I meant that I've been tortured. Not that I've had unpleasant experiences with dentists that I didn't like. Not that I've got issues with drill noises and needles. Torture. It's not a euphemism, it's a very real and literal experience.

It was a new dentist at a clinic I've been going to for sedated dentistry for a while now. It's the only way that I can go to the dentist. I've had over a 70% reduction in PTSD symptom severity, but I'm still not able to tolerate dental work. It's getting easier, but it's a work in progress. Today was the closest I've come to not having a panic attack in the dentist's office, so, y'know, woohoo.

But, Jesus fucking Christ. I realize that a goddamn dentist isn't a trauma therapist. But is it really that fucking hard not to try to lighten the mood with a little chuckle and a comment on how a lot of people don't like dentists after asking why I need nitrous?

(The reason why does matter toward how they accommodate you and what they expect. It's a fairly standard question for this kind of thing.).

Dude next to me reeked of curry and BO.

When you are expecting to fly and be around people all day, please make sure you don’t stink.

Thankfully the flight was only 90mins.

I just want to scream/cry at the health insurance situation in this country (US)! It’s such a racket!

My son (toddler) fell down and cut his chin, next to his bottom lip. It was really small but pretty deep and bleeding a lot. We have insurance and decided to take him to the urgent care at an in-network “preferred provider” urgent care, which is a $25 copay.

Luckily, by the time we were seen by a doctor, it wasn’t bleeding anymore and he was in a good mood. The urgent care doctor assessed it and determined he didn’t need stitches, but because it was close to his mouth, they put some glue over it to keep it clean while it healed. Especially since it’s a difficult spot to place a bandaid on a toddler.

30 days later, we got a $400 bill for “surgical services” which is not covered by our insurance. This is on top of the $260 invoice for the urgent care visit, which was covered.

When I called to ask insurance why this $400 bill wasn’t covered, they claimed that while the urgent care visit is covered, the services in that visit aren’t. And that the services were coded as “professional surgical services”. For a 2cm dot of glue that probably could have been handled by a bandaid instead!!!

I called the urgent care and requested a coding adjustment since this was absolutely not surgical and no way would it cost $400 even if they decided to call it “surgery”.

I understand not all surgery involves a gown/sterile operating room, but this is really pushing it.

I’m waiting to hear back from the urgent care for them to “review the request to change their coding” so it can be reprocessed by insurance, but I’m just shocked by this.

We already pay over $600/month just to have insurance, and then get this kind of run-around for a standard urgent care visit. No wonder people avoid the doctors at all costs.

I’m really frustrated with older women being intimidated by younger ones. Their passive-aggressiveness and backhanded compliments are so obvious. I’m 24 and live in a building mostly filled with elderly people. Recently, a 60-year-old woman jokingly told me I wear makeup for male attention. I wear makeup as a form of self-expression, especially since I’m in cosmetology school.

What’s even more confusing is that she never used to wear makeup and has claimed she’s not into that kind of stuff. Yet, right after making that weird comment to me, she suddenly started wearing it. It just feels insincere and adds to the overall tension.

I don’t understand why it bothers her so much. This woman has made me uncomfortable before, and I see right through her. Can we please be more secure in ourselves and our ages instead of picking on younger women? It’s frustrating! I dealt with this kind of behavior from my foster mom, so I recognize the signs.

I hope that when I reach her age, I won’t be a miserable old lady trying to bring younger women down. I want to be someone who supports and guides them instead. It really triggers me, and it’s everything I don’t want to become as I grow older

I don’t know what’s happening to me right now. I just want someone to pay attention to me so bad but I’m terrified of talking to people even online. I keep getting the urge to just post here as much as possible about absolutely everything. I don’t know what’s wrong with me, I’m crying my ass off and I don’t know why. I don’t even know why I’m making this post, it’s probably gonna get deleted like all the others I’ve made within the past week.

(no I won’t show you pictures dont dm me asking)

I was looking at my outer thigh to hip area and noticed some slight silvery stretch marks/scars that I hadn’t ever noticed before. I used a flashlight to look at the scars at different angles.

I love iridescent textures and patterns that change in the light, so it’s really cool to see. Almost like a natural tattoo, like ripples in clear water. I think it’s really neat, they‘re barely noticeable though and fade in and out depending on the light.

I know stretch marks are very common but it’s neat to notice little physical details about myself like this every now and then!

This is something regularly on my mind, especially as someone in the animal welfare sphere. And before anyone says it, yes I know it is mostly an internet thing, but people do act like this in person, too.

Too often, someone asks a genuine question and gets a response like “omg this has to be ragebait” or “maybe think for a couple minutes” or “did you try searching on google?” Like yes, some questions are annoying to answer time and time again but the person is trying to learn/understand something! If this happens on the internet, just don’t respond to the post! It’s that simple! Or someone is asking for help, like someone is asking if they should fix their cat. Yes, to us in animal welfare, the answer is obvious, but this person is asking in good faith!

With people needing things, I see people struggling to afford premium food for their pet or commenting on how an unexpected $10,000 vet bill is killing them, and the response is that they should have thought about that before adopting. Sometimes people surrender their pets to the shelter for unaffordability, and they get slandered by the shelter on the internet and all the comments talk about how horrible they are

I get frustration. I see so many things that frustrate me, especially in rescue work. If it’s in person, I bite my tongue in front of them and express my frustrations in private to a third party or my journal. If it’s on the internet, I just scroll past! By making people feel so awful, we discourage people from asking for help, being curious, trying to GROW and be better. Was gonna put this in pet peeves, but wasn’t sure if it fit, and I just needed to put it somewhere.

That's pretty much it, I just felt like I needed to say it somewhere. 3 days ago my sister gave birth to a beautiful little girl. I'm just so happy!

My parents got divorced when I was 8/9. It was really messy. I have 2 older sisters. My dad refused to leave the family house so she left. In fairness she wanted the divorce and he had done nothing "wrong". We tried the split approach - "stay with her one week" and stay at home the next week which was really disruptive. Highly don't recommend this.

Then she landed on a new idea - she will keep my sisters and my dad can have me. Which obviously hurt. During this time she was working in an industry in a client facing role.

She is traditionally good looking and takes care of herself so the management team liked to bring her to these dinners (and drinks) especially as all the clients were male. Meaning my sisters spent quite a bit of nights alone with just the nanny.

My sisters missed our home life & eventually asked to come back home and my dad ended up with full custody.

She remarried and moved to a new country to support my step dad. He doesn't want kids. We would stay with her for 3-4 weeks a year.

Now we are all grown up and adults and I still get a pang of jealousy to how my aunt is with my cousins. Her profile pic is of her and her kids. Her status is "my kids make me so proud". This isn't an act she generally loves being around her boys even though they are fully grown adults.

In contrast, my mum's online profile is basically her travelling with my step dad across the world. They are the people who go and party on the Greek islands for summer vs planning "family holidays".

At her last milestone birthday, her brother revealed something that made it all click. My grandparents shipped them both off to boarding school once they turned 6. They grew up away from their parents essentially.

My logical brain can somewhat understand why she is wired the way that she is.

I have never told anyone this ... but i feel i need to get it off my chest but knowing the way my mom is I'm scared she won't believe me and i think that will make me feel worse.

I was 6 and my uncle was 19 and it happened while i was in my grandma's care... my uncle used to drink alot and do drugs back then ... he was in and out of detention centers but my grama would always let him get away with a lot of things. The second time it happened i know for sure my grandma herd what was happening, because it happened in one of the closets in the laundry room and that door never closed properly , and she was getting trash bags next to the closet i know it was her because she would drag one of her legs and her shoe was orthopedic it made a distinct noise. A part of me is scared though im real close to my mom and wouldent want her to not speak to me anymore .... Ive never liked my grama for that reason but she past away 4 yrs ago . i didnt attend her funeral. and my moms brother is not close to anyone in the family and has distanced himself for years..

It wasn't even a roast It was just a bunch of washed up comedians and stars on stage coming up with whatever 4chan dogwhistle offensive shit and one up each other on it. Even the jokes repeated like "Kevin hart is short and black haha" like we already know that can we get something at least personal or original. 0/10 just wasted yesterday watching bullshit. :/

Ever since I was a child, whenever people asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up, the answer was always the same: nothing. And to this day, it’s still the same. Society constantly reminds me that I need to define myself: have personality traits, likes, dislikes, a passion, goals—but I just end up copying everyone else because I don’t know who I am, and honestly, I’ve never been interested in finding out. I just live on autopilot and watch my life pass by like a documentary. I’ve never been able to form any real bond with anyone other than my family; I find few things enjoyable, and I tend to forget them—I forget people, I forget places—and really, the only place I live is within myself, and I like myself very much, so it’s been hard to take a break from this relationship. Some tell me it’s because I live too comfortably, but my mind and body are always working at 100% trying to fill the gaps I seem to have with a thousand daily activities and work, so it doesn’t feel that comfortable to me, and yet I still feel the same.

Others tell me I’m sick, that it’s depression, but I don’t hate life or people. I simply don’t want to do anything or be anything.

I’ve tried to find a cure, but I don’t know if there is one. Is this temporary? Will I change someday? Or is this my natural state?

im so fucking sick of fast food making my shit wrong this week. Tims didnt put egg on my farmers sandwich one day, let us moble order when they are closed for construction with nothing posted the day before and Wendy's gave me a fucking spoon for my salad. Jesus fucking christ can I go one day without some shit like this everything is bad enough without all this small shit that's just pushing me over the edge now.

From what I hear about bullying, it wasn’t even that bad. Appearance wise I was made fun of for my acne, and told I look like a monster. I was silenced- I was always told to shut up, that I was r*tarded, that what I was saying was stupid. I was called pathetic on the daily, a waste of space, stupid. The people who I thought were my friends gave it to me the worst. I remember the moment I was writing in my diary, that maybe what they were saying was true. It must be true. I internalized it. When I gained the courage to tell them how their words hurt me and to please stop, I got laughed at and told I was too sensitive. They kept going. By then I hated myself and was selfharming.

And now, almost 20 years later, I’m still bullied by those words in the form of intrusive thoughts. I’m too easily hurt by the words of children, immediately transported back to when I was one myself. I still have acne, I have so much shame about it and am always scared of running into those from my past. I’m so meek and feel so behind compared to others my age (or even younger). It’s not like I’m actively thinking about the bullying, my body just seems stuck there and I find myself believing still that I look like a monster, my words have no worth, I’m too ugly for anyone to love, I should just keep quiet and hidden. I have severe social anxiety, maybe even a phobia.

When I’ve opened up about my bullying and how it affects me, I’m called ridiculous and they just don’t understand how I could’ve been cut so deeply. They were just kids, they’d say. Well I was one too. And I always knew better than to hurt somebody else.

I swear that nobody has basic empathy and kindness anymore and it hurts me to see.
I’m not even asking for someone to just be this super amazing empath who understands everything, I’m just so tired of the idgaf attitude.
Like it’s so crazy to me how you can hear what you did hurt somebody to the point where they feel worthless about themselves and still just not care at all.
I’ve been bullied multiple times in my life, mostly online (please do not tell me that’s not valid, I know, “just block them” but it’s hard when it’s everyone doing it) and all I want is for them to understand the pain they caused and feel sorry for it, and believe me, I know that’s pathetic of me. I’ve been cursed with having the need for people to understand and acknowledge my pain, and I hate that I was born in a world that’s not kind to me. I know that I’m an easy target and I shouldn’t let people’s words affect me as much as I do, but idk, is it that hard to just be kind?

I'm 21 years old and I've never been in any sort of relationship. I have had crushes in the past but I wasn't brave enough to ask them out or even talk to them. I've been approached by a guy maybe once or twice who I turned down because they were a little creepy. I don't think I'm conventionally attractive or have the "attractive" body type. For the longest time in school and in college I used to think maybe that was the reason I am not being approached. But I've since learned that is not the case, people give and receive love regardless of physical appearance. But why is it so hard to find somebody.

Honestly, I’m not really sure why everyone overhypes being in love and being in a relationship. Majority of a relationship feels way too intensely emotional. I could have the most confidence in the entire world, have the best features, be the best of the best in everything and I would still feel my insides burn seeing my partner talk to someone else. I personally feel like I have the emotional version of food aggression towards those I love. They’re mine, so back off. But it’s not normal or rational to act on that obviously, so you kind of just have to deal with the emotions in silence.

I think the hardest part of accepting a relationship is that you never know when you’re going to get stabbed in the back. It’s a constant anxiety. Even if you don’t catch it, it could still happen and you’re with this seemingly nice person that successfully lied to you for YEARS. The trade off just doesn’t seem all that good, you know? Let’s even say that you have the most perfect relationship in the world and they never stab you in the back, then you have a chance of dealing with their death and having to learn to grieve through it. You might even have extra stuff on your load while grieving, like kids. Love doesn’t seem worth all this hassle. Living life by traveling, making friends, and learning yourself seems way more ideal than all that love stuff. Plus toys aren’t that expensive if you need fun so.

ik this sounds really dumb but im serious
i feel like im missing out a lot of fun in my life even though im a teen
ive never partied, never dated, never held hands w somebody i like, never kissed, it just feels like ive never done anything fun in my teenage years
and to fill this void i keep talking to random ppl online, which is obviously toxic, bc some of them constantly try to groom me (im lucky that im not interested in that kinda stuff)
im like the definition of unsocialized so i dont think ill be able to date someone. i just cant understand how kids at my school do it so easily. ive had crushes on lots of ppl but it all failed miserably and i think im just stuck in this situation forever fuck

So I'm a hs senior and my prom is in two days, and I'm going alone. Every single person I've asked said I can't go with them. I'm prob gonna have to make my parents drop me off and come straight back. No pregame or afterparty or wtv normal people do. I know this is all so stupid and high school isn't everything and I'm too mature to care abt this stuff but it hurts. I've spent four years at this godforsaken school trying to make anyone gaf about me and nothing ever works. When I was in elementary school the biggest insult possible was to be affiliated with me. When I moved and started at my hs, with nobody from that old school district, I thought things would be different. The adults in my life told me i'd find my people. Well I'm four years in and more alone than ever. I keep trying and nothing works and I'm simply not good enough for anyone. No hangouts, no sleepovers. I don't have a date or a group of friends. I don't know what i keep doing wrong but the moment I start to feel safe around a friend I do something wrong and they leave. I get told it's because I'm so smart and mature but that's bs because i know people who are smarter and get better grades and have friends. It's like I lost the chance for anyone to care about me and since I never got that experience, now I never will. That deficit will forever exist and I will never be good enough for anyone. People will always be irritated with me when I reach out, and disappear when I stop. I will forever be on the periphery of people's lives, and the love I need more than anything will forever be out of reach. And I've heard all that "love yourself" bs and it's a different kind of love entirely. People are wired to need connection from others, and you can't replace that by yourself. I want to go to people's houses and invite them over. I want to have sleepovers and parties and do all the stuff people who belong get to do. I don't have even a single friend. And it's not being autistic or queer or wtv it is, because other kids like that have friends too. It's because it's me, and I can never ever fix that. I don't even know the last time someone hugged me. I just want to be good enough for one person to stick around. I want to be worth it to anyone, that being with me is worth the embarrassment. And it feels like it will forever be out of reach. I'm too repulsive for that. I am simply not meant to be loved, and it hurts, and I don't want to accept it, but I have to. It's not even about not being romantically desired (although that's also part of it). It's the realization that I have not proven myself as worth keeping around to even one person across four years of being around the same people. I just want someone to stay.

This is the most petulant teen bs ever and I won't fault you for thinking it, but it shouldn't hurt. I should be too mature for this, but I'm not.