Having to say no to people, especially pushy or overbearing people, is one of the triggers for my PTSD. It can be as benign as someone wanting to sell me something at a store. My body still interprets it as extreme danger, even though I intellectually know better. No one in my life gets it sadly.

Jail. Straight to jail. 😂

Skateboard Smack-Ups figures

Skateboard Smack-Ups figure depicting a boy mangled in a stop sign

Skateboard Smack-Ups figure depicting a girl cut with shards of plate glass sticking out of her body.

My girls ask me about GenX/Elder Millennial stuff like our “It’s 10pm. Do you know where your children are?” commercials. I don’t know how to convey the ambivalence adults had toward our personal safety, w/out making their grandparents seem like monsters. But like…these were marketed to us. Lmao

The Usual Suspects, Sixth Sense, Primal Fear. Love this question! My 16 year old said “The Burbs”. 😂

A black hard back book with red embossed writing and horror artwork reading “A History Of Horror Fear and the Uncanny”.

Very excited to dig into this absolutely gorgeous book by Dorling Kindersley while I wait on the kiddo to get out of PT. #horror #nonfiction #books

These are the two distinct types of cat people and we absolutely need both. ❤️

I am Crow.

He put his hand on my neck and said “Did it stop?” I said yes, and he sent me for an emergency ophthalmology appt. They looked in my eyes & sent me for an emergency MRI and spinal tap. I had pseudotumor cerebri. I could have become permanently blind from being dismissed by multiple doctors.

Years ago I went to the ER with excruciating headaches and vision changes. They told me I was fat and anxious. Followed up with a pulmonologist, cardiologist, and neurologist. They too all said I was fat and anxious. Months later, I saw an ENT for a whooshing sound in my ear.

This is like when an acquaintance of mine told me her teenage son was “living homeless in NOLA to gain some life experience over the summer”. I was like, “So he’s not allowed to come home?” and she was like, “No of course he is.” Needed a crane for my jaw.

Bluegrass music makes me truly believe that music gets imprinted on your DNA. It’s not the first genre I would go to driving to work, but anytime I hear it I’m instantly home. Same with Celtic music, probably because of all the Scotch-Irish heritage in Appalachia and its influence on Bluegrass.

Yessss!!! We love our Loretta. ❤️

I’ve greatly enjoying reading all the replies even though I’m over here with my totally unrelated but equally unique Appalachian idioms. 😂

No, but they do say “nice cut scene” after I deliver a lecture, and it fills me with an ancient rage.

Is it football season yet?

I think it’s all of the above sadly. I was in a similar situation in my early 20s. You’re not a “kid” anymore, so you almost feel like it’s wrong to consider yourself a victim. Like if you had or had not done xyz it wouldn’t have happened. Internalized victim blaming has silenced a lot of voices.

The number of times you’ve shared gift links on Bluesky made me feel guilty, so I re-upped my Atlantic subscription. Just in case the publishers ever give you a hard time about it. 😆

And asked if he could have the machete back because “he was getting married and needed it.” I told him I’d lost it, because his tone set off alarm bells in my reptile brain. I’ve always wondered what his plan was for it. And I did, in fact, lose it.

A high school boyfriend looked me up after college and asked if we could catch up. He’d been deployed in Afghanistan. He gave me a machete he’d smuggled back from there, and thanked me for being a good memory for him, which…felt odd.

Ten years later he called out of the blue…

Weird time to be an agnostic who was raised evangelical.

Female cardinal at Kentucky feeder.

I know his wife.

Steve Buscemi and John Goodman in The Big Lebowski making “You’ve got to be kidding me” faces.

“They have to do some work on the building so the lab floor will be without power overnight. Make sure you don’t have anything processing.”

Digital forensic examiners:

Female cardinal

Female cardinal

Female cardinal

Beautiful! The lady cardinals have been showing off at my house this spring.

A judgmental white cat

I wanted to see if portrait mode would work on Greg, and it just made him bitchier looking.

MA’AM 🤩

#birds #birdwatching #FemaleCardinal

Chunky tabico cat lying on a hardwood floor in a sunbeam.

Oh to be a chonk in a sunbeam and have no clue what is going on.

I’m so tired

Awesome! Ordered. Can’t wait to read it.

I am obsessed with this thread.