u/Weak-Tough9178

I have a mixed breed rescue around 3 years old. She kind of looks like a terrier with spaniel ears. Anyway, when we first got her I managed to get her to like me within 30 minutes of being home by just sitting in the grass outside while she played with our other dog. She was abused and neglected by her last owners. They left her in a kennel outside 24/7 for the first year or so of her life.

It took her a lot longer to trust the rest of my family. Especially my sister as she rarely leaves her bedroom, and when she does it’s usually to go to a friend’s house. She eventually let my parents near her though. They say it usually takes 6 months for a dog to get used to their new home. However, after 6 months she still didn’t like my sister. She would bark and lunge when my sister would leave her bedroom for any reason. For a while I just thought she was forgetting my sister was in the house. This has gotten better though. She actually likes my sister now.

Last year my sister moved in with her abusive ex and this is when we started to have a problem. Every time my sister goes to leave the house my dog barks and hurries over to her. It’s not just when my sister goes to open the door, it’s when she leaves her bedroom with shoes and day clothes on. My dog knows she’s about to leave immediately and freaks out. She also barks so loud we can’t hear each other talk, and ignores all our commands. She also bit my sister’s leg once and left a bruise.

This leads to chaos every time my sister leaves. The dog panics, I struggle to hold her back or just put her in the kennel (don’t worry she like her kennel), my dad tries to yell over the dogs barking, my sister leaves, and then my mom threatens the dog with a slipper. She stopped because our other dog barks and wants to fight her (in a playful way) when she does that now. The spray bottle scares her, but not enough for her to realize she should stop panicking at my sister. She doesn’t care about the training collar, and we refuse to use the shock feature. We’ve only tried the vibrating, and the beeping. A leash only stops her from biting, it doesn’t teach her anything.

It’s only my sister that she barks at too, only when she’s about to leave the house. Even if one of my parents goes with her. I had to make it so my phone vibrates only when my sister texts me because the text tone was making my dog panic and shake as she learned that the text tone = sister leaving.

So now I’m here hoping someone has any idea why my dog panics when she knows my sister is leaving, and how I can teach her to be calm. Do you think calming treats could work? They’re a bit expensive, but if they work I’ll try them. Could it be anxiety and excitement mixed together? Or a fear of my sister moving out again? Could she just be part chihuahua? I don’t think it’s separation anxiety since she calms down as soon as my sister is out of sight or the door closes. She only gets separation anxiety if I leave the house, or go in the kitchen without her, or go to the bathroom.

Sorry to panic type again. It helps me calm down though. I’m really just anxious and afraid of what’s to come. I’m outside as I type this because I can’t hear what’s being said from out here, and need to calm down.

Basically, my brother has been awful since becoming an adult. He has turned out to be an abusive narcissist like our grandmother.

I’m going to try and remember what I can, it’s a bit hard when I’m this anxious. He called my mom one day crying and in pain, but wouldn’t listen to any of her advice. His back was hurting him and making it difficult to breath. My mom suggesting putting ice on it, but he refused. He’s been like this since we were little. He always has to be right, and everyone else was wrong. He would be doing homework and ask my mom for help. She would help him find the answer and he would insist it wasn’t right. So if he knew it was wrong why did he ask for help? That went through my head every time. I might have even asked my mom that question a few times.

After refusing my mom’s advice, my little sister took the phone and tried to calm him down. She told him to breathe and that panicking would make it worse. He screamed at her so she hung up on him. She was smart enough not to accept that treatment from him. Things got worse from there. He had a girlfriend at one point, his first one I think. She has a baby from a previous relationship, and they moved in together way too quick. It turns out he would yell at her a lot and even punched holes in the wall. All in front of her baby who was under a year old. The girl wasn’t perfect either, but that’s a different story.

He went speeding in a new truck with two friends and flipped it. Got stuck inside and had to call the police. The car wasn’t registered, he injured his friends, and all the police offer did was give him a slap on the wrist and a $110 speeding ticket. He could have lost his life and told my mom he wasn’t going to stop speeding. He has two unpaid speeding tickets now.

Anyway, he said some really awful things to my mom one day. I can’t remember why. I think it had to do with my mom refusing to pay his car insurance. So he accused my mom of not doing anything for him, called her a bad mom, compared her to her abusive mother, and lots of other horrible things. So my mom blocked him. After a while my mom finally convinced my dad to block him too. Helped him understand that he didn’t deserve the way my brother treated him. (Gave him rides, gave him one of our TVs, etc. and never got a thank you ever.) He also refused to talk to my dad most of the time which made my dad feel bad. My dad just didn’t want to lose the only son he still had f2f contact with.

So my brother started treating me like a carrier pigeon and would text me asking for me to give my mom messages for him. (Help with adult things because he’s incompetent.) I eventually blocked him too despite also trying to hold onto the relationship.
Not long ago he got mad about something and texted my sister out of nowhere just saying the most disgusting things about our parents and going as far as wishing they would take their own lives. This led to my sister being distressed. So she finally blocked him.

A couple days ago he showed up at my dad’s work. He’s been speeding down our street almost daily so we were watching his location. (He doesn’t know I still have him on “find my”.) My dad asked him what he was doing there and he apparently said “I don’t know”. However it may have been “looking for bike chains”. I’m not sure. We are 90% sure he stole a bike chain not knowing there’s a bunch of cameras in that store. The owner was there that day too and checked the camera footage because he knows what we’ve been dealing with. Our police are incompetent so the owner doesn’t trust that the video will be enough proof to get them off their butts. So he just banned my brother from the store instead. He is/is planning to get a legal order stating if my brother goes anywhere near the store, even the sidewalk he’ll be arrested.

That leads to today. One of the girls at the store is in contact with my brother and decided to stupidly ask him about it. He got mad and called my dad from a blocked caller id. Called him a clown, and a bunch of other names and was mad that he got accused of stealing. My dad never accused him of stealing. The store owner did. So after the call ended my parents were very upset. My dad being impulsive and unable to let things go called my brother back to question this. I feel that was a bad idea. I’ve already forgotten what my dad said. So my mom took the phone and talked to him. I could hear my brother yelling on the other end and then my mom said something I never thought she would. She wouldn’t even say this about her own mom. She told him she hopes he loses his life. Although she said it more angrily and used the f word. It should be noted that my mom never swears. The last time she did was years ago when there was an issue with the neighbors. She hung up and went out to the porch and called our incompetent police. Then my dad called him back again. (Why would you make it worse?)

So that’s why I panicked and hid outside. I just had to get away from the yelling. My mom never swears and I heard two swear words come out of her mouth today. I was shaking because the yelling got louder. It used to feel like my parents argued a lot. After my brother moved out I realized why. It was his fault as awful as that sounds. Every argument was because they couldn’t agree on how to parent him.

I hate that I can’t trust our police. I hate that I don’t recognize my brother anymore. I just hate it. I shouldn’t have to be afraid of him.

For context on the police. A lady down the street called them multiple times for domestic violence and they did nothing. Even got sick of showing up to her house so often. So that lady shot her husband. Took it into her own hands because the police, the people who are supposed to protect us, didn’t care. They also told my mom that a minor flashing a gun at her under his shirt to scare her, wasn’t a threat because it was on his property. The fact he was underage and unlicensed should have warranted a house search. The police here have never cared. They view their jobs as a burden. An obligation. Why don’t they care? Is it even worth it to go over their heads to the state police? How do we know if we can trust them?

My mom taught me never to wish death on anyone because karma can be very real. Right now all I want is my brother to sit in jail for a long time. To be as far from me as possible. He’ll never learn his lesson. The police will never give him consequences. They won’t do anything until it’s too late.

My mom is on the phone with the police now. Hopefully they will do something this time. I’ll update in the comments possibly. 😞

I’ve noticed this weird feeling when something makes me angry. Usually just on Reddit. Although it happened once back when episode had their own forums and tried saying I would get used to them moving to discord. (I’m still not used to it, that’s why I’m on Reddit now.) I don’t know how to explain it. Like a fuzzy, headache? Like a sudden jolt that only lasts a couple seconds? It happened just a few minutes ago. As you might remember, I write interactive fiction on episode. Lately I have started seeing ads for a competitor. This competitor has been lying about episode in all of their ads. It’s funny really, because it’s so obvious that it’s not true. I thought I would try and let the people in their sub know that the app they use is a fraud. It’s all AI and lies. They are all delusional though. When I saw their comments responding to my post I got that feeling. Like a quick headache. Is this what seeing red feels like? I just couldn’t believe what I was reading. There’s no way anyone would believe what they were saying. I just responded with laughing faces because I knew trying to reason with them was pointless. They would rather spend money on an AI story app, then use a free human made one. One has the audacity to call it juvenile. Most episode players are in their 20s-40s now. Their mods also called me disrespectful. It’s all fake though. Their sub is just the devs pretending they have a fan base that made a fan made sub for them. The dev team is in their mod list though. Which is how I know it’s them.

I don’t black out or anything. I’m fully aware. I just feel angry and get a headache. Sometimes I do comment angrily without thinking when it happens, but as soon as it wears off after a couple seconds I delete the comments I make. Other times I just wait until I calm down. Is it normal for anger to cause headaches like this?

Their advertising is hilarious. Like, it’s all lies. First they act like episode doesn’t have free stories. It’s does. They claim that all their ai stories are free to read, no subscriptions or anything. Turns out that’s a lie. I read their most critical reviews, and they all say that there’s a subscription you have to pay for to even be able to read anything. “No gems, passes, or subscriptions like that stinky episode app lol!✌️”. Like come on! At least be honest in your advertising. I’m pretty sure all their good reviews are fake. They probably gave themselves a bunch of good reviews to hide the initial truthful ones.

It’s just laughable. Today I got another ad from them. They’re now claiming that Episode, Choices, etc. have been ripping them off for years. This apps owners are so stupid if they think anyone would believe that. Episode came out on iOS in 2013. They’ve probably had an Instagram account since then. This stupid lore app doesn’t have an Instagram. So if Episode has been ripping them off for “years” why does it say their app came out only 7 months ago? They must be desperate. 🤣

Please no one fall for their lies. Ignore their ads. Just report them for false information. That’s the best thing you can do. (If you’re feeling petty go ahead and leave some 1 star reviews exposing them.) 🤣

This isn’t like a huge deal, it’s just a little annoying. I follow back everyone that follows me on episode, and sometimes when I click a profile they have “check out my recommended stories!” In their bio, but all their stuff is private.

It’s not so much the privates stories that bugs me. It’s not being able to tell them it’s private. We can’t make posts on our profiles anymore, and you can only dm if you’re in a book club. So all these readers have no clue their recommended stories are private on their profile. And I know they set the bio themselves because I’m pretty sure the default one is “[NAME] <3 Episode” I can only imagine how many are still adding stories to their recommendations list with no idea that no one can see it.

I hope this post encourages you to check your settings in the episode app. I’m pretty sure it defaults to private.😅

I write stories on one of those interactive story telling apps. Please don’t make fun of me for it. A lot of people on the app are actually older than me which is why I feel so comfortable writing my stories there.

Anyway, I got accepted into their commissioned program at the end of 2024. Then I left the program this January. I know for a fact that it was not mentioned anywhere that I would need a bank or to fill out a tax form to get payments from them. I found out that I could still earn payments on my personal stories. So when I went to fill out my payment information and saw that I needed a bank and to fill out a tax form my mood instantly dropped. I’m over that part now though. After seeing that I probably would never have been able to get paid I decided to contact the commissions team and ask them nicely if they could revert the rights of 2/5 of the stories I gave them. Although after reading through everything I signed again I’m pretty sure I signed away my morals regarding these stories as well.

They declined and I got a little upset. I think I let my emotions cloud my judgement. I wasn’t rude in my response to their declining. I only expressed that I didn’t understand why they declined, explained that I can’t sign up to get paid, and offered some possible alternatives. I realize now that last part may have been the wrong move. Now I’m nervous about how they will respond. I think I may just be catastrophizing. I know GPT isn’t the best, but I had no one else to go to so I asked it for advice. It said I’m just catastrophizing and that my emails were not as bad as I think. That from the companies perspective I’m just one support ticket, from one frustrated author, asking about rights reversion. That I didn’t insult, harass. Threaten them, etc. That while my response wasn’t ideal, it also wasn’t extreme.

It says I shouldn’t leave any more comments until they actually respond. That even saying “Nevermind all of that, I’m sorry” could backfire. I’m not sure it’s right about that part though. So, now I’m just nervous about how they might respond. I really hope that GPT is right and they just reiterate what they said before and decline again. After speaking with GPT I realized it’s okay, and that my idea is still mine after all. I just gave them a cringy cliche version of it. The version I came up with when I was 13 is still there, and it’s still mine. I just hope I didn’t mess up and can apologize later to episode. I just want them to know that I thought it through, I no longer care about getting my rights back, and that I will no longer be working on any commissions stories. I won’t tell them about rewriting the story to be mine again. That is none of their business, and probably could backfire. 😅

I mean, this isn’t the first time I, or someone else has sent them a frustrated response in the heat of the moment. They got plenty of frustrated/angry emails both when they took away our forums and moved us to discord, and when they tried introducing AI “Flix” to the app. That one was too far. We all are tolerating the discord now, but trying to put AI shows (like reelshorts, but AI generated instead of hired actors.) in an app where humans spend weeks learning donacode and writing their own stories. Not cool. I think we had every right to be offended and angry about that one.

(Reposting with a new title.)

For context, I joined the commissions program in September of 2024. I never submitted any stories. I missed the deadlines for the first two stories I contracted so they never made it to beta testing. I contracted 3 more in November of last year thinking it would be enough to keep me in the program for this year. There was a bunch of miscommunication, and misunderstandings on both ends. So I left in January of this year. (Part of it was also because of the stupid EpiFlix thing.) Nothing was making sense and it became too complicated. Everything I was reading pointed towards me being kicked from the program after new years. They updated their tier system last year and so I figured the new rules applied to me too.

In the episode app if you click on any featured story the author has a gem next to their name. That’s the tiers. In order for me to get to the next gem I had to read all the stuff I had to read, and I didn’t realize that included filling out the forms at the end of each thing. The last form was to submit a story for beta testing. I did NOT submit anything in the little over a year that I was in the program. I didn’t have a working laptop for most of it. My dog spilled a drink on my mom’s laptop that I was using. My own laptop is so old and between how slow it is, the powershell pop ups, and the noises it was making, I didn’t want to use it. Even now that I factory reset it still barely runs Google. The new tier system said that the people in the tier I was in (the lowest one.) had 9 months to submit a beta story or you’ll be removed from the program. January would have been 9 months since the system was updated and I was demoted to the new lowest level. Instead of kicking me out they promoted me which made zero sense. Why would I get promoted when I didn’t complete the tasks needed to get promoted? I didn’t want special treatment, I wasn’t trying to guilt them into letting me stay. I just wanted the truth. I was okay with getting kicked out because I knew I missed my deadlines. Yet they weren’t communicating anything.

So now it still shows my payments are unlocked. I know it’s because I was in the commissions program. I now know that they changed the protocol and unlock payments before you submit a story just to be prepared. I sent a support ticket a few days ago asking if I could still unlock payments the community way since I left. I explained that they were unlocked because of the commissions program. Stephen didn’t even read the question. He just reiterated what I said. That my payments unlocked because of the commissions program. He said “Your payments are currently unlock from your time in the commissions program and you are able to earn payments from reads and gems spent on your stories.” He didn’t even clarify if that means community or commissions stories. I only have some rights to one of my commissions stories right now, and I’m not even close to publishing it as a community story. He also didn’t answer if I can unlock payments as a community author. All he did was explain how payments work.

(As for the story I have UGC rights to. I’m going to wait and publish it as a completed story. Most features stories are only 12 episodes long anyway, so hopefully it wont take me too long to finish.
🫶💕)

Update 1: This whole ignoring questions is still an issue, but I have some good news. Stephen, as much as he annoys me sometimes, just confirmed I can get paid for all my community stories. He says essentially my profile will now act like a profile that unlocked payments the community way.

Update 2: Nevermind. I don’t have a bank or tax forms so I can’t get paid. That means I was right before when you all called me stupid and crazy for reaching out to support when I first saw the payments unlocked. I told you I wouldn’t get paid anyway. That there was no point in signing up and you all told me to “get that bag”. I knew there was no bag. Like I said before, I don’t even get enough reads to get paid anyway. I get around 0 reads a month. Plus they only pay you every 2 months. And that’s if you have enough reads during the review period. It’s pointless. I’ve reached out to what I hope was the right contact email, and I’m going to try and get the full rights back to 2 of my stories. Why should they get the full rights to my ideas for free?

TLDR: Don’t contract any stories to episode that you care about. You may regret it later. If you don’t get to the first milestone you get paid for (submitting a beta story), they basically get full rights to your idea for free. Title, characters, settings, everything you wrote in the form you submitted.

Okay. So every time I submit a support ticket their response never seems to answer my questions. For context, I joined the commissions program in September of 2024. I never submitted any stories. I missed the deadlines for the first two stories I contracted so they never made it to beta testing. I contracted 3 more in November of last year thinking it would be enough to keep me in the program for this year. There was a bunch of miscommunication, and misunderstandings on both ends. So I left in January of this year. (Part of it was also because of the stupid EpiFlix thing.) Nothing was making sense and it became too complicated. Everything I was reading pointed towards me being kicked from the program after new years. They updated their tier system last year and so I figured the new rules applied to me too.

In the episode app if you click on any featured story the author has a gem next to their name. That’s the tiers. In order for me to get to the next gem I had to read all the stuff I had to read, and I didn’t realized that included the forms at the end of each thing. The last form was to submit a story for beta testing. I did NOT submit anything in the little over a year that I was in the program. (I didn’t have a working laptop for a few months. Even now that I factory reset it still barely runs Google.) The new tier system said that the people in the tier I was in (the lowest one.) had 9 months to submit a beta story or you’ll be removed from the program. January would have been 9 months since the system was updated and I was demoted to the new lowest level. Instead of kicking me out they promoted me which made zero sense. Why would I get promoted when I didn’t complete the tasks needed to get promoted? I didn’t want special treatment, I wasn’t trying to guilt them into letting me stay. I just wanted the truth. I was okay with getting kicked out because I knew I missed my deadlines. Yet they weren’t communicating anything.

So now it still shows my payments are unlocked. I know it’s because I was in the commissions program. I now know that they changed the protocol and unlock payments before you submit a story just to be prepared. I sent a supposed ticket a few days ago asking if I could still unlock payments the community way since I left. I explained that they were unlocked because of the commissions program. Stephan didn’t even read the question. He just reiterated what I said. That my payments unlocked because of the commissions program. He said “Your payments are currently unlock from your time in the commissions program and you are able to earn payments from reads and gems spent on your stories.” He didn’t even clarify if that means community or commissions stories. I only have the rights to one of my commissions stories right now, and I’m not even close to publishing it as a community story. He also didn’t answer if I can unlock payments as a community author. All he did was explain how payments work.

So I don’t think he read my question at all. I think Fran is the other one that never seems to read the actual question either. Sometimes It feels like they just open the support page, put the email subject in the search bar, and copy the first thing that pops up. I’m wondering if any one else has noticed this, or felt like their questions weren’t actually being read?

(As for the story I have UGC rights to. I’m going to wait and publish it as a completed story. Most features stories are only 12 episodes long anyway, so hopefully it wont take me too long to finish.
🫶💕)

Update as I was typing this: This whole ignoring questions is still an issue, but I have some good news. Stephen, as much as he annoys me sometimes, just confirmed I can get paid for all my community stories. He says essentially my profile will now act like a profile that unlocked payments the community way. Yay! 😁

I’ve always tried to be a good influence on my younger siblings. I did get in trouble a few times when I was little, but it wasn’t anything too bad. Certainly not bad enough to get punished. Plus, kids make mistakes, and that’s okay. I also had some not so good moments as a teen. I didn’t get in trouble as a teen, because by then I was afraid to, but I realize now that I wasn’t being very mature in those moments. Which is normal.

I watched my older stepbrother be a bad influence on my stepsister. She told me once that whenever our brother and parents would argue she would sit in her room with tears in her eyes because she hated the yelling. Which is why I don’t understand how she didn’t learn from that. Why she would act the same way he did. I only visited them every other week. Every other weekend while I was in school. So I don’t know if she was worse than he her brother or not. I do know she harassed her bio dad until he gave up and disowned her. I have the video she posted with the messages. I don’t blame him.

So after seeing how my stepsister was influenced by her brother and turned out to be…we’ll say difficult. I thought since I never broke rules, or got into trouble, I would be a good influence on my younger siblings whom I was around more often. It didn’t work though. Their friends were bad influences, and they both turned out to be angsty. We are all over 18 now, and my little brother has basically been cut out at this point. My parents blocked him, my little sister blocked him, and I finally blocked him so he couldn’t use me as a carrier pigeon.

My little sister started hanging around pot heads, and is currently hung up on her abusive ex and has just made an agreement with my parents that she’s going to find a way to get over him. She’s 18, that’s way too young to be hung up on an abusive ex. She hasn’t even lived yet because he isolated her. Luckily I was given advice in a group chat I’m in, and I’ve started hiding in the kitchen when my mom argues with her. I can still hear them, but it makes it quieter which helps me to stop shaking. Panic posting on here helps too. I just delete the post after I calm down because by then I realize I don’t want our business online anymore. It’s been over a month since my sister left her abusive ex. I really hope for her sake that she gets over him soon. That her rose colored glasses shatter, and she hates him as much as we do.

I just don’t understand why the bad influences outweighed my good influence. I’ve never been in a relationship, and I don’t have any friends, but I thought I was setting a good example. Are bad influences really that strong?

(I also have a younger half brother that I haven’t seen or talked to since 2023 I think. Last I heard he was a gym bro. So I have no idea if the bad influences got to him or not. I am proud of his weight loss journey though. I’m proud that he lost weight without pills or injections. That he put in the work to get healthy. And hopefully chose to do it because he wanted to.)

I love the idea of renaissance fairs. I’m just afraid to ever go to one again. I’m not dwelling either, this all just randomly popped back into my mind after scrolling the taxidermy subreddit. When I was in middle school in 2016 my class went on a field trip to a renaissance fair. My dad was my chaperone. We all got split into groups. My group was my dad and two of my “friends”. It started off pretty sucky because it was rainy and wet the whole time which ruined the whole mood. We also didn’t get to dress up. (I’m going to try and remember as much as I can, but only the bad parts seem to have stuck with me.) My dad didn’t have much money to spend so I only got one souvenir. I got a coyote head taxidermy pelt. I’m very grateful for that. I also got a smoothie that ended up not tasting good. Then we went to a stand where a woman was selling bird call whistles. (That were shaped like birds.) I’ve always had trouble paying attention. I don’t hear everything that’s said if I’m too distracted. I’ve also always had issues with my ears. (Ear aches as a child, and tinnitus in both ears.)

For extra context I often say to my mom “I wasn’t listening, what did you say/want me to do?” Then we laugh it off, and she repeats what she said. I am going to get tested for autism hopefully soon. So I am looking forward to that. All I know is I don’t hear anything if I’m distracted enough. So I was looking at these bird whistles and softly blew into one without touching my mouth to it. This lady then says that I have to buy it because I used it. She seemed very irritable and rude. I never heard her say that you can’t try them. I was sure she must have whispered it to my friends. Because they both said they heard her say it, but I didn’t hear her say anything. They all just looked at me like I was lying, or crazy. (Except my dad. Don’t worry he wasn’t mad or anything.) So the lady insisted we had to buy it because I had gotten cooties on it or something. My dad didn’t have the money though. It was like $10 I think, and I already got the pelt. So he shrugged and gave me a I’m-sorry-I-just-don’t-have-enough-money look, and we all just walked away. I didn’t even want it anyway. I felt humiliated though. Like that lady hated me after that. She insisted that she explained her rules, and that we had to buy it. I also thought the rule was stupid. It’s not that hard to bring wipes, or peroxide spray and clean them if you think it’s that bad to let people try them. Also why would I buy a bird whistles without knowing if it actually makes noise first? Feels more like way to trick people into buying them.

That situation never left me. I felt terrible. Like I did something wrong. I’m glad that my dad just walked away, and she didn’t continue trying to force us to buy the whistle after that. She was overall just rude. I know it was almost 10 years ago now. I should be over it. I was only 12 at the time though, and things like that always stuck with me. Also whenever I remember something embarrassing end up trying to rationalize, and convince my self that there was a good reason for why I did it. That I didn’t do anything wrong.

So any tips on how I can move on from it? I would love to go to a renaissance fair again one day. Maybe even dress up. I’m just so afraid that it will suck like last time. The memory came back, and brought all the embarrassment with it. 😒

On a side note, how do I also move past trauma from a wasp flying right at me in the McDonald’s parking lot today? All I saw was something large and black fly at me. I panicked. And swatted at it. It was still stuck to my sleeve. My mom didn’t want to tell me what it was until it was gone. I saw it and spilled some of my drink as I shook it off my arm. Luckily my hoodie was large and baggy so it couldn’t reach my skin, and my sleeve blocked it from going anywhere else. Still it was terrifying and I hurt my back panicking. My back is fine luckily, but I’m afraid to go outside now. I also know you shouldn’t swat at those because they are aggressive, but I didn’t even know what it was until after. 😰