u/bountifulknitter

Hello Test My Kratom Team,

I sent a message yesterday via your website but I also wanted to follow up here as well.

I am reaching out as someone who genuinely supports the kratom and 7OH community and wants these products to remain available for responsible adults who rely on them. I suffer from Full Body Complex Regional Pain Syndrome, anxiety, and treatment resistant depression.

7OH has been an absolute godsend for me. I live with full-body Complex Regional Pain Syndrome (often called the “suicide disease”) and treatment-resistant depression. After years of trying every pain medication imaginable, along with countless antidepressants and anxiety meds, nothing even came close to helping the way this has.

7OH gave me my life back. For the first time in 17 years (since developing CRPS) I feel like myself again. Truly myself.

Almost a year ago, I was in a very dark place. Then, during what should have been a completely ordinary moment, buying some leaf at my local SS. I was given a small sample and after just one dose, I knew I had finally found something that worked.

I use it responsibly. I take tolerance breaks. I thanks to TMK I am able to buy online from trusted and vetted vendors . I’ve carefully figured out the dose that gives me relief without excess. I’m not chasing a high. I’m chasing a life. And for the first time in nearly 2 decades, I have one.

I can function. I can feel joy. I can be present.

Most importantly, my daughter has the mother she deserves. And I finally get to be the person I deserve to be.bI will always be grateful for this medicine and for what it has given back to both me and my child.

Because of all of this, I’m **begging** you to reconsider the branding for the “TMK Skittles” ^tm line specifically.

While many of us are actively fighting against misinformation, fearmongering, and potential overregulation surrounding 7OH products, branding like this makes that fight **significantly** harder.

Calling a 7OH product “Skittles” ^tm creates the exact kind of optics that anti-kratom groups, government agencies, media outlets, and other alarmist organizations look for when trying to paint these products as dangerous or marketed toward children.

There are countless other creative ways to brand a variety pack or flavored line without using candy branding associated with children. Even though those of us familiar with 7OH know that the narratives around “overdoses” are often exaggerated or misleading, a name like this practically invites sensationalized stories and pearl clutching moral panic.

I can easily imagine some three-letter agency, advocacy group, or anti-kratom organization posting a viral story claiming a child or grandchild “got into Skittles” ^tm and framing it as a crisis. Whether the story is true or not almost becomes irrelevant once the public perception damage is done. Unfortunately, perception drives legislation.

I think this is especially important coming from a company like **Test My Kratom,** a company whose entire brand and reputation has been built around testing, transparency, safety, trust and helping keep kratom and 7oH safe and legal through responsible practices. Companies like yours should be setting the standard for what mature, responsible marketing in this industry looks like.

**If advocates can point to TMK in letters to lawmakers, doctors, researchers, and other organizations as an example of a company showing that 7OH products can be used safely and responsibly by adults, it could genuinely help our cause long-term. That kind of credibility matters.**

But if the wrong person/agency stumbles across this “Skittles” ^tm product line, it risks putting TMK in the same category (at least from a public perception standpoint) as brands like Roxy, Perks, or Pressed: companies that are only chasing quick profits with flashy opioid *adjacent* branding.

Instead of considering the chronic pain patients, people in recovery, and individuals struggling with mental health issues who genuinely depend on these products to improve their quality of life.
I’m **not** writing this to attack your company. I actually want companies like yours to succeed and continue operating. That’s exactly why I felt compelled to say something.

I truly hope you’ll consider rebranding this particular product line before it becomes the kind of example opponents use against the entire industry. As far as the other products go, the plain simple design or the ones with fruits dressed as scientists on your other flavors are adorable but not in a way that seems like aimed towards children.

Some possible alternatives that still keep the “variety/rainbow” theme without the child associated Skittles ^tm branding could be things like:

Spectrum Pack

Prism Blend

Flavor Fusion

Rainbow Reserve

Variety Spectrum

Fusion Tabs

Aurora Blend

Kaleidoscope Pack

Spectrum Select

Flavor Flight

Multi-Flavor Reserve

Colorwave

Vibe Variety Pack

Cosmic Blend

Spectrum Series

You have my express permission to use ANY of those names if you decide to rebrand Skittles ^tm. I don't want or need credit if you use them, I just to protect the medication that gave me my life back.

Thank you for taking the time to read this and for considering the long-term impact these branding decisions can have on the broader community.

I applied for SNAP back in April, it took a month but I got approved for it. I am getting $24/month which isn't super helpful, but it better than nothing.

I read that if your food stamp amount is less than $95 that the state will make up the difference. So far I received the one deposit on May 16th for $24. Will I get another deposit for the $71 difference or am I misunderstanding that?

I have left dozens of messages on the SNAP number for my county and can never get a call back. I just want to have one question answered.

I just commented this story on another thread and I thought my bromos would appreciate a chuckle.

A few years back, my daughter got her first period on the last day of 6th grade. Thankfully it was completely uneventful because I’d already prepared her for what to do years earlier.

At some point later that day, I mentioned it casually to her dad and said there might be a few laundry mishaps while she figured things out and got the hang of things.

This man looks at me and says:

“Wow. Her poor teacher.”

And I immediately went, “What the fuck are you talking about? School literally ended for the summer a few hours ago.”

And he goes:

“Well, you know… all those girls getting their periods on the last day of school.”

So now I’m staring at him trying to figure out if we’re having the same conversation.

I said, “Excuse me?”

And this man, this fully grown adult man, says:

“You know, because women who spend a lot of time together all start getting their periods at the same time.”

So I asked:

“Do… do you think an entire classroom of 11-year-old girls all spontaneously began menstruating today?”

And ladies and gentlemo's… yes. Yes he did.
That is apparently **exactly** what he thought happened.

At that point I stopped asking questions because the bar was already in hell and I didn’t feel the need to grab a shovel and see how much lower we could go.

I *did*, however, generously offer him a seat in the **“Menstruation 101”** course I was about to give our daughter. You know, a refresher on the basics she already understood years ago and was now simply putting into practice.

He declined my offer because, and this is yet a another direct quote:

“I don’t need to learn any of that stuff. That’s what she has you for.”

And to this day he wonders why we didn't work out.

I’m curious if anyone else here completed a political perception/perspective-taking study recently that was estimated at around 30 minutes.

It involved a huge number of written responses, reflection questions, graph/sliders, stereotype exercises, and political reasoning tasks. For me, it ended up taking dramatically longer than the estimate, and I even hit the study timeout before finishing despite actively working on it the entire time.

I’m genuinely wondering if other participants had the same experience or if I’m just unusually slow/careful with these kinds of studies. About how long did it take you?

I’m freshly single after spending 20 years living with an abusive man and one thing I’m realizing now is how important it is to ask the “big” questions early instead of assuming certain values are just common sense.

One of the biggest questions I think women need to ask themselves before having kids with someone or bringing a man around their own children is:

**Would I actually feel comfortable leaving my child alone with this person?**

And I don’t just mean physically safe. I mean emotionally safe too. My ex and I broke up 4 years ago but continued living together for 3 more years because I was terrified to leave our daughter alone with him every other week. It wasn't until she was older, had her own phone, and her dad met her future stepmom that I felt slightly comfortable enough to leave her with him for a week at a time. And even then I still worry when she's at her dad's house.

The amount of women who don’t feel comfortable leaving their children alone with their own fathers because of incompetence, weaponized helplessness, anger issues, emotional immaturity, or complete lack of involvement is honestly terrifying. So many moms are essentially single parents while also managing a grown man.

And the sad thing is, a lot of us don’t realize how important these conversations are until we’re already deep into the relationship, because some things seem like such basic human decency that it never even occurs to you someone could disagree.

One of those topics for me is spanking/hitting children.

I was hit as a kid. I grew up in a generation and environment where it was normalized and even expected. Looking back now, I genuinely think growing up around that kind of “discipline” desensitized me to violence and unhealthy behavior. I think it absolutely contributed to me later tolerating abusive treatment in adult relationships because some part of me had already learned that “love” and fear could coexist.

I’m 42 now, so most of the men in my dating pool already have children. If a man tells me he spanks his kids or believes in hitting children, I end the conversation immediately. Full stop.

I don’t care how people try to justify it. If you are hitting a child, it is not because it “helps them.” It’s because you cannot regulate your own emotions enough to handle conflict without intimidation or physical force. Children are not emotional punching bags for overwhelmed adults.

And despite the countless studies showing spanking does more harm than good, there are still so many people defending it with the classic:
“My parents hit me and I turned out fine.”

But if being hit taught you that it’s acceptable to hit children, then no… you actually didn’t turn out "fine."

There is never an excuse for physically hurting a child. None.

And honestly, watching how many women carry the entire emotional, mental, and physical load of parenting while their partners act like incompetent assistants instead of equal parents has completely changed how I view relationships, men, and motherhood altogether. The bar for men is quite literally in hell.

I was curious how other Prolific users handle contacting researchers about study issues/payments and what your experiences have been.

Personally, I’ll usually message a researcher if a study takes significantly longer than the estimated time listed (for example if the intended completion time is 15min but the study took 30min). I’m never rude about it, I just explain that the completion time was much longer than expected and ask whether compensation can be adjusted. Honestly, I’ve had surprisingly positive experiences with this. Most researchers either increase the study payment or send a bonus afterward.

I also contact researchers when there’s a technical issue with a study, especially if I spent a while on the study and the it prevents completion. Again, I’ve generally had good outcomes when communicating politely and explaining the problem clearly.

I know some people avoid messaging researchers altogether because they don’t want to seem difficult or risk account issues, so I’m curious where everyone else stands on this.

- Do you message researchers about underpaying studies?

- How much extra time does a study need to take before you say something?

- Do you report technical issues or just return the study?

- Have your experiences with researcher communication mostly been positive or negative?

Just interested to hear how others approach it.