Prehospital trauma life support pretest answers

Ask Psychology

2011.10.22 01:53 GAMEchief Ask Psychology

Science-based answers for questions about the mind, behavior and perception. This is not a mental health/advice sub!
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2016.08.14 03:53 TheRandomGuy94 r/TEMS; just a place to come and hang out.

Private community for verified LE and TEMS personnel from TacticalMedicine
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2012.10.02 23:54 katushkin News, views and FAQs on the British Armed Forces

A subreddit for all of those in, interested in or have served in the British Armed Forces of any branch. This subreddit is for questions about the British Armed Forces, experiences (plenty of sandbags to sit on for war stories), and anything else. Post pictures, links, news, and anything else you fancy.
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2024.05.19 01:47 Fluffy-Walk-7027 A new mentality

My ex and I had a very messy 1 year relationship. He was incredibly narcissistic and toxic, he made me distance myself from my family and was very selfish. He also cheated on me many times with his ex. He was also a relationship hopper who did not love himself and did not know how to be alone. I tried to help him many times and took him to therapy but he just did not want help.
Despite all of this, he helped me understand my depression and he made good music that really helped me heal.
The last time he cheated on me was with someone much younger who he met on tinder. I left and never looked back. I blocked him on everything and despite doing this before, we could never keep no contact. But this time I was determined to do so. It was incredibly hard because I cared so deeply for this person and it hurt knowing he was with someone else. They moved in together after 2 weeks and this is when I cut ties.
It took me a good 8 months to forget he existed.
3 years later.. out of the blue, I get an email from him asking if we could speak. I didn’t really want to as I know how manipulative he can be and my friends all told me no, but something in my heart was telling me this was different.
I was SHOCKED he reached out because he has an ego the size of Texas and so I never expected him to contact me.
Something seemed so off.. He called me crying (something he never did) and he apologized for everything he put me through and tells me that I was the only person who truly accepted him for who he was and his deepest regret was treating me the way he did blah blah I didn’t take too much of it to heart as I know how manipulative he can be.
Regardless, I told him I forgave him a long time ago as I truly don’t hold space in my heart for hate or resentment and that I just hope he is now being a better person to others.
We planned to meet face to face a couple of days later.
The day came and he never showed, I texted him but he never replied. I got a call that same day from him at stupid o’clock but I was so mad that he stood me up, so I didn’t answer. I couldn’t believe I was made a fool once again and I fell for his antics.
Well, little did I know that he passed away that night. His pain and regret for the things he did was too much for him to face.
As I spent the next couple of years grieving him, I learned that I actually loved and cared for him more than I thought I did and so did he. At his funeral, I had the chance to speak to his mother who always supported us and who also tried to help him to change. She told me that they did have to go through all of his things with the police, including his phone and computers. I was shocked to hear about how many songs, poems and messages expressing his love and regret. I never thought he actually cared about me at all.
This taught me that you should never underestimate the hole your absence will leave in someone’s life. However, you must give them space to miss you. Sadly, men only learn value via losing.
On the other side, protect your peace, guard your heart and forgive yourself. Apologize to them if you need to, cry if you need to and let it go.
His family kindly allowed his demos to be uploaded onto Spotify for me and his friends to listen to.
If you’re ever wondering if he misses you, of course he does but people miss people dead or alive, it’s nothing new.
Whoever you meet, always try to leave them better than how you found them - and I don’t mean baby them or try and change them - what I mean is, SHOW them, using your actions, how people SHOULD be. No matter how bad of a person they are, always be kind, always be patient, always forgive (but you don’t need to forget) - you may ask why, as some people really don’t deserve it, but please understand that you might be the closest thing to love someone will ever experience.
I hope this made sense ❤️
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2024.05.19 01:38 Angelikawithak Vent rant

Where I am today
Hello. I am venting obviously… I am a 28 year old mother of 3 and shit has never changed with my mom. I was extremely depressed the moment I had to ask for help and come back home of November 2023…. Long story short she offered help I didn’t even want to take it but I am finishing my bachelors program my parter doesn’t have steady work and I was 2000 miles away from any support…. Even though I realized my why I left. Please don’t comment just leave…. I don’t have a job any longer since coming back home because I’d put my main focus on the kids and my schooling… so I Can hurry up and get out in a more stable position which she understood this and wanted to “help”. We pay her $400 a month which is nothing. My mother always has fought about money and me doing anything since a young child. Even when I couldn’t even work legally… so anytime she mentions a stress about money I offer her more because of these emotional triggers she gives me… I have recently started therapy for the first time ever in my life despite the abuse, trauma, and turmoil in my life that I don’t like to blame on anyone but more so focus on healing but lately my topic my therapist has seen a lot of trauma in is my mother …I’d like to heal more because anytime she triggers me I flood of ptsd and emotions it seems.
So back to today she never says anything at all to face either always text…. She stated,” I tried to hold it in but I am tired of you not respecting me that she only has two days off and she tries to clean and we do nothing but create a mess and it is not respect to her and how the bills are triple and we don’t respect that.” My first response of how about we pay 600-800 a month for bills. If she is willing to show these bills. She then replied and says why do I always make it about money? She mentioned it… then further degrades me as a person and mother. I clean the home every night with the thought of what would bother her so I put the toys away, make sure there are no dishes in the sink, and clothes are at least folded in the wash room. It is a total of me and my husband both 28 my children 13, 7, 3. I’m not sure why she is always so upset that I make my children also particate in dishes and chores and throws it at me like an attack as she did again in this conversation today. I just wanna get the hell out again. I shouldn’t of took the “help” I’m confused how I should respond because i am so overwhelmed and trigger. But this time I can’t just get up and go with no job… I told her “Not going to guilt trip me and then say I’m blaming you. “ I’ve been trying my truly best…. With always the thought of I have to do this to avoid this but seems like there is no avoiding… I’ve been keeping notes in my mind of what my therapist wants me to acknowledge and be able to recognize but what I still don’t understand is why does she keep doing this to me even at my best?
submitted by Angelikawithak to raisedbynarcissists [link] [comments]


2024.05.19 01:35 MountainSuch9747 A Response to Anthony Kingsley's Introduction to Use of the Self

Hi everyone,
I wanted to share with you my response to the introduction found in the only edition of Use of the Self currently in print. I believe it's a rather misleading intro to FM Alexander's work, so I'm sharing this in the hope that I can help clear up misconceptions people may have about the Alexander Technique, not derived only from Anthony Kingsley, but many bland blog posts one tends to encounter when researching the Alexander Technique. That said, this is not intended to be an introduction of its own, but rather something experienced students, teachers, and anyone enthusiastically learning the Technique may find useful. In the tradition of Alexander himself, I've included extensive footnotes, some painfully long. I'm happy to answer any questions or otherwise discuss what I've written. Understand these are my own interpretations and opinions about what some call "the work," so take them as you will. I've taken lessons for a number of years and currently am training as a teacher, so my view of the Technique is based on these experiences, as well as my interpretations of Alexander's writings. Some of these interpretations you may object to, but I hope you find my arguments reasonable.
Response to Anthony Kingsley's Introduction to The Use of the Self
The Use of the Self may be FM Alexander's most important work, since it contains his own account of how he developed what is now called the Alexander Technique. While Alexander's other volumes are available from Mouritz, the only edition of The Use of the Self currently in print is published by Orion Spring. This edition replaces the philosopher John Dewey's introduction—which praises the technique's "genuinely scientific character"—with one by the contemporary teacher Anthony Kingsley, who is heralded on the book's front cover as a "leading Alexander Technique teacher." Therefore it is probable that many readers' first impressions of the Alexander Technique will be framed by Mr. Kingsley's opinions. I submit this is problematic, since his introduction is in my view contradictory to fundamental principles of the Alexander Technique. I write this response to address the introduction's two most dire faults: Kingsley's misrepresentation of the concepts inhibition and direction, and his dismissal of the concept of the primary control. I'll begin with the second, since it is a more straightforward error.
Primary Control
Kingsley opens his paragraphs on the primary control with the opinion that the concept should be "recast," then describes Alexander's definition of the primary control as a "particular relationship of his head, neck and back [that] acted as a master reflex that conditioned his whole organism." Then he discards this definition, claiming the head-neck-back relativity should instead be "regarded as an indicator[sic] of overall health rather than an area considered in isolation." He concedes the "region of the neck and back is a [...] barometer of our state of being," but concludes that "no single element is actually primary," since our eyes, breath, digestive system, and all other psychophysical elements are "simultaneous and interdependent" and also like barometers. Finally, he reveals his "recast" of the primary control, defining it as "the unknown and unseen self-righting and self-healing mechanism that can be restored and vitalized."
In sum, Mr. Kingsley has presented the primary control—which Alexander wrote extensively about and considered central to his technique—with an ill-defined mystical force which, accordingly, Alexander must have unwittingly stumbled upon and mistaken for a certain relativity of the head, neck and back.
Ironically, it is in The Use of the Self where Alexander wrote of discovering the necessity to first free his neck in seeking a better condition for his vocal apparatus, since that was the sine qua non of taking his head forward and up, of widening the back, and so forth, which are in turn the necessary conditions of freedom and stability in the limbs. This is the genesis of Alexander's use of the word "primary" in describing the head-neck-back relationship, and in my experience, as in Alexander's, it holds true: the sequence of directions given to oneself matters greatly, since tense feet, for example, can hardly flatten on the floor if the head is taken back and down, whereas the head can be taken "forward and up"1 to a fine degree even if there is tension in the lower extremities, particularly while sitting. Further, and maybe most significantly, the relativity of the head-neck-back rarely need change during any manner of activity, whereas the arms and legs are constantly bending, rising, stretching, and so on. Small wonder Alexander considered this relativity primary.
Of course, Kingsley is not wrong to point out the interdependence of all processes in the body. It is certainly true that undue tension in the feet creates a downward pull on the head, neck and back. Yet what is crucial to understand here is that in the context of learning and teaching the Alexander Technique, the primary control is an indispensable concept. It instructs the pupil to guide his or her attention through the body in the sequence most fit to facilitate proper relativity of all the parts, and it names succinctly that natural, visible, dynamic yet enduring relativity of the head, neck and back observable in little children and animals as well as many great musicians and athletes. Thus Kingsley discards a practical concept in favor of a truism about "interdependence;" and so we come to his second, graver error.
Direction
Here it begins to seem that what Kingsley writes of in his introduction is not the Alexander Technique at all, but in fact the Kingsley Technique, since he has redefined not only the primary control, but two other conceptual pillars of the technique: inhibition and direction.
First, he takes aim at direction, neglecting to elucidate Alexander's own definition of the concept before setting out the axiom that "aiming for postural improvements using postural directions leads to a bodymind[sic] attitude of effort and trying, which simply reinforces the problem." Dismissing as superfluous all "ideas and images about heads, necks and backs," he declares that "the trying[sic] self is the obstacle, and the shift towards a non-trying[sic] self is the solution." Finally, he offers his own definition of the directions as "the natural flow of energy and vibrancy that exists within the organism," directions which are interfered with "when we are in a condition of stress and reactivity."
Here, again, Kingsley takes a practical concept which Alexander developed based on careful observation of his own muscular action, and replaces it with a kind of mystical or spiritual phenomenon which, implicitly, only the initiated can perceive.2 Thus the famous directions are not, as Alexander described repeatedly, a series of mental orders or intentions projected to oneself before and during muscular activity along lines one has reasoned out in advance, but a "natural flow of energy and vibrancy"—just as the primary control is not, as Alexander saw it, a concrete, observable relativity of the head, neck and back, but an "unknown and unseen self-righting and self-healing mechanism." These pseudo-spiritual definitions do a massive disservice to neophyte readers, and reveal Kingsley's muddled seeing in relation to the central problem addressed by the Alexander Technique: how to shed habit and coordinate the bodymind through reasoned conception and conscious awareness.
But for a moment let us leave aside direction, since a subtler and more misleading error still lurks in Kingsley's presentation: his dismissal of conception itself. He explicitly warns that "ideas, concepts and cognitive efforts reinforce the very mental instrument that is the problem in the first place," he advises us to simply trust that "the prevention or inhibition[sic] of reaction, maintains or liberates this stream of energy [or direction] in the body."
To understand Kingsley's error, we must return to Alexander. In Man's Supreme Inheritance, Alexander sets out four stages to the "performance of any muscular action by conscious guidance and control:"
  1. The conception of the movement required;
  2. The inhibition of erroneous preconceived ideas which subconsciously suggest the manner in which the movement or series of movements should be performed;
  3. The new and conscious mental orders which will set in motion the muscular mechanism essential to the correct performance of the action;
  4. The movements (contractions and expansions) of the muscles which carry out the mental orders.
Alexander considered "conception of the movement required" the very first stage in his technique, to precede even inhibition. Thus he made clear, if indirectly, that in the context of his technique, clear conception is essential to achieving a desired end. Incidentally, this is a fact any competent artist can attest to; if a composition is not unambiguously understood and organized within one's memory, it cannot be brought to fruition. Even the most simple act, such as extending one's arm to grasp a nearby object, requires a detailed conception of distance, weight, strength, and so forth; if the object turns out to be heavier than expected, the conception of these variables and their relation to one another, and hence the muscular action, must change. This is direction in action, albeit subconscious.
Yet Kingsley belittles conception, instead leaning on concepts like "ease," "letting go" "acceptance," and the like. He is not alone in this among teachers, but in my opinion, they overlook the influence of what Alexander termed "erroneous beliefs," a concept closely related to that of "unreliable sensory appreciation." Both could be read in the spiritual lexicon alongside "letting go," etc.; but that would place their referent outside the realm of what words and concepts can describe. On the contrary, Alexander was pointing to something concrete and empirically observable: to errors of spatio-motor perception able to be observed phenomenologically and in other people's behavior; not to transcendent truths about observation itself. Thus the classic example of an Alexandrian "erroneous belief" is a person who raises their arm and believes their shoulder has remained still when it has not. The key for the pupil in this instance is to gain an accurate conception5 of their own muscular action, in reference to bodily sensations; not to simply "let go" or "do nothing."3 And this conception must come about through active tutelage—e.g. Alexander Technique lessons—or, dare I say, the way Alexander himself did it: by reasoned experimentation, conceiving hypotheses based on careful register and analysis of his own sensations, and also by watching the behavior of others. John Dewey called the technique scientific for a reason.
All of this is not to understate the importance of concepts like "release" and "effortlessness," including in the context of the Alexander Technique. Seeing more or less what is meant by them is doubtless the key to mastery of all activities, all practices, all techniques. Yet those spiritual concepts should not blot out the very concrete technique Alexander developed for improving what he called "the use of the self:" that coordination of the muscular system, achieved through conscious reason, which influences for better or worse the functioning of the whole organism.4
Inhibition
So much for direction. What about inhibition? Under the heading "Inhibition and Non-Doing," Kingsley describes Alexander's understanding of inhibition as "an artificial pause between stimulus and reaction," after which he could "give directions to himself." Then he lays down the gauntlet, stating that in the "real world […] life does not offer us the choice to inhibit:" since according to neuroscience research, "neural reactions take milliseconds and are faster than conscious thought processes." In other words, "we either react to the stimulus, or not." So, with inhibition proven impossible, Kingsley is left with no choice but to "reformulate" another of Alexander's concepts, offering us a supposedly scientifically enlightened6 view that inhibition is really "a quality of non-doing[sic] that needs to be already available in the organism before the receipt of a stimulus." This is "a way of being[sic] rather than a way of doing[sic]."
This Kingsleyan inhibition turns out to be the essence of the technique, since it is this very "condition of non-doing[sic]" the teacher is supposed to transmit, through a touch Kingsley describes as "a dance of poetry and a symphony of silence." With it, the teacher imparts a "deep sense of acceptance" by which "change emerges in the pupil."7 He goes on to compare the Alexander Technique to "Zen Buddhism, mindfulness and the philosophy of non-duality," identifying the uniqueness of the Alexander Technique in "the transmission of immediate experience." In fact, there is no Alexander Technique as such, but only inhibition:
The Chinese Tao has a concept of Wu Wei[sic], which translates as surrendering to the effortless flow of life[sic], or non-doing[sic] action. Ultimately, the Alexander Technique needs to reinvent itself and relinquish the Technique. The Alexander Teacher really teaches nothing[sic!]. But this nothing or emptiness is in fact the deepest essence of being and the fullness of life. Like grace, it drops onto us and into us when the conditions are ripe.
The problem is that Alexander's own writings indicate that inhibition is not a "quality," a "condition," or a "surrendering to the effortless flow of life." On the contrary, according to Universal Constant in Living, it is "the act of refusing to respond to the primary desire to gain an end, [which] becomes the act of responding (volitionary act) to the conscious reasoned desire to employ the means whereby that end may be gained." As clear as day: inhibition is an action in response to the stimulus of conscious desire: a conscious, continuing refusal to do a thing the way one normally does it. Alexander saw that this inhibitory act had to precede in every instance any attempt to change his habits. Everyone is well familiar with the inhibitory act. The act of not indulging an immediate desire, however small, is it. So, inhibition is not an "artificial pause," but a phenomenologically observable process within the organism, a process that can be made habitual through practice. It is no more abstract and transcendent than blinking or moving one's finger.7
Here Kingsley again takes something ordinary and concrete and makes it mystical, going so far as to "relinquish the Technique." The trouble is that there is a good reason the Alexander Technique came to be known as such. A technique is a skillful way of doing something; a mental tool; a procedure. Ways of doing can be found everywhere: techniques for dance, for romance, for healing, even for attaining nirvana or enlightenment. Each has a goal in mind and is based on what worked in the past; each resorts to concepts to explain itself; each prescribes action, or doing something a certain way. Yet Kingsley dismisses the idea of doing anything at all. Equating the Alexander Technique with "nothing," he tosses out the concepts Alexander spent decades refining, when Alexander's genius was precisely to conceive a useful, coherent way of doing things through patient observation of the phenomena he termed inhibition, direction, primary control, and the rest.
So, the technique may encompass all the acts of living, but it is still a technique. Alexander often used the term "procedure" to describe it, and I think procedure is as apt a word as any to describe the application of his technique to the acts of living. He constantly stressed the technique's sequential, stepwise nature and recorded countless practical examples of it in action, both in hypotheticals and accounts of lessons. The technique is not a metaphysics or a philosophy like non-duality; it is a practical procedure with a clear purpose: restoring
advantageous, natural relativity of the head, neck and back.
Conclusion
The technique is blindingly simple but surprisingly subtle and difficult to master; and, as far as I am aware, it is unique. Unfortunately, Kingsley is not alone in overlooking the uniqueness and subtleties of the technique in favor of spiritual truisms and platitudes. I suspect there are two main reasons for this.
The first is the tendency of serious pupils of the technique to become more open to "spirituality," both philosophically (e.g. non-duality) and in terms of sadhana (e.g. meditation, yoga, self-inquiry). Many are enthusiastic about the similarities between the Alexander Technique and, for example, mindfulness practice. It is certainly true that the technique requires the pupil to have some degree of "mindfulness," or the ability to realize when the mind has wandered; and it is also true that a few people who devote themselves to the technique come upon some of the same insights one might find in spiritual practice. Yet spiritual insight is not the purpose of the technique. In my opinion, the Alexander Technique is a relative of energy practices such as Hatha yoga, qigong, and TRE (trauma release exercises). Such techniques are often used in tandem with spiritual practices meant for the cultivation of insight, but their purpose has traditionally been preparatory and salutary, not "spiritual." One need not stray too esoteric to encounter the idea that the real goal of spirituality has nothing to do with "ways of doing." On the other hand, Qigong explicitly aims to regulate qi in the body; kundalini yoga is concerned with the flow of prana; the Alexander Technique seeks to restore the good use of the primary control. More practically, the technique teaches mental discipline, and ultimately the ability of the nervous system to regulate itself. Such a practice may lay the groundwork for spiritual realization, but it is by no means indistinguishable from it.
While there is no point speculating about Alexander's private insights, one thing can be certain: he left us a definite procedure with a practical, concrete purpose—not a transcendental one. Yet Kingsley's introduction continually implies the Alexander Technique is an essentially spiritual practice with heavenly fruit. Disparaging the core concepts that constitute the Alexander Technique, he invites us instead to simply "surrender," "let go in faith," and blindly trust that its real essence—nothing less than Wu Wei—will be transmitted through the "rare, "unconditional" touch of the teacher.
The second, more obvious reason Alexander has been so misunderstood is that he rarely wrote concisely, and in any case, recognition and conception of the primary control can never be refined through words, but only through unfamiliar sensory experiences—either reasoned out, as Alexander did, or in the hands of a good teacher. Hence there is more than a kernel of truth to Kingsley's view of the "supreme value of guidance with the hands;" yet I differ from him in that I insist the Alexander Technique cannot be divorced from intellectual understanding and, indeed, conception.
The Use of the Self and Alexander's other works certainly were not without their flaws, but at their best they illuminate concepts which are nuanced, rich, and useful when applied. Primary control, direction and inhibition are three such concepts. Whatever their flaws, Alexander's books point the way to a wonderful technique, and they deserve thoughtful, probing introductions like Dewey's—not dismissals.
1 Like many other Alexandrian terms, the concrete meaning of "forward and up" seems incredibly controversial among Alexander Technique teachers. While I conceive it roughly as freedom of the atlanto-occipital joint, the term cannot be understood in isolation from the rest of the parts—namely, from one's conception of the primary control. It seems to experience it, one must discover it, as Alexander did, or be shown it by a teacher.
2 This is not to say there are not phenomena only some people perceive.
3An overemphasis on "letting go" and the like obscures the fact that Alexander always described the technique as consisting of stages or sequential steps, which in my opinion constitute the "means whereby" he wrote of.
4 "Use of the self" is another problematic term. Related to the concept of "good form" and "good technique" among athletes and musicians, it refers essentially to coordination of the musculature along reasoned lines, which is not separate from conception of the primary control. Equal and opposite is the term "misuse," since one's idea of misuse depends on one's idea of good use. Different teachers understand the term differently. Kingsley states that "bodily tensions and distortions become fixed and reinforced as we react to the general stimuli of living." True enough. Yet he goes on to imply it is associated only with fear, anxiety and distress. Again he couples this concept to the language of contemporary spirituality, trumpeting that it "alienates us from our own true nature." This is to completely ignore the point Alexander returned to again and again in his own writing: that the use of the self is inextricably linked with conception. No doubt, tension and imbalance are very often inextricable from fear. But there may be another class of misuse: one based on misconceptions about the body, unexamined movement patterns from childhood which have little or nothing to do with manifestations of stress or emotions in the body. I suspect one may experience profound psychophysical quietude yet still tend to throw their head back and down in relation to their neck and back, especially in movement.
5Kingsley writes that the teacher's touch indicates the "negation of trying and doing within the pupil." Even a token mention of guidance viz. the relativity of the body parts is nowhere to be found. Yet in my opinion this discussion of touch is misleading, since nothing like it can be found at all in Alexander's writings. On the contrary, Alexander stressed that the teacher's role was to demonstrate manually the proper relativity of the pupil's parts, with the means whereby of the technique; not to transmit "a way of being," nor indeed enlightenment or gnosis.
6 Neuroscientific findings relating to will and volition have proliferated in recent years. They may raise fundamental questions about the nature of self and will, but in my opinion they have little to do with the Alexander Technique, no more than they do with dancing or playing an instrument. If there are really recognizable activities Alexander termed "inhibition" and "direction," then his writings are timeless, since they speak from direct observation and experiment, not philosophy about "free will" and the like.
7 In spiritual literature one encounters, almost universally, the idea that there is no "doer" of action, or no "doer" but God. Hence Kingsley is implying that Alexandrian inhibition is somehow related to this concept, which Buddha famously summarized: "Events happen, deeds are done, but there is no doer thereof." In my opinion, the Alexander Technique has nothing more to do with this than does reading, writing, or playing a game. There may be "procedures followed, but no follower thereof."
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2024.05.19 01:21 theyretheyre My Sex Addict Partner Ruined My Life

I had been with my partner for 8 years. For full transparency, he told me has was a sex addict the day we met. He was in recovery at the time and was (I thought) dedicated. Part of what drew me to him was that he seemed so in touch with his emotions and was working on himself, which I attributed to the SLAA program, and to be honest I didn't ever think we would be anything. Overall I was non-judgmental. I was young and it was a novelty in a way. He was open and honest, talked about his past experiences with swinger couples (that was his thing), but assured me that was all behind him. What he really wanted was a healthy, monogamous relationship. Against all my better judgement, I fell in love. Looking back, he love-bombed me and I fell for it.
Over the last 8 years there have been multiple D-Days. The first was fairly early on in our relationship. He had moved and we were long-distance at the time (long-distance with a sex addict--I mean wow) and he told me he had been having a hard time with his addiction, was using porn compulsively and started a "No Fap" challenge to reset. I thanked him for being transparent with me and did my best to be supportive. Shortly after, I ended up snooping and found out he got a HJ at a massage parlor. He confessed, I was devastated. He was remorseful. Doubled down on his efforts. We carried on.
Years later we were living together and I noticed he was being more hostile towards me. My gut told me something was up. I snooped again and found lewd text exchanges with strangers. He was not in the program at the time. I did a few therapy sessions, he started weekly therapy and started working the program again. We picked up the pieces and carried on.
Cut to a few years later. We're at a rocky period in our relationship. I get a sense that something is up, and find text exchanges revealing that he had made out with someone at a bar. He was trying to pursue her, hoping to meet up again and pick up where they left off. I took screenshots of the interaction and called her, told her everything, and asked if she would be willing to tell me anything else about their interaction. She said that they had just made out but she did find it weird that when he first started texting her it was from a different number. That tipped off alarm bells. I confronted him. He was defensive. We did couples therapy, he started working the program again. I persisted.
Then the most recent D-Day, this past Saturday. I had been complaining about some pelvic pain for a few weeks, had an appointment scheduled with the OB/GYN to try to see what's up. I fell asleep on the couch with him rubbing my stomach. He told me how happy he was and that I was the love of his life. Then shortly after midnight I woke up and he was in a panic. He told me that he had really fucked up and needed to tell me something. Then he confessed that he had met up with a swinger couple from a website and had unprotected sex in the bathroom of the bar with the wife. He feared he had given me an STD and that was the source of my pain. As far as I knew at the time, this was the first time he had actually had intercourse outside of the relationship.
It felt like my world was caving in around me. He just proposed to me TWO WEEKS AGO. With my grandmother's ring. That D-Day was the day we picked up my ring from the jeweler. I was resolved to do things differently this time, and rather than continue to hide the depths of his addiction I told everyone--my friends, my family. I told him to move out. I got an STD panel. More things started to come out--visits to nudist clubs, more sex with swingers, I'm sure a bunch of other things that he didn't want to tell me at the time. I didn't eat for two days. Started smoking again. And yet. Within 72 hours, I was asking him to come back and trying to "set boundaries", imagining that maybe this was the real wake up call we both needed to fix this for real. He was my best friend. I thought he was the love of my life. We'd been virtually inseparable for the last 8 years. And I mean we just got engaged. In my head I wanted to leave, but in my heart I still, somehow, wasn't ready to let go.
Until yesterday, when my real wake up call came. I was out with my mother and her best friend. They were both aware that I was flirting with reconciliation and were very appropriately concerned. That all changed when my mother told me something that rocked me to my core. Apparently a few months ago she was alone with him in my apartment and he started rubbing himself through his pants in front of her. He said "I can't believe I'm doing this in front of you", and asked her if she wanted to touch it. She was in shock and obviously said no. She said he then put her hand on his penis and she immediately left the apartment. When I asked why she didn't tell me immediately, she said she was too afraid to tell me because she thought I would run toward him and away from her. She was afraid she would lose me and our relationship. I forgive her. But I will never, ever forgive him. I immediately called him and told him it was over, that he needs so so much help and I will no longer be there for him.
I know it sounds crazy given that I knew he was a sex addict from the start, but I didn't know that it would lead to this. I didn't realize the way it would escalate, and that he would eventually sexually assault my mother. It's sick, truly. Obviously I'm not in a great headspace right now and I know I will have to do a ton of therapy to process the trauma of all of this. But ultimately I am grateful. Grateful that this happened before I was married or had a child with this man--who knows what he is truly capable of?
I'm sharing all this in case there is someone else like me out there looking for the courage to leave their sex addict spouse. Please, please don't let it get to this. I would have never imagined that he was capable of this. The addiction WILL continue to escalate. YOUR LIFE and YOUR FAMILY'S LIVES are at stake. If I could go back in time eight years and undo it all I would. No amount of "love" is worth this.
TL;DR--My former fiance's sex addiction escalated to the point that he sexually assaulted my mother.
submitted by theyretheyre to survivinginfidelity [link] [comments]


2024.05.19 01:15 Gazooonga Diary of a Press-Ganged Saurian (#1/?)

Just another fun little story idea I had. I am still working on Humans are the violent ones but I like to bounce around and experiment with ideas to see what I really like. I also suck at writing more casual stories, as they give me severe writer's block as I try to map out how to make a scene feel genuine in my head, but I promise I'll update that soon. If you like this story and want to see more, then like and comment. I'll gladly continue this series as well.
Start of Personal Log
Humans don't like being told what to do. They don't like being commanded, put in their place, or snubbed. It was an inexorable, inalienable trait of humans, at least any noteable humans, to go against any authority that they believed was against their interests.
Humanity would not fit amongst the stars. Few ever did. It was a trait of most successful species to be willful, ambitious, and to desire more. But once they reached the stars the new (and simultaneously very old) pecking order either quashed any spirit such species had or simply eradicated them. Countless tomb worlds and diaspora served as painful reminders of what became of the nails that chose to stick out. The hammer of order would always strike. There could be no compromise, the very soul of the authority that held the Jurisdiction together relied on a show of unmatched power, or at least the illusion of item.
In reality, the Jurisdiction was an old, fat, and lazy beast. It filled its belly on the corpses of empires far and wide, and sated its bloodlust on the shattered dreams of hopeful cubs. It had every right to, for none could challenge it: there were no new frontiers to explore, nor were there any other enemies to conquer. The Milky Way, as humans had so strangely dubbed our cradle galaxy, as well as Andromeda, had long since been warred over and settled for millennia before humanity had arrived, bright-eyed and with familiar yet otherwise foolish dreams of cooperation and prosperity. The Jurisdiction did not cooperate, nor did it ensure prosperity. Oh, it claimed it did, but in reality it simply took. The rest was just the peace that came with not being the direct target of the biggest fish in the pond. The humans didn't like that, but they had no choice.
Slavery was a common tribute. The Jurisdiction had no use for other resources: it simply took. No, it wanted those who could facilitate that unequal exchange, those raised in a world where the only morality was the one set by your lord. The Jurisdiction was held together by expectations, obligations, and dury more than any kind of shared dream, so when you were ordered to take you did so without question. Humanity was new: they had no niche or value that set them apart, but they had a penchant for killing and taking, so the Jurisdiction gave them a taste of how the galaxy worked. They killed and they took. The humans didn't like that, but what choice did they have?
Humans were strange. They learned, but not in the way most species learned. Most species learned to adapt in a passive way, to adhere to the world around them. They flowed like water, moving past and around obstacles and confirming to the boxes they were assigned too. Humans didn't confirm, nor did they adapt: they made their circumstances fit their desires. They would not move around obstacles, but rather smash through them, and they refused to stay in one box for too long. The Jurisdiction merely saw them as a particularly loud nuisance, but those who faced their wrath knew better.
It is said that when a beast seeks to make an example, it shall humble its rival by killing it's cubs. Children were one of those universal constants that brought entire communities together: the Sok’klar saw their hatchlings as gifts, shaped by the fruitful currents of the universe in perfect harmony. The Yarrack saw each and every newborn whelp as an uncut gemstone, ready to be shaped into something magical. Humanity oftentimes referred to their offspring as angels, or spirits of unbridled good sent by the gods themselves. Children were seen by most of the galaxy as gifts.
The Jurisdiction saw them as a lever to inflict suffering. It had become quite effective at enacting psychological punishments on those that stood up and spoke out. You dare to disobey? You believe you can speak out? Your gifts shall be taken from you, and you shall be without joy.
Humans didn't like this, but the Jurisdiction would have their pound of flesh, and humankind would kneel. And they did. But humans were patient creatures: most species who retained that trait of willful spit also lacked patience.
I had long since become desensitized to the Jurisdiction’s actions: it was simply how the universe worked now, as if it were a constant akin to gravity. Cruelty was the unspoken rule of this seemingly unending age, where our lives never appeared to move forward or backwards, only lay dormant. The Jurisdiction had been the unyielding authority that ruled the galaxy for thousands of years, venerable yet feared all the same.
And for the longest time I was just another cog in its wheel. My name is Kalnuracht Sedjuur-Noumar VII, and was the scion of the noble house Sedjuur-Noumar. I was born into what most would describe as veiled apathy, living a life that could be attributed to the privileged class of feared scribes that enacted the will of those above. I was an administrator and nothing more. And now I am doomed to be far less than that in the eyes of my former constituents within the endless administration. I am the only scion, as is tradition, and without an heir I am the last of my house, our name to be scrubbed from the records, worthless, meaningless, and forgotten.
I am merely Kalnuracht, nothing else and nothing more. I have seen from their eyes, the eyes of the downtrodden, and it makes my crimes of association with the Jurisdiction feel all the more damning on my worthless soul. I am worthless to the world, and this is my story.
End Personal Log #1
Start of Neural Lace Narrative Log #1
They came from the black like carrion birds in the night, encircling our convoy as if it were a dying animal ready to be picked clean without remorse. There was no warning, no list of demands sent out as civilized peoples did, nor was there either any requirement for unconditional surrender nor chance to parlay, as was done so under letter of marque: this was an unmistakable call for violence and nothing else. They sought to reduce us to slag and scavenge the rest.
So, as one would expect, the entire bridge of the ship was nearing a panicked state. This was not the actions of those practicing civility, but rather the common behaviors of despoiling barbarians, the kind that tore their way through the dark reaches of the galaxy as if they owned it.
“Wayfinder, what do your probes see?” Shouted the ship’s sovereign. He was an older Kar’Rowmach, an amphibious cephalopod species with a venerable history within the Jurisdiction going back thousands of years. Normally one such as him would be above me if it weren't for the fact that I was under the authority of the Jurisdiction’s seal of office. He didn't like me very much, but most of his kind shared the same sentiment.
“All dark, honorable Sovereign: the sensor arrays are wailing but the feedback we're reviewing is beyond incomprehensible,” the wayfinder replied with a certain restrained temper in his voice. The Sok'klar wayfinder swayed gently, his tentacled limbs grasping different metallo-liquid braille output arrays, the liquid gallium flexing and reshaping unnaturally to allow him to to take in multiple different sources of sensory output at once, with the primary navigation computer plugged into the cybernetics surrounding his opaque, gelatinous head and plugging directly into his tube-shaped brain.
The Sovereign cursed in Loskat and pointed to his bridge crew while I simply sat in the back, near the Sovereign’s symbolic throne. “Prepare countermeasures and spool up the warp drive, we cannot allow the amanuensis to be taken! He carries sensitive information that only he can translate and transcribe!”
As the bridge crew nodded and began fiddling with their own systems, I preened my feathered hide anxiously. I wasn't a fighter: us nobles of the cloth were the educated minority above all else, not those who waged war or partook in hard labor. Special cybernetics in my brain allowed me to translate triple-encoded messages that usually took a ducal signet codekey or above to parse, but even without that I was a skilled mathematician and logician. I had terabytes worth of knowledge stored within the hardware installed in my head, all well protected of course, but if I were to die it would still be a waste. I could only imagine the damage any malcontenders could do with it if they were able to get their filthy hands on me.
Suddenly, the ship rocked, and the gallium overhead display began to form crescendos like I'd never seen before. “Sovereign, decks A-3 through C-12 are venting atmosphere and our coolant systems have been obliterated,” the Wayfinder spoke in an almost serene voice, as if he was completely unconcerned by current events. I knew they were simply incapable of tonal displays, but it was unnerving nonetheless. “Once we jump, we will not be able to risk another until the vacuum of the void can reduce temperatures to acceptable levels within the plasma capacitors.”
“Damn them,” the armored nautiloid hissed, his barbed feelers coiling in frustration, “May the currents take them. What are our options? what can we see? This fleet cannot fall to the void today, not with such vital cargo.” My hackles rose lightly at the Kar’Rowmach referred to me as some object rather than an esteemed amanuensis of the Jurisdiction, but I bit my forked tongue. Now was not the time to squabble with the sovereign over who was what and what titles I deserved, not while he was so desperately attempting to keep what semblance of order within his fleet that he had left.
I could not blame the crew for being panicked either: wars were practically mythologized now, having been long since rendered obsolete with the rise of the Jurisdiction, and that felt like an eternity ago. Now, either being levied into or joining a ducal naval force was simply another career, more akin to serving as an officer of the law rather than a fully fledged soldier. Minimal training was required, most of it being the technicals of one's duty rather than any kind of combat conditioning, so expecting a fleet to actually be prepared for a combat scenario in a universe where peace was the norm was laughable.
“We are practically blind, Sovereign,” stated the Sok'klar Wayfinder, “our probes are offline, and shipboard graviton displacement sensory arrays have been rendered unreliable at best.”
“What about the particle emission array? Has there been a spike in radioactivity where we were hit?”
The Wayfinder seemed to think for a second, his gelatinous form flexing and morphing a bit before answering. “Affirmative, a jump from negligible to forty billion becquerels along decks A through E-5 on our starboard side.”
“Torpedoes…” the Sovereign hissed, stroking his barbed feelers, “Human Torpedoes. Only those primitives would rely on crude nuclear warheads.” He then turned to his militant leaders on the ship. “Noddos, Rel’ads: organize your phalanxes and prepare to repel boarders. We are bound to be assailed by those rancorous primates, and I want their skulls piled at my feet if they dare set foot on our ship.”
“Your wish is our command, Sovereign,” the two militant commanders spoke as one. Noddos, a large bipedal with multiple sets of curved spines running down his back, a pair of graceful horns sprouting from his head, and multiple rows of sharp teeth in his snout, bowed first, followed by Rel’ads, a marsupial with long saberteeth and thick fur. They both must have been fierce warriors in their own right to each lead a phalanx. They wore thick, semi-powered armor and held dueling polearms alongside their usual plasma casters, and seemed completely unfazed by the situation we were in. As they stomped out of the brightly lit bridge, I let out a quiet squawk of discontentment. “Sovereign, why haven't we jumped again? We are wasting precious time.”
“I am working on it, you spineless beaurocrat!” He warbled back, his feelers tensing in anger, “besides, it's not as if you're the one who will be spilling blood today, amanuensis, so flatten your wretched beak or I shall weld it shut with a plasma torch.
I was about to reply with something indignant, but the ship rocked again, this time causing the lights to flicker and the air to become… thick. The skin under my feathers began to blister, and I became lightheaded and confused. “Seal the damnable vents, initiate radiation scrubbers, and activate secondary life support!” Shouted the Sovereign, “Their nuclear weapons are rendering the ship inhospitable!”
I coughed up magenta blood accidentally, and I could feel more seeping from under my eyes. Some of the crew was in a similar position, but others were more resistant to radiation than I. The Sok'klar seemed completely at ease as he ran his tentacles across his morphic braille arrays before calmly announcing the ship’s status. “I've regained some control over our probes: ten, twelve, and seventeen are active and fully functional, the rest are either still malfunctioning or permanently inoperable. A rapid rise in localized radiation is also interfering with the detection of graviton displacement; we can't sense photon redirection, thus readings will remain inconclusive.
“Wayfinder, damn you, get me some kind of out here! We're easy prey until we can respond in kind!”
“Negative, something has gone awry with our processing hub, I am attempting to troubleshoot-”
And with that, the Wayfinder’s bulbous head exploded in a cascade of opaque lavender blood, covering the front half of the deck crew like a morbid art piece. Some of the crew screamed and shouted in terror before removing their cranial adaptors and choosing to interact with their displays manually. Others died just as quickly, unable to unplug in time as their brain stems fried or their blood boiled. It was a horrible way to go, having your insides neutralized by your own cybernetics, so I was glad I wasn't connected to the system.
“Cybernetic warfare! All systems are to be considered compromised, switch to manual settings or you'll be killed!”
The lights in the bridge flickered again, and the displays went haywire. The bridge crew, which obviously weren't acquainted with working without being hard-linked into the mainframe, moved at a much slower pace.
“Launch missile pods A through F and set to self-target after five hundred kilometers, then rely on their ballistic coordinates to begin firing broadsides! If we can't see the humans due to their meddling, we'll just have to feel them.” Shouted the Sovereign, “and got me a detailed report on the ship’s diagnostics readings. I need to know if this flagship is still capable of escaping or if we'll have to scuttle it and retreat on another.”
“Acknowledged, Sovereign, launching now,” affirmed another deck officer as he swiped across his own gallium output array. I could hear the dull thunk, thunk, thunk of missiles pushing out of their pods before racing off to their intended targets, then the mechanical whirring as the pods rotated to be reloaded by slaves in the lower decks. I was regaining my bearings as the many horrible sensations of being overwhelmed by radiation poisoning were beginning to subside, but I still felt as if I had been microwaved. The air was stale, the crew was horribly sick as well, and even the sovereign himself seemed to be on his last leg. I was beginning to believe that I might die here.
“Sovereign, a message from the lower decks,” shouted a communications officer, his chitin scraping against itself as he turned quickly, “they're requesting reinforcements, something about being overrun.”
“Impossible,” the Sovereign hissed out in a vain attempt to exude confidence, “We must outnumber the humans, they always go for bigger targets out of arrogance.”
“I've received reports that it's not just humans: the primates seem to make up only a third or so of the assailing force, along with some Phaeldaer and Vrex.”
The commander slammed his clawed hands down on his own output array in a fit of rage, obviously overwhelmed by the circumstances, “Then this wasn't just a typical assault, but something more sinister!” The nautiloid warbled, blood seeping from his shell as the full effects of the radiation took hold, “Get Rel’ads on the line, have him divert all spare lances to the lower decks or else we'll lose the only offensive capabilities we can use.”
“Rel'ads has gone dark, Sovereign, his vitals are critical.”
“Then either get me Rel'ads tail-leader or get me Noddos!” He screamed in rage, “don't give me this nonsense! If we don't pick it up we're all going to die, is that what you want?”
“No, Sovereign, I'm simply overwhelmed-”
“We're all overwhelmed! By the tides, I'm dying of radiation poisoning you nincompoop! Get me something I can work with!”
The officer didn't even acknowledge the Sovereign after that, simply turning back to his display. Eventually, the Sovereign was able to get Noddos on the line.
“Sovereign, two thirds of my phalanxes have been decimated by combat with the primitives and the radiation, the rest are in shambles. We must retreat and fortify elsewhere!”
“Then the ship is compromised! Rel'ads is unresponsive and the lower decks are swarming with intruders. We must evacuate the amanuensis to another ship.”
Just as the Sovereign spoke, I heard several gentle thumps rattle against the bridge’s door, and it made me uneasy. Some of the bridge crew seemed to feel the same, as they looked incredibly nervous and some even drew their sidearms. Just as the sovereign turned to give further orders, the door blew inward with a deafening explosion, followed by shouting and gunfire. Several of the bridge officers were dispatched quickly, brain matter and blood splattering against the delicate electronics. Others were shot in the legs, the torso, or in any other exotic yet non-vital body parts. The humans poured in, brandishing primitive ballistic firearms and jury-rigged energy weapons while wearing scavenged, legion-grade powered armor.
The Sovereign was the next to go, but he wasn't afforded an honorable death. He was shot along the arm with a particularly potent plasma caster, burning off his clawed hand and cauterizing the wound, the acrid smell of roasting chitin filling the already hot and cramped bridge. He fell back against his output array, the gallium reaching new highs and lows as more diagnostics and casualty reports were delivered, and he clutched his stump angrily. “I'll burn every last one of you in the foundries! I'll tie you to stakes, cover you in wax and set you alight! Your screams will be broadcasted all over the galaxy!”
One human warrior stomped up and slammed the butt of his rifle into the sovereign’s face, shattering his facial plates and causing blue blood to splatter across his section of the bridge. “Shut the fuck up, you mutant lobster,” the human said before dragging him by both antennae towards the center of the bridge and receiving a stained breeching axe from one of his comrades. “Emmanuel, start recording. We need proof.”
The other human nodded and pressed a button on his armor before lifting up his gun again. The rest of the humans fanned out, holding everyone else at gunpoint. I tried to get up and sneak out, but a human grabbed me by my neck and nearly wrung it out as he forced me to my knees and pointed a sidearm to my skull. “Get down, you piece of shit, before I blow your brains out too.”
“Damnable primate,” I hissed, but he bashed me in my skull with the base of his sidearm’s grip and sent me sprawling, making my already pounding headache worse. Another human shouted at him in a language I didn't recognize, but he sounded furious. The first brought me back up to my knees again, and I complies with a hiss and a groan, blood still leaking from my eyes and mouth and my world was spinning.
The Sovereign struggled, but he was weak from the radiation poisoning and he couldn't exactly resist on account of his lost arm. The human with the breaching ax kicked the Sovereign down and forced him to kneel before lifting up the breeching ax and splitting his chitinous head down the middle with one powerful swing, sending more blood and brains across the floor. “Execution confirmed, take his antennae just in case and we've got ourselves a bounty. Now all we need is that ugly cat’s teeth and the fat hedgehog-thing’s grimy spines and we'll be in business. Although, they do have skulls… we might as well just take their heads.”
The real horror of the situation dawned on me at that moment: they were going to kill us all, or maybe worse. They mentioned a bounty for the commanders, and multiple of the higher ranking ship officers were already dead, their brains splattered against the walls or their bodies torn apart by gunfire. I wasn't dead yet, but that didn't mean much since I wasn't an immediate threat.
“Alright, round them up and bring all the grunts to the hanger bay, then kill the rest,” the leader of the humans said in such a lackadaisical manner that his complete disregard for life almost made me sick… almost. I had seen worse from the Jurisdiction before, but usually that was from me delivering some kind of ordered judgment on a world that had sinned against order. I might have simply been the messenger, but I had seen many of the outcomes. “And make sure to collect whatever proof of bounties you can, we'll need to deliver them to the office to get cashed out. Don't let this be a repeat of last time where Juarez fucking forgot to take a few heads and it ended up cutting our profits in half, the fucking retard.”
Some of the humans chuckled at that as they dragged more of the senior officers away, out of the room and into the hall,where I heard gunshots. The rest of the bridge crew froze in place, different fear instincts kicking in. The remaining Sok'klar corralled together into what seemed to be a singular, semi-congealed mass as if to try and trick the humans into believing that they were much bigger and much more threatening than they actually were. The one Thei’chi on the bridge, an ensign who had clearly thought this would be a simple mission, bore her curved fangs at the humans and growled as they approached, her hackles completely vertical and her eyes dilated. They quickly muzzled and bound her before beating her over the head with a gun stock, sending her sprawling onto the ground. Many others simply cooperated, eyes wide and yet simultaneously empty, as if they couldn't quite process that the ship had been taken and the commanding officers were being executed as the rest were escorted to the hangar.
“Get the damn messenger down to the hanger as well, we need whatever data's in his ugly lizard head, then we can decide on what to do with him.”
I spat at him in spite, as if to try and seem brave, but it was clearly an empty gesture. “You won't get anything, primate! You couldn't possibly crack the encryption!”
The human holding me seemed to wind up for another swing, but the commanding officer simply held up his hand to stop my tormentor before strolling over to me. He knelt down and removed his helmet, revealing a beige-colored face covered in scars, wiry black hair cut down to the scalp, and multiple tattoos. “You're really fucking mouthy for a hostage,” he said before punching me across my beak faster than I could register. I heard a sharp crack as his fist connected, and my head spun again as the metallic taste of blood pooled into my mouth. “I'd advise you to shut up, but I'm sure you won't listen: you aristocratic types are so full of yourselves. Maybe I should have you flogged in the public square until your vocal chords give out once we rip those cybernetics from your head, huh? How's that sound?”
“It won't matter… it won't change anything… the Jurisdiction will hunt you down.”
“Maybe, but I doubt it will happen for some time: they really suck at doing anything that requires effort, even when they're mad enough. They just keep sending their rabid lapdogs to try and smoke us out, and they always end up full of holes,” the human officer said with a smirk, his yellowish-white teeth and green eyes sending shivers down my spine as he drew his knife. “They're just horrible at their job, you know? You've all gotten so lazy and incompetent after being able to just take what you want without resistance, and now that you've met people who are angry and crazy enough to fight back you act as if we're committing some grave injustice,” he placed the knife against my throat, the flat just underneath my now bent beak, “No, we just took a few pages out of your book, ‘cept we've got standards. No kids, for one…” he seemed to look off into the distance as his sneer deepened, “but it's more than that, we don't attack the defenseless in general and we still win against you all in fair fights.”
I went to say something else snarky, but he quickly grabbed my thin tongue with his fingers and yanked it out, blood from my mouth pulling to the floor as he held the blade of his knife against it. “No no, none of that. Say one more thing and I'll cut that rancid little tongue of yours out of your mouth and feed it to you,” he hissed at me, pressing the blade down just hard enough to draw blood. “Do you know what it's like to see a planet turn into a tomb?" he asked me, gritting his teeth, “Do you know what it's like to see everything you've ever known crumble to ash and glass, all the life and the green stripped away leaving nothing but bones? I do. I've seen it happen to countless worlds, and my grandfather always told me stories of how you bastards did it to Earth. He still prays in its direction five times a day, to Mecca, but he knows the Kaaba is gone now, or maybe it's still there, buried in the bones of those who sought refuge there.”
I didn't care for the human’s nonsensical beliefs, but I did care to correct him. “I've seen it before, and I'll see it again. And so will you, it's inevitable. The Jurisdiction will always have its judgment fulfilled, there is no alternative.”
“One day, I hope we can rectify that,” he said, then he sheathed his knife and slammed my head against the metal floor with enough force to nearly knock me out. As I lost consciousness, I could hear him speak. “Take him to the Chop Doc, and make sure the cybernetics don't get damaged: they're supposedly more valuable than any bounty on this ship.”
Warning: Severe radiation poisoning detected. Flush system immediately.
Warning: Neural Lace removal detected, chance of neurological damage high. Proceeded with caution.
submitted by Gazooonga to HFY [link] [comments]


2024.05.19 01:06 guiltyofnothing “Do you comment on Reddit to be an annoying middle child?” Slapfights rage and insults fly as /r/BoomersBeingFools debates if boomers don’t eat enough food

The Context:

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

The Drama:

Does metabolism change as people age?
People commenting it’s cause they’re older and don’t need to eat as much. Yes, I know that could be a part of it, but let’s be honest, it’s mostly them just being judgy/brainwashed by diet culture/think it’s absurd to spend money on eating out…
"Brainwashed by diet culture" ah so in other words you are obese and need to eat a lot and probably deeply into healthy at any size/fat acceptance.
No they just know they don't need 5000 calori3s a day to exist.
I’m obese for wanting to eat some lunch and dinner? 🤯
No I say that because of "brainwashed by diet culture" there's exactly one group that talks like that.
You must not get out much
[Continued:]
I do actually it's how I maintain not being fat. Limiting calories to under 2500 and being outside moving a lot.
I lost 140 pounds by eating more. 🤷 starving myself led to weight gain.
I'm sure you eat more but less calories in total. No one increases their calories and losses sorry.
You're wrong. Instunted my metabolism and my body was holding on to the weight to protect me.
I was eating skinless baked chicken and plain broccoli for 2 years and could not lose weight. I was sick and exhausted but worked out all the time.
Started eating carbs and the weight came melting off.
Sorry :)
[Continued:]
For sure. Thats why all the body builders are morbidly obese. They eat chicken and broccoli and their body just goes into starvation mode and holds all the fat. Same with like the concentration camps. All those poor morbidly obese starving people. Once we saved them and fed them the weight just shed off. It's the craziest thing.
It's almost like bodies are different, user name doesn't check out, a nerd would know that 🤔
Whatever you need to tell yourself.
[…]
i guess the law of thermodymanics doesnt apply to you.
You should get studied. Defying the laws of thermodynamics is pretty impressive!
[…]
Tell me you see someone fat in the store and cringe inside/judge them for no reason without ever speaking to them without telling me 😂
You dislike/hate fat people for the horrid crime of being fat when they don't think about you at all and haven't ever wronged you in any way at all.
Also, I can tell you have never struggled with your weight in the past due to not giving a shit how hating random people for looking a certain way effects them. That, or you did struggle once, and bought into the haters telling you you were worth less based on the number on the scale, in which case I am sorry you believe that.
Dude I was 350lbs at my heaviest. People love saying "oh he says weightloss is eat less move more? Clearly he wants to genocide fat people" but no that's not it at all. I lost tons and most of the people around me went from morbid obesity to overweight or a normal weight. We changed our lifestyles and got in shape. The people that didn't lose weight claim all kinds of medical issues but none of them changed their diet and not of them want to work out. It's pretty clear how to lose weight. That's all.
No more no less no hate.
Wanna know how I know you're a liar or incredibly ignorant of how you come off?
You say you don't dislike them but make fun of their physical disabilities like it's funny. It's not funny. You're making fun of them. It's not funny to make fun of people for having disabilities or for how they look. You perpetuate hate against them that makes them feel like crap for being alive. I don't care about your spiel about medical issues or dieting in general or the fat acceptance movement. When you make fun of disabled people who have trouble walking i'm going to call you out on it. That's exactly what you did. Whether they're fat or not I refuse to make fun of people for that.
I have never made fun of a single person. Only a movement that claims you can be healthy at any size. You can't be vastly under or over weight and be healthy.
Whatever you say buddy. Keep on making fun of people because they can't walk or cope some more that it wasn't directed at a specific person. Have fun with that.
[Continued:]
Shut the fuck up fatty
Insults are made, ending with accusations of sockpuppeting:
I don't think you realize how pathetic you sound. When my jaw was broken I went 6 weeks without solid food and I'm sitting here rolling my eyes at your propensity for letting your stomach color your opinions of other people. I'd bet dollars to dimes that your body mass index is over 30.
Hey.
You should know:
It costs $0 to not be a dick.
I'll pay that cover charge any day of the week. Especially when I'm dealing with a major league dipshit like [Candy_cane999]
Radagast was brown, nerd.
Wow, you’re disgusting. It’s not that deep
Says the person here gossiping about their relative's metabolism. "Not that deep" lol you made a judgment about an entire generation of people because your family member wasn't hungry..lol fuck off
I bet you are high as a kite right now from all the users here agreeing with you, even if they haven't a fucking clue what they are talking about.
Seriously, though, how fat are you? I'm guessing fat enough that you can't hide that stomach roll when you sit down.
High as a kite? Huh? Relax weirdo, it’s just Reddit
You still haven't told us how fat you are.
Damn this guy hates fat people !
I used to be one.
[Continued:]
So now you just hate fat people for fun?
People with no self control, ESPECIALLY when that self control would benefit their health, are people who are functionally useless as human beings. They are the pieces of shit who would hoard food while everyone else is starving.
It ain't for fun.
Do you comment on Reddit to be an annoying middle child?
Ahhh yes. The fat people are useless excuse. Okay bud have fun out there!
It seems you have to self control over your feelings little guy. Go out there and practice some self control!
Bitter, party of one.
[…]
Get a life, chill
Get a life, chill
Ah yes, the mating call of people who "have lives"...ohhhhhh the irony.
😂sounds like you’re projecting. What’s it like still living in your boomer mom’s basement?
lol "projecting", I see you have your masters in Reddit psychology.
What’s it like still living in your boomer mom’s basement?
Oooooof, sounds like someone is...................................................................................projecting.
You do realize calling someone fat is the easiest most insecure insult to throw out there. Classic textbook. Hypocrite
I used to be fat as fuck, 270lbs at 5'10. I'll judge you fatties all I damn well please.
You keep avoiding answering the question. You're a landwhale, aren't you?
Ahha! There it is. It’s because you hate yourself. Hope you’re in therapy
[Continued:]
The more you avoid this the more we know what kind of person we are dealing with.
You talk shit about people who have self control to excuse how fat and disgusting you are.
[…]
Dude why admit that, all you are showing is that you had become really fat, and rather than learn a healthy relationship with food even at that extreme point, you just chose to hate food in general. You took the easy way out because nobody ever taught you portion control. Your loss I guess.
I admit it because I was raised in a home where I couldn't get up until my plate was clean and my mother made sure there were never leftovers that way. I admit it because it is the truth and I don't lie or omit details to make myself sound better. I admit it to show I can relate to being a fatfuck. I admit it because being fat is a choice.
”why would you say something true about yourself!?" - if that isn't Reddit-in-a-nutshell I don't know what is.
I'm just saying it makes you look like you just hated yourself and were pushing that onto another person that may or may not have a healthier relationship with food than you, that's all.
[…]
They didn't answer did they?
After several attempts they've avoided even talking about their fat stores and are now trying the victim angle.
No doubt. Fatty McFat Fat can't comprehend people not being addicted to constant feedings.
Reddit in a nutshell.
Bro's talking to himself on an alt ​
Then, there’s this:
OP is a fat fuck
As a former fatass this was my immediate thought
I knew as soon as he said road trip to Florida
For wanting lunch and dinner? You’re sick
They’re someone whos whole identity is shoving food in their mouth. Look at their username
Eat shit.
One user thinks they’re speaking uncomfortable truths:
If StandardSafe isn’t willing to say it again, I will: grow up and get over it. 99% of the people who say they “aren’t heavy” actually are, your dad was probably just being a concerned parent. “unhealthy relationship with food”, LMAO. A first-world problem for sure
No, he was just a bully and abusive. But thanks for playing.
That’s a really weird thing to say to a stranger, dude
You ok bro? Did that make you feel good about yourself? To insult a stranger because you personally didn’t have to deal with abuse? Or let me guess, you did, but it made you a “strong man” who knows what’s best for everyone.
You don’t know me. You have no idea what my childhood and young adulthood was like and maybe it sounds like a “first world problem” (which by the way, is so fucking dismissive and gross to say to people when they an issue) to you, but for me it became an eating disorder that I still struggle with in my 40s.
I’m going to try to say this as politely as I can, please fuck off into the sun with your bullshit and go troll somewhere else. You’re an asshole who seems to get off on insulting people to get your pathetic dick hard. I hope you don’t have kids because I worry if you do how fucked up they are and if you’re married I feel terrible for your wife. But let’s be honest, you’re a sad, lonely, angry man who has nothing better to do.
Dumbass takes like this are part of the reason people develop eating disorders on both ends of the spectrum.
You're gonna tell me someone who is suffering from Anorexia/Bulimia just needs to "grow up and get over it"?
You need to grow up and take a biology class.
When did the commenter say she had anorexia/bulimia? Those are actual eating disorders…she just said she eats very little and blames her dad.
A biology class, really? Psychology sounds more like it. Or are you telling me you learned about eating disorders in a bio class? Where was that, at some sort of school that gives out certificates in self-actualization or holistic-healing?
Sorry -- from what school did you get a psychology degree that allows you to label Anoerixa/Bulimia as "actual" eating disorders but not what OP described?
The school of hard knocks 😂 he’s so superior to us that he can diagnose a stranger through the internet on Reddit based on a paragraph that seemed to make him bigly angry.
He’s just a sad man who needs to get off by insulting people. He can go live that life and we’ll be over on this said being human to each other.
Finally, the war in Gaza is brought up for some reason:
You know that on the other side of the apartheid wall Israel set up there are thousands of people who had access to the Dead Sea (and their homes), that was changed by the establishment of Israel. Millions of people around the world are coming to the decision to boycott any company that supports the Israeli Apartheid Occupation. Millions are urging their universities and employers to divest any money and programs with the genocidal force that is Israel. I urge you and your family to take a hard look at yourselves and learn what Israel really is made of. Then the logical decision will be to never visit or spend a dime in Israel until their genocide and apartheid ends. Ty
Take a walk off a short pier.
This response is unhinged.
“Learn about an ongoing genocide, with bombs falling through the air as we speak, that you knowingly or unknowingly support, that we can do something about”
“Your response”
Please just look someone in the eyes today and remember what it means to be a human. Each of us is a library of life, and we’re constantly diminishing the value of each other as “enemies”.
I’d rather that than share air with someone who supports the ongoing genocide. Not for me, not for you, but for the kids and our collective humanity: please learn something new today.
You’re supporting the death of my family in Israel. Seriously, you’re a PoS
Before Israel was, there was Palestine. Palestine was for all. Muslims, Christians, and Jewish families all lived together. We all visited Jerusalem.
When Israel decided that only Jewish people would now be allowed in to these random borders drawn over Palestine, well, that should come off as racist. Now the Christian and Muslim Palestinians had their villages raided and their women raped by a well funded militia, before it became the IDF. This terrorised the Palestinians that lived in their homes, so they ran.
Then these homes were empty.
The land without people for the People without a land. Fabulous. Absolutely fabulous. The people that were born there were displaced by a terrorist militia, and now it was a land magically without a people.
And your family came in, and settled in “Israel”. A family out there has the keys to the very home your family lives in in Israel, although you’ve probably changed the locks by now.
But for generations this land fed them and protected them from the elements. All of a sudden it’s yours?
And the people Israel oppresses, the thousands of Palestinians that are in prison with no trial. Children and women Palestinians have been taken captive for over 70 years!! Where’s the outrage?
Are we not human?
When we say free Palestine from the river to the sea. It’s for everybody. Come by and buy my home. But please don’t show up with an armed force ready to exterminate me for refusing you the home my forefathers have called their own.
TLDR Israel is the fire nation in avatar the last airbender.
The best way I can put it is.. if a bunch of armed chickens showed up and kicked you and your family out of their homes, one day you might want to fight those armed chickens back instead of being homeless. Israel are the armed chickens

The Flairs:

submitted by guiltyofnothing to SubredditDrama [link] [comments]


2024.05.19 01:04 Careless_Reaction794 AITA for staying?

I (30F) and my boyfriend (30M) have been together for 5 years. When we were 1 year into dating, his childhood cancer returned at stage 4. We were absolutely devastated. This rare form of cancer is treatable but likely never curable, and at that time there was no treatment working. We were convinced he was not going to make it much more than a year or 2. We stayed together through it all, and that 2nd year we did find a clinical, experimental trial. Fast-forward 3 years and that trial has been working this entire time! The cancer has not changed at all- no growth, no improvement, but he does not and has never had any physical symptoms from the cancer or the treatment. His physical quality of life is ideal, he feels good and is extremely fit, but psychologically the impact has always been extremely tough on him.
The year we were together before the cancer, we had lots of friends and were very happy and sexual. Now, sex has decreased significantly, I have to push for a physical relationship and to include him in my large social life or to encourage him to expand his friendships outside of school/work, and I can see how much pain he is in emotionally knowing the future will likely always be uncertain. To clarify, he is stable on an experimental medication and there is no way to know if and when treatment will stop working.
We moved to a new city together this year, and I am trying really hard to get back the life we had. I have been unhappy in the relationship because he is less sexual, affectionate, social, and generally outwardly unhappy. I love him more than anything and would build a future with him if we had the sex life and social life I need, I have come to terms with what the cancer means for that, but I can no longer stand what we have lost in the relationship. this is where I am afraid that I'm TAH. I came to him (not out-of-the-blue, many smaller conversations built up to this) saying that I cannot continue the relationship without extreme improvements.
Our conversation made it clear to him that I understand his trauma response and that this is not his fault, and that I understand how difficult it is to fix everything I am asking for when it is coming from a place of trauma, but that I simply do not know what to do because I cannot be in a relationship like this at such a young age. I am afraid that I am being TAH by putting him in a tough position where I don't know that it is possible for him to be "fully himself" during this chapter of his cancer. While it is true that I want nothing more than to fix things and be with him, I fear that it would be best for him if I simply left with no conditions for him to meet rather than forcing him to try to keep me when that may be more responsibility than he can take on right now.
He adamantly does not want to break up, and I do not either but am more afraid of continuing to feel like his roommate than I am of breaking up. I proposed the idea of separate apartments but dating, or taking a break from dating so he can focus on himself (this is not an effort on my part to see other people, that is not a thought right now). He does not want to separate in any way and is sure that he can fix things, but this is a cycle that has been going on for years. I have encouraged him to seek therapy and to ride his motorcycle more which makes him really happy, but it has not been long enough into those weekly rides to see if there is improvement for us. So AITA for posing conditions for me to stay, rather than accepting that my choices are to (1) suck it up and support him without posing ultimatums or (2) leaving more swiftly so that he does not feel responsibilities that may be too much right now?
Info:
The specific changes I asked for were more physical initiation from him, more affection and positive words, more social events together and a conscious effort to search for harmony whether that be therapy or something else like motorcycle rides. It was also framed to him as wanting what we had before the cancer took over our lives, and he gets what that means in the broader sense. It's an acceptance of life that we both let go of in different ways, I am not the one with cancer but I also let go of the world for years from the fear of losing him.
He is in agreement that all symptoms in our relationship are direct results of trauma and grief from the cancer diagnosis and the emotional rollercoaster of treatment. He acknowledges that the changed relationship I describe to him is for the most part true.
Cancer is relevant because it is the reason for his psychological change, but it is not a reason for me to leave. I have had years to come to terms with it and am willing to go the long-run with him if cancer itself were the only issue and we were both otherwise very happy. He is the strongest person I have ever known, and I have extreme faith that he will beat this and live a healthy life. If we were both happy with our relationship, I would be thrilled to marry him and adopt babies together even with the risks.
submitted by Careless_Reaction794 to AITAH [link] [comments]


2024.05.19 01:04 SchrodingersMinou Rabies FAQ - Please read before posting!

Before you post a question to this subreddit, please read the following points. I know, it's a lot to read, but 99% of you will get answers to your questions here. These points contain verified, accurate FACTS as verified through the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and World Health Organization (WHO).
1. Is this a bat bite?
Bat bites cannot be identified from a photo. No one, not even a doctor or a bat biologist, can identify a bat bite from a photo. If you think you might have bat bite, ask yourself: Have you seen a bat in your home? Did you sleep outdoors where a bat might have bitten you? Did you pick up a bat in your hand? If you answer no, it's HIGHLY UNLIKELY you were bitten by a bat. Again, bat bites cannot be identified from a photo.
2. Can I get rabies from interacting with an animal? Can I get rabies from touching something? What about if a drop of liquid falls on me? Can I get rabies from contaminated food or water? Can I get rabies from a person?
No. YOU CAN ONLY GET RABIES VIA DIRECT CONTACT WITH A RABID ANIMAL. This means being bitten or scratched by a rabid animal. Rabies is transmitted via the saliva of an infected animal in the late stages of the disease, when the virus is being shed in the saliva by the host animal. The rabies virus dies almost immediately once it’s outside the body. You can’t get rabies from touching something a rabid animal touched. You can’t get rabies from your pet meeting a rabid animal and then bringing it home to you. You can’t get rabies from touching roadkill. You can’t get rabies from something falling on you. You can’t get rabies from touching or kissing someone who has been vaccinated. You can’t get rabies from touching something wet. You can’t get rabies from touching any surface whatsoever, even if you have a cut on your body or you touch your eye/nose/mouth afterwards. Getting rabies from touching an animal and then touching your eye/nose/mouth is theoretically possible, but this has never happened to anyone in recorded history.
3. I found a suspicious mark on my body but I didn’t find a bat in my house. Did a bat sneak into my house and bite me without me noticing, and then sneak back out?
Bats are NOT invisible or ninjas. If you wake up in the morning with a mark on your body, it is HIGHLY UNLIKELY to be a bat bite unless you find a bat in your house. If a bat gets in your house, you will see it. They are not good at finding their way out on their own. It’s very unlikely that a sober, alert, adult human would not notice being bitten by a bat. Finding little marks on your body is not unusual and that is no reason to assume an invisible bat attacked you.
4. I saw a bat near me. Or I heard a bat. Or I saw something that might have been a bat, but it didn’t touch me. Did a bat bite me without me noticing?
Bats cannot fly past you and bite you in mid-flight. That is physically impossible. A bat must LAND on you, hold on to you with their tiny fingers, and then bite you. After biting you, they must then push off of you to take flight again. Bats can be small, but they're not invisible or imperceptible. If you would notice a big bug landing on you and biting you, then you would notice a bat doing it too. If a bat makes physical contact with you, there is a possibility that it may have scratched you, and rabies shots are recommended unless you are in a country free of bat rabies. If you find a bat in your house and you are not in a country free of bat rabies, you should catch it and submit it for rabies testing; if you can’t do that, you should get rabies shots; if you have small children, they should get rabies shots.
5. An animal touched me, licked me, or sneezed on me. Could I get rabies from this?
You cannot get rabies from a wound that doesn’t break the skin. Rabies can only get into your body through an opening in your body: a scratch or bite. If you are bitten or scratched by an animal, you should wash the area with soap and water for 5 minutes. If it does not bleed at all, you may not have broken the skin and could be in the clear. You can test this by putting alcohol on the abrasion to see if it stings.
6. Can I get rabies from an animal that has current rabies vaccinations? Can my pet get rabies if it has current rabies vaccinations?
No. You cannot get rabies from an animal that has current rabies shots. If you are bitten or scratched by someone’s pet, ask the owner for proof of rabies vaccination, like a rabies tag on the collar. Take a photo or copy of these records and call their vet to verify them. If the shots are current, you're not at risk of rabies infection. If the pet owner cannot provide this proof of vaccination, contact your animal control department or rabies management / health department to file a "Bite Report". If you are in the USA, you can find a list of those agencies here: https://www.cdc.gov/rabies/resources/contacts.html
7. Can I get rabies from my pet, or from a friend or neighbor’s pet?
You may not need to get rabies shots if you can observe the animal that attacked you for two weeks. If you are bitten or scratched by a pet that is not vaccinated for rabies, the standard protocol is to quarantine the animal in an animal shelter or veterinarian's office for 10-14 days. If you were attacked by someone else’s pet and that is not possible, you can observe the animal for 14 days. If it doesn’t get sick and/or die of rabies, then you are not at risk of rabies and do not need rabies shots. If the animal is healthy in 14 days, IT DOES NOT HAVE RABIES and neither do you. Since most animals in the late stages of rabies typically die in about 48 hours, this is a very cautious timeframe to observe.
8. Can I get rabies from a bug, bird, lizard, or frog? Can I get rabies from a possum, or a rat or mouse?
No. Only mammals (furry animals) can carry rabies. Reptiles, amphibians, insects, and birds can’t carry rabies. Bats are one of the most common rabies carriers in the US, although less than half of 1% of all bats will ever get rabies. In the USA, the next most common species are raccoons, skunks, and foxes. Outside of the USA, dogs, cats, and other animals have been known to spread the rabies virus. The least common mammals include Virginia opossums, rodents (rats and mice), rabbits or hares, and squirrels. Globally, the #1 risk of rabies is dog bites.
9. Is there a risk of rabies in my area? Can I get rabies in India, or the UK?
To learn about rabies statistics for your area, Google your state or country's name and the phrase 'current rabies statistics'. These websites will tell you how many rabid animals have been found in your area and what species. They should also tell you who to call to report a bite. Some parts of the world are rabies-free and there is no rabies or risk of rabies infection. The UK (and most of western Europe) is free of rabies in most animals except for bats, which is rare. India has a high rabies risk from dogs and other mammals, but rabies is very rare in bats in India and has only been found in bats in a couple areas in Nagaland.
10. I was vaccinated for rabies. Does that mean I am protected for life and will never need to worry about it again?
No. Previously vaccinated people still get boosters if they are re-exposed to rabies. Your rabies titer can be high for a few months or for many years, but it is assumed that you are protected for at least three months after getting your initial shots. If you are bitten by animal and it has been less than 90 days since your last shot, you don’t need to do anything. If it has been more than 90 days since your last shot, you would still need post-exposure booster shots IF you are directly exposed to an animal that could be rabid. You do not need to go through the entire series of shots again; you only need booster shots.
· For more information about rabies and rabies shots, see the CDC website here: https://www.cdc.gov/rabies/index.html
· If you are in the USA here is a link to the state and local rabies contacts. USA State & Local Rabies Contacts
11. I was vaccinated for rabies but I did not receive HRIG (Human Rabies Immunogloblin). Why? Is that OK?
HRIG is sometimes not given if there is no visible wound or if you were bitten/scratched in a location that is hard to inject. For instance, it would be hard to inject HRIG into your ear. If you have no visible wound, then there is no way to tell where HRIG should be injected. If you have more questions about this, ASK YOUR DOCTOR.
12. I got rabies shots but I have questions about the specific medical care I received. Why did the doctor give me the care I received? I’m immunocompromised; do I need extra shots? Will my medication interact with the vaccine?
Ask your doctor questions about the specific medical care you received. People on the internet cannot answer those questions. A doctor’s job is to treat patients and explain their care to them so it is OK to ask follow-up questions even after you leave the office.
13. I am in a country that is not the US, or I am traveling. Why did doctors in my country give me a different schedule of shots than the ones recommended by the CDC or the WHO? Why did doctors in two different countries tell me two different shot schedules? Will the shots work?
Yess. Rabies protocols vary by country. The CDC guidance is specific to the USA, and the WHO guidance is a recommendation for all countries. Some countries give different numbers of shots on different days. That is OK. The schedules all work as long as you stick to them and finish the series. To find more information about a country’s rabies shot schedule, google the name of the country + rabies vaccination + regimen or protocol or schedule.
14. I waited a long time before I got rabies shots. Or I drank a beer after I got vaccinated, or I took an aspirin. Or a doctor gave me tetanus shots at the same time. Will the rabies shots still work?
Yes. Rabies vaccines are 100% effective if you get them before the virus reaches your brain and symptoms start, which usually takes 3 weeks to one year. For more info about symptoms, see FAQ #17. If you have more questions about your medical treatment, ASK YOUR DOCTOR.
15. I think I have health anxiety and I can’t stop thinking about rabies all the time. How can I get help for this?
See this link. The automod can be summoned to share this information with a comment that includes the word “helpbot."
16. Someone is asking questions in the sub that I think are super dumb. Should I tell them that?
No. Please do not be rude or impatient. There is a real difference between a legitimate rabies scare and Persistent Health Anxiety (PHA), a subset of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD). OCD and anxiety are real diseases that can have physical symptoms, and there are treatments for them that many people don’t know how to access. Both conditions are terrifying and life-altering, and both conditions deserve support. In this group, we support people who ask for help and we applaud them for finding the courage to do so. We will be kind, patient, respectful, and do our best to provide emotional support to anyone who seeks help here. I will be posting a separate FAQ to address the health anxiety issue. All posts and/or replies that are in any way unkind, impatient, or rude will be immediately removed and the author may be temporarily or permanently banned from this group. Be nice!!
17. I feel sick. Do I have rabies?
If you feel sick, see a doctor. You may have another disease, including anxiety, which can have physical symptoms. We cannot diagnose you over the internet. See a doctor.
The rabies virus generally has an incubation period of 3 weeks to 1 year from the date of exposure. If you believe you are experiencing symptoms before 3 weeks after exposure, that is not rabies. If you think you are experiencing symptoms more than 1 year after exposure, it is almost certainly not rabies. if you have not been exposed to a rabid animal and you believe you are experiencing rabies symptoms, you are not infected and are most likely experiencing anxiety. the prodromal stage lasts for a few days to a month and the acute neurologic stage lasts for a few days to a week; if you have symptoms that last longer than this, you do not have rabies.
Rabies symptoms only begin when the virus reaches the brain. It MUST reach the brain and produce SEVERE NEUROLOGICAL symptoms before it reaches the throat and salivary glands. This means that your sore throat is NOT caused by rabies unless you also have a severe fever, are experiencing loss of consciousness, paralysis, and seizures.
Also, rabies symptoms do not go away until death. You don't have a fever and then the fever goes away for the next symptoms. Every symptom stacks on top of the other symptoms. If you are experiencing 1 out 10 symptoms, it's NOT RABIES. Rabies is not mild. It's SEVERE in every way. If you are experiencing rabies symptoms you will need to be hospitalized within the first 8 hours of symptoms.
IT IS NOT TOO LATE TO GET VACCINATED UNTIL SYMPTOMS START, but only get vaccinated if you were attacked by a rabid animal. Waking up with a mystery scratch is not a rabies exposure.
Rabies symptoms are as follows, IN THIS ORDER:
Prodromal Stage:
• Extreme Fever
• Extreme Headache
Acute neurologic phase:
• Visual Disturbances, Hallucinations
• Delirium, Confusion
• Tremors, Seizures, Repetitive Uncontrollable Movements
• Fading In and Out of Consciousness
• Light Sensitivity, Sensitivity to Wind / Moving Air
• Partial Paralysis of Extremities, Paralysis of One or Both Legs or Arms
• Excessive Salivation, combined with the inability to swallow AT ALL, not even your own saliva which causes excessive drooling
• Inability to Swallow - NOT SORE THROAT - Inability to eat or drink, or swallow your own saliva production
• Extreme Aversion to sight or sound of water, food, or drink, AKA hydrophobia
• Coma
Without extreme medical intervention, which usually is an induced coma, these symptoms will progress to death very rapidly. Most patients who reach the point of excessive salivation and hydrophobia die within 12-24 hours without intervention.
IF YOU ARE EXPERIENCING THESE SYMPTOMS, CALL 911 AND GET TO A HOSPITAL IMMEDIATELY. IF YOU CAN REPLY TO THIS MESSAGE, YOU ARE NOT EXPERIENCING RABIES SYMPTOMS. PEOPLE WITH ACTIVE RABIES INFECTIONS CANNOT TYPE, TALK, OR DEBATE WHETHER OR NOT THEY ARE SICK. IF YOU CAN READ THIS AND REPLY, IT'S NOT RABIES.
submitted by SchrodingersMinou to rabies [link] [comments]


2024.05.19 01:03 Pristine_Reality2606 Twin or karmic loop?

I (then 28F)met the person who I feel is my twin runner (26M) in September 2021 at work. He was taking a contracted position. He was a new contracted employee and we were immediately drawn to one another. We had the unusual urge to tell each other quickly about our lives, past traumas, hopes,and got to know each other well. We became close friends and always spent time at lunch, read books together, took walks outside whenever time allowed. We never crossed boundaries though. He was in a relationship with someone (recently just got back together) with whom he shared a then 16 month old with. Despite this, I just had this inexplicable feeling and knowing that we were going to get together. He even gave me his favorite book and jokingly said “I’m giving you my soul here!” At some point in the spring of 2022, his relationship with his ex girlfriend fell apart. This time for good. A month later, we inevitably got together—intimately, sexually after one night. All that tension for months finally released and it was truly unlike any other experience. It all felt right, but there was always this discomfort underneath everything. He was worried that I would be resentful since he came with “baggage”-the kids and a complicated situation with his ex (she doesn’t work so he had to financially support her). It didn’t help that the contract he had at our place of work ended and he couldn’t renew. He eventually ran. He got another contracted position at one state and his ex with the kids moved in another state. Throughout this time, I was devastated. I had no desire to date and never found the connection I had with him with anyone else. And while I don’t put much emphasis on signs and synchronicities, one night, five months after he ran, I saw a shooting star and wished for his well being and a sign that he was okay. Within the hour, he texted me(after not reaching out for like 4 months) asking if I still worked at the same place. It wasn’t until March 2023 that he reached out to me and let me know he wanted to come back to my place of work. He did so that June and thus began our “relationship”. Ultimately, it was very loving, playful, respectful, adventurous, but there was always fear and tension looming. I kept getting triggered because he seemed non committal about spending time and making plans with me. I didn’t feel like a priority, but constantly picked over. Maybe this was just a relationship of convenience for him, I often thought. It didn’t help that we kept this a secret because we didn’t want people at work to find out. I would experience random crying spells and anxiety, because of how uncertain things were. In hindsight and in fairness to him, parenting and traveling between states is a hard thing to navigate, but it still made me feel like I was someone he could just “squeeze in”. Moreover, he decided to stay permanently at work this time around, but that meant making less money than what he made as a contractor. All of these stressors added up and he eventually decided to quit, choosing a job closer to his girls. We are in contact, but it is minimal. I’m coming to terms with the fact that right now, a relationship with this person just isn’t feasible despite loving him unconditionally. He is so present as a parent and always strives to give his kid the childhood he never got. I personally know what it feels like to be abandoned by a parent, so of course I understand that his babies are the number one priority. I expect that. I want him to grow into the best person he feels he could be and just have peace in his life. Intellectually, I can accept this 3-D reality of us not being together, but energetically I still can’t shake him off. No other relationship has made me self reflect like this, and yet I can’t decide if this is indeed my twin or if I’m stuck in a loop with a karmic.
submitted by Pristine_Reality2606 to twinflames [link] [comments]


2024.05.19 00:59 GoAheadMMDay UPDATE 3: Torment Techniques Used by Canadian and US Militaries

UPDATE 3: Torment Techniques Used by Canadian and US Militaries
Update #3 appears at the bottom.
Due to numerous disparaging comments by multiple individuals, I have reposted my article.
Heckling does not change what occurred. People need to know these truths, especially those who have experienced the same. They need to know they are sane, that such things are indeed being perpetrated, and the perpetrators use shame to silence them and protect their activities.
I write to encourage them not to listen to disparaging people who speak without knowledge.
February 10, 2024
I am Joseph Cafariello, a Canadian citizen and ex-member of the Canadian military. Of sound mind, not on medication, not a drug user, not a marijuana smoker, not an alcohol drinker, with no mental disorders.
I recently posted to this Liberty subreddit experiences of harassment by Vancouver's police and fire departments (Vancouver, BC, Canada). I’m the fellow who was repeatedly ordered by police to stay out of Vancouver’s Stanley Park, and was continually harassed whenever I visited the park (which I do every second day on my early morning walks).
Immediately following that post, they changed some of the techniques they use in my case. They were either informed of my post or found it themselves, seeing as my internet activity, and phone activity for that matter, are under continuous surveillance (plenty of proof which I will not include here to avoid running off-topic).
In this post, I would like to shed some light on other harassment which is still ongoing, since it occurs in private, away from potential observers. It involves the Canadian and US militaries.
Havana Syndrome
In 2016, numerous employees of the Canadian and US embassies in Havana, Cuba, started experiencing head injuries ranging from mild headaches to concussions. It happened in their sleep, and came to be called Havana Syndrome.
Wikipedia explains (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Havana\_syndrome):
“Havana syndrome is a cluster of idiopathic symptoms experienced mostly abroad by U.S. government officials and military personnel. The symptoms range in severity from pain and ringing in the ears to cognitive dysfunction and were first reported in 2016 by U.S. and Canadian embassy staff in Havana, Cuba. Beginning in 2017, more people, including U.S. intelligence and military personnel and their families, reported having these symptoms in other places, such as China, India, Europe, and Washington, D.C. The U.S. Department of State, Department of Defense, and other federal entities have called the events "Anomalous Health Incidents" (AHI). Of over a thousand purported cases, the majority of US investigative bodies found only a few dozen cases to be suspicious.”
Ladies and gentlemen, I can tell you exactly what happens, because I have been experiencing this since I first joined the Canadian military back in 2002, and am still experiencing these “torments” (as I call them) to this day, already 3 years after leaving the military.
I go to bed. In about 15 minutes, just as I am on the cusp of falling asleep, a hear and feel a heavy thud reverberate and ultimately strike my skull. My body releases a sharp burst of adrenalin, my heart starts racing, and my blood’s circulation speeds up significantly. Depending on the severity of the blow, it can take me anywhere from 30 minutes to an hour to fall asleep again. Though there have been times I could not return to sleep for more than 2 hours.
A strong headache is felt immediately, and lasts for hours. There have been times when my heart felt like it was going to burst, having been startled as such.
The pulse to the head sometimes reverberates through the wall and my bed’s headboard. I distinctly feel as though I have been hit on the top of my skull. At other times, it feels as though the pulse has come through the air, striking the side of my skull.
This is not a sleep disorder, for it does not occur regularly. At times, my sleep is disturbed in this manner 3 or 4 days in a row. At other times, there is no disturbance for up to a week. But they never let me go more than a week without such interruptions to my sleep.
Neither is it sleep apnea, as I do not awaken gasping for breath. The pounding headaches, sudden release of adrenaline, and heart palpitations I experience are caused by external impacts of sound waves or air bursts.
Sonic Weapons
How these pulses are produced is not easy to identify. As Wikipedia explains:
“Once the story became public, various U.S. government representatives attributed the incidents to attacks by unidentified foreign actors, and various U.S. officials blamed the reported symptoms on a variety of unidentified and unknown technologies, including ultrasound and microwave weapons.”
Sonic weapons have been in use for many years by militaries, and by police in crowd control. As Wikipedia explains (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sonic\_weapon):
“Some sonic weapons make a focused beam of sound or of ultrasound; others produce an area field of sound. As of 2023 military and police forces make some limited use of sonic weapons.”
(Do not believe the 2023 timeline. The Canadian military has been using these weapons since the early 2000’s at the latest.)
Wikipedia continues:
“Extremely high-power sound waves can disrupt or destroy the eardrums of a target and cause severe pain or disorientation. This is usually sufficient to incapacitate a person. Less powerful sound waves can cause humans to experience nausea or discomfort.”
The users of these technologies must also be using thermal detection equipment to monitor the target’s sleep. As I mentioned, I most often feel these blows the moment I am falling asleep. Body temperature drops when we sleep, and brain activity slows. Heat-detection equipment is likely being used to identify the point at which the target is falling asleep.
Why they prefer to strike at the start of someone’s sleep as opposed to the middle of their sleep, I do not know. Perhaps their intent is to deprive the body of early sleep, limiting the amount of deep sleep available to the person before their alarm rings in the morning.
Ordinary Hammers
Not all such “torments” (as I call them) are caused by high-tech equipment. I have heard and felt distinct hammer strikes running along the 2x4 beams inside my walls. These strikes can be a single hard strike, or several strikes in a row. It is definitely caused by a person with a hammer because the intervals between strikes are equidistant in time; that is, the time spacing between strikes is not random and does not change from strike to strike, but is constant between strikes, exactly as when someone is hammering. And no, it is not someone hanging pictures at 1:30 am, multiple times a week, for years.
On one occasion, when I was standing at my kitchen sink, I felt the floor-board directly under my feet pulse so sharply it felt like a brick had struck the soles of my feet. In this case, my military neighbour likely used a hammer to strike the floorboard on his side of the wall. It is the only plausible explanation.
Surveillance
This leads to surveillance of one’s activities at home. I have plenty of proofs of that. They seem insignificant on an individual basis. But when you put them all together, they present a clear picture of home surveillance.
My laptop computer’s lid cracked one night, at the bottom left corner of the screen. The next day at work, I heard my military supervisor relate to another co-worker that the night before, his laptop computer’s lid cracked at the bottom left corner. I swear to the Lord in Heaven, I am being truthful.
I tested my suspicion of being surveilled. At home one night, I blurted out-loud, “VW Passat. What an ugly sounding word, ‘Passat’”, I said. A few days later, my military colleagues at work started playing a card game at lunch, invented by one of them. The name he gave his game was “Passat”, and when he spoke it, he looked at me for a reaction. If you ever contact the Halifax military base, ask for the Claims Department and ask them if they are still playing Passat.
On another occasion, at a time when I frequented the gym every second day for a few years, I suspected my van had been fitted with a listening device. I suspected so because a number of things I had spoken with people about on my phone while in my van (nothing illegal) were repeated by people at the gym in conversations among themselves. Too many times, parts of other people's conversations matched parts of conversations I had had with others while I was in my van.
I already knew my phone was being tapped, but I also suspected my van was bugged. So one evening while driving in my van, I blurted out-loud a number of things I said I hated. "I hate (this or that)"; "I hate it when...". One of them was, "I hate when people chew gum with their mouths open." I then vocalized an exaggerated gnawing sound, "Gnaw. Gnaw. Gnaw."
The very next time I went to the gym, 2 days later, while I was at an exercise, a fellow sat at an exercise directly behind me. And sure enough, he started chewing with his mouth open, vocalizing that gnawing sound, "Gnaw. Gnaw. Gnaw." I didn't look behind at him, because I knew what was going on, and I wanted to avoid playing into his hand. So he repeated himself again and again until I was done and moved to a different station. Now, honestly, who chews gum at the gym? You can't. Or you run the risk of choking for the heavy breathing, not to mention when laying down on benches. And with precisely the same exaggerated vocalized gnawing sound I had made in my van just 2 days prior.
Their whole intent is to let you know you are being surveilled. They want you to know, as both a warning and a provocation. They want you to say something, to launch accusations, which they would readily deny, making you look paranoid. If you react too strongly, they could even have you diagnosed with some kind of disorder, and put you on medication, which further plays into their hand. (More regarding medications in the last section of this post.)
This is why, as I mentioned in my previous post, they would park their cars shining their high beams on me as I walked past them during my morning walk. And why on some occasions, a group of 3 or 4 would exit their cars and stand on my path just as I approached, forcing me to go around them. They would then remain standing on the path until my return trip through, and after I had passed by the second time, then would then return to their cars - making it absolutely clear I was their interest.
Their intent is not only to make me aware, but also to present themselves in close proximity to me, within easy reach, in the hope I would confront them, resulting in an altercation that could land me in a lot of hot water - 4 witnesses against me, all pleading innocence.
Again, it is all designed to make you look bad, and to warrant some kind of legal measure against you - preferably a medical diagnosis, discrediting you in everything you say about them. If they can't refute your claims, their only remaining option is to discredit you. That's what all of these tricks are designed to accomplish. Who would believe anything you say, once you have been diagnosed with a disorder?
There are plenty more examples. But who would really believe them? I’ll save them for the future.
Home Invasion
Both during and after my military service, I have had my apartments entered without any signs of break-ins. How? Lock-picking and duplicate keys. Indications? Missing objects; ie: money, phone adaptor, etc. Nothing major. Just something to make us understand we are being watched, and to make us understand what they can do.
But it is always something small, something for which you would be ridiculed for divulging.
Two more examples: I found my razor, which I always lay-down razor-end to the wall, turned around, razor-end toward me. Also, in one of my house slippers I found a small shoe sticker on the up-side of the heel. I had those slipper for years, and never had any shoe stickers on them. Yet there it was, clearly visible on the top surface of my slipper, not the bottom. Could I have stepped on a shoe sticker when barefoot in my apartment, only to have the sticker transfer itself to my slipper when I wore it? How many shoe stickers do you have laying around your apartment that you can accidentally step onto?
If I had stepped onto a sticker in my apartment and had it stick to my heel, that means the sticky side was up against my skin. This means the sticker would have had to flip upside down such that the sticky side would then be down, allowing the sticker to stick to the slipper. Do you really think that happened? That sticker was not there when I left my apartment, but it was there when I returned. And it was the wrong sticker, wrong brand, wrong size.
Again, what is their intent? To make someone look ridiculous so no one will believe them should they speak of other more sensitive things.
Staged Incidents
The above incidents clearly point to coordinated and staged events (at my work, my home, on my walks, etc). This is so frequently met with incredulity. "But that would require coordination on the part of so many people," the public dismisses. "They wouldn't do that."
Oh yes they would, and they have, as explained in https://fightgangstalking.com/. Note the documented cases involving the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS, Canada's equivalent to the US' CIA) and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP, Canada's national police force) in the second quote, which were reported in national newspapers.
From https://fightgangstalking.com/:
“Disruption operations often involve tactics which are illegal, but difficult to prove. These tactics include – but are not limited to – overt surveillance (stalking), slander, blacklisting, “mobbing” (intense, organized harassment in the workplace), “black bag jobs” [home invasions], abusive phone calls, computer hacking, framing, threats, blackmail, vandalism, “street theater” (staged physical and verbal interactions with minions of the people who orchestrate the stalking), harassment by noises, and other forms of bullying. Many of these tactics were used by the FBI during its illegal COINTELPRO operations, as documented by stolen official documents and subsequent Congressional investigations.
"Although the general public is mostly unfamiliar with the practice, references to “disruption” operations – described as such – do occasionally appear in the news media, even though that fact would apparently be news to the editors of The New York Times. In May 2006, for example, an article in The Globe and Mail, a Canadian national newspaper, reported that the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) used “Diffuse and Disrupt” tactics against suspects for whom they lacked sufficient evidence to prosecute. A criminal defense attorney stated that many of her clients complained of harassment by authorities, although they were never arrested."
She can add me to that list too.
For the Benefit of Others
The experiences I have recounted here seem so trivial, so insignificant, they make you look ridiculous if you talk about them. But if we don’t talk about such things, no one will ever know about them. Other people have experienced the same, and are forced to endure such torments in silence. They need encouragement to talk about their own experiences, and so I write about mine in the hope they will talk about theirs, even if I do look ridiculous. The perpetrators are more ridiculous for doing them.
I remember a military colleague being hauled away by military police one morning, as she was struggling and having a violent fit. A fellow on her floor told me she was throwing chairs at her walls screaming, “Stop it! Stop it! Stop it!”. When he mentioned that, I knew exactly what they had done to her. She was considered unruly, and was being watched intently. They wanted her out, and that is how they accomplished it. Through wall tapping and sleep deprivation, they push you to the breaking point. And when you finally lose control and do something rash, they pounce on you, and you’re out. Now she has a criminal record, considered a criminal when in reality she was a victim. Welcome to the Canadian military, and other militaries besides, I am sure.
There are dozens upon dozens of experiences I could present. But who will really read them? Worse still, who will really believe them? I overheard my military supervisor in Halifax whisper to another, “Do you think he knows?”, after I had mentioned one of the many “coincidences” I experienced, but with a tone of my being aware it was not a mere coincidence. As I turned my face to my computer screen, I whispered under my breath, but still loud enough for him to hear, “Yes, (rank) (name), I know.” A few minutes later, as he walked past my desk, he leaned in by my ear and whispered, “We’re just trying to help you.” I should have pressed him for answers right then and there, but you just don’t know how much trouble you can get into when making such accusations in the military. So I let it go. But I will never forget.
Should anyone reading this ever decide to launch some kind of inquiry, I can mention names of over 100 people to contact, including military personnel, family members, neighbours, building managers, and others who have been contacted by military personnel with false narratives about me. They flash their ID’s and other credentials, and people believe anything they say. They turn family, friends, co-workers and neighbours against you, even recruiting their participation. Your acquaintances not only participate, but actually feel justified and emboldened playing tricks on you. It isn't their fault, though; they have been misled. I would reference them solely for corroboration.
As a final thought, here are explanations of two military programs in which certain persons (sometimes military, sometimes civilian) are kept under constant surveillance, and are in some cases subjected to conditioning in an attempt to turn them into what is called a “sleeper agent”. Almost all of the tactics presented below have been experience by me, including constant surveillance (ie: my previous post here regarding being harassed on my morning walks) and sleep deprivation (as per the top portion of this post, which other military members in Cuba and elsewhere around the world have also experienced).
Pentagon’s Signature Reduction Program
See Newsweek’s article: https://www.newsweek.com/exclusive-inside-militarys-secret-undercover-army-1591881
Some excerpts from that Newsweek article, plus more background information on the Pentagon’s Signature Reduction Program, can be found here: https://fightgangstalking.com/
“The largest undercover force the world has ever known is the one created by the Pentagon over the past decade. Some 60,000 people now belong to this secret army, many working under masked identities and in low profile, all part of a broad program called “signature reduction.” The force, more than ten times the size of the clandestine elements of the CIA, carries out domestic and foreign assignments, both in military uniforms and under civilian cover, in real life and online, sometimes hiding in private businesses and consultancies, some of them household name companies.
“…a little-known sector of the American military, but also a completely unregulated practice. No one knows the program’s total size, and the explosion of signature reduction has never been examined for its impact on military policies and culture. Congress has never held a hearing on the subject. And yet the military developing this gigantic clandestine force challenges U.S. laws, the Geneva Conventions, the code of military conduct and basic accountability.
“…The signature reduction effort engages some 130 private companies to administer the new clandestine world. Dozens of little known and secret government organizations support the program, doling out classified contracts and overseeing publicly unacknowledged operations.
"Federal spy agencies are using Americans to spy on their fellow citizens – the same approach to governance famously employed by communist East Germany."
How to Develop a Hypnotic Sleeper Agent
By Dantalion Jones / Masters of Mind Control
The following “was” on the web, but has been removed. Surprise, surprise. But I saved its web files to my computer years ago, knowing that sooner or later it would be removed. I made a jpeg image of the web page as it once appeared, attached here.
Note that I have experienced almost all of the tactics described below, including the stalking I mentioned in my previous post here (regular walks in the park), the sleep deprivation noted at the top of this post, and the surveillance and intrusions described here as well.
Quoting the now-removed webpage: “How to Develop a Hypnotic Sleeper Agent” (from here to end of post):
Amid all the conspiracy theories one of the most feared is that there exist "sleeper agents" in our society who are programmed to come into service when they are triggered by a phone call or key word.
These alleged sleeper agents don't even know they are programmed to become saboteurs, soldiers, suicide bomber, etc because of the thoroughness of their programming. They are the feared "Manchurian Candidate" that the movies portray.
The question is "Are they real?"
If they are true sleeper agents there is no way of telling until they are activated. One can however theorize exactly how they are made.
Indoctrination
Using indoctrination a person can be made to embrace a religious or philosophical belief that would make becoming a sleeper agent possible.
This would be a person so committed to an ideal they would be willing to wait patiently as a member of society until they are called into action. These people would know their mission and consciously hold it secret while interacting with the rest of society.
Conditioning
Conditioning is a repetitive process where the desired responses are enforced and rewarded and unwanted responses are punished. This can be done consciously as part of training drill and it can be done subconsciously using hypnosis or drugs to create amnesia.
Hypnosis
It has been demonstrated that hypnosis can create "amnesia walls" in which the subject has no conscious memory of what happened in the hypnosis session. It has further been demonstrated that hypnosis can give post hypnotic instruction to be carried out automatically in the waking state without the subject knowing it or questioning the behavior.
What follows is conjecture and theory based on testimonials of people who were alleged to be sleeper agents and soldiers.
Continuous Supervisions
Continuous supervision doesn't mean that the subject is cut off completely from society. It means that they are constantly overseen and every aspect of their lives are managed (without their knowledge or consent) to support their hypnotic programming.
This would include:
• Repeated reinforcement of all hypnotic conditioning.
• Handlers. Handlers are people who help maintain the subjects environment to maintain all the programming. They can play the role of family, friends, lovers, psychologists, coaches or any roll the subject perceives as supportive. The truth is the handlers are their to support the successful fulfillment of the programming and not the subject as a person.
• Minimal sleep so that the mind/brain does not process all the sleeper conditioning during sleep.
• Creating constant environmental challenges like unemployment or poverty. This gives the subject something other than their programming to focus on.
• Frequent hospitalization. This gives overt opportunity to sedate the subject for conditioning. If the subject has a history of hospitalizations for mental disturbances all the better. No one will take them seriously.
Joseph Cafariello
PS... Today is the second day after this post (February 12, 2024). A garbage truck just slammed into my parked car.
PPS... I finish writing this post because I am satisfied with its shape and content; not because of what happened to my car.
It is similar to when you are reaching for your coat, and someone tells you, "Take your coat." Since you have to take your coat, your brain tells you it's ok to obey them, and you comply. They just created an instance where they led you, and you followed them. And your brain accepted it.
It's a technique the military uses all the time. It trains you to accept instructions from that person or group. Done enough times, you become comfortable obeying them.
I just say, "I take my coat because I choose to, not because you tell me to." It's important to make that clear, to block the conditioning and affirm our self-governance; not just to them, but to ourselves as well. Now our brain realizes we took our coat by our own choice; we are still in command.
So too, I say regarding today's event. "Thanks for the warning, but I had already finished writing my post. I finished by my own choosing."
UPDATES 1 & 2: February 26 & March 07, 2024:
My apartment was once again entered while I was out. Either a key was used or the lock was picked. This may or may not have included assistance from building staff. Home invasions are included in the list of their techniques noted above, referred to as "black bag jobs".
All tenants on my floor received new fridges a couple of weeks ago. I removed the tape securing the bins inside my new fridge, and also removed all styrofoam pads from the corners of the glass shelves when I repositioned them.
The person(s) who have been invading my living space on a regular basis have struck again. As you can see in the photo below, the styrofoam pads on the corners of my fridge's shelves were restored when I was out of my apartment. I had removed all pads when I repositioned the shelves. Yet now they are back.
It is a tactic used to undermine our observational awareness in an attempt to make us second-guess and doubt ourselves. The aim is to cause people to feel less sure not only of the things we have done, but also feel less sure of the things others have done. They want us to question the accuracy of our observations and memory.
The idea is to train you to dismiss any anomalies you may observe as being your own misperception of things. Once they convince you not to trust your own judgement, they are free to do whatever they want to you, and you will simply accept it without questioning.
UPDATE 3: May 18, 2024:
Confrontations with individuals keep occurring, at times potentially violent. Following are just 3 such encounters as of late.
1 - Kick-boxer in the park:
As I parked my car in one of the parking lots in Vancouver's Stanley Park one night, another vehicle drove up behind me and parked several spots away. A tall man exited that vehicle, and walked hastily along the path I always walk, down some steps to the water's sea wall path. I took my time and followed my usual walk, also down the steps down to the sea wall. The man knew my routine, and was in a hurry to get ahead of me.
As I walked along the sea wall, I saw the same man sitting on a bench, playing a loud Persian-sounding religious sermon on some device I did not clearly see. As I walked past him, he called out to me to stop and chat. I ignored him and continued walking past him. He rose and started walking behind me.
I opened my umbrella, turned, and walked past him the other way, returning to the stairs back to the parking lot. He also turned and continued following me. I started running. He also started running. I ran up the steps, as did he.
Being taller than I am, his legs are longer than mine, and he quickly caught up to me on a grassy patch at the top of the steps. I turned to him and asked, "Why are you following me?" He did not reply, but stood profile to me, the same stance a kick-boxer uses when ready to kick someone. He was tall, thin, and in excellent physical shape as you would see in a kick-boxer.
He did not speak at all, but was just waiting for me to make a move. I turned, entered my vehicle and left. The encounter continued with a chase through the park in our cars. Yes, that is correct. He chased me out of the park in his car.
2 - Told to keep quiet:
The perpetrators need to operate with as little detection as possible, and they repeatedly warn their subjects to keep their mouths shut about their experiences.
On another of my recent nightly walks, a man stood on the sidewalk ahead of me about half a block away, looked at me, and shouted into the sky at nobody, giving the appearance of being a homeless person shouting for no reason. He then started walking in my direction. I continued walking straight. As he passed me, he leaned into my face and shouted into my ear, "Shut the f_ck up!" I continued walking in my direction, and he resumed walking in his.
The idea is to make it seem as though he is just a deranged man wandering the streets at night, shouting at nothing, so that when he shouts at me, any observer would simply dismiss his actions. But in reality, he was sent to send me a message to stop publishing posts like this, which I had done many times on many sites, and continue to. They don't like it when we reveal their methods. But the truth must be known.
3 - You'll be sorry:
On another occasion, while returning from grocery shopping one afternoon, I walked past a man sitting by a storefront. He was clean-cut, wearing clean clothes, without any carts or wagons or any belongings of any kind. As I passed him, he asked me for some spare change. I replied, "I'm sorry," and continued walking past. He replied, "You will be."
There are numerous other experiences, like two seemingly unassociated men standing on the sea wall about 100 meters away from each other, each of them spitting just as I walked past each one.
There are too many experiences to mention. Looking at each experience individually, one would easily dismiss them as being unrelated and simply coincidental. But put them all together and a picture starts to form, like putting together the pieces of a puzzle.
As I hand you each piece of the puzzle one by one, you dismiss each piece, saying, "This could be anything." And you discard it. You keep discarding each piece as I hand it to you. By the end of it, you look down at the table and say, "You have nothing." That's because you looked at each piece as a separate item and threw it away. But if you leave the pieces on the table as I hand them to you and do not hastily discard them, you will see they form a clear picture when put all together.
We must look at all these events as a whole. Individually, each one could be anything. But when all of these experiences are put together and considered as a whole, they form an undeniable picture. Do not be quick to dismiss each piece. Leave the pieces on the table and look at the whole. The picture I present is sound. Remember, I have all the pieces; you do not. I see the picture more clearly than you do.
https://preview.redd.it/we31ymcsm91d1.jpg?width=966&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=3d56ac3dd3558a60d477ba9315104d1b66b139f8
submitted by GoAheadMMDay to Liberty [link] [comments]


2024.05.19 00:27 Equal-Peach8422 i left him physically and i want to break up completely but i’m scared i’ll regret going no contact (even tho ik i won’t🫠)

i’m so sorry if this is rlly long, im new to reddit so pls let me know if i need to shorten it and how to do so😭
hi so this is kinda hard to explain fully so i’ll try to explain the most important parts.
this maybe a TW to a lot of ppl so please be careful reading this i don’t want to upset anyone! ⚠️
so i’m 20(f) and i’ve been with this guy (also 20)for about over two years. we met in highschool when i was going through a breakup and he was one of my only closest friends. as with all abusive relationships, it started off so amazing, it was my first in person serious relationship so i was fully heard over heels. so much so that when red flags started popping up i ignored them. it started off with him telling me to drop my closest guy friends, etc… and i did because he used him having no friends at all to make me feel like i had to do the same. he also got me into smoking weed, which i have nothing against btw, it was just bad for me because i used it to cope with a lot of my depression. since i smoked weed more often, i started gaining weight which i had no problem with since i had gone through a severe case of anorexia about 2 years prior, but it did make me a little insecure. slowly he started insulting my weight, my body, and so many other things, until it led to the point where he got physical after around six or seven months of us dating. i remember his mom walking in on him about to hit me with a belt and she had been abused by his dad and my bf witnessed it all, so she was very angry at him and she took my side, and i’ll never forget what she told me; “this isn’t love. someone who loves you would never even think of putting their hands on you”. i still feel guilty for not listening to her. i wanted to believe in him so badly, so i stayed and things just got worse.
everyday there was a fight, either verbally or physically (most of the time both), and i just felt so horrible. so i eventually wanted to adopt a cat, something i always wanted to do since i was a little girl. i adopted a kitten and unfortunately my parents did not allow me to keep him at my house because of my dog, and i asked my bf if i could keep him at his house for the meantime while i can work with my parents on how he can live with me (the kitten). i am not exaggerating when i say that that little kitten was my soulmate in a little cat body. he seemed to understand me and love me in a way no other human did. and i loved him more than anything. i eventually went on vacation with my family for a few days and when i came back i could tell somehow things were different. he wouldn’t let me see my kitten and when i pretty much forced him to let me see him, he started crying and begging me not to leave him. i of course panicked and agreed because i thought something bad happened to my kitten, and he showed me him and told me that he had broken one of his paws. i was so horrified, i felt so much pain at seeing my little buddy in that state, so i freaked out and i demanded and begged that he let me take him to the vet or anywhere else that wasn’t his house so that he can get help. but he refused, and even threatened me if i took him, saying it was his cat and just making me feel like it was my fault that this happened and not his. my biggest regret and the reason i feel guilty to this day is that i stayed out of fear, instead of taking my kitten with me and never looking back. he ended up killing my kitten one night that i went home (i have always lived with my parents), and he didn’t tell me until i came over the next day. it was the most painful and traumatic day of my life, knowing that i never got to say goodbye to my kitten, knowing how much my kitten loved me and how much i loved him, and now he was gone when he shouldn’t have been. i screamed and cried so much, and his (my bfs) only response was to aggressively attack me so i would be quiet, and blaming me that if i had taken him he would still be alive.
i felt so guilty and ashamed that i didn’t tell anyone until a month later, when i started having an onset of ptsd because of everything that happened, i decided to tell my therapist. she was horrified, saying that it was one of the most horrific things she ever heard, and honestly if it wasn’t for her help, i would’ve never survived that pain and guilt of losing my kitten. i know now that i was in a heavy denial that my bf would do something so horrible, so i continued on seeing him, but things just got worse and worse. he did so many fucked up things to me, physically, mentally, sexually, in almost every single way possible that you can imagine. i used weed as my coping mechanism for a lot of it, and it was the only way i could numb all the pain he was causing me. i was so depressed, i never felt suicidal with intentions of offing myself, but i did just want to go to sleep and never wake up. the guilt of my kittens death, combined with the horrible abuse this person that was supposed to love me was doing, was so painful. eventually i told my family what happened, but all they did was basically say that i “let it happen” and that “i should’ve left the first time he put his hands on me”, and that “why didn’t i defend myself the way i defended myself against them (referring to my family)”. it hurt but i understand they weren’t educated on it, especially coming from a minority family.
eventually a few months passed, and i found out i was pregnant. it was honestly one of the best days of my life, even if i was young, i still was happy because there was this little life in me. and i knew from the second i found out that i couldn’t stay with him. i couldn’t allow my baby to have that same life that i was living, but i didn’t know how to get out. he didn’t want me to continue the pregnancy when i told him, and even threatened to leave me and not support me at all, but i was determined to stand by my decision; he wasn’t going to take away my choice of having my baby. i stopped smoking weed the day i found out, and he always tried to make me smoke, which i refused, which would get him so upset. but i was determined to take care of my lil baby from the start, he had taken away too much already from me. i told my parents and they were disappointed but quickly became supportive, and encouraged me to leave him for good. it took a few months of me seeing him occasionally, but things not really changing, for me to leave him for good.
i left a few weeks ago due to me realizing that the only thing i was doing by going over to his house was putting myself and my baby in danger. and after a very scary traumatizing incident, i realized while crying and praying to God, that the only true love i’ve ever felt and feel at this point, is for my baby. my bf was no longer my whole world, it was my baby, and as a mother to be, i was going to do everything to protect my baby. i rather go through the pain of breaking away from my bf then something bad happening to me or even to my baby. not only does my baby deserve a happy and safe life, but i realized that i do too. and in order for my baby to be happy, i have to be happy as well. so i made a promise to God and to myself and my baby, that i was never ever going to see my bf again. so that day after i left his house, i never went back. i don’t blame other moms in these situations, because it is so incredibly difficult to get out, i know, trust me i do. but for me what has helped me stay strong in my decision, is seeing how much happier me and my baby are already. i only have a few more months until i give birth, and i can already feel him kicking so hard now and being much more active. i truly believe it’s because he senses that we’re truly safe now, that our nightmare is over.
it’s been really hard i’m not going to lie, i cry sometimes and miss the person i fell in love with, but my faith in God and my baby have helped me a lot, as well as my family! that person i fell in love with, left a long time ago, and was never truly there. i know that i’m doing the right decision for me and my baby, to be safe and to have a happy life together. i know i can be both mommy and daddy to him, and most importantly i’ll teach him that he has God as his father too, which is much much better than having a pos father tbh.
going back to the title of my post though, i realized in these recent days that i know it’s time to go no contact completely. i haven’t seen him at all which i know is good, but i know to fully move on i have to cut off all communication with him. i think he can sense i’m breaking away from him, because yesterday he begged me to come over, saying all the things he used to say before, like that he “wants to hold me”, he wants to get our favorite drink together and food, that he wants to feel our baby kick, which honestly made it so hard to say no but i stood by my decision as painful as it was 🫠i told him i will not see him because i know things are going to remain the same and i’m doing what’s best for my baby and for me. and that as much as i still have love for him and miss him, i will not put myself or my baby in danger any longer. he proved my point after i said that, because he basically said so many horrible things to me, including that i was a “dumb overweight bitch”, “fuck you”, and he got mad that i saved a video of MY kitten that HE killed, saying that “fuck you for saving a video of me and my boy”, and a bunch of other hurtful stuff. it was honestly so disgusting and it made me glad i stuck by my decision to not ever see him again. i left him on read so he spam called me and i only answered once to tell him to leave me alone, but he basically only called me to say “i rather spend money on drugs and alcohol than you and that fucking baby🥲”. i’m not going to lie and act like it didn’t hurt, it really did. it really really did. but it also strangely gives me strength and makes me feel reassured that i made the best decision ever by leaving, not only for myself but for most importantly my baby. i don’t need him in my life anymore, all i need is my baby, God, and my family.
ever since then i want to send him a message that i want to breakup with him for good and basically go no contact from there. it sounds stupid, but i’m still scared to do so, i’m scared i’ll regret it in a way, even though i know for certain i won’t. i also remember the “good times” and it makes me sad and feel guilty for “giving up on him” even tho i know he doesn’t deserve me at all🫠. i guess that’s the abused part of me being scared still. i know i’ve taken an important big step by cutting off physical contact, but i know i can’t keep talking to him because he’ll only find other ways to torment me and make me feel bad even from far away. i guess i just wanted to ask for reassurance that i’m doing the right thing? idk🥲 sometimes it feels like i’m not strong enough, but my baby always reminds me with his kicks (lol) of why i’m doing all of this, which is for him!! a mothers love is truly so strong, i never really knew that until now. i would do anything to protect my baby. the only thing that has kept me happy and strong enough to continue is him! :’) and i also want to cut off contact for good because i want to enjoy the last months of my pregnancy in peace lol, and once he’s born soon i def do not need my bf stressing me out nor do i want him to. i also do not want him to be apart of my baby’s life once he’s born, i made sure to collect evidence just in case he ever wants to ask for visitation rights, cuz there is NO WAY in hell i will ever allow him to be near my baby let alone be alone with him ever. it’s sad but it’s the reality of his actions, it’s my job to protect my baby first. i’m lucky to have my family’s financial support as well while i finish up college, so i def do not care if he threatens me with not paying child support. i just want him out of our lives for good.
so yeah im just looking for reassurance that im doing the right thing and any advice if anyone has some! 🥹🫶i just want to be a good mommy to my baby and i hope i’m doing just that already 🥲❤️‍🩹i haven’t really told many people about my story out of fear of judgment, so it’s really a big step for me to share, even if it’s anonymous in a way. im just focusing on trusting God and myself, and im so excited to meet my baby soon! 🥹and to do better in college since i’ve been slacking ever since i started due to all the trauma and problems my bf put me through. i’m excited in general, to get my life back and to start a new chapter with my little one! 🥹🥲🫶 i got in contact with my old friends which has been nice, i know i should try to socialize more so i won’t feel as depressed. i also am looking for a new therapist (i stopped going to my old one a few months ago due to it being out of pocket😭), which i’ve been procrastinating but i know it’s important to help me heal from my trauma and to help me with my ocd (which has gotten worse tbh and it makes me more anxious about my baby🥲 even tho i know he’s okay i’m just really paranoid always). i am sad, but not as sad as i was when i was with him. and while i don’t really want to find a partner in the future because my priority is my baby, i do hope i’ll one day find someone who can love me as i deserve. it feels impossible though, but i know that might just be because of all the effects of his abuse…
i hope even if you don’t have advice for me or anything to say (which is totally fine!) i hope people reading this can find comfort that all bad moments come to an end, and that you have the power to leave, as hard as it is ❤️‍🩹even if it doesn’t seem like it, i promise you will get through it. i’m still not over it completely, i def have a long way to go, but i know it’ll all be worth it, and tbh it already is worth it!
thank you for taking the time to read this, i send all my love and good vibes to all of you warriors! <3 :’)
submitted by Equal-Peach8422 to abusiverelationships [link] [comments]


2024.05.19 00:23 ShortClawz Should I leave?

Am i the a$$hole?
I 17F am dating 34M yes, I know age difference anyways... 34M is a meth addict I had a pregnancy scare a few weeks ago and after telling him he turned around and said "get rid of it, I don't want it with you, not now, not ready for it" being a teenager still I expected some support through one of the hardest times in my life, but instead got a rude reply with little to no support from him, he stopped replying after that and wouldn't even answer my calls. I felt alone to say the least when we first met he was a sweet heart I have an FND (Functional neurological disorder) that causes involuntary movements and ticks (not Tourette's but a functional tick) he was very supportive of it, he was even there when I had my seizure like drop out caused by my brain over doing itself while ticking he was there through all of it even went to get me a tissue and I quote him saying "for her tears", for some reason that hit a soft spot and I grew attached to him quite fast. It sounds stupid but he really did make me happy at the start, he was with me most days always calling or messaging to check in then it all changed when we got together officially he stopped making time for me the first time I stayed at his house he yelled at me because his dog pissed on his bedroom floor while I was outside talking to his house mates and he went to quickly get something off a mate I didn't get any sleep that night and ended up with an excruciating migraine from no sleep and crying when I was about to get picked up I went out the back to say bye I didn't even get the chance to speak... before he asked what I was doing I said leaving he wouldn't give me a hug wouldn't say bye nothing so I just left. There's been countless occasions of him telling me to fuck off if I accidentally woke him or getting annoyed at me if he didn't hear what I had said doesn't take don't worry for an answer and generally feels like the only times he is sweet is when his sleeping with me. Am I crazy? or is this relationship toxic?
submitted by ShortClawz to Advice [link] [comments]


2024.05.19 00:17 hannahbeemild How do I know if this is "just my personality" or if I'm avoidant.. or if I'm just super chill?

I've been wondering about myself, now 30+, how much of my personality is simply easygoing, and how much of it is a result of avoidance and detachment and maybe being so neutral is not a good thing? How can I know?
If you met me, you would think I am pretty easy to hang with, I've been described as easygoing and chill and nice and unbothered by many of my friends. I rarely get involved or upset with big drama or issues. I am introverted, stay home most days. I'm usually the therapist friend that listens and gives good advice or a shoulder to cry on, I've always been a good supporter and cheerleader for others, and I prefer it that way. I rarely make huge waves about anything. If bad things happen, I try to give people the benefit of the doubt, I try to think of the fact that we are just specks of dust in the universe, I try to tell myself "it is what it is." My attitude towards most of life is to do no harm, try not to judge, and if you do, just keep quiet. I don't ever say things like "who cares" and I'm never dismissive, but I also try to remember that most issues and events and experiences in life are complex, nuanced, life is just always weird and hard and shit happens and we have to roll with it. I'm very NON-competitive and despise when people try to compete with me because I will absolutely not play that game. I am quiet and observant, speak up when I want to but usually I like to see what others do first. I am private but I still know how to keep a conversation lively and interesting, I don't shut people out or clam up. I like for everyone else to be comfortable, and think of myself later because others being okay is how I feel okay too. I need immense alone time. I go along with most situations and activities and events (unless I really hate it or can't stand it - then I will speak up or get myself away).
All that being said, you can probably tell what kind of person I am. Just quiet, nice girl on the side who doesn't do anything good or bad, generally good vibes but never in the spotlight.
I used to think that this is just who I am. I've always been a quiet kid. But... am I actually just avoidant? Do I "act" easygoing but I'm not? But I am... aren't I? Or did I train myself to be so chill that I actually just became it? Am I good "listener" friend because I like to listen and help, or because I don't like to share and be judged myself? Do I need so much alone time because I like being alone or because I don't want to deal with people? Or can it be both and still healthy? Am I neutral because I want to understand all points of view or because I don't ever want to be too involved in anything or any situation? I'm asking myself all these questions and I can't answer them. I'm confusing myself.
I just don't know. I'm doubting myself a lot these days. Do I keep myself hidden and quiet and neutral and "chill" so that I can be invisible and avoid life and people and humanity - or because I genuinely prefer it that way? Am I actually even easygoing or have I suppressed so much of myself that I have no choice but to be easygoing? How can I know these things for sure? I just can't remember the last time I really felt extremely passionate or upset about anything.. is this a result of me being too detached or am I just finally in a stable, secure place in life, with no drama or problems? Is the fact that I can't answer these questions, the answer in itself that something is wrong? Or am I overthinking?
I tried to keep this short so I apologize that I couldn't lol. I thought I could explain myself in a few words but it's just a lot going on my mind lately. Thank you all for your advice and perspectives in advance. I just want to know how other people think, or if you are a similar personality as me, how you feel about it? Do you ever question yourself like this?
submitted by hannahbeemild to AskWomenOver30 [link] [comments]


2024.05.19 00:15 Medium-Wing-4710 The harrowing experience of a cancer-surviving partner turned abuser

Over the course of my 4 year marriage to my partner, I have arrived at the position that I was abused, manipulated, and functionally enslaved to a mentally ill partner.
In simplest form, the progression is apparently observable. She was diagnosed with cancer in October of 2019 while we were engaged. Due to the diagnosis, we moved up our actual marriage date (our wedding was still set for mid-April) to December 1, 2019. Her surgery was December 13, 2019. In my compassion for her, I agreed to move our wedding date up to offset her anxiety around who would be responsible for her if things went south with her surgical treatment.
Our first month of marriage was straightforward; she was on pain meds recovering from surgery, so the main engagement that occurred was me walking her up and down the hospital hallway as she recovered and trying to meet her base physical needs of hygiene, food, and presence. We stayed in the hospital for 2-3 weeks (with recurring hospital visits for complications).
Quickly after we figured out our marital living situation in her small 3-bed apartment with 2 roommates, our relationship devolved. Specifically, she was irritable because of the pain she was in, causing her to lash out at me with regular frequency for small things. If I didn’t put clothes away in the right place, didn’t anticipate her needs (without her communicating them), or ate the wrong food in front of her she would shout at me and decry me for my thoughtlessness.
These small, critical engagements were wounding and created a distance between us – and there was no upside. She was never kind, never paid mind to needs I might have, and started down a path of cultivating a root of bitterness in her soul. She quickly revealed herself to be venomous, hateful, and vindictive when she felt like she was wronged — and any observation of concern about our marriage resulted me in being accused of being mean or insensitive, even if I spent hours or days calculating the best way to share my concern (and I have a master’s degree in communication where I focused in studying disagreement — I know how to carefully package concerns).
During this time, I worked hard to provide for us, foreseeing a significant time period where I would have to be primary financial provider and caregiver. I increased my income each year we were married by around 25%, finishing our marriage at >$80,000 in yearly income, compared to starting our marriage at a modest $42,000 salary (including dramatically improving our healthcare). Frankly, I increased my income to provide for us in spite of the lack of support at home.
But to be clear: I don’t think it would have been particularly difficult to provide financially if I had an ounce of support at home.
However, the relentless criticism and expectation of mind-reading continued through the years. I rationalized this abuse for the first year of our marriage because of all the excuses to be cruel, she had a good one – she had cancer. I hung onto a hope that it would stop. Contrary to my hope, as the years went on – and our expenses climbed – and I continued to work myself to the bone – she continued to relentlessly critique and even started being more emotionally demanding, expecting me to take responsibility for her inability to cope with her emotions – I was drowning. She was asking too much of me. There was no deliverance from her abuse.
I was exhausted. In the peak of the abuse I endured at her hand, I was working multiple jobs, sleeping 10+ hours a night and napping frequently during the day around meetings and work, then coping with alcohol to numb myself to the abusive dynamic and fall asleep with no support from her. The only time I could approach her sexually was when I was intoxicated, with inhibitions lowered. The only time I could have a conversation with her was with a counselor in the room. Without something to mitigate opportunity for her to be cruel to me, either a mediator or self-medication, I was scared.
I lived at home in a constant state of alert and cognitive fatigue. No matter how I tried to make sense of my home life, I couldn’t. When she looked at or touched me, I would recoil in fear, anticipating some sort of incisive critique or demand expressed. Then she would criticize me for not responding warmly to her, exacerbating the cycle.
I couldn’t meet her needs – I was utterly exhausted. When I would tell her of the exhaustion I experienced in marital counseling, her responses were typically something along the lines of not believing me, denying what I was saying was true, or calling my exhaustion an ‘excuse’. I could interact happily with my friends… why not her?
I did not deny her demands were legitimate; rather, I expressed my inability to meet them because of how fatigued I was. I said ‘I can’t’ so many times. I realize her demands were small; affection, saying ‘i love you’, complimenting her. But it’s disorienting to be consistently berated and belittled by a person and then asked to compliment them and tell them you love them.
The push and pull of abuse is exhausting to a person who is not mentally because it does not make sense.
Further, in counseling I realized that I have forgotten that I have needs. I have lost the tools to even evaluate what my needs might be because, implicitly and explicitly in my marriage, I was told my needs don’t matter.
My marriage made no sense; I was obviously drowning, exhausted with the demands our life imposed on me. I was doing everything I could to get straight. I was in individual therapy, marital counseling, pastoral counseling, trying different antidepressants (4 in total – all with no effect), changing eating habits, trying to reduce my drinking, getting medical tests to see if I had health issues causing my fatigue, and being vulnerable in my friendships in an attempt to invite others in to process and move forward and figure out my marriage. I desperately shared everything I could about my marriage, hoping someone else would crack the code where I couldn’t.
None of my efforts worked. I could not get out of the exhausted state I was in. It’s worth noting here that within weeks of separating I almost completely cut out alcohol, got into a regular sleep schedule, was waking up at 6-7am every day and reading multiple hours (which I couldn’t do in marriage due to cognitive fatigue/distraction), and experienced a resurgence of energy. I have felt the duress I was under lift and lift and lift and the weeks and months have went on.
In retrospect, I was experiencing cognitive fatigue because I was taking the demands my wife was placing on me seriously, but no matter what I did I could not make sense of them. How could she not see that I was doing everything I could to make ends meet – the ends which she was imposing on me? I did not have additional energy left. She would ask me ‘Do you love me?’ and I didn’t know how to respond. How is my work not at least some symbol of love? My dream was to be a poor professor, which she knew – instead I was grinding myself to the bone, working in digital marketing with multiple freelance projects, picking up a bartending gig and a teaching gig on top of full-time employment.
The last straw was when she accused me of abuse. I took that accusation seriously, and weighed it against my experience. ‘Am I an abuser?’ I asked myself. I sorted through my behavior and how I treated her. I came to the conclusion that I may be a poor husband in serious ways; but I am not an abuser. And the abuse question opened the door to the question… ‘I may not be an abuser… but is there abuse in our marriage?’ And the answer quickly became ‘Yes.’
When we were married, I understood that she wasn’t going to work much for a while. However, she worked the bare minimum she could for 4 years, earning at most in a single year $18,000. As the years went on and my income climbed, our debt continued to climb as well. She was still contributing the same, yet spending frivolously on useless knick knacks for our home and a cat. As I packed up our home to sell, the majority of items were dozens of boxes of useless junk she’d accumulated.
She lived a life of mania around finances. We would go to marital counseling and she would regularly express, ‘I would rather be poor and happy than rich and sad’. We were poor and sad. Sure, my income was the highest it’d ever been – but we were still drowning, with debts climbing. At the end of our marriage, we’d accumulated about $20,000 in consumer debt between credit cards and personal loans.
It was traumatizing (and abusive) to go to counseling and be told by my partner she would ‘rather be poor and happy and than rich and sad’ when the factual scenario we were living was neither. She actively denied reality – both my lived experience and the reality of our finances – at my expense. It was killing me, trying to make sense of what we were going through but being unable to make sense of what I was being told and what I was experiencing.
Throughout this time, it is worth adding that she also leveraged my spiritual leadership to ‘set me straight’. I was in a conservative Evangelical space, believing that men are the ultimate provider in a family unit and primarily responsible for the status of the marriage. Because I was not doing what she wanted me to (lavishing her with affection), I was muscled into multiple groups and meetings where pastoral care intervened to restore our marriage. In the moment, I submitted to my pastoral care because of my trust for them and my faith in God. Now, I believe this dynamic was abusive; my pastoral care did not care in any sense for my soul; they only cared about fixing my marriage. No questions around ‘why’ my marriage was so bad were asked; only what was going on and how it could be fixed. I relish the thought of my pastoral care being held accountable for the abuse they exercised upon me during this time on judgment day, albeit through a shaken faith in a God that would enable this dynamic.
With my spiritual community, I shared that I felt like she was my tormentor; that she it felt as if I were on the ground due to exhaustion, and she was standing on my throat, telling me to ‘get up’ and ‘tell me you love me’; that our metaphorical life was a boat, sinking, and I was desperately bailing out water. All the while, she stood at the other end of the boat, desperately bailing water in and looking at me like I was a maniac.
And yet, because there was no adultery, there was no category for divorce. We had sworn an oath before God and were required to fix this.
As I reflect upon my marriage (and the ongoing divorce proceedings), a few things are clear.
She is an abuser. I don’t think she intends to be, but impact matters. She is mentally ill and unable to reckon with basic reality.
She is a manipulator. She manipulated my spiritual community against me. I was viewed as someone to be corrected while begging for help from my trusted friends and pastoral care, whom I now regret being vulnerable with due to their abuse and denial of my reality because I didn’t fit neatly into their thin theological categories.
She is an enslaver. In divorce proceedings, she is doing everything she can to get every dollar from me, leveraging student loans I did not co-sign, my continually increasing income due to my hard work, and denying every claim of dissipated assets she can.
It is truly a mind-breaking experience to see your compassion leveraged against you for money. I had to sit under an attorney proclaiming to a judge that, since I consented to move up our marriage date before her cancer surgery, ‘I knew what I was getting into’. That she is entitled to large sums of money (that do not exist; we never had more than $3000 in our bank account during marriage) due to that decision.
Even apart from the abuse, I did not know what I was getting into. Including the abuse, I am full of remorse for having invited such an evil, hateful person into my life.
This experience has been the most challenging to my faith. As I endured abuse from her, I trusted God in a few ways. That the compassion I showed would maybe be rewarded – or, at least not punished. That my spiritual community wanted what was best for me. That God was not a punitive, hateful God (like my partner). I do not believe this trust was well placed, but am open to shortcomings in my views here.
I struggle to consent to a God that allowed my experience to occur. I’m open and processing in some kind of faith, but I really don’t know what it looks like to find a place to put this pain and betrayal that I’m experiencing.
I am a survivor of abuse, and the abuse I endured was mind-shattering. I sacrificed everything to support a partner diagnosed with serious bodily illness, which drove her to hate me and deny my lived experience because she could not reconcile it with the hatefulness she cultivated over our marriage, choosing bitterness over any positivity for four years, poisoning my well-being in the process.
What I envisioned to be the most compassionate moment of my life — marrying a person with cancer and promising to support and love them — has become nothing but a symbol of pain and remorse. I envisioned a life where my partner and I would fight against the terror of cancer; instead she hopped to the other side, choosing her ongoing health issues as the ally and myself as the enemy.
It took me 4 years to realize it. And as she drags me through court to leverage every dollar out of me I can, my only regret is that I didn’t leave my abuser to her own devices sooner; self-pity, hatefulness, and a sheer disregard toward taking responsibility for anything.
I am grateful but drowning. As we are negotiating settlement, the end is near, and my abuser will soon be unable to execute any influence in my life.
submitted by Medium-Wing-4710 to abusesurvivors [link] [comments]


2024.05.19 00:06 Careful-Bat457 I finally want to cry with my T, but how could i resolve this block?!

The story is long, sorry for not writing it down now,but i just wanna get to the point. It terminated my T few months ago (because i had to move..). She could be my mother in age, i am F in my twenties. Recently i feel like she took on a parental role for me, because i really have a shitty family story, and i feel like i can finally really trust someone in my life, although i know i still have projections, and my abandonment anxieties r under the surface. But our termination kinda saved me, it was an intense session, and i had an experience with “good ending”, and not a terrible, hurting one like previous life experiences. She hugged me for the first time, i was really upset internally in this ending process, so this saved me. It was a feeling i was always looking for, but never found it, my traumas isolate me from emotional closeness. That feeling stayed in me for weeks, the softness she gave was truly a milestone. She also reassured that her door will be open for me, and we also exchanged 1-2 emails since, because i sent her my bigger life accomplishments. So i really feel like finally someone did not disappear from my life, and being a role model (also we are on the same carrier path, so going to be collegues one day haha). SO the main point: i could never cry when being in session, in the termination i got close,but could not let it out. Something block me inside so hard, that i don’t even feel anthing close to crying. I am going back to her in a few weeks again, for a “visit” session, and i have some bottled up things, i would want to let it out somehow… cause eventually i dont want to pay for laughing all over the session anymore.. And she really tried to gain my trust, support me, make me feel safe,but still it is so hard to show my sad face in front of someone, no one ever saw my crying in my life except my mother. I just don’t know how to get past this. Although i feel like if i hug her again then i would get close to crying, maybe that would help, but i dont want to cry in the end of the session when time is over.. Idk what to do with my brain, i am sick of my facade, i want to change, and the safest person i could try this with, is her. Any experiences?!💔
submitted by Careful-Bat457 to askatherapist [link] [comments]


2024.05.19 00:02 Careful-Bat457 I finally want to cry with my T, but how could i resolve this block?!

The story is long, sorry for not writing it down now,but i just wanna get to the point. It terminated my T few months ago (because i had to move..). She could be my mother in age, i am F in my twenties. Recently i feel like she took on a parental role for me, because i really have a shitty family story, and i feel like i can finally really trust someone in my life, although i know i still have projections, and my abandonment anxieties r under the surface. But our termination kinda saved me, it was an intense session, and i had an experience with “good ending”, and not a terrible, hurting one like previous life experiences. She hugged me for the first time, i was really upset internally in this ending process, so this saved me. It was a feeling i was always looking for, but never found it, my traumas isolate me from emotional closeness. That feeling stayed in me for weeks, the softness she gave was truly a milestone. She also reassured that her door will be open for me, and we also exchanged 1-2 emails since, because i sent her my bigger life accomplishments. So i really feel like finally someone did not disappear from my life, and being a role model (also we are on the same carrier path, so going to be collegues one day haha). SO the main point: i could never cry when being in session, in the termination i got close,but could not let it out. Something block me inside so hard, that i don’t even feel anthing close to crying. I am going back to her in a few weeks again, for a “visit” session, and i have some bottled up things, i would want to let it out somehow… cause eventually i dont want to pay for laughing all over the session anymore.. And she really tried to gain my trust, support me, make me feel safe,but still it is so hard to show my sad face in front of someone, no one ever saw my crying in my life except my mother. I just don’t know how to get past this. Although i feel like if i hug her again then i would get close to crying, maybe that would help, but i dont want to cry in the end of the session when time is over.. Idk what to do with my brain, i am sick of my facade, i want to change, and the safest person i could try this with, is her. Any experiences?!💔
submitted by Careful-Bat457 to TalkTherapy [link] [comments]


2024.05.18 23:58 Ok-Dragonfruit-8226 My partner feels terrible and I’m not sure what to do

For clarity I am the partner with bpd traits. Me and my bf( who does not have bpd) have been together for almost three years. We got into a big fight and it’s just a mess. My head is still not clear so whatever I’m saying may seem contradictory. I have a lot of trauma from SA and we planned to talk on text about comforts regarding intimacy.
Everything was fine he called me per usual and once the time we decided to text about the comfort and boundary thing, he didn’t reply for a few minutes and told me accidentally fell asleep. By then I already reached a conclusion that he’s just going to use for my body and it went on and on and he told me it’s not true, tried to reassure me and all until he suddenly told me to send him the link for us to sleep in( we sleep on calls) he said he felt like hurting himself so wanted to sleep as a time out. He also hurt himself a few days ago and he promised he wouldn’t again.
What do I do to support him? He said he’s been feeling depressed because of his studies, other life stressors and sometimes when I split that plays a role, even tho it isnt the main cause it’s still hurting him. Has anyone with a partner with bpd felt this? He’s very patient and understanding but I even split more when he abruptly said to send the link. It felt like it proved my intial thought right. He said I’m not the reason he feels this way and that he’s just getting over somethings and this misunderstanding triggered him further.
I really gave it my all to be supportive despite splitting , I disliked how I kept slipping up I dislike how I sounded support one minute and the next minute seemed angry. Anyone has any advice? I feel terribly guilty because he says I’m not the reason but his urges seem to increase whenever I split .
I’m just very angry I want to tell him either accept how I am or don’t accept how I am because he always makes me feel bad for splitting nowadays because then he starts to feel terrible urges somehow and I won’t ever say this to him because it’s terrible thing to say to someone.
submitted by Ok-Dragonfruit-8226 to BPDPartners [link] [comments]


2024.05.18 23:57 sjanevardsson The Keeper, the Seeker, and the Avatar

After nearly thirty years of research, field work, digging, and sometimes living off the land, Ana had finally found what her family had sought since her great-grandfather. The door was so well hidden that she hadn’t realized it was there until she attempted to break a bit of the surface rock off with her geologist’s hammer. The hollow behind the door resonated with the sound of the hammer on stone.
She tapped along the door to find the edges. With the chisel end of her hammer, she chipped away the encrustations that had built up along the edges. After hours of hammering, chiseling, and digging at the base, the outline of the door was visible. Made of the same rock as the surrounding gneiss, it had gone unnoticed for untold millennia.
Ana pushed the door from the sides, the middle, the top, the bottom, looking for the smallest movement. The door didn’t budge. She sat, leaning against the door on the flat bit of ground she’d dug out. She ate some of the year-old jerky she had in her pack while the sun set.
It was a clear, moonless night, and Ana focused her attention on the whirl of the Milky Way overhead. The sight wasn’t enough to keep her mind off the stubborn door behind her and the aching of her joints from sitting on the rocky ground.
She stood and turned to take a last look at the door for the day. Even in the faint light of the stars, she thought she could make out the edges. At one corner, a flash caught her eye. She moved her head back and forth, trying to find the position that had, she thought, reflected light.
Not finding it, she pulled out her flashlight and shone it on the corner of the door where the flash was. She expected to see a reflection but saw none. She turned out the light, and there it was, except it was two flashes this time.
There was no doubt it was coming from inside, shining out a pinhole in the door seam at the upper left corner. “Monkey see, monkey do?” she asked herself. She pointed the flashlight at the corner and flashed it twice. When nothing happened, she flashed it again.
The response was five flashes. “Oh, fibbi-whatever,” she muttered. “Three and five is eight.” She flashed the light eight times. There was no immediate response. She began to worry that she’d been wrong in her counting or in what pattern they were looking for.
A loud hiss sounded as the whole door slid out away from the wall. Bright light shone around the edges of the door that continued to slide out, far thicker than she’d expected. Where she’d stopped digging in front of it, the door bulldozed its own path.
It stopped with a little less than a meter clearance between the back of the door and front of the rock wall. Beyond lay a downward-sloping walkway. It was shaped like an oval with a flattened floor. A voice echoed from within, “Enter, Anastasia.”
She didn’t know how they knew who she was, but she wasn’t going to turn back after having come so far. She stepped around the door, held by a single, flat piece of metal that disappeared into a groove in the ceiling. The metal that held the massive slab of stone looked far too flimsy for purpose, but pushing against the edges of the open door did nothing to sway the door or distort the metal support.
With a deep breath, Ana threw her pack over her shoulder and stepped into the hallway. As she continued down the hall, more would illuminate ahead of her while behind her, the lights shut off. Where the light came from was a mystery to her, but she was more interested in what lay ahead at that point.
She felt a slight, sudden increase in air pressure in the tunnel, followed by the echoing sound of the door as it closed. She pushed down the edges of panic that wanted to take hold. “I’m on my way,” she said to the tunnel.
The deeper she went, the more the temperature seemed to settle at close to fifteen or sixteen degrees Celsius. Her lips felt dry in the still air, and she applied lip balm while she continued apace ever deeper. Somewhere far underground, the tunnel curved back on itself and kept descending. After two more switchbacks, and what felt like hours of walking, she found herself in a chamber.
It was monumental in scale. The walls curved to meet at least twenty meters overhead. As the lights in the chamber came up, the far side looked a hundred or more meters away, while the doorway she was in was situated about twenty meters from the walls on either side. Covering the bottom two-thirds of the walls were row upon row of plastic-like boxes with lights blinking inside them.
In the center of the chamber was a dais with a holographic glyph floating in the air above it. Standing next to the dais was the owner of the voice she’d heard on entering. The shape was semi-translucent, the lights from the boxes behind it seeming to light it from within. “Welcome,” it said, although it had no mouth with which to speak. Its form shifted and changed, from an amorphous blob to an array of wings and eyes, then through creatures both real and mythical, until it finally settled into the shape of a large woman with wings.
“Who are you?” Ana asked.
“I am the keeper,” it said. “You are Anastasia, the seeker, yes?”
“I’m Anastasia Kell, but I go by Ana.” Ana moved closer to the center of the chamber and the shape-shifting entity at its center. “What is your name?”
“I am the keeper. I have no name.”
“Fine, I’ll call you Odette, then. You look like an Odette.”
The keeper flapped its wings twice, then shrunk its body by adding a long tail. “That is acceptable, seeker Anastasia.”
“Please, just call me Ana.”
“Of course, Ana. Please, come to the dais for your reward. Your dedication has won through.” The keeper moved away from the dais and extended an arm toward Ana. The arm kept extending, reaching Ana’s hand twenty meters away from the keeper.
Ana was surprised that the hand felt warm and dry. She’d expected some sort of slimy, cold thing, but it wasn’t. She let herself be led to the dais. “What are you?”
“I am the keeper.”
“Are you a biological creature or a construct of some sort? Some sort of soft-body robot, maybe.”
“I am a biological construct, designed to keep a record of all intelligent life on this world. I have been keeping these records for 72,363,412 years.”
“Since what…the dinosaurs?”
“Yes. The first were theropods. Traveling in hunter groups, they had a limited language. If they had been more adaptable, they might have not been already dying out by the time of the asteroid.” The keeper changed its shape to a theropod that Ana didn’t recognize. It was about the same height as her, with three-toed feet, three-fingered hand on medium-length arms, and a slightly domed head.
“That’s what they looked like?” she asked.
“Yes.” The keeper shifted into the shape of a porpoise. “There were and are the cetaceans, of course. They have language and culture but are not in a position to leave their cradle.”
“Is that what you’ve been waiting for? An intelligence capable of space travel?”
“Yes. My creators have placed other keepers like me on millions of worlds.” The keeper changed into a sphere. “This is where I am keeper.”
“So now, humans, I guess, are what you’ve been looking for.”
The keeper changed into a primate that resembled a chimpanzee and then morphed through several hominin species shapes, pausing on Neanderthal before finishing up with modern human. “I’ve watched entire civilizations come and go without so much as a scratch to mark them in the geologic record, and yet your kind has made an indelible mark on the planet. Whether that is for better or worse remains to be seen.”
“My guess would be worse, but I’m a pessimist.”
“So you say, but you never stopped searching for the library at the heart of the world.”
“True.” Ana took a deep breath and put a hand on the dais. The holographic glyph hovering above it disappeared, and an eight-limbed creature appeared in its place.
The creature spoke in English, even though its squishy mouthparts made movements that were often in total contradiction to the sounds it made. “Welcome, seeker Anastasia. Updating. Welcome, Ana. What would you like to learn today?”
“What are my limits here? This place was hard enough to find, what kind of things won’t you tell me?”
“The records will answer any questions you have that can be answered. Nonsensical and paradoxical queries will be ignored. The library is hidden to ensure that only those ready to take the next steps beyond their cradle can find it. As such, all our knowledge is yours for the asking.”
“So, I blinked a light in a simple sequence. How does that mean we’re ready to take the next steps – whatever those are?”
“You are the fourth generation of your family that has searched for the library, correct?” the holograph asked.
“I am.”
“And you have spent the majority of your adult life in the same search, have you not?”
“I have,” she said, “but how does that–”
“Multi-generational planning and execution, combined with drive and determination, and the knowledge of basic mathematical concepts. This is enough to start with.”
“Are you just another aspect of Odette?”
“No, I am the avatar of Krshnlgik-mlOgnk, the current head of remote planetary studies on our home world of MFkst.” The pronunciation of the non-translated names sounded more like someone choking in a bowl of oatmeal than a language.
“Is faster-than-light communication possible?”
“It is. I am currently speaking with you from a distance of thirty-one thousand light years.”
“How?”
A series of formulae appeared in the space above the dais. “You may use your phone to photograph these, since memorization might be difficult.”
Ana did. “And faster-than-light travel?”
The formulae were replaced with more, some of which looked similar to the first. She photographed those as well.
“Do you have any other questions?”
“How can you claim to keep track of everything happening all over the world?”
“The keeper, or Odette as you call it, has a connection through quintillions of microscopic wormholes to points all over the planet.”
“So, would you have the contents of the Library of Alexandria as they were just before it burned?”
“We do.” Thousands upon thousands of titles scrolled by, many in languages Ana couldn’t even guess at, but with an English translation next to them.
“That might be something for another day,” she said. “Are there others out there in the galaxy or just your people?”
“There are many others,” the avatar said, as images of dozens of strange body plans showed. “We are a small part of a wider galactic community.
“You seem to be pondering something,” the keeper said. “Do not be afraid to ask your question.”
“How do we get off this rock and join the galactic community?”
The keeper morphed into the shape of a cozy chair and said, “Get comfortable.”
“Huh? Why?”
“Because,” the avatar answered, “this is going to take a long time to explain.”
prompt: Dream up a secret library. Write a story about an adventurer who discovers it. What’s in the library? Why was it kept secret?
originally posted at Reedsy
submitted by sjanevardsson to HFY [link] [comments]


2024.05.18 23:52 Nervous-Principle751 Should I get an assessment?

First time posting on reddit, bear with me. So, I’m not at my lowest at the moment, I’m reasonably stable in my life (employed and living with my parents), but there are things that still bother me daily (likely some executive dysfuntion or PDA, maybe. Idk). I really want to apply for a new job but it’s been incredibly difficult to even start. I’ve never been diagnosed, barely see a doctor at all in fact, but I’m pretty certain there’s something off with my brain and it bothers me deeply. Maybe adhd, asd, trauma, idk!—not to mention being trans but that’s a can of worms I’m not about to open. My family is not really supportive about anything lgbt or mental health. I’ve been dealing with depression and my mother told me ‘don’t be sad’. That’s what I’m dealing with. So I wanted to chase this on my own preferably, but I have no idea where to start, and I wonder if perhaps I should first seek out a therapist or psychologist. Thoughts?
submitted by Nervous-Principle751 to MentalHealthUK [link] [comments]


2024.05.18 23:50 CDown01 Eagles Peak Pt.3

Previous Part
I woke up to the smell of sausage and eggs. Over by the side of my bed was a tray with a masterfully prepared omelet and sausage to match. That’s not what caught my eye though. What did that was the little note stuck to the side of they tray.
“Sorry for terrorizing you- R”
Was scrawled in barley legible hand writing, Rocco’s I imagined.
“So it can cook but not write?”
I muttered to myself as I got out of bed.
A fresh change of clothes was laid out for me and I decided just not to question it. The clothes fit perfectly and I tried not to let my mind wander as to why that was while I ate breakfast. Rocco’s omelet was outstanding, for a trash panda he made a great cook but I have no idea where he would’ve picked that up. After I finished I brought my dishes downstairs and ran into Stein in the kitchen.
“The clothes fit don’t they? My eyes aren’t what they used to be, I should’ve just sent Rocco up to ask your size.”
“No no, they fit fine, and please don’t send Rocco to do anything without telling me. I think that might just give me a heart attack on the spot. I’m still really not used to all… this going on”
I said gesturing to the raccoon who had wandered into the kitchen and was now flipping me the bird with both his paws.

Stein nodded to me with what I hoped was understanding. As much as Rocco seemed harmless (Maybe… hopefully?) I really didn’t want the furry little demon arriving anywhere near me unexpectedly. We already saw how that went in the basement yesterday. I finished washing my dishes in the sink as Stein ate his breakfast. He seemed so calm and normal, compared to the things I’d seen in this house so far. If you took one look at Bianca you say she looked too good to be true. Rocco is… well, he’s a talking raccoon, that’s immediately strange. But when it came to Frank and Stein you couldn’t tell there was anything off about them. Honestly I still had trouble seeing where they fit into this whole thing.
I was lost in this train of thought as I went through the motions of taking my groceries out of the refrigerator where someone had put them. I didn’t even realize Bianca was standing behind me till she tapped my shoulder. Jumping out of my skin I screeched out,
“Jesus Rocco what the hell!”
Bianca went from serious to laughing hysterically in no time flat.
“He really has you spooked after last night doesn’t he?”
She barely got out between bouts of laughter.
“I’m sorry really, oh and I’ve got this for you.”
Chuckled Bianca, handing me a wad of cash with a face that didn’t look remotely sorry for laughing at me.
“Just for that I’ll take it! But I’ve got to ask, how do you have this much cash just lying around, isn’t that a little risky?”
“You’d have to ask my unc… Frank or Stein.”
Bianca answered, stumbling on the apparently familiar lie. As she said this Stein stood up from the table and answered my question.
“Researching the supernatural isn’t always safe but Germany pays its scientists well, even if we don’t work for them anymore.”
“Germany? When did you work with the German government?”
I asked, a sinking suspicion settling into the pit of my stomach.
“1941, The Führer requested me specifically and I met Frank there. Oh don’t look at me like that! I didn’t support his cause, he simply wanted to look into forces outside his control and that was my specialty. It was business nothing more.”
Stein responded, pointing his finger at me and sounding a little annoyed.
“But that would make you… there’s no way you’re that old. Uh I don’t mean!”
“Think nothing of it, if anything, it means our serum worked. Distilled it from the DNA of a few pureblooded vampires and designed it to slow human aging to a crawl.”
Bianca cut him off,
“Stein, I think I can see steam coming out his ears. Can we maybe give the supernatural stuff a rest? I know you’ve been around it all your life but I think its a bit much for him.”
“Yes, I suppose your right Bianca. I’ll leave you two be then.”
Stein surrendered, as he turned and walked out of the room. Like he hadn’t just dropped yet another bomb on me.
I held myself together much better this time. After talking raccoons and succubi, learning vampires apparently existed in such an offhanded manner just didn’t surprise me as much. At this point I was just about ready to accept any supernatural entity I’d ever heard of existed in some capacity. In fact that might be the best policy moving forward.
“Hey you’re not going to pass out on us again right?”
Bianca asked turning back to me, genuine concern in her voice.
“No, I’ll be fine. The more I hear about this kind of thing the better I am at just accepting it. It’s a lot easier hearing it from one of you guys than having it drop out of the sky at me.”
I joked, walking with Bianca to the door. I noticed my poor attempt at a joke was the first time I said anything about Imalone without feeling like someone would call me crazy. I couldn’t dwell on that for too long right now though, I had to drop off the groceries that had taken me a full day to get. In hindsight though, I’ve had worst trips to the grocery store.
The next few days passed without any real issues, I got things set up in the house and ordered some furniture with the money I got from Bianca. On the second day I figured I should go out and explore the town a bit. I was getting bored being cooped up doing normal things and apparently I wanted to throw a wrench in all that.
“Maybe a bar” I thought to myself as I walked out the door just as the sun had started to think about setting, “Those are always a good place to meet people”.
This is where I tell you I may be just a little awkward. Even back home I didn’t really get out and meet new people much but I figured now is as good a time as any to start. I threw together a quick outfit with the clothes I brought with me from home. Hopefully I looked at least a little bit presentable in khakis and a red dress shirt. I walked out my door and immediately saw Bianca’s house peering out over the town. I considered dropping by to see if Bianca wanted to join me. I had told her about the reasons I ended up in Eagles Peak but I still knew precious little about her. I assumed her past wasn’t all sunshine and rainbows. I wanted to know what exactly drew someone like her to a sleepy little town like this. Maybe seeing if she wanted to join me would be a good opportunity to learn something about her? It’s entirely possible I just wanted to spend more time around her because she was drop dead gorgeous. Maybe it was because she was the first person I bumped into in town? I couldn’t put my finger on it and if we’re being honest I didn’t want to admit the real reason to myself.
That would have to wait for another day though. I had spent so much time thinking about it that by the time I snapped back to reality I was by the greyhound bus stop, well past her house. There was another bus stopped there and people were getting off of it. None of them looked like what I would call a local but its not like I’d really know what a “local” looked like here anyways. Still, this town couldn’t get this many visitors right? It was weird but probably had a completely reasonable explanation.
“The Eagle’s Roost” read the sign above the bar’s entrance, it was actually a pretty high class looking establishment. The fresh red paint gleamed against the faded whites and grays of the other buildings on the street. Inside, a well polished dark wood floor greeted me. The room was completed by a roaring stone fireplace and a well used set of stools by the counter.
“Hey there! Anyone home?!”
I called out into the empty bar.
“Give me a minute!”
Replied a deep gruff voice form the back room. Eventually a man emerged from the room, well I say man but what I mean was a mountain in human form. This guy had to be about 7 feet tall and built from solid granite. Seriously, the muscles on this guy would’ve put The Rock to shame.
“Little early to start drinkin’ isn’t it?”
The mountain grunted judgmentally.
“Well I’m new here I just wanted to see the town. I could come back later if you want.”
“New, why didn’t you say so! New here, I haven’t seen anyone new here in years! come sit down if you’ve got questions about this place I can probably answer them!”
The now elated giant boomed at me. He turned hospitable in an instant, offering me a drink on the house for his poor manners before. His name was Tucker and he’d come to the town years ago as a foreman for it’s mine. The mine dried up and the workers moved on but something about this town spoke to him and he decided to stay. He opened up this bar and the rest is history. Something about the way he talked about the mine did’t sit right with me though. He kept mentioning how it dried up like he was trying to convince me that was what happened. Plus a mine out here didn’t exactly make much sense to me.
“So you run this place alone then?”
I asked, more to be polite than out of genuine curiosity. We had started to run out of things to talk about after conversation about the mine dried up much like it apparently had.
“Never needed any help besides my wife’s, but most days I just run the place alone, yes. No sense in hiring help here, not many people looking for work outside of the ones working at that grocery store down the street. Anyways I should get back to work, its getting to be about time we actually open to the public.”
I turned my head to look at the sign I now realized was stuck to the door. “Eagle’s Roost Hours: 6PM-1AM every night”. I realized with embarrassment I had walked through the door an hour before opening. Tuck had been nothing but friendly though, and I almost felt bad for assuming the locals like him would want to shoo me away. After all, everyone I’d met so far had been nothing but nice, not including Rocco that is.
As I turned my attention back to my drink I thought about the mine again. I hadn’t seen any records of the mine Tuck mentioned in my internet searches of the town before I came here. Honestly it had been incredibly difficult to dig up anything on the town. I wasn’t necessarily the most thorough in my search, but mines tend to be a staple of the towns they’re located in. This mine in particular seems to be what the town was built on. I’m not sure what had me so worked up on this mine issue but I was sure it was important. I sat there at the bar, mulling it over and sipping on my drink when a hand slapped down on my shoulder.
The man it was attached to said something but I couldn’t catch it even if I wanted to. I was far to laser focused on the mark seared black into the mans hand, the exact same eagle that was burned into my back. I pushed him off and bolted for the door, all I heard behind me was the mans confused “What?” And Tuck shouting at him.
“Now what in the Blazes did you do to the poor kid Robert!”
I shot off into the street from the bar, no one was chasing me but the fact that the symbol was here had set me off like a deer running from a gunshot.
“What the hell happened to you?”
Called a now familiar, heavily accented voice from the alleyway.
“Rocco, what are you doing out here?”
I questioned, bewildered at finding him out in the open. I’d never admit it but seeing a familiar face, even Rocco’s, calmed me down a little
“I’m a raccoon in an alleyway, what do you think I’m doing, fishing? No, I’m rootin' around in the trash, Frank needs some lithium foil and he can’t be bothered to run out and buy some batteries himself, stingy bastard.”
He retorted, looking for all intents and purposes like a normal raccoon at the moment.
“Even if I were to guess I wouldn’t have even come close to that.”
“I live to surprise”
Rocco sneered, taking a bow dripping with sarcasm.
“Anyways Frank is back at the house right? There’s something I’ve got to tell him.”
I asked, turning and running as soon as I got a response in the affirmative.
“Yeah he is, what exactly is so importa…. And he’s gone”
I made it to their strange high house in record time and burst through the door like I owned the place. For some reason Bianca seemed completely unfazed as I crashed into the entryway without so much as a knock.
“You know, you don’t live here right?”
“Oh yeah, good to see you too Bianca. Anyways, were is Frank, or Stein for that matter I’ve got something to ask.”
“They’re in the basement.”
Bianca said pointing to the door without looking up from the book she was reading.
Her dismissive attitude didn’t even register to me as I made my way down the basement steps. I got to the bottom and an acrid scent assaulted my nostrils.
“Do I even want to know what that is?”
I called into the basement, announcing my presence. Frank emerged from a room to my side decked out in a full lab coat and goggles along with a hairnet to protect what little of his still remained.
“What do you need?”
“You guys seem to know a lot about the supernatural right? Well, does this symbol mean anything to you?”
I said pulling off my shirt and turning my back to show him the mark that woman had left me with. His reaction could best be described by the sound of shattering glass as he dropped the beaker he was holding as he saw the symbol.
“Where did you get that?!”
He yelled more than asked.
“Back in Imalone.”
“Imalone? What’s that supposed to mean?”
It dawned on me that I hadn’t explained it to him like I had Bianca, so I filled him in. I told him the whole truth this time, where the mark came from, what really drove me to Eagles Peak, all of it. Frank listened diligently looking more concerned by the minute, at some point Stein joined him. A similarly shocked look was plastered across his face. I swear he was turning white when he answered my question.
“It’s the mark of the Thunderbird, and from what you told us, you met… her in person.”
“So why do you look so worried about it?”
I asked, feeling a little worried.
“Well she’s marked you personally, most people that have that mark would’ve gotten it to show devotion or allegiance and it certainly wouldn’t have come directly from the Thunderbird.”
The way Stein talked about this “Thunderbird” made me think I may be in even deeper shit than I realized.
“So do you two actually know anything about the Thunderbird?”
I asked, hoping these two would know something considering their long study of the supernatural.
“Until recently I only knew of the native legends surrounding the creature. I heard of people marking themselves with that symbol so I assumed there must be some truth to the legends. But neither me nor Frank has ever seen the Thunderbird, much less seen it..er, her take a human form.”
Stein answered, sounding almost disappointed in himself. I got the sense that not knowing something like this really ate at him. Which was just further proven by what he said next, a grin suddenly appearing on his face.
“Frank, I think we have our next big research project on our hands then.”
“I’ll start pulling any records I can find of accounts like Keith’s here.”
Frank said, hurrying over to a computer in the basement corner that looked ancient.
“Yes and compare those to the various legends surrounding the Thunderbird.”
Stein responded, rifling through a row of cabinets against the far wall.
Those two seemed to be whipped into a frenzy by something they knew next to nothing about being dropped in their laps.
“Guys… Guys! Can we hold off on going full mad scientist mode for just a second I’ve got one more thing to ask!”
I yelled trying to get their attention. when they turned to me I could see the spark in both their eyes as they hastily responded in unison.
“Yes, what!”
“Have either of you heard about a mine in this town? Tuck at “Eagle’s Roost” mentioned it but I don’t remember seeing anything about it when I looked into this town.”
“Ah the mine, it’s out in the forest north of town somewhere. There was a collapse or something a few years after it opened and the town covered it up. It would’ve been very embarrassing for them to admit the screw up so they just… didn’t, that’s all there is too it.”
Frank answered, seemingly bothered by the mundaneness of that question.
“So the mine is still out there then?”
“Of course! What did you think it just walked away? No, leave us be we’ve got work to do.”
Stein snapped.
As I left the two to their business and made my way out of the house I ran into Rocco, several grimy batteries grasped in his paws.
“They uh… I don’t think they’ll need those batteries anymore bud.”
“God damnit! That’s what I get for trying to be helpful.”
Rocco yelled, as he threw the batteries against the wall. I had to chuckle at the absurdity of it all. Here I was walking past a talking raccoon on his way down to two scientists looking into a Thunderbird. That’s a real thing that’s currently happening to me. Just a few days ago simply seeing Rocco knocked me out almost immediately and now he was just a minor inconvenience. Could it be that I was actually adjusting to all the crazy things that had been happening around me? I sure thought so.
Upstairs, Bianca was still nose deep in her book at the kitchen table.
“Hey can I ask you something?”
“Yeah sure, what is it?”
“Ever been into the woods around town? There’s something I want to check out there.”
“I don’t usually leave the house all that much if I’m honest.”
Bianca answered, a touch of sadness in her voice.
“Do you want too? Leave the house I mean.”
“What are you getting at?”
“Well, I’m going to be headed out there tomorrow looking for the old mine.”
“And why are you looking for that?”
She questioned suspiciously.
“I have a feeling it has something to do with the mark that woman… and I forgot I didn’t tell you about that.”
Bianca looked up at me as she said with a smirk.
“I knew there was more to that story from the other night. Why didn’t you tell me?”
I’ll spare you the details but needless to say I told the story again. I really need to start bringing everyone together when I do these things, it would save me time.
“So that’s why you came here, and you think this mine has something to do with it?”
Bianca exclaimed excitedly. I could almost see the lightbulb going off over her head.
“Yeah that’s pretty much it, do you want to come with? I mean you don’t have to go but I”
She cut me off,
“You know what maybe I should go. Two sets of eyes gives us better odds right? And you have a bad history with forgotten places I seem to recall.”
Bianca said with a coy smile.
“That’s what we’ll do then, I’ll get some things ready and stop by tomorrow, we’ll leave from there.”
And before she had a chance to rethink her answer I left feeling pleased with myself.
My next stop was the hardware store on the other side of town. Of course I still had my travel bag from the good old Imalone trip but I figured I’d pick up some more tools that could come in handy.. I ended up with two heavy duty flashlights, some work gloves of various sizes cause I had no idea what size would fit Bianca, and a set of bolt cutters. It was only when I got up to the counter and the clerk gave me the stink eye that I noticed my mistake.
“You planning to break into something kid?”
Questioned the older guy cashing me out. I responded before my brain caught up with my mouth.
“I was planning on it but you guys didn’t sell balaclavas. So I guess I’ll have to wait.”
The man eyed me for a second then burst out laughing as he handed me my things. Which was good because I knew a few places back in Wisconsin where pulling that would’ve got me pulled into a backroom for questioning. Not a lot of people knew how to take a joke back home. Weirdly enough it was the first time I thought of home since coming here. Obviously I had family back there but we weren’t exactly close like I said before. I just found myself missing the familiarity of the area I had lived in for the past 24 years of my life. I think that’s why I came to the decision to call my mother when I got home later that night.
The whole walk home I had this strange feeling of being watched. No-one was there, I’m sure because I checked… several times. But even as I locked the door to my house and starting sorting out a bag of supplies for Bianca, the feeling didn’t go away. As I pulled out my phone to call my mother the feeling finally faded into the background as I got her familiar answering machine.
“Hi, you’ve reached Carla, leave your name and number after the tone.”
Straight and to the point as quickly as possible, that was the best way to describe mom and it showed even in her answering machine.
“Hi mom I bet you’re wondering where I ended up. Well I’m in New York now, in a sleepy little town. Its nice really, I already met some new people they’re… well they’re a bit strange but I think I might fit in with them. I’m still looking for a job but I had a really well paying temp thing the other day so I’ll be fine for a little while. Anyways, hope you’re doing well, love you.”
I teared up a bit as I ended the call, I hadn’t called my mother in at least a year. She never checked up on me and I never checked in with her. We’d see each other at family gatherings and talk but outside of that I didn’t really contact her much anymore. It was sort of a mutual agreement that we both had, we assumed the other was alright. But being this far from Wisconsin, this far from home, had finally caught up with me. I wanted to at least hear her voice, even if it was just a recording.
As I finished up packing for tomorrow I was quite proud of myself. I’d thought of just about everything, I dug some old hiking boots out for myself and some rope from my old travel bag. Several different sets of flint and steel and about three days worth of dehydrated food adorned the top pocket of both bags. I’d even found an old water purification kit that ended up in one of the duffle bags I brought from my apartment. In short, I was the most over prepared for an excursion like this I’d ever been. It did help push back the eyes I felt peering at me from somewhere over my shoulder, the feeling of being watched still not leaving me. Once I laid down and tried to fall asleep the feeling only intensified. Sounds of rolling thunder in the distance reminding me of my time in Imalone and the fury of the storm the Thunderbird brought. I felt strangely confident as well though, tomorrow Bianca and I may finally start to uncover some answers as to why I felt called to this town, and maybe even what this mark could mean for me.
submitted by CDown01 to AllureStories [link] [comments]


2024.05.18 23:48 AcceptableSet3916 "Jealous wedding guest ruins the money shot": An Essay About The Woman In The Photo

First of all, I would like to say THANK YOU to all of you that showed so much love to my first post ever in Reddit!
Since my girl Millie got too much hate for wearing white and ruining the best photo of the wedding, I decided to write her sad story and share it with all of you. It's a LONG tale, full of ups and mostly downs (TLDR at the end of the post). Sooo, grab some cookies and popcorn while I spill the tea ;)
******WARNING******** The story features what I believe to be unsettling content (pregnancy loss) for some. It's hidden as spoiler, so please don't click it if it's a sensitive issue for you. <3
Our story starts with poor young adult who shall not be named (because I don't remember her name). God (me) had big plans and challenges for her, as she started with 0 simoleons in an off the grid island, with hopes of her becoming a millionaire. She moved in the big island without money, a place to sleep, a toilet, nothing. The challenge goes like this: raise money from beachcombing, buy a towel to sleep on, buy a bush to pee in, snorkel, plant and build a life from zero. And, under no circumstances communicate with another sim.
This challenge was too difficult. The loneliness and hardships, the struggle to just survive and find food, led this young girl to her death by drowning in the middle of the ocean. It was too soon, so God decided to try this challenge again, giving the new sim a head start.
That leads us to the protagonist of the story, Millie Carson.
Millie Carson is a young adult who moved in the same island, like a castaway. All she found on that island was a towel, some planted trees, a toilet bush and a grave.
The ghost from the grave came often to haunt and tease her and finally became her enemy.
At first, young Millie tried to stay away from other sims but, since they kept coming and visiting, God decided that it was ok for her to have some friends.
Millie's neighbors were Miki and Ali, a happy couple with two babies. They kept visiting and bringing food to their poor young neighbor, since she was struggling so much. Millie grew close with Ali, who came swimming to her island sometimes.
Meanwhile, Millie learned some skills that earned her some money and food. She became really good at fitness, gardening and fishing. Little by little, she earned enough money to buy diving supplies and took up some diving photography and treasure hunting. All those helped her build a tiny wood home which finally had a toilet and a shower and even a fridge. Life was getting better for Millie, until she started having feelings for her married neighbor...
Millie was attracted to Ali: his long blond hair, his green eyes and dark skin. To her surprise, Ali was interested in her as well. She tried to fight it but it was over her own power to resist. They made sweet woohoo and became a couple, while he was still married with two kids.
Love makes you do stupid things and that's what happened to Millie. She fell in love with a married man and, surprise surprise, she got pregnant with his kid.
While on her 1st trimester, she visited her neighbolover's home to tell him the news. His wife, Miki, opened the door and the sight was unbelievable: She was pregnant as well, on her 3rd trimester. Millie chatted with Miki as nothing was wrong and even socialized with her kids for a bit. But it was now time for Ali to learn the truth. Millie pulled him aside and told him everything.
To her surprise, Ali was content with being a parent to their child. Millie felt his support and fell even harder for him, causing her to do the unthinkable: Woohoo with him all over his tiny house while his wife and two kids were inside! They woohood EVERYWHERE: The small single bed, the kitchen sink, the counters, standing... They almost got caught by Miki, but hopefully she was so pregnant that it took her an eternity to reach the woohoo spot.
Millie started thinking about their future. Tormented by her jealousy, she asked Ali about Miki. Miki's super pregnant belly was an indicator that Ali still loves and woohoos with his wife, two-timing both women. To her dismay, Ali confessed his love about Miki, but he was willing to keep his relationship with Millie. But that wasn't enough for Millie...
Without hesitation, Millie served Ali an ultimatum: It's her or Miki. No love triangles, no hiding. Her kid needed a father and she needed support as a poor young woman. All those pregnancy hormones made her unreasonable - she came between a happy couple and now she felt that her lover's wife stole him from her, even though they were already together! The irony!
Millie couldn't get over her feelings, so she invited Miki over and told her EVERYTHING. That she was pregnant. That the father was poor Miki's husband. Miki got even yelled at for sleeping with her own husband. Millie was out of control.
Like a tsunami, a force that couldn't be stopped, Millie called over Ali and told him to break it off with his wife. It was now or never. Ali did as told and suddenly Miki broke down crying, hating life and those two who ruined it.
Eventually, Miki left and the.. happy couple were finally alone. Millie asked Ali to move in and he gladly accepted. He even proposed and they stayed engaged until after their baby girl, Angelique, was born.
Meanwhile, even though Miki was hating them, she still came over with extra food like a good neighbor. But her relations with the couple never improved much.
The happy couple decided to get married. Millie wore a pretty but simple boho white dress, hair down and golden jewelry. But her joyful smile was the prettiest jewel she could wear. It was a lovely, quiet wedding on the seashore, during sunset.
Soon after, Millie got pregnant again but wasn't ready or happy for it. Unfortunately, there were some complications with the pregnancy and baby Donovan was born dead. They buried him under a lemon tree and cried for many seasons about him.
Ali started helping Millie with gardening, fishing and diving. But his dream was to finally earn his degree in Communications. He still had 3 classes to pass and then he could enter the PR world. He soon earned his degree with a low to medium score and was ready to start working. There was a huge problem, though...
The island was off the grid and he could not apply for the job, not use the very much needed internet. A decision had to be made: Should they live on this island forever, living off the land, or they should move somewhere else and follow Millie's dream to become millionaires?
The choice was easy. The couple moved to Finchwick, in a big cottage house with a big garden, front and back. They brought with them the plants they had gardened with so much love and also bought some chickens. Life was good for a while, baby Angelique was growing but woohoo life was... fine.
Ali found a job in PR and had to work all day, even from home. He had to polish his charisma and writing skills and meet new people. So, that made Millie a stay at home mom, a gardener, a housekeeper. But there was no time for her lifestyle needs: outdoor living and working out. She became frustrated and was always in a bad and uncomfortable mood. She had gained a lot of weight from her pregnancy, she hardly recognized herself in the mirror...All this bad mood made her cranky. Everytime Ali tried to woohoo with her, she had no drive. So, their love life went down the drain...
Meanwhile, Ali was doing great at work, earning at least 2000 simoleons per day. He had met many people, and one of them became a really good friend of his. His name was Gabriel and he was thin, with black short hair, dark skin and modern makeup.
Ali was tormented by his feelings when he hang out with Gabriel. He couldn't understand how a man can be attracted to another guy like that. He was open to the idea, but had never acted upon it. It wasn't the looks - Gabriel was pretty basic. But there was something about the both of them that made him feel... amazing. The attention he got from Gabriel, the friendship.. It was like they knew each other from another lifetime.
Every time Gabriel came over, Ali got excited. He was interested in his words and inner world, not only his appearance. One night, he couldn't take it anymore. While they were talking the backyard table, Ali started flirting with Gabriel. Things got heated fast and they shared the most beautiful first kiss. That was exactly what he always wanted to feel, but was missing from his other relationships. He proposed to have woohoo in the home office, while Millie and Angelique were sleeping unaware upstairs...
They woohood hard and many times. It was a total WoohooFest. Morning came and Ali, having not slept at all, got ready to go to work. He didn't forget to kiss his wife goodbye, but he spent the entire day thinking about Gabriel. By night, he had decided to ask Gabriel to become his boyfriend.
Millie on the other side, was getting better. She bought a walking machine and she often went swimming in the river. Her woohoo drive was coming back strong and that meant more time with her beloved husband. They started woohooing more often, but Ali was also missing Gabriel...
God suddenly had an idea! Ali should ask Millie to have expanded woohoo with someone else, and that someone else couldn't be other than (yes, you guessed it) Gabriel. Ali went on and asked his wife and God told her that yes, it would be fun! So, unaware of God and her husband's plans, she happily accepted to engage in multiple sim woohoo...
Ali was so excited! He couldn't believe his ears! He immediately called over Gabriel and explained the situation. Gabriel accepted as well and it was time for Gabriel to meet with Millie. Millie tried to get to know him but for some reason he was distant. She tried to flirt with him but he didn't reciprocate. Millie got embarrassed and locked herself in her room for some time, to recollect herself. It shouldn't be so hard, right?
At the same time, Ali made his move on Gabriel and they woohood. Gabriel was more than excited to get together with Ali. So, why not Millie?
After Millie got over her embarrassment, she came out the room. Ali proposed having multiple woohoo and they did it. Everyone had a pleasant time.
After that, they got together two more times. But, the last time, at Gabriel's house, was the final blow.
Millie kept trying to flirt alone with Gabriel, not getting the message but, DUDE. He was NOT into her. It was heartbreaking. She tried so hard for her husband, her self esteem and again, she was turned down. A second choice. She didn't deserve it. And then, she though about it. The flirt between Ali and Gabriel. How they would have woohoo, the three of them, but Gabriel was rejecting her. It was time for answers...
Millie first told Ali to end the expanded woohoo agreement. It was too much for her. He wasn't happy about it, but he agreed. And then, she asked the million dollar question: "What's going on between you two?". Ali tried to hide it, told her they were only friends. But God was starting to feel bad about poor Millie, so had her ask again: "WHAT'S GOING ON BETWEEN YOU TWO?"
The answer was like a knife, going through her heart. Ali loved Gabriel and that's all she needed to know. Their woohoo life was non existent before and now had found someone who made him feel better, more... alive! That's all Millie needed to know. She went over to Gabriel and try to make a last, desperate woohoo pass at him. Once more, he rejected her. It was all so clear. She was the third wheel.
Her ego and her heart were stomped on the ground, like a cockroach. A beautiful, kind, hard working sim shouldn't go through all that. She headed back home, to the privacy of her bedroom and cried her eyeballs out. Ali didn't come home that night and went straight to work.
The next day, Millie invited Gabriel over. Oooh no, she wouldn't let him have Ali so easily. She would humiliate him first. He came over and she started yelling at him. Her face was red and hot, she was fueled by rage. She ending up giving him the beating of his life. When Ali came home from work, both his lovers were black and blue from fighting.
Baby Angelique started crying. She had woken up. Millie rushed upstairs to help her toddler with her needs, but Ali and Gabriel stayed downstairs. Ali tried to comfort Gabriel, asking him to stay. He didn't care about his marriage anymore. God led them to the hall upstairs, outside the bedrooms. They started woohooing again, right there, like animals!
Poor Millie, as she opened her daughter's bedroom's door, she caught her cheater husband in the act! THE AUDACITY!!! And if it that wasn't enough, when she went over to slap him, he acted like she wasn't there and went to woohoo in the shower with his boyfriend - AGAIN! WTH!!!
At this point, Millie knew it was time to give Ali the boot and kick him the hell out of their home, and so she did. After Ali's lover left, the married couple had a long, heated conversation that only had one outcome - Ali had to move out immediately.
So, he left and rented a one-bedroom apartment in the city. He also decided to ask Gabriel to live with him, and Gabriel happily accepted. A new chapter started for Ali but unresolved things were left in the middle with his wife that needed to be dealt with.
While all these took place, Millie had gotten close with celebrity Rahul Chopra. They became good friends and she was invited to his wedding. It was a one of a kind event because Rahul had a shotgun wedding with his wife when they were teenagers due to unwanted pregnancy. After many kids later, Rahul's eldest daughter, with the villainous valentine aspiration (long story) decided to break her eternally faithful parents up for fun. So they did break up, but they were so made for each other, like puzzle pieces, that it was impossible to not end up together again.
Rahul fell back in love with his wife and they decided to do it right this time. They planned the perfect wedding event in San Myshuno's park, during sunset. The whole family was there and their 2nd child, Philip (YA) would take the professional pictures of the wedding.
The ceremony started, everyone (almost) was seated and the photographer (and me) were preoccupied with taking the happy couples pictures. As the ceremony ended, the couple was ready to share their first kiss as husband and wife. The air was filled with confetti that floated playfully around them, the fireworks were set off behing them and the sun was showering them with the warmest rays. It was a one time opportunity to get the perfect picture. Philip got ready to press click. And then, she appeared.
Millie, clearly bothered and heartbroken by other people's love, made a run for the exit and ruined Philip's perfect photograph. The angry look on her face would forever haunt Philip's mind. Why would that woman ruin this happy moment and why the hell would she wear white at someone's wedding? I mean, you wouldn't mistake her for the bride, who wore an expensive wedding gown, but still... Something was wrong with this girl and Philip had to find out...
After the wedding, Millie went back home. The days passed and the divorce was not finalized. She asked her kid who she wanted to stay with, but without reply. She called Ali over, but he texted back he didn't want to come over. Millie had her -now child- daughter call over her dad. This time, Ali responded positively and soon after he arrived. Millie took him straight to the lawyers to see who will get custody of Angelique.
This time, God had no plans, God left it all to luck. So, unfortunately, Ali won custody of Angelique, who immediately went to live with him. Now, Millie was alone. Only her and her money and her baby son's grave in the front yard. Now she was angry, NOW HE WOULD PAY.
Millie grabbed Ali and went once again to the lawyers. It was now time to split the estate. At least 100k simoleons in the bank, plus whatever the house is worth. Millie wants to get everything, but once again, God won't interfere. She comes back home, head down, beaten - she lost 80k.
She turns to her new friend, Philip. He is basic, but he's a good guy. He lives alone in an apartment in San Myshuno, studies Fine Arts in university, comes from a good family. He also has a girlfriend that lives across the hall from him, but Millie doesn't know. And God tells her to come onto him. Now Philip has two girlfriends and God must interfere.
God and luck are playing games with Millie's life.
As I'm writing her story, there's only one thing I feel: Sad.
This girl started out with hopes and dreams. So I think that we should forgive her for attending a friend's wedding wearing white. Some God forgot to change her formal outfit and it was all she had to wear. She's going through a lot!
Her story ends for now, but if you guys like it I might write more about her life's adventures.
Also, what should she do with Philip? Let me know in the comments!
If you read this whole essay / story , you are amazing! And thanks! Hope you liked it! :)
TLDR: YA woman starts with 0 money in off the grid island. Wants to earn a million. Gets pregnant by married neighbor with kids. Marries him and they buy new home. They get pregnant second time, lose the baby.He gets a good job, meets new people, gets new guy friend, has woohoo with that friend. The 3 of them have expanded woohoo. Woman breaks it off. Woman confronts husband about loving other man, he confesses he loves him. Woman kicks him out and he lives alone in flat. The other guy moves in with him. Woman heartbroken, goes to friends wedding wearing white, is angry at happy couple's love, ruins the married couple kiss photo. Photo becomes famous on Reddit. Woman loses custody of only child. Woman loses 80k simoleons after splitting estate. Woman becomes girlfriend of the photographer from the friend's wedding. Photographer already has another girlfriend.
*****EDIT*********** I can't believe I forgot to write this, but Millie also drowned in the ocean while being fatigued from diving for treasures. I decided to not save and give her a second chance. Her life is dramatic, UUUUUUGH!!!!
submitted by AcceptableSet3916 to thesims4 [link] [comments]


2024.05.18 23:43 SolidTradition5332 AITA for seeing the guy of my (now ex) best friends fling?

I know the title sounds worse than it is but i couldn't fit all of the details in there.
LONG STORY BUCKLE IN.
For the sake of clarity we will call ex best friend, best friend. And the guy im seeing will be Adam, best friends boyfriend (yes boyfriend) is Zach.
A year ago best friend, Zach, and I moved in to a house together. Zach and best friend are both GM's of a chain restaurant, best friend only got her GM position because of Zach. No one can know this information at work because it's against company policy. When we all moved in together i started working as a shift lead under best friend so we could both guarantee we could pay rent, since she controlled my hours.
While working at this restaurant i met Adam who was a delivery driver, we hit it off really well and became instant friends. It was truly platonic between us during this time.
Zach and best friend's relationship has been going downhill for a while, she kept saying she wants to break up with Zach but he doesn't have another place to go, and she doesn't want him to be homeless. I repeatedly told her she can't keep worrying about that, as he is an adult and needs to figure out life on his own. I reminded her the times we grew the most was when we had to pick ourselves up by the bootstraps and keep going. She said his criminal record would make it difficult for him to get on his feet and she doesn't want that. I told her she could kick him to the spare room at minimum to end their relationship, and she still refused saying "maybe after his birthday, i don't want to break up with him before his birthday"
During this time she was coming to me complaining about wanting to end her relationship but never going through with it, she had started flirting with Adam. Adam knew her situation of wanting to end the relationship, and she kept telling everyone in about a month, soon after Zach's birthday she will end it. This is the only reason Adam was okay with the fling as her relationship was borderline abusive and coming to an end very soon (or so we thought).
Well Zach's birthday happened in January, the whole night was a disaster. Best friend is an alcoholic who had previously gotten a DUI charge for, and was on probation for an extended period of time (unsure how long) and her probation had just ended before Zachs birthday. So they went to a bar and got drunk, got into a fight and Zach left best friend at the bar alone. Thankfully this bar was within walking distance of our house, but i guess best friend got lonely and called Adam to come pick her up. Adam was working with me that night, and he knew if he left he would be missing out on a lot of money. But he left because he wanted to make sure she was okay. When he got there best friend started trying to get sexual with him while blacked out, he forced her to stop by grabbing her hands and telling her to stop. When she wouldn't he threatened to kick her out of the car (they were parked), and she finally stopped. He eventually brought her back to the restaurant where i was managing the shift and getting ready to close. She was drunk as helll y'all. We made it through the night and we all went home.
Both Adam and I assumed Zach and best friend's relationship would definitely be over after that night, as she had promised it would be many times and the night was a disaster. But did she?..
No. She did not. I'm not sure what Zach said to convince best friend to stay but the next day she told Adam she wants to take a step back from this and focus on her relationship with Zach, "hes my best friend still and i love him" is what she said to Adam.
Adam assumed this meant she was ending their fling and focusing on her relationship from now on.
After this happened Adam and I bonded over our disappointment and frustration over best friends decisions. Years ago right after best friends DUI i told her if she ever went back to drinking i would not be her friend. So as soon as she broke her sobriety, i knew this was the beginning of the end of our 10 year friendship. I was grieving, she was my only friend left. Only support system in this city i moved to be with her. It felt like she chose alcohol over her best friend of 10 years. I had given everything i had to offer this girl, a place to live when she was homeless. Clothes, food, i bought her a new phone once. I even helped feed her family when they ran out of government assistance (foodstamps).
And while i do understand alcohol is a disease, she was sober, she could have attended meetings or increased her therapy sessions to avoid relapsing. She didn't care.
Adam texted me one night that he felt he had wasted his kisses on best friend, i ignored the message and went about our conversation like normal as I wasn't sure how to respond to that. I was getting the feeling he was wishing he had kissed me instead, at this time i did not have romantic feelings for Adam so i just didn't respond to that message.
A few weeks go by and Adam and I talk everyday, eventually i started feeling attracted to him. At first i thought maybe this was just period hormones 😂 it was not. I waited 3 weeks before saying anything to make sure my feelings weren't changing. Adam seemed happy to hear i had feelings for him and said its kind of hard not to since we're so alike. So we started our thing. Adam and i made sure to discuss taking things VERY slowly as we didn't want to rush into anything and ruin our friendship. We may hang out and decide we aren't compatible romantically, so until we are sure we aren't labeling anything. I would classify our relationship as a situationship at the moment.
Fast forward a month, I was at work and best friend texted me "I need to ask you something and i need you to keep it to yourself"
I immediately knew she was going to ask me to keep something from Adam since he was the only other person i talked to. She asked me if Adam had been hitting on me recently. I was hesitant to answer as Adam and I discussed not telling anyone for the sake of peace, not to mention we aren't sure of anything so what's the point? But i didn't want to lie to her, so i told her "We didnt want to tell anyone yet as we aren't sure this will lead to anything, but Adam and I have feelings for each other and are kinda seeing each other. We won't be pursuing anything until we aren't working at the same job to prevent any issues"
At first she just said okay. And then the drama starts.
She goes on to say "you know we've been seeing each other for months now right?" (Adam told me every detail of their interactions) I said yes (knowing they weren't seeing each other now).
She asked me how i could do this to her and why would i pursue him, i said "You have a boyfriend, and Adam is single and i have a strong emotional connection with him, that's why im pursuing him"
She replied she was planning on being with him (this was news to both Adam and I since shes never mentioned this to either of us, also hilarious she thinks that as Adam HATES dogs and alcohol, and best friend has a big dog and loves alcohol) She said that would be like her sleeping with my boyfriend (i broke up with my bf in November of 2023 and he was hot garbage) and i said not really, thats comparing apples and oranges.
YALL. She tried to kick me out. I told her that isn't up to her since we both signed the lease, and I have already chosen to renew it.
She said "how could you do this to me, you promised you wouldn't take over my home and that you would move out" (in my previous relationships we had planned on moving states after this first year was up but then we broke up under horrible circumstances, so best friend told me she would be fine renewing with me)
I reminded her that agreement was prior to our new agreement, and if she has an issue living with me she can find a new place to live, as I am fine acting like adults and living cordially.
She started calling me names like a stupid bitch, cunt, and told me to choke on my spit.
All of this is going down while i was at work, i was so stressed out i ran outside and ended up throwing up. I blocked her on social media. Then it occurred to me she might try to fire me to force me to move out if i can't pay my rent, so i texted her if she tries to fire me in retaliation or if she cuts my hours in retaliation i will report her for everything to everyone (Zach is not on the lease of our house so i could report her for that, in my state i would not get into trouble for her breaking the lease i double checked). She texted back please dont report her, if i dont mess with her stability she wont mess with mine. That is where our agreement stands.
There are more details after this situation happened so if anyone wants an update i will provide that but this is already wayy too long.
So, AITA for seeing the guy my ex best friend was seeing for less than 3 months while she was in a relationship?
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