Hello, one and all. Been lurking for a while. Thought I'd share my experience thus far. I'm a 45-year-old female who herniated L4/L5 in early January. I'm, therefore, four months, two weeks post-injury.
It's a mild-ish protrusion pressing on nerves and causing sciatica. I have never had back pain. I'm a Brit. I plan to get over this conservatively and do not intend to have any injections or surgery. Note that I have some trouble lifting my left foot and walking as normal on that side, but everything is functional. I am able to lift my toes and heels, and I have full sensation everywhere.
From my scan, disc height is compromised only a tiny bit (I have juicy discs). I have a very wide and spacious nerve canal. No other issues aside from a transitional disc below (born with more bone than disc at L5/S1, very common, and I'm luckily in the "won't cause pain" camp) and a slight bulging disc above, which isn't pressing on anything. The transitional disc is likely to have led to this injury. But moving house finally pushed me over the edge, lifting things the wrong way.

The first month

The first month was obviously painful. Terrible sleep; sciatica was awful (burning in my left calf and left foot with some right foot tingling), and I was very stiff and leaning forward most mornings. Doing McKenzie cobras in those early days helped massively. And amazingly, I kept up with walking and averaged 15,000 steps daily. It wasn't painful. But I was taking Ibuprofen and paracetamol. I believe a lot of my sciatica has been caused by inflammation.
Back then, I was seeing a physio and doing some basic pelvic tilts, bridges, calf stretches, cat/camels, and – like I mentioned – cobra poses. Otherwise, I would mostly lie on the floor, on my front, resting. Or walking outdoors. It would take me three hours just to pluck up the courage to shower. And I could only stand under the hot water for less than a minute before lying on the floor again. Sitting was impossible. I couldn't use the car. I couldn't sleep on my left side. I would crawl down the stairs each morning after barely any sleep and go straight to the drugs. I couldn't make breakfast or do anything. But as each day wore on, I'd become less stiff and more upright and be able to walk for miles.

In search of a silver bullet

I tried everything in February and March. Acupuncture, physio, McKenzie stuff... They put me on Amitriptyline initially, but I hated it. And so they gave me Gabapentin. This helped with sleep and dialled down the pain significantly (I was on 300mg three times a day). I vaguely remember a crazy day when I walked into my local town, sat, and had cake and tea with an old friend. Still to this day, I can't figure out how! Boy, those drugs worked!
By the end of March, I discovered Egoscue and began posture therapy. I did it religiously for six weeks and even began working with a therapist. But it wasn't helping. And I didn't see any improvements. I also decided to come off the Gabapentin during this time, as I felt totally off my face and hated it.
Around February, I also discovered Dr Stuart McGill. And read his excellent book, Back Mechanic. I learnt about spine hygiene and loads of other helpful stuff. Gradually, little by little, turning in bed got easier (brace that core) and getting up out of bed and off the toilet became pain-free, too. But I just wasn't seeing massive improvement.

Finding the right approach

That's when I decided to see a Master Clinician under McGill. Wow. It was the best money I had ever spent, and I'd spent more on acupuncture!
He went through my scan, was the only one to tell me about the transitional disc, and asked what I'd been doing thus far. He recommended that I give the posture therapy and the walking a break, just for a few weeks, to see if we could calm the inflammation down. And so I did. I rested. I mostly lay on the floor on my front or back and only moved around the house. No outdoor walking. No McKenzie cobra poses (which I've since discovered do more harm than good long-term and adopt a gentler version McGill recommends and says is just as effective). That was back in early April. And following his advice alone? I saw immediate improvements. In fact, the very next day, I was pain-free for seven hours. I couldn't believe it – just by resting.
I only rested for three weeks, and then I decided to try walking outdoors again. My gosh. The difference after the break! I could barely do ten minutes around the block without pain. It was too much. (I could never walk first thing before either – only later on in the day. But it would usually be fine.) But my back specialist wanted me to try walking three times a day, starting small. So, I persisted. He told me to stop if walking made things worse, though. Thankfully, it's been three weeks since I began walking outdoors again, and I'm making great progress. I can now get up from bed and walk immediately (I had to give it an hour before I ventured out of the house). And I can walk for half an hour, too. Three times a day. I find that a morning walk is crucial. I am stiff and a little sore at first, but it eases. And sets me up for the day. I also enjoy two or three hours of no pain when returning home.

Finally seeing progress

Since early April, the improvements have been gradual but almost daily. They're so small sometimes that you hardly notice them! It's only when you look back that you realise how far you've come!
In the six weeks since I worked with my back specialist, I have seen the constant burning sciatica in my foot and calf mostly disappear. Initially, I had a lot of fuzzing. That has now subsided, and since then, it's gone from fuzzing to cold water feelings and tingling... with occasional burning again (mostly only in the top of my calf), but that goes quickly. Now and again, I'll get a random ten minutes of a burning foot again, but it soon disappears.
A few weeks ago, I started getting new sharp and painful jolts in my left hip. That's apparently blood returning to the nerves. For the last week, I have barely had any foot or calf issues—I mostly have sharp pulling nerve pain on my left kneecap and similar symptoms in my hip. Only in the last month have I occasionally started to get a bruised feeling in my lumbar spine.
The morning stiffness and leaning forward? Gone. I am bolt-upright every morning and feel pretty good, posture-wise. Funny enough, since I quit doing the posture therapy. Go figure!
My glutes are very tight and constantly holding themselves. I'm trying to teach them to relax, but it's tough, as I know they're protecting themselves. I've been using heat to relax them—just a microwaved wheat sack some mornings.
Under a week ago, I came off Gabapentin. And I also quit Ibuprofen about five weeks ago. The only meds I take now are paracetamol – just one dose in the middle of the night to calm my (good) right hip that gets sore from only sleeping on that side.

How far I've come

Here I am, four months and two weeks post-injury. I still can't sit on a soft surface (I use a special sciatica cushion on a dining chair), I can't sit in a vehicle for the same reason, I can't sleep on my left side, and I still have some mild foot drop but am walking better.
On a positive note, the pain symptoms are changing daily, which is apparently a good sign. I am starting to feel some back pain for the first time, too. Centralisation is perhaps occurring. Instead of lying on the floor for several hours before breakfast, I now find better relief in standing and moving around. I can also sit for short spurts on my dining chair first thing in the morning, whereas before, I'd only be able to do that from midday.
I'm sleeping better. Six or seven hours a night. It's a tad broken, but I feel rested. And when I get up in the morning? Whereas before, my left leg and foot would go crazy with fuzzing and burning, now? Nothing. A mild tingling some mornings, but otherwise, fine.
I spend more of my days moving around, standing, walking, and occasionally sitting than "resetting" on the floor. And when I do feel sciatica getting worse, a brief rest on the floor makes the pain go away. It's never 100 per cent pain-free, you understand. It's mildly uncomfortable and feels like it could get worse at any moment, but I'm good.
And I'm finding that if I overdo it, any flare-up I might have is brief and easily overcome. Whereas before, it might've been five days to recover, now it's an hour resting on the floor.
If I stand at my standing desk for too long, my lumbar ache begins. It's not painful. It just feels weird—bruised, almost unstable, like I can feel it stacked. I lie down, reset, and then I'm good to go.

What has really helped

I now know what to do to avoid triggering pain. I can tie my shoes with my foot on a bench and lunge in. I have a shoe horn – a game-changer! I also use a strapped-on ice pack when I need to calm my nerves. Less so these days. And heat on my ass when the glutes feel too tight. I only take paracetamol in the middle of the night to help me sleep. Oh, and I find going to bed with an ice pack on sometimes really helps!
The meds definitely helped in those painful early days; but I need feedback. Once I felt I could, I stopped taking everything.
During this time, I also hired a cleaner (fortnightly) and a gardener. I've not stopped working (I have no choice; I am a freelancer). And I have no kids. So I don't have to commute anywhere. I stay at home and rest, and the only time I leave the house is to walk. I also invested in a new mattress, a game changer (John Ryan Artisan Luxury, if anyone wants to know). I am very lucky in all of these respects, I know.
The walking really helps – but it was only when I stopped, rested, and allowed by body to heal that I noticed a difference in my symptoms.

What's next?

I'm nowhere near ready to begin strength training. And I've avoided all physio and stretching of late. I am just doing what my back specialist recommends. Some mild cat/camels to get the blood flowing, walking, resting. I take magnesium, turmeric, vitamins D and B12, omega-3. I try to avoid sugar and alcohol (I don't always succeed on that one). I'm not ready for longer walks yet. And there's no way I could take a bath, sit up in bed, or sit on the sofa.
But I am healing. This has been quite the journey, but I can see the light at the end of the tunnel. I'm excited for the next phase of recovery: rehab! And boy, will I be taking it seriously—for the rest of my life! It's down to us, after all. No one can do it for us.
There are some big life events coming up that I know I'm not ready for. When they get closer, if I'm still not better, I will call my GP and ask for advice. Ibuprofen might be brought out again. Perhaps even something stronger. But if I'm one of the lucky ones, I should be seeing further progress in the coming weeks and months.
I rate my ability to function normally when I can sleep on my left side again, drive my car and when I can sit on the sofa, too! I won't mind if there is some residual pain and weakness. As long as I can function without having the crux of a floor and yoga mat nearby.
I am more than happy to answer any questions. I hope this has helped someone. It's certainly helped me to get it all on screen. And I wanted to thank this community for all I've learned this year. I hope you're not in too much pain.

🪞
Welcome back to the Asylum write-up, where we explore the decade-long slow-motion car crash that is the Emilie Autumn fandom.
Sorry this installment took so long to upload! Just a heads-up, I may take some time to deliver the last one too – these posts take forever to format on Reddit's finicky-ass editor, and my dumb real life is currently keeping me from precious Internet time. Thank you for your patience! You have my word that everyone who pre-ordered the final installment will receive a PERSONAL, HANDWRITTEN letter autographed and illustrated by me, a list of the snacks I consumed while composing this write-up, some exclusive behind-the-scenes secrets, and a pony.
Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4.1 – Part 4.2 Part 5

Places, everyone This is a test Throw your stones Do your damage Your worst, and your best (...) And if I had a dollar For every time I repented the sin And commit the same crime I'd be sitting on top of the world today (“God Help Me”, 2006🎵)

Quick recap of where we left off. First, there were five to ten halcyon years of pleasant and meaningful interactions between EA and her blossoming fanbase, prominently by way of her official forum. Then, circa 2009-2010, EA's online presence shifted towards sudden anger outbursts, ban-hammering, and an increasingly top-down communication style.
This created a sort of primordial rift within the fanbase, between those who supported EA's right to speak her mind and regulate her own fan spaces however she pleased – and those who thought that her reactions were rude and inappropriate (at best), and that even fan spaces should allow for reasonable, non-abusive criticism of the artist.
Between a poorly-handled book release (see Part 3), the controversial (Part 2) or dubiously true (Part 4) contents of said book, and serious shade from various former collaborators (Part 5), more and more fans had pressing thoughts about EA's work ethic and choices. EA attempted damage control through drastic forum rules that made it virtually impossible to voice any “serious” critical opinion. It didn't work, of course: instead of squashing the mutiny, she created a schism.
Critical fans and active haters started congregating on unofficial platforms.

“WITH MUFFINS LIKE THIS, WHO NEEDS ENEMIES?”: TROLL LIKE A GIRL

So here we were, the early 2010s. The official forum (which had about 700 members in 2006, if you recall) was now thousands-strong, reaching just over 12,000 registered users in 2012 – not all of them active, but still. In terms of sheer numbers and content creation, the party was POPPIN'... but increasingly in parts of the Asylum that escaped EA's jurisdiction, such as Tumblr, where they could speak their mind freely.

You play the victim very well You've built your self-indulgent hell You wanted someone to understand you Well, be careful what you wish for, because I do (“I Know Where You Sleep”, 2006🎵)

In one wing of Asylum Tumblr, a smattering of call-out blogs emerged, which laid out EA's various lies, faux pas, shitty takes, and general deep-seated terribleness in detailed timelines and screenshots (or, short of that, long-winded bullet points). While many such blogs framed it as “serious” whistleblowing and did their best to remain as fact-based and neutral as they could, there was some genuine disgust, animosity and creepiness towards EA on that side of Tumblr; for some ex-fans, “exposing the truth” was mostly justify obsessive hatred, prying and verbal abuse. Some, for instance, felt the bizarre need to side with EA's mother in their estrangement. (One user, with the URL “emilyautumnfischkopf”, argued in a serious and down-to-earth tone - but with zero sources - that EA's upbringing had been nothing but peaceful and supportive until she ungratefully kicked her loving family to the curb for no reason at all. They were later revealed 🔍 to have an alternate handle as “eaisalyingcunt”.)
Either way, through these blogs, a number of potential drama bombs that had mostly flown under the radar were dredged up from over the years – some of which were hard to ignore, even for supportive fans. Where to begin?
There was that nonsense in-joke song, captured twice on camera during the 2009 tour (to very little outrage, at the time), crassly called “Manatee Retard”📺. Or EA's scathing response, in print, to a wheelchair user who found it insensitive that she used a bedazzled wheelchair as a prop to do sexy acrobatics on stage. (“Your offence taken at my hard-won self-acceptance proves that I indeed have something to fight against”, she wrote). Spoken word tracks where she made trivializing knock-knock jokes about serious mental illnesses she didn't have, like schizophrenia and OCD. Multiple instances of calling Britney Spears a “bimbo” and a “Hollywood fucked-up”, resentfully claiming that she only shaved her head because she was “hopped up on drugs” and certainly not because she was “bipolar”, a word the press liked to wield as an insult anyway. (“That's almost like calling someone a retard!” Yeah, heaven forbid.) The meanest, most distasteful paragraphs in the book. Basically everything problematic EA had ever said or written.📝 In retrospect, it had been a long time coming, but it was a lot to take in – and certainly more off-putting, even to less emotionally invested fans, than silly lies about her age and last name.
In another wing of Asylum Tumblr, some fans had had it up to here and just wanted to have fun. 🎵 If Plague Rats had learned one valuable lesson from EA, it was how to crack a joke in the face of absurd tragedy – and the general state of the EA fandom certainly warranted a few.
In 2012, Fight Like a Girl was released. After six long years, three of which had been peaceful, the Opheliac era was officially over. The new album and ensuing tour confirmed that the Asylum had entered a process of glamorous Broadway-style militarization. 🎵📺
The mood board was “Roman general meets Vegas showgirl meets Victorian street urchin”.🪞 The color palette was, to naysayers, “musty pink and rotten, stale piss yellow”. 🐀 The keyword was “REVENGE” (through the power of... self-expression! sorority! brutal assault with rusty medical implements!). The chorus of the title song had an intriguing run-on line about getting “revenge on the world, or at least 49% of the people in it” 🎵 – which seemed like an awful lot, and was widely interpreted (to cheers, boos, or uncomfortable sighs) as a misandrist jab at literally all men on Earth.
The show was essentially a demo version of the musical, in that the setlist vaguely reflected the order of events in the story – but prior reading was essential in order to get what the hell was going on on stage. This one Broadway reviewer had not perused the literature before seeing the show 🔍, and hated: the set, the choreography, the skits, the plot, the lyrics, the music, the concept. (Seriously, you should read the review. It's not even my show and I feel like quitting show business.)
Pre-show VIP encounters, now violin-free, were lorded over by EA's new manager🐀, whose official title was “Asylum Headmistress”. (Interesting choice – she sounds fun!) The swag bags were less substantial than before, and the “greet” part of the meet-and-greet was rarely more than a quick hug and photo op.
On Twitter, EA continued to embrace her “I am very badass” fronting attitude...

Often wonder if cyberbullies r aware they’re fucking w/ a girl who’s BFs w/ maker of the SAW films & is marrying a knife-throwing scorpion. (🐀📝)

...and her taste for needlessly inflammatory statements. About an aisle sign in a supermarket:

If this does not infuriate you, then you're a fucking potato.

(Again with the confounding crypto-ableism, EA! 🔍) She also went through a phase of raging against Lady Gaga 📝, who had stolen her idea of using a wheelchair on stage as an able-bodied woman. 🔍 That failed to convince anyone that she wasn't the histrionic diva that haters made her out to be.
Spurred on by EA's rallying cries and “us vs them” mentality, loyalists turned the white-knighting up to 11. On Twitter, some Plague Rats got into cat fights with Lady Gaga's Little Monsters (what a time to be alive). Others tried to balance out the Tumblr negativity with initiatives like “Spreading a Plague of Love” – a “positive-only” confession blog, whose extreme fangirling, comically drastic rules and hyper-defensive tone📝 did not debunk the increasingly popular notion that “true Plague Rats” were a bunch of authoritarian and hopelessly brainwashed fanatics.
EA truthers and other anti-fans started lashing out at anyone who dared express any positive opinion of EA, solidifying claims that the backlash against EA was just a conspiracy of bitter, hysterical bullies.
All this to say: every passing day brought new reasons for fans to get mad at EA and each other, and everyone in the Asylum was in need of a laugh. It's not easy having a good time.🦠
Leading up to Fight Like a Girl and in the years that followed, user-submission-based meme blogs took off, most notably “Spreading a Plague of Lulz / Troll Like a Girl”. A lot of the early submissions were absurdist humor and toothless, cheezburger-Impact memes (a style that was, oddly, already dated at the time). Those often originated in good fun, and from loyal fans, on the official forum. But there was also true snark, satirizing EA's questionable ethics, outrageous claims, and easily spoofed artistic gimmicks. A new slang of Asylumspeak emerged: Glittertits (slight NSFW), GAGA!!, EA Gusta and all its memeface variants, Get outta mah house!, Are You Suffering?, Fight Like A Goat, [Random celebrity] copied EA (a subgenre in its own right), ...
Most of the “trolling” was directed at unrepentant bootlickers and, to a lesser extent, red-in-the-face haters and creeps. Meme blogs would post joke comments under “serious” or gushing submissions on Wayward Victorian Confessions, and taunt loyalist accounts by tagging them in their posts. When a few people complained on WVC that almost all of the Bloody Crumpets to date had been thin white able-bodied women, and a few fans responded by sharing their dream-casts for a more diverse line-up, the blog was flooded for days with confessions that “X should be a Crumpet” (candidates included RuPaul, Mitt Romney, Nicki Minaj, EA's therapist, and the WVC admins). Farcical shenanigans like that.
Ah, but some people will always cross the line, won't they. EA threads popped up on merciless, bully-friendly snark platforms like Lolcow, Pretty Ugly Little Liar, and Encyclopedia Dramatica. Snarkers with a mean streak and obsessive haters mingled in some of the more aggressive, 4-chan-spirited retaliation against EA – which would be called “brigading” in modern parlance. This included flooding EA's Goodreads page with one-star reviews (see part 4), repeatedly editing her Wikipedia page to include her legal name and birth year, and ensuring that Googling said name would bring up current pictures of her.
All of this compounded agitation fragmented the once-united fandom beyond recognition.🦠 Through substantial disagreements among fans, personal bickerings, layers upon layers of inscrutable in-jokes, and cross-platform telephone games, the Asylum morphed into a booby-trapped Escher room.
Satire blogs were taken in earnest. Earnest fan blogs scanned as satire. Memes would get called out as abuse. Appreciation without attached criticism would get mocked as bootlicking. Obvious jokes made by EA would be taken at face value. One divisive confession could trigger days and days of debate, to the point that WVC eventually banned confessions in response to other confessions. New waves of infighting created a confusing web of rival sub-factions🐀, each accusing the others of being toxic, cliquish, and delusional.
The shared fantasy was broken, the collective vision had crumbled, no onez was speaking the same language anymore. Fans would jump down the throat of other fans who held almost identical views about EA, except for that one thing she said or did that one time. Everyone had differing thoughts on what should or shouldn't acceptable to discuss, question, excuse, make fun of.
War is hell.

SCORCHED EARTH SHENANIGANS: HONEY, I SHRUNK THE ASYLUM

Would you tear my castle down Stone by stone And let the wind run through my windows Till there was nothing left But a battered rose? (“Castle Down”, 2003🎵)

Haters vs sycophants is not really the kind of conflict where one side can come out on top (if you're participating, you've already lost). But in the long tug-of-war between “grassroots” and “EA-sponsored” fan spaces, the ultimate winner is obvious – in that the former is gasping in agony, a shriveled husk of its former glory, while the latter... is non-existent. This is due in no small part to EA's tendency, like the Czars of old, to settle conflicts by setting Moscow on fire.🔍)
That's not entirely fair: unlike EA, the czar only did it that once.
By early 2013, as EA was gearing up for her third Fight Like a Girl tour at the end of the year, the official forum was... not as lively as it once had been. Not just because of the stifling rules and disgruntlement towards EA, or because EA herself hadn't really posted anything on there in years; the Internet was also changing, and forums in general were fast becoming passé.
This made it difficult for EA to create a safe space where she could talk to fans, and fans could talk to and about her, in a way she deemed suitable (ie, a space she could gate-keep and regulate enough to keep it completely free from negative criticism). Social media was a minefield; she still posted regularly, but didn't interact very much. So EA and the Headmistress came up with a way to filter out the unbelievers: an official fan club📝, aptly called the “Asylum Army”, with a $100 entry price.
Joining the AA came with a dog tag, a sew-on patch, and a lifetime membership certificate signed by EA and – for some reason – the Headmistress. (Unlike EA's best friend and sound engineer back in the forum's heyday, I don't think fans ever really embraced the FLAG-era manager as part of the Asylum in-group. She came across more as a coordinator / businessperson / adult chaperone, at best.🐀) So, slightly better goodies than you'd get by joining the other AA 🔍 ... but not by much. The main appeal was that members would have access to exclusive content, special merch, giveaways, early bird tickets for future shows, and regular video chats with EA.
The concept itself drew a fair amount of criticism, as you can imagine. Between the name🐀, the price, and the inherent gatekeeping of a pay-to-join fanclub, many balked at the monetizing of a concept that had once (like, three years back) been significantly more DIY, grassroots, and inclusive. 📝🐀
Then again, many also longed for a positive, drama-free space where fans could just be fans. And while the creation of the AA was generally recognized as a quick cashgrab, a lot of people were surprisingly cool with it. EA was trying to finance her dream musical, after all – although a number of fans wished she had gone about raising funds in a less sketchy way.
So around 400 fans shelled out (which, according to the Headmistress📝, “basically cover[ed] the cost of running the fanclub itself – keeping the database up, website, etc.”). Enough for a close-knit, but sizable community. But already, there was a conflict of interest: a high fanclub entry fee essentially demands that you pledge loyalty to the artist over loyalty to your fellow fans, who wish to join but can't afford to. Sharing, caring, and ensuring no one felt left out were some of the more positive values cultivated in the fandom... but leaking exclusive content would surely piss off other paying members🐀, and make EA feel betrayed all over again. (And she had barely just started to mellow out on social media!)
...But then again, this is the internet. After the first month of secret AA drops (lyric sheets, some photoshoot outtakes – nothing too juicy, really), there were, yes, some leaks. EA was predictably miffed, and retaliated by... ghosting the fanclub for weeks at a time in its first few months of existence (great look!). She eventually found the “solution” to her problem, by providing something you couldn't right-click-save (and which had been part of the promised perks to begin with): live interaction.
Over webcam, she was her usual in-person bubbly, charming, funny self. Everyone seemingly had a good time during the fanclub video chat, and this gave people faith and hope.
There were a few more events, giveaways, etc. As promised, ahead of the fall 2013 tour (the last one to date, it would turn out), AA members got priority access to show tickets and VIP bundles. The latter were much pricier than before, and only included soundcheck, a photo-op, and three goodies: a tin of loose-leaf tea, a signed printer-paper setlist, and a small flag that said “F.L.A.G.”.🔍 Some stuff continued to leak – but, as some of the outlaws pointed out (scroll down to the Disqus comments), they were mostly relaying information that was relevant to the entire fanbase, such as updates about ongoing projects (the dragged-out recording of the audiobook, for one).
In early 2014, lifetime memberships were closed, and replaced with monthly, quarterly and yearly subscription tiers. Bizarrely, you ended up paying $3 more per month if you bought a $99 yearly subscription📝 – but it did include the patch, dog tag, and piece of paper!

Sometimes I kind of want to be part of the cool kids and register to the Asylum Army. Then I remember how it came about, what you could get for the same price a couple years ago, how the whole thing was and is handled, and that I won’t support any of this bullshit. (And then I roll around naked in all the money I’m saving.) (🐀)

Still, a number of fans rejoiced at the affordable monthly option, and joined – if not for the exclusive content and merch (which were... okay, but not much to write home about), then for the friendly, drama-free exchanges with an artist they actually did love, in spite of all the frustration.
For the still-too-poor or still-undecided, there was always the forum! It wasn't as active as it used to be, but a few die-hards still managed to keep the lights on... until, inevitably, Someone Did Something and Ruined Everything. (Once again: EA's wrath is spectacular, but rarely completely unprovoked.) The incident features one notable figure in the Asylum community. Let's call him the Collector.
OK, so maybe you remember the meme I linked to in Part 4, with Christian Grey and the ginormous EA hoard. Well, that's the Collector's collection. The “Violin” promo that I called the "Holy Grail of the fandom" in the same paragraph? Also his. The handwritten lyrics that went for $940? Guess who won that auction. Over the years, the Collector had probably spent five figures on EA merch and shows, and although that fact was a little unsettling, he was a very active, easy-going, and generally well-liked fixture of the fandom.
One day in 2012, shortly after the Headmistress had replaced EA's old Chicago BFF as main forum admin, the Collector's account got banned or restricted over something dumb. When the ban wasn't lifted as quickly as he hoped, he took it... the way one takes things when one is unhealthily invested: he started spamming Headmistress and the mod team with increasingly rambling and abusive emails (lost to time, probably for the best). When that didn't work quickly enough, he tried a different route.
One of the many auctions that the Collector had won, some years prior, was EA's old iPod Touch📝 – which contained all of her favorite tunes and, buried somewhere in the data cache... a phone number. Which the Collector tried calling. And wouldn't you know it: EA picked up. She congratulated him on his sleuthing skills, listened patiently as he made his case, apologized for any distress caused by the unfair account restriction, and then they got married.
Kidding! She freaked the fuck out, hung up, and banned him for life from the forum and all EA shows and events.
After his ban, the Collector allegedly still tried to attend at least one VIP pre-show (one source in the comments says he was allowed to buy some merch, refunded for his ticket, and escorted out). He joined the Reform forum to bitch about EA and try to rally people to his cause, possibly made revenge posts about her on darker snark forums, and continued to hound the Asylum mod team. So in June 2014, EA came up with a radical and unexpected fix to the Collector problem.

The official Asylum Fan Forum has been shut down permanently. I have personally paid thousands of dollars each year to keep the forum safe and secure for you ... Unfortunately, the forum has not been kept safe and secure for me, a truth which disappoints me greatly, instead becoming a place where people who have physically threatened myself and my staff prey upon forum members, pressuring them to contact me and my staff on their behalf. If the gullible wish to humor my stalkers (who live in their parent’s basement at age 30 something) and thus put me in danger, they may do it on their own dime. They may also fuck off, because stupidity can kill, and I won’t be your victim. To those who enjoyed the forum, you know who to thank for its closure. (“On the closing of the Asylum Forum”)

Voilà! This is how a decade-long archive of shared history ends: not with a bang, but with a dirty delete and a sod-off communiqué.
The obliteration of the forum took everyone by surprise...

I was actually on the forum when it was taken down. I was navigating between posts and when I went to click on a different board, an error message came up. I honestly cried a little, I'm not ashamed to say. (WVC admin on Reddit, 2024)

...and I do mean everyone:

Chicago BFF / ex-admin, the next morning: Whoa, EA forum shut down? Ex-mod: It turns out that if someone spends enough years actively “waging war” to destroy what they can’t have, eventually they’ll be successful. * eye roll * Not even mods got prior warning. Just all the sudden, poof, gone. BFF: Really? She did not let the moderators know?! This is sounding worse and worse. Uggh. I’m so sorry. Such a loss. (...) Ok, threats are serious, but why not just put it in archive mode so no one can post? (...) Sad. I shall light a candle in the forum's honor. (Facebook posts; scroll down for screenshots)

It was a gut punch, especially for people who had poured countless hours into the community, or could have used some prior warning to save years of their own writing from the role-playing threads. One last chance to take a look around the place that had meant so much to so many.

From the wording of the announcement of closing the forum and a number of other things, it sometimes seems like EA doesn't like her fans much. :/ (🐀)

Three months after the forum was nuked, Battered Rose (a venerable EA fansite, which had been around since the Enchant era and had one of the most complete EA galleries online) announced that it was shutting down too.📝 The admin, who had also been a long-time forum mod, cited a lack of “time, energy, passion, or money” to keep the website going... and being upset at the sudden disappearance of the forum. It was, truly, the end of an era for the Asylum.
...Well, no point in living in the past. For those who could afford it, and still wanted to talk to/about EA after that (not everyone did 🐀), there was always the Asylum Army fanclub!
Over the summer of 2014, EA held regular live chats and Q&A's, and... many attendees really enjoyed them, and thought the AA was well worth the money after all. She also quietly parted ways with the much poo-pooed Headmistress around that time.

Just spent over 4 hours giggling, drinking tea and playing guessing games in chat with EA and other Asylum Army members ... No griping, no downers, just lots of fun. I think I like the way the ‘new fandom’ is going and now I’m really glad I finally decided to join the Army. (September 4, 2014🐀; Battered Rose had closed the day before)

The forum was lost forever, but perhaps that was a chance for a fresh start. Could this fanclub thing really be the Asylum Renaissance that fans had been longing for?

...I have come today to a very difficult but necessary decision, and that is to discontinue the Emilie Autumn Official Fanclub. The site itself, and the community chatroom, will remain open to you indefinitely, but I will no longer be making updates to the site. (Newsletter, September 8, 2014📝)

...Never mind, then.
Turns out the fanclub had been the Headmistress' idea all along. EA had been reluctant from the start, and although she really enjoyed the live chats with a safe community of people “who are there for the right reasons”, she couldn't overcome her fundamental discomfort with the concept. Lifetime and regular members would receive a bunch of digital downloads and a -35% coupon on the Asylum Emporium for their troubles. EA said she would definitely pop back once in a while for live chats, for free, just for fun, but to my knowledge, she never did.
And so the most devoted fans were left standing in the rain...

She is happy, she made it. She is fulfilling her dreams, found love and happiness after all the pain. I understand that she now doesn’t need “us” anymore ... That doesn’t change the fact she broke my heart with taking the Asylum Army and the forum from me. Yet, I am happy for her. (🐀)

...while naysayers pointed and laughed, Nelson-style.🦠

I don’t feel sorry at all for the people that paid for the Asylum Army fan club. Most of them knew that EA is an atrocious business woman and has broken many promises before. In fact, I laugh at them. They seriously thought that EA would actually stay consistent with this? (🐀)

EVERYTHING MUST GO: THE ASYLUM WHOLESALE

EA fans were left without an “official” home for about three years. This gave them plenty of time to be annoyed at EA for: not releasing the audiobook on time, not materializing any new project for a while... and the new sin of peddling random, ridiculously marked-up AliBaba jewelry as “merch” on her official store. Think faux-antique cameo pendants and $30 Big Ben rings (...because the Asylum story is set in London, get it?).

The whole accessories section looks like a tacky overpriced English souvenir shop. (🐀)

The fanbase lost a lost of steam in those in-between years, because there wasn't much to stick around for. As evidenced by the positive reception of the AA live chats, even in the midst of unresolved drama, out-loud interactions in a friendly environment have always been EA's saving grace. Considering the amount of online hate, there are shockingly few accounts of bad IRL encounters with EA: most people say that in live conversation, she comes across as a fun, warm, and genuinely sweet person. Some report that their negative opinion shifted after meeting her.
But there were no chats or live shows anymore. There was only social media, where she ignored questions and vague-posted about overdue projects – and the newsletter📝, which was all saccharine love-bombing to promote bland dropshipped trinkets. For fans who remembered the handcrafted merch (and two-way communication) of the early years, it was a bitter pill to swallow.

CONTINUED IN COMMENTS

​

In the past four weeks, I've deep-dived into the ideal Video settings for my R5. I was never happy with what the camera gave me, so I want to share the following insights just in case they may benefit some of you. It's going to be a bit long winded, read on if you're a nerd and perfectionist like me... Shout out to Jason of Points in Focus on YouTube, as well as Rodrigo Pollo, Josh Sattin and Todd Dominey, who were some of my many sources. There's also a Redditor that has highlighted the wonkiness of Cinema Gammut colors (hi!) and I agree with them.

1. Shoot in LOG – IMO, yes, you should. Only this unlocks 10 Bit 4:2:2 which grades really well and runs smoothly provided you're on Silicone machines. Arguably, 10 Bit 4:2:2 h265 in LOG was the true game changing feature the R5 brought into the market, so take advantage.
2. For LOG post production, the Canon LUTs work well if you expose as Canon thinks you should. This gets technical quickly and if you just follow the ETTR dogma, Canon's LUTs will clip your highlights into oblivion. A proper CST workflow in Resolve works better but is complicated for novices. In any case, you will have to test your exposure / CST / LUT workflow so I highly recommend you get yourself familiarised with Zebras and False Color tools (if you use an external monitor). The histogram on the R5 is absolutely useless for video exposure. Clipped highlights, not noisy shadows, are the biggest weakness of the R5's image, in my opinion.
3. But which LOG flavour and color space? This comes down to your taste, but I have found the following produces the most natural looking footage. I shoot CLOG 1 / BT 2020 at a base ISO of 400. Like everyone else, I jumped on the CLOG 3 / Cinema Gammut Train when the firmware update hit, but I just didn't like the footage 90% of the time. It is proven that the sensor's dynamic range in photography mode is better at ISO 400 than it is at 800 (not surprising) in the Electronic shutter mode (which is what the R5 also uses for video). It's not a huge difference from 800 to 400, but it's there - half to one stop. This was also revealed in the CineD tests – both of them, the initial one as well as the one when they re-tested with CLOG 3. In the manual, Canon claims that CLOG 3 has more dynamic range then CLOG – in theory, maybe. The curve may be designed to give more DR. But on the R5? None of the tests you can find online have properly proven this. The DR is distributed differently, but not necessarily increased. There ARE tests, however, that show the sensor performs better at ISO 400 - so that's what I go with. Bonus: Why not use BT 709? Well, that would defeat the purpose of capturing LOG at 10 Bit 4:2:2 in the first place. You would be throwing out a bunch of color information already at capture.
4. There can be severe horizontal Banding in underexposed areas. When I first saw this, I couldn't believe my eyes (check out Josh Sattin's comparison of Z8 with R5 on YouTube to see what I mean). A 5K€ camera was producing big horizontal chunky lines of banding running across the image. I contacted Canon and they claimed not to be able to see anything. WTF. I thought my camera was broken. Then I found this in the manual: With Canon Log, movies may be affected by horizontal banding, depending on the subject or shooting conditions. So I didn't imagine things. It's right there. In. The. Manual. To avoid this, expose correctly. In practical use, a non issue, but still leaves a bitter taste.
5. Cinema Gammut, avoid. In my experience, it gives crazy saturation to red, magenta, orange. It may be a wider color space than 2020, but it can look extremely unnatural. I had rare occasions where it did work well, for example with greens and blues, but skin tones were always a pain point. (If you do want to use CLOG 3 and Cinema Gammut, I suggested you go to -1 saturation in the Canon Log Settings.) I realise this point is the most subjective, so if you have a great CineGammut workflow running, I applaud you!
6. External Recording – it may work for some of you, but I never bothered. What turns me off the Ninjas is their cost, the noisy fan and hunger for batteries as well as bulk and weight. I shoot mostly Gimbal work nowadays and every gram counts. I bit the bullet and got the fastest Card on the market for internal shooting. If you do use Ninjas, note this: The HDMI interface on the R5 is version 2.0 and it does NOT transmit Cinema Gammut correctly, so set to BT 2020. You will still have to mess around with the legalize settings and post-production hassle (ProRes RAW doesn't work on the dominant Color grading software, Resolve). For me it's a no. Bonus: Make sure your HDMI cable is at least a 2.0 version!
7. Sound: Manual recording set to a quarter strength gives you the best audio dynamic range (nod to Jason of Points in Focus, who tested this). Run your mic hot-ish and you'll be fine at this level, it works well with the Rode or Sennheiser video mics. If audio is important for you, AVOID IPB Light as it uses compressed AAC audio. The non-compressed LPCM at 48 Khz / 16 Bit that you get with ALL-I, RAW, IPB is pretty decent and noise-free.
8. I can't stress this enough: avoid Auto White Balance! The R5 dials in aggressive amounts of Tint "correction" to combat any perceived color shifts. It just doesn't work well at all unless you're in perfectly clean 6500K daylight. If you shoot LOG h265, getting White Balance right is critical to getting good skintones. Log doesn't mean RAW, you ARE baking color into the image. Unfortunately the Custom WB function is a mess in R5 for video, but you can actually eyeball this quite well off a monitor, if said monitor is set up correctly with a LUT. I use a color meter (LUMU Power 2) to verify, and it helps.
9. Rolling Shutter. 8K RAW as well as 4K HQ give you the most rolling shutter at about 15 ms and this is certainly visible in faster paced Gimbal work. Rolling shutter drops to around 9 ms in regular 4K, which is what I now use for Gimbal work. Though it's not a full halving, it's a significant, visible improvement for any panning. I still shoot talking heads in 4K HQ as the Rolling shutter is not an issue with static work. As for my Canon Log settings, I go +1 sharpening for 4K HQ and +3 for regular 4K. That matches them reasonably well.
10. 12-Bit RAW has about another half to one stop more DR in the highlights, but is also tougher and more fiddly to grade than the 10 Bit H265. It also defaults to CineGammut so it has the same tendency towards saturated reds. (CRAW gets decoded by default as CineGammut in Resolve.) I tend to prefer the look of the 10 Bit 4:2:2 shot in BT 2020 in terms of color. If you do shoot RAW, I again recommend setting to CLOG 1 in camera – not because that Log curve gets baked into the image (it doesn't), but because it unlocks you ISO 400 shooting. RAW capture at ISO 400 in Clog 1 will then allow you to decode in Resolve using the CLOG 2 curve at ISO 400 and reach the theoretical maximum of DR in terms of any video material from the R5.

Point 11 was going to be a wishlist for better features etc. but then I realised, I could buy a R5C... But honestly, the crappy battery performance of that camera really is a deal breaker for me.
Sorry for the long post but I really hope this may help some of you. Good luck and happy shooting!

30+ year heavy smoker Quit 8 months back with the aid of vaping. Then, I quit vaping for 42 days with nicotine lozenges, which I was down to a bare minimum - 2 mg, 2 to 3/day.
I quit cold turkey many years back. Once for 2 years & once for 6 months.
So, around the 30 day quit vaping mark, I started craving cigs. I didn't give in for 10-12 days. But, it wouldn't go away. So, I went crazy & bought a pack. I just went berserk for 3 days, smoking a pack/day.
I've thrown everything away & quit again. I realized that it wasn't worth my health to do this out of boredom or to celebrate any occasion. This time, they didn't even taste or feel good as I remember. Overdoing it actually made me find them disgusting.
Should I reset my 'quit' count or continue. Have I lost any health benefits already?
All inputs are much appreciated as I've no one else to ask for advice.
Sorry for the long post

AITA? Hey y'all. First time poster here. 😅 This is a REALLY LONG one...
TW: d34th (grief), DV
How do I (28F) not make ADHD my entire personality? 😫 I am unmedicated (unemployed and medication is not something I can afford rn), and find it extremely difficult not to let my neurodivergence permeate throughout my entire life and affect my relationships. I really try my best, but it's an uphill battle when it affects how I communicate, relate with others, and self-regulate the RSD. I also have an anxious attachment style due to childhood trauma and history of domestic abuse in a previous relationship, so there's that. 😔 One of the most challenging things about being a neurodivergent living in a predominantly neurotypical world is the lack of education on it and lack of empathy and compassion for people on the spectrum. Not trying to be a victim here, this is just my experience.
Some of the things I battle with:

• executive dysfunction
• oversharing and dealing with shame thereafter
• being long-winded (taking forever to get to the point bc I add too much context in the hopes of being understood, bc honestly, I always feel misunderstood)
• feeling things super intensely and struggling to manage my emotions
• memory loss (this predisposes me to gaslighting where I could be gaslit or even be the gaslighter)

So I've been talking to this guy (28M) via Facebook messenger and mostly Whatsapp for about 9 months now. We're long distance (living in different provinces - I'm in South Africa btw), and both have so much going on in our lives, that it's simply not practical to be official bc 1. I'm unemployed and have so much trauma and internal work to get through, while he is trying to build a successful business that is still quite a baby (less than 5 years old) and 2. We just want to be realistic about the chances of a LDR being successful. So right now, we're in a talking stage.
Now this guy has been all green flags since we started talking. Attentive, kind, funny without being mean, God-fearing (I respect all beliefs, even the lack thereof so this is not a jab at anyone who isn't. It's simply a green flag for ME as we are aligned in that way), family oriented, and honestly he is just always really nice and reassuring to me, even in moments where I have done something to upset him. That stood out to me bc he does not withold intimacy when we have conflict. He also has a genuine curiosity about how my ADHD affects me, and has always shown compassion to me about it. This is really important bc I've never experienced this with ANY man I have dealt with. I usually look for love in men who get irritated by this, I have been told that I use my ADHD as an excuse in some arguments with an ex, been shamed for the executive dysfunction and long-windedness, have had boundaries crossed regarding my physical sensitivity to certain touch bc I guess ADHD doesn't seem like a real thing to certain people?
Anyway, he's been going through a lot mentally and emotionally, his business has been taking a lot of knocks, funding and budget issues etc. He lives on a farm (hates city life lol) which he finds to be more peaceful to him, however, he's been in the city for about 3 months now due to work setbacks. It's affected his mental health quite negatively, and I often feel pained by this. I often feel helpless bc I can't solve his problems, and he just becomes aloof and buries his head in work. I can completely understand this, bc his business is his baby, and he's dedicated about 4 years into making it a success, forfeiting a social life completely, and that includes dating. He is extremely self-sufficient and unlike me, he is able to compartmentalize his life and readjust his priorities to make space for his career needs. He has no problem making difficult choices for long-term rewards. Now mix that with his own childhood trauma that has created abandonment issues with him. 🤦🏾‍♀️ He is of the sad opinion that everyone leaves, and it's always just a matter of time.
This is a problem, bc I also battle RSD, so when I feel his aloofness, it feels like he's so distant. This makes me feel unsafe in being vulnerable. I withdraw completely and start fighting feelings of being unwanted and neglected. It's a really difficult one bc I don't want to play in to his abandonment issues, and I also want to give him grace bc he hasn't really dealt with a woman romantically in YEARS. He has communicated this with me, so I try to keep it in mind, even tho I have to fight my own head sometimes. 😅🤦🏾‍♀️ But how do I get over these feelings? How do I communicate this with him when he has warned me over and over about what's happening in his life? It seems that his challenges are challenging both of us, and I'm honestly just scared of losing him.
Thought I was done? Lol, sorry, but no. My long-winded behind is only just about to get to the main point of this post. 🤣🤦🏾‍♀️
On the 13th May last year my 18 year old brother died in a car accident on his way back from a school event. It was an abrupt death, and was really hard on my family and me. Now, my little brother and I were extremely close, so his death is still something I grieve a lot, and I think I still bleed onto others when I am overwhelmed with emotion. A few days ago marked the 1 year anniversary of his death, and I was not in a good place at all. That night I called this guy, and he told me he was getting some work done that he needed to submit for something. In that moment and for the first time, I was really not trying to be this understanding woman for him. I needed a space to just be an emotional mess and have him listen to me. I needed comfort from him. I also just missed him; I missed him just being there for me. Maybe this was a bad idea, bc he has mentioned a little while ago that he has been failing empty and drained. 🤦🏾‍♀️
Anyway, I started bleeding onto him, was crying on the phone and talking about my brother (whom I've only really talked about with him). Now, he is the problem-solving type, so his first instinct was to advise me on how to deal with that day, I guess. Usually, I find this to be quite endearing. He always wants to show up for the people he cares about, and wants to be helpful. However, in that moment, I didn't need him to be that. I just needed him to be there for me, in a safe and comforting silence. I snapped at him, asking him not to be an advisor for once bc that's not what I needed. I could hear the pained surprise on the other end of the phone, paused, and then apologised for the way that I snapped. I continued with my rant and mid-talk, he just asked if we could talk the following day. I was taken aback by the way he wanted to conclude the conversation where I was emotionally charged and in a state of grief. It upset me so much, I dropped the call without a proper goodbye.
I spent the following day thinking about this, validating him and then validating myself over him.
He called me later that evening, wanting us to talk about what happened on the call. I was expecting him to apologise for wanting to end the call in a moment where I just needed him to be there for him. To my surprise he called to actually call me out for snapping at him and then dropping the call on him. This kick-started an argument (which is quite rare for us bc within the 9 months of us talking, this was our second argument) between us, where I guess we were both feeling unheard. At every attempt of mine to try and explain where my reaction was coming from, he would get frustrated and cut me off... he did it so often to where I was starting to wonder if he just called me to fight or there was something deeper going on with him.
Anyway, what REALLY got me in that argument was that at some point I called him out for not letting me finish my sentences. He kept intercepting while I was trying to make a point, which was crazy to me. At some point, I had to remind him that I have ADHD, so maybe I can be long-winded, but I need him to bear with me as I make my point. Well, I tried, but before I could even finish that sentence, he sighed in frustration, and exclaimed, "Jesus! This is not about your ADHD! Now we're back to your ADHD!"
I was shocked. Partly bc had he allowed me to finish that sentence, he might have gotten to hear the part where I was merely trying to remind him so that he can listen and understand me better. Not to deflect from his grievance with me. 🤦🏾‍♀️
Mostly tho, was bc I was NOT expecting that from HIM. It suddenly triggered me to my experiences in the past with people conveniently ignoring the fact that I live with ADHD, ignoring how very real my experience with it is, and how I quite literally cannot help the way my brain works. I feel like that was the most ableist thing I have ever heard coming from his mouth, and it really rocked me.
I can fully own that I was not right to snap at him, nor was I right to drop the call like that. I have apologised for this. It was the first thing I did. It's just so tricky bc my responses were triggered by his reaction to me in that moment. I was at an emotional low and maybe this is a bit entitled of me, but I was really hoping for a little more grace considering what I was so emotional about. 😔 AITA? Am I not doing enough work to manage my ADHD so that it is not causing conflict in my relationships and how I navigate them?
Please be kind. I've really fallen for this man, and want to make things right.

So my ex and I dated for a long time. Close to a decade. I did indeed cheat on her. It was due to control issues that stemmed from my own issues that I am going to begin therapy for and the other half of it is that she was actually a lesbian. I was losing her and couldn’t get why since I was doing everything I could to be a good boyfriend and a decent guy. I didn’t understand why she was unhappy or why she didn’t like to always kiss me. Well I in the most irrational line of thinking decided that if things were gonna end, I was doing it my way. Which in hindsight sight was a very sick and fucked thing to think when I should have talked to her about it. Well after we broke up and tried things again, things went crazy. After all said and done, she’s gay and I’m struggling to move on however the guilt is so much less.

I recently went through a difficult breakup after a year-long relationship. Shortly after, I met a boy from my close relatives, but things at home became very challenging. My mother started treating me poorly, even stopping making food for me, and she bullies my father and my younger brother. It feels like she controls the household. She may have Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD), which has taken a toll on my mental health.
During this stressful period, my mother set up a meeting with this boy, claiming that an aunt had given her guarantee about him and confirmed everything. It felt like a trap, and I was not in the right frame of mind. In the first meeting, I managed to keep things together, but I messed up the second meeting. I didn't ask him questions or engage properly, and as a result, he rejected me. It’s been almost a month, and I feel like I’m going crazy because I didn’t show him my true self.
I've been reading horoscopes daily and manifesting, hoping he will come back to me. I even confessed my feelings and apologized to him. I'm living in fear of not finding someone to marry and losing opportunities with boys. I really want to give it another try with him, but I don’t know what to do. pls help me with the sugesstion what should i do

AITA? Hey y'all. First time poster here. 😅 This is a REALLY LONG one...
TW: d34th (grief), DV
How do I (28F) not make ADHD my entire personality? 😫 I am unmedicated (unemployed and medication is not something I can afford rn), and find it extremely difficult not to let my neurodivergence permeate throughout my entire life and affect my relationships. I really try my best, but it's an uphill battle when it affects how I communicate, relate with others, and self-regulate the RSD. I also have an anxious attachment style due to childhood trauma and history of domestic abuse in a previous relationship, so there's that. 😔 One of the most challenging things about being a neurodivergent living in a predominantly neurotypical world is the lack of education on it and lack of empathy and compassion for people on the spectrum. Not trying to be a victim here, this is just my experience.
Some of the things I battle with:

• executive dysfunction
• oversharing and dealing with shame thereafter
• being long-winded (taking forever to get to the point bc I add too much context in the hopes of being understood, bc honestly, I always feel misunderstood)
• feeling things super intensely and struggling to manage my emotions
• memory loss (this predisposes me to gaslighting where I could be gaslit or even be the gaslighter)

So I've been talking to this guy (28M) via Facebook messenger and mostly Whatsapp for about 9 months now. We're long distance (living in different provinces - I'm in South Africa btw), and both have so much going on in our lives, that it's simply not practical to be official bc 1. I'm unemployed and have so much trauma and internal work to get through, while he is trying to build a successful business that is still quite a baby (less than 5 years old) and 2. We just want to be realistic about the chances of a LDR being successful. So right now, we're in a talking stage.
Now this guy has been all green flags since we started talking. Attentive, kind, funny without being mean, God-fearing (I respect all beliefs, even the lack thereof so this is not a jab at anyone who isn't. It's simply a green flag for ME as we are aligned in that way), family oriented, and honestly he is just always really nice and reassuring to me, even in moments where I have done something to upset him. That stood out to me bc he does not withold intimacy when we have conflict. He also has a genuine curiosity about how my ADHD affects me, and has always shown compassion to me about it. This is really important bc I've never experienced this with ANY man I have dealt with. I usually look for love in men who get irritated by this, I have been told that I use my ADHD as an excuse in some arguments with an ex, been shamed for the executive dysfunction and long-windedness, have had boundaries crossed regarding my physical sensitivity to certain touch bc I guess ADHD doesn't seem like a real thing to certain people?
Anyway, he's been going through a lot mentally and emotionally, his business has been taking a lot of knocks, funding and budget issues etc. He lives on a farm (hates city life lol) which he finds to be more peaceful to him, however, he's been in the city for about 3 months now due to work setbacks. It's affected his mental health quite negatively, and I often feel pained by this. I often feel helpless bc I can't solve his problems, and he just becomes aloof and buries his head in work. I can completely understand this, bc his business is his baby, and he's dedicated about 4 years into making it a success, forfeiting a social life completely, and that includes dating. He is extremely self-sufficient and unlike me, he is able to compartmentalize his life and readjust his priorities to make space for his career needs. He has no problem making difficult choices for long-term rewards. Now mix that with his own childhood trauma that has created abandonment issues with him. 🤦🏾‍♀️ He is of the sad opinion that everyone leaves, and it's always just a matter of time.
This is a problem, bc I also battle RSD, so when I feel his aloofness, it feels like he's so distant. This makes me feel unsafe in being vulnerable. I withdraw completely and start fighting feelings of being unwanted and neglected. It's a really difficult one bc I don't want to play in to his abandonment issues, and I also want to give him grace bc he hasn't really dealt with a woman romantically in YEARS. He has communicated this with me, so I try to keep it in mind, even tho I have to fight my own head sometimes. 😅🤦🏾‍♀️ But how do I get over these feelings? How do I communicate this with him when he has warned me over and over about what's happening in his life? It seems that his challenges are challenging both of us, and I'm honestly just scared of losing him.
Thought I was done? Lol, sorry, but no. My long-winded behind is only just about to get to the main point of this post. 🤣🤦🏾‍♀️
On the 13th May last year my 18 year old brother died in a car accident on his way back from a school event. It was an abrupt death, and was really hard on my family and me. Now, my little brother and I were extremely close, so his death is still something I grieve a lot, and I think I still bleed onto others when I am overwhelmed with emotion. A few days ago marked the 1 year anniversary of his death, and I was not in a good place at all. That night I called this guy, and he told me he was getting some work done that he needed to submit for something. In that moment and for the first time, I was really not trying to be this understanding woman for him. I needed a space to just be an emotional mess and have him listen to me. I needed comfort from him. I also just missed him; I missed him just being there for me. Maybe this was a bad idea, bc he has mentioned a little while ago that he has been failing empty and drained. 🤦🏾‍♀️
Anyway, I started bleeding onto him, was crying on the phone and talking about my brother (whom I've only really talked about with him). Now, he is the problem-solving type, so his first instinct was to advise me on how to deal with that day, I guess. Usually, I find this to be quite endearing. He always wants to show up for the people he cares about, and wants to be helpful. However, in that moment, I didn't need him to be that. I just needed him to be there for me, in a safe and comforting silence. I snapped at him, asking him not to be an advisor for once bc that's not what I needed. I could hear the pained surprise on the other end of the phone, paused, and then apologised for the way that I snapped. I continued with my rant and mid-talk, he just asked if we could talk the following day. I was taken aback by the way he wanted to conclude the conversation where I was emotionally charged and in a state of grief. It upset me so much, I dropped the call without a proper goodbye.
I spent the following day thinking about this, validating him and then validating myself over him.
He called me later that evening, wanting us to talk about what happened on the call. I was expecting him to apologise for wanting to end the call in a moment where I just needed him to be there for him. To my surprise he called to actually call me out for snapping at him and then dropping the call on him. This kick-started an argument (which is quite rare for us bc within the 9 months of us talking, this was our second argument) between us, where I guess we were both feeling unheard. At every attempt of mine to try and explain where my reaction was coming from, he would get frustrated and cut me off... he did it so often to where I was starting to wonder if he just called me to fight or there was something deeper going on with him.
Anyway, what REALLY got me in that argument was that at some point I called him out for not letting me finish my sentences. He kept intercepting while I was trying to make a point, which was crazy to me. At some point, I had to remind him that I have ADHD, so maybe I can be long-winded, but I need him to bear with me as I make my point. Well, I tried, but before I could even finish that sentence, he sighed in frustration, and exclaimed, "Jesus! This is not about your ADHD! Now we're back to your ADHD!"
I was shocked. Partly bc had he allowed me to finish that sentence, he might have gotten to hear the part where I was merely trying to remind him so that he can listen and understand me better. Not to deflect from his grievance with me. 🤦🏾‍♀️
Mostly tho, was bc I was NOT expecting that from HIM. It suddenly triggered me to my experiences in the past with people conveniently ignoring the fact that I live with ADHD, ignoring how very real my experience with it is, and how I quite literally cannot help the way my brain works. I feel like that was the most ableist thing I have ever heard coming from his mouth, and it really rocked me.
I can fully own that I was not right to snap at him, nor was I right to drop the call like that. I have apologised for this. It was the first thing I did. It's just so tricky bc my responses were triggered by his reaction to me in that moment. I was at an emotional low and maybe this is a bit entitled of me, but I was really hoping for a little more grace considering what I was so emotional about. 😔 AITA? Am I not doing enough work to manage my ADHD so that it is not causing conflict in my relationships and how I navigate them?
Please be kind. I've really fallen for this man, and want to make things right.

gets up to see what's happening
Another hot af day, not even kidding bro it's 43° C where I am 😭. ( You can guess where it is, if you can . I'll let that to your imagination hehe).
I just don't feel like being productive on this amazing Sunday and wanna while away, laze in my bed and text and get to know y'all !! ( prolly a excuse for lazing around :P ) jk lol. No fr !
We can play the numbers game or whatever which would be an amazinggg ice breaker ( very much needed for this heat 😔) or rant bout anything or anything or anything.
And if we seem to be getting a long well, I'll give you premium pass ( my discord , don't actually come up asking for any premium subscription pls 😔😭)
And uhm.. be respectful, be crazy, be hyper, speak anything nonsensical, you can have dark humor and I'm really good at taking friendly banter too !
Ssee y'all in the sacred ground 🫡

So the 3-year (wow) anniversary of 3-1B is coming up on May 30th- crazy to think it's been that long but hopefully we'll hear from Nankidai on that date

I work really hard at a job that I hate, keeps me working crazy long hours and even though I make good money, I end up spending more than ever on eating out, alcohol, drugs and gambling. I do a lot of business in cash and I had a customer steal money from me today and I couldn’t do anything about it due to the anonymous nature of my business. It seriously made me have a mental breakdown and I am coming to terms with how much I have lost myself since I started this job. I hate what my life has become- totally focused on chasing money and wasting the prime of my life on something so meaningless. It feels like a major wake up call- I need to get the fuxk out of where I’m living and stop fucking killing my self slowly day by day but I’m terrified of not having any real path or career, I’m so sick and tired but I’m such a pussy I can’t get out of this goddamn rut. Any ideas or advice on how to break the spell of a good paycheck that keeps you miserable?

TLDR; long story short, I'm not allowed to talk to her about him. I love him so much and it's been hard times between us, he has made real efforts to renew the trust between us recently. I opened up about still feeling mentally stuck, unsure about how to move past problems mentally. He's doing a good job and I keep getting flashbacks to all the micro-cheating discovered over the past year.
I have serious insecurities and self-esteem issues now, and get incredibly anxious even when exposed to day-to-day triggers.
I opened up to her (it had been months since I last talked about him), I said she didn't even need to open the message or reply, because I felt better just being able to talk to someone about it out loud.
She replied with a HUGE paragraph saying I can't talk about him anymore, says she only wants to give advice if I take it (she generally doesn't give positive advice, she mostly just shits on his character :/ ). Called the relationship toxic (despite his recent amazing efforts), called me crazy, took my self-awareness as "complaining over and over again" and said she would "support" me so long as I don't talk about him. I apologised for opening up but have not forgotten what she said for days. I feel I can't talk to anybody else about this in my life, and find it difficult to open up to begin with. I honestly have not brought up that much to her!
Any advice from people who learned how to forgive and improve self-confidence mindset after partner micro-cheating? Or what to do when you're strictly not allowed to discuss your partner to your closest friend anymore?
I want to respect her boundaries of course, but this makes me so sad because he is very important to me, it hurts to not be able to talk about him and our improvements or struggles. Plus I barely told her the tip of the iceberg and feel very unsupported by her.
————— P.S, I have a detailed explanation of this, if you'd like to know more I'm happy to comment. It's a very complicated.

Hi guys,
So long story short - I am in the final process of the job recruitment process for a really exciting opportunity in the US. They know I need H-1B sponsorship and, as a cap-exempt employer, they can begin the process pretty much whenever. Great.
However - this opportunity was a complete surprise. 6 months ago I moved into a new apartment with a 12 month lease, took out credit to buy furniture etc. etc. and so I have an interest-free credit card balance of around £10k. I also have a repayable sign on bonus at my job of £4k which I will almost certainly need to pay back.
This might sound crazy, but I ran the maths and I realised I could pay it all off within one year on my salary if I stayed in the UK. I have been doing that, though instead of paying it off directly I have been putting money into a savings account just because I figured since the CC debt was interest free... I may as well make some money on my money instead of paying it down right?
In any event, I'm on target to have it cleared down by the end of the year. Great. But... this is a curveball and I'm not sure how to manage the situation.
If I get the job, I'd be on around $70k per year, which turns out to be $4.6k net having used the take home pay calculators. This is quite a bit more than what I am on in the UK, but I know the cost of living in the US is quite a bit higher.
I'd plan to pretty much sell everything I own in the UK and would expect to get around £5-7k based on this. This, plus my savings would give me around £10k to play with.
Overall, I expect I'd move within 5 months so I would really like to start planning now and put a financial plan together. My current thoughts are thus:

• Negotiate relocation expenses with my prospective employer should I get the position.
  
• Pay down around half of the interest free CC balance - i.e. £5k.
  
• Obviously pay back the bonus clawback - £4k (Will likely be around £2.6k as the bonus was paid Gross)
  
• This leaves net savings of £500 - £1k. Somehow I'd have to support myself for 2 weeks on this in the US before my first pay packet.
  

Overall I am stumped if this is a good plan or not. Alternatively, I could just carry on paying the minimum debt payment in the UK until the interest free period expires, but this doesn't sound like a good idea.
Ugh... I am so excited about this opportunity. I really wish I saw it coming 6 months ago!! I would have made such different decisions. But... hindsight is always 20/20.
If anyone has had a similar situation I'd love to hear your advice. Thank you <3

Back in February I adopted a 8month old cat. She was so sick the place I got her from they were a rescue that was severely lacking funds. So it wasn’t until I got her that she got medical care. She is now good but I found out that she most likely will only weigh 6-8 pounds. My boy is 2 years old. About 12/13 pounds. They groom eachother and sleep near eachother but when they’re active they’re fighting like crazy. He attacks her and I have to get up to separate them. But then she chases him back? Either way aggressive or not it happens all day long. He’s much bigger so i’m afraid he will hurt her. Then I also can’t just relax because i’m constantly getting up to go save her. Is this something that will die down as she ages? She’s very energetic. I can’t sleep though and it’s driving me up a wall.

We all know how ffa is. King donations are skill issue. However the king deletion is disgusting, the amount of people that keep doing that on any map that has water on it is embarrassing, the sole fact that this game mode was released so long ago and they still didn't fix it is shameless and toxic, you may be spending resource and time into killing someone just for them to run their king to the nearest port and delete it. That + only being able to play random maps is so frustrating to play, being able to have at least a couple of maps that are not mega random would be such a huge upgrade to the gamemod it is crazy why devs locked it to 2 maps.
The other issue with ffa is that everyone spawns next to each other, it may not be as invasive as it was during the first week but the amount of times when l;literally everyone is builds their first tc on the same side of the map while other is empty. It doesn't matter if its an open map or if its a map with mountains, everyone expect 1 or 2 people spawns next to each other.

Stand Name: 「Behemoth」 Namesake: Behemoth by Gost and Perturbator (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4rq8PjgNI3c) Stand User: Urutsal Oleyssyes. Size/Height of Stand: 372m. Stand Cry: None. Stand Type: Artificial-Non Humanoid, Long-Ranged, Automatic (Far-Distance Autopilot) Stand. Stand Role: Offense, Support, Defense.
Info and Statistics:
Appearance:
Behemoth is a colossal stand that has an appearance of a Flying Ironclad, the ironclad is actually 290m long, but because of its super-long deck and bow, it gives it another 82m, the stern though inclines at the back. The Main Ironclad has 2 sub-ironclads connected beside it, also having 3 fans at the sides of the Sub-Ironclads. Behemoth's large cockpit is smack-dabbed right in the middle of the Ironclad, with gears forming petals which slowly descend to the Main Engines, the cockpit is very sleek and long, inclining downwards. Both Sub-Ironclads and Main-Ironclad have 2 45m long cannons, with 5 barrels, and each barrel is 6m wide, with 10000 AA guns. Inside of the ironclad, there is 40 small Ironclad like ships, some are scouts, some are defensive, and some are offensive, and 4 giant main engines inside the Main-Ironclad, behind the main engines is a colossal sized cannon, 34m in height. There are also giant inclining smoke stacks on the Main-Ironclad. The main colors of Behemoth are Grey/Gray, Black, Red.
Abilities/Techniques:

• Soul-Recruitment: Once a stand-user has died, their soul will be guided up to Behemoth, which the souls will work for Behemoth, like being a cleaner, fighter, captain, mechanic, medic, etc.
• Annihilator: Behemoth will turn to a direction, split it half, to then reveal its colossal cannon, and fire a huge red laser that can vaporize mountains in under 2 seconds.
• Vaporization: Behemoth will fire all its guns at you, and each shot will be stronger and faster, the shots stop until Urutsal commands to stop.

Weaknesses:

1. Because of its colossal size, spotting it will be easy.
2. Normal people can even see it. (linked to weakness 1)
3. If any important compartments like the cockpit, engines, cannons get damaged, the entire stand will be affected, like really bad.
4. Annihilator takes a WHILE to activate the shooting, 45mins.

Stand Stats:

• Power: A
• Speed: B
• Range: A
• Durability: B
• Precision: B
• Potential: E

Description of User and Backstory:
Age: 22
Appearance/Personality:
Urutsal has a timid, and shy personality (at least he tries to be, but fails pathetically), but when he is piloting, or commanding his stand, he becomes more calculated, serious, and more strict. Standing at 6'5, with short blond hair, and purple eyes. He wears a VRN Vess Division Grand-Admiral uniform (which is similar to a SS Luftwaffe officer uniform, but it has an overly long aiguillette on the hat that droops down to the waist), and a Black VRN Fedora (that's the only way to identify a Grand-Admiral).
PS: VRN (Vess Royal Navy) Vess Division is a sub-branch of the RGN (Royal Gatzaboran Navy). (It's called 'Navy' instead of 'Airmen' is because the ships/aircraft and sailors are extremely Navy like, instead of having Airmen uniforms, they have Naval uniforms.)
Note: The Rank 'Grand Admiral' isn't real, it it used in Star Wars
Backstory:
Born at Gatzabora's Galey Family (which was the family that owned Gatzabora), he was incredible rich, and spoiled as a child, he would go everywhere to become an annoying gremlin, always asking for the things he want. One day, while crying and throwing a tantrum on the floor at a street, he saw an another spoiled child getting scolded like crazy and getting beaten, so he zipped his mouth up, got up, and became more mannered (like he doesn't want to be spoiled anymore). At age 16, because of his family's dreams (they dream that their children will work at jobs like the army, navy, city-worker (they always keep Gatzabora floating, basically they keep everyone alive, so everyone respects them) etc, so he chose to join the army, becoming a sailor in the Navy in fact. 3 years later, because of his stellar performance in the navy, and following orders real well, he climbed up the ranks, and became the most highest rank in the Navy, the Grand Admiral (still lower than 'The General of The Army'). Age 22, in a mission, Urutsal was ordered to take down Maren and Trusyen's squad (they were almost a menace, thanks to their stands), the battle started, Urutsal got defeated, but instead of dying and being those 'loyal' wannabes 'i won't join you!!11!!1', he joined them, and threw off the Navy insignia (which the Navy didn't know that he betrayed them). Becoming the 2nd JoBro.
Status of character: Former Minor Villain turned JoBro.

I like to learn while I read. Sometimes I’ll read a fic and had no idea that Things Could Be Like That, and I’m just floored, thinking about it for days, googling and crying. As I haven’t the best memory, I might have forgotten some, and I might add more later. Everything is rated E or M because I only read the slick and sloppy.

THE LIST

1: For Loving One (AU) - World War II has never really interested me, and I didn’t know much about what it was like to be queer back then. I just assumed almost everyone was out to get you (and I wasn’t wrong), but I just didn’t have any reference material. Now I do, as it’s clear the author knows a lot about this topic. This is a beautiful story, well researched, with just enough happy and just enough angst. I’ve learned a lot, entirely without meaning to.
2: Epistolary - one of my favorite tropes, which is Crowley finding and reading Aziraphale’s diary and stumbling upon very private thoughts and YearningTM throughout history. There are plagues, there are Aztec ritual sacrifices, there’s a long-haired, sleeping Crowley in a cave and Aziraphale losing his mind yearning over (literally over) said sleeping Crowley.
3: exodus2 (AU) - Ezra (ambitious and lonely) and Crowley (very eager), programming students in their early 20s, meet at university in a totalitarian European state, and both have an interest in banned media and causing some trouble. You’ll learn some Hebrew, some Yiddish and Scandinavian - and how to start an insurrection against the State. And, there are (banned) book recommendations!
4: A Godawful Small Affair - What if Vince Taylor wasn’t Bowie’s inspiration for Ziggy Stardust? A fic that placed me firmly in a music scene I’ve never immersed myself in, in a decade I somehow skipped over. Yes, I know, I’m weird - but I’ve learned a lot! It’s sweet and it really feels probable.
5: Rough Enough for Love (AU) - As an AFAB person, I’ve learned so much about… uh, the subjective intricacies of AMAB anatomy. Also, it’s nice to skip the yearning sometimes and just read them having their cake and eating it too.
6: The False and the Fair (AU) - I knew nothing about West Virginia, nor about coal mining. It has all the feels and if this was about anyone other than the ineffables I wouldn’t have read it and I would have missed out. I’ve learned so much about a society and a setting so far from everything I thought I was interested in. Don’t miss out!
7: A Gift of Words - Okay, it’s not slick and sloppy - but VERY sweet, and I learned a lot about Gutenberg and the printing press. Crowley changes the world for his angel, by giving him (arguably) his most favorite thing.
8: Old Vines (AU) - Aziraphale is a wine&food blogger and Crowley produces extraordinary wine in his viny vineyard/heart that he doesn’t let anyone into. People go crazy over this one. I’m sure I will, too (on the plane, later). I will learn a LOT about wine, I’m told.
9: I Believe I am Owed a Toss - if you’re looking to learn how to properly entice a member of the members only-club, then read this.
10: Coming into Focus (AU) - “It is the summer of 1864, and Aziraphale is an itinerant photographer set up behind Union lines outside Petersburg, Virginia. He’s no stranger to pleasure, but he has always protected his heart. But when the redheaded colonel of the 5th New Jersey walks into his tent, he begins to wonder whether it’s time to rethink his stance on love.” Haven’t read it yet, but I’m gonna!
4: What Hath God Wrought (AU) - “Do you remember, my darling, the early days when there were just fingers and air and sounds – a rhythmic beeping in the day, a frantic answer in the night? The orange glow of lamps. Coding and decoding. Choosing the words carefully, never too many, but always enough.” Yearning over telegraphs! Can’t wait to read this one. Artwork HERE.
Let me know if YOU wrote a fic in which you teach the reader about something you have special knowledge of! I’d like to read, learn and link to it here!

There was this game that was on either friv or ____ games 2, ____ because I don't know if crazy games 2 ever even existed, but I remember it started off with choosing a few options and then you'd get your class of character, the classes included barabarian, knight and rogue (don't know if this was the name), a bit like dungeons and dragons. I remember you had to use j, k and l if you were player 1 and you could upgrade these characters. I remember it was turn-based and very long, please help!!!

I'm 42m.
I have never had close friends and have no family. I try to think of why i turned out like this. I grew up in a middle class home. My dad made ok money but worked night shift my entire childhood, he rarely spoke to me or did things with me. My mom was a stay at home mom until i was a teenager.
I think most days my parents did not really interact with me except for essential things, so they gave me food and clothes, but doing things with them was very rare, like we went on vacations maybe 3 or 4 times during my childhood. I never learned to ride a bike or to swim. I think i learned to tie my shoes when i was 12, i taught myself. I remember that i did not learn to use the bathroom until i was 3, and that also i taught myself, i didn't understand for a long time when i was at other peoples houses or my cousins houses why they had small toilets for the babies.
I remember specific things that happened that stand out in my mind as being especially bad. There are 3 that i can think of.
When i was like 5 or so, i remember being in my room very cold. I didn't understand at the time, but later i came to understand that our house was very drafty and cold in the winter because we had wooden windows and they should have been painted about once a year, they were not maintained and so did not shut all the way were always cracked open a small amount. Also the furnace did not heat the whole house, it only heated it until the thermostat on the 1st floor reached it's preset point, so the upstairs was usualy 10 or more degrees colder. My mom didn't think that we needed blankets (my sister and me, she is about 4 years older). We had sheets on the bed and that was all. I don't remember if it was my sisters idea, i think it was, we went into the hall closet at night to get more blankets and my mom caught us and yelled at us and made us put them back. She said that the blanket i took was a wedding present and i didn't need it. Years later i remember my sister as a teenager having several arguments with my mom about a comforter that she had bought herself. When i moved out of the house i stole that same blanket that was still folded up in the closet never used. Still have it.
When i was 9 i got very sick. My mom thought i had some kind of flu. I kept throwing up. She did not take me to the doctor. She always said how dumb it was how people took their kids to the doctor all the time just because they were sick. She kept giving me ice cream because she said that was good for throwing up and keeping energy up. I was sick for i think more than a whole week, not sure if it went on for 2 or not. Still didn't take me to a doctor, i kept throwing up. Then one day i collapsed and they called an ambulance. It turned out that i was diabetic and was throwing up because my blood sugar was too high.
Later, i think i was 12 or 13. I developed ingrown toenails. My big toes would bleed and ooze every day. When i came home from school they would be stained with blood and some yellow. My mom would yell at me for this and scold me for not taking better care of my feet. This went on for about 6 months. My mom got a foot bath for me, and told me to soak my feet in warm water and gave me these sharp sticks to try to pry the nail out of the skin, but it didn't work. Eventually she did take me to a doctor who performed the surgery to cut the toenails out.
Other things that i remember, smaller things, were things like i asked to join the boy scouts at one point and my mother told me she didn't have to do that because she had already done that when my sister was in girl scouts, and i asked to learn to ride a bike at one point and my parents told me i was too old to go ride a bike with training wheels so i wasn't allowed. I told my mom at one point that when i grew up i wanted to have a family with lots of kids, and she told me i couldn't have a family because of my diabetes, it was going to be too expensive.
My parents never hit me, or denied me food, and when i got diabetes my mom would always track all of my sugar levels and how much insulin, she still has stacks and stacks of the monthly sheets for tracking everything the doctors office gave us. But i don't remember ever playing with her or my dad, my dad didn't take me to football games, though he went with my grandma all the time, they had season tickets together. My parents never told me i should join anything at school like sports or anything.
The older i get, the more i think of these things, and look at how much i hate my life, and i blame them and get angrier at them, i hate them. They are in their 70's now, they invite me over for dinner, on the weekends sometimes, i hate going over there, when ever they text me asking me to go i yell at my phone and i wish they would both die already.

I have been so fucked by the mental health system. How the government claims to care could give a shit less about people like me. Just a tiny bit of background just have someone please help me right now I need it badly. I’ve been beyond traumatized not fun to put out there I don’t need sympathy or want people feeling sorry for me I’ve healed. But I’ve been not just traumatized the kind of trauma they only right books for the kind where the only few times I tell it someone just stares at me and cry’s and wonders why I’m even still here or how I made it. Yea life sucks so when I hear people complaining while there’s people like me that been thru so real ass shit that have healed and are happy living life just being happy. I judge the people that always want to complain coming from someone like me it’s not worth it shit just be happy. Anyway I need peoples help right now I don’t know where to turn to or what to do. I’ve surrounded my life with nothing but positive people and don’t even know where to start and don’t want to give anyone the slightest rumor that could be started about me. I’m medicated. It helps me. Been medicated since 10 going thru the shit I’ve been thru you get issues you learn how to cope with it so I did and since 10 been taking adhd medication, bipolar disorder, and sometimes Xanax for my sever ptsd lmao ain’t it crazy to be diagnosed with that one at just 10 years old. Anyway I hardly even take it only time I even take one is when I can’t even breath anymore when I’m on the the floor hyperventilating from my past is the one single time I’ll take that Xanax because it makes me have a certain high I hate. Love me some weed, will smoke famn near anyone under the table I love weed. Weed helps. But so does my adhd medication probably more then anything because out of everything the sever adhd I have makes it damn near impossible to live with. So someone somewhere tell me how it’s possibly fair and I mean the slightest bit fair to take the one medication I’ve been on for over 15 year away because people have chosen it to get high on? I don’t even get what other people use it for it just makes me feel normal doesn’t make me hyper or anything I’ve gone into detail here so not one damn person can judge me for asking what I’m about to. I have children that I have to be okay for. I’m going on 2 weeks of being denied and not being okay trust me I’ve tried every damn legal avenue. Tried paying it out of pocket because of how long I’ve been diagnosed. Tried going to other therapist even fucking tried begging my doctor but they all just look at you as a addict wanting there fix. So someone for the love of god please tell me if these illegal online pharmacies are real. I just need some kind of stimulant doesn’t even matter what at this point just has to be a bigger mg because of how severe I am. All I want to do is take my medication all I’ve ever wanted to do is to be stable for my children I love them and give them more love and attention then most do I broke the stupid cycle. And this is now starting to cause me to get angry at my kids for little shit and they look at me in a way they’ve never have please just anyone help me I don’t care how or what I have to do I just fucking need it I need someone to please here my sincerity and help me this isn’t fair it’s just not fair. I mean I’m posting on Reddit for god sakes just help me