u/theredqueentheory

I think of myself as an empathetic person, and I understand that addiction is a complex disease that is very hard to overcome. However, after my friend had her baby, who was born permanently developmentally disabled, told me that she was on all sorts of drugs during her pregnancy, including LSD, pot, alcohol and possibly more, which is what doctors think caused the baby's disabilities, I can no longer look her in the face.

This poor child will have to live the rest of its life with being developmentally disabled, and that is going to be a hard life. I try not to be judgmental, but I feel angry toward my friend because she most likely caused this. She's no longer on drugs or drinking, but was when she was pregnant.

I find it hard to be around her and her baby because of these feelings, and am thinking of just cutting contact. But on the other hand, maybe I should be understanding and try to get over it, because no one is perfect, and we all make mistakes. But this mistake cost her child a normal life, and I can't help but feel ill when thinking about it.

She has a supportive family and other friends, so it's not like she's relying on me for support. But am I a bad person for feeling angry and resentful toward her because she ruined her baby's life?

We just had our 15th anniversary and celebrated with a mini rave in our bedroom, just us two, with a projector on the wall with cool images, Girl Talk's All Day album playing, dancing around like we were 20 again. It was such a great time and opportunity to connect. We told each other everything we appreciated about each other, and asked if there was anything we could improve on, and talked for hours.

I love how kind and understanding he is. He is so thoughtful; he empties the cat litter all the time, brings me fresh flowers every week, brings me coffee in bed every morning, and is still a big manly man that takes charge when we go out, which is a huge help because I have social anxiety.

Over the years, our communication has only grown stronger, and I am so happy to be with him, and all I can do is try every day to be the loving wife he deserves.

In my state, it's against the law to keep crows for any amount of time. I have a lot of crows in my neighborhood, and they like to drink out of my bird bath. One day I came out and by the bath was a young fledgling with an injured wing, and they couldn't fly away or anything. It just sat there and cried.

I used to work for our local wildlife rehabilitation center, and know for a fact that they routinely euthanize crows and other birds that are "common" and plentiful in the area, and that they usually don't even try to save them if they are injured. They have many reasons to justify this, like they would probably die anyway, they are overpopulating, or it's just not worth the time and energy.

So I didn't call them, and instead I got a box and towel, and carefully picked up the fledgling, and examined it, it looked like a cat had scratched and bitten it's wing. I cleaned the wound, and put a bandage on it, and the crow was fairly calm and cooperative.

I put a water bowl out and some wet cat food, as I know they like to eat that, and checked on it every few hours. After three days, it started flapping its wing, and the bandages fell off. I then put the box outside, and the crow hopped out and eventually flew away.

He was much bigger than I thought he would be.

When I was about 7 years old, we lived out in the country and I had a pet rabbit named Daisy, and kept it in an outdoor cage, and fed and watered it twice a day, and took very good care of it and played with it often. One day, my abusive parents decided that having it was too much work, even though I was the one who cared for it, and without telling me, killed it and cooked it for dinner.

They didn't tell me what we were eating until after dinner, then asked me how it tasted, then told me it was Daisy, and they laughed. I was horrified, felt like I had eaten my baby, and cried hysterically. They then got angry at me for crying.

I'll never forget that nor forgive myself, even though I know it wasn't my fault, I still feel horrible about it.

It's one of the many reasons I am no contact with my parents these days. How sick does someone need to be to do that to their child?

Edit: I can't thank this community enough for their outpouring of compassion and kindness in their replies, it means a lot. And I'm shocked and saddened that so many others have experienced similar things, I hope you all have had healing in your lives, as I have had in mine with tons of therapy.

I had just finished shopping and got myself a treat, put it on my seat, then finished putting my groceries away and started driving home. After a while, I realized that my rear end started becoming numb, and I couldn’t feel it at all! I started freaking out and wondering what could be medically wrong with me. I thought that perhaps I was having a stroke, as I couldn’t feel my butt and upper legs. They were completely numb.

I pulled over and was able to get out of the car…and saw that I was sitting in a huge pile of frozen yogurt! It was the large treat I had bought myself, and I had forgotten to move it from my seat before I sat down and started driving. 

Silly me.

Old man says, “What you got there?” and the young man replies, “Chickenwire.”

Old man asks , “What’re you doing with chickenwire?” Young man replies “I’m going to catch me some chickens.” The old man laughs and says “You ain’t catching no chickens with chickenwire.

Sure enough, later that evening, the young man walks by with a mess of chickens all caught in the chickenwire.

Next day, old man’s sitting on his porch when the young man comes walking by, dragging something behind him

Old man says, “What you got there?” and the young man replies “Duct tape.” Old man again asks, “What’re you doing with duct tape?” Young man replies “I’m going to catch me some ducks.” The old man laughs and says “You ain’t catching no ducks with duct tape.”

Sure enough, later that evening, the young man walks back with a mess of ducks all wrapped up in the duct tape.

Third day, old man’s sitting on his porch when the young man again comes walking by, dragging something behind him

Old man says, “What you got there?” and the young man replies “Pussy willows.” Old man says “Wait up, let me get my hat.”

Cyclosporiasis is a parasitic infection that can cause people to get sick, and it is treated with the antibiotic Trimethoprim-sulfamethoxazole (TMP-SMX).

Question:  if the infection is from a parasite, wouldn't the cure be an antiparasitic? Why would an antibiotic be used if the cause is not bacterial?

A long time ago, I worked as a receptionist at a law firm, where I took and transferred calls, greeted guests, and led them to the correct briefing rooms.

I had just moved to that town, so I didn't know the area well. One day, this man with a distinct voice called, already sounding irritated before I asked how I could help him, and he wanted me to tell him directions from a town over that I had never been to, to our office. I politely told him that I wasn't familiar with that area offhand, but if he could hold a minute, I would look up directions on my computer for him.

He literally screamed into my ear, "Typical stupid woman, can't even tell directions!" and hung up on me. Oh well, I thought, that was rude, and then forgot about it. About 20 minutes later, a guy came blustering through the door and, in the same distinct voice, demanded that I tell him the way to the interview room, as he was already late for an interview.

I knew it was the same guy I had talked to before, he had the exact same voice. I calmly said, "I'm sorry sir, but I'm just a typical woman, and can't tell directions." He turned beet red, and just stood there a minute. I could see he knew exactly what had happened, and that he was talking to the same person he yelled at earlier.

He stomped off down one of the hallways, and obviously didn't get the job because I never saw him again.

When my sister and I were about 7 and 8, we were sent to pick up all of the dog poo in the yard as usual. We were forced to do this at least once a week. We were allowed to pick it up with plastic bags on our hands, but those didn’t last long, so we often ended up picking the poo up by hand. It was mostly dried, but still gross. 

On one very long day of poo picking, we started to get tired and silly, saying, hey, this piece looks like a chocolate! So if a piece was nice and round, and could fit in an old empty chocolate carton we found, we saved the poos and put them in there. By the end of the day we had 24 perfectly round chocolatey poos. We closed the box and wrapped it, giggling the whole time, thinking how funny it would be when she opened the box. 

Well, she opened it. And immediately started crying! We looked at each other, shocked, because we expected her to laugh, as she was a silly person too, but she didn’t laugh at all. Suddenly we were crying too, and saying how sorry we were, all three of us sitting on the stairs wailing with a box of chocolate poo in my mom’s lap. We felt so bad, and still do to this day. 

Every once in a while, as adults, we send our mom a package and card saying, “We’re sorry we gave you a box of poo”, with a box of real chocolates in it, and then she does laugh, and eats the chocolate and we are forgiven.

Celebrities are overrated. And many of us raise them to a level above that of regular, everyday people unnecessarily, which leads to disappointment when they act human, and disappointment when we don’t look like them (as if the average person could afford a personal trainer, a cook, and cosmetic procedures), and overall dissatisfaction with our lives.

We need to start paying attention to and appreciating the friendly neighbor who brings us vegetables from their gardens, the aunt whom you can always go to if you need to talk, and the helpful grocery store worker who assists us with a smile. The people who take the time to foster cats and dogs so that they get a chance to grow up, and those who volunteer for community charities. These are the people who really make our lives worthwhile. Tell them you appreciate them. Aspire to be the friendly neighbor or good friend that you can count on. It’s really the people in our communities who contribute in good ways that we should be teaching our kids to be like.