How much are poinsettias at walmart

So there's this really sweet guy I've been acquainted with for a while now and I kind of got the sense that he is into me too. Long story short, we've been talking now for the past couple of weeks through Instagram and then text. He's a pretty dry texter, but we've maintained having a few short exchanges throughout the day everyday. We went out on one date this past friday and it went so well. We had deep conversations and joked around a lot. While we were out he was talking about going out again and later that night we texted briefly and I mentioned that I'd like to see him again and right away he suggested next week.
In all my past dealings with guys, I've usually been the one to text less. I myself am a boring texter and I'm not good at keeping up with my phone which I will usually share with the other party right off the bat, because it's not always indicative of how I feel about them. I just prefer in person or over the phone and don't want to learn everything about a person through text. But recognizing that this is how most people connect and show their interest, I wanted to adapt a little. This is the first time I'm on the other side and I definitely got in my head. I thought it might be worthwhile to bring it up, by simply asking how what his usual texting style is. On the one hand, I don't want to be overthinking things when his messages are one way and our in person interactions are another. On the other hand, I want to know what he likes and doesn't like and share my style too.

When I saw posts here. I really wanted to have a happy situation to tell. But as of 3 1/2 hours ago I got rejected. I'll start top to bottom of my day. But first Backstory. I've been loving the heck out of this girl since 7th grade and we are now sophomores. At the Beginning of Freshman year, I asked my friend who did have her number If I could have it. (I could at that point never have done it myself.) Finally last day of Freshman year I texted here saying
"Hey -----! This is ----, I got your number from a friend. Just wanted to say Hello! We've been waving in the hallway and such all year. But how's life going? How have you been doing this year? Anyways just saying hi right now and I hope to see you next year!"
I sent this May 26th and didn't get a response and I decided to make sure I had the right number even
Hey! it's me ----. Is this -----'s phone number? Just wondering.
Then about 4 hours ago I got a response finally.
Sorry, wrong number. Please stop texting this number.
My heart sank. I truly was in denial I went to my friend that gave me the number and I asked him Did I get the right number like is that ----- -----------'s number? and he said
"Yes it is."
And I just broke down crying I haven't done anything but sit in silence I don't think I've said a single word accept insulting myself while crying. I have been building up this day and putting many things of my very small attention size due to ADHD to the side for this and I'm just defeated... I don't know what to do. What doesn't help is that earlier today I put down my dog that has been in the family for 14 years (he was a 19 year old Labrador) I've known him all my life and I've put that guy down. I've known this girl since pre school and this relationship Is either put down or will never be the same. Idk what to do. I have nothing to support mey mom can't drive me to counseling and I will be working this year my family hasn't had a job in 7 years now so I have been carrying this household family friends bring me to the store and I grab items and soon that's gone cause I will have to drive. I'm crying and I don't know what to do. I need something out there I've got no one.

By Alessandro Carosi
It started with a book ”Many Lives, Many masters” by Brian Weiss
Psychiatrist Dr Brian Weiss had been working with Catherine, a young patient, for eighteen months. Catherine was suffering from recurring nightmares and chronic anxiety attacks. When his traditional methods of therapy failed, Dr Weiss turned to hypnosis and was astonished and sceptical when Catherine began recalling past-life traumas which seemed to hold the key to her problems.
Dr Weiss’s scepticism was eroded when Catherine began to channel messages from ‘the space between lives’, which contained remarkable revelations about his own life. Acting as a channel for information from highly evolved spirit entities called the Masters, Catherine revealed many secrets of life and death.
This fascinating case dramatically altered the lives of Catherine and Dr Weiss, and provides important information on the mysteries of the mind, the continuation of life after death and the influence of our past-life experiences on our present behaviour.
At the time in New Zealand I was looking for to have a past life regression but never took into serious consideration till I moved to live in London and due certain exceptionally experiences I decided it was time, a guy among others I felt drawn and few weeks later I was on my way to New Malden the London Korean community, it was a surreal foggy evening I could barely seeing where I was walking, despite that I reached the house of Nicolas Aujula a famous character in the psychic world, he was nothing of what I could expect, slim, elegant, friendly, a normal guy that would easily pass unnoticed, we introduced ourselves and he took me in the living room where I sat in a really comfortable sofa, he explained me what he was going to do and told me to relax, we started, I’m honest I don’t believe he hypnotised me but I can’t deny that weird things happened, images popped up in my mind in unchecked way where I realised to be a man living in the middle ages abusing of a girl I felt instinctively was Julie, a Korean girl I met in New Zealand and played a massive role in my spiritual growing.
This girl still playing an important part in my life and as much I’m trying to forget seems impossible, is like she is part of me and anytime she feel I’m trying to cut the cords of attachment she is coming back in my mind and soul shaking me within, I can’t cut the cords or maybe subconsciously I don’t want.
Five years in London have been a roller coaster of happy and sad moments where Many events unfolded sometime in the most unexpected way till I made the most unexpected decision, to come to Scotland, it was meant to be ? It seems like, all my friends knows that this country was the last I would ever choice to come to live and kept repeating I would never come, so how I ended up here ? I don’t know but I believe that something or someone played with my life, an entity I’m unable to see but I perceived in few occasions, who is that ? I can’t answer to this question but I know that all the synchronicities I experienced pushed me to come, like the fortune teller from Milton Keynes told me I would move to live somewhere else and like other things she predicted then over the next twelve months they occurred, who is in charge ? What is all of this ? I had the chance to see something, a glimpse but no more, I’m frustrated like I know many others out there are, the only thing that keep me going is the fact that all of those experiences made me a better person, so after all this mystery that is life might be Really into teaching us to spiritually grow up.
Scotland, Edinburgh, since I come for the first few months I had an incredible amount of dejavu’, I never experienced so many, this sensation to already have been here it never occurred so much in Italy, Australia, New Zealand and in the other countries I lived, but up here my instinct is telling me there is something for me, something to understand, maybe what happened on Wednesday it is what I needed to remember or just a part of it.
I wanted to reach Glasgow walking by the Union canal from Edinburgh, I didn’t make it but something else would turn me upside down, I was talking with my Mum….oh well, actually arguing when I got a message on Kakao Talk, the Korean version of Whatsapp, it was Julie that replied me to something I asked few days ago, I thought I would never hear from her again but things happening when we less expect them, she couldn’t understand my message and asked me to explain it in a simple way, that day I felt pretty emotional and I got stressed out, to relax I put it on a music track on my Ipod from the movie Cloud Atlas that I got the chance to watch after a colleague recommend it to me, nothing happen by coincidence and everything is connected to each other like a big puzzle, the movie talk about a bunch of people that are bounded to each other and in every new life they will meet over and over again to finish unfinished business or to meet and share the endless love that Twin flames carry to each other forever.
I needed to tell Julie everything I felt, everything I experienced, regardless she would think I was crazy or not, it was something I wanted to share with her for so long and then….a Swan, it reminded me of the ballet performance the Swan Lake and felt compelled to take a photo and to share it with her but when I looked at the pic what I saw blown my mind

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I woke up to a loud scratch on my front door, immediately I knew it was my dog and ran down and got him. He was literally shivering so badly and it’s god damn midnight. I had to wake my mum up and everything. I know it’s normal to leave your dog out in the DAYTIME, but we don’t. My dogs always inside and the only time he’s outside is for walks and when we are. My grandad currently lives with my mum and brother and me and has since I was born. I wouldn’t be as mad at him for this, but I’ve had it with his selfish and malicious behaviour of me and my family. He has been selfish to me and my family my whole life. He has never taken me or my brother out his own grandchildren once in the 13 years I’ve been alive. He has only been out with us when it has been other people who most likely is paying. He also treated my mum like shit even though she pays the bills and lets him stay here. He can treat everyone wrong and expect favours. He never apologises unless it’s of risk of getting kicked out of my house. He’s done this before to my dog but I have never said anything. This time for 2 hours at midnight, in our front garden and my dog potentially being taken and freezing. We are already on bad terms because I told him to take responsibility for his actions in a argument LAST MONTH, he’s acting like a 4 year old and refusing to speak to me. I don’t really care how dramatic I’m being, i have honestly had enough of his petty and selfish behaviour. How do I handle this? I’m at my last straw.

TW: Insects
This is more of a rant but any tips are most welcome!
Oh boy, where to begin? Major Phorid fly infestation in my ground floor flat. It’s been a nightmare for a few weeks now, but we hadn’t been able to locate the source until my next door neighbour found on Friday that the guy who lives opposite us & his 20 year old daughter are hoarding literal trash (she helped them clear part of the girl’s bedroom before giving up, it’s currently all out in about 20 bin bags on the grass and is 75% old pizza boxes). She said their place is black with these flies, I’ve no idea how they’re existing like it?
Anyway the damn things also must have taken up residence outside my bedroom window (there’s a drainpipe and shrubs, next door said their adjacent bedroom is similarly afflicted), I have literally duct taped the window shut, put tape over every crack & crevice and they’re still finding ways through, have resorted to taping up a painting sheet over the whole mess, spraying with Raid and abandoning my bedroom.
We are in a council owned property (UK) and I’m reporting the neighbour first thing Monday, currently waiting their contractors to come out and check the drainpipes & cut the shrubs down. I’m spending a fortune on cider vinegar & sticky traps, nothing feels clean & I have my elderly mum who I live with to worry about as she has both legs bandaged by nurses daily because of open ulcers, so I’m terrified about her getting an infection from these little bastards. Apologies for the rant, just at my wits end and pissed that it’s all because of someone else’s (in)action.

I'm new to PCs and have been exploring parts, how to put them together and all the other fun stuff that comes with making your own system. However, PCs are a huge learning curve for someone who has only played console. Because of this, I've been stuck on what parts to buy to create something that works best for me.
I'm currently looking to spend ~ CA$1200 on the build of the PC itself and have recently thrown a build together on PC Part Picker. However, throwing this build together, I have doubts about the performance of the system and how well the cooling would work.
For the final build, I would like to be able to play games at 1440p on high graphics but also be able to multitask, such as streaming/recording gameplay. Additionally, I'd love to use this build to edit videos, audio, etc. Future-proofing is also a huge consideration for this PC.
The current build I've put together is priced at ~CA$1145, including about $100 in online promos.
Here are the parts I've put together so far.
- (CA$204.99) - $45 SAVINGS PROMO -- Intel Core i5-12600k CPU - (CA$29.99) - $20 SAVINGS PROMO -- Cooler Master Hyper 212 Black Edition 42 CFM CPU Cooler - (CA$164.99) MSI B760 GAMING PLUS WIFI ATX LGA 1700 Motherboard - (CA$199.99) Corsair Vengeance RGB 32 (2 x 16 GB) DDR5-5200 RAM - (CA$139.00) Samsung 980 Pro 2 TB M.2-2280 PCle 4.0 X4 NVME SSD - (CA$289.99) MSI GeForce RTX 3060 Ventus 2X 12G GPU - (CA$109.99) - $20 SAVINGS PROMO -- Phanteks Revolt Pro 850 W 80+ ATX Power Supply - (CA$104.99) Corsair Carbide Series SPEC-DELTA RGB ATX Mid Tower Case Any help in aiming me in the right direction would be greatly appreciated!

I unfollowed this sub years ago because I let myself be convinced that my mom was trying her best and I am to blame. After getting a very illuminating autism diagnosis a few months ago (+ ADHD at 14 - 34f), I’m feeling pretty good about not doubting myself anymore, but narc moms gonna narc. Super long rant ahead TW: for childhood and financial abuse and questionable animal care
For context, I’m the middle of three girls, and the only one to move out, and my dx explained the lifetime of shame from my toxic family. Like when I was 10, I remember saying how excited I was to move out and be an adult when I graduated high school, and the following trademark twist-pinch my mom is known for, when she told me I made my dad sad for wanting to ever move out. Like fuck stupid ass 10yo me, right?
I’m working through shaking off the 34 years trauma. My parents haven’t always been well off, but probably have been since my teens. My mom works hard as a breadwinner, and never lets me forget how hard I need to work to have even half what she’s been able to provide for us…or that I’m bad with money.
I’ve done ok for myself, and things were good enough with her that when I needed to move back home last year after a nasty (police involved) breakup and living alone during most of the pandemic, they let me. I offered rent, they promised they just wanted me to be safe and refused. I said only 1 year max, but delayed moving out to find the right place. I moved last month. My younger sister (29) though, left her 2 dogs to go abroad to finish her bachelor’s last August and my autistic ass couldn’t let her old dog die in my parents care. They spend $1k on bed sheets, but think it’s idiotic to pay a vet more than $50.
She’s back at the end of the month, and holy hell if keeping her old dog alive (“Methuselah” as he’s well past life expectancy), while having to ignore big younger dog (“Pepper” too much shedding, poor training, parents keep her exclusively outdoors even in rain and yell at me for bringing her in), hasn’t been the most stressful thing on top of working full time. Methuselah sleeps 20 hrs a day and is pretty healthy, but prone to bladder stones I’ve found out 2000 stressful dollars later.
I wanted to take Pepper with me too when I moved, but Lil Sis saw an ig post I made with Pepper (I tagged her) while I was taking measurements and ratted on me to mom saying Pepper is too stressed out, so I can’t take her for 6 weeks. Why? Pepper’s tail was down in the picture. Who cares I got everything I’d need for an at-home grooming salon to deshed her that same day or that she hasn’t had a bath in 3 months? Apparently I sure as fuck shouldn’t because I “act like I know everything” too much.
I haven’t asked for a dime until yesterday because I’m now financially bruised from spending ~$2500 on the two dogs that aren’t mine over the past 10 months (I added up the “pet” and “vet” charges because my budget was wonky, so that’s an estimate).
Yesterday, I asked my mom for only $1000 to help split the care costs with my folks because of course, Lil Sis is broke and I finally realized how fucked up it is for them to expect me to eat all those costs and delay my life plans for someone else’s dogs.
Mom gave it to me immediately, while arguing that I moved in with my bf so I shouldn’t need to be reimbursed if he’s pulling his weight and I chose to take care of Methuselah because no one asked. She and Lil Sis literally cornered me and Big Sis (blocking hallway path) about dog care two days before Lil Sis left, but she somehow doesn’t remember. How convenient.
I thanked her and left, but she called me a couple hours later to keep up the barrage of insults.
I hung up on her because when I answered, she opened with “how dare you…”
It was the first time and fuck did it feel good. Even if she called me r-word for autistics in text after because I asked to be partially reimbursed. Not to be paid a fee for sitting, not for the cats I want to get, but to be partially reimbursed for keeping Methuselah alive.
I finally told her she needs a better therapist and to read up on financial abuse.
Family should be expected to take care of their siblings pets for free my ass. Fuck that noise. I do want any feedback because I’m struggling with the guilt: I did volunteer to take care of the dog, but am I wrong for asking to split the cost?
Thanks for letting me vent, apologies if this is the wrong place, but I tried to do a throwaway AITA post and am done feeling shame, so if Lil Sis sees this - sup?

Read this whole thing before getting triggered
Males and females are always arguing who has it worse. Especially ugly females, and ugly males. Many ugly males will say “females just ignore me”. When they ignore ugly females too. Males say this much more, due to ugly females being more vain, and being more uncommon. Most ugly females don’t admit to being ugly. But they just know they are. Ugly females, and ugly males ignore each other. It’s a fact at this point. Looks are everything in society. If I had green eyes like my parents I would be considered beautiful. Insanely beautiful. My features are very very very very harsh, and my shit colored eyes worsen my features. Green eyes would make me look more soft, my parents both had green eyes. Almost everyone in my family had green/blue eyes. But life hated me more than it hates everyone else because I biologically have green eyes but life stripped that away from me. I didn’t give consent to be born. I think about dying everyday.
If I had green eyes, I would’ve been considered a 10. And bigger lips. My mom has huge lips. Like as big as Angelina jolie, and green eyes. Do you know how much it hurts to be this fucked up? When life hates you and pre determines you to be ugly? How, I have no friends due to my appearance? How everyone wants a pretty friend, and I’m shy and everyone thinks I look scary due to this. My own family treat me like shit too for no reason. And always make fun of me for being so lonely.
So, let’s stop arguing about how males have it worse than females, or how females have it worse than males. Ok? BECASE let’s all just agree ugly PEOPLE have the biggest disadvantage(besides being terminally ill) known to mankind. And due to our ugliness, our lives are shit. And, the opposite gender, and same gender treat us like shit due to our ugly faces.

Researchers at Johns Hopkins are conducting a survey to better understand the experiences of people with HPPD (Hallucinogen Persisting Perception Disorder). HPPD is a condition where people who have used hallucinogenic drugs experience ongoing visual disturbances, such as seeing halos around objects or seeing colors more vividly. This survey will ask about risk factors, symptoms, treatment experiences, and how HPPD has impacted your life. Your participation in this research study can help improve our understanding of HPPD and lead to better treatment options for those who are affected by it.
​
www.HopkinsPsychedelic.org/hppdsurvey
​
Protocol: IRB00384491, Principal Investigator: Natalie Gukasyan, M.D.

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"Getting in touch with my late father's boyfriend
Apologies in advance that this is a very very long post, and my writing may be difficult to understand as English is not my first language. Somebody said that I speak weird last time I posted, so I've written this in advance and I think it sounds a bit novelly. I made it worse by being conscious of it haha
A little while ago I posted about my father's passing, and the reveal at his funeral that he'd not only been seeing a male escort of around my age, but that he'd been seeing him for 20 years and left him money in his will. Fuck tons of it. Kind of evidence that, though their relationship had started off as transactional, it certainly hadn't stayed that way.
Please read the original post on my profile
There's a lot more context, and I explained everything that I knew at the time in my comments section to various different questions.
Honestly the comments under that post were totally overwhelming. I felt like I was switching constantly between defending my father, and then defending the man he'd been seeing, and then defending myself to those who believed my hang ups surrounding this situation were anything to do with my opinions of sex work or the LGBT community.
I'd like to clarify from here that both of those groups have my full support. I don't care about the inheritance issues that my family have clung to in this time. Some things I worded poorly, and I think it came off like I was trying to reduce their relationship, or them, even, to just homosexuality and sex work. I apologise, I was processing a lot.
All I cared about was what this relationship meant about my father. Whether the age gap within it meant that he had victimized this man in any way, and needing some time to process the fact that my father had been - quite literally - living a double life that I'd known nothing about.
All I learned from making that post was that people on the internet are venomous, from all angles. I found that the most helpful opinions were those from other sex workers, who both commented and messaged me personally. I'm sure that much of this backlash is thanks to the stigma surrounding terms like prostitute, but it's worth mentioning that I'd never intended to reduce this man to sex work, and my mention of details like his sexuality, this side of his work life, and the money, were mostly to provide context for how he must be coping, and how this has generated such a scandal in my very conservative family.
I sincerely apologise for any damage I may have caused.
On to now
I'll be calling my father's boyfriend David, this isn't his true name.
About five days passed between my post and deciding to finally get in contact with David. I didn't expect him to answer my call, because my extended family have been harassing him since the funeral, so I'd imagine that any call from an unknown number is black listed in his mind. If he hadn't picked up, I would've sent him a very cautious text message and all but prayed that he see it.
I was almost in tears dialling his number, and I'm sure he could've heard the breaks in my voice. I told him who I was, and basically begged him not to hang up. He listened to me fumble my words asking him if he wanted to go for a coffee with me, sort of clumsily explaining that I just wanted to understand who he was to my father. I really was not expecting him to be as warm to me as he was, but he agreed to see me, and he didn't sound at all angry with me.
We met at a very quiet coffee place a couple days later. It was his choice, something about knowing the owners, so they may have known exactly what our situation was and who I was.
The version of him who attended my father's funeral was very different from the version of him who I met for coffee. He dressed a lot more casually, his hair was a little messy, and he honestly looked like he'd been spiralling just as much as I had. He was polite and well mannered, just not as glamorous as I imagine he'd usually be. I say glamorous, I was criticized for that last time too. Maybe I mean put together? He was still attractive, but clearly a man in crisis.
I had so many questions, but also this intense fear that asking them would be prying. The easiest and most sensible thing to start with was just How was he coping?
And the answer was evident. David told me things that I already knew. He asked the same thing, and it seemed like we were on pretty much the same page.
I wanted to know if him and my father had real feelings for eachother, what he could tell me about him and this side of his life that I hadn't already known, why he'd kept this from me, why my mother and my sister knew. Though I have to admit that the way I went about asking these questions wasn't as tactful as I'd have liked.
David stopped me part way through my confused word vomit and told me he'd just explain everything about who he was to my father, from the top. I'll relay that back to you, minus any details that I feel may be identifying
David comes from a very poor area of our country, and had been made homeless at 16. He'd exchanged sexual favour with adult men for a place to stay, and couch surfed at times. He covered this quite briefly, maybe because it showed on my face how horrified that I was. He said that he'd worked through these things since he was a teenager, and that my father was actually a part of what helped him do that, but it was horrifying to hear
He said that from this background, he'd built up a lot of walls around himself, and that he'd gotten in to sex work at 18 as a result of all of these - what essentially are - assaults. Because his job wasn't paying him enough to live, and he thought something along the lines of "well, it's not that different"
He's only a year older than me, and I can't help but compare my situation at the time, which was very comfortable and safe, to the things that David had to cope with at such a young age.
He'd been mostly escorting when my father found him. Apparently my father had been using escorts for a while, mostly men, but never anybody that young. He hired him once as an escort, and then asked him if he'd take money just to be taken on a date. David agreed, and tells me that there was genuine chemistry beyond sexual preferences. From there, my father became his "sugar daddy."
He says that it was a chance that my father took on him, not expecting anything to come from it. Something about wealthy men seeking a sugar baby, though the wealthiest men will just see escorts and "sugar" the ones that they have the most chemistry with, all because they're short of time. This was true of my father, as he was a very busy man.
Eventually he told my father the reason that he'd started escorting, being poverty and his past experiences, and that's when my father began to invest the most in his relationship
My father used to travel a lot for work, and sometimes just for leisure. David gave examples of those times, and almost every single trip that I can remember my father mentioning over the last twenty years, whether abroad or domestic, every single one, my father had had David brought with him or to him throughout. He had David brought with him everywhere despite both of them having busy schedules in the end. They'd have fancy dinners or attend events together. My father wasn't trying to hide David from anybody but us, he showed him off whenever it was safe to do so. He'd shown him the world.
They had cover stories for countries that were more homophobic than ours, or for important people who may have been able to get news back to our family.
He said that, after the first year or so, they weren't really certain what direction they were going in. If they were just a business relationship anymore. He says these sorts of arrangements tend to expire after a certain amount of time, but that his and my father's just sort of never did. Even watching my father's health decline, David stayed by him.
My father had given him outs of their relationship if ever he'd wanted to take them, gifted him enough cash to keep him going for months, invested in his career as a performer, and helped him make contacts in a range of industries. David is multi talented, can play many instruments, speak many languages, and is intelligent enough that he could've done a range of other things. He told me he'd also seen other clients in this time, who my father knew about and was ok with, and my father had seen other escorts, but that they always came back to eachother. He could have left, he didn't want to.
He said that my mother discovered their relationship when he was 27, so 9 years after it had began. My parents had been married for 19 years, and my father had been seeing escorts before he found David, so I can't imagine how it must have felt for my mother to discover that, for a probable majority of her marriage, my father had been unfaithful. She found out through my father's banking. He never used their shared account, though some paperwork was mixed up. She asked him about some of the payments within it, som cash withdrawals, and she learned more from there.
My mother and David had met, in a similar context to how I had now met him. He said my mother had yelled at both, him, and my father, but that he didn't hold it against her, and eventually they were able to become something close to friends. They'd been in contact more often since the funeral.
My mother is a very fiery woman, with a strong sense of justice. She was angry with my father for, essentially, lying to her for all of that time, but was able to understand why he did it as a gay man in a very taboo relationship. She was even angrier about their age difference. Relationships in our circles can be very political, and it was safer for my father to put on a front of a loving, straight marriage, than to come out. David was well aware, and understanding of this. My mother was not forgiving about the other escorts either. It seems that her understanding was something built up over years of sort of getting to know David, rather than something that she initially saw no issues with.
I believe she still loved my father in some capacity until the day that he died, and I think that may be why she agreed to keep his secret. It's the kind of information that can really destroy somebody's life, and they particularly didn't want me to know because of the closeness in age between me and David. Only my sister was trusted with this information because she was something of a confidant for my mother by this time. She's a very doting person, though she's older than David, so I imagine her feelings at the time were even stronger than mine. She's helped me a lot with processing those feelings
I made a point to mention that I hadn't expected David to be as accommodating for me as he had been. He hadn't even needed to answer my call. He showed me some of the recent history on his phone. Many calls, text messages, and even death threats had been coming from people who knew my father. Some of those numbers were numbers that I had saved. Family members who I've heard say disgusting things about David since the funeral.
Ultimately I believe David became a life partner for my father, whether taboo or no. I was grateful that he allowed me to get to know him at least in the context of my late father, and I'd like to make some kind of friendship with him. He has invited me to see the apartment that my father had been paying for, and I'm going to. Id like to see this man accepted into my family, but I know now that that isn't going to happen for some. I will be introducing him more officially to my wife and children, though.
In David's own words, my father was the only thing tying him to this country, so I imagine he's going to take his career elsewhere. Hopefully somewhere that is safer for people like him
I will keep in touch, and I'm going to try and make him feel as welcome as possible before he leaves. He is always welcome with us should he ever come back. I don't care if it gets me denounced by half of my family, I am not the coward that my father was accused of being.
Thank you for reading this far"

Even just passing good. I really like it, but I can't seem to be good at it at all. Barely cleared. Not that I didn't study. I gave it my all, truly and still barely passed. Everyone in my family thinks I can't handle maths, and they always make it a point to let me know. I think they all know how much I actually like it
It's kinda like how you wish that your crush liked you back, cuz you are head over heels for them?
Wish i was good at maths...
pls dont be mean, I can't take more of it, dad just freaked out on me and I am not feeling alright, thnx
vent of sorts

I’m Gender-fluid and Asexual so I don’t really feel sexual attraction towards anyone and if I think I do it’s very rare and absolutely has to be with a person I’m dating and very close with, but mostly it stems from Just wanting to see them happy. When I feel like a woman it’s very easy for me to like men and I always have but when I feel like a guy I very much like to do things for women and be a gentleman with them.
I never considered that romantic attraction because I can objectively say they look pretty and tbh when it comes to art or p*rn I’m drawn to the women’s figure but hate seeing men’s privates and I assumed this is all because as afab I’m Just comfortable with it bc it’s what I have too. It doesn’t help that in public I’ve learned I avoid eye contact and looking at women more than men(I’m autistic so I hate eye contact anyway) but Idk why that is. In my dreams when I’m a women I am usually with men but when I’m a guy I’m usually getting frisky or being romantic with a girl. I also like doing RP as a guy with a girl but I thought it’s Just bc it makes me feel more manly. I’ve also only thought once as a kid what it would be like being with a girl but cast it out of mind since I was religious and didn’t know about LGBTQ+ at the time.
Are these experiences common with bi people? How can I be sure if I’m currently in a relationship with a man and prefer monogamy? Does it matter for me to learn?

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Someone commented the importance of being fragile - and we get conflicting messages from medical community such as CBT and self help books and trauma community. First of all - narcissists hate vulnerability - because this exposed their fragile ego, fragile self worth and fake persona that they try to hide away from others. So obviously - we need to be vulnerable in order to be healthy. Self-help books and CBT will instructs us on the other hand to be "Strong" and "Courageous" and that we face our fears and expose to society and life. This way CBT is instructing us to fuse our persona with our emotions - which is extremely dangerous: our emotions and feelings are fleeting - so we cannot base our self worth on something that can change on a whim. Also, feelings and emotions are sometimes misleading - we might feel scared - and due to inability to process this emotion we might interpret it as us being weak - while in reality this emotion might be anger. This is recipe for becoming hysterical and to fake pretend to be "strong" in order to assert our "power" - highly ineffective. There is always someone else who is more hysterical and when we make others around us people afraid - we will never make functional contact with anyone.
Some self-help books about "people pleasing" themes will instruct us to believe that being vulnerable means being people-pleaser and that we must be aggressive in order not to be taken advantage of. This "advice" will lead us to develop attachment issues, problems with trusting other people. We will start to build walls and isolate ourselves from others - highly ineffective.
There is a quote from Italian movie "L'arcano incantatore (1996)":
Weakness is fundamental in enabling the mind not to oppose signals from 'outside'.
So that is the paradox - if we are trying to be confident and strong by covering up any sign of being weak - we will become weak. Yet if we do not mind being "weak" - we won't make progress, since we won't have incentive to make progress. If we do not issue with something, we won't know what needs to be fixed. With trauma and exposure to toxic people - there is nothing wrong with us. There is nothing to fix inside us. Yet - we do have anxiety issues and panic and toxic shame and trauma triggers and fawning issues - so there is something that needs correction and a "fix". These after-effects stem from the abuse: evil people have chosen us as their target to attack. Evil people do this because they are evil, it is not because there is something wrong with us inside. When evil people are evil - we will develop reactions to abuse, similar to the body reacting to the virus. The fever, skin rash, immobility, pain, immunity issues - these are all effects of virus on our body - it is not that our body is abnormal and sick by itself - it means it is attacked by a virus. CBT will instruct us that we are sick as we are - that we have "cognitive distortions" and that our brain is hallucinating the "virus", that abuse does not exist. This way CBT will instruct us to develop toxic shame, deep core belief that we distrust ourselves, distrust our reactions, distrust our natural ways how we react to external stimuli - and CBT will instruct us to gaslight our reality and that we depend on other people to explain us what is reality. When in fact - we need immunity: deep core belief that we can trust our eyes and feelings and senses - what is happening that it is not hallucination, and that we can know that we can rely on our self worth and our brain and thinking patterns - even though when they are in survival mode due to abuse and exposure to narcissistic abuse, which CBT claim is non-existent for the socially anxious.
Even in Rejection Sensitivity - CBT will claim that our rejection can be imagination and real one - but in reality - we can clearly differentiate triggers and flashbacks with reality. When we have perceived threat of being rejected - it will feel differently than when someone is abusive and intrusive, unfair and when they make false accusations against us and when they are critical to us as a way to put us down and destroy our reputation. When we do not have self worth - we will soak up CBT explanations and we won't oppose to their definitions. Then we will become insecure in ourselves - and this is toxic shame.
When we have toxic shame - we will develop External referencing locus of control and this will end up as codependency and trauma bonding, more anxiety and more panic, since our explanation of reality will depend on other people - who will be toxic and dangerous - since only those types of people will parasite on someone who fawns to people.
The paradox of being vulnerable is placing us on two sides: to be passive and doing nothing hence being "weak", or that we oppose being "weak" by learning how to resist toxic people which is only possible by being monsters as they are. We will encounter stoic information about being silent and that we do not waste our energy to toxic people. Or another take is to be assertive and to express our opinion without rage - none of those work in real life. That's because toxic people are not problem with our persona or feelings or beliefs. Evil people abuse others because they are evil and have agenda or they simply feel good when they torture others.
So instead of being vulnerable or being strong - I would rather work on awareness - so that we know what is going on. Similar to learning about a virus - so that we know what is the best way to avoid catching a disease as preventive measure or learning how to make our body immune so that it can destroy virus without destroying our body in the process of extermination.
I would focus on a belief that we must be silent in order not to spend energy on narcissistic bait - where toxic people will insult others in order to elicit emotional reaction which they harness later when we react in drama to their drama. The real problem is our toxic shame which is already inside us. This means - when we are in contact with someone toxic - our panic reactions will come out, we won't be able to talk even if we want to. We will be in survival mode and amygdala hijacking - so we will temporary lose memory and ability to come up with wit and thoughtful response. Instead - we will be triggered into Freeze and Fawn. Socially anxious will always go into silence - because if we would have chosen Fight response - we would talk and express our emotions - even in dysfunctional way- and this way we would eventually learn to express ourselves all the time - and with time social anxiety would be replaced with some other disorders such as Borderline where we would be stuck in drama. But the social anxiety would be gone. Social anxiety itself is being silent and not expressing ourselves. That is what gives birth to free reign of inner critic inside us - which will activate rumination and intrusive thoughts and worry before the event, during the event and after the event. If there was no problems, our inner critic will dismiss such event as fluke and focus on the next potential catastrophe or it will replay past incidents.
So I would focus on talking and expressing ourselves. This is one barrier that we need to look at. Due to past trauma and exposure to emotional abuse - we learned to be silent and to fix other people and to be focused on their drama. When we try to fix others - we won't be able to criticize them back and give honest facts - since most abusive people will react in anger when the truth is presented to them.
When we shut up, when we are silent, even with good intentions such as not rocking the boat and not engaging in narcissistic bait - we are unwittingly creating no boundaries ambient. And that is what will attract toxic people over and over again. We might cut contact, relocate - only to find new pests that we attract like moth to a flame. This happens because we do not have boundaries. With self help and CBT we get wrong definitions of boundaries. We are being told that having boundaries means explaining and interpreting and having a presentation to someone who is toxic, pathological liar and delusional and someone who cannot process the reality nor truth. So of course this CBT advice will not work in real life. Boundaries are everything that will come to life when we speak up. Our words will create boundaries. Words don't have to be perfect. They don't even have to address the problem. With social anxiety we are simply silent all the time. We do not express our thoughts, we don't speak up our truth, our objections - due to programming and punishments before. When we do not speak up -we also never express our dislikes. Dislikes were also punished in dysfunctional ambient when we were growing up - so we were punished when we would say something we do not like, we were mocked and bullied because we rejected something over and over again. When we do not voice out our dislikes - there are no boundaries, and we automatically become pushover and toxic people will sniff it out and exploit us. When we do speak up - they will have perfect reasons why we are wrong - and we will shut up and never mention it again. When we learn about narcissistic abuse -we learn that narcissistic predatory personalities will always accuse their target of some false allegations and false accusations. Their accusations will be based on their hunch, intuition, imagination, delusion which appear real in their heads, something that is not measurable, it is not quantifiable, it cannot be evaluated, proven or disproven in scientific way - and they will feel entitled to be the ones who explain what is wrong. And since we were programmed in childhood to obey and fix other people's real or imagined problems - instead of speaking up and seeking the truth - we will automatically try to fix problems which they create out of nothing. We will be healthy and follow ethics and moral standards - that we fix our mistakes - and toxic people will always find mistakes and something wrong that we did. Then we will end up in hamster wheel of chasing their approval and validation - which satisfies their narcissistic supply needs. The only way out is speaking.
When we naturally speak out, when we are honest and authentic, when we no longer cover up "bad" parts of ourselves (our errors, mistakes, flaws and imperfections) - when we voice it out - we won't attract toxic people in our private lives, in our private space - since narcissists seek those who carry toxic shame inside them. Carrying toxic shame means feeling contaminated whenever there is some kind of anger or error occurring.
We heal toxic shame by embracing our "bad" parts that we believe are wrong and stupid and anything but perfect. We will notice that when we are silent - we imagine the perfect ideal way to talk and how life ought to be - so when we start to voice out our opinion, when we start to express ourselves - we will notice that we have a lot of errors, again and again, some we will repeat and never learn to correct them because we don't know how. This takes self worth to take care of bad parts of ourselves which need care and compassion from ourselves, patience and parenting - instead of invalidation and suppressing and ignoring. This part of sticking up for our clumsy and embarrassing parts of our Self is the true definition of being vulnerable. When we accept our imperfections and clumsiness and errors - we won't get triggered into survival mode anymore - and this means we will have more energy and focus on actually being better - and that is the paradox:
Carl Rogers: “The curious paradox is that when I accept myself, just as I am, then I can change.”
Real liberation comes not from glossing over or repressing painful states of feeling, but only from experiencing them to the full. Carl Jung
Carl Jung Psychology and Philosophy 🧠, TWITTER: The most terrifying thing is to accept oneself completely.

A lot happened before my father passed my sisters both demanded accounts and signed on the way they owned our father and her to the lot of large amount of money before he retired one sister had full control to put one account and because her husband had knowledge of how to control people with these accounts and how to sign them to where you own them and could walk away with all that one dollar unless my dad wanted to press charges felony and he did not he lived with that for several years the thing was my brother-in-law demanded I didn't no help and no cash from my father who bought me a vehicle and he also demanded who bought from him so he could have his own cash that started a bad thing but on the other note my other sister and brother planned a long time ago to steal all on the end and one sister her whole name go in life was to still everything in the end to work as a librarian in order to mingle with authorities with a plan of cutting me out because mother made her hate me when we were children she told her she was a real oldest daughter I was adopted by my father in the state of Missouri because I had no father my mother was abusive to me and she got her words she cut me out she got threw me out of the family they had me abused I had a death threat at one time when my memories came back I have an appointment to talk to a trusted her recovery attorney next week but it's well down to now it's a dirty stuff but they're still a very large amount of money missing that was too preachers one being a bad lawyer who was elected to prosecutor because of his name the state of Missouri couldn't help me with that because he was elected. There's no protection for heirs even though there's laws in Missouri. And when did in-laws with hating their heart and greed they come errors assets were never reported I never got anything from my dad as far as I had property stored there I finally got my camper but it cost me a lot my brother forced me to sign titles and soon tops and my sister would use them on something I told her it would be fraud because they couldn't Court can tell immediately that the paper was added to after the signature landlords can't get away with that anymore unless the person can't take them to court then they do cuz it happened to me before my thoughts are I was abused my life was certain all this Northwest Missouri it's very corrupt a bank account was moved when I was dying in another state and the prosecutor won't even let me look because it's been a few years back I need prosecutor the bank was concerned like there was a criminal and that prosecutor said get a lawyer well that's all I was told by a person well when they have more money and they've used pictures to launder money they use the prosecutor to get their way to not probate a larger state and they turn their back on me that goes to me like I am a disease because I know what they did my life was in dangerous I still don't feel safe I'm in this town I'm working on getting away from here so I can take care of the rest of this but my children didn't deserve to be cut out my father did not do this they did what they wanted for very large amount of money who got a very large attack right before he died and then I don't know who got the money I'm not money doesn't drive me but the fact that they did what they did has me irritated because my children did not deserve this my brother was supposed to probate and help me get all this done so my sister's got their way so far but my mother was in the background she was the first ex-wife and he was single but my one sister control freak controlled dad never move after his last divorce and he couldn't trust her she stole tooth imagine that grave sold them a year later without telling him to make banked on that but she did that because my other sister would find onto his largest inheritance account and controlling him with it he didn't press start his own either one but he did turn him in before he died after he got that last check he was bullied that's why they wanted my memory is gone I hired somebody to come into my life I found Love with a narcissist who was there for hire St Joe Missouri is very corrupt Andrew county was where the prosecutor fake probate attorney was they're still a fake casing at the judge refused to move it off but my brother is no longer represented who paid it to get it stopped to get those two titles back my father bought way more local than that my brother and said he was doing his own probate he bullied me to sign in 15 titles two were property I can't find out where those went except for I know they were laundered through his church his Titan picture who greedy preacher but also was involved and getting money off the top that's I'm in the assets it's all a mess it's a very big mess I'm talking to Tony next week another one thing is only have one chance that they got more money than they're counting you know I they laundered money they did it's on public 300 vehicles cars and trucks at dad bought for probate my brother promised to do with me that sisters pays him to do with that program that month is already had the prosecuting attorney as a lawyer he's not even a probate lawyer and now he's not a prosecutor attorney who knows he did wrong he's also a preacher but he's one of those tithing pictures like the other one putting printers lying their own pockets with other people's money they don't give it to the floor they're legal things in my eyes but I'm opinionated

I didn't expect that the falling out of this friendship would hurt, at most, I'd feel a bit empty due to how much time he took up from my day-to-day life. Missing him will be defeat, I don't want to admit that I let myself get fooled twice, no less by someone that knew how it happened the first time. To add insult to injury, he used the same excuse the one before him did. "My mental health is bad"
I don't want to admit that I'm sad the plans we had will never happen. Showing me around your city whilst we'd hold hands. Having our own small apartment in Paris, being able to come into each other's room whenever the other one was to be upset over something. Just a bunch of small, domestic things.
And I'm so, so pissed at the fact I'll probably never get to hurt you, because I'm sure my absence doesn't bother you. I want so badly to tell you how I regret wasting so much time on you, to belittle you over your struggles, to say how I did not give a flying fuck about a "jackass" like yourself.

I apologize for this wall of text but I need to vent and get this out of my system.
Romantic relationships have always been a pain for me, to the point that I always sabotaged myself. I can't really recall a point in my life when love was just a positive experience for me, I always ended up feeling like I had been emotionally exploited by girls who needed a distraction but didn't actually want anything with me (not necessarily in a conscious way, I don't really blame them). Things always ended very quickly for me, or they never really began after months of involvement and dating and confusion. I don't believe in bad luck, but I also don't think I am the whole problem. I mean, of course I am part of the issue, I know how and why I'm scarred and why I wasted some opportunities when they presented themselves, I know why there's a little voice in the back of my head whenever I meet someone I'm interested in, telling me that I'm just deluding myself and that things will always go wrong, and at multiple points in my life I started believing I was a weirdo, that something was wrong with me which put off others, that somehow I was a huge giant red flag pushing people away, but when I talked about it with friends hoping for some sort of wake up call they all told me that they never quite understood why my romantic life has always been so bad, and that they really were sorry to always see me get beaten down. And believe me when I say that some of my friends have been part of my life since we were kids, we're basically family, and we never had problems pointing out our flaws when we felt like it had to be done to help each other. Apparently I am "normal" after all. Talking with my loved ones about how I felt about myself and hearing their feedback helped me heal, to the point that last year I really started feeling happy with myself and my self-consciousness and my social life. I felt like the best version of me I ever was.
Which is why when last october I met her I felt like I could open again emotionally. Needless to say, it was terrible. We just clicked, almost immediately. We liked each other's company and I really felt well, understood and cared for when I was with her, and I was happy that she told me she felt the same way. It didn't take long for me to realize I had feelings for her. Things went quite slow tbh, both because of my insecurities and because she was trying to figure out what she felt for me, it was only in february that we openly started to talk about us and where our friendship was going, I told her how I felt and she told me that she was confused and didn't know what she wanted. That was the worst part, because after that talk the flirting game went full on, we always found ourselves being very close and intimate to each other, we would just sit in some bar or go for walks and spend hours talking and joking and cuddling and sharing looks, and I was so stupidly happy, but I felt like there was a wall that she was holding up between us. I felt like I was in highschool again, it was all so stupid really.
Long story short, after a crisis that happened because when I finally asked her what the hell we were doing and it turned out neither lf us really did know, we finally got together. We just said "let's try or we'll never know". After a week she dumped me. This happened three months ago, after three months of games. She told me she realized she didn't really feel anything towards me and that when she found herself in a situation where she had to think about me as something more than a friend it just didn't work in her mind. I was so emotionally drained that for the first week it felt like it was alright. Like I didn't really have feelings for her, like it had been a long fever dream. Then shit hit the fan and I have been feeling miserable again since. We stayed good friends for a while, but then I just had to tell her that it was too overwhelming for me, that I needed to distance myself from her because it's so damn painful to be with somebody I care so much for and have so much fun with, even now, and think about what happened and know that it was all another big lie (well, this last bit I kept for myself). She just told me that she was sorry, that she understood, that she didn't want to impose any demands on me, but that she also didn't really feel the need to hang out with me or hear from me anymore. Fair.
But I really don't understand why. Why do people play with others' feelings like they are nothing? If you realize you don't know what you feel, if you realize you don't want a relationship, if you are so confused about what you want why would you act otherwise? Why did we spend so much time flirting and cuddling and being all sweet and whatever if she didn't know what the fuck she wanted when I had made it so clear that I was ready for commitment and we already had an established relationship? Did we really need to get intimate for her to understand it just wasn't it? What was it, a hookup with extra steps for the trhill of extra emotional involvement? It's so easy to say "well, we did say that we were just going to try, nothing was set in stone" aftwerwards, and yeah, those were the terms we both agreed upon, but when she told me that all she needed to understand that she actually felt nothing, after months of whatever that was during which we talked about it until exhaustion, was just three days together after a week of not talking to each other because of that crisis, I just really felt like I was being mocked, not by her maybe, but by life.
Today I just found out she's hooking up with random guys, even if back then she told me she just wasn't able to have meaningless relationships. I'm not judging her, good for her that she finally figured out what she wants, even back then from the things she told me I had figured out that that could have been the issue, but even after three months it just felt like a punch in the guts. Back to square one I guess, but God, sometimes I really wish I was totally apathetic, I'm just so fucking tired. And I can't just shake away the feeling that when I'll get over her and meet someone else it'll just go badly again.

I'd like to practice contact staff but don't have much money to buy one. I was thinking I'd use some hard dried bamboo I have lying around.. it's not too thick, seems like the same size as the ones I've seen (maybe I'm wrong and it's too thick). Do you think that using bamboo is a good idea? Also was thinking about using tennis balls or cut up bike tires on the end but I'm not sure..
Also, how tall should it be? I need to think about what I'll put in the middle..maybe electrical tape?
Are these good ideas and do you have any other recommendations? Thanks :)

This is my 2-month check in, a reflection for myself and maybe validating for others going through the same. I can't be sure how much of this is weed related versus just my personal experience/depression, but here it is:

• The first two weeks were the absolute hardest. The boredom, the cravings, the bouts of strong emotions/mental breakdowns were all difficult to deal with. -- From reading posts on this subreddit, I know that this is pretty common and is essentially our brains processing/regulating all the painful emotions that we had been smoking away.
• After that, I had some periods where I either felt normal, really happy, or highly anxious - this honestly depended a lot on how my work day was and if I had anything fun, distracting plans going on during the weekend or not
• Sometime in the beginning month 2, my brain started to get overactive. I viewed this the same way as my mental breakdowns in week 2. It felt like my brain was using all the brain power that I had muted away. One night I slept at 1am because I was thinking so much and then woke up at 4am and started my day from there because I couldn't go back to sleep. A part of me wondered if this was me feeling manic (my dad is bipolar) and not weed withdrawal related - I'm not sure, but it was a weird time period. It felt like I was thinking 10,000 thoughts per minute and my conversations with people were so jumpy and all over the place.
• Now at 2.5 months, I feel depression creeping back in but honestly I think it's moreso because I've been burnt out at work and haven't had energy to do things that make me happy. So even though I'm not smoking now, I still watch tv and movies like a couch potato. -- I'm trying to change that though. I downloaded an app last night to start creating more of a morning ritual for myself and to train myself to wake up earlier, I really think that doing that in combination with no weed will help. We'll see! Hopefully my next check-in will have a more positive tone : )