u/That-Television-4856

For the past few months I've been dealing with a few moderate health issues. I'm in the process right now of getting them investigated, but long story short I've just generally been feeling ill a lot lately. It's mostly that I have these episodes where my stomach gets really upset and I get a bad headache, but I've also been dealing with general fatigue and brain fog pretty often too. It started mostly much back in May and seems to happen about once a week, sometimes more. I still have a lot of days where I feel normal too though.

My girlfriend has been feeling insecure about a lot of things lately, and keeps comparing herself (and me) to our friends. We're both unemployed right now, and long-distance, whereas some of our friends are like getting married and have great jobs. But in particular, she's been really fixated on weight-loss. Both of us are overweight and definitely would benefit from losing weight, but we're not obese or otherwise in bad health directly caused by our weights.

Ever since these health issues popped up, she keeps trying to convince me to make really big changes in my diet, and in a lot of ways I have. I was eating a lot of fast food previously, and generally just eating unhealthy, but I've cut down on that a lot. I've also started to eat way more fruits, vegetables, and drink a lot less soda. However, despite doing this, my health issues have persisted, and in-fact, seem to have maybe gotten worse. In some ways, I think part of my problem is that I actually may not be eating enough on a lot of days (like, less than 1000 calories). A few weeks ago after a really busy day I got myself a pizza and it was the largest meal I've eaten in a long time and despite it being a greasy pizza, I actually felt the best I've felt in quite a while that day and the next after eating it.

The other issue is that a lot of the diets and food suggestions my girlfriend talks about seem to be "fad" diets. Like for example, she has told me a bunch of times to cut out gluten, but I've been tested for Celiac disease and don't have it or any gluten intolerance. I even did still try gluten free for a few days and it had no effect.

I have some tests coming up (colonoscopy and then probably MRI) which should help to really track down what my issues are coming from. But in the meantime, is there any way to get my girlfriend to just... kinda stop with getting onto me about my diet?

Edit: So even though I maybe have been downplaying how bad my diet still is, thank you guys for calling me out on it. I kinda made this post in frustration after a conversation with my girlfriend that ended up looping back around to fad diets again. But, as I've been reading through the replies here, I do think my diet probably is a big source of my issues.

Some extra info I didn't initially include: alongside the issues I talked about, I've had some blood in my stool too, which is part of why I'm going to get a colonoscopy. Also, back in January I ended up in the ER with something that resembled a TIA/ministroke, and at the time they thought it was just dehydration, but I never got full imaging of it, and now that I have been having headaches it's why I'm going to likely be getting an MRI as well. That being said, I have already had blood work, stool samples, and urine samples all taken and everything came back shockingly normal on all of it.

I was doing the math while reading some of the replies here and honestly, I probably am not eating enough, and not getting enough nutrients. Ik some people have said I may be exaggerating the under 1000 calorie thing, and yes, on a lot of days I eat a normal amount, but there definitely are many days where I've only had like 1 light meal the entire day. In fact, there was about a whole month between late May and late June where I didn't really much at all due to a bunch of factors, and that is kinda where this all started.

I know that prices generally for everything have skyrocketed over the past few years, but it seems like ever since the pandemic literally every item related to any hobby has become so expensive. I was just doing some random eBay searches earlier for older PC games and old PCs and there's so many listings where people still want $20 or $30 (plus $10 shipping) for games that are 20 years old. Old computers, like ones running Windows XP, were listed at over $200.

I also have been getting more into sports lately and it's the same issues there. Sports jerseys and cards are all so expensive.

It sucks to finally be an adult with "adult money" and still not be able to afford anything fun.

I'm unemployed right now and have a plan through the Healthcare Marketplace, with Oscar. In general this plan has actually worked out pretty well for me, but over the past few months I started having a lot of headache and stomach issues. I think I'm finally hitting the end of figuring out what is going on, so hopefully won't have a ton more bills come in, but right now I'm looking at like probably $5k more of costs at the lowest, and already have spent about $3500. My insurance has knocked down the price a lot from the initial prices, but it's still going to be kinda expensive for me, especially since I'm not making anything and relying on some money I inherited.

Does anyone have any tips on ways to get bills lowered, even after insurance does their thing? Thankfully I'm not in like the "danger zone" of finances still even with hemorrhaging all this money, but I am worried that I'm going to burn through a ton of my savings.

I'm in my late 20s, and I still live at home with my family. About 7 years ago, right after I finished my freshman year of college, my Mom decided for some reason that she needed to get a giant purebred German Shepherd. This dog has made my life generally miserable throughout the years we've had her because she's super misbehaved: barks at everything outside, constantly wants to play, constantly wants to go outside just to come right back inside, is really aggressive if anyone visits, etc.

However, over the past year it has gotten even worse because I've been sorta struggling with moderate anxiety and the dog triggers it. I've been having some health issues in general this year that I'm still getting investigated, but it seems like I suddenly developed a combo of IBS and a headache disorder that love to trigger each other, and be triggered by stress. Oh and also, dysbiosis (an unbalanced gut microbiome) from being on antibiotics too. So in other words, I've been having quite a few "bad" days where I just generally feel unwell (although slowly I seem to be getting better thankfully).

Having this giant dog is making my anxiety issues so much worse now because of how unpredictable, loud, and impossible to calm down she is. In-particular, sometimes I get too anxious to sleep easily if I'm left alone with the dog because the dog has a tendency to freak out until like 2am whenever my Mom is away on a business trip or whatever.

Back in the late 2010s and early 2020s there was a YouTube channel/music video creation team named Overcast who worked with a bunch of hyper pop artists who went on to get really popular (brakence, glaive, ericdoa, midwxst, etc). I haven't used Twitter in a while but I remember back when I did they announced some sort of hiatus for a bit and then out of seemingly nowhere just shut down completely. It's been like 4 years now since their last video or any other sort of social media posts.

Was just wondering if anyone has any insight into whatever happened with them? I could've sworn I remembered back right before they shut down there being a tweet that two of the people in Overcast had started dating and I always wondered if maybe some sort of relationship issue popped up that exploded into the whole thing being shut down.

I was a really big fan of brakence back in the time period between punk2 and Hypochondriac, I was in college at the time and actually played a bunch of his stuff on our college radio station lol.

But, having been semi-seriously-involved with music at the time, I learned a lot about the music industry. Alongside the radio stuff, I had a handful of friends who were making music and some got contacted by labels.

I know that a lot of people think brakence hasn't been releasing any new songs because he wants to "step away" from the spotlight, but I can't help but wonder if it's actually that his label may have "shelved" him. In other words, putting roadblocks in his way of releasing music in order to pretty much take him out of the market as a competitor for their other acts. Sure enough he's appeared as a feature on a few songs, but I've seen labels do that with "shelved" artists before as just a way to promote the primary artist on a song. Tbh, I think this may have happened with a bunch of the hyperpop artists that got really big back around 2020 and signed to major labels.

From what I remember, punk2 and his previous music did well enough independently to get the attention of Columbia, who signed him. Hypochondriac was his first "studio" release, and even though it did well, I wouldn't be surprised if Columbia was disappointed with the numbers from it. Major music labels are notorious for having ridiculous goals for newer/smaller artists while also providing them little promotion or support.

Marking this as NSFW because even though it's not really NSFW, it's a little gross.

So, I have a really strong gag reflex. I'm one of those people who pretty much every time I brush my teeth I end up gagging. I literally never throw up though, I'm pretty sure I actually have RCPD (a disorder where you can't burp or vomit).

Anyway, I've been dealing with mild-to-moderate anxiety since a big health scare earlier this year. Something that seems to really spike my anxiety is not getting enough sleep or being abruptly, unexpectedly woken up and not able to fall back asleep. Unfortunately, the latter happens quite often because we have a giant, hyper German Shepherd, and also my Grandma lives with us and tends to shout about... sorta everything.

I've began noticing though that sometimes after I've been woken up like this, when I go to brush my teeth and inevitably gag, weirdly it seems to calm me down a lot. It doesn't always last, but it does seem to help most of the time. I was just wondering if anything like this happens to anyone else?

This year has been pretty rough on me in relation to health. I got sick in January with what I think was COVID and I'm pretty sure I've been suffering from Long COVID symptoms. Even before that, I was sick with COVID in January of 2024 and ever since then had random new health issues pop up (sleep apnea, stomach problems, fatigue, etc), and so getting sick again earlier this year just made it worse and made new stuff pop up.

Then in January I also ended up in the ER because it looked like I was having a stroke. My area got hit with a huge snow storm and I had spent a big part of that day trying to shovel out my family's vehicles so I could get to work (since I had already missed like 2 days). A lot of the main roads were fine by this point but our road still had a lot of snow. I finally got my truck out and my Mom and I tried to get out to go grocery shopping and while driving I lost feeling in my hands and my tongue, which led me to slurring my words and having to pull over and get looked at by EMTs, eventually going to the ER. They ended up attributing it to low potassium, dehydration, and some sort of intense cramping.

Then, I ended up leaving my job because they didn't cut me any slack with the snow storm, and I thought I had something else lined up, but then the new job fell through. And so now in the 3-ish months since then, I've been also having stomach issues and migraines. Or they may be post-COVID headaches because I guess that's another symptom of Long COVID and they apparently mimic migraines closely.

AND, on top of all of that, I was on some antibiotics for sinus issues, and even though the sinus issues were solved, now I've been suffering from dysbiosis (an unbalanced gut microbiome) because the antibiotics probably killed off too many of the good bacteria in my stomach.

It makes me so sad because I have so much I want to do and yet, right now, it seems like so much is unobtainable. Idk how I'm gonna manage to work when I never know if I'm going to have a migraine or stomach issue that ruins my day. My girlfriend and I are long-distance right now and I've been trying to plan a trip to see her but it's a really long flight and I'm worried about feeling ill during it.

I remember back during last December, right before all this started, I visited her and I felt so much better back then. I spent almost the entire trip outside walking around with her and doing stuff, and I miss that.

This year I've been generally feeling pretty unwell a lot, and I have a suspicion that it may be long COVID related. I was sick back in January with what may have been COVID (I didn't have any tests though so couldn't test myself, I just stayed home and isolated), and have been feeling overall pretty bad ever since. Have had a lot of stomach issues, brain fog, etc. Alongside that, I know I had COVID back in January 2024 as well, and even before this more recent bout, I still felt pretty bad afterwards.

The thing is, I feel like it can be kinda hard to get doctors to take you serious with it unless you're like totally bedridden from it. My doctor generally is pretty good with listening and helping find proper treatment for stuff, but I'm just not really sure how to bring it up in a way that will emphasize how serious it is?

I'm someone who graduated college (and grad school) a few years ago and have largely found myself in the cycle of shitty jobs and unemployment. Something a lot of people in my situation complain about when it comes to jobs right now is the insane requirements a lot of listings have. Stuff like the entry-level positions that also ask for years of experience.

Funny enough, I am one of the few examples of someone who does actually have the absurd experience a lot of jobs ask for in a field: radio and podcast production. I did radio as soon as I got to college and did it throughout all 4 years of college and my year of grad school (including in 2 different countries). And yet, despite this, I have literally never heard back from any of the jobs I've applied for that request this. They'll explicitly ask for something like "4 years of experience in a small or college radio market", and I have even more than that, but it doesn't matter lmao.

So, long story short, even if you do happen to be the unicorn that has a bunch of experience for an entry-level job, it doesn't matter because nowhere actually wants to hire anyone anyway. Or they'll hire randoms without experience for some reason.

Whenever I see people talk about CPPSes it seems like a lot of the focus is on newer ones, mostly stuff from during the pandemic and newer. But, when I was younger, back in the early and mid 2010s I used to play on CPPSes and it feels like they were a lot different back then than they are now.

So, I was wondering if anyone else who used to play on them back then has any stories about the server(s) they played on?

I think the first one I ever joined was CPPS(dot)me (which is still up btw! but at a different url and practically dead now). Eventually I spent a lot of time playing CPYS, and that was the server I played most for probably about 2 years until I got banned for trying to pull a prank on one of the admins.

I've wanted to watch Man in the High Castle for a pretty long time and am just now finally watching it since it has come to Netflix in the US. I'm currently about midway through season 3 and something I've noticed is that it feels like a lot of characters just... kind of disappear as the show goes on.

The first one, and probably the main one, that comes to mind is the bounty hunter in season 1. He chases Juliana and Joe through the Neutral Zone and seems like he's a well-developed character who would continue to trail them but then he just doesn't show up again. Or, there's also the one Japanese coworker than Juliana meets when she first starts working for Tagomi. She helps Juliana with a few things and then yet again, just completely disappears.

There's also Lemuel, he's pretty important throughout the first season and part of the second season and then he too just gets forgotten about.

Overall I've been enjoying the show, but it just feels odd sometimes that these characters who initially seem very important, just evaporate. And from what I've heard, it continues to happen throughout the 3rd and 4th season as well.

I used to be really into Club Penguin back in the early 2010s and I was thinking the other day about how there used to be this one blog I looked at sometimes. But, I can't remember the name, so I was wondering if anyone else remembered it?

I remember looking at it in like 2009 and 2010 but I think it was active for a few years before and after that. If I remember right, it was actually one of the first sites to pop up after the official Club Penguin when you Googled "club penguin".

It was run by a teenager I think, and I remember one of the main things he would post were tutorials for the secret items in the clothing catalogs every month. He also apparently got some attention from Disney because I remember him making a post about how Disney had sent him some gifts one time, including one of the Club Penguin DS games and a DS to play it on.

The only other thing I remember is on his like contact or about page he made a joke with something about eating pork rinds and watching The Office.

My Grandma is a really strange lady, and sorta always has been. Family friends and other people who meet her have asked my Mom and I before if she has dementia, because she kinda acts like it, but in reality she has always acted this way. She doesn't really pay attention to anything, and honestly just doesn't really seem to think... at all.

She has a surgery coming up in September for a knee replacement. I have no idea how she managed to get approved for it since she has multiple pre-existing health issues, but whatever I guess. One of the things she has to do for the surgery is stop taking one of her medications 2 weeks beforehand. So in the end, the math is that she needs to stop taking it on the last day of August for her surgery which is on the 14th of September I think.

She got into this whole argument with my Mom about it, and honestly like I can't really even comprehend what point she was trying to make. She was like looking at the calendar's weeks rather than days and trying to say something about stopping it on August 31st would actually be stopping it for 3 weeks. And eventually my Mom was like "there's 7 days in a week, how many days are in 2 weeks?" and "how many days are there between September 1st and September 14th?". It's a situation where the math literally could not be any easier and she still refused to accept it. She said "I don't know how many days are in two weeks!" and "I don't know how many days there are between the 1st and 14th!"

I can't believe she's allowed to drive and vote.

I've got a 2012 Ram 1500 ST, single cab and I've been wanting to get some running boards installed on it but don't really know where to start. My Mom drives the truck pretty often too but she's short so it's hard for her to get in and out of it. A lot of the running boards I see listed online aren't for single-cab.

Anyone know of anywhere with single-cab running boards that would fit my truck? Preferably something easy to install but if not I know a mechanic that could probably install anything lol.

I've been dealing with anxiety on and off over the past 6-ish months. I've actually not been diagnosed with any actual anxiety disorder, and I never had serious anxiety before, but I've had a really stressful year. In January I ended up in the ER because, long story short, my Mom and I thought I was having a stroke but it turned out to be dehydration and low potassium which subsequently brought on a panic attack. More recently I also found out I likely am dealing with dysbiosis (unbalanced stomach microbiome) from some antibiotics I was on earlier in the year which can cause a whole host of issues, including increased anxiety.

Even though I'm slowly feeling better now that I've been treating the dysbiosis which seems to be the root cause of my weirdly increased anxiety, I'm having a lot of trouble dealing with being around my Grandma.

For as long as I can remember my Grandma has always been a stereotypical "strange old lady boomer". I don't really know... what is wrong with her tbh. Sometimes when I describe her to friends people ask me if she has dementia and that may be the issue but she has been this way forever.

The main issue is that she just never stops talking, usually about nonsense. She also has tendencies to either bring up random sorta-traumatic stuff out of nowhere, or say things so wrong so often that it ends up confusing me. For example, my Mom had a boyfriend like 10 years ago who passed away in his sleep one morning. I didn't get along with him at all, but obviously I felt bad for my Mom and having someone die like 20 feet away from you still freaks you out regardless of how much you dislike them. My Grandma will just randomly bring this up sometimes and be like "Well, your Mom doesn't really talk about (dead bf's name) anymore" out of nowhere.

Otherwise, she also talks so much and says so much stuff incorrectly that it actually confuses me and often stresses me out. Like she will constantly gets dates wrong, business names wrong, etc. It's like living in a house with a clock that has an alarm go off 15 times a day without any actual reason to do so.

I find myself sometimes waiting until late at night when she goes to bed to do stuff around the house because I can't handle her constant talking. I feel like even though overall I'm slowly feeling less anxious (and otherwise better health-wise) now that I'm dealing with my tummy issues, that the stress she puts on me sends me back a few steps all the time. Does anyone who has dealt with a similar situation have any advice?

Back in January I had a pretty severe panic attack that put me in the ER because I (and my Mom who was with me) thought I was having a stroke while driving. Long story short, the doctor at the ER ended up concluding that I had a panic attack, mixed with dehydration and low potassium. Fast forward a few months and I ended up in the ER again for separate stomach issues and found out I likely am suffering from dysbiosis (unbalanced gastrointestinal microbiome) after 2 rounds of antibiotics for yet another issue probably killed off a bunch of good bacteria in my stomach.

Initially for the first few months after I had that panic attack I was feeling pretty alright, but then over time I seem to be feeling... kind of worse and worse. I think part of it is because I don't really do anything right now that keeps my mind off of worrying. I was working before but then ended up employed after a new job I had lined up fell through after I already quit my old job. I don't think I've even gone anywhere more than 30 minutes from my house in almost 2 months. Weirdly though, even though I had the panic attack while driving, for some reason driving actually seems to calm me down now.

The dysbiosis I believe is also playing a pretty big role in this as well, because apparently it can be a big contributing factor to anxiety and I seem to have a pretty bad case of it. I've been working on taking various probiotics and prebiotics to get my gut back in order, but it can take months or even years to fix it fully.

Lastly, I also live with my Mom and Grandma, and my Grandma severely stresses me out. She's just a really loud, obnoxious, and demanding person. Every time I leave my room she has some sort of command she barks at me, and that makes me feel really anxious as well.

I hate feeling this way. Back in 2023 I was in grad school and I was doing so well, I had so many friends and was out doing stuff all day all the time. Now 3 years later I'm in my room all day, worrying about everything all the time.

Date: November 19th 2026

Evidence: GTA 6's preorders open up tonight and already Rockstar is doing some controversial stuff: no disks on physical copies, costs $80 ($10 more than most games currently), no announcements about multiplayer, notable features locked behind the game's more expensive special edition, etc.

Alongside this, despite all the hype, very little is known about the game compared to other games. Rockstar hasn't even shown any actual gameplay before opening pre-orders.

I'm sure that plenty of people are still going to buy GTA VI, but I don't think it is going to end up having the staying power which GTA V did, and therefore Rockstar won't be able to recoup their money from post-launch stuff like microtransactions.

I recently was in the ER for some ongoing stomach issues, and the ER doctor told me it likely is a mixture of acid reflux and my stomach biome being messed up. I got a prescription-strength heartburn relief med that has helped the acid reflux, but my stomach is really screwed up otherwise right now.

I've had kind of a really rough year on my tummy actually. For one, I was on antibiotics twice (Cefdinir specifically) within a few month period. After the first dose was when I started getting mild stomach issues, and this most recent dose (which I finished about a week and a half ago) has really kinda done me in. I also was sick a few months ago with what I think now was COVID, and apparently COVID can cause microbiome issues as well.

Alongside that, over the past month I also wasn't really eating very much for a handful of reasons. I was mildly sick for a few days, then my stomach was upset from cefdinir while I was on it, and then my Mom came home from a work conference with COVID and I was stuck isolating in my room for 10 days.

Right now I'm at a point where when I wake up I usually have some bad cramping and nausea, plus loose stools but not full-on diarrhea. By the evening I tend to feel better and have been going out grocery shopping and stuff, so I'm not like bed bound, but generally not feeling great. I've been trying my best to eat a lot of probiotic and prebiotic food, and my girlfriend sent me a psyllium husk supplement a while ago that I've been taking too.

Overall I do seem to be slowly feeling better every day, but only by a tiny bit.

Is there anything else I can do to try to get back to normal quicker? Or is my best bet to just stay on this path?