u/Any_Explorer3627

I'm in my mid 20's and I've never had a relationship. There are a lot of reasons for this. One major reason is that I am extremely averse to touch and sex in general. I explained it to myself as being chronically fatigued and asexual (I might be on the hypo sexual side of things for medical reasons regardless), but I DO occasionally want to be around people in that way so that explanation doesn't quite feel right.

I hate being touched so much that even a friend hugging me or just poking me, or even someone brushing my shoulder, just sends my system into overdrive. I feel the touch lingering there and get extremely angry, hurt, betrayed to the point of tears at times. I do have sensory issues, but this feels like much more than that - even causal, incidental touch feels acutely personal and linger on my skin. I get the mental image of something mindlessly pawing at me. Sometimes, even though I know it's irrational, I'll even scrub at my skin to try to brush the feeling away.

Whenever my parents hugged me, touched me, or kissed me in any way, it was all about what they wanted, regardless of what they intended. My dad would lie next to me at night - ostensibly to tell bedtime stories and tuck me in, and it was just that (though I don't remember 100%), but I repeatedly remember bouts where it was extremely uncomfortable and I wanted him to get away but was afraid to try and tell him that. Even as I got older, he'd get legitimately angry and threatening if I didn't hug him when he wanted - he'd grab me and hold me and I viscerally hated every second. My mom wasn't quite as bad about this, but she did it too - she was more likely to listen if I said no, but was also prone to making fun of me or shaming me for it. Neither parent seemed entirely in tune with the significance of these events to me - of course, now I know why.

So even if I'm around friends, and one of them brushes by my arm, I have to remind myself continually what I don't know instinctively: that they are aware of my personal space and being mindful, that they are seeing me as a person. Because the people who handled me all my younger years sure didn't. They did some real damage to my personality - I can't trust anybody and I don't think I'll ever have a romantic relationship.

I'm on the 4th vial and was doing cluster shots until I reached the level 4 (red/maintenance) vial. On this one, my lips and tongue started to get a bit numb which freaked me out, but when I told the nurse she said they'd just stop the cluster schedule and see what happened next time.

I've been feeling progressively worse. Maybe with the regular schedule it'll get better, but still the fatigue has been hitting harder and harder, I keep getting sick more than usual, and although the acute sleepiness only lasts 1-2 days, it takes 7-10 days between shot visits to feel remotely functional again. I feel like I'd need a few weeks to make a complete recovery. I've been toughing it out - I knew it would be bad but I didn't think it would be this bad - my allergy symptoms are primarily sinusitis, major congestion and fatigue/brain fog and it's always been debilitating but now it's amped up. I'm so clogged I can't do proper sinus rinses. I take 3 different antihistamines, a leukotriene inhibitor, and prednisone before each shot and this still happens.

My allergist is a bit of a nut job - the first time I asked for stronger meds (something like ketitofen or maybe a biologic drug since I have CRS) he asked me 4 times if I had asthma, gave me an asthma test which was negative, and asked me twice more if I had asthma and didn't address my question, then the second time I asked he promised he'd look into the possibility and then kind of ghosted me. So I'm meeting a second allergist on Monday to ask for biologic eligibility, anything to help my sinusitis so that I can potentially sleep through the night again.

I'm so tired and scattered and upset about the delay, I caught covid for the nth time which isn't helping, and any sinus surgery I can get is going to be 3 months off at least. I guess this devolved into a vent but man, I wish I could get ILIT.

I have ADHD and chronic fatigue, so I am a hardcore caffeine addict. Panera, with the (Un)Limited Sips club, has saved my financially disadvantaged self. I rely on this coffee to get me through my workday to the point where having a Panera in the area is a part of my conditions for grad school applications. So, the upcoming change is really freaking me out.

I'm instituting temporary measures - I'll earn the extra $4 daily expense easily by doing surveys, and I'll look into caffeine replacement pills. But coffee generally does far more than me than caffeine alone, so I don't expect my Panera dependency to change.

In my coffee research, I've been bothered by the long-standing question of just why is Panera's coffee so strong? Like I know there's a lot of caffeine this doesn't feel like caffeine alone, they must use Robusta, or roast it differently to incidentally maximize the extraction of other alkaloids, or add something else. Do they add something else? I'm not even mad, I just really would like to know. Ordinary coffee wakes me up but just one sip of this stuff is like crack and it's glorious even though it tastes like ass.

I hate feeling like I have to be my own doctor. Luckily I just found an amazing PCP, but what I need are a decent allergist and an ENT.

I've been interrupted so many damn times when trying to provide relevant info or correct a misunderstanding, that the advice I get is essentially useless. I had one guy insist that my that one medication hadn't been available for 20 years. I'm gearing up to go full Karen because my allergies are ruining my life, meds aren't helping, and I need help NOW. It shouldn't be this hard!

I've gotten reactions ranging from dismissal to arguing (about MY symptoms) to sympathetic skepticism. I'm not sure which one makes me madder. The more I emphasize how much I need a solution, the less sympathetic they are and the lonelier I feel. At this rate, I won't even get the help I need until I go into a full-blown crisis.

Maybe it's me, maybe it's my ADHD (and possible Aspergers) affecting how I communicate. All I know is that I go in thinking 'here we go, time to figure this out' and I leave no closer to meaningful help than when I started. I keep feeling like I'm the one having to research potential treatments, potential avenues to explore, and it feels ridiculous trying to bring these up to a doctor like I'm directing how things should go. I shouldn't have to! There's no big mystery to my issues (inner ear problems, I'm pretty sure, but no one's actually looked!), it's just that no one hears me out, and despite having great insurance I don't have the funds to search for different specialists.

I've been stuck on persona verification for months now and I just got the option to retry it. Everything went fine until the end, when it said I failed. The reason given on the website is 'We detected a VPN or a proxy'.

I wasn't using either of those, just wifi. Has anyone else had this issue? I'm nervous because I only have one more try available, and support has never responded so I don't expect help from them.

Hi! 24F looking for a room to rent starting August 1st ($1500 at an absolute max when my current lease ends). I really need somewhere that's clean and mold-free, because my current place is giving me nonstop sinus infections and messing up my health and sleep (please dm especially if you have CIRS or are familiar with it). Central AC preferred but not required, it just needs to be clean and/or recently renovated! Prefer month-to-month/sublet but I am also willing to sign a lease for up to a year.

I work in Manhattan and don't have a car, so I would need to be reasonably near public transport, but I am open to Queens/Long Island, or Brooklyn, as well! I'm clean and I keep to myself, friendly but respectful of personal space. I don't have pets, and I don't smoke. Please message if you have any leads!

 NYC, Manhattan. A few months ago I took over the lease in an apartment that looked really nice, but I guess I didn't look closely enough. Some towels were hiding a ton of mold on the bathroom door. I took closer look at everything. Not only do BOTH bathrooms have mold, but there's black specks on the HVAC in the common area and specks on the wall. The previous tenants hadn't cleaned in months, and apparently the kitchen got the same treatment. I scraped years of grease off of the stove which was (and still is) swarming with roaches, and I found a ton of silt and dead roach parts behind kitchen appliances. No wonder I'm having debilitating health problems. The leaking dishwasher at night also warped the floorboards so there's probably mold in the walls too.

The only issue is, I can't afford to move. The end of the lease is coming up and I'm so stressed because I need to find 3 new roommates soon, or find a safe clean room to live in. I'd stay if the mold would get cleaned up, but... the landlord said that because I moved into an occupied apartment (his words, email), it was between me and my roommates to take care of. Is this right? I didn't keep pushing because I thought I'd find a new place, but I can't, but I can't just re-sign the lease for a moldy apartment. I'm barely functional right now, my job is on the line, and I have no family support.

What can I do? The landlord did offer to have a cleaning lady look at the bathroom vents, but I would have to pay for that. And he insists 'it's clearly not on the ceiling' when it definitely is! He just won't listen when I tell him that it's more than just the bathrooms. I've tried to clean the mold myself in both rooms and it just keeps coming back.

I want to do a PhD, and I know exactly what I want to study (applied math, dynamical systems and complexity). I want this more than anything in the world. But I'm underqualified. I realized the extent of my math interest very late in my bio b.s. and only had time to change my specialty to comp bio with a minor in physics (I just barely missed the full major). I was planning to compromise with a quant bio degree and took a 2-yr lab job accordingly, but my experience has only increased my awareness that this field is not where my interests lie. I've sort of known for a long while actually, but I was in denial because I didn't think it could ever happen (health-related, hard to explain). So my research background is weak (though not totally devoid of relevance) and of the two professors who might have provided very good letters, one is DEAD and the other ghosted me 2 years ago, and I suspect his reputation would damage my application anyway.

Getting a research-oriented master's first would be the perfect solution, but I can't afford a freaking master's. I had a brief run of homelessness last year and with my trash wages in an HCOL city, I have no savings. I have debilitating allergies, digestive problems, and sleep dysregulation, so I need health insurance. I have loans to pay too, I owe the IRS big time bc work screwed up my taxes and also a nasty personal loan I took on to get out of homelessness.

If I'm going to make a move, it needs to be now. I applied to audit some key courses at a nearby university, shore up my prereqs and try to get a good rec letter. Prep for the math GRE. Reach out to potential advisors. But I'm so scared that with academia in the state it's in now, I'll be in for an even worse application cycle than I would otherwise. Especially going up against people who've already published in their field. But a pile of debt for a just a master's, even a funded one, would actually be bad for me.

I'm typing like a caveman because I'm stressed and I don't know what to do.