Are you familiar with the below unsolved cases?
Maura Murray - Remains never found - (Missing from Northern NH) - missing since 2004. No body or leads.
Trish Haynes’ - remains were discovered inside a washer-dryer set that was pulled from Grants Pond off Wild Meadow Road in Grafton, NH. - Missing since 2018.
April Bailey - vanished on Jan. 15, 2020, on Lynn Street in Nashua after leaving her three young children in her apartment to “quickly” bring out the trash in the winter while wearing only her pajamas and slippers. Cops do not have a suspect and the FBI is investigating.
Amanda Grazewski - On March 17, 2020, she left a residence on Birch Street, Derry NH in the early morning hours, around 12:30 a.m., without her purse, cellphone, or other belongings, and has not been seen or heard from since.
Dylan Sanford - Missing since 2018 from Somersworth NH. Subject walked away to buy cigarettes and never returned. His wallet was found a half mile away. Foal play is suspected, the body has never been recovered.
Bethany Sinclair & Tina Sinclair Bethany - Last seen in Chesterfield NH at age 15 in 2001. Her Mother Tina Sinclair also disappeared on the same day, last seen in Chesterfield NH. No bodies or leads. Now a cold case.
Ashley Turcotte - Last seen in Barnstead NH Dollar General buying table salt and candy. Her car was found the next day at the town hall parking lot with all her belongings still in the car, including keys, purse, money, identification, credit cards and all other items normally found in a woman’s purse. Multiple searches have come back with no body or leads.
Do you have any cases we should add to our lists??

MauraMurray

TrishHaynes

AprilBailey

AmandaGrazewski

DylanSanford

Bethany Sinclair

TinaSinclair

AshleyTurcotte

SerialKillerinNH

NewHampshireSerialKiller

SerialKillerNH

NHMissingPersons

NHUnsolvedCases

good morning!
looking for reccomendations for a land survey company. i basically just need all 4 corners of the property mapped out.
neighbor and i are both confused on where the property ends and hers begins, and she’s expressed a willingness to go 50/50 on a land survey for my property since mine is smaller and probably cheaper to do. just so both of our asses are covered in case something happens :)
thank you in advance!

I have devised this thread as some guidance for those people who have visited this forum and are concerned about specific symptoms that are effecting them and, in particular, those who are worried that these symptoms are an indication of neurological conditions such as Multiple Sclerosis (MS), Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS) & Motor Neurone Disease (MND).
The first thing that must be realised is that NOBODY on an internet forum can ever diagnose you or truly give you any reassurance that you do not have these conditions. Should anybody experience any signs or symptoms that are new to them they should ALWAYS approach their doctor in the first instance in order for these to be examined. In the vast majority of cases a GP will be able to advise you that these symptoms are benign but some doctors will often refer you to a neurologist for their opinion, if this should happen it is not value laden as regarding a possible diagnosis but rather would be the standard format for how you present to the doctor.
This thread is good news, it is good news because it has had to be written, it is good news because hundreds, maybe thousands of people have logged onto this board and countless other anxiety forums totally convinced that they are suffering from a neurological condition despite being told by health care profesionals that this is not the case. All these people ask the same questions and all these people have the exact same worries as you are having now. If this is you, if you have been to the doctor, maybe even a neuro, maybe even two neuro’s, maybe even had an MRI, maybe even two MRI’s, well, you get the picture, if you have been told by your health care profesional that you are healthy but you are struggling to believe this you may find some help from this thread.
So, you have come to an anxiety board. I guess that is because your doctor has told you that you are suffering from anxiety. Actually, my guess would be that your doctor has told you that you are suffering from ‘just’ anxiety and, if you are lucky, you may have been given some leaflets, you may have had some books recommended and you may even have been given some medication.
So, what took you to the doctor? Was it the tingling? The pins & needles? That damned annoying twitching eyelid that just won’t let up? Was it that weird thing when you keep seeing the flashing in your periphiral vision? The strange sensation in your throat where you just can’t swallow? The constant muscle aches and cramps? The constant small joint aches and cramps? Do you have that weird internal vibrating feeling? Was it the percieved weakness in all your major limbs? What about the foot drop you have been noticing, the clumsiness, finding the car keys in the fridge? Was it the chronic constant fatigue, that feeling when you wake in the morning like you haven’t actually gone to bed? What about the myclonic jerking, that bizarre moment when your whole body jerks like you have had an electric shock? Was it that constant twitching in your calf muscles that looks like you have a bag of worms under your skin? It could have been the parathesia, the feeling on your skin where one moment it feels sunburnt and the next minute it feels soaking wet? Maybe it was the atrophy, you know, the muscle loss in your bicep, your thigh that is so obvious to you but what frustratingly nobody else can see? What about………are you bored? I’m bored!
So, you have had some of those right? Maybe like me you are unlucky enough to have had every one of them…not much fun is it! When you first started getting these weird and wonderful symptoms cropping up I bet one of the first things you did was run off to the all powerful internet and consult that all knowing oracle, the good lord GOOGLE. If you did this, if you searched for your symptoms on a search engine on the internet, congratualtions, you have taken the first step on developing this weird and wonderful anxiety disorder known as Health Anxiety. The reason we Google is because of a basic human need at a time of stress, we are scared and we want reassurance, the problem is nothing you ever read on the internet will give you the reassurance you need, you will unwittingly discard the plethora of evidence that tells you that you do not have a neurological illness and instead will latch onto and inflate those things which seem ambigous, why would you do this? I suggest that at this point it may be adavantagous for you to look in the Genaralized Anxiety Disorder folder on this forum and see the negative thought processes and over generalization and catastrophising that defines GAD, it just may ring some bells for you.
So, by the time you have gone to the doctor you are pretty much resigned to the fact that it is MS or if you are really unlucky ALS. You picture yourself in a wheelchair, the kids looking at you with pity as you can’t play sports in the park with them anymore, you picture your partner standing by you and caring for you but all the while you feel the resentment, they never signed up for this, you picture the scene in four years time, confined to a hospital bed with your family and friends round you with the fruit and flowers…..BUT WAIT!
Oh joyous news, the doctor has said you don’t have MS, you don’t have ALS, what you have is anxiety, well, just anxiety….oh believe me there is a BIG difference. You have got out of jail free! The doctor has examind you thoroughly, he has taken your history, he knows the patterns, he has seen people with MS and ALS and you are not one of those. With a skip and a step you are on your way, same time next year doctor, yep, no worries…so with a happy heart and an increased vigour you are off out of the surgery door to continue with your life that had been on hold up to then. MS, ALS how could you be so silly eh?
…and then it begins! Right, the doctor said this is anxiety, I’m not anxious though, why do I still have these symptoms if I’m not anxious….something just isn’t right here. The more you think about it the more it seems obvious, hold on, I saw the doctor on Friday afternoon, I bet he was just thinking about the weekend and wanted to get rid of me. I’m sure that the doctor should have done more tests than he did you know, crikey, I’m sure when I told him the numbness was down just the one side he didn’t listen to that, that bit is crucial and he never heard it. Hold on, this freakin eye twitch is getting even worse and I’m not even anxious, where is the telephone? What is that doctors number?……welcome to the loop!
If any of the above seems familier to you, believe me, you are not alone…as strange as it may seem the fixation on being convinced you have a neurological condition after being told that you are in actual fact suffering from anxiety in very common.
Firstly, you need to realise that both MS and ALS are rare disease’s. Not only are they both rare disease’s but they also tend to effect spefic groups based on ethnicity, age and sex so we are talking about rare disease with partial excluding factors. In contrast, anxiety is an incredibly common and debilitating condtion that effects people both physically and mentally.
Anxiety is generally percieved to be a mental condition, when we are anxious we are anxious in our head and this can kick in the flight or fight syndrome which in turn causes the physical reactions. These reactions are generally thought to be a racing heart and palpitations, sweating, increased adrenaline etc etc. Now, this is all well and good but how does this fit in with those symptoms that mirror MS etc so effectivly.
I personally believe that the reason most people fail to be believe that their symptoms are being genrated by anxiety is because the concept of anxiety is never actually expalined sufficently. A large number of doctors will often expalin to you that you are suffering from ‘just’ anxety and this usage of the term ‘just’ is supposed to make us somehow feel reassured. The problem is that this has the opposite effect, how can a ‘just’ something cause all these real physical symptoms. If anxiety is effecting me mentally how can it make me twitch, buzz and go numb?
For some people anxiety will surface in the tradional panic attack, much seems to be written on this side of anxiety and this is not what we are concerned with here. For a sizable group of people when anxiety starts to manifest itself physically it is through physical sesnations that effect various aspects of our nervous system. This is why the sensations of this physical anxiety so closely mirror the symptoms of a condition such as MS, they actually effect the same part of the body, now, here is the crucial and all important difference, the symptoms of MS are caused by an organic condition which whilst treatable is irreversable and the physical sensations of anxiety are caused by the mind and are of course reversable. In short, you have to understand and accept that the mind can actually generate these physical sensations.
Whilst for many people physical anxiety can strike out of the blue, I am of the opinion that for the vast majority of people anxiety starts to become physical after whay could be many years of bad stress and anxiety management. You may not have even noticed this. We all have an anxiety threshold and the majority of people will probably never approach the blow off point, yes, a sudden and severe stressor could take someone right over the point from the baseline (think Post Traumatic Stress Disorder & Conversion Disorder etc) but most of us operate at an anxiety level that our bodies can handle. The problem is that if we stress ourselves constantly over a period of time, we do not allow our thermostat to reset and one sunny day something will happen, some stressor which can be a bad or even a good event and which we may not even realise the significance of will push us over the limit and it is at this point that our anxiety will effect us physically and more often than not impact on our nervous system.
This also happens to bring us to another crucial factor and what for many is the paradox that holds us back form accepting the anxiety diagniosis, how the hell can this be anxiety when I am not anxious? It makes no sense to me! What we need to realise is that once we have crossed the anxiety threshold no matter what we do we have to surrender ourselves to our mind and body and accept that we are now operating to a timescale that WE CANNOT CONTROL! We can think we are being as cool as Fonzie but we need to accept that the damage whilst reversible has been done and it is just a case of closing the stable door after the horse has bolted. Our body is now in control of us and the physical sensations will only stop when our body and mind are sufficently recovered.
It is at this point where we commit the ultimate folly, do we do as the experts suggest and sit back and realx and float through this stage? Of course not, we do the total opposite, we monitor our body for every twitch and interpret this as a sign of a misdiagnosis, we become hypervigilant, paranoid, self absorbed…this behaviour just creates more and more anxiety and we do not allow our body and mind the time necessary to recover….we are, in effect, pouring gasoline on the fire and expecting it to go out.
If you read this forum you will find a variety of posts that will offer you suggestions as to why you are suffering from the physical sensations of anxiety. Some people will advocate medication, some Cognitive Behaviour Therapy etc etc but what you will realise is that there is no one right way. I am truly of the belief that recovery is all about acceptance and learning to respond to fear correctly but how we do this is very much an indvidual thing. It could well be that you have issues with GAD and you can see how patterns realting to that disorder resonate with how you currently feel about your health, for example, note how both MS and ALS are diseases with which we lose control of our bodies. It could also be that you have issues with OCD, traits such as reassurance seeking and body and symptom monitoring could suggest this. There may well be suggestions that you could be sufferring from elements of depression, there is as school of thought that believes that the mind will somatise physical sensations when there are aspects of your life that your unconcious is unhappy with etc.
I hope this has helped if you have just visited here convinced you have MS etc and you are feeling scared and confused. You may have noticed I have not mentioned anything specific about MS or ALS and that is because there is no reason to...you do not have those. Your doctor has told you you are suffering from anxiety and therefore you are in the right place. Refrain from researching about diseases you do not have and instead concentrate on dealing with what you have today. Of course, what you have today doesn’t guarantee you won’t have MS or ALS tomorrow and if that thought fills you with fear use your time here wisely and believe me, it becomes a lot more bearable.

Good morning, Dodgers!

• Team Website
• Wikipedia Article of the Day: File:The Sound Of The Dodgers.jpg - Wikipedia

⚾ Dodgers vs. D-backs ⚾

First Pitch: Tuesday, May 21, 2024 7:10 PM Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles, California

Starters

Team	Starting Pitcher	IP	K/9	BB/9	H9	ERA
AZ	RHP Brandon Pfaadt	54.0	8.50	1.67	1.00	4.17
LAD	RHP Gavin Stone	44.0	5.93	3.27	0.61	3.27

Team Offense

Team	G	AVG	OBP	SLG	OPS	AB/HR	G
AZ	48	.246	.319	.390	.709	36.84	4.75
LAD	50	.259	.340	.435	.775	25.71	5.18

Top Performers

D-backs	Pos	OPS	Rank	OPS	Pos	Dodgers
Ketel Marte	2B	.860	1		TWP	Shohei Ohtani
Christian Walker	1B	.775	2	.978	SS	Mookie Betts
Lourdes Gurriel Jr.	LF	.669	3	.873	1B	Freddie Freeman

On this day in 2022...

Dodgers @ Phillies, LAD 4 PHI 4, bot 7, 1 out, Alec Bohm facing Daniel Hudson... Alec Bohm lines into a double play, right fielder Mookie Betts to catcher Will Smith. Odubel Herrera out at home. VIDEO
Win Probability Added: 23.5

MLB Upcoming Dates

• End of the 1st Half - Sun 14 July 2024
  
• All Star Game - Tue 16 July 2024
  
• Start of the 2nd Half - Fri 19 July 2024
  

Questions of the Day

1. What do you think about when you hear the word “classy”?
   
2. What’s something that a lot of people are missing out on because they don’t know about it?
   
3. What do you think of online education?
   

Have a great day, Dodgers.

I need some advice here.
My mom has been feeling sick for more than 2 years. She has hypothyroidism, is extra weight, and has swellings in her legs and arms almost all the time. She does not have any energy, feels like she has a fever which does not show on thermometer, and her stomach keeps growing out despite a very simple and Spartan diet and too much daily work for her to be lazy.
She's 49, has 2 businesses, is in and out for work all day, handles household chores as well. She does light exercises and meditation in mornings as well. She's having uneven periods.
Yet all doctors she has seen cannot find anything wrong with her at all. They tell her to reduce weight, prescribe multivitamins and gas tablets and refuse to entertain further. Same was the case with gynaecologist. Occasionally, they prescribe her arrythmia/anxiety/arthritis meds, with no actual diagnosis. 1 doctor even put her on steroids without informing her about it whatsoever.
We have to go to doctors quite occasionally, and this cycle keeps repeating.
I request you to suggest some good doctors in/near UP who take such cases seriously and stop dismissing her issues due to weight and calling her lazy. We have spent so much money on this with no outcome at all. I am concerned about her.
Note: I will not be disclosing the location in the post for several reasons.

She got up in the dark, with only the dim ambience of soft blue lighting to accompany her. She stretched all four arms, her two legs, and rolled her neck. It struck her as mildly interesting in that moment, how something so small could connect them to humans, The thought was fleeting as she took another step forward to kneel down on the floor. There, in a little alcove in the wall, she had set a volcanic rock from Anin, dried moss, and other paraphernalia from her home world. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath resting her hands together.
Praise and respect to the spirits of Anin. Praise the fathers and mothers of war gone to their rest below the moss and the earth. Praise their spirits that watch from the sky and peer through the ether down upon us.
She continued the slow mantra in the style of Prayer learned from Naktan and pulled her concentration to her core, ignoring anything and everything around her. A deep state of meditation overtook her. She would never have done this if she thought there were any chance that she was in danger, but below she knew Earth glowed like a sphere before their orbiting ship. There was no worry of invasion.
She thought she heard something at one point, but chose to ignore it as she continued her mantra.
Eventually, and after an unknown amount of minutes, she stood and turned slowly to find-
She stopped, and crossed her arms over her chest.
"What are you doing?”
Adam burrowed his way further down into her blankets, nuzzling his head up against her pillow,
"So warm, and comfy!"
She tried not to smile,
"You dumbass."
He pulled the blankets tighter around himself,
"You know, I did come here to talk to you, but now I actually am really comfortable, so come back in two hours."
"I- This is MY home!"
He closed his eyes and pretended to snore loudly.
She rolled her eyes as she watched him theatrically pretend to sleep. She looked around mildly for a moment, before picking up another pillow and glancing at the door. She casually walked over, dropped the pillow on his head and then held it down as if she intended to smother him.
”Die human scum!”
That got him up and moving.
Before long the two of them were grappling for the upper hand, him trying to put her in a choke hold, and her using her lower arms to pinch him.
He yelped,
"Ouch! Pinching is illegal!”
"Sissy."
He clamped his legs around her lower arms, pinning them in place.
She struggled for a minute and then went limp.
She could feel his smug smile,
"I win, I beat the saint of Anin. Everyone bow at my feet."
"You say that, but if this were a real fight, since you’re a human male, you're the one with a self-destruct button."
"Self-destruct button...?"
"Meaning if this were a real fight, I would have punched you in the balls."
"Yaoooutch… Oh god… Please don't."
Finally, he let her go, leaving the two of them to lay on her bed, sheets scattered on the floor around them, and her pillows in disarray. Adam put his hands behind his head and sighed.
She glanced over at him,
"I don't suppose you came to just hang out. Here on Admiral-ly business?"
He groaned, pulling one of her pillows over his face,
"Please smother me for real this time."
She leaned up on one of her elbows,
"Why?"
"I don't wanna be an adult anymore!"
She tilted her head to the side, watching in amusement as he attempted to throw a childlike tantrum, but only really had the energy to kick his feet once,
"It's boring and lame and they won’t let me wear heelies to important meetings... also children don't have to pay taxes."
She laughed, pulling the pillow from his face,
"Adam you are many things, but 'adult' is not one of them."
He grinned slightly,
"True enough."
He sighed again and rested his head back against the pillows,
"I just want to get back to what we are supposed to be doing, exploring the universe and making cool alien friends."
He threw up his hands in frustration,
"But suddenly I find myself embroiled in stupid annoying politics that I don't understand, being used by people who are, let’s face it, WAY smarter than me, constantly finding myself getting manipulated."
She huffed,
"They aren't smarter than you Adam, they're just manipulative, and you aren't."
He sighed,
"Fair enough."
Then he looked at her, bright green eyes reflecting the soft ambient blue light,
"I just, I miss this, I miss us, I miss hanging out and doing stupid shit, and all of the things I could do when I wasn't so important and this operation was smaller."
She smiled rather sadly reaching one hand over for his, lacing the four of her fingers through the five of his,
"Well someone has to do the hard things, who better than you?”
He glanced over at her, raising an eyebrow,
"Or you, miss saint?”
She rolled her eyes again,
"Can't seem to get you off of that. I'm still the same person I used to be."
"But with power."
She elbowed him gently and he grinned,
"But really, I am proud and impressed and... Let's be honest super super smug that 'I' know you personally."
"I know, I am pretty terrific."
The two of them laughed for a minute before settling down again. He glanced over to her little shrine on the wall,
"What were you doing just then?"
She looked up at the ceiling, following the lines of metal and rivets with her eyes,
"Praying to the spirits of Anin."
Embarrassed, he shifted,
"I didn't know you were... Well I didn't think you were all that religious?"
She shrugged,
"Don't feel bad, it's sort of a new thing. Back before all this, it was sort of just stories to me. Like I believed it because that was what everyone believed, but I didn't really accept it, or feel it the way I do now. After everything with my mother, it was hard to feel connected to something I felt I wasn't a part of... But then after visiting my mother, after becoming a saint for a religion I never really followed... Well, it started to make more sense. It feels real now in a way that it never did."
She turned to look at him, finding him watching her, the UV blue stripes in his skin glowing blue.
"I believe in the spirits of Anin more than I ever have."
He smiled at her and squeezed her hand,
"I'm glad to hear it."
They lapsed into silence for a long moment, staring up at the ceiling before, inevitably he broke it,
"So this makes you like, space Moses right?”
She frowned and turned to look at him,
"What is a “Moses”?"
He grinned,
"A guy from one of the Earth Religions. You know, guy follows god's directions to lead his people away from slavery, climbs a mountain, receives the word of god, comes down to give it to the people, that sort of thing."
Sunny tilted her head slightly to the side,
"Are you religious?"
He paused, frowning,
"I... well I... don't really know. My family has been some flavor of Christian for a long time."
"Christian?"
"Uh yeah, the general idea is that there is one all-powerful deity who created everything. He has rules and laws that you are supposed to follow, the general tenants of this specific religion mostly boil down to: love everyone and don't be a dick, which humans are notoriously bad at. You sin you go to hell, a very bad place after you die, and if you are a good person you go to heaven. Problem is everyone is a sinner and breaks the rules, so really no one was going to get into heaven."
"That sounds bleak..."
"Well, that's where the other stuff comes in. Basically, this all-powerful deity sent down his son in human form to live a perfect life, so when he was martyred he took on the sins of all of humanity and paid for them in the greatest act of mercy to open the gate for the rest of us into heaven."
Sunny shifted as he tilted to the side to lay in the crook of her arms,
"Of course that is just one religion among tons on earth, we aren't really as cohesive in our beliefs as Drev are... As for me... I'm not really sure."
She tilted her head to the side, cheek resting against his hair,
"After seeing space, I become more and more convinced of some... Thing that created everything, but beyond that it's sort of a tossup."
She ran one hand through his hair, coarse but still soft somehow.
"You know my name comes from that religion?”
She turned her head to look at him,
"Oh, really?”
"Adam was the first man."
"What do you mean!?”
Adam shrugged,
"He was supposedly the first man that god created, from the dust of the earth... I think?"
She gave him a sidelong glance,
"Look, and you get to be the first idiot in space."
He snorted and poked her in the ribs.
"There were PLENTY of idiots in space before me, believe you me."
"Mmm I don't know, you are pretty dumb."
He laughed, grabbing a pillow and hitting her with it. She rolled over so she was lying on top of him and then went limp.
He struggled,
"Get your big ass off me."
"Oh no, I have been attacked by a sudden acute case of the “my spine doesn't work anymore”-disease."
"If you don't move, you'll suddenly find yourself with a case of “fist in your face”-disease."
She laughed and rolled off him, making sure the hard parts of her carapace were sticking down for maximum discomfort.
He grunted.
They returned to lying down next to each other in the half darkness. Sunny reached over and turned on some quiet music in the background as the two of them sat and talked, and laughed.
"I can't wait to get back to deep space."
He closed his eyes and hummed softly at the thought,
"Just the crew and the darkness and nothing ahead of us but an endless frontier."
Surprisingly, she found the thought to be more than a little comforting, and closed her eyes thinking about the vast reaches of blackness and the endless spinning galaxies.
"And while we are out, we can drop Conn into a pulsar."
He snorted,
“Why? Well first of for scientific reasons! If a marshmallow causes a nuclear blast, I wonder what dropping Conn would do… but at least he’d be dead.”
"That billowy bastard would survive and you know it."
She huffed,
"Still though, if I have to hear one more smug lecture how he has a child with you, I'm gonna wring his scrawny neck."
He grinned teeth flashing blue in the light,
"Is someone... Jealous?"
Sunny laughed, almost tipping him off the bed and onto the floor with her mirth,
"Yes Adam, I am totally jealous, really I am, ‘kay?. I mean who wouldn't want to have a child with YOU, big dumb, dork. Really the perfect place to put my superior genes."
"Superior genes, says someone who can't reach the top shelf."
She kicked him, foot clanging off his prosthetic,
"I am a foot taller than you."
He placed his hand next to his ear,
"What was that, I can't hear you over how short you are."
Sunny shook her head,
"At least I have binocular vision and both my knees."
"So we are gonna ignore that that binocular vision is due to a prosthetic now after the whole “your mom” incident? And also, veeery important: weird neck nostrils, don't forget about those!"
"Oh yes, so I can’t house them on my face like you and your bigass nose."
"Low blow, low blow."
"There are... Lower things... I could make fun of."
He snorted,
"Can't make fun of it if you've never seen it. You on the other hand, walking around in the nude..."
"You're welcome. Who wouldn't love…"
She gestured to herself,
"This."
"Mmm yeah... chitin, very sexy."
"I am a gift to the universe, and should be appreciated by everyone."
He brushed a hand through his hair,
"Well I find that real gifts are gift wrapped, so jot that down."
"Oh yeah, like a prank gift when you put something lame in a box for something cool."
He frowned at her,
"You wound me. My feelings are so very very hurt. I might even cry."
"I drink human tears."
"That… that's really gross.'
She laughed and then they lapsed into silence. She could hear him breathing quietly next to her in the darkness, his chest rising and falling under the ambient blue light. She looked across the room to where her saint armor was hanging in its climate-controlled case illuminated to a pearly sheen.
"Adam?"
"Yeah?”
"You know I'm just kidding about calling you dumb right?"
"Yeah I know."
"I'm proud of what you've been doing."
Adam turned to look at her rather incredulous,
"Me, of what? I haven't been doing shit."
"So, we are just going to ignore you overthrowing a maniacal politician while simultaneously piloting a 2,000 year old spacecraft?"
"That was more Conn and Eris than it was me."
"It was your idea."
"Let’s not forget Admiral Kelly."
Sunny pulled him closer,
"I am sorry, I will not be accepting anything other than you acknowledging that you did a good job."
"Screw you!”
"You'd like that wouldn't you?”
He sighed,
"You've been talking to Ramirez WAY too much."
She was only slightly smug as she rested her head back against the pillow,
"I really should get up and train..."
"We should yeah..."
Neither of them moved.
"Alternatively, we could just... Lay here... All day and do... nothing."
She looked up at the ceiling for a long moment and pretended to be in deep contemplation before…
"Well it's official, you have convinced me. You and your silver tongue."
"I am a master negotiator."
He shifted position putting one arm behind his head,
"Think about it, by this time tomorrow we will be back to space exploring and doing what we should have been doing all along. I can't wait."
"That makes two of us."
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I suspect my sister is narcissistic with enabling parents. I was considering going no-contact with my family minus a brother I’m close to 3 years ago and was almost out until my father died in a freak accident and I got roped back in. My sister has spent the last 30 years making my life a living hell and my parents never stuck up for me or protected me from her. My mother, now alone, is terrified of her. We had a shitty childhood and all have different survival tactics, but after going to therapy for four years now, I’ve gotten away from those and surround myself with happy, healthy, amazing, supportive people. In regard to family, I keep my distance when I can (living 3.5 hours away helps), but often am the one everyone turns to when shit goes sideways to fix everything, calm people down, figure out what to do next. I’m tired of it, especially now realizing no one does the same for me.
I recently got married and had a 40 person head count, with 38 yeses. After a bunch of random crap, 13 of my 20 invitees flaked 3 days to 2 hours before the party, all of which were very, very close family members including a brother and two of my BILs. Had I known this, with ample timing, I would have invited more friends who WOULD have shown, but due to family taking up so much of the headcount, I couldn’t extend invites to them all. I vented to my mother who said at least I have my sister coming, who I said was only invited since the others were and she has never been nice to me or my husband - which my mother agreed with and said was a self-centered survival thing. I said she should learn a little kindness which would get her far. She despises my husband, who is genuinely as nice as can be, even to a fault. Doesn’t have a bad bone in his body, god bless him. But he supports me and loves me and we do well off each other and thrive, which she doesn’t like. Other siblings have commented on the fact she treats him so poorly when he is nothing but so kind to her.
Come party, 2 hours in and she’s nowhere to be seen. We’re waiting around to cut cakes since her household consisted of 5 people and we didn’t want to have people randomly walk in on it and ruin the photographs, miss the momentous moment, etc. My brother gets in touch with her and relays the message that I’m a monster, I’m childish and horrible and never welcome her to anything and I’m irrelevant and no one likes me which is why everyone bailed on me and I should be embarrassed. The only person I said those things to was my mother (who couldn’t come to party due to health reasons). I spent a majority of my wedding party crying on a fire escape because I was so upset by her words, so upset that everyone bailed, and so upset I didn’t follow my gut inviting other friends who would have come over obligatory family invites. I blocked my sister and her friend who joined in on her meanness. She has taken to emailing and texting me under spoof emails and phone numbers. Calling me irrelevant, embarrassing, disgusting, ugly, childish, greedy, no one showed up because they don’t like me, never been liked, etc.
My mother has spoken to her, but hasn’t reached out to me since the party when I said I was hurt at what she shared in confidence and need to think about what I want from this family anymore. My mother swears she went through her phone and saw the messages, but other parts of her (mothers) story don’t align. My mother historically has victim mindset over everything and could do no wrong.
I’m hurt, I’m upset. My husband has been amazing, but he doesn’t have any family that we could lean on ever. I’m torn between going fully no contact between my siblings who enable my sister, my mother who is emotionally abusive and enables her and doesn’t protect the rest of us, and calling it a day. Or going no contact with siblings, low contact with my mother, and never returning until they get their shit together and go to therapy. I just don’t know what is best anymore since I know my mom will never stand up to her. Family is all I’ve ever really had outside a close knit group of 3 friends, so it’s hard to go from everything to nothing in the blink of an eye.
Ever since my dad died and my sister took over, I have felt like I don’t have a spot in the family anymore. My sisters best friend of 15 years has always wanted to be apart of our big family since she had a dysfunctional one herself, and joins us on family vacations, Christmas, every waking moment. She is just as bad as my sister, and my sister is her only friend so she bows down to her. Since dad died, it’s like my sister and her friend don’t want me in the family and want to give the bff my daughter spot and to ostracize me. All of this is making me spiral and spiral and spiral. I haven’t been this bad mentally in a really, REALLY long time and it’s triggering me a lot.
I feel like as a woman, I’m held to a different caliber than the others. My brothers could do whatever they damn well please, and they do, and everyone turns a blind eye. With my sister being the oldest, she gets the same treatment. I am overwhelmed with what this family puts me through. My husband doesn’t have any family anymore for us to lean on, spend holidays with, etc. How do you move on? How do you find peace? How do you be okay with the fact nothing will ever change in this dynamic so it’s all or nothing?
FWIW - have an amazing therapist, amazing support group. Am ok, just sad and upset.

I need some advice on how to go about coming out to my family (again).
They found out in 2017, and it did not go well at all. They were extremely transphobic, said I was mutilating myself, and asked me why I was taking my mom’s “dream of having a girl” away from her.
After finding out they wanted to send me to conversion therapy, I went back in the closet and forgot about everything.
Fast forward to 2021, I realized I couldn’t hide the feelings anymore, and moved out of my family’s house and came out again. I started testosterone but eventually stopped after three months out of lingering transphobia and my parents influence.
Now, it’s 2024, and I’m at a better place mentally to handle coming out to them. I have a stable and supportive job, I have a great support network of friends, and I have a place to stay.
My family is very much a… “family is family” kind of deal. They’re very close knit, I call them every day after work, etc. so… I don’t know how coming out to them again will affect our “routine”.
My biggest question here is… how do I come out to them again, for the third time?
Do I send them a text and tell them to give me space? If I do, what do I even say considering this complicated situation?
Does anyone have any advice?

I (24F) had a kid with (32M) , I got pregnant within my first month of being with this guy and I had only known him for two months prior , I know not the smartest but basically while I was 7 months pregnant he was sober for almost 4 years at this point and from one day to another decided he wanted to relapse. It was hell for almost a year , received bunch of nasty text from this guy , bring chaos to my home , cheating on me , not coming home , calling me every name in the book during EVERY interaction . So fast forward to a whole year later and we are separated for a couple months now which I’m very happy and it was very much my decision and he has the baby every other weekend for only 1 night and doesn’t wanna give me money so annoying . But the question of why I would be the asshole is because I’m a stay at home mom while babysitting my nephew and that’s how I am able to make alittle cash , so me and sister made plan to go to Vegas in June 2024 and it will be from Thursday night to Sunday night. He works full time and I booked the flight and all and he’s saying I’m an asshole for planning that trip knowing he will have to figure out daycare situation.

Good morning and thank you in advance for any advice! We have a sweet older relative visiting who is incontinent. She is flooding the bed each night and she’s mortified. She is using a store brand, is there a “best” kind? I’d like to swap them out for her. I don’t mind cleaning up, this is bothering her much more than it’s bothering me and I’d like to help. Thank you so much!

FYI, this is a story COLLECTION. Lots of standalones technically. So, you can basically start to read at any chapter, no pre-read of the other chapters needed technically (other than maybe getting better descriptions of characters than: Adam Vir=human, Krill=antlike alien, Sunny=tall alien, Conn=telepathic alien). The numbers are (mostly) only for organization of posts and continuity.
OC Written by Charlie Stastarrfallknightrise,
Typed up and then posted here by me.
Proofreading and language check for some chapters by u/Finbar9800 u/BakeGullible9975 u/Didnotseemecomein and u/medium_jock
Future Lore and fact check done by me.
Awwwww! So cute!
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She got up in the dark, with only the dim ambience of soft blue lighting to accompany her. She stretched all four arms, her two legs, and rolled her neck. It struck her as mildly interesting in that moment, how something so small could connect them to humans, The thought was fleeting as she took another step forward to kneel down on the floor. There, in a little alcove in the wall, she had set a volcanic rock from Anin, dried moss, and other paraphernalia from her home world. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath resting her hands together.
Praise and respect to the spirits of Anin. Praise the fathers and mothers of war gone to their rest below the moss and the earth. Praise their spirits that watch from the sky and peer through the ether down upon us.
She continued the slow mantra in the style of Prayer learned from Naktan and pulled her concentration to her core, ignoring anything and everything around her. A deep state of meditation overtook her. She would never have done this if she thought there were any chance that she was in danger, but below she knew Earth glowed like a sphere before their orbiting ship. There was no worry of invasion.
She thought she heard something at one point, but chose to ignore it as she continued her mantra.
Eventually, and after an unknown amount of minutes, she stood and turned slowly to find-
She stopped, and crossed her arms over her chest.
"What are you doing?”
Adam burrowed his way further down into her blankets, nuzzling his head up against her pillow,
"So warm, and comfy!"
She tried not to smile,
"You dumbass."
He pulled the blankets tighter around himself,
"You know, I did come here to talk to you, but now I actually am really comfortable, so come back in two hours."
"I- This is MY home!"
He closed his eyes and pretended to snore loudly.
She rolled her eyes as she watched him theatrically pretend to sleep. She looked around mildly for a moment, before picking up another pillow and glancing at the door. She casually walked over, dropped the pillow on his head and then held it down as if she intended to smother him.
”Die human scum!”
That got him up and moving.
Before long the two of them were grappling for the upper hand, him trying to put her in a choke hold, and her using her lower arms to pinch him.
He yelped,
"Ouch! Pinching is illegal!”
"Sissy."
He clamped his legs around her lower arms, pinning them in place.
She struggled for a minute and then went limp.
She could feel his smug smile,
"I win, I beat the saint of Anin. Everyone bow at my feet."
"You say that, but if this were a real fight, since you’re a human male, you're the one with a self-destruct button."
"Self-destruct button...?"
"Meaning if this were a real fight, I would have punched you in the balls."
"Yaoooutch… Oh god… Please don't."
Finally, he let her go, leaving the two of them to lay on her bed, sheets scattered on the floor around them, and her pillows in disarray. Adam put his hands behind his head and sighed.
She glanced over at him,
"I don't suppose you came to just hang out. Here on Admiral-ly business?"
He groaned, pulling one of her pillows over his face,
"Please smother me for real this time."
She leaned up on one of her elbows,
"Why?"
"I don't wanna be an adult anymore!"
She tilted her head to the side, watching in amusement as he attempted to throw a childlike tantrum, but only really had the energy to kick his feet once,
"It's boring and lame and they won’t let me wear heelies to important meetings... also children don't have to pay taxes."
She laughed, pulling the pillow from his face,
"Adam you are many things, but 'adult' is not one of them."
He grinned slightly,
"True enough."
He sighed again and rested his head back against the pillows,
"I just want to get back to what we are supposed to be doing, exploring the universe and making cool alien friends."
He threw up his hands in frustration,
"But suddenly I find myself embroiled in stupid annoying politics that I don't understand, being used by people who are, let’s face it, WAY smarter than me, constantly finding myself getting manipulated."
She huffed,
"They aren't smarter than you Adam, they're just manipulative, and you aren't."
He sighed,
"Fair enough."
Then he looked at her, bright green eyes reflecting the soft ambient blue light,
"I just, I miss this, I miss us, I miss hanging out and doing stupid shit, and all of the things I could do when I wasn't so important and this operation was smaller."
She smiled rather sadly reaching one hand over for his, lacing the four of her fingers through the five of his,
"Well someone has to do the hard things, who better than you?”
He glanced over at her, raising an eyebrow,
"Or you, miss saint?”
She rolled her eyes again,
"Can't seem to get you off of that. I'm still the same person I used to be."
"But with power."
She elbowed him gently and he grinned,
"But really, I am proud and impressed and... Let's be honest super super smug that 'I' know you personally."
"I know, I am pretty terrific."
The two of them laughed for a minute before settling down again. He glanced over to her little shrine on the wall,
"What were you doing just then?"
She looked up at the ceiling, following the lines of metal and rivets with her eyes,
"Praying to the spirits of Anin."
Embarrassed, he shifted,
"I didn't know you were... Well I didn't think you were all that religious?"
She shrugged,
"Don't feel bad, it's sort of a new thing. Back before all this, it was sort of just stories to me. Like I believed it because that was what everyone believed, but I didn't really accept it, or feel it the way I do now. After everything with my mother, it was hard to feel connected to something I felt I wasn't a part of... But then after visiting my mother, after becoming a saint for a religion I never really followed... Well, it started to make more sense. It feels real now in a way that it never did."
She turned to look at him, finding him watching her, the UV blue stripes in his skin glowing blue.
"I believe in the spirits of Anin more than I ever have."
He smiled at her and squeezed her hand,
"I'm glad to hear it."
They lapsed into silence for a long moment, staring up at the ceiling before, inevitably he broke it,
"So this makes you like, space Moses right?”
She frowned and turned to look at him,
"What is a “Moses”?"
He grinned,
"A guy from one of the Earth Religions. You know, guy follows god's directions to lead his people away from slavery, climbs a mountain, receives the word of god, comes down to give it to the people, that sort of thing."
Sunny tilted her head slightly to the side,
"Are you religious?"
He paused, frowning,
"I... well I... don't really know. My family has been some flavor of Christian for a long time."
"Christian?"
"Uh yeah, the general idea is that there is one all-powerful deity who created everything. He has rules and laws that you are supposed to follow, the general tenants of this specific religion mostly boil down to: love everyone and don't be a dick, which humans are notoriously bad at. You sin you go to hell, a very bad place after you die, and if you are a good person you go to heaven. Problem is everyone is a sinner and breaks the rules, so really no one was going to get into heaven."
"That sounds bleak..."
"Well, that's where the other stuff comes in. Basically, this all-powerful deity sent down his son in human form to live a perfect life, so when he was martyred he took on the sins of all of humanity and paid for them in the greatest act of mercy to open the gate for the rest of us into heaven."
Sunny shifted as he tilted to the side to lay in the crook of her arms,
"Of course that is just one religion among tons on earth, we aren't really as cohesive in our beliefs as Drev are... As for me... I'm not really sure."
She tilted her head to the side, cheek resting against his hair,
"After seeing space, I become more and more convinced of some... Thing that created everything, but beyond that it's sort of a tossup."
She ran one hand through his hair, coarse but still soft somehow.
"You know my name comes from that religion?”
She turned her head to look at him,
"Oh, really?”
"Adam was the first man."
"What do you mean!?”
Adam shrugged,
"He was supposedly the first man that god created, from the dust of the earth... I think?"
She gave him a sidelong glance,
"Look, and you get to be the first idiot in space."
He snorted and poked her in the ribs.
"There were PLENTY of idiots in space before me, believe you me."
"Mmm I don't know, you are pretty dumb."
He laughed, grabbing a pillow and hitting her with it. She rolled over so she was lying on top of him and then went limp.
He struggled,
"Get your big ass off me."
"Oh no, I have been attacked by a sudden acute case of the “my spine doesn't work anymore”-disease."
"If you don't move, you'll suddenly find yourself with a case of “fist in your face”-disease."
She laughed and rolled off him, making sure the hard parts of her carapace were sticking down for maximum discomfort.
He grunted.
They returned to lying down next to each other in the half darkness. Sunny reached over and turned on some quiet music in the background as the two of them sat and talked, and laughed.
"I can't wait to get back to deep space."
He closed his eyes and hummed softly at the thought,
"Just the crew and the darkness and nothing ahead of us but an endless frontier."
Surprisingly, she found the thought to be more than a little comforting, and closed her eyes thinking about the vast reaches of blackness and the endless spinning galaxies.
"And while we are out, we can drop Conn into a pulsar."
He snorted,
“Why? Well first of for scientific reasons! If a marshmallow causes a nuclear blast, I wonder what dropping Conn would do… but at least he’d be dead.”
"That billowy bastard would survive and you know it."
She huffed,
"Still though, if I have to hear one more smug lecture how he has a child with you, I'm gonna wring his scrawny neck."
He grinned teeth flashing blue in the light,
"Is someone... Jealous?"
Sunny laughed, almost tipping him off the bed and onto the floor with her mirth,
"Yes Adam, I am totally jealous, really I am, ‘kay?. I mean who wouldn't want to have a child with YOU, big dumb, dork. Really the perfect place to put my superior genes."
"Superior genes, says someone who can't reach the top shelf."
She kicked him, foot clanging off his prosthetic,
"I am a foot taller than you."
He placed his hand next to his ear,
"What was that, I can't hear you over how short you are."
Sunny shook her head,
"At least I have binocular vision and both my knees."
"So we are gonna ignore that that binocular vision is due to a prosthetic now after the whole “your mom” incident? And also, veeery important: weird neck nostrils, don't forget about those!"
"Oh yes, so I can’t house them on my face like you and your bigass nose."
"Low blow, low blow."
"There are... Lower things... I could make fun of."
He snorted,
"Can't make fun of it if you've never seen it. You on the other hand, walking around in the nude..."
"You're welcome. Who wouldn't love…"
She gestured to herself,
"This."
"Mmm yeah... chitin, very sexy."
"I am a gift to the universe, and should be appreciated by everyone."
He brushed a hand through his hair,
"Well I find that real gifts are gift wrapped, so jot that down."
"Oh yeah, like a prank gift when you put something lame in a box for something cool."
He frowned at her,
"You wound me. My feelings are so very very hurt. I might even cry."
"I drink human tears."
"That… that's really gross.'
She laughed and then they lapsed into silence. She could hear him breathing quietly next to her in the darkness, his chest rising and falling under the ambient blue light. She looked across the room to where her saint armor was hanging in its climate-controlled case illuminated to a pearly sheen.
"Adam?"
"Yeah?”
"You know I'm just kidding about calling you dumb right?"
"Yeah I know."
"I'm proud of what you've been doing."
Adam turned to look at her rather incredulous,
"Me, of what? I haven't been doing shit."
"So, we are just going to ignore you overthrowing a maniacal politician while simultaneously piloting a 2,000 year old spacecraft?"
"That was more Conn and Eris than it was me."
"It was your idea."
"Let’s not forget Admiral Kelly."
Sunny pulled him closer,
"I am sorry, I will not be accepting anything other than you acknowledging that you did a good job."
"Screw you!”
"You'd like that wouldn't you?”
He sighed,
"You've been talking to Ramirez WAY too much."
She was only slightly smug as she rested her head back against the pillow,
"I really should get up and train..."
"We should yeah..."
Neither of them moved.
"Alternatively, we could just... Lay here... All day and do... nothing."
She looked up at the ceiling for a long moment and pretended to be in deep contemplation before…
"Well it's official, you have convinced me. You and your silver tongue."
"I am a master negotiator."
He shifted position putting one arm behind his head,
"Think about it, by this time tomorrow we will be back to space exploring and doing what we should have been doing all along. I can't wait."
"That makes two of us."
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Thanks for reading! As you saw in the title, this is a cross posted story written by starrfallknightrise and I'll just upload some of it here for you guys, if you are interested and want to read ahead, the original story-collection can be found on tumblr or wattpad to read for free. (link above this text under "OC:..." ) It is the Empyrean Iris story collection by starfallknightrise. Also, if you want to know more about the story collection i made an intro post about it, so feel free to check that out to see what other great characters to look forward to! (Link also above this text). I have no affiliations to the author; just thought I’d share some of the great stories you might enjoy a lot!
Obviously, I have Charlie’s permission to post this and for the people already knowing the stories, or starting to read them: If you follow the link and check out the story you will see some differences. I made some small (non-artistic) changes, mainly correcting writing mistakes, pronoun correction and some small additional info here and there of things which were not thought of/forgotten or even were added/changed in later stories (like the “USS->UNSC” prefix of Stabby, Chalar=/->Sunny etc). As well as some "biggemajor" changes in descriptions and info’s for the same stringency/continuity reason. That can be explained by the story collection being, well a story collection at the start with many standalone-stories just starring the same people, but later on it gets more to a stringent storyline with backstories and throwbacks. (For example Adam Vir has some HEAVY scars over his body, following his bones, which were not really talked about up till half the collection, where it says it covers his whole body and you find out via backflash that he had them the whole time and how he got them, they just weren't mentioned before. However, I would think a doctor would at least see these scars before that, especially since he gets analyzed, treated and goes shirtless/in T-shirts in some stories). So TLDR: Writing and some descriptions are slightly changed, with full OK from the author, since he himself did not bother to correct these things before.

i (25 f) have been dating my gf (22 f) for almost a year now. we live together and things have been great.
she has a very close knit family. she’s extremely close to her twin and her parents. because of that, we have a lot of family time. i have a good time most of the time, but specifically her mom rubs me the wrong way sometimes. it’s become hard to attend family gatherings as they are almost every weekend and i feel like i don’t have time to recharge after being around her.
for example, we went to a dinner last weekend. they are hispanic and i am not, so i only know a bit of spanish. she made a whole scene pointing out how i don’t know the language and laughed about me to the waitress, right in front of me. i understood enough to know she was being mean. she then tried to not tip the waitress and told me to just pay the whole bill when i offered some cash to tip. she ended up paying it but she wasn’t happy that i immediately agreed and offered to pay.
the weekend before, she took her daughters to get their nails done and offered to bring me. i thanked her and said i already got mine done with my mom for a mother’s day gift. she cut me off and said “you’re white you have money.” i mean…i’m a teacher so i can pay my bills but i genuinely had to budget for these nails.
she’s constantly commenting on what i wear, expecting me to wear far more revealing things than i’m comfortable with. she made me change for a party once and i was crying in the bathroom. constantly threatening to take my gf away if we don’t include her “other baby.” (they’re 22). constantly twisting the truth to make her a victim (pretending like we didn’t ask her if she wanted food at a restaurant we stopped at for example).
my gf knows i feel this way and will stand up for me in the moment but nothing changes. we have to see her mom again this weekend and she says i don’t need to come with, but it’s celebrating her dads birthday and i want to be present.
if you don’t like your in laws, how do you balance being present for your partner and protecting your mental health?

I have been up literally since 2am with a sinus infection that wouldn’t let me sleep from the pain/discomfort. I need PTO to rest I am delirious af, but nah.
There’s no help in finding cover for me, I got to wait to receive a list of all the available RPh’s in the region and then contact each and every one to see if they will cover for the day. And I can’t start the process too early in the morning out of courtesy. But basically I’m gonna drag myself to work with no sleep and Red Bulls and Sudafed to try to not make any mistakes. Because otherwise I’m the bad one that’s abandoning the team.

So my cat 5f has recently undergone spinal surgery because one of our neighbors decided to shoot her for literally no reason and so we decided to leave her in as our indoor cat.. everything has been going so so so so perfectly until yesterday. Their was a storm out and my cat has been begging to go outside, I picked her up and took her to my room and she immediately jumped down (typical) and that was the last time I saw her I lost power a couple of times but throughout the whole time both me and my mom were in our rooms both the indoor and outdoor door has been untouched.. at around 8pm it was time for me to give me her pain pills so I went out looking for her and I couldn’t find her at all.. I just assumed that she was scared because of the storm and decided to wait another hour.. that’s when I REALLY started to worry, I started looking ALL over the house and I live in a small house.. i started looking in cabinets, underneath beds, couches, closets, all over the garage, every spot, corner, you name it and no trace of her. Just because I looked both in the front and backyard even though I have a ring camera and there was literally no motion before the storm. I barely slept last night and kept having dreams that she came back, I’m completely heartbroken.. I’ve had that cat since she was a small kitten, we almost lost her due to something serious and now I’m scared of loosing her again…

Good morning! Anyone out there want to chat through out the day? From the East Coast of the US and happy to talk to anyone. DM me and let’s talk!

I have 2c/3a hair that’s around 6 inches long up top. my curls fall out during the med of the day so after i take my nightly shower(i just condition), i put my hair up for sleep. then in the morning i take another shower where i condition (as i am classic) then use leave in (camilla rose honey leave in) and mousse (camilla rose spiked honey mousse) and after i let my hair hang down and air dry after scrunching, I notice that the last 2 inches or so is curls and loose coils while the first 4 inches are very lose waves. Any ideas/ advice?

Got my son’s Tiger book last weekend, and was able to scan the QR codes and check out the adventures. They’re looking good!
Went back this morning to look again, and the Lion, Tiger, and Wolf pages are “Under Maintenance.” I guess so many of us parents and leaders are excited/curious about the new program we crashed the site. Oops.
We still have a week and a half until the official roll out. Plenty of time to squash some bugs.

If you read my last post, you will see that my conversations with Bobby toward the end of my time at South Grove were not exactly going well. Throughout the process of leaving and meeting with him, I kept wondering “when is he going to let go?” It felt as though he was going to cling to me until I eventually caved and came back. He had allowed my wife and I to stop serving and even attend other churches to take a break. I’m not sure if he thought I would attend somewhere else, be reminded that God only moves at South Grove, and then come back. That was not the case at all. We attended a church in Sandy Springs, GA and then one in Athens, GA which I had attended before. I had never heard preaching like that in person before. Those pastors gave me Christ each Sunday that I attended. That, coupled with my conscience, made it impossible to even think about going back to South Grove.
As a somewhat funny side note, Bobby apparently changed the music that was played on Sunday(s)? I had mentioned in passing during one of our conversations that I had issues with Bethel, Hillsong, and Elevation Church. Interestingly I was discipled by the preaching at each of those churches early on in my Christian life. However, I had become highly concerned with their theology and how other members might read their name on the lyric screen, and listen to their preaching. Anyway, Bobby brought up the fact that they changed the music “for me.” Honestly, the music was one of my last worries.
Before my last conversation with Bobby, he wanted to know why I couldn’t disagree with issues concerning spiritual gifts and the other issues I had and still be a member in good conscience. I remember the first time I brought conscience up to him, he seemed puzzled. I tried to explain to him that because of the way I felt about certain doctrines, I could not be a member because I believed that I was going against my conscience. That did not register with him.
Up to our final conversation, I felt like I was in a vice grip. I really thought Bobby was going to draw out the painful process of trying to get me to stay at South Grove over several months. That and him trying to pit my wife against me (probably a story for another time). But finally, over lunch at the Blind Pig, something changed. In our last lunch, the vice grip seemed to be loosened completely. Bobby asked if I had heard of the “Leaving the Network” website. I had no idea what he was talking about, but he said he addressed it at a team meeting. I thought nothing of it. He also said “I’m sorry if I’ve ever hurt you in any way.” Pretty vague, but I guess I appreciated it? He blessed me to leave at that point. A few months later, he grabbed lunch with my new pastor at Cleveland Road Baptist Church to “check in” on my wife and I. I would’ve loved to be a fly on the wall, but unfortunately I don’t know much about that conversation other than some of the awkwardness.
That was the last of the excruciating process of leaving South Grove. From being told I had a demon, to “where else are you going to go?”, to Bobby planting seeds of doubt in my wife’s mind, to “I need protected from the sheep,” to anger even mentioning my doubts about Steve Morgan, to “I bless you to leave.” If I said everything was smooth sailing after that, I would be a liar. I think about my time at South Grove everyday. I think of those who I hurt and I think about those who were hurt just like me. I think about those who are deceived and blindly follow. I think about the people who were once my family who would no longer and still no longer talk to me. I think about what was said about me after I left, if anything. I’m angry most days and sometimes I don’t know why. Except I do know why. I was a fool. Who moves across the country for something like that? Who gives up everything for something like that? Apparently someone like me. And for what? If nothing, it makes me long for justice. It makes me long for the day that I will be brought home to the One who loves me. That day seems really far away now though. Until then, I’m tormented by my time in the Network.

tldr; Has anyone had DELAYED digestive side effects from HCQ? As in: side effects showed up suddenly after months of taking it without any problems?
Background: I started 400mg/day of HCQ (split into two doses) three months ago. I was lucky—and other than one morning where I forgot to eat before I took it—I never had any digestive side effects.
And I have seen huge improvement in my UCTD symptoms! It took a while to kick in, but I finally feel like I’m starting to get my life back.
Which is why it’s super frustrating that my digestive system has been a mess for the last three weeks. Terrible bouts of extreme diarrhea and cramping. Zero appetite. Nausea.
My PCP did a stool test to rule out an infection, and it came back clear. I already eat a pretty restrictive diet (no gluten, dairy, eggs or soy) because I’ve been tested and shown intolerances to those foods. Negative for Celiac (not that it matters because I’ve been gluten free for years now).
I really really really don’t want to “fail” this medication, because it is helping so much, so I’m hoping this digestive distress is caused by something else. But also: I have to start questioning everything in my life to see if I can improve my belly.
Thank you!

Heyyy everyone Writing down my problem here was one of the latest resorts I could possibly think of but here I am… mind me it will be a long post but bare with me I am 25 Y/O and also my lets not call him bf but a date Let’s name me Sara and him Kim We met back in 2022 during the last year of uni (internship cause we are both in the medical field) We both are arab and muslim Kim is a skinny type of guy who’s also a super nerd in med and other tech stuff and an extreme introvert, me Sarah an average person in life who genuinely is very nice, kind and very approachable and easy to get along and get to know too. Also to add to that I am a person who has interests and life and hobbies which I like to do and a bright person in general The story started in that year when we started talking from time to time and it was my first time putting effort in someone who was really shy to get to know me so I had for multiple times to give green light and help him get close and open up to me. We started dating meeting out doing kind of things together This is the scene we go out all what Kim talks about is his family, latest AI, his friends in uni and never asks me a single question literally not a single question ( he is a middle child, who takes care of his ill sister, his dad is very tough on him and this is his attitude in general ) at first I thought ok he is an introvert who’s trying to open up. Then this kept on going that he never asks me back even meanwhile we text… never a good morning… never how was ur day… never how are you doing. Like as if I am not a part of this whole thing. 😕 And it really did hurt me a lot so I opened up to him and told him how I felt and he was like this is my way of introducing u to me and bla bla
Socially he is kind of weird.. even if he wants to ask me out he would never say it straight… wud play around that for days to ask me out and never in a straight matter.
After a year nd something…. I woke up one morning feeling angry that Its been too long nd I am still in this whirlwind with him ( never labeled our relationship or called me something or talked to me about future or marriage) he would text me according to his pace and availability and would never make me feel like the female or the beautiful girl I am …. I wrote him a pretty big message that I want nothing to do with him and I want him out of my life To which he responded saying he loves me n wants me in his life and wants to marry me.
Few days after that we had discussed marriage and future plans and then boom he ghosted me!
If I talk to him pointing lets say at the moon he wud talk about food or any other thing… like he wud answer according to what’s in his head and not what the conversion is about
Also sometimes I feel like he really does have low testosterone levels… like he’s not man-ing up or offers me help or solutions like he feels delicate that’s the word ( but I won’t deny he always paid for our dates) but never minded where I walked or like put effort to text after the date or any of that things u feel coming from a man that gives u feeling of security.
I have a lot way more to say and write but I will keep it this way… now we will meet soon cause we talk over texts all the time ( of course he never calls me) how should I address the matter ?