u/Majestic_Jazz_Hands

As the title says. I’m finding it impossible to get anything that doesn’t require a bunch of personal information, “delivery costs” things like that. Just looking to do this the old school way. Meet you somewhere. Transaction is done.

Hey everyone, I’m trying to see if anyone else has experienced this and/or if anyone has any tips for getting out of this rut.

I’ve just hit my 28th year of tattooing and will admit that for the last few years I’ve been struggling with both burnout, my mental health, and trying to get through a number of serious life stressors over the last couple of years. When I say life stressors, I mean some incredibly difficult, life changing experiences where a number a good deal of time I’ve felt like I was in “survival mode” just trying to get through one crisis until the next crisis hits. And to be fully transparent, I really struggle with depression, AuADHD and serious CPTSD.

The problem is that art has always been cathartic for me when going through stuff. But as I said in the title, I feel like I’ve completely lost my creativity. I can’t tell you guys how many I’ve tried to sit down and draw something and I have absolutely zero idea what to even try to make that isn’t just redundant shit like roses and things like that. On the rare occasions when I have started to create something, I completely lose interest in it after a short while. Other part of this is after I spend my day drawing stuff for other people, it kind of feels like the last thing I want to do in my free time is more drawing.

I hate this. I feel like this massive part of my identity died. I know I need to get my mental health under control but that’s simply not doable at this point.

Has anyone else experienced this? How did you get out of this rut? I’m completely open to any and all suggestions or advice! Please share with any kind of tips, no matter how small. I’m open to every and all suggestions. TIA!!

Trying to find someone reliable

Although the song (both the German and English versions) came out in 1983 (during the Cold War, by the German band Nena) still gets played on the radio to this day. It’s also been covered a *lot*, mostly by punk bands which is where this Gen Xer heard it first as it was covered by one of my all time favorite punk bands, 7 Seconds (which I still stand behind saying did the best cover of).

But a lot of people don’t know the actual meaning behind the song. After I learned what this song was about, I asked others who knew the song if they actually knew what it was about and most people thought it was about a non-existent World War Three or the end of the world. They were right, in a way, but they were also wrong.

The song, written by guitarist Carlo Karges, wrote the song after watching a massive group of balloons get released into the sky. As he watched them float over the Berlin Wall, he wondered what would happen if these balloons crossed into Soviet controlled airspace and triggered military panic, where a person see these 99 red balloons in the sky and mistakenly think it’s an alien invasion. Military jets, seeing the balloons on radar but finding nothing once they are dispatched into the skies, put on a display of hostile force.

Karges took the spark of imagination and wrote this cautionary tale about how something so innocuous as a group of balloons could cause nations to panic, where military actions then spiral out of control which causes the entire rest of the world spiral out of control until it culminates into an apocalyptic nuclear war.

The song itself is a dark, satirical anti-war anthem. At the end of the song, a person who survives in the now nuclear wasteland that is earth finds a red balloon, and lets it go to fly away into the air, as it was intended to- to float in around in the sky, seeing it for what it was the whole time. A small burst of color in the grey skies in a world that probably no longer exists or even remembers the original group of red balloons that were only released into the sky to bring smiles to the faces that saw them but instead triggered mass panic of an alien invasion.

This particular glitch of mine is incredibly boring and mundane but nonetheless, it happened and I do not know what to make of it. Because the second part of this is that as soon as I realized that I had two of the exact same things, I left the room only to find just one of them there.

And heads up now, this is probably one of the lamest, stupidest glitches that have ever happened.

I like to wear bandannas (kinda 1950’s style where the wider part of the folded bandanna goes on the bottom back of the head and gets tied on top of the head. So I have a lot of them, but I know for a damn fact I never owned two of this same particular one, which also happens to be my favorite one because it’s black with a bunch of white skulls on it.

This part is important: I moved up to this state almost 11 years ago and since this was my favorite bandanna, I brought it up here from NY. I have a bunch of other bandannas like this, black with white skulls on them, but they don’t look anything like this particular, old favorite one of mine.

So a few days ago, I’m sitting on my bed getting ready for work and I have this bandanna sitting on the bed in front of me like 3 inches away from me. My hair brush slipped off the side of the bed so I got down to pick it up and I glanced under my bed and see another black bandanna with skulls on it. So I grab it and put it on the bed next to my original bandanna so that they’re side by side and then I really look at them. I untie both of them and spread them out so that both of these bandannas are spread out in two squares side by side.

They are completely identical. Even down to the small hole near the edge of a corner where I stupidly, instead of getting scissors and cutting it off, I decided to just pull it off which resulted in creating a small hole towards one of the corners.

This duplicate one had the exact same hole as the other. I have NO IDEA WHERE THE FUCK THIS SECOND IDENTICAL BANDANNA CAME FROM! Especially considering that I bought the first one in another state that’s a 7 hour drive each way AND I bought the first one 11 AND A HALF YEARS AGO! So where the fuck did this second identical one come from?!?

And just when I think it can’t get any weirder, I had to step out of my room for a few minutes, leaving the two bandannas next to each other on my bed.

Tell me why I come back into my room ten minutes later AND THE SECOND FUCKING BANDANNA IS JUST FUCKING GONE???? I’m the only one in my house when all this was happening, so it’s not a case that someone came in and “borrowed” it from me.

I search everywhere for it, under my bed, all around the bed on all sides, under my bed and every inch of my bedroom. This stupid thing is just GONE. And I’ve yet to find it again since this whole thing happened.

I can’t explain it. I don’t hallucinate. I remember holding it my hand and looking at it as I looked back and forth between the original and this one to see if every single part of it was identical, which it was. And it sure as hell seems like it just upped and disappear.

So my questions are: 1. what in the actual hell just happened?
2. Where the hell did the second one go???
3. Why the fuck can’t I experience these things with MONEY???!!!😂

TW: drug use, death

About 8 years ago, I worked for a shop that was in a 3 story house from the 1800’s. My bedroom was in the finished attic and I shared a bathroom, kitchen, and living room with my boss’s daughter (I’m going to refer to her as Emily, but her name is not as common as Emily) and her boyfriend.

Their bedroom, the kitchen, bathroom and living room were on the second floor, but the area designated as the living room was actually once a bedroom so it had its own door. I never hung out in there as I’m kind of a private person who enjoys spending my time alone. Also, to go to the bathroom or kitchen, you wouldn’t be able to see anything in the living room from the way the house was laid out.

One Saturday night I came down to the second floor to use the bathroom around 9 pm. The house was dark, quiet and the alarm was set. Emily and her boyfriend were in their early 20’s and, especially on weekends, if they’re home, you *know* they’re home. They’d have the lights on, it’d be loud, they’d have a bunch of their friends over. So this particular night, since it was dark and quiet, I just figured they’d gone out for the night. I went back upstairs and went back to sleep.

Around 3, I woke up again, and again I went downstairs to use the bathroom but this time when I went downstairs, the lights were on and there’s a bunch of cops and EMT’s. I scared the shit out of them as much as they scared the shit out of me. They didn’t even know I was up there. I asked what is going on and they just kept telling me that I had to go downstairs immediately, I couldn’t be up here. I went downstairs and find Emily’s boyfriend and some more cops.

Long story short, I didn’t know this but Emily had relapsed on heroin. I also didn’t know it, but she had been on the living room couch the whole time I was home. She overdosed and died on the couch. I truly had no idea she was even home, the living room was dark, no lights were on, the tv was off. Nonetheless, I felt absolutely horrible that I didn’t know she was home and needed lifesaving help. The guilt from this still gets to me but it was especially bad the first couple of years after it happened.

Fast forward about 3 years. I moved out of that house and the shop ended up closing. But I still had my doctors office in the town where she died and this house is on a main road. So I have to drive past it every time I come and go from that doctors office. This particular day, I was thinking about her, mourning her. Because she died a few weeks before her 21st birthday and it was around the time of her birthday. She was beautiful and sweet and so very talented and she deserved to have a long and happy life.

As I’m leaving from my doctors appointment, the house she died in is now on my left hand side and there’s a road on the right. All of a sudden this car just really abruptly cuts in front of me super fast and I had to slam on my brakes so I wouldn’t rear end it. I’m looking at the back of this car right in front of me, as we’re now right in front of the house and there’s a bumper sticker on it that says “Emily” with a pink heart around it. No other stickers on this car except this single one.

I can’t even start to think of the odds of this happening the way it did at the exact time did and where it happened. Nonetheless, it was comforting to me and I took it as a sign from her. I truly hope she’s at peace, I still remember her and keep her in my heart.

TL;DR at the bottom, but there’s a lot of pertinent details in the actual post.

I’ve experienced some really weird things in life but I’ve never experienced something like this. I know people can sometimes start kind of day dreaming and lose track of time, suddenly catch themselves doing it and realize time went by while they were on autopilot. That wasn’t what happened here. I was very very focused on where I was and what was going on around me.

I’ve lived up here for almost 11 years, I’ve traveled this same highway, gone this same exit route more times than I can count. So it wasn’t a GPS glitch or me being somewhere where I don’t know the roadways or accidentally getting lost. Bright blue skies too, so no bad weather obscuring signs.

It was still daylight and I was driving to my friends house. From where I was to where my friend lives, the exit numbers go down. I had to get off at exit 5 which is on the right side. Exit 5 then separates into 5a and 5b, I had to get off on 5a.

Now when you have to get off onto exit 5, there’s two lanes of traffic that merge onto the highway from the right. These two lanes of merging traffic are what you have to cross over into get to exit 5a, you have to get all the way to the right hand side.

I say all this to point out that there is a lot going on in this area, there’s a lot of vehicles, you really have to pay attention to what is going on around you when you need to get off onto this exit. What was a 3 lane highway turns into a 5 lane highway at the merging area that turns into exit 5. You have to cross over two lanes to the right while those same two lanes are trying to merge left onto the highway that you were just on. You absolutely have to be mindful of everything going on around you, especially in this area.

So I just passed exit 6, I’m in the right side lane waiting to see the two lanes of traffic to appear on my right so that I could get over. I’m driving. And I’m driving. And I’m waiting. It’s still bright daylight outside, there’s a decent amount of traffic. But absolutely none of it is any kind of road construction or maintenance or utility work or police vehicle in sight (here, the law is that if there’s any kind of utility or construction work done on any road, there’s at least one cop on sight with their lights on the whole time). There was nothing to indicate that there was anything going on with exit 5 that was out of the norm.

All of a sudden I see the sign for exit 4. I’m utterly baffled. Where the fuck did exit 5 go?? I swear on my life that it was like the stretch of traffic from exit 6 to exit 4 suddenly became much longer than it usually is, like exit 5 just didn’t exist while I was driving at that time. Exit 5 comes up very quickly after exit 6, I was so confused while driving through this stretch because it seemed like it was taking so much longer to see the merging two lanes of traffic and the sign for exit 5. Neither of them appeared and then all of sudden I see the sign for exit 4.

I ended up having to get off on exit 4, turning around and going back the other way. Exit 5 came up, it wasn’t just obliterated off the face of the earth thankfully. But this all happened two days ago and I can’t stop thinking about it. There’s absolutely no reason for exit 5 and it’s two lanes of merging traffic on a major highway to just disappear in broad daylight like it never even existed.

TL;DR An exit(on a main highway in my state) the sign for the exit, and it’s two lanes of merging traffic seemed to just up and disappear in broad daylight without there being any kind of construction or closure. Was very awake, aware and paying attention. The town was not obliterated off the face of the earth when I had to turn around and get there from the opposite direction.

Lots of people like to shit on people who have septum piercings. I personally love them and I love the way they look, which is probably its own controversial opinion. But I think gold teeth look absolutely atrocious on anyone wearing them. Far, far worse than any kind of septum piercing ever will.

They look even worse when they have those bits of diamonds (or whatever it is that they put in them). They’re distracting in their ugliness. If I see someone speaking/singing/rapping/whatever while wearing them, I’m 100% not listening to a single thing coming out of their mouths other than staring at how terrible their mouth looks.

It’s not the flex people seem to think it is. Having the money to get them done doesn’t equal having good taste. Not that I’m any prize myself but if I had to choose between dating someone with gold/diamond teeth or someone with a septum piercing, it damn sure wouldn’t be the gold teeth.

It’s such an ugly, tacky, disfiguring waste of money.

I’ve written about these two experiences elsewhere as comments in different posts, but I felt the need to share them here as one complete post. And warning ahead of time, this will be quite long.

The first experience I had was when I was five and my brother was four. I need to explain the way this room was laid out as it’s important to understand the events that followed.

My brother and I shared a room, my bed was on the right and his bed was on the left side of the room. There was only one window and that faced my brother’s bed at the back wall. Our mom’s room was several feet away to the left and before where my brother’s bed was. There was absolutely nothing but woods when you looked outside our bedroom window. No lights, nothing but dense trees and darkness as far as the eye could see and no roads anywhere in those woods.

One night, very late into the night, I’m awaken by this ball of light on the wall facing me, to the left of the window. This light was not like what you would see from a flashlight or a car headlight. It was perfectly round, glowing bluish white and in a perfectly round ball. For as bright as this light was, it didn’t immediately make the entire room light up, nor did it cast any shadows like you would expect a light that bright should have if it shone on the other objects in the wall.

Quick note-about two weeks ago, I randomly watched a video about a guy who also encountered a light that he described exactly like this-incredibly bright but didn’t cast any light onto anything else or cast any shadows. And no lie, all the hairs on my arms and neck rose up when he said that because it was exactly what I saw too.

This light started to get a little bit larger and it started slowly moving around the room. Now, I’m a little kid and even if I was adult seeing this in my bedroom in the middle of the night, it would have scared the shit out of me. But two weird things happen next.

Despite my brother being several feet away, I was yelling for him to wake up, and he would not wake up. Any time in the past if something scared me in the middle of the night and I yelled for my mom, she’d instantly be there. But despite both our door and her bedroom door a few feet away being open, she also did not come when I called her. The next thing I know, this light gets bigger and bigger and bigger until all I could see was nothing but this white light.

The next thing I know, it’s morning time. I tried to explain to my mom what happened but she said she never heard me calling for her in the middle of the night.

Fast forward about 15 years. My brother and I are hanging out and we’re talking about the weirdest experiences we ever had and up until this day I thought I was the only one who experienced this. No. My brother had the exact same experience.

Except that when he looked at me that and started screaming for me to wake up, but all he saw was me still sound asleep. So while we both had this same experience, we both experienced trying to scream to get the other to wake up and to both of us it looked like the other couldn’t hear and we remained asleep.

Fast forward again to when I’m 34. I worked in a town that I’ll call M and lived in a town called R. To get home from work every night, I had to take an hour long bus from M to R. While on the bus, my roommate Elizabeth was already on it so we took the ride back home together. We got off and started walking home together.

Now the road that branches off to the one we were living on was fairly busy. It had a McDonalds, a 7-11, gas station and a fair bit of regular traffic. As we’re walking home it’s early evening but the sun was still very much out.

When we got just about to the street before our street, I remembered that I needed to stop at the store first so I told Elizabeth to go on ahead and I’ll be there in a few minutes.

The next thing I know, I’m looking up from lying on the street. It’s dark out and there’s a group of people around me that found me unconscious on this same road but a few blocks back from my street. I had already walked past these other roads when I was walking back with my roommate. I was absolutely terrified, I had no idea what was going on. They told me to just stay calm, they called 911 for me and they’d be there soon.

When the cops asked me what happened I said that I truly didn’t know. They asked me if I knew where I was. Despite being a block away from my house, nothing looked familiar. I thought I was still in town M that I worked in. I didn’t remember the bus ride with Elizabeth or what happened after that.

When these people found me unconscious, it was 5 hours later. I had five hours of completely missing time.

I went to hospital. I had a ton of tests run. I hadn’t had a seizure. There wasn’t a single thing medically wrong with me. Except that my memory, for weeks afterwards was EXTREMELY fucked up. It took me weeks to remember the bus ride back with Elizabeth and the whole walking home until I decided to run to the store first. But over ten years later, I have no idea what happened in those five hours. And where I was found in the road wasn’t in some dark, out of the way ditch. It was under a streetlight, on the road, right next to where cars would be driving by. Which is why these people stopped to help me, because they didn’t know if I had gotten hit by a car but where I was laying, it would’ve been very easy for someone to potentially run me over while I was laying on the ground.

One amusing thing about this is that I was listening to music right before I lost consciousness and the last song I was listening to was a slipknot song and the lyrics are “I will remember before I forget” l which is completely ironic considering how much I couldn’t remember what happened and how severely impacted my short term memory was after this happened.

I still don’t know what happened in those 5 hours. I don’t think I really want to either.

If you made it through this whole novel, I deeply appreciate it! Thank you!