Do they smoke weed on jersey shore |

The title is a bit clickbaity i know. There is no end of marriage in this life, or failure of it as it is a covenant with God. Perhaps failed relationship is better suited
I debated whether or not to give the backstory, however I feel I will, but first where things are now.
6 months ago my wife asked to for seperation. She wanted "Freedom & Independence" and didnt want to live together anymore and felt that she had been pressured by her Catholic College and family into getting married in the first place (not me but the sacrament). She had been kicking around religious life, but that was more due to her lack of better options as she had struggled with SSA in her life.
We talked, alot and roughly came to the understanding that we would revisit this when our last child was out of the house (we have three all 8-11). She had also wanted to have her "own space" and wanted to build a small tiny house in the backyard where "everything would be how she liked it".
Background
She had relationships with girls in her teens, then a boyfriend who she described as having raped her. I am still struggling to understand what this means exactly as she has given different accounts that vary from consent but then regretted after to more of a consent after relentless asking.
This set her off into full SSA relationships. She then went to a very Orthodox Catholic college but was looking for female connection of that sort. She ended up pulling in her roomate and best friend who then at the end of the first year contacted her mother about the relationship and how sorry she was for being involved, but that she (my wife) needed help.
There was some intervention, praying over her (mother is very charismatic) and then she was ok for awhile. She then was on Catholic SSA support groups but then used that to find people to have emotional long distance relationships with. She had a bunch of SSA relationships during this time. Still struggling with this and her faith she leaned towards religious life, like i imagine alot of attempting to be faithful SSA Catholics do. If i cant be married then i guess its priesthood/sisters. While she was praying at one point she asked God for a sign of where shes supposed to go. she then saw a famous saint holding flowers, but not the same flowers they are normally depicted with. She realized this was her sign.
We met and during the course of the courtship I wasnt the best Catholic, I was just getting back on track in living my faith and realized i needed to seek out women who were going to help me on the path and not drag me off, or let me drag myself off (hold me to account). She always liked a purple so those were the flowers i always got. We had long discussions about the future and she was very honest in that she wasnt sure she was called to marriage. she was still figuring it out. Her mother asked if the sign was given yet, and it hadnt.
That same day of the call with her mom I ended up getting, for no reason in my mind, a different set of flowers. ones that matched perfectly the type and color her sign had been. After that she was convinced. We began to plan for marriage and did all the marriage prep. Talked alot about her past, was told it was in the past and not anything she struggled with anymore and that marriage is forever no matter what.
Throughout our marriage I readily admit i wasnt the best husband at times. I was always trying to find extra ways to make money and develop a business i could run so that, in my mind, I could set our lives up around what we wanted to do, have our own schedules, travel with the kids whenever, etc. I focused on that alot. I spent many if not most nights working on that. She was neglected. She did however all during that time say supportive things, saying i need to keep going, i believe in you, etc etc. The feelings of neglect were never brought up by her (now I can see it very clearly and feel terrible about it, wish i could change it)
At the same time i was dealing with things from the war and secretly drinking those nights as well. I didnt go out. I didnt cheat or anything i just drank to forget. About 5-6 years ago i realized i couldnt control it like i thought i could and stopped completely and then i realized that i had been taking her for granted and neglecting her. I stopped my projects and began to actually spend quality time together. Things were really good. She was also going through therapy to deal with her past and that had brought things up, she had started drinking as well, but we were both moving towards good things. She got pregnant and then things really got perfect.
We were close, spent nights out together, talked, she started to talk about wanting to be more feminine, grow her hair out longer than shoulder, wear dresses etc. I was amazed and thankful to God that he had helped her get in touch with her feminity in a deeply maternal way.
Then....we lost the baby.
We had miscarriages before, and its not to make it sound routine, but from our experiences in the past I knew she would want space, take up the slack, keep up with the housework, do things that made her feel appreciated etc. I did that. I think i gave her too much space. She began to spend more and more time with a friend (Female) go out late, drink, etc.
I very bluntly asked if anything weird was going on she denied it. I began to have more and more panic attacks as I was completely convinced my marriage was over. She continued to deny it, but never stopped spending more and more time with this person. Obsessing over everything in her life and her marriage, her problems. Husband is out of town she needs to stay there until late because other girl doesnt like being alone in the house, husband is back, she needs to go out because the friend is having marriage issues. They start smoking weed together and things get worse and worse. Finally she comes back from a "girls" weekend and breaks down admitting "you are right, i am attracted to her" and "I dont know if i can stay straight for you"
We talk alot, when it comes to me saying they cant hang out anymore she then quickly reverses course and its no longer repentance and needing to change, but "not wanting the devil to win....not wnating to lose another friendship" and wanting to bring her friend "into the church". I was told I was putting all the blame on the friend and that wasnt fair.
Looking back i realize i should have drawn a line in the sand. I should have done alot of things differently but i cant change that now.
The friendship and the obsession continued. The bringing the friend to church was BS as she told her about the rosary for one night and then after that just more weed smoking (its better than drinking and its natural....)
Then finally im heading to a retreat at a monastery and i get a call that they arent friends anymore, she sad. Im happy. Ok i think, we can finally put this behind us. By the time im heading to the airport after the weekend shes back as friends.
Fast forward some months and then she has to talk to me about how shes never been comfortable with physical intimacy (marital act) because of her past and she doesnt think she can handle being pregnant ever again (understandable to a degree) so shes not sure she can be physically intimate anymore. I say outwardly that If i need to do this for her I can manage whether its months or years, sure. inwardly im thinking this is just another step in the wrong direction, but im still praying. Im still trying to maintain hope
Then something happens i dont know what. Her friend is moving and is getting a divorce soon afterwards but they had a fight and got blocked on everything. My wife is distraught, basically shuts down for 2 months. I have been over those two years basically doing everything in the house. from laundry to meals to cleaning. She does some things, but i do the vast majority. I do it so she can see i care, but she doesnt care. We had been in counseling during this time, but she would say things, we would talk, she would say its working, but it wasnt she was lying and holding back.
After this friend left. she ended up finding a new one. Same MO. mentally wonky, isolated, no friends and then they became inseparable. within a year im completely zonked mentally and spiritually i cant handle it and it comes to a head. She breaks down about how her losing the old friend hurt her so bad because there wasnt "closure" which in my experience with her and other friendships just means long talks until they are friends again. She talks about how they were making all these plans and were going to raise the kids together because we werent working (hard to work on the marriage with that going on i would think?)
So thats a light outline of the background and now back to beginning. Asked for separation and now were just "co parenting" under the same roof.
My greatest fear and what advice im seeking is
i worry heavily about the souls of my children and what a divorce (civil i know theres no such thing in the eyes of God) would do them. I see it kids everywhere. Is it better to maintain a facade for them or will the realization down the road scandalize them out of their faith? Will a separation now scandalize them out of the faith?
Is allowing them to grow up in a home where Mom/Wife is gone constantly to "hang out with her friend" going to scandalize them in their future relationships, because for my daughters if they are with any man worthy he wont tolerate that (what does that say about me right?)
So im left with two options, which i dont know which to pick? I care about the faith and souls of my kids and wife, which is best?
1) Continue the facade and chance scandalizing them in the future where they lose trust in the faith i tried to pass along to them and about marriage in general? Give them the wrong example of how a marriage is supposed to be with her as an example of womanhood?
Will my steadfastness in trying to hold the marriage together in hope for reconciliation in the future be a good example of what marriage is for them or just a scandal to avoid? or God forbid repeat?
2) Allow the separation and the fantasy land of "independence" that she dreams of show its true face and that all that lies ahead is barely scrapping by because even in the best alimony imaginable she couldnt afford to keep the house and pay the bills, we barely do together now.
Will my "giving up" scandalize them in the same way
to answer any questions you may have

i have talked to a priest about this, i am in contact with a counselor at our diocese that is very orthodox about the situation
She says her current friendship isnt "like that" ie like before which infers even more so that I was right about the last friend. She doesnt acknowledge that emotional affairs exist or understand proper boundaries between say a friendship and the emotional nature of a romantic relationship. It seem she thinks as long as nothing physical happens its basically all Kosher. I think growing up with SSA makes it hard as you are attracted romantically to girls but also friends with them so those proper boundaries are never formed mentally as the perversion of SSA is deep.
I know marriage is forever. regardless of what the other person does. There are no grounds for annulment as there we both consented fully at the time of the sacrament. She is in the process of the rewriting history of our relationship to sound more like she didnt have full consent "i was pressured...." perhaps to make herself feel less culpable for the present or perhaps in misplaced compassion to give me an "out"

Thank you, Pax et Bonum

I sit alone in my room on the seventh floor, writing what will surely be my last will and testament. The heroin which allowed me to forget and to sleep for the last couple of years has lost its power to keep the screaming terrors away. The drug destroyed my body and mind, gradually eating away at them like a corrosive acid. Now I have become a slave to it. And yet, without it, I do not sleep for weeks, but instead continuously see the scenes from that terrible night running through my head on repeat as worsening waves of madness crash on the shores of my consciousness.
In the caverns under the town of Frost Hollow, I found the meaning of true madness. Ever since I escaped that den of horrors, it is difficult to tell what is real and what is only the feverish delirium of an unhinged mind.
Even now, they wait behind the door to this cheap, bare rented room. They drag their claws over the wood. I hear them hissing in that strange, ancient tongue, the one I first heard in the tombs of rock that had been undisturbed for countless millennia.
***
I had first heard rumors of an unexplored cavern from my friend, an experienced caver named Sonia who had explored caverns all over the world. I had been looking for some excitement in my life, some break from the constant monotony and boredom of simply working and sleeping. I had gone caving quite a few times over the year leading up to the trip, but I was not nearly as experienced and had never explored a supposedly virgin passageway of cavern before.
“How do you know no one’s gone down there?” I asked, curious. We sat across from each other at a local diner, getting some early breakfast before our planned descent. The sunrise was still another half-hour away, the sky flat and dark. We would be joined by Sonia’s husband, Phil, who would meet us there shortly after sunrise. I repressed an urge to yawn, chugging half of the steaming hot coffee in one long swallow. Sonia leaned close to me, her nearly colorless blue eyes reminding me of chunks of ice floating down a muddy stream.
“Phil’s friend just found it randomly,” she whispered before glancing around conspiratorially, as if she feared someone would care enough to eavesdrop on a conversation about a cave. “Well, it’s in the middle of a farm, and Phil’s friend, Jack Graysole, owns the entire property and surrounding woods. Jack says he noticed the cows kept going over to a certain spot in the field when it got really hot during the summertime. They would all gather around this little indentation in the grass. After seeing it a few times, Jack got curious and went to investigate what the cows were doing.
“He found a small hole in the ground, almost entirely covered by weeds and grass. He said he felt a cool breeze constantly blowing out of the hole, a breeze that smelled like burning matches and charred metal. After bringing out some shovels and digging down a couple feet, Jack realized that the hole wasn’t a hole at all, but the beginning of a steep passageway leading deep into the bowels of the earth.”
***
The owner of the land decided to unofficially call the newly-discovered cavern Graysole Caverns. Out of respect for him, this is also the name we all used. This is the story of how I found myself in the bowels of a strange subterranean tunnel, a tunnel where creatures beyond my comprehension slunk and hunted, skittering monstrosities who would be more at home in a nightmare.
After grabbing a couple coffees to take with us, Sonia drove over to Graysole Farms. Cows stood out in the grassy fields, huddled in tight circles as they repetitively chewed. The thin silhouette of Jack Graysole waited for us next to the herd. He had a face like a raisin, I thought to myself. I watched his thin, shaking body standing in the middle of an overgrown grassy field. Jack stared down blankly at something only he could see. Sonia and I started unloading some equipment from the car while we waited for Phil.
Once we had the backpacks loaded with some simple supplies, such as water, food, headlamps, rope, a couple extra batteries, some buck knives, and radios, we headed over to accompany Jack. We weren’t taking much, as we didn’t really expect to be down there for more than six or seven hours at the most.
Jack Graysole’s withered old face was as slack and expressionless as that of a corpse. He stared down at the ground as if he were in a trance, waving back and forth slowly on his feet like a plant in a light breeze.
“Jack?” Sonia called out as we approached. I could hear the man’s teeth chattering as we got nearer.
“Hey, what are you doing over here this early? You interested in accompanying us down there?” Sonia joked. But Jack might as well have been totally deaf for all the reaction he gave. Sonia glanced over at me with an anxious expression. I wondered if the old man was having a stroke.
I quickly walked over to where he stood, staring down at a black circular hole about three feet across directly in front of his feet. The entrance to Graysole Caverns stared up at us like a sightless pupil. As I drew within a few feet of Jack and looked straight into his blank eyes, I noticed something alarming.
His pupils were quickly dilating and constricting before my eyes. They would shrink to tiny pinpoints, then, a couple seconds later, rapidly expand until they became dark and serious. I could see his thready, rapid heartbeat pulsating in a vein on the side of his temple. Alarmed, I reached forward and put my hand on his shoulder.
Instantly, he came to life, like a man waking up from a nightmare. Shrieking, he looked at me with fully dilated pupils, reminding me of a panicked deer surrounded by wolves. His quavering old man’s voice shook with ineffable existential horror and mortal fear.
He took a step back away from us, seeming to realize where he was and what he was doing. He looked around, confused, then straight at me and Sonia. His eyes focused with anger and fear, as if we were demons here to drag him down to Hell. His eyes flicked back and forth between us constantly. Jack raised a trembling hand and pointed it straight at my heart.
“It’s you,” he said, his voice dropping to a harsh whisper. His teeth chattered despite the warm spring air. His skin looked deathly pale. “You’re the one who will bring an end to humanity, who will release the ruler of nightmares upon us.” He continued to point accusingly for a long moment at me, his face turning chalk-white. Then his eyes rolled up in his head. Slowly, he stumbled and fell backwards onto the soft grass of the field.
“Jack!” Sonia cried, running over to the old man. Jack’s breaths had started to come in slow, drawn-out gurgles, like a man with a slit throat trying to breathe. Frothy blood bubbled from his lips as they turned blue. Staring up at the endless expanse of cloudless sky, he exhaled one last shuddering breath and died.
***
Phil showed up only a couple minutes later. He found me and Sonia in a state of utter panic, both of us bent double over the still body of Jack. Sonia was on the phone with 911, and I was trying to give Jack chest compressions. The way his fingernails and lips shone with that cyanotic blue cast made me feel sick and weak. I knew it was futile, that I was simply playing with a corpse at this point, but I didn’t know what else to do. I felt if I didn’t do something, I might explode.
I heard the faint wailing of sirens approaching as Sonia’s panicked voice continued babbling to the 911 operator. Phil stood by her side, his tall, dark features searching and lost.
“Oh God, I think he’s dead!” Sonia cried over and over to the operator, as if she thought the operator could do anything about it. I didn’t hear what the operator said in response. As the ambulance pulled in, I gave up on chest compressions. I stood up and took a step back, looking sadly down on the kindly old man’s dead body.
The paramedics ran over. Phil, Sonia and I stood back while they worked on the corpse, trying to shock the heart back into life. But Jack’s open eyes stayed glazed as they stared sightlessly up into eternity.
***
The paramedics left. A couple police officers stayed behind to ask us a few routine questions. Eventually, after an hour or so, they left, too.
“What a fucked-up day,” Phil said, shaking his head grimly. “Do you guys still want to do this? Maybe it’s an omen from God telling us to go home.” Sonia and I exchanged a glance, then we both nodded at the same time.
“Definitely,” she said. “It’s sad what happened to Jack, but realistically, we don’t know what’s going to happen to this property now that he’s passed away. It might get sold or taken by the bank for all we know. This could be our one and only chance to explore this cave.”
“I don’t believe in omens. I’m still down,” I said, feeling slightly sick from the experience. I still remembered how Jack’s body had cracked under the weight of my chest compressions, how his ribs had snapped like bones shattering in greedy hands. “We’ll do it in memory of Jack. I plan to put this up on YouTube.” I pulled my GoPro out of my bag, turning it on. Phil groaned at that.
“Do we have any idea how far down this cave goes?” Phil asked. I felt a sense of relief now that the topic had changed from the death of the old man.
“I sent a little camera down on a rope, but it only went about a hundred feet,” Sonia responded. “It’s pretty steep at first, then it levels out. I couldn’t really see much after it leveled out, but it looks like it should be easy to climb down. There’s plenty of handholds, lots of jutting rocks.”
Phil put on his headlamp and small pack. As he crawled down into the hole, his tanned face looked up at us and gave us one last devilish grin. Once he had gone down a few dozen feet, Sonia started descending. She looked excited and happy. I noticed how she couldn’t stop smiling as she disappeared from view.
I watched their lights grow smaller and dimmer in the circular tunnel. I marveled at how perfectly circular the entrance was. It almost didn’t even look natural.
Taking a deep breath in, I followed my friends down into the dark.
***
“This isn’t too bad,” I said as I climbed down. The jutting rocks gave plenty of handholds and footholds for us. It wasn’t so tight that it felt like a coffin, either.
“It only gets easier from here!” Sonia called up.
“How do you know?” I asked. “You said you’ve never been here before.” She laughed.
“I know. Probably just wishful thinking,” she said. Far below us, Phil’s voice drifted up, faint and weak. He had already reached the bottom.
“The tunnel really opens up down here, guys,” he called. “It’s somewhat… bizarre, though.”
“What do you mean by that?” Sonia asked. I looked down, seeing Sonia and I would reach the bottom in seconds. “Forget it, I’ll let it be a surprise.” I heard her drop down. Slowly and carefully, I lowered myself down the last few feet. There was a short fall onto a smooth granite floor. I looked up, seeing what Phil and Sonia were so mesmerized by.
“Oh, wow,” I said, speechless. I blinked rapidly, wondering if the image would clear like a mirage. The tunnel was cut into a perfectly triangular shape, each side about seven feet long. The ceiling met in a point above our heads.
All along the smooth walls of gray rock, I saw thousands of black orbs peeking out. They looked similar to obsidian, but they were perfectly smooth and circular, each about the size of an orange. They were formed into interlocking diagonal patterns and followed the tunnel straight down as far as the eye could see.
“What is this place?” Sonia asked, taking a tentative step forward. I looked up, seeing the distant pinpoint of sunlight far above our heads. Our voices continued to echo off down the massive tunnels, disappearing in eerie waves into the thick curtain of shadows.
“Are you recording all this?” Phil asked me. I laughed, giddy.
“Of course! This is internet gold right here,” I said. “No one’s going to believe that this isn’t man-made, however. I can’t even believe it. Do you think Jack was playing a joke on us or something?”
“Jack had the sense of humor of a wet paper towel,” Phil whispered, shaking his head. “No, he wouldn’t do something like this.”
“Well, let’s go check it out,” Sonia said, taking a step forward. Her headlamp bobbed up and down rapidly, throwing dancing shadows through the triangular tunnel. It continued straight ahead, without the slightest deviation or curve, disappearing off into a dark point in the distance.
***
We walked as fast as we could, excited to see where, if anywhere, the strange tunnel led. Phil, always the conspiracy theorist, babbled excitedly.
“This has to be aliens, man,” he said, running his fingers through his dark hair. “I bet that scientists will find out this shit is millions of years old when we get back up and tell everyone. Maybe aliens came to earth in ancient times and made a bunch of stuff underground.” Gradually, as we walked, I noticed the tunnel opening up. The pointed triangular ceiling rose up higher above our heads and the walls moved outwards, as if we were walking up a triangular funnel. At first, it was so subtle that I didn’t believe it when Sonia pointed it out.
“No, look,” she said, raising her hand above her head. “When we first started down this weird tunnel, my fingers were only maybe a foot away from the top. Now it’s a couple feet.” I was about to respond when our headlamps illuminated something standing in the middle of the tunnel.
“What the fuck is that?” I whispered, stopping cold in my tracks. Phil and Sonia looked up at the abomination at the same time. Its back was to us. It stood nearly as tall as the tunnel, which was now about twenty feet high.
The bottom half looked black and spidery with dozens of long, jointed legs. A bloody, white spine rose out of the mass of legs. Inhumanly long, skeletal arms stretched out in front of it. Its face was pointed away from us, but the back of its head resembled an enormous pointed skull with deep fissures like the cracks of an earthquake running through the bone. The abomination stayed as still as a statue, and for a long moment, I wondered if we were looking at some macabre work of art.
Then, suddenly, one of its insectile legs twitched. A moment later, the other legs started jerking and twisting. There was a sound like bones shattering as it rose up to its full height, turning around to face us.
Its face was like something from a nightmare, melting and reforming constantly like dripping candle wax. I would see a black eye appear on its forehead, then a grinning mouth on its chin, then the features would get sucked back into the folds of melting flesh. After a few moments, two enormous eyes appeared on its face, dark and cold like craters on the surface of the Moon. The mouths and noses disappeared back into the dripping skin, and only the two lidless eyes remained, emanating a cold, reptilian consciousness beyond the ability of my mind to comprehend. I felt terror radiating from its body like freezing waves.
“Free me,” it cried in a gurgling voice that seethed with insanity. It had a shrieking, metallic ringing behind every word that gave it an alien quality. “Free me, and I will give you the waters of eternal life. Within me, I contain the seeds of immortality. Within the nightmares, we live forever, always together, never alone.”
“Who are you?” I asked, terrified. The black reptilian skin of the enormous beast glistened as it knelt down, its massive face drawing near to mine. A sideways mouth burst out of the liquified flesh, showing hundreds of fangs growing like tumors from its white, bloodless gums. The fangs varied in size from only a couple inches to long, sword-like projections that stabbed into the creature’s flesh, causing white blood glittering with rainbows to fall like raindrops all around me.
“I have many names,” it hissed, its thousand voices rising and falling in crashing waves of sound. “I was present at the beginning, when this planet was no more than dead cliffs and endless freezing oceans. Those holy ones who search for us, the ancient ones, call me Niralahoth.”
“How do we free you?” Phil asked, looking terrified. He held Sonia’s hand tightly.
“By letting me into your mind and body,” Niralahoth cried, shaking the cavern. “I was thrown down here, cursed and forgotten. I cannot leave this place of shadows within this body. But in the body of another, my consciousness can be free, and the seeds of new life can spread beyond this prison.”
“There’s no way anyone’s going to do that,” I said, my eyes widening as Niralahoth’s reptilian skull turned towards me in fury. “I mean, you’re asking one of us to give up our individuality, our lives, right?”
“I am asking you to become one with me and gain power undreamt of by mortals,” it cried. “I have within me the fountain of life, the waters that send death away screaming.” I glanced anxiously at Phil and Sonia, wondering if we would have to run.
“The answer is no,” I said. “I’m sorry.”
“Yeah, we can’t do that,” Phil said, backing me up. “But, anyways, I think our trip has ended. It’s time to turn around…”
“You will never return,” Niralahoth cried, skittering away from us. “If you will not accept salvation, then you must accept death.” Within seconds, it slunk away from us, backpedaling on its many skittering legs into the shadows.
***
All around us, a rumbling started.
There was a pounding that crashed through the rock tunnel, as if an insane blacksmith were hammering on a massive anvil. The ringing of crashing rock started off slowly, with a few stones smashing down around us with heavy blasts of sound. Within seconds, the cacophony sped up, rising into a constant stream of destruction. The black orbs were spinning in place all up and down the tunnel, their glossy obsidian surfaces flashing with sparks of blue light.
“It’s collapsing!” Phil cried, running back in the direction we came, holding Sonia’s hand as she tried to keep up with him. I could only stare for a long moment, not sure what to do. It seemed that the direction Phil was heading stood closer to total collapse.
“Wait!” I cried, but my voice was drowned out in the destruction all around us. I felt a rock smash into my shoulder, sending me down to my feet. I heard Phil give a scream of pain, then another stone came down and smashed into my forehead. I remember seeing everything spinning around me as the world went black.
***
I awoke to find my headlamp still shining straight up in the dusty tunnel. Large chunks of the tunnel had slid out of place and crashed to the stone floor. The granite chunks that had fallen looked unnaturally smooth, most of them in the shapes of cylinders or cubes and varying in size from that of an egg to that of a small car.
My head throbbed. It felt as if a tight belt of fire were wrapped around my temples. Groaning, I put my fingers up to my forehead. They came away slick with blood.
Slowly, I started pushing myself up on my feet. I was relieved that nothing seemed broken. I had a deep gash running from the center of my scalp down to my left temple and some shallower cuts on my shoulders and back, but I knew none of that was life-threatening.
“Sonia?” I whispered, my voice coming out weak and strained. I reached into my pack and found a bottle of water. I chugged it quickly in one long swallow.
“Phil?” I cried again, this time stronger. I heard a soft weeping nearby. Staggering, I followed the sound.
Sonia was bloody and covered in cuts and scrapes, sitting next to Phil’s prone form. I saw Phil’s right arm pinned under a massive slab of granite. His arm disappeared from the elbow down in a spreading puddle of thick, dark blood.
“Oh God, Max, I think he’s hurt really bad,” she wept. Phil’s eyes rolled wildly in his head, his face pale and bloodless. I looked down the way we had come, seeing the entire tunnel blocked by large slabs of stone, many with strange, black orbs peeking out like the lenses of cameras.
***
I don’t know how much time passed. My phone died after a day, and then we were counting the endless darkness in breaths and tears.
Phil swam in and out of consciousness as his arm putrefied and blackened around the crush site. After a couple days, Sonia and I agreed that something had to be done. We told Phil we would need to amputate his arm. He was half-delirious, but he came back long enough to understand us and nod weakly.
We made a fire with Phil’s pack, trying to find fuel to throw in it to get it roaring. As it grew, I saw one of the black orbs near the flames abruptly ignite, as if it had been covered in gasoline. Blue, almost colorless flames rose from its surface. We started throwing the small black orbs on the fire until it rose high in the air. I sanitized the buck knife with the flames and pulled a rope tourniquet tight around Phil’s arm. He was conscious but seemingly insane, talking to himself more than anyone else.
“How are we going to get the car started without a key?” he gurgled to someone only he could see. “We need to look around. It has to be here somewhere.”
“Phil, can you hear me, bud? We need to fix your arm. We need to get you out of this mess. OK?” I said as comfortingly as I could. Phil’s eyes rolled wildly, but they didn’t meet my own. I sighed and looked over at Sonia.
“Let’s do it,” I said, giving a grim nod.
I pulled the buck knife out, slicing quickly down through the flesh next to the tourniquet. His veins throbbed like fat worms as the blackened, necrotic skin split easily under the blade, releasing a rancid-smelling gas that hissed out of the wound.
I couldn’t believe how hard it was to slice all the way through the arm. It felt like I was stuck in that hellish task forever. Phil’s eyes rolled in his head as his skin turned the color of clotted milk.
“God, Jesus, make it stop,” Phil whispered over and over, exhaling ragged, pain-filled breaths. The blood spurted from the blackened, dying tissue all over the dust-covered cavern floor, covering my hands in its warm, slick embrace.
After what was probably only three or four minutes, but felt like hours, I had sliced all the way down to the bone. The infected tissue of his arm spurted great gouts of orange pus mixed with rivulets of blood. The hard part was over.
Standing up, I took my steel-toe sneaker and stomped down on his arm as hard as I could. Phil cried out in a powerful voice, as if all the agony and suffering in the world was contained in that one shriek. The bone snapped under my weight with a sound like a tree branch cracking. A moment later, Phil rolled away from the rock that had pinned me in place for so long. Something alien and spongy was shoved into my face, a mass of destroyed red tissue pulsating in time with a runaway heartbeat. At first, shell-shocked and revolted, my mind couldn’t comprehend that I was looking at the stump of Phil’s mutilated arm. I hardened my heart and forced the giddiness and madness to the back of my mind. The time had come to cauterize the wound.
“Sonia, give it to me,” I said with a tremor in my voice. I reached out a hand towards her, a hand stained with Phil’s blood. It looked as if I were wearing a wet, crimson glove. Sonia only stared blankly at me for a long moment, however. A surge of anger ran up my chest.
“Sonia, toughen the fuck up! He’s going to die if you just sit there!” I swore at her, hearing my deep, angry voice bounce around the caverns. Sonia pulled back, as if she were struck. Inwardly, I cursed having a woman as my only able-bodied companion in this situation. She was a competent enough caver, but what would happen if violence and blood came over us? What would happen if, or more realistically when, we needed to fight?
Grimly, Sonia leaned forward and yanked the burning black orb out of the roaring fire, handing it to me on the end of a buck knife that had just barely pierced its hard, strange exterior. The handle of the knife felt coarse and splintery under my filthy skin. I put it to the spongy stump of Phil’s arm. The stump twitched violently. Phil tried to pull away as black smoke rose from the burning flesh.
There was a smell like bacon sizzling. The searing meat of Phil’s arm blackened and crisped under the heat of the orb, which had become no more than a cylinder of glowing blue embers by this point. I felt simultaneously sick and giddy. I didn’t know if I wanted to laugh or vomit. I felt like I was on the verge of some kind of madness, that the stress and insanity of the experience had started to shatter my mind.
His eyes rolled back in his head and he appeared to go into a seizure for a few seconds. With a long exhalation of breath, he finally, mercifully, lost consciousness. It’s hard to admit it, even this close to the end, but a small, sick piece of me was jealous of Phil. Most likely, he would be dead soon, maybe within hours, while Sonia and I would slowly starve and dehydrate like animals over a period of weeks. I looked at her lithe body and soft skin, seeing the feminine curves of her hips and chest. She was a beautiful woman. I knew Phil to be a lucky man. At least, before this trip, he was.
I watched her body, wondering if I had what it took to eat her or Phil if I had to. Did I have an iron heart that would allow me to slice into my friends and consume their raw, cold flesh? Perhaps, by that point, it would be hunger and madness driving me forward, and I wouldn’t even hesitate. I shuddered at the very thought.
***
I fell asleep that night, having strange dreams of massive gods with melting faces sitting in judgment in a circle around me. We had very little food or water left. No one knew we were down here. Rescue was not coming.
When I awoke, I found myself alone. Phil had died from his injuries while I slept, the black streaks of septic shock spreading up his arm towards his heart. His eyes stared sightlessly up at the rock ceiling.
“Sonia?” I called out, my heart racing as I sat up. “Where are you?” My headlamp was growing dim. I looked in my pack, realizing I was on the last of my batteries. I saw a silhouette walking out of the darkness, the thin, pale form of Sonia. She was trembling badly.
“I saw them,” she said. “Niralahoth and its priests. The priests aren’t human. They look reptilian with sideways mouths and too many eyes.” She shuddered.
“Why would you do that?” I asked. Her eyes grew distant.
“You know we’re not getting out of here alive,” she said. “Not on our own. I wanted to see what it offered. It says that if we take a piece of its nightmare into us, we will gain the power to leave this place, that it simply wants to see the surface and spread its nightmares there.” I shook my head.
“Insanity,” I muttered. “We’d be better off dead.” Sonia nodded.
“My thoughts exactly,” she responded grimly. I didn’t realize what she meant until the next day, when I woke up and found her hanging next to Phil’s body, her tongue swollen and blue as it poked out of her cyanotic lips. And then I was truly alone.
***
Soon after Sonia committed suicide, the last of the batteries for the headlamp died. I had run out of food and had only a small sip of water left. I don’t know how much time passed in the darkness, starving and raving, following the tunnel by running my hands over the walls. I heard many things skittering in the darkness, and a few times, I heard the demonic voice of Niralahoth as it split and distorted.
“You are on death’s door,” it hissed. “Will you not drink from the fountain of life?” I couldn’t tell where the voice came from in the maddening blackness. It seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere. I had lost nearly all of my sanity in that pit of shadows by this point. I tried laughing constantly to keep my spirits up, and when that failed, I simply cried.
“I’ll do it,” I wailed. “I’ll do it. Just let me see the sky again. Get me out of here, Niralahoth.” Everything went deathly silent all around me, then a laugh rang out like the grinding of glass.
In front of me, I saw a tornado of fire descending from the ceiling, surrounding the massive, spidery form of Niralahoth. It rose its skeletal arms upwards, as if it were Zeus calling down lightning. In the sudden brightness, I saw the fiery form of snakes slithering and centipedes skittering forwards in that tornado, each massive creature sculpted from flames in the spinning cyclone of energy. Niralahoth reached into the tornado of fire with its sharp points of fingers and plucked something small from it. The fire instantly dissipated. In its hand, I saw a tiny, swirling orb that looked like it contained a firestorm within it.
“The nightmare seed,” Niralahoth gurgled as it skittered forward towards me. I could only stare, open-mouthed and starving. I hadn’t slept for days, it felt like, and everything seemed slow and unreal.
In a blur, its skeletal arm shot out and forced the orb into my mouth. Despite the fire raging within it, it felt freezing cold. As it touched my tongue, it gave off a sensation like frostbite all throughout my mouth. I screamed and tried spitting it out, but it seemed to have a mind of its own. It started liquifying, dripping down my throat.
I felt something cancerous and sick spreading throughout my body, radiating out from my heart and stomach to every inch of it. I tried to scream, but it caught behind my teeth. I fell to my knees, clawing at my face as that insane, alien laugh continued resounding all down the tunnel. I fell unconscious and woke up under a beautiful sky in the fields of Graysole Farms.
***
Soon after, I realized that my life would never be the same. Everywhere I went, I could hear the wailing voice of Niralahoth. Behind the trees, I always saw skittering shadows, creatures with long, spidery legs that stalked me every day and night. I slept with every light in the house turned on, yet when I woke up, they would all be shut off, and I would find myself in darkness, next to something in the bed with far too many legs and a face that dripped like burning wax.
I sold everything I owned and tried to move far away, to give as much distance between myself and those cursed caverns as I could, but the nightmares followed me like a shadow. I realize what a fool I was in those ephemeral moments of madness. Sonia was much wiser than myself; I should have killed myself or died rather than allowing that thing inside of me.
Even now, I can feel it creeping through my heart, spreading through my blood. I feel it trying to crawl its way out of my throat, the thin, black legs peeking out at the back of my esophagus.
I only hope that, when I finally jump and feel my bones shatter against the concrete far below, I will kill whatever is inside of me. For I fear the consequences for the world if it were to escape.

Hello! I'm looking for internet advice to see different perspectives.
I moved from my home state about 5 years ago for work. Since then I have changed companies twice, I am now fully remote. Due to this I was making a decision to move back home with family. While I do enjoy living in this state, I felt empty without family and friends. However, in the last month and a half I stopped drinking, smoking weed & watching porn / masterbating. I starting going to the gym 6 days a week, running and going to yoga. Let me tell you I feel so much better & feel like a completely new person so much so that I believe I'm going to regret leaving and feel that I missed out on the last 5 years since I was drowning myself with these substances. I'm unsure of the decision & I'm worried it just might be a temporary high im getting from finally feeling like I've gotten ahold of myself.
I have a great dog & I get to work remotely. If I moved back then I would need to go into the office 4 days a week. This is a real bummer.
Anyways if anyone has any insight from any experiences they have had, please share. I would love different perspectives on this situation.
Thanks all!

Good evening to everyone on this sub, I’d like to start off by saying I apologize if I’ve put this in the wrong place, but I feel as though many people here will have much more life experience and wisdom than myself on this topic, so here goes nothing.
P.S. This is going to be long as fuck so I apologize in advance lol.
I’ll start this off by giving a brief profile: I am 17 years old and about to graduate in a few weeks. My last long-term relationship ran from March ‘22-August ‘22 and it was not until about four months ago that I decided I was “over it” (I speculate I may have held limerence towards that person as well). In that time I developed an addiction to weed (daily use started in July-ish) that still runs to this day, for a multitude of different reasons, that relationship included. I’ve experienced most of the negative side effects of that addiction, and although I am still dependent on it, I am in a much more manageable state than I once was (I was smoking 2-3 times a day as a junior in HS). In the time following me and that persons separation I felt lonely often and had a hard time being able to validate myself. It’s almost important to mention that my home life is not the smoothest that it’s ever been, and the combination of stress from that, school, and this big transition Im about to experience has taken a large toll on my life in the last 3 months or so.
So to my present situation. I met a girl at a birthday party my friend of mine was hosting (3 and a half months ago), and I quickly spotted her and decided I wanted to try and talk to her. Before even doing so, my friends mother and another friend of mine had encouraged me to talk to her because “we would be good together” (they both know her much better than me). To sum it up, it was not long before we ran off from the party, went on a long walk and talked for over an hour, and opting to go for ANOTHER shortly after, to which I kissed her for a long time. She had proclaimed that she sensed a real connection between us and seemed concerned about seeing me again, so I decided to keep things going because I had not felt this excited or connected to someone since my last partner. It’s important to note that she lives in a town about 35 minutes away, and I don’t currently have a car, so there is an obvious distance. The next week I went to her friends birthday party in her town and it went even better than the weekend prior, we once again separated ourselves from the party and got more intimate than the weekend prior. I ended up telling her a lot of the burdens in my life and it was the first time I had felt heard, you guessed it, since my previous partner. That night ended with more intimacy and her driving me home at 6 in the morning, and I thought about this night non-stop for probably 2 months. After that I was under the impression that we were seeing each other until she silently pulled away and I was unsure why. Radio silence for about a week. I was in the process of trying to accept this when we coincidentally ended up at a friends house at the same time and ended up talking things over (about 2 months after initially meeting her). Long story short, I forgave her and welcomed her back into my life. This is when the daydreaming of “what could be” and the perfect fantasy started again, except this time with a more positive outlook. About a week and a half later I called her and asked her to be my date to prom, which she happily agreed to. There was about 3 and a half weeks between then and my prom, which was this past Saturday. About 2 weeks ago she drunkenly called me and apologized for her pulling away and revealed how much it was bothering her, but I tried my best to reassure her that I had moved on and only saw that as a moment in time. The beginning part went well but rendered slightly awkward (I feel like mutual sobriety contributed to this), but the after party was when things took off. She told me that she wanted to go on another walk with me at some point that night, which made me happy because I knew what I was going to experience. This time was different than the first; there was an unspoken level of comfortablility she revealed only around me, and she told me how she wanted me to visit her in college and how she was disappointed we didn’t have the time to develop a relationship, and how long distance would probably be difficult. I asked her why she felt this level of comfortability with me, and she said it was because “she could tell I was a good person with only good intentions, and would never do anything to hurt her.” None of this was discussed extensively but rather we focused on trying to enjoy each others company, when I asked her if I could kiss her again. She told me that she wanted to ask but she felt anxious to or something like that. We spent a lot of time on that walk being intimate, into the rest of the party at my friend’s house at times we had unintentionally secluded ourselves (going to get another drink, etc). She stayed the night and I walked her to her car the next morning, and she told me she would see me again because she still has a sweatshirt of mine, I gave her a long hug and we went our separate ways. It’s important to note that she has admitted to being a bad texter, and that she did not believe in the superficiality of developing a relationship over Snapchat (our main form of communication), which is something I’ve aligned with since before meeting her. And we were both drunk 3 of the 4 times I saw her. I am also now realizing we don’t really address these moments in sobriety which raises concern to me. In the times between seeing her, we have small conversations here and there and Snap throughout the day. Needless to say, I still think a lot about what it would “be like” to be in a relationship with her and see her more often, and find myself disappointed when I don’t hear from her for a while. But at the smallest sign of validity, it entirely flips.
I want to know if this is something that I should address with her, as I want to have a manageable relationship with her in whatever aspect that may be. I also want to source more validation from other aspects of my life besides her. I already exercise about 4-5 times a week and that has kept me in line more than if I wasn’t, but I feel as though I need to do something about this directly in order to make progress. Again, I apologize for making this so fucking long lmao and if you read this all you are amazing. Any input, whether I want or don’t want to hear it, is fully welcomed.

Hello! I'm looking for internet advice to see different perspectives.
I moved from my home state about 5 years ago for work. Since then I have changed companies twice, I am now fully remote. Due to this I was making a decision to move back home with family. While I do enjoy living in this state, I felt empty without family and friends. However, in the last month and a half I stopped drinking, smoking weed & watching porn / masterbating. I starting going to the gym 6 days a week, running and going to yoga. Let me tell you I feel so much better & feel like a completely new person so much so that I believe I'm going to regret leaving and feel that I missed out on the last 5 years since I was drowning myself with these substances. I'm unsure of the decision & I'm worried it just might be a temporary high im getting from finally feeling like I've gotten ahold of myself.
I have a great dog & I get to work remotely. If I moved back then I would need to go into the office 4 days a week. This is a real bummer.
Anyways if anyone has any insight from any experiences they have had, please share. I would love different perspectives on this situation.
Thanks all!

I’m living back in my childhood home temporarily. Coincidentally my younger brother is also here due to some health issues. Oh joy. My mom is in her late 60s and all she does is sit in her room and watch TV literally all day with the curtains drawn. It’s pitch black in there on a sunny day but she swears she’s not depressed. My brother sits downstairs and watches TV most of the day, smoking weed even tho his Dr advised him to quit. In the last two weeks they’ve both taken up watching these true crime murder episodes. Interestingly, they watch together. I find it oddly fascinating that they are both doing this, like the negative energy is contagious (my brother started first).
I can’t imagine sitting around watching this stuff. It’s creepy and seems psychologically damaging. Why do people do it? And how can I protect myself from this stifling energy when I’m here? Sometimes I feel like crying when I’m out and I know I have to come back here. I don’t have bad memories growing up in this house but it’s now so energetically oppressive. I’m very sensitive and intuitive sou can imagine.

So I just turned 18 a few months ago. I have never been in any legal trouble in my life and have been a pretty 'good kid' all things considered. A couple of weeks ago I was at a friends house taking shots of tequila and hanging out when I decided to drive my vehicle home. Next thing I knew I woke up in the hospital surrounded by my family. I made it out with almost zero injuries and nobody else was involved in the crash but I took out two telephone poles, a small shrub, and hit an unattended car. I also attempted to 'flee the scene'. This happened all at 3AM on a Sunday morning and required crews to come and replace the poles. There are a lot of questions as to what actually happened but here is what we know so far:

My BAC was a 0.2 and there was likely also weed in my system from smoking a few nights prior
I have been charged with 2 DUI's (assuming one is for having a high BAC and the other for driving on a minor license)
I have also been charged with fleeing the scene, failure to notify authorities, reckless driving, and damage to an unattended vehicle
I DO have a lawyer, however they are refusing to tell us much in an attempt to not get our hopes up

Those are the key points. I suppose I am coming on here to just try and find answers as to what is likely going to happen to me as I have never been in any trouble near this severe before. Jail time? Ignition Interlock? etc. I was planning on going to a university next year but had to de-commit and am likely going to go to a local community collage next year and possibly transfer.
I am aware that what I did was stupid and this has brought much shame upon myself, I am NOT proud, I am just seeking some guidance for what to expect.

(scroll for TLDR)
Hi Reddit community! I dont post on here ever, but this is truly a desperate time in my life. I can only really explain from the beginning. So I have worked many jobs over my lifetime (I am 27 years old). Have always had slight medical issues and mental health issues. Around 2020, my health began dwindling and my preexisting anxiety became much worse. I have severe cPTSD and panic disorder also. I stopped working in 2021 and unknowingly began years of constant doctors and medications. Without getting into too much of it, I am very prone to passing out. I was denied disability three times (surprise surprise lol) and then I learned about remote and work from home jobs because it was covid and all. So now I am in a position where I live with my bfs parents in New Jersey, but they are moving states away and we need to get jobs pretty urgently. I have been looking and applying for these jobs for well over a year with every single job site you can think of (I SWEAR you could name any of them and ive tried it) ive been browsing all the WFH subs and remote job subs and job boards (indeed, glassdoor, snagajob, monster, RRR, LinkedIn, ziprecruiter, flexjobs) with no avail. It is SO frustrating because I only have a high school diploma. I cannot go to college and theres a ton of certifications online but they require payment. I also smoke weed to manage my chronic physical and mental illnesses, so drug testing is unfortunately not an option unless THC is not screened. Now I DO have a TON of skills and could do a wide variety of jobs and I am so flexible with pay, I just need remote work. It is best for my scenario and it feels so impossible to acquire anything at all with no schooling and no experience and its unbelievably frustrating.
If anyone has ANY advice or anyone else is chronically ill also and has remote work I would very much appreciate it more than you know!! <3
TLDR: I live in New Jersey and have physical and mental health issues that require remote work(and I smoke weed for this), I have no degree, no certifications, no money, but I am autistic and learn things so fast that I feel like I could thrive at any work from home job.

Im 19F (south asian and muslim) and i live with my parents and they are controlling. Recently they caught me smoking weed (again) and took away my phone, laptop, wallet, ripped up my driver license and banished me to my room. My father wont let me leave the house and wont let me complete my education. I'm basically a sitting duck. I want to complete my education and get my life back on track but I cant leave my house or access my phone or anything. My dad never let me get a job and unfortunately ive always been dependent on my parents for money.
its been 3 weeks, he wont even speak to me and wants nothing to do with me I cant even apologize or anything. What on earth should I do

So a little back story about my exs lil sister, we’ll call her Anna, Anna is a year younger than her older brother less than a year younger than me. I met her from my ex I’ll call him Chad. We met when I was 13 and he was 14. I met Anna the following year when I was 14 and she was 13. Drama didn’t start right away, but she didn’t take school seriously her freshman year she ended the year with about 4 credits and next year her sophomore year only got 2 and after her sophomore year she dropped out saying for “mental health” even tho she was doing online school, no job, and was just trying to act like a bad ass. Anna was living with her father and step mom with her brother and half sister, she started getting rebellious smoking weed, smoking nic, having sex with a lot of guys and also going partying. She would run out of her house to go do whatever she wanted, one time I was even was on FaceTime with my ex as she was throwing a tantrum she locked herself in the bathroom screaming that she doesn’t care about her step mom or half sister because their not blood and she doesn’t care if they die, because they tried to take her phone away. She then ended up calling one of her boyfriends to pick her up and she ran out of the house and into his truck, her parents ended up calling the police and she texted her parents off a different phone and when her parents asked where she was her response was “it’s none of your business” she returned the next morning. It turned into a normal thing of her skipping school, sneaking off, breaking things in the house and going into her parent room to steal her phone. She then told her school she was being abused, which got debunked almost instantly since her brother testified and video recording from the neighbors driveway, because she claimed her dad staged her by her head and slammed her head into his truck door, her step mom had a video of her on the porch yanking out her own hair, no damage to the car and video shows her screaming at her house. Her mom locked her out because she didn’t feel safe with her being aggressive with a 2 year old in the house. Her father then put up cameras around the inside and outside of the house just to always have evidence of her lies. One time of her taking the bus to school she got in a fight with someone age 11 when she was 14 then posted on instagram bragging about getting charged with assault. She then made a claim that she wanted to kxxl herself so her family took her to a mental hospital the doctor told her parents she had no mental issues she’s just spoiled and will act out for people attention. Anna would constantly go to social media to complain about getting mistreated by her family. It got to the point her family knew there was not much they could do to help her, and they felt worried for their baby growing up around that. They ended up moving her into a family friends house where her parents stayed in contact with the parents of the other house and they gave money. There was parents and a daughter two years younger she became best friends with it was going well for the first few months but then Anna started to steal from the daughter I’ll call her Nat, they started to not get along and the friends Nat introduced her too she started talking shit about Nat to them. Anna was now 15 attempting to get jobs but couldn’t hold a job because of her bad attitude, well after 9 months Anna slept with Nats boyfriend, Nats boyfriend told Nat about what happened, the mom made Anna call her boyfriend and tell him how she cheated. The tension was too high and the parents told Anna parents they couldn’t take care of Anna anymore, Annas parents then talk to family, and Anna Uncle agreed to let her move in, she was 16 at this point and she moved in with her uncle and his girlfriend. She got a job at a sub place, but she kept smoking and having sex with random people. Well, she started getting into a lot of vocal arguments with his girlfriend and her uncle ended up texted my boyfriend asking if she can live with him. Her uncle said she was just selfish, and doesn’t like being told no. At this time her brother was living in a house with 3 guys with no extra room. I had my own two bedroom apartment, so I talked to her parents and they felt like I was a good choice and I asked Anna because even tho I wasn’t a fan of her I still felt like she needs her own room and she agreed. So her uncle drove her and her stuff to my place. Her family gave me some money to get her some furniture and they gave me a run down, also told me they’re are going to call to check up on her. I asked if she had any allergies or mental issues, she told me no but that she’s likely going to tell me a huge list of what’s wrong with her. So first day she moved in I took her to get fast food and asked some questions. She said she was abused by her parents Nats boyfriend pressured her to sleep with him and that her uncle was manipulative. Every story she told me she made herself a victim. She then asked me if I had any mental issues which I said I have PTSD and MDD and she asked me what MDD was, I explained it to her. I then asked her if she had any issues and she gave me a LIST she said anxiety, depression, borderline personality disorder , bi polar disorder, OCD, MDD, and PTSD. Even tho she had to ask me what MDD meant, but I didn’t confront her because her parents warned me that if I doubt her she will act out. So the first week, I got her a job where I work, started to teach her to drive and helped her set up a bank account went to the Apple Store so she could buy herself a new phone. Instantly I could tell why she kept getting fired, she was on her the entire time and everytime I looked over she was taking photos or videos of herself. She did not want to work so I did a lot of her work just so I didn’t get a bad rep. About day 4 she asked if she can invited a guy over that she knew on Snapchat. I said sure MY MISTAKE. This guy was a wanna be gangster, and he brought his friend, in front of him she acted awful, swore she was a fighter and badass, they ended up fucking and next day he was still there he did some Molly and drank a lot. My friend came over and Anna started to threaten her and say she could beat her ass in front of the guys. I took her into a room alone and told her to knock it off. We’ll later that night the guys wanted to bring over some girls, I was trying to sleep and my friend told me how, she told they guys she can drive them with my car. IVE ONLY TAKEN HER DRIVING TWICE. So I agreed to pick the girls up but told them I would be driving them back that night. It’s going good for a while until Anna starts talking shit about one of the girls and called her ghetto, this girl was 13 and Anna was 17. That girl confronted Anna, Anna swore up and down she didn’t say anything, then after 10 mins of pressing her Anna admitted she called her ghetto. This girl beat her ass. Anna started crying and this girl came up to her and said that wasn’t a fair fight, that she can get 5 mins to put her hair up and get some water but they were gonna run it again. Everyone is in my living room talking then they go outside and she gets her ass beat again, Anna then goes into my bathroom in my bedroom, anytime I went in she told me to kick them out. I told her she wanted them here she has to tell them to get out but I’ll have her back. It got to the point I tried to sleep on my couch, so the guys tried getting Anna to go to her room so I could sleep but she screamed at them. So the two girls went in and told her she needs to go to her room. Anna picked up a bunch of my stuff on the counter and threw it at the sink. The 16 year old girl got pissed and wanted to fight her, but I said she had enough and if she needed to get it off her chest we can fight, we ended up scrapping. It got late so I went to drive them home… pt 2?

i (20f) am fucking depressed as fuck. i’m at such a low rn i haven’t been to work in a week and i physically cannot convince myself to go even though i’m literally in hospital bill debt (from a suicide attempt a couple weeks ago). idk what to do. i have no motivation for anything but laying in bed, smoking weed, eating, video games, youtube content & masturbation/ sex. i’ve struggled with a lack of discipline and a dopamine addiction for as long as i can remember. i’m stuck in a contradiction of feeling like a lazy pos with no discipline or self control or someone with a genuine disorde mental issue. i’m not in school (graduated high school with a 3.7 gpa though) i don’t want to work…. ever, i have no goals in life besides being a mom (which is scary to think about bringing another human into this life that’ll have the same issues as me… my mom has the same problems), but loving a child and being a mother is all i want. i don’t want to pass it on for yet another generation. i feel so stuck. the only thing keeping me here is the amazing man i have who is so much stronger than i’ll ever be and his amazing son who has become my own. they are my everything and they’re my reason for living.. i’m ranting at this point by i just want some advice i guess? i wanna be better for them. i wanna be better for my future kid(s). i wanna be better for me so i don’t feel like a failure/ fuckup all the time. i am a dopamine addict and i chase pleasure. everywhere i go. but i’m also a genuine, beautiful individual who throws her entire heart and soul into the ones she loves. would jump in front of a bus 100x just to make them happy. i feel like a zombie. always tired.laying in bed all day everyday. i never want to leave it. it’s my safe space. my loved ones are here. they make me feel safe. the outside world doesn’t feel safe. it’s so so scary and sad out there and i just can’t. i’m not strong enough. i don’t want to be

I federal probation and was called the office today for a UA…. I’ve been on probation for 2 1/2 years and I have five months left to finish my three years. I was smoking weed and I know I was dirty so after I peed, I admitted to my probation officer that it was going to be positive for marijuana and then she went into asking about why I was doing it and if I needed help. I expressed sincerity and told her I was sorry and said it wouldn’t happen anymore and that I would need to pull my head out my ass for the last five months and how sorry I was for the inconvenience. Turns out she requested me for an early release to my jurisdiction and they wanted a piss test to help get me off. I screwed myself over when my probation officer reached her neck out for me. She seemed very disappointed and upset, but I’m not sure where this is going to go because she did not tell me anything afterwards. She just heard my story and told me to have a good day and we will see what my jurisdiction says about this analysis….. this is my first dirty UA on federal probation, I do not want to go back to jail and I know I fucked up and what I did was stupid but does anybody have any sort of insight on my possible future?

I (14F) am absolutely SICK and TIRED of my mom(38F) and her boyfriend(54M) and his kids. (18F, 22F, 21M)
Growing up, my mother always had a boyfriend. It was like she couldn't live with one. One of her boyfriends the father of my little brother(6M) even sexually assaulted (touched TWICE) my older sister, "CC"(20F). This happened at least 6-7 years ago. But CC tried to tell my mom the first time it happened, and you wanna know what my mom did? SHE DIDN'T EVEN BELIEVE CC. It had to happen a second time for my mom to actually care and notice.
Now, present time, with my mom's boyfriend, we'll call him "Road". At first, I liked him and I saw him as a father.
For context, my father had been in jail for 4-5 years because of drugs and he touched me as a child. When my father was in a past marriage, he slept with his stepdaughter. His now ex-wife got a restraining order and his stepdaughter visited him again, when she was an adult. I'm not allowed to speak to my father at all.
Now road wasn't as bad as the boyfriends were to CC or to me, but that doesn't make him great.
You see, he is mentally abusive. He calls me and my little brother, who we'll call Cam, "special" and other horrible and vulger names to where "special" is theost appropriate compared to everything else. We do one bad thing, "special". And sometimes, he even laughs about it. He also threatens to punch us into a wall, smack us stupid(his words), and basically threats to abuse us severely when we just mess up.
I've tried to talk to my mom about this, but she doesn't talk to Road about his behavior towards us, even when she says she will.
His kids? Well, 18F, "A", she'll do anything for a man... If you know what I mean. She lost her V card while trunk and even did "things" with an 18 year old in the band room while she was 15. And Road was talking crap about his other daughter, 22F, "D" a whore for doing the exact same thing. A started crying when she heard this, because she did the same thing D did, but Road doesn't know that A did the exact same thing as D. D even has a child from someone she met online, and Everytime she gets broken up with, she comes to what was originally MY HOME, and trashes it completely! Leaves being her food, Tupperware, clothes, and basically all of her objects. Road's son, (21M) B, is dating CC. Weird, right? My sister and my mom's boyfriends son dating. They're completely toxic for each other. They cheat on each other, abuse each other physically, emotionally, and mentally. They're always arguing over who cheated, who smoked the last weed(they're like junkies from how much they smoke and fight over it.), and who did what last. So you can imagine why I don't talk with them much over this thing. Only person who I could talk to was A, but she told one of my secrets, and I haven't trusted her since.
Road dies have his good moments, where he lets me talk to him, he buys us food and other necessities, and other things that would make you smile. I've broken my collarbone(like, it snapped in half, completely, and we were worried I might have to get surgery, luckily I don't, my bone is going to reconnect again. One bone is on the other at least an inch or two, but it'll grow weirdly), did did last Thursday, and ever since, he's been super caring and super loving. But I feel like he should be this way all the time and not just when I'm injured.
That's mostly it. I would like to know other POVs and if I'm in the wrong.
Sorry if this doesn't make any sense or spelling is wrong. This is my first story.

I’m sure I’ll get some angry responses, but here goes nothing. My bf and I have been living in our apartment since early November, so almost 7 months. We smoke weed in the evenings after we get off work usually around 6-7, some days earlier some days later, just depends on what our nights look like and never had any complaints. When we first moved in I was paranoid that our place was going to smell so we smoked on the balcony since it wasn’t too cold outside yet. That lasted for a month since we got really cold and decided to move inside to smoke and relax on the couch. Fast forward to today, our apartment manager went to put a note on everyone’s door in the breezeway with a notice of marijuana use and they will have to take further action if it continues to be a problem. What can I do to keep the smell from bothering others? I’m pretty positive we aren’t the only ones who smoke, there’s some people on the first floor who do as well and we are on the third and there are only 3 floors. Our apartment is right next to the stair way so if we smoke on the balcony it just typically passes through there and onward. What is some good advice as to what we can do moving forward, I’m feeling bad and anxious and I want to relax and smoke my weed while not bothering others.

There was this song I liked on Sound Cloud round 2019-2020, and just one day it disappeared along with the creator of it. However I remember some of the details.
The guy who made the song their username was their first and last name, Kenny (don't remember). Or at least I remember it being Kenny, might be misremembering it.
The song was called "Sometimes you just gotta be your own best friend."
Some of the lyrics. Keep in mind this is not in order.

"I been where you are, I'm what you're scared to be"
"I'm your only dog"
"Sometimes you gotta be your own best best friend"
"Do you really like your job? Do you really like your boss?"
"We could smoke weed, watch dvds, do you like Matt Damon?"
"use instinct"
"I got your back I'm your dog, who else comes when you call after all?"

Lastly, the picture they used for that song looks like from what I can remember was a dog, and the background was reddish-moonish. With some yellowish text behind the dog.
I know that Sound Cloud doesn't play some songs base off your country, and I don't believe this to be the case. I've been looking for this song off and on again, if anything I just want to know what happened to it.
Thanks for reading.