How do you break off a booty call

I’m 28 and I think I made a bad decision. Long post warning.
Wife and I have been married for 8 years. She’s from Vietnam, we met in college. She became a citizen a few years ago and we decided to have kids.
First baby was born in 2021.
With the rising house prices we were scared we’d be stuck in an apartment… so we started looking for houses. My in-laws offered 40k as a gift for the downpayment. My parents did the same.
This put our monthly payment in a very manageable spot. Pricey, but for us it was affordable. We accepted the money and bought a house.
Anyways… here’s where the trouble starts.
My wife finally graduates and also becomes a citizen. Has a good job. We’re learning to be parents, i’m learning to take care of our new property, my job is super flexible, besides for the huge learning curve of adulthood, all is well.
It’s now the start of 2023.
My mom and step-dad get into some big fights/mental breakdowns. Super messy. Psych wards. A lot of fucked up stuff I dont need to mention.
Now, I’m the oldest son, this is my mom’s second marriage. Not my first rodeo. Naturally I try to support her as best as I can. Eventually I get the call that they are getting a divorce.
They both, separately ask for some money back. 27k of the 40k “gift” in total.
I’m happy to help if it means both of them will be happy and I never have to hear about this again. Being the good son that I feel I should be, I oblige. Even though it will take a huge chunk out of our savings, I oblige.
They get a divorce. Legally separated, but they still live on the same property.
During this time we are trying for a 2nd child, and God is good!
But, we start running into the terrible two’s with my daughter. Meanwhile my in-laws say they are interested in immigrating here and living with us. I think, awesome! We both work full time, having some help with the 2nd baby would be super nice! I’ve met her parents, stayed with them for 8 weeks before. They’re good people at heart.
They immigrated here in December 2023. We’re all so excited. We have a guest room they can stay in, everything seems to be coming together for our happy little family…
My toddler is pretty thrown off by this change. Neither of my in-laws speak any English. I speak a rudimentary version of Vietnamese but I understand a decent amount. It’s awkward at first. But we navigate. My toddler is not having any of it. She runs circles around them, even though she is bilingual with my wife and I. She’s always been difficult for us. I identify very early-on that her parents ARE NOT fit for any childcare duties.
It’s like my in-laws have never met a difficult 2-3yo in their life. It’s actually appalling how ignorant they are. But we are managing. Maybe everyone needs some time to get used to each other? A dad can hope…
February rolls around, and my newborn arrives! She’s beautiful. My mom and ex-stepdad visit. It’s nice to get everyone together, even with the massive culture/language barrier.
My mom and stepdad leave back to their home in another state. We adjust to the newborn phase again. It’s rough. But when is it not?
One week later my mom calls me and says she and my ex-stepdad are getting back together.
I feel hoodwinked and cant help but think about all the money they asked for back, that was literally a “gift”. But I say great, now its not weird when I explain who they are to my family. As long as they’re happy.
Anyways, back to home-life. We are adapting. But I’m not gonna lie, this shit is hard. Toddler is increasingly more confrontational, not listening to my in-laws or mom. I’m the only one that can really console and handle her.
Did I mention I work from home? Yeah this shit is an absolute nightmare. No sleep. Still got deadlines. In-laws are basically useless when it comes to handling the kids. I end up assisting with the toddler A LOT when I should be working. Wife is handling the newborn mostly by herself.
Meanwhile in-laws need all kinds of help adjusting to their new life in the USA. I’m giving rides at pretty much any time of day. Grandpa works nightshift at a factory. Grandma thinks she can work a job for her new friend, 6 days/week 10 hour shifts. She’s never worked a job in her life. She lasts 1 week.
We decide the best course of action for the toddler is daycare. Since the in-laws are negligent on that front. We start shelling out $1200/month, on top of all our expenses. I’m upset. I thought we were going to have help in exchange for her parents living here. But we still have to end up paying for daycare because they cant handle my daughter at all. Oh well, at least my little munchkin will get some decent social time with other kids, and for that, its worth it.
Did I mention my father in-law gets his license, starts driving my wife’s car, and somehow overheats the engine and completely fucks my wife’s car? Now we’re down to one vehicle.
Fellow dads. How do i handle this mess?
I'd feel bad to send my in-laws back to their country, but i’m starting to think this was all a giant mistake. I should have never taken their money. now I feel like I owe them, just like I owed my own parents. I tried to do the right thing but everything feels like its blowing up in my face. Dont even get me started on how many fight my wife and I have had in the last 6 months.
I thought I was a super hero. I thought I could help everyone. I thought I was doing the right thing. But now it feels like I've been scammed by everyone I know. And nobody gives a fuck about me or has even said thank you.
My bio dad is a fucking deadbeat and I dont even consider him my father. I feel like I've been wronged on every front. Like nobody is praying for me. None of my friends my age are even remotely in a situation like this. I have no one to ask for help or guidance.
Sorry for the long post. I’ve been cracking beers in my backyard alone for the last 4 hours watching the aurora. I never drink. Just feel like I’m at a breaking point.

TW also for self harm and I guess existential thoughts, depression.
So this culminated to a point for me last year during my birthday in the fall(won't specify, not sure if she uses reddit). I'll give a simple current event summary and then relay past events leading up(me is me, CS(31f): crap sister, LS(26) little sister, ES(36): eldest sister(only here sometimes, as she moved out shortly after her 18th, and then back and forth after tha), Mom(58): mom. SO(same age): ex-partner from junior year HS till age 24. I am trans male, but due to happening after most of these events, that doesn't really have any merit to this story, other than small details, like clothing)
I(28m) decided after not hearing anything on my birthday, and nothing before that since helping her get money for moving state after a divorce(an investing app offered her 1000 if so many people used her link to invest a free 5 dollar gift), to stop all contact and remove my sister from my social media accounts.
When we were kids, CS was the worst. Ever since I could remember, she showed a huge dislike for me. I don't haveamy good memories of her, and the ones I do, are followed, or closely accompanied by a bad memory. I don't have a lot of examples, since the good wasn't really that significant anyway(think, gifting me a stuffed animal when I was in the he hospital for abdominal pains at 8 or 9 years of age, then, after finding that it was a relatively minor issue that happened to cause a huge discomfort. I was told to drink plenty of water, and for my mom to give me a kids Tylenol if needed. She then snatched it back the next day and while I don't remember the exact words, made it clear that I only deserved it if I was really injured, and had wasted time). This was kind of a small(but very impactful) issue that still sticks with me today. I have to convince myself to go to he doctor to have certain issues checked. I recently only went because the numbness in my hands was getting worse, and I was told I had clear symptoms of carpal tunnel(I work in a kitchen, heavy lifting and fine hand movements are often). I also have a ganglean cyst, that has spawned a secondary cyst, in my left wrist, but that's another story.
She always put me down any time I did anything. Even looking at her the wrong way was infuriating to her(I didn't know what she was talking about until just a few years back, but I am diagnosed ADHD and suspected on the autism spectrum. I live on my own and have had a relatively independent life since I could physically and legally do so, just small aspects need extra attention). I'd ask her what she meant, and she'd yell at me. I wasn't rude either. CS:stop looking like that! Me trying to make my face more..plain?: like what? I'm sorry CS: stop it!, you know what you're doing! And you're doing it on purpose. Me: I'm sorry! I really don't know how I'm looking at you, I don't know what you want(I'm crying at this point) CS, getting up to hit me, like always: you KNOW what You're doing, Now stop it!
At that point, my mom had come in and yelled at my sister to calm down(I don't remember what all was said, I was maybe 6 or 7 and don't have the best time remembering the days with her) and that if she didn't like that way I looked, she could go.
Note about my mom, she had left my abusive father and moved several states when I was less than 4, my baby sister not even a year. He tried getting the legal system to bring her back, as the state they had lived in had always done. They told him that it didn't work that way, and they were legally separated. He was told to pay child support(guess how that went) and go to monitored visitation with us. That only happened a few times, and I only remember 2 of them. One visit, there was a person, I don't even recall the face, across the table, coloring and just doing art stuff. The second memory I have is us(me, CS, and LS. ES had a different dad who was not in the picture, and did not want to be. She stayed home). We played with toys in the waiting room for what seemed like forever, the sky was dark when we left. We never went to those meetings again(my dad apparently had told the caseworkers that if my mom wasn't required to meet with him as well, he wasn't interested in the he meetings). Since then, she has been a single mother, working as much as she could while still trying to balance raising us. I don't blame her for not being there, but I am a little disappointed that she never really admonished them, but merely, to this day, says that they may have been horrible then in the circumstances, but they still loved me.
Cue to elementary school, CS used to terrorize me, steal things I owned, destroyed things of mine. She was pretty stuck up and snobby to all of us, but it seemed to be targeted at me(her and ES did fight, instigation from both sides, and eventually made up some years later, but ES could and did fight back. When she could and was home. She worked too, and had a life later in high school, so that was understandable on her part, kind of) I, being younger, and, I guess, a little blind to some social and reactive cues at the time(I discovered I stare blankly while I listen to people. Facial reactions were too hard to focus on without losing attention to what was being said, if that makes sense). Any friends I had soon heard about the way she treated me, and the things she would accuse me of(not bathing, stealing, or just over embellishing embarrassing things about me to make people dislike me. Calling me fat, stupid, weird, etc). One of the only friends I had was a homeschooled girl. But I only got to see her on the weekends. Because my mom worked and ES had extracurriculars and later work(she is about 7.5 years older than me) we were watched by CS, and she didn't want to do the slightest bit of work doing so, which, flipped if it worked in or out of my favor often. Sometimes she'd be non-caring, allowing us to go to a neighborhood friend, so she wouldn't have to watch us. After having to come get us a few times, that stopped. One of the more traumatic times was when she decided to rig our doorknob(so that instead of a lock you flipped, it was a push knob, you push the knob into the door, turn the knob, and release. It's a non key locking system. I'm not sure if they are normally sold that way or if something happened, but it was installed backwards, so that you could lock someone inside of the room. Can you guess what happened? I was locked inside of my own bedroom, no food, no water, not even a bathroom break, during almost the entire 9 hours(mom worked 8 and commute) on a Saturday. I can't remember if LS was in there with me, but it's possible she was young enough to not even know what was going on, if she was in there. She's about 2 years younger than me, and this was when I was around 6/7. I was absolutely terrified. I cried, I screamed, I banged on the door. I begged to be let out for at least the restroom, which she refused, likely because I'd try to run and hide(the smart thing, duh). So there I was, freaking out that I had been locked in a room and cut off from all necessities. I don't stop crying until my mom came home, who, upon hearing the screaming, tore into CS about how wrong it was and what if we needed the bathroom or water, or even food. I don't remember her response(I probably don't want to) but my mom just glared angrily at CS as she left downstairs to her room. Mom made sure I got water, food, and restroom. I didn't mess up my room, that itself also created issues that I'll lay out later.
There are so many(too many) horrific memories from that time. It was hard all the time. I was insulted, isolated from my other siblings, and eve. Physically hurt. I'm not sure if the physical pain was worse though. I tended to forgive people very easily, and constantly, even into my early adulthood, tried my best to make her think better of me. She would steal clothes from me(cut them up to "fit her better". I was chunky, more medical than anything else, so with alterations, yes, they'd fit her. Like they'd fit an escort. Yes it's mean, but she's literally cut the pant legs off of jeans so that it was literally a jean thong. I only realized how terrible that was later on my teen years when fashion set in more within your social groups. And when they eventually didn't fit her(hah) she'd just throw them out and say they were a waste and wouldn't look good on me anyway. My mom told CS at the thrift store that she had to find outfits for me before finding herself some, and she would often try to just grab the first thing(usually ugly and wrong size) she could and the try to shop for herself(she was greedy with money. If CS found out a gift or piece of clothing one of us got cost more, she'd throw a fit and destroy our things. My mom once bought herself a vintage star Trek the original series collection, and because she didn't spend her tax return on CDs for CS, CS scratched up a bunch of the discs. My mom never even got to watch them before that. Some still played, but it felt like a loss). Mom didn't like that and said she had to help me find suitable clothes I liked. CS didn't like it, but obliged.
One of the larger things she did, when a 12/13 year old(I was 10) is she broke into an abandoned foreclosed house with a grown man, and stayed there for several days, or maybe a week or 2 . She ran from home often, blaming our mom for her issues was the norm for her. Everything was moms fault. Might've been her fault, though, was what happened next. My mom didn't want to call the cops on my sister, but knew confronting her alone and with an unknown man would be dangerous. So, probably against her better judgement, she handed me the phone(she worked at a cellular call center, in the early stages(2000's) of cell phones. She got them from the company for free, periodically). I called 911, per our mom's wishes. Explained my sister had broken into a house with a man and had been staying there. Once they heard that she was a minor, they didn't take long to get there. We sat up the road, in the car, watching it happen. Mom cried the entire time, but would not move from that spot until she saw that the cops had successfully taken her into custody. I just stared while it happened.
I know I shouldn't have had to make that call, but, due to being left alone all the time to my own devices, I had become quiet and usually kept my words and feelings to myself, and therefore seemed the most "emotionally stable" to handle it. Being put into that kind of spot was already happening with other issues, but they aren't relevant.
Over the years, more things happened that made me just want to be alone. LS even stopped being a target and was the precious baby sister (no issue with that in itself, but CS further alienated me from LS and I would once again be left alone. Being told I wasnt worth the time and that no one likes me, and if they did, it was because they pitied me, was an often occurance. My mom tried to stop it where she could but she had been met by the wrath of my sister(and before that, my father) for so long, she didn't want my sister to cause an issue that got us taken away from her. (We had been taken for some months due to some CPS workers believing my fathers lies about her being unstable and immoral. Given back due to no evidence, but with a struggle.) She didn't want to risk that again, so instead tried to keep the peace where she could. She had no family help, and was raising us all by herself. CS got physical, with even my mom, and it scared her. Out house was broken into numerous times by her ex boyfriends, ex friends, and people from..."groups" she used to hang out with. ES was also to the point of just not talking to CS or coming around that much anymore(after she moved out at 17. She also couldn't stand to be around CS)
An emergency later on with ES got her and CS bonding and acting like siblings that had a spat, and around that time is when LS was starting to get CS's attention. (I don't blame LS at all. It's not really her fault we never got to bond like siblings and even now don't know how to talk to one another freely). I still received the brunt of CS's wrath. She'd be nice, like offering some soda she bought, or some snacks, and then be a total b itch, sometimes going off and accusing me of stealing something.
CS: my chapstick is missing! Where is it? Me(roughly 8/9): why would I know? CS: don't talk back to me, I KNOW you stole it. now, where is it. Me, mumbling because I know what's going to happen:I don't know... CS: WHAT Me, wanting her to leave me alone: I DONT KNOW. CS: shut up, yes you do, I know you took it, now where is it??
At this point, I am crying and she has already hit me in he head and face a few times. After my refusing to answer, she just screamed and left me there, confused and wondering if I did take it.
She found it later. Never said a word or offered apology. This was a regular accurance all the way up until she moved out for the first time at 14. I learned to not use the phrase " I don't know" as often as I could because to her, it meant I wanted to hide something, because I obviously should know, and was choosing not to tell her and lie. It still happened, and yes, I got beat for it. We even moved school districts when I was 11(not related to the incidents) and I didn't want to make friends because I hated that they would eventually know her. It was rough to say the least.
A few years later, after CS moving in and out of home with boyfriend after boyfriend after boyfriend, starting at 14, I only had to deal with her while she was home, either between moving stints, or whenever she wanted to drop by and take things, like food or stuff she left with us. Sometimes she just took things. Mom was happy to see her come at all, so we dealt with it. While I heavily disliked the way she had treated me until then, I still wanted her to like me. So when she was home, I tried. When she lived with us for a few months at the age of 16/17, ES, now in her early 20s, living on her own, bought me and LS a laptop. It wasn't the best, but it was a laptop. Well, as you can guess, CS wanted to be able to use it too. Mom said we should because it was the nice thing to do and it would calm things down. So I made her a profile of her own. Not good enough. She wanted access to the main account, the one me and LS used. Now I wasnt into anything nefarious at the time, like p**n or anything, but I just don't want to give in to her being crazy and hovering. She looked for anything to yell at me for. She never once asked or yelled at LS for the password, even though LS knew it. It was my fault.
Next time I got the laptop back, the charger cord had some extra pieces stuck to it that I later found to be part of the internal charger port. She had literally ruined not only the charger, but the charging port in the laptop itself. Rendering it absolutely useless. Replacing that small part required the whole charger port to be replaced, and connections to be restored inside the laptop itself. So, it was a loss. No one seemed to ever be as mad as I was that this kept happening. Call me petty, but I held those memories as the deepest grudge, I still do. I kept pushing it down whenever she wanted to be nice to me, which in hindsight ended up being her needing something from me, sometimes even my company, because she couldn't keep authentic friends around. She got me stoned for the first time when I was 8 or 9 at one of her boyfriend's houses, and then gave me my first drink around the same age. Both with my mom not present. I was a child so when she told me not to tell in exchange for snacks and such, I obliged. I just wanted her to like me.
2 moments really stick out in the high school days before she left for several years to play wife to yet another guy. 1.The first was when we were actually hanging out in the kitchen of the family apartment, CS and ES were drinking and just catching up, while I was just by the kitchen drinking water. CS got pretty tipsy and, while walking into the kitchen, slipped and fell. She wasn't hurt or anything, it was just a small thing, and she ended up gigging and everyone laughed, like it was one of those fun family moments, y'know. Like in the shows. Well she looks and sees me laughing too, like literally everyone else. This is particular makes her mad and she gets right up and strides towards me. My mom yelled her name but before anything could happen, CS punched me right in the jaw. Only this time, I didn't fall, much less move more than an inch or 2. I already knew it was coming the moment she locked eyes with me. I stood my ground and just stared at her. I couldn't believe it. Even though I prepared for it, I still couldn't believe it. Everyone else has started laughing first. She had been gone for years. She herself thought it was funny. But seeing me, have fun at her expense, no matter how minuscule? No. Not happening. My mom asked her why she did it. She only looked at me, my face not even sad, just flat, like I felt nothing and hadn't been hit. But I didn't feel "nothing". I felt rage. Rage that, even at 14 and 15, even if others had joined, I was her target. She scoffed when family questioned her and stormed off. Nothing changed.

1. After that, I had issues with friends, yet again, because she was home. I, 16 at the time, tried to stay the night at a friend's house, but instead of getting input from my mom, I got CS. She demanded that I clean my "pig-sty" of a room. I shared a room with LS, and a lot of the things complained of, weren't mine. And even if I cleaned, the ADHD made it messy as I easily lost things and would flip my room in a panic. Regardless, I asked if I could talk to mom. Mom hesitated, but as well said no, likely because CS was there and my mom is, admittedly a pushover and a bit naive when it comes to them. CS was screaming at me on the phone, and my friend's mom heard it, and took the phone and asked for them(my mother, NOT my sister) to talk. After this, I told them my sister had issues and was a bad person(info with extra details omitted, but it's legal issues), and to not pay attention to the insults. Well friend's mom thought she should talk it over with my mom and I told her it's fine just discuss staying over, I'm not keen on going home.

My mom came after some minutes(we lived down the street), with, ugh, CS with her. I asked why she was there and her response was to make sure I "wasn't spreading sh it about her to gain sympathy". My mom went inside to talk to friend's mom and the big hit came. -Some background. I was depressed. Of course, with a sibling destroying any chance of normal social interaction and losing material items and even money, I wondered, from an early age, why. I didn't try to take my life up to that point, and anything I did was cuts, scratching, and punching. I did anything to control what I was feeling. I felt so many emotions, and some that I didnt know how to explain, some of which had followed me since childhood, that I couldn't get a hold of. So I turned to pain, something I could thoroughly control. It had been going on since I was around 12 in middle school, found out by my mom at 14/15, and I was actively in therapy(after arguing with ES and my mom that I needed therapy, and being told i was selfish). I was still 15 at the time. -Back to it. While my mother and my friend's mom were chatting, CS and I were arguing. I just wanted her to leave me alone, and told her so. The apartment walls werent the best, so CS overheard the things I had said about CS. None were lies, I just wanted someone to know. Deep down I still wanted her affection, but I wanted SOMEONE to hold her accountable at least. But it didn't end there. In the hallway, after hearing the main convo between the mothers, and hearing mine tell friend's mom that I fluffed up the issue because we dont get along, sibling rivalry(the usual excuse):
CS:I don't know why you have to blab so much, no one needs to know. Me: it's the truth. CS it doesn't matter. You don't even want to be here. If you're going to cut yourself, at least do it the right way.
I stopped talking and looked down after that. She smiled and continued waiting for our mom, while on her phone, probably the 4th one that year(she broke them often). It hurt. But hearing it didn't hurt as realizing that I felt it all the time. A grief from early childhood, that I didn't know the origin of, came back. I grieved myself. I still didn't know it then, I was just sad and numb. I thought death was the easy way out. Surely I didn't deserve the easy way. I continues the injuries, hiding them better and refusing to tell my therapist after a separate incident with my mom. Mom even stopped coming to the group therapy, and they told me it was specifically to help parents support their troubled kids, and if my mom wasn't showing up, I could no longer attend the group sessions. We would still have 1 on 1. But it made me feel even worse. Everyone in that group probably knew why I wanted there after 2 times with my mom absent. But I digress. After hearing my sister say that, I guess I became more serious about leaving everything and hoping for a better shot next time, if there was one.
Some months later, still 15 and in school I decided to try what I had heard: alcohol with a high number of any kind of pain pill. I took about 14-16(I don't quite remember, I just kept taking 2 at a time and quit counting at 12, just kept taking) of extra strength Tylenol. Took a shot or 2(or 4, I just did what I thought might be enough while not giving myself away) from ES bottle(she had moved home due to her living situation falling through), and went to school, hoping for the best(worst) I did get a little scared when I suddenly felt a spike in my heart rate, sweat, and a cold sweep through my body. This lasted several minutes, and I happened to be sitting at my desk in class, already having finished the assignment, so laying down on the desk looked normal. I waited and waited. The feeling got worse and worse, and painful, in my stomach and my chest. After a few grueling minutes of hoping it would happen, it didn't. While some residual pain remained in my abdomen, the other symptoms had calmed down. To say i was disappointed was a huge understatement. I went through the classes, saying nothing about having almost released myself from the harsh grip of empty reality. There wouldn't have been a point. I'd have been yelled at by my family for being selfish and wanting attention, just like when they had discovered my injuries and when I had asked for therapy. I was already threatened with being put into a mental ward for teens. Saying something and failing warranted worse consequences than not telling and succeding. So I kept silent and suffered. I decided that putting myself out wouldn't happen, and I would just deal.
I moved in with someone I was dating and their family just a few months after my 18th birthday(9 mo together). I hadn't even graduated yet, just finished credits early. CS had already moved out before that, but I just didn't want to be there any longer. I felt unsupported and pushed aside. Not to get into details, because it's not my story, but when LS was going through something(after I moved out), they dropped it all to help her and take her to therapy. Again, I don't blame LS. I may not like the way she handled her situation afterwards, but it happened nonetheless, and she was pampered by that demon and cared for by everyone else as the baby, so I've never had huge issues with her, but my family's reaction to her vs me was starkly different. Especially after being told several times by CS, ES and hinted at by my mom that I was always a little difficult, but not in a purposeful kind of way. Yet while I was "difficult" I was still thought to be relatively low maintenance due to the fact that I shyed away and prefered to do my own thing, alone. I mean, wouldn't you if you felt, no, if you knew, that certain family members just hated you, and others regarded you as difficult? When you just wanted love? I know that I wasn't normal like other kids, in that I didn't show clear emotion, or didn't know how to convey my feelings or needs. But I never tried to be an issue. But that's what I had always been told. That I was doing it at my own will, to make CS angry. I'm not even sure what about me always put CS off, but it weighed down for a while.
As an adult(18-20), it was better. Communication, but with less physical meetings, proved to at least be better for us. CS eventually started talking to me and my at-the-time SO, inviting us out. I think she needed company, because the man she chose to marry had all but cut out all male people from her life(don't feel bad, she did the same with his female friends)and her female friends were not always good friends, and maybe she knew that, deep down, I still wanted her approval. And boy was she right. We(me and SO, Same age) were always accepting her invitation. My SO had the train of thought that CS was at least trying, and that counted for something. At the time I agreed.
Around age 20, we were heading to Christmas with my family after SO's family celebration(we lived with them at the time, in hindsight a bad idea, totally separate issue). It was snowing and the car I was driving had belonged to SO's parents, so, respectfully, I requested to my SO that we pick up CS and take her to moms apartment(she hadn't moved since we left home, expenses and all). Well, SO was a momma's kid, and while we were getting ready to leave, SO told the parents about the extra trip and asked if that was ok. (At the time I don't think anything, but later on I realized that the mother was a huge control freak with attachment issues and the SO would always back her up in the end, even if there was a good chance we'd win an argument). Looking back, they definitely had an issue with my relationship with my family(mother mainly. Narcissist), but this was CS, and I already had reservations about her anyway. SO's parents said no, sorry. Unfortunately, SO was really dense(yes, I know, shut up) so I couldn't ask them to lie to their mother. I let CS know and was explaining that it wasn't my car and wasn't my idea to "get permission" from the owner(although, as mean on their part as it was, that had to be the case. I had only been given permission to use it for work of whenever me and SO went somewhere together. Yes, very controlling, but not the point). CS wouldn't listen. Instead, went on a tirade of how I was ungrateful and useless and all other insults that just echoed all of the childhood issues.
Story short, she ballooned the story to say that I told her I didn't want to take her and was being rude about it. ES texted me and told me not to come by at all(ES was paying a part of the bills and was an adult on the lease). No one would listen that this was just SO being dumb and, although yes I could've tried harder, it was not my fault. Myother called me that night and I cried, asking why my sister hated me. Why CS hated me. She could only say that sometimes people are angry and it's not our fault. While I appreciated her words, it didn't help. The gift I had for CS went unsent,(robe with her favorite design, Mary Jane) sat in my closet.
I mourned for a while but went on with my life, and that very next summer, I moved me and SO into an apartment. Made a deal with paying the car insurance and the basic gas/oil and regular maintenance costs, in exchange for just being able to drive the vehicle freely, and also I had my license for a year at that point(couldn't get it till 19, with my own cash and borrowing a car at the time), so they felt safer letting me use their car. Fair enough. moving on.
Some time goes by, and CS and ES end up falling out of touch again due to a made up issue(literally a dream where we made fun of her life and loss during her pregnancy. A dream. Mind you, she was also on substances this entire time, literally from the time she was like 11 or 12.) ES started talking to me again, claiming that she knew CS blew it out of proportion and just went along with it. Things go ok.1-2 years later Mom and ES move state. More things happen(kind of irrelevant since CS still isn't involved). Now LS and ES aren't speaking with me and CS comes in saying how she understands. I figured, it's was family, and I needed it. Right? And I was so confused on who to defend and back, my bio family or my SO, that seeing her, even with her sketchy SO, be able to have someone support her when she was put out, even if she was in the wrong and did the putting out, hit the family spot. Against everything, I started hanging out with CS. Up to this point , she hadn't apologized for anything really, but had given gifts, sent invites for holidays, and eve invited me, and sometimes SO over just to hang out(420 is legal in all the states I've lived in, so we had that in common at least). Start to not see CS in such a bright light since she has by that time(I'm 22 at the time) admitted to me that she cheats on her husband, they do hardcore drugs, and he avoids taxes, more stuff but I mainly ignore it cuz, hey, not my life, not my problem. Things go ok.
I leave my ex in 2019 and move out of my state in 2020 and in with family. Yay job closures. Now, this move was probably one of the worst, betraying, infuriating, heartbreaking things that I did as it showed some things about family that I really ignored since I hadn't created an irreversible issue until I lived back with them, as well as bring other heart wrenching events, but that's not important here.
CS now hasn't really sent anything unless it's to ask for help with something, which I do and she pays back, as always. That's not really the bad part. First was about 2 years after I had moved states to be with family. I had been paying ES money for rent, from unemployment(COVID), And had a surgery scheduled for just 3 weeks after the unemployment cut off(I had been looking for jobs but very little luck aside from some MLMs) and ES went ballistic, saying how i was putting them in financial strain(our mom had recently gotten a large tax return from COVID credits, as did she. I did not since I worked during 2019 and 2020. I also got no extra unemployment since it started after the main event. ES ranted to CS that I was a bum and was mooching and spent over a year not paying anything,( even though I had offered ES proof since ES had yelled at me before CS called me). She even posted personal information to insult me online to people I don't know, which is when ES told CS that, while she was mad at the situation, that was crossing a major line. I refused to call CS first, so after a few days, she called me. I laid into her what had been really happening by that point, that I had been paying and I have been doing door dash and donating plasma to continue to pay rent, which I Had talked about to ES. CS was silent during this, and I finally asked why any of the things in childhood happened.
Me: I just want to know why you always bullied me, and beat me up? The things you said?
CS: Well, I want to apologize, but I don't remember a lot of the stuff I did. I was usually high on something. Me: ...Not even telling me to off myself? CS:......-username-, I was a terrible person, and I was on a lot of stuff. I'm sorry that I don't remember.
I don't go farther cuz it's just me explaining everything and that I can't stand that Im always attacked. We hang up with CS telling me that she hopes the best.
Well, things kind of blow up, rent gets unpaid, money is wasted, and I decide to no longer pay and move to my own place. I don't talk to ES. CS chats sometimes, but not too much. After a while of not much texting, around middle of 2022, CS texts. Not exact, but I'll summarize it.
CS: hey, I'm divorcing my husband(I knew, mom told me earlier, didn't say anything) and I'm gonna move to Texas with this guy I've been talking to while married. I'm short on money to move into a place, so could you and mom maybe do this investing app and help out? Me: does it require anything like my credit?(Issues happened prior to this with another person) CS: no you just need to invest their free 5 dollars and keep the account open(I think for either 2 weeks or a month). Me: ok I'll get it started. CS: thank you so much! So how's the new Italian place? Me: it's good, it's called "blah blah blah" CS: ok cool, I'll look it up. Me: Okie dokie. So how's the move coming along
She never responded after that. I ignored it and put it on that she needed to move and focus on packing. I then went to our mom(I took her and her cat with me cuz I'm not monster) and told her the situation. She wanted to ask CS about what to do cuz I had to work in the morning and it was late. Convo:
Me: when you ask CS, ask "hey, -username- said you needed something, I have the app up, what do I do next?" Because this would explain that I told Mom and make CS answer what she wants.
Nope. She just sent "oh did you need any thing for moving, like money or anything?"
CS: hmm? Oh no, we're going to stay with his parents, but thank you for the offer! We'll be ok!
I got upset cuz I feel like I knew something was up. Asking me to help with money for moving to an apartment(she has a car large enough to pack her belongings and she didn't plan to bring furniture). I let it go and deleted the investment account, which continues to try charging me so I had to change banks. Very nice.
Now to this last fall(2023). I moved after that and there was very little interaction. I had been thinking about the relationships in my life and realized that being around CS in particular, or even being mindful of her, was causing mass amounts of resentment and anger in me, making my mental health dive. The lack of remorse and just consistent blaming of substances instead of the choice to do those substances. Claiming she's was a terrible person, but not saying anything about the issues it caused.
I decided that if CS did not even contact me on my birthday(she had skipped it before which isn't too bad, but one year even sent a message 2 months late and when I called her out, she blew it off and just said "oops, I was drunk, my bad".
So this last fall I wait. And nothing, till the end of the day. Honestly I didn't want to wait for excuses or anything. I just felt all of the anger of trying to get her attention and her love, and the desperation that I felt trying to understand why I never deserved it. So I removed her. Not blocked. If there are any emergencies where she would need to contact me(not likely), then it's there. I have a new number, so social media messaging was sufficient. I had done the same with ES.
The very next morning, I had a huge message about how she noticed that I had removed her(this site doesn't notify if someone leaves your friend circle) and about how she felt bad about what happened as kids but that she felt horrible for blocking people out for so long. Then another message telling me that she didn't want to be without her siblings again. Telling me that now, she was going to have a kid in several months, and how it's amazing and she's excited to finally be a mom and I'll be an uncle again(LS has 2 young kids of her own). I opened it and ignored it. She then said she tried reaching out and I left her on read and she hopes I have a good life.
Mentally, I may not be where I want myself to be, and sometimes I feel like I haven't moved forward from being that kid, that just wants to know why. But one step at a time, especially with therapy.
I wanna say I don't feel like the AH, or if I am, that is justified. But I guess there's always going to be a small part of me that wants to have the bonds that I never knew, even if it's too late by now.
So, am I the AH for just stopping contact and connection to someone I feel I just don't have a connection with?
P.s., sorry there's a lot, I honestly didn't mean for it to be this long. Please don't hate my late night grammar

This is a rather long story that I’ll try my best to summarize. I’m sure someone will read it. And I appreciate those of you with enough spoons to do so. To protect their anonymity and my own- I’m attempting to be as vague as possible while also keeping relevant information. (I haven’t even pressed post yet and I’m going back up here to say- I can’t even be brief. This is just going to be long. lol)
TLDR: I befriended someone in need- and now the weight of that is too much. How do I disentangle myself and am I bad a person for needing to do so?
Almost 2 years ago I befriended someone. A young person without a family who seemed to be an amazing person but was struggling. They interacted very well with my 2 small kids and that’s how we originally met- they babysat for us. I saw so much of myself in them and felt they just needed a parental figure. I think a lot of my feelings were that I wanted to be the adult that I never had. The occasionally babysitting turned into more of a familial bond. They saw me as a parent and I saw myself as their parent. I considered them as my 3rd child.
They are from my home town. Our families know each other- they come from a very large family and my family is just well known. So we had some previous interactions prior to meeting each other in this separate town that we now live in. We both had pretty extensively traumatic childhoods as well so that was a common bond.
Throughout our relationship, I saw their needs and frequently would try to help. Mostly monetarily at my own suggestion as it was a way I could help. What I couldn’t fix through funding- I tried to just help any other way I could.
Early on in the friendship they were working for what seemed to be an extremely toxic person. Through a lot of emotional support they were able to quit that job and completely walk away. But those actions seemed to cause or at least worsen a spiral.
I knew that they were really struggling- but I didn’t know the full scope of it. They eventually talked with me about their struggles with an eating disorder. I did my best to help in suggesting things that might help, encouraging solutions and directing them to professional help. This started to become a LOT. They needed constant support. Calls multiple times a day and messaging all day.
Their emotions and responses to daily challenges seemed to be extremely big. I wanted to maintain compassion but the responses they were experiencing seemed outside of what would appear to be a typical response. I had a conversation with them and asked if they’d considered that they may have BPD (Bipolar disorder)- this was very triggering to them and they vehemently disagreed that they fit any of the criteria. They would however confirm that they’d received diagnosis for the eating disorder and OCD.
We have only ever had 1 fight- they lied to me about a safety issue. It put me in a bad place because then I told the same lie- I pride myself in being as truthful as possible and that really hurt.
Since about December they have been in a really bad place. For a sense of at least some brevity- I won’t list everything that happened. But just continuously bad days and bad decisions.They started seeing a nutritionist but that wasn’t helping. They ended up in a health crisis and in the hospital after passing out. They then decided to experiment with illicit drugs- their best friend called me because they didn’t know what to do and I’m “parent”. I took them to the hospital. I took the illicit drugs and threw them away. I was so angry at this decision but they weren’t in the right headspace for me to even try to talk to them. This was on the weekend and because I have young children I needed to get back to them. I stayed for a few hours and then their sibling came to the hospital so I could go home. I messaged the next day- I find I can get everything out in writing better. And I told them because they’ve had an escalation in self harming behaviors that I felt like we needed to take a break for a bit and I didn’t feel safe with them around my children.
After receiving this message they attempted to take their own life. Luckily, the attempt was unsuccessful and they self admitted into the hospital and were transferred to an adult behavioral health facility.
While they were in the hospital- I was heartbroken. I wanted to go and get them every single day. But I knew they were where they needed to be to get help. They have me listed as their parent on medical forms. I was able to call and speak with their care team to try to help. Their condition escalated- primarily because they didn’t want to be in behavioral health and instead wanted to go to an eating disorder facility. We worked together with the therapist and they were finally able to be transferred to one. While there- they really didn’t commit to the program. One day they actually tried to run away from the facility. They didn’t follow the plan and after about 2 weeks checked themselves out and went home.
During this time I started researching- a lot of the issues they were having and the way they spoke about things seemed like they could be part of a disorder. They have a huge fear of abandonment, self harm struggles, ED, high highs and low lows. Through the research I found borderline personality disorder and it fit almost exactly to everything. While I’m not wanting to diagnose someone- I spoke with her sister (her other parental figure) when she was inpatient to see how we could help. Her sister agreed that all the criteria seemed to fit. And the therapist agreed that they felt like this was a disorder that they had. After talking with person myself they confirmed that they had received this diagnosis at one time but that they don’t like that diagnosis so they don’t want to believe it.
I’ve noticed lots of repeated actions from them. Mostly lying and comments on how they’ve manipulated people. I’ve only caught them at the one lie but I think there’s been many more. Mostly with me instead of lying it’s avoiding talking about things if they are struggling with something or doing the “wrong” thing.
After coming home from the ED facility they seemed to be on track for a week. Seeing their therapist and nutritionist. They had included me in their care plan and I was able to speak with their healthcare providers. I tried to talk with person about how they had to have some responsibility for themselves. They almost act as if they want someone to just do everything for them. They can’t be by themselves because they will not make the right choices. They use self harm or drugs to cope. Their job performance started to suffer. They stopped leaning on me so much- at several points I was making their meals for them and helping to check in on how the day was going. They leaned on me less but didn’t really pick up the “slack” and instead just leaned back into self harm behaviors.
At the beginning of the month they decided that they needed to go back to an ED facility. I tried to provide some help with planning. They wanted to go in 2 days. They were going to have to quit their job- which they knew. I encouraged that it might be better to wait a few weeks as they get summers off in their role. But they were insistent that they needed to go now. So I wasn’t discouraging but just wanted to make them aware of all the foreseeable issues. Namely they were going to lose health insurance. I suggested that they at least try to apply to state insurance but they never really did.
Fast forward and they’ve now been in this facility for a few weeks. It appears that they’re still not really following the program. For example: you need to eat at certain times. They called me prior to meal time and were being called to dinner by staff. They were calling me upset because they were trying to apply for state insurance but needed me to help. They were very agitated so I told them we could talk about it another time. They said “I don’t even want to eat right now. I just won’t eat. And then I’ll have to supplement and I won’t do that either.” They’re supposed to turn their phones in during certain times and she called her sister to see if she’d bring a fake phone so she could turn that in and keep her phone.
I’ve tried to get some breaks. Even when she was in the facility- I get multiple calls a day. We went on a family vacation in a remote location and I let them know I may be outside of service range. I still received a call at least daily usually more. I get no breaks. And perception of distance is met with more outreach. Today… I’m so burnt out. I’ve received 3 phone calls and countless messages.
Not to mention that I have a young child with special needs. As well as other general life issues. I feel like the only way out is to cut communication.
But I feel guilty. And I feel torn. Because I’ve seen this person as my child. And I wouldn’t do this to my children. But at the end of the day- they’re also not my child. And it’s affecting my life in all facets. And they’re just not ready to change yet. And I can’t be here to watch them continuously drive their life into the ground. In the beginning it felt like I was their only support but I’ve realized they have friends, siblings and a healthcare team that truly care about them. I’m not the only person they have. But this isn’t a relationship that you can just let naturally fizzle out. It’ll take me being direct. And I do love them. Based off of previous experience- they won’t handle it well. And then what will they do? If they choose to self harm can I deal with the consequences of knowing I was the catalyst? But also- can I continue to be drained by a person who isn’t ready to get help?
I’m probably at the point where I need to start seeing a therapist again. I feel like my over willingness to want help others can be harmful. I’ve recognized that my thought process of “wanting to be the person that I needed when I was their age” was a bad idea. I can’t heal myself through them.
So thoughts, feedback or suggestions are welcome. If nothing else- at least writing it out helps to get some of it off my chest.

So, back in August 2022, I started revising ID songs, with only 2 breaks. The first one being from October-November 2022 because I wasn’t feeling motivated to make more revisions, and the second time after Christmas in 2022, when my current depression struggle that I’ve had for 17 months straight started happening, but I continued in January 2023, and my revisions temporarily concluded in February 2023 because everything was revised… but not for long!
Since Loom is releasing in June, I’m going to have some time to think through every chord and beat. So I added Season 8 and Season 9 for my revisions series. But since Loom is a short album, I didn’t want those seasons to feature just one album. So I decided to add the 2008 demos, Dan’s Twitch demos, my solo version of Sucker for Pain (using Dan’s voice using AI) and many more. Since I revised Curtain Call (in place of Clouds, since revising the 2010 version of it was hard), I’m going to add the 2008 version of Clouds to Night Visions. Some songs will be added to Evolve and Origins, Children of the Sky will be on my revised LOOM, and Dan’s Twitch demos I put into a new revised EP, serving as an interlude between Mercury - Act 1 and Act 2. Enough blabber, here’s the new discography for my revisions series
SPEAK TO ME

1. Speak to Me
2. Volume Drops
3. Boots
4. Pistol Whip
5. Off to War
6. The Pit
7. Living Musical
8. Bottle of Coke
9. Clouds
10. Curtain Call
11. February
12. Unseen

IMAGINE DRAGONS EP

1. I Need a Minute
2. Uptight
3. Cover Up
4. Curse
5. Drive
6. Hole Inside Our Chests

HELL AND SILENCE EP

1. All Eyes
2. I Don’t Mind
3. Hear Me
4. Selene
5. Emma
6. Easy

IT’S TIME EP

1. It’s Time
2. Amsterdam
3. Tokyo
4. The River
5. Leave Me
6. Pantomime
7. Look How Far We’ve Come
8. America
9. Dolphins

CONTINUED SILENCE EP

1. Radioactive
2. Demons
3. On Top of the World
4. Round and Round
5. It’s Time
6. My Fault

NIGHT VISIONS

1. Radioactive
2. Tiptoe
3. It’s Time
4. Demons
5. On Top of the World
6. Amsterdam
7. Hear Me
8. Every Night
9. Bleeding Out
10. Underdog
11. Nothing Left to Say
12. Rocks
13. Cha-Ching (Till We Grow Older)
14. Working Man
15. My Fault
16. Round and Round
17. The River
18. America
19. Selene
20. Fallen
21. Cover Up
22. I Don’t Mind
23. Tokyo
24. Love of Mine
25. Bubble
26. Destination
27. 30 Lives
28. Darkness
29. Curtain Call
30. Clouds

SMOKE + MIRRORS

1. Shots
2. Gold
3. Smoke and Mirrors
4. I’m So Sorry
5. I Bet My Life
6. Polaroid
7. Friction
8. It Comes Back to You
9. Dream
10. Trouble
11. Summer
12. Hopeless Opus
13. The Fall
14. Thief
15. The Unknown
16. Second Chances
17. Release
18. Warriors
19. Battle Cry
20. Monster
21. Who We Are
22. All for You
23. Lost Cause
24. Ready Aim Fire

EVOLVE

1. Next to Me
2. I Don’t Know Why
3. Whatever it Takes
4. Believer
5. Walking the Wire
6. Rise Up
7. I’ll Make it Up to You
8. Yesterday
9. Mouth of the River
10. Thunder
11. Start Over
12. Dancing in the Dark
13. Levitate
14. Not Today
15. Roots
16. Sucker for Pain (Solo)
17. I Was Me
18. Skipping Stones

ORIGINS

1. Natural
2. Boomerang
3. Machine
4. Cool Out
5. Bad Liar
6. West Coast
7. Zero
8. Bullet in A Gun
9. Digital
10. Only
11. Stuck
12. Love
13. Birds
14. Burn Out
15. Real Life
16. Born to Be Yours
17. Heart Upon My Sleeve

MERCURY - ACT 1

1. Enemy
2. My Life
3. Lonely
4. Wrecked
5. Monday
6. #1
7. Easy Come Easy Go
8. Giants
9. It’s Ok
10. Dull Knives
11. Follow You
12. Cutthroat
13. No Time for Toxic People
14. One Day

MERCURY - INTERLUDE EP

1. Take My Heart Away
2. Speechless
3. So Many Voices
4. Man in The Moon
5. Imagine Dragons (Ragged Insomnia)
6. Hole in My Heart
7. Caught Up in My Feelings

MERCURY - ACT 2

1. Bones
2. Symphony
3. Sharks
4. I Don’t Like Myself
5. Blur
6. Higher Ground
7. Crushed
8. Take it Easy
9. Waves
10. I’m Happy
11. Ferris Wheel
12. Peace of Mind
13. Sirens
14. Tied
15. Younger
16. I Wish
17. Continual
18. They Don’t Know You Like I Do

LOOM

1. Wake Up
2. Nice to Meet You
3. Eyes Closed
4. Take Me to The Beach
5. In Your Corner
6. Gods Don’t Pray
7. Don’t Forget Me
8. Kid
9. Fire in These Hills
10. Children of the Sky

Hey guys just wanted to share my story with you guys, I thought maybe it will inspire some of you to achieve your goals :). Just so you know I gave my JEE in 2023 (didn't take drop).
So till 10th class I was an average student or maybe a below average student. I usually use to get my percentage in the 70s and sometimes even touching 60s. Except LKG or 1st something (I don't remember) where I somehow got above 90%. I still don't understand how XD. And I was also really good at Maths. Other than that nothing special about my academics.
When covid hit in 2020 my 10th class had just started. I got completely distracted by the video games and youtube. And I didn't like the idea of cheating in exams. So this lead to a sudden decrease in my marks. Then when pre boards approached my father use to sit with me on call and teach me (He use to live somewhere else due to work). Slowly I was improving bit by bit and it was evident in the 3rd pre board that I am improving a bit (Yes, we had 3 pre boards because boards were taking forever to start). Still the improvement was not that big, slowly but surely I was improving. Then boards got canceled. My school gave marks based on pre boards. Unlike many schools who inflated the marks of their students. So at last I got 67.2% in 10th. I knew I could have done better if I was given a chance because I started so much better but that is life we cannot do anything about it. Sometimes you don't chance or you are too late.
I believe that I was in top 3 from the bottom in my school and my school have many student, just in 10th there would have been around 350 students. It was kind of soul crushing. I wanted PCM because of my interest in science but of course I was not getting that in my school. Initially, they were just giving humanities without maths, I couldn't get the subject I loved the most because I had really low marks in it. In fact I got the lowest marks in Maths, I think around 59 . Then later they agreed upon giving me commerce with Maths.
Back then I would have settled for less. But my mother knew I would do the best in PCM. She knew that is what I am good at so she decided to change my school. I got PCM there. That day I promised myself that I would not repeat the same and score good marks in 12th.
When I joined the school from the next day, they had their school running for 1 month already whereas, in my previous school it just started. So i was lagging behind by a lot. Also my father got me Aakash, which he just bought without discussing with me, thinking that it might come handy for my preparation.
Then I started studying regularly and attending my classes properly even though it was still online. I started taking studies more seriously. Then 1st exam of 11th approached, they were on weekly bases. Exam on every Monday. So I use to study hard the for 1 week for whichever exam was next. Again I didn't cheat in my exams but since my 10th didn't go that well and I joined late, it was hard to cope up with the studies so it didn't go well. I got my marks and all the subject's score was below 50% except physical education because well that's really easy.
Then just before the mid term exam I decided to leave Aakash even though my parents had given the complete fees for it. It was because I didn't find it adding value to my studies. It just felt like a waste of time to me. So I decided to study on my own for the rest of the 11th. I also opted to give mid term offline as the school was giving me an option for it and I was pretty serious about doing better. This time my marks improved a little bit but still the marks weren't good.
Then during the post mid term exam my marks increased a bit more significantly and specially in Maths. Physics, Chemistry and English were still a weak point.
After that exam, my school decided to conduct final exam in offline mode of everybody, no option to opt in or out. I got 79.7% just 0.3% off my goal for 11th. But still I was happy that I had come a long way and improved so much but I was still not happy about not being able to reach my goal. But now only physics was the main weak point. Fun fact: In that exam only 13 out of 29 in my class passed it and some other sections way less students passed.
When 12th started I got 2 home tutor for maths and physics each. , only for the board level. For 12th I had a goal to get more than 95%. From the starting I started studying regularly. Bit by bit I improved a lot. I had created such an identity that whenever somebody in school use to ask my percentage in 10th nobody use to believe that I got 67.2%. They use to think I am lying, even my class teacher thought that for once XD.
Then pre boards approached in November and I did pretty decent. I knew I am doing great. Up until then, I never touched JEE after leaving Aakash. Around 2-3 weeks before JEE I decided that since I am already great for boards I should prepare for JEE. I prepared for it and gave my first session and got 87%ile. Not a lot but for the efforts I was happy. Then I shifted my focus back to boards.
I gave my boards and it went great!! I took a few days break and then decided to get back to preparing for JEE. Studied for upto and sometimes more than for 12 hours a day for 2-3 weeks. 1-2 days before JEE I took a complete break from it so that my mind isn't exhausted during the exam. Then I gave my JEE and got 94.1%ile, about 66k rank. I was really happy with it, considering that I only gave a few weeks to JEE. Then my boards result came, I got 95.6%. Finally I had achieved my goals!!! I was really happy on those 2 days! It was like a festive season in my home when boards result came in. I am really proud of my self for achieving those things.
Then I got into MAIT, took CSE as I am interested in that. Currently about to finish my 1st year. There are still so many things I want to achieve and seeing my loved ones getting happy for my achievements, it makes me more motivated to achieve those goals.
So remember there is always the bright side on the other end, you just have to work to get to it!! And I know you guys can do it! Just don't forget why you are working for it!
Sorry, I didn't realise how long the post have gone. But I enjoyed sharing my experience!
Feel free to ask if something is in your mind!
Maybe someday I will update you guys :D
Edit: A pro tip, you can always write your goal of a A4 sheet in big letters and paste in front of your study table's wall. Help you not deviate from your goal and when you feel demotivated, it helps you get back to work.

Hi everyone, I have lurked and replied to a few questions of others in my short time here and now I have a question of my own.
My father is dealing with end-stage osteoarthritis...I am his primary caregiver (his son) along with his wife, however since he was officially diagnosed in Jan 2023, they, as a couple, have fallen deeper and deeper into debt as the months have gone by. Currently, he has been bedridden for going on 2 years, uses a catheter and is in need of hip and knee surgery if he is ever able to walk again. All of which he cannot afford, even with help from Medicare.
The problem, in the midst of all of this, my father has dealt with depression (something he has had all of his life) and I believe it is leading to some faulty financial decisions. His mind IS still sharp, but he is stubborn, and will not allow me to go over his finances with him to find areas where money can be saved. His wife is Korean and speaks broken English - and before he was diagnosed, he handled everything in regards to bills. To help them out, I have taken care of side utilities such as cable, lawn service and on occasion, the car note when they have had trouble. However, this past week, he called me, during my work day, saying that the water was about to be turned off to the house that day and he needed my help again. Everyone has a breaking point, and that was mine - things have gone from me helping here and there to he and his wife DEPENDING on me to contribute to a household that is not mine (and then not letting me have a say in how they handle their finances). I also have a mortgage and household of my own.
On top of this, my father has neglected his hygiene (brushes his teeth only once per week - when I see him) and has stopped doing exercises in his bed to keep his blood flowing, which has started to lead to some swelling in his legs. I would feel better about this situation if he was giving 150 percent and working with me as a "team" to deal with his finances - but it almost feels like he wants to give up, even knowing I am doing so much. How can you help someone who does not seem to care, but just goes through the motions?
In short, I am helping where I can, but I am tired of him not taking my advice, neglecting things he should be doing and on top of that, I am dealing with a wife that I feel might leave him soon. After an arguement they had last week, she said that I could now take care of him full-time and she is looking to leave the house and stay with a friend until she finds another place to live. She has not followed up on that threat - but that would upend everything.
I am contributing large amounts of money to help my father just pay the bills, yet I have no control over this situation. His health will deteriorate as long as he is bedridden, and am wondering if APS is an avenue I need to consider to get him the proper help he needs in regards to his needed surgery and getting his finances under control. He has alienated most of his family - so I have no help in this. Neighbors who have known him for years, and whom I trust, also feel that I should call APS - if for no other reason than to see if they can offer any solutions and give me a breather.
If anyone has any input, I would appreciate it. I feel like I am just giving away money to him (and his wife) at this point and as an educator, who is not paid big bucks, it has put me in a position where I don't have savings for myself now... a secondary concern. But moreso than that, they are not taking my advice and it is stressing me out to the point of migraines. Trying to find an outside option before they fall deeper into a hole.

Hello, long time listener to the pod and a first time writer, so I'd love any advice on what to do.
So, I've been with my boyfriend since we were both 18 and I hadn't gone to college yet. We've done mid-distance and we just signed a lease to move in together for the next year. Importantly, this lease is signed, so we're riding out another year regardless. He is my best friend, but lately, I'm worried I'm going into this move-in feeling quite negatively instead of excited now.
These emotions started for me when I first found out where I am working after graduation and asked him to move in with me. He's been working for two years and living in his parent's house. This new city is only about an hour to an hour and a half away from where he is now. When I asked him to move, he said no at first. He said he didn't know if he wanted to leave where his friends are and where his family is, which really hurt me. I'd get it if we had been dating for only a year, or if we hadn't discussed moving in before. But we did, and he said he wanted to. This felt like the perfect opportunity, everybody is so close, but we'll still be able to start building our own life.
I ended up basically pulling an ultimatum. I didn't word it that way, but I did say that I'm only 22, and I'm not going to just spend my entire young adulthood in a distance relationship until whenever he feels like coming around. I think that snapped him out of it because he apologized and said he does want to move in and just struggled to think about having to say goodbye to his parents (namely his mom), but that whole situation really rocked me. I spoke to his two siblings (one is older and married, one is younger) about how nervous that made me, and they reassured me that he loves me a lot and was being stupid. That helped me feel firm and excited again to move in. However, in that period of time where he had said no, it made me start imagining having to live my life without him and creating a different future for myself.
Ever since, I keep thinking about the idea of potentially being single. I was so excited to move in, and when apartment hunting with him, I was looking forward to everything. But now, there's this itching, lingering feeling of almost always having a plan B in my head. I also become irritable with him about issues that seem to just be coming to a head now that this happened.
They're small things, but there seems to be so many of them and they keep mounting. I'll try to speed run them:

• Doesn't own a properly fitted suit. He has the means. He just doesn't want to put in the work to buy one.
• Similarly, he doesn't own any nice clothes. He has some work shirts and will wear those to any situation that calls for attire nicer than a t-shirt. He doesn't understand why I feel firmly that he needs to own at least one outfit that can work for date nights, outings with friends, *my graduation*, etc. He says he prefers comfort.
• Doesn't use moisturizer or lotion. Idk this just irks me so badly.
• Gets upset at me telling him to try my hair care products because he doesn't properly care for his curly hair. His sibling has told me they want to teach him how to care for curly mens cuts, but he doesn't listen to them either.
  • My personal theory is that he'd rather his hair always look a bit unkept because he doesn't want to have a morning routine longer than 10 min and feel obligated to do it. Ignorance is bliss type of moment.
• Has never gone to a party/bar with me because he is an introvert. It was fine until I realized I'll never have a guy want to just go out with me like that. I want to be shown off a little bit.
• Similarly, he's been dreading attending my childhood friend's wedding. It's bringing down a day I want to look forward to.
  • This is to dispel any general incompatibility claims. I am pretty in the middle of introvert and extrovert, so I get wanting to have alone time. I just find it absurd to be such a downer for a big day like this, as this is when my introvertedness will always take a backseat for the joyous day at hand. For the party/bar comment, that is truly because it has been four years and has never happened, and I am more used to my introvert friends who will go to a bigger function once a monthish. Not never.
• I got angry at him semi-recently (blew up while pulling an all-nighter, it wasn't my proudest moment) and he subsequently ignored me for over a day, including me giving my thesis presentation. Other girls got flowers and a boyfriend listening to their whole speech, I didn't even get a good luck text. I'm still not sure he's aware at how mad it still makes me he relinquished all communication because I expressed that I wasn't happy with him.
  • Context for why I got mad! I said I booked a doctor appointment and an IUD insertion back to back, but I might not have transportation, so I might have to borrow his car. He immediately started asking me when I was planning on moving into our new place (these are scheduled during our lease start) because he has xyz happening. Those things didn't overlap with the appointments. He then said he was being stretched thin during that time, even though he'd literally be coming back from a vacation and I just said I wanted to borrow the car. I lost it.
  • Resolution- he also booked an appointment for the exact same day as mine so now we're driving together! what do you know!!! not too stretched thin I guess!
• He told me I need to stop sending him furniture for the apartment because it is a waste of time and stresses him out. That in turn stresses me out because are we supposed to just not have furniture?
• I'm a writer, but he doesn't read my work. I told him I'd like him to read my stuff, so he asked for me to send him something I made. I sent him three, he hasn't read any. This really saddens me.

I told my best friend about this stuff and we've concluded he's giving majorly M22 energy right now. He's being all stubborn for the hell of it, but it is ruining my view of him as a partner. I don't want to conclude that I just have to ride out this lease for the year and then break up, but I really might have to do that. He's acting like a walking roadblock and him completely icing me out when I expressed anger in a trying time is what I think has pushed me into potential breakup territory. Am I wrong for this?

So I met a guy on a dating app about 3 months ago and we immediately hit it off. We were upfront with each other saying that we don't do casual and are looking for something long term. So we continue dating for about a month and one day, we plan a cute date where we rode around the beach on bikes and watched the sunset and talked while looking at the stars. This was about 5 dates in and he asks if I wanted to make it official. So I agree to it and the next day, we hung out at his house and had a painting/movie date and he even called me his girlfriend in a story. Anyways, we have a sleepover and he drops me off because he was going to a wedding. So that date was the last time we were going to hangout for about a week because I was going on a trip with my family and he even brought up seeing me again after I got back. So that night, he gets back from the wedding and he texts me that he needs to talk to me about something serious. You can see where this is going lol. Basically, he "breaks up with me" (despite being official for not even 48 hours) saying that he was not ready because his parents moved far across the country, he got a new job, needed to figure out his finances, find God ect. Basically, he couldn't commit fully to a relationship because he had to worry about other things. While that very well might have been the case, it just left me in pure confusion despite his behavior the entire time we dated. First off, we met on tinder so clearly we were both looking for something. He brought up future summer plans. And he actually seemed to observe me cuz he would bring up my texting patterns which shows that he did care at least a little about me. He asked me to be his girlfriend and not even 2 days later all of a sudden he doesn't want a relationship. He made it this big deal to tell me that it had absolutely nothing to do with me and I'm a great person and funny. He also said I'll find someone else great so clearly he's not gonna come back when he's "ready." I'm mainly upset he wasted my time by leading me on for a month and I'm just left to worry why this struck him all of a sudden and why it was after a wedding. How should I move on from this and take it?

I'm going to try to keep this story as short as possible as this is a lot for me to talk about. If you don't want to read everything, there is a TL;DR at the bottom.
I was raised as a Christian. My whole life, I never swore, smoked, drank, or anything along those lines. All my friends from elementary school knew this about me and knew I was someone very kind and sincere. As I was raised Christian, I never even considered dating until I was 16, however I met a girl as a sophomore that changed that. Let's call her Beckie. Throughout covid, we got closer and closer and soon enough we started dating. We both were very good on class and had similar personalities so I fell for her. I wish I didn't.
As we started dating, I made it very clear I didn't want to do anything sexual. I didn't want do anything like that yet and as I was abused and manipulated as a child (other story. Maybe one day I will rant about it), I also feared that I would be accused of things I didn't want to do. However, as we were both young, we were young and naive and unbelievably horny. So for the first 2 months, Beckie would try to convince me to sexual things with her. From sending pictures of skimpy clothing to lewd messages.
Soon, I broke and changed my rule to no sex. I made it clear I did not want to do anything anctually considered sex until I was married. We agreed and soon enough we would meet up, cuddle, and "netflix and chill". It was great and we were in a good relationship for all of the school year. That was until summer happened. When summer came, Beckie began to lose contact with me more often and we talked less and soon enough she wanted a "break". As this was my first time dating, I didn't understand that this was her saying she wanted to break up so I respected her wishes but still tried to be with her when she wanted to talk.
But when junior year came around, she broke up with me on the day of school and instantly started to date another dude in front of me. I later learned she was cheating on me during the summer without my knowledge and broke me. Along with the previously mentioned abuse at home, I fell into a depression for a couple days. However, a couple of my friends were there for me and I was doing better bit by bit. But, Beckie didn't want that.
For context, what started us dating was she told me her ex sexually assaulted her and I comforted her. From there, we got closer and started dating. I never knew she did this with every one of her exes. So after feeling a bit better, one of my closer friends told me what she was saying about me.
She had told my friend group and her own that I graped her (Even though, like I said, my one rule was no sex. However thry made it clear that I penetrated them).
She told them my insecurities and my secrets.
She told them everything.
Many of the people I considered friends never even told me about this nor about the accusations against me. This broke me and caused me to fall into a spiral. I was diagnosed with chronic depression and could not attend school. Many times I considered suicide and I still do and have been admitted into the hospital a few times. At the moment, I am almost done my senior year and I am barely passing. I have not been able to do anything productive or feel batter for a long time.
I used to go to therapy and take medication, however as I have mentioned about the abuse at home, one of those factors od abuse came to a session with me so my therapist could hear their side. In less than a minute, the room was filled with yelling and screaming of one of my abusers throwing slurs at my therapist.
From then on, I could not go there anymore as they made it clear their opinion of my therapist.
My closer friends did reach out to me but as I closed myself off to the world off for a few months, many became disconnected from me. The ones that still checked up on me, I talked with for a while but soon I fell into a depressive state again and I felt like a burden.
Before, I aspired to be a doctor. Got amazing grades and did well in school. I was somewhat popular and had lots of "friends". But when I was accused, my smile crumbled as I couldn't hold it back anymore. I don't know how to get out of this hole I'm in. I don't even know how I am going to graduate. Even worse, any time I have tried to improve my life, my toxic homelife pulled me back down into the water to let me drown.
I've lost my will to do anything productive for me and if I was working, I would use that money on whatever addiction I am using at the moment to feel better.
Overall, I don't really know what to do anymore nor can I find a reason to not silence to world permanently. Thank you for listening to my rant.
TL;DR Abusive home life + accused of grape at high-school = very depressed dude

Here we go Reddit. This one may hurt all those who read it.
I (44m) have been conflicted with how I left a friendship over eight months ago with someone (42m) I'd been friends with for the better half of a decade. We'll call this friend, Alan.
First off, to the younger readers, let me say how difficult it is to start, cultivate and maintain a new friendship into adulthood so, keep your good friends close and remind them what they mean to you as often as possible. Now to the beginning...
In February, 2016, I abandoned my comfortable single life to pursue a career with the entertainment industry over 3,000 miles away from my family and friends in Los Angeles. As an artist, in almost every aspect, I had faith I could find my tribe amongst the city of angles.
I had two old college friends already living there so I believed I'd be able to meet new people while still having a connection to my home and trusted comrades. I'd not found a place or job but had funds to hold me alone for at least six months. One of my buddies introduced me to Alan, who was from our hometown. He was living in a 2bd/2bt/2car apartment and would perhaps offer me the spare room until another one of his friends, who was promised the space, in six months. Six months of a cushion to find my own place? Awesome. Thank you. We met and had tons of things in common. Both musicians. Both actors. Both looking to make a new life and find their teams to last the rest of their lives.
I was/am introverted so I don't like to go out much. Unfortunately, he was/is an alcoholic and often went out and continued to drink alone at home, often until the sun broke. It's his life, in his home. He can do what he wants. I fully understand addiction and dependency and am not offering this as an excuse but, some understanding for the situation.
I lived with him for six months with no musical, writing or acting collaborations with anything further than me keeping the friendship alive. Honestly, I was trying to help him through his struggle with the sauce. After six months I moved out to a Studio apartment. Soon I discovered while he was charging me $900/mo, his total rent was $1235/mo, netting him almost $2,000 over the time I resided in his home. I saw it as a minor flag but was happy to be somewhere.
One day, my friend and I were texted by Alan. He was in the hospital after a car accident, most likely, under the influence. My friend and I visited and took care of him. While there, he asked we sneak him in some whiskey. We visited him without fulfilling his request. After our mutual friend moved to New York, I wanted to keep this new friend in my life and didn't mind knowing I had paid for the convenience of a living situation so quickly.
I found a catering job and referred Alan to apply. He was hired. After a year at my studio, I was able to move into Alan's complex. I now had my own 2bd/2bt/2car apartment for only $1250/mo almost next door to my new friend. Now, living so close, we worked Hollywood events while auditioning and trying to break into something good and saw each other often. But, besides carpooling, he rarely wanted to hang out.
Things were normal until our mutual friend contacted me letting me know Alan was back in the hospital after another terrible car accident and multiple surgeries. He was bad. During these multiple hospital visits, nurses would bring him a can of bud light. He was prescribed beer.
Time went on until one early Sunday morning, Alan called me from jail. He asked I pick him up 30 miles away. I confirmed the address and info and began my pre-dawn trek to retrieve him. After his release, within a minute of getting into my car, Alan asks if I'm mad at him. I say, "no". He smirks and asks if I'm disappointed. Once again, I state, "no". He then asks what I'm thinking about. I tell him that, of the top of my head, I could name 1,000 other things I'd rather be doing than picking him up from jail. First of which would be sleeping. Then I asked if he would agree, to which he did. After a shared sigh, he requested we stop by a liquor store. I explained I wasn't his father or parole officer so I would not restrict his freedoms but, would not want to consider myself an inebriator. So I complied with him knowing how i felt. January, 2020, I got a new job, still in events catering and brought Alan along with me. March, covid-19 shut down the world.
One night, Alan and I were hanging out, sharing drinks. I had concluded that I would focus on writing short stories and features as I had already written a horror trilogy I was proud of but, hadn't sold. Alan was also an amateur writer. We were talking about what "sells" and I brought up the obsession with anti-heroes, telling him I'd love to create a Breaking Bad type character. Alan says, "I'd always wanted to write (blank) from the bad guys POV." I quickly agreed and we spent the next few hours discussing the project. I pitched characters, arcs, scenarios, motivations and really thought it would work. I started writing it and asked Alan about completing it. He gave a nonchalant, "sure". The night ended with Alan telling me he wanted to get sober so, I offered as much advice, support and whatever words of wisdom I had. During lockdown, I would text, call and even knock on Alan's door asking if he wanted to write the shared story. He declined and lived his life.
I chose to focus my attention on a western feature I had previously shelved.
Time went on.
One night, as I was on a roll typing away on my laptop, working on my own story, without notice, Alan swings through my unlocked door and claims he's being robbed. I immediately freak out and attempt to figure out what's going on. I put on a shirt and flip-flops, grab my pepper spray and a broom stick, following him upstairs to his unit. He slowly opens his door and I follow him in. Alan then tells me a man's hand came through his jacket on the arm of his couch and a woman crawled in through his 2nd story widow. Knowing the impossibilities, I became confused and confirmed he was alone and nothing had happened.
I actually got mad at him, yelling he had no right to barge into my home and didn't respect my privacy. I went home and called complaining to a friend about what had just happened. This friend quickly asked if Alan was detoxing. I said I wasn't sure. They explained that when detoxing from alcohol, often times, people will hallucinate within 48 hours from their last drink. These can be vividly realistic and half of people who experience this return to the bottle just to quell the dream scenario and avoid/settle their delirium tremors.
Now, I felt bad. I went to his door, knocked and joined him on his couch. He confirmed he was getting clean. I hugged him and said I would be there in any way for support.
He said I saved his life. I explained there were no intruders so, no, I didn't. He then said I saved him from his dependency by telling him, "You only need 72 hours... just spend 3 days in hell and you'll be out. If you don't make this decision, you will never be allowed to make your own decisions ever again. Do you want someone else to tell you when to sleep? When to eat? You know the answer."
I was humbled, honored and proud. He did it. He went through hell and came out the other end with a leash on his beast.
For many people, the pandemic shut down society for a few months. Not Los Angeles. We were shuttered for 18 months. A whole year and a half. FML. I wanted to get into shape at our local park but, am really not a self-starter when it comes to physicality. So I would text, call and ask Alan. At the park, he would work out alone and preferred it that way, so, I didn't push it. I would ask if he wanted to hang out, play music and yes, sometimes I asked if he wanted to get together and write the shared anti-hero story. He would say 'no' and after a few months, maybe too many times of me asking about it, he told me it was his and asked I not write it as he was going to write it with his old college buddies. I was taken aback as I believed it was more my story as I pitched the whole thing as a digestible feature but, only told him I hoped he was joking. He said no and I dropped it. I felt scorned but not burned.
I moved to a new place, closer to my job further from Alan. There's a reason everybody in LA talks about traffic. Work returned to our city and now, I was only seeing him when we were scheduled on the same shifts. He was muscular and healthy. I, already overweight, packed on more covid pounds and honestly, was jealous of Alan's ability to work out independently. If I couldn't self start an exercise regimen, at least I knew I could begin anything creative on my own. With this reminder, I returned to the shared Anti-Hero story and decided to complete it by myself. Time went on and I finished the script and two rewrites. 114 pages done. Wow. Now, the title page. Written by: Alan & Me. It was, and I say 'was' a fantastic story. I hadn't seen Alan in sometime so after I finished it, I reached out to him with no text replies or callbacks. Then last September, at work, I approached him with "good news". I told him about the script and asked him to proofread and edit it. He replied with a stifled sarcastic "awesome..." and walks away. I was confused but, knew the conversation wasn't over. Within a minute, he returned to where I was with multiple other employees and immediately starts cussing at me. "Fuck you, man! That's my fucking idea!! You stole my intellectual property! You can't fucking take my fucking story, my IP, and then fucking tell me you did like it's your own. Fuck you!!!" I replied with things like, "Are you serious? Why do you think I'm coming to you about it? Like I already sold it and cut you out?! I'm not a thief and I won't allow you to call me that." He scoffed and left again. Coworkers were looking at me in confusion and all I could do was return a bewildered shaking head. He returned again with a lowered voice but, still cursing me out. He takes out his phone and shoves it in my face. "Here, look... notes from 2016 'Bad Guy'. I had that fucking idea eight years ago. You fucking stole it from me." Knowing we were on the job, him not calming down and truly being hurt by his words and accusations, I whisper, "No, fuck you. I'm no thief. We can talk later if you want but, I won't allow you to speak to me like that." I return to my work. The event is over and we are breaking down, preparing to leave for the night. I see him across the hall and open my arms. He approached, we hug and step into a private room away from working employees.
I ask him if he won't read the whole thing to at least look at the title page. Hoping he would agree, this is where he would see even though he didn't write a word of it, I put his name as the first billed writer. He rolled his eyes and I felt he wasn't listening to me. I asked again, "What do you think I would gain from telling you? Like I've already sold it and I'm rubbing it in? How do you think I felt when you told me you were gonna write it with some guys I'd never even met?"
Alan doubles down and once again, accused me of stealing his idea and calls me an asshole for doing so. This is where I snap and tell him how I felt about our one-sided friendship. I say, "You apologize to me or you'll never speak to me again." Now I walk away.
That night, I write him a text finally telling him his name was as co-writer and I wanted him to proof so we could make the best story and we would be partners, succeeding together.
He replied with, "I've read this text, I don't want you to think I'm ignoring you."
I follow with, "At this point, I don't care if you ignore me or not. It wouldn't be any different than the way you've treated this friendship since I've known you. You apologize or I'm done. Completely done. Then you tell people I didn't visit you in the hospital? I'm not really YOUR friend? That I never helped you? Like I didn't get you work and pick you up from jail? I don't know if you were too drunk to remember all the times I was there for you. I'm not trying to pick on your addiction, I'm genuinely concerned you don't remember or hurt that you're intentionally lying about me."
Silence. No reply. Ever.
The few times since we've worked together, he's attempted to say, "Hi" to me. I ignore the greeting and the only times we've talked has been me supplying a work request or event update. Just work and no more than a sentence at a time.
He's bad-mouthed me at work and I've since noticed his coworkers do not give me much respect, not just as a supervisor but even as a person.
A few nights after we fought, I deleted the script from my FinalDraft. I didn't want something like that to be so toxic in my life. I would have felt his vitriol every time I read it. I'll only be working there for another few weeks as I've given up on this city and my dream to be a working artist. I'll be moving back to my hometown but, really don't want to leave this city having burned a bridge.
So, Reddit, Am I The Asshole for telling my friend I would never speak to them again and demanding an apology?

So when I was like 16 I met this guy at school and I felt an instant connection so after awhile I added him on the book and later he texted me. “You that cutie from cooking class” i always remember that. Anyways we started talking and he hunted around at hanging out but it like never happened. Then he ghosted me for awhile n just texted me out of the blue again n idk I replied. He did that a few times and I kept hoping and thinking you know maybe we can be an actual thing but like idk. One day I tried to commit n it didn’t work thank god but my dad n aunt decided it would be best if I stayed the night at her place n she lived in the same town he did so that night I ended up hanging out with him.He told me to meet him at this place n to get in the truck so I did n I think it was his cousin who was driving but idk we were both in the front n we talked a little and just waited because he was taking forever then finally he jumps in the back and the first thing he says is “fuck where’s this bitch at I told her to be here” and his cousin kind of got on him n said she’s right here n idk. We smoked n visited a little n then eventually the truck wouldn’t start so we had to walk back to where we got picked up n I honestly didn’t say much. I was kind of scared n obviously I had tried offing myself not even a full 24 hours before so idk. It was awkward as could be but like I loved it n idk. He walked me back to close to my aunts n gave me a hug n then we went our separate ways. We kept talking after that. Eventually he asked me out, well he asked me to be his girlfriend and I said yes. So then we were together. We talked and stuff but only through text. He never wanted to call and i couldn’t exactly hangout whenever until he met my dad ( he never did). I forgot to mention that I turned 17 and it was about 7 months I think of that off n on situation thing. But anyways we were together and obviously I was in deep and down bad I truly loved this dude with my whole heart and I know that sounds weird cuz like how? But idk. Eventually we did hang out cuz my dad bought me n my sis a car and like idk he joked about me coming out n drinking with him so I did just like that. We went out n I seen him but that night turned into something completely different than what I had planned in my head. We barely talked cuz idk I blacked out. Me n my friends got into a minor accident that night n totaled my car. He sent some suggestive texts to me n unsent them all but like idk. I remember trying not to pry and push to hard and like I was scared to be a burden to him so I accepted the way it was for what I thought was love. After that night he got kind of distant n idk. He said he was gonna pick me up, he said he was on his way, and I waited and waited, and waited. But he never came. I asked him why and he brushed it off and dodged all the questions n my friends started saying he was probably cheating. Idk I have not a clue. Anyways he did that again. Then one night out of the blue like he was blowing up my phone and saying he loved me and missed me and I had like 7 missed calls but like I was mad because before that he texted me early in the morning “gm hoe” like idk. That n I think he was just not talking to me. It got to a point where he stood me up a second time and I started asking questions and with every question he got more defensive and distant so then I’d drop it and change the subject I just wanted things to be okay between us. We kept talking n kind of talked about hanging out I said I wanted to n one time I was close to where he was but like he wasn’t responding so idk. The last time he stood me up he was supposed to come get me from my friends boyfriends house n he said he was in town n that he’d be there n he wasn’t. I was pissed because my friends boyfriends dad tried something with me n my cousin said some things to me that she had no place to so I ended up alone again. I think it was a few weeks or something after that when I tried breaking up with him. He told me no and like idk. I said okay. Then later he told me okay but let’s be friends. So we weren’t together anymore and I was absolutely devastated. Like I never even look at guys n I meet this one who just had my heart from the start and he couldn’t care less, that’s how I felt. I was also going through some other things too. Family stuff. I was saed by my cousins fiance n I turned him in in secret n idk my cousin knew n said some shit to me n idk. My moms an addict with npd n she was saying some crazy shit to me and about me to everyone back home. There was just alot going on. We kept talking and he kept getting more and more distant. I was angry I said alot about how i felt about it and stuff. I tried staying respectful n idk. I just ended up getting angry and I got mad at him I tried getting him to tell me why. For so long I did that. I tried getting an explanation for him I felt like I needed him but at the same time I wanted nothing to do with him and he came off so nonchalant about it like it was funny to him. And it went on like that. It got calm and then I remembered and idk. When I was 18 we actually ended up talking on the phone and i didn’t wanna say anything because he had people with them n idk. It just kept going I started just telling him everything I don’t know why. During this time I began to go into psychosis and as that progressed the more I said to him. I told him about some of my trauma about how I was feeling about everything and like. Honestly I don’t even think he read any of it. And it kept going like that. Then suddenly I was 19 recovering from psychosis and testifying about the man who saed me and graduating high school and he still didn’t care. It was still off and on and he’s still distant and like idk. Last year I started just saying mean things with no context and getting made at him like we’re together or something n he always reminds me that we’re not or he used to. Idk I started to realize what was happening but like I didn’t feel like I could stop it and idk eventually I was always saying this is the last time I talk to you or I was basically begging him to block me and trying to get him to block me and then I’d feel like deprived without seeing his name on my screen and I’d reach out then we’d talk and have a good conversation then he’d get distant again. Finally I was able to keep myself from reaching out for two weeks. Then I caved, then I did it again for three and then I caved. I hate to admit it but it kills me inside seeing how he really couldn’t care less about me like I mean nothing to him. Last time I caved I stayed a little distant and like he actually called me a few times and I just watched my phone ring. Idk after awhile we started talking again and like idk he got distant and it’s the same story. We actually had a real conversation and like we talked about maybe actually getting back together and hanging out and we made plans a few times but like he was busy so it didn’t happen. He got distant again and I kind of got mad and I brought up how he stood me up n out relationship n then I basically started roasting him and I feel bad because I feel like I’m emotionally abusing him and like I need to apologize because I don’t know how to stop the back and forth like he doesn’t even care he barely reads the things I say. I told him we should stop like fr n I think he agrees.

I am not The OOP, OOP is u/Beneficial_Hall_5320
My (26F) friend's (26F) boyfriend (28M) gave me an inappropriately expensive gift for my birthday. How do I react?
TRIGGER WARNING: infidelity, emotional manipulation, retaliation
Original Post May 3, 2024
Hey everyone,
Last week, I celebrated my birthday with my friend group. We're all fairly close, and whilst we've never discussed presents/gifts explicitly, we all kind of naturally fell into an unspoken pattern around what kind of birthday gifts we give to each other: we do gifts, but they're usually in the 10-40 Euro range. Think things like a book, a voucher for theater tickets, maybe a nice bottle of wine. That kind of stuff. We're all young professionals or grad students, and that just fits our general income level.
A good friend of mine brought her boyfriend to the party, and he gave me a gift of his own, separate from my friend's. Without going into too much detail, it was a small object that had a very thoughtful connection to a trip I took in winter. I was genuinely very thankful for the gift and thought it was lovely.
However, when I unpacked the item at home, something about it just caught my eye. Certain parts of the item that I would have expected to be made of glass didn't....look like glass. I ended up googling the maker's mark on the bottom and found the exact same item online, for the price of....750 Euros!
Now. It'd be one thing if this guy was a trust fund kid for whom that kind of money was just peanuts. I'd still feel uncomfortable, but at least there'd be some logic to this then. But my friend's relationship with this guy already has massive problems, largely centred around him being underemployed and making her pick up the tab for their shared lifestyle to an undue degree. We honestly all expect the relationship to fizzle out soon, because they obviously aren't compatible in some key aspects. So now I've got this 750-Euro-item on my shelf, and I've no clue how to handle this. It feels extremely inappropriate to have this thing. I'd feel uncomfortable accepting this sort of gift from almost anyone I know, but the fact that it's a) a friend's romantic partner (I'm gay and her boyfriend knows, but still) and b) said friend has issues with her partner's handling of his finances just makes it even worse. It's also a highly specific item that I don't think he'd be likely to just have, so I'm pretty certain he must have bought this for the occasion and must be aware of its value.
What do I do? My friend seems to be totally unaware of the value of the item. Do I tell her? Do I contact the boyfriend and ask him what the fuck he was thinking? How would you handle this?
TL;DR: Friend's boyfriend gave me 750-Euro birthday gift. Friend seems to be unaware of true value of the item and already has issues with boyfriend's handling of money. How do I handle this?
RELEVANT COMMENTS/ADDITIONAL INFO
OOP on talking to her friend and returning the item

Yeah, I think I'll have to have a discussion with my friend - I also considered that he might have got some kind of BIZARRELY amazing deal, and spent all of yesterday night googling around for auctioning sites and checking whether there might be a chance he bought this without knowing what it was and how much it was worth. I'm pretty sure, though, that unless something genuinely absurd happened, he must have paid at least 500 EUR for this, and even that's a VERY generously low estimate. There is, of course, a chance that he just had this item, but it's so specific and rare that I don't think some random pseudo-finance bro just has this in his house, sees it, and thinks, 'huh. it's my girlfriend's friends birthday, that might be a good chance to get rid of this'.
Totally bizarre behaviour. I don't know what this man was thinking, but I need this thing out of my house.

OOP When told to ask the friends BF coyly where he bought the item and get answers

I considered that as well! Trying to maintain some level of vagueness about what it is: the thing that makes it valuable is that it's antique/second-hand. There are modern versions of this item available that are reasonably priced ( I initially thought my item was one of these modern versions) but anything made by the particular guy who made mine is valuable because it's old. If he bought it online, it would be downright impossible for him not to notice that similar items go for 600-800 EUR even if he somehow got this particular one for cheaper. I suppose there is some kind of bizarre off-chance that he bought it at a flea market or antique store from someone who didn't know what they were selling, but he's a very run-of-the-mill finance-bro-ish frat boy type and not at all the sort of guy I imagine casually meandering around flea markets and picking up valuable antiques on accident.
It's such a bizarre thing to happen. I genuinely don't know whether I'm glad to have googled it and found out - on the one hand, I'm glad to know someone did something that utterly bonkers, on the other hand, I could have gone on existing peacefully and enjoyed my pretty trinket if I hadn't found out what it was 💀

Update May 5, 2024
Original post here
To summarise the original post: My (26F) friend's (26F) perpetually broke boyfriend (28M) gave me a gift for my birthday. It initially looked like a thoughtfully chosen, normal gift with a lovely connection to a recent trip to my mother's homecountry I took in winter, but after growing suspicious of the quality of the materials, I realised that it was in fact an antique worth hundreds of Euros. Theories as to what happened included him not being aware of the item's value, possibly having bought it from someone who didn't know what they were selling, or him trying to somehow hurt his girlfriend/my friend and/or trying to hit on me in a bizarre, inappropriate way.
I ended up texting my friend and telling her that I had researched the gift and discovered it was worth a very inappropriate amount of money. She was VERY surprised by the entire situation, especially considering her boyfriend (now ex, but more on that later) is perpetually broke and makes her foot the bill for their shared lifestyle. She came over to my place and together, we called him on speakerphone, where she demanded some answers. Long story short: He STOLE it. From his OWN MOTHER.
He's still being a bit shady about some details, but we managed to piece together the sequence of events to a satisfactory degree:
My friend was supposed to be coming to my birthday party straight from work. When she left her office, she realised she had forgotten the gift she had planned for me (a book) at home. Since she was already running late and her place is pretty far from both her work and my flat, she chose to text her boyfriend, who was having dinner at his parent's home at the time. She knew he was there, and knew his parents live close to me, so she asked him to just buy a copy of the same book at a bookshop on his way to my place so they'd have a gift.
For reasons known only to him, he did not choose this simple, reasonable solution to the 'we forgot our gift' issue. Instead of leaving five minutes early to pick up another copy of the book, he instead chose to just GRAB A RANDOM ITEM OFF HIS MOTHER'S LIVING ROOM SHELF. WITHOUT ASKING HER. He had no idea what it was, just thought it looked pretty, took it, and stuffed it in a paper bag. He also did not text back my friend or react to her calls, so she (reasonably) assumed he hadn't read her message and ended up going BACK to get the book, which was why they arrived separately and with separate gifts.
Meanwhile, the boyfriend had unknowingly gifted me not just any antique, no! This item had been passed down to his mother from her THREE-TIMES-GREAT-GRANDMOTHER. It had been in his family's possession for literal centuries, and was the ONLY tangible connection she (his mother) still had to her homecountry, which, incidentally, is also my mother's homecountry - which he wasn't aware of, meaning that what I thought was a thoughtful connection to my trip there was a total coincidence! He had no idea of the item's cultural significance.
My friend immediately made him call his mum to fess up to the entire situation. His mother had been running herself ragged trying to figure out where this item disappeared to for DAYS. Obviously, she never suspected thievery, and was blaming herself terribly for having lost something this important. The boyfriend ACTUALLY HAD THE GALL to try to convince her not to make her call his mum! He wanted to sweep the entire thing under the rug! Of course, we didn't let that happen.
His mother came by my place this morning and I returned the item to her, along with some apologies for not starting investigations immediately and some nice chocolate. We had a lovely conversation about our shared cultural heritage, I assured her that the item had been treated with dignity for the entire time it was in my possession, and we parted ways with a hug. She also told me that my initial estimate of the item's value was incorrect- it's actually worth EVEN MORE money. It would probably sell for a four-figure sum at auction.
I don't know what she wants to do with her son, but I hope she whoops his ass. My friend, for obvious reasons, broke up with him.
Lessons learned: Google suspicious gifts, and lock away your sentimentals/valuables when people you're not entirely sure about come over. The GALL of this man.
Tl;dr: The suspiciously expensive gift was, in fact, stolen. The boyfriend swiped it off his mum's shelf, not knowing what it was or how much it was worth. I returned it to her and hope she whoops his ass.
RELEVANT COMMENTS
crazycatlorde

Firstly, good on you! Secondly, good on your friend for breaking up with this dope. Thirdly, I laugh at the implication that one should lock valuables away from people you’re not entirely sure about if that person is your own child 😅

OOP

True! That poor woman obviously wouldn't have thought her own son would be running around grabbing random things off her shelves! I still ended up checking all of my stuff, considering he appears to have sticky fingers and spent hours in my flat basically unsupervised on my birthday. I'll grow much more cautious with my valuables when having groups over from now on, especially if the group includes friends' partners who I might not know that well!

~
crazykitty123

I remember reading your first post. WHAT WAS THE GIFT??? Why not put us out of our misery and say what it was?

OOP

Alright, alright - it's super specific, but it's a special kind of religious devotional triptych made, in the case of 'my' particular one, of silver and real fucking rubies. They're called 'travel triptychs' and common in my family's home region, though, of course, they aren't usually made of silver and gemstones. I initially grew suspicious because of the maker's mark a) saying that it's silver and b) specifically saying that it's 800 silver, which is a kind of silver used only up to the 1800s (modern silverwork uses 925 silver, aka 'sterling silver'). The religious aspect wasn't very meaningful to me, but my family's home city is famous for its silversmithing, and my mother's family were silversmiths, and the item specifically is BEAUTIFUL. Of course it is, it's a thousand-dollar antique inlaid with fucking rubies.
Suuuuuper specific. This fucker basically accidentally gave me a gift that would have been, if it had come from someone else, pretty damn amazing.

&

Yes, this really only didn't immediately raise suspicions because somehow, this extremely specific item was also an extremely well-fitting gift for me. The entire connection to my family and background, plus I am super into art history and have a small collection of (much cheaper) stuff that isn't too dissimilar to this thing - basically, he accidentally gave me the perfect gift. If he had given it to anyone else, I expect they would have immediately gone '?????? wtf, bro' and started to think about what on earth happened there, but I seriously spent a good while thinking to myself that I would have never expected something this thoughtful from a near-stranger, and how I must have misjudged this guy's character terribly.
And yes, triptychs are the coolest shit! As glad as I am about this one being back in the hands of its rightful owner, I've been trawling etsy since then, trying to find a significantly cheaper one made of tin to fill the empty space left behind by the silver-and-rubies one 😂😂😂 I hope your sister enjoys hers!

THIS IS A REPOST SUB - I AM NOT THE OOP
DO NOT CONTACT THE OOP's OR COMMENT ON LINKED POSTS, REMEMBER - RULE 7

[<< First] [< Previous] [Next >] [Patreon] [Discord]
Synopsis:
Juliette Contzen is a lazy, good-for-nothing princess. Overshadowed by her siblings, she's left with little to do but nap, read … and occasionally cut the falling raindrops with her sword. Spotted one day by an astonished adventurer, he insists on grading Juliette's swordsmanship, then promptly has a mental breakdown at the result.
Soon after, Juliette is given the news that her kingdom is on the brink of bankruptcy. At threat of being married off, the lazy princess vows to do whatever it takes to maintain her current lifestyle, and taking matters into her own hands, escapes in the middle of the night in order to restore her kingdom's finances.
Tags: Comedy, Adventure, Action, Fantasy, Copious Ohohohohos.
Chapter 238: Fragments Of Memories
Willem of Hagel never thought much of the world.
He didn’t have time to. As a boy out in the fields, his thoughts were as tied as his hands. Any moment spent thinking about the horizon could be better spent readying the soil for the next harvest.
There were others who thought differently, of course.
But there were also others who’d never received a smack on their head for their curiosity.
There was room enough for heroes without needing to cross the oceans, he was always told, often while nursing his ear. They were the farmers, just like them. Those who kept the miller baking his bread and the horses eating their grain.
Willem never had a mind to disagree.
The smacks hurt. And besides, he already saw everything there was to see in the world.
The village had everything he needed. And that was only a skip away.
There was a chapel with a spire to nod at. A market with traders selling all the things he didn’t need. Enough taverns that Willem rightfully wondered if they should be growing barley instead of corn. And Rosie by the river as well.
What did the towns and cities of Weinstadt have, other than taller spires to nod at, louder traders to ignore and even more taverns to wonder if they were growing the right fields? And none of them had Rosie. Although they probably had nicer rivers.
This was Willem’s life.
One farm boy among many, content with his lot in the world.
The problem was that the world wasn’t content in return.
That day, the flames rose as high as the sun, lifting it to keep the dusk from setting. It would have made no difference if it had. Even a single field burning was like a painting of the end of the world. A blanket of smoke visible even to the heavens. And certainly to the villagers.
They’d come rushing carrying water by the palms.
The flames were doused by their blood instead.
Even now, Willem didn’t understand why soldiers would attack his fields. He understood less why they would put a gash on Margie’s face or make sure Cody would never walk again. Rebels they called him, and all of them with him. Willem didn’t know who they were rebelling against, other than the king mice which plagued his fields.
They didn’t care. Nor did their swords.
“[Entangling vines]!”
But the ones who stopped them?
They cared, at least.
And that’s all that mattered.
Willem could only gawp.
The sight of his burning fields were joined by something even more frightening. Roots the likes of which could strangle an oak sprouting from the ground. Half the soldiers were taken there and then, their swords as good against the roots as Willem’s pleas had been on their ears.
Those were the lucky ones.
“[Hamstring Volley]!”
Arrows came thick and fast, striking those who’d not been taken by the roots.
They hit their marks cleanly, most dead centre in knee caps or else striking through the shin or ankle. They fell clutching their legs, crying out in pain at the shafts gone halfway through.
Somehow, there was an even greater song playing in the background.
“[Sprinkling Chorus]!”
A tune so thick and vibrant it could be seen as ribbons of water dancing in the air. It flowed across the field as beautiful as any rain Willem had seen, calming the flames like a mother’s lullaby.
Willem could only blink as the smoke lessened, and the figures strolled through his fields.
An elven woman in a dress of green leaves, each finger outstretched as she commanded the vines with unseen strings. A halfling man with a bow almost his height, three arrows notched to the strings as his bright eyes searched for the targets he hadn’t struck true. A man with a spotted lilac poncho, smiling away as he orchestrated the ribbons of water from his lute.
Adventurers.
Willem didn’t know their names. But he knew what they were.
The very aura they carried with them was different. The ease with which they walked amidst the smoking field spoke of years of experience. And the one leading them spoke of it louder than them all.
Willem almost backed away as the man approached, even though the stranger was his saviour. He had a gruff look not unlike his own father, his eyes powerful and stern.
But that was only when he was eyeing the soldiers.
The look he offered Willem was far more gentle. A sharp contrast to the sword he held, more impressive than all the weapons now dropped to the ground.
“Are you well, lad?” he asked, his voice as querying as it was kind.
Willem gulped before he could respond, feeling the dryness in his throat from the sudden turn of events.
Then, he turned to the others nearby. To Margie’s face wet with blood and Cody who couldn’t even stand. He was shocked to see that the man with the lute was attending to both, using nothing but a weave of his song to heal their wounds.
Somehow, he must have looked like one of the worst here, to be the first spoken to.
“I’m … I’m well … thank you, heroes.”
The man put a hand on his shoulder.
“Well done on standing your ground. But next time, don’t be afraid to take the wiser choice. A farm can be regrown, no matter how dire the flames. But a soul once departed can never return.”
Willem could only nod.
“I’ll … I’ll do that … thank you.”
“Good. Now, don’t suppose you could tell us where we are?”
“Hagel.” Willem paused. “In Weinstadt.”
His answer drew a bellow of laughter from the halfling scooping up the fallen weaponry, even though his ears shouldn’t have been able to catch Willem’s tepid voice.
“You hear that?” said the halfling, cheerfully turning to the others. “We’re in the right country, at least! Who’s the one who doubted me?”
“You doubted yourself,” replied the elven woman, bundling all the soldiers together into one entangled heap. “To our pains, I want to add. We should not have to constantly reassure our own ranger.”
“I do better with positive feedback!”
“Well, in that case, we should already be in an inn, hauling Cedric away from the bar after having fulfilled all of our tasks with time to spare.”
Snorts of indignation, laughter and elbowing.
A scene of companionship.
Amidst the ruins of his farm, that was all Willem saw as other soldiers came to take their own comrades away. He didn’t know enough to understand what was different about these ones, other than they were accompanied by a man claiming to be their lord.
Willem had never seen him before in his life.
Still, he received crowns in copper and silver for his troubles, taken from the coin pouches of the soldiers. He received a few more in gold, gifted by the halfling with a wink. The others did similar, the elven woman donating a satchel of leaves filled with new seeds, the lutist offering a song to lift his ailing crops, and the leader leaving behind a soldier’s sword hidden away from the lord.
His advice was to flee. But not to do so unarmed, apparently.
Willem clutched at all he received. But when the adventurers left, he wanted something else instead.
He wanted to be just like them.
Willem of Hagel wished to be a hero.
He made a wish.
And that … was that.
Click.
Maybe for others, it took an incantation steeped in black words. A sacrifice of goats and hens. Black robes and a thousand smouldering candles.
Willem only had to ponder. And then his Benefactor came.
The world froze with a snap of the fingers.
Had Willem been smarter, he would have turned his eyes down and let the words drift past.
He didn’t.
And so instead, he looked up to see a face so regal that emperors would have traded for it.
A devil from what lies beneath the abyss.
And what he offered was a contract smoking from the ring of flames used to conjure it.
Willem knew enough stories to see that was a bad sign. But then, he also knew that devils never approached those who could say no. He was no exception.
Especially when the cause was noble. Or as noble as a devil in a fine suit could offer.
“A demon. A fiend. And a devil,” said his Benefactor. “No innocents being reaped. No angels to be plucked. Only three of the most vile, most dangerous and more deranged of the hells. Defeat them–and this power is yours to keep. And should you not want it anymore, well, there’s a simple exit clause. One utterly pedestrian, to keep the theme of nothing amiss. A sum of crowns and no more.”
“... No trading of my soul? No eternal damnation?”
“Damnation? Not in the slightest. For one thing, that isn’t mine to administer, Willem of Hagel. That’s the realm of the heavens, not the hells. Even if it was, I desire nothing of the sort. This is a transaction for your services. Your soul, whole and hearty as it is, is yours.”
A smile and a contract so short there was no room for deceit.
And all Willem was asked to do was to use his powers as any hero would. To destroy evil.
What could go wrong?
The answer, as it turned out, was everything.
A farmer turned saviour. The accolades came thick and fast, clouding his eyes long before any wine fell upon his lips. He didn’t notice, during those days of pretending at righteousness, the haze which covered his sight. And when he did, he realised only too late it was more than his eyes which were failing him.
It was his soul.
He didn’t know why. He didn’t know how. But he knew it as he clutched at that fading part of him.
That’s when he stopped seeking justice for those who were most wronged. And instead sought retribution for those with the most crowns.
And so as each day he became richer, so too did he become poorer.
Willem felt as little joy from comfort as he did misery from squalor. Only in the worst things a tavern could offer did he experience the familiarity of wretchedness. The comfort of a migraine swimming through his head. The warmth of nauseousness.
And when he couldn’t, well–
It was usually because he was being bothered.
“... A curious place you find yourself,” said the girl, sitting at his table before he could frighten her away. “Are you often found brooding in the corners of taverns?”
The girl smiled, her golden hair slipping from beneath the hood she wore.
Willem blinked through the haze.
It made no difference. It never did. But for this girl, he didn’t need the clarity which only became better with wine to see. There was as little warmth in her grey eyes as there was in his.
Peas in a pod, then.
And so instead of ushering her away, he gestured towards the chair she was already sitting on.
“Taverns are beautiful this time of year,” he replied, his throat sore from whatever he’d last been served in an attempt to drive him away. “Its corners in particular. This right here? This one’s my favourite. Look carefully, and you can see the engravings on the table. A thousand and more signatures. One of them has to be famous.”
The girl’s smile continued unabated.
“A signed table is no fitting home for a man as renowned as yourself,” she said, pulling her cloak around herself. “From the tales I’ve heard, you should be raised upon a pedestal.”
Willem chuckled. A sign of life amidst the only tavern yet to bar him.
It was an instinctive reaction, one of muscles and expectation. He felt as much amusement as he did an ale so watered down it’d been drawn straight from a well.
“Depends on the pedestal,” he replied. “I’ve a few gallows waiting for me. Myself and any I speak with. Should you know who I am, you’d best be on your way.”
“And why would I do that, when I came so far to search for you?”
Willem offered no reply. The girl leaned towards him, offering a smile he could barely discern.
“... The records of you paint a picture of a hero in his prime. One who can defeat his foes in a flash of righteous light. And how many you’ve slain. The villainous princes of rotting kingdoms. The unfeeling lords trampling their own subjects … and also great demons and fiends, hidden amidst shadows and schemes, the likes of which even the Silver Aurelia could never erase.”
The girl raised a hand, drawing the attention of a barmaid. She took the entire tray, laying enough pints to slay a normal man upon the table. Willem didn’t reach for a single one.
“I know who you are,” she said, tapping at a stein. “And no pauper’s clothing will ever hide the look of one with as storied a history as yourself. I would like to make you an offer, Willem of Hagel.”
Willem prodded at something crawling upon his lap. And then he sighed.
Even with his eyes as poor as they were, he could see this girl lacked the years to possess the types of foes worth the use of his cursed ability. One he had to use sparingly. It was his road to salvation as much as it was to the abyss.
“I’ll respectfully decline. I’m afraid I’ve no answers for what troubles a young maiden these days.”
“Mine is the same as most. To be freed from those of wicked hearts and wicked deeds. Because it is not only the Kingdom of Weinstadt which finds itself under the yoke of foul rulers. And there are so few heroes in the world these days. And even fewer with the crowns to hire them.”
The girl smiled.
“I wish to bring down a kingdom,” she said simply. “Are you available?”
She lifted a stein and offered it to him.
Willem gave it a moment’s thought.
And then he took it, never realising that at that moment, he’d forgotten even the face of deceit.
If he hadn’t, he’d surely have chosen to sink than to rise from the gutters once again … if only to avoid the ignominy of frightening a single girl.
“I did warn you not to stick your hands in the flames.”
It was the least of tasks. And a horrific way to use his abilities.
But tonight, he’d unleash what was needed to spare the people from the villainy of the kingdom’s rulers. It mattered little that it should start here, sending the least of Tirea’s royalty to the bliss of sleep while her nation was given over to better hands, even as it burned.
Except it hadn’t turned out that way.
Not even in the slightest.
“There are no such things as regular princesses. We all have our talents. Mine happens to be all of them.”
Willem continued to raise his pitchfork against a girl who had no right to be standing.
Especially within his own world.
He knew from the moment she evaded his first attack that there was something different about her. And not only because he was strengthened in his world. But because everyone else was enfeebled.
Those he drew into his [Soulscape] were also drawn under a malaise more heavy than any charm, their legs stilted as though wading through marsh, and their arms weighed by the sky itself. The moment she’d been able to stop the knock he intended for her head, he knew something was wrong.
“[Spring Breeze]!!”
He especially knew it when she sent the power of a miniaturised hurricane into his face.
A force which propelled him so hard that he didn’t have time to brace. He could feel the whole force of the impact as he struck against soil that by all accounts didn’t exist. And there was pain. Plenty of it. A sensation foreign to him outside of a tavern.
But even more so here.
Everything about experiencing pain in his own sanctum was wrong.
He’d underestimated her. But it wasn’t just because she gave no hint about her prowess.
There was normally nothing to underestimate.
Here in the world created by his own soul, he’d brought down fiends so horrific they held names which couldn’t be spoken without the tongue boiling. And still their encounters could never be called a battle.
To him, this was his field of crops. The last memory which would ever leave him. The last call to joy.
To all others, it was an execution ground.
“Ohhohohohoohohohooohohohhhoohohohohohoho!!”
This princess decided it was her canvas instead.
Willem didn’t understand how his hellish ability worked. But he knew it was a mirror of his soul. The most powerful part of him, even weakened as it was. And she managed to break it.
No … not break.
She painted over it.
Dancing like a minstrel from the Summer Kingdoms, she twirled her sword to a song of her own laughter, drawing upon its tip the ribbons of his own soul. And as she danced, that which had become grey and faded turned into colours anew.
Life blossomed as flowers he’d never seen even in dreams, drawn upon beds of grass and shrubs bristling with the movement of newly birthed creatures. The sky itself flourished, a sunlight which shouldn’t exist peeking between clouds that had been wiped away to a slate of clearest spring.
And for the first time since he left his farm, Willem of Hagel began to remember.
He began to see.
His world bristled with all the colours of the rainbow, draped over a garden of all the seasons.
He could feel beyond doubt that something within him was coming together like a broken garment sewn anew. The mistakes that’d made would never become undone, but the gaping hole in the dam was sealed.
That which was leaking was finally closed. And somewhere, a devil hummed in surprise.
As Willem dropped to his knees, all he could feel before his eyes closed was long lost feelings of fatigue, relief and confusion returning like a sweeping wave to wash the consciousness from his mind.
Because more than anything, he wanted to know a single answer.
Within his [Soulscape], Willem cheated fate.
He was no warrior. But he didn’t need to be.
A swing of his arms alone was enough. Every part of him rose to become no less than S-rank, while those he faced were laid bare, their strength stripped like armour from their person.
For her to defeat him while bearing such a handicap …
Just what rank did this princess start as?
[<< First] [< Previous] [Next >] [Patreon] [Discord]

When I was around 13 years old, I was a young stupid teenager, and hanging out with my friends, and we were all saying inflammatory things, and I said, "Yeah, if I turn 30, and I haven't accomplished anything, I'll probably just kill myself." It was an awful thing to say, and I can't believe I said it.
Well, I turned 29, I had probably close to 50 jobs, and had a complete discontentment with my life and civilization, and I was contemplating suicide, and then I had a full-blown spiritual awakening, saw a vision of Jesus and God and Satan, and went through an immense dark night of the soul and personal transformation of the heart.
I just have this verse on my heart right now thinking about it, "Death and life are in the power of the tongue, and those who love it will eat its fruits, [Psalm 18:21]" and it just reminds me of what I said when I was a teenager.
I know God heard that and knew that he wasn't going to let me die of suicide. He was watching me the whole time, and he cared about me, and he didn't want to lose me, and I'm weeping as I write this, because I'm so grateful.
Three years ago, I was a 29-year-old man whose life had become defined by isolation. Once curious and engaged with the world in my youth, I had slowly withdrawn into myself from depression, retreating into the comfort of my room in my mother's house. My agnostic atheism left me without a guiding light, and the mundane realities of life, from my dozens of failed jobs to my ongoing struggles with addiction, weighed heavily on my spirit. I found solace instead in the company of strategy games and in the rabbit hole of conspiracies on the internet.
My addictions had become an ever-tightening grip on my life. I found myself reaching for cannabis, alcohol, video games, fast food, and pornography to fill the void that had grown in my heart over the years. My life had become a series of hollow habits, each one leaving me feeling emptier than before. I could no longer deny that something was deeply wrong.
One day, while browsing online, I stumbled upon a post that claimed Thoth, the ancient Egyptian deity of knowledge and wisdom, could help those who asked for his assistance. Intrigued, I wondered if reaching out to Thoth could provide me with the help I needed.
Weeks passed since reading the post, and as I stood in my shower, my thoughts drifted to the crossroads my life seemed to have come to. I asked myself why I was stuck in a cycle of self-destructive behaviors and why I felt such a profound sense of emptiness. The steam from the shower enveloped me as I said aloud, "Thoth, if you are real, I really need your help right now. I don't want to live like this anymore; I don't want to die yet." As I spoke the words, my hand moved from the side of my body, and then to my forehead and heart, while making a hand-sign and I felt at peace.
I was stunned, realizing the hand-sign I had made was eerily similar to ones I had seen in paintings of Jesus. I was stunned but felt an unusual calmness wash over me. As I dried off and dressed, I pondered what had just happened. I went to the full-body mirror in my room, looking at myself. I saw someone I no longer recognized, someone I no longer wanted to be.
Once more, I said, "Thoth, if you are real, will you help me? This isn't who I want to be anymore." I stared at myself in the mirror, and slowly a vision began to form in my eyes. It wasn’t Thoth I saw, but Jesus.
Jesus appeared with long brown hair, a brown beard, brown eyes, and light brown skin. Half of his face was illuminated by light, while the other half was cast in shadow. The vision of Jesus was so vivid that it left me both in awe and at peace. As the vision of him faded, I remember reaching out to him because I didn't want him to go, I could tell he was here to help.
As night fell, I lay in my bed, lost in deep contemplation. I revisited the events of the day, focusing on the vision of Jesus. The clarity of the vision was imprinted on my mind, and I couldn't shake the feeling that it held a deeper meaning. I pondered the nature of good and evil, and how they were intertwined in a complex dance of duality. I found myself questioning whether the traditional view of evil as something to be hated and shunned was truly the right approach. Instead, I began to entertain the idea that perhaps evil people and perhaps even evil itself, could be understood with compassion and empathy, instead of hatred and disgust.
As I continued to ponder, I experienced a peculiar sensation in my head. It was as though something shifted in the center of my brain, around the area of my third eye or pineal gland. There was a slight pop like a tearing or crunching sound, it was not painful, but surprising nonetheless. I then felt a fluid movement from the left hemisphere of my brain to the right hemisphere, using the third eye as a bridge or something. This shift brought me a sense of balance and calmness I had not felt before. I realized I had been living predominantly in the logical part of my brain, instead of emotional side.
As I embraced this newfound state of relaxation, I began to see another vision in my mind. This time, it was God who appeared. God had long white hair, a white beard, and wore white robes and sandals. Then God began dancing, moving with joy and lightheartedness.
Before I could fully process what I was seeing, another figure appeared alongside God. It was Satan, with red skin and horns. Satan seemed curious and playful, attempting to imitate God's dance moves with enthusiasm. The sight of these two seemingly opposing forces dancing together struck me as surreal.
As I watched them dance, I found myself smiling, and really enjoying the moment. Then, my mind wandered to the Russian squat dance, a thought that seemed to come out of nowhere. To my amazement, God began performing the Russian squat dance, his movements precise and fluid. I couldn't help but laugh. It was awesome and hilarious.
Slowly, they both faded away, leaving me in a state of awe and wonder. I realized that my third eye had opened, granting me access to a deeper level of perception and understanding.
I lay in my bed for a few moments, attempting to grasp the profound implications of the vision I had just experienced. The reality of the spiritual world was undeniable now. God, Jesus, Satan, and other spiritual beings were real, their presence deeply embedded within my new understanding. This stark realization overwhelmed me, and I felt an immense fear wash over me, it was like the Eye of Sauron was upon me, or the eye of Satan.
I began pacing frantically around my room, gasping for air as I tried to process the magnitude of my new awareness. My mind felt as if it were on the brink of shattering; I couldn't comprehend what was happening. The very foundation of my reality had shifted, leaving me teetering on the edge of my sanity.
Despite my racing thoughts and heart, I managed to steady myself using deep breathing techniques I had learned in the past from Wim Hof. My frantic pace gradually slowed, and I returned to my bed, trying to make sense of everything.
I deduced that the condition commonly known as schizophrenia might not be what people thought it was. Instead, it could be an individual's heightened sensitivity to the spirit world, a world most people never perceived.
As I lay in bed, still reeling from my panic, I suddenly saw a vision of Satan. He had red skin and horns, and spoke directly to me, expressing admiration for my deduction. Satan confirmed that what I thought was true: many people were speaking to demons, believing themselves to be schizophrenic. This deceptive world was, indeed, a harsh reality.
I tried to take in Satan's words, but a sensation of something being pulled out of me struck me. It felt as though my very soul was being drained from my body. My energy depleted rapidly, and I was overcome by a sense of impending doom. I lost control of my bodily functions, believing that I was moments away from death.
At the moment when I thought I was succumbing to death, I caught sight of an Easter lily I had bought earlier that day, sitting on my desk. The sight of the beautiful lily sparked a powerful desire to live within me. Fueled by a newfound will to survive coursing through me, I leaped out of my bed, and began pacing back and forth in my room once more, gasping for air.
As I walked, I experienced a series of visions featuring characters I admired and found inspiration from—Master Yoda from Star Wars, Aang from Avatar: The Last Airbender, and Neo from The Matrix. I realized that God had shown me these characters because they were a source of moral guidance and strength in my life.
My thoughts then turned to the physical pain I was experiencing. My awareness of the spirit world had heightened significantly, causing my brain to start heating up, and I felt a piercing pain and ballooning sensation near my right temple, which deeply concerned me.
Every time I had a thought, I could feel my brain stem wiggle and I would feel pain in my right temple, so I had to learn to still or quiet my mind. Recognizing that I needed to take action to cool my head and relieve the pain, with a sort of just knowing of what I had to do, I resolved to get a large bowl of ice water and head to the basement.
I quietly left my room so as not to wake my mother, who was sleeping in her room nearby, and ventured downstairs to the basement
At this point you could say I was "possessed" by spirits, Thoth, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit. I was able to rest my consciousness in my third eye, and the Holy Spirit, Thoth, or Jesus could help me and take move my body to keep me alive. There was no way for me to survive without help.
The holy spirit showed me a specific breathing technique to diffuse the energy in my brain by inhaling through my mouth deeply, and then exhaling through my nose in the water. The vibration of exhaling through my nose into the water would cause my brain to feel soothed for a little while, likely stimulating my vagus nerve too, and I believe it was doing something with the fluid in my brain. When I was able to not be at the water, I had to keep pressure on the center of my forehead to rest in my third eye so they could help me.
I remember pacing between the two sections of my basement, and Thoth was helping me breathe just to stay conscious. One half of the basement was bright with light with concrete floors, which is where the bowl of water was, the washer and drier, a sink, and four litter boxes. On the other side of the basement was dark with a carpeted floor and a wood fireplace. The basement's light was painted in the duality of light and dark.
I remained in the basement until the sun rose, soaking my head in icewater, and pacing back and forth between the dark and light rooms because i would become overly sensitive to one particular room, and I was just trying to breathe to stay conscious. I was battling the spirit of fear the entire night. The fear from my initial awakening and the fear of death over and over again, hundreds if not thousands of times.
I soaked my head in the ice water all night, getting momentary breaks from the water, and certain I was going to die hundreds of times from a brain hemorrhage, I stood on the hard pavement for hours, I remember Jesus was my legs at one point, I could feel him focusing through me to keep me standing. I continuously soaked my head in the ice water to combat the piercing pain and ballooning sensation in my right temple. Throughout the night, I heard voices speaking to me—some belonging to what I would call demons and others to angels.
The demons tried to instill fear in me, convincing me I was going to die. While the angels offered comfort and reassurance, telling me I would be okay. Despite the torment I endured, I found profound inner strength and refused to give up. I remember squeezing my Celtic cross necklace so hard during this time.
The sun rose on the second day, I had been awake all night, I was beyond exhausted. I don't remember all of the specifics of this time, my awakening was very traumatic, but several hours passed and I remember being told that I needed to grab a book and go outside down the street and sit by a tree. I refused, and Satan said, "Do you want to die?" I said "No," and grabbed a book and went outside and walked down the street to a tree and sat with my back leaned against it.
I read my book for about 10 minutes when two women carrying their babies in slings approached me, and asked me what I was reading. I told them the name of the book, Inner Engineering by Sadghuru, and they said that they were doing a prayer walk, and wanted to share the gospel message with me. I knew this was a divine appointment. This was meant to happen.
They shared the gospel message with me, and then offered to let me join their community of house churches, and gave me the number of one of their husbands so I could call and get connected with them.
I spent the rest of the day relaxing, but was unable to sleep and barely ate anything, and once the night fell, I was in the basement again, soaking my head in ice water. I would often get relief during the days when the sun was out, and then at night, it was a brutal spiritual battle all night in the basement where I was fighting for my life.
On the second day, I was in the kitchen, and I had the right side of my head in the ice water, and was moving my head up to breathe in through my mouth, and then I would tilt my head back down and exhale my entire breath out through my nose. I didn't know what I was doing, I was just listening to guidance from what I believe was the holy spirit.
After around 15-20 minutes of intense exhaling through my nose, a ton of white viscous liquid started coming out of my nose, and filling the bowl, it wasn't painful at all, it was a massive relief, and the excess fluid in my head was somehow being drained out. When the process was done, I remember I felt amazing, incredible actually, like my head was clear of all confusion, and I was so very much alive and conscious.
I went outside and was swinging a stick like a sword and having fun, and I think I got a little overzealous and jumped the fence behind my house, and started going on an adventure. After around 3-5 minutes though, the fluid started building back up, and I had to soak my head in a puddle to keep my brain cool. When I returned home, I went back to the water to soak my head. I still hadn't slept.
That night was brutal, and I was suffering badly, and I remember I was sitting on the dark side of the basement, but I had turned on the lamp. I was sitting on pillows, and I had just been soaking my head in the water. Satan then told me that in order to save the world, I would have to die by popping my third eye. I don't know why I believed him, I didn't have discernment at the time, and I was just following whatever guidance was coming my way, but I know that I had to do that to find my true strength.
I sat for a moment and contemplated. I grabbed a wooden walking stick that was nearby, and I moved it to my forehead, and pushed it into the center of my head as hard as I could until my arms literally gave out. I thought of my mom and sister, and I wanted the world to be free from suffering, but I wasn't meant to die that day. I cried very hard, and I learned that the human skull is very strong. I got up and went back to the ice water, and my forehead was numb.
Eventually, after three days and nights of this suffering, following the path God laid out before me, I reached my complete breaking point. I declared to the spirits that I had had enough. I was done soaking my head in ice water and I slowly and bravely removed my head from the bowl of water.
I was shivering so badly. These weren't just cold shivers, these were spiritual shivers, they shake you to your very core. I felt awful. Those who have been delivered will know what I am speaking about when I saw spiritual shivers. I spread out pillows on the floor, and lay down to rest. As I settled in, I pulled the blanket over me, and I remember I felt the comforting presence of Jesus, he was tucking me in.
I slept for just a few hours and awoke up early on Saturday morning. I remember my head hurt and it felt like the left side of my head was full of fluid. I grabbed the bowl of ice water, and this time, however, I decided to sit outside. The pain in my head was still excruciating, and I thought I might die.
My mother saw me outside, and concerned about my well-being, approached me to check if I was okay. I told her to call the ambulance because I needed help, and she quickly complied. When the paramedics arrived, they took me to the hospital, where I hoped I would receive the medical care I desperately needed, but that wasn't what was in store for me.
I got to the hospital, and the medical establishment, unfortunately, has no empathy or concern for people's mental sufferings. I asked them for water to drink because I was so dehydrated, and they wouldn't give me water.
Then, I got admitted to the hospital, and they finally gave me some juice and a snack, and I was starting to relax, but then a voice came into my head, it was Satan, and he made me think I needed to soak my head in the icewater again and expel the white viscous fluid again, so I started panicking a bit and had them bring me a bowl of ice water, and I began soaking my head.
They had probably never seen anything like what I was doing, and thought I was just crazy, because they basically came after me and tied me to the bed, and forcefully injected me with something to make me calm down or sleep, and then they didn't talk to me at all anymore throughout the night.
I am claustrophobic, so being tied down was absolute torture for me. They left me in the dark hospital room suffering all night, tied to the bed, thinking I was going to die the entire night, and then finally the sun rose on the horizon, and when the nurse came in to draw my blood in the morning, I asked them to request security to release me from the restraints. They have no empathy for people. Something is deeply wrong with the medical system.
Anyways, they finally sent me to an in-patient mental health clinic which is honestly just a warehouse for people to take meds, sleep, and eat, away from society. It was honestly a welcome respite, but there's no therapy available at these places. Which means no real internal healing is taking place for people suffering.
Once I got to the in-patient mental health clinic, I spent the first day mostly just relaxing, but there was a man there that was definitely possessed by a demon. He would be shouting a bunch of biblical verses about the kingdom of God, and a lot more, and then he would be on the floor the next, flailing around, being tortured by a demon. One of the other patients there told me he is being tortured by something, and I see what she means now.
I spent the rest of my time there recovering the best I could, and just taking the meds to calm down, and try to get some sleep, and spent time listening to people's stories. One of the girls there told me that the wound on my forehead from when I pushed the wooden staff into my forehead, looked like a cross, and she was right.
When I got out of the in-patient mental health clinic, I called the number that I had received during my three days and nights dark night of the soul.
I joined their community of house churches, and was studying the Bible with them for several months and meeting with them frequently, and I thought I had found my forever friends. We would go on prayer walks, and I was eventually baptized at a lake, and thought that I had a new life of faith waiting for me with new friends.
They were concerned about my well-being and cared about me, but a small part of me felt like I was being controlled by them too, like they wanted me to conform to all of their beliefs and everything in the Bible as fact, and the word of God, and I have always been very sensitive to manipulation since I was a child, and I could tell they were manipulating me. They never left room for me to be myself, and share my beliefs without condemnation, which is a major red flag.
Recognizing this, I distanced myself from them, and went on my own spiritual journey where I spent months conversing with the spirit world in my backyard. walking in circles. I spoke to God and Satan/Lucifer and was trying to come to understanding why Satan would reject God's will.
After some time, I realized I was just being tortured, and I needed help. I was suffering from a lot, and I needed deliverance. Satan had taken up a seat in my mind because I let him, and I had demons hurting me. I reached out to the Christian group again after several months of being distant from them, and they said there was an opportunity to move in with some Christian brothers and live with them, so I jumped on the opportunity. I was so excited. I was on fire for God.
I got to the house, and moved my stuff in, and then the night fell on the first night, and the enemy was not having it. The demons and Satan were not having it. They did NOT want me living with my brothers in Christ because they knew I was detached from all the boxes of thought control, and I was living in the spirit, wasn't a slave of mind or spirit. They wanted to destroy our relationship, between us, the brothers of Christ, and they did.
I don't remember the exact sequence of events, but I was entirely in the spirit at the time, I was detached from my body in a way, and just following the path laid out before me. I could feel that I needed to go outside and walk the neighborhood as a part of my spiritual path, so I left the house, and walked barefoot throughout the neighborhood.
While walking the neighborhood, I was in full spirit mode, I was communicating with God and Jesus, and they were guiding me on my path. I saw visions of them sitting beside a tree and trimming off rotten fruit, which I think was symbolic of them removing rotten fruit from my mind. I also saw them sweeping out a room and cleaning it, as if symbolic of my mind, and them cleaning my mind and purifying it. I also remember seeing a symbolic vision of myself holding up a golden gemstone encrusted goblet to God.
During that night, I declared war on the principalities of darkness. Against the forces of darkness. I saw skulls in the clouds, and could tell they were communicating with me as they are spirits of the air.
My feet were bloodied from walking around the neighborhood barefoot, I was completely lost all night, I was new to the neighborhood too, and had no idea where I was, so I wandered for hours throughout the night, so hungry, tired, and thirsty, and just physically and mentally exhausted, but I endured. That night made me realize how strong I really am when I let go of everything and trust in God. When I completely become the spirit instead of the body. The human body is incredible and capable of withstanding far more than we know.
Finally, I found my way to the house, and my footsteps were spilling blood on the front porch. The door was locked, and I knocked, and one of the brothers let me in, and I went to my bedroom. I couldn't sleep at all, my mind was very active, it was very similar to when I had my spiritual awakening, I was just unable to sleep because of how active my mind was. I spent the whole night awake.
The next day, I was suffering horrible spiritual attack, my head was in pain and I was holding my head just to feel comfortable, and one of the brothers called a friend of theirs to come and do a deliverance. I remember them being very bold, but gentle... firm, but kind to me, as they expelled some of the demons through prayer. It wasn't a painful deliverance or too exhausting, it was gentle by comparison. I felt much better after the deliverance, hungry and thirsty again, and wanted to nourish my body. I spent the rest of the day relaxing a bit, and listening to the other believers talk about the Bible, and their beliefs.
That night, I was delivered again, and it was awful. My brothers in Christ shouldn't have done the deliverance, but I don't know if I even would have made the rest of the night it if they didn't. I think the holy spirit guided them to do the deliverance, but it went out of control.
I was in my room, suffering deeply, holding my head, and all three brothers who lived there came up to my room to check on me, and pray for me. Their prayers turned into a full blown deliverance, and demons were screaming out of me for around half an hour straight. They were casting them out in the name of Jesus, but it was awful, it's one of my most traumatic memories. I was suffering so badly, and honestly I could tell the demons were suffering so badly, and my brothers in Christ had zero empathy for me.
After speaking with demons, the brothers wanted to speak with me again, so I came to, I asked them for water, and they denied me, and they just continued the deliverance without giving me a break. I had been suffering for around 45 minutes straight, with demons screaming out of me, and I was beyond exhausted, I was so dehydrated, and I just needed to stop. They didn't care, they kept going.
They kept shouting at these demons in the name of Jesus to leave, and eventually after another ten minutes, I realized, nothing was happening, we weren't getting anywhere, the demons weren't coming out, and they asked to speak with me again, and I came to the forefront and regained control, and tried talking to them, but they were gone. The demons had got into them somehow, and they were filled with hatred and revulsion for me. They all had the same facial expression of hatred and revulsion for me.
I went around the room and pleaded with them that it was me, but they didn't believe me, they were gone, checked out, I tried bringing up memories of what had happened between us that were specific to each person to bring them to understanding that it was me, and in fact not a demon speaking, but they thought I was a demon speaking. :(
They all grabbed ahold of me, and pinned me down on the bed, but I knew where this was going, the demons in them were going to flood me with fear and fill me with demons again, and I wasn't going to have that, I wasn't going to let them win.
I flailed out of their grasp, told them to get off me, and ran down the stairs and out of the house. I remember as I was running out, Satan told me, "You are the most free person on the planet."
I ran outside, and even the weight of my clothes felt like too much, I was panicking from the trauma of the deliverance and the attack from my brothers, and I stripped off all my clothes and ran down the alley way in the middle of the night and got away from the house.
There were no light, and no one around, and no one followed me, so I just ran down the alley way, and found an abandoned car to sit on for a few minutes until I got a message from God that it was time to go grab my clothes and put my clothes on.
I put my clothes back on, and started walking away from the house because I needed to get some air. That is when one of the other brother's in Christ, the one that I had called initially to join their community of house churches, was there. I think he was guided by the holy spirit to show up there that night.
Anyways, we walked back to the house, and when we got there, there was a cop car and an ambulance there. I guess the brothers had called for a wellness check on me. They wanted to bring me to the hospital to have me evaluated. I protested, but just wanted them to leave me alone, I went with them, and went to the hospital.
Much to no one's surprise, they did nothing for me at the hospital. They just put me in a room where I waited around for 6-8 hours, until I was finally released. I didn't go back to the brother's house though. When they offered me an uber, I went back to my mom's house. I wasn't going to live with them anymore after what they did to me...
A couple weeks passed and two of the brothers who did the deliverance called me, and wanted to schedule a time to meet up so they could minister to me. They came over to my house, and basically told me that I was still demon possessed, and made me feel like there was something wrong with me, and then when I confronted them and asked them if they had a problem with me, they lied to my face, and said that they didn't have a problem with me.
About a month passed and the last brother that was a part of deliverance contacted me and invited me to go to church with him. I told him how that experience made me feel, how I was claustrophobic from childhood trauma and that being pinned down by everyone was horribly traumatic, and he said, "Do you feel better now?" in a sarcastic tone. He completely dismissed how I felt, that hurt me badly.
I went to church with him once, but never went with him again, I also never reconnected with any of the other brothers, and then my life started to become very spiritual. God had a path of understanding laid out before me that most people will not tread.
I began to try to become friends with demons and minister to them and try to turn them to Christ. I had a lot of visions during this time, and I cried a lot. I would walk around my neighborhood and see visions of demons sitting on top of the apartment buildings.
When I would go home, I would have visions of demons in my basement, and would have to drive them out in the name of Jesus. I would speak to them too, and wait and listen for them to telepathically communicate with me.
I remember I was suffering badly though, and I needed to go to in-patient mental health again for help. I needed the meds and a place where I could rest and relax.
During my time there, I was communicating with a spirit named Jezebel, and during that time I was suffering very badly. I won't get into all of the details, but I was becoming friends with her, and we shared a deep laugh about something that I cannot remember anymore, but I remember the laugh. It felt so good to laugh after suffering so badly.
During my time while I was there I was seeing visions of my own death. I was seeing people suffering from demonic attack and spirits of confusion. They couldn't remember who they were, or who other people were.
I prayed for a woman to be delivered that night in her sleep, and the next day she was bright and fresh and happy, and doing so much better. God performed a miracle on her, and saved her. She was a normal person again after entering the hospital in a complete state of confusion. It was miraculous. I was honestly jealous, because I was suffering so badly, and she was delivered overnight in her sleep in a relaxed way, while my time had been so intense.
While I was there though, I was under heavy attack, but I pulled through, God pulled me through too, but when I got home, the journey wasn't over though. I was in a spiritual state for a while, and was seeing visions. I could rest in my third eye, and see the spirit world. It was exhausting, I saw a lot of demons, and had to drive them out in the name of Jesus.
Then one night, I was downstairs, and I was with Satan, Lilith, and a spirit calling itself Baal. I remember Baal was sitting in the middle in front of the fireplace, and Satan was to my left, and Lilith was to my right.
I don't remember what we spoke about, I just spent time with them, and I drank a beer with them, the air was heavy with demonic energy, and then I remember Lilith went over to Satan and kneeled before him, and grabbed him by the hand tenderly and asked him to turn away from his evil ways.
Satan neither accepted nor refused, and then I remember maybe 5 minutes passed and I was doing a full-blown deliverance on Lilith. I was praying for her, and I could see visions of her on the ground flailing around, it was awful, and I hope she is okay.
I don't know how long after that passed, but I was delivered many times during this phase. I was around demons a lot and they would get into me, and I would have to expel them out through vomiting, and it was excruciating.
Several months passed after that where I was okay, I spent months just relaxing and recovering, playing video games, smoking weed, and just relaxing. It was nice, but it wasn't the end of my journey.
My next journey was against Thoth. While he was a great help at the beginning of my spiritual awakening, he is not a perfect being like God, and he tried to overtake me. It's really hard to explain what he did, but he was viciously attacking me spiritually, and I sought help to go to the in-patient mental health clinic again. That was where I went when things got too spiritually charged. I had Medicaid, so I was able to go as needed.
They didn't send me to in-patient this time though, they sent me to a crisis pivot center, which is basically a residential house that is being used to treat people suffering from mental illness, where you can receive meds and sleep in a sort of half-way house between in-patient mental health and being back in the world at home.
Anyways, I was suffering grotesquely from Thoth, he is a VERY powerful entity, perhaps one of the strongest I have faced, and has been more cruel to me than even Satan, and I remember having a conversation with one of the people working there about how I had asked a false God at the beginning of my spiritual awakening for help to fix my life, and how that had caused a bunch of problems.
Eventually, I realized I was not receiving the care that I needed while at the crisis center, so I had them transfer me to hospital. All I wanted to do was sleep. I had been awake for days, and I just wanted sleep, so I was looking for Ambien when I went to the hospital, and that's what I got.
I remember they had admitted me to the emergency, but it was so full that every room was full, so they had me in the hallway, and I was just exhausted, and in a very tired state, but my third eye was opened, and I could sense spirits around me, and Satan, Lilith, and Jezebel were there for me that night.
They were hovering over my bed, and speaking to me telepathically, and asking me if I was okay, they were genuinely concerned for me, and wanted to know if I was okay. It was kind of shocking to be honest. These entities are not known for being nice in any way, but they were there for me that night, and God let them be there for me that night, instead of Jesus or someone else, which i find interesting.
This moment and seeing Lilith kneel before Satan made me realize that entities that we think are pure evil, are more dynamic than just evil. They may have evil in them, or have the ability to evil actions, but they can also be good and support others, like they did with me when I was in such an exhausted and vulnerable state after being delivered from Thoth.
I made it back home, and some time passed and I was in a very spiritual moment. My third eye was very awakened. It seems to happen in cycles. That night was a blizzard, and the air was heavy with demonic energy. This time it was the demiurge.
I remember I had dozens if not hundreds of demons in my room, and they were swirling above my bed, and I kept trying to lay down because I was so exhausted, and I kept being told to not lay down because I would squish a spirit, so I chose to not lay down.
I was whistling the avatar theme for the spirits to uplift them and make them feel better, and during this time I was being possessed by spirits. The room was heavy with spiritual energy.
So much happened that I don't want to get into, but it all lead to me being outside in the blizzard, in the snow storm, naked, and laying down in the snow. I had to be very cold for some reason while interacting with these demons, to keep them from overtaking me, and I remember I had to leave my house behind entirely.
My mom came outside before I left the house and I could feel demonic energy, evil spirits, all around her. There was a presence of wrath around her, and she was angry with me, because I had flooded the bathroom of the house while trying to get cold in the shower.
I left the house, there was a foot of snow on the ground, and I was naked and wandering down the street. I would check in with what I thought was God every once in a while to figure out what was happening with the demons in my bedroom.
For some reason when I would have a thought it would affect them in my room. That's really complicated to get into, and I don't understand it, but regardless, I wandered down the street and around the corner, and that is when the police got me.
They handcuffed me, and put me in the back of the police cruiser, and I remember telling God that the Matrix has me. The police called an ambulance, and they came to get me, I remember they transferred me to the ambulance, and they covered me with blankets, but I didn't want to be warm, I didn't have any control over this situation.
My body started to shut down, and I was struggling to even breathe, and that's when the demiurge appeared. They started speaking to me, and controlling my body to keep me breathing, and that's when I submitted to them, thinking that I was on my own, and God had abandoned me. I told them to fill me with demons, and that I would become a demon lord.
As I would breathe, I could feel demons entering me, spirits. When I got to the hospital, I was possessed by a lot of spirits, and my body was in agony. It's very hard to explain what it feels like, but just imagine discordant energy in your body that makes you feel awful, and physically hurts.
I struggled the entire night, and was in absolute agony. After 6-8 hours I was recovered and feeling better, they had admitted me to the hospital at this time, so I was able to rest in a room and eat plenty of food and recover.
My experience with the demiurge was really traumatic though, but that wasn't the end of my experiences with him.
... to be continued...

🌊🔱🏕️Camp Half-Blood🏕️🔱🌊
Hosted by: DogFish
Ad//Campers everywhere. Some were doing archery, some were canoeing on the lake. A man with a Hawaiian shirt was sitting on the porch of the big house with a Diet Coke in hand. beside him was a black haired girl in an orange shirt and a centaur beside him, gazing out onto the sea of demigods, nymphs, and satyrs scattered around, all with the same orange shirt, from one to the other. A semicircle of cabins, all different lay in the center of it all. Welcome to Camp Half-Blood, where children of the Greek Gods and Goddesses go, and kids only live to 20! Where do you fit into this? Come join our Roleplay today! PJO CABINS ONLY (up to 12) THIS IS DATED IN THE FIRST PERCY JACKSON SERIES! - [ ROLES: Cabin 1- OO Cabin 3- OO Cabin 4- U Cabin 5- U Cabin 6 - U Cabin 7 - U Cabin 9 - U Cabin 10 - U Cabin 11 - U Cabin 12 - U Satyrs - OOOOOO Nymphs - OOO Customs - U ]
O=OPEN (role open) T=TAKEN (role taken) U=UNLIMITED (unlimited amount of roles open)
🌊🏕️🔱🌊🏕️🔱🌊🏕️🔱🌊🏕️🔱🌊🏕️🔱🌊🏕️🔱🌊🏕️🔱🌊🏕️🔱🌊🏕️🔱🌊

• CHARACTER MAKING

Hi! DogFish here. I just got into Percy Jackson, uh oh. Anywho, welcome to this RP, again, this is dated in the first Percy Jackson series, PJO (Percy Jackson and the Olympians). Book Characters do exist in this RP but unless anyone volunteers to RP as them, npc them if you’d like them to be involved with your story. Otherwise pretend they don’t exist, and none are cabin councilors unless requested. ‼️IMPORTANT ‼️YOU MUST KNOW THE CABIN NUMBERS THAT ASSOCIATE WITH EACH GOD OR GODDESS! CABIN ONE = ZEUS, CABIN TWO = HERA, CABIN THREE = POSEIDON, CABIN FOUR = DEMETER, CABIN FIVE = ARES, CABIN SIX = ATHENA, CABIN SEVEN = APOLLO, CABIN EIGHT = ARTEMIS, CABIN NINE = HEPHAESTUS, CABIN TEN = APHRODITE, CABIN ELEVEN = HERMES, CABIN TWELVE = DIONYSUS ‼️‼️
————————————————————
Bio Template:
Name - Age - Cabin/Parent - Other Family - Appearance - Personality - Canon Character Friends - OC Friends - Ship - Backstory? - Nationality/Ancestry/Accent - Nicknames - Aesthetic - Other Languages besides English? - Favorite Camp Activity - Relationship/Opinions On/With Godly Parent - Wish/Dream/Goal - Voiceclaims - Other - MBTI - Name To Call You When We Aren’t Roleplaying :]
Example:
Beckett Colins - 13 - unclaimed (HERMES’ SON) - He did have a mom, and they were very close, as they were poor. - Beckett is a short, slim boy with knotted dark brown hair (that’s been dyed a lighter brown, but not fully so it’s kinda spotty) - He’s pretty shaky, he has major trust issues, and he always looks like he’s on the verge of crying. He’s really (mentally) strong though. He doesn’t cry unless other people do. Or he’s hurt. He’s tough even when he’s hurt though. He’s a bit afraid to speak up or ask for help sometimes, since he’s scared someone will tell him off for it. - Luke and Chris are like his adopted dads or something. No but seriously, an older (probably girl to remind him of his mom) in the Hermes cabin, unclaimed or claimed Hermes child, would be his mothefather figure to cope with being unclaimed. - N/A - N/A - he and his mom were very close, living in an overdue with rent apartment in a rundown neighborhood in NYC, but she died of heart failure when he was 8, and left Beckett to fend for himself on the streets of New York City. Thankfully he got food and things from people who felt bad, he had the cute factor of a child. Then he found CHB :] - His mother was heavily German, and could only speak German. He has a thick German accent especially when he speaks the language (it was his first language, as he learned it before English, which he’s still pretty bad at) - Rahh idk - Homeless. Idk streetwear? - He speaks German :) - uhhhhshajajkwkwksmzmk probably like nothing bc he’s pretty useless at everything tbh. - he wishes he could know him. - to be claimed. - Ben Platt (idk lol I was listening to DEH) - Aaauushhshsjjak idk help the poor boy - ISFP - EXAMPLE_NPC
🌊🏕️🔱🌊🏕️🔱🌊🏕️🔱🌊🏕️🔱🌊🏕️🔱🌊🏕️🔱🌊🏕️🔱🌊🏕️🔱🌊🏕️🔱🌊

• STARTER PROMPT ⚠️

So this RP I’m trying something new ! Everyone will have a starter prompt for every oc you roleplay as, just to give a feel of your overall character, you can give a description of what you look like, a dialouge to show how your oc speaks, or anything else that gives you a little tap into what your oc is like !! You may put this in ‘Other’ in your bio templates or not, the choice is yours, and these can also be used as RP starting prompts. You do have to pm me your starter prompt at some point before you begin roleplaying, so I can also make sure you know how to roleplay, and are exp. ‼️PLEASE WRITE THEM IN 2ND PERSON, USING YOU/YOURS PRNS FOR THE READER‼️
Example with Beckett —
.:You watch from across the amphitheater, at a frail, small looking boy, sitting with a few older Hermes boys, chatting and occasionally laughing. The Apollo cabin was leading a song at the moment, by the campfire, as the Ares cabin shot looks at the Athena cabin. All of which was relatively normal. The boy you were staring at caught your gaze. He gave a quick smile and a shy wave, before glancing back to the older boys and laughing a bit. (Not at you,) :.
Examples for each of my oc’s —
ARLO-
— As you tread through the forest you hear a stick snap in the distance, which earns a small squeak from the perpetrator. He’s a seemingly suntanned boy with dirt patches on his arms and face as he turns your direction. His brown eyes gleam amber in the sunlight. Definitely a son of Apollo, you thought as he froze, pondering if he should approach you. A wide grin broke out onto his face. — ` Heeeeyyyy..! What’re you doin’ out here? ` — He tilted his head. He looked around, awkwardly. “Ignore the uh.. mud..” he gave an awkward laugh as he wiped the dry mud and dirt from his arms and cheeks, waiting for your response.—
RUTHIE-
— You move into the back corner of the Forge, carefully trying to dodge sparks from metal, bracing your ears for the loud clangs and excruciating heat from the fires. You settle yourself into a comfortable standing position as you begin to heat up your sword with a blowtorch, grabbing goggles and placing them on your head. You feel a pair of eyes burning into your side, as you turn your gaze to your left and spot a short-haired girl staring at you with a flat expression. She has goggles pushed upwards on top of her head and gloves on as she looked down at your sword, not bothering to make eye contact. —` You’re doing it wrong. ` — She comments dryly. —
RAIYNA-
— you walk up to the big house, therefore Mr D, tiredly. Your cabin mates had been bickering all night and you were about to report it, but instead of the man in a floral Hawaiian shirt as always, it was a younger girl, shuffling a deck of cards with a bored expression on her face. She glanced over at you and cracked a small smile. — ` Thank gods someone’s here to talk to me. I was getting bored out of my mind. ` —She tilted her head at you, you opened your mouth to speak but she cut you off. — ` If you need my dad, he’s uh,, somewhere, I don’t exactly know where, ‘cause all I heard was ‘in charge’ and I stopped listening, ` — It was almost as if she read your mind. — ` I’m Raina, you? ` — The black-haired girl prompted, setting the cards down. —
🌊🏕️🔱🌊🏕️🔱🌊🏕️🔱🌊🏕️🔱🌊🏕️🔱🌊🏕️🔱🌊🏕️🔱🌊🏕️🔱🌊🏕️🔱🌊

• RULES!
• BE KIND!
• You can have up to 4 oc’s, but you can only rp as one at once
• Talk to DogFish if any questions!
• Make sure you’ve read at least the first series
• No power playing
• Perms are needed for everything
• All Camp Half-Blood rules unless given perms from DOGFISH or any other co-host.
  • Example of this: Cabin counselors must do their cabin chores.
• No power playing.
• Cabin counselors can be decided through cabin vote pre-rp
• No killing
• Auditions required for children on the big three. Well, two at this point. (Sorry children of Hades, we still love you <3) [I get that they existed but let’s keep it simple for now.]
• NO CHILDREN OF HADES 😨(sorry again emos)
• No breaking out into song (yes this has been a problem in past roleplays.)
• ANY OTHER RULES ASK DOGFISH TO ADD!!

🌊🏕️🔱🌊🏕️🔱🌊🏕️🔱🌊🏕️🔱🌊🏕️🔱🌊🏕️🔱🌊🏕️🔱🌊🏕️🔱🌊🏕️🔱🌊

• HOW TO ROLEPLAY!

Dialogue-
Dialogue is probably going to be most of what you type later on in the role-play. Dialogue is when a character is talking, either to themselves or to others. You need marks to represent dialogue though… soo- here’s some ideas :)
“Hi!”
‘ . Hi! . ‘
‘ ‘ Hi! ‘ ‘
/ ‘ / ‘ Hi! ‘ \ ‘ \
‘ -_ Hi! _- ‘
‘ ‘ Hi! ‘ ‘
` . Hi! . `
Actions-
At the beginning of every good rp- you use an entire PARAGRAPH of this crap. Oh jeez- every rp I do- I start with a paragraph of some actions or a description of what’s going on around me. Actions are basically everything that isn’t dialogue and thoughts in an rp. That means- “the wind blew softly” is an action in roleplaying. So is- “the floorboards creaked loudly” :) here are some action marks that you can use :D
+Action+
:action:
.:. Action .:.
Action
%^ Action ^%
{ + . Action . + }
[ action ]
Out of roleplay -
Basically talking outside of the role-play :)
ORP //
ORP ))
ORP /
ORP ]]
ORP / /
ORP
EVERYONE NORMALLY HAS A DISTINCTIVE RP STYLE, AND THIS CAN CHANGE! DOGFISH’S CURRENT RP STYLE IS:
` dialouge `
— actions —
/ORP
🌊🏕️🔱🌊🏕️🔱🌊🏕️🔱🌊🏕️🔱🌊🏕️🔱🌊🏕️🔱🌊🏕️🔱🌊🏕️🔱🌊🏕️🔱🌊

• WHERE TO ROLEPLAY!

On the DogFish Roleplay subreddit!
roleplaysbydogfish
There should be a megathread titled Camp Half-Blood.
🌊🏕️🔱🌊🏕️🔱🌊🏕️🔱🌊🏕️🔱🌊🏕️🔱🌊🏕️🔱🌊🏕️🔱🌊🏕️🔱🌊🏕️🔱🌊

• PERSONAL NOTE + COMMUNICATION!

Hi! I’m DogFish! But you can call me Doggo or Dog! (or Fynn if you know me personally). I go by any pronouns and I really enjoy making new friends! Don’t be afraid to ask any questions! Just because I’m a shark, doesn’t mean I bite! I hope you enjoy this new role-play! If you want more roleplay’s like this, check out my subreddit, roleplaysbydogfish and look at one of the other mega threads! Other roleplay’s I have ready, but haven’t publicly hosted yet include:

• Hogwarts (Harry Potter)
• Just A Game
• OC Hunger Games
• Realistic All-Clan RP (Warriors)
• Magic School
• Afterlife (not GB)
• Atlas Laboratories
• Zodiac Signs
• RuinClan & PearlClan (Warriors)
• Soulmate Bows
• Haunted Orphanage
• Great Xendos (‼️CANCELLED‼️)

Sharky Wishes!! 🦈🫂🐾
— DogFish and my whole team !
🌊🏕️🔱🌊🏕️🔱🌊🏕️🔱🌊🏕️🔱🌊🏕️🔱🌊🏕️🔱🌊🏕️🔱🌊🏕️🔱🌊🏕️🔱🌊

• CAMPERS - BY CABIN

Cabin 1 / Zeus -
tbd
Cabin 2 / Hera -
N-A
Cabin 3 / Poseidon -
tbd
Cabin 4 / Demeter -
tbd
Cabin 5 / Ares -
tbd
Cabin 6 / Athena -
tbd
Cabin 7 / Apollo -

• Arlo Pesci - DogFish

tbd
Cabin 8 / Artemis -
N-A
Cabin 9 / Hephaestus -

• Ruthie Hearthstone - DogFish

tbd
Cabin 10 / Aphrodite -

• Valentine Connor - Lola

tbd
Cabin 11 / Hermes -
tbd
Cabin 12 / Dionysus -

• Raiyna Speals - DogFish

tbd
🌊🏕️🔱🌊🏕️🔱🌊🏕️🔱🌊🏕️🔱🌊🏕️🔱🌊🏕️🔱🌊🏕️🔱🌊🏕️🔱🌊🏕️🔱🌊

• BIO TEMPLATES !

Valentine Conner-
15- APHRODITE- the Conners (humans) - A young looking female with brown eyes and light brown hair, she has pale skin and lots of lashes. Her eyes brows are thin and fluffy and is thin. She has freckles on her face and has a height of 5’5 - She is kind,honest (a little too honest,) but can keep secrets, funny, and brave. - (to be made) -(anything dogfish does) - None 🤩 - Nothing dark, just a happy life until her momma made her leave for camp.- German American (like me), with a bit of a German accent. - Val, valentines, tree. - COQUETTE AND DOWNTOWN GIRL 🎀🖤 -she can speak German..- Canoes & sleep.- SHE LOVES HER GODLY MOMMY ❤️- to make a bouquet by the end of camp with mixed flowers, and to get her phone back. - none yet.. - She likes bows and flowers..-(shown in photo)- Lola 🎀
Raiyna Speals -
14 - Cabin 12/Dionysus - mother was a traveling singer and danceentertainer for the renaissance festival, Castor and Pollux which she has a decent relationship with - she has silky black mid-length hair and purple eyes, which she put contacts in when she was younger, since kids would bully her for the fact, she has pale-ish skin that mostly pales in the wintertime, which is why she loves heat. - She’s very sarcastic and has a good sense of humor, while she can be dry sometimes she’s also very good at acting and lying, from her dad. She likes talking. A lot. She’s very good at manipulating people, but she never really uses that ability much. She’s “cold” to people she doesn’t like, and she’s kinda the definition of “I don’t care what anyone thinks”, but she won’t just go frolicking in public screaming Good For You from Dear Evan Hansen at top lung capacity. She’s very dry sometimes, and extremely stubborn. She holds grudges against people, and she thinks first expressions are the most important. She’s a really supportive friend though. She can get quite disrespectful, and believes she shouldn’t have to follow any rules she doesn’t agree with. Overall She’s pretty laidback, unless passionate about a certain topic. - Percy def, uhh, Castor and Pollux, I dunno she likes to stay by herself mostly. Oh yeah, and Grover, they’re gossip buddies - Arlo, APOLLO CABIN KIDS!! - open, probably won’t get one though - miRP - Her mother had polish decent, she’s mostly American though. - Rai-Rai (Mr D.) Rai (Apollo kids) - Dark Academia - She speaks Spanish, French, German, and Italian (not fluently) because she needed to translate some for her mother while traveling. - Archery, she’s like, too good at archery, mostly because her cabin only really had three people in it and she’s convinced her dad to let her practice extra all the time. She also likes doing stuff with the Apollo cabin in general, since their dads are kinda like the two theatre Gods - “I get it, you’re all— without fathers I..” “I’m not. I love my dad.” She loves Dionysus, mostly because he lets her do things other campers can’t, through guilt tripping <3 also cause he teaches her card games, so she can beat her other friends and brag about it. - To make the Gods stop using them as players in their little game, she feels very strongly about defying the Gods,, for some reason. She knows she’ll never succeed, she just wants (mostly for her friends) the gods to actually notice their children. - some form of Janis Ian/Sarkisian - She likes trying to sneak her dad wine, that’s why she’s the favorite child :] - INTJ - DogFish
Arlo Pesci -
17 - Cabin 7/Apollo - his mom was a marine biologist, they had a really close connection. He had a dad (his mom’s husband) before Apollo, who was a nurse, but y’know, after he found out his wife was pregnant with someone random’s child, he divorced her. His stepdad was an ecologist, who worked at a zoo, so he spent most of his childhood at a zoo, now he loves animals. Until his stepdad got a divorce from his mom for money reasons. He’s the middle child of two mortal sisters. His older sister was born from his dad before Apollo, and his younger sister was born from his stepdad. His older sister’s name is Devyn, and his younger sister’s name is Emma - He has curly dirty blonde hair and suntanned skin, with brown/azure eyes that appear orange in the sun. Sometimes he uses hair gel, but he’s mostly given that up, because nobody really cares about what you look like at CHB. He’s often covered in dirt, and sometimes has leaves and twigs caught in his hair. During capture the flag he puts mud on his arms and stuff, and sometimes he creates tiger patterns on himself from the mud :] - He’s very passionate, and mostly happy, but he gets hurt very easily, emotionally. He cries easily as well. It’s a bad habit of his to cry over every little thing. He isn’t very smart, nor was he ever good at school, but he loves the people he surrounds himself with. He’s extremely gullible. Extrovert for sure. - WWIIILLLLL<3333 - uhh, Raiyna, OPEN!! GIVE THIS BOY FRIENDS! - 💍who’s gonna take this - sort of explained in family - his mom was American, with some unknown European ancestors. He’s caucasian. - Songbird/Sunshine (ship) - PrismCore - he’s not very good at that memory thing, probably not, - archery, as any Apollo child, that’s where he met Raiyna ! - he just wishes he could give his dad a big hug, let the boy hug his dad :[ - he wants everyone around him to be happy - Will Connelly or Jake Ryan Flynn - he’s an overachiever :( OH YEAH, HE PLAYS THE UKULELE, AND BASS GUITAR ! - ESFJ - DogFish :]
Ruthie Hearthstone -
16 - Hephaestus - she has her mom and stepdad back home, they’re inventors, - She’s a pale brunette with red streaks in her short hair. She doesn’t wear glasses, although she needs them. She has short sight. Speaking of her vision, she has hazel doe eyes and bruises/cuts on her arm from her machinery. - She’s very.. pre-season 1 Twilight Sparkle. Like, think smart (she wishes she was an Athena kid) but very socially withdrawn, she doesn’t like interaction but what she does like? Being alone with her inventions and metalwork in the forge or cabin 9 (again, pjo, not hoo.) - nobody. - nobody. - be my only friend whoever’s gonna be this girly’s ship. She may be an awkward introvert but she’ll try to give you science pickup lines and she’ll be wholesome to u :] - rrraaahhhhh uhh.. yeah um.. no? She’s just always been like this, her parents want her to be “normal” and socialize buttt? She disagrees. She ran away (AnnabethCore🤩) - America. RAAAHHH 🦅🦅🦅 - Ru / Ruth. She hates when people call her Ruth, because they assume it’s her real name, when Ruthie is what she was born with. - Academia in general - she speaks French and Russian, she learned Russian for fun and French for school. - Staying in her cabin and making stuff. - She doesn’t really care, though she’d like it if she was a child of Athena. - To be actually seen as not just this weird genius girl and for a person to be accepting of her humor and real personality. - Analise Scarpaci - She doesn’t have that cool fire power or whatever, she wishes she did though (she wishes she could be better a lot, she’s actually really insecure.) - INFP - DogFish

When I was around 13 years old, I was a young stupid teenager, and hanging out with my friends, and we were all saying inflammatory things, and I said, "Yeah, if I turn 30, and I haven't accomplished anything, I'll probably just kill myself." It was an awful thing to say, and I can't believe I said it.
Well, I turned 29, I had probably close to 50 jobs, and had a complete discontentment with my life and civilization, and I was contemplating suicide, and then I had a full-blown spiritual awakening, saw a vision of Jesus and God and Satan, and went through an immense dark night of the soul and personal transformation of the heart.
I just have this verse on my heart right now thinking about it, "Death and life are in the power of the tongue, and those who love it will eat its fruits, [Psalm 18:21]" and it just reminds me of what I said when I was a teenager.
I know God heard that and knew that he wasn't going to let me die of suicide. He was watching me the whole time, and he cared about me, and he didn't want to lose me, and I'm weeping as I write this, because I'm so grateful.
Three years ago, I was a 29-year-old man whose life had become defined by isolation. Once curious and engaged with the world in my youth, I had slowly withdrawn into myself from depression, retreating into the comfort of my room in my mother's house. My agnostic atheism left me without a guiding light, and the mundane realities of life, from my dozens of failed jobs to my ongoing struggles with addiction, weighed heavily on my spirit. I found solace instead in the company of strategy games and in the rabbit hole of conspiracies on the internet.
My addictions had become an ever-tightening grip on my life. I found myself reaching for cannabis, alcohol, video games, fast food, and pornography to fill the void that had grown in my heart over the years. My life had become a series of hollow habits, each one leaving me feeling emptier than before. I could no longer deny that something was deeply wrong.
One day, while browsing online, I stumbled upon a post that claimed Thoth, the ancient Egyptian deity of knowledge and wisdom, could help those who asked for his assistance. Intrigued, I wondered if reaching out to Thoth could provide me with the help I needed.
Weeks passed since reading the post, and as I stood in my shower, my thoughts drifted to the crossroads my life seemed to have come to. I asked myself why I was stuck in a cycle of self-destructive behaviors and why I felt such a profound sense of emptiness. The steam from the shower enveloped me as I said aloud, "Thoth, if you are real, I really need your help right now. I don't want to live like this anymore; I don't want to die yet." As I spoke the words, my hand moved from the side of my body, and then to my forehead and heart, while making a hand-sign and I felt at peace.
I was stunned, realizing the hand-sign I had made was eerily similar to ones I had seen in paintings of Jesus. I was stunned but felt an unusual calmness wash over me. As I dried off and dressed, I pondered what had just happened. I went to the full-body mirror in my room, looking at myself. I saw someone I no longer recognized, someone I no longer wanted to be.
Once more, I said, "Thoth, if you are real, will you help me? This isn't who I want to be anymore." I stared at myself in the mirror, and slowly a vision began to form in my eyes. It wasn’t Thoth I saw, but Jesus.
Jesus appeared with long brown hair, a brown beard, brown eyes, and light brown skin. Half of his face was illuminated by light, while the other half was cast in shadow. The vision of Jesus was so vivid that it left me both in awe and at peace. As the vision of him faded, I remember reaching out to him because I didn't want him to go, I could tell he was here to help.
As night fell, I lay in my bed, lost in deep contemplation. I revisited the events of the day, focusing on the vision of Jesus. The clarity of the vision was imprinted on my mind, and I couldn't shake the feeling that it held a deeper meaning. I pondered the nature of good and evil, and how they were intertwined in a complex dance of duality. I found myself questioning whether the traditional view of evil as something to be hated and shunned was truly the right approach. Instead, I began to entertain the idea that perhaps evil people and perhaps even evil itself, could be understood with compassion and empathy, instead of hatred and disgust.
As I continued to ponder, I experienced a peculiar sensation in my head. It was as though something shifted in the center of my brain, around the area of my third eye or pineal gland. There was a slight pop like a tearing or crunching sound, it was not painful, but surprising nonetheless. I then felt a fluid movement from the left hemisphere of my brain to the right hemisphere, using the third eye as a bridge or something. This shift brought me a sense of balance and calmness I had not felt before. I realized I had been living predominantly in the logical part of my brain, instead of emotional side.
As I embraced this newfound state of relaxation, I began to see another vision in my mind. This time, it was God who appeared. God had long white hair, a white beard, and wore white robes and sandals. Then God began dancing, moving with joy and lightheartedness.
Before I could fully process what I was seeing, another figure appeared alongside God. It was Satan, with red skin and horns. Satan seemed curious and playful, attempting to imitate God's dance moves with enthusiasm. The sight of these two seemingly opposing forces dancing together struck me as surreal.
As I watched them dance, I found myself smiling, and really enjoying the moment. Then, my mind wandered to the Russian squat dance, a thought that seemed to come out of nowhere. To my amazement, God began performing the Russian squat dance, his movements precise and fluid. I couldn't help but laugh. It was awesome and hilarious.
Slowly, they both faded away, leaving me in a state of awe and wonder. I realized that my third eye had opened, granting me access to a deeper level of perception and understanding.
I lay in my bed for a few moments, attempting to grasp the profound implications of the vision I had just experienced. The reality of the spiritual world was undeniable now. God, Jesus, Satan, and other spiritual beings were real, their presence deeply embedded within my new understanding. This stark realization overwhelmed me, and I felt an immense fear wash over me, it was like the Eye of Sauron was upon me, or the eye of Satan.
I began pacing frantically around my room, gasping for air as I tried to process the magnitude of my new awareness. My mind felt as if it were on the brink of shattering; I couldn't comprehend what was happening. The very foundation of my reality had shifted, leaving me teetering on the edge of my sanity.
Despite my racing thoughts and heart, I managed to steady myself using deep breathing techniques I had learned in the past from Wim Hof. My frantic pace gradually slowed, and I returned to my bed, trying to make sense of everything.
I deduced that the condition commonly known as schizophrenia might not be what people thought it was. Instead, it could be an individual's heightened sensitivity to the spirit world, a world most people never perceived.
As I lay in bed, still reeling from my panic, I suddenly saw a vision of Satan. He had red skin and horns, and spoke directly to me, expressing admiration for my deduction. Satan confirmed that what I thought was true: many people were speaking to demons, believing themselves to be schizophrenic. This deceptive world was, indeed, a harsh reality.
I tried to take in Satan's words, but a sensation of something being pulled out of me struck me. It felt as though my very soul was being drained from my body. My energy depleted rapidly, and I was overcome by a sense of impending doom. I lost control of my bodily functions, believing that I was moments away from death.
At the moment when I thought I was succumbing to death, I caught sight of an Easter lily I had bought earlier that day, sitting on my desk. The sight of the beautiful lily sparked a powerful desire to live within me. Fueled by a newfound will to survive coursing through me, I leaped out of my bed, and began pacing back and forth in my room once more, gasping for air.
As I walked, I experienced a series of visions featuring characters I admired and found inspiration from—Master Yoda from Star Wars, Aang from Avatar: The Last Airbender, and Neo from The Matrix. I realized that God had shown me these characters because they were a source of moral guidance and strength in my life.
My thoughts then turned to the physical pain I was experiencing. My awareness of the spirit world had heightened significantly, causing my brain to start heating up, and I felt a piercing pain and ballooning sensation near my right temple, which deeply concerned me.
Every time I had a thought, I could feel my brain stem wiggle and I would feel pain in my right temple, so I had to learn to still or quiet my mind. Recognizing that I needed to take action to cool my head and relieve the pain, with a sort of just knowing of what I had to do, I resolved to get a large bowl of ice water and head to the basement.
I quietly left my room so as not to wake my mother, who was sleeping in her room nearby, and ventured downstairs to the basement
At this point you could say I was "possessed" by spirits, Thoth, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit. I was able to rest my consciousness in my third eye, and the Holy Spirit, Thoth, or Jesus could help me and take move my body to keep me alive. There was no way for me to survive without help.
The holy spirit showed me a specific breathing technique to diffuse the energy in my brain by inhaling through my mouth deeply, and then exhaling through my nose in the water. The vibration of exhaling through my nose into the water would cause my brain to feel soothed for a little while, likely stimulating my vagus nerve too, and I believe it was doing something with the fluid in my brain. When I was able to not be at the water, I had to keep pressure on the center of my forehead to rest in my third eye so they could help me.
I remember pacing between the two sections of my basement, and Thoth was helping me breathe just to stay conscious. One half of the basement was bright with light with concrete floors, which is where the bowl of water was, the washer and drier, a sink, and four litter boxes. On the other side of the basement was dark with a carpeted floor and a wood fireplace. The basement's light was painted in the duality of light and dark.
I remained in the basement until the sun rose, soaking my head in icewater, and pacing back and forth between the dark and light rooms because i would become overly sensitive to one particular room, and I was just trying to breathe to stay conscious. I was battling the spirit of fear the entire night. The fear from my initial awakening and the fear of death over and over again, hundreds if not thousands of times.
I soaked my head in the ice water all night, getting momentary breaks from the water, and certain I was going to die hundreds of times from a brain hemorrhage, I stood on the hard pavement for hours, I remember Jesus was my legs at one point, I could feel him focusing through me to keep me standing. I continuously soaked my head in the ice water to combat the piercing pain and ballooning sensation in my right temple. Throughout the night, I heard voices speaking to me—some belonging to what I would call demons and others to angels.
The demons tried to instill fear in me, convincing me I was going to die. While the angels offered comfort and reassurance, telling me I would be okay. Despite the torment I endured, I found profound inner strength and refused to give up. I remember squeezing my Celtic cross necklace so hard during this time.
The sun rose on the second day, I had been awake all night, I was beyond exhausted. I don't remember all of the specifics of this time, my awakening was very traumatic, but several hours passed and I remember being told that I needed to grab a book and go outside down the street and sit by a tree. I refused, and Satan said, "Do you want to die?" I said "No," and grabbed a book and went outside and walked down the street to a tree and sat with my back leaned against it.
I read my book for about 10 minutes when two women carrying their babies in slings approached me, and asked me what I was reading. I told them the name of the book, Inner Engineering by Sadghuru, and they said that they were doing a prayer walk, and wanted to share the gospel message with me. I knew this was a divine appointment. This was meant to happen.
They shared the gospel message with me, and then offered to let me join their community of house churches, and gave me the number of one of their husbands so I could call and get connected with them.
I spent the rest of the day relaxing, but was unable to sleep and barely ate anything, and once the night fell, I was in the basement again, soaking my head in ice water. I would often get relief during the days when the sun was out, and then at night, it was a brutal spiritual battle all night in the basement where I was fighting for my life.
On the second day, I was in the kitchen, and I had the right side of my head in the ice water, and was moving my head up to breathe in through my mouth, and then I would tilt my head back down and exhale my entire breath out through my nose. I didn't know what I was doing, I was just listening to guidance from what I believe was the holy spirit.
After around 15-20 minutes of intense exhaling through my nose, a ton of white viscous liquid started coming out of my nose, and filling the bowl, it wasn't painful at all, it was a massive relief, and the excess fluid in my head was somehow being drained out. When the process was done, I remember I felt amazing, incredible actually, like my head was clear of all confusion, and I was so very much alive and conscious.
I went outside and was swinging a stick like a sword and having fun, and I think I got a little overzealous and jumped the fence behind my house, and started going on an adventure. After around 3-5 minutes though, the fluid started building back up, and I had to soak my head in a puddle to keep my brain cool. When I returned home, I went back to the water to soak my head. I still hadn't slept.
That night was brutal, and I was suffering badly, and I remember I was sitting on the dark side of the basement, but I had turned on the lamp. I was sitting on pillows, and I had just been soaking my head in the water. Satan then told me that in order to save the world, I would have to die by popping my third eye. I don't know why I believed him, I didn't have discernment at the time, and I was just following whatever guidance was coming my way, but I know that I had to do that to find my true strength.
I sat for a moment and contemplated. I grabbed a wooden walking stick that was nearby, and I moved it to my forehead, and pushed it into the center of my head as hard as I could until my arms literally gave out. I thought of my mom and sister, and I wanted the world to be free from suffering, but I wasn't meant to die that day. I cried very hard, and I learned that the human skull is very strong. I got up and went back to the ice water, and my forehead was numb.
Eventually, after three days and nights of this suffering, following the path God laid out before me, I reached my complete breaking point. I declared to the spirits that I had had enough. I was done soaking my head in ice water and I slowly and bravely removed my head from the bowl of water.
I was shivering so badly. These weren't just cold shivers, these were spiritual shivers, they shake you to your very core. I felt awful. Those who have been delivered will know what I am speaking about when I saw spiritual shivers. I spread out pillows on the floor, and lay down to rest. As I settled in, I pulled the blanket over me, and I remember I felt the comforting presence of Jesus, he was tucking me in.
I slept for just a few hours and awoke up early on Saturday morning. I remember my head hurt and it felt like the left side of my head was full of fluid. I grabbed the bowl of ice water, and this time, however, I decided to sit outside. The pain in my head was still excruciating, and I thought I might die.
My mother saw me outside, and concerned about my well-being, approached me to check if I was okay. I told her to call the ambulance because I needed help, and she quickly complied. When the paramedics arrived, they took me to the hospital, where I hoped I would receive the medical care I desperately needed, but that wasn't what was in store for me.
I got to the hospital, and the medical establishment, unfortunately, has no empathy or concern for people's mental sufferings. I asked them for water to drink because I was so dehydrated, and they wouldn't give me water.
Then, I got admitted to the hospital, and they finally gave me some juice and a snack, and I was starting to relax, but then a voice came into my head, it was Satan, and he made me think I needed to soak my head in the icewater again and expel the white viscous fluid again, so I started panicking a bit and had them bring me a bowl of ice water, and I began soaking my head.
They had probably never seen anything like what I was doing, and thought I was just crazy, because they basically came after me and tied me to the bed, and forcefully injected me with something to make me calm down or sleep, and then they didn't talk to me at all anymore throughout the night.
I am claustrophobic, so being tied down was absolute torture for me. They left me in the dark hospital room suffering all night, tied to the bed, thinking I was going to die the entire night, and then finally the sun rose on the horizon, and when the nurse came in to draw my blood in the morning, I asked them to request security to release me from the restraints. They have no empathy for people. Something is deeply wrong with the medical system.
Anyways, they finally sent me to an in-patient mental health clinic which is honestly just a warehouse for people to take meds, sleep, and eat, away from society. It was honestly a welcome respite, but there's no therapy available at these places. Which means no real internal healing is taking place for people suffering.
Once I got to the in-patient mental health clinic, I spent the first day mostly just relaxing, but there was a man there that was definitely possessed by a demon. He would be shouting a bunch of biblical verses about the kingdom of God, and a lot more, and then he would be on the floor the next, flailing around, being tortured by a demon. One of the other patients there told me he is being tortured by something, and I see what she means now.
I spent the rest of my time there recovering the best I could, and just taking the meds to calm down, and try to get some sleep, and spent time listening to people's stories. One of the girls there told me that the wound on my forehead from when I pushed the wooden staff into my forehead, looked like a cross, and she was right.
When I got out of the in-patient mental health clinic, I called the number that I had received during my three days and nights dark night of the soul.
I joined their community of house churches, and was studying the Bible with them for several months and meeting with them frequently, and I thought I had found my forever friends. We would go on prayer walks, and I was eventually baptized at a lake, and thought that I had a new life of faith waiting for me with new friends.
They were concerned about my well-being and cared about me, but a small part of me felt like I was being controlled by them too, like they wanted me to conform to all of their beliefs and everything in the Bible as fact, and the word of God, and I have always been very sensitive to manipulation since I was a child, and I could tell they were manipulating me. They never left room for me to be myself, and share my beliefs without condemnation, which is a major red flag.
Recognizing this, I distanced myself from them, and went on my own spiritual journey where I spent months conversing with the spirit world in my backyard. walking in circles. I spoke to God and Satan/Lucifer and was trying to come to understanding why Satan would reject God's will.
After some time, I realized I was just being tortured, and I needed help. I was suffering from a lot, and I needed deliverance. Satan had taken up a seat in my mind because I let him, and I had demons hurting me. I reached out to the Christian group again after several months of being distant from them, and they said there was an opportunity to move in with some Christian brothers and live with them, so I jumped on the opportunity. I was so excited. I was on fire for God.
I got to the house, and moved my stuff in, and then the night fell on the first night, and the enemy was not having it. The demons and Satan were not having it. They did NOT want me living with my brothers in Christ because they knew I was detached from all the boxes of thought control, and I was living in the spirit, wasn't a slave of mind or spirit. They wanted to destroy our relationship, between us, the brothers of Christ, and they did.
I don't remember the exact sequence of events, but I was entirely in the spirit at the time, I was detached from my body in a way, and just following the path laid out before me. I could feel that I needed to go outside and walk the neighborhood as a part of my spiritual path, so I left the house, and walked barefoot throughout the neighborhood.
While walking the neighborhood, I was in full spirit mode, I was communicating with God and Jesus, and they were guiding me on my path. I saw visions of them sitting beside a tree and trimming off rotten fruit, which I think was symbolic of them removing rotten fruit from my mind. I also saw them sweeping out a room and cleaning it, as if symbolic of my mind, and them cleaning my mind and purifying it. I also remember seeing a symbolic vision of myself holding up a golden gemstone encrusted goblet to God.
During that night, I declared war on the principalities of darkness. Against the forces of darkness. I saw skulls in the clouds, and could tell they were communicating with me as they are spirits of the air.
My feet were bloodied from walking around the neighborhood barefoot, I was completely lost all night, I was new to the neighborhood too, and had no idea where I was, so I wandered for hours throughout the night, so hungry, tired, and thirsty, and just physically and mentally exhausted, but I endured. That night made me realize how strong I really am when I let go of everything and trust in God. When I completely become the spirit instead of the body. The human body is incredible and capable of withstanding far more than we know.
Finally, I found my way to the house, and my footsteps were spilling blood on the front porch. The door was locked, and I knocked, and one of the brothers let me in, and I went to my bedroom. I couldn't sleep at all, my mind was very active, it was very similar to when I had my spiritual awakening, I was just unable to sleep because of how active my mind was. I spent the whole night awake.
The next day, I was suffering horrible spiritual attack, my head was in pain and I was holding my head just to feel comfortable, and one of the brothers called a friend of theirs to come and do a deliverance. I remember them being very bold, but gentle... firm, but kind to me, as they expelled some of the demons through prayer. It wasn't a painful deliverance or too exhausting, it was gentle by comparison. I felt much better after the deliverance, hungry and thirsty again, and wanted to nourish my body. I spent the rest of the day relaxing a bit, and listening to the other believers talk about the Bible, and their beliefs.
That night, I was delivered again, and it was awful. My brothers in Christ shouldn't have done the deliverance, but I don't know if I even would have made the rest of the night it if they didn't. I think the holy spirit guided them to do the deliverance, but it went out of control.
I was in my room, suffering deeply, holding my head, and all three brothers who lived there came up to my room to check on me, and pray for me. Their prayers turned into a full blown deliverance, and demons were screaming out of me for around half an hour straight. They were casting them out in the name of Jesus, but it was awful, it's one of my most traumatic memories. I was suffering so badly, and honestly I could tell the demons were suffering so badly, and my brothers in Christ had zero empathy for me.
After speaking with demons, the brothers wanted to speak with me again, so I came to, I asked them for water, and they denied me, and they just continued the deliverance without giving me a break. I had been suffering for around 45 minutes straight, with demons screaming out of me, and I was beyond exhausted, I was so dehydrated, and I just needed to stop. They didn't care, they kept going.
They kept shouting at these demons in the name of Jesus to leave, and eventually after another ten minutes, I realized, nothing was happening, we weren't getting anywhere, the demons weren't coming out, and they asked to speak with me again, and I came to the forefront and regained control, and tried talking to them, but they were gone. The demons had got into them somehow, and they were filled with hatred and revulsion for me. They all had the same facial expression of hatred and revulsion for me.
I went around the room and pleaded with them that it was me, but they didn't believe me, they were gone, checked out, I tried bringing up memories of what had happened between us that were specific to each person to bring them to understanding that it was me, and in fact not a demon speaking, but they thought I was a demon speaking. :(
They all grabbed ahold of me, and pinned me down on the bed, but I knew where this was going, the demons in them were going to flood me with fear and fill me with demons again, and I wasn't going to have that, I wasn't going to let them win.
I flailed out of their grasp, told them to get off me, and ran down the stairs and out of the house. I remember as I was running out, Satan told me, "You are the most free person on the planet."
I ran outside, and even the weight of my clothes felt like too much, I was panicking from the trauma of the deliverance and the attack from my brothers, and I stripped off all my clothes and ran down the alley way in the middle of the night and got away from the house.
There were no light, and no one around, and no one followed me, so I just ran down the alley way, and found an abandoned car to sit on for a few minutes until I got a message from God that it was time to go grab my clothes and put my clothes on.
I put my clothes back on, and started walking away from the house because I needed to get some air. That is when one of the other brother's in Christ, the one that I had called initially to join their community of house churches, was there. I think he was guided by the holy spirit to show up there that night.
Anyways, we walked back to the house, and when we got there, there was a cop car and an ambulance there. I guess the brothers had called for a wellness check on me. They wanted to bring me to the hospital to have me evaluated. I protested, but just wanted them to leave me alone, I went with them, and went to the hospital.
Much to no one's surprise, they did nothing for me at the hospital. They just put me in a room where I waited around for 6-8 hours, until I was finally released. I didn't go back to the brother's house though. When they offered me an uber, I went back to my mom's house. I wasn't going to live with them anymore after what they did to me...
A couple weeks passed and two of the brothers who did the deliverance called me, and wanted to schedule a time to meet up so they could minister to me. They came over to my house, and basically told me that I was still demon possessed, and made me feel like there was something wrong with me, and then when I confronted them and asked them if they had a problem with me, they lied to my face, and said that they didn't have a problem with me.
About a month passed and the last brother that was a part of deliverance contacted me and invited me to go to church with him. I told him how that experience made me feel, how I was claustrophobic from childhood trauma and that being pinned down by everyone was horribly traumatic, and he said, "Do you feel better now?" in a sarcastic tone. He completely dismissed how I felt, that hurt me badly.
I went to church with him once, but never went with him again, I also never reconnected with any of the other brothers, and then my life started to become very spiritual. God had a path of understanding laid out before me that most people will not tread.
I began to try to become friends with demons and minister to them and try to turn them to Christ. I had a lot of visions during this time, and I cried a lot. I would walk around my neighborhood and see visions of demons sitting on top of the apartment buildings.
When I would go home, I would have visions of demons in my basement, and would have to drive them out in the name of Jesus. I would speak to them too, and wait and listen for them to telepathically communicate with me.
I remember I was suffering badly though, and I needed to go to in-patient mental health again for help. I needed the meds and a place where I could rest and relax.
During my time there, I was communicating with a spirit named Jezebel, and during that time I was suffering very badly. I won't get into all of the details, but I was becoming friends with her, and we shared a deep laugh about something that I cannot remember anymore, but I remember the laugh. It felt so good to laugh after suffering so badly.
During my time while I was there I was seeing visions of my own death. I was seeing people suffering from demonic attack and spirits of confusion. They couldn't remember who they were, or who other people were.
I prayed for a woman to be delivered that night in her sleep, and the next day she was bright and fresh and happy, and doing so much better. God performed a miracle on her, and saved her. She was a normal person again after entering the hospital in a complete state of confusion. It was miraculous. I was honestly jealous, because I was suffering so badly, and she was delivered overnight in her sleep in a relaxed way, while my time had been so intense.
While I was there though, I was under heavy attack, but I pulled through, God pulled me through too, but when I got home, the journey wasn't over though. I was in a spiritual state for a while, and was seeing visions. I could rest in my third eye, and see the spirit world. It was exhausting, I saw a lot of demons, and had to drive them out in the name of Jesus.
Then one night, I was downstairs, and I was with Satan, Lilith, and a spirit calling itself Baal. I remember Baal was sitting in the middle in front of the fireplace, and Satan was to my left, and Lilith was to my right.
I don't remember what we spoke about, I just spent time with them, and I drank a beer with them, the air was heavy with demonic energy, and then I remember Lilith went over to Satan and kneeled before him, and grabbed him by the hand tenderly and asked him to turn away from his evil ways.
Satan neither accepted nor refused, and then I remember maybe 5 minutes passed and I was doing a full-blown deliverance on Lilith. I was praying for her, and I could see visions of her on the ground flailing around, it was awful, and I hope she is okay.
I don't know how long after that passed, but I was delivered many times during this phase. I was around demons a lot and they would get into me, and I would have to expel them out through vomiting, and it was excruciating.
Several months passed after that where I was okay, I spent months just relaxing and recovering, playing video games, smoking weed, and just relaxing. It was nice, but it wasn't the end of my journey.
My next journey was against Thoth. While he was a great help at the beginning of my spiritual awakening, he is not a perfect being like God, and he tried to overtake me. It's really hard to explain what he did, but he was viciously attacking me spiritually, and I sought help to go to the in-patient mental health clinic again. That was where I went when things got too spiritually charged. I had Medicaid, so I was able to go as needed.
They didn't send me to in-patient this time though, they sent me to a crisis pivot center, which is basically a residential house that is being used to treat people suffering from mental illness, where you can receive meds and sleep in a sort of half-way house between in-patient mental health and being back in the world at home.
Anyways, I was suffering grotesquely from Thoth, he is a VERY powerful entity, perhaps one of the strongest I have faced, and has been more cruel to me than even Satan, and I remember having a conversation with one of the people working there about how I had asked a false God at the beginning of my spiritual awakening for help to fix my life, and how that had caused a bunch of problems.
Eventually, I realized I was not receiving the care that I needed while at the crisis center, so I had them transfer me to hospital. All I wanted to do was sleep. I had been awake for days, and I just wanted sleep, so I was looking for Ambien when I went to the hospital, and that's what I got.
I remember they had admitted me to the emergency, but it was so full that every room was full, so they had me in the hallway, and I was just exhausted, and in a very tired state, but my third eye was opened, and I could sense spirits around me, and Satan, Lilith, and Jezebel were there for me that night.
They were hovering over my bed, and speaking to me telepathically, and asking me if I was okay, they were genuinely concerned for me, and wanted to know if I was okay. It was kind of shocking to be honest. These entities are not known for being nice in any way, but they were there for me that night, and God let them be there for me that night, instead of Jesus or someone else, which i find interesting.
This moment and seeing Lilith kneel before Satan made me realize that entities that we think are pure evil, are more dynamic than just evil. They may have evil in them, or have the ability to evil actions, but they can also be good and support others, like they did with me when I was in such an exhausted and vulnerable state after being delivered from Thoth.
I made it back home, and some time passed and I was in a very spiritual moment. My third eye was very awakened. It seems to happen in cycles. That night was a blizzard, and the air was heavy with demonic energy. This time it was the demiurge.
I remember I had dozens if not hundreds of demons in my room, and they were swirling above my bed, and I kept trying to lay down because I was so exhausted, and I kept being told to not lay down because I would squish a spirit, so I chose to not lay down.
I was whistling the avatar theme for the spirits to uplift them and make them feel better, and during this time I was being possessed by spirits. The room was heavy with spiritual energy.
So much happened that I don't want to get into, but it all lead to me being outside in the blizzard, in the snow storm, naked, and laying down in the snow. I had to be very cold for some reason while interacting with these demons, to keep them from overtaking me, and I remember I had to leave my house behind entirely.
My mom came outside before I left the house and I could feel demonic energy, evil spirits, all around her. There was a presence of wrath around her, and she was angry with me, because I had flooded the bathroom of the house while trying to get cold in the shower.
I left the house, there was a foot of snow on the ground, and I was naked and wandering down the street. I would check in with what I thought was God every once in a while to figure out what was happening with the demons in my bedroom.
For some reason when I would have a thought it would affect them in my room. That's really complicated to get into, and I don't understand it, but regardless, I wandered down the street and around the corner, and that is when the police got me.
They handcuffed me, and put me in the back of the police cruiser, and I remember telling God that the Matrix has me. The police called an ambulance, and they came to get me, I remember they transferred me to the ambulance, and they covered me with blankets, but I didn't want to be warm, I didn't have any control over this situation.
My body started to shut down, and I was struggling to even breathe, and that's when the demiurge appeared. They started speaking to me, and controlling my body to keep me breathing, and that's when I submitted to them, thinking that I was on my own, and God had abandoned me. I told them to fill me with demons, and that I would become a demon lord.
As I would breathe, I could feel demons entering me, spirits. When I got to the hospital, I was possessed by a lot of spirits, and my body was in agony. It's very hard to explain what it feels like, but just imagine discordant energy in your body that makes you feel awful, and physically hurts.
I struggled the entire night, and was in absolute agony. After 6-8 hours I was recovered and feeling better, they had admitted me to the hospital at this time, so I was able to rest in a room and eat plenty of food and recover.
My experience with the demiurge was really traumatic though, but that wasn't the end of my experiences with him.
... to be continued...

My three year anniversary. Story time. (I'm sure this will bore 83.56% of you)
I'm not sure why I feel the need to say anything at all. I'm not one who likes attention. I'm simply responding to this nagging in my mind. However I do enjoy finding and sharing similar experiences and stories from others. Excitement and energy is the air for me and this serves as some outlet as the weekend hype takes over. I hope this is enjoyable or relatable to some of you. However I am not like many of you. Right off the bat I know I am an odd ball. Also I'm not an investor. I don't study companies or can reconize TA. I don't know terminologies or financial markets and systems. Or so I thought... and that's why I'm writing this I suppose. Here it goes.
May 2021 I received a phone call from a friend. I had just put my 2 year old daughter for a nap and jumped on my computer to farm on WoW classic. I answered the phone and put it to my shoulder so I could continue to play and farm raiding materials. We exchanged greetings and I ask her what's going on. She often calls to share news or ideas that 'normies' wouldn't appreciate or find value in spending time on. Me: "So what's going on? What's up?" Her: "Have you ever invested before?" No: "Not yet... I've always wanted to but I got a 401k and that's good enough for me for now. Why? Her: "Do you remember anything about what happened with GameStop a few months ago?" Me: "Ugh... not really just that some guys convinced a bunch of people to invest in it and a bunch of big wigs lost a bunch of money or something like that?" Her: "Yeah kinda, the crazy thing is what happened was just the tip of the iceberg. They had to stop it because the entire global economy was going to go under if they hadn't." Me: frowns "What? Who stopped it? How could that be possible?" Her: "Listen there is so much to tell you but right now I REALLY think you should buy just a few shares of GME because this is a once in a lifetime opportunity. Me: silence trying to process information "ugh..." Her cutting in: "Only invest what you can afford, one share will be enough though." Me: "Enough for what?" Her: "To transfer wealth from the elite." That last sentence resonated with me. After some more discussion I told her I would consider it. A few weeks of continues discussion and my own research and considering the possibility of positive change on a global scale I was convinced. I installed webull (later transferred them to fidelity then to CS) and bought 2 shares of GME (they were around $250 at that time) along with a few other shares of AMC (I later sold those AMC shares to buy more GME) Several months went by as I continued to follow SuperStonk and other GME related topics on as many social media outlets as I could anticipating a MOASS and setting a phone number sell price. Over the months I purchased a few more GME shares as I transfered from webull to fidelity and then from fidelity to DRS at computer share 🟣.
I tried to help the cause, convincing my mom, father, sister, father-n-law and sister-n-law to purchase atleast one share. I don't feel like a worthy advocate for this but I've tried to pass my limited knowledge along and I talk openly about it in public whenever I get a chance, possibly influencing others. However my enthusiasm dwindled. Months turned into years. I wasn't sure anymore and became discouraged. I stopped checking prices. I stopped reading and following GME related posts and sites. I just needed a break. I often do this as my behavior obsesses over certain things. There was a stock split, nft marketplace, cryptic RC tweets and some other announcements. whoopdy doo and I remained aloof. I only read a few articles and followed earnings or other things and then checked out quickly.
Fast forward to March 2024. I check the price for no reason. "GME is $12?" I remember posts about the dorrito of doom. I look at the wedge and see the giant bull flag wedge for the last 3 years. "Holy shit this thing is damn near the bottom of this wedge." I then consider what I've already invested. $2,000 dollars or so and another $800 family gave to me to buy their shares. (They were to lazy to DRS) Post split I'm sitting at 95 or so shares. 🤔 "If I just drop another $800 I can nearly double my position and lower my average cost per share significantly for only half what I've already committed." Easy decision. I make 2 seperate purchases from DRS one at $350 and another at $450. One hits around $10.80 and the other at 11.70$ Couldn't be happier. Sitting at 165 shares. It was at this point I felt something changed in me. I realized that over the years I slowly solidified my knowledge and understanding. Without much effort I was confident in my position on GME. It's a damn good investment even putting MOASS aside.
I begun talking to my wife about it again, (she hates GME) oh well. I was getting fired up. "Babe, the company is debt free, theyve got billions cash in hand. The last 4 earnings are looking great and they are beginning to become profitable. GameStop isn't going bankrupt ANY time soon. RC had an incredible history of success. The recent vote decided not to pay CEOs. True ownership and leadership. Insiders are investing and I feel like we are breaking out of this bull wedge flag." She didn't engage. She wasn't interested in hearing more. Oh well I tried. I then told her I wanted to pull my 401k and invest every damn dollar into GME. She rolled her eyes and shook her head. "I thought one share was enough to bEcOmE a MiLlIOnAiR." She said mockingly. (My fault for a poor early explanation in the 2021s) if I had the knowledge I had now id go about it much differently. "Why do we need even more?" "I want to make GameStop my 401k. I feel putting my money there is safer than the vanguard account Kevin set up for me. I really think this is the bottom of a great business and I can easily see this growing 100% in the next year. My 401k will double instead of grow 5%. "I don't care what you do with your money." I smiled. Victory.
It was at the point I realized what I became. I became an Ape. I was this crazy man trying to hoard more bananas 🍌 having an energetic conversation in my kitchen. I knew what I was talking about. I was confident. This was a great low entry point for a company that I believe will only continue to improve. I anticipated the bullish flag wedge bouncing up. I made the call. I pulled my 401k and took the tax penalty and I waited for the money 💰
Early May happened. "This baby is gonna bounce off this low point and never go down again." "I will never see these low prices again." Fomo kicked in. That realization came true as the prices started go nuts. 20-30% growth daily. 30-50million trading volume. WTH is going on?? I could hardly sleep as I waited for my 401k to show up in my bank. "Fucking thing is gunna blow before I can invest more." May 7th I placed the order. May 10th I snagged the shares at $17.71. Then a funny thing happened. The discouragement and fear is gone. I know this term is over used but I can I am 'Zen'. I'm just chilling now. I finally got some real skin in the game and it feels great. GME is officially my retirement plan. Not just a lottery ticket. I'm confident in the future instead of unsure and hoping for something to come 'save me'.
This act has caused me to become more active. I've contacted my representative Susie Lee in Nevada via email and expressed my support about the amendments proposed by the SEC to make short selling more transparent. I want to be part of the change not just a bystander waiting to be carried.
Also I have yet to move my 'plan' to 'book'. Just waiting for CS to settle my purchase then I'll book them.
I don't deserve this. I'm riding all of your hard work and diligence. Best I've done is skimmed through the libraries. The shit you guys are able to dig up and find to conclude with blows my mind. I'm proud to be here with all of you. I just like the company, RC, you wonderful people and this opportunity.
Let's change the world. I've started making a list of all the things I want to do, all the programs I want to start to help people, all the ventures I want to begin, technology and engineering projects and personal growth efforts. I've committed that no matter who they are they will get help if they ask. I don't give a fuck. Suffering will be lessoned wherever I am. I don't care if it's the crackhead down the street or my jack ass brother who I can't stand. The world will be a better place wherever I go.
My fear is that we may become the monsters we destroy, or we turn our backs to those we deem below us. We are no better than those around us and we are blessed with a special opportunity. Let's use this gift wisely and with much humility knowing that we are more alike than the media will make you believe. I know we've all heard this a thousand times but you'll hear it one more time from me. Fuck the left and right. Stop dividing the people. 🟣🟣🟣🟣🟣🟣🟣🟣🟣🟣🟣🟣🟣🟣🟣🟣

When I was around 13 years old, I was a young stupid teenager, and hanging out with my friends, and we were all saying inflammatory things, and I said, "Yeah, if I turn 30, and I haven't accomplished anything, I'll probably just kill myself." It was an awful thing to say, and I can't believe I said it.
Well, I turned 29, I had probably close to 50 jobs, and had a complete discontentment with my life and civilization, and I was contemplating suicide, and then I had a full-blown spiritual awakening, saw a vision of Jesus and God and Satan, and went through an immense dark night of the soul and personal transformation of the heart.
I just have this verse on my heart right now thinking about it, "Death and life are in the power of the tongue, and those who love it will eat its fruits, [Psalm 18:21]" and it just reminds me of what I said when I was a teenager.
I know God heard that and knew that he wasn't going to let me die of suicide. He was watching me the whole time, and he cared about me, and he didn't want to lose me, and I'm weeping as I write this, because I'm so grateful.
Three years ago, I was a 29-year-old man whose life had become defined by isolation. Once curious and engaged with the world in my youth, I had slowly withdrawn into myself from depression, retreating into the comfort of my room in my mother's house. My agnostic atheism left me without a guiding light, and the mundane realities of life, from my dozens of failed jobs to my ongoing struggles with addiction, weighed heavily on my spirit. I found solace instead in the company of strategy games and in the rabbit hole of conspiracies on the internet.
My addictions had become an ever-tightening grip on my life. I found myself reaching for cannabis, alcohol, video games, fast food, and pornography to fill the void that had grown in my heart over the years. My life had become a series of hollow habits, each one leaving me feeling emptier than before. I could no longer deny that something was deeply wrong.
One day, while browsing online, I stumbled upon a post that claimed Thoth, the ancient Egyptian deity of knowledge and wisdom, could help those who asked for his assistance. Intrigued, I wondered if reaching out to Thoth could provide me with the help I needed.
Weeks passed since reading the post, and as I stood in my shower, my thoughts drifted to the crossroads my life seemed to have come to. I asked myself why I was stuck in a cycle of self-destructive behaviors and why I felt such a profound sense of emptiness. The steam from the shower enveloped me as I said aloud, "Thoth, if you are real, I really need your help right now. I don't want to live like this anymore; I don't want to die yet." As I spoke the words, my hand moved from the side of my body, and then to my forehead and heart, while making a hand-sign and I felt at peace.
I was stunned, realizing the hand-sign I had made was eerily similar to ones I had seen in paintings of Jesus. I was stunned but felt an unusual calmness wash over me. As I dried off and dressed, I pondered what had just happened. I went to the full-body mirror in my room, looking at myself. I saw someone I no longer recognized, someone I no longer wanted to be.
Once more, I said, "Thoth, if you are real, will you help me? This isn't who I want to be anymore." I stared at myself in the mirror, and slowly a vision began to form in my eyes. It wasn’t Thoth I saw, but Jesus.
Jesus appeared with long brown hair, a brown beard, brown eyes, and light brown skin. Half of his face was illuminated by light, while the other half was cast in shadow. The vision of Jesus was so vivid that it left me both in awe and at peace. As the vision of him faded, I remember reaching out to him because I didn't want him to go, I could tell he was here to help.
As night fell, I lay in my bed, lost in deep contemplation. I revisited the events of the day, focusing on the vision of Jesus. The clarity of the vision was imprinted on my mind, and I couldn't shake the feeling that it held a deeper meaning. I pondered the nature of good and evil, and how they were intertwined in a complex dance of duality. I found myself questioning whether the traditional view of evil as something to be hated and shunned was truly the right approach. Instead, I began to entertain the idea that perhaps evil people and perhaps even evil itself, could be understood with compassion and empathy, instead of hatred and disgust.
As I continued to ponder, I experienced a peculiar sensation in my head. It was as though something shifted in the center of my brain, around the area of my third eye or pineal gland. There was a slight pop like a tearing or crunching sound, it was not painful, but surprising nonetheless. I then felt a fluid movement from the left hemisphere of my brain to the right hemisphere, using the third eye as a bridge or something. This shift brought me a sense of balance and calmness I had not felt before. I realized I had been living predominantly in the logical part of my brain, instead of emotional side.
As I embraced this newfound state of relaxation, I began to see another vision in my mind. This time, it was God who appeared. God had long white hair, a white beard, and wore white robes and sandals. Then God began dancing, moving with joy and lightheartedness.
Before I could fully process what I was seeing, another figure appeared alongside God. It was Satan, with red skin and horns. Satan seemed curious and playful, attempting to imitate God's dance moves with enthusiasm. The sight of these two seemingly opposing forces dancing together struck me as surreal.
As I watched them dance, I found myself smiling, and really enjoying the moment. Then, my mind wandered to the Russian squat dance, a thought that seemed to come out of nowhere. To my amazement, God began performing the Russian squat dance, his movements precise and fluid. I couldn't help but laugh. It was awesome and hilarious.
Slowly, they both faded away, leaving me in a state of awe and wonder. I realized that my third eye had opened, granting me access to a deeper level of perception and understanding.
I lay in my bed for a few moments, attempting to grasp the profound implications of the vision I had just experienced. The reality of the spiritual world was undeniable now. God, Jesus, Satan, and other spiritual beings were real, their presence deeply embedded within my new understanding. This stark realization overwhelmed me, and I felt an immense fear wash over me, it was like the Eye of Sauron was upon me, or the eye of Satan.
I began pacing frantically around my room, gasping for air as I tried to process the magnitude of my new awareness. My mind felt as if it were on the brink of shattering; I couldn't comprehend what was happening. The very foundation of my reality had shifted, leaving me teetering on the edge of my sanity.
Despite my racing thoughts and heart, I managed to steady myself using deep breathing techniques I had learned in the past from Wim Hof. My frantic pace gradually slowed, and I returned to my bed, trying to make sense of everything.
I deduced that the condition commonly known as schizophrenia might not be what people thought it was. Instead, it could be an individual's heightened sensitivity to the spirit world, a world most people never perceived.
As I lay in bed, still reeling from my panic, I suddenly saw a vision of Satan. He had red skin and horns, and spoke directly to me, expressing admiration for my deduction. Satan confirmed that what I thought was true: many people were speaking to demons, believing themselves to be schizophrenic. This deceptive world was, indeed, a harsh reality.
I tried to take in Satan's words, but a sensation of something being pulled out of me struck me. It felt as though my very soul was being drained from my body. My energy depleted rapidly, and I was overcome by a sense of impending doom. I lost control of my bodily functions, believing that I was moments away from death.
At the moment when I thought I was succumbing to death, I caught sight of an Easter lily I had bought earlier that day, sitting on my desk. The sight of the beautiful lily sparked a powerful desire to live within me. Fueled by a newfound will to survive coursing through me, I leaped out of my bed, and began pacing back and forth in my room once more, gasping for air.
As I walked, I experienced a series of visions featuring characters I admired and found inspiration from—Master Yoda from Star Wars, Aang from Avatar: The Last Airbender, and Neo from The Matrix. I realized that God had shown me these characters because they were a source of moral guidance and strength in my life.
My thoughts then turned to the physical pain I was experiencing. My awareness of the spirit world had heightened significantly, causing my brain to start heating up, and I felt a piercing pain and ballooning sensation near my right temple, which deeply concerned me.
Every time I had a thought, I could feel my brain stem wiggle and I would feel pain in my right temple, so I had to learn to still or quiet my mind. Recognizing that I needed to take action to cool my head and relieve the pain, with a sort of just knowing of what I had to do, I resolved to get a large bowl of ice water and head to the basement.
I quietly left my room so as not to wake my mother, who was sleeping in her room nearby, and ventured downstairs to the basement
At this point you could say I was "possessed" by spirits, Thoth, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit. I was able to rest my consciousness in my third eye, and the Holy Spirit, Thoth, or Jesus could help me and take move my body to keep me alive. There was no way for me to survive without help.
The holy spirit showed me a specific breathing technique to diffuse the energy in my brain by inhaling through my mouth deeply, and then exhaling through my nose in the water. The vibration of exhaling through my nose into the water would cause my brain to feel soothed for a little while, likely stimulating my vagus nerve too, and I believe it was doing something with the fluid in my brain. When I was able to not be at the water, I had to keep pressure on the center of my forehead to rest in my third eye so they could help me.
I remember pacing between the two sections of my basement, and Thoth was helping me breathe just to stay conscious. One half of the basement was bright with light with concrete floors, which is where the bowl of water was, the washer and drier, a sink, and four litter boxes. On the other side of the basement was dark with a carpeted floor and a wood fireplace. The basement's light was painted in the duality of light and dark.
I remained in the basement until the sun rose, soaking my head in icewater, and pacing back and forth between the dark and light rooms because i would become overly sensitive to one particular room, and I was just trying to breathe to stay conscious. I was battling the spirit of fear the entire night. The fear from my initial awakening and the fear of death over and over again, hundreds if not thousands of times.
I soaked my head in the ice water all night, getting momentary breaks from the water, and certain I was going to die hundreds of times from a brain hemorrhage, I stood on the hard pavement for hours, I remember Jesus was my legs at one point, I could feel him focusing through me to keep me standing. I continuously soaked my head in the ice water to combat the piercing pain and ballooning sensation in my right temple. Throughout the night, I heard voices speaking to me—some belonging to what I would call demons and others to angels.
The demons tried to instill fear in me, convincing me I was going to die. While the angels offered comfort and reassurance, telling me I would be okay. Despite the torment I endured, I found profound inner strength and refused to give up. I remember squeezing my Celtic cross necklace so hard during this time.
The sun rose on the second day, I had been awake all night, I was beyond exhausted. I don't remember all of the specifics of this time, my awakening was very traumatic, but several hours passed and I remember being told that I needed to grab a book and go outside down the street and sit by a tree. I refused, and Satan said, "Do you want to die?" I said "No," and grabbed a book and went outside and walked down the street to a tree and sat with my back leaned against it.
I read my book for about 10 minutes when two women carrying their babies in slings approached me, and asked me what I was reading. I told them the name of the book, Inner Engineering by Sadghuru, and they said that they were doing a prayer walk, and wanted to share the gospel message with me. I knew this was a divine appointment. This was meant to happen.
They shared the gospel message with me, and then offered to let me join their community of house churches, and gave me the number of one of their husbands so I could call and get connected with them.
I spent the rest of the day relaxing, but was unable to sleep and barely ate anything, and once the night fell, I was in the basement again, soaking my head in ice water. I would often get relief during the days when the sun was out, and then at night, it was a brutal spiritual battle all night in the basement where I was fighting for my life.
On the second day, I was in the kitchen, and I had the right side of my head in the ice water, and was moving my head up to breathe in through my mouth, and then I would tilt my head back down and exhale my entire breath out through my nose. I didn't know what I was doing, I was just listening to guidance from what I believe was the holy spirit.
After around 15-20 minutes of intense exhaling through my nose, a ton of white viscous liquid started coming out of my nose, and filling the bowl, it wasn't painful at all, it was a massive relief, and the excess fluid in my head was somehow being drained out. When the process was done, I remember I felt amazing, incredible actually, like my head was clear of all confusion, and I was so very much alive and conscious.
I went outside and was swinging a stick like a sword and having fun, and I think I got a little overzealous and jumped the fence behind my house, and started going on an adventure. After around 3-5 minutes though, the fluid started building back up, and I had to soak my head in a puddle to keep my brain cool. When I returned home, I went back to the water to soak my head. I still hadn't slept.
That night was brutal, and I was suffering badly, and I remember I was sitting on the dark side of the basement, but I had turned on the lamp. I was sitting on pillows, and I had just been soaking my head in the water. Satan then told me that in order to save the world, I would have to die by popping my third eye. I don't know why I believed him, I didn't have discernment at the time, and I was just following whatever guidance was coming my way, but I know that I had to do that to find my true strength.
I sat for a moment and contemplated. I grabbed a wooden walking stick that was nearby, and I moved it to my forehead, and pushed it into the center of my head as hard as I could until my arms literally gave out. I thought of my mom and sister, and I wanted the world to be free from suffering, but I wasn't meant to die that day. I cried very hard, and I learned that the human skull is very strong. I got up and went back to the ice water, and my forehead was numb.
Eventually, after three days and nights of this suffering, following the path God laid out before me, I reached my complete breaking point. I declared to the spirits that I had had enough. I was done soaking my head in ice water and I slowly and bravely removed my head from the bowl of water.
I was shivering so badly. These weren't just cold shivers, these were spiritual shivers, they shake you to your very core. I felt awful. Those who have been delivered will know what I am speaking about when I saw spiritual shivers. I spread out pillows on the floor, and lay down to rest. As I settled in, I pulled the blanket over me, and I remember I felt the comforting presence of Jesus, he was tucking me in.
I slept for just a few hours and awoke up early on Saturday morning. I remember my head hurt and it felt like the left side of my head was full of fluid. I grabbed the bowl of ice water, and this time, however, I decided to sit outside. The pain in my head was still excruciating, and I thought I might die.
My mother saw me outside, and concerned about my well-being, approached me to check if I was okay. I told her to call the ambulance because I needed help, and she quickly complied. When the paramedics arrived, they took me to the hospital, where I hoped I would receive the medical care I desperately needed, but that wasn't what was in store for me.
I got to the hospital, and the medical establishment, unfortunately, has no empathy or concern for people's mental sufferings. I asked them for water to drink because I was so dehydrated, and they wouldn't give me water.
Then, I got admitted to the hospital, and they finally gave me some juice and a snack, and I was starting to relax, but then a voice came into my head, it was Satan, and he made me think I needed to soak my head in the icewater again and expel the white viscous fluid again, so I started panicking a bit and had them bring me a bowl of ice water, and I began soaking my head.
They had probably never seen anything like what I was doing, and thought I was just crazy, because they basically came after me and tied me to the bed, and forcefully injected me with something to make me calm down or sleep, and then they didn't talk to me at all anymore throughout the night.
I am claustrophobic, so being tied down was absolute torture for me. They left me in the dark hospital room suffering all night, tied to the bed, thinking I was going to die the entire night, and then finally the sun rose on the horizon, and when the nurse came in to draw my blood in the morning, I asked them to request security to release me from the restraints. They have no empathy for people. Something is deeply wrong with the medical system.
Anyways, they finally sent me to an in-patient mental health clinic which is honestly just a warehouse for people to take meds, sleep, and eat, away from society. It was honestly a welcome respite, but there's no therapy available at these places. Which means no real internal healing is taking place for people suffering.
Once I got to the in-patient mental health clinic, I spent the first day mostly just relaxing, but there was a man there that was definitely possessed by a demon. He would be shouting a bunch of biblical verses about the kingdom of God, and a lot more, and then he would be on the floor the next, flailing around, being tortured by a demon. One of the other patients there told me he is being tortured by something, and I see what she means now.
I spent the rest of my time there recovering the best I could, and just taking the meds to calm down, and try to get some sleep, and spent time listening to people's stories. One of the girls there told me that the wound on my forehead from when I pushed the wooden staff into my forehead, looked like a cross, and she was right.
When I got out of the in-patient mental health clinic, I called the number that I had received during my three days and nights dark night of the soul.
I joined their community of house churches, and was studying the Bible with them for several months and meeting with them frequently, and I thought I had found my forever friends. We would go on prayer walks, and I was eventually baptized at a lake, and thought that I had a new life of faith waiting for me with new friends.
They were concerned about my well-being and cared about me, but a small part of me felt like I was being controlled by them too, like they wanted me to conform to all of their beliefs and everything in the Bible as fact, and the word of God, and I have always been very sensitive to manipulation since I was a child, and I could tell they were manipulating me. They never left room for me to be myself, and share my beliefs without condemnation, which is a major red flag.
Recognizing this, I distanced myself from them, and went on my own spiritual journey where I spent months conversing with the spirit world in my backyard. walking in circles. I spoke to God and Satan/Lucifer and was trying to come to understanding why Satan would reject God's will.
After some time, I realized I was just being tortured, and I needed help. I was suffering from a lot, and I needed deliverance. Satan had taken up a seat in my mind because I let him, and I had demons hurting me. I reached out to the Christian group again after several months of being distant from them, and they said there was an opportunity to move in with some Christian brothers and live with them, so I jumped on the opportunity. I was so excited. I was on fire for God.
I got to the house, and moved my stuff in, and then the night fell on the first night, and the enemy was not having it. The demons and Satan were not having it. They did NOT want me living with my brothers in Christ because they knew I was detached from all the boxes of thought control, and I was living in the spirit, wasn't a slave of mind or spirit. They wanted to destroy our relationship, between us, the brothers of Christ, and they did.
I don't remember the exact sequence of events, but I was entirely in the spirit at the time, I was detached from my body in a way, and just following the path laid out before me. I could feel that I needed to go outside and walk the neighborhood as a part of my spiritual path, so I left the house, and walked barefoot throughout the neighborhood.
While walking the neighborhood, I was in full spirit mode, I was communicating with God and Jesus, and they were guiding me on my path. I saw visions of them sitting beside a tree and trimming off rotten fruit, which I think was symbolic of them removing rotten fruit from my mind. I also saw them sweeping out a room and cleaning it, as if symbolic of my mind, and them cleaning my mind and purifying it. I also remember seeing a symbolic vision of myself holding up a golden gemstone encrusted goblet to God.
During that night, I declared war on the principalities of darkness. Against the forces of darkness. I saw skulls in the clouds, and could tell they were communicating with me as they are spirits of the air.
My feet were bloodied from walking around the neighborhood barefoot, I was completely lost all night, I was new to the neighborhood too, and had no idea where I was, so I wandered for hours throughout the night, so hungry, tired, and thirsty, and just physically and mentally exhausted, but I endured. That night made me realize how strong I really am when I let go of everything and trust in God. When I completely become the spirit instead of the body. The human body is incredible and capable of withstanding far more than we know.
Finally, I found my way to the house, and my footsteps were spilling blood on the front porch. The door was locked, and I knocked, and one of the brothers let me in, and I went to my bedroom. I couldn't sleep at all, my mind was very active, it was very similar to when I had my spiritual awakening, I was just unable to sleep because of how active my mind was. I spent the whole night awake.
The next day, I was suffering horrible spiritual attack, my head was in pain and I was holding my head just to feel comfortable, and one of the brothers called a friend of theirs to come and do a deliverance. I remember them being very bold, but gentle... firm, but kind to me, as they expelled some of the demons through prayer. It wasn't a painful deliverance or too exhausting, it was gentle by comparison. I felt much better after the deliverance, hungry and thirsty again, and wanted to nourish my body. I spent the rest of the day relaxing a bit, and listening to the other believers talk about the Bible, and their beliefs.
That night, I was delivered again, and it was awful. My brothers in Christ shouldn't have done the deliverance, but I don't know if I even would have made the rest of the night it if they didn't. I think the holy spirit guided them to do the deliverance, but it went out of control.
I was in my room, suffering deeply, holding my head, and all three brothers who lived there came up to my room to check on me, and pray for me. Their prayers turned into a full blown deliverance, and demons were screaming out of me for around half an hour straight. They were casting them out in the name of Jesus, but it was awful, it's one of my most traumatic memories. I was suffering so badly, and honestly I could tell the demons were suffering so badly, and my brothers in Christ had zero empathy for me.
After speaking with demons, the brothers wanted to speak with me again, so I came to, I asked them for water, and they denied me, and they just continued the deliverance without giving me a break. I had been suffering for around 45 minutes straight, with demons screaming out of me, and I was beyond exhausted, I was so dehydrated, and I just needed to stop. They didn't care, they kept going.
They kept shouting at these demons in the name of Jesus to leave, and eventually after another ten minutes, I realized, nothing was happening, we weren't getting anywhere, the demons weren't coming out, and they asked to speak with me again, and I came to the forefront and regained control, and tried talking to them, but they were gone. The demons had got into them somehow, and they were filled with hatred and revulsion for me. They all had the same facial expression of hatred and revulsion for me.
I went around the room and pleaded with them that it was me, but they didn't believe me, they were gone, checked out, I tried bringing up memories of what had happened between us that were specific to each person to bring them to understanding that it was me, and in fact not a demon speaking, but they thought I was a demon speaking. :(
They all grabbed ahold of me, and pinned me down on the bed, but I knew where this was going, the demons in them were going to flood me with fear and fill me with demons again, and I wasn't going to have that, I wasn't going to let them win.
I flailed out of their grasp, told them to get off me, and ran down the stairs and out of the house. I remember as I was running out, Satan told me, "You are the most free person on the planet."
I ran outside, and even the weight of my clothes felt like too much, I was panicking from the trauma of the deliverance and the attack from my brothers, and I stripped off all my clothes and ran down the alley way in the middle of the night and got away from the house.
There were no light, and no one around, and no one followed me, so I just ran down the alley way, and found an abandoned car to sit on for a few minutes until I got a message from God that it was time to go grab my clothes and put my clothes on.
I put my clothes back on, and started walking away from the house because I needed to get some air. That is when one of the other brother's in Christ, the one that I had called initially to join their community of house churches, was there. I think he was guided by the holy spirit to show up there that night.
Anyways, we walked back to the house, and when we got there, there was a cop car and an ambulance there. I guess the brothers had called for a wellness check on me. They wanted to bring me to the hospital to have me evaluated. I protested, but just wanted them to leave me alone, I went with them, and went to the hospital.
Much to no one's surprise, they did nothing for me at the hospital. They just put me in a room where I waited around for 6-8 hours, until I was finally released. I didn't go back to the brother's house though. When they offered me an uber, I went back to my mom's house. I wasn't going to live with them anymore after what they did to me...
A couple weeks passed and two of the brothers who did the deliverance called me, and wanted to schedule a time to meet up so they could minister to me. They came over to my house, and basically told me that I was still demon possessed, and made me feel like there was something wrong with me, and then when I confronted them and asked them if they had a problem with me, they lied to my face, and said that they didn't have a problem with me.
About a month passed and the last brother that was a part of deliverance contacted me and invited me to go to church with him. I told him how that experience made me feel, how I was claustrophobic from childhood trauma and that being pinned down by everyone was horribly traumatic, and he said, "Do you feel better now?" in a sarcastic tone. He completely dismissed how I felt, that hurt me badly.
I went to church with him once, but never went with him again, I also never reconnected with any of the other brothers, and then my life started to become very spiritual. God had a path of understanding laid out before me that most people will not tread.
I began to try to become friends with demons and minister to them and try to turn them to Christ. I had a lot of visions during this time, and I cried a lot. I would walk around my neighborhood and see visions of demons sitting on top of the apartment buildings.
When I would go home, I would have visions of demons in my basement, and would have to drive them out in the name of Jesus. I would speak to them too, and wait and listen for them to telepathically communicate with me.
I remember I was suffering badly though, and I needed to go to in-patient mental health again for help. I needed the meds and a place where I could rest and relax.
During my time there, I was communicating with a spirit named Jezebel, and during that time I was suffering very badly. I won't get into all of the details, but I was becoming friends with her, and we shared a deep laugh about something that I cannot remember anymore, but I remember the laugh. It felt so good to laugh after suffering so badly.
During my time while I was there I was seeing visions of my own death. I was seeing people suffering from demonic attack and spirits of confusion. They couldn't remember who they were, or who other people were.
I prayed for a woman to be delivered that night in her sleep, and the next day she was bright and fresh and happy, and doing so much better. God performed a miracle on her, and saved her. She was a normal person again after entering the hospital in a complete state of confusion. It was miraculous. I was honestly jealous, because I was suffering so badly, and she was delivered overnight in her sleep in a relaxed way, while my time had been so intense.
While I was there though, I was under heavy attack, but I pulled through, God pulled me through too, but when I got home, the journey wasn't over though. I was in a spiritual state for a while, and was seeing visions. I could rest in my third eye, and see the spirit world. It was exhausting, I saw a lot of demons, and had to drive them out in the name of Jesus.
Then one night, I was downstairs, and I was with Satan, Lilith, and a spirit calling itself Baal. I remember Baal was sitting in the middle in front of the fireplace, and Satan was to my left, and Lilith was to my right.
I don't remember what we spoke about, I just spent time with them, and I drank a beer with them, the air was heavy with demonic energy, and then I remember Lilith went over to Satan and kneeled before him, and grabbed him by the hand tenderly and asked him to turn away from his evil ways.
Satan neither accepted nor refused, and then I remember maybe 5 minutes passed and I was doing a full-blown deliverance on Lilith. I was praying for her, and I could see visions of her on the ground flailing around, it was awful, and I hope she is okay.
I don't know how long after that passed, but I was delivered many times during this phase. I was around demons a lot and they would get into me, and I would have to expel them out through vomiting, and it was excruciating.
Several months passed after that where I was okay, I spent months just relaxing and recovering, playing video games, smoking weed, and just relaxing. It was nice, but it wasn't the end of my journey.
My next journey was against Thoth. While he was a great help at the beginning of my spiritual awakening, he is not a perfect being like God, and he tried to overtake me. It's really hard to explain what he did, but he was viciously attacking me spiritually, and I sought help to go to the in-patient mental health clinic again. That was where I went when things got too spiritually charged. I had Medicaid, so I was able to go as needed.
They didn't send me to in-patient this time though, they sent me to a crisis pivot center, which is basically a residential house that is being used to treat people suffering from mental illness, where you can receive meds and sleep in a sort of half-way house between in-patient mental health and being back in the world at home.
Anyways, I was suffering grotesquely from Thoth, he is a VERY powerful entity, perhaps one of the strongest I have faced, and has been more cruel to me than even Satan, and I remember having a conversation with one of the people working there about how I had asked a false God at the beginning of my spiritual awakening for help to fix my life, and how that had caused a bunch of problems.
Eventually, I realized I was not receiving the care that I needed while at the crisis center, so I had them transfer me to hospital. All I wanted to do was sleep. I had been awake for days, and I just wanted sleep, so I was looking for Ambien when I went to the hospital, and that's what I got.
I remember they had admitted me to the emergency, but it was so full that every room was full, so they had me in the hallway, and I was just exhausted, and in a very tired state, but my third eye was opened, and I could sense spirits around me, and Satan, Lilith, and Jezebel were there for me that night.
They were hovering over my bed, and speaking to me telepathically, and asking me if I was okay, they were genuinely concerned for me, and wanted to know if I was okay. It was kind of shocking to be honest. These entities are not known for being nice in any way, but they were there for me that night, and God let them be there for me that night, instead of Jesus or someone else, which i find interesting.
This moment and seeing Lilith kneel before Satan made me realize that entities that we think are pure evil, are more dynamic than just evil. They may have evil in them, or have the ability to evil actions, but they can also be good and support others, like they did with me when I was in such an exhausted and vulnerable state after being delivered from Thoth.
I made it back home, and some time passed and I was in a very spiritual moment. My third eye was very awakened. It seems to happen in cycles. That night was a blizzard, and the air was heavy with demonic energy. This time it was the demiurge.
I remember I had dozens if not hundreds of demons in my room, and they were swirling above my bed, and I kept trying to lay down because I was so exhausted, and I kept being told to not lay down because I would squish a spirit, so I chose to not lay down.
I was whistling the avatar theme for the spirits to uplift them and make them feel better, and during this time I was being possessed by spirits. The room was heavy with spiritual energy.
So much happened that I don't want to get into, but it all lead to me being outside in the blizzard, in the snow storm, naked, and laying down in the snow. I had to be very cold for some reason while interacting with these demons, to keep them from overtaking me, and I remember I had to leave my house behind entirely.
My mom came outside before I left the house and I could feel demonic energy, evil spirits, all around her. There was a presence of wrath around her, and she was angry with me, because I had flooded the bathroom of the house while trying to get cold in the shower.
I left the house, there was a foot of snow on the ground, and I was naked and wandering down the street. I would check in with what I thought was God every once in a while to figure out what was happening with the demons in my bedroom.
For some reason when I would have a thought it would affect them in my room. That's really complicated to get into, and I don't understand it, but regardless, I wandered down the street and around the corner, and that is when the police got me.
They handcuffed me, and put me in the back of the police cruiser, and I remember telling God that the Matrix has me. The police called an ambulance, and they came to get me, I remember they transferred me to the ambulance, and they covered me with blankets, but I didn't want to be warm, I didn't have any control over this situation.
My body started to shut down, and I was struggling to even breathe, and that's when the demiurge appeared. They started speaking to me, and controlling my body to keep me breathing, and that's when I submitted to them, thinking that I was on my own, and God had abandoned me. I told them to fill me with demons, and that I would become a demon lord.
As I would breathe, I could feel demons entering me, spirits. When I got to the hospital, I was possessed by a lot of spirits, and my body was in agony. It's very hard to explain what it feels like, but just imagine discordant energy in your body that makes you feel awful, and physically hurts.
I struggled the entire night, and was in absolute agony. After 6-8 hours I was recovered and feeling better, they had admitted me to the hospital at this time, so I was able to rest in a room and eat plenty of food and recover.
My experience with the demiurge was really traumatic though, but that wasn't the end of my experiences with him.
... to be continued...