When a friend of mine was a little kid, someone drove past, jumped out of their car, and ran over and grabbed him trying to kidnap him.
He was just confused about what the guy was even doing, but grabbed onto a chain-link fence and wouldn't let go, so the guy was yanking him and yelling at him to let go, but he was able to hold on. Eventually the guy gave up and ran back and sped away. While he was being yanked on the fence, he was worried because the ball he'd been playing with was rolling down the hill, and he was worried it would go somewhere he wouldn't be able to find it and he would lose his ball.
When the guy left, he went and retrieved his ball, psyched that he was able to get it back. He thought no more about it and kept playing, and then later that day told his mom about what happened.
She lost her mind. For some reason, he thought she had also been worried about the ball, and he kept telling her he'd been able to get it back after, so it was all good.
I can’t find the statistic any more, but it was something like 80% of people who are kidnapped and are taken in the kidnapper’s car are killed. Like this kid’s situation, fight, scream, do everything possible to not be taken.
When I was 13 I helped the local burnout mow lawns. He was late 20's and hung out with us teenagers from the same block. Got us weed, bought us beer. The 16yo guys I looked up to were friends (?) with him, he'd hang in the backyard fort of the lead 16yo, and he basically ran the local lawn mowing cartel of all us kids. I wanted money and it was easy and fun, hangin' with the boys. We shoveled walks in the winter.
One snowstorm morning he wasn't at the fort where we'd meet so I volunteered to run across the street to his house. Knock. Knock loud. Try the door, he didn't mind if we came in his basement entrance to his parent's house. It's dark, light on in the bathroom. 13yo me saw his first dead body that day; full bathtub with slit wrists and neck.
E: oh, reason for suicide seemed to be that he had a DUI wreck a couple months prior where a young girl (like 7 or 8) didn't die but wouldn't ever be the same... like couldn't walk or brain damage or something. He couldn't handle what he did, I guess.
Driving under the influence. He was drunk and hit someone's car. I don't think there was any fleeing involved, he had broken bones and shit. Spent time in jail and was waiting on his trial out on bond.
I spent a year as a videographer for a local news station. Do not work such jobs if you don't want to see dead bodies because, as I found out, you're literally an ambulance chaser. One of the many reasons I only worked there for a year. And probably why I am now too squeamish to watch gory movies.
I'm just glad I've never seen anyone actually die. At least not yet.
When I was a kid (18?), one night a friend of my friend called us to come give this drunken girl a ride. They said they were at a party and the guy took some time to babysit her and take her home but he couldn't handle her anymore.
We went and picked her up and were going to take her wherever in the area she wanted to go as a solid for this guy. She got in the car and started berating us and trying to turn up the volume and complaining about the music. She said she had sucked dick and whatever other mess and wasn't going to put up with our shit this evening. She was much more intoxicated than I thought she would be. She requested to be taken to her car and she started giving us directions. She said she was going to sleep it off in the car so her parents wouldn't know. We planned to take her keys and come back later or something. We were honestly blindsided by how ridiculous everything got so quickly.
Turns out her car was parked at a local recycling center or something and when we pulled in there, there was a brand new Cadillac, lights came on car started. She said it was probably her grandpa. We let her out and started driving away so that they could figure it out, we wanted to be done. Grandpa didn't even stop to let her in the car or get her in her own car or anything. He immediately started following us. He tailgated us all the way down the highway back to my friend's house with his brights on. We drove normally but tried to concoct a plan. We pulled up the driveway at my friend's place about 15 minutes later and he stops short a few car lengths into the driveway.
I kind of lost it at that point and walked down the driveway to ask him what the hell he was thinking and he steps out of the car standing behind the driver side door. As I come up to him to give him a piece of my mind he raises his hands and he has a pistol pointed right at me. I guess being young and full of adrenaline I absolutely went off on him yelling what the hell did he think he was doing pulling a gun on this we were just trying to give his granddaughter a ride we didn't even really know her. I mean I got right up in his face. I can't believe I did that in retrospect, I would never do that now. After I yelled at him he dropped his hands and looked confused. Said "What was I supposed to do?" I'll never forget those words.He quickly got in his car and started to turn around. I tried to block his car so I could call the police but as I started to get on the phone he punched it and ran over my foot. Thankfully I moved to just enough to the side that it didn't really do anything. Cops showed up later and the officer stood around for a while talking to us and getting statements. He said that we have to go down to the magistrate downtown to do anything about this.
We went there and the magistrate asked us a bunch of the same questions. He did some paperwork stuff and essentially concluded that the guy who pulled a gun on me had already come by and filed a report that we were threatening him and that the two conflicting statements would cancel each other out - nothing would happen to either of us. Come to find out later on that the man who pulled a gun on me was a retired police chief from the area, very well known, who owned a local car wash. He had a sketchy past and I guess this was just another day in the life of a police officer abusing power.
I look back and think what the hell was that girl doing? Was she actually being taking advantage of? Did the friend of a friend know that would happen so he set us up to take the fall for it? Was he the abuser? Was she just being sloppy and shitty and he didn't want to get in trouble? How in the world did those things cancel each other out especially with no investigation into it. They couldn't have. I'll never forget that. I never talked to that idiot friend of a friend again and I never saw police officers the same either.
I'm aware your questions are rhetorical, but I'm going to answer them anyway. Your questions are just so spot on.
Was she actually being taking advantage of?
80/20
Did the friend of a friend know that would happen so he set us up to take the fall for it?
Maybe. It doesn't have to be that Machiavellian. Maybe he didn't know what to do and was just looking for an out. Not an excuse. Could be similar feelings whether he's the abuser or relatively innocent.
How in the world did those things cancel each other out especially with no investigation into it.
Cops don't like paperwork. Paperwork can mean accountability. If nothing's written, they can't get lectured for doing it wrong.
Not ever having closure for shit like this is ridiculously frustrating. This drunk lady came to my door once and lied that she was a friend of a friend but she was really upset and may possibly have been hit by her boyfriend because she had a big red mark on her cheek and started crying about him. So I had her call her mother to pick her up. Then my wife came home and we hid in the bedroom with the door closed while she and her mom had a huge yelling match about the boyfriend. Eventually they left and we never saw or heard from them again.
You'd think they would have at least left a thank you note.
I have scars around and on my genitals. When I was young my mom told me that I had surgery just after I was born. Now as an adult, I think I may have been born with some sort of intersex condition but I am afraid to talk to my parents about it.
Probably not, from someone who worked in pediatric urology and endocrinology. They don't tend to do surgery until you are older because you need to be old enough to determine what your gender identity is very clearly, which is not clear sometimes with intersex conditions. It's a really bad decision to make too early. Probably what you had was an undescended testicle or hydrocele or something.
No haha. Did you read the book about the boy whose penis was burned off so the infamous Dr John Money told them to make him into a girl. They did and it was terrible.
Were the standards any different in the 80s? I've heard stories of people getting "corrective surgery" in infancy but the cases that I've heard are not from the US or are much older.
Outside of North America maybe, that I don't know. But in North America they tell the parents they won't know the gender for a while, to name and dress and groom the child as the parents choose, but they let them know it might change. It's so rare though, I've seen one case in 20 years of hospital work.
Human Rights Watch was pretty concerned about prematurely assigning gender to intersex children, back in 2017. I expect there's more regional variation in this than you'd think.
That was a really hard won battle for the intersex community. I'm 30 and if my intersex condition had been caught at birth (it was very minor and hidden by foreskin), I'm pretty sure they'd've moved from pressuring my mom to circumcise to pressuring her to "fix" it.
I (aurally) witnessed a kindergartener get run over by her school bus. I was on a different bus and our bus drivers were talking over the radio, then there was this ungodly wailing from the other bus. The other bus driver just kept screaming "I killed her, I killed her".
Turns out the little girl barely missed the bus, ran alongside it to catch up, tripped, and fell under the wheels of the bus.
Once we got to high school, students on the killing bus were offered counseling. I, not being on the killing bus, didn't talk to anyone about it until I went to therapy decades later.
Yellow school buses freak me out still, for that and abuse reasons.
Yeah, there's also the confusion of not having literally seen or felt the kid being crushed, so chastising myself that it shouldn't have been that traumatic. It took me years to accept that just hearing something can also be witnessing it.
Yikes, remember kids no loose items near the violently spinning things.
I used to be a plumber and spent a lot of time running a pipe threader all I ever thought about while using it was if I mess up this thing will force my body through a 5 in gap.
My cousin got his arm ripped off by a tractor PTO when he was a kid. Some quick thinking by his dad got him a tourniquet and his detached arm on ice in a cooler, drove him to the hospital and they were able to reattach it. He doesn't quite have full function with it but you'd never know. This would have been around 1990 so pretty impressive medically.
PTO? Is that the spinny thing on the back of the tractor I would attach the mower/seed spreader to? If so, thinking back we never had much concern with it. Now I'm rethinking the wisdom of the adults in letting us preteens use it.
Probably not as interesting, but I was woken up as a kid (teen?) by my mom screaming and running into my room/in my bed. Woke up to see my dad standing in the doorway with a steak knife. She had asked him to go to rehab. That was it. We're good though 🤙🏾
There's also the duet she did with Charlotte Church where she was so blitzed out of her mind that she could barely stand and just slurred everything almost incoherently. I knew she wouldn't be around much longer when I saw that.
My dad threatened to kidnap me and an... Uncle, i think, held me at gun point when i was a baby. I had a surprisingly violent childhood, don't remember any of it tho. Not many other 'scary ' or unsettling facts i can think of I'm afraid, if those even count.
One of my oldest and dearest friends was born in Indiana, but his Mexican dad literally kidnapped him after he divorced my friend's mom and took him to Mexico city where he stayed for 5 or 6 years. There was a full FBI search and everything. And he told me he recently found out that an uncle of his knew where he was, but couldn't tell his mom because his uncle was a CIA informant and it would help blow his cover.
This is not someone who is prone to lies or exaggeration. I 100% believe him about the CIA part and I know the Mexico City part is true.
I was very close to either dying or having permanent brain damage due to a stun grenade in a protest in my country. While being a completely unarmed, non-violent and basically running away/hiding protestor.
I was with a friend and a bunch of people outside our campus. Everything was peaceful and then, out of nowhere things got bad, with stun grenades and tear gas everywhere. We were used to it, but that time the tear gas was so bad that the neutralizer we brought was doing nothing. We took cover with a wall (bad idea, but we were panicking badly), and I wasn't able to breath, so I wanted us to run away from there. I told my friend to let's just run certain way, and I was so full of adrenaline and ready to run, but he stopped me. 1 second later, a stun grenade fell from the sky just 1 m away of us, in the direction I wanted us to run; no doubt it would have hit me in the head.
After that I just took his hand and we ran away, not able to see nor breath. Me holding his hand was a huge saver for both of us, as we could, more or less, guide each other. We ran some 20-30 m and just fell to the ground, but in a somewhat safe place. We crawled some 10 m more and just rest there. It took us some solid 15 minutes to catch our breath. Never said a word to my family about the whole incident.
Dunno. I kinda think this is ok. They’re not cutting their lives short per se, it’s seems like a situation where they know their (or one individual’s) quality of life is going to be bad, so they’re doing a mutual suicide. Grown adults should have this choice. I think the only bad thing would be if one partner were reasonably healthy and felt obligated or pressured into it even if they didn’t really want to.
Once put one of those plastic wrapped potatoes in my uniform apron to put back in produce at my first retail job (got abandoned in the mac and cheese section). I then completely forgot and took it home. Took it out of my apron and put it on my desk next to my car keys because "I'll remember to take it back". I did not. Lived with me for a week or something when I finally put it in my apron again because I wasn't remembering. I took it to work. I completely forgot about it and never returned it. It made this trip several times. I put it back on my desk because this wasn't working out, surely I'll remember if I see it.
Then I forgot about it for like three months. One day I look over at my desk and it's a shriveled potato with a new potato growing from its own husk...
In essence, potatoes are amazing and horrifying. Just like my short term memory lol.
Then you plant the potato, determined to pay it back with interest. Months later, you harvest 5 potatoes that make it back to work but end up forgotten and back at home again. You even remember them at work frequently, but never when you're in the right section of the store.
You do remember to plant them the next year though. The first year, you just put them in a pot in your back yard, this year they get a small dedicated place in the ground. The 5 potatoes turn into 34 and no longer all fit in your apron pockets. But you do remember to return the 4 you have on you one day at work, and then forget to grab more before the other 30 are all sprouting the next year.
So the potato garden gets bigger year 3. You build a small shed to store the couple hundred you harvest. You're getting good at growing potatoes.
You eat one, not because you think you deserve it, but to make sure the potatoes you still want to return to the produce section are up to the high standards your employer's customers expect.
It's pretty good.
No, not just good. Your potato is amazing, the best you've ever tried. Wait, no, your work's potato is the best you've ever tried. You vow to repay that potato, hardening your resolve. You bring a whole bag in on your next day.
It only takes you three days to remember to drop off the bag of potatoes with the others (after a colleague asks about the bulge on your back where you were carrying them under your shirt). But then you realize with horror that the colour of the bag you made doesn't match the others. They are beige while yours is a bright beige. You return home that day with your bag plus a work bag, just so you can match the colour properly.
It takes you two more years to finally master the potato bag making craft. It wasn't just the colour that was off, you also had to match the font and placement of the text and then noticed that your stitching holding the bag closed was pretty different.
Your potato garden had taken over your entire back yard by then and you knew with dread that you wouldn't have enough space to plant them all next season. But your neighbour lets you use some of their 50 acres in return for two potatoes a day. You feel a bit guilty because they aren't your potatoes, but you justify it because it's an investment.
You don't forget about returning potatoes at work anymore. You can't forget. Potatoes have all but taken over your life at this point. You bring in a bag and fill your pockets with them each day and take each chance you can get to casually pass through the produce section and leave some potatoes without anyone noticing (which is difficult because you'd been promoted to the deli counter).
You've grown strong from getting used to carrying a bag of potatoes while still walking normally, not to mention the slight of hand tricks you use to pull it out of its hiding spot and leave it with the other bags without anyone noticing.
But you're still gaining potatoes overall, filling the shed and the storage building that replaced it. You consider high jacking the truck that delivers potato orders to your work, but you know Ed in receiving would notice something was up if there was an extra delivery they didn't pay for. You had already heard some confusion about potato shrinkage being negative and worried you'd never be able to repay your debt.
Then a complaint came in and you thought it was all over. A customer bought a bag of potatoes and they were all trash compared to the last one. The store was going to trace the batch number, which you had just been making up and even having a bit of fun with.
You felt a confused relief when you heard that the trace had led to nothing unusual being discovered. Turns out the trash potatoes were from the usual source and you wondered if that earlier bag was the one from you.
And then one day your nightmare comes true. You had just stealthfully placed three potatoes with others--that were much smaller and didn't look nearly as good (you were considering sending some anonymous tips to the producer so yours wouldn't stand out so much)--and made eye contact with one of your colleagues who was standing by the carrots. She saw. It's over. My whole potato empire is about to crumble to nothing and I'm going to prison for theft.
She looked dumbfounded. A little too dumbfounded, actually. You were wondering if this was a bigger deal than you had thought when you notice a bright orange object fall from her sleeve to the ground. It was a carrot. And it looked significantly better than most of the carrots your work had on display.
I was unloading a truck at work one day, many years ago. One of the items on my trailer was a pallet of rifle ammunition. Whoever loaded this trailer on the other side of the country did a shitty job of it; plastic wrap was shredded, several boxes were torn open, the cardboard "do not stack" cone was crushed under the weight of a car engine, among other things. When I managed to exhume this pallet from the trailer, the plastic gave way, spilling dozens of boxes and hundreds of loose bullets all over my trailer and loading dock. While I was cleaning up the mess, I impulsively pocketed a few bullets for myself. Nobody ever asked me about it. I don't even own a gun. But I have a few bullets.
I gave a bullet to a friend in highschool while we were hanging out at the mall. Our lil dumb 9th grade brains thought they were sooooo cool. Well then friend brought it into school showing people and of course he gets expelled on the spot. But he never told the teachers where he got the bullet.
I’ve been sick at home for a few days. I blew my nose into some toilet paper, checked, then tossed it in the toilet. Saw myself in the bathroom mirror and had snot all over my mustache.
Then it hit me. This isn’t the first time I’ve blown my nose with a mustache — it’s just the first time I’ve immediately looked in a mirror afterward.
Yea it happens if you have facial hair unfortunately. Went for a meal with my family last night and drinks after. Got home and realised there was quite a bit of dried soup in my beard. I do normally check myself after eating in my phone camera but totally forgot. Made me glad I've already made an appointment with the barber to get it trimmed.
i notice that when im sick, it takes longer for me to get better if i have a mustache. Not that i walk around with snot hanging to it, i hope not. But i guess something sits there, and i breath it all day and stay sick.
After taking a car door to the head during heavy winds, I experienced immediate and recurring night terrors/sleep paralysis for two years. They started out pretty extreme, with me waking up on my stomach with some kind of creature pinning me to the bed. I'd struggle enough to lift my head a few inches, only to find my pillow was filled with distorted, open-mouthed faces stretching out at me from the material.
As time went in the hallucinations gradually waned in extremity, though never becoming anything comfortable. I would open my eyes to see a phosphorescent grid encompassing my walls, or millions of flies on my bedroom ceiling. Once my cat was staring up at them too, and I believed what was happening was real, only to wake up a moment later facing a different direction, and my cat fast asleep at my feet.
Eventually it's as though my soul became heavy or something. I slept on the top floor of a two-story home, with a very old colonial-era basement below it. I would constantly find myself one or two floors directly beneath my bed, all but glued to the ground and trying with all my might to crawl out of the damp, dark cellar toward the stairs, but too sluggish and/or paralyzed to do it. I felt terrified down there in the darkness. Eventually the adrenaline would wake me up safely in my bed.
Throughout the entire ordeal I would somewhat frequently open my eyes to see some sort of ghostly or transparent entity looming over my bed, leaning over or staring down at me. The last night I ever experienced an episode, I woke up to see that very entity, but I realized suddenly that the entity was me. It was me standing there, looking down at myself. I became angry. I felt like these episodes had ruined my life, and made sleeping something I no longer looked forward to. The rage came to a head. I activated every nerve in my body to try to break free of the paralysis. I gritted my teeth as I succeeded, groaning the words "FFFFRUUUUCKK YYRRROOOOUU!!!" as I bolted up from my bed and lunged through my own ghost. Then I never saw it again. In fact, I never had another night terror since. It's been years now. A decade at least.
I love your story. I overcome attempted nightmares in a very similar way.
I rarely get anything close to a nightmare nowadays, but I used to get dreams where someone/something would chase me. Then one night, I felt it was about to happen, and thought, "I'm so tired of this. You know what? I'm done." And... the thing disappeared.
Ever since then, if any scary shit starts happening in a dream, I just tell it to fuck off. Sometimes that moment leads to a small bit of lucidity, and I go, "Oh hey, I can fly away." Run, jump, take off, and it's pleasant dreams from then on out.
I actually just had a moment like that (sudden lucidity during a dream) in my last sleep. Probably would have lost that memory entirely if this comment hadn't reminded me. Even still, I can't remember the context, just that something was happening that was mildly annoying and I realized I was dreaming.
I just said, "wait a minute, this is my dream, I'm in control here" and then I think the dream shifted into something else or something because the memory fragment ends there.
I still experienced it after I knew what it was, but not nearly as often. The last time I remember it happening, I dreamed I was at work. Laid down in a hallway to nap. Woke up from the dream nap with one of the execs standing next to me, looking down his nose. Couldn't move. "Hell of a time for sleep paralysis," dream-me thought.
Then real me woke up with sleep paralysis. At work, with my head down on a conference table at 3am.
I grew up deeply religious. Mom used to cast demons out of the house when I was little, and that ain't the half of it. Needless to say, I entered puberty with some fucked up perspectives. I started getting night terrors soon after I started masturbating, which was an accidental discovery of mine. The fact that I couldn't stop freaked me out. I thought it was demonic and no way was I gonna talk to my parents about any of it.
Fortunately for me, I was always fascinated by science and sci-fi. I loved sharks, astronomy, history, and Star Trek. For middle school I attended private Christian school or home school, but for 9th grade I demanded to return to public school. My parents relented. The demonic night terrors still tormented me nearly every night, but one day I read an article about sleep paralysis in a science magazine in the school library. It explained everything I'd been going through for several awful years.
That same night I experienced another episode. I felt lucid enough to remember the article and realize what was happening. Instead of impotently begging Jesus again for help, this time I simply thought, "fascinating." Then immediately woke up.
It has never happened to me since.
The people who fuck with libraries can all burn in hell. Libraries save lives, from exactly those same people.
That reminds me of the first time I did shrooms. I looked in the mirror and my head turned into a demon head. It made me laugh because I don't believe in such things and I was aware I was on shrooms, but I bet it would have freaked a religious person out. I can definitely see why some religious people use psychedelics because they think it gets them in touch with the spirit world or whatever.
Sleep paralysis is so terrifying. I get episodes when I'm under incredibly severe stress, so I've only had about 4 episodes. When it first happened, my heart was thumping so quick and fast that I thought I'd for sure have a heart attack.
Oh wow. They did great work then. My niece has her face attacked by a pit bull, has had several surgeries and some laser work, and you can still tell unfortunately. She kind of developed some transient anorexia about it unfortunately, which my asshole MIL went out of her way to aggravate. Glad you did well though.
Okay, so I have a mechanical heart valve. One time, while I was in the basement of my childhood home with one of my brothers, I was close to him as he was playing The Godfather PS2 (I'm pretty sure it was that game). It was pretty quiet, so he somehow heard the ticking of my valve and his mind went to some sort of explosive like a pipe bomb being close by.
If you don’t mind my asking, how do you deal with the ticking? I understand it can be very audible internally, and for some recipients can be incredibly difficult to deal with. I have a friend who has one too, and he says he doesn’t even notice it at all anymore. His brain tunes it out unless he thinks about it.
It's just something that has become constant internal background noise over the years. I don't know about anyone else with mechanical heart valves, but I'm constantly aware of mine and am so used to it that it doesn't bother me. I assume my brain tunes it out, but I'm not sure because I don't think about that.
Constantly aware because of the noise or can you actually feel it? I had my gallbladder removed and it's so weird to me that my body doesn't feel different in any way I can tell. I'm not sure how internal organs work in terms of being able to feel stuff.
Doesn't feel different, as far as I'm aware. It's been long enough I wouldn't remember if there's any difference in how it feels. But I feel constantly aware because of the noise. The distinct internal clicking noise makes it hard for me not to be aware.
I have the suicide disease. The worse, TN2 version. That is not a sly term for mental illness, it's a nerve disorder that has pain so great that people kill themselves rather than face yet another day of it. I am rarely below 3 on the 1-10 pain scale (at 4 right now) and I've reached 10 more times than I can count. This is with medication keeping it at the level where I can function.
I am such a bad judge of pain that the trauma from my not realizing for half a week that I had kidney stones and not taking any painkillers and then being stuck first in a clinic and then the ER for 14 hours writing in agony until they finally decided I did, in fact, have kidney stones and gave me some fentanyl, caused severe trauma and gave me an eating disorder called ARFID, unrelated to body image issues, and I have not eaten solid food in a year and a half.
P.S. If you try to give me medical advice over the internet, I may just block you. I am so fucking sick of that. And no, "I know you said you didn't want medical advice, but..." does not count as a way around that. And I am fucking sick of having to say that and having people ignore it too.
Damn. You know flying squid, I've always looked up to you around here. I see you in a lot of posts and comments around and didn't realize you are in agony for most of the time.
I wondered how things were for you. I'm so sorry. I do know of a new treatment for trigeminal nerve stuff simply because I work in neuro I can tell you about if you want but I most certainly won't give you advice. I just know someone who is using it and it's new.
I'm here to try something different... Instead of recommending a medical thing, how about you go on https://loops.video/ and share it with the rest of the world?
That's a raw deal. I always thought a 1-10 pain scale was a dumb Idea. Pain is pretty subjective and someone who hasn't experienced severe pain doesn't really have a way to understand what constitutes a 10. (I would answer differently before and after my cycling accident for example) Personally I think that setting the scale as 1-10 where breaking a leg is a 6 (or something) would be more diagnostically relevant. I trust your judgement, although what you call a 4 would probably be most people's 8.
Sorry to read that. But in some way I am almost relieved that you seem to finally know what caused your insanely severe case of ARFID. I remember when you were posting about your time at the Mayo clinic and the awful mismanagement there and was very sad and disappointed (not by you) that you were bombarded with enough armchair diagnostics to stop updating about your case.
When did you get diagnosed with TN2? And how long was the gap between the kidney stones and your last bite, if I may ask?
Thanks. I don’t really feel relieved by it, mainly because it’s kind of irrelevant to the future, but it is what makes the most sense and it’s better than having no idea.
When did you get diagnosed with TN2?
I think about 10 years ago. Maybe 11 now. It might be genetic because my dad had TN1. But he got it in his 70s. It usually manifests itself at that age. I was in my late 30s.
And how long was the gap between the kidney stones and your last bite, if I may ask?
That’s kind of complicated. A few weeks after it happened (January 2023) I started dry heaving every morning. That has been almost daily for me. Occasionally more than once. Then that March, I had this issue for about six weeks and then I was fine again until August. And other than at the Mayo Clinic when they totally numbed my mouth with a lidocaine-based compound, when I was able to manage a couple of bites of egg salad, that was the last time I had truly solid food. I’m also the smelling equivalent of a supertaster. I can smell cleaning fluid inside stores from when the custodians mopped the day before.
Working with a psychiatrist and doing RO DBT therapy, I am at a place where I can eat pretty much anything if I don’t have to chew or use any utensils and I have conditioned myself to just deal with the smells even if they are awful. I’m even able to cook for my kid now.
So I am in a much better place than I was even six months ago.
I was 7, my dad woke me up at like 10 pm, told me to come with to the neighbors across the street. I'm gonna stay the night with my friend. Get there, we hang for like 2 hours, it's after midnight and he tells me we're leaving.
"You said we were staying the night"
"it's after midnight, we did stay the night"
My dad is a big fan of technically true statemelies like that.
He put us on a bus, and took us from Chesapeake, Virginia to Columbia, South Carolina, where we're originally from. We were there for about 2 months. I was with family, and cared for, and not abused or anything. But it was still scary. I knew my phone number, but it was the late 90s, and you didn't need to know the area code to call local, so I didn't know it. My dad had instructed everyone not to tell me. I couldn't talk to my mom or brother, and that scared me really badly. While I was there, my mom and brother both had a really terrible flu, no money (and by no money I mean none. They delivered papers for income, and my dad did tree work when he felt like it.). They couldn't afford the gas to come get me, even after my cousin helped me figure out the area code to call them.
From my point of the view at the time, it was framed as like, a trip home to see Grandma, but being away from my mom and brother, and not being allowed to speak to them, was really scary. Not to mention frustrating. I knew I was being lied to, and having things kept from me, and I didn't appreciate it. I started having panic attacks at night when it came to go to sleep, and they lasted until my late 20s. Like, almost every night. I had to learn breathing exercises and shit to deal with them in my teens. It's wild the shit that can be traumatic. I was safe. I was with my father, and my grandma (although, she was whole other piece of work), and I got to hang out with my older cousin who was good to me, even though her sister was a complete bitch. But it seriously damaged for a long time. I still have unresolved issues about it, and pretty severe separation anxiety and shit. I'm like a shelter dog sometimes. Lmao
When the panic attacks started my aunt told me it was because I ate chocolate, and no one would believe me that it wasn't just, like, heartburn or something. They were real, and I didn't learn what they were until I was like 16, because panic attacks aren't, like, typical presentation. They're weird. Everything feels the wrong size. Like my hands feel tiny, or my teeth feel enormous. The bed feels like it's the size of an ocean, or the phone I'm using to distract myself feels like a matchbook in my hands. Just a whole bunch of shit. I guess I never really got past it.
But my mom got us a hamster when I got back, so that was cool. They found it in the driveway, and we named him Clyde. Later a neighbor rehomed theirs with us, and we renamed her Bonnie.
... Then Bonnie chewed through her enclosure and Bonnie ate Clyde, so altogether pretty shitty. Lmao
I'm not surprised it traumatized you, even if you didn't know the whole situation. Suddenly separating a 7 year old from their mom and brother for 2 months without explanation sounds exactly like the shit that would give long term issues
Everything feels the wrong size. Like my hands feel tiny, or my teeth feel enormous. The bed feels like it's the size of an ocean, or the phone I'm using to distract myself feels like a matchbook in my hands
Sounds a lot like the Alice in Wonderland syndrome.
I used to have it when I was little, and my symptoms were very similar to yours, but mine kind of went away on their own. When I close my eyes and focus, though, I can still make myself feel like the dark side of my eyelids is getting impossibly far away from me, which is very weird.
Not as bad as I used to, but yeah, if I let myself think at night then I get it really badly. I have to put on sleep meditation videos on YouTube, and I got a Bluetooth sleep mask. If I try to sleep without some kind of distraction it's pretty bad. Same for driving. Gotta have music or an audiobook or something or I end up having the pull the car over. Constant stimulus, basically.
No shrink has mentioned Alice in wonderland syndrome, I will look that up! I can also do the eyelid thing, but I don't because it triggers panic attacks
I didn't know anyone else had that same experience, to be honest. Ive told shrinks and they all just say unusual presentation for anxiety/panic attacks
The friend I was telling you about in another comment had to sleep with a blue light on for years because if he didn't, he knew (even though he realized it was totally irrational) that he would be abducted by aliens. And I guarantee you that was from the trauma of being kidnapped.
Kids are just so easy to fuck up even when you're actually doing everything the right way.
It honestly makes me wonder why my symptoms went away, but yours persist...
I've talked to a few people (like 3 or 4 i think) with the syndrome in the past, and it behaved differently for each person I spoke to, whether it's the symptoms, the cause, or, as in our case, whether it goes away or not.
It's a pretty unresearched syndrome, though the Wikipedia page for it has way more info than when I last checked.
EDIT: Another thing I'm curious about is that the symptoms also stopped causing panic attacks for me. I haven't had the eyelid thing for a while, since it's way easier for me to do that when I'm extremely tired, but the last time that happened I didn't get an attack at all. If anything, I tried to actually focus on what I was perceiving, I tried to make something out. Again, very weird how it develops differently for every person.
Also I know you're not him for anyone who asks. He's not on Lemmy even though I keep telling him he'll like it. He won't get off Reddit. Drives me nuts.
My story isn't that crazy. I feel weird/kind of guilty talking about like sometimes, because I know how much worse situations like that are for most people who have been through it. But you can't help the shit that fucked you up in childhood. Lol
Looks like chance to me. We're both pretty old, established accounts with highly different history for your consideration. Also consider that federation may take a few minutes. It's possible neither of us saw each other's comments at time of posting.
By coincidence, I inherited the RAM and CPU from the work computer of a guy who later shot up my workplace. Luckily he was the only one killed in the shooting. I still use the kit from the shooter to run my home server.
Aren't you worried that the ones and zeros that sent him mad could still be hidden as a transient memory just holding on inside a part of the RAM that you have up-to-this-point not made use of? What about if it's just biding its time hiding, waiting for the right moment to come out?
I'm sure I've already used every bit of that RAM over the years. ZFS loves to use all the memory I throw at it. If there's any killer virus hiding in the ones and zeros....I guess I already have it.
When I used to be spiritual I had a very small cult following of 12 people whose extreme believe in my lies actually showed me how frigthening Religion is.
His name was Derek. But he went by 'the Prophet' when times were good, or 'the Law Giver' when times were bad.
I moved onto his prayer farm with 45 other members of the Salvation Star Boys, who died in a mass suicide. But not me. 'Cause I don't like root beer. And I only drink what I like.
After it was all over, I called Lois to pick me up. She was mad. But she's what Derek calls an Oppressing Doubter.
May the light of Derek's Invincible Diamond shine through you.
Okay, found some time. First some background, what actually happened at the bottom.
Background on me
At the time (before smartphones and useful Wikipedia) I subscribed to some vague new-age gods-and-auras-and-spirits-and-energy beliefs loosely based on Germanic Neopaganism with some modern Druidry flavors. But I knew I was just going through the motions. I wanted it to be real and I wanted magic to exist, but I was also quite educated and no matter how much "knowledge" of the subject I acquired, I was still a little bit conscious of the fact that I was just a teenager/young adult lying to myself.
Background on the situation
I was charismatic, convincing, a compulsive liar and a horny teenage asshole. I was also the leader of a big guild on an active Ultima Online roleplay server that had quite a couple of attractive female players which I, through some very convenient coincidences, had convinced that there must be something true about my beliefs and my claims of shamanism.
For example: I often had long talks with one of the players, often deep into the night and one time she asked me to pay her an astral visit, if I was able to astral-project, and tell her stuff about her room, so she could verify. I now know that what I did then was basically cold reading her answers and being vague enough that she could interpret everything I said as accurate. She was impressed.
The piece de resistance was a lucky coincidence. To scare her a little and impress her more, I made something up about there being somebody with her in the room, not necessarily in the physical world, but that there was a presence there with her. She denied that for some time, got even angry as she caught on that I might be lying to her (I actually tried to imply it might be a spirit)... until the cat that never, never enters her room appeared behind the curtains and meowed at her.
This completely turned her anger into awe.
She hadn't know the cat was there, the cat never got into her room except that night, I had "known" something about her room that she didn't... she could not explain that. So her explanation was: He really visited me, he really has some magic powers. And she told the story to everyone in the guild, earning me more awe from the other players. I on the other hand knew that I had completely made that shit up and hit the jackpot through sheer luck... but the taste of all their awe felt soooo good. So I, with more lucky coincidences, more cold reading, more confident lying and just being charismatic slowly got into the heads of my guildmates and enjoyed all the attention of the girls. My character basically acquired a harem for naughty roleplay and I would try to do the same.
My chance arrived at the IRL-camping trip meetup.
What happened
It was supposed to be a fun trip, a weekend of camping with friends and guildmates, meeting the people we only ever interacted online with, some booze, some barbeque, a warm summer night under the stars. It started out great, we talked and talked and had lots of fun, drank a lot, smoked (no weed), danced around a fire. Sometime around evening I found myself surrounded by my guild talking about spiritual bunk that I mostly just made up on the spot. Viking pyramids, Ley lines, my ability to sense dark and bright presences, shit like that. My goal was to impress the girls and maybe scare one or two a little, so I could later protect them from evil spirits by inviting them to my tent... again some lucky coincidences lent me a hand.
We saw a meteor that night, and I don't just mean like a tiny falling star, we saw a big-ass chunk of rock break apart in the atmosphere and burn up in a bright orange fireball.
Later we had a stroll around the local lake and I kept insisting that there was some bright energy coming from the lake but that a dark presence was gathering at a little wooded area in front of us. I don't know what actually was in there, most likely some roe deer or maybe wild hogs, but when we got close a wind from behind us blew towards the forest and made it shiver just a little, we made two steps more and then the little forest started shaking violently. I think whatever animal had hidden in there just fled, but the others were instantly convinced that I had known there was something and that we should not go that way and that it would come after them.
This was a breaking point for some. As the night fell, booze and crowd dynamics took over, mass hallucinations set in as the mood turned from a relaxed, happy, cozy evening to frightened paranoia. I can't tell you how scary it is if you make up a neat little ghost story and feel in control of the things people believe, try to (mildly) scare some girls into your tent when suddenly people take it seriously, take it up and absolutely massively run with it, starting to create their own narrative. They suddenly started seeing things in every little thing. A crying fox to them suddenly was the death cry of a women who had drowned in the lake. We actually didn't know if someone had ever drowned in it, but they just as ready made things up and believed them as I had made them up... only I had known it was bunk, I was in control... they were not.
It was scary, I was suddenly left the only sane person around, they clung to me, asked me a thousand things and every answer I gave, no matter how reassuring it was meant was turned into something frightening. It was very Life of Brian ("I'm not the messiah!" - "Only the messiah would deny to be the messiah!" - "Ok, I am the messiah." - "He said it, he IS the messiah!!!")... No matter what I did to get it back under control their beliefs had escaped me and group dynamics meant it spiraled out of control. The evening was lost. Two people just left and I spend the night with 3 guys and 8 girls on the (apart from us) empty campground, the mood was bad, frightened, my idea to get girls into my tent had worked but there was no thinking about anything naughty. All of them shivered, were deathly afraid, paranoid and some were sobbing... And I was the only one who knew that I had caused that, with lies. I had ruined their weekend, frightened them to the core, I had hurt people who believed in me, looked at me with awe and I myself spend the rest of the night and some of the next morning afraid that some might start hurting themselves.
It was the most impressive example of group dynamics I have ever witnessed, it was extremely scary and I am absolutely certain that this is exactly how religions start... somebody lies and suddenly everything gets out of hand as others take up the ball and run with it, only they don't know that it's all just made up.
This is probanly way too boring and mundane for this thread, but I can't feel hunger or fullness. (Never had a doctor look at it because it doesn't make my life worse)
My mom when I was a baby asked the doctor how much baby food I should be given after breastfeeding time was over. The doctor said "just give him enough, he will stop". After many jars of food, my mom had to stop because I wouldn't stop.
To this day I can feel my stomach expanding before I will stop. At my university all-you-can-eat cafeteria (back when I was super fit and tracked every calorie) I ate about 10kcal and didn't feel full so I stopped. I also did a 21 day water (and salt+vitamins) fast without that much trouble (but my mouth would still water and I would still have taste cravings)
Fucks up my relationship with food though because I eat when I am bored, just eat whatever is in front of me without realizing it, or if I am busy I will just forget to eat.
As I said, probably not really unsettling or scary, but not a fun fact lol.
Neither can I anymore. No hunger, no thirst. I have an eating disorder that's not related to body image called ARFID. Here's my post about it in this thread: https://lemmy.world/comment/14558547
I think I have this to some degree. I never feel hungry/hangry if I haven't eaten by specific times. I just eat because I'm bored and it kinda heats me up. I can go days without, I just don't because of habit and because sugar and caffeine have effects that help me concentrate
I was in a locker room three months ago minding my own business when this oddly looking guy next to me struck up a conversation. He looked old and incredibly skinny, but you could tell his face was younger. Maybe it's a skin condition like Ehlers-Danlos, I thought.
Well, the guy was in his early thirties and said the reason for his condition was that he had been recently freed by a cartel. He had been kidnapped for years, kept without food or proper hygiene, basically working as a slave. And then he showed me a picture of himself from three years ago on his phone. He has the incredible phisique of a Greek god, beautiful face, with a six pack and well developed muscles. And there he was, skinny, thin as a pencil and with loose, aged skin.
He recounted how he had used his smarts to survive. He had been forced to kidnap others, forged friendships with his captors and even made important suggestions to the leaders to create alliances with other cartels. He was damn good at the job making people fall into the trap, schmoosing the right people and getting out of situations. He said he was honestly one of the best they had, according to him.
He went on about how he had been tortured, kept in a cellar, worked tirelessly from dawn til dusk, and then released one day. And then he told me he he still had friends in the cartel to this day.
That's when I found a break 20 minutes in of this guy trauma dumping on me and I noped the fuck out of there with some bullshit excuse. Never in my life have I ever been so scared, sad, sorry and flabbergasted of someone recounting their life story.
I hate conversation hostages. They just dont let you exit, and don't really care if you're listening. I can understand their loneliness, but christ they need to develop the skills of: a) summarize your bullshit, and b) gauge my reaction to see if I'm interested.
Yeah, I don't think he was too aware or didn't want to be. The moment I saw his picture I did the whole "no fucking way this is you" face. I think he really needed to talk about it, which I understand, but it wasn't the place or the time. He caught me completely offguard.
The most fun I've ever had in my life was when I was young lighting off fireworks and a nearby patch of grass started on fire. My father and I ran over and meticulously stomped out every bit of fire as it spread, and managed to beat it handily. It was exciting.
My eye doctor murdered his boss's wife and waited on the couch beside her corpse for him to get home. He got beaten the shit out of before he could kill his boss and the cops arrested him shortly after the beating.
My orthodontist had been high school band buddies with my parents, so when I needed braces 6 used him.
A few years later, his wife suspected him of cheating, so she hired a PI firm to follow him. They made the very stupid decision of telling her her was cheating on her in real time and where.
With her stepdaughter (his child) in the car, she drove to the hotel, confronted him, then ran over him 3 times. It was national news, and she got out of prison a few years ago.
Lost one of my testicles when I accidentally got hit during bandy practice. Scrotum turned into the size of a handball before it got better. No surgery or drainage, was told to let it be and it would fix itself.
Wait, hold up... so you're testicle just what? Vaporized? Like... there's excess material there and if it's no longer receiving blood it's going to rot and decay... How did you not go septic and die?
Nothing like that. It kinda got painful gradually, like stomach ache that steadily got worse over night. It got very hard to walk.
Didn't show anyone either, so my dad thought i was pretending when I said i felt ill the morning afte. Had to go to school. Still didn't wanna show it and just hoped it would pass. It didn't. Had to call grandma to come pick me up from school.
Took maybe 10 days or so for the swelling to go down.
Working in IT, I see far too many of your passwords, and you suck at passwords.
With that being said, if you use Windows and your hard drive isn't encrypted, it is ridiculously easy for me to break into your account, access all of your files and take full control of your computer.... Provided I can get physical access to it.
Stop using the same passwords for everything. Do you want to get "hacked" because that's how you get "hacked". Disclaimer, this isn't hacking, it's social engineering attacks with extra steps. The people trying to exploit you and steal your accounts put little to no effort into getting your stuff specifically. You just happened to get caught in their net.... Good luck, you're fucked.
Probably should have had a backup, and used a password manager huh?
Also it's ridiculously easy to lock yourself out of your own accounts by enabling 2FA/MFA. Most people have zero idea what is even involved in 2FA/MFA and the vast majority do everything in their power to turn it off. They would rather expose their account to the risk of it being taken over by some scammer, than be bothered to enter a six-digit code sometimes.
The reality is, as an admin, I can, with a fair amount of ease, monitor everything you do, when you do it and for how long you do it. The only reasons I don't is that 1. I'm pretty sure there are laws about it (but you'd have to prove I did it to have those laws enforced... GL, YF.) 2. Morally it's "wrong" to do so. And last but not least, I wouldn't give a single shit about what you do with your computer, whether it's a work machine, or personal system. Just don't make it my problem and we'll get along splendidly.
Also, the number of you people who use company laptops and cellphones for your personal correspondence and/or your only computer/phone is kinda ridiculous. Understand this: any company assets, and all the data held within, are wholly, immediately, irrevocably and perpetually, property of the company. So any texts, including sexts, dick pics, nudes, lude messages, personal banking info, emails sent to you personally,... All the data that is sent to, and stored on, the device that work provided to you, is property of the company.
Given that, and what I've seen when these devices are ripped from your hands when you inevitably leave the position, whether voluntarily or not, you all should be more ashamed of yourselves.
Y'all need Jesus or something. IDK, I don't believe in the guy, but you need something to straighten you out. Holy fuck.
With that being said, if you use Windows and your hard drive isn’t encrypted, it is ridiculously easy for me to break into your account, access all of your files and take full control of your computer… Provided I can get physical access to it.
That's a big if there. If you can get physical access to my home computer, I think you "breaking into my accounts" is the least of my concerns.
Working in IT, I see far too many of your passwords, and you suck at passwords.
[...]
Stop using the same passwords for everything.
While that is generally not so bad advice for some people, there's also a legitimate use of shitty passwords - for about every stupid resource that forces an account on you for trivial shit. Also, throwaway accounts of anything.
2FA is scary - if someone grabs this phone, I can't do any work, can't log in to email to change passwords, can't log in to the bank to report stolen cards, can't even buy another phone online.
This is the issue with the current state of 2FA. It's either text driven (SMS) or it's app driven, like the Microsoft authenticator, as an example.
Often "backups" overlap. Like people will use SMS as a backup to the Microsoft authenticator, when the MS authenticator is on the same device as the phone number for SMS verification.
Real, actual, good MFA, only has the problem that people don't keep backup tokens around. If you use a Fido2 keyfob, you really should have a second one that authenticates the same systems the same way, but stored securely away from the one you carry with you.
In that context, backups are actually valid, because if the authenticator is on your keychain and you lose your keys, you have access via a backup on your phone (TOTP or similar).
If you lose your phone, you still have your Fido2 key as primary authentication.
If you lose both, you go and retrieve your backup security key and use that.
It becomes much more difficult to lose access if you're aware of the limitations of the systems you use. For me, I use a password manager, for login I have biometrics from my PC, biometrics from my laptop, two security key fobs, and a backup TOTP code stashed away. I also got recovery codes and sent them securely to a trusted friend.
The only things not using a password from my password manager is my main email, which is used as a backup/recovery email for most services, my password manager itself, and my primary bank. For all of these I use unique, memorized passwords that are not short.
Any service that can use MFA has MFA set up, with the only exception being those that only support SMS as MFA. Fuck that.
If fido keys are allowed, then I set those up
If not, I use TOTP.
The TOTP keys are backed up and stored securely in an online system built for security for this kind of data.
I have contingencies on contingencies for my own access, but many people don't even have one, or even a plan on what to do if things go sideways.
It's a phenomenon I've noticed a lot, it's like Rose colored glasses for getting things set up. People like to see how it works and get everything operational and happy, with absolutely no thoughts towards what happens when it fails? How will it fail and what will we do when it does? How do we recover? How do we continue to operate until everything can be put back together?
They see it's fancy and works for them, and they're super secure because they have MFA, but it's only one kind of MFA, and they only have one of them. But they feel good because they have it.
Then they act shocked when their single MFA method breaks and they lose their accounts because they're stupid.
My coworkers make fun of me, but I bring in laptop with a LTE card to work to do any non work stuff. I don't do anything non work related on company machines.
I do assume IT has too much to do that track what any of us do on our work PCs unless someone gives them a reason.
You're correct. We're too busy and couldn't possibly give any less of a shit what you're up to.
The only time we care, at all, is if someone makes it our job to care. Usually management cracking down on some bullshit, looking for a reason to give someone the boot.
Unless management tells me that I'm supposed to care, I don't.
Just please, for the love of all things digital, do not do anything illegal on work computers. I still don't give a shit that you can or do, what I don't want, is for you to get caught and I have to do a forensic investigation of your system. That's a whole pain in my ass that I don't need.
In general, do not do illegal stuff, but if you're going to do anything illegal, think of your IT guy and do it on your own devices.
Here's a disturbing story involving pain and the dentist:
I went to some quack dentist when I was a teenager to get my wisdom teeth extracted. Novocaine just does not work very well on me, which I tell dentists every time and they just don't listen.
So I felt a shitload of pain when he crushed my tooth to extract it, but I was also on nitrous, so I basically couldn't move.
Many years later, when I was in my late 30s or early 40s, I was having intense pain in the back of my jaw. I thought one of the molars had gone bad and I needed a root canal or something. I made an appointment for an orthodontist, but he couldn't get me in for a few days. And then a day before I got to to the orthodontist, I felt something in my cheek near the back of my jaw and the pain was gone. I pulled it out: it was a sliver of tooth he missed when he crushed it that had finally worked its way out.
I haven't thought of either of those things in a long time. Believe it or not, I don't think what happened at that dentist had any lasting trauma. It's not something I ever dwell on.
a childhood friend and neighbour got killed by his mother, his sister managed to flee the scene and call the cops
my elementary school's director got arrested for paedophilia, he killed himself in his cell before getting judged
my sister in law died in her sleep less than a meter away from me (a wall was between us still) and my partner and I were the ones to find her, I've had to call and tell her parents
When I was a kid I found a bunch of puppies that had been skinned alive, I think I scared off whoever was doing it, one was half skinned and still alive and there was another one that had not been gotten to yet
I had a friend a few blocks away growing up and we'd walk over to each other's house all the time. One day when I was 9 or 10 I was walking home and there were a dozen cop cars outside a house. Next door to them was another kid we knew but who was a grade above us so we weren't close.
When I got home I told my parents about all the police at this house. They did some digging around and turns out the guy who lived there was a child molester. I didn't really know what that meant at the time other than it was bad.
I still hope that the kid who lives next door wasn't one of the victims.
When I was in the emergency services, I was first or among the first on scene to serious mass casualty events on multiple occasions. The most any of them got in the news was local papers and traffic disruption reports, because unless it's terrorism the nationals aren't interested. If any of us died in a car crash tomorrow, the world wouldn't care.
I have stupidass heightened perception and seem to repeatedly find myself in extraordinary unbelievable (and often traumatic) situations which no one believes at first, because the situations are so absurd, and my silly brain rights itself so I seem "too okay" in spite of it all. Then I have to deal with it on my own until it directly impacts others and they cannot deny the situations exist. Then they act like shocked Pikachus (which is massively infuriating at times). This has been escalating throughout my life—in spite of the fact I do everything possible to keep my stupid little existence low-key and healthy. I'm working on accepting this.
One day, I missed a train. The next one had to stop one short of my home station due to "personell damages" or something similar, which I didn't really grasp, but I was annoyed that I had to take a detour to get home.
I later found out that a guy at my home station jumped in front of the train I was supposed to get.
I'm a 51-year-old married man, and I have owned multiple online girls jn BDSM relationships over the past 4 years. I've controlled their food and what they wear. I've had then send me videos of them spanking and hurting themselves at my my direction. My wife has no idea about any of it.
That's fine, but cheating on your wife isn't nice and I'm going to say so, and neither is abusing much younger women. Young women have been murdered in violent BDSM relationships. It's honestly toxic in my opinion. Which I know isn't popular, but also don't groom young women and cheat on your wife.
And after what happened with Neil Gaiman, I have to wonder how consensual such situations like this are. In fact, I originally thought this was a Neil Gaiman reference, but he's 64.
I would be more hopeful to believe it was consensual was except they bragged their wife doesn't know. I've been in enough situations through chats to learn people like this exist and managed to abuse others—even virtually. There can be healthy relationships in BDSM, but the community often attracts predators for a reason.
And the people who are only online and not telling their spouse are significantly more likely to be predators. I'm not saying irl communities don't have predators, they absolutely do, I've been abused by someone I met through one, but being part of irl communities means that if you get reported as an abuser (and the community comes to the conclusion that the report is valid) you can't just change your username and show up to the same events and spaces
I've been reading court cases lately of sexual assault cases that happened in BDSM relationship contexts as a result of Gaiman on the Canlii website. There's a lot of nonconsensual behaviour by the men charged, and one even left a woman in a collar in his basement when she didn't want to and she died in there. I don't have a lot of faith in consent in those relationships. And I think they're disgusting to be honest. Get therapy.
Yeah. I am sure there are plenty of women who are actually into BDSM, but this just feels creepy and disturbing to me with the way he is putting it. Which I guess is the point of the thread, but it still feels like I’m reading the confession of a rapist who doesn’t realize that’s what they’re confessing to.
There was this pair in my province who in 2012 met on FetLife because of a shared interest in rape fantasies. So after doing things to each other for a while, they ended up snatching this poor young teacher walking home one night, raping and killing her, and are in prison forever. I grew up with the Ken and Barbie killers, Paul Bernardo and Karla Homolka, in my city and attended a victim's funeral. They killed Karla's little sister so they could rape her. They filmed the rapes of all their victims. Bernardo was also a serial rapist in Scarborough.
I don't care what people do in their sex lives. I think it's important to have an off button and self control, and if you're preying upon young women and cheating on your spouse like the dude above, you're just a predator.
Okay, I didn't make the post. I'll be the one to be judgmental. Because this person sounds like, at the kindest possible interpretation I can come up with, a sexual predator. Fair?
This whole thread could use a whole lot more of spoiler tags and Content Warning. And I shouldn't have read all these stories. Luckily, I noticed my anxiety soon enough and just stopped.
When a friend of mine was a little kid, someone drove past, jumped out of their car, and ran over and grabbed him trying to kidnap him.
He was just confused about what the guy was even doing, but grabbed onto a chain-link fence and wouldn't let go, so the guy was yanking him and yelling at him to let go, but he was able to hold on. Eventually the guy gave up and ran back and sped away. While he was being yanked on the fence, he was worried because the ball he'd been playing with was rolling down the hill, and he was worried it would go somewhere he wouldn't be able to find it and he would lose his ball.
When the guy left, he went and retrieved his ball, psyched that he was able to get it back. He thought no more about it and kept playing, and then later that day told his mom about what happened.
She lost her mind. For some reason, he thought she had also been worried about the ball, and he kept telling her he'd been able to get it back after, so it was all good.
I can’t find the statistic any more, but it was something like 80% of people who are kidnapped and are taken in the kidnapper’s car are killed. Like this kid’s situation, fight, scream, do everything possible to not be taken.
This is what I do every time and it always works
Wait, what do you mean every time?
They're so fun to try and kidnap, I've given it a burl a few times, they gotta fucking tight grip tho, never been able to get em loose.
You mean killing the person you've just snatched into your car right?
Works like a charm
Was his parents separated? Most likely it would be dad with a restraining order or some other family trying to "get him back".
When I was 13 I helped the local burnout mow lawns. He was late 20's and hung out with us teenagers from the same block. Got us weed, bought us beer. The 16yo guys I looked up to were friends (?) with him, he'd hang in the backyard fort of the lead 16yo, and he basically ran the local lawn mowing cartel of all us kids. I wanted money and it was easy and fun, hangin' with the boys. We shoveled walks in the winter.
One snowstorm morning he wasn't at the fort where we'd meet so I volunteered to run across the street to his house. Knock. Knock loud. Try the door, he didn't mind if we came in his basement entrance to his parent's house. It's dark, light on in the bathroom. 13yo me saw his first dead body that day; full bathtub with slit wrists and neck.
E: oh, reason for suicide seemed to be that he had a DUI wreck a couple months prior where a young girl (like 7 or 8) didn't die but wouldn't ever be the same... like couldn't walk or brain damage or something. He couldn't handle what he did, I guess.
Damn. You understood the assignment. Also, I was sure that story was going somewhere else horrifying.
What is a DUI wreck? Car accident and fleeing?
Driving under the influence. He was drunk and hit someone's car. I don't think there was any fleeing involved, he had broken bones and shit. Spent time in jail and was waiting on his trial out on bond.
Driving under the influence [of alcohol or other] and crashing I believe
I spent a year as a videographer for a local news station. Do not work such jobs if you don't want to see dead bodies because, as I found out, you're literally an ambulance chaser. One of the many reasons I only worked there for a year. And probably why I am now too squeamish to watch gory movies.
I'm just glad I've never seen anyone actually die. At least not yet.
When I was a kid (18?), one night a friend of my friend called us to come give this drunken girl a ride. They said they were at a party and the guy took some time to babysit her and take her home but he couldn't handle her anymore.
We went and picked her up and were going to take her wherever in the area she wanted to go as a solid for this guy. She got in the car and started berating us and trying to turn up the volume and complaining about the music. She said she had sucked dick and whatever other mess and wasn't going to put up with our shit this evening. She was much more intoxicated than I thought she would be. She requested to be taken to her car and she started giving us directions. She said she was going to sleep it off in the car so her parents wouldn't know. We planned to take her keys and come back later or something. We were honestly blindsided by how ridiculous everything got so quickly.
Turns out her car was parked at a local recycling center or something and when we pulled in there, there was a brand new Cadillac, lights came on car started. She said it was probably her grandpa. We let her out and started driving away so that they could figure it out, we wanted to be done. Grandpa didn't even stop to let her in the car or get her in her own car or anything. He immediately started following us. He tailgated us all the way down the highway back to my friend's house with his brights on. We drove normally but tried to concoct a plan. We pulled up the driveway at my friend's place about 15 minutes later and he stops short a few car lengths into the driveway.
I kind of lost it at that point and walked down the driveway to ask him what the hell he was thinking and he steps out of the car standing behind the driver side door. As I come up to him to give him a piece of my mind he raises his hands and he has a pistol pointed right at me. I guess being young and full of adrenaline I absolutely went off on him yelling what the hell did he think he was doing pulling a gun on this we were just trying to give his granddaughter a ride we didn't even really know her. I mean I got right up in his face. I can't believe I did that in retrospect, I would never do that now. After I yelled at him he dropped his hands and looked confused. Said "What was I supposed to do?" I'll never forget those words.He quickly got in his car and started to turn around. I tried to block his car so I could call the police but as I started to get on the phone he punched it and ran over my foot. Thankfully I moved to just enough to the side that it didn't really do anything. Cops showed up later and the officer stood around for a while talking to us and getting statements. He said that we have to go down to the magistrate downtown to do anything about this.
We went there and the magistrate asked us a bunch of the same questions. He did some paperwork stuff and essentially concluded that the guy who pulled a gun on me had already come by and filed a report that we were threatening him and that the two conflicting statements would cancel each other out - nothing would happen to either of us. Come to find out later on that the man who pulled a gun on me was a retired police chief from the area, very well known, who owned a local car wash. He had a sketchy past and I guess this was just another day in the life of a police officer abusing power.
I look back and think what the hell was that girl doing? Was she actually being taking advantage of? Did the friend of a friend know that would happen so he set us up to take the fall for it? Was he the abuser? Was she just being sloppy and shitty and he didn't want to get in trouble? How in the world did those things cancel each other out especially with no investigation into it. They couldn't have. I'll never forget that. I never talked to that idiot friend of a friend again and I never saw police officers the same either.
I'm aware your questions are rhetorical, but I'm going to answer them anyway. Your questions are just so spot on.
80/20
Maybe. It doesn't have to be that Machiavellian. Maybe he didn't know what to do and was just looking for an out. Not an excuse. Could be similar feelings whether he's the abuser or relatively innocent.
Cops don't like paperwork. Paperwork can mean accountability. If nothing's written, they can't get lectured for doing it wrong.
I half expected this to end with jumper cables. Quite a ride, though.
Nothing personal, kid. Alternator’s out.
Not ever having closure for shit like this is ridiculously frustrating. This drunk lady came to my door once and lied that she was a friend of a friend but she was really upset and may possibly have been hit by her boyfriend because she had a big red mark on her cheek and started crying about him. So I had her call her mother to pick her up. Then my wife came home and we hid in the bedroom with the door closed while she and her mom had a huge yelling match about the boyfriend. Eventually they left and we never saw or heard from them again.
You'd think they would have at least left a thank you note.
Nice try Ed.
Wow. How fucking dare you? I trusted you.
This is America, 1971
I happen to own this shirt and have worn it to a couple of IRL meetups:
I approve!
Because you're a jackass? rimshot
I have scars around and on my genitals. When I was young my mom told me that I had surgery just after I was born. Now as an adult, I think I may have been born with some sort of intersex condition but I am afraid to talk to my parents about it.
I...what the fuck! Exact same with me, and I've always kinda felt like I'm stuck between sexes.
I just never thought about this possibility...
Might want to get hormonal blood work done. Are you female? You could have androgen insensitivity syndrome or something.
If your an adult you should be able to get your medical records. This is a pain in the ass with lots of hoops to jump through but you own the data.
Probably not, from someone who worked in pediatric urology and endocrinology. They don't tend to do surgery until you are older because you need to be old enough to determine what your gender identity is very clearly, which is not clear sometimes with intersex conditions. It's a really bad decision to make too early. Probably what you had was an undescended testicle or hydrocele or something.
Yeah, today. But not 40 years ago.
You say that like parents wouldn't make the decision and find a doctor to do it.
No haha. Did you read the book about the boy whose penis was burned off so the infamous Dr John Money told them to make him into a girl. They did and it was terrible.
Yeah that happened about the same time as OP’s story
haha?
Were the standards any different in the 80s? I've heard stories of people getting "corrective surgery" in infancy but the cases that I've heard are not from the US or are much older.
Outside of North America maybe, that I don't know. But in North America they tell the parents they won't know the gender for a while, to name and dress and groom the child as the parents choose, but they let them know it might change. It's so rare though, I've seen one case in 20 years of hospital work.
Human Rights Watch was pretty concerned about prematurely assigning gender to intersex children, back in 2017. I expect there's more regional variation in this than you'd think.
Yeah, I have a feeling here in Indiana, they tend not to tell the parents that they won't know the gender for a while.
I would not want to try and explain "intersex" to some of my high school classmates (or my brother TBH). "You mean my kid was born a slur?"
Maybe Kentucky has changed in the past few decades, but I doubt it.
That was a really hard won battle for the intersex community. I'm 30 and if my intersex condition had been caught at birth (it was very minor and hidden by foreskin), I'm pretty sure they'd've moved from pressuring my mom to circumcise to pressuring her to "fix" it.
I (aurally) witnessed a kindergartener get run over by her school bus. I was on a different bus and our bus drivers were talking over the radio, then there was this ungodly wailing from the other bus. The other bus driver just kept screaming "I killed her, I killed her".
Turns out the little girl barely missed the bus, ran alongside it to catch up, tripped, and fell under the wheels of the bus.
Once we got to high school, students on the killing bus were offered counseling. I, not being on the killing bus, didn't talk to anyone about it until I went to therapy decades later.
Yellow school buses freak me out still, for that and abuse reasons.
Omigod that's awful.
Yeah, there's also the confusion of not having literally seen or felt the kid being crushed, so chastising myself that it shouldn't have been that traumatic. It took me years to accept that just hearing something can also be witnessing it.
My bus hit some poor unhoused guy last year. That was a terrible thump. Thankfully all he got was a head laceration.
I'm sorry and I'm glad he wasn't majorly injured.
I can't own a gun because the call of the void is too strong.
Same.
The only reason I’m alive is because I can’t make my kids go through losing a parent that way.
Samesies. Those darn intrusive thoughts!
If anyone reading this feels suicidal, call 988 immediately. Or go to the website to chat.
Outside of North America, look up your country’s number here.
Out of all the shit I've seen on social media in the last 15 years, you might actually be the worst.
Something about a gun makes it easier, private. Less of an inconvenience.
(I thought your comment was funny)
Yikes, remember kids no loose items near the violently spinning things.
I used to be a plumber and spent a lot of time running a pipe threader all I ever thought about while using it was if I mess up this thing will force my body through a 5 in gap.
which isn't totally unfeasable
Jesus. What a way to go
like a hotdog in a shop vac, crummy way to go really
At least the hot dog is still edible
I'm sure some sea creatures were more than happy to eat pureed human
I've never worked with a lathe, but PTOs on the farm were terrifying. I was taught to be afraid, and I was.
My cousin got his arm ripped off by a tractor PTO when he was a kid. Some quick thinking by his dad got him a tourniquet and his detached arm on ice in a cooler, drove him to the hospital and they were able to reattach it. He doesn't quite have full function with it but you'd never know. This would have been around 1990 so pretty impressive medically.
PTO? Is that the spinny thing on the back of the tractor I would attach the mower/seed spreader to? If so, thinking back we never had much concern with it. Now I'm rethinking the wisdom of the adults in letting us preteens use it.
Yep. Preteen seems a bit young without supervision.
Not "Russian lathe incident"? Sounds like it might potentially be identical if it's not that one.
Sounds like he didn't even have time to realize he fucked up. Jesus, it's hard to believe anyone would knowingly do a job like that.
Lathes are fucking scary man. Sorry you had to see that.
We were shown videos during my apprenticeship and that was already horrible. I don't want to imagine what it's like to see it live.
Probably not as interesting, but I was woken up as a kid (teen?) by my mom screaming and running into my room/in my bed. Woke up to see my dad standing in the doorway with a steak knife. She had asked him to go to rehab. That was it. We're good though 🤙🏾
They tried to make me go to rehab 🎶
I think in hindsight, we can all agree, that Amy Winehouse should have indeed gone to rehab.
There's literally a video of her doing coke while performing. Like mid song.
There's also the duet she did with Charlotte Church where she was so blitzed out of her mind that she could barely stand and just slurred everything almost incoherently. I knew she wouldn't be around much longer when I saw that.
It's sad. I wish people didn't get addicted. It's never a good outcome for them.
rehab doesn't "fix" people. do you have any experience with addiction? if there was a magic cure, there would be no addicts.
It's a joke you cabbage
one that perpetuates an acceptable level of ignorance. Addiction is hell. You're joking about people being in unimaginable pain. It's disgusting.
You're in unimaginable pain
Banned from my instance. Have the day you deserve.
rehab is a lot better of an idea than nothing
Rehab can work for those who want to use it, it very rarely works for those forced to go to it.
There, feel better now?
and I said 🔪🔪🔪
My dad threatened to kidnap me and an... Uncle, i think, held me at gun point when i was a baby. I had a surprisingly violent childhood, don't remember any of it tho. Not many other 'scary ' or unsettling facts i can think of I'm afraid, if those even count.
One of my oldest and dearest friends was born in Indiana, but his Mexican dad literally kidnapped him after he divorced my friend's mom and took him to Mexico city where he stayed for 5 or 6 years. There was a full FBI search and everything. And he told me he recently found out that an uncle of his knew where he was, but couldn't tell his mom because his uncle was a CIA informant and it would help blow his cover.
This is not someone who is prone to lies or exaggeration. I 100% believe him about the CIA part and I know the Mexico City part is true.
I was very close to either dying or having permanent brain damage due to a stun grenade in a protest in my country. While being a completely unarmed, non-violent and basically running away/hiding protestor.
I was with a friend and a bunch of people outside our campus. Everything was peaceful and then, out of nowhere things got bad, with stun grenades and tear gas everywhere. We were used to it, but that time the tear gas was so bad that the neutralizer we brought was doing nothing. We took cover with a wall (bad idea, but we were panicking badly), and I wasn't able to breath, so I wanted us to run away from there. I told my friend to let's just run certain way, and I was so full of adrenaline and ready to run, but he stopped me. 1 second later, a stun grenade fell from the sky just 1 m away of us, in the direction I wanted us to run; no doubt it would have hit me in the head.
After that I just took his hand and we ran away, not able to see nor breath. Me holding his hand was a huge saver for both of us, as we could, more or less, guide each other. We ran some 20-30 m and just fell to the ground, but in a somewhat safe place. We crawled some 10 m more and just rest there. It took us some solid 15 minutes to catch our breath. Never said a word to my family about the whole incident.
Fun times.
Since I most likely won't out live my wife, and she doesn't want to live without me, we have agreed on a murder/suicide when we are getting up there
✔️ Scary
✔️ Unsettling
Dunno. I kinda think this is ok. They’re not cutting their lives short per se, it’s seems like a situation where they know their (or one individual’s) quality of life is going to be bad, so they’re doing a mutual suicide. Grown adults should have this choice. I think the only bad thing would be if one partner were reasonably healthy and felt obligated or pressured into it even if they didn’t really want to.
Well I don't love hearing it, but I respect your choice. I just hope you do it somewhere easy to clean up. Put some plastic sheeting down.
And they say love is dead.
Once put one of those plastic wrapped potatoes in my uniform apron to put back in produce at my first retail job (got abandoned in the mac and cheese section). I then completely forgot and took it home. Took it out of my apron and put it on my desk next to my car keys because "I'll remember to take it back". I did not. Lived with me for a week or something when I finally put it in my apron again because I wasn't remembering. I took it to work. I completely forgot about it and never returned it. It made this trip several times. I put it back on my desk because this wasn't working out, surely I'll remember if I see it.
Then I forgot about it for like three months. One day I look over at my desk and it's a shriveled potato with a new potato growing from its own husk...
In essence, potatoes are amazing and horrifying. Just like my short term memory lol.
Then you plant the potato, determined to pay it back with interest. Months later, you harvest 5 potatoes that make it back to work but end up forgotten and back at home again. You even remember them at work frequently, but never when you're in the right section of the store.
You do remember to plant them the next year though. The first year, you just put them in a pot in your back yard, this year they get a small dedicated place in the ground. The 5 potatoes turn into 34 and no longer all fit in your apron pockets. But you do remember to return the 4 you have on you one day at work, and then forget to grab more before the other 30 are all sprouting the next year.
So the potato garden gets bigger year 3. You build a small shed to store the couple hundred you harvest. You're getting good at growing potatoes.
You eat one, not because you think you deserve it, but to make sure the potatoes you still want to return to the produce section are up to the high standards your employer's customers expect.
It's pretty good.
No, not just good. Your potato is amazing, the best you've ever tried. Wait, no, your work's potato is the best you've ever tried. You vow to repay that potato, hardening your resolve. You bring a whole bag in on your next day.
It only takes you three days to remember to drop off the bag of potatoes with the others (after a colleague asks about the bulge on your back where you were carrying them under your shirt). But then you realize with horror that the colour of the bag you made doesn't match the others. They are beige while yours is a bright beige. You return home that day with your bag plus a work bag, just so you can match the colour properly.
It takes you two more years to finally master the potato bag making craft. It wasn't just the colour that was off, you also had to match the font and placement of the text and then noticed that your stitching holding the bag closed was pretty different.
Your potato garden had taken over your entire back yard by then and you knew with dread that you wouldn't have enough space to plant them all next season. But your neighbour lets you use some of their 50 acres in return for two potatoes a day. You feel a bit guilty because they aren't your potatoes, but you justify it because it's an investment.
You don't forget about returning potatoes at work anymore. You can't forget. Potatoes have all but taken over your life at this point. You bring in a bag and fill your pockets with them each day and take each chance you can get to casually pass through the produce section and leave some potatoes without anyone noticing (which is difficult because you'd been promoted to the deli counter).
You've grown strong from getting used to carrying a bag of potatoes while still walking normally, not to mention the slight of hand tricks you use to pull it out of its hiding spot and leave it with the other bags without anyone noticing.
But you're still gaining potatoes overall, filling the shed and the storage building that replaced it. You consider high jacking the truck that delivers potato orders to your work, but you know Ed in receiving would notice something was up if there was an extra delivery they didn't pay for. You had already heard some confusion about potato shrinkage being negative and worried you'd never be able to repay your debt.
Then a complaint came in and you thought it was all over. A customer bought a bag of potatoes and they were all trash compared to the last one. The store was going to trace the batch number, which you had just been making up and even having a bit of fun with.
You felt a confused relief when you heard that the trace had led to nothing unusual being discovered. Turns out the trash potatoes were from the usual source and you wondered if that earlier bag was the one from you.
And then one day your nightmare comes true. You had just stealthfully placed three potatoes with others--that were much smaller and didn't look nearly as good (you were considering sending some anonymous tips to the producer so yours wouldn't stand out so much)--and made eye contact with one of your colleagues who was standing by the carrots. She saw. It's over. My whole potato empire is about to crumble to nothing and I'm going to prison for theft.
She looked dumbfounded. A little too dumbfounded, actually. You were wondering if this was a bigger deal than you had thought when you notice a bright orange object fall from her sleeve to the ground. It was a carrot. And it looked significantly better than most of the carrots your work had on display.
I see you've seen my Stardew Valley games lmao thanks for the laughs this was great!
You might have ADHD lol
Potato: the traditional ADHD houseplant. (Reminds me, I should see if any of my bag of potatoes have volunteered to be planted/have sprouted yet)
I have definitely wondered the same myself lol I am also pretty shit with time management...
Why didn't you just eat the potato?
Honestly never occurred to me lol I was 17 and that was Work's Potato, it needed to go home to Work.
So pure of heart
I stole some bullets from my workplace once.
I was unloading a truck at work one day, many years ago. One of the items on my trailer was a pallet of rifle ammunition. Whoever loaded this trailer on the other side of the country did a shitty job of it; plastic wrap was shredded, several boxes were torn open, the cardboard "do not stack" cone was crushed under the weight of a car engine, among other things. When I managed to exhume this pallet from the trailer, the plastic gave way, spilling dozens of boxes and hundreds of loose bullets all over my trailer and loading dock. While I was cleaning up the mess, I impulsively pocketed a few bullets for myself. Nobody ever asked me about it. I don't even own a gun. But I have a few bullets.
I gave a bullet to a friend in highschool while we were hanging out at the mall. Our lil dumb 9th grade brains thought they were sooooo cool. Well then friend brought it into school showing people and of course he gets expelled on the spot. But he never told the teachers where he got the bullet.
What a homie
I’ve been sick at home for a few days. I blew my nose into some toilet paper, checked, then tossed it in the toilet. Saw myself in the bathroom mirror and had snot all over my mustache.
Then it hit me. This isn’t the first time I’ve blown my nose with a mustache — it’s just the first time I’ve immediately looked in a mirror afterward.
Oh my god
Yea it happens if you have facial hair unfortunately. Went for a meal with my family last night and drinks after. Got home and realised there was quite a bit of dried soup in my beard. I do normally check myself after eating in my phone camera but totally forgot. Made me glad I've already made an appointment with the barber to get it trimmed.
out of all the disturbing facts in this thread this is the one I like the most
i notice that when im sick, it takes longer for me to get better if i have a mustache. Not that i walk around with snot hanging to it, i hope not. But i guess something sits there, and i breath it all day and stay sick.
After taking a car door to the head during heavy winds, I experienced immediate and recurring night terrors/sleep paralysis for two years. They started out pretty extreme, with me waking up on my stomach with some kind of creature pinning me to the bed. I'd struggle enough to lift my head a few inches, only to find my pillow was filled with distorted, open-mouthed faces stretching out at me from the material.
As time went in the hallucinations gradually waned in extremity, though never becoming anything comfortable. I would open my eyes to see a phosphorescent grid encompassing my walls, or millions of flies on my bedroom ceiling. Once my cat was staring up at them too, and I believed what was happening was real, only to wake up a moment later facing a different direction, and my cat fast asleep at my feet.
Eventually it's as though my soul became heavy or something. I slept on the top floor of a two-story home, with a very old colonial-era basement below it. I would constantly find myself one or two floors directly beneath my bed, all but glued to the ground and trying with all my might to crawl out of the damp, dark cellar toward the stairs, but too sluggish and/or paralyzed to do it. I felt terrified down there in the darkness. Eventually the adrenaline would wake me up safely in my bed.
Throughout the entire ordeal I would somewhat frequently open my eyes to see some sort of ghostly or transparent entity looming over my bed, leaning over or staring down at me. The last night I ever experienced an episode, I woke up to see that very entity, but I realized suddenly that the entity was me. It was me standing there, looking down at myself. I became angry. I felt like these episodes had ruined my life, and made sleeping something I no longer looked forward to. The rage came to a head. I activated every nerve in my body to try to break free of the paralysis. I gritted my teeth as I succeeded, groaning the words "FFFFRUUUUCKK YYRRROOOOUU!!!" as I bolted up from my bed and lunged through my own ghost. Then I never saw it again. In fact, I never had another night terror since. It's been years now. A decade at least.
I love your story. I overcome attempted nightmares in a very similar way.
I rarely get anything close to a nightmare nowadays, but I used to get dreams where someone/something would chase me. Then one night, I felt it was about to happen, and thought, "I'm so tired of this. You know what? I'm done." And... the thing disappeared.
Ever since then, if any scary shit starts happening in a dream, I just tell it to fuck off. Sometimes that moment leads to a small bit of lucidity, and I go, "Oh hey, I can fly away." Run, jump, take off, and it's pleasant dreams from then on out.
The power of the mind is incredible.
I actually just had a moment like that (sudden lucidity during a dream) in my last sleep. Probably would have lost that memory entirely if this comment hadn't reminded me. Even still, I can't remember the context, just that something was happening that was mildly annoying and I realized I was dreaming.
I just said, "wait a minute, this is my dream, I'm in control here" and then I think the dream shifted into something else or something because the memory fragment ends there.
It's weird, as soon as I became aware of my sleep paralysis I became able to control it and I've never had another either
I still experienced it after I knew what it was, but not nearly as often. The last time I remember it happening, I dreamed I was at work. Laid down in a hallway to nap. Woke up from the dream nap with one of the execs standing next to me, looking down his nose. Couldn't move. "Hell of a time for sleep paralysis," dream-me thought.
Then real me woke up with sleep paralysis. At work, with my head down on a conference table at 3am.
I do not miss those sensations.
I grew up deeply religious. Mom used to cast demons out of the house when I was little, and that ain't the half of it. Needless to say, I entered puberty with some fucked up perspectives. I started getting night terrors soon after I started masturbating, which was an accidental discovery of mine. The fact that I couldn't stop freaked me out. I thought it was demonic and no way was I gonna talk to my parents about any of it.
Fortunately for me, I was always fascinated by science and sci-fi. I loved sharks, astronomy, history, and Star Trek. For middle school I attended private Christian school or home school, but for 9th grade I demanded to return to public school. My parents relented. The demonic night terrors still tormented me nearly every night, but one day I read an article about sleep paralysis in a science magazine in the school library. It explained everything I'd been going through for several awful years.
That same night I experienced another episode. I felt lucid enough to remember the article and realize what was happening. Instead of impotently begging Jesus again for help, this time I simply thought, "fascinating." Then immediately woke up.
It has never happened to me since.
The people who fuck with libraries can all burn in hell. Libraries save lives, from exactly those same people.
That reminds me of the first time I did shrooms. I looked in the mirror and my head turned into a demon head. It made me laugh because I don't believe in such things and I was aware I was on shrooms, but I bet it would have freaked a religious person out. I can definitely see why some religious people use psychedelics because they think it gets them in touch with the spirit world or whatever.
Sleep paralysis is so terrifying. I get episodes when I'm under incredibly severe stress, so I've only had about 4 episodes. When it first happened, my heart was thumping so quick and fast that I thought I'd for sure have a heart attack.
I have always had hypnagogic dreams but no paralysis. The scary hallucinations only happened when I was stressed
Normally the hallucinations were benign
I had half of my face ripped off by a dog when I was a kid. Skin and flesh was just hanging off of my face and I almost lost my right eye.
Doctors did a great job patching me up and you can't even tell that anything happened unless you know where the super subtle scars are.
Oh wow. They did great work then. My niece has her face attacked by a pit bull, has had several surgeries and some laser work, and you can still tell unfortunately. She kind of developed some transient anorexia about it unfortunately, which my asshole MIL went out of her way to aggravate. Glad you did well though.
I'm so sorry your niece went through that. I hope that she can find some peace and heal someday.
I think she's much better now, thanks. Not thanks to the malignant narcissism of my MIL though. Ugh family.
Family can be the best and worst
Okay, so I have a mechanical heart valve. One time, while I was in the basement of my childhood home with one of my brothers, I was close to him as he was playing The Godfather PS2 (I'm pretty sure it was that game). It was pretty quiet, so he somehow heard the ticking of my valve and his mind went to some sort of explosive like a pipe bomb being close by.
If you don’t mind my asking, how do you deal with the ticking? I understand it can be very audible internally, and for some recipients can be incredibly difficult to deal with. I have a friend who has one too, and he says he doesn’t even notice it at all anymore. His brain tunes it out unless he thinks about it.
It's just something that has become constant internal background noise over the years. I don't know about anyone else with mechanical heart valves, but I'm constantly aware of mine and am so used to it that it doesn't bother me. I assume my brain tunes it out, but I'm not sure because I don't think about that.
Cool. Similar to my friend. Good luck, glad the tech could keep you going!
Constantly aware because of the noise or can you actually feel it? I had my gallbladder removed and it's so weird to me that my body doesn't feel different in any way I can tell. I'm not sure how internal organs work in terms of being able to feel stuff.
Doesn't feel different, as far as I'm aware. It's been long enough I wouldn't remember if there's any difference in how it feels. But I feel constantly aware because of the noise. The distinct internal clicking noise makes it hard for me not to be aware.
I have the suicide disease. The worse, TN2 version. That is not a sly term for mental illness, it's a nerve disorder that has pain so great that people kill themselves rather than face yet another day of it. I am rarely below 3 on the 1-10 pain scale (at 4 right now) and I've reached 10 more times than I can count. This is with medication keeping it at the level where I can function.
I am such a bad judge of pain that the trauma from my not realizing for half a week that I had kidney stones and not taking any painkillers and then being stuck first in a clinic and then the ER for 14 hours writing in agony until they finally decided I did, in fact, have kidney stones and gave me some fentanyl, caused severe trauma and gave me an eating disorder called ARFID, unrelated to body image issues, and I have not eaten solid food in a year and a half.
Explains a lot, doesn't it?
https://arizonapain.com/trigeminal-neuralgia-suicide-disease/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avoidant/restrictive_food_intake_disorder
Hey, you asked.
P.S. If you try to give me medical advice over the internet, I may just block you. I am so fucking sick of that. And no, "I know you said you didn't want medical advice, but..." does not count as a way around that. And I am fucking sick of having to say that and having people ignore it too.
Damn. You know flying squid, I've always looked up to you around here. I see you in a lot of posts and comments around and didn't realize you are in agony for most of the time.
Yeah, gotta love it.
I wondered how things were for you. I'm so sorry. I do know of a new treatment for trigeminal nerve stuff simply because I work in neuro I can tell you about if you want but I most certainly won't give you advice. I just know someone who is using it and it's new.
I appreciate it, but I have good people I am working with.
Ok all good. Hope you get some relief soon.
Thanks.
Damn, so sorry you're having to go through this. May the days be kind to you, friend.
Thank you.
I know you said no advice, but have you tried jerking off a bunch?
Blocked so I can go look at porn uninterrupted.
Damn, that blows. Thanks for sharing, I didn't know that was a thing.
I am impressed with you.
Thank you.
I'm here to try something different... Instead of recommending a medical thing, how about you go on https://loops.video/ and share it with the rest of the world?
Shit, that's some crazy symptoms! Fight on!
I actually did make a video about it once which has helped others, so I'm glad of that. But I don't want to doxx myself and link to it.
That's a raw deal. I always thought a 1-10 pain scale was a dumb Idea. Pain is pretty subjective and someone who hasn't experienced severe pain doesn't really have a way to understand what constitutes a 10. (I would answer differently before and after my cycling accident for example) Personally I think that setting the scale as 1-10 where breaking a leg is a 6 (or something) would be more diagnostically relevant. I trust your judgement, although what you call a 4 would probably be most people's 8.
Sorry to read that. But in some way I am almost relieved that you seem to finally know what caused your insanely severe case of ARFID. I remember when you were posting about your time at the Mayo clinic and the awful mismanagement there and was very sad and disappointed (not by you) that you were bombarded with enough armchair diagnostics to stop updating about your case.
When did you get diagnosed with TN2? And how long was the gap between the kidney stones and your last bite, if I may ask?
Thanks. I don’t really feel relieved by it, mainly because it’s kind of irrelevant to the future, but it is what makes the most sense and it’s better than having no idea.
I think about 10 years ago. Maybe 11 now. It might be genetic because my dad had TN1. But he got it in his 70s. It usually manifests itself at that age. I was in my late 30s.
That’s kind of complicated. A few weeks after it happened (January 2023) I started dry heaving every morning. That has been almost daily for me. Occasionally more than once. Then that March, I had this issue for about six weeks and then I was fine again until August. And other than at the Mayo Clinic when they totally numbed my mouth with a lidocaine-based compound, when I was able to manage a couple of bites of egg salad, that was the last time I had truly solid food. I’m also the smelling equivalent of a supertaster. I can smell cleaning fluid inside stores from when the custodians mopped the day before.
Working with a psychiatrist and doing RO DBT therapy, I am at a place where I can eat pretty much anything if I don’t have to chew or use any utensils and I have conditioned myself to just deal with the smells even if they are awful. I’m even able to cook for my kid now.
So I am in a much better place than I was even six months ago.
That must be the toughest condition I read about in a long while. It's amazing that you kept going. It's also amazing that you decided to share this!
Thanks. I have definitely had my very, very low points, but you just try to keep going when you can until you have no reason to do it anymore...
I used to be jehovas witness. Hello cousin!
I used to be baptist. Hello fellow abuse victim.
I used to be catholic. I wasn't abused, but I stopped going to church when I moved out.
I used to be an atheist. I still am but I also used to be.
Thanks Mitch 👍
You can't use that word on lemmy.ml
You don't have to be abused to still have a valid pride for removing yourself from the nonsense. Good for you!
I used to be a Jesus Freak. They were actually really nice.
Used to be seventh day Adventist. I hear jehovas witness branched out from that originally.
As the child of Jack Mormons, I feel for you and hope you've found healing.
The guy who first showed me D&D when I was a kid went on to rape and murder a 90 year old woman who lived down the street during a botched robbery.
That's because D&D is how you let the demons in, duh. How's your possession going?
Tom Hanks told me that!
I bet he was searching for material components.
I was kidnapped (by a parent) as a kid.
Story? Don't feel pressured if you don't want to but since you brought it up I'm guessing you're OK with talking about it
I was 7, my dad woke me up at like 10 pm, told me to come with to the neighbors across the street. I'm gonna stay the night with my friend. Get there, we hang for like 2 hours, it's after midnight and he tells me we're leaving.
"You said we were staying the night"
"it's after midnight, we did stay the night"
My dad is a big fan of technically true statemelies like that.
He put us on a bus, and took us from Chesapeake, Virginia to Columbia, South Carolina, where we're originally from. We were there for about 2 months. I was with family, and cared for, and not abused or anything. But it was still scary. I knew my phone number, but it was the late 90s, and you didn't need to know the area code to call local, so I didn't know it. My dad had instructed everyone not to tell me. I couldn't talk to my mom or brother, and that scared me really badly. While I was there, my mom and brother both had a really terrible flu, no money (and by no money I mean none. They delivered papers for income, and my dad did tree work when he felt like it.). They couldn't afford the gas to come get me, even after my cousin helped me figure out the area code to call them.
From my point of the view at the time, it was framed as like, a trip home to see Grandma, but being away from my mom and brother, and not being allowed to speak to them, was really scary. Not to mention frustrating. I knew I was being lied to, and having things kept from me, and I didn't appreciate it. I started having panic attacks at night when it came to go to sleep, and they lasted until my late 20s. Like, almost every night. I had to learn breathing exercises and shit to deal with them in my teens. It's wild the shit that can be traumatic. I was safe. I was with my father, and my grandma (although, she was whole other piece of work), and I got to hang out with my older cousin who was good to me, even though her sister was a complete bitch. But it seriously damaged for a long time. I still have unresolved issues about it, and pretty severe separation anxiety and shit. I'm like a shelter dog sometimes. Lmao When the panic attacks started my aunt told me it was because I ate chocolate, and no one would believe me that it wasn't just, like, heartburn or something. They were real, and I didn't learn what they were until I was like 16, because panic attacks aren't, like, typical presentation. They're weird. Everything feels the wrong size. Like my hands feel tiny, or my teeth feel enormous. The bed feels like it's the size of an ocean, or the phone I'm using to distract myself feels like a matchbook in my hands. Just a whole bunch of shit. I guess I never really got past it.
But my mom got us a hamster when I got back, so that was cool. They found it in the driveway, and we named him Clyde. Later a neighbor rehomed theirs with us, and we renamed her Bonnie.
... Then Bonnie chewed through her enclosure and Bonnie ate Clyde, so altogether pretty shitty. Lmao
That sounds like a very strange experience. Thanks for sharing
No worries, thanks for letting me vent. Free therapy lol
I'm not surprised it traumatized you, even if you didn't know the whole situation. Suddenly separating a 7 year old from their mom and brother for 2 months without explanation sounds exactly like the shit that would give long term issues
Sounds a lot like the Alice in Wonderland syndrome.
I used to have it when I was little, and my symptoms were very similar to yours, but mine kind of went away on their own. When I close my eyes and focus, though, I can still make myself feel like the dark side of my eyelids is getting impossibly far away from me, which is very weird.
Do you still get these symptoms?
Not as bad as I used to, but yeah, if I let myself think at night then I get it really badly. I have to put on sleep meditation videos on YouTube, and I got a Bluetooth sleep mask. If I try to sleep without some kind of distraction it's pretty bad. Same for driving. Gotta have music or an audiobook or something or I end up having the pull the car over. Constant stimulus, basically.
No shrink has mentioned Alice in wonderland syndrome, I will look that up! I can also do the eyelid thing, but I don't because it triggers panic attacks
Yeah, it used to trigger panic attacks in me too. That's fascinating!
I didn't know anyone else had that same experience, to be honest. Ive told shrinks and they all just say unusual presentation for anxiety/panic attacks
The friend I was telling you about in another comment had to sleep with a blue light on for years because if he didn't, he knew (even though he realized it was totally irrational) that he would be abducted by aliens. And I guarantee you that was from the trauma of being kidnapped.
Kids are just so easy to fuck up even when you're actually doing everything the right way.
It honestly makes me wonder why my symptoms went away, but yours persist...
I've talked to a few people (like 3 or 4 i think) with the syndrome in the past, and it behaved differently for each person I spoke to, whether it's the symptoms, the cause, or, as in our case, whether it goes away or not.
It's a pretty unresearched syndrome, though the Wikipedia page for it has way more info than when I last checked.
EDIT: Another thing I'm curious about is that the symptoms also stopped causing panic attacks for me. I haven't had the eyelid thing for a while, since it's way easier for me to do that when I'm extremely tired, but the last time that happened I didn't get an attack at all. If anything, I tried to actually focus on what I was perceiving, I tried to make something out. Again, very weird how it develops differently for every person.
Oh wow, I just told a story above about my friend who was kidnapped by his dad.
https://lemmy.world/comment/14534609
Also I know you're not him for anyone who asks. He's not on Lemmy even though I keep telling him he'll like it. He won't get off Reddit. Drives me nuts.
That's wild!
My story isn't that crazy. I feel weird/kind of guilty talking about like sometimes, because I know how much worse situations like that are for most people who have been through it. But you can't help the shit that fucked you up in childhood. Lol
Does your buddy still have contact with his dad?
Not as far as I know. But your story is important too!
Your body will not let you drown yourself.
Thank God! I'm a pretty stupid sometimes
I’m thankful for such systems. My mind is pretty stupid.
Why did you both say the same thing minutes apart?
Looks like chance to me. We're both pretty old, established accounts with highly different history for your consideration. Also consider that federation may take a few minutes. It's possible neither of us saw each other's comments at time of posting.
It was just odd when I saw it. No worries.
Two people agreeing on Lemmy? Something funny goin on around here...
That's why I like Lemmy so much. You get to meet all sorts of people!
Sometimes more than once.
Challenge accepted.
How did his wife take it?
Mortified.
Through a tube.
By coincidence, I inherited the RAM and CPU from the work computer of a guy who later shot up my workplace. Luckily he was the only one killed in the shooting. I still use the kit from the shooter to run my home server.
Aren't you worried that the ones and zeros that sent him mad could still be hidden as a transient memory just holding on inside a part of the RAM that you have up-to-this-point not made use of? What about if it's just biding its time hiding, waiting for the right moment to come out?
Thanks, Stephen King
I'm sure I've already used every bit of that RAM over the years. ZFS loves to use all the memory I throw at it. If there's any killer virus hiding in the ones and zeros....I guess I already have it.
Look up a 80's movie called shocker. Bonus the bad guy is Skinner from the X-files.
Joint hypermobility!
When I used to be spiritual I had a very small cult following of 12 people whose extreme believe in my lies actually showed me how frigthening Religion is.
Go on...
His name was Derek. But he went by 'the Prophet' when times were good, or 'the Law Giver' when times were bad.
I moved onto his prayer farm with 45 other members of the Salvation Star Boys, who died in a mass suicide. But not me. 'Cause I don't like root beer. And I only drink what I like.
After it was all over, I called Lois to pick me up. She was mad. But she's what Derek calls an Oppressing Doubter.
May the light of Derek's Invincible Diamond shine through you.
Okay, found some time. First some background, what actually happened at the bottom.
Background on me
At the time (before smartphones and useful Wikipedia) I subscribed to some vague new-age gods-and-auras-and-spirits-and-energy beliefs loosely based on Germanic Neopaganism with some modern Druidry flavors. But I knew I was just going through the motions. I wanted it to be real and I wanted magic to exist, but I was also quite educated and no matter how much "knowledge" of the subject I acquired, I was still a little bit conscious of the fact that I was just a teenager/young adult lying to myself.
Background on the situation
I was charismatic, convincing, a compulsive liar and a horny teenage asshole. I was also the leader of a big guild on an active Ultima Online roleplay server that had quite a couple of attractive female players which I, through some very convenient coincidences, had convinced that there must be something true about my beliefs and my claims of shamanism.
For example: I often had long talks with one of the players, often deep into the night and one time she asked me to pay her an astral visit, if I was able to astral-project, and tell her stuff about her room, so she could verify. I now know that what I did then was basically cold reading her answers and being vague enough that she could interpret everything I said as accurate. She was impressed.
The piece de resistance was a lucky coincidence. To scare her a little and impress her more, I made something up about there being somebody with her in the room, not necessarily in the physical world, but that there was a presence there with her. She denied that for some time, got even angry as she caught on that I might be lying to her (I actually tried to imply it might be a spirit)... until the cat that never, never enters her room appeared behind the curtains and meowed at her.
This completely turned her anger into awe.
She hadn't know the cat was there, the cat never got into her room except that night, I had "known" something about her room that she didn't... she could not explain that. So her explanation was: He really visited me, he really has some magic powers. And she told the story to everyone in the guild, earning me more awe from the other players. I on the other hand knew that I had completely made that shit up and hit the jackpot through sheer luck... but the taste of all their awe felt soooo good. So I, with more lucky coincidences, more cold reading, more confident lying and just being charismatic slowly got into the heads of my guildmates and enjoyed all the attention of the girls. My character basically acquired a harem for naughty roleplay and I would try to do the same.
My chance arrived at the IRL-camping trip meetup.
What happened
It was supposed to be a fun trip, a weekend of camping with friends and guildmates, meeting the people we only ever interacted online with, some booze, some barbeque, a warm summer night under the stars. It started out great, we talked and talked and had lots of fun, drank a lot, smoked (no weed), danced around a fire. Sometime around evening I found myself surrounded by my guild talking about spiritual bunk that I mostly just made up on the spot. Viking pyramids, Ley lines, my ability to sense dark and bright presences, shit like that. My goal was to impress the girls and maybe scare one or two a little, so I could later protect them from evil spirits by inviting them to my tent... again some lucky coincidences lent me a hand.
We saw a meteor that night, and I don't just mean like a tiny falling star, we saw a big-ass chunk of rock break apart in the atmosphere and burn up in a bright orange fireball.
Later we had a stroll around the local lake and I kept insisting that there was some bright energy coming from the lake but that a dark presence was gathering at a little wooded area in front of us. I don't know what actually was in there, most likely some roe deer or maybe wild hogs, but when we got close a wind from behind us blew towards the forest and made it shiver just a little, we made two steps more and then the little forest started shaking violently. I think whatever animal had hidden in there just fled, but the others were instantly convinced that I had known there was something and that we should not go that way and that it would come after them.
This was a breaking point for some. As the night fell, booze and crowd dynamics took over, mass hallucinations set in as the mood turned from a relaxed, happy, cozy evening to frightened paranoia. I can't tell you how scary it is if you make up a neat little ghost story and feel in control of the things people believe, try to (mildly) scare some girls into your tent when suddenly people take it seriously, take it up and absolutely massively run with it, starting to create their own narrative. They suddenly started seeing things in every little thing. A crying fox to them suddenly was the death cry of a women who had drowned in the lake. We actually didn't know if someone had ever drowned in it, but they just as ready made things up and believed them as I had made them up... only I had known it was bunk, I was in control... they were not.
It was scary, I was suddenly left the only sane person around, they clung to me, asked me a thousand things and every answer I gave, no matter how reassuring it was meant was turned into something frightening. It was very Life of Brian ("I'm not the messiah!" - "Only the messiah would deny to be the messiah!" - "Ok, I am the messiah." - "He said it, he IS the messiah!!!")... No matter what I did to get it back under control their beliefs had escaped me and group dynamics meant it spiraled out of control. The evening was lost. Two people just left and I spend the night with 3 guys and 8 girls on the (apart from us) empty campground, the mood was bad, frightened, my idea to get girls into my tent had worked but there was no thinking about anything naughty. All of them shivered, were deathly afraid, paranoid and some were sobbing... And I was the only one who knew that I had caused that, with lies. I had ruined their weekend, frightened them to the core, I had hurt people who believed in me, looked at me with awe and I myself spend the rest of the night and some of the next morning afraid that some might start hurting themselves.
It was the most impressive example of group dynamics I have ever witnessed, it was extremely scary and I am absolutely certain that this is exactly how religions start... somebody lies and suddenly everything gets out of hand as others take up the ball and run with it, only they don't know that it's all just made up.
I'm curious, why do this over two different comments?
Because I couldn't get it to accept two images in the same post and I couldn't find a gif of this scene and I'm dumb
This is an acceptable excuse. Carry on.
I once billed a man, just to see him cry.
That must've been quite the bill.
The bill in question
The bill in question
The bill in question
The bill in question
The bill in question
The bill in question
This is probanly way too boring and mundane for this thread, but I can't feel hunger or fullness. (Never had a doctor look at it because it doesn't make my life worse)
My mom when I was a baby asked the doctor how much baby food I should be given after breastfeeding time was over. The doctor said "just give him enough, he will stop". After many jars of food, my mom had to stop because I wouldn't stop.
To this day I can feel my stomach expanding before I will stop. At my university all-you-can-eat cafeteria (back when I was super fit and tracked every calorie) I ate about 10kcal and didn't feel full so I stopped. I also did a 21 day water (and salt+vitamins) fast without that much trouble (but my mouth would still water and I would still have taste cravings)
Fucks up my relationship with food though because I eat when I am bored, just eat whatever is in front of me without realizing it, or if I am busy I will just forget to eat.
As I said, probably not really unsettling or scary, but not a fun fact lol.
Neither can I anymore. No hunger, no thirst. I have an eating disorder that's not related to body image called ARFID. Here's my post about it in this thread: https://lemmy.world/comment/14558547
I think I have this to some degree. I never feel hungry/hangry if I haven't eaten by specific times. I just eat because I'm bored and it kinda heats me up. I can go days without, I just don't because of habit and because sugar and caffeine have effects that help me concentrate
I would think like Prader Willi syndrome but usually those children are intellectually delayed.
I was in a locker room three months ago minding my own business when this oddly looking guy next to me struck up a conversation. He looked old and incredibly skinny, but you could tell his face was younger. Maybe it's a skin condition like Ehlers-Danlos, I thought.
Well, the guy was in his early thirties and said the reason for his condition was that he had been recently freed by a cartel. He had been kidnapped for years, kept without food or proper hygiene, basically working as a slave. And then he showed me a picture of himself from three years ago on his phone. He has the incredible phisique of a Greek god, beautiful face, with a six pack and well developed muscles. And there he was, skinny, thin as a pencil and with loose, aged skin.
He recounted how he had used his smarts to survive. He had been forced to kidnap others, forged friendships with his captors and even made important suggestions to the leaders to create alliances with other cartels. He was damn good at the job making people fall into the trap, schmoosing the right people and getting out of situations. He said he was honestly one of the best they had, according to him.
He went on about how he had been tortured, kept in a cellar, worked tirelessly from dawn til dusk, and then released one day. And then he told me he he still had friends in the cartel to this day.
That's when I found a break 20 minutes in of this guy trauma dumping on me and I noped the fuck out of there with some bullshit excuse. Never in my life have I ever been so scared, sad, sorry and flabbergasted of someone recounting their life story.
I hate conversation hostages. They just dont let you exit, and don't really care if you're listening. I can understand their loneliness, but christ they need to develop the skills of: a) summarize your bullshit, and b) gauge my reaction to see if I'm interested.
Yeah, I don't think he was too aware or didn't want to be. The moment I saw his picture I did the whole "no fucking way this is you" face. I think he really needed to talk about it, which I understand, but it wasn't the place or the time. He caught me completely offguard.
The most fun I've ever had in my life was when I was young lighting off fireworks and a nearby patch of grass started on fire. My father and I ran over and meticulously stomped out every bit of fire as it spread, and managed to beat it handily. It was exciting.
My eye doctor murdered his boss's wife and waited on the couch beside her corpse for him to get home. He got beaten the shit out of before he could kill his boss and the cops arrested him shortly after the beating.
My orthodontist had been high school band buddies with my parents, so when I needed braces 6 used him.
A few years later, his wife suspected him of cheating, so she hired a PI firm to follow him. They made the very stupid decision of telling her her was cheating on her in real time and where.
With her stepdaughter (his child) in the car, she drove to the hotel, confronted him, then ran over him 3 times. It was national news, and she got out of prison a few years ago.
Lost one of my testicles when I accidentally got hit during bandy practice. Scrotum turned into the size of a handball before it got better. No surgery or drainage, was told to let it be and it would fix itself.
Had a cup and everything so just got unlucky.
Wait, hold up... so you're testicle just what? Vaporized? Like... there's excess material there and if it's no longer receiving blood it's going to rot and decay... How did you not go septic and die?
It just shriveled up after the bleeding and swelling stopped. Whatever is left is still there. It likely burst from blunt trauma.
Damn... that's rough
Good lord, how long were you doubled over in pain? Did you pass out?
Nothing like that. It kinda got painful gradually, like stomach ache that steadily got worse over night. It got very hard to walk.
Didn't show anyone either, so my dad thought i was pretending when I said i felt ill the morning afte. Had to go to school. Still didn't wanna show it and just hoped it would pass. It didn't. Had to call grandma to come pick me up from school. Took maybe 10 days or so for the swelling to go down.
2/10, highly recommend
Dang what is a 1/10 man?
Forceful "scrotumectomi" would suck. 0/10
A friend of mine lost a testicle to cancer. When he recovered, he told me that it just made the other one twice as potent.
Working in IT, I see far too many of your passwords, and you suck at passwords.
With that being said, if you use Windows and your hard drive isn't encrypted, it is ridiculously easy for me to break into your account, access all of your files and take full control of your computer.... Provided I can get physical access to it.
Stop using the same passwords for everything. Do you want to get "hacked" because that's how you get "hacked". Disclaimer, this isn't hacking, it's social engineering attacks with extra steps. The people trying to exploit you and steal your accounts put little to no effort into getting your stuff specifically. You just happened to get caught in their net.... Good luck, you're fucked.
Probably should have had a backup, and used a password manager huh?
Also it's ridiculously easy to lock yourself out of your own accounts by enabling 2FA/MFA. Most people have zero idea what is even involved in 2FA/MFA and the vast majority do everything in their power to turn it off. They would rather expose their account to the risk of it being taken over by some scammer, than be bothered to enter a six-digit code sometimes.
The reality is, as an admin, I can, with a fair amount of ease, monitor everything you do, when you do it and for how long you do it. The only reasons I don't is that 1. I'm pretty sure there are laws about it (but you'd have to prove I did it to have those laws enforced... GL, YF.) 2. Morally it's "wrong" to do so. And last but not least, I wouldn't give a single shit about what you do with your computer, whether it's a work machine, or personal system. Just don't make it my problem and we'll get along splendidly.
Also, the number of you people who use company laptops and cellphones for your personal correspondence and/or your only computer/phone is kinda ridiculous. Understand this: any company assets, and all the data held within, are wholly, immediately, irrevocably and perpetually, property of the company. So any texts, including sexts, dick pics, nudes, lude messages, personal banking info, emails sent to you personally,... All the data that is sent to, and stored on, the device that work provided to you, is property of the company.
Given that, and what I've seen when these devices are ripped from your hands when you inevitably leave the position, whether voluntarily or not, you all should be more ashamed of yourselves.
Y'all need Jesus or something. IDK, I don't believe in the guy, but you need something to straighten you out. Holy fuck.
That's a big if there. If you can get physical access to my home computer, I think you "breaking into my accounts" is the least of my concerns.
While that is generally not so bad advice for some people, there's also a legitimate use of shitty passwords - for about every stupid resource that forces an account on you for trivial shit. Also, throwaway accounts of anything.
2FA is scary - if someone grabs this phone, I can't do any work, can't log in to email to change passwords, can't log in to the bank to report stolen cards, can't even buy another phone online.
This is the issue with the current state of 2FA. It's either text driven (SMS) or it's app driven, like the Microsoft authenticator, as an example.
Often "backups" overlap. Like people will use SMS as a backup to the Microsoft authenticator, when the MS authenticator is on the same device as the phone number for SMS verification.
Real, actual, good MFA, only has the problem that people don't keep backup tokens around. If you use a Fido2 keyfob, you really should have a second one that authenticates the same systems the same way, but stored securely away from the one you carry with you.
In that context, backups are actually valid, because if the authenticator is on your keychain and you lose your keys, you have access via a backup on your phone (TOTP or similar).
If you lose your phone, you still have your Fido2 key as primary authentication.
If you lose both, you go and retrieve your backup security key and use that.
It becomes much more difficult to lose access if you're aware of the limitations of the systems you use. For me, I use a password manager, for login I have biometrics from my PC, biometrics from my laptop, two security key fobs, and a backup TOTP code stashed away. I also got recovery codes and sent them securely to a trusted friend.
The only things not using a password from my password manager is my main email, which is used as a backup/recovery email for most services, my password manager itself, and my primary bank. For all of these I use unique, memorized passwords that are not short. Any service that can use MFA has MFA set up, with the only exception being those that only support SMS as MFA. Fuck that. If fido keys are allowed, then I set those up If not, I use TOTP.
The TOTP keys are backed up and stored securely in an online system built for security for this kind of data.
I have contingencies on contingencies for my own access, but many people don't even have one, or even a plan on what to do if things go sideways.
It's a phenomenon I've noticed a lot, it's like Rose colored glasses for getting things set up. People like to see how it works and get everything operational and happy, with absolutely no thoughts towards what happens when it fails? How will it fail and what will we do when it does? How do we recover? How do we continue to operate until everything can be put back together?
They see it's fancy and works for them, and they're super secure because they have MFA, but it's only one kind of MFA, and they only have one of them. But they feel good because they have it.
Then they act shocked when their single MFA method breaks and they lose their accounts because they're stupid.
My coworkers make fun of me, but I bring in laptop with a LTE card to work to do any non work stuff. I don't do anything non work related on company machines.
I do assume IT has too much to do that track what any of us do on our work PCs unless someone gives them a reason.
You're correct. We're too busy and couldn't possibly give any less of a shit what you're up to.
The only time we care, at all, is if someone makes it our job to care. Usually management cracking down on some bullshit, looking for a reason to give someone the boot.
Unless management tells me that I'm supposed to care, I don't.
Just please, for the love of all things digital, do not do anything illegal on work computers. I still don't give a shit that you can or do, what I don't want, is for you to get caught and I have to do a forensic investigation of your system. That's a whole pain in my ass that I don't need.
In general, do not do illegal stuff, but if you're going to do anything illegal, think of your IT guy and do it on your own devices.
My funny times years ago was running the domain through 'have I been pwnd'. Don't use your work email to cheat using an online service
You store passwords in plaintext?
Also, I was asked to unlock a former employee work layout. I did expect to be able to do it, but it was fast to easy
I don't, but the windows SAM is laughable "protection" at best.
I knew someone whose death was ruled a suicide. I also know their roommate wasn't where they said they were the night it allegedly happened.
And that's all I know.
I am a patron to several ancient and eldritch nature deities.
You're their patron?
I'm as surprised as you are.
Then can you please wake up Cthulhu and get it over with? I'm not getting any younger here.
That's not about you. Tell me about who you've embalmed.
Aw crap.
Sometimes I depersonalize and can barely taste, smell, or feel pain
Can ypu normally taste pain?
What does pain taste like?
Takis?
Oh my god, I just realized that my taki addiction was the gateway to the masochist lifestyle.
I do this, I blame the dentist.
Here's a disturbing story involving pain and the dentist:
I went to some quack dentist when I was a teenager to get my wisdom teeth extracted. Novocaine just does not work very well on me, which I tell dentists every time and they just don't listen.
So I felt a shitload of pain when he crushed my tooth to extract it, but I was also on nitrous, so I basically couldn't move.
Many years later, when I was in my late 30s or early 40s, I was having intense pain in the back of my jaw. I thought one of the molars had gone bad and I needed a root canal or something. I made an appointment for an orthodontist, but he couldn't get me in for a few days. And then a day before I got to to the orthodontist, I felt something in my cheek near the back of my jaw and the pain was gone. I pulled it out: it was a sliver of tooth he missed when he crushed it that had finally worked its way out.
I haven't thought of either of those things in a long time. Believe it or not, I don't think what happened at that dentist had any lasting trauma. It's not something I ever dwell on.
Is this similar to out of body experiences? I'll feel far away from myself but on the inside, if that makes sense.
I beat somebody into a coma with their own gun.
Just a few
When I was a kid (like 14-15) I would go on gangstalking forums and try to convince schitzophrenic people I was following them.
When I was a kid I found a bunch of puppies that had been skinned alive, I think I scared off whoever was doing it, one was half skinned and still alive and there was another one that had not been gotten to yet
I had a friend a few blocks away growing up and we'd walk over to each other's house all the time. One day when I was 9 or 10 I was walking home and there were a dozen cop cars outside a house. Next door to them was another kid we knew but who was a grade above us so we weren't close.
When I got home I told my parents about all the police at this house. They did some digging around and turns out the guy who lived there was a child molester. I didn't really know what that meant at the time other than it was bad.
I still hope that the kid who lives next door wasn't one of the victims.
When I was in the emergency services, I was first or among the first on scene to serious mass casualty events on multiple occasions. The most any of them got in the news was local papers and traffic disruption reports, because unless it's terrorism the nationals aren't interested. If any of us died in a car crash tomorrow, the world wouldn't care.
Whiskey Tango Foxtrot?!?!
I have stupidass heightened perception and seem to repeatedly find myself in extraordinary unbelievable (and often traumatic) situations which no one believes at first, because the situations are so absurd, and my silly brain rights itself so I seem "too okay" in spite of it all. Then I have to deal with it on my own until it directly impacts others and they cannot deny the situations exist. Then they act like shocked Pikachus (which is massively infuriating at times). This has been escalating throughout my life—in spite of the fact I do everything possible to keep my stupid little existence low-key and healthy. I'm working on accepting this.
One day, I missed a train. The next one had to stop one short of my home station due to "personell damages" or something similar, which I didn't really grasp, but I was annoyed that I had to take a detour to get home.
I later found out that a guy at my home station jumped in front of the train I was supposed to get.
I'm a 51-year-old married man, and I have owned multiple online girls jn BDSM relationships over the past 4 years. I've controlled their food and what they wear. I've had then send me videos of them spanking and hurting themselves at my my direction. My wife has no idea about any of it.
So you cheat on your wife and force young women to self injure? That's not really very nice at all.
I agree with your comment, but he's here to give you what you wanted: scary and unsettling. This is the dude who understood the assignment.
That's fine, but cheating on your wife isn't nice and I'm going to say so, and neither is abusing much younger women. Young women have been murdered in violent BDSM relationships. It's honestly toxic in my opinion. Which I know isn't popular, but also don't groom young women and cheat on your wife.
i understand the sentimental writeup but there was no requirement to be nice, only scaring and unsettling facts
It's not scary.
And after what happened with Neil Gaiman, I have to wonder how consensual such situations like this are. In fact, I originally thought this was a Neil Gaiman reference, but he's 64.
I would be more hopeful to believe it was consensual was except they bragged their wife doesn't know. I've been in enough situations through chats to learn people like this exist and managed to abuse others—even virtually. There can be healthy relationships in BDSM, but the community often attracts predators for a reason.
Right, it was the much younger women and not telling his wife parts that made me a little concerned about how consensual the relationships are.
And the people who are only online and not telling their spouse are significantly more likely to be predators. I'm not saying irl communities don't have predators, they absolutely do, I've been abused by someone I met through one, but being part of irl communities means that if you get reported as an abuser (and the community comes to the conclusion that the report is valid) you can't just change your username and show up to the same events and spaces
I've been reading court cases lately of sexual assault cases that happened in BDSM relationship contexts as a result of Gaiman on the Canlii website. There's a lot of nonconsensual behaviour by the men charged, and one even left a woman in a collar in his basement when she didn't want to and she died in there. I don't have a lot of faith in consent in those relationships. And I think they're disgusting to be honest. Get therapy.
Yeah. I am sure there are plenty of women who are actually into BDSM, but this just feels creepy and disturbing to me with the way he is putting it. Which I guess is the point of the thread, but it still feels like I’m reading the confession of a rapist who doesn’t realize that’s what they’re confessing to.
I sure hope I’m wrong.
There was this pair in my province who in 2012 met on FetLife because of a shared interest in rape fantasies. So after doing things to each other for a while, they ended up snatching this poor young teacher walking home one night, raping and killing her, and are in prison forever. I grew up with the Ken and Barbie killers, Paul Bernardo and Karla Homolka, in my city and attended a victim's funeral. They killed Karla's little sister so they could rape her. They filmed the rapes of all their victims. Bernardo was also a serial rapist in Scarborough.
I don't care what people do in their sex lives. I think it's important to have an off button and self control, and if you're preying upon young women and cheating on your spouse like the dude above, you're just a predator.
No, he isn't. That's not scary at all, just loser behavior he wanted to get off his chest.
Stop cheating on your wife, loser. I must assume that was the abuse he was after by confessing it.
Says who? This is borderline pedophilia to me. I'll judge if I want.
Okay, I didn't make the post. I'll be the one to be judgmental. Because this person sounds like, at the kindest possible interpretation I can come up with, a sexual predator. Fair?
You sound like an example us irl folk give to draw people away from online only
This whole thread could use a whole lot more of spoiler tags and Content Warning. And I shouldn't have read all these stories. Luckily, I noticed my anxiety soon enough and just stopped.
My dad once made me dig my own grave.
...We were building the family niche at our local cemetery and he needed help to dig the base