Couples massage lincoln ne

28M not diagnosed but my mother has fibro and I have all of the symptoms. Seeing pain management to possibly get the diagnosis later this month. The trauma that I think caused it was a car accident where I was waiting at a red light and was rear-ended at 50mph. Went to doctors, PT and a chiropractor for months but nothing really helped other than muscle relaxers and massage. I haven’t had but a couple of restful nights’ sleep since that accident.
I didn’t realize I was in pain all the time until I started ketamine treatments for my depression and noticed that my lower back didn’t hurt during the session. I think chronic pain caused my mental health to take a huge dive. I had depression before but didn’t have all the dark thoughts I have now. I also didn’t have four hour panic attacks before it happened.
I’m already on Cymbalta and Gabapentin but I’m hoping to switch to Lyrica. I’m on Ozempic and trying to lose weight to help my spinal arthritis. I have pain that’s nearly all over my body, despite only having a medical reason for lower back pain and neck pain. Even walking 1-2 miles will have me in bed for the next 5 days.
What helps you feel like the future will be okay? All I can think about is being broken and in pain everyday for the rest of my life.
How does your partner deal with your fibro? My wife has a chronic pain condition (endometriosis) so she kinda gets it but I can’t help but feel like she would be better off with someone who didn’t have fibromyalgia. Like I’m dragging her down, kinda.
Do any of the medications really help? I’ve also tried CBD/THC, venlafaxine, all the OTC meds, PT, weight lifting, biking, swimming, heat, ice packs, lidocaine, diclofenac (gel and pill forms), cyclobenzaprine, tizanidine, trazodone, tramadol, hydrocodone, and Ambien. Most haven’t done a whole lot.
Also, it might be silly but are there any males in the subreddit that might be willing to talk?
My mom spent almost my whole life laying in her bed, aside from church or family events. How can I make sure I don’t end up that way?

Alors voilà, je viens de voir passer un post concernant une personne décrivant sa situation et expliquant qu'à 21 ans elle avait déjà eu 24 relations avec d'autres personnes et franchement ça vient de me foutre un coup au moral assez monstrueux.
J'ai souvent eu des phases d'intense tristesse du genre, mais je dois admettre que cela faisait quelque temps que le choc n'avait pas été à ce point violent.
La situation c'est que j'ai 20 ans et je n'ai jamais eu de copine. Jamais un mot doux, jamais un intéressement, rien, nada. Je ne sais même pas ce qu'un câlin procure comme sensation, ce que ça fait d'être aimé par quelqu'un d'autre que sa mère, je ne sais pas ce que ça fait de compter vraiment pour quelqu'un, et bon sang que ça me ronge..
Alors je sais, je suis jeune et j'ai encore le temps de trouver "chaussure à mon pied". Mais honnêtement j'en suis au point où je préférerais avoir un "placebo" d'amour de quelques mois histoire d'oublier cet horrible sentiment constant de solitude qui m'accompagne au quotidien depuis maintenant plusieures années.
Vraiment cette solitude accompagnée d'une tristesse sans fin à chaque fois que je me rends compte à quel point je suis seul et vais probablement continuer à l'être est juste horrible à supporter au quotidien... Voir un couple dans la rue arrive à me rendre triste, c'est dire.
J'en suis même au point où la seule chose que je désire dans ma vie, c'est de trouver ma moitié un jour. Je ne veux pas être riche, connu, ou même vivre super longtemps, non. La seule chose que j'aimerai, c'est de connaître ce que signifie "être aimé", ce serait de vivre une histoire d'amour ultra niaise comme dans les films ou livres. C'est horrible, j'ai l'impression d'être un gros nul à désirer cela.
Bref, veuillez m'excuser, j'ai écris ça sur un coup de tête après avoir trempé mon oreiller de larmes. Ça ira mieux demain.

So before I get started, I want you all to know that I am fully aware that I’m pointlessly thinking and even entertaining this but as a person who lacks discipline in some areas, I tend to be my own worse enemy..
So I’m in a relationship, I’m a 25M, I work construction and getting shit done. Now, my girlfriend who I’ve been together with for almost 5 years, has a best friend who I think about often, I don’t know why, I don’t know when it started but she’s there. She’s been in my life for a few years and I’d say a couple months ago I guess I started seeing her differently. I’m very attracted to her and personality wise I think she’s very well rounded. Is this normal ? I get irritated when I hear she’s dating a guy or getting close with someone even though I have zero right to. As I previously said I already know this is stupid and maybe even a phase. I know it’s disrespectful to my relationship and I sometimes feel guilty for it when I start to really to think about it, even now. We have a 6 person friend group so whenever we do stuff we’re all together, and I see her there, I wished the feeling was mutual, she has made little comments here and there joking around, she’s given me a few massages with my girlfriend’s permission (being in the room). Maybe that’s what started it ? I don’t know and it’s bugging me because I pride myself on being a good man, respectable and solid. I don’t want this to affect my friendship with her but as I said I get irritated when I hear she’s interested in someone other than me.. as pathetic as that sounds..anybody got any advice ? Even if it’s to tell me I’m a idiot for even thinking about this.

Bonjour
Me fais bientôt opérée, tout essayé rien n'a marché. L'opération va être longue.
Si ça ne marche pas j'aurais un autre protocole pour essayer de soulager et si ça ne marche vraiment pas retrait utérus. Honnêtement l'idée de retirer mon utérus ne me gêne pas plus que ça. Ce serait même un énorme soulagement. Si on veut autant le garder et essayer c'est parce que le retrait de celui-ci peut avoir des conséquences sur la santé et ce serait a éviter.
J'ai déjà travaillé avec des enfants et on me dit souvent que j'ai un instinct maternelle, on pense souvent que je veux des enfants alors qu'en réalité je m'en fous de ne pas pouvoir en avoir. J'ai souvent entendu "oh ma pauvre tu as l'endométriose tu ne peux pas avoir d'enfants ça doit être tellement difficile pour toi" alors qu'en réalité l'idée de ne pas avoir d'enfants est le dernier de mes soucis (voir aucun de mes soucis) par rapport a l'endométriose (en sachant qu'en fait on ne sait pas si je peux pas en avoir mais on est pas sûres que je ne puisse pas en avoir, le seul moyen de savoir sera l'opération).
Un jour je parlais sur un site avec quelqu'un et pour moi c'était juste amicale (je ne le draguais pas). Je parle de mon endométriose et de l'idée de retirer mon utérus. Il m'a sorti "je suis désolé mais on va arrêter de se parler ici parce que je ne me voies pas essayer de construire quelque chose avec quelqu'un qui ne peut pas avoir d'enfants" ou une phrase qui ressemble (ça remonte un peu donc j'ai du mal a me souvenir) et ça m'a choquée.
Je ne cherche pas spécialement a être en couple, j'ai été très longtemps avec la même personne et c'est une histoire qui m'a fait beaucoup de mal dont j'ai mit beaucoup de temps a me remettre (et je ne suis pas remise a 100% mais je voies un psy et ça commence a aller mieux).
J'ai 26 ans et beaucoup de femmes dans la famille de ma mère ont cette maladie. A l'époque c'était différent et vu que ça ne se voyait pas aux examens parce que dans certains cas ça ne se voit pas aux examens (comme moi j'ai galéré a avoir le diagnostic) ils ont tout retiré d'un coup (utérus, ovaires etc) a ces femmes dont je parle pour soulager sans prendre le temps de réellement chercher et certaines femmes n'ont jamais construit leurs vies avec un homme. Ma mère m'a toujours dit que c'était a cause de ça qu'elles n'ont jamais pu trouver d'hommes mais ma mère a des biais parfois mysogine.
Votre avis sur la question ?

TL;DR Spouse moved out and has been contacting me periodically, how should I respond to her?
My spouse [31/F] and I [34/M] have been married for 6 years. It's been a bit up and down, but we always stuck through with each other. She complained that I wasn't invested in the relationship, like I didn't take initiative. She's been pushy on things and doesn't listen to me. Like flat out says "I wasn't listening". I always have to serve her as well, like get her things and so forth. It bothers me because she doesn't bring an income, so I feel added stress. But we love each other and I care about her. We've been to couples therapy.
Last week she found I was looking up massage parlours (the happy ending kind), got angry and decided to move out. We discussed what I did and I said it wasn't sex and motivation was curiosity, neglect from her standpoint, and after she suggested we should maybe have sex with other people.
She's been at some place, but will text me and ask questions about insurance. Sometimes she'll have like a winky face. Or she'll video call me and we'll talk. Or she'll come over to the house.
The relationship has been tough on me and has made it hard, I feel I do all the work and get no appreciation (I do dishes, laundry, bring an income, etc).
Why would she be reaching out and how should I respond?

Ms Yummy has a surprise in store for Isiah Maxwell, planning to treat him to an at-home couple’s massage. It’s the first time for Ms Yummy, and her big and beautiful masseuse, Dallas Playhouse, warms her up with a solo nuru massage before her husband arrives. With two hot oil-covered naked bodies rubbing up against each other on the massage table, Isiah can’t pass up the opportunity to get something even better than a rubdown – he’s about to experience the threesome he’s only ever dreamed of!"

So last month I was looking for a place to stay and an old friend i housematted with before (a couple) offered me to crash on their couch and sleep on the floor of their massage room when it was not being used (there is a massage therapist renting out this room for commercial use) as per missed by the massage therapist until I could find a place. A couple days later they came to me and said they needed help with childcare for their 2 y/o and I would help when needed. After a room opened up in their space they told me that I could stay in exchange for being their live-in nanny. Out of relief, I took them up on their offer.
I am also a massage therapist and the man said he would like to work with me. I would be able to use the massage room as well and we would split the profits of my services 60/40. He told me that he had previously run a home based massage business and all the therapists lived in house and used a room everyone splitting everything 60 for the therapists and 40 to him and to cover the space. I was interested and didn’t mind the split as it would be going towards the rent of the space and he had opened his home to me when I was in need. This 40 was to be used for ads, decor, etc. He never purchased ads or anything of the like. I purchased my own ads, business cards, etc. The other therapist that was renting it had brought her own decor and such. I later found out that this therapist was paying $100/m for the room.
A few weeks later him and his partner and fallen out and broken up. She is now gone and so is the baby. Because if this I now pay rent every month for the room that I stay in. He still wants me to pay him a percentage of all my clients but now it will not go towards rent whatsoever. So I now have to pay monthly rent and pay him for each client that I found on my own separately.
AITA for refusing to give a percentage from each of my session while now paying rent?

A lil bit about me first -

• I keep an active and fit lifestyle. 6ft tall and love to do yoga, workouts, hikes.
  
• Ambitious, and doing well in my career. making >$200k so I live a good life.
  
• Well educated and Intellectually curious. I love to read, learn new things
  

Onto some fun things -

• My love language is spending quality time together. I love going on tropical vacations - soak in the sun, enjoy couples massage, feast on sea food and walk on the beach, nuff said 🙃
  
• I’ve been into music since I was a kid, started a band in high school. We weren’t half bad, but we weren’t half good either lol. tell me your favourite song and I might try and serenade you haha
  

If I sound interesting and you’re in your 20s-30s and also tired of dating apps, wants something real. Hmu in chat
Pls share your picture once we talk. It can be a blurred version to start with like mine
https://imgur.com/a/c6ih2P5

Hello!
Ca y est, j'en ai marre des films / séries écrits par des hommes, pour des hommes. J'en peux plus des femmes qui sont là juste pour être jolies ou avoir des rôles secondaires presque inutiles. J'arrive aussi à ma limite de femmes au physique parfait* qui ne laissent la place qu'à un type de corps, comme si toutes les femmes se ressemblaient (ou devraient se ressembler, je suppose).
Du coup j'en appelle à vos connaissances culturelles en matière de films, séries, livres, BD, etc. pour m'aider à trouver des œuvres avec des personnages féminins intéressants, qui ne sont pas des accessoires et dont l'histoire ne se résume pas à son physique ou au fait qu'elle est "le mec de quelqu'un de plus important".
Et, tout petit rant au passage : Ces œuvres arrivent à me faire douter de trucs fondamentaux. Je suis trans et lesbienne et à chaque fois je me remets en question sur ma non attirance envers les hommes tellement ça semble une "évidence" dans toutes ces œuvres que le couple hétéro c'est la base de la société, et que quand t'es une meuf t'es là pour être cute pour les hommes. Berk.
Du coup allez-y, partagez vos œuvres préférées !
\Dans les standards que la société essaie de nous vendre, je crois pas au physique parfait et je suis pour la body neutrality, mais la société elle me rappelle quand même très fort que je suis pas parfaite comme elle voudrait et des fois j'avoue je me laisse avoir.*

My husband and I have been together for the past 7 years, married for 5 of those, we had a better than average relationship and we did everything together. We have a lot of friends and would spend vacations and long weekends often, we’ve had an outrageous sex life for the first 3 years and then the accident happened. Me and my husband are avid motocross riders, we spend most weekends on the trails and courses available for use. One long weekend with our friends camping, my husband got drunk, he decided to get on his bike and do some tricks, this was not unusual for him as he has done this on several of our past outings. He was trying a trick that he was very familiar with, up to the point it was just normal for him, but it would be difficult for most riders, this time went very badly and he landed wrong, he came down on the gas tank and immediately crashed the bike, it didn’t appear to our group that he was injured or the crash did any harm, we just sat there as he laid on the ground groaning in pain. We went to help him up, the look on his face you could tell this was much more than just a minor injury. We had to call for paramedics, they in turn called the ambulance to take my husband to the hospital. I rode with him as all our friends packed all our supplies up and headed to meet us there. The doctors took him in for x-rays and asked what had happened. I was informed 3 hours later that my husband has a severe injury to his groin area, we would need to seek further tests from the urologist when we return home. He was subscribed to some pain medication, he was told to rest, no work, and sit or lay as much as possible and seek more medical attention as soon as we returned home.
After we had gotten home, we made the appointment with the doctor, after two weeks of tests they called us into the office for the results. Penial fracture was the outcome of all the tests, we were informed that the extent of his injury would in fact not allow him to have normal use of his penis, in layman’s terms he would no longer be able to get it up. We asked if there were any treatments, they just said it was less than ten percent chance he would regain any function if ever again. This was devastating news, he fell into a deep depression, this sent our relationship spiraling downwards, he just kept repeating I should divorce him, find a man that could satisfy me. I call him an idiot, I would never leave him, he was my love, I didn’t just need him for sex, just him and his love.
For the next 2 years we spent working on our sex life, we would watch porn for hours, I would massage him nightly, we would use toys purchased on me, he would give me oral, I was happy and satisfied with that, but he was never convinced. One night out of the blue, he said that he has been thinking a lot about me, how I might have an affair on him for sex with a man that can perform. I told him he has always satisfied my needs, that’s all I ever wanted or needed. He was persistent, he told me it was okay if I wanted to have one-night stands with others, I said it may be okay with you, but that wasn’t me, I was happy with our lives as they are. We had normal lives and would go to the bar every Friday and have some drinks and dancing, visits with all our friends. He started on me again, this time he said that I could have one-night stands, as long as I told him the next morning all the details, he could live through me precariously. I could only have sex with a guy once, as to not start a relationship outside our marriage. I was adamant that I didn’t need that, but he became incensed and pushed it to a point I almost left him over him wanting me to have sex outside our marriage. I finally relented to get him to stop talking about it.
The next weekend came up and as normal on Friday we spent it at the bar, after we returned home, he said I should go out Saturday and find a man. I called my best friend, she was the only one that knew the whole truth about my husband’s condition, she said we could meet at the bar and we would just have some drinks and try and figure this out. I agreed and my husband didn’t know I was going out with her, he thought I was just going to find a man and jump his bones, but that was never going to happen. I went and met my friend at the bar and we made up a story about this guy, how we did it in the back of his SUV in the bar parking lot. As we drank, we made up details and repeated the story over many times before leaving the bar close to closing. When I got home, he was waiting for me, he wanted to know everything, I said I just needed to take a shower first because I felt so dirty. After the shower we laid in our bed with my head in his lap starting at his bulge in his underwear, he was caressing my head, as I told him the made-up story and I swear to god, I seen some motion from down there for the first time in two and a half years. I wasn’t expecting that bit, I said nothing to him and said it was fun overall and I think it was a good thing that he suggested it. He was happy that I was so happy and said that I could do it any time as long as I would give him a recount after I came home. The following week my friend went back to the bar and this time I brought in a pad and pen, we wrote out a made up story and all the details. I went home late and took my shower and as I watched his package it was moving more and started to get larger, I didn’t think he was aware of what I was seeing, but it was really happening. Me and my friend went to the bar ever Saturday night and wrote a new story, the last one was I went to a couple’s apartment and had sex with both of them. That night as I was recounting the story, he became erect for the first time in all these years, I just put my hand on it and started to gently stroke it and it became fully erect. I moved my head from his lap and said do you see this, I was pointing to his penis, and he started to cry. I asked him why the tears, he said now that he has some function back, he felt as if he couldn’t trust me, after I had so many amazing encounters with other men and a woman. I placed my fingers across his lips and said let’s just see if this works, well figure out the rest later. Boy he rose to the occasion and performed as if he had never had sex before, to be honest it has been almost three years.
The next day he had his confidence back after an early morning romp with me, everything still worked. I went out to my car and got the pad and told him the truth, there were never any other men, it was just stories, me and my best friend had made up, I could never had cheated on him, just said those things to keep him happy, but after the first story, I had noticed the changes with his penis and decided to use it as therapy and keep up the ruse. It paid off big time, he made another doctors appointment and the doctor asked what we had done to have such a change, I explained about the massages and all the side details, if you cant tell a doctor who can you tell, he thanked me and said we were a success story and would use it to inspire other couples to see if this may work for them also. Our sex like is back to pre-accident, we are now pregnant with our first child 6 months later. Don’t every give up and use every tool in the book, but sex doesn’t make a relationship, it’s so much more than that.

Salut, j'aimerai raconter une histoire qui s'est produite y a déjà deux ans.
Avec ma mère, on habite une petite commue depuis plus d'une dizaine d'années. On est allés de logements en logements parce-que les finances fluctuaient et qu'on oscillait entre les petits appartements. Un jour elle trouve une maison à louer, une dépendance pour être exact, donc la moitié d'une grande maison qui a été séparée en deux adresses distinctes, et où des travaux ont été effectués pour pouvoir l'équiper (salle de bain, cuisine, etc...) D'ailleurs si les travaux étaient "terminés" dans la partie à louer, c'était pas le cas dans celle des propriétaires, qui habitaient alors juste en dessous. Y avait encore beaucoup à faire, et c'est le mari du couple, alors déjà âgé (vers 60/70 ans) qui s'en occupait en faisant appel au moins d'entreprises de travaux possible.
Ça se ressentait parce-que même dans le logement que ma mère a loué, y avait pas mal de défauts: l'entrée était mal isolée, la plaque de cuisson faisait sauter le courant à pleine puissance, certaines lumières clignotaient, et pal mal d'autres petits trucs du genre... Mais les proprios sont restés transparents à ce sujet dès le départ, et ils nous ont assuré que les travaux nécessaires seraient effectués au plus vite. Donc on a emménagé.
Au début ça allait, et la femme du proprio passait de temps à autres pour nous demander si tout allait bien et si des travaux allaient être faits. Le mari par contre on le voyait beaucoup moins; il montait seulement pour bricoler. Ça a duré comme ça quelques temps, à peu près six mois.
Un soir, je rentre du lycée et je vois ma mère en compagnie de la femme du propriétaire en train de boire un verre. Tout se passe bien, elles papotent, mais le lendemain alors que ma mère était absente, elle monte et entre sans frapper. A cette époque je venais d'avoir des problèmes avec la justice, après avoir été interpelé avec de la drogue sur moi. J'ai pas eu de gros problème en soit, juste un avertissement, mais bien sur ma mère en était pas fière e c'est logique. Toujours est-il que la femme du proprio, qui est montée sans prévenir, est venu pour me réprimander à cause de ça, comme quoi j'étais un fils indigne, un drogué et j'en passe. Je lui demande de partir parce-que je sens les nerfs monter, mais elle continue. A ce moment ma mère arrive et elle change son comportement du tout au tout; petit sourire, voix douce, etc... et elle s'en va. Je suis resté bouche bée sur le coup, et j'ai essayé d'en parler à ma mère juste après mais elle n'a rien voulu entendre, alors j'ai laissé passer.
Quelques temps après, ma mère avait prit l'habitude de descendre le soir pour boire avec elle, et elle était de plus en plus distante, voire aigrie à mon égard. J'en ai parlé à des proches, notamment ma sœur, qui elle aussi m'a confirmé qu'elle agissait de la même façon avec elle. De plus, quand je rentrais des cours, il arrivait que certaines affaires personnelles avaient étés déplacées, voire avaient disparus.
Ça devenait trop, alors je suis descendu pour voir mes propriétaire et les prévenir que j'allais faire appel à la police (ou même "régler" ça moi-même) si la situation continuait. La femme était absente, j'en ai donc parlé au mari, en étant hostile d'ailleurs. Mais quand il m'a montré les séquelles qu'il portait, j'ai compris qu'elle était violente avec lui. Pour citer un exemple des plus "soft", elle lui avait mit un coup de perceuse dans l'avant bras parce qu'il "ne travaillait pas assez vite", et quand il a été conduit à l’hôpital, elle a prétexté un accident, et à mit en avant des "épisodes délirants" de sa part. En gros, elle mentait, buvait et le frappait. Il m'a même remit plusieurs documents et objets qui nous appartiennent, à ma mère et à moi, dont des bulletins de notes, des déclarations d'impositions, des photographies et même des sous-vêtements.
Quand je lui ait demandé pourquoi il ne prévenait personne, ou même pourquoi il ne la quittait pas, il m'a répondu qu'ils étaient mariés depuis longtemps, et qu'il pensait que jamais sa famille ne lui pardonnerai ce qu'il avait pu faire pour elle (il n'a jamais voulu me dire quoi). Je suis remonté avec les affaires et j'ai attendu que ma mère rentre pour lui les montrer, mais quand je lui ai expliqué, elle a refusé de me croire, et m'a accusé de les avoir moi-même volé pour ensuite inculper la femme du proprio et couvrir la démence de son mari. Elle m'a dit qu'elle lui avait tout expliqué, comme quoi il était malade et violent, et qu'elle m'aurait "gentiment dit ce qu'elle pensait" quand elle était passé en son absence.
Quelques jours plus tard, on entend des cris qui viennent d'en dessous. Ma mère et moi on se précipite en bas, elle avait même prit un couteau par peur que ça puisse mal tourner. On entre en balle et on voit la femme qui hurle comme une folle au milieu de la pièce "Arrêtez-le, arrêtez-le !" alors qu'il se tenait debout et choqué dans un coin. Je dis à ma mère de la conduire dehors pendant que je "surveille" son mari. Une fois qu'elles sont sorties, j'ai rien osé dire, mais lui m'a dit "j'en peux plus, je vais la tuer". On a voulu prévenir la police, même le mari était favorable, mais elle a refuser, prétextant qu'elle ne voulait pas qu'il lui arrive du mal.
C'est dans la même semaine que c'est devenu horrible: un matin on entend à nouveau les cris de la femme mais cette fois elle est toute seule. Quand on entre, elle est en pleurs et elle nous dit qu'il s'est pendu. Ma mère la réconforte et me demande d'aller vérifier. J'y vais et oui, il était bien en train de se balancer sans vie sur une poutre de leur garage. Je vais pas m'étendre sur le choc que ça m'a fait, mais quand je suis ressorti je me sentais pas bien. La police, les ambulanciers etc... sont bien sur vite arrivés, et on a fini par remonter. Un mois plus tard, la propriété à été revendue, donc on eu d'autres propriétaires, qui nous ont d'ailleurs fait part de plusieurs faits; d'autres objets à nous cachés dans le grenier, le fait que la femme avait plus l'air impactée par l'idée de devoir vendre la maison que d'être en deuil, et aussi qu'elle leur ait remit une clef de notre location alors qu'elle n'avait pas le droit d'en avoir.
Suite à ces événements, ma mère s'est excusée auprès de moi (même si je ne lui en ai jamais vraiment voulu), et on a plus jamais entendu parler d'elle. On a pas déménagé depuis, mais les nouveaux propriétaires sont très corrects.

Hey! I am pretty new to mbti, but not totally. I want to figure out my type, but strugle to figure out myself. Yes, I am aware of the tests, but I don't trust them. So here is my self perception:
I am 20(M) and believe myself to be either ISFJ with well developed Ti or INTP with traumatised Fe (I also have ADD and might be a little on autistic spectrum, might matter later on). One thing I know for sure is that my dominant function is introverted. I might be wrong about some of the functions I will describe because I am quite new to this and never have read any of the Jung books because I am too lazy and don't like reading much.
(text bellow between "//**" and "**//" is unecesery to read, I don't think it has much to do with my mbti type, so feel free to skip it, though I might be wrong, so I included it anyways.)
//**As a person I like to spend most of my time alone by either listening to music on my headphones when home or earbuds when walking outside. So I interact with others very little and because of that my social skills are dog shit level. I only have 3 friends who I meet about once a month and I don't like them much anyways, I view them as weak in their mindset and they don't really care about me so why should I. In fact, one of the main reasons why I have only these 3 so called friends is because I have very high standarts. I can allways find something I don't like about someone, but it's not like I am arrogant. I hate myself too, because I give in to pleasures myself and don't like myself as a person anyways, lazy af. Another reason why I hate socializing is because I was bullied a lot as a kid for many years and I believe it gave me a trauma which is social phobia. I tend to be afraid of what others will think of me when I do anything near people. I can't look people in the eyes because I am afraid and often start loosing my senses(feel heavy) when even walking past people.
Hobbies I do have some. I like bodybuilding, playing various musical instruments, watching movies/anime, making really shitty(for purpose, because I find low quality stuff funny for some reason) short movies, learning psychology. I am not too passionate about any of them though. I do all of them at hobby level, nothing professional. Speaking of profession, I study IT(very broad subject. I won't go in to specifics, because I fear I might be telling a bit too much about myself). I find IT interesting a bit, but never was passionate about it. I only started learning it because my parents thought I would like to work in IT because of me being very introverted and the only subjects at school that I was sorta good at where math and physics, though I never was great at it, I was just good, nothing more, nothing less. I spent most of my time in classes either drawing stupid meme shit in my notes just for laughs or playing games on my phone secretly, or playing with lego which I took to my school too (till age 15 lol), so no wonder I wasn't great at anything(thank God now I actually try to study something, I don't do that anymore). I still learn the profesion time to time, but I am not pasionate in it, however I know it will pay me well if I manage to get a job in it and it's not like I hate learning it, it's just that I am not pationate in it. Speaking of passion, I would love to become either a musician or movie director, or an actor. However I realise that to make money in the music industry is quite hard, becoming a movie director is like winning the lottery and becoming an actor.. Idk, nothing impossible, I am not quite sure why i haven't tried it. **//
Ok, let's talk more about the functions and stop talking about shit that doesn't really have to do much with mbti. I suppose I get a bit lonely sometimes so I start talking a lot about myself because lack of socializing and humans after all are social creatures.
So I belive my Ti is high, because I tend to do things rationally which make sense to me. I am a slow thinker. I will invest a lot of time to understand something until I understand it completly, unless the thing I have to learn isn't usefull for me. I tend to talk with long pauses and usually finish doing things slower than most (any kind of test, reading, writing). In sense it's a big insecurity of mine being a slow thinker and slow person in general. I get jelous at others being able to do something faster than me, it makes me feel inferiour. However, I am not stupid. I have done an IQ test a couple of times on different sites (I know most of them aren't that accurate also lol, but I did them on most well known and highest rated free ones) and it wasn't lower than average. I think being a slow person has either more to do with my ADD or ???Si???(guessing).
My Si is, I guess, high too I believe because of me being able to work out in bodybuiling and eating the same meals for the past few years. However I am not quite sure if that is a Si thing because what I just described is discipline and everyone should have it. Because someone actually can stay consistent in what they are doing doesn't mean they have high Si, it just means they have discipline. Si as a function, from what I've read, is comparing past to tense. I am not quite sure if I do it often, never gave it much though. However I think I do have some Si anyways because I seriosly doubt I have any Se within me because I don't enjoy doing anything physical really. I am bad at sports and my coordination is shit. However I might be wrong about Se too, don't know if clumsiness has to do much with Se anyways.
My Fe is used a lot I think, though I think it's underdeveloped. I fear what others think of me, but I doubt that has much to do with Fe anyways. Let's be fair, everyone cares somewhat what others think of them. I don't like to hurt others, because I understand how I would want to be threated by others and threat them the same way I want to be threated unless I don't like them or they do something which either annoys me or hurts me.
My Ne is used a bit too I suppose, but idk really. I like to imagine funny scenarious sometimes. For example, I might imagine walking inside a room and my head exploding for no absoulte reason or me becoming a giant and start running around city scaring people. Though anyone could imagine such silly things and I don't think you need high Ne for shit like that. Ne's tend to be said creative, but I am not quite sure what are the requirements for a person to supposidly be creative. I've also read some people say that Ne is good at improvising which I don't believe to be.
All in all, I think all of my functions except Ti ar probably underdeveloped (if I'm ISFJ, then Si is an exception too I guess) because I am mentally not quite healthy from my lack of socializing. And MBTI as a whole is a flawed system. I've heard Jordan Peterson criticise it in couple of videos.
I would appreciate any opinion and I am sorry for making this post such a mess, it's very unorgonized and my language and grammar has some errors, english isn't my native language and I am too lazy to fix all these typos. If any questions arise, ask me and I will answer them.
Also yes, I did create a brand new reddit account just to post this anonymously lol.

Salut tout le monde ! J’aimerais avoir votre avis sur une situation bien que je connaisse sûrement la réponse.
Je suis un homme de 23ans, au mois de novembre j’ai rencontré une femme (23 ans) on s’est connus par insta car c’était une période où je voyageais pas mal (fin de master) , on parlait énormément de voyages et le contact est super bien passé. Elle s’était intéressée à moi comme personne ne l’avais fait.
On s’est mis en couple très rapidement (c’était plus une volonté de sa part, je voulais prendre mon temps), après s’être vus quelques fois. On était de Paris. Puis, j’ai été recruté par une entreprise du transport aérien dans le sud et j’ai dû déménager.
La relation se passait bien, on s’appelait bcp, on se donnait de l’intérêt pour chacun et je remontais très souvent sur Paris. J’aimais énormément ce qu’elle me donnait surtout sur le point de vu affectif, je suis quelqu’un qui aime bien tout ça, tout ce qui est romantique etc et pour le coup elle aussi. On partageait bcp de loisir ensemble aussi. Puis j’étais assez seul dans cette nouvelle ville, donc ça m’aidait bcp. Pour l’anecdote mon travail me permet de voyager avec un partenaire de voyage et je me voyais faire le tour du monde avec (j’ai bien été bête lol)
Puis, j’ai du cesser de monter quelques semaines à cause de mes occupations (déménagement etc..), mais on avait organiser plein d’activités pour mon retour. Malheureusement, vers mi février, d’une semaine à l’autre, elle a commencer « à émettre des doutes », sur « sa capacité à pourvoir assumer la relation », qu’elle avait peur par rapport à ses études, que ça lui rappelait la fin de son ancienne relation (j’étais sa deuxième) le fait d’être à distance.. (il avait déménagé pour ses études et l’a largué par SMS) J’ai eu l’impression qu’elle se cherchait des excuses, mais j’ai tenté de la rassurer.
Le problème, c’est que j’ai montrer une certaine insécurité émotionnelle, à ce moment, je lui ai montré une immense peur de la perdre. Pendant cette semaine nous n’avions pas bcp communiquer, et je me souviens que j’attendais comme un malade ses messages, alors qu’avant ce n’était absolument pas le cas, parce que je pensais avoir le « contrôle ». Puis, on s’est retrouvés rapidement dans Paris (après 4 semaines sans s’être vus) et la aussi j’avais l’air totalement insecure, je faisais la gueule et paraissait tout sensible au lieu de profiter de ce moment. Le lendemain, elle me largue, par sms, me disant en gros « qu’elle n’est plus épanouie » qu’elle voit bien qu’elle ne peut plus me donner ce que « je veux » On se souhaite le meilleur et on se remercie pour les moment passés ensemble.
Sur le coup c’est dur, mais j’accepte, quelques heures après je cherche tout de même à avoir des explications, même si au fond de moi je les voyais juste comme des excuses. Deux semaines passent, puis elle partage un voyage avec ses amies, ce qui m’a rendu fou, parce que je voulais tant le faire avec elle. Puis j’ai commencé à la stalker, à lui envoyer des messages du style « Untel a liker ta photo c’est lui ta nouvelle target » etc, etc.., des phrases de rageux quoi. Je relaisse couler, et quelques semains après , je refait la même erreur, et je vois qu’elle interagit avec quelqu’un, et pareil je me remets à lui dire des trucs du style « tu m’as mentie tu est partie pour quelqu’un d’autre etc, tu rendras des comptes blabla.. » Elle a fini par me bloquer.
C’était la première fois de ma vie que je réagissais comme ca, j’avais déjà vécu des ruptures, mais jamais de cette façon. J’avais l’ego / cœur brisé (je l’ai tjrs mais ça va bcp mieux)
Alors voilà, STB d’avoir envoyé des messages comme ça ? STB de l’avoir stalker alors que j’aurais du juste continuer à faire ma vie malgré la déprime?
Avec le recul je me rends compte que c’était ridicule et que je n’aurais peut être pas du mettre autant d’énergie dans une relation de deux mois car il y’a toujours le risque que ça ne fonctionne pas…
Vous pouvez être dur si il le faut les claques ça fait du bien pour rebondir Merci à vous !!!

This year we are heading to Kansas City and the surrounding region for our annual 4th of July beer and baseball trip and looking for some breweries and beer stores to check out. Here are the cities we are hitting:

• Kansas City Royals - Kansas City, MO
• Kansas City Monarchs - Kansas City, KS
• Lincoln Saltdogs - Lincoln, NE
• Omaha Storm Chasers - Omaha, NE
• Iowa Cubs - Des Moines, IA

Any suggestions for some can't miss breweries and beer stores?

"It hit me from out of the blue. Breaking me out of the spell I was in, Making all of my wishes come true" -Joey Scarbury, Believe It Or Not, 1981

"Police!!!" Anastasia chimed. "I love this song...every li'l thing...she does is tragic...hanging my umbrella...But its always you that ends up getting..."
"That isn't the words." Cynthia glared.
"At least I'm not a prude." Anastasia shoved her friend playfully.
The two girls had walked into Belly's Arcade of the Lloyd Center Mall. They had escaped the thundering cloudburst outside as the storm predicted on the radio finally hit Portland with nearly two inches of rain on the way. The downpour could be heard above the sounds of games like Defender, Tempest and Galaga.
"Let's play Mizz Packa Mon." Anastasia deepened her voice and made a beeline for her favorite game. She had an entire roll of quarters burning a hole in her pocket. Cynthia just came to watch. Her five dollars was spent earlier when the two girls had gone to see Clash of the Titans. They stopped at the machine named Ms. Pac-Man and Anastasia got right into it, lining up some quarters atop it. "I can't believe nobody was in line for our girl."
"There is Raymond." Cynthia was looking around for the older boy. He was playing something else instead. His high-score on Ms. Pac-Man, of 633,580, was unbeatable and he had lost interest, apparently.
"Just because he goes to Lincoln, doesn't make him smart. This is the best game ever and it will always be the best game ever. In fact, he is very stupid." Anastasia said as she played the game. "He should ask me out, but he is too stupid."
To this last comment, both girls giggled.
Cynthia soon quoted: "He's equipped with the right brains and education, but wholly out of the habit of using them."
"Clark Ashton Smith?" Anastasia guessed which one of Cynthia's Poe's quotes that one was.
"Lovecraft." Cynthia said dreamily.
"Yeah right." Anastasia rolled her eyes and lost a life. "Raymond." she said with the same dreamy tone-of-voice and pointed at the teenager behind them with her thumb.
"What?" Cynthia asked defensively.
"I heard from my dad that all your favorite authors were creepy in real-life." Anastasia teased.
"No he wasn't." Cynthia got more defensive. She decided to leave Anastasia standing there and go talk to Raymond; because her friend had upset her with that comment.
She went over to the older boy and watched him playing the new game. It was called Polybius. Cynthia recognized this as Greek for something, but wasn't sure what it meant.
"It is booked." Raymond noticed her standing there. "Go play Ms. Pac-Man. Its all yours."
Cynthia stood there, transfixed by the flashing graphics. It was like no other game she had ever seen before. Polybius was a puzzle-shooter with intense graphics and detailed animation and had beautiful theme-music and smooth game play.
Polybius was like a window to another world; where blocks were hit with a beam controlled by the player and moved or destroyed at will. Some fell slow while others fell fast, trying to assemble something that looked like a boat. But Raymond had done it and another level began. This time a castle was shown and then it flew apart into the different blocks and he began controlling the beam to assemble that object next. Some blocks didn't fit and he could blow them up. If he made a mistake the block would reappear and fall faster. Some of the unfit blocks gave out power ups or extra lives as a reward. The beam could split, with the power-ups, or become a net or move quicker across the screen. The music was surreal and ethereal and the graphics made it look intense and mature. She couldn't look away.
"What is this game?" Cynthia asked, mesmerized.
"Polybius." Raymond said simply. His usual superlicious tone was gone. He sounded charmed and attentive. Like he was saying "Jesus saves and all is forgiven."
"Its so gnarly." Cynthia agreed, echoing the reverence in her own voice.
"It is gnarly, isn't it?" Raymond was losing on level three of the game but suddenly a knight appeared on the bottom of the screen, like a cartoon character, and blocked a number of the fast falling blocks with his shield before saluting the player with his sword. Then the apparition was gone.
"Did you see that?" Raymond was amazed. "I got that power up earlier but I couldn't use it until I got here. I had to hit a block with the same edges, the rounded edges. Look, there is another one."
"For the next level?" Cynthia grasped the mechanic quickly.
"Yes but I haven't gotten that far. In level two it is a fisherman with a net for the rounded block from level one. Gnarly, huh?"
"So." Cynthia nodded, wide-eyed.
Raymond lost his last life and the screen went back to the title screen after showing his new high-score. It was just a list of numbers, anonymous.
"No initials input?" Cynthia frowned.
"That's the only part that's bogus. The rest of the game rules." Raymond looked at her. He was done playing and offered her his spot. Some other boys made disapproving grunts and comments. They were waiting nearby to play Polybius next after Raymond.
Raymond ceremoniously put in two quarters off of the machine where he had left them and then stepped aside for her.
"Ladies first." Cynthia was grinning as she began to play Polybius at the head of the line. She only got to the beginning of the second level on her first attempt before she too had failed to assemble the boat, as that level came to be called. She had made the word 'Polybius' of the first level but the boat level was much more difficult. In fact, on that first day, only Raymond beat the boat level and only he and Cynthia even knew that level three was a castle, as nobody else had seen his eventual defeat.
Raymond pulled his hood on and left Belly's at a quarter past five. He walked all the way home thinking about the gnarly new game Polybius. At home his step father slurred some pedantic platitudes about homework that sounded like he was congratulating his step son for failing at life, while he himself was drunk on the couch. Raymond's mother was in the kitchen making some meatloaf for dinner.
Raymond went to his room where posters of Kool & The Gang were across from REO Speedwagon. Raymond liked all of it, loved life, in general. The girls weren't his thing. He stared at guys, always wondering if there was actually something wrong with that. He had plenty of girlfriends, all the girls liked him, but he just didn't feel it for them. He kicked off his shoes and wondered if he would ever be some kind of hero. He felt like he would, someday be alright. Just not today. He put on his headphones and listened to his favorite: Ray Parker Jr.
He wished Ray was his dad instead of Mel. He hated Mel almost as much as Mel hated Raymond. Sleep overtook him and he missed the call for dinner. His dreams were of the blocks, forming into something strange. It was a field, a plane, a world and it was full of light and the important sounding and mystical game music. Cynthia and her friend Anastasia were lost and he was trying to guide them out like in a Pac-Man maze of some kind. But fell through the tiled floor and vanished into the darkness. He awoke with a strange feeling, like those kids were in some kind of trouble. He looked at the clock: three AM. He couldn't sleep, insomnia had him tossing and turning, the awful feeling gnawing at him.
The next day was Saturday and the world was soaked from the thunderstorm the day before. He trudged out in the mud puddles and arrived at Belly's as they opened. He went in and stared at Polybius. Then he put in a couple quarters and started playing.
On level four there was a pyramid and a winged snake helped him from the block he had unlocked it from in the castle. Level five was a tree but he got no help and level six was a bridge, London bridge maybe. He had played for an hour to get this far and some onlookers watched in silence as he got to level seven with just two quarters. It was a staircase and he got help from Cinderella. She carried blocks back up the steps, her animation the best sofar of the animated characters. Then she lost her glass slipper and vanished.
Abba was playing The Winner Takes It All and he finally lost before beating level seven. The contrast between the arcade's music and the game's music was an odd blend but the game was louder, standing in front of it. Each level had its own theme music and each was more haunting and beautiful than the last.
He only had two quarters and had played like his life depended on it. His high score of seventy thousand was twice what he had gotten the previous day and nobody else even compared. No initials on any of the scores, but everyone who was anybody at Belly's knew whose score was at the top.
He turned up his collar as a quiet applause went up as he left to go do something else with the rest of his day. He saw the girls walking by and they were alright, none of the horror he had felt.
Raymond got a Big Mac and a Coke and was eating on the outdoor pavilion after wiping up the seat with some napkins, still wet from the shower. He heard an ambulance siren and watched as Belly's had a visit. Concerned, he went over an discovered that it was one of the girls: Anastasia, she had some kind of seizure while playing Polybius. Raymond felt sick. He saw her friend Cynthia standing there crying.
"You okay?" he asked her while Kenny Rogers sang I Don't Need You like nothing had happened.
"No, she fell over and she was shaking and stiff. Is she going to live? They took her to the hospital." Cynthia was trembling with fear.
"It could be epilepsy." Raymond sounded smart all-of-sudden. He tried to hug her but she frowned and stepped back.
Not knowing why, Cynthia punched his shoulder and ran away crying.
Raymond went into Belly's and looked at the game. Everyone had gone. Polybius stood there asking for another player. Under the title it read: Sinneslöschen and he wondered what this was.
He went to look it up in the phone book but found nothing there. All weekend he felt troubled by what had happened to Anastasia. Then the phone rang and his mom picked it up.
"Raymond it's for you." she said: "it's a girl." she mouthed.
"Hello." Raymond took the phone, stretching the curly cord around the corner out of the kitchen. Mel was asleep on the couch while the Bulldogs played against the Volunteers on the television.
"Its Cynthia. I am sorry I hit you. Anastasia just called me from her hospital room, she will be fine." Cynthia apologized. "My mom said you can come over for dinner if you want to. We are having spaghetti."
"I will come over." Raymond promised, forgetting to confirm where she lived; he was only mostly sure she lived in the blue house on the corner. He had already hung up as Mel stirred and looked at him.
"Gonna go fag it up?" Mel asked.
"I am gonna go have dinner at Cynthia's. Her mom is making spaghetti" Raymond defended himself and left his parents. It was dark out already when he got there. He had recalled correctly where she lived and the whole family was there to greet him.
He ate dinner with her and her folks and their dog before he managed to say goodnight. Her dad liked him even though he was too old for Cynthia. He had whispered to his wife that Raymond was a good kid.
He walked home and on the way he was startled by a vision of the winged snake from Polybius. It crawled out at him and spit a fireball like in the game.
Very frightened he ran the rest of the way home and when he got inside he ran up to his room. His heart was racing in terror at what he had seen.
On Monday he had The Alan Parsons Project's Prime Time stuck in his head. He had that song on his mind all week. Raymond often associated his experiences with different music that he liked. He avoided Belly's but strange rumors and activities kept contrasting his absence.
Other players got to level seven and beyond. He had asked his friends Joel and Cassie, who were both there when it happened, what level Dwayne Rodriguez was on when he had hit the floor. Level eight was a tree while nine was a flying saucer. Then Dwayne had simply stopped playing and walked around the arcade humming the theme from level seven. Each level had a different soundtrack, all of them very haunting and beautiful melodies that sounded like a great legend was underway. Sweet and insistent the music alone had a strange effect on the player. The images of animated characters helping the player from previous levels efforts and the rest of the gameplay made the whole experience almost like being in another world entirely.
Dwayne was dazed and walked around just humming Cinderella's theme before he fainted and fell to the floor. Joel had taken over the game but had quickly lost. A player needed to try harder with each level and it was hard to jump into a hot game without warming up. Polybius took the player on a journey into an intense and pleasurable place, like a ballroom of wondrous harmonies.
"But you got to level ten first, Dwayne had almost beat level nine." Cassie nudged her boyfriend.
"I don't remember. It all happened so fast. I just remember Dwayne and the saucer level and the tree level."
"Level five was the tree level." Raymond interjected, recalling this detail.
"That is right, after the staircase it was a volcano. A dinosaur waved its tiny little arms and then chomped the bad bricks for you." Cassie recalled.
"Was anyone else there, like Cynthia or Anastasia?" Raymond sounded concerned. He'd had more dreams of them falling like the bricks while in a weird arcade landscape from Polybius.
"I really don't remember much." Joel apologized, holding his head.
"They weren't there." Cassie confirmed.
The next day Raymond went back to Belly's with some quarters. He knew what he had to do.
He saw Dwayne sitting on a bench watching the arcade and he walked over to him before he went in.
"You okay? I heard you got really far and then had a problem."
"I don't remember anything from that day." Dwayne sounded worried. "It is all just a blank. People told me what happened but it is all...its all gone up here." he pointed to his head.
"I am gonna beat it. Somebody has got to beat that game." Raymond looked up from where he had his hand on Dwayne's shoulder.
He went into Belly's where Mark and Sean where shoving each other and about to come to blows. They were fighting over who's turn it was to play Polybius and the crowd was urging them to fight or not fight. There was confusion.
Then a kid named Eglantine with her pigtails pointed and shouted:
"Look, Raymond, everybody!"
He walked through the parting crowd as Styx's Too Much Time On My Hands started playing. He walked between the two boys who were glad they were done fighting over who was next to play. He got to the machine and started it up with his quarters. The crowd was watching as Raymond started to play Polybius.
It felt like the game had waited for him. Its music drowned out the music playing in the arcade and it felt like something very epic and important was happening.
"Raymond, be careful!" it was Anastasia.
"You got this, man!" Joel encouraged him.
Level by level he played. The first level he spelled out 'Polybius' and then on level two he built the boat. Brick by brick he put together the castle and the pyramid and then on the tree level he got help from a druid nobody had ever seen before. He threw lightning bolts that flashed across the screen and in one instant all the fast-falling blocks slowed and the bad blocks exploded, many of them with extra lives and other goodies. The crowd cheered.
The bridge level had a Queen's Guard show up and stare at all the blocks, slowing them. He winked and shot just one block with an extra life. Cinderella helped on the staircase of level seven and then level eight started, the volcano. Here Raymond lost a couple lives but he got past it. The flying saucer was next and he beat it as well, although it was a hard level and he got no help from any aliens showing up. Everyone had guessed an alien would be the character helper on level nine but hardly anyone had gotten this far and nobody had seen it.
Then level ten started and it was a meditating elephant headed statue of a god of some kind. The helper was a multi-armed monkey with a crown, that caught blocks and hurled them three-dimensionally, as though towards the player, where they detonated in flashes of light and gave up all sorts of new power-ups.
When the sunken ship level started, Raymond had so many power-ups still going that he breezed through it and didn't get the next helper. He might have needed it because level twelve was the moon and it kept changing phases making it very challenging as the puzzle on the screen changed as he assembled it. He lost all but one of his remaining lives.
Then another level began and to everyone watching it seemed to be the last. It was a ruined skyscraper with fiery skies behind it. An angel arrived to help and deflected enough blocks to save the day. Raymond seemed to have beaten the game. It started again at the first level of Polybius but no blocks fell. Instead the game prompted for his name and the blocks he could use the beam on had letters for him to assemble his name with.
Raymond entered his name, all seven letters and not just his initials, but his whole first name. Then the screen went black. He turned around with sweat beaded across his forehead and he looked pale.
Everyone was staring at him in awe as he staggered out the door and outside where it was growing dark. He kept walking and disappeared down the street, heading home presumably.
He was in class the next morning when he was next seen again, but he stared absently out the window. He felt weird, knowing he had beaten Polybius and that it was still sitting there at Belly's with its screen all dark. Nothing the owner could do would turn it back on. It was dead, the game was dead. He'd won, but he couldn't remember it.
Except in his dreams and even in his daydreams. It was there all around him as he sat there. All the world was Polybius and nothing else mattered. Everyone was in awe of him at first, but began to leave him alone as he became withdrawn and unresponsive.
Time marched by and he somehow kept up with school but felt nothing, noticed nothing. Only Polybius was with him as he sat alone.
Senior year was when Anastasia became a freshman at Lincoln and was seen with him everywhere he went. She spoke for him and told people he was just feeling quiet, that was all.
One day he felt somewhat lucid and noticed she was sitting there on the bench with him outside of Belly's Arcade.
"Is it still in there?" he asked his constant companion.
"They came and took it away, these guys in black suits and sunglasses." she informed him of the fate of Polybius.
"You've gotten older." he noted Anastasia there.
"So have you, your hair turned gray." she said matter-of-factly.
"What are we doing here?" he asked slowly.
"We walk here every day and sit here. I sit with you and make sure you are alright." she told him carefully.
"Why?" he wondered.
Anastasia hadn't heard this many words from him all year since she started high school and her eyes watered with tears of relief and she said:
"To thank you. Everyone else leaves you alone here, but I remember falling, and you caught me. So...so thank you..."

hello, so a bit of a long post, but i feel like i need to explain a bit while i ask for some opinions!
so i’m currently on a waiting list for a professional autism diagnosis, but in my area it’s going to take roughly 2-3 years to be able to speak to someone, and if i go down a ‘private’ route they might not consider it as a ‘proper’ diagnosis. (thanks nhs)
i suffer with quite bad insomnia, and i’m pretty sure it’s related to the likelihood of having autism, as i struggle to ‘turn my brain off’ at night and always feel switched on. i’ve tried everything— a hot bath before bed, a massage, turning off phones and screens 4 hours before bed, i have permanent blue light glasses, same time to go to sleep, completely quiet room, no light, white noise etc. nothing worked. it got really bad a couple of years ago to the point i’d developed cyclic vomiting syndrome from the lack of sleep— i’d spend a whole night wide awake, get through the next day, and spend the rest of the night being sick. pass out on the third. rinse and repeat. in desperation the doctor prescribed me amitriptyline which worked great at first. made me feel drowsy when i never have before. but over the months, i’ve had to up my dose. i’m now on 40mg, just upped by 10 again, and still feel no different. exhausted in the day and taking hours just to fall asleep. it caused a bit of an issue with work where i had to take time off sick, which i tried the only other tablet they‘d give me, which did not work (fun having the withdrawal for nothing, as i had to go back on it again just to sleep. would take about 4-6 hours to get an hour sleep. two max.)
so onto my main issue, and question. i recently spoke to my doctor about how i think it’s linked to autism, and how i’ve seen a lot of people say melatonin helps. i know it’s not a fix it, but i’m desperate yet again. i cant work when i can barely sleep. feel overwhelmed with basic tasks in general, but lack of sleep makes everything so much worse. dr practically said until you’re diagnosed there’s nothing we can do. even if it’s 3 years. & that melatonin can only be prescribed by a specialist ONCE you’re diagnosed, can’t even be discussed.
based on this— i know there’s supplements you can buy, but what does anyone else think? what would you suggest? is melatonin worth it? i feel like i’m out of options and have no clue what to do. i cant wait two or three years without anything. in the last year i’ve doubled my dose of amitriptyline and if i’m honest i didn’t even want to be on them in the first place. ive had this problem since i was young, too, before screen time was a thing.
thanks for anyone that takes the time to read and comment! 🙏🏻

Hi everyone! I’m quite new here.. I have posted a couple of times in the last few weeks 😌 I would like you to share your hair loss story ! In particular: - how old were you when it started ? - how long did you wait before starting treatment and what treatment you did/ do ? - what has worked and what hasn’t ? - how old are you today and how is your hair situation today?
I am 33 yo. I have started to lose my hair one year ago after Covid. I have been wrongly diagnosed with TE 4 times by 4 different doctors. I have always suffered from mild hirsutism so I did not believe the diagnosis as I felt it was aga. My testosterone has always been slightly above the range. Just recently (two weeks ago)been diagnosed with AGA. My regime: I have started with spironolactone 50mg and topical 4%minox, capillus pro lllt hat and rosemary oil/scalp massage everytime before washing my hair. My diet was pretty good but I’me improving it even more, cutting down carbs and drinking loads of green tea/spearmint tea. My alopecia is still mild but I have lost much density on the top and sides. I will give you an update in few months!
Now is your turn to tell me your stories :) I would love to hear from you all. This problem is killing my mental health, but this community is giving me hope and strength.
Thank you ! Nicole

Kathy Evenson, Strangely Reluctant
Kathy looked at the large wooden box on the second entertainment center, where it had been for the past several years.
"I guess you don't really even need this anymore," she said. Nick put his hands on his hips and stared at it.
"I guess I don't. Weird, I never even thought about it until right now..."
"I don't know what to do with it," she said. She opened the door and looked inside. The outside was decorated, with channels cut into the wood in the shape of Celtic knots along the edges and a nice, dark stain that matched the rest of the furniture. But the inside was where most of the work had been done.
A cushioned 'chair' with no feet and thick arms sat in the middle of one wall. A microphone stretched out in front, with the cable leading to a stack of small plastic boxes in the corner. Across from it, a twenty-seven-inch computer monitor was mounted to the other wall. A calendar of nude pin-ups hung on the wall next to it, only this calendar was made of regular printing paper and had been scaled down to about a third of the usual size. One of the pages had not been lined up with the others when the spine was stapled together and it stood out like a sore thumb. On the other side of the television, a piece of black-dyed leather, the edges singed and scratched, was mounted in a glass display case with an ornate wood frame. The glass had a circle with a diagonal line through it drawn on it in red sharpie by a truly sloppy hand.
Along the back wall, a series of tiny, plastic robotic arms stood, each one a child's project bought from the toy store. They each had wires leading into the stack of plastic boxes, as well. Each could be controlled by voice commands. Between them were smaller storage boxes with big, bulbous handles on the top-opening lids for the robotic arms to easily grasp.
Nick stepped up next to her and peered inside.
"Maybe I'll just get my stuff out of it," he muttered. "Then we can trash the rest."
"Yeah," Kathy said. "Seems a shame, though. Lya and I worked a lot on your box."
"You could donate the arms and Raspberry Pi's to one of the schools down in Baltimore," Nick suggested. "Probably the monitor, too."
Kathy thought about that. "I guess we could do that. The school would appreciate it. Are you sure you don't want it?"
Nick winced. "I won't have room, I don't think. My new place is an efficiency."
"Have you gotten furniture, yet?" Kathy asked. Nick shook his head. "Not really, just a bed and a television. I won't have room for much more."
Kathy sighed and turned. "Are you sure you want to do this? I mean, Lya and I are happy to have you for a while longer. I know money's tight for you right now..."
"Yeah, I'm sure," Nick said. "A cot on your bedroom floor suits me well enough, but I've walked in on you guys getting freaky twice now, and that's just awkward. It'll keep happening until I move out, and I'd rather not get to the point where you're getting pissed at me."
"Nick," Kathy deadpanned. "There is nothing you could do in the future that would compare to the shit I've already forgiven you for."
"Fair enough. But allow me to channel Sookie for a moment and point out that I know exactly what your butthole looks like when you're having an orgasm."
Kathy winced. That was actually a great argument. She was perfectly cool with him living here, fine hanging out and talking, even happy getting out of the house and doing stuff with Nick. But him having any knowledge of her sex life was creepy as shit, even if she trusted him not to do anything creepy. At least, to never again do anything creepy.
But the fact that she wasn't flashing back to the day she'd met him, so many years ago, was a good thing. The words he'd spoken, the sensations of him abusing her... Once, those things had lived rent free in her head. These days, she had to make an effort to recall them, and she was beginning to doubt if she'd retain them for much longer. They'd gotten fuzzier to the point that she had to fill in the gaps with reasoning.
She looked him up and down and didn't see the psychotic priest of an evil god. She didn't see a rapist, a bully, a murderer. She saw a werewolf.
Nick reminded her so much of a story she'd read many years ago, when she was still a teenager. It had been about a werewolf, but it was not a horror story. It followed the man on the day following one of his changes, as he dealt with the consequences of what he'd done. That story, whose name she couldn't even recall, had made an enormous impact on her. People who had done bad things and had to live with the guilt of that, she thought of them as werewolves, now. Nick, Glenda, even Jerry. They were all werewolves, in her mind.
"You could postpone it for a few weeks, build up some more cash. Hell, if you got your security deposit back, you might even be able to get a nicer apartment." But Nick started shaking his head even before she'd finished.
"I've got some money left over, still," he said. "It's not about the initial cost, but the rent. I'm trying to keep it cheap, so as to save money."
"You could save money by staying here," Lya said from where she'd been sitting on the couch, ignoring the rest of them.
"This is a one bedroom apartment," Nick said. "Buttholes, remember?"
"I will show you my butthole right now if you will agree to stay for another month," Lya said. "Just to put an end to this drama."
Both Kathy and Nick rounded on her, Nick unconsciously copying Kathy's pose. Hands on hips, chin thrust forward, brows drawn down. It was a pose Kathy had picked up from her father, and which Nick must have seen often enough during their talks that he was doing it himself, now that he had a body to do it with.
Lya laughed. Kathy turned to Nick. "Maybe you could stay with my parents? They have the spare room."
Nick gave her an incredulous look. "Oh, yeah, I can see that now. 'Hi, Mr and Mrs Evenson. Remember when your daughter was kidnapped and brutally, sexually abused by a psychopathic doomsday cult? Well, I was the cult leader. And now I've come to live with you!' "
He finished with a bright smile and a little wave that made Kathy chuckle at the ridiculousness of it. "Okay, fair point," she said.
Lya shook her head. "Tsss, vous avez vraiment aucune gêne," she said. Kathy turned back to her.
"Je te l'ai déjà dit, ça fait partie du processus," she said patiently. "C'est nécessaire pour guérir."
Lya nodded. "Je sais bien. Mais vous avez quand même des conversations super bizarres."
Kathy chuckled and admitted "Heh, c'est vrai."
Lya got a twinkle in her eye. "Non mais sinon, je peux lui montrer mon trou."
Kathy's eyes lit up with mischief as well, and she replied innocently, "Si tu en as tant envie que ça..."
"Je rigole," Lya laughed. Nick took a step forward and stammered out his best attempt at joining the conversation. "Nous aimons, uh... Nous avons nécessaire de parler ça," he said. Kathy blinked, her brain not translating that right away, but Lya simply raised a finger, wagging it at Nick in the way she did whenever either of them said something wrong.
"Tu peux dire 'Nous avons besoin d'en parler.' Ou alors 'C'est nécessaire d'en parler'," she said mildly.
Nick muttered "Nous avons besoin d'en parler," to himself as Kathy addressed Lya.
"Sinon, tu pourrais le prendre par les sentiments pour qu'il reste. En le faisant culpabiliser un peu, ça devrait marcher."
Lya's face went blank.
"Juste un petit peu?" Kathy asked. Lya shook her head, instead. "Si c'est ce qu'il veut faire, autant le laisser," she said.
Kathy sighed. "I know," she said, returning to English. She looked at Nick again. "Let's just leave the box here for now. You can take your stuff out, and we'll figure out what to do with it later, okay?"
"Sounds good," Nick said. He reached in and grabbed the calendar, flipping the pages back to January. The pin-up was a redhead with a pixie cut, completely nude and with her ankles crossed behind her head. Kathy had made the calendar for Nick last year, as a present. It had been a homemade white elephant gift from this past Christmas from Sookie. Nick had actually been delighted to get it, and spoke for days about decorating his box like an auto shop to make it fit in better.
He gave the image a good look, then folded it shut and tucked it into a pocket. "That's all I really want for now. The beanies and that little wand Sookie made me can keep for a bit."
Kathy shook her head at the mention of the wand. "You should take the wand."
"No, he should not," Lya said. Kathy rounded on her, one eyebrow quirked.
"Don't look at me like that. It's not like it goes inside you."
"Lya, do you want the wand?" Nick asked.
"Oui," Lya said, never taking her eyes off Kathy.
"Then you can have the wand."
Kathy shook her head again. "You accuse us of having the strangest conversations, yet you just accepted a second-hand masturbation toy from him." Lya grinned.
----
Nick Beaufort, On His Own For the First Time in Years
Nick stuck the calendar to the wall, then sat on the folding chair he'd found in someone's trash and carried here. He had two phone calls to make. One of them would be harder than the other, so he made that one, first.
"What?" Julie Beaufort said by way of greeting. Nick winced. He couldn't blame her for the cold welcome, of course, but it still stung.
"I uh..." he said, then cursed himself silently for not rehearsing.
"You what, Nick?" Julie demanded.
He took a deep breath. "I have a body. I'm not just a disembodied head anymore. And I've gotten a job, too. I have some money now. I want to send it to you, to help Nickie pay for college."
"You're not seeing him," Julie stated flatly.
"I know," Nick said. "I know, I just... I want to help. I'm not asking for anything in return. I just want to know how to get the money to you."
Julie sighed. "Send it via Paypal," she said. She read off an email address and Nick quickly wrote it on his hand with a pen.
"Got it," he said.
"Okay," Julie responded. Silence stretched out for a while. Eventually, Nick couldn't stand it any more.
"All right, I'll let you go. I hope everything's going well for both of you."
"Uh huh," Julie said, then the line went dead. Nick sighed and looked at the Ended Call screen until his phone's display dimmed itself, ready to turn off. He tapped the screen to brighten it back up, then made the second phone call. This one was pretty much the opposite of the first.
"Yo, head-case!" Sookie answered. "What you up to?"
"Watching The Little Mermaid and jerking off," Nick said, his mind already on his goal for this call. He eyed his TV, still in the box.
His phone dinged, so he checked the screen to see that Sookie had turned on her camera and requested a video call. He laughed and accepted. When the screen popped up, he squinted at it in confusion.
"What am I looking at?" he asked. The blurry red shapes on the screen came into focus as the camera was pulled back from Sookie's crotch. Suddenly, it made sense. It was a pussy. Sookie's coloring and the blurriness had been the source of his confusion.
"What's with the t-shirt, buddy?" she asked as her face came into view. "You're gonna get it sticky when you throw ropes on it."
Nick laughed. "I was joking! Jesus, Sookie, calm down!"
Sookie groaned and the view shifted as she placed the phone on her nightstand. She was laying in bed, naked, the mid-day sun on the West Coast playing over her body. Nick started growing a chub at the sight. Sookie was so fucking hot, especially in her normal body, with the scales and the bony plates and the horns...
"I could planewalk to you," she said. "We haven't hooked up since you got a body." The offer was very tempting, but not really what he was after.
"I thought Zelda told you that I'm pretty pathetic in bed," Nick responded. It was true, he knew. This new body had some pretty intense sensations, much more so than he remembered. And he'd put it together without a lot of thought to his dick, so it had come out slightly smaller than his original one. He figured he was just a hair below average now, and was already forming plans to correct it without having to cut it off.
Sookie just shrugged. "Fucking is a skill, and skills can be trained."
"Hah!" Nick laughed. "Maybe I'll take you up on that later. For now, I have a favor to ask."
Sookie sighed. "Fine," she said. "It's probably for the best. I've been edging for a week, getting ready for something. I'm super fucking horny right now." She grabbed the camera and panned it down to her waist, but keeping it at a distance. She was laying on one of those doggy pads, the kinds they sell for older dogs who can't control their bladders, to put on their beds. From what Nick could tell, she would need to change this one, soon.
"Leaking like sieve," Sookie said.
"You ain't doing a very good job of convincing me it's for the best to not invite you over for a fisting session," Nick said.
Sookie sucked in a deep breath and closed her eyes as she put the phone back. "I'm imagining you grabbing one of my horns and using it to yank my head back while you jam you-" she cut herself off and leaped off the bed.
"Shit, I almost made myself cum," she grumbled.
Nick laughed again. "I better get to the point before you ruin whatever you're holding out for."
"Yes, please," Sookie said. He could see her at the edge of the video, bouncing on her feet and shaking her hands. After a few seconds, she sat down on the edge of the bed and faced him.
"So, I was wondering if I could get Zelda's number off you," he said. Sookie leaned forward, eyes widening.
"Really?" she asked, continuing to move forward until only one blurry eye was visible.
"Yes, really. I had a really good time, last time. I'd like to see her again."
"Dude, you picked her up on the street and paid her three hundred bucks for a blowie and some light domme shit."
"There was more to it than that," Nick objected. Sookie leaned back.
"I know, I know," she said. "She's got that breeding kink, so she made you nut inside her at least once."
"That's not what I meant," Nick said. "We talked for a while in between."
"Oh yeah, refractory period," Sookie said. "The bane of my existence, let me tell you."
"So?" Nick prompted.
Sookie sighed. "Fine, I'll text it to you. I gave her a waterproof case, so it should still be working. But she doesn't usually answer."
"I'll take my chances," Nick said with a grin.
"Okay, I'm gonna hang up now, because if I don't, I'm gonna come over there and make you go down on me."
"What have you been edging for?" Nick asked. Sookie narrowed her eyes, even as a mischievous glint appeared in them.
"Revenge," she said solemnly. Nick laughed again and shook his head. "Okay, and thanks, Sookie."
"No problem. When you guys hook up, stick a finger in her ass and tell her that's from me."
"Will do," Nick said and hung up. A second later, a new text message notification popped up. He clicked on it and looked at the number there, then tapped the number to send it to the phone app and hit the call button.
"Hello?" Zelda's voice answered on the first ring. She sounded confused, but her voice wasn't bubbly or muted, so he thought she might be in the open air.
"Hi, Zelda," Nick said. "It's Nick, the guy from Bronson Boulevard, a few weeks ago."
"Ahh yes, your spawn are little demons who make my life a living hell." Nick blinked at that remark. He wasn't sure how to respond.
"Uhh, I'm sorry?" he offered. Zelda made a dismissive sound. "Do not be. That is a good thing. It means they have a strong spirit, and will likely survive childhood. They will be off on their own in a few months, and I expect most of them will see adulthood."
Nick thought about that and felt some disappointment creeping in.
"So you're pretty busy taking care of them, huh?"
"It is my primary task at the moment, yes."
"So you wouldn't be able to get away and come to the material world for an evening, would you?"
"I have a sister whom I trust not to consume them. Why? Is there some task that needs be done there?"
"Well, I was just... I mean, I had a good time that day. Not just fucking and fooling around, but when we were talking about that convention and NASCAR and stuff."
"Yes, it was an enjoyable conversation," Zelda said. Nick's disappointment began to fade.
"So I was wondering if we could get together again? I could take you out, this time. I don't, uh... I don't have the money to keep paying you like that, that was kind of a one-time splurge, you know? But I'd like to maybe get some coffee or something?"
"I do not drink coffee," Zelda said. Nick sighed. She was a really hard one to get a read on. She talked like a Klingon from Star Trek. All flat, declaratory sentences with no contractions and the only emotion he could ever hear was annoyance or anger, though admittedly, those were rare.
"Well, it doesn't have to be coffee. We could get drinks, or just go to the park and talk, or hang out at my place."
"Very well, that is acceptable," Zelda said and hung up.
He was still looking at his phone, wondering if he should call her back now to actually plan their date when a knock sounded at his door. He turned off the screen and stood, wondering if Sookie's willpower had failed.
When he opened the door, however, he found Kathy and Lya there. Kathy was carrying a chair, and Lya had a box with pictures of a small dining table on it.
"We bought you some furniture," Kathy said. Nick's face split into a grin and he moved out of the way so they could come in.
"There's more in the car," Lya said.
"Thanks, guys," Nick said. "I really appreciate this."
"Well, we figured that if you're going to do this, we could help," Kathy said.
"The Group pays me well," Lya added. "And you are a part of our family, for better or worse. We can't let you live here without furniture."
They put their loads down, then all three of them walked out to Lya's corvette, which had the back hatch open with large boxes sticking out.
"Christ, that must have been hell to drive around with," Nick said, hoisting one of the larger boxes.
"It was fine," Lya said, grabbing another box.
"Except when we were backing out of the parking lot and you almost ran over that old lady," Kathy said. Lya flashed her a look.
"Almost only counts with hand grenades," Lya said. "And besides, my reverse lights were on, and she could see that my rear-view mirror was blocked. She shouldn't have walked behind me."
Nick chuckled as they brought the furniture upstairs. They dropped it off and came back down for the last couple of boxes.
"I can put all this stuff together tomorrow," Nick said. "I had to buy some tools for work, so I've got them in my truck if I need them."
"Nope," Kathy said. "We're putting it together tonight. We've already made plan. We're hooking up your TV first and finding some movies to put on, then we'll put together the furniture, and order pizza for dinner."
Nick grinned at her back as she stepped through his front door ahead of him. He marveled, and not for the first time, how a woman he'd done so much harm to would come to be his closest friend. Her capacity for forgiveness was truly awe-inspiring.
"Is your air conditioner broken?" Lya asked. Nick turned to her and noticed she was sweating. He realized that he was, too, and a quick glance at Kathy confirmed that they all were. "No," he said. "I just hadn't turned it on. I'll get it, now."
"Mon dieu," Lya said, pulling her overshirt off to reveal a tank top underneath. "There's no airflow in here."
"Sorry," Nick said, flipping the AC on and setting the thermostat to seventy-three. "I was living rough for so long that I forgot about stuff like that. I was just sitting here boiling until you said something."
"It'll cool off in a few minutes," Kathy said. She stripped down to her own tank top and Nick thought twice, then muttered "Fuck it," to himself and pulled his own t-shirt off. The cool air from the vents on his skin was refreshing.
"YOU HAD LED ME TO BELIEVE THIS WAS AN EXCLUSIVE AFFAIR!" an angry voice shouted. All three of them spun to find a naked brunette woman with a pixie haircut standing in the open doorway. Her legs were rippling strangely, as if threatening to turn into tentacles.
"Zelda!" Nick gasped. "I didn't expect you..."
"What do you mean? I came here to speak and copulate with you, per your offer to do so. Yet, I have found you undressing with other females! I would not begrudge you the chance to spread your seed, but it is insulting for you to do so in my presence!"
Lya picked her shirt up and pulled it back on quickly. Kathy stood there, her expression of surprise changing to one of amusement.
"You didn't tell us you had plans, Nick," she said.
"I uh... I didn't expect her, uh, you, Zelda, to show up so quickly."
"Did we not just make arrangements over the phone?" Zelda asked.
"We did, but we never specified a time. You just agreed and then hung up."
"Does that not imply that the time is now?"
"She's got you there, Nick," Lya said. Nick groaned.
"Listen, Zelda, they came by unannounced. I ain't planning to fuck either of them, not ever. They're my friends not... Well, not that. They bought me some furniture for my new apartment, and they were going to help me put it together tonight. Listen..." Nick took a deep breath and thought for a second. He thought he caught a whiff of burning gears, but that was normal when he was thinking.
"Okay, I made my plans with you first, so I'll let you decide. We can all watch some movies and put the furniture together and have some pizza, and then they'll go and you and I can do whatever we like. Or, if you insist, I'll ask them to go, even though they just did something nice for me, and you and I can hang out. It's up to you."
Zelda rubbed her chin. "It would be untoward for you to dismiss them after they provided you with a gift. We shall assemble the furniture together, and we will copulate later, after they are gone."
Kathy laughed and clapped her hands once. "It's a plan, then!" she turned, found Nick's fridge and opened it to reveal an unopened twelve pack of Natty Ice. She grabbed bottles out and removed the caps, passing them around.
"Not the way I thought this would go, but nice," she said, offering her bottle up in a toast.
"I am supposed to touch my glass to hers, right?" Zelda asked. Nick nodded and demonstrated. Zelda followed his lead, and then Lya. That done, they all took drinks.
"This is good," Zelda proclaimed after drinking from her beer.
"It's shitty beer," Nick said, "But I developed a taste for it years ago."
"So Zelda," Kathy said. "How've you been? I haven't seen you much the past few years. I know you and Sookie kept in touch, though."
"I am well. The last time I saw Nick, he got me with sixteen spawn, and so far, only one has died."
Nick choked, not having expected her to say it in front of others. Kathy spit her drink out as Lya shouted "SEIZE PUTAIN DE BÉBÉS?!"
"No," Zelda said with a look of confusion. "Fifteen. One died."
Lya dropped her butt onto the bed, almost spilling her beer. "Ne m'appelez pas pour les vacances, je ne m'en occuperais pas," she muttered under her breath.