u/BuddyWitty3779

i’m currently volunteering at the animal shelter for a few hours per day to try and get my stamina up a bit because i am seeking a job after being unemployed and bedridden for months. i’m about 340 lbs and 5’5, female. god i’m covered in sweat after working in the shelter for only an hour and i feel so extremely sick. i want to give up so bad. it feels so humiliating to be so exhausted while everyone else is just fine working for hours without breaking a sweat. i need advice please

we have mattresses bc it would be uncomfortable and painful if we slept on the floor or on a hard surface. even some mattresses give some people soreness and discomfort. so why is it so easy for my cat to just take a nap on the floor or the windowsill and he’s not sore at all? lots of other animals are just fine doing it as well. why do people need ultra soft padding to sleep comfortably?

I got my first 2 cats from the shelter last year in december. (I was like freshly 19 and just got my first apartment, and was never allowed by parents to have cats, couldn’t decide between 2 shelter cats so I got them both.) I was told they were ‘microchipped’ and for some reason at first I thought that meant they could be GPS tracked. Obviously I immediately found out it’s just to be scanned if I’ve lost one of them and someone finds them and scans their chips to return to me.

Is it possible to have a pet microchip that you can actually track them live? If there’s not, then why isn’t it possible? I know theres collars with tracking but I feel like they’re so bulky on cats, and personally my cats didn’t like wearing collars so they’ve been naked lol. I’m not extremely worried about it bc I’m careful when opening and closing doors so they don’t get lost but It’s something I’ve been curious about if it’s a thing or not

I’m 19F. I spent ~2.5 years inpatient across ~10 separate admisssions to 6 different psych facilities between the ages of 11-16. (2018-2022). 2 of them were long term residentials which took up the main majority of those 2.5 years. (3 were hospitals, 1 was a rehab facility owned by the same company as one of my residentials)

I remember always thinking that prison or jail would genuinely be better than what I was experiencing. But I never said it out loud, because I hadn’t actually experienced jail or prison, so how would I know if they’re comparable?

Well, last year I got arrested at 18 with 2 felony charges and 4 misdemeanors. One of my drunk TTI friends called the cops for a welfare check on me mistakenly thinking I was suicidal for not answering her calls. The cops came and my dad led them to my bedroom. We talked for awhile and then they asked my dad for permission to search my room. He gave them consent not knowing he was even allowed to say no apparently.

They found 14 grams of mushrooms, a half full bottle of vodka, an empty bong and dab rig, a scale, dead nicotine vapes, empty thc carts, my grinder, and empty baggies with a very trace amount of marijuana residue. I got 2 counts of possession of a controlled substance for the shrooms and thc concentrates (even though that was residual), a misdemeanor for marijuana possession (also residual), 2 misdemeanors for having tobacco and alcohol products underage, and a misdemeanor for drug paraphernalia. It was insanely unfair, in my opinion. I unironically got a felony possession charge for having empty carts with trace amounts of thc. (I’m serious too, I was a fiend, I’d smoke them til they were GONE gone.) Yes, it was a small rural county sheriff btw.

Absolutely crazy to me how you’re going to come to an 18 year old girl’s house on a welfare check and arrest her on felony charges for weed particles. I was just getting ready to leave for college too. I fucking HATE cops with a burning passion deep within my soul. Anyways

I went to jail, and was put on suicide watch which was super unwarranted as I was adamant I wasn’t at risk and had no risky behavior. They stripped me naked in the drunk tank for 24 hours. After that, I was put in with other women who were a lot older than me. They were super kind and helped me out a lot. One lady even gave me her paid phone calls. The food was the exact same as TTI food. I found that it was actually a walk in the park compared to residential treatment. I got to sit around and watch tv, sleep as much as I wanted, and draw on paper. It was super chill. My only complaint was that the beds were basically plastic mats and my back hurt pretty bad after. It’s jail tho, I don’t expect much better. I’ve slept on concrete floors in rtc before while in ‘timeout’, so this was still better in comparison.

It felt weirdly validating that I could now confidently say that jail is soooo much better than adolescent treatment facilities lmfao.

TW for sexual abuse.

I was here for a year and a half, from 2021-2022. I had my 15th and 16th bday here. Shortly before I got admitted, a girl named Aerial committed suicide in my hallway, across from the room I got put in days after it happened. It was completely at the fault of negligent staff members. She had been asking for help in feeling suicidal all day, then staff left her alone for a long period of time in her bedroom where she took her life.

https://www.dakotanewsnow.com/2024/04/04/death-state-youth-custody-mom-speaks-out-after-settlement/?outputType=amp

https://www.facebook.com/share/19d7sDXSxX/?mibextid=wwXIfr

I have so many beyond fucked up stories from this place and I still have nightmares, and I’ve been out for nearly 4 years. My facility technically specialized in treating sexual abuse victims AND perpetrators. (Although the place also ‘treated’ kids with all kinds of behavioral/mental/substance issues.) Many higher up staff said that it’s good to put abuse victims together with abuse perpetrators so they can learn things from eachother.

There was no professional therapy/therapists at my facility. The way it was supposed to work, is that you’re in a group of 10-12 other kids, and they are meant to listen to you vent/talk and give you advice and feedback. We were forced to share our deepest darkest traumas to a group of 10+ other kids and all the staff members. That was the ‘therapy’. We also were forced to ask eachother permission to do anything. For example, if I wanted to use the restroom, I’d have to stand up wherever we were and loudly ask the entire room if anyone objected to me using the bathroom. Everyone would have to say no or yes, like a group vote. (It wasn’t even majority rule though, it had to be unanimous. If ONE person voted no, it was a no.) This went for any and everything in the entire program, things as small as using the bathroom or getting a drink of water, sitting down or leaning against the wall, or getting up to grab a pencil, and things as big as being able to see your family or go home, and absolutely EVERYTHING inbetween. We were also tasked with holding eachother accountable and giving eachother consequences. The staff’s job was (technically) purely to document every detail of every day on a clipboard. (And also restrain kids, of course). Everything else was up to us. It felt like a sick game. You were especially supposed to be the rule enforcer / group leader if you had been there the longest, and would get punished by higher up staff for not holding others accountable or giving feedback. If you refused any of this, you wouldn’t ever progress in the program.

There was even a rule in my facility where you could ask group vote to ‘intervene’. Intervening was basically used as another word for masturbating. The reason they said intervene though, was because by asking permission to masturbate, you’re ‘intervening on sexual urges.’’. If everyone voted yes, you’d get allowed 15 minutes in the shower with a staff member stationed in the bathroom to verbally check on you every few minutes. After the ‘intervention’, we were forced to sit in a group circle, and the person who intervened would have to tell the group what they thought about IN DETAIL while masturbating and the method they used to masturbate. (clitoral stimulation, anal stimulation, vaginal penetration, etc). When I was one of the group leaders who had been there the longest I was literally forced to interrogate a younger girl about how she liked to masturbate in front of a group of people when she didn’t want to talk about it. I felt fucking sick and like a predator. This is only the beginning too, I promise. I’d have to write for hours to tell about every injustice and cruelty only during my 1.5 year stay.

According to staff, the place has been open since the 90s and has had kids there from all around the US and somehow, I haven’t EVER heard anyone talk about it, on here or on any other TTI forum or community. I’m desperately hoping I can reach other people who have been to this place, please. I’m hoping this can get some upvotes + shares + comments so the algorithm pushes it to a wider audience here. I feel crazy that I’ve never seen anyone talk about this abhorrent facility but I’ve heard countless stories of other facilities.

I love to kiss my cat on his head. I’m sure most cat owners do. Do our cats know it’s a gesture of affection? Or do they just think we’re weird

edit: someone asked for cat tax and it’s posted on my profile hehehe

Hello, I fear I might get torn apart with this one, as I know how a lot of the general public feels about fat people. Please just hear me out before being unkind.

Notoriously, people love to bully obese people. Use them as lolcows. I see it constantly on social media and in real life too.

Yes, being obese is really unhealthy and it decreases your lifespan and increases your risk of diseases. Yes, often times it is considered an issue with self control around food.

If you’ve ever heard some stories from some of these very obese people though, more often than not they have eating disorders that cause them to severely over-eat. Food, especially shitty american junk food loaded with sugar, gives you a big dopamine boost. Pretty much anything that provides a dopamine boost can be behaviorally addictive. We have gambling addicts, sex addicts, porn addicts, masturbation addicts, social media addicts, gaming addicts, adrenaline junkies, I could go on. It’s the same with food addiction. Then you have chemical addictions like drugs and alcohol, which are a bit different so not 100% comparable, but sort of.

So you have these obese people getting torn to shreds in social media comment sections, or called out in person, for being fat. The offenders like to claim the reason for being so rude is “Well, it’s unhealthy to be fat”

Yes it’s unhealthy to be fat, everyone knows this. It’s also unhealthy to be an alcoholic, or a drug addict, or a sex addict… I won’t go down the list again. Very likely the people bullying fat people also have their own unhealthy vice, which in my opinion, makes them hypocritical for claiming they’re only being so harsh because being fat is unhealthy.

These people usually don’t ACTUALLY care about fat people’s poor health, they use that as a shield to be ignorant and put big people down to make themselves feel better.

And why are fat people with binge eating disorders treated so badly while people with anorexia are infantilized and worried about? Or even praised in some cases?

Obviously it’s not all black and white and you do infact have people bullying anorexics and drug addicts and whatever else, but from what I’ve seen it’s always been worse towards fat people. They get the least amount of empathy despite also often having a disorder, addiction, or at the very least are going through some shit. Why? They’re not hurting anyone, just struggling like everyone else.

edit: I want to clarify I’m talking about actual morbidly obese people. Depending on your height and muscle mass, that can start around 250-280 lbs at the low end of morbid obesity. To be morbidly obese, the majority of the time there really is a serious mental health issue/disordered eating at play, not just a little bit of lack of self control. (Unless of course there is a physical health/medical issue causing uncontrollable weight gain and/or near impossible weight loss, which is absolutely a thing)

I’m curious how step parenting works as I’ve had a couple dates with guys who had young kids but didn’t end up dating further.

Say I started dating a parent and it’s going well, and we hit it off. We’re together for several months. I meet the child. The relationship progresses to us living together. What if I don’t want kids myself but am okay with dating someone with a kid, therefore I don’t really take on big parenting responsibilities. Or maybe I take on some of the smaller things, but I’m not really acting as a second parent. Is that considered a shitty thing to do? When you date someone with a child is it usually an unspoken thing that you are also going to fully take care of the child, even if the other parent is equally as active in their life through coparenting?

Obviously tons of step parents willingly take in the child as one of their own which is great. But what if they don’t necessarily want the duties of diapers, driving to school, attending school meetings, cleaning up messes, etc. Is that a dynamic that cannot work?

I’m 19 and pretty inexperienced with relationships and havent been around kids much in my life either, I’m just curious how stuff like that goes lol

edit:
I’ve said it in the comments like 10 times at this point, but I gotta clear some stuff up

I’m a girl. And I have a childfree boyfriend of 7 months whom I live with and plan on staying with. I have no interest in EVER dating a person with kids. This question is purely hypothetical and I’m literally just wondering how specific relationship dynamics come to be, and what’s normal, and whats abnormal. it has nothing to do with any real person or situation.

Stop making assumptions and twisting my words.😭 People are acting as if I’m going out of my way to date a parent so I can abuse their kid or something when it had nothing to do with me or any real situation in the first place, and I never said or alluded that it did.

One other thing, it is my mistake I believe ‘unspoken’ is not the right word. Obviously this is something verbally communicated, I more meant is it pretty much a unanimous thing that partners of parents end up taking on a parental role. Like is the opposite unheard of? I hope that describes it better

Let me explain

I’m really into oddities, taxidermy, specimens, and collecting animal bones/skulls. I’m not 100% on this, but I believe in few states it’s legal to own (ethically sourced) human bones, but in many it is illegal. I think its even more commonly illegal to SELL human bones, but it’s still done sometimes in specific states. They’re suuuuper expensive though, especially skulls.

Anyways, say I die and I want one of my loved ones to have my skull or any of my bones. Can I put that in my will? I know sometimes when you get something surgically removed or amputated you’re allowed to keep whatever you got removed because it’s YOUR body. So if it’s my body, can I give it or parts of it to someone to keep after I die? What if it was just my hair or my teeth?

Sorry this is super weird, and I’m not asking because I want to do this LOL but a very similar question got asked in an oddity group I’m in on facebook and I thought I’d ask it here because now I’m curious too

I may be totally overthinking this, it’s 1:30am and my dad’s funeral is at 1pm tomorrow.

for context, i’m 19f, my mom died 10 years ago, and my dad died last week. he was abusive and i kind of hated him. i’m not close with any of my other family at all, so i’m REALLY dreading this funeral. i don’t want to talk to anyone but i know i have to. this whole situation is just incredibly difficult for me. i have really severe anxiety and autism so thats probably half of why i’m struggling with this so bad right now. i never know what’s socially acceptable then i get so overwhelmed with anxiety because i overthink about it.

i live with my boyfriend, and he’s pretty much all i have in terms of support in my life. he’s driving me since my car is having issues and can’t do long trips, and he’s going to attend with me. there’s a potluck after it and i’m just really really dreading having to introduce my bOyFrIeNd to people that approach me at my father’s funeral. is it inappropriate? i’m such a nervous wreck right now.

i’ve had covid 5 or 6 times, somehow. i was in a troubled teen facility for the majority of the actual pandemic so it’s not like i was out and about ignoring the guidelines. but i’ve gotten it like, once a year since it started. the last time i had covid was january this year, paired with bronchitis. i seriously thought i was gonna die lol. i also had the vaccine and several boosters that did nothing for me apparently.

anyways, ever since all of this, my sense of smell is basically gone. i can smell things if i stick my nose directly in it, or sometimes i get a faint whiff of something that lasts a second, but thats it. i hate it so much. at the same time, i’m 19 going on 20 so i was 13 when the pandemic started, i don’t remember if my smell was much better before that, maybe ive always been this way. so my question is, has anyone else experienced a permanent or long term loss of smell since covid?

edit: i never really put thought into it but now that i am because of comments, i think i have other symptoms of long covid as well. i’m constantly tired and have brain fog no matter how much i sleep, i kind of assumed it was depression related, (it still might be?) but this also adds up. i’m going to talk to my doctor next time i see her

I understand not wanting to smoke it or be around someone who is actively smoking it. but in my experience, i had many people who didn’t want to date me or even be my friend for that sole reason. and i’m not a super heavy smoker either. i guess when i’m struggling harder with my depression i’ll smoke everyday, but on average its a couple times a week. yet it makes people so uncomfortable just knowing it’s something i do. why?

i try to surround myself with people who will be a better influence on me, people who i can learn good lessons from. i’ve had a troubled life and am still working hard to better myself and my life. ive also had a ton of really shitty friends. but i often have gotten rejected by new peers/romantic interests because i smoke weed or i drink. (drinking an even more occasional thing, more like once or twice a month)

i should add that i quit smoking, drinking, and vaping 6 months ago, because of this. i was tired of being shunned by people.

edit: i’d like to add that i can understand also not wanting to date/be friends with someone who is addicted to it and lets it control their life and affect their relationships. someone who smokes all day without being productive. some people are like that with weed, i don’t disagree. i had an ex who smoked multiple times per day and prioritized it over everything and it wasn’t for me.

but i hate the assumption that anyone who smokes is like that. it’s like saying someone who has a glass of wine or 2 on fridays is a hardcore alcoholic. or someone who enjoys having a beer with dinner is a hardcore alcoholic. there’s levels to it, and limits, like with everything. and i think its unfair to judge so quickly :/

tbh i have no idea what i’m doing i just got recommended this service. i am on windows and using free proton vpn. when i was trying to use the torrent version the movie wouldn’t load at all, but i switched to direct streaming and got my movie to actually start but it’s buffering every few seconds. why?

i originally posted this on r/nostupidquestions (since i feel like it is kind of a silly question. please be nice to me) but it got removed for ‘illegal activities’. so here’s me reposting it here:

my whole life i’ve just watched movies on free movie websites with no issues. the only time i’ll pay for a streaming service is to watch a series that i can’t find anywhere else online.

i live with my boyfriend now, and he insists we pay to rent/buy movies all the time because he’s afraid of getting in trouble. one time he caught me pirating a movie and got kinda upset with me since it’s his wifi he’d be the one to get in trouble. it’s especially frustrating because we’re really tight on money and i’m really into watching movies as one of my hobbies. i forget the specific details of what happened, but he has this story of when he was younger where he got in trouble with law enforcement because he was pirating games and they sent a letter or showed up at his grandparent’s door or something like that? i forget what specifically happened but he swears he got in trouble for pirating video games. i have little experience with pirating actual games besides one instance, so i don’t know how different it is.

i’m wondering if it was because he was downloading games? vs just watching a movie on a browser tab with adblockers and not downloading anything.

any insight, answers, or anecdotes on this?

edit: we live in the united states

i only attended university for a single semester as a freshman last august-december. i had this seminar class that was centered around learning about modern technology. our professor required us to purchase chatgpt 5, in the same way other professors were requiring textbook purchases, and walked us through customizing it and everything. (by the way, it was a fancy rich kid university that i could afford purely with scholarships, loans, and grants. i was extremely poor at the time and could barely afford any of my class required materials, it felt like a slap in the face being forced to waste my money on ai.)

he would have the class openly discuss reasons why ai could be good or bad and i was often the only one in my class who ever had anything negative to say about it, it was so bizzare. a guy in my class even mentioned how it would be cool if ai started generating movies and that became the norm. like wtf? you seriously want ai to take over the film industry? i was so disgusted. the professor also wanted to get rid of our campus library completely and turn it all digital. i ended up skipping that class all the time because ew. it’s so insane to me how so many people love ai so much and see absolutely nothing wrong with it.

as someone who has been fat my whole life i’ve always thought about just cutting all my fat off. obviously that’s probably disordered thinking or something but idk. if theres procedures like lipo/bbl/body sculpting why cant they remove like, 50 or 100lbs worth of fat off someone? like an obese person becoming skinny from just a surgery. what makes it impossible?

i’m 19f, i have autism, major depressive disorder, generalized anxiety disorder, and cptsd.

since i was 16 i’ve had like, 10 ish jobs and all of them i ghosted within a couple weeks except for one. the one i kept for longest was when i was still living with my dad and i worked at mcdonalds for about 8 months minus a 3 month mental health absence leave (i had a really severe depressive episode and almost killed myself). i liked that job alot because it was in a smallish town, all my coworkers and managers were nice to me, there was always something to do ( i hate standing around and being bored at work), and i knew how to do pretty much everything easily. i ended up getting fired because a customer cussed me out over the headset and i very impulsively and accidentally said a swear word at him back without even processing what i was saying. even though i had no write ups or had ever been in trouble there i still got instantly fired. i was so sad i cried about it. that was last year in july. i’ve had a couple jobs since then but i can never seem to keep them.

i get so overwhelmed and stressed in these new places it’s unbearable. i feel like everyone is staring at me and judging me and i feel so stupid. my last job was at hobby lobby and i worked there for like a week before having a panic attack in the bathroom 45 minutes into my shift and then leaving before the end of my shift and not coming back.

the problem is i don’t really have a safety net like youd think i would being unemployed for so long. i moved out of my dads house last year and was doing doordash while living in a college dorm for awhile, then i met my boyfriend and started living with him in february this year. i’m constantly severely struggling with my mental health and he’s so so so mean to me about it. he yells at me about bedrotting and not having a job and i feel so worthless and sad. i wish i could just operate normally like everyone else. if i can’t live with him i have nowhere else to go, i’ll be homeless. i want away from him because he makes me so sad with how he talks to me but i have no money and nowhere to go.

hello! i’m 19 and rented my first apartment in december. i’m a felon (marijuana charge) and also poor with little to no financial support from anyone else so it was super hard to find an apartment to begin with. before i tell you how bad this place is, i want you to know i was super desperate after already getting rejected at other places and was also really naive and oblivious to the red flags.

my ‘apartment’ is just a tiny basement in a tiny house thats split into 3 units. its $650 a month and i pay utilities as well. there’s a small bedroom with no door and a bathroom. the walls are mostly concrete. there’s huge gaping holes in 2 of the windowsills. theres absolutely no insulation and wintertime was horribly cold because of that. at first i kept telling myself though that it’s fine because it’s better than being homeless. i also for some reason didn’t think it was actually that bad. again, my first ever apartment.

i started dating my boyfriend in february and upon him being horrified at how ghetto my ‘apartment’ was he started letting me stay with him and i slowly moved in with him and now i practically live there instead.

i also adopted 2 cats from the shelter when i first moved in (i’ve been a huge cat lover my whole life and have never been able to have one, i couldn’t resist adopting :’)) and before i started realizing how bad the place was. in a way i regret doing that now because i feel like a terrible pet owner. but i love them so much. so even though i don’t fully live in the unit i go there for around 4-6 hours everyday to feed them, play with them, clean their litter box, and make sure they have a clean fountain with clean water.

so here’s where it gets bad. whenever there’s been heavy rain in the past couple months, my bedroom floods. i lost lots of my belongings to water damage. there’s mold in the closet. and now a really bad earwig/gnat infestation. i hate being in there at all because of the bugs, the humidity, and the smell. and i feel absolutely awful for my kitties. i cry all the time because of the stress of this situation mostly for my pets.

i’ve been messaging with the landlord about getting it fixed and they’re dragging their feet. i really want to terminate this lease but i don’t know if it’s even possible and if it was, i don’t know what i’d do with my cats. it’s not possible to move them into my boyfriend’s apartment. and i also lost my job a couple weeks ago so i’m struggling with rent too as a cherry on top.

genuinely, what do i even do?

edit: i’m currently urgently looking for someone to foster my cats until i get a new place + and i’m trying to leave before the end of the weekend if possible. and i want to clarify that the conditions became unlivable AFTER i had adopted the cats, i wouldn’t have adopted animals if it was this bad to begin with and it’s only gotten bad recently. i’m not abusing them and i’m doing the best for them with what i have, please be kind. i promise i already feel horrible about it and i don’t need to be told off anymore about it.