Laptop backpack with water bottle pocket

Hi anyone who reads this. Sorry, just need somewhere to put my feelings.
Currently lying here curled up in pain and muscle spasms, trying to avoid dying of heatstroke with a hot water bottle in hot weather. It just... I look to the future and I don't see an end to this, I'm not getting any better, infact for years I've slowly been getting worse, with more and more of my life being taken from me by this.
The thing is, I have a girlfriend and she's amazing, but i feel like this constant weight around her neck pulling her down, by just being unable to do so many things, or nake commitment to plans knowing that there's a good chance thay I'm going to be too unwell to go. I can't get out of my head that she'd be so much better off without me dragging her down, and that breaks my heart. I've tried for years and years to get better, to try different things and I think IBS has finally beaten me, I just don't have any hope anymore.
Anyway, thanks for reading one man's rant.

I got an invitation in the mail in a pretty purple envelope covered with flowers and shiny plastic gems. It was for a girls-only sleepover, something I'd never done before. At first, I was really excited, but then I saw that it was from Jane and Mary Bardell.
The twin girls were in my 7th-grade class. They were really quiet and rarely talked. Even though they didn't say much, you could still feel they were there. I remember sitting in front of them one day and feeling their quiet energy behind me.
The back of my neck started to tingle and feel hot. When I looked back, I saw Jane staring at me. Her deep-set dark eyes looked hungry, like she hadn't eaten in days and I was the meat dangling in front of her face. Mary also looked at me, and when she smiled, it almost seemed like she had fangs.
When they did talk, always in perfect unison, they sounded flat and without any emotion. But their serious looks and voices made me feel uncomfortable, and the room felt heavy. Luckily, they usually sat in silence at the back of the class.
One day, they just didn't come to school anymore and stayed home. Maybe their parents decided to school them at home. They lived across the street from me in a neat two-story brownstone house. Their lawn was well-maintained and protected by a sturdy five-foot iron fence.
The curtains in their house were kept closed tight. No light ever came out, even at night. But sometimes, on the second floor, a curtain would move, and I'd see the twins' pale faces looking out. We'd lock eyes for a moment before the curtain closed again.
After they stopped coming to school, some kids from our class started to go missing. First, it was Eddie, who vanished on his way home. Then Katy disappeared the same way. Both of them had walked past Jane and Mary's house before they went missing.
For some reason, I just had a feeling deep down that the twins had something to do with the disappearances. I even wondered if they were really human. Maybe they were vampires. Oh, yes, they were definitely vampires! It all made sense.
"You're going," my mom insisted at dinner when I told her I didn't want to go to the sleepover. I didn't see the point since I could sleep in my own bed. Why stay at someone else's house when I lived just across the street?
I groaned. "I don't want to go. They're so fucking weird.”
"Watch your language!" Both my parents warned me, giving me a serious look.
“It’s been difficult for that family,” Dad said, “The girls had to be pulled out of school because of an illness.”
“What kind of illness?”
“Their parents didn’t say what it was, but they said the girls would like to have friends.”
“Oh, those poor girls,” Mom sighed. “They just want to have a nice and normal sleepover party.”
I shook my head. “I don’t want to go.”
“You’re going.”
And that was that.
I wasn't hungry anymore and left my dinner unfinished. I headed straight to my room and glanced out the window. I saw their pale faces peeking through the curtain in their second-floor bedroom. I closed the blinds and turned off the light. There was no way I was going to their house without something to keep me safe.
XXXXXX
“Your house is really nice,” I remarked, placing my sleeping bag and pillow on the floor. I kept my backpack close, making sure the crucifix I borrowed from my parents was safely tucked inside one of its pockets. I really hope my mom doesn't realize it's missing.
I was the only one who had arrived at the Bardell’s house so far. Mrs. Bardell opened the door and greeted me with a big, never-ending smile that looked like it was permanently glued to her face. Her teeth showed through the wide grin, and her lips were covered in a thick layer of red lipstick.
“That's really nice of you," she responded with a smile. “I can see why you get along with my girls.”
Mary and Jane, seated across from me, both nodded and chimed in together, “Yes, she's great, Mom. We're happy we invited her.”
“So, when are the others getting here?” I asked.
“What others?” Mrs. Bardell appeared puzzled.
“Tammy and Harriette. They said you invited them too, and they promised they'd come.”
“Oh, they're not coming anymore. They called just before you arrived to let us know,” Mrs. Bardell explained. Her big, dark eyes moved between me and the twins. “Okay girls, just sit tight for a bit. Dinner will be ready soon.” Then she went into the kitchen.
Fantastic! Just fantastic! Some friends they are. Traitors!
“They didn't tell me…” I mumbled quietly, feeling betrayed. I quickly checked my phone and texted Tammy: So you're just not gonna show up?
The message was stuck on “sending…”
“Don't worry about it,” the twins reassured me. “We'll still have a great time tonight!”
Their idea of a good time was putting on a skit they had practiced the last few days. The twins disappeared upstairs, only to return dressed in their costumes. Mary had on a gray hoodie that I thought I'd seen before, and I noticed a dark crusty-looking red spot on the sleeve. Jane sported a baseball uniform. Mr. Bardell, wearing a smile like his wife, joined in the fun. He was down on all fours, wearing a dog mask that looked surprisingly lifelike.
I sat still on the sofa, feeling completely weirded out.
As Mary ambled around the living room, her hood shielding her face and her hands tucked in her pockets, Jane and Mr. Bardell engaged in a game of frisbee. Mr. Bardell crawled around like a playful pup, zooming across the room and even leaping over the couch. Quickly, I crouched down to avoid getting hit. He then sprang to his feet, his arms bent like a dog's, proudly holding the frisbee in his mouth.
Mary stopped and glanced back. “Cool dog,” she said.
“Thanks,” Jane said, mimicking a man’s low pitch. “What’s your name, son?”
“Eddie.”
My stomach sank. That was the name of our missing classmate.
“Would you like to play with him?” Jane continued.
“I should really get home, my mom–” said Mary.
“One throw won't hurt, would it?”
“I guess not.”
Jane grabbed the frisbee out of her dad's mouth and passed it to Mary. The frisbee soared into the dining room and plopped right onto a plate sitting on the table.
“Oh! It flew into my house,” said Jane.
“I'm sorry!” Mary said.
“That's okay, my daughters are getting a kick out of watching us.” Jane pointed up. “Do you see them over there? Second floor, window to the right.”
Mary waved.
“They told me you're a friend of theirs.”
“Not exactly friends… I mean, we went to the same school. I haven't seen them around in a while though.”
“Why don't you come inside and say hi?”
Before Mary could answer, Mrs. Bardell popped out of the kitchen, saying dinner was served. All eyes turned to me, waiting for me to make the first move.
XXXXX
Vote on the character's next move.

Below is the link to my sourdough. I have to thank those in the SourdoughStarter subreddit for helping me troubleshoot my starter, Holden (started with a rye mix.) Turns out, Holden really likes plain old Lake Ontario tap water. These being my first loaves, I am open to critiques. I'm not too fussy about air pockets and having a big distinct "ealip" thing on the top. It tasted great and I look forward to Holden getting older, making more loaves and carving patterns, and developing my skills.
I used the beginner's sourdough recipe from Farmhouse on Boone for reference, and my starter was an adaptation of KA.
https://imgur.com/a/s25qsd2

I have always wondered something as I watch office-related fashion vids. Most youtubers feature a what’s in my work bag demonstration. Those bags usually include every thing from a laptop, water bottle, planner, sweater, and lunch, to wallet, toiletries bag, and keys.
I have always taken two bags, either my purse and backpack (I’m currently in a employer-branded backpack) or a tote and a small crossbody purse to keep things seperate.
I think of the errands I may need to run during lunch or after work with kids, and instead of taking everything out of a single work bag (wallet, keys, phone, sanitizer), I prefer to have my purse with me to leave my workbag in my office during lunch or in the car after work.
What is your current configuration?:

1. Work tote with everything under the sun
2. Work tote plus purse
3. Work backpack plus purse
4. Just a purse, no work bag needed

For business professionals, what is your current preference, as I will be transitioning into the business setting soon and an looking for a structured purse, and a work bag (not sure if I want to carry a backpack).
Would love to hear what’s your preference!

Idk if this is just a me thing or what but HOLY SHIT the customers at my store have been so much worse than usual lately and I'm just left wondering what the hell is in the water tbh
Started last Tuesday with some junkie homeless guy that was yelling insults and slurs because he was asked to leave, since then my store has had some lady getting angry about ice cream and a few days before that apparently yelling at a clerk over accidentally ringing her drink up as new instead of a refill, some guy harassing the NA so bad the cops had to be called, some parents buying cigarettes for themselves and having their 7/8 year old kid ask us employees to get him food (apparently the parents do that with stuff themselves too) and just before I left for the day a little bit ago, some dude getting pissy with me and my 2A because of the price of a beer bottle (among numerous other instances of shitty attitudes and behavior, far more than usual)
Is anyone else noticing an uptick of customers just being straight up assholes in the past few weeks? Or is it just me/a run of bad luck at my store?

The baby died four days ago.
For context, we live in a small town. It’s remote, and we like it that way. Gives us privacy. My wife didn’t grow up here—she moved from up north, and never talks about her life from before all that much. I’ve gathered enough to know she has a sister, but is estranged from her family and that she never really felt like she belonged anywhere until she met me. Our little family is everything to her. She said she just wanted to hold him a little longer. For an hour. Then for the rest of the evening. Then through the night.
Now it’s been four days, and she’s barely set his tiny body down. When she isn’t rocking him, she’s praying, soft words muttered to the Lord under her breath.
When my wife first moved here she brought snacks and stayed after the church service for coffee and chit-chat—that’s how she and I got to know one another. She said it was different than the church she grew up with, less strict. Ours is a unitarian church that’s welcoming to everybody. There’s even a Buddhist who shows up just to socialize and sometimes leads a yoga group outside when the weather is nice. But tomorrow is the first service since our baby’s passing and I don’t want to field all those looks of sympathy and kind words and hugs…
… I do need advice though. Because you see, my wife has decided that if she prays enough, a miracle will restore our baby to life. She reminded me how last winter a frozen cat was thawed out and revived. One of our neighbors had a litter of puppies with one stillborn, and that thing was dead for fifteen minutes before it started to breathe.
But our little baby has been dead four days.
It's not that I don’t believe in scripture. But even Jesus revived after three days, not four.
My wife’s eyes used to always shine when the reverend talked about how much greater God is than any illness, how faith can bring us on a path of healing.
But I also know our reverend cut red meat out of his diet because his doctor told him to. He takes vitamins and goes on walks with his dog, and he is a down-to-earth man who believes God works miracles through us, not for us. In other words, we must take action if we are to heal, to be better, to do better. And he has counseled many of our congregants through times of grief. I’m hoping he can help my wife realize that our baby isn’t coming back…
***
After the reverend paid us a visit and offered his condolences, my wife flew into a rage at him and ordered him out of our house. Afterwards, she declared to me, “That man is a disgrace to the church! I should’ve known he was a fraud from the start.”
“What are you talking about?” I asked.
“Your church is a joke. They do yoga, Frank. They let Buddhists in.”
“I thought you liked Amita!”
“I do like yoga,” she relented. “But she shouldn’t be doing it at church.”
“It’s supposedly a very spiritual practice—”
“There’s no spirituality there, with Reverend Atheist in charge! If he really believed, why wouldn’t he pray with me for a miracle to restore our baby? Why did he tell me our baby’s not coming back?” She burst into tears.
What could I do? She would not brook even the possibility that our baby was gone forever. And after she collected herself, she told me she was going to pray. She moved our baby’s body up to the attic. She has a room up there, a room that’s hers and that I don’t go in. Every woman needs a room of her own, and when she first moved in with me, almost all her worldly possessions could fit inside one small travel trunk. She brought it in there and claimed that as her space. She used to say it was just her and God up there.
Now, it’s her, God, and the baby.
***
It's been six days. I’m glad she brought him up there because he was starting to smell, but it’s disconcerting to think of his little body decomposing and not yet put to rest.
I didn’t dare try to take him from her, though. She’d already chased away our reverend, was refusing all company, and left unopened the growing pile of sympathy cards and gifts. If she shut out me, too, she’d have no one. Only herself in that little room, with our dead baby and her prayers.
So, I offered to pray with her, too.
She didn’t want me to see the baby yet. Said he didn’t look very nice, and insisted on blindfolding me when bringing me upstairs to her little attic room, with her prayer shrine and the crib. And though I couldn’t see him, I could definitely smell him. I sank to my knees beside her and we both prayed for what felt like hours, until my back ached and sweat pooled under my arms and under my blindfold. I sucked in a breath, just about ready to tell her we should take a break when I heard a sound that sent my heart crashing into my ribs.
A baby’s cry.
Had I imagined it? My wife just kept praying. Maybe I was hallucinating. I touched my wife’s elbow and told her I needed some water.
As I was heading down the attic steps, I swear I heard it again! Just softly. And my wife let out a shriek. I dashed back into the room, where I found her—cradling a small swaddled bundle, her face beaming with joy. “Here he is!” she cooed. “Our son!”
She passed me the bundle. He was so long dead that his skin was discolored and putrid in his swaddling. But then his dead little baby mouth opened, and he softly warbled. I nearly dropped him. But my wife caught him, barely noticing my clumsiness as she lifted her shirt to let him latch. As soon as he did, she gave a cry of pain. But she wouldn’t let me take him, insisting he had to eat. Only afterward did she give him to me, his face bloody.
“Hold him while I go prepare bottles,” she said.
I looked down at our baby, his small blue lips wet with blood and milk.
Our miracle.
While my wife was preparing more food for him (blood? Or milk?), I laid him down in his crib. This strange and horrifying miracle. He seemed alert. His dead eyes, watching mine, never blinked. I knelt by the altar, intending to beg God to… undo whatever this was and take him back—but as I looked at the altar closely for the first time, what I saw chilled me to my very bones. It was decorated with words and symbols in a language that was definitely not Latin and that I could not read, and all the crosses hung upside down.
My wife is the most devout person I know… But I never asked which denomination she followed.
Only now do I realize that it’s some other God she’s been praying to… and apparently He granted her miracle…

First Previous
**Memory transcription subject: Xithan, … hungry Arxur**
*Date [standardized human time]: October 13, 2136*
Holding my gift, I let my eyes slide shut, the idle chatter between Cotton and Upsilta threatening to lull me back to sleep. I had pulled myself up onto my bunk, letting my back rest against the wall, with my tail wrapped around me. This was… pleasant. Calm. I could exist, without the sensation of suspicious eyes constantly on me.
I’m free.
A loud Cotton noise caught my attention– it had to be them, of course, as venlil did not make that same kind of boisterous… laughter, was it? My eyes lazily opened, and I looked to see the two of them sitting next to each other on Cotton’s bunk. The human was laying back on their bed, their legs nearly bouncing with the occasional wheeze between laughs. Upsilta’s face had bloomed orange, most noticeable around their eyes and ears. I wasn’t sure what I had missed, but… it was still odd, to see predator and prey so friendly with one another. Even with all I had seen recently, the Dominion’s teachings still came to mind, trying to tell me what I was seeing was a lie.
Of course, it wasn’t. My eyes couldn’t lie to me, and the Dominion had no power over me. Not here, anyway.
Heavy footsteps were heard at the doorway to the bunks, and Cotton’s laughter was stifled as the human shuffled to sit up. A stressed, exhausted face peered out, glancing across the room. The angry gojid tried not to flinch when she met my eyes, but she didn’t hide it well. Realizing I would have to take more care with my behavior again, I turned my head away, trying to avoid setting off her prey instincts.
Why… am I irritated by this? I’m used to adjusting my behavior around other for all my years–
You didn’t have to do it, a few moments ago.
“Krosa!! Ya changed your mind on the bath–?”
“NO.”
Cotton seemed to deflate at this, sighing before flopping back onto their bunk, letting out an annoyed noise. The venlil gave her a few ear flicks, and a content wag of his tail; probably trying to soothe her. Krosa let out an irritated exhale, before moving towards the human and venlil pair. Surprisingly, she had turned her back to me.
There they were, chatting again. The gojid’s voice was low, Cotton’s energetic as usual, and Upsilta’s, well, soft. Not as soft as his blessed fur, but still.
They paid me no mind as they chatted, and I enjoyed the feeling of sinking into the background. Not having attention on me was… pleasant. I rubbed my snout against my soft, red gift, content at how I was–
Growl.
I blinked, the silence of the room feeling entirely too loud following the rumbling of my stomach.
Hunger.
Looking up, I saw the gojid facing me, her spines up. The venlil seemed anxious as well, moving closer to their human. I couldn’t blame them. But it still–
“See?! How the hell are we supposed to– he eats FLESH, and there’s nothing for him on this shuttle–”
“Krosa.”
“I warned you this was what would happen if we took in a blasted arxur–”
“Krosa.”
“What, Cotton–?”
The tense back and forth made the air in the room feel thick, with the human seeming to get more… frustrated as the gojid’s ranting continued. Cotton looked at me for a moment, before looking back at the angry, prickly creature in front of them.
They’re going to tell.
“I have meat for him.” The fluffy-haired human firmly answered, a gritted stare watching as the gojid processed–
“You. You WHAT?!”
The incredulous rage nearly exploded out of the gojid, as she let out a frustrated snarl; to which Cotton stayed still, refusing to flinch.
“After– AFTER EVERYTHING! You, you brought meat?! And you think you can get upset when– when our kind calls you a predator, for this kind of shit–”
The tenseness of the human felt… odd, with how they normally were. Upsilta already knew of their secret, and didn’t seem angry; but still had an air of uncertain disappointment.
“There’s no changin’ what he can eat, Krosa. An’ I got something we can use to keep him fed without killin’ anything. Just need a sample–”
“NO. God– no, what the FUCK– I should have stayed in my room, you, you’re just–”
Cutting off Cotton, Krosa stepped away from the human and venlil pair, turning to give me a glare, before retreating from the bunk room. Upsilta hopped up from Cotton’s bunk, scurrying to the door and calling out to her. Cotton sat where they were, looking… tired.
“... You have, more meat?” I quietly asked, and the golden-haired human looked up at me, before nodding.
“Yeah. I brought, ah, two bags. I’ll give ya the other one… was hoping the first one would last ya longer, but…” They sighed, pulling their backpack towards them, and starting to dig. They pulled out another bag of dried meat, setting it next to themselves. I could feel my mouth water, and my heart skip a beat at the sight.
Food.
“Cotton?” A soft voice called, as the venlil returned– but stayed in the doorway, not committed to re-entering.
“Yea?” The human replied, still digging through their items; they’d laid out a few that didn’t seem to be what they were looking for.
“What… what did you mean, you have something that can keep… Xithan fed?”
Wait. What exactly did the human mean with this? Although I was fixated on the bag of meat rations, I pulled my eyes away to watch the human, catching the sight of them pulling out a cylindrical, metal object.
“Welllll… ah never told ya why I got, uh, kicked outta the program, did I?”
The venlil’s head tilted, their ears giving a confused twitch. Program - that must have been that human-venlil exchange program. Cotton could see my hunger, and made a motion to mimic… throwing the bag at me? I sat up straighter, and watched as the human effortlessly tossed the bag my way, right into my greedy claws. Unceremoniously, I tore into the plastic, digging out pieces of the dried meat and stuffing them into my gullet.
“So, ah… s’cause of this thing.” Cotton continued, gently tapping the metal cylinder. I glanced up, seeing Upsilta watching me, his fur puffed up, before forcing his gaze to his human.
“Speh, what… well, what is it? It.. it’s not a weapon, right?” The venlil chirped back, their tail swishing back and forth anxiously. The human let out a small laugh, their golden curls bouncing as they shook their head. “Nahhh, well. It ain’t a weapon to me, but… maybe to some of y’all, uh. ‘Prey’, species?”
I hadn’t realized how hungry I was. It… it was a little peculiar, having meat that was dried, but it still tasted good. It still satisfied my hunger. And I didn’t have to tear into a freshly killed gojid, either or eat those processed rations.
“Ah, well, the airport security sure as hell thought it was a weapon. Fuckin’ tool– wonder how long it took for his face to get fixed back up…” Those last words were nearly hissed, an odd glint in the human’s eye. A moment where they eerily reminded me of the humans on the Cradle– how on Wriss could they go from seemingly harmless, to something I’d hate to be on the bad side of–
You bit off two of their fingers. Was that not enough to be on their bad side?
I swallowed a large piece of dried meat. Apparently, that wasn’t the sort of thing that made Cotton upset. Whatever this ‘airport security’ did, evidently had made the human angry.
“–anyway, yea, this ain’t a weapon. S’a way for us to grow food.” The fluffy haired human beamed, looking towards their venlil for approval.
“S-so, no more rations?” Upsilta treaded, and the human let out an anxious laugh.
“U-uh, that’s the thing. It’s food… for me an’ Xithan.”
“... Wait, you mean–?”
“Meat.”
I had paused from my ravenous snacking, answer the venlil’s question for the human. Cotton looked at me, a gentle expression on their face. “Yea, s’right Xithan. Can make meat with this thing. Or, at least, duplicate a sample–”
“Sample?!” Upsilta squeaked out, and Cotton nodded. “Yeah, but hell, I’m fine with doin’ it–”
“NO.” I growled, my tail giving an irritated whip. The human looked at me, seemingly… hurt?
“.. Aww, c’mon, I’m fine with cutting out a piece, it wouldn’t even hurt–”
“Human, did you not hear me before? I would rather starve than ever taste human flesh again.”
The human sighed, rubbing their hair with their good hand. “Listen, I know it wouldn’t taste… the best, but, hell, I’d be willin’ to do it. The thing needs a fresh sample, it doesn’t really like dried or older ones for some reason–”
“I do not care. I refuse to eat your flesh– it was foul, rancid, and made me contemplate just giving up meat and dying.” The growl of my voice grew louder, and Cotton seemed unwilling to back down despite it.
“Fine, maybe… ah, fuck, I can hunt somethin’ down there–”
“Do you really think the gojid will entertain that?” I hissed, my heavy tail smacking against my bunk. “What about the venlil–?”
“Xithan, his NAME is Upsilta. And– shit, I don’t know, I’d just figure it out. There’s enough space on this damn ship to hide a carcass somewhere–” They were frustrated, but it didn’t matter– I would rather starve than taste that disgusting flesh ever again. What, by the prophet were humans made of, that tasted so wretched?
Letting out an exasperated sigh, Cotton set down their ‘meat generator’ on their bunk, before standing. The height difference wasn’t that much, but it seemed to make the human feel better. “Ya only need a lil sample– it can only make a little bit at a time, and it always needs fresh samples, but dammit, it works–”
We were at a standstill; my stubborn refusal, and their inability to back down. I opened my maw once more to remind the human–
“... I’ll do it.” Came the soft, reserved voice of the human’s venlil. Cotton’s face went a shade paler, and they whipped around to look at their exchange partner. “... Upsilta?”
The divinely fluffy venlil gave a gentle sway of their tail, meeting the human’s gaze for a moment, before looking away. Cotton was crouched in front of them, their hands grasping the prey’s shoulders. “... You don’t, you don’t have to do this, s’okay, I’ll figure it out–”
The venlil raised a paw to touch the human’s injured hand. “... You gave enough, already. Plus… he already said he wouldn’t eat your… flesh.” A gentle whistle of a laugh followed that, and then the human was gently holding the venlil’s face, their voice… strained.
“Are… are you sure? I don’t… I don’t wanna ask this of ya.” I couldn’t see their expression, as their back was turned to me, but I could safely assume it wasn’t a happy one.
“It’s… not like you will be able to catch anything in space. And.. Xithan is right; Krosa would probably have your head if she saw you with something you… hunted.” Another paw came up, giving the human’s hand a reassuring pat, before laying their paw overtop it.
I could easily eat venlil meat. Although, it would… clearly be a bit of a sacrifice, having to give up small amounts of their own flesh.
What prey does that?
One that isn’t afraid, clearly.
And one that doesn’t think you’re a monster.
“... I can, ah. Take the sample. I’ll do everythin’ I can to make it as… quick as possible.” Cotton breathed, their shoulders seeming to slump. They evidently really hadn’t wanted their venlil to have to do this. They… cared about him.
A cream-colored fluffy tail gave the human’s side a reassuring tap, before the venlil lifted his head to meet the eyes of the worried predator in front of him.
“I trust you.”
~note: crazy right? and some of you though we wouldn't come back (we still don't have backlog please be patient)
Side story following agent "John"
credits to SpacePaladin15 for the universe: https://www.reddit.com/HFY/comments/u19xpa/the_nature_of_predators/

I believed in fairies as a kid. More than believed in them. I think something terrible happened to me, and I've just buried it until now.
Call me a typical emotion-bottling man, but I have never considered therapy. No matter what I went through, no matter how many times I thought to myself, verbatim, that I should talk to someone about this, I just never thought of it as an option. It simply wasn't on my roster. It was just one of those things that existed on a separate plane of existence than I was living in, never to cross paths or interact lest the universe collapse in on itself.
I have no problem with therapy, don't get me wrong. It isn't like I don't understand the overall appeal. I have plenty of friends who swear by it, swear it has helped them tremendously, including my wife. It just wasn't ever something I thought was in my cards.
"I just never really thought about it," I told Alice one evening, when she had brought the topic up once again after dinner.
There was a serene sense of peace wafting through the entire house that day, and I was feeling content. It was a Sunday, and swimming season, so we had dropped Emmie off that morning at the public pool for practice and gone straight to our favorite breakfast place. The rest of the day was filled with all the conversation that had built up over the week, all the topics we couldn't fully dig into with each other while babysitting our eight year old, and lounging, all crammed in between sporadic bursts of housework and paperwork we had to catch up on. It was the perfect day, in my humble opinion. It was a lovely moment of peace in the midst of a chaotic life, as is life with kids. And now the sounds of Mario Kart drifted in from the living room, Emmie's squeals cutting through the cheery music every now and then, causing Alice and I to share small smiles of acknowledgement.
Oh, to be a child again. Still a little drenched from a post-swimming shower, full of chili, eyes glowing with the reflection of a television screen.
"Well, maybe you should." My wife was scooping leftover chili into a Tupperware with a ladle. Her hair had been tied up like it was every day after dinner, as if she planned to run a marathon rather than do the cleaning up. She wasn't looking at me, dialed into the task at hand.
It's crazy how some parts of my memory could be so good, and others nonexistent.
I reached over from where I stood before the dishwasher, sliding my arm around her waist. She gave me a look, like, what?
"I just don't think it's for me, babe," I muttered, resting my mouth on her shoulder as if I was trying to skip her ears and speak right through her skin. "You know those things make me uncomfortable sometimes."
She let out a half groan, half sigh, setting down the container and the ladle and turning to face me, draping her arms over my shoulders.
"Everything makes you uncomfortable, John."
I smiled, letting my hands fall to her hips. I knew her frustrated act was just that, an act, at least for the most part.
"It's good for you," she continued pointedly, reaching up to tap her pointer finger against my forehead as I swayed her back and forth to a nonexistent tune. "Like medicine. And I know for a fact there are some things you need to work through."
I feigned offense. "You think I'm some kind of nut job?"
"Everyone needs therapy," she snarled, pulling out of my arms, but she didn't resist when I reached out and drew her back in. "Not just nut jobs."
And that was how most of those conversations went. Some got a little more heated, ending with a lightly slammed door (so as not to wake our daughter) and a whisper-shout of "this is why you need therapy!"
I feel I'm making it sound bad, but it wasn't. Even our more serious fights never quite felt like fights. They felt like playing. We were like two cats, biting and tackling and swishing our tails, but never baring our teeth to hiss. I never felt genuine, full-bodied anger towards her, and I knew she felt the same. It sounds sappy, but we were just very in love. I sometimes felt that we had never actually left the honeymoon phase.
I'm also making it sound like that conversation was incredibly common, and it wasn't. It came up maybe once every few months. I knew she was just looking out for me. She knew me better than anyone.
We had met through mutual friends, and we had initially bonded over our terrible childhoods. We both had moms who were out of the picture, and over emotional, over compensating dads, although this manifested in vastly different ways. Alice's mother left her father for a D-list rockstar type, following him on his state wide tour. She would sometimes send Alice letters or postcards from the road, although her dad wouldn't always let her keep them if they seemed to be stained with blood or seemed to have made contact with any strange white powders.
Her dad coped with anger. He never laid a hand on her, but his shouting and the sounds of glass bottles smashing against the walls kept her up almost every night. During the days he'd take her out, buy her things, go mini golfing and bowling and to the movies. Anything to seem more fun than her mother.
My mother passed away on my seventh birthday. She was driving home from work, which was at a law firm half an hour away from our house, when it began to rain. She was texting my dad her ETA when she ran a red light and a semi truck T-boned her, completely obliterating her car.
After that, everything changed. My seventh birthday could've been my twenty-first. At night it was the worst. I remember sitting with my dad as he cried, curled up in a sobbing ball on the filthy living room carpet, whimpering like a kicked puppy. He would scream and wail so loud the walls shook. He would say, over and over as if I wasn't hearing him, sometimes mumbling and sometimes shrieking, "She was cut in half. I'm sorry sir, she's gone. No, there's no chance she survived, she was completely cut in half."
The days were almost worse. During the day, when he could decrease the helpless wails into weeping at the very least, his attention turned to me. He tried to get something out of me, almost silently begging me to break down with him. Every other second it was, "How are you feeling, son? Do you understand what's happening? You poor thing, you must be devastated, your mommy is gone... Don't you want to cry?"
But I couldn't indulge, and I didn't want to. I had to wash the sheets, because he'd pissed them again, and I didn't want him to sleep in it and smell like pee when he took me to school the next day. I had to vacuum the carpet, so the next time he curled up on it and begged God to take him too, when he finally stood up, his cheek wouldn't be caked in crumbs and dust.
I don't know if I ever truly mourned. My mother's death was more like an absence, as if someone had taken a pair of scissors and carved a chunk out of my side, or snipped off a limb. I could still feel her, I could still talk to her, but all I got back was a deep ache and a crushing silence.
I hated how people reacted when I told them my mom was dead, and had been since I was a little boy. I hated the looks on their faces when they asked how she died, and when I told them. How their mouths fell open dumbly and their eyebrows twisted and contorted in sympathetic horror. "I'm so sorry, I didn't know," they said, as if there was vomit rising in their throats, and I wanted to say, "Well, you fucking asked, didn't you?"
Alice never reacted like that. In fact, she never really even asked me what happened. We were on our second date, nursing beers while leaning against the pool table a a dingy speakeasy, when she told me about her own mom. It was the first time in a long time I actually felt like the conversation was open, like I could respond and she would listen and care, but not too much. Not an uncomfortable amount. When I told her about my parents she didn't say anything, and her pretty face didn't contort. She leaned over the corner of the pool table and kissed me on the cheek, took my hand.
The day she found out she was pregnant, we promised each other to be better, to not let our child ever have to grieve alone or feel the very specific hopeless terror that only a parent can cause.
So maybe I should have listened to her. Maybe I should have gone to therapy the first time she brought it up, the first time she told me how it had helped her get through her own terrible memories. But if I'm being honest, I didn't think I had anything to get through. I had left it in the past, I had coped so far in my own somewhat crooked way, I didn't want to dig any of that back up. I didn't want to be put back in that place where I was expected to talk, to cry, to open up. It made my skin crawl just thinking about it.
"I was always the therapist," I would say to her with a crooked grin. "And I like it that way."
Then, the dreams started.
I could tell you I don't know what triggered them, I don't know why it was now. But that wouldn't be the truth. I know exactly why I started to remember.
At first, they were brief. Nightmares that I couldn't quite recall or explain, waking up disoriented and a little sick. The rest of my day would feel strange, like I was surrounded by a thick fog. Eventually, they started to wake me up in the middle of the night, drenched in sweat and screaming, scaring the shit out of my wife. Once I ran to the bathroom and threw up, barely making it to the toilet. That was when the word "therapy" came up again.
It feels like I've been in a coma for twenty years, and I'm just waking up now.
It's so strange how different the world looks to a child.
I believed in fairies as a kid. Laugh it up if you want. When I turned four, my aunt brought me this book - we've all had one, I think. It was one of those huge hardcover books filled with information about something mythical, with little patches of fabric to simulate a mermaid's scales or a dragon's claw.
Mine was about fairies, and it was so real to me. My mom would sit up with me later than she probably should have, reading to me, placing my hand on the textures to feel. I wanted to know everything about them, I became obsessed, and naturally, my parents played along. They bought me toys, books... every year I had a fae themed birthday cake, and any kid who dared to giggle behind their hands weren't invited to next year's celebration.
When I was old enough to use the internet, supervised of course, I began further research. My mom helped me navigate Wikipedia first, and they had plenty of information to sustain me for a while. My interest turned from wings and magical powers to different types of fae from every corner of the earth, mushroom rings and their alleged distaste for iron. While I still wasn't very good at reading, I would just look at the pictures until she got home from work.
When my mom died, the fairy memorabilia began to amp up. My aunt bought me new books, gave them to me wrapped and tied with ribbons with tear filled eyes, and my dad brought them up whenever he thought I needed comforting and felt strong enough to leave the house. "Wanna go look in the forest for fairies, son?"
I'm embarrassed to admit it, but I began to worship the fairies. I was convinced they lived in the forest behind my house, just behind each tree I looked at, hiding from me. I would spend my weekends escaping into the woods with a bucket and a cheap pair of binoculars, positive that this time, this day, I would see one.
At night, when my dad finally passed out in his own puddle of tears and other bodily fluids, I would pray to them. I never believed in God, we weren't a particularly religious family, and besides, I had seen what good He had done for my dad thus far. But I believed in the fairies.
I asked them for help with my father. I asked them for peace. I asked them to bring her back to me.
They never answered.
Until they did.
It was a Friday. I remember now, I'm not sure how I could have forgotten. After school I had sprinted into the shade of the trees before my dad could stop me, gripping the hem of my shirt in my fist, the thin fabric bearing the weight of two handfuls of the shiniest silverware and most colorful buttons I could find in our dusty cabinets.
I had a plan that day. I was going to lure them to me.
My path began in a clearing where I thought a ring of mushrooms may have begun to grow... but even without that, it was just the perfect spot for fairies. I could picture them flitting between the trees, chirping to each other happily, picking wildflowers to weave into flower crowns.
I walked backwards all the way back to my bedroom window, dropping another item every few steps. When I got inside and looked out my window, I could see my trail of shiny things curve through the overgrown grass in our backyard and disappear into the trees.
I was so excited, I could hardly contain myself. Tonight, surely, they would come to me. They would show themselves, and they would help me. But after another few late hours of coddling my father, finally convincing him to drink some water and get in bed, I was exhausted. I completely forgot about my plan. When I got to my room I collapsed on my mattress, not even bothering to undress before I closed my eyes.
Then I heard it. The scratching.
I opened my eyes. The moonlight shining through my bedroom window casted strange shadows across my ceiling, shadows of the swaying grass and the creaking trees.
It was strangely silent, other than the sound. Usually there was lots of noise, or at the very least a few crickets, but not tonight. Tonight, I realized, I couldn't even hear the wind.
I sat up slowly, as if in a dream, and looked toward my window. I couldn't see anything out there, nothing glaringly obvious at least, that could be making that noise.
The scratching turned to a tap. Tap tap tap, like a fingernail against a glass. It had a playful air to it, like someone was saying, look over here!
I stood, rubbing my eyes, and stumbled over. The tapping stopped abruptly when I got to the window and peered outside, out to the dark yard, pitch black if not for the moon's glow. The grass didn't sway, the trees didn't creak. I frowned and unlatched the window, sliding it up above my head.
I was right, there was no wind. Not even a gust. Everything was still outside, like it was frozen. I actually started to believe it was frozen, that time had stopped completely somehow, before I saw it.
My trail of silverware and buttons. Sparkling softly in the moonlight.
Disappearing.
It began where the path met the trees, curving off where I couldn't follow it anymore. A fork disappeared right before my eyes, right on the edge. Just vanished, as if someone who was invisible had picked it up and stuffed it in a pocket very quickly.
Then another went, a spoon. Then a particularly large gold button. Whatever was taking them was doing what I had wanted, it was taking my bait, it was coming to me. And it was as if whatever had tapped at my window had wanted me to see this, wanted to show me.
But something felt very, very wrong.
This wasn't how I had pictured it. There was no twinkling, tiny winged thing at my window, winking at me before dashing back into the safety of the trees. There were no secrets being whispered in my ear, no fairy dust or promises of better things.
Something about this wasn't right. It felt like a mimicry, almost a mockery, of what I had imagined. Like something was trying to give me what I wanted, but was rusty at it.
I didn't want this anymore.
My stomach twisted and my hands shook as I pulled the window back down slowly, watching more glittery things disappear from the grass, growing closer and closer. As soon as it was closed I quickly locked it and pulled the blinds shut, turning my back to the window as if something would happen that I didn't want to see.
Nothing happened. The deafening silence continued for a few seconds as my ears strained to hear anything else happening outside. Then the wind picked up, and the sounds of crickets, muffled by my closed window, filled the night air.
I don't remember when I fell asleep that night, I just know I felt unnerved and jumpy for a while. I woke up the next morning feeling guilty. Had the fairies really come last night? Maybe they had come to talk to me, to bring me gifts, favors, and what had I done? I had closed my window on them. I felt ungrateful. Why had I even been scared? Because it was dark outside? What was I, a baby?
When I opened my window and peered outside, I gasped. The trail of silverware and buttons was completely gone, all the way up to the last one, which I had placed on my windowsill. In its place was a shoe. I didn't know what kind of shoe it was, but it looked sort of nice, fancy. I remember smiling out the window as I opened it, as if they were looking, and taking my gift.
How could I forget that night? How could I have forgotten what happened after? I feel crazy, either like I made it all up or like I've made up everything since then, like my life isn't truly my own.
I remember telling my dad. I remember saying, "Dad, the fairies came last night!" and the absent smile he gave me.
Until I showed him their gift. The shoe. Instantly his face went pale and he snatched it from my hands, staring at me as if I was something unholy.
"Where did you get this, Johnny?"
"The fairies, dad, I told you!"
He didn't respond. Just gave me another long, solemn look, before turning away from me, still holding the present I received close to his chest. I was upset, but I knew better than throwing a tantrum. That would be too much emotion anyways, too uncomfortable. Even back then, I didn't know how to handle those things.
I didn't show him their gifts after that. I didn't want to risk having them taken away. I tried not to be scared of the fairies, even though they always came at night, but I didn't go to my window when they came anymore. I read everywhere that fairies didn't particularly like to be seen, even though this one seemed to want to be. It always began with tapping, but otherwise complete silence that almost felt like it was swallowing me... and eventually the tapping would stop, the silence would pass, and I would fall asleep. In the morning there was always another gift for me, sitting on my window sill. A sparkly gold ring, the other matching shoe, a hat... I smiled when I took every one, wanting them to know I was grateful. And I would leave things for them too, little sweets or shiny things like coins or paperclips that I found on the ground at school.
Things seemed to get better with my dad for a while. He kept to himself more, he was quieter. At night he would cry softly in his room, rather than his uproarious wails that I used to have to quell so the neighbors wouldn't come knocking. During the day, he would talk to me, but more casually. He didn't ask me how I was feeling anymore, or tell me to let it out.
I hoped this was the fairies. I felt invincible, like I had a secret superpower that no one knew about. I was friends with fairies.
Then one night, everything changed.
It started with the tapping, as always. That night I was fast asleep, catching up on well earned rest since the nightly therapy sessions had ceased.
The tapping woke me. It was that loud. It was louder than usual... but it seemed like it stopped abruptly as soon as I raised my head to look.
That was different...
That night, I had left my blinds up and my window open by accident. Since that first night, even though I wasn't scared anymore, I had always closed them... but this time, I must have forgotten.
It was silent outside. It seemed darker than usual. I could almost make out something, a shape, way on the other side of the yard, but it was too dark and I was too far away to tell.
That feeling from that first night retuned. A twisting like a hand reaching into my stomach and mixing things around, a heavy feeling in my chest like someone had stolen all of the air from my room, even though the window was open. The silence seemed to crush me, bearing down on me from every angle, making my ribs hurt.
The feeling that something was very wrong.
I don't remember deciding to stand: looking back, I have no idea why I would do that in my state of fight or flight. I don't know if I consciously chose to. I don't remember walking over, but I remember getting there, my hands on the windowsill and my head poking out into the completely still night air.
There was something there. On the edge of the trees. Right where I had seen that first fork disappear into thin air. I squinted, leaning further into the darkness to try and make out what it was.
When I finally did, the outline taking shape as my eyes adjusted to the darkness, I began to shake uncontrollably. I remember that I tried to scream, but no sound would come. I couldn't move, couldn't do anything but stare.
Two legs stood in front of the trees, facing me. Two legs, a blood-soaked pair of slacks, no shoes on the purple, swollen feet. And a jagged, violent rip in the torso where the rest of my mother's body had been severed from its lower half.
It took me a while to realize that the legs weren't standing on their own. They began to move, jerking clumsily toward the window, like something I couldn't see was struggling to hold them up. I finally forced myself out of my trance and fell to my carpet, vomiting.
I don't remember much else about that night yet. My dad came running when I started crying, I'm sure, but he didn't see what I saw. My mom's legs were gone, or hidden. Because they weren't for him.
They were for me.
We moved after that. Before now if you had asked me why we moved so far away so suddenly, I probably would have mumbled something about the grief, and it being too hard to stay where my mother had died. But I remember why now.
It was because the next morning, when I checked my windowsill, there was a hand. My mother's hand. Purple and stiff, and missing her gold wedding ring. Reaching, fingers rested against the glass, like it was trying to get in.
Like it had been tapping.
I don't want to think about what else it might have brought, had we stayed.
That thing, whatever it was, wasn't my mother, and it wasn't a fairy. I had invited something else with all my praying, with all my naive and innocent beliefs, and with all my bottled up emotions. I had invited it, and I had let it in.
And then I had forgotten everything. Maybe I bottled that up, too.
Now I remember. Now I'm having nightmares, and waking up with that sick feeling in my gut, my eyes jumping to our closed bedroom window.
Because a week ago, my daughter woke me up very early in the morning my jumping on our bed. A week ago, she shook me awake, her eager smile stretching all the way across her face. A week ago, she told me, "Dad, the fairies came last night!"
She showed me a doll, a ballerina, with a pink tutu and beautiful long blonde hair.
And now, with all these terrible memories hitting me like cold water to the face, only one keeps me awake at night.
I asked them for help with my father. I asked them for peace. I asked them to bring her back to me.
It has granted two of my wishes, in its own twisted way. My father grew distant from me and my mother was brought back in pieces.
I'm happy now. But I don't have peace. I don't think I'll ever fully have peace, at least not with a child and a wife to try and provide for, and not with all of these memories.
So what has it come back for?

hi everyone! i'm looking for a good travel backpack for a few different trips i plan on taking within the next few years. i'm going to be moving abroad soon (not sure which country yet - in the process of finding a job haha) and want a bag that will be a good carry-on in addition to a larger checked bag and personal item for the move. further, i plan on taking a lot of weekend trips to explore the country/region i end up in and want the bag to be able to work on its own and carry all my stuff for 2-3 day trips. lastly, i plan on backpacking europe for around 3 months eventually and want the bag to be up to that challenge as well. that's a few years off so i don't have much more info than that, but i think around a 35l bag will work?
i'll be taking public transportation a lot and sometimes a long walk to a hostel, but other than that i don't plan on having the bag with me too much as i actually explore cities. if need be, i plan on putting it in a locker while i walk around lol.
i'm very small (less than 5'0) but love clothes so the bag will need to be small enough to work for me but big enough to fit all my stuff. price range is probably $150-200
i had my heart set on the cotopaxi allpa, but after reading some reviews i think i should pass tbh. plus, i think the 42l would be too big and the 35l doesn't have a water bottle pocket, which is definitely a necessity for me. i still really like the clamshell design of the bag though. i've heard really good things about osprey and i like their transporter global carry on. i've always liked fjallraven products as well and like how the splitpack 30 and ulvo 30 look. does anyone have any experience with any of those bags??? or other recommendations??? thank uuuuuu

So darling girl (we'll call her Amy) had a taste of life when SHTF this week after the power was cut off to our rural cabin for 3 days straight.
Sadly, I'm more of an armchair prepper than a hands-on guy, plus I was away on business so wasn't much help. Lack of electricity also meant the electric pump to our artesian well didn't run so Amy had no power AND no running water.
Most of the lessons we've learned will be pretty obvious to you guys as experienced Preppers but I wanted to share what I've learned so you can show this to anyone who says that prepping is only for the paranoid.
I'm also immensely indebted to the TheSensiblePrepper for his awesome 'Power Out Kit List'. You saved our lives, man!
Check your UPS
Living out in the country we're used to temporary power cuts, so I use a laptop with a UPS for work. We also have a Starlink satellite dish for internet. When the power first went down I suggested to Amy that she plug the Starlink router into the UPS to get online, only to find it needed way more juice (1000 VA) than my budget UPS could supply. Naturally I'd have known this if I'd troubled to test the UPS myself with the Starlink system.
Power Banks : Go Big or Go Home
TheSensiblePrepper's recommended Golabs R300 Power Station couldn't be delivered to our cabin, so we went with a Jackery 1000 with a 200W Solar Panel. This is a classic case in point for why prepping is so important as we had to arrange daily deliveries of mini battery packs for Amy's cellphone each day from a local grocery store just so she could charge her cellphone.
Lay in your Logs
It's great having a log fire as we do. We even have a ton of logs out in the shed. Still Amy's health problems prevented her from fetching them to keep the place warm. Naturally I felt terrible as I was thousands of miles away and couldn't do it for her. Lesson learned: If you're going away and your family have mobility issues, make sure they have everything they need to hand!
Network with Neighbors
Some kind neighbors did invite Amy over a meal, shower and to charge her cellphone the first night of the power cut. Still, Amy didn't feel right about asking for more help as she didn't know them well. If we'd taken the time to visit with the neighbors and maybe help out with a few chores we'd have a much better support network around us. Needless to say, we're going to do that in future!
Water Worries
The lack of running water was a huge obstacle for Amy - the poor girl went without a shower for 3 days! The aforementioned kindly neighbors dropped off a few bottles for drinking and some 'gray' water to flush the toilets.
Still, I've since been researching solar pumps for the artesian well which include a backup battery. It's going to be costly to replace the pump altogether but it's better that than be stuck without water.
Currently I'm leaning towards TheSensiblePrepper's suggestion of laying in some stackable water bricks.
Grab some Gas
Although our house is plumbed for gas, it's only used for heating. In a SHTF scenario, it's also unlikely they'll keep pumping. Amazon came to the rescue here once again with the Grill Boss Portable Propane Stove.
I've no idea if this is the best value for money or most efficient stove out there. I do know in future Amy won't have to eat cold beans out of a tin, even if the gas/power goes down.
__
As I said, I'm sure this will seem very obvious to experienced users but if we'd followed the steps in this subreddit sooner, we'd have had a much easier time of it. Perhaps something to share with non-preppers next time they say you worry too much. :-)
​

https://imgur.com/a/J5XnSpk
Finally got off my butt and did my WFA recert for the first time in (way too long, like since scouts). Everyone always says once you have the training you carry less stuff but I found the opposite. I finished the course realizing "damn, long term wound management is resource intensive even for minor injuries" but I think I've got enough here to not be seriously wanting for anything. weight is 175g.
General

• 4" flat fold elastic wrap. I really need to get a vacuum sealer so I can make these on my own. more expensive than a standard packaging ACE but dang it's so much more compact
  
• Gloves
  
• Roller Gauze
  

FOOTCARE

• Uncle Bills Sliver Grippers
  
• Nail Clippers
  
• Moleskin 3x kidneys
  
• Molefoam 1x sheet (this stuff is amazing for building up around blisters)
  
• Tegederm
  

GOO

• 1x Poison Ivy wipe (unnecessary if you carry soap I guess, but I don't.)
  
• 2x Antibiotic ointment, mostly for footcare
  
• 1x Diphenhydramine ointment for bugbites
  
• 1x hydrocortizone for bugbites/rashes
  

MEDS

• 2x Tylenol for fever
  
• 4x Diamode cus ya boi got IBS
  
• 2x Benadryl for major allergies
  
• 8x Motrin
  
• 2x baby Asprin
  

BOOBOO

• 2x Small bandaid
  
• 2x Medium Bandaid
  
• 2x Large Bandaid
  
• 1x Steristrips (pack of 3) for moderate wounds
  
• 1x Dermabond (Don't seal deep wounds, but this can be good for sealing skinned knees/elbows if you're crossing water or something else gross)
  
• 1x Transparent dressing
  
• 2x Gauze pads
  

I went with transparent dressing since it doesn't need to be changed every 12hrs like a regular bandage, so a smaller moderate wound could be stabilized with steristrips and covered in transparent dressing and be good for 3-5 days (long enough to start healing properly or get out of the woods) while allowing me to monitor it without wasting any supplies
Stuff that's not shown:

• My dorky bandana with the scene assessment and patient history system on it
  
• Garmin InReach
  
• RitR notebook and golf pencil
  
• Duct tape on my hiking pole.
  
• I'll also usually keep a CAT TQ tucked in my thigh pocket if I'm doing anything with a fall risk or in an area where people do gun stuff, because improvising TQs sucks. Yeah you can do it in a pinch but you aren't getting a belt TQ or DIY windlass cinched down before you black out in 60-90s.
  

Stuff I feel like I'm missing but I don't want to make it bulky/heavier

• A tick key, this is the only thing on the list I might add. I have one in my bigger kit and its amazing.
  
• 1x More Roller gauze, tegederm, transparent dressing and gloves. If something starts getting infected and I have to start repeatedly cleaning and warm soaking, I don't have a lot of stuff here to redress effectively.
  
• A small burn pad like second-skin. They're amazing for scalding burns (like... fucking up with your stove), but they're heavy
  
• Triangle bandage: Really bulky, but much easier to use than clothing for splinting and bracing
  
• A second ACE wrap
  
• Irrigation syringe: I carry smart waterbottles so I could put a pinhole in the cap to use for irrigation, if you use nalgenes or something similar you won't have an efficient way to presurize water for cleaning wounds.
  
• Tincture of Benzoin for helping stuff stick to the foot, small, might be worth adding for 5g.
  

I've also got a larger ~750g kit that has more of everything and more trauma stuff that I take (hunting, shooting, climbing, or with groups of friends where I'm "the first aid guy"), but that definitely wouldn't qualify for this sub lmao.
Thoughts?

TL;DR. I bought an Owala Bottle for $35 last fall, took a small drop out of an open car door, tiny ding, stopped insulating, reached out to Owala, got nothing but a run around by every level of their customer service. Out $35 and a functioning product.
I purchased my 32oz Owala Free Sip in September of 2023 at a local Walmart. I have long preferred to drink water cold so I have owned a wide variety of bottles and tumblers over the years from many manufacturers. I bought the Owala knowing nothing about the product or their "color drop" marketing strategy. I found the lid system to be interesting and innovative, and the product appeared to be well made. So I picked one up, and was quite satisfied by its overall performance.
Fast forward to April 2024, I am putting some things back into my (non-lifted) F150 pickup after an outing, including my Owala bottle. I placed it on the bench seat while I put a few things down in the bed. I walk back to the cab, my son gets in the back seat and knocks if off the bench seat, rolls onto and across the carpeted floor, out the door and onto the parking lot surface. I pick it up and there's a small ding and some very minor scratches to the paint. I don't think anything of it the minor damage to it, the ice I had added over 24 hrs prior had long since melted.
I get home a few hours later, and put some ice and water in the bottle. After about 15-20 minutes the exterior of the bottle starts to sweat like an ordinary, uninsulated glass. Probably an hour or so later, most of the ice I had put inside had already melted. Usually I could get at least a good 12-14 hours before ice would completely melt away if I repeatedly filled the bottle during the day. If I put some ice and water and just left it it wasn't uncommon for it to keep the liquid cold for 20-24 hrs.
I fill out the warranty form on Owala's site, expecting a company advertising a lifetime warranty and selling what appears to be a well made, quality product, having no qualms over replacing a bottle that isn't doing what it is supposed to over such a minor mishap. I, and any other reasonable individual understands that sometimes a company's product doesn't perform quite the way that it should.
But, I guess I was expecting too much from Owala. Within a couple of days, I received a boilerplate "we are sorry, but our warranty does not apply to products that have suffered accidental damage"
OK. If I had driven off with the bottle on the roof of the car, it fell off, got hit by another car, or thrown off a cliff, I'd see their point. They aren't running a charity. But a small drop from less than table height?
I call Trove Brands, Owala's parent company, hoping to get some resolution there. They look up my warranty ticket, and automatically give me the same "Sorry, but..." response. I ask to speak to a manager, and none is available. I ask to have my call returned when one is...and as you can see where this is headed, I never get a call back. I try again the next day, this time I am at least permitted to leave a voice mail for the "manager". Again, call not returned.
Fast forward a couple of weeks (I'm not going to waste my time on vacation trying to deal with a non-responsive company) and I try again. This time, I finally get a manager on the phone. I spell out what happened.
"I'm sorry, but accidental damage is not covered...." Oh boy, here we go again.
(Following is paraphrased, of course)
I ask the manager "does Owala test their products for expected mishaps?"
"Yes we do."
"I am correct in reading that Owala warranties their products for manufacturing defects? Is it possible that the issue I experienced is due to a defect in the product that resulted in a failure of the product where it should not have failed"
"Yes, we warrant against defects, but we cannot foresee every possible situation, and unfortunately in this case cannot warranty your product"
"So basically, what I am being told, is that Owala doesn't stand behind their products. That a minor ding, less than 1/8" in diameter, from a fall less than the height of a normal table, is enough to render it unfit for the purpose it is sold for?"
*Crickets for about 30 seconds* Then the "manager" goes into regurgitating the warranty policy again. I stop him mid sentence.
"So you are marketing your product as a premium product, and are charging a premium price for it, but it can't stand up to what should be a foreseeable mishap by your product engineers?"
"We cannot foresee every event, and cannot warranty against accidental damage"
Same basic exchanges go on for another 5 minutes or so, I ask to speak to his boss, who of course, is not available. I offer to wait, and get the explanation that "he's training new employees and will not be available today". Exasperated (and that's being kind) at this point, I just hang up.
Take this as a warning to not buy an Owala unless you have $30-40 to burn should you do anything to the bottle that happens in everyday life. You WILL NOT get any resolution from their customer service, just endless run arounds and a lighter wallet. Buy from a company that doesn't try to hide behind legalese when someone has a problem with their product.

I bought packs of zep spray bottle a year ago for use around the house. For some reason, 7 of them were turned into bleach solution bottles…
Doing some cleaning around the house and I need several for dawn power wash solution, clr solution, and one for vinegar solution.
Is it okay just to rinse out the bottles several times with warm water and reuse ?

Yo, I know a lot of you are complaining constantly about overpriced vendors. Well, let me tell you why I charge more.
With the new influx of players, like what, 10x more than used to exist, items have suddenly become extremely rare. Once a plan is learned, it’s gone forever, (If you find a vendor with a vintage water cooler you already used all your luck for that day) the prices need to stay high because there is more demand than ever for items, especially for what I call “antiques” because these things were in the game before I and the rest of the new players started playing.
I am sorry we wrecked your economy but if anything it has gotten better. At 500 hours in game my favorite hobby is to buy and resell and I have highly curated my vendor so that I only have interesting items. Moo moo backpacks, Brahmin couches, plushies, lamps, shards, just fun stuff. My work as a trader is no joke. I can vendor hop for 6 hours a day because I love the hunt but I will get paid for it and so should you.
You don’t have to pay for the prices I set, but who is anyone to value what it is worth to any of us vendors. Do you scream at the dealerships because you can’t afford a Lamborghini? I go out of my way to make sure I’m not selling the same 47 plans everyone else leaves in the vendors. (Seriously just trash your ultracite and pianos plans, nobody is buying them) the quality of vending in this game is pretty low and the people with good stuff have their vendors turned off because they have max caps and nothing else to buy. This is why it’s important to keep prices high.
I’m sorry if you feel priced out at level 50 but I work my ass off to provide a good service with luxury and hard to find items. Who knows if some of them will ever come back too.
Bottom line is everything is worth what someone is willing to pay for it you have no right to call it “price gouging” when you didn’t do the potential hours of work to find it in the first place.
I just sold two mothman mounts for 9k each within two days of putting them up! I should have charged more and I don’t feel guilty about that.
Charge more for good homeware stuff and drop the junk that has never sold. It raises the quality for everyone. Nobody doesn’t have the potential to make the same caps in this game.
Also, Bethesda, please raise the cap allowance so we can actually do some high value trading without a third party system.

Hi. I am need of advice on how to go about terminating my lease early. I have no problems with my landlord and his mom which was my landlord before her husband passed away. It’s the brother who started causing us issues. When we moved in here back in 2019, LL’s brother, doesn’t live here. During pandemic, LL and brother moved in together with their parents and the landlordship was transferred to my now LL.
On 2022, I kicked out my roommate who I share the rent with and that person after being kicked out harassed and stalked me and my son that I had to file for a TRO. I didn’t move because here at least our neighbors look out for me and my son. If we move nobody knows us there and our stalker may found out where we live and break into our home again. Everything was fine with LL, his mom and the brother. LL’s brother and I get along, we would greet each other, have a long talk if we have time. We were good.
Fast forward to the last quarter of 2023, my LL’s brother started acting weird towards us. He no longer greets us back. He would always frown whenever he sees us. At one point he knocked on our door and told us that he doesn’t want us to accept guests in our apartment nor see my son’s friends near the property. Since I don’t want any conflict, I just said ok and moved on. Following that he became more rude but we just ignored him. Soon after we would hear banging noises from the basement, slamming doors and loud music emanating from below us (we live in the 1st floor and them on the 2nd). At first, I thought it was just the pipes banging because it was winter but it would be constant during daytime and especially during sleeping hours that it would awaken us. This was followed by LL’s brother throwing bottle water and unidentified liquid to my son 4 times and the last one I caught him. The worst was he banged on our door clutching a gun on his waist and threatened me that he will come for me. His brother told me it was just a fake gum and he was using it to scare people but he wouldn’t harm. He told me to not call the police and promised that they will talk to him.
Now my mom moved in with me and he started the banging of our floor and slamming doors again. Just last week he walked on the spot where my room is located and stomp hard many times on the floor above me. It has affected us mentally and is really triggering my anxiety. I reported to the cops that he is harassing us by cops are downplaying it as noise complaint only. I don’t want us to end up in court if possible. I want to move ASAP because we don’t feel safe here anymore and have our peace back? What should I do? How should I break the lease? Sorry for the long post. TIA

A flicker of light started to drain away the darkness I was so used to. The darkness where I felt most comfortable and at peace. The flicker slowly enveloped the entire pitch black room within minutes. I could do nothing but sigh in disappointment and open my eyes.
My adjusting eyes were being harassed by the tiny beam of light that made it through my curtain. Where it's at the precise angle that you swear some higher power is just messing with you.
My groggy eyes focused on the clock, it was 7:00 a. M.
Time for work.
The day was April 14th, 2014. A Monday. I knew I only had about an hour to get up, get ready for work, shower, make breakfast and make sure I get to work a few minutes early so I didn't clock in late.
I was only 28 years old and I hated my sales job. I had gone to college and got my marketing degree but I never thought I'd end up here.. selling bullshit products at incredibly hiked prices to unsuspecting or oblivious customers.
I had been doing this job for 3 years and it felt like everyday was just going to be worse. Just a buildup of hatred for your job overtime is natural I guess. Typically people find ways to cope with the constant 9-5 grind. Like going out with friends or clubbing or whatever...but I had none of those.
When my days ended I would go home and watch Netflix and drink then do it all again. I wish it was different, I wish I had the motivation to change myself. But it's difficult when you have no one to support you in your efforts. My mom died from breast cancer when I was 12. Seeing her on hospice for several months suffering from stage 4 cancer was...something you shouldn't see as a 12 year old. To see your once lovely, athletic, hilarious, loving and caring mother degrade into an 85 pound, drug-induced, horrifyingly thin creature that in no way resembled her from my memories of when she was cancer free.
I remember one morning my dad woke me up and said "come to the living room...your mother is taking her last breathes". As soon as he finished that sentence, my memories flooded back...memories of her taking care of me when I was sick, being at my soccer games cheering me on, asking how my day was when I got back from school, leaning on her shoulder as we sat in church. The memories came and went in an instant and the reality set in. My heart at first skipped a few beats but then accelerated to an unhealthy pace. My head started to spin, tears slowly started swelling up on my eyes.
I had jumped off the bed and sprinted to the living room. She was facing away from me and the first thing I noticed are how purple/ blue her feet are. I walk around the hospice nurse and look at my mother's face. She was place, her breathing was almost non-existent for almost 2 minutes but still there...until it wasn't...she was gone.
I was lost, my dad was bawling. I was crying too but at 12 years old I didn't know how hard the reality would hit as time goes on.
In my lost state, I turned on the TV show "MONK" on the laptop. It was a show my mom and I used to watch, and I figured watching it would make me feel like I'm with her again.
Time went on and I realized how losing a mother truly impacts your younger years. But time still, moved on yet.
I got in my car and left for work. The drive to the office was only about half an hour. I put my sunglasses on as I'm travelling east for almost the entire drive, something I was used to by this point. The drive to work was uneventful other than the usual jackass that cuts you off or is speeding down the road.
I made it to work and stepped out of my car. For some reason, grabbed my backpack and shut the door. For some reason the thought of my mother came across my mind. The sighed, looked down at the ground and stared at the concrete for the few seconds while only thinking of how I missed her. Then the thought vanished and I got on with my life.
The day was incredibly boring, only sold a couple of products, I dealt with people in the east coast of the U.S. and customers there are always so nasty and rude with their comments. It's impossible to build rapport with them. I'm jealous of the employees that have West coast as their territory.
The day ended with my last call but no sales for the day. Hopped in my car and drove back home.
Now I've already told you what I do when I get home. Just drink and watch Netflix. And that's exactly what I did. I can't remember the name of the show( probably because I was already tipsy) but it had to do with strange phenomenons.
I don't even remember passing out but I do remember being there in that dark room again; it was so comfortable and cozy. I sat in the corner of the room with eyes wide closed ...no people, nothing to disturb me, just... nothingness of warmth.
For hours this went on until I heard a woman's voice saying "I'm glad you're here". suddenly realizing that I had overslept my body jolted awake, completely forgetting about that eerie voice. Drinking on a Monday night is not a good idea. Blurry and in a haze trying to concentrate my focus I made out the clock saying 7:00 a.m. April 15th, 2014.
I thought how odd that was. I've been doing the same job with the same schedule for 3 years now and I know when I oversleep. Yet knowing this brought a mental smile to my mind, as my supervisor won't get on my ass for showing up late, again.
I got up lazily and stretched and got on with my morning routine. Finally got dressed and hopped in my car to leave for work. I was only about 5 minutes in when I realized something was off...why was I wearing sunglasses? The sun was behind me, not in front. I took my glasses off and read my car dashboard compass; "EAST".
I have taken this drive for 3 years now every Monday through Friday and I had always worn sunglasses for the drive to the office. I looked behind me and saw the sun rising from the west.
I was still calm, but subconsciously I could tell my panic and anxiety were building with what I was experiencing. I decided to pull over at a gas station, took my phone out and opened my GPS. 'I was still facing east.
I quietly stated "what the fuck". I looked up and asked the person next to me pumping gas " look! The sun! It's rising from the west" with an ecstatic and speedy tone. He looked at me with a smile on his face and said "yeah? Don't ya know it's always rose from the west".
The reality of this was starting to set on, anxiety building, I got back in my car and just sat there... Running my hands through my hair, pulling and stretching my face wondering what the hell was happening? My eyes were staring wide at the brake and gas pedal...trying to find some kind of logical explanation for this while still running my hands over my face and hair.
I decided to take my phone out again and click on trending news hoping to see something explaining or even acknowledging this phenomenon. Nothing. I opened Google search and looked up "sun rising in west" the first thing that popped up said Earth is rotating about its own axis from East to West".
This wasn't right.
I figured I would try to get to work and maybe one of my coworkers would have some answer. My entire body was shaking for the entire drive but I made it".
I got out of the car and the strangest thing came across my mind. A memory. A very unique memory of back when I was 12, in the back yard playing capture the flag with my neighbor that lived behind me. A time which I could go back when.
The memory came and vanished in an instant, but left the overwhelming feeling of nostalgia and sadness.
I walked into the office and started asking around about the sun. Again, none of them knew what I was talking about, but before they answered my question, they would say "oh hey, it's nice to have you here" or "we're glad to have you here" all with a smile on their faces.
Not super weird as my coworkers are typically super energetic happy people. But it did become weird when my east coast clients started answering their phones saying "hey, you're always welcome here"
I couldn't see their faces but I could tell by their tone and attitude that they were smiling. This was not normal. I rushed to the bathroom, opened a stall and sat on the toilet. I started having a panic attack. Nothing was right, the people, the sun, the specific memories... I started to run my hands over my face, stretching and contorting it, trying to calm myself down with feeling my heart bursting out of my chest. I started to whimper, I didn't want anyone outside of the stalls to hear me. None of my coworkers were right, the guy at the gas station wasn't right...nothing. years swelled up in my eyes and a brief memory of my mom came back.
It was me, coming home from school, I walked inside and could smell the pizza she was making. I see and her and asks me hey, how was your day?".
This memory helped calm me down from the wreck I was turning into. I took several deep breaths, tried my very best to compose myself, and stepped out of the stall. I ended up taking some paper towels and wiped away the tears that were caught in my eyes.
I decided that I will just try to finish this day because tomorrow everything would be back to normal...I have to reassure myself that I would be, I just knew it would be....it had to be.
I sat down back at my desk and my phone rang, picked it up and a voice came through. The voice of my mother asking " I am so glad you are here, Luke".
I was frozen, shocking, tingly sensations ran through my entire body. My demeaner instantly changed into fight or flight mode...but I chose the 3rd... freeze.
Phone still up to my ear, I heard her speak again. "Oh honey, Luke my sweet boy, don't you remember?".
I didn't reply verbally, but mentally I was thinking "remember...what the hell is...remember what?"
Then she spoke one last time, "last night, you saw the sun".
Then the memory of the night before races back into my mind. I was on my drive home from work, watching the beautiful sunset over the horizon. With all it's beautiful mixtures of orange, red, purple. I was so just staring at it...in a trance, thinking of how I wanted to go back and just be a kid again, play with my back door neighbor, come home to my mom. Why couldn't I just go back?
I suddenly hear a blaring car horn and then blackness.
I believe I died on April 15th, 2014. And I don't mind it. I like being in this black empty room just sitting in the corner..with nothing but warm emptiness to fill my cold shell. I like feeling the embraces of it's comfort over the tiring lifestyle I was living. My only dream was that I could dream forever...and now it's finally been achieved.
I miss my mother, and I know she misses me, the memories I have of her will keep me warm in this blackened wasteland forever.

Hi there this is my first post ever and Though this happened a few years a go I feel like i need to write this out for cathartic reasons . so apologies if this is confusing and goes back and forth .
Background : me (28 F) and my S/o , let call him John(29M), have been together 11 years this October, being some what high school sweet hearts we have gone through most and if not all of our major moments in our 20s and now entering our 30s . When we first got together i was fully aware John and His mother dont always get along. And thats putting in nicely . In reality they get in to Full screaming and cussing fits. These can be started from a simple discussion, think "what color is the sky?" and the most unhinged argument would start. MIL is a divorced, awful narcissist who gaslights John and mentally and emotionally abuses both John and his sister , my SIL , we will call her Kelly. My SIL Kelly is also just as bad and if not worse than my MIL in some ways . In the past i tried very desperately to get them to get a long and bury the hatchet , my MIL and SIL would loudly talk about how they loved me and appreciated me and my MIL started calling me her DIL almost 3 months in tot he relationship. (Probbaly Red Flag #12 but i was young and was brought up being told its the most important thing to have your S/O family like you and you do what ever your S/O family ask of you .) Now my SIL being possibly worse than my MIL would be her anger issues on top of her own narcissistic and gaslighting behavior modeled after her mother .SIL also has 3 children by 3 different men, never married and has protection orders agaisst all these men, and dragged all of them to and from court in the same fashion as MIL divorced John and Kelly Father .Also as she had the relationship end with her first Babby daddy we inherited her dog as she couldnt keep him and he is now OUR dog has he as lived with us for almost 8 years now, he is our dog as i pay for his food and all vet needs, he is 100% a house dog and lives happily with all of us and his dog sissters . Over time both MIL and SIL obviously became comfortable and thats when i started seeing their disturbing behavior towards John and his Grandma then later to myself . MIL and SIL have abused Grandma by using her as free child care (Gma is 80) and would berate her and use the Kids against her, if Gma did anything SIL didnt like . By using the kids i mean SIL would send long text messages telling Gma she the worst and worthless, bringing her to Tears and she is banned from seeing the children untill SIL decided shes no longer upset or had no other options . As of Current she is still banded from seeing her grandchildren and we have no idea what she needs to apologize for. Next we escalated to being screamed and kicked out of Christmas Dinner , my MIL stelaing $2,500 from Johns Saving account and stealing Gmas credit card info to use on Amazon orders to just show a few more examples.
Now back ground about story in question: Myself and John found i was pregnant when we were 19 at the time we decided to terminate the pregnancy as we both heavy believe in having children only when we are economically comfortable enough to do so and both agreeing that being so young this was not the time to do this. We both strictly believe in this as we have had many family members pop out children with out any though and that disturbs both of us. Then Going to Plan Parenthood i was told i had an ectopic pregnancy and they then was rushed me to the hospital to schedule my termination . Understand this was a very scary situation for myself as i was told one of my ovaries could be removed and due to the placement fluid was building up and stuck near my hip that caused my to start losing feeling in my leg , but the surgery was scheduled for the next day . Thankfully I had some Great doctors and both my own family and John overwhelmingly supported me during all of this and i didnt have to lose an ovaries . Yay! Now i am actually a pretty private person when it comes to my heath and due to feeling some misplaced embarrassment and shame i asked John to no speak to his mother about this i wanted to keep this between us . He agreed though obviously this was stressful and devastating to us at one point he did confide in his mom for support . At the time i was pretty furious at this but understood that as my family knew and gave us all the support we could ask for i understood he did long for his own mothers support . At the time she was extremally understanding and supportive and was everything John needed emotionally at the time and she respectfully gave me space and didnt bring up any questions. I deeply appreciated this at the time as it was what i needed.
Fast forward to the day in Question: 2020
It was a bad day for me , i was very sick dealing with ,at the time, an undiagnosed Gallbladder disorder that caused sever vomiting and abdominal pain that wasn't corrected untill late 2022, and i went home early with an hour dive back to the home myself and john share with his Gma. When i arrived home SIL and MIL with the kids were at the house just visiting . During this SIL keep speaking about OUR (Myself and Johns Dog ) still being hers. During a moment i was unable to hold my tongue and said something along the lines "well he isnt your dog thats why ." she then screams "YOU BITCH!" in our home in front of the kids . I then promptly and calmly told her " You can leave now . " she then continued to cuss me out but i had blocked most of that out as none of that needed to escalate or be said in front of the kids .At this Point john was also loudly telling both MIL and SIL the leave and they will not speak like that in the house . We were then told we couldnt tell them what to do as it was Gmas home and now ours . I looked and Gma and as she went to say something MIL started screaming at her telling her to "Shut up and mind her business" By this point the argument then escalated to a point of SIL taking the kids out of the house telling us we "are wothless and we could all fuck off ". MIL was still yelling and i couldnt tell you what but then as i loudly told MIL that their behavior was unacceptable and they needed to leave our hosue and SIL behavior infront of the kids was also Unacceptable in this home and since we all live under the same roof we have just as much say in the home as Gma. MIL then proceeded to say "How would you know how to take care of children !" you got rid if yours !' It took everything in my body to not jump over the living room sofa and beat the ever loving shit out of her. I did take a step forward and said "Do you want to repeat that ?" she looked at me in horror, not because of what she said but because she probably saw the rage in my eyes and i was not acting my "normal submissive self " with her so she was not prepared for my response . John then proceeded to tell her to "Get the Fuck out of this house ! How dare she and she was no longer welcome in the home. I couldnt really tell you what i was saying at that time or if i said anything at all after that as i was in a blind rage . She stormed out of the home and slammed our front door. funny part was they left the kids water bottles so she had to come back and knock on the door to get them back. I opened the door tossed them at her and slammed the door so hard in her face the entire front door area shook and almost dropped some frames off the wall.
I apologized to gma as i know i should of held my tonge when they were over but i just couldnt . She told me to not aologize and she is so ashamed of both MIL and SIL behavior and she didnt even know what to say or do to make me feel better. At this time i was unaware i was shaking violently and and tears just free flowing out of my eyes . Both Gma and John did everything they could to comfort me but nothing quiet helped. I think i just disassociated for the rest of the day or else i would if spiraled out of control. We went NC very quickly after this as John couldnt believe that came out of his mothers mouth and was just taken a back and devisated as i was . Gma was still baby sitting and told gma i would never tell her what to do but please dont speak of me over there or anything about my family or me and John. she agreed that was best and kept her promise. though Months later i found out i was still a topic of conversation at MIL and SIL home, about my behavior that day and my "unplanned and outrageous choice to get rid of my child ." Gma came home and explained what was going on to John when i over heard and then suddenly spiraled into a nervous break down . Johna nd Gma came over to calm me and she apologized as she wasnt trying to keep it from me but didnt want to upset me further so she believed telling John was a better what and have him speak to his mother about this but he was also spiraling . after a few days i sent MIL a 4 page educational Fuck you text message and link included so MIL and SIL could better educate themselves as i did not "just get rid of it" i had a medical emergency that could i had last effects on my life. She then responded with no apologies no remorse , just blamed Gma for speaking when she shouldn't and that i "owed her" for being taken to Disneyland (which was a fully planned family trip she invited me to and was upset that John didnt propose to me during trip at disney) and i also "owed " her for her taking me to a doctors appointment. I responded and told her that was the sadest text message i have ever read and that i was so sorry she was just sad narcissitic woman who cant live her life with out blaming the world an her mother for her problems. Going forward MIL and SIL were blocked via phone , and all social medias as i will not allow people like them in my life. John also went NC and he was aware i was sending the message and if he would like he could read it himeself . He politely declined and explained going NC was the best to do as he couldn't stand to look or speak to her anytime in the near future, and with the horrible comments made about me i was allowed to say what ever i wanted to her .
(now since 2020 , we did have an accidental pregnancy around 2022 near the end of covid. All the stress led us to also make the decision to terminate as i was mentally not healthy enough , covid still going on, john lost his job it was another instant where this is not feasible for us, this was a very hard choice for us that put us at the lowest of our relationship and i even had complications after the termination which put me on bed rest for a week. MIL has no knowledge of this as it is not at all her business)
Since the house argument we went NC has been heavily inforced, with the occasional reach out demanding to speak to her son and now her refereeing to Gma by her legal name. SIL forbid gma from seeing the grandkids but will ask John to come see the kids which 9/10 times he declines. It breaks our hearts to not be apart of the kids life's but there is no more fake smiling through their BS . They have stopped by the house less than a handful of times for brisk interactions with the kids . MIL and SIL will try to engage me in conversation but they dont get anything besides the occasional "uhuh " and "oh wow" comments . They reccently invited us to the kids soccer games but sometimes the thought sends me to full blown panic attacks nd melt downs even thinking of engaging with them . I do speak to a therapist about all this and other things in my life, i do suffer from extreme anxiety and depression but as me and John have been getting better financially we have had more relaxed conversations about having kids soon which has brough up a lot of anxiety for me again with some flash backs to mentioned fight with SIL and MIL . They do occasional wiggle back into our lives like this which at times i could care less and other times cant leave my bathroom due to fear. John and myself haven't had much conversation about my anxiety for it lately but if i tell him "No" having to deal with his mother and sister , he never argues , never makes me feel bad for not engaging. He has always been extremally supportive with any of my decisions i make which makes me love him more . I understand that was a lot and i could go on forever about the crazy shit MIL and SIL do with their sad life but i just needed to get this out there . sometimes i think no one agrees with me about their behavior and after losing 2 best friends to ODs and Toxic life styles i dont have really anywhere else to express this emotion or ask for a ear to listen or a shoulder to cry on that isnt my S/O .
Well thats the general story thank you for lasting this long and reading my story today . If you have any questions or comments im happy to reply if anyone has anything to say.