u/Suffering-Servant

My gf loves musical theater. I told her I’ve never really been into musicals.

She showed me some before I saw phantom, Jersey boys and Book of Mormon and I didn’t care for either. I knew the phantom was one of the universal monsters from the silent film and a figure of classical literature but not much else and I recognized the half face mask was attributed to him.

She showed me the 2004 movie as my introduction to it and I loved it. We then went to Masquerade and I ended up reading the book and this Halloween we’ll be Phantom and Christine.

She thought that by getting me into POTO, I’d enjoy other musicals so we watched Les Mis and didn’t care for it and Hades Town which was cute but still didn’t do anything for me. I told her I think I’m just a POTO fan and not necessarily a musical theater fan. I love Batman but that doesn’t mean I like every other DC character.

I don’t even know where to start. Last year in March I was diagnosed with IBD. I was having mild GI issues for a year and kept putting it off until they got worse. Saw a GI who could see me the soonest and got a colonoscopy. I remember being in recovery still high on anesthesia and the doctor said I have Ulcerative Colitis. My response was “okay so how do we fix it?” She said it’s an autoimmune disease and I’ll be on medication for the rest of my life. In that moment I felt like my whole world shattered. I was 25, healthy and in good shape, regularly exercised, didn’t have a bad diet and I get this.

July 1st I start feeling really bad. Within weeks I lost 30lbs, became dehydrated, anemic, malnourished, 20+ BMs day and night, it became so painful I’d have to lay on the bathroom floor after each time because I couldn’t walk. I tried sleeping in the bathroom with how many times I had to go. I also had a fever, and a severe cough that would make me vomit if I even had anything in my stomach. I was hoping every single day that I would just die.

This lasted all the way through September and during this whole time I couldn’t get in touch with my doctor. Her nurse at her office just kept putting me on medications, basically throwing shit at the wall and seeing what would stick. Nothing was working. I was on cough medicine, nausea medicine, steroids, suppositories, anti inflammatories. I eventually had to go to the ER since they were worried about the fever.

I go to the ER, turns out I had Covid which set off the flare. I finally get in touch with my doctor who was out of town and hadn’t been updated on what was going on. When I saw her in person she was shocked at my appearance. I looked like a corpse. She assured me I was her top priority right now and things are going to get better. A week later I get a call from her office that next time she’ll be able to see me was a month later.

At this point I was done with them. I was able to get into a specialty group that specializes in IBD and they found I actually had Crohn’s not UC. So they get me straightened out with a biologic and I’ve been fine since.

Fast forward to October, I get a piss poor mid year review at my job that I’ve been at since Dec 2024 and told I haven’t been meeting expectations despite it being a part time entry level job and I haven’t received any training. I double down and try even harder at my job and eventually get laid off in November.

So now I’ve been unemployed for months, applying to anything I think I qualify for. I get a call from a really good local company for an interview in February. I gave them my availability and they ghosted me for a couple months. I followed up multiple times through phone and email and eventually got a rejection email. By this point I start feeling depressed, stressed and agitated. I’m still living with my parents at 26, all my friends and gf’s friends are getting married and buying homes and in their careers.

Mar 1st I snapped and punched a wall and had to go to the ER. The ER told me it was just soft tissue damage and 6 weeks it’ll heal. I had a follow up with a PA a few days later and she said the same thing. It’s now late April and I still am not healed. I followed up with an ortho and as it turns out my hand is broken and I need to have surgery. The ortho even said this could’ve been a simpler fix if initially found but because it started healing I’ll need a plate.

So that’s where I am now. There’s even more details of things that have stressed me out and led to me losing my temper but this is the summarized version of everything.