My lungs are 21 years older than I am. My new lungs were put in using a clamshell incision and arching my back… don’t look it up if you’re squeamish, it’s pretty scary looking
I’ve seen them, I worked in a CF clinic before. Yikes. Do they work?
When i was young, a family friend abused me and beat me up until my face was purple, he was an adult. i went to school the next day and they thought i was abused by my family but it was this guy instead, so they made me go home. Years later, this family friend’s restraining order wore off, so i pretended to be nice to him.
His brother was an alcoholic and the brothers did not get along very well, i also found out his brother was very very sick and was likely to die soon. The brother HATED my abuser’s dog, so while he was super drunk, i talked to him about that. And used some subtle suggestions to convince him to kill his brother’s dog. His brother then beat the crap out of his own brother who later died. Thus covering up any evidence that i was simply accomplishing revenge against him.
And yes, i do deeply regret using the dog for this. I probably could have done something else instead. But after that, my former abuser always seemed to be scared of and creeped out by me. I think he may have thought i might have been responsible but he never really had proof, he killed the only proof with his own hands.
Then again, he also not only beat me up he also forced me to walk about 10 miles while he drove nearby and told me not to talk to strangers or he would shoot me and bragged about being divorced from his wife because he almost killed his son. so im not really all that beat up over anything beyond the dog dying. i care about animals, not people. definitely one of the worst things ive done that i deeply regret. aside from the suffering i put my abuser through.
He always seemed to be creeped out and scared of me after that point. But i also learned that indirect violence is far more effective than direct violence. Theres nothing to prove most of the time. I can’t even prove this to everyone here. All i have for proof is the vivid memories that never leave my mind.
I still remember him crying like a little bitch <3 i will never forget it, and i will never not feel good for that.
A bit over a decade ago, I was motorcycle camping on a solo trip down the US West coast. Being a bit on the cheap side and preferring wilderness, I decided to make use of the Bureau of Land Management camp sites, where possible. They are free, somewhat remote and quiet (no hookups for RVs or any of that), which I really appreciate.
While heading South through Northern California, I stopped at the one near Ukiah, had a quick dinner, and went to sleep in my 2-person tent that I had been using for the trip. For some reason, I had my laptop out - maybe trying to look at some helmet cam footage. And, when I went to sleep, I was lazy and just suspended it, leaving its power LEDs slowly blinking.
I was awoken in the middle of the night by an animal rather forcefully trying to get through the side of my tent. I shouted and banged on the handle of my hatchet (hollow, glass-filled nylon, so it could be used to make rather significant noise). The animal took off, rather loudly through the brush near the camp site. My laptop, with blinking LEDs was right next to the wall of the tent where my “visitor” had been trying to gain entrance. So, I completely shutdown the laptop, ensuring that there was no blinking and failed to get any more meaningful sleep.
The next morning, once it was light out, I warily looked outside my tent to be sure that my “visitor” wasn’t waiting for me. Then, surveyed the site with hatchet in hand and heavy sheath knife on my belt (Morakniv Companion - highly recommended in carbon steel as it’s a great knife and still somehow cheap). All around the picnic table where I had cooked my curried lentil dinner were the large and unmistakable tracks of my large feline “visitor”. Not wanting to stick around in case the mountain lion decided to come by to investigate some more, I quickly broke camp and made my way back to the road, skipping my planned breakfast for diner food.
As one can reasonably expect from this experience, I camped at the same campground on my way back North and return there to camp fairly regularly.
In the same year I put my head through a plate glass window (to a shocking lack of injury) I also attempted to lift an engine block off a cherry picker… WITH MY HEAD… to hilarious results.
Well the TBI, seizures and utter disregard of my mother to the suggestion of a neurosurgeon that I needed surgery to relieve swelling at the injury site weren’t too funny. The latter is my favorite as she ‘treated’ me with nightmarish vegetable smoothies consisting of spinach and not much else.
I still hate spinach. And it’s been 47 years.
Slicing raw meat brings me the weirdest joy.
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Alternate take: I fucking love working for Indian people. I’m an event organizer, and do a lot of Indian events. The trick is remembering that they’re all used to being the smartest person in the room; If they’re outside of India, it’s usually because they’re a doctor, lawyer, engineer, etc… So they tend to keep that same “I know best” attitude, even when they don’t have a fucking clue what they’re doing.
In my case, that’s organizing events. When I work with them, it’s usually the biggest event they’ll host, outside of a wedding. They’ll often have a very detail-oriented mindset towards organizing their events, which can be both a blessing and a curse. They’ll often fall into the trap of focusing on small details that the guests won’t even notice, (they’ll bust out a measuring tape and scoot decorations around, a half centimeter at a time to be sure they’re perfectly symmetrical across the room,) while totally neglecting bigger things that aren’t even on their radar because they don’t organize events professionally.
If you’re able to get them to trust that you know what you’re talking about, they’ll relax and let you actually do your job. They’re extremely kind and generous once they relax. Have I had bad experiences? Sure. But I’ve had Karen’s from every background. And a lot of those bad experiences were due to culture clash; Once I did enough Indian events, I learned how to adapt my workflow to help make them more comfortable, and to head off some of the more prominent issues.
And the food at their events is always amazing. I actually have leftovers from an Indian event in my fridge right now.
Why do you feel that way?
I don’t love my Indian neighbours so much, of whom I have many, because they hate dogs and I’m usually going out with my dogs when I see them. They act disgusted and give me nasty looks and avoid me. My dogs are small and don’t bark at them or do more than look at them, my old dog who just passed was blind and took no notice of them, but if I get in the elevator with an Indian person (or African or Arabic) they scream and act scared and act shitty to me and give me nasty looks. I realize pet ownership is not a big thing in these cultures, but stop screeching like I’m killing you when I take my 15 lb dog on the elevator and he’s ignoring you. It’s just rude to ME, if I was letting my pit bull corner you and jump all over you I get it, but otherwise grow up. They also don’t really say hi or anything, and Caucasian people pretty much always do, so it just doesn’t seem very friendly.
I’ve noticed that as well. I remember once while walking the dog I came across an Indian guy and his kid. I assume the kid wasn’t born in India because when it saw my dog the kid’s face lit up with excitement, but before the kid could even take one step towards me the dad grabbed him and with wide eyes was saying “he is scared of dogs, he is scared of dogs!”. I was like… Ok dude, I’ve got my dog on a tight leash, I’m just walking by. I’ll try not to scare your… Kid… anymore.
I started to get a little ornery with the kids when they screech and run away, and tell them that being afraid of animals is a bad way to go through life. You don’t have to want or have pets, but you should be reasonably able to interact with animals.
I used to work with animals professionally, and I never noticed Indian or Muslim people disliking pets. IME, caring about animals is one thing that brings people together across cultural divides.
Occasionally they will like them, but usually just kids who are curious.
They “scream” lol exaggerate much. A lot of people especially dog owners are ignorant of the fact that the rest of us don’t care for their dogs, so many shitty owners in my apartment make no effort to leash their animal properly and the damn things wanna run up to you to sniff or slober or bite you, and so many nasty people don’t even clean up after taking their dogs out to shit on the property, I had to carefully walk around my building to avoid dog turds.
Well that isn’t me, I’m super careful about keeping my dogs apart from them but I can’t help sharing hallways or elevators very much. And a lot of them really do scream and run and be theatrical about it. Some of the kids are curious and I let them pet them always or answer questions,clearly many of them have never had a pet before, which is fine. But honestly it’s pretty often that they absolutely hate your dogs.
Yeah, your neighbors sound pretty bad.
OP, the pic said an unsettling fact about you, not your neighbor. You need to follow it up with something like, “While he did it, I held my hand over his so he could teach me his techniques.” If true, that it would make it an unsettling fact about you. If you don’t have anything, though, it happens. I’m not coming up with much at the moment either. And just saying something like “I poop a lot” would do this thread an injustice.
I don’t know if it’s scary, but in the absolute core of my existence i just need my life to stop sooner rather than later.
I’ve always been a bit suicidal leaning but when i was stopped i never had the courage to try again.
Every single day my mind tells me “would’ve been better if you did, it’s all a big shitshow anyway” it never misses a day. I keep telling myself to not listen to it but i do agree.
I had a certain circumstance a couple yeara ago where i was close to dieing and it brought me peace…i felt calm and became accepting of what was to come (despite the intense pain). Wife calles an ambulance which they refused to send as we were too calm for it to be believable, so we took a taxi and that’s when they got to see the pain i was in and realized time was running out quick.
Bla bla bla etc etc, i got sent home a while later and the same pain returned…excruciating bone wrenching all encompassing pain and all my mind had to add was: “if this is real, just go to sleep and you won’t have to wake up again”.
And i did, despite this absolute tormenting pain i fell asleep so peacefully and convinced of it all ending…it was such a relief.
But i woke up after…shit.
That’s the darkest corner of my existence.
That’s a wild ride. Hopefully you’re at least pain free now.
I don’t love the idea of continuing on, but I’m not suicidal. Let’s just say, if things were to end suddenly, I’m ok with that. I’ll see you all later (or not, who knows?).
As long as my life isn’t constant torture, I’m ok continuing on, as long as I’m able to help those that I care about. They’re my reason.
I intentionally make up horrors and monsters to lurk in the shadows or under my bed. Sometimes when I can’t fall asleep, I stare at a corner of the room, imagining some unsettling creature that could be lurking there, staring back at me (if it has eyes at all). I imagine something reaching up to grab the leg I’m stick out over the edge.
But they can’t actually get me. They’re created, sustained and dispelled by my will. They may stare at me, reach for me, but they’re powerless. When I’m done with them, I send them back to the half-existence in the collection of ideas I built them from.
It’s a cruel power fantasy, to make up monsters incapable of understanding that they’re the lesser horror between us, but it’s fun.
It also seems to help me sleep, but that might just be the fact that focusing my brain on one thing quiets all the background noise.
youre fucked if a tulpa materializes!
Similarly, the lines painted at the bottom of the pool became sharks when I jumped off the diving board as a child.
I never once really thought that sharks had somehow been smuggled into a shit little public pool, but that hammer head was real as hell until I’d crawled my way to the exit ladder.
Clairvoyance runs in my family. Most specifically, my sister has predicted several deaths.
Accurately?
Great cover for a murderer.
I realized I was trans in middle school, i said something suicidal to my friend and he told on me. I never really talked to the therapists because my mom was very homophobic. I got put on antidepressants and suppressed my feelings so hard I can hardly remember my childhood.
5 years later my depression went into “full remission” couple of months before I came out. I then 180°d and got sent to the psych ward for suicide ideation this February.The only thing that stopped me from killing myself is the realization that my cat would be rubbing against my body for pets in the ~10 hours it would take for my family to find me. I was planning to buy a knife after work but broke down in the bathroom.
Every time I have ever gotten to that point (not for at least 6 years now), it’s been my pets that immediately pulled me back. When I lived alone, I left myself sticky notes in places I would see when I needed them that said things like “your pets love you unconditionally” and “you’re Maya’s (my dog at the time. She’s died of old age at 15 since then) whole world”
I’m glad you’re still here.
I’m glad you stayed.
Covid probably saved my life.
I got bullied for about 5-6 years in school which ultimatively led to me just wanting to kill myself. Luckily for me the lockdown came so I got freed from the nightmare called school. My will to live devinetively improved, when not getting bullied the whole time you are sitting in class. However, when being in the lockdown I devinetively didnt process my feelings and thoughts about how I wanted to end myself. This led to me having almost a fill scale emotional breakdown mid class when school started, since we have been reading a play where someone killed himself and therefore learned stuff about the whole topic of suicide/mental health. Suddenly you realise, that all this shit kind of sounds very familiar for you which was quite overwhelming, but you can’t let anyone see whats happening because that shit devinetively is going to get you bullied again. I never talked to a therapist about this and at this point it isn’t needed, since I just went on and processed that time of my life for myself. I also kind of realised some time ago, that I also never told my family about this, but it isn’t really relevant anymore and us just going to cause feelings of guilt in them for not acting.
Therapy might still be a good idea in the future, trauma can show up in quite unexpected forms.
I’m really glad you’re doing better!
Seconding this. I thought I was fine once I made it through college without therapy. Ha! All the shit I’d just bottled up for years was still sitting there, packed nicely in its little bottle, waiting to explode.
Ended up going through a couple years worth of therapy in my late 20s / early 30s
I also have mental health problems, not as bad as what you describe here, though.
I used to find myself stuck at home spending my time staring at the wall because I just can’t leave the house. Having lockdowns during covid made me feel normal for a change. I was just like everyone else, stuck at home.
I’m glad you’re better now, but like the other commenter said: This trauma can come back in unexpected ways and it’d be a good idea to prepare yourself for when that happens.
Just to make this clear. I have completely dealt with all the shit I went through during that time and I have completely processed everything. I have accepted it as a part of my history and I Am completely fine with it. Theres nothing left to talk about in order to learn something about myself that I dont already know. I seriously dont see a single point where this is ever going to cause any problems in my future life.
When I was a kid I told a Special Ed teacher who I trusted that one of the gym teachers was having sex with high school students and grooming girls as young as 14.
Rather than report this to the authorities he told the gym teacher what was said. The next day the gym teacher (who was a big former semi-pro football player or something like that) cornered me and intimidated me into shutting my mouth.
2 years later a former student confronted the gym teacher’s wife. In the fallout his behavior came to light and he left our school and went to teach a few towns over. The Special Ed teacher joked about it after the fact.
It was probably 20 years before I fully understood the scope of how disgusting that situation was.
Big props for you trying to get people involved though, most obviously did nothing.
My knife collection began because I was suicidal.
To keep myself around I got a bunch of knives so I wouldn’t pick a favorite and “dissapoint” the others.
…I got better.
Out of all the reasons/sotires I have heard about why people didnt kill themselves this is by far the most absurd.
I love this so much, is it that you have a lot of empathy?
Yep – It’s a gift & a curse.
I find it super easy to put myself in other people’s shoes and see what they’re going through, but I have a hard time expressing my own feelings. It’s turned me into a bit of a loner, but I do have a small circle of people I know & trust that I can be myself with.
I hear ya. I’m participating in a hiring panel and finding it really tough to reject candidates, especially when they’re nice. I just feel so much for them.
Hard not to start building a tough shell, take care of yourself
You know, that is one of the most creative safety solutions I have heard. Glad you came up with it (probably due to still wanting to fight). The fight never stops, hope you are still doing well.
I have my moments, just like everyone else, but I have more good ones than bad ones. I do have a genuine love for knives though now, and still don’t have a favorite.
I keep seeing videos of a guy who buys TSA confiscated knives by weight & laughs at them for sucking, and I laugh harder because my angsty teenage self collected a lot of them back in the day.
Suppose I have it similar, don’t remember when exactly I got into knives but was depressed since 14 so it correlates.
My ideal partner would have exactly identical personality to me.
In highschool I would regularly imagine a “perfect crush” during bus rides. In my last year I had that “damn I was an edgy asshole during middle and highschool” moment and I wanted to change.
So since my friend group is also jerks like me I just started imitating that imaginary person until “fake it til you make it” kicked in.
Everything from my sense of humour to taste in music changed over time. I even became a slightly bit more feminine when I used to be hardcore Matt Walsh fan until this point.
I also got hobbies I just thought looked attractive like Archery. I got into computers because this.
I read somewhere ages ago that you should become the person you want to be with the most, which I think is great advice. And less about searching for someone else who is that. Sounds like this is what you did.
