Hi everyone,
Long time listener, first time caller. A joke from calling into radio stations. Despite the dated joke, I am a man in my mids 20s. I was born right before the turn of the century so I got to grow up as the digital age was developing. I knew I was different growing up but I never really knew why until I was about twelve. I remember talking to Child Study professionals from ages 4-12. I got modified assignments, I got put into another room during tests and got extra time. It was only during a routine check up did I learn of my diagnosis. "So how's the Aspergers?" An awkward question that I had no answer to but my mom answered like it was nothing. I asked her on the car ride and that opened Pandora's Box. I started doing more research. I started connecting dots. I was happy I could make sense of why the world didn't seem to make sense through my eyes. The bullying sucked I will admit but I at least I knew why. The almost obsessive interests in Pokemon and Digimon, the tendency to hyperfixate on things, the random repeating of phrases. But my sudden clarity would become a blessing and a curse. Through the trials and tribulations of the American public school system, I slowly became more self-aware of my behavior. Why didn't I fit in quite as easily as others? Sure there are a lot of kids that are awkward and get made fun of for their character quirks that don't have ASD. But I wanted to be accepted. So I slowly took bits and pieces from friends who were in the cooler social circles. I used to laugh at everything, not knowing when a joke started and ended, and got made fun of. So I learned to look for the minor inflections in voices that denotes a laugh. I learned to use my dry manner of speak to my advantage. I copied mannerisms, became hyperaware of my body language. I started masking. I still made social faux pas but it was mitigated. I count myself lucky that I had a large, diverse group of friends I could be myself around. But along the way, I lost sight of who that person truly was. I spent so long with the mask up that I wasn't sure if there was a real person underneath. MAsking your quirks makes you hyperaware, hypervigilant. I developed social anxiety and became self-conscious about how I was being perceived at any given moment. I have since worked on this in therapy and am doing better but it has been a long road.
Growing up, my mom had to facilitate a lot of my friendships until about 5th grade. She wanted to make sure I was developing as much as I could. I was a hyperactive kid who would not shut up about my special interests. Luckily, the friends I made shared those same interests. I had a friend who I knew since kindergarten. We would go to each other's houses all the time. We would gush over Power Rangers. It was a particularly big special interest for me and it was freeing to be able to talk about. Unfortunately, as we grew older, we slowly grew apart. He became more interested in fitting in. He would often say "You are obsessed" and "that stuff is for kids" even though we were 8, 9, 10 years old. The things I was into became frowned upon. So I hid them. I would get made fun of but he never outwardly defend me. I still considered him my best friend. But I think I stopped being his. We are still friends but not as close as we used to be. My outlook on life is very simple and tends to be black and white. If we have a few decent interactions and connect on a single interest, I consider you a friend. Understanding the nuance between acquaintance and friend can be difficult at times. I don't do well with change. The people you think are going to be in your life forever may not be there in a few years. That hurt to learn. Learning that people grow and change into adulthood hurts too. Things aren't the same as they were when you were young. But I still want to just play video games, play with imaginary friends and just hang out like we did 10 years ago. It hurts that people don't share the same thoughts on consistency like me. But Individuals are allowed to be just that, individual. Again, I am lucky enough to have found people that like me for me. I played soccer at the collegiate level and met lifelong friends through it. I was able to find people that accepted me with all of my perceived flaws and quirks. I came to terms with the fickleness of human personality and understood that others are dealing with their own stuff too. Im still anxious but I feel more comfortable in my own skin.
Now, of course, if you expecting to hear something about romantic relationships, we have finally arrived. I just wanted to give some context. Of course, I did overexplain some things but I digress. Growing up, I was a romantic cynic on the outside, and a hopeless romantic on the inside. I always wanted love but yet never understood how to get it. I watched a lot of television and played a lot of games. I am naturally introverted and am often in my own head rather than reality. I used to daydream about being a relationship all the time. I would develop crushes and think I was going to spend my life with the person. Yes even at 8 years old. I would build up the courage and confess my affection through notes or through someone else. But I never really knew the other person. I was falling in love with a idea. I liked the idea of love. Someone who is there for you. To help comfort you when you're sad. They make you happy and you get to kiss all the time. But that way of thinking is selfish. You are taking the other person out the equation and you are constructing a person that will compensate your feelings of loneliness. It's not totally a bad thing. I can be nice to escape from reality from time to time. But at some point, you have to come back. Which sucks. But I learned this the hard way. And sometimes, that's the only way. Women, men or any person you are trying to date have their own thoughts, emotions, wants and needs. You can't expect a blank canvas. As a man, I was lucky to have female friends who could give me a perspective on life as a women. The do and don'ts of courting, be respectful and taking rejection in stride. I started college thinking every thing would be different. I would start dating with this new rubric. I met someone who seem to fit every category. She also played soccer, she was in the same major and I found her attractive (she wore glasses, that's a thing for me). I will say I had a very low threshold for attraction. We were snapchating, talking every day and we became pretty good friends. In retrospect, the relationship was a little one-sided as I was more a person to vent to, but I digress. I was convinced that things were going well. I confessed one night after mustering up all my courage (notice the pattern?). She said maybe. People, if you get a maybe, take it as a NO and try to move on. I latched on that maybe and selfishly thought 'She'll come around, eventually'. I made sure stay respectful. I asked her out a few times but did not a committal response. One night, I had helped her walk a friend home from a party. We ran into some friends of hers and they asked "is that your boooooyfriend", like a child. She responded with an "Ew no" and we moved on. After taking some time, I realized that I needed to exercise some self-respect. I sent a text explaining that I liked being her friend and I did not want to lose that. But I still liked her romatically so i needed time and space to work that out. I had been falling for the surface level things we had in common and we never connected any deeper. I grew from the experience and learned that, for me at least, a relationship should have a basis in friendship. Love your partner, but you should also like your partner too. Also, for all the young men who are attracted to women out there, you can be friends with the other sex without expecting sex or a relationship. As I stated, I benefitted by the different perspectives of the friends I had made. My first relationship ended up being with a women I had made friends with freshmen year of college.
I had a lot of bad luck with romance all throughout my schooling days. Most of it was my fault, given I never really knew the people i had crushes on. In college, it was more out of my control. I used dating apps (every one you could think of) and didn't have much success. I worked on myself and slowly improved my dating profile. I tried the direct approach, giving a personal description that almost exceeded the character count. I wanted to make sure the other person knew as much about me as possible. That didn't seem to work so I tried the witty line. That kinda worked but not by much. I got few matches that didn't go anywhere. I got a date once but the person on the profile didn't really look like it in real life. That and we didn't really have anything in common. I will say I did not deal with that the most mature way (ghosted). Don't do that, I'm not proud of it but live and learn. The next time I asked somebody out, they texted me the morning after at 3 am to tell me they are getting back with their ex and she subsequently tried to set me up with a friend out of pity. I could only laugh. At that point, I decided to give up on love. It wasn't meant for me. I got too many quirks and idiosyncracies. I don't deserve love. I'm just a wast...and the spiral continued. Funny enough, I decided to download Tinder for umpteenth time at the beginning of junior year. I swiped on a friend that I made freshman year who I had been attracted but never acted on it. She had a boyfriend at the time so I just let it go. She, her friends and I were often studying in the same common area and developed a rapport. They were Bio majors so I didn't have any classes in common with them my sophomore year. I would always say hi in passing and stop for small talk here and there but nothing major. I was surprised when she matched with me. It was a surreal feeling. Does someone that I like like me back? This was unprecedented. I felt like I made progress. Maybe people like me can find someone. But I didn't want to get my hopes up. She could have swiped because we knew each other (I don't know what that means either but it's what I thought). Then we talked. and talked some more. And some more. I never asked for advice from friends. I tried to be as authentic as possible. It turns out I am pretty witty over text. I was (and still am) oblivious to signs of attractions, given it had never been reciprocated before. She actually asked me to see a scary movie together. I made a comment about scarying easily and she said I could hold her hand if I get jumpy. Well that is the most obvious sign I could get. Date goes well, We start studying together. I actually initiated a snuggle as we watched a movie. RED ALERT, physical contact with a romantic interest. Wooooo! One day we are hanging out and tells me that her friends had said that they wished that they could find a guy like me back then. That helped my self-esteem immensely. I felt comfortable disclosing my ASD after she asked why I wasn't the party type of person. Too loud, too many smells, too crowded. She was receptive and understanding. I was estatic. I was doing the impossible, in my eyes. I had a lot of firsts in a short amount of time. Specifically, in the physical department. I got my first kiss, and some touchy-feelies of private parts in one night. Things were happening fast. I got asked to define the relationship AFTER my first time. That was a very awkward time to be asked this question. But I wanted to be with her so... yeah. I did everything I could to be a good boyfriend. Be supportive, try to hang out when I can, make time for her and make sure that I try to be the best person I can be. Unfortunately, some things are out of your control. After a month, there had been a bit of distance. I was oblivious to it; I was so focused on being the perfect boyfriend. One day, we were trying to pick something to watch and we couldn't decide on anything. She didn't like anime and I didn't want to watch baking shows. She asked me if something felt off between us. I didn't think so but she did. She essentially told me that she wasn't falling in love with and she didn't think she would. I was blindsided. I accepted it, I couldn't really blame her. I didn't do anything wrong. But those thoughts started to come back. "See, you don't deserve it and you never did", "the other foot was going to drop eventually", "too good to be true", etc. I spiralled. I was a mess for months. I finally got diagnosed with depression and anxiety. I started taking meds. I started therapy. Eventually, I got better and felt ready to try again.
I was a bit jaded butwanted to start putting myself out there, slowly. This time, I chose a combination of witty honesty for my Tinder profile. Something like looking for wholesome connections on Tinder may not be the best, but I am naive. Then I met HER. Oh man, what a looker. And would you believe she messaged me first? She was refreshed by my honesty and thought I was attractive. Woah. Now this is 4 months from when my first relationship ended. I wanted to take things slow. I told myself that I would make sure I truly connected with someone before getting into a relationship. So that's what I did. We talked every day, really getting to know each other. We had similar interests and some different ones. She is brutally honest and straightforward just like me. She is confident and funny, but she had such a capacity for empathy and understanding. They say you should never have your standards too high. I had always felt like mine were, given I spent years in my own head, crafting the perfect person. But, imagine, you meet someone who fits so closely to almost every criteria? We became good friends. I slowly opened up more. That includes complimenting her, believe or not. I tend to come on strong in most situations so I tried to be more reserved. She has such a beautiful smile. Anyway, i digress. I started to realize that I was falling for her. Hard. Not like before though. Like I wake up and think about her. Go to bed and think about her. We started talking over winter break while I was at home. We were long distance but I would come back every other week. Our first date was at....a movie (original I know). I was very nervous because I really liked her, I wanted it to go well..and we were also horny people in their early twenties who may or may not planned to do the deed in the parking lot. Which was not great because again, I was nervous. But things got better. She became my girlfriend. The bad thoughts went away. I fell in love. Let me tell you, it feels great. Plus, lockdown happened towards the beginning of our relationship. So we got to see each other super often. Inseperable. We knew that we would marry each other. We found our person. 4 years later, now its happily ever after. Except life isn't a fairy tale. Nothing to celebrate on my anniversary, no one to see on Valentine's Day. We went on a break in Spetmeber to work on ourselves. We became co-depepndent. She had mental health challenges that I couldn't fix. I couldn't make it better. No matter how hard i tried. We were our own support system. But she was the love of my life and I wasn't going to give up. But then she broke up with me in October. She fell out of love. She called me the next day and changed her mind. She made a mistake. I have a girlfriend again. Two days later, she broke up with me again. She made a mistake in making a mistake. Fast forward a month, her birthday is coming up. I still check up on her story on Insta. It would be the first I missed. I had sent her a letter to get closure. She responded. We talk. Im just happy to hear her voice. two days later, she misses me and wants to come back. I'm happy. My whole outlook changes. I can listen to music again. We plan on spend thanksgiving together. Things are gonna back to normal. I stayed up all night the night before I pick her up from school. I'm too excited. Then the text. "I think Im running away from my problems please don't come". She blocks me again. We talk. If she is going to come back, she wants to come back better. She doesn't want me to wait and if I find somebody else....I stopped her. I only wanted to be with her. I wont wait but I will always keep the door open for her. She is worth it. But I lied. I lied to her but more importantly, I lied to myself. I was telling myself I was getting better. I downloaded apps again. I started working out again. Im moving on. No, I waited. I put my life on hold. Waiting. For just one phone call. One text. I get the love of my life back. Today, I saw a picture of her kissing another guy. She was happy. She was better. He looked like I did when I was with her. I reached out. I wanted to scream. I wanted to yell. But I couldn't. Because love is unconditional. I love her and I always will. But with love comes loss. Love means being happy for her even if it's not with me. Love is not some emotion that makes you want to have sex and kiss. Love is commitment. Love is doing the little things. Love is being there even when you are mad at each other. Love is not standing in the way of your loved ones happiness. Love is hard. Love is not a feeling. I have a hard time with feelings. I can;t understand them half the time. But I know what love is. I had it and I lost it. It's soul crushing and it's not fair. But Love....is knowing when to let go. I hope I can find it again someday. But for now, I have to stop waiting.

Hello! 1st year art teacher here. My kids are doing a wonderful job creating art this year and filling out exit tickets, discussing their work, completing rubrics, etc. I am having an extremely hard time, however, trying to figure out how to plan lessons that fit with the present standard, specifically,”analyze how traditional and emerging technologies have impacted the perseveration and presentation of work” for 4th grade and some of the ones in kindergarten like,”explain the purpose of a portfolio or collection.” How often does every one hit every standard each year and how? Especially with the ones involving museums when I am already stressed for time just creating.

it's a bit of a click baity title. but some 6 year olds are indeed involved.
i'm not really a petty guy. i have some stories i could tell where i come of as petty, but i never mean it that way. i'm just an autistic dude with adhd. but i just remembered a story from my childhood where i was very intentionally petty. this is a bit relevant since some could get confused: i'm a trans man.
it was the summer of 2007 and for the first time in my long long life, my birthday wasn't on summer vacation. i was turning 7 🥳 it was also the first b-day ever my mom bought a present for me. so i was extra stoked. i got a barbie rapunzel doll for my birthday. this was THE shit the girls wanted. the movie had just been released the year prior (i'm not american) and the doll half a year later, so no one except for ME had that doll. don't worry, all this is really relevant.
i'm a kid who got bullied a lot. since kindergarten. and since every kid i went to kindergarten with was practically my neighbor, the bullying carried over to elementary school. i was not only a loser without friends. i was the loser between the losers. i was always alone. so obviously, i was even happier that all the popular girls wanted to talk to me and play with me on my b-day. but some of you already guessed it. the girls were obviously much more interested in my doll. because of my circumstances, i had to mature much faster than my peers, so obviously, i catched up almost immediately what was going on. i felt miserable almost the entire day until one of the girls asked something like, "hey, you haven't already decided who sits with you, right? can we sit at your table?"
let me explain: back in my days👴 in my elementary school, whenever a child had their b-day on a school day, we would have a party at the end of that day. the b-day kid would choose up to 5 kids that were allowed to sit at the big round table with the b-day child. usually, the parents would bring a cake or pie and some other sweets. some parents would even join. my mom obviously couldn't join, i knew she had 3 different jobs. she obviously didn't have any time.
every time the b-day child was pressured by their classmates into choosing 5 people. because after the b-day child, the kids at their table would be the next ones getting served a slice of cake or sweets, etc. and obviously, they were also allowed to choose the games as well. kids being kids, that was seen as "super cool." basically, if you were tight with the b-day kid, you were at the top of the food chain. almost always the popular kids where the ones sitting at that table, making them even more popular.
listen, my little brother required much more attention, so i was basically accustomed to not getting what i wanted. i didn't care about the seating. but i also knew THEY cared a lot about it. so after getting treated like shit the whole day, i was thinking "you know what, fuck it. (obviously paraphrasing here :D) tomorrow begins summer vacation and even after that, we're moving out, i'm not going to see these fuckers ever again." so i had this glorious idea. i had a plasic bag in my backpack. (most of the time i used a plastic bag to pack my lunches, because mother taught us to ✨️recycle✨️ 💅)
so, the girl is asking me that question and i'm like "hold on", go to my backpack, pull out the empty used plasic bag, look them straight in the eyes and say "the first 5 willing to put their bare foot into this used plastic bag for a minute are the ones i will choose to sit with me." first, they were reluctant but one by one they did it. i was feeling SO fucking good. i was obviously not going to choose them. but when the time was nigh🏴‍☠️(near), i felt a bit bad for them after all.
now wait a sec, let's go back to my mom. like i said, she didn't have time because she was busy providing for us. so obviously i wasn't expecting anything big. anything at all, honestly. my teacher did tell me around noon that my mom had dropped around lunch time to bring my cake. i was happy about that, but like i said, i didn't expect anything more than a store-bought cake.
so, i was starting to feel bad. contemplating whether i should do it or not until my teacher asked me to set up the table with her. i was extremely surprised. my mom hadn't bought a cake. she MADE that shit. my mother, who had 3 jobs, 5 kids and on top of that diabetes had made a huge fucking cake for me. but no no no, of course we're talking about my mom here, she had also made OTHER baked goods on top of that AND cooked a meal for the whole ass class. thanks to my mom, not only was i convinced to take my tiny little revenge, i was also going out with a fucking BANG.
choosing time.... and obviously the popular girls were expecting their names being called out. but damn i must've been REALLY pissed, because i remember i knew exactly which people i was going to choose, but every time i called out a name, i made a huge dramatic pause between each name, seeing the girls faces turn from hopeful to disappointed each fucking time. and i'm convinced the universe was on my side bc the popular kids were all seated to the back. having a miserable time. and that's how i used a plastic bag to get my tiny, petty, dirty revenge.
remembering this story, i miss my mom even more now. (no, not dead. just transphobic.) she gave it her all to raise us, and even after everything i went through, you could say i would still glady give up a foot for her.
edit: sry for grammar or spelling mistakes. english is my 3rd language.

1. edit: since some people didn't get what was up with the plastic bag. it was completely random that i chose it, but like i already mentioned, i was always packing my lunches in reusable plastic bags. so, yeah, i knew the bag was dirty, and it would be gross to put a whole foot in there for a minute. for why i used it, i wanted them to "prove" me that they were really willing to sit at the table, so i could humiliate them even more after. i didn't mention, though, that everyone was watching them while they were doing that. and kids being kids, they obviously got laughed at. hence the humiliation part. another thing i want to mention is that i don't mind compliments, but this story is almost 2 decades old, and i was just retelling a story i remembered. i've been over it for quite some time. i was just remembering it because my bf and i were talking about my birthday for this year. now, if you could excuse me, i have to finish my ritual for cursing my enemies. have a great day, gang 🤝✨️

Sine Nomine Desperato - Anonymous and Hopeless
I'm giving you a full, uncensored, no-bullshit dive into my life, my problems, and what I think about myself. I will personally take time out of my life to read every single comment on this post. Just know that if you say something hurtful, it will emotionally torture me, since you would be insulting my life, my time, and my effort. Even though I want to be tough, I am very, very emotionally soft. If you want to give me the truth and tell me what I need to hear though, please do not hold back. Sugarcoating wont help anything, and if the truth and what I need to hear will hurt me emotionally, so be it. I might hate you in the moment, but I will appreciate it eventually. You have my word.
___
M14
Since I was born, I've always been a piece of shit. I would distract others in different activities, classes, sports, and camps. My father put me in multiple sports from a young age, mainly hockey. My dad had always had a deep rooted passion for hockey, but growing up in the 1970s as a minority in a neighborhood without hockey rinks or basically any opportunities cut his dream of being a hockey player in half. He still found happiness in basketball, and with a deadbeat father and a frequently drunk mother he still found a way to thrive. Even though he wasn't naturally gifted and his body was not fit for his sport, he found a way onto his High School team, and was the 2nd or 3rd best. The teamwork, communication, drive, need for practice, and other traits required for playing a sport at the level developed my dad into what he is today. He is a very respected educator and has fought to make the school he founded the best in the area, and despite his co-workers and higher-ups hating his guts and doing the best they could to undermine him and get him fired/demoted/terminated/whatever it may be he still fought through the opposition and does everything he can to help me.
From ages 4-10 my father put me in multiple camps for different sports, mainly hockey. Even though I was physically gifted and one of the best hockey players of that age at the time, my attitude, personality, and behavior was atrocious to say the least. Even at the age of 4, I was kicked out of damn near every camp I went to for the same reasons. I was disrespectful, I was a distraction, I didn't do anything I didn't want to do, and I was never doing the right thing when I should be. At that age, it was more-so a surface level terrible behavior. My dad had spent about 50k in these 6 years of trying to set me up for a good future in sports - something I enjoy and excel at - but my dumb ass wouldn't understand this. Spoiled brat behavior who thinks that everything is just going to align in place for myself.
In school, I was never a good writer, and even at this age even though people say I'm amazing with computers, my writing is worse than a kindergarten students. To help me work through my struggles with expressing myself on pen and paper, my 2nd grade teacher whom I appreciated very much granted me a school laptop to use in class, and every now and then I'd use it to type assignments. My elementary school was very renaissance and progressive-education based. It was a good school for me, but it was sadly very divided, as the previous principals for the school were apartheidists or something. I was the first Gifted and Talented student of color, and the principal that came in the year before I joined helped me there, and helped me fight through the oppression I faced in that school, but that's a story for another time.
It was around age 7-8 that I found a video game I enjoyed. It is a very popular game that is mostly user-based. I'd prefer to just call it "VG" for "Video Game." I really liked VG. I showed my brother it and he liked it too, and VG has been basically what I do in all my free-time. My brother also liked it too, but he's been moving on from it recently, as he is almost an adult.
My brother is 16. I will only reveal minimal details of him because his story is not mine, and it is his to tell.
At the beginning, even though VG was only something I did in my free time, I was on it much more than I should have been. Even though my behavior was terrible, my grades were surprisingly good, and with the grading rubric my elementary school used, a 1-4, almost all of my grades were 3s and 4s. Even though it seemed like my slightly overactive gaming life was alright for now, my father (who has an extremely high IQ and EQ) saw the early signs of an addiction. He would take away the laptop I used to play VG every now and then in hopes of curving me away from it. I thought he was just doing it to be a dick, but in retrospect I understand why and I thank him for that.
Devices were slowly becoming a smaller part of my life, and my behavior and grades got better in my final years of Elementary until it fucking happened, but I won't blame it for my lack of character.
What is "it"?
"It" is Covid fucking 19.
It was Spring and I was in 5th grade. I was enjoying my day at the track at my local park, running laps and whatnot before my iPhone 7 gets a notification. I open it up and it's a message from the Google Classroom. I click it and see something like this sent to the feed by my best friend:
"guyz school is canceled because of covid :("
I've seen somewhere that when a human in infatuated with something, their pupils can expand. After seeing this message, I probably looked like one of those idiots that tattoo their eyeballs black.
This was a young tech geeks dream. I was able to stay at home, play video games, and wear a what I thought cool looking mask at the time. Until the end of the school year, I slacked like a motherfucker. I think 90% of my day was spent browsing the internet, watching DBZA, or playing HFTF on FightCade. My dad still had work at his school though, so I was able to do this with no repercussions. I still got all 4's on my report card. Don't ask me how, I didn't do a shred of work.
Summer came along... Summer 2020. People were already bored out of their minds.
I, along with other people have discovered a social media messenger app/website where you can talk about basically whatever you want with people that want to talk about it too as long as you find the right place. I really wasn't supposed to be on it at the time because of age, but who's gonna catch me now? It's not Reddit, so it's fair game here at least. With the details given in this paragraph you can probably deduce what it is. Let's call it "DC," even though calling it this reveals it even more.
All summer, I woke up at 6 and went the bed at 11, messaging on DC the whole time. It wasn't healthy at all, but it was what happened, and even though I know it's the wrong thing and I hate myself for it, if I had the opportunity I'd do it all over again, because when you're addicted to something, reason is the last concern.
My physical capabilities decreased, and my skill and effectiveness in the activities I was once great at was completely nullified. It also didn't help that fall 2020 I had 2 surgeries, completely dragging me back to 0. I still am not where I was before my mistake, and even though I have technique and form in my favorite sport - hockey - I have much less power, speed, and agility in game, and as a result I play at a much lower level, even to now.
When the remote learning only policy ended and In-School was optional, my addiction to Youtube, Internet Surfing, VG, DC, and other things were set in stone. Throughout late 6th grade to present I have done less assignments than I can count on both hands. If it weren't for my waves for Covid reasons I'd be in 6th grade right now. I don't have any friends in my school because I am busy sneaking on my phone in class, and don't really care to form emotional bonds with my fellow classmates. I would - however - find time to make my teachers lives hell, believing it was fun. I'd interrupt classes, openly speak in the middle of the teaching process, curse in front of instructors (happily never to) and bully younger students (not justifying it, but I never bullied good students, I've only bullied younger students who were even worse than me and would curse out, provoke, or physically attack other students. They would always catch wedgies.) My dad tried desperately in my middle school run to get me on track, but I just wouldn't listen or change.
This is my 9th Grade year in the High School for the same Middle School (it runs Middle School to College) and I am considered an errant, vulgar, and hopeless student. My behavior in my previous 3 years has made me the most infamous student in my school. Even though I do absurd and terrible things, I never do anything that gets me in real trouble, and I have never yet been suspended.
This is my first problem and the lesser of the two. My behavior is terrible. I only do things I \*want\* to do and not what benefits me and my father's sanity. I admittedly just don't give a shit about my peers and fail to make positive relationships with them.
Every minute I'm in school, every second, every fucking moment I'm thinking about my online life. Even though I know I should do my work, should help my father who is struggling with multiple court cases, arbitrations, and a divorce with my psychotic mother, should help my father who works 4 jobs just to put food on the table, takes me to all my activities and is the only reason why I'm not hopeless, even though I know all of this, I just can't do it. I'm absorbed with technology, the very LEAST I could do is at least pass a singular class for my father, but instead of doing schoolwork and homework, instead of my teachers being able to call my father and say I did something good, instead of giving him one less headache, I choose to stay on devices. My dad his emotionally, physically, and at this point spiritually losing hope. He says that I am so bright, I can do anything, I can be at the top of the world if I just focus. He knows how I feel about my school, he knows that I don't want to do my work, and he always comes through for me.
​
Every.
Fucking.
Day.
​
But not ONCE do I come through for him. No. I am too focused on my stupid online interactions.
​
This is my second problem and the greater of the two. No matter the case, no matter how much I should, no matter anything, I am absorbed and addicted to devices, and I can't find my way off, because the dopamine rush I get from it is all I want. My real life problems and my entire future and everything my father fights for is on the line, but I just don't help.
​
Please, I'm begging all of you. Please tell me what I can do to fix this. I've tried everything. "Just don't do it" wont work, "take breaks" wont work, "have a talk" wont work. I need something real. For the safety and health of my Father, I must change.

Been binge watching a bit too much RPG horror stories lately, and while I don't need the therapy, I felt like it would be good to vent over this story (and possibly entertain a few people on the internet if I could). First time posting here.
Warning, this is going to be VERY long. TLDR at the bottom.

What, where and when

For context, this story started some 9.5 years ago at the time of writing (around late 2011 - early 2012) so some details have been lost to time. I was a fairly new player when it started (this was my second to third game) though I had a lot more under my belt when this one eventually collapsed. It spanned over 4 to 5 years, meaning I started it in my late teenage years and ended in my early twenties. I want to preface that, in hindsight, I was young and immature - I'm not ashamed of it, I will probably think the same of myself now in a decade or two.
Between the time gap and my skewed perception of events, my retelling may not be 100% accurate - but I'll try to be as objective and accurate as I can be. A lot of people won't look good in this story, myself included. I also want to mention that I overlooked a lot of red flags through inexperience and just desperately wanting to play - though I'll let you make your own minds whether or not those events were red flags to you or not.
We were at the time, playing on a play-by-post forum (which has since long disappeared). It hosted a lot of different systems and campaigns, and it was a relatively small community, meaning we kind of knew about most people. A new DM joined and started recruiting for supposedly Pathfinder 1E: Kingmaker AP. As things turned out, we derailed that pretty quickly, but more on that later.
I joined during other players introductions, as one member of the group dropped during character creations. This is when I had the pleasure to meet the 8 other players that would be participating in this fun endeavour (note that evil characters were not allowed)
· DM - Had some experience, excellent narrator, could really spin a tale. Was located in a time zone with a 6h difference, so there was always a bit of delay at certain times of the day.
· Paladin - someone I was kind of friendly with at that point. We later fell out due to personality conflicts. He was a more experienced player but would constantly bring a paladin into the game, using one of two names, same build but "different" personalities for them - which were all brands of "holier-than-thou/you can't do that because I'm a paladin".
· Monk - the obvious problem player. He was already an issue in another campaign that was long running on the forum and that I liked to follow, except when his character was around. He would steal from party, lie, backstab, all around be the problematic rogue. Was also involved or at least very friendly with one of the forum admins. Claimed that "it's what his character would do", "I just tell it how it is" and "goody two shoes are boring" whenever his behaviour was called out. Played a CE CN half-orc, was apparently in his thirties IRL.
· Wizard - Shady "surgeon" booted from medical school, trained in the mystical arts. Described by the player in and out of game as "somewhat autistic" - his words, not mine. Never truly knew his motivation - they had a kind of Renaissance doctor vibe, with a fascination for corpses and undead, allegedly for medical and research purposes.
· Druid - Anecdotic in this story, but another known problem player. Worth mentioning so you know what the DM was dealing with. I think the image used on the forum was a Wow female gnome with bright pink hair.
· Dwarf - Great guy, played the only well-played insane character I've ever seen. His dwarf was obsessed with cheese, and has somewhat prophetic moments... or bonkers hallucinations, it never was clear. He was whacky but not disruptive. Almost universally loved at the table.
· Bunch of randos that I forgot and are not relevant to the plot (includes some NPCs).

The quest and how it started

As a green newbie, I wanted to play a half-elf ranger with a tragic backstory™. His whole family had been slain in front of his eyes and he survived by luck. He was later found and sheltered at the local lord estate, when he became a gamekeepescout.
DM said he loved it, but wanted him to be more involved with the NPCs, so he made him the Baron's ward and messengeenvoy. Ranger was officially adopted cause Baron could not have kids at first, but a few years later had a couple miraculous children.
I was honestly thrilled at the time; this could have been the start of a lot more edge, but I decided to play it as a loving older half-brother whose sole concern was to ensure his family was well and good. The commoner ranger turned nobility was a bit wonky, and DM made me take a few "homebrewed" feats (actually later learned they were just renamed from the books) to better fit his vision. I was cool with it at the time, seeing it as the DM really taking an interest in my now ranger-scout-emissary/face-somewhatNoble-duellist. I could always play an archer in another game.
(For the sake of brevity, I'll now refer to my Ranger character as Me - I had troubles differentiating the two at the time anyway)
I therefore barged in a council meeting of this ragtag group of adventurers. The keep of my adoptive father had gone no contact, and the local city-state (aka The Questgivers), presuming them dead, wanted someone friendly to take over to stabilize the region. They would back our claim over the lands and consider us allies, while having us as a buffer between them and more wild areas to the east.
Council is already a half-shouting match. Partly over what we are going to be named, partly because Monk actually went behind everyone's back and spent a fair share of the gold allocated to the group to "secure good men" (Thugs. That meant thugs. We did not know at the time). We learned about it through Architect NPC, who had him followed. Monk answers "It is what it is, I don't answer to any of you". We let it go and settle on a name for the company.
Now, the goal given to us by QuestGivers for the first year was to scout the area, figure out what the current situation was and report back to hash a proper plan. Monk puts forth the ideas we might as well turn a profit and organize a full caravan to get there. He mentions that the gold from the group he spent has already gone towards funding that. Some of us would have preferred to keep things simple, but for lack of good reasons not to, and because gold was spent anyway, we kind of went with it.
It's around this point that the plot firmly left the rails and headed into the bog of "winging it".
Druid make their only, completely irrelevant intervention I can think of: “I you touch but one tree, you will have to deal with me”. Gnome half the size of anyone, trying to bar us from touching trees while our mission is to establish settlements.
Decision is made to split the party into two groups:
A vanguard, scouting ahead to find a good place for our caravan to settle and find any dangers on the road.
A rearguard, escorting the civilians we would bring with us to make money.
We appoint a leader and a deputy to keep things organized and running. (We also vote on a few rules for the party, including "No PVP". That will be relevant later.)
Paladin is elected leader (role he did not want). Deputy is someone I can't remember for the life of me. Monk votes for himself, and Wizard votes for Monk.
Now, my character grew up in those parts. His family was there and did not give news, which was worrying. His skillset was somewhat adapted to be a scout, despite the duellist layer thrown on top for the DM. So, I naturally volunteered for the vanguard.
I'm told my knowledge is too vital to be risked at the front, and I will be kept to guide the rearguard. I am, in and out of character, a bit upset about that - my whole character motivation is finding out if his family is alive and well. But I accept it as Paladin's decision and move on. Scouting of the vanguard if given to Deputy (who was a fighter, maybe?). Paladin will lead the rearguard.
OOC, Monk is already being rough in chat. I try (not quite sincerely) to make friends with him and tell that his characters "add rhythm and twists to the games they are in". His answer? "I know, I'm a great actor IRL". He may or may not have claimed to be in theatre, I can't remember for sure.
We prepare, I get a horse for my character, we recruit a bunch of people from the city to come with us. My Ranger leverage their knowledge to find hunters. Monk brings in "man at arms" he recruited with the gold he took from the group - we do learn that the "mercs" look untrustworthy (SubtleForeshadowing™) - and... ladies of the night. Monk made a deal with a madame and we had a stagecoach of professional ladies to "make the trip easier" as he said (we would later learn that he blackmailed them to get a share of their profits).

Rough start

It takes ages IRL, but we soon depart the city... and Paladin drops out of the campaign. I think it was because he had been thrusted into the leader position and did not want it - but he may also have spotted a few looming red flags. Memory is hazy on this one. DM decide to NPC the character for a proper exit. I don't know at which point it came up, but in their backstory, trustworthy Paladin was the one who vouched for the shifty Monk to be selected by the QuestGivers on account of old friendship and Monk being somewhat of an architect. OOC, I never saw those two be particularly friendly. IC, they were polite but did not have time to develop or show any signs of friendship. However, as soon as Paladin became an NPC, Monk became his best friend ever, most trusted companion and de facto replacement until another one was elected.
Raise your hand if you think handing the reins to the group to the edgy antagonistic player is going to be a problem down the line.
Well, it is how it is, and we finally get on the road! My character ride ahead of the group, it's a beautiful day, my Ranger is getting acquainted with his horse when he spots centaurs. What's going to happen is on me. You see, I grew up reading a lot of greek mythology. For me, centaurs meant "Chiron" and "old wise sage" and "druid-ish vibes" and generally good guys. I signalled one of the scouts to report back to the column and I ride to meet the centaurs. The centaurs start backing off as I approach. I follow. Right into an ambush, where two older specimens come out of the bushes, visibly aggressive, easily catch up to me and squarely lift me off my saddle.
My ranger spoke a few languages, and I figure a way to convene I was not aggressive, just curious. They reply that me riding a horse greatly offends them, compare me to a slaver and inform me they are keeping me prisoner, freeing my horse from my abuse and blocking the road unless we pay a toll. Now, I had been playing my ranger as the nature loving guy, meaning he loved his horse, was trying to have a bond and not exploit it, yadda yadda. My character opens his mouth, process for a second then think better of it and keeps quiet, not knowing how to resolve the culture difference at play. So I get tied up, and the centaurs convey to the caravan that A) they planned to make us pay to leave the city and B) since they had now an hostage, caravan would have to pay for freeing me too. Peachy. At this point, I was feeling really embarrassed over my mistake.
All in all, the centaurs aren't a bad lot. I'm not roughed up, just sat in a corner, bound while we wait for someone to come from the caravan to negotiate. We chat a bit. In another thread, I see Monk cursing about me to Wizard, then making his way to parlay with the centaurs. They announce the price - which is basically all the gold that the group has PLUS all the horses pulling the various carts, stagecoaches and wagons so the centaurs can free them as well. Not really a demand we can comply with at this point if we want to move forward. I interject and say that we can't afford to pay for the passage and freeing me, and that Monk should at least consider not paying for me. At this point, I'm relatively certain the centaurs are not going to kill me, maybe keep me a few days, then send me back to the city after taking my gear.
Monk loses it. Walk to my character, cussing me, calling me useless, and starts pummelling me. He takes pleasure IC and OOC at my helplessness, saying I deserve it for being captured. Now, this is a Monk, and we are level 1. Doesn't take long for him to put me unconscious, and almost kill me (cause, as you may have guessed, he did not bother making the damages non-lethal). Centaurs, not being complete *sses, push him away. Their leader deems Monk to be unworthy of command, untrustworthy and challenge him to combat. He actually sends one of the younger warriors, since he would steamroll a lv1 PC. Monk gleefully accepts, condition being that if he wins, the caravan may pass.
Monk lives to regret his choice, as the centaur handily (hoofily?) beats him. An inch from being unconscious, Monk pulls a trump card, and while getting trampled, decides to grab the *ahem* jewels of the centaur and threaten to squeeze. That does give a pause to the centaur, and he yields. Monk smile over his heroic victory, then faints. The centaur pack snort, piss on him (kid you not, the GM went there), then leave both of us on the road. Glorious debut to our epic adventure.
My character comes to the day after. Wizard tended first to Monk, as he is the leader, then to me. In the day it took my Ranger to come back from "about to die", Monk has been putting the blame for everything that happened on me. Not unexpected, but not pleasant nonetheless. I take Wizard apart and tells him what happened. Wizard denies everything, tells me I must have dreamt it and that he saw nothing of what happened. A hundred meters from it on the open road. I point that the bruises I have are orc feet, not hooves. Wizard continue denying it may have happened.
To my discredit, I did ask if I could make a Persuasion check - we were allowed Bluff checks to lie to each other (Monk already did quite a few) and I was telling the truth, so it felt a bit unfair to not be able to plead my case the same way. I'm taught that checks on PCs, social checks mainly, tend to take agency away and are not something we do. I end up dropping the matter and gritting my teeth.
OOC, Monk is ecstatic to have gotten away scot-free and continue to antagonize me. Since other players calling him out in other game did not work, trying to be friendly with him did not work, I figure ignoring him might just let him get bored of it at some point. Ha... Ha...

Trying to ignore the elephant in the room

We roleplay travelling on the road. Monk does some edgy shaolin stuff, such as waking up at dawn to practice the deadly and violent art of tai-chi. Yeah, I know, tai-chi is technically a martial art, but I am half-asian. When I think about it, I see rows of old people doing it as a health exercise in a park. As usual, the frontier between edge-lord and weeb was razor thin, but he mostly stayed on the edgelord side. Wizard continue to be creepy wizard and roleplay being an awkward creep to the « ladies » (as in, never getting anywhere, but definitely making them uncomfortable). I roleplay getting to know the hunters I hired for the company. See, the thugs report to him. We would later learn that their contract was namely with him. The madam contract was with him. The hunters contract, that I made in front of the group, was with our company. Of course, since I had hired them and was the only one caring enough to chat with them, they started reporting to me. This did not sit well with Monk. He takes me apart, under the guise of « Uh uh, making up for, you know, the rough play – nay, the act in front of the centaurs, kiddo » (not like you almost actually killed my character) while Wizard use this opportunity to gather the hunters and announcing to them that they all need to sign a new contract, « just to be certain ». It takes me about half a second to understand the masterful ploy that they are attempting. At which point I go « Oh heck no ! », leaves the discussion with the Monk and go asks the Wizard what exactly he is playing at. In leaving, my character in thought calls the Monk an idiot, for thinking this kindergarten trick would work.
Monk, once again, loses it. He cusses me IC (he heard what I was thinking, somehow?) and OOC for the first time, threaten me (dude did not know where I lived nor who I was, but still made physical threats) and goes whine to the DM. The DM plays mediators and remind us to all play nice with each other. He asks us to apologize (I do - albeit begrundgingly, Monk doesn't). The incident fizzles out, and Wizard drops his new contract attempt.
On my side, I grit my teeth but doesn’t argue further. It didn’t take a genius to see the letters on the wall. Monk got the leader position, and he would be damned if he let any chance at an opposition.
About that time, DM decides to recruit two new players to make up for the loss of Paladin and someone in the vanguard. Seeing the occasion, I let one of my close friend know that there is an opening in the game. My friend had never played but was interested, and I was very enthusiastic. Partly because I wanted to play with him. Partly because I needed allies.
He rolled up a Cavalier and the other guy rolled up a Sorcerer.
These two new players have to leave from the city for the story to make sense. DM actually has the QuestGivers gives a paper to Sorcerer giving him temporary command over the company, since Paladin bailed out. Sorcerer and Cavalier then start riding to join us – and while it’s private on the forum, Cavalier would keep me informed. Allowing me to completely metagame and know that the wind is turning. Must be about this point I started rubbing my hands and quietly cackling, like a cliché cartoon villain.
Back to the rearguard, we are hit by bad weather but are finally getting to the first village on the road. A week from the starting city in character, a year OOC. The road is a slog on both timelines. As we arrive, the village is eerily quiet and the carts manage to get caught in the mud. Monk sends me and a handful of hunters ahead to figure out what’s what. I look at my sheet and notice I have about three of four of HP since the beating I took from him.
Thing I did not mention, but the DM was a “hardcore realist” and an implemented a “custom, very lifelike system for health and magic”. What that meant was, we were recovering slowly, maybe an HP a day. We would be at risk of falling unconscious if we lost more than half of our total hit points. And the casters had no spell slots, they directly took damages if they failed an increasingly difficult saving throw as they casted. Who here, that knows Pathfinder 1e, thinks this is a terrible idea?
But, I am TheScout™. So I do not argue and lead the little group toward the obvious trap. I do explicitly tell Monk to keep an eye or have someone keep an eye on us in case something happened. We make our way toward the village and spot a few villagers, lying in the surrounding fields. Are they dead? No answer the DM, you can see them move!
Would you believe it, I was less than convinced. And surprise surprise, the closest corpse lifts its head (as we approach cautiously, not rushing to help as the DM would have liked) and... it’s a zombie. Shocker, I know. We immediately starts waving arms to the caravan, to let them know that there is danger – refraining from shouting as to not draw the attention of all the zombies. Monk is pointedly roleplaying ignoring us, having a conversation with his back turned to us. We rushed back and I give him sh*t for not doing his one job, at which point I’m in no kind words told to go touch grass. The DM, getting impatient at us not being eaten fast enough, has the zombie horde rise and beginning to advance. NPCs start to panic and ask what we should do. I quickly answer that the civilians should be placed at the back, hunters with bows in the middle peppering the approaching horde, and all the remaining fighters at the front, making a line and preparing themselves for the fight. Monk does not have the technical ability to cut me mid-tirade; it’s play by post after all. He nonetheless says he does, that my plan is stupid, and we are going to go with his plan: civilians at the back, archer in the middle, fighters at the front. Mmmh yeah, not going to comment that.
So we do that, and while arrows are not great toward zombies, we whittle down the horde enough for the melee fighters to win without too much damages. Monk rejoices that his mastermind plan worked, and decide to camp in the village and have a celebration tonight!
Wizard, in the meantime, having sit with the civilians is poking at the zombies. Through a few checks, he assess that the zombies have all been created by a sort of plague, but keep the information to himself and just does vague “Hm. Hmmmm. Very interesting.”
Fortunately, no harm comes from sleeping in a plagued village while doing lots of noise and light in zombie territory. Monk even volunteers to take the first watch, as most people have had a drink or two (Him also, but he is “a big, strong half orc. You have looked down on me my whole life, and I grew up rough, but now, no one of you can hold their liquor as well as I, ahahaha”). What Monk means by “taking first watch” is waiting for everyone to sleep, go around the village and pillage every single valuable he could get his hands on. He brings it back and gives it to the head-thug for safekeeping. We (Wizard and I) know nothing about it cause it has been done off screen.
We resume our route in the morning and finally reach the midway point of our journey; an inn. Note that from what I understand of the AP, this should have taken a few days, top. With the caravan, it took us weeks in game, and a year and a half in real time. Monk is being more and more unsufferable, ordering everyone around. He plays nice to the women, but treat the rest of the troup (except the head thug) like lackeys. My ranger, who did not play the nobility card till then, finally tells him that he is only temporary captain, and that it was supposed to be a “final say on debate” in an otherwise more or less democratic group. OOC, I know that Sorcerer and Cavalier, after months of twiddling their thumbs, are about to join. Monk is about to “break my nose” when our new players are introduced. And with them the letter informing Monk that he is not in charge anymore. I’m not going to lie 19 years old me must have had the biggest sh*t-eating grin ever. Wizard intervenes that the QuestGivers are not the group, and thus can’t appoint a leader for us. As we agreed when we established the party rules. He says the matter should be put to a vote. I answer that, while it’s true, there needs to be more than half of the group to proceed to a vote (another thing that we establish in the rules) and that if we even voted, I’d not side with Monk. There is a bit of tension, but we are in a small in room, Cavalier is a big dude in armor with a two handed sword, Sorcerer is fresh and fully charged and I’m decent at singling out an opponent. On the other side there is a Monk/Rogue and a squishy Wizard. Monk adds things up and relents. We all go to sleep and I sigh of relief. Maybe, now that there is enough players to contain Monk, we can have a smoother game.
I'm being proven wrong in Part 2.

I teach 5th grade at a small private school. Since it is a private school, I have a lot of freedom when it comes to how I run my classroom.
I have 2 sisters in my class, Emma (10), and Chloe (11). Emma is an extremely bright girl. She's consistently been above the 90th percentiles in both English and math since she started kindergarten here. I distinctly remember seeing her sitting in the office reading Charlottes Web while waiting to take her kindergarten entrance exam. I couldn't believe she was actually reading the book, so I asked her all kinds of comprehension questions and she was able to answer all of them.
We've tried to move her up a grade multiple times but her parents have always refused because Chloe already had to be held back and moving Emma up would be even worse for Chloe than them being in the same grade. We have been able to give Emma different assignments for English, science, and history and we send her to other classes to do math with them. She's currently in 8th grade advanced math (Algebra 1). We would send her to the high school across the street for math if we could, but we aren't allowed to send them until 6th grade.
One of the only assignments that I give to both Emma and the rest of the class is a reading journal. They have to read a book of their choice, as long as it is above 100 pages and at least a 3rd grade level, no less than 20 pages a week, and on Friday they turn in one page about what they read. I don't have a specific rubric for this assignment. I'm mostly looking to see that they're reading, that they're understanding what they're reading, and that they're putting effort into their writing. This means 2 vastly different assignments can get the same grade. I'm not looking for perfect writing, I'm looking to see if they're putting effort into their work and improving over time.
The problem with this is Emma is not used to having to put much effort into her assignments and this is reflected when you compare her weekly reading journals to assignments that she's actually interested in and wants to work for. Her work is good but she's consistently been getting b's and c's because we both know she can do better. Emma recently approached me with her paper and Chloe's demanding to know why Chloe got a better grade even though her paper was better. I explained that I know Chloe tries very hard on her papers, she always takes whatever feedback I give, and her writing is improving. I don't see any of that with her writing. Emma's parents agree with me but the principal wants to talk about this assignment and how I grade it (even though she's known about it since I started teaching this class) so I wanted to know if I was the asshole.

LONG POST
So just some backstory, I’ve been working with my therapist for over 2 years now. We’ve been through a lot, and she asked me if I was finally ready to let go. I have cried so many tears about the life I was given. My narc father, has come in and out of my life since I was a child. Taking me on, and then discarding me to other family member when parenting got tough each time. I was passed around my family until I was 18, and lived in 9 different homes. During that time I experienced physical, sexual, and mental abuse from several people.
My birth mother gave her rights up to me very early on, and chose drugs over her children. I have an older sister and younger brother I’ve never met. But honestly, Im not as hurt by her. She never looked back, so the break was clean.
I wrote this letter as my final way of letting go and starting new, but I know my narc father won’t even make it past the first page before he tosses it. So I thought I would share here.
John, It feels a bit strange to be writing to you after all that we have been through. I’m sure you noticed that this letter is addressed to John instead of Dad. That is because after all these years, I still don’t feel like I’m your daughter, and you don’t feel like a father to me. I think for so long I wanted that relationship. I wanted to be loved by my biological parents, but unfortunately that just wasn’t in the cards I was dealt.
First, I’d like to say I don’t hate you, but I hate the choices you made as the adult who was supposed to care for me. I don’t understand you. I don’t understand how you could do this to a child who didn’t ask to be here. I didn’t ask to be born. But I was, and you had a hand in that. All these years that we have reconnected, you have pointed a lot of fingers in Mary’s direction but have never said sorry for your own poor choices. I suppose it is easier to point the finger at the other party involved, but you see I respect Mary’s decision. Mary knew she wasn’t cut out to be a mother. She chose drugs and other men over her children, and she left, but she never looked back. She never tried to reenter my life and be a mom to me again. You, on the other end, came back into my life multiple times. But each time you came back into my life, I was ready to receive love from you. Instead, I was greeted with animosity, disrespect, and eventually abandonment of our relationship.
You see I am so used to your behavior, that I’m not actually surprised as I am more triggered than anything. Part of me has always wanted to be respected by you, but I know that is not possible for you. I know you don’t respect me or my feelings because you simply can’t. I’m not sure where your discontent with me started, but I can remember you being this way with me deep into my childhood. I remember you abusing me physically and emotionally. I remember eating leaves because I didn’t sweep them off the porch after you asked me to sweep every single leaf off, so you not only made me eat them, but you put liquid orange dial soap all over them. I remember crying and burping bubbles. As if that wasn’t degrading enough for a kindergartener, you made me do it all while watching myself in the mirror.
I remember being pulled up the stairs by my ear after I did something bad at school. My skin burning behind my ear as it made small tears. The next day at school I had a scab on the back of my ear. I remember feeling so ashamed but even then, I knew that parents weren’t supposed to do that to their kids. Years later I heard you retell the story to me, and you even added in “you told the school I pulled you up the stairs by your ear, which never happened” and I would laugh because I didn’t want to lose what we had.
I remember being slammed up against a wall in high school because I “gave an attitude” and your hands up against my throat. I left for school feeling so scared. I cried my whole walk to school and when I got to my friend’s house, she could I tell was upset. I told her everything, and we covered up a bruise on my throat with makeup. Even then, I was trying to protect you. I remember the names you used to call me. You had a few favorites, Large Marge, Two Ton Tessy, sloth, etc. You loved to put me down, you still do. It’s almost like you can’t even help yourself. You have poked fun at my expense for years, but no one is allowed to put you down. You can certainly dish it out, but no one better expose your flaws. No one is allowed to expose your past, and your fuck ups. That’s where I come in.
You see, for so long I didn’t want to rock the boat. I had worked my ass off to even be in your presence. I felt like we had a shot at a relationship, and I was elated, but as time has gone on, I have come to see you for who you are. You didn’t like my recent emotional eruption. You told me that I also needed to take responsibility for my actions as a child, and that you weren’t the only one to blame. You met me defensively, but you did mention that after you put me on a plane you felt like you failed as a dad and were just meant to be an uncle instead. That’s the closest I have ever seen you get to taking responsibility for your reckless actions.
But then you went on to be a very attentive father to your son for a full 18 years. You took no breaks with Trevor. You never put him on a plane when shit got too hard. You never dipped out on him, and then reentered his life when it was more convenient to you. You were and still are a dad to Trevor. It’s almost like it came naturally to you as I watched you play with him and build him things, but you would patronize me while I lived under the same roof. You share so many fond memories of times you had with Trevor, but sadly all of the memories you share involving me are at my expense.
You love to bring me down, you always have. I’m your favorite emotional punching bag.
I can’t allow this to continue. I didn’t deserve it then, and I certainly don’t have to deal with it now as an adult. The sad truth is you could have had an amazing relationship with your daughter, but you pissed that opportunity away. Just like Mary, but at least she didn’t come back and continue to piss on the opportunity.
This is unfortunately the consequence of your actions over the years, and I’m not going to feel sorry that they make you angry and uncomfortable.
I don’t think the juice is worth the squeeze anymore. My head has been so focused on repairing our crippled relationship that I have failed to see the unconditional love that my own little family has shown me. I’m choosing to focus on their love instead of the lack of love you and other people in my family have failed to show me in my most desperate times. I have all I need, your services of being my “father” are no longer needed. I think I finally understand it all now.
Thank you for showing me who you are, Angela
If you made it this far, thank you for letting me get this out. If you have any advice, I’d love to hear it.

hello, i already posted my current situation on another reddit focused on a related theme that i will not disclose to not trigger anyone, so i will retell it with some of the triggering languague cut out, but i'm afraid people will still justifiably feel utter disgust at me by the way i act, so it will make very few difference
i'm 18 years old, non-binary (agender), asexual, possibly neurodivergent and diagnosed with severe depression and anxiety (i take zolofot for treatment for now, but in a time period i took prozac), i was extremely alone on the pandemic years and this seemed to have increased my social anxiety that was already quite present on my mind since i was younger, it was mostly because of paranoia and doom scrolling, i would see the worst of the worst of human beings unfold while in my computer with only my parents, of course when i came back to real life high school, it was extremely difficult to connect with people, since i had the constant thought of people wanting to hurt me and despise me based on who i am and the things i like and appreciate, because teenagers are just like... that.
​
well, that's how it went, my class was rather way more inclusive to people like me compared to other classes in my country, so that was a plus in my book, but i met 2 people i had a lot of interest of forming a good friendship, one of them is a goth person whom we have mutual tastes on music and all media, the other is also the case, but not really goth, but there is also their personalities that i really found to really like them.
i started to get closer to them, but as the disgusting piece of shit i am, one of them, not the goth one, got annoyed and creeped out by me because i was too clingy to them and that they were afraid of me.
​
as the whiny piece of horse crap that i am, i got a panic attack, i lashed out at people like a monster, why is that? because my selfish mind went on a trance to childhood memories, my mom would keep me at home while my cousins played at each other's houses, when i was in middle school, i got bullied and ostracised for being fat and other stuff, it just felt like it was repeating it over and over again and that i would never find a friend and be alone forever (this is probably true, but if you are reading it to this point, you probably think "good, they deserve it")
well, no need to mention im fat, why is that? simple, when you see a big heavy "man" being very close to a smaller "woman", what do you think, they are friends? no, you think the man is a creep who is harassing her, because society and media made you think like that, and this becomes confirmed since the "woman" in this case felt uncomfortable.
now, im asexual (so is the person im speaking about), i have 0 sexual and romantic attraction towards them, my infatuation with them is all platonic, even if i felt sexual attraction to anyone, i would never do that to any human being, but oooh who believes the fat slob aint it? im probably some creep who watches my little pony (nothing wrong with being a brony, just giving an example of a streotype) and lolicon anime every day of my life and isnt allowed near kindergartens, thats how the world sees me, that one fat guy from the south park world of warcraft episode, chris griffin from family guy and every other fat ugly creepy man you can think of in media.
now, this exact same incident happened twice, on the first time it happened i apologized to the person and she "forgave" me (i put as supposedly because they said i did nothing wrong and that it was nothing do with my appearence and that they are still my friend), but when the second time happened, the other friend, the goth one, said they wouldnt listen to my bullshit and stress themselves, i didnt apologize to the friend because of the extreme fear, but they seen to talk to me normally when i go talk to them with the courage of a persian soldier back in ancient greece.
these incidents worsened my social anxiety that was before healing with both medication and positive socialization with people, now everytime i stay recluse to myself, reading or on my phone, i think im looking like a creep or a school shooter, so i force myself to go socialize with the groups of people in my class, everytime i try to communicate my thoughts with them, i see them talking about being social and having friends, hanging out and stuff, you know, things normal fucking people do? and when they talk about that , i feel excluded and like a weirdo, when i manage to speak, i stutter or speak too quiet to them to understand, when i talk to either one of those 2 friends, i analyze every single interaction we have and think they hate me, when i see them interacting with other people, i notice the difference they act with them and with me, i see them interacting with other people, talking to them normally and laughing, like friends, and i just stare longigly, at my worst i just hide and cry, but when im medicated, i just swallow it and dont say anything
i know you people dont want to read all that, but ther eyou go, also if you are those "reddit narrated" youtube channels, dont narrate this, i don't want comments called me garbage, my mind does that for me well.

WGU C105 Questions and Answers
Already Passed
Drawing stages of development naturally grows in a child as a form of visual communication.
The earliest stages of drawing include what 2 stages? ✔✔d) Scribble and Pre-Schematic or
Shape-Making Stage
A Kindergarten teacher decides to integrate more music into her daily instruction. In
consideration of the students' development level, the teacher should consider that primary age
groups of children are able to ✔✔b) See one point of view, or one aspect at a time.
A natural development of drawing corresponds with cognitive, physical and socio-emotional
growth outlined by theorists such as Piaget, Maslow and Gardner. At what age does artistic
development peak and will generally remain unless further arts education is included in the
school curriculum? ✔✔d) Pre-Adolescent Age 11-12
The most age-appropriate lessons and approaches for integrating dance, drama, and music
into a Preschool classroom includes: ✔✔Creative movement, exploration and improvised lyrics,
rhymes, and rhythms.
​
A fifth grade teacher would like to strengthen students' understanding of creating perspective
in drawings while building upon the Visual Art standard: understanding and applying media,
techniques, and processes. She/he understands that at this age students begin to see and
understand the application of multiple perspectives in drawings and paintings. What lesson
would best accomplish her goals? ✔✔Apply the approach of Henri Rousseau's jungle scenes by
using a foreground,
middleground, and background in a drawing of a jungle scene of their own.
Which characteristics of artful teachers contribute to student curiosity and motivation in relation
to arts education? ✔✔Passion, openness, and confidence
A teacher promotes taking breaks in instruction where students jump up and down, shake their
limbs, and mimic animal voices.
How does this play contribute to children's development? ✔✔It alleviates stress.
An art teacher has redesigned a lesson plan that includes an assignment in which students work
in groups to create and present original commercials. She plans to let the groups decide what the
​
commercials will advertise and will encourage students to use their own experiences to make
effective commercials. The students will create their own schedules for completing the
assignment and she has developed a rubric for evaluating the results.
How does this lesson plan align to current research findings in student development? ✔✔Current
research shows that students learn best when they are given the opportunity to connect new
information to existing understandings.
A kindergarten teacher wants to prepare students for first grade cognitively and socially while
making each day fun.
How could the teacher support this goal? ✔✔By having students make up rhyming games
together using the names of letters, numbers, or colors
How can teachers recognize expressions of creativity in children? ✔✔Look for children who can
act out a story
Which are two effective activities for encouraging the development of creativity in children?
✔✔-Have students theorize what an unfamiliar object could be used for
-Ask students to imagine a journey, such as a journey through a tree
​
What actions are part of the Responses and Solutions phase of the creative problem solving
process? ✔✔Reflect and evaluate, revise, and publish
A third-grade teacher would like to plan a lesson about folk tales and story telling. The teacher
wants to enhance creative thought and expression in the class which includes several English
Language Learners (ELL).
How can the teacher meet both of these goals? ✔✔Incorporate student storytelling related to
their backgrounds as a means of including drama, dance, art, and music responses
What is an appropriate response to students' artistic expressions? ✔✔Ask the students to explain
what they have created
A teacher observes that the students are happiest and most engaged when they are given the
opportunity to engage in creative role playing, art projects, and music. The teacher includes these
creative activities every few weeks as a supplement to the lesson plans.
.get pdf at ; https://learnexams.com/search/study?query=wgu
​

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Hey yall, this will be a longer post because I thought it made more sense to do one big one instead of spamming the board with a few shorter ones.
Some background on just how my daughter's an odd duck. I love her, but she for sure is an odd kid. Here are some of the tidbits from early childhood:

• When she was in Kindergarten her teacher told me she was worried because my girl wasn't making friends. When I talked to my daughter about it she said she didn't need any friends because friends always want you to do what they want to do and she doesn't like that and wanted to just do activities she wanted instead of trying to be friends with people.
  
• She once disappeared and had us in a panic, frantically searching and called the cops. She turned out to be taking a nap under the porch in the dirt because she "wanted to see what it was like to sleep like a raccoon."
  
• She spent a month sleeping in her closet because "dreams are more fun in the dark."
  
• She used to steal dog treats from our dog and eat them herself if our dog didn't eat them because our dog was "being wasteful."
  
• She once stripped to her bare skin and jumped in a pond in front of a bunch of random strangers because "fish don't wear clothes to swim so why do I need to?"
  
• She asked, several times, why we're not allowed to eat people "even if they're bad" and said she wouldn't do it because I said not to but didn't agree that eating people would be bad.
  

She's a little bit older now, but she still is an odd duck. She has never really had friends, but she gets along with peers and adults. She does well enough in school, when she wants to, but teachers complain constantly that she always does assignments her own way instead of following the rubric. She always does things her own way.
She got her period crazy early (a week before her 10th birthday, mine was at 14 so it's not genetic). After I got her cleaned up and padded we went over all the different kinds of period products, hygiene importance, etc she just sort of nodded, asked a few questions, grabbed some of the tampons, and figured it out. Afterwards I asked how it went and she shrugged and said "it feels different than a finger" and didn't seem to care. Like starting her period and using tampons was not even a big deal to her, just another part of her day. She's never had issues with it since.
She's always liked nature, and says that when she grows up she wants to be a biologist for aliens like in some book she read. Whenever go camping and hiking she continues her odd duck behavior by doing things like giving herself a "natural mud facial" and trying to catch fish with her bare hands by standing in a river and just not moving for several minutes to see if they swim into her hands. She also holds her bladder so she can go in the bushes when we hike because it's more fun for her. Those types of things.
She loves animals and tries to mimic their sounds back at them, even if people stare, and ignores them.
I love my daughter, but she's such an odd girl. She also says the most random things like "If I were a turtle, I'd still like to cuddle." No prompting, no turtles around. Just... random thought she had. All the time she does this.
So she's 11 now, and about to start 6th grade, and there's middle school options coming up. I'm not sure if I want to keep her in public given that she really doesn't have any friends (and doesn't care that she doesn't). My main question is about alternative school that she's been offered a spot at after I sent in the application in the Spring. Initially she was put on the waiting list, but I heard from them this week that they have a spot after all.
It's a semi-boarding school near me that's pretty unique, and I'm wondering if it'd be a better fit than letting her languish and aggravate her teachers in public. They pick students up at different points around the city on Monday morning and drive them out to the school, where the school day starts after Monday Lunch. Then they stay at the school until Friday Afternoon when they get driven and dropped back off in the city. So they are with the school every Monday-Friday, and home for the weekends (holiday exceptions, etc).
The school is on farmland on the edge of a national forest (it's actually pretty stark how it goes from plains to forest when you drive it). The education focuses around nature and the natural world. They spend time learning the life cycle of farming (plans, animals, etc), do a lot of nature science in the national forest, drive up the mountain (about an hour and a half drive) and do both day and overnight trips to study the mountain.
The whole school's focus is around natural sciences and hand on experiences, which is pretty neat. They only take 18 students per grade level, so only 54 in the entire school. The gender split is surprisingly more girls than boys (30-24 last year) and they have 6 teachers at the school plus other staff for things like cooking.
It would mean not seeing my girl on week nights, but her becoming independent. The point of the school is that they are immersed in the natural world and that their learning all happens around the central theme of the natural world. They still do math and writing and everything, it's just not in a normal classroom environment. I think it's a good opportunity, but I'm anxious about it, especially the sleeping away part.
So these are my main questions:

1. Any advice on picking unusual schools? Do they work for odd ducks like my daughter?
2. Any advice on parenting odd ducks through adolescence? Kids like my girl who just march to the beat of their own drum no matter how weird everyone else thinks they are?
3. What can I do to help my odd duck grow into a swan, and not end up as a weirdo adult? I'd love for her to normalize some and not be quite-so-odd now that childhood is over, while still accepting her for who she is.
4. Will sending her to an alternative school just solidify odd duckness? It's not like public school has helped her be more normal.
5. Is there any way to make her actually care about having friends?

Any other thoughts or advice anyone has to give would be welcomed!
Bonus: she went through a stage where she ate nothing but cottage cheese for a week until I forced her to diversify her diet by not buying any more until she agreed to have a more well rounded diet. She was fine eating cottage cheese, nothing added to it, for three meals a day and a snack.

TLDR at the bottom.
I don't exactly know what I'm trying to achieve with this post, or really why I'm posting this in general but I've had somewhat of an epiphany recently in regards to my chronic depression and I don't exactly know what to do with it or how to process it.
I just started EMDR and am only at the beginning stages of recalling negative memories - times when I first felt my "core belief", which my therapist and I have determined to be "I am worthless".
Over the years this specific memory never elicited very strong emotions from me when retelling it to others; in fact, I actually forgot about it for quite a while. It was a story that was seldom retold and usually only in a humorous/self-deprecating way - then again, I think I was the only one that found a dark humor in it, as it usually received very sad and sympathetic responses.
When I plucked this incident from my catalog and offered it as a negative memory (excuse the crude terms, it's pretty much my first session and I don't know all of the terminology) I didn't do so because I thought it fit the bill of "I am worthless" - I offered it because I was trying to think of any negative memory that I had a clear recollection of. It wasn't until I got a few sentences out that it immediately clicked with me - "holy shit, this is what I felt, this is the first time I felt it - worthless."
I had never cried before while retelling or even recalling this memory and yet now it was like one giant puzzle piece just fell from the sky and smacked me in the face. I cried hard while retelling it; I cried on the drive home; I've cried every time I've thought about it since my session last week and I can't stop thinking about it. Needless to say, I've felt like a cup that has been filled to the brim; trying to move slowly so as not to spill but to no avail. That water just keeps circling the inside of the cup and with every slow swirl that I try to calm, a little bit rolls over the edge and silently glides down the glass.
I didn't intend for this post to turn into some flowery, amateur creative writing piece about some seemingly benign childhood trauma. I honestly don't think I had any intention period. I just need to get this out of me in some sort of visual form. I can't keep analyzing it aloud and alone to myself.
I'm now regretting the massive build up to a story that will most likely leave whoever reads this thinking "That's it? Really?". But here we go.
I was five years old and in kindergarten. At my elementary school, kindergarten was split into an a.m./p.m. block. I attended school during the p.m. block because my mother worked in the afternoon. However, on this day all the kindergartners were required to come to school in the morning so that we could all practice for an upcoming Christmas pageant. My mother dropped me off in the morning and I was to ride home with a friend that lived up the street from me. Usually when I car-pooled with this friend, it was her mom who drove us but for some reason today it was her dad who picked us up. Her dad always intimidated me. He was the type that wouldn't wait for friends to leave before yelling at his kids when they got in trouble. I'd seen him lose his shit a couple of times (never physically to my knowledge) and not only that but I got the sense that he particularly didn't like me very much.
I grew up Mormon (I no longer am) in Utah and my family was fairly new to this neighborhood. Even at a young age, I could tell that we didn't fit in very well with the other families in the neighborhood. We didn't have as much money and although we went to church, we weren't as staunchly religious as the rest of them. I give this brief aside as a contributing factor as to why I got the sense that this man didn't like me. Even my mother thought he was arrogant and self righteous.
On this particular day, I was supposed to return home with my friend to their house as my parents were both at work, however that must not have been properly communicated to me because when my friend's father dropped me off in front of my house I don't remember questioning it at all. I hopped out, walked up to my front porch, opened the outer glass door and grabbed the door handle only to find that it was locked. I knocked a few times and waited. I remember being very confused. It wasn't until I turned around to see that my friend's purple van was long gone that the internal panic set in. That asshole must have drove off the second I hit the pavement and slid the door shut.
I knocked a few more times; I waited. I tried to peer in through the window but the porch wasn't close enough to the window for me to get a good look. I waited. I stepped out around the screen door and made my way around the side of the house to the back. I walked up the back porch and tried the door but it was locked as well. I knocked and I waited. I tried peering in the glass door and the windows. Nothing.
I was so confused. I knew they would normally be at work, but he dropped me off here so someone should be home, right? Was my dad supposed to come home early and just hadn't gotten here yet? My older brother and sister were at school but were they supposed to stay home for me? Did they all just forget about me? Did they not think this through? What am I supposed to do? I was so utterly confused, nothing made sense and for some reason it did not occur to me at all that I was supposed to go to my friend's house.
I had *extreme* anxiety from a very young age and for some reason, a profound fear of embarrassment so going to a neighbors house for help was out of the question. As a kid, asking for help was nearly impossible for me so I did what I always did. I did nothing. I kept it to myself. I figured it out myself and I dealt with it alone.
I pretty much came to the realization that no one was home but I still tried the back door leading to my garage on my way back around to the front of the house anyway. Locked as well. Part of me was hoping that someone would be pulling into the driveway by the time I reached the front of the house, but obviously that was not the case.
So, what I did was return to my front porch, sit down cross-legged and wait. It was the middle of winter in Utah and although it was sunny, it was still very cold. We already had multiple snow storms so all of the lawns and houses had several inches of snow left on them. I was wearing a jacket that- despite being Sherpa lined- wasn't very warm due to it being on the shorter side, both in the torso and arms and only had three buttons up the front in lieu of a zipper. It was starting to get colder so I pulled my canvas bag that my mother got from the craft store and stenciled my name and flowers on the front of it onto my lap, folded my arms and doubled over, covering my crossed legs with my body and laying my head near my feet.
Clouds were rolling in and it was getting windy. My ears were starting to freeze so I unbuttoned my jacket, pulled it up over my head and returned to my sitting fetal position. My jacket was not big enough to cover me whatsoever so there were multiple parts of me that were cold, no matter what adjustment I made to my jacket nor what position I folded myself into.
It's difficult for me to explain this new feeling I was experiencing but it was as if it was the very first time that I had recognized that something bad was happening to me specifically; to *just* me. I recognized that no one knew this was happening to me, which made me feel so completely alone. It made me feel alone, forgotten and then ultimately like I didn't matter- like I was worthless. As a five year old child, I had no concept of how long this would last so it felt like I was going to be left there forever. Every time I heard a car approaching, or *thought* I heard a car approaching, my head would shoot up, expecting it to be one of my parents. After a while, my reaction to these cars would slow and my expectation that it was my parents turned into *hoping* that it was my parents then turned into resignation that no one was coming and no one has noticed.
I honestly don't know how long I was out there; I only know that when I arrived it was sunny and the sun wasn't yet directly above me and when I finally looked up and saw my friend's mother sprinting down the street towards me, the sun was completely covered by clouds, everything looked gray and it was snowing. I distinctly remember her running down the middle of the street towards me in her long black coat and how she looked with snow falling in front of her and all around her. It felt like it had been hours. Even if it hadn't been- it was still long enough for a five year old to feel utterly abandoned, outside, in the middle of winter.
I don't remember what she said when she finally reached me but I know she was worried and felt terrible. I'm sure I was crying but I can't remember. All I remember was her holding my hand and walking me back up to her house. As soon as she explained to me that I wasn't supposed to go home and should've been at her house this entire time, I had this overwhelming feeling of embarrassment- not only because I felt stupid for just sitting there instead of thinking to go to her house or at least another neighbor, but also because I realized that there must have been something about me that was unlikable. It hit me like a ton of bricks. He did this on purpose; he really doesn't like me and something about me was so unlikable that someone could just dump me out in the cold, alone and not come back. I felt like I wasn't worth remembering.
As a child your thinking is so rudimentary and fragmented because you're just trying to connect the dots in the simplest way. In the simplest way, I wasn't worth it. Something about me wasn't special and worse-so, it was worth punishing. Up until she came running down the street, I really couldn't comprehend what was happening, I just knew that I was cold and scared. But when the facts of the situation had become clear, I instantly felt like I had done something wrong and that this was done on purpose and I felt so embarrassed and almost ashamed.
Apparently after he had dropped me off, instead of going home he and his daughter left to run errands and go to the grocery store. I can't remember exactly how her mother found out that I wasn't with them, but I want to say that they were one of the few people in the late nineties to have a cell phone and she found out from him, *or* she just happened to look outside and see me down the street huddled up on my front porch.
I spent another half an hour or so wrapped up in a blanket on her couch, shivering and trying to warm up. When I finally warmed up and started feeling better, I ended up in their playroom playing dress-up with another child that she was babysitting. That was when my friend returned home. She walked into the playroom and asked me what I was doing there with a confused look on her face. I somewhat pointedly told her that I was supposed to be there the entire time and then immediately felt embarrassed like I shouldn't have used that tone.
I could then hear her mother absolutely laying into her father upstairs about leaving me out in the cold. She was yelling at him about how she *told* him that he was supposed to bring me to their house and not drop me off at home. I don't remember what he said in return but I know he was combative and defensive and it only reaffirmed in five year old me that he did it on purpose. My friend also seemed angry with me that I was the cause for her parents fighting. I wanted to hide in the corner. I wanted to go home immediately and I was scared and didn't want her dad to see me there because I just *knew* that he would be mad at me because I'm the reason he's in trouble.
He never apologized to me. He never said anything, actually. You'd think at the very least that he would be nicer to me after that, but no.
My therapist asked me what my parents did about it, because according to her, she would have been furious. I don't recall their reaction at all; I'm fairly certain that I didn't tell them about it either - at least not until years after. I asked my mother yesterday if my friend's parents had told her about the "incident" to which she said that the mother had mentioned, but sort of "glossed over it" in an attempt to downplay it. She must've downplayed it so much that my mom couldn't recall much about the incident.
My mother felt so absolutely terrible yesterday while I was retelling this to her. I've told her about it in my adulthood before - which made her upset and sad - but never in such emotional detail as I did yesterday. It made me wish so badly that I had told her that day. I know she would have quashed those terrible feelings in me, but I just couldn't bring myself to do it. Part of me felt like it was my fault; like I had done something to deserve it.
I don't know what to do with this story, I just needed to get it out of me and really take the time to work through the details and emotions of it. If you're actually reading this, I'm sorry if it was anti-climactic. I'm definitely going to regret posting this, pretty much immediately after I do so, but fuck it. I will most likely shy away from checking in on it, so if you actually have read the whole thing - thank you- sincerely.
And to Mr. B - Fuck you, you goddamn arrogant fucking asshole prick.
TLDR; Through EMDR I realized that a fucked up, yet seemingly harmless incident in my childhood (my friend's Dad- either knowingly or unknowingly - leaving me alone on my front porch when no one was home for hours in the middle of winter when I was five) was actually the OG domino on my long road to self loathing, disordered eating and chronic depression. Cheers.

Mile Negative Something
Love at first sight. Love at first… read about it in some dorky ultrarunning corner of the internet. Something like that. Either way, I couldn’t think of a better way to tackle my first 100 mile race than with The Great New York. Trail running is cool… kinda…, but, at heart, I’m a city kid. You learn to hide that tendency as you get into ultras and 99% of the offerings are on soft surfaces, but, thank goodness, TGNY is a shining exception. Why run up Hope Pass in Leadville when there’s a perfectly good expressway shoulder in Queens?
Mile Zero
I stick out like a sore thumb at my snazzy Times Square-adjacent hotel. A sore thumb in half-tights and a Salomon vest. A sore thumb leaving the hotel stone sober at 4:15 on a Saturday morning. The 130ish folks between the two distances of the event trickle in, get some photos under the monstrous flood of fluorescent advertising (I like cities but that place is a fucking abomination), and fidget a little bit as we realize there are no open bathrooms nearby.
Mile One
Nine minutes and change for the first mile, which – 22 hours later – will turnout to be my fastest of the day. It feels fine. But I take the next several miles a bit slower. Nothing to gain at the start, a lot to lose. I settle into a small pack of runners moving mostly in silence, then we slowly lose our group to pee breaks behind Central Park bushes.
Mile Ten
Hudson River on the left. GW Bridge looming ahead. Quiet sunrise pedestrian path. The ultra math begins. You’re one tenth done (that’s good!). You have ninety miles to go (that’s bad!).
Mile Sixteen
Van Cortlandt Park. Actual trails too, not even baby-in-a-$900-jogging-stroller paved paths. I’ve actually been in the park before, a cool sixteen years earlier for a college cross country meet. This time it’s a lot more sparsely packed with runners, which is good because I need to climb into the bushes again. The as-you-leave-the-park aid station is very well marked by its organizers, with miles of forewarnings, decorated with the lyrics of Somewhere Over the Rainbow.
Mile Forty
After the bushes stop inside the park, it’s a couple hours without seeing another runner. Well, without seeing another runner who’s awesome enough to have registered for the TGNY. Unlike my podunk little Oregon town, there’s lots of… people… who are… everywhere… and they’re all doing… stuff. Athletic endeavors and otherwise. Miles rattle off, aid stations fill my bottles, park bathrooms or covert bushes trips take care of other biological needs. I get really amused by a sign advertising used buses for sale. Hey, the 50K mark. Hey, an enormous airport.
Mile Fifty
People! Running people! A youngish British accented man in his first 100K who’s hurting. We talk about Philadelphia sports fandom and velodromes. As happens in these situations, he gets a morale boost when I catch him, we pair off for an hour or two, then he fades a bit and we separate again. I mean, we BOTH are fading, I’m just doing so more gradually. But he’s done 38 miles earlier. I’m now into “I’ve done this distance two times before in my life” territory and feeling… fine. Slowing, readjusting goals downward, but fine. No obvious conditions that need medical attention.
Mile Sixty Two
If I was less of a focused “racing” asshole and more of a tourist, I could’ve had a blast in Flushing Meadows… big street fair slash club soccer tournament. Someone else’s race report has cool details about a tortoise on a leash. Another runner posted a picture of a big elaborate drink they ordered that came in a coconut. Me… I soak up some reggaeton music, wait way too long in a bathroom line, and otherwise ignore the fun stuff to shuffle on towards the 100K point, where I’m meeting Ray the pacer. Ray the New Jerseyan. Ray the father of a toddler and professional tennis coach. Ray the occasional triathlete and ultrarunner. Ray the person I’ll later feel the most indebted to in just about my whole life’s history, outside of my wife and parents, after our ten hours together.
Mile Seventy
It’s Ray o’clock. And… we’re shuffling. I give him three directions: keep me moving, keep me eating, keep me on course. I’d connected with Ray in an NJ trail runners Facebook group that I was referred to by one of my old Syracuse running friends. “Yeah sure I’m free that Saturday”. Free to “run” (mostly walk) with a strange dude (me) for ten hours between Forest Park in Queens and a glorious return to Times Square. We’re moving across a rather long bridge into what I keep calling Coney Island, but will discover later in the week is actually Rockaway Beach. We’re chatting about life, wives, sports. We’re mocking triathletes (it’s OK, Ray is one). We’re comparing Gatorade flavors (fuck purple). We’re losing daylight. Somewhere on “Coney Island” is my drop bag. I re-stuff my vest with my preferred gels, ignore most of the spare clothes in that bag aside from a dry and clean hat (life’s little pleasures), and jettison things like sunscreen and a battery pack. Grams saved! The triathletes would be proud. Off to the boardwalk. Will they have open restrooms and/or discreet bushes?
Mile Eighty
I’m fading more than previously. We find the actual Coney Island, ferris wheel and all, and I’m confused but happy to have some sights and sounds to pass the minutes in a slightly different manner than the prior thousand minutes. Body is generally cooperating. Sometime after we leave Coney Island northbound, I ask for a three minute flop on a bench and Ray obliges. That bench is on the waterfront with a big shiny bridge ahead. I tell myself it’s the Brooklyn Bridge, which is wrong for about ten different architectural and geographical reasons. Sometimes that incorrect idea is reassuring, because the Brooklyn Bridge (the real one) takes the course back into Manhattan which means the race is almost over. Sometimes it’s disheartening because the bridge (the one we actually see, later realized to be the Verrazano) stays far away and also very high up. Somewhere in there I try to retell the “Jim from Garfield drinks a mug full of dog sperm” comic strip.
Mile Ninety
Faded a little bit more. Legs are OK, breathing and pulse feels OK, body just… tired. It’s midnightish and I’m a kindergarten teacher (slightly jet-lagged) who’s baseline is 50-50 on being awake at 10pm. Ray: “Hey, what about getting you some caffeine?”. Next aid station has a little three-pack of caffeinated mints. Manna from heaven. One down the hatch before we go. Another two miles later. Save the third for “one hour to go”. Even with the newly caffeinated vigor I’m feeling, the speed boost brings me all the way up to… about fifteen minute miles. We’re almost done! Just… two or two and a half more hours. Just the duration of a normal week’s “long run”. Easy peasy.
Mile Ninety Nine
We find a good rhythm of run-a-block, walk-a-block. We find the actual Brooklyn Bridge (it’s not two hundred feet above the water, two levels, and leading into Staten Island). It’s glorious. We play a rousing game of “what’s the name of that former ESPN personality” that prompts Ray to dig his phone out of his vest. We walked, blabbered, bullshitted and fell into silence for hours without too much technological interference, but this one tip-of-the-tongue thing is bothering us. Turns out it’s Kenny Mayne. I need one more port-a-potty and find an impossibly immaculate and unlocked one in Manhattan at 2am. There’s a topless woman on one corner. There’s a comics and trading cards shop still open and somewhat busy and I’m briefly tempted to hop in and buy a souvenir Dark Confidant or something. I get the “mile-to-go” notification from my watch navigation and it’s time to empty the tank… to the tune of an eleven minute final mile. Back into the unholy, overbranded sprawl of Times Square.
Mile One Hundred
The belt buckle (traditional finisher’s medal for 100 milers) is mine. 22:17:59. 137 minutes off my goal time, but who gives a shit? Margin of error, one world record women’s marathon time. I’m eighth out of the eventual 70 finishers. When most non-runners hear about ultras, I get a lot of “wow I bet you eat everything at the end and then pass out” but… I just need time to sit and do nothing. Not eat yet. Not sleep yet. This time, the nothing happens for a while on the sidewalk at 42nd and Broadway. Eventually I have to fetch my drop bag from the RD’s hotel room across the street, deliver Ray his Coos Bay running store t-shirt gift (pretty fair compensation for ten hours of pacer duty), and give him a hug and a Lyft send-off back to New Jersey. Some time after that, I get up and move towards my hotel on 47th. I’m still feeling… fine. Shivering uncontrollably a bit, groggy, but fine. Proud of myself and fine.
Aftermath
I sit on the floor of my shower and use the wand faucet thing to remove 22 hours worth of grime and salt. I inspect the damage I’ve caused to my body in that time and it’s… actually still mostly fine? No golf ball sized blisters, no sunburn, all toenails intact. All good signs. All indications that I can get a few more fun things done in New York in the days I have before flying home to Oregon. It’s approaching 5am on Sunday morning as I send a few texts and eventually doze off.

Mile Negative Something
Love at first sight. Love at first… read about it in some dorky ultrarunning corner of the internet. Something like that. Either way, I couldn’t think of a better way to tackle my first 100 mile race than with The Great New York. Trail running is cool… kinda…, but, at heart, I’m a city kid. You learn to hide that tendency as you get into ultras and 99% of the offerings are on soft surfaces, but, thank goodness, TGNY is a shining exception. Why run up Hope Pass in Leadville when there’s a perfectly good expressway shoulder in Queens?
Mile Zero
I stick out like a sore thumb at my snazzy Times Square-adjacent hotel. A sore thumb in half-tights and a Salomon vest. A sore thumb leaving the hotel stone sober at 4:15 on a Saturday morning. The 130ish folks between the two distances of the event trickle in, get some photos under the monstrous flood of fluorescent advertising (I like cities but that place is a fucking abomination), and fidget a little bit as we realize there are no open bathrooms nearby.
Mile One
Nine minutes and change for the first mile, which – 22 hours later – will turnout to be my fastest of the day. It feels fine. But I take the next several miles a bit slower. Nothing to gain at the start, a lot to lose. I settle into a small pack of runners moving mostly in silence, then we slowly lose our group to pee breaks behind Central Park bushes.
Mile Ten
Hudson River on the left. GW Bridge looming ahead. Quiet sunrise pedestrian path. The ultra math begins. You’re one tenth done (that’s good!). You have ninety miles to go (that’s bad!).
Mile Sixteen
Van Cortlandt Park. Actual trails too, not even baby-in-a-$900-jogging-stroller paved paths. I’ve actually been in the park before, a cool sixteen years earlier for a college cross country meet. This time it’s a lot more sparsely packed with runners, which is good because I need to climb into the bushes again. The as-you-leave-the-park aid station is very well marked by its organizers, with miles of forewarnings, decorated with the lyrics of Somewhere Over the Rainbow.
Mile Forty
After the bushes stop inside the park, it’s a couple hours without seeing another runner. Well, without seeing another runner who’s awesome enough to have registered for the TGNY. Unlike my podunk little Oregon town, there’s lots of… people… who are… everywhere… and they’re all doing… stuff. Athletic endeavors and otherwise. Miles rattle off, aid stations fill my bottles, park bathrooms or covert bushes trips take care of other biological needs. I get really amused by a sign advertising used buses for sale. Hey, the 50K mark. Hey, an enormous airport.
Mile Fifty
People! Running people! A youngish British accented man in his first 100K who’s hurting. We talk about Philadelphia sports fandom and velodromes. As happens in these situations, he gets a morale boost when I catch him, we pair off for an hour or two, then he fades a bit and we separate again. I mean, we BOTH are fading, I’m just doing so more gradually. But he’s done 38 miles earlier. I’m now into “I’ve done this distance two times before in my life” territory and feeling… fine. Slowing, readjusting goals downward, but fine. No obvious conditions that need medical attention.
Mile Sixty Two
If I was less of a focused “racing” asshole and more of a tourist, I could’ve had a blast in Flushing Meadows… big street fair slash club soccer tournament. Someone else’s race report has cool details about a tortoise on a leash. Another runner posted a picture of a big elaborate drink they ordered that came in a coconut. Me… I soak up some reggaeton music, wait way too long in a bathroom line, and otherwise ignore the fun stuff to shuffle on towards the 100K point, where I’m meeting Ray the pacer. Ray the New Jerseyan. Ray the father of a toddler and professional tennis coach. Ray the occasional triathlete and ultrarunner. Ray the person I’ll later feel the most indebted to in just about my whole life’s history, outside of my wife and parents, after our ten hours together.
Mile Seventy
It’s Ray o’clock. And… we’re shuffling. I give him three directions: keep me moving, keep me eating, keep me on course. I’d connected with Ray in an NJ trail runners Facebook group that I was referred to by one of my old Syracuse running friends. “Yeah sure I’m free that Saturday”. Free to “run” (mostly walk) with a strange dude (me) for ten hours between Forest Park in Queens and a glorious return to Times Square. We’re moving across a rather long bridge into what I keep calling Coney Island, but will discover later in the week is actually Rockaway Beach. We’re chatting about life, wives, sports. We’re mocking triathletes (it’s OK, Ray is one). We’re comparing Gatorade flavors (fuck purple). We’re losing daylight. Somewhere on “Coney Island” is my drop bag. I re-stuff my vest with my preferred gels, ignore most of the spare clothes in that bag aside from a dry and clean hat (life’s little pleasures), and jettison things like sunscreen and a battery pack. Grams saved! The triathletes would be proud. Off to the boardwalk. Will they have open restrooms and/or discreet bushes?
Mile Eighty
I’m fading more than previously. We find the actual Coney Island, ferris wheel and all, and I’m confused but happy to have some sights and sounds to pass the minutes in a slightly different manner than the prior thousand minutes. Body is generally cooperating. Sometime after we leave Coney Island northbound, I ask for a three minute flop on a bench and Ray obliges. That bench is on the waterfront with a big shiny bridge ahead. I tell myself it’s the Brooklyn Bridge, which is wrong for about ten different architectural and geographical reasons. Sometimes that incorrect idea is reassuring, because the Brooklyn Bridge (the real one) takes the course back into Manhattan which means the race is almost over. Sometimes it’s disheartening because the bridge (the one we actually see, later realized to be the Verrazano) stays far away and also very high up. Somewhere in there I try to retell the “Jim from Garfield drinks a mug full of dog sperm” comic strip.
Mile Ninety
Faded a little bit more. Legs are OK, breathing and pulse feels OK, body just… tired. It’s midnightish and I’m a kindergarten teacher (slightly jet-lagged) who’s baseline is 50-50 on being awake at 10pm. Ray: “Hey, what about getting you some caffeine?”. Next aid station has a little three-pack of caffeinated mints. Manna from heaven. One down the hatch before we go. Another two miles later. Save the third for “one hour to go”. Even with the newly caffeinated vigor I’m feeling, the speed boost brings me all the way up to… about fifteen minute miles. We’re almost done! Just… two or two and a half more hours. Just the duration of a normal week’s “long run”. Easy peasy.
Mile Ninety Nine
We find a good rhythm of run-a-block, walk-a-block. We find the actual Brooklyn Bridge (it’s not two hundred feet above the water, two levels, and leading into Staten Island). It’s glorious. We play a rousing game of “what’s the name of that former ESPN personality” that prompts Ray to dig his phone out of his vest. We walked, blabbered, bullshitted and fell into silence for hours without too much technological interference, but this one tip-of-the-tongue thing is bothering us. Turns out it’s Kenny Mayne. I need one more port-a-potty and find an impossibly immaculate and unlocked one in Manhattan at 2am. There’s a topless woman on one corner. There’s a comics and trading cards shop still open and somewhat busy and I’m briefly tempted to hop in and buy a souvenir Dark Confidant or something. I get the “mile-to-go” notification from my watch navigation and it’s time to empty the tank… to the tune of an eleven minute final mile. Back into the unholy, overbranded sprawl of Times Square.
Mile One Hundred
The belt buckle (traditional finisher’s medal for 100 milers) is mine. 22:17:59. 137 minutes off my goal time, but who gives a shit? Margin of error, one world record women’s marathon time. I’m eighth out of the eventual 70 finishers. When most non-runners hear about ultras, I get a lot of “wow I bet you eat everything at the end and then pass out” but… I just need time to sit and do nothing. Not eat yet. Not sleep yet. This time, the nothing happens for a while on the sidewalk at 42nd and Broadway. Eventually I have to fetch my drop bag from the RD’s hotel room across the street, deliver Ray his Coos Bay running store t-shirt gift (pretty fair compensation for ten hours of pacer duty), and give him a hug and a Lyft send-off back to New Jersey. Some time after that, I get up and move towards my hotel on 47th. I’m still feeling… fine. Shivering uncontrollably a bit, groggy, but fine. Proud of myself and fine.
Aftermath
I sit on the floor of my shower and use the wand faucet thing to remove 22 hours worth of grime and salt. I inspect the damage I’ve caused to my body in that time and it’s… actually still mostly fine? No golf ball sized blisters, no sunburn, all toenails intact. All good signs. All indications that I can get a few more fun things done in New York in the days I have before flying home to Oregon. It’s approaching 5am on Sunday morning as I send a few texts and eventually doze off.

Here is the most important information, and related articles, from this article.
Published on 2023-05-31 at 11:13 and published by ukrainska pravda. (3 minutes)
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Russia has killed at least 483 Ukrainian children, and left nearly 1,000 children injured, in the 15 months of its full-scale invasion of Ukraine. For 15 months, Russian aggression and terror have been destroying not just buildings, but fundamental human rights, the fundamental rights of our children: the right to a safe environment, the right to education, the right to development, the right to health care, the right to rest, leisure, and, most importantly, the inalienable and most important right – a child’s right to life. Russia has taken this right away from at least 483 Ukrainian children, and these are just the children whose fates we are certain about. The Ukrainian president recalled the Russian attacks on maternity hospitals in Mariupol and Kherson, over 1,000 kindergartens, 1,300 schools and over 1,000 children’s hospitals and other medical establishments, orphanages, rehabilitation centres, children’s libraries and sports schools that have been destroyed.

Keep reading with 3 related articles: Укринформ (2023-05-14 at 07:35) Russia has already killed 481 children in Ukraine The Kyiv Independent (2023-05-29 at 08:26) Prosecutor’s Office: 483 children killed, 986 injured due to Russian invasion of Ukraine Al Jazeera (2022-12-13 at 16:07) At least 100 killed as floods sweep DR Congo capital
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I've posted on this subreddit a few times before, one of them being a lengthy retelling of a story from when I was 11-12, I'll link it here https://www.reddit.com/ParanormalEncounters/comments/z035ep/my_experiences_from_when_i_was_1112/I also have another where I talk about a motherly presence I've felt in my house, along with some other information.
https://www.reddit.com/ParanormalEncounters/comments/zc8hsk/motherly_presence_in_my_house_plus_odd_dream/
Ever since I was a toddler I remember seeing things that weren't there, or experiencing things I couldn't explain. I do have a family history of Paranoid Schizophrenia, however I have no symptoms other than audible and visual hallucinations, and just want to share my experiences for others' perspectives.

1. When I was still in Kindergarten, I remember waking up in the middle of the night and seeing a black dog standing in the middle of my room, staring at me and snarling. I remember hissing at it and telling it to "go away" and "shoo". The dog's appearance was constantly shifting, not that it was changing to look like different dogs, but rather like it was made by a matter that was trying to hold onto a shape. It looked like it was made of little bubbles of darkness. I continued staring at it for a little while longer, before my baby sibling started crying and my dad turned on the hallway light. When I turned back to the dog it melted away from the light. Not disappear. Melt.
2. This occurred after the linked post. I would have been 14 and had a friend who was also interested in ghosts and the paranormal. I don't remember why, but we left our classes at the same time to meet up near the bathrooms to take a break from classes and hang out. He waited outside while I went to the bathroom. I was about to leave when I heard four loud stomps, like someone slamming their foot into the ground. Thinking it was my friend, I stomped back three times. Not even 2 seconds passed when I heard two more stomps, then a bathroom door slam shut. I rushed out of the cubicle to see my friend had started running into the bathroom. I asked if he heard the door slam, and he said yes, but he hadn't heard the stomps, not even my own. He instead said he heard footsteps near where he was outside, and heard a man breathing behind him. Of course, there was no one. We spoke about this for a long while afterwards, but eventually nothing else happened so we just accepted it as an odd occurrence.
3. I live in a 2 story house, with mine and my sibling's rooms on the second floor. When we first moved in, I began to notice that as you'd ascend the stairs, the temperature would drop significantly once you reach a certain point, and it would leave the entire upstairs much colder than downstairs. Which is weird, considering we all know warm air travels up. I told my mum about this, and she agreed it was weird, and bought sage to burn in our house. After she finished saging the house, the upstairs never had a sudden temperature change from downstairs again, and the temperature worked normally.
4. This isn't a straight up story, but rather some other things I can't make a full post. I've always seen shadow figures, whether they be Clarissa, who's a more greyish colour, or the Black Hooded Figure I'd seen. The figures can range from blobby silhouettes to looking incredibly humanlike. I often see black shadow people in my home or driveway. Most of the time, they never make me feel scared, except for some who always look more defined.

I don't know why I keep seeing all these things, or feel things, but it adds a bit of excitement to my life, and I never feel like I'm in danger, and other than some dabbling with an Ouija board, I've never actively tried to seek a haunted place, just yet. For now, I'm content with my strange housemates who never really do anything. I can't tell my family about this, because none of them believe in ghosts or the paranormal, my mum's more of a believer in universal energies. I've also always felt an affinity with the night and the moon, if this may add anything.
Edit: Forgot to add that I've also had some moments where I'd wake up with scratches on my back with no knowledge of how I'd get them. Sometimes they'd stick around for a whole day but never hurt. I have a high pain tolerance and often have random bruises in places where I don't remember hitting or being hurt, so make of that what you will.

The whole thing was Ray's idea. Yes, I had a hand in it, but I swear I had no idea what his plans were. Hell, I'm not sure if he even knew, to be honest.
It was probably a year ago, give or take a month or two. I had a hard time making out his words at first, because he was just so excited, to the point of barely being able to form a legible sentence.
The main thing I got from the phone call was to get to his house as soon as possible. He's usually a pretty composed guy, but something had him riled up something serious.
We had been friends since we were kids, ever since I helped him with a burgeoning bully problem in sixth grade.
Ray was really shy, and quite small for his age, so the bigger kids would lay into him pretty good. I didn't know anything about him at the time, but he always sat alone at lunch.
When Ronny Blige and his goons started harassing him one day, I couldn't let that shit slide. I wasn't especially strong or outgoing myself, but I never could stomach the bigger kids hassling the smaller ones.
As soon as they swatted his lunch off the table and pushed him to the ground from his chair, I ran over before taking the time to consider my actions.
Now, I'm not going to lie. I got my ass handed to me, but I stood my ground until Mr. Norris stepped in. He was the social studies teacher, and was about as intimidating as a half flattened grasshopper, but he was still an authority figure.
I ended up suspended along with Ronny and his friends, but it was enough to make them think twice about pushing Ray around anymore. After all, I did get a couple of good swings on him too.
When I got back to school the following week, Ray couldn't thank me enough for stepping in when I did. We became pretty tight from then on.
Jess was Ray's sister, and I developed a crush on her soon after my friend introduced us. Out of respect for my friend, I never acted on my feelings, but the friend zone knocked me out of the running anyway.
The three of us spent a lot of time together over the high school years and we managed to hold onto that friendship after they left for college.
I never went to university myself. I was never the best student, due in part to my fairly erratic life at home. I won't get into specifics, but my parents' relationship was always rocky at best.
Of course, I wasn't exactly the sharpest tool in the shed either. When we learned the national anthem back in kindergarten, I wondered what a 'Donserly light' was.
Of course, I didn't ask anyone, nope. I just assumed it meant really bright, and started using that shit in sentences.
"Wow! The sun sure is donserly today!"
"Can I close the curtains. It's way too donserly outside!"
"Don't call me stupid! I'm donserlier than you!"
Yep. I was about as donserly as a cave in the middle of a moonless night.
Though I wasn't particularly smart, I was always pretty mechanically inclined, so I ended up working at a garage after school. Working on vehicles paid well enough for me to get my own place far away from my folks and carve out a decent life for myself.
Ray dropped out of college after a couple of years, while Jess worked on her law degree for many years after. She always did like to argue.
He was always quite the intellectual, but he claimed that school was just attempting to dumb him down. Were it anyone else who claimed that, I would have thought them way too arrogant for their own good, but not Ray.
As soon as I pulled into the driveway, the garage door opened with my friend standing behind it. His house was nothing especially big or fancy, but it sat alone on a wide open area, with a long road that led directly to the huge carport that sat next to the house.
"This is gonna be the big one, brother!" He said as he ran up to my car before I even had the chance to get out.
"What's gonna be the big what?" I asked, chuckling at his childlike enthusiasm.
"Two words…." He began to say, before being cut off by his sister pulling into the wide driveway.
Jess was with her husband Elijah, who was riding shotgun. He was a pretty good guy, but I can't say I didn't hold just the slightest bit of jealous contempt for him. I'm fairly sure he knew how I felt about his wife, but he was cool enough to let it slide.
Ray walked towards his sister and pulled her into a hug as soon as she got out of her car. He smiled at Eli and gave him an acknowledging nod, to which his brother in law returned the gesture.
He waved us all to follow him into the garage, where he already had some fairly professional looking blueprints spread across his work table.
"You're not serious!" Jess exclaimed after glancing down at the prints.
"I worked it all out last night!" Ray replied with glee in his eyes.
"Ok, you've officially watched entirely too much Rick and Morty," I said, laughing out loud after I looked at the mapped out sketch of what was labeled 'Portal Gun'.
Eli laughed with me while Jess appeared to be trying her best to keep her composure.
"Look, I know it sounds crazy, but I swear to Christ it'll work," Ray said looking between us.
His voice sounded a bit pitiful, as we had clearly hurt his feelings.
"Just trust me, guys," he pleaded, "I'll make sure we're all partners in this, just have faith in me!"
"Ray, you're my closest friend," I said,
"You know I've always got your back, but this is science fiction, not actual science!"
To call my friend a genius, would be dramatically underselling his intellect. Though I had endless faith in his brilliant mind, I just couldn't wrap my far more simple mind around it.
After dropping out of college, Ray started working on a variety of entrepreneurial ventures. I can't necessarily speak to what said work involved since it is as above my pay grade as my understanding.
By the time he was twenty-five, he held several patents, and was worth more than twenty million dollars. That's with only two years of college!
For him to call this ridiculous idea 'the big one', I couldn't help but wonder what he considered big. This is exactly what motivated my next question.
"Are you sure you want to risk your reputation on something like this?" I asked.
He seemed to consider what is said for a moment. He was generally very quick witted, and rarely lost for words, well, with us anyway.
Even with all of his success, he was almost painfully shy and introverted. I was usually the only one he would confide in, which made this whole ordeal even more shocking.
He was always close with his sister, and he even took to Eli pretty quickly. He tried to share his wealth with all of us, but Jess was already a very successful lawyer, and I was just too hard headed to accept any form of charity.
I did allow him to 'invest' in my own garage though. I couldn't rationalize just taking his money as a handout, but he was happy to be a partner in my maintenance shop.
"This isn't about the money," Ray said, breaking the silence that had begun to consume his garage.
He looked at each of us with his eyes wide. There was a strange sort of desperation in his face that I had never seen before.
"Nothing I have ever done has left a mark on this world," he continued,
"This," he said, patting his hand on the blueprint, "Is my legacy!"
"This could change the world as we know it!"
My mind was made up before I looked at Jess and Eli for confirmation. I still thought this was completely nuts, but I had always had my friends back. I wouldn't change that now, even if I thought his genius was giving way to a touch of madness.
"Ok," I said, giving him a half smile,
"What do you need me to do?"
Ray lit up like a kid on Christmas morning, while Eli and Jess nodded their acceptance of whatever this plan held for them.
Though mine would be the hands that would assemble this thing, according to my friends instructions, I was unsure what roles Jess or Eli would play.
For the most part, they had little to no involvement. I assumed Ray just invited them to be a part of it since they were part of our small circle of friends and family.
The design was far simpler than I ever could have thought, but my friend had absolutely no doubt it would work.
Some parts took some time to get our hands on, and others cost Ray an insane amount of money. He claimed he didn't care about the financial aspect, but I wasn't entirely sure I bought that.
Still, I couldn't believe how much he was willing to pay out for this ridiculous venture. I had never seen him so blindly driven before. Honestly, he scared the hell out of me sometimes.
My friend had always been a calm and composed individual, but he completely lost his shit at times during this process. I had never seen this side of him before, and I even began to fear for his sanity.
There were several times during those first few months, where he would throw parts across the room, or pound on the work table until his knuckles bled.
There was something in his eyes at those times that caused me to feel very uncomfortable. He was like a man possessed, more so than one driven by a goal.
After three months, we finally had our first attempt finished. When Ray aimed it at the wall and pulled the trigger, it did little more than lightly scorch the wood. He flipped out!
He screamed at the top of his lungs, and launched the gun at the concrete floor. He stomped his foot on it, still yelling and swearing so much that his words didn't even sound like any form of recognizable language anymore.
He proceeded to beat and kick anything in sight. He punched the wall until the wood splintered from his blows. As soon as this legendary tantrum started, I got the hell out of there.
I just walked around to the back of his house and lit up a cigarette while he tore his garage apart. After a while, his guttural bellows didn't cause me to wince anymore, but it was probably a solid hour before he calmed down.
"What the hell was that, man?" I asked when Ray finally walked out of the demolished garage.
"I'm sorry," he replied, staring at the ground to avoid any eye contact.
"I've just put so much time and money into this," he continued, "I can't fail!"
"Maybe you should just walk away from this for a bit," I suggested.
"NO!" He screamed out as soon as the words left my mouth.
"Whoa now!" I said, backing away from my friend.
"I-I'm sorry," Ray said, "I just, I mean, they won't, um, I can't stop now."
"They won't?" I asked, "Who are they?"
Ray continued to stutter, but he wouldn't give me a straight answer. He told me he was not feeling very rational at the moment, and not to listen to any of his crazy words.
I finally got him settled down, and he agreed to take a few days off to clear his head. I was trying to get him to just drop this whole thing, but he wouldn't hear it.
We didn't talk for a couple of weeks after that day. It was probably the longest I had ever gone without talking to him, but he had freaked me out quite a bit.
I had gotten back into my regular schedule, and resigned myself to just wash my hands of this whole ordeal. I felt bad for ditching out on my friend, but I wasn't going to take part in his descent into madness anymore.
Just two weeks after his meltdown, Ray contacted me again. He apologized for the way he acted and practically begged me to come back and help him.
"I worked it out!" He said in a trembling voice.
I couldn't tell if he was just nervous about making his apology, or if he was getting himself worked up again.
After we talked for a while longer, I agreed to give him one last chance. I can't say I was excited about the prospect of taking part in this endeavor further, but he was my friend.
After another two months, Ray's portal gun was ready to be tested again. My whole body was shaking as he aimed the gun at the wall of his garage again, and my heart was racing.
The device was simple in it's design. It was almost shaped like a hair dryer, that had cables that ran to the heavy backpack. It made me think of a bad cosplay attempt at a Ghostbusters proton pack.
There were blinking lights and a couple of switches on the pack, while the gun itself had two knobs and a trigger. One knob was to adjust the diameter of the portal, while the other was to switch between entry and exit points.
The toggles on the back were just to power up and activate the thing, and I'm pretty sure the LEDs were just for show.
My friend asked me to flip the switches while he aimed the gun at the wall.
"Here goes nothing," he said with his eyes wide and manic.
As soon as he pulled back on the trigger, a small glowing circle of orange light appeared on the wall. He turned the first knob, and the light widened before my eyes.
After he let off of the trigger, the circle of light changed to a perfectly round hole in the wall. He then turned the second knob and aimed at the opposing wall, leaving another equally round hole.
There was nothing special about how the openings looked. There wasn't exactly an 'enter here' indicator, but Ray expected that. He told me to just be sure I kept track of which portal came first.
My friend grabbed a basketball from a box to the side of the work bench. He gave me a strange look with a crooked half smile, before he tossed the ball through the first hole.
Sure enough, as soon as the ball went through the left wall, I came bouncing out of the right.
"Holy shit." I said in a monotone voice, as shock would allow me no more than that.
After closely examining the basketball, Ray gave me a wink and ran towards the first hole.
"No, wait!" I yelled out, but he was running back through the right wall before I could even suggest that we run more tests first.
He yelled out in a frantic and excited shriek after he arrived back on the other side of the room. We both laughed quite a lot when he thrust his arm through the left side, and it popped right out of the opposing wall.
"You really did it!" I said with a surprised smile.
"We did it," Ray replied with glassy eyes.
He asked me to call his sister and ask her to come by. While we awaited her arrival, we conducted a few more tests.
I tossed the basketball at the exit portal to see what would happen. Somehow, it couldn't even go through! It just bounced right back at us.
We lobbed a variety of things through the origin hole, though we didn't need to prove that worked anymore. Honestly, we just had fun watching them go through one and pop out of the other.
After a while, Ray flipped off the backpack switches, and both walls returned to their previous state. Still in complete disbelief, I smacked my hands against both walls to find them completely sealed and solid.
It would still be a few hours before Jess arrived, so my friend and I just kicked back and celebrated our success with a couple of cigars he had bought for this very occasion.
He wanted to hold off on the champagne until his sister arrived, but we still cracked open a couple of beers and clinked them together before chugging down the deliciously cold brew.
It was getting dark out when Jess and Eli finally pulled into the driveway. They didn't seem overly amused about coming out here, but they changed their tune after we gave them a demonstration of our accomplishment.
They both just stared on with wide eyes and slack jaws as Ray strolled through one wall and out the other. They were at a complete loss for words until we popped open the champagne and passed around glasses.
"I can't believe you actually pulled it off!" Eli said, barely aware of the drink in his hand.
"I always knew you'd change the world, little brother," Jess said with a wide smile.
Ray was wearing a proud look on his face, as he admired his own work.
"If it's like they said, you ain't seen nothing yet!" He remarked, halfway to himself.
"That's the second time you've mentioned 'they'! Who the hell are they, actually?" I asked
"Huh?" My friend replied, seemingly pulled from his own thoughts,
"Oh, um, figure of speech." He continued, dismissively.
I studied his face for a moment. He didn't look like himself at the moment. His eyes were somewhat manic again, and his lower lip appeared to be twitching.
"You ok, man?" I asked.
"Mhmm," he replied, not taking his eyes away from the portal gun that lay on the table.
After a few minutes of an incredibly awkward silence that had encompassed the room, Ray reached out and flipped the switches back to the on position.
He slung the pack across his back, and clutched the gun in his hand. He turned to meet Eli's curious stare.
"Do you trust me?" He asked.
His whole body looked as though it was shivering slightly. I had no idea what had gotten into him all of a sudden.
I had assisted him on a number of projects over the years, from juicing up the turbo on his Mustang, to helping him convert a simple and cheap drone into something with an incredibly long range.
He had so many projects over the years, I couldn't even guess how many different ideas he had, but I had never seen him like this.
Eli looked at his wife and then over at me. He seemed uncertain and appeared to be looking for confirmation that he should indeed trust his brother in law. Jess just shrugged, but I shook my head. I wouldn't even trust my friend with how he was acting right now.
"I, um, I guess," he said, sounding very unsure whether this was the best response at the moment.
Without another word, Ray quickly switched the gun's knob to the exit position. His expression grew even wilder when he held it outstretched in front him, aiming the barrel at Eli's midsection.
"W-what are you doin', man," Elijah said, backing away from Ray.
"This is gonna blow your mind!" My friend said in a voice that had grown high pitched and frantic.
"Ray, STOP!" I yelled out, but he pulled the trigger before I could attempt to stop him.
Jessica screamed out in terror as her husband's eyes went wide and blank. I just stared in shock as the portal appeared to wrap around the center of his body that left the upper and lower sections detached, held in place by the opening that glowed with a vibrant, green light.
I did not see the room behind Eli through the hole, but what looked to be a completely alien landscape. With the neon-like hues emitting from the void, it almost resembled gazing through night vision goggles.
Jess tried to run to her husband, but I grabbed her arm and held her back. She beat on my chest while screaming out.
"WHAT DID YOU DO TO HIM!?" She yelled as much to me as her brother.
"I-I don't know!" I stuttered, completely lost for words, "I don't know what this is!'
I needed her to know I was not part of whatever the hell this was, but I was in complete, horrified shock myself.
Ray let the gun drop to the ground beside him, and he held his arms outstretched to his sides as something began to appear from within the portal in Eli's torso.
"Jesus Christ…." I said, as I watched two thin skeletal arms reach out and grip onto Eli's chest and upper thighs with six fingered, elongated hands.
As the creature forced its way out of Jessica's husband, the pressure from its limbs bent Elijah's chest and legs backwards into a terrifying sort of reversed sitting position.
He appeared to float in mid air, while the portal held the two halves of him together, though I heard bones snap and tissue tear as a screeching face worked its way out of the hole.
The head looked like a deformed human skull, with a greenish grey skin tightly wrapped around it. The face split in the center to reveal long and widened teeth. As it shrieked, its whole head halved in the middle, making it look like a nightmare version of pac man.
It had no eyes. Only the wide mouth and stretched skin that continued down to the emaciated and sunken chest that now forced through the void in Eli's body.
My senses finally seemed to recover, while the thing was still attempting to escape into this world. I picked Jessica up, and ran towards my truck.
"NO!" Ray screamed out while I was attempting to force the frantic Jess into the passenger seat.
"THERE HAS TO BE TWO!!" He yelled as he came running towards us.
Behind him, I saw the beast fall to the ground, after escaping through Eli's body. Though it lay on the concrete, seemingly exhausted from it's transition, it looked to be quite tall.
The eerily thin frame was mostly humanoid, but each limb looked twice the length of my own. Its whole body looked like an elongated skeleton, with that greyed green skin wrapped around the bones.
Ray got to the side of my truck and was pulling on the door handle. I had locked it as soon as I got in, but he just kept yanking on it until it broke off in his hand.
He screamed out again, and he barely sounded human anymore. He pounded on the window, instantly causing cracks to spider web across it.
I kicked it into reverse and shot back out of the driveway, leaving my friend to fall to his knees. I took one final glance back to see the portal disappear, and two halves of Eli fall to the ground. Clearly flesh does not recover as well as brick and mortar with such things.
Ray attempted to run after me as I sped away from his house, but even if he hadn't still been wearing the heavy backpack, I had the pedal pushed to the floor.
Once I was sure I had put enough distance between us, I called 911. I had no idea what to tell them, so I just reported a possible homicide at Ray's address.
I didn't stop rolling until my truck was running on fumes. Jessica had been catatonic since she watched her husband quite literally fall to pieces before her eyes, but at least she was alive.
I considered driving home, but I was certain Ray would go there first, if he were searching for his sister and I.
I pulled off the interstate to find gas stations and hotels right off the exit. My passenger was still out of it, so I checked us into one of the roadside motels after filling up my gas tank.
I went ahead and just got one room with two beds, so I could keep an eye on her through the night. I didn't want to creep her out, or make her feel like I was holding her hostage, but my head was still spinning from the evening's events.
I still couldn't believe my friend had gone so far off the deep end. Had this been his plan all along? Had he just been using me to bring whatever the hell that was into this world!?
Jess just lay in the bed across from me, still shaking all over. I would have to try and get her help soon. Hell, I would have to get myself help, for that matter. Her body was faced away from me, so I walked over to where she lay to check on her. She was out, thankfully. I could only hope that rest would help her troubled mind.
It was just when I was about to attempt to lay down myself, that my phone rang. I was apprehensive at first, unsure if it may be Ray attempting to contact me, but no.
Given the bizarre circumstances the police found when they arrived at my friend's house, I would have to make a statement as to the events that took place.
The detective told me they found some video footage at the scene, and I would be required to make a statement. He sounded confident that I wouldn't be facing any charges, but they needed to hear my account of what happened.
I couldn't help but wish I had taken the time to locate a pay phone before placing the 911 call, but I wasn't exactly thinking straight.
I made arrangements to have someone pick up Jessica in the morning, at which point I would make my way to the police station.
I was still very uncertain of what to expect, but I knew Jess was going to be in need of some serious psychological care. The investigator was actually far more understanding of my apprehension and concerns than I would have expected.
An ambulance arrived at the motel just a couple of hours later. Jessica was still out of it, but the paramedics assured me they would get her the care she needed.
After they took off, I headed back towards the city I fled from only a handful of hours before. Having driven for longer than I realized the previous night, it took me a while to arrive at the station back in Ray's neck of the woods.
My thoughts were all over the place, but I just wanted this nightmare to be over. Detective Leary was waiting for me in his office when I arrived.
He was an older guy, but I think he appeared more aged than he really was. He had thin, brown hair that had receded back a good bit. He wore a thick moustache and rimless glasses. He spoke in a friendly tone, but his expression appeared quite stern.
There were two other individuals in the room when I walked in, but they showed no motivation to introduce themselves. They both wore dark suits, and had a similarly cold expression on their faces.
They were both maybe in their mid-thirties. The shorter of the two had a shaved head, while the other sported a blonde buzz cut. Neither of them said a word while they just stood at the back of the room.
The detective told me the two men were in charge of the investigation, though he would be the one asking the questions. I knew nothing about any of the room's inhabitants, but Leary came off a little intimidated by the duo in the nice suits.
It's very possible he was just one of those particularly skittish people, but given the pictures on the walls of seemingly very important individuals shaking the detective's hand, I had to assume it was just these particular men that made him nervous.
At the officers request, I recounted the events of the previous day, along with the details of the project we had worked on these past months. It was a grueling conversation, and retelling these facts caused me to physically wince multiple times.
I don't think I had allowed myself to really take in everything that happened until this very moment. By the time I was finished with my story, I found myself just staring at the desk I sat in front of, barely holding on to my own sanity.
Nobody said anything after I told my side of things, until Leary asked me to step outside for a moment. I shook my head to snap out of my vacant stare, and just nodded to the man before walking out the door.
A good thirty or forty minutes passed before I was invited back in. As soon as I strolled through the open door, the two silent men walked quickly past me, without so much as glancing in my direction.
"They seem friendly," I remarked to the detective before the two were out of earshot.
"You have no idea," he replied.
Leary went on to explain that the men in the finely tailored suits were against the idea of me seeing what the he wanted to show me. He told me he thought I had the right to view the video footage they had found.
"This may be tough to watch, and I'm sure you're gonna need a truckload of therapy after this, so it's completely your call," he said, holding the remote control to the monitor that sat on the other side of his desk.
I considered his words for some time before I reluctantly agreed to watch the tape. I wasn't quite ready to face the reality of everything that had occured, but I had to know what happened next.
As the video began to play, I wondered when exactly Ray had begun recording. I asked the detective to fast forward through the events I witnessed first hand and basically cut to the chase.
I stared on with wide eyes as the video sped through the horrific act that had been forced on Elijah. Poor guy didn't even have a chance. I have no doubt that even if he had denied Ray's question of trust, he would have still met the same fate.
Leary started playing the tape again and I watched my truck speed away from the house with my friend screaming out after me.
The skeletal creature still lay on the concrete at the garage, while Ray erratically paced back and forward.
"There has to be two!" He was muttering over and over to himself as walked from side to side across his lawn.
"There's no time. No time for more. No time at all," he continued, sounding more maniacal with every word.
"Just wanted to share. Share with them, but no! No they wouldn't! No time! Has to be two, no time now!" He went on and on, just repeating the same thoughts, each time more harried than the last.
"No time." He said somberly, as he came to a halt in front of the greying green thing on the floor.
"Has to be done. No time left," he remarked one last time, before he picked the gun back off the ground.
It had been dragging behind him as he darted back and forth, still wearing the heavy backpack. He stared back into the camera that had apparently been mounted close to the rear of his garage.
He didn't say another word. He just raised the gun up slowly, and planted the barrel into his own mouth. Since he directed the portal into his own throat, I could not see the opening form.
He just stood there with his head tilted back while both of his arms dropped to his side and the gun fell back to the ground. For minutes he just stared motionlessly up at the sky.
I audibly gasped when the long, bony fingers reached out of his mouth. They gripped at the sides of his face, and forced the opening wider, splitting and tearing the flesh.
I fought against the lump forming in my own throat as I looked on while Ray's face was ripped and his skull cracked and splintered. His neck bulged and tore open, while sharp twigs of rib bones pierced out of his chest.
What was left of his head gave way as the thing forced its way out. Chunks of bloody meat and scarlet tissue fell to the ground, each part sounding more moist and sticky than the last.
By the time the creature fell to the ground beside the other, which had only now begun to move, my friend was completely split apart from the abdomen up. He still stood in place, with his hands almost touching the ground as what remained of his shoulders now hung by his waistline.
Leary turned off the tape after that last part, but I still just glared blankly at the screen. He wouldn't give me any insight into the investigation, nor would he tell me if the creatures were still there when the police arrived.
I was asked to sign an agreement that I would not speak of this, but I assumed nobody would believe me anyway. I kept my word until now.
It's been about a year since that awful night, and I've been attending regular therapy since. Jess is still in the mental institution, but she finally started speaking again a few months back.
I make sure to visit her at least once a week, and she's slowly coming back to herself, though I highly doubt she'll ever be the same as she was before all of this madness.
I have no way of knowing what ever happened to the monstrous beings that were birthed through my friends by way of the portal gun I helped create. I can't speak to the location of said invention either.
Whether it's connected or not, I've been receiving calls from Ray's phone the last few days. I finally broke down and answered it last night.
I don't know how, but it was my friend's voice on the other end. He sounded different, which is not surprising as his head was fragmented into bony and bloody chunks.
Somehow, I believe it was him, though I have no idea how that could even be possible.
"Two more," it said, "Has to be two more…"
I immediately hung up the phone, and threw it to the ground. I stomped the damn thing with the heel of my foot until it was just a scattering of plastic and glass.
I can't be sure of what those words meant, but I'm not sticking around to find out. I'm packing my shit, and getting the hell outta Dodge.
Hopefully, I can convince Jess to come with me, if I can even get her out of the institution she's in. Either way, I won't wait around to see what happens next.
I can't know what my friend's true motivation was behind all of this. Just please understand, I never would've let it go this far if I could have known what he intended. He said we would change the world together.

Hi!! I’m in the process of completing my Edtpa literacy w/ math task 4 in a kindergarten classroom. I have already taught my lessons on comprehension through retellings and I’ve literally done everything for the Edtpa (taught the lessons, completed the commentaries, etc.) but I just had a freak out because I don’t think my lessons are what Pearson wants to see and I just need either confirmation that this is fine and it won’t really matter or a suggestion of how to work with what I’ve got an adapt to fit the Edtpa better
Lesson 1: focused on sequencing and students doing a retell of their morning routine Lesson 2: read a story, made a chart with the story elements (characters, setting, beginning middle end) Lesson 3: students filled out a story map graphic organizer of characters setting beginning middle and end as the assessment - where I’m tripping up is I used the same story as I did in lesson 2 (which I thought was fine because they are kindergarteners who need a lot of prompting and support and so that’s how I justified it in my commentary with how in my classroom it is typical for us to use one story as the anchor text for a unit). But I’m worried Edtpa will not like that they aren’t applying the skill to a new story and that I’m gonna fail someone please give me adviceeeee