About a year ago, I started having a change in my bowel habits. I went from going 2-3/day with normal solid stool, to 8-20/day with loose/yellow/floating/mucous combination stool. No matter what I eat I continue to go straight to the bathroom. My stomach pains were unbearable at times and I have a constant fear of not making it to the bathroom on time every single day. I could not go out to eat with family. There was no eating before going anywhere. No trips anywhere, nothing. I finally went to the doctor about 3 months in. I went to my primary care to get a referral for a GI doctor. At my primary care appointment, they drew labs to check my white blood cell count, electrolytes, gallbladder labs, and even checked to see if my thyroid was causing any of this. Then they hit me with giving them a stool sample to check for C-diff… I am a nurse and knew what types of stool C-diff can look like, and i DEFINITELY know what it smells like. I knew I didn’t have it and I never turned in my stool sample. I just thought it was a total waste of time. My other labs came back normal, everything did. She referred me to a GI doctor and the earliest appointment was 3 months away. I waited and continued to try and deal with this completely awful new way of life. I changed my diet to absolutely no sugar, no gluten, no dairy, and high protein/fiber STRICT diet…. This of course did nothing for me. The time has come and I go to the GI appointment, finally. I went on to tell them all of my issues I had been having for the past 6 months. There was the stomach pain, change in bowl habits, constantly having to have a bowel movement, the cololook of the stool, and the 10 pounds of weight loss that had taken place since this has started. They checked the same labs on me as my primary care doc did, did an ultrasound of my abdomen/pelvis, and gave me a stool testing kit. I told them I didn’t have C-diff, but they wanted to check anyways. They also scheduled for me to have colonoscopy and an upper GI scope. The only problem was that the earliest possible appointment was 6 months away…. I begged for them to find a way for it to be pushed up because I had started becoming depressed, developed anxiety, and became a total recluse. I even started taking anxiety medication solely because of this. They said since my ultrasound was normal (other than extreme gas in my abdomen) and my labs didn’t reflect anything serious, they can’t move it up due to being so booked up. I drove home and cried the whole way home. I’ve never felt so defeated in my life. I took my stool sample items and threw them away. The only thought I had was, “what a waste of my time”. I thought nothing was going to be normal again. I had forgotten what even normal was. I decided to call my primary care doctor to see if she could refer me to another GI office. They did, and the earliest appointment was 3 months away…. Yes, another delay. I waited and waited. Still no socializing, staying home, going to work ONLY, barely eating, more weight loss, and now the presence of blood that started to appear in my stool…. Did I mention that I had been taking a box/more of immodium every month in order to be able to work my full time night shift ICU nurse job…??? Yep… not kidding, and every NP/doctor I had talked to thus far knew this… Finally, after 9 months I had my appointment with the other GI office. They again did the same as the other office except order an ultrasound. The only thing different was they told me that I would be priority over anyone on receiving a colonoscopy due to my s/s. They scheduled it 2 weeks away which was their earliest appointment possible at the time. I was so relieved it was unreal. I was finally taken seriously. They also said they MUST have a stool sample on me before I had the scope done. So i grabbed the supplies they gave me and went home to have a BM, placed it into the fridge (absolutely disgusting), and then drove it up to the clinic the next day. 3 days went by and I had a phone call. They called to tell me my labs came back normal, but that I tested positive for C-diff…… I couldn’t speak. I was in such shock and disbelief. They also called to tell me that they were canceling my scope and sending in 2 weeks worth of Vancomycin that I need to take 4/times. I cried and cried and cried. I just knew it wasn’t C-diff and they had gotten my samples mixed. I was so disgusted and angry at them for canceling my scope because I knew that would give me the answers that I needed to possibly get back to normal again. I got over it. Started taking the antibiotics, and stopped taking the immodium. My bowel movements decreased. Stomach pains went away. Blood stopped appearing in my stool. I was almost back to my old self…. Then after the Vanc was done and I had completed the prescribed course, all of my awful, no good symptoms I had before the meds… started again in full force. I have now lost 7 pounds in 3 days. I have not stopped going to the bathroom. I have very pale yellow colored stools. I now have 20 bowl movements a day. I have intense, not being able to even breathe stomach pains. And now a toilet bowl full of blood with a select few of those bowel movements. I called the GI office and they told me they are sending me in a 10 day dose of some other medication that I have yet to figure out due to this occurring today and the med not even being able to be picked up from the pharmacy yet. I am disappointed and mad. I can’t do this anymore. I can barely preform my job which takes ALL of my focus and energy and doesn’t share those things with anything. I have talked myself out of going to the emergency room every time, I guess that’s the nurse in me. I am miserable. I’m going to take these meds and if this doesn’t help I’m telling them I am headed to the emergency room and I don’t care what happens. I just will not let this be me for the rest of my life. I can’t do this another day. Please… can someone help me. I have had C-diff for a total of a year and only known I’ve had this for 1-2 months now. Please tell there is hope of getting rid of this. Anything is helpful at this point…. (Yes I take probiotics and prebiotics. Intake fiber. Even drink Kefer. I also eat yogurt with probiotics every day. None of this helps.) * I also have pictures of my stool that I did show each and every doc * - I know that is insanely weird but I just wanted to be take seriously…..

Previous
So, if you’re just joining us, I work at a haunted zoo now. Since I’ve gotten some rest, it feels like I’ve got my head on straight, at least, so I’d like to continue where I left off.
I sat on the floor in the office after meeting the ghost until I’d settled my rattled mind (and realized I’d forgotten to ask her name, how rude is that?). I took a deep breath and got up off the floor. Walking over and falling into the rolling chair in front of the large screen of camera views, when I brought up the camera that covered the area in which I’d spotted her, she was still there, and it seemed she hadn’t moved an inch.
Sitting there, at a loss, I continued to watch her. The ghost hung around for another five minutes or so, appearing to look at a few things off-screen, though I’m not sure what. Then she walked off into the forest and left the view of the cameras. I wasn’t sure if she vanished into the ether or if she’d gone looking into the trees to look for something.
But that wasn’t the end of the job interview, so let me jump back there. It continued into what kind of animals the zoo had, with Andrew asking me how much experience I had with dangerous animals.
I took a moment to consider the question. “So, ah…I’ve been going hunting and fishing with a neighbor since I was sixteen,” I told him. “We always have to keep an eye out for gators, bears, and hogs. Then there’s snakes, of course…snapping turtles… Since I’ve lived here my whole life and been aiming for a job with wildlife for a long time, I know a lot about the animals in Arkansas in general. But good advice for all of the above is avoid them, so I’ve had encounters, but I don’t know if you’d say I have experience with them.”
“That’s fine,” Andrew said, nodding. “That’s an answer I’m satisfied with. Now, the ghost was the appetizer, Ripley; here’s the main course. To start with, the pay isn’t twenty-five an hour. It’s fifty.”
Staring in shock for a moment, I asked, “Are you serious?”
“Yeah. But that’d be weird to post online considering what applicants think we need, so I halved it.”
“That’s… Okay, why?”
“The animals are already here. You just can’t see them.”
I stared at him for a long moment, some disbelief worming its way into my expression, before saying, “Sorry, what?”
“There’s a chance you’d naturally never see them, or at least some of them,” he continued casually. “It depends on both your genetics and how long you stay on the job. I can naturally see six of them, but that’s it. Suzanne can see all of them, and more. Some are what people would label demons or ghosts. Or magic. Mostly you’d call them cryptids. The ghost was just a warm-up; I mentioned her first because it never takes more than a week to see her if you work the night shift. If you manage to handle her okay, soon you’ll be able to see the animals too. The more time you spend on the grounds, for weird reasons,” he said, wiggling his fingers in the direction of the back door, “the more you’ll be able to see.”
“So, this…this is a zoo for cryptids,” I echoed slowly. He nodded once, waiting to find out what kind of reaction I would have. I gestured vaguely around the room. “If this is a hidden camera show, will you cut me a check for showing up and participating?”
Andrew coughed out a chuckle and shook his head. “No joke. There are a ton of stories out there that have been written to death, pulverized until they’re not the Grimm stories of old and instead they’re Disney films. A lot of those stories come from what some humans have seen. There are dozens of other worlds pressed up against ours, and occasionally things come through by accident. If they’re smart, they’ll lay low and then make their way back when they can. If not, they become local folklore until someone helps them back. I’m just from London, but Suzanne is from somewhere else. She hires people like us for this zoo. Humans.”
Sighing, I shook my head. “That makes no sense. Why would she hire a muggle for a magic zoo?”
Andrew burst out laughing at that, and then waited to gather himself before he continued. “Fair point, but this is less about magic and more about animals, and you’re missing some information that will explain it. First of all, if I misjudge an employee, and they think they can make bank by outing the endangered and valuable animals we have, it’s easy to relocate the zoo.”
“Because magic?” I asked.
“Exactly,” he replied, ignoring the thread of skepticism in my tone. “That means it isn’t the end of the world if that happened, though it is a pain in the arse. But second…let me ask you a question. Speaking of reality shows, say the Discovery Channel put out a call to replace Steve Irwin when he passed. Imagine they had a line out the door,” he said with a gesture, “of people who thought they had the skill and natural talent to replace him, to take on everything he’d been doing his whole life. How many do you reckon would lose an arm, a leg, or their life, by the end of the day?”
My lips parted in surprise and I narrowed my eyes at him. “You’re saying people from…wherever…they’re just as dumb as humans, but they’re worse, because they actually think they can handle these things.”
Andrew pointed the pen at me. “Things. Exactly. You called them things. Suzanne and her friends grew up with them and would call them animals. These animals have dispositions and temperaments that we’ve studied for as long as there have been scientists. Where Suzanne’s from, they know the weaknesses of these animals, and also they’re in enclosures here, even if you and I can’t see the walls because they’re invisible things called ‘wards’. If I hire someone who’s got magic on top of all that, they’ll have almost no instinctive fear.
“Everything here is nocturnal, and every one of them is a hunter. Some of these things? Humans see them and they pass out. Not that I want you passing out, but I need someone who is scared of these things, who knows to stay out of the enclosures no matter what. Not someone who thinks they can train them to do tricks, who gets close enough for them to grab a mouthful of hair and drown them. Once, we had a night shift manager injured, and once killed, because they didn’t take these animals seriously enough.”
Thinking back to the Sea World orca incident I knew he’d been referencing, I remembered wondering how someone at that level of her profession could be so careless as I watched the video on YouTube. It made sense when he explained it like that. I hesitated before mentally throwing my hands up and going all in. “So, why put this place here, then? If they’re endangered and also dangerous, why have a zoo at all instead of just a small reserve?”
He pursed his lips, looking disappointed in me. “Ripley. You know that already. You already said as much.”
Thinking back through our conversation, I said, “The rich humans who pay top dollar to see supernatural animals.”
“Not humans,” he told me. “But people, yes, and they are rich, and they’re making donations and spending their money on a ticket here because everything we have is endangered.”
“So…”
I just let my voice trail off and my mind started to drift. Andrew remained silent, letting me do so. There’s that thing people say, ‘I believe that you believe it,’ which is just a kinder way of saying, ‘Bullshit.’ Parents say it about closet monsters. Psychologists say it to people who say they’ve been abducted and probed by aliens. I wanted to say it to Andrew.
But I also wanted a job. If it meant working overnight at an empty zoo, that was fine. When it came down to it, especially when I took the tone of our conversation into account, this was a zoo specifically focused on preserving endangered ‘animals’, and it was allegedly doing important work. Also, if this turned out to be the real deal and I started seeing the animals, I would deal with it, just like I would deal with an enclosure that had a lion or tiger or gorilla. If it came with a ghost and invisible creatures, I really didn’t see what the difference was, if I couldn’t go in the enclosures either way.
On that note, I’d like you to imagine a kid who looks at a roller coaster, watching everyone screaming and grinning as they go up and down and all around and they’re like, ‘Heck, I could do that! That looks like a blast!’
Then they get on, the first drop hits, and they realize they’ve made a terrible mistake.
“All right,” I sighed. “I can’t say I’m going to turn down a job just because it’s going to be scary. Especially not one with this paycheck.”
Andrew smiled. “Awesome. There’s an adjustment process for anyone working here, similar to a dog that gets adopted, actually. I know the general guidelines of, ‘three days, three weeks, three months’ in terms of milestones, until they finally feel they’re where they’re supposed to be,” he told me, “and you can think of your time here along those lines. I really think you’re a great fit, and once you reach the milestone of working here for three months, I’ll officially consider you our new night shift guard. And I hope you’ll stay with us for many years.”
I nodded and smiled at the flattery of an employer wanting me to work a great job for them for a long time. I’d never had a dog, but those milestones were well-known among anyone who knew animals, especially dogs. The first three days, the dog is getting to know its new digs, exploring, and decompressing. At three weeks, they’ve gotten used to their environment and are starting to get comfortable with their surroundings and the routines of the humans they live with. By three months, they know the rules and follow them, they trust you, and they feel they are where they’re meant to be. I could only hope to be so lucky.
I saw the ghost two days ago and she has yet to make another appearance (for those who are curious, I asked, and her name is Leila), and I still hadn’t seen any animals. I did hear one, though, I feel compelled to note. A growling roar sounded from the lake on occasion, echoing across the vast zoo, sending a shiver down my spine. Whatever that animal was, it sounded gigantic.
Andrew said there was apparently a group that wanted to visit for a birthday and they were offering a huge donation, so he let me know they were making an exception and that this group would be walking through the park that night. That meant I’d be watching people watching animals that, as far as I could tell, weren’t there.
It was anticlimactic. Even the three people who came for the tour just looked like people, not like aliens or something eldritch from another dimension, and I stayed in the security office the whole time. Andrew was the one giving the tour. I watched them spend about five minutes at each enclosure, the hour or so that they were there passing without incident. It was clear that they were able to see all the animals, though, since they motioned excitedly at each enclosure and spoke to Andrew, who presumably answered any questions they had.
If they could see the animals, that was that. There was still that niggle in the back of my head, from my twenty-three years of life never encountering anything like ghosts or cryptids, telling me that this was ridiculous. Waiting for someone to knock on the door, a camera mounted on their shoulder, to tell me that it was a big joke and they wanted to see how long I’d play along. But from all I saw, this was a real place with real, invisible animals.
I do carry a taser and pepper spray in my capacity as a security guard. Though it isn’t for the animals, since they’re in the enclosures; they’re actually for the rare instance of a break-in. Andrew mentioned that it had happened several times it the past, someone trying to steal an animal in the hopes of selling it on the black market. They’d been successful before, but apparently my predecessor Roger was good at his job, and mostly they left in handcuffs.
I’ll be honest, I’m not a huge fan of confrontation, but my job was to call Andrew and then confront the person, not kick their ass. That’s what the police were for, or rather, the people Andrew would call in lieu of police in certain situations.
Fifty bucks an hour. That’s the key here.
Andrew hadn’t set up direct deposit, since he was sticking with a strategy of waiting to see if I’d continue to work there once I found out myself dealing with the animals (I’ve decided I am going to just call them animals). Instead, I got an old-fashioned check after my shift every Friday. The number on the first check was delightful. I went out that evening and had a big dinner at the local diner, order my most expensive favorites on the menu and a big slice of pie for dessert.
When it came to the paychecks in general, though, I had this weird feeling of not wanting to tell my dad and brother about the fact that it was actually $50/hr. I previously mentioned that my dad, his name’s Nathan if you’re curious, works at a local grocery store. Our town has a couple food franchises, but I think its size is just short of whatever threshold Walmart uses to decide where to open. He earns $14/hr. and that’s after the tiny raises he’s gotten over the past thirteen years.
That’s not to say he’d feel bad about not making as much as me. On the contrary, he would be ecstatic for me and really proud. But, like me, he’d be suspicious. That hourly rate was the biggest hint that this was more than just a private zoo for cryptids. And as soon as that fat check cleared without problems, my dad wouldn’t be satisfied with reassurances; he’d want to come visit the zoo and look around.
I’d told him it’s a private preservation with scheduled (expensive) visits only and that it had only eleven animals, so he’d been appeased by me brushing off the idea of a visit. Also, I took a few photos of my workplace; one of the security room, one of me sitting in my chair, one photo of the many screens I watched, and a selfie where I was feigning sleep out of boredom, slouched in my chair with my mouth open in a faux snore. That let him feel like he knew where I was and what I was doing, and that I was safe.
But if I told him I was making double what he thought, my father would practically order me to quit. No job was worth my safety, he’d tell me. I was quite of the opposite opinion, however, considering how crucial any and all conservation efforts were these days. Especially with the steep extinction levels due to humans competing with other animals for space, not to mention climate change. Working in any job that helped preserve species and keep ecosystems in balance, or put them back in balance, was so important.
Then again, my father would also point out something I had realized right away: the fact was that I was working with endangered species that were not from Earth. I wasn’t helping my planet. To be honest, though…that didn’t matter to me. Especially after that talk with Andrew about why he hired a human for this job, I figured whichever dimension these animals came from had the equivalent of us, razing forests to the ground, clouding the planet with pollution, and leaving the animals with no avenue of recourse when yet more land was taken from them.
I really do hope to keep working here for a long time, though, and not just because of the money. I can’t help it; I want to know what these things were, and I want to work with them, to do the job of a zookeeper. The same way you go up to the chain-link fence to get close to a carnivore on the other side who thinks you’d make a nice afternoon snack. You just want to be closer to them, to experience that incredible, daunting feeling of being in their presence.
Unsurprisingly, it wasn’t long before I got what I wanted.
The day after we had the tour go through, I was doing my sweep when I saw the ghost again. She was sitting on a small boulder in the same area I’d seen her the first time, looking identical, blood covering the front of her slashed shirt, the wounds visible underneath. I stopped and stood there for a moment before I decided to raise my hand in a small wave.
The young woman cocked her head at me and raised a hand in the air in an imitation of my gesture, her expression showing a bit of curiosity.
She was low-key, seemingly not concerned with my presence, looking at me as a novel phenomenon in her world. I wondered what that world consisted of. Was she always here, sometimes visible and sometimes not? Or did she have another world next to ours, in the ether, where she left everything in this world behind and floated in her disembodied form? Did she still feel emotions? Was that really curiosity on her face, or was I projecting? Did she feel happiness? Fear? Did she have the option of moving on, or was she stuck here?
Many questions that I might never get the answers to. And that was assuming Andrew knew the answers, since I’d never met Suzanne Cooper and he hadn’t even mentioned that possibility. This place was clearly her baby, but I’m sure running it was a lot of work. Plus, if she was rich enough to own it, she was rich enough to have other businesses and charities to run.
When it comes to the enclosures, they’re all wrapped by a barrier of some kind, though never one that seems adequate. There was not a single place with the ugly metal weavings of a chain-link fence, and no stretches of circular razor wire. Instead, there are nice fences. Black iron, or wrought steel fencing in a similar style to the one circling the perimeter of the zoo, just shorter and with different patterns. Or a spaced picket fence, the wood stained in some tone of brown, or a split two-rail fence. As if to say, ‘This is the border of your enclosure, but we’re just letting you know out of courtesy.’
When I started to pass enclosure number seven last night, a young woman’s voice spoke, “Hello.”
I startled, unaware that I hadn’t been alone. “Oh. Hi,” I said, staring at her standing a few yards in.
She had been next to a large tree and I hadn’t seen her. This enclosure was behind a picket fence, and she walked through the large area of wild grasses and flowers that stretched across the other side of the fence. There were fewer tall grasses closer to the fence, which I guessed was because it had been tromped down by her regular pacing along it when there were visitors, or if she wanted to see the various enclosures of the zoo. Her sudden appearance was a bit weird, considering I had been expecting to see a cryptid and instead I was looking at, it seemed, an attractive Asian woman.
She wore a black kimono, the soft silk robe draped gently over her body, with beautiful patterns of cherry blossoms, more so over her left side, and red and blue birds with their wings spread. A sash wrapped around her abdomen, she wore socks and sandals on her feet, and her hair was up in those rolls that gave volume to the style.
I was no expert on any fashion, much less that of another country, so I just assumed it was all traditional Japanese clothing. Most likely, the visitors who came liked to see a certain time-honored style and that’s what she stuck with. Or maybe she played on stereotypes. That would be amusing.
“I’m Yui. It’s nice to meet you,” she spoke, arriving at the border of the fence and holding out a hand for me to shake.
I’d been standing about three yards away from her, and I’ll be honest, muscle memory tried to kick in. But I only made it two steps, my hand starting to rise, before I froze, the hand falling limply at my side. “Nice to meet you, too,” I answered, my voice quiet.
Damn. I wonder how many times that honey trap works back where she comes from.
The pleasant look on her face faded, and she lowered her hand. “You won’t shake hands with me? Isn’t that rude?”
“I mean, I kind of like my hand where it is. You know, attached to me.”
Her demure smile widened into something more amused. “I would never do something so revolting.”
Looking her up and down, as if more visual information would give me more knowledge of what she was, I asked her, “What would you do?”
“I would be less wasteful,” she said softly.
A finger of ice trailed down my spine, and I had the sudden image in my head of her grabbing my outstretched hand in an iron grip and yanking me over the fence, leaving me to sprawl on the ground. Then killing and consuming me efficiently, without a single careless step, the same way humans slaughtered pigs, using everything from the hog but the squeal. I was struck with a shiver at the idea of her consuming everything from me but my screams.
Slowly, I took one step further down the path, then another. Just as I got to a walking pace, though, I realized the woman had started walking too, in the same direction. I’d have eventually gotten to the end of her enclosure and keep going, leaving her behind, but she spoke up. “Are you leaving?”
I came to a stop, meeting her gaze again. “My job is to walk the zoo every hour. Then I’ll get back to the security room and stay there until my next walk.”
“Have you met the others yet?”
I hesitated before saying, “Just Leila.”
She blinked languidly. “That means nobody welcomed you here.”
“Andrew did.”
She didn’t reply to that. Instead, she slowly started to lean forward, and I flinched backward a few steps further as I saw insect legs start curling out from her back.
No. Not insect. Arachnid.
The eight legs ended in small ‘paws’ with tiny claws, a layer of hairs covering the leg from top to bottom, like any typical tarantula. I took two more slow steps back and my mouth went dry as the jointed legs just kept lengthening, until they were large enough to lever her off the ground.
My gaze had been on the spider legs, but my heart skipped a beat as I realized her human legs had melded together and turned into a bulging abdomen. Her skin was shifting to a carapace, eventually all the way up to her shoulders and down her arms, her fingers elongating and her nails stretching to claws. From there down, her body was that of a pale tarantula with pedipalps the size of my arms and piercing fangs in her jaws that looked like they could take my head off.
There was a moment, my vision blurring, where I was worried that I might piss myself. The part of my brain that still had its humor intact in that moment told me that I should keep an emergency set of clothes in my car, or at the very least, start wearing Depends to work.
“I show you my true form,” she said softly, her voice now raspy like an eighty-year-old after a lifelong smoking habit. “Welcome to Suzanne Cooper’s zoo. The night shift guard for many years was Roger, before he retired and the zoo moved, and I miss him dearly. What should I call you?”
I choked on my words. There was no way my throat was going to cooperate enough for me to clearly get a sentence out. Instead, I realized my legs had taken control of the situation themselves, unsatisfied with my conscious brain’s decision to stand and stare, taking steps backward. I backed up a yard, then five yards, then ten.
My mind focused on the fact that spiders don’t waste anything, and pictured my demise. I’d be wrapped in a cocoon, killed, and made nice and mushy before she had me for dinner.
The whole time, my brain was a frenzied mess, my pupils were probably the size of dimes, and I was staring at that tiny, pathetic fence between her and me. There was so much adrenaline pumping through my body that I felt like my bones were vibrating. The fence was, to my eyes, the only thing between us. The only thing keeping her from tackling and killing me. My only hope was that she’d do it quickly.
But she didn’t move. As I absorbed her innocent, polite words, the look on her face was calm, and I wondered if this was typically the way a conversation went before she devoured her prey. I wondered how many people she’d eaten. Not humans, not people from Earth, but the ones from where she came from. The fact that she doesn’t scare the shit out of those people means they’re staggeringly dumber than humans.
Finally, I rounded a corner, both relieved at having her out of my sight and worried that she would take that moment to come find me. When she’d been within eyeshot, I had at least known where she was and could run in the other direction. But I didn’t hear the sound of faint footsteps moving rapidly toward me. All was quiet, in that deep, smothering way that only an empty business in the middle of the night in small town America could be.
My hands trembling, I barely paid attention to anything but the confirmation that my surroundings were free of the colossal spider as I finally got back to the door. Grabbing the handle and letting my eyes dart around for about ten seconds and my ears prick for the slightest sound, I finally swiped my key card across the pad and went inside, shutting the door behind me and engaging the backup deadbolt.
Maybe that was why they had decided on keycards. If I was running from something and panicking, using an actual key or inserting the card like at a hotel would keep me from getting to safety considering my hands were shaking enough to mix a margarita.
Walking over to my chair, I fell into it, letting my body flush itself of terror as I looked up at the cameras. There she was, still in arachnid form, exactly where I’d left her behind that rinky-dink fence, casually looking around and slowly pacing back and forth. I stared at her as my racing heart gradually slowed, and a minute or so later she turned on her eight legs and walked back into the trees.
Whatever invisible fences the enclosures have apparently work, which is nice, because I wasn’t keen on getting killed by one of the creatures here. And that’s what brings me here, spilling out everything that’s happened so far. Because nearly passing out from terror isn’t something I wanted to deal with at work, obviously, but I keep going over what she did in my head again and again, and I feel like I reacted like a child who spotted a wolf spider on their bed. I started to worry for my overactive sense of self-preservation, at least in my capacity as an employee here.
The spider didn’t even try to hurt me, and so I was feeling a bit foolish. Even annoyed, actually, at the fact that I’d freaked out so hard and took off instead of trying to engage in at least basic conversation. I got the sense that she wasn’t at human-level intelligence, but I was never going to be able to hold any level of conversation with an alligator.
Sure, she did mention that she wouldn’t be so crass as to yank off my hand because she’d rather just have my entire corpse, but wouldn’t a wolf do the same if it was hungry? Wouldn’t any carnivore? Actually, they probably would’ve been satisfied with one of my hands. The fear here was from the fact that she turned into a giant spider. If she’d turned into Clifford, I would’ve reacted the same way, if not better than, meeting Leila.
With that, I decided I’m staying on the job. Considering how frustrated I can get with foolish people, it’s a bit hypocritical, and I’m being a bit of an idiot. But…there are definitely wards keeping them in their enclosures. Also, I signed up for creatures for another dimension, whether or not I believed in them at the time, and I will not let encountering my first one in an objectively boring way be the reason I quit.
The money is a factor, I’ll grant you. Of course it is. And I can’t spend it if I’m dead, but all signs point to surviving as long as I don’t do anything dumb. Also, yes, I’ll admit there’s a not-so-little voice in the back of my head that’s desperate to know what else is here. I never thought I’d do something like this, but finding out these things are real, I honestly do want to learn more about them.
Still, though, I decided to call Andrew at the end of my shift to ask if the pepper spray and taser I carried worked on a certain spider, as well as the other animals I’d yet to meet.
Previous

Preface: I’m at work pretending to type notes for a meeting so I have no picture or video off hand at the moment but the curiosity is killing me:
My Passat has a loud growl sound when I get above 30MPH. Just started recently. I would say the sound of the highway drowns it out at around 70MPH. Not much vibration at all in the steering wheel.
Slowing to a stop the growl has a slow “whom whom whom” to it as the rotations slow. Different road surfaces only have a minor effect on the audible noise. I’m half deaf, though, so take that with a grain of salt.
I saw some videos about shifting weight for diagnosing by going left to right while driving to test each side’s bearings and don’t notice a difference.
Tires to me feel fine but I don’t know a damn thing about them. My dad says they certainly need to be rotated though.
I plan on taking it to my dad’s tomorrow as he has a jack and then looking at scheduling an appointment if needed but I figured I’d just ask here for anyone bored.

Resources:

ACFC Twitter list
Master ticket index thread
ACFC schedule via Google calendar
How to Watch ACFC games according to NWSL
Home game themes and Giveaways
Individual player profiles thread
Washington Spirt v Angel City FC Pre-match
Washington Spirit v Angel City FC Live Match
Washington Spirit v Angel City FC Post Match
Washington Spirit v Angel City FC Next Day
Washington Spirit v Angel City FC Rate
Good Morning,
Its Chanclasico week!!!
Talk about whatever you want.
This is an ideal thread for you to make general inquiries about things that are commonly asked, like how is the shade on the East stand at 3pm? Or where are the ADA bathrooms? As well, low effort posts can be directed here as comments in order to keep sub organized and conversation centralized for other users. Consider this the Town Square, or AngelCityFC Reddit's very own Starbucks.
AngelCity FC Reddit Classifieds: seeking a user to make (this) Daily Discussion post three times weekly for the duration of the year. Expectations will be to demonstrate consistency. If interested please contact moderators via modmail.

Timestamp: https://imgur.com/a/nuwQi6F
Couple more pictures: https://imgur.com/a/Enw96Qs
Got a nearly complete suppressor P320 build for sale, only needs a FCU and a can and you’re a cool kid. Includes XCarry Legion slide with suppressor height front sight and adjustable legion rear sight (slide is optic ready), Norsso TiN 3.9” threaded barrel lvl2, Armory Craft spring tuning kit, Armory Craft TiN sport takedown lever, XCompact grip module, and standard compact grip module with standard takedown lever. Approx $750 new,

selling for $425 firm.

I’ve dropped the price a few times now, $425 is what I’ve been hoping to get. At this point it’s a smokin deal and I’d rather not take offers below this but money talks.
Selling cause I was gonna build a Flux but my wife is happy with our P320 the way it is and wants a true PDW instead. Who am I to disagree? Barrel and springs saw about 200 rounds, functioned flawlessly with my obsidian9 with everything from 115g to 158g.

Not looking to separate at this time unless you do the legwork and I come out whole the other side.

Shipping will take about 2-3 days as my work schedule is pretty wild. Payment can be made through any method but PayPal is preferred. More pictures can be had upon request.

Day one Pixel 8 Pro owner here. Thought I’d share my experience, after over 8 months of ownership.
P8P Bay 256GB has been my daily driver since its release. I use it with 5G on, screen at full resolution, dynamic "smooth display" refresh rate is on, no bluetooth or tethering. Brightness left on auto.
TLDR :
Positives = camera quality, great design, OS (with some caveats), great screen (some caveats too)
Negatives = everything else
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Camera : beautiful imagery has always been the signature of the Pixel line, and this release is no exception. Every shot has this mesmerizing "Pixel touch", and the new ultrawide sensor is finally on par with the main unit. Videos are world class too, not quite on the level of the iPhone but we'll get there eventually.
Beautiful and unique design : It's sitting in a clear case, and in a sea of generic, boring slabs, it really stands out and doesn't go unnoticed. People often ask me what kind of phone it is, most are still not aware that Google is making smartphones and has been doing so for almost a decade now.
Very long software support : Seven years of updates is unrivaled in the Android scene, albeit with the following you’ll understand no one would willingly keep this phone seven years, so it’s not really a positive.
Sleek OS : Android in its purest, cleanest form. Customization galore. However as I'll mention later this pure android is NOT running smoothly, so I don't know if this count as a positive.
Gorgeous OLED panel : A truly beautiful display, high-resolution, good brightness..unfortunately plagued by mutiple lags and frame drops in the UI, I'll get back to that. Now onto the negatives.
First off, we must address the elephant in the room. Battery life. This phone charges PAINFULLY slow and discharges EXTREMELY fast. The opposite of what you want, right ?
The 10 minutes top ups to 50% is a concept Google seemingly never heard of. You want half a charge ? Better sit & wait half an hour. Full charge ? Go watch a movie. Now the discharge, and this is where the real drama clocks in. This phone EATS battery, ON IDLE.
On your average 9 to 5 workday (no camera, no games, just basic apps) you’ll head home with 15% tops. Phone dead by 7pm, then full charge will eat 90 minutes off your schedule, better not be in a hurry.
Now try to make a bit of power usage out of your power user phone : A bit of pictures for work at 10am, a short 4K video at 1pm, a bit of Fallout Shelter on the toilet at 2pm. You’re now looking at a 4pm shutdown.
But let’s go real on the camera, after all this is a camera flagship and it should be your reliable companion on a field day. Starting at 10 am : pictures, videos, a bit of editing, about 40 pictures taken and 3 videos of 10 minutes each. Shutdown at 1PM.
The CPU just eats battery on IDLE doing NOTHING. Throw anything heavy at it and you’ll head home with a dead phone, one that died long before your day was over. Simple as that.
Keep in mind that this is my experience with a 8-months-old device, and it will get worse and worse as the battery cell degrades over time. One can only wonder how many cell replacements this phone will need to get to the end of its famed software support.
Now we need to talk UI and animations because this isn’t good either. Stellar 120hz OLED panel and stock android should be a recipe for smoothness, but not here. Actually, some animations including the cool lock screen clock are barely 60hz. Switching apps isn’t 120hz either, nor is scrolling. A TON of lags and various frame drops, resulting in a framerate like 40-90hz, never stable, with the occasional but very rare peak at 120. This isn't TW3 gameplay on a potato but simply browing menus and scrolling instagram on a 2023, 1159€ flagship phone from Google.
This phone FEELS slow, and yet consume an enormous amount of power to do so. Infuriating.
One day I had to handle a coworker’s A54 to tweak a few things. I was SHOCKED by the smoothness, this was indeed true 120hz, which only happens a few times a day on Pixel 8 Pro. I realized what I was missing on by handling an Exynos mid-ranger. I understand the need for a dynamic framerate, not locked at 120hz all the time to save battery. But only reaching 120hz 5 times a day and still having a mediocre battery life wasn’t what I had in mind.
Finally, the optical, under-display fingerprint scanner. This, my friends, is an antique piece of hardware that belongs to a museum. Remember the Huawei Mate RS from 2018 ? One of the first phones with UDFS. The optical technology was so experimental and unreliable (still is, most OEMs moved on to ultrasonic) that Huawei also included another optical fingerprint sensor on the back of the device, just in case. Well, this ancient tech is what you have on the Pixel 8 Pro, and no optical sensor backup in sight.
Sometimes, it can take up to 2 full seconds of contact to….successfully fail to unlock. After it fails 3 times or so, it will ask you to enter your password, making one-hand unlocks a luck job. Sometimes it will successfully unlock after a couple tries, but a couple tries of 2 seconds each makes unlocking your phone a 4 seconds job which is just painfully slow. The occasional one tap magic is as rare as the occasional 120hz peak in the UI. As for face-unlock, I know it's there but I disabled it because it doesn't work in the dark (no IR sensor) and I simply want to unlock my phone at waist height, without having to raise it to my face.
Pixel 8 Pro remembers me of an exotic sports car that might look incredibly cool from a distance but is actually a pain to live with on a daily basis. And indeed it does look incredibly cool. I remember seeing this phone as a much better pick than the generic Galaxy and the boring iPhone, but I’d rather go boring or generic than having to handle this mess of an hardware Google sold me for 1159€.
TLDR : Positives = Camera quality, great design Negatives = everything else

Day one Pixel 8 Pro owner here. Thought I’d share my experience, after over 8 months of ownership.
P8P Bay 256GB has been my daily driver since its release. I use it with 5G on, screen at full resolution, dynamic "smooth display" refresh rate is on, no bluetooth or tethering. Brightness left on auto.
TLDR : Positives = Camera quality, great design, OS (with some caveats) Negatives = everything else
The positives :
Camera : beautiful imagery has always been the signature of the Pixel line, and this release is no exception. Every shot has this mesmerizing "Pixel touch", and the new ultrawide sensor is finally on par with the main unit. Videos are world class too, not quite on the level of the iPhone but we'll get there eventually.
Beautiful and unique design : It's sitting in a clear case, and in a sea of generic, boring slabs, it really stands out and doesn't go unnoticed. People often ask me what kind of phone it is, most are still not aware that Google is making smartphones and has been doing so for almost a decade now.
Very long software support : Seven years of updates is unrivaled in the Android scene, albeit with the following you’ll understand no one would willingly keep this phone seven years, so it’s not really a positive.
Sleek OS : Android in its purest, cleanest form. Customization galore. However as I'll mention later this pure android is NOT running smoothly, so I don't know if this count as a positive. Now onto the negatives.
First off, we must address the elephant in the room. Battery life. This phone charges PAINFULLY slow and discharges EXTREMELY fast. The opposite of what you want, right ?
The 10 minutes top ups to 50% is a concept Google seemingly never heard of. You want half a charge ? Better sit & wait half an hour. Full charge ? Go watch a movie. Now the discharge, and this is where the real drama clocks in. This phone EATS battery, ON IDLE.
On your average 9 to 5 workday (no camera, no games, just basic apps) you’ll head home with 15% tops. Phone dead by 7pm, then full charge will eat 90 minutes off your schedule, better not be in a hurry.
Now try to make a bit of power usage out of your power user phone : A bit of pictures for work at 10am, a short 4K video at 1pm, a bit of Fallout Shelter on the toilet at 2pm. You’re now looking at a 4pm shutdown.
But let’s go real on the camera, after all this is a camera flagship and it should be your reliable companion on a field day. Starting at 10 am : pictures, videos, a bit of editing, about 40 pictures taken and 3 videos of 10 minutes each. Shutdown at 1PM.
The CPU just eats battery on IDLE doing NOTHING. Throw anything heavy at it and you’ll head home with a dead phone, one that died long before your day was over. Simple as that.
Keep in mind that this is my experience with a 8-months-old device, and it will get worse and worse as the battery cell degrades over time. One can only wonder how many cell replacements this phone will need to get to the end of its famed software support.
Now we need to talk UI and animations because this isn’t good either. Stellar 120hz OLED panel and stock android should be a recipe for smoothness, but not here. Actually, some animations including the cool lock screen clock are barely 60hz. Switching apps isn’t 120hz either, nor is scrolling. A TON of lags and various frame drops, resulting in a framerate like 40-90hz, never stable, with the occasional but very rare peak at 120. This isn't TW3 gameplay on a potato but simply browing menus and scrolling instagram on a 2023, 1159€ flagship phone from Google.
This phone FEELS slow, and yet consume an enormous amount of power to do so. Infuriating.
One day I had to handle a coworker’s A54 to tweak a few things. I was SHOCKED by the smoothness, this was indeed true 120hz, which only happens a few times a day on Pixel 8 Pro. I realized what I was missing on by handling an Exynos mid-ranger. I understand the need for a dynamic framerate, not locked at 120hz all the time to save battery. But only reaching 120hz 5 times a day and still having a mediocre battery life wasn’t what I had in mind.
Finally, the optical, under-display fingerprint scanner. This, my friends, is an antique piece of hardware that belongs to a museum. Remember the Huawei Mate RS from 2018 ? One of the first phones with UDFS. The optical technology was so experimental and unreliable (still is, most OEMs moved on to ultrasonic) that Huawei also included another optical fingerprint sensor on the back of the device, just in case. Well, this ancient tech is what you have on the Pixel 8 Pro, and no optical sensor backup in sight.
Sometimes, it can take up to 2 full seconds of contact to….successfully fail to unlock. After it fails 3 times or so, it will ask you to enter your password, making one-hand unlocks a luck job. Sometimes it will successfully unlock after a couple tries, but a couple tries of 2 seconds each makes unlocking your phone a 4 seconds job which is just painfully slow. The occasional one tap magic is as rare as the occasional 120hz peak in the UI. As for face-unlock, I know it's there but I disabled it because it doesn't work in the dark (no IR sensor) and I simply want to unlock my phone at waist height, without having to raise it to my face.
Pixel 8 Pro remembers me of an exotic sports car that might look incredibly cool from a distance but is actually a pain to live with on a daily basis. And indeed it does look incredibly cool. I remember seeing this phone as a much better pick than the generic Galaxy and the boring iPhone, but I’d rather go boring or generic than having to handle this mess of an hardware Google sold me for 1159€.
(Phone is running with screen at full resolution, dynamic refresh rate is on, 5G is on, no thetering)
TLDR : Positives = Camera quality, great design Negatives = everything else

Welcome to our weekly general discussion thread!
Feel free to chat with your fellow forensically-minded redditors about anything! Introduce yourself, show us pictures of your cat, complain about your kids, lament about exams/work, tell us what you're eating today... whatever you want!
Here are a few resources that might answer your questions:
A subreddit wiki with links and resources to education and employment matters, archived discussions on more intermediate topics in education and employment, what kind of major you need, what degree programs are good, etc.

• The subreddit Guide - Consider this an FAQ about our community and our field. Look here for basic education and employment questions/answers you might have. Didn't find what you were looking for? Please post in our weekly scheduled posts or to the subreddit. Note: please do use a desktop browser to view all features.
• List of verified forensics professionals
• Subreddit collections (please view on desktop browsers) on the following topics:
  • Education and Employment
  • Mental Health and Preparation for Working in Forensics
  • What It's Like Working in Forensics
  • Employment: Job Titles, Job Requirements, and Starting Salary in Forensic Science

​

Title	Description	Day	Frequency
Education, Employment, and Questions	Education questions and advice for students, graduates, enthusiasts, anyone interested in forensics	Monday	Bi-weekly (every 2 weeks)
Off-Topic Tuesday	General discussion, free-for-all thread; forensics topics also allowed	Tuesday	Weekly
Forensic Friday	Forensic science discussion (work, school), forensics questions, education, employment advice also allowed	Friday	Weekly

I (24F) am having issues with my friend group over the man (31M) that I picked. I’ll have to provide the long background story for context.
My friend group consists of several individuals. The specific few I will talk about I will refer to as “J” “M” and “A.” They are all (24F). J and M are a couple. These girls seem to have the strongest opinion about the ordeal. I met my friends in middle/high school. We didn’t become close until our college years. I love these people and we’ve gone on many trips and shared many experiences together.
In early 2023, I was asked out by a guy who frequented my place of work. He had apparently noticed me for some time. It is quite rare for me to “date,” but something about him gave me the sense I could trust him. He gave off good vibes overall. We went on a date a few days later and discovered we have everything in common. EVERYTHING. From our morals, values, hobbies, childhood upbringing, family dilemmas, favorite foods, love for traveling, etc. we are the same person in two separate bodies. The date was such a success and I knew then in my gut that he was going to be someone special.
Unfortunately, our beginning took a turn. We initiated dates back and forth that fell through due to valid reasons dealing with weather, conflicting schedules, etc. During this break between dates, he took the time to think if he was ready to start a new relationship. Although he liked me a lot, he was a little unsure unbeknownst to me. He’d been in several relationships before and they ended with him getting hurt whether they ended on good or bad terms. He was getting cold feet and didn’t know how to communicate that to me. He didn’t want to officially end it and he also didn’t want to lead me on so he said nothing for awhile. Although it wasn’t necessarily thought out, he was buying himself time until he knew how he felt (I learned all this later on). Then came about a month with no contact. During this time, he was dealing with family drama and I was becoming anemic. I eventually did need a blood transfusion. I mention this because that month apart went by fast and we didn’t have much time to linger over the thought of each other. I did notice he hadn’t reached out though. I’m certain now that he wouldn’t have ignored my messages had I sent any, but I was honestly waiting for him to reach out first. I was a little hurt to think that he had changed his mind and didn’t have the guts to tell me.
Sometime in that next month, when I returned to work after my hospital stay, I saw him at my job. I thought he saw me. He left and said nothing. I was actually devastated. He had been so kind and I didn’t know why he had a change of heart. At least he should’ve told me about it anyway. I decided that I was going to text him that night. I mentioned I had seen him at work, thanked him for the initial first date, apologized for not reaching out on my end, and I sort of wished him farewell under the assumption he wasn’t interested. It was very professional and I let him know that there were no hard feelings had he changed his mind. I was expecting some lame, typical excuse response if I even got one. He sent back this long text message apologizing, explaining himself, and asking me questions. He explained his fears and asked if we could start a “friendship” of sorts to keep a slow pace. There was chemistry of course, but he was afraid of me and now I was afraid of him. There was enough there to where we wanted to spend time together, but I needed to be sure I could trust him with my feelings and he also needed to be sure he could trust me with his heart. To this, I agreed to see him again.
We spent time going on casual dates and talking a lot. He became my friend. We talked a lot about what happened with the break over the following months. I told him how hurt I was and how communication is important to me. He understands the impact of going no contact abruptly. It has been entirely resolved and I also take responsibility in my part of not reaching out to him either. Ever since the break, he became consistent. We’ve talked every single day since. He was patient with me and I was patient with him. We earned each other’s trust and are now madly in love. It happened slowly and quietly. I have never met such a soft, kind, understanding, sensitive man. I am more myself with him than I ever have been before. If soulmates are real, then he is mine.
Now to the tea. Of course, my friends knew (most) all of this. I told them about the big events as they were happening. They were excited for me on my first date, they sympathized with me when he no longer reached out, etc. They were surely surprised when I decided to spend time with him again. I asked them to trust me. I didn’t think he was a bad guy. What happened was a mistake. As my man and I spent more time, my friend J would reach out asking me questions about him. I told only her about my concerns in the beginning. Back then, I was guarded and nervous to proceed, but it was something I knew I had to do. I had to find out for sure what kind of person he was.
Now, J, she’s a fireball. I love that girl, but I’ll admit she’s one to hold a grudge, keep score, and quietly judge. She’d never admit it. I made a mistake in choosing her as my confidant in those early days. I was looking for advice when speaking to her because I do value her opinion. She then went and told the other friends in my group, M and A included, about my man—what a bad person he seems to be, using her words, which frankly, are very different from mine. What makes me mad is she got to tell them about him, not me. Not even any of the positives either. This was all before they had even met him and they already didn’t like him. They had no problem scolding me for being with him.
Months down the road, I arranged a meeting for everyone. My friends thought a bar would be a great place. Still not sure about that. It was awkward. Nobody talked more than a few words. My man was shy and my friends didn’t really do anything to make him feel welcome. I was the only one babbling all night it seems like. You’d think that as time goes on, it’d be different. More meetings will help everyone be comfortable. Nope. Every time after was awkward. They haven’t spoken more than a few words to him at a time. It’s very “surface level” talk even now—a year later.
My last birthday had come around and J, M, and A took me out for drinks. It turned into a lecture session about how I seriously need to break up with him. They scolded me on “allowing a man to waste my time.” They criticized his career choice, our age difference, his “character,” etc. Mind you, this is based off of this one mistake and a few other things that I mentioned to J in private that were no longer an issue. I cried myself to sleep that night thinking I was going to have to break up with him to please them.
Of course, I couldn’t. They still invite him to events and friend functions out of politeness, but it’s always the same. They don’t acknowledge him. It makes me especially sad when my man makes comments like, “I’ve never seen so many shy people in one room” (He thinks my friends are just shy when they’re really just ignoring him). He’s printed out their pictures for our scrapbook and labeled them as “new friends.” I haven’t told him the truth and I probably never will.
A few months ago, J, M, me, and my man had plans to go to this local indie concert. Tickets are free. The concert was on a Friday. The next day, Saturday, was scheduled for my man’s nephew’s 2nd Birthday Party. His brother’s family would be traveling from out of town to celebrate their son. Well, things didn’t go according to plan. The brother decided to come a day early, the day of the concert. I should have cancelled the concert date then when I learned this news, but I told J and M we were still coming because my man still wanted to go. We figured we’d be able to sneak away since the brother had come by himself and wanted to come over and take a nap since he works odd hours. Well, my man’s dad dropped by and the brother didn’t take his nap as he’d planned. Now, having company over with expectations, I made the difficult decision to cancel with my friends last minute. I realize it is rude, but something came up. I didn’t see how we could go anymore.
My friends let me have it. J and M were so angry. They told me how rude we were and how disrespectful it was to their time to opt out of the concert which was free and in town by the way. There was also the two of them and they could have easily gone on a date. I think it would’ve been equally rude to leave our company or rush them out the door. I picked my battle. I should have gave them more notice, but I didn’t know we weren’t going until the last minute. It couldn’t have happened any other way. We fought over text for awhile. She accused me of being so different now, saying and doing things out of the ordinary for me. The truth is, I’m just growing up. J ended the conversation saying, “Well, we’re just going to stay mad.” She claimed to understand my circumstance, but she didn’t. We didn’t talk for weeks after.
I eventually got invited to a breakfast date to which I declined. I have been avoiding all of them for awhile. I keep getting “I miss yous” from J. She keeps asking when we’re gonna hang out next. It’s also true that J and M are now moving 4 hours away at the end of the month. My problem may solve itself. That does sound awful though. I feel like an asshole. I have not been a good or present friend lately. I’m so busy, tired, and I have no room for petty drama. I’m not giving up my friends yet, but I will gladly choose this boy over them. He’s given me more peace in one year than they have in five years.
My boy and I are now engaged. I told my friends the news. They said some nice things I guess. J texted to let me know “If I’m really happy, she’ll support me.” This would be nicer if it was coming from a concerned friend. To me, this whole situation feels controlling. It’s more than concern. There’s venom behind it. They don’t care about the wedding either. They don’t ask me fun questions or get excited when it comes up. When I eventually explained how he proposed, they seemed disinterested. I could tell they were judging the experience. When I finally showed J the engagement ring in person all she said was, “Take it off” in a snippy tone so she could try it on.
I’m so disappointed in my friends. I always wanted a big friend group and especially to share this big milestone with. I haven’t even gotten excited about wedding planning because I’m dreading going over the bridesmaids list. Anyway, if you’ve made it this far, thanks for listening. I definitely need to get this off my chest and outta my life. I can’t believe I’m losing my friends over a boy.

I am sick and tired of not progressing. I turned 25 last week. For the last 2-3 years I’ve been trying (very inconsistently) to achieve financial freedom.
I want to be able to quit my day job, that’d mean having an income of around 1300€/month on my own. (Right now my extra income is of around 200€/month)
Most of the time I loose time scrolling, just to finish the day with a 100 tasks sitting on my mind (and notebooks) that I know could help me progress or develop my health.
The truth is that I currently suck big time at being responsible for myself. I am EXHAUSTED.
However every day I show up at work, and at every job I’ve had I’ve been really good at.
I feel like I need: a) a super clear to do / path b) something to own it to to be responsible and do the work.
I am also so good at helping people plan, organize, brainstorm and at seeing the bigger picture for a project. So here again comes my question.
Can we help each other progress?
• I am looking for someone to partner with, & act as personal managers for each other.
Something like: • Weekly call to do our schedules and assess progress. • Helping each other creating clear to do lists. • Keeping each other on top of what’s real, what’s happening, and how much we can do the work each week.
Not only with business development but overall goals. I have interest in learning Swedish & Breathing theory, and just recently started going to the gym (this month I’ve slip so much).
If you think we can help each other out, comment here to connect :) also general advice on how to start or whatever you want to say here is welcomed. This is my first time posting ahhh.
For some context: I’m a certified/trauma informed breathwork coach and tarot reader. I have experience instructing and guiding since almost 6 years now, but in the outdoor industry. Anywho. I decided to focus on this because it changed my life: I haven’t had asthma in 3 years, cured my acne, can now run without dying, sleep great, lost weight, experience presence more often than not, and got out of sleeping 18h / day to avoid being here. I have now guided more than 200 people, I practice every day, people around me are interested in what I do, I teach at a very nice and unique studio in the city.
I work 35h a week as a barista, half of my pay goes to renting a room in Barcelona. I don’t want to end the year this way. I’m Venezuelan, I want to have the freedom to help my parents & friends progress. Can we help each other progress?

‼️TW (CP, CSA, DA, DV, EA, ED, PA, RA, SA, SH, SI, WC)‼️
Sorry I know that’s a lot of TW’s there’s just brief mention of some of this stuff so I don’t wanna catch anyone off guard.
This is also a bit of a vent post.
I have absolutely no idea what I have, I had no idea I could potentially have a personality disorder until a few months ago, I am not meaning to rely on social media for help, though where I’m from there is such a lack in psychiatrists in my area so I feel stuck/lost. I will be venting/explaining my situation in full, I just would like to hear thoughts and opinions, I’m not trying to say I have anything specific, but the different personalities have made themselves apparent over the past 5 months. Whether it’s OSDD, BPD, DID, i don’t know.
There’s so much that I don’t really know where to start, so I guess I’ll just start with when I realized something wasn’t right. (TMI) I was having an intimate moment with my partner, it’s a long distance relationship (new relationship((known each other for about 6-7 months now)) so it was an over the phone moment. (FaceTime). I’ve had issues in the past because of sexual trauma, where immediately after sex/intimate moments i get sent into a huge derealization/panic attack due to feeling vulnerable. Now at this point, i haven’t had sex in about 4 years, and any time prior, it always ended in panic attacks. Me being vulnerable over the phone is not entirely new, but the level of vulnerability in the sense of allowing myself to fully enjoy it, that was new. I started hyperventilating, I couldn’t talk, I was crying, I was fighting with a blanket trying to cover myself all while my partner was trying to console me. I wasn’t really fully there and before this moment, any show of mania, dissociation, stuff like that, it went unnoticed. During this panic attack, I was absolutely in distress at one moment, and all of the sudden, I felt a shift. I didn’t really understand it when it happened but all of the sudden I stopped crying, the pain was still there but it wasn’t present, it felt deeper inside. It felt very different; I felt very different. All I could think and feel in that moment was this protectiveness and thought process of “I need to clean up everything before she comes back.” Now at the time I wasn’t thinking she, but I knew it was before something. Before a feeling came back was more how it resonated at the time before I could understand it better. Anyways, my whole persona shifted and I went into clean up mode and I was very confused. I felt “her” crying inside. My partner works in mental health, so he danced around delicately as I asked him questions about what he thought was going on so I could get a better picture of what I’m going through since everything felt so blinded. At one point, I just asked him. “Do you think I’m manic?” Which was the only question he responded to confidently. “Yes”. At that point, like this may seem so over exaggerated but it seriously felt like the curtains on my whole life, everything, had been pulled back and I could see myself and my actions for what they were. I saw every manic moment as mania rather than just the original gaslighting myself for my very real and terrifying experiences. After that, I was aware of me being manic for the first time and I haven’t felt such fear in a long time. I mean I don’t think I’ve ever felt fear like that before but like the level of intensity was very hard to deal with. I was terrified. I was finally seeing my hyper vigilance as hyper vigilance. I was seeing the symptoms clearly, my excessive sweating, my depleted eating habits, my sleep schedule insanely messed up. Which all before this, just seemed like “my life”. I started doing research, and I ended up needing to write something down. I can’t remember what it was but I will find it and add it.
“I’ve been doing a lot of research and thinking a lot, there’s been a lot of confusion with my identity or identities. I also need to preface that my entire life whenever I expressed how I felt, I was instead told what to do and how to feel. I know this is going to sound concerning, and people will be quick to dismiss it in an attempt to be supportive. But please just allow it to be what it is. Growing up I was always in great distress, constantly. My head was absolutely filled to the brim with worried and fears and as the years went on it only got worse. I’m highschool I transitioned into Blake; I thought it “felt” like me, but after research and certain situations/symptoms since delving back into that, I realized this was a traumatic disorder, even though I don’t know which one. Blakes feelings were 100% valid, but that’s because they were Blakes. What caused the de-transition was this. Beginning of highschool I was in crisis and distress, my brain created another personality to keep lily safe and keep her locked away. Since then I haven’t seen her, none of us have. Once Blake started receiving micro-aggressions and transphobia we went into even more distress. In 2017 my brain was absolutely stressed out from everything during the drug era and how much trauma and how burdened my mind was, I split again. My brain created Bella. Fast forward to now, Bella was breaking, and Blake had already been poking his head out, he’s been seeing the distress she’s been in and came back to take over. I never thought I was capable of having something like this l, but please bear with me as I explain how I came to this realization. This may be TMI but my partner and I were having an intimate moment and instantly afterwards I had the worst panic attack, something I’ve been trying to protect myself from for years. As I’m writing this down I’m starting to realize that those panic attacks after sexual situations are probably lily, but still valid as panic attacks. I have a lump in my throat while writing this, I promise I am not making it up or exaggerating. During the panic attack my partner was trying to console me but I completely switched in that moment to Blake and all he could feel was sorrow and was trying to give her a break. Blake came out to keep her safe. all I could do was clean up and prepare for when she came back so she wasn’t triggered, I don’t know what this is and gender fluid still feels valid and right, but in that moment of switching genders, I realized I am not switching genders, I am switching personalities. One personality could not carry the burden of it all. I am not concerned about this though, I feel with the very realization I am understanding myself better as a while.”
I was very manic when writing this. I believe I mainly wrote it for my parents. I was fearful of being dismissed.
My cousin had joined the call since I was spiraling and the both of them worked really hard to try and get me to stop writing and go to bed, which was really hard for me because I was super hyper vigilant in the moment and when it comes to my independence, I was told I have to deal with everything myself and I can’t rely on people so sometimes listening to help can be hard, accepting that help can be hard. I ended up being able to put stuff down and go to bed, more because I didn’t want to make things more difficult for them but I also could partly recognize that my actions were not helping the state I was in.
Ever since this moment it’s been realization after realization. This is so far what resonates.
I believe I have 3, possibly 4 alters. One I will name lily, she is who I originally was. Main host I guess? But doesn’t feel like it anymore. What I think happened, is that I’ve been exposed to countless amounts of different forms of abuse. When I was 12, is when I believe I split for the first time. I’ve been looking back at photos to see my mannerisms, expressions, I’ve also been expressing alter emotions through art which was another realization I had a month or two ago. This realization came from looking back at my art, and at one piece I had made just before the main breakdown/realization. It was of a face, and my art has mainly been faces. This one I remember making, I was so frustrated; and I remember looking at it and being like, why am I so frustrated, this doesn’t reflect how I feel at all. Since the realization, my cousin had pointed out that it kind of resembled a sense of splitting, which then resonated deeply. It was like I saw my painting clearly, and then I looked at all my art and was like, oh my god. My alters have been here this whole god damn time. The painting I am talking about; is the one attached to this post.
When I was a child, I hated art with a passion. I remember never picking up a pencil crayon or anything because I just didn’t like it. I wasnt good at it, I had no intention of doing art. When I was 12/13 is when I actually started doing art. I remember I did a bridesmaids dress and was like, cool. Didn’t hate it, (yes I know that this is how most artists start) but then it was just eyes. I only drew eyes, eyes and faces. Faces with third eyes, faces with hardened expressions. Now I have said countless times to my family and friends when they ask about my art, that when I paint or draw, it doesn’t feel like it’s me doing it. I once chalked it up to, artists ghosts were using me to express their art. That thought came during a particularly distressing year that when I look back I was def manic. I lost 100 lbs in like a month-a month and a half, could not eat, could barely leave my bed, was not doing well at all. This was 2019 I believe. I looked through all my art recently and during a sketchbook in 2019, during a really hard time, I had wrote down the wrong year when signing my art. Twice. The year I wrote was 2012, when I was 11/12.(2000 baby). Which then led me to look back on my life and look at photos around 2012 which had me thinking it was 1 of 2 things. 2012 was the year I split for the first time, or it was the year something really traumatic happened. I think it was the first one though. Reason being, yeah everything had started changing when I was 12. I mean I was always changing prior, my life has been very tumultuous. An undiagnosed autistic afab kid who had a very manipulative narcissistic father, and a very sweet mother, surrounded by a huge family of cousins who were like siblings. My mom divorced my dad after lots of abuse, he emotionally manipulated me into always feeling sorry for men when they show emotion and I developed Stockholm syndrome towards him which had me defending his every actions, including when he was a drug dealer, and sold enough drugs to an 18 year old to have her overdose, or the child pornography on his computer, or anything really because I was a child and he was my dad he manipulated me at a very young age. My mom married again a year or two after, which prompted her to need to get away from the abuse of my bio dad, and the abuse of religion we had been pushed upon us since birth. Pentecostal. We moved across country, and suddenly she became very emotionally distant as we now had moved away from my entire family, and had a new man in our life who was stable in every aspect besides the emotional unavailability. He tried, they both did. But they were dealing with traumas. He had just gotten back from Afghanistan. We moved because he was stationed somewhere else in the country. I ended up developing a binge eating disorder, had a lot of other intense traumas in between, did not know how to cope. When I was 10, my parents put me in therapy, my sister and I both. To deal with my bio dad trauma. I’ve been in therapy ever since. I’m 23 now.
I realize I am getting off track but I’m tryna lay everything out and not forget anything.
When I was 12/13, a lot had happened with my bio dad and a restraining order was put in place. He also had a kid with another woman and she(my sister) had passed away, a lot had happened on top of many other traumas, and I think lily broke. She didn’t really wanna be present anymore but we had no idea what was happening, but I felt myself changing. I started combating this with hyper-femininity, because who had split was me, who is currently hosting, Blake. (Also I know I use I/me as a whole sometimes, still tryna understand that. The only thing that resonates with what I mean when I say I is higher self. Not in a spiritual sense but like a higher version or a whole version? I don’t know)
Had no idea wtf was happening. All I knew was I started having dysphoria that I didn’t understand was dysphoria, so I combated it with hyperfeminity. Extra make up; always dressing up extra “girly” trying to act “girlier” or more feminine. Until I turned 14/15, and I ended up coming to terms with the fact that I was not who I thought I was, so I started changing to align with who I was. I came out as a trans man, and started the process of transitioning. Cue micro-aggressions, internalized transphobia, as well as a shit ton of transphobia from my family back home which caused me to panic. I ended up becoming really suicidal and made the decision to go hang out with a friend who was hanging with friends I had never met before, which triggered my next traumatic event. I ended up hanging with the wrong people, went down a drug path, was exposed to some very difficult and dangerous moments, felt a feeling of distress I have never felt nor would ever wish upon my worst enemy. I put it on myself as well, to help the friend I went in there with, get off a coke addiction. He went into psychosis and became violent at one point so I had to tell his mom everything and she sent him to rehab which worked but didn’t. He OD’d one night(survived) it was bad. I only ever went as far as psychedelics. But acid was my drug of choice. I was so done with everyone and everything that I just spent like 2-3 months straight, every day, tripping. I was 16 at the time. I also was exposed to the father of the household who had a weird thing for me, he tried sneaking into my bedroom one night when my bf wasn’t home (I ended up moving in with my at the time bf) but I was awake so he left real quick but it terrified me. All of this was such intense distress and I believe around this time was the second split, because it felt like for the entirety of me in that traumatic era, it was Blake and Bella fighting to host and take over. Bella was the host for the past 6 years. She took over around 2017, after like a year of fighting. I(Blake) tend to self destruct, even though I’m overprotective, trying to accept this about myself at the time was impossible because I was dealing with so much anger that was affecting the rest of the system. I also was done. Idk if alters “go to sleep” but Blake went away for a while. But what I’ve come to realize is I don’t think they’re ever went away, like lily has always been here, and I realized that the night of the intimate moment, because me having that panic attack after the intimate moment, and every panic attack prior, I believe that it’s lily. I haven’t touched that too much though because she is so to herself and shy and never comes out and she’s just traumatized, plus the amount of anger coming from Blake, and the amount of sadness coming from Bella, it’s all very overwhelming. But I do think it’s her, I don’t think she understands what’s happening but she like pokes her head out during it because maybe it’s so to with the sexual trauma we went through as a kid? I know something happened to me as a kid but I don’t know what. But I’m not ready for that yet, the anger is a more pressing issue.
Bella is very maternal, she took over and spent the past 6 years working her ass off to develop the coping mechanisms we need, and creating a safe space in our mind. The manic moments have been cushioned without us even knowing it’s manic moments; all she knew was we’re in distress so she found what helped best and worked real hard to keep us afloat. She got us out of the drugs, out of the abuse, out of the toxic relationship, out of anything that did not serve us. But not without giving up too much of herself and being beaten down. Like I know we’ve all gone through it but she took hit after hit after hit and everyone just used her as a projection batting cage. Within the past few months has been her stepping down. 5 months is us fighting, because she doesn’t want to, but she needs to, because she needs a break. And I need a break from the break. I need to deal with my anger and learn to live this world as a man. It’s been really hard to deal with, because I’ve cut off our hair which was a lot for Bella, and I’m trying to give her grace because it’s a huge change for everyone; but I’m so eager to be out. To my friends and family I’ve come out as gender fluid, a safe way for us to just be, even though gender fluid is still accurate to us, but me(Blake) I want to be on T, I want top surgery; the dysphoria has been very intense but I am not making any decisions while untreated in whatever this is. Bella doesn’t want any of that, but a hypothetical compromise that we’ve been thinking about is a breast reduction to start, to ease the mind.
Now when I look back at the past 11-12 years, I see all three of them out and about disguised as each other without realizing. There’s this one song I remember listening to on repeat non stop and idk why it just felt right it sounded right I loved it I needed to listen to it. Now, go listen to Satellites by Sleeping with sirens, think about alters waking up/trying to be known or whatever, like Jesus fuck it’s so obvious to me everything just makes sense (ik that sounds like a stretch but there’s more in my head that relates to that feeling I just can’t put it into words)
I’ve also been dealing with breaking down the walls of expectations. I have never allowed myself to be upset or have quarrels due to feeling like an inconvenience, I believe this has a lot to do with it as well.
Oh and the 4th potential alter is either someone just chillin in the background observing, or the “higher self” version of myself I was talking about. I really can’t tell.
I know there’s so much more I didn’t add but I’m deffo not doing the best rn so my brain can’t remember everything. Anyways, I’m not looking for a diagnosis obviously, but I just wanna hear what it sounds like. Because it feels like a personality disorder of some sort even tho idk wtf that’s supposed to feel like lol, so does it sound like one? I guess is what I’m really asking. Anyways, thanks for reading. Regardless of a response it is nice to get this off my chest aha. It also might be all over the place if so I apologize I think I’m currently manic? Yes I have been talking with my therapist about this, she’s not specialized in this stuff so she can only help so much, I’ve been tryna push my doctor to get me a psych referral to which he says there’s no psychiatrist in my area that are really taking any clients rn. He also sat there and told me I wasn’t dealing with mania and started listening of symptoms that I deal with that he had yet to even ask me about. I was already heated going in there because I knew I was going to have to fight for what I needed. Well the funny part is, the psychiatrist I went in there wanting a referral to; that I thought my therapist recommended me, was not an actual recommendation of a psychiatrist, but of a book of resources for me to look at, but I was manic and not there and I was literally so bent on needing help and needing a psych referral that my brain heard the authors name and was like “okay time to go to the doctor”. And then I had to admit to the doctors receptionist that I was indeed manic when I came in and that i didn’t know what I was talking about which was embarrassing and then I actually heard concern in her voice, rather than dismissal, which should’ve been comforting, but it just pissed me off lol. Anyways, sorry I’m done now lol 😂

Hey Redditors,
I’m diving into writing a research paper and thought I’d share some tips that have helped me along the way. Whether you’re a newbie or looking to refine your skills, these pointers can guide you through the process.

1. Choose a Clear, Focused Topic: Start with a broad area of interest, then narrow it down to a specific question or hypothesis. A well-defined topic helps you stay on track and makes your research more manageable.
2. Conduct Thorough Research: Use a variety of sources—books, academic journals, reputable websites. Take detailed notes and organize them by theme or argument. Don’t forget to keep track of your sources for citations!
3. Develop a Strong Thesis Statement: Your thesis is the backbone of your paper. It should be clear, concise, and reflect the main argument or finding of your research. Everything in your paper should support or relate to this statement.
4. Create an Outline: Organize your thoughts and structure your paper before you start writing. An outline helps you see the big picture and ensures a logical flow of ideas.
5. Write a Compelling Introduction: Grab your reader’s attention with a strong opening. Provide background information and clearly state your thesis. Your introduction should set the stage for the rest of the paper.
6. Craft Clear, Coherent Body Paragraphs: Each paragraph should focus on a single idea that supports your thesis. Start with a topic sentence, provide evidence or examples, and explain how it relates to your argument. Use transitions to maintain flow.
7. Use Credible Sources: Back up your arguments with evidence from credible sources. Peer-reviewed journals, books by experts, and official statistics are generally reliable. Avoid questionable websites and outdated materials.
8. Analyze, Don’t Just Describe: Go beyond summarizing your sources. Critically analyze the information, compare different viewpoints, and explain the significance of your findings. Show how your research contributes to the field.
9. Write a Strong Conclusion: Summarize your main points and restate your thesis (in a new way). Discuss the implications of your findings and suggest areas for future research. Your conclusion should leave a lasting impression.
10. Revise and Edit: Don’t submit your first draft. Take time to revise for clarity, coherence, and consistency. Check for grammar, punctuation, and formatting errors. Consider getting feedback from peers or mentors.
11. Properly Cite Your Sources: Avoid plagiarism by correctly citing all sources. Follow the required citation style (APA, MLA, Chicago, etc.) consistently. Proper citations add credibility to your paper and acknowledge the work of other researchers.
12. Stay Organized and Manage Your Time: Break down the writing process into manageable steps and set deadlines for each. Use tools like reference managers (Zotero, Mendeley) to keep your sources organized. Staying on schedule reduces stress and improves the quality of your work.

Remember, writing a research paper is a process. Don’t rush it, and give yourself time to think, write, and revise. Good luck, and happy writing!

Hey guys!
About a month ago I started my partial tattoo removal journey. First picture is what it looks like right now, the second one was taken years ago, before any removal. Everything that's red in the first pic is exactly what I'm in the process of getting removed. My question is, why is it still pretty red? Is this considered "normal" or is it because of the brown/black ink slowly dissolving? What should I expect? My next appointment is scheduled in June. Any advice is greatly appreciated, thank you guys so much in advance!

A few years ago my dad gave me a painting of my childhood teddy bear. I was ecstatic. That teddy bear is long lost. For reasons beyond my control I can no longer return to my home land. This painting represents a part of my childhood I can’t revisit. It also represents my hope to reconnect with my dad. My dad is a nice person. But because of his busy work schedule we never had much time together. I was looking forward to having the painting in my bedroom.
I showed my husband the painting. I told him the story behind. The first thing he said was “is that your childhood dildo?”. That was a wildly inappropriate comment. He thought he was being funny. I told him off. He apologised.
That was a few years ago. I never got over that comment. I never hung the painting up. It has been resting in a corner of my room, behind a few other pictures I never hung up.
I saw the painting this morning. Maybe it was too early in the morning. I thought maybe I should hang it up. But the moment I took the picture out I was instantly grossed out. I can’t think of anything but my dad giving me a dildo and molesting me. He never did any thing of the sort. But my mind can’t move away from the thought. I was working hard to rebuild my relationship with my dad. This thought was not helping.
I told my husband about it. He said he already apologised. He doesn’t know what he can do about it. He then said I have said hurtful things to him before that he let go off (comments on his weight and disability). I know he is sensitive about his weight. I know fat shaming is wrong but I really don’t think it is the same level as implication of child molesting.
He asked me what he could do to make it right. I generally don’t know. Part of me is still grossed out. Part of me thinks why is it he is the one that did wrong but I am the one who needs to come up with a solution. He said what about we touch up the painting. There’s nothing wrong with the painting. It doesn’t need touching up.
Internet parents. I know I need to find a way to move on. I know dwelling on it is unhealthy But how do I do it when an apology is not enough?
I know divorce is an option. But I want to learn to deal with emotions more maturely without jumping to divorce after every argument. I would also appreciate resources on how to deal with negative emotions (anger, jealousy) more maturely