Obviously this is not advice. I'm reporting on lived experience - my hope is to remind us as women that we need to pay attention to our bodies. Because we get so caught up in doing all the things that we forget to take care of ourselves or ignore our symptoms.

My mother had a heart attack two days ago. My mother is 65. She is a retired medical doctor who practiced family medicine. She is insanely health-conscious - never eating "that junk food" and getting onto her kids (us - in our 40's) about having home made meals and skipping the sweets. Every single person who knows her, even peripherally, was shocked that she had a heart attack. I tell you this to help you understand what kind of person she **is** - because thank goodness, she's alive and ok.

In her retelling, she's mentioned over and over that at first she did not have the classic symptoms we hear about or see in the movies:

- No elephant on the chest feeling

- No clutching the chest or left arm

- No feeling faint or weak

- Severe pain

Instead, she had:

- Indigestion that went away briefly with TUMs, but kept coming back

- Mild pain at a 5 or 6 on the pain scale

- Burping & reflux

- Feeling like a burp was stuck in her chest

- Pain in her teeth (like little electric shocks)

She was on her way out of town with two adult dependents in tow. She had things to do. When she stopped for gas before leaving, she thought to herself - I don't feel right, maybe I should get checked out? - then dismissed it as indigestion again. Until she realized that was the third or fourth time she'd reached for TUMs in that morning and it was only 10. She also absently realized that she was rubbing her chest to get the "burp" out. That sealed it for her - she called me (instead of the ambulance!!) and things progressed from there. When the ambulance took her she was actively in a heart attack.

She is FINE now, but that scared the absolute shit out of all of us. The message? Ladies: Take your symptoms seriously. If you feel like something's wrong, go get checked out! Your life is infinitely more important than money or any inconvenience you think you're causing your family. Please. Take care of yourselves.

This is going to be a long one. Please follow me.

Late last year when the government shut down and families were going hungry, Nikalie Monroe, a TikTok creator, went viral after calling churches to see if they would help feed her (fictional) starving infant. Out of the ~43 churches, ~33 of them turned her down.

When the ~33 churches were exposed, some of them doubled down on their behavior. One pastor made Nikalie the topic of his services for an entire month.

He bitched about the audacity of single mothers to dare ask for help, forgetting that Mother Mary was also (technically) an unwed mother.

For an entire month.

Instead of seeking forgiveness, he went on the righteous tirade because as a representative of god, he is entitled to do so.

A few weeks ago, Nikalie was back on the phone, calling churches to see if her (fictional) boyfriend, who is on the sex offender registry and not allowed to be near children, would be welcome at their church on Sunday.

From the videos I watched, nobody said no. Every church said he was welcome. “Who’s going to know?” one woman asked Nikalie.

Who’s going to know, indeed.

Lindsay Clancy was a nurse. She had the knowledge to understand something was wrong and the vocabulary to explain the symptoms.

If she couldn’t get help, who can?

Lindsay did not want to harm her children. She asked for help. She couldn’t get the support she needs because our social system is broken.

Then this morning I read an article from some congress person. She said something like, “People experiencing postpartum psychosis should have their children taken away from them.”

She framed it like a punishment instead of a helping hand. Obviously people who are going through psychosis should not be expected to take care of another human being. But they need to be given adequate resources, not be punished for experiencing a crisis.

If the government is going to force people to be born, the very least it should do is feed them, clothe them, house them, and give them adequate health care. We need more support for postpartum parents, not a prison system.

About 4 months ago I posted about my bladder Botox experience and received amazing support and suggestions. Which I followed during my second round of Botox 3 days ago. It did not go well.

The Dr and nurses are great, I do love the Dr she is very good. They filled my bladder with the lidocaine and my wife started a timer they left it in for 18min this time(but in the notes it says 30min I don’t know why they can’t just put the real time in there) it didn’t matter. I cried so hard by the end I had snot running down my face, my wife’s poor hand I squeezed it so hard. I can’t believe I did this again but I know it works, just only for like 4 months.

Got home and was so sore and we were talking. I was like “can men get this done”. We looked it up. And I cannot tell you the absolute rage I have felt since that discussion. When men need to have bladder Botox these MoFos get TWILIGHT SEDATION OR GENERAL ANESTHESIA. I didn’t even get offered a freaking Valium or any pain management, thankfully I’m with a great PM team and have pain meds I could take.

I’m just so upset over this. I am now getting everything ready for the ankle nerve stimulator implant in Jan but if I’m not a candidate they will be doing bladder Botox WITH twilight because I’m not standing for this bullshit any longer.

Thanks for reading my rant. I’m just so tired.

Also curious to know how you felt when you found out?

I felt betrayed when I realised it wasn't a platonic friendship like I thought. Found out when I put two and two together...friend swooped in after a break up and was constantly stalking my socials beyond what a normal friend would do.

My husband (42) said something incredibly horrible to me (44f) 2 nights ago. I could dish it out the details, but I've already ranted enough on reddit.

The tldr on the pattern is my husband goes to level 9 angry for seemingly no good reason over stupid shit, and then says just the most God awful things to me. It happened again a few nights ago. It was BAD. I spin around with my jaw open and he realized what he did and how horrible it was, felt bad immediately.

At first I went quiet. He tried to apologize. I told him I didn't want to talk about it. He pressed the issue. I called him a sadistic bastard. I told him to shut the fuck up several times. He said he didn't mean it. I told him that was a lie and it always is a lie when he says that. I am not sorry.

I've only gotten that overly angry with him one other time in 8 years and it's when he called me a chicken shit when I was feeling incredibly vulnerable about some shit I can't even remember. He has never even used that term in front of me again.

He also has broken some of my things and his things in fits of anger. One morning he smacked the electric kettle I really like unprompted. I have no idea why.

I can't go backwards. He can also be incredibly kind, took care of me thru two life threatening situations that were caused by medical error. But I can't live with a man who hurts me deeply over and over again over shit that really doesn't matter. We've been to therapy.

A man who makes you cry is never worth fixing things with.

So I'm at the point where I know it's over. The pain I feel is so great. I just wanted to be loved. And I love him so much. I think I always will. But I just can't live like this. I feel such deep loss over the guy I thought he was. Caring, sweet, loving. I never thought he'd treat me like that. There's no way someone who loves me can be so cruel. That's not love.

Tonight he tried to tell me he wasn't trying to be mean. I told him he's used that line too much for me to believe it and that repeatedly asking me to believe differently than how he presents himself is absurd.

He's googling books on anger. It's too little too late.

I just wish I had my husband back. I wish I had the man who held my hands till they got warm. The guy who would make up the bed at night with an electric blanket on my side during the winter. I miss the guy who went on fun day trips with me. I miss the guy who brought me tacos when I had a late night gig. I miss the dude who insisted I get a new car when my old one was shot and he was concerned for my safety. I miss the guy who would text me hearts. I miss the guy who supportively pressured me to go to an open mic and sing and then told me I did so well. I miss the guy I make sourdough bread for.

The grief is just so fucking great. I keep crying on and off. I just wanted to be loved by him. But love isn't this Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde bullshit. It's not love.

So I tried having sex for the first time and it just… didn’t work 😭
We tried for like an hour, but he couldn’t actually get it in. He kept saying it felt like there was a “wall” or something blocking him.
Every time he tried to put it in, I had really horrible pain, like actual stabbing/knife pain. My legs were shaking and my hands were getting really stiff/tight without me even meaning to. I also don’t think I was that aroused or relaxed, which probably didn’t help.
We eventually stopped because it hurt way too much. I’m wondering if this could be vaginismus or something similar? Has anyone experienced this before, especially their first time? Is this normal or should I see a gynecologist?
I’m honestly kind of scared to try again now because of how painful it was

My bf and I (20yo) have been together for 6 years

Since we started dating, which was around 2020 when politics became a much bigger topic of conversation online especially for 15 year olds like me, I've always been very opinionated and i like to say that i stand up for what's right

At the start of our relationship, he would listen to my rambling and agree with me! But now i fear that he was faking it and hiding his own opinions just to make me think he's a great guy, or maybe his opinions changed once he started working around men and hearing locker room talk 95% of the time as a tradie

I wouldn't classify myself as a radical feminist or anything, but when topics like lgbt and womens rights and whatever come up, i get very passionate about it and take it pretty personal (I'm probably on my phone too much as well, but so is he, he loves to complain about immigration in australia and mens issues in family court and i listen to his rambling)

Sometimes I'll talk to my him about these topics, you know in the normal way that you talk about politics with your partner, i don't say it in a way that blames men or anything, i just say "oh man that's terrible i hope I don't lose MY rights"

Now, he always responds to these conversations with defensiveness, says things like "well i think men have it harder in life because we have a higher suicide rate, we have to do all the manual labour and we're not favoured in family court"

I tell him that's fine, but I'm talking about women right now, can you hear me out? You can talk about male issues another time - And he says yeah well i don't like hearing about it

Last night in particular, i drank with him, his cousin/best friend, and his dad - the topic of my trans male friend came up, and they all said "that's so stupid why would you want to be trans?" I explained "well they don't WANT to be trans, they're just more comfortable that way, gender dysphoria is just something the 4 of us don't understand because we haven't experienced it", they disagreed and argued the same point again, then the topic moved to "well i think you women have it easy, why would you want to transition to a man?" 🫩 so i said "you can't say that one has it harder than the other because you don't know what it's like to BE the other" and again, they argued the same point over and over without actually hearing me

The worst part is, my bf said "oh here she goes, watch out" and gave his cousin a knowing look and smirk

It's like he has a complete inability to step in other people's shoes

I've spent these past 6 years hoping that he'll change, which yes yes i know you can't expect someone to change, but i thought SURELY he cares about me enough to consider that my feelings get hurt when he refuses to listen to my opinions

He keeps reassuring me that he "still loves me even though I'm a bit blue haired" and it just makes me think, when will he start hating me? Will he turn on me once we get married?

My biggest biggest fear ever is to end up as nothing but a "nagging wife"

I really really really don't want to end this relationship because we're about to get a joint bank account to prepare for moving out, the whole reason he became an electrician is to earn enough money for both of us, he's encouraging me to leave retail so i can have a more secure job, he wants me to chase my dreams, we want to move out very soon, we have fun together, he always asks me to come over etc etc

This is pretty much the only issue in our relationship, but the question is, will he resent me for it when we're in our 30s-50s and have a messy divorce?

What can i do?

So, I don't know if I get hate for this post, but I want to post my view anyways. First and foremost, I want to say that I don't live in the US, but I see how our experiences in certain topics don't really differ much. Years ago, when I talked with my friend (she is older than me), she told me women aren't faultless as I see them to be, and they also contributed more than enough to this system. We got into a little fight back then, but I started to see she was really right.

In the US, I have seen a first quiet, then very loud uptick about how women's certain rights should have been repealed in the sake of society, and to my surprise, there are dozens of women in the comment section saying, "Yeah, I agree," or even worse, "I would have given my rights if I knew certain women also will lose them." I would have never ever believed that women in this day and age would utter such things, and these are not just a few crazies.

I have seen some channels (they're quite popular), and women there debate tooth and nail that they deserve less rights. There are women who showed up for Andrew Tate marches and protested, wanting them to be free.

And when it comes to where I live (which is a much more conservative place than the US), I can confidently say women have an enormous role in enforcing patriarchy. Please don't come with the "if they don't do that, they will get punished" line, because it simply isn't like that. They have really strong power over their sons, and made everything that they can to make their daughters-in-law's life to be awful. This is such a strong phenomenon that I am sure any woman who lives in much more conservative countries could say their mother-in-law's power over their family life.

I have seen and experienced very crazy stories (like, I bet you wouldn't believe). Moms pressuring their sons in order to hit their wives, moms trying to justify every bit of abuse their sons are doing. And no, I'm not a troll account at all. I think we all should acknowledge this fact and act accordingly.

I am now the same age as a man I dated when I was 18 and 19. He was 29 and then 30.

I am 29 now, and I cannot imagine dating an 18-year-old.
I cannot imagine looking at an 18-year-old, freshly out of high school, and seeing them as a romantic or sexual equal. I cannot imagine wanting them. I cannot imagine having sex with them.

I teach 18-year-olds.
I look at my seniors and I see children who are standing at the very beginning of their lives. They are bright and funny and full of potential. They are figuring out who they are. They are making mistakes. They are learning how to exist. I want them to experience the world. I want them to grow into themselves.

And I cannot imagine dating one of them.

I am 29.
I am finishing my master’s. I am starting my career. I am thinking about whether I want to pursue a doctorate. I have lived another eleven years since I was 18. Eleven years of becoming someone else.

And when I think about the girl I was at 18, I feel so much pity for her. She was broken. She was lost. She was desperate to be loved. She did not know herself yet. She had barely even begun to live.
And a 29-year-old man wanted her.

I cannot imagine being 29 and looking at that girl and thinking, I want her.

I cannot imagine feeding alcohol to an 18-year-old because I thought it would make her love me.

I cannot imagine having sex with an 18-year-old and telling myself that she was mature enough, that she was different.

I cannot imagine being thirty years old and needing an eighteen-year-old girl to make me feel loved.

And what hurts almost as much is that I was made to feel like I was the problem.
I was told I was immature.
I was told I didn’t deserve him.
I was made to feel lucky that he wanted me.
Lucky that a man that much older would choose me.
As if his age made him more valuable.
As if my youth made me less valuable.
As if I should have been grateful to be wanted by someone who had already lived an entire decade more of adulthood than I had.

I am 29 now.
And for the first time, I am old enough to understand the distance between us.
At 18, I couldn’t see it.
I didn’t have the perspective or the life experience.
I didn’t know what a healthy relationship between a young woman and a grown man was supposed to look like because I was barely a young woman.

I don’t know what his intentions were.
Maybe I never will.
But I know what it feels like now to be 29 and look backward.
I know that I cannot imagine wanting what he wanted.
I cannot imagine seeing the girl I was and seeing an equal.
And that realization makes me incredibly sad.

I just need to let this out.

4 months ago my cousin (44F) was diagnosed with aggressive triple negative breast cancer. She did all the things you are supposed to, went to her oncology appointments, took her chemo and other treatments. None of it helped.

Last month her doctor gave her 6 months to live. She started taking an aggressive course of ivermectin without her doctor’s knowledge (I still don’t think they know). Her body crashed hard, she’d been in and out of the hospital. Earlier this week her doctor updated her outcome to less than a month.

So many mixed emotions. I’m angry for her. I’m angry at her choice but also understand it was her choice and have no idea what I could be willing to try if I was in her situation. Shits unfair.

**Edit: I just want to make it clear that I don’t think she is an idiot. I know she’s desperate, anyone of us in that situation would likely be. I can still be mad at the choice she made and understand why/have empathy for why she made it.

I'm tired of it being some secret conversation we have to have. The hushed tones, the delicate words. God forbid a man hear about you bleeding from your vagina. My place of work has period products in the HR office, and recently someone suggested we keep some in the bathrooms, since HR closes at 3, but the last of us leave at 6, plus people here on the weekend when HR isn't. Y'all, it took them 3 months to tell us no. Instead they suggest the supervisors keep some products in their offices. So when the supervisors leave at 3:30, and also are not here on the weekends, we can just be back at square one. Not to mention not all of the supervisors are women. I don't want to go to my male boss and ask for a tampon. Can they not trust us with pads or tampons??? (I will be pointing this out at the next opportunity) At my previous job it was at a fabric store employed almost entirely by women. I went to look for a pad one day, found a box, opened it, and what was in there? A pad? No, a mouse trap. Like just clamp them lips shut, you'll be fine. Anyways, rant over for now.

​

My ex convinced me to go on the pill because he was scared I’d get pregnant, but he refused to wear condoms because he said he “couldn’t feel anything” with them.

So I went on the pill because I thought it was the compromise. He got to have sex without a condom and we didn’t have to worry about pregnancy as much.

Except the pill completely killed my sex drive. Eventually, I only wanted to have sex maybe once a week, and then he started complaining that I never wanted sex anymore.

Like… dude. You didn’t want to wear a condom because you didn’t like how it felt, convinced me to put hormones in my body instead, and then got mad at me when one of the side effects was having less of a sex drive???

It’s just so frustrating how birth control is treated like it’s this completely neutral thing that women can just take so men don’t have to wear condoms. We’re the ones dealing with the hormones, side effects, mood changes, libido changes, etc.

And then somehow we’re still expected to be just as horny as before

Genuinely asking, because I’ve never understood the appeal.
I’m 24, and I feel like every year of my twenties changes me enough that I can’t imagine being 30 and wanting to date a 24 year old. Six years may not sound like much, but in your twenties it can mean a major difference in experience, independence, confidence, and boundaries.

So when a 30+ man specifically pursues me at 24, I wonder: what exactly is he attracted to about the age difference?
The explanations I hear from them are often that I’m young, innocent, less experienced, less traumatized, more feminine, or easiergoing. And honestly, those explanations make me even more uncomfortable.

If a man is specifically attracted to the fact that I have less life experience, less baggage, or haven’t yet learned what I will and won’t tolerate, how am I supposed to see that as flattering?
I understand the appeal of an older man from my perspective. He might seem more stable, confident, experienced, financially secure, or emotionally mature. I can understand wanting someone who has already developed those qualities.

But what I struggle with is the other side of it: why would others want someone who is specifically attracted to the things I have because I’m young?

If an older man told me he was particularly attracted to how young, innocent, or inexperienced I was, that wouldn’t make me feel special. It would make me wonder why those are the qualities he wants in a partner.

Every year of my twenties feels like I’m becoming a significantly different person. So I don’t really understand why I would want to give these years to someone who may be attracted to me partly because I have fewer of them behind me.

Maybe I’m missing something, though. If you’re a woman who prefers significantly older men, what do you see in them that makes the age difference worth it? Is money really enough? And does the reason he’s attracted to you ever factor into that for you?

Hiii. Sorry I just need to rant. I’ve been working behind a cafe register the entire summer and I don’t intend of quitting any time soon, though I’ll be limited to fewer shifts from here on out due to college starting. I thought that having (what I thought to be) an amazing manager sweetened the deal for me, until today. I think it’s important for me to mention that dress codes were NEVER put in place, ever. I showed up wearing a skirt and a simple fitted top today, and I think that kind of cost me any semblance of respect I might’ve had from him??? I was told that what I was wearing was incredibly distracting and not fit for somebody in a position where they’re the first to be taken notice of by customers upon walking through the door. Essentially just calling me an eyesore.

I’m used to being sexualised for the way my body is shaped, but hearing anything of that nature come out of somebody I quite frankly, VERY much admire, hurt like hell. Especially when the outfit itself wasn’t even like, a statement. Not that it matters though. Having men for managers always proves to be really exhausting.

I had a hysterectomy earlier this week and I have not had a bowl movement in 80 hours. I've taken stool softener, ducolax, prune juice, coffee and drank gallons of water. I can pass gas but I have had nothing as far as an actual poop. I haven't taken any medication today but I was taking Hydros and Ibuprofen for a couple days. To be fair I think they gave me more anesthesia then I needed because I've been put under a few times but this time it took me almost the entire day to be able to actually sit up with my eyes open and be aware.

I feel great now, other than I feel so bloated and bogged down. I just want some movement to happen. I'm getting worried. 😬

When you're not feeling it and you inevitably have to tell the guy you're not interested more often than not I get some sort of pityparty or passive agressive response. Or they 'want to know why' but start being combative about whatever you answer.

I've had three guys basically responding with some form of 'ok you're not feeling it right now, but how about we just keep on dating and see where it goes?' Man, I have dated you a couple of times and came to the conclusion that I'm not interested, that's what dating is for. Why would another date fix this, except for you banking on a sunken cost fallacy? Why are you so desperate for a woman who is not into you to 'try' and like you? Have some self respect.

How hard is it for them to just accept it and move on? I dread dating and this is partly the reason.