SUCKS. especially since grace uprooted her whole life to go to NYC with bri, literally door dashing on foot to try to make money lol.
anyways, what do you think grace is gonna do after the inevitable end to the podcast/their friendship? i’m guessing they may be required to continue for x amount of time due to barstool contracts however do you think grace will go solo pod? stay with barstool? possibly get cut from barstool or leave? move out of new york? go to LA or back to mass? or pull a christine sydelko and get off the internet

My cat Kumatora (Tori for short, 13F) has lived a highly sheltered and comfortable life with me and my parents since we got her when she was a 3-month-old kitten. Our household is very quiet, with no other pets or young children, and guests being very rare. We always give her lots of attention, and spend a lot of money ensuring she gets whatever she wants, within reason. As such, there has been an understanding that she is spoiled, and prior to the issues at hand here, it was generally amusing when she really wanted something or got mad. For example, she really enjoyed sitting in open windows, and would throw temper tantrums in the days following weather being comfortable enough to have them open - throwing her poops out of the litter box, knocking stuff off tables, that kind of thing. Obviously we all still love and care for her dearly, but it's like how some people think it's funny when toddlers think it's the end of the world when they, like, don't get McDonald's for dinner.
About a month ago, she started meowing dramatically, and was dragging around one of her hind legs. We took her to the vet, where they x-ray'd her, ran blood work, and did other yearly check-up things, only to find nothing visibly wrong. She did not seem to be in any pain, and the only spot of numbness was her paw pad, so the vet concluded she had nerve damage and sent her back with us. In spite of this, her quality of life declined, although she was in generally good health. She hid under my parent's bed for a while, leaving only to eat and use the litter box. Eventually we moved her into a spare room without furniture to hide under so that she would at least be easily accessible if/when we needed to bring her back to the vet. During this time, given the knowledge I had as provided by our vet, I joked with friends that she was just being a drama queen, only enticed by treats to escape her moping, like an aging Shakespearean actress.
Starting last week, though, she stopped pooping, and later stopped eating everything but her preferred treats. That also happened to be the time of my graduation from graduate school, and we had a vacation planned, so she was left to be boarded at the vet's for 6 days. The experience was generally unpleasant for her, because in addition to the discomfort she was in prior, she hates the vet - usually we leave her by herself when we go on vacation, with a neighbor coming by daily to scoop her litter box, but thought boarding with them would be best given her issues. They ran several additional (costly) tests on her, and found that she had a congenital heart defect, as well as a heart murmur, and heart disease. As such, it was determined that she may have had a blood clot which caused her foot numbness, but the signs of that are inconsistent, and the vets still aren't 100% sure whether it was that or a nerve issue. Either way, the stress of the mobility issue and the vets stay put a lot of stress on her heart, and she's worse off than ever before - she's barely eating, doesn't want to be brushed anymore, has trouble grooming, barely gets out of her cat bed, and is purring constantly like cats do when they're hurt. It's clear that she is not enjoying life in the state she's in, and we're looking into at-home euthanasia at this point.
...And now I feel terrible for being so flippant about her discomfort before. It's not even like this affected how quickly we sought medical care - we brought her in as soon as we noticed the issue, and contacted the vet several times over phone to make sure that the care decisions we were making were appropriate. I just feel bad for the way I perceived her and talked about her with others when this is clearly significantly negatively affecting her. I guess I was hoping that she would just snap out of it one day, that her foot would magically regain sensation and she'd be her usual self and this would be another funny story to tell at parties. I wonder if we should have cancelled our vacation so that she wouldn't need to spend as much time at the vet's. Her heart problems may not have been discovered, but it would have been less stress put on her, which may have increased her chances of recovery. I also feel like it would have been the typical "internet pet parent" thing to do - toss aside all plans and direct all attention towards ensuring our pet is as comfortable and happy as possible. Reading stories of pet parents having to euthanize 15+ year-old cats after years-long battles with cancer or kidney disease, her decline seems so... quick, and premature.
And so I'm looking for support here. Anyone else struggle with not feeling attached/worried enough about unwell pets? I used to be super anxious and catastrophic things like this, but now I feel like the pendulum's swung too hard in the opposite direction, and I'm too detached - or at least I was in weeks prior. Do I have, like, pet parent imposter syndrome - is that a thing? Or am I genuinely selfish and insensitive and should never care for a cat again? :(

tl;dr : after a lot of pain my gf put me through, i feel like she has finally decided to make some changes. but i am very depressed, and am not sure i even love her anymore. i wish that i could and that this could work. do you have examples of similar situations that ended up working ? i know the obvious answer is "stop that shit", but i really would want this to work.
I am going through a reaallyyyy hard time, and I don't know what to do. I met my gf (let's call her that for now) in october 2020, we really quickly fell in love (classic lesbian situation) and got officially together in a month or two. We were so in love that we were talking big ; i want to marry you later, i want to live with you, i want to have a kid with you.. We were living near each other at the beginning of the relationship.
There was some issue in this relationship, mostly concerning an ex (F35) (15 year relation, from 16 to 29) being still very present in her life, to the point she was sometimes prioritizing her instead of me. Some stuff would drive me crazy, like her not being able to delete some insta posts concerning her ; it was suffocating tbh. Even in her house there would be drawings or pictures of her still lingering, her name is still to this day on the boxletter. She would not spend that much time with her, but anyway they were too close for my own taste. I was not afraid of her cheating on me or whatever, I was just not ok with that. I was not finding where I could fit in all this.
Then, in september 2022, I moved out for my studies, 500km from where we used to live. The summer before me moving out, she had some professional trips, and she never accepted for me to go with her. I learnt later (by stalking her ex... lol) that they actually went hiking together during one of these pro trips ? For information, this ex has a boyfriend, and I really have no doubt about my gf not cheating on me, it is about her not making room for me in her life. This event really got to me, but anyway. Then, she learnt that her ex was pregnant with her bf, and they had a weird fight, they ended up not talking anymore for a few weeks. Her ex had a miscarriage, so her bf called her. Maybe I should add that my gf and her ex don't have a lot of friends, so they don't have a lot of ppl except each other and 2-3 other persons. Anyway, they made up. But my gf had entered a depressive phase, which happens a lot because she has ADHD, and during this whole shenaningan, she was clearly dropping me off, showing less and less concern and attention. It was awful, and she ended up breaking up with me because she couldn't take care of this relationship anymore. She even said during the breakup that she was more afraid of losing her than me. Outch.
Life went on for a few months, and then we saw each other again because I went back for a weekend to where I used to live. Well, we took a coffee and we ended up kissing in the bathroom. We missed each other a lot, and I was still loving her. For a few weeks, we were seeing each other from time to time, going to restaurants, hotels, bars ; very romantic stuffs. I was having a toxic flirt situation with a teacher (45???) from my school at the same time, and I decided to tell her because I didn't want to lie or anything. She was very disappointed and angry, and I was upset because we were not back together at all. She broke up with me, and she was angry because I had been flirting with someone - and that was clearly more of a manipulative relation than anything else with this dude.
Anyway, she told me that she wanted to be with me, she wanted to be serious this time and not fuck up like she did before. She wanted to do better, and was ready. She promised me some stuff and I believed her. Then summer happened, I was back in the town I used to live in for 4 months, and we were back together being very in love. The thing I want to say is that we have undeniable chemistry, we understand each other on a special level, there something very natural and smooth with her. I wouldn't be stuck in this situation otherwise lol.
I went back to my school town, and she went back to being neglectful. On New Year's Eve, I couldn't stay where I was sleeping, and she invited me at her house. She would go to work (yeah she works on events like this), I would stay at her flat and she would come back after work. But just before I arrived, she asked me to join her to her parents' instead. Her parents' house is really close to her's, and they were not there. She told me that I couldn't stay at her flat because her ex and a friend of theirs were staying there because they had nowhere else to go ? And I had to stay at her parents' until she finished her shift. She had to leave for work so I had the worst night of my life, all alone lmao. We talked that night after her shift (she went back to her parents' and we went to her flat to sleep because the two others had left). She was very sad, telling me she wanted me to be more present in her life but that she wasn't succeeding in doing so.
This event really changed something in me, tbh. From there, I was only thinking about breaking up with her, when I was with her in the town I used to live in, I was never in a good mood. I was putting a lot of pressure on her, because I felt like she had to prove something to me, and so the atmosphere was just shitty. She was not doing a lot of effort for coming to my school town, she came like 4 times in two years. We were always bickering, and I was always trying to talk to her about how I was really feeling sad and depressed and that I was considering the break-up. She would be listening, agreeing, but not changing anything. She was getting annoyed that I wasn't able to talk with her without always saying that we needed to talk and to sort this out because I couldn't go on without resolving these issues. Our convs were really weird and artificial, because I only had these problems in mind.
Then, my dad got married and I went with her. I slept at her flat (which was also a really difficult thing to obtain from her) and it was a bit weird at first. It was nice being together at the wedding, because when we're surrounded by other people, we really stick together, we are a strong solid couple you know. It made me feel like maybe this could be saved. Then, I went back to her house two days after, and I told her we needed to have the talk. She basically told me that she felt really far away from me, from my life, that she didn't understand me anymore. Well, for me that was it ; we had to break up. We went to sleep, we took our breakfast, and she was very loving and nice. It was weird, and I decided this couldn't go on, like her only being nice and stuff when I just told her I was about to break up. Anyway, I left, and broke with her with a text (boooooh). I was of course heartbroken, and I went back to my school town, and told her I wanted no contact with her. Then she sent me a long message, like a week or two after, telling me she wished we could talk, and I think I said no. Then I sent her a message one morning, because I was feeling very sad this was going like that ; becoming two strangers when we had been so so close and so in love. She offered to visit me so that we could talk, and I said yes. I offered her to stay over even... So we talked, about the situation, she told me she didn't want this to end, despite everything, that she had been deep in the depression, and that the fact that we were not able to discuss this "flirting with the teacher" thing had been very complicated for her. Because yes, I was always being like "please stop talking about that i don't want to", and she had some unresolved issues about it, according to her, leading her to not being involved in the relation anymore. I ended up finally opening up about this, I cried a lot, and she understood better what I went through. For her, this was a switch apparently. Because we are both dumb, we made out, slept together, and she told me multiple times that she really loved me. I told her that I was not sure I wanted to get back with her.
After this night, we started talking 24/7 like we used to, but I was not ok with that. I told her once again "no contact, I broke up with you, and I need to heal from this". Because I felt like she made the decision on her own that we were kinda back together. The thing is, I have a depression, very probably caused by all this pain, and my emotions fluctuate a lot, from numb to awfully desperate.
After a week, I sent her a text telling her I missed her. It was yesterday morning. From there, we talked a bit, she told me she really really was serious about taking her life back, and doing the right stuff for us to work. But I don't know how I could feel for her what I used to, I would love us to be the lovers we used to be, from this machine to start back. I have no idea what would be possible, what would be good for me. I spent the last days in bed until 4pm, and when I started talking again with her, I was finally able to do something else. At the same time, I'm feeling really anxious, because I don't want to say yes if I don't want to, or shut her off once again, but regretting it. I will spend the summer, like last year, in the town we used to live in, and maybe this time together will help us heal and build again what we had, except with better expectations ? What I know for sure, is that if she do one thing that hurt me again, I will just leave without giving her any fourth or fifth chance. I am lost, and I wish there was someone who could tell me that they went through something similar and it ended up working very nicely. I know that everyone has been telling me "just break up and move on", but she is really special to me. I wish I could see better through this depression fog to know which of my fluctuant feelings to trust. What should I do, do you thing this could work out, in which conditions ? I still have one year away from our town before going back.

Me M42 ex-fiance F41 let's call her B About 18 years ago my ex-fiance left me 6 months before the wedding to a person who promised her the world. I was broken and depressed to the point I was going to off myself to end the pain. My parent, her parents, and B older sister was my support. My sister didn't support me because she was B best friend and knew about the affair and the ap. She didn't want to tell me because she supported the affair. I was a mess pick myself up about 11 years after I met my wife and we have been married for 13 years now. She has been my support through the good and bad times. I love her so much. Back to the issues B had karma when B caught AP cheating on one of her bridesmaids from the wedding. I guess according to my sister B realized that she left a good thing and she has been fbm, calling me, texting me, and line me begging me to leave my wife and give her a change. I blocked her with every platform B reached out to. She even tried reaching out to my wife on fbm telling her to leave me and B was the one for me. I did talk to B once with my wife next to me I told her what I thought of her now. It felt so good and just to top it off my wife and I had sex afterward which made me feel even better. B isn't getting the hint she wants to fly down to my city to hunt me down. What can I do now other than go to the law?

I, (25f), had a baby 9 weeks ago. It was an incredibly traumatic birth and I almost died. When she was seven weeks old I asked my sister if I could come to her house so she could meet my baby. It’s a 3 1/2 hour drive and I said I would make that drive so I could see her and my grandparents as well if she felt okay with that and she said of course. She invited my brother as well. I texted my grandfather and asked him/my grandma to come down as well. Now this is where it gets a little crazy. My mother and father were horribly abusive to all of us. My father and mother divorced the summer before I went to college after he tried to kill her by hunting her through the woods. My mother decided that after that she would go back to doing tons of drugs and fucking my 17 year old friends. She partied and fucked around and lost every job for doing drugs. She dropped my 12 year old sister off and claimed she had Covid in March of 2020 right when it became a thing and didn’t pick her back up. She only decided she cared when I filed to get custody of her. She signed away her rights and as a thank you for not making it difficult I didn’t file for child support from her. I continue to not request child support because she is getting her life together and I didn’t want to add extra weight to that in this shit economy. I was 21 at the time and still in college and living with my fiance. We took custody of my sister and have been raising her ever since. Literally through inpatient hospitalizations, tons of bad situations, and trying to get my life together in my 20’s I had a teenager to take care of. It hasn’t been easy at all but at 23 I managed to, by some miracle, buy a house and put her into one of the best schools in the state. I am broke af every month, half my check goes to my mortgages, and I’m a teacher so like…… it’s actually hard to pay these bills but I work my ass off so it gets done. In my childhood my mother wasn’t a mother to me. I was the oldest 🫣 so I raised my siblings and protected them from getting hit. I took a lot of blows for them. My mother also threw a party at her house when I was underage, got me trashed, and called my boyfriend to come down so he could rape me. Gave him the condom and helped him CARRY ME to bed. suffice to say, I was in weekly therapy for like 3 1/2 years.
So naturally, when I planned this meeting I didn’t invite either of my parents as I don’t speak to them. My grandparents think I’m an asshole for not letting my mother back into my life because she got clean via court order. They went behind my back and invited her. My sister didn’t tell me. I walked into her house and walked right back out. They cornered me in the driveway while I was trying to put my baby in the car to yell at me. They said I’m tearing their family apart, trying to leave my mother out to hurt her, and that I need to forgive and forget the “silly little things that happened in my childhood”. That I am evil for brainwashing my sister into disliking my mother as well. I left and sobbed for probably a third of that drive. I already feel like an outcast in my own family and this made me feel like I can never see them again.
No one has messaged me about this since or apologized in any way and I haven’t contacted them. Am I the asshole? Should I try to tolerate her for the rest of my family? Or do I stand my ground and cut ties? I know my mother has gotten clean and I’ve worked through a lot of what happened to me but I feel like all that aside I still just don’t like her. She’s always stuck in this high schooler mentality of “guess who fought who” and “omg so and so is sleeping with so and so’s ex”. And I’m out here talking about insurance and mortgages. Idk I just feel like I’m talking to one of the kids I teach when I talk to her. I have to stop her from oversharing ya know? Idk I’m lost. I just feel like my mother did what she always does and made my newborns moment all about herself. And I did not care for it one bit. Am I the asshole?

Hi all. I am suspecting that I deal with endo or if it's just ya know, painful periods. But I wondered if anyone else dealt with the symptoms I've been having, such as: insane bloating, digestive issues, cramp pain that radiates to other parts of the body, heavy bleeding that has ton of tissue in it, and even ovary pain. I was on birth control for 14 years but have now been off the pill for 2 years. My sister has endo but she only found out while being pregnant. And I've been dealing with PCOS for 16 years now. I try to mask the pain, but days like today make me want to cry when I am in so much physical pain that eating or drinking hurts. Not to mention, it really triggers my gender dysphoria as I'm nonbinary.
I just wondered if these were symptoms others deal with and if they are indeed endo symptoms.
What makes me sad too is that I was in the right steps to get a procedure done but then I lost my job and health insurance back in March :c

MANY THINGS ARE HAPPENING IN TODAY'S GEOPOLITICS. TENSIONS IN THE MIDDLE EAST, RUSSIA-UKRAINE WAR, ISRAEL-HAMAS WAR. (More conflicts with Iran, even Taiwan strait crisis, the dangers of AI and about Korea, China, Cuba, Venezuela, Africa.)
Between past and present, the series demonstrated a mysterious ability to stay one step ahead of the news
For all his scrapes, personal losses, and absurdly urgent calls, Jack Bauer, the tough, tough-talking counterterrorism agent played by Kiefer Sutherland on Fox's 24, had a relatively quiet life compared to Carrie Mathison, the resilient , but almost always deeply wounded (and, not coincidentally, bipolar) CIA agent played by Claire Danes in Showtime's Homeland, which ends after an impressive succession of eight seasons.
Each in their own way, Jack and Carrie came to represent the pressing global crises of their times. 24 premiered weeks after the September 2001 terrorist attacks and the drumbeat of war, at a moment that could be considered shockingly inappropriate (the first episode opened with a woman installing a bomb inside a plane) or too targeted solely at the United States. American viewers found they could project many of their anxieties about national security onto the series, which acted as an adrenaline rush, expressed in increasingly twisted (and less plausible) twists.
In its eighth and final season, ‘Homeland’ focuses on the two main characters
It was harder to find this catharsis in Homeland, but it made the series much better and more relevant. The defeats suffered by its characters (particularly Claire Danes as Carrie and Mandy Patinkin as Saul Berenson, Carrie's intelligence consultant and mentor) made Homeland more believable as the 21st century's real-life war on terror dragged on and on.
The bully look of Jack Bauer and his fictional Counterterrorism Unit portrayed in the 9/11 era gave way, in Homeland, to a beleaguered and politically paralyzed CIA, seen through the distortions of an agent's justifiable paranoia.
Carrie Mathison's story should not be interpreted as a sequel to Jack Bauer's trajectory (although both series had the same executive producer, Howard Gordon). Still, from the first season of Homeland it was very clear that Carrie would advance into much more complex and dark territory than that left by Jack - a time that goes roughly back to the American military operation that killed Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden in May 2011 until President Donald Trump's impeachment hearings in 2019, an era in which the intelligence sector was first praised, then vilified, and finally punished with dismissal by the White House.
Homeland's prescience anticipated many cases of dishonest conduct by intelligence officials, who are always plagued by executive ineptitude, which the series treated as a chronic condition of successive presidents.
Co-created and meticulously overseen by executive producer and writer Alex Gansa (and adapted from an Israeli TV series), Homeland began as a riveting thriller about the trustworthiness of a Marine recently rescued from prisoner of war status, Sergeant Nicholas Brody (Damian Lewis).
While the country celebrated Brody as a war hero, Carrie worked to find out if he had converted to Islamic terrorism. Seven seasons later, Homeland had another script: Carrie, who had spent months in a Russian prison, without access to her psychiatric medications, was now distrusted by her colleagues for a whole series of reasons, including the possibility that she was a Russian spy. .
Between past and present, Homeland has demonstrated an uncanny knack for staying one step ahead of the news. The plot was obsessed with online Russian propaganda and far-right mayhem at the same time the country was beginning to see (and ignore) the strings tied to various puppets.
Now, in the final season, Homeland focuses on the long-awaited peace agreement between the United States and the Taliban. The American president (Beau Bridges) traveled to Afghanistan to seal the deal, but was killed when his military helicopter crashed - an event designed to look like the Taliban had shot down the aircraft.
Defying her CIA supervisors, in the last few episodes Carrie did everything she could to find (and then lose) the helicopter's black box, which could prove that the crash was an accident. We are once again at the point where Homeland has always thrived: a world on the brink, with tensions rising between>! the United States and Pakistan!< and many men determined not to listen to a woman they all think is not right in the head. A recap of the entire Homeland story arc could simply say, “Despite everything, she moved on.”
Like many early fans, I tried to be one of those viewers who gave up on 'Homeland,' but I never succeeded. I admired rather than criticized the series' twists and turns (you can't say “crazy”, given its commitment to portraying Carrie's mental illness). Homeland was an unusual study in the art of the mid-season course correction, inventing surprising and provocative solutions to the narrative alleys it had run into. Chief among them was Carrie's decision in season seven to relinquish custody of her daughter — the only TV mom I can think of whose solution to the work-life balance dilemma was to stop being a mom. It was a painful and powerful commentary on the chaotic state of the world, hers and ours.
When it comes to series that are so relevant, the best ones always leave one question: who or what will take their place?
What kind of contemporary hero would be the natural successor to Jack Bauer or Carrie Mathison? And what will be the focus of your mission? Who or what will be your enemy - domestic terrorism? Vladimir Putin? Climate change deniers?
Could it be, perhaps, an FBI agent combating American hate crimes and fake news, in a series about a divided nation, rotting from the inside? (Homeland even touched on this subject.) Or a series about a kind of special operations squad of former diplomats, tasked with restoring the global damage caused by a certain government?
A series about an epidemiologist fighting disinformation campaigns? About a cybersecurity expert, even if viewers don't really like series about people sitting in front of a computer? (Homeland, unfortunately, killed its most promising spin-off potential: Max Piotrowski, Carrie's loyal computer technician, an increasingly hardened and dedicated soul, played by Maury Sterling).
Will our next Jack or Carrie be some kind of deranged hacker, like Rami Malek in Sam Esmail's Mr. Robot? Or the betrayed and mentally manipulated therapists and soldiers from another of Esmail's series, the conspiratorial Homecoming, which returns next month?
None of the above, I imagine. Like the world itself, the mission is now more open and dangerous than ever. The character who gets the task is doomed to be tortured, literally and figuratively.

I'm two weeks post op today and I just feel useless. I was so active, I (kinda) worked at a barn for 6 hours a day, I could go non-stop but now all I do is sit around. I hate it.
Probably what makes me feel so bad is my barn went to a show and I'm seeing all my friends doing amazing with their horses and I don't even get to see "my" horses!
Even while I type this I know I should give myself a break, but it's so hard. I tried to go on a walk yesterday and I felt fine while walking but as soon as I got home I flared up, am I doing it wrong? Maybe I'm so used to chronic pain I can't feel my pelvic area until I'm resting and thinking about it.
I'm so done healing, I want to go back to my barn and see "my" horses and ride until my legs fall off!
I don't want to be patient, I'm so tired of sitting around. I can't even lift my cats to cuddle!
My pathology didn't even come back with Adenomyosis so what if I'm recovering for nothing? I don't regret it, my uterus needed yeeting, but what if it doesn't help?
I'm so tired, my legs hurt from not doing anything, and my muscles will easily decay (I might've forgot the term) and I'll have to build back up, but I don't want to. I want to be done!
Just a rant, I'm sure many of you have felt the same, thank you for being a safe place

This will be wordy and complicated so you may only wish to read it if you’ve found yourself as inexplicably captivated by this entire mess as I am. This is my current working theory, and I don’t claim that it’s entirely accurate or factual It’s just my theory and I am open to corrections, additions, or counter arguments. (No, I am not overly proud of how I know some of these things. I reactivated Instagram and rejoined Reddit after years of abstaining from social media just to further this little investigation/obsession. Hyperfixation is a real bitch sometimes.)
Taylor’s team would’ve been aware of her impending breakup with Joe and relationship with Matty Healy long before those things were public knowledge. With the Eras tour set to start up in March of 2023, her team would’ve been actively, aggressively plotting to address any potential negativity or fallout from the situation, especially with so much riding on this tour. Preemptive damage control would’ve been in absolute overdrive because of the timing of it all. Speaking of timing, the early months of 2023 were a big moment for Travis Kelce. The Kelce brothers were about to face off in the Super Bowl and the media was saturated with them. All the Kelces have mentioned the attention and opportunities they were receiving during that time, including Donna. Scott Swift is a huge football fan, especially of the Eagles, and he was already at least acquainted with or had a casual friendship with Andy Reid. It's very likely that Taylor "dating" Travis Kelce was Scott Swift’s idea. During my “research” on this entire situation, I’ve come across multiple remarks about Taylor’s team traveling to/having meetings in KC in March of 2023. I am guessing that Taylor was so in love with Matty that she put her foot down with her team (including Scott) and wouldn’t participate in their plans regarding Travis at that time. Instead, she likely insisted on the April 8^th announcement of the breakup with Joe and doubled down on her relationship with Matty, mouthing loving messages to him and making her speech on stage about how happy she was and how her life finally made sense, being seen with him repeatedly and allowing him to be seen carrying bags into her apartment, etc.
I don’t know if Taylor or her team anticipated exactly how bad the publicity surrounding Matty would be or how intensely negative the response would be from a very vocal portion of her fanbase. I feel like most of us know about the narratives that ramped up against Matty, the SpeakUpNow letter, Swifties threatening to sell their concert tickets, Matty and his people receiving death threats, just all the BAD MESS, so I won’t make this even longer by going too deep into it. I have no doubt Taylor and Matty were experiencing a ton of pressure and emotional whiplash during all of that, which ultimately led to a painful and traumatic breakup for them. And that brings us right back to the suspended Travis Kelce plan. Taylor had shows in KC on July 7^th and 8^th of 2023. A couple weeks after that we get the cute little story from Travis on his podcast about trying to give Taylor a friendship bracelet with his number on it at her show (I have never and will never believe that bs for a single moment, no matter what). According to them, they start hanging out shortly after that, which is likely true. Ryan Reynolds apparently started following Travis on Instagram in early August so that timing checks out. (I could go off into a whole thing about Travis Kelce and Patrick Mahomes joining Ryan in the F1 Alpine deal, but this is already just SO MUCH). Next thing you know, we get Taylor appearing at a Chiefs game on September 24^th and it’s on from there. According to some Chiefs players, Taylor had already attended a game or two unnoticed and unmentioned (supposedly in the owners’ suite) prior to that September 24^th game. That’s interesting to note because of all it implies, such as how much the Chiefs/Hunts may have had to do with this whole deal between Taylor and Travis or just how it was clearly a choice with big motivations behind it for her to be seen at that 9/24 game.
Everything then goes AS PLANNED AND ORCHESTRATED for a few months. The public is captivated by the Taylor and Travis showmance and not even thinking much about Joe Alwyn or Matty Healy or any of the negative publicity surrounding Taylor anymore, the Chiefs and the entire NFL are profiting enormously, the popularity of the New Heights podcast is skyrocketing and catching the attention of major networks, every member of the Kelce family and Travis’ inner circle sees their public profile rising and more and more opportunities coming their way, the Eras tour is a history making success and so is the movie, the Chiefs pull off another Super Bowl win…it’s just a glorious, fantastic time when the whole plan is coming together and everyone remotely involved or connected to Taylor and Travis is benefiting and profiting beyond their wildest dreams. During all of this, Taylor is obviously working on TTPD, and everything connected to it, but I guess no one on Taylor’s team is too concerned about that because it keeps her motivated and pacified and it’s only going to make them all even more money so everything is just great, great, great. BUT THEN Taylor shows up at the Grammys drunk, making an ass of herself and announces the release. Now everyone is maybe back to thinking and talking about Taylor and Joe a bit, but it’s still ok because at least they aren’t talking about Matty and the Taylor and Travis show is still getting tons of attention, Travis is getting acting opportunities, all the Kelces are still benefiting in various ways; it’s all still good.
Then TTPD is released, and everything starts to take a turn. People are still talking, but now it’s mostly about Taylor and Matty or about Taylor and Travis, but only about what a great boyfriend Travis is to Taylor and what a perfect couple they are and their hypothetical impending nuptials and future potential offspring, etc. It probably doesn’t help that it’s off-season and there are no Chiefs games where Travis can shine with his football skills to try to bring some of the spotlight back to anything other than him maybe being the future Mr. Taylor Swift. Despite what many Swifties theorize about Travis, I do not for one moment think that’s his aim in life. This man wants FAME. His own mother repeatedly states how much he loves being the center of attention. And sure, he gets a lot of attention right now, but I have a feeling this is not panning out to be what he was hoping for when he signed up for all of this. His podcast is doing great, but its enormous surge in popularity is largely due to Swifties tuning in, hoping to hear a mention of Taylor (yes, I know it was already a very popular podcast – we wouldn’t be here if Travis Kelce had been an unsuccessful nobody, obviously). Everywhere he goes, everything he does, it’s all about Taylor now. Even at KELCE Jam, he was inundated with questions about Taylor. That might not be an issue except this is a man who already had a very big ego and desire to be hyper famous before Taylor Swift entered the picture. It may have seemed like a golden opportunity initially, but I think reality may be setting in for Travis and Co. and this may not have been the best deal for them in the long run. But the Chiefs and the NFL are deep into it now as well and l bet Travis has pressures on him that I would not even want to imagine coming from that side.
Meanwhile we have Taylor out here messing up the plans again, sending secret messages and singing surprise songs to Matty Healy during her sold-out concert tour where she’s added an entire set to imitate Matty and heighten the speculation and discussion surrounding their big “cosmic, tortured romance.” I feel sure she’s still in love with Matty and is absolutely in contact with him. Logically, their friendships and professional circles are far too intertwined for me to believe they would not be in any form of contact throughout all of this. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if they were already back together. I think it’s highly possible they’ve even been back together since shortly after their breakup last summer and that likely helped fuel the big push to launch the “relationship” between her and Travis the world. That’s another post for another time though and I still haven’t fully drawn my conclusions about that. Very long story short, I think they are all in a great big mess right now and things are taking a toll, and cracks are showing. I think this may all come crashing down around a lot of people very soon, but I’m betting Taylor Swift comes out on top no matter what somehow. Some people are just lucky like that.

AITA for cutting my brother off after he chose the mother of his child over his family? A little back story. I, 30F, have been taking care of my brother, 31M, off and on for the past 7 years. I have let him live with me and my husband every time we have gotten a new place and paid him to babysit my child. We have never asked him to help pay bills or pay rent.
About 4 years ago we moved into a new house and after 2 years of living in the new house my brother got a new girlfriend while he was living with us and ended up getting her pregnant. He ended up moving out and living with his GF and his GFs brother. They had a falling out with his GFs family. My brother had multiple cars and an RV on our property. We offered them to stay on the property in the RV and have them pay rent. From the moment they had moved into the RV his GF would just talking bad about her brother and his wife saying that they kept her stuff and wouldn't return it and called her sister in law a bad mother. I had called her out and told her that I would take her over to her brothers house to get the rest of her stuff because I was friends with her brother and his wife. She would automatically come up with excuses as to why she can't go over there or that they won't let her and they are never home.
I noticed that my brothers GF loved to play the victim and blow everything out of proportion. Everything was always everyone else's fault and never her fault. She twisted every story she had in her favor and made the other person look bad. I even recorded her conversation one time and sent it to her sister in law cause it was the last straw for me I take full accountability for everything I did and the messages relayed back and forth but do not apologize for it. I tried to be nice to her and like her. I even let her move onto my property and made dinner for her and her kids every night while my husband and brother worked night shifts. She never did the dishes or helped clean up. After she had her baby her and my brother moved into my parents house.
After a couple of months they got their own place. I took in her dog because she wasn't a service animal and we agreed that I would be the one to keep her. They had left a lot of their belongings on my property. Her and her sister in law ended up talking and sorting their issues out but in the process I'm the one who got blamed for all the shit that my brothers GF had said about her sister in law. I told her sister in law that she could tell her I told her things but she went as far as telling her everything that was said. I was not the only person that told her what was said or what was going around I'm just the only person that was blamed for all of it. My brothers GF ended up yelling at me for it and saying that everything was my fault and the reason everyone, including her mom, was mad at her was because of me. I never once lied about anything I told the truth when I was asked what she was saying. My brothers GF ended up cutting me off and I did the same because I was over all the drama that she brought everywhere she went. I still had contact with my brother.
One night I had gotten a call from my brother that him and his GF had a huge fight and he needed helping getting all of his stuff out of the apartment. I packed up my kids and took them with me to help him pack up all of his stuff from her house. When I arrived my mom was there talking to the GF on the couch trying to calm her down cause she was crying and freaking out. At the time she was babysitting someone else's kid and that kid was crying. She was just ignoring him and having a little self pitty party on the couch with my mom. I ended up picking up that baby and comforting him and then handing him to the GF to help my brother finish packing. My brother had asked me to get garbage bags under the sink to pack his stuff in. As we were packing I had to get more bags but when I went to get more there was none. The Gf had taken them and hidden them. When we finally finished the Gf started freaking out and yelling at my brother and then yelled at me. I flipped out and tried to fight her but was pulled out by my brothers friend, not my best move but she was just yelling at me and getting closer to me. The GF ended up posting on Facebook about what happened accusing me of stealing her makeup and clothes, I have my own makeup and gave her half the stuff she has and we aren't the same size in clothes, and leaving the door wide open for her kids to freeze. Her kids were upstairs in their room no where near the door that we kept closed unless we were taking stuff out of the house.
Fast forward and she is claiming I'm keeping all her stuff from her including the items she left on my property from when they moved in and keeping her dog from her. I told him that she isn't getting the dog back cause she surrendered the dog to us and she is more than welcome to come and get her stuff of my property and we don't want her stuff on our property, it's been a year and it's still on my property. She even called the cops on my parents for because they wouldn't give her her stuff out of their storage container right before the cops showed up she was screaming and yelling at my parents and as soon as a cop showed up she just started crying and saying they won't let her get her stuff. My parents told her that she could have her stuff back when they get back the phone that my parents gave her cause she broke hers. They were still paying on the phone and asked that she return it so that they wouldn't get charged she never did and ran the phone bill up to 1500.
My brother decided to fix things with her and asked us to give the dog back again. At first we refused but in the end we decided to give her back to be the bigger person my husband ASKED in return, we never forced her to do it and we were already planning on giving the dog back. that his GF publicly apologize to my family about what she said about us. She ended up posting on Facebook again apologizing. That is when we told my brother we want nothing to do with them. We were over all the drama and the blame game. She tried to tarnish our reputation and lie about the kind of people we were. Now my brother is saying that we screwed him over and we owe his GF an apology for "making" her publicly apologize on Facebook just to get her dog back. We still have her stuff on our property and the RV and one of my brothers cars. My brother chose her over everyone in his life who has tried to help him. He only ever contacts my parents when he wants or need something.
So AITA for cutting him off after all the drama and his GF trying to make us out to be bad people? Sorry for the long post. I can clarify or answer questions if needed. It's kind of all over the place.

My (25) girlfriend (22) is a college student finishing up at her university. She has this ex who was among her 3 other roommates, and they’ve known each other for 4 years. They dated for one year, and then after breaking up continued their friendship. We have been talking for 7 months and officially dating for 2. I came into the relationship knowing she was friends with her ex, but realized it was not something i can be comfortable with. Since they live together, they hung out almost every day, they go to coffee shops together, they go out to eat, they go on walks, long drives, and used to lay in bed together smoking and watching movies until I brought up how that’s not okay and it hasn’t happened again. There’s been multiple occasions where I would be talking to her about something between us and she just turned around and brings it up to him for his input. It genuinely hurts me and every time I bring it up to her she brushes it off and says she gets it. Almost every single time her and I are together they are texting, and she has even asked me not to bring stuff up and his stuff around him because she doesn’t want him to be upset. I have brought him up countless times to her and told her how much it bothers me, and she only gives me reassurance that she’s not into him anymore and claims that he’s not into her because “he said so”. Mind you, he gets bothered when he hears about her and I being intimate and gets upset when she’s with me and doesn’t answer him. He was moving out soon, so I told myself I can suck it up until he leaves and it’ll bring me relief. He moves 4h away, and still every time we’re together they’re still texting. Two weeks ago he moved out, and now he’s back in town for the week and the morning of the first day possible they’re hanging out and “running errands” after she brings him food. I brought up something about it making me uncomfortable, and she snaps at me telling me that it’s starting to piss her off how often I bring him up. All of my friends are telling me I need to respect myself and set a boundary that she shouldn’t still have that emotional connection with him and are saying that it sounds like an emotional affair. I brought it up to her and told her that she needs to either cut him off and move on, or break up with me. She tells me that I’m being toxic, I’m not seeing it from her perspective, I’m inconsiderate, I’m being unfair to her and him, and her family is saying that I’m manipulative and will only be more toxic in the future, and that I’m not meeting her halfway. She goes on to bring up how my ex’s have cheated on me, were on tinder, would ghost me for weeks, and that she’s been nothing but kind. She says she removed him everywhere, and continues to bring up how hurt he is and how I’m in the wrong, and how I’m all the above. We haven’t really had any other issues except for her ex. With my history of emotional trauma I told her that I absolutely cannot be in a relationship where my s/o is still connected with their ex. And even though she no longer talks to him, things have still been very tense between us and she has not stopped bringing me into how I’m being unfair and toxic. What do I do? Was I in the wrong? My friends are telling me that if it’s not something she’s willing to do that I shouldn’t settle for that. I don’t want to lose her, but if I just sit by and let things be the way they are it’s only going to fester and continue eating away at me more and more.
TLDR: I asked my gf to cut off her emotional support ex, her family says I’m being toxic and manipulative.

Long post ahead so bear with me.
I’m 24F dating my 24M boyfriend for 4 years. Overall I’d say our relationship has been pretty good - no serious issues until now, all of our fights have been over his tendency to be moody or passive aggressive.
Some background information: I’m on the neurodivergent spectrum and suffer from depressive episodes, but I’m high functioning because I don’t want it to affect my professional life or anyone else but me. A side effect of that has been my tendency to isolate myself from everyone, which I’ve done for the majority of our relationship - sometimes I didn’t interact with anyone at all except for my family and my bf. I haven’t gone a single day in the last 6 years without any contact with him.
I realized that this wasn’t healthy so this year I decided to try and come out of my shell and build more friendships. It’s a bit hard but I’ve been working on it slowly, and one of my newfound friends was one of my bf’s friends, J (23M), as well - they had been friends for about a year at this point. We hit it off pretty well and as someone who’s really bad at friendships I enjoyed talking to J, but it was strictly platonic - nothing out of the ordinary, exactly like every friendship I have/have ever had. Please keep in mind I did not prioritize interactions I had with J or anyone else over ones I had with my bf.
While my bf initially really liked J, around the time we started becoming friends he started to sour on J until he eventually just started icing him because he didn’t like anything about him all of a sudden, and the only reason he could come up with was “J was annoying.” He also told me he found it “weird” that he chose to be friends with his friend’s gf (confused about that one because I met some of my closest friends through him/his circles). I reassure him that there’s nothing weird going on and my friendship with J is, once again, platonic. In all honesty, I also didn’t really think much of it because I didn’t find J to be annoying and my bf has had a pattern of disliking some of my friends for no apparent reason, even if he’d never talked to them. (My friends are all just goofy nerds so I never really got why.)
3 weeks ago my bf tells me he thinks J is trying to sleep with me but he has no evidence or thoughts to support this. I’m obviously shocked and once again reassure him that I’ve never picked up sleazy vibes from J and he’s never been inappropriate with me. I’ve had really creepy encounters before so I’m always hyperalert about these kinds of things and if I do get those vibes I shut them down immediately.
Onto the main clown show: last week my bf texts me angry that I’ve been lying to him and that I’ve been repeatedly gaslighting him into thinking my friendship with J was normal, but after a conversation with one of his other friends he’s convinced that he’s right and it’s inappropriate for J to be friends with me. Then he goes ahead and texts J to stop texting me and accuses him, amongst other things, of being a creep. To the surprise of absolutely no one, turns out this scenario that my bf created of J secretly trying to steal me away from him was completely false and J is both hurt and pissed about it. He tells him that he’s only ever thought of him as a good friend and he never had ill intentions towards me but he cannot in good conscience be ok with this and subsequently cuts both of us off.
For obvious reasons, I’m extremely pissed about this and we have a blowout fight over it, because turns out I don’t like anyone messing with my friendships like that and falsely accusing someone who’s done nothing wrong to you of being a creep is a shitty thing to do. He genuinely didn’t see anything wrong about what he did and “he did what he had to because he was desperate to get J out of my life and I left him no other choice.” He also told me that if he woke up to find out I did something to cause his friends to cut him off, he’d assume I had a good reason to do so and everything that happened with J was for the best. He screamed at me, accused me of being disrespectful and thinking of him as an insecure loser, called me a whole slew of hurtful things, that I’m disgusting and make him feel worthless and that he fucking hates me repeatedly. It overall just turned into a really ugly mess.
The next morning he was calmer and apologized for the hurtful things he said and that he didn’t mean any of it. He also admitted what he did was wrong, that he overreacted out of paranoia, and that he’s sorry he hurt J and ruined my friendship with him. He admitted that I was right, there wasn’t anything weird going on like he thought and he apologized for messing with my personal life.
The issue is I’m having a hard time processing all of this. First of all this couldn’t have happened at a worse time because I have a lot of personal issues going on that I’m incredibly stressed out about and he’s well aware of that. He’s also aware that I’ve always struggled with making friends, and now any urge I’ve had to do that is gone. I can’t get over him saying I make him feel worthless because I’ve dedicated so much and sacrificed so much to be with him and make him happy every way I could. I’ve never and still don’t prioritize anyone else over him. Having your boyfriend of nearly 5 years tell you he doesn’t trust you and despises you is also pretty fucking shitty because I’ve never done anything distrustful or been anywhere near as hurtful as he has been to me. His apologies sound hollow and lukewarm to me because at the end of the day, he got exactly what he wanted. And I’m left to suck it up and deal with it.
I don’t know what to do and I feel like I’m alone backed into a corner and I’m about to break with all the other things going on in my life. I’m sorry if this post isn’t very coherent but I’m a little tipsy right now. I just feel so violated and I’ve never felt more horrible or alone in my life than I do now and I’ve never not felt like that my entire life. I don’t know and can’t tell if I’m the one who messed up here and what I should do. Any advice, harsh or gentle is appreciated.
TLDR: bf incorrectly assumed mutual friend was trying to sleep with me and subsequently went nuclear on both me and friend. Am hurt and don’t know how or if I should resolve this.

Alright, so… I (18F) kinda made this reddit account just to get some feedback about this situation, since I’m too ashamed to ask my parents. The girl in question is 16, and is probably one of the most annoying people I’ve ever met…
(TLDR: This girl I was pretending to be friends with in High School obsessively fantasized about murdering someone for an entire semester, is overbearing as a person, interrogates people on a daily basis and is nosy, injects herself into drama that isn’t her own, throws temper tantrums when she doesn’t get her way, constantly touches people and makes unwarranted comments about girl’s bodies, asked me to draw CP for her, and MADE FUN OF HER SUICIDAL BROTHER. And I wrote a hate-letter telling her that all of this stuff is a problem, but now I feel bad about it because I think she might actually have mental issues. It’s a really wild ride and a long story, so if you choose to read it, you should expect to be here for a while. And it’s High School drama, so I’ll try to discard the boring details.)
At the beginning of this year, I ended up in a small Sports Medicine class with literally 8 students total in it. That made things quiet, which gave us some room to start talking and getting to know each other after the teacher was done with the lesson and we had our small hands-on tests and assignments out of the way. (The classes took about 20 minutes every day. Really quick and easy. Laid back. It met curriculum requirements actually, because there wasn’t constant bullshit from other students making the lesson longer.). There’s this girl, who… I’ll call her Storm. You’ll find out why. Storm quickly became the most annoying person in the class. Any time she talked, she didn’t have anything interesting to say, but just kept going on and on and on endlessly. It was annoying, but we just kinda played along to be nice. Well… Around a month into school, Storme started opening up and became comfortable talking about personal topics. She told us this story about how one of her other friends (I’ll call her Katie) “betrayed” her the previous year, and then went on to talk about how much she hated Katie and didn’t care if she lived or died. (Honestly, Katie’s offense was miniscule. At most, she replaced Storm with someone else as her best friend. You know… Regular High School drama that wasn’t that deep. I honestly forgot all of what Katie did because it was just so miniscule.) Then Storme started saying ludicrous stuff like “I hope she falls into a volcano”, or “I hope she gets eaten by sharks falling from the sky. Like Sharknado.”. But like… She kept saying it constantly, out loud in class. She ranted about how she wanted Katie to get kidnapped by the Mafia, be flown up to the moon, and be dropped into a black hole to become “Katie-spaghetti”. It was honestly really funny at first, so me and a few other people in the class joined in a little bit and added our own stupid, childlike scenarios. (Katie has a reputation for being… A slut. That’s why it was funny at first.) But then after this schtick got old, Storm just kept going and going and going… She ranted about Katie until it physically hurt to hear her talk anymore. She was back to being annoying and boring again, but it was worse this time because it was obvious that she was trying to re-kindle our intrigue without realizing that she should move on to something else. Instead of assessing herself, she just kept yapping until everyone rolled their eyes every time she opened her mouth, because we knew she would just keep going on and on about all of the stupid ways she wanted Katie to die. Even the damn teacher told her to stop doing that, but she never listened and the teacher eventually just gave up telling her off (And honestly, I think the teacher started zoning her out.). Katie then gradually started to get more morbid with the things she was saying, to the point where I genuinely considered calling the cops and getting this girl some grippy socks. She talked until she became red-faced, started tweaking, and laughed in a neurotic, nervous angry way while she started wringing out her trembling hands. She genuinely looked and sounded unhinged, and what didn’t help was that she started saying stuff like “There aren’t metal detectors in this school, right?”, and “I wish I wasn’t such a good person, because if I wasn’t, I’d be acting on my impulse to cave her skull in the next time I see her. One of these days I’m going to snap and then just do it..” …Yeah, so I was genuinely considering getting the police involved in this because of those two sentences. Thankfully Katie is safe and sound to this day and Storm never acted on these “impulses”. I’m so glad it worked out that I didn’t have to call the cops, but I was seriously worried for a minute… One of my other friends in that class, (I’ll call him Mark), eventually kinda snapped and called her out for being the annoying piece of crap she is. Quickly, Storm and Mark started getting into arguments just about every day and started throwing things like wads of wrapping-tape at each other, and I was becoming worried that they were going to start actually full-on fighting. It doesn’t sound logical in hindsight, but I ended up taking it upon myself to step in and start acting friendly toward her and listening to her (or pretending to listen to her) just to draw her attention away from him. Pretty soon she started talking mostly to me, and this was intentionally done on my part so that the other people in the class could relax a little bit and start doing whatever on their phones and zone her out instead of having to pretend to listen in agony. Ultimately, it was an exchange that benefited everyone, because after Storme got that angry energy out of her, she shut up for the day. She continued to talk about Katie, but mostly to me. She talked about this topic endlessly, her words getting increasingly violent until Christmas break. Yeah… 5 months. She ranted about the ways she wanted Katie to die for 5 whole months. Months. But then when she was done ranting, she finally shut up. …Oh God, the silence sounded like angels singing. I didn’t even really retain any of the information she spewed onto me, but holy crap, when it was over it was like heaven on Earth. So that’s what I did – I acted like the “lightning rod” for this Storm of a person until it passed (kinda). She wrote a note to Katie explaining “You hurt me really badly, but I’m a Christian so I forgive you and I hope you the best”... As if she didn’t rant about her for 5 months straight. Make it make sense. But enough about that. Here’s where my fuck ups began. I gave Storm my number and we quickly started saying that we were friends, though I didn’t actually like her at all and just wanted to keep the peace. We had a few things in common, but I still didn’t like her whatsoever. She continued to rant to me nonstop about Katie, even over text, and I was burnt out listening after a while. So… To dampen the impact of this girl’s obsessive ramblings, I started sending her pictures of my drawings. (I’m an artist). I had characters that I liked to draw that are ocs of an anime fandom (all of which are underage), and she seemed to calm down a bit and hyper-focus on them. She even has a folder in her phone’s gallery completely dedicated to storing my artwork. That’s great and all, but… One day, the topic of Wattpad came up in one of our conversations. I, myself, was one of those cringy Wattpad 12 year olds who made the most illiterate fanfictions ever to be conceived by a human being (They’ve long since been deleted. Thank God, those were awful.) Then… The topic of “Wattpad smut” came up, because I admitted that I used to read those because of the awful grammar and I thought it was funny. I still do sometimes, actually. The way people on Wattpad can’t write to save their lives is just hilarious. Like the stupid “Shrek x Donald Trump” ones are the ones that make me wheeze. I don’t take them seriously, and I love it when the author doesn’t take it seriously either. It’s hilarious. …But then this asshole said: “I don’t like to read bad grammar, it makes me mad. But I do like to read that type of content… For a different reason”. So uhh… That’s… Weird. But then she asked: “Have you found any… Good ones? Do you have any recommendations? Asking for a friend.” …FUCK NO. No thank you. Nope, I’m done. No jerkoff material for you, ma’am. Nope. You’re done. Seriously, I put down my phone for a little bit and went outside to go stare at some birds at the bird feeder until my sickness went away. I fell nauseous because of that (though in hindsight, that seems like an overreaction). When I came back, I didn’t answer that question and kinda skated past it, and that seemed to be the end of it. …But there is NEVER an end with Storm. She DID forget about the resolution to that conversation, but since we talked about smut to begin with, she started asking me some questions about my art. She asked if I had ever drawn p0rn in my life. Of course, I didn’t really admit to anything. I skated past it too, but then she said: “I think (character 1) and (character 2) are really cute together… Like… Really, really cute together.”. That’s great, she likes my characters… Cool, cool. And then my worst nightmare: “Have you ever drawn p0rn of them?” …Of course I didn’t, because that would be CP… Plus I’ve never thought of those characters as being “sexual”... They’re literally 14 and 15 years old. Then basically, she made an indirect “suggestion” for me to draw them together. I said fuck no. Hell fucking no. She tried to convince me to draw them “aged up”, but again I refused. She eventually dropped it, but since then, she passively talked about things of that nature… Like if she saw a guy she thought was cute, she’d tell me she thought he’s cute or hot or gorgeous or whatever and allude to -other- awkward desires that I didn’t want to know about. She put me off from drawing those characters ever again. I haven’t drawn them since and I don’t take my sketchbook to school anymore because I don’t want her to see my drawings and be reminded of that BS.
But enough about that… Storm is a church-going girl, and so she has a few church-going friends. (This also makes everything I’ve said before all the more ironic.). One day when I was transitioning from my 5th to 6th period, I saw her talking angrily to one of her church friends (I’ll call her Isabelle) outside the school building. Storm was accusing Isabelle of lying about smoking weed/vaping and drinking, and she seemed to be so interested in it that you’d think it had an impact on her personally. Isabelle denied doing that, and they eventually parted ways to go to class. I walked with Storm to 6th period (the Sports Medicine period), and I asked her why she was so damn interested in Isabelle’s habits. Know what she said? Storm said “I just don’t like liars.”... So let me get this straight: She thought she had the right to interrogate someone half to death because she just “doesn’t like liars”? Make that make sense. I’ve heard many stories about how Storm interrogates other people, too. If she sees a guy/girl’s name pop up on the screen of someone she knows, she’ll pester them until they give her one of two answers: either “I’ll tell you later”, or the actual answer. She’s done that to me too, in front of everyone in class. The thing that upsets me about this is that she claims to be “nosy”, but thinks it’s a positive attribute rather than an annoying one. She brags about being “nosy” sometimes.
And the sexual assault… Since we were in a sports medicine class, our projects involved a lot of hands-on things. That didn’t bother me by itself, but with Storm, it was a nightmare. This girl, in the process of strapping an ice bag to my thigh, called my thighs “small”, and said that I have a “beautiful body”. We also did shoulder stretching stuff the next week, and I happened to fall under her care while she stared into my eyes and made weird faces at me, all the while she made sound effects and made the process much more uncomfortable than it needed to be. One week, we ended up as partners again and she ended up wrapping my shoulder. This shoulder-wrap wasn’t an issue for me, but having her as a partner made it an issue. As expected, she made sound effects, but this time she stated the obvious as if it was new information that nobody would have ever suspected: “Wow, this is squishing your boobies huh?”... Emphasis on the word “boobies”. Jesus Fucking Christ, it was already awkward as hell before she even brought that up, why would she say something like that?? I didn’t even realize that until she brought it up. In fear of being subjected to her uncomfortable BS again and feeling violated, I texted her and told her that she’s been making me feel uncomfortable, and to please stop being so…. Weird. I get it’s an awkward thing to wrap up your classmate’s thigh, but that’s a moment to keep comments to yourself. Her response? “I’M SORRY I’M SORRY I’M SORRY I’M SORRY I’M SORRY I’M SORRY I’M SORRY I’M SORRY I’M SORRY-” Just… Stop it. I didn’t introduce the topic as a big deal and told her not to worry about it, but she kept apologizing for it nonstop. Just endlessly, like everything else. Even when I tried to change the subject to something else, she just kept apologizing for it practically until she went to bed. (She has a bedtime at 9:30… At 16 years old.) All of this stuff contributed to my overall hatred toward her. I don’t like her at all, and it’s a wonder I didn’t explode and insult her entire personality and deplorable behavior to her face (Meg Griffin style). Things are just so awkward and awful whenever she opens her mouth, and it just doesn't ever stop. But because of all of this, when it came time for my Senior prom, I decided to secretly invite one of my friends from that class as a plus one, and NOT Storm. I was worried that if I told her that to her face, I would all of a sudden be the new “Katie” in her conversations, because the infraction Katie did was so miniscule that it seemed to be less like a “betrayal” than what I did. (In hindsight, it was probably the other way around.) So… I just kept the whole thing to myself and so did the friend I took to prom (I’ll call her Beyonce. Because… She loves Beyonce.).

If this wasn’t bad enough, strap in because not even three weeks ago, Beyonce was doing her usual schtick of making fun of random things. She once made fun of cool whip and the entire state of Texas at the same time and somehow made it make perfect sense. She should really have a comedy show, I swear. But this time, Beyonce was making fun of the name “Gage”, saying “Why would anyone name their kid after a 12-gage shotgun?” and “People named Gage seem untrustworthy. I wouldn’t want to be near one in a zombie apocalypse, because he’d just feed me to those fuckers.”. Funny stuff. Storm then said “My brother’s name is Gage”, and in order to preserve the flow of the conversation (and also to tick her off a little, I’m ngl), Beyonce asked her: “Is your brother untrustworthy?” And then without a single millisecond wasted, she said, in a Disney Channel comedy fashion: “Welll… We can’t trust him with his own life, sooo…”.. And then she laughed as if it was funny. Like.. Rib-stitches type of laughing. ….So then the others (understandably) went quiet, which left only me and her talking for a moment after her laughter quieted down. She complained about how confused she is that nobody finds her joke funny, and said that her joke had the “perfect timing and everything”... So then my idiot ass decided to say what I was thinking at that moment: “You don’t seem to be taking it seriously. That’s your brother, but you don’t sound sympathetic at all.” She tried to “defend” herself, but Mark interjected into the conversation and changed the course of it entirely, which just left her to sit there in silence, pouting. I felt bad for that statement, so I apologized for it over text when I got home from school. Quickly, we erupted into an argument, (with me holding back), and she ended up saying “What does it matter to you? He’s not your brother. If Beyonce said that about her brother, you’d laugh. But when I do, it’s bad.”. Beyonce’s brother is 8 years old…. So no, that would be even worse. …So then I had to explain to her how human decency works, and how making fun of your s*icidal siblings isn’t funny whatsoever and how that joke could be considered to be in very poor taste, even for people who like dark humor. When me, Beyonce or Mark made “suicide” jokes, it was about OURSELVES and it was usually in a statement like “I don’t want to take a test next period, I’m gonna kms.”... …Storm ended up getting so mad that we weren’t having a conversation anymore; we were just throwing shit around. I told her that if she was being livestreamed at that moment, she’d be bashed on the whole internet for a week or so and be called “evil” for that joke. In hindsight I shouldn’t have said that, but my goal was just to tell her how insensitive others might perceive her comment to be. She said that it wasn’t my business to tell her how to feel about her own brother, but I wasn’t doing that at all, that wasn’t my angle whatsoever – I was just explaining what people find funny. I even said repeatedly that I wasn’t trying to tell her how to feel, and that I know comedy can help lighten situations, but somehow she forgot about that part. And then she went on this whole thing about ending every massive text block with “Not that it’s YOUR business, or anything” to snap at me, despite me being in the room at the time of the joke... So I ended the conversation right then and there because it was pointless to keep going and I really didn’t want to spend any more energy on her. The next day, I apologized to her again. I retracted my statements and told her that I was sorry for talking out of line. She accepted the apology, and things went back to “normal”. She forgot about it, but I didn’t. …So here are the reasons why I feel bad, before I delve into the contents of the “hate letter” I wrote to her. Here’s a list of my crimes: 

I pretended to be her friend for an entire school year. - I hid the fact that I was going to prom with Beyonce from her, and then lied to her face repeatedly whenever she asked if I went to prom or not. - I got into business that wasn’t my own and criticized her. - I wrote a hate-letter to her that I directed her to read at home on the last day of school.
…Here’s why I feel bad: Storm doesn’t seem to be emotionally intelligent and is unable to control her mouth whenever she feels strong emotions. She talks nonstop about her second cousin’s friend’s pet hamster’s wife’s sister’s drama, hoping we’ll find something funny or interesting or impressive, while seeming unable to understand that she needs to change her tune. All she wants is to be listened to and understood, but nobody can and nobody truly wants to. She feigns confidence and goes overboard with compliments in the hopes of catching the attention of people who want to be friends with her. She’s not used to change and is very naive, to the point where (just yesterday) she quit her job at a fast food restaurant after only the first day of working there. For the longest time she didn’t have access to the internet, so she doesn’t really have a means to connect with other people through sharing videos or memes or whatever. …I feel like a bad person because I knowingly, intentionally played into all of this just for the pathetic reason of making her shut up in class. It’s despicable what I did, and I’m beating myself up for it every day. I was just originally going to leave the school, block her and never talk to her ever again in my life, but when she made that joke about her brother, I decided (stupidly) to take it upon myself to be the bearer of bad news. I gave her a letter. Within the “hate letter”, it isn’t actually hate, per se. It’s more like… A report on the behavior she needs to fix, as well as an admission to my lies over the course of this whole year. I told her the awful truth. I told her about everything I mentioned in this post and tried to keep it “professional”, though I did end up going as far as to say “you have all of the attributes of an obnoxious piece of stale bread”........... And what’s worse is… I told her to read it on the last day of school, and my reasoning is pathetic at best. I told her to read it on the last day of school because I didn’t want her to burden the class with her nonstop ranting about me, since she, Mark and Beyonce are sophomores and I’m the only senior in the “friend group”, which means that I left the school an entire week earlier than them. I’ve been intentionally delaying her pain and still talking to her over text acting like things are “normal” so that she doesn’t read it early, knowing damn well that on that last day of school, my words are going to hurt her so badly that she might not be able to recover for a while. In the letter, I told her that by the time she reads it, I would have already blocked her because I don’t want any more conversation with her due to me feeling so bad and having nothing more to say. If the plan goes right, she’ll read it on May 23rd, and on that day I will block her.

I feel awful for all of this. I feel like a monster for this. It’s painful knowing that I’m going to cause her pain and that I planned when it’s going to happen, but at the same time I feel like she deserves it. But at the same time, I know damn well that it wasn’t my place to do that. I should have left everything alone. Nobody I can talk to irl would even hear me out; they’d just stop at the words “hate letter”, which means my only option is to seek advice from people on Reddit. Do my motives for doing things make sense? Am I actually a bad person for this? Am I the asshole? Does she deserve what she’s getting? 

Edit 1: I removed some asterisks (they're annoying).