u/Agile-Bag-661

I’m 26F and have never had kids but have had severe, chronic constipation since childhood and although I found my solution to softening stools about 2 years ago, I did what I think is irreversible damage to my pelvic floor and I’m terrified its levator avulsion.

I could go into a lot more detail but basically my vagina is concerningly loose. It’s not “just my body,” it’s not a toxic man that told me about it. I haven’t been sexually active since this problem arose about 2 years ago because I am absolutely disgusted with my own body and so embarrassed of this.

I can easily slide 3 fingers in. The entrance is completely loose, and it’s twice as loose deeper inside. The walls that used to be firm and tougher feeling are now like mushy, soft balloons that are just caved in and all over the place. I honestly don’t know if I would be able to feel penetrative sex. I can insert fingers and kegel and feel nothing. No squeeze, nothing, maybe just a slight tug from somewhere else. Just want to reiterate this is NOT just “me learning my body.” I used to be tighter, like a LOT, a LOT tighter. Not painfully tight, just normal. My body changed drastically and I am beyond sure and devastated and terrified.

I did make an appointment with a PFPT. I didn’t do it before because 1, I honestly couldn’t face it mentally/emotionally, this has been the most devastating feeling I have ever experienced and has quite literally plummeted my confidence to absolutely zero. And 2, I couldn’t comfortably afford PT but now I can.

But I have a month before my appointment and am desperate for some sort of input. It honestly sounds like I may have torn muscles in my vagina and if that’s the case there’s literally nothing I can do about it. I genuinely will not be okay if they tell me I have to live with a loose vagina forever, before I’ve had kids, before I’ve even met my person. I don’t know what to do.

I’ve been working here for 6 months now and off of orientation for almost 4. I’ve really been struggling to get in on the social circle on my unit. When I first got here I was excited to see that everyone seems close, everyone always knows what’s happening in everyone else’s lives, people throw parties/celebrations for each other, people hang out outside of work…of course there are smaller friend groups within the big group of us, but everyone knows each other.

But the longer I’ve been here the more I’ve realized how toxic a lot of it is. There is a lot of whispering/gossiping that goes on, someone is always talking about how incompetent or annoying someone else is, often someone they seem to be friends with. The amount of whispering is honestly getting kind of ridiculous…it’s like middle school. I’m not exaggerating, it’s every single shift like it’s part of the routine, pretty much every single person. It’s not just the people who are best friends either, it’s just whatever two or three nurses are sitting at the nurses’ station at the same time somehow always have something to whisper about.

Sometimes I can very clearly hear what they’re saying. It’s usually complaining about someone’s attitude—someone’s always either too grumpy or too bubbly—or harping on a mistake someone made, or complaining about having to work with certain people. Recently I worked a shift where the whole day everyone was complaining about this new nurse behind her back, talking about all of the things she’d been doing wrong. But any time she would make a mistake in their presence, they would just go silent and look at each other instead of saying something like “hey, actually this is what you should do instead.” I swear it’s like they wanted her to fail so that they could have something to whisper about.

Maybe I’m just overly sensitive to it. Because I swear, there is not 1 person who doesn’t participate in this stuff. It’s quite literally just me. Which makes me feel like I’m the problem, maybe I’m just super sensitive?? Even this new nurse (who I still feel sorry for) tries to join these conversations and talk smack about certain staff members.

I swear it’s like everyone secretly hates each other.

It’s easy to say “just don’t let it get to you,” and “you don’t have to be friends with them.” But it’s not about being friends, I honestly feel like such an outsider at this point that that ship has sailed I think. It’s about the fact that this is my team. This is not a unit where you can kind of just stay in your lane and do your tasks, it’s one that absolutely requires teamwork, multiple sets of hands for a large portion of the tasks we do. It makes it much more difficult to do my job when I don’t feel like I have a relationship with any of my coworkers…but it’s hard to establish this relationship when I can’t help but feel anxious about everything I say or do in front of them, as I’m paranoid that they’re all whispering about me to each other!

Idk, I kind of just want to leave this place. It’s very frustrating. Whether it’s me or not that’s the problem, I can confidently say I’ve never run into this issue in my life. Where I worked as a CNA, there was zero whispering/gossip/fakeness, everyone just talked about work stuff. Sure, people weren’t as close, but it was just less personal and social in general….which I kind of prefer, I think.

I’m 6 months into a 12-month residency on a peds unit. I’ve grown a lot as a new nurse and feel mostly competent when it comes to managing my time and caring for my patients in general. There are still some technical skills I’m embarrassingly bad at and sometimes I find myself making scramble-brained mistakes (never anything terrible, but things like letting IV fluid tubing running dry, having to ask which labs go in which color tube, etc). My patients and families always tell me they’re happy with my care. Sometimes there are harder shifts where I feel like I seem dumb or get a little behind, but overall I feel like I take pretty good care of my patients and they’re generally happy with my care.

But I’m really burnt out for other reasons. As much as I don’t want to sound like a whiney baby, I just feel like everyone hates me and it’s the worst feeling in the world. I don’t typically feel this level of self consciousness…but I swear the work culture in general is just a breeding ground for social anxiety. Where I worked before as a tech, everyone was friendly with each other but not necessarily best friends. Everyone was pretty much focused on doing their jobs and there was no workplace gossip, making eyes at each other, whispering etc…you would have been laughed at for being like that! People were always willing to help whoever whenever they could.

When I came here, I was excited to see that the culture is mostly young women around my age who all seem to be actual best friends. There are definitely friend groups within the staff, but everyone is very social with one another and everyone always knows each other’s business. I thought that was cool, I figured maybe this will be a great way for me to make some friends!!

But I’m 6 months in and instead of becoming friends with these people I’ve just felt increasingly like an outsider. There is constantly whispering and gossip occurring—CONSTANTLY. Countless times, I’ve overheard people talking badly about other staff, saying someone is incompetent, lazy, annoying, weird, a kiss-ass, etc. Sure, some of these things are things I might even agree with…but is it really the norm to be saying these things out loud AT WORK? I mean, it’s one thing to talk about work annoyances and vent about coworkers to your close friends/family. But in my opinion, it’s just absolutely crazy to be gossiping at the nurse’s station like literally 24/7. It makes it really hard for me to want to be friends with these people.

And you might say, “well you don’t need to be friends with them!” But if you’ve ever worked in peds you know it is very different from other specialties in the sense that there are many many parts of the job that CANNOT be done alone. You need at least a few hands to help hold kids down and increase efficiency during procedures that are traumatizing for kids (IVs, labs, catheters, dressing changes, etc).

Usually people kind of naturally pair up with their friends at the beginning of the shift and just tackle these things together as a team. I get it, it’s natural to feel more inclined to help your friend and it’s easy to forget about the new grad you don’t know well.

But it always leaves me feeling like in order to get help when I need it, I have to wait around until there’s a gap in all the team work happening around me, then by that time I’m so frazzled and behind that I feel like I can’t think straight and end up looking incompetent and prolonging everything.

I think because Ive witnessed so much whispering and passive aggression among my coworkers, Ive automatically just come to the conclusion that they all talk about me and now I’m just paranoid all the time that people are talking about how incompetent I am. I’ve honestly gotten to the point where I feel like everyone hates me no matter how hard I try to prove that I’m committed to being a better nurse, committed to helping whenever I possibly can, and also just committed to trying to join the work family…..I feel like I walk up to a conversation and everyone goes quiet and looks at me with a passive aggressive “What do you need from me now?” smile. There is one other new grad on my unit who started with me and we’ve gotten along really well, and I think she felt this way at first too…but recently she’s starting joining in on these conversations and I just have no desire to do that. She’s such a kind person, and I genuinely believe a lot of my coworkers are, but it’s like the only way to befriend anyone is to talk badly about your coworkers.

I’ve gotten pretty burnt out by this and for the past month or so I’ve been just keeping to myself most of the time because I’m just so sick of the passive aggressive gossip/judgmental energy. But now I just feel like there’s this awkward, undeniable divide between me and everyone else. I honestly just want to leave.

Of course as the lone outsider I have to consider I might be the problem, but I just don’t know what else to do. The honest truth is I think it’s ridiculous the way they gossip, and part of me wonders if they’ve picked up on the way I avoid those conversations and they think I’m just standoffish or that I’m mean or something.

About 6 weeks ago, I saw a few small cockroaches in my apartment in a 24 hour period. I have what I would imagine qualifies as a cockroach phobia, so it sent me into a spiral. After 3 days of no sleep and constant Reddit research, I concluded they were smoky browns, and my apartment management even assured me the sightings were probably related to the recent pest treatment, which can cause a temporary uptick in sighting. I was skeptical at first because I thought maybe they were trying to conceal a roach infestation. But, I really didn’t see any more for like 4 weeks.

But then after all that time I randomly saw another one in the hall outside my door. Very much alive, btw.

Then, just now…I found a German cockroach skittering around by my door. It’s laughably certain to be a German—I feel like I could identify every single kind of roach at this point. (Obviously exaggerating, but this one is 100% a German, it’s not even a question.)

After the initial roaches I set out glue traps with gel bait and have been regularly spraying with border spray like a maniac. (Haven’t caught any roaches but have caught several earwigs and a spider lol).

To me it seems increasingly clear that there’s an ongoing roach problem with this place. After seeing a German, I’m officially grossed out. Last time I contacted management (very nicely) they kind of just told me it was no big deal and there was definitely not a roach problem in the building. Now I feel like I can’t reach back out to them because they’re going to think I’m insane and I don’t want to be a Karen.

But this is a brand new complex, way too expensive to be having this kind of issue, and I have taken extreme measures to prevent roaches yet still keep seeing them.

I keep a very clean living space. I deep clean a normal amount. Also, since my initial roach frenzy, I have been keeping 100% of my food in my refrigerator.

I’m gong to be honest, I am not going to spend my energy every single day wiping up every drop of standing water in my kitchen sink, plugging every drain every night before bed, vacuuming every single crevice of my apartment every 24 hours. I understand there are probably ways to keep the place roach free, but if I’m paying this much for a new construction apartment I don’t think I should have to live in a constant state of fear and extreme sanitation mode. Maybe that’s naive.

And the last thing I’ll admit: I’ve been sleeping in a bug net for the last month. The kind you put your mattress in so you’re sleeping in a tent. It’s quite literally the only reason I can sleep at all and the only reason I’m not having a complete meltdown right now. I’m so serious.

Should I just move out? The stories I’ve seen about the Germans are not promising whatsoever and I’m just not willing to turn my life upside down for the GD roaches. Ugh.

Random rant, but I feel like people are constantly telling their stories about overcoming illness and “proving doctors wrong” after being told there was no hope. I constantly see people saying things like

“Doctors told us we should give up,”

“My doctor told me I had 3 months to live,”

“They told me my son would never talk or have any quality of life,”

“My doctor said there was no absolutely chance I’d ever walk again,”

Or things like

“My doctor said she couldn’t believe I wasn’t dead yet after seeing my test results!”

I mean…maybe I just haven’t met enough doctors, but I have literally never heard a doctor say anything even remotely along these lines lol, and if I did, everyone would be flabbergasted. Like what? They might say things like “the chance of ____ is very low,” and I guarantee they throw in a “but, we can never be certain.” Or they might say “typical life expectancy at this point is ___ months.” Or they might say “our recommendation is to focus on comfort at this point in the diagnosis.” But I simply don’t buy that they told you “you should just give up” or straight up told you you have blank months to live or a 0% chance of recovery lol. It’s amazing to overcome statistical odds, but instead of focusing on how doctors predicted incorrectly, you’d think people would be acknowledging the fact that doctors were willing to persist with these patients against all odds….It’s so weird to me when people make up direct quotes from doctors that are clearly not real. It’s also very frustrating because it perpetuates the idea that doctors and nurses are just heartless bots that don’t know how to talk to or care about their patients.

I have lived in this 2-year old apartment complex for 6 months, totally bug free until yesterday when I suddenly noticed what seems to be a roach infestation.

I believe they’re either German or American roaches based on their size? They’re small, between penny and quarter sized. I grew up around wood roaches, the gigantic ones that were terrifying but I could rest easy knowing 1 didn’t necessarily mean infestation.

But there seems to be an infestation with these. Despite keeping a clean apartment, I saw 3 within 12 hours of each other. 2 were alive (scurrying on the wall/ceiling), and 1 was lying on its back barely moving its legs. They were all in different areas of my apartment.

I contacted management and they said my building was sprayed last week “for prevention” and that could cause a temporary uptick in sightings. That kinda makes sense to me especially considering that one seemed to be nearly dead when I found it…but I’m concerned that they might be downplaying/not disclosing an existing infestation. It’s not “prevention” if they’re clearly already here. I feel like I have a right to know if they’re chasing an infestation, right??

My questions:

1. Should I trust based on that response that they have this under control?

2. My main problem is sleeping. I can’t do roaches. I just can’t. I cant even consider sleeping knowing there could be dozens waiting to scurry around once I’m asleep. How can I reduce the likelihood that they will get into my bed?? So far, I’ve moved my bed away from the wall. I have a metal bedframe with 4 legs touching the floor and nothing else. I sprayed Raid on my baseboards, around my bed legs, and on my windows. I also made a concoction of water with eucalyptus oil and rosemary and sprayed it all over everything to the point where my whole apartment smells like it. But I’m still dreading nightfall because I don’t want these mfers to come back out and I don’t want to think about sleeping, even though I am SO DEPRIVED.

3. I bought some glue traps and gel poison/bait. It’s just the stuff from Walmart, I can’t wait to order the other stuff online. Where should I place them? If I put them in my bedroom, will they attract roaches to my bedroom that wouldn’t have come otherwise?

I’m spiraling. Clearly. Please help :)

Hi,

I moved into a 2 year old apartment 6 months ago. Have had no pest issues so far other than teeny tiny spiders here and there. Randomly the other day I noticed a dead roach in the hall way in my building.

Last night, I saw a small, brown roach scurry across my kitchen wall.

I am absolutely disgusted by, sickened by, terrified of roaches. Where I grew up we occasionally got a big giant wood roach, and they terrified me but what gave me peace was that there wasn’t a promise of infestation with the occasional sighting.

This was a different roach.

I keep my apartment very clean. I tried to just keep calm and go to bed but could not fall asleep for the life of me because I couldn’t stop thinking about roaches crawling all over my sleeping body.

Finally got out of bed at 4am after lying there for hours and walked into the kitchen to get some water. Another one on the ceiling in my living room.

It’s a small apartment and I’m now accepting that they’re all over this place.

I don’t know what to do. I put in a pest/maintenance request in my resident portal but I can’t stand to be here right now.

Can someone just give it to me straight—what are the chances they actually fix this? Is this going to be a long process that they can never fully get under control?
It’s a 100 unit apartment complex. It’s a very nice, pretty expensive place and I’m so upset that this is happening.

Im so exhausted I just want to sleep but I can’t. I want to move out. I cannot deal with weeks or months of them trying to get this under control.

26F, 130lbs, I don’t smoke and drink maybe once every 3 months. No medications or conditions other than chronic insomnia that started when I was 9-10 years old. Multiple times per week, I’d take several hours to fall asleep, at its worst I would lie in bed awake for a full 8-9 hours.

I really would just like a straightforward answer: is it riskier to take half a unisom tablet 5-6 nights per week long-term, or to live with chronic sleep deprivation?

I again want to emphasize I’d really like an answer to that question that’s not just “it’s better for your health to figure out medication-free ways to fix your sleep!”

I’ve done it all. I promise. I was an expert on the concept of sleep hygiene by the time I turned 13. No blue light. Routine wake time. Sunlight early in the morning. Exercise early. Cut out caffeine. Journal before bed. Tire yourself out. Etc….Nothing. Else. Works. The only thing I’ve ever found to help is taking half a unisom. I don’t do it every single night, but most nights.

I’ve been taking it for about 6 months now, and my quality of life has TREMENDOUSLY improved. My insomnia was part of my identity, it caused me so much stress and anxiety that it lived in the back of my mind 24/7. I swear I had some sort of PTSD from the psychological torture that is lying in bed exhausted for 8-9 hours, only to get up and go to work after zero seconds of sleep.

I know you’re not supposed to take unisom for long. But considering that my only other option is some super strong prescription sedative or to live forever with CRIPPLING insomnia and sleep anxiety, what’s really the best route for me?

My schedule is 3 12s a week, usually not in a row. If I work 2 in a row, I get about 7-8 hours between them. On my days off, I’ll come home and nap for 2-4 hours, have my day to do stuff, then sleep 10-12 hours that “night” (usually like 2am to 1pm). Going into a shift after being off, I go to bed at like 3am, and I’ll sleep until 3pm.

This week, I got 58 hours of sleep.

Sleeping 8hr/night would be 56. So, ultimately I’m getting more sleep throughout the week.

And for the record, it IS deep sleep. When I fall asleep, I’m out. I wear a fitness tracker and while they can’t be fully trusted, I trust the HR and movement sensor. If my HR is in the low 50s for an extended period and I don’t move at all, I feel like it shows that I am pretty deeply asleep. I dream a lot too. The only time I don’t sleep quite as soundly is during those 2-4 hour naps, but I still sleep hard enough to dream a little.

Needless to say, I have no life or responsibilities other than work. I exercise on my days off, I eat well, I feel okay most of the time except on those days off after only taking a nap after work. But after the next night of sleep I feel great.

I don’t have much of a social life, but that’s not because of night shift unfortunately, though it definitely makes night shift easier.

I feel like it’s super abnormal to sleep 10-12 hours 3-4 times a week. But I feel like I should listen to my body instead of trying to set alarms all the time, right?

I’m sitting here lying in bed after a really rough day. I’m in my robe, hair up in a towel and trying to catch my breath after the hardest cry I’ve had in years. I’m 25 now and off on my own, living across the country from you and mom. I have been away for some time now, and as proud of myself as I’ve tried to be, I think there’s been part of me that’s felt deeply lonely since I grew up from being a little girl.

And it didn’t really hit me until this moment of extreme weakness that maybe the inexplicable loneliness is just the little girl in me wondering where the hell her dad went.

Mom is my best friend, an angel on earth, the warmest and comfiest human being I could ever begin to imagine. Her presence alone regulates my nervous system. And I find it so easy to identify the moments when I miss my mom. It feel right to miss her, it feels acceptable to yearn for a quiet hug and back scratch from my mom. To wish she could be here offering to feed me or take me anywhere I wanted to go.

But you were always the one with the words. You knew how to pick me up when I was down, build me up to face my fears, remind me of my strength, and make me feel completely understood. As a teary-eyed girl having an emotional breakdown, all I needed was for you to kneel next to me and say, “I’m sorry you’re dealing with this,” then tell me some story about a similar experience you had that had me fully convinced you were inside my head. You had a magic power Dad.

As I began to grow older, though, my feelings seemed to become less of a means of connection between us and more of a barrier. Any minor expressions of anxiety or sadness or self-doubt—or happiness that you deemed too expressive—were increasingly met with scoffs and eye rolls and matter-of-fact comments about how irrational and unstable we women are.

You became very comfortable sharing your opinions on women and weakness and what this world needs. The worst thing you can be is weak. And unfortunately, women will always be a little weak, just inherently, biologically, innately, and also they’re all a little neurotic and less intelligent.

Of course I never believed that. But I tried to grasp any good messages I could find in your belief system so that I didn’t have to face the fact that my dad fundamentally hates me.

So I committed to the idea that stoicism is strength—that intellectualizing your feelings before they ever break through the surface is intelligence—that by achieving a state of hyperindependence, I could somehow prove you wrong while simultaneously gaining your respect. In spite of this, we clashed more and more until it became clear we got along best at a significant distance.

But here I am in my bed in fetal position, feeling more like a little girl than ever. I don’t feel stoic and stable, I don’t even know how to cry properly anymore. I don’t have the energy to intellectualize these feelings, and I wish more than anything I could allow myself to depend on anyone in my life these days.

And in this moment I just miss you. This is exactly one of those moments where you’d knock at my bedroom door and kneel by my side and give me your soft spoken life lesson that speaks to my soul. You’d top it off with a stupid joke that I’d reluctantly laugh at and then do a dance move out the door.

I miss the person you were before I learned your complexities. I miss being that little girl who had no doubt in the world that her dad loved and truly respected her. I’ve become a woman who wants to appreciate the fortune of still having a dad in good health who can say the words “I love you,” but yet all I can feel is grief for the dad who really meant it.

You love me, I know, and it would distress you to read this. But ultimately this would be interpreted as a neurotic rant.

So to the dad that lives on forever in my inner-little-girl’s mind, the version that has no ego, no agenda, no underlying hatred for who I am—I wish I could find you. I will always feel your absence.

This is MY opinion based on who makes me laugh the most with respect to how many lines they have. Basically I’m judging this by roughly what percent of their scenes make me laugh out loud. For reference I’ve seen it all the way through 6 times so far and am on my 7th.

BEFORE ANYONE CALLS THIS A TRASH TAKE…this isn’t a conscious opinion. This is what my heart decided. I can’t help what makes me belly laugh in this show. This is my truth.

1. Michael. By far. He appears on the screen and my heart lights up. Michael Scott. I love you Michael.
2. Nate. Yep. Nate.
3. Gabe
4. Ryan
5. Jan
6. Pam but SPECIFICALLY when talking to Michael
7. Angela
8. Toby (except season 9)
9. Early Andy…..Sue me
10. Dwight

This is my list and I can’t help it.

Dwight barely makes top 10 for me, which is crazy, I know. But honestly he doesn’t make me laugh that much. The first couple of times I watched, I would have put him at 2 or 3! But I feel like his type humor is one that grew old for me after a couple of watches. But the others, the ones closer to the top of the list, embody a type of humor that I just live for. The painfully awkward, insanely hateable but somehow endearing type. The ones who appear to be ordinary people until you realize how socially dysfunctional they are.

I just love how they executed the characters of Jan and Ryan. The cool, respectable ones that slowly spiral out of control in the most hilarious ways.

And as for Andy being above Dwight…I always find myself laughing at some of Andy’s scenes, really up until S7. The way he talks about how his parents renamed him so they could give his dad’s name to his brother. The way he plays this character to be SO INFURIATINGLY INSUFFERABLE that I just kinda can’t get enough of it.

And Nate is at #2 because I think every single line of his is perfect, though there are few.

I’ve seen this show all the way through probably 6 times throughout my life. A couple times in high school, then a couple times in college, and twice in the past 4 months. These past 2 times I started it over the SECOND I finished it—like, went straight from the finale to the pilot like it was the next episode.

I just finished it again, and the second that theme song played in the final credits I felt this horrible wave of nauseating doom. You know, as I type this out I’m clearly answering my question, lol.

I honestly just want to start it over again right now, but I’m feeling ashamed about it for some reason. Like I need to move on or something and I’m in denial. Like maybe I’m too invested and too wrapped up in the Dunder Mifflin Universe and I need to be more in touch with my life? I don’t know.

But at the same time, I think about how this show makes me feel and how my vices could be a whole lot worse.

I’ve been going through a really rough couple of years. I’ve stayed away from other vices and lead a healthy life—healthy but very lonely and pretty objectively depressing.

This show makes me belly laugh when I’m at my absolute rock bottom. The perfect writing—especially seasons 2-7 IMO, but I love it all—the genius characters and their development…the way this show makes the most mundane lifestyle ever seem like my life dream. When I’m feeling stressed or lonely or sad or like the world doesn’t want me in it, I can genuinely escape into this show. The background noises, the set, the familiar voices just bring me this sense of serenity like nothing I’ve ever experienced. It gives me this sense of knowing the world goes on no matter what; that life isn’t always that serious. Of course it’s a show and it’s not realistic that any real office is that consistently fun and hilarious and low-stress—but as someone who works a really stressful and absolutely draining job, I find that it motivates me to work towards happiness rather than financial success.

Idk.

I’m going to start it over now.